Captain Future 15 - The Star of Dread (Summer 1943)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “Two and a half — three — four,” the Brain calmly read on.

  A sickening vertigo rapidly invaded Curt Newton. He shook his head to clear it, and stubbornly opened the throttle a trifle further.

  “Five — six —”

  “Six light-speeds already,” gasped Ezra Gurney. “I’ll say we ain’t wastin’ any time now.”

  The Lightning was vibrating in every plate now, as the cruiser raced away from the Solar System at a velocity six times that of light.

  AHEAD of them, the vault of space was awesome. A vast blackness spangled with the burning hosts of millions on millions of swarming suns that are the galaxy’s glory. Pulsing in supernal splendor, those hiving stars were densest along that main axis of the lenticular galaxy which had once been called the Milky Way.

  And there in the glorious fire-streams of the Milky Way burned that white and lonely star toward which the shuddering cruiser was hurtling. Far, far away and strangely solitary looked the ancient mystery star of Deneb.

  “Seven — seven and a half —”

  The creaking of protesting girders became abruptly a terrifying booming sound.

  “Check the thrust-struts, Grag,” Curt called over his shoulder, his brow damp as he hunched over the controls.

  Grag’s bellowing voice reached him a moment later over the creak and boom. “Cut acceleration a little, Chief, for space’s sake! These thrust-struts are beginning to crumple.”

  Unwillingly, even in the face of that imminent peril, Curt Newton eased back the throttle a little. The din of protesting beams dwindled.

  “In the name of all that’s holy, take it a little easier, chief,” exclaimed Otho. “We can’t build up to full speed in just a couple of hours.”

  Curt Newton looked up with a haggard smile. “Sorry, I guess I’m a little too anxious.”

  “Who’s blamin’ you?” Ezra Gurney demanded. “Space knows we all got plenty to be anxious about, and you the most of us all.”

  For hour upon hour, the Lightning steadily accelerated its enormous speed. Travelling already at dozens of times the velocity of light, it was still only crawling by comparison with the huge extent of space they must traverse.

  They must thread across almost the whole galaxy — a distance that light itself took six hundred and fifty years to cross!

  “The Comet must be halfway to Deneb by now,” Curt Newton muttered. “Or maybe they’ve met disaster. Norton, bold as he is, knows little about navigating interstellar space, about ether-currents and space-drift and so on.”

  “Cap’n Future, you’d be better off to quit torturin’ yourself imaginin’ things and get some sleep,” advised Ezra. “You been workin’ like a madman these last few days and you must be about out on your feet.”

  Yet before Curt Newton would relinquish command of the ship to Otho, he inspected the big thrust-struts that had been strained by their first rush.

  “They’ll hold if we don’t put any undue strain on them,” he declared. “Use a velvet touch on that throttle, Otho.”

  Curt Newton slept through two watches, before the Futuremen would awake him. He rose to find that the vista outside had greatly changed.

  The Lightning was deep in the galaxy’s swarm of suns! All around them stretched a stupefying vista of red, white, green and blue stars — of ponderous star-clusters that contained thousands of bright suns, of distant nebulae glowing like great burning clouds.

  Chapter 5: Caught in a Trap

  NOW the cruiser’s velocity was far above one hundred light speeds. They moved perceptibly through the vast swarm of stars. Curt Newton’s eyes eagerly sought Deneb’s white beacon as he replaced Grag at the controls. “We’re getting near some bad currents if those etherometers are right,” the robot boomed as he yielded his place. “I wish to space we had the Comet’s instruments to guide us.”

  Curt Newton’s eyes swept the dials. They had installed makeshift navigational instruments in the Lightning, but they were not nearly so accurate and reliable as those of their own ship.

  “I’ll watch it, Grag,” he nodded. He peered forward. “We’ll swing wide of those two star-clusters ahead. You always run into devils’ currents if you try to go between two close clusters.”

  Deneb was still a magnet to his eyes, as the cruiser flashed on with still steadily-mounting speed. Curt Newton felt a bitter irony in the sight. He had long dreamed of voyaging to far, mysterious Deneb, but he had not thought to do it like this — in a weakened, makeshift ship and with disaster hanging upon the success or failure of his voyage.

