Captain Future 10 - Outlaws of the Moon (Spring 1942)

by Edmond Hamilton

A squad of the dark-uniformed officers was charging out from a side street toward Captain Future’s hurrying little band.

  “Their atom-guns won’t work now — we can smash through them with our fists!”

  Curt cried to his comrades. “But hurry!”

  The Planet Police squad was not even trying to use its atom-guns, evidently having already discovered that they were as dead as everything else that depended on atomic power. Instead, the men ran forward to seize the Futuremen bodily.

  Curt and his followers waded into their opponents with fists flying. They battered a way through the line that tried desperately to halt them.

  “King’s tower is only two more blocks away!” Wissler exclaimed.

  “But more police are coming!” Joan cried, pointing ahead.

  The alarm that had raced through the streets by word of mouth had rapidly brought more officers. Several squads now barred the wav.

  “Let me handle those fellows!” Grag boomed loudly.

  THE big robot was in the forefront as Curt’s band fought their way through. The Planet Police officers showered Grag with blows from their gun butts, blows that fell without effect on his metal figure. He swept a path through their ranks, great arms flailing and scattering them like straw.

  Captain Future’s band was now at the entrance of the big tower, atop which loomed Larsen King’s citadel in the sky. The elevators were dead. They started up the winding stairway, the battered Planet Police seeking to follow them.

  “Hold those officers back, Grag!” Curt yelled to the robot.

  Grag planted himself on the narrow stairs, facing downward. The police surged up at him, hitting him with gun barrels, metal bars and numerous other heavy objects, but without the slightest effect. Grag disdainfully extended his mighty arms and almost boredly pushed his attackers back down the stairs.

  “Go on, Chief — I can hold ‘em here forever!” he yelled up.

  A rising clamor of alarm showed that the audacious return of the Futuremen was galvanizing New York and when Curt and his band raced up the last stair toward the sunlit terrace of Larsen King’s sky-castle, they found that news of their arrival had preceded them.

  For Gil Strike stood at the top of the stairs, his hard, hawklike face dark and dangerous, as he tipped a massive metal table with the intention of sending it crashing down upon their heads.

  “Look out, Chief!” yelled Otho in frantic warning.

  But Curt Newton was lunging up the stairs in a tremendous sprint. It brought him to Strike before the criminal could set free the murderous object.

  Captain Future tore Strike around. They grappled, Strike furiously seeking to hammer in Curt’s skull with the butt of a useless atom-pistol. Curt ripped the gun from his hand, sent the man spinning back across the terrace toward the stairs.”

  Strike screamed as he caromed off the massive upended table and tumbled backward down the steps. His head struck a metal step twenty feet below with a cracking thud, and he sprawled motionless.

  Curt hastened down and bent over Strike’s unmoving form for a few moments. He finally straightened.

  “He’s dead,” Captain Future said grimly.

  He plunged backup and across the terrace, into the luxurious interior of the tower-top citadel. Then he and his band halted.

  Larsen King stood confronting them with folded arms, his brusque, harsh face and cold black eyes defiant.

  “You can’t get away with whatever you’re planning, Captain Future!” King snapped. “You’re already outlawed for murder. You can’t escape from this building, no matter what you may do to me.”

  Otho’s slant green eyes flamed at King.

  “We’ll make you confess that you and Strike murdered the President!” hissed the android. “Wissler is going to testify in our behalf.”

  “Bah! Wissler’s charges will carry no weight,” jeered the unscrupulous promoter. “That Ear-record proved that you killed President Carthew, Captain Future!”

  “He’s right, lad,” muttered the Brain. “That faked Ear record will outweigh Wissler’s testimony.”

  “Not when I produce the real Ear-record of my conversation with the President!” Captain Future said grimly.

  HE SHOWED them a small object in his hand — a spool of steel tape, of the type used to record a sound-track.

  “This is the true record, King! I just removed it from Strike’s pocket!”

  Larsen King’s eyes widened with mingled incredulity and alarm.

  “You’re lying!” he burst out. “I told Strike to destroy —”

  He stopped, realizing what he was saying. His face grew deathly pale.

  Curt Newton finished the story.

  “You told Strike to destroy the real Ear-record. I knew that, King. But I was gambling that Strike hadn’t destroyed the real record. I was certain he would keep it to give him a hold over you!”

  Curt’s grim voice swept bleakly on.

