After another moment, the Sverd turned and walked slowly away from them, in the direction from which he had come.
“But, Curt,” asked Joan insistently, “what did you do?”
“Merely turned on the invisibility machine I had been perfecting.”
Joan shook her head. “I remember the invisibility device you used formerly. It created an intense electromagnetic field that deflected light rays around you, so that no one could see you. But because no light hit your own eyes, you couldn’t see anyone else either. Yet we could see the Sverd.”
“This device worked on a different principle,” explained Curt. “It bathed our bodies in a penetrating radiation of the nature of X-rays. Most of the light waves that came toward us lost their independent existence as light and became merely modulations of the penetrating waves. In other words, our bodies became practically transparent to light.”
“But not completely. A tiny part of the light was reflected, and could be noticed, especially if we moved rapidly. We would seem to glitter slightly, just as the Sverd seemed to glitter. Of course, the reason his figure became dim is that most of the light that came from his body to us was also transformed into modulatory waves.”
“But we did see him,” objected Joan. “Whereas he didn’t see us at all.”
“Our eyes, being under the influence of the penetrating radiations, could to some extent detect the modulated light waves. His couldn’t.”
Curt switched off the invisibility machine, and the objects about them sprang back into their usual bright sharpness.
“Now,” he decided, “we’ve got some more apparatus to construct in a hurry. But with the use of atomic motors, it shouldn’t take us too long.”
During the next few days, both Curt and Joan worked feverishly. First they created a metal shell in the shape of a Sverd. Curt had taken ordinary types of clay and smelted them to recover the aluminum. This he fused with small quantities of other elements to produce a metal alloy that was extremely light, and yet harder than any steel. Next he hammered the alloy into shape.
“Luckily, the neutral color of the alloy is about the same as that of the Sverds,” he said. “We won’t have to depend on a paint that might wear or chip off. As for the muscular strength — well, Grag has strong muscles, and we’ll pattern our synthetic Sverd’s after his, making them larger though, and taking advantage of certain improvements since the time Grag was constructed.”
When the synthetic Sverd was completed, Curt slipped into the compartment that he had built into the body for himself, and snapped the door shut behind him. Joan, seeing the great beast-like body move about, was conscious of a feeling of fear, almost as if it were a real Sverd she were watching. There might be trifling imperfections in the metal creature’s appearance, but she was convinced that no human being would stare at it long enough to find them.
“As for the Sverds themselves,” judged Curt, “I think that they’ll be easiest of all to fool. Acting under the orders of Gorma Hass, and having very little mind of their own, they’ll probably accept me without hesitation as one of their own kind.”
IN THIS, as they were to discover, Curt was correct. That same day, as Curt approached the colony of soldiers sent to the planet by Gorma Hass, he was greeted with averted glances. The soldiers apparently had no love for their non-human allies. But the Sverds themselves paid their apparent comrade little attention.
Only when Curt was certain that he himself would pass as a Sverd did he venture to bring Joan with him as a pretended captive. He was surprised how little trouble he had.
No one spoke to him, either to give orders or accept them. The Sverds, as Curt had judged, received their directions by telepathic means directly from Gorma Hass. He himself could do as he pleased provided he patterned his actions in general after those of the real Sverds.
As the days passed, he became accustomed to living within his strange metal shell. He dared leave it only for a few moments at night, when he was sure no one would see him. But there was really no need to do so at all. He had taken the precaution to supply the inside of the shell with both food and water, and if occasionally the strange noises of a man eating or drinking came from the Sverd, no one cared to examine the matter too closely.
Meanwhile, he rejoiced in a physical strength that not even Grag could match. It required but the touch of his finger on a stud for him to plunge one of his metal fists through a brick wall, or to leap dozens of yards into the air. In case of necessity, he could use this strength to impress any one who might suspect his true nature.
One characteristic of the real Sverds, however, he lacked. Not existing, as they did, in a plane of vibration different from the usual one, he was unable to pass through material objects, and he was vulnerable to weapons that were sufficiently powerful. But no one troubled to observe him with care, and these deviations from the normal were not noted.
A few days after he had joined the company of the real Sverds, Curt found them preparing to leave. A dozen large space ships, each filled with human soldiers, had landed on the planet for a short stay. Judging from the conversations he overheard, these ships, along with others, would be sent to attack some military objective in a planet populated by bird-men.
When the ships finally took off again, there was a real Sverd on board each. One ship contained in addition Curt and Joan.
As they approached the planet of the bird-men, Curt could see it clearly through the visor plates of the space ship, a shining rocky sphere that reminded him of his own moon. Then the rockets began to blast, decelerating.
Curt’s own ship was approaching the planet at a tangent instead of head on, and to that fact he and Joan, as well as the soldiers in the ship, were to owe their lives. For as they descended into the planet’s thin atmosphere, suddenly the rockets ceased blasting.
“What’s happened?” cried Joan.
The question was addressed to Curt, but one of the soldiers, not dreaming that she would speak to a Sverd, took it upon himself to answer. “Some minor trouble in the engine,” he said carelessly. “It’ll be fixed in a couple of minutes.”
But Joan was staring at the other ships. “Their rockets have stopped blasting too!”
