Captain Future 10 - Outlaws of the Moon (Spring 1942)

by Edmond Hamilton

  Curt had plunged ashore with the crucible of blazing radioactive matter, toward the towering copper ball on the wave-transmitter.

  “We’ve got to do it — we’ve got to surrender!” Grag groaned. “Your machine can’t stop these Patrol men now. We can’t see a lot of these Moon folk slaughtered, when they try to use spear-bows against atom-guns.”

  But Captain Future, paying no heed to the despairing words, was hastily pouring the glowing mass of radium ore into the hopper at the base of the towering spherical transmitter. He slammed a starting switch. The atomic-power unit at the heart of the machine began to throb.

  “Last warning, Future!” came the shout of the Patrol captain. “Surrender — or we start firing!”

  The Patrol squads were determinedly advancing. Still Curt Newton gave them no attention. His eyes were fixed on the potential gauge set into the instrument panel of his big wave-transmitter.

  He waited till the power output had swiftly climbed to a tremendous figure.

  Then quickly he closed the circuit that sent that power racing into the wave-transmitter itself. The apparatus began a loud drone.

  But nothing happened —

  Grag and Otho, breathlessly waiting for a scientific miracle, felt their hopes fade away.

  “It doesn’t work!” Grag exclaimed bitterly.

  Captain Future’s eyes were brilliant with excitement.

  “It’s working now!” he cried to them. “It’s broadcasting a vibratory force, high in an octave of the electro-magnetic spectrum that only Simon and I have ever explored.”

  “But it hasn’t any effect! Nothing’s happened!” cried Otho.

  “Look at that!” Curt shouted, pointing at the advancing Patrol company.

  The Patrol officers had leveled their atom-guns to fire as Curt ignored their final warning. They had pulled the triggers. But the atom-guns were dead and useless. The uniformed men were bewilderedly examining their harmless weapons.

  “Holy sun-imps!” shouted Otho, jumping with excitement. You mean that this machine’s invisible wave has put their atom-guns out of commission?”

  “Not only their atom-guns but all sources of atomic power within its radius!” Curt told him.

  “Atomic power,” he went on happily, “is produced by using certain forces to disrupt the atom by accelerating its electron movements. This force that Simon and I once investigated, which I’m broadcasting now in a powerful wave, inhibits electronic movement. Thus the production of atomic power is halted everywhere in its radius. And it has a million miles’ radius!”

  “A million miles?” yelled Otho. “Then the effective scope of this transmitter includes all the Moon and Earth! Gods of space, you don’t mean —”

  “Yes!” Curt Newton exclaimed. “Atomic power, on which all modern industries, weapons and ships now depend, can’t exist within the radius of this wave. I’ve blacked out all power on the Moon and Earth!”

  Chapter 15: World Without Power

  THE astounding revelation of the truly stupendous magnitude of Captain Future’s stratagem left the Futuremen speechless. Meanwhile, a radical transformation had taken place in the tense scene around them.

  The Patrol men had stopped advancing, were frantically trying to make their useless atom-guns work. The Lunarians, sensing the disaster to their enemies, were starting to plunge forward with Fwar Aj at their head. But Curt Newton sprang to the fore.

  “Your guns are useless!” he shouted to the Patrol captain. “Unless you surrender now, these Lunarians will massacre you. They outnumber you many times, and they have their spear-bows while you’re now weaponless.”

  “The Patrol doesn’t surrender, Future!” came back the defiant answer. “Especially to murderers and outlaws!”

  “I’m no murderer and we Futuremen won’t be outlaws long — if I can fix the guilt for that crime where it belongs!” Curt cried. “If I succeed in doing that, this whole nasty mess will soon be cleared tip. And you won’t have the responsibility for useless bloodshed on your head.”

  The young Patrol captain hesitated. He perceived clearly that resistance of his defenseless men to the swarming Lunarians would be hopeless.

  Albert Wissler jumped forward and raised his voice as the Patrol officer wavered.

  “Captain Future is telling the truth!” he cried thinly. “He didn’t murder the President. Larsen King and Gil Strike did it!”

