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

by Edmond Hamilton

  The hoarse, defiant yell of big Hol Jor and the fierce battle cry of Ki Illok the Sagittarian rose into the darkness as they and the other star rovers shot shoulder to shoulder with the Futuremen. Advancing Korians stumbled and fell as beams found their mark. But Otho clapped hand to his shoulder with a cry of pain and rage as a bolt burned past him, and one of the star rovers beside him fell.

  Captain Future bent to pick up the fallen man. It was Skur Kal, the younger of the two red Antarians.

  “Into the ship, for space’s sake!” yelled Curt, dragging the fallen man with one arm and shooting with his other. “Where’s Thyria?”

  “I have her, chief!” boomed Grag.

  The giant metal robot appeared out of the darkness with the white-faced Thruunian girl. Curt Newton and Otho and Hol Jor covered the others as they scrambled into the Comet. They heard an ominous drumming roar as Korian cruisers dived out of the night for mass attack.

  “Catch the strangers!” came a hissing, furious cry from beyond the charging Korians. “They must not escape!”

  “That’s Larstan!” exclaimed Otho. The android flung a chance beam into the darkness but without result.

  He and Curt and Hol Jor jumped into the ship, and slammed shut the airlock door.

  “Take her up, Grag!” Curt yelled urgently.

  The robot had already reached the control room. The Comet jerked skyward with a bursting roar of rocket tubes.

  CAPTAIN FUTURE and Otho leaped to the breeches of the proton cannon. The ship was now screaming out of the atmosphere of Kor into the radiance of open space. After them raced a half-dozen conical Korian cruisers, firing all their batteries of fire-rods in fierce attempt to destroy the Comet. Grag was avoiding the bolts of energy by a series of hair-raising spins and twists. Otho pressed the trigger of his heavy proton cannon, then uttered an exultant exclamation.

  “That’s one less of them!”

  The powerful proton beam from his weapon had torn through one of the Korian craft, and the crippled ship was sinking.

  “Throw in the vibration drive, and we can get away from them!” Captain Future called to Grag.

  As he shouted, Curt was triggering his own heavy weapon. It ripped away part of the stern of a Korian cruiser that was executing a fast space-spin to bring its main armament to bear upon them. The other Korian ships recoiled a little from this unexpectedly hot resistance. Then came the loud drone of the vibration drive generators. The Comet jerked violently forward as Grag threw in enough of the super-powerful drive to out-distance the Korian ships. Even though Grag used but a fraction of the power of the drive, the acceleration crushed Curt and the others against the walls. The pressure lifted as Grag quickly cut the acceleration.

  “That did it — we’ve left them behind,” Otho called.

  The Comet had completely shaken off the Korian pursuers, and was flying at frightening speed into the glittering electronic haze.

  “Head toward Thruun — that small red sun far ahead,” Curt Newton directed the robot. “They can’t catch us now.”

  He mopped perspiration from his brow as he went back into the cabin. Curt found the others gathered around the prone body of Skur Kal. Ber Del intercepted Curt’s questioning glance, and the old blue Vegan nodded solemnly.

  “He is dead. I think he was already dead when you dragged him into the ship, Captain Future.”

  “Yes, he’s blasted off on his last voyage,” muttered Hol Jor. The big Antarian’s massive red face was somber with grief. “And he was my own sister’s son, was Skur Kal.”

  “It’s another score to settle with Larstan when the time comes,” said Ki Illok between his teeth.

  They gave Skur Kal space burial befitting a star rover, wrapping and lashing his body and setting it afloat in the void. Then Curt took stock of the situation. They were flying ever deeper into the glittering auroral haze of flying electron streams which filled this vast space inside the cosmic cloud. Ahead of them, deep within the shining haze, glowed the little red sun of Thruun. The shrouding haze still concealed what lay beyond the red sun, still veiled the central region in which the Birthplace of Matter guarded its mystery. A check of instruments assured Captain Future that the copper skin with which they had coated the Comet was effectively preventing the streaming torrents of electrons from affecting the ship.

  A soft hand touched his arm. It was the girl Thyria, her blue eyes glowing with gratitude.

  “You are really taking me to Thruun?” she cried eagerly. “Larstan’s men cannot overtake us?”

