Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “We’ll try our scheme tomorrow at Neptune,” he had told Simon Wright the ‘night’ before. “You’ll be left in the ship when the rest of us go out to make the submarine scenes. And Jon Valdane will stay here too — he won’t risk his precious skin by going out. So I’ll pretend to get lost, and will slip back secretly to the ship.”

  “I’ll keep the aft emergency airlock open for you,” the Brain had agreed. “But be careful, lad — you know the dangers of Neptune’s sea.”

  Captain Future was grimly remembering that warning as he stared in pretended wonder with the others at the enlarging world ahead.

  “But there isn’t anything on it but water,” exclaimed Ron King, astonished. “The whole planet is ocean.”

  The Perseus, its bow rockets thundering to brake its fall, dropped in past the big moon, Triton, and hovered above the heaving, shoreless sea. In the pale light of sunrise, the watery wastes stretched featureless to the distant horizons. They could glimpse great fish leaping high out of the waves to escape black, reptilian pursuers.

  “There isn’t a speck of land on this whole world,” marveled Lura Lind.

  “There are some islands in the northern hemisphere,” corrected Jim Willard. “That’s where the human Neptunians live. But we’re not going there.”

  “Where are we going to land then?” asked Ron King anxiously.

  Lo Quior grinned at them. “We’re not going to land at all. We’re going right down to the bottom of this sea.”

  A little outcry of alarm went up from the group at this disconcerting information. Curt Newton made his own voice the most fearful.

  “Now quiet down, folks,” ordered Jeff Lewis bluntly. “There’s no danger whatever in the Perseus going down to the bottom. A space-ship is built to keep air in, and it will keep water out just as well. And our rocket-tubes are fitted with baffles so we can navigate underwater.”

  The Perseus struck the waves and sank beneath their surface. Instantly the space-ship was encompassed by an eerie green gloom. The waters were all about them, pressing against the glassite walls through which they stared.

  The ship continued to sink. The green hue of the water, seen through the ports, darkened. But they could make out a multitude of strange fish and sea-creatures outside the walls, which had been attracted by their lights.

  Then the Perseus began to navigate cautiously above the weird forests of the ocean floor, moving in widening circles. The muffled throbbing of the baffled rockets was loud in their ears.

  “We’re looking for a city of the seafolk,” Jim Willard explained. “There’s supposed to be one in this region.”

  “What if they don’t like the idea of our visiting them to make scenes?” asked Jon Valdane doubtfully.

  “They’ll be all right,” said Davis. “They’re not exactly human, but they’re semi-civilized and friendly now.”

  THE lights caught two monstrous ursals engaged in a ferocious underwater struggle. Then as the two creatures separated and fled from the brilliance, a sharp cry came from the bridge room.

  “Submarine city two miles ahead.”

  A moment later, the bow-rockets blasted and then the Perseus sank downward toward an open glade in the weird polyp-forest.

  They all strained their gaze ahead in an endeavor to make out the outlines of the submarine city. But only a dim glimpse came to their watching eyes through the dusky water of a distant mass of black, cubical buildings surrounding a central pyramid. Then they lost all sight of the distant city as the space-ship sank down into the glade in the forest, and landed in the ooze.

  Jeff Lewis now went into action.

  “Get the suits ready, Jim,” he barked. “Lo Quior, you’ve got the cameras fixed for underwater work, haven’t you? Get them ready to take out. And remember, every technician is to carry an atom-gun.”

  The indefatigable producer herded his troupe down to the main airlock of the lower deck. There Jim Willard issued the sea-suits they were to wear.

  The suits were simply space-suits with glassite helmets, but they had been especially strengthened and made more rigid to withstand the crushing weight of waters. Curt Newton, as he started donning his, saw Joan Randall climbing into hers. She had previously signified her intention of accompanying the undersea party. It had been Captain Future’s idea that she should, as he had explained to her in the only chance he had had to speak with her secretly.

  But Curt Newton was disconcerted to see that Su Thuar was also donning one of the sea-suits. The Venusian was going to accompany them! “I’d like to see what this Neptunian ocean is like,” he said. Curt Newton edged to Joan’s side.

