Polarian-Denebian War 5: Our Ancestors From the Future Page 4

  “Friend Zimko,” Zavkom began, “maybe our American, French, English or Italian brothers can, without fear, introduce themselves to their governments as members of the Earth-Polarian Alliance, but it’s not the same with us Soviets. Being freed from the death camp by your charitable action, if we go back to Russia we’ll be executed without getting anywhere near the Supreme Soviet. Our sacrifice will be in vain.”

  “I’ve thought of your delicate situation, Zavkom, and I don’t intend for you or Petkov to announce our arrival to your government. I’ll leave this process to the Earthlings living in free countries. You will still have a similar role to play, but not alone. I will be with you.

  “Now, Friends, you should probably get some rest or something to eat because it was nighttime when many of you left. Tomorrow a major task awaits you. At dawn the final orders will be given and the same spaceships that brought you here will take you back to your home countries.”

  To Kariven and his French friends he said, “You’ll get back home between 8 and 10am and before noon, GMT time, you’ll have to gather all the members of the Alliance you’re in touch with to make a delegation at precisely 3 pm to the President.”

  To everyone again he announced, “Here now, by nationality, are the times that have to be kept by the members of the Alliance. For those in the USA, first of all, on the west coast…”

  In the control tower of the Orenburg airport in the Bashkirs, more than 185 miles to the southeast of Moscow, the radar men were going crazy evaluating the speed of the blip appearing and disappearing on their fluorescent radarscope.

  “Look, Vassily!” one of the operators shouted, pointing at the numbers that had just lined up on the paper. “The thing is going almost 6,000 mph heading northwest! At this speed it’ll be over Moscow in… eight minutes! What do you think it is?”

  “Nie znayu,10” the other answered, goggling at the figures. “I’ll alert Moscow…”

  He feverishly adjusted the knobs on the transmitter and a few seconds later the control tower at the airport in Moscow captured their call and explained, “We were told five minutes ago about the trajectory of this object when it passed over Tashkent in Turkestan. We took immediate measures to defend against it. It’s no doubt the Circle Wing whose capabilities were revealed on American radio. This violation of our air space by the dirty, capitalist rats will cost them dearly!”

  Zimko’s spaceship slowed down over the suburbs southeast of Moscow and ended up hovering around seven miles over the soviet capital. The sun, almost at its zenith, shined brightly on a layer of clouds concealing the Russian metropolis.

  Colonel Zavkom and the physicist Petkov were nervous as they attentively watched the Polarian adjusting the controls of the special transmitter designed to send his voice over the frequencies used by the Earthlings. Tlyka, in the meantime, was turning a calibrated dial and watching the slow change in an oscillating needle on a little screen.

  “All broadcasts and radio communication are cut off,” she said when the needle stopped. “You can send your message, Zimko. The authorities and the Russian people can hear it and nothing else… Watch out!” she suddenly cried out on seeing six MIGs appear on the viewer, shooting straight up out of the cloud carpet toward their ship.

  With unimaginable swiftness Zimko made his Fimn’has jump up 50 miles and then stop. In the cockpit—protected from the powerful effects of the acceleration by the negative gravito-magnetic field created by the spaceship—the occupants felt nothing of the upward leap. In any other plane the force of inertia of the passengers would have literally crushed them to the metal floor.

  The fighter jets 12 miles below were wheeling under the ship that had escaped not only to protect itself from their missiles, which the pilots believed, but also to avoid destroying them by contact with the magnetic field surrounding the ship.

  Zimko leaned over the microphone and spoke in Russian:

  “This is Zimko, Chief of the Space Commandos from the solar system of the Pole Star, speaking to you from a disc-shaped spaceship hovering over Moscow. This message is particularly meant for Marshal Gorochenko, Commander in Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces. In spite of the resemblance to the Circle Wing of the US Air Force, our ship is not a terrestrial airplane. It is a spaceship that brought us to your planet. Our intentions are peaceful. We want to be in contact with the Supreme Soviet. At this very moment, in all the capitals on Earth, similar contact is being established with other governments. Out ship suddenly shot up at the approach of the six jets launched against us not to escape them but to protect them from being destroyed by entering our magnetic field. The three MIGs that blew apart over Khantangskoïe were not shot down by an American Circle Wing as you believed. They got too close to our disc and instantly suffered the effects of our negative magnetic field. It was a regrettable accident and we are extremely sorry.