  The shouted testimony of Wissler, King’s chief lieutenant in the Moon project, went far to convince the Patrol officer.

  “Drop your guns, men,” he ordered his followers. “March up to the Lunarians with hands raised.”

  Captain Future breathed a long sigh of relief. His paramount desire had been to avoid loss of life. Now he rapidly explained to old Reh Sel and Fwar Aj that the invaders were surrendering.

  The Lunarians were no bloodthirsty race. Their reaction was one of intense joy and relief, mixed with bewilderment at the sudden reversal of the situation.

  Old Reh Sel found a superstitious explanation for it.

  “The Shining Mountain has protected itself!” he shrilled. “Through this remarkable stranger and his device, it has stricken powerless those who would have desecrated it!”

  Curt turned to Albert Wissler.

  “Thanks, fellow!” he said feelingly.

  The thin scientist blinked.

  “I owed you that much,” he replied hoarsely. “You saved me from a hideous death.”

  “The radium deposit is safe again!” Captain future declared exultantly. “There’s no force on the Moon that the Lunarians can’t handle now. No Patrol reinforcements can get to the Moon, for spaceships depend on atomic power for their rockets. Hence no rocket-ship can come here from the Earth.”

  “Gods of space!” muttered Otho, a little appalled. “We’ve isolated the Earth and Moon from the rest of the Solar System!”

  The Brain commented sharply.

  “What now, lad? We can’t keep the Moon and Earth isolated like this indefinitely. We can’t keep all power blanked out. Think of what the power-stoppage must be doing to Earth! What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to Earth,” Captain Future said decisively. “We’re going to have a final showdown, prove that Larsen King was behind that murder plot. Then King’s mining concession will be revoked, and the radium here will be safe from exploitation.”

  HE SWUNG back to Albert Wissler. “Will you testify on Earth that King and Gil Strike planned the murder, Wissler?”

  Wissler nodded instantly.

  “I will, Captain Future.”

  “Even so, King can deny Wissler’s charge,” muttered the Brain. “Without proof, we may not be able to fix the guilt on him.”

  “Chief, you’re forgetting something!” Grag cried. “We can’t go to Earth! You said yourself, no rocket-ship can operate within a million miles of here, now that wave-transmitter is blanking out all atomic power.”

  Curt turned to the Patrol captain who had just surrendered.

  “Our ship, the Comet, is still on the Moon, isn’t it?” he asked quickly. “You didn’t take it to Earth when you captured it?”

  The officer shook his head.

  “No, we didn’t. We took it to King’s base in Great North Chasm and left it there under strong guard. You see, we figured you Futuremen would try to repossess your ship. So we planned to use it as the bait of a trap to catch you, if all other methods failed.”

  “They failed, all right,” Captain Future said dryly. “Well, we’re going to Earth in the Comet, at once.”

  “You’re surely space-struck!” Grag protested. “The Comet’s rocket tubes operate from atomic power, like those of any other space vessel. They won’t work in this power blackout.”

  “We won’t use the racket tubes,” Captain Future grinned. “We’ll use the vibration drive, which doesn’t depend on atomic power.”

  “Holy sun-imps, you’re joking!” gasped Otho. “The lowest speed of the vibration drive is a twentieth th
e velocity of light! You said yourself that to use such speeds inside the System would be suicidal!”

  “We’re going to risk suicide, Otho,” Curt answered determinedly. “It’s our only way to get back to Earth without lifting the power blackout.”

  Within a few minutes, the Lunarians were joyfully starting the march back to their town with their captives. Reh Sel promised Captain Future that they would hold the Patrol men unharmed until Curt ordered them released.

  CURT and the Futuremen, with Albert Wissler, struck out across the black sea in one of the canoes. They headed with all the speed they could make for the eastern shore. Soon they landed there. After rapidly traversing the trail through the jungle, they entered the dark fissure that led up to the surface of the Moon. They pushed up the labyrinthine path, using krypton lights taken From the Patrol officers.

