Curt Newton was not listening. The seeming failure of his cobalt clue had detonated a bombshell of knowledge in his brain.
Everything tied up together. And it all pointed to a fantastic but inescapable conclusion.
“We know that the Magicians live on one of the moons,” he said slowly. “And the cobalt clue has proved that they don’t live on Cerberus or Charon. But Pluto has three moons.”
“You don’t mean Styx?” Otho gasped. “But they couldn’t live on Styx — nothing could! It’s completely water-covered.”
“Nevertheless, start the Comet up and head for Styx,” Curt ordered.
“But it’s crazy —” Otho started to protest further, when Grag interrupted with a stern command.
“Do as master says, Otho!”
With incredulity still strong in his eyes, Otho obeyed. Soon they were out in clear space again. Pluto bulked huge and white on their left. Straight ahead gleamed the bright third moon, Styx.
Curt felt vibrant excitement rising to a high pitch in him as they hurtled toward the third moon. He knew his reasoning was logical, yet it pointed to a conclusion that was unbelievable. He combed his mind for some way of testing his fantastic theory.
Then, remembering something, he took from a locker the crushed, shattered remnants of a small mechanism. It was the mechanism worn by the white-furred Magician who had been killed in the fall on Mars — the instrument which had enabled that strange being to masquerade somehow as an Earthman.
Curt had closely studied the shattered thing during the voyage out to Pluto. It was too badly shattered to be re-constructed even by the scientific wizard. But he had fathomed that it operated by projecting a field of force. How such a force-field could make the furred Magician look like an Earthman, he still could not see.
But now, studying the shattered remnants, of the thing in the compact laboratory of the flying Comet, Captain Future bent all his attention to discover just what frequencies of radiant force the mechanism had been designed to emit. With delicate electrical and magnetic instruments, with microscopic examination of the fragments, and most of all with his unparalleled mental powers, the young master of science labored on the problem.
The Comet hurtled on toward Styx, whose gleaming disk expanded slowly. Grag sat petting the moon-pup and looking ahead. Otho, at the throttles, was looking more and more skeptical as they neared the third moon. And back in the laboratory, Captain Future worked on, rapidly and deftly.
AT LAST Captain Future finished. He had constructed a small instrument designed to detect radiated force such as the shattered mechanism had emitted. His detector was so small he could thrust it into a pocket of his gray zipper suit.
“This ought to test my theory about Styx,” he muttered. “If it’s true, it explains everything.”
“It’s sheer waste of time to go to Styx,” Otho declared as Curt came to his side. “We can’t land there — no ship ever has landed on that moon, covered as it is by ocean from pole to pole.”
“We’ll see,” Captain Future replied tightly, his nervous tension rising as they approached the third moon.
Styx, smaller than either Charon or Cerberus, expanded in the starry void ahead. It was known to have an atmosphere. The air whistled around the Comet as it cautiously descended.
A few hundred feet below them rolled the shoreless green sea that covered the whole surface of Styx. The big, dark waves of hat unbroken ocean heaved skyward and bared teeth of white foam at the hovering little ship.
“Now what?” Otho demanded disgustedly. “We can’t land here when there is no land. We’ve just wasted our time.”
“We’ll soon see if we have,” Curt muttered.
He had taken from his pocket the little detector instrument which he had built. He turned on the watchlike thing.
Instantly a tiny red light flashed out on the detector. A signal that it was near a powerful force-field of a certain frequency.
“I knew it!” Captain Future declared, his gray eyes shining. “By heaven, I’ve solved it — an age old planetary mystery — the riddle of Doctor Zarro’s secret base!”
“What are you talking about, Chief?” Otho demanded.
Captain Future was silent, trying to make up his mind. He knew he had penetrated the heart of the great plot against the System.
He felt that he could smash that plot, now and at once. But also, he felt that first his duty was to find and rescue the Brain. Tensely weighing alternatives, Curt came to a decision.
“Take the Comet down into that ocean, Otho,” he directed.
