Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946)

by Edmond Hamilton

  As Captain Future turned away with Bork King, he had an uncomfortable feeling that Su Kuan’s eyes were still following him speculatively.

  Chapter 8: Disastrous Discovery

  BORK KING, Captain Future, and Bork’s followers had headed for the door when a young Martian pirate wearing two heavy atom-guns stepped into their path. He had been watching Bork with smoldering eyes ever since his entrance.

  “So you’re Bork King?” he said, in a voice thickened by drink. “I’ve been wanting to meet the greatest traitor to Mars who ever lived.”

  Captain Future was startled by the haunted look of misery that suddenly came in Bork King’s bleak eyes.

  “They still talk about you on Mars,” the young Martian sneered accusingly. “About Bork King, the only one of the Guardians of Mars who ever betrayed his trust.”

  “What are you talking about?” Su Kuan asked curiously.

  The young Martian never took his fierce eyes off Bork King’s face as he answered.

  “This man Bork King held the highest, most sacred trust that the Martian people can bestow. He betrayed it and endangered his whole world. His name is cursed by every Martian alive, even by pirates like myself.”

  Su Kuan made a gesture of indifference. “We don’t care here on Iskar what a man did before he was outlawed. Drop it.”

  Bork King, with that haunting misery still in his eyes, turned away without answering.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he muttered to Curt Newton.

  Out in the velvet darkness, under that sky of golden, flashing meteors, Curt looked up at the big outlaw curiously. “Bork, what did that young Martian mean when he accused you of betraying Mars. Is that why you were outlawed?”

  “Yes, that’s why,” Bork King answered tonelessly. “I was one of the Guardians of Mars who hold the greatest secret trust on the Red Planet. I was accused of failing that trust.” His voice grew harsh. “They outlawed me from Mars, but Qi Thir and a few others who still believed in me stuck to me. We fitted a cruiser and took to the outlaw trail, and that’s all.”

  Captain Future sensed omissions in the explanation. Bork King had nor explained why he and his Martians stole only radium, and why they hated Ru Ghur so intensely. But of one thing, Captain Future was sure.

  “Bork,” he said positively, “I know a man when I see one. You’re no traitor.”

  The big Martian looked down at him sharply. His voice softened as he said quietly, “Thanks, Jan.”

  They started back our of Corsair City, following the dark street beneath the meteor-blazing sky to the landing field.

  “Old Riah will truck out the new cycs I bought for the Red Hope,” explained the Martian. “I paid him the last of a few Titanian moon jewels I had tucked away for the stuff.”

  They reached the Red Hope just a little before two battered rocket-trucks lumbered up to it to deliver the eight cyclotrons that Bork King had bought.

  The cyclotrons were not new. They had been salvaged from wrecked ships and had seen much wear, but were still serviceable and far better than none.

  The crew started in that same night to install them in place of the exploded ones in the ship. Qi Thir and the other Martians worked with unabated speed because each was well aware that not until the repairs were completed could they take Ru Ghur’s trail and make a desperate attempt to recover their lost radium.

  “I still don’t see how we’re to find the Uranian,” Curt Newton said. “So far, we’ve found no clues to his trail here.”

  “Two other big pirate bands will be back tomorrow night, remember — Malone’s and Ak Az’s,” Bork King reminded. “I’m hoping one of them will have heard something.”

  All during the next day, Captain Future helped the Martians in the labor of installing the cyclotrons and repairing the strained hull by welding in new girders and plates. By nightfall, the work was almost finished.

  Curt Newton felt the precariousness of his position each moment. The danger lay in Su Kuan. At any moment, the foppish Venusian pirate captain might realize that the new man in the outfit of Bork King, the Martian, was that archenemy of the Companions of Space, Captain Future.

  Yet when Bork King went back to the rendezvous of the rowdy pirates that night, Curt went with him. He had to run the risk, on the chance of hearing something that would give him a clue to Ru Ghur’s Outlaw World, something Bork might miss.

  Bork had left Qi Thir and the crew in the Red Hope.