  “Marshal Gorochenko, are you listening? If so, answer me on whatever frequency you desire. Our electronic selector will automatically tune yours to ours.”

  Less than 30 seconds after this request the voice of Marshal Gorochenko came through the speaker over the blank screen:

  “Marshal Gorochenko here. I didn’t hear the beginning of your message but you must recognize how strange you sound. Nothing proves that you’re telling me the truth. Nevertheless, I honestly have to admit that you’re not acting like an enemy plotting a surprise attack. You claim to come from… from another planet? You know that this sounds like pure fantasy. But it’s hard for me to believe that the Americans would push this joke—doubtful and dangerous for them—so far as to taunt us over Moscow. This being said, and holding back any talk of your origin, what do you want and expect in hovering like this over our territory where you have no business?”

  “We simply want to land safely and have contact with you in the presence of the Supreme Soviet,” the Man from Outer Space repeated. “To do this and in the interests of your pilots, we ask you to send away those jets that have been circling under us for 15 minutes.”

  There was a long moment of silence before the Marshal’s voice came back. “Your request to land is also very unusual since you’re asking unconditionally for us to send away our jets. Until we are better informed about the danger that your magnetic field presents, as you say, we do not believe you. You seem to be in a revolutionary… extraordinary plane, based on its speed evaluated by our bases, but…”

  “Enough of these empty words, Marshal Gorochenko,” the Polarian broke in calmly and without hostility. “Your distrust is out of place. Order your fighters to stay 1,300 feet away from our spaceship. We’re going to land in Red Square. If you don’t give the order, you yourself are signing the pilots’ death warrant. Our magnetic field has a range of almost 800 feet on the move and 1,000 hovering at a fixed point. You are, therefore, warned. If your MIGs breach these limits our field will destroy them.

  “I repeat, we are coming as peaceful ambassadors of an extra-terrestrial race. We will be unarmed, our hands empty and you will see that our tight-fitting bodysuits can hide no weapons. Two of your compatriots will be with us. They are members of the Earth-Polarian Alliance, a secret, eminently peaceful organization that has recruited certain evolved Earthlings over the years. You know these two soviet citizens personally… seeing that it was on your order that they were deported to the concentration camp in Khantangskoïe. I’m talking about Colonel Zavkom and the physicist Petkov.”

  “You… You’re the one who destroyed the camp… the Rehabilitation Center!” Marshal Gorochenko barked. “And you pretend to be peaceful after slaughtering soviet officers and guards in…”

  “We are peaceful,” Zimko interrupted calmly, “but we also have an immoderate love of Justice. Your guards and officers were just butchers, executioners, torturers whose abominable crimes sully your race! We are on Earth to protect humans from a menace coming from outer space but also to keep such abuses from happening again. Now, Marshal Gorochenko, we’re going to land. You alone carry the respons
ibility of your pilots’ death if you don’t order them to back off immediately.”

  With this warning Zimko cut communication. His spaceship, with the usual rocking motion, started coming down fast. Long before he reached the cloud carpet the six MIGs shot off in all directions as fast as their jet engines could move them.

  Zimko, Petkov and Zavkom smiled at each other seeing the planes fly off, already into the Moscow suburbs more than four miles away.

  The snow-covered soviet metropolis was bathed in dim light. A recent snowfall had dropped another white layer that the cold had frozen. The spaceship landed gently in Red Square to the east of Lenin’s mausoleum.

