Eckisster, still smiling benevolently, was already fading. Roysland got the impression that his smile, Cheshirelike, still lingered after he had gone.

The crew of the Enlissa ship were the first live aliens ever seen by human beings. Their corpses had been dissected by the thousands, but the living organism had never been investigated before.

"This gives us a jump on them," one of the biologists said. "As far as we know, no living human has ever been caught by the Enlissa."

Roysland, who was watching the aliens being herded out of the captured ship, turned his head to look at the biologist. "They don't know we've got this ship, either," he said.

The biologist blinked, then nodded. "Yeah. I see what you mean."

They were standing on the broad spread of plastalloy that covered the great landing field of Grand Base, standing in the shadow of the huge alien ship. The Psych men were pushing the Enlissa out of the ship, through the path formed by the Inspection Corps men and Roysland's own Special Weapons Group of the Research Division. The Psych men simply pushed them into the drop chutes from the ship. Other Psych men kept them moving toward the trucks that were taking them away.

The Enlissa weren't quite as tall, on the average, as a human being. The skeletal structure was a little heavier, and the section corresponding to the human rib cage was a series of armor plates that completely enclosed the viscera. The pale blue-violet of their skins came from the cobalt-protein complex that carried the oxygen through their blood, performing the same function that hemoglobin does in the human animal.

They were noseless; breathing was done through the mouth. The teeth were widely spaced, and the lips could not close over them, thus allowing the Enlissa to breathe, even when unconscious. The eyes were a solid black. It was impossible to tell, from a superficial inspection, where the deeply-pigmented surface of the eyeball ended and the dead black of the lens opening began. They were somewhat larger than human eyes, but they were set in front of the skull, allowing stereoscopic vision.

Their protective covering might have been called hair, by stretching the definition somewhat. By an equal amount of stretching, it could have been called fingernails or scales. It would have taken an awful lot of stretching to call it feathers.

The "hair" 

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