Captain Future 03 - Captain Future's Challenge (Summer 1940)

by Edmond Hamilton

  The scientific magic of the Tritonians was responsible for this weird experience. For the Tritonians had learned how to cause a zone of pervading force through which the electrical vibrations of the thinking mind instantly operated. Whatever tangible object the mind thought of was instantly created solid and real, by an amplification of electric mental currents operating to assemble free atoms. As soon as the mind ceased thinking of the object, control broke down and the object dissolved instantly into free atoms once more.

  Interplanetary travelers had had such appalling experiences on Triton that they all shunned this world now. Only Captain Future had been able to win the respect and friendship of the strange Tritonians.

  The Futuremen stepped up onto the metal platform of the “city.”

  “There’re the Tritonians — come along.”

  The Tritonians — some hundreds of them — were gathered in immobile groups near the center of the big metal platform. The creatures were like enormous, semi-human heads supported by ridiculously tiny, spiderlike limbs.

  They were engaged in the pursuit in which they spent all their lives — thinking of things that became solid and material instantly, and remained so till their thoughts shifted. Around one Tritonian, generations of weird animals were born and died and evolved with unearthly speed. Still another was creating new, wonderful jewels. The “city” was a maze of weirdly appearing and disappearing objects.

  The Tritonian who squatted at the exact center of the circular city greeted Curt Newton in a piping, childish voice.

  “It is the Earthman called Captain Future! We perceived your ship landing and knew you would be here,”

  Thanks,” Curt Newton answered. “How goes life here in your city?”

  “All is well with us,” The Tritonian answered affably. “We continue our search to create new forms of matters, as you see.”

  Otho snorted. “New forms? This city reminds me of a madhouse.”

  Immediately, near them, appeared a big stone building from whose windows men of many planetary races gibbered wildly.

  “Shut it off, Otho!” Curt said hastily. With an effort of thought, the android obeyed. The stone madhouse vanished.

  “Do you come to spend a time with us searching for new expressions of thought?” the Tritonian asked Curt.

  “Not this time,” Curt answered hurriedly. “I came only to inquire whether any men of my own race have established a secret base upon this moon. We hunt a criminal called the Wreckers whose organization is based somewhere at Neptune.”

  “His base is not here,” the Tritonian piped. “No men dare land here, except yourself, our friend. The last who landed here thought of dangerous beasts, and were almost frightened to death when their own thoughts materialized. It was very amusing.”

  What a sense of humor!” Otho hissed.

  “We’ll be going on to Neptune, then,” Curt told the Tritonian. “Perhaps later I’ll be able to pay you a longer visit.”

  As they moved hastily off the weird “city” and back toward the Cornet, Otho declared, “I won’t be along on that visit!”

  “Nor I,” Grag said. The robot complained. “The lump of gold I thought up for Eek has disappeared, master —”

  “It disappeared as soon as you left the zone of ‘creation force” of course,” the Brain told him.

  They entered the Comet, and Otho hastily sent the tear-drop ship flying up from the surface of the big moon.

  “Well, we know now that the Wrecker’s base isn’t on Triton,” Captain Future said thoughtfully. “So it must be somewhere on Neptune itself. Head for Amphitrite in the Rock Isles when we reach the planet, Otho.”

  Less than an hour later the Comet swept down through thin gray evening mists toward the surface of Neptune. That surface emerged as a vast, green tossing ocean, Neptune — wild, mysterious ocean-world of the Solar System! The great planet was covered from pole to pole by a shoreless sea. There were no continents, and the deep sea rolled eternally around this world, swept by awful electric storms, urged by the lunar tides.

  There were no continents but there were islands on this sea-covered world, small archipelagoes of rocky islets scattered mostly in the northern hemisphere. Upon some of those northern islands existed the scant numbers of the native Neptunians, a semi-civilized race. And upon one of the islands had been built the interplanetary colonial city of Amphitrite, in which swarmed men of all planets who had come here to engage in fishing in the vast ocean or in the equally dangerous work of excavating, from submarine mines, gold, platinum and gravium,

  Gravium! Captain Future’s tanned face was sober as he stared across the tossing, endless blue waters. Beneath those waters was now the sole remaining source of gravium in the System. There was enough gravium here to supply the whole System indefinitely — if he could prevent the Wrecker from ruining the submarine mines here!

