Night of the Saucers

by Eando Binder

  “Who told you that lie?” said Thane, probingly.

  “This ship, the one you eluded undersea, flashed a warning to all our craft. All over the world, our search ships turned on their Vibroscopes at any passing saucer. One of our ships did detect the sign from your saucer and saw where it landed: here.”

  Rotten luck, thought Thane. By their hit-or-miss method, they had picked up the trail.

  “I was sent here,” said the Vexxan leader. “I am Thyze, Earth Agent of Vexxa. Now”—he eyed Thane—“where did you hide the Seed?” He closed his eyes, as if to concentrate on picking up Thane’s thoughts.

  But Thane, and also Miribel, had of course put up their psycho-shields the moment the Vexxans entered.

  Mind reading was closed off. But this was also their undoing.

  “Ah,” said the Vexxan, opening his eyes. “You put up a thought-block.” He glared at them accusingly. “No Earth humans can do that, so it means you are agents of the Galactic Vigilantes.”

  The cat was out of the bag. Thane and Miribel made no attempt to deny it. But Thane still held the trump card if they did not find the missing Seed.

  Thyze turned to his men. “It is pointless to bring in the Vibroscope from our ship. It cannot do more than indicate that the Seed is in this cabin. But bring the Penetro-Ray.”

  One Vexxan soon returned with a glowing tube and handle attached, which made a low buzzing noise as he aimed it at Thane, slowly covering his whole body. An X-ray device, Thane surmised.

  “It is not secreted in his clothes, or anywhere on or within his body,” announced the Vexxan.

  “Search the woman and then the room,” snapped the leader.

  A quarter-hour later, the Vexxan turned off the instrument. “It is nowhere in this room.”

  Miribel glanced startled at Thane. How had he hidden away the Seed so quickly, and ingeniously, when the Vexxans first came in?

  “How did you do it, old man?” Seatonburry murmured, also dumfounded.

  “Let that be my secret,” said Thane, with a quiet smile on his lips.

  “It won’t remain your secret,” blustered Thyze. “Not in our interrogation headquarters.”

  Thane saw Miribel shudder. Evidently she knew what happened to Vigilantes taken there.

  “March,” said Thyze. At gunpoint, Thane and Miribel were forced to leave.

  Thyze paused to shove Seatonburry back as he attempted to go with them. “You stay behind, Earthman. You are useless to us.”

  “I’ll tell the authorities about this,” threatened the playboy. “I’ll call the police, the Army, Navy, the Marines!”

  And nobody will believe him, Thane thought. Nobody would believe his frantic story of little hairy brutes abducting two Earth citizens, even if they were missing. Politely but firmly, the authorities would tell Seatonburry he must be mistaken and to take a long vacation or a trip around the world. So that chance of “rescue” was hopelessly closed off. Thane and Miribel were on their own.

  Thane tried to suddenly let down his psycho-shield and beam a distress call to Thalkon in space. But instantly, the other Vexxans threw out mental “static” that completely drowned his message.

  “In the psy field,” murmured Miribel, “the Vexxans are experts. We’re trapped, Thane.”

  Chapter 9

  Taken aboard the Vexxan saucer-craft, the two prisoners were locked in a small chamber without a window. They felt no movement and had no idea where they were going.

  “Into space?” Thane guessed. “Or some secret spot on earth?”

  “No, a place within Earth,” Miribel said. She had her eyes closed but pointed her finger as if at a vision. “At times I can use my psy-powers for clairvoyance, seeing at a distance. I see our ship diving into a huge cave… following endless winding corridors deep down… and now into a huge rock-ribbed chamber ten miles underground.”

  “Hmm, that makes sense,” mused Thane. “All through history there have been folk tales of trolls, gnomes, kobolds, goblins—they have different names to different people—coming up from underground.”

  “Right, Thane,” said Miribel. “The early Vexxans, and other small humanoids from space who adopted underground headquarters, gave rise to those so-called legends of little people living below.”

  Miribel now turned her wondering eyes on Thane. “Tell me, where did you hide the Seed? How could the Vexxans fail to find it when they X-rayed us and the room so thoroughly? Tell me, Thane.”

