“Good work, Chief!” he applauded as he stepped away, free. “I’ll have Joan and you out in a minute.”
Otho had to wait a few minutes for the flesh of his wrists and hands to re-harden. Then, with a tiny tool from his belt, he began to work on their manacles until both Curt Newton and Joan were freed.
“Now what?” Otho whispered tensely. “The door’s locked and guards are still outside.”
“Make up as Bubas Uum,” Curt ordered. “It may take them by surprise and get us out.”
SWIFTLY the android, the greatest master of disguise in the System, used the softening oil on his head and body. He remolded himself into the puffy figure and face of Bubas Uum. Then, with his stains and dyes, he made himself the exact replica of the fat green Jovian.
“How’s it look, Chief?” he asked in Bubas’ voice.
“Disgusting but good,” Curt said quickly. He had been gathering up the seven space stones and thrusting them into his belt. “Now call the guards. Pretend you’ve been in here all the time.”
Otho went to the little loophole in the door and called to the guards outside, using Bubas’ harsh, shrill voice.
“All right, men. You can let me out of here now.”
A guard peered in and seemed thunderstruck at sight of Bubas Uum. Otho stood so the guard could not see Curt or Joan.
“Why, I thought you had left, Master.”
“You fool, you’re seeing things,” Otho snapped. “Open up!”
The guard wonderingly obeyed. As the door swung open, Otho and Curt leaped out on the two gold-uniformed men. The guards, taken by surprise, went down under hammerlike punches. Curt and the android dragged the stunned men in and locked the door.
“Now out of here to the Comet,” Curt cried. “Lead on, Otho.”
They hurried down the passage and up a back stair. Another guard at the top drew his atom pistol. He replaced it when he saw what seemed to be Bubas Uum leading the other two.
“It’s all right,” Otho said harshly to the man. “Stand aside.”
They emerged into the soft, summery night of the Pleasure Planet. Hastening away from the brilliant Palace of Hazard, the three companions left the City of Chance by dark back streets. Soon they were skirting the space port, racing away from a sudden clamor behind them.
“Found out we escaped,” Curt panted. “Hurry!”
He grabbed Joan’s hand, half-dragging her along. The Comet loomed out of the darkness. Without pausing to look back, they rushed into the ship.
“No time to explain now — they’re after us!” Curt panted to Grag, Simon and Ezra. “Blast off the Planet at full rockets, Grag!”
The big robot jumped for the controls. Abruptly the Comet screamed up into the darkness. When it was clear of the planetoid’s atmosphere, it zoomed out of the night-shadow into clear space.
“That’s far enough,” Curt ordered. “Hold her here and keep circling the Planet.” Then he looked at the Brain, and his face was grim as he spoke.
“It’s what we guessed, Simon — a sub-atomic universe, that Thuro Thuun entered long ago. Quorn’s down in it now.”
“What are yuh talkin’ about?” Ezra asked, mystified.
Curt brought out the seven space stones. He pointed to the black jewel on the face of which was imbedded the red sand-grain.
“A tiny universe is in that grain of sand, Ezra. And a sleeping threat lies in it. Quorn’s trying to unloose it for his own purposes. He’s down there, in that sand grain, this very minute. He mustn’t succeed. Which means that I have to go after him.”
“Are you crazy, to talk about goin’ to a sand grain?” Ezra Gurney blurted.
PAYING no attention to the old man’s bewilderment, Captain Future was ranging the first six space stones on the laboratory table of the cabin, beneath a swinging X-ray projector.
“These six stones contain Thuro Thuun’s mental record of how he went down into the sand grain universe,” Curt muttered abstractedly. “The seventh stone contains the sand grain itself. First we’ve got to hear the formula of Thuro Thuun — all of it, at last.”
He started the hard radiation pouring down on the space stones, one after another. As the superpowerful radiation hit the gems, it seemed to all of them that the mental voice of the long-dead Martian scientist was speaking clearly in their mind. A section of his message was coming from each of the six stones.
