Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941)

by Edmond Hamilton

  "Almost two years ago, two of the most renowned scientists of our race, Zikal and Darmur, proposed different plans for the salvation of Katain's millions. To each of them the Council allocated all that was needed to prepare for his plan. It seemed wise, in view of the dreadful nature of the emergency, to prepare both proposals. Then, if one was found impractical, the other could still be used.

  "Now the time has come to decide whether the plan of Zikal, or the plan of Darmur shall be followed. The Council will today make that decision. Before making it, however, the two proponents of the different plans will be heard in a final exposition of their proposals."

  The Chief Councilor made a gesture. Up onto the dais from the front row of the spectators came Darmur and Zikal. The two men were a contrast — Darmur's gray hair, stooped, aging figure and haggard face against Zikal's stalwart form and massive, confident features.

  "Zikal will summarize his proposal first," said the Chief Councilor. "Listen well, people of Katain, and pray to the Sacred Star that we make a wise decision on this fateful day."

  Zikal stepped forward. His strong face was serious, confident in expression as his black eyes swept the throng. His voice was firm and strong.

  "Katainians, I shall be brief. All of you know the details of my proposal. You realize that it contemplates the immediate elimination of the Martian race, to be followed by a rapid migration of our people to Mars in the great fleet of space ships that has already been built by the Council.

  "The plan itself is impossible of failure. At this moment a hundred space ships are waiting for the word to attack Mars. Each of those ships contains a tremendous quantity of lethal gas, stored at high pressure.

  "The gas is so lethal that a concentration of a thousandth of one per cent will kill instantly. The gas ships do not even need to land upon Mars. They will enter the Martian atmosphere at selected points and release their vast quantities of compressed vapor. The people of Mars will die swiftly and almost painlessly, before they are even aware of danger. Within a few days the gas will have precipitated as powder and we can begin migrating to Mars."

  ZIKAL'S voice deepened, throbbed with controlled emotion.

  "People of Katain, I know that you shrink from this dreadful necessity. I shrink from it, too. We are a human race, detesting war and every other form of murder. This necessity to put to death the people of a neighboring race seems appalling to us, but either the Martians or we Katainians must die. Their crowded world cannot support both races.

  "It is far better for the System that we Katainians survive. Ours is the higher, finer civilization. In ours lies more of hope for the future. Therefore, hating the necessity as much as you do, I still feel it my duty to ask that the Council approve my proposal and that I be given authority to carry it into full action at once."

  There was no break in the taut silence of the crowd and the Council as Zikal paused. He glanced at Darmur before continuing.

  "One more thing, Katainians. My plan is the only plan by which we can escape. Mars, as you know, is the one other planet in the System upon which we can permanently exist. As for Darmur's fantastic scheme of carrying our whole race on a colossal interstellar migration to Sirius, it is impossible. To propel our moon, Yugra, to that distant star, as he has proposed, would require for production of atomic power more uranium than there is in the whole System. I challenge Darmur to deny that fact!"

  A low wave of murmuring that rose to a swell of excited voices swept through the hall as Zikal stepped back after flinging his challenge. Darmur walked to the front of the dais. The hum and roar died away as the aging scientist stood waiting patiently.

  "Katainians, you know the details of my plan, also. You know that our astronomers have proved that around the far star, Sirius, circle many worlds whose size and natural conditions would make them ideal homes for our race. You are aware of the preparations that have been made to use our moon as a great ship to bear us to that distant haven. There we could take up life anew, free of the crime of having slaughtered a fellow-race. "You would rather undertake that great migration than commit a hideous crime, I know, but you are asking if such a migration is possible. Zikal has just charged that there is not enough uranium in the System to propel our moon to Sirius and I admit the truth of that charge."

  A roar of tremendous excitement broke through the Katainian throng. Zikal stepped forward, his massive face flushed with triumph.

  "Since Darmur now admits his plan is impossible —" he began. Darmur held up his hand. "Wait, I have not admitted that. Hear me to the end. Months ago I faced the appalling fact that we could not find enough uranium in the System to carry out my plan. In that desperate emergency I sought the help of a greater science than our own — the science of future ages."

  Darmur saw the growing puzzlement on the faces of those before him as he continued.

  "We know that time is but a dimension, that the worlds and people of the future are as real as we are, but separated from us by that dimension. In my desperation I sent out a plea for help along the time dimension by means of an achronic beam, a plea to the unguessable future. I begged that if any men of future ages had solved the problem of physical time-travel, that they come back and aid us in our dire extremity."

  Darmur's voice sank. He leaned forward, his eyes burning coals of hope.

  "That plea was answered, people of Katain! Men of the far future have come back a hundred million years to our time, in answer to my desperate call!"

  THE Katainian throng, spectators and Council alike, seemed frozen in amazement. Darmur flung up his hand in a sweeping gesture.

  "Those men who have come from the unthinkably far future to help us are on Katain now!" his voice rang out. "They are here!"

  Thousands of eyes turned in the direction the old scientist was indicating, the rear of the great hall. The four Futuremen were marching down the broad aisle toward the dais. So dramatically unexpected was their appearance that in that moment they were the only moving figures in the whole vast amphitheater.

