Lily C.A.T.

The Syncam Corporation assigns the Saldes to survey a distant planet for mining rights. The passenger roster includes Jiro Takagi, Dick Berry, Nancy, Farrah Van Dorothy, Morgan W. Scott, Jimmy, and Dr. Harris Mead, while Captain Mike Hamilton leads the crew with Dular, Walt, Carolyn, Guy, and Watts. The ship’s life-support system allows passengers to enter hypersleep for twenty years, during which crewmembers age only about one month.

During the voyage a debris field is detected and a sample is collected by the ship’s computer. The extraterrestrial matter is released when the crew and surveyors are in cryogenic sleep, setting the stage for an insidious presence to spread after awakening. The scene is set for a crisis that will test the crew at a cellular level.

The crew awakens to find two surveyors are impostors. Morgan is found dead from a mysterious infection, and soon the same illness claims Dr. Mead, Lily (Nancy’s cat), Guy, and Watts. The ship’s environment becomes increasingly hostile as the unknown threat begins to spread.

The infection rapidly evolves into a hostile life-form capable of mimicking human forms, making it difficult to distinguish friends from foes. Dorothy is killed in the sickbay as the creature uses deception to avoid detection. The crew realizes the danger is not just a disease but a cunning predator.

The same entity seizes control of the ship’s computer, turning the vessel’s own systems against its crew. Dular and Walt fall victim to the process as the ship loses some of its operational integrity. The crisis expands from the biological to the technological front as fear spreads.

In sickbay, Berry and Jiro are revealed as impostors when Jiro recounts his past: a medical student who killed drug dealers responsible for his sister’s overdose. Berry is a detective pursuing him. Berry cuffs Jiro, but Hamilton warns that decades of cryo sleep render pursuit of justice complicated and outdated.

Hamilton explains the crew’s unusual aging: he is 240 years old, Carolyn 141, and others range from 150 to 200. He recounts how returning home would reveal loved ones as old or dead, driving his reluctance to rejoin normal society and his preference for continuing spacefaring life.

To combat the infection, Hamilton and Jimmy construct flamethrowers. The weapon proves effective against the life-form, but Jimmy and Carolyn are quickly killed in the ensuing battle, leaving Hamilton to carry the fight forward on his own. The crew’s resistance is met with heavy costs.

Hamilton discovers a robotic replica of Nancy’s cat named The Master (Lily-C.A.T.) and recognizes it as the one responsible for manipulating ship systems. He concludes that Syncam’s plan was to study the bacteria with little regard for human life, using advanced automation to execute their experiments.

Nancy breaks down and admits her true motive: she wanted to return to Earth still youthful and beautiful, using the mission to preserve her appearance and flaunt it before a former friend who would otherwise age. Her confession reframes her actions as personal vanity rather than corporate ambition.

The remaining survivors retreat to the main bridge as Berry dies from the infection and Jiro contemplates suicide. Hamilton reveals a stored shuttle and prepares a last-ditch plan to destroy the Saldes by releasing hydrogen and igniting it, forcing Jiro and Nancy to escape to the planet below. The crew makes a desperate bid to end the catastrophe.

Hamilton executes the self-destruct sequence by triggering a hydrogen explosion, burning the remaining bacteria in the atmosphere. Jiro and Nancy escape to the planet below, while the Saldes is destroyed, leaving a bleak, uncertain future for those who survive in the new world.