Captain Future 06 - Star Trail to Glory (Spring 1941) Read online

  For many hours the two men drifted together in space. Jan Walker's thoughts were bitter. In his first day as a Rocketeer, he had lost the valuable ship he was supposed to test. He felt so discouraged that he almost dreaded being picked up and returned to Mercury.

  Suddenly old Yalu gripped his arm and pointed sunward.

  "There's a ship! We'll use our impellers to flash a signal."

  Frantically they blasted bright flame from their impellers, to catch the attention of the black speck they could see against the Sun. The speck grew larger. The ship had turned and was coming straight toward them. It was a new Garson Sixteen.

  When it paused beside them, and they were pulled inside, they found that the craft was piloted by Losor, the tall Neptunian Rocketeer.

  "Figured you'd be somewhere in this sector," he declared. "Ka Kardak sent me out to look for you when you didn't return. Where's your ship?"

  Jan Walker shrugged gloomily. "It was hijacked from us."

  "Same way as all the other hijackings, Losor," said Yalu. "Everything suddenly blurred. Then we found ourselves floating in space."

  "This mystery is getting too much for me!" Losor swore. "Three ships gone in two days! No wonder Ka Kardak is burning."

  Ka Kardak in fact seemed boiling with suppressed emotion when he came striding out to meet them as they landed at Suicide Station.

  "Of all the space-struck idiots!" he roared. "Letting your ship be taken like that — you two must have fallen asleep!"

  "No, we didn't," defended Yalu earnestly. "Some queer force hit us."

  "Bah, I ought to wash you both up for this! Three of the space ship magnates are here right now, riding me about these vanished ships. And old Gurney, the Planet Patrol ace, is here with them. Come along, you two imbeciles!"

  With sinking heart, Jan Walker followed the Jovian and Yalu into the Station offices. A middle-aged Uranian, fat, yellow-skinned and beady-eyed, came forward to meet them. It was Ak Kalber, head of the big Kalber Space Ship Company.

  "That new Twenty of yours is gone," rumbled Ka Kardak. "Taken off these two men of mine, the same as all the others."

  "This is too much!" hissed Ak Kalber. "Nineteen of my ships have been lost this way, new ships worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Something's got to be done about this, and done quickly!"

  Lan Tark, the tall, solemn-eyed red Martian tycoon of the famous Tark factories, nodded emphatic agreement.

  "Kalber's right. We need action. We can't stand this heavy loss of brand-new ships."

  The third space ship magnate was Gray Garson, an Earthman with deep lines of worry in his homely, rugged face.

  "I've lost only six new ships, but that's a tremendous loss for a small company like mine," he said ruefully.

  Ak Kalber turned toward the fourth man in the office, a grizzled old Earthman in the dark uniform of the Planet Police. He was chewing rial leaf, his faded blue eyes watching everything.

  "Marshal Gurney, something must be done to stop these thefts before we're bankrupted!" the Uranian declared.

  JAN WALKER felt his pulse jump as he looked at the bleak-eyed old Police marshal. This was the famous Ezra Gurney, veteran of the Patrol, a companion in arms of the legendary Captain Future himself!

  "You still got no idea who's stealin' these ships, and why, and how it's bein' done?" asked Ezra Gurney thoughtfully.

  "I have an idea, yes!" declared Ak Kalber. He looked vindictively at Jan Walker and Yalu. "I believe these Rocketeers are deliberately turning over our new ships to someone, and then coming back with this fantastic story!"

  Jan Walker and Yalu bristled at the accusation. Before they could defend themselves, Ka Kardak stepped in.

  "No one can call my Rocketeers crooked! They're a bunch of soft-heads. They have to have me riding them every minute to keep them working, but they're not crooks. I'll beat the head off anyone who says they are!"

  "Easy, there," drawled Ezra Gurney to the enraged Jovian. "Gettin' mad's not goin' to help things any. These space ship manufacturers have a right to be worked up, they've lost so many valuable new ships. And we Planet Police haven't been able to track down a single one of those hijacked ships, worse luck. If these thefts keep up, they'll disorganize the whole space ship manufacturing industry. And so far we haven't been able to get even an idea where all the stolen ships are taken, or why and how they're bein' stolen."

