Captain Future 06 - Star Trail to Glory (Spring 1941) (17 page)

"Otho, you disguise yourself as Jan Walker here," Captain Future ordered, "while I make the second accelerator. And make your disguise good."

"My disguises aren't just good. They're perfect!"

As Curt Newton labored to construct a replica of the time accelerator he had already built, Otho proceeded to make himself up. The android was the greatest master of disguise in the System. By means of a chemical oil, his synthetic flesh could be softened and remolded into desired features. Using pigment to stain his eyes the color of Walker's, fitting a wig onto his reshaped head, Otho made himself an exact duplicate of the dazed Rocketeer.

"Well, which one of us is the real Walker?" he demanded.

STANDING beside the Rocketeer, he was like an identical twin. Walker seemed unable to believe his own eyes. Meanwhile Curt had finished building the second accelerator. It had been merely a matter of duplicating the parts of the first and assembling them.

"Good work, Otho," he approved. "You'll need Walker's clothes and Rocketeer badge. Walker, I'll want you to remain here in the Planet Police building, so that no one will suspect the imposture Otho is pulling."

"I'll — I'll be glad to do that," Jan Walker agreed shakily. "I've been through so much since I met you that I need some rest, anyway."

Curt glanced up at a clock.

"It's nearly morning now," he said. "The preliminary test races for the race will be starting at Suicide Station in a few hours. Otho and I had better be getting over there. We'll have to tell them that we were picked up in space by a liner, and brought back to Mercury." He went on to explain to Joan. "The pilots who win the preliminary races enter the race. They draw lots to see which maker's ship they pilot in the race. I don't have any doubt about our winning a place in the preliminaries, but I hope we don't draw the Rissman."

"Why, the Rissman will probably be the fastest ship!" Otho cried.

"Yes, but the hijackers never bother Rissman ships. We want them to try to capture ours before the race ends." He turned toward the door. "Ezra, you and Joan check those production figures for me. Grag, wait here in case the Brain returns. Come along, Otho. We've got to hurry now if we're to be in that race."

"THE Rocketeers are coming!"

The excited, pulse-stirring cry spread electrically across the dense crowd gathered around the edges of Solar City's spaceport. Every eye turned eagerly toward the men in space-suits who had emerged from the pilot's building and were crossing the tarmac toward the row of waiting space ships. Each ship was a Twenty. The crowd surged forward against the Planet Police holding them back.

"Give her the gun when you get out there, Losor! I've bet a thousand at two to one that the Rissman will win!"

"Show them what a Martian pilot and a Martian ship can do, Yalu! All my money's on you and your Tark!"

A big televisor stand had been set up. Its view screens were transmitting the thrilling scene all over the Solar System. The televisor announcer was talking swiftly into his microphones.

"There they come, folks — the racing Rocketeers themselves! The pilots who have won the chance to compete in the terrific grind of the Round-the-System Race!"

He signaled his assistant to swivel the view screens.

"See their ships lined up waiting for them? That first slim craft is the Rissman entry. You can always tell a Rissman by its long streamlined hull. They say the race wouldn't be run this time if Christian Rissman hadn't insisted on it. The other manufacturers allegedly wanted to call off the race because of some space ship thefts that have apparently been going on. They feared their ships in the race might be stolen, too. But when Rissman insisted, the others had to fall in or lose to him by default.

"The betting's on Rissman's entry, but that Tark beyond it doesn't look as though it's slow, either. And the Kalber and Cruh-Cholo ships will be right there in the running. It's whispered that the Cruh-Cholo can accelerate faster than anything in the race. Gray Garson has a fast-looking little ship that looks like a dark horse. Zamor's entry seems a little obsolete, but you never can tell. Remember, these are all stock model ships, folks! The manufacturer who wins gains tremendous prestige for his product.