  “This sabotage is going to stop here,” Curt vowed silently. “And the man who organized it is going to pay —”

  “Rock Isles ahead!” sang Otho from the controls.

  “Head for Amphitrite Island and land in the rocks west of the city,” Captain Future ordered.

  Through the gray evening mists, a cluster of small rocky islands became visible in the vast, rolling sea.

  UPON the largest isle of the archipelago rose the city Amphitrite. It had been built of green native stone. Its square stone buildings huddled along the shore of the sheltered harbor, whose edge was fringed with docks, submarine-mine barges, fishing boats with black sails, and a cluster of other craft.

  The spaceport, on which rested space ships from many worlds of the System, was at the north edge of the town. But Otho slid the Comet smoothly through the mists and brought it down upon the desolate, uninhabited rocky shore west of the city.

  Curt Newton outlined his plans. “I’m going into Amphitrite and check with Ezra and Joan first. Later, I’ll question Julius Gunn and his superintendent, Brand.”

  Newton’s tanned face was serious.

  “The first thing I want to is to get at the bottom of the sabotage here — it’s vital that the gravium mines on this world remain unharmed. And I want to ask about the concession that Kerk El, the murdered Mercurian, had here.”

  “I’ll go with you, lad,” rasped the Brain. “I’ve an idea of my own I’d like to check.”

  “And I’ve a lot of ideas!” Otho exclaimed. “For my money, that foppish red Martian, Orr Libro, is the Wrecker behind all this. He murdered Kerk El, and he’ll murder Quarus Qull if he gets a chance, and destroy Gunn’s mines. Then he’ll be the gravium king. Watch me force it out of him when we get into the city.”

  “The only forcing you’re going to do is right here in the Comet” Captain Future told the android witheringly. “Our rocket-tube Number 16 needs cleaning — I noticed on the way out from Uranus it was missing. You and Grag can dismount it and clean it while I’m gone.”

  “Have a heart, Chief!” pleaded Otho. “You’ll need me in there. Cleaning out rocket-tubes is just a waste of my talents.”

  “See that he stays here and helps, Grag,” Curt said.

  “Yes, Master,” boomed the big robot. “If he tries to get away I’ll spank him like I do with Eek when he’s bad.”

  “You’ll spank me?” flared Otho. “Why, you —”

  Chuckling, Curt Newton picked up the handle of the Brain’s serum-case and, after wrapping the case with a light cloth cover that left only Simon’s lens-eyes exposed, stepped out of the ship.

  In the twilight, the scene along the rocky shore was weirdly desolate. The surging, swinging thunder of great waves battering the shore was a reverberating monotone. Far out into the dusk stretched the vast vagueness of the planetary sea.

  Curt’s gray eyes kindled, and he breathed the salt, tangy air deeply. There was something about this wild ocean-world that called to Captain Future’s unfettered spirit. The knowledge that that dim sea stretched for a hundred thousand miles around the giant world was somehow stimulating. V
ast reaches of that mighty watery waste had never been sailed by men, though there were horrific legends about it.

  Captain Future strode purposefully through the dusk along the surf-pounded shore with his strange, bodiless comrade. Soon he entered the stone streets of the moonlit city Amphitrite. Lights were flaring along the main avenues, but the tall, red-haired space-man and the cloth-covered case he carried aroused no attention. One more Earthman was nothing noticeable in this city that drew its population from nearly all the worlds of the System.

  Here were green, flipper-limbed Jo-vians, handsome white Venusians, hairy men of icy Pluto staring with saucerlike phosphorescent eyes, and among others, a great number of swaggering Earthmen. Submarine miners, fishermen, space-sailors, officials of all kinds. And there were some of the native Neptunians — gangling men with seemingly boneless bodies, oily gray skin, and strange peaked skulls.

  “Not as many space-sailors as usual, by far,” Curt Newton muttered. “Space-traffic is falling off sharply, all right.”

  “Aye, lad,” agreed the Brain. “People don’t want to be caught on another world if the gravium supply gives out, and no more equalizers can be had. The fear is beginning to paralyze the System.”

