Violently, I flipped him round, whirling so that sheer centrifugal force carried his body closer and closer to the greenish cone of light that still shone from the crystal. Again, somewhere, the keening sound rose shrilly. Instantly, the alien clinging to me gave a convulsive shift, so violent it almost turned me over. But I was whirling too fast to be stopped by anything short of complete upset. Lurching, staggering, I stumbled still closer to the cone of radiance. One more step, one only-- The beam spilled across the Kel's extended body. Once--twice--three times the alien whirled into the radiance. And each time, something hissed, like steam escaping. Tentacles jerked at me in a frantic spasm. Then, of a sudden, the pseudopods released their grip. The viscous body lost all semblance of tone and tension ... flew away from me in a short, sodden arc, to land with a splatting sound against the wall nearby. How much time had elapsed? One second? Two? I couldn't tell. I only knew that now, from all sides, Kel were swarming at me in a rush. I dived for the metal knob that controlled the green beam. With one sweep of my hand, I set it spinning. The crystal swiveled in swift coordination. The cone of light flashed in a great, swooping arc. And everywhere its radiance touched the Kel, there was the sound, the sudden hissing. Bulbous bodies went limp. Pseudopodal tissue oozed away like oil on pavement. Grimly, I spun the knob the other way--hunting down my foes, driving them to cover. Then--quite suddenly, it seemed--no more Kel were visible. I stood in complete command of the control room of an alien globeship. I smiled a little at that time, I think--a slow, contemplative smile, with nothing that could be spoken of as humor in it. After that, tight-lipped, I called, "Celeste! Get up here!" Hollow-eyed, tousle-headed, she came out from behind the ridge where she'd been hiding. Not giving her a chance to speak, I said, "These things, the Kel--how do they tell you what they want?" "How?"--She moved uncertainly "It's--well, one of them--becomes like me. We talk. Then--" "That's enough," I grunted. "Look around. Start hunting for one who's hiding like you were behind the ridges." "I--I don't understand...." "You will." With slow deliberation, I fanned the walls with my cone of greenish light. I had no illusions that my grin was pleasant. "You see, Miss Stelpa, somewhere aboard this ship there's a Kel who doesn't want this beam to burn him. He doesn't want it so bad he'll even betray the rest of his kind in order to prevent it. "Starting right now, we're going to find that traitor!" CHAPTER VI THRILL-MILLS, F.O.B. The first three Kel Celeste rooted out were loyal to their species. Unto death. The fourth, it seemed, felt differently about it. Even life in the FedGov's interplanetary zoo, apparently, was acceptable, when weighed against no life at all.