  “Strike didn’t trust you, King. I knew, from what Wissler told me, that Strike was afraid you’d cheat him out of his share of the Moon’s radium profits. So I figured Strike would keep the bonafide Ear-record to hold over your head, in case you did try to cheat him. And I figured rightly!”

  “Chief, I don’t understand!” gasped Otho. “Why would Strike keep the real record? Wouldn’t it prove that he himself killed the President, if anyone got hold of it?”

  Curt shook his head.

  “No, there’s no proof in the record that Strike killed Carthew by remote-control. But there is proof in that record that I didn’t kill President Carthew; that Carthew and Larsen King had an angry argument. Strike could hold the thing over King’s head, if he had to, without implicating himself directly.”

  Captain Future’s hard accents raked the ruthless promoter who stood there now, his face livid, trembling with rage.

  “This proves my innocence of the murder, King. This proves that the President was killed by a telautomaton. A thorough Planet Police investigation will trace that telautomaton to you. And that, plus Wissler’s testimony —”

  Larsen King, raging, lunged forward to seize the incriminating spool of steel tape from Curt Newton’s hand. But Otho seized the promoter, roughly and held him back.

  “Don’t be in a hurry, King!” hissed the android. “You’re not going any place anymore — except out to Interplanetary Prison on Pluto’s moon for the rest of your worthless life!”

  Six hours later, power suddenly returned to the frozen Earth. The big atomic-power plants began suddenly to function again. Wheels started whirring once more, spaceships found themselves able to take off, lights came on with a brilliant burst of splendor in darkened New York.

  From high in Government Tower, Curt Newton saw the lights go on. He breathed a sigh of relief. Hours before, he had flashed a televisor-message to Ezra Gurney’s detachment guarding the dome in Great North Chasm. Curt had directed his loyal followers to make their way down to the lunar underworld, shut off the wave-transmitter that had blacked out all power.

  Much had happened, in those crucial hours. Word had gone out, to the System that the Futuremen had been cleared beyond all doubt of the crime ascribed to them. They were no longer outlaws. Larsen King himself was in prison, awaiting trial for the crime.

  The System Council had swiftly revoked the lunar concession of King’s company. The Council had unanimously adopted Captain Future’s earnest suggestion that the lunar radium be preserved for future emergencies.

  Looking out over New York’s brilliant panorama now, Curt Newton felt himself relaxing at last.

  “Well — it’s all over,” he said. “And I hope that we never see Earth blacked out again.”

  HALK ANDERS, chief of the Planet Police, and young North Bonnel, the late President Carthew’s assistant, glanced miserably at the assembled Futuremen.

  “I’d still feel better if you’d kick me,” muttered the Police, commander shamefacedly. “We ought to have known better, than to go out and make big fools of ourselves
by what we did to you.”

  “Forget” it,” Otho said grandiloquently. “I — even I — can make mistakes!”

  He turned to Captain Future with a satisfied air.

  “Chief, can’t we go home to the Moon laboratory now we’re free?”

  “You’ve had your fill of adventure for once, eh?” grinned Curt.

  “I’ll tell the starry universe I have!” swore Otho. “When I get back to the Moon laboratory, I’m going to sit down and not leave the place for five years. All I want is peace and quiet.”

  “Here, too!” rumbled Grag. “Anybody that tries to get me away from the old home will have a tough job. No more trouble hunting for me!”

  Ezra Gurney scoffed at the Futuremen.

  “I’ve heard you talkin’ that way before. But you always get bored and start lookin’ for adventure.”

  “Not this time!” vowed Otho. “Little Otho has had enough!”

  But somewhere in his subconscious mind, he had his mental fingers crossed.

  Chapter 16: Epilogue

  THE vast Western Sea of the planet Jupiter glittered bluely under the light of the tiny Sun. At one point, there rose from the surface a small, rocky island. Down through space, there shot with screaming roar of rockets a small space flyer. Captain Future was alone in the little craft.

  He brought it hastily down to a landing by the island shore. Nearby the Comet was already parked. Curt hastened toward the craft, and the Brain came gliding to meet him.

  “I got your message, Simon!” Curt said hastily. “I used our little experimental flyer to come on at once. What’s wrong?”

  The Brain answered hurriedly.

  “Otho and Grag and Joan Randall are trapped down there at the floor of the sea.”

