Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941) (16 page)

He and Otho had already donned their space-suits. Now Curt turned the power of the throbbing cyclotrons once more into the time-thruster. From the cone sprayed the extra-electromagnetic energy, driving every atom in the ship back along the time dimension, rocking them with a sick dizziness.

Captain Future saw that the System had again become a featureless blur. He watched the main gage. The arrow was creeping slowly backward as they were driven up the mysterious time flow into the unguessable past.

Without warning, there was a blazing explosion near the front of the cabin. It picked the Futuremen and hurled them against the walls with irresistible force. Curt's helmeted head hit a stanchion and he knew nothing more.

Four Futuremen lay silent and unconscious where they had been flung by the violence of the unexpected explosion. Though the bulkhead between the main cabin and control room had been wrecked, the hull and cyclotrons and the big time-thruster had not been injured. With no hand now at its controls, the machine continued to drone on, spraying forth the powerful energy that continued to drive every atom in the
Comet
farther and farther back along the time dimension.

On and on, back into the time, the ship bore its senseless occupants, until finally the throbbing cyclotrons sputtered and died. Then at last the time-thruster's glow faded away. The ship floated silently in space.

OTHO was the first of the Futuremen to recover consciousness. The android staggered groggily to his feet, his head still ringing from violent impact with the floor.

"What in the First Principle's name happened?" he wondered dazedly as he looked around the silent ship. Then alarm seized him as his eyes fell on his unmoving companions. "Chief! Simon! Grag! Imps of Pluto, if they're dead —"

He removed Curt's space-helmet and applied frantic first aid. Gradually the red-haired planeteer came back to consciousness. He looked around with wide, stunned gray eyes.

"What was it? Something exploded. I felt as though a meteor hit me."

"Chief, I can't bring Simon around!" Otho cried worriedly. "Something's wrong with his pumps."

The Brain's square, transparent case lay motionless. It had been flung against the hull so forcefully that the electrical connections of its serum-purifiers had been snapped, rendering Simon's living brain unconscious.

Curt Newton stumbled unsteadily to a cabinet and brought out instruments with which he rapidly opened the Brain's case. Working deftly, Captain Future soon repaired the snapped connections. When his vital mechanisms functioned again, the Brain regained consciousness.

The three of them, without stopping to parley, bent over Grag. The big robot was the most badly injured by the explosion, since he had apparently been nearest to it. One of his giant metal legs had been torn almost away and his electrical nervous system had been smashed.

The other Futuremen had repaired Grag's strange body before this. They plied a portable atomic welder and other tools skillfully. When the robot's nerves had been rejoined, Grag showed every sign of full life.

"What happened?" he demanded, clambering to his feet.

"Something exploded right in the midst of us," Captain Future said. "It wasn't a cyc-explosion, but it —"

"Chief, that was a neutron bomb!" Otho cried. "And I'll bet a planet that one of Zikal's men planted it here!"

Curt's eyes narrowed. "I believe you're right. Remember, Jhulun caught a spy prowling around the
Comet
just before we started." He swore with feeling. "Zikal would go to any lengths to wreck Darmur's plan, so his own would be carried out, giving him dictatorial authority."

"It's lucky you and Otho had your space-suits on," Grag declared. "At least that gave you some protection from the explosion."

Curt looked swiftly around the
Comet.

"It doesn't seem to have done any irreparable damage. The cycs are too far back to have been affected." He went to the big time-thruster and inspected it carefully. "As far as I can see, the thruster wasn't harmed, thank the stars. It has stopped, probably due to the shock, but we can start it again and go on back —"

Curt Newton's voice trailed away into silence, his jaw dropping in an expression of utter amazement as he looked at the gage of the thruster.

"Why, this dial must have been knocked out," he muttered. "It shows a trip of three billion years, which is impossible."

Then a sudden thought made Captain Future lunge back toward the cyc-room. His eyes leaped to the fuel gages on the feed-lines that brought powdered copper fuel to the cyclotrons to be transformed into atomic energy.

"Holy sun-imps!" he cried, aghast. "The fuel tanks are absolutely empty! While we were unconscious, the time-thruster was running wide open. It shot us so far back into the past that the cycs stopped from lack of fuel!"

"You mean it's taken us three billion years into the past?" asked Otho. "Why, Chief, you must be imagining things. That bump on the head —"

But Captain Future was striding toward the control room. His tall figure froze as he stared wildly out of the broad windows. The other Futuremen, following him, became as motionless as they, too, looked out upon the strange spectacle in space — a spectacle upon which no human eye had ever rested before.

THE Solar System they had known — was gone entirely. Millions of miles from where their ship floated, the Sun was blazing. But it was not the brilliant yellow star they had always known. It was a vastly larger, dull blue sun that burned now in the black heavens. And it was entirely alone in space. Not one planet, not even a single asteroid circled that huge, flaring blue orb.

"Where are the planets?" Grag cried bewilderedly. "What's become of all the worlds and moons?"

Captain Future tore his gaze from the spectacle to face the others.

"The time-thruster did carry us back three billion years in time, while we lay senseless and unable to stop it," he said tonelessly. "We've come back to an age before the planets of the System even existed!"

"Aye, lad!" rang the Brain's voice, charged with pulsing excitement. "The wonder of it! We are looking upon our Sun when it's still a blue giant."

"You mean the worlds of our System haven't been born yet?" echoed Grag unbelievingly. "Melt me down, this really is trouble! Zikal's cursed work has thrown us two billion years farther back than we wanted to go. Now we'll have to turn around and go forward again. We can't get the uranium of the System's planets when there aren't any planets yet. Let's get going."

