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

by Edmond Hamilton

  “No, lad. I think that what I saw was a city.”

  “A city — in this, wilderness?” Otho said skeptically.

  “It looked like one, in the momentary glimpse I had,” affirmed the Brain. “It had the appearance of a cluster of lofty-pylons or towers, far away across the forest.”

  “More likely, you just saw a bunch of these giant tree-trunks in the distance and were fooled by it,” suggested Ezra Gurney.

  “We can soon find out,” Captain Future said. “Otho, you ought to be able to climb one of these great trees. Get up to the top of one and see if you can spot, anything northwest of here.”

  Otho looked ruefully at the huge trunks around them. “It won’t be any cinch to get up one of those giants. I guess I can, though.”

  He approached the nearest of the great trees. Instantly, from behind the concealment of its massive trunk, a big quadrupedal animal darted away with an oddly human cry.

  The creature was a large black horse, or horse-like animal. But, in the flashing glimpse they had of it, it appeared to have the head of a man.

  With a sharp ringing of hoofs, it disappeared into the underbrush nearby.

  Stricken with incredulous horror, the Futuremen and Ezra looked at each other. Then they stared together at the green covert into which that half-glimpsed creature had vanished.

  “Did you others see it or was I dreaming?” burst from Otho. “A horse with the head of a man!”

  Ezra Gurney sighed shakily. “I’m danged glad somebody else saw the critter. I was beginnin’ to think I was space-struck.”

  Captain Future marshaled stunned faculties. Like the others, he was shaken as he had seldom been. The glimpse of that human head and face, those startled human eyes, coupled with the powerful body of a horse, had for a moment persuaded him that he was dreaming.

  “If we all saw it, it was real,” he declared. “The creature was hiding behind that tree, spying on us, until Otho startled it into flight.”

  “Gods of Space, what kind of a planet is this?” exclaimed Ezra Gurney huskily. “Horses that have the heads of men.”

  Curt Newton raised his hand in a sharp gesture, commanding silence. A cry was echoing from the green thickets into which the man-horse had disappeared.

  “Hai—oooo!”

  It was semi-human in articulation, that weird call. But in depth and timbre, it was not human.

  It floated away through the forest. Faintly, they heard twice an answering cry. Then silence reigned again in the green depths of the mighty wilderness.

  Eek whimpered softly, and clambered up to Grag’s broad metal shoulder, to nestle in fright. Grag himself spoke in low tones.

  “Chief, what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know — that creature was partly human and partly animal,” Curt Newton answered, his own voice instinctively hushed.

  “It was a hybrid such as I have never before seen or heard of on any planet,” rasped the Brain. “There’s more than one mystery on this world of Deneb, it seems.”

  ALL had drawn their proton-pistols defensively. The two little mascots were clinging to their respective masters in thorough fright. Eek, the moon-pup, began to wriggle in panic on Grag’s shoulder.

  “Eek senses something close to us,” Grag muttered.

  “Listen!” Curt commanded. “Do you hear that rustling around us?”

  A stealthy stir of movement was going on in the thick green brush around them. The thump of a hoof, the soft movement of padded feet.

  “Stand close together around this tree,” Captain Future ordered sharply. “Grag, what does it sound like to you?”

  Grag’s mechanical microphone-ears were the most sensitive of all. The great metal robot stood rigidly, listening.

  “We’re being surrounded by creatures of some kind,” he muttered in a moment. “They’re gathering fast. By the sound, some of them are larger and different from the others.”

  “Shall we fire into the brush to scatter them?” Otho asked, raising his proton-pistol.

  “No, wait,” Curt Newton commanded. “If the creatures here, whatever they are, are partly human they must be at least partly intelligent. They might understand a gesture of peace.”

  He boldly bolstered his pistol and stepped forward into a patch of white sunlight. There, facing the concealing thickets, Captain Future stood with his hand upraised. It was an appeal for a truce.

