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Once again, the valiant Spaceman Spiff has become the captive of an abhorrent alien from the stars. He has faced the Zogwarg Queen, the Bat-Breathed Booger Being, and a menagerie of other monsters, but this far-flung foe is entirely new: the dreaded Mind-sucker of Mars!
Calvin lay fidgeting on the couch against the office wall as he stared at the man who sat across the room from him. Calvin had seen head-shrinkers’ offices on television before, and this one did not look too much different from the images that had shaped his expectations. The difference that stood out the most to him was that the sofa he reclined on was made of brown leather rather than red velvet. Also, the poster on the far wall displayed a big-eyed gray kitten clinging desperately to a tree branch. He tried not to dwell on whether the reminder to “HANG IN THERE!” was meant for the patients or the doctor.
As Spiff is strapped down to the wicked creature’s operating table, he surveys his surroundings. This bizarre creature’s lair is oddly sparse, though what few decorations there are provide touches of sardonic humor. The Mind-sucker cannot have Spiff’s--or anyone’s--best interests in mind.
“So, Calvin,” said the strange man, peering over his wire-rimmed glasses, “your mother tells me you have trouble concentrating in school. Are you simply unprepared in the morning? That’s a root cause of school problems in a lot of kids. I might be able to help you develop time management skills.”
Silence pervaded the next several seconds.
The psychiatrist coughed. “Well, is there something wrong with your class environment?”
The snide, strangely bespectacled villain attempts to appeal to Spiff’s inner pleas for sympathy from a cold and hostile universe, but Spiff will have none of it. He merely twitches under the Mind-sucker’s smug, hideous gaze.
As if taking Calvin’s lack of response as an answer in the negative, the psychiatrist cleared his throat and looked down at his note cards.
“Well, I’m also told that you don’t like to go to bed at night. Your mother says that you sometimes sneak out of bed when you think she’s asleep and turn on the television. Can you tell me why you think you do that? Do you have any trouble at home? I mean, are there any difficulties in your family interactions?”
The Mind-sucker is preparing some kind of hideous pointed metal probe. The monster chuckles under its fetid breath, as if planning to use this device in a sadistic manner. But then, for what other purpose could such a tool even be used? No matter, for Spiff, always calm under pressure, refuses to submit to the threat of torture.
“Your mother tells me that you don’t like to read your assigned school reading, but you love comic books…and dinosaurs, if I remember correctly? Do you think maybe you expect your required reading to be like comic books? And have you ever considered doing some kind of extra credit project on dinosaurs? Your teacher might let you do that.”
Now the Mind-sucker is apparently trying to bore Spiff to death. What does it hope to accomplish by prying into Spiff’s innermost thoughts and anxieties? Does it eat brains? Does it do something that only a Martian monster could do with an Earthling’s psyche?
With a heavy sigh, the psychiatrist placed his note card on the table beside him and looked down at the next one.
“Well, if you won’t talk about school, will you talk about your social life? In the way that a grade-schooler can have a social life, anyway.” The psychiatrist uttered a small chuckle, which made Calvin scowl.
The Mind-sucker is lowering that threatening implement toward Spiff’s skull. Against his will, Spiff feels himself sweat. If only he could break these cruel chains!
“Do you have any friends? I’ve heard that you don’t talk to a lot of other children your age. Your mother says that your closest companion is a stuffed tiger. Is that right?”
Suddenly, the adrenaline that rushes to Spiff’s extremities gives him the strength and endurance of ten men. Flexing his arms, he shatters the chains that bind him to this cold, hard table.
“Calvin, what are you doing? Hey! Hey, come back here!”
Spaceman Spiff executes his daring escape plan! With the strength of a wild bull gorilla--strength he never knew he possessed until this moment--he breaks loose from his shackles and springs toward the nearest exit. Where, oh where, is that light at the end of the tunnel? It must be here somewhere!
The Mind-sucker of Mars utters his harsh cry of unrighteous indignation, but Spiff continues scrambling out of the monster’s lair.
Unfortunately, the dank cave where the monster dwelt is quickly discovered to be more deeply within Mars than Spiff calculated. The cavern’s passages, though surprisingly well lit, are numerous, and Spiff cannot recall which way he was forced in.
But he does remember that the entrance to the cave system was full of monsters who, even if they do not try to return him to the Mind-sucker, will certainly do nothing to assist him in his escape. And he does not look forward to seeing the looks on their faces…. Must he be doomed to recapture? Oh, lords of the cosmos, say it is not so!
No, wait--escape has been granted to him after all! A door hewed from rock appears in Spiff’s line of sight, and he darts out of it with the rapidity of an eagle!
Strangely, Spiff can breathe the atmosphere on Mars, the landscape of which is covered in snow. Sadly, though Spiff is well protected from the cold by his thermal spacesuit, the snow slows him in his tracks considerably. Will he escape?
With what little speed he can muster, he trudges off into the unknown distance behind the cave network…but zounds! The Zogwarg Queen appears right behind him!
Spiff’s comparative youth allows him a useful burst of energy, but the slimy Zogwarg Queen’s prodigious height lends her superior vaunting ability. Alas, he cannot evade her tentacled clutches!
On the drive home, Calvin noticed his mother glaring in the driver’s mirror. She hesitated before she spoke in a monotone.
“I just don’t know what to do now. You’ve proven your own need to be there, but I’m not convinced it wouldn’t be a huge waste of money. It’s kind of a paradox.” She cut herself off before she could laugh, though Calvin saw some kind of bitter smile forming on her face.
And so, the Zogwarg Queen might have apprehended our hero, and he may have no idea what lies in store for him…but no despotic alien, no pus-dripping extraterrestrial brute, and not even an interplanetary fleet can put a permanent stop to the irrepressible spirit of SPACEMAN SPIFF!