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

by Edmond Hamilton

  “We will, Simon.”

  The Brain glided upward on his traction beams toward the square opening of the ventilator duct. In a moment, he had disappeared inside the tube.

  “Simon can fly at high speed when he wants to,” Otho muttered thoughtfully. “His main danger will come when he tries to steal the Comet from the Korians guarding it.”

  “What about ourselves?” Grag retorted. “How are we going to get past those guards out in the corridor?”

  “Why, we’ll rush them and blast down those who won’t surrender!” Hol Jor exclaimed. There was a battle light in the big red Antarian’s bleak eyes as his hand caressed the butt of his atom-pistol.

  “That would be fine, except for the fact that the fight would rouse the whole palace,” Captain Future commented dryly. “We’ve got to get past those guards and down to the girl’s dungeon without an alarm.”

  “I’ve got it!” Otho exclaimed, his green eyes gleaming excitedly. “How about having the guards take us down to the dungeon?”

  “How in the name of the star devils of Betelgeuse are you going to work that?” demanded Taunus Tar, the fat Fomalhautian.

  “Ha, you lads don’t know my abilities,” boasted Otho. “I’m the greatest master of disguise and make-up that ever lived. I —”

  “Quit bragging and tell us your idea,” growled big Grag.

  “I get your wave, Otho!” Curt exclaimed, understanding the android’s plan. “Go ahead!”

  At once, while all the star rovers except Captain Future watched him mystifiedly, Otho set to work. He drew from his belt-pouch a compact make-up kit and with it commenced to disguise himself. Otho’s statement that he was a supreme master of makeup had been no idle boast. The android had many times demonstrated his mastery of the art of disguise. Now he worked with expert rapidity.

  FROM his little kit he took a tube of green stain that he spread smoothly over his white face and hands. A drop of harmless dye in each of his eyes made them dark. False black hair formed a close-cropped wig on his scalp. Finally, waxite pads inserted in his cheeks at once changed the whole appearance of his features.

  “Do you recognize me?” he asked in a shrill-edged voice totally unlike his own.

  “Gods of Fomalhaut!” gasped Taunus Tar. “It’s Uzhur, the old Korian noble.”

  Otho had in fact made himself into an exact replica of the sly old Korian. He now tore a dark silk hanging from the wall and ripped from it a piece that he wrapped around himself like a Korian cloak.

  “You’ll do,” Curt approved tersely. “But keep behind the guards on the way down to the dungeons. We’ll make the break down there.”

  “I still don’t understand —” muttered Hol Jor bewilderedly.

  “Just follow Otho’s lead and be ready to turn on them,” Captain Future told them. “But not until we reach the dungeons.”

  Otho, walking a trifle stiffly, went out into the corridor. The Korian guards on duty there, eight men in all, sprang to attention and looked astonished.

  “Lord Uzhur!” their captain exclaimed incredulously. “Why, I thought we saw you leave here an hour ago!”

  “That shows how faithful is the watch you keep,” Otho snapped in Uzhur’s voice. “I did start to leave, but then went back to examine the strangers further.” He lowered his voice. “The king wishes these strangers arrested and taken down to the dungeons. It is to be done with the greatest secrecy, which is why I waited until now to give the order.”

  The captain stiffened. “Yes, highness, I understand,”

  He muttered a word to his men.

  Raising their fire-rods, they went back to the door of the star rovers’ chambers and burst inside.

  “Raise your hands, strangers!” snapped the Korian captain to Curt and his associates.

  Pretending surprise and dismay, Captain Future and his comrades complied with the order.

  “Disarm them,” the Korian officer ordered his men. But Otho quickly intervened.

  “You can do that down in the dungeons,” he snapped. “Don’t delay here a moment longer. March the strangers down by the most secret way, at once.”

  The officer looked surprised, but did not for a moment question the authority or identity of the pretended Uzhur.

  “You wish me to use the secret stair inside the wall, Highness?” he asked.

  “Of course, of course!” snapped Otho, who had not dreamed of the existence of a secret stair until now. “But be quick!”

