Eek seemed bewildered by his immobility.
The sailors hauled Grag’s great form into the promenade deck of the space liner. Curious interplanetary passengers gathered around, and the captain of the vessel came over to him.
“Obviously an old-type robot,” the captain said dubiously. “It probably was designed merely to walk.”
At the word “walk,” Grag rose stiffly to his feet and took a few ponderous strides. He gave a good imitation of an antique automaton, staring straight ahead and moving jerkily.
“Say, it can walk!” a passenger exclaimed. “The word ‘walk starts him going by selective vibration.”
“Try the word ‘talk on him,” another suggested.
At that word, Grag opened his mouth jerkily.
“I talk,” he boomed, still staring straight ahead.
“Why, that antique dummy should be valuable,” a Venusian woman enthused. “It must have been lost from an old ship.”
Grag felt burned up at being called a dummy. It hurt the robot’s pride. But he determined to play the part till they reached Mars.
A stout Earthman clad in a flashy red zipper-suit stepped forward and spoke importantly to the commander of the liner.
“I’m Hurl Adams, showman extraordinary, taking a freakshow to Mars for exhibition. How about selling me this automaton for my show? As space flotsam, he’s yours.”
The captain shrugged. “If you want him, you can have him for nothing, Mr. Adams. The museum’s full of old junk like this.”
“Thanks!” the stout showman exclaimed. He inspected Grag appraisingly. “He’ll be the hit of my show. Walk, old boy!”
Grag again took a few stiff, clumsy steps. And when the showman ordered “Talk!” he again boomed.
“I talk.”
The stout showman called his assistants.
“Put him down in the hold with the other freaks till we reach Mars. Better put some strong chains around him, so a chance word won’t start him going at the wrong time. He looks strong enough to break right through the ship.”
The assistants brought heavy chains of unbreakable inertrite, and bound them around Grag. The big robot was angry at this, but he submitted without moving. He’d escape somehow when they reached Mars.
They loaded him on a wheeled truck and took him down into a section of the hold, in which Hurl Adams freaks were housed. They unloaded Grag and stood him up against the wall. He made no sound or movement. Eek, still clinging to his shoulder, was badly bewildered.
“What about the moon-pup, Mr. Adams?” a man asked.
“We’ll take him along for the show, too,” the showman replied. “They’re pretty rare little beasts, you know.”
THE huge robot was left standing there. Without moving, he looked at the freaks that were caged or quartered around him.
There was a three-leaded hydra from the Jupiter seas, crawling ominously in a transparent tank. In a strong cage nearby were several of the glistening, Creeping Crystals of the moon Callisto.
A simple looking Mercurian, who had happened to be born with four eyes instead of two, lay sleeping on a cot. A Venusian swamp rat and a Plutonian ice tiger in a refrigerated cage snarled at each other with mutual dislike. There were other oddities of planetary animal life, curious freaks that nature had experimented with on far worlds.
It galled Grag to be part of this third-rate freak circus. He imagined how Otho would laugh if he knew, and decided that the android must never learn. That made him think of Captain Future, who by now might already be nearing Mars and the trap in the Machine City.
Grag wished the liner would go faster. There was nothing he could do till it reached Mars. And even then he would have to escape from his unbreakable chains.
He remained patiently motionless, hour after hour. Eek went wandering off in search of metal to eat, was roared at by the Plutonian tiger, and came scurrying back in terror to Grag’s shoulder.
Finally the ship shuddered with braking rocket blasts. They were landing on Mars. Grag heard the bustle of disembarking passengers, and then the stout showman, Hurl Adams, came down with his assistants.
“Hurry up and unload ‘em!” Adams directed. “We’ll ‘take them right to the hall I hired and start our shows at once.”
Still chained, Grag was lifted and taken out with the other freaks, and piled into a big rocket truck.
It rumbled through streets closed in by red stone towers of the peculiar, top-heavy Martian architecture. Grag recognized the city as Rok. It was in the southern hemisphere, not far from the Machine City.
