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

by Edmond Hamilton

  Curt Newton shook his head, his somber gaze fixed upon their goal. “We’ll lose too much time if we start decelerating this soon. There’s time enough to do that.”

  “There would be if this craft was in good shape, but it’s weakened an’ strained, and it’s likely to fold up on us if you slam on the brakes too suddenly, Cap’n Future,” protested the old veteran.

  But Captain Future shook his head again, unconvinced. Defeated, Ezra Gurney went back uneasily into the main cabin.

  Otho was sleeping on his bunk in a corner of the cabin. The Brain was deep in his interminable studies of the Denebian records. To Simon Wright, therefore, Ezra voiced his misgivings.

  “He’s waitin’ too long to decelerate,” the old veteran finished. “I’ve never seen Cap’n Future so reckless.”

  The Brain turned his lens-eyes thoughtfully at the speaker, “He’s worried about Joan, Ezra. It will do no good to expostulate with him.”

  Some twenty-four hours later, Ezra Gurney’s anxiety about their speed became such that he induced the Brain to expostulate with Captain Future who was at the controls again.

  “We’re already dangerously near to Deneb, considering the length of time it will take to slow down,” the Brain told Curt Newton. “If you delay any longer in decelerating, you risk disaster to our whole purpose.”

  That argument prevailed. Reluctantly, Newton began the slow process of decelerating their speed by turning the invisible propulsion-waves of the drive-ring forward instead of backward.

  “All right, though I hate to slow down even yet,” he murmured. “Norton and Winters must already have reached Deneb in the Comet.”

  He eyed the growing white disk of the star hungrily, as though longing to leap on to it with the swiftness of thought.

  “They are, unless they cracked up the Comet on the way,” conditioned Ezra. “They might have wrecked themselves, not knowin’ interstellar space like you do — and we could have passed ‘em without bein’ aware of it.”

  A spasm of pain crossed Curt Newton’s drawn face. “I won’t believe that,” he muttered. “They have to be at Deneb, with Joan.”

  “How’re we goin’ to find them there, when we get there?” the old veteran asked dubiously.

  “They’re searching for the Chamber of Life, the place of the artificial evolution secret,” Captain Future reminded. “If they’ve extorted the clue to its location from Joan, we’ll find them there — if we’re in time.”

  “So what we do, is go straight to hunt out that there Chamber of Life ourselves?” said Ezra Gurney thoughtfully. “Let’s see — how did that inscription run that gave its location? I’ve half-forgotten.”

  Curt Newton repeated that ancient Denebian inscription which they had found on the stone tablet they had unearthed on Uranus’ moon.

  Beneath the Prism Peak, in the Crystal Mountains that lie beyond the black sea of the north, lies the Chamber of Life in which were bred new human races. Seek it not lightly, for it is guarded by the undying ones, and it holds within it the seeds of doom.

  “Pretty cryptic kind of a direction for anybody to leave,” grunted Ezra. “Crystal Mountains — Prism Peak — it must be a danged queer kind of a world.”

  “The great, ancient race of Deneb must still exist upon that world,” mused the Brain. “The race who were the parent stock of our own human race. The science of their mighty civilization should give us at last the answers to the greatest riddles of the galaxy’s history.”

  A TENSION that grew gradually to fever-pitch strung the nerves of the Futuremen as they swept on at steadily lessening speed toward the great white star. This was journey’s end for the greatest quest they had ever made, the longest and most perilous of all their expeditions.

  Not even Curt Newton himself, whose paramount anxiety was for the safety of the girl he loved and the secret whose discovery he dreaded, was wholly immune to that feverish feeling of expectation.

  What wonders of superhuman civilization were they to find at this ancient sun where the human race had long ago originated? What strange answers to the riddles of cosmic history would greet them at this, the galaxy’s mystery-star?

  Eight watches later, they were so close to Deneb that its blazing white sphere seemed to fill half of space ahead. Even through the ray-proof windows, its light was almost blinding to the tense group that had gathered in the little control-room.