  “I don’t like Su Thuar’s going along,” he whispered. “He may try to get rid of you out there. Be sure to stay close to Lewis and the others after I slip away.” The cameras and other properties, including Grag, had already been taken outside by Lo Quior and the technicians. Now Lewis gathered his actors into the big main air-lock, and its inner door was closed.

  The outer door was slowly opened. Sea-water rushed in upon them and filled the lock. They stepped out of it, one by one, onto the oozy bottom of the Neptunian ocean. Jeff Lewis’ voice came to them through the short-range telaudio built into their suits.

  “This way. Keep together, and follow our lights. Remember, it’ll be dangerous to straggle here.”

  The producer and Lo Quior led the way through the submarine polyp forest, lighting their way by krypton spotlights attached to their belts. Behind them, technicians hauled flat metal sledges on which were loaded the big cameras and other equipment that would be needed.

  Curt Newton noticed Grag lying prone one one of those sledges, and grinned to himself. Water could not hurt Grag, for the robot did not breathe. He imagined that Grag was chuckling at getting a free ride.

  “Look out for ‘swallowers,’ boys,” Jeff Lewis warned the armed men around their party. “I’m told they’re the most dangerous beast in this ocean.”

  Weird little caravan marching through the eternal dusk of the Neptunian sea-floor. In their stiff suits and gleaming helmets, they looked themselves like grotesque denizens of the deep.

  Their feet sank into the ooze for inches with each step. All about them loomed the strange polyp forest, a labyrinth of branching white and green growths whose interlaced limbs stirred in the currents with repellent semi-animal life. Shoals of “solar-fish” rocketed away startledly in front of them. A big, harmless “breather” lumbered clumsily off through the submarine forest.

  “Look out! There come a couple of ursals!” came Jim Willard’s voice in a yell of sudden warning.

  HASTILY the armed men leveled the heavy atom-guns which could operate as well under water as in air or space. Two of the big, black dinosaur-like reptiles were swimming toward them from straight ahead.

  “There’s something on the backs of those creatures,” said Newton hastily. “Wait.”

  The two sea-men rode their reptilian steeds right up to the telepicture party, apparently having been attracted by the lights. The two riders dismounted and approached.

  “My stars those things are half-fish and half-human,” came Ron King’s awed exclamation.

  “They’re simply an extreme evolutionary adaptation of the ancient human stock to the Neptunian habitat,” Joan Randall declared.

  The sea-men had hairless heads, and their faces were quite human in features. But at the base of their throats were open gills that pulsed regularly as they breathed the water.

  Their short, powerful arms were finished at the elbows and wrists. The two legs were almost grown together to form a powerful, tail-like limb that ended in fins instead of feet.

  They wore garments made of twisted sea-weed fibers woven upon metal strands.

  Here was a strange offshoot of humanity — a part of the ancient Denebian human stock which on this watery world had adapted itself to breathe oxygen from water and to live in these green depths.

  “They’re supposed to understand a little of the interplane
tary lingua franca,” Jeff Lewis was muttering. “We’ll soon find out.”

  The producer was closing a switch at his belt, so that his voice was diverted into a resonator to set up sound-waves in the water.

  “Friends,” Lewis declared muffledly in the rudimentary language based upon ancient Denebian words, which all galactic races know.

  One of the sea-men answered hastily, his voice coming muffledly to them as sound-waves through the water.

  “What’s he talking about?” Jeff Lewis asked.

  Captain Future understood. The seaman was excitedly warning them that some of his people had recently sighted a “swallower” in this polyp forest. “Swallowers” were the most dreaded monsters of this world.

  The two sea-men rode ahead on their ursals, and when the company of humans emerged from the polyp forest at the edge of the submarine city, they were greeted by hundreds of the sea-folk.

  Fantastic undersea metropolis it seemed even to Captain Future, who had seen these submarine cities before. And to the eyes of the others, the scene was incredible.

  The massed cubical buildings of the city had been constructed of heavy black stone quarried from the ocean floor. The windows and roofs of the structures were closed by metal bars, to prevent the incursion of the more dangerous sea creatures.

