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"Can’t," Deputy Captain Anna informed him. "The forty million tons of Trollite give us too much momentum."

They all watched the creature come closer. It had beady little eyes which were fixed on them, and the armour plates encasing its body flexed like a bodybuilder warming up before competition.

"What do you suppose it is?" First Mate Jagathrakshakan asked.

"I can’t guess," Talibani snapped. "For exactly the same reason that I can’t think of anything to do. We’re moving faster than imagination, or did you forget that?"

"Maybe we should shut down the Faster than Imagination drive," Deputy Captain Anna suggested. Without waiting for Captain Talibani’s assent, she began pushing the sequence of levers and buttons which initiated the shutdown sequence. The mumble of the Drive began to taper off to a low moan. But it would take a long time to shut down completely.

"Reminds me of the Space Squid we met off Betelgeuse ten years ago," the ship’s engineer, a wrinkled old dotard named McDonald, said chattily. "Did I ever tell you about that time?"

"No," Captain Anna, who was relatively new to the ship and hadn’t heard the story seventeen times already, said. "What happened?"

"Och, I was on the auld Lovecraft then. We were coming off the run tae R’lyeh when this great big squid-thing came along. Ye never did see such a thing, like a mountain floating in space. It got hold of us, and then –"

"Impact," the voice of the ship’s main computer warned, and an instant later the insect struck.

It struck quite softly, the impact taken up by its spiny legs, the immense mass of it hardly touching the hull of the Calamity Jane at all. But an instant later the ship lurched sharply, as the legs bent and pushed the body of the creature against the ship.

"What’s it doing?" Anna yelled.

"I can’t imagine," Captain Talibani replied. "I..."

The Faster than Imagination Drive cut out.

Suddenly, everyone could imagine again.

"Yon beastie’s trying tae eat us!" McDonald exclaimed.

"It’s trying to kidnap us," Jagathrakshakan corrected.

"It’s trying to communicate with us," Deputy Captain Anna said.

"This is the strangest manner of attempting communication I have ever encountered," the Second Mate, Zhang, who had remained silent so far, said. "It seems to be rubbing itself on the hull."

"Yeah, what kind of communication do you call that?" Captain Talibani asked.

"Maybe it’s leaving scent trails," Anna countered. "Perhaps it communicates with smell."

"In space?" Zhang grinned. "Scent trails in space?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Anna shot back. "Perhaps you could start by explaining how it exists in space."

"As a matter of fact, I can imagine several," Zhang began. He began ticking off points on his fingers, a habit which had always infuriated Anna. "First, perhaps it is not an insect at all, but a spacecraft which resembles an insect. Secondly, maybe it is an insect. If so, perhaps sucks in air from the upper layer of a planet’s atmosphere and..."

"Forget what the hell it is," Captain Talibani said. "What are we going to do about it?"

"Kill it," McDonald said.

"How? We don’t have weapons."

"Talk to it," Anna replied.

"How? Are we supposed to smell back at it?"

"Let’s move away at top speed to stop it from abducting us," Jagathrakshakan suggested.

"Starting up the Faster than Imagination drive will take hours," McDonald pointed out. "And in that time –"

There came a sharp tapping noise, like a canned sardine might hear if someone took a can opener to the container. The ship jumped a little, like a startled grasshopper.

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