Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941) (17 page)

Curt saw long, wild streamers and prominences of flame lance out from the blue Sun. Its surface seemed wildly disturbed and the disturbance was increasing as the distance between it and the red giant shortened.

"They're going to pass mighty close to each other," gasped Otho, his green eyes dilated.

"Look, both stars are already warping from the tidal effect of gravitation," Captain Future exclaimed.

As the blue Sun and the huge red star drew closer to each other, the mutual pull was tugging each great sphere of flaming gas out of a flattened, whirling ball into a pearlike shape. The elongated projection of each star was being drawn out farther toward the other.

Now the two mighty stars were but a scant hundred million miles apart, about to pass each other. The terrific pull between them drew out still farther the tidal projection of each. And then —

"The projections are breaking away!" yelled Otho.

The strain upon the masses of the two tortured stars had become too great. The elongated streamers of fiery matter were torn loose in flaming masses. In that appalling moment, blazing prominences raged up from each riven star. Through space came a terrific wave of electrical force that rocked the
Comet
like a chip in a storm, flinging it wildly about.

CURT NEWTON and the Futuremen held on desperately to prevent being knocked senseless again. The time-thruster continued to drone, but they heard control panel fuses popping like firecrackers. Then the ship quieted as the unbelievable electrical wave passed.

"The two stars have passed!" Grag's booming voice shouted.

Red giant star and flaming blue Sun had passed and were now marching away from each other. But around the Sun, as around the departing stranger, now raced a swarm of small, flaming balls that had been torn away and given rotatory motion by the passing star.

Captain Future pointed at those circling satellites of the Sun with a hand that trembled slightly.

"The worlds are born," he said softly, his throat tight with emotion.

The red star, like a fat woman with a big family, grew smaller and smaller as it departed into infinity. But the eyes of the Futuremen were fixed on the flaming planets around their own Sun. What had seemed a bewildering swarm of blazing matter fell rapidly into definite orbits and patterns that now scrambled madly around the Sun.

From the little mass that had been flung farthest out, which would eventually become Pluto, to tiny Mercury close to the Sun, the ten worlds were recognizable. Nearly all had satellites of smaller flaming masses, embryo moons. And as they raced around the Sun, they seemed to be swiftly cooling, shrinking, solidifying.

"They'll soon be solid enough so we can land on one, at the rate we're going through time!" Curt exclaimed. "Then we can get enough copper —"

Ironically at the moment he spoke the throbbing cyclotrons began to sputter, then died. The scanty fuel had been exhausted. Their progress through time came to a dead stop as the thruster ceased to function.

"Stuck again!" said Otho bitterly. "And this time it looks as if our orbit was scrambled for good!"

"Can't we get copper yet from those planets?" Grag asked.

Captain Future shook his head. "They're still semi-molten. We've got to go farther in time before we can land on them."

"And there isn't a scrap of copper left that we can spare for cyc fuel," lamented Otho. Then a gleam came into his green eyes. "But, say, come to think of it, there's a little copper in Grag's insides."

"I'll twist your rubber neck into a knot!" cried Grag furiously. "Do you think you're going to make fuel out of me?"

"You'd be more help feeding the cycs than otherwise," Otho retorted.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Curt Newton grinned.

"There's not enough copper in Grag to help, anyway," he pointed out. He looked around the interior of the
Comet.
There appeared to be no possible source of fuel. "There's only one thing to do — tear down one of the cyclotrons and use its copper parts for fuel. It'll leave us only eight cycs, but we can get just enough power from them."

"If one of them blew, we wouldn't have a spare," objected Otho.

"I know, but we have to take the chance," Curt replied grimly. "Come on. We'll take apart Number Nine Cyc."

The Futuremen rapidly went to work. The big inertron outer and inner casings of the massive cyclotron were disassembled. From between them came the copper wire coils and plates which were the last possible source of fuel.

The powdered metal they obtained by their desperate expedient seemed pitifully small, compared with the risk they were running. Taking care not to spill a grain of it, they poured it into the fuel tanks. Soon the remaining eight cycs began again their powerful throbbing.

Captain Future already had the time-thruster switched on. Once more its cone sprayed white radiance. Again they felt the familiar shock of extra-electromagnetic forces hurling their bodily atoms on into time.

THE planets resumed their nightmare race around the Sun. And, as they moved on along the time dimension across millions of years, the Sun itself was changing perceptibly. Its bluish shade faded through blue-white and white to a pale yellow. The yellow deepened as time flashed by.

"The Sun's temperature is increasing, as it begins to contract," Curt muttered, watching. "It must be near a more stable phase by now."

"Aye, lad," rasped the Brain, scrutinizing the great orb with intense interest through a shielded electro-telescope. "The increase of temperature inside it is causing thermo-nuclear reactions on the carbon-nitrogen cycle, a steady transformation of hydrogen into helium, with a great release of radiant energy as a concomitant."

"It's the planets I'm worried about, not the Sun," declared Otho. "But you can't see 'em. They're just streaks of light at this time speed."

Curt glanced sharply at the time gage.

"They should be nearly solid worlds by now. How is the fuel holding, Grag?"

"Going down fast!" called the robot from where he sat at the space-stick. "That time-thruster eats up energy like nothing I ever saw before."

Captain Future came to decision. They could not risk being stranded again. It was better to take a chance that the planets were solid.

He shut off the time-thruster. The giddy race of the ten worlds around the Sun became a normal movement. Intently the red-haired planeteer scrutinized them in turn through the powerful electro-telescopes.

