Captain Future 25 - Moon of the Unforgotten (January 1951) Read online

  #25 January 1951

  Introduction

  A Curt Newton Novelet

  Moon of the Unforgotten

  by Edmond Hamilton

  Curt Newton and Otho plumb the perilous secrets of the Jovian Moon Europa — where Ezra Gurney, friend of the Futuremen, has fallen prey to a mystic cult!

  Meet the Futuremen! — A Department

  We acquaint you further with the background of Captain Future: The Birth of Grag and Captain Future’s Strangest Adventure.

  Radio Archives • 2012

  Copyright Page

  Copyright © 1951 by Better Publications, Inc. © 2012 RadioArchives.com. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form.

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  ISBN 978-1610817080

  Introduction

  The original introduction to Captain Future as it appeared in issue #1

  The Wizard of Science! Captain Future!

  The most colorful planeteer in the Solar System makes his debut in this, America’s newest and most scintillating scientifiction magazine — CAPTAIN FUTURE.

  This is the magazine more than one hundred thousand scientifiction followers have been clamoring for! Here, for the first time in scientifiction history, is a publication devoted exclusively to the thrilling exploits of the greatest fantasy character of all time!

  Follow the flashing rocket-trail of the Comet as the most extraordinary scientist of nine worlds have ever known explores the outposts of the cosmos to the very shores of infinity. Read about the Man of Tomorrow today!

  Meet the companions of Captain Future, the most glamorous trio in the Universe!

  Grag, the giant, metal robot; Otho, the man-made, synthetic android; and aged Simon Wright, the living Brain.

  This all-star parade of the most unusual characters in the realm of fantasy is presented for your entertainment. Come along with this amazing band as they rove the enchanted space-ways — in each issue of CAPTAIN FUTURE!

  Moon of the Unforgotten

  A Curt Newton Novelet

  From the January 1951 issue of Startling Stories

  by Edmond Hamilton

  Curt Newton and Otho plumb the perilous secrets of the Jovian Moon Europa — where Ezra Gurney, friend of the Futuremen, has fallen prey to a mystic cult!

  Chapter 1: The Second Life

  THE machines hummed and whispered and a man’s life changed. He was an old man, with an old man’s burden of weariness and sorrow. But now that burden dropped from him and his years dropped from him and he was young again.

  He felt the hot blood burst along his veins and the singing excitement in his nerves, the pulse and throb of long-forgotten youth. For youth was his once more and once more a whole universe of adventure lured and beckoned, far-off worlds calling and calling to him.

  And Ezra Gurney, he who had been old, shouted a glad young cry that was answer to that call.

  * * *

  A message went to Earth’s Moon, flashing across the millions of empty miles. It went by a secret wave-frequency that only a half-dozen people knew.

  Back across the empty leagues of the void, in reply to that urgent summons, came a ship, driving hard for Europa, moon of Jupiter. There was a man in the small ship and one who had been a man and two who were manlike but who were not truly human.

  The ship came down toward the dark side of Europa with the rush of a shooting star and landed in the rigidly restricted Patrol area of Europolis spaceport. The four came out of it and looked around in the magnificent glow of Jupiter. Then they heard the light running steps and the urgent voice.

  “Curt!” And again, with a desperate gladness, “Curt, I knew you’d hurry!”

  Curt Newton took the girl’s tense outstretched hands in his own. He thought for a moment she was going to weep and he spoke to her with an affectionate roughness, not giving her time to be emotional. “What’s all this nonsense about Ezra? If anyone but you had sent that message...”

  “It’s true, Curt. He’s gone. I think — I think he won’t ever come back.”

  Newton shook her. “Come on, Joan! Ezra? Why, he’s been up and down the System since before you and I were born, first in the old space-frontier days of the Patrol and now with your Section Three. He wouldn’t get himself into any jam.”

  “He has,” said Joan Randall flatly. “And if you’ll stop being comforting I have all the data ready to show you — what there is of it.”

  SHE led the way toward the low buildings of Patrol headquarters. The four followed her, the tall red-haired man whom the System called Captain Future and his three companions, his lifelong friends, the three who were closer to him even than this girl and the missing Ezra Gurney — Grag, the metal giant, Otho, the lithe keen-eyed android, and Simon Wright, who had once been a human scientist but who for half a lifetime now had been divorced from human form.

  It was the latter who spoke to Joan. His voice was metallic and expressionless, issuing from the artificial resonator set in one side of his “body”. That “body” was a hovering square metal case that contained all that was human of Simon Wright — his brilliant deathless brain.

  “You say,” said Simon, “that Ezra is gone. Where precisely did he go?”

  Joan glanced at Simon, who was watching her intently with his lens-like eyes as he glided silently along on the pale traction beams that were his equivalent of limbs.

  “If I knew where I wouldn’t hide it from you,” she said with an undertone of irritation.

