Captain Future 02 - Calling Captain Future (Spring 1940)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “I know, and I can’t understand that,” Carthew admitted. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re up against a devilish scheme to usurp power over the whole System. There can’t be any real danger in that approaching dark star when it has such a ridiculously low mass. The public only thinks there is danger, and Doctor Zarro is fanning their fears higher every hour.”

  The door of the office burst open. The man who entered wore a dark uniform with silver stars on the shoulders. He was Halk Anders, commander of the Planet Police.

  “Sir, I have to report,” he told the President breathlessly as he saluted, “that those crowds are getting out of hand. We can hardly hold them out of this building now. I’ve had calls from headquarters on the other planets, and the people there are rioting too, calling for Doctor Zarro to be given full emergency authority.”

  Carthew’s lined face whitened.

  “Haven’t you been able yet to locate this Doctor Zarro?” he cried. “If we could arrest him and stop those inflammatory broadcasts of his —”

  The stocky commander shook his head.

  “We’ve been unable to find Doctor Zarro’s headquarters. His broadcasts are on a new-type wave that we can’t track down. We’ve tried to trail the ships of his Legion of Doom, but they always manage to give us the slip in space.”

  “What about Jons and Gellimer and all the other scientists who vanished?” Carthew asked. “Have you learned anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  North Bonnel turned haggardly to his superior.

  “What are we going to do, sir? If the public terror increases like this, the Government will be in Doctor Zarro’s hands in a week!”

  JAMES CARTHEW’S pale face set. He looked out through the eastern window of the tower room, at the fun moon that was rising majestically in the heavens like a great silver shield.

  “There is one man who can smash Doctor Zarro’s plot, if anybody can,” he muttered. “I did not want to call upon him before this, for he is not the kind of man to be annoyed with matters the regular authorities can handle —”

  The secretary stiffened. His lips trembled.

  “You mean — Captain Future?”

  “Yes, Captain Future,” the President said, his eyes still fixed on the rising moon. “If anybody can stop Doctor Zarro and his Legion, Captain Future and those three weird comrades of his can do it.”

  He turned abruptly, desperate determination written on his kindly, bewildered face.

  “Televise an order to have the North Pole signal-flare set off at once, Bonnel!”

  A half hour later, amid the frozen wastes of eternal ice at the North Pole, there blossomed a huge flower of flame as a great, dazzling magnesium flare was detonated.

  Far out in space that brilliant beacon was visible. Throbbing, winking and blinking, it cast its beams out through the void in silent, urgent appeal.

  “Calling Captain Future!”

  Calling the great, glamorous foe of evil, to a struggle with the mysterious Doctor Zarro’s plot against misled humanity!

  Chapter 2: The Futuremen

  A BARREN, deathly white waste stretched across the surface of the Moon. Beneath the glare of the blazing sun, the lunar plains rolled in eternal silence toward the colossal craters that towered like menacing jagged fangs. Upon this desolate world there was no air, no sound, and no human life — except in one place.

  Upon the floor of Tycho Crater glittered something like a round crystal lake. It was a big, glassite window set in the lunar rock. Underneath that window, excavated out of the soft rock, was the artificial cavern that was the laboratory and home of the most famous man in the System — Captain Future.

  The big laboratory of the cavern home was bathed in light from the window above it. Here loomed mechanisms and racks of instruments in bewildering array. Giant generators and condensers that could furnish limitless atomic power. Big telescopes and spectro-telescopes whose tubes protruded through the lunar surface.

  Chemical and electrical apparatus of bewildering complexity and design. All the crowded equipment of the System’s supreme master of science!

  The two individuals working tensely in a corner of the laboratory could be heard over the throbbing of a machine.

  “Time to shift the electron-flow, Simon?” the deep, clear voice of one was asking.

  “Not yet, Curtis,” answered the other’s voice, a rasping, metallic, unhuman one. “Transmutation is not complete yet.”

  These two were working with a spherical machine into which the great atomic generators were pouring vast power.

