Captain Future 07 - The Magician of Mars (Summer 1941) (19 page)

Cracks opened in the valley floor, beneath the impact of the beams. Red fire gushed from those cracks as the lava underneath boiled upward. But finally, the beams uncovered a blue-shining mass of rock.

“Hold it!” Curt cried to Otho. “There’s the radite — and lots of it! Land the ship, Grag, and you and I and Otho will get the stuff.”

The
Comet
came to a landing on the valley floor near the radite deposit that had been uncovered. Curt and Otho had donned space-suits, and they and Grag now passed out of the ship. The great robot carried atomic drills and leaden containers to hold the precious radioactive fuel.

Curt led the way toward the radite. The scene around them was enough to daunt even the Futuremen. The black cindery ground that crunched under their feet, the geysers of red fire seething up from new cracks and openings all around them, made them imagine they were in a nightmare inferno.

“Devils of Pluto, I don’t like walking on a sun — even a dead one!” Otho called through the space-suit phone. “It gives me the creeps.”

“Look out!” Captain Future warned. “There’s an eruption ahead!”

Flaming red lava had suddenly burst up from a fissure just in front of them. They ran hastily aside, and detoured around the dangerous spurting fire-fountain. More urgently, they passed on toward the radite.

In a few moments the trio were laboring at the deposit of blue-shining rock. As fast as Curt and Otho dug out the radite with the atomic drills, Grag carried it in great loads over to the
Comet.

The cindery rock heaved under them, and a few hundred yards from them there burst forth another of the appalling fire-geysers. It was accompanied by a rumbling roar, like the warning voice of the dying sun.

“This whole valley is going to erupt because we disturbed it with our proton beams!” Curt cried. “Quick, back to the ship! We have enough radite.”

They were not a moment too soon. Even as they tumbled inside the ship, and it drove upward with a roar of rockets, the whole floor of the valley they had toiled in was cracking and breaking out in red flame.

Curt supervised the pouring of the precious radite into the fuel bins. Then he gave Grag the course to steer. The
Comet
hurtled with mounting velocity through the spaces of the alien universe, toward the spot where they must be when they shifted back into their own System.

“Quorn’s got a long start on us,” Otho pointed out pessimistically. “By this time he’s probably used his Cosmic Crystal to set up his invisible world somewhere in the System. How the devil are we going to find it?”

Curt Newton nodded.

“It’s going to be hard,” he admitted. “But one way or another, we have to trail him down.”

DRIVEN by the blast of energy from the super-powered radite fuel, the
Comet
plunged at a speed approaching that of light through the alien spaces of the strange universe. Hour followed hour as they hurtled across the billions of miles which could never have been crossed with ordinary fuel.

At last, Captain Future brought the ship to a halt. He and Simon carefully consulted the dual space sextant.

“We’ve reached the spot in this universe coincident with the Solar System in our own universe,” Curt told them. “Stand by — I’m going to shift back over.”

He operated the dimension-shifter machine. As the burst of force from it hurled every atom in the ship and themselves across the narrow but unthinkable abyss of the fifth dimension, they all experienced the familiar sensation of being hurled through shrieking blackness. Shaken, as always, by the terrific shock, they gradually came to themselves.

The
Comet
was back again in their own universe! The little ship was floating in space at a point inside the orbit of Uranus. Far away shone the familiar face of the Sun. In the starry heavens blazoned the familiar constellations.

“Am I glad to be back here again!” Joan Randall cried in relief. “I want no more alien universes, for mine.”

“Now how’re we going to find Quorn, Chief?” demanded Otho.

Captain Future had given that matter thought during the voyage.

“Quorn would undoubtedly take the Cosmic Crystal to some small little-known world in the System, either a moon or asteroid,” Curt declared. “The Crystal would make such a world totally invisible, and make it an ideal and invulnerable stronghold for Quorn’s cutthroat band. We’ll have a look.”

With the powerful electro-telescopes of the
Comet,
Curt and the Brain rapidly checked the thirty-one moons of the System.

“All the moons are as visible as ever,” he reported. “That means that the Magician of Mars has chosen an asteroid.”

“And that means we’ll never find him!” groaned Otho. “Why, there’s hundreds upon hundreds of asteroids in the zone between Mars and Jupiter. One of those swarming little worlds could be made invisible and would never be missed. Most of that jungle of worldlets hasn’t even been explored.”

Captain Future was feeling the dismay that was reflected on all their faces. But the wizard of science refused to feel daunted.

“There’s only one thing to do,” he said incisively. “We have in our astronomical file here, a record of the orbit, dimensions and movement of nearly every asteroid. We’ll have to compute where each asteroid
should
be right now, and then check with the telescopes to see if it’s there. If one of them is missing, we’ll know that’s Quorn’s invisible crime-world.”

“Holy sun-imps!” cried Otho, appalled. “That’ll take weeks, maybe months — to compute the position of each asteroid, and check it!”

“We can cut the time required by using the mechanical integraphs to help figure the orbits,” Curt Newton replied. He added grimly, “I know it’s going to be a terrific job. But we’ve got to find Quorn before his powers grow too great.”

There began one of the most formidable scientific tasks which had ever been attempted. Only the Futuremen would even have dreamed of computing the exact present position of hundreds on hundreds of asteroids. For only they had the file of data on which to base any calculations. And despite the aid of mechanical computers, the job would be a gigantic one.

Ezra Gurney took the controls of the
Comet
and steered it toward the asteroidal belt, between Mars and Jupiter. Joan and Johnny Kirk remained silent, watching almost in awe as the Futuremen worked.