  Curt Newton was only human, and a very human desire for vengeance drove him almost feverishly forward. He was burning to settle accounts with Larsen King, whose covetous, cunning schemes had driven the Futuremen forth as outlaws.

  He chafed at every stop they made for rest in the caverns. Each hour of their toilsome upward march seemed interminable to him. When Wissler tired and faltered, Curt ordered Grag to help him along.

  “We daren’t keep this power blackout smothering Earth a moment longer than necessary,” he reminded them. “Think what mischief it must be causing there! Everything depends on atomic power now. Not a wheel can turn, not a ship can leave or reach Earth till the blackout is lifted.”

  At last they approached the uppermost cavern beneath Great North Chasm. The Brain uttered a sharp exclamation of alarm.

  “Look ahead, lad! There’s a powerful force coming down through the fissures!”

  Lights were growing stronger ahead — the krypton beams of hundreds of men, marching determinedly down toward them.

  “The devil!” cried Otho in dismay. “A new Patrol force must have landed on the Moon just before we slammed on the power blackout.”

  “”No, these aren’t Patrol men,” muttered Captain Future.

  His gray eyes suddenly lit. “That’s Joan Randall and Ezra Gurney in front! And there’s Rok Olor from Deimos, and Ka Kardak from Mercury, and a lot of others.”

  Joan came running forward with eager relief as the two parties met. Her dark eyes were shining.

  “Captain Future! Then we’re in time! We heard you were trapped, and we called all your friends to help us rescue you.”

  “But we were ‘fraid we were too late,” drawled old Ezra Gurney, grinning with pleasure. “Then just as we landed on the Moon, all power went dead. So we didn’t have any trouble gettin’ inside the minin’ dome an’ startin’ down here.”

  Members of the relief expedition — Jovians, Venusians, Saturnians Martians — hard-bitten men from every planet, were crowding excitedly around the Futuremen.

  Curt Newton felt sharp emotion. These friends he had made throughout the System were displaying unexpected loyalty. He might be thought a murder by the rest of the nine worlds, he might be an outlaw, but these men had ignored all that.

  “Where’s the Patrol? We’re ready to fight!” they were shouting.

  “There’s no need of fighting, thank heaven,” Captain Future told them. He outlined rapidly what had happened down below.

  “Blast me down, I might have known you Futuremen caused this crazy power stoppage!” murmured Ezra.

  “We’re going to Earth with you in the Comet!” Joan cried to Curt.

  “It’ll be terribly dangerous a trip at that speed,” he demurred. “I’d rather you stayed with the others.”

  She and Ezra overruled his protests. Presently they had started making their way back up through the uppermost cavern, and up the tunnel into the blue-lit mining dome.

  Larsen King’s officials and miners were already under guard of a detachment of Ezra’s legion. Without lingering, Curt Newton led the way rapidly toward the airlock entrance of the big dome.

  “How come you can keep goin’ in this power blackout, Grag?” Ezra Gurney was asking the robot as they hurried along. “Doesn’t that iron body of yours have a lime atomic power plant in it that gives you your strength?”

  “It does, but it’s shielded by a case of neutronic matter that no force can penetrate,” Grag told him. “No power blackout can stop me!”

  They paused briefly to don space suits. Then Captain Future led the Futuremen and Wissler, with Joan and Ezra from the dome.

  They hurried amid the ships parked on the floor of Great North Chasm until they found the Comet. Once in the ship, Curt hastily tossed aside his space suit and began preparation for the unparalleled traverse as such a flight was called.

  SEATED in the pilot’s chair in the control room, with the others watching tensely, he flicked switches expertly. Generators began to throb and a dim blue force rose around them in a highly protective stasis.

  “The generators of the vibration drive draw their own power from charged condensers, so as to be independent of the cyclotrons in case of emergency,” Curt explained rapidly over his shoulder, as he worked. “There should be more than enough charge to hurl us to Earth.”

  “And hurl us right through Earth, too,” muttered Otho forebodingly. “We’ll never make a safe landing at that awful speed.”

  “Ready to go!” Curt warned sharply. “Strap in, everybody. The protective stasis will cushion us against most of the acceleration shock, but you’ll still feel it.”