  “There’s too much chance of getting into fights in Meteor Jim’s,” he had said to them. “And we can’t afford trouble.”

  The lanky Qi Thir had nodded agreement. “We don’t like the place anyway,” he had said laconically.

  METEOR JIM’S was going full blast when the big Martian outlaw and Captain Future entered. Money, jewels, slugs of rare metals changed hands over the gambling tables. The Companions of Space never knew whether or not their next foray would be the last one, and always squandered their loot with the thought that the next voyage might bring the inevitable end under the guns of the Planet Patrol.

  Curt Newton and Bork King found that the corsair captains were not yet here. Waiting for them, they stood at the bar drinking sakra.

  Curt Newton felt as though he were in the midst of a den of wolves who would turn and rend him at the slightest suspicion of his identity. But he remained outwardly nonchalant in the midst of the motley crew from all planets, as the night of carousing roared toward its climax.

  A hulking gray Saturnian who was far gone in fungus brandy raised his bull voice through the din.

  “From Mercury to Pluto!” he bawled.

  It was a call for the old song of the Companions of Space, the dreaded pirate song that at some time or another had sent shivers through every planet in the System.

  And it was roared out now from a hundred throats, the song of men without a world who lived only for battle, loot and sudden death.

  From Mercury to Pluto,

  From Saturn back to Mars,

  We’ll fight and sail and blaze our trail

  In crimson through the stars!

  The roaring, swinging chant went on in verse after verse — the anthem of the lost.

  We’ll cram our holds with plunder

  From every world and moon —

  Great corsairs of the past had sung that song before they met flaming end in space. John Haskin, that first great corsair chieftain who had made Pallas his stronghold, had sung it.

  Lan Rahsh, “the Butcher,” had sung it, and so too had that fabulous young Earthman corsair who had been Ezra Gurneys younger brother, and whom long ago Ezra had grimly tracked down and dueled to death in space.

  They had all sung it, and they had all died, Captain Future thought tightly. He himself had, with the Futuremen, helped clean out Pallas. This new pirate nest also would be destroyed in time, but that must wait until after they had trailed and destroyed Ru Ghur and his raiders.

  Su Kuan came in with two other pirate captains just as the pirate song ended with a crash. Again, Captain Future stiffened with tension as he and Bork King went back to the table reserved for the kings of the buccaneers.

  The two other pirate leaders were Ak Az, a gloomy-eyed Plutonian, and. “Blacky” Malone, a dark, wolf-faced Earthman.

  “Hello, Bork!” Malone greeted gustily. “We just got in from a pounce on Saturn’s smaller moons, and we’ve got enough loot to celebrate!”

  Su Kuan’s inscrutable eyes glanced again at Curt Newton’s nonchalant face, as the Venusian leader explained Bork King’s resolve.

  “Bork wants to track down Ru Ghur and thought maybe one of you would have heard something of where the Uranian has his base.”

  Ak Az, the Plutonian, shook his head. “No one has the faintest idea where that Outlaw World is.”

  Blacky Malone swore viciously. “If I knew where the cursed Uranian had his base, I’d have been there and blasted him long ago.”

  Bork King looked disappointed. “I’m going to find
Ru Ghur if I have to comb the whole universe for him! But I thought one of you might be able to put me on his trail.”

  “Ru Ghur has been cleaning up more radium ships,” Malone told him. “We heard it an hour ago on the telaudio news.”

  “Maybe,” said Bork King hopefully, “if I knew what part of space he was operating in, I could go out and find him before he returned to his base.”

  “The news will be on again in a few minutes,” Malone said. “You can hear it for yourself.”

  Bork King had a telaudio receiver brought to the table and turned it on. They soon heard the voice of a newscaster speaking from Jupiter.

  “Another radium robbery in space has just been disclosed!” was the second item. “The Pluto-Venus liner has just made port at Jupiter and reports that last week it was held up in space near the orbit of Saturn and robbed of a shipment of radium that was in its cargo. The radium raiders, contrary to their usual custom, killed no one aboard the liner. They merely destroyed the ship’s telaudio so that an alarm could not be send out.”

