Captain Future 09 - Quest Beyond the Stars (Winter 1942) (3 page)

At last they were beyond the orbit of Pluto, running infinity itself. Behind the Sun and its planets were a small bright disk circled by gleaming dots. Ahead glittered the bunched star-clouds of Sagittarius, unthinkable light-years away.

Curt’s hand moved to the switches of the vibration drive.

“All ready,” he said calmly. “Stand by.”

“We’ll know in a few minutes whether the protective stasis works,” muttered Grag. “Feeling jumpy, Otho?”

“What are you trying to do, you perambulating junkpile, scare me?” Otho demanded belligerently.

Curt closed the switch. The great generators back in the cabin began throbbing in a low murmur that mounted to a loud drone.

A dim blue force flooded the whole interior of the ship. It emanated from the silver floor-disk of the stasis projector, which was designed to go into operation automatically when the drive was turned on.

The pervading blue force of the stasis had a strange effect upon the Futuremen. They felt as though submerged within a dense, super-elastic medium, a force that tended to “fix” every atom in the ship, should cushion them against acceleration.

“Stasis seems okay,” Captain Future murmured. “Here goes.”

He shut a switch that turned the propulsion vibrations back into the drive-ring. The Futuremen, cradled in their stasis of elastic force, felt almost no pressure. But the pointers on the accelerometers leaped as though suddenly gone mad. The
Comet,
under the terrific reactive push of the vibrations streaming back from its stern, was being flung forward through outer space at a velocity nobody in the System had ever before attained.

“One quarter light-speed already,” Curt muttered, reading the meters. “Half-light-speed now — Lord, what acceleration! And the stasis is working perfectly.”

“It seems that my fears concerning it were groundless,” admitted the Brain.

The
Comet,
within an unbelievably short time, was traveling faster than light itself toward the distant star-clouds of Sagittarius. Yet its velocity continued steadily to build higher. To the eyes of the awe-stricken Futuremen, they seemed hardly moving. The glittering star-streams and nebulae and clusters bunched in Sagittarius seemed as far away as ever. For the first time, Curt Newton and his comrades realized the truly awful immensity of the universe into whose great depths they were flying on their desperate and perilous quest.

“CHIEF, look at that!” cried Otho, pointing ahead. “It makes me almost
afraid!”

Curt had just entered the control-room. He strained his keen gray eyes against the glare ahead.

“We’re getting close, all right,” muttered Captain Future. “It’s time we changed course to avoid that nebula.”

The other two Futuremen came into the control-room to peer at the brilliant spectacle ahead. The
Comet
was now approaching the boundaries of the congested region in which their destination was hidden. Across the heavens ahead flamed thousands upon thousands of stars, blazing points of light, each point a great sun. Masses of these suns were gathered in gigantic clusters that looked like swarming bees of light. Between and beyond the clusters and their trailing star-streams shone the glowing clouds of nebulae. Deep in this great wilderness of the galaxy they could make out the black bulk of a cloud of cosmic dust.

Their ship was a tiny midge crawling toward this vast cosmic jungle. They were heading toward a giant glowing nebula whose shining gases stretched for billions of miles across their path, partly hiding the starry wilderness beyond.

“We’ll have to veer around that nebula,” Curt declared. “It contains meteoric debris, according to our meteorometers.”

“But according to the cosmic ray compass, our course lies right through it,” Otho objected, pointing to the instrument.

Straight toward the glowing nebulae ahead pointed the needle of the apparatus. It was an instrument that Captain Future had devised for their expedition, an electroscopic device sensitive to cosmic rays. Its needle pointed always toward the far, mysterious source of the radiation, their unguessable goal.

Days passed as they followed the needle across interstellar space. The vibration drive flung them on at continually mounting velocity until they were traveling at fully two thousand times the speed of light. Yet they had small sensation of speed, so perfectly had the cushioning stasis of force protected them from the pressure of acceleration.

Nor had there been any sun or star in the vast void near enough to show their progress. The shoreless emptiness stretched unbroken to the sector of the heavens far ahead, where the great star-streams converged in the starry whirlpool of suns and nebulae whose outer edge they were now at last approaching.

“If we go around that nebula, we’ll get off the course the cosmic ray compass indicates,” Otho objected. “It’ll waste a lot of time.”

“Sure, why don’t we run the nebula?” Grag demanded. “It would be a real thrill.”

Captain Future hesitated, then shrugged and grinned.

“I guess there’s not much real danger. The meteorometers will keep us warned of debris. All right, you excitement eaters, here goes.”

The
Comet
plunged on toward the vast sea of glowing light. Curt had already begun to decelerate their tremendous velocity, since they could not safely use such an outrageous speed inside the clusters and star-streams of this region. The stasis force, operating perfectly, continued to cushion them against the great pressure.

ALL the firmament ahead flamed with pearly white light. They were now too close to the nebula to distinguish its limits. A twinge of regret at his decision tugged Curt’s mind. This vast ocean of glowing gas was much more awesome at close hand. But already the ship was racing into it. They sped through a universe of flaming light; On every side stretched leagues of glowing, brilliant gas. Curt’s keen eyes alertly watched the dials on the control panel f6r signs of possible danger.

The intrinsic heat of a gaseous nebula is not great. It consists of a great cloud of very tenuous gas illuminated to a flaming glow by reflected and refracted light of nearby stars. The gas was too tenuous to cause dangerous frictional heat, even at the great velocity at which they were traveling. But the meteorometers buzzed frequently, indicating the presence of solid debris in the gas. Captain Future’s quick hands kept the
Comet
swerving to avoid these possibly dangerous masses. He had to rely on instruments for he could see nothing but the flaming glow of white light that seemed to fill all space around him.

