Ship
from Outer Space
Thane
caught his breath. The object rapidly enlarged into a clear-cut shape ... of two pie-plates stuck together.
It
dived at supersonic speed . . . without a sound.
It
suddenly made a 100 degree turn, level with the ground . . . without slowing
down. It came to an abrupt stop in midair. It hovered there . . . rocking
gently. It changed from orange to blue to white.
MENACE
OF
THE SAUCERS
by Eando Binder
BELMONT BOOKS • NEW YORK CITY
MENACE OF THE SAUCERS A BELMONT BOOK—October 1969
Published
by
Belmont
Productions, Inc.
185 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016
Copyright © 1969 by Eando Binder. All rights reserved.
PRINTED
IN CANADA
Thane
Smith's rented summer cabin gave him the peace and quiet he needed for his
free-lance writing jobs. Only thirty feet beyond lay a grove
of tall pines.
Thane walked into their cool shade out of the
hot sun. At his favorite reading spot, he sat down with his back to a tree. A
scented pine breeze cooled him delightfully. With a sigh of contented
relaxation he opened the book.
In the opening lines of the book about
Unidentified Flying Objects was a definition: 'Flying saucers are more properly
called UFO's, or Unidentified Flying Objects . . .'
"Unmitigated
Fanciful Optics," grinned Thane, supplying his own definition.
The
book went on to make the brash statement, without a quiver of a doubt, that
UFO's had been spied on earth for centuries.
The
punch lines came along faster and more hilariously.
Captain
Robert Mantell in 1949 had chased a 'saucer over
20,000 feet, to come down as a mass of wreckage. "The Air Force's claim
that Mantell mistook Venus, in the daytime, for a
UFO," said the author pompously, "is untenable, for the object had
been first detected by radar. Also Mantell had
radioed at the last moment that the object was tremendous. . . ."
Thane,
the skeptic, grunted. Naturally, an oxygen-starved pilot, his brain functioning
wildly, would see delusions just before he blacked out. As for radar, the Air
Force had plainly called it an
'anomaly'—false image propagation.
Thane
started. Out of the corner of his eye, swiftly streaking between two trees for
a brief moment, he thought he saw something that flashed in the sun. Something
round . . . moving at fantastic speed . . . glinting metallic. . . .
"Damn!"
said Thane aloud. The book was getting him. But he wasn't going to jump up and
rush to the edge of the grove for a better look. A darting hawk . . . distant jet. . . maybe some kid's toy rocket. . . that was all he
would see.
Shaking
his head, Thane settled back and opened the book again, defying its hypnotic
powers.
One
of the greatest 'flaps' in UFO history now came up—the notorious
"Washington attack' of July 1952, when some of 67 UFO's had seemingly
swarmed over the city. But they, had been officially disposed of by the Air
Force as due to an 'inversion—two layers of warm and cold air that refracted
ground images into the sky, even creating 'angels' on radar that at first
fooled radar-men, not to mention various jet pilots who went up to 'chase' the
glowing objects away.
But
the stubborn writer claimed it was a cover-up by the Air Force since weather
records for that date proved there could not have been a temperature inversion.
The
implication, all through the book, was that faced with a gigantic scientific
problem far beyond its scope, the bewildered Air Force investigators had never
recognized the truth—that flying saucers were not myths but machines, flying
with impunity in our airspace and making fools of all pursuing jet pilots.
These out-of-this-world craft were blithely credited to an advanced 'su-pertechnology' on some other inhabited planet in outer
space.
The book, in its general review of the UFO
phenomena, then listed the 'characteristics' of flying saucers that were
repeatedly reported. They often flew at blazing supersonic speeds up to an
estimated 5000 mph in ghostly silence. They could turn at right angles without
the slightest slowing down. They could stop in one shuddering instant. While
hovering in the air, they often rocked' back and forth gently, like a boat riding the waves. A glow often surrounded them, best seen at night,
that kept changing color and included all the hues of the rainbow—orange,
yellow, red, blue, green, white. They . . .
Thane
jerked around. Again, out of the corner of his eye, he had glimpsed something
streaking between the trees ahead. This time, annoyed, he put down the book and
arose. Just out of curiosity, he had to find out what it was.
Reaching
the edge of the grove of pines, he had a clear
view of the sky to the north. He squinted. High up was a shiny speck that
zigzagged back and forth for a moment,
then darted straight down.
Thane
caught his breath. The object rapidly enlarged into a clear-cut shape . . . of two pie-plates stuck together.
It
dived at supersonic speed . . . without a sound.
It
suddenly made a 100 degree turn, level with the ground . . . without slowing down.
Thane
gasped, as it streaked almost straight over him about 1000 feet high . . . and came to an abrupt stop in midair.
It hovered there . . . rocking gently.
Thane
could now detect a faint glow around it . . . that changed from orange to blue to white against the 1*1 no sky backdrop.
Thane
broke from a gaping trance and ran back through the grove.
He didn't believe his eyes or trust his senses. Only one thing could prove he
had seen what he thought he saw. He dashed into his cabin and snatched up his
instamatic camera, also his movie camera, both loaded.
Would
the object be gone in those 10 seconds it had taken him to race back and forth?
But when he reached the grove's edge, the strange object was still there, rocking
in a slow rhythm.
Panting
and fumbling nervously, Thane finally aimed his Kodak and snapped the release.
Wanting to get at least one good picture, Thane methodically used up what was
left of the roll, seven shots.
While
he took them, fevered thoughts piled up in his mind. If the photos, when
developed, came out blank-then what? Was he suffering a vivid delusion?
And if the photos were not blank—what then? That was even more of a shocking thought. As he snapped the last
picture, Thane flicked his eyes up at movement The
flying saucer had suddenly shot forward. It did not get up speed in rising
acceleration. It simply went to supersonic speed from dead zero.
Thane
sensed something to the north and swung his eyes. He almost staggered. Not one
but two UFO's. The second one catapulted up from
behind a hill, as if it had previously landed on the ground.
It
was a different shape, a disk with a dome on top, of a dark flat color like
ashes. It arrowed straight up as if striving to reach high altitude before the
first UFO could intercept it.
Intercept?
Thane
stiffened, sensing that he was about to witness something never before reported
in saucer sightings that he knew of. Then, with a grunt, he swung up his movie
camera. No still camera could catch what was to come.
The
two UFO's seemed to be on a direct collision course, one shooting upward, the
other horizontally. Sighting through his view-finder, Thane winced, expecting
the crash. Instead, the two craft incredibly veered apart, then began circling
each other in impossible loops and twists.
Dogfight
sprang into Thane's mind,
as he kept the movie camera whirring. They were far enough away to slay within
his field of view as their wild gyrations continued.
Now
Thane could detect faint beams stabbing back and forth between the two craft.
He felt a tingling in the air around him, as if it were electrified. He thought
of the fantastic ray-weapons often featured in science-fiction tales.
It
all seemed like science-fiction happening before his eyes. He was seeing the
same 'illusions' so many others had seen—only these objects were real. Of that Thane was dead certain. Yet the utter silence, the incredible
maneuvers, the eye-boggling speeds all made it seem unreal.
The end came suddenly, violently, with a
thunderclap of sudden sound. The domed disk simply exploded in a vast shower of
sparks that quickly faded and vanished.
Atomized?
Blown to atoms? Thane shuddered in awe for there seemed to be no debris. The
victorious disk dipped in the air, as if in a triumphant salute, then swung
upward at such blurring speed that it was gone lit three seconds.
Several seconds after that, with an annoyed exclamation, Thane took his
finger off the movie camera's button. He was photographing empty blue sky now. But
he had about 40 feet of color film of the mind-staggering aerial drama that had
taken place.
Turning,
Thane saw something glinting a few feet away. It lay on a cushion of pine
needles and hence he 11 ad not heard any thud. It was a jagged piece of
metal, n si i-silver in
color—the same color as the domed disk, Was it an
actual piece of the exploded craft?
Thane picked it up, still hot, turned it
over. A piece of metal that came from some faraway world?
Gould it be? He put it in his pocket and looked
around. If other pieces of the UFO had scattered in the woods, they were never
to be found.
"We mean it when we say twenty-four-hour
developing service," said the camera store proprietor. "You know
that, Thane. You can pick up the snaps tomorrow at noon."
Thane
turned at the door. "Don't be surprised when you see the snaps, Bert. You
won't laugh."
Bert's
mouth fell open. Leaving, Thane paused in wondering thought. What would his
developed photos and movie film show—something or nothing? He was in a curious state
of mind, not at all sure now of what he had seen.
A UFO? Two flying saucers? A dogfight between Ihem? An exploding craft? With each successive thought ho gave a mental gasp, and at the end he was shaking his head in disbelief. Impossible . . . unless his film corroborated what
his eyes had seen. Until then, he would simply have to reserve judgment.
Out on the street of Tanglewood,
a small town, Thane glanced across at the local police station. Should he report
his strange experience? He winced in advance at I ho reception his story would probably get, wilder than any flying saucer
sighting yet reported. Two UFO's had seemingly fought it out in a ferocious air
battle. A new one for the books.
Thane decided to play it smart and wait for
his pic-lures. They
would have a harder time laughing at him I hen. Also,
he would like to show the peculiar piece of
metal in his pocket, if it were analyzed. Thane
turned down a side street, to where a sign proclaimed:
YOU-NAME-IT
CHEMICAL SHOP Theodore Jansen
Jansen
took the piece of metal Thane handed him and squinted through his spectacles.
"Hmmm . . . light weight, hard surface, high shine . . . aluminum maybe. No, magnesium maybe . . . no. Say, what is it?"
"That's for you to
find out."
Still
"hmmming," Jansen turned and led the way to
his small lab in the back. He opened a bottle of acid and put a drop on the
metal. Then another acid, and another.
He
looked up at Thane, wonderingly. "Where did you get this metal?"
"Ill tell you after you analyze it," returned Thane cautiously.
"I'll
have to run special tests," said Jansen, gesturing at various analytical
instruments such as a second-hand spectroscope. "Take me a day or two,
maybe."
"Don't
lose it or destroy it, Professor," warned Thane, turning to go. "I'll
drop in tomorrow around noon." He added, "For your own guidance, you
may find it out-of-this-world."
Jansen watched him go with
squinting, puzzled eyes.
Passing a newsstand, Thane returned to the
everyday world, refusing to think any further regarding his pictures, the
metal, or his sighting. He glanced over the magazines for anything interesting
to read. Suddenly his eyes swung in shock to the local paper, The Tanglewood
Weekly. What
was that on the front page?
FARMER SIGHTS FLYING SAUCER
read the
12
bold-face
headline. A sub-head proclaimed—Third
Sighting of UFO's In This Area in Past Month.
"You
gonna pay for that paper, mister?" queried a
shrill voice. Turning back with a weak grin, Thane handed over the coins to the
newsdealer. Then he swung into the Daisy Diner.
"A
western omelette, Gerty,"
said Thane to the blonde waitress behind the counter. "And
heavy on the French fries."
"Yeah, Thane, I know. And
ketchup on the side. Say, I read about that test Mars rocket you told me
about. Real exciting."
"Yes,
Gerty," said Thane shortly, opening his paper
and devouring the front-page story. Yesterday, he would have snorted and
skipped it. Today, he could hardly wait to read about the farmer's sighting.
The report said that farmer Peter S. Standish's barn had been bathed in light
coming from a domed saucer. Standish had seen a crimson liquid drip down from
the craft onto some stacked cordwood.
A
domed saucer, the same kind Thane had seen destroyed, blown to atoms during
the aerial battle with the disk. Thane's eyes now switched below to where it
listed (he names and addresses of two other people who had sighted saucers.
Thane
read the details of both reports, then folded up I lie paper and strode to his parked car. He was
one with lliem now, one of the 'inner circle' who had seen an miexplainable
sight in the sky. He could imagine their confused and shocked state of mind.
Thane
drove out of town toward where Standish's farm lay, some three miles west. It
was 12:30 and Thane hoped to find him at home from his fields for lunchtime.
A
woman and three skirt-hanging kids came out as his ear drove into the yard.
"Mrs. Standish?" said Thane, "Is your husband in?"
"Yes, but he won t
talk to any reporters," she snapped.
"I'm
not a reporter, M'am. I'm a . . . well, I'm a salesman."
Saying "writer wouldn't sit well with the farmer either, if he was
publicity shy.
"Well,
you can just git right on going," came a gruff voice. Standish had come out, a beefy farmer
with big hands and an unfriendly expression. "We don't want to buy
anything."
"I'm
not selling anything, Mr. Standish," said Thane hastily. "You see, I
saw a flying saucer too, like you did, and I thought we could compare notes and
. . ."
"Hold
on, young man," said the farmer harshly. "I didn't see any such
things as a flying saucer."
"You
didn't . . . ?" grunted Thane. "But the paper said . . ."
"The
paper lied, son. You hear me? A pack
of lies. I never made no phone call and never
saw any kind of flying contraption with red lights."
"You
don't have to be afraid to talk to me," essayed Thane smoothly. "I
won't repeat a word to anyone else. It's just for my own curiosity . . ."
"But
I never saw any UFO, I tell you," grated Standish, half-angrily.
"You'll swear
that?" asked Thane, incredulously.
"Yep."
"The paper invented
the whole story?"
"Every word, son. Now I gotta get to work in my fields. Don't
honk your horn and scare the goats on your way out."
There
was a finality in the dismissal that defeated Thane.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. With a baffled
shrug, he got back in his car and slowly drove away, looking back at the
farmer's figure, now slumped and sitting on the steps. He was an abject,
frightened man, kneading his two hands together as if in anguish.
Why did he look so frightened?
Jack Todd, lumbermill
hand, was more friendly. His big paw shook Thane's
hand in greeting. "What can I do for you, sir?"
"It's about that
flying saucer you saw."
"Oh."
His face fell. His voice was not so friendly as he
went on. "Well, yes, I saw one I guess. But it was nothing much. All over in a
few moments. Hardly worth talking
about."
"You
saw two liairy dwarfs' get out of the saucer,"
pursued Thane doggedly. "They looked around a bit, then spied you. They leaped at you with
grunting snarls, you reported, and used their clawed hands. Hands
with only three fingers. You must still show the marks, since it only
happened ten days ago . . ."
Thane
waited expectantly but the lumberman did not roll up his sleeves to show the
scars. "Aw, maybe my story was kinda
exaggerated," confessed Todd with a false
air. "You know, a man gets to talking with a couple beers in
him and he fancies up the story, just for fun."
Lying in his teeth. He, too, has lurking fear in his eyes. He's just trying to kid me
out of it, to cover up . . .
"You
turned and ran," said Thane, "and the hairy hu-nianoids
then jumped in their ship and sped away. They hadn't really hurt you much and . . ."
"No,
but they sure were fixing to," growled Todd, with sudden intensity.
"I think they wanted to drag me aboard their ship and take me away. They
wanted
I |
n o . . .
Abruptly, Todd broke off and grinned.
"Aw, there goes
my imagination again. Look
pal. It ain't worth talking about. Forget I said anything. I got work to do. So long . .
"Howdy,"
said Mrs. Theda Ranslick.
She was a short,
15
rather plump woman, the typical housewife. Her
reddish hair, neatly combed, contrasted nicely with her blue-green eyes. Was
there fear in those eyes too? Thane wasn't sure yet.
"About
that flying saucer you saw, M'aam," began Thane.
"Oh."
With the word came a sudden frown. "I don't like to talk about it,
mister."
"Why
not?" asked Thane bluntly, determined to get to the bottom of this
unaccountable reluctance of three witnesses to tell of their sightings.
"Because
. . . well, it might be dangerous,"
she said, her eyes glancing
up and down the street.
"Dangerous?"
echoed Thane, baffled. "Please tell me more."
Her
eyes suddenly fastened on him. "Who are you?" she demanded. "You
aren't one of . . . thernF'
"I
don't know what you mean, M'aam," said Thane,
explaining briefly who he was, where he lived, and what he did.
"Oh,
yes," said the woman, relieved. "I heard of you, the writer out at
Miller's cabin. "Listen, come in, Mr. Smith,
where we won't be seen. I want to tell someone . . ."
She
gave another nervous glance down the street, then
opened the door. Thane followed her in and sat down in the stuffed chair she
waved at.
"My
children are in school," she went on, "so we won't be interrupted.
This thing has me worried, you see."
"The sighting?"
"No, not that. What happened afterward."
She
gulped at the memory, then began. "It was an
egg-shaped object bigger than a bus,
sailing across the sky. It flashed blue and green colors, then
turned bright orange as it suddenly swung down to the ground. I thought it was going to hit the house. I guess I just stood there frozen, too
frightened to even scream."
ft took her a moment to go on. "Well, then it stopped just as suddenly
and settled slowly to the ground, across in the
field back of our house. It stopped and hung eight feet off the ground, I'd
say. Just hung there, mister."
Her
eyes looked at him in appeal, as if afraid of laughter.
"I
believe you," said Thane softly. "You see, I saw a saucer myself. Two of them, having a . . . well, never mind. It's your
story I want to hear."
She went on with more
spirit, now safe from ridicule.
"Well,
I kept watching in a sort of trance, like. I saw a round doorway open up in the
bottom of that machine, and three little men floated down to the
ground."
"Floated?"
"Yes, like a balloon. They didn't jump
down. Floated." Anti-gravity, did they have that?
"Well,"
the woman resumed, "I was fit to be tied, I'll
tell you. The three little men—if they were men—were no more than 3/2 feet tall and dressed in like one-piece silvery suits and a helmet.
Almost like astronauts.
"One
of the little men then held up some kind of in-Nlrument," her story went on. "Don't ask me what it
was.
It made kind of little sparkles in the air,
and he turned around and pointed it in several directions. Like
he was measuring something."
She
shook her head, mystified. "I guess one of the little men then saw me
looking out the window. I saw him turn my way, then make a gesture, and the
other two quickly ran under their hovering machine and floated back up inside.
Then the oval object just shot up into the sky like a meteor going the wrong
way, and in seconds it was only a star that soon winked out."
"Did
you tell your husband the story?" Thane wanted to know.
"Yes, the next morning. He just laughed
and went to work. But I couldn't keep it inside of me so I phoned the paper—The Tanglewood
Weekly—and told them. They
sent their man around. But it was after that that
the rest happened . . ."
Fear sprang into her eyes and the words came
out with a rush.
"The next afternoon, when I was home
alone, a big black car pulled up and three men stepped out, dressed in black
suits. They rang the front doorbell and said they were 'security agents' of the
government who were investigating all saucer sightings, so I let them in. They
even showed credentials without my asking."
She
paused, her mouth open. "Then what happened?" prompted Thane,
impatiently.
"Well,
you won't believe the rest. As soon as the door closed behind us, the three men
in black became very serious and warned me not to talk about my sighting to anyone else. Or else I would be in great trouble."
"Did they make any specific
threats?"
"Oh,
yes." The woman's eyes shone in terror now. "They didn't say it
directly maybe, but they hinted that they would have revenge through my husband
or even" —her voice broke—"even my children.
I guess what they really
wanted was the thing I found," the woman was saying. Thane sat up.
"What thing?"
"The
next morning, after my husband left for work, I went out in the field where the
saucer had landed. And In the grass I found an odd little . . . well,
instrument of .some kind, maybe the one that made sparkles."
"So you gave it to
them."
"I
was scared not to. And now, I'm still afraid," said
I lie woman, wailingly.
"Now that I've done what they warned me not to and told you . . . oh, what
will happen to me?"
The fear in her eyes was the same fear
Standish and Todd had displayed. So THAT was the reason they had both reneged
about telling their stories. They, too, had been visited by the inexplicable
men-in-black.
What had happened to Standish's cordwood? Had the men-in-black visited
the farmer, threatened him, and 'confiscated' the cordwood with the red stain?
If someone wanted to keep solid evidence of the existence of UFO's out of authoritative hands, that might be I lie way they'd do it, through impersonation and intimidation.
But just who were the men-in-black, exactly?
What was their game?
"Is there anything else you know about
those three men who threatened you?" asked Thane
hopefully. '(lould you
describe any one of them or point him out if arrested?"
Auburn
locks tossed as she shook her head. "They looked sort of . . . well,
average. They were all about I lie same
build. One was hghter-skinned than the other I wo. Clean-shaven. Neat
shirts and ties . . . pleasant faces. . . ."
Her voice trailed off vaguely. The hardest
person to pick out of a crowd was always the 'average man. Thane shrugged,
giving up. "Then they drove away?"
"Yes,
with a last warning that I should keep my mouth shut about anything I had seen
the night before."
"Thanks,
Mrs. Ranslick," said Thane, getting up. He
needed a chance to digest all this. "Now please don't worry because you
told me. I'll never give you away. The men-in-black won't know you told
me."
Tooling
his way back through town to take the road to his shack, Thane swung around a
corner—and gasped. A big black car was parked on the street. And with their
eyes glued on him penetratingly, three men lounged at the corner.
Three men in black suits. .
. .
Thane drove on, thoughts boiling like an
overheated pot. Too much had happened this one morning for him lo properly evaluate everything. The switchover from a
complete UFO-skeptic to a saucer sighter, all in a
few hours, was enough in itself to make him dizzy. On top of I hat had been dumped the three stories of the
other witnesses.
Thane
drove home in a sort of short-circuited daze, unable to think any more on the
subject. It was hopeless lo try
getting at his typewriter today, so he again picked up the UFO book to read the
rest of it. He had been Interrupted in the middle by
the dogfight between two UFO's.
Four chapters later, his
eyes widened.
There
it was in front of him, a special report by John Sheel,
the author-UFOlogist, who
had for years traveled .ill around the country and interviewed flying saucer wiloesses in person.
"Time
and again," wrote Sheel, "I came across witnesses who refused to talk out of fear. They claimed mysterious people had visited them and warned them to keep quiet. The intruders had usually demanded some photo or other piece of evidence that might prove UFO's existed. The visitors were sometimes Air Force
officers, or FBI agents, even CIA operatives—so they said.
But all were
impostors. For when anybody checked with the Air Force or FBI, no such person was known to them!
"But
most of all, the visitors were black-suited men
who arrived in a big black car. You'll hear more
of them later. I've called them the MIB's—for men-in-black.'"
Trying to keep his fingers from trembling,
Thane tore open the packet of developed Kodak prints. The first was blank
except for a vague blotch. The second and third also. But the fourth . . .
Thane
stared, open-mouthed. Sharp and clear was the first saucer that he had snapped,
standing out against the blue sky with unmistakable reality. The other three
pictures out of the seven were not as good, but even they showed an undeniable
flying machine of disk shape, at various angles.
"I
saw them too," spoke up Bert in a hoarse whisper. "You told me I'd be
surprised. I was." He straightened up. "Now mind you, I still don't
believe in flying saucers, in spite of your snaps."
"You think I faked them, Bert?"
"I'm
not accusing you of anything," Bert said hastily. He went on stubbornly.
"But I just won't believe in 'em, that's all."
The common reaction of most people, according to Sheel's
book.
"Will my movies be in tomorrow at noon,
Bert?"
"On
the button," Bert nodded. "What have you got on them?'
"Something
nobody could fake," said Thane, going out.
Thane
waited at the You-Name-It Chemical Shop while Jansen took care of a customer.
Then the chemist shook his head. "I didn't finish my analysis yet, Mr.
Smith. Lordy, what kind of metal is it?
Out-of-this-world, you called it. What did you mean?"
"Just what I said, Professor." Thane eyed him. "Can you stand a shock,
Jansen? It came from a flying saucer."