  BORK KING uttered an explosive exclamation. “That’s not one of Ru Ghur’s jobs at all! I held up that liner last week, though the blasted Uranian devil did later take the radium away from me.”

  Malone swore. “Then this news isn’t going to help you. But why the devil did you leave all the crew and passengers alive?”

  “I don’t murder helpless people,” Bork King answered shortly.

  “Bork, listen!” Captain Future said sharply as the newscaster continued.

  “Speaking of radium,” said the newscaster, “word has just come of a fabulous radium strike made by two daring Earth prospectors on the wild asteroid Zuun, at the west end of its equatorial valley. Their courage in braving the dangers of Zuun was rewarded by discovery of a rich radium pocket, which they believe to contain several million dollars’ worth of the high-test ore.”

  Bork King’s eyes snapped with excitement. “Say, there’s our chance to pick up radium and catch Ru Ghur at the some time!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Su Kuan.

  “Ru Ghur is sure to learn of that radium soon,” the big Martian explained excitedly. “He has an uncanny way of finding radium. He’ll come to Zuun after it — and we’ll be there waiting for him! We’ll go right now, and grab the radium, then lay a nice little trap for Ru Ghur.”

  Blacky Malone uttered a word of warning. “How do you know that this business on Zuun isn’t a trap? There’s something a little fishy about making a public announcement of a rich radium strike.”

  “I agree,” rumbled the Plutonian corsair. “It sounds to me like the kind of smart trap that would be prepared by Captain Future.”

  Curt Newton saw a sudden change in Su Kuan’s face as he heard that name — Captain Future. The Venusian pirate stiffened, glaring at Curt with suddenly narrowed eyes. Then, with blurring speed, his hand darted to draw his atom-pistol.

  Instantly Captain Future realized that the chance mention of his name had supplied the key to Su Kuan, and that the Venusian corsair had recognized him!

  Chapter 9: World of the Cave-Apes

  ONLY two days before the Comet had flown toward the asteroid zone so that the Futuremen might carry out the desperate plan of action the Brain had conceived.

  “Curtis is a prisoner of Ru Ghur’s radium raiders,” Simon had explained. “So we must find the raiders quickly. And since we haven’t an idea where their Outlaw World is, we must let them find us. We’ll go to some wild asteroid, and then let the news get out that we’re prospectors who have located a rich radium deposit. Ru Ghur and his band will come to take the radium, away from us — and we’ll be waiting for them.”

  Otho’s green eyes flashed. “And we’ll wring everything we want to know out of that cursed Uranian, and rescue the Chief!”

  “Yes,” boomed Grag, with indestructible confidence in Captain Future, as he saw Joan’s anxious face, “we’ll find the Chief all right.”

  “What asteroid was you figgerin’ on, Simon?” asked Ezra Gurney.

  “It must be some uninhabited, unexplored asteroid,” Simon declared. “I believe Zuun would be best for our purpose.”

  Ezra’s face lengthened. “That ‘toid they call the World of the Cave Apes? They say those critters are sure death.”

  “We’ll find a way to keep them off,” promised the Brain. “And by selecting Zuun we will avoid arousing Ru Ghur’s suspicions.”

  When the Comet entered the asteroid zone, it required all Otho’s skill to pilot the little ship through the dangerous meteor swarms and planetoid-families. They had to proceed with care, though they chafed at any delay.

  At last, the little ship approached Zuun. The rocky asteroid, circled by its small “moon,” presented a bleak and forbidding landscape of hills and chasms, as they dropped toward its sunlit side.

  “That long valley on the equator looks like a good spot to set up our trap,” the Brain decided. “Land near that chasm, Otho.”

  When the Comet landed the Futuremen brought out the spare hull-plates the ship carried, and bolted them together into a small metal shack. They erected this little structure close by the edge of the chasm.

  Eek and Oog, glad to escape from the ship, frisked beneath their feet. By the time the work was finished, the short day of Zuun was waning. On the telaudio of the Comet Ezra Gurney called the distant headquarters of the Planet Patrol, with a request.