“I, Thuro Thuun, am a scientist of Mars. Our world is dying, our civilization withering. I sought to find a new universe — a sub-atomic solar system — to which we could migrate. Having found a way to increase or decrease size at will, I believed there must be many habitable sub-atomic planets in the atoms of our world. With the aid of my discovery, I became small and went down into a grain of desert sand. As I had expected, it contained a whole galaxy of atomic systems. But only one of them, the system of a great red sun, was habitable.
“I found peril there, for the red sun’s worlds were inhabited by atomic people who desired to migrate upward — into our System! Thus had I put my own people in danger, for the atomites tormented me to lead them back whence I came. I pretended to agree, and said I would return with many such mechanisms as I wore. By thus beguiling them, I prevailed on them to let me go. When I returned, I resolved never again to unlock that danger. It would be better for my people to struggle against the death of their world than to risk being crowded off it.
“Naturally I do not wish to destroy my great discovery, and therefore do I put it into these stones. It may be that in some future day the people of my world will face absolute disaster. Through this formula, they may take refuge in some different sub-atomic universe. Great care will have to be employed in selecting a world, however. In order to enter the infinitesimal, it was necessary for me to slow the rotation and revolution of every celestial body in the grain of sand. Since their days and years are now much the same length as ours, the inevitable death of that universe has been partially averted.
“I leave my secret to be used only in the last extreme, in the hope that the atomic peoples have solved their difficulty. If they have, then the size of men may be increased or decreased by a simple process of force-condensation, or accretion. The sub-electron, the ultimate unit of matter, is really only a particle of force. It can be condensed or expanded by draining its force or adding force to it, by using positive or negative charges.
“A small generator must be constructed, which shall be capable of emitting vibrations within the thirteenth division of the eighth octave of the electro-magnetic spectrum. These are the carrier waves, which must be so projected by the generator as to enclose the subject and affect every atom of his body and clothing. These carrier waves must be used to transmit a pure charge of negative undimensional force to his atoms, when he wishes to reduce size.
“The stronger the negative charge, the smaller be becomes. Similarly a positive charge must be used when one wishes to grow larger. But should you use this process, be sure not to enter the sand grain universe. The pitifully crowded people of its last dying worlds, who begged me to lead them up into my own System, might use force to make you do so. Sad as is their plight, we cannot allow them to enter our own System.”
CAPTAIN FUTURE switched off the X-ray projector and looked around at the faces of Joan, Ezra and the three Futuremen.
“Now you know Thuro Thuun’s story,” Curt declared. “The irony of it! He went down into the sub-universe, looking for worlds to lead his people to. Instead, he found worlds whose people were in even worse plight than his. No wonder he was afraid to use the process again.”
“It’s unbelievable,” Joan whispered. “A race struggling against extinction, down in a dying universe in that grain!”
“And Ul Quorn is down there, too,” Curt reminded. “His plan is perfectly clear. He can bargain with that wretched, hard-pressed atomic race, agree to lead them up into our System if they obey all his commands. And they’re apparently in such dire straits that they’ll do it.”
�
�Say, it’ll be easy to get Quorn then!” Otho cried. “He’s down in the sand-grain universe. We’ll just destroy the grain with a flash of force, and that’s the end of Doctor Quorn!”
Curt looked at him sternly.
“It would be the end of the atomic race, too — a race that’s making a pitiful last fight for life in a dying universe.”
“No, we couldn’t destroy them,” the Brain rasped. “Thuro Thuun couldn’t bring himself to a crime like that. That’s why he must have imbedded the sand grain in the seventh space stone, hoping, perhaps, that some day he could help the atomic race.”
“The only way to stop Quorn from playing on that wretched people’s disaster is for me to go down after him,” Captain Future said. “Simon, we’ve got to build a generator like the one Thuro Thuun’s record describes. Quorn took weeks to build his. We must build ours in minutes.”
“We’ll try, Curtis,” rasped the Brain. “Though whether or not we can do it —”
“There’s nothing the four greatest scientists in the System can’t do!” cried Ezra Gurney loyally.