All of the worlds now had a solid crust, he noted. The great outer planets still appeared to be quite hot, but their moons and the smaller inner worlds were cooler. Each planet was now wrapped in an atmosphere that had been formed of occluded gases.

"They're solid, thank the stars!" Captain Future declared. "Here's where we start shipping uranium into the future. Head for Mercury, Grag."

With its dwindling fuel now powering the rocket-tube?, the
Comet
hurtled through space toward the yellow orb of the Sun. Soon they made out Mercury, a tiny globe swinging near the colossal flaming sphere. The surface of the smallest plant was a tumbled, jumbled wilderness of hardened lava and basalt as they swooped down toward it. The number of active volcanoes argued that the interior of the little planet was still in a highly molten state.

"First we have to find copper for ourselves," Curt said. "Then we'll start on the uranium."

Swinging back and forth over the tumbled, rocky planet, they searched its surface with their spectroscopic apparatus. It was not long before they had located a copper deposit large enough for their needs.

They brought the
Comet
down to a landing. Curt and Otho ventured out with Grag. For two hours the three comrades labored in the blazing light of the huge Sun, digging out the metal.

When they had sufficient, it took but a few minutes to run it through the macerator. Then, with fuel tanks well loaded with the powdered metal, the
Comet
rose again above the surface of primeval Mercury.

"That takes care of the fuel problem, finally," Curt said, breathing more easily. "Now for the uranium. We've got a terrific job ahead. We must locate the main uranium deposits on nearly all the worlds and drive the element into the future with our auxiliary time force projector."

Otho looked discouraged.

"Chief, it's too big a contract for anybody. When you think of all those worlds we have to cover —"

"Thinking won't help us do it," rejoined Captain Future. "You know what depends on getting the uranium across time to the age of Katain — a whole people saved and Zikal's murderous scheme frustrated."

Otho's eyes hardened at mention of Zikal's name.

"You're right," he almost snarled. "Anything is worthwhile that'll crush that Katainian devil."

SIMON had been examining one of the planetary mineralogical maps which Curt and old Darmur had formulated for guidance.

"This shows two main deposits of uranium here on Mercury," rasped Simon.

He read off the positions by latitude and longitude of the planet. Curt gave the order and Grag sent the
Comet
rushing across the wild, new planet to the nearest position. When they reached it, the robot kept their ship hovering low over the black rock plain, while Curt and Simon unlimbered the powerful fluorovisor they had built for this purpose.

The fluorovisor was a boxlike apparatus with a broad, white lens in one end and eyepieces in the other. It was designed to make it possible to see highly radioactive elements, even though they were imbedded beneath other minerals. The principle of the instrument was an induced hypersensitivity to the gamma radiation of radioactive substances.

Captain Future, his eyes at its eyepieces, swung the fluorovisor to cover section after section of the terrain below. Finally he held it steady. Through it he could see the dimly shining mass of a radioactive deposit of considerable mass, not far beneath the surface of the rock plain.

"There's our main deposit of uranium compounds!" he called. "Otho, turn the thruster-force into the auxiliary projector."

Otho started the time-thruster droning. But this time its cone did not spray the time driving force through the ship. Instead, from the quartz transformer disks the time-force was channeled into the big projector that moved on a swivel outside the
Comet's
bow.

Curt, without raising his eyes from the fluorovisor, called off the exact position of the uranium deposit. Otho carefully turned the projector to point at that particular spot below.

"All right, let it go!" Captain Future ordered tensely.

Otho touched the switch. The brilliant radiance of the time force shot down from the exterior projector in a broad conical beam.

THE intensity of the force had been accurately determined by Curt's careful setting of the time-thruster controls. The broad beam struck a large circle of the black rock plain and the black rock instantly vanished to a great depth. A yawning pit lay where the precious uranium deposit had been.

"All right, turn off the projector," said Captain Future. "That's done it."

Otho looked incredulously down at the yawning excavation.

"You mean we've actually driven that whole deposit of mineral forward in time to Darmur's age? Chief, I can't believe it."

"It's true, though," Captain Future assured him. "The time force has hurled every atom of that mineral forward for a period of time determined exactly by the intensity of the beam. It means that, in that other age ahead, the quantity of uranium in this deposit on Mercury will be almost doubled. We've caused the uranium to skip nearly two billion years of radioactive disintegration."

"Say, we're time engineers, that's what we are!" Grag boomed proudly. "Nobody ever did anything like this before."

"But when that increased amount of uranium appears at this spot in the time ahead," asked Otho, "won't it cause a physical explosion? It'll be appearing where there's other matter already."

Curt shook his head. "You're forgetting that, by causing the uranium to skip that long period of disintegration, you're eliminating the lead and other products of disintegration that would normally be present at this spot. The uranium simply takes their place."

"And Darmur's men will be waiting in their ships and will gather it up to take to Katain's moon?" Grag questioned. "But it looks to me as though digging out all the stuff and transporting it will be a tremendous job itself, even with all the power-tools they have."

A look of worry appeared on Curt Newton's tanned face.

"That's what I'm most anxious about," he admitted. "Darmur's men will have less than four weeks to collect all that uranium and take it to Yugra. If they don't get it done in time, the Council will reject the whole migration scheme and give Zikal's plan approval."

The hated name of Zikal spurred Otho.

"Let's get on with the job!" he gritted savagely.

The unprecedented time engineering feat of the Futuremen had only begun. They flew around Mercury to the other uranium deposit marked on the planetary mineralogical maps. The time force was turned on it in the same way, hurling it forward to Darmur's age in a twinkling.