Captain Future 06 - Star Trail to Glory (Spring 1941) (7 page)

THEY went hastily on through the dark marsh, struggling through choking jungle and oozy muck to keep up with the marsh men. Soon their amphibious allies signaled that they were approaching the base. They could descry the flaring krypton lights of the base through the jungle.

"Otho, you and the marsh men attack from this side," Captain Future ordered in a whisper. "Grag and I will enter the base from the other side in the confusion and grab the
Comet.
Then —"

"Look!" yelled Ezra Gurney. "They are leavin'!"

With a roar of rocket-tubes, a big Cruh-Cholo Twenty-four was taking off from the floating base ahead. It roared up into the fog and was followed by Zamors and Tarks and a Kalber.

"They're going on to their main base from here!" Otho cried. "They'll take the
Comet
with them!"

"We can't let them get away with the
Comet!"
Curt Newton shouted.

His proton pistol leaped from its holster of black Plutonian leather as he plunged recklessly forward. Grag, Otho and the marsh men were at his heels. There was no chance of surprise now, for the machine men were taking away the ships they had captured. Were the Futuremen too late to prevent final loss of the
Comet?

"There they go in the
Comet!"
Curt yelled as he and his horde burst out to the edge of the base. "Stop them!"

Out on the floating metal base, the last of the stolen ships was rising with roaring rocket-tubes into the mist. Apparently the machine men had given up hope of recapturing Otho, and were deserting the Venus base before Otho could bring forces to attack it. The
Comet
was the last ship to rise, probably because the machine men were less familiar with the unique controls of the famous ship. But it was already swinging up into the clouds, its under-jets roaring flame as it rose on an even keel.

"They got away with the ship, curse them!" Grag bellowed furiously!

"Not yet, they haven't!" Otho denied.

The android bunched himself and with incredible agility leaped upward at the receding ship. The
Comet
was thirty feet above them. No other being in the System could have reached it — none but Otho, greatest acrobat in nine worlds! He thrust his atom-pistol at one of the heavy tubes and fired it.

The blast from his pistol, penetrating through the tube to the cyclotrons, had the effect of a reverse blast. It exploded one of the
Comet's
cyclotrons. The dull roar inside the ship was clearly audible. The teardrop craft shuddered in mid-air, then tumbled downward and crashed onto the metal base. Otho had flung himself to one side before the impact, rolling over and over as he struck. But when he jumped up, his rubbery body was unharmed.

"I wrecked one of the ship's cyclotrons, but I stopped them, Chief!" he panted.

"Into the ship and get them before they can put up a fight!" Curt ordered.

They tore open the space-door of the
Comet
and burst inside, Curt and Joan in the lead. Two machine men lay sprawled on the floor near the controls, killed by the explosion of the cyclotrons. A third suddenly appeared from nowhere, grabbed up Joan in its mighty girder-arms. The girl screamed and went limp.

"Stand back!" Captain Future shouted to the others in the doorway. "Don't let it pass!"

Realizing he was trapped, the machine man rushed toward Curt. But Future had anticipated a move like that from the semi-intelligent creature. He seized a hand-hold on the wall and sprang out of the way, at the same instant firing his atom gun at the machine man's cubical head. A neat hole appeared in the metal skull. With a groan the mechanical man dropped Joan and began to fall.

Curt leaped from the wall, struck the machine man's shoulder just in time to prevent hundreds of pounds of solid metal from toppling on Joan and crushing her. The machine man slumped harmlessly to the floor, its strange life gone.

WHEN Joan had been revived, they were able to look around the interior of the
Comet.
Everything had been damaged by the bursting of a mighty cyclotron. The damage could be repaired, but it would take hours to construct another cyclotron from spare parts.

"You sure made a lot of work for us. Otho," Grag grumbled.

"You saved the ship for us, and that's what counts most," Curt told the android. "But the other machine men got away with their booty. They probably aren't aware that these machine men aren't following with the
Comet.
We can't pursue them until the ship is repaired, and that will be hours of work."

Swarming over the deserted base, the marsh men were uttering wild cries of victory. Ezra and Joan had arrived with them. The Brain had already glided into the
Comet
and was inspecting the "dead" machine men. The blasted bodies of the three beings were too fragmentary to yield any new information. Curt searched the whole base for some clue of the machine men's mystery weapon, but found nothing.

