Captain Future 18 - Red Sun of Danger (Spring 1945) Read online

  “You’re just huntin’ trouble,” grunted Ezra. “We’ll see what Simon says about it.”

  “Simon Wright — the Brain?” echoed Carlin. “He’s here too?”

  Joan nodded. “He’s back with Lin Sao questioning that Roon you captured.”

  They went to the back room. When they entered, an astonishing spectacle met Carlin’s eyes. A spectacle that had brought beads of perspiration to Lin Sao’s plump face as he stood in a corner, watching.

  Gaa, the captive Roon, still sat bound in the chair. His parrot-beaked red face was stiff with fear and his black, enormous eyes stared fascinated by the Brain, hovering above him in the metal box. He was a terrifying spectacle to the barbaric tribesman, a box that spoke and watched him with unwinking lens-eyes.

  Fear and awe were plain in Gaa’s red face, a fear which flared higher when Grag’s enormous metal figure came clanking into the room.

  “Why have you Roons been attacking the colony?” asked the Brain’s rasping voice.

  “I have already told you,” faltered Gaa, “You star-men must leave Roo before disaster comes.”

  “What disaster?”

  GAA hesitated, then answered. “The Old Ones will come back in wrath.”

  “The Old Ones?” There was a sharp, startled quality in the way the Brain echoed it.

  “What is it, Simon?” whispered Joan, impressed by his reaction.

  Simon Wright did not answer her. He spoke again to Gaa. “The Old Ones cannot come back. They died a million years ago.”

  “No!” Gaa’s voice rang with superstitious fervor. “They did not die. They are too mighty for death. We have seen the omens with our own eyes! You must go away before you wake them and bring horror upon us. That is why we must drive you from Roo.”

  The Brain swung toward the others. “There’s much behind this,” he said. “These tribesmen have not turned hostile for ordinary reasons. Their superstitions are involved — superstitions based on one of the most ancient cosmic mysteries in the universe.”

  They looked at him, puzzled yet vaguely alarmed. In the silence, they could hear the feather-trees outside stirring in the breeze.

  The Brain had turned back to their captive. “Tell me, what are the omens you saw that made your people think the Old Ones are stirring?”

  Gaa’s parrot-beaked red face stiffened, and a defiant look came into his black eyes.

  “That I cannot tell. It is a secret of our worship which you strangers may not know.”

  “More superstition,” muttered old Ezra. “Now I wonder —”

  There was a lolloping sound, and Carlin turned sharply. A small animal galloped into the room and flew toward Grag in terror.

  Carlin had never seen such a creature. A gray, bearlike little beast with sharp, beady eyes and a wide mouth set with enormous grinding fangs. He vaguely recognized it as a moonpup, one of the half-mythical species of telepathic, non-breathing creatures native to Earth’s satellite.

  Grag picked up the trembling creature. “Eek’s scared to death. When Eek’s scared it means danger. Something’s happened out there.”

  Simon Wright looked sharply around. “Where’s Otho?” It suddenly dawned on Philip Carlin that he had not seen the android for the last ten minutes. Neither, it now transpired, had any of the others.

  They searched the house, and then the little space-ship hidden in the dark trees outside. But the search revealed nothing. Otho had disappeared.

  Chapter 9: Star-World Peril

  EVER since he had heard that Captain Future was already playing his lone hand in disguise, here on Roo, Otho had been chafing for action. The fact that he had been forbidden to try to join the leader had only increased Otho’s impatience.

  The android was always the most restless of individuals. The long trip to Roo in the Comet had worn his patience thin. As always, he wanted to get into action.

  Otho saw his chance when the others went into the back room. Here, thought the android, was a golden opportunity to take French leave.

  The thought was enough. Otho slipped out into the darkness and started back through the feather-trees toward the shed in which he had previously noticed two rocket-cars.

  Before he could reach the shed, two small animals bounded out of the darkness and clawed playfully at his legs. It was Eek, Grag’s moon-pup mascot, and Oog, the fat little white “meteor-mimic” who was Otho’s own pet.

