What a weapon! With that and Luda—even without Luda—the solar system was his. No longer was it a question of Uhal overcoming Dhil. With inertialessness, he himself would become the dictator, not only of Uhal and Dhil and Lune, but also of all the worlds within reach.

That vessel and its secrets must be his!

He blasted, then, to match the inert velocity of the smaller craft. As his ship crept toward the other he reached out both telepathically—he could neither speak nor hear—and with a spy-ray, to determine the most feasible method of taking over this godsend.

Bipeds! Peculiar little beasts—repulsive. Only two arms and two eyes—only one head. Weak, soft, fragile, but they might have weapons. No, no weapons—good! Couldn't any of them communicate? Ah yes, there was one—an unusually thin, reed-like specimen, bundled up in layer after layer of fabric....

I perceive that you are the survivors of some catastrophe in outer space. Tell your pilot to open up, so that I may come aboard and guide you to safety, Darjeeb began. He correlated instantly, if unsympathetically, the smashed panel and the pilot's bleeding head. If the creature had had a real head it could have wrecked a dozen such things with it without getting a scratch. Hurry! Those may come at any moment who will destroy all of us without palaver.

I am trying, sir, but I cannot get through to him direct. It will take a few moments, the strange telepathist replied. She began to wave rhythmically her peculiar arms, hands, and fingers. Others of the outlanders brandished their members and made repulsive motions with their ridiculous mouths. Finally—

He says that he would rather not, the interpreter reported. He asks you to go ahead. He will follow you down.

Impossible—we cannot land upon this world or upon its primary, Dhil, Darjeeb argued, reasonably. These people are enemies—savages—I have just escaped from them. It is death to attempt to land anywhere in this system except upon my home planet Uhal—that bluish one.

Very well, then, we'll see you over there. We are just about out of air, but it will take only a minute or so to reach Uhal.

But that would not do either, of course. Argument took too much time. He would have to use force, and he had better call up reenforcements. Darjeeb hurled mental orders to a henchman far below, threw out his magnetic grapples, and turned on a broad, 

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