Captain Future 12 - Planets in Peril (Fall 1942)

by Edmond Hamilton

  "Then we can use ultra-violet radiation to smash the Cold Ones forever?" Lacq cried eagerly.

  But Otho's thoughts were elsewhere.

  "Come back to reality!" he exclaimed. "Feel that pounding on the door? The devils out there will be breaking in, in a few minutes!"

  "That's right," muttered Grag. "We've got the secret, but how in the world are we going to get out of here with it?"

  Curt Newton was feverishly examining the dusty scientific apparatus that lay upon the tables. It, like the notebooks, seemed to have been brought originally from Zuur's laboratory.

  "If we had an ultra-violet generator, we could cut our way out of Thool with it," Curt was saying tautly. "There's a chance —"

  Otho interrupted pessimistically.

  "Sure, we could do just that little thing — if we could build a generator. All we need is a lot of assorted materials, and a good workshop, and several hours of time. Instead of which, we've got about two minutes before those devils break in!”

  "You don't understand, Otho. There ought to be an ultra-violet generator somewhere here," Curt flashed.

  "Who would leave it here — Santa Claus?" Otho countered.

  "Mwwr would have one here, if my calculation is right," Captain Future retorted. "Mwwr, like the Cold One rulers before him, kept the secret so that he could use it to quell any possible rebellion against his regime.

  "Suppose a rebellion did suddenly break out. Just knowing that ultra-violet was fatal to his people wouldn't do Mwwr any good in an emergency. He'd have to have an ultra-violet generator ready for action."

  "Say, maybe there's something in that," Otho admitted. He joined them in a hasty search of the cabinets. In a moment he uttered a cry. "Hey, Chief, look at this!"

  "This" was a heavy instrument whose chief feature was a broad quartz lens, mounted on the face of a square lead box around which was a hemispherical lead reflector.

  "You've found it!" Curt said eagerly. He examined the instrument. "It has a chemical battery that seems okay. This was designed to throw ultra-violet radiation in a broad beam forward, so that the operator of the thing wouldn't absorb any of it."

  He pointed it across the room and depressed its switch. A fan of purple light sprang from the lens.

  "Okay, open the door to those guards, Otho," he ordered.

  Otho hesitated.

  "You sure that'll work, Chief? We've got only Zuur's word on it. Maybe the old guy was wrong."

  "I'll stake my scientific reputation that the ultra-violet from this generator will shatter the brain structure of any living creature who has no natural protection against it," Curt assured him. "Go ahead!"

  Otho went to the door, which was vibrating wildly from the battering outside. The android suddenly released the massive bolts.

  The door swung sharply open. The horde of Cold One guards outside seemed petrified for a moment by its opening. They stood, their hideous skull-faces peering in as they raised their atom-guns.

  Captain Future loosed the purple beam. The ultra-violet radiation and its accompanying light bathed the skeletal figures in the doorway in a weird glow.

  And the Cold Ones in that doorway died! It was quicker than the telling. They fell as though struck by lightning, as that fierce radiation cleaved into their unprotected brains.

  "Jumping space-imps, it works! And how it works!” Otho exulted.

  LACQ'S eyes were shining wildly.

  "My ancestor's secret — it will save the Tarast race. People will revere Zuur's name now, instead of cursing it."

  "They will if we can get back to Bebemos in time," Curt rapped. "Remember, Mwwr ordered an attack on the city in full force. We've got to get out of here and back to the Comet."

  They emerged into the corridor. Two Cold One officers were hastening along it. The violet beam dropped them in bony heaps.

  "Quick! We must find a way into the wall. Then we can escape from the city under the snow in the same way we came!" Curt urged.

  It was Grag who found the passage into the wall: one of the doors designed to give entrance into it in case repairs were necessary. The adventurers crowded hastily inside and made their way to the hole they had cut through the outer wall. In a few moments they were emerging from this, beneath the snow of the ancient river bed.

  Keeping beneath the concealing snow as before, Captain Future and his comrades pressed back northward along the river bed. The going was easier now, for they followed the tunnel in the snow they had made in coming.

