Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946) (10 page)

There was a throbbing silence as the thunderstruck Futuremen faced the Martians.

From behind the Martians, Curt Newton spoke swiftly.

“Bork, you and all your men drop your atom-guns. I have you covered!”

Ezra Gurney heard, and the old Patrol veteran uttered a glad shout as he recognized that voice.

“Captain Future!”

“Chief!” cried Otho. “Thank space! We thought maybe you were a goner!”

Joan Randall was running forward with a glad cry.

But Bork King, who had turned, was staring at Curt Newton in frozen shock.

“Captain Future — you?” he mumbled.

“Bork,” Curt said hastily, “this is no treachery on my part! I’m only after Ru Ghur. You’re free to go with your men.”

But the big Martian outlaw now was the prey of a blind, unreasoning anger that seemed about to break into fatal violence. He and the other Martians were raising their weapons they had not let fall, for in their surprise they had ignored Curt’s order.

“I see it all now!” Bork King exclaimed hoarsely. “I see why Su Kuan tried to kill you when he recognized you. You’ve been after all of us, myself and my boys as well as Ru Ghur!”

“Bork, no!” Curt cried. “I stayed with you only in hopes of getting on the trail of Ru Ghur and his Outlaw World. If I’d wanted to go for you, would I have helped you on Leda?”

The big Martian stood there glaring. Then in that moment of tense silence came a sound that startled them all the sound of rocket-tubes, a thunderous crescendo from the sky. Curt Newton glanced up swiftly. He glimpsed four sleek, grim black cruisers over Zuun.

“Ru Ghur and his raiders!” he shouted. “He’s come for the radium he thinks is here!”

THE four cruisers were circling as though inspecting the moonlight scene.

“Chief, we’ve got a damping wave generator set up that’ll overpower the raiders when they land!” Otho said hastily.

“Into the shack, then!” Curt ordered. “They mustn’t see us or they’ll not land.”

“If they land, my boys and I will take care of them!” Bork King growled.

The Martian outlaw had forgotten his passionate accusation of Captain Future. The coming of the bitterly hated Uranian had wiped all else from all their minds.

“They’re coming down!” Curt warned. “Be ready to switch on the damping wave the minute they land, Otho!”

The four cruisers were diving in a screaming swoop. Abruptly their heavy atom-guns blasted energy downward. The brilliant beams tore through one end of the metal shack and gouged a path across the valley as the four cruisers screamed low overhead.

The shack was a wreck, the wave generator and other machines fused into shapeless metal. Curt had yanked Joan and Otho back in time to escape injury, but all were momentarily stunned.

“Somethin’s gone wrong!” shrilled Ezra Gurney. “He’s found out this is a trap!”

SUCH a sudden reversal of their hopes was staggering. They had been so sure that Ru Ghur and his band were walking unsuspectingly into the ambush. And now the Uranian with his diabolical omniscience, was striking to destroy them.

“Out of the shack!” yelled Curt. “They’ll finish this place in their next swoop!”

They burst out of the wrecked shack into the silvery light.

“There comes the
Red Hope
!” Bork King yelled. “Qi Thir is crazy! He can’t fight four cruisers!”

The Martians on the outlaw ship had glimpsed the attack and were rushing to oppose the raider cruisers. The
Red Hope
and the four cruisers spun in a wild battle, atom-guns belching deadly beams.

It was hopeless. Concentrated beams of four ships tore into the
Red Hope
and sent it spinning down, to crash in the hills north of the valley. Ru Ghur’s four cruisers came racing back toward the metal shack.

“They’ll see us here in the open!” Captain Future cried. “Make for that chasm! It’s the only cover!”

Bork King maddened by the sight of his ship and comrades shot down, was raging like a crazy man. But Curt pushed him on toward the chasm, with the roar of rockets behind them swelling like the thunder of doom. They reached the rim of the chasm, whose jagged, broken rock promised concealment and shelter.

“Down, Bork!” shouted Captain Future. “We can’t fight four cruisers with a few pistols! Once down there, we can get to the
Comet
.”

