He raised the force-rod he had taken from his recent opponent, aimed it carefully at the bound, prostrate robot, then pressed the trigger. The streak of fire hissed up out of the water and struck where Curt had aimed — the big chain that bound the robot. The hissing little streak of fire blasted the chain in half.
Captain Future looked tensely back along the cavern to the Wrecker-men on the ledge. They had not noticed. Grag looked down amazedly at his severed chain, unwrapped it from him. In a moment he had released Otho.
Curt motioned with his finned hand for them to approach. Wonderingly, with a stealthy glance at the unsuspecting guards in the distance, the robot and android did so. Curt reached his hand out of water and grasped Grag’s metal arm. Then he spoke, his voice reaching Grag by conduction.
“Grag, it’s me — your master!” Captain Future exclaimed. “My mind is in this body.”
“Master — in that body?” repeated Grag incredulously. Then the robot’s eyes gleamed with joy. “We knew that that was not really you, in your own body, master! For you betrayed us to those men who captured us, and you’d never have done that.”
“Listen, I and my companions have got to get back into our own bodies quick!” Curt told them. “First, you two will have to overpower those guards.
“But you mustn’t harm them,” Captain Future went on. “For those bodies, including my own body, are ours and we want to get back into them. Use this force-rod to capture them.”
He handed the atomic weapon to Otho.
“I get it, chief!” hissed the android. “Come on, Grag!”
The two Futuremen stole back along the ledge to the unsuspecting guards. Then Otho’s voice rang loudly.
“Stand up! And the first one of you that tries to draw a weapon will get blasted!
Stunned by the surprise, the Wrecker’s men stood still under the menace of Otho’s weapon. Swiftly, Grag took their weapons from them, and then bound them, one by one. Otho, eyes blazing with excitement, came racing to the edge of the water where Curt and his comrades waited.
“Now what, chief?” the android asked.
“Put my body — my own body — into the one chamber of that mind-exchange mechanism,” Captain Future ordered.
Otho obeyed. And Curt swam around and entered the other, water-filled chamber of the apparatus.
Then, for minutes, he gave Otho the explicit directions necessary to enable the android to operate the apparatus.
“I’ve got it, chief!” Otho said finally. He put one helmet on the red head of Captain Future’s possessed body, and the other helmet on the bulbous head of the body Curt now held. Then, as Curt had directed, Otho turned the switches of the weird machine, and the generators whined, the tall vacuum tubes sputtered. Abruptly, Curt was plunged into blackness.
He awoke from that blackness. He was in the air-chamber of the mechanism now. With a great throb of relief, Curt looked down at his rangy Earthman body, his brown, capable hands. He was back in his own body once more!
Chapter 19: Quaking Doom
OTHO loosened the bonds around Captain Future’s body, and Curt stumbled out of the chamber. He felt equal to anything now, back in his own body once more.
“Where is the Brain?” he demanded quickly of the Futuremen. “And the Comet?”
Otho explained how he and Grag had left Simon Wright and Joan Randall in the Comet, at the summit of this island.
“But after we were captured, the Wrecker sent men up there to capture and question any others who had come with us,” the android concluded. “They must hold Simon and Joan there now.”
“I’m going up there!” Captain Future exclaimed. “Grag, come along with me. Otho, you stay here and re-exchange the minds of all these Wrecker-men with my comrades down there in the water. As many of them, of course, as you have bodies.”
Then Curt and Grag started, the big robot hastily leading the way toward the path that wound upward through the cavernous spaces of the island to its summit. When Captain Future emerged into the thin sunlight of day on the flat top of the island, he stared in frozen horror at the scene that confronted him.
The Comet was there, beyond the two spaceships of the Wrecker. And a dozen of the Wrecker’s men were there, too. One of the hollow-eyed men was bending menacingly over the Brain, whose square transparent case rested on the rock.
But it was sight of Joan Randall that chilled Curt’s blood. The Wrecker’s henchmen had shackled the girl agent to a big rocket — one of the rockets used by spaceships as distress-signals in the void. It was set up, ready to be fired into the sky with the girl bound to it, its fuse sputtering angrily.
