“Was it Doctor Zarro himself who came here with the Legion and took Simon?” Captain Future asked swiftly.
“Yes, it was Doctor Zarro!” Kansu Kane babbled. “I was overcome by the gas, but I was not unconscious — I lay up there on the telescope platform, unable to move, but near enough to hear what went on.”
And the little astronomer told of how Doctor Zarro had tortured the Brain by shutting off his perfusion-pump.
“But the Brain wouldn’t tell anything,” Kansu concluded, “and so Doctor Zarro and his Legionaries took the Brain with them. Roj and Kallak were among those Legion men.”
“So Doctor Zarro tortured the Brain,” Curt gritted. He was shaken by such anger as he had seldom felt. To Curt, the Brain was not the cold, austere, unhuman being he seemed to other people, but was his oldest comrade and tutor and guardian.
“Doctor Zarro’s motives are clear enough,” Curt declared. “He is afraid of my smashing his plot for power. So he ordered one of his Legion cruisers to ambush and attack my flier. And he came with other Legionaries to snatch Simon away from his studies here.”
Suddenly a startled expression crossed Captain Future’s face.
“But why should Doctor Zarro go to such lengths to stop the Brain’s study of the dark star? Can it be that he was afraid the Brain would —”
Curt stopped, but he filed away in a corner of his mind the astonishing idea that had come to him.
“I can’t understand why Doctor Zarro didn’t recapture me when he had the chance!” Kansu Kane was saying bewilderedly.
“He had no reason, now,” Captain Future declared. “You see, the Legion originally captured you, Kansu, like the other scientists — to make it seem that you had disappeared, had fled out of the System to escape the coming catastrophe.
“But, after you disappeared once, you had appeared here on Pluto again. So the observatory officials and others here knew you had not fled out of the System at all. Recapture of you now would be too late to make it appear that you had fled. The plan was spoiled, but it isn’t very harmful to them at this stage.”
CAPTAIN FUTURE began an intent search of the observatory. Nothing escaped his keen eyes. Yet he found nothing until he climbed to the eyepiece-platform of the great telescope.
There the red-haired wizard of science bent suddenly over a smear of crumbly white soil upon the platform. He scraped it up and examined it. It was a smear of soft white nitrate rock-soil.
“Is there any white nitrate soil like this around Tartarus?” he asked Ezra Gurney.
“Not that I know of, Captain Future.”
“I’m going out to the Comet to analyze this,” Curt said. “You’d better come along — there’s nothing more here.”
Inside the compact laboratory of the Comet, Curt began a painstaking analysis of the white nitrate. He prepared samples of it with deft, expert skill, subjecting those samples to mysterious chemical treatment and then studying them through the bulky electro-microscope.
All were silent as Captain Future worked. All knew that they were watching the most brilliant scientist in the System, though what he was doing was beyond their knowledge.
He finally straightened, finished with his inspection. His gray eyes were gleaming as he turned to them.
“As I thought!” he exclaimed. “This nitrate came, originally, not from any place on Pluto, but from one of the moons!”
“How can you tell?” Kansu Kane asked puzzledly.
“The soil contains nitrogen-fixing bacterial life,” Curt replied. “It is too cold on Pluto for such bacterial forms as this particular one to flourish. But on the moons, which are a little warmer than Pluto, such bacteria could readily exist. The only place this could come from is one of the moons.”
Curt turned to the grizzled Planet Police marshal. “Ezra, will you go back into Tartarus and bring Rundall Lane and Victor Krim here — also that planetographer, Romer?”
“Sure — won’t take but a few minutes,” retorted the old marshal. Wrapping his furs around him, he plunged outside.
“Then you think Doctor Zarro’s base is on one of the moons?” Joan exclaimed eagerly. “That he’s taken the Brain there?”
“I know Doctor Zarro’s headquarters are on one of the moons now.” Curt affirmed. “The only question is — which one?”
Presently, Ezra Gurney returned. But there was only one man with him — Cole Romer, the scholarly planetographer.