They began a period of tense, unceasing toil in the laboratory-cabin of the Comet, as the little ship circled the Pleasure Planet. Captain Future, renowned wizard of science, and the three Futuremen, were racing against time and using every iota of their unparalleled scientific abilities.
Ezra and Joan Randall watched, silent and a little awed. They had seen the Futuremen work together before, but even they had never seen such swiftness, such machinelike cooperation and sureness, as Curt Newton and his three companions now displayed.
The disklike generator took shape on the laboratory table. Grag and Otho brought separate parts of it for assembly. The keen lens-eye of the Brain watched each detail of the process, and his rasping voice spoke in terse monosyllables, as Simon examined the work of Curt’s flying hands.
“Now the test,” the Brain muttered at last. “Hook it to the gages, lad. The carrier wave first. Good, it checks.”
“How about the force charge?” Curt asked. “Negative, Otho.”
“Not truly undimensional,” rasped the Brain. “Tune it again.”
Curt touched a screw lightly.
“Now?” he asked tautly.
“Checks,” rasped the Brain succinctly. “It’s finished, lad.”
Curt straightened wearily, his eyes swimming blearily from the hours of labor with the machine’s tiny parts.
“I’m going at once,” he rapped out. “Get me a space suit and an impeller, Grag.”
“Why the space suit?” asked Ezra puzzledly.
“There’s no air between the worlds of any universe, Ezra.”
THE space suit was brought, and Curt donned it. He attached the disk-shaped generator to his belt. Before putting on the helmet, he spoke to the Brain.
“If I fail to come back, Simon, don’t let Quorn emerge from the sand grain.”
“We won’t, lad,” promised the Brain. “But be careful.”
“I have an idea how to beat Quorn, if I can get to those atomic people,” Curt said. “I can offer them a chance for life, without the necessity of their crowding our own System.”
The others looked curious, but Curt did not explain. He had put on the helmet hurriedly, and was swiftly turning on the generator at his belt.
He felt the terrific shock of the negative force as the golden aura of carrier waves enveloped his body. The shock passed quickly. Curt looked around. The cabin and the people in it were all growing vastly larger. Then he realized that it was he who was shrinking.
Outward expanded the cabin walls. Huger grew his friends. They were like giants now, bending over him.
He guessed he was only a foot high when he motioned Grag to put him up on the table, which seemed a vast metal plain. He was only inches high. He ran toward the black space stone. By the time he reached it, it was like a huge, polished black mound as high as his head. Curt knew then that he was less than an inch in height.
He clambered up on top of the smooth jewel. It was like crouching on a low, rounded, black hill. At the center of its summit was what seemed to be a big, jagged rock. It was the sand grain! Curt climbed up and stood on the jagged rock. He could barely make out the misty, colossal figures of his friends. They were shadowy giants, growing larger and more indistinct. The rock below him was expanding outward into a craggy plain. He knew he must be completely invisible to the others.
As he grew still smaller, the rock plain under him was expanding further, becoming rougher and rougher. He tumbled down into a small gully, which, a few moments later, was a deep abyss. The abyss deepened until he was falling. The rock walls had become tenuous, had changed into a swarm of widely separated, spinning globes. The whirling globes were the atoms of the sand grain, he knew. He was floating in space — interatomic space.
No, interstellar space! For he saw now that each atom was truly a star system, with worlds revolving around a central sun. A universe of suns and worlds swarmed in the sand grain. But it was a dead universe. The suns were black and burned-out cinders, the worlds barren, airless, lifeless, a universe that had long ago entered its last, dying phase. Then, far away across the galaxy of dead suns, Curt Newton saw a spark of somber red. One red sun still burned with faint life!
“That’s it.” he breathed. “The sun of the atomic people that Thuro Thuun described. And Quorn is there!”
He checked his shrinking, turning off the generator. With his impeller, Captain Future started projecting himself like a giant through the interstellar spaces, toward that distant red sun.
