Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “If she’s dead!” his brain throbbed. “If she’s dead, I’ll kill Su Thuar and Valdane and all the rest of them right here.”

  He was heading back toward the undersea city of the sea-folk where he had left Joan with the telepicture troupe. Reckless now of the dangers of the depths, he took the straightest course toward it. Before Curt Newton had covered half the distance, he was suddenly galvanized by a faint call from the little telaudio inside his helmet.

  “Joan, is that you?” he cried frantically. “Are you all right?”

  FAINTLY the trapped girl’s voice came to him.

  “Yes,” she exclaimed, her tones quivering with gladness as she recognized his voice. “My oxygen ran out. I’m down here in a ‘breather’s’ burrow. It was the only chance I had.”

  “Joan, stay there — I’m coming,” Captain Future promised, his heart pounding with relief. “Keep speaking each few moments so I can know the way to you.”

  He steered his way through the labyrinthine polyp forest by listening to her frequent calls. Their short-range telaudios, good for a radius of only a few thousand feet, made her voice quickly louder when he went toward her and as rapidly weaker when he was going away from her.

  Thus Captain Future groped his way through the dusky undersea groves until he found the entrance of the “breather’s” burrow. He dived unhesitatingly down into the dark mouth of the tunnel, and clambered through it until he emerged up into the burrow itself.

  By the light of Joan’s krypton belt-lamp, he perceived the interior of this air-filled pocket under the ocean floor. Joan was crouched upon a rock ledge above the water, and at the other end of the ledge a huge, turtle-like “breather” was protectively guarding its young. The beady eyes of the big, harmless creature watched Curt Newton with apprehension.

  Curt Newton ripped off his helmet, and took the shuddering girl into his arms. Joan Randall was nearer to hysteria than he had ever seen her.

  “It’s been like a nightmare,” she sobbed. “And yet it was almost funny when that ‘breather’ came back and found me in here. It was as scared of me as I was scared of it. I laughed.” He fitted the full oxygen tank he had brought to her suit, and they scrambled out of the burrow of the “breather.” Then they started hastily through the polyp forest toward the city of the sea-folk.

  When they finally emerged from the submarine forest into full view of the telepicture troupe at the city’s edge, Jeff Lewis sighted them. “So you found Carson, Miss Randall. It’s about time.”

  “He was wandering in circles only a quarter-mile inside the forest,” Joan Randall said in an exasperated voice.

  “I’ve had a terrible experience,” Curt Newton shrilled in accents of horror. “I couldn’t find my way in that ghastly place.”

  “Stop whimpering, Carson,” Lewis said brutally. “You’ve wasted enough of our time already. We’ve got to finish these scenes. Get over there with the automaton.” They again enacted the scenes the producer wanted, Grag striding in stiff automaton-fashion beside Curt Newton as he excitedly met Ron King and Lura Lind at the edge of the grotesque city.

  The cameras whirred, the krypton spotlights eerily illuminated the scene. Through the dusky waters into the spotlights rushed schools of frightened fish, while the humanoid sea-folk swam around the beams in undiminished curiosity.

  “Swell, all this is stuff no telepicture ever had before,” exulted Jeff Lewis as they finished the last scene. “With these and the Jupiter scenes, and the big climactic shots, we’ll make on Styx, ‘The Ace of Space’ will be a smash hit.”

  Jim Willard and Su Thuar came out of the polyp forest. “We couldn’t find Carson anywhere,” the Venusian reported.

  He stopped suddenly. His sea-suited figure grew stiff with amazement as he glimpsed Joan Randall.

  “Where did she come from?” he gulped.

  “Miss Randall found Carson,” growled Jeff Lewis. “All right, folks, that’s all. We’re going back to the ship.”

  Captain Future realized the reason for Su Thuar’s stupefaction. The Venusian could not understand how Joan Randall had managed to survive without air. Curt Newton trembled with bitter anger toward the murderous scoundrel. It was not Su Thuar’s fault that Joan Randall was not dead in the polyp forest. The Futureman swore to himself that he would repay the Venusian for that.