“Down into the water?” cried Otho unbelievingly. “But that’s death! The currents and waves of that sea will hurl the Comet to destruction against some rock or shoal!”
“Oh, so you’ve lost faith in me, have you?” Captain Future grinned at the android.
Otho’s green eyes flashed.
“You know I haven’t, Chief! I’d steer into the Sun if you told me to, and you know it!”
And Otho determinedly opened the throttles and sent the little ship gliding down toward the seething, shoreless sea.
The android braced his rubbery body for the shock as the Comet dropped toward the raging waves. And Grag, looking inquiringly at Curt but saying nothing, also seemed a little uneasy.
The Comet plunged in a moment beneath the surface of the sea.
And instantly that sea vanished from around them! That great ocean abruptly disappeared, and they found themselves hovering in air a few hundred feet above solid land!
THE transition was staggering. There was no water in sight now. Far away to the horizons in the dusky daylight, stretched a rolling landscape, blanketed by a thick forest of giant white club-mosses — a weird, unearthly jungle.
“Devils of space — what’s happened?” yelled Otho. “We ought to be under water, and the water’s all vanished!”
“What has become of the ocean into which we plunged, Master?” Grag asked wonderingly.
“There was no ocean,” Captain Future declared.
“But we saw it!” Otho cried.
“What we saw was an illusion,” Curt told him. “An illusion similar to that by which the Magician made himself look like an Earthman — an illusion somehow projected as a field of force.”
And Curt explained quickly. “When I found that the Magicians didn’t live on either Cerberus or Charon, that left only one place where they could live — Styx! Yet Styx had always been known to be completely sea-covered. I couldn’t understand it.
“Then it occurred to me that the sea-covered appearance of Styx might be an illusion. I knew, from your experience on Mars, and from what old Kiri had told me, that these white-furred Magicians were masters of illusion. Suppose that they really dwelt on Styx and that the appearance of this moon as sea-covered was only an illusion maintained by them — a super-camouflage of their world? I built the detector to see if that was so, and it showed me it was.”
“But Styx has always looked ocean-covered, ever since the first exploring Earthmen reached Pluto!” Otho objected.
Curt nodded gravely. “Yes, and I have an idea that the coming of the Earthmen had something to do with the way the Magicians camouflaged their world. Remember what old Kiri said — after the Earthmen came, the Magicians were no longer seen on Pluto?”
They looked up. In the sky above them seemed stretched a wavering, semi-opaque curtain — the mysterious field of force that maintained the planetary illusion.
Then they looked down again, across the weird, silent forces of giant white mosses and grass that stretched far away in an unearthly vista.
“And to think that every Earth explorer, and space-traveler has been frightened away from this moon by a mere illusion!” burst Otho.
“Not every one,” Captain Future declared meaningly. “At least one Earthman penetrated this illusion.”
“Victor Krim!” burst the android excitedly. “By all the gods of space, I see it now! Krim must be Doctor Zarro, but his base isn’t on Cha
ron at all — it’s right here on Styx!”
Curt Newton was studying his ingenious detector, as the Comet throbbed low over the white jungle of mosses. He was taking successive directional readings, and then he rapidly computed.
“Head a little west of southward, Otho,” he directed. “The force-field that maintains the illusion centers somewhere there, so there must be the Magicians’ city — and the base of Doctor Zarro.”
“And the Brain will be there too, then, Master?” asked Grag eagerly.
Curt nodded, his handsome face stern.
“That’s my first objective here — to find and rescue Simon.”
THE Comet hummed southward above the weird white forest, while a common excitement and hope gripped the young scientific wizard and the two Futuremen.
“Stay very low, and keep the speed down,” Curt ordered the android.
They had flown almost a half-hour when Captain Future’s keen eyes descried a cluster of pale stone towers rising above the forest far ahead. The vague towers clustered around a lofty, slender metal column crowned by a large glowing globe.
“Down!” rapped Curt instantly. “We’ll land here — we daren’t go closer in the Comet.”
