He made up his mind quickly. “We’re going to Raboon and find out. This is the only lead we’ve procured so far, and though it may prove a false one, we must investigate.”
“Raboon is dangerous,” warned Golo. “The tribe of Manlings who inhabit that dead city are numerous and cruel.”
“All the more reason to go there, if Joan and the rest have been captured by the Manlings,” declared Captain Future.
“Then we go with you, clan-brother,” said Shih quickly. “We can lead you by the quickest route, for we have more than once scouted that city of deadly enemies.”
Golo and Zur and Skeen insisted likewise on joining the party. Realizing the great value of their assistance, Curt Newton did not demur.
Shih’s command rang out to the crowded, eager man-beasts in the moonlit gorge, as their party prepared to leave on the perilous mission.
“Clan-brothers, we may have quick need of you in the hours to come,” enjoined the man-tiger. “Hunt not too far from this region, so that if the call comes, you can answer.”
“We hear, Shih,” came back the eager, noisy reply. “We shall be ready if the clan-call comes.”
Curt Newton and Ezra and the Futuremen started northeastward through the moonlit forest at once. Shih and Zur led the way, and Golo’s towering figure trotted behind. Overhead, above the trees, Skeen’s dark-winged figure flew silently, circling over them as they marched.
The Brain, gliding beside Captain Future, babbled excitedly of a matter that was far from Curt Newton’s mind. “I still cannot believe that the tradition of these creatures is true — that the human race did not originate here at Deneb but came from some place else.
“We know Deneb was the first star inhabited by humans,” he continued. “If the human race did not originate here, where was its origin?”
“Accordin’ to that tale they told, the first men came to Deneb from the Darkness,” reminded Ezra Gurney.
“But what does that mean?” muttered the Brain. “This upsets all our ideas of galactic history. We’ve solved the riddle of why the Denebian empire fell, but we’ve stumbled on an even greater cosmic mystery.”
Captain Future only half-heard. Desperate worry over Joan Randall so occupied his mind that he was unable to give thought to the tremendous implications of the mystery that so perplexed the Brain.
He strode forward just behind the tawny, gliding figure of Shih, though the man-tiger set a pace that few men could have followed. Mile after mile of the great forest they traversed, and now the shafts of moonlight that struck down through the trees came from almost overhead.
Oog, riding Otho’s shoulder, whimpered complainingly and was soothed by the android. Grag had tucked his own pet under his arm and was walking in front of the big man-horse like a grim metal giant.
Hours of steady travel lay behind them, and old Ezra Gurney was panting audibly for breath, when with a rush of wings Skeen came gliding down into the moonlit glade they were crossing.
THE man-condor, alighting beside them, warned in a low whisper. “You are very near Raboon,” he said. “It lies just beyond the next ridge. I could see the fires of the Manlings.”
“Otho and I will go ahead and scout the place,” suggested Captain Future.
“Zur and I will accompany you,” hissed the man-tiger. “Skeen and Golo had best wait here with your friends.”
Curt Newton and Otho, with Shih and the man-dog flanking them, started more cautiously on through the forest. They entered a thicket of dense underbrush that clothed a slope of gently rising ground.
The brush ended at the ridge of the slope. The four strangely assorted comrades crouched down and crawled forward the last few yards.
Shih’s tawny, slinking form rubbed Curt’s elbow as they advanced stealthily. At the tiny sound of a snapping twig on the left, the man-tiger gave vent to a low, angry whisper.
“Have you of the Hunting Pack never learned how to stalk a prey?” he demanded furiously of Zur.
The man-dog’s low growl answered. “Look to your own feet, Shih. You brush through the leaves as noisily as a Manling.”
They crept on until they reached the edge of the ridge, and then crouched down and peered out of the concealment of the thicket.
Before them in the moonlight lay a mighty city. Its magnitude burst upon Curt Newton and Otho with stunning unexpectedness, for until this moment the denseness of the forest had prevented them from even glimpsing it.
