Captain Future 09 - Quest Beyond the Stars (Winter 1942)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “I feel the force too, lad. It must be that continuous atomic collision here in the nebula releases radiant energy high in the spectrum.”

  The Brain stopped.

  “But how did I figure that out?” he said surprisedly. “My mind seems to be working better than ever before.”

  “I see now what’s happening to us, Simon!” Curt exclaimed excitedly. “This freakish force is one that stimulates the brain to more rapid functioning. That’s why we feel more intelligent, capable of more brilliant reasoning. You others feel it, don’t you?”

  “I’ll say I feel it!” Otho cried. “Why, chief, I could solve twelfth-order equations in my head. We ought to hang around in this nebula awhile. We’d soon know everything there is to be known.”

  Grag spoke sharply, with an authority and confidence that was foreign to the big robot.

  “No, we must get out of the nebula at once!” he declared. “It will be fatal to us if we linger here long.”

  Captain Future stared.

  “What makes you say that, Grag?”

  “Isn’t it clear to you?” Grag demanded, “This super-stimulation of our brains will cause a rapid neuronic disintegration that will end in complete mental collapse, by crushing of the synaptic web.”

  “I can’t quite follow your reasoning, even though I feel I have more mental power than ever before,” Curt admitted puzzledly.

  “Neither can I,” Otho said bewilderedly. “Devils of space, this force has made Grag the smartest of all of us!”

  “Of course, I thought you already understood that,” Grag boomed authoritatively. “My brain, being of sponge metal instead of living tissue like yours, conducts the stimulating force more readily and is thus more stimulated. Your minds have been doubled in power, but mine has been quadrupled.”

  Captain Future’s preternaturally clear mind perceived the strength of the robot’s reasoning. This freakish nebular force had temporarily made big Grag the greatest mental genius of them all.

  CURT, realizing their peril, instantly sought to take advantage of Grag’s sudden brilliance. That their danger was great was evidenced by the dim blackness that was beginning to creep across his mind.

  “Can you estimate the shortest way out of the nebula, Grag?” he asked thickly. “Should we try to turn back out of it?”

  Grag bent over the electroscopes, studying their readings, and then stood for a few seconds in deep thought.

  “To turn and back out would be risky,” he said sharply. “We’re so deeply in the nebula that our brains would burn out before we got clear. I calculate that the nebula is an irregular ovoid and that we are nearest its northeastern limb. Steer in that direction.”

  Captain Future hastily changed the course of the Comet. The unnatural clearness of their minds was beginning to fade before a creeping tide of unconsciousness against which they struggled desperately.

  The reckless speed at which Curt was driving the ship through the nebula hinted at disaster. There was no time to heed the ominous alarms of the meteorometers. His darkening mind sensed the greater peril of mental annihilation threatening them. Abruptly the ship burst out of the nebula into the black void of space. They had quartered one end of the gigantic sea of light. And the force that had been destroying their minds now faded away.

  “Thank the space-gods we’re out of that!” Captain Future breathed. “Even though I don’t feel like such a mental giant any more.” He looked to Grag. “If it hadn’t made you a supermental giant, Grag, it would have been the end of us. We’d never have got out in time.”

  Grag seemed vastly pleased by the fact that for a short time his had been the most brilliant mind of the four. “Aw, that was nothing, chief,” he boomed grandiloquently. “It just happens my mind is more capable of learning, I guess.”

  “Listen to the big son of a tin can!” Otho blurted. “Now he’ll go around thinking he’s a great unsuspected genius.”

  “Are you kidding?” Grag retorted to the android.

  As he spoke, Captain Future had been sharply decelerating their speed for they were now well inside the region of great clusters. There, stretched before them was the deeper interior of this awesome Sagittarius wilderness. Ponderous balls of gathered suns that trailed banners of scattered stars across trillions of miles stood out against the dark, brooding cosmic cloud behind them. The immensity of this starry jungle silenced even the dauntless Futuremen. Unutterably grand and solemn seemed this crowded heart of the universe into which they were audaciously penetrating. It was a long time before Curt Newton spoke.

