Captain Future 03 - Captain Future's Challenge (Summer 1940) Read online

  A misty white speck loomed ahead. It grew in size at appalling speed, into a small, tailless comet hurtling toward them. Eek’s teeth chattered in panic as the glowing coma flared before them.

  Grag hastily swerved out of the way. The small comet passed, its coma’s electric force tingling through them. And still Grag kept on. He had no sense of time, no thought of peril. Now there was no sign of the Comet and the other two ships. Fear came to the robot. Had the two attackers destroyed the ship of the Futuremen and then sped away?

  He tried calling the Comet on his pocket-televisor. But it was only good for short distances, and he got no answer.

  Abruptly, Grag’s rocket-impeller went dead, its charge exhausted. And now the robot floated helplessly in space, drifting powerlessly through the great zone of space-debris and asteroids.

  “Don’t be afraid, Eek,” he reassured his panicky pet. “Master will come back and find us.”

  Grag became aware that he was floating slowly toward a small green asteroid in the distance. It was a little world of no more than a hundred miles diameter, he estimated, and he knew it had atmosphere because of the faint atmospheric halo around it.

  Faster and faster the robot and Eek floated toward that green little world. He saw now that it was covered with forests of tall reeds, green except for areas of brown, dead reeds. Pulled by the little planet’s gravitation, he fell toward it, and presently crashed down through the air to its surface.

  The shock shook Grag up, but did him no real harm. This planetoid’s gravitational pull was so weak, and his metal body was so massive, that he felt quite uninjured. The pocket-televisor at his side was smashed, however. Eek was unhurt.

  GRAG got to his feet. His gravitation-equalizer made him the same weight as ever, even on this small world. He found that he had fallen onto a grassy clearing in the towering reeds. Nearby was a huddled village of wicker-huts. And closer to him, staring in awe at him, stood a horde of humans.

  By the brilliant starlight that is the day of the asteroidal zone, Grag perceived that these people were really sub-men. They were small, timid, ignorant savages with brown bodies clad in skin tunics, and unintelligent, childlike faces.

  “There are asteroidans on this world, Eek,” Grag boomed, staring at the sub-men.

  “Asteroidans” was the name given to the strange humanlike race who inhabited many of the countless planetoids of the zone, and most of whom were of a primitive type of people. They had apparently spread from one asteroid to another by somehow bridging the gap from world to world when the swarming asteroids came close together. They all had the same language.

  And Grag, as he spoke to the scared moon-pup, saw the Asteroidans recoil in panic from the sound of his voice.

  “It speaks? It is alive!” went up panicky shouts.

  Grag understood them, for he knew something of the Asteroidan tongue. And their words nettled the robot.

  “Of course I am alive!” he boomed angrily. “Why should you think otherwise?”

  The appearance of the angry robot, towering like a massive metal statue, his great arm raised, his photoelectric eyes gleaming, and the weird little moon-pup clinging to his shoulder, was an alarming spectacle in the brilliant starlight.

  The Asteroidans shrank back, still more terrified.

  Grag grunted. “These people are not intelligent, Eek. Doubting that I’m alive! And why are they so terrified of me?”

  The terror of the Asteroidans had suddenly increased. They were pointing beyond Grag, and screaming “A dridur! A dridur!”

  Puzzled, Grag turned. The robot stiffened. Out of the brown, dead reeds behind him an incredible monster was coming. It was myriopodal, with a black body like that of a gigantic python supported on dozens of short, powerful legs. Its head was a nightmare of coldly blazing faceted eyes, wide jaws, and cruel fangs.

  The creature had apparently been about to raid the village for prey. That the Asteroidans feared the monster above all else was evident from the way in which they were flying for shelter.

  But the dridur had noticed that Grag did not flee. The creature turned toward him, poised a moment, then shot toward him with appalling speed, a charge of incredible swiftness, Grag tossed Eek aside and reached forward his great metal arms. Next moment, the dridur struck him and knocked him over. But he had gripped the monster, was grappling with it.

  THE dridur’s fangs clashed furiously on Grag’s metal arms and legs. But not even those teeth could make impression on the impervious metal of the robot’s body. The creature at once coiled its many-legged body around Grag, to crush him.

