Menace of the Saucers

by Eando Binder

  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 intergalactic 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 non-humanoids. 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 you’ve 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 Worlds 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.

  Chapter 13

  “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 antigravity 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 humans 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 slave masters. 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 Pharaohs 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-gravitic forces. A blazing comet was formed, more gigantic than ever known before, which grazed earth and caused chaos. Its name was Venus.”

  Something clicked in Thane’s mind. “Immanuel Velikovsky’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 him, pleased. “You are learning fast, Thane. Just as the child must live 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 super-civilization. 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 among the Morlians?”

  Thane brushed a hand through his hair. “I suppose if I said no, you would hand me some patriotic clichés. 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-sounding 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. “I’ll 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-psycho-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 things 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 gun-like 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 Smit
h?”

  “Yes. But who are you…?”

  “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 ‘hear’ the Morlian as he thought, ‘Our brainwashing worked better than we expected. The earthman actually thinks we are saucer believers! 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.