"You all know the course of this race, ladies and gentlemen — around the whole Solar System, the most grueling course imaginable! From the start here at Mercury, the racers will plunge right into one of the most dangerous sections of the race, a loop close around the Sun. Then on to Venus and Earth, out to Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus, and then to distant Pluto. From Pluto they'll loop back in toward Neptune. And from Neptune it's a terrific sprint back to Mercury.

"They must swoop over the spaceport of the capital city of each planet, and drop a flare to testify that they reached it. But they're not allowed to stop for repairs or anything else. These ships are loaded with fuel-minerals for their cyclotrons, enough for the whole tremendous flight. Once they take off, it's round the System — or else!

"The pilots are entering their ships now and getting last-minute instructions from the owners. Some veteran Rocketeer racers are at the throttles today. Losor the Neptunian drew the Rissman, the favorite. Yalu, the old Martian veteran, drew the Tark. Immler, the noted Earthman racer, has the Kalber. Here's something interesting. Two young Earthmen Rocketeers who never flew in a race before will be in this one! They're Ray Barret and Jan Walker, two new Rocketeers who somehow managed to place in the preliminary elimination contests.

"Too bad they drew the Zamor ship to pilot. They won't have much chance to win in it, experts believe. Yet anything can happen in this greatest of all space-racing classics! There's never been a Round-the-System Race yet without accidents. A thousand perils are waiting for these audacious pilots. They know what they're heading into, but they're not afraid. They're ready to hit the star trail — to glory or to death!"

WHILE the announcer was giving his excited description, the pilots and co-pilots of the ships on the tarmac were calling to each other.

"Better keep out of my way when we blast off, Yalu!" called Loser, the Neptunian. I'll run you down!"

"Oho!" shrilled the old Martian pilot. "Why, I'll be back here at Mercury taking bows when you're still out by Pluto."

Immler, the squat pilot who had the Kalber, shouted mirthfully to the two young Earthmen by the little Zamor at the end of the line.

"You, Barret and Walker! Any messages you want me to take ahead? It's going to be a long time before you fellows get back in that tub."

Otho, perfectly disguised as Jan Walker, muttered an oath.

"Why did we have to draw this slow old Zamor? We won't have a chance."

"We're not out to win this race," Captain Future reminded him. "All we want to do is keep up with the others, so that if the hijackers attack, they'll try to capture our ship, too."

"We'll have to push this tub to the limit even to keep in sight of the others," complained Otho.

"Shut up. Here comes Zamor with his instructions."

Zamor, the Mercurian space ship manufacturer, had a worried look on his swarthy face as he approached them.

"Now don't you two youngsters crash this ship taking crazy chances. This race is dangerous enough as it is. I still think we should have called it off, but Rissman insisted. He knows that his ship won't be stolen!"

"We'll do our best," Curt Newton promised. "You realize we don't have the power or speed of some of those other ships."

"I know, I know," replied Zamor nervously. "If you just finish the race safely, I'll be satisfied. But if you can win, it would just about save my company from bankruptcy. So do your best."

He left them as Otho began to warm up the cyclotrons. The throbbing of the powerful atomic power generators made the whole silvery torpedo hull of the Zamor shudder violently. Down the line, the other pilots and co-pilots were warming up their ships.

The thunder of cyclotrons was interrupted by sharp crashes as the pilots checked rocket-tubes. Captain Future touched one throttle after another, testing all the twenty tail-tubes, and then the keel-jets.

"They check on the orbit, Otho!" he called. "I'll ease off the cycs to idling speed."

He and the android put on the time accelerator caps and strapped the transformer cases into their space-suits. The switch of the weird accelerators protruded through a special valve Curt had made in the chests of their suits. They put on their helmets over the nickel caps.

"All off the tarmac!" roared an amplified voice across the spaceport. "Two minutes to blast-off! Stand by for the signal, Rocketeers!"

"Clear space and good luck, boys!" called Losor as he and his co-pilot entered their Rissman.

"Clear space and luck!" called back the other pilots.

"Close her up, Otho," ordered Curt.