  “Not a chance,” Curt Newton reassured her. “Their ships haven’t the speed of the Comet. You’re quite safe now.”

  “It’s not my own safety I’m thinking of!” cried the Thruunian princess. “I want to warn my father Kwolok that Larstan is preparing to attack Thruun. For it is my fault that that attack is coming.”

  “Your fault?” Curt’s brows drew together.

  THYRIA explained. “The Korians have always wanted to conquer Thruun, so that we could no longer prevent them from reaching the Birthplace. But they feared we possessed the secret of the Birthplace, the secret of matter mastery. It would be a terrible weapon. When I was captured,” Thyria went on self-accusingly, “Larstan took me to Kor and subjected me to hypnotic questioning. I admitted to them that my people do not possess the secret. So now Larstan is not afraid to attack us.”

  “It’s not your fault, Thyria,” Curt consoled. “You wouldn’t have told them if it hadn’t been for hypnosis.”

  His gray eyes flashed. “Beside, we are on the side of Thruun now. We can lend our science to improve your ships and weapons so much that the Korian attack can easily be beaten back.”

  “But Larstan will know that!” Thyria exclaimed. “He will surely make his attack on Thruun now before there is time for you strangers to give effective help to my people.”

  “Say, the girl is talking sense,” murmured Otho. “Larstan was figuring to use our help to make his conquest of Thruun a sure thing. Well, he’s now lost our help, so he’ll jump on Thruun before we can help the other side.”

  “You’re right,” Captain Future said slowly. “It looks as though our coming here has precipitated a final struggle.”

  The Brain directed a question at the Thruunian princess. “YouThruunians have always prevented the people of Kor from reaching the Birthplace, you said. Yet you have never gone there to secure its secret for yourselves. Why?”

  “It was the command of the Watchers,” answered Thyria solemnly. “Long ago, they decreed that none of us inside the cloud should seek to secure the secret of the Birthplace. We of Thruun have always obeyed that command, and when the Korians sought to disobey it, we prevented them.”

  “The command of the Watchers?” Captain Future repeated puzzledly. “Larstan said that the Watchers were only a baseless legend.”

  “Larstan lied,” Thyria assured him with fervent conviction. “The Watchers are no legend.”

  At that moment came a startled cry from Grag, who was still on duty in the control room. “Chief, come here and look at this!”

  With a bound, Curt Newton reached the control room. The others followed. Grag was pointing his metal arm at space ahead.

  “What’s that?” the big robot asked perplexedly.

  The Comet had traversed a great distance on its swift flight into the deeper central haze. The glowing red sun of Thruun, with its single planet, was clearly visible not far ahead. But it was beyond the red sun that Grag was staring. There in the remoter central haze there vaguely loomed an awe-inspiring object none of these star roamers had ever seen before.

  “Is that the Birthplace?” gasped Otho.

  Chapter 13: Epic of the Past

  THE radiant electronic haze ahead was almost blinding in its intensity. Its shaking banners of auroral brilliance, streaming outward like great winds of force from a cosmic storm, so completely veiled the vast object at the center that only its vague outline could be glimpsed. It looked like a colossal spinning
spiral of white flame, its titanic arms millions of miles across. But it could not be flame, Curt knew. It was a focus of unimaginable forces upon which they gazed, a cosmic maelstrom that ceaselessly threw off the terrific currents of streaming electrons whose glittering veils shrouded it.

  “And we were going to find out the secret of that!” exclaimed Otho with a mirthless laugh.

  “We can still do it,” Captain Future replied steadily. “The thing is more terrible than I had imagined, but we can find a way to approach and study it.”

  But the other Futuremen and the star captains continued to look with doubt and awe at the monstrous, half-concealed object.

  “The Birthplace of Matter!” Hol Jor muttered solemnly. “The beating heart of our universe, that pumps out new matter to all the farthest spaces! It makes me feel afraid.”

  “Remember the need of your worlds for the secret of matter creation,” Curt urged. “In that spinning storm of force is the secret that will save Mercury from death, and I mean to find it if it’s humanly possible.”

  Thyria looked up at Captain Future, her white face distressed. “But you dare not try to approach the Birthplace!” she protested. “It is against the ancients laws — my people will never permit it.”