“Are you going to tell us now?” the man bending over the Brain demanded. “Or shall we shoot that girl off on a nice ride?”
Don’t tell them anything, Simon!” flashed Joan from her helpless position.
“No, don’t, Simon!” rang Captain Future’s voice with deadly emphasis.
The Wrecker’s men spun around, startled. For a moment, seeing Curt Newton’s tall, red-headed figure, they showed no fear. They thought that body still held an alien mind!
But Curt revealed his true identity, by plunging forward with his proton-gun in his hand.
“It’s Future — back in his body again somehow!” yelled one of the Wrecker-men. “Get him!”
Curt’s proton-beam flared and struck, but his charge only stunned them. He couldn’t kill these men, whose bodies belonged rightfully to others!
WITH a booming shout, Grag, the robot, entered the battle. First he split the girl’s metal bonds with his steel fingers. Then, Joan released, Grag grabbed the Wrecker’s men by pairs and bumped their heads together. The atom-guns they tried to use on the robot simply scorched his metal body without harming it in the slightest.
Now up from the cavern-path came charging Otho and a score of raging, crazy men — men who had just regained their own bodies and were lusting for vengeance. The struggle was quickly over. Curt ordered Otho and the others to take the overpowered men down to the cavern and restore the rightful minds to their bodies.
“Captain Future, I knew you’d come!” Joan said happily. “They were trying to make Simon yield all your scientific secrets, by threatening to kill me in that horrible way.”
“We’ve got to work fast,” Curt told the girl and the Brain. “Those sea-folk are on their way with a seismic-wave outfit to destroy Amphitrite Island, Simon!”
“But the Wrecker’s at Amphitrite!” exclaimed the Brain. “He went back there from here.”
“The Wrecker won’t be at Amphitrite when the city is destroyed,” Curt retorted. “He knows what’s coming and he’ll have left the city — unless we’re in time to stop him.”
Otho came running back up with Grag. Curt spoke swiftly to the men who had just regained their bodies: “Remain here and guard that apparatus below. If we can later round up all the Wrecker’s men, those who have not yet regained their bodies will do so then.”
THE Comet rose from Black Peak a minute later, bearing Curt Newton, Joan, and the Futuremen. It screamed southwest across the vast Neptunian ocean toward Amphitrite. The city by the shore seemed normal when they sighted it first. Curt ordered Grag to land by the docks of the Neptunian Gravium Company.
As they landed, a snow-haired, grizzled man came running from a distance toward them. It was Ezra Gurney.
“Where did you go, Captain Future?” the old marshal cried wonderingly. “I’ve been hunting you —”
“No time to tell you everything now, Ezra,” Curt said. “First, though — did you check at the spaceport on those gravium spaceships as I asked you?”
Ezra bobbed his head.
“Sure did. And I found that while those ships had disappeared near Saturn and Mars, they had all had some trouble here on Neptune previous to their vanishing. Some of their crews had disappeared here and had to be replaced.”
“I thought so,” Captain Future declared, his gray eyes flashing. “The whole thing ties into place — e
very clue to the Wrecker points to one man.”
“You mean, you know who the Wrecker is?” Ezra gasped.
“I’ve suspected from my first day here, and now I’m sure,” Curt answered.
“It’s Julius Gunn, isn’t it?” Otho cried.
“Gunn’s gone — he and Carson Brand left for Earth an hour ago in his space-yacht!” Ezra announced. “And Orr Libro, that Martian magnate, left in his own yacht right after Gunn.”
“What?” Curt Newton cried, and Ezra nodded earnestly.
“It’s so, Captain Future! Gunn said he was going to Earth to get the System Government to cancel Orr Libro’s concession. And Orr Libro said he was following to keep that from happening.”
“I knew the Wrecker would take care not to be here at Amphitrite when the sea-folk attacked!” Curt exclaimed. “And this —”
At that moment came a startling interruption. The rock under them shook violently for a moment, the whole island quivering sharply. Then the vibration passed away.
