Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941) (9 page)

"Katainians wouldn't have captured him when he told them he had come from the future to help them!" burst out Grag.

"Grag's right, lad," rasped the Brain. "But if they didn't come from Katain, where did they come from? There must be another world in this past age which has developed science and space-travel. But which?"

"We'll never find out by standing here and debating about it," Curt Newton stated striding back to the
Comet.
"Come on. We'll see if we can't pick up their rocket-trail and overtake them. We've got to get Otho out of this jam before we can go on to Katain."

"And a whole world that desperately needs our help has to wait because that rubber-headed, cocky android went blundering off into trouble!" boomed Grag vehemently as they entered the ship. "It never fails. No matter where we go, that crazy mess of chemicals gums up everything. Next time we go anywhere, he'll either stay at home on the Moon, or I will." Curt took the space-stick and sent the
Comet
screaming up into the sky at a speed that proved its cycs and tubes were all now working perfectly. Captain Future knew they couldn't hope to trail the black ship by sight. It had had a half-hour start and by this time was far out in space. It might be heading in any direction.

But in the
Comet
was an apparatus that might enable them to pick up the trail. A super-electroscope, devised by Curt and the Brain, its principle hinged on the fact that the rocket-tubes of a space ship left a continuous trail of ions behind them. In an atmosphere the trail was soon dispersed by air currents, but in empty space the ionized particles remained for a long time. Once the electroscope located it, they could follow the enemy ship.

For hour after hour, out in space beyond the limits of Earth's atmosphere, the
Comet
circled around, vainly searching for the trail. Grag piloted while Curt and the Brain swept space with the powerful concentrating lenses of the electroscope. They followed a methodical plan, patiently examining one sector after another.

Inwardly Curt was chafing at the delay. It was all they had met with since they had started their time voyage back into this remote age on their mission to aid Katain. A world that had called through time for help urgently needed their scientific assistance, yet they were being hindered from giving it by one mishap after another. They could not think of abandoning Otho to an unknown fate, however.

Finally Simon located the trail. Through the electroscope it showed as a thin streak of shining ions.

"They've headed for Venus, which might be where they came from," Curt said. "Slam on all cycs, Grag. Simon and I will watch the trail."

With all the power of its mighty cyclotrons, the
Comet
plunged through the solar spaces. The second planet swiftly grew in size to a brilliant white disk. They were traveling far faster than could any ordinary ship, Curt knew. Yet the hours of delay in finding the trail made it uncertain that Otho's captors could be overtaken before they reached the cloudy world.

HIS fears were soon realized. As they approached Venus, they had not yet sighted the ship they trailed. The shining stream of ions led down into the vast, cloudy atmosphere of the planet.

"Here's where we lose the trail!" boomed Grag in dismay.

"They must be somewhere on Venus, close beneath this location," Curt persisted. "We'll have to find them."

The
Comet
dived sharply through the gray, swirling vapors. The ion trail had long ago been dispersed here, of course, but the ship of the Futuremen sank down through mile after mile of the cloudy atmosphere.

"Venus' atmosphere is far thicker and denser than in our own time, lad," commented the Brain. "The planet's hydrosphere has not yet condensed so much into surface water as in our own age."

They emerged at last into the stratum of clear air close to the surface of the planet. Astonished, they looked across a vista of parklike fields and glades, fringed by a belt of marsh near the ocean.

"But where are all the great swamps of Venus?" demanded Grag, staring.

"It's just as I said," reminded the Brain. "The hydrosphere vapors have not yet condensed enough to saturate the planet with water and make it the swampy world we know. The process, though, is steadily going on."

There began again a weary process of search. The
Comet
circled in widening spirals above the land beneath. Three superhuman pairs of eyes kept peering for the strange black space ship they were hunting. While they saw nothing of the ship, they did notice stone structures and cities, submerged far out in the ocean, or partly concealed by the coastal marshes.

"There's been a civilization here on Venus, too," said the Brain, "just as on Earth. Just as the glaciation on Earth wrecked that civilization, so has it been destroyed here by the steady rise of the waters."

"I can't make it out," complained Grag. "Who'd have dreamt these worlds had great civilizations on them even longer ago than this?"

"There seem to be still greater ruined cities submerged far out in the sea," reported the Brain, who was peering through instruments. "The nearer the ruins are to shore, the smaller they become. It looks as though the steady rise of the water forced the people out of one city after another, bringing about a gradual retrogression of their civilization."

Curt Newton was too concerned with the search for Otho's captors to give this astonishing fact the attention he would ordinarily have given.

His keen eyes presently descried human figures moving over a field. He sent the
Comet
diving down toward them. The men appeared to be a hunting party, armed with throwing spears and bows. They were a white-skinned folk of apparently the same stage of primitive culture as the tribesmen on Earth. They bolted in flight the instant they heard and saw the
Comet.

"Shall we land and catch some of 'em for questioning?" Grag asked.

"It would be wasting time," Curt said. "They're just primitive descendants of a once-great people. They wouldn't be likely to have any connection with Otho's captors, who must be a fairly civilized people."

"Doesn't look like there are any civilized people on this world," Grag asserted. "The ones who captured Otho couldn't have come from here."

"I'm beginning to think that myself," Curt admitted. His brows knitted together. "Maybe they just stopped here at Venus for some reason and then went on. Let's go out into space and see if we can find their trail."