Curt Newton noticed that the needles of the electroscopes were bobbing wildly.

“There’s some queer radiant force inside this nebula,” he said uneasily. “I can
feel
it.”

A strange tingling sensation was running through him. At the same time Captain Future became aware that he possessed an exhilarating clearness of mind. He had never before felt his brain so powerful, so capable of solving any problem. Simon Wright and Otho and Grag were showing a similar reaction. The Brain spoke rapidly, in answer to Curt’s statement.

“I feel the force too, lad. It must be that continuous atomic collision here in the nebula releases radiant energy high in the spectrum.”

The Brain stopped.

“But how did I figure that out?” he said surprisedly. “My mind seems to be working better than ever before.”

“I see now what’s happening to us, Simon!” Curt exclaimed excitedly. “This freakish force is one that stimulates the brain to more rapid functioning. That’s why we feel more intelligent, capable of more brilliant reasoning. You others feel it, don’t you?”

“I’ll say I feel it!” Otho cried. “Why, chief, I could solve twelfth-order equations in my head. We ought to hang around in this nebula awhile. We’d soon know everything there is to be known.”

Grag spoke sharply, with an authority and confidence that was foreign to the big robot.

“No, we must get out of the nebula at once!” he declared. “It will be fatal to us if we linger here long.”

Captain Future stared.

“What makes you say that, Grag?”

“Isn’t it clear to you?” Grag demanded, “This super-stimulation of our brains will cause a rapid neuronic disintegration that will end in complete mental collapse, by crushing of the synaptic web.”

“I can’t quite follow your reasoning, even though I feel I have more mental power than ever before,” Curt admitted puzzledly.

“Neither can I,” Otho said bewilderedly. “Devils of space, this force has made Grag the smartest of all of us!”

“Of course, I thought you already understood that,” Grag boomed authoritatively. “My brain, being of sponge metal instead of living tissue like yours, conducts the stimulating force more readily and is thus more stimulated. Your minds have been doubled in power, but mine has been quadrupled.”

Captain Future’s preternaturally clear mind perceived the strength of the robot’s reasoning. This freakish nebular force had temporarily made big Grag the greatest mental genius of them all.

CURT, realizing their peril, instantly sought to take advantage of Grag’s sudden brilliance. That their danger was great was evidenced by the dim blackness that was beginning to creep across his mind.

“Can you estimate the shortest way out of the nebula, Grag?” he asked thickly. “Should we try to turn back out of it?”

Grag bent over the electroscopes, studying their readings, and then stood for a few seconds in deep thought.

“To turn and back out would be risky,” he said sharply. “We’re so deeply in the nebula that our brains would burn out before we got clear. I calculate that the nebula is an irregular ovoid and that we are nearest its northeastern limb. Steer in that direction.”

Captain Future hastily changed the course of the
Comet.
The unnatural clearness of their minds was beginning to fade before a creeping tide of unconsciousness against which they struggled desperately.

The reckless speed at which Curt was driving the ship through the nebula hinted at disaster. There was no time to heed the ominous alarms of the meteorometers. His darkening mind sensed the greater peril of mental annihilation threatening them. Abruptly the ship burst out of the nebula into the black void of space. They had quartered one end of the gigantic sea of light. And the force that had been destroying their minds now faded away.

“Thank the space-gods we’re out of that!” Captain Future breathed. “Even though I don’t feel like such a mental giant any more.” He looked to Grag. “If it hadn’t made you a supermental giant, Grag, it would have been the end of us. We’d never have got out in time.”

Grag seemed vastly pleased by the fact that for a short time his had been the most brilliant mind of the four. “Aw, that was nothing, chief,” he boomed grandiloquently. “It just happens my mind is more capable of learning, I guess.”

“Listen to the big son of a tin can!” Otho blurted. “Now he’ll go around thinking he’s a great unsuspected genius.”

“Are you kidding?” Grag retorted to the android.

As he spoke, Captain Future had been sharply decelerating their speed for they were now well inside the region of great clusters. There, stretched before them was the deeper interior of this awesome Sagittarius wilderness. Ponderous balls of gathered suns that trailed banners of scattered stars across trillions of miles stood out against the dark, brooding cosmic cloud behind them. The immensity of this starry jungle silenced even the dauntless Futuremen. Unutterably grand and solemn seemed this crowded heart of the universe into which they were audaciously penetrating. It was a long time before Curt Newton spoke.

“Well, we’ve reached the region of the universe in which the Birthplace of Matter is located. But that’s only the first step.”

“Where does the Birthplace lie from here?” Otho asked.

Curt checked the cosmic ray compass. Its quivering needle pointed slightly to the left, deeper into the jungle of sun clusters, nebulae and star-streams that clogged space ahead. The needle pointed toward the vast, brooding black cloud beyond.

“The Birthplace must be somewhere behind that cloud,” Curt observed thoughtfully. “Check the intensity reading, Simon.”

The Brain utilized an improvement of the old Geiger device to test the intensity of the cosmic rays whose guidance they followed.

“That’s very strong, lad,” he commented. “We must be nearer the Birthplace than I thought,”

Curt nodded seriously.

“We’ll have to be on the alert every minute now. We don’t know what we’re going to find, but we do know that it must be at the center of inconceivable cosmic forces.”

He steered the
Comet
forward along the course indicated by the quivering needle of the cosmic ray compass. They skirted the flaming coast of the gigantic nebula for some hours, flying at a steady velocity of more than a hundred light-speeds.