Polarian-Denebian War 4: Space Commandos Read online

  “We don’t want a genocide and especially such carnage to strike Life itself. Our duty, therefore, is clear: to keep the Earthlings from committing the collective suicide that their scientists refuse to believe in. We’ve got a little time since they haven’t yet developed the C-bomb and also because they’re not at war right now… at least not yet. Besides, there’s a good chance that a new threat coming from outer space will hit their planet: I’m referring to the Denebians and Procyonians. But how can we contact the humans without causing general panic? How, first of all, to make them see that we’re their friends, their protectors? With their minds still clouded by primitive feelings, many of them will see us as conquerors, monstrous warriors trying to take over the Earth. Even our brother Polarians, who look like humans, will have serious trouble convincing them.

  “There’s an important reason for this: the inhabitants of T27 consider themselves the Kings of the Universe. Most of them anyway. In their pride they refuse to imagine that there might be other worlds with beings superior to them, smarter and especially wiser. This thought shocks them and wounds their foolish vanity. If only the common people had this egocentric idea we could figure on contacting its leaders, scientists and scholars. But alas even the ‘doctors’ and leaders, with rare exceptions, stubbornly refuse to admit the hypothesis of intelligent life capable of sending representatives to their planet.

  “We have decided, therefore, based on this information furnished by our mechano-psychic detection devices, to make frequent observation flights at low altitude, figuring that if the Earthlings see a lot of disc-shaped flying objects they’ll end up facing the fact that these machines, whose characteristics and abilities are so superior to their own, can lead to only one possible conclusion: if thousands of Earthlings attest to seeing ‘flying saucers’ and other cigar-shaped objects it’s only because strangers to their planet are watching them.

  “Once again we were sorely deceived. We had made the mistake of believing that we were dealing with (relatively speaking) intelligent beings able to use their heads and humbly recognize that such machines could not possibly be the work of their fellow humans. In fact, although men are thinking beings, their intelligence quotient is, nine times out of ten, obliterated by hallowed doctrines, chauvinism and, I have to say, by their excessive pride.

  “Our countless ‘demonstration’ flights over the United States and other countries changed nothing in the thoughts of men, so we decided to fly over France. It did nothing. In spite of tens of thousands of trustworthy people confirming that they had seen with their own eyes the ‘flying saucers’, the stubborn Earthlings continued to deny the existence of our Fimn’has. We had to make brief landings in remote areas so as not to cause panic or at least on the outskirts of small towns. Our Polarian, Centaurian or Wolfian pilots showed themselves fleetingly to the few Earthlings they came across. The Polarian did not need spacesuits since they can breathe freely in the T27 atmosphere, but the Centaurians and Wolfians put on their suits. In most cases the sight of us scared the humans and they ran away. Some, however, had the courage to wait on pins and needles. Several of you, my brothers, took the opportunity to approach them briefly. And on several occasions the Polarians even made physical contact with the Earthlings who look like them.

  “Well, something unthinkable happened: despite all our demonstrations, all our landings, all our brief but repeated contacts, most Earthlings still deny our existence! To convince these primitives beings do we have to land thousands of spaceships in a big city… and unleash panic among them, not to mention all the accidents and mishaps that would happen? Moreover, we know that out of stupidity these natives could very well attack us… not knowing that a force field protects us individually during our visits. Remember when one of these ridiculous primitives fired a gun—that obsolete weapon—at one of his fellow men, thinking it was a Martian, which our viewers showed us in their newspapers.5

  “Naturally, it would be easy for us to convince the Earthlings once and for all by leaving an unknown object on Earth after a landing, something that mystifies their physical laws and that will force them to admit our presence. But we won’t do this because in order for the Earthlings to open their minds to other, less conventional knowledge, they have to analyze the facts calmly and use their own logical reasoning to conclude that we exist.”

  Fohag interrupted his harsh criticism of the stupid blindness of the inhabitants of T27, then after pushing in a pearl-colored strip and lowering a lever he continued.

  “Hogounn and Injya, two Centaurian pilots, have recently made a routine visit to Earth that made a little splash among men. The commentaries on the witness of their appearance are outrageous and more proof, if need be, of the incredible stupidity of this Homo called Sapiens, meaning ‘Wise Man’ in a dead Earth language, a title that these creatures willingly and very modestly give themselves! Just look at the translation of the news published this morning on the bright side of the planet in a big newspaper.”

  The curved wall of the room seemed to fade away and be replaced by a kind of stereoscopic diorama of a wide Parisian street (Boulevard des Italiens) at rush hour. It looked like a colored, 3-D view taken from the top floor of a building near the Opéra. The ground came closer. An Earthling reading a newspaper was framed in the middle of the screen and as the view zoomed in part of the paper became visible. The headline and subheading became legible. The man seemed to have stopped moving, like in movie special effects when a scene turns into a photograph. The image moved away from part of the screen where two hands were holding a newspaper but opened up to page 7 on which the information was the headline.