Raboon, city of the great Ancients! It was a metropolis of white, soaring towers that were triangular in cross-section, and the highest of which aspired for two thousand feet into the moonlight. Scores upon scores of these gigantic columns rose from an area of several square miles. And the upper levels of these superhuman structures were joined by airy, giddy bridges and galleries and landing-decks, far, far up in the sky.
And this colossal city was dead. No lights gleamed from those high, sky-flung towers. No aircraft came or went from the lofty landing-decks. And the forest that hemmed this lost metropolis had encroached upon it, for small trees and bushes had forced their way up through the cracked paving of the broad streets, and had turned garden and park into jungles.
“See yonder, the fires of the Manlings,” hissed Shih, in tones of throbbing hatred.
Captain Future now glimpsed, well toward the center of the dead city, the red light of cooking-fires and torches. He could make out the men and women and children that moved about them.
They were as human as himself, those people. But their leather garments and crude-looking tools and weapons, their sputtering torches and squalid campfires, made miserable contrast to the titanic city they inhabited.
“They are barbarians — a people gone back to the primitive,” he muttered to Otho.
“Chief, look — they’ve got some of the man-beasts in there,” whispered the startled android.
Curt Newton had seen, at the same moment. Four of the human-headed man-horses like Golo were plodding through the city under the whips of Manling masters, harnessed to big logs they were dragging to the campfires.
“Yes, the Manlings enslave us of the Clans when they can catch us, or kill us if they can do nothing else,” snarled Shih, bitterly.
The horrifying spectacle held Captain Future spellbound with deep anger. Then, as he looked beyond the wearily-plodding man-beast slaves, he glimpsed a scene whose astounding significance swept everything else from his mind.
It was his missing space-ship, the Comet!
Hours before, back in the Comet as it sped through the galactic spaces toward Deneb, Joan Randall had succeeded in half rubbing through the insulation of the two cables whose short-circuit would disable the ship. The girl’s hopes were rising. If she could actually cripple the craft, it would not be long until the pursuing Futuremen overtook it.
IN HER absorption, Joan Randall forgot that Cole Norton’s ultimatum had given her only an hour until she must disclose the inscription-clue. She was abruptly reminded by the opening of the compartment door and the crisp voice of the physicist.
“Well, have you decided to be sensible and —” Norton began.
Then, glimpsing Joan Randall’s activity, he leaped forward with an exclamation of alarm and anger.
“So this is what you’re up to! I should have known better than to leave you in here alone.”
Joan Randall struggled fiercely, but the tiny fists with which she hammered Norton’s face could not prevent the big physicist from dragging her out of the compartment into the main cabin of the Comet.
Philip Winters looked up startledly from the chart over which he had been anxiously poring. “What’s the matter, Norton?”
“The matter is that this little wildcat was trying to sabotage our ship,” spat Norton. “We’ll have to keep her out here where we can watch her. Chah Har, tie her hands.”
Joan Randall soon found herself bound into one of the recoil-chairs in the cabin, her wrists tied together for further security.
“Now,” said
Cole Norton grimly, “I shall waste no further amenities on you. You know just where the Chamber of Life lies at Deneb, and you are going to tell us at once.” His expression hardened. An expression of fiendish cruelty came into his face.
“I know how to make you talk,” he said. “Torture will do the trick!”
Chapter 12: Wicked Men Agree
JUST at this critical moment a providential interruption saved Joan Randall. Voories, the Earthman of Norton’s three unsavory followers, let out a yell from the control room.
“Norton, how do you decelerate this ship?” he shouted in tones of fright. “We’re getting near Deneb and I don’t know how to handle things. Come quick. I need help.”
Norton made a gesture of exasperation.
“You get a reprieve, Miss Randall,” he said. “I’ll have my hands full getting ready for the landing. But when we reach Deneb you’d better be ready to talk!”
The blond physicist stalked forward with Dr. Winters’ little figure trailing behind. Joan Randall soon heard the vibration-drive generators droning louder as Norton started the ticklish business of decelerating their immense velocity.
