A young and very beautiful girl with golden blond hair and smooth skin the color of creamed sweet potatoes floated in the middle of the windowless metal room into which Wayne Brighton drifted. The girl was not exactly naked, but her few filmy clothes concealed nothing.

Wayne cleared his throat, his apprehension changing rapidly to confusion.

You are going to reduce me? he asked.

The word is seduce, mister, the girl said. They told me reduce, too, but they don’t talk real good, and I think I’m supposed to seduce you so you’ll tell ‘em something, and then they’ll let me go. I guess. I hope. What is it they wantcha to tell 'em?

Wayne cleared his throat again, striving merely to keep a firm grip on his sanity. Things had been happening much too fast for him to have retained anything like his customary composure.

That was the way the aliens spoke: confused nonsense. If it took reduction or torch hair, the Cirissins wanted a bump. Hokum, thistle, gluck.