Captain Future 06 - Star Trail to Glory (Spring 1941) (18 page)

"Flare, Otho!" Curt called.

The android hastily touched a stud. Down from their ship dropped a blazing flare, token that they had passed over the capital. Flares from the two ships ahead already were floating brilliantly downward.

Again they zoomed upward, all the ships clawing out of the thick Venusian atmosphere to win to clear space. Yalu had passed Curt in the fast Tark, and the Kalber and Garson were coming up rapidly. The steady song of the cyclotrons was a mighty monotone that dominated everything else as they roared toward Earth. But Curt detected a faint dissonance in that song.

"Check the cycs!" he rapped to Otho. "Sounds like one of them's faltering."

"I'm not surprised," Otho said gloomily as he rose from his chair and went aft. "This ship can't stand such a pace." He came back soon. "Number Three eye's power output is dropping a little. I think it's the fuel jet."

"The jet may blow clear," Captain Future muttered. "Can't slow down now. Immler just passed us."

The Kalber had flashed out in front of them, and Sugan in the Garson was drawing up abreast of them. When they dived into the atmosphere of Earth, the Cruh-Cholo and Rissman were still neck and neck, but Yalu's Tark was overhauling them. Otho had the controls now. The android recklessly drove their ship down after the others, into the shadow of the night side of Earth. The blazing pinnacles of New York rushed up through the darkness. They swooped, roaring over the big spaceport and Captain Future dropped their flare. Its brilliant light showed the dense, excited crowd below.

Up out of the Earth shadow they drove, Otho seeking recklessly to overtake the other racers. But instead they were falling farther behind. And as time dragged on and they droned on toward Mars, the dissonance of the cyclotrons' chorus became louder.

"That Number Three eye is almost jammed!" Captain Future exclaimed. "We've got to cut it or it'll explode!"

CURT NEWTON realized the full precariousness of their situation. To cut out one of their six cyclotrons was to lose precious space in the race, to fall far behind the other ships. His whole object was to be near those ships when and if the hijackers attempted to capture them. But there was greater peril in continuing as they were. The fuel-intake jet of Number Three eye was partly jammed. If it suddenly expelled into the power chamber all the piled-up mineral in the jet, the explosion would rip the cyclotron to shreds.

"Keep her going!" he called to Otho. "I'm going to try to clear that fuel-jet without cutting out the eye."

"You're crazy, Chief!" protested Otho. "You'll burn to a crisp!"

But Curt Newton was already at work upon the perilous job of disassembling a cyclotron while it was operating. He hastily unbolted and removed the cylindrical metal shield around the eye, exposing the cubical power chamber and the slender tube of the fuel-intake. Realizing that he was tampering with an unchained devil of force that might lash out and destroy him, Captain Future unscrewed the tubular fuel-jet. He did not remove it from position, for that would have permitted a back-blast of energy to blaze up from the open connection.

Holding the tube in place with fingers steady as steel, he inserted a thin metal rod into the end of the fuel-jet. Delicately he prodded, breaking loose the tiny lumps of mineral that were jamming the intake. They fell into the power chamber. The eye roared from that sudden increment of power-laden fuel. Curt continued to prod gently, loosening the caked mineral flake by flake. At last the jet was clear.

He skillfully screwed the tube back into place and bolted on the heavy cover of the cyclotron.

"Whew!" he exclaimed with intense relief. "I wouldn't want to do that every day!"

Coming forward to take over the controls from Otho, he found that Mars was bulking ahead.

"We lost a lot of ground when that eye was under par," Otho grumbled. "The leaders are out of sight."

Captain Future saw that, even through the telescopic window set in the front of the control room, only the Kalber and the Garson were still visible, already diving toward Mars. Grimly determined to keep up, Curt Newton pressed the cyc-pedal to the floor. The great cyclotrons thundered. But, when they plunged down and dropped their flare on Syrtis spaceport, they were still far behind. Zooming up from Mars, Curt streaked past flying little Deimos and plunged spaceward toward the asteroidal zone.