“What’s that?” The soldier’s usually pink Fomalhautian face was white with fear, “Then it may be some enemy trick! We’ll crash!”
MEN were already running in panic about the ship. Curt Newton, in his metal shell, thrust himself through the milling crowd and made for the engine room.
“If it’s effective on all the ships, it must be a damping ray,” he thought. “And if it’s the kind Simon and I have invented — well and good! But if it’s something new —”
He shrugged within his metal shell. If it were a new type of ray he knew that he would not be able to find suitable protection against it before the ship crashed.
In the engine room the captain and several smudge-faced engineers, having as they thought found a clue to the trouble, were working excitedly on the explosion chambers. Curt threw them, aside, and slammed the chamber doors shut. Then he removed from his belt one of the pistol-like instruments, which he, in imitation of the real Sverds, carried with him.
He adjusted a dial on one side and pointed the instrument at the explosion chamber. Then, in front of the muzzle he held a piece of wood, and pulled the trigger. A thick black smoke at once surrounded the chamber. And from within there came the faint explosion of atomic fuel.
“A Sverd who understands how an atomic engine works!” cried the captain, “I thought they were all dull-witted animals!”
“He may be working directly under orders from Gorma Hass,” said one of the engineers. “He may not be using his own brains at all.”
“He seems to know what he’s doing!”
“You can thank your lucky stars for that,” thought Curt, as he blasted away at the other chambers. The black smoke was filling the room, and everywhere that it spread, the chambers sprang into action once more. Soon the braking rocke
ts were functioning at full efficiency.
Curt remained in the engine room until the ship had landed, then he returned to Joan. The soldiers were already pouring out into the open air. One of them, the pink-skinned Fomalhautian who had at first proclaimed that there was no danger, had taken a liking to Joan, and had stayed in the ship in an attempt to persuade her to accompany him. But at sight of the grim look of purpose about the approaching Sverd, he turned and ran. “What happened?” whispered Joan. “The engines failed because an atom-damping ray had been used. I surrounded them with a thick black carbon smoke. Carbon absorbs the damping rays, and the engines were able to operate again.”
“But how could you form a smoke so quickly?”
Curt indicated the metal instrument at his belt. “This is an ordinary heat-ray pistol, whose operation does not depend on sub-atomic processes. I adjusted it to low temperature and let it act on a piece of wood. Without enough air for complete combustion, only the hydrogen burned away, leaving the carbon behind. Much the same thing happened in the explosion of the ancient black-smoke type of explosives.”
Out in the open, the soldiers, together with the genuine Sverd who had been in the ship, were preparing for an attack. Curt marched out and silently joined them. It came to him as something of a shock when he saw who their opponents were, Otho, Grag, and the star-captains!
CURT watched with great interest the fight that ensued. He knew that the atom-pistols were useless within the range of action of the damping-ray machine, and he was amused to see the soldiers run when Grag roared his challenge.
Then he saw the other, the genuine Sverd, slowly moving forward, and he knew that it was time he himself went into action. Long before, Gorma Hass must have been impressed on the Sverds that they must help their human companions when these latter proved unable to conquer their own difficulties. Help in this case would take the form of exterminating Otho, Grag, and the others.
But the Sverds did not harm prisoners. Otho and his companions must be taken prisoner before the Sverd could get into action.
He overtook the Sverd, passed through the ranks of soldiers, and found himself facing Grag.
Grag came at him with a bellow of anger. Curt stretched out his metal hands, grasped the mighty robot, and tucked him under one of his own great arms. He could feel the robot squirming furiously, but Grag’s strength was not nearly equal to his.
Then Curt strode on toward the others. After what they had just seen, Otho and the star-captains were in a daze. In a moment, the unequal struggle was over.
Within his metal shell, Curt grinned to himself at the woeful faces of his prisoners.
Chapter 15: Lesson in Robot Anatomy
IN THE prison to which they had been brought, Grag and Otho stared moodily at each other and at the star-captains. At their feet played the two pets, Oog and Eek. Grag and Otho were not quite sure why they had been permitted to keep the animals.
“So,” observed Otho bitterly, “the great Grag was going to tear a Sverd to pieces as soon as he got his hands on one!”
“They’re stronger than I thought,” muttered Grag. “Also, Gorma Hass is cleverer than you thought. That damping-ray machine of yours was going to ruin his plans. Look what it got us into!”
“It didn’t get us into anything,” retorted Otho. “If not for the machine, we’d have been killed or taken prisoner even sooner.”
“Oh, sure. But when the Chief constructed a damping-ray machine, he didn’t have to make excuses afterward. Any more clever ideas?”
“Hundreds of them.” Otho began to pace back and forth excitedly. “And one of them is first class. It’s an idea for an escape.”
“From this place?” Grag waved a long metal arm. They were in a nearly cubical room, forty feet high, and fifty feet in each of the other dimensions. What windows the room possessed were small and close to the ceiling. And the doors and walls were of some metal whose nature they did not know. But Grag had already tested it and found that it would not yield to his strength.
“Yes, from this place. The windows are a little more than thirty feet from the floor. I can make the leap easily, and then squeeze through to the outside.”
