“Is it necessary for you to explain your sordid motives to me?” Joan Randall asked scathingly.
“Yes, I think it is,” Norton replied coolly. “I want you to understand that I am on the point of realizing an ambition of years. This secret of artificial evolution could be used in a thousand ways to bring in money from the people of our System. I intend to find it and so use it.
“I do not intend to allow my life’s ambition to be balked by sentimentalism. To put the matter brutally, you are going to tell us that inscription-clue or it is going to be tortured out of you. I would dislike intensely to use such methods, but if necessary, I’ll use them, and don’t you believe for one moment that I won’t.”
Norton’s cold voice carried a conviction that brought a chill to Joan Randall. For the first time, she realized the remorseless quality of this man.
“I shall give you just an hour to make up your mind,” Norton concluded. “At the end of that time, you’ll tell us the clue or you’ll be turned over to Voories and the other two until you do.”
When he had gone, Joan Randall considered her situation with sober consternation. She knew now Norton would carry out his threat. Winters might protest, but his, protests would avail nothing.
What was she to do? It never occurred to Joan that she might surrender her secret knowledge as they demanded. Curt Newton had trusted her with that secret and she would die before she told it.
Could she escape? That seemed hopeless. The door was locked and they had left nothing in the compartment that might be used as a tool. And to where could she escape, when the Comet was flashing through a totally unexplored and distant region, of the galaxy?
Joan Randall narrowed the possibilities down to a single one. That was the possibility of so disabling the ship that it would be unable to continued toward Deneb. She had thought of a way in which that might be done.
Captain Future and the Futuremen would be on the trail sooner or later — in that she had utter faith. If she could disable the Comet until the Futuremen overtook it, she would have prevented the traitors from reaching that secret which Curt had said must never be turned loose.
Joan Randall went to a corner of the compartment and stooped to the floor. She touched an almost invisible stud there. A foot-square section of the metal floor instantly slid back. It exposed numerous heavy insulated cables.
“Now which are the cyc-control cables?” she murmured to herself.
This panel in the floor was an inspection-hatch used by the Futuremen for inspection and repair of the control-cables under the floor. Joan Randall, who knew the Comet thoroughly, had remembered it. Norton and the others had been wholly ignorant of the panel’s existence.
“If I remember right, the red cables are the ones that run back from the cyc-pedal rheostat to the cyclotrons,” she thought. “And if I can short-circuit, those two cables it might do the trick.”
SHE knew what would happen. The droning cyclotrons that furnished power to the vibration-drive would blow out from too-sudden release of fuel. The resultant explosion would wreck the whole cyc-room at the Comet’s stern.
Also wrecking this little compartment in which she was confined, might breach the hull and bring swift death to everyone in the ship. But Joan Randall ignored those menacing possibilities. It was worth taking any chance to thwart Norton’s sinister scheme.
Quickly, she started to rub the two red cables together. When her rubbing had worn through their insulation, the short-circuit and resultant explosion would come instantly.
While Joan Randall was engaged in trying to wreck the Comet Curt Newton and the Futureman had remained calm in the face of imminent deadly peril. Their crippled cruiser now was being drawn at frightful speed by the great ether-current that was bearing it toward the heart of a space-maelstrom. Yet Curt Newton and his comrades considered their precarious situation with cool detachment.
Their predicament was made more immediately dangerous by the fact the helplessly-drifting Lightning was being increasingly bombarded by flotsam of space which the current also carried. Big, jagged meteors, chunks of rock cast out by some planet’s volcanic eruptions, masses of black cosmic dust, rasped and rattled against the cruiser’s sides as it surged onward in the grip of the swirling current.
“These currents pick up and carry interstellar debris from all over space,” Curt Newton muttered. “There’ll be a mass of such flotsam inside the maelstrom, and it’ll grind us to pulp in time.”
“Can’t we take a chance by usin’ the vibration-drive just enough to get us out of the current?” Ezra Gurney asked anxiously.
