Captain Future 07 - The Magician of Mars (Summer 1941)

by Edmond Hamilton

  “I was afraid something like that would happen,” rasped the Brain. “That Magician of Mars has lost none of his devilish cunning.”

  “He’s more formidable than ever,” Curt declared. “He’s developed new weapons and powers.”

  “You still don’t know what this here treasure is he’s after?” asked Ezra Gurney keenly.

  “No, but it’s somewhere at this double star,” Captain Future stated. “It must be on one of these other two planets. I only hope that Quorn’s band hasn’t already seized it and returned to our own universe.”

  The Comet was screaming through space now, away from the World of Frozen Life. The other two planets of the double star were on the other side of it. The little ship, driven by the unprecedented power of radite fuel, cut as close as possible to the two suns in crossing over.

  SIMON WRIGHT hovered by a window, observing with intense scientific curiosity the giant dead star of the pair. It was like a colossal black cinder, this sun that had burned out long before its companion. But smoldering, sullen red flames here and there on the surface of the dead sun told of dying radioactive fires in its interior.

  “It’s almost dead, but not quite,” the Brain muttered to himself. “There must be great volcanic eruptions occasionally on its surface.”

  They flashed through the blinding glare of the blazing white sun, using the Comet’s “halo” to protect it from the heat. Then they approached the nearest of the other two planets.

  It was a drab world with a fairly dense atmosphere which their tester showed to be breathable. The landscape of this planet was a desolate one of rolling, moss-covered highlands sloping down to the dried-out bottoms of what had once been great oceans.

  “There’s some kind of ruins down in that ancient sea-bottom!” called Otho from the window.

  “Land there and we’ll investigate,” Curt ordered Grag.

  The Comet came to rest on the cracked, arid bed of an extinct ocean. They emerged and inspected the ruins that Otho had glimpsed.

  These were crumbled stone remnants of what had once been a mighty city. Only fragmentary carvings on disintegrating stone walls, and debris-strewn streets, remained of a former grandeur.

  “This city was down in the ancient sea, lad,” commented the Brain. “Its people must have been a water-dwelling race, who perished when the oceans of this world dried up.”

  “Look at these carvings!” Joan exclaimed, “There were human beings here too — as slaves!”

  The carvings were eroded by time. They showed queer, seal-like, flipper-limbed creatures who had apparently been the amphibian masters of the city. The amphibians were shown supervising the labor of bands of slaves, who were human in every respect.

  “The amphibians lived most of their lives in the watery cities, and made the human slaves work for them on land,” guessed the Brain. “I’d like to know all the past history of this dead world.”

  “We have no time for archaeological research, Simon,” interrupted Curt Newton impatiently. “The question is — is the treasure on this world and has Ul Quorn found it?”

  “It’s going to be a tough job searching this whole planet for Quorn, Chief,” declared Otho ruefully.

  Captain Future frowned.

  “I have an idea for locating Quorn more — quickly than that. His ship, the Nova, carries a heavy fuel-load of radite. Suppose we rig up a super-sensitive radite compass that will detect the presence of radite at extreme distances? We might spot him that way.”

  They returned to the Comet. It was short work for Curt and the Futuremen, working together, to build a super-sensitive instrument that would detect the emanations of radite anywhere on this planet. But when they tested the instrument, its needle remained stationary.

  “Quorn’s ship isn’t here,” Curt declared. “We’ll have to go on to the other planet.”

  When they approached the third of the three worlds of the double star, they found it a mere rock sphere without atmosphere, water or life. And the radite compass showed that Quorn’s ship was not here either.

  Captain Future’s spirits sank to a new low.

  “This double star only has three planets, and Quorn’s not at any of them. Do you suppose, he’s already been able to secure the treasure and has left?”

  “I doubt that, Cap’n Future,” put in Ezra. “Harris Haines said that the treasure was dangerous to approach — said somethin’ about ‘the unseen ones who guard it.’ If that’s so, Quorn couldn’t get it this quickly.”

