William Bender

“ Karsine explained brusquely that only combat personnel were allowed in the central control room during contact with a strange vessel. "But," he ended, patronizingly, "you can watch from the observation room. When we have made the capture, I'll be happy to review my operations with you."
When we have made the capture. The Commander's abundant self confidence only served to further depress Narant. Out there in the void rode a space vessel of an altogether unknown race. And there was no question in Karsine's mind but that their cruiser would take the alien. Not "if" we make the capture. ”

“ Inside the chamber, a giant multi-faceted crystal began to rotate slowly in the gimbals which held it suspended from the ceiling. Sharp individual beams of light swept over the face of the alien being on the table. ”

“ It must be an early development, for spaceships had never before been detected in the Restus system. More than likely the ship had not even become aware of their presence. Small wonder Karsine had decided to grapple.
The force heads on Narant's side of the cruiser began to shimmer under the surge of power being fed to them. They grew red hot, almost translucent. They would hold fire until the beam became powerful enough to withstand tremendous forces. Sometimes in grappling, an enemy craft had been known to discharge its main rocket batteries in an effort to wrench loose. ”

“ Karsine ordered.
The cruiser shuddered. Lights dimmed as the force heads sucked at every available bit of power. With a blinding flash, a blue-white ribbon of energy streaked across the mile-wide void to the alien ship. It flicked the nose of the Restus craft, gripped, and swept over the entire hull like a glittering cocoon.
"Tension indicator: Nine-eight-point-eight," reported a too-casual voice over the speaker. "Enemy ship secured."
"Opposing force?" ”

“ But he took with him the forlorn hope that on this voyage, or the next, or the one after that, he would find somewhere in the vast reaches of space an advanced people who still practiced random mating; that he might find them, analyze them and feed that information back to the master calculators. For only by placing hard new facts into the "brain" could there be any chance of changing the decision.
In the sealed combat control center, Commander Karsine finished strapping himself into the anthropometric chair in front of the view screen. ”

“ Long before the five-hour examination was over, the hopes of Technicist 9th Class Narant far transcended any he had experienced in the past three months. The aliens had almost human potential. They were fun-loving, kindly, clannish. ”