moment, then focussed his eyes on Marten. His right arm, the Earthman noticed, was twisted horribly.

"Yknor?"

"He's over there," Marten said. "His arm didn't bend either. And if you move, I'll find out how resistant your innards are to a quick burn."

Ghuvek shook his head bewilderedly. "You've got us, Earthman. But—how did it happen? How could one man take over a great battleship?"

"It was easy," Marten said.

Ghuvek moaned and looked at his mangled arm regretfully. "I don't understand," the defeated alien commander said.

"Why did you let us torture you if you could get away so easily?"

Marten smiled. "I wanted to teach you a lesson," he said. "Earth's been patient with your marauding for a long time, and we put up with your sneak attack on Regulus. But the time has come to tell you to stop—or we'll wipe your whole race out of the Galaxy. We're tired of your tactics, Ghuvek. And if one man can do this to you, what can a whole army of us do?"

There was a long silence before Ghuvek spoke. And when he spoke, it was the voice of a being whose pride had been completely crushed. "If we had known," he said weakly, swallowing. "Who knew the Earthmen were supermen? You're the first we could capture—and it was all a trick! You let us capture you, to show us what you could do."

"Very smart, Ghuvek. You learn quickly."

The alien passed one hand over his face. "We'll ... we'll call off our offensive at once."

"Good. Now I'll use your radio to call Earth and tell them you're on your way to arrange peace terms!"

At Earth Military Headquarters, General James Bedford snapped off the subspace radio and grinned at the man who faced him across the table, Colonel Parnell.

"You hear that, Parnell? The trick worked! He got them so scared of Earthmen that they're ready to come to terms."

Colonel Parnell smiled. "Fine deal all around. It cost us ten billion dollars to build Military Advance Robot Number Ten, not counting what we spent on the first nine failures—but it was worth it. We've saved untold numbers of lives."

The general nodded. "Well worth it. MAR-10 did 

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