Captain Future 02 - Calling Captain Future (Spring 1940) (3 page)

Newton and his young wife and the Brain had reached the Moon safely, and had built an underground home beneath Tycho Crater. There, soon after their arrival, a son was born to the man and woman — a boy whom they named Curtis. And there they began the work of creating artificial living creatures.

GRAG, the robot, was the first creature created by Roger Newton and the Brain. Their second creation was not of metal but of synthetic plastic flesh molded into a manlike android — Otho, the synthetic man. These two artificial creatures, intelligent, strong faithful, showed Roger Newton that he had at last realized his dream.

Then disaster struck. The evil plotters who coveted Newton’s scientific secrets had trailed him to the Moon. There was a fight — and Roger Newton and his young wife were slain, before the robot and the synthetic man killed the murderers.

Dying, Elaine Newton entrusted her infant son to the care of the three unhuman creatures, Brain, robot and android. She begged them to rear him to manhood and implant in him a hatred of all those who used scientific gifts for evil ends — to train him as a relentless foe of an such as would oppress or exploit the System people.

Simon Wright and Grag and Otho had kept that promise. They had reared little Curtis Newton to manhood. And the Brain, with its wonderful scientific knowledge, had so schooled him that he became a wizard of scientific ability surpassing his teacher. Grag, the robot, strongest of living beings, had fostered his strength until it was superhuman. And Otho the android, swiftest and most agile of all creatures, had taught him unmatchable speed and deftness.

Thus Curtis Newton had grown to manhood on the lonely Moon, with his three unhuman tutors. When he had reached manhood, the Brain had told him the story of his origin, and had repeated the dying wish of his mother that he become champion of the System’s peoples against those who would oppress them.

“Will you take up this crusade against interplanetary evil, Curtis?” the Brain had asked. “Will you embark on this crusade, this fight for the future of the System?”

Curtis Newton had made his fateful decision, one that was to change history.

“Yes, Simon — someone has to stand up for the System peoples against their exploiters. And, with you three helping me, I’ll do my best.”

He had added half-humorously: “Since you say I’ll be fighting for the future of the System, I think I’ll call myself — Captain Future.”

As Captain Future, then, Curt had offered his services to the System President in the war against interplanetary crime. At first doubtful of this strange, redheaded young man, the President had in a desperate emergency called upon his aid.

Captain Future and the Futuremen had demonstrated their power, swiftly, relentlessly. Since then, the President had called him time and again by the agreed signal. And time and again, Curt Newton and his three strange, loyal comrades had gone forth in perilous struggle.

CURT was thinking of all that now, as he faced his three comrades. “You two are more than human to me,” he told Grag and Otho impulsively. “So why can’t you quit this continual jealousy about which is the most human?”

“Otho is too overbearing,” Grag boomed, cuddling the moon-pup in his metal arm. “He should remember that I was made before he was.”

“Of course you were — you were such a bad job that they had to try again and make me before they were satisfied,” Otho jeered, with a mocking gleam in his slitted green eyes.

“Will you let him talk so, master?” appealed Grag angrily to Curt Newton. “He —”

“The signal!” cried the Brain suddenly.

Simon’s lens-eyes had glanced up through the window overhead at the great green sphere of Earth. The cry of the Brain made the other three look up instantly.

There upon the great cloudy green planet hanging in starry space, upon the white patch at the North Pole, a blazing pinpoint of light was pulsing and throbbing.

“It is the signal!” Captain Future said gravely. “We’re needed.”

Captain Future’s debonair tanned face had changed, grown grim. His nostrils were flaring, his brilliant gray eyes had something chill and hard as steel in them now.

The Futuremen were gripped by the same strange emotion. The call from Earth! The tocsin that summoned these four to action! It was for this call that they waited through long weeks, living and working in the lunar laboratory.

Captain Future’s voice rang like a silver trumpet summoning to battle.

“To the
Comet!
That call admits of no delay. The President never calls for nothing.”

