by Jimmy Guieu
“Rest assured, Earth Allies,” M’nag responded, “we won’t be gone for more than three of your hours because we don’t need to go back to Omynk, our solar system. A simple trip to our secret base on an asteroid between the orbits of your Mars and Jupiter is all we need. We will give the order to our first squadrons to get ready to come to Earth at the appointed time.”
“Won’t you be spotted going back to your base? The Polarians must be patrolling our system non-stop.”
“Have no fear, Mr. President. A very long time ago we perfected an invisibility shield that is even better than the one used by our enemies. Whenever we judge it necessary, our ships become invisible and undetectable even to the space radar of the Demons from Space!”
In his HQ on the Martian base, Zimko was talking with his friends Kariven, Dormoy, Angelvin, Commander Taylor, Professor Harrington, the physicist Kurt Streiler and Lieutenant Rudy Clark. They were watching in dread as the viewer showed them the meeting taking place on Earth between the heads of state and three Denebians.
“The blasted lizards are wasting no time!” the Man from Outer Space said worriedly. “And things are happening much faster than I thought.”
“It’s obvious,” Kariven pointed out, “that the set-up of the so-called attacking spaceship, struck down just in time over Paris, made a strong impression on the heads of state. With this new ploy the Denebians forced them to make a reckless decision for them to come to Earth immediately. The lunatics don’t understand that the so-called detector network, far from protecting the Earthlings, will help enslave them!”
“We still have one strong point,” Zimko said. “The monsters are convinced that their invisibility shield is invulnerable. And we’ve done our best to let them believe that our detectors and space radar can’t spot them. Therefore, they’re right to imagine that, being invisible, their spaceships pass unnoticed. We still have time to prove the opposite to them.”
The Man from Outer Space looked at his space-watch and saw the small, green screen showing the different time zones on Earth.
“So, M’nag’s ship will leave Earth for three hours. That might sound short by it’s still enough for us to try something to ‘limit the damages’, as you say, when things go sour on your planet. I need ten volunteers for a pretty dangerous mission, I have to admit. Are you…”
“When do you leave?” the six men asked at the same time.
“I was sure that you’d accept even before knowing the nature of the mission. And if it fails, it will mean our death. I’ll ask for four other volunteers…”
A smile suddenly crossed his lips.
“Yuln, naturally, read me telepathically. She and her friends Jenny and Doniatchka are threatening to join the Denebians if we don’t take them with us.”
The joke cracked them up.
“I think that in their place I would do the same thing,” Kariven smiled. “Plus, Jenny, Doniatchka and Yuln have proven themselves for a long time. For my part, I accept them on our mission.”
Everyone agreed. Zimko was about to agree as well but a wave of confused thoughts battered his mind. He projected his paroptic vision across the base and did his best to find the psychic source. Again he smiled and stared at Clark, the young Air Force officer who had participated in several dangerous missions years ago along with his friends and Kariven.
“Lieutenant Clark,” Zimko said, amused by his embarrassment and his obvious desire to ask something. “Do you, too, agree to bring with us a certain Polarian girl with the charming name of Bentya?”
The lieutenant could not help blushing and he had to clear his throat before answering. “That’s… I… If you think it’s possible.”
“But of course it’s possible. Bentya’s just sent me a telepathic ultimatum.”
Becoming serious again Zimko continued, “Earth friends, we have two hours and 45 minutes to prepare ourselves and get to Earth. Tlyka, Yuln, Jenny, Doniatchka and Bentya are already at the Biosthetic Center. Let’s get there right away… to powder our noses.”
Surprised by this idea, absurd to say the least, they got up and followed their friend and chief.
It was hard for Kariven to open his eyes. It seemed to him that the skin on his face was stretched tight. His nose, especially, bothered him. It was not really painful, just uncomfortable. When he propped himself up on an elbow, he suddenly realized that he was lying on a metal table. From the ceiling was hanging a kind of transparent mold, swaying five feet above his head. This mold had the shape of a human face. Clear tubes of different colors as well as a bunch of electrodes stuck inside the face of this mask were connected to an articulated, telescopic arm.
“Hello, Jeff.”
Kariven jumped and swung his head to the sound of the voice. 13 feet to his left a gorgeous young brunette in an emerald green two-piece was smiling at him, sitting up on a similar table under a similar machine.
“He… Hello,” he stammered, astounded to find himself with this beautiful stranger in a strange place.
Then his memory suddenly came back. He got up and ran into the arms of the young woman who kissed him passionately.
“Yuln, my love! I mean Myriam, my love! You… You’re as lovely in your new artificial face as you usually look.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, Jeff,” she smiled and pointed at the mirror on the wall. “Our biosthetic machines have made us new people.”
“And the psycho-tracers have given us new personalities without wiping out our memories. It’s incredible!’
“No acquaintance on Earth will ever be able to recognize you. And that goes double for the Denebians.”
In the cabin of the spaceship piloted by Zimko, Kariven, his friends and their companions were joking about their new faces, which they were enjoying enormously. It is a weird feeling to know one is a different person than before.
