Captain Future 26 - Earthmen No More (March 1951) Read online

  He awakened slowly. His first sensation was of a curious lightness and buoyancy. Then he heard sounds, oddly echoing.

  “Simon, can you hear me? Can you hear?” He tried to open his eyes. Light blinded him. His vision seemed to focus queerly.

  Then he saw Roger and Elaine Newton bending over him. There was awe in their faces.

  Simon realized the truth. The transformation had been accomplished. He was now a brain living in an artificial case. That accounted for his unusual feeling of lightness and buoyancy. He no longer had a dying, weakened body dragging at his mind.

  He attempted to speak. The effort of will actuated the controls of the little voder-device in his case. He heard his voice as a metallic, rasping monotone. “I — hear, Roger. Hard — form words — correctly —”

  And then, with a feeling of triumph, “My mind — clear, strong, now — we can go on with our — work.”

  He tested his new senses. He could hear with greater clarity than ever before. His eyes had perfect vision.

  Weeks went by, and Simon Wright felt more at home in his strange new body. The absence of pain and weakness gave him a clarity of mind he had never attained before. He did not even need sleep.

  His case rested usually on the laboratory table. There, he either advised and superintended Roger Newton in their joint researches, or studied volumes from their extensive scientific library.

  They often asked him anxious questions. “Do you feel all right, Simon? You’re not sorry you made the change?”

  “No, I’m not sorry in the least,” he replied truthfully. “I’m happy in the knowledge that I can continue my work.”

  That was true. But in Simon Wright’s mind there was one doubt, one foreboding, that he never mentioned. It was the shadowing realization that he was unable to do anything himself.

  He had never lived a life of physical action. But this realization that he would be unable to perform any physical act, no matter how dire the emergency, was the one flaw in his contentment. It bred in him a gnawing inferiority complex that he could not conquer.

  CAPTAIN FUTURE IS BORN

  Months passed. In the Moon-laboratory beneath Tycho crater, where they had taken refuge from Victor Corvo and the others who had sought to rob their scientific secrets, Elaine Newton’s son was born.

  The Brain looked down from his table at Grag and Otho playing with the growing, red-haired infant. Secretly, he wished that he could join them. He, too, loved little Curtis Newton. But he could do nothing but look on. “If I weren’t only so utterly helpless,” he thought, brooding over his inferiority. “I never thought it would make any difference. But it does.”

  Grag and Otho went out to excavate certain metallic ores from a vein they had opened in the wall of Tycho crater, some miles away. Roger Newton and the Brain were planning a spaceship of new design, and were gathering materials for the purpose.

  An hour later, the airlock door of the Moon-laboratory suddenly burst open. Four men in space-suits, carrying heavy atom-guns, strode into the room. The Brain looked up startledly from the table upon which he had been studying a formula. He instantly recognized, through the glassite helmet, the dark, hawklike face of the intruders’ leader.

  “Victor Corvo!” cried Simon. “Roger, call Grag and Otho.”

  Newton sprang toward the telaudio transmitter on the table. He never completed the movement.

  A COWARDLY MURDER

  Corvo’s atom-gun blasted two crackling bolts of fiery energy. One cut down Roger Newton, killing him instantly. The other bolt drove into the side of his youthful wife as she sprang forward.

  Simon Wright raved in his metallic voice, possessed by wild fury. The men behind Corvo stared at the Brain in uneasy wonder.

  “What is that thing?” one of them demanded.

  Corvo laughed. “It’s Simon Wright, the old scientist — or what’s left of him. I heard about it. Newton put his brain in that case. That’s all he is — a harmless brain in a box.”

  His voice rose in triumph. “I told you we’d finally track Newton down. Now start going through this place. I want every scrap of paper, every formula and diagram in it. Newton and Wright worked out secrets worth billions. We’re going to take them all — and we’ll take that Brain with us, to explain anything we can’t understand.”

  Simon Wright writhed mentally in anguish. Roger Newton and his wife were dead. And now Corvo and his band were going to take all the dead man’s scientific work and turn it to criminal purposes.