  Rocketing through the grotesque streets in swimming swarms came the sea-folk-men, women, little children. They whirled and dived excitedly all around the humans, who in their heavy sea-suits seemed stiff and clumsy by comparison. And many of the sea-folk rode tame ursals.

  “Set up the cameras here, Lo,” ordered Jeff Lewis. “Get those krypton spotlights going. We’ll make our first scenes here.”

  The swarming, friendly sea-folk recoiled a little when the powerful krypton lights, powered by compact batteries, were switched on. Their beams streamed through the dusky waters to illuminate the weird city.

  “Carson — Chan Carson!” called the producer. “Take your place over here. Turn on the automaton, Jim. Carson, you walk beside it.”

  At that order, Jim Willard touched one of the dummy switches on Grag’s back, and immediately Grag started walking stiffly forward through the waters like the automaton he was supposed to be. Curt Newton kept beside him, tramping unsteadily toward the black city.

  The sea-folk, not comprehending that the scene was make-believe, swarmed eagerly toward Curt Newton and Grag. It made a striking scene.

  “That’s swell,” Jeff Lewis exclaimed eagerly. “Pretend to be greeting them, Carson.”

  CURT NEWTON obeyed. But Grag, stalking stiffly on through the swarming sea-people, walked straight into one of the big, tame ursals.

  The dinosaur-like creature reared alarmedly at sight of the approaching robot. Its snaky head darted forth and grasped Grag’s metal arm. Grag swung a stiff blow with the other arm that knocked the ursal back from him. The creature darted away through the water.

  “Fine,” exulted Lewis. “That little scene was accidental but it’ll be a knockout. Turn the automaton off, Jim.

  “Now, Carson, the next scene shows you going out of the city into the forest,” the director continued. “You’ve rested and the friendly sea-folk have told you about a sunken spaceship in the polyp-forest. You think maybe you can use it to get away in, so you’re going to hunt for it.”

  Captain Future, listening, perceived the chance he had been waiting for the chance to get away and slip back secretly to the Perseus.

  He obeyed Lewis’ directions, and as the cameras ground he tramped back out from the city toward the polyp-forest. He moved now without the dragging heaviness. Curious sea-folk swam with him as he went.

  In a moment, Newton was inside the dense polyp-forest and out of sight of the city and telepicture company. At once, Captain Future plunged through the submarine forest in the direction of the distant ship!

  Lewis’ order rang from the telaudio receiver inside his helmet. “Carson, come on back out of there.”

  Curt Newton answered with a wail of terror. “I’m lost,” he said. “I got turned around in here and I don’t know which way you are.”

  “The helpless fool,” he heard Jeff Lewis exclaim angrily. “Jim, take a couple of men and go in and find him.”

  Capture Future plunged on through the dusky polyp-forest, startling shoals of fish, tramping around huge empty shells deserted by “tenant-clams.” The sea-folk with him turned back now, as though afraid.

  But Curt Newton hardly noticed these things, for his mind was on the dangerous task ahead. He must get back into the Perseus unobserved so that he and Simon Newton could overpower Jon Valdane and try the brain-scanner on him. And he didn’t have much time!

  Curt Newton suddenly recoiled as a giant, disk-shaped white mass rose unexpectedly out of the polyp-groves ahead of him. It was incredibly huge, with staring, saucer-like eyes that glared as it rushed toward him.

  With a throb of horror, he recognized it as that most awful of Neptunian terrors, a “swallower.” There was no chance to flee. And he had only his puny stage-property atomic pistol with which to fight it!

  Chapter 9: Undersea Trap

  WITH quick comprehension, Joan Randall immediately understood when “Chan Carson” terrifiedly reported himself lost in the submarine forest.

  Captain Future had told her that he would use some such pretext to slip back to the Perseus, where he and Simon Wright would subject Jon Valdane to the inquisition of their brain-scanner. “You stay with Lewis and the rest, Joan,” he had earnestly warned her. “Grag will be there, too, and you’ll be safe from Su Thuar.” But the girl was rebellious. If there was one thing she hated, it was being left out of things because Newton felt anxious about her safety. And she had secretly resolved to follow him back to the ship and share in his precarious attempt there, whether he liked it or not.

