“If they’re too dangerous ...” began Mr. Untz.
“What if they are?” said Mildume. “You make pictures with wild lions and tigers and alligators, don’t you? Seems to me you can find a way. I don’t recommend letting them out of the cage however.”
Mr. Untz nodded and said, “Well, maybe we can get Etienne Flaubert to do something with them. He’s the animal trainer we call on. Anyway Untz always figures something out. Only that’s why I like musicals better. There isn’t so much to figure out and you can play Victor Herbert backwards and get new tunes out of him. So anyway, we’ll get a truck and get these monsters to the studio right away.”
It was arranged. It was arranged with utmost secrecy too. There were other studios, after all, and in spite of their wealth of creative talent it was easier to steal an idea than cook up a new one. Atom bomb secrecy descended upon the Crusader Pictures lot and most especially upon Sound Stage Six, where the dream sequence for the psychological thriller, “Jolt!” was being filmed.
Even Jimsy LaRoche, the star of the picture, was excluded from the big barn-like stage. Mr. Untz prepared to get his first stock shots of the beasts.
There were gasps and much popping of eyebrows when Dr. Mildume—who had come along as technical adviser—removed the tarpaulins from the cages. The cameramen, the grips, the electricians, the sound men—all stared unbelievingly. The script girl grabbed Mr. Untz’s hand and dug her fingernails into it. The makeup stylist clutched the lapels of his mauve jacket and fainted.
“Nothing to be afraid of,” Mr. Untz said to everybody. He was sort of convincing himself too. “Dr. Mildume here knows all about the monsters. He’s got everything under control. So tell everybody about them, Doctor.”
Mildume nodded, bobbing his short white beard. He thrust his hands into his tweed jacket, looked all around for a moment, then said, “I don’t know exactly where the monsters are from. I had my Q-beam pointed into space, and I was focussing it, intending to put it on Mars at the time of proper conjunction. All very complicated. However the beam must have worked prematurely. These monsters began to form in the hydrogen chamber.”
Several of the listeners looked 56 at other listeners with unmistakable doubt. Unruffled, Dr. Mildume went on, “Now, we can make certain rough assumptions from the form and structure of these monsters. You will notice that except for their appendages they are globularly formed. Any engineer can tell you that the arch and hemisphere sustain the greatest weight for their mass.
“We may concede that they come from a planet of very strong gravity. Their skin, for instance, is tough and rigid compared with ours. They have difficulty staying rooted to earth—often a simple multipod movement will send them bouncing to the top of the cage. There is one other factor—the smaller of these creatures seems the more dominant—suggesting that on their home planet smaller beings are more agile and therefore better able to take care of themselves.”