  He must prevent that. But how could he? He was just what Corvo had taunted him with being, a helpless brain in a box. He could do nothing. If only Grag and Otho were here!

  Simon Wright had a sudden wild idea. He was resting on the table only a few inches away from the telaudio transmitter which they used for communication with Otho and Grag when the two went out. He had no hands with which to turn on the transmitter. But maybe there was a way.

  He glanced at Victor Corvo and his men. Ignoring the whimpering baby and the two still figures on the floor, the criminals were searching through the files and record-cabinets with feverish haste.

  Simon made an effort of will, and extended his eye-stalks toward the telaudio transmitter’s switch-panel. His right eye touched the switch-button. It pressed, and there was a click. The instrument was on. The Brain at once spoke loudly, as though to Victor Corvo. “You are going to die for killing Roger Newton, Corvo.”

  Corvo turned, and laughed. “A bodiless brain, threatening me!”

  “You are a dead man now,” Simon Wright said coldly. “Vengeance is coming — terrible vengeance.”

  From the airlock, two figures burst into the Moon-laboratory. Otho’s space-suit receiver had picked up the telaudio call, and he and Grag had come. They stood, incredible personifications of unhuman rage as they saw the bodies upon the floor.

  “Grag! Otho! Kill!” yelled the Brain.

  With a booming roar, Grag leapt forward. And the raging android was close behind the mighty robot.

  Corvo and his men tried to raise their guns, but were battered down by Grag’s huge metal fists and Otho’s whirling blows. The four criminals lay dead in less than a minute.

  They found then that Elaine Newton was not quite gone. She whispered a word, and Grag put the whimpering baby beside her. Then she looked up with fading eyes.

  “Simon!” she whispered. “You prevented them from killing Curtis too, as they would have done.”

  She choked, then went on. “I leave him to the care of you three. You are the only ones I can trust to rear him safely. Keep him here upon the Moon, until he grows to manhood.”

  “We will,” promised the Brain, wrung by tragic grief.

  And with confidence and content in her eyes, Elaine Newton died.

  THE BRAIN BECOMES CHIEF

  Grag and Otho turned instinctively to Simon Wright, as though to a leader. He conquered his agonized grief and spoke to them.

  “We will do what Elaine asked,” said the Brain. “Together, we can protect little Curtis from his father’s enemies who still live. And together, we can give him an education such as no man ever has had.”

  And as he spoke, Simon Wright realized that that feeling of inferiority that had so shadowed his new existence during the last months was now gone forever.

  He had been unable to prevent the most saddening tragedy of his life. But he had revenged that tragedy. He had proved to himself that he was not utterly helpless, that he was no mere thinking brain.

  Later, he promised himself, he would work until he had devised for himself a means of using magnetic beams as limbs to give him free powers of movement and action. But even without that, he would never again be haunted by that secret doubt of himself.

  The Amazing Creation of Otho

  From Bubbling Test-Tubes, Great Scientists Roger Newton and Simon Wright Create a New Being Who Attains Full Mental Growth Within an Astonishingly Short Time!

  SIMON WRIGHT emitted a loud call. “Grag, here, quickly
!” he cried.

  In response, the giant robot ran as rapidly as his metal legs would take him. In all his brief span of life, he had never seen such excitement in the Moon-Laboratory. The aging scientist, his eyes shining, was warming a bubbling fluorescent mass of serum with a burner held in one hand, while with the other he measured a yellowish liquid into a graduate.

  Beside him, his face flushed as with fever, Roger Newton was vigorously bending back and forth the lifeless rubbery arms of what appeared to be a great white doll that swam uncertainly in a huge tank in the center of the laboratory.

  “Start the thermostat,” yelled Simon Wright.

  SERUM IS INJECTED

  Grag hastened to obey. Moments later, when the tank had risen once more to the proper temperature, and the serum had been injected into the white doll’s unresisting arms, the two men relaxed.