"Even the Kalber and the Garson are out of sight now!" Otho moaned. "We're nearly to the asteroid zone. Time to head up over it."

"We're not going over it," Curt gritted. "We're going through it!"

"Devils of space, we can't go through at this speed!" Otho swore. Then his eyes flashed. "But we'd get a big jump on the other racers if we did go through. They'll all go up over the zone."

"That's my idea." Curt grinned tautly. "We've got to keep up with them and this is the only chance we have of overtaking them."

HE FLUNG the Zamor at suicidal speed toward the asteroid zone. For a ship traveling at such speeds that its meteorometer warnings were not quick enough, the zone was death! Yet no man in the System knew that labyrinth as well as Captain Future and no other pilot had the quickness of perception and reaction that he possessed.

He was gambling on those abilities to bring them through.

They plunged into the zone. The meteorometers started a frightening shrilling that was almost continuous. Captain Future did not depend on their warning entirely. His keen eyes probed the vault ahead, and his quick hands flicked throttles to send them lurching this way or that to avoid whirling swarms or booming, jagged planetoids. It was a nightmare.

"We're through!" Otho yelled finally. "Clear space ahead! Jupiter, here we come!"

At ever-mounting speed, they roared on toward the mighty monarch of the Solar System. It loomed huge ahead, jeweled with the sullen red ruby of the great Fire Sea. Around the big planet circled its eleven moons, dwarfed by the immensity of their parent world. Recklessly Captain Future slanted the Zamor between the marching moons. The interior of the ship became hot as they split the heavy air above the continent of South Equatoria and roared down over the mighty fern jungles toward the metalloy structures of Jovopolis.

"There come the others — behind us!" exulted Otho as he dropped their flare. "I'll bet they wonder how in space we ever got ahead."

The Rissman and Tark, which had been leading the race, were diving over Jovopolis behind them. Then the whole group of ships was racing out in space again.

"They'll overhaul us before we reach Saturn," Curt muttered, glancing back, "If those hijackers are going to attack us, I wish they'd do it now. This craft can't keep up the grind forever."

"Probably the hijackers figure to knock off these ships on our way back to Mercury," Otho suggested. "The ships would be strung out in space, the pilots half-dead from the grind. It would be easier."

"Guess you're right," Curt admitted. "I hope we can keep in the race that long."

The Rissman and Tark and Cruh-Cholo passed them just before they reached Saturn. They streaked down past the colossal shining rings of the sixth planet, dropped their flare on the black metropolis Ops, and were up and away for Uranus without changing their relative position. The Cruh-Cholo's superior pick-up again put it into the lead on the pull-away from Saturn. Once they were in clear space, the Rissman forged once again to the forefront, with old Yalu's Tark hanging grimly on behind it.

B-room! B-r-r-room!
Captain Future and Otho felt that thunderous sound now rather than heard it. It was imbedded in their brains.

"There's Yalu dropping out to change a tube," Otho called as they drew toward Uranus. "He's been pushing that ship to the limit."

The Tark was drifting at high speed toward Uranus, while Yalu and his co-pilot were clambering out in their space-suits to replace a rocket-tube. Such replacements were allowed, as long as no stop was made on any world. Curt muttered a prayer that their own tubes would hold out.

Down between the towering, sky-storming mountain peaks of Uranus flashed the string of racers. They dropped their flares on the spaceport of the capital and were off into space again, heading toward the far dim spark of Pluto. Through the thunder of cyclotrons and roar of rocket-tubes came the racking crash that Curt had been dreading.

"Tail-tube burned out!" he yelled to Otho. "Sounds like two of them gone."

"Okay, we can change 'em," replied Otho.

