The panel opened!

Oakes grinned at an astounded Lewis.

"Well," Oakes remembered saying. "The ship finally realizes who's the boss here." With that, he drained the container.

Horrible!

His body was wracked with vomiting. His breath came in shallow gasps and sweat soaked his singlesuit.

It was over as quickly as it began. Lewis stood beside him in dumb amazement, looking at the mess Oakes had made of the corridor and his boots.

"You see," Oakes gasped. "You see how the ship tried to kill me?"

"Relax, Morgan," Lewis said. "It's probably just a malfunction. I'll call a med-tech for you and a repair robox for thi.... this thing."

"I'm a doctor, dammit! I don't need a med-tech poking around me." Oakes held the fabric of his suit away from his body.

"Then let's get you back to your cubby. We should check you out an...." Lewis broke off, looking suddenly over Oakes' shoulder. "Morgan, did you summon a repair unit?"

Oakes turned to see what had caught Lewis' attention, saw one of the ship's robox units, a one-meter oval of bronze turtle with wicked-looking tools clutched in its extensors. It was weaving drunkenly down the corridor toward them.

"What do you suppose is wrong with that thing?" Lewis muttered.

"I think it's here to attack us," Oakes said. He grabbed Lewis' arm. "Let's back out of her.... slow, now."

They retreated from the shiptit station, watching the scanner eye of the robox and the waving appendages full of tools.

"It's not stopping." Oakes' voice was low but cold with fear as the robox passed the shiptit station.

"We'd better run for it," Lewis said. He spun Oakes ahead of him into a main passageway to Medical. Neither man looked back until they were safely battened inside Oakes' cubby.

Hah! Oakes thought, remembering. That had frightened even Lewis. He had gone back groundside fast enough - to speed up construction of their Redoubt, the place which would insulate them groundside and make them independent of this damned machine.