  Simon Wright dropped wearily into a chair.

  “That was close,” he sighed. “Too close for comfort.”

  “A half year’s work almost thrown away,” agreed Roger Newton. He gestured toward the robot. “Grag’s body was much less trouble. I sometimes wonder why we decided to make this android of colloid, instead of metal.”

  “Because it was a challenge to our skill,” replied Simon thoughtfully. “The search for the proper sort of plastic alone required months... Remember how we made the mistake of attempting to use protein-like condensation products?”

  “Only to discover eventually that a simple hydro-silicane polymer was easier to make and more satisfactory.”

  BRAIN PROVES TROUBLESOME

  “And then the brain.” Simon Wright shook his head ruefully. “It took us another month to realize that a terrifically complicated system of synthetic cerebral paths, such as Grag has, not only wasn’t necessary — it wouldn’t do. A plastic android requires a much less differentiated mass of combined carbon-silicon condensation product. The cerebral paths must be formed after life has begun, and not before.”

  Grag interposed. “Does that mean, Master, that this new thing will be born with no more sense than a baby — like little Curt?” he inquired.

  NO PROPHETS HERE!

  No more sense than “little Curt.” Years later, the robot was to recall this remark, and think of it in wonder. Neither he nor any of the others dreamed of the Curt Newton of the future — the tall, sturdy keen-eyed figure that would be the terror of criminals throughout the System, the brilliant scientist whose mind would absorb all that the Brain could impart, and even surpass his teacher in the magnificence of his achievements. “Little Curt” indeed!

  “That’s right,” answered Simon Wright. “He’ll be born without knowledge of any kind.”

  “He’ll make a nice pet,” boomed the great robot. Roger Newton smiled, and left the laboratory. Grag, it seemed, had delusions.

  In the part of the Moon-home set aside for the daily routine of living, Roger Newton found his young wife.

  She was staring out of one of the glassite windows at the bleak lunar landscape. In the distance, a moon-wolf was snarling soundlessly at some unseen rival cowering in a crater.

  MOONSCAPE IS FANTASTIC

  No land on Earth, no matter how wild and craggy, could possess the fascinating horror of the fantastic hills and mountains of the Moon. It was a horror that, for strangers, was to persist even long after the Futuremen had built their improved laboratory, and come to regard the forbidding spot as their permanent home. For a young girl, accustomed to the comforts of Earth civilization, and forced to flee for life from powerful and evil enemies, its desolation was almost unendurable.

  As Roger Newton joined her, the moon-wolf sprang with bared teeth into the crater. The girl shuddered.

  “Now they’re tearing each other apart, as happens every day. Oh, Roger, it’s so frightening.”

  “I know.” The scientist stroked her hair. “We’ve been here for more than a year now, and after the novelty wore off, it can’t have been pleasant for you. The loneliness, the lack of amusements, the lack of companionship... Simon and I are so busy in the laboratory that for most of the day we might just as well not be here. But it’s necessary to stay on the Moon, dear. We have no choice.”

  “I’m not complaining, Roger.”

  SEEK FOR COMPANIONS

  “As a matter of fact,” went on her husband thoughtfully, “I’ve felt the loneliness here almost as much as you have. Simon, of course, is so wrapped up in the work that it matters little to him where he is. But I had hoped, when he created Grag, that he might seem almost like a companion.”

  She shook her head.

  “His appearance is too frightening. No matter how human he is inside, I can’t accustom myself to him.”

  “I think you’ll find the android looks human enough. And I believe that you’ll like him.”

  A few days later, Otho was finally born. In contrast to the dramatic and almost terrifying awakening of the robot, Otho’s entry into the world was placid, and almost unimpressive. At the proper time, Simon Wright’s skillful hand injected a trace of piniferalone, a hormonal extract from the pineal gland, into the serum that circulated through the doll’s body.

  DOLL BEGINS TO MOVE

  Some hours later, Grag, who was observing, noticed the white doll’s arms and legs begin to kick spasmodically.

