and neither attribute was of much value now.

Within minutes, the heavy tractor beams pulled the smaller ship into the yawning airlock of the huge Flesso cruiser.

Okay, Marten thought. He folded his arms, leaned back in his chair, and waited. There was nothing else he could do—until a Fless tried to enter the ship.

Time passed. The little scout ship was drawn further and further into the monster Flesso ship. It was now entirely enclosed by darkness, imprisoned within the metal hull of the huge battleship of space.

Sitting inside, Marten waited patiently. The Flesso had been wanting to capture an Earthman for a long time. Well, now they'd succeeded. They'd captured their first Earth ship.

Suddenly, Marten's damped communicator screen came back to life. A scaly, toad-like face appeared, and Marten stared blandly at the three red-rimmed, fiery eyes that confronted him.

"I see you are still alive, Earthman!"

"No thanks to you, ugly-face!" Marten returned. "I'm hungry, though. Am I going to stay for dinner, or can I leave now?"

Earth and Fless had long been in communication with each other; the war had lasted for nearly five years, ever since the first treacherous Flesso sneak attack on a Terran outpost. The beings from the planet Fless were the coldest, most dangerous aliens Earth had yet encountered in its expansion to the stars.

During the war, neither side had succeeded in capturing one of the other's men alive. The ravening energies of a billion-cycle space gun tore a ship completely apart, leaving no survivors. But now Marten had been captured—and he was determined to make the most of it.

"Keep your tongue!" the toad-faced Fless snarled. "Do you know who I am?"

"Santa Claus? Uncle Sam? The Wicked Witch of the North?"

The alien's face radiated hatred. "I am Ghuvekenkh-Nathor!"

Marten whistled. Ghuvek, eh? He had really stumbled into a good one, then. Ghuvek was the leader of the Flesso legions!

"Hello, Ghuvek. The pleasure is all mine. Do I have to keep looking at your face?"

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