Captain Future 13 - The Face of the Deep (Winter 1943) Read online

  “He’s just been stringing us along to keep us quiet,” accused the quavering voice of a white-haired, rial-chewing Saturnian, a hoary old sinner named Tuhlus Thuun. “I’ll lay that the Patrol men put him up to giving us that story.”

  A fierce, low babble of accusations, threats and demands instantly arose from the prisoners. All were addressed to the big Martian.

  Then Kim Ivan’s deep voice cut through the babble, in low, harsh command. “Cut your blasts, you chattering space-monkeys! Do you want the guards coming in here?”

  The authority in his voice, the authority that had made this towering Martian one of the great pirate leaders of his time, again silenced them.

  “I said I’d stage a break, and I will,” Kim Ivan continued harshly. “And what’s more, tonight’s the night for it.”

  An electric spark of excitement seemed to leap along the crowded cells at his statement. The voices broke out again, but in eager questions now.

  “What’s your plan, Kim? How are you going to get us out of these cursed cells?”

  “You’ll soon find out,” the big Martian promised. “Now shut off your cycs and keep quiet while I start.”

  The prisoners instantly became still, though all pressed against the bars of their cells in a surge of sudden hope. The only sound was the low, monotonous muttering from the cell of John Rollinger.

  Kim Ivan turned to his cell-mate. His fellow prisoner was Boraboll the swindler, a fat Uranian whose moon-like yellow face was ludicrous as he gaped at the big Martian.

  “Kim, can you really do it?” he squeaked. “How are you so much as going to get out of this cell, when you have nothing to work with?”

  “I have all I need,” Kim Ivan replied. “My old pals on the outside smuggled the stuff to me, before we ever left Earth, It’s hidden right here in the cell with us.”

  “Are you crazy?” gasped Boraboll. “There’s nothing hidden in here, not so much as a pin. The X-Ray scanner would have detected it if there was.”

  “The cursed scanner wouldn’t ever find my equipment,” Kim Ivan replied, with a chuckle. He was stripping off his gray convict jacket, and there was a look of triumph on his massive, battered face as he added, “I’ve got wit enough to outsmart the Patrol, every time.”

  Boraboll watched him, open-mouthed. The big Martian had filled the biggest of their soft food-dishes with water from the fiber jug. Now Kim Ivan tore a sleeve off his jacket, and bent over the dish of water.

  “Cell-crazy!” muttered the fat Uranian to himself with sudden conviction. “He’s gone clear cell-crazy. He’s as delirious as Rollinger.”

  Kim Ivan wadded up the sleeve of his jacket and thrust it into the dish of water. He turned around, with a sharp command.

  “Now, hand me that salt.” Pityingly, Boraboll handed him the little fiber container of salt. Kim Ivan took it and squatted down, waiting and watching the dish.

  Gradually, a curious change came over the water in that dish. It turned blue, as though it had dissolved some dye or chemical in the jacket-sleeve that was immersed in it. Kim Ivan waited until the water was a dark blue color, before taking out the wadded sleeve.

  “Now the reagent,” muttered the big Martian, and poured a carefully estimated quantity of salt into the dark blue liquid.

  The blue liquid began to seethe and boil, and turned dark purple. Kim Ivan’s massive face flashed a light of triumph.

  “It works!” he muttered exultantly. “Boraboll, we’re as good as out of here right now.”

  “But what is that stuff?” Boraboll stammered, looking bewilderedly at the seething purple liquid.

  “It’s an acid that eats through the toughest metal as though it were cheese,” the big Martian retorted. “The basic elements of the acid were mixed by a smart outside chemist into a gluey mixture that was soaked into a regulation convict jacket, and then dried. The jacket was smuggled in to me by my outside pals, along with plans of this ship.”

  He chuckled as he added, “The scanner couldn’t show the chemicals soaked into my jacket. But they needed only to be dissolved into water, and then to have ordinary sodium chloride added to the solution, to form one of the most powerful metal acids known. Now watch it work!”

  Kim Ivan picked up the vessel of seething liquid, and carefully poured a trickle of it upon the crossbars of the cell’s barred door.