  One of the two was a big, red-headed young man in a gray synthesilk zipper suit. His lithe, broad-shouldered figure towered six feet four. His tanned, handsome, debonair face and flashing gray eyes had a rollicking humor in them that could not hide keen intelligence and deep purpose.

  He wore a big ring on his left hand — a ring whose nine jewels were motivated by a tiny atomic power engine that kept them moving slowly around a glowing central jewel. This ring, whose jewels represented the nine worlds, was known to the whole System as the identifying emblem of Captain Future, the wizard of science and the implacable foe of evil.

  Captain Future — or Curtis Newton, by the name so few knew — stood ready by the lever of the spherical machine. On a pedestal, watching the gauges of the mechanism, was his fellow-worker.

  This was Simon Wright, the Brain. He was just that — a living human brain that had no body. Instead, his brain was housed in a square, transparent serum-case, in the front of which was his resonator speech apparatus, on the stalks of which in turn were his lens-eyes.

  “Transmutation’s almost complete now,” the Brain declared in his metallic artificial voice, his glass lens eyes closely watching the gauges. “Stand ready to shift the electron flow.”

  A moment later he spoke quickly. “Now!”

  Curt Newton slammed down the lever. The throbbing of power into the spherical machine ceased.

  The red-headed scientific wizard undamped a door and opened it. Out of the mechanism poured a stream of white powder.

  “That’s done it!” Curt exclaimed. “A hundred pounds of copper, transmuted into pure isotopic boron.”

  HE STEPPED back and mopped his brow, and then grinned at the Brain. “Whew, that was a job! But it will save us a trip all the way to Uranus, to get that rare isotope.”

  “Aye, lad,” rasped the Brain. “This transmutation of elements is one of your greatest achievements yet.” Curt’s gray eyes twinkled at him.

  “You’re an old fraud, Simon,” he accused. “You know as well as I do that I could never have achieved it if you hadn’t worked with me.”

  At that moment, there was a sudden explosion of angry, arguing voices from another chamber of the cavern home. One was a loud, Booming, mechanical-sounding voice. The other voice was hissing, sibilant and furious.

  “Grag and Otho are at each other again!” exclaimed Captain Future impatiently. “I swear those two will drive me crazy yet.”

  He raised his voice in a call. “Grag! Otho!”

  Two creatures of unhumanly weird appearance entered the laboratory in answer to his call.

  One of them was a rubbery white android, or synthetic man. Otho, the android, was manlike in figure, his synthetic flesh having been molded into human form when he had been made. But his hairless white head and face, his slitted green eyes that were flashing now with anger, were not like any human’s. Nor could any human move with his wonderful quickness and agility.

  Grag, the metal robot, was the other disputant. Towering seven feet high, his mighty metal arms hinted incredible strength. The chief features in his bulbous metal head were his two photo-electric eyes that gleamed with living light, and the mouthlike opening of his speech mechanism. There was no creature in the whole System stronger than Grag, the robot.

  Perched upon Grag’s shoulder was a queer, bearlike little animal of inorganic silicate flesh, with strong paws, a sharp, inquisitive snout, an
d bright little black eyes. It was a moon-pup, one of the strange non-breathing creatures found on the lunar plains, who assimilated food elements by direct ingestion of the mineral they could crush in their powerful teeth. The little gray creature was contentedly chewing on a piece of copper now.

  “Now what’s the trouble between you two?” Captain Future demanded of the robot and android. “Can’t Simon and I work for a minute without you two getting into your arguments?”

  “It’s Grag’s fault!” hissed Otho furiously. He pointed to the little gray bearlike animal. “That damned moon-pup pet of his has eaten up one of my best pistols!”

  GRAG, the robot, cuddled the little gray moon-pup protectively with a great metal hand. “It’s not Eek’s fault, master,” he told Captain Future in loud indignation. “Eek was hungry — and he loves copper.”