  “But we’re friends of your people, Thyria,” Curt pointed out. “We mean to help them against Larstan and the Korians.”

  The Thruunian princess shook her yellow head forebodingly. “I fear that even so, my father and the nobles of Thruun will not permit you to transgress the ancient command of the Watchers.”

  “Here’s new trouble!” Otho exclaimed angrily. “Maybe we’d better not go to Thruun at all. We could go right on to the Birthplace.”

  Curt shook his head. “I promised the girl I’d take her back to her world.” He turned to her. “Thyria, will you try to see that we’re not prevented from going on to the Birthplace?”

  “I’ll use my influence, but it may avail little,” she admitted. “My people reverence the law of the Watchers.”

  “Ships ahead, coming down on us fast!” Grag exclaimed loudly.

  They were long, slim needle-like craft that traveled like speeding arrows. And they were coated with copper like the ships of the green men, to proof them against the electron-barrage. There were four of them.

  “They are part of the patrol my people maintain in space around the Birthplace!” Thyria exclaimed. “Flash them this signal at once or they will open fire on you.” She rapidly told them the code of long and short flashes by which Thruunian ships recognized each other. Using the fluoroscopic searchlights, Curt Newton hastily flashed the signal. The Thruunian patrol craft slowed down, and approached more deliberately.

  “What kind of communication do you have between your space-ships?” Curt asked her. “If electromagnetic signals, what frequency?”

  Thyria gave him the frequency figure. “We can change the Comet’s televisor audio transmitter to that frequency,” he said quickly.

  He and Otho rapidly altered the coils of the transmitter. Then Thyria was able to speak to the two Thruunian ships. After a short colloquy, she turned a bright face.

  “They are overjoyed at my return,” she told Curt, “and they are relaying my warning of a possible quick attack by Larstan, to my father in Thruun.”

  Less than an hour later, the Comet and its escort craft swept in through the thin atmosphere of the single planet that circled the red sun.

  THRUUN was a withered world. Dull red, arid steppes formed a monotonous landscape, varied occasionally by low, rolling hills. Only at a few places did mossy red plains and valleys show the glitter of a small watercourse. The escorting cruisers led the way toward the capital. It was a circular city of dark marble, its main avenues radiating from a central plaza which appeared to contain the main government buildings.

  “Metal is much scarcer here than upon Kor,” Thyria told Captain Future. “We cannot afford to use it as building material.”

  “I cannot understand this,” rasped the Brain. “You Thruunians could secure the secret of matter creation from the Birthplace and revive your whole world.”

  “But that would be against the command of the Watchers,” answered Thyria with a little sigh.

  Curt Newton felt misgivings as to the attitude of the Thruunians toward his quest. There were two landing fields outside the city of Thruun, each bearing a number of copper-coated cruisers, parked in rows. But Thyria directed them to land the Comet upon the central plaza.

  “My father will be waiting if he received the news of my return,” she said eagerly.

  The city was one of dark marble domes, each crowned by a curved and crested roof. The public buildings were of similar design, but towered above the rest. Curt saw crowds in the streets around the plaza. White-skinned Thruunians of both sexes appeared, dressed in short white tunics such as Thyria wore. Despite their dissimilarity in complexion and in dress, the Thruunians and the Korians seemed to resemble each other in their way of living. The Comet had already been switched to rocket drive by Grag, and the robot brought it down skillfully upon the dark stone plaza. A group of Thruunians wearing glittering badges of honor or authority approached as they emerged from the ship. A tall, grave-eyed man with iron-gray hair and beard led the Thruunians. With a little cry, Thyria ran toward him. “It is my father, King Kwolok,” she said happily.

  The Thruunian ruler, when he had heard Thyria’s hasty recital, clasped Curt’s hand strongly.

  “You are doubly welcome, strangers from the outer stars, for you bring back one we deemed lost,” he said.

  One of his councillors interrupted.

  “Highness, if Princess Thyria is right about Larstan attacking us quickly —”

  “Yes, we must prepare,” muttered Kwolok. “Give orders to double the space patrol and have every ship in Thruun ready for instant action. Send out scout craft toward Kor to reconnoiter.”

