oing?"

"Making d-d-damn sure you don't take the ship anywhere," said Jerry,
croaking a little. "Now t-try and run it!"

He was suddenly lifted off his feet and dangled helplessly a yard off
the floor. "Fix them," snarled the alien thing into his face. He had
time to realize that its grip was extremely powerful, whatever its
molecules and atoms might be made of. "Reconstruct them, or you die."

"Don't be an idiot," Jerry told it, making up his mind that he was as
good as dead and might as well go out like a man. "There isn't a single
spare part aboard for any of these devices." He managed a sick grin. "If
you're so smart, you _know_ I'm telling the truth."

Pinkham called from the screen of the intercom. "That's true,
whatever-you-are. Those things are useless to you now."

The alien took Jerry by the chest, wrapping one hand around his back to
do it; slowly it exerted pressure, and Jerry realized that it must have
elongated the hand enormously to encompass him so. He also knew that his
rib cage would shortly collapse. He shrieked.

Then Circe, the girl from the asteroid, was gazing from the screen,
horrified. "No!" she screamed at the being. "You can't kill him for only
wrecking the--"

"Shut up!" squealed Jerry.

"The recreation room!" she finished.

Abruptly he was dropped to the floor, where he lay gasping, massaging
his bruised sides. The thing above him said, "Recreation room?"

"Sure. The soda fountain, the phonograph, and the pinball machines and
games."

Then Pinkham had encircled her throat with one arm, clamped his other
hand on her mouth, and dragged her back. But the damage was done.

The alien gave another of those mirthless peals of bull's laughter.
"Clever," he said. "Oh, clever little man." Then he plucked Jerry off
the floor once more.

_I'm going to die now...._

The brute set him on his feet, twisted him toward the door, and gave him
a brisk, forceful pat on the backside that sent him staggering. He
gained his balance and ran into the corridor. It was more humiliating
than had he been slain.

CHAPTER IX

"It didn't work, but it taught us a few things."

"You're right. It taught us that this bitch can't be trusted. Either
she's in league with _it_, a sister or brother of it, or else she's so
stupid that she's a menace to our survival."

"Oh, you blithering jackass!" said Circe indignantly to her fellow
organicus officer. "How could I guess what your plan was? Nobody told