Captain Future 15 - The Star of Dread (Summer 1943)

by Edmond Hamilton

  Captain Future silenced them with a warning gesture. He realized as well as they did, the precariousness of the situation.

  They sat down in the dusk to wait and the Brain seized the opportunity to ask questions that had been fermenting in their minds.

  “Tell me, who are the Manlings whom you speak of as enemies?” Simon asked the man-beasts.

  They looked questioningly at the big man-horse who towered over their group like a deeper shadow in the darkness.

  “Many ages have passed, but we of the Clans have never forgotten the traditions that have given us our only hope,” said the man-horse. “You who are Ancients surely know the first men reared cities here upon Aar. They did not spring from this world, but came here from the Darkness.”

  “What?” exclaimed the Brain, startled. “Then where did the human race originate, if not from this world of Deneb?”

  “That we know not,” admitted Golo. “Tradition says only that the first men came from the Darkness.”

  “Curtis, do you hear?” exclaimed Simon.

  “I hear,” Captain Future murmured, his own mind racing with startling new speculations. “Let Golo tell it.”

  “Those men of old grew to glory here upon Aar,” the man-horse was continuing, his deep voice somber in the darkness. “They reared towering cities whose stark and empty towers still stand. They searched out the inmost secret forces of nature. They built skyships that flew to the farthest stars. Those great men of old, whose memory we revere, were the Ancients.

  “But two of the Ancients went too far in the quest for power and knowledge. They sought the secret of life itself. They succeeded in finding a power by which they could tamper with the inmost seeds of life, so that from human men and women were born children who were not like other humans — children whose bodies were molded in new, strange forms.”

  “The secret of artificial evolution,” murmured the Brain, and Captain Future nodded silently.

  “They meant to use that power for good, to mold new races that could people far, strange stars,” continued Golo, “But there were evil ones among the Ancients. These evil ones twisted that power to wicked uses. They used it to mold new human races with beastlike bodies who could be their servants.

  “Thus they created man-horses like myself, to be their intelligent beasts of burden; man-dogs and man-tigers, for hunting and for guards; and many other semi-human races. Such races had the heads and minds of men, but the bodies of beasts.”

  THE horse-man stamped his hoofs with rage.

  “The wicked creation of these semi-human servants caused bitter dispute between the Ancients and the evil ones who had done it,” he went on. “That dispute broke into civil war which was fought with terrible weapons. Before that war was done, it had devastated this world and had destroyed the Ancients and almost all their works here. Their cities became dead and empty. Their sky-ships went no more to the stars.

  “The descendants of the evil ones who loosed that catastrophe, still dwell upon this world in the dead cities of the Ancients. They are human people, and we call them the Manlings. They have not the power or wisdom of the great ones of old, but they have certain awful weapons with which they can slay.

  “We of the Clans have also dwelt here on ruined Aar for ages, for we are the descendants of the semi-human races who were created long ago. The Manlings seek ever to trap and enslave us, and failing that, to kill us. But we have remained free in the forests, always hoping that some day some of the good Ancients would come back from the stars and would make us true men once more.”

  Upon that note of infinite pathos, the man-horse concluded his recital. And in the darkness, the Futuremen sat dazed by horror and pity.

  “Gods of Space,” whispered Otho, horrified. “These creatures were men once, men who were twisted into semi-human races by that devil secret.”

  “I suspected that these man-beasts were the result of artificial evolution, when I first saw them,” was Curt Newton’s somber comment. “Now you know why I dread to see such a secret turned loose upon our own System.”

  Ezra Gurney recoiled. “An’ Cole Norton would do it — would make a hell like this out of our nine worlds, for money and power!”

  “Curtis, we know at last why the Denebian empire fell,” the Brain was saying in his eager voice. “A terrible civil war here at the parent star, over the misuse of artificial evolution. That war shattered the ancient Denebian civilization.”

  Grag stirred uneasily. “We’ve come to a world with a nightmare history.”

