The first rocks were within reach.

She took another two or three steps, and the scream came from inside her mind and not through the headphones.

"Kill it, Astrid! Kill it... please... Oh! Kill it... Astrid...

The piercing scream, too, erupted inside her brain with the same force as an atomic explosion, and she turned around so hastily that she almost fell.

She looked at the ship as the call of anguish continued to erupt inside her mind, and then she saw The Thing.

"Kill it... please... please...!

Astrid put her left hand to her breasts, stifling the scream of terror that was exploding in her throat but not coming from her helmet, and with the other she took the small cosmic ray gun she wore on her waist.

The furry mass advanced, retreated...

The Thing is a story belonging to the Science Fiction series, a collection of science fiction and fantasy novels