  “Then where the devil is Quorn?” Otho swore. “I’m beginning to think this mysterious treasure is a ghost treasure!”

  “We’ll cruise around this double star in a closing spiral,” Curt decided. “The treasure, and Quorn’s ship, might be on some little asteroid we haven’t glimpsed. You watch the radite compass, Otho.”

  THE Comet began to fly in a tightening circle around the double star. While Otho watched the compass, Curt and the Brain swept all space with the electro-telescopes. But they were unable to glimpse even the smallest asteroid. The mystery was becoming more and more baffling.

  Otho suddenly shouted.

  “Chief, the compass shows radite a little outward from us!”

  Curt jumped to his side. The needle of the super-sensitive instrument was twitching toward an outward sector of space.

  “Head the Comet that way, Grag!” Curt ordered eagerly.

  As the ship tore out through space, the radite compass needle showed ever more strongly the presence of radite not far ahead. Yet the telescopes failed to disclose anything but empty space in that direction.

  “I can’t understand this,” Captain Future muttered. “Either the compass has gone crazy, or —”

  “Look at the gravitometers!” Grag boomed startledly.

  “They show a planet close ahead!”

  The gravitometers on the instrument board did indeed indicate a body of planetary size just ahead. Yet there was nothing there but space!

  “Curse it, all our instruments are going crazy,” Otho swore.

  “Grag, slow the ship down!” Captain Future ordered sharply.

  Curt’s racing brain had hit upon a possible explanation of the behavior of their instruments, an explanation that spelled frightful danger.

  Grag had almost stopped the Comet, and he and the others looked at Curt inquiringly.

  “The instruments show a world ahead, yet we can’t see it,” Curt told them. “What if it’s an invisible world?”

  “An invisible world?” gasped Ezra Gurney. “Who ever heard of —”

  The Brain uttered a rasping exclamation.

  “Curtis, you may be right! The radite compass shows that Quorn’s ship is ahead. If there’s an invisible world, that’s where Quorn is now — that’s where the treasure is!”

  “I’ll take the controls, Grag,” declared Curt. “I’m going to fly closer to that world, if it exists, by instrument.”

  Cautiously, his eyes glued to the gravitometers and other instruments, Curt maneuvered the Comet forward. It was weird navigation. For, although the meters showed that a world was full ahead, there was nothing visible.

  Then happened the most unnerving thing of all. The Comet and everyone in it seemed to vanish around Curt. They had become invisible too!

  Chapter 13: City of Unseen Men

  CURT looked around, too amazed for speech. Everything —? the Comet’s interior, his friends, even his own body, had disappeared. He could see nothing but empty space, and the stars, and the great double sun nearby. He felt uncannily like a bodiless ghost floating alone in the sky.

  Realizing suddenly that he could no longer see the gravitometer dials, Curt hastily brought the Comet to a stop.

  “Holy sun-imps!” came Otho’s incredulous cry, out of the nothingness. “What in the name of space has happened to us?”

  “Is that you, Otho?” boomed Crag’s bewildered voice. “I thought for a moment that you’d all left me somehow. I can’t see my own body!”

&nbs
p; “Neither can I! Nor I!” chorused Ezra and Joan and Johnny Kirk.

  “Take it easy, you people,” admonished Captain Future quickly. “There’s nothing supernatural about this. I’m beginning to see now what’s causing it. We’ve found a planet which is kept invisible by some unknown force — probably some polarizing agency.”

  “But why should we all become invisible as soon as we get near that world?” Joan cried out of the emptiness.

  “Because we’re now within the field of the polarizing force,” retorted Curt. “That’s the only possible explanation.”

  “Right, Curtis,” approved the rasping voice of the Brain.

  “What’re we going to do, Chief?” asked Johnny Kirk’s voice, without a tremor.

  “Ul Quorn is somewhere on this invisible world,” Curt pointed out. “We know that from the compass. He and his men and his ship are totally invisible now, just as we are. Nevertheless, we’re going on and find him. We’re going to land on this queer planet.”

