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

by Edmond Hamilton

  The storm was upon them, now. The sky was lit incessantly by sheets and flares of violet lightning, each of which revealed the vast waves of the Neptunian sea towering skyward like moving mountains of water.

  Vase Avam, steering their long, tubular craft, turned his green face worriedly from the wheel.

  “We’ll have to run beneath surface or these waves will smack us to pieces!” the Jovian mine-boss exclaimed.

  “Go ahead — but keep right after Orr Libro’s boat,” Carson Brand directed.

  The Martian’s craft was also submerging, ahead. Vase Avam shifted the control of the deflecting rudders and their own boat slid down and throbbed along twenty feet under the surface.

  CAPTAIN FUTURE, deep in thought, looked out through the transparent wall of their craft at the lightning-lit waters they were traveling through. Each violet glare showed the teeming life of the sea about them.

  Shoals of brilliant, sparkling “diamond-fish” flashed away, like living gems. “Air-fish,” those weird winged creatures that could live with equal ease in the air or in the sea, flew away in startled undersea flight.

  “Coming into Amphitrite harbor!” sang out the Jovian after a time, bringing the long boat back to the surface.

  Captain Future slid back one of the over-deck panels and peered keenly ahead. Orr Libro’s boat was just ahead of them, also breaking surface as they entered the sheltered waters of the harbor.

  They slid toward the dark docks that fringed the lighted Neptunian city.

  “I want to see Julius Gunn, your president,” Curt told. Carson Brand. “Will he be at your company offices this late?”

  Brand nodded, his brown face haggard.

  “Yes, he’ll be there to wait for reports on Mine One. I hate to tell him what happened!”

  Their craft bumped the dark dock of the Neptunian Gravium Company. Orr Libro’s boat was tying up at a dock nearby. Captain Future was waiting for the Martian when he landed.

  “You come along with us,” Curt told the Martian crisply.

  “Look, there’s Quarus Qull’s outfit coming in!” Brand exclaimed, pointing out into the harbor.

  A long craft was entering the harbor from the wild, storm-whipped ocean outside. A flare of the lightning showed it heading for a dock farther along from the one on which they stood.

  Quarus Qull, the thin, blue-skinned Saturnian gravium magnate, was giving orders to his crew as he came ashore. Curt’s eyes fastened on the sea-suits in the Saturnian’s boat.

  “The devil — has everyone been out in the sea tonight?” Curt wondered ruefully.

  He strode forward to Quarus Qull. The Saturnian’s bony blue face stiffened, and his pale, squinting eyes narrowed as he saw Captain Future.

  “I suppose that you too have been merely out prospecting with divers for new gravium deposits?” Curt asked ironically.

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve been doing,” Quarus Qull answered. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “What part of the sea were you prospecting?” Captain Future demanded, ignoring the questions.

  Quarus Qull gave the longitude and latitude. The position was between Mines One and Two of the Neptunian company.

  Curt laughed shortly.

  “Just like Orr Libro, you wanted to poach on the deposits Gunn’s company located, eh?”

  The blue Saturnian’s thin mouth tightened.

  “I don’t do anything that isn’t legal.”

  “Come along with us,” Curt snapped. “Some cursed queer things been happening that need clearing up.”

  Silently, the oddly assorted little group moved toward the offices of the Neptunian Gravium Company. As Captain Future and his three companions entered the brightly-lit offices, a man who had been sitting at a desk talking hoarsely into a televisor jumped erect and came toward them.

  IT WAS Julius Gunn, president of the Neptunian company. The gravium magnate’s aggressive, square face was pallid with emotion, his voice raw and high.

  “Brand — Captain Future — a terrible disaster!” he cried. “One of our three mines has been utterly destroyed!”

  “You’ve heard about Mine One’s destruction, then?” Brand cried to his employer. “I didn’t think you’d know yet —”

  “Mine One?” Gunn repeated, bewildered. “What are you talking about? It’s Mine Two that has just been wrecked! I got the televisor call from its mine-boss at the floating-depot, a quarter hour ago. The whole mine-dome gave way. All miners were drowned.”

