Captain Future 14 - Worlds to Come (Spring 1943) Page 7

  “We’ll let the rest of it remain where it is, and disintegrate until the reaction is completed,” he told Joan. “Meanwhile, I need that iron ore mixture.”

  With Joan to help him, he worked steadily until dawn. By that time he had freed the iron from its ore, and fashioned it into an uneven tube, about two feet long, with a trigger at one end, and a suitable atomic disintegration mixture within.

  He pointed the open end at the ground, pulled the trigger. A yawning hole appeared where the charge had struck.

  “More like an atom-cannon than an atom-pistol,” observed Curt. “But it’s effective, and will impress people like Lherr. Now to start getting ready for building that ship.”

  But the gigantic task of building a space ship on this primitive world was destined never to be completed. One night, about a week after the fateful lightning storm, Curt heard the noise of rockets, and looked up to see a blazing trail of sparks in the heavens.

  “A space ship!” cried Joan.

  “Yes,” agreed Curt. “It was headed toward the other side of the lake, so it isn’t likely to be too close. Probably the Sverds, as they’ve been here before.”

  “You won’t be able to finish your own ship?”

  “Not for a long while. Joan, I’m going to forget about the ship for a time. I may not even need it. I’m going to take some of those instruments I made and use them for another purpose.”

  “But what will you do if the Sverds come here?”

  “That’s what I intend to prepare for,” said Curt. “I’ve heard some curious stories about them from Ki Illok and Hol Jor, and although I don’t doubt what they’ve told me, I’d like to see these creatures with my own eyes.”

  JOAN looked at him apprehensively.

  “They’re invulnerable, Curt. That atom-gun won’t affect them.”

  “It won’t,” agreed Curt. “But all the same I think I’ll be able to protect myself. We’ll have to hurry, Joan, First we’ll have to take that miniature cyclotron I built and hide it underground, in a hole I’ll dig out with my atom-gun. We may have a use for it later. Next I want to put together some of those electromagnetic field deflectors.”

  Working rapidly, Curt dismantled some of the instruments he had already constructed to aid in navigating the ship, putting them together for a different purpose. As the hours passed, he was conscious that from time to time the blue-skinned savages came to observe him curiously, but without hostility. He noted that Lherr was not among them.

  The blue sun was once more high in the heavens when Curt paused with satisfaction. “That’ll do for a time,” he decided. “Joan —”

  Joan was staring off in the distance. “Curt!” she gasped. “The Sverds!”

  From the direction of the lake, a pair of the huge gray monsters were approaching. Curt noted their steady gait, their stupid, beast-like faces, the rows of instruments at their belts.

  “I think I have part of the answer, Joan,” he said thoughtfully.

  “There’s Lherr!” she pointed. “He’s betrayed you to the Sverds! This is his revenge!”

  “It’ll be a poor revenge,” said Curt, his eyes never leaving the approaching monsters. “As I figure it, Joan, the Sverds can pass through ordinary objects because their atomic vibrations are in quite different planes from our own. Simon and I agreed long ago that such a thing was possible. As a matter of fact, we had the evidence in that dematerialization trick that Ul Quorn used.”

  “But, Curt, don’t stand there just looking at them. We’ll have to escape!”

  “We stay here, Joan,” asserted Curt. “Of course, if my theory is correct, the Sverds are merely ghosts to us, just as we are nothing more than ghosts to them. You may wonder then how they can affect us. The answer to that lies in their instruments, which emit rays and projectiles that can make the transition from one form of vibration to another.”

  “Is that what you were putting together?”

  “No. Unfortunately, neither Simon nor I reached the point where we could actually make that transition. However, it’s time to test whether they’re really invulnerable.”

  He aimed the atom-gun, squeezed the trigger. The atom-blast passed through the Sverds, leaving them unaffected. But it dug a hole in the ground in front of Lherr, and the blue-skinned savage stared at it open-mouthed for a second, and then ran as if all his devils were after him.

  One of the Sverds lifted a metal rod from the belt around his middle, exactly such a rod as Ki Illok had seen a Sverd use in blasting one of his soldiers, and pointed it at the waiting man and girl. Curt could feel Joan shiver as she clung to him.

