ight slay members of a highly
developed race."

The helpless boat, all her forces neutralized, was brought up close to
the immense flying fish. There flaming knives of force sliced her neatly
into sections and the three rigid armored figures, after being bereft of
their external weapons, were brought through the air-locks and into the
control room, while the pieces of their boat were stored away for future
study. The Nevian scientists first analyzed the air inside the
space-suits of the Terrestrials, then removed without ado the protective
covering of the captives.

Costigan--fully conscious through it all and now able to move a little,
since the peculiar temporary paralysis was wearing off--braced himself
for he knew not what shock, but it was needless; their grotesque captors
were not torturers. The air, while somewhat less dense than earth's and
of a peculiar odor, was eminently breathable, and even though the vessel
was motionless in space, an almost-normal gravitation gave them a large
fraction of their usual weight. The space suits were removed with care,
and after the three had been relieved of their pistols and other
articles which the Nevians thought might prove to be weapons, the
strange paralysis was lifted entirely. The earthly clothing puzzled the
captors immensely, but so strenuous were the objections raised to its
removal, but they did not press the point, but fell back to study their
find in detail.

Then faced each other the representatives of the civilizations of two
widely separated solar systems. The Nevians studied the human beings
with interest and curiosity blended largely with loathing and repulsion;
the three Terrestrials regarded the unmoving, expressionless "faces"--if
those coned heads could be said to possess such things--with horror and
disgust, as well as with other emotions, each according to his type and
training. For to human eyes the Nevian is a fearful thing. Even to-day
there are few Terrestrials--or Solarians for that matter--who can look
at a Nevian, eye to eye, without feeling a creeping of the skin and
experiencing a "gone" sensation in the pit of the stomach. The horny,
wrinkled, drought-resisting Martian, whom we all know and rather like,
is a hideous being indeed. The bat-eyed, colorless, hairless,
practically skinless Venerian is worse. But they both are, after all,
remote cousins of Terra's humanity, and we get along with them quite
well whenever we are compelled to visit