The thing he'd seen on the now-blank screen was no asteroid or meteor, but a globe-ship, a Kalquoi globe-ship! And the light was some sort of energy-diverting ray that had the power to incapacitate spaceship equipment. So this was the end of his mad venture: not at Sandoz, not on Callisto, but here, aboard this crippled craft, destined perhaps to drift forever in blackness on the void-tides between the Asteroid Belt and the Outer Worlds. Dane would have killed himself in that moment, if he could. But he couldn't even do that. No; he could only hang here in the dimness, paralyzed, somewhere between floor and ceiling, waiting ... waiting ... waiting.... But now light crept through the gloom--a pale, purplish radiance Dane found somehow vaguely familiar. Then a slight movement of the ship changed his position. His eyes, searching, found the source of light. It came from the unforked end of the Kalquoi yat-stick Dane had wrapped in plastic to simulate a proton bomb. While he watched, it grew brighter ... brighter ... as if the metal bar were oozing energy the way a fresh-cut spring twig oozes sap. Now the radiance grew to an eddying, pulsing ball, so intense it lighted up the entire astrogation chamber. * * * * * The next instant there was a sort of soundless snap. Before Dane's eyes, the radiance transformed itself into a glowing crystal that rose and floated in mid-air. _A Kalquoi--!_ There seemed to be no pattern nor rhyme nor reason to the alien's actions. Now it hovered; now it darted. One moment it drifted close to the floor; the next, explored the ceiling. And all the time it radiated changing shapes and colors: a glistening silver corkscrew ... the dull grey of a microreel case ... pale blue ovals that resembled nothing Dane had ever seen. Then sound came--the muffled clang of heavy hatch-lids. At once, the Kalquoi moved to the astrogation chamber's door and poised there, apparently waiting. A moment later the door swung open. Two other aliens joined the first. The three pulsed and glowed together briefly. Then one detached itself from its fellows and moved in close to Dane. Immediately, he felt himself permeated by a strange, slightly prickling sensation, as if a slight electric current were being sent through him. Warmth enveloped him. The idea of sleep took on unique appeal. Now the alien moved towards the door once more; and to Dane's intense surprise, he found himself following, drawn along bodily through the gravitationless ship like a towed target. In a sort of roseate haze--for fear, as of the moment, seemed to have lost its meaning for him--he wondered what would happen when he was transferred to the Kalquoi globe-craft. So far as he knew, the aliens themselves had no necessity for breathing, so the odds were against there being any air supply adequate to enable a human to survive.