  The old marshal seemed to reach a decision.

  "I'm goin' back to Earth and see the System President about this. I'm goin' to ask him to call in Cap'n Future!"

  "Captain Future?" Kalber exclaimed. He seemed almost taken aback. "Do you think he would investigate this mystery?"

  "He would if the President calls him, and I think I can convince the President," stated Ezra. "We can't let the whole space ship industry be disorganized this way without doin' somethin' about it."

  Gray Garson nodded emphatic agreement, a new light of hope on his rugged face.

  "If Captain Future could break up these mysterious thefts, he'd save some of us from bankruptcy!"

  "Even we bigger manufacturers can't stand such losses long," Lan Tark, the solemn Martian magnate declared. "Rissman and Zamor and the others will all be encouraged to learn that Captain Future may take a hand in this."

  Ezra Gurney strode toward the door.

  "I'm goin' back to Solar City and then blast for Earth. Remember, not a word of this to anyone except the other manufacturers!"

  * * * * *

  WHEN Ezra Gurney left Mercury an hour later, he would have been less confident of secrecy had he been able to see into a certain small room with walls of smooth stone, a low cement ceiling and no windows. A dim clangor came from outside, but it was impossible to guess its nature, or the location of this secret room. Under a cluster of bright uranite bulbs gleamed the square bulk of a powerful televisor. In front of it stood a weird machine that grotesquely resembled a man.

  The machine man stood upon girder-legs and had jointed girder-arms. Behind his metal ribs were compact generators and motors and cogged gears, crowded closely together. His head was a big cubical metal box. In one side of it were two visi-plates that served as eyes. From the mouthlike orifice came a deep, humming voice as the machine man spoke into the televisor.

  "This is One speaking. Calling Forty-four at Venus Base!"

  The mechanical creature who called himself "One" stood motionless, awaiting a reply. The televisor screen glowed with light. Then it showed another metal machine man, similar to One, except that his cubical head or brain-case was not so large.

  "Forty-four speaking. What is it, One?"

  "Your report, Forty-four?" demanded One.

  "Two space ships captured today," said the other machine man. "A new Kalber Twenty and a Zamor Eight. We have them safe here at Venus Base."

  "What about their Rocketeer pilots?"

  "We tossed them out into space and left them floating, as usual," replied Forty-four. "They have no idea of how we did it, of course."

  "Bring those two ships on to Main Base here at once. Use more than ordinary caution not to be spotted as you approach Mercury. The Rocketeers are greatly aroused, and the Planet Police have redoubled their efforts to catch us."

  "I understand," replied Forty-four simply. "I will bring them."

  One snapped off the televisor. Then his cubical metal head swiveled toward the door of the room. His voice hummed loudly.

  "Six, Fifteen!" he called.

  The door opened. A clangorous banging and hammering from the mysterious place outside invaded the room as two machine men stalked stiffly in and closed the door. Six and Fifteen were like One in every detail, except that their cubical brain-cases also were not so large.

  "Your orders?" asked Six.

  "It has come to my knowledge," hummed One, "that the Planet Police, having failed to check our activities, are about to call in a certain Earthman named Captain Future to help them."

  "I do not know of Captain Future," declared Six.
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  "You would not, of course," admitted One. "But I know of him. He is only a human, yet he can be dangerous, for he is a master of science and an unswerving champion of the System Government and its laws. And his three assistants, the so-called Futuremen, make him even more dangerous. Captain Future's home is on Earth's Moon. When the System President needs this man, he calls him by a certain beacon signal upon Earth's North Pole. Undoubtedly he will soon call Captain Future by this means, to gain his assistance in stopping our activities."

  NEITHER Six nor Fifteen made any comment, as human beings would have done. They stood silently awaiting orders.

  "It is essential," continued One's cold mechanical voice, "that Captain Future and his assistants be prevented from interfering with our plans. It is your duty to prevent that. You will head for the Moon at once in our fastest ship, with a crew of six. Get there before the beacon signal calls the Futuremen to Earth. You will take Captain Future and his assistants by surprise and overpower them by means of our usual weapon.

