by Jimmy Guieu
Obviously they did not know that the good Gods whom they loved ever since they came down from the sky were the prisoners of the other Gods, without shells, who also came from the sky but with a goal of conquest and domination.
CHAPTER VIII
The giant Denebian spaceship—disc-shaped, around 350 yards in diameter and topped by a dome fitted with windows—seemed to appear out of nowhere at only 1,500 feet altitude above the captives and their guards. Faintly haloed in blue it came down slowly and landed on the sandy ground, crushing hundreds of bunches of “umbrella moss” on their stems.
A big rectangular hatch opened in the vertical base of the cylindrical dome at the same time as a kind of ringed, metallic corridor—like a snake—came slowly down to the ground, swinging a little.
The prisoners, under the psychic order of their masters, entered this “sleeve” and were soon in a hold with a lot of square blocks, airtight crates containing food and supplies.
A new mental order led them to an inner walkway before bringing them to the section housing the Superior Council of the Forces of Space Liberation, a name the Denebians gave themselves hypocritically.
When the captives were about to meet the Commander in Chief of the Freedom Forces, the giant spaceship took off and protected by an invisibility field it flew diagonally toward Rynka, which it reached a few minutes later. While flying over the base the ship stopped all the will-destroying devices on Rynka, then with an extraordinary leap it went from observation flight to actual space flight and disappeared into outer space 100 times faster than the speed of light20. Still, the speed of a cruiser was infinitely greater than even this unthinkable speed!
In the big cockpit more than one technician leaning over his controls was thinking of the narrow-minded primitives on T27 who could not imagine such fantastic speeds and denied the possible existence of those who, in the near future, were going to enslave them in a mass landing on their planet, which they arrogantly consider to the only seat of Intelligence in the Universe.
In Rynka the Polarians, Wolfians and Centaurians were abruptly freed of their psychic chains. There was a brief moment of confusion that they blamed on a temporary dizzy spell. None of them realized that for three days they had been puppets being manipulated by their implacable enemies. In their minds, returned to normal, no memory of their mental enslavement remained.
Those who would later reveal this incredible episode of their life would have a lot of trouble making them believe it. Remembering only their habitual actions—being carried out in spite of everything under the control of the Denebians—they would have a “hole” in their memories and keep in mind the details of their daily lives. Therefore, there would not even be a time difference in the passage of days since they would have lived out the three days in their routines.
In the Denebian spaceship speeding off to the sun Deneb in the Cygnus constellation, according to the terminology in use among the primitives of T27, Zimko and his mixed team stood motionless in a huge circular room around 200 feet in diameter.
Lined up in four rows, their eyes blank, deprived of their wills, they seemed to be staring (without seeing) at the Commander in Chief of the Denebian forces and the 17 members of his general staff. Like generals reviewing an army corps they were pacing a few feet away from their captives and examining them closely.
They stopped in front of Zimko, calm and mindless, to scrutinize him even more closely. S’bilk, the Commander in Chief, a seven-foot tall green giant with big scales, stared at him arrogantly:
“So this is Zimko, Chief of the Space Commandos in this solar system that we’re going to conquer! This is the one who caused all our defeats, the one who made us abandon our first attempt at infiltrating the third planet21. He’s also the one who stopped us from capturing the first inhabitants of the planet who reached their moon22. He’s a devil! I’d like to kill him with my own hands but we need him alive. Besides, we can’t deal with him like we do with his accomplices. They are of no importance because they are, despite their rank, just pawns. We can easily suck out of their brains the essence of what they know. After turning them into empty rags from the treatment we’ll take them to our cosmobiology labs to use them as test subjects.”
The Denebian Chief, trembling with rage, looked at Zimko and slapped him hard with the backside of his claws. The Man from Outer Space wobbled from right to left but did not fall. He stood calmly, feeling the pain but unable to react.