  “How in the name of space can you land now?” Otho’s voice demanded. “You can’t fly by instrument now, for you can’t see the gravitometers.”

  “No, but I can feel the gravitometer needles,” retorted Captain Future. “That is, as soon as I can get the glassite fronts off them.”

  Curt groped in his belt till he found the tool he wanted. He fumbled with it until he had removed the glassite plates which protected the navigation instruments and also the radite compass. His sensitive fingers touched the needles of the instruments, ascertaining their position.

  He started the Comet moving forward again. His right hand held the space-stick, while his left hand flew back and forth over the gravitometers and other instruments, constantly ascertaining their bearings by the position of their needles. In the same way, he kept check on the radite compass.

  “The radite compass will still lead us straight to Ul Quorn’s ship,” he muttered.

  “Devils of Pluto, who ever heard of blind flying like this!” Otho exclaimed.

  It was indeed a perilous kind of navigation that Captain Future was engaged upon. He and his invisible crew and ship were groping forward through nothingness to an unseen world, with only his fingertips on the needles of the instruments to guide him.

  The gravitometer needles showed that they were descending onto the surface of the unseen planet. Curt sweated with anxiety as he brought the ship down in a blind landing. He felt the bumping shock of contact, flung in the keel rocket-tubes to cushion it, and then had landed safely.

  “Hanged if I’d want to try that stunt every day!” he breathed in relief as he cut the eyes. “Anyway, we’re here. And according to the compass, Quorn’s ship is close by.”

  Curt groped with the atmosphere-tester, detected by touch that it indicated breathable atmosphere outside the ship. He opened the door.

  “Keep your proton guns handy,” he advised. “If Quorn’s somewhere near us, he’ll have heard us arrive. Grag, stay and guard the ship.”

  “If Quorn is near, how the devil can we find him?” Otho demanded. “We’re like a bunch of ghosts on a ghost world!”

  Curt knew how the android felt. He was himself experiencing the same uncanny sensation as they emerged from the Comet. For though he stepped out of the solid ship onto solid ground, he still seemed in an abyss of empty space. He could see absolutely nothing but space and stars and the great twin sun!

  BY FEELING around a little, they discovered that they stood upon a grass-covered rolling plain. They heard sounds — the sigh of the warm wind, the distant cry of an unseen bird, the snorting grunt of an animal.

  “If there’re any beasts of prey around, they can scent us out and attack us before we’d even know they were here,” Otho declared.

  “I been rangin’ space for forty years and I never saw nothin’ like this!” Ezra Gurney exclaimed. “Cap’n Future, what makes it all invisible?”

  “I’m sure it’s such a polarizing force as I spoke of,” Curt Newton answered. “A force that rearranges the atoms of any matter into a pattern which makes that matter transparent. Just as you can make opaque sand into clear, transparent glass, simply by a rearrangement of atomic structure.”

  “That must be it,” muttered the Brain. “We can’t see each other or anything else, because everything here’s perfectly transparent to light.”

  “How come we can see the light, then?” Otho demanded. “If our bodies are perfectly transparent to it, wouldn’t it go right between the atoms of our eye-retinas, instead of striking them?”

  “It does go right through our transparent retinas,” Curt declared. “But light waves can affect the chemically sensitive nerve-ends of the retinas by induction, as well as by direct contact, just as an electric current in a wire can induce a current in another wire, without contact. That’s why we’re able to see light from outside this world.”

  Captain Future had brought the radite compass out of the Comet with him. His fingers now explored it, lightly touching its needle.

  “Quorn’s ship is somewhere this way,” he declared, starting off. “Keep together, touching each other, and follow me. We mustn’t get separated — it’d be easy for invisible men to get lost on an invisible world!”

  Curt held his proton pistol in his free hand as he led the way over the rolling, grassy plain. To his eye, it seemed he was still merely floating forward in empty space.

  Presently he bumped into an invisible, curving metal wall. His fingers touched it exploringly.

  “It’s Quorn’s ship, the Nova!” he whispered. “Come on — we’ll see if we can get inside. Be ready for action!”

