Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946)

by Edmond Hamilton

  When they reached the metal shack, little Eek recoiled in alarm from his changed master.

  “How the blazes did you turn white, Grag?” demanded Ezra Gurney. “For a minute, I thought you was one of them cave apes.”

  “So did they,” chuckled Otho, and told them of his stratagem.

  That gave the Brain an idea.

  “We’ll string a wire with an electric charge around here, to keep off the cave apes,” he said. “Then we’ve got to set up detection fields to warn us when Ru Ghur comes, and the damping wave projector that we’ll use to overpower his band.”

  It was not long after they had strung a charged wire around the shack, when two of the huge cave apes came shambling through the dim starlight. Joan exclaimed in horror as she glimpsed them, and Eek huddled into a corner and shivered.

  But when the cave apes touched the charged wire, they fled with brutish howls of terror. None came near the rest of the night, while Simon and Otho worked to set up the detection field instruments and the big, spherical damping wave generator.

  “Now all we can do is wait,” said the Brain. “But Ru Ghur will come. He’s engaged in some secret project that requires all the radium he can gather. He’ll be here when he hears of a rich strike.”

  “Simon, what is Ru Ghur planning to do with all that radium?” Joan asked. “Have you any idea?”

  “Radium produces almost unlimited atomic power,” the Brain answered thoughtfully. “Ru Ghur has some project in mind that will require vast quantities of power. But what it is, is as much of a riddle as the location of his Outlaw World.”

  THEY waited through all that day and night, standing watches and keeping constant lookout at the ship detector.

  But no ship came. Joan began to get discouraged. This waiting, when Captain Future might be in deadly danger, was wearing on her nerves.

  Night came again. Joan restlessly paced the floor of the little metal shack. If this night passed without Ru Ghur’s coming, she would beg them to return to an active search, no matter how hopeless it might be.

  “The little moon is rising,” Otho remarked, from the window. “The cave apes will be coming out soon and —”

  He was interrupted by a low, whirring sound from the ship detector. They sprang to the instrument. Its aura had been cut by a landing vessel.

  “A ship has landed up in the valley!” Simon exclaimed. “Our trap has worked! Make ready, now!”

  Hastily they made final preparations to spring their scientific ambuscade on the men who were stealthily approaching.

  Chapter 10: Planetoid Trap

  HARDLY had Curt Newton realized that Su Kuan had finally recognized him as Captain Future, back on the pirate asteroid, than he had acted with the swiftness of thought.

  The Venusian, deadly as a swamp adder wasted no time in accusations. As soon as he had discovered the identity of “Jan Dark,” he had gone for his atom-pistol.

  He had the advantage of the initiative, and his weapon was already out of its sheath. The others at the table were too frozen by the utter unexpectedness of the action to move or speak.

  Captain Future drew and shot with all the speed of which his lightning reflexes were capable.

  “What the devil —” Blacky Malone had began to ejaculate, when two crashing bolts of white atomic fire drowned out his stupefied exclamation.

  Curt Newton’s blast drilled the Venusian’s breast, for he shot to kill.

  Su Kuan’s atom-pistol exploded before he could quite raise it, and the bolt of atomic energy tore a gaping hole in the floor a few yards away.

  The Venusian sagged across the table lifeless. For a moment, the thundering echoes of the two guns were succeeded by a frozen silence. Then came wild cries.

  “Gods of space! That Earthman has dropped Sit Kuan!”

  Pirates of the Venusian’s crew surged forward out of the crowd with roaring shouts of rage, lusting for vengeance. Curt Newton swung, his atom-pistol covering them. “Don’t draw those guns!” he barked.

  His eyes were gray slits, his dark face as though set in metal, as he faced them.

  Bork King, recovering from his shocked surprise, yanked out his own weapon.

  “I’m backing Jan Dark!” he growled harshly. “Su Kuan drew on him without any provocation and Jan shot in self-defense. You all saw it!”

  Curt saw the crowd hesitate doubtfully. He knew that life itself hung in the balance now. For he also knew that if Su Kuan had lived long enough to shout out that he was Captain Future that the pirate throng would have torn him to bits.

