Captain Future 14 - Worlds to Come (Spring 1943)

by William Morrison

  “You won’t get as far as the ship,” replied Ki Illok.

  “If I can get within a hundred feet, it will be enough. Wait here.”

  They waited, while Otho disappeared. In a few moments he was back wearing the uniform of an officer not far below a general. His face was stained red, and it required a second glance to see that it owed its color not to a dye, but to a red earth.

  “How long do you think you’ll get by with that?” demanded Grag.

  “Long enough to do what I intend.” Otho, always a master of disguise, strutted back and forth, the very picture of a pompous officer. “Hol Jor, you know something about the language that Gorma Hass’ soldiers speak. How could I order them to rush off the field in pursuit of the prisoners?”

  Hol Jor told him, and although ignorant of the different words. Otho repeated the syllables slowly, memorizing them.

  “But be careful,” urged Hol Jor. “One wrong accent, and they will know the truth.”

  “I’ll be careful. You fellows get back a little,” suggested Otho. “There’s going to be some fireworks.”

  As Grag watched skeptically, Otho stalked out on the field. Several soldiers stared at him curiously, and one of them approached him, saluted, and said a few words.

  Otho looked grave, cleared his throat, muttered under his breath, and moved away. The soldier looked after him, puzzled.

  Then Otho reached the center of the field. Another soldier in the uniform of an officer came over to him, and Otho decided that the moment to give orders had come.

  “Ernang!” he shouted.

  That was the word for attention. Hol Jor listened to Otho’s little speech, and groaned. “He’s left out a syllable, it turns the whole thing into nonsense. Another second, and he’ll be caught.”

  Otho must have sensed from the expressions on the faces opposite him that something was wrong. And with characteristic swiftness, he acted.

  Two quick steps gave him a start. Then he leaped, far over the heads of a group of astounded soldiers, to land in the doorway of the Comet. A second later, two soldiers who had been inside the ship flew out, head first. The door slammed shut.

  The space field was a scene of vast confusion. But in the midst of it, Grag and the waiting star-captains saw one thing clearly. The soldiers were bringing up their heaviest artillery. The Comet was heavily armored, but it couldn’t resist powerful rays at point-blank range.

  At that moment, the tear-drop-shaped ship suddenly lurched into motion. Lateral and rear rockets blasting, it skittered crazily all over the field, the force of its different exhausts knocking over soldiers like ten-pins. When finally it came to a rest near Grag and his companions, there were no soldiers nearby who were in any condition to interfere with them.

  The door slid open, and Otho appeared. “Get in here!” he cried, and Grag and the others did not wait for further encouragement.

  They moved almost as quickly as Otho himself would have done. Ber Del was the last to pass through the door. And with him, appearing from nowhere, came a Sverd.

  “Don’t let him in!” yelled Otho.

  It was already too late. The Sverd was inside the ship before the door clanged shut.

  As the Comet rose into the air, the Sverd moved ominously toward Grag.

  Chapter 16: Reunion in Sagittarius

  OTHO had his atom-gun out, when the Sverd did a peculiar thing. His hand rose to his chest, and a door opened there. A second later, Grag and Otho saw staring at them the face of Curt Newton himself!

  “Chief!” exclaimed Grag and Otho at the same time.

  And then Curt witnessed something he had never expected to see. Grag’s photoelectric eyes flickered with emotion. Otho turned his head away.

  A second later, he looked back. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “You’re not Curt.”

  But neither Otho nor Grag required much convincing that it was really Captain Future. In a quarter of an hour, it seemed to them that Curt had never been missing. By that time, the Comet was off the planet, and no longer in danger of being interrupted.

  Curt climbed out of the metal shell in which he had lived for so many days. “Well, Grag,” he smiled, “I see that you’re not as strong as you used to be!”

  “What’s that? Say, Chief, was it you who licked me so easily?”

  “It was that shell. It can develop greater power than you can, Grag. It wasn’t really a fair contest.”