  But Grag had got a grip on the monster’s neck, and had not let go. Now the robot squeezed tighter and tighter. The myriopodal monster’s coiled body threshed in ferocity and agony.

  Weird battle of the great robot and and the nightmare dridur, beneath the brilliant stars of the asteroidal sky! A battle that had for witnesses only the panicky asteroidans peeping from their huts, and the scared moon-pup cowering in the reeds.

  Grag’s photoelectric eyes blazed, his hands made a wrenching movement of awful power. The dridur’s snaky neck snapped. The creature went limp, its coils sliding to the ground. The robot stood still, his metal body scratched, his eyes blazing. And now the Asteroidans rushed joyfully from the huts.

  “He has slain a dridur!” they cried incredulously, “He has slam the monster that cannot be killed!”

  Eek, seeing the battle over, crept out of the dry reeds, cautiously eyed the dead monster, then bit it savagely. Then Eek looked up as though to say, “Well, we two certainly finished that thing!”

  “He is a god — a metal god who came to us from the sky to protect us from the dridurs!” the Asteroidan chief shouted.

  “Homage to the god from the sky!” rose the cry.

  Grag stalked into the village, followed by the joyously shouting Asteroidans. The big robot sat down on a rock and then spoke to the Asteroidans in their own language.

  “Bring copper and silver and gold. We are hungry.”

  “The god eats metal!” whispered the sub-men awedly.

  They hastily brought silver ingots, nuggets of raw gold, scraps of copper thai they had collected for weapons and ornaments.

  Eek began devouring the gold and silver with gusto, Grag, who felt the need of renewing the atomic energy which activated his own body, opened a hinged plate in his metal torso and thrust a mass of copper into the receptacle of his vital atomic-power mechanism.

  The awe-struck people watched Eek greedily devouring all the gold and silver. Grag gave orders to bring more. His obsequious worshippers hastily obeyed.

  Then the Asteroidans, gathered in the dim light, began a long chant humming the prowess of their new god from the sky. Each time the chant rose, the gathered throng bowed low toward the great metal robot sitting facing them, beneath the eternally brilliant stars.

  Grag was enjoying his godship. But the great robot was deeply troubled by thought of Captain Future. How was he to rejoin his master? He had no way of leaving this little world now. And even if Curt came searching for him, he couldn’t, call the Comet on a broken televisor. He was marooned, hopelessly!

  Chapter 6: Thunder Moon

  CAPTAIN FUTURE’S superiority as a space pilot was unmatched in the whole System. He utilized all his skill now in the struggle with the two black ships that had attacked the Comet.

  Diving, zooming, corkscrewing through space in a series of dizzy maneuvers, Curt fought to evade the deadly atomic flares that the two enemy ships continued to loose upon him.

  Curt Newton had a fighting grin on his tanned, handsome face, and his gray eyes were blazing as his strong hands shifted the brass control-throttles with lighting-swift movements. Even in this moment of deadly danger, fighting against outnumbering enemies, his adventure-loving soul savored the thrill of it.

  And it was thrilling, this death-combat through the spinning meteor-swarms and booming planetoids of the zone — this giddy whirl and swoop and rush out here
in space beneath the eyes of the solemn stars!

  “They’re going to box us!” Otho yelled from the breach of his proton-gun. “They’re closing in —”

  The two enemy ships were seeking to catch the Comet in a cross-fire of atom flares that would soon destroy it.

  “Hold on, Otho!” Curt shouted back. “Here’s where we take the bumps — stand ready to gun that outward ship!”

  Captain Future’s keen eyes had described a big meteor-swarm ahead, in the path of the running fight, and his quick brain had instantly devised a daring and desperate plan.

  As the two black attackers came closer, Curt Newton’s right hand jerked down a burnished red lever in the control panel, while his left hand opened a throttle suddenly wide.

  The Comet suddenly spouted a tremendous flood of glowing ions from its rocket-tubes as the red lever was pulled — a shining cloud that enveloped the tear-drop ship and swept back in a long, flaring tail. It was as though the ship had abruptly become a real comet! It was Captain Future’s method of camouflaging his craft.

