Bill 5 - on the Planet of Zombie Vampires by Harry Harrison Page A

nibbling a bit of blintz.
    “Besides the tape? Some coils of baling wire would help patch things together. And, let's see, steel plates for the bulkheads, screens for the shields, and fuses; we're real short on fuses. We've got all kinds of welding equipment and miscellaneous supplies in the repair bays, but it'll take time.”
    “Time is the one thing we don't have,” said Bill. “But I do know fuses. I have a Fusetender's Mate Fourth Class rating so I'll take care of that.”
    “I can do the bulkheads,” said Bruiser between gulps. “But I'll need a hand getting the steel plates out of the station.”
    “Not me,” said Tootsie. “I'm not going back into that terrible place. Pass the fou-fou.”
    “I can't take it!” cried Uhuru, removing his helmet and seizing up a broasted archeopteryx wing two meters long. “I know I'll regret this, but I'm like starving to death.”
    “You ought to try chewing your food, Bruiser,” said Rambette. “Goes down easier that way.”
    “Chewing slow Bruiser down,” he sputtered around a mouthful of food. “Is waste of eating time.”
    “Here's your burger,” said Captain Blight. “Rare. The black bits are spider chitin.”
    “Yuck,” moaned Tootsie. “I'll never eat a spider again after the way you cook them.”
    “HEY!” bellowed Bruiser.
    The dinner conversation stopped cold in its tracks. Everybody froze. Even Barfer quit munching on his okra and stared at the big man.
    “HEY!” he cried, slapping the side of his head. “I t'ink I'm losing my mind!”
    “I knew it,” wailed Uhuru. “I should never have come out of my spacesuit. There goes my common sense, and here comes zombiedom.”
    “Where's my Slasher?” Bruiser roared. “What bowb stole my axe?”
    “Cool it,” Bill cozened. “Nobody —”
    “Don't you tell what to do, you bowbheaded MP,” snarled Bruiser. “It's all your fault.”
    “My fault?”
    “It's still down dere — in the pod cavern. Larry said he carry it back.”
    “Me? Come off it, Curly. You were supposed get it.”
    “Somebody's got to get it,” Bruiser growled. “I t'ink it's MP's job.”
    “Me?” asked Bill.
    “You got maybe some kinda ear trouble?” barked Bruiser. “If your big-stoop foot hadn't knocked hole in floor none of dis would have happened. Now, get your chunk down hole and get my Slasher — or I get it myself, come back and use axe on you. You no have to worry about your foot no more. You catch on?”
    “I think I got the picture,” said Bill.
    “Good,” grunted Bruiser with a satisfiedly sadistic smile. “Now dat settled, we finish dis meal. Who's got rest of blintzes?”
    “More here, sir,” said a disgusted Captain Blight. “They're just the way you like them.”
    While Bruiser and Christianson were dividing up a gigantic pile of half-raw rattlesnake caviar blintzes Caine walked in. He was carrying one of the dead aliens and looked worried.
    “We have a problem,” he said.
    “I know,” said Uhuru, noshing away. “Bruiser lost his axe and — hey! — get that thing out of here!”
    “It is merely a discarded integument,” said Caine. “It's no danger whatsoever.”
    “A what?” said Rambette. “It's not nearly so cute now that it's a dead whatever you called it.”
    “Integument is the scientific word for skin,” said Caine. “It shed its skin like a snake. I was halfway through the autopsy when I discovered it was empty inside. Bruiser was right, it's nothing but fur and feathers.”
    “This is hardly proper dinner conversation,” complained Christianson, though he did not stop eating.
    “You, of all people, should be paying attention, Mr. Christianson,” said Caine. “It wouldn't hurt for Bruiser to listen up, either.”
    “Me listen good,” mumbled the big man as he cracked the archeopteryx bones with his teeth and noisily sucked out the marrow.
    “This isn't going to be pretty,” lectured Caine. “But science — being hard, cold, and objective — often isn't.