"I
thought so," said Jansen quietly. "Why should I be shocked?"
"You
mean you believe in UFO's?" asked Thane incredulously. "Then you
must have seen one yourself."
"No,"
said Jansen. "But I've read enough books and studied enough sightings by
others to convince me. Tell i no
all about yours, Mr. Smith."
Thane
obliged and showed Jansen his photos. The chemist whistled. "Your sighting
might blow the lid off the whole controversy, especially if I can analyze that
metal and prove it wasn't of earthly origin."
"Right,"
agreed Thane. "I'll be in tomorrow and see if you have any results."
He had not told Jansen of the MIB's. He couldn't quite believe in their
machinations himself as yet, not without further substantiation.
Thane
could not make up his own mind at the moment, not without further study and
thought about the entire UFO phenomenon. He would have to read up more and see
what evidence, if any, there was for each theory of origin.
Glancing up from his intense scrutiny of the
snapshots, Thane was startled to see a face peering in at him, through the
luncheonette window. The face of a man dressed in . . .black!
The
face almost instantly disappeared. Were they watching him? Did they know he had
photos? Had they <becked at the camera shop? Thane
ate nervously, with those thoughts whirling in his mind. When he came out, ho
fully expected to see the three MIB's loitering casually at the corner, near
their big black car, but nothing was in sight.
Relieved, Thane got into his own car and
wheeled out of town. An hour later, back at his cabin, he strode to his
typewriter and yanked out the sheet that still had on it the title COLUMBUS ROCKET TO MARS.
That
was dead, kaput. Thane had no more interest in writing that article. His next
article would be about UFO's, if anything. He began typing up the detailed report
of his sighting the morning before, fresh and strong in his memory. Every
detail stood out vividly, burned into his brain by its very strangeness.
As
the UFO book suggested, when writing details, Thane gave every fact or estimate
he could. His technically trained mind came in handy here. Speed of original
saucer when coming down, about 5000 mph . . . shape, that of a flattened disk .
. . size, approximately 75 feet in diameter . . . height during the dogfight,
about 3000 feet.
But no sound. The utter silence of both craft, both in flight and while battling, had
been the most eeerie aspect of all. Even now, Thane
marveled how two craft could circle and dart at supersonic bursts of speed without
creating the least sound-waves or sonic booms. There was a real mystery, the
uncanny propulsion they must use that somehow suspended the laws of physics as
understood on earth.
These
peripheral thoughts flitted through Thane's mind as he continued with his
report. Duration of sighting .. .
Thane
jerked violently at the knock on the door, totally unexpected. He opened the
door and gasped. The three men-in-black were there. He hadn't even heard their
black car pull up in the driveway.
"Mr.
Thane Smith?" said one of the three politely. He was slightly taller than
the others. Swiftly, Thane noted that he was lighter-skinned than the other
two, tallying with Mrs. Ranslick's description. The same three MIB's. And it was true that their bland faces
were 'average,' not unusual in any way.
"Yes, what is
it?" Thane replied, guardedly.
"We're
from a security agency of the government. We understand you made a sighting . .
."
"How did you know
that?" demanded Thane sharply.
"Oh,
we have ways of finding out such things," the spokesman said, smiling
knowingly like an FBI agent might. "We also know you have photos of flying
saucers, or more properly, UFO's."
"Perhaps I have,"
snapped Thane. "What about it?"
The
three men looked at each other, then: "We want the negatives," came the blunt words.
"You don't get
them," returned Thane firmly.
"But
you don't understand. For reasons we can't go into, the government does not at
this time wish for the public at large to know that the UFO's exist."
"Which
government?"
Thane said suspiciously.
"Why,
our government—yours and ours."
"Show me your
credentials," demanded Thane.
Without
hesitation, the spokesman withdrew a leather folder from his pocket and opened
it up. "See? We are from the Security Service of the Board of Space Technology
and. . ."
"A
worthless fake," said Thane flatly. "There's no U.S. seal on it. That
makes you impostors. Just who do you
represent?"
The
three men were obviously taken aback at being thus suddenly exposed. Then their
faces swung toward Thane, as if in reproval. "If
you don't give them to us we will take them away from you."
Thane crouched, tensing his body and
loosening his muscles, as he had been trained to do in college. Maybe they
didn't know he had been the boxing champ there, and also a karate graduate, not
to mention some wrestling and judo stints, as well as football and track.
Thane
suddenly leaped and jabbed a jolting
punch squarely on the leader's chin, with all the power of his 190 pounds
behind it. Whirling, he chopped with the heel of his palm at the second man's
neck and heard liim groan. Both went down, out of
action for the time being.
But
the third man, obviously trained for action, stepped back in time to avoid the
kick that Thane had aimed for his groin. He leaped forward then before Thane
could recover and a fist exploded in his face.
Thane
staggered back. It had been a powerful
blow. He could feel the blood trickling over his lips. The man came at him
viciously, fists, pounding. But Thane was now warding off the blows.
Suddenly,
he lowered his head and took his assailant by surprise, butting him hard in the
midsection. Then Thane kept driving his legs as if heading for the goal posts
with a football, with his head still down, and drove the man stumblingly
backward until he crashed into the log wall of the cabin with a dull thud.
Groggily,
he kept his feet but he was out of action too.
"Out," grated Thane. "Out, you
scum." The three men did not seem to want to tackle the blazing-eyed tall
man again. Obediently, they staggered
out,
half-lugging the man who had been felled by the karate blow.
"I
could have killed him,'* hissed Thane. "Remember that, in case you ever
think of bothering me again. I could call the police and demand your arrest,
except that it would be three witnesses to one and you could lie
your way out of it. So get going. And stay out of my sight."
The
three MIB's got in their car. Just as it began rolling, the leader stuck his
face out the window, still with its bland, almost friendly expression.
"You are a skillful man of action, Mr.
Smith. But we advise you, nevertheless, not to show or publish those photos
anywhere, nor submit your report of having seen a UFO dogfight. That is a
warning."
The
car sped away. Dabbing at his nosebleed with a hanky, Thane had a dazed look in
his eyes. How
had they known he had seen the saucer dogfight? They couldn't have seen the movie sequence
themselves, and Thane had told no one yet of his incredible sighting, unique
among all sightings in the UFO book he had read.
What uncanny way did they have of finding out
such things? Who were they in the first place? Were they part of a hidden
organization on earth, as John Sheel had maintained?
An ancient race whose culture was unknown to the world at large, basically
opposed to civilization as we know it?
Thane returned to his typewriter and finished
his report. But he had more to do than that, from now on. He had a mission to
perform—ferreting out the secret of the mysterious and menacing men-in-black.
Driving toward town with his report the next
morning, Thane patted his coat's breast pocket. In there
lay his negatives. They were too precious now to be left unguarded or even
hidden at his cabin. He would have to carry them with him wherever he went. Now
to the police with his sighting report, as a good citizen should.
Thane
started. In his rear vision mirror there was . . 0 a
big black car.
So,
they were going to try other tactics, following him and . . . what? Thane found
out as he rounded a bend where the roadway at the right skirted a steep slope
ending in rock rubble. With a roar,
the black car came up behind hrm and tried to wedge
through to the left.
You wont run me off the road. Thane was already swinging left and blocking them off. Their fenders
scraped a little but the black car had to withdraw or
get squeezed against the rocky rise to the left of the road.
Now
Thane stepped on the accelerator. His Corvair was
still good for 100 mph plus on the straightaway ahead. But the big black car
hung easily on his tail. Though it had an unfamiliar body style, Thane surmised
it was some go-go monster like a Cadillac
or Imperial.
Thane
couldn't hope to win this race and sooner or later they might maneuver him off
the road at another bad spot. He tightened his grip on the wheel and a thin
smile came across his lips. They didn't know the trick he had learned while
hot-rodding in his younger days.
Thane
suddenly braked, taking them by surprise, but only enough so that the black car
nudged into his rear bumper. However, when the surprised MIB driver also
braked, in delayed reaction, that was when Thane swung
a little left and braked hard.
This
time, the black car's front bumper struck Thane's rear bumper at a sharp angle.
The wheel was practically wrenched out of the other driver's hands, as Thane
could see in his rear-vision mirror. The black car careened off the road
across a broad shallow ditch and kept on, weaving crazily in a bumpy field.
"Have run," laughed Thane as the
black car disappeared in a tall cornfield. The car wouldn't be damaged nor
would the men be hurt, but by the time they got back on the road, their quarry
would be out of sight. And Thane knew three different routes to town. Let them
guess for the rest of the day which one he had taken.
Twice
he had foiled them. Thane felt good. But he also felt a bit sick underneath. He
began to divine what a grim game they were playing, and how determined they
were to muffle him. What would this cat-and-mouse game escalate into, before it
was over?
Arriving
in town, with the MIB car nowhere in sight, Thane parked across from the police
station. Clutching the envelope that held his report, and patting the pictures
in his breast pocket, he took a breath and marched in.
The desk sergeant slapped down the typed
report. Leaning over, he eyed Thane up and down.
"Are you a drinking man, Smith?" His hp was curled.
"Do
you beat your wife, Sergeant?" returned Thane in kind.
"Now listen here, you . . ." began
the frowning officer.
"Look at these," interrupted Thane,
handing him his photos.
They
made no impression on the Sergeant. "Anybody can fake pictures like that,
mister," he drawled, tossing them back. "Look, Smith. We've seen
dozens of photos like this, of flying saucers, dishpans, hubcaps, and what have
you. And that's just what they are."
"But
what if some of the photos and stories are true?" argued Thane, feeling as
if he were talking to a stone wall.
The Sergeant snorted. "If we believed
every report we got, then we'd have swallowed the story a nice elderly gent
came in with last month. How a flying saucer landed near his home and people
with long golden hair got out. They flew him through space at a million miles a
minute and took him to Mars, where he saw a great civilization. He has a
message for the people of earth, that we must all live in peace and brotherhood
or . . ."
He broke off, disgustedly.
"But
I'm not a contactée," protested Thane. He had read of them in the
UFO book, the lunatic fringe of people who had hitched their wagons to a
flying star. Most were sincere and harmless, but deluded. They always had a
'message' to get across to their fellow man.
The
Sergeant's phone rang. Waiting, Thane debated whether to add verbally his
encounter with the three men-in-black. He shook his head to himself. What good
would it do? He would surely be a nut in their eyes then.
This
was the typical kind of stubborn disbelief all UFO witnesses met, when
reporting to the authorities, according to John Sheel's
book. And truth to tell, Thane Smith himself would have listened to Thane
Smith's story with an amused smile—only 48 hours before.
The
Sergeant hung up and turned back. "If you want to file your report for the
record, Smith, it's your right . . ."
"No, thanks." Thane turned on his heel, taking his report and photos with him. The
police would neither check his sighting nor hunt down the MIB's, not on Thane's
unsupported word.
Thane
decided to tackle the Air Force, despite its unsavory reputation as the
greatest UFO skeptic of all, at least officially. Watching in his rear-vision
mirror as he drove away, he saw no big black car trailing him. Had they given
up harassing him?
It was 76 miles to Robbins AFB. The gate
guard perfunctorily stopped him, then let him through
with a pass to Colonel Taggert, who received all UFO
reports.
Broad
of shoulder and with a dapper mustache, Colonel Taggert
was excessively polite. "We are always glad when the citizenry reports an
alleged UAO to us."
"You
don't use the term flying saucer, do you?" said Thane, feeling him out. "Or even UFO—Unidentified Flying Object."
A
pained expression crossed the Colonel's face. "We prefer the term UOA for
Unidentified Aerial Object. After all, nobody has really proved they fly under their own power."
That
was a good start, thought Thane, already kicking himself for coming. The
Colonel read his report with practiced eyes. He whistled a bit on the second
page and raised his eyes.
"A dogfight between two UAO's, no
less," he remarked in tones carefully kept noncommittal. "I must
admit this is a new angle we've never heard reported before. Well, no matter.
It says you have photos."
Thane
handed them over, narrowly watching the Colonel's reaction. He did not even
raise an eyebrow as he shuffled through the four prints slowly. But Thane could
detect the slightest quiver of his lip as he asked: "We like to check all
photos in case they are of any significance. May we have the negatives,
sir?"
"No,
you may not have the negatives, Colonel," said Thane flatly. He had been
warned by Sheel's book that, in too many cases, the
Air-Force had permanently 'borrowed' negatives, which were never returned to
their owners. Or so, at least, it had been alleged and Thane was taking no
chances.
The
Colonel shrugged. "You can leave your written report. Mr. Smith, if you
wish. It will be thoroughly and scientifically analyzed by our experts and sent
to the ATIC at Wright AFB for further evaluation."
"Just
what do you think of the report, Colonel?" Thane
knew it was a loaded question but he was curious to hear the officer's verdict,
on the spot.
"As
you know," said the Colonel carefully, Tve examined
literally hundreds of UAO reports sent in. I've become something of an expert
in, shall we say, diagnosing them."
He
put his fingertips together. "In my opinion, Mr. Smith—mind you, only an
opinion—what you saw were two hawks having a fight, perhaps one having invaded
the other one's hunting territory, so to speak."
"Hawks?" Thane was staggered, even though he had been somewhat prepared by
classic examples of USAF 'explanations' in Sheel's
book. Naming them stars that weren't even in the sky at the time. Calling them balloons that strangely went against the wind at
supersonic speed. Saying they were the planet Venus at midnight when any
schoolkid knew that Venus always set long before
midnight.
But this—two hawks!
"Why
didn't I hear their screeches?" Thane demanded, irate now. The Colonel
was treating him like a child. "How could they fly 40 degrees of angular
distance in seconds, at a speed of 5000 miles per hour? Why were there no legs
or claws or heads or beaks to be seen? Why didn't any feathers drop from their
battle?"
"My dear sir . .
."
"And how could one hawk explode into a
shower of sparks?" "Well, now . . ."
"Lastly,"
shot back Thane on his way to the door with his report and photos, "did
you get eagles on your shoulders, Colonel, for making UFO's—UFO'S, I said—into hawks?"
Thane
could see that the Colonel's aplomb had been shattered,
by the way he angrily bit his lip. But polite to the last, he merely waved and
smiled. "We do our best, sir."
If the saucers could overfly the country day
and night with impunity, by the thousands, what security was there? Therefore,
as a plain matter of policy, the USAF was forced into the position of denying the
existence of craft they most likely believed existed.
In a
way, one could sympathize with the Air Force's dilemma and perhaps forgive it
for its campaign of deception. As long as the UFO's showed no hostility—and
they hadn't made any hostile moves for over 20 years— the Air Force was content
to let well enough alone and ignore them, officially.
Privately,
however, Sheel's book maintained that the USAF avidly
followed up sightings and invariably sent jets in chase if UFO's were detected
by radar. There was the belief among UFOlogists, too,
that the Air Force secretly gave instructions for jet pilots to shoot at UFO's
and try to force them down.
Naturally,
one captured saucer and America might learn the great secret of its miraculous
propulsion system. But this was futile as the UFO's easily outmaneu-vered
our best jets and no UFO craft had yet been forced down, as far as anyone knew.
The
inherent danger of this course had been pointed out by Sheel
too. What if the flying saucers fired back, sometime? Or what if, by sheer
chance, a UFO was shot down in flames? Would that precipitate
hostilities—a war of worlds?
Back in town, Thane regretted the time lost
in visiting Robbins AFB. He had almost forgotten his movie film, which should
be ready for pick-up.
"It's here," said Bert as he walked in, waving the box.
"Listen, Thane. Would you like to see them right away? Til
set up a projector in the back room and run 'em off.
Naturally, I'd like to see them myself."
Both
men gasped as the film suddenly switched from early footage of Thane's fishing
trip to the edge of the pine grove near Thane's cabin, and the sweep of sky to
the north. Two UFO's were cavorting through this arena, most often as a blur of
speed. But at times they stood out in clear-cut detail—the flat disk and the
domed saucer—unmistakably craft not of this world.
Some
of the rays that they shot at each other showed up in the film as faint violet
or rosy beams. The dogfight went on, the two craft weaving their unearthly
paths through the air.
"Lord!"
whispered Bert as the grim pageant ended with the domed disk bursting into a
Fourth-of-July shower of sparks. He opened the blinds, his face frozen in
amazement. "I'm all shook up," he admitted. "But I still don't
believe in 'em."
"You're just like the Air Force,"
said Thane bitterly. "And the police. Those two
agencies, and all authorities, will no doubt continue to deny the reality of
UFO's. The only way this can ever be brought into the open is through
scientists, as John Sheel said." He grinned.
"Then even you will believe, Bert."
Thane
next went to a corner phonebooth and called Theodore
Jansen's shop. "I've pinned down what that metal isn't" informed Jansen. "It's not aluminum, magnesium, berylhum, scandium or any
of the other well-known fight metals. The Fraunhofer
bright-Jine test gives a puzzling spectrum, as if it
has lithium in it."
"What's wrong with that?" Thane
wanted to know, then bit his tongue, remembering his
college chemistry.
"My
dear fellow," Jansen was saying witheringly, "lithium is as soft as
soap and can't be alloyed into a structural metal for
a flying craft ... or can it? Maybe
we just don't know how to do it on earth."
"Do you have to make more tests,
Professor?"
"Plenty
more," said the phone. 'Try me tomorrow, Mr. Smith."
Thane
hung up thoughtfully. If the piece of UFO metal turned out to be some
unheard-of alloy, not known to earthly metallurgy, then he really had something.
That, plus his movies and still photos, should be a triple-threat set of proofs
that no authority or scientist could brush off.
There was one good way to blast this whole
thing wide open—write an article for an illustrated magazine that would show
his photos and the best frames from the movies, and the full analysis of the
saucer metal. That, plus his own meticulous sighting report^ ought to raise a
rumpus.
The
leader of the men-in-black spoke in a monotone. "We have come for your
movie film."
"How
did you know I made a film?" Thane gasped, "Are you mind
readers?"
He
had arrived home to find the three inside his cabin.
The leader laughed. Though he gave no signal,
his two men began to circle around Thane from either side. They suddenly rushed
him with upraised clubs. Thane brought his hands around, gripping a baseball
bat. Ha was too fast for them.
"When
will you three goons learn," panted Thane, "that I can take care of
myself? Get going. And if you try to sneak back later, youTl
find a loaded shotgun resting in my lap as I type out my UFO article for
national circulation. Understand?"
Without
a word the three MIB's staggered away. Thane watched them head for the bushes
where no doubt they had parked their black car. He started and peered closely.
Were they now floating
above the ground, rather
than walking?
It
was only a fleeting glimpse, then
they vanished in the brush. But only a moment
later, a disklike shape with a dome on top shot up out of the woods.
Thane
was thunderstruck. What were the men-in-black doing in a flying saucer . . . unless they were sau~
cermen?
"It's
lithium," stated Theodore Jansen, the next day at his store.
"But you told me yourself it's soft as
soap," protested Thane. He turned over the piece of hard, shiny metal in
his hand. "So how can this be lithium?"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you. It's hardened
by potassium."
"Professor, if you are
making jokes . . ."
"What they've done is to subatomically link the atoms together. Locked their protons and
neutrons into a bond so rigid that the two soft metals come out one supremely
hard alloy. Harder than any metal known on earth.
As for its other remarkable qualities . . ."
Jansen
counted off on his fingers. "Melting point unknown, way
beyond my electric furnace. Magnetizes instantly, then demagnetizes as
soon as the coil turns off. Is completely scratchproof and nonbreakable by ordinary forces. Nonbrittle in
liquid nitgrogen down to minus 345 degrees
Fahrenheit. This product was made on some world unthinkably superior to
earth in science and technology."
"Don't
jump to conclusions," said Thane practically. "You're extrapolating
too much from one bit of stuff, Professor. But along with my pictures, it makes
for mighty strong proof that UFO's are real. That's
all I hope to prove. Finding out who or what the saucerians are will be a tougher job."
Thane
was thinking of the men-in-black as he left. Yes, who or what were they? He was
dismayingly re
minded' of them again, on the drive home, when he
saw the domed disk that suddenly shot down from the sky like a striking eagle.
They
had waylaid him in a lonely stretch of side road, with no farmhouses in sight.
And they must know, by reading his mind, that he now
carried with him the damning piece of saucer metal, as well as his negatives
and movie film. All three items within their reach . . .
Thane
cursed himself for not bringing his shotgun along, as he leaped from the car
and raced for the brush. Over his shoulder he saw the UFO hover low as a
hatchway opened. The three men-in-black floated down to the ground and started
to give chase on foot.
Thane sped into a dense growth of scrub
hoping to hide. But if they could pick up his thoughts, by telepathy, how
could he avoid capture?
Got
to sneak to the small bridge, thought Thane desperately, and cut across the field to the lumbermill . .
. lots of men there . . . Til be safe . . . easy does
it, through the bushes to the small bridge.. . .
The
three MIB's were waiting at the small wooden bridge that crossed the crick.
Thane grinned, watching from a hundred yards away. He had fooled them with his false thought of getting to the bridge. All the while he had been creeping the
other way, toward the gully that led back to the road.
Taking the chance that nobody else was in the
saucer, in the air, Thane dashed into his car. The engine started perfectly. He
had read in Shed's book that the electromagnetic force did not damage car
engines, merely killed them temporarily.
With a roar, the car shot away. Thane thumbed
his nose back at the three startled MIB's who turned and ran from the bridge.
Swinging off the side road, Thane got on the highway where traffic was heavy
and state police cruised by regularly. The saucermen
wouldn't dare show their craft to hundreds of pairs of eyes.
There
was no further pursuit and Thane pulled off the highway onto his private dirt
road. Again he was alone,, but the road led through
lofty pines that formed a shield overhead so that a car was just about
invisible from the air.
Thane
reached his cabin safely, ran in, and barricaded the door. Then he picked up
his shotgun, checked that it was loaded, and put it across his knees as he
typed. He was facing the door and main window. They would have no way of
surprising him.
That's
what he thought. The next moment, his eyes bugged as he looked up, to see a hole forming in the roof. Not a hole exactly. The
roof was simply turning transparent.
And above he could see the
circular bottom of a saucer.
What
kind of weird powers were they using now? Thane's hands went limp. The shotgun
slid to the floor. His whole body was paralyzed. Then some invisible force
gently seized him and lifted him up through the hole in the roof. Suspended in
the air and rising, Thane looked down to see the roof solid again. He had somehow
been whisked through solid matter. Things had gone from the incredible to the
fantastic.
He
was drawn helplessly up into the lower hatchway of the craft and deposited on
his feet, whereupon his paralysis abruptly departed.
"All
right, you win," he said turning. "When you men-in-black pull superscience stuff like this, what chance
have I . . . ?"
He choked. The three figures he faced were
not the MIB's.
Two were men and one was a woman, all three dressed in everything but black. Their form-fitting garmerits were all colors of the rainbow. One man was dark-haired,
the other blond. The girl had red hair.
"Who are you?"
Thane said, bewildered.
"Your
friends," said the dark-haired man, extending a hand for a handshake. "My name is Thalkon."
"Friends?"
grunted Thane. "Funny way to show it, yanking me out of
my cabin."
"Yes,
to keep the Morhans—men-in-black you call them—from
capturing you. Look."
Thalkon
waved his hand and a large screen hung on the wall swirled with patterns of
color that suddenly solidified into a clear picture. The view showed the domed
saucer landing near Thane's cabin. Then the three men-in-black floated out,
holding tubular weapons.
"They
had decided to use blasters on you," informed Thalkon.
Thane
watched in horrified fascination as the MIB's oozed through the side wall and
dashed in, ready to gun down their quarry. He could not help grinning at the
blank look on their faces when they saw the place empty.
