The Crystal Planetoids

The Crystal Planetoids by Stanton A. Coblentz

Ronald Gates, a technician at the Merlin Research Institute, perfects the Infra-Red Eye, an instrument intended to see through haze. Testing it on the roof with his colleagues Eleanor Firth and Philip Dunbar, he discovers immense invisible webs enclosing Earth and gigantic many-limbed beings weaving them. The creatures seize all three and carry them in protective envelopes to one of the glassy Crystal Planetoids orbiting the planet. Their captors are Saturnians from Olar-olargulu. Led by the red-hooded Red-Hood, they explain that their overpopulated world seeks to colonize Earth. Their webs are choking wind currents and trapping heat, gradually turning the planet into an oven in which humanity will die. The invaders need compressed air because Earth’s atmosphere is too thin for them before their web is complete. They offer to spare the captives if they prepare tanks of compressed air for Saturnian use. Gates and Eleanor refuse to aid the extermination of humanity, but Dunbar agrees to collaborate. He demands Eleanor as his companion, and the Saturnians release both of them, making Eleanor a hostage for his obedience. Gates is paralyzed by the Saturnian venom Lethemaz and used as bait: dangled above Earth to attract crowds, while the invaders abduct people for preservation as specimens in their Museum of Unnatural History. Eleanor tries to warn Chief McCullough, but he dismisses her account as delusion. Dunbar, meanwhile, prepares compressed-air cylinders in a secret apartment laboratory and kidnaps Eleanor after she attempts to expose him. He keeps her drugged and imprisoned while he works. She manages to send a plea for help by cutting words from a book and slipping them beneath her door. Emanuel Knapp finds the message and brings police, who rescue Eleanor and arrest Dunbar, but invisible Saturnians intervene and carry him away. On the Planetoid, Gates studies the Saturnians. He learns that their invisibility comes from a powder called Amvol-Amvol and that they communicate through vibrations sensed near their ears. He also observes their addiction to Kishkash fumes and their internal rivalry. During a Saturnian celebration, Gates tries to steal invisibility powder but is caught in a trap. Yellow-Claws, whose true name is Misthrumb and who hates Red-Hood, frees him, makes him invisible, and proposes escape so that he may discredit his rival. Yellow-Claws and Gates descend toward Earth in a jelly-like car, pursued by Red-Hood’s followers. Their vehicle is damaged in a storm and caught in an oak tree. Yellow-Claws battles the pursuers but is fatally wounded at the vulnerable middle nerve center beneath his left shoulder. He orders Gates to flee. Still invisible, Gates evades the Saturnians, travels home by train, and retrieves his Electric Blade, a battery-driven weapon whose rapidly moving blade can cut through the invaders’ armor. He also obtains a second Infra-Red Eye. Eleanor, protected by police after further attacks, realizes ordinary authorities will not believe in the invasion. She completes her Electronic Space Ray, a powerful device that disperses mist and dissolves gelatin. She believes it may rupture the gelatinous Crystal Planetoids, though using it could kill Gates and the other prisoners. She chooses the survival of humanity over personal loss. At dawn, Gates reaches Dunbar’s apartment as the traitor prepares to deliver the compressed-air cylinders. Using the Infra-Red Eye, Gates sees Red-Hood and a dozen Saturnians gathered around the tanks. Though his Electric Blade is visible, Gates attacks by surprise, striking the creatures at their middle nerve centers. He kills Red-Hood and another Saturnian, while the surviving invaders flee in terror. One of them stings Dunbar through the heart as punishment for betraying them. Gates releases the air from every cylinder, depriving the Saturnians of the aid they need. Eleanor fires the Electronic Space Ray at a Crystal Planetoid and destroys it, then turns to seek another target. Gates arrives alive behind her, and they are reunited. In the following weeks, many Space Rays destroy the atmospheric webs and hunt down the remaining Planetoids. Earth’s normal weather returns, the Saturnian menace vanishes, and Eleanor and Gates marry amid worldwide celebration.

By Stanton A. Coblentz · First published 1929 · Genre: Science Fiction, Pulp Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Fiction · 14 chapters · 32,127 words

First lines

There in the sky was a vast web and perched on it were invisible beings -- what did it all mean?

Philip Dunbar ran a lean exploratory hand through his tousled long black hair. There was a sardonic, faintly quizzical look in his dark, trimly moustached face, which acquaintances were inclined to describe as "handsome, but saturnine. " His little jet-points of eyes, as he stared across at the next laboratory table, glittered enigmatically.

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The Crystal Planetoids is listed on Textopian as a novella by Stanton A. Coblentz, dated 1929 CE.

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science fiction · scientific romance · alien invasion · Saturnian colonizers · Earth under siege · invisible aliens · atmospheric sabotage · planetary conquest · giant spider-like creatures · cosmic horror · crystal satellites · orbital planetoids

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