by Jimmy Guieu
An inclined ramp led them up to a bright arch, 30 feet high and around 20 feet wide at the base, framing a reinforced hatch. One of the Denebians released by Zimko was standing at the entrance, frozen, waiting for the psychic order before acting. The Polarian held out the small box with paralyzing rays and gave a very precise order. The green monster suddenly recovered his energy, made the door open and entered the energy station while the Earthlings and Polarians hid on either side of the arch. A few minutes later the Denebian came back. This time he was walking like a robot with jerky movements and handed Zimko his paralyzing ray emitter.
“We can go in,” Yuln’s brother announced, pushing away the reinforced door.
They saw a huge cylindrical room with a row of chrome stands with wheels, electronic keyboards, switches, dials and blinking lights. 20 Denebians spread around the imposing, gleaming machinery were frozen where the paralyzing ray had just surprised them. When the green monsters saw one of their own entering, they suspected nothing. In a split second the “involuntary traitor” had petrified them in place.
“Perfect,” Zimko said. “We’re safe as far as this goes. The base has no more pilots or technicians. The next shift should be listening to the officer’s speech that I’m keeping under my control. Let’s go hear what he’s saying.”
They followed the spiral corridors again and finally came in front of another giant, luminous archway hatch. Here, too, one of Zimko’s Denebians was standing guard. The Polarian once again gave his paralyzing device to the monster and waited. The unconscious creature opened the door. From their hiding place the Earthlings and Polarians heard the officer’s harsh voice bellowing sensational “revelations”.
The monumental doorway closed behind the hypnotized monster carrying the paralyzing box. When the door reopened an impressive silence covered the assembly of 480 green monsters frozen stiff. Zimko took his device out of the Denebian’s claws and peaked inside. In the immense room all the reptilian creatures looked like stone. On an amber sphere over the petrified horde one Denebian was standing up, motionless, his mouth open and his right hand raised, frozen, in mid-speech.
“We can do whatever we want without fear now,” the Polarian declared.
He sent a mental message to Yuln and Tlyka to inform them and led off his commando team. A tubular elevator took them to the top floor of the giant disc. They were about to start down a long walkway that led to the holds where the prisoners were held when Zimko stopped short. With his head tilted slightly to the side, his eyes stared straight ahead as if listening to a voice that common mortals could not hear. His face tensed and his fists clenched, obviously under great strain. After a couple of intense minutes he came back to normal and looked at the others, aghast.
“The fourth Denebian we sent out to watch the holds has just been killed by his two compatriots. They found out he was hypnotized… how?... and they executed him in cold blood when he simply stood in front of the doors. The two monsters are protected by a neutralizing field similar to ours. Our mental powers can’t do anything. Nylak and I have tried to hypnotize them but it’s no use. We’ll have to fight it out and risk injuring or killing some of the scientists being held prisoners.”
For the first time since they had met the Earthlings saw the Man from Outer Space in the throes of uncertainty, even nervousness.
“Your paralyzing or disintegrating rays have no effect, then, on the neutralizing field?” Angelvin asked.
“The paralyzing rays bounce off, but the neutralizing field doesn’t absorb the disintegrator. How can we shoot these monsters with 60 men standing behind them? Disintegrating the guards means killing their prisoners along with them.”
After a quick thought Kariven drew his Colt. “This’ll do less damage. Do you think these Denebians could deflect a slug with their shield?”
Zimko shook his head and whistled, “In fact, your crude weapon seems to me to be the safest way to kill these creeps.”
“Maybe we could knock on the door and ask what time it is,” Dormoy joked.
“Why go in through the door?” the anthropologist shrugged. “Taking into the account the huge size of this mobile base, we could imagine that the air ducts in every room are proportionate.”
“Brilliant, Kariven!” the Polarian shouted. “You’ve found the solution. In spite of our super-normal abilities Nylak and I were floundering like wounded birds.”