  Curt raised his head above the snow to look back, when they had almost reached the mountains. The distant city of Thool now looked like an aroused hornet's nest. Space-sleds were swarming wildly over it, and lights were moving. Captain Future and his friends pressed on up the gorge.

  When they stumbled exhaustedly into the Comet, Shiri came running toward them with exaltation on her face.

  "You got the secret!" she cried. "I know you did — for you wouldn't have come back without it."

  "We got it, but perhaps too late to avert a catastrophe to your capital," Curt Newton said, panting. "The Cold Ones may already be concentrating their forces for a full attack on Bebemos. We've got to get there quickly!”

  The Comet rose a few moments later from the snowy gorge. It climbed rapidly through the somber darkness of frozen Thool, and arrowed out into space.

  Captain Future built the velocity of the little ship to its utmost limits as they flew out through the graveyard of dead suns. Far across the universe lay the Tarast worlds, which might already be fighting an invasion.

  The Futuremen were racing against time. The dragging hours of their homeward flight were an agony of torment to all of them. As they flashed through the gloom of the dying universe, they were not challenged by Cold One patrols. But that added to their anxiety rather than allayed it.

  "It means that all their patrol forces have been gathered to take part in the attack on Bebemos." said Gerdek fearfully.

  Curt nodded without answering. He and Otho and the Brain, while Grag piloted, were busy upon a tense labor. They were building a powerful ultra-violet generator, which would operate from the ship's power supply and give off a powerful radiation in all directions.

  The hours seemed endless, as the Comet dashed like a thunderbolt across the waning universe. To the anguished Tarasts, even their incredible present speed seemed slow. The Futuremen labored on at their task. They did not finish the big new ultra-violet generator until the dying star cluster of the Tarasts loomed large across the sky ahead.

  Captain Future took the controls as they rushed into the cluster toward the capital planet of the Tarasts. He decelerated expertly.

  "Not a Cold One ship in sight," he muttered. "That doesn't look hopeful."

  Again he cut speed, and again. Now at last they were sweeping down toward the central red sun and the capital world.

  "Look!" yelled Gerdek in agony. "They're breaking into Bebemos!”

  Down there upon the planet, the hothouse city seemed to be in its death throes. An armada of hundreds of enemy space-sleds was hovering vulturously over the capital, wrecking section after section of the great dome with atom-shells.

  THE turret guns of the Tarasts were making valiant reply. But many turrets had already been smashed, and others had been overwhelmed by parties of Cold Ones who had landed on the dome.

  "What are you stopping for?" cried Lacq wildly to Curt. The Comet had slowed down, high above the battle. "We must strike, Kaffr!”

  Curt ignored the frantic Tarast's cry.

  "Get into those ray-proofed space-suits, all of you," he ordered crisply.

  He and the Futuremen had prepared garments scientifically proofed against even the most powerful radiation. They hastily donned them now.

  "Now the generator, Otho," Curt directed.

  The big ultra-violet generator began to hum as the power of the ship's cyclotrons was largely channelled into it. The radiating sphere of metal mounted on the generator blazed with blinding purple light
.

  From the Comet there pulsed outward a spherical nimbus of pale violet radiance. It swelled bigger and bigger until it formed a half-mile halo of powerful ultra-violet radiation completely enclosing the ship.

  Those in the Comet felt nothing, in their ray-proofed garments. Without that protection, even they could not have withstood the damaging effect of that terrific ultra-violet barrage.

  "Now," said Captain Future grimly, "we are going down."

  Gently as though in peaceful summer skies, the Comet glided down toward that desperate battle that raged over Bebemos.

  Captain Future's comrades were sighted. Space-sleds came rushing savagely up toward them, with enemy crews leveling their atom-guns. Those space-sleds of osseous attackers entered the gigantic violet nimbus around the Comet —

  "Gods!" whispered Vostol shakenly, a moment later.

  The space-sleds were veering, falling, tumbling away! The Cold Ones on them had died instantly when they entered the violet nimbus!

