Captain Future 02 - Calling Captain Future (Spring 1940) (13 page)

Curt went down but came up instantly, sheathing his proton-pistol and treading water. He looked around the moonlit sea. The enormous body of the dead monster was floating nearby. Tharb was swimming and yelling to the advancing boats.

But Grag was not in sight. The great metal robot had sunk like a stone to the bottom.

CAPTAIN FUTURE felt a sharp dismay as he discovered that Grag had sunk. He was not worried about the robot’s life, for Grag did not breathe and could live under water for a long time. But it would be a difficult task to get him out of the depths.

Treading water, hampered by his furs and chilled by the icy sea, Curt turned and saw the little fleet of boats bearing down upon them in answer to Tharb’s cries. The boats were small copper craft, propelled by sails of sewn hides. They were filled with hairy Plutonians like Tharb, staring at them across the moonlit waves.

The boats dropped their sails and came gliding to them. Hairy arms reached out and hauled Captain Future and Tharb aboard. Curt saw that these Plutonians had been fishing — there were masses of queer, silvery fish and coils of leather lines in the bottom of this boat.

Tharb had been talking swiftly to one of the Plutonians in this boat — a big, hulking individual.

“This is Gorr, chief of my people.” Tharb told Captain Future. “They were fishing and heard our fight with the bibur.”

“You are a brave man to have slain a bibur. Earthman,” the chief, Gorr, told Captain Future, his phosphorescent eyes respectful.

“One of my comrades has sunk — he’s down at the bottom now.” said Captain Future. “I need your help to get him out!”

Tharb goggled. “But he is drowned, by now!”

Captain Future laughed. “Grag can’t drown.”

Captain Future had already devised a simple plan for getting the robot out of his predicament. At his request, the Plutonians gave him the strong hide anchor-ropes from all their boats. Rapidly, Captain Future fastened them together in a strong, long line of double strength.

His drenched clothing was like a shroud of ice around him, for the wind was blowing stronger. The six copper boats tossed uneasily on the surface of the silver ocean, while their hairy crews puzzledly watched this big, red-haired young Earthman working by the light of the three moons.

“I do not like this wind,” said Gorr, looking uneasily at flat clouds coming up across the western sky. “We cannot, stay here long.”

“I’m almost done,” Captain Future said quickly. “This rope should be long enough to reach bottom.”

He took from his belt his little atomic lamp, turned it on, and tied it to the end of his long leather rope. Then he lowered the brightly-burning little lamp down into the moonlit sea.

He had paid out almost all his rope before he felt the lamp reach bottom. He waited, then. Grag, down there, should be able to see the lamp and go to it.

“A blizzard-storm is coming up,” Tharb said anxiously. “It will be dangerous out here on the sea.”

There came a sudden strong tug at the leather line, and Captain Future uttered an eager exclamation.

“Grag has the line now! Help me haul him up.”

Making sure that the robot understood his plan and was holding the leather rope, Captain Future and the Plutonians in the boat started to hoist Grag.

THE enormous weight of the metal robot, even though partially compensated for by the fact that he was in water, strained the muscles of Curt and his hairy helpers. But foot by foot, the tough leather rope came up and at last Grag’s metal head and shoulders appeared above the water.

Captain Future helped the robot to scramble into the boat. Then the red-haired adventurer burst out laughing.

Grag was a ludicrous sight. Sea weeds were wrapped around him like festooned flowers, and he was smeared with ooze.

“I do not know why you laugh, Master,” sputtered the big metal man. “It was a dark, bad place down there. And a huge fish attacked me — it tried to bite off my arm.”

“I’ll bet it got the surprise of its life when it found your arm was metal,” chuckled Curt.

“Up sails!” the chief Gorr was shouting over the moan of winds. “Unless we get off this sea before the blizzard comes, we’ll never see the city Qulun again!”

