Grag had to move most slowly of them all, for it was not easy for the giant robot to walk silently. Eek cowered on his shoulder, apparently the prey to extreme fright.
“Thank space that moon pup has no voice,” Curt thought. “If he had, he’d be yelling now.”
The forest of screaming trees seemed without end. Sooner or later, some accident would surely start the whole forest raging, Curt thought. Then he glimpsed lights ahead. He recognized that blue glimmer as krypton light. They were emerging from the perilous forest.
“Down, quickly!” exclaimed Kah as they came out of the forest onto open ground. “That is the citadel of the evil ones, ahead!”
They flattened themselves in the grass. Captain Future studied the place that loomed up in the darkness a hundred yards ahead.
“It’s Ru Ghur’s stronghold, all right!” whispered Otho. “See, there are their ships!”
In the darkness rose the black stone mass of a great, ancient building. In cross section, it was an elongated oval. Its frowning sides had formerly supported a big central dome and two smaller ones, but those on the right had fallen in. The massive wall had also fallen in, in many places.
Blue krypton lights flared in the ruined castle. Their lights glinted off the hulls of the four raider cruisers parked inside the wall. From the dome on the left came in intermittent sound of throbbing machinery.
“This place isn’t more than a half-mile from the pit that leads out to the surface of Vulcan,” Curt muttered.
HE WAS remembering the giant rocket-tubes imbedded in that pit shaft to fire outward, and propel Vulcan in space. The power-plant for those tubes was in this ancient stronghold,
“Hear that throbbing?” Grag exclaimed. “That’s cyclotrons being tested, and mighty big ones from the sound of them!”
Bork King started forward, pistol in hand.
“Then that’s where the cursed Uranian and his stolen radium is!”
Captain Future grabbed the Martian’s arm. “Wait, Bork! we can’t bull our way in like that. There are a couple of hundred men in there.” He turned to Kah and asked: “Are guards usually posted around the place? I don’t see any.”
Kah was sweating with fear. “It is guarded by phantoms. If a man goes too close to the wall, alarms sound and the evil ones use their fire weapons and their terrible weapon that destroys the mind.”
“Invisible electric-eye circuits around the wall,” Curt muttered. “But I think we can get through them. But remember, our first business is to get Joan out of there. Then we’ll smash Ru Ghur.” He told the Vulcanian chieftain in a rapid whisper, “You and your men wait here for your warriors. But make no move to attack the castle until I give you a signal of five quick blasts of my fire-weapon.”
He took a tiny instrument from his pocket — a little detector extremely sensitive to electric energy.
“I brought this in case Ru Ghur had traps set around his base,” he said. “Let me go first. Keep down and make no sound.”
They crawled forward toward the ominous black mass of the citadel. Captain Future kept the little detector outstretched in his left hand, his right hand-gripping his atom pistol.
As they approached the wall, they could hear voices inside it. Then again came the mighty throbbing of huge cyclotrons — and Captain Future knew that the radium-fueled power of those cyclotrons was intended by Ru Ghur to hurl Vulcan out of its orbit, which would entail cosmic catastrophe.
The detector emitted a tiny buzzing. The almost inaudible sound was a warning that electric-eye circuits were across their path.
“Don’t move!” Curt muttered. “I’ll see just where the rays are.”
It was a ticklish situation, fraught with deadly danger. If they allowed the electric-eye rays to detect their presence all would be lost just at a moment when a chance at victor — and the defeat of Ru Ghur was in sight.
Captain Future was well aware of the importance of extreme caution.
He slowly moved the detector up and down and discovered, by the increase and decrease of its buzzing, that there were no less than four electric-eye rays across their path, at heights of one, three, five, and seven feet.
“We’ll have to slide between the two bottom rays, without touching them,” he said. “One at a time, now.”
He went first. It was like clambering through the bars of a fence, but these bars were invisible and the slightest touch against them would give the alarm.
He stood watching as the others readied themselves to come through. He saw their tenseness and he — knew they realized the peril of even the slightest misstep.