“Where are Krim and Rundall Lane?” Curt demanded.
“Lane went back to Cerberus a short time ago,” the grizzled marshal replied. “As for Victor Krim, none of my men could locate him. We don’t know if he’s returned to Charon, or what.”
Cole Romer was obviously perplexed by the summons, and was looking wonderingly around the famous ship.
Captain Future showed him the smear of nitrate.
“Ever see soil of this peculiar sort on Cerberus or Charon?” he asked.
ROMER’S scholarly face furrowed in doubt a:s he examined the white nitrate.
“I think there’s a soil of this type on Cerberus, near the Interplanetary Prison,” he answered slowly. “I may be wrong, though — I’ve been on Cerberus but a few times, since Warden Lane objects to visitors.”
“Why doesn’t Rundall Lane want visitors?” Curt asked.
“I don’t know. But he doesn’t.”
“That’s true, Captain Future,” confirmed Ezra Gurney. “Lane doesn’t even like us Planet Police coming there. Of course, he’s not a Policeman himself — he’s a political appointee.”
“Do you happen to know if Victor Krim is still in Tartarus?” Curt asked Romer.
“I think he is,” the planetographer said uncertainly, “but I’m not sure. He may be in the fur-hunters’ quarter.”
Captain Future stood, his mind busily assessing the situation. He had come to certain definite conclusions.
He was quite sure that Doctor Zarro was some Earthman of Pluto, who had a secret base here, from which he was broadcasting his ominous warnings, and from which he was sending forth his Legion on their nefarious errands.
Of course, Doctor Zarro did not look like any known Earthman. But Curt was now sure that the appearance of the gaunt, bulging-skulled, burning-eyed prophet was an illusion-disguise of the same nature as that which had made the white-furred Magician look like an Earthman!
And if Doctor Zarro was some Earthman here, he must be an Earthman connected somehow with one of the moons. For the white-furred Magicians had lived on one of the moons, according to old Kiri. Among that mysterious, hidden race must be the arch-plotter’s headquarters. And since water-covered Styx was ruled out, the moon in question must be either Charon or Cerberus.
Thus, Doctor Zarro was an Earthman connected with either Charon or Cerberus. And this clue pointed to Cerberus —
“I’m going to Cerberus in the Comet,” Curt announced. “I’ve some things to ask Rundall Lane. Grag and Otho will go with me. Joan, I want you to stay here and see if you and Ezra can find Victor Krim, if he’s still in Tartarus.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do?” little Kansu Kane asked Curt earnestly. The Brain is a great scientist — I’d do anything to save him.”
“There’s something you can do for me that’s very important, Kansu,” Curt told the little Venusian astronomer. “I want you to ascertain whether any of the fixed stars around the dark star have been displaced since the dark star appeared.”
KANSU stared. “I can do that all right in the Observatory here, though I don’t see just how it will be of much help.”
“It’s an idea I have,” Captain Future said briefly.
The four people left the Comet and plunged out into the whirling snow, wrapping their furs close around them — Kansu Kane heading toward the Observatory again, and Joan and Ezra Gurney and Cole Romer starting back to the domed city.
Captain Future held the throttles as the Comet’s, rocket-tubes spurted white fire, hurling the little teardrop ship up through the b
lizzard. Otho and Grag crowded anxiously beside him in the control room, the robot holding his moon-pup pet, who was wriggling with pleasure at being reunited with its metal master.
In a space of seconds, the little ship had climbed out of the storm into clear space. The nighted, tempest-vague surface of Pluto lay beneath. In the starry void above shone the mottled white disk of Cerberus, while Charon and Styx were setting.
The ship roared straight up through space toward Cerberus, flashing out on wings of fire.
“You think either Rundall Lane or Krim is Doctor Zarro, Chief?” Otho was asking excitedly. “It must be Lane, if that clue in the observatory really came from Cerberus.”
Grag’s great metal form was ominous with menace as the robot’s photo-electric eyes stared up at the largening moon.
“If the man Lane tortured and kidnapped the Brain, he will answer to me,” vowed the metal man.