  Thane shook his head. “Skip it.”

  “Please, Thane.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, you’re mean, Thane. I’m just dying to know…”

  “You may die if you know,” Thane amended grimly. “They can’t torture something out of you that you don’t know.”

  “I see,” Miribel said soberly. “You’re not telling me for my own sake.” Her face became drawn. “But they’ll force you to tell one way or another.”

  Thane shrugged and shuddered at the same time, not knowing what lay ahead.

  The door now opened soundlessly and Thyze appeared, beckoning them. “Follow me, Vigilantes.” He was flanked by his men, all holding weapons. Thane and Miribel marched down a ramp and stared around at the vaulted city deep underground.

  It was awesomely huge, a tiered city of cliff dwellings distributed around the rock walls of the mighty cavern.

  “One of our bases underground,” Thyze waved proudly, “where we’ve lurked for twenty years, sending up our scout ships on Seed hunts.”

  Thyze now took off his helmet and breathed in the air in big gulps. “Ah, our native air. Your Earth air is poisonous to us, you know.”

  “Then your air in turn must be poisonous to us,” gasped Thane, startled.

  “Keep on breathing,” said Thyze. “You won’t die. You see, it is the same as your Earth air with only the neon gas removed. Neon is a poison to us. Outside of that you are breathing oxygen and nitrogen as before.”

  Thane relaxed. The absence of neon in this air meant no harm to human lungs. It was only an oddity of alien metabolism that the tiny trace of neon in Earth’s air should force the Vexxans to wear breathing helmets.

  Thyze led the way to a separate domed structure. Within sat a Vexxan with an air of authority, clad in purplish black garments. “Our commander,” introduced Thyze.

  Thyze then faced his leader and told his story in rapid, telepathic speech.

  Kogg turned his owl-eyes threateningly at Thane. “Where is that Seed, Vigilante?”

  “I flung it in the fourth dimension,” said Thane humorlessly.

  The Vexxan leader glowered. “Defiant, eh? But we must have it. It must not fall into the hands of your leaders.”

  “Why is it so important to you?” asked Thane boldly. “What do you plan doing with the Seeds once you’ve gleaned enough of them?”

  A wolfish grin spread across Kogg’s face.

  “If you knew, fool, you would go mad on the spot. The Seeds will enable us to pull the greatest coup in the universe and…” He broke off with a growl. “But naturally, that is our secret. Suffice it to say that it will mean the end of the world you guard. And of all of its people… like that.” He snapped two of his three fingers.

  Thane felt sick inside at the ruthless finality in the Vexxan’s voice. He spoke as if Earth would be crushed in some giant nutcracker, or stamped flat under some great heel. But Thane was also surprised.

  “Then you don’t want to conquer our world and take it over?”

  Kogg made a spitting sound. “What, this piddling planet? Who would want to live on this bit of cosmic garbage with its poisonous atmosphere?” He leered. “No, Earth will be annihilated and destroyed, in a very special way.”

  Thane felt Miribel trembling against him. But she also looked puzzled.
“What good will it do to simply destroy Earth? This planet is no threat to Vexxa. What can you gain by savagely wiping it out of existence?” Kogg wheezed, in what seemed to be their form of laughter. “It is a riddle to you, eh? But it is not a mere wanton act. It has a purpose. A very important purpose. But enough.” He straightened up, staring up at them from his undersized height. “We are wasting time. Since you refuse to speak”—he was glaring at Thane—“we will extract the information from your mind.”

  At a signal from Kogg, Thyze opened a door that led into another room filled with enigmatic apparatus. Thyze pulled a lever and a mechanical arm and claw-hand swung out, seizing Thane around the middle in a viselike grip. Then a plastic globe descended from the ceiling, with an all too familiar rainbow glow from within, to hover just over Thane’s head.

  “A Seed,” explained Kogg. “One of its uses is to lay bare a mind—X-rays, you would call it—and reveal its every thought. And I might add, it’s painless.”

