Captain Future 18 - Red Sun of Danger (Spring 1945)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “Go faster!” she urged the officer driving. “Use the screamer.”

  The Mercurian at the wheel flung her a startled look. They were already tearing through the misty streets at a dangerous rate, the infra-red foglamps barely illuminating the way ahead.

  Yet he floorboarded the cyc-pedal and pressed a button that flung a shrill, almost supersonic note far ahead of the rushing machine. That screaming vibration, never used by the Patrol except in emergencies, cleared streets ahead of them like magic.

  They tore into the shabby slum of the Belt. Far beyond it, the vague, glimmering spire of the spaceport traffic-tower lifted above the heavier ground-banks of fog. A big ship there was rising ponderously out of the mist on flaming keel-jets, disappearing in the sky.

  Then the rocket-car’s brakes skidded it sidewise as they came upon a crowd jamming the street ahead.

  “This is the place!” exclaimed the Mercurian lieutenant as they jumped out. “Make way, there — Patrol business!”

  “Captain Future dying! Future — dead!”

  They rang in Joan’s ears like a knell, those hoarse phrases babbled by the excited crowd through which they pushed. Her cold dread deepened.

  Ironically, the krypton sign of the Inn of a Thousand Strangers beamed greeting above the door. She went inside, hardly conscious of the taut-faced Patrol officers already here, their urgent voices, the staring crowd around the wall of the smoke-choked, shabby room.

  She could see only the little group in the center of the floor. A lithe, red-haired man who lay face upward. The giant figure of Grag crouched over him, and poised above the prostrate figure was the uncannily hovering box of the Brain. “Simon — Grag!” She ran toward them.

  Big Grag whirled, his glaring photoelectric eyes fixed on her and Ezra in amazement. “Joan! You and Ezra here?”

  She ignored the question. “Let me see Curt!”

  Newton lay limp and unstirring, eyes closed. His face was a waxy white. Then her heart contracted, as she saw the gaping, blackened wound in his side, midway between shoulder and waist.

  Simon Wright’s lens-eyes looked at her unfathomably. “steady now, Joan. He’s badly hurt but not dead.”

  The room seemed to waltz slowly around her, and she was grateful for the rigidity of Grag’s mighty arm supporting her.

  “How did it happen?” Ezra was mumbling, his faded eyes wild and incredulous.

  “The chiefs atom-pistol caught in his holster and that fellow Cain got the jump on him — then shot out the lights and escaped!” raged Grag. “But we’ll get him!” A MARTIAN captain of the Patrol came running across the room, his red face sweating.

  “Just got a call from one of our men at the spaceport,” he reported. “We were too late. The man Rab Cain got away — took passage in the Starfarer, the emigrant ship bound for Arkar.”

  “Then order a squadron of cruisers out to bring the Starfarer back!” roared Ezra.

  “No, wait!” said the Brain urgently. “You can’t do that. Cain would plead self-defense. Technically we had no right to arrest him. We Futuremen will take care of him.”

  “But he’s on his way to Arkar — trillions of miles outside the System!” objected Ezra strenuously.

  “Never fear, he can’t go so far we can’t find him,” retorted the Brain, his metallic voice cold with menace. “That can come later. We’ve got Curtis to take care of now. We’ll take him to the Comet — I can treat his wound better there. Our ship’s parked out at the edge of the swampland. Get a rocket-car.”

  The only thing clear in Joan’s mind was the still, waxy face of Captain Future as they carried him out through the mist and laid him on the floor of the car. Ezra took the wheel, and they started westward through the misty streets.

  She looked up from Captain Future, to find Grag and Simon were looking at her strangely.

  “Joan, there’s something to tell you,” said the Brain. “But first, I want to explain that we didn’t know you were here in Venusopolis. Curt thought you had gone back to Earth with your report by now.”

  “That’s why he didn’t let me know you were here?” she said. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “It does matter,” insisted Simon. “You see, we couldn’t explain things back there in the cafe. Too many people were watching and we had to play the part we had prepared, even when you and Ezra unexpectedly appeared.