  “Oh, well, Chief, if I had known it was you, I wouldn’t have felt so bad.”

  Ki Illok, who had been an almost silent spectator of the Futuremen’s reunion, interrupted. “We have no time to waste on frivolous memories. The Brain is in danger, if not dead. He has invaded the stronghold of Gorma Hass as a spy. It was a daring deed, and now that we are ourselves free, we must think of rescuing him.”

  Curt nodded. “I’ve learned where the palace of Gorma Hass is, and I had intended going there, anyway. And talking of prisoners, I’d better release poor Joan. I figured on getting away with the Comet the same as you fellows did, and I had her hide here in advance.”

  “Joan in this part of space?” cried Otho incredulously.

  Curt went to one of the lockers reserved for food storage, and smashed open a lock. A moment later, a blue-skinned girl of the Vegan type climbed out.

  Otho whistled. “What a disguise! It’s better than anything I could do! How did you manage it, Joan?”

  “Curt will tell you later,” she said with a laugh, “Meanwhile, we’d better get started on our plans for Gorma Hass.”

  A few days later, the Futuremen were tramping into the palace of Gorma Hass. Curt, in his Sverd disguise, led the way. Otho was once more a soldier of high rank, and Grag, his arm temporarily repaired and his metallic features covered with plastic flesh from the Comet’s supplies, was a common soldier, as were the star-captains. Joan went along as a pretended prisoner.

  An unexplainable feeling guided them to the room where Gorma Hass was. As they approached it, Otho’s keen ears caught the sound of a peculiar humming, and then the sound of words.

  “One of the voices is the Brain’s,” he whispered excitedly. “He’s safe!”

  The next moment they all heard Simon’s voice raised harshly. “Now, Gorma Hass, we shall find out whether you are as invulnerable as you claim to be.”

  Curt, who was leading the way, alone entered the room. He ignored Simon and Mar Del at first. He had eyes only for the creature who appeared to him in the shape of an Earthman counterpart of himself. Curt spoke slowly from within the Sverd shell.

  “I shall do your will, Master.”

  The spurious Earthman disappeared, just as completely as if he had been blasted out of existence with an atom-pistol. Curt was left alone with Mar Del and the Brain.

  ANOTHER second, and Grag, together with the others, had crowded into the room. Simon faced the imitation Sverd. It was the first time Curt had heard his voice tremble.

  “I thought you were dead, lad. Thank God you’re not.”

  Moments later they were all back in the Comet and rocketing away into space before the alarm that had aroused the soldiers of Gorma Hass could bring any effective action.

  Otho, at the controls once more, grinned happily. “I never thought we’d all be together again like this.”

  “Otho feels better,” boomed Grag, “because now, knowing that nobody would believe him anyway, he doesn’t have to strain himself posing as a great scientist any longer.”

  Curt smiled. It was good to be back again and hear Otho and Grag bickering just as they had done so many times before. He turned to the Brain.

  “How did you recognize me through that Sverd getup, Simon?”

  “I knew it wasn’t a real Sverd, lad, because they walk through, and not around, material objects. They don’t talk, either. That was how Gorma Hass knew, too, and departed so abruptly. And I knew it was you because of the company you kept.”

  Meanwhile, Mar Del had been staring in open admiration at Joan. Now he s
poke to her in one of the languages used by the blue-skinned Vegans, Joan shook her head blankly. Mar Del tried again and again, always with the same results. Finally he contented himself with a meaningful smile, and moved away, an expression of temporary disappointment on his face.

  They had left the palace of Gorma Hass so far behind by this time that there was no longer any need to think about pursuit. Simon had become lost in thought. Now he spoke to Curt.

  “Lad, we’ve got some difficult decisions ahead of us. I’d like to know your opinion.”

  He explained briefly what he had learned from Gorma Hass. Curt nodded.

  “You think, Simon, that there’s no use trying to overcome Gorma Hass with any weapons we now have?”