He was unloaded on the curtained stage of a theater and left alone. Presently he heard the distant tones of Adams barking about the show.
“Greatest collection of planetary freaks in the System, folks!” the stout Earthman was shouting in the street. “Rare Creeping Crystals of Callisto! Living stone snakes of Umbriel! The ancient machine that still walks and talks — the only antique robot still functioning!”
Grag’s indignation at this description of himself was terrific. He heard the theater being jammed with the eternal suckers.
Then Hurl Adams hurried in, drew the curtain and started exhibiting his freaks. Finally he came to Grag.
“The antique automaton is still so strong, it has to be chained up, folks!” Adams declared. “Watch its childish performance when I unchain it. The ancients of Earth used to marvel at its ingenuity.
The stout Earthman unfastened the chains around Grag. Then he pointed commandingly. “Walk! Talk!”
Grag stepped to the front of the stage. He spoke to the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a terrible show. If you paid to get into it, you have been swindled. As for me, I am so disgusted with it that my resignation is dated now.”
The audience and showman gaped, frozen with amazement. Grag stalked deliberately out to the street, with Eek on his shoulder.
He entered the nearest rocket-flier before anyone it the street could stop him. In five minutes he was flying over the red Martian desert, toward the distant Machine City.
Chapter 6: Trail of the Life-lord
CAPTAIN FUTURE felt savage anger with himself for blundering into this peril. He and Otho still stood frozen in the courtyard of metal statues at the center of the Machine City.
The quartz disk in the wall facing them still blazed with yellow radiance that paralyzed Curt and the android. In time it would slowly transmute every atom in their bodies into metal. Then they would become metal figures.
Curt made a tremendous mental effort to move his body. He couldn’t stir a muscle. He could breathe, because the paralyzing force did not affect involuntary nervous action.
“Might have known the ancient Machine-masters would have some device to guard that mosaic from theft,” he thought bitterly. “But I had to go barging ahead without thinking.”
Curt could barely include Otho and the Brain in his field of vision. Otho stood as frozen as he, in the act of raising his proton pistol. The android had snatched it out just as the freezing radiance struck.
The Brain’s case was in the grasp of Otho’s other hand. It dangled from the frozen android’s grip, almost touching the half-raised proton pistol. Simon Wright’s square case was insulated against most conceivable forces, so the Brain was unaffected.
Simon’s lens eyes turned on their flexible metal stalks toward Captain Future.
“Lad, can’t you move at all?” he asked.
“Not — a muscle,” Curt breathed in struggling, unarticulated speech. “But — if we stand here — much longer — the transmutation effect — will begin — to operate.”
“Ten thousand space devils — take men who — built this cursed thing!” Otho managed to curse.
“If only I could do something!” the Brain exclaimed. “I’m the only one unaffected, and I can do nothing.”
Curt Newton desperately racked his brain. Some expedient must permit them to escape from this deadly captivity before the slow force began to transmute
them into metal.
His alert mind considered every phase of their situation. He and Otho, unable to move a muscle, could do nothing. Therefore the only hope lay in the Brain. But the Brain was dangling from Otho’s grasp. Simon could move only his flexible eye stalks.
A wild hope came into Curt’s mind.
The Brain was hanging very close to the half-raised pistol in Otho’s other hand. In that fact there might just be a chance for salvation.
“Simon — listen!” he breathed. “Can you — touch Otho’s — proton pistol — with your eye stalks?”
Puzzledly the Brain extended the flexible metal stalks of his strange eyes to their full length. Then he answered.
“Yes, I can do that,” he rasped. “Why, lad?”
“Our only chance,” Curt breathed. “Try to raise Otho’s pistol-hand a little — to make the pistol-point at that — blazing disk in the wall — I’ll direct you.”
The Brain suddenly understood. He exerted all the power of his flexible eye stalks to raise the other hand of the paralyzed android.
Slowly Otho’s hand and proton pistol rose a little. Curt watched hopefully, then called out in a panting cry.