  “Simon, what are you getting at?” She looked at the Brain with sudden intentness. “The fact is,” blurted out Grag, “that it was all a stratagem on the chiefs’ part. He wasn’t really hurt at all.”

  “Curt not wounded?” she gasped. “But he —”

  Her breath stopped. Curt Newton was sitting up in the floor of the car, looking in a shamefaced fashion.

  “I’m sorry we had to give you such a shock, Joan,” he said earnestly. “You see —”

  “It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to explain!” she cried. Happiness and relief choked her. “Curt, just to know you’re all right —”

  “That’s what I’m trying to explain,” he persisted in distress. “You see, Joan, I’m not Curt at all.”

  To her amazement, he put his hands to his face. Waxite plugs came deftly away, elastic flesh smoothed into new features, a false wig of curly red hair came off.

  And it was Otho the android who was looking at her with embarrassment!

  “It was Otho, disguised as Curtis, all the time,” Simon explained. “The ‘wound’ in his side was faked — he wore a ray-proof vest. We had to do this, Joan. We’ve got a big job ahead, one of the biggest.”

  He told her, then, of the threat of rebellion on distant Roo, of what it meant to the vitron supply, and of the determination of the Futuremen and the three scientists to go to Roo as secret agents.

  “Curt had to get to Roo in disguise without being suspected,” Simon continued. “To make sure nobody would dream he was there, we staged this little drama tonight so that everyone will know Captain Future has been badly wounded and is lying helpless back here in the System.

  “No one will dream that Curt is really out on this mission. And when we Futuremen go to Roo, we’ll do so secretly. Even if the men we’re after there learn of our coming, they won’t think we can do much without Curt to lead us.”

  “But where is Curt, now?” cried the bewildered girl.

  “He’s already on his way to Roo,” was the answer. “Otho worked out an effective disguise for him, too. Curtis is ‘Rab Cain’!”

  Chapter 4: In the Abyss

  LIKE a giant, silvery torpedo, the Starfarer lay in its semi-sunken cradle, the streamlined sweep of its hull broken only by the low hump of the bridge and the massive drive-ring at the tail. Porthole lights gleamed through the mist, and light spilled through open space-doors down the busy gangways.

  It seemed incredible that this inert mass of metal could of its own power leap trillions of miles to another star. That was why the departure of one of the big star-ships was still an event, to a generation that was accustomed to ordinary interplanetary voyages. Only in the last ten years had men begun to stride out to foreign stars.

  “Twenty minutes to take-off!” shouted loudspeakers across the misty spaceport. “Board at once — Door Two!”

  Curt Newton, in his disguise as Rab Cain, raced across the foggy tarmac toward the beckoning second door of the great bulk, after paying emigrant’s passage to Roo. There was a little crowd of such emigrants ahead of him, going up the gangway.

  “Show your passage papers — and hurry!” shouted a steward at the top of the gangway. “Emigrants’ salon just ahead.”

  From the top of the gangway, Captain Future looked back with a nervousness which was not assumed. If Patrol cars dashed up now, before the take-off, it would ruin his plan.

  It was enough for him merely to travel to distant Roo in disguised identity. The conspirators there would sooner or later investigate his back trail. Their thoroughness was proved by the “accidental” deaths of the Patrol secret agents first sen
t out.

  It must look as though he, Rab Cain, had shot Captain Future and boarded the star-ship to escape. Since they had not dared risk leakage of their scheme by telling the Planet Patrol, the Patrol could ruin it now by seizing him before the ship took off.

  “We’ve cut it pretty fine,” Newton thought tautly. “But Grag and Simon should be able to delay a Patrol alarm from going out at once.”

  “All emigrants, this way!” a steward was saying loudly. “Move forward — don’t block the corridor.”

  The emigrants’ salon proved a large square room, with portholes at one side, and dozens of recoil-chairs. Corridors branched off of it, where there were many small cabins each accommodating two passengers.

  The emigrants in this big room numbered more than a hundred. Curt Newton’s eyes ran quickly over them. About three-fourths were men — only a few courageous souls took families with them to Roo. A majority of the, men were decent-looking representatives of several of the System planets, but there were a number of tough-looking individuals.