"They would take their weapons with them when they abandoned this base, of course," Curt muttered. "Well, all we can do is repair the ship and get after them as soon as possible."

Hours went by while Captain Future, Grag and Otho worked at the task of repairing the
Comet.
They had set up a portable atomic foundry, and Grag labored over it to forge new metal plates. Otho welded them into plate, while Curt and the Brain checked the ship's instruments and repaired or replaced those which had been damaged by the blast. Finally all four Futuremen combined to assemble a new cyclotron and bolt it into place.

The Planet Police cruiser in which they had traveled to Venus had come on from its hiding place in the swamp to the floating base. It would destroy the base to prevent its being used again. This fact elated the marsh men.

"Thanks, good demon!" they cried to Otho. "You did this for us."

"What do you mean, he did it?" Grag jealously growled. "All he did was make a lot of work for us by damaging our ship,"

The
Comet
rose from the floating base, zoomed sharply up through the paling dawn over the Great South Marsh, and blasted skyward.

"These machine men who left here will be taking their stolen ships on to their Main Base, wherever it is," Curt declared. "We'll see if we can't follow them by their rocket-trail."

Emerging from the cloudy atmosphere of Venus into space, they circled for a time.

Curt and the Brain worked with the electroscopes.

"Here it is," the Brain rasped finally. "See, lad? The ionized rocket-trail of all those ships leads toward Mercury."

"Mercury, eh?" Captain Future muttered. "Then the Main Base of the space ship thieves must be there. That's where the space ship industry is centered, and also where the Rocketeer testing grounds are located."

"Do you suspect that some of the Rocketeers may be mixed up in these thefts?" Joan Randall asked.

"Or that somebody in the space ship industry's behind it?" drawled Ezra Gurney.

"Whoever plans these thefts seems to know just what new ships the Rocketeers are testing," Curt reminded. "Only somebody in the industry, or in the Rocketeers themselves, would know that. Yet where would he get these queer machine men he's using, and what's his motive? We'll follow the rocket-trail to Mercury. I think the answer to all those questions is there."

Hour after hour the
Comet
tore Sunward while the Brain constantly checked the rocket-trail they followed. Joan Randall came forward to the control room, where Curt Newton was piloting. Her dark, pretty face was eager as she looked ahead at the small planet close to the Sun.

"Do you think we can find them on Mercury?" she asked. "I'd like to see how that mysterious new weapon works. It would be a thrill."

"Haven't you had enough thrills?" Captain Future demanded severely. "I should think that after four years of secret Planet Police work, all you'd want would be a nice, safe home."

"Is that a proposal?" Joan cried instantly. "If it is, I take you up on it right now."

Curt was forced to grin. "You know darned well it's not. Go on back to the cabin and don't bother me. I'm trying to think."

"It's too noisy in the cabin," Joan complained. "Grag and Otho are at it again."

The hissing voice of the android and the booming tones of Grag could be clearly heard, loudly raised in argument.

"Blast them, they never get tired of scrapping," Curt swore. Then his gray eyes brightened. "Simon and I figured out a way to stop their arguments! I'm going to try it now. Take over, Joan."

CAPTAIN FUTURE left the controls in the hands of the experienced girl agent and went back into the main cabin, which was also a crowded laboratory, one of the finest in the System.

Electro-telescopes and electro-spectroscopes loomed in one corner. A compact folding chemical laboratory occupied another. There was an exhaustive file of spoken records of planetary languages, and a collection of atmosphere samples from every planet, moon and asteroid. A collection of Captain Future's mysterious psycho-scientific instruments was housed in a cabinet beside the one that contained an incredible number of scientific reference books which had been reduced to micro-film.

Simon Wright was checking one of the electroscopes. The Brain floated on his new magnetic beams as he carried out the work. Ezra Gurney was lounging back in a space-chair, dozing. But Grag and Otho were facing each other, violently arguing about their two pets.

"I warned you to keep your disgusting meteor-mimic away from Eek," boomed Grag angrily.

"Keep Oog away?" Otho retorted. "Why, it's Eek that can't be kept away!"