  He had computed the direction of Earth carefully. He knew just what he must do, and do rapidly, if the y were to make the traverse in safety.

  The big switch of the vibration drive closed under his fingers, throwing the powerful vibrations into the drive-ring at the ship’s tail.

  Click! With the snap of the switch the dark interior of Great North Chasm that lay outside, suddenly vanished. The Comet had been hurled up out of the great canyon into the open vault of space with a breathtaking velocity that seemed faster than thought.

  They were being hurled through space at a speed that was merely a fraction of the velocity of light! The gleaming surface of the rugged Moon dropped from below, with dizzy rapidity. Almost as soon as their eyes noticed it, the shining satellite receded to a great ball behind them.

  The hanging green globe of Earth was expanding outward ahead of the space travelers like a swelling balloon. They were now traversing thousands of miles through the void with each ticking second: The Comet was being flung from Moon to Earth at a speed that had been designed, not for the cramped spaces of the Solar System, but for the vast reaches of the interstellar abyss.

  Curt Newton was attempting the most perilous feat of space flight any pilot had ever undertaken. He must brake their speed at exactly the right moment, by throwing the force of the propulsion vibrations forward. A split second of difference either way meant disaster.

  Superhumanly tense as he crouched, he eyed the ballooning green sphere of Earth. He had computed that New York was now on the planet’s sunlit side. The Comet has already screaming toward the sunward face of the rolling, cloud-screened ball.

  Click! Captain Future had slammed the vibration drive into reverse. Friction alarms exploded in frantic clamor, simultaneous with an intolerable, knife-edged wall of parting air. The ship was sickeningly checking speed, only the protective stasis saving its shell from collapse.

  “We’ve still too much velocity!” Otho cried thinly above the screeching dive. “We’re going to crash —”

  Sunlit green continent and blue ocean were rushing madly up toward them. They glimpsed the clustered, gleaming towers of New York. The spaceport’s central field slammed up at them.

  Ezra Gurney closed his eyes. Joan Randall flung her arm across her face. The falling Comet was slowing in stunningly swift deceleration —

  CLICK! Click! Click! Curt was alternating the direction of the drive with frantic speed. The ship bounced back and down again toward the spaceport. There was a jarring shock. Then silence.<
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  “We made it,” Curt Newton said unsteadily, stumbling to his feet. His whole body was trembling, his throat dry with tension.

  “Captain Future!” Ezra’s faded eyes were agleam with hero worship. “The greatest feat of space-pilotin’ in history! No one else in the universe would even have tried it!”

  Curt was helping Albert Wissler to his feet. The thin scientist’s eyes were still bulging glassily from the dazing shock of that wild traverse. Curt shook him back to normality.

  “Wissler, we’ve got to get to Larsen King at once, before we’re stopped. You know where he would be?”

  Wissler gulped, and nodded weakly.

  “His home and offices are in one of those sky-castles atop a big tower not far from here.”

  “Lead the way!” Curt exclaimed. “There’s not a moment to lose.”

  They emerged onto the sunlit spaceport. It was a scene of frozen inactivity. No spaceships were taking off or landing. No repair machines were whirring in the great reconditioning docks. Everything was silent, dead. The men about the place looked dazed and bewildered.

  And all New York was frozen and silent around them. No swift taxi flyers came and went, no atom-cars dashed through the streets. The blinking “ion-signs” were dark. Knots of confused, anxious people were wandering or standing about helplessly.

  Earth was a world without power, all its industries and utilities frozen, its transport inoperative, its spaceships pinned down, unable to take off into space. Earth — isolated from the entire Solar System.

  Then quickly a cry of discovery went up as Curt Newton and his little band started from, the spaceport through the streets under Wissler’s guidance.

  “Captain Future! The Futuremen! The outlaws have come back to Earth!”

  “The Futuremen are back!” echoed down the broad avenues. The bewildered throngs shrank back in alarm from the determined group that Curt Newton was leading rapidly through the streets.

  “There come some of the Planet Police!” yelled Otho warningly.