Bipeds! Peculiar little beasts—repulsive. Only two arms and eyes—only one head. Weak, no weapons—good! Couldn’t _any_ of them communicate? Ah yes, there was one—an unusually thin, reed-like creature, bundled up in layer upon layer of fabric. . . . “I see that you are survivors of a catastrophe in outer space,” Darjeeb began. He correlated instantly, if not sympathetically, the smashed panel and the pilot’s bleeding head. If the creature had had a head worthy of the name, it could have wrecked a dozen such frailties with it, and without taking hurt. “Tell your pilot to let me in, so that I may guide you to safety. Hurry! Those will come at any moment who will destroy us all without warning or palaver.” “I am trying, sir, but I cannot get through to him direct. It will take a few moments.” The strange telepathist began to make motions with her peculiar arms, hands, and fingers. Others of the outlanders brandished various repulsive members and gesticulated with ridiculous mouths. Finally: “He says 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 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 on my own world Nhal—that bluish one over there.” “Very well, we’ll see you there. We’re just about out of air, but we can travel that far.” But that wouldn’t do, either, of course. Argument took too much time. He’d have to use force, and he’d better call for help. He hurled mental orders to a henchman, threw out his magnetic grapples, and turned on a broad, low-powered beam. “Open up or die,” he ordered. “I do not want to blast you open, but time presses and I will if I must.” Pure heat is hard to take. The portal opened and Darjeeb, after donning armor and checking his ray-guns, picked Luda up and swung nonchalantly out into space. Luda was tough—a little vacuum wouldn’t hurt her much. Inside the lifeboat, he tossed his captive into a corner and strode toward the pilot. “I want to know right now what it is that makes this ship to be without inertia!” Darjeeb radiated, harshly. He had been probing vainly at the pink thing’s mind-block. “Tell your pilot to tell me or I will squeeze it out of his brain.” As the order was being translated he slipped an arm out of his suit and clamped a huge hand around the pilot’s head. But just as he made contact, before he put on any pressure at all, the weakling fainted.