  “It was a straight man-to-man fight and by all the laws of the Companions, Jan Dark was right in killing him!” Bork King was bawling. “Su Kuan drew on him without any reason whatever, I tell you!”

  “There must have been some reason for Su to do that!” protested Blacky Malone, glaring at Curt Newton.

  “I had an old feud with Su Kuan,” Captain Future said, in clipped tones. “But he didn’t recognize me at first and I didn’t want any trouble unless he asked for it. He asked for it — and got it.”

  But he was well aware that all that saved him from the vengeance of the Venusian pirate’s crew was a tradition of the Companions of Space, the rough, wild corsair law that a fair fight between two men was the final verdict on all differences between them.

  “Let’s get out of here, Jan,” muttered Bork King in Curt’s ear.

  They sheathed their atom-pistols, and stalked boldly toward the door. No hand was raised to stop them, though bitter hatred was plain in the faces of the dead captain’s crew. But those men had not felt enough affection for Su Kuan to make them carry the matter further with two deadly fighting men.

  Outside, Bork King mopped his brow and said shortly, “We’d better get off Iskar quick and not come back till Su Kuan’s men cool down! What the devil was it Su had against you anyway, Jan?”

  Curt shrugged. “It was an old feud, as I said. He tried to kill me on Uranus a few years ago and I wounded him instead. He didn’t recognize me at first. But when he did — you saw the rest.”

  “I saw that you’re the fastest man with an atom-gun I ever run across,” declared Bork King flatly.

  As they hurried toward the Red Hope, the big Martian outlaw explained his intentions.

  “We’ll go right now to Zuun, that asteroid where the radium strike was reported, and set up a trap for Ru Ghur.”

  A half-hour later the Red Hope rose from Iskar and started in a counter-sunwise direction through the asteroid zone.

  CURT NEWTON’S mind was busy as the ship threaded its way through the jungle of drifts and rushing planetoids. He believed Malone had been right in his suspicions, and that the reported radium strike on Zuun was a trap for Ru Ghur. And if so, he was sure the Futuremen had set that trap. It was their kind of device.

  If they were on Zuun he would have a chance to rejoin them and help them spring the trap on the Uranian.

  But Bork King and his Martians were a complication. They would be furious when they learned that. “Jan Dark” was Captain Future. And Curt Newton liked Bork King, outlaw or not. He had no intention of leading the Martians into a trap.

  “If I do find the Futuremen on Zuun,” he thought, “we’ll let Bork King and his crew go. I won’t betray that big Martian’s trust in me. Though he must be made to understand he must stop looting radium.”

  The Red Hope forged through the dangers of the asteroid zone. So far, they had been navigating by the wave code of the Companions of Space, but presently the buzzer navigation signals ceased. They were entering a region which even pirates rarely visited. They proceeded with great care.

  They curved around a spinning ball of sparks that was a big swarm of meteor drift, and then curved back to avoid another swarm. Finally, after hours of flight, Bork King pointed ahead into the maze of creeping specks of light.

  “That’s Zuun!” he said.

  The asteroid Zuun was companioned by a small planetoid which revolved around it like a small moon. Cap
tain Future peered intently at their destination.

  Zuun was a mere big ball of rock, rumpled in jagged hills and seamed by dark crevices and chasms. It had a thin atmosphere, but no vegetation except low, dusty clumps of lichens.

  “Head around its equator at low altitude,” muttered Bork. “The valley where the prospectors struck radium lies almost on the equator, according to that newscast.”

  The Red Hope slid down past Zuun’s tiny “moon” and throbbed low above the jagged hills. They traversed the sunlit half of the spinning asteroid and were approaching its twilight band when they sighted the long, shallow valley they sought.

  “Land the ship!” Bork King directed quickly. “I can see the prospectors’ camp. They’ll see us too if we go any further.”

  Captain Future had also glimpsed through the dusk a small metalloy building further up the valley. Then their ship sank quickly downward.

  It landed upon the valley floor. By the time they had belted on their atom-guns and emerged from — the ship, complete darkness had come.

  The thin air was rapidly growing cold. A night wind rustled the dusty lichens. This rocky little world seemed drear and desolate.