  “Here, then,” Fohag explained, “is one of the many articles describing the ‘adventure’ of an Earthling who claims to have seen two Martians. Because for these primitives who like to mock their fellowmen, the flying saucers are piloted by Martians! If only they knew what Martians really looked like, they would never talk about us Wolfians and Centaurians as monstrous gnomes but rather as Apollo, an ancient civilization’s God of Beauty!”

  The screen with the frozen image of the article blurred and the two hands holding the paper disappeared. In their place came a text in the universal language of the Federated Worlds whose characters, lit up in relief with a slightly green tint, looked like they were floating in mid-air.

  In Quarouble, in Nord, France, a rough translation of this weird group of signs unknown to Earthlings read, Marius Dewilde, a steelworker, claims to have seen two “Martians” in a flying saucer and he has told us his strange story. They were two beings around three feet high, extremely wide at the shoulders and a huge head.

  After the headline and subheading written to lure in an Earthling “bored” with all this “nonsense” about “so-called” flying saucers and their “imaginary” occupants, the details followed:

  Lille, September 13, 1954, (by tel.)6

  Martians land on Earth… That was the rumor spreading around Quarouble yesterday. A rumor that we cannot relate without a great measure of skepticism: the “Martians”, if they were Martians, left no tangible trace of their visit to Earth. But one man claims to have seen them and he described them so precisely, so sincerely that the most cynical are starting to believe his story. This man is a steelworker, 34 years old, named Marius Dewilde.

  He is a serious man. At the steel works in Blanc-Misseron where he works, he has a reputation for being levelheaded and down-to-earth. There is apparently no reason for him to pull off such a huge prank. And yet he insists on this incredible thing: he saw, from his backyard, next to a mysterious, oblong machine, two human-like beings wearing spacesuits—two “Martians”.

  It was Friday evening, September 10, 1954. The clock in the kitchen said 10:30 pm. Mrs. Dewilde and her son had just gone to bed. Mr. Dewilde was sitting in the kitchen, reading. In the yard “Kiki” his dog started barking so loudly that his master grabbed a flashlight and went outside.

  From the yard, he tells, I saw a dark mass on the railroad a l
ittle ways to my left. I was thinking: it’s a farmer who unhooked his cart. Tomorrow morning I’ll have to tell the station agents to come and get it. Right after I thought this I heard like footsteps to my right on the other side of the fence, on the “Smuggler’s Path”. That was the direction my dog was looking and still barking at. I turned on my flashlight. Then I saw the two beings. They were 10 or 12 feet from me, separated by the fence. They were walking one in front of the other toward the dark mass that I’d seen on the tracks. The one in front turned to me. My light flashed on its face and it glittered like metal. I had the distinct impression that it was wearing a helmet and a spacesuit. Plus, the two beings were dressed alike. They were small, no more than three feet tall, but extremely broad-shouldered and the helmet protecting their heads looked huge. I saw their legs, which were proportionate to their size. But I didn’t see any arms. I don’t know if they had any.

  When the initial surprise had passed I ran toward the backdoor in order to cut them off. Just then, in the big thing sitting on the tracks, a square window opened. A projector was pointed at me. This projector shined a bright light with greenish tints. Its beam paralyzed me. I wanted to cry out but I couldn’t. I wanted to keep moving but my legs wouldn’t obey me. Then like in a dream, a few feet away from, I heard the sound of footsteps on the cement porch in front of my backdoor. It was the two beings heading for the tracks.

  At last the projector turned off. I could control my body. I went to the train tracks but the dark mass was already rising off the ground. It swayed a little going up, like a helicopter, with no sound but the whistling from a thick black smoke that it threw in my face. The machine rose straight up to around 100 feet then headed west, still gaining altitude. It was the shape of a cheese cover, around ten feet high and 15 to 20 feet in diameter. At a certain distance it turned a glowing red. Within a minute it had disappeared.

  In the huge meeting room Centaurians, Polarians and Wolfians, each in its own way, felt what the humans call “a laugh coming on”. When the big, bulging eyes of Fohag (who had just turned purple with red flushes) resumed their usual color, he brought up the translation of a following article on the 3D screen.

  The “Martians” of Quarouble landed on the train tracks7. The Air Marshals found traces of landing gear on the railroad.

  Three Air Marshals came to Quarouble (in Nord) yesterday to hear Mr. Marius Dewilde, the man who “saw” two Martians at his backdoor. They left the town convinced that on Friday night a mysterious flying machine really did land, as Mr. Dewilde claims, on the Saint-Amand-Blanc-Misseron railroad tracks: near the number 79 crossing…

  …One of the crossties showed traces that could have been made by a machine during landing. In five places the wood was indented around 1.5 inches square. These marks are all identical: they are in a straight line and the three middle ones are 15 inches apart. The two outer ones are 25 inches from the last. A machine landing on a stand and not on wheels like our airplanes would leave the same marks, declared one of the Air Marshals.

  The story that Mr. Dewilde told is also confirmed by several other witnesses in the region. At Onnaing, a young man, Mr. Edmond Auverlot, and a retired man, Mr. Hubbard, saw a red light moving across the sky around 10:30 pm, the time indicated by Mr. Dewilde. The same light was seen in Vicq by three young people coming out of a dance.