  The prow of the speeding cruiser began to turn erratically away from Deneb. Captain Future did not need the etherometers to tell him that they were running into ether-currents, those great flowing tides of the luminiferous ether which were the bane and dread of interstellar travel.

  He brought the Lightning sharply back to its course, veering it by releasing the propulsive vibrations from only half the drive-ring. But the pointers of the etherometers were still bobbing crazily. And a moment later, the cruiser wobbled badly, gyrated dizzily, and then started tumbling through space toward the left.

  “Jumping devils of Jupiter,” yelped Otho, scrambling into the control-room with the others behind him. “What’s going on?”

  “Ether-currents, and bad ones,” Curt Newton flung over his shoulder without turning his head. His hands were gripping the twin controls of the vibration-drive, waiting for a chance to fling the ship free with a burst of power. “Hold tight, everybody.”

  In its gyrations, the prow of the Lightning had pointed again toward Deneb. Instantly, Captain Future had opened the throttle wide.

  Crack — crash! The cruiser shook and staggered like a wounded bird, and for a moment Curt thought that the whole hull had collapsed.

  “Cut the power,” came Ezra’s wild yell from aft. “The thrust-struts have crumpled!”

  Curt Newton slammed the throttle shut. With its propulsive power now cut off, the Lightning was carried helplessly as a chip in a millrace by the sweeping, vast ether-currents that had gripped it.

  Captain Future plunged back to the cabin and eye-room. The sight that met his eyes was one to bring utter dismay. The thrust-struts, despite their reinforcements, had collapsed like flimsy tin under the tremendous kick-back of that sudden surge of power.

  “Blast it, I knew this would happen,” bellowed Grag. “This ship wasn’t built to take the power we’ve been using.”

  “It’s my fault,” Curt said quietly. “I used too much power in my effort to escape the currents.”

  They were clutching stanchions as they conferred, for the Lightning was rolling over and over as the ether-currents carried it on through empty space toward unguessable destination. The hull of the crippled cruiser rattled and drummed as small bits of matter bombarded it from outside.

  The Brain, peering from a window, called sharply. “It’s worse than I thought. We’re being carried into a big maelstrom of ether-currents. Meteoric and other debris are hitting the hull.”

  The Futuremen looked at each other grimly. All realized the peril of those great space-maelstroms which are rarely met with but which are the terror of interstellar space. Currents that flowed into those whirlpools brought debris from all over the galaxy, to churn and grind together.

  “We won’t last long if we’re swept into the heart of the ether-maelstrom,” Curt Newton declared. “Yet if we try to use power to get out of these currents, well tear open the hull itself from the thrust.”

  “Couldn’t we rebuild and reinforce those thrust-struts somehow?” Otho asked anxiously.

  “How?” Captain Future demanded. “We’d need massive girders to build new struts that would hold, and where are we going to get them?”

  THEY were silent, helpless. And with each passing moment, the disabled Lightning was being carried faster and faster into the depths of the mighty whirl of ether-currents from which it would never escape.

  Meanwhile, in the racing Comet, far ahead, Joan R
andall awoke slowly. She had a splitting headache, and felt dizziness and weakness such as she had seldom experienced. Her senses seemed hopelessly fogged, and it was some time before she was able to discern anything of her surroundings. She could, however, dimly hear a low, powerful droning sound that was vaguely familiar.

  The girl forced herself to open her eyes. As they painfully focused, she became aware she was lying upon a pad in a small, cramped metal compartment lighted by a single tiny, loophole window. The floor beneath here was vibrating faintly to the rhythmic, droning sound that had been her first sensation.

  Joan Randall suddenly recognized those familiar sounds. They were the droning of the Comet’s great drive-generators. And this tiny cubicle in which she was one of the aft supply-compartments of the ship of the Futuremen. She had been too often in Captain Future’s craft to mistake it. But how had she come here? The last she remembered was on the jungle moon of Uranus, the explosion that had occurred suddenly in the ruins just as Cole Norton was returning with the Lightning.