  Forcing Captain Future and his comrades to keep their hands high, the Korians marched them toward a section of the corridor wall.

  The Korian captain touched a hidden spring. A panel in the wall swung silently open, disclosing a narrow stair leading downward. The green guards marched their prisoners down this stair, keeping each of Captain Future’s group always between two Korians. Otho followed behind them all. A sourceless dim light illuminated the narrow stair-well. They passed down some scores of steps, and then at the bottom of the stair were confronted by a blind corridor. Again the Korian officer touched a hidden stud that opened a panel-door beside them.

  THE Korians and their prisoners filed out into a gloomy hallway of corroded copper roof and walls. Along it were massive locked doors, each with a tiny loophole as its only opening.

  “Open the door of the Thruunian girl’s cell,” Otho ordered. “The strangers are to be confined with her, by the king’s order!”

  More puzzled than ever, the captain of guards went to one of the cell doors and twirled the knob on its lock in a certain combination. The lock clicked, and the Korian swung the door open.

  “Now disarm the —”

  Abruptly, the Korian officer stiffened. Until now, he had been too rushed by Otho to take time to inspect the prisoners. But now, as his eyes swung over them, the man had detected something wrong.

  “Why, two of the strangers are not here!” he exclaimed. “The strange bodiless one they called the Brain, and the hairless white one. There is something wrong, Lord Uzhur!”

  The alarmed officer was turning toward Otho. And Otho knew discovery was imminent. He shouted to the Korians in Uzhur’s voice.

  “Put down your fire-rods!” he snapped.

  The Korian soldiers, bewildered by the order, but trained to obey a noble, started to lower their silver tubular weapons.

  “Now!” Captain Future cried to his comrades.

  Curt drew his proton-pistol with phenomenal swiftness as he uttered the exclamation. Big Hol Jor, and the other four star rovers snatched out their own atom-pistols at the same moment.

  “Drop the fire-rods if you want to live!” snapped Curt, prodding the nearest Korian with his weapon.

  The green man falteringly dropped his weapon. But some of the Korians did not. And one of the latter was the Korian captain, Ragingly, he aimed his weapon at the disguised Otho.

  “Tricked!” he yelled. “You’re not Uzhur —”

  A flash of blazing white energy like a lightning bolt crackled from the officer’s fire-rod. It grazed past Otho and struck the breast of Taunus Tar, the fat star captain of Fomalhaut. Taunus Tar collapsed. With an oath of fury, Ki Illok fired his atom-pistol across his comrade’s falling body. The green captain tumbled dead as the atomic blast tore into his breast. Two other Korians made an attempt to use their weapons. But Captain Future and Grag, triggering with blurring speed, knocked the men from their feet with needle-like proton beams. Unnerved, the other Korian soldiers dropped their weapons. In a few minutes, they had been bound and gagged with strips torn from their own garments. They were dumped into an empty cell, and locked in.

  Curt Newton turned to find Ki Illok and Hol Jor bending over the prone form of Taunus Tar. The fat Fomalhautian’s side had been terribly withered by the fire-rod blast, and his plump face was now gray.

  “Here’s an end of star roaming for old Taunus Tar,” he sighed. “I’ll never again run the Scorpio passage or coast Aquila nebula.”

  “Why, Taunus, you’re talking wildly!” Hol J
or exclaimed. “An old star captain like you can’t fade out in a place like this.”

  “No use,” muttered Ki Illok, his brown face tight and expressionless. “He’s gone.”

  The fat star rover from Fomalhaut had reached the end of his voyaging.

  His eyes were closed in death. Curt Newton turned away to hide his own strong emotion. He came face to face with a girl who had emerged hesitantly from the cell which the Korian captain had unlocked.

  SHE was white-skinned and pale from confinement, but very lovely. The thick, bright yellow hair that fell to her shoulders framed a youthfully beautiful face whose wide blue eyes stared incredulously at Curt Newton’s tall figure and at the wild-looking crew behind him.

  “You’re Thyria?” Curt said swiftly. “We’ve come to get you out of here. I’m Captain Future, and these are my friends.”