  “Well, we’ve reached the region of the universe in which the Birthplace of Matter is located. But that’s only the first step.”

  “Where does the Birthplace lie from here?” Otho asked.

  Curt checked the cosmic ray compass. Its quivering needle pointed slightly to the left, deeper into the jungle of sun clusters, nebulae and star-streams that clogged space ahead. The needle pointed toward the vast, brooding black cloud beyond.

  “The Birthplace must be somewhere behind that cloud,” Curt observed thoughtfully. “Check the intensity reading, Simon.”

  The Brain utilized an improvement of the old Geiger device to test the intensity of the cosmic rays whose guidance they followed.

  “That’s very strong, lad,” he commented. “We must be nearer the Birthplace than I thought,”

  Curt nodded seriously.

  “We’ll have to be on the alert every minute now. We don’t know what we’re going to find, but we do know that it must be at the center of inconceivable cosmic forces.”

  He steered the Comet forward along the course indicated by the quivering needle of the cosmic ray compass. They skirted the flaming coast of the gigantic nebula for some hours, flying at a steady velocity of more than a hundred light-speeds.

  Chapter 4: Dark Mystery

  NERVOUS tension gripped Curt, such as he had never felt before. It was not alone the numbing majesty of the great stars and glooms about him which caused his feeling. It was his knowledge that they were fast approaching the mysterious place of their search, the so-called Birthplace of Matter that was the very core of the whole universe.

  What would it be like, that unknown wellspring of creation in which new matter for the universe was somehow ceaselessly built up from radiation? What was the secret of that miraculous natural creation? And could they hope to snatch the innermost riddle of the cosmos? For many hours, they flew through apparently empty space toward the vast black cosmic cloud. The cosmic ray compass pointed always toward it. It bulked here amid the thronging suns and nebulae like a great, brooding presence of awesome ebon majesty, extending for at least twenty billion miles across space in front of them. Surprisingly, the friction-alarms began sounding again. A rapid check of instruments disclosed to Curt and the Brain that, as they flew onward, space was becoming ever thicker with streaming cosmic dust.

  “It’s what we might have expected, lad,” the Brain rasped thoughtfully.

  “We knew that matter is born in the Birthplace as tiny particles of cosmic dust, which are carried out in streams to all parts of the galaxy by light-pressure. As we near the Birthplace, the streams of outflowing dust will become ever denser and stronger.”

  Captain Future nodded agreement.

  “It means that we’re very near the Birthplace, comparatively speaking. It may be on the other side of that black cloud.”

  He was forced to throttle down their velocity further, to avoid heating the hull. The cosmic cloud now blotted out half the starry universe ahead.

  “Time we started detouring around the cloud,” Captain Future remarked, veering the flying ship onto a new course.

  “Why don’t we just go through it?” Grag inquired.

  “Listen to Grag, the genius, talking!” jeered Otho. “A dark cloud like that might have anything in it from a dark-star to a meteor swarm, you bucket-head. It’d be suicide to go blundering in there.”

  As the Comet crawled around the edge of
the gigantic area of blackness, it was tossed by increasingly stronger dust-streams. The vast black mass to their right was an even more awe-inspiring spectacle than the gaseous nebula. Its darkness was impenetrable. Scattered along its borders were a few bright suns, whose rays luridly illuminated the coiling fringes of dust and an occasional dark star, a burned-out ember of the universe.

  “It’s strange,” came the uneasy voice of the Brain, “but according to my observation, these dust-streams seem to come from the cloud itself.”

  “There’s something a lot stranger than that,” Curt Newton rapped. “We’re halfway around the cloud, but the cosmic ray compass still points right toward the center of the cloud itself.”

  HE HAD been watching the quivering needle, closely, and had felt an increasing astonishment as it crept steadily to one side of its card. It was Otho who blurted out the suspicion that had come to all of them. “Is it possible that the Birthplace of Matter is somewhere inside that cosmic cloud?”

