It was appalling to watch the blazing-eyed, lithe, white android, and the huge robot whose free arm was menacingly raised to strike. The sight seemed to daunt even the furious men of the City.
Captain Future had with unerring accuracy and quickness picked out those of the horde who had atom guns. Those were felled with the proton beam. But the others surged forward with knives, fists and nails to pull down Curt and the Futuremen.
Curt hammered at raging, youthful faces with the butt of his pistol. He heard Otho fighting like a white demon beside him. He heard the booming battle-yell of Grag as the great robot’s free hand descended crushingly and smashed opponents out of the path to the Fountain.
“Can’t — make — it — Chief!” panted Otho in the wild uproar. Too many of them!”
Curt and his comrades were so hemmed in that they could go no further. But they could not much longer remain on their feet. The Life-lord had disappeared, hurrying toward the plaza of the Fountain.
In this desperate moment, Captain Future remembered. He raised his face to shout with all his force into the upper night.
“Yuru, now!” he yelled.
For a moment there was no answer. Then from out of the upper darkness, like white, weirdly thronging eagles, the winged Qualus swooped down into the fight.
“We come!” rang Yuru’s cry from the upper air. “Smite the sinful ones, my people!”
THE addicts of the City found themselves assailed from all sides. Avenging demons plummeted on them from the night like striking hawks. The winged Qualus had caught their enemies without weapons. Now they could utilize the overwhelming advantage of their wings.
The battle became a crazy chaos extending through the whole City of Eternal Youth. Winged white attackers from the upper air were plunging at the eternally youthful horde. The Futuremen smashed them from the ground.
“Devils of space, what a fight!” gasped Otho.
“To the Fountain!” Curt cried to the Futuremen. “I saw the Life-lord making for it. Hurry!”
They fought their way forward through the wild melee of combat. The fists of Curt and Otho smashed raging faces out of the way. The great metal arm of Grag swept human beings aside like leaves.
Carried by the robot’s other hand, the Brain watched the battle around him with cold, imperturbable lens-eyes. He broke his impassive silence only to call warnings now and then to his comrades.
Captain Future and the Futuremen reached the central plaza. Here, too, the crazy battle between the Qualus and the people of the City was going on. They forced forward toward the Fountain of Life, whose shining geyser towered above the whole wild combat.
A blond, wild, young face — an Earthman’s face appeared before Curt in the throng. Abruptly it sank away, distorted by agony. The atom-flash of one of the City people had missed its mark and hit the owner of that face. Startledly, Curt had recognized that man.
“There’s the Life-lord!” Otho was yelling wildly. “What’s he doing?”
Through the battle, Curt glimpsed the blue, aura-wrapped figure of the Life-lord at the edge of the pit of the Fountain.
The Life-lord had seized Curt’s big proton machine. He was straining to lift it and topple it into the pit! The arch-criminal was unnoticed for the moment by the crazy hordes battling around him.
“Look out, Chief!” Otho yelled at that moment.
Captain Future had sprung through the conflict into full view of the Life-lord. Glimpsing him, the arch-criminal had released his hold on the machine. He snatched out his atom pistol and fired.
Curt flung himself flat at the same instant. The streak of blasting force from the Life-lord’s weapon grazed just above his head. In the next second, Captain Future was furiously triggering his own weapon.
His proton pistol, set now at highest power, drove a thin, pale beam at the Life-lord. Right through the master-plotter’s aura, through his body, it seared. The Life-lord staggered, then slowly crumpled.
“Got him!” Grag boomed, his photo-electric eyes blazing. “Hold everyone back till I get my machine operating,” Curt cried to the Futuremen.
He sprang over the unmoving, disguised shape of the Life-lord, raced to his improvised mechanism. He had to tug it around to reset its aim. He pointed the nozzle directly at the radioactive mass below the gushing Fountain.
Captain Future started the atomic generator. Its whining drone built up to a scream that was audible even over the rear of combat. Curt Newton waited — then quickly depressed a lever.