The
Comet
roared up through the immense cloudy envelope of the planet and emerged into clear, star-jeweled space. Curt and Simon began once more to sweep space with the powerful electroscope. Again it took weary hours of circling through space before they located a different ion trail than the one they had followed into Venus.

"They did stop at Venus and then go on!" Curt cried. "See? This trail leads out toward Mars."

"Do you think the people who captured Otho and Ahla are Martians?" Grag questioned. Without waiting for an answer, he growled; "What a chase that silly android is leading us!"

THE
Comet
shot toward the fourth planet with all cycs and tubes throbbing. Captain Future knew that their delay at Venus had again given those they pursued a large lead. He looked worriedly beyond Mars to the distant golden planet, Katain, swinging through space with its little moon, seeming to approach the great white disk of Jupiter.

Katain — doomed member of the solar family, whose cataclysmic end must soon give the System its greatest single tragedy. They
must
reach that world in time to answer the desperate time plea of its scientist, Darmur!

To Curt, chafing at the delay, it seemed an interminable time before they approached the dull green sphere of Mars. They followed the rocket trail of Otho's captors closely. It was a fresh one and led around the globe of the planet toward its shadowed night side.

Exclamations of wonder came from the Futuremen as they glimpsed the great oceans of Mars, sheening in the starlight, and the countless clusters of lights that betokened the presence of many great cities.

"Seas on Mars?" Grag blurted. "Why, it's crazy! Mars is the desert of the Solar System."

"It is in our time," corrected the Brain. "Eventually the low surface gravity of Mars will permit the molecules of its water envelope to escape, dry up its seas and make it a desert world. But here in the past, the process has not yet gone far."

"It's a crowded world, to judge by the lights of all those cities," marveled Captain Future. "We know there's civilization on Katain. We're seeing it here on Mars. We've seen evidence that it once existed on Venus and Earth. All these worlds, peopled and civilized in some age even before this one — it's almost incredible."

The trail led toward brilliant blinking lights near the shore of one of the great oceans. The trail descended toward those lights and then was lost as they entered the Martian atmosphere.

"That's a big city below," Curt said. "That's where Otho's captors took him and Ahla, if they're still living. We've got to search that city for them."

"Shall I land in the middle of that city?" Grag asked innocently.

"No, of course not!" Curt cried, before the robot could act. "These ancient Martians can't be friendly to strangers, or they wouldn't have grabbed Otho and Ahla. Steer beyond the city and we'll find some place for a secret landing. Then I can spy out the place on foot without being noticed."

With rocket-tubes throttled to a low drone, the
Comet
passed high above the light of the great Martian city. Finally, after circling a little, they brought it down to a landing on the beach of the ocean, several miles north of the metropolis.

They emerged from the ship into soft, balmy air. The night was illuminated by the two moons. The ocean pounded on the sands around them with a rhythmic sound. It seemed a strangely un-Martian scene.

"I spotted a road leading along the shore toward the city," Curt said. "It's not far away. We'll take a look."

A fat, little, white shape waddled along eagerly after them. It was Oog.

"The blasted little pest seems to miss Otho," boomed Grag. "It wants to hunt for him, I guess, I'll put him back in the ship. He might get us into trouble, he's so much like his master."

AFTER Grag had done so, the three advanced cautiously up the beach and through tall grass toward the highway Captain Future had mentioned. They heard a
whizz
and
roar
of passing vehicles and the sound of distant voices as they approached the road. Sinking down in the grass, they peered out.

The road was of white synthetic stone and impressively broad. Along it were moving flat, open vehicles that appeared to be powered by gas motors of some type. In the cars were men and women, dark-haired, white-skinned, looking much like the primitive Earth tribesmen, but dressed in silken cloaks and trousers. Other Martians were trudging along the road on foot. Nearly all seemed to be heading toward the city. Their voices came clearly to the Futuremen.

Curt found he could understand the Martians, for they talked a language similar to that of Ahla's tribe.

"I'm tired!" one woman was complaining to a man as they passed the concealed Futuremen. "Can't we rest?"

"It's almost dawn now," the man told her impatiently. "We want to reach Othar before the festival begins, don't we? You can rest later."

Curt made a sign to Grag and Simon and they drew back into the grass. When they had returned to the
Comet,
Captain Future spoke rapidly.

"Otho and Ahla must be prisoned somewhere in that city, Othar. I'm going in there and find them. Apparently some kind of festival is going on today. I can pass as a Martian, with luck."

"And I'll go with you!" Grag proposed instantly.

"How the devil could you get by?" Curt demanded. "You'd attract a crowd before we'd gone ten paces. You and Simon will have to wait here."

He took a cloak of white synthe-silk which, over his silken gray zipper-suit, fairly well approximated the ancient Martian dress. He stuffed his proton pistol inside his jacket. He also stowed away there a pocket-televisor and certain other instruments that he thought might be useful.

"It'll soon be daylight," he told his comrades. "The
Comet
will be quickly spotted here on the beach, so you'll have to keep the ship submerged while I'm gone. I'll call you out by pocket-televisor when I get back here with Otho and Ahla."

"We understand, lad," assured the Brain. "It will give us a chance to examine the nature of the ancient Martian marine life, while we wait."

"Ocean-diving on Mars!" exclaimed Grag bewilderedly. "It's a goofy idea."

CURT left the ship. With Grag at the controls, it rose quietly from the beach, moved a few hundred yards out over the moonlit sea and then sank down under the waters. The
Comet,
Future knew, could remain without harm beneath the waters for a long time and would be well concealed.