The Deadly Seeker by Albert U. Millspaugh

About the book

Mike Jenner, foreman of the Circle B ranch in Idaho, finds a young woodcutter hanging dead on a meat hook. His face melted away. While visiting his girlfriend, Ellen, at her father's ranch, a huge creature breaks into her bedroom. When Mike comes to her aid, it slashes him with sharp claws. He throws a kerosene lamp, driving it away.

Mike teams with a local tracker. It attacks, killing the tracker and his dogs. When Mike shoots the seven-foot beast, water pours from the bullet holes as its yellow eyes hypnotize him. Breaking free, he burns it with a firebrand, but it extinguishes the flame and escapes. A former officer, Mike is hired by the Army to track the creature. Ellen joins him when it kills her father. They survive several attacks.

Major John Sullivan, commander of an Air Force Base in Montana searches for a craft that entered his air space. He believes it came from Venus and learns that Soviet probes to Venus brought back soil and other material.

Sullivan decodes a message that reveals the creature is a biochemical robot, seeking a Venusian child picked up by one of the probes. Russia agrees to turn over the child, a strange little creature itself. On the return flight, it tries to tear the plane apart before the crew subdues it.

In Montana, Mike and Ellen watch in horror as the two seekers hypnotize and kill the soldiers guarding the spaceship. Mike distracts the seekers. They stop the killing and race toward him as he spreads gasoline over the jeep. When the seekers attack, Mike and Ellen throw flares exploding the jerry cans. The deadly seekers die in a fiery explosion.

An Air Force general lands his helicopter with the child, puts it into an open port, and the spacecraft lifts into the sky. Mike Jenner is given credit for destruction of the seekers.

About the author

Albert U. Millspaugh

BACKGROUND

I was born June 16, 1930, in a tent at a logging camp near Cascade, Idaho. I lived in various logging camps and farms in Idaho until I graduated from high school in Homedale, Idaho, 1948. I attended and graduated from Coyne Radio and Television School, 1949. I joined the U.S. Navy in 1951 and served as Petty Officer Electronics during the Korean War until 1955. I worked Douglas Aircraft as an electronics technician and a test equipment designer until 1960. I worked for Northrop Corporation Aerospace Firm as a technical writer and then as a manager of the entire Publications Department until 1990 when I retired. I am married with seven children.

EDUCATION

BA in Technical Communications from University of California at Fullerton
Writer's Digest School - Novel Writing
Famous Writer's School, Westport CT. -- Nonfiction Writing
U.S. Navy Electronics School, San Francisco, CA
Coyne Radio and Television School, Chicago, IL
Northrop Corporation: Courses in Management, Business Planning, Leadership, Proposal and Report Writing, and Word Processing

ORGANIZATIONS

Boy Scouts of America - Eagle Scout
The National Writers Association - Aurora, CO
The National Writers Association - Southern California Chapter

PUBLICATIONS

Numerous technical publications, reports, proposals, and brochures

Author of many articles published in the last thirty years in national magazines including Trailer Life, Motorhome, Ford Times, Desert, RV West, Motor Coaching, Westways (Auto Club of Southern California), Camping Today, Northrop News, etc.

HOBBIES

Fishing, camping, painting and woodcraft.