When he ventured to open his eyes a minute later, the flare had died out.
“Now all I’ve got to do is wait and hope it was seen,” he thought grimly.
He settled himself for the wait that would mean life or death. He had already reduced the flow of oxygen from his tank to a minimum.
To Captain Future’s amazement, less than ten minutes had passed when he glimpsed the rocket flash of an approaching ship. More astounding still, this ship was coming boldly into the meteor swarm.
“It can’t be!” he told himself feverishly. “But nobody else would dare enter a swarm... by space, it is!”
He had recognized the Comet. Jubilantly he realized that the Futuremen had somehow escaped death.
The little ship landed and Captain Future tumbled inside it. The Futuremen, Ezra Gurney, and Bork King were assailing him with excited questions.
“Chief, we thought Ru Ghur had you and Joan!” Otho was babbling. “We were searching for him.”
“He still has Joan!” Curt said tightly. “We’ve got to overtake him. Head for Mars, Grag!”
“For Mars?” cried Bork King. “Do you mean that Ru Ghur’s raiders are going there?”
“Yes, Bork! They’re after one more haul of radium — the last they need for the Uranian’s mysterious project. He tried to extort information from me about the Guardians of Mars. He thought you might have told me where their Citadel is.”
The massive face of the towering Martian became livid.
“The Citadel of the Guardians? Gods of Mars, then Ru Ghur is planning to rob my planet of the vital radium hoard on which its life depends!”
THEY were all startled by the strong emotion of Bork King and the other Martians. They all seemed stunned by horror.
“Bork, what do you mean?” Captain Future cried. “I’m not trying to pry into the secrets of your planet. But this concerns the whole System! Is there really radium where Ru Ghur is going?”
Bork King nodded. “Yes — the pitiful dwindling hoard with which Mars keeps its people alive. And that cursed Uranian wants to rob us of it and doom our planet!” He went on hoarsely, “You know that all that keeps Mars alive is the ancient canal system which brings the waters of its melting snow caps down from its poles. And you have probably wondered just how the flow was maintained and regulated in the vast canal network. That is the greatest secret of Mars! One our people have concealed for safety’s sake. But now that Ru Ghur has penetrated it, I can tell you. Near the northern pole of Mars is a great hidden underground pumping station. Its giant pumps, operated by super atomic power from radium fuel, keep the water of the melting snow caps flowing through the canals — the life-blood of Mars!”
Bork King drew a deep breath. “Only ten men are ever entrusted at one time with the secret of the pump station’s location. They are responsible for the operation of the pumps, and for the maintenance of a reserve of radium fuel. They are called the Guardians of Mars, and until several months ago, I was one of them.
“But months ago, it became impossible for us to secure radium. The depredations of Ru Ghur’s raiders had almost cut off the supply from the outer planets. What little came through was allocated to important power projects on other worlds, and we could not secure it at any price. In desperation, I resolved to turn pirate to get the radium Mars must have. For the sake of secrecy, I had myself disgraced and outlawed. That served as a cover for the pirate activities in which I and a score of faithful followers engaged.”
“I knew you were no traitor, Bork!” exclaimed Curt Newton. “You were trying to take radium forcibly from interplanetary ships before Ru Ghur’s raiders got it?”
Bork King nodded. “But on Leda Ru Ghur robbed us of all we had. He must have guessed what I was doing, and so, ferreted out the secret of the Guardians. But he doesn’t know the location of the pump station!”
Captain Future’s heart sank. “Bork,” he said slowly, “Ru Ghur can find the station!”
The towering Martian stiffened. “Impossible! He could search Mars for years without ever stumbling upon it!” Curt shook his head. “He has an instrument which he’ll use to locate your Citadel — a radium compass.”
The Brain uttered a sharp exclamation. “Of course! We should have guessed it!”
“What are you talking about?” cried Bork King.
