"It will unless we meet patrols which have already sighted Vostol's ship," Curt reminded him. "Keep your fingers crossed."
The Comet sped on and on through the great shroud of the dying universe. As vast distances fell behind, the somber gloom of this nightmare journey oppressed everyone's spirits.
For the only suns and worlds they passed were dead, black, ashen bulks with planets that were balls of glittering ice circled by haunted moons.
To the Futuremen, this seemed a universe of ghosts. To their Tarast companions, this endless empire of death and night brought heart-breaking memory of days long dead, when their conquering race had flourished on thousands of smiling worlds.
Now the spreading hordes of the Cold Ones were inheriting it all, planting their swarming cities on the frozen planets and webbing the darkness with their routes.
Time dragged on and on. Hours and days seemed meaningless measurements out here in the drear infinite. The strain of terrible suspense told upon them all — all except the Brain, who continued his imperturbable investigations, and Grag, who played fondly with Eek.
They were challenged again by Cold One patrols, but again their stratagem let them pass. Now, however, Gerdek began to get anxious.
"We are approaching Thool," he said, looking nervously ahead. "The danger from the Patrols will be greater now."
Captain Future understood.
"Yes — the patrols near Thool will be much more likely to have seen Vostol's ship already pass."
They peered into the dark abyss. It seemed a black blankness, yet their instruments disclosed that it was a region singularly crowded with dead black stars. There were scores of such cosmic cinders ahead.
"It's a great graveyard of suns," murmured Curt Newton. "Which of them is the system of Thool?"
"Thool lies deep in this region," Gerdek answered. "It is the single planet of one of the largest of the dead stars."
Dread haunted his eyes as he spoke. All the three Tarasts seemed oppressed by uncanny fear as they drew nearer to the mysterious, forbidden capital of the Cold Ones. For generations, the very name of Thool had been to their people a synonym for horror.
Curt was at the controls as they flew deeper into this great graveyard of suns. He made every effort to give wide berth to the dark stars and worlds they passed. For the Tarasts had told him that most of these were inhabited by populations of the Cold Ones.
On many of them could be seen the glimmering lights of enigmatic cities.
Yet, Curt's precautions to avoid all enemy traffic proved a failure, for two more Cold Ones patrol craft suddenly rushed on them from ahead.
"Give them the same signal — that this is Vostol's ship," Captain Future told Gerdek quickly.
GERDEK did so, but as he interpreted the blinker flashes of the patrols' reply, his face stiffened in alarm.
"They say: 'Vostol's ship passes us many hours ago on its way to Thool. Either that ship or your own is misstating identity. Stand by while we come aboard to investigate you, or we will attack.' "
"That does it!" exclaimed Grag. "Our trick didn't work this time."
"Grag — Otho — action stations!" yelled Captain Future. "Here they come!"
The two space-sleds of the Cold Ones, as the Comet refused to slacken speed, came racing toward it with their guns pumping fused atom-shells that exploded in a blaze of dazzling force.
The shells did not find their mark. The greatest space-fighter of his own universe was at the controls of the Comet and he had flung the ship into a dizzy corkscrew space-spin an instant before. Curt hurled the craft right between the space-sleds in the crazy maneuver.
Grag and Otho were pumping the heavy proton guns like mad. The blazing bursts of beams stabbed to right and left. The space-sled on the right was sliced in half as Otho's gunnery found its mark. And Grag's unerring marksmanship shattered the other.
"Got 'em both!" exulted Otho. "I guess they didn't know the old Comet carries a sting."
"I hope to heaven we got them before they flashed an alarm," Curt Newton said worriedly. "We'd better try to make Thool as fast as we can."
They were all keyed to highest pitch of tension as they flew on and on into the great labyrinth of dead suns.
Finally, Gerdek pointed ahead with a hand that quivered a little.
"Thool!" he whispered.
Here, in the heart of the great graveyard of stars, there loomed a dead sun of enormous size. Around that colossal cinder circled a single large icy planet.