  Curt Newton had refused to be relieved at the controls for the last two watches. He had steadily slowed their speed, using the utmost deceleration possible under the limits imposed by the weakened structure of their ship. But his haggard, worn face bore deepening anxiety as he glanced constantly at the instruments which recorded their velocity.

  “We’re still going too fast,” he muttered. “Too fast.”

  Grag was peering ahead through the eyepiece of one of the solar telescopes built into the window of the control-room.

  “Deneb only has one planet that I can find, chief,” the robot reported.

  “I expected that,” commented the Brain. “All the Denebian records I’ve examined refer only to the one world, called Aar.”

  “Well, the world Aar, as you call it, has an orbit about two hundred million miles from the star,” Grag continued. “It’s a medium large planet with two small moons.”

  The dazzling sphere of the stupendous white sun continued to grow in apparent size. Ezra Gurney glanced uneasily at the space-speed dial.

  “Can’t we decelerate faster than this?” he asked Captain Future.

  “I don’t want to try it,” Curt Newton answered in taut tones. “Those makeshift girders are taking nearly all the thrust they’ll stand.”

  Two more hours passed, and their suspense gradually heightened as all of them perceived that they were approaching Deneb at a speed which would make landing suicidal.

  “It seems that I’ll have to throw more power into deceleration, risky as it is,” Curt Newton finally admitted. “I should have started slowing down before I did.”

  They were so near Deneb that its planet was visible to the unaided eye as a tiny greenish ball almost obscured by the brilliance of the sun it circled.

  CAPTAIN FUTURE’S hand pushed the throttle a notch farther, and then another. The great generator back in the cyc-room droned instantly louder. Even in the cushioning stasis, they felt the increased pressure of deceleration.

  The old, ominous screeking of strained metal reached their ears, as the already-weakened thrust-struts protested at the extra load. Curt Newton anxiously watched the pointer swing across the negative side of the accelerometer.

  “Still not enough,” he murmured. Sweat was standing out on his forehead. He gritted his teeth. “Another notch would be enough. She may stand it.”

  He opened the power-throttle one more notch. They felt the instantaneous responding pressure of the increased deceleration for a moment.

  A crashing shock made the Lightning quiver through all its beams. They heard the scream of rending metal, and were flung forward as there came a thunderous clatter and banging from stern. It was followed by a dead silence broken only by the hiss of escaping air.

  “She wouldn’t take it — she’s cracked up!” Otho yelled, leaping to his feet like a cat and plunging aft.

  Curt Newton felt an ice-cold hand around his heart, but he jumped to follow the android. The controls were useless, for the power was dead now.

  HIS dismay became crushing when he burst back into the main cabin. It was a scene of wreckage. The heavy thrust-struts had snapped in two, the whole stern hull had accordioned from the pressure, and cracks in the hull were allowing air to escape.

  “Space-suits on!” cried Captain Future. “Grag, get the patching-kit.”

  As he and Otho and Ezra Gurney scrambled into their suits, Grag was hastily bringing the outfit used for emergency repairs. It consisted of self-fusing metal patches, which they rapidly applied to the cracks.

  When the last crack was closed and the oxygenerators had
replenished the air, they were able to take off the space-suits. Curt Newton’s heart sank as he took further stock of the damage.

  The snapping of the thrust-struts had wrecked completely the generators of the vibration-drive, and had smashed up all but two of the cyclotrons. The crumpled hull was sagging and creaking as though it would give to the slightest strain.

  And the Lightning, though slowed down to much lesser speed by that final disastrous deceleration, was still rushing on toward Deneb’s world!

  Chapter 8: Crack-up on Aar

  GLOOMILY Captain Future looked heavily at the others. “This catastrophe is my fault,” he said. “I was too much in a hurry, and wouldn’t start decelerating back there when you wanted me to. And this is the result.”

  “Devils of Space, what are you talking about?” cried Otho with instant loyalty. “We knew when we installed those super-powered generators in this cruiser that we ran a risk of them tearing it apart.”

