ess. If I know Perce at
all, you've heard of us 'til you're sick of it and us--it's a weakness
of his--talking too much."

"Why, it's no such th...." began Nadia, but broke off as an aide came up
and saluted smartly.

"Pardon me, but General Crowninshield requests that Doctor Brandon,
Doctor Westfall, and Doctor Stevens join the council in Lounge Fifteen
as soon as convenient." He saluted again and turned away.

"Yes, that's right, folks--we've got to take a lot of steps, fast--see
you later," and Brandon, taking each of the other two by an arm, marched
them away toward the designated assembly room.

* * * * *

There, already seated at a long table, were Czuv, King, and
Breckenridge, all fully recovered, engaged in earnest conversation with
Newton and Crowninshield. Alcantro and Fedanzo, the Martian scientists,
were listening intently, as were the two Venerians Dol Kenor and Pyraz
Amonar. The eyes of the three newcomers, however, did not linger upon
the group at the table, but were irresistibly drawn to one corner of the
room, where six creatures lay in the heaviest manacles afforded by the
stores of the Interplanetary Police. Not only were they manacled, but
each was facing a ray-projector, held by a soldier whose expression
showed plainly that he would rather press the lethal contact than not.

"Oh--those the things we're fighting?" Brandon stopped at the threshold
and stared intently at the captive hexans. Goggling green eyes glaring
venomously, they were lying quiet, but tense; mighty muscles ready to
burst into berserk activity should the attention of a guard waver for
a single instant.

But little more than half as large as the savage creatures with whom
Stevens had fought in the mountain glade upon Ganymede, the hexans
resembled those aborigines only as civilized men might resemble gigantic
primordial savages of our own Earth. Brandon's gaze went from short,
powerful legs up a round, red body to the enormous, freakish double pair
of shoulders, with its peculiar universal jointing. From the double
shoulders sprang four limbs, the front pair of which were undoubtedly
arms, terminating in large, but fairly normal, hands. The intermediate
limbs were longer than the legs and were much more powerful than the
arms, and ended in members that were very evidently feet and hands
combined. What in a human being would be the back of the hand was the
sole of the foot--when walking upon th