“Only after I get through with him, Grag,” corrected Otho.
“You? It is your fault Simon is in trouble,”, boomed the robot. “You are bad luck to have near. For master went with you on Mars and master was captured, and we left you there on Pluto with the Brain, and the Brain was kidnapped. It keeps me busy all the time undoing the harm you do.”
Otho was for a moment speechless with sheer rage at this booming indictment.
“This is too much!” choked the android. “It’s bad enough I to have to knock around the System with a loud-mouthed, dim-witted machine, but when that machine starts lecturing me —”
“Come off it, you two!” Captain Future ordered sharply. “Simon is in deadly danger — the whole System is in danger — and all you two can think of is to call each other names!”
“You’re right, Chief,” Otho said loudly. “After all, there’s no sense in arguing with a hunk of metal.”
Grag was about to make furious retort, when his attention was distracted by Eek. The little gray moon-pup had sunk his amazing teeth into a burnished control-lever, had found the taste of the metal good, and was diligently trying to eat the whole handle.
“If we don’t get rid of that beast, there won’t be much left of the Comet,” Otho declared savagely.
“Eek must be hungry — you did not feed him enough while I was gone,” Grag defended.
“I gave him a chunk of copper big enough to choke him. The little pest doesn’t know when he’s full.”
Grag silently projected a telepathic command at Eek, and the moon-pup quit chewing the handle and curled up on the robot’s broad metal shoulder.
Now Cerberus was broadening in the starry vault ahead. The famous prison moon, only a scant two hundred thousand miles from its parent planet, loomed as a dull saffron disk.
Captain Future stared broodingly as he drove the little tear-drop ship into the thin, cold atmosphere of the big moon. He had been here before. And he had sent scores of other men here, for life — interplanetary criminals he had brought to justice, who had been sentenced to the dreaded System penitentiary here.
Now he sent the ship swooping downward in a long glide. He landed the Comet on the rock plain a half mile from the prison. Now he and Grag and Otho stepped out of it into the chill wind that sighed and screamed across the moon.
“Remain here, Grag, and guard the Comet,” Curt told the robot in a low voice.
“But Otho —” Grag began to object.
CURT cut him off. “I’ll be sending Otho back too. I think, with something to do. But I don’t want the ship unguarded for a minute.”
Curt and Otho set off then toward the massive black stronghold, all having set their gravitation equalizers before emerging.
As he walked, Curt’s eyes searched the rocky plain over which they moved. Presently, as they neared the great gates of the prison he saw what he was looking for an outcrop of soft white rock. He picked up a fragment — it was crumbly nitrate.
“The same kind of rare nitrate as that smear that Doctor Zarro left in Tartarus Observatory,” he muttered.
Then he looked around. The only living things in sight were some of the swift little moon-lizards native to small, hostile Cerberus.
“Otho, I want you catch one of those lizards and take it back to the Comet and wait for me,” Captain Future ordered.
“Devils of space; did I come here only for a lizard-hunt?” Otho cried astoundedly. “I don’t understand —”
“You will,” Curt chuckled. “And you won’t find those things easy to catch.”
He left the android to the task, and strode on toward the great gates of Interplanetary Prison.
As he approached the gates, he impinged on an invisible zone of force that set a bell ringing in the guard-tower beside the gate, and flashed brilliant searchlights onto him.
“Stand where you are!” ordered a guard’s voice. “Who are you and what are you doing here? Visitors are forbidden.”
Curt’s tall, lithe figure and tanned, forceful face were bathed in the glare as he calmly held up his left hand.
“Captain Future, to see Rundall Lane, the warden,” he clipped.
“Captain Future?” exclaimed the unseen guard, in a changed voice, staring at the ring on Curt’s band, whose nine “planet” jewels slowly revolved around the glowing “sun” jewel.
That ring, and that name, could open any door in the Solar System, by official command. Yet this guard hesitated.
“I’ll tell the warden you’re here,” he said.
“You’ll admit me at once!” snapped Curt. “Open these gates!”