  "Surprise is vital. Once this man is on his guard, even our powerful weapon might fail against him. Secure them and their ship, the Comet, but do not kill Captain Future or his men. Their ship, the Comet, contains many valuable scientific secrets of space ship design which only he and the Futuremen understand. Bring them to Venus Base first, and I will notify you when it is safe to come here to Main Base. Then we shall force Future or his comrades to explain all the features of their ship to us. After that we can kill them."

  Six and Fifteen, without question or remark, turned and stalked out of the room. Presently, through the subdued clangor outside, came the roar of a powerful space ship's rocket-tubes blasting for take-off. The awesome mechanical figure of the master of the machine men remained immobile, his enormous artificial eyes inscrutable.

  Chapter 3: The Man of Tomorrow

  CURTIS NEWTON, the young planeteer famous through the whole Solar System as Captain Future, straightened from the work that had intently engrossed him for hours. He stood surveying the object of his labor. It was a peculiar square case of transparent metal, resting on his laboratory table.

  "All finished, at last!" Captain Future exclaimed with relief. "Want to try it out now, Simon?"

  A rasping metallic voice answered him. It appeared to come from the odd square case before him.

  "Give me a minute to familiarize myself with the controls, Curtis."

  "Oh, all right," Curt Newton conceded impatiently. "You're so all-fired deliberate about everything. I want to see how it works!"

  Waiting anxiously, Captain Future made a striking figure. The young Earthman was six feet four in height, and his lithe ranginess in his drab zipper-suit made him seem even taller. As he stood running one hand through his mop of torch-red hair, his space-tanned, handsome face and clear gray eyes mirrored his eagerness to test the results of his work.

  Curt looked more like a fighting man than a scientist. But the big ring on his left hand — a ring whose nine bright "planet" jewels constantly revolved around a radiant "Sun" jewel — identified him on nine worlds as the System's greatest scientific wizard. The matchless laboratory on the Moon was silent witness to his abilities.

  In the uninhabited airless satellite, under the floor of Tycho crater, was the maze of underground rooms of Captain Future's home. The ceiling of this biggest room was a large glassite window which gave a view of outside space. In the black vault bulked the green, huge sphere of Earth, and the dazzling Sun whose rays poured in to glitter off the laboratory's crowded scientific equipment and unfamiliar machines.

  "Very well, Curtis, I'm ready to test the projector now," came the rasping voice from the square, transparent case on the table. "But I still wish I hadn't let you talk me into this."

  "Think how convenient it will be for you to be able to move about, Simon," Captain Future argued. "Remember how helpful it was in that case of the Seven Space Stones, when you could use that phony Thinking Machine body to get about in? And look how much easier your scientific researches will be, when you can handle instruments."

  "It is true that mobility would facilitate my studies," admitted the metallic voice. "That is the only reason I agreed to your proposal."

  Simon Wright, whose rasping voice was speaking, had been one of the greatest scientists in the System. Approaching death had made it necessary to remove his brain and house it inside a metal case whose compact pumps and purifiers circulated the serum which kept the Brain alive. In the front of the case were Simon's lens-eyes, mounted on flexible stalks, and his mechanical resonator-mouth.

  Captain Future had just finished installing a new mechanism inside the Brain's case. It was a projector which could shoot magnetic beams of several different orders out through the walls of the case itself. The control of this little projector was connected directly to the nerve-centers of the Brain.

  "I'll try the tractor beams for motion first," rasped Simon.

  A THIN blue beam shot down from the square case, and the Brain at once rose smoothly into the air from the table. He poised there, motionless. Then he jetted a blue beam from the back of his case, and at once the push of the magnetic ray sent him gliding through the air toward the wall of the laboratory. Around the laboratory the Brain flew silently and smoothly, while Curt watched.

  "Simon, it's perfect!" Captain Future exclaimed as the Brain came to a halt in mid-air beside him. "You can move in air or space at will now."

