Captain Future 12 - Planets in Peril (Fall 1942) (2 page)

The man was handsome, the girl of unearthly loveliness. The former wore a tight jacket and breeches of silky black cloth, the girl a loose black robe of the same material. They were staggering as they stood there in the transparent chamber — breathing with difficulty, seemingly under terrible strain.

Joan cried out in sharp alarm. The two in the chamber were looking out at their hosts. And both the man and the girl had suddenly drawn and leveled gunlike objects that were obviously weapons.

LIKE a shooting star, a small ship hurled across the planetary orbits of the Solar System. The sun and the worlds of Venus and Earth lay far behind it. It was racing at tremendous speed toward the red dot of Mars.

The few officers of passing space liners and freighters who sighted that little ship recognized it instantly. Who was there in the whole System who did not know the
Comet,
ship of the famous Futuremen? Who had not heard the countless tales of daring forays to far worlds and stars made in that very craft by Captain Future, most adventurous of all planeteers?

Curtis Newton, the young Earthman known to nine worlds as Captain Future, sat at the space-stick in the crowded control room of the
Comet
and sang cheerfully to himself. He sang:

I'm only a lonely spaceman

With no world to call my home —

The dolefulness of the old space song was belied by Curt's high spirits. His head was cocked back, his mop of torch-red hair glistening. Humor danced in his gray eyes and tanned, handsome face.

Curt's long, lean figure, clad in a drab zipper suit to which was belted a slim, deadly proton pistol, was stretched out easily in the pilot's chair. His feet rested lightly on the eye and brake-blast pedals, his brown hand loosely grasping the space-stick.

I've seen all moons and planets

But I still just like to roam —

Captain Future stopped singing, as a glance at the space sextant told him the
Comet
was approaching a dangerous meteor zone. He turned his head and called back to the main cabin of the ship.

"Come on up here, Otho! I'll need you soon to watch the meteorometers for me."

There was no answer to his summons. He heard, over the throb of the rockets, the mutter of two voices arguing back there.

Curt raised his voice.

"You cockeyed son of a test-tube, did you hear me call you?"

There was still no answer, for the disputing voices back in the cabin had now become loud and strident. Curt's own call went unheeded.

With an impatient exclamation, Captain Future rose to his feet. He snapped on the automatic pilot to hold the ship on course, then strode angrily back into the main cabin.

The two Futuremen back there were kneeling on the floor, so deeply engrossed that they hardly paid attention to Curt's entrance.

"Be with you in a minute, Chief," said Otho, without turning. "Grag and I are settling a bet."

Otho looked like a rather striking young man — a lithe, white-skinned individual with a hairless head and slanted, glittering green eyes in a fierce, reckless face. But Otho was no ordinary man. He was an android, or synthetic man. He had been created in a laboratory, years ago. And he was more swift, more skillful, more dangerous than any normal man.

Grag, the other Futureman, was even more extraordinary. For Grag was a robot — a mighty, seven-foot figure whose manlike body was of massive metal. His bulbous metal head encased a metal-sponge brain that was the seat of his strong, strange mind. The robot's gleaming photo-electric eyes glanced up toward Curt, as he spoke in his booming mechanical voice.

"I bet my best proton gun against Otho's fire-ruby ring that my Eek could whip that miserable little pet of his," Grag informed him.

"Why, you must be space-struck," Curt Newton snorted. "Your Eek couldn't whip a fly — he's the biggest coward that ever lived."

"That's what I tried to tell him, Chief," chuckled Otho. "But Grag thinks that cowardly moon-pup of his has a chance. Just watch!"

EACH of the Futuremen had put his pet down on the floor. Otho's mascot, whose name was Oog, was a meteor-mimic, a fat little white beast with solemn eyes. It was an asteroidal animal that had the unique power of taking any form at will, by means of a protean cell-shifting ability.