  Chapter 11: The Bird Men

  FOR Grag and Otho, left by the Brain in Anfren, planet of Hol Jor, the time passed with maddening slowness. Without the directing influence of Curt Newton or Simon, their artificially created lives seemed at first both aimless and useless. In Anfren itself there was an atmosphere of hopelessness that helped to intensify this attitude. To Grag, indeed, life did after a time seem to hold out a single attraction — the prospect of a good fight whenever the soldiers of Gorma Hass finally attacked.

  “Let me get at those Sverds,” he growled. “Strong, are they? I’ll show them what real power is!”

  Otho considered this boast for a moment without replying. “Your strength will do no good, Grag,” he declared finally. “What we need to fight Gorma Hass is brains. This is a job for me.”

  “Why, you vacuum-headed refugee from an unwashable test-tube!” roared Grag, for a moment aroused to his old fury at Otho’s conceit. “Do you mean to say that you see a way to conquer Gorma Hass where Simon didn’t?”

  “Not yet,” answered Otho modestly. “But I’m working on a plan,” he added, with cautious vagueness.

  Grag growled again, then subsided into silence. Without the presence of Curt Newton or the Brain, his quarrels with Otho lacked zest, and were soon broken off. But he did notice that from that time on Otho began to have spells of intense concentration, as if he were maturing some great plan.

  Eventually there came the day when the soldiers of Gorma Haas were reported assembling on a nearby planet. Grag’s photoelectric eyes brightened in anticipation. Then Hol Jor and Ber Del, accompanied by Ki Illok, appeared before the robot and android. “We are leaving,” announced Hol Jor. “You will take the Comet and follow us.”

  “You mean we’re surrendering Anfren to Gorma Hass without a fight?” rumbled Grag, outraged.

  “Our forces are inferior. Better to conserve them now that they may fight all the more effectively later.”

  “We do nothing but run,” put in Ki Illok, bitterness in his voice. “Soon we shall have forgotten entirely how to fight.”

  “We wouldn’t be running if Curt Newton were here,” retorted Grag. “Nor Simon, either. Simon, alone, had the courage to invade Gorma Hass’ stronghold. But you fellows —”

  Ber Del’s blue face turned a faint purple. “The Brain left you orders to assist us, not to argue with us. Do you intend to obey him?”

  Grag muttered to himself. Ber Del had him there. Whatever else he did, he couldn’t disobey the Brain’s explicit command. He nodded angrily.

  Shortly afterward, Ber Del’s ship and the Comet rose above Anfren and streaked through the emptiness of space away from Antares, toward a neighboring star.

  THE planet on which they finally landed reminded Grag and Otho of their own Moon. Its gravity was low, its surface rough and mountainous, and its atmosphere so thin that the human beings had trouble breathing it.

  To Otho, who could breathe almost any air with some oxygen in it, and to Grag, who didn’t breathe at all, this caused no difficulty. While the human members of the group were forced either to wear clumsy space suits or else move cautiously and avoid over-exertion, the robot and the android wandered about freely.

  It was Otho who directed their trips of exploration. Grag, puzzled by the purposefulness of the android’s manner, in vain demanded an explanation.

  “I’ll bet you your
self don’t know what you’re looking for,” he decided at last.

  “Wait till we find it,” replied Otho. “Then I’ll explain.”

  But the days passed, and still the explanation did not come. Grag noticed that Otho wore a small instrument on his wrist, and consulted this frequently. It was obviously not a compass, for Otho referred to it even when he knew perfectly well in what direction they were going, and it was just as obviously not a watch. Grag racked his artificial sponge-metal brain in a vain attempt to guess its purpose, eventually to give up in disgust.

  It was more than two weeks after they had landed on the rocky planet that Otho finally glanced at his wrist, and uttered a cry of exultation.

  “Ah, I think I’ve found it!”

  “You’ve found what?” rumbled Grag.

  “Radium! This thing on my wrist is a tiny, very sensitive electroscope that the Chief invented some time back. It indicates a fair-sized deposit of ore a few dozen feet underground.”