  The purple liquid foamed and hissed, eating swiftly into the tough chromaloy bars. Careful to avoid splashing himself with the acid, the Martian pirate continued the operation. In a few moments, the crossbars were eaten through. He put down the bowl of acid, and lifted out a whole section of the door. Then he squeezed out into the corridor.

  “Kim, how did you do it?” came the excited, wondering exclamation of Grabo, the squat Jovian criminal across the corridor.

  “Can you get the rest of us out, too?” Moremos asked swiftly. A chorus of amazement and excited hope was rising from the rest of the convicts. Kim Ivan quieted it with a wave of his big hand.

  “Take it easy! I’ll soon have you out of those cursed cages.”

  The cell-doors did not have individual locks. They were all secured by a master electro-lock whose controls were outside the cell-deck.

  But Kim Ivan knew what he was doing. He secured his receptacle of purple acid and stooped over a certain section of the corridor floor.

  “The main wiring for the electro-locks runs under here,” he muttered. “If the ship plans my pals sent me are right.”

  He used a trickle of the acid to burn out a two-foot section of the metal floor-plate. This exposed the tangle of wiring inside the floor. Kim Ivan studied it for several minutes, then began working with the wires.

  Presently, his work bore results. With a loud clicking, all the locks of the scores of cell-doors drew their bolts. He had actuated the master control of the locks.

  The convicts swarmed instantly out into the corridor. Brutal faces of Earthmen, Venusians, Jovians, Saturnians blazed with fierce hope.

  “You’ve done wonders, Kim,” Moremos applauded tensely. “But now what?”

  “Now,” answered the big Martian with a flash in his eyes, “we’re going to seize the ship! Then ho for freedom!”

  “The Patrol will hunt us down no matter where we go, once they find out we’ve seized the Vulcan,” muttered fat Boraboll doubtingly.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan,” reassured the Martian. “The Patrol will never catch up to us where I’m figuring on going.”

  Tuhlus Thuun, the hoary old Saturnian pirate, spat rial juice on the floor and demanded, “How’re we going to grab the ship? We’re locked on this deck, with Patrol men on guard outside both doors.”

  Kim Ivan grinned. “There’s another way out of here. The ship-plans showed that when this craft was a liner, it had an emergency escape-hatch leading from this passenger-deck to the top-deck. The hatch was walled shut when they made this a prison ship. But I know where it is.”

  HE APPROACHED a blank section of metal wall between two cells midway in the main corridor. Motioning the others peremptorily to stand back, the Martian poured his remaining purple acid upon that wall.

  The liquid hissed and burned into the metal panel. In a few moments, it had eaten out a big section. Through the hole they looked into a dark, small escape-hatch whose ladders ran up toward the top-deck.

  Kim Ivan faced the swarming, eager convicts grimly. “Now listen to me. I’m running this show, and anyone who doesn’t like that can speak up right now.”

  There was no challenge to the authority of the towering, hard-faced Martian pirate. But a shrill voice back in the throng laughed wildly.

  “It’s only that crazy Rollinger,” muttered Moremos. He viciously shoved the staring, mad-eyed Earthman back into his cell.

  “This hatch will let us out into the forepart of the top-deck,” Kim Ivan continued rapidly. “We’ll jump first on the ship officers on duty in the bridge and chart-rooms. Once we have their guns, we can overpower the others before
they’re awake enough to know what’s going on. But no massacre — understand?”

  Moremos’ green face stiffened. “You mean we’re not to blast down that devil Captain Future? He and his cursed Futuremen have sent plenty of our pals to Cerberus!”

  A low growl of agreement came from the other convicts.

  “You blockheads, they are the most valuable hostages we could have aboard, if we’re not fools enough to kill them!” lashed Kim Ivan. “And we may need hostages once the Patrol starts hunting us.”

  His grim reminder silenced them. “Now come on!” the big Martian exclaimed. “If luck’s with us, we’ll pull off a feat that’ll go down in pirate history!”

  The mutineers poured up the escape-hatch after their big leader. Kim Ivan opened the unsealed door at its top, and they emerged with a sudden rush into the top-deck just behind the chart-room.

  Two pilots were on duty in the bridge ahead, and Lieutenant K’kan was checking the drift-gauges in the chart-room. The young Martian second officer turned, appalled, and then reached swiftly toward an alarm-button.