Oog was ordinarily the mildest-tempered of animals. But Otho had prodded and teased him to fighting pitch. Now, Oog abruptly changed his shape and became an octopoid thing that advanced menacingly on Eek.

Eek, Grag's pet, was a moon-pup. It was a sharp-nosed, beady-eyed little gray animal, a little-known species that inhabited the barren lunar satellite of Earth. This particular moon-pup happened to be the most arrant coward alive, as Captain Future well knew.

"Go ahead and kill that moon-pup, Oog!” Otho incited his pet. He chortled. "Watch Eek run for it now. He's frozen stiff already."

The moon-pup was indeed watching the queerly altered Oog advance menacingly, as though frozen. But Eek did not run away, as he always had done before when even the slightest danger threatened.

Instead of fleeing, Eek opened his jaws in a soundless snarl and suddenly flung himself upon Oog. He smacked Oog down, clawed him up and batted him down again, and then mopped up the floor with him. With a yelp of amazement and pain, Oog resumed his own shape and hastily fled.

"I told you Eek would whip him!" Grag boomed triumphantly. "You can just hand over that ring, Otho."

Otho had watched with incredulous consternation, and Captain Future too was astonished. Neither had expected Eek to fight.

"I must be dreaming!" Otho gasped. "That moon-pup was always afraid of his own shadow before. He must be either crazy or —"

With a sudden suspicion, Otho grabbed up Eek and examined him. He uttered an angry cry as he saw smears of gray liquid upon Eek's jaws.

"I thought so!" Otho exclaimed furiously. "You've fed him radium-liquor and got him drunk!" he accused Grag. "That's why he was brave."

Grag uttered a chuckling sound.

"What if I did give Eek a little stimulant that way? There was nothing against it in our bet."

Otho furiously handed over the fire-ruby ring.

"That's what I get for betting with a robot! You're not human enough to know anything about good sportsmanship."

"Not human? Says who?" bellowed Grag angrily. "I'm a blasted sight more human than any synthetic rubber imitation of a man like you!"

Captain Future interrupted.

"Look, I don't want to bother you two too much," he said with dangerous politeness, "but we're approaching a meteor zone. It would be awfully nice if I could have a little help in the control room. Would it annoy you to come forward and assist me, Otho?"

"Why, no, Chief," Otho answered importantly. "I'm always glad to do any little favor for —"

He ducked and dodged for the control room as Curt aimed a swift kick at him.

In the next half hour, Otho called out the readings of the meteorometers and Curt shifted the space-stick at each warning. The still-angry android interspersed his readings with loudly muttered comments upon the trickery of Grag, who had followed them forward.

Curt Newton grinned to himself. He was used to this perpetual bickering of Grag and Otho. He had heard it all his life, for Grag and Otho and the Brain had been with him since he was born.

The story of Curt Newton's birth and upbringing was one of the strangest in history. Years ago, a brilliant scientist named Roger Newton had fled from enemies on Earth and taken refuge on the wild, barren Moon. With him had gone his young wife and his strange colleague, Simon Wright, the Brain.

They had built a home and laboratory beneath Tycho crater. In it, a son had been born to Roger Newton and his wife. Here Newton and the Brain had pursued their experiments designed to create intelligent living beings, and had created Grag, the robot and Otho, the android.

But their enemies followed them, and killed Roger Newton and his wife. The murderers themselves met quick retribution. And thus the orphaned infant was left to the care of the three strange beings: the Brain, the robot and the android. These three, through the years, had guarded and reared the child upon the lonely Moon. And they had given him an education such as no boy had ever before received.

The Brain had supervised Curt's scientific education until the boy approached his tutor in wizardry of science. Otho had taught him swiftness and cleverness. Grag had carefully fostered his physical strength. It was small wonder that Curt Newton grew up into a man of tomorrow.

The finest human scientist and most audacious planeteer in the System, Curt had so devoted his powers to fight for the System's peoples that they named him Captain Future, and called his three loyal comrades the Futuremen.