“Pick me up, Grag,” rasped the Brain’s calm, metallic voice.

The robot picked up the handle of the Brain’s case. With the moon-pup clinging to his other arm, Grag started with hasty strides after Curt Newton and Otho.

Ten minutes later a small ship shaped like an elongated tear-drop rose from an underground hangar on the lunar surface. It was the
Comet,
super-swift craft of the Futuremen, known far and wide through the System as the swiftest ship in space.

Two hours later, so swift was its flight, the
Comet
screamed down through the stratosphere of Earth’s night side. Curt Newton dropped the little craft straight toward the great Government Tower that rose above all other structures of brilliant New York.

The
Comet
came to rest on the truncated tip of the tower. As Curt and the Futuremen emerged, they saw in the plaza far below a great crowd that surged riotously against a line of Police.

Curt’s lip tightened.

“Something’s damned wrong, from the look of things. Come on — hurry —”

They hastened down a stairway that led directly into the private office of the System President. The three men in that office, Carthew, his secretary, and Commander Anders of the Planet Police, spun around startledly.

“Captain Future!” cried Carthew, his voice shrill with relief, his fine face working as he came hastily forward.

YOUNG Bonnel and the burly Commander stared, not without awe, at the tall young wizard of science and his companions.

Curt Newton’s big figure radiated power and confidence as he stood there, the weird trio of the Futuremen behind him — giant Grag, the Brain he held, and the rubbery android.

“What’s wrong, sir?” Curt demanded of the President. “What does that rioting crowd down there want?”

“They want me to turn the System Government over to Doctor Zarro and his Legion!” burst Carthew.

“Doctor Zarro?” Curt’s eyebrows rose. “Who the devil is that?”

“You haven’t heard of him?” cried Bonnel incredulously. “Why, the whole System has heard his broadcasts about the dark star.”

“What dark star?” snapped Captain Future. “I’ve heard nothing. Simon and I have been engaged for weeks in advanced electronic experiments. Tell me what’s been going on.”

James Carthew told him, in hasty, stumbling words.

“Nine-tenths of the people now believe utterly in Doctor Zarro’s warnings!” Carthew finished hoarsely. “They want me to turn over all power to him, because he claims he can avert the peril.”

Curt’s gray eyes snapped.

“Obviously this Doctor Zarro is merely using the dark star as a pretext to usurp dictatorial power. You say the System astronomers are convinced that there is no real peril in the dark star?”

“Yes. They all agreed that the dark star has far too small a mass to be a danger. Though it is hard to believe so large a body could have so small a mass.”

“Simon and I will check on that by observing the dark star for ourselves,” muttered Curt. “But first this Doctor Zarro has to be caught and silenced before he spreads more panic.”

Commander Anders shook his head hopelessly.

“We can’t find Doctor Zarro! It is impossible to locate the hidden base he and his Legion are using. And more scientists keep disappearing — Kansu Kane, the astro-physicist of Venus Observatory, vanished an hour ago!”

“It’s legitimate to infer that Doctor Zarro’s Legion is behind these vanishings,” Curt said. “We must have a starting point. I think we’ll go to Venus and try to pick up the trail —”

The desk televisor buzzed suddenly. Commander Halk Anders sprang toward it.

“I ordered all calls from Venus routed to me here,” he exclaimed. “It may be one of our agents there —”

He pressed a button. In the televisor screen appeared the face of a strikingly pretty Earth girl, with dark, wavy hair. Her small, firm face was pale, her brown eyes flashing excitedly.

“Joan Randall!” exclaimed Curt Newton.

He recognized the girl as one of the ace secret agents of the Planet Police. She had helped him on Jupiter recently in the case of the Space Emperor.

“Captain Future!” cried the girl joyfully. “Then you’re working against Doctor Zarro? Thank heavens!”

