Captain Future 17 - The Tenth Planet (Spring 1944) Read online

  #17 Spring 1944

  Introduction

  A Complete Book-Length Scientifiction Novel

  Days of Creation

  by Joseph Samachson writing as Brett Sterling

  Four powerful factions work at cosmic cross purposes in a game of system-wide stakes as Curt Newton and his staunch comrades set out to create a brand new planet to add to the family of the Sun!

  Radio Archives • 2012

  Copyright Page

  Copyright © 1944 by Better Publications, Inc. © 2012 RadioArchives.com. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form.

  These pulp stories are a product of their time. The text is reprinted intact, unabridged, and may include ethnic and cultural stereotyping that was typical of the era.

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  ISBN 978-1610818544

  Introduction

  The original introduction to Captain Future as it appeared in issue #1

  The Wizard of Science! Captain Future!

  The most colorful planeteer in the Solar System makes his debut in this, America’s newest and most scintillating scientifiction magazine — CAPTAIN FUTURE.

  This is the magazine more than one hundred thousand scientifiction followers have been clamoring for! Here, for the first time in scientifiction history, is a publication devoted exclusively to the thrilling exploits of the greatest fantasy character of all time!

  Follow the flashing rocket-tail of the Comet as the most extraordinary scientist of nine worlds have ever known explores the outposts of the cosmos to the very shores of infinity. Read about the Man of Tomorrow today!

  Meet the companions of Captain Future, the most glamorous trio in the Universe!

  Grag, the giant, metal robot; Otho, the man-made, synthetic android; and aged Simon Wright, the living Brain.

  This all-star parade of the most unusual characters in the realm of fantasy is presented for your entertainment. Come along with this amazing band as they rove the enchanted space-ways — in each issue of CAPTAIN FUTURE!

  Days of Creation

  A Complete Book-Length Scientifiction Novel

  by Joseph Samachson writing as Brett Sterling

  Four powerful factions work at cosmic cross purposes in a game of system-wide stakes as Curt Newton and his staunch comrades set out to create a brand new planet to add to the family of the Sun!

  Chapter 1: The New Planet

  HARTLEY BROOKS almost exploded.

  “The interfering fool!”

  Brooks did not say the words aloud. The anger and rage that were seething within him as he listened to the red-haired young man were near the boiling point, but none the less he managed to smile. His well laid plans might be crumbling about him, the interplanetary empire he had coveted for so long might be escaping his grasp — but his external appearance was that of a man well pleased with himself and with everyone else.

  For Captain Future, whatever Brooks might call him, was in reality far from a fool. And it would not do for Future to suspect all that was at stake in the matter soon coming to a vote.

  Brooks, with the fixed smile almost seeming to grow out of his face, glanced casually about him. The Interplanetary Board of Governors, which had been called together in special session to consider the System’s greatest problem, was hanging intently on Future’s every word. There was no sign of disagreement with what he was proposing. And Hartley Brooks, together with the few members who would vote as he directed, dared not attract attention to himself by openly opposing the popular Curt Newton.

  “The question of overcrowding,” Captain Future was saying, “must be faced frankly. Halfway methods, such as have been tried before, must be discarded. Take a look, gentlemen, at the situation that actually exists on several of the more densely populated planets.”

  The televisor screen glowed. One of the hanging cities of Mars appeared before their eyes. Layer after layer of crowded buildings, crowded streets, pallid and unhealthy-looking people, passed in review.

  “You see the results of lack of adequate sunlight. It is true that sunlight substitutes exist, but they are expensive, and so long as men in power remain greedy, they will not be supplied in sufficient quantity to maintain what we consider normal health. Consider now the condition here on Earth itself...”

  The smile on Hartley Brooks’ face became sardonic. It was almost as if Future were making a personal attack upon the capitalist. For that hanging city of Mars belonged to Brooks. It was his greed that was being damned. Those overcrowded towers on Earth, those swarming underground beehives on Venus, that thin strip on the Twilight Zone of Mercury — all were his. He wondered if Captain Future had any suspicion of that truth. He had covered his trail well, but still one never was sure about Curt Newton.

  “As for the outer planets, we have succeeded in establishing colonies on many of them,” Future’s resonant voice went on, “but they will never absorb the excess population from Earth alone, not to speak of Mars and Venus. Jupiter and Saturn, vast as they are, are for the most part uninhabitable by humanoid types. Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto are almost total losses. There remains but a single possible solution.”

  BROOKS grew tense. He knew what was coming, but it would not be any more palatable for that. He had worked hard these past few years. Operating behind the concealment of dummy brokers, he had slowly been gathering the threads of a great monopoly into his hands. Railroads, shipping, interplanetary traffic, heavy industry, food manufacture — it was hardly possible to name an important basic industry in which he did not have the controlling share.

  He would be the nearest thing to a czar that the System had ever known. And now the entire fabric of his empire was being torn to shreds by this interfering, serious-minded young — he sought for suitable word. “Fool” did not fit Curt Newton, the man who was known as Captain Future.