"They
will think you somehow slipped away," said Thalkon,
"not realizing we rescued you."
"What's this all
about?" Thane pleaded, half-dizzily.
"We
are the enemies of the Morhans," said Thalkon. "We are the Galactic Vigilantes, keeping law
and order throughout space."
Thane stood more paralyzed than before. Paralyzed at this sudden overwhelming revelation, like something
out of Alice in Wonderland. Finally, he recovered and asked: "You mean you sort of patrol all
other worlds like a . . .a state trooper
on our highways?"
"That's
a good analogy," smiled Thalkon. "Our mission is to guard earth and prevent
the Morhans from accomplishing their long-planned
coup."
"You mean they want to conquer earth or
something like that?"
"No,"
denied Thalkon. "It is something far different. And more deadly."
"What
could be more deadly?" returned Thane blankly. "Let me have it
straight."
"That
is all we are permitted to tell," said Thalkon.
He turned waving. "My companions are Kintor and Miri-bel."
The
red-haired girl smiled warmly and took Thane's hand. "We will make your
enforced stay with us as pleasant as possible." With her around, thought
Thane, it would be more than pleasant.
"Thank you," she said with a little
bow.
Thane's
face turned crimson. "Good Lord, you read thoughts too," he
stammered, cutting off further thoughts he had about her.
Kintor,
the other man, put a peculiar skullcap on Thane's head. "It
is not fair for your private thoughts to be an open book. And you have not
learned to shield your own mind. This psycho-shield will do it for you."
"Thanks,"
said Thane, relieved. "But where are you taking me?"
"To our mother-ship," the girl
replied. She waved her hand at the monitor screen with a brief word of explanation
to Thane—'thought control.' The screen's spangled patterns now solidified into
the scene of earth's curvature spinning away from them below.
Thane
clutched at a railing, utterly startled. "We're flying
in space," he breathed, stunned.
"Just
like your astronauts," Miribel nodded. "Our
mother-ship is positioned at a height
of 1000 of your earth miles."
She
waved again and the scene abruptly switched upward, where a cigarlike object hung in the black sky. It rapidly
enlarged as they drew closer until Thane could see its immense size.
"1,000
feet long?" he guessed, knowing he was underestimating.
"Times ten,"
smiled the girl.
10,000 feet, two miles?" Thane looked at her disbeliev-ingly.
"But Echo I, the balloon satellite that came down in 1968, was only 100
feet wide and at an altitude of 1,000 miles could be seen with the naked eye
from earth. Then your 2-mile ship should be easily visible . . ."
"Only
if we choose it to be," said Miribel. "We
have methods for bending light-rays, or radar pulses, so that nothing registers
on the eyes or instruments of your people."
Now,
on the screen, Thane could see a hatchway
opening in the mother-ship. But it was not like a trapdoor or any conventional
entrance. It was more like the lens opening of a camera, slowly and steadily enlarging into a round hole.
As their craft shot into the entry port of
the mother-ship, Thane was struck by something. "We left earth with
enormous speed and now we decelerated at a rate that should have crushed us all
with g-forces. Why do we feel nothing?"
"We
are isolated from all other gravity forces by an electromagnetic field,"
spoke up Kintor, who was punching the button
controls of their disk. "In this EM field, which simulates gravity, each
of us—every atom of our bodies—is pulled along in unison, so that there is no
wrenching or strain."
"What
happened to the law of inertia?" Thane demanded. "It works
independently of gravity."
"We
suspend the law of inertia," said Kintor
blandly, "but I can't explain how to an earth mind. There are certain
things beyond the understanding of your science and for which you have no
terms."
Their
small craft now stopped, within the giant mother-ship. Through a porthole,
Thane could see that they were parked along with a dozen other saucercraft in a row. Thalkon led
the way as they stepped out in a huge chamber.
Thalkon and
Kintor started floating away. Miribel
took Thane's hand and suddenly he too was floating without visible support.
"Mental
levitation," explained the girl briefly. Thane let it go at that. But
there was one question he could ask.
"What are your plans
for me?"
Thalkon turned his head to answer. "We will
keep you here as our guest until the Morlians—the
three men-in-black—give up waiting for your return to your cabin."
"But
just why are they after me and my UFO evidence?"
"Because
they don't want the world at large to suspect that they, being aliens, really
exist. They want the situation to remain as confused as it is, with the
authorities officially denying the existence of UFO's and therefore, of any people
from outer space."
"Then
that's why they intimidated Standish, Todd and Theda Ranslick, as well as myself," mused Trane.
"And many thousands of others,"
added Thalkon. "Whenever anyone's sighting
carries some strong evidence with it—photos, movies, artifacts—the Morlians move in and hush it up."
"And my sighting was
particularly damaging?"
"Exactly, Thane Smith. You happened to witness—and photograph—a battle between two saucers. Namely, between a Vigilante craft and a Morlian ship. And you
even obtained a piece of the destroyed Morlian
craft."
"You
know all that too, eh?" said Thane, uncomfortably. "I feel as if
I've been a goldfish in a bowl with my every movement watched for the past four
days."
"The hairy dwarfs are allies of the Morlians, from a different
world. Now, what you didn't hear from Jack Todd is one important part of his
story. When he saw their saucer land and went there to investigate, he first
spied them talking to Morlians who had landed nearby
in their own saucer. That's what the Morlians had to
cover up when they intimidated Jack Todd, as well as the scratches from
three-fingered hands."
Thane
nodded. "Now what about the nonhairy
little men?"
"They were our allies," responded Thalkon. "The instrument
that sparkled, according to the woman observer, was a device for detecting any
landed Morlian ship within twenty five miles. We keep
constant vigilance against their landings for a certain reason. What they
wanted from the woman was the instrument itself. The Morlians
have none themselves. Their technology is behind ours."
Thane
realized he was involved in a very complex game that might take hours or days
to explain to an earthman. He couldn't hope to encompass the vast scope of this
outer space drama and intrigue with a few questions.
"And
the Standish sighting?" he asked, just to take care of that. "Whose
ally was that, yours or theirs?"
"Neither,"
said Thalkon, really surprising Thane. "You see,
besides the Vigilantes and Morlians, there are many
other worlds whose exploration craft occasionally stop at earth. Their
intentions are often just scientific observation. But since they inadvertently
dropped exhaust fluid that stained some cordwood red, the Morlians
felt obliged to cover up that sighting too."
"In
oilier words," summed up Thane, "the Morlians
nro fanatically determined to keep earth from
realizing lliul Ul'O's of
any kind or origin are real, thus protecting llicii
own seerel doings on earth?"
"Exactly,"
nodded Thalkon. "Wherever strong evidence shows
up, they make it their business to suppress
it.
"But they've failed in my case, thanks
to you Vigilantes," said Thane.
Thalkon eyed him. "We didn't want the Morlians to get your evidence because—he paused before
going on— "we want it ourselves."
"You
. . . what?" choked Thane. "You mean you snatched me away from the Morlians only to get the evidence away from me?"
"Yes, but we never use what you call strongarm methods. Never force. We can only request that you turn it over to us,
voluntarily."
"Why?"
"We
too wish to remain myth' to earth-people. And your evidence is too significant,
revealing the struggle going on between the Galactic Vigilantes and the Mor-lians."
"Please."
Thane's mind was whirling now. T can see the reason for the Morlians
wanting to hide their presence, assuming they've got some rotten design on
earth. But if you're on our side, as guardians of law and order as you claim,
why should you conceal your presence?"
Thalkon shook his head rather helplessly and Miribel answered.
"It
is not permitted, Thane Smith. We are bound under certain Galactic Laws
regarding other civilized worlds. It is doubtful if we could ever really
explain and make any sense to you. But we are just as anxious as the Morlians to keep the presence of our saucercraft
on earth a secret."
"Maybe
your plan is the rotten one," countered
Thane, confused and suspicious. "How do I know your motives are
good?"
"You don't," admitted Miribel.
"All right, if the Morlians
are so wicked, what is their sinister plot against earth?" "It is not
permitted to tell."
Thane got up and threw his hands in the air.
"It is not permitted! It is not permitted! So far you've left me
completely in the dark and I don't know who or what to believe."
"No matter," spoke up Thalkon. "The question is,
will you turn over to us the UFO evidence you carry?" "And if I
refuse?"
"That is your right, Thane Smith. I told
you we do not use force. You see, it is not. . . well,
not permitted."
"I'm
glad for once to hear that phrase," grinned Thane, without humor.
"You mean then that if I choose to keep my evidence, you won't do anything
about it. What if I write up this whole experience?"
"You
won't be believed," smiled Miribel. "At least, not our rescuing you and hiding you up here in
space." She frowned. "However, the story of your sighting,
backed up with three kinds of evidence, might stir up a furor and bring about
scientific investigation of the saucer controversy on earth."
"Which is what you don't want,"
guessed Thane.
"Which
is what we don't want," agreed Thalkon.
"Not yet," he added. "Someday, earth will be told all, but that
day has not yet come."
"Crazy,"
said Thane, pacing the floor. "The whole deal's
mad, insane, incomprehensible. Two groups of aliens on earth,
one struggling against the other. One with evil
intentions, the other beneficent—presumably. And both
groups striving to keep their existence unbelieved
among earth-people. Wild . . . nonsensical. . . ."
"On
one thing we can agree, though," said Thalkon
calmly. "That we keep you here until the Morlians—the
MIB's—leave your cabin."
Thane nodded. "I can't argue with that.
But let's get things straight. While I'm here, I will not turn over my UFO evidence to you. And I firmly intend to try to prove
that saucers exist, when I get back, using that evidence. Okay with you?"
Thalkon sighed and rose. "It is not permitted
to interfere with a free man's decisions. Let us see now what is going on at
your cabin. . . ."
He waved and a nearby monitor screen lit up,
its chaotic colors blocking into a scene inside Thane's cabin.
The
place was a turmoil with the three MIB's ransacking the place,
searching everywhere.
"Blast
them," growled Thane. "Wrecking my place.
They think maybe I hid the evidence somewhere."
A
moment later, they gave up, staring at each other. Then they went out, floated
into the woods, and took off in their domed saucer.
"They've
left," said Thane. "But why didn't you just blast their saucer before
and free me of their unwelcome attentions?"
"Another
squad of three MIB's would have been instantly assigned to go after you and
your evidence. We would have gained nothing."
Thane had a curious thought. "Yet one of your saucers shot down a Morlian domed disk, during that aerial dogfight I
saw. What was that all about?"
"That
Morlian craft," said Thalkon, "was engaged
in placing a certain installation in that area, which had
to be prevented at all costs."
On
the trip from the mother-ship back to earth, in the small saucer, Thane found
himself staring at Miribel and admiring her. She
looked like any girl on earth except for her alien dothing.
She could be anyone's sister, or wife. . . .
"Are
you people ... uh ... perfectly human?" Thane asked
"A rather blunt question and I don't mean to be impolite. Do you only look human or are you human through and through?"
"We're
as human as you," laughed the girl. "Evolution on similar worlds
follows the same pattern with the same end result. That's a biological rule your scientists have not yet discovered."
"You'll
have to tell me about your world sometime," began Thane. "That is, if
we ever meet again."
"Who
knows?" said the girl noncommittally. "That is up to chance."
Thane
hoped chance would deal the right cards, in the future, so that he might again
see this lovely creature from . . . where? He didn't even know where her home
world was. But there was no time for more questions as the saucer landed
outside his cabin. It was night now.
"Wear
your psycho-shield cap constantly," said Thal-kon,
"And the Morlians will be unable to trace you by
your thoughts."
Miribel waved from the underside hatchway as it
slowly closed. Then the disk spun away at fantastic speed. Thane stood staring
at the spot for a while. He turned to his cabin.
Hands
poised over the keys, he felt momentary guilt. He was, in a sense, betraying
his alien rescuers, who hoped he would not write up his sighting or present his
gold-plated evidence.
Setting
his lips firmly, he began typing. This was not his bare report but a full-blown
article aimed at mass circulation. It would go in prestigious Pictorial magazine and come to the attention of
authorities and scientists. All would know this could be no crackpot
presentation.
It
might well blow the lid off the UFO controversy and start off serious
investigation. It might start the ball rolling to where the National Academy of
Science, Congress, even the United Nations became interested and launched a
worldwide search for UFO's. Sometimes, it only took a spark like this to set a
conflagration going, one that was already overdue according to John Sheel's book.
Thane
typed half the night. He even forgot the loaded shotgun within easy reach. Once
he heard a suspicious sound outside, but found it was an opossum grubbing
through his garbage pail.
The MIB's, mystified by his complete
disappearance, had been thrown off the track for now anyway, giving Thane the
breathing spell he needed to finish his job. He wore his psycho-shield cap as Thalkon had suggested.
Tomorrow
he would deliver the completed manuscript. The tide
was-SAUCERMEN AMONG US.
He
was ushered into the sanctum of Pictorial magazine
with his briefcase. Bill Eggerton, editor-in-chief,
greeted him with a perfunctory smile but then barked: "Listen, Thane. You
phone me at the beastly hour of 9:15 when you know no office gets going before
9:30. Were
all just waking up. Then you tell me you have a Tiot'
thing about a UFO sighting, plus pictures, and that you want it read and okayed
today."
"You
won't regret the rush treatment when you read this," said Thane, tossing
over his manuscript.
"By
God, it had better be sensational" growled Eggerton.
"You know, it's only your reputation as a top writer that ever got me to
shove aside all my other work. And as you know, we've kept shy of the UFO
mishmash for fear of catering to contactée
kooks. Who is this sighting
by?"
"By myself," said
Thane quietly.
"You?"
exploded Eggerton. "But last time you were here,
with that Venus rocket piece, you told me you'd never touch flying saucers with
a ten-foot pole."
"I
found an 11-foot pole," said Thane humorlessly. "What Ï said then and what I'm saying now are horses of two different
colors."
Eggerton was still shaking his head.
"Hard-headed old Thane Smith a saucer sighter.
All right, hand over the photos first. If they aren't good, it's a wash-up
right away."
Thane handed over the stills. Eggerton scrutinized
them carefully. "Not bad. But then I've seen
UFO photos just as striking that were faked."
"You
have my word that these are authentic," said Thane.
Eagerly
now, Eggerton began reading the sheaf of typed
papers. He whistled now and then, during the first half. After he finished, he
slammed down the manuscript. "Dammit, man, you
know we don't use science-fiction."
"Every word is
true," said Thane tightly.
Eggerton fixed him with a cynical eye. T don't know what your game is, Thane, but you don't honestly
expect me to publish—or believe—this brainstorm, do you? It can't be true. You
dreamed it or drank the wrong rot-gut. You're a victim of illusions, delusions,
hallucinations . . ."
"Skip the psychoanalysis, Bill,"
snapped Thane. His voice turned soft. "It'll sell a million extra copies
of Pictorial."
"It'll
get us a million subscription cancellations, you mean," roared Bill,
banging his fist on the desk. "Utter drivel, nonsense. We'd be the
laughingstock of the nation."
T've got movies to back it up, Bill. Better than the stills."
"All UFO movies stink," retorted
the editor.
"How about this?" Thane held up the piece of metal. "Analyzed as
an alloy of lithium and potassium in an atomically locked state. Superior to any metal on earth. I have the signed statement
of a competent chemist."
Eggerton pushed aside his hand, "I don't care
what you have. The whole story is ridiculous to begin with. It just doesn't have
the ring of truth to it."
"Prove
that, Bill," challenged Thane. "Call in some outside person and let
him read it. Not one of your editors, who might be as prejudiced as you, but
someone not connected with Pictorial."
"All
right," agreed Bill, snapping on his intercom. To the puzzled receptionist
he said: "Miss Blaine. Go out in the corridor and ask the first person who
comes along to step into my office. Tell them it's important. I'll explain the
rest."
While
waiting, Thane mused that all was not lost. If the third party made an
objective reading of his manuscript and gave one bit of approval to its
matter-of-fact style of presentation, Bill would probably agree then to look at
the movies, which should swing him.
"Yes, what is it, sir?" came a feminine voice back of them.
"Oh, it's a girl that Miss Blaine rounded up," said Bill.
Thane
turned, and nearly fainted. "Miribel," he
stammered, "You?"
It
was unmistakably the red-headed girl of the Vigilante saucer, only dressed now
in earth-style clothing so that no one would suspect she was not of this world.
Her
eyes turned on him coldly. "I beg your pardon. My name is Myrna Darby. I
was returning from an appointment with my lawyer when a girl asked me to step in here."
"But aboard the saucer where we met . .
."
"Saucer? What are you talking about? We have never met before—anywhere."
"What
are you trying to pull, Thane?" said Bill, eyeing him wonderingly.
"You are seeing things." To the girl he said: "Please
forgive me. I need your help. Will you read this manuscript and tell us whether
you believe what it says? I'll pay you for your time."
Though
surprised at the unusual request, the girl agreed.
Thane watched her face as she read,
especially when she came to the last half describing how he had met Mi-ribel, the saucer girl, and their trip into space.
Not
a flicker crossed her face. Not a sign of betrayal of her new pose as an earthgirl. She smiled as she finished. "The way you
describe this Miribel, I'm flattered that you mistook
me for her."
"But
you are Miribel," insisted Thane. He went on
desperately. "Surely you're not going to make a liar out of me. One word
from you and my story is proved. . . ."
Thane
choked off. He remembered now Miribel saying
"We are just as anxious as the Morlians to keep
the presence of our spacecraft on earth a secret."
"Do
you believe what you just read, Miss Darby?" asked Eggerton
now.
She
shook her head. "If you mean is it convincing, no. I don't believe a word
of it. Whoever wrote it must have a vivid imagination. It doesn't have . . .
well, the ring of truth."
Bill Eggerton
looked triumphantly at Thane. "Thanks, Miss Darby. Sorry to trouble you.
Leave your address with the receptionist and we'll send you a check."
"That won't be necessary. Glad to have
been able to help." She went out without a backward glance at Thane, who
stood slump-shouldered and defeated.
"Listen,
Thane," said Eggerton in a kindly voice.
"When you begin to imagine UFO dogfights and rides in saucers, and when
you imagine that any strange girl going by is your 'Miribel' . . . well, why don't you see a doctor, old
man?"
Without a word, Thane picked up his pictures
and manuscript and left, his face burning. Humiliation and anger both burned in
him. He rushed out in the hall. The girl was just getting in the elevator.
Thane squeezed in just before the doors closed. They were alone.
"Miribel,"
accused Thane, bracing himself for a possible slap in the face.
"Yes,
Thane?" she said sweetly. "How nice to meet you
again."
She
touched his arm, sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Thane. It had to be. It is
too important. We must remain unknown here on earth."
"But
why?"
"For
your world's own good," said the girl sincerely. "You must believe
me. Someday, perhaps, we will explain why it is not permitted to make
ourselves known."
Thane
could not remain angry with her, despite what she had done. As they stepped out
of the elevator below, Thane asked, "Do you have to rush back to . . .
wherever you hide out? Can you take time to have lunch with me?"
"It's the least I can do to make it up
to you," she said, taking his arm.
At a quiet restaurant, Thane stared at her
curiously. "I know better than to ask leading questions, Miribel. I'll only get that it-is-not-permitted-to-tell
routine. But can you at least tell me something about your home world? Where it
is and what it's like?"
"It
is permitted to tell that," she laughed.
Her face became dreamy. "Our world is a beautiful world. We've had almost
a million years of civilization, you see. It is all like one big park or
garden. We live in roaming homes that can waft anywhere we wish, via
anti-gravity forces."
"What planet is it, of what star?"
"In
your earthly terms, it's just one of the many distant stars with
numbers—B-Beta-148. It is 787 light-years away, in your earth terms."
"Then
you're more than 787 years old, if you traveled here at the speed of light. Or
do you use some space-warp or dimensional short cut to travel swiftly across
the universe?"
"You've
been reading John Sheel," said the girl.
"We did too, as we read all earthly books about UFO's and keep tabs on how
close they get to the truth. Our method of space travel may be described as teleporta-tion."
"Instantaneous travel?" marveled
Thane.
"Yes.
Space and time are different than you think, here on earth. You have not
discerned the truly basic laws of the universe yet, in which there is an Nth dimension that crosses all points in space at the same
place and time."
"Whoa,"
said Thane, "go slow. You're way over my head already."
"There
is no simpler way to describe it. Briefly, we transpose our spaceship into the Nth dimension, then settle down on earth which is close by,
as all worlds are. It takes a very intricate chart,
however, to find your chosen destination out of so many, all packed
together."
"You
really travel in one instant across 787 fight-years?"
"It
does not even take one instant. There is no time in the Nth
dimension. It is like de-materializing on our world and then materializing on
earth, at the same time."
Thane nodded. That was like so many sightings
listed in Sheel's book, where the UFO seemed to
suddenly appear in a hazy mist, out of nowhere. Also, many saucers seemed to fade away instead of flying away. It tied up one loose end of the UFO riddle,
if nothing else.
"What
do you think of earth?" asked Thane, curiously, expecting a reaction of
disdain or worse, in comparison to her far-advanced world.
Surprisingly,
Miribel said: "I like earth very much. The
people are warm inside. Good stock, as planetary races go. And it's amusing,
really, how provincial earth-people are, resisting the belief that there are
countless other worlds in space superior in science, technology, culture, and
social progress."
"I
guess were sort of arrogant," Thane agreed humbly,
ashamed at how provincial' he had been only five days before.
"It's
just that your civilization is so young," said Miri-bel
soothingly. "You have barely emerged from prehistoric savagery in the
past 10,000 years. That is a mere tick in the time of planetary evolution. In a
few thousand more years you will be a mature member of the United Worlds."
"United Worlds?" Thane was intrigued. "What's
that?"
"A
galactic organization of advanced worlds . . ." The girl put a hand to her
mouth. "But it is not permitted to tell more."
Thane groaned. It was exasperating to get a
hint of so many vast new revelations out in the macro-universe only to have all
further illumination cut off abruptly.
"I like your earth food too,"
volunteered Miribel, digging into a dish of Moo Goo Gai Penn with relish. "Spicy, strong, carelessly cooked but
it has a vigorous quality."
"Everything we do is backward?" winced Thane.
She
turned her limpid, indigo eyes on him in quick understanding. "Don't feel
so bad. After all, the child has to grow into the man. The human race will gain
wisdom in time ... hopefully."
"You mean—?"
"Not
all races, humanoid or otherwise, develop in the right way. The wrong twists
and turns in their history and they become maverick worlds, like Morli."
"The men-in-black?"
"Yes,
their world pursues its own evil ends, as do many other wayward planets.
Remember, out of millions of civilized worlds they cannot all follow the right
path toward a morally matured society. That is why the Galactic Vigilantes
were formed."
"I'll ask no more," grunted Thane.
"Verboten."
After
paying, Thane strolled out with the girl. "I'm heading back for Kennedy
Airport," he said. "And you?"
"Oh, I'll just wander around the city
until dark, when 111 be
picked up by a scout saucer."
"Want to join me in a taxi ride to the
airport?"
She agreed and Thane hailed a cab. After they
stepped in, the girl suddenly tensed. "I feel danger," she said.
"Close by . . . the driver! He's a Morlian!"
A bland, 'average' face turned and grinned
mockingly at them. In his hand was a tubular device from which a violet mist
belched, straight into their faces.
"Sleep
gas," gasped Miribel. That was the last thing
Thane heard as his mind plunged into a black pit.