  Carson Brand paled. The tow-haired superintendent turned to Curt, his brown face wild.

  “Good God, Captain Future — that makes two of our mines destroyed!”

  “Two?” echoed Julius Gunn. “You mean Mine One —”

  “Was destroyed utterly,” Brand answered hoarsely. “We got the men out in time, though Captain Future was nearly trapped and barely escaped.”

  Brand swung fiercely on Orr Libro.

  “Your divers did this — wrecked both of those mines tonight!” he accused the Martian. “The two mines aren’t far apart. Your men were ordered to destroy them both.”

  Orr Libro answered with unruffled calm.

  “I fear you are over-excited, Mr. Brand,” he purred. “I’ve already said I had nothing to do with it. But let me point out that Quarus Qui! was out in the vicinity of Mines One and Two tonight, with his crew.”

  “Trying to incriminate me, eh?” cried the blue-Saturnian harshly to Orr Libro. “You lying sneak —”

  “I think you’re both mixed up in this?” Julius Gunn accused furiously. “You’ve come out here to Neptune to cut in on my industry here — ruin my company and build up your own —”

  “That’s enough quarreling!” Captain Future’s voice rang, lashing them to silence.

  The red-headed wizard of science was eyeing them frostily, his tanned, handsome face hard with dislike. One of these four quarreling men, Curt knew, was the Wrecker! But which one?

  “The situation is too desperate now for idle bickering,” Curt crackled. “There is now only one gravium source left in the whole System — Mine Three. And Mine Three must not be destroyed! It’s all-important that last source of gravium be preserved, until new mines can be opened up here. For if Mine Three should be wrecked now, the panic that is rising in the System would explode into a crazy chaos! If people learn that the last source of gravium is gone, interplanetary traffic and civilization will collapse almost overnight!”

  “But what can we do to guard Mine Three?” faltered Julius Gunn.

  “Televise your mine-boss there to set guards around the outside of that mine — men in sea-suits, armed with atom-guns!” Captain Future ordered. “They’re to maintain constant watch against anyone who tries to destroy the dome of Mine Three from outside.”

  “I’ll call him, Captain Future!” cried Carson Brand, a ray of hope on his haggard face.

  AS BRAND was making the call on the televisor beside them, Curt Newton shot a terse question at Julius Gunn.

  “I’ve been told that four gravium space ships disappeared in the last months,” he said. “Know anything about that?”

  Gunn nodded his powerful head. “Yes. They were ships on the gravium run — that picked up gravium here at Neptune, at Oberon, Saturn, Mars and Mercury, and took it to Earth.”

  “Where were those ships when they disappeared?” Captain Future demanded.

  Curt had a purpose in the question. He knew, from what Zuvalo had told him on Oberon, that the Wrecker’s organization had stolen those four space ships and used them for its forays of destruction. If he knew where the ships had been stolen, it might point another arrow toward the identity of the Wrecker.

  Gunn answered.

  — “As I remember it, two of the ships disappeared strangely while stopping at Saturn. One of them vanished between Saturn and Mars, and another while at Mars.”

  Curt felt baffled on this point. If the gravium ships had habitually stopped at every one of the five worlds, Neptune, Oberon, Saturn, Mars
and Mercury, then it would be hard to discover which of the men before him had been concerned with their theft.

  Carson Brand, who had been giving rapid orders over the televisor to the mine-boss on distant Mine Three, now turned.

  “They’re going to put our guards in sea-suits around Mine Three as you directed, Captain Future!” the haggard young superintendent reported. “Do you think that will assure —”

  There came a sudden interruption. As an unusually loud crash of thunder sounded, the office door banged open and a wet, flying white figure darted in. It was Otho the android, his rubbery white figure glistening with rain, his green slit-eye lighting at sight of Curt.

  “The Brain sent me for you, chief!” he cried to Captain Future. “Simon has made an unbelievable discovery!”

  Chapter 12: Scientific Magic

  CRASHING rain battered the streets as Captain Future and Otho hurried out of the nighted, storm-swept Neptunian city. The electric tempest that had swept in from the south had reached full fury. The flares of lightning were almost continuous, and the hubbub of thunder deafening.