  “They’re scared, all right,” Curt said. “Damn the Wrecker anyway! What can be the devil’s motive for causing all this?”

  A SQUARE building with the emblem of the Planet Police over its door was just ahead. Curt Newton stepped inside. A dark-uniformed policeman — a reedy Martian — came forward, glancing casually at the square case Curt carried.

  “What are you selling, Earthman?” he asked curtly.

  “Nothing that you would want to buy, Martian,” rasped Simon Wright.

  At the retort from the case, the Martian officer recoiled. Curt, chuckling, held out his left hand.

  “Captain Future!” exclaimed the Martian, respect that was almost awe appearing in his face as he glimpsed Curt’s ring.

  A tough, wiry Earthman with iron-gray hair and a shrewd, weatherbeaten, wrinkled face came hurrying out of an inner office, a dark-haired Earthgirl behind him.

  “I recognized that raspin’ voice of the Brain!” exclaimed Ezra Gurney, pumping Curt’s hand. “There ain’t but one voice like that in the whole System!”

  Joan Randal’s brown eyes were shining with pleasure, her pretty face vivid with breathless excitement as she faced Curt.

  “Hello, Joan,” drawled the tall young wizard of science, smiling. “I told you we’d meet again when we parted on Pluto.”

  “If the amenities are all concluded,” said Simon Wright sourly, “I suggest we find out what Ezra and Joan have learned.”

  Curt’s face sobered.

  “Simon’s right — there’s no time to lose.”

  “Don’t I know it!” exclaimed Ezra Gurney. The old marshal’s faded blue eyes snapped. “The space-traffic of every world is bein’ strangled right now by fear — fear of the gravium giving out. And what gets me is — what’s the Wrecker goin’ to gain by this? He’s worse than that devil, Doctor Zarro! Bad as Doctor Zarro was, we at least could understand what his motive was. But I can’t figger this Wrecker’s idea nohow!”

  “What about the four men I asked you to have watched when they arrived?” demanded Captain Future.

  Joan Randall answered eagerly.

  “We’ve had men watching them every hour since their arrival, Captain Future. But they’ve done nothing suspicious. Libro and Quarus Qull are arranging to prospect and develop their new gravium concessions. Julius Gunn and his superintendent are occupied by the troubles in their mines.”

  “Gunn’s company has three big sub-sea gravium mines away out in the ocean,” Ezra explained. “In two of them, they’ve had a lot of queer accidents and their men are getting afraid to work.”

  Curt came to quick decision.

  “The safety of those three mines is paramount right now! We’ll go over and see Gunn and Brand. If their mines are in danger, the danger has to be eliminated before we can spend any time ferreting out the identity of the Wrecker.”

  Ezra Gurney led the way out of the Police building, and along the streets toward the harbor. Ahead, at the edge of the crowded harbor, loomed the great warehouses of the Neptunian Gravium Company. In the moonlit water beyond were anchored the company’s fast supply-boats, trouble-boats, wide-beamed prospecting-boats, and great caisson-barges. The fishing-docks were some distance around the curve of the harbor.

  Curt Newton saw men dashing out of the metal office-building beside the warehouses, and heard raw voices.

  “Something’s happened here!” he exclaimed, stiffening. “Come on!”

  “Maybe another murder by the Wrecker?” Simon Wright suggested as they ran forward.

  Then, at the entrance of the office-structure, they collided with a tow-haired, wiry Earthman whose face was taut with emotion. It was Carson Brand, and the superintendent was in a mad hurry.

  “Captain Future!” he cried, stopping at sight of Curt. “I’m damned glad you’re here —”

  “What’s happened, man? Speak up!”

  Brand’s words tumbled over each other. “We just got a distress-call from Mine One — one of our three submarine mines out there in the sea. The men out there are in panic — they claim the whole sub-sea dome is giving way! If it does, that whole mine will be flooded!”

  “The Wrecker’s working here already, lad!” Simon Wright exclaimed metallically.

  “Looks like it,” Curt Newton snapped. He swung. “Ezra, you and Joan take Simon back to the Comet. I’m going out with Brand to Mine One.”