Yuln, Jenny, Doniatchka, Tlyka and Bentya (the young “conquest” of the handsome Lieutenant Clark) were truly divine. Their exquisitely pure features, their eyes and smile literally fascinated their companions. And extraordinary, absolutely irresistible magnetism emanated from them, which scared them a little bit. Wouldn’t they break the hearts of the Earthmen they met on the streets of Paris? Because it was in Paris that the Space Commando team was going to operate.
The Denebians—as Zimko’s new psychic inspection of M’nag’s mind had informed him—were in fact going to set up their planetary HQ in this city.
“New Style” Jenny looked again at her husband and smiled tenderly. When he touched her hand he felt an unpleasant tingling and immediately drew back. Surprised and hurt by this incomprehensible revulsion she stared at him, her big blue eyes suddenly full of sadness.
Dressed like his friends in a perfectly tailored, “terrestrial” suit Zimko at the commands of his Fimn’has was watching on, worriedly, at the different reactions and confused thoughts of the passengers.
“My friends,” he declared, “I can easily imagine the trouble you’re having because I didn’t tell you everything about the treatment you got. Besides changing your features, it also changed your psycho-physical faculties. From now on all your actions will have to be carefully controlled by your mind in order not to disturb those around you. Let me explain.
“To protect you and to give you the same psycho-physical weapons that we Polarians have, we changed your neuro-circuitry, especially the intracortical neurons that preside over the psychic functions and the metabolism. You now possess the extra senses and faculties that you admire in us. They’re only starting to wake up. Jenny, a little more receptive, felt something weird. But an hour from now you’ll all be able to read the thoughts of others, see through matter, follow several different currents of thought at the same time—and all this while talking. Finally, just by concentrating you can cast a stream of lethal electrocuting waves on at least two human or Denebian subjects. This will be useful to you. But you will obviously have to control your thought actions. Bob, in fact, just by touching his wife’s h
and, felt an unpleasant tingling. Jenny is an excellent experimental subject. She reacted quickly to the treatment. However, in a short time, you will all be able to control yourselves and by shaking someone’s hand you won’t have to worry about electrocuting them.”
“I understand all this, Zimko,” Yuln spoke up. “But I don’t fully understand this… strong sensual effect that we provoke without trying at all. This is new, even for me, a Polarian, who already has the paranormal sense unknown to Earthlings.”
Zimko smiled, deliberately not thinking about the reason for his unusual seductive ability to keep it from his sister and his friends whose telepathic sense was awakening.
“The purpose for this psycho-seductive magnetism will be revealed in good time. But rest assured, Yuln, and you too my friends, you will soon be able to control this new ability. What you don’t seem to see is that your husbands also have this power. They won’t become aware of it until later, in around five or six hours. Personally, I still don’t feel the effects. Have you set your watches to French time?” he asked, looking at his “Swiss” timepiece… specially made in Kodha. “It’s 8:32 pm.”
Then Zimko checked the screens on his control panel to make sure the Fimn’has was absorbing the radar waves and staying undetected.
Tlyka, no longer brunette but blonde and her face had lost its tan, checked the functioning of the invisibility field around the ship.
“In 15 minutes,” Zimko announced, “it will be dark and we can set down on the Saint Cloud racetrack… where we are expected.”
Totally invisible, the spaceship landed on the racetrack, avoiding the grass where the landing gear would leave obvious traces. The night was calm. A breeze wafted in the polyphonic concert of frogs and crickets.
With its lights turned off the unseen platform came slowly out of the disc. Its passengers looked like they appeared above the ground, legs first, by magic. They jumped silently onto the hard dirt holding their breath. A useless precaution since the racetrack was deserted. But not completely because 20 yards away, just as spectacularly, another pilot appeared out of a second invisible spaceship. He was dressed in a dark suit and carried a leather briefcase.
Raising his right hand he saluted the newcomers and handed Zimko the briefcase. “Here’s your passports and ID cards. The amount you asked for is divided into 10,000 Francs and $1,100. You’ll find the two cars, a blue and white Versailles and a dark red Ford, parked down the road about half a mile from here.”
“Thanks, Shongo,” the Man from Outer Space smiled. “You can take our Fimn’has. We’ll make do with the cars. Has the squadron arrived?”
“The last formation just landed in Agharti.” He smiled and added, “You can’t even park a car on the astrodrome. The last 1,000 ships couldn’t land and have to keep their gravito-magnetic field on to hover over the underground base. They got there around ten minutes ago. The Denebians will be landing on Earth soon. But everything’s ready. The situation is in your hands now. Good luck!”
He walked off, climbed onto the invisible platform, spotting it thanks to his paroptic vision, and disappeared into the spaceship. Silently and undetected, it rose up and sped off to Agharti, the secret Polarian base inside a tall mountain in Tibet.
“Let’s go get our new cars,” Zimko proposed. “We’ll be staying in three different hotels, close to each other so we can stay in permanent psychic contact. I’ll give you your passports, IDs and divvy up the money that you’ll need to live in France or maybe travel abroad. Because there’s no way I can put it in your bank accounts since you’re not yourselves.
“From now on we can only rely on ourselves. The Denebians are going to swarm the Earth. We won’t even be able to trust the Earthlings.