“Electroscopic instruments will detect the presence of radium at short distances,” Captain Future explained swiftly. “Prospectors use them in searching for deposits. Ru Ghur must have perfected such an instrument that will work at long range, probably at tremendous distances.”
“So that’s how he’s always been able to trace radium shipments with such uncanny accuracy!” exclaimed Otho.
“An’ that’s why the yellow devil knew there wasn’t no radium on Zuun that it was a trap!” added Ezra.
“You mean, he’ll use his compass to locate the exact position of the underground station?” demanded Bork King. “Then raid it?” The big Martian’s craggy face grew dark with an overmastering passion. “If he dares to violate the Citadel —”
Curt tried to calm him and the other excited Martians.
“There’s a chance we can reach Mars before he strikes!” he said. “He’s got a big start on us, but the Comet is fast.”
The Comet was already out of the asteroid zone and was building up to almost unbearable velocities as it streaked toward the tiny red disk of Mars. Grag had thrown in as much of the auxiliary vibration drive as they dared use between planets. To attain higher speed would be to defeat their own object, since longer time would be required for deceleration. But Captain Future knew that with the start Ru Ghur had, the radium raiders must be almost to the Red Planet.
Ezra Gurney had been shrilling excitedly into the telaudio, on the Planet Patrol frequency. But he soon reported defeat.
“I was hopin’ there might be a Patrol squadron near Mars that could head off Ru Ghur. But they’re all out beyond Jupiter, searchin’ for the raiders!”
“Can’t you get a telaudio warning through to the pump station to warn them there of possible attack?” Captain Future asked Bork King.
BORK shook his head, his face haggard.
“The Citadel of the Guardians has no means of communication with the outside world. That has been to insure its concealment.”
“We may make it in time, anyway,” Curt said tautly.
The Comet screamed through interplanetary space at a velocity that would have been suicidal for any other ship. Fear went with it — the fear of Bork King and his Martians for the radium that was the life of their world, Captain Future’s agonized fear for Joan, and the grim fear of all of them because of what Ru Ghur’s sinister schemes might do to the System if his raiders secured this final haul.
Cure had taken over the controls of the ship. But his desperate thoughts outran even the racing ship as he sat, hands clenched on the space-stick, his red hair disordered, his lean brown face taut with anxiety.
Gradually the little red disk of Mars grew into a shadowed crimson sphere hanging in starry space. Plain upon it were the great canals that gave it life.
“The Citadel of the Guardians is ten degrees south of the northern pole, and twenty degrees east of the meridian,” Bork said hoarsely.
“We’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Captain Future answered tersely. “Tell Otho and Grag to man our guns. And Bork, if there’s fighting, remember that Joan is in Ru Ghur’s flagship.”
The Comet rushed toward the white snow cap at Mars’ northern pole like a shooting star. Its brake rockets roaring flame, it scudded low across the glittering white snow.
The two moons were rising over Mars. Against their light, a low black mountain like a squat pinnacle of black rock stood out.
“The Citadel of the Guardians is inside that pinnacle!” exclaimed Bork King. “There’s a secret door.”
But as the Comet swept down to land the big Martian uttered a hoarse cry.
“The door has been blasted! They’ve b
een here and are gone!”
“They may not be gone yet, though I don’t see their ships!” Captain Future cried, with fast-waning hope. “Come on! And bring your atom-guns!”
They all burst out of the little ship, headed toward the pinnacle at a run. The big door at the base of the mountain that had been cunningly masked to look like the solid rock now yawned like a gaping mouth.
Inside it, a tunnel lit by uranite bulbs led slantingly down into the mountain. Bork King pitched down the steep passage with his atom-gun held hip-high, his face black with rage.
Captain Future and the others, following him, emerged suddenly into a vast underground chamber that had been hollowed from the solid rock. A low throbbing sound came from gigantic atomic-powered pumps that towered up into the shadows.
The beating heart of Mars, this hidden station whose great pumps kept the waters of its canals constantly flowing!
“God o’ space!” shouted old Ezra, aghast. “Ru Ghur’s been here, all right.”