  “So what? Why just the big mystery about a bit of radium?”

  “Because it’s necessary for my plan!” exclaimed Otho eagerly, “Grag, do you remember how the Chief got out of trouble on the Moon some time back, when we were all hunted as outlaws?”

  “He invented a damping-wave transmitter to inhibit electronic movement.”

  “Exactly. For a piece of scrap iron, Grag, you’ve got a better memory than I thought,” admitted Otho. “I helped him build it, and I remember what he did. Why can’t we build one to use against Gorma Hass?”

  “We can. But it wouldn’t work.”

  “Why not?” demanded Otho, “Don’t the soldiers of Gorma Hass use atomic power in their space ships and their weapons? Doesn’t atomic power depend on accelerating the electron movements? Don’t these rays inhibit the acceleration? Grag,” said Otho pompously, “I give you my word of honor as a scientist, this device will stop the men of Gorma Hass cold in their tracks! When it does that, we’ll do our fighting with clubs and spears — and then you’ll be able to use that great strength of yours.”

  Grag still looked unconvinced. “It sounds good,” he granted, “but if it was as simple as that, why didn’t the Chief or the Brain think of it?”

  “Maybe they did, but just kept the idea to themselves.”

  Grag shook his head. “Now that I have a chance to think of it, I remember the Chief saying it wouldn’t be any good in a real war, against an enemy who knew the danger. But, anyway, we’ll go ahead. Where do I come in on this?”

  “You dig,” said Otho. “I’ll tell you where. Just follow directions and you’ll be all right. And keep that Eek of yours away from here, because if he swallows any radium ore, I’ll dissect that moon-pup limb from limb to get it back again.”

  Grag barked out a word of command, and Eek, along with Otho’s pet, backed hastily away from the scene of operations. Then Grag went to work, his great metal hands tearing the dirt and rock away with all the speed of a dredging machine.

  AFTER a time Otho noticed that Grag was speeding up. “It’s radium emanations,” explained Grag. “They stimulate my reflexes. Come on over and try some.”

  “Not me,” retorted Otho hastily. “Not without a lead suit. They’d fry my plastic flesh a little too much for comfort. How close are you to the ore?”

  “Just a few more feet to dig.”

  “Then I’ll go back to the camp, and tell the others to prepare the copper and other metals that we’ll need.”

  An hour later, when Otho proudly returned, accompanied by the curious and unbelieving star-captains, he found that Grag had stopped working. The giant robot had clambered out of the hole he himself had dug and was in the midst of what appeared to Otho to be an admiring circle of great birds.

  They were an inch or two below six feet in height, about two feet in width, and possessed of intelligent, inquisitive faces that reminded Otho strongly of penguins. But instead of being covered with feathers, their bodies were shielded by layers of thick transparent material faintly resembling scales. They carried what looked like bronze spears, four feet in length. One of them, slightly taller than the rest, carried a spear apparently made of gold.

  Not far away from Grag, Eek was gazing at the strange creatures in surprise. Otho’s eyes searched the ground, and soon located Oog, who had taken no chances and turned into a perfect imitation of a rock.

  Satisfied that his own pet was safe, Otho approached Grag angrily.

  “What’s the idea of stopping work?” he demanded.

  “These people came over here to see what was happening. And, besides, I wanted to see what they were.”

  “You call these things people?” demanded Otho. “They’re birds!”

  “They are the Teuri,” put in Hol Jor. “I had heard of them, although I had never seen them before. They are intelligent and friendly.”

  “They were admiring me,” observed Grag.

  “Then they can’t be very intelligent,” returned Otho. “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t seem to have any language we can speak or understand,” said Grag. “They just make clucking sounds.”

  “The Chief would have discovered how to talk to them. Anyway, Grag, you’ve got no time to waste being admired. You’ve got to finish digging out that radium ore.”

  Grag nodded, and began to dig once more, while Otho set up the apparatus he would need. First of all were the space suits, which were to be covered with lead so as to repel the dangerous radiations. Then there was a great sheet of copper which Grag would hammer into a spherical shell intended to radiate the damping ray. Finally there were numerous instruments which Otho had taken from the Comet.

