by Jimmy Guieu
And he was not wrong. On leaving, Angelvin caused a gasman, who had been checking the pipes outside for an hour, to finish up and leave.
Hiding behind his drawn curtains Kariven was spying on the newspaper seller through the window. Angelvin had just passed by him. The man watched him go. One minute later he made a discreet sign with his hand. In the bar on the other side of Rue de Vaugirard a man lowered his head in affirmation and headed toward a telephone booth. The same classic ritual was repeated at six o’clock when Dormoy came by.
“No doubt about it, we’re being watch by these creeps,” Kariven railed. “We can’t go three feet without a chaperon on our heels. Do you have your guns?”
They nodded and patted their left side where their Colts were hidden. Angelvin even had a stiletto in a sheath taped to his forearm with the handle pointing down. One good shake of his arm and the knife would in the hand of the ethnographer, an expert in wielding blades.
Just then the telephone rang.
“Kariven here,” he answered.
A woman’s voice on the other end of the line hummed. Believing it was a wrong number he was about to hang up when he recognized the first bars of Blue Moon, the tune that John Marlow had mentioned.
“We’ve got your 12-inch record, Monsieur Kariven,” the voice broke in, waiting for sign of recognition.
The explorer thought about it and said, “It’s the recording of Blue Moon that I ordered?”
“Exactly. We got it in this morning. Your friend and his sister told us you were back in France. Therefore, I took the liberty of calling you. Would you like to come get it or should we deliver it to you? We can have it there by 7:00.”
“That’s great. I’ll be waiting for your deliveryman and ask my friends nearby to wait for it.”
“You will have it in half an hour, Monsieur Kariven, and I’m sure that you’d like to listen to it immediately. Too bad for your friends,” she laughed. “They’ll have to wait a little longer. Famous scientists are like film stars: they are always being bothered by bores. That’s the price of glory and thank God I’m not one of them. See you soon.”
He hung up, kept his hand on the phone for a minute, lost in thought, then informed his curious friends, “A young woman just told me that my Blue Moon has arrived. It must be some kind of password. She certainly belongs to the Alliance because she understood right away when I allude to ‘my friends waiting outside.’ With an equally innocent remark, she let me know that she knew all about them.”
A half hour later, the doorbell buzzed. Kariven led in a tall, young lady with long brown hair, very elegant in her black suit and carrying a fake leather briefcase. In the middle of the living room she raised her right hand to greet the three explorers around her. The Mark was very distinct in her palm. They responded in kind. At Kariven’s invitation the stranger sat down.
“My name is…”
She stopped abruptly, stared at Angelvin and her face went red.
“Robert!” she cried out. “You… Don’t you recognize me?”
Angelvin squinted, searched the depths of his memory and finally exclaimed, “Jenny! Jenny Reynal! We knew each other at the Musée de l’Homme,21” he explained to his friends. “We took an ethnography class together and cultural anthropology. Oh, how you’ve changed,” he kissed the girl on the cheek. “Really, I didn’t recognize you.”
“I was blonde then and 17 years old… eight years ago,” she admitted, smiling.
“How did you get mixed up in this… adventure?”
“My father was head of the French Institute of Research on OVNIs22. We bear the Mark and were contacted by Zimko. It’s that simple,” she ended by folding her hands on her knees.
“You weren’t spotted?” Kariven asked.
“No. Zimko warned me this afternoon that you were being followed by a green American car.”
“Followed and even shot at with thermal rays by the Denebians,” he filled her in on the adventure of their failed assassination.
Having turned pale she glanced at her old classmate. “These scaly green monsters are unbelievably reckless. I never would have believed that they’d risk such a thing in the middle of the city. We didn’t even know there were any of them in France. You said that an old lady was burned in the attack?”