Otho came through after him with ease, and Bork King carefully followed. Getting Grag through was the hardest job for the mighty metal body of the robot would barely pass between the unseen rays.
“Quick, get in the shadow of the wall!” Curt whispered. “Then we can take a look inside.”
They crouched down outside the crumbling where it was less than five feet high. Then, leaning over, they looked into a vast stone-paved court which surrounded the oval castle and was itself surrounded by the wall. The four raider cruisers were parked some distance to their left. Blue krypton lights and voices came from open windows.
Captain Future saw no one except a few raiders loitering by the distant ships. Bork King pointed suddenly upward. On what was left of the ruined central dome, there was a light metal platform on which were mounted heavy atom-guns and an object like a big searchlight.
“A big Lethe-ray projector,” Captain Future murmured. He turned as he felt Otho come up beside him.
“Chief, someone’s coming this way!” Otho warningly hissed, The android’s keen ears had caught the sound of footsteps.
They glimpsed a slight figure coming along the dark courtyard. Captain Future felt an incredulous joy as the figure crossed a bar of krypton light. He recognized the pale, lovely face of Joan Randall.
He sprang over the wall. The girl turned quickly, startled.
“Joan!” he whispered joyfully. “It’s Curt! I’m going to get you out!”
Chapter 19: Defeat
UNRECOGNIZING, and amazed, Joan stared at Curt Newton. Then, to his horror, she recoiled from him fearfully and her lips parted to utter a cry of alarm. But she never uttered it, for in a flash Captain Future darted forward and clapped a hand over her mouth smothering her cry.
The stiffness of her white face and the vague expression in her eyes had told him instantly that she was in a mental daze. She struggled weakly as he hastily dragged her over the low wall into the shadow.
“Imps of Pluto, what’s the matter with Joan?” gasped Otho.
Curt Newton’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Ru Ghur has been keeping her under the Lethe-ray until she’s in a complete mental fog.” He hurried on hopefully. “But we can soon bring her back to herself. She must be taken to the Comet at once. You must do that, Otho.”
“Leave you and Grag and Bork King to see it through alone?” Otho objected strenuously. “I won’t do it!”
“You’ll obey my orders!” Curt Newton flared. Then his voice lowered to earnestness. “You’re the only one of us agile enough to get her through that barrier without setting off the alarms. And we won’t be alone against the raiders. The Vulcanians are gathering out there in the forest. We’re going to wreck the Lethe-ray projector and heavy atom-guns, then the Vulcanian warriors can attack. We’ll overwhelm the raiders. But it will make a devil’s playground of this place, and I want Joan out.”
“Eek will go back with you too,” Grag added anxiously. “I’ve given him telepathic orders to follow you.”
Otho snorted. “Don’t worry. If that moon pup heard a fight start, he’d turn himself inside out getting away.”
Joan had been struggling weakly to escape Curt’s grasp. But he had held her firmly, his hand over her lips. He knew she was so dazed by long imprisonment under the Lethe-ray that Ru Ghur had not even found it necessary to confine her more closely.
Otho took her from hi
m now. The lithe android picked her up like a child, his fingers muffling her lips, and turned away.
“I’ll be back with Simon and Ezra in the Comet, to pitch in when you lead the Vulcanian attack!” he whispered. “Nobody is going to do me out of this fight!”
He moved cautiously back through the darkness, Oog and Eek trotting behind him. Since the little animals could pass easily under the lower ray of the electric-eye barrier, they presented no danger.
Immediately Captain Future, Bork King, and Grag vaulted over the low wall into the court.
“Now to kill Ru Ghur!” muttered the Martian, starting fiercely toward the far end of the court.
“Bork, wait — not that way!” whispered Curt. “First we’ve got to wreck the Lethe-ray projector and guns up there. Then I’ll signal Kah’s warriors, and they’ll keep, the raiders’ hands full while we get to Ru Ghur and, his machines.”
Curt leaped across the courtyard into the shadow of the citadel’s side. They started along it toward the central dome where the powerful weapons were mounted.
Before they had taken five steps there came a sudden clangor of alarm bells.
