The Eglan had a double airlock, and as he emerged through the second airtight valve, he was met by Olaf Pedersen. Pedersen's helmet was off and there was a peculiar expression on his face.
"Well? What did you find?" Fiske asked, anxiety in his voice.
"She's all ours. There's no fight left in them," Pedersen said. His voice was oddly strained. "We just moved in and took over. The men are collecting the prisoners now—what's left of them." He pointed down the low wide manway that led into the interior of the ship. "Control room's down there," he said.
"I know." Fiske looked around curiously. The ship was like the other captured jobs he'd seen. Even the two decapitated Eglani on the deck were familiar—and the other enemy dead he passed on the way to the control room were not abnormal. One expected to see them in a captured Eglan ship. It was the living who were strange, tight faced, thick bodied, stiffly erect aliens and their human guards who stood in the cross passageways watching him as he passed. Fiske shivered. He had never in his life seen eyes so hell-haunted as those the Eglani turned on him. The aliens looked like they would shatter at a touch, brittle shells held intact by a force greater than their wills.
"Gives you the creeps, doesn't it?" Pedersen asked in a low voice.
"It's worse than anything I've ever seen," Fiske replied. "These people are on the edge of collapse. This is chaos!"
The feeling of brittle tension increased as they entered the control room in the center of the ship. A short wide Eglan stood beside the master console. He raised his arm in what was obviously a salute, which Fiske punctiliously returned. A muscle in the Eglan's cheek twitched spasmodically. His fingers were clenched, the knuckles white against his greenish skin.
"I am Sar Lauton, of the Eglan Directorate, commander of this ship," the alien said in fluent Terran.
"And I am Commander Alton Fiske of the Confederation Navy," Fiske replied. "I have transferred my men to this ship since you didn't leave much of mine."