CURT had instituted a routine process. Otho took from the file the card upon which was the data about each asteroid, and noted down the elements of its orbit and the possible perturbing gravitational influences. Captain Future and the Brain, working together in complex mathematical cooperation, computed from that data the exact present position of that asteroid. And Grag, with the telescope, checked to see if it was really there.

They reached the asteroidal belt, and hovered high above that whirling wilderness of booming planetoids and meteor swarms. Hours passed. The tremendous task went on. Curt and the Brain were like two machines as they unceasingly computed from the data that Otho handed them.

“Check,” monotonously announced Grag every few minutes, from the electro-telescope. Another asteroid had been accounted for.

“They can’t do it,” whispered Ezra Gurney to Joan. “Even the Futuremen can’t check every asteroid in the zone!”

The hours dragged on. Curt Newton refused to halt work to rest. Every fiber of his brain was concentrated upon the terrific task.

“Chief, here’s one that
doesn’t
check!” Grag called suddenly.

Instantly, Curt and the Brain and Otho darted to the telescope. Captain Future glanced at the position he had computed, then peered long.

“We’ve got it!” he said hoarsely. “The little asteroid Syrinx has disappeared. That means that Quorn has taken the Cosmic Crystal there!”

“Syrinx?” echoed Ezra Gurney. “I remember that world-let. Space pirates had a castle on it in the old days, before the Patrol cleaned them out. It’s only a twenty-mile ball o’ rock, but it’s got an atmosphere.”

“Quorn’s made it his invisible crime citadel,” Curt declared.

His haggard, tired eyes gleamed. “We’re going there, at once.”

He took the pilot chair and headed the
Comet
across the zone toward the computed position of the invisible asteroid.

“They’ll surely see us approaching!” Ezra warned. “The Magician of Mars will be taking-no chances, Cap’n Future!”

“We’re going to use a stratagem to get onto that asteroid without him suspecting,” Curt informed. “Watch.”

Curt touched a big red knob on the instrument-panel. In response, clouds of shining ions burst from the rocket-tubes of the ship. They enveloped the
Comet
in a glowing, concealing cloud from which a long shining tail swept backward. They made the ship utterly resemble a small, real comet.

“This camouflage will keep Quorn from suspecting we’re near,” Curt explained rapidly. “Simon, you take the controls and drive the ship close to the invisible asteroid. As you pass the asteroid, Grag and Otho and I will drop on it in our space-suits. We’ll become invisible ourselves as soon as we’re within the Crystal’s aura.”

“You mean that we others just go on past, and let you three fight it out there with Quorn?” cried Ezra rebelliously. “Not much, we won’t!”

“It’s an order!” snapped Captain Future authoritatively. “We three can settle with Quorn. He only has a half dozen or so men left.”

The shining little pseudo-comet curved through the planetoids and meteor swarms of the zone, toward the position of the invisible asteroid. The Futuremen were staking everything on the accuracy of their calculations. Meanwhile, Curt had prepared a roll of fine gauze of dull gray metal.

The camouflaged
Comet
passed a few score miles above the position of invisible Syrinx. Curt and Otho had their space-suits on, and were waiting in the air-lock with Grag, who needed no suit. Curt gave a signal, and the three leaped out of the camouflaged ship.

They fell straight downward, pulled by force of the invisible asteroid. Beside the peculiar roll of gray metal gauze he had prepared, Captain Future had the radite compass slung over his shoulder. In his free hand he held an impeller, and Grag and Otho had hand-rockets also.

They fell toward what seemed mere empty space. But, suddenly, Curt Newton and the two Futuremen became wholly invisible.

“We’re in the Cosmic Crystal’s range!” Curt called on the space-suit phone. “Our calculations were correct. Start braking your fall!”

With the impellers, they slowed their plunge downward A few moments later, they alighted with a little shock on an invisible rock plain. They had landed on Syrinx, its slight gravitation making the shock light.

Curt fingered the invisible radite compass, to learn which way its needle pointed. It would point toward the radite left in Ul Quorn’s ship.

“Come on,” he whispered. “This way. Keep close beside me.”

Like disembodied phantoms, the Futuremen moved across the invisible asteroid toward their final reckoning with the Magician of Mars.

THE three comrades moved over a barren surface of rock, feeling their way cautiously. Far up in the void they could see the little shining comet of their camouflaged ship receding.

Captain Future stopped every few minutes to check the radite compass by feeling its needle. The needle was now pointing very strongly ahead, attracted by the radite fuel left in Ul Quorn’s ship, the
Nova.

“Go slow,” he muttered to the others. “We must be very near the old pirate castle where Quorn has made his headquarters. At least, we’re near his ship.”

“I hear someone in front of us!” Grag announced in a low voice.

Curt Newton stiffened, listening. He, too, now heard heavy steps crunching the rocky plain somewhere close ahead of them.
Approaching
steps!

“One of Quorn’s men!” Curt whispered. “He can’t see us any more than we can see him. Wait till he’s right to us, and then jump him.”

The heavy steps came closer. The Futuremen tensed to attack the invisible other. But the heavy footsteps halted, only a few yards away.

“Captain Future, I’ve got you and your two Futuremen covered with an atom gun!” rang a gloating voice. “I can
see
you, you fools!”

“That’s Lucas Brewer’s voice!” exclaimed Otho wildly. “But he can’t see us — he’s lying —”

Lucas Brewer laughed, out of the nothingness.

“You imbeciles, do you think you can match scientific powers with the Magician of Mars? I can see, and you can’t. I was on guard outside the citadel and saw you coming, and could have killed you before now, but wanted you to know who killed you before you died. It’s me, Brewer, that’s killing you