Hastily the hide sails were raised. As the rising wind caught them, it sent the little fleet of copper boats spinning swiftly over the heaving, moonlit ocean. They steered a northeastward course, the craft of Gorr leading.

Captain Future’s drenched furs were frozen stiff by the icy wind, and blinding salt spray dashed his face as he crouched with Grag and Tharb in the stern of the little boat. The scream of wind and roar of waves around them made speech impossible.

And yet Captain Future laughed softly. Danger was a wine of excitement in his veins, whether it be danger met in the vast starry vaults of space or on some weird world like this one. It was in such moments that Captain Future felt that he was living the most.

“Qulun harbor!” shouted Gorr in a stentorian voice. “Helms over, or we’ll run past it!”

The copper boat threatened to capsize, but recovered and shot past the looming cape, into a small cove rimmed by an icy shore.

The other Plutonian boats followed. Presently their keels grated on ice. The hairy men leaped out and pulled the boats safely up beside others that lay beached along the frozen shore.

Captain Future glimpsed Tharb stumbling toward him through the screaming snow that now clogged the air.

“My city Qulun is near,” Tharb shouted over the roar of storm. “Come with us.”

Curt Newton and Grag accompanied the Plutonians along a narrow path that wound back through glistening ice-hills.

The darkness was intense but Gorr and his men seemed to know their way perfectly. Presently they entered a small enclosed valley, in which stood the city of the Plutonians.

It was a city of ice. Every one of is square one and two-storied buildings was a monolith of glittering ice, constructed by the simple process of setting up forms and pouting in fresh water which immediately froze, and remained frozen.

Gorr led them to a big, square ice-building that was larger than any of its neighbors.

“My house,” the Plutonian chief shouted to Captain Future. “You shall be my guests.”

Curt turned to Tharb. “But I want to see your grandfather, old Kiri,” he reminded. “That’s why I came here.”

“He will be here, if he still lives,” Tharb answered. The Plutonian added a little proudly, “Gorr, the chief, is of our family.”

THE big room was lit by flaming torches of bone soaked in oil, stuck into metal sockets. The benches and chairs were of solid ice, monolithic with the floor, and covered with furs.

A dozen Plutonians of both sexes, all wearing simple leather garments, stared wonderingly with their phosphorescent eyes at the big, red-haired Earthman and his huge metal companion. The hairy Plutonians did not seem to feel cold, but to Curt the chill of this place was penetrating.

“Food and drink for my friends!” ordered the hulking Gorr in a lordly manner.

As some of the Plutonian women hurried out of the room to prepare a meal, Curt found Tharb tugging at his sleeve.

“Here is my grandfather,” the Plutonian told him, leading him to a corner of the big room. “This is Kiri.”

In the corner, wrapped in heavy bibur-furs, sat an ancient Plutonian whose thick hair had turned grayish white with age, and whose dimly shining eyes peered up weakly from a shriveled face.

“It is Tharb, your grandson,” the younger Plutonian told the blinking old one. “I bring an Earthman who desires information. He wishes to know about the Magicians.”

“The Magicians?” echoed old Kiri in a shrill, quavering voice. “The Magicians have not been seen here since long ago — since the Earthmen came.”

“I know that,” Curt said quickly to the old Plutonian. “But where did the Magicians dwell? Was it near here?”

“No, the Magicians never dwelt here,” old Kiri replied. “They came here in strange flying ships. They were strange, white-furred people, who had great powers and wisdom. They could look like anything they wanted to — like us, or like an animal, or even like a lump of ice. That was a great witchcraft.”

Captain Future’s pulse quickened as he heard. Then, even long ago, these so-called Magicians had possessed the power of creating disguising illusions?

“Yet though their powers were great,” old Kiri was continuing, “they came in peace. They traded with us, giving us fine metal tools in exchange for certain minerals which we dug out from below the ice. But all this stopped, after the Earthmen came to this world. The Magicians never came again — and I am almost the only man of my people who now remembers them.”

