Curt Newton held out his hand, showing the big “planet” ring whose mechanism he had rebuilt during the voyage.
“Captain Future!” exclaimed the officer. He stepped back, saluting respectfully.
Out of an inner office came hurrying a grizzled, gray-haired man who wore the Police uniform and a marshal’s badge. His cold blue eyes lighted up at sight of the tall red-haired adventurer of space.
“Captain Future!” he yelled. “Danged if you’re not a sight for sore eyes! And Grag an’ Joan, too! What the devil are you doing way out here on Pluto?”
EZRA GURNEY, veteran interplanetary frontier marshal, was pumping Curt’s hand as he spoke, his pleasure manifest.
“Is there trouble here?” he asked hopefully. “There must be if you’re here, Captain Future — you’re sort of the stormy petrel of the System.”
“Same old Ezra,” Curt grinned. “Always looking for a scrap. Don’t you think you’re too old for such deviltry?
“Me old?” cried the weatherbeaten marshal indignantly. “Why, I can take on any —”
He stopped suddenly. He had seen the grave look that lurked in Curt’s eyes.
“What is wrong, Captain Future?”
“It’s Doctor Zarro,” Curt answered. “You’ve heard his broadcasts?”
“Who hasn’t?” Ezra Gurney said soberly.
“I’m out to stop him,” said Captain Future.
A cold light sprang into Ezra Gurney’s eyes. “I remember a fellow back on Jupiter that got too ambitious for his own good,” he said meaningly. “You stopped him, all right.”
“Doctor Zarro’s a greater menace, for he has frightened the people of the System into supporting him!” Curt declared. “I’ve got to find the base of him and his Legion, quickly.”
Ezra stared. “You don’t think it’s out here on Pluto, do you?”
“I know it’s here somewhere,” Curt retorted. He told the old marshal of the captured Legionary of Doom who had turned into a furred, strange creature when he died, and had given them the clue that had brought them to Pluto. “There must be a race of such creatures here somewhere — and there’s where Doctor Zarro’s base is!”
“Let me see the critter you’re talking about.”
Grag unwrapped the stiff body. The old marshal stared wonderingly at the dead creature’s white-furred figure, its strange two-fingered limps, its flattened head and huge, pupil-less eyes.
“I never saw anything like this before,” Gurney muttered. “There ain’t any race like this on Pluto that I know about.”
“Who would be most likely to know about this, if anyone does?” Curt asked.
Ezra Gurney stroked his chin, considering.
“I guess Cole Romer would be the best bet. He’s chief planetographer here, head of the Pluto Survey that’s tryin’ to explore the planet. He’s here in Tartarus now — I can call him over.”
COLE ROMER, when he arrived a few minutes later, proved an Earthman of forty, whose fine, scholarly face was hardened and reddened by long exposure to the fierce, frigid winds of Pluto on many exploring expeditions. The planetographer’s intelligent eyes inspected the dead, furred creature with mounting perplexity.
“I never even heard of a race like this on Pluto, Captain Future!” he exclaimed. “Of course, there are vast stretches of ice-fields and marching glaciers out there which we know nothing about. But this looks like a member of an intelligent race, such as would have made themselves known before now.”
Curt’s tanned face was thoughtful.
“What about the moons?” he asked. “Could such a race exist on one of them?”
“It’s possible,” Romer admitted. “Of course there’s nothing on Styx, which is all water-covered, but a lot of Cerberus, and more of Charon is unknown.
“But I’m not the one to tell you much about those two moons,” he went on. “Victor Krim, the fur-magnate whose company has settlements on Charon, and Rundall Lane, the warden of the Interplanetary Prison on Cerberus, would know more about those two.”
“Krim and Lane are both in Tartarus now, Captain Future,” put in Ezra Gurney. “Krim came in today from Charon to meet fur-buyers from Earth, and Rundall Lane’s here about the supply-ship that goes from here to Cerberus each month.”
“Call them over here too,” Captain Future ordered. His keen gray eyes had narrowed.