  The bleak eyes of Hol Jor glistened. “We’ll soon have a chance to hit back at Larstan,” exulted the big Antarian.

  The largest of the domed buildings in the plaza was the palace of the kings of Thruun. Thither Kwolok and Thyria led Curt and his comrades. The place lacked the luxury of the copper mansion of Larstan, but the austere simplicity of the shadowy stone rooms and halls was appealing.

  “I like these people,” Otho announced, when they had been escorted to wide-windowed chambers on an upper floor. “They look you in the eye. They’re worth a dozen such of those green devils of Kor.”

  “Unless I’m mistaken,” commented the Brain, “these Thruunians and the Korians came originally of the same race. They are identical in certain anthropological factors.”

  Night swept over Thruun as the red sun set. But the night sky was filled with an incredible aurora. Even more brilliant than the night of Kor was this glowing sky, for this world was much deeper in the electronic haze. Up from the horizon rose a stupendous object. It was the colossal spiral of spinning light, its whirling arms reaching half across the firmament. Shrouded as it was by the glowing haze, it was a tremendous spectacle.

  “I don’t see how the Comet can ever get near or in it,” Otho muttered.

  “The protective coating we gave the ship should keep out the electron torrents,” Captain Future murmured doubtfully. “Anyway, we’ve got to try it.”

  A mellow bell sounded from the lower level of the marble castle.

  “Let me do the talking with Kwolok about the Birthplace,” Curt said hastily as they started to descend. “These people are superstitious about it, and it will take tactful handling.”

  But when they entered the small, simple dining hall where the ruler of Thruun and his daughter awaited them, there was sternness in Kwolok’s greeting.

  “Thyria has informed me that you strangers cherish ambition to seek the secret of the Birthplace,” the king told Captain Future abruptly when they had seated themselves.

  Curt shot a look at the girl.

  “I have been trying to gain my father’s consent
to aid your venture,” she said.

  “It is out of the question!” Kwolok declared firmly. “The command of the Watchers was that no one, no matter whence he came, might approach the Birthplace. For ages, we have obeyed that command.”

  “But we expect to help you against Larstan’s attack,” Curt Newton pointed out. “We will, if there is time enough, use our science to improve your ships and weapons. Surely you would not prevent your own allies from seeking a secret that means life for our worlds, a secret that we have come through great dangers and hardships to secure?”

  “If my own brother were to seek to approach the Birthplace, I should be forced to order his death. For upon the kings of Thruun devolves the duty of enforcing the ancient commandment of the Watchers.”

  “Who or what are the Watchers?” Captain Future asked. “Are they more than legend?”

  “Much more than legend, my son,” replied Kwolok, his bearded face grave. “We know that, though we ourselves have had no contact with the Watchers since our ancestors first entered this space inside the cloud.

  “YES, our ancestors came long ago from outside the cosmic dust cloud. Tradition has it that they were natives of a great planet whose people colonized the farthest regions of the universe.”

  “Deneb,” muttered the Brain. “The ancestors of these folk must have come from Deneb just as all our own ancestors did, long ago.”

  “But how did your ancestors manage to get through the cloud?” Curt cried to the old king. “Even our own super-powerful ship could hardly win through those currents!”

  “The cloud sometimes shows rifts or gaps, for a brief interval, when the currents tear its veil open. Our ancestors came through such a temporary rift, after long watching and waiting.

  “They entered this space,” the king continued, “and found the Birthplace of Matter and recognized it for what it is.

  “They sought to approach the Birthplace and attain its secret. But out of the Birthplace itself came strange superhuman beings such as my ancestors had not dreamed existed. They did not describe them except to say that they were awesomely alien, of vast mental power, and that they called themselves the Watchers of the Birthplace. The Watchers told my ancestors, ‘The secret of the Birthplace is too mighty a power to fall into the hands of those who might misuse it for evil ends. You must not again seek to secure it. We could destroy you but we prefer to warn you. And our warning is — never again approach the Birthplace nor allow others to approach it.’ That was the command of the Watchers. They then withdrew to their home within the Birthplace itself, and my ancestors did not again seek to approach it. The command of the Watchers became the law of this world.