"Well, we're through that cursed meteor zone at last," announced Otho, turning with relief from the meteorometers.

He gestured to the bright red dot of Mars ahead.

"We'll reach Deimos in a few hours," he said.

"I don't see why Tiko Thrin had to drag us all the way out here to Deimos," complained Grag. "What's it all about, anyway?"

"Tiko wouldn't say, according to Simon," Curt replied. "He said only that it was imperative we come. It must be important. Tiko Thrin isn't a man to exaggerate."

"Bah! Those Martians are all nutty," Otho scoffed. "We'll get there and he'll have some crazy new scientific idea to tell us. You'll see."

The
Comet
rapidly swept closer toward the burning crimson sphere of Mars. Captain Future skillfully steered in a broad curve toward the hurtling little satellite of Deimos. He brought the ship down smoothly toward the shadowed night-side of the tiny moon.

The planet-lit face of the Garden Moon was clear as a map to Curt's eyes. Soon he was landing their craft on the tree-bordered lawn of Tiko Thrin's small chromaloy house.

"Hello, that's Joan coming!" Curt exclaimed, as he and Grag and Otho emerged into the soft planet-glow.

His pulse had jumped, as it always did, at sight of the slim Earthgirl he loved. She was running toward them across the velvety lawn.

"Something must be wrong," Otho muttered. "She's in a big hurry —"

But Curt had already strode forward to meet the girl. He greeted her by exuberantly picking her up in his arms and holding her high in the air.

"Show a little affection, Mr. Randall, or I'll toss you right off this low-gravity moon," he threatened cheerfully.

"Curt, put me down!" she ordered urgently. "Something has happened — something tremendous."

Captain Future’s face sobered instantly, and he set her on her feet.

"What is it, Joan?"

She was breathless, her eyes brilliant with excitement.

"Curt, in the house are two people from another universe!"

As Curt Newton and the two Futuremen looked at her incredulously, she rushed on.

"They're humans, Curt, but they're not like
us.
The man's name is Gerdek, and the girl is his sister, Shiri. They materialized here less than an hour ago, by means of Tiko's power-beam —"

"Hold on, Joan!" Captain Future begged. "You're getting all mixed up in your excitement. You say that Tiko managed to bring these two people out of a different three-dimensional universe?"

Joan's dark head bobbed.

"Yes. He bridged the abyss between our universe and theirs with a power-beam along the fourth dimension."

"Impossible!" Curt exclaimed. "According to all relativity theory, the fourth dimension is non-spatial. No beam could work across it."

"That's what Simon said at first, but Tiko did it," the girl insisted. "I admit I was scared at first. Especially since we had expected only the man Gerdek to appear, and didn't know that his sister was coming along with him.

"And Gerdek and his sister were alarmed, too, when they first materialized! It was sight of the Brain that startled them. They thought at first he was some kind of mechanical monster, and raised their weapons to protect themselves. But Tiko soon convinced them we were all friendly. Tiko has been talking to them, learning their story —"

CAPTAIN FUTURE'S gray eyes lit with excitement, and he started toward the little house.

"Joan, come on — I want to see those people. If they really came from a different universe, Tiko
has
got something big."

"Holy moon-cats, I still can't believe it!" exclaimed Otho, hastening with Grag beside them.

"Curt, I've heard part of their story that Tiko translated for us, and it's a wonderful, heart-breaking tale!" Joan was saying as they hurried across the lawn. "The universe that Gerdek and his sister come from
is
a dying universe.

"Its people are fighting a terrible battle against extinction. And these two took the awful risk of being dematerialized and hurled across the abyss, in the hope of getting help here for their doomed people."

Captain Future and his companions stepped inside of Tiko Thrin's crowded laboratory, and halted. The tall, red-haired planeteer and the lithe android and mighty metal robot made a striking group as they stared.