  “But Captain Future, if the sub-sea dome gives way and you’re out there —” Joan Randall cried fearfully.

  But Curt was already racing with Carson Brand toward the dock, where a big trouble-boat’s motor was already roaring loudly.

  Chapter 8: Trap Under the Sea

  ROARING a song of unleashed power from is cyclotrons, its rocket-tubes churning the waters to flame by their discharge, the big trouble-boat shot out onto the moonlit sea.

  Captain Future’s lithe figure hunched beside Carson Brand at the bridge of the hundred-foot boat. The pilot and engineer were gray-skinned Neptunians. The boat itself was a tubular shape, streamlined and covered by a transparent, watertight over-deck.

  “It’ll take us half an hour to get to Mine One, even in this craft!” Carson Brand was crying to Curt. “God knows what may happen in that time.”

  The wiry young superintendent’s browned face was wild with anxiety, his eyes dilated as he peered ahead.

  “Who called you from Mine One?” Captain Future asked.

  “Vase Avam, our Jovian mine-boss there,” answered the superintendent. “He said the laborers down in the dome are panicky — claim the dome is weakening. They’ve been scary lately, anyway.

  “Our laborers are mostly Neptunians,” Carson Brand explained, “and they’re a superstitious lot. They hate to go down into the submarine mines — they’ve got all kinds of weird legends about the sea and the things that live in it. If something’s actually gone wrong with the dome, they’ll be crazy.”

  The trouble-boat was picking up velocity now. They were far out of the harbor, the lights of Amphitrite dropping out of sight behind them. They rushed southward over the moonlit ocean.

  Now, on the open sea, they met the great tidal combers. The pull of the moon Triton produced ceaseless running tides in the Neptunian sea — tides that rolled endlessly around the water-covered planet in immense waves. Mercilessly those waves jounced and pounded the speeding craft.

  The submersible trouble-boat could have run more smoothly beneath the surface, but that would have cut their speed a little, and Carson Brand and Captain Future preferred to submit to the rough battering of the sea rather than lose time on their urgent mission.

  “Storm coming up!” Brand called, pointing toward an ominous violet flicker of lightning far ahead. “Hope it holds off till we get to Mine One.”

  Curt Newto
n nodded. “I know what Neptunian storms are like!”

  Captain Future knew this world well. His whole life so far had been spent shuttling to and fro among the thronging worlds and moons, on his great struggle against interplanetary crime and criminals, and he had visited Neptune often.

  But Curt realized that even he did not know a tenth of the mysteries that this mighty planet hid. The native Neptunians had many weird legends about hidden wonders of their world, Curt knew. Legends of monsters of the deep even more huge and terrible than the dreaded “swallowers” and ursals; legends of strange floating islands upon which grew poisonous flowers of exquisite beauty; legends of so-called “sea-devils” or semi-human, super-powerful and super-cunning water dwellers who were supposed to have strange submarine cities far out in the depths of the sea.

  Magically beautiful rolled the tossing, moonlit ocean before Curt Newton’s eyes, as they sped over it now. Yet he knew what mysterious and mighty shapes of dread that sea concealed. Even as he stared, he saw the looping coils of a great Neptunian sea-snake appear on the moon-silvered surface far to the west, darting its head out after a flying flock of “air-fish.”

  CAPTAIN FUTURE’S mind swung to the problem at hand, to the Wrecker who now was apparently beginning increased sabotage of the three all-important submarine gravium mines here.

  “There’s a vast, cunning purpose behind this apparently senseless destruction,” Curt muttered. “But what purpose?”

  The floating depot of Mine One suddenly came into view. It was a big, square floating metal platform upheld by large vacuum-pontoons. Upon the platform stood metal machine-houses and pump — shacks, and to it were moored supply-boats, and big flat scows piled with gray gravium ore.

  Captain Future knew that that gravium was mined in the submarine workings far below the floating depot. The ore was loaded into the scows and towed to the big smelters near Amphitrite.

  Brand and Curt Newton leaped onto the great floating platform as their trouble-boat ran alongside. There was a deafening confusion of throbbing pumps, grinding machinery. Frightened Neptunians came running to meet them.