THE Zamor drifted on at high speed in a dead silence that was uncanny after the continuous drone of the cycs. Captain Future and Otho clambered out of the ship, still wearing their space-suits and carrying the two heavy tubes of hard alloy and the chain-wrenches. They scrambled back to the tail of the ship. Even the super-alloy of the tubes back there was white-hot. Two of the twenty tubes had burned out completely and were scattering the atomic power broadcast instead of shooting it back in straight jets.

Careful not to touch the white-hot tubes, Curt and Otho got their chain-wrenches onto the two stubs and unscrewed them. They inserted the new tubes, hastily tightening them. As they finished, there was a streak and flash. Sugan's Garson and then the Tark flashed by.

Captain Future leaped back to the pilot chair. The android was spinning shut the door.
Broom! Boom!
The familiar cyclotron thunder began again and the Zamor leaped forward, again building up velocity.

Nearing Pluto, they found the Rissman had also dropped out to replace tubes. The long grind was beginning to wear down the ships. But the Rissman was off and away before they could pass it. They screamed down through Pluto's frigid atmosphere over endless ice-fields, sent their flare blazing down toward the spaceport of the domed city Tartarus, and flashed up again. Now the race was turning back a little from the edge of the System. They headed inward toward Neptune.

"The Rissman and Tark still fighting for the lead, with the Cruh-Cholo close behind!" called Otho, "Immler's coming up fast behind us with the Kalber. The Garson's just a little ahead of us."

"That Rissman will lose us all, once we leave Neptune and streak back on the home stretch," Curt predicted. "It'll be able to build up all its power on that long plunge."

The Kalber passed them before they reached Neptune. But they in turn passed the Garson. It had dropped out to replace tubes.

Crash!
Another of their own rocket-tubes had given way. Again Curt and Otho cut the cycs and hastily scrambled out to replace the tube. But no sooner had they started than another tube gave out.

"That's all the spares we have!" Otho warned as they finished replacing the fourth tube and started again. "If another gives, we're out."

The planetary ocean of Neptune stretched below them soon as they darted down toward the little island that bore the capital city, Amphitrite. The last flare was dropped, and they rose again.

"Now build up all the speed you can!" Curt ordered. "This is the final stretch. They'll all be pushing their ships to the limit. We've got to stay with them on that sprint of more than two thousand million miles from Neptune to Mercury!"

Steadily the Rissman pulled away from the other racers. After it grimly sped old Yalu in his Tark, and the Cruh-Cholo and Kalber. And at the tail of the race, the little Zamor and the Garson raced almost abreast. Time had become meaningless to all these racing Rocketeers who fought to keep their shuddering ships in the van. They forced glazing eyes and stiffened muscles to function, driving for the fame and glory that came to the winner of the Round-the-System Race.

Captain Future mentally checked off the planet orbits as they flashed across them. Saturn, Jupiter — and then a crackling crash.

"Another tube gone!"

"We'll have to drive ahead, anyway," Curt gritted. "No more spares!"

"The flame from that stub will eat away the other tubes," Otho argued. "And our speed's failing already."

"I'm cutting through the zone again!" Curt rapped out.

HE FLUNG the Zamor on that perilous passage of the asteroidal zone, which no other pilot would have attempted. It gained for them once more. As they crossed the orbit of Mars, they were well up with the Cruh-Cholo and the Tark, but the Rissman was far ahead, out of sight.

"The Kalber's dropped back badly, must have blown a lot of tubes," Otho called. "Sugan is not far behind with that Garson."

Their Zamor blew still another tube as they cometed over the orbit of Earth. It seemed that no ship could stand more of the terrible grind, yet Curt could see the Tark and Cruh-Cholo still battling ahead for the lead. To his bleared eyes, they were mere flying specks against the Sun. Then Curt Newton became rigid with excitement. He had seen the Tark ahead suddenly veering away from the course of the race, off into space.

"What the devil!" he exclaimed.

The Cruh-Cholo was now also flying off after the Tark, apparently in senseless desertion of the race. Then Captain Future understood.