“Tonight we’ll rest. We need it and starting tomorrow we’ll start in on our secret battle…”
CHAPTER IX
The population of the world had heard about the decision of the USW council with a mixture of hope and anxiety. Hope because the threat of invasion that the Polarians (those evil Men from Outer Space) presented was now being stopped. Anxiety because people felt revolted and disgusted by these green monsters from the stars, in spite of the kindness they were showing to humans.
A week ago the Denebians had started setting up their detector network in every country. From one place to another across the continents the metal frameworks of giant towers stood tall. At the top was a slowly turning satellite dish pointed at the sky, sending out a fan of orange rays every three seconds.
Every city where the Denebian squadrons had set up was full of feverish activity. Some Earthlings forced themselves to fight against their disgust, the real horror that these frightening “two-legged” lizards caused every time they met them on the streets.
“If,” they told themselves, “these creatures are hideous to us, the inverse must also be true. We Earthlings must look just as nauseating in the eyes of the Denebians. But they don’t show their feelings about us at all. Does this come from their high degree of evolution? Do they look on us as simply a different but normal form of life or do they hide their repulsion better than us—out of kindness?”
In fact, only a minority of Earthlings reasoned like this. Most of them could not overcome their instinctive horror.
When the Polarians arrived their Earthling counterparts felt spontaneously attracted by them; everyone wanted to make friends with a Man or Woman from Outer Space. It was not the same with the Denebians. Far from it.
When someone strolling down the street saw one of the green creatures coming toward him, he did not hesitate to change sidewalks to avoid rubbing shoulders with the repugnant “friend.”
Several times already in concert halls and even dance clubs where these beings naïvely entered, there were scenes bordering on panic. And every time, without saying a word, without even looking hurt—but obviously suffering inside—the Denebians left.
The Earthlings clearly felt in them—at least they interpreted their behavior thus—a profound desire to get along, to mingle with human society, to participate in its good times, its fun times and to be closer.
The Freedom Squadrons had brought with them many female Denebian “assistants.” A little smaller than their male counterparts but with their bodies similar to Earth women these creatures were dressed in a very short, skirt made up material that looked like gold leather. Without any shame whatsoever they showed their scaly skin for all to see—a lighter sea-green than the opposite sex.
Their slanting red eyes with a yellow stripe sometimes stared hard at an Earthling male. Faced with this awful caricature of a woman with her scaly breasts shamelessly exposed, the man would shiver with disgust. Turning his back on the Female—as the Earthlings started calling the Denebian women—he hurried away, remembering the unpleasant feeling of those huge red eyes staring at him stubbornly.
It did not take long for the Earth women to see that they, too, became a physical object of scrutiny that often went beyond what was proper. A rumor gradually formed in Paris that girls and young women had been followed by Denebians. This kind of thing was, of course, not uncommon among humans, but it was easy for a woman to put a man in his place with a few choice words or even a slap, which proved more difficult with these green creatures.
Strange, disturbing stories, if the narrator was to be believed, started making the rounds.
Men had even been followed by Females. They would have to run away when they found themselves in a deserted street at night and a Female’s boots pounded the pavement faster as they caught up to the man they were following.
So far, however, nothing really bad had happened to either sex. Denebian men and women were content to follow humans and let their attitude suggest an intention that went beyond the norms of propriety.
News came one morning, exactly 18 days after the last chain in the “protective network” was installed over the face of the globe. In all the countries on Earth, after an Earth-Denebian meeting, the heads of state addressed their people. R
adio, TV and newspapers published their surprising declarations. Some papers did not hesitate to call the speeches “a miserable disgrace to the human race,” or “intolerable and immoral conspiracies”.
“After three weeks of contact with our Denebian friends and allies,” the official statements said, “we are sorry to say that no real connection has taken place between the Earthlings and Denebians on an individual basis. In whatever public place our guests show up, they face the same cold and reserved attitude, when they are not simply left alone in a place (bar, theater, club, etc.) quickly deserted by the Earthlings.
“Such anti-social behavior has to stop. We owe much gratitude to these beings from another planet, different from us for sure but like us they have a heart able to love even those who avoid them.
“We owe it to them to show more understanding, more kindness, even affection. It is clear that we will not understand or love the Denebian race until we have given up this ridiculous idea of considering them monsters or freaks. We have the proof that on one of their protectorates planets, humanoids (therefore identical to us Earthlings) have not only accepted their benefactors but even mated with them for generations. From their mutual affection a hybrid race was formed, strong and powerful, producing beings that are obviously different from the two parent races but whose appearance is not shocking.
“We ourselves recently visited a city on the planet X’naog where Denebians, humanoids and their hybrid races live in harmony.
“Thanks to the remarkable work of Denebian biologists and geneticists on histology and chromosomes, such racial mixes are now possible. Nothing now is preventing our races from creating a new race together, a mixed race, Terrodenebian that will consolidate our two peoples and seal our union in a powerful and lasting way.
“Moreover, such a project is under consideration. We would like to see it undertaken. And so it is with great joy that we welcome volunteers, of both sexes, to participate in this marvelous experiment.