SHE spoke with urgent rapidity. “I think I’ve got a lead to this Doctor Zarro. I was here on Venus when Kansu Kane, the scientist, vanished an hour ago. He was kidnapped by the Legion of Doom. I trailed the Legion men who did it to their ship, and heard them say their next job would be to seize Gatola, the Martian astronomer —”

Joan suddenly stopped. She exclaimed: “Someone’s trying to get in here! If the Legion saw me and followed me —”

She disappeared from the screen. They heard the crash of a bursting door, then a scream. The televisor went dark.

“Joan!” cried Captain Future. There was no answer.

“The Legion of Doom realized she was spying on them! They’ve kidnapped her too, lad!” rasped the Brain.

THE cold night wind whispered across the Martian desert, seeming to murmur of mystery and a mighty past. It sighed like a chill, alien breath toward the lighted towers of Syrtis, the equatorial Martian metropolis in the distance.

Out here in the moonlit desert a mile from the city Syrtis, the
Comet
lay motionless between two concealing sand dunes. Inside the little ship, in the super-compact laboratory that occupied its mid-section, Captain Future was rapidly preparing for a perilous enterprise.

His red hair almost touched the ceiling as his tall figure strode to and fro, explaining his plan to the Futuremen.

“It’s our one chance to get Joan Randall out of the hands of the Legion of Doom, and to get a lead to Doctor Zarro!” he explained, his gray eyes alight. “That’s why I wanted to come straight to Mars from Earth, after we realized Joan had been captured. Joan said that the Legion, or those of it who kidnapped Kansu Kane, were coming next to Mars to abduct Gatola, the astronomer-director of Syrtis Observatory. They should arrive here tonight for the attempt. When they come, I’ll be waiting for them!”

The Brain’s lens-eyes doubtfully watched the keen, eager brown face of the young scientific wizard.

“But if the Legion men heard Joan telling us of their plans, they won’t be foolish enough to come here,” he objected.

“I doubt if they heard. We’ve got to chance it. They’ll have Joan and Kansu Kane with them as captives when they come to kidnap Gatola. We’ll turn the tables on them — if we’re lucky.”

Grag the robot shifted his great metal body uneasily. He had been standing listening with Otho and the Brain, with the little bright-eyed moon-pup chewing playfully on his arm.

“Of course we can overcome these Legion men, master,” he said with heavy subtlety.

Curt grinned at him. “Nothing doing, Grag — you stay here in the ship with Simon. Otho goes with me.”

“You always take him!” Grag complained loudly. “Why can’t I go too?”

Otho laughed jeeringly. “Do you suppose we want a bunch of rusty machinery clanking along with us through the city? You stay here with your crazy little pet — and keep him from eating up my equipment, or I’ll toss him out into space somewhere.”

Eek, the gray moon-pup, thrust its sharp snout toward Otho and made a furious grimace, its chisel-like teeth clashing.

The moon-pup was telepathic, that being the only means of communication evolved by its species on the airless, soundless moon. It fully understood Otho’s dislike, and reciprocated heartily.

“You have hurt Eek’s feelings!” Grag boomed wrathfully. “You are always picking on him, just because he has to have a little metal to eat sometimes.”

“A little?” echoed Otho. “The cursed beast ate half a steelite stanchion today before we stopped him!”

CURT NEWTON had turned and was speaking earnestly to the Brain, whose case rested on his special pedestal.

“Simon, while I’m gone you can make some photographic and spectroscopic studies of the dark star. Especially, we need some accurate measurements of its mass.”

“Aye, lad,” rasped the Brain. “I should have them all in a few hours.”

The mid-section of the
Comet,
in which Curt and the Futuremen now were, contained all the facilities the Brain would need for his researches. Electro-telescopes, spectro-telescopes, bolometers, and compact spectro-heliographs crowded the corner devoted to astronomical science. Marvelous photographic equipment occupied a place next to the file, which contained spectra of all System bodies and of thousands of stars, and atmosphere-samples of all worlds.