It was the mysterious world that was their goal. Thool, the capital of an alien race, the core of the Cold Ones' power! Hostile and forbidding, it bulked huge in their telescopes. Wrapped in dusk of perpetual night, its surface was a glittering white waste of ice and snow from which protruded the menacing black fangs of naked rock mountain ranges.
"The city Thool, which the Cold Ones call by the same name as the planet, lies halfway between equator and north pole," murmured Gerdek.
"Yes — I see the lights," Captain Future nodded tautly. "How near to it were the laboratories of Zuur?"
Lacq answered that.
"Zuur's laboratories were in caverns in a deep gorge that cleaves the mountain range north of the city."
"That's too near the city for comfort," Curt said grimly. "But we'll go in low from the north to avoid being sighted."
He brought the Comet down fast toward the far northern icefields of the frozen planet.
Then he sent the ship scudding low through the dusk, toward the black range of cruel peaks that towered north of the capital.
As the Comet swung down over the mountains, the Futuremen glimpsed the lights of a great city miles away on the southern plain. The infra-red telescope clearly disclosed a metropolis of starkly square black structures, dominated by a mammoth cubical building which rose from the edge of an ancient, snow-filled river bed.
"That is Thool, the city," breathed Gerdek, with mingled hate and dread.
"It must be swarming with the cursed Cold Ones," muttered Otho. "Look at the space-sleds flying above it."
Captain Future perceived that the snowy river bed which bisected the distant city led northward into the mountains over which the Comet was now flying. The river that long ago had flowed in that bed had eroded a deep gorge through the tumbled ranges.
Curt steered toward it.
"This must be the gorge," Lacq affirmed. "There's no other in sight, Kaffr."
CURT swung the Comet down between the fanged black peaks into the deeper dusk of the gorge. It was a wide, winding chasm, walled by rock cliffs, its floor covered deep with snow or frozen air.
Captain Future sent the ship flying deliberately along the chasm, while they all watched tensely for some clue to the location of the ancient scientist's laboratories.
They had followed the gorge for several miles before Shiri cried out and pointed.
"See — those holes in the western cliff! Could they be the cavern laboratories of Zuur?"
"It fits the description in my ancestor's papers," Lacq said excitedly.
"We'll soon find out," Curt declared, and slanted the ship down toward a landing.
The apertures Shiri had discovered were artificially squared openings in the base of the west cliff. They were partly blocked by the deep snow. The Comet sank almost out of sight in that snow when they landed.
"Put on your space-suits," Curt warned as they prepared to emerge for exploration. "The tester shows no atmosphere at all on this planet."
When they had their suits on, Grag opened the door. Masses of snow fell into the airlock. They floundered out through it, and started in awkward progress toward the nearby openings in the cliff.
The darkness was thick here at the bottom of the great gorge, though the white sheet of glittering snow made vision possible. As they struggled forward with their heads barely above the snow, they unexpectedly encountered recent trails of several other creatures.
The trails were big, wide ones, as though heavy bulks had been dragged
somehow through the white drifts. The adventurers stopped, amazed.
"What left those trails?" Otho exclaimed sharply. "Do you suppose the Cold Ones have just been here?"
"No, these are trails of creatures much larger than that," Curt declared. "Are there other forms of life here?" he asked Lacq.
"I don't know," Lacq answered. "Maybe there are. The Cold Ones who spoke of this gorge said that they always avoided it because it was haunted by danger. You remember I told you that, Kaffr."
Curt did remember. And it added to the uneasiness he had felt ever since they had approached this dark, forbidden world.
"It's perilous to stand here," he told them. "Come on."
They struggled on toward the nearest opening in the cliff. They could see now that it was a high doorway in the solid rock. It was a little above the floor of the gorge, and carved stone steps led up to it.
"Zuur's ancient laboratories!" cried Lacq. "It must be!"
Suddenly out of that open door in the rock lumbered a monstrous creature, the sight of which froze them with incredulous horror.