“Devils of space!” groaned Grag. “Otho’s set off the electric-eye alarms!”
Ru Ghur’s voice was yelling orders somewhere, lights snapped on to flood the whole citadel with brilliance, and alarmed raiders came pouring out of the great pile.
“I’ll get Ru Ghur, anyway!” yelled Bork King. The bloodthirsty Martian ran forward.
But Captain Future sprang toward the light metal stair that led to the platform on which the Lethe-ray projector and guns were set. He heard a deafening clamor from the forest of screaming trees, and despite the disaster of his own plans, he felt a sharp relief. That sound meant that Otho was getting out through the forest with Joan.
“Chief, look out!” bellowed Grag.
Raiders had spilled out of a door immediately beside him, and blue light disclosed Curt Newton and the big robot to them.
CAPTAIN Future spun around and shot — to kill. His crackling atom-blasts cut down the front ranks of them. With a bellowing, booming cry Grag leaped into the midst of the others.
“Go ahead, Chief — I’ll hold ‘em!” roared the robot.
Atom-blasts crashed blindingly farther along the court, and Curt Newton glimpsed Bork King, mad with fanatic desire for vengeance, triggering into the raiders charging him.
Grag was the center of a mass of raiders who were clinging to the mighty robot’s limbs, dragging him from his feet.
Captain Future had leaped up the first steps of the little stair when he heard a hoarse yell, jerked his head around and saw Kra Kol behind him. The Saturnian’s face was convulsed with hatred and his atom-pistol was leveled.
“You’re the one who tricked me on the Falcon!” he cried thickly as he pulled trigger.
Curt Newton aimed and fired in one lightning-like movement, and saw the Saturnian’s chest scorched by the crashing blast. But Kra Kol was pulling trigger as he died. The whole world seemed to explode in blinding light, to Captain Future...
He came to himself, to find the whole right side of his head aching with hot, burning pain. Numbly he understood that Kra Kol’s atom-blast had grazed his temple.
He opened his eyes. He was chained against the wall of a brightly lighted room as vast as the vault of a cathedral, its dome of black stone curved high over his head. Huge machines crowded the room.
Bork King and Grag were similarly chained. The Martian was wounded seriously, but Grag, though a little battered, was making furious efforts to break his chains.
“I was never taken like this in my life, before.” Grag roared wrathfully. “I’ll —”
The hated familiar voice of Ru Ghur interrupted him. “You will be quiet or I shall be forced to destroy your speech apparatus. You are only being kept alive because I later want to dissect you and find out if we should make any more like you.”
“Dissect me?” cried Grag. The indignity threatened left him speechless.
Ru Ghur stood, a fat and almost comic figure, surveying his captives with his bland, benevolent smile.
Armed raiders came hastening in, pushing ahead of them cowering Vulcanian slaves.
“We searched the whole place and no one else got in,” reported a ratlike Mercurian. “None of the slaves are gone, but the Randall girl is missing.”
Ru Ghur frowned. “She must have been frightened off by the fight, for she was too drugged by the Lethe-ray to have formed any premeditated plan of escape. Search the forest for her.” He turned back to Captain Future. “You’ve made me lots of trouble, Future. You and your friends here must be killed, of course. But I’ll keep you alive long enough for you to witness my final triumph.”
Bork King had said not a word. Hanging in his chains; the wounded Martian glared at Ru Ghur with a fanatic hatred burning in his eyes.
Curt Newton felt a deep bitterness at his own failure. He had lost a chance to smash this whole unholy nest of evil, once and for all.
He looked beyond the Uranian, at the gigantic machines colossal cyclotrons. Their fuel feed lines came from the great laden bins which he knew contained radium looted from all over the Solar System. Their massive power pipes led down into the floor, and he could guess that they connected with the rocket-tubes in the great pit.
“You’re all ready, aren’t you?” he muttered. “All ready to use the power of these cyclotrons to hurl Vulcan out of its orbit?”