Half a score of dead Martians lay about the underground chamber — Guardians of Mars who had died fighting. And the corpses of motley raiders showed that the Guardians had taken toll of Ru Ghur’s men.
“The radium!” cried the Brain. “Did they get it?”
Bork King was already running frantically to a door in the wall. He tore it open, disclosing a small room hollowed from the rock.
The room was empty.
“The radium is gone,” he said thickly. “The pitiful reserve of fuel that alone could keep these pumps operating.” His stricken eyes turned dazedly toward the huge machines. “In a few hours, they’ll stop. The water will cease to flow in the canals all over Mars. And Mars will slowly wither and die.”
It was a horrible thought, but it was true. The fuel that could keep these pumps going was the one vital spot on the planet and with cunning and shrewdness that spot had been struck. And Ru Ghur had his supply of radium.
Terrible realization of the full scope of the disaster came to them all as they stood looking at each other in this chamber of death.
“Ru Ghur’s last raid — and it succeeded!” muttered Otho. “He’s on his way back to his cursed Outlaw World with the last radium he needed for whatever devil’s scheme he’s got in mind.”
“And we can’t follow, not knowing where Outlaw World is!” groaned Grag.
But in this terrible moment Curt Newton was not thinking of the stolen radium that meant death for Mars and victory for Ru Ghur and his sinister plans.
“Joan!” his tortured mind was crying. “She sacrificed herself for me, and I’ve failed her!”
DEFEAT, utter and final, stared him in the face. But in his blackness of despair, Captain Future glimpsed one last ray of hope.
He told them what it was in a voice that was cool and poised. This was a situation that called for calm, realistic thinking, as well as the utmost in ingenuity and improvisation — if Ru Ghur and his fiendish plans were to be effectively countered and smashed.
“There’s still a slim chance left,” he told the others. “One possible way to locate Outlaw World. Ru Ghur’s radium compass! If he could construct one, we can.”
“How long would that take?” cried Bork King. “And even if you devised such a thing, how long would it take for us to find Outlaw World with it? While all the time, Mars is dying.”
Captain Future swung around. And on his drawn face was agony even the Futuremen had hardly ever seen there before.
“Do you think I don’t know how much time we’ll be losing?” he cried, his voice raw with emotion. “Do you think it means nothing to me that Joan has been carried away to some unimaginable place? I want to follow now as badly as you. But this is the only way we can follow.”
“I’m sorry, Jan,” Bork King muttered, unconsciously reverting to the old name. “I guess you have as big a stake in this as I have.”
“We all have a stake in crushing Ru Ghur,” the Brain said ominously. “That Uranian’s mysterious schemes mean danger to the System.”
Chapter 15: Into Fiery Peril
EZRA GURNEY broke the taut silence to ask Captain Future a question.
“I ain’t no scientist,” he said, “but can you build any compass that’ll detect radium at interplanetary distances?”
Curt Newton explained rapidly. “Radium emits three different emanations, the Alpha, Beta and Gamma rays. The Alpha and Beta rays, streams of sub-atomic particles, powerfully affect an electroscope. That’s why electroscopes are used by radium prospectors for surveys. But those two rays are of no use to us, for they have low penetrating power and wouldn’t affect even the most sensitive instrument at great distances.
“The Gamma rays, on the other hand, consist of etheric impulses just like light-rays. They travel at the same speed as light and have tremendous penetrating power. If we can construct a sufficiently sensitive electroscopic instrument, it will register the presence of Gamma rays from large masses of radium, even millions of miles away.”
“Don’t underestimate the difficulties,” warned the Brain. “Ru Ghur had more time than we have. And he has always been an expert on radiation. In his experiments in that field he discovered the Lethe-ray.”
“We’ve got to go to the Moon laboratory,” Curt said urgently. “The facilities of the Comet aren’t elaborate enough for the job.”