  “We have none that will harm him. What there is of him in this Universe is purely mental. And I fear that his mental strength is sufficiently beyond ours to make any contest with him hopeless.”

  Hol Jor spoke up. “Then there is nothing we can do to stop him from conquering the different human races, and then destroying them?”

  “I don’t say that,” returned Simon. “We can defeat Gorma Hass if we learn more about him. But to do that, we must go to the Universe from which he has come.”

  “That is impossible!” exclaimed Ber Del. “How can we choose the one correct three-dimensional Universe from the infinite number that exist in four-dimensional space?”

  “It isn’t impossible,” returned Curt slowly. “In the first place, the number of Universes, though large, is not infinite. In the second, we know that Gorma Hass first entered this universe not far from here, some place in Sagittarius. We can judge then that in four-dimensional space Sagittarius is closest to his own Universe. And in the third place, we have a very important hint that Gorma Hass, perhaps without realizing it, gave it to Simon. The curvature.”

  Simon’s stalk-eyes shone brightly. “That’s the important point, lad. A Universe with curvature ten times that of ours is a rare thing. It must be small, and it is possible only where great masses of matter exist. And such masses will have their effect in four-dimensional space. We can construct instruments to detect them.”

  “Very likely, in the Universe of Gorma Hass there may be a central sun,” remarked Curt, “and, that’s where we’ll learn the secret of his origin.”

  “It still seems impossible to me,” declared Otho.

  “Suppose we put it this way, Otho,” said Curt. “You are told that some one you are seeking lives on a mountain located on Earth. There are many mountains on Earth, and you can not investigate each one. But then you learn that this one is ten miles high.”

  “There are no such mountains on Earth,” replied Otho.

  “But you realize that the figure ten is only a round number. The height may be nine miles, or even eight, but it can not be one or two. Do you think that you would discover that mountain?”

  “Even if I didn’t know Earth,” said Otho, “you could let me have the Comet, and I’d do it in a day.”

  “Well, our problem is similar. We know in general where to look. We search for a small Universe with curvature from eight to ten times that of ours. It shouldn’t take us too long.”

  “You are forgetting,” unexpectedly pointed out Ki Illok, “one thing that Gorma Haas said. He himself could not travel physically from his own Universe to this. The change in curvature had too great an effect. Will we be able to make the reverse journey unharmed?”

  There was a silence that dragged on painfully. It was Simon who finally broke it.

  “Gorma Hass did not tell the whole truth,” he rasped. “Possibly he himself lacked the necessary physical strength. But the Sverds did make the journey with him. And if they could do it, so can we.”

  “I suggest,” rumbled Grag, “that we go right ahead, and attempt it.”

  Curt looked around. There seemed to be agreement on every one’s face. “It’s decided,” he said. “And now, Simon, we’ve got work to do.”

  “So have I,” observed Grag, “I have to make myself a new arm.”

  Chapter 17: Curved Space

  THE COMET was moving ahead cautiously in four-dimensional space once more. Otho, at the controls, had that same sense of uneasiness that had oppressed him the previous time when they made their journey from the Moon. His path swarmed with ghost suns and planets that looked real, and with real suns that he thought were ghosts. He had to rely almost entirely upon his instruments to tell them apart, and astrogation solely by instrument had never afforded him much pleasure.

  Curt and Simon had devised a modified, highly sensitive form of torsion balance for determining the gravitational constant at any point, and from it they could read directly the curvature matrix of four-dimensional space. They had also mapped roughly the four-dimensional territory they expected to cover, and for several days now they had been cruising back and forth, making careful charts of the curvature.

  Now Curt and the Brain were discussing what they had found.

  “The median curvature,” said Curt thoughtfully, “appears to be one and six-tenths times the usual. And there aren’t many deviations from that.”

  The Brain’s stalk-eyes were peering at the charts. “Nevertheless, there seems to be a trend toward higher curvature along the right. I think we ought to try that region.”

  “Then we’ll get Otho to change the Comet’s direction.”

