tried that," he said. "If only we had some central government to turn to—but that's impossible in space, of course. So I went to the only centralized force there is. And they said that they have to count on voluntary contributions from the member planets, and they couldn't afford to answer every call for help. They told me to contact my insurance company."

"Which," I commented mildly, "is another centralized force in space, in spite of what you say. It's widespread, it's profit-making, and it gets the job done. Nobody has to try to beg for voluntary appropriations from penurious planetary governments."

"This isn't a crackpot fear of aliens," he said, as soon as I stopped talking. "I've seen aliens before, in all parts of the Galaxy. I don't panic."

"Then you must have tried something else before hollering Uncle," I said. "Like, perhaps, keeping all of your men inside the dome here when the time for another abduction approaches?"

He waved a hand impatiently. "We've tried everything a large group of top-flight minds can think of," he said. "My own organization has an exceptional research staff, as I'm sure you know. The Aliens work by mental control. We've had everyone brought into this building, have double-checked them, and have sealed the doors with a time lock. It turned out that one of the men was missing—we'd only imagined he was among us when we assembled.

"We scoured the planet before we landed and saw no signs of the Aliens. We've seen no Alien ships land since we arrived. We have no idea where they are, except that there's one sizable area not far from here that we can't seem to penetrate. The only evidence we have that the Aliens arrived after we did is that they told us so. Whatever that's worth.

"We've brought in some of mankind's best Mental Control Operators. People like you, who are able to walk around in a poisonous atmosphere in sub-zero weather without any protection or any clothes at all. Every one of them is now among the victims. The Aliens apparently thought it would be a good joke to take them."

He paused. "So you see, we don't expect you to be around very long. Just so you call in the military before the Aliens call you in, we'll try to control our grief when you go."

"That's courteous of you," I said. "But you are suffering under an understandable misapprehension. You seem to believe—probably because of my somewhat unorthodox costume when I arrived—that I am 

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