  Otho tried to shoo them away but they insisted on following. He didn’t want them. Eek, especially, might prove a serious embarrassment to his plans. But how could he get rid of Eek?

  Then Otho grinned fleetingly. “There’s one sure way to shake Eek.”

  Otho stopped and thought. He thought of hundreds of Roon warriors silently approaching the house, warriors who wanted to kill everyone here.

  Eek received that thought! The moon-pup had a highly developed sense of telepathy, but was renowned for his lack of valor. That frightening telepathic impression completely unnerved him and he bolted toward the house.

  Chuckling, Otho ran on and ran the rocket-car softly out of the shed. He did not cut off the baffles until he was a mile from the house.

  Running without lights, Otho drove northward along a high-ridged, muddy highway. The drift of stars and Black Moon together afforded him hardly enough light by which to steer.

  “Lot of good a moon like that is,” he complained to Oog, who had snuggled up in the seat beside him. “A cursed desolate kind of satellite, Roo has.”

  Otho’s spirits rose as he raced across the face of darkened Roo. He began to plan. He planned rapidly.

  “The chief went with this fellow Li Sharn, Carlin said. He’ll be at Li Sham’s place now. I ought to be able to slip in and find out what he needs me to do. Maybe he’ll want me to kidnap this fellow Harmer.”

  That prospect pleased Otho’s action-loving soul.

  Otho cut the lights and pulled the car into a field near Li Sham’s plantation. Then he loosened the atom-pistol in its holster, and started on foot across the dark fields.

  Oog trotted at his heels. But Otho knew his devoted little pet would implicitly obey every command.

  Suddenly Otho stopped and bounded backward.

  “Devils of space!” he exclaimed, his hand darting to his atom-pistol.

  A bunchy, obscene shadow had stirred from behind a vitron-shrub a few feet ahead of him — a many-legged thing with huge, faceted, phosphorescent eyes. It was two feet in diameter.

  The thing was a paralysis-spider, the most dreaded and venomous of all poison-insects on Roo. Its bite did not kill. It did worse — it locked the victim’s body in irremediable paralysis, a living death.

  “Better not shoot the little horror or my gun-flash might be seen,” Otho muttered. “Come here, Oog — we’ll go around it.”

  He looked in vain for Oog, who had vanished. But then a big lump of soil at his feet suddenly writhed, changed, became Oog.

  The meteor-mimic, frightened, had used his perfect ability for camouflage to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

  “Cursed if Roo doesn’t have a lot of nasty things,” Otho muttered as they gave the creature a wide berth. “Paralysis-spiders, hunting-worms — it’s awful!”

  He soon encountered an even more terrible denizen of the planet. The tree-bats, that had been rushing wildly overhead, swooped frantically low over the starlit field.

  “What the devil!” swore Otho, startled. “Something’s scared them.”

  HIS keen ears caught the flap and thrash of great, leathery wings overhead. Two monstrous, reptilian flying shapes sailed down. They had been pursuing the tree-bats — but now had sighted Otho.

  “Night-dragons!” he yelped, his atom-pistol jumping into his hand.

  The two creatures were circling close overhead, small red eyes glaring down at him, great fangs and talons gleaming in the starlight.

  There were no more dreaded creatures on Roo and Otho fully realized his dire peril. Yet if he fired his weapon, the cras
h of it would give away his presence.

  In this extremity, the resourceful android turned swiftly to his mascot. Oog was cowering, apparently too frozen by fear even to attempt one of his marvelous camouflages.

  “Spider, Oog!” Otho hissed to the little animal. “Paralysis-spider!”

  He pointed, as he spoke, back toward the place where they had encountered the great venomous insect.

  Oog understood and instantly acted. His fat white body twisted, flowed with protean rapidity into a new shape. He became, to all appearances, one of the many-legged poisonous horrors.

  The night-dragons were rushing downward. But, sighting the repulsive, many-legged shape beside Otho, the huge creatures darted upward again with squawking cries of alarm. Even the terrible night-dragons dreaded the giant spiders!

  As the leathery wings receded into the darkness, Otho patted his metamorphosed mascot and Oog promptly resumed his natural shape.

