xternal weapons, were brought through the airlocks 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 carefully removed the protective
coverings 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 more 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.

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
that 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 thing--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 today
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 Mars or Venus. But the Nevians--

The horizontal, flat, fish-like body is not so bad, even supported as it
is by four short, powerful, scaly, flat-footed legs; and terminating as
it does in the weird, four-vaned tail. The neck, even, is endurable,
although it is long and flexible, heavily scaled, and is carried in
w