He smiled at her. "He didn't like us—apparently for no reason than we were alien. If he'd come in peaceable, we'd have made talky-talk. As it is, he fired first but not too well. Now we'll just grab his ship and see what he's got, who he is, where he's from—and possibly why."
It was a small ship outside, in space. But getting it into the vast cargo-hold of Barden's ship required some more trimming. The alien ship finally lay in eight sections, stacked. The cargo-hold was now jammed with alien ship and much of the spare equipment and supplies were jettisoned.
Then they went in warily to examine the alien. They found the alien crew—four of them. They were spacesuited but unconscious.
"Hope they breathe air at twenty-per cent oxygen," growled Barden. They opened the suits and laid the unconscious aliens on tables in one of the operations rooms.
They were squat and wide, almost humanoid save for large eyeballs under the closed double lids. Their noses were almost nonexistent, and each hand splayed wide with seven stubby fingers. These hands were symmetrical, but despite a thumb on either side, the Terrans doubted that they were more dextrous than Terrans because of their shorter fingers.
Their shoulders were very wide, but also quite thin, indicating a long, unfavorable leverage with less muscle.
"Ugly looking—" started Jerry Brandt, who shut himself off as he remembered Edith Ward.
She looked up at him and flushed. "They are," she said with a slight smile. Brandt blushed with embarrassment and spluttered incoherently for a moment. The pilot might have spluttered for some time had not the foremost alien stirred, causing a diversion.
They crowded him as he awoke and looked about him. His expression was undecipherable, though there was quite a change in facial composure as he saw the kind of white-faced animals that surrounded him. He looked, and then he clutched rapidly at a device on his belt. Barden swung a fist and caught the creature on the forearm, causing him to drop the half-drawn weapon. Brandt stooped over and picked it up, and the rest of the crew proceeded to disarm the other three.
Edith found a length of wire and made a loop of it. She held it in front of the alien.