It was of elephantine bulk, a dark, furry mass on huge legs, with a hideous snouted head armed with a single heavy horn.
It glared at them with stupid, unwinking eyes. Then it charged down upon them.
Chapter 16: World of Dread
CAPTAIN FUTURE and Otho flashed their proton pistols with all the phenomenal speed for which they were famous. The two narrow, brilliant beams of force stabbed together to strike the creature's massive, snouted head as it charged through the deep snow.
They saw the beams burn into the thing's skull, yet it came on as though it did not feel them. Otho was so stupefied by this that he stood gaping at the onrushing monster in ludicrous surprise.
"Its eyes, Otho — aim at its eyes!" Curt yelled, flashing his own beam at that target.
The creature was less than ten yards away and coming like an express train, its horn lowered. Two proton beams flashed out and shattered the unwinking eyes.
Curt grabbed Shiri's arm and plunged aside with her into the snow. He yelled for the others to do likewise. They did so barely in time to escape that terrible horn as the blinded beast charged past.
It turned and came floundering back through the snow, as though groping to find them. Again, Curt loosed his driving little beam at the eye-sockets. This time, it drilled deep into that massive, bony skull. The lumbering horror collapsed in the snow and lay still.
"Howling devils of space!" cried Otho. "What kind of a bad dream is that thing?"
Curt was examining the lifeless body.
"It's a non-breathing species. It must use that horn to dig up mineral food-elements. Yet I can't quite understand how such a species could evolve naturally here."
"I think I understand, Kaffr!” exclaimed Lacq excitedly. "My ancestor Zuur made many experiments with new mutant species, in this place. They were part of the research that preceded the creation of the mutant humans, the Cold Ones. Descendants of those artificially developed beasts must still exist here."
"That," commented the Brain keenly, "would explain just why the Cold Ones shun this gorge. It's because of the fierce creatures which have lurked and breeded here ever since then."
"Then there may be a lot more nightmares like that one you killed, or worse hanging around in those caverns," Grag said uneasily.
"We can soon find out if there are," Otho commented acidly. "Just bring Eek here out of the ship. If Eek falls stone dead with fright, we'll know there's danger around."
Captain Future, ignoring the robot and android, was shouldering determinedly through the snow toward the nearest of the doors in the cliff. It was that from which the weird monster had so suddenly charged.
Curt and his companions had their weapons tensely ready for action, as they climbed the rock steps and stepped through the aperture. They found themselves in a square passageway hewn by atomic force out of the cliff's solid rock. It was pitch dark in here.
Captain Future's hand-torch flashed a bright beam along the gloomy passage. It disclosed a maze of squared caverns or chambers that long ago had been blasted out of the cliffs interior. The first room they looked into convinced them that they had reached the end of their quest.
"This is Zuur's laboratory, all right!" cried Lacq eagerly. "See, there are instruments and parts of machines."
The room was the wreck of an ancient chemical laboratory. There had been racks of instruments and receptacles, but during the centuries they had been smashed and scattered by prowling beasts.
They went on from one great cavern to another. Here was a battery of what seemed once to have been a series of big atomic-power generators, which had been torn apart by beasts seeking certain mineral elements for food. Another chamber held the ruins of apparatus that had been used for oxygenation. Still other chambers seemed to have been living quarters.
"This is the place of creation of the Cold Ones," breathed Lacq. "In these caverns, after everyone else had abandoned this world, my ancestor labored until he had developed his human volunteer subjects into a mutant race of osseous creatures. Then they turned and killed him."
TREMBLING eagerness was in Lacq's bearing as they searched on through the maze of gloomy chambers. And Curt and the others felt a tension hardly less great.
They sensed themselves near the object of their desperate quest. At any moment, they hoped to come upon the records of the ancient scientist where lay the secret of the Cold Ones, hidden vulnerability.
"Look out! More trouble!" yelled Otho suddenly.
Two weird, wolflike animals had darted suddenly out of a chamber whose door the Futuremen were approaching. Curt fired swiftly, but the incredibly swift animals vanished down an intersecting passageway.