  “Cole Norton!” Joan Randall gasped in comprehension. “He and Doctor Winters, and those three men Norton brought back, must be responsible for my plight.”

  She remembered everything now. The angry shock of that remembrance served to clear her mind further.

  As Captain Future and all the others had hastened toward the mysterious explosion at the ruins, she had remained behind in camp. Curt Newton had ordered her to do so, at Philip Winters’ hasty suggestion of danger.

  A moment later, the Lightning had landed. Cole Norton had emerged from it, and with him had come three men whom he had brought with him from Uranus — a hulking, brutal-looking Earthman, a cadaverous red Martian, and a fat, beady-eyed yellow Uranian.

  Joan Randall had been turning to tell Norton the startling news, when something in the blond physicist’s hard, ruthless face stopped her.

  “Quick, now’s our chance,” Norton was shouting to Philip Winters. “Into the Comet with you. Voories, you and Chah Har grab the girl. Kul Kan, get the injectors out of the Lightning’s eyes. Hurry!”

  The stunning shock of the sudden treachery had so dazed Joan Randall that a fatal second passed before she attempted to draw her atom-gun.

  Then it was too late. Voories, the hulking Earthman, and Chah Har, the fat Uranian, had seized her, snatched her pistol, and begun dragging her toward the Comet.

  She uttered a furious cry, and a hand was immediately clapped over her mouth. Philip Winters, his thin face deadly pale, was already darting into the Comet, and Norton and the Martian were running after them.

  Joan Randall fought like a lithe wildcat inside the ship. A hand crushed a bulbous white blossom against her nostrils. She recognized it as the famed Venusian “sleep-flower,” and tried to turn her head but she had already inhaled the cloying fragrance of the drug-bearing bloom.

  Then, as she had lapsed into unconsciousness, she had dimly heard the door of the Comet slam and the roar of power as it basted off into space. Yes, she understood everything now.

  “They stole the Comet, and kidnaped me with it,” she exclaimed wrathfully as full remembrance flooded her mind. “Norton and Philip Winters.”

  The girl got to her feet and was dismayed to find she could hardly stand. It made her realize that she must have been kept drugged for days.

  The door of the little supply-compartment was locked on the outside when when she tried it. She looked helplessly around the tiny cubicle.

  There were usually cabinets of tools and apparatus here, kept in this compartment by the Futuremen. But they had all been moved out.

  Joan Randall went to the tiny window and peered out. She had already realized from the vibration that they were in space. But she was totally unprepared for the staggering vista that met her eyes.

  NOW the Comet was flying at tremendous speed through the depths of the galaxy. One glance told the stunned girl that they were unguessable light-years away from her own Solar System.

  Numerous suns surrounded the ship. The vast black gloom of the interstellar abyss was swarming with blazing stars, whose hues ranged from brilliant, pure white through pale blue, ethereal violet, emerald green, golden yellow, and somber, smoky red.

  As the rushing ship swayed slightly in crossing ether-currents, the dismayed girl had a momentary glimpse of a bright white star that lay far ahead. She instantly recognized the distorted constellation of which the white star was part.

  “Deneb,” she exclaimed in amazement. “Then Norton and Winters are bound for Deneb.”

  The reason for the unexpected treachery of the two men flashed upon her. She remembered now how frantically Philip Winters had besought Captain Future to seek the ancient Denebian secret of artificial evolution at that distant star which the Comet alone could reach —

  “And Curt wouldn’t do it, and so they plotted to steal the Comet and go themselves,” thought Joan Randall. Then came further realization. “And they took me because I know the clue of the inscription.”

  Her brown eyes flashed, and her small chin set with angry stubbornness. “The unspeakable traitors! They’ll find out how much good it has done them to kidnap me.”

  Joan Randall was little frightened by her peril and strangeness of her position. She had spent too many years as a secret agent of the far-ranging Planet Patrol to be unacquainted with the face of danger.

  It was true no predicament of her past experience had been so potentially appalling as this abduction into the uncharted galactic spaces. But countering that was her firmly unshakable conviction Curt Newton and the Futuremen would find and free her if her own efforts failed to do so.

