replied. "I saw all sorts of mental pictures and they explained what they did to us. Those damned aliens want us for their zoo!"

"Start at the beginning," I suggested.

He flashed an angry glance at me, but seemed to calm somewhat. "This ship was made by a race from another galaxy. Thousands of years ago, they came to Earth in their spaceships when men were primitives living in caves. They wanted to know what our civilization would be like when we developed space flight. So they put this ship on the Moon as a sort of booby-trap. They put it there with the idea that when we made spaceships and went to the Moon, sooner or later, we'd find the ship and enter it—like rabbits in a snare!"

"And now the booby-trap is on its way home," I guessed.

"Yeah, this ship is taking us to their planet and they're going to keep us there while they study us."

"How long will the trip take?" I asked.

"Six months. We'll be bottled up in this crate for six whole damned months! And when we get there, we'll be prisoners!"

Marie's hypnotic spell was fading and once more her face showed the terror inside her.

"Don't feel so bad," I told Kane. "It could be worse. It should be interesting to see an alien race. We'll have our wives with us—"

"Maybe they'll dissect us!" Marie gasped.

Verana scoffed. "A race intelligent enough to build a ship like this? A race that was traveling between the stars when we were living in caves? Dissection is primitive. They won't have to dissect us in order to study us. They'll have more advanced methods."

"Maybe we can reach the ship's controls somehow," Kane said excitedly. "We've got to try to change the ship's course and get back to the Moon!"

"It's impossible. Don't waste your time." The voice had no visible source and seemed to fill the room.

Verana snapped her fingers. "So that's why the aliens read Marie's mind! They wanted to learn our language so they could talk to us!"

Kane whirled in a complete circle, glaring at each of the four walls. "Where are you? Who are you?"

"I'm located in a part of 

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