Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “Devils of space!” whispered the stupefied android. “Have I been using dreamdust?”

  In fact, the scene below him seemed more fitting to a grotesque and terrifying nightmare than to reality. Otho had seen queer things and places on many a world and moon, but never anything like this.

  The circular open court that pierced the center of the Alius citadel was three hundred feet in diameter. Since its depth was the thousand-foot height of the building, it resembled a huge black well upon the rim of which Otho was crouched, looking downward.

  Around the edge of the court rose a ring of eighty copper rods, that soared up out of the black well and far above the citadel roof. The tops of these rods, high above Otho, were bulbous electrodes, upon which played a ceaseless violet brush of electrical force. Otho perceived at once that this mighty ring of electrodes was designed to milk electrical force from the coma-sky.

  The terrific electric voltage gathered by the copper rods manifested itself at the bottom of the well as a crackling, brilliant ring of electric flame. This ring of flaming force completely encircled the interior of the court, in a dazzling wall twenty feet high. It was in fact a ceaseless falling cataract of electric energy.

  “There’s enough power in that to light up a planet!” Otho thought astoundedly. “What are they using it for?”

  He craned his gaze downward, seeking to discern details on the court’s floor. His eyes fastened on an enigmatic central object.

  “What the devil can that be?” he wondered mystifiedly.

  The torrents of flaming electrical energy that walled in the court were canalized, through massive transformers and conduit cables, toward this central object which so puzzled him. Evidently all this stupendous power was used by the Alius simply for the operation of the central object.

  But what was the thing? It looked like a massive arched door-frame which stood perpendicularly upon the black paving. Otho judged it was ten feet high and almost as wide. This arched frame was of solid copper, studded every few feet with heavy, bulging coils, to which were connected the multiple conduit cables that conveyed electric power.

  But inside the opening of this elaborate frame there was — nothing. Nothing but a featureless blackness. It was as though space itself did not exist inside that massive arch, so strong was the impression it gave Otho of utter, lightless emptiness.

  “If I could only get down there and see for myself what it is!” he muttered all his curiosity and passion for adventure on fire.

  Then he realized the practical impossibility. He might be able to clamber down into the court, though even that was doubtful, because of the vertical nature of these inner walls. But even if he could do that, he still would not be able to penetrate the stupendous ring of electric flame that aped in the whole court.

  “That ring of force would blast me or anyone else who tried to go through it,” Otho admitted to himself. “But what’s it all about? What’s that arched frame of blackness, and why does it have to use such terrific, constant power?”

  He strained his keen eyes desperately to inspect the object far below.

  “It seems to be the very keystone of the Alius’ citadel.”

  SUDDENLY Otho gasped unbelievingly as he looked downward. He was witnessing something that made his feeling of nightmare even stronger.

  A black, shadowy figure was emerging from that mysterious, coil-framed copper arch. The figure did not go through the arch — it simply came out of it!

  It was like a monstrous, moving silhouette of repulsively serpentine outline. Even at this height, Otho’s super-keen eyes could detect the essential inhumanity of that shadow’s alien dimensions.

  “Gods of space!” he whispered, appalled. “Is that one of the Alius?”

  The opaque black shadowy figure was gliding away from the arch toward the side of the court. Otho perceived that from that black shape there trailed a thin, shadowy filament which led back into the mystery-arch from which the creature had emerged.

  The dark figure glided unharmed right through the encircling wall of electric flame, to disappear through a doorway which led from the court into the citadel around it. But Otho could still see the filament of shadow it trailed behind it, which still led into the arch of mystery.

  “What the devil kind of entity is that?” the android gasped. “Creatures of shadow that come out of a door to no place, on a shadow-string! Creatures that can walk through that blasting wall of force!”

  He soon saw another of the Alius. For that these were the mysterious Great Ones, Otho could no longer doubt.

  He saw one of the shadowy creatures coming from the citadel into the court, gliding into the arch of blackness to disappear. In the next minutes, several such beings came and went through the arch. All of them who emerged from it trailed that curious shadowy filament after them.