  Ezra Gurney added warm words:

  “You’ve brought a crippled, weakened ship on the longest voyage in history, clear across the galaxy,” he said. “Nobody but Cap’n Future could have done that.”

  Their quick, whole-hearted rebuttal of his self-accusation, the legendary loyalty of the Futuremen to their leader, lifted some of the bitterness from Curt Newton’s heart.

  “Thanks, all of you,” he said quietly. “I still know that this was due to my impatience and worry about Joan, but we won’t argue it now. We must land on Deneb’s world, somehow.”

  He led the way rapidly back to the control-room and made a quick estimate of their speed and the closeness of the planet ahead. The Lightning had been steering toward that world of Deneb before the catastrophe, and was still heading directly toward the greenish planet.

  “That last attempt did cut our speed a lot,” Curt reported. “If we had a few rocket-tubes to use for braking, we could maybe manage a crash-landing.”

  Ezra Gurney shook his head dolefully. “I doubt if a single tube’s in workin’ order now, Cap’n Future.”

  So it proved, when they made inspection. The crumbling of the hull had twisted and jammed the bow, keel and stern-rocket tubes hopelessly.

  “We’ll have to jury-rig a few new tubes,” Captain Future declared. “That’s our only chance, and we’ve little enough time in which to do it.”

  “About an hour and a half, I estimate,” the Brain coolly added.

  The indomitable spirit of the Futuremen showed itself now. In a situation where lesser adventurers would have despaired, they fell to work to play out the last, doubtful card left them.

  The lower bow-compartment of the cruiser, beneath the control-room, was the scene of their hasty labors. In that cramped space, crowded with the big oxygen, water and fuel tanks, they sweated to drill a half-dozen round holes through the hull just at the front up-curve of the keel.

  Into those apertures they fitted the spare rocket-tubes which the Lightning, like all space-ships, carried for emergencies. As well as they could, Curt Newton and Grag welded the tubes into place and connected to them the power-pipes that led back to the two cyclotrons still in working order.

  “Time’s nearly up,” came Otho’s yell from the control-room overhead. “We’re about to enter the planet’s atmosphere.”

  “That’s all we can do, Grag,” panted Captain Future as he turned hastily. “It’s a flimsy mounting for those tubes, but it’ll hold long enough for a few seconds of firing.”

  “And that’s all it will hold, before they blow loose,” Grag predicted as they hurried up to the control-room.

  Curt Newton slipped into the pilot-chair and looked grimly at the planet toward which the Lightning was falling.

  The sunlit face of the world Aar lay beneath them, a green convexity that seemed featureless except for a curious shimmer of brilliant light near its northern arc. The cruiser, rushing on and downward to the world, was picking up a little more speed from the pull of the planet.

  Death was in their speed, they knew — instant and obliterating destruction unless they managed a successful crash-landing. Already, the thin outer atmosphere of Aar was whistling loudly outside the falling ship.

  “See if you can spot the Comet anywhere as we come down,” said Captain Future, his paramount purpose not leaving his mind even in this tense moment.

  The Brain, who had been eagerly scanning the surface of the sunlit world toward which they rushed, spoke with puzzled slowness.

  “I can’t understand this — the whole surface of this world seems to be just forest, a wilderness.”

  They were low enough that the convex surface of Aar had flattened out into a rolling expanse of green verdure which glistened in the sunlight. A giant forest, toward whose roof of foliage they were rapidly sinking.

  “There should be cities here, massive engineering works of the Denebian super-civilization,” Simon Wright, the Brain, murmured dazedly. “But there’s nothing else to be seen.”

  OTHO burst into the control-room, with three of the golden helmets of resilient metal which they had taken from the Denebian derelict of space.

  “Chief, these crash-helmets may save our necks when we hit,” he suggested. “That’s what the Denebians used them for, remember.”

  Without turning, Captain Future buckled the strap of the helmet beneath his chin as Ezra Gurney and Otho did likewise.

  “Where’s a helmet for me?” demanded Grag, who had picked up the whimpering Eek and was holding him protectively.

  “An iron bucket-head like yours doesn’t need any protection,” retorted Otho, as he clambered hastily into his recoil-chair and took Oog upon his lap.