  Nightmare history it seemed to Curt Newton, indeed. His mind quailed beneath the appalling vision of the past conjured up by Golo’s story.

  A world whose mighty civilization had swiftly sunk through bitter civil strife to ruin. Once Aar had been the wellspring of galactic civilization, declining into a haunted planet whose savage wilderness was peopled only by the barbaric Manlings and the wild clans of the man-beasts.

  Zur, the shaggy man-dog, asked an anxious question of Curt. “Now that you of the true Ancients have returned, you will fulfill our age-old hope and make our races truly human again?”

  The other man-beasts hung upon Captain Future’s answer. He realized now the tremendous hope inspired in them by his own party’s appearance. He felt an aching pity, but chose his answer carefully.

  “It may well be that your races can be made wholly human again, in time.” said Curt Newton. “But first, it is necessary that we find here the other sky-ship we are seeking.”

  “The Clans will know if it has landed anywhere upon Aar,” Shih assured him. The man-tiger raised his head sharply to listen. “They will all be here soon. The Winged Ones are already arriving.”

  Captain Future heard a strange rustling sound from the darkness overhead. He and his comrades rose to their feet.

  At that moment, a silver, shining disk rose rapidly into the sky at the eastern horizon. It was one of the two moons, and was followed almost immediately by the other, larger satellite.

  They were to learn later that the two moons were never far from each other in the sky, since they circled the planet in a curiously complex system of orbits in which the smaller satellite revolved about the larger. The effect of their sudden appearance was startling.

  The brilliant silver rays disclosed a flock of big, dark flying-creatures who were gliding down toward the Valley of the Council upon fixed, silent wings.

  Curt Newton stared as the first of the creatures swooped down and alighted in the midst of their group.

  “This is Skeen, leader of the Clan of the Winged Ones,” Golo was saying.

  “A man-condor,” exclaimed Otho.

  IN THE silver moonlight, Skeen stood like a figure of dream. His body was essentially human in outline, but was significantly slimmer and lighter and had taloned hands and feet. His breastbone jutted far forward, and to it were attached the muscles of the enormous, dark, featherless wings that grew from the shoulders.

  Skeen’s aquiline face was the dark, keen face of a young man, with piercing eyes. He stood now, his clawlike feet gripping the rock, his folded wings towering behind him, eyeing Shih.

  “Hal — ooo, Shih,” he gave the clan-greeting in a high, shrill, whistling voice. “Why sent you forth the call tonight?”

  Then his gaze fell upon Curt Newton and the Futuremen, and he made a movement of amazement. “Who are these? Manlings?”

  His great wings had half-unfolded, and his terrible talons ready for instant action. But Golo’s deep voice reassured him.

  “They are Ancients, Skeen, come back from the stars to redeem us.”

  “Ancients?” gasped the man-condor. “Can our hopes have come true at last?”

  “Hai—ooo! Hai—ooo!”

  Down from the moonlit sky, other man-condors came gliding to perch on the rocky ledges of the valley wall.

  Captain Future heard the whistling babble of their excited voices as the creatures glimpsed him and his companions. And the uproar of excitement grew as more
and more creatures entered the moonlit gorge.

  “There’s hundreds of the things — thousands of them,” muttered Otho.

  “Show no surprise,” Curt warned his comrades. “Let me do the talking. All depends on our getting the help of these creatures.”

  Trampling of hundreds of hoofs reverberated in the gorge as the Clan of the Hoofed Ones arrived. The herds of man-horses came in a rapid trot, their human heads and faces weird in the silver moonlight.

  As they ranked themselves silently behind Golo at the side of the valley, there floated out of the nearby forest the long, yelping chorus of the Clan of the Hunting Pack.

  “Hai—ooo!”

  The packs of the man-dogs came from three directions, trotting into the valley and squatting down on their haunches in the moonlight.

  “As always, your followers must come noisily,” hissed Shih contemptuously to Zur.

  The man-dog answered angrily. “And as always, your Clan is late for the council,” he yelped.