  Otho felt badly upset. It had long been the reckless android’s boast that he was afraid of neither man, beast or devil. But these Alius were none of the three. As far as he could see; they were just opaque shadows of hideous form. But no mere shadows, he knew, could have mastered a planet as they had mastered this comet world.

  “No wonder the Cometae are scared to death of those creatures,” Otho thought, stunned. “How in the devil can a man fight a shadow?”

  Then a more cheerful thought occurred to him.

  “Still, on the other hand, how can a shadow fight a man? The things may have some queer mental powers, but aside from that I don’t see what they could do. I’ll bet they haven’t been able to get the chief down!”

  His active mind began to make plans. He and Grag had to get into the citadel somehow, to help Curt if he needed aid.

  Otho rejected the possibility of entry by climbing down into this central court. Too many of the shadowy Alius were coming and going constantly down there. He’d be sure to be detected, even if he were able to make it.

  The android quickly decided to return to Grag and explore the exterior of the citadel for a possible way inside. There was no opening anywhere to the roof, but they might find one somewhere in the walls.

  Hurriedly Otho retraced his way over the synthe-stone roof of the mighty pile, and with spidery agility and quickness climbed back down the outer wall. Then he raced for the edge of the luminous green jungle.

  Grag greeted him with a complaint.

  “You took long enough up there! I was beginning to think they had you. What did you find out?”

  “Plenty!” retorted Otho. He told rapidly of what he had seen.

  THE big robot listened incredulously. “You mean those Alius are nothing but shadows?”

  “They look like shadows, but there must be more to them than that,” Otho corrected. “The point is, there’s no practicable way into the place by the roof. We’ll have to look for some crack or window in the wall.”

  The two Futuremen started to reconnoiter the mighty citadel, moving around it and keeping always in the concealment of the jungle. In less than an hour, they were back where they had started from, baffled. The structure’s whole exterior was blank and without openings, except for the single entrance into which ran the white road from Mloon.

  “Not a chunk big enough for a Mercurian rat to get through!” exclaimed Otho, exasperated. “Well, there’s only one thing to do. We’ll have to dig a tunnel up into the cursed place.”

  Grag stared at him.

  “Are you crazy? There’s that big, wide entrance right in front of us. We’ll go in through it.”

  “Don’t be dumb all your life, Grag!” flared Otho impatiently. “Didn’t I tell you that entrance would be guarded somehow by the Alius? A child could see that.”

  “Querdel went in and out of it in his power-car,” retorted Grag. “I saw him come out and speed south, while I was waiting for you.”

  “Naturally, the Alius would let Querdel in and out, for he’s one of their tools,” Otho pointed out. “But you can bet a planet that if we tried to walk in there, we’d run right into a terrible trap.”


  “We’ve got to get in, and that door’s the only way in, and so I’m going through it,” Grag announced calmly.

  And the big metal robot, with Eek still clinging to his shoulder, stalked straight out of the jungle toward the entrance of the citadel.

  Otho swore furiously, and then hastened after the robot, with Oog trotting hastily at his heels. The android caught up with Grag just a few yards outside the yawning entrance.

  “Grag, don’t be an idiot!” Otho pleaded. “If you weren’t so cursed thick-headed, you’d know that we’ll never get in this way.”

  Grag paid no attention. The robot’s simple mind was thoroughly made up. Curt Newton was inside, here was a way to get in, and he was going that way without any further talk. Grag could be obstinate upon occasion, and this was one of the times.

  They now could see that the big, open entrance that pierced the citadel’s massive black wall was curtained by a zone of dark haze.

  “See — that haze is a force-barrier of some kind!” Otho expostulated. “It’ll either blast us to bits, or else set off an alarm that will bring the Alius down on our heads.”

  “Aw, it’s just a little dark haziness, that’s all,” replied Grag with sublime denseness. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Gods of space give me patience!” raved Otho. Then he uttered a grating laugh. “All right, if you’re determined on committing suicide, I’ll join you. I’d just as soon get killed here and now, as to have to put up with your company any longer.”