“But where did they come from?” Curt asked the ancient Plutonian tensely.

“They came down from the moons!” Kiri answered. “Yes, in their flying-ships, they came from the moons, and went back to their homes there.”

“From the moons?” Curt repeated amazedly. “Which of the three moons?”

“I do not know that,” Kiri quavered. “I only know that their home was on one of the moons.”

CURT was startled by the information. He saw at once how much it narrowed the field of his search.

The secret home of the Magicians, he reasoned, must be on either Cerberus or Charon. The third moon, Styx, was completely water-covered and so out of the question. But how was he to find out on which of the two other moons the Magicians dwelt?

“Do you remember anything more about the Magicians?” he asked the old Plutonian.

“Little more,” old Kiri confessed. “I remember that they would not eat our food — they said it did not have enough cobalt in it to suit them.”

“Cobalt?” Captain Future repeated. His eyes narrowed. “Then they must have come from a world whose soil or water was rich in cobalt salts.”

And now Captain Future remembered something that had puzzled him when he had made scientific examination of the dead body of the white-furred creature, on the way out to Pluto.

That was the queer blue color of the creature’s bones. He had not had time to analyze it then. But he realized now it was due to food or water with a high content of cobalt salts.

“If we can find which moon, Cerberus or Charon, has indigenous life with a high cobalt content in its skeleton, we’ll know then on which moon the Magicians live — and where Doctor Zarro’s base is!”

Grag stared puzzledly. “But the man, Victor Krim, said there was no such race on Charon, Master. And Rundall Lane, the warden of Cerberus prison, said the same about Cerberus.”

“They said that, yes,” Captain Future retorted meaningly. “But one of them could have been lying.”

Captain Future already had reason to connect Victor Krim and Rundall Lane with Doctor Zarro. For they, and Cole Romer, had been the only ones besides the Police who had known that he was on his way to Pluto — the only ones, so it seemed, who could have given the information to the Legion of Doom in time for it to make its murderous surprise attack on him.

If Krim or Rundall Lane were connected with Doctor Zarro, the guilty one would naturally lie about the Magicians.

But Captain Future meant to use the cobalt clue to ascertain whether it was on Cerberus or Charon that the mysterious Magicians dwelt!

Gorr, the hulking chief, came up and interrupted Curt’s rapid thoughts.

“Our feast is ready, Earthman,” he announced.

Captain Future rose, thanking old Kiri for his information. But before following Gorr to the feast, he drew his pocket-televisor from his belt and pushed its button to call Otho.

In a moment came the answering buzz from Otho, in distant Tartarus.

“Come at once in the
Comet,”
Captain Future ordered. “Our flier was destroyed and it’s imperative that I get back to Tartarus as soon as possible. I’ll leave the call-wave on to guide you here.”

“Coming at once, Chief!” Otho answered excitedly.

CURT frowned as he put the instrument back into his belt. “Otho sounded upset,” he muttered. “Wonder what’s happened?”

“I hope nothing has happened to Eek, Master,” said Grag anxiously.

They approached the feast that had been prepared, around which Gorr and Tharb and the other Plutonians were waiting.

“You went to too much trouble to prepare all this for us,” Captain Future told the hairy chief in polite protest.

“No, this is our usual style,” the chief replied grandiloquently. “The house of Gorr does not starve, as you see.”

They all seemed proud to have an Earthman as their guest, though they looked a little dubiously at great Grag, sitting beside Captain Future like a metal statue, and eating nothing.

As Captain Future ate and laughed with the Plutonians, and heard their tales of perilous exploits amid the Marching Mountains arid the icy oceans, his mind was feverishly anxious to follow up his new lead to Doctor Zarro. He was convinced now that the master-plotter’s base was on Cerberus or Charon.

The meal over, Captain Future and Grag went out into the street, into the teeth of the ferocious blizzard, the Plutonians following.