Angelvin bowed his head. “That reminds me of a weird thing that happened in May of 1953 in Drancy, not far from Paris,” he said thoughtfully. “A little six-year old girl playing in the street with her friends suddenly went up in flames. Her sister and mother, trying in vain to save her threw a bucket of water on her but couldn’t put out the fire consuming her. The mother burned her hands trying to pull her daughter away. No trace of matches or any suspicious object that could have set fire to her dress was found. Her friends were searched, interrogated but to no avail. They had nothing to do with the tragic ‘accident’ that remained inexplicable and unexplained. The poor girl died 15 days later in the Saint Louis hospital23.”
“Do you think there’s a connection between this mysterious ‘accident’ and the fearsome weapon of the Denebians” Dormoy wondered.
“It would be monstrous to attack an innocent little girl!”
“War is a monstrous thing, Robert,” Jenny sighed. “How many innocent people have lost their lives? And besides, we’re just Earthlings to these creatures and therefore potential enemies since they’re after our planet… I’ve got a message for you, Kariven—that’s what Zimko calls you—but it concerns Robert and Michel as well. We have to all be at the Guyancourt airport tonight at midnight. It’s a deserted place where we won’t be disturbed. There’s no control tower or administrative buildings and planes never land at night. There’s hardly any traffic there except on Sundays when the Aero-Club members fly. Moreover, it was here that for the first time in France a flying saucer—Zimko’s—landed in July 195024. Our Polarian friend and one other made contact with my father and other Frenchmen bearing the Mark of the New Race.”
“Did Zimko tell you the reason for this nocturnal rendezvous?”
“He just said that it was very important… for you and for the Alliance.”
“We’ll be there,” Angelvin promised. “But how can we get out of here without being followed?”
“The roofs. It’s the only way we can get by them unnoticed,” Kariven said. “We’ll skip over a whole block and get into a building around the corner.”
“I’ve got a car,” Jenny offered. “Tell me where I should wait for you because there’s no way we can take your Kaiser since it’s known to the special agents and the Denebians.”
“Go to the corner of Rue Blomet and Rue du Général Beuret. Make sure you’re not followed. You know never know. We’ll eat dinner together and then go to Guyancourt.”
The young lady left and Kariven hid behind the curtain. At the metro entrance the newspaper seller was sneaking peeks at the window. Jenny walked out of the building and crossed Place Adolphe Chérioux. The news guy barely noticed her, keeping his eyes on the lighted window. So, they did not know that she knew Kariven. She was still “off the radar”.
“Our man hasn’t taken his eyes off the window. He’ll keep looking as long as the light’s on. When we leave we won’t turn it off. The guy will end up going gray before he figures out that we’re not here.”
The three friends, armed with flashlights and skeleton keys, took the elevator to the sixth floor. They climbed the 15 steps leading to the attic and turned on their flashlights to steer through the maze of old, musty armchairs, picture frames, metal washtubs, a harmonium and a boiler, not to mention all the suitcases… and dust. They clambered up to the roof through a skylight. It was a warm night; the stars were shining in the cloudless sky. Kariven panned around trying to get his bearings in the forest of chimneys.
“We’ll get over to that adjoining roof and then cross the next ones diagonally. Rue Blomet is about 250 yards to the right… It won’t be easy going,” he grinned.
Clinging to the ledges, climbing over chimneys, tri
pping on the wobbly tiles, every step a risk of breaking bones, the three new-fangled “mountaineers” took 25 minutes to reach a deserted attic where they could slip in silently. The door to the landing, however, was locked. Thanks to the skeleton key Kariven opened the old lock easily. They were on the fifth floor of a posh building. The attic/store room was dusty, as it should be, but the lower floors were gleaming. A thick red carpet absorbed the sound of their footsteps down the stairs.
On the ground floor they passed by an old lady with a bifocals perched on her nose, eyeing them sourly. Seeing their dusty clothes the old biddy was startled. Wrapping herself in her dignity she stood in the middle of the lobby to watch them come down. Kariven nodded to her shyly and followed his friends walking casually to the front door. Just when they were opening the door a voice called out to them:
“Hey there! I didn’t see you go up!”
It was the concierge, a little old man with a wool cap and knit sweater that was desperately trying not to slip off his drooping shoulders.
