The Brains of Earth
short story by Jack Vance
The Brains of Earth (later called Nopalgarth) is a science fiction story by Jack Vance published in 1966 by Ace Books. It centers on an invisible parasite called the "nopal" which controls intelligent beings without the hosts being aware of it. This is among many Cold War-era stories that used tales of alien takeovers of people's bodies as an allegory for the paranoia about Communist mind control of the West.
Plot
On the planet Ixax, the Tauptu (who have freed themselves of nopals, a type of brain parasite) have defeated the Chitumih (who are the same species as the Tauptu, but with nopals) in a destructive civil war lasting over a century. Each Tauptu is reinfested by a nopal after about a month and has to undergo a very painful operation to remove the creature. They decide to take the fight to the home planet of the nopals, a world they call Nopalgarth.
The Tauptu kidnap a physicist/mathematician from Earth named Paul Burke and bring him to Ixax. Burke's own nopal makes him view the Tauptu as evil, but after it is killed (by the same monthly procedure the Tauptu undergo), the irrational hatred goes away. They explain the situation and give Burke a choice: eliminate the nopals on Nopalgarth (Earth) or they will destroy Earth. They return Burke to Earth with 100 kilograms of gold and plans for the "denopalizer", the device they use to dislodge the parasite by inflicting terrible pain on the host.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q86010194. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Brains of Earth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.