Curt went to the Brain. Unnoticed by the two disputing Futuremen, he spoke in a low voice.

"Simon, remember what we were planning in the Moon-laboratory when trouble interrupted — the good-will projector of hypnotic encephaloid vibrations, to take the fight out of Grag and Otho?"

"Yes, I remember," rasped the Brain. "I wish we'd had time to make it. The arguments of those two keep me from concentrating."

"Let's put the thing together now," Curt Newton suggested, a gleam in his eyes. "It won't take long."

He and the Brain set to work, unfolding a table in the corner and bringing forth an array of fine atomic-powered tools and materials. Grag and Otho were so busy quarreling that they paid no attention.

In less than an hour Curt and Simon had completed a small, watch-shaped instrument with a broad lens in one face.

It would project any hypnotic suggestion as a vibration that would dominate the neuronic currents of the brain.

Curt took the little blank metal record he had made and, through an encephalograph, recorded a hypnotic suggestion of utter friendliness. Then he put the record into the little projector, touched its switch and surreptitiously turned the lens of the instrument toward Grag and Otho.

They abruptly stopped arguing, looked at each other a little bewilderedly. A broad smile appeared on Otho's face.

"Grag, old pal, what in the world are we arguing about?" he asked. "You're the best friend I've got. We shouldn't be scrapping."

"You said it, Otho," boomed Grag warmly. "Dear old friends like us haven't anything to argue about. It was all my fault."

"No, it was my fault!" Otho said emphatically. "I'm just a low-down space-struck sneak, to talk the way I did to a friend like you."

Ezra Gurney, awakened by the sudden lowering of voices, sat up, his faded eyes almost popping with surprise at the two Futuremen.

"Am I hearin' this, or am I still dreamin'?" he gasped.

Oog and Eek also looked up at their masters in ludicrous astonishment. For Grag and Otho now had their arms around each other's necks. They were looking fondly into each other's eyes.

"Otho, the next time I say a mean word to a pal like you, I hope somebody melts me down to ingots," Grag declared earnestly.

Captain Future doubled up with laughter. As he clutched a stanchion for support, he dropped the good-will projector. It shattered on the floor. At once Grag and Otho reverted to normal.

"You rubbery misfit, are you trying to choke me?" Grag demanded, dazedly tearing Otho's arm from his neck.

Otho also looked bewildered, but he rose to the challenge.

"Why, you cast-iron idiot, you tried to hypnotize me into liking you!"

"It's no use, Simon," Curt chuckled, picking up the broken projector. "We can't keep one of these things turned on them all the time, and you see what happens the minute the good-will suggestion ends."

MERCURY grew to a yellowish sphere of considerable size as the
Comet
drew nearer to it. But the planet did not look large when compared with the colossal, flaming globe of the Sun. The faint rocket-trail of the fugitive machine men led directly toward the dark Cold Side of the planet. They followed it carefully until they entered the thin atmosphere.

There, as they had known they must, they lost the trail.

Beneath them lay the tumbled, frozen black mountains, plains and chasms of the eternally nighted side of the planet. It was a bitter wilderness in the southern hemisphere, in which there seemed to be no life. They circled for a considerable time, but saw no sign of any base.

"It's no use," Curt admitted finally. "Those machine men were too smart to enter the atmosphere right over their base. They did that at Venus, but they didn't repeat the mistake. They entered the atmosphere here and then scooted around the planet to their base. We've lost 'em. That makes things tougher. We'll have to tackle this mystery from another angle. Head around to Solar City, Otho. I want to question these space ship manufacturers who have been losing ships."

Soon they were dropping down through the eternal dusk of the Twilight Zone. It was a parklike landscape of fertile fields and rolling, grassy hills, with only a few of the inevitable deep fissures.

They flew southward over this shadowy, pleasant land until far ahead in the twilight appeared lights and towers.

Solar City was a metal metropolis, for metal was abundant on Mercury. Coppery domes, minarets and gables of the peculiarly graceful Mercurian architecture glittered through the dusk. Pink lights shone softly in the streets, and there was a cheerful swarm of rocket-fliers. Out beyond the metropolis could be glimpsed some of the great space ship factories. But Otho headed for the center of the big city.