“It’s the sea-folk beginning their attack to destroy this island!” Captain Future cried. “They’ve built a big seismic-wave machine that will set up vibrations of increasing intensity in the column of rock that bears this island above the sea. If the vibration reaches high enough pitch, the rock column will be shattered and split and this whole island will sink under the sea.”
“Devils of space!” yelled Otho. “That would mean —”
A sharper quake shook the island, and they staggered. The sea in the harbor was boiling uneasily, and a stone wall collapsed somewhere with a loud crash. People came pouring into the streets with frightened cries. Still another shuddering quake came and went.
“Otho, you take Joan in the Comet and go after Gunn and Brand and Orr Libro!” Curt ordered. “You can overhaul them and bring them back.”
“But what about you, chief?” the android cried.
“I’ve got to rally enough force here to stop the sea-men from their attack on this island,” Captain Future exclaimed.
“How can we stop them when they’re down there in the sea under us?” Ezra Gurney asked wildly.
CURT pointed to the scores of tubular boats moored along the harbor, tossing now on the boiling, uneasy sea.
“There’re a lot of those submersible speedsters that can go right down into the depths!” Captain Future exclaimed. “We’ll mount atom-guns on them and go down and fight it out to a finish with the sea-men.”
The Comet screamed up into the sky a few minutes later, bearing Otho and the Brain and Joan Randall on their way to overtake the gravium officials and bring them back to Neptune. Curt Newton and Ezra, with Grag striding behind them, hurried to gather a force of men to carry out their daring plan.
Amphitrite Island was rocking now to quakes of ever-increasing intensity and frequency. More than one of the stone buildings had been shaken into ruins, and wild panic was seething through the motley planetary inhabitants.
The men whom Curt and Ezra gathered were representatives of almost all worlds — fishermen, gravium miners, and others. Pale, oppressed by the terror that now reigned over the quaking city, they listened incredulously to Captain Future’s rapid explanation of the peril and his plan.
A big Plutonian shouted approval.
“Captain Future’s right! Our only chance is to fight!”
Ezra Gurney hastily brought from the Planet Police Headquarters, in rocket-trucks driven by Police officers, a mass of medium heavy atom-guns of the type mounted on small space-cruisers.
“These are intended for Police cruisers,” panted the old marshal. “But it’ll take time to mount ‘em!”
“Hurry, men!” Captain Future yelled. “The island can’t last long at this rate.”
Men toiled madly along the docks to install the atom-guns on the submersibles. The guns had to be mounted on the outer hull, and a fire-control switch for them installed inside.
Far below, the seismic-wave machine of the sea-men was setting up ever stronger vibrations in the towering column of the island. The whole island seemed about to shake loose from its foundations.
“Ready, Captain Future!” Ezra yelled, his weather-beaten face grim as he came running along the dock.
“Come on, then — all of you!” Curt Newton cried. “Dive straight down after me!”
Curt leaped into the craft on which he had been mounting one of the guns. Ezra followed, while Grag slid back the water-tight upper hull, and then took the fire-control of the gun. Captain Future started the rocket-motors throbbing. He sent the speedster hurtling down into the depths — and a score of armed submersibles like it followed it in that reckless dive.
The green sunlit water grew dusky as they hurtled downward, keeping alongside the vast stalagmite-column of the island. Down, down — and then in the dark waters below, Captain Future saw moving shapes.
“There’s the thing that’s doing it — the seismic-wave generator!” he yelled. “Try to get it with the atom-gun, Grag!”
He had glimpsed the big cylindrical machine attached to the rock at the base of the towering rock island.
“Sea-men coming up to meet us!” warned Ezra.
CURT saw them. There were hordes of the swimming sea-men down:here around their machine. And many of them were mounted upon the huge reptilian ursals. Now up through the water to meet the diving submersibles came the sea-men on their fierce, mighty mounts. Their force-rods streaked fire at the plunging boats.