He concentrated for a minute, probed the infrastructure of the giant spaceship and announced, “It’s exactly as you guessed, Kariven. The ducts are three feet in diameter carrying the air into the energy station in this hold where the prisoners are held.”
Running through the corridors the five men rushed to the station where the Denebian technicians were paralyzed.
“Here’s the group of air pumps,” Zimko pointed to an impressive machine made of two metal domes from the top of which came the tubular ducts that ran all through the ship. Zimko and Nylak each grabbed a giant tool, a kind of pliers with jointed jaws, and started unbolting a plate on the first tube. Perched on the big, armored dome, after 15 minutes of hard work, they managed to pull off the concave plate. Then they jumped back: a strong gust of air threw the plate onto the metal floor.
Zimko and Kariven slipped through the two-foot wide opening and inside the cylinder. Nylak and the two other explorers put the plate back in place, not without some difficulty, to stop the air from escaping, otherwise several rooms in the base would lose the artificial atmosphere, in particular the hold with the prisoners.
The two men crawled slowly down the narrow duct. Zimko was in the lead, lighting the way with a tiny (but powerful) flashlight. They soon had to get on their bellies to fight against the turbulent flow of air that was constantly pushing them from behind and even lifting them up and tossing them against each other. They reached a fork and Zimko used his panoptic vision to lead them into the duct on the right.
We only communicate by telepathy from now on, Kariven heard in his head. We’re almost there and the airflow could carry our voices into the holds.
Very soon the Polarian turned off the light. Slithering in the semi-darkness they got to a turn in the duct that was flooded with electroluminescence.
We’re at the end of the duct leading to the hold. It comes out in a metal wall six and a half feet off the ground and is covered with a grill with five-inch squares. There’s no fan… luckily!
They crawled cautiously up to the grill: in the huge, vaulted hold, 60 men of all ages and nationalities were sitting down in groups of three or four on plastex chairs or on metal crates lined up along the thick walls. Some were sleeping, others thinking quietly or talking among themselves. Standing on either side of the sealed door were the two Denebians protected by their neutralizing field, watching the scientists and the door with thermal rifles in their hands.
With the greatest care Kariven slipped the barrel of his Colt through the grill and lay it on one of the horizontal bars. He took careful aim at the guard on the right of the reinforced door. At the end of the barrel the green monster wavered a little in front of the sight. The anthropologist, sweating profusely, closed his eyes. Breathing fast he opened his eyes again. The arduous trip in the duct had tired his sight. Better to wait a minute before firing. To miss his target could be fatal to all the prisoners. He would only have a split second to hit the second Denebian… after the first was down. One false movement and their whole plan would go up in smoke.
Kariven clenched his teeth, shook his head as if to clear out a nightmare, then he aimed, calmly, and closed his left eye. The Colt’s sight was exactly in the middle of the Denebian’s chest now. The anthropologist pulled the trigger. The gunfire was terrifying, more like cannon fire.
The green monster collapsed.
Immediately after, the second bullet shot off in a thunder that rolled frightfully around the metal walls.
The scaly head of the nasty creature exploded and the body, almost decapitated, fell forward, spilling pinkish-gree
n blood over the chrome floor.
Watch out!” Zimko shouted. “The first one’s not dead!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Although wounded, the Denebian was crawling along the wall to get out of Kariven’s field of vision.
Astonished by this unexpected attack, the captive scientists all jumped to their feet, fretful, not knowing from where or whom the gun shots came. Kept at bay by the surviving guard, they just stood there, looking around the hold. Dribbling a trail of pink-green blood from his lips the Denebian struggled forward. His claws gripped the cushioned butt of the thermal rifle. When he got to the corner of the wall with the air duct opening he stopped, his breath short. He wanted to get up on one elbow to shoot but he slumped back down. His breathing was heavy and his eyes glassy as he finally hoisted himself up on his knees.