  In the next breath she said contritely, “I’m sorry. Waiting here has got me down. There’s something about Europa — it’s so old and cruel and somehow patient...”

  Otho said wryly, “You need a double hooker of something strong and cheering.” His green slightly-tilted eyes were compassionate beneath their habitual irony.

  Grag, the towering manlike giant who bore in his metal frame the strength of an army and an artificial intelligence equal to the human, rumbled a question in his deep booming voice. But Curt Newton only vaguely heard him. His gaze had followed Joan’s out into the alien night.

  This was not his first visit to Europa. And he was surprised to find that Joan had put into words exactly what he had always felt about the silent moon, the old old moon that was scarred so deep by time.

  Here, on one side, were the modern glare and thunder of the spaceport, busy with freighters and one or two sleek liners. Beyond the spaceport was Europolis, a glow of light behind a barren ridge. But on the other side, before him and behind him, was a sadness of ancient rock and distant hills, of brooding forest hung with shadow, of great plains empty in the red glow of Jupiter, dusty wastes where no herds had grazed and no armies fought for a hundred thousand years.

  The woods and plains were scattered with the time-gnawed bones of cities, dead and forsaken even before the last descendants of their builders had sunk into final barbarism. A thin old wind wandered aimlessly among the ruins, whimpering as though it remembered other days and wept.

  Newton could not suppress a slight shiver. The death of any great
culture is a mournful thing and the culture that had built the shining cities of Europa was the greatest ever known — the proud Old Empire that once had held two galaxies. To Curt Newton, who had followed the shadow of that glory far back toward its source, the very stones of these ruins spoke of cosmic tragedy, of the age-long night that succeeded the blazing highest noon of human splendor.

  The functional gleaming Patrol building brought his mind back to the present. Joan took them into a small office. From a locked file she drew a neat folder of papers and placed it on the desk.

  “Ezra and I,” she said, “were called into this case some time ago. The Planet Police had been handling it as a routine matter until some peculiar angles turned up that required the attention of Section Three.

  “People had been disappearing. Not only people from Earth but other planets as well — and nearly all of them older people. In each case when they vanished, they took most of their wealth with them.

  “Planet Police discovered that all these missing persons without exception had come to Europa. And here in Europolis their trails ended.”

  Simon Wright asked in his toneless voice, “Did they leave no clue as to why they came to this particular moon?”

  “A few of them did,” answered Joan. “A few of them before they left talked a little of something called the Second Life. That was all — just the name. But they seemed so eager and excited about it that it was remembered.”

  She continued, “Since they were nearly all aging people it seems obvious that the Second Life they were hoping for was some form of rejuvenation. A form of rejuvenation that must be illegal in nature or it wouldn’t be carried on secretly.”

  Curt nodded. “That sounds reasonable enough. ‘The Second Life’ — the term is a new one to me. However, Jupiter and its moons retained the civilization and science of the Old Empire long after the other planets had relapsed into barbarism. To this day odd scraps of that ancient wisdom keep rising to plague us.”

  “Quite,” said Simon dryly. “You will recall the case of Kenneth Lester, also that of the Martian, Ul Quorn. Europa in particular has always had a reputation in the System as a repository of knowledge that has been lost elsewhere. It’s an interesting problem. It occurs to me —”

  JOAN cut him short, genuinely angry now. “Are you and Curt going to start on that archaeological obsession of yours at a time like this? Ezra may be dead or dying!”

  Captain Future said, “Steady on, Joan — you haven’t yet told us exactly what happened to Ezra.”

  Joan caught a deep breath and went on more calmly.

  “When we came here to investigate, we found that the missing people who had arrived here had simply dropped out of sight. The Europans themselves refused to talk to us. But Ezra wouldn’t give up and finally got a lead. He found that the missing folk had hired native mounts at an inn called the Three Red Moons and had ridden out of the city.

  “Ezra planned to follow that lead out into the hills. He made me wait here — he said he had to have a contact here. I waited many days before Ezra got in touch with me through our micro-wave audio. He spoke briefly to me and switched off — and I’ve never heard from him since.”

  “His message?” asked Curt tensely.

  Joan took out a slip of paper. “I wrote it down word for word.”

  Curt read aloud. “Listen carefully, Joan! I’m all right — safe, well and happy. But I’m not coming back, not for a while. Now this is an order, Joan — drop the investigation, and go back to Earth. I’ll follow you later!”

  That was all.

  Otho said sharply, “He was forced to make that call!”

  “No.” Joan shook her head. “We have a secret code. He could have said the same words and yet could have let me know that he spoke under duress merely by a certain inflection. No, Ezra was talking of his own free will.”

  “Maybe he fell for this rejuvenation process, whatever it is?” suggested Grag.

  “No,” said Simon decisively. “Ezra would not do anything so foolish.”

  Curt nodded agreement. “Ezra has had plenty of tragedy in his life that few people know anything about. It’s why he’s always a little grim. He wouldn’t want to live a second life.”