  “What’s Simon’s discovery, Otho?” Captain Future asked as he hurried beside the android.

  Otho told of the attack by the Wrecker’s men on the Comet, and of how he and Grag had captured one of those men, whom the Brain believed to have an alien mind.

  “Sounds a little crazy,” Curt muttered. “But everything about this darned mystery is a little crazy.”

  They were out of Amphitrite city by now. A prolonged flare of violet lightning showed them the rain-swept, rocky shore, against which wild waves were battering from the uneasy black sea. Neptune, wild world of sea and storm, was living up to its reputation. Then Curt glimpsed the lights of the Comet.

  Rain streamed off Captain Future’s red hair and tan zipper-suit, glistened on Otho’s rubbery white body and harnesslike belt, as the two hastily entered the little ship.

  Curt’s eyes flashed to the unconscious Venusian who lay on the table at the side of the laboratory, muttering deliriously. The Brain, with Grag assisting, was examining the stunned man. Ezra Gurney and Joan Randall watched intently from nearby.

  “Captain Future!” exclaimed Joan, pale face flashing relief at sight of Curt. “I was afraid you’d meet trouble out in that submarine mine —”

  “I met trouble and plenty of it,” Curt said, with a short, mirthless laugh. “Mines One and Two are completely destroyed. The Wrecker is going right ahead with his neat work.”

  “Two mines wrecked?” gasped Ezra. His faded eyes narrowed. “That’s bad — that’s mighty bad. If the third mine is smashed, hell’ll let out for recess across the whole System!”

  “Lad, look at this man,” called the Brain’s metallic voice. “I want you to hear his speech.”

  Captain Future went over to the Brain, and bent over the unconscious Venusian. The man was still babbling deliriously in thick, queerly slurred speech, making weak, vague movements.

  “Ever hear any language like that before?” Simon Wright asked Curt Newton. “There’s none like it in our file.”

  Curt slowly shook his head.

  “It’s new to me,” he muttered. “And Simon, the slurred, distorted sound of it makes me think that language was never even originated by human voice-organs!”

  THE Brain’s lens-eyes swung toward the red-haired young scientific wizard quickly. “I came to the same conclusion, Curtis. And that implies that this Venusian has an alien mind in his body.”

  Captain Future eyed the unconscious figure narrowly, his mind racing. This Venusian was one of the Wrecker’s men, and hence a possible lead straight to the Wrecker. And such a lead must be found if the mysterious plotter was to be found and stopped before he brought on a final disaster to the System’s vital gravium supply.

  “We checked this fellow’s identity-disc with the Planet Police records at Amphitrite Headquarters,” Ezra Gurney Was drawling. “His name is Ki Iri and he’s a Venusian fisherman who came here to Neptune a year ago. Six weeks ago, he disappeared with some other fishermen on a cruise northwest of here. Before that time, he was just an ordinary fisherman.”

  “And since then,” Curt muttered, “he’s been one of the Wrecker’s men — with an alien mind in his body. It’s damned queer.”

  He spoke suddenly.

  “Ezra, call Amphitrite Headquarters and find out how many other fishermen have disappeared in the last couple of months.”

  Otho was staring dubiously at the unconscious Venusian. “I still don’t see how he could have an alien mind in him.”

  Curt looked at the Brain.

  “Maybe the old Martian brain-exchanging process, Simon?”

  “Possibly,” rasped the Brain, “though there’s no surgical scar on his skull. We can check with the X-ray, though.”

  “Hook up the X-ray tubes, Grag,” Captain Future ordered. “We’re going to check this fellow’s body.”

  The robot swung out the powerful cylindrical glass tubes over the Venusian, and started them sputtering and glowing, drenching the unconscious man with their penetrating “tuned” X-rays.

  Curt had donned a pair of fluoroscopic spectacles. He slipped similar lenses over the Brain’s glass eyes. The red-haired master of science and the bodiless Brain began their inspection.

  Joan Randall watched them tensely. The only sound was the sputtering of the glowing tubes. Grag and Otho were bending eagerly forward behind the two searchers.