  They tramped back through the submarine forest to the Perseus without incident, accompanied part way by the swarming, swimming sea-folk. But when they entered the ship, they found excitement in it. Jon Valdane, with Kin Kurd, was talking angrily to Captain Petersen.

  “There’s been a mysterious attack on Mr. Valdane while you were gone,” the captain told Jeff Lewis. “We can’t understand who committed it.”

  Valdane’s eyes fell upon Joan Randall’s face as she removed her helmet. And he and Kin Kurd showed blank surprise for a moment.

  Su Thuar spoke swiftly, meaningly, to his employer.

  “We had trouble ourselves. Carson got lost, and Miss Randall was gone for a couple of hours searching for him.”

  Valdane’s small eyes flashed suspiciously.

  “She got lost, you say?” he snarled. “Hah! That is interesting!”

  The financier did not say anything more, but Newton could readily surmise what he was thinking. Valdane believed that Joan had returned to the ship and gassed them.

  Then Valdane and the Saturnian and Venusian departed to their own quarters. Jeff Lewis was speaking to the captain of the Perseus.

  “We can take off any time you’re ready, captain. We’re all through here on Neptune. Now head for Styx.”

  Captain Future’s heart sank. He had failed in his desperate attempt to prevent Valdane from reaching Styx. And his failure meant terrible danger, not only to the girl he loved but to the future of a whole world!

  Chapter 11: On Mysterious Styx

  MAGIC MOON was to the System peoples much as ancient Egypt had been to the people of Earth. It lived in popular legend as a place of brooding mystery, a faraway world whose aloof, unsocial inhabitants were primitive in their lack of mechanical progress but were reputed magicians in their uncanny powers of creating illusion. Until a few years before, the Stygians had used their powers of illusion to isolate their world completely by making it appear uninhabitable. Then their age-old isolation had been broken forever by the great struggle between the Futuremen and the Legion of Doom which had resulted in the opening up of this world. Curt Newton was darkly remembering that previous adventure as he stood at the promenade-deck wall and watched Styx grow larger ahead. Had fate led him back here, this time to taste defeat?

  The Perseus had already drawn past the big, gleaming sphere of Pluto and now was swinging by Charon and Cerberus, the two nearer moons.

  Styx loomed ahead, a growing, grayish ball. It appeared unthinkable remote and lonely as it followed its orbit around the parent planet out here in the eternal twilight. This was the edge of infinity. Beyond stretched the abysses of deep space that separated this last outpost of the Sun from the nearest fixed stars.

  The members of the troupe were all gathering in excited groups to watch the landing upon the mysterious moon. A sense of adventure was evident in the bearing of almost all of them. Everyone had heard stories of Styx, but few persons had ever visited it. The Perseus was now dropping rapidly toward the gray moon. As they neared it, the grayish surface paled to a dull white. There lay beneath them a strange and ghostly landscape of rolling plains of white grass, dotted with clumps of towering white club-mosses. It was half-veiled by drifting banks of dense gray mists. Solemn chords of mystery and awe struck into the hearts of the beholders as they gazed across the shrouded face of the System’s most mysterious world. They stared silently as the ship slanted down toward the northern hemisphere. Low, rocky hills and gorges lay in the misty distance, but nearer than these was a shallow valley in which was situated a small, sprawling town of light metalloy buildings.

  “That’s Planet Town, where we’re going to make our
base,” informed Jeff Lewis, “It’s the only ‘foreign’ colony on Styx.”

  “But this town has ordinary metalloy buildings,” Lura Lind was saying in surprise. “I thought Styx didn’t have any metal?”

  “It doesn’t,” Jim Willard retorted. “Not a bit of metal exists on Styx except a few traces of cobalt, titanium and other rare elements. Scientists have never been able to explain the lack of metal. As to this town, the interplanetary traders who built it brought the metalloy with them.”

  They were circling toward the cloud shrouded landing-field. It lay more than a mile east of the town, a flat part of the grassy white valley whose sod was blackened and torn by rocket-blasts. A dozen space-ships lay on the field, freighters and small cruisers. Captain Future glimpsed the Comet. Yet he hardly recognized it. His sleek little ship had been transformed by paint and other means into a battered, worn-looking, little old cruiser such as could be picked up cheaply on any planet by anyone willing to risk his life in such a vessel.