  “Either that moon-pup leaves here or I leave!” stormed the android. “The beast eats any metal it can get its paws on — and when it gets hold of some precious metal, it gets howling drunk on it! It’s got a lot of other habits that make it a pest. It was crazy of Grag to catch the cursed thing and make a tame pet of it.”

  “We humans like to have pets,” the robot defended.

  “Otho does not understand, master, because he is not human like us.”

  “Not human like you?” Otho howled furiously. “Why, you walking machine-shop, anyone can see that I’m a flesh-and-blood human while you’re nothing but a clever mechanism! If I —”

  “Now don’t start that argument again!” Captain Future interrupted hastily. “I’ve heard enough of it.”

  “Aye, and so have I,” rasped Simon Wright, the Brain, his lens-eyes dourly surveying the two disputants. “You two are always arguing about which is the most human. And I, who really was human once, can tell you that it’s nothing worth arguing about.”

  “Simon is right,” Curt Newton said severely. “Every time you two have any time on your hands, you start scrapping with each other, and I’m getting tired of it.”

  Despite his severity of tone, there was a fond twinkle of affection in the gray eyes of the big red-headed scientific adventurer, as he surveyed the robot and the android and the Brain.

  These were the Futuremen, the loyal trio of comrades who had fought and sailed around the whole System with him! These three weird comrades of his, un-human in form yet superhuman in abilities, had stood at his side in more than one great struggle out in the solar spaces. And, furthermore, the three had reared Curt Newton from babyhood to manhood, in this very cavern home on the Moon.

  Twenty-five years before, Captain Future’s parents had come secretly to the moon. Roger Newton was a young Earth biologist who dreamed a great dream. He hoped to create life — artificial, intelligent living creatures who could serve mankind. But his work was in danger. Certain ambitious men coveted his scientific discoveries and tried to steal them.

  Roger Newton had decided to seek refuge on the wild, uninhabited Moon. He had sailed secretly in a small rocket for the Moon. And with him had gone his young wife, Elaine, and his loyal co-worker and assistant, Simon Wright — the Brain.

  Simon Wright had been a famous, aging scientist who was about to die of incurable disease. Newton had by brilliant surgery removed Simon’s brain and transferred it into a special serum-case. Ever since, the Brain had been his most loyal friend.

  Newton and his young wife and the Brain had reached the Moon safely, and had built an underground home beneath Tycho Crater. There, soon after their arrival, a son was born to the man and woman — a boy whom they named Curtis. And there they began the work of creating artificial living creatures.

  GRAG, the robot, was the first creature created by Roger Newton and the Brain. Their second creation was not of metal but of synthetic plastic flesh molded into a manlike android — Otho, the synthetic man. These two artificial creatures, intelligent, strong faithful, showed Roger Newton that he had at last realized his dream.

  Then disaster struck. The evil plotters who coveted Newton’s scientific secrets had trailed him to the Moon. There was a fight — and Roger Newton and his young wife were slain, before the robot and the synthetic man killed the murderers.

  Dying, Elaine Newton entrusted her infant son to the care of the three unhuman creatures, Brain, robot and android. She begged them to rear him to manhood and implant in him a hatred of all those who used scientific gifts for evil ends — to train him as a relentless foe of an such as would oppress or exploit the System people.

  Simon Wright and Grag and Otho had kept that promise. They had reared little Curtis Newton to manhood. And the Brain, with its wonderful scientific knowledge, had so schooled him that he became a wizard of scientific ability surpassing his teacher. Grag, the robot, strongest of living beings, had fostered his strength until it was superhuman. And Otho the android, swiftest and most agile of all creatures, had taught him unmatchable speed and deftness.

  Thus Curtis Newton had grown to manhood on the lonely Moon, with his three unhuman tutors. When he had reached manhood, the Brain had told him the story of his origin, and had repeated the dying wish of his mother that he become champion of the System’s peoples against those who would oppress them.

  “Will you take up this crusade against interplanetary evil, Curtis?” the Brain had asked. “Will you embark on this crusade, this fight for the future of the System?”