  Simultaneously, the ship swerved sunward and bore directly on the attacker on that side. The spectacle of the flaring, glowing Comet coming at them was too much for the men in that ship. Their pilot swerved his craft instinctively away.

  That swerve was fatal. It took the black ship right into the meteor-swarm that they were coasting. In a moment, before they could escape from the swarm, the attacking craft had crashed head-on into a veritable hell-nest of meteors...

  “That got them!” Otho yelled triumphantly. “Now, the other one, chief —”

  Captain Future’s clever maneuver had disposed of one attacker. He had already turned the Comet in a vicious swoop toward the remaining enemy.

  “Now’s your chance, Otho!” he shouted.

  Until now, Otho had been unable to use the proton-guns effectively upon the two antagonists on different sides. But now the situation, was changed, with the reduction of the enemy by half.

  As the flaring Comet looped over and leaped at the remaining enemy, Otho was already bringing the proton-guns to bear. Through the hail of atom-flares from the enemy there lanced the pale, deadly proton beams.

  They caught the surprised antagonist craft in the tail, wrecking its rocket-tubes. The speeding, disabled ship reeled off its course, toward a rushing, oncoming planetoid. Next moment, the craft hit the planetoid and was a fusing, flaring mass.

  “Got her!” Otho hissed m bloodthirsty delight.

  “The devil — I wanted to disable that ship and capture and question the men in her,” Curt exclaimed ruefully.

  AT THAT moment the televisor behind Curt Newton broke into a frantic buzzing — an emergency call on all wave-lengths.

  Curt snapped on the instrument. In the screen appeared the frantic face of Kerk El, the Mercurian gravium magnate.

  “Calling Captain Future and all Planet Police ships!” cried the Mercurian wildly. “We’re being attacked by a black outlaw craft — position 42, 19.6, and 0.4 below!”

  “Captain Future coming, Kerk El!” yelled Curt. He swiftly swept the Comet sharply around and sent it screaming outward from the asteroidal zone.

  “What the devil — is all space alive with the Wrecker’s ships?” gasped Otho. “Two that attacked us, and now one that’s attacking Kerk El —”

  The Comet flashed out from the asteroid zone in the general direction of Uranus and Neptune. In only a brief time they sighted the space-yacht of Kerk El. It was floating aimlessly in the void, and its hull had been riddled in scores of places by atom-flares.

  “Too late!” swore Otho. “And the ship that did this got away!”

  Curt turned to the Brain.

  “Simon, will you and Otho sweep space with the electroscope and see if you can pick up the trail of the ship that did,this?”

  Captain Future was hurriedly donning his space-suit. A moment later he was aboard the wrecked space-yacht. Inside it, one look was enough. Kerk El and his three-man crew were all dead. They had died of the cold of space even as they were trying to put on their space-suits.

  Sorrowfully, Curt returned to the Comet. The Brain was searching space in all directions with the tube of the electroscope, a delicate instrument that could detect the recent course of any space ship by the trailing ions of its rocket-discharge.

  “If Simon can pick up the trail, we’ll split space after them till we catch them and blast them!” Otho exclaimed.

  “First, we’ve got to go back into the asteroidal zone and pick up Grag,” Captain Future reminded him.

  “Devils of space,” Otho swore, “I forgot about Grag roosting in that meteor-swarm. It’ll spoil our chance to overtake that ship!”

  “Got the trail, lad!” rasped the Brain. “The ship that wrecked Kerk El’s yacht headed straight toward Uranus from here.”

  “Uranus, eh?” Curt Newton said, frowning. “Then we’re going there after it, soon as we pick up Grag. I want to investigate Zuvalo’s gravium outfit on Uranus’ moon, Oberon.”

  “You think maybe Zuvalo’s the Wrecker?” Otho asked.

  Curt shrugged. “We know the Wrecker is one of the six gravium officials who met us in that secret conference. Only they knew we’d be there, only one of them could have planned the ambush to get us. And now that Kerk El is dead, we have five suspects.”

  Captain Future opened the throttles and sent the Comet streaking back into the asteroidal zone like a new, true comet.

  “We’ll pick up Grag and then hit the trail for Uranus with all rockets open!”