Otho, with his wonderful agility, had already swarmed down to a projecting ledge. The Brain was gliding down after him.

Above the rocket-roar of diving ships came the crash of atomic beams destroying the shack completely. The raider ships circled back.

“They’re after us now!” roared Grag. He shook his fists at the sky, his other arm holding Eek and Oog.

“Get down there, so I can hand Joan down to you!” Curt Newton ordered the furious robot. “Hurry!”

Grag slid over the edge, landed heavily on the ledge which Ezra and Otho and the Martians already had reached.

“Here they come!” screamed Joan.

Captain Future whirled, saw that Ru Ghur’s ships were rushing back low over the valley, their bright, deadly beams leaping ahead of them. Before he could get over the edge with Joan, the beams would hit them. He grabbed her and flung himself to one side with her, in frenzied swiftness.

The next moment, the whole asteroid seemed to erupt as the concentrated atomic beams of four ships tore shatteringly into the rock. Stunned, Curt Newton was flung to his face, his body protecting the girl as bits of rocks showered upon them.

Dimly he heard a thunderous crash of falling rock that drowned even the roar of rockets. His brain rocked, and he felt as though he were floating in space.

Dizzily he came back from semiconsciousness to a foggy awareness that he was lying half-buried by rock fragments, with Joan still held protectingly in his arms. “Joan, are you hurt?” he asked hoarsely. “No, only dazed,” she gasped.

Captain Future struggled to his feet in sudden alarm. His atom-pistol had been knocked from his hand, and he bent to search for it.

“Don’t look for it,” said a smooth voice a few feet away from him. “If you do, we’ll have to kill you both, and I wouldn’t like to do that.”

Curt knew that unctuous, purring voice! He turned, and stiffened at the scene that confronted him in the silvery moonlight.

The blasting beam had torn tons of rock from this part of the valley floor, and this whole section of the chasm had collapsed. The Futuremen, Ezra, Bork King and his Martians were entombed!

Ru Ghur’s cruisers had landed while Curt lay stunned.

And Ru Ghur himself, with a score of his motley raiders, stood before Curt and Joan.

The fat, bald, yellow Uranian had an atom-pistol in his hand. His moonlike face was bland — and beaming, but his coil eyes narrowed as he surveyed Captain Future and the girl.

“So you and Bork King were here with the Futuremen, helping them set this little trap for me?” he said to Curt.

“It’s that prisoner from the
Orion
who got away from us with the Martian on Leda!” Kra Kol, his fishy-eyed Saturnian subordinate, exclaimed in amazement.

Ru Ghur nodded. “Yes. And I might as well tell you now who he is. He’s Captain Future.”

“CAPTAIN FUTURE?” yelled Kra Kol. He and the other raiders instantly raised their weapons. That instinctive action was a tribute to Curt Newton — a tribute to the hate and fear of all such as they for Captain Future.

“So you got away on Leda after all, and came here and joined up with the Futuremen?” Ru Ghur was saying to Curt. “You completely fooled poor old Ru Ghur on Leda, lad. But now your clever Futuremen are buried under tons of rock. Old Ru Ghur is clever too.”

Captain Future’s gray eyes stabbed the Uranian, “Not so clever but that the Patrol won’t find your Outlaw World in time, and destroy you.”

Ru Ghur chuckled. “If you only knew how unlikely that is, Future. If you only knew where Outlaw World really is!”

“There’s no radium here, Chief.” Kra Kol interrupted uneasily. “We ought to finish these two and get back to base before the Patrol gets after us. They may know of this ambush.”

Ru Ghur’s face stiffened. “We’re not going back until we get the radium we came after. Since there’s none here, we’ll get it elsewhere.”

“Chief, it’s too dangerous right now!” Kra Kol objected.

Ru Ghur’s bland expression did not change, but his voice lashed his subordinates.

“You fools! We only need one more big haul to assure the success of our great plan Then we’ll be able to smash every vestige of opposition to us in the System!”

Captain Future was only half listening. His mind was torn between his apprehension for Joan and his agony over the fate of the Futuremen and Ezra and Bork. It seemed impossible that any of them could still live, buried beneath the masses of shattered rock.