Curt Newton shook his head. “That would be our finish right here. With no thrust-struts to take the back-kick of the drive, the reaction would crumple the whole back part of the hull. We’ve got to have new girders to use for struts, and we’ve got to have them soon.”
The irrepressible Otho made a suggestion. “Chief, if it’s metal for girders we need, how about using Grag? There must be a ton of steelite in that carcass of his, and we could melt him down.”
“There he goes again — always threatening to cut me up for metal,” bellowed Grag angrily. “I’ll melt him down the next time he makes that crack.”
Curt Newton ignored the wrangle. He was conferring with the Brain. The helpless ship continued to rush on.
“Can you see any way out of this pickle, Simon?”
“Not without new girders for the struts,” the Brain answered in his metallic voice. “And we can’t get those. Well, I’ve always wanted to make a scientific study of the interior of an ether-maelstrom.”
Captain Future made an impatient gesture. “To the devil with abstract science now. We’ve got to pull out of this mess somehow and get on after the Comet. If we don’t Joan will be lost.”
Ezra Gurney suddenly uttered a shrill exclamation from the window through which he had been peering.
“Holy space-imps, there’s a ship out there!”
Curt Newton leaped to the window. “Is it the Comet? If it is, it means they’ve been caught too.”
“No, it ain’t the Comet. It ain’t like any ship I ever saw before,” said Ezra Gurney in tones of awe.
THEY crowded around the window. Out there against the background of stars, a few thousand yards away from them, they saw the black outline of a long, unlighted space-ship.
It was, indeed, like no craft familiar to the Futuremen. It was long and spindle-shaped with a flat-topped conning-tower projecting amidships from the hull.
It’s caught in the current, the same as our own craft,” exclaimed Curt. His gray eyes snapped. He saw sudden hope. But where’d it come from, and why doesn’t it show a light?” Grag demanded with a puzzled gesture.
“It looks like one of those ghost-ships of space you hear them tell about,” muttered Otho.
In truth there was something uncanny about the somber black vessel that swept steadily on and kept pace with them in the unseen current.
“Don’t get superstitious — that ship shows no lights because it’s a derelict,” Captain Future declared, “Can’t you see that big hole in its stern? It’s been riddled by a meteor some time, and has been drifting till the current caught it. As for where it came from — well, we know several interstellar races in the past developed space travel.”
He continued rapidly. “The point is that we can get the girders we need out of that derelict. Then we’ll be able to put on enough power to escape this current.”
“Say, that’s an idea,” Grag exclaimed hopefully. “But how will we get the Lightning into contact with the derelict?”
“I’ll go over in a space-suit with an impeller, and take a line to hook us to the derelict,” Curt Newton told them. “You can winch the line in when I’ve made fast, and that’ll pull the two ships together.”
“It’ll be dangerous bucking that ether-current and its flotsam in a space-suit, Chief,” protested Otho. “You’d better letter me try it.”
“As the huskiest individual here,
I propose that I —” Grag began, but Curt Newton cut him short.
“Get that line for me and stop jawing.”
He was already scrambling into his space-suit. He picked up one of the tubular impellers, fastened the strong, flexible metal line around his waist, and in a minute had passed through the Lightning’s airlock and plunged into space.
Streaming, terrific currents of invisible force caught Captain Future as he leaped into the starry abyss. Grinding, swirling meteors and rock-masses that were rushing on like everything else in the current, ground dangerously around him.
He used the rocket-flash kick of his impeller to dodge them. Slowly and toilsomely, he worked nearer the derelict. He touched its side and clambered along it to the hole that gaped in its stern. Entering this, he made his line fast to the first strong stanchion he made out.
“Okay, reel in the line,” he called through the space-phone built into his helmet.
The Lightning slowly breasted the current toward the derelict, as the line was wound in. Soon the crippled cruiser and the mysterious derelict were tightly hooked together.