  To the Katainians, they were supernatural figures. Curt Newton, tall and grim in his gray zipper-suit, his red head bare. Otho's lithe, unhuman white figure, his slanted green eyes fixed on the dais. Grag, stark and mighty giant of metal, clanking on with his gleaming photo-electric eyes sweeping the throng. The Brain, gliding magically beside them, cold lens-eyes watching.

  "Men from the far future, they have come back across the ages to Katain to help us in our hour of need!" Darmur cried. "And they can help us bring my plan to success!"

  Across the frozen throng passed a sigh of awe. No one of the Katainians could doubt that these four had come from the future. Their awesome un-familiarity of appearance could be explained in no other way.

  As the Futuremen ascended onto the dais, Otho was glaring in bitter hate at Zikal's big form.

  "So that's the guy," muttered the android. "He's the one that sent that spy who killed Ahla. I'll settle with him."

  "Not now, Otho," Curt whispered urgently. "Any open struggle now might make the Council decide against our plan."

  Darmur was speaking on to the throng.

  "These men from the far future, with their superior science, can do what we cannot. They can secure enough uranium to propel our moon to Sirius."

  Zikal recovered from his amazement and found his voice. He shouted furiously:

  "Darmur is lying, people of Katain! The leader of these men of the future was heard to admit that he could not synthesize uranium artificially. Let him deny it if he can!"

  Captain Future's gray eyes narrowed on Zikal.

  "I do not deny it. Uranium cannot be synthesized by anyone."

  Zikal's face blazed in triumph.

  "Then where will you secure the uranium for Darmur's scheme? He has just admitted that there is not enough natural uranium in the whole System for his purpose."

  "That, too, is the truth," Captain Future said calmly. "There is not enough uranium in the System — now. But a billion years ago t
here was enough uranium for our needs. Uranium is an element that steadily disintegrates into other elements at an unvarying rate. Its quantity constantly grows less as time passes. A billion years ago, according to our calculations, there was more than enough uranium on the System's worlds for Darmur's plan."

  "Yes, a billion years ago," scoffed Zikal sneeringly. "But what good does that do now?"

  Curt sprang his surprise.

  "We Futuremen are going back a billion years in time, when uranium was plentiful, and secure enough of the element to carry out Darmur's migration plan!"

  WILD excitement swept the hall. It was minutes before the turmoil quieted enough so that those on the dais could be heard.

  "It's impossible!" Zikal was shouting. "A fantastic scheme that can't possibly work —"

  Curt addressed himself to the Council.

  "It is quite workable," he assured them calmly. "The uranium does exist in great quantities back in that time. And our ship, which has already come back across a hundred million years of the time dimension, can make that greater flight into the past just as easily."

  "But even if you could, how could you bring back enough uranium in your one ship?" the Chief Councilor stammered.

  "We wouldn't bring it back in our ship. We can focus our time-thruster force through an auxiliary projector upon the uranium deposits of those worlds of the far past and hurl them by a powerful, calculated time drive toward this present time. It means that the uranium deposits now existing on the planets will suddenly be almost doubled. The fleet of space ships you've prepared can transport the element to Yugra."

  "It's a crazy, utterly impossible scheme!" Zikal roared vehemently. "If you pin your hopes to it, the people of Katain will be destroyed."

  "They will not," Darmur contradicted. "The plan is sound. It will permit us to migrate to Sirius without the crime of murdering a race."

  The violent argument went on until the Chief Councilor held up his hand for silence.

  "The Council will consider the proposals," he stated.

  They left the dais and went to their private chambers. Tension gripped the throng as they waited for the fateful decision. Curt Newton was strung to harp-string tautness, but his face was calm.

  When the Council finally returned, an utter hush fell upon all as they waited for the Chief Councilor to deliver the decision. The old Katainian addressed Captain Future.

  "We have decided to make a trial of your audacious plan. If you can actually venture into the remote past and drive great quantities of uranium into this time, Darmur's scheme of migration to Sirius will be carried out. But we can grant you only a limited time to prove that your daring proposal is feasible. Unless by four weeks from now the uranium you propose to drive forward from the past is actually collected and in readiness for use on Yugra, we shall be forced to abandon hope of your plan and give Zikal authority to proceed with his Martian invasion plan."

  Curtis first relief chilled a little as he heard this condition. He saw Zikal's massive face, which at first had been raging, now assume a confident expression.

  "So Zikal still hopes to get the game into his hands," Captain Future thought. "We're not through with that would-be dictator yet."

  Darmur was gravely accepting the Council's conditions, "The uranium will be ready on Yugra by the time you specify. I have absolute faith in the ability of our friends from the future."

  As the session broke up, the Brain muttered to Curt:

  "Four weeks doesn't give us much time, lad. It'll take us half that to build an auxiliary projector."

  "We'll have to do it in less," declared Captain Future grimly. "Darmur will give us the use of his laboratory and that will help."

  Chapter 16: Castaways Before Creation

  THE next few days and nights were filled with intense labor by the Futuremen. Using Darmur's laboratory and equipment, as well as the apparatus of the Comet, they worked frantically to construct the auxiliary projector that was essential to their audacious plan. Each day seemed to bring more and heavier groundquakes and electrical storms of increasing intensity. And each night the white disk of Jupiter grew larger in the starry sky as Katain swept on toward its doom.