In the duct Zimko and Kariven had backed up a few feet, afraid of being hit by a charge of thermal rays. The Polarian, whose panoptic vision saw through matter, watched the struggle of the wounded monster.
He’s going to shoot at the air duct. The metal won’t melt but it’ll get up to 2,000C and we’ll be roasted!
It was not a pleasant picture for them. In the hold some of the scientists finally figured out where the gunfire had come from. They looked at the air duct, then the dying monster crawling toward it. Three of them whispered anxiously to each other and suddenly, in perfect unison, they picked up their chairs and threw them at the Denebian who was taking aim at the grill in the wall. The three metalo-plastex cube-chairs hit the monster who screamed out in rage, fell flat on the floor and dropped his rifle. A second later a dozen prisoners piled on top of him, swinging their fists. With a final burst of energy the monster fought back, scratching and biting his attackers but with his wound and blood loss he did not last long. A young scientist waved a chair in the air and brought it down hard on the monster’s skull. The terrifying, inhuman howls stopped and he lay motionless.
While disintegrating the grill of the air duct Zimko sent a telepathic message to his friends in the energy station: the way was clear. The Polarian and Kariven climbed through the opening and dropped to the floor. All the scientists ran up and bombarded them with questions at the same time as they praised their act of bravery and thanked them warmly. Surrounded by the blabbering scientists Zimko and Kariven opened the entrance door. Their friends came in to join them.
After hurrying back through the luminescent corridors the group came into the huge airlock that led outside, the giant “parking lot” with the 50 reconnaissance saucers and the two Polarian spaceships that were visible now.
Yuln, Tlyka, Jenny, Doniatchka and Professor Yegov were waiting impatiently by the discs. The two Polarians, using their strange super-vision, had watched the various phases of the operation and kept their companions up-to-date. The liberated scientists stared at these young women—so scantily dressed—with some astonishment. However, they were reassured: these pretty girls were “Earthlings.” That was where they were wrong, as Zimko’s brief speech informed when he welcomed them to the Earth-Polarian Alliance.
“Yegov!” one of the scientists burst out, face beaming. Holding out his arms he threw himself at the Russian physicist, whom he just recognized.
“Nikolai Petchenkov!” the professor thundered back, hugging him. In English to told Zimko, “This is my friend. Petchenkov is the Chief Engineer of the Odobnya plant in the Urals where we built the first artificial satellite.”42
Among the other scientists two Americans—Professors Wayne and Hammer—exchanged a brief glance. “I think we were really the first ones to build a space station,” Wayne whispered in outrage.
Zimko smiled as he read everyone’s train of thought. Petchenkov, for example, criticized his friend in Russian after he publicly revealed this USSR military secret: the construction of an artificial satellite along with the location of the factory where it was built.
The Polarian was going to intervene to denounce these ridiculous ideas of “security” and “military secrets” when a thought in Yegov’s brain stopped him. The Russian scientist was about to respond to his friend but he held back and instead addressed all his colleagues gathered there. His response concerned them all as much as Petchenkov.
“Gentlemen, or I should say my Brothers,” he spoke in English, figuring that most of them would understand, “my old friend Nikolai Petchenkov, whom I’ve just had the pleasure of seeing again, is Russian like myself. While I headed the labs in Atomgrad where the USSR perfected an H-bomb 43 whose complete formula I will give to all of you, Petchenkov was running the secret plant in Odobnya, also in the Urals. In this plant was built an artificial satellite, a space observatory platform that will orbit the Earth to keep surveillance over the different countries. My friend Petchenkov will also give you the secrets of the construction.”
Stunned, Petchenkov wondered if Yegov had gone mad. Promising these scientists from capitalist nations to reveal the greatest secrets of the USSR! What treason!
Chinese, French, Argentine, American, English, Italian, all the scientists were astonished. Where was this Russian physicist going—whom they had heard talking so warily on the radio and in the press—apparently converted to altruism? They understood even less than they understood why the green pseudo-men had kidnapped them?