The name of the warden of the Cerberus prison had made Curt remember a matter he had resolved to investigate. He wanted to know how it came that Roj and Kallak, the criminals who were supposed to be in that prison, were in fact leading the Legion.
Victor Krim, the fur-magnate of the moon Charon, was first to arrive. He was a stocky, aggressive man with a square face and suspicious eyes. Curt disliked him at first sight.
Rundall Lane, the warden of the famous Interplanetary Prison on Cerberus, did not look to Captain Future like the type of man who would be set to guard the System’s most dangerous criminals. He was thin, elderly, nervous-looking, constantly glancing around.
“I’ve heard lots about you, Captain Future,” Lane said, “you sent a good many men to our prison, you know.”
“I sent two there that didn’t stay there,” Curt said grimly. “I mean that dwarf biologist, Roj, and Kallak, the accomplice he turned into a glandular giant. Those two were sent to Cerberus for life some years ago. But I know they’re not there now.”
Curt saw Rundall Lane pale, as though taken aback by his knowledge.
“Roj and Kallak escaped a few months ago,” he admitted. “They’re almost the first men to escape Cerberus. We can’t understand how they accomplished it.”
The story sounded a little lame to Captain Future. He resolved to investigate further, but not now.
“Did either of you two men ever see or bear of a race of furred creatures like this on Cerberus or Charon?” he asked.
Both Rundall Lane and Victor Krim stared without recognition at the grotesque, white-furred body.
LANE shook his head. “I don’t think there’s any species of creatures like this on Cerberus. Of course, I don’t know much of the moon beyond the Prison, but my guards have explored it and they’ve never spoken of such creatures.”
“That thing, whatever it is, didn’t come from Charon,” said Victor Krim loudly. “In fact, it couldn’t have come from anywhere out here at Pluto.”
The stocky magnate sounded a little too certain about it.
“What makes you so sure?” Curt asked.
Krim answered boastingly. “I know Pluto and its moons better than anyone else. My trappers and hunters go places even the explorers don’t dare to go. You can take my word for it that there’s no such race here.”
“You can’t be so sure as that, Krim,” protested Cole Romer. “There’s lots of Pluto your men haven’t seen.”
Victor Krim snorted. “I suppose you and your Planet Survey know more about this world than I do? Well, I haven’t time to argue about it. I’m a busy man and I’ve got fur-buyers waiting for me right now. Anything more, Captain Future?”
“Nothing more, for now,” Curt answered evenly.
“You can all go — and thank you for your help, gentlemen.”
But as Krim and Lane and Romer left, Curt was thinking ruefully that they had not really been any help at all.
“You didn’t learn anything of value from them?” Joan asked.
“Nothing much,” Curt answered, though his face was thoughtful. He turned to the old marshal. “Ezra, I want to show this creature to one of the native Plutonians. Can you get one here?”
“Got one right here in the buildin’,” chuckled the old marshal. “A hairy devil named Tharb, we use as a guide when police business takes us out into the ice-fields.”
He stepped to the door and called an order, and presently Tharb, the Plutonian guide, entered doubtfully.
Tharb was a typical member of the hairy native race of the icy planet. His six-foot form was completely covered by long, shaggy black hair, from bullet he
ad to toe-less feet. His round, phosphorescent eyes peered awedly at Curt and at Grag’s huge figure.
Then the Plutonian asked Ezra Gurney, in slurred, broken Earthman speech: “You want me go outside?”
“The hairy nuisances is always wantin’ outside in the ice,” Gurney told Curt. “It’s too warm in here for them.”
The old marshal pointed to the dead white-furred being that lay on the table.
“You see thing like that before, Tharb?”
Tharb turned his queer phosphorescent eyes upon the dead creature. Then the hairy Plutonian recoiled with a sharp cry.
“A Magician!” he yelled.
Curt jumped forward.
“You’ve seen such creatures before?” he asked quickly. “Why do you call it a Magician?”
Tharb was showing every evidence of an extreme superstitious fear and awe as he stared at the dead creature.