  “We’ll take ten men with us,” Bork declared. “Qi Thir can stay with the rest to guard the ship.”

  Curt Newton, Bork King and their small force started off on foot. They tramped through the chilly, windy dark up the valley, avoiding the numerous chasms and gorges that split the rock floor.

  “Something moving ahead!” Curt Newton exclaimed suddenly in a whisper, drawing his atom-gun. “See there?”

  “Get down!” Bork whispered back sharply. “It’s a couple of the cave apes coming out!”

  Out of the gorge not far ahead, two great shapes clambered into the thin starlight. They stood dimly outlined in it for a moment. Curt felt his skin crawl at the sight. The two hunched ape figures were incredibly gigantic. He guessed them as at least eighteen feet high — huge white monsters who stood sniffing the wind.

  Then the great ape creatures shambled off into the darkness, toward the low hills that walled the valley. Curt Newton drew a long breath of relief.

  They went on, more cautiously. Suddenly pale light illumined the whole rocky valley, The “moon” of Zuun was rising, casting an effulgent luminosity upon the wild landscape. They could clearly see the prospectors’ metalloy building not far ahead. And a light came from a window in it.

  BORK KING shook his head. “I can’t figure how these prospectors have managed to keep off the cave apes.” He stopped short. “There is something fishy about all this, at that. Maybe it’s a trap. I’m going to find out.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Curt asked anxiously.

  “I’m going to send one of the men back to the Red Hope with orders for Qi Thir to take the ship off this asteroid for just a few minutes,” Bork declared. “If Planet Patrol officers are in ambush in that shack, they know our ship landed here. When they hear it take off, they’ll come running out, and we’ll be waiting here in ambush for them.”

  Captain Future didn’t like this idea at all.

  “It might mean a bloody battle for us,” he objected.

  “No, it won’t,” Bork King declared. “I don’t go in for bloodshed. We’ll have the drop on them and can handle them without any killing.”

  He gave an order to one of his Martians, and the man sped back toward their ship.

  Curt and Bork King drew their atom-guns and started a stealthy progress toward the gleaming shack. They crawled up behind the rocks at its back, and waited.

  In a few minutes there was a distant roar of rocket-tubes.

  Then they glimpsed the Red Hope soaring into the sky on a plume of rocket flame.

  Instantly, the door of the metal shack was flung open and a group of figures burst out of it.

  “They turned around and left, blast them!” Curt heard a great voice boom angrily. “They must have smelt the trap!”

  Grag’s voice! Curt knew instantly then that the Futuremen had set this trap for Ru Ghur.

  Bork King and his Martians had sprung forward, their atom-guns covering the little group from the shack.

  “Don’t any of you touch a weapon!” ordered the Martian. “Turn around and face us!”

  But the next moment, Bork uttered a startled cry.

  “Devils of Deimos, it’s the Futuremen!”

  He had seen that the group consisted of a giant robot, a white-skinned, lithe-looking man, a boxlike unhuman creature poised in mid-air, a slim girl, and a white-haired man in Planet Patrol uniform.

  There was a throbbing silence as the thunderstruck Futuremen faced the Martians.

  From behind the Martians, Curt Newton spoke swiftly.

  “Bork, you and all your men drop your atom-guns. I have you covered!”

  Ezra Gurney heard, and the old Patrol veteran uttered a glad shout as he recognized that voice.

  “Captain Future!”

  “Chief!” cried Otho. “Thank space! We thought maybe you were a goner!”

  Joan Randall was running forward with a glad cry.

  But Bork King, who had turned, was staring at Curt Newton in frozen shock.

  “Captain Future — you?” he mumbled.

  “Bork,” Curt said hastily, “this is no treachery on my part! I’m only after Ru Ghur. You’re free to go with your men.”

  But the big Martian outlaw now was the prey of a blind, unreasoning anger that seemed about to break into fatal violence. He and the other Martians were raising their weapons they had not let fall, for in their surprise they had ignored Curt’s order.

  “I see it all now!” Bork King exclaimed hoarsely. “I see why Su Kuan tried to kill you when he recognized you. You’ve been after all of us, myself and my boys as well as Ru Ghur!”

