Adam Strange lands on an ancient Incan temple - and is zeta-beamed to Rann. Alanna greets him. News comes that aliens demand to meet Ranagar's city council. The green blockhead aliens (later named the Vantor) demand Rann's surrender, because "Nothing - absolutely nothing - can overcome our vacuumizer weapons!" Adam declares they'll fight. At dawn, he leads an army against the aliens. The villains push a button on their vacuumizers and suck up the army, Adam included. Rann loses... Adam rematerializes on Earth when the zeta-beam energy fades. He's failed Rann, but has nine days to form a plan... Zapped back to Rann, Adam finds Ranagar gone! The aliens sucked up the people, stole the city, then released the citizens. Long-lived, they steal cities to play in for a century or so, then move on. But Adam realizes belt buckles and ray guns were left behind. The vacuumizer must have been set to suck up carbon of human bodies. "If we were to coat ourselves with different metals - it would be like wearing several coats of metallic armor!" Adam crash-trains the army in judo and wrestling... They surprise the Vantor stealing another city. The army looks black, coated with liquid iron. The vacuumizers suck it up, but the men are coated with copper, gold, cobalt - then they're on the aliens! They flatten the villains and take their weapons. The Vantor surrender and lift off. Adam reconstitutes the cities - and fades away before Alanna can kiss him!; Two spacemen search for "star-flowers" in an alien temple, but an amphibious monster guards the water lily-like treasures.; A spaceship captain faces down "mutiny on the high seas".