Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941) (13 page)

A jam of gyro-cars held up the vehicle of the spy outside an extensive pleasure garden. He heard an ancient Katainian who was loudly exhorting a scoffing, half-drunken crowd.

"It is because you have forgotten the Sacred Star that doom comes upon Katain!" the old man was declaiming shrilly, making a worshipful gesture toward the calm, bright spark of Deneb.

"The Sacred Star is just superstition, and that won't save our world from destruction, old man!" jeered one of his listeners. "We'll go to destruction with Katain, unless we listen to Zikal."

"Yes, Zikal's the only one who can save us now!" cried other voices readily. "There's no hope in Darmur's mad plan."

A few voices cried for Darmur, but they were heavily outnumbered. The dark-face spy smiled in satisfaction as he maneuvered his gyro-car out of the jam and sped on through the city.

His destination was a large, globular, black mansion not far from the giant spherical public buildings at the center of Vavona. As he reached its doorway, guards stepped out to challenge him.

"It's I, Quirus!" panted the spy. "I must see Zikal at once. A report of the highest importance."

A FEW seconds later he was in a luxurious room. The curving walls of black glass reflected back and forth interminably the iridescent glow that came from illuminated tubes set in the floor. A tall, powerful-looking Katainian came striding to meet him, impressive in the golden tunic that left his great limbs bare. His close-cropped black hair helmeted a harsh, massive face whose black eyes were impatient and purposeful.

"Well, Quirus?" he snapped. "Your report. Darmur hasn't found a new uranium source at this late date, has he?"

"No, Zikal," quavered the dark-faced spy servilely. "But something has happened. You remember, I was the one who told you about the strange message that Darmur tried to send out into future time."

Zikal smiled sardonically. "Yes, I remember. I knew we had him beaten when he resorted to such fantastically hopeless devices."

"It wasn't so hopeless!" Quirus exclaimed. "That call of his into the future has been answered. Men from the far future have come to Katain and are conferring with Darmur now!"

"You're drunk or dreaming!" exploded Zikal. "Men from the future? Did Darmur pay you to tell me this crazy tale? By Koom, if he did —"

His enormous hand gripped the throat of the terrified spy.

"It's
true,
Zikal!" Quirus babbled hastily. "I saw and heard these men myself. They must be from the future, for no such men have ever been seen in our time. Their leader seems human like ourselves, a tall, red-haired man with eyes like ice. Another is a green-eyed devil who does not seem completely human. A third is a metal giant. The fourth is a brain — a living brain inside a transparent case, yet it moves and sees and talks with the others!"

Zikal was a little incredulous still, but badly staggered.

"Men from the future? How could they come back through time? In future ages perhaps there may be a science, greater than any we know, that would achieve time-travel. If such future scientists have really come back to aid Darmur —" He whirled back on the spy. "What did Darmur say to them?"

"He seemed stupefied himself at their appearance," said Quirus. "Then, when he was convinced they had really come from the future, he asked them at once if they knew how to synthesize uranium."

"And what did they answer?" demanded Zikal anxiously.

"The leader of the strangers, the red-haired one who called himself Captain Future, said that the synthesis of uranium was beyond his science."

An expression of relief and satisfaction crossed Zikal's powerful face.

"So!" he exclaimed. "Darmur's help from the future has failed him as everything else has done. This explodes his plan completely. When the Council of Katain meets tomorrow, he'll have to admit it."

"But that is not all," continued the spy hurriedly. "The red-haired leader of these strangers from the future told Darmur that he must not give up hope. He said that they might be able to find some solution of the problem!"

"They won't," predicted Zikal. "Darmur's whole scheme hinged upon his securing an enormous amount of uranium. His exploring expedition have failed to find enough natural uranium in the whole System. He can't synthesize it artificially, either, so his crazy plan is done for."

AFTER a moment, though, the Katainian leader's massive face expressed a troubling doubt.

"And yet this stranger, this Captain Future, might be able to find a way, somehow. The man must be a supreme master of science to have achieved the colossal feat of crossing time. Who knows but what he might just be able to find some way of implementing Darmur's plan?"

Zikal's great fists clenched.

"By Koom, that mustn't happen! When the Council meets tomorrow for the great decision, it must decide in favor of my plan. It's taken me months of weary work to overcome the faint-hearted, sentimental objections of our people to the killing of useless Martians. I'm not going to let all my work upset at the last moment by allowing these strangers from the future to come in and swing the Council to Darmur's scheme. His scheme, even if it worked, would gamble with the lives of all our race!"

Quirus smiled thinly.

"You need not pretend such great solicitude for our people to me, Zikal. The populace may believe you're considering only their safety, but I'm not one of the ignorant mob."

"Well, what if I do gain dictatorial powers, once my plan is decided upon?" demanded Zikal angrily. "Don't I deserve such power? Isn't it I who have worked out all the preparations for destroying the Martians and taking their world? Wouldn't our people be better off with a strong master to guide them, rather than under this doddering, weak-hearted Council?"

Zikal paced back and forth in the curving-walled black chamber, while the dark-faced spy watched him. Worried doubt increased on the leader's hard face.

"Quirus, we're not going to take any chance of this man from the future upsetting all our work at this last moment," he rapped out, turning abruptly. "This Captain Future must be eliminated at once."

Fear came into the spy's dark face.

"You mean — kill him?" he muttered. "I don't know if it could be done. The man is strange, powerful —"

"Bah, he's a living man, even if he has all the science of future ages in his head," spat Zikal. "He can be killed like anyone else. You have a neutron tube?"