  Standing in her sea-suit with the others at the edge of the dense submarine forest, she heard the voice of Jeff Lewis angrily calling to “Chary Carson.”

  “Carson, don’t wander around in there,” the producer was yelling. “Jim and a couple of the men are coming in to find you.”

  No answer came back on the short-range telaudio, although Jeff Lewis repeated the order. The producer swore. “He’s wandered out of range of our telaudios. That Carson would lose his head and give way to panic the moment he found himself alone.” Jim Willard and Lo Quior were beating through the polyp forest, into which Curt Newton had disappeared. They tramped back out of the submarine groves a few minutes later, trudging through the ooze.

  “Can’t find him, Jeff,” Willard reported. “He’s probably wandering around in circles.”

  “And these sea-people seem so scared of that part of the forest that they won’t search him out for us,” muttered Lewis. “Well, he’s in no immediate danger, for his suit has enough oxygen for many hours. You and your men can keep hunting for him, Jim. The rest of us will go on with the other scenes until you bring him back here.” And the producer gave directions for the filming of scenes inside the grotesque black submarine city of the swarming sea-folk.

  “Take the cameras right inside the city, Lo. I want a scene showing Ron and Lura arriving. They’ve picked up a signal Captain Future sent out from the sunken space-ship he found, and have come to help.”

  The krypton spotlights and big cameras were moved into the edge of the city. The friendly sea-folk, highly intrigued and mystified by all that was going on, darted in swarms around and through the brilliant beams of the spotlights.

  Grag was placed in the center of the scene, and Lo Quior touched his “control-buttons.” Grag immediately responded in automaton-like fashion by waving his arms stiffly in greeting as Ron King and Lura Lind came tramping into the scene.

  While this was going on, Joan Randall had followed Jim Willard and his two men back to the edge of the submarine forest.

  “I’ll help you hunt for Carson,” she offered. “I know a little about these submarine forests.”

  “And I’ll help too,”
said a smooth voice on the telaudio.

  Joan Randall turned, sharply. It was Su Thuar’s voice. The Venusian had unobtrusively stayed near her all during their undersea march and during the scenes at the sea-folk city. And he was still sticking to her.

  She remembered Curt Newton’s warning against the Venusian. Valdane wanted to get rid of her before they went on to Styx. Su Thuar had probably accompanied them with that purpose in mind.

  The girl felt more vexation than apprehension. She was not afraid of the Venusian. But if he stuck too closely to her it would make it difficult for her to steal away secretly from this search, and follow Newton back to the ship. And that was what Joan intended to do.

  “All right, we’ll separate and beat through this whole sector of the forest,” Jim Willard said. “Keep within telaudio range of each other and keep calling Carson. Sooner or later, we’ll get an answer.”

  The young assistant director added an anxious warning.

  “Don’t go too far in, Joan. It could be dangerous. And Carson isn’t worth it.”

  JOAN RANDALL smiled to herself as she started into the polyp forest. How astounded all these people would be if they knew the real identity of the timid, fearful Chan Carson for whom they showed such open contempt.

  She kept up a pretense of searching as she tramped through the dusky glades of grotesque polyp-growths. The small krypton-light she wore at the belt of her sea-suit like the others furnished a limited illumination, and she could see the lights of the others close by. She heard, on her suit-receiver, the telaudio calls of Jim Willard and the others to the missing “Chan Carson.” She called herself, to keep up the pretense. But actually, she was looking for a chance to get away from them and start back to the ship after Curt Newton. Joan Randall was soon out of sight of Willard, in the dense submarine forest. But on her other side, Su Thuar persistently kept within sight of her lamp’s beams. Undoubtedly, the Venusian was trailing her.

  He had made no attempt to attack her. She did not fear such an attack, for she was on the alert and had her own efficient atom-pistol at her belt. But she was becoming angry at her inability to slip away while the Venusian was watching her.