  By the fifth night, the herculean efforts of the Futuremen had finished the projector. It looked like a great searchlight, mounted outside the wall of the Comet near the prow. The time-thrusting force of the machine inside could be diverted into this projector and shot forth as a concentrated beam to drive matter a calculated distance forward along the time dimension.

  Darmur's ships had already started for the other planets and would be waiting to collect the quantities of uranium the Futuremen were to force across time.

  In his laboratory that night, Darmur showed the Futuremen his maps of the various planets, on which all surface uranium deposits were marked.

  "There should be deposits of uranium in most of the same places a billion years back," he said. "The deposits would merely be far more extensive than those that exist now."

  Curt nodded as he rolled up the maps.

  "You have your men ready to collect the stuff quickly and take it to Yugra without an instant's delay. We'll drive it forward, all right."

  "I wish I were going with you!" exclaimed Lureen, her eyes shining.

  At that moment came a yell from the garden, then the crackle of a neutron gun. They rushed out just in time to hear a gyro-car speed away. Jhulun came running up, panting, a weapon in his hand.

  "I saw a prowler near your ship — One of Zikal's spies, I think! He got away —"

  Darmur paled. "That devil would do anything to wreck our plan, to get power into his own hands by having his Martian scheme adopted."

  "You should have let me kill him before now, Chief," stated Otho.

  "We'd better get started before he does something to hold us back," Curt said sharply. "Start up the cycs, Grag. Good-bye Darmur. We'll do our best. See that your men do the same."

  With awe in their faces, Darmur and his son and daughter watched the Futuremen start upon the tremendous billion-year journey into the past.

  The Comet soared up out of the garden and rushed out from moonlit Katain into empty space.

  "All right," Curt called out to Grag, who was piloting. "Hold her steady and I'll start the thruster."

  He and Otho had already donned their space-suits. Now Curt turned the power of the throbbing cyclotrons once more into the time-thruster. From the cone sprayed the extra-electromagnetic energy, driving every atom in the ship back along the time dimension, rocking them with a sick dizziness.

  Captain Future saw that the System had again become a featureless blur. He watched the main gage. The arrow was creeping slowly backward as they were driven up the mysterious time flow into the unguessable past.

  Without warning, there was a blazing explosion near the front of the cabin. It picked the Futuremen and hurled them against the walls with irresistible force. Curt's helmeted head hit a stanchion and he knew nothing more.

  Four Futuremen lay silent and unconscious where they had been flung by the violence of the unexpected explosion. Though the bulkhead between the main cabin and control room had been wrecked, the hull and cyclotrons and the big time-thruster had not been injured. With no hand now at its controls, the machine continued to drone on, spraying forth the powerful energy that continued to drive every atom in the Comet farther and farther back along the time dimension.

  On and on, back into the time, the ship bore its senseless occupants, until finally the throbbing cyclotrons sputtered and died. Then at last the time-thruster's glow faded away. The ship floated silently in space.

  OTHO was the first of the Futuremen to recover consciousness. The android staggered groggily to his feet, his head still ringing from violent impact with the floor.

  "What in the First Principle's name happened?" he wondered dazedly as he looked around the silent ship. Then alarm seized him as his eyes fell on his unmoving companions. "Chief! Simon! Grag! Imps of Pluto, if they're dea
d —"

  He removed Curt's space-helmet and applied frantic first aid. Gradually the red-haired planeteer came back to consciousness. He looked around with wide, stunned gray eyes.

  "What was it? Something exploded. I felt as though a meteor hit me."

  "Chief, I can't bring Simon around!" Otho cried worriedly. "Something's wrong with his pumps."

  The Brain's square, transparent case lay motionless. It had been flung against the hull so forcefully that the electrical connections of its serum-purifiers had been snapped, rendering Simon's living brain unconscious.

  Curt Newton stumbled unsteadily to a cabinet and brought out instruments with which he rapidly opened the Brain's case. Working deftly, Captain Future soon repaired the snapped connections. When his vital mechanisms functioned again, the Brain regained consciousness.

  The three of them, without stopping to parley, bent over Grag. The big robot was the most badly injured by the explosion, since he had apparently been nearest to it. One of his giant metal legs had been torn almost away and his electrical nervous system had been smashed.

  The other Futuremen had repaired Grag's strange body before this. They plied a portable atomic welder and other tools skillfully. When the robot's nerves had been rejoined, Grag showed every sign of full life.

  "What happened?" he demanded, clambering to his feet.

  "Something exploded right in the midst of us," Captain Future said. "It wasn't a cyc-explosion, but it —"

  "Chief, that was a neutron bomb!" Otho cried. "And I'll bet a planet that one of Zikal's men planted it here!"

  Curt's eyes narrowed. "I believe you're right. Remember, Jhulun caught a spy prowling around the Comet just before we started." He swore with feeling. "Zikal would go to any lengths to wreck Darmur's plan, so his own would be carried out, giving him dictatorial authority."