A SHUTTER opened. A terrific stream of free protons lanced down like a lightning-bolt. Thunderously it struck the radioactive mass at the base of the Fountain.
An explosion rent the ground, shook the whole City of Eternal Youth. The flash of furiously released force that puffed up from the pit at the same moment was blinding. It lighted up the whole City, the struggling men and swooping Qualus, brighter than day.
Then the flash of force was gone. The shaking of the ground ceased. Curt saw that the great radioactive mass in the pit had disappeared. The Fountain of Life was now no longer shining, luring, glorious.
It was a dull, dead geyser of ordinary muddy water.
“The Fountain of Life is destroyed!” screamed a heart-fearing cry across the City.
Stricken by horror, the people of the City ceased fighting. They stared frozenly at the dead, muddy waters now jetting forth. And the winged Qualus, equally amazed, stopped battling and gazed at the dead Fountain.
“Chief, how did you do it?” Otho cried excitedly, as he and the other two Futuremen reached Curt.
Captain Future, shaken by reaction from the tremendous upheaval he had caused, explained to them.
“The mass of radioactive mineral down at the base of the Fountain gave the waters their potency. You know as well as I do, that radioactive matter slowly disintegrates through the ages at a fixed rate. It degenerates into lead and other non-active matter. But centuries ago it was learned that the disintegration of radioactive matter could be accelerated millions of times by firing into it a concentrated stream of free protons at terrific velocities.”
“So that’s what you did?” Otho exclaimed. “You improvised a proton ejector, and —”
“And turned loose a proton stream that started the radioactive mass disintegrating billions of times faster,” Curt Newton finished for him. “The whole mass disintegrated into lead and other end-products in less than a minute. The waters bursting up through it are no longer charged with radioactive elements. They are no longer the Lifewater.”
Yuru, the Qualu ruler, had swooped down with some of his winged subjects. He stood beside Captain Future and heard the end of his explanation.
“Then no one will ever again drink the sinful waters of eternal youth!” the Qualu ruler cried joyfully.
“The Fountain and its poisonous elixir are gone for all time,” Curt assured him. “And there is no more reason for battle between you and these people of the City. Tell your men to desist.”
Yuru obeyed, shouting the great news up to the winged horde circling in amazement overhead. From the Qualus came a wild cheer of joy.
But from the youthful people of the City came a chorus of wailing cries.
“We are doomed!” they cried. “There is no more Lifewater to drink. Soon we must all perish.”
“Simon, were you successful in devising the antidote we planned?” Captain Future asked the Brain.
“Aye, lad,” answered the Brain. “Once I’d analyzed the Lifewater, it wasn’t hard to devise an antidote formula.”
Curt raised his voice. “People of the City, you are not doomed to die! We shall give you an antidote that will counteract the effects of the Lifewater. You will return to your natural ages, but you won’t die. And you can go back into the outer world again, back to your native planets.”
HOPE lighted the haggard faces of the Lifewater addicts when they heard that promise. “And we Qualus will again possess this valley for our home, when these sinful ones have depa
rted!” cried Yuru in reverent ecstasy.
Curt turned to the Futuremen.
“I saw Thomas Keene wounded in the battle over there. I want to find him.”
“Keene?” Otho exclaimed bewilderedly. “But that’s Keene there!”
He pointed to the motionless, disguised form of the Life-lord.
Curt shook his head.
“It isn’t. Help me find Keene.”
Unable to believe him, Grag and Otho helped Curt search across the plaza. They found Thomas Keene lying on the ground. His blond, deceptively youthful face was stiffening in agony. A great wound gaped in his breast.
“Fiends of Pluto, then Keene isn’t the Life-lord!” Otho cried, aghast. “But who — how —”
Curt Newton was kneeling by the dying Keene. The Earthman looked up at him with glazing eyes.
“There’s no help for you, I’m afraid,” Captain Future told him gently.
“I’ve — been a fool,” Keene answered feebly. “Wasted my life, seeking eternal youth — I see it now — To get the Lifewater I even committed murder.”
“You murdered Sus Urgal. I know. You did that for the Life-lord, to get the elixir, didn’t you?”