  “Nice work, Oog,” chuckled the android. “I’ll bet those things won’t stop in a hurry.”

  He went on across the starlighted vitron fields toward Li Sham’s plantation house. It showed no lights, nor any sign of life.

  “All asleep,” muttered Otho. “But I’ll bet the chief isn’t asleep if he’s in there. I’ll soon find out. You stay here, Oog.” He started forward, then stopped.

  A dark figure had stealthily emerged from the house. It moved swiftly off across the fields.

  “Who in blazes is that, and why’s he slipping out?” Otho wondered, puzzled.

  He was starting to follow when a second stealthy figure emerged from the house and began to trail the first.

  Otho swore. “What’s going on here anyway?”

  He went silently forward, trailing the trailer. The man ahead was too intent upon his quarry to look back.

  They approached a plantation which Otho knew must be Jed Harmer’s. The first shadowy figure approached the house, and crouched down near a lighted, shuttered window. As he stopped over, a ray of starlight momentarily illumined his face.

  “I might have known it!” muttered Otho. “But who’s the other?”

  The man crouching by the wall of the house was. “Rab Cain” — Captain Future. He appeared to be unaware of the fact he had been followed.

  His trailer was advancing now, an atom-pistol gleaming in his hand. Otho saw this second man come up behind Curt Newton, and saw Newton turn his head in surprise.

  There was no need of words to tell the quick-thinking android that Captain Future had been surprised spying on Harmer and that the man who had surprised him was about to shoot.

  Otho could move faster than any other individual in the System, when the necessity arose. The necessity was urgent now. He covered the distance to the two men in three great leaps, his atom-pistol raised.

  “— a spy, then?” he heard the second man. “You might have known I’d watch you, Cain!”

  Otho came up behind the man and brought the barrel of his atom-pistol down on the other’s skull.

  The man sank limp and silent. “Rab Cain” whirled, startled.

  “Otho!” he whispered. “What in space are you doing here?”

  “Is that all the thanks I get?” said the android with a grin. “Who is this fellow, anyway?”

  “Li Sharn,” answered Captain Future, frowning. “He must have watched me all the way. This messes up everything for me.” He bit his lip. “You’ve got a rocket-car? Take him to it and wait for me. I’ve got to hear what’s going on in this place.”

  OTHO dragged away Li Sham’s limp form, after hastily telling the location of his car. Captain Future again applied his super-stethoscope to the wall of the house.

  He distinguished Jed Harmer’s voice again. “— tell you, I could get the colonists to declare for secession right now.”

  “No.” It was Ka Thaar’s level voice. “The boss is right. They need more provocation before they’ll reach the pitch of outright rebellion. Today showed that. But one more big Roon attack will fix it. You heard his orders.”

  “All right, I’ll hold off as he says until one more big Roon raid heats them up to the boiling point,” Harmer grumbled. “Though I still think I could sway them into secession now.”

  “You’re too confident of your powers of oratory,” glibed the young Mercurian. Captain Future heard a chair scrape. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

  Captain Future felt sharp disappointment. He had learned almost nothing. From the conversation it was evident the mysterious leader of the conspiracy had already been here and had gone.

  Newton pocketed the super-stethoscope and soon joined Otho at the rocket-car.

  “Don’t know whether it’s good news or bad, chief,” Otho greeted him. “Li Sham is dead. I hit him too hard in my hurry.”

  “The devil!” exclaimed Newton. “That complicates things further. When did you and Grag and Simon arrive on Roo?”

  “Tonight. We landed near Carlin’s plantation. He’d sent a code message giving us its location.”

  “Drive there in a hurry,” Curt Newton told him. “It’s time we held a council of war.”

  The rocket-car flew along the lonely roads, with Li Sham’s body lurching in the back seat, until Otho sighted the plantation lights glimmering through the grove of feather-trees. The occupants were watchful. Zamok harshly challenged them as they ascended the veranda.

  “Everything’s all right — it’s the chief and I,” answered Otho.

  Grag’s giant frame bulked in the lighted doorway. “So you went after all? You disobeyed orders. I hope the chief bawled you out plenty.”