  The girl’s blue eyes brightened. “You are the comrades of the strange one who called himself the Brain? You are enemies of Larstan?”

  “We are from here on,” Curt replied grimly. He seized her bare arm. “We’ve got to get up to the palace roof. Our ship will be landing there at any moment, and if we can break clear we can get to Thruun.”

  “To Thruun?” cried Thyria. Tears glistened in her eyes. “If only we can reach my world —”

  “We’ll never reach it by babbling here!” Hol Jor exclaimed. “One good man has died here already, and there’ll be more if we linger.”

  “Come on — we’ll use that secret stair to get back up through the palace to the roof,” rapped Curt Newton.

  He led the way toward the opening in the wall. At that moment came a faint outcry from far above in the sleeping palace, a cry of rage and hate that was echoed in a moment by other voices. A gong began to clamor in brazen notes of alarm. The uproar seemed growing by the minute.

  “Something’s wrong — space knows what, but the whole palace is rousing!” Captain Future cried, his face taut with alarm. “We’ve got to reach the roof before we’re cut off!”

  Chapter 12: Into the Mystery

  THE BRAIN glided unhesitatingly through the dark tubes of the ventilation system when he left Curt and the others upon his urgent mission. Simon now knew his way and was not detained by any obstacle in the ducts. He reached the point where the main intake duct opened low in the palace wall. He poised in the mouth of the duct for a moment’s inspection of the scene outside, before venturing forth. The dark gardens before him were quite silent except for the occasional tramp of a Korian sentry along the paths. The great palace which loomed behind him was a black, brooding mass, wrapped in slumberous stillness.

  “I hope there’s no hitch in the lad’s scheme,” the Brain thought worriedly. “If Larstan should discover what’s going on —”

  He could well imagine the rage and hate of the tigerish Korian king should he discover Captain Future’s party was attempting departure.

  Urged by that thought, the Brain rose smoothly into the darkness upon his almost invisible traction-beams. A guard, trudging his post along one side of the palace, heard a faint stir in the darkness overhead and glimpsed a black shape flitting by.

  “A night-bat,” thought the Korian soldier and wished that dawn would come.

  Higher and higher rose the Brain. The city of Kor lay beneath him as a black mass bordering the dim sea, showing a scattered pattern of lights. Overhead glowed the strange night sky of this world, a soft, shooting radiance of eldritch bars and banners of light.

  “These electron streams and the surrounding cloud and almost everything else here come from the Birthplace of Matter,” he thought. “And we still don’t know the nature of the Birthplace.”

  He felt a deep misgiving that more than once had oppressed him during their odyssey of adventure across the universe. On and on he flew, traveling now at high speed. The cold was extreme, but neither heat nor cold meant anything to the Brain inside his perfectly insulated case. His peering lens-eyes, moving constantly on their flexible metal stalks to survey the terrain beneath, descried the gleaming bulk of the copper ranges eastward and westward. He flew on up the valley of Kor, following the shining thread of the river at its center. Finally, the Brain recognized a bend in the river. His photographic memory never deceived him. He turned eastward at once and flew over the gleaming scarps and ridges of the copper range.

  On the plain beyond the range, Simon described a point of light. He sank silently and hovered above it. It was the camp of the Korian soldiers who had remained to guard the Comet. The glimmering shape of the ship was clear to the Brain’s eyes, resting on the ground near the two conical Korian ships.

  The Korians were all gathered around a small atomic “glower.”

  The Brain moved beyond the camp, glided soundlessly toward the three parked ships. The doors of the two Korian craft were open. It was one of these ships that Simon first approached.

  None of the green soldiers, yawning in the cheerful warmth of the glower, turned as he silently entered one of their ships.

  “There mustn’t be any pursuit when I leave here,” Simon muttered to himself.

  He did not fully understand the electron-jet propulsion mechanism of the Korian craft. The ship itself was empty of occupants, and the Brain poised in its dark interior, studying the machinery. His scientifically trained mind came rapidly to the conclusion that certain heavy cables connecting various parts of the machinery were vital to its operation. At once, the Brain used his tractor beams as hands with which to disconnect those cables. He took the cables with him when he left that vessel and entered the other Korian ship. It was the work of moments to sabotage it effectively in the same way, and he dumped the vital cables some distance away in the darkness.