The tremendous prestige and authority embodied in this tall, red-haired young man overcame the guard’s reluctance.
The great gates, moved by humming atomic motors, swung slowly open, and then closed again as Captain Future entered.
“Take me to the warden’s office,” he ordered crisply.
“Yes, Captain Future — this way,” faltered the man.
Rundall Lane, the thin, elderly warden of Interplanetary Prison, sprang nervously to his feet as Curt entered.
“Captain Future!” he exclaimed startledly. Dismay was plain on his face. “What are you doing here? We have a rule against visitors —”
“Forget your rules,” Curt said sharply. “I’m here on the trail of Doctor Zarro.”
“Doctor Zarro?” echoed Lane in apparent amazement. “But you don’t think that his base is on Cerberus?”
“I don’t know yet,” Curt declared. “But some things point that way.”
HE WAS watching Rundall Lane closely. The uneasiness of this man, an Earth politician who had schemed himself into appointment as warden here, seemed suspicious to Curt. Why did Lane seem so afraid of him?
“I’ve reason to believe,” Curt said, choosing his words, “that the white-furred creatures like the dead one I showed you in Tartarus, the Magicians, inhabit either this moon or Charon.”
“It must be Charon, then!” Rundall Lane exclaimed. “There’s nothing on Cerberus except this prison.”
“How can you know?” Curt demanded. “You told me before that you didn’t know what was on the rest of this moon.”
“I don’t, but my guards do know most of it,” Lane explained quickly. “Some of them have been here for years. They’ve never seen any such race as you showed me.”
“I want to talk to your guards,” Captain Future said coldly. “But first, there’s another matter — the two former prisoners here, Roj and Kallak, who are now leaders of Doctor Zarro’s Legion. How did they escape from here?”
“I told you we don’t know. We just found them gone one morning.”
Curt’s eyes narrowed. “Let me see the records on those two,” he demanded.
Reluctantly, Rundall Lane went to a big cabinet. Inside it were several thousand little flat metal filing-cases, on the edge of each of which glowed a lighted number.
Curt knew the system. Each number corresponded to the glowing badge-number worn by a prisoner, badge and file being in radio-rapport with each other while the prisoner was serving time
in the prison.
Lane took out two files whose numbers were dark.
Here are the files on Roj and Kallak, but you’ll find that we’ve no real information about their escape,” he said.
Curt, riffling through the records in the two files, soon discovered that that was true. Then as he looked up, he saw that there were scores of files in the cabinet whose numbers were dark.
“Do all those dark numbers represent prisoners who have escaped?” he demanded.
“Yes,” answered Rundall Lane uneasily. “As soon as they get outside the force-zone of the prison, it breaks the radio-rapport between their badges and our telltales here, to warn us.”
“How did they all get away?” Curt asked. “It’s unheard of for even one man to escape here, let alone so many as that.”
“We haven’t any idea of how they’re getting away!” Lane affirmed. “It’s an unfathomable mystery.”
“Have all these escapes been reported to the System Government?”
Lane twisted uncomfortably. “No, we haven’t reported them,” he said desperately. “It would mean losing my job. So I’ve kept it quiet, hoping to recapture the escaped prisoners. You won’t report me, will you, Captain Future?” he begged.
“I certainly will!” blazed Curt Newton. “You have let scores of the most vicious criminals loose on the System, either by carelessness or deliberate design. You’re not the man for this place.”
SUSPICION was strong in Curt’s mind, now — suspicion of this political jobholder he had already proved derelict to his duty.
“Call in your guards,” he ordered harshly. “I’ve some things to ask them.”
“I’ll have to get them,” Lane replied unhappily. “I’ll only be a moment.”
The warden went out of the little office building and Captain Future bent to examine more of the records in the cabinet.
The more be examined, the more he became convinced of Lane’s wrong-doing. The scores of prisoners who had escaped had apparently done so through complicity. Nothing else was possible.
Captain Future 02 - Calling Captain Future (Spring 1940) Page 11