When Thane's mind struggled awake, he saw
clouds rushing by at a dizzying rate. He was in a plastic bubble dome on top of
a wide flat saucercraft.
"A
Morlian craft," came
Mirabel's voice beside him. She had already come to. Across the chamber were
three Morlians, manipulating button controls. Miribel pointed down. Thane saw endless waters rushing
beneath. "The Pacific Ocean," she continued. "And I have a hunch
. . ."
Suddenly, the craft tilted downward.
"We're going to crash at sea!" gasped Thane in alarm.
But
to his surprise, he felt no jar as they contacted the watery surface. Instead,
the saucer slid smoothly under the waves and simply continued.
"All
saucercraft can submerge and sail down through the
ocean," said Miribel casually. "It makes no
difference to an electromagnetic propulsion engine." Thane recalled now
that Sheel's book had listed sightings of 'diving
saucers,' many times.
"How
far down are we going?" wondered Thane as the light died and a powerful
searchlight beam stabbed ahead.
"Perhaps to the bottom," shrugged Miribel. Thane blinked. "Five to
seven miles down, without trouble?"
"This
plasto-dome and the craft's hull are impervious to
any pressure," nodded Miribel. "Morlian saucer technology is close to ours. We are
perfectly safe. But at
least I've learned something. The Morlians have one base at the seabottom,
here on earth."
She
pointed down and Thane saw a glow of light that grew into a huge plasto-dome resting on the oozy ocean floor. As the saucer
tilted and dived at breakneck speed straight toward the dome, no door or
hatchway of any kind opened. Though turning pale, Thane said nothing this time.
There
was a peculiar sensation for a moment, as of strings vibrating without sound,
and the next micro-instant the saucer was inside the dome, coming to a neat
landing on a platform.
"How was that miracle performed?"
asked Thane weakly.
"They simply changed the vibrational rate of the whole craft and oozed through the
shell of the dome. The saucer, in effect, had become a cohesive mass of X-rays
which simply penetrated through the dome's solid material. Clear?"
"As mud," responded Thane.
"I'll take your word for it, since we're safely inside the dome. It's aeriated, I suppose?"
It
was, for they were ushered out into breathable air, within the dome. The Morlians nudged them onto a square platform which then
floated free and gravitated to the door of a square chamber within the dome.
"Highman ZX-22 wishes to see you," said one of their
captors.
"Highman means leader or commander of this dome,"
explained Miribel. "And the Morlians
have no names, by the way, only numbers."
"Are they perfectly
human?"
Miribel nodded. "Perhaps more perfect than we
are, for all Morlians look alike, at least to our
eyes. There are only slight differences in complexion or size, but otherwise
they are millions of peas from the same pod."
"Weird," said Thane, seeing that Highman ZX-22, before whom they stood, looked quite like
the average man too.
The Morlian commander glanced up from a small desk, smiling in a fatherly manner. "We have captured two
prizes," he stated. "One of the top Vigilante agents, and the
earthman whose sighting we had to suppress. You are both dangerous to us.
"Yes,
this is one of our many secret bases on earth," the Highman
continued. "But you, girl Vigilante, will never return to reveal it."
He said it almost jovially,
despite the chilling threat.
Miribel said nothing, only paling a bit.
The Morlian fixed his eye on Thane. Only there in its depths
lurked a hint of ruthlessness. "You, earthman, will be easily
brain-altered. What is the earth term? Oh, yes . . . brainwashed. Then you will
be an aid to us, instead of a hindrance. "That is all," finished the
Highman. "Take them away."
The
other Morlians separated them, prodding Thane onto a square float-platform, while Miribel was led
the other way.
She
turned her face and suddenly, silent words leaped into Thane's mind. "Thane! I'm using a closed telepathy beam so the Morlians cannot
hear me. Do not give up hope. The Vigilante forces will scour the world for us.
They'll find us . . .if
we're lucky."
With
a last brave 'au revoi/ from her indigo eyes, she turned away.
Thane's
float-platform, plus one Morlian guard, wafted across
the dome to another chamber. Within, a Morlian in
a white jacket, as indistinguishable as the others, stood up.
"Brainwash
Thane Smith, UQ-77," said the guard, leaving.
Thane's sinking feelings sank even lower.
What could he do? Here he was isolated in a sea dome miles down in the
lightless ocean depths. Nobody on earth knew of his trouble. Nor would it do
any good if they did. Probably even the Galactic Vigilantes had no clues to go
by.
This 'brainwashing'—what
would it do to him?
Thane
suddenly panicked. As UQ-77 came toward him, Thane lashed out with his fingers,
held stiff, poking them violently into the Morlian's
throat. He gagged and staggered back at this judo trick.
Thane
ran out and kept running until he came to the edge of the undersea dome's
shell. Panting, he turned like a trapped rat.
The Morlian, now recovered, came floating toward him.
"That was foolish, earthman," he said like a father reproving a
child. "Where do you hope to go?"
Thane
slumped. Even if he somehow broke through the dome shell he would meet the
enormous pressures of seabottom waters that would
crush him flat in an instant, even before he had time to drown.
Escape was a meaningless
word, here in the dome.
Thane
allowed himself to be led back, docilely. This time, the Morlian
aimed a tubular device at him. A brief whine and Thane felt himself paralyzed,
standing stiffly and unable to move a muscle.
"That's
better," said UQ-77, rubbing his hands. "Now we will place this over
your head . . . so." It was a metallic bucket helmet. Then the Morlian stepped back and shot another ray at the helmet.
Thane felt his voluntary senses slipping, sliding, falling
down a steep slope into a dreamy pool.
"That
places you in a hypnotic state," informed UQ-77 in conversational terms.
He went on like a dentist soothing his patient: "Now this won't hurt, as
a hypno-beam carries my commands into the cerebellum
centers of your brain."
True, Thane felt no pain or
discomfort. The Morlians were not deliberately cruel,
merely accomplishing their ends in the most efficient way.
"It's
all over," said UQ-77, taking off the helmet. Like any earth hypnotist, he
then snapped his fingers in Thane's face. Thane became conscious with a start,
his mind slowly gearing itself to normal.
"Do you believe in
flying saucers?" asked the Morlian.
"Don't
be an ass," retorted Thane with vehement conviction. "Anyone who
believes in that rot is a kook."
"Kook? Oh yes, idiot," nodded UQ-77. "Now, Thane Smith, were you
ever in a seabottom dome, the prisoner of Morlians?"
"Who or what are Morlians?"
said Thane, puzzled.
"Do you know the name Miribel?"
"Sounds nice but I
never met the chick."
"Good,"
said the Morlian, rubbing his hands again. He spoke
into a microphone. "The prisoner is prepared for return. He will remember
nothing of his trip back to the upper world."
He glanced at the four photos he had wanted
to submit with the article to Pictorial magazine.
They showed only indefinite blurs in the sky to his hypnotized eyes. He held a
strip of movie film up to the light. It showed two hawks fighting. He picked up
the piece of metaL plainly part of a tin can.
"Funny I should think I had evidence of UFO's,"
he murmured, shaking his head. Then, following the silent series of programmed'
commands placed hypnotically in his brain, he dumped them into the trash basket
and 'remembered' they had been given to him by three persons —Peter Standish
the farmer, Jack Todd at his lumber-mill, and Theda Ranslick the housewife.
Purposefully,
he sat down at his typewriter. "UFO's exist," he wrote rapidly,
"in sick brains. Three people came to me in the past few days, excitedly
handing me so-called evidence of flying saucers. Their still photos, color
movies, and a piece of an exploded UFO are all not only obvious but pitiful
fakes. Suffering from delusions, they typify all saucer sighters—every one . . ."
His
keys clacked away steadily, as he wrote more and more scathing words about the
mind-lame people who claimed to have seen unknown flying objects and queer
little humanoids. And the three items of 'proof he had been offered—he would
keep the donors anonymous for their own sake—would prove only that misguided
people had created the entire UFO mythology.
It
was by-lined Thane Smith, a respected name. Printed in some national magazine,
it would convince thousands, even millions, of wavering people that besides
Santa Glaus, there were no flying saucers. He was
doing his part in preventing a whole nation from being deceived by a purely
psychological phenomenon. The sooner that was straightened out, the better off
America would be. Logic, objectivity, common sense had all been marshaled
devastatingly to blast the mythical UFO's right out of the sky—forever.
And
Thane would accept no pay. It was a public service.
Thane's
car was on its way to the airport when the UFO appeared. It was a silvery disk
of the Galactic Vigilantes. Thane glanced at it, without surprise.
A
gull, he said to himself with full conviction. The hypnosis of the Morlians had done a thorough job.
Thane
did not even believe it when the saucer hovered overhead, matching his speed,
and a purling beam of energy lifted the entire car into the air. A hatchway
opened underneath and the car vanished within.
Then
the silver saucer tilted and shot straight upward. There had been no witnesses.
Not
even Thane. He looked at Thalkon blankly, without
recognition. When the saucer catapulted high into space, he looked up at the
enlarging mother-ship and then away, unconcerned, unaware. Anything relating to
flying saucers simply could not penetrate the hypnotic spell and register on
his mind.
"A
bad case," murmured Thalkon to Kintor, who was at the controls of the disk ship. "Can
we succeed in de-hypnotizing him?"
After
entry into the giant mother-ship, they wafted Thane between them to a chamber
filled with gleaming medical instruments.
Thane
was guided into a cushioned chair. A soft emerald ray bathed his mind with a
low whine.
"Thane
Smith," barked Thalkon, standing before him.
"You see me. Who am I?" "I see no one," denied Thane,
blank-eyed. Thalkon sighed. "Turn off the Z-ray.
It failed. The psychohypnotic field set up by the Morlians can not be penetrated
that easily. We must use a drastic remedy. Wheel up the time-warper."
The
doctor gasped. "But it's dangerous, Thalkon. One
slip and he's lost forever in a mono-chronologic state."
"We'll
have to chance it," snapped Thalkon.
"It is not violating Galactic Law and using force. We are attempting to
save the earthman's mind from a hypnotic block for life."
"Turn the dial back 24 earth-hours.
We'll regress Thane Smith in time, back to what his
mind was thinking yesterday. Perhaps we can trace what happened to him and Miribel."
A
crystal ball above the machine radiated Thane's disjointed, broken thoughts.
They were a replay of his life during the past 24 hours. In time, the important
part came.
"It's
working," exulted Thalkon.
"His whole brain has been thrown back in time to before he was hypnotized. Now if we can only learn what happened then. . . ."
Thane's thoughts suddenly became the
equivalent of a shout.
THE
DRIVER ... A MORLIAN! . . . POINTING A TUBULAR WEAPON . .
. SLEEP GAS . . . OHHHHHHI
His thoughts faded out to nothingness for a
while, but then they gradually came back, faintly at first, then more clearly.
Sailing above Pacific Ocean . . . SAUCER
DIVING . . . WE'LL CRASH . . . No, ive slid
underwater smoothly
. . . amazing . . . going down, down. . .
Thalkon leaned forward tensely, listening to the
telepathic spray of thought.
Down to seabottom
itself . . . small glow, growing bigger . . . A GIANT DOME!
Thalkon snapped off the time-warper.
"That's all we
need to know. The seabottom, eh? One of their secret
bases."
"But
now," said the doctor, "can we bring Smith's mind back to the
present? Or will his thoughts circle endlessly through that experience hours
ago?"
Slowly,
carefully, the doctor turned a dial. The purling violet beam slowly shaded
into deep purple, indigo, azure, cerulean blue. The machine's whine rose to an
inaudible pitch.
"More power,"
yelled Thalkon.
"If the time-warper overloads, it will explode."
But
the doctor turned it up another notch. A swirling amythyst
color now suffused the beam aimed at Thane's head. Suddenly, a needle
calibrated in hours, minutes and seconds swung over.
The
doctor shut off the time-warper, wiping his brow.
"He's back. All is well. But it was close . . . close."
Thane's
eyes lost their blankness. "Thalkon!
But how did I get here? Last I remember, I was down in
the sea dome with a ray pointing at me . . ."
"A
double success," said Thalkon to the doctor.
"The time regressions not only bypassed the hypnotic spell, but when his
mind returned to the present, the psycho-hypnotic field was broken completely.
He's de-hypnotized."
Briefly,
Thalkon described to Thane on the most recent events
and handed over the manuscript Thane had written the night before.
"Drivel," said
Thane.
"The
Morlians hypnotized you to utterly disbelieve in saucers,
hoping to use you to cover their tracks completely. We had to break down your hypno-spell somehow, in order to find out where Miribel is."
"She's still their prisoner,"
exclaimed Thane, leaping
"But you can guide a rescue party to the sea dome,"
said Thalkon. "Miribel is one of our best planetary agents, male or
female. If the Morlians succeed in breaking down her
psycho-shield, they'll learn many of our secrets. I'll make arrangements for
the rescue part."
Thane looked over the rescue party, shocked.
"Meet
TeeZee," said Thalkon,
waving at a small hu-manoid 3/2 feet tall. "That's a short version of his unpronounceable name, Tzkkjqqg."
The
little humanoid had an oversized head, large wrap-around eyes, hardly any nose
at all, a slitlike mouth, and a pointed chin. A
description of the little men stepping from landed saucers, given over and over
again in Sheel's book, Thane remembered.
"And
this is HiBaLuKy," introduced Thalkon, and Thane gaped again at a creature 8 feet tall,
with gangly arms and legs, a round pumpkin head, in which there was set only
one eye—in front.
"He
has an eye in the back too," said Thalkon. "Special evolutionary pattern in his world. And I'm
the last member of our team." Thalkon went on smilingly.
"The Galactic Vigilantes are recruited from 768,981 worlds. Only the best
men—or creatures, if you prefer—are chosen for duty. They may look like
grotesque 'freaks' to you, Thane, but have no illusions as to their
intelligence or abilities. No earthman is their equal."
Their gleaming silver saucer tilted and dove
into the ocean. "If you've guessed anywhere within a hundred miles of the
true position, we'll find the dome," said Thalkon.
It shone way off to the left, finally.
Thane
had a sudden belated question. "But how are four . . . uh . . . men going
to invade a dome swarming
69
with Morlians, and
snatch a prisoner away from them? The moment they see us. . . ."
"They
won't," said Thalkon, turning to move a lever.
"We will of course use our anti-visio
field." Thane noticed that everything in the ship became a bit hazy.
"You
mean invisibility?" he gasped. But that was not so odd. In certain eerie
sightings, in Sheel's book, UFO's had been detected
by radar, but were never seen. Other UFO's were also unseen though their whine
could be distinctly heard, while still others would abruptly 'wink out' in
midair.
Silent and unseen, their saucer 'oozed'
through the dome's shell. A Morlian guard on duty did
not turn his head.
"You don't know just where Miribel was imprisoned?" whispered Thalkon.
Thane shook his head.
"No matter," said Thalkon. "TeeZee, do your
part." The dwarf humanoid's large owl eyes began to glow, brighter and
brighter. "X-rays?" guessed Thane.
"No,
it is what you earth-people call clairvoyance-seeing at a distance. It's a
psychic sense these huma-noids have always possessed,
besides normal vision. He'll refocus everywhere in the dome, through solid
walls, until he spies Miribel. . . ."
"I
see her," said the little man, in a low rumble deeper than any human
voice.
TeeZee
gave some kind of mathematical phrases that seemed to tell Thalkon
exactly where to guide their saucer, in the big open part of the dome. Their
craft then slanted down toward a chamber on the flooring.
Thane
tensed. Through a ceiling window, he could see Miribel
strapped in a seat, with Morlians shining rays at her
head from all sides. He could faintly detect the strain on her face; obviously,
she was battling with all her mental powers to keep her psychic shield from
breaking down.
"Hurry,"
snapped Thane. "That girl is undergoing torture."
Thalkon was reading an instrument. "Hmm, walls
made of plasto-X which would resist our blast-rays
for long minutes. That would raise the alarm. HiBaLuKy, your turn."
Swiftly,
the giant alien held up one arm and pointed with a long rubbery finger. His
body began to glow strangely with a crackling noise.
"His
people," informed Thalkon, "are living
dynamos. Electrical generators. He's building up a
high voltage." Thalkon pressed a button and a
porthole slid open, where the giant's finger pointed.
His
arm began to crackle, then his hand. Suddenly, from his finger, hissed a long Hghtninglike streak, one that did not wink out but
remained. It touched the wall of the chamber and began making a circle.
Like
an oxy-acetylene torch slicing through steel, the electrical flame ate its way
through the plasto-X barrier. The 6-foot-wide plate
abruptly fell outward.
"Let's
go," snapped Thalkon. The three of them catapulted
out of the porthole, dove through the air without falling, and streaked into
the breach.
"Hey,
you left me behind," shouted Thane angrily. He saw that the Morlians were taken by surprise, as the Vigilantes used
small hand-weapons to paralyze them. Mi-ribel was
ripped loose from her seat and wafted to the hole in the wall.
Then Thane saw them coming, a dozen Morlians sailing through the air grimly, weapons in hand.
The alarm had sounded. His friends would not have time to emerge from the
prison chamber, Thane saw with a sinking heart
But the Morlians
had opened fire now, as Thalkon's party swam out of
the hole. Holding his breath, Thane punched buttons, those controlling level
flight at low speed—he hoped.
Smoothly,
the saucer slid forward. It was still invisible so the Morlians
were not alarmed. Thane punched again, tilting at a slight angle down. Another
button and he was pointed straight at the floating Morlians.
Now!
He jabbed the 'spurt speed' button. The saucer sprang forward like a battering
ram. Invisible it might be but it was still solid in texture. With grim
satisfaction, Thane saw a dozen Morlian bodies flung
helter-skelter, probably with broken bones if not worse.
"Good
work, Thane," came a beamed telepathic cry from Thalkon as he led their party into the porthole. Mi-rib el
had fainted.
Thalkon
leaped to the controls. "We must leave fast before they get their craft
after us, here in the dome."
But
even as their saucer spun upward, an ash-silver, domed disk came whistling
toward them. A livid green ray swept widely in a circle and finally touched
their saucer. There was a jolt and sparks.
"Burned
out our anti-visio unit," panted Thalkon. "Now they can let loose at us with
blaster-rays." He turned, yelling "Stop!"
But
it was too late. TeeZee and HiBaLuKy
were floating out the hatchway, lugging a big blaster with them. Thane saw how
they planted themselves squarely in
front of the Morlian
ship, raking it from stem to stern—if it had a stem or stern.
It
was a delaying tactic. It forced the ship to turn and first eliminate the
daring pair with their big blaster-ray. Thane shuddered, and Thalkon put his hand to his eyes, as a scarlet beam from
the Morlians touched the tiny man and the giant,
turning them into two burning torches.
"They
gave their lives to save us," half-sobbed Thalkon.
He was already punching buttons. Their saucer now had a clear path up to the dome's roof, where it oozed through swiftly. Morlian pursuit craft appeared behind them, but Thalkon grinned.
"Since
when do they think they can ever catch a Vigilante
ship?"
Their
saucer ripped up through the ocean at fantastic speed, creating a tremendous wake. The Morlian ships faded in
the murk, hopelessly outclassed.
Miribel came to just as the saucer shot up into the
air, shedding a shower of water drops.
"The
sun," breathed Miribel thankfully. "I never
thought I'd see it again." Her indigo eyes turned.
"I'm glad to see you
too, Thane Smith."
Thane was glad too, at the way her hand clung
to his.
Thalkon now stood before what looked like a microphone
with a stern face, but no words came from his lips.
"Beamed
telepathy," said Miribel, "to our
mother-ship. I'll translate his message—Attention, headquarters. Another Morlian base
discovered at seabottom in Pacific Ocean, Send
blaster-fleet. Exact position as follows. . . ."
Miribel then waved and telepathically triggered
their wall monitor screen to show what followed. Thane saw the mother-ship
hanging 1000 miles high. From it spewed forth saucers with turrets and
wicked-looking dish aerials which were impulse-projectors, not receivers. A
hundred of them dived down through the atmosphere and plunged into the Pacific
Ocean.
Thane
watched in awe as the *blaster-fleef reached the seadome and let loose with a barrage of rays. A dozen Morlian craft emerged to give battle but were quickly
blasted into a shower of sparks—like the dogfight Thane had seen.
Then
the giant dome itself dissolved in one mighty geyser of sparks, completely
disintegrated.
Thane
was shaken, and disturbed. "If you Galactic Vigilantes are pledged to aid
worlds without using methods of force and with respect for lives, how do you
explain this? At least a thousand Morlians died
before our eyes."
Miribel stared at him, surprised. "Thane,
didn't you know? We have never killed a Morlian
yet."
Thane,
in turn, stared at her in surprise. "After what I saw?
And don't forget during that dogfight I watched, the Morlian
ship was blown to bits, including its Morlian
crew."
"But
it is only their ship
that disintegrates,"
said Miribel. "Not the pilots. You see, ahead
of each blast beam goes the Nth-beam. This instantaneously teleports any living thing aboard into the Nth dimension we told you
about, just before the ship explodes. And there we have a gigantic prison, so
to speak, where all teleported Morlians are put into
custody for rehabilitation."
"Do
the Morlians retaliate in kind, if they happen to
blast a Vigilante ship?"
Miribel shook her head, sadly. "You saw what
happened to TeeZee and HiBaLuKy
down in the seadome when we escaped. They were
consumed by nuclear fire.
Morally,
despite their high technological state, the Mor-lians
are ruthless savages."
Thalkon now
turned to them in satisfaction. "One more Morlian
base wiped out. But there are others we have not yet found. If only we had a
spy. . . ."
He was staring at Thane. ". . . we have
one, named Thane Smith."
Thane
was too taken aback to say anything, waiting for Thalkon
to explain himself.
"Ponder
this. The Morlians do not know that we seized you,
after your brainwashing, and de-hypnotized you. Nor did they see you in our
scout ship that rescued Miribel. You never came out
of the ship."
Thane
nodded, getting the idea. "In other words, as far as the Morlians know, I'm still their brainwashed dupe."
"And
as such," added Thalkon, "you can pretend
to still be hypnotized and on their side, so to speak."
"Now wait a minute," objected
Thane. "If they can read my mind, they would instantly know my thoughts
and realize I was back to normal. They would also know I was working with
you."
"Not if we brainwash you in a different
way, earth-man. We
can mold your mental faculties to form an invisible psycho-shield around your
mind. Then you will have the power to conceal your true thoughts and only
release those you want."
"You mean I'll be able to turn my
thoughts on and off at will?"
"Just as we do," said Thalkon. "Now, are you willing to be our spy and
uncover Morlian secrets? We will give you a tiny
device that will secretly pick up and record their thought-waves. Through that, we may be able to learn vital enemy secrets
or plans. Any little thing will aid us. Well, Thane Smith?"
It was in a comfortable room of the
mother-ship, in orbit around earth, that Thalkon and Miribel started to brief Thane.
"The
earliest life in the galaxy arose some 10 billion years ago. More billions of
years passed before civilizations on scattered planets achieved various ways
of in-tergalactic travel. For a long stretch of time,
there was only occasional contact between worlds, a slow uprise
of galactic trade, and of course wars. Wars sometimes in which a hundred worlds
on each side would be pitted against each other. But in time, a new concept
arose— cooperation for the betterment of all worlds. And so was formed the
United Worlds of the Milky Way Galaxy, a billion-odd years ago. Present
membership of the UW is almost three million planets. Total population on all
those three million planets," went on Thalkon
inexorably, "is 6 quadrillions, or 6 million billions. About half are
true humans, the rest a wide variety of humanoids and nonhumanoids.
The latter you might call monster-men.