  Miribel relaxed at this. But she stared curiously at Thane, who stood as if in a trance. There was something odd about the way he looked, that she couldn’t put her finger on.

  Confidentially, Kogg flipped a stud and a large screen lit up. “At my questions, this screen will give the answer out of your mind. You cannot hide any thoughts from the emanations of the Seed, which is hooked up into the thought circuit.”

  Kogg then snapped, “Now, tell us where or how you hid the Seed?”

  The screen showed nothing. “So, you have a psychoshield up. But a little more power and… Thane’s face looked strained now, as he battled to keep his mental barrier up, but it broke down suddenly, almost with an audible snap. Kogg repeated his question, then looked thunderstruck at the screen as the answer came on as a running light, in English: “I do not know.”

  “But you must know,” raged Thyze, equally astounded. “We know you last had the Seed, as we stormed into your cabin. Just how did you secrete it?”

  Again the answer flashed on the screen, “I do not know.”

  Kogg and Thyze stared dumbly at each other. “Impossible,” Thyze grated. “The Vigilante must have a memory of what he did with that Seed. And that memory cannot be concealed from the thought-reader device.”

  They tried again and again. Each time the same negative words appeared on the screen. Also baffled, Miribel stared at Thane’s wooden face, almost as if he were in a trance. What miracle had her husband pulled against the mind reading machine of the Vexxans?

  Apparently cursing angrily in their language, Kogg at last turned away from the screen. “Something is wrong with the thought-scanner,” he snapped. “That must be it. Call in a repair crew, Thyze, to dismantle it and find out what the trouble is.”

  “That will take many long hours,” Thyze said.

  * * * *

  Later, in a stone chamber with basic furniture, Miribel shook Thane by the arm. “Thane… Thane… Can’t you hear me?”

  Slowly, the dazed look vanished from his face, to be replaced by a grin as wide as the ocean. “Sure, I can hear you, sweets.”

  “Then tell me. How in the name of Orion could you avoid answering them, when they asked where the missing Seed was?”

  “Because I really didn’t know.”

  “But, Thane,” Miribel protected. “You yourself must have hidden it. How could you fail to know your own act?”

  “I just told myself,” said Thane blandly, “that I didn’t know what I had done with the Seed.”

  “Oh, Thane. You’re driving me crazy. First, you won’t tell where you hid the Seed. Then you claim you don’t even remember. Now how…?”

  “Sit down,” said Thane gently, pulling her down on a couch. “Let me explain. I knew they were going to use some kind of mental machine on me. An ESP snoop. Something that would pluck the information they wanted out of the secret recesses of my mind. So, it occurred to me that if that information was not there, they would be stymied.”

  “But… but…”

  “How did I pull that rabbit out of the hat? As you know, the psy-wafer next to my brain has a ‘closed circuit’ feature, whereby I can conceal my thoughts from others who are mind readers.”

  “But the mind-machine broke down your psychoshield,” Miribel reminded. “Your naked thoughts were exposed.”

  “Ah, but what I had done was to concentrate and pour the memory about the Seed into the psy-wafer, with the mental command that it stay there for the time being. It was out of my mind, then.”

  Miribel gasped. “But Thane, that’s advanced psychonics that even my father and I can’t handle. It goes into psy-formula a mile long. How could you hit on that trick by yourself?”

  “How should I know?” shrugged Thane. “I thought of the gimmick and tried it. And it worked. Maybe I’ve got a freak brain.”

  “Not a freak brain,” whispered Miribel, in awe. “A unique brain with the innate power to take a short-cut through the incredible labyrinth of a human’s mental makeup. To hook up your subconscious and conscious, plus your super-conscious or id… to make a memory pattern leave the cortex and snake its way through the nerve neurons… to cause this memory to enter your psy-wafer and remain there like a computer with a memory drum… well…” She waved her hands helplessly. “You’ve pulled a fantastic mental feat, one that my father Thalkon will hardly believe.”

  “It’s tough?” said Thane, a bit surprised himself. “Only as tough as turning the world upside down,” said Miribel with conviction.