  Obediently, Otho shifted the Comet’s course. As he moved along, he could hear occasional remarks from Curt and the Brain.

  “It’s dropping again,” said Simon disappointedly.

  “The drop may be only temporary. We’ll keep going for a while, anyway.”

  Joan was busy preparing meals for those persons aboard the Comet who were accustomed to eating. Near her, Mar Del was laboriously attempting to carry on a conversation using the few English words he had learned. He was having a difficult time of it, and Otho, his keen ears overhearing a few of the remarks, could not help grinning.

  But Otho, no matter how interested he was in Mar Del’s English, dared not take his eyes from the instrument panel. Ahead of him was a sun that might be either real or a ghost, and it was important for him to know which. He stared at the dial that recorded temperatures, and wondered. Was the needle moving to the right or remaining stationary? Strange that he couldn’t tell —

  And then he realized the truth — the needle was twisting! At the same time, he heard a whistle from Curt.

  “A sudden leap to five and one-half! Simon, we’ve found it!”

  The Brain’s rasping reply was drowned by the crash that came from the Comet’s kitchen. Then Crag’s rumbling voice carried throughout the length of the space ship. “Something funny is going on here! The Comet is shrinking!”

  “So are you!” cried Joan.

  Everything was changing shape around them. And directly ahead lay that dubious sun! Otho’s green eyes glistened. He felt sure now that it was real, and he moved swiftly to steer the Comet to the left of it. But no matter how much he tried to turn the ship to the left, it refused to respond. The steering gear seemed utterly useless.

  “Chief!” he yelled.

  Curt came running to him. “What is it, Otho?”

  “She won’t answer to the helm! And we’ll hit that sun!”

  “The whole ship is warping out of shape,” said Curt, his forehead damp with perspiration, “We’ve reached the place we were looking for. Now we’ve got to get out of this four-dimensional space and into the three-dimensional. Make the jump, Otho.”

  “If you say so, Chief!”

  FOR a moment the entire Comet quivered. And then it gave one final convulsion and sped smoothly ahead once more. But now it was a different ship.

  The Comet was foreshortened, and curiously twisted. Where there had been straight lines before, there were long sweeping curves, and where there had been smooth curves, twisting spirals were now visible. It seemed as if some one had transformed the ship by first reflecting it in a distorting mirror and then twisting it. />
  But it was not only the ship itself that was changed. The people in it no longer had their usual appearance. Every feature of their previous existence was still present, but so altered that no one could have recognized them. They looked like caricatures of themselves.

  “What’s happened?” cried Joan, fright in her voice. “We seem under a spell!”

  “There’s no cause for alarm.” The Brain’s voice, more rasping than ever, reassured them. “This is the kind of change we expected to happen. Your entire bodies, including your eyes and your brains, are different in this greatly curved space from what they were before. You’ll have to get used to the new types of sense-impressions before your muscles can coordinate. But it shouldn’t take more than a day or two. And when we return to our own Universe, everything will change back.”

  “Some of the rocket tubes aren’t firing,” said Otho. “What caused that?”

  “The strain was unequal on different parts of the ship. Some of the tubes must have given way at the weakest point. They can be fixed.”

  There was a puzzled look on Joan’s face. “Curt,” she said, “why do you think that we’d better stay here as short a time as possible before getting back to our own Universe?”

  “My ideas are vague, but I have a hunch that —”

  “That if we stay here too long, our bodies may adjust themselves to this great curvature so well as to be unadaptable again to the normal type?”

  “Yes.” Curt stared at her. “Those are the very words I would have used. How did you know?”

  “Why, it seemed to me that you were saying so!”

  For a moment there was a puzzled silence. “We expected to find new phenomena here,” said Curt finally, “with new forms of wave-transmission and of ether motion. We’ve found them!”

  “You mean that thought waves are transmitted more readily here?” demanded Ki Illok.

  “As readily as light waves are in our usual worlds. I think that before we go further —”

  Simon took over the incompleted thought. “We’d better decide what to do about it.”