They'll let you have it anyway, Granger thought grimly. He slowly curled his finger around the trigger and started to move when he was jarred off his feet by a roaring blast that ripped the door from its hinges and sent it crashing against the rear wall of the cabin. Outside the ruined entrance stood a group of aliens all armed. Fearfully, he looked to the window, but their leader was gone. In a second he appeared at the door, moved inside the cabin, and Granger automatically stepped back, his hazy mind calculating roughly the few feet of escape route remaining to him. In a moment he was there, his back flattened against the cabin wall. The short creature kept coming on, its murky orbs fixed on Granger's white, drawn countenance. Then it stopped its advance. "So you have one of our people," it said in a voice that twanged like piano wire. Granger tried once in vain for his voice, then gave up. He stared over the head of his foe at the silent assembly outside the cabin, then at the thing in the packing crate. It was sitting there, quiet, immobile, but intently watching the scene between the earthman and his visitor. "You are holding one of us captive," the commander remarked. "This is a most unfortunate situation, indeed." The small figure stepped aside quickly and waved an arm. Granger, perspiration trickling down his face, watched a score of glistening weapons raised and pointed inside the cabin. For a second he looked directly at the menacing horde. Then his eyes saw nothing. A blazing flash of white light burst forth from the doorway, and it was all over. Granger forced open his aching eyes and squinted in the direction of the fiery blast, but the doorway was empty. The commander was still there, though, walking slowly to the door. Why am I alive? Granger asked himself incredulously. Or am I dead? He bumped his fist against his forehead once or twice and gave his head a vigorous shake. Suddenly, he turned his gaze to the cage. But he saw nothing that resembled the rebuilt packing crate; only a mound of ashes and twisted spikes. In the center of the heap, like a fat, dwarfish king astride his fallen kingdom, was the charred, blackened shell of the grotesque creature that had once occupied the wooden cell. Then he moved cautiously toward the door and stared, speechless, at the leader of the expedition. "We shall depart now," said the being. "Thank you for helping us." * * * * * Not much later, across the silent reaches of space, a communications operator on another planet looked up from his receiving equipment and handed his superior a message just transmitted from a ship leaving the planet Earth: RETURN MISSION SUCCESSFUL. DESERTER LOCATED AND EXECUTED.