"In
its councils," resumed Thalkon, "the UW
soon authorized the Galactic Vigilantes, a patrol force to roam the galaxy and
institute basic law and order, with recruits from any world, human or
otherwise."
"Then
youVe been
policing the universe for almost a billion years." Thane was dazed, trying
to grapple with these Gargantuan figures. "You
began at the time when life had barely started on earth."
Thalkon nodded. "We first visited earth about
750 million years ago, on a routine flyby, noting it was in an early stage of
evolution and would not produce thinking beings for a long time to come."
Miribel spoke up. "Of course, Thalkon, by saying 'we* you do not mean you and me, but the
Vigilantes of that ancient time." She turned. "Naturally, Thane,
membership changes as time goes on and Vigilantes die to be replaced by
others. Worlds have also died of what you might call old age, during that time,
while new worlds freshly reaching a peak of civilization took their place. Our
world Zyl joined the UW only a million years ago. We
are a comparatively young planet."
"If
you can stand more," said Thalkon sympathetically,
"the Vigilantes today number some 25 million members and 10 million
spacecraft."
Thane
whistled. "But then, they have some 3 million worlds to patrol."
"And
protect," reminded Thalkon, "like earth.
The youngest planets, either isolated or just emerging into the stage of space
travel, must be guarded from rapacious worlds—like Morli.
At last count, there were 128,000 maverick or piratical planets in the galaxy,
whose aims are often to plunder, conquer, or otherwise plague helpless
worlds."
"Over 100,000 lawless worlds,"
mused Thane. He looked up at Thalkon in sudden
realization. "Lord, how many times in the past have the Vigilantes
driven predator planets away from earth?"
"On
the average, once every 5000 years, or 200 times since early mankind arose on
earth about two million years ago."
"Two hundred times! What were they all after?"
"It would take too long to recite,"
Thalkon said. "I'll give you some highlights.
About a million years ago, the Blue World's piratical fleet came and attempted
to rifle your whole world of all its uranium ore, in order to build up their
arsenal of nuclear weapons. Only dim-witted man-apes were around to see. . .
."
"Eventually, our Vigilante forces won
out and drove the defeated enemy back into outer space, its power broken for a
thousand years. But let me tell you of a raid on earth that succeeded, partly
at least.
"An
insectal race, busily setting up apparatus and processing
the soil, the Midge World escaped our notice for a century," admitted Thalkon ruefully. "During that time, they set up
mining camps all over earth and quietly extracted every bit of an element
called technetium. Technetium is a metal that acquires negative weight under
electrical stimulus. In short, it is an anti-gravity agent, from which giant
floating barges can be made to transport a world's goods with ease."
"And the Midge World thieves got away
with it all?"
"Several million tons, even though
technetium was the rarest element on earth at the time. Remember, they had a full century to work.
The Vigilantes did not catch on until they had finished their planetary
larceny. By then it was too late to stop them or take their technetium away. We
simply quarantined their world from any further space commerce for the next
million years, to teach them a lesson.
"Take Atlantis," Thalkon said. "Despite doubts among earth
archeologists and authorities, it did exist about 25,000 years ago. But it was
a city of heartbreak and tyranny. Millions of humans were subjugated by their
space masters, who were ahumans of a monstrous sort.
. . ."
"When
one of our cruisers came across this gross slavery of a world—and after all we
cannot visit every world too often—the Vigilantes moved in and attempted to
smash the power of the slavemasters. Facing defeat,
they savagely sabotaged the whole island which
sank, as in your legends."
"All
humans on Atlantis died in that tragic holocaust," put in Miribel softly, "along with their mad masters.
"Mankind
fell into decline after that. But emergency squads were sent from the Planetary
Reclamation and Rehabilitation Bureau of the Vigilantes to help re-establish
civilization in the following centuries."
Thalkon manipulated a movie screen that showed a
mighty pyramid being built in ancient Egypt. But there were no long lines of
toiling men hauling giant blocks up wooden inclines, as the scene had been
reconstructed by archeologists.
Instead,
a series of flying saucer disks were coming and going, each with a stone block
suspended under it by invisible forces, which was neatly deposited in place.
"Yes," said Thalkon,
"we helped build the pyramids which, as you may or may not know, were not
just tombs for Pharoahs but. . . ."
"Astronomical stations," interrupted
Thane, remembering this from Sheel's UFO book.
"The sides by extension gave the size of earth. Certain peephole passages
focused on the moon at high and low tides. The passage of the sun, planets, and
stars across the sky could be tracked accurately by specific sightings from
within the pyramid."
"Let
me tell you of one more threat to earth by a self-seeking world." The
screen, at Thalkon's wave, now mirrored a huge
belted planet with a great reddish spot plus a smaller yellowish blob.
"Jupiter?" guessed Thane.
Suddenly, the yellow spot belched forth from
the planet's seething surface and spun away through space.
"The Kull people did that with powerful
electro-gravi-tic forces. A blazing comet was formed, more gigantic than ever known before, which
grazed earth and caused chaos. It's name was
Venus."
Something
clicked in Thane's mind. "Immanuel Veli-kovsky's
theory. Sheel's book went into that briefly. Twice in recorded history—around 2800 b.c. and again in 1200 b.c.—the Venus-comet seared earth, even
causing it to flip over and change its axis and rotation."
"The
result," Thalkon added, "was worldwide
destruction."
Thane grinned wryly. "We're arrogant
enough on earth to believe we accomplished everything ourselves, from
discovering fire to achieving civilization, without outside aid or protection
from vandal planets. We even think that if life exists elsewhere, we are still
the highest form of civilization known. In context with
what you've told me, that's the greatest joke in the universe."
Miribel smiled at lum,
pleased. "You are learning fast, Thane. Just as the child must five his
own life by trial and error in order to become a full man, so too must each
world guide its own destiny and learn by its mistakes."
"That
is why, Thane," said Thalkon, very gravely now,
"we have not descended upon you in full force, bearing gifts of science
and the blueprint for a supercivilization. None of it
would do any good, in the long run. Earth must struggle to that goal itself,
long and hard though the road may be. Even our presence here, as unseen
guardians, must be kept secret because . . ."
"Because
it might throw earth into a turmoil?" ventured
Thane.
"That's
right," nodded Thalkon.
Chapter
14
Thalkon waved, as if dismissing something trivial.
"Now that you have been allowed to know something, if not everything,
about our Vigilante mission, will you agree to be our spy amoung
the Morlians?"
Thane
brushed a hand through his hair. "I suppose if I said no, you would hand
me some patriotic cliches. It's for the good of my
world. How can I let my fellow earthmen down? Can I stand by and see all
humanity enslaved? But you know, none of those noble
or high-scounding phrases stir me at all. I'm no
crusader or knight in armor, shining or otherwise."
Thalkon's face fell and Miribel
looked aghast.
Thane
went on grimly: "But I'll do it for one reason. I'm still burned up at
those three MIB's who tried to rough me up. No Morlian
SOB's can pull that on me and get away with it. So I'm your boy."
Thalkon smiled in relief and Miribel
took Thane's hand. "You are a brave man," she said.
"Not brave," denied Thane. "If
I went back now to my former life, I'd be utterly bored. I've got to do the spy
bit just for kicks. Besides, I'm in too deep to back out."
"It will be dangerous, Thane . . ."
Her voice caught a little and she turned away.
Thane's
pulse leaped. "I'll be back, Miribel. Maybe I've
got a good reason to."
As down in the undersea dome, a wired helmet
rested over Thane's head. But this time it was not a Morlian but a
Vigilante 'brainwasher.'
"What
we will do," explained Thalkon, groping for
simple words, "is beam psychons into your
brain."
"Psychons?"
"The
basic units of thought, just as electrons and protons are units of
matter."
"I don't get it,"
grunted Thane, "but go on."
"The
psychons will so energize your brain that it will
then have the power to put a psychic shield around your mind, at will. You will
be able to hide your true mental processes from the Morlians
and fool them into thinking you're still their dupe."
"Okay, shoot,"
said Thane. "Ill take
your word for it."
It
was a peculiar sensation, somewhat like invisible syrup pouring into his mind,
as the helmet glowed in deep violet colors. Thane could almost feel his brain
gaining 'muscle.' It was over in a moment.
Thalkon removed the helmet, then
said, "I am going to try to read your mind now. See if you can stop
me."
Thane felt a subtle mental force from Thalkon, probing into his brain. How could
he make his mind blank, Thane wondered. Should he silently say 'stop' to
the probe, or what? But even as these thoughts flashed into his mind, the probe
turned aside as if meeting a stone wall.
Thalkon kept it up for a minute longer,
then relaxed and smiled at Thane. "Perfect. Your psychic-shield sprang up
and held firm, even though I used a 100-psy-cho-powered brain-wave as a probe.
No Morlian can do 90 on that scale. You are safe from
their mind-reading abilities."
"But
won't that immediately arouse their suspicions?" Thane said. "If they
suddenly find themselves unable to read my mind, where they could before,
they'll know I've been given a psycho-shield—by you."
"Ah,
but you will be able to give them a 'mind' to read. The kind of conscious mind
they left you with after they hypno-conditioned you
to disbelieve in flying saucers. You will allow those thought-patterns to flow
outside the psycho-shield. Reading that false 'mind,' they will be satisfied
you are still the same."
"I
get it," nodded Thane. "I just keep thinking 'aloud,' so to speak,
that UFO's don't exist while secretly, behind my psycho-shield, I'm thinking
what SOB's the MIB's are. Great."
"You
perceive tilings quickly," said Thalkon approvingly.
Miribel came in, wanting to know how it had gone
with Thane,
"Fine,"
he answered her aloud. "Try reading my mind."
Miribel probed for a moment then smiled.
"Blank. You have put up a psycho-shield."
"Yes," continued Thane's thoughts,
hidden by the shield. "And now I can boldly state that you are more lovely than any earth girl I've ever known and. . .
."
He broke off, startled at his own thoughts.
Then, to Thalkon: "WelL
now I'm ready to tackle the Morlians. What are my
instructions?"
"To go back to your cabin and continue
your campaign against UFO sightings, as the Morlians
conditioned you to do before we de-hypnotized you. Use any and all methods you
can think of to heap scorn on saucer sightings. That way, you will gain the
confidence— and gratitude—of the Morlians. Sooner or
later, they may reveal key things about themselves. But not
consciously, of course."
Thalkon snapped his fingers and a drawer in the wall
opened. A small device levitated itself into his hand. It was a thin wafer with
tiny symmetrical dots on it.
"This
psycho-detector will pick up hidden thoughts of the Morlians,
when they get careless, and beam them to our receiving unit."
"Where will I carry
it?" Thane wanted to know.
"Next
to your brain, under your skull."
Thane jerked. "You
mean . . . uh . . . surgery?"
Thalkon laughed. "Why use such a primitive technique?
Remember how our craft 'oozed' through the sea dome's wall?" He had fixed
the metal wafer into a gunlike device, pressing the
muzzle against Thane's forehead. A burst of radiation and Thalkon
said quietly, "It's done. The wafer's vibrational
rate was changed so that it penetrated through the skin and bone and implanted
itself next to your brain."
Thane watched the silvery saucer vanish in
the sky, then looked around his cabin. Nothing had
changed since he had last left. He pondered a moment, then
made a phone call. After hanging up, he sat at his typewriter and its rattle
went out of the window into the growing darkness.
Thane
heard a purring sound and turned. A big black car drove up. The three MIB's—the
same three as before —knocked on the door. Thane drew in a deep breath, giving
himself a command. He could almost feel the psycho-shield closing in around his
mind.
"Hello?" said Thane as if puzzled,
as he opened the door.
"Thane
Smith?"
"Yes. But who are you
. . . P"
*"You haven't seen us
before?" came the query.
"Of
course not. Is
this some joke?"
The
three Morlians glanced at one another, pleased.
Another question came. "Do you believe
in flying saucers, Thane Smith?"
"Listen,
if you're three nut UFOlogists, trying to convince
me UFO's from other worlds exist, you're wasting your time." He turned and
grabbed up typewritten pages. "As a matter
of fact, I've just written up a radio broadcast I'm making tonight over station
KZQQ in Grover City. My old pal, John Winkle, gave me room on his I Wonder program. My speech will roast all saucer
believers until they're not rare, not medium, but well-done."
Thane
tossed down the papers in disgust. "Believe me, gentlemen, I'm sick and
tired of hearing about kooks, crackpots, and screwballs claiming they see
mysterious objects in the sky. So don't try to sell me on saucers."
The
three men arose to go. "Too bad you won't listen to our proof that flying
saucers exist," said one with a faint smile of irony, the best his wooden face could do.
For
the first time, the Morlians let their guard down and
a silent thought was picked up by Thane's psycho-detector wafer, beaming it to
outer space. Thane found, to his surprise, that the wafer's contact also
allowed him to Tiear' the Morlian
as he thought, 'Our brainwashing worked better than we expected. The earthman
actually thinks we are saucer believersl Everyone will have a laugh
when we return to the Antarctic base.'
Thane
stiffened. Antarctic
base! One of the unknown Morlian strongholds had already been exposed, inadvertently.
Thalkon, at the psycho-receiver, must be rubbing his
hands in joy.
The Morlians left, satisfied that
Thane was their brainwashed dupe. The joke of it all was that they did not even
know Thane was no longer concerned with merely exposing them, or his Vigilante
friends, to the world. And what a shock it would be to the Morlians
if they knew he was now a Vigilante
spy.
The picture had changed for Thane. He was
playing for bigger stakes now. Simply revealing to the world that UFO's did
exist and were manned by extraterrestrial people would not in the least defeat
the Morlian plot, whatever it was. In fact, exposure
of the Vigilantes might hamper their efforts to counteract the Morlian threat.
Thane suddenly realized, with a little
whistle, that he was now as anxious to avoid giving proof of UFO's as the Morlians. So he sat eagerly at his typewriter again, to
finish his forthcoming radio speech discounting all saucer sightings. He was
not only 'fooling' the Morlians into thinking he was
'following instructions' but also wholeheartedly keeping up the smokescreen
hiding UFO's from earth-people.
Thane
grinned wryly. A strange, ironic situation. He began
banging the keys.
"Greetings,
Thane Smith!" boomed in his mind an hour later and Thane's fingers mashed
down on the keys, locking a half-dozen. As he unhooked them, sheepishly, the
silent telepathic voice went on:
"This
is Thalkon psycho-transmitting. You see, the wafer
near your brain is a two-way contact. Good work, Thane! We picked up the
relayed thought of the Morlian about an Antarctic
base."
"I
guess my spy stint paid off pretty quickly at that," radiated back Thane,
knowing his beamed thought-message would reach Thalkon.
"As
a reward," went on Thalkon, "we will let
you see the result, in relayed psycho-vision scenes from Antarctica. They will
be live, in full color."
Sounds like a TV ad, thought Thane in
amusement.
Into
his mind suddenly sprang a vivid scene of the Antarctic ice-cap as seen from
space. Then, as if he were aboard one of the diving Vigilante ships, the scene
enlarged in detail and narrowed its scope to one portion of the mighty
ice-sheet somewhere in the area known as Little America.
"As
soon as we got the tip," came in Thalkon's psycho-voice,
like a commentator, "we rushed scout ships to Antarctica. Using the anti-visio screen, they snooped around while their detectobeams revealed exactly where the Morlian
base was. Now watch, as our demolition fleet does its job."
The
panorama in Thane's mind, like a motion-picture screen, now showed the fleet of
turreted saucers which had turned visible and were diving down at blistering
speed. Livid red rays sprang from them, melting the ice in a wide circle. Into
the newly created 'lake' plunged the fleet, melting ice ahead as fast as they
flew down.
"We
could not use the Morlian ice-tunnels," interposed
Thalkon, "which led a mile down to the bottom of
the ice-cap, without being detected and opposed. Sudden attack was our best
bet. Hence, the use of infra-beams to melt the ice for a
direct attack."
And
now, as the last ice barrier melted, it splashed down into what had formerly
been a huge hollow, holding the Morlian base. Before
any alarm system could work, the Vigilante blast-beams were at work, wiping out
the base methodically.
It
was, thought Thane to himself, like a child erasing a picture on a blackboard.
Thane
felt his blood turn cold at the ruthless wiping out of Morlian
lives, whether they deserved it or not . . . then he
abruptly remembered and relaxed. The Vigilantes never killed. Morlians were being hurled alive and well, an instant
before the blast-ray stuck, into the Nth dimension,
there to be imprisoned.
In
moments it was done. Shattered wreckage lay underneath the Antarctic ice-cap a
mile deep, where the
Morlians had hidden their secret base from earthly
eyes. The water flooding down from the hole melted by the Vigilante fleet was
already filling the artificial hollow and freezing. The fleet turned upward,
splashing up through the mile-deep lake they had created. In free air, they
sped off into space.
"Look,"
exclaimed Thane, as the last scene of Antarctica faded out. "A party of
explorers, probably from the South Polar camp, happened to come by and saw the
fleet shooting away. Those are mostly scientists. Thalkon. What if they report
their unmistakable sighting, plus the incredible 'lake' melted in the ice?"
"Come,
Thane," returned Thalkon unperturbed. "It
is not that easy to convince your unenlightened world that saucers from outer
space are here. Even scientists are discredited when they claim to report
sightings."
Right, thought Thane to himself. Sheel's book had made that plain. Scientists, as a group,
were perhaps the greatest saucerphobes of all,
arrogantly believing no spacecraft could ever cross the vastness of space
simply because earth technology had no such vehicles, nor any remotely
reasonable plan to devise them.
"Our
greatest protection against exposure," broke in Thalkon,
as if following Thane's ruminations, "has always been humanity's
overwhelming egocentrism. The belief or feeling that they are
'special' creatures, unmatched in the universe. The unwillingness of
the human mind to entertain the thought that beings with an
intelligence a magnitude above them can possibly exist, or visit earth.
It has made our job easier.
"Another
Morlian base crossed off the list," said Thalkon in momentary triumph. Then his psycho-voice fell. "But how many more to go? And when will we ever lo
cate their main base? Until we destroy that, our
mission is unfinished and earth remains in danger."
In danger of what? Thane wanted to know desperately but knew Thalkon
would only answer, "It is not permitted to tell." If it wasn't
simply conquest of earth or enslavement of the human race, as Thalkon had said before, then what was it? What could be
still worse, as Thalkon had
implied. Would Thane ever find out?
"It
is not likely," came back, and Thane jumped. Damn, he had forgotten to put
up his psycho-shield. "It is for your own good that you do not know."
Thalkon went on soothingly. "There are some
things the human mind is not geared to absorb or withstand. It is something
that can only be described with your words— 'ghastly' or 'fiendish.' More I
will not say."
Thane
shuddered a little, then shrugged. "Okay, Thalkon. But it's time now for me to rush to my radio
broadcast in Grover City. About an hour's drive. Bye
now."
At the KZQQ mikes, Thane put on what he
thought was a terrific performance as a UFO antagonist. It might put him in the
class of Dr. Dennis T. Wengler, the 'arch enemy' of
flying saucers according to UFOlogists, who airily
attributed all saucer phenomena to mirages, atmospheric tricks, and optical
illusions. Or at the least, Thane would be alongside Perry Klausner,
the electrical engineer who proclaimed that his 'plasmoids'—natural
conglomerates of ionized plasma—could account for most UFO's.
Thane's
broadcast came up with a third major concept denigrating UFO's as illusions. He
keyed his opening line in neatly with the program he was on—7 Wonder.'
"Do
you wonder if UFO's are machines—or myths?" began Thane. "Or if
flying saucers are real—or just flying specks in the eye? Are they Unidentified
Flying Objects
—or Unequivocal Fooler
Orbs? Do you wonder, as I did?"
He
took a breath, then thundered, "My friends, I am
here to tell you that you have more chance of seeing genuine sorcerers than saucers."
To
the side, John Winkle was beaming. This fiery oration on the nation's most
controversial subject should jack up the rating of his 7 Wonder program
nicely. Phone calls, telegrams, letters would pour in.
Thane
went on. "I'm not just talking through my hat. I've discovered exactly
what the so-called saucers and UFO's are. You've all seen the strange shapes
clouds can make? Well, unknown to science or the astronauts yet, there are
clouds in space."
Thane
paused dramatically. "Those space clouds, made up of random dust that
gravitated together, are too small and tenuous to be seen in telescopes or detected
by space probes. Only my special orthoconic oscillometer was able to spot them."
Thane
rolled his eyes upward—luckily it wasn't television—at this magnificent He.
"The
small space clouds exist in huge swarms, all around earth. And they cast shadows, you see. Now it is a peculiar aspect of these space clouds that, through gravitic
and electromagnetic forces from the sun, they assume rather geometrical shapes—disks, cigars, ovals, globes, even pyramids and
rhomboids."
Thane
swallowed down an intense desire to chuckle and went on in mock-earnest tones.
"You recognize those shapes, eh? Of course you do. They are what sighters so often breathlessly report—disks, cigars, ovoids, globes, pyramids, rhomboids, and the rest. They all
seem to be too regular in form to be natural
but—"
Thane
choked down another hysterical impulse to guffaw and finished, "But that
is all that the kooks and crackpots see—cloud shadows from outer space!"
Thane expanded on this theme in more detail
for the rest of his half-hour. He had taken care, at home, to make his theory
superficially consistent and plausible—in a sort of crazily implausible way.
"Yes,
a cloud in space far away would throw a huge shadow on earth. But remember that
these are small clouds, and it is only their tiny dense cores that can throw shadows. Furthermore, it is only the shadow's umbra—the
sharp central portion—which is projected down into earth's atmosphere. Hence,
when spied by gullible witnesses, they report UFO's anywhere from 25 feet to
500 feet wide or more."
Thane
drove on, determined to please the Morlians who were
undoubtedly fistening in. "And notice how scientificially valid my discovery is. The clouds, being
fight, are subject to every "breeze' of the solar-wind in space—the
streams of electrons and protons the sun constantly emits throughout
interplanetary space. Even if the solar-breeze only moves the cloud an inch,
this movement would be magnified, through its long-range shadow, into many
linear miles. That is why the UFO's seem to dart through the sky at such
blinding speeds. Then, when a gust of the variable solar-wind blows the cloud
to a stop, the UFO-shadow on earth seems to stop on a dime."
The
small studio audience began clapping loudly. Thane knew that if he had won
them, he had also captured most of the millions in the radio audience.
"And
think, UFO's almost always move silently—as do shadows. They display no rocket
discharges or other visible means of propulsion—shadows don't either."
Applause
interrupted Thane again. He waited, then resumed.
"As
for the color changes reported by so many witnesses, these space clouds
contain in them tiny bits of grit with jagged edges. Like ice-crystals that
create our rainbows, these gritty particles act like a filter and split
sunlight up into its separate rays at times—red, orange, green, blue, yellow.
In other words, they throw rain-bow-hued shadows that can change color with
quixotic rapidity—as in the majority of UFO sightings."
Clapping
came again, loudest this time from one corner. Glancing there, Thane started.
Three intense pairs of eyes stared back at him. The MIB's! They were obviously
highly pleased with their 'dupe's* anti-UFO tirade.
Luckily,
Thane had put up his psycho-shield the moment he had arrived, just in case. He
did not know whether the Morlians always posed as
'men-in-black' or adopted other guises when infiltrating among humans.
Thane
ended his broadcast with the aplomb of other pompous egotists who believed they
had single-handedly solved the UFO riddle: "So there is little question
that UFO's are merely the shadows of the space clouds, thrown into earth's
atmosphere. Next time any kook tells you he saw a 'craft'
land and little green, purple, or orange men step out, you'll know that he
embellished his story after seeing a shadow-saucer. I'm sure scientists
and authorities will immediately see how my revelation has once and for all
solved the UFO phenomenon. Good night."