  Chapter 9: Beast-men of Aar

  WHILE Captain Future waited, he sensed a low stir of excited, murmuring sound through the green thickets which hid those around them.

  Then, directly opposite Curt Newton, the green shrubs parted and a big creature came slowly out into the open toward him.

  “We are seeing things,” came Otho’s strangled whisper from behind him. “This one can’t be real!”

  “steady,” spoke Curt Newton through dry lips, without turning.

  Yet he felt as if he, himself, had plunged into a weird nightmare as he stared at the advancing creature.

  It was a big, tawny tiger, large as any tiger of Curt’s native Earth. But it had a human head.

  His brain denied what his eyes saw, as they roved in stunned surprise, over the creature.

  The man-tiger’s feline body was all of tawny tan, not striped. Beneath its smooth hide rippled the tremendous muscles of the crouching legs whose paws ended in cruel, enormous talons. Yet the head was unmistakably human. The pricked, catlike ears, the short, bristling hair that grew back along the neck in a short mane, could not disguise the essential humanity of the yellow-tan face with its straight mouth, flattened nostrils and blazing green eyes.

  The man-tiger crouched upon his belly, eyeing Captain Future with those hypnotic orbs as though ready to charge at a moment’s warning.

  Curt Newton rallied his dazed wits and spoke, without hope of being understood except through the placating quality of his voice.

  “We are not enemies,” Curt Newton said quietly in the interplanetary lingua franca. “We come in peace.”

  The man-tiger answered him. The creature’s lips parted to disclose fanglike teeth as he spoke in a voice that was a hissing snarl.

  And to Captain Future’s amazement, he could understand most of the creature’s words. Some of them were words common to almost every planetary race, the basis of the lingua franca of space. The others were words familiar to him from the Denebian writing he had learned to read.

  “I am Shih, leader of the Clan of the Tiger,” the creature said in that voice that was so like the hissing of a cat. “Tell me,” are you men really of the Ancients?”

  “The Ancients?” repeated Curt, puzzled.

  Suspicion flared instantly in the blazing green eyes of the man-tiger. “If you are not of the Ancients, how comes it that you wear helmets such as tradition says they wore?”

  Captain Future began to understand. He and Otho and Ezra were still wearing the golden crash-helmets they had taken from the long-dead Denebians in the derelict.

  It was upon his helmet that the gaze of Shih, the man-tiger, had fixed. That helmet held, apparently, a tremendous significance for these weird creatures. It had led them to believe that he and his comrades were members of the ancient race of Deneb.

  “Answer — are you of the Ancients?” hissed Shih, his tiger-body tensely crouching.

  Captain Future swiftly debated his reply. A lot hung upon it, he guessed. He decided to gamble boldly.

  “Yes, we are of the race of the Ancients,” he affirmed. “But we are not of this world. We come from faraway stars to which the Ancients who were our ancestors went long ago.”

  At least, it was the truth he was telling, Curt Newton believed. He and his comrades were descendants of those ancient Denebians who had colonized Earth and its neighboring planets, ages ago.

  The reaction of his affirmation upon Shih was tremendous. The green eyes of the man-tiger blazed with exultant emotion. He wheeled with catlike swiftness and raised his head to utter a weird, snarling roar that reverber
ated through the sunlit forget.

  “Hai—ooo!” he roared in uncanny call. “Children of the Clans, come forth.”

  “Hai—ooo!”

  FROM many different throats, in varying timbre, that cry had answered Shih’s call from all around them in the forest.

  The Futuremen gazed, incapable of speech, at the creatures — who appeared in reply to the man-tiger’s summons.

  First to emerge was the big, human-headed horse they had already glimpsed. A great black stallion, in body, his head was that of a man. His black hair merged back into the horse mane.

  He looked like a centaur of ancient legend come to life, carrying his head proudly high, his deep, intelligent dark eyes flashing with excitement. Wholly human were the features of his massive face, except that the broad mouth and flat teeth were those of an herbivorous creature.