Immediately Otho brought the little ship to rest among the towering mosses. Oppressive silence encompassed them.
“We’ll reconnoiter that city on foot,” Captain Future said rapidly, loosening his proton-pistol in its sheath. “I think it’s safe to leave the Comet in this hidden spot without guard.”
He was opening the door as he spoke. Cold, pungent air rushed in upon them.
Otho followed the tan red-haired adventurer out into the cold, dusky daylight. Grag followed, with Eek clinging to his shoulder.
“You’re not going to take that moon-pup with us on a dangerous mission like this?” Otho demanded of the robot. “Leave him locked up in the ship.”
“Eek is too frightened to be left alone — he has been scared ever since he saw that korlat on Charon,” defended Grag.
Otho raved. “It isn’t enough that the chief and I have to be hampered by a ton of walking machinery — we also have to drag along a moon-pup that gets staggering drunk every time it finds any precious metal, and that’s scared of its own shadow!”
“Eek is as brave as anyone!” replied Grag indignantly. “He’s just nervous when he’s on these strange worlds.”
“Nervous? I’ll say that he’s nervous!” Otho retorted. “He’s so nervous that his teeth clatter together every time anything bigger than a Martian sand-flea comes near him!”
“Let Grag bring him, Otho,” Captain Future said hastily. “If we left him in the ship, the little devil might try to eat his way out.”
Curt and the two Futuremen started through the white forest toward the distant towers.
It was a ghostly forest. The enormous, pallid club-mosses around them loomed a dozen feet above their heads. A cold, sluggish wind whispered in their ears. A small, hairy white rodent darted across their path. There were no other sounds. Overhead stretched the semi-opaque curtain across the whole starred, dusky sky.
Eek, clinging to Grag’s shoulder, craned his head down and bit off a branch of one of the bluish shrubs, which the moon-pup chewed with evident relish as they moved on.
“I never saw Eek eat any plants before,” Grag said surprisedly in a low voice. “I thought he ate only metal or rock.”
“That plant has a high cobalt-content,” Captain Future pointed out. “See how the broken end of it glistens. The soil of this world Styx must be heavy with cobalt, and that proves that we’ve found the home of the Magicians at last — remember my cobalt-clue?”
THEY went more slowly and carefully as they came nearer the pale stone towers. Curt Newton eyed the slender metal column, that was crowned by a glowing globe, with keen interest.
“Unless my guess is wrong, that’s the broadcaster of the force-field that creates the whole planetary illusion,” he muttered, his scientific curiosity mounting.
“Someone coming!” Otho hissed suddenly.
“Into the grass!” Curt ordered, flinging himself down into the tall, concealing white grasses.
Grag and Otho instantly followed his example. Raising his head a little, Captain Future looked toward the city, from which direction was coming an increasing sound of muffled thudding.
Then he saw who came. They were a dozen of the so-called Magicians — semi-human creatures with bodies covered by short, thick white fur, two-toed feet and two-fingered hands, and flattened, unhuman heads out of which stared huge, black, pupil-less eyes.
The Magicians were riding white, hairy beasts that reminded Curt of the ancient Earth kangaroo — beasts of burden that hopped along in giant leaps on two powerful legs, their heads held erect by reins running back to their strange riders.
“Stygians — natives of Styx!” muttered Captain Future as he stared from hiding. “That’s what the so-called Magicians really are — a race whose existence the System has never suspected.”
He noticed the folded nets of metal-mesh that each Stygian rider carried on his saddle.
“They’re going hunting,” he guessed. “Probably they hunt and trap those hopping creatures they ride, and then tame them.”
The Stygian hunters passed at a short distance from the crouching trio, and the sound of their passage died away.
Curt and the two Futuremen crept on, more cautiously now. Presently they peered from behind a looming clump of white moss at the city of the Stygians.
It was not large, but had an indescribably ancient look. They could see many of the white-furred Stygians abroad in the stone metropolis. Some few of them rode the hopping beasts of burden. Others were engaged in cultivation of a narrow zone of carefully-tended vegetation which belted the city.
