"Yes. Well, this voice said not to worry and that it wasn't going to hurt me. It said it only wanted to learn something about us. It was the _oddest_ feeling! All the time, this voice kept talking to me in a nice way and made me feel at ease ... and at the same time, I felt _something_ search my mind and gather information. I could actually _feel_ it search my memories!" "What memories?" I inquired. She frowned with concentration. "Memories of high school mostly. It seemed interested in English and history classes. And then it searched for memories of our customs and lives in general...." * * * * * Kane stalked into the room at that moment, his face red with anger. "_Do you know where we are?_" he demanded. "When those damned aliens got me in that room, they explained what this is all about. We're guinea pigs!" "Did they use telepathy to explain?" Verana asked. I suddenly remembered that she was a member of a club that investigated extra-sensory perception with the hope of learning how it operated. She was probably sorry she hadn't been contacted telepathically. "Yeah," Kane replied. "I saw all sorts of mental pictures and they explained what they did to us. Those damned aliens want us for their zoo!" "Start at the beginning," I suggested. He flashed an angry glance at me, but seemed to calm somewhat. "This ship was made by a race from another galaxy. Thousands of years ago, they came to Earth in their spaceships when men were primitives living in caves. They wanted to know what our civilization would be like when we developed space flight. So they put this ship on the Moon as a sort of booby-trap. They put it there with the idea that when we made spaceships and went to the Moon, sooner or later, we'd find the ship and enter it--_like rabbits in a snare!_" "And now the booby-trap is on its way home," I guessed. "Yeah, this ship is taking us to their planet and they're going to keep us there while they study us." "How long will the trip take?" I asked. "Six months. We'll be bottled up in this crate for six whole damned months! And when we get there, we'll be prisoners!" Marie's hypnotic spell was fading and once more her face showed the terror inside her. "Don't feel so bad," I told Kane. "It could be worse. It should be interesting to see an alien race. We'll have our wives with us--" "Maybe they'll dissect us!" Marie gasped. Verana scoffed. "A race intelligent enough to build a ship like this? A race that was traveling between the stars when we were living in caves? Dissection is primitive. They won't _have to_ dissect us in order to study us. They'll have more advanced methods." "Maybe we can reach the ship's controls somehow," Kane said excitedly. "We've got to try to change the ship's course and get back to the Moon!" "It's impossible. Don't waste your time." The voice had no visible source and seemed to fill the room. * * * * *