Captain Future 09 - Quest Beyond the Stars (Winter 1942) (19 page)

“You won’t need it, lad,” came the Brain’s sharp voice. “That did it.”

The bolt of energy from the heavy fire-rod had torn a gaping hole through the thick wall around them. It had blasted on, following Curt’s unerring aim, to strike Larstan’s head and breast. The man who had dreamed of conquest through creation lay a scorched corpse, sprawled behind the undamaged mechanism. Curt paid the machine no attention in this first moment, as he squeezed out of the hole torn in their prison wall.

“The others!” he exclaimed, running back again to the entrance.

His worries were relieved. Grag and Otho, with the three star captains, were approaching the building. Grag’s metal body was seared by fire-blasts, Otho had a burn on his arm, and Ki Illok was limping on his wounded leg, supported by Hol Jor and old Ber Del.

“The Korians?” Curt cried.

“Those whom we didn’t kill in that melee lost their nerve and surrendered,” Otho said grimly. “Chief, what of Larstan?”

For answer, Curt pointed toward the altar-like mechanism behind which the Korian king lay dead. But it was not on the dead man, but on the wondrous mechanism that the eyes of all of them fixed. Slowly, reverently, the Futuremen and star captains approached the thing across the awesome, soaring white cathedral of which it was the shrine.

“Its secret of creation — is it as you guessed?” asked Hol Jor in a low whisper.

CAPTAIN FUTURE was examining the machine. His hands trembled slightly as they touched this thing of power incalculable which had been the goal of so many star-quests for long ages. Finally, after long study, he stood back. His eyes were shining, as he turned to the others.

“This creator is built after the pattern of the Birthplace itself! My theory about the Birthplace, that it whirls electrical radiation into droplets of electricity or electrons by centrifugal action, must be correct. For this machine apparently sucks in the omnipresent radiation of the universe, coagulates it into electrons that combine into the atoms of the ninety-six elements and then spurts controlled clouds of those atoms to join in any desired combination to form any type of matter.”

Ki Illok asked a breathless, quivering question. “Then with this thing limitless air and water can be created for our arid planets?”

Captain Future nodded soberly. “It will take study to learn the instructions for its operations. But once we have learned them and have studied the design, we can make as many other creators like it as we wish.”

There was a hush, as the star rovers looked tremblingly at the object of all their dreams, this thing that could bring life to faraway wasted worlds, this incalculable treasure that thousands of men from far stars had died vainly seeking. And then a strange scene took place. As though in a shrine indeed, old Ber Del knelt upon his knees before the mechanism. Ki Illok and Hol Jor unconsciously followed his example. Tears were streaming down the old Vegan’s face.

“I am giving thanks,” choked the old star captain. “Thanks for this thing of power that means life for our dying worlds.”

UPON the sunlit central plaza of the city of Thruun rested four ships. One was the
Comet.
The others were Thruunian cruisers which had been equipped with vibration drive in the days that had passed and manned by volunteer crews of Thruun. The Futuremen and their three star-roving friends were preparing to depart for their home stars. Curt Newton stood with Grag and Simon and Otho and the three star captains, facing Kwolok and Thyria and a great host of the people of Thruun.

“You will come back through the cloud some day?” Thyria cried eagerly to Curt.

“Who knows?” said Captain Future. “You’ll no longer be isolated here at any rate. The cruisers and crews you are lending my friends will be the beginning of new trade and travel between your worlds here and the universe outside the cloud.”

Old Kwolok showed strong emotion as he bade Curt farewell. Curt had presented to the Thruunian ruler the creator machine they had brought from the world of the Watchers, after studying and copying its design so that he and his friends could build others.

“I know not what to say,” stammered the old king. “The machine will enable us to bring new life, new air and water to Thruun. Yet the commandment of the Watchers —”

Captain Future reassured him. “The Watchers left their secret to be used for the benefit of men, as I told you. It was only evil and ignorant races whom they sought to bar from that power. We are going to build other such creators for the benefit of our own withering planets. But rest assured that we will never allow the power to be misused.” He had told Kwolok of the world of the sleepers beneath the ice, at the dark star outside the cloud. “We are going to stop at that world on our way homeward,” Curt explained. “We shall wake those sleepers once more, and build for them a creator-machine. It won’t rekindle their sun, but it will enable them to build a great fleet in which they can migrate to another star.”

Now Captain Future and his three comrades turned toward Hol Jor and Ki Illok and old Ber Del. All the others were silent as these men from far separated stars, who had adventured and struggled side by side for so long, now faced each other in farewell.

“I hate goodbyes,” rumbled big Hol Jor. The Antarian’s red face was uncomfortable. “And I hate trying to thank people. But I’ll say this — you’ve given us new life for our own planets, and you’ll be conquering heroes if you ever come to Antares.”

“Or to my own star deep in the greatest cluster of Sagittarius!” cried Ki Illok.

They gripped hands, there in the brilliant red sunshine.

“You’ll surely return to this part of the universe in time?” pressed old Ber Del, eagerly facing Curt. “You’ll always find friends here.”

“Sure they’ll come back,” predicted Hol Jor confidently. “Once they’re back in their little System, they’ll get to thinking about the great star trails of outer space, and they’ll have to return.”

“Say, you’ve got something there,” exclaimed Otho. “It’s going to be pretty dull in the System after all this, in a way.”

“I doubt it,” boomed Grag. “You can make a cosmos full of trouble on one little moon, just by yourself.”

They moved toward their waiting ships. Together, the ships rose from Thruun and arrowed through the glittering haze toward the inner surface of the cloud.

Together, they fought their way out through the currents of roaring dust, flung on by the power of the vibration drive.

They burst together out of the cloud, into the blazing beauty of the nebulae and stars and sun-clusters of the outside universe. And then the four racing ships moved away from each other on diverging courses — four captains of the great deep spaces, roaring down the star trails to their homes.

THE END