Captain Future 12 - Planets in Peril (Fall 1942) Read online

  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.

  Curt's eyes were fixed on the pale-haired young man and girl who had jumped up as he entered. He realized at once that they represented a race wholly unfamiliar to him. The marble whiteness of their complexions, the handsomeness of the man and the unearthly, platinum-tressed beauty of the girl were as subtly strange as their black garments.

  Future had expected this man Gerdek and his sister to show astonishment at sight of his robot and android comrades.

  But, to his surprise, it was upon himself that the gaze of the man and the girl fixed instantly.

  With eyes dilated by amazement, these two visitors from another universe stared at Captain Future's hair. Then they burst into excited speech in their own language.

  Chapter 3: National Hero

  CURT NEWTON was dumfounded by the excitement which his own appearance had somehow stirred in the strange man and girl. They seemed unable to take their eyes off him.

  He turned to the little Martian scientist.

  "What are they saying, Tiko?"

  "I didn't get it all," Tiko Thrin confessed puzzledly. "But as far as I can gather, it's your red hair that has excited them."

  "My hair?" Captain Future echoed, mystified. "What's so unusual about that?"

  The Martian questioned Gerdek and Shiri in their own language. They replied with an eager rush of words.

  "They say," Tiko translated, "that none of their people has hair like yours. Their legends tell of a time when some of them had dark or even red hair, but now they are all a pale-haired people."

  "Tell them we're more interested in their reason for coming here than in the color of their hair," Curt Newton said impatiently.

  Gerdek and Shiri had by now got over their startled surprise. But the girl still had breathless emotion in her fine face as she looked at Curt.

  Her brother was saying something to her in a rapid, eager tone. They scrutinized Curt's tall figure intently. Gerdek appeared to be excitedly proposing something connected with Captain Future.

  Tiko Thrin looked perplexed.

  "I don't understand this," he told Curt. "The man keeps harping on your red hair. He's telling his sister that because you're red-haired, you might be able to save his doomed people."

  "Say, this is goofy!" Otho exclaimed. "How the devil is the Chief’s red hair going to save anybody from doom?"

  "Aw, these people must be still space-happy from their trip," growled Grag.

  "We’re getting nowhere," Captain Future said decisively. "Tiko, ask the man to tell us slowly what his universe is like and why his people are doomed. You translate for the rest of us as he goes along."

  Gerdek nodded quickly when the little Martian made the request. He began to speak in low, eager tones, looking with a strangely hopeful expression at Curt. The girl Shiri searched Curt's face with her great, dark violet eyes as her brother talked. Tiko Thrin translated.

  "Our universe is much different from this one of yours," Gerdek declared. "Like yours, it is a great bubble of three-dimensional curved space floating in the extra-dimensional abyss. But our universe is apparently much larger than yours in diameter. And ours is a dying universe, almost a dead one.

  "Long, long ago our universe was much like yours. It contained hosts of hot, bright suns whose outpouring radiation supported life on myriads of planets. That was when we Tarasts rose to civilization and glory. The scientific powers of our race so expanded that we were able to spread out and colonize the worlds of hundreds of stars.

  "The great hero of that long-past period of expansion was a scientist and leader named Kaffr, whose memory has been revered ever since by my race.

  "But that was all ages ago. As time passed, millennium after millennium, millions after millions of years, the decline of our universe set in. Its suns could not pour out radiation forever. Each star, as the carbon-nitrogen cycle consumed its free hydrogen, waned and cooled. The inexorable laws of entropy were taking effect. The older suns of our universe ran down through the spectrum to dull red, and then were dark, cold cinders.

  "The lights of our universe were going out, one by one! We could not halt that stupendous natural process — nothing could. Our far-flung race had sadly to abandon the frozen worlds of the burned-out suns, and migrate to other stars. So began the first somber retreat of the Tarast civilization from the borders of our cosmic empire."

  GERDEK paused for emphasis.

  "That retreat has been going on, ever since. For the last four million years, my people have abandoned one frozen stellar system after another. It has been a slow withdrawal, you see. A universe does not die in a day.

  "Each generation during those four million years saw little retrogression during its lifetime — only the occasional abandonment of some star's worlds. It has been slow — but it has been very sure.

  "In more recent ages, the cosmic retreat of our empire has been accelerated by two factors. One is the decay of our scientific powers, an intellectual degeneration that inevitably resulted from the psychological effects of our hopeless retreat. Very many techniques and knowledges were lost or forgotten as world after world was abandoned.

  "We still retain and operate many mechanical devices, but the spirit of scientific experimentation
is almost dead. We Tarasts are now, it is obvious to me, inferior to you people of this universe in science.

  "The other factor that deepens the hopelessness for us is a more tangible and terrifying one. It is the threat of the Cold Ones. That is the name we give to a new and hostile race of intelligent creatures that has appeared in our dying universe.

  "The Cold Ones are unhuman in many respects. They are the product of a disastrous chain of biological events that took place on the frozen planet of a dead star. They have advanced as we retreated, conquering world after world that we abandoned. For they can live in the endless icy darkness of airless worlds, where we would die.

  "Our retreat, and their advance, have now almost reached the fatal climax. Most of our universe is already blacked-out by death, a vast wilderness of ashen bulks that once were stars, and icy spheres that once were smiling worlds. The last millions of us Tarasts now huddle together upon the chill worlds of a few smoldering stars that are not yet completely dead.

  "Now the Cold Ones are reaching toward that dying star-cluster that is our last refuge. Already they have established a base there from which they attack our crowded worlds."

  Gerdek's handsome young face was quivering with emotion as he went on with his saga of a dying civilization.

  "Is it any wonder that most of my people have lost all hope for the future? 'Soon,' they murmur, 'our race will be gone and the Cold Ones will inherit our dead universe. It is futile to resist the laws of nature.'

  "So they have no more interest in science, in the glory of our past. Sunk in despair, more and more of them lose hope for the future of our race, and think only of the present. More and more listen to Vostol's plan."

  "Vostol's plan?" Captain Future repeated, puzzled by the reference. But Gerdek went on.

  "Only a handful of us have clung to hope and have tried to keep the ancient science alive," he said. "My sister Shiri and I are of that small group. We have exhorted our people not to surrender or to despair. We have told them that if the Tarast race can only endure, the time will come when our dying universe will be reborn to new life once more.