“Peter, I can’t explain it exactly, but I feel as though I’m fading away—as though my ideas, my thoughts—everything I should be able to call my * own—are slipping away from me. I need more contact With my friends—”“I told you I would select your friends, Carol.” he said coldly.A shiver ran through her. “No! 1 will not accept anything so unjust!”His black eyes were upon her, boring in, driving —an evil, irresistible power. She staggered backward, hands leaping to her head, trying to contain the sudden pain that threatened to tear it apart.She swayed and he caught her as she sank to her knees, whimpering, “You did that to me. You, my husband, did that to me!”

There is a religious movement called Heralds for Peace, or the HFP for short. No one is quite neutral about it. Everyone either hates it or loves it and those who love it are all part of it. It is also growing. That, of course, means that people who hate it are somehow being won over. A professor of political science takes it upon himself to investigate the movement and soon finds out that the leaders are in contact with space aliens.

Linc Hosier is sitting in a packed football stadium when the Flying Eyes appear and cast their hypnotic power over half the crowd. Thousand of people suddenly begin marching, zombie-like, into the woods, where they vanish into a black pit.After that, Linc uses every resource of the Space Research Lab and the National Guard to destroy the Eyes. But nothing stops them. In desperation, Linc decides to capture an Eye. When he finally manages to communicate with it, he learns that the creatures need radiation to live. And they give him an ultimatum: Earth must explode a series of atom bombs to supply them with radiation...or they will turn the world's population into mindless robots! Given the choice between self-destruction from atomic fallout or annihilation via the sinister Flying Eyes—can Linc find a third path that will save mankind?