"You've forgotten something, Grag," said Captain Future grimly. "The fuel supply of the cycs is exhausted. There isn't an ounce of copper left in the tanks."

Otho's green eyes widened.

"Then what are we going to do?" he blurted. "We can't get copper for fuel from some planet, for there aren't any planet's yet."

"That's just it," Curt rejoined significantly. "We've no fuel and no place to get any from."

"Devils of space!" gasped Otho. "We're cast away in time — cast away before the creation of the System!"

There was a grim pause. They looked out at the wild, strange spectacle of space. The Sun's mighty blue orb, millions of miles away, was the only comparatively near object. Aside from it, there was nothing but the blindingly bright eyes of the burning stars, a gorgeous skyscape such as they had never seen.

"The stars are much closer to each other in this age," muttered the Brain. "Look at that one yonder."

Curt's eyes fixed on the brilliant red star at which the Brain was gazing. It outshone any other in the blazoned heavens.

"There might just be a way out of this jam," Curt said thoughtfully. "If we could get the time-thruster going enough to take us only a few million years forward in time, I think it would give us a chance to do something."

"By that time the planets may be born and we can get copper?" Otho questioned.

Curt nodded, staring at the red star.

"I think so. It's about the only chance left."

"But how can we start the time-thruster up for even that little jump when we haven't a scrap of fuel for the cycs?" Grag objected.

Captain Future looked around the interior of the
Comet,
crowded with scientific equipment.

"We've got to strip the ship," he said. "We must use every ounce of copper in it, except that in the cycs and the time-thruster itself, for fuel. It may be enough to take us a little farther on to a time when there'll be planets and unlimited fuel supplies."

WITHOUT dissent, they put Curt's desperate expedient into operation. Ruthlessly the Futuremen tore apart scientific apparatus that would have been invaluable to any laboratory in the future Universe. Delicate instruments and massive tools that had taken years and infinite pains to build were relentlessly scrapped.

The copper flanges of the fine electro-spectroscopes, the copper switches on the control panel, the copper base of a fine therapeutic projector, all went into the macerator, in which Grag reduced the metal to fine powder.

When they had finished, the
Comet
looked as though vandals had been at work. Anxiously the Futuremen waited as Curt estimated the amount of powdered copper they had secured. He shook his red head.

"It's mighty little. It won't operate such a power-hungry device as the time-thruster for long. We can only-hope it will take us past the time when the planets will be born."

"What makes you think there's any chance of that?" Otho asked pessimistically. "Maybe the planets won't be formed for another half-billion years."

The Brain looked toward the brilliant red star out in space.

"If that star is coming toward here, as I think it is, the planets will soon be born."

"Yes, Simon, I'm gambling on that red star," Curt said. "Come, we'll load this copper and start the cycs."

The small amount of precious fuel was poured into the tanks. The automatic injectors shot it into the cyclotrons. As the cycs were switched on, the explosion of copper atoms into pure energy began in them.

Curt had already changed the setting of the time-thruster's controls so that the mechanism would emit an extra-electromagnetic force, which would accelerate the movement of the ship's atoms along the flowing time dimension, instead of reversing it now the force would hurl them forward, rather than backward in time.

As the cycs started throbbing, Captain Future hastily closed the circuit of the time-thruster. Again the quartz disks glowed. Again the big cone sprayed its radiance. And once more the Futuremen steadied themselves against the dizzying shock of that atom-pressing energy.

The needle of the time-gage began to creep forward again. Curt hastened into the control room, the others at his heels. They stared in awe through the ports at a sight no one had ever seen.

THE Sun seemed unchanged, a giant blue orb glaring in empty space. But before their eyes the brilliant red star in the distance grew brighter.

"It's coming closer!" Curt exclaimed. "We're seeing millions of years of change take place in minutes, which is why it seems to be moving so rapidly."

The red star already presented a visible disk. As the time-thruster droned on, hurling them on through time, it became obvious that the star was moving in the direction of their own Sun.

"If it keeps coming on that way, it'll pass near the Sun," Otho said. "Say, then that red star must be the one that caused the birth of the planets!"

"I don't get it," protested Grag bewilderedly. "What are you talking about?"

"Remember your astronomy, Grag," Curt Newton explained tensely. "The planets were known to have been formed by the approach of another star to our Sun. I think we're going to see that happen."

"Holy sun-imps!" cried the robot. "So that's what you were figuring on!"

The
Comet
was speeding on and on through time. Curt hoped fervently that the copper fuel would hold out long enough. Now the red star had itself become a sun-sized orb, blazing dazzlingly in the starry heavens as it approached. With solemn, cosmic majesty, it swept ever nearer toward the blue Sun, which seemed to be moving ponderously to meet it.

In the youth of the Universe, chance was flinging two colossal, spinning orbs of flame toward each other, and out of that cosmic collision would come a strange sentient thing that called itself man.

"They're beginning to pull each other closer by mutual gravitational attraction," rasped the Brain in the closest his mechanical voice box could get to an awed whisper.

Then the Futuremen fell silent. Even their hardened spirits were overwhelmed by the titanic spectacle that was unfolding before them. The spectacle of the birth of the Solar System was about to take place before their eyes.

Stupefying indeed was the sight as the blue, glaring Sun and the even more gigantic red stranger marched majestically toward the fateful encounter. A weird, blinding radiance of mingled red and blue light streamed through even the glare-proof windows to dazzle the eyes of the Futuremen.