  At this moment she heard the door of her prison being unlocked. It was Philip Winters who entered.

  Despite her wrath, the girl felt a strong inclination to laugh at the little biologist’s appearance. Winters had belted a heavy atom-pistol around his waist, and the weapon contrasted incongruously with his thin, slight figure and anxious, spectacled face.

  “I’m glad to see you’re awake, Miss Randall,” he said nervously. “I regret that we had to keep you drugged for so long.”

  Joan Kendall eyed him levelly, keeping the hot indignation she felt out of her eyes. She had hopes of prevailing on Winters’ fundamental decency.

  “I suppose I don’t need to ask what all this means?” she said quietly, “You’re going to Deneb for the evolution-secret?”

  “That’s it,” Winters replied uncomfortably. “I’m sorry we had to bring you along. But you know the clue to the Chamber of Life — the secret. We must have that clue when we reach Deneb.”

  “Surely you understand that this mad enterprise of yours can’t succeed, Doctor Winters,” Joan Randall said coolly. “By stealing the Comet, you’ve made implacable enemies of the Futuremen. They will track you down no matter where in the galaxy you go.”

  She saw a glimmer of haunting apprehension in Winters’ nervous eyes, and pressed her argument. “Your only chance is to call off this crazy attempt, and return to the System at once. It means death if you don’t.”

  To her surprise, Philip Winters raised his head in defiance. “If it meant my death a thousand times over, I’d still go on,” exclaimed the little biologist. “What would my death matter, compared to the tremendous scientific power which we are going to give the System peoples?”

  Winters was a fanatic — Joan began to understand that now. And his next words confirmed it.

  “Can’t you understand what a wonderful thing that ancient secret of artificial evolution would mean for our peoples?” he said earnestly. “The Denebians of long ago attained superhuman civilization with its aid. They conquered the whole galaxy. Our people could do the same. Controlled, directed evolution could accelerate our slow progress by a thousand times.”

  “Doctor, I believe you’re sincere,” the girl told him. “But I also am sure that you’re wrong, and that it would be disastrous for our race to tamper with natural evolution.”

  “Bah, you are just qu
oting Captain Future,” exclaimed Winters angrily. “That fellow is a brilliant adventurer and technician but he doesn’t have the soul of a real scientist or he wouldn’t try to suppress a secret of such wonderful potentialities as this one.”

  “He has seen more of the universe than any other living man, and knows more of the disasters that can overtake peoples,” was Joan Randall’s defense.

  Winters sputtered. “You’re so much in love with Future that you believe anything he says. I see it’s no use arguing with you. The point is that we’ll soon be approaching Deneb, so you must soon tell us the clue to the Chamber of Life. If you don’t Cole Norton has threatened to take harsh measures and I warn you he will stop at nothing.”

  Joan Randall’s chin came up in defiance.

  “I’m not afraid of Cole Norton and his thugs,” she cried. “I’ll tell you nothing — you hear me — nothing! And that is final!”

  Chapter 6: A Derelict in Space

  CHECKED and dismayed by the girl’s ringing refusal, Dr. Philip Winters stood for a moment, staring at her in helpless confusion. Then he departed. She heard him close and fasten the door. A few minutes later it was unfastened again and Cole Norton came in. Norton’s big, stalwart figure filled the doorway as he entered. His virile face had hard self-confidence in it as his chill blue eyes were fixed sardonically upon the girl.

  “Winters tells me you’ve decided to be obstinate about the inscription-clue,” he began crisply. “Now, Joan, that’s silly.”

  “Miss Randall, to traitors like you,” she flared.

  He bowed mockingly. “My error. Now, Miss Randall, you’re an intelligent girl. Because you are, I’m going to put my cards on the table so you’ll know just where you stand.

  “I’m not one of these dreamers who go into science for the love of it,” the physicist continued. “I went into it because I have a first-class brain and meant to use it to amass sufficient wealth to gratify my every desire for the rest of my life. I have no interest in fame or heroics or empty power. My sole purpose is to make this universe an exceedingly pleasant place for Cole Norton.”