  The Teuri watched as Otho made all these preparations. It was evident that they admired Grag for his great, strength, and when he began to beat the copper sheet into a spherical shell, the chorus of clucking sounds became deafening.

  “They look powerful,” thought Otho. “And their spears will make good weapons. If they think so highly of Grag, he might persuade them to work or fight for us. They’ll be useful when the time comes for that hand-to-hand struggle.”

  As several days passed and the apparatus approached completion, Otho strutted around connecting wires, adjusting the instruments, and behaving in general like a man who was the brains of his organization and knew it.

  GRAG, the metal sphere completely formed, stared at him and then laughed.

  “Somebody might think you invented this outfit!” he jeered. “You’re only taking over what Curt and Simon discovered. And I bet you don’t know the whole story about it. You don’t know why the Chief said it would be useless in a real war, against an enemy who knew the danger.”

  “I know enough to make this work, and that requires more intelligence than you possess,” retorted Otho. “Lift that sphere into place, Grag. Excellent. You’re not a bad assistant at that. And now we’re ready to go.”

  Hol Jor, Ki Illok, and Ber Del were watching curiously. Otho threw the switch that sent the power racing into the wave-transmitter, and a loud drone filled the air. But nothing else happened.

  “Is that all?” asked Ber Del in disappointment.

  “All?” repeated Otho, “Wait until you see what this does! Hol Jor, point your atom-pistol at my head!”

  “Very well,” said Hol Jor. He raised the slender weapon.

  “Now pull the trigger!”

  “Wait a minute!” cried Grag, leaping forward. He knocked the pistol to one side, and a beam lanced into the ground, transforming a piece of rock into a few wisps of vapor.

  Otho’s natural complexion was a pale white. But for a moment he seemed to turn faintly green. “What — what happened?” he stammered. “That pistol wasn’t supposed to work.”

  “You forgot something!” declared Grag. “Let me look at the apparatus! Ah, I see what’s wrong! The Chief used three condensers, where you’ve got only two! You were a little over-confident, Otho!”

  Otho, chastened, turned off the switch, and
hurriedly inserted another condenser into the oscillatory circuit. The next time, when he made connections, Hol Jor’s atom-pistol did not fire.

  But Hol Jor did not attempt to test it on Otho’s head. He pointed the weapon at a rock, and Otho was satisfied to let him use that object for his experiment.

  After Hol Jor had failed, the other star-captains attempted to use their own weapons. These, too, were useless.

  “You see,” cried Otho triumphantly, “no device that depends on atomic disintegration can function within thousands of miles of here. Atom-pistols, space-ship engines, heating outfits, refrigeration units — all are useless so long as this apparatus is in operation! Now let the Sverds come! We’re ready for them!”

  It was just at that moment that Otho felt a flipper-like hand grasp each of his arms. One of the bird-men was on each side of him, an expression of grim anger on the penguin-like faces. Each star-captain was likewise in the grip of a pair of the Teuri, while Grag had been paid the compliment of being surrounded by at least a dozen of them.

  Otho stared in bewilderment. “I thought they were friendly! What’s wrong?”

  “That,” said Ki Illok, and pointed.

  Eek, the moon-pup, was cowering at one side. Lying on the ground near him was the remnant of the golden spear which one of the Teuri had been holding. Otho did not need to ask what had happened. The voracious moon-pup, with his insatiable appetite for metal, had been caught in the very act of devouring the spear!

  Chapter 12: The Soldiers Arrive

  IT WAS useless to resist. The very machine which Otho had set in operation, by rendering the atom-pistols useless, made it impossible for him and the star-captains to defend themselves. Grag alone, by virtue of his superior strength, might have escaped, but any struggle on his part would have led to the death or injury of the others, and Grag judged it wiser to submit. “This is the second time this trip that we’ve suffered because of that overgrown moon-pup’s appetite,” said Otho bitterly, as they were led away to a chorus of clucking sounds. “Why did he have to pick on the one spear that those Teuris seem to hold sacred?”