The Miniature Menace
Captain Ralph Langford returns to Mars City after refusing to fire on an alien spacecraft encountered in the Asteroid Belt, and is arrested on Commander Gurney's orders for letting the vessel escape. Langford strikes down the arresting officer and is captured by armed guards before being brought before Gurney, who has had him certified irresponsible and given him twenty minutes to justify his conduct. Langford presents Gurney with a small metallic statuette shaped like a praying mantis, contained in a capsule the alien ship had fired at his vessel. He explains that the aliens sent it as a warning rather than attacking: when struck, the miniature creature comes to life, multiplies rapidly by fission into eight buzzing replicas, then destroys itself rather than be captured, demonstrating both the aliens' capacity to overrun Earth and their willingness to self-annihilate against impossible odds. Gurney remains unmoved, ruling that letting the ship escape was near-treasonous, and moves to have Langford held. Langford draws a pistol the guards failed to find, and, refusing to threaten Gurney's life to force compliance, instead persuades him on trust to sit still fifteen minutes while he flees in a jet plane to clear the port. Langford goes to a hospital to see his wife, Joan, a mutant whose eyes are being unbandaged after surgery by Dr. Crendon. Crendon explains that mutants possess piercing clairvoyant inner vision but often defective outer sight, and that Joan's recovery depends on feeling needed and active rather than retreating into her inner vision from fear of isolation. Joan's bandages are removed and her ordinary sight proves restored. She reveals she had used her clairvoyance to watch Langford being hunted across the landing field, prompting Crendon to sedate her. Langford tells Joan he genuinely needs her inward vision to locate the alien ship, and, with her eyes bandaged for clearer inner sight, she guides him through a clairvoyant vision: she perceives the enormous ship, senses a lone winged, mantis-like presence aboard filled with fear and nostalgia, watches it release the warning capsule, then sees the ship speeding out of control toward Earth and crashing on a jungle island where three rivers meet below a great cataract, which she identifies as being in the Amazon interior of Brazil. Langford and Joan steal Commander Gurney's private cruiser, the White Hawk, and fly to Brazil, locating the described island near the Itamaraca cataract from Joan's remembered details. They land amid charred jungle where the alien ship apparently crashed, and find Commander Gurney himself half-drowned on the riverbank; Langford pulls him from the water. Gurney explains that "dozens" of ten-foot mantis creatures attacked his men, hurling them into the river, and that he blacked out struggling with one, having no idea why he alone was spared with his face merely submerged rather than swept away. Langford swims across the river alone to investigate, over Joan's objection, trusting a feeling that the danger pictured is not what it seems. In the forest he encounters a bodiless telepathic voice that identifies itself as a solitary alien traveler, blown off course, who admits it drew Langford to it telepathically and that it fabricated the entire threat: it cannot multiply by fission and never physically attacked anyone, but used telepathy to implant terrifying illusions of a swarming multitude in the minds of Gurney's armed men, driving them in panic into the river until their weapons were lost and their strength gave out. It explains that the miniature multiplying-mantis statuette was merely a child's toy in its own world, deployed as a precaution because so many worlds harbor hostile intelligence, and that it has since repaired its ship and prepares to depart for its own people. Grateful for Langford's earlier forbearance in not attacking its ship, the alien offers to show its true form, contracting from a shape of flame into a tiny, cricket-like mantis figure no larger than a fingertip, radiating trust and friendliness rather than menace. Langford's mind likens it to "Jimmy Cricket," a humbugging but ultimately noble and unthreatening presence akin to the Wizard of Oz. The alien predicts that Gurney, despite his blustering nature, will be grateful to Langford and that Langford will be promoted to senior commander once the alien ship is seen departing into space. It then bids Langford farewell and vanishes. Langford, dripping and marked by the encounter, returns to the riverbank, waves to Joan, and swims back across the river toward her.
By Frank Belknap Long · First published 1936 · Genre: Science Fiction, Horror, Adventure · 4 chapters · 13,024 words
First lines
_Condemned without trial for his refusal to open fire on an alien space-craft, Ralph Langford had to be free to investigate the strange menace from beyond the stars! For if the alien were an enemy, then it would be the most terrible enemy men had ever encountered._
What this Textopian page supports
The Miniature Menace is listed on Textopian as a novel by Frank Belknap Long, dated 1936 CE.
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- Work type: Novel
- Author: Frank Belknap Long
- Date: 1936 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
- Length: 13,024 words
- Structure: 4 chapters, 247 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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- Work identity for The Miniature Menace by Frank Belknap Long
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- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Discussion starters
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Genres
- Science Fiction — The plot revolves around futuristic technology and speculative science.
- Horror — Themes of fear and menace are central to the story.
- Adventure — The narrative includes action-packed sequences and exploration.
- Mystery — The story involves solving a central enigma or threat.
Tags
science fiction · horror · miniature creatures · thriller · suspense · adventure · urban setting · paranoia · survival · creativity · imagination · fear