“This evil creature,” S’bilk erupted, “will escape the fate of his partners. We’ll use him at the right time to fight against his brothers after he’s told us the details of their defense plan among other things we need to know.”
“Do you think he’ll talk willingly because we’ll have to keep his brain intact?” a Denebian officer asked timidly.
S’bilk narrowed his red, yellow-striped eyes. The green scales on his bulging forehead raised slightly and in a hoarse voice he barked, “We’ll torture him until he talks!”
The Denebian spaceship, after crossing a 400 light year gulf of space in less than 24 hours (T27 time) started slowing down at the approach of the sun Omink, or Deneb, in the Cygnus constellation. This fantastic sun, more blinding than so many other stars in the galaxy23, had a train of seven planets, three of which contained life.
The planet Ptopa, the home of the race of green scaly beings, the Ptopans or Denebians, is a globe 18,000 miles in diameter with two moons. It appeared now like a green balloon with a bluish halo—the atmosphere—ionized by the powerful rays of Omink/Deneb.
Gradually its roundness seemed to grow in volume as the giant spaceship transporting its captives approached. Grayish yellow or brown continents with marbled zones and multi-colored seas, but mostly purple, became clearer through the thick atmosphere of Ptopa.
High mountains with summits rounded by erosion were crowned with green and purple clouds. In the deep valleys where wild torrents foamed yellow other clouds, pink or blue, spread out like shreds of cotton, composed of methane and cyanogen oddly tinted by the rays of Omink.
On a plain through which wound a river bordered by low bushes with branches fatter than the trunk of an oak tree, twisted and with black leaves veined with red, stood Lucknah, the capital of the planet. Its building, mostly hexagonal, with concave roofs topped with strange masts full of thin, shiny, metal crossbeams, were covered from top to bottom with anticorrosive panels, yellow and crossed sideways with black bands.
The common decoration, unexpected to say the least, gave the city a look of asymmetrical construction—and this because the buildings were not the same size—that disturbed the mind. It looked like a jumble of discordant geometric forms or maybe a weird three-dimensional, painting created by a genius on the verge of insanity.
The ship landed on the astrodrome, also with black bands on a yellow background, not far from the gigantic space base, totally round, over half a mile in diameter and surrounded by hundreds of green, scaly technicians working busily.
Controlled by mental orders, the captives in their spacesuits left the ship and flanked by their masters crossed the astrodrome to go to the palace of K’wyil, the Emperor of the Denebians.
The heavy gravity on Ptopa, three times greater than on the home planet of the Polarians, made it hard to walk. Every movement was in slow motion and required painful effort. In their round helmets they panted and their faces ran with sweat. If it was hard for the Polarians to walk, for the Wolfians and even more so for the Centaurians it was nearly impossible. After a few minutes the poor, tiny creatures collapsed, crushed by the terrible gravity, seven and nine times greater than their worlds.
Deprived of their own will none of the prisoners could turn on the compensating device that each suit was fitted with. But on seeing their captives collapse and unable to move the Denebians realized their mistake. They immediately ordered the Wolfians, Centaurians and Polarians to turn on their gravity compensators, putting them back into their usual condition.
With ef
fort the “dwarves” lifted their arms, managed to press the two correct buttons among the multiple controls in the small round plate fixed to their belt. Back on their feet in no time they resumed their march into the center of the city.
The Emperor’s palace raised its hexagonal mass, yellow striped with black, in the middle of Lucknah, the strange Denebian capital.
On orders from their guards the prisoners got on a kind of moving walkway that brought them through a maze of bright corridors, from one floor to another, halfway up the palace, over 600 feet off the ground and on the axis of the building, which had no pictorial decorations, at least in the sense that the Polarians understood it. In the speedily crossed hall they barely saw even the mishmash of geometric motifs in relief.
The Wolfians and Centaurians received orders to stand still in a kind of circular vault with gray metal walls while the Polarians, except for Zimko, were inexplicably sent down into a similar vault located 600 feet under the palace.