  And as Grag strode forward into the entrance, Otho accompanied him with angry despair.

  CAUTIOUSLY they entered the dark haze that curtained the doorway. They felt nothing whatever. And in a moment they had passed through it into a big, vaulted black gallery that was utterly empty. There was no alarm.

  “You see?” said Grag blandly. “There wasn’t anything to be afraid of.”

  “I can’t understand it!” stammered Otho, his jaw dropping in amazement. “The Alius must have put that hazy curtain of force there to bar out intruders! Why, in the name of all the ten thousand separate devils of the nine worlds, didn’t it keep us out?”

  “I’m afraid your nerves aren’t very good, Otho,” said Grag patronizingly. The robot looked calmly aroused. “Let’s see what’s in here. I don’t see how we’re going to find Curt in this big labyrinth.”

  Dumfounded by the fact that there had been no alarm or challenge, Otho followed the robot through one of the doors that pierced the walls of the big inside gallery.

  They found themselves looking into a maze of curving passageways, whose black recesses were illumined by a bright, sourceless white light. Otho shrank back and pulled the robot with him, as he glimpsed two dark figures gliding across one of the distant corridors.

  They were two Alius. The unearthly black, shadowy creatures of monstrously serpentine outline looked like dark ghosts as they moved across the distant passage. They trailed behind them the curious, dragging filaments of shadow that seemed permanently attached to their weird forms.

  So those are the Alius,” muttered Grag, as the two black silhouettes disappeared. “They don’t look like any race I ever saw.”

  Otho’s attention had shifted.

  “What the devil is the matter with that cursed moon-pup?” he demanded angrily.

  Eek, crouched on Grag’s shoulder, seemed convulsed by a spasm of terror. His little gray body was trembling violently, and his beady eyes were dilated with fear as he tried to hide under the robot’s arm.

  Eek’s cowardice was notorious among the Futuremen. He was inclined to scare at anything unfamiliar. Yet never in the past had the moon-pup exhibited such abject terror as now.

  “He’s afraid of the Alius,” Grag said solicitously. “You know, he’s strongly telepathic — it’s the way moon-dogs communicate. He must be getting some fearful thought-impressions from the Alius in here.”

  “Say, maybe we can use Eek to find the chief:” Otho whispered excitedly. “We know Curt’s in here somewhere. But if we go blundering around searching for him, we’re sure to be discovered. But Eek ought to be able to sense Curt telepathically, and lead us to him.”

  Grag at once accepted the suggestion.

  “I’m sure he can do it. I’ll tell him what we want.”

  Grag told Eek by thinking, since that was the way he always gave his orders to the telepathic moon-pup who could not speak or hear.

  “Find Curt, Eek!” Grag ordered. He added as an inducement, “If you can get to Curt you’ll be safe, Eek!”

  Safety was what Eek craved most, at the moment. Galvanized, he scrambled down onto the floor and started on a run along the outermost of the curving corridors before them.

  The two Futuremen followed, praying inwardly that they would meet none of the Alius. They believed that Eek would sense and fearfully avoid the shadowy aliens, and so it proved. For after leading them for some minutes along the corridors, Eek darted through a door in the wall.

  THE door was curtained by one of the barriers of dark, hazy force. That did not prevent the two Futuremen from entering. They found themselves in a small cell. Eek was leaping and bounding in frantic pleasure around a man who had risen in astonishment to his feet.

  It was Curt Newton.

  “Grag! Otho!” exclaimed Captain Future incredulously. “How in the name of all that’s holy did you get in here? Were you captured?”

  Otho explained their adventures in swift, excited phrases. As he did so, the android noted the haggardness and pallor of Curt’s features. He thought that he had never seen such a strain on his leader’s face.

  “So we walked right in through the front door, and Eek led us to you!” Otho finished. “Though I still don’t see how in the world we were able to pass the barrier of force across the entrance.”