  Newton grinned. “I couldn’t do that, for he saved my neck by showing up when he did.”

  He went inside. In the lighted room, Philip Carlin and Lin Sao looked at him in amazement.

  Carlin could hardly believe that this was the same man he had talked with on that night in Great New York. Curt Newton’s tall, lithe figure seemed somehow shorter and stockier — the red hair was now black and close-cropped, the frank, handsome face of Captain Future was the scarred, tough face of Rab Cain.

  Newton started to speak, then stopped and stared at Joan Randall and Ezra Gurney. Then he turned angrily to Otho.

  “I — er — forgot to tell you, chief. Joan and Ezra came along,” Otho said hastily. “You see, they were on Venus that night —”

  Joan spoke quickly. “It’s not their fault, Curt. They didn’t want to bring us. But anyway, aren’t you glad to see me?”

  Curt Newton fought to keep his temper. “Joan, you knew I didn’t want you mixed up in this mess. Why did you insist on coming?”

  She tossed her dark head. “After all, Curt, I’m a Patrol agent. I was sent to Venus to discover the whereabouts of that Venusian vitron profiteer, Lu Suur. His trail led to Roo. So I had to follow.”

  “Did you receive any authority from the Commander?” he demanded.

  Her brown eyes faltered. “Well, no explicit authority.”

  Ezra Gurney uttered a disgusted snort. “Fine thanks we get for comin’ all this way to help you.”

  Curt Newton exploded at him. “You space-struck old idiot! Are you trying to get Joan killed? You knew this was the most dangerous mission I’ve ever undertaken.”

  Philip Carlin had been astonished by Captain Future’s anger at the girl’s presence. But now he understood. There was an overpowering anxiety for Joan’s safety in Newton’s voice.

  “Since you’re here, Joan, see that you follow orders and stay out of trouble,” Curt Newton finished.

  Joan laughed at him. “That’s what I like about you, Curt,” she said. “Your tender gallantry, your courtly style of wooing are the things which make me run after you half across the universe.”

  “Oh, cut your rockets,” he said, with assumed impatience. But as he said it, a warmth in his eyes answered her impish smile.

  THE scene was interrupted by the appearance of the Brain. Simon Wright came gliding in from the rear of the house.

  His
lens-eyes met Curt Newton’s gaze. “They told you about the Roon captive?” he asked.

  It was characteristic that he offered no word of greeting. There were those who said the Brain had no emotions. Captain Future knew otherwise. But he had almost never known Simon to display any emotion.

  “Yes, and that may help us — and we’re going to need all the help we can get,” Newton said. He told them briefly of his falling in with Li Sharn, his entry into Harmer’s party, and then the near-disaster brought about by Li Sham’s suspicions.

  “From what I heard tonight,” he went on, “they figure that just one more big Roon attack will excite the colonists to the point of secession.”

  “It will,” affirmed Philip Carlin soberly. “I’ve been here long enough to know how these people feel. And you can hardly blame them.”

  “The conspirators are counting on a big Roon attack soon,” Captain Future continued. “This shows somehow they’re responsible for these attacks by the tribesmen. I’ve believed that from the first. What does this Roon captive say about the reason for the raids?”

  Simon Wright answered in his metallic voice. “I’ve found out a little from him. It’s superstition that’s driving the Roons to attack the colony. A superstitious dread connected with the Old Ones.”

  “The Old Ones?” repeated Newton sharply, his eyes narrowing.

  “Yes,” said the Brain. “The Roons say there are omens of the waking of the Old Ones, that it is the colonists’ coming that has stirred them up. The colonists must go or the Old Ones will truly awake.”

  Captain Future’s face grew somber. “I never dreamed that that was behind the Roons’ hostility.”

  Carlin asked a hesitant question. “Just who or what are the Old Ones? I’ve been wondering.”

  “They’re the name given by most of the galaxy’s races to the Kangas.”

  Carlin looked blank, but Joan Randall was startled by that name and so were Ezra and the Futuremen. “The Kangas!”

  Chapter 10: Cosmic Shadow

  CAPTAIN FUTURE gave a rapid explanation to the bewildered young botanist.