  The Perseus landed with a thunder of keel-tubes. There was an eager scramble to the space-doors by the actors and technicians. Newton pretended equal excitement as he crowded after the others, but he was careful to keep close to Joan Randall, for he saw Su Thuar following her.

  “You’ll all have to be careful here,” Jeff Lewis warned the cast. “This place has a reputation as the toughest frontier-town in the System.”

  In the chill, foggy twilight that was mid-day here, they stood looking wonderingly around when they emerged. More than a mile westward through the mist loomed the metalloy structures of Planet Town.

  A MOTLEY throng of the frontier town’s inhabitants was pouring toward the field to greet them. Curt Newton’s experienced eyes read these as the usual riffraff that followed the interplanetary frontier — adventurers, fugitive criminals, gamblers, traders, curious tourists. They included yellow Uranians and pallid Venusians, somber-eyed Martians and tough-looking Earthmen. Nearly every man wore a belted atom-pistol. A square, brawny jovian ruffian with a massive, vicious green face strode forward toward them.

  “Welcome to Planet Town, folks,” he said in hoarse tones. “I’m Jos Vakos, owner of the biggest gambling hall here. We’ve been expecting you telepicture people.”

  Jim Willard, beside Newton, commented dryly under his breath. “Looks as if our publicity campaign for ‘The Ace of Space’ has centered the eyes of the whole System on us.”

  Captain Future frowned. That was a facet of the mystery he had never been able to understand. Why had Jon Valdane ordered such a big publicity campaign for the expedition? Why did he want the System to be watching when he carried out a secret plot to loot Styx?

  “You’ll like it here in Planet Town,” Jos Vakos rumbled. “There isn’t any law because the Patrol can’t come here. You can do anything you want, as long as you’re able to back it up with your gun.”

  Jeff Lewis was diplomatically polite. “We’re here to film some scenes in one of the Stygian communities. I understand one of their cities is not far north from this place.” A burst of cackling, derisive laughter came from a whiskered, disreputable old space-rat of an Earthman in the front of the throng.

  “You ain’t got a chance,” he shrilled. “The Furries won’t give anybody permission to come near their danged cities. They even try to stop us from workin’ the diamond-beds north of here.”

  “Old Lennie is right,” said Jos Vakos, the brutal-faced Jovian. “After we came all the way out here when we heard of the diamond-strike, the cursed Furries have done all they could to scare us away.”

  Captain Future had started imperceptibly when he heard the voice of the whiskered space-rat they called Old Lennie. He looked hard at the disreputable old prospector, and recognized Ezra Gurney.

  Gurney saw Curt Newton, in the back of the telepicture group, and winked slightly. Then the old man’s jaw dropped as he noticed Joan Randall.

  Jos Vakos was saying, “The Furries keep threatening what they’re going to do to us if we don’t all leave Styx,” complained Jos Vakos. “They tell us regularly that unless we go, they’ll unloose some mysterious Destroyer on us. It’s all just a bluff of theirs.”

  “Here are a couple of the Furries now,” called one of the motley crowd.

  “Stygians?” exclaimed Jeff Lewis. “I want to talk to them.”

  Through the crowd around the Perseus came riding two figures who were almost as strange as the grotesque mounts they bestrode.

  The two Stygians were men, but not men like those of any other planetary race. Their bodies were covered with a short white fur. Their heads were oddly flattened, with big, pupilless black eyes of hypnotic depth. They wore cloaks of woven gray fiber, and had no weapons.

  The mounts they rode were big, white kangaroo-like beasts that hopped rapidly forward upon powerful hind legs, and were guided by bit and reins.

  “The Furries have come to look you over.” growled Jos Vakos.

  Captain Future perceived that the attitude of the motley crowd toward the two Stygians was one of mingled hostility and contempt. But the Stygians seemed impervious to that. They sat their strange steeds, solemnly inspecting the Perseus and those it had brought. Then one of them spoke to the other in a low tone, in his own language.