  Curt Newton's lean face was hard and set as he guided his ship on downward, He deliberately sent it into the thick of the enemy armada.

  All around the Comet, space-sleds fell and crashed as their crews perished from the withering clutch of a lethal radiation their bodies could not resist. It was as though the Comet was the center of a great, invisible sphere of death as it moved back and forth amid the swarming space-sleds.

  It was not a battle — it was a grim execution. Half the Cold Ones were gone already. Three-quarters of them were gone before the survivors ceased their vain attempts to reach the Comet, and broke wildly for space.

  "They are shattered," said Gerdek slowly and unbelievingly in the thick silence that followed. "The Cold Ones' power is smashed."

  He repeated it as though he still could not believe his eyes.

  "So softly, so swiftly — smashed forever!" Gerdek marveled. "We can drive them from every world they have conquered. We can insure the future of our race —"

  Tears began to trickle down his cheeks. Shiri was sobbing with happiness in Lacq's arms. Vostol was staring with awe at Curt Newton's drawn, tired face.

  "I know now that I was wrong, no matter what the evidence," Vostol choked. "You are Kaffr. Only he could have done this thing!"

  When they landed outside Bebemos and entered the city, they found its people still dazed by the incredible miracle that had snatched them from the very shadow of doom. But a swelling roar mounted as Curt and his band went through the crazily rejoicing throngs.

  "Kaffr!" echoed the mad cry, over and over.

  Curt spoke troubledly to Gerdek.

  "Can't I tell them the truth about my identity now?"

  "No, do not tell them," begged Gerdek. "The tale of how Kaffr returned to champion his people will be an inspiration to my race for all time to come. Do not destroy that inspiration."

  Even beyond the Solar System, Captain Future was now a legend.

  ON THE terrace before the Hall of Suns, beneath the shadow of the gigantic statue of Kaffr, old Igir greeted Curt Newton hoarsely.

  "Can you forgive us of the Council for doubting you, Kaffr? It was only we — the people did not doubt."

  The people — tens of thousands of them gathered in front of the great building — were shouting their faith and pride at this great moment. They hushed as Curt Newton began to address them.

  "Tarasts, you have now a weapon that will enable you to drive back the Cold Ones and reestablish your domain over this universe. But you must not think that your tribulations are over. Many generations must still pass before this universe will be reborn to new life and youth. You must struggle and toil and endure until that time arrives.

  "But that golden era will come, finally. And when it does, the days of your former glory will return. Again the stars and worlds of an entire universe will be ruled from this Hall of Suns."

  Captain Future paused, and then concluded simply.

  "My comrades and I are leaving you. We are going back to the realms from whence we came. But you will not need us. You have men among you who can guide your future, and without whose help we could have done nothing. So this is — farewell."

  There was a long, hushed pause of absolute silence, a stillness in which there seemed no slightest movement in the whole vast throng. Then up to Curt Newton crashed a rolling, deafening shout, a thundering tribute such as kings might have been proud to receive.

  "Hail, Kaffr!"

  Shaken by it, Curt looked up at the giant stone figure and face of the real Kaffr.

  "I did the best I could, in your name," he whispered.

  Chapter 20: Revelation

  THE Comet lay inside the big ovoid chamber in Tarasia's matter-transmitter, ready to hurtle back across the dimensional abyss to its own universe. Outside, Curt Newton and the Futuremen made their farewells.

  Shiri was crying. And Gerdek and Lacq seemed under the stress of equal emotion as they wrung Curt's hand. Otho looked uncomfortable.

  "Let's get going," he said. "I never did like good-bys."

  "That's because you don't have a sentimental nature like us humans," Grag remarked.

  "Must you go now?" Lacq was asking Curt earnestly.

  "There's nothing more for us to do here," Captain Future answered. "And — we're homesick for our own universe."

  Shin's violet eyes were understanding.

  "The dark-haired girl back there — she will be waiting."