  “It couldn’t be!” Grag declared. “Or could it? Jumping moon-demons, I don’t know what to think!”

  “It’s logical,” muttered the Brain. “That unprecedentedly huge black cloud is composed of cosmic dust. If the Birthplace is somewhere inside it, that would account for the existence of the dust — it is born in the Birthplace itself and streams out from it, but great masses of it remain clustered around the Birthplace.”

  “Just as though they were hiding the core of creation from the rest of the universe,” Otho murmured awedly.

  “We don’t know yet that the Birthplace is inside the cloud,” Curt Newton reminded them. “Let’s keep on until we reach the other side.”

  But in his own mind, little doubt remained. As he guided the flying Comet around the cloud, the cosmic ray needle continued to veer further to the right, so that it still pointed back into the cloud. There was no doubt whatever in Curt’s mind when they had finally reached the other side of the vast black mass. The cosmic ray needle pointed back in the direction from which they had originally come.

  “So the Birthplace is in there, all right,” muttered Simon Wright, his lens-eyes surveying the enormous, swirling wall of blackness. “This complicates things, lad.”

  “I’ll say it does!” Otho remarked gloomily. “How in the name of all the space-devils are we going to find anything in that universe of dust?”

  Captain Future did not share their gloom. Pleasant and good-humored when all went well, he acquired a steely quality when confronted with opposition. To the red-haired Planeteer, the challenge of either natural or human forces was an invitation to battle that he accepted almost gaily.

  “The Birthplace is in there,” he shrugged. “All we have to do is go in and find it. It’s simple.”

  “Sure, it’ll be easy,” said Grag loudly. “However, I just remembered that I’ve got a date over on the other side of the galaxy, so I guess I’ll have to be leaving the party —”

  Otho turned on him with withering scorn.

  “Trying to back out, huh? I always knew you hadn’t any backbone inside that iron carcass.”

  The android swung toward Captain Future.

  “Don’t let Grag run out on you, chief. I’d stay with you myself, only I just recalled that I left my favorite proton-pistol on the Moon, so I’ll have to go back for it.”

  CURT NEWTON grinned understandingly at the two. He knew very well that neither of them had a trace of apprehension over the dangerous adventure ahead. But they were pretending to be shaking with fear. Simon Wright moved restlessly. The Brain had little appreciation of humor in his austere mentality.

  “If you two idiots are through pretending, we can go on,” he rasped caustically.

  “Let ‘em have a good laugh, Simon,” Curt rejoined. “They may have little enough left of this life to enjoy.”

  “Ouch, that sounds too near the truth,” said Otho ruefully. “Okay, chief — let’s make the plunge.”

  Captain Future scanned the edges of the cloud. He perceived one point where a deep bay ran into the vast mass of dust, and he steered the Comet toward that.

  AS THE ship crawled through billions of miles toward the cosmic blackness, it was rocked ever more violently by the almost invisible dust-streams flowing out of the cloud. The pitching and tossing of the craft became so pronounced that they were forced to strap themselves into the space-chairs.

  “It’ll be worse the further in we get, I suppose,” Curt thought. “It’s as though nature itself were trying to keep us away from the Birthplace.”

  That uncanny thought deepened as the dust-streams became more violent with each million miles. By the time they were proceeding up the empty bay of space that indented the cloud, it required all the power of the vibration-drive to hold the Comet steady. They passed not far from a large dark star that floated on the edge of the cloud, accompanied by two small planets. They finally reached the very edge of the area of blackness.

  “We’ll try the fluoroscopic searchlights but I doubt if they’ll do much good in dust this dense,” Curt called to the others. “Otho, take the cover off the cosmic ray compass, so that we can check it by touch.”

  Otho removed the glassite face of the instrument. It was difficult work, for the ship was now lurching drunkenly.

  “Goodbye, universe!” exclaimed Grag. “Here’s where poor old Grag gets blacked out for good.”