“That’s — enough, Simon!”
The Brain stopped his efforts. The proton pistol in Otho’s hand now pointed directly at the quartz disk in the wall, from which the paralyzing radiance was streaming on them.
“Now — try to pull — trigger!” Captain Future breathed.
OTHO’S arm was frozen in the new position. The Brain inserted its eye stalks into the trigger opening of the pistol.
Curt saw that Simon was exerting all the force of his movable eyes, pressing back against the trigger. Could he do it?
The trigger of the pistol clicked back suddenly. A pale proton beam lanced from the weapon...
Squarely it struck the radiant quartz disk in the wall!
The disk was shattered. The paralyzing transmutation force vanished. Curt Newton and Otho instantly regained their powers of movement.
“Split my atoms, it worked!” Otho yelled. “Chief, that idea was a lifesaver! If you hadn’t thought of it —”
Sweat was standing out on Curt’s brow. He mopped his forehead.
“I don’t want another five minutes like that! That device must have been set there by the Machine-masters to protect the precious jewels in that mosaic. All these metal statues around us are men who were caught by the thing, and turned into metal.”
Carefully, now that they had been taught caution by their unnerving experience, Curt and the two Futuremen advanced to the wall. They stared with new respect at the wonderful mosaic of precious jewels.
The mosaic picture undoubtedly depicted the legendary Fountain of Life, Curt thought. It showed a glowing, geyserlike fountain, composed of white Uranian diamonds set in the stone wall.
Below it, other jewels had been set. On each jewel was carved a word in the ancient Martian writing.
“The secret of the Waters of Immortal Youth,” Curt read from the jewel-writing. “We, the mighty Machine-masters, found the Fountain of those waters far out on the world of —”
“That’s all there is to the writing!” Otho exclaimed disappointedly, “The rest of the jewels are gone.”
In fact, the jewels, on which had been written the rest of the secret, had been pried out of the wall. They were gone.
Curt’s gray eyes narrowed.
“Those missing jewels were taken not long ago,” he declared. “See how unweathered the stone sockets are?” He looked at the Brain. “The mystery is beginning to unravel, Simon. The Life-lord is someone who heard that the secret of the Fountain of Life was here in the heart of the Machine City. So he came here with others. Somehow they evaded the paralyzing force, and read the secret from this wall. He took the most of the jewels with him so nobody else could penetrate the secret.
“Once he had the secret of the Fountain of Life’s location,” Curt continued his keen reasoning, “the Life-lord went to whatever world the Fountain lies upon. There he found the Fountain. Then he set up the criminal syndicate that now is poisoning the System with the Lifewater taken from the Fountain.”
“Aye, lad, I believe you have the truth of it,” the Brain rasped thoughtfully. “But the secret seems lost to us now.”
“Yes, we’re as ignorant as ever of what world the Fountain is on, curse it!” Otho swore.
“No, we’ve narrowed it down,” Captain Future contradicted. “The last words of this writing say: We found the Fountain of those waters far out on the world of — ‘ That indicates the Fountain’s on one of the planets outward from Mars.”
“Which narrows it down to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto,” Otho said sarcastically. “That helps a lot.”
“Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are out, because archeologists know the ancient Martian expeditions never visited them,” Curt retorted. “So the Fountain must be somewhere on Jupiter or Saturn. I’d say Saturn is the best bet. We found Saturnian dust and pollen in that dead Mercurian criminal’s clothes, remember. But we found no Jovian dust.”
THE android’s eyes kindled. “Say, now we’re really getting somewhere. Saturn, you think? Okay, we’ll rocket for there. Let’s turn that world upside down till we find the Life-lord’s hangout, huh?”
“Not so fast, my impatient friend,” grinned Captain Future. “Saturn is just a guess, so far. And there’s something I still want to inspect here. Did you notice that a couple of these human statues are a lot brighter than the others?”