  “This is Golo, wise leader of the Clan of the Hoofed Ones,” said Shih. “And yonder beside him is Zur, who leads the Clan of the Hunting Pack.”

  “A totally different species,” exclaimed the Brain, startled. “A man-dog.”

  The creature beside Golo could be described by no other name. Wolf-like, doglike, was his big, powerful body. But head and face were as human as those of the others.

  Zur, the man-dog, surveyed the Futuremen eagerly with his brown eyes. When he opened his mouth to speak, Curt glimpsed the sharp canine teeth in those powerful human jaws. And his voice had a high, yelping timbre.

  “Are they too of the Ancients?” the man-dog asked, looking at Grag’s great metal figure and the weirdly poised Brain.

  “They do not look like you others, and they do not wear helmets such as the Ancients wore,” hissed Shih doubtfully.

  Captain Future hastened to assuage the man-tiger’s doubt. “They too are of the Ancients, but are different in form than us.”

  Other man-beasts had slowly emerged from the thickets after their leaders. There were four others of the great, shaggy man-dogs, two centaur-like creatures identical with Golo, all watching intently.

  The deep voice of Golo, the towering — man-horse, broke the strained silence. He was addressing himself to Shih.

  “We must be careful,” warned the man-horse. “These strangers look like the Ancients of tradition, but it may be only a trick of the Manlings.”

  “The Manlings?” That name broke from Shih in a hissing snarl, and his green eyes blazed up instantly. “If I thought they were —”

  “They do not look like Manlings,” yelped Zur, the man-dog, quickly.

  “Who are the Manlings?” Captain Future asked, in genuine bewilderment.

  “You see — they do not even know of them,” pointed out Zur eagerly.

  Curt Newton thought it time to speak further. “We know little of this world,” he told the creatures. “We came here from far away in the stars, in our ship that crashed as we landed.”

  He pointed through the trees to the; nearby wreck of the Lightning, crumpled up at the base of one of the giant trunks.

  The man-beasts appeared to notice the wreck for the first time. An awe seemed to fall upon the creatures as they gazed at the crumpled cruiser.

  “That is one of the legendary sky-ships of the Ancients,” said Golo, the man-horse, slowly in his deep voice. “The ships in which long ago the great Ancients went out into the stars.”

  He turned to look at the Futuremen, almost with reverence. “And now they have come back from the stars, in such a ship. These are the Ancients — no further doubt of it.”

  A tremendous excitement quivered through the weird creatures. Shih, the man-tiger, turned to Curt Newton. “Then you have returned as was always prophesied you would, to destroy the evil Manlings and lift the ancient curse from us children of the Clans?”

  CAPTAIN FUTURE struggled to comprehend the staggering mysteries which crowded him. He must not commit himself too deeply until he understood more of the situation.

  “We have come here to prevent evil being done, that is true,” he answered diplomatically.

  He was thinking of Norton and Winters and their dangerous plan, as he spoke. And Otho interjected a swift suggestion.

  “Maybe some of these creatures have seen the Comet if it has already arrived here, chief.”

  Captain Future seized upon the possibility. He asked the man-beasts, “Have you seen another sky-ship like ours, landing upon this world?”

  “I have not, nor have I heard of one,” answered Shih. And the two other Clan-leaders replied similarly in the negative.

  Curt felt a rebound of disappointment. But the man-tiger was continuing. “It might be that someone in our Clans has seen such,” he said.

  Zur, the man-dog, proffered a suggestion in his eager way. “The Clan of the Winged Ones would have seen, if anyone has. Skeen would know.”

  “We can go to the valley and send out the Clan-call tonight,” said Golo in his deep, semi-equine voice. “All will gather when it is known that the Ancients have returned.”

  Curt Newton hesitated. “Where is this valley?”

  “It is not far from here in the forest,” Golo reassured him. “We can reach it by night, and by moonrise the Clans will be gathered.”

  Captain Future looked at his companions. He spoke to them rapidly.