  “Bork, no!” Curt cried. “I stayed with you only in hopes of getting on the trail of Ru Ghur and his Outlaw World. If I’d wanted to go for you, would I have helped you on Leda?”

  The big Martian stood there glaring. Then in that moment of tense silence came a sound that startled them all the sound of rocket-tubes, a thunderous crescendo from the sky. Curt Newton glanced up swiftly. He glimpsed four sleek, grim black cruisers over Zuun.

  “Ru Ghur and his raiders!” he shouted. “He’s come for the radium he thinks is here!”

  THE four cruisers were circling as though inspecting the moonlight scene.

  “Chief, we’ve got a damping wave generator set up that’ll overpower the raiders when they land!” Otho said hastily.

  “Into the shack, then!” Curt ordered. “They mustn’t see us or they’ll not land.”

  “If they land, my boys and I will take care of them!” Bork King growled.

  The Martian outlaw had forgotten his passionate accusation of Captain Future. The coming of the bitterly hated Uranian had wiped all else from all their minds.

  “They’re coming down!” Curt warned. “Be ready to switch on the damping wave the minute they land, Otho!”

  The four cruisers were diving in a screaming swoop. Abruptly their heavy atom-guns blasted energy downward. The brilliant beams tore through one end of the metal shack and gouged a path across the valley as the four cruisers screamed low overhead.

  The shack was a wreck, the wave generator and other machines fused into shapeless metal. Curt had yanked Joan and Otho back in time to escape injury, but all were momentarily stunned.

  “Somethin’s gone wrong!” shrilled Ezra Gurney. “He’s found out this is a trap!”

  Chapter 11: Catastrophe from the Sky

  SUCH a sudden reversal of their hopes was staggering. They had been so sure that Ru Ghur and his band were walking unsuspectingly into the ambush. And now the Uranian with his diabolical omniscience, was striking to destroy them.

  “Out of the shack!” yelled Curt. “They’ll finish this place in their next swoop!”

  They burst out of the wrecked shack into the silvery light.

  “There comes the Red Hope!” Bor
k King yelled. “Qi Thir is crazy! He can’t fight four cruisers!”

  The Martians on the outlaw ship had glimpsed the attack and were rushing to oppose the raider cruisers. The Red Hope and the four cruisers spun in a wild battle, atom-guns belching deadly beams.

  It was hopeless. Concentrated beams of four ships tore into the Red Hope and sent it spinning down, to crash in the hills north of the valley. Ru Ghur’s four cruisers came racing back toward the metal shack.

  “They’ll see us here in the open!” Captain Future cried. “Make for that chasm! It’s the only cover!”

  Bork King maddened by the sight of his ship and comrades shot down, was raging like a crazy man. But Curt pushed him on toward the chasm, with the roar of rockets behind them swelling like the thunder of doom. They reached the rim of the chasm, whose jagged, broken rock promised concealment and shelter.

  “Down, Bork!” shouted Captain Future. “We can’t fight four cruisers with a few pistols! Once down there, we can get to the Comet.”

  Otho, with his wonderful agility, had already swarmed down to a projecting ledge. The Brain was gliding down after him.

  Above the rocket-roar of diving ships came the crash of atomic beams destroying the shack completely. The raider ships circled back.

  “They’re after us now!” roared Grag. He shook his fists at the sky, his other arm holding Eek and Oog.

  “Get down there, so I can hand Joan down to you!” Curt Newton ordered the furious robot. “Hurry!”

  Grag slid over the edge, landed heavily on the ledge which Ezra and Otho and the Martians already had reached.

  “Here they come!” screamed Joan.

  Captain Future whirled, saw that Ru Ghur’s ships were rushing back low over the valley, their bright, deadly beams leaping ahead of them. Before he could get over the edge with Joan, the beams would hit them. He grabbed her and flung himself to one side with her, in frenzied swiftness.

  The next moment, the whole asteroid seemed to erupt as the concentrated atomic beams of four ships tore shatteringly into the rock. Stunned, Curt Newton was flung to his face, his body protecting the girl as bits of rocks showered upon them.