an advanced culture.

Everything, that is, but the Cirissins themselves.

The idea of kidnapping him from earth to provide them with a weapon to
destroy earth; kidnapping Sheilah to seduce him; the idea of even
expecting him to be _able_ to produce such a weapon--it was all idiotic.

There was only one explanation that he could see.

The Cirissins _were_ idiots.

Some other race had produced this ship. These cosmic degenerates had
somehow gotten hold of it and were on a mad binge through the universe,
destroying all the worlds they didn't like.

He wondered how many they'd already wiped out. They had to be stopped.

Wayne immediately started constructing a radio transmitter from
convenient materials in the laboratory. It was fairly simple.

He was not interrupted for nearly two hours. At which time he was saying
into his improvised microphone:

"Seven hours? That long? Can't make it any sooner than that? Five hours?
Six?"

And then it was not a Cirissin voice behind him which said: "Drop that.
Put up your hands and turn around!"

It was Sheilah.

Wayne turned and saw her floating at the doorway pointing a long,
tubular metal object at him, her finger poised on a protruding lever.

"What's that?" Wayne asked.

Sheilah said, "It's a gun I found after lookin' all over the damn ship.
I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to kill your Cirissin friends.
You're nothing but a dirty traitor, and I wouldn't seduce you if--I
never did trust you scientists. Maybe I'll be killed, too, but I don't
care." She was close to tears.

"You're going to kill me?" Wayne said. "With that? How do you know it's
even a gun? Looks more like a fire extinguisher to me. Aw, you poor
little imbecile, I haven't had a chance to explain yet, but--"

Sheilah said, "You make me sick." She pulled the trigger.

The object was not a fire extinguisher, after all. It was quite
obviously a weapon of some kind.

Also it seemed obvious that Sheilah had been pointing the wrong end of
the weapon toward Wayne.

One more obvious fact that Wayne had time to comprehend was that the
weapon was not a recoilless type.

But by then Sheilah had gone limp and the gun had rebounded from her
grasp and was sailing at Wayne's head.

He ducked but not fast enough. The object whacked him solidly on top of
his head.

His brain exploded into a display of dazzling lights, excruciating pain
and deafening noise.

Then the lights went out and a long, den