Chapter 19: Giant from the Stars
MINUTE as he was, Curt was still colossal in size, compared with the sub-universe into which he had come. But he meant to refrain from dwindling down to comparatively normal size until he was near the red sun whose worlds must hold the atomic people Quorn was seeking. It gave Captain Future an uncanny sensation to float past dead suns that seemed hardly larger than his own head.
Then Curt stiffened as he perceived a great black mass approaching him from the red sun. At first he thought it was some vagrant dead star roaming the interstellar spaces. Then he realized that it was man-shaped — that it was a man wearing a space suit! As colossal as himself, in comparison to the universe around them, the vast human body, as it came on through space, was growing!
“Ul Quorn,” Curt gritted inside his helmet. “I might have known he’d see me.”
He understood everything in a flash. Ul Quorn, on the worlds of the red sun, would inevitably see the vast form of Captain Future shrinking down into this sub-universe, and would realize he had been followed. Now the mixed-breed was advancing. “Means to get me right here!” Curt mused swiftly. “That’s why he’s using his mechanism to grow larger. But he mustn’t get any bigger!”
Turning his impeller on to full power, Captain Future hurled himself through the interstellar spaces toward the oncoming figure. Two giants, rushing between the dead suns, were about to meet in deadly combat! That, Curt knew, was how it must look to any awe-stricken beholders on the tiny atomic worlds.
Then there was no more time for thought. Quorn loomed just ahead, his anger-contorted face clearly visible through his glassite space-helmet. The mixed-breed was letting go of his impeller, snatching an atom pistol from his belt. The streak of white fire blasted toward Captain Future.
But Curt had already sent himself lunging to one side by a blast from his impeller. The fire streak grazed past him, struck a dead little star system behind him. It sent the dark, cindery, lifeless worlds blazing up in leaping flame.
Curt Newton had his own proton pistol in his belt, but he dared not use it to fire at Quorn. If he missed the mixed-breed, he might hit the tiny red sun and the worlds that lay beyond his ruthless enemy. And so huge was their comparative size, the pistol blast might well destroy the sun and worlds of the atomic people.
“Must stop him from getting bigger,” Curt reflected.
He swung the tubelike impeller fastened to hi
s belt, sent himself curving upward and then down again. The rocket blast of the impeller hurled him in a looping lunge toward the mixed-breed. Quorn fired hastily again, but Curt’s unexpected curve upward had upset his calculations. He missed.
Next moment, Captain Future hit the mixed-breed’s floating figure. They grappled there, two men floating in space between the tiny star systems of the sub-atomic universe. Two unthinkably colossal giants, measured by standards of the universe around them.
QUORN hammered at Curt’s helmet with his pistol, seeking to crack the glassite and let the air escape from the suit. Yet Captain Future, for a moment, made no attempt to resist that assault. He was fumbling at the disk-shaped size-changing mechanism which the mixed-breed wore at his belt. Quorn was already larger than Captain Future. He must not continue to grow! Curt’s hand found the switch and turned it. The golden aura of force that had enveloped Quorn vanished. The Martian ceased to grow.
“Always knew I’d kill you some day!” Quorn was panting.
His voice reached Curt by conduction through their contacting suits. Quorn had desperately turned his pistol against Curt’s breast, intending to fire and risk the danger that the atomic flash would scorch himself at these close quarters.
“No you don’t!” Captain Future cried.
By a convulsive twist of his body, he raised his arm in time to knock Quorn’s gun-hand away. The glaring bolt from the pistol flared off into space between the tiny suns. Curt twisted the gun from Quorn’s hand by a cunning trick of super-ju-jutsu Otho had taught him long ago. He hurled the pistol off into space, saw it attract a dead sun that was hardly as large as itself.
Quorn seemed to have gone mad with hate and fury. He tore at Curt’s helmet, trying to unfasten it. Grappling as they floated in space, they were drifting toward a small, dead system that revolved around a tiny dark star. They blundered into that system — and shattered it! The worlds and their dead sun flew in all directions, smashed apart by the battling giants.
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