Keene nodded weakly. “I was frantic for the Lifewater — had to have it or die — and couldn’t buy it — So I went to the second branch — of the syndicate in Ops — in that chemical shop — and contacted the Life-lord through it — Told him I’d do anything — for the elixir — The Life-lord — told me that if I’d kill Sus Urgal — he’d take me to the Fountain of Life itself — I could live there forever, eternally youthful — He said he’d discovered that Sus Urgal had — unwittingly found and put into his manuscript — a clue to the Fountain’s location — I was to kill the Martian — burn part of the manuscript — And I was to let myself be seen entering and was to leave my fingerprints on the poison needle — so you would know that it — was Keene, who murdered him — That was to divert your suspicions to me — make you think I was the Life-lord —”
“I agreed,” whispered the dying Keene. “I figured even if you thought me the Life-lord — I’d be safe at the Fountain — I killed Sus Urgal — The Life-lord kept his promise — brought me north to this City of Eternal Youth — But in the battle just now, I — I —”
Thomas Keene’s voice trailed away. The Earthman who for decades had sought the Fountain of Life had come to the end of his quest.
Captain Future spoke somberly, looking down at the now peaceful face.
“I knew well enough the Life-lord wanted me to think Keene was the head of the syndicate. Keene’s murder of Sus Urgal was too openly done.”
“But who in the name of ten thousand sun-imps is the Life-lord?” gasped Otho. “If it isn’t Graeme, or Keene, it must be the only suspect left — Khol Kor, the Governor!”
CURT NEWTON, walking back toward the dead, disguised figure of the Life-lord, shook his head.
“No, Otho, it’s not Khol Kor. I never seriously thought it was, though I followed my rule of not overlooking any bets.”
“But, Master!” protested Grag. “Khol Kor is our only remaining suspect, since it isn’t Graeme, Keene or Sus Urgal.”
“We had five suspects when we arrived on Saturn,” Captain Future reminded him. “The fifth was the Venusian, Zin Zibo.”
“But Zin Zibo’s dead!” Otho protested. “He was murdered that first night in Khol Kor’s office. His body’s on its way to Venus now.”
“Zin Zibo is dead, yes,” Captain Future agreed. “But his body is right here!”
Curt reached down to the aura-shrouded body of the Life-lord. He fumbled until he found the little belt-mechanism that projected the blue force, and snapped it off. The concealing aura vanished.
The face of the Life-lord, unmasked at last, looked up at them with dead, empty eyes. It was the face of a Venusian, a middle-aged, darkly handsome, studious looking man.
“Zin Zibo!” Otho yelled. “But how could he be the Life-lord? He was murdered in front of our eyes in that office, by the Plutonian freezing venom.”
Curt shook his head.
“That murder was a fake, Otho. It was staged by Zin Zibo himself for the double purpose of diverting suspicion to others. It enabled Zin Zibo to disappear conveniently so he could carry on the nefarious traffic of the Lifewater syndicate while everyone thought him dead. He himself threw that darkness bomb. Then he stabbed himself with a needle. It injected a chemical which produces effects that are almost identical with those of the freezing venom.
“That chemical stiffens the body, halts circulation and respiration, causes a deathlike suspended animation. But it doesn’t freeze the blood as the freezing venom does. And when its effect wears off, in less than an hour, the victim is as good as ever.”
Captain Future looked around at his comrades before he continued.
“Zin Zibo left Venus many months ago, in search of the Fountain of Life. I believe we’ll find that Thorkul, the Martian, informed him that the secret of the Fountain’s location was in the Machine City of Mars. Anyway, Zin Zibo went to the Machine City. He read the inscription which located the Fountain on Saturn, then destroyed most of the inscription. He went on to Saturn, after making a stop at Jupiter to avert suspicion.
“Here on Saturn, Zin Zibo consulted the records in the Ops Museum archives. He found that the ancient Martian Machine-masters who found the Fountain here had visited the Mistlands. Therefore Zin Zibo could guess that the Fountain was somewhere in the Mist-lands. He stole the record from the archives so no one else could guess the secret. Remember, the archives file showed that Zin Zibo, first of the four suspects, had borrowed that particular record!