  Kim Ivan’s balled fist knocked him senseless before he could press the button. Old Tuhlus Thuun eagerly snatched up the officer’s atom-pistol.

  “Get that pilot, Grabo!” yelled the Martian leader furiously.

  One of the two pilots had evaded the Jovian criminal and his group who had burst into the bridge. The pilot, with a yell, was darting back through the chart-room to escape.

  Crash! The fiery blast from old Tuhlus Thuun’s gun cut the man down in mid-stride.

  The old Saturnian cackled. “Ain’t my aim yet! First man I’ve led down for two years.”

  “You old fool, there wasn’t any need that!” raged Kim Ivan. “I told you to —”

  Crash! Crash!

  “Where the devil’s Moremos?” cried the Martian furiously, striding hastily back toward the main corridor of the top-deck.

  Boraboll answered, his moon-like yellow face muddy with fear. “Moremos killed Captain Theron with his own gun! He and the others have gone back for the Futuremen!”

  “I might have known that murderous Venusian couldn’t hold his trigger!” roared Kim Ivan. “Come on!”

  They burst into the top-deck longitudinal corridor, stumbling over the slain bodies of Captain Theron, a Patrol guard and a deck-hand.

  Chapter 4: Trapped

  A TENSE tableau met their eyes. Ahead of them, Moremos and a half-dozen other mutineers were charging the stern corridor. Captain Future’s tall figure had just burst out of his cabin, and the Venusian murderer was raising his gun to fire at the hated planeteer.

  Curt Newton’s draw was the swiftest in the Solar System. His proton-pistol came out of his holster with the speed of light. Yet he could not fire, for Joan at this moment emerged into the corridor. She was between him and the Venusian.

  “Joan, get back!” he yelled to her. She hesitated dazedly. Curt couldn’t fire at the Venusian while she stood between them. But Moremos, who had no interest in the girl’s safety, was going to shoot!

  Curt’s desperate expedient came with such lightning speed that it seemed an instinctive reaction rather than a deliberate decision.

  He fired the blazing white bolt of his weapon, aiming at the metal wall of the corridor beside Joan. Most of the energy of the oblique blast burned into the wall. But a part of that blazing blast of force was reflected and deflected on along the corridor toward the mutineers.

  The deflected blast was not strong enough to be fatal. But it was enough to scorch and daze Moremos and the others. They recoiled.

  Captain Future lunged forward, swept Joan behind him, and triggered swiftly.

  His blasts cut down two of the men beside Moremos. The Venusian and the others hastily darted back out of the corridor.

  “Holy space-imps, what’s going on?” It was Otho, his green eyes blazing and his proton-gun in his hand, who had emerged with Grag from the cabin they shared. Ezra Gurney, too, was scrambling startledly out.

  “Mutiny!” Curt Newton cried. His voice was bitter with self-reproach. “Just what I feared, and yet I let it happen.”

  YOUNG Rih Quili, the Mercurian lieutenant, and another Patrol officer had wakened and come out to join them.

  A stentorian voice echoed back to their little group from the fore part of the top-deck. It reverberated along the corridors.

  “Future, will you and the others surrender? You haven’t got a chance. We hold the bridge and control the ship.”

  “That’s Kim Ivan,” gritted Ezra. His thin hand clenched upon his atom-gun and he started forward. “I’ll show that cursed Martian!”

  Grag and Otho started forward with him, but Curt Newton held them back. “Don’t be foolish! There’re scores of convicts up there and they’ve got all the guns in the arsenal by now. They’d get us no matter how many of them we got first.”

  He glanced swiftly around, his gray eyes snapping. “We can’t stay here. They’ll come up the aft companionway, and then they’ll have us caught between them. We’d better retreat down the aft stair to the cyc-room. If we can hold the cyc-room against them, we’ll get the upper hand over them yet.”

  “I get it!” exclaimed Otho. “If we hold the cyc-room, we can keep the cycs shut off and prevent them from taking the ship anywhere save Neptune.”

  Hastily, the little party entered the aft companionway and went down its short, zigzag stair to the lowest deck of the Vulcan.