Ru Ghur looked at him admiringly. “So you guessed my purpose when you saw the rocket-tubes in the pit? Yes, that is what we are going to do. We are going to make a huge ship of Vulcan — a pirate ship!” His small eyes glowed with a fire that revealed the true danger of this man, eclipsing his comic figure and fat face. “It will be the greatest adventure ever embarked upon by man! A prolonged blast of super-power will hurl Vulcan out of its orbit, and we can steer it at will through the Solar System like a planetary vessel of space.
“Do you realize what, we can do with this corsair planet? We can use it as a base from which to prey upon the disorganized outer planets. We will gather here in Vulcan all the outlaws and pirates of the System, under my command. We will loot the wealth of the demoralized System, and no one will be able to attack us, since we can hold out all the battle cruisers in the System by simply firing the great rocket-tubes.
“And when we’ve looted the System, then we leave forever! It will be easy to project Vulcan toward another star. There will be radium enough for atomic power to warm and light this interior world during the long traverse. The Vulcanians, whom it will be easy to subdue completely then, will be our slaves. And I will be sole master of this world-ship and all within it!”
GRAG uttered a cry of horror. “Chief, he can’t do that, can he? Has he got power enough to move Vulcan?”
“He has power enough,” Captain Future said somberly. “But there is one thing he has forgotten.” His eyes bored into Ru Ghur. “You don’t know celestial mechanics, and you haven’t realized the full effect of moving Vulcan from its bit. To do so will remove a gravitational influence that helps keep Mercury’s eccentric orbit from becoming too eccentric. The result would bring Mercury closer and closer Sunward until it finally plunges into the Sun. When a body of Mercury’s dimensions crashed through the outer layers of the Sun, it would cause a ‘blowout’ of imprisoned solar forces that would make the Sun explode into a nova. That would engulf all the inner planets in fiery death. You didn’t realize that when you drew up your great scheme, did you?”
“I am a better scientist than you believe. Future,” the Uranian answered coolly. “I have fully foreseen the cataclysm you describe.”
Curt Newton was staggered. “You know this catastrophe will happen, yet you’ll still go ahead with your plan?”
Ru Ghur wagged his head in assumed sadness. “It is deplorable that so many worlds and peoples will perish. It wrings my soul to think of such dreadful happenings. But I’m afraid that can’t be avoided.” H
e added cheerfully. “But there’s a brighter side. The catastrophe won’t affect the outer planets. But they will be so demoralized it will not be hard to loot them before we take this planet-ship away from the System forever.”
Only then, did Captain Future realize to the full the ruthlessness of this fat and flabby man. He had believed that Ru Ghur had overlooked the inevitably disastrous consequences of his scheme.
“We are going to start tonight,” Ru Ghur was saying. “In an hour, Vulcan will have rotated to a position in which its pit opening will point in just the right direction for the blast that will take it from its orbit.”
“Ru Ghur!” Curt urged hoarsely. “Think of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and maybe even Jupiter perishing, with all their millions, in the solar explosion. You can’t want that to happen!”
Ru Ghur shrugged his fat shoulders. “I’m sorry that it is necessary. But I can’t allow my sentimental side to overrule my practical judgment.”
As they stared at him in unbelieving horror, the ratlike Mercurian raider and a half-dozen of his men reentered with Joan Randall. She was still dazed, sunken in dreams. She looked at them without recognition, like a stunned child.
“We found her in the fern forest,” the Mercurian raider reported. “She was wandering back here.”
Curt Newton groaned inwardly. Something had happened to Otho on his way back to the Comet with the dazed girl. Whatever it was, Joan had found herself free and, in her drugged condition, had wandered back to the citadel.
Ru Ghur was snapping orders to the Mercurian.
“Future’s ship is somewhere out there, and the Brain is probably in it. Hunt it out, and destroy it.” He added warningly, “Get back here within forty minutes. For then we’re going to fire the first great blast, and that will rock this world.”
Curt felt a desperate hopelessness. What chance had they now to avert disaster? They were hunting the Comet, the raiders in the citadel were on guard, and no attack of the Vulcanians could hope to succeed.
Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946) Page 13