  “I’m for going with them. These creatures are intelligent enough to have a loose form of tribal organization, and when all of them gather, we may be able to learn from some of them the whereabouts of the Comet.”

  Otho nodded understanding. “It may save us a long, vain search for Norton and the others.”

  “We start for the valley now,” said the man-horse. “Shih will scout the way. There is always danger, this near the Manlings.”

  They started through the forest in a southeastward direction, the great man-tiger going ahead of them.

  Captain Future had never made a stranger journey, he thought, than this trip through the giant forests of mysterious Aar with their weird escort. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, and it shot level bars and beams of brilliance through the green glades and aisles of majestic forest giants.

  He could barely glimpse the tawny shape of the man-tiger who led them. Shih chose the trail with unerring instinct, padding noiselessly as a ghost through the thickets, his pricked ears alert for every sound, his baleful green eyes searching every clump of brush.

  The Futuremen followed, with Golo and the two other man-horses pacing easily beside them like centaurs out of legend. And close behind them trotted Zur and the man-dogs, their shaggy bodies brushing ever and again against Captain Future’s legs.

  “I still don’t understand how they can talk so that we can understand,” Grag muttered bewilderedly as he stalked with Curt Newton and the others, carrying the scared Eek.

  Otho, whose own pet was riding on his shoulder, added his own whisper of mystification. “They use the words of the basic interplanetary language of our own part of the universe. How could they know it?”

  Captain Future v thought he knew the answer to that riddle, at least. “The words of the interplanetary lingua, franca are Denebian words — inherited from the Denebians who once colonized all the galaxy. That’s why the peoples of all planets know them. These man-beasts talk the ancient Denebian tongue.”

  “But how can they talk at all?” pressed Ezra Gurney. “They got human heads, but they’re animals, ain’t they?”

  CAPTAIN FUTURE hesitated before answering.

  “I don’t think they are, really,” muttered Curt Newton. “Do you notice that even their animal bodies have a faint suggestion of the human in the relation of the limbs, their skeleton structure, their taillessness. I have an idea that these man-beasts were once men.”

  “You mean that they’re men who were somehow changed into animals?” Otho asked.

  “No, I don’t mean that. I believe they were all born in these hybrid forms for many generations,” Curt Newton told him. “It is the only theory which can satisfactorily explain these creatures.”

 
The Futuremen and their strange escort marched on through the forest for a half-hour more. The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon, and dusk was thickening as they came to a rocky gorge. Into this place the man-beasts hurried with Curt’s party.

  “This is the Valley of the Council, in which all the free clans meet when the summons goes forth,” Golo told Captain Future. The man-horse spoke to Shih, “Sound the call.”

  At once the man-tiger leaped toward the rock cliff that formed one of the sides of the gorge and climbed to a tiny ledge. Curt Newton saw him throw back his human head.

  “Hai—ooo!”

  The screech of the man-tiger floated far out over the silent forest.

  Curt Newton understood now why the man-beasts used this gorge for their gatherings. A freak of natural acoustics made the narrow canyon a sounding-box which could project any cry for many miles around.

  Unfamiliar constellations of bright stars were winking forth in the darkening sky. Again Shih’s roaring summons went out over the solemn, silent forest, to all the clans.

  “Hai-ooo! Hai—ooo!”

  Chapter 10: Captain Future’s Promise

  FAR away in the gathering darkness, the weird call was repeated. Again and again it echoed from many directions.

  Shih came bounding back down to the floor of the gorge, where Captain Future and the others waited.

  “The call has gone forth,” said the man-tiger. “The Winged Ones will carry it. All the clans will soon be here.”

  His luminous green eyes were fixed on Curt Newton. “They must first accept you as clan-brothers, before we can help you find that other sky-ship you seek. But they will accept, when they know that you are of the Ancients.”

  Otho spoke uneasily to Curt in low tones. “Suppose they don’t accept us?”

  “I have an idea our lives won’t be worth much if the critters decide we’re impostors,” muttered Ezra Gurney.