“I never see such things before,” he stammered. “But I hear of them. My grandfather, Kiri, who is very old, tell me of the Magicians.”
Curt dropped into the native Plutonian singing language.
“What did your grandfather tell you of them?”
THARB answered volubly in his own tongue. “My grandfather said that when he was a young man, long ago before the Earthmen came here, his people used to see the Magicians. They were furry white beings, who had great powers and strange wisdom.”
“Did he tell you where the Magicians came from?” Curt asked eagerly.
“He never told me that — I never asked him.” Curt felt baffled for a moment. Then he asked the Plutonian: “Your grandfather Kiri still lives?”
“Yes,” said Tharb, “he lives with my people in their ice-town, far north of the Marching Mountains and the icy sea, which you Earthmen call the Sea of Avernus.”
“I’m going out and see this chap’s grandfather.” Captain Future said decisively.
“It’s pretty forbidding country up there beyond the Marching Mountains,” Gurney said.
“Nevertheless, I’m going,” Curt rapped. “You’ll lend me a Police rocket flier, Ezra? I’ll take Tharb along as guide.”
“And me too, master?” cried Grag anxiously.
Curt saw the robot’s eagerness, and smiled. “Yes, you too. Grag — but you’ll have to leave that moon-pup behind.”
Grag seemed a little crestfallen. “Eek will be lonesome while I am gone. But I will leave him.”
Captain Future hastened back out of the city with Joan and the robot and Tharb, the Plutonian. He went directly across the frozen, dusky spaceport to the Comet. There he told Simon Wright of the lead that was taking him into the interior wilderness of Pluto.
“Otho and Joan will stay with you,” he told the Brain. “You can make your studies of the dark star over there in the Tartarus Observatory while I’m gone.”
Grag put little Eek into a corner of the ship and then told Otho: “Take good care of Eek while I am gone.”
Otho, already furious at being left behind, exploded.
“Take care of that drunken moon-pup? Do you think I’m cut out to be a nursemaid for that little metal-eating monstrosity?”
“If you were human like me, you would appreciate how nice a pet Eek is,” Grag calmly informed the raging android.
Ten minutes later, Captain Future and Grag and Tharb were in a small streamlined Planet Police flier, rocketing up from the spaceport and beading northward. Curt wore a suit of furs, but the hairy Tharb and the impervious robot needed no protection.
At high speed, the little flier zoomed north across nighted Pluto, beneath the weird shifting radiance of the three big moons. The bubblelike dome of Tartarus disappeared from sight behind them. They flew on above endless fields of glittering ice. Through the icefields, a swift, wide river flowed almost due north.
“That is the salt river, Phlegethon,” said Tharb. “We follow it straight to the icy sea.”
CURT nodded. He was peering toward the towering white masses that loomed up vaguely ahead. “Those are the Marching Mountains, Grag,” he told the robot. “Remember them?”
Grag nodded uneasily. “Yes, I don’t like them.”
“My people too are afraid of them,” Tharb confessed. “They have often times destroyed the towns of my tribe.”
The Marching Mountains of Pluto, one of the greatest natural wonders of the System, were soon almost below them.
This particular range was a vast wall of ice, a thousand feet high, that advanced with a shifting, flowing movement over the ice-fields in a southwestward direction. The crackling, crashing roar of its progress reached their ears as a deafening cannonade.
Mountains of ice, marching! The Marching Mountains were really vast glaciers, that moved at a speed many times faster than any glacier of Earth. Around and around this frigid planet eternally, their mighty ranges moved like ponderous, walking white giants.
“Master, above us!” Grag yelled suddenly.
A dark space cruiser, with the black disk of the Legion of Doom on its bows, was diving down on them.
“Ambush!” Curt cried, his gray eyes suddenly blazing. “I might have known —”
He swept their flier aside with a lightning movement. It was too late. The guns of the cruiser blasted atomic fire.
The whole flier rocked sickeningly as its tail and rocket-tubes were blasted away. Then it plunged toward the ice hundreds of feet below, while the Legion cruiser zoomed up and away.