  Then he returned cautiously to the Comet. Its locked door was on the side facing the Korian soldiers. Their backs were toward it, but the quivering light of their glower illuminated it strongly. The brain glided like a shadow toward the Comet’s door. A series of quick pressures upon the numbered studs of the lock operated its ingenious mechanism. The door swung open with a low sighing sound. The sound reached the ears of one of the Korians around the glower. The green soldier saw the Brain gliding into the open door.

  “The strangers are stealing their ship!” he yelled. He and his comrades scrambled to their feet, leveling their fire-rods.

  Simon had already touched the stud that slammed shut the outer air-lock door. He flashed forward through the familiar interior of the Comet to the control-room. He rested himself in the pilot chair and jetted the magnetic tractor beams that were his limbs, in different directions. One pressed the stud that started the cyclotrons roaring. Then it shifted to grasp the space-stick and pull it back, as the other tractor beam shoved the cyc-pedal inward. With the full force of its powerful rocket drive, the Comet roared steeply skyward. The Brain felt it shudder slightly as crashing streaks of energy struck it from the fire-rods of the Korians. But he knew that no weapon of such comparatively small power as those hand fire-rods could penetrate the heavy walls. An acidly humorous thought occurred to him.

  “I am becoming a disciple of action, after all these years. Otho will be proud of me.”

  THE BRAIN could handle the Comet skillfully, though ordinarily he avoided piloting the ship as he avoided other purely physical activities. Now he turned it southward toward the city of Kor. He did not attempt to use the vibration drive. And he kept the rockets muffled to a low drone as he flew on through the night. The scattered lights of the city of Kor came into sight. The Brain glimpsed several conical ships cruising in patrol over the city. He steered at once to a lower level, and the Comet glided like a dark shadow low above the rooftops toward the palace.

  Simon kept the rockets throttled down to their lowest possible power as he sank toward the palace roof. He hoped fervently that the dull drone would not be noticed by the guards around the palace. His hopes were quickly shattered. As he landed the Comet on the flat copper roof, he heard a distant cry of alarm.

  “A strange
ship on the roof! Call the captain of the palace and signal the patrol!”

  “Where can Curtis and the others be?” fretted the Brain.

  There was no sign of Captain Future or the others on the flat roof. And now a rising clamor of shouts and alarm gongs was rising from the great pile underneath. Simon knew the guards would be emerging in a few minutes onto the roof, but he remained cool.

  Down out of the hazily glowing sky swept two conical Korian cruisers. The black muzzles of their heavy fire-rod batteries jetted streams of raving energy that barely missed the ship of the Futuremen. Before the Korian attackers could dive closer, the Brain had struck back. One of the proton-cannons of the Comet swung skyward as he took rapid aim with it. He pressed the firing trigger and the pale proton beam lanced upward and tore through the two attackers. Both Korian ships staggered and lurched in mid-air, then whined through the darkness to crash in the palace gardens.

  “There’ll be more in a minute,” thought the Brain. “This is going to be a hot place if Curtis and the rest do not come soon.”

  It never occurred to the Brain to flee. Unperturbed, he waited for the next attack. Then he glimpsed a trap door in the roof being violently flung open. Men poured out of it, dim figures in the darkness. Simon swung the proton cannon to blast them off the roof, refrained from firing when he perceived that these men were firing atom-guns and proton pistols back at other men who were following them out onto the roof. It was Captain Future and his comrades engaged in a hot battle with Korian guards who had pursued them.

  “There’s the Comet!” rang Curt’s voice. “This way, quick!”

  The Brain sped to open the door of the ship for them. Captain Future’s group backed toward it, triggering fiercely at the Korians, who were still pouring out onto the roof. Crackling bolts of fire-rods and pale proton beams criss-crossed on the dark roof. All the city around the palace was arousing itself in a growing uproar.