  Curtis Newton had made his fateful decision, one that was to change history.

  “Yes, Simon — someone has to stand up for the System peoples against their exploiters. And, with you three helping me, I’ll do my best.”

  He had added half-humorously: “Since you say I’ll be fighting for the future of the System, I think I’ll call myself — Captain Future.”

  As Captain Future, then, Curt had offered his services to the System President in the war against interplanetary crime. At first doubtful of this strange, redheaded young man, the President had in a desperate emergency called upon his aid.

  Captain Future and the Futuremen had demonstrated their power, swiftly, relentlessly. Since then, the President had called him time and again by the agreed signal. And time and again, Curt Newton and his three strange, loyal comrades had gone forth in perilous struggle.

  CURT was thinking of all that now, as he faced his three comrades. “You two are more than human to me,” he told Grag and Otho impulsively. “So why can’t you quit this continual jealousy about which is the most human?”

  “Otho is too overbearing,” Grag boomed, cuddling the moon-pup in his metal arm. “He should remember that I was made before he was.”

  “Of course you were — you were such a bad job that they had to try again and make me before they were satisfied,” Otho jeered, with a mocking gleam in his slitted green eyes.

  “Will you let him talk so, master?” appealed Grag angrily to Curt Newton. “He —”

  “The signal!” cried the Brain suddenly.

  Simon’s lens-eyes had glanced up through the window overhead at the great green sphere of Earth. The cry of the Brain made the other three look up instantly.

  There upon the great cloudy green planet hanging in starry space, upon the white patch at the North Pole, a blazing pinpoint of light was pulsing and throbbing.

  “It is the signal!” Captain Future said gravely. “We’re needed.”

  Captain Future’s debonair tanned face had changed, grown grim. His nostrils were flaring, his brilliant gray eyes had something chill and hard as steel in them now.

  The Futuremen were gripped by the same strange emotion. The call from Earth! The tocsin that summoned these four to action! It was for this call that they waited through long weeks, living and working in the lunar laboratory.

  Captain Future’s voice rang like a silver trumpet summoning to battle.

  “To the Comet! That call admits of no delay. The President never calls for nothing.”

  “Pick me up, Grag,” rasped the Brain’s calm, metallic voice.

  The robot pic
ked up the handle of the Brain’s case. With the moon-pup clinging to his other arm, Grag started with hasty strides after Curt Newton and Otho.

  Ten minutes later a small ship shaped like an elongated tear-drop rose from an underground hangar on the lunar surface. It was the Comet, super-swift craft of the Futuremen, known far and wide through the System as the swiftest ship in space.

  Two hours later, so swift was its flight, the Comet screamed down through the stratosphere of Earth’s night side. Curt Newton dropped the little craft straight toward the great Government Tower that rose above all other structures of brilliant New York.

  The Comet came to rest on the truncated tip of the tower. As Curt and the Futuremen emerged, they saw in the plaza far below a great crowd that surged riotously against a line of Police.

  Curt’s lip tightened.

  “Something’s damned wrong, from the look of things. Come on — hurry —”

  They hastened down a stairway that led directly into the private office of the System President. The three men in that office, Carthew, his secretary, and Commander Anders of the Planet Police, spun around startledly.

  “Captain Future!” cried Carthew, his voice shrill with relief, his fine face working as he came hastily forward.

  YOUNG Bonnel and the burly Commander stared, not without awe, at the tall young wizard of science and his companions.

  Curt Newton’s big figure radiated power and confidence as he stood there, the weird trio of the Futuremen behind him — giant Grag, the Brain he held, and the rubbery android.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” Curt demanded of the President. “What does that rioting crowd down there want?”

  “They want me to turn the System Government over to Doctor Zarro and his Legion!” burst Carthew.

  “Doctor Zarro?” Curt’s eyebrows rose. “Who the devil is that?”

  “You haven’t heard of him?” cried Bonnel incredulously. “Why, the whole System has heard his broadcasts about the dark star.”