“We’re going to fall in front of the Marching Mountains!” cried Tharb wildly. “It is certain death!”
Chapter 9: Coming of Doctor Zarro
AFTER Simon Wright had watched Captain Future and his two companions depart, he turned his lens-eyes toward the others who remained in the Comet.
“Fly the Comet over to that Observatory, Otho,” ordered the Brain. “I want to begin my studies of the dark star with their equipment.”
“I’ll go along and act as your assistant, if you wish,” offered Kansu Kane.
“Ha, Kansu Kane,” the Brain rasped, “that is spoken like a true scientist able to sink his pride where Truth is involved.”
A strange brooding quality crept into the Brain’s metallic voice.
“Yes, it is the search for truth that has occupied me all my long life, long ago when I was a human like yourselves with a body, and through all the years that I have dwelled bodiless in this serum-case. For a real scientist must never ask where his truth is taking him — he must only ask that he find it.”
“Captain Future is a real scientist — the greatest in the System’s history,” Joan replied loyally. “And yet he can consider the welfare of the System’s peoples, too.”
“That is true,” agreed the Brain. “But Curtis is an exception. Reared as he was by us three unhuman guardians, he has an unhuman capacity for concentration and research. Yet he has remained human enough to appreciate human needs and desires and hopes.”
The Brain looked impatiently at Otho.
“To the Observatory, Otho! I asked you minutes ago to start there.”
Otho picked up the handle of Simon Wright’s serum-case, and they all emerged from the little tear-drop ship and approached the Observatory. They passed through a heat-lock into its shadowy interior, whose warmth was grateful after the outside cold.
A hesitant-looking young Earthman astronomer approached them, looking a little awedly into the lens-eyes of the Brain, the legende.d unhuman master of science.
“The Observatory is at your disposal,” he told them. “A call from Marshal Gurney asked us to turn over to you.”
“Very well, you can go,” rasped the Brain. “Otho, take me up to the eyepiece of the big reflector.”
Once his case had been securely attached so that he could peer into the eyepiece of the great instrument, the Brain spoke to Kansu Kane.
“I’m going to check the size and mass of the dark star again. Will you stand by to assist?”
Otho and Joan watched from the floor of the great room, peering up at t
he two astronomers, human and unhuman, as they began their study high at the eyepiece platform of the great telescope.
With a soft throbbing of atomic motors, the shutter in the observatory dome rolled back, giving vision of a strip of brilliant, starry sky. The whole dome revolved until the constellation Sagittarius was in the telescope’s field of view.
Out there in the Milky Way in that constellation, a small disk of blackness was very clearly visible. It was ominously bigger than it had been, obscuring more than one star in that crowded area.
THE Brain rasped monosyllabic orders, and Kansu Kane obeyed, touching verniers and screws with expert skill. And as the Brain peered into the eyepiece, the dark thing out there in the starry void leaped into his vision, enormously magnified.
It appeared to the Brain as a vast, spinning black sphere, looming portentously against the star-strewn heavens as it thundered on toward the System. A dark star, a dead sun that had once flamed with blazing life, but that was now only a great cinder of the cosmos, hurled by fate toward the nine worlds.
Simon looked without fear at the awesome and terrifying spectacle. To the Brain, almost all human emotions such as fear and hatred had ceased to exist long ago, when he had been transferred out of his pain-racked human body into his new strange form. Only his deep loyalty to and protective love for the helpless baby he had reared to brilliant manhood remained of the Brain’s emotions.
The Brain checked the apparent diameter of the dark star, using Kansu Kane to take down the readings.
“It is nearer — much nearer,” the Brain rasped when the result had been computed. “Within very few days it will be an alarming spectacle, even to the unaided eye.”
“What about the actual dimensions?” Kansu Kane inquired keenly.
“We’ll check that now,” Simon answered, “and see if it agrees with my former determination.”
When the new readings had been made, and the computing done, the Brain’s voice held a quality of surprise.
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