  “He’s alive, Master,” boomed the robot. Roger Newton and Simon Wright hurried toward the android. They lifted his head out of the thermostat into the artificial air of the Moon-Laboratory. Otho gasped deeply for breath. The next moment his arms and legs flew about in a spasm of excitement.

  Otho was already as well-grown physically as he would ever be, and it was only his mental powers that needed to develop. It was necessary for him to learn how to use his arms and legs, how to adjust himself to his environment. He picked this up with a speed that amazed the huge robot.

  OTHO STANDS ERECT

  The day after he was born, he stood up unsteadily.

  “Say, he’s doing better already than I expected,” exclaimed the robot.

  “Naturally,” said Simon Wright dryly, “Otho is physically mature, and is growing mentally at the rate of a year a day.”

  “By all the Moon-devils!” gasped Grag. “How long will it take him to grow up?”

  “He won’t maintain the same pace for long. But I think that the end of a month should see him a mature android.”

  The next day, Otho exhibited his delight in the discovery of his own agility, bouncing around the laboratory like a great rubber ball until Grag finally secured him and put him out of harm’s way. The day after found him mixing half a dozen chemicals and creating an explosion that blew away a section of the laboratory. The day after that found him holding out some of his own food to the robot and snatching it away in delight as Grag pretended to reach for it.

  SHOWS LOVE OF MISCHIEF

  “Why, the green-eyed little devil is trying to tease me,” declared Grag.

  Roger and Simon Wright smiled. Roger’s wife laughed as Otho impishly snatched at one of her own hats and, putting it on his own head, strutted proudly about.

  “He likes to dress up,” she exclaimed. “From now on, none of our clothes will be safe around here!”

  “I don’t think we need worry,” asserted Roger. “Otho’s intelligent. And it won’t take him long to learn discipline.”

  He was right. The android was mischievous, but entirely without malice, and he learned quickly what sort of actions were permitted him and which were forbidden. By the end of the month following his birth, Otho was as quick and alert mentally as the average man, despite the great gaps in his knowledge. And when those were filled, predicted Simon, he would be a better laboratory assistant than Grag or any human being could possibly be.

  OTHO’S FIRST BIG JOKE

  It was then that there occurred the incident that Grag was ever after to think of as the “great double-cross.”

  It began one day when the robot returned to the laboratory after a short trip over th
e surface of the Moon, where he had been digging at a deposit of ore Simon had discovered. The grizzled figure of Simon Wright greeted him.

  “You’ve been gone a long time, Grag. What have you brought back?”

  Grag stared in bewilderment. “Why, nothing, Master. You asked me to loosen the ore so that —”

  “I ordered you to bring it with you!” The voice that shrieked at Grag was shrill with indignation. “You stupid, clumsy metal imitation of a man, you haven’t the brains of a moon-pup!”

  “But I distinctly remember —” Grag began again helplessly.

  “Don’t tell me what I said, you imitation junk-heap. You go right back and bring a ton of that ore with you.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Just a moment,” came the stern order. “I’m taking no more chances with that feeble brain of yours. I’m going to write everything down so that even you can’t make a mistake.”

  ORDERS ARE CANCELED

  The figure of Simon Wright disappeared into the next room. A moment later Grag heard other footsteps. “I’m waiting — oh, I thought you were Simon, Master.”

  “What’s wrong, Grag?”

  “Simon says he ordered me to get a ton of that ore. Now I have to go back for it.”

  “Nonsense. I distinctly heard him tell you to do nothing but dig it up. And you can’t go back because I have something else for you to do.”

  “But he said —” began the robot.

  “Never mind what he said,” roared the figure of Roger Newton. “I’m the one that’s giving you orders. I want you to take off your right arm and dissolve it in an acid mixture.”

  “What?”

  TRUE SIMON WRIGHT APPEARS

  It was at this moment that Simon Wright stepped into the room. Grag turned toward him pathetically. “He wants me to dissolve my right arm in acid,” he complained. “But you told me to go back after that ore. What am I supposed to do?”