Menace of the Saucers Read online

  “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 sea bottom 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 Claus, 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 psycho-hypnotic 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.”

  Chapter 11

  “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… OHHHHHH!

  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, we slid underwater smoothly…amazing…going down, down…

  Thalkon leaned forward tensely, listening to the telepathic spray of thought.

  Down to sea bottom itself…small glow, growing bigger… A GIANT DOME!

  Thalkon snapped off the time-warper. “That’s all we need to know. The sea bottom, 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 amethyst 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 up.
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  “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 clown her psycho-shield, they’ll learn many of our secrets. I’ll make arrangements for the rescue party.”

  * * * *

  Thane looked over the rescue party, shocked.

  “Meet TeeZee,” said Thalkon, waving at a small humanoid 3½ 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 slit-like 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 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 UFOs 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 humanoids 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 lightning-like 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 Miribel 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.

  Chapter 12

  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. Miribel 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, headquart
ers. Another Morlian base discovered at sea bottom 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-fleet’ reached the sea dome 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 sea dome when we escaped. They were consumed by nuclear fire. Morally, despite their high technological state, the Morlians are ruthless savages.”