  Next moment, the flying ship had plunged into the dust of the cloud. At once, they were surrounded by an impenetrable blackness. Curt hastily switched on the fluoroscopic searchlights, whose beams were designed to penetrate fog or dust. But the beams made only a thin red glow for a few hundred yards ahead. Even they could not penetrate far through the choking area of swirling particles.

  The Futuremen could barely make each other out in the control-room. The currents of streaming dust hurled the Comet about like a chip in a maelstrom as Curt fought to keep it on its course. They seemed to have penetrated the bellowing, violent, primal forces of the cosmos. The hull and struts of the ship creaked, boomed, shuddered and screeched beneath the impact of currents. A strut snapped with a crash back in the cabin.

  “This is worse than bucking a blizzard over Pluto!” called Otho over the uproar. “If it’s this bad near the Birthplace, what’ll it be like when we actually find it?”

  “It’ll be like catching a Jovian moonwolf — but if you find one, it tears you to bits,” Grag boomed.

  Captain Future paid them little attention for he was definitely worried by the pounding the Comet was taking. The ship was the staunchest, strongest craft in the Solar System — but even it could not challenge with impunity the blind fury of interstellar forces.

  The stubbornness of purpose that was Curt’s dominant trait rose to meet the intensified challenge. He held the ship grimly on its course, bringing it back each time it was hurled spinning away by the roaring dust-streams. The throbbing vibration-drive continued to push it forward, but it was like breasting the tide of a super-Niagara to force a way against these appalling currents.

  HE SOUGHT to find an easier path between the more violent dust-currents, but each time was sucked back into the raging stronger tides. The cosmic ray compass needle was shuddering spasmodically, for its mechanism was bearing the full terrific impact of the cosmic radiation whose unimaginable source they were fighting to approach.

  Crack-crash! A scream of tortured metal told of a slight warping of the Comet’s stern hull plates. An instant later, the controls went dead under Captain Future’s hands, and the ship was batted helplessly this way and that like a powerless derelict.

  “What’s the matter?” Grag yelled, clinging to his space-chair as the ship rolled and spun madly in the current’s grip.

  “The drive ring around the hull must have snapped!” Curt cried. “The vibration drive’s useless. Now the currents have got us.”

  “Could we put on our space-suits and go out and repair it?” Otho called.

  “Not a chance. The currents would tear you o
ff the hull in a minute!” Curt shouted back. “I’ll try to use the rocket-drive. It won’t buck these currents, but it may get us out of this devil’s storm to where we can repair the drive-ring.”

  The roar of the rocket-tubes sounded thin and ineffectual when he threw them on. Their comparatively low power was puny against the raging dust-currents, but they helped to keep the ship from being tossed about too violently as the currents carried it outward.

  Captain Future allowed the millrace tides of dust to sweep them out of the cloud. Further attempts to penetrate to the Birthplace were useless until the vibration drive ring was repaired. They were swept finally out of the vast black cloud into the clear vault of space again. Neighboring star-clusters and nebulae blazed brightly to their eyes after their sojourn in the roaring darkness.

  “Never saw a sun look so good to me as those do!” Grag vowed fervently. “Where’ll we go to repair the ship, chief?”

  “All those suns are too far for us to reach with the rocket-drive,” Curt estimated. He pointed toward the dark star they had passed on their inward journey. “We’d better land there — it’s the nearest world!”

  The violence of the currents was less now that they were outside the cloud. Curt was able to steer toward the cinder-like dark star by means of the throbbing rockets. Limping on, the Comet approached the burned-out sun. A quick telescopic inspection showed that its two small planets were ice-sheathed.

  “We’ll need terbium for repairs and it’ll be hard to get on those icy little worlds,” Curt decided. “We’d better land on the dead sun itself and see if we can find any there.”

  Somber, black, desolate in death, loomed the burned-out star as they approached for a landing. In the starlight stretched cindery plains that rose to low hills of ashen drabness. There was a thin atmosphere of gaseous elements that remained after the solidification of the cooling star.