“Jazplosa!” the thing says and his eyes look mad. Six other yellow-pussed characters come from back of the garage and grab me, and not with what you call hands. They have lunch-hooks that are like tendrils from jungle plants and they wrap them around me, pick me up like I am only a marshmallow and lug me off. A few minutes later I see that they have landed the saucer on the flat roof of a French-Venutian hand laundry and it looks like it is made of aluminum as thin as a Martian pancake. “Twuik nojux obwique Spink.” “Spink?” I yelps. “Then you know me, huh?” The outlandish citizen with a nose like all the Spinks, grins at me as I am carried up the ladder leading down from the saucer. “Loxmiza nostratum,” he squawks. “And put mustard on mine,” I says as I am put aboard the saucer. “I was kiddin’ myself, huh? I am still in the bughouse and will wake up snug in my orlonylon strait jacket. At least I hope so!” It is a retake of an opium dream the dome probers claim I had. The inside of the saucer is as spiffy as any lounge in a Neo Yorkus coupon-clipper’s club. Then the C.O. of the lemon-skins takes me into the control room. “Spink,” he says, “you are a cousin of mine, twelve times removed!” You could have knocked me over with a spider leg. “You talked English,” I gulp out. “Where are you from, er--?” “Quantum Spink,” the character says. “I am taking you to New Mu.” “Why, that is a million trillion miles from Nougat,” I says. “Who taught you to speak English, huh?” “Why an Earthman named Spink, of course,” Quantum says, and hands me a plate of something that looks like green sawdust. “Eat it, Sep. It is homogenized ambrosia.” “If you don’t mind I’ll take one of my own veal cutlet capsules,” I says, and then there is a lot of gabbing and some whirring and clackety-clack sounds. Arrows start spinning every which way on the instrument panel, and Quantum Spink pulls a little switch and four seconds later I look out and see that we are already passing Asphasia. It is only the rim of the saucer that spins, the New Muan tells me. “I guess you know the Nougats took a wallop at Mars,” I says. Quantum grins. “We will take care of that on the way, Sep. One thousand New Mu military saucers, carrying Substance YZ2HO, will rendezvous ten million miles southeast of Saturn at 1400 sound hours. We will contact them in just five minutes. You’ll see a celestial rhubarb no Earthman ever dreamed up.” “Look, can we take pictures?” I ask, sweating radio-active beads. “I got throwed into a space nuthatch the last time, or did you know?” “We have a hydrolens camera, Sep,” Quantum assures me. “I will give you some prints.” * * * * * I take a gander through the porthole and planets go by like milestones on the Lincoln elevated throughway. “No Spink has ever missed a war,” Quantum says and crams a handful of ambrosia into his mouth. “I had to come and get you.”