Otho in his space-suit, and Grag and Simon Wright, now joined Curt Newton inside the derelict. They found him flashing his fluoric hand-lamp about the interior.
“A ship of dead men,” murmured Otho in awe.
For stiff, frozen bodies of men lay, here and there, about the interior of the wreck. They were handsome, golden-skinned men in strange attire of flashing metal, wearing circular golden helmets.
The structure and design of the ship itself was almost totally unfamiliar to Captain Future, yet he realized it had apparently been powered by some form of etheric-wave propulsion.
“Whoever these people were, they knew plenty about science,” he murmured.
The Brain uttered a sharp exclamation.
“Curtis, this is a ship of ancient Deneb itself.”
INCREDULOUSLY, Curt Newton turned. The Brain was excitedly scanning a legend of strange hieroglyphs imprinted on one of the towering machines.
“It’s true, those are Denebian hieroglyphs,” breathed Captain Future unbelievingly. “Then this derelict and its dead crew must have been drifting through the galaxy for ages.”
“What a chance to learn more about the Denebians,” exulted the Brain. “There may be things here that would solve that age-old mystery —”
“No time to investigate now, Simon,” warned Captain Future. “Besides, we’ll soon reach Deneb itself if we can get out of this jam. We must cut out girders and take them back to the Lightning as quickly as possible. You brought the atomic torches?”
Grag and Otho had brought the heavy tools which utilized a concentrated blast of atomic energy for cutting or welding purposes.
Curt Newton rapidly selected several of the massive metal stanchions which braced the hull of the ancient craft. They set to work cutting these out and transporting them to their own cruiser, as the two ships drifted on together in the rush of the terrific current.
The work was hard, and Captain Future made it harder by the pace he set. As he and Grag and Otho labored, the Brain was eagerly searching the interior of the derelict and gathering up a multitude of articles to take back with them.
Grag’s mighty strength was of paramount importance in transferring the heavy girders into the Lightning through its space-hatch. By the time they had the last girder aboard, Simon Wright had managed to convey all his precious specimens to the cruiser also.
“Cast off those lines and let the wreck float away, Ezra,” called Curt Newton. “It’s dangerous keeping them hooked together now.”
The current was of such force and speed that it was banging the two ships perilously against each other. As Ezra Gurney released the cables, the derelict floated slowly away from the Lightning.
“Now to get these girders into place — and quickly,” panted Curt Newton. “Clear away the old ones, Grag, while Otho and I cut these to fit.”
Nearly an hour of grinding toil elapsed before the salvaged girders had been installed to replace the crumpled thrust-struts.
“I think they’ll hold,” Curt Newton said breathlessly. “Anyway, we must try it. If we’re carried any deeper into this whirl of currents, nothing will get us out.”
He took the pilot-seat and started the eyes and the generators of the vibration-drive. His hand tensed for a moment on the throttle.
Then he opened it steadily. The Lightning bounded wildly from the inconceivably powerful thrust of the drive. At the same moment came a groaning of tortured metal from aft.
“The struts are straining but they’ve held so far,” came Otho’s call.
Curt Newton eased the throttle further open. The groaning of straining metal became louder above the drone of power.
But now the Lightning was bucking the ether-current, was pulling abreast of it through the swirl of interstellar flotsam. His heart in his mouth, Captain Future kept his prow headed out of the current.
The makeshift struts back there wouldn’t stand much more of the power he was using, he knew. If they didn’t pull out of the current in a few seconds the beams might buckle again.
They were out of it! The Lightning bounded suddenly forward with tremendous velocity as it escaped from the mill-race current into calm space!
Chapter 7: Collapse in the Heavens
UPON finding out the ship was out of the current, Captain Future eased the throttle. And not a moment too soon for Otho hurried forward to inform him the new struts also had begun to bend.