  “Second Life?” murmured Otho. “The name tells nothing. Yet there must be a clue in it.”

  Captain Future stood up. “This isn’t a case for cleverness or subtlety. Ezra may be in danger and we’re going to work fast. We’ll go into Europolis and make those who know something talk.”

  Otho, his eyes sparkling, sprang to his feet. Grag took a clanking step toward the door.

  “Wait, Curt.” Joan’s face was worried. “You know the Patrol can’t legally arrest Europan citizens on their own world —”

  He smiled without much mirth. “We’re not Patrol. We’ll take the consequences if any.”

  “It’s not that,” she cried. “I have a feeling that since Ezra’s vanishing you Futuremen have been expected — and prepared for.”

  Curt Newton nodded gravely. “Very likely. However, we’re not exactly unprepared ourselves.” He turned to the others. “Simon, will you stay here and go over Joan’s data on the case till we return? And you, Grag — you’ll remain to guard them both.”

  Grag looked and sounded as upset as his physical structure would permit. “But there’s no telling what kind of trouble you’ll run into! You’ll need me with you!”

  “Joan needs you worse. She’s in every bit as much danger as we are.”

  That was partly true. It was also true that Grag’s seven-foot-high clanking bulk was somewhat too conspicuous for what Curt Newton had in mind. Otho started to say so and Curt stopped him by saying, “Let’s go.”

  He went out and Otho followed him, chuckling.

  “Save your humor,” said Curt dryly. “We may wish we had old Bone-crusher with us before we’re through.”

  They walked swiftly toward the slope of the low ridge beyond which lay the city. The thin dust blew beneath their feet and the old wind sang of danger out of its long long memories of blood and death.

  Chapter 2: The Inn of the Three Red Moons

  THE city lay in a shallow bowl between two spurs of a range so worn by the scuffing ages that it was now little more than a line of hills. Under the red glow of Jupiter the lordly towers slept in a sanguine mist that softened the scars of the broken stone. The cool light filled the roofless colonnades, the grand and empty avenues, and touched with a casual pity the faceless monuments that had long outlasted their forgotten victories.

  Curt Newton stood in a still and shadowy street and listened to the silence.

  On the near side of the ridge he could see the out-world settlement near the spaceport — infinitely farther away in time than it was in distance. There were the brilliant lights, the steel and plastic buildings of today, crowned by the white facade of the resort hotel. They had a curiously impermanent look. He took three steps along the winding way and they were gone.

  The paving stones were hollow under his feet, rutted by the tread of a myriad generations. The walls of the buildings rose on either side, some mere shells with the coppery planet-light shining through their graceful arches, others still tolerably whole with window-places like peering eyes, showing here and there a gleam of light.

  Otho, moving catlike at Curt’s side, lifted his shoulders uneasily. “My back itches,” he said.

  Curt nodded. “We’re being watched.”

  There was nothing to show that this was so but he knew it as Otho did, without needing to see.

  They came out into a wide square, from which many streets led off. In the center was a winged monument, so effaced by millenniums of wind and dust that it had the look of a grotesque skeleton, its eroded pinions stark against the sky. Curt and Otho paused beneath it, tiny figures beside that hundred-foot bulk of greenish marble.

  Nothing stirred in the square. The deserted avenues stretched away, edged with clotted shadow. The fallen palaces and shattered temples reared
to unknown gods stood still and brooding, remembering the banners and the glory, the incense and the crimson robes.

  One or two of the streets showed life, where flaring light marked the wine-shops and the inns.

  “Down there,” said Captain Future and they went on, their boots ringing on the paving blocks.

  They entered the street that Curt had chosen. And as they walked a little crowd began to gather, softly, unobtrusively, the dark-faced men in dusty cloaks coming without sound from the doorways, from the mouths of alleys, from nowhere and everywhere.

  They were not the young men, the hot-handed fighters. Most of them were grey and some were bent and even the youngest of them had an indefinable look of age, a thing of the spirit rather than the flesh. They did not speak. They watched the tall Earthman and the lithe one beside him that seemed to be a man. Their dark eyes glistened and they followed the strangers, borne with them like a ring of tattered shadows shifting, flowing, thickening.

  There was a coldness on Curt Newton’s flesh. It was an effort to keep his hand away from the butt of his weapon.

  “There it is ahead,” said Otho quietly. “The sign of the Three Red Moons.”

  The soft-footed multitude around them swirled and coalesced into a silent barrier across the windy street.

  Curt stopped. He did not seem to be afraid or even angry — merely curious. He regarded the wall of men with a patience equal to their own.

  An old white-bearded man stepped forward. He was shorter by a head than the Earthman but he stood erect and there was an ancient beauty in his high-boned face, a deep grand sorrowful pride. His cloak was as old as he, dun-colored with the sifting dust but he carried it as splendidly as though it had been fashioned of the purple cloth of kings.