  “I propose, gentlemen, that we build an entire new planet, which will circle the sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars. I have already submitted to your president the preliminary calculations which prove the feasibility of the plan. I need but your approval to go ahead.”

  There it was, the solution to the System’s greatest problem, a solution that would put an end forever to all of Hartley Brooks’ dreams. Building the planet would be a government project; no private corporation was large enough to handle the job effectively. Its heavy industry, its space ships, its food factories, everything of any importance would belong to the System Government. Its very existence would smash any threat of private monopoly.

  Captain Future had finished speaking, and the applause that now swept the huge hall was spontaneous. Brooks joined in, applauding all the more vigorously as the physical exertion afforded some relief to the emotions he felt. He had just one month in which to act. Except in time of war or special emergency, no construction bill could become law without two readings before the Board of Governors, with at least a month intervening. The bill was sure of passage at the next meeting of the Board, to be held on Mars, but meanwhile that month might come in useful. He was thankful for the red tape which prevented the project from being started at once.

  As the president announced that the vote in favor of the bill was unanimous, there was another wave of applause. Brooks arose from his seat and moved slowly toward the exit. He wanted to see Captain Future at closer range.

  At the door of the council hall he stopped suddenly. He had almost collided with something that floated silently in the air, a case whose presence he had not previously noticed. He stared at it — and shuddered as two cold lens-eyes stared back.

  This was Simon Wright, the Brain, one of the Futuremen. The lens-eyes seemed to drill into his skull, reading his mind, dragging out into open daylight the thoughts that he had been keeping so carefully hidden. He turned away.

  Captain Future, on leaving the hall, had stopped to speak to a pretty, dark-haired girl. This was Joan Randall. Hartley Brooks paused, listening to the words that came to his ears.

  “What it amounts to,” Curt Newton was saying, “is that we have a month’s vacation. We’re going to spend it investigating those ruins on that planetoid, Baldur. Simon thinks the ancient inhabitants achieved a degree of civilization beyond our own.”

  “Sorry I can’t come with you,” replied Joan regretfully. “The Planet Patrol wouldn’t hear of my taking a vacation at this time.”

  Hartley Brooks began to fumble in the pockets of his clothes. He found a cigarette, put it in his mouth, then frowned. It had failed to light, quite naturally, as he had chosen a dud that he kept on hand for such purposes. He muttered a curse at the inconvenience of these new-fangled automatic contrivances, and began to search through his pockets again. Then he walked away a few steps. But he was listening more intently than ever. He had switched on a tiny portable sound-magnifier that he carried with him at all times.

  CAPTAIN FUTURE had not apparently noticed him. “We’ll leave Eek and Oog at the Moon,” he was saying. “Those animals are a little trying on the nerves at times, and I’d rather have them fe
d automatically than see Otho and Grag waste half a morning petting them and coaxing them to eat.”

  Joan was smiling. “Poor Otho and Grag! You’d deprive them of the things they love most in this world.”

  “I’ll be depriving myself,” replied Curt, and looked deep into her eyes.

  The financier grunted to himself. These personal matters were of no concern to him. But at the significance of that first statement he had overheard, his eyes glittered.

  He moved along again, thinking rapidly. One reason he had reached his present position was that he had never waited for opportunity’s knock. He had always been able to recognize opportunity while it was still at a distance. In Future’s words he had recognized his chance.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was speaking over his own private Mars-Earth tight-beam televisor system to Kars Virson, his most trusted lieutenant. Virson was the head of his personal detective-and-spy agency, and had been invaluable in his rise to power. Tall and lanky, he had the vacant stare of a helpless moron and the cold, remorseless brain of a murderer. Now his eyes widened as he listened to Brooks’ voice.

  “Ever hear of Baldur?” asked the financier.

  “Sure, Chief! He was a Greek god who got bumped off —”

  “He was a Norse god, you idiot. But I don’t mean that. I’m referring to the newly discovered planetoid.”

  Kars Virson hesitated. “Sounds kind of familiar. Isn’t that the place where some guys got killed in a landslide?”

  “That’s it. A party of twenty was wiped out completely. The landslide was precipitated by unpredictable magnetic forces caused by the presence of unidentified metals.”

  Over the sensitive receiver, Hartley Brooks could hear the faint sound of Kars Virson scratching his head. The vacant face seemed puzzled.

  “I wouldn’t know about that, Chief. What’s on your mind?”

  “I want another landslide to occur.”

  “Oh — I get it. Dynatomite will do the trick. It’ll be a cinch. Who do you want bumped off?”

  “Captain Future and his Futuremen.”

  There was a pause, and in the next second Hartley Brooks heard another peculiar, faint sound, as of a man swallowing hard. When Kars Virson’s voice came back to him, it sounded troubled and undecided.

  “That won’t be so easy, Chief. You see, Future is wise to all such tricks, and —”

  “I know that as well as you do. Nevertheless, your job is to get rid of him and his companions. Make no mistake about this, Kars. Either you do this, or some one else does. In the latter case, that some one else will take your place. I don’t care to be served by incompetent cowards.”