  Countless Muscovites who were stunned to hear their radio broadcasts replaced by Zimko’s weird speech, came from all over, running on the packed snow, stuffed into their fur coats and wool caps. An envoy of military trucks led by a half-track vehicle with a turret gun was speeding toward the landing site.

  Zimko left the window amused by the deployment of force and by the astonishment on the onlookers’ faces. “These Earthlings don’t seem to know very well the rules of hospitality,” he smiled at Tlyka. We’re going out there. If anything goes wrong, fire the paralyzing rays at maximum range. You can listen in psychically to our meeting with Marshal Gorochenko and you’ll know as well as I if an intervention is necessary. We’ll keep our promise of going unarmed to the Supreme Soviet but in spite of everything we’ll be protected by our individual magnetic field.”

  Turning to Zavkom and Petkov he continued, “Turn on the heating elements in your bodysuits. The thermometer in Moscow right now is down to -17C.”

  The two men turned a little knob on the left side of their belt, flipped a switch activating the magnetic field generator and were ready to leave.

  When they had stepped off the platform that came down between the landing spheres, the thermostat automatically regulated the temperature of their suits and a gentle warmth washed over them. The onlookers, wisely stayed 300 yards from the flying saucer, watched them curiously and were stunned to see that they were not shivering in just a meager bodysuit at this temperature.

  The three men marched toward a group of officers standing motionless before a splendid Zim, as long and classy as a Cadillac. Without suspecting that one of the strangers was reading their thoughts like an open book, the officers examined them from head to toe. Suspiciously their eyes lingered on the big buckle of their belt that was full of tiny controls. Then they concentrated their attention on their faces.

  Zimko stopped in front of the Commander of the MVD, strapped into a black uniform, whom he saluted by raising his right hand to his shoulder. The other, surprised, did not finish his traditional salute but hesitated before responding clumsily with the same gesture.

  “Commander Prokofiev, attaché of Marshal Gorochenko,” he introduced himself. “The Marshal is waiting for you in his headquarters. He asked me to come and welcome you.”

  “Glad to meet you, Commander Prokofiev. Colonel Zavkom, Dr. Petkov and myself are ready to follow you.”

  Prokofiev cast a final, ambiguous glance at their belt buckles and opened the back door of the Zim, inviting the “ambassadors” to enter.

  Marshal Gorochenko was standing in the middle of the members of the Supreme Soviet that, by a happy coincidence, was in session that day.

  The long walls of the huge room where the assembly met was lined up with men in the black uniform of the MVD. They had been summoned urgency and as the Nagans in their holsters proved they were more than ready to take on the role of bodyguard.

  Accompanied by Zavkom and Petkov, Zimko walked quickly and confidently. Their boots echoed on the floor of precious wood with multicolored inlay. Their decisive attitude and their imposing bearing made a strong impression of these politicians used to seeing their subjects grovel at their feet.

  Zimko and his companions greeted the members of the Supreme Soviet following Polarian custom.

  President Koulski responded with a slight bow. “I presume that in the presence of extra-terrestrial ambassadors, the traditional ‘We welcome you’ is in order. Nevertheless… Sirs (Zimko read a trace of irony in these words) as Marshal Gorochenko quite rightly told you, although your landing in the middle of Moscow doesn’t fail to surprise, we are not so convinced of your… true origin. Nor are we absolutely assured of your intentions.”

  Zimko gave him a friendly smile and said, “It is likely that in your place, President, I would act with the same reserve. However, are we supposed to prove our extra-terrestrial origin by taking you on board our spaceship and flying you off to our solar system? Would you even accept such an offer?”

  The President coughed with great distinction and replied, “Such an offer—tempting in theory—bears certain, um, risks, don’t you think, considering our suspicions?”

  “I have the feeling,” Zimko smiled again, “that this game of cat and mouse will only end in a stalemate. My human form shocks you because in the mind of an Earthling the inhabitants of other planets should necessarily look like a ‘Martian’ monster as your cartoonists depict. This is not always true. The Denebian races, from the Deneb solar system, and the Procyonian, from the sun Procyon, are indeed monstrous to the human eye. Furthermore, these monsters are our enemies… and yours, without you knowing it, because they’re after your whole solar system and your planet in particular.”