"Nice place, this," grunted Grag. "No wonder even the cursed Cold Ones leave it alone."
From Lacq, who had entered the chamber from which the animals had darted, there came an exultant cry.
"Kaffr, come here! I've found the records!"
They hastened into the rock-hewn room. Lacq, by the light of his torch, was kneeling excitedly over a metal chest. The chest contained more than a dozen small books, whose leaves were of imperishable metal foil covered with faded black writing.
"Zuur's records!" Lacq said hoarsely. "Here are the notes of his experiments. Now if I can locate the notations that cover his creation of the Cold Ones —"
He was frenziedly examining the books, one after another. Curt and the others waited in taut silence.
Minutes passed. Lacq was going through all the books of notes again. Finally he looked up. His face, inside his transparent helmet, wore a dazed expression.
"I can't understand it! These books are numbered, and two of the last books are not here. And they're the ones that cover all Zuur's experiments in creating the Cold Ones!"
"Look again — maybe you overlooked them in your haste," Captain Future urged.
"No. I didn't," Lacq asserted. "They're just not here, Kaffir."
He seemed stupefied by the disastrous realization that the plan of his whole life had met this unexpected, tragic disappointment.
"The devil!" swore Otho. "Those two books have been destroyed by some of those lurking beasts."
"Animals couldn't get into that chest," Curt Newton pointed out sharply. "Animals wouldn't choose books which contain the secret of the Cold Ones' hidden weakness."
Gerdek looked at him, startled.
"You mean that you think the Cold Ones themselves took those two books?"
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Curt countered. "It must have been done when they first rebelled against Zuur and killed him. That first generation of the Cold Ones would know of his records."
Lacq's face was gray and tragic inside his helmet. His voice was a hoarse, hopeless whisper.
"It must be so. The Cold Ones would not leave here a secret which could be used to destroy them."
He stared into their faces, heartsick.
"I'm sorry that I drew
you into this futile quest. It was the dream of my lifetime. But now that there is no hope —"
"What do you mean — no hope?” challenged Captain Future crisply. "The secret isn't here. But that doesn't mean it's beyond reach."
GERDEK stared.
"Surely the Cold Ones who found that dangerous secret would have instantly destroyed it?" he said.
"Would they?" Curt retorted. "I don't believe they would. Just figure it out for yourself. The individual among the Cold Ones who would have the decision as to the disposal of the secret would be their ruler, wouldn't he? What would their ruler decide to do with it?
"Wouldn't he say to himself, 'Here is a secret that gives me absolute power over the whole Cold One race. If ever my rule is challenged, I can use this secret to destroy the challengers, to crush any rebellion.
" 'The very fact that my subjects know I possess such a power will keep them from ever getting mutinous. So, I won't destroy this secret but will keep it in a safe place for possible future use.'
"Wouldn't the Cold One ruler reason thus?" Captain Future concluded.
"I believe he would," Gerdek answered slowly. "It fits the whole psychology of that cunning, malign race."
"Then," Curt pointed out, "the records of Zuur which contain the secret were not destroyed. They were passed down as a heritage of power and authority from one Cold One ruler to another, down to the present."
"If that is so," Shiri exclaimed excitedly, "the records must now be in the possession of Mwwr, the present overlord!"
The faint hope that had gleamed on Gerdek's face died.
"Yes, they would be guarded somewhere in Mwwr's citadel, down in the city of Thool. Which means that they might as well be destroyed, as far as we're concerned."
"Don't talk that way," Captain Future said coolly. "If the secret still exists, we've got to get it. The city of Thool isn't so far from here."
Gerdek was aghast.
"You're surely mad if you're thinking of going into Thool after it!”
"Kaffr, we wouldn't have a chance!" Lacq added, appalled. "Hundreds of thousands of Cold Ones swarm in that black metropolis."
Captain Future 12 - Planets in Peril (Fall 1942) Page 12