“We’ll have to keep the acceleration inside their stress-limit, then,” Captain Future said with a troubled frown. “Take over, Otho, and I’ll go back and figure out just how much they’ll stand.”
The Lightning was now flashing on at renewed high velocity in the direction of distant Deneb. Travelling at scores of times the speed of light, the weakened cruiser already was visibly drawing away from the two nearby star-clusters whose gigantic gravitational effects were partly responsible for the ether-whirl that had so nearly trapped them.
Deneb was still many light-years away in the hive of swarming suns they were threading. The bright white star of ancient mystery could hardly be picked out amid the blazing star-hosts and the vast, far-flung glowing nebulae that lay before them.
“Lay your course to skirt that nearest nebula, and keep an eye on the meteorometers every second,” Curt Newton warned the android. “There are plenty of dark stars and ‘rogue planets’ to be expected in this region.”
He went back and carefully inspected the massive girders which had been slightly buckled by the tremendous reaction of the power used.
“They won’t stand any high degree of acceleration-pressure,” Curt Newton muttered. He clenched his fists. “Everything conspires to delay us when it’s so vital that we make speed after the Comet.”
Ezra Gurney shook his head pessimistically. “Don’t see how we can overtake the Comet now till we reach Deneb. But we’ll catch ‘em then.”
The Brain was intently examining the mass of objects which he had brought back from the Denebian derelict for examination.
He showed Captain Future two of the golden helmets. “See these helmets? They’re of an absolutely new kind of metal — a metal as resilient as rubber. Those men of ancient Deneb were certainly great scientists.”
Curt Newton fingered one of the helmets. “These were designed as crash-helmets. Probably the Denebians in that wreck had put the helmets on when they perceived that a meteor-crash was inevitable.”
Simon Wright next showed him a sheaf of thin metal leaves, covered with the Denebian writing and encased in a curious vertical file.
“This looks like the logbook of that derelict, Curtis. I’ve already deciphered much of it. It seems that that ship left Deneb at a time when the Denebians’ galactic empire was just beginning to collapse.”
“Like the Denebians who built the structure whose ruins we found on Uranus’ moon,” Captain Future remarked.
“Yes, there appe
ars to have been a great exodus from Deneb about that time, by people seeking refuge from some terrible disaster that occurred at the home star,” said the Brain.
“What was that disaster, Simon?” asked Curt Newton quickly. “Have you found the answer to that riddle?”
“Not yet,” the Brain admitted. “These records refer vaguely to a terrible series of events at Deneb. What the catastrophe was, we shan’t know until we reach the star.”
He added puzzledly, “There’s another reference in this that I can’t understand — a despairing invocation to ‘our fathers of the Darkness’. What do you suppose that means?”
But Captain Future had no idea, and he found it impossible to share Simon’s intellectual excitement over these newly-revealed mysteries of man’s ancient history. His own mind was too oppressed by the thought of Joan Randall in traitorous hands, somewhere far ahead.
The Lightning seemed, to Curt Newton, to creep with maddening slowness through the galaxy, during the following hours. Their velocity topped two hundred light-speeds and continued steadily to mount, but the acceleration seemed slow and dragging to him.
Coasting past the flaming shores of vast nebulae, veering to avoid the dangerous gravitational fields and meteoric webs of great star-clusters, running through the fierce radiation of monster double-suns and dodging to avoid unseen dark-stars or “rogue planets,” the cruiser threaded the galaxy. And as hours passed into days, and Curt Newton slept and watched and slept and watched again, Deneb grew brighter.
DAYS later he was sitting at the controls, watching the mystery-star which had enlarged to a tiny, brilliant white disk in the spangled heavens ahead. And Ezra Gurney, looking at Deneb and then at their instruments, had become anxious.
“It’s time we started deceleratin’ this tremendous speed of ours,” Ezra declared. “It’s goin’ to take a long time to slow down.”
Captain Future 15 - The Star of Dread (Summer 1943) Page 5