  Captain Future, who remained unobserved behind the others of his party, understood that language. He was, he knew, the only one present who did so — almost the only outsider who ever had been close enough to the Stygians to learn their baffling tongue.

  “More come each week,” the Stygian was saying to his companion. “More of the forbidden machines and metals.”

  “It must not go on,” muttered the other. “Even if we have to awaken the ancient power, it must stop.”

  JEFF LEWIS spoke to the Stygians in the interplanetary lingua franca which all races understood. “We are friends,” he said earnestly. “And we wish to visit one of your cities to make telepicture scenes.”

  The first Stygian answered instantly, in the same basic language. “You cannot come.”

  “But we’d do you no harm,” protested Lewis. “It would only take us a few days.”

  “It is forbidden,” the Stygian replied flatly. “No strangers may bring metals or machines to our cities. We ask you to leave our world.”

  “Aw, tell that Furry to chase himself,” interjected Jos Vakos. “They’re always coming around here demanding that we leave.”

  The Stygian turned his enormous, pupilless black eyes toward the Jovian.

  “It is true that we do not shed blood,” answered the Stygian slowly. “But we can loose upon you a Destroyer that will bring doom to you without bloodshed. Be warned in time, and go.”

  And the two Stygians turned their queer steeds and rode back out through the derisive, hooting crowd, to disappear into the mists.

  Jeff Lewis’ square face was heavy with disappointment. “So that ends our chance of making real Stygian scenes for ‘The Ace of Space.’ ”

  “We can still fake the scenes here, chief,” reminded Jim Willard. “We can rig up sets to look like a Stygian city, and we’ve got the Stygian costumes we brought along in case the natives wouldn’t cooperate.”

  “Don’t be discouraged, Lewis,” Jon Valdane said quickly. “I told you I had a scheme we could use to win the Stygians’ cooperation. Well, it looks like we’ll have to use my idea. Come inside and I’ll explain.”

  Most of the actors, technicians and ship-officers started with Jos Vakos and his friends to see the sights of Planet Town. Curt Newton was edging away after Joan Randall, intending to get a few words in secret with Ezra Gurney. But Valdane called his name.

  “Chan Carson, you come in with Lewis and me.”

  Instantly on the alert, Captain Future followed the producer and financier back into the ship. Kin Kurri also had joined them.

  “Now here’s how we can win over the Stygians,” said Valdane brightly. “There’s one outsider they do anything for, one man who is a hero to their race. And that’s C
aptain Future.”

  He pointed, as he spoke, at Curt Newton, who was startled. But Jeff Lewis instantly comprehended Valdane’s idea.

  “I get it,” said the producer, his face lighting up. “We send Chan Carson ahead of us, made up as Captain Future. They’ll think he is Captain Future, and will let our troupe into their city when we arrive.”

  “That’s the idea,” Valdane nodded. “They’ll have the assurance of their great friend Captain Future that our party is all right.”

  Curt Newton’s mind worked swiftly. He understood now what use Valdane had planned all along to make of Chan Carson when they got here. He understood too, at last, just why the financier had caused this telepicture to choose the Futuremen as its subject.

  Valdane had achieved two purposes by that means. He had given the expedition a plausible reason for visiting Styx, scene of one of the greatest exploits of the Futuremen. And thus he had also provided himself with a pseudo-Captain Future with whom he could deceive the Stygians.

  “I won’t do that,” Curt Newton exclaimed in pretended alarm. “It would be too dangerous. Those ghastly Stygians would find out I’m a fake.”

  Although he based his objection on the fearful timidity of Chan Carson, Newton had a much more impelling motive for his refusal. Valdane’s secret plot, it was now evident, hinged somehow upon getting near the Stygian city. If he made that possible, he would be helping Valdane carry out his mysterious scheme.

  “You’ve got to do it, Carson,” insisted Jeff Lewis. “There won’t be any danger. These Stygians are harmless. They’re absolutely opposed to any form of conflict or violence.”

  “And unless you do it, ‘The Ace of Space’ will be a flop and then you won’t be a big telepicture star,” pointed out Jon Valdane.