  Captain Future dimly perceived the vague shapes of other strange creatures now trooping into the gorge. These were new and different Clans — grotesque, furry man-moles, and intelligent-eyed man-beavers, and others he could only half-glimpse in the crowded valley’s distance.

  Last of all, as though by royal right, there stalked through the weird throngs the tawny creatures of the Tiger Clan. Shih’s followers crouched down on the lower ledges, looking down with glimmering green eyes.

  “The Clans have gathered,” said Golo in his rumbling voice. “Speak, Shih.”

  The great man-tiger looked around the crowded, moonlit gorge. A hush had fallen upon the weird throng as they wonderingly eyed Curt Newton’s group.

  “Clan brothers, this night we have called you for great news,” rang Shih’s hissing voice. “That which we have hoped for for many generations has occurred. The Ancients have returned to Aar.”

  A low chorus of intense excitement swelled through the man-beasts. Every eye was turned eagerly upon Captain Future’s group as Shih continued.

  “These are the Ancients who have come back to Aar,” said the man-tiger. “They say that if we of the Clans will help them, they can aid us in our great dream of becoming a human race once more.”

  From among the man-dogs, a high, shrill voice asked a doubtful question.

  “If they are truly of the great Ancients, why should they need our help? The true Ancients wielded such powers that they would need no aid of ours.”

  SUCH an expressed doubt was logical enough, and Curt Newton sensed that it had made an impression upon the tense, excited Clans. He knew it was time to speak for himself, and he strode forward in front of Shih.

  Captain Future would never forget that scene. The two silver moons pouring down their light into the rocky gorge; the silent herd of the big manhorses, their human faces all turned toward him; the shaggy hordes of the Clan of the Hunting Pack, and the vaguer, stranger shapes beyond them; the luminous green eyes of the man-tigers crouched on the lower ledges, and the rustle of dark pinions from the Winged Ones perched above.

  “You of the Clans,” Curt Newton said slowly and clearly, “all know that long ago when this world was falling to ruin, many of the Ancients here departed from it to the stars they had already colonized. Those Ancients were our own forebears, and we are of their blood. We inherited from them the clue to a secret hidden upon this world of Aar.

  “It is the secret of a place called the Chamber of Life, in which lies the key to that fatal power which long ago changed your human race into the semi-human peoples you now are. Evil men did that to you, in the far past. And evil men of my own people are now seeking the Chamber of Life here so that they can use its hidden power for similar wickedness.”

  Captain Future paused for a moment, but not a whisper broke the hush in which the Clans listened intently.

  “I and my comrades came here to prevent that hidden secret from being found and used to unloose evil in our own far worlds,” Curt Newton went on. “We need your help to prevent the wicked ones we have pursued here from finding and using that Chamber of Life.

  “If we can prevent them from obtaining that secret, then the secret will be ours to use, and that hidden power can be used to undo the great wrong done you ages ago — to make your races wholly human again.”

  Curt Newton saw superhuman excitement of dawning hope upon the moonlit faces of the man-beasts, as he concluded with that promise.

  “Could you really do that?” asked Shih in a throbbing whisper, his green eyes blazing. “Could you make us a wholly human people?”

  “I feel certain we could.” Curt Newton’s voice rang with sincerity. “Not your own generation would become wholly human, you must understand. But, with the aid of that ancient secret, your race could be so changed.” Captain Future paused so as to give weight to the sensational announcement he was about to make. Then he spoke in impressive tones.

  “The next generation of your children would be born true men!”

  Chapter 11: City of Cruelty

  SHOUTS of frantic excitement arose from the assembled Clans. Curt Newton himself was a little stunned by the tremendous reaction. He felt a clutch at his arm.

  “Chief, did you mean that?” asked Otho. “Can you really transform these creatures into human beings?”

  “It could be done, if we find the secret of artificial evolution,” Captain Future affirmed rapidly. “The power that so altered the genetic pattern of men and women to produce these new species, could be used to re-alter their genes so that the children would be human again.”