  “Otho, I can understand that,” Curt Newton said eagerly. “That barrier is a curtain of mental force — a pattern of electromagnetic thought-impulses — which impresses upon the brain of any man who enters it that he must on no account go through the door. My cell has such a barrier.

  “But,” Curt continued, “that barrier of electromagnetic thought-impulses is designed to bar out human intruders. Its frequency must be the same as the frequency of impulses in the human brain. You and Grag, though, are not ordinary humans.

  “Your artificially created brains function at a different electrical frequency than the human mind. Therefore the thought-barriers of the Alius have no effect upon you two.”

  “Sure, that’s it,” said Grag complacently. “I figured that all out before, and that’s why I knew we could pass the barrier.”

  “In a space-rat’s eye, you did!” retorted Otho wrathfully. “You were just dumb enough to try it, and got a lucky break, that’s all. I should have remembered that the Alius, mental force failed against us before.”

  Captain Future interrupted with a fiercely impatient gesture.

  “Listen to me! The coming of you two is a godsend. It may furnish a chance to save Joan from those alien devils.”

  “Joan? Is she here?” exclaimed Otho startledly.

  “She’ll be here soon,” Curt answered.

  He told rapidly of the intention of the Alius to extort further information from him by threatening the girl.

  “Why, the dirty so-and-sos!” swore Otho. “I’d like to exterminate the whole shadowy crowd of them!”

  “Otho, maybe we can do just that, if we can make a particular effort,” Curt declared feverishly. “The clue that explains the nature of the Alius is in what you saw in that central court. I want you to tell me every detail you noticed, especially about that arched doorway into nothingness.”

  Otho complied, quickly describing the entire scene he had witnessed, when he had spied upon the Alius from the roof of the citadel.

  Captain Future’s gray eyes flashed.

  “It all fits together,” he breathed. “It’s incredible, but I believe it’s true.”

  “You mean, you
know now what the Alius are?” Grag asked, staring.

  “I’m sure of it,” Curt replied. “There’s only one explanation that fits all the facts. The Alius have no material existence at all!”

  “What are you talking about?” exclaimed Otho dismayedly. “Chief, are you sure you’re not delirious?”

  “I tell you, it’s the only answer,” Curt insisted. “The home of the Alius is in the four-dimensional void outside the bubble of our three-dimensional cosmos. Therefore, the material bodies of the Alius out there must be four-dimensional matter.”

  HIS eyes flared with excitement. “Such matter could not enter our three-dimensioned cosmos! That’s not just my own opinion. When he questioned me, Ruun remarked that energy could pass from one universe to the other, whereas matter could not. Therefore, it’s scientifically impossible for the Alius to exist in our cosmos!”

  “The ones in this cursed citadel certainly exist!” Otho exclaimed. “Why, they’ve mastered this whole world!”

  They do exist, but not materially,” Curt qualified. “Those shadowy figures consist not of matter, but of photons — particles of energy!”

  Rapidly, Captain Future unfolded the astounding explanation that his brilliant mind had pieced together from the scientific evidence.

  “The Alius are real, four-dimensional creatures inhabiting the four-dimensional abyss outside our cosmos. They needed power, and decided to enter our cosmos and set up here a giant transformer, which would draw in the energy of our sun and pour it into their own strange universe. Their initial step was to open a door between universes, first getting into contact with Querdel and the Cometae rulers and persuading them to aid.

  “The door was open — but the Alius couldn’t themselves come through it. Their four-dimensional bodies couldn’t exist in our cosmos. But energy, which is dimensionless, could pass back and forth through that door between universes. Atoms, which are particles of matter, couldn’t pass through. But photons, which are particles of energy, could.

  “So the Alius projected artificial bodies of photons through the door! Their shadowy figures that we see here are merely photon-patterns, which are directly connected by those filaments of energy with their tangible bodies on the other side of the door. They project their minds along that filament into the black photon-bodies that we see here. Thus, in those photon-shapes, the Alius are able to act in this universe.”