“When are we going to get this last haul of radium?” Kra Kol was asking doubtfully.

“There’s one possible source we haven’t touched,” muttered Ru Ghur. “I’ve had it in mind a long time, but thought it too risky. But we’ll have to take the risk, since we can’t get radium elsewhere.”

He turned, shot a harsh question at Curt.

“Where is Bork King? I know he was here, for that was his ship we shot down.”

“If you know he’s here, find him,” Captain Future said coolly.

“I saw him running into that chasm with the Futuremen,” volunteered Kra Kol.

“The devil!” snapped Ru Ghur. “Then he’s dead. And he had information that could have helped us.” His small eyes rested on Curt Newton’s face. “But Future must have that information too. We can get it from him or the girl. Tie them up and carry them into the
Falcon
. We’ll take off.”

Curt and Joan, helpless in the face of a dozen guns, were bound and dragged into Ru Ghur’s flagship. They were dropped roughly into chairs in the Uranian’s laboratory-cabin.

Captain Future’s heart sank. He had been a prisoner in this room before. In it was the Lethe-ray apparatus with which Ru Ghur had kept him stupefied.

Joan was pale, but she was not thinking of herself.

“Oh, Curt,” she moaned. “Simon and Otho and the others, entombed under the rock —”

“They’re hard to kill, Joan,” he murmured encouragement, “Don’t give up hope.”

“No talking!” rasped Kra Kol, who stood over them, weapon in hand.

The
Falcon
rose with the three other raider cruisers on roaring jets, heading through the asteroid zone away from Zuun. Ru Ghur waddled into the cabin, puffing from exertion. The fat Uranian dropped into a chair, sighing with relief.

“Now we’re comfortable,” he said. “And now I want to ask you a few friendly questions, Captain Future.” He leaned forward. “Where is the secret Citadel of the Guardians of Mars?”

The question startled Curt. “What makes you think I would know that?” he retorted. “It’s the most sacred secret of the Red Planet.”

“Yes, yes, I know that.” Ru Ghur nodded. “But Bork King was a Guardian of Mars before he was outlawed. He knows all about it. He must have told you in these days you have been working together.”

“He told me nothing,” Captain Future answered flatly.

A sorrowful look came into the Uranian’s yellow face.

“Now, lad, you’re not going to lie to old Ru Ghur, are you? He must have told you something.”

“Why do you want to know about the Guardians?” Curt asked.

“My reasons wouldn’t interest you,” Ru Ghur countered smoothly. “What did Bork King tell you?”

“I repeat, he told me nothing,” Captain Future answered grimly. “Even if he had, you’d not get it from me.”

“I was afraid you’d take that attitude,” mourned the Uranian. “That’s why I brought Miss Randall along. I believe you’ll comply with my simple request rather than let her suffer harm.”

“Pay no attention to his threats, Curt,” Joan said contemptuously. “I’m not afraid.”

“Believe me, Miss Randall, I don’t want to do anything to you,” Ru Ghur said earnestly. “It would nearly kill me if I had to let my men torture a girl like you. But I’ve a great purpose to carry out, and I’ll have to do that if Future won’t talk.”

In his deadly anxiety for Joan, Curt tried to play for time.

“If I did tell you anything I knew, you’d just kill us afterward,” he said.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Ru Ghur assured. “Of course, I couldn’t let you go. I’d keep you both as hostages, under the influence of the Lethe-ray, to make sure that you didn’t try any tricks.”

“It’s not much of a choice — death or that drudged existence,” Captain Future said. “Let us think it over.”

RU GHUR’S beady eyes narrowed. “I’ll give you twenty minutes, no more.” He rose wheezingly to his feet, “Keep your gun on them, Kra Kol,” he ordered. “I’m going up to give the pilot our course.”

The Saturnian sat down in a chair facing the two prisoners, his heavy atom-pistol pointing toward them. His pale eyes never left them.

Captain Future felt trapped, and at wrists and ankles as he and Joan were, and with that Saturnian guarding them alertly there appeared no possibility of action.