  The big cyc-room took up the whole rear half of this deck. It was crowded with machinery — the huge, massive, cylindrical cyclotrons, the tangle of fuel pipes and power-leads, the squat generators of the auxiliary drive whose vibration-thrust was used only in emergencies.

  George McClinton ran bewilderedly toward them. The lanky young chief engineer had apparently just been aroused from his nearby bunk by the Neptunian engineer on duty. He was automatically popping a dried prune into his mouth, as his spectacled eyes blinked at them amazedly.

  “Wh-what’s going on?” he stammered. “Orluk says that he h-h-heard shooting —”

  “The cursed convicts have grabbed the bridge-room and upper decks!” answered Ezra Gurney, his faded eyes still raging.

  CAPTAIN FUTURE was snapping orders.

  “Grag, you and Rih Quili lock the fore door and watch it. Otho, take the aft door.”

  “You’re not h-hurt, are you, M-m-miss Randall?” the prune-loving engineer was asking anxiously of Joan.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “But I’ve failed in my duty. This is the first time there has ever been a break on the Vulcan.”

  “It’s more my fault than yours or Ezra’s,” Curt said bitterly. “I felt all along that that desperate bunch might try something. That’s why I came along and took all the precautions I could. But they somehow outsmarted me.”

  There was a loud hammering at the fore and aft doors of the cyc-room. The mutineers had apparently discovered the whereabouts of the group.

  “They can’t break in here,” Ezra muttered hopefully. “They know if they do, we’ll blast ‘em down as fast as they come through the door.”

  Curt was searching the crowded cyc-room with intent gray eyes. “Are there any space-suits down here?” he asked McClinton.

  “N-n-no,” stuttered the lanky engineer wonderingly. “Suits aren’t ever k-kept down here, for there’s n-n-no need for them here.”

  “We’ll need them pretty quickly, if my guess is right,” Curt exclaimed. He pointed at two big valves inset in niches in the thick wall of the cyc-room. “Those are air-exhaust valves, controlled from the bridge-room. They’re part of the valve system designed to make possible the exhaustion of air from any section of the ship.”

  “Good God, I forgot all ‘bout those exhausts!” cried Ezra, aghast. “They were intended to enable the ship’s commander to quell any convict mutiny in any part of the ship. If the convicts learn about ‘em and turn ‘em against us —”

  “They will, and quickly,” Curt snapped. “That Kim
Ivan seems to know all about this ship. Can we fix those valves to keep them from being opened?”

  “There’s n-n-no way!” answered McClinton, paling. “Operation of the v-v-valves is all by r-r-remote control through w-wires in the w-walls.”

  “Then we’ve got to weld metal patches over the valve-niches — and quickly!” Captain Future cried. “You’ve got atomic welding-torches here? Get them out, and bring some sheet metal stock.”

  As they started to work with the sputtering atomic torches to cut metal patches that would seal the exhaust-valve openings, the hammering on the doors ceased.

  Grag, Otho, Rih Quili and Ezra remained on guard inside those doors while Curt and McClinton worked hastily.

  Before they had even cut out the first metal patch, a loud voice bellowed through the cyc-room. It came from the interphone that connected with the bridge.

  “Captain Future!” it bellowed.

  “This is Kim Ivan talking. We’ve taken the whole ship except the cyc-room. You haven’t a chance. Unless you open the fore door and toss out your atom-guns, I’m going to open the cyc-room exhaust-valves.”

  “That Martian devil!” gritted Ezra Gurney furiously. “He knew about the valve-system, all right.”

  “What about it, Future?” bellowed the Martian’s voice. “I’m going to give you two minutes. Unless you agree by then, the valves open!”

  Stricken by the threat, the others looked at Curt. His bronzed-face was a taut mask as he assessed their hopeless situation.

  THEY could not seal the deadly valves in two minutes. That job would take a half hour, at least. Long before they finished it, the valves would be opened and the air would puff out of the cyc-room, slaying them all.

  “They’ve got the doors locked on the other side now, chief!” Otho reported.

  “So we can’t come out fighting,” Curt gritted. His eyes swung to Joan. Then he stepped to the interphone. “Captain Future speaking, Kim Ivan! What assurance have we that if we do surrender you won’t blast down every one of us?”