At the door, Thane was not surprised to find
the three MIB's approaching him. "We wish to congratulate you. Thane
Smith," said one, extending his hand. "We belong to a group that is
fighting this ridiculous belief in flying saucers from other worlds."
Thane
could hardly force down the grin that threatened to crease his lips. In posing
as earthmen, the Morlians were trying to fool the
one person on earth they couldn't fool. The one who alone
knew all about them.
Thane let go of the rather clammy hand,
carefully keeping his psycho-shield up. "Then we're on the same side,
gentlemen," he said, "aren't we?"
That was Thane's mission,
to gain their confidence.
"We
are," nodded one MIB solemnly. "In fact, we have an idea how you can
further explode the saucer myth. May we come and see you at your place tomorrow?"
Thane pretended to hesitate, not wanting to
seem too eager, but then smiled. "I'm rather busy but . . . well, this
matter takes priority. Make it any time you wish. Here's my address."
Thane handed over one of his business cards,
on the back of which were printed directions for finding his isolated cabin.
"Thank you. We'll see you
tomorrow." The MIB's turned away.
Thane was taken aback at the figure that next
approached him, in his natty uniform. "Colonel Taggert!"
"I
was in the studio audience," nodded the Air Force officer. He stared
curiously at Thane. "Last week you came to me with a saucer sighting and
photographs to back it up. You seemed to be an ardent and convinced believer in
UFO's. Now, tonight, you damn them all as chimeras. Why the abrupt change of
heart, Smith?"
Amusement
rose within Thane. "Why, Colonel," he said blandly, "you
yourself told me I had merely seen two hawks fighting it out. That made me see the error of my ways when I thought it over
later."
Taggert was shaking his head, shrewdly. "But
your photos did not show two hawks . . ."
"They
didn't, Colonel?" said Thane sharply. "Then what did they show?"
"Why
. . . uh . . ." Taggert was trapped, but obviously
thinking fast. "They seemed to show two shiny craft. But then, peculiar
reflections could cause this optical illusion—for instance, the shadows of
your space clouds?"
Thane
bit his hp. Touche. But lurking behind all this was something else.
The mere fact that Thane's 'change of heart' was questioned meant that Taggert was not so much a pooh-pooher
of UFO's as he pretended. Could it also mean that the Air Force secretly believed in saucers?
"Yes,
my space cloud shadows could account for my photos," agreed Thane. He had
to play his new role consistently, before everyone. "Don't you agree that
that could explain all UFO sightings?"
Thane
was curious to see his reaction. Taggert seemed to be
nagged by something, judging by his uncertain smile. Then he went on smoothly,
"You know, Thane, if there were real UFO's and UFO-beings, who
wished to keep their presence on earth a secret, one might almost think they
had bought you off."
The
Colonel chuckled loudly as if to show he was only being facetious. But his eyes
narrowly kept on Thane's face.
"My
dear Colonel," Thane said, "if you know
UFO's to be pure illusion, how can you even talk of their presumed
occupants?"
Thane opened the door the next day to let the
three MIB's in. They murmured polite greetings and Thane waved them to sit
down.
"Now,
your big idea, gentlemen?"
"To
write a book, Thane Smith."
"Another
one debunking UFO's, you mean? But that's been done by Wengler
Klausner, and others too."
"No,
we mean another kind of book debunking, so to speak, the biggest names in UFOlogy."
They
were waiting for his answer. "A great idea," said Thane, without
enthusiasm. "I wish I had thought of it myself."
The
three MIB's relaxed, and once again Thane stiffened as their hidden thoughts
came forth. They were letting their guard down, as the previous three Morlians had, confident that brainwashed Thane was no
menace and could in fact help them greatly in their campaign to keep earth
ignorant of their presence.
"Latch
on, Thalkon," beamed Thane through the psycho-transmitter
touching his brain. "Here comes some more spillover from these Morlian thugs."
But
the telepathic leaks from their brains were nothing significant. "The earmling is our dupe. . . ." "He will do anything
we say. . . ." "He may once and for all kill the flying saucer
controversy for us. . . ."
"Ah,
I've got it," snapped Thane, pacing the floor dramatically. "We want
to show that the UFO guys are crackpots, don't we? People with wild
imaginations, not
to be trusted. Well,,in various books, it has been speculated that if
the saucers were ships from outer space, they would have secret bases from which to operate. Remarks about secret bases would make them seem like kooks."
Thane tensed as involuntary thoughts came
from the
MIB's: "They of course were guessing . . . They
didn't
know of our real bases. . . . The subsea and Antarctic
bases that were recently destroyed. . . . Nor of our
bases in the Himalayas, miles underground in Mammoth
Cave, out in the Gobi Desert, deep within the Amazon
Jungle-------- "
Thane's
pulse leaped with each named spot. Four more bases for the Vigilantes to wipe
out. But Thane had another thought and spoke aloud again.
"You
know, it's been suggested that the so-called space visitors might have bases on
the moon, or Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system. We can hit them there and
ruin their reputations."
Again,
the unshielded thought-stream of the MIB's came through: "Yes, they have
worried us all along by guessing we had interplanetary bases ... in Diogenes Crater on the moon ... at the Mare Sytoris
on Mars . . . at the North Pole of Venus. . . ."
Thane
exulted inwardly. Seven bases revealed! He waited for more, but the three MIB's
had arisen, their private thoughts ending, "Then you will write this book
smearing UFOlogists in the eyes of the public? That
way, Thane Smith, we can smash the whole rotten egg apart and end the belief in
UFO's or ships from outer space."
"Right,"
nodded Thane, opening the door. "I'll start outlining the book
immediately, and gathering research data."
Hardly had the MIB's driven away than Thane
felt it safe to let down his mental shield and contact Thalkon.
"The jackpot, Thalkon," crowed Thane.
"Yes,
just about, Thane," came Thalkon's beamed psycho-waves.
"We surmised from various factors that they had no more than a dozen bases
on earth, some of which we destroyed before you came into the picture. Now
we'll get most or all."
"How about the interplanetary bases. Would the three named cover them all?"
"Not
likely," returned Thalkon. "We suspect Morlian bases on Jupiter or its moons, also at Saturn, and
perhaps even among the asteroids. But it almost hopeless to
search for them on huge worlds or in vast volumes of space."
His
telepathic voice became worried. "And I doubt any of the bases revealed
would be their main
base. I'm sure they've been
drilled over and over never
to think of where that is,
under any circumstances, for fear of the thought being picked up by us.
"But
let us be thankful for lesser favors. Thane, you have been of immeasurable help
in our long struggle agains the Morlians.
We didn't have the slightest chance of stealing thoughts from them, as you did.
Only an 'innocent' earthman, with seemingly no mind-reading powers, could have
made them let their guard down and hand us tips."
"But
when their next seven bases go up in smoke so suddenly" pondered Thane,
"won't they suspect that the leak is through me?"
"They
might," agreed Thalkon. "Then again they
might not. After all, they are unaware that you have been de-brainwashed and
that you wear a psycho-unit next to your brain, so why should they even suspect
you picked up the information that betrayed seven of their bases? They will
attribute it to some new penetrating spy-beam we developed and will hastily
outfit their remaining bases with countermeasures."
Thalkon went on slowly. "Still, I cannot order
you to remain on the job, seeking the greatest tip-off of all—the location of
their main base. If you wish, Thane, we'll pick you up now and whisk you safely
into space. . . ."
"It's
not often that a man gets a chance to be a hero and save the world,"
murmured Thane, half-humorously. "Why should I toss it aside? I'll carry
on the psycho-battle of wits with the Morlians and
see if I can make it a bases-loaded . . . there's some kind of a pun there . . . home
run."
"Thanks,
Thane Smith," said Thalkon simply, but eloquently.
"You will see the six bases wiped out at zero-time. We will coordinate a
simultaneous attack on them all as soon as possible, perhaps tomorrow."
The next day, seven fleets of Vigilante ships
pounded home at the same time—four on earth, three in space.
In
the snow-capped Himalayas, a base that perched high on an icy crag went up in
sheets of flame that rose ten miles into the sky. Deep within Mammoth Cave,
where humans had never stumbled on the lower caverns, the Vigilante ships
vibrated into wraiths and oozed down through solid rock to create underground
chaos where a Morlian
camp had existed before.
In
the Gobi Desert, with all preliminary searching for the exact location already
done, another contingent of Vigilante warcraft
blasted a crater a mile deep, and ten thousand more Morlians
were whisked to the Nth dimension as prisoners.
The
Amazon Jungle proved a bit tricky, in that a wandering tribe of Indians had
unwittingly camped close to the Morlian base, too
close for Vigilante radiation-guns to blast loose. Instead, risking detection
during the process, the Vigilante squadron used the high-vibrationary
technique of ghding through the solid ground and
coming up directly under the fort. The blasting forces then let loose
annihilated matter and formed a giant pit down which the structures tumbled
like broken toys. The Indians were only aware of a deep rumble and mild
earthquake tremors.
Out
in space even more spectacular attacks were taking place at the same time.
Thane's psycho-eye was barely able to take it all in.
At
the moon, Diogenes Crater flashed out into brilliant light that no doubt startled
a dozen astronomers. They would never guess that 250,000 miles away, space
warships had converted a million tons of equipment into atomic ashes.
The
face of Mars where its Morlian base was located was
turned away from earth, so no telescopes spied the mushrooming cloud of
radiance that signaled the abrupt disintegration of an alien camp.
The
Vigilante blast squadron did its job at the North Pole with a fantastic
pyrotechnic display. . . .
"It
is done," sighed Thalkon's
psycho-voice, half in triumph, half in relief. "Seven more Morlian bases crossed off our charts."
"One
more big one to go," said Thane grimly.
"When my three MIB pals drop in next, to see how the book is going, I'll
try picking their brains for where their main base is."
Three days later, when they did drop in,
Thane felt the air of gloom around them. He hardly had to pick up their
leak-thought: Seven bases destroyed! How did it happen?
Thane
rubbed his hands briskly, nodding at typewritten pages on his desk. "The
book's going great, gentlemen. I'm giving Keyhoe a
real roasting for mentioning
interplanetary bases such as the Diogenes camp on the moon.
. . ."
Thane knew he had made a
ghastly mistake.
"Diogenes
camp?" shouted one MIBfi leaping to his feet. "How did you know which crater on the moon to name, out of the thousands that exist there?"
"How
did you, Thane Smith?" demanded the second MIB, "unless you somehow
read our minds last time, and transmitted the information to the
Vigilantes?"
"He must die," said the third MIB,
in a gruesomely mild voice, almost as if offering Thane a gift.
Desperately,
Thane send a psycho-probe
into their minds. But they had their psycho-shields up firmly. Thane could not
hope to read their minds and outwit them in the fatal moments to come.
One
MIB had hauled a tubular device from his pocket, was starting to aim it. Thane,
with muscles all tensed and ready, burst into action. He darted his hands down,
seized this typewriter, and flung it in one smooth flowing motion. It caught
the gun-holding MIB squarely in the chest, making him stagger back with a
startled grunt and crash into the wall.
The
other two MIB's were pulling their alien guns as Thane kept on the move, diving
headlong for his loaded shot-gun in the corner. He swung up the muzzle and
pulled both triggers. He aimed between the two Morlians
because he could not hope to hit one and then the other.
The
powerful blast of buckshot whining between the two MIB's utterly startled them.
One of them dropped his gun. The other held onto his gun and swung it toward
Thane again—only Thane was already there close to him, swinging the shot-gun by
the barrel. A solid thwack
on the MIB's head and he
sank without a groan.
The third MIB rushed at
Thane with his bare hands.
Thane combined a left hook with a Judo spill and a 101
Karate slash at the neck to reduce the third
MIB into a quivering mass of moaning flesh sprawled on the floor.
"When
you're able to crawl, gents," hissed Thane, "Get your miserable
carcasses out of here. Yes, I fingered your bases, and sooner or later you're
all going to remove yourselves from my planet, after the Vigilantes launch the
final victory battle."
Slowly,
the three MIB's got to their feet and lurched out the door. Hoping to catch
them off-guard, in their groggy state, Thane snapped:
"Where is your main base?"
But the only leak-thought that came back was—Our main base is located nowhere, somewhere, or anywhere.
When
Thane tuned in Thalkon, a moment later, the Vigilante
said: "Obviously a nonsense rhyme that has been drilled into every Morlian's mind, to make sure he can never reveal the truth.
But now that you've been exposed as our spy-agent, Thane, our last hope is
gone of ferreting out that secret. Hereafter, you will be a marked man to all Morlians."
Thane looked back at earth as the silvery
scout saucer catapulted into space toward the giant Vigilante mother-ship.
"Take
a good look at your home world," said Thalkon
softly. "We can never take you back—not until and unless the Morlians are completely defeated and all their MIB agents
leave. It would be death for you to step back on earth now."
Thane's
eyes were a bit
haunted, glued on the receding blue-green globe which had given him birth. Two
weeks ago he had been Thane Smith, disbeliever in UFO's. Now he was Thane
Smith, believer— and exile. An incredible upheaval in his
life. Where would it all end? If the Vigilantes failed to uproot the Morlian's main fortress, in the next 30 or 40 years,
Thane's whole life would have to be spent in space.
"You
are, in effect, a Vigilante,"
said Thalkon. "An earth-recruit, we might
say."
"Though hardly a voluntary one," said Thane dryly. "Fate sort of dragged me in
by the heels." He waved a resigned hand. "But I might as well take on Vigilante duties. I
have to do something."
"It has already been so arranged,"
said Thalkon briskly. "You and another Vigilante
are to take a special 'spy-craft' and tour through the solar system in the attempt
to find their main base."
"Good," agreed Thane, his spirits
lifting slightly at the 103
thought of a thriUing ride
among the planets. "Who is the other man?" "It is not a
man."
Thane
grunted. "All right, I'll wait and see which weirdo monster-man, from
among your multiworld recruits, I team up with. I
hope it isn't some critter I've seen in nightmares."
After
docking within the mother-ship, Thalkon led Thane to
a small flying saucer that bristled all over with sensors on booms.
"Looks like a
pincushion," commented Thane.
"Those
long-range ultra-electronic sensors can detect the slightest nonrandom
vibration in the gravo-electro-psycho spectrum
pervading the universe."
"Nonrandom means
artificial?" guessed Thane.
"Right,"
nodded Thalkon. "In short, Morlian equipment. You and your partner will cruise
out to Jupiter and beyond, probing for any G-E-P leak that might come from
their hidden main base."
"You're sure it's out
there somewhere?"
"We're
not sure," denied Thalkon honestly. "We're
just trying every desperate measure we can think of. We now know the Morlians succeeded in establishing certain spire-antennas
on earth that.. . ."
Thalkon
broke off and Thane said, "It is not permitted to tell, eh?"
"No,
but I can tell you this much," said Thalkon apologetically.
"You remember when you interviewed the earth-woman, Theda
Ranslick, she told you of the small humanoids—our
allies—who used a 'sparkling' device. It was to detect any Morlian
installation within miles, which they have been secretly planting all around
earth for 75 years. It is part of their unspeakable plot against earth."
"But
if you detected such installations, why not simply blast them out of
existence?" Thane wanted to know.
Thalkon waved his hands helplessly. "How to tell you of the ingenious technology available to the Morlians, as well as us? They first erected each
spire-antenna, then made a ... a tape of it."
"Like a voice on a tape?"
"Yes,
only it is not a voice
but a structure that is taped by them. And it is taped
rigidly in the air where the spire stood, after it had been blasted
apart."
Thane's
head swam a little.
"You mean the spire-antenna still exists but invisibly?"
"And
permanently," Thalkon almost groaned. "Just
as a taped voice is permanent unless it is wiped out, those 'taped' spires
also are eternal. And no device for 'wiping them out' is known to our science
technology."
He
calmed himself. "So there they stand all around earth, invisible and
unknown to your people. When they are ready, the Morlians
can beam radiations from anywhere in space, down to the antennas. Then earth
will be completely blanketed by a radiative vortex
that will accomplish the most . . . most fiendish feat ever known in galactic
history."
"You
think," said Thane half-bitterly, "that if you tell me what that
fiendish feat is, I'll lose my mind. Yet if you don't
tell me, I'll probably lose my mind sooner. The unknown is always worse than
the known."
"Not
in this case," said Thalkon firmly. "But
now you see why it is imperative for us to locate the main Morlian
base—and soon. From that base will come the key ray that triggers off all the
taped spire-antennas on earth, dooming the human race."
"Yet
you're only sending one ship and two Vigilantes to probe the solar
system?"
Thalkon stared at him. "Your ship is Number
4,678. Altogether we're sending out 5,000, one every minute."
"Wowl"
breathed Thane, stunned.
Thalkon
turned. "Here comes your partner." 105
Thane
braced himself. Would it be a Vigilante horror with ten boneless tentacles? ... or fourteen
stalk eyes? ... or
one wearing his skeleton on the outside?
Thane gasped as the figure rounded the ship.
"Miribel? Your
The 'pincushion,' as Thane dubbed it, spun
away from the mother-ship, swinging into a trajectory whose end point was
Jupiter.
"Good," said Miribel.
You followed the computerized signals perfectly, Thane. Now you simply increase
speed 100 times, to shorten the long journey to Jupiter. The velocity dial is
clearly marked off in multiples of speed."
"How do you eliminate inertia,
gravity-drag, and all the ordinary laws of physics?"
"Do you have about a year to listen
while I explain?" came half-tauntingly.
"She said to the primitive
ape-man," growled back Thane.
"No,
Thane," she returned seriously. "We do not look down upon you, the individual earthman. It is your society and its state of unenlightenment we deplore. But the human mind itself has
the potential to absorb all our science-technology—in a lifetime of
study."
"No, thanks," grunted Thane. "I'll stay dumb. But I can figure out
elementary things like the trip to Jupiter. Let's see, 500 miles a second to
cover about 500 million miles—a million seconds or . . . ummm"—Thane
had always been a rapid calculator—"about ten days."
"We
could get there faster," said the girl "in one day if we wished. But
it will take ten days to brief you on using all the sensors aboard. Come, we'll
start."
She
pointed at a green-glowing phosphor screen that showed squiggly, irregular
patterns of brilliant red at times. "Meteoroid sensor,
tabulating every grain of matter that passes within a thousand miles to either
side. If a nonrandom object—like a Morlian
ship—comes within range, the pattern changes to a symmetrical criss-cross and also changes to the color yellow."
On
and on it went, each sensor more ingenious and mind-numbing than the last.
Some
hours later, after a meal of foods that tasted strange but delicious to Thane,
he yawned. "Time for bed I guess ..."
he began, then suddenly sat up. "Say, we aren't. . . well, we aren't chaperoned."
Miribel did not avoid his gaze but stared straight
back. "No, we aren't. What is the need of it?"
Her
kiss was warm, passionate, promising. She drew back a little. "I know
something of your immature love codes on earth. They have long been abandoned
by Zyl, my world."
"Yes?"
breathed Thane, wondering where this would lead. He was unprepared for her next
deliberate words.
"We
form marriages to have children also. But before that, love is freely given as
wished. Sex goes with it, if both partners are willing. Are you willing,
Thane?"
Thane was more than willing.
Jupiter
filled the entire sky, an immense banded globe 87,000 miles in diameter. Miribel took the controls and plunged their craft down
through the thick murky atmosphere.
"Eight
thousand miles deep," murmured Thane in awe. "Equal
to earth's diameter."
As
the saucer leveled over the enormous surface of this giant planet, Thane stared
perplexed. "No ice? Arid what I see now, I don't believe."
A
huge finned creature was swimming through the thick air, like a fish through water.
"Jupiter is neither
frozen nor lifeless," gasped Thane.
"Of
course not," smiled Miribel, as if amused.
"The internal heat of the planet has been trapped for ages, under its
atmospheric cloak. One of your scientists suspected the truth, that Jupiter is
warm and that there is more
life here than on
earth."
Everywhere
that Thane stared, he saw myriads of airborne creatures of all shapes and
sizes, preying on each other. He started. "Look. One of the sensor screens
shows nonrandom pattern. A Morlian ship... ?"
Miribel hastily punched a readout tape, glanced at it, then relaxed. "One
of our ships, 500 miles west of us. Many of our sensor craft are
scouring Jupiter's surface, which is 1000 times the size of earth's
surface."
"Like
searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack," said Thane,
hopelessly.
Miribel spun the ship up. 'It is a better bet to search the moons of Jupiter."
Rising
above the atmosphere, they could see several of the moons shining brightly
among the stars. Miribel headed for huge Ganymede and
began a monotonous, routine circumnavigation in orbital paths with the sensors
probing below. Nothing registered on the sensors for long hours.
"This
kind of search bores me," said Thane impatiently. "I'd rather take
my chances and go back to earth as your spy. I'd have a better chance of
finding out where their main base is."
"You
would have no chance at all," contradicted the girl. She punched a button a a sibilant
voice filled the cabin. "This is a tape
we made of a Morlian beamed broadcast, just after
those seven bases that you had pinpointed for us were destroyed. I'll switch
on the automatic translator, converting it into your language."
The
voice changed to English. ". . . and it has now been detennined
that the earthman, Thane Smith, must have operated as a Vigilante agent and
used psycho-methods to extract information from Morlian
minds. The result was seven bases destroyed, more than the Vigilantes
accomplished by themselves in 50 years. Thane Smith is hereby declared a prime target for capture, by the Supreme High."
"See?"
said Miribel, shuddering. "To the Morlians, you are the most wanted man in the
universe."
"Wait," said
Thane. "Who's the Supreme High?"
"The
chief commander of all M or Kan forces in the earth Sector."
"Would his headquarters be at the main
base?" demanded Thane. "Yes."
"And notice they said 'captured,' not
killed." Thane was now excited. "Don't you see, Miribel?
If I'm captured alive—deliberately—I would be taken to the main base, the very
place we're combing space for. Then, if I could somehow signal Thalkon.. . ."
Miribel's eyes opened wide. "It could be our
great breakthrough," she whispered. "It just could be."
"Then
what are we waiting for?" snapped Thane, taking over the controls and
slewing the ship around. "We're heading back for earth and Thalkon."
Thalkon pursed his lips, staring at Thane. "But
we don't know for sure that you would be taken directly before the Supreme
High at the Morlian main base."
"Why not?" returned Thane. "It
seems I represent the greatest and most dangerous spy-agent they ever knew.
Wouldn't the top commander of the Morlians want to
see me in person—and sentence
me?"
Miribel winced, but Thalkon
nodded. "It makes sense. They might even have some plan to mentally
dissect you —I am sorry to be so brutally blunt, Thane—and thus pick up secrets
about us Vigilantes. You have been among us and learned much. Every scrap of
information about us they gain would be worthwhile to them."
Miribel stepped between them, her eyes terrified.
"You must not go, Thane. Mental dissection is ... is horrible."
"That
is true," said Thalkon honestly. "It means
slicing your brain apart, bit by bit, extracting every last memory circuit. A
psycho-scalpel is used, not a knife. You would live on through it, in torment,
and end up drained of all mentality. An idiot."
Thane's
face had gone white at the flesh-crawling words. He stood stiff and unmoving
for a long moment. Then he grinned wryly. "I'm going to be an idiot now,
despite your warning, and take on that challenge."
"No . . . no," Miribel half-moaned.