  An annunciator on the wall spoke authoritatively. “Captain Kasro speaking! We take off in ten minutes. You must either be in your bunks or strapped into recoil-chairs, in five minutes. Do not leave your chairs or bunks until further announcement.”

  Newton found a recoil-chair and strapped himself in. Inwardly he was listening tensely for a Patrol car’s screamer.

  “I’m John Gordon and this is my wife,” said the young Earthman on his right. He stuck out his hand. “Guess we’re to be fellow-passengers.”

  Captain Future liked the look of Gordon, a wiry, pleasant-faced young fellow whose wife was a pale, pretty girl. But he kept up his part.

  “My name’s Rab Cain,” he muttered, looking nervously at the door. “Wish we’d hurry and takeoff.”

  The hulking Jovian in the chair on his left guffawed derisively. “You won’t be so eager when we do take off! They say the acceleration on these star-ships tears a man apart.”

  “John, that isn’t so, is it?” murmured the pale girl to her husband.

  “Of course not,” Gordon said, with an indignant glance at the Jovian. “They only use ordinary rockets for the take-off from Venus. Then when we get outside the space-lanes they start the vibration-drive for high speed — but they use a cushioning stasis of force to reduce the drag. The man at the Emigrant Bureau explained it all to me.”

  Captain Future listened with a wry smile. He and the Futuremen had invented both the vibration-drive and the stasis-cushion.

  That seemed a long time ago, he thought, but it was really — only ten years. Yet, those ten years had brought great things from the invention he had given to the System.

  NOW he was going starward again. But alone this time, in another identity, bound for a world of deadly intrigue and danger.

  “One minute to take-off!” the annunciator said sharply.

  A nervous stir ran over the emigrants. A steward darted into the salon, inspected them quickly, then entered his own recoil-chair. Space-doors had shut, oxygenators were throbbing.

  The rockets let go with a muffled roar. Hydro-springs screamed protest under their chairs as the Starfarer lurched skyward. The rockets fired steadily. Through the porthole, Newton glimpsed the misty, shadowed sphere of Venus dropping rapidly away.

  A half-hour later, the rockets were cut off. They were outside the space-lanes, ready for the real start of the interstellar leap.

  “Stasis on!” warned the annunciator. “Keep your chairs!”

  A pale glow of force bathed the salon. But it was force, not light — a subtle stasis that now gripped everything in the ship.

  “I guess this is where they turn on the drive,” John Gordon said uncertainly to his wife. He patted her hand. “It won’t bother us.”

  No rockets roared, this time. But Captain Future heard the low hum of the vibration-drive start a moment before the Starfarer leaped forward with incredible velocity through space.

  That sudden acceleration would have crushed them like flies, but for the cushion of the stasis. The protecting aura of force was like a tangible, elastic medium surrounding them, pervading even their bodies to prevent internal injuries.

  Newton was used to the sickening drag and shock. But he pretended apprehension and nausea equal to those of his fellow-passengers. He heard a yelp of terror from a Mercurian opposite him, and a woman’s choking cry.

  The dragging sensation lessened. The eery yellow glow of the stasis dimmed, now they had built up the first high velocity.

  “Take-off completed,” came the reassuring announcement. “You may leave your chairs until the next acceleration-period.”

  “Look out the window there!” cried an astounded Martian. “Look at space!”

  The emigrants, noisy now with relief and still a little shaky, crowded around the porthole windows, and cried out in wonder.

  The Starfarer was plunging at a nightmare rate through a dark and awesome abyss. There was nothing but blackness and emptiness and stars.

  The passengers’ own Solar System, the yellow spark of the Sun, was almost invisible in a twisted blur of distorted light-rays behind. Ahead, the small red speck of Arkar could just be seen, as remote and detached as the other stars.

  “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork,” quoted the awed John Gordon, watching with his wife.

  The girl shuddered. “It’s so empty, so lonely, out here.”

  Curt Newton knew how these people felt. He had felt it many times himself. Never could these cold vastnesses become commonplace to him.