“Leave,” the anthropologist whispered and he turned around, raising his voice, “You didn’t see us go up? That doesn’t surprise me… We never came in!”
He spun around and jumped out as the good man, after figuring it out, started screaming bloody murder and stop thieves!
Ten yards away Jenny’s Vedette 25 was waiting for them. They dove into the car, which took off immediately. The street was empty so no one could get the license number and certainly not the old concierge who was on his hands and knees on the sidewalk searching for the glasses that had fallen off in his heroic chase after the “thieves”.
“Where are we going to eat?” Angelvin asked, wiping his forehead.
“At the Eden-Roc,” the young lady driving the Vedette did not hesitate. “It’s a nice restaurant whose boss I know personally… who’s one of us. We have allies in all the trades,” she smiled before addressing a mysterious comment to Kariven: “I’m sure you’ll appreciate the décor, the excellent cuisine… and the select clientele, you’ll see.”
The Vedette managed to park between two cars and our friends headed for the corner of Rue Boyon and Rue Villebois-Mareuil. The front room of the Eden-Roc was full. The manager waved discreetly to Jenny and led the newcomers to the second room where only three tables were occupied.
And Kariven saw her, delightful and captivating. Her gorgeous mauve dress with gold arabesques revealed her bare shoulders, her perfect shoulders of soft, tanned skin. Just when he was about to pronounce her name, a thought exploded in his head, a commanding although melodic thought, like the sound of her voice: Call me Betty…
“Betty!” he called out right away, taking the hands that the young Polarian held out to him. “Jenny didn’t tell me I would… see you here.”
They sat at her table and ate heartily. Kariven was particularly excited and his flashes of wit would not quit… to the great pleasure of Betty, a.k.a. Yuln. When he looked into her gold-flecked blue yes, she blushed and lowered her eyelids, not because he was looking at her but because she read what was in his thoughts and in his heart.
They talked about everything during the dinner except the fear that was tormenting them. All of a sudden, toward the end of the meal, Yuln gripped the edge of the table and her fingernails bit into the tablecloth. Her face was frozen in pain. It lasted only a second or two.
“What happened, Yuln?” Kariven worried.
“The Denebians,” the young Polarian huffed out. “They’re searching for me. I just felt the pain caused by their psychic detector. They almost grabbed my mind but I reacted and pulled free. They can’t be far. The pain was strong but brief.”
She groaned suddenly, clenched her teeth, then relaxed. “The psychic detector beam brushed by me again. They must be sweeping the city with their invisible projectors. If they get closer they’ll find me because I can’t resist the psychic detector for long without the protection of a Repeller. I didn’t bring it with me since I didn’t know the Denebians were already in France.”
She concentrated, staring at an imaginary point in front of her, and immediately got in touch with her brother. After a few seconds Zimko’s thoughts came back to her:
I can’t come right away, Yuln, I’m sorry. Get out of wherever you are and head directly for the rendezvous with our friends. I’ve located the zone where the Denebian psychic probe is coming from. It’s NNE of Paris. Head west and south without delay before going to Guyancourt… I’m finishing up my mission here and will meet you. Courage, little sister. I’m sending out some interference waves to cover your tracks but they won’t work too well because our ship is on the other side of the Earth.
Yuln snapped out of her meditation and said, “We have to leave here right now. Zimko is trying to mess up the transmission of the detector waves but his interference won’t be very effective. In order for our jamming waves to work at full power they have to be sent at least 3,000 miles from the object.”
“3,000 miles!” Kariven was astonished. “But where is Zimko then?”
“He’s working in China,” is all she would say.
Not wanting to be indiscreet, Kariven changed the subject and joked, “The newspaper seller must be thinking it’s been a long time!”
And he explained their strategy to the Girl from Outer Space. She smiled but her face quickly lost its charm and went back to being serious. “You should call the concierge to turn the lights off in your apartment.”
“Nah, I’ll turn them off tomorrow morning myself,” the explorer responded.
“I’m afraid, Jean, that you won’t be in Paris tomorrow morning… or in the afternoon or the day after.”