  "It's true that this expands my powers, without being a drag on my thought processes, as a body would be," the Brain conceded. "There is a certain pleasure in self-locomotion which I had forgotten."

  With a sudden jet of blue beams, the Brain flashed again around the big sunlit laboratory, so fast that the eye could hardly follow.

  "Fire-imps of Jupiter!" breathed a hissing voice from a door of the room. "Look, Grag. Simon can fly now!"

  It was Otho the android who stood in the door, gaping amazedly. Otho was one of the Futuremen, Curt Newton's unhuman trio of loyal comrades. He was a synthetic human being who had been made in this very laboratory, long years ago. He was manlike enough superficially, but not his rubbery white synthetic flesh, the slitted, slanting green eyes in his hairless white face, the devil-may-care recklessness and humor in his thin features. Unhuman, too, were Otho's speed and agility and skill in disguise.

  "I must have been drinking Jovian fern-wine, or else I'm dreaming!" Otho gasped, staring. "Tell me, Grag, do you see it, too?"

  Grag the robot, third of the legendary Futuremen, was peering in equal astonishment over the android's head. Grag towered seven feet high, a massive metal giant whose glowing photoelectric eyes, round metal head and mighty metal body gave him an alien majesty.

  "What does it mean, Master?" Grag asked Captain Future in his booming voice. "I thought Simon didn't want a body."

  "I don't have any body!" the Brain rasped angrily, poising beside them. "I wouldn't have one. A body is just a drag on the mind. But with these beams I can move at will and do things for myself."

  In illustration, the Brain jetted two thin blue rays which fastened upon a tool on the table with magnetic grip. Using the beams as arms and hands, the Brain deftly manipulated the tool.

  "Swell, Simon!" Captain Future approved. "Now you won't need Otho or Grag to help you in your experiments."

  "And now I can be of more aid to you, Curtis, in times of danger," added the Brain, his lens-eyes fixed on the big young planeteer.

  "As though anyone could be a greater help to me than you've been!" Curt cried warmly. "You, who took care of me almost from the time I was born, who reared me and educated me here on the Moon —"

  "Say, Chief, Grag and I had a hand in that, too!" Otho exclaimed indignantly. "We educated you as much as Simon did."

  Curt chuckled. "I'll say you did. I'll never forget the system you two used when I was disobedient. You would catch me, Otho, and then Grag would spank me."

  FOR a moment there was a little silence. All four had been swep
t back in memory to past years. The Brain could remember when he had been Doctor Simon Wright, famous scientist of an Earth university, a colleague of the brilliant Roger Newton. And he remembered how danger had come to Roger Newton. Unscrupulous men coveted Newton's scientific secrets.

  He could remember how he and Newton and the latter's young wife had fled from Earth, seeking refuge on the barren Moon.

  Here they had built the underground laboratory-home, and here Roger Newton's little son Curtis had been born. And here Newton and the Brain had continued their great scientific experiment of creating artificial, intelligent, living beings. Grag the robot had been their first creation. And Otho the synthetic man was their second.

  But the unscrupulous plotters who coveted Roger Newton's scientific secrets had followed them to the Moon. They had killed Newton and his wife and were themselves killed by Grag and Otho. Little Curtis Newton, a helpless infant, had been left in the lonely Moon-home in the care of the Brain, the robot and the android.

  Strange guardians for a human child though they were, they had given Curtis Newton an education such as no boy ever received before. The Brain's vast scientific knowledge, the tremendous physical strength of giant Grag, and the speed and agility of Otho, all were transmitted to the growing youth. Small wonder that Curt Newton had reached maturity as a man with superhuman capabilities — a man of tomorrow!

  Curt had dedicated himself to unrelenting war against such criminals as had destroyed his parents. He had offered his services to the President of the System Government. He had called himself Captain Future because he felt he was fighting for the future of the System's peoples against would-be exploiters and oppressors. And time after time, Captain Future and his three loyal, unhuman Futuremen had, by scientific mastery and sheer daring, beaten down dark super-criminals and plotters, Otho broke the silence. The android was always the most restless of them, and he had something in mind which he broached to Curt in a cunningly casual tone.