Only Zimko was led into a semi-circular room in the middle of which, on a seat of black metal in the shape of a splayed cube, sat an enormous creature, vaguely human, with skin made of hexagonal, green scales: K’wyil, Emperor of Ptopa, Supreme Chief of the Denebian race that ruled over seven solar systems conquered by violence over the past centuries.
His head, a wide oval, was protected by a black helmet that only revealed his face with smaller, softer, light green scales. His slanted eyes, with puffy lids, were crimson red and striped vertically with gold. His short, bony nose and turned-down, lipless mouth made him look like a turtle.
At his sides sat three other Denebians on cubes that were not so high. S’bilk, the Commander in Chief of the Freedom Forces, very proud of his capture, bowed low and joined the four dignitaries.
Four guards ordered Zimko to raise his arms, which he did calmly. Shiny cables ending in soft but extremely strong straps came down from the ceiling and grabbed his wrists. His feet were shackled to the concrete floor with chains. Thus immobilized it was impossible for him to make the slightest movement.
Emperor K’wyil made a sign to one of the guards who aimed his device full of vibrating spikes at the prisoner. After a quick adjustment of the controls on the side of the will-destroyer, the humming spikes stopped moving and Zimko, as if by magic, was back to himself.
He looked around in astonishment and suddenly realized that he was in the presence of Denebians. He wanted to protect himself but with the solid bracelets and chains he could only wiggle ridiculously. A glint of rage flashed across his face. The muscles under his round helmet contracted into an expression of savage hatred.
One of the guards came up to him, unhooked the airtight seal of his helmet and yanked it off the head of the prisoner. Instinctively he held his breath.
K’wyil sneered at him. “You’re not going to die today, Zimko. You can breathe. This room is sealed, air conditioned, pressurized and has an atmosphere identical to your planet. We’ve copied the physical conditions of your home planet here, so you can breathe normally without your spacesuit… which will soon be an obstacle for what we intend to do… to your body.”
K’wyil spoke well in the universal language used in the Federated Worlds governed peacefully by the Polarians, his sworn enemies. In spite of his hoarse, guttural voice, Zimko understood every word.
“You quickly held back your first reaction of fear, Zimko,” the emperor continued. “I don’t know if it’s out of courage or arrogance but you’re hiding your inner feelings well. You know very well that it would be easy for me to put you under a psychic probe and learn exactly what’s in your mind because you’re aware of all the plans drawn up by the general staff of your race to conquer the solar system that we’re interested in.”
“To protect the solar system that you want to conquer,” Zimko corrected, sneering back at him.
“So be it,” K’wyil conceded. “But I’ll need you to be normal and not the living dead like the probe would leave you after looting your brain. That’s why I’m hoping that, for your own good, you’ll answer my questions willingly. And remember that even though I want to keep your mind safe and sound, the same thing doesn’t apply to your body. The conquest of a solar system is not accomplished in a day. So, we’re in no hurry and if you refuse to talk we can take all the time we want to force you with slow and patient torture. Even if your body ends up mutilated with grisly wounds, our surgeons and biosthetic specialists will fix it up after every interrogation session, replacing your broken limbs and healing your wounds. In such circumstances you’ll be able to live through weeks, even months of suffering.”
At the calm pronouncement of this frightening perspective Zimko could not hold back a shiver of horror. A brief glimmer of dread flashed in his black eyes, which K’wyil caught.
“I hope that I’m making myself very clear,” he continued. “If so, here’s my first question: when do you plan on establishing official contact with the primitives of the planet you call T27?”
Zimko just grinned in amusement but said not a word.
Frustrated and flustered K’wyil went on, “Another question, since you seem not to have heard the first. On what planet of this solar system we’re interested in have you holed up that famous secret weapon, Negmat, and what kind of weapon is it?”