Reluctantly the spy nodded, drawing the weapon from his tunic. It was in appearance a thin glass tube mounted on a metal stock.

"Then you know what to do," said Zikal harshly. "Get this leader of the strangers and, if possible, the others, too."

Quirus' dark face was panicky.

"I'm afraid!" he gasped. "Those four — they're so weird, so strange —"

"Would you rather take your chance with them, or with me?" demanded his leader threateningly.

The spy gulped and nodded shakily.

"I'll do it."

"Report back as soon as you have," Zikal snapped. "I'll be waiting here."

With dread in his soul, the Katainian spy drove his gyro-car back through the city toward Darmur's home. Only greater fear of his merciless master forced him forward.

He left the car and stealthily began creeping through the moonlit garden toward the old scientist's dwelling. From open windows of the bubblelike black mansion came the soft glow of iridescent light and the sound of low voices.

CLUTCHING the stock of his neutron tube, Quirus wormed his way silently through the graceful flowers and trees, until he was peering through the window of a lighted room.

He saw Darmur in there, sitting at the end of a long table, with his daughter and son standing behind him. The old scientist was talking earnestly to the red-haired man called Captain Future, whose back was toward the window. Nearby poised the weird case of the Brain, floating without movement in mid-air, his strange lens-eyes fixed on the old Katainian scientist. In a chair sat the awesome metal giant.

Quirus could not see the green-eyed, unhuman one, nor the Earthgirl, but the ones he saw were enough to deepen the dread in his mind. How could he hope to slay such beings as these? Yet he must do it, or face the wrath of Zikal.

He raised his neutron tube, aiming at Captain Future's back. At that moment came a loud, hissing exclamation from behind him. He turned quickly, "Who the devil are you? What are you doing here?"

Quirus spun around, appalled. The green-eyed android and the Earthgirl had surprised him, In mad panic, the spy fired the brilliant, deadly neutron beam pointblank at them.

FUTURE and his comrades were experiencing Katainian hospitality. Not even the baffled desperation that old Darmur must be feeling, nor the awesome shadow of destruction that the premonitory shudder of the planet had cast upon them, could make the scientist forget his duties to his strange guests. He insisted upon postponing further discussion until the Futuremen had rested and eaten.

He introduced to them his daughter, Lureen. A slim, young girl in a graceful gold tunic, with dark hair braided back from a pale, beautiful face, she had been watching Captain Future and his strange companions with breathless wonder in her violet eyes.

"I'll get Ahla!" Otho said hastily as they started into the house. "She was afraid to come out of the
Comet
at first."

Ahla, indeed, was somewhat terrified by her succession of strange experiences. But the primitive girl of Earth seemed to trust Otho utterly, for she came hesitantly with him to the black mansion. Darmur's daughter promptly led the shy girl off, though Ahla looked back anxiously at Otho. The old scientist himself conducted Curt Newton and his comrades to a chamber of the dwelling.

Future looked around appreciatively. There was an austere, unadorned beauty about the curving black walls and simple, severe furniture.

"This is a beautiful world," he murmured. "Katain, the golden. No wonder its people are heartsick as its destruction approaches."

"They have certainly delayed leaving it until the last," the Brain, always coldly unemotional, commented raspingly. "They've little time left."

There was a sunken bath adjoining the chamber. Curt soaked with delight in the scented waters, as did Otho. Even Grag, following their example, polished up his metal limbs and hammered out a small dent in his knee with a tool he brought from the
Comet.

"If you really want to improve your appearance, hammer yourself out a new face," gibed Otho.

Grag raised the tool threateningly.

"I'll hammer one out for you, you product of the residue at the bottom of a laboratory retort."

They went down to the softly illuminated dining hall where Darmur and the others were waiting. Ahla had been dressed in one of Lureen's gold tunics and the shy primitive flushed with pleasure at Otho's admiration.

The meal was a simple one of fruits, cakes and a mild wine. Curt and Otho ate with gusto. Grag replenished his own energies by inserting a small charge of copper fuel into the orifice by which his atomic machinery was fed.

The Brain basked in the stimulating vibrations of a small projector which Grag had brought from the strange
Comet.

Curt looked past his wineglass at the moonlit garden outside. The flowering trees were stirring softly in the warm breeze and showering white blossoms over the golden ground like drifting snow. The beauty of this lost world of time caught at his heart.

"Aye, Katain is lovely," murmured old Darmur, sensing his thought. "No wonder my people dread abandoning it for such a perilous odyssey to a distant star as I had hoped to lead."

Captain Future pushed back his glass and bent forward keenly.

"Darmur, what is your plan? Why do you need so much uranium? Even if you had it, how could you transport all the hosts of this race across almost nine light years to Sirius? You haven't enough ships for that, surely!"

DARMUR for answer, pointed up at the little, yellow moon that was shining softly in the starry sky.

"There is the ship which I proposed to use to transport our race across the Universe," he answered.

"Katain's moon?" Curt asked, startled. "Do you mean that your proposal —"

"I planned to make our moon, Yugra, into a great ship to carry all our people to Sirius. It seemed the only possible solution. The satellite could be torn away from the System and hurled into outer space toward Sirius, by continuous explosions of atomic energy on a great scale. It could carry our entire race there. The Council allocated men and materials for me to use in making preparations for my plan, years ago.

"We built on Yugra semi-underground chambers extensive enough to hold our millions of people. We also constructed near the moon's equator a gigantic pit, lined with refractory material, which would be the rocket-tube that would propel the satellite. By continuous explosion of vast quantities of pure uranium in that colossal rocket-tube, Yugra could be accelerated finally to a speed half that of light."