  The Polarian turned his head a little, stared at Marshal Gorochenko, then brought his attention back to President Koulski. “Marshal Gorochenko is still convinced that we’re unbelievably reckless American spies. And he sees our spaceship as the Circle Wing whose existence was revealed by the Air Force. A doubt remains in you, Mr. President, but more restrained because for years you’ve examined, growing more ill at ease, the reports sent by your bases about the observations of our ships called flying saucers by your kind. Without believing completely in the extra-terrestrial origin of these discs, your mind was still shaken up. Moreover, your spies operating on American territory have always submitted unquestionable reports: no US research center of unmanned aircraft could have perfected such a revolutionary spaceship.”

  Very impressed by this “clairvoyance” the President of the Supreme Soviet shot a hard look at the speaker. “Are you trying to…”

  “Exactly, Mr. President,” Zimko cut him off. “I’m trying to prove to you that I’m telepathic, a pretty rare phenomenon among men, especially for FBI agents! I can easily give you more proof…” Turning to Marshal Gorochenko he observed, “Marshal, you’re cooking up a plan right now that can’t succeed. You’re hoping that we’ll make the slightest gesture so you can give the order to your MVD men to shoot us.”

  His face turned pale, the Marshal showed his absolute astonishment.

  Without giving him time to speak Zimko continued, “Imagine, Marshal, that we just made a suspicious movement and you order your men to fire on us… Go on, do it,” he insisted. “No harm will come either to us or to the shooters.”

  After a shock of surprise the President ordered, “Shoot these men!”

  The MVD agents hesitated only an instant. They unholstered their Nagans and fired almost at the same time. The huge room resounded with gunfire and the sharp odor of gunpowder mixed with the smoke coming out of the muzzles.

  Zimko, Colonel Zavkom and Dr. Petkov looked wryly at the hail of bullets that slammed against their magnetic field and fell ten feet from them.

  President Koulski was panting heavily, not trying to hide his confusion. “I… This experiment seems conclusive. Human technology has not yet developed such a system of protection. Does it use the same principle of the force fields of your… spaceships?”

  “Pretty much the same principle, Mr. President. I’m glad to read in your mind the decision to welcome us as peaceful ambassadors. At the appropriate time and with your consent I will bring you to our space base where you can judge for yourself the technical level of our civilization. For now, we have more pressing problems.

&nbs
p; “We Polarians have decided to intervene in the internal affairs of Earth nations in order to unite all their inhabitants… and this in order to confront a dreadful danger that is looming over your planet. The first phase of this program is a global meeting of all the heads of state. This meeting must conclude with a pact of planetary defense, therefore a union, to which we will contribute by providing weapons capable of matching those of the enemy.”

  “May I?” the President asked. “This meeting, which I am not, in theory, hostile to, will take place in Moscow, of course?”

  Zimko shook his head. “Not in Moscow, not in Washington DC but in an absolutely neutral location: our space base 1 that orbits 600 miles away from Earth. Thus, the heads of state won’t refuse to come, as they usually do when they have to go to one country or another.”

  “Hmm, it’s rather unexpected as a meeting place…”

  “True but do you see any region on this planet where the heads of state would eagerly accept to go?” Faced with a skeptical, sullen look he continued, “The assembly, therefore, will take place on our space base 48 hours from now. Spaceships will land in every capital and board the heads of state who have been informed of our offer. It’s only during the global meeting that we’ll give the outlines of our mutual cooperation before concluding with the Earthly unity for the greatest benefit of humanity… and its safety. Before anything, Mr. President, I ask you to release immediately the hundreds of thousands of political exiles being tortured in your concentration camps.”

  This remark startled the President, who reacted with indignation, mixed with a certain embarrassment. “The Rehabilitation Centers are not concentration camps…”