“What do you mean?”
“The five of us are leaving tonight on a mission.”
The three Frenchmen raised their eyebrows in surprise.
“You see, Betty, we can’t just leave like that, with just the clothes on our backs.”
“Don’t worry, Jean. We’ve thought of everything and will provide you with whatever you need. Call your concierge so that the light in your apartment being on all night won’t attract more attention than not seeing you leave.”
Around 11 pm Jenny’s Vedette was heading for Guyancourt. Yuln, sitting in back between Kariven and Dormoy, looked nervous. Every time a car came toward them or passed them the anthropologist felt her tense up. All her senses were on alert; she probed the night, trying to detect a hostile presence.
All of a sudden she grabbed Kariven’s arm. “I feel it! Their psychic probe just touched me. They’re close!”
The three men, without even looking at each other, drew their Colts and flipped the safety off with their thumbs.
“Those aren’t going to stop them,” Yuln murmured with a weak smile. “When they get in range, it’ll be too late.”
She opened her handbag and pulled out a small disintegrator cone that she clutched nervously in her hand. “I still don’t know if they’re looking for us in a car or in the air safe inside their spaceship. They want to kill us, me and Zimko, whatever it takes, in the hope of decapitating the Alliance.” She gasped, “They’re coming closer!”
The young lady closed her eyes and sent out a flood of psychic waves searching for the green Denebians. Her breath came faster and faster.
“I see them. They’re in a car, a black car, around ten miles behind us.”
“Speed up, Jenny!” Angelvin ordered. “Take that road on your left. It’s not in good shape but it’s a short cut to Guyancourt.”
The young brunette ethnographer nodded and pulled the wheel sharply, throwing the car onto a rocky road scarred with ruts. After half an hour, when they got in sight of Guyancourt, Yuln felt a horrible pain in her whole body, a weird pain coming from her brain and instantly spreading through every fiber of her nervous system.
“They… they’re coming,” she pronounced, fighting with all her supra-natural powers to fend off the painful wave that was racking her. “They’re on our trail now with the help of a magne
tic detector…. The bulk of our car… is their marker…”
“I’m going to skirt along the ditch,” Jenny quickly decided, getting a firm grip on the steering wheel. “Everyone jump and I’ll let the car roll on by itself onto the airstrip. Chop chop, my darling Robert,” she said, finding her collegiate vocabulary return.
Angelvin opened the door and dove out. He jumped up and ran to catch up to the Vedette and pick up his friends. Dormoy and Kariven jumped and were also running next to the car. Yuln threw herself into Kariven’s arms. All four of them hurried into the sparse bushes along the road and waited, guns drawn and hearts beating fast. 50 yards on, the brave Jenny jumped out of the moving vehicle. Rolling at only six or seven miles an hour it pretty much kept going straight.
Jenny hiked up her skirt with no false modesty and crawled in the ditch toward her friends. The red lights of the Vedette, which was starting to zigzag now, went slowly into the night. Luckily a cluster of clouds drift over and timidly hid the moon.
“There they are!” Yuln whispered, inching closer to Kariven.
With one elbow on the ground she aimed her disintegrator cone. A black Citroën Traction with its lights off was coming down the road. It was speeding up gradually despite the pits and ditches, going 30 miles an hour only ten yards away from the group lying on the ground. Yuln aimed and pressed the trigger with her index finger. A blue ray shot out, briefly lighting up the countryside, and enveloped the black Citroën. The car turned purple and as bright as molten metal. In a fraction of a second it went from purple to blinding white like a flash of burning magnesium, then everything went black. The car had disappeared, disintegrated, its atoms transformed into free energy.
“Shoo, you didn’t miss!” Angelvin breathed a sigh of relief.
Yuln was about to respond but she froze, tense. “Another car is coming… but I don’t feel anything…”
“Maybe they’re just driving, lovers or something.”
No,” the young Polarian said. “I see them… they’re Denebians! But they don’t have a psychic probe. Only the car I disintegrated was carrying the device… I see them very well…”