“He penetrated this land inside the Mistlands, found the Fountain and the City around it. So he made an alliance with the people of the City to let him take all the Lifewater he wished in exchange for the weapons and supplies he would bring them. In that way, Zin Zibo set up the far-flung syndicate organization. Enlisting a band of outlaw space pirates as his followers, he swiftly extended the Lifewater traffic to every world.
“He was too smart to drink the Lifewater himself, for suddenly acquired youth would have given him away. He meant to get a grip on the whole System by making tens of millions of Lifewater addicts. He himself could drink the elixir later, whenever he wanted to!”
AMID intense silence, Curt Newton concluded. “His ‘secretary,’ Educ Ex, was one of his criminal followers and his accomplice in staging his pretended murder. Educ Ex claimed his pseudo-dead body, and supposedly took it to Venus in a coffin. In reality, Educ Ex revived and released his master immediately. Zin Zibo attacked us in the Museum less than an hour after his ‘murder’! Educ Ex took nothing but an empty coffin to Venus.”
Otho voiced a baffled question.
“But you said, after Sus Urgal’s murder, that you knew the Life-lord’s identity. How did you?”
Curt grinned tiredly.
“I was a numbskull not to see it before then, but the Martian’s murder opened my eyes. Sus Urgal was killed with the freezing venom — the real freezing venom. Freezing of his blood burst all his capillary veins. His body, being from one of the smaller inner planets, was more lightly built than the body of a native of the great outer worlds. I suddenly remembered that Zin Zibo, who also came from a smaller planet, had not had his veins burst by the poison.
“Why not? Had he been really poisoned or was it a fake of some kind? I put through a televisor-call to the captain of the Venusian space liner taking Educ Ex and the body of Zin Zibo back to Venus. The captain, at my order, had the coffin opened. It was empty. He reported back to me in a return message, and I knew then that Zin Zibo was our man.”
“Brilliant work, lad,” approved the Brain warmly. “I never dreamed myself that Zin Zibo was the guilty one.”
Curt Newton ran his hand wearily through his disordered red hair. He looked somberly from the dead Venusian to the strange, silent throng watching them.
“I’m glad it’s over,” Curt s
aid heavily. “We’ll destroy any Lifewater left in this City, make sure Ezra and the Planet Police clean up the syndicate everywhere. And then — we’re going home!”
Chapter 18: Triumph of Captain Future
QUICK as a homing hawk of space, the Comet swept with rocket-tubes pluming white fire toward the barren, rugged sphere of Earth’s Moon. The little ship glided down on a descending slant over the towering craters, peaks and dead plains of the airless satellite.
Otho was steering toward the mountain-ringed crater Tycho. The android turned a moment toward Curt Newton and the other two Futuremen.
“Seems like a year since we left here to do some research on that comet!” he exclaimed. “We’ve sure burned up space since then.”
“I’d forgotten all about our comet research,” Captain Future admitted ruefully. “We’ll have to resume that before the comet leaves the System.”
Grag, standing and holding Eek, uttered a sound that might have been a groan.
“Aren’t we going to get a little rest here at home first, before we start fooling with that comet again?” the robot queried.
“What’s the matter, Grag, getting old?” Otho demanded snappily. “Looks like a little shot of that Life-water wouldn’t have done you any harm. Maybe it would have kept you from rusting away.”
“I don’t rust, and you know it,” the metal man retorted angrily. “I just like to spend a little time at home here on the Moon once in awhile, that’s all.”
Curt and the Futuremen had stopped at Earth on their way home from Saturn. They had left Ezra Gurney and Joan Randall on Earth. There Captain Future had reported the whole adventure to the President.
“The Fountain of Life is gone, and the Life-lord is dead,” Curt had reported. “The syndicate leaders, whom Ezra and the Planet Police captured, have confessed the names and addresses of every branch of the organization on every world. The Police have already raided them. All the Lifewater seized has been destroyed.”
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