  Fohag interrupted the characters rolling out on the stereoscopic screen and with a hint of cynicism said, “And now I want you to pay particular attention to the conclusion of this article.”

  All these witnesses and facts give some credibility to Mr. Dewilde’s story. However, many people remain skeptical. Mr. Dewilde is without doubt sincere. But one year ago he suffered a serious accident at work, brain trauma, after which he exhibited some neurological problems. Could he also have been the victim of a “waking hallucination,” a well known phenomenon among doctors.

  “There we have it!” Fohag exclaimed, holding in his anger and indignation that his eyes betrayed, turning from pink to brownish purple. “This sincere Earthling, reporting what happened when Hogounn and Injya landed near his home in their Fimn’has, is treated like a madman and accused of hallucinating by those whose closed minds refuse to believe in our existence. The marks from the landing gear on the railroad, the witnesses who saw the spaceship after taking off, everything is the result of ‘brain trauma’!”

  Addressing Hogounn and Injya in particular Fohag added:

  “This Earthling you scared and who could tell only what he actually saw is going to be the butt of endless, imbecile jokes! For some he’ll be crazy… until the day we make official contact with the governments of Earth and our mass landing in the major cities on T27 will astonish the skeptics and deniers but will delight those who saw us during our brief visits. Our arrival will exonerate them somewhat in the eyes of the primitives and the ignorant who are a little too quick to call them hoaxers or lunatics!”

  Fohag sat down and a Polarian in a gray spacesuit stood up. He was tall, at least 6’2”, twice the size of the Centaurians and one third taller than the Wolfians. Through his round, transparent helmet could be seen his clearly human features. With copper skin, black eyes and a prominent chin he could easily pass for an athlete on Earth who spent a lot of time in the sun.

  “The detailed report that Chief Fohag just gave us,” he began, “does not say much for the natives of planet T27. Most of them are still very primitive since they won’t accept the multitude of witnesses who have seen our spaceships or pilots. Although the time to make contact is approaching, it is not any time very soon. Therefore, we have to continue visiting Earth, appearing on the different continents every day until the natives are equally divided into two clearly distinguished clans: those who openly admit being convinced about the extra-terrestrial origin of ‘flying saucers’ and those who are too blind, stubborn and proud and will publicly maintain their futile assertions calling our spaceships weather balloons, hallucinations and other ridiculous things.

  “When the time comes, in all likelihood, a government on Earth will have the courage to side with the extra-terrestrial origin and reveal what it knows and what it is hiding from the public. On that day, then, we will land on the planet, confident that part of the human race knows that our coming was inevitable. Furthermore, we are already being helped in this by various private groups who insist on investigating our flights over their territories and who regularly publish the results of their research… in order to educate their fellowmen and prepare them for our coming8. At the right time they will become our friends and help us to prove our good intentions to their backward brothers.

  “Moreover, preliminary contact has been made by us Polarians with certain of these more evolved humans. A most satisfying contact, I have to admit. Besides, the only government on T27 that may be convinced—without admitting it openly—about the extra-terrestrial origin of ‘flying saucers’ is the USA, a country that has reached a more developed stage than the other peoples. It is, therefore, likely that we will make our first official contact with the leaders of this country. This is not to say, however, that the said leaders will publish the details of this meeting that is currently under consideration.”

  The Polarian paused, seemed to listen to something. He kept silent for half a minute before continuing.

  “Metna, the Centaurian radar controller on astrobase 1 has just sent me a psychic message. The space radar has detected a terrestrial rocket coming toward us at 5,000 miles an hour.”

  CHAPTER III

  On the huge wall screen appeared an experimental super-rocket whose pieces had just detached. Lightened by dropping the tailpiece, which had exhausted its fuel reserve, the two last pieces of the multi-stage rocket sped out of the ionosphere. Remote-controlled from its launch pad at White Sands in New Mexico, the machine turned slightly off course and made a rectilinear ascension, heading for the first space satellite that orbited around 400 miles from Earth under astrobase 2.

  The next-to-last conic pie
ce detached and soon fell toward the ground while the “nose” of the rocket containing the research and observation equipment shot straight up. It reached the peak of its trajectory at a point seven and a half miles from the astrobase, continued its course, slowed down gradually, turned vertically and fell back down at high speed. Watched by the cameras on the two astrobases that kept it in constant focus during its fall, the guided missile remained the same size on the screens.

  The Polarians, Wolfians and Centaurians saw it approach the ground and at 25 miles altitude they observed the ejection of a huge, metallic plastic parachute. Thus slowed in its fall the super V2 landed with less shock, which allowed the Rocketeers9 to pick up the observation equipment in relatively good shape. It was, in fact, important to get the data intact that recorded the different measurements as well as the photographs. When the rocket had touched down Fohag turned two black knobs that controlled a spinning drum with the signs of the universal characters and then he pressed two white buttons on a control panel in front of him.