  But when they returned to the meteor-swarm where Grag had been left, there was no sign of Grag, nor did the robot answer their televisor calls.

  “Something’s happened to Grag!” Curt exclaimed, his face anxious.

  “Perhaps he tried to follow us through the zone when he saw us fighting those two ships,” the Brain suggested.

  “We’ll cruise in that direction,” Curt said worriedly.

  But as the shining Comet cruised on through the jungle of asteroids and meteors, no answer came to their calls. Then Otho pointed to a small green asteroid on their sunward side. A red, winking spark of light flared on it.

  “That might be a signal, chief!” the android said.

  “It can’t be Grag,” rasped the Brain. “He’d simply call us on his pocket-televisor — and he hasn’t called.”

  “We’ll investigate anyway,” Curt decided.

  He swept the Comet in toward the asteroid in a flaring rush. They ripped down through the thin atmosphere and saw now that the red flare came from a great section of burning dry reeds.

  “There’s a little village of some kind — and there’s Grag!” Otho yelled, hopping delightedly.

  “So you’re glad to see the old boy after all?” Captain Future grinned, himself relieved.

  OTHO checked his elation. “Aw, I don’t care what happens to that walking machine-shop — I just want to get going to Uranus.”

  They landed in the smoky red glare of the burning reeds, by a hut-village whose sub-human brown people stared in fear. Grag came stalking quickly to them, Eek clinging to his shoulder.

  “Master, I was afraid you wouldn’t come!” boomed the robot, his photoelectric eyes shining. “I saw the Comet flaring through the sky and recognized it, but my televisor was broken and I couldn’t call. So I had some of my people here fire the reeds as a signal.”

  “Your people? What do you mean?” Otho demanded.

  “These people recognize my true worth, Otho,” Grag answered loftily. “They think I am a god from the sky.”

  “Why, the space-struck idiots —” Otho exploded.

  The Asteroidans were timidly crowding around Grag now, staring at Curt and the two Futuremen. The chief spoke to Grag.

  “Are these your servants, god from the sky?” the Asteroidan tribal leader wonderingly asked the robot.

  “Me, Grag’s servant?” Otho howled.

  “They are my friends,” Grag boomed to the chief, “and I a
m going back with them to the sky.”

  A wail went up from the primitive Asteroidans. “But you must not leave us!”

  “I will return sometime,” Grag declared. “Farewell!”

  As the Comet screamed up from the little world, Curt looked back and saw the disconsolate sub-men staring after them.

  “I hate to leave there, in a way,” Grag boomed thoughtfully. “They were good people. They gave Eek and me plenty to eat.”

  Curt sent the Comet flying out of the asteroidal zone, the sun at their backs, the faint green sparks of Uranus and more distant Neptune beaconing ahead.

  “We’re rocketing for Uranus, Grag,” Curt told the robot, and explained briefly what had occurred.

  “And if we trail down the Wrecker’s ship there, you’ll see some fireworks!” Otho added.

  Hour followed hour as the tear-drop ship ate up the millions of miles, hurtling toward the green disc of Uranus, the seventh planet.

  Finally, Uranus bulked as a great green sphere filling half the starry firmament. Around it moved its four moons, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon. Unique in the System, the four satellites circled Uranus in a plane perpendicular to the ecliptic.

  Curt and the Futuremen knew Uranus well enough. The planet was called the “mountain world” because of its enormous, sky-storming ranges of mighty peaks, and vast, mysterious caverns. But Captain Future had no intentions of visiting Uranus itself. His objective was Oberon, the outermost moon, for on Oberon were the mines of Zuvalo’s gravium company.

  “Head around to the night side of Oberon, Grag,” he directed. “According to my maps, the gravium mine is there.”

  Grag, who held the controls, obeyed. The ship’s comet-camouflage now cut off, he shot the craft around to the dark side of Oberon, also known as Thunder Moon because of its many active volcanoes.

  Thunder Moon! One of the most awesome and dangerous of all the worlds in the System. Curt Newton had good reason to remember it, for on this hazardous sphere had been staged one of the most dramatic episodes of his great struggle with the villainous Lords of Power.