Curt Newton swept his craft aside to avoid that blasting fire. With a booming yell, Grag was firing the atom-gun. Atom-flares from all the attacking submersibles criss-crossed in the dusky waters with the fire-streaks of the seamen.
Curt saw two and then three of the submersibles around him hit by the defenders. Their hulls pierced, water rushed into them, drowning their occupants instantly! But sea-men had been hit, too! Atom-flares had mowed a deadly swathe through the hordes of the sea-men and their giant mounts.
“Grag, I’m going down through them this time!” Captain Future cried. “Stand ready to gun that generator!”
The battle was a crazy confusion of snarling ursals, darting sea-men loosing leaping fires, and plunging rocket-flaming submersible boats whose guns belched atomic flame.
Down through that perilous chaos of battle, Captain Future sent their craft recklessly diving. Fire-streaks flared before his eyes, weaving a deadly pattern that he eluded only by superhuman swiftness at the controls. The base of the island — the great cylindrical mechanism throbbing there — rushed up toward him.
“Now, Grag!” he yelled.
The robot acted. Their atom-gun belched a hail of deadly flares, that struck the throbbing mechanism and blasted through it in a half-dozen places. The big cylinder flashed into exploding flame, completely wrecked.
“You got it!” Ezra Gurney yelled excitedly.
The sea-men who had swarmed wildly to protect the seismic-wave generator seemed disheartened by its destruction. They began to retreat through the dusky waters.
“After ‘em!” Ezra shouted fiercely. “Kill every one of the finny devils!”
“No — no unnecessary slaughter,” Captain Future contradicted firmly. “They’ve had their lesson.”
The sea-men, indeed, were streaming away panically in full flight toward their own submarine city far west. Curt Newton, feeling the strain of the weird and deadly struggle, watched them go. Then he led his depleted fleet back up toward the surface.
“Those sea-folk know now that they can’t hope to drive our peoples from Neptune,” he said. “And we can negotiate with them in the future and show them they’ve nothing to fear from us. I think there’ll be peace on this planet after this.”
“But what about the devil who used them as allies to do all this?” Ezra demanded. “What about the Wrecker?”
“His turn is next,” Curt promised grimly.
When they reached the surface and swept in toward the docks, they saw that the quaking of Amphitrite island had ceased. Small
damage had been done. The panic of the inhabitants was passing.
The men from Captain Future’s boats cheered wildly as they disembarked at the docks. And the tall, red-haired scientific wizard spoke to them in a ringing, confidence-inspiring voice.
“There’s nothing more to fear, men! The danger to Amphitrite is over — and so is the danger to the System’s gravium supply. There’ll be no stoppage of gravium — no paralysis of interplanetary life now!”
“But the Wrecker?” Ezra Gurney repeated.
Curt was looking up into the sky, from which a small dot was dropping.
“The Wrecker is coming now — in the Comet” he answered sternly.
It was indeed the Comet that was dropping out of the sky, swooping to a reckless landing on the docks with rocket-tubes blasting flame. Otho emerged hastily, and Joan with the Brain. They hurried toward Captain Future and Grag and Ezra.
“It’s all over,” Curt answered their alarmed questions. “The island’s safe now. You brought back Gunn and Brand and the Martian?”
“Sure, the Comet overhauled both their yachts before they were a million miles from Neptune,” boasted Otho. “There they come.”
JULIUS GUNN and Carson Brand were emerging from the tear-drop ship, and after them Orr Libro of Mars.
“This is an outrage!” barked Gunn to Captain Future. “Having me brought back like a common criminal!”
“Why did you take Brand with you instead of letting him stay here to run the company?” Curt demanded.
“Brand offered to testify about Orr Libro’s sneaking actions,” rasped Gunn. “I’ll cook that Martian’s goose!”
“The time for accusations and denials is past, Mr. Gunn,” Curt Newton said sternly. “I know which of you men is the Wrecker!”
There was a little silence. And then Curt spoke slowly.
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