K’wyil glimpsed a little surprise in his prisoner’s eyes. “This surprises you, doesn’t it, that we know about the ultra-secret weapon you think is so extraordinary? Well, we’ve made real progress in interstellar espionage.”
The emperor waited a minute or two and faced with the Polarian’s persistent silence he roared, “Guard! Get on with the first phase of persuasive arguments!”
A Denebian approached Zimko in chains and undid the magnetic seal of his spacesuit. Right away the Spaceman’s suit dropped to the ground at his feet. The prisoner’s muscular body was fit into a blue bodysuit and red vest. The guard started by taking the big disintegrator pistols from his belt. Then he tore off the clothes. The Polarian Chief of the Space Commandos stood bare-chested with bulging muscles. The guard stood back and aimed a yellow metal tube at the naked belly.
K’wyil narrowed his slanted eyes to examine the series of numbers and letters tattooed on the patient’s solar plexus.
“What do those three letters followed by four numbers mean?” he asked.
“It’s a registration number,” Zimko smiled.
Raging mad K’wyil jumped up, snatched the tube out of the guard’s hands and only three feet from his prisoner he aimed it at his chest and pressed his thumb on the surface of the metal cylinder. A long, blue spark sprang from the tube and crackled on the captive’s skin. He writhed, tried to back away, made superhuman efforts to dodge the searing pain that his body suffered under the electric shock, worse than an agonizing burn.
The crackling beam struck his chest for more than 30 seconds, leaving a series of bloody zigzags on his flesh, where the blood coagulated instantly. Sweat beaded on the forehead of the panting victim.
“Are you going to talk, Demon from Space!”
Zimko stayed silent, gritting his teeth and tensing his muscles, expecting a new discharge.
K’wyil fiddled with the thermal-electric ray gun, turned up its power and sneered as he aimed it at Zimko once again.
“Now, for one minute, you’re going to get 300 volts with a stronger amperage than the first time. Your skin will burn at 250C!”
The emperor waited a moment hoping that the prisoner would decide to talk but faced with silence he pressed one of his claws against the tube and fired. The spark turned from blue to orange-green and struck the bare chest with intense violence.
Zimko jerked, his face screwed up into a grimace of abominable suffering and unable to control himself he howled out in pain.
K’wyil, energized by sadistic joy, kept the thermal-electric button pressed for ten seconds before stopping.
Zimko, with his legs giving out and his head sunk into his chest, groaned, “I’ll talk… but under o
ne condition…”
“You think you’re in any kind of position to demand conditions?”
Zimko shook his head slowly from right to left, caught his breath and said, “I don’t know how long I can hold out but I can assure you that these thermal-electric shocks, when they get up to ten minutes, will make me pass out for a long time. Therefore… if I manage to hold out… for ten minutes… and I think I can do that… I’ll be unconscious for at least six hours. This could last longer than you think… forever. And even though you pretend… to have all the time in the world, I know perfectly well that you’re… waiting on pins and needles. So, I’m offering you a deal. A deal in which I’ll die sooner or later but at least it’ll alleviate the suffering of my companions and probably let you conquer the solar system but with fewer casualties among the primitives of T27.”
“Ask away and we’ll see if we accept.”
Zimko took a deep breath and shook his head, throwing off drops of sweat that were streaming down his face. He said, “I’m ready to talk but only with your whole general staff present as well as your Procyonian allies. As you’ll see after the revelations I give you about the fantastic secret weapon Negmat, it’s not only a matter of the safety of the people you want to conquer but your own too…”
K’wyil thought for a minute before answering, “I don’t really like keeping our Procyonian allies, as you call them, up-to-date on our secret plans but since I have the means to erase any dangerous memories from their brains, I’ll accept this. I’ll decide later whether I should let our allies remember your revelations or if I should wipe their minds clean.
“Tomorrow the allied interstellar chiefs of the general staff will meet here with me to interrogate you. I’ll send for them right now. But don’t forget the tortures that await you if you try to trick us.”
CHAPTER IX