“Doctor Zarro’s somewhere in there — and Simon too,” Curt muttered. He reached toward his belt. “I’m going in there — invisibly. You two wait.”
“You can’t!” Otho objected. “Your invisibility will expire before you get halfway into the place!”
“I have a plan —”
He stopped suddenly. Little Eek, looking fearfully back from Grag’s shoulder, was squirming terrifiedly. Sensing peril in the telepathic moon-pup’s actions, Captain Future whirled around.
The dozen Stygian riders they had seen shortly before were silently coming up on them from the rear!
“Those hunters!” Curt yelled. “They ran across our trail in the grass and tracked us!”
HE WAS drawing his proton-pistol as he shouted, and in the same moment, with loud cries, the Stygians urged their mounts upon the three comrades. And the white-furred riders were swinging their hunting-nets over their heads as they charged.
Curt’s proton-beam, set at stunning force, toppled two of the charging Stygians from their saddles in the split-second of blurring action. But the heavy metal-mesh nets were now flying through the air.
Cast with unerring accuracy, the heavy nets settled around Curt and the two Futuremen in prisoning, pinioning folds.
Chapter 17: Hall of Enemies
JOAN RANDALL and the Brain were helpless to move from the corner of the Legion of Doom cruiser, into which they had been flung. The Brain, of course, had no powers of movement at any time, and the girl police agent was tightly bound by the repulsive rope-snakes which held their grip upon her, and would hold it until they received the twanging signal of release.
“Doctor Zarro must be taking us to his base,” the Brain reflected aloud in his rasping metallic voice. “At least, we’ll find out for certain where that is.”
“It can’t be to Cerberus, can it?” the girl asked. “If Victor Krim is really Doctor Zarro, they must be taking us to Charon.”
Her eyes flashed. “And Captain Future will soon learn where we are and follow!”
Joan tried to loosen the cold grip of the rope-snakes but could not. Nothing but the release-signal which they were trained to obey could do that. But she managed to work her bound figur
e into a sitting position from which she could look out through one of the small round space-windows of the compartment.
She uttered a startled cry.
“We’re not going toward Charon, or Cerberus either! They’re both over on the right!”
“Then we must be heading toward Styx,” said the Brain instantly.
“Styx?” Joan’s face expressed her incredulity. “But that moon’s completely sea-covered. No one has ever gone there — we can’t be going there.”
“Nevertheless, that is where we are going,” said a deep, harsh voice.
The eyes of both Joan and Simon Wright turned toward the speaker. It was Doctor Zarro.
The tall, burning-eyed prophet had entered the compartment, followed by the dwarf Roj, and three of the Earthmen members of the Legion of Doom.
“Yes, we are going to Styx,” Doctor Zarro repeated harshly. “You are about to see things unsuspected by the whole System — though you will never return to tell about them.”
Roj chuckled evilly. “The girl will make a nice addition to the Hall of Enemies, Doctor.”
Joan’s blood chilled at the sinister, mysterious menace in the dwarfed criminal’s mirth. But she faced them bravely.
Doctor Zarro had turned and was speaking to the Earthmen Legionaries. “You can discard disguise, now,” he told them.
The three Legionaries put their hands to their belts, and touched something.
At once the three changed magically from ordinary-looking Earthmen into white-furred, queer, semi-human creatures, whose great hollow black eyes stared solemnly. At the belt of each of them was a small cylindrical mechanism.
“My Stygian friends are always glad to shed the illusion that disguises them as Earthmen,” Doctor Zarro was saying.
“Why do you not shed your disguise, Doctor?”, asked the Brain coldly. “We know that your impressive appearance is only a similar illusion — that you are an Earthman. And we think we know just what Earthman you are.”
DOCTOR ZARRO laughed harshly. “What you think does not matter any longer, Brain. The peoples of the System think that this is my true appearance, that I am some super-scientist from mysterious realms outside the System, who alone can save them.”
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