  “They’ll do as we ask,” Ezra said, when he turned off the telaudio. “The telaudio news services will broadcast an item about the rich radium strike made by a couple of prospectors here on Zuun.”

  “That will bring Ru Ghur’s band quickly,” Simon declared.

  He had Grag and Otho carry certain instruments and machines out of the ship and into the shack.

  “Now we’ve got to hide the Comet,” he told them. “Ru Ghur would recognize it instantly.”

  We can conceal it in that chasm,” Otho suggested.

  “That’s a good idea,” approved the Brain. “But hurry, for it’s nearly dark and the cave apes will soon be coming out.”

  During the day they had seen no sign of the fearsome monsters. But they knew that the great cave apes inhabited the labyrinth of caves and chasms below, preying on the rich cavern fauna, and emerging only by night.

  Otho and Grag entered the Comet and dropped the ship slowly into the narrow chasm, landing it on a wide ledge covered by white fungi.

  “The cave-apes won’t bother it here,” Otho declared, “for I’ll turn on the auxiliary generator to give the hull an electric charge. Any of ‘em who touch it will get a shock.”

  “Speaking of the cave apes, here they come now!” cried Grag.

  Otho jumped to the port-hole, and uttered a sharp exclamation. The darkness was almost complete, but enough thin starlight sifted down to allow him to see the incredible creatures who were clambering up onto the ledge from the lower depths.

  There were more than a dozen of the monsters — huge, white-skinned apelike giants. The adult males and females were at least eighteen feet in height, and even the young were seven feet high. Their shambling legs and arms, round heads, and phosphorescent eyes gave them a peculiarly terrifying appearance.

  The cave apes were hunting through the white fungi for large black cave crabs, which they pounced upon and devoured. So far, they had not noticed the Comet at the back of the ledge.

  “What are we going to do?” Grag exclaimed. “We can’t get back up without them seeing us. Shall we try our atom-pistols?”

  “They say a cave ape’s hide is almost proof against any ordinary weapon,” Otho said. “By the time we killed one, the rest would be on us.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” Grag declared. “Use those brains you’re always bragging about, and dope out some way to get through them.”

  OTHO’S eyes lit up with a gleam of inspiration. “Grag, I’ve got it! You’re about the size of one of those cave ape cubs — same massive build, same round head, same g
lowing eyes. Paint you white, and you’d pass for one sure as shooting.”

  “Is this a time for you to start insulting me?” roared Grag.

  “No, I’m serious,” Otho declared. “We’ll put a coat of white paint on you, then you pick me up and tuck me under your arm and start up to the surface. They’ll figure you’re one of their kids, and won’t stop you.”

  “I won’t do it!” Grag exclaimed indignantly. “Not if we stay here forever, will I let you make a monkey out of me like that.”

  “Simon and Joan and Ezra are waiting,” Otho reminded. “If we don’t return soon, they’ll come after us — and walk right into these monsters.”

  That persuaded Grag. But the robot continued to growl with indignation as Otho rapidly applied a coat of instant-drying white paint to his massive metal body.

  “Why, you’re a dead ringer for a young cave ape!” Otho chuckled when he had finished.

  They silently emerged from the ship. Closing the door, Otho touched the switch that would give the ship a protective electric charge.

  Then Grag picked up Otho and, with the android tucked under one arm, started along the fungi-clad ledge toward the rocky path that led up to the surface. The dusk was deeper now. And the huge cave apes hunting through the fungi paid no attention to the disguised robot.

  “Oh-oh!” he muttered then in sudden alarm. “Here comes one of them after us!”

  A full-grown female cave ape was advancing after them through the fungi. But instead of showing rage or anger, the creature was making loud clucking sounds.

  “Grag, some mother ape has lost her young one and, wants to adopt you!” exclaimed Otho.

  He shook with laughter, despite the danger. But Grag, thoroughly alarmed, raced up the path at a rate the huge creature behind them could not match. When they clambered out of the chasm, Otho doubled up with mirth.

  “Grag, aren’t you going to wait for mama?” he called to the robot, who was already speeding away.