  “Don’t give me so much credit,” said Thane, half irritated. “You’ve heard of intuition, hunches, the sixth sense, call it what you will. A lucky stab. A long gamble. Then all the mental relays and switches click into place and presto—the so-called miracle happens. The Vexxans wanted to know. It was in my mind. Therefore, fling it out of my mind. As simple as that.”

  Miribel was shaking her head. “I’ll never understand. Thane, you’ve pulled two acts of sheer magic. First, hiding the Seed which was already impossible. Then, hiding the memory of where you hid it, which is incredible.”

  She glanced at him startled. “Is your memory of it still gone?”

  “No, don’t worry.” Thane patted her hand. “It’s back. At my inner command, the memory flowed from the psy-wafer back into my brain.”

  “But I suppose you still won’t tell me…”

  “You guessed it, my lady,” Thane said firmly. “Where I hid the Seed had better remain in one mind, not two. That way, you’re safe at least from Vexxan interrogation and whatever degrees of nastiness it can take.”

  “But you’re not safe,” Miribel said worriedly. “If you’re able to hide your memory the next time they try the mind reading machine they will resort to torture of some kind.”

  “Maybe they won’t get a chance,” said Thane mysteriously.

  Miribel glanced at him. “You’ve got some other trick lined up. I can sense it.” She went on airily. “And you don’t have to tell me about that, either. I can curb my curiosity.”

  “You’re hurt at my not confiding in you,” divined Thane, taking her hand in his.

  “No, I’m not,” she denied, but pulling her hand free and pretending to smooth the blanket on the couch. “After all, I’m only your wife. Why should you tell me all the plans that go through your masterful male brain?”

  “Now you’re getting sarcastic, dove. But remember, the fate of Earth is at stake and…”

  “Oh, blast Earth,” spat back Miribel. Then she put her hand to her mouth in horror. “Oh, I didn’t mean that, Thane. I’m sorry. All right, I’m acting like a child. You’re right in keeping things secret, when it’s necessary.”

  Thane heaved a sigh of relief. Sometimes his wife was harder to handle than the Vexxans.

  Chapter 10

  The ugly dwarf called Kogg glowered ominously at Th
ane, again held rigid by the mechanical claw in the interrogation chamber. “This time, Earthman,” he spat out, “you will reveal where you hid the Seed or you will regret it. Speak.”

  But again the screen of the mind-probe machine said, “I do not know.”

  With an imprecation, Kogg signaled and his men aimed a purple beam at Thane. Instantly, his every nerve shrieked in agony and his body twisted in the claw’s iron grip.

  “A neuro-ray,” grinned Kogg, “that acts like a million needles and stabs every one of your nervous system’s cells. It will be turned off only when you tell your secret.”

  Thane was moaning and writhing, and then words spilled across the screen. “Look,” Thyze pointed, “that is another kind of secret. A terrible one…”

  What the screen said was, “SECRET ATTACK BY VIGILANTES IN UNDERGROUND VEXXAN STRONGHOLD NOW BEGINNING.”

  Miribel stared, startled, then looked wonderingly at Thane.

  Kogg’s face turned greenish in alarm. “Thyze,” he demanded, “can this be a trick? Could the Vigilante put a lying thought, an untruth, into his mind, in order to panic us?”

  “No,” snapped Thyze firmly. “We have thoroughly analyzed the psycho-patterns of the Vigilante mind that comes from the world Zyl. There is no way for a Zyl mind to produce a falsehood under our psycho-detector.”

  Ah, but what about an Earthman’s mind, thought Miribel. The Vexxans were unaware that Thane was a native of Terra and hence had no psycho-pattern to go by for him. Thane had deliberately planted the false thought in his mind of a Vigilante raid.

  And now, pandemonium broke out. “Sound the alarm,” screeched Kogg, running out of the room along with Thyze and the other technicians. “We must meet the attack.”

  Thane and the girl were left alone. Miribel quickly ran and turned off the purple beam. “Whew,” breathed Thane thankfully, his body contortions stopping. “Now get me out of this iron claw.”