  They found the door of the Nova open. But when they groped their way into the invisible ship, they discovered that no one was in it.

  “Quorn and his band must have left the ship here, to go after the treasure,” Curt muttered. “Yet it isn’t like the Magician of Mars to sally off on a strange planet and leave his ship open and unguarded.”

  At that moment, Otho uttered a choking yell out of the nothingness.

  “Chief, someone’s grabbed me! I —”

  At that moment, unseen hands snatched at Curt Newton also. And cries from his other comrades showed that it was a general attack. Curt struck out furiously at his enemies. He didn’t dare fire his weapon for fear he might hit one of his own friends. His fists smashed home against men as invisible as himself.

  It was a strange conflict. Everything was still absolutely invisible — their assailants as well as themselves. Captain Future soon discovered that their attackers were not Quorn’s men. These were smaller men, dressed in jackets and breeches of soft leather, who were trying to bind him with flexible metal thongs.

  Curt laid about him with flailing fists. But his assailants appeared to possess an uncanny power of perception. Their movements were deft and sure despite the handicap of invisibility. A quartet of them pulled Curt Newton down and tied his wrists together. Then they hauled him to his feet.

  “Chief, did they get you too?” cried Otho’s raging voice. “Curse it, then they’ve got us all. Except, maybe Simon got away.”

  The rasping, metallic voice of the Brain dispelled that hope.

  “They got me too, by flinging some kind of net around me before I could dart away,” reported Simon. “They’d spotted me by my voice, I think.”

  “That’s it — these fellows go by hearing instead of sight!” Curt exclaimed. “Which means they must be natives of this planet.”

  “I like them just “bout as little as I like their crazy phantom world!” declared Ezra’s voice. “Let go me, dang you! Where in thunder you think you’re draggin’ me?”

  The invisible captors were forcing all of Captain’s Future’s party out of the ship. They could hear their captors speaking to each other, in a language that was wholly incomprehensible.

  THEN came a call in that language, from a little distance. Curt heard others of the invisible race approaching, and heard Grag’s angry voice.

  “Grag, did
they get you too?” Curt called into the emptiness.

  “Yes, they did, whoever they are!” Grag roared. “They slipped up on me when I was guarding the Comet. Now they’ve got my arms tied around my body. If I ever get loose and can see anything, I’ll slaughter ‘em!”

  A voice among the invisible captors gave an order. Curt and his friends were all jerked forward. Points of unseen swords pricked them to emphasize the obvious command.

  “Ouch!” yelled Otho. “Blast it, if I could see these devils —”

  “Take it easy, and go ahead as they want us to,” advised Captain Future. “We can’t do anything by blind resistance, for these fellows have the advantage with their super-hearing. We’ll wait our chance.”

  Their invisible captors marched their captives forward over the rolling grassy plain. For almost an hour they walked, finally striking a paved road. To Curt’s feet it felt like a very ancient highway of synthestone that was crumbling and decaying with age.

  Presently they heard their invisible captors calling to people on either side of the road, who called back. From the sounds he heard, Curt Newton hazarded a guess that they were passing through a region of cultivated fields in which numbers of the unseen race were laboring. Soon a low, pulsing murmur came to their ears from ahead.

  “That sounds like a city,” Otho’s voice commented. He exclaimed suddenly, “Say, what do you suppose became of Ul Quorn’s bunch?”

  “Quorn may have been luckier than we, and evaded these phantom-men,” Curt suggested. “He may have known what to expect here, from Haines’ papers.”

  They entered the invisible city. Captain Future guessed from the babel of voices he heard that there were hundreds of the invisible race in the street. They seemed to move to and fro without blundering into each other, by means of their uncanny sense of hearing. He heard the clang of metalworkers in shops along the street, the cries of children at play.

  The pavement under Curt’s feet was broken and crumbling, he felt. And when he brushed against the walls of structures, he noticed that they too were crumbled and decayed. He got the impression that the city was a once-great metropolis sinking to decay and inhabited by a primitive folk.