Through the open door and fore-window of the control-room, she could glimpse the vault of space ahead. In it, Deneb had grown to a tiny sun-disk that was still expanding slowly as the ship approached.
In the long, following hours, as the Comet steadily slowed down and the blazing disk of Deneb steadily grew in size, Joan Randall remained bound in the chair.
Finally she slept, her head nodding on her shoulder, until the crash of rocket-tubes hours later awakened her. She looked forward and perceived the Comet was rushing toward a great planet blanketed by rolling green forests.
“This doesn’t look as I expected Deneb’s world to look,” she heard Philip Winters say in a troubled voice. “It’s wilderness.”
“There’s some sort of big city over to the west,” Norton’s announced. “I’m going to have a look.”
Norton was firing keel and tail rockets alternately now, steering the ship down in a long glide.
“Good heavens, look at the size of those towers,” Winters was exclaiming. “But I can’t see a soul in the place.”
“It’s dead, and looks as though it has been dead for ages,” rasped Norton. “See how the forest has encroached on it. I’m going to land in the place.”
JOAN RANDALL felt the Comet sinking vertically on its flaming keel-tubes. It slid down past the up-flung spires of enormous, triangular white towers, and came bumpily to rest. Silence followed the cutting of the cyclotrons. “Well, we’re here,” said Norton in matter-of-fact tones. But as he strode back into the cabin, there was a gleam in his cold blue eyes.
They opened the ship’s door, after testing the atmosphere. Joan Randall was released from the chair, but her wrists remained bound as Norton allowed her to emerge with them from the ship.
They stood in a little, wondering group, staring around the mighty city that surrounded them. The ship had landed in a great central plaza paved with time-cracked marble in whose crevices grass and weeds were growing. Immediately confronting them, at the edge of this round plaza, loomed a huge triangular tower that was the largest in the city.
It and the other geometrical white spires that rose thousands of feet into the hot white sunlight made pygmies of the wondering humans.
Norton spoke in a low voice, as though influenced a little by the solemn silence of this brooding place.
“It’s a city of the ancient super-civilization of Deneb, whose builders must have perished ages ago,” he said.
“Do you suppose the Chamber of Life we’re hunting is here?” asked Philip Winters.
“That,” said Norton, “is what we are now going to find out.” He turned to the girl. “Time’s up, Miss Randall. We want that inscription-clue and we want it now. You’ll either tell it, or we’ll let Chah Har try a few tricks of Uranian cross-examination on you.”
He nodded toward the fat, beady-eyed yellow Uranian, who came waddling expectantly forward.
“Is the Chamber of Life near this dead city?” asked Norton.
“I’m not going to tell you,” cried the girl.
Norton shrugged his broad shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said with evident sincerity. “I rather like you and I hate to let Chah Har third-degree you. But the stakes in this game are too big for sentiment.”
He nodded to the fat Uranian, who moved toward the girl. Philip Winters started to intervene. Norton instantly drew his atom-pistol and covered the little biologist.
“Winters, stand back or I’ll have to kill you,” he warned in chilled-steel tones. “Remember, you’re no longer of value to me.”
“Norton, look,” screeched Kul Kan, the cadaverous Martian. “This city is coming alive.”
He was pointing to the figures that were stealthily emerging from the giant buildings all around the plaza.
They were men, golden-skinned men clad in rough leather garments and carrying weapons that looked oddly like ancient cross-bows. They had these bow-guns trained upon Norton’s party, yet despite this menacing attitude, awe and fear were strong in the faces of these golden barbarians.
“It’s a trap,” shrilled Winters fearfully. “They hid in the buildings until we’d landed —”
“Don’t get panicky,” rapped Cole Norton. “These people hid when they heard our ship coming, because they were scared. Look at their faces. They’re just savages, and our ship has frightened them. We may be able to get information from them. Don’t use your atom-guns.”
“Gods of Mars, look at those others,” yelled Kul Kan, his red face livid and his eyes bulging.