  With a last wave, Curt followed the Futuremen into the ship. He paused as the Brain pointed to a new, square apparatus in the cabin.

  "I've been fitting up this automatic recorder during the last few days," Simon Wright explained. "It will record certain data on the coordinates of our flight back across dimensions, even though we ourselves are too overcome to take notes."

  Otho laughed.

  "Stubborn old Simon!" he chuckled. "He's still trying to prove that the fourth dimension isn't spatial, even after we've flown across it."

  "I still don't believe that all the principles of relativity in physics are wrong, if that's what you mean," Simon retorted sourly.

  "You can pore over the theory of it after we get back," Captain Future told him impatiently. "It's time to start now."

  They watched from the control-room window as Gerdek threw the switches of the great matter-transmitter.

  Again, the Futuremen seemed to feel a stunning shock of unleashed energy that hurled them into a bottomless abyss. Again, there stretched around them that nightmare vista of unreal, super-geometrical space.

  Sickness shook them all as the Comet seemed to hurtle amid foaming spherical universes in a complicated course. Once more their eyes were baffled by the impossible perspectives of alien dimensions around them.

  Then a sharp shock of impact, a roaring in their ears. And they found the Comet inside the matter-receiver on the sunlit surface of Deimos.

  "Curt!” The silvery cry was tremulous as Joan Randall came running with old Tiko Thrin across the garden toward them. "Oh Curt!"

  He held her in his arms.

  "Joan, we've been through a lot. But it's worth it all, just to come back to you."

  Tiko Thrin was tugging at his arm. The old Martian scientist's withered face was eager with excitement.

  "You found a way to help the people of that universe? Tell me all about it!"

  "That'll take more than a minute," Curt answered. "Come on into the house. Coming, Simon?"

  "No, lad. I want to study the data that was transcribed by my mechanical recorders during our return journey," the Brain replied.

  It was late night, with the pink planet-glow of Mars shafting softly into the windows of Tiko Thrin's little house, before Captain Future finished the tale to which Tiko and Joan had listened breathlessly.

  Not until then did the Brain join them. And there was something about the speed of his gliding entry and the sharpness of his rasping voice that betokened excitement. It startled them, for none of them had ever seen Simon Wright show excitement
before.

  "I've been studying the data in my recorder," said Simon, his lenslike eyes fixed queerly intent on Curt's face. "I've found out that the principles of relativity in physics are not wrong. The fourth dimension across which we flew is not a spatial dimension at all."

  "But that's impossible!" Curt Newton protested. "We could see that we flew a tremendous distance through that dimensional abyss."

  "That was merely illusion born of the ungeometrical perspectives of alien dimensions," the Brain contradicted. "The coordinates recorded in my apparatus show that we did not move even one mile in space!"

  OTHO was incredulous.

  "I don't get this," he said. "That other universe was supposed to be twenty billion light-years away from ours. We went to it and came back. Yet you say now we didn't move in space at all!”

  "That other universe," Simon said trenchantly, "is not twenty billion light-years away. It is twenty billion years away. The fourth dimension is not a space dimension — it is, as relativity asserts, the dimension of time"

  "Good heavens!" Captain Future was shaken mentally as never before by the implication. "You mean that we were really hurled far forward across the time-dimension? That that other universe —"

  "Yes!" exclaimed the Brain. "That other universe is our own universe, as it will be twenty billion years in the future! And those Tarasts are the descendants of our own human race. Language and names would change, in that time. 'Terrestrial' could easily become 'Tarast'."

  A great awe held them all in silence as the astounding revelation of their epic adventure was brought home.

  Then Captain Future spoke bewilderedly.

  "But in that case, the Tarast legends of their remote past refer to our own present time. According to those legends, the great hero Kaffr who first led them in conquest of other worlds should be living right now. But there's no great hero of that name in this age of ours."

  "You're wrong," replied the Brain. "There is such a great hero of space-conquest living right now, one whose fame will go down in future legend. His name, like other names, would be corrupted by the passing of ages. 'Captain Future' would be corrupted in time to 'Kaffr'."