"They said at the London lab that it was a special flashlight that would pass for an ordinary one."
"Oh, the one for that Antares case," exclaimed Beryl. "Si was telling me how they'll send out plans of that. Did they show you how it works?"
"It gives just a dim beam until you press an extra switch," said Westervelt. "Then it puts out a series of dashes bright enough to hurt your eyes."
"What in the world do they want that for?" asked Beryl.
"What in some other world, you mean! On some of these planets, the native life is so used to a dim red sun that a flash like this on their sensitive eyes can knock them unconscious."
"This place is just full of dirty tricks like that," said the blonde. "Why can't they free these people some other way?"
Westervelt and Simonetta looked at each other. Beryl had been in the Department only a few weeks, and did not yet seem to have heard the word.
Or understood it, maybe, thought Westervelt. She might not look half so intelligent without that nice chest expansion.
"Some of them just get in trouble," Simonetta was saying. "The laws of alien peoples we've been meeting around the galaxy don't necessarily make sense to Terrans."
"But why can't they stay away from such queer places?"