  “It’s so far!” Ruth Gordon was whispering, looking toward Arkar’s red spark. “Our own Sun and Earth — trillions of miles away.”

  “We’ll come back,” Gordon said stoutly. “In ten years we’ll make a fortune growing vitron out there on Roo. Then we’ll return.”

  She smiled bravely up at him. Captain Future, watching, felt a queer envy of their happiness.

  It made him think of Joan Randall. He had not seen her before leaving on this dangerous business. Now he wished it could have been otherwise.

  Newton brought his mind sharply back to his immediate task. He must lose no time in establishing the new character he meant to assume.

  Hating his chosen role, Curt Newton forced himself to speak out loudly and offensively.

  “Cursed if I couldn’t use a drink, after that take-off! Why the devil won’t they let you bring liquor aboard, anyway?”

  The big, rough Jovian near him grinned knowingly. “You can bring it if you know how to hide it, Earthman.”

  The green-skinned man of Jupiter reached into his jacket and brought out a flat bottle. “Marsh brandy — have some.”

  Gordon frowned with disapproval. “There’s strict rules against drinking on a space-ship.”

  “Rules?” jeered Curt Newton. “I don’t live by rules. I’m leaving the blasted System to get away from some of their rules.”

  The Jovian guffawed. “Me too, Earthman. I’m Jok Kerrin. Signed out to Roo as an emigrant. Told ‘em I was a farmer — ha, ha!”

  THE marsh-brandy stung Newton’s throat but he wiped his lips appreciatively as he handed the bottle back. “Same here,” he grunted. “I’m hanged if I’m going to grub vitron-plants on Roo.”

  A scrawny Saturnian with fishy eyes in a dull gray face, who had given his name as Li Sharn, heard this.

  “There’s lots of planet-jumpers hiding out on Roo, already,” he said gibingly to Newton.

  Newton swaggered. “I’m no scared planet-jumper,” he boasted. “You’d be surprised if you knew just why I’m on this cursed ship.” His loud voice, the presence of the bottle, had drawn a dozen of the tougher-looking emigrants around. Gordon and the other men with wives had drawn away in distaste.

  Captain Future noticed that, and felt that his efforts were succeeding. He was, from the very outset of the voyage, establishing the character in which he desired to appear on Roo.

  “I could t
ell you something about what I’ve done that you wouldn’t believe,” he boasted. “But I’m not one to brag.”

  “Listen to the Earthman,” jeered the Saturnian, Li Sharn. “You’d think to hear him talk he was the Falcon and John Had-don rolled into one.”

  “Maybe not, but I did something neither of those cursed space-pirates ever was able to do,” said Newton wisely. “Only, I’m not talking.”

  John Gordon pushed his way into the group. His clean-cut face was stern with suppressed anger.

  “There are women in this salon,” Gordon snapped. “You men can either control your language or go to your cabins.”

  Jok Kerrin turned on him wrathfully. “Who do you think you are, Earthman? Go to your own cabin, if you don’t like the way we talk.”

  Gordon clenched his fist and swung at the Jovian. Newton grabbed his arm. “You can’t hit any friend of mine!” Captain Future blustered.

  “What’s going on here?” demanded a new, authoritative voice.

  The tall, gimlet-eyed Venusian who spoke wore the uniform and insignia of ship-captain. Two other officers were with him, and an excited steward.

  The wrangling group hastily split up. The steward was pointing at Curt Newton.

  “That’s the man, sir — the one called Rab Cain.”

  Captain Kasro advanced and stared into Newton’s scarred, disguised face. “You’re Rab Cain? You boarded this ship at Venusopolis just before take-off?”

  Captain Future knew what was coming. He counterfeited mingled sullenness and apprehension. “That’s my name. What of it?”

  “We just received a message about you from Venusopolis, by undimensional-wave,” Kasro said. “You’re the man who gravely wounded Captain Future in a fight there just before our take-off.”

  “Captain Future wounded by this man Cain?” cried John Gordon incredulously.

  “Badly wounded — they say he’s still living but that’s about all,” said Captain Kasro.