The android hastily spun shut the space-door and then scrambled into the chair beside Captain Future. The shaking thunder of the cyclotrons deafened them. The holding-blocks were being pulled away outside.

"One minute to blast-off!" warned the amplified voice.

Curt's fingers tensed over the bank of rocket-throttles. His foot on the cyc-pedal pressed inward, bringing the cyclotrons' roar to a high, screaming pitch.

"Blast off!" roared the starter's voice, and a signal flared.

CURT jerked open the throttles of all tail-tubes and keel-jets. A giant hand seemed to smash him, knocking the breath from his body. He heard the tortured shriek of the recoil springs over the roar of rockets. There was a screeching of air outside that swiftly stopped. They were already tearing out of the thin atmosphere of Mercury. It was none too soon, for the friction-heat alarm was already beginning to clang.

Captain Future glimpsed the vast vault of empty space ahead, a crazy field of stars with the colossal disk of the Sun bulking in monstrous splendor. He glimpsed a black blob ahead of him against the Sun, a stubby black object pluming tails of rocket-flame almost into his face.

"Kiri has jumped us all on the blastoff!" Otho was shouting. "That Cruh-Cholo must have a terrific pick-up!"

Leaping past their craft came two other ships, and then a third. Curt recognized the Tark and Kalber, and the slim, streamlined Rissman.

"There go Losor, Yalu and Immler!" cried Otho. "What a chance we've got to keep up with them in this old boat!"

"We've got to keep up with them," Curt muttered. "We'll try to gain time when we loop around the Sun."

Losor's Rissman had forged ahead of the Tark and Kalber, but Kiri in his Cruh-Cholo was maintaining the slight lead his superior pick-up had given him. Now the Garson was running up abreast of their Zamor.

The Sun became colossal beyond belief, a sea of flame across the firmament. Its radiant heat was becoming smothering even inside the insulated ship. Curt and Otho hardly knew how much time had passed. Time became meaningless in the grind of a space race. Yet Captain Future's mind was alert every moment for a possible attack by the hijackers he hoped to trap.

"Cut over — Sugan's crossing us!" yelled Otho suddenly.

Sugan, the Saturnian pilot of Garson's entry, was driving his ship across their course to get an inner lane on the Sunward track.

"He won't cross us," Curt gritted, and pressed the cyc-pedal hard.

The Zamor bucked under them and flung obliquely ahead from a blast of its laterals. They raced on, the Garson still on their outer side. They were closer to the monstrous whirling mass of the Sun. Curt drove still closer, nearer than any of the other racing ships. The heat became terrific. He was bathed in sweat, his skin scorching, his head pounding. He was counting on making a closer loop around the Sun than any of the other ships, and thus gaining precious space.

No pilot but Captain Future would have dared run this close. Only he could have judged to such a hairline the closest approach he could make without buckling the plates of their hull. The air in the Zamor was scorching. His tongue was cleaving to his palate.

If a cyclotron gave way, it meant death in the fiery sea of the Sun, into which they would inevitably fall. Yet he must stay in this race!

"We've looped it!" came Otho's hoarse cry finally. "Straighten her out for Venus, Chief!"

Curt's dazed eyes made out that they were well in the lead of all the other ships. None of the others had dared fly so close.

"It's given us a lead, though space knows we won't hold it long," he muttered.

STREAKING through space toward the little white blob of Venus, the Zamor valiantly led the way. But the Cruh-Cholo and the Tark and Rissman were pulling up after it like hounds after prey. The Cruh-Cholo and Losor's Rissman flashed past them as they neared Venus. Old Yalu was abreast of them in the Tark. Bow-tubes flashed as all ships cut speed to dive into the cloudy Venusian atmosphere, yet the friction-heat alarms clamored again as they drove down into the pale daylight over Venusopolis.

Captain Future glimpsed the big crowd gathered on the spaceport, west of the beautiful white city that lay between the deep swamp and the sea. Down over that spaceport roared the racing ships.