  “How the devil did they get here?” Curt cried bewilderedly. “I thought you four made this trip to Jupiter, in order to arrange for the transfer of the Lunarian population to the moon Europa.”

  “Yes, that’s what we came for,” the Brain admitted. “And we arranged to have most of that jungle moon off Jupiter set aside for the Lunarians. They’ll have a fine home there and be able to live in the Sun again, just as they did ages ago. Everything’s all ready for them to migrate.”

  “You still haven’t explained how the others got down there!” Curt Newton interrupted, pointing at the heaving blue ocean.

  “Well, it was Otho’s idea —” Simon Wright began reluctantly.

  “I’ll bet it was!” Curt burst out. “Go on!”

  “Otho said we’d never had an opportunity to explore the ancient Jovian ruins submerged under this sea, and that now was a good time,” the Brain continued. “Grag approved the idea, and I was curious about the ruins myself. They improvised a diving bell from one of the Comet’s air-tanks, and went down in it. Joan insisted on going along with them.”

  “They didn’t come back up,” Simon concluded. “Finally I got worried, for you know there’s a fierce anthropoidal sub-sea race in these oceans. I didn’t dare take the Comet down — couldn’t risk it. So I decided to call you at once.”

  Captain Future exploded.

  “That crazy android! I might have known he’d pull something like this! When I get my hands on him —”

  Curt was already donning a space-suit. He screwed its helmet tight, grasped his proton-pistol, and strode into the water.

  The lead soles of the suit held him on the sea floor as he marched down an oozy slope. Flame-fish and hydras swam past him in the green deeps. The space-suit was a perfect diving suit for his purpose. He strode deeper and deeper until he glimpsed a bright gleam of light ahead.

  It came from the Futuremen’s diving bell. The improvised bell was an upright cylinder of transparent metal, that stood now amid crumbling black ruins which were half covered by ooze. Curt glimpsed Otho, Grag and Joan clearly, inside the bell, which had a makeshift rocket tube for ascending.

  The diving bell had been fastened tightly to the ocean’s slippery floor. Chains attached to the bell’s underside had been securely pegged down. And around it were circling a dozen fiercely excited sub-sea men, of the race long known to inhabit the depths of Jupiter’s waters.

  The scaled, anthropoidal green monsters glimpsed Curt and rushed toward him, leveling their rude spears.

  CAPTAIN FUTURE’S proton-pistol flashed streaks of flaming force through the water. The anthropoidal seamen fell back in alarm. Curt tired again over their heads. The now terrified creatures darted away in a panic through the green depths.

  “Now for that crack-brain android and robot!” Curt muttered, striding toward the prisoned diving bell.

  He put his hand against it, so that sound would carry to him by conduction.

  “Are you people all right?”

  Otho, Grag and Joan all shouted at once.

  “Sure, we’re all right, Chief!” cried Otho. “But we’re darned glad to see you come to release us!”

  “What are you talking about?” Curt retorted coolly. “I’m not going to release you. You got yourselves into this pickle. Now get out of it.”

  “Aw, Chief, have a heart!” Grag pleaded. “We know we had no business poking around down here, but we’ll never do it again.”

  “No, cross my heart!” vowed Otho. “Once I get out of this and back to the Moon laboratory, I’ll never hunt trouble again. So help me!”

  “You’ve always played that same tune,” Captain Future said darkly.

  “Yes, but this time I mean it!” the android pleaded.

  “All right. I guess you’ve had your lesson,” growled Curt Newton.

  He dug loose the pegs with which the sea-men had pinned the bell to the ocean floor. Hastily, Otho operated the makeshift rocket-power of the diving bell. It rose swiftly to the surface of the sea.

  When Captain Future tramped up out of the water onto the island shore, the others were already there awaiting him. Otho eagerly held out a tablet of stone inscribed with a half crumbled map.

  “Look at this, Chief — we got hold of it down in those submerged ruins!” the android exclaimed excitedly. “It’s a map of the ancient Jovian civilization. And it shows they had a big city west of the Fire Sea here — a city that might still be intact!”

  “What about it?” Curt demanded, his eyes narrowing ominously.

  Otho rushed blithely on.

  “Well, I know the Fire Sea region is dangerous.

  But I thought as long as we were here, we might go over there and explore for the ancient city. And —”

  He suddenly saw Captain Future’s face. Otho turned and dived hastily for the Comet.

  THE END

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