Thane took her hand tenderly. "Look, my
star love. I'm not as idiotic as I seem. Remember that my thought-processes and
actions are far more alien to the Morlians than yours
are. Or more primitive, if you wish. They won't even know I'm trying to outfox
them, nor will they ever believe I can. The advantage will be on my side."
Thane
went on, half-humorously. "It will be like the men who
captures an ape and locks him in a cage with a padlock, not knowing that
meanwhile, the ape stole the key."
"Don't
belittle yourself," said Thalkon, sincerely.
"We told you the earth mind has the full potential of ours, if not the training. And you have
just proved it. Now what we will do is return you to your cabin, where you will
pretend to go about revealing to the world all about the Morlians
and the Vigilantes. . . ."
"I
get it," said Thane. "As if I had broken with you in anger and just
wanted to inform my own people of what goes on. Then the Morlians
won't suspect I'm still acting as your agent. I can still put up my
psycho-shield and fool them."
"Only
now they will suspect psycho-tampering by us," warned Thalkon.
"It will take infinite finesse."
"No, just human wits," said Thane,
"which to them will be like animal cunning they don't understand. The ape
can win, with luck—about a carload of it."
He
turned to Miribel. "Well, sweet. Maybe this is
goodbye.. . ."
"Why?" she said.
"I'm going along."
Thane and Thalkon stared at her.
"But Miribel—" they both began.
"Save
your breath," the girl said firmly. "If Thane goes, I go. Besides,
that will add to the deception, if I pretend—and I won't have to pretend—that I
am madly in love with him and have deserted my people, and also
want to expose the Morhan-Vigilante
struggle to earth-people."
Thalkon's eyes gleamed. "Hmm. Twice in the past,
Vigilantes who were agents on earth and mingled with earthpeople,
fell in love. We had to kidnap the couple, in both cases, and return them to
our world before they exposed us. The Morlians know
the full story, so your act will seem quite true, Miribel.
In a sense, it will cover up for Thane."
He
turned and spoke into an intercom device. "Attention. Thane Smith and Miribel will be delivered to earth on Mission Main Base.
Prepare a scout craft."
Before
they left, Thalkon kissed Miribel
lightly. "Good luck, daughter," he said.
"Daughter?" Thane stood stunned. "Why didn't you tell me before?" He
recovered and went on, "And you're willing to risk your own daughter's
life to help our world and defeat the Morlians."
It
was not a question. Thane knew the answer already. The whole campaign of the
Vigilantes was beyond the call of duty, protecting another world from some
hideous fate.
Thane
shook Thalkon's hand wordlessly, then
stepped into the scout ship after Miribel. A computer
might, in rigid objectivity, give zero odds that the three would ever meet again.
"What are you
doing?" asked Miribel curiously.
Thane
looked up from his desk in the cabin, smiling. "I'm making out checks. One
does have to pay bills, you know. Also I've got some correspondence to answer.
If I don't somebody might get alarmed and tell the police I'm a missing man.
That would mess up our plans but good."
Taking
care of such routine affairs, Thane knew, was 112 important, making it seem as
if his life on earth was going on as usual. Otherwise, busybodies who suspected something was wrong might well raise a hue
and cry and put him under an unwelcome spotlight.
Finally,
heaving away from his desk with a sigh, Thane pointed at the typewriter and the
girl sat down, poising her hands over the keys.
"Take
this down, Miribel," said Thane, pacing up and
down his cabin like a business executive. "I, Thane Smith, have absolute
proof that extraterrestrial people have been visiting earth for at least 75
years. The proof? One of the extraterrestrials
themselves, a girl named MiribeL"
Out of the corner of his eye, Thane saw a
domed saucer sliding down out of the sky and landing beyond a clump of trees.
He knew the Morlian MID's would quickly be on the
job, keeping a sensor screen on the cabin day and night.
He
went on dictating. "Miribel is the daughter of
the Vigilante leader. His forces, in brief, are attempting to keep the Morlians—another alien race—from dominating earth."
Thane grinned to himself. Why they wanted to
dominate earth, he did not know. The Vigilantes had never told him the it-is-not-permitted-to-tell secret. His ears now
detected the soft pad of shoes outside.
"Miribel and I disagree with the Vigilante policy of secrecy
and want the world to know the full story of why they and the Morlians are here. . . ."
The
door swung open. Three MIB's stalked in, tubular weapons in
hand. "We would not like that," said their spokesman in
typical mild tones.
"The
Morlians," gasped Miribel
in pretended surprise. "But you said your cabin would be safe,
Thane."
"That's what I thought," said
Thane, acting rueful. 113
"After I vanished so completely, I figured
they would never check back here."
"You
underestimate our thoroughness," said one MIB. "Now you will. . .
."
They
aimed their tubular weapons. Thane's heart froze. They were to be summarily
killed after all, not captured. He had lost the big gamble at the start.
But
only a soft hiss came from the devices and Thane felt his muscles go lax.
"... be paralyzed," finished the MIB, "and taken to our
Supreme High, commander of all Morlians."
No,
the gamble had won, exulted Thane. So far, at least.
The
limp forms of Thane and Miribel were carried outside
to the domed saucer, which moments later shot silently into the sky.
Destination—the unknown
main base of Morli.
Chapter
19
Locked in a small chamber within the flying
saucer, paralyzed but mentally alert, the captured
pair had no idea of just where they were heading.
"It's
not on earth," came Miribel's
beamed psycho-words, picked up by the psycho-wafer next to Thane's brain.
"The departure mode was not an earthly trajectory but one out into
space."
"At
least we've eliminated one place where it is not," returned Thane, whimsically. "That
leaves only eight other planets and thirty-odd moons. Not to mention 50,000
asteroids or so."
"Or
maybe," speculated Miribel, "some
artificial base in midspace, at any one of an
infinite number of points near earth."
"Obviously,"
telepathed Thane, "we'll have to wait till we
get there and then see where we are."
Their
sense of time seemed dulled, too, by the induced paralysis. They had no idea
if it was minutes or hours or days later when the saucercraft
spun down for a landing.
A Morlian guard came in their prison chamber and shone the
tubular device's ray at them, but this time with a different effect. Their
muscles suddenly began working again.
"Follow me," he said tersely. Other
guards fell in behind. They stepped from the saucer onto a railed catwalk
within a giant dome.
Thane
immediately knew, by how light he felt, that they were on some small body. The
guard handed them each a pair of heavy metallic boots. "Put them on. They
will hold you down. Otherwise you could not walk without bouncing around
uncomfortably."
The boots, though not outsized, were extremely
heavy. When Thane stood up, he felt as if only 50% earth-scale gravity were at
work, which meant that this body was really small.
That
eliminated all the planets and left their tiniest moons. Or
an asteroid. But which one? The solid dome
above had no skylight window to see the stairs. Thane ached to flash the big
message to Thalkon, telling precisely where the Morlian headquarters were. When would they get the
chance—if ever?
A
flying platform, similar to those of the Vigilantes, took them through an arched
entrance into an inner sanctum that was heavily guarded. Thane knew they were
to confront the Supreme High, commander of mul-tithousands
of Morlian saucercraft and
their crews.
In
an austere chamber, a Morlian in a dead-black uniform
sat in a thronelike onyx chair. He smiled genially as
the two prisoners stood before him.
"Greetings,
Thane Smith of earth," he said in a gentle voice that seemed to hold no
hate or threat. "And Miribel
of the Zyl Vigilantes."
The
Supreme High picked up a document. "Thane Smith," he said in the same
unreproachful tones, "you have proved our worst
enemy, acting as a secret agent of the Vigilantes and causing the loss to us of
ten bases in all. Do you deny it?"
It
was hopeless to try. The Morlians were no fools and
could add two and two. Thane shook his head. "Why were we brought
here?" he asked, wanting to sound them out. "For
execution?"
"No,
not that," said the Morlian leader. "No, nothing as easy as that." His voice was not
sadistic.
Thane and Miribel both squirmed inwardly.
"You
are to undergo a certain mental procedure which will instantly leave you both
idiots, drained of all mind-powers."
Mind
dissection! Thalkon had guessed rightly. He glanced
at Miribel. The horror in her eyes was of great
magnitude.
"I
will personally attend the test," said the Supreme High to his guards.
"Yes, the great test!"
Test?
Of what? Thane's wonder and dread grew as they were
escorted into another great chamber. Most of it was taken up by a gigantic
plastic box filled with countless rows of what looked like microminiaturized
circuitry hung on vertical plates. All of it was immersed in some transparent
viscous fluid.
"It reminds me of a
computer," Thane said to Miribel.
"Or a giant
battery," murmured the girl.
"You
are both right," nodded the Supreme High, who had come up behind them. "But a new kind of battery and computer never known before,
with awesome powers—when it is done."
Miribel shuddered.
"I
think the Zyl girl knows what is coming," said
the Morlian chief. "Their spies gathered enough
information in the past 75 earth years to piece together our final plan. And how earth fits into that plan."
Thane
tensed. Was he about to hear from the Mor-lians
themselves what Thalkon had refused to reveal?
But
the Supreme High turned and beckoned to two chairs facing the huge machine. An
inch-thick cable or tube led from each chair within the giant box.
"You will please be
seated."
They
both sat down. Thane suddenly felt himself gripped by an invisible force that
emanated from the chair. Once seated, you could not get out though no bonds
were visible. Some devilish Morlian
device for holding you prisoner in front of the immense battery-computer.
"The
test will be applied to the girl first," said the Supreme High.
"Begin."
As
the attendants used pushbuttons, a mirrored
device descended from the ceiling until it hung just over Miri-bel's
head. She glanced up, in frozen terror.
"Goodbye, Thane,"
she choked out.
It
was all nightmarish after that, for Thane. He saw a purling blue ray shine down from the mirror,
bathing Miribel's head. Her face distorted as if
something were being torn from her. Thane strained against the invisible grip
of his chair but could not move a muscle.
He could only watch, in slowly growing horror.
"I
will explain, earthman," came the voice of the Supreme
High. "First of all, remember that a person's mind —the mentality or
psyche—exists as an electromagnetic pattern independently of the physical
brain. The brain, you see, is only an instrumented sensor of the true mind,
lending it the senses of sight, hearing, tactility, and the rest."
Thane
could dimly understand. At one time he had researched psychic phenomena which
seemed to authenticate this fundamental separateness of mind and brain. Especially
the so-called out-of-body experiences, in which a sensitive's 'astral' form
left the physical body and wandered on its own, sometimes far across the world.
It was the\ astral-form that held all the person's
memory and awareness, while the deserted body lay inert, the brain
uncomprehending. It was as if the mind had been 'drained' out of the brain,
leaving it merely a blank mass of protoplasm.
"And
Miribel's mind-psyche," said the Morlian chief with brutal directness, "is being forced out of her brain and is being drained away through that psychomagnetic cable."
Thane
sickened as he saw the tubular cable form a bulge that slowly traversed its
length and reached the giant box.
"Now,"
said the Supreme High, with a new tense note in his voice, "will her mind-psyche
be successfully assimilated in that mind-battery?"
Mind-battery? A battery was something you poured energy into. Thane's mind screamed
at the next thought that came to him.
MiribeVs mind was being 'poured into the giant box!
Thane forced his eyes back to her face. He
knew what he would see. It was a face of utter idiocy, grinning foolishly. Her
eyes were vacant with no slightest sign of intelligence shining forth.
"Her
brain," screeched Thane, squirming helplessly in his chair's grip.
"You emptied her brain. Stop . . . stop. . .
."
His voice broke to a
bubbling moan.
"If
the power needle swings up one notch," said the Supreme High, peering at a
dial on the plastic box, "it will mean . . . ah!" His triumphant
exclamation was almost a shout. "It worked. Miribel's
full mentality is now available to the computer connected to the mind-battery."
"Horrible," Thane could only rasp,
his whole being revolted at the ghoulish feat. "Miribel's
mind gone, like a candle snuffed out. You turned her into a mindless nothing .
. . mere living flesh . . . horrible, horrible. I loved her and she's gone ... gone ..."
"Oh,
the process is reversible," said the Supreme High airily, waving a hand.
Attendants worked controls and the bulge reappeared at the other end of the
tube, leaving the mind-battery. When the bulge traveled to her chair, Miribel's drooling face began to change. In a few moments,
she turned and smiled faintly at Thane. "It wasn't goodbye after
all," she breathed, but there was lurking horror in her eyes. "I felt
myself . . . my mind . .
. me . . „ being drawn through the tube and into the
plastic box. It felt like . . . no, I can't describe it." She broke off
and shivered. Then she glanced in stark pity at Thane. "Now can you see
what their plan is for earth?"
"No,
I can't," mumbled Thane, still shaken by what had happened to her. "I
don't want to know." He was fighting off any conjectures, afraid to face
the mind-blasting denouement.
"But
it was the finely tuned mind of Miribel of Zyl that we tested," the Morlian
Chief was saying, turning his eyes balefully on Thane. "Now we must test
the coarser mind of the earthling. Begin."
Thane
braced himself as the mirror lowered over his head, still helpless to leap out
of the chair and escape. At the purling blue ray's touch, infinite agony filled
his head. He felt as if his brain were being ripped out. But he knew it wasn't
his brain. It was his mind. The essence of his whole being.
The true intangible him,
an electromagnetic pattern
stamped on his brain like the magnetic pattern on a voice-tape.
And
his mind-psyche was being forced out of his brain and into the psychomagnetic tube. There was a soundless 'snap' and the
pain ceased. He sensed that his mind-bulge was now traveling through the tube.
It felt like going through a clammy cold tunnel into some impossible
dimension.
Then
he felt his mind-essence pouring into a recepta-ble
in the plastic box, and being 'imprinted' therein. He was in the mind-battery. Dimily, his racing thoughts wondered if his mind would be
returned to his body, like Miribel's. Or would he
remain here, forever imprisoned within this horrifying psycho-battery like a
charge of electricity?
But
then he felt himself being drawn away, back through the tube. Moments later,
with a soundless click, he was seeing with his eyes and hearing with his ears
again.
"Again
a complete success," said the Morlian chief
tonelessly, though they were crowing words. "That means that M-day can be
set for three days from now."
"M-day
means mind-day," whispered Miribel
to Thane, her voice edged with a moan.
"Our
orbit will take us within 5000 miles of earth in three days," the Supreme
High went on, speaking to his attendants more than to his prisoners. "From
that close range, we can send the activator-signal to all our invisibly taped
antennas planted on earth so laboriously in the past 75 years."
With
dread clawing its way through him, Thane waited for the rest, not daring to
consciously think ahead himself.
"Each antenna will then spread an
umbrella of blue rays, completely covering earth's surface. The mind-psyches of
all people on earth will then be forced out of their brains."
Thane winced violently with each statement
after that.
"Our circling ships with psychomagnetic tubes lowered will suction up those
loosened mind-psyches and keep them stored . . . Upon return to our main base
here, the tubes will pour those captured human minds into the psycho-battery. .
. .
"Fully
charged, the psycho-battery will then feed mentality-units to the computer
system. . . .
"And
we will have a bio-computer of supercapacity, greater
than any ever invented before in the universe, powered not by mere electronic
impulses but by three
and a half billion human minds"
Thane's mind flipped upside-down. He felt
himself skirting the edges of insanity. A whole world—his world,
"robbed" of 3J£ billion mind-psyches-sent into mental
slavery within a computing machine.
Now
he knew why Thalkon had used 'ghastly and 'fiendish' to
describe the Morlian plot against the earth. But
those words were too weak. There were no words to describe the supercrime that would be committed with multibillions of minds stolen from humanity
on earth.
"With
the mind-powered computer," the Supreme High was finishing, "we will
of course be able to devise new ultraweapons far more
powerful than those of the Vigilantes. Conquest of the universe will then
follow with ease."
Thane knew he was not boasting. With 3£
billion mentalities given programmed instructions to work out the scientific
and mathematical problems, they would be solved in billionths of a second. The
output of this mind-powered computer would be inconceivably superior to any
other computer known.
And
the most grinding thought was that the stolen earth-minds would aid the
empire-hungry Morlians in wrecking the United Worlds
and sweeping through the galaxy as conquerors.
Maddening
thought upon maddening thought. Miribel was staring
pityingly at Thane. She shook her head, seeing him slowly go under.
"That
is your punishment for the destruction of ten of our bases, Thane Smith,"
the Supreme High said. "Not
to join your fellow people
in the psycho-computer, but to live on and go mad when you are the only human
left free."
The mildness of his tone, in contrast to his
ruthless words, was far more blood-chilling than if he had roared in emotional
theatrics.
"Release
them from the chairs and imprison them together."
Chapter
20
For almost two days, Thane was a madman. Not
a homicidal psychopath but a brooding wreck who moaned and groaned
continuously, clenching and unclenching his fists helplessly. Miribel wept at the insane light in his tortured eyes.
How
could any earthman withstand the stark and devastating picture of how his
people—to the last man, woman, and child—would have body and mind shorn
asunder, leaving 3% billion breathing but mindless bodies to
slowly die on earth like gross crawling slugs.
"That
was why," Miribel murmured, "we did not want
to tell you the Morlian earth-plot. That you heard it
at all was the price you had to pay for aiding us as a spy. Poor
Thane. Your mind will stay in your body—but hopelessly mad. And I loved
you. . . ."
She
choked for a moment, then straightened up. A look of
concentration came over her face as she began sending out a psycho-beam,
contacting Thalkon. She told the grim story briefly.
"Then in one more day," returned Thalkon, "they will be within position to send the
trigger-beam to their earth-based antennas and accomplish their aim—the theft
of every mind on earth. Even if we attacked with all our forces at that time,
their entire warfleet would be at hand, protecting
the key-ship sending down the trigger beam and the mind-suction craft. We
might wipe out most of their forces—and still lose. For they would have 3?2 billion human minds safely stored in their psycho-battery, ready for
use in- the psycho-computer."
"The
trouble is," Miribel said in frustration,
"that we still don't know where this
Morlian HQ is. We've had no chance to look out at the
stars or at anything. And the psycho-beam between us is entirely nondirectional. However, from the slight gravity, I suspect
this is some very small asteroid."
"Fine,"
said Thalkon ironically. "Only
50,000 to choose from."
"No, not 50,000,"
came a new psycho-voice. "Just one."
Miribel turned with a little scream of joy.
"Thane, it's you! Your eyes are clear. How—"
"I
can't figure it out myself," said Thane wonderingly. "Unless
everything that's happened to me in the past two weeks—seeing genuine saucers,
the MIB's attacking, meeting the Vigilantes, hearing of the 75-year struggle,
and all that—conditioned my mind to accept one more blow, the greatest of them
all."
What
did you mean—one?" put in Thalkon tensely,
"Which asteriod are you on, and how can you
know?"
"Something
stuck in my mind," said Thane slowly, "when the Supreme High said
they would orbit
close to earth in three
days. Not long ago—when I was a disbeliever in UFO's—I wrote a science article
about a sensational but unconfirmed observation made by a Japanese astronomer,
claiming he had discovered a new eccentric asteriod.
That was about six months ago."
Thane
paused to sort his thoughts. "Eccentric asteroids are those that leave
the main flock orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. These mavericks have crazy
looping orbits that cross those of Mars and Venus. Icarus
even crosses the orbit of Mercury and goes closer to the sun than any other
body, except an occasional comet."
Thane
lit a cigarette. "Some of these eccentric asteroids come fairly close to
earth and are called earth-grazers,
even though they may miss
by four million miles or so. Eros is one, also Adonis and Apollo. Hermes came
the nearest to earth in 1937, within 485,000 miles or just twice as far away as
the moon."
After
a hurried puff, Thane went on quickly. "But the Japanese astronomer was
startled to find that his new eccentric earth-grazer would really graze
earth—by 7500 miles. Now his hasty calculations, based on insufficient orbital
data, could be wrong. The true figure might be 5000 miles."
"The
figure given by the Supreme High," breathed Miribel,
excitedly. "Then it could be . . ."
Thalkon broke in urgently. "Can you remember
any of the orbital data, Thane? If you give us any of the astronomer's
figures, we can piece the rest out."
Thane
furrowed his brow. "After all that has happened," he muttered hatf-complairiingly, "anything that I wrote only a
couple months ago seems so remote . . . hmm. I think I remember it was azimuth
43.6 degrees . . . uh . . . right ascension 11.4 degrees . . . and declination
65 point something. Latitude, Tokyo figure."
"And what was the
date, Thane? That's all-important."
"The date?" Thane knocked knuckles at his temple in frustration. "You'd think
I could remember a simple thing like that. But I'm blank . . . no, wait. I
recall saying to myself that guy sure loves his job
if he works on a holiday. But which holiday? Christmas?
. . . July the Fourth? . . . Columbus
Day? . . . aha! That's it. I remember saying
to myself he's really celebrating Columbus Day by discovering a new world,'
even if it was a tiny asteroid only 1/3 mile across. So that makes it . .
."
"October
12," supplied Miribel's psycho-voice. "We
have studied your earthly calendar and important dates."
"That's it, Thane. The
downfall of Morli—if we hurry."
Thalkon's psycho-voice became hesitant as he
continued. I'm sorry to say this but there is no choice. You have 24 hours to
escape from the asteroid. Then it will be blown up. Good luck, Thane . . . and
daughter."
His
psycho-voice faded out. Thane and the girl stared at each other.
"24
hours to escape," mumbled the girl, "from the enemy's main armed
camp, while locked up in a dome. It's impossible."
"It's
only the miraculous that gives us trouble," said Thane with an attempt at
lightness. "The impossible we do with ease."
But he wasn't fooling the
girl—or himself.
Thane
was too tired to think. He swayed on his feet, bone-weary from his two days of
sleepless madness.
"Got
to have a nap," he muttered, stumbling toward one of the two cots in the
corner of the room.
Miribel was equally in need of rest and fell onto
the other cot. And so, with only 24 hours left before the deadline of doom, the
two slept half of it away.
Miribel awoke first and shook Thane until he opened
his eyes droopily. "We have an inner 'clock' or time-sense. We've slept 12
hours. In 12 more hours the Vigilante fleets will be here to blast the
asteroid to bits."
"Twelve
hours to escape—and I still haven't a plan." Thane began pacing the floor,
trying to think a way out of their dilemma. He stopped in midstride, staring
down at the bulky shoes they had been supplied with.
"Miribel, did they feed us during the past two days when I
was . . . uh . . . out of my head?"
"Yes, Thane. Two guards, heavily armed, came in twice a day with food. They probably
came while we were asleep too, but left without awakening us."
"Does
your time-sense tell you when they are due again?" Thane demanded tensely.
"Hmm . . . I would say
in about four hours."
"Four
wasted hours," said Thane in the tones of a curse. "But anyway, we
can go over a plan to overcome the two guards. How were they armed?"
"Each with two weapons at his hip—a blaster and a para-gun that shoots the paralyzer-ray."
"Did both men come
in?"
"No,"
said the girl. "One came in with the food while the other stood just
outside the door, ready to use his guns if need be. And how can we overcome
them?"
"With
these," said Thane. He held up one of his weighted shoes which he had
removed, but only with an effort. He dropped the shoe. It struck the floor with
a heavy thud. "How do they make them ten times heavier than lead?" he
wondered.
"Atom-packing,"
said Miribel. "The metal is placed in a powerful
force field that constricts at the center. The atoms are simply crushed
together until their specific density is 10 times greater than before."
Another sign of the advanced
science-technology the saucermen—whether Vigilantes
or Morlians—had brought with them. Thane smiled
grimly. "We'll turn their own technology against
them, in this particular case. Now here is how we'll work it, when the guards
come. . . ."