  “It wouldn’t be easy, but should be possible,” rasped the Brain. “We’d be doing a great thing if we could undo the wrong done these creatures ages ago.”

  Shih’s roaring voice had succeeded in quieting the wild tumult of the man-beasts. Now the big man-tiger snarled a question.

  “Clan-brothers, you have heard — what say you? Shall we welcome these strangers into our brotherhood, and give them all aid they require?”

  A yelping voice called back. “Let Golo give answer. The Hoofed One is wisest of us all.”

  Thus adjured, the big man-horse stepped forward from among his fellows and stood facing Captain Future. Curt Newton thought he had never met such deep, earnest, penetrating eyes as those with which the great man-horse looked into his face. He felt in that scrutiny the probing of a searching, instinctive intuition.

  Then Golo’s deep voice broke the hush. “The Hoofed Ones accept you as clan-brothers, strangers.”

  Instantly came the eager, yelping cry of Zur. “And the Clan of the Hunting Pack accepts you also. Hai—ooo! new brothers!”

  Skeen, the man-condor, spoke the acceptance of the Winged Ones, and the voices of the vaguer Clans in the darkness swiftly chimed in.

  Last spoke Shih.

  “You are brothers of the Tiger Clan now too, strangers,” he said.

  Corroborating him came the low, growling roar of the man-tigers whose green eyes blazed down through the moonlight from the lower ledges on which they crouched.

  “Clan-right and clan-duty is yours now, brothers,” Golo said earnestly to Captain Future. “You have but to call, and all in the free Clans will come to your aid as you are bound to come to theirs.”

  Curt Newton felt more deeply touched than he would have believed possible. The steadfast brotherhood conferred upon his group by these primitive, simple creatures was an honor and a responsibility.

  “It is my hope and resolve to fulfill your dream and make your races human once more,” he said steadily to them. “But as I said, we shall need your help. And we need it first to find the sky-ship that we pursued to this world. Have any of you seen such a ship landing lately upon Aar?”

  He waited hopefully, but the replies that came from the man-beasts dashed his expectations. None had seen a spaceship landing.

  “Maybe the Comet never arrived here,” muttered Ezra Gurney. “Maybe, like I figured, it met with trouble before it ever got near
Deneb.”

  That theory sent chill apprehension through Captain Future. If it were true, if Norton and Winters — and Joan — had met disaster in the galactic spaces —

  He asked the assembled Clans a new question. “Have any of you seen anywhere on this world a gleaming thing of metal of great size?”

  He was thinking that the Comet might have reached Aar and crashed, as their own cruiser had done.

  “We have seen no such thing in the forest fastnesses where we hunt, clan-brother,” answered the hissing voices of the man-tigers.

  “Nor in the glades where we run down our game,” yelped one of the Hunting Pack.

  But from one of the man-condors perched high on the moonlit ledges, there came an affirmative reply.

  “I glimpsed a strange, great thing of shining metal, such as I had never seen before, late yesterday,” called down the whistling voice of the Winged One.

  Skeen called quickly up to the creature. “Where did you see that, Kua?”

  The man-condor replied.

  “In the city Raboon,” he said. “I flew over the place at sunset yesterday, and glimpsed this thing in the great square.”

  “Was the thing shaped like this?” Captain Future asked eagerly, outlining the Comet’s torpedo shape with his hands.

  SLOWLY the man-condor shook his hawk-like head.

  “I cannot say,” was the reply. “I was at a great height, when I flew over the city, to avoid being slain by the weapons of the Manlings who inhabit the place.”

  “Where is this city Raboon?” Captain Future asked sharply of the Clan-leaders.

  Shih answered. “It lies several hours’ travel northeastward from here. It is one of the great cities of the Ancients which is now inhabited by the Manlings.”

  “Curtis, that must be the city I glimpsed in the distance as we made our crash-landing,” exclaimed the Brain.

  “Do you suppose the metal thing that creature saw in Raboon was the Comet?” Otho asked excitedly.

  “It might be,” Curt Newton frowned. “Norton may have landed and been captured by the Manlings.”