  Another pause. Then: “Well, maybe I can manage it, Chief. But it won’t be easy. Future would get wise if there was anybody else on that planetoid with him, or within a million miles of it. He’s got ways of finding out. Our only chance would be by long-distance control. And for that, I’d have to know when he’s setting out, and when he’ll arrive.”

  “I imagine he’s leaving at once. He intends to investigate some ancient ruins that have aroused his interest.”

  “Ruins? That makes it easier. I can plant this dynatomite, with a visor set near it, so I can keep an eye on what’s going on. When he gets in range, I press a button. Bang, he goes up in the air — if there’s any air in the place. And the explosion destroys all the evidence, so nobody can tell what happened.”

  Virson’s voice was becoming actually cheerful. A light sparkled in his watery eyes. “Say, Chief, I think I’m going to enjoy doing this, it’ll be the neatest job I ever pulled. Only I’ll have to work fast. I’ll have to find the ruins, plant the stuff, and make a getaway before he shows up.”

  “That shouldn’t be too difficult. You’re about a hundred million miles closer to Baldur than he is right now. So, get busy.”

  As he moved away from the visor set Hartley Brooks smiled. In those few words of Captain Future’s no one else would have recognized opportunity. He had. And therefore, within a month, there would be neither Captain Future nor Futuremen. No new planet would be created. And the System of Free Interplanetary Republics would become in reality the private interplanetary empire of Hartley Brooks.

  Chapter 2: The Witness

  INSTEAD of slowing down, the teardrop — shaped vessel raced in for a landing, and then a scant mile from disaster, quivered in every riveted seam as the braking rockets burst out in sudden flaming blasts. Within the Comet, the metallic voice of Grag, the robot, roared in dismay.

  “Chief! That crazy refugee from a test tube is trying to wreck the ship!”

  Otho, the android pilot, grinned in delight. Of Captain Future’s three companions, he was the most human in appearance. He might have passed, indeed, for an ordinary man, except that his lithe body had a curiously rubbery, boneless appearance, and his chalk-white face and slanted green eyes held a superhuman deviltry and mocking humor. Otho was a man, but a synthetic man. He had been created in the Moon laboratory long years before.

  Now he was overjoyed at having startled Grag. “Just practicing quick stops, he explained with elaborate casualness. “The Chief said it was okay. Too bad it upset your delicate nerves. You probably have some rust spots on the central ganglia.”

  The Comet was dropping slowly now, so slowly that the planetoid beneath seemed to grow imperceptibly. Grag snorted.

  He had been created in the same laboratory as Otho, in the long-dead past. But unlike Otho, he had been made of metal. He was a gigantic manlike figure, seven feet high. His metal limbs and torso hinted at colossal strength, But the bulbous metal head, with such strange features as gleaming photoelectric eyes and a mechanical loudspeaker voice-orifice, gave no sign of the intelligence and loyalty that resided in the complex mechanical brain. Nearby, the Brain, entirely oblivious of the strange behavior of the Comet as well as of the squabble that was now following, was absorbed in a study of film graphs of previously discovered Baldurian inscriptions. By far the strangest of the Futuremen, he was yet the most human.

  Once he had been Simon Wright, a brilliant, aging Earth scientist. dying of an incurable ailment, his living brain had been removed from his human body and transferred into a special serum case in which it still lived, thought, and acted.

  The Brain now inhabited a square box of transparent metal. From one face protruded stalked, lens-like eyes, as well as microphonic ears and speech apparatus. Compact generators inside the case emitted magnetic tractor-beams that enabled the Brain to glide swiftly through the air and to handle objects and tools.

  THE Comet nestled slowly into the landing place that Otho had selected, a rocky hollow between two bleak hills. Captain Future had already slipped into his space suit, his mop of tousled red hair and his keen-gray eyes lighting up the handsome space-tanned face within the transparent glassite helmet.

  Otho left the controls, and began to don his own suit. Grag, who did not breathe, and needed no protection against the airless cold outside the ship, still rumbled on about the injury to his feelings:

  “Chief, maybe you did tell him he could practice quick stops, but I’ll bet you didn’t tell him he had to pick a spot a mile away from a landing place to try it. Myself, I’m kind of rusty at driving the Comet —”

  “I’ll say that living scrap pile is rusty,” jeered Otho. “That hot air of his is oxidizing all his rivets.”

  Curt Newton smiled absently, and stared at one of the instruments on the ship’s control board. “Otho,” he said quietly, “while you were busy exchanging compliments with Grag, did you happen to notice that the detector dial is registering five plus?”

  “Huh? What’s that, Chief?” Otho stared at the dial. “Holy sun-imps, you’re right! There’s somebody else on this planetoid!”

  Curt was busily adjusting the view-finder of a short-range space-visor. Slowly a face came into sharp focus, a weak, none too attractive human face with shifty eyes, and mobile, uncertain lips. Beyond the face was the old battered hulk of a space ship, built some fifty years before for short-distance freight hauls.