They all froze with horror. From behind other big towers where they had concealed themselves, more of the gold-skinned barbaric warriors were coming into the plaza. These warriors, though, were mounted.
They were mounted upon horses which had the heads of men. Man-horses, whose weary, patient faces were as human as their own. Bridles connected to cruel choking-rings around the necks of the creatures were used by the riders to control them.
“Those creatures — devils —” gasped the fat Chah Har, shivering violently.
NORTON’S eyes lighted up.
“Steady,” he said. “These people must know something about the secret. If we can make friends with them were’s all right.”
The physicist listened to the chatter of the awed savages.
“That language they’re chattering is a debased form of the ancient Denebian language whose written form we learned,” continued Norton. “I’m going to try to talk peace to them. Wait here.”
Fearlessly, Cole Norton strode forward toward the nervous warriors. Joan Randall saw one of the gold-skinned barbarians hesitatingly come to meet the tall Earthman.
The savage, a man of over middle age with cunning eyes in a mask-like yellow face, wore a headdress that seemed a badge of authority. For many minutes, he and Norton stood there, speaking and gesturing.
Finally, they appeared to come to agreement. For the barbarian chieftain turned and called something to his warriors. An excited shout went up. The tension left the golden men, and they lowered their weapons and came eagerly closer to the strangers.
Cole Norton’s eyes were gleaming when he came back to his group. “We were able to talk fairly well,” he reported tautly. “These people call themselves the Manlings. That chief, whose name is Osorkon, is smart and cagy but he has a suspicion of our weapons’ power and wants to be friends.”
Joan Randall perceived that many hundreds of the barbaric Manlings were now appearing from the hiding-places in the dead city to which they had retreated when the Comet approached. Men, women and children swarmed forward to mill around the ship.
She shivered with horror at the sight of many of the weary, semi-human man-horses. Her emotion deepened when she perceived among the savage throngs a number of shaggy, big, man-dogs whose heads and faces also were human, and whom the Manlings used to haul low sledges
loaded with burdens. The whips of the human masters cracked across the backs of these pitiful semi-human slaves.
“Man-horses and man-dogs — and goodness knows what other half-human species there may be here,” said Philip Winters thickly, to himself. “This is hideous.”
Norton had been talking again with the chieftain of the Manlings. “Osorkon wants to tender us all a feast. It seems that his home is in that biggest tower. I think we’d better go.”
“What about the Randall girl?” demanded Voories, the hulking Earthman. “If we leave her alone in the Comet, she’ll try more tricks.”
“We’ll take her along,” Norton said with a frown. “The chief probably has a good place in which to keep her. It’ll be safe to leave the ship, for these people are too afraid of it to tamper with it.”
Joan Randall her wrists still bound, was led between Chah Har and Voories as they all accompanied the Manling chieftain across the plaza.
They entered the colossal biggest tower in the city, which faced the plaza. Its whole lower floor was a vast hall that had apparently once been an auditorium. But now the marbled floor was thick with dust, and strewn with the bones and refuse and ashes carelessly flung aside by the present savage tenants.
Torches burning in rude sockets dispelled a little of the gloom of this enormous room.
Norton conferred with Osorkon, pointing toward Joan Randall as he spoke. The chieftain nodded, and signed to them to accompany him.
Norton forced the girl after the chief, to the end of the vast hall. There were gaping, empty shafts that had once held elevators. There were also stairs, up which Osorkon led.
ALL the dusty upper levels of the gigantic structure appeared to be unused by the Manlings. Understandably, they disliked climbing so much. The chief led along a debris-strewn hall to a door secured by a strong bar.
Joan Randall was thrust into a dark little room, and the door closed. She heard the falling of the heavy bar.
She looked around dismally. The little marble chamber was empty of furniture, and was thick with dust and dried leaves that had drifted through the window. Its walls bore a faded mural of a beautiful scene — golden-skinned men and women in gracious garments, standing in a dark garden and pointing up at the stars.
Captain Future 15 - The Star of Dread (Summer 1943) Page 9