“I’m going with you!” flamed Bork King. “Whether you want me or not, I’m going to help find Outlaw World and kill Ru Ghur!”
Captain Future gripped his arm understandingly. “Bork, you’re with us on this until the end.”
Bork King delayed only long enough to instruct his Martian followers to notify the authorities of the Red Planet of the disaster. Then he hastened after Curt.
In moments after they had emerged from the black mountain, and ran across the snow to the Comet the little ship roared up into the sky.
Curt Newton drove the craft at reckless speed toward Earth’s Moon. He grudged every minute of the time it took, his anxiety had become so feverishly intense.
But when they had landed in the underground hangar in Tycho crater and entered the big Moon laboratory he forced all agonized speculation from his mind. Deliberately he became the cool scientist.
Captain Future’s mastery of science was matched only by that of his teacher, the Brain. These two greatest scientists of the Solar System now applied themselves to their baffling problem with a calm detachment that none of the others could share.
The tall, red-haired Planeteer and the box-like Brain, hovering over sheets of formulae and talking in technical terms, made a spectacle at which big Bork King stared almost in awe.
“There’s something a little unhuman about his self control,” he muttered to Ezra Gurney.
Old Ezra nodded, his faded eyes thoughtful. “Cap’n Future is the most human chap in the System, really. But he was raised on this Moon by the Futuremen, an’ never saw other people till he was nearly a man. It shows in him sometimes, when he’s under strain like this.”
The perspiration glistening on Curt Newton’s drawn, lean face showed the stress under which he labored to keep that cool detachment.
“Obviously, the heart of a long-distance radium compass must be an electroscope super-sensitive to Gamma rays,” he was saying to Simon. “But even the most sensitive electroscope we could build would not detect radium more than a few million miles away, the rays would be so dispersed.”
“Then we must utilize a focusing device to gather the rays for the electroscope, just as a telescope lens gathers light rays for the eye,” pointed out the Brain.
“Chief, maybe you could focus Gamma rays by using the principle of the electron microscope?” interrupted Grag, hopefully.
“Grag, the super-scientist!” Otho said witheringly. “Gamma rays aren’t affected by electric or magnetic fields, you bucket-head.”
“It will have to be a lens to focus Gamma rays,” said Captain Future rapidly.
“And of synthetic crystal whose
subatomic structure is designed to refract the rays,” muttered Simon Wright. “It can be done, but it won’t be a short or easy task.”
“It’s got to be done quickly!” rapped Curt. “Otho can construct a supersensitive electroscope, and Grag can build the ring. You and I will concentrate on the lens.”
There, followed in the Moon laboratory a period of toil was a supreme example of the scientific genius and cooperation of the Futuremen. Few words passed between them these hours.
The big Martian and the old Patrol marshal, unable to help, finally retired to an adjoining room and slept exhaustedly.
BORK KING awoke six hours later. He sprang up and hurried back into the laboratory. Ezra was already there. Grag and Otho had finished their share of the task and were intently watching Curt and Simon, who were inspecting a glittering, two-foot lens of transparent crystal.
Captain Future glanced at the Martian.
“We’ve cast the lens,” he said, “and it seems all right. We’ll soon know —”
“Here’s the mounting, Chief,” Grag said, dragging it forward.
It was a short, massive tube of heavy lead, mounted on a swivel. The synthetic lens was carefully fitted into the end of this tube. Into the other end was fitted the super-sensitive electroscope Otho had constructed, They carried the apparatus to the Comet and bolted it outside the hull of the ship, near the prow. Electric connections led through the hull to the pilot-room.
“It’s like a telescope mounted outside the ship — one that ‘sees’ by Gamma rays instead of light,” Curt explained. “If there’s a large mass of radium somewhere even at a tremendous distance, its Gamma rays will be focused by the lens and will register on the electroscope.”
He pointed to a large pointer-and-dial on the instrument panel, and a calibrated meter to which Otho was attaching the electric connections from the apparatus outside the hull.
Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946) Page 10