  “His brain has been untouched, Simon,” Curt muttered. “The operation would be sure to leave scars, and there’s no evidence of the cranium having been trephined as would be necessary.”

  “Aye, lad — there’s been no exchange of brains here,” rasped Simon Wright’s voice. “Spinal cord and blood are normal?”

  “Yes, and everything else about him,” Captain Future declared. He straightened, took off the fluoroscopic spectacles, his tanned face deep in thought. “Physically, this man is still just an ordinary Venusian fisherman. But mentally, he’s strange and alien. That adds up to just one possible conclusion.”

  The brain stared at him.

  “You mean — that this Venusian’s mind has been replaced by another mind without changing his physical body?”

  “It’s the only answer to this riddle,” Curt declared. “Remember our own experiments two years ago with transferring the synaptic pattern of small animals? It could be done with humans.” Captain Future paused.

  “I don’t understand!” Otho complained. “How the devil could the Venusian’s mind be replaced by a different mind?”

  Captain Future spoke thoughtfully. “The mind, Otho, is essentially an electric network of force connecting the neurones of the brain. Each webwork of electric currents, each human mind, is different in pattern.”

  “Sure, I know that,” said Otho impatiently.

  “Well,” Curt continued, “it’s theoretically possible that the unique electric webwork which constitutes a man’s mind could be lifted from his brain by suitable forces, and transferred to another brain, and vice-versa. Physically, the two men would remain the same. But actually, their non-material electric mind-patterns would be exchanged.”

  JOAN looked at the unconscious Venusian in horror.

  “You think something like that’s been done to this man?”

  “I feel sure of it,” Captain Future replied. “But what kind of mind was put into the body of this man Ki Iri? That alien mind he now has isn’t the mind of any kind of man we know.”

  Ezra Gurney had finished his televisor call to Amphitrite Headquarters, and had been listening to Curt’s explanation. Now the old marshal interrupted.

  “Headquarters records show that more than a hundred fishermen have disappeared in the last couple of months, Captain Future! They were all men who went out on fishing-cruises, and never came back.”

  “And this man Ki Iri was one of them,” Curt muttered. His gray eyes flashed. “I’m beginning to understand now. Those vanished fishermen are the
men with whom the Wrecker formed his band. He somehow put different, alien minds into the bodies of those men — minds loyal to him, who used the fishermen’s bodies to obey his orders!

  “That explains something that puzzled me, too,” he went on. “Among all the Wrecker’s men I saw, were no Mercurians, Martians or Saturnians. The reason is plain — there are no fishermen here of those races, for the simple reason that those three worlds have no oceans and so don’t breed any fishermen that would be likely to come here. Get it?”

  Captain Future strode restlessly to and fro. Excitement was rising in him as he saw a path into this planetary mystery finally opening.

  HE TURNED, his tanned face eager and keen.

  “Here’s the way things stand as I see it,” he said.

  “The Wrecker is somebody who resolved to destroy the System’s gravium sources and bring on a paralysis of interplanetary travel. What his motive is, we don’t know. His organization is formed of kidnaped fishermen here, into whose bodies were somehow transferred alien minds of an unknown race loyal to the Wrecker. What race — again we don’t know. Finally, the Wrecker is unquestionably one of the four remaining gravium officials — Quarus Qull, Orr LibrO, Julius Gunn and Carson Brand. But which one is it?”

  “It couldn’t be Brand,” muttered Ezra Gurney, “for he’s only an employee of Gunn. And, anyway, if he were the Wrecker he wouldn’t have been out in Mine One with you when it was scheduled to be completely destroyed.”

  Joan nodded agreement. “And I don’t see how it could be Julius Gunn, Captain Future. If Gunn wanted a monopoly on gravium, he’d have destroyed all the other planetary mines. But he wouldn’t have gone on and destroyed his own, too.”

  “Orr Libro's the Wrecker, I’ll bet a planet, Chief!” exclaimed Otho. His green eyes flashed. “That sneaky, elegant Martian had his own mine on Mars destroyed because it wasn't profitable any more, as Gunn said. He was able to get a concession out here on Neptune, and he’s going to rub out all competition and develop new mines here that’ll give him a gravium monopoly!”