Captain Future 13 - The Face of the Deep (Winter 1943)
Page 17
“No!” Grag bellowed suddenly. “Look there!”
They still could see nothing. But the robot’s super-keen photoelectric eyes had seen. And presently they caught it, too.
A long, slim cruiser with the familiar emblem of the Planet Patrol upon its bows was driving toward them through the void.
By the time that cruiser came into magnetic contact with the Phoenix, and space-suited men from it entered their ship, Curt Newton and the two Futuremen were waiting in the airlock.
The young Venusian captain of the Patrol cruiser, when he took off his helmet, stared at Curt and the others unbelievingly.
“Captain Future! It’s really you and Agent Randall and Marshal Gurney, too! But tell us, what happened to the Vulcan? We’ve been searching for weeks, and then we heard your faint call yesterday.”
“No time to explain now!” cried Curt. “The calcium, man! Where is it!”
The astonished Venusian thrust a heavy sack toward him. “I brought this much along. We have as much more as you need in the cruiser.”
CURT raced back up to the bridge. His bands were shaking as he tore open the sack and placed a little of the precious calcium in the catalyst-chamber of the atomic generator from the Brain’s body.
The copper fuel was already in the mechanism. They worked with frantic speed, reassembling the apparatus back into the case of the Brain. They could hear it start humming at once, operating pumps and purifiers.
They waited for minutes that to Curt seemed eternities. The dark tinge of the serum in the Brain’s case slowly faded away. But that was all.
“We were too late! “ Otho whispered strickenly. “Too late to revive Simon.”
Then the Brain spoke. Simon Wright abhorred show of emotion. He would have died rather than to have displayed his feelings now.
He said metallically, “Well, what are you all staring at? The experiment was a success, wasn’t it?”
The Phoenix landed on the spaceport of Tartarus City, on frigid Pluto, two days later. With it landed the Patrol cruiser that had brought them salvation. Its officers came to take charge of the mutineers and transport them out to the prison moon.
Kim Ivan and his men trooped out into the chilly dusk and stood quietly while the Patrol guards gathered around them.
“You won’t have any trouble with us, boys,” the big Martian said tersely. “We’ve been so close to death that we’re not going to find Interplanetary Prison such a bad place for a while.”
Curt Newton went toward the towering Martian. He held out his hand quietly. “Kim, will you shake hands?”
The big pirate’s battered face grinned at him as he extended his fist. “I’m glad there’s no hard feelings, Future. We went through quite a lot together.”
“We did,” Curt nodded. “And I’ve an idea we’ll meet up again.”
“Oh, sure, when you come out to Cerberus prison visiting,” said the Martian ruefully.
“Kim, Moremos and the other men who actually killed the Vulcan’s officers are dead, and they did it against your orders,” Curt said.”That won’t be held against you and your chaps. And there’s such a thing as commutation of sentences for men who have had enough of outlawry and would like to blast a straight rocket-trail.”
Kim Ivan’s massive face flamed. “Future, me and my boys won’t mind Interplanetary Prison one little bit, if we have that to hope for!”
Curt Newton grinned in turn. “I’m not promising anything, you big ruffian. But I’ve an idea we’ll meet up on the space-trails some day.”
When the convicts were gone, Curt turned. Grag and Otho had resumed their interminable argument. The Brain had gone with Ezra Gurney.
But Joan was standing in the frigid dusk, looking up at the dark vault of the heavens. She did not turn when he reached her side.
“Curt, I was thinking,” she said softly. “It’s where he would have wanted to be buried — in space.”
He did not need to ask of whom she spoke.
He put his arm around her shoulders as he answered slowly.
“Yes, Joan. Any spaceman would want such burial, to have his ashes scattered out there on the face of the deep.”
And they stood silent, gazing out into the vast vault of that shoreless sea in which a world and a hero had perished.
THE END
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