“Sure, I noticed that,” Otho answered. Then the android stiffened with amazement. “I get it, Chief! They’re brighter because they haven’t been here long enough to corrode. And if they haven’t been here long, they may be some of the men who came with the Life-lord.”
“That’s the idea,” Curt Newton nodded. “Come along and we’ll have a look.”
There were perhaps two score metal figures in this court — men who had been caught in the past by the deadly force and held paralyzed until they were slowly transmuted into solid metal. They stood immovably near the outer edge of the court. None had got farther than that.
Captain Future found one whose metal was bright and uncorroded by time and weather. It was a Venusian His metal face still wore an expression of frozen horror. Even his clothing was metal now.
Curt took a compact stereoscopic camera from his belt and photographed the metal man. He noticed another uncorroded figure nearby, a tall Earthman in metal. He photographed that man, too.
“Here’s another, Chief — a big one!” Otho exclaimed, advancing toward a bright metal figure towering above the others.
To the horror of Otho, and the amazement of Curt and the Brain, the third metal figure suddenly tined and grabbed Otho.
“It’s alive!” screeched Otho. “It’s got me!”
A burst of laughter came from Captain Future.
“It’s Grag,” Curt cried, relief throbbing through his mirth.
The big robot was standing, holding Eek. His joy was manifest all over his rigid bearing.
“How did you escape from those syndicate men who captured you, Grag?” demanded the Brain.
Grag explained how he had escaped from the criminal’s ship in mid-space and had been picked up by a liner and brought to Mars. He didn’t tell about his experience in the freak-show, for that was a chapter in his life that Grag meant to keep secret.
“I grabbed a rocket-flier and came down here full speed to this Machine City,” Grag concluded. “The machine guards didn’t sense me when I entered, since I’m not flesh and blood. I hunted until I heard your voices just now. When I saw you searching among these metal statues, I thought I’d play a little joke on Otho.”
“Is that your idea of a joke?” Otho demanded furiously.
The android began to swear, calling on his exhaustive knowledge of interplanetary profanity. He referred savagely to Grag’s unhuman nature, to his thick-headeness his general all-round worthlessness.
&
nbsp; Grag just made the booming sound that was the nearest to a chuckle he could ever utter.
“You are angry only because I scared the life out of you,” he accused Otho.
“Me, scared?” Otho hissed. “Why, I knew it was you all the time. Nobody could mistake a big junk-pile like you —”
CAPTAIN FUTURE cut off the android’s torrent of denunciation. He addressed Grag keenly.
“You say those syndicate men were going to report back to the Life-lord? They were heading for Saturn?”
“Yes, Master,” the robot boomed. “From their talk, I learned that they had formerly been pirates of the Saturnian moons. The Life-lord enlisted them as followers when he formed the Lifewater syndicate.”
“Then there’s no further doubt about it,” Captain Future declared” with a triumphant flash in his gray eyes. “Saturn is where we’ll find the Fountain of Life. And if we find that, we’ll also get the Life-lord behind the syndicate.”
“Aye, lad, every clue so far points that way,” rasped the Brain.
“Come along, we’re getting back to the Comet,” Curt ordered. “No time to waste now!”
The intrepid quartet hurried back through the blazingly illuminated Machine City. Easily now they threaded its bustle of useless mechanical activity. Curt’s protective mechanism still guarded them from discovery. They slipped between the patrolling guard cars and tramped away from the weird metropolis, across the black desert that was red by day.
Phobos and Deimos were setting, one in the west and the other in the east. The two moons cast weirdly forked shadows around Curt Newton and the Futuremen as they hastened toward the Comet.
Inside the little ship, Curt immediately went to the powerful televisor. He sent a call to Planet Police headquarters, far away on Earth.
The magic name of Captain Future brought Commander Halk Anders hastily to the screen. Anders’ bulging eyes stared inquiringly from the screen.” Commander, I’ve a couple of stereophotos here that I want you to check in the identity files,” Curt requested. “The men in these pictures have been changed to metal. But their features are the same as when they were alive, of course.”
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