“My role,” Yegov continued, “is not to tell you the whys and wherefores of our unintended meeting in this ship from another planet. Zimko the Polarian will do this. But I’d like to tell you this: I’m Russian; I was kidnapped in Moscow by this man I called Zimko… this man who comes from the solar system around the Pole Star. I’m glad that he kidnapped me because since then I’ve truly come to believe that all men are my brothers, not only here on Earth, but also in on the infinite worlds of our Galaxy. And no, I am not crazy,” he smiled at the skeptical and slightly cynical expressions on some of their faces. “When you know the reason of your kidnapping—because you are going to be kidnapped again but for your benefit and for a admirable goal—if you are men sincerely worthy of the name, you will understand why I call you brothers, you Americans, Frenchmen, Englishmen and others from all over the world. You will understand and join with all your heart this great Earth-Polarian Alliance. Personally, I’ve already signed up because a horrible danger is threatening our common country: the Earth.”
Turning to the Polarian, Professor Yegov, a little shyly, apologize, “I’m sorry, Zimko, I…”
“You did your duty as an Earthling, Professor, by saying exactly what needed to be said.”
The Polarian addressed the freed scientists and completed the Russian physicist’s explanations but at the same time sent a telepathic message to the astrobase of the Space Legions that was floating around the solar system.
“Now you know the role that you have to play in the new world,” he concluded. “You’re not our prisoners, rest assured. Moreover, if any of you refuse to participate in our Alliance, you can stay neutral. In any case, we won’t force anyone to act against his will or against his own interests. We are ready to leave behind those who express their desire to say here on Earth. They won’t be able to betray us because we’ve taken precautions to wipe their minds clean of everything concerning us. Our Science has reached such a fantastic degree of perfection, a degree that you can’t even begin to imagine. We are endowed with psychic abilities that pass the bounds of an Earthling’s understanding. All this, one day, will be within your reach. You will be able to use them just like the Polarians, I guarantee it. Don’t hesitate to tell me…”
A little commotion started to run through the group of scientists. After talking hurriedly among themselves the oldest of them stepped forward.
“We’re with you Polarians,” his voice trembled with emotion. “We’ll be glad to contribute, as modestly as it might be, to bringing peace to men and thwarting the diabolical plots of the green monsters. We will also revenge our unfortunate colleagues who were murdered before our eyes.”
At Zimko’s request the spokesman ex
plained to the explorers and his passengers: “Three days ago we decided to try to escape. We waited for our jailors to open the door to bring our evening meal. Then we jumped on the two Denebians on duty while others tackled the ones just coming in. Alas, we were not armed. A green monster arriving alone in the meantime stopped our momentum by shooting at us with a heat wave rifle. Nine of us were burned up.”
While the Polarians and their horrified friends listened to the story, back in the cockpit of the enemy base that was now under their control, a giant screen turned on. The green face of a Denebian appeared. His red eyes were popping out of his head from the surprise. In front of the screen the Denebian operator and one of the pilots stood like statues, still under the effect of Zimko’s paralyzing ray. The face on the screen went wild. Its lips moved but no sound troubled the silence of the room full of petrified bodies. Paralyzed but conscious the operator could not press the button for audio. Only the video reception was still on at the moment of the attack.
At 30 miles over the Australian desert, in the flying saucer patrol that was calling the base, the pilot abruptly cut the contact. He understood: this paralysis of the team was the work of the Polarians. He had to alert the astrobase orbiting outside Pluto immediately.
The flying saucer shot straight up at lightning speed and flew into space, off to sound the alarm for the green monsters stationed at the ends of the solar system.
Zimko suddenly interrupted the old scientist’s speech and raised his voice, “I just felt the brief presence of a Denebian spaceship over the base. It’s flying away after it couldn’t get in touch with the paralyzed team. Let’s get out of here,” he ordered, sending a new psychic message to the Polarian astrobase that was already on its way to Earth after his first call.