  The whistling of air had become an unnerving roar, as the Lightning rushed down at appalling speed toward the roof of the green forest. Captain Future’s foot poised above the cyc-pedal which would release the energy of the two operating eyes into their improvised rocket-tubes.

  Down — down — the sunlit green foliage came up toward them, and nowhere could they see any opening in it. The roar of parting air was a deafening bellow. Curt Newton’s foot touched the pedal.

  “I see something there, to the northwest,” cried the Brain suddenly.

  His words were drowned out by the bursting thunder of the rocket-tubes as Curt Newton pressed the pedal.

  The Lightning lurched and hesitated just above the tree-tops. The thunder of the rocket-tubes ended almost instantly in a shattering explosion as the tubes blew out of their mountings.

  A cracking and crashing, a wild whipping of great green branches around them and the flash of dappled sunlight in their eyes as the cruiser turned over and over, a violent shock and screaming screech of metal and then a mighty crash.

  Captain Future shook his head groggily. He had been flung up out of his chair, bursting its straps, his helmeted head hitting the ceiling.

  Everything was dead silent. The slant of the control-room showed that the Comet lay on its side. His companions were stirring dazedly.

  “We’ve landed,” Curt Newton exclaimed. Bursting relief seemed to sing in his veins. “We’re here on Deneb’s world, and now we can find Joan and the Comet.”

  “Hold on — I’m still dizzy from that shock,” begged Ezra Gurney, rising painfully from his chair. “This here gold helmet is all that saved my poor old skull from crackin’.”

  They were all bruised and shaken, except the Brain and the indestructible Grag. But their bruises were forgotten in their excitement as they clambered backed to the space-door of the cruiser.

  The Lightning was nearly a complete wreck from that final explosion of the rocket-tubes and the impact of its crash. But they gave little thought to it as they eagerly pried open the door of the strained hull.

  “Wear your proton-pistols,” Captain Future warned sharply. “We don’t know how soon we’ll run into Norton and his crew.”

  They emerged into soft, warm air, laden with pungent, mysterious forest-scents that drifted to them upon a little breeze.

 
In wonder, the Futuremen stood gazing about them. About them towered a mighty forest. Its giant trees soared for hundreds of feet above their heads, and their massive brown boles were of such dimensions that the wrecked Lightning looked like a gleaming toy beneath them.

  High overhead, great branches soared out into green masses of unfamiliar foliage that interlaced together and allowed only stray bars and beams of white sunlight to reach the ground. There was a whole green world up there over their heads, an airy world of twining branches and looping vines and brilliant, blood-red flowers.

  Curt Newton and his comrades lowered their gaze to look away through the forest’s majestic aisles of brown trunks. Here and there, low shrubs and underbrush grew from the mossy turf. Birds and insects darted to and fro. But there was no other sign of life. And this whole mighty wilderness was hushedly silent.

  “So this is Deneb’s ancient world!” burst Otho, incredulously. “This is the world of super-civilization we expected.”

  “I can hardly believe it, myself,” murmured Captain Future. “I never expected this.”

  “A wilderness, without a sign of intelligent life!” Ezra Gurney muttered.

  THEY stiffened to alertness as, from far away through the mysterious green twilight of the forest, came a weird, distant call.

  “Hai—ooo! Hai—ooo!”

  “What was that?” asked Otho in low tones, his slant green eyes wide. “It didn’t sound exactly like an animal.”

  “It certainly wasn’t any human shout,” Ezra said. “Listen!”

  From a different quarter of the forest, the uncanny cry was floating again. This time several voices seemed to chorus it.

  “Hai—ooo!”

  They waited, but there was no further sound to break the hushed silence. The wind whispered through the green foliage high above them.

  “I don’t like this world much,” muttered Grag uneasily. “There’s something spooky about it.”

  Captain Future had remembered what Simon Wright had called out and he turned eagerly to the Brain. “Simon, just as we were landing you called out that you saw something to the northwest. Was it the Comet you saw?”