“You can. But how about the rest of us? How about me, for instance?”
“I can take you with me,” declared Otho.
Otho was pleased to see the rest of them stare at him as if there were something wrong with his mind. He himself knew that there wasn’t. He had a foolproof idea this time. What a difference there would be in their expressions when they heard it!
“This,” said Grag, “is the first time I ever heard of a son of a test-tube going crazy!”
“I thought,” returned Otho, “that you might have enough brains to think of the idea yourself. But as you haven’t, I see that I’ll have to explain it to you. You forget, Grag, that you’re made of detachable parts.”
“Keep your insults to yourself, you gutta-percha guttersnipe!”
“I’m not trying to be insulting. The idea is simply to take you apart, and then for me to carry each part up to the windows and outside. Once you’re out of here, I’ll put you together again. Then you can overpower a guard —”
“What?” cried Grag. “And have you give me the laugh for the rest of your unnatural life? Never!”
“Oh, well,” sighed Otho, “if you consider your pride more important than our freezing ourselves, and getting the better of Gorma Hass —” he shrugged.
The star-captains had not hitherto interfered in the argument. Now Hol Jor interrupted, “I remember once when I was in danger of capture I escaped with important information by disguising myself as a woman, Can you imagine me, Hol Jor, wearing a dress? But my escape resulted in the winning of a great battle.”
“I too, remember,” said Ber Del, “how in my younger days, while in the intelligence division of the Vegan Army, I worked as a menial servant, doing the most degrading and laborious tasks.”
“I don’t remember anything of the kind,” growled Ki Illok, “but I do know that if I were in Grag’s place, I’d let myself be dismantled, and that would be the end of it.”
“No,” remarked Otho, “we mustn’t try to persuade Grag to do anything that would hurt his dignity.”
Grag glowered, but they could see that his resistance had weakened. “All right,” he said finally, “I’ll do it! But make it fast, and let’s get it over with!”
HOURS later, after night had fallen, Otho leaped for the window. He made it with feet to spare. Then he dropped lightly to the ground outside, deposited both of Grag’s arms, and returned to the others. Next he brought out Grag’s legs, then the metal head, and finally the giant body. This last caused him some trouble, and only after considerable twisting and tugging did he manage to get it through the narrow space of the window. As he sprang down, it slipped from his grasp and crashed against the ground.
“Careful, you fool,” growled Grag’s head, “Don’t try to smash up my insides.”
Otho fitted the head to the body, and then began to fasten the right arm back in place. He had barely finished doing so when he heard a cry in back of him. “The prisoners! They’re escaping!”
Otho turned swiftly, A soldier who was raising an atom-pistol to firing position staggered back as the android’s incredibly rapid fist smashed into his jaw. Before his companion could realize what was happening, Otho had disposed of him likewise. But there was another pair of soldiers behind them, and even Otho could not reach them in time to prevent their firing.
Then a metal object sailed through the air. Grag’s leg caught one soldier behind the ear, his left arm caught another across the chest. Both men went down, crushed under the force of the terrific blows.
“Bring back my arm and leg,” ordered Grag fiercely. “Hurry!”
Otho returned the two objects to the angry robot. Grag, with his one useful arm, quickly attached his own legs, while Otho worked on the other arm. In a few seconds Grag arose, none the worse for his experience.
&nbs
p; In front of the prison door was a group of about a dozen soldiers, summoned by the alarm. Otho was upon them before they knew what was happening, and then the slower Grag joined the fray. In a few seconds, those who were still on their feet were running as rapidly as those feet could take them. Grag had one of his arms blasted partly away by a beam from an atom-pistol, and Otho’s plastic face was slightly scorched by a heat-ray, but otherwise they had suffered no damage.
Otho’s quick hands ran over the bodies of the unconscious soldiers. “Ah, here are the keys!”
He moved so rapidly toward the door that only Grag’s photoelectric eyes could have noted what he was doing. Then the door swung open. The first one out was his pet, Oog, who sprang at him gleefully.
“Hurry,” came Otho’s voice urgently. “We have to be away before they return.”
They could hear alarm bells ringing in the darkness, and see signal lights flashing all about them. It was a question of little more than seconds before soldiers would be back in force, perhaps accompanied by the feared Sverds.
“Where to?” asked Ber Del.
“The space field, where they’re keeping the Comet. Unless it’s very heavily guarded, we can capture it by a surprise attack.”
They set off, Otho leading the way. Several times they passed groups of soldiers headed for the prison, but Otho’s quick eyes caught sight of them first, and they were enabled to hide in the shadows while the soldiers passed. A single soldier who thought he saw some one lurking in the darkness, and showed curiosity about it, received a tap on the head from Grag and was curious no more.
THERE were half a dozen ships at the space field, the Comet conspicuous among them because of its odd tear-drop shape. And to the dismay of Otho and Grag, there was a guard of several hundred soldiers surrounding the ship.
“There’s no hope,” declared Grag gloomily.
Otho’s face, scorched as it was, suddenly brightened. “I think I can manage a temporary disguise,” he said.
Captain Future 14 - Worlds to Come (Spring 1943) Page 9