Miribel listened intently and gave a few suggestions
of her own.
The door swung open after being unlocked and
the guard came in, balancing a tray of dishes. The second guard stood
watchfully in the doorway.
"Your food," said the first guard,
glancing at the two prisoners, who sat on their cots as if just awakening.
Their blankets had fallen carelessly around their feet.
As
the guard stooped to set the tray down on the central table, Miribel suddenly yanked something from under her blanket.
Using two hands to lift her heavy shoe, she brought it down on the guard's
head. He sank without a sound.
The
other guard at the door immediately began tugging at the two weapons slung in
his belt. But almost at the same time Miribel had
used her shoe, Thane had yanked one of his shoes from
under his blanket and flung it toward the doorway.
The
guard dodged it, but this threw off his aim as he fired his para-gun.
And before he could fire again, Thane's second shoe smacked straight into his
face. With a grunt the guard keeled over.
"Out
cold," gloated Thane, running over, "as if he had been slugged by the
world's champion heavyweight fighter. Those weighted shoes pack a punch."
Thane dragged the second guard alongside the
first guard. Quickly, he took all four of their weapons. He handed the two para-guns to Miribel, tucking the
two blasters in his own belt.
"Now
for step two," breathed Thane, "according to our plan. We have to
make our way out of these sleeping quarters—our 'prison' was only a spare
bunkroom—to the spaceship hangar. And as you surmise, from your knowledge of Morlian architecture, that would be at the far end of the
dome. And this is a big dome, maybe a mile wide."
It
seemed almost foolish to try, with innumerable guards between them and their
objective. Thane cautiously led the way out of their prison room, closing the
door behind them.
They
were wearing their weighted shoes again and walked normally down the hallway.
At the end of the corridor, where a doorway opened out into the main section
of the dome, a guard stood with his back to them.
Silently
taking off one shoe, Thane crept up behind him and laid him out with one
sweeping blow. "Great weapons, these shoes," whispered Thane.
"Too bad we can't take them along."
Shoeless,
they slipped out of the doorway. Around them now as the full sweep of the
gigantic dome, its top barely visible. Dotted here and there were other barracks
buildings, laboratories, workshops arsenals, and all the installations of a warbase.
Dimly,
at the far side of the dome, they could see a huge hangar where the Morlian warfleets and scout craft
lay. Between them and their goal stood thousands of Morlians.
"All
of whom we skip meeting," grinned Thane, taking the girl's hand.
"Now. . . . JUMP."
They
jumped straight up. Without the weighted shoes, in the almost negligible
gravity of the tiny asteroid, they kept going up—50 feet ... a hundred . . . two hundred. At 500 feet,
still sailing up in a currying trajectory, Thane grabbed hold of a girder and
clung to it. With his other hand, he easily swung a one-pound Miribel up onto the metal beam.
Thane
looked around. They were on one of the spidery network of beams supporting the
domed structure. Not a great deal of bracing was needed in this low gravity.
The beam was no more than 6 inches wide and an inch thick. On earth or any
other planet or moon, these thin girders would have collapsed in seconds.
"Now
we simply follow this 'pathway,' 500 feet high, to the other side of the
dome," Thane said exultantly.
"A
stroke of genius, that idea," said Miribel admiringly.
"The moment you mentioned it, I realized we had some chance."
Toning
down their leg muscles, they minced their way along the girder to where it
joined other girders at the center of the dome, all affixed to a single pillar.
Then they strode along another branching girder that led toward the hangar a
half-mile away.
"Nobody will think of looking up here
for us," said Thane. "But move slowly so that if any Morlian accidentally glances up and spies us, he won t be
sure—at that distance—whether his eyes are playing him tricks or not."
Fortunately,
the dome's lighting facilities consisted of a series of luminescent fixtures
hanging from the girder system and shining their light downward only. The upper
part of the dome, where the two escapees crawled along, was in comparative
gloom.
When
they reached a position directly over the hanger, Thane halted. "How many
hours left before the big blast?"
"Seven,"
returned Miribel. "By now, the Vigilante astronomical
experts must have calculated just where this asteroid is located in space, from
the data you gave. Thalkon has probably already given
the order for all warfleets to prepare for action at
zero-hour. They are on their way now, from all bases in the solar system."
A
ring of deadly ships closing in on the lone asteroid, ready to blast it to
eternity—in seven hours. Thane shivered.
He
glanced down. There was the usual bustle and activity below, within and
outside of the hanger—mechanics, pilots, workmen and all others, doing their
duties. At times a scout ship took off and shot straight up to the dome's peak,
there turning half-transparent and 'oozing' out through the solid wall. Thane
could still not get over the wonder of it, since experiencing it at the sea dome.
"Are you sure," fretted Thane,
"that the Morlians have a waking and sleeping
period, like on earth?"
"Yes," nodded Miribel.
"They are creatures of habit, as all intelligent beings seem to be
throughout the galaxy."
"And when will their sleep period
come?"
"In
five hours, at the soonest." The girl looked gravely at Thane. "Or as
long as 8 hours, if my estimates are wrong"
"Eight hours," grunted Thane, turning a little pale. "We'll never live that long. It's got
to come before seven hours „ . . or
else."
Chapter
21
Time
did not drag. It fairly flew. Three hours passed and Thane could picture the
Vigilante armada gathering speed and plunging through space toward a tiny spark
in space that was nearing earth, ready to graze it by 5000 miles.
Thane
could also picture the Supreme High, chief of the Morlians,
gloatingly watching earth enlarge with his finger poised at the button that
would trigger off instant doom for all earth-people.
Four hours passed . . .
five hours.
"Two
more hours to go," whispered Miribel.
"And
still no sign of any slackening off below," groaned Thane. "Our only
hope is to steal one of their ships, but not while a thousand Morlians are around. When will they ever knock off work and
. . ."
"Wait,"
said Miribel sharply. "They won't. Oh, Thane, it
was stupid of me. But you see, they won't stop working
today. They will be sending out all or most ships to carry out the earth-doom
project in two hours."
"That's
right," gasped Thane with a sinking heart. "All their ships equipped
with the mind-suction tubes and military escorts."
And just then, taking off one by one, a hundred huge saucercraft
spun out of the hangar and out of the dome.
"The
same thing is happening at perhaps a dozen other domes on the asteroid,"
surmised Miribel. "All their vast fleet will be
poured into this giant operation."
In
the next hour, another thousand craft silently
poured out of the hangar and out of the dome, for
their rendezvous with—earth.
Suddenly,
a psycho-voice boomed in their minds. "Thalkon calling Thane Smith and Miribel.
The Supreme High, we calculated, would set his zero-hour for the moment when
the asteroid is closest to earth—two hours from now. We will strike one hour
from now. It was the best we could do, as to timing." He seemed to draw a
breath. "Now, have you any chance of escaping before the end?"
Thane
glanced at the ghTs taut face."It's going to be
touch-and-go, Thalkon. But of course, nothing must
hold up your attack at the specified time. If we lose out, only two lives are
lost. If you lose out, billion fives are lost—on earth."
"Goodbye,
father," said Miribel's psycho-voice resignedly,
"in case we never see you again."
"May
the Great Guardian bless you both for what you have done, making our victory
possible."
His psycho-voice faded out.
"Come
on," snapped Thane. "I'll be damned if I'll sit here and wait for the
axe to fall. Down we go, depending on the element of surprise to carry us
through."
With
that, Thane made a swan-dive off the girder, Miribel
instantly following. They glided down in slow-motion, with no danger of
landing with killing shock.
They
landed on the roof of the hangar. A quick look around and he pointed at a
cupola. "An air duct, as I hoped. Let's go."
They
wormed their way into the air duct, then hung over the
scene of activity, as more Morlian saucercraft wheeled out.
"Drop
down on that one below, in back of those now leaving," hissed Thane.
"If we're in luck, the pilot or pilots will be too busy with their
instruments to see us."
Their two featherweight bodies drifted down
toward 133 the domed disk below. Their feet hardly made a sound as they landed.
Miribel pointed silently at the open hatchway in the
side of the dome.
As
they crept, they came face to face with a startled
Morlian pilot, about to close the hatch.
Thane
had one of his blasters in hand, but hesitated. Unlike a Vigilante weapon, it
would not hurl the victim into the Nth dimension, but
into oblivion. Thane sweated ....
But
Mirabel's para-gun was already hissing and the Morlian pilot slumped like a rag doll.
"Good work," said
Thane thankfully.
He
dragged him across the saucers rounded top to the rim and dropped him off.
Leaping headlong in a fifty-foot dive back to where Miribel stood,
Thane led the way inside the saucer.
"If the other pilot heard anything,
he'll be coming to investigate," whispered Miribel.
"Listen ... his footsteps."
They sounded from a cross corridor that came
from the pilot's bubble. Thane got down in a ready crouch. It would be too risky trying to gun him down from a distance.
As soon as the Morlian turned the corner, Thane
leaped, hurling his body 30 feet down the corridor. The impetus of his earth
muscles shot him forward like a cannonshell. His head struck the Morlian
in the chest, thrusting him backward for 10 feet, meeting a wall with a sodden thud.
"Two down," panted Thane, "and
none to go.
Hurry, to the pilot room."
In
the pilot's bubble of transparent material, they sat down at the controls.
"Can you drive this crate, Miribel?" At
the girl's nod, Thane went on. "You take the drive controls. I'll take the
gun controls, of the second seat. Tell me how they work."
Miribel ran through it swiftly, Thane nodding and absorbing
it. "Now, the trick is . . ."
A
radio voice broke in from their panel speaker, in an alien gibberish.
"The
Morlian language," said Miribel.
"I'll translate ...
Blaster craft #Z-777. Prepare for take-off. Follow route ZY. That is all."
Faking
a man's gruff voice, Miribel then spoke into a panel
mike, and Thane assumed she gave the Morlian
equivalent of 'Roger.' She shut off the mike carefully, then
worked pushbuttons that made their saucer trundle itself out of the hangar on
wheels. Outside, she retracted the wheels and began to spiral the saucer upward
in the same take-off pattern the preceding ship had used.
"If
nobody caught a glimpse of us in our bubble," Thane breathed, "we
have a good chance to get away scott
free. How much time to the deadline, Miribel?"
"Just twenty minutes."
"Ouch,"
said Thane with a world of feeling. "If anything delays us. . . ."
"We're
gone gooses," said Miribel, unconsciously using
earth idiom. They smiled bleakly at each other.
Miribel expertly used the off-phase control to shift
their vibrational range to where they could ooze
through the solid dome into open space. At that moment, the automatic speaker
circuit boomed out ominously.
"Attention!"
translated Miribel. "Emergency
alarm! Two unauthorized persons have been seen in ship #Z-777. Chase
them down, if you are near."
She turned to Thane, face ashen. "That's
our fatal delay," Miribel said, pointing to
where three Morlian saucers were wheeling around and
coming at them.
"Not
if I work fast—and you outmaneuver them," hissed Thane. "Come on, give me the right shooting positions."
The Morlian ships were already hurling out blaster-135 beams,
but Miribel played her fingers dancingly over the
control keyboard, and their saucer slewed away at a right angle.
Thane
again marveled, in flashing thought, at the miraculous null-inertia system
that allowed these saucers to turn and twist in violent flying contortions
without straining one bolt.
Mirabel's
fingers kept playing a skillful tattoo and their saucer spun crazily, or so it
seemed. But suddenly she yelled: "Now, Thane!"
And
Thane found he had a perfect shot at the backside of one Morlian
saucer. Pressing the stud of his blast-gun, Thane sent one vicious blaster-beam
stabbing ahead. The enemy craft burst into a billion sparkles, just as the
first saucer had during the dogfight on earth that he had witnessed.
Morlian blast-beams narrowly missed them in the next
minute. But twice more Miribel wrenched their ship
through impossible turns to utterly surprise the Morlian
pilots. And twice more Thane had the satisfaction of seeing space fireworks
herald the end of Morlian war-craft.
"Unfortunately,
we are forced to take Morlian lives," said Miribel, with a pained face. "They never equipped
their weapons to send out the saving ray that first hurls a living pilot to the
Nth dimension before his ship blows up."
"That was only three Morlian
fives," spat out Thane without remorse. "They were ready to wipe out
all humanity. . . ."
"Look!" yelled Miribel.
"We've got to get out of here fast. There comes the Vigilante warfleet."
Thane
stared. A cloud in space was expanding and blocking out the stars. The cloud
grew immense as a vast fleet of Vigilante ships arrowed toward the asteroid on
which lay a dozen domes.
Miribel worked frantically at her controls trying to
slew their saucer out of the path of the growing cloud. But the cloud expanded
faster than their flight path.
"Hopeless,"
said Miribel tightly. "The Vigilante fleet
probably covers an area of space a million miles wide. It's like a bug trying
to escape a vast flock of birds."
"And
we're in a Morlian ship—which they'll shoot
down," added Thane. "We escaped the asteroid but not soon
enough."
"We're sitting ducks, as you would say
on earth."
"But
we're not through," protested Thane. "We simply contact Thalkon with a psycho-beam."
He
tried. Miribel tried. There was no answer. "We
can't get through to him," Miribel said
tonelessly. "I didn't expect to. As commander of this all-out attack
against the main Morlian base, he's receiving
hundreds of psycho-messages from his subcommanders."
"And
ours is lost in the shuffle," said Thane. "But we're going to make
our death count. Swing back, Miribel. Back to where
the Morlian fleet is massing. Get it? They won't know
it's us. We'll be right in the middle of their fleet and then open up on all
sides." His face was savage now.
Their
saucer spun in a long arc to join the outer fringes of the Morlian
fleet. The ships originally sent toward earth had been hastily recalled when
the approaching Vigilante fleet had been detected.
But
it was a haphazard formation and in the disorder, Miribel
weaved her ship toward the central core. They did not have long to wait.
With
the arrival of the Vigilante vanguard, both sides opened fire. Fission and
fusion powered, a wide assortment of blast-beams stabbed back and forth. Morlian ships began to burst into brilliant showers of
sparks. But the rest had formed roughly into a phalanx in depth, in the path of
the Vigilante armada.
"Now's the time," hissed Thane.
"We'll punch a hole through them for the Vigilante fleet to get
through."
Thane's
finger went down on the firing button. A livid blast-beam caught the nearest Morlian ship squarely, creating another sunburst of sparks
in space. As Miribel swung the ship around slowly,
Thane fired continuously, raking Morlian craft like a
row of targets in a shooting gallery.
"They don't know what hit them," gloated Thane,
then kept up the grim count he had begun. ". . . 25 . . .
26 ... 27 ... 28______ "
Utterly bewildered at the attack, the Morlian formation began to break up ahead. Two craft even
rammed each other in the confusion.
Thane
laughed aloud and counted mentally. "...
46 ... 47 ... 48 ...
."
Chapter
22
Miribel
glanced back and gasped. "Thanel Where is the asteroid?"
Thane
whirled. There was no asteroid back of them, as there should be. Then, in the
corner of his eye, he caught sight of the small dim body, slowly receding into
space.
"It's
moving,'' said Thane, stunned. "The
Supreme High had an ace up his sleeve. The asteroid is powered somehow."
Miribel groaned audibly. "And if the Morlian fleet holds up the Vigilante forces long enough,
the Supreme High can slip close to earth, send out the ships with psycho-suction
tubes, and steal all earthy minds. Then he could lose himself and his tiny
asteroid in space. Under power, he would return safely to Morli
with his psycho-battery fully 'charged,' to operate his psycho-computer and
plot the conquest of the cosmos."
"Damn,"
swore Thane in a rage, "how can we stop him? Wait, what power system would
the asteroid have?"
"I can only guess," said Miribel slowly, swinging their saucer around to follow the
receding asteroid. "It would have to be an electrogravity
power plant, such as the kind the United Worlds Planetary Engineering Bureau
uses for moving moons around and reshaping solar systems that are badly
arranged by nature."
"Where would it be located?" Thane
asked hurriedly.
"Probably under an aeriated
dome for the benefit of the engine crew. The telltale sign would be an aura of violet
light around it, a standard by-product of the elec-trogravity
power plant."
"Then
catch up with the asteroid," snapped Thane. He grinned crookedly.
"They'll take our saucer for one of their own, returning from some
military mission or other. With the emergency at hand, it's a sure thing nobody
will be watching every ship that comes down."
Miribel nodded and rammed the saucer ahead, soon
overtaking the runaway asteroid. Beyond, earth was ballooning into a ball that
rapidly enlarged. Calculating rapidly, Miribel
warned: "Thane! The asteroid will be within 5000 miles of earth in just 5
minutes."
"Unless
we find the right dome and stop it," supplied Thane, peering down intently
as they swooped low over the asteroid's jagged surface. Three domes appeared,
widely spaced. None of them glowed with violet light
"The next dome, Miribel," fumed Thane. "Hurry!"
More
minutes were wasted in checking nine more domes. Then Thane stared below at the
first dome they had seen hove into view. "No more domes?" he gasped.
Miribel shook her head. "I circled the asteroid
in an orbital pattern, shifting each time and covering the whole surface. They
have only 12 domes." Her voice was edged with panic. "Did I guess all
wrong about an elec-trogravity power plant? Thane,
the Supreme High's zero-moment is close now. Only a minute left. . . ."
Thane
stiffened and pointed down. "Look. A violet glow from that miniature
mountain peak."
Miribel stared eagerly, her face fighting up.
"They camouflaged
it under stone. Get ready,
Thane. As I make a low pass over the peak, send down an infra melt-beam. Fourth button to the right on your weapon keyboard."
The
saucer tilted and sliced downward at a steep slant. As it abruptly made a
60-degree turn just above
the mountain, an angry red beam spat forth and
touched the peak. Molten lava instantly formed as the peak melted away.
"Now
to get away fast," Miribel half-screeched, sending
their saucer careening away at 1000-g's of acceleration. "When that
molten stone floods down into the power plant and wrecks the electrogravity unit, at least 100 giga-dynes
will be released."
Dynes? Dynes? Then Thane remembered. The unit of
energy. And "giga" was the metric
system's prefix for 'billion/
The asteroid had receded behind them to a
tiny star. But suddenly the star grew into a nova, then a supernova. And still
it grew and grew and grew. . . .
An
invisible tide of smashed molecules, driven at su-perhurricane
speed, overtook the fleeing saucer. The blow was like that of a giant fist,
tumbling the saucer like a cork. Inside, Thane was thrown against the side wall
with a shade less than bone-crushing force. Then Miribel's
flying form struck him in the chest, knocking his breath out explosively.
Cushioned
from a crash into metal by Thane's body, the girl recovered first, whimpering
as a dozen bruises throbbed painfully. Thane lay sprawled on the floor, limp,
pale, not breathing. Miribel felt for his pulse.
"Dead," she said
hollowly.
Thane sat up. He was in a white-walled
chamber, in bed. Obviously a Vigilante sick bay aboard one of
their ships. The door opened and Miribel came
in, followed by Thalkon.
"I'm alive?" marveled Thane,
feeling himself all over. "But I was sure I was dying, back in the Morlian saucer. . . ."
"You
did die," said Miribel matter-of-factly. 141
Thane grunted. "All
right, what's the punch line?"
"It
is not a joke," spoke up Thalkon, smiling.
"Miribel rushed you here to my flagship. We
didn't shoot down her Morlian ship because the battle
was over and all Morlians were surrendering. Our
doctors then restarted your heart electrically, used a bio-bellows to get your
lungs pumping, and gave drugs that revved up your other organs."
Thane
arched his brow. "On earth, I'd have been in a funeral parlor, being fixed
up for my grand exit from this world."
"Our medical science is a bit ahead of
yours," said Thalkon in an enormous
understatement. "The asteroid . . . ?"
"Scattered
through the solar system as atomic debris," said Thalkon.
"The Supreme High never sent down the trigger-beam for his great mental
thievery—thanks to you and my daughter. It was a magnificent feat."
Miribel didn't blush, but Thane did.
"With
the explosion of their asteroid, and all their plans, the Morlians
lost all heart to continue the pointless battle. They surrendered. We captured
40,000 craft. Their crews will be sent to exile in the Nth Dimension."
He
drew up, pointing at the globe of earth in space. After 75 years of struggle,
your world is free of menace . . . until the next time."
"Thanks to you and the Vigilantes," said Thane earnestly.
Thalkon shrugged. "It's our duty." He eyed
Thane speculatively. "Now the question is, what
to do with you. You're the only earthman who knows all about the flying
saucers. The tremendous earth-shaking truth. But we request—"
"I
know, I know," said Thane. "You request that I never reveal this to
anyone on earth. I promise."
"That may not be good enough," said
Thalkon half-apologetically, "human nature being
what it is. So—"
He
took a medallion out of his pocket and held it before Thane's eyes. HONORARY
MEMBER, GALACTIC VIGILANTE CORPS, SOL-EARTH SPECIAL AGENT.
"—we
invite you into our ranks, sealing your lips according to our code. Do you
accept, Thane Smith?"
"I'm
honored," said Thane simply and sincerely. "But do I have any . . .
well, actual duties as a 'special agent,' whatever that means?"
"It
means you will be called upon by us, whenever necessary, in case earth becomes
the target of a new menace. The defeat of Morli will
leave a vacuum here. Other predatory worlds may step in. What your duties will
then be, we cannot foretell."
He
waved a hand. "But otherwise, you will simply resume your earth life, as
before—with one change. You will have a wife. That is, after you're duly
married in the earthly style."
Miribel still did not blush but stared back at Thane
boldly. "Yes, I asked for earth duty along with you, Thane." Then
suddenly she was shy. "You of course have the right to refuse."
"I accept,"
grinned Thane, "Mrs. Miribel Smith-to-be."
"Listen
to this TV news item, dear," called Thane. "For
laughs."
Miribel came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands.
On the screen, a news commentator told of a new sighting. A switch to
videotape showed the witness, a respected professor, who recounted his story.
"It
was a dancing light in the sky at first, coming down. It seemed about to crash
to earth. Amazingly, however, it came to a dead halt 500 feet over me. Then
I could clearly distinguish it's shape, similar to two pie-plates placed together. Definitely metallic and powered. Definitely
a machine."
The
commentator came on again, a slight smile quivering at his hps,
as he introduced the next videotape guest, a member of Air Force's Blue Book
Staff.
The
well-groomed officer who appeared spoke emotion-lessly,
without a hint of sarcasm. "After thorough study, and consultation with
dozens of scientific experts, we have come to the conclusion that the professor
was unknowingly deceived. It was the planet Venus that he saw, low over the
horizon, where the refraction of the atmosphere can distort its image into many
queer shapes —such as that of a flying saucer."
The
officer stared out at the audience, his well-schooled face under control:
"The Air Force wishes to emphasize again that there is no evidence
whatsoever that UFO's, or flying saucers, are real objects, ships from other
worlds driven by extraterrestrial beings, exist. Thank you."
"That,"
sighed Thane, "is where I came in." He turned to look out the window.
The world beyond lay in total ignorance. "It's a
pretty lonely feeling, being the only man on earth who knows the truth. . . ."
UIRR OF THE SRUCERS
Smith
was a writer of science fiction stories. Now, incredibly, he was witnessing
the real thing. Traveling silently at immense speed, its mirrored metal sides
flashing in the sun, the saucer swooped in for a landing on Earth. Then, as he
watched, another saucer appeared in the sky—and the dogfight began. The
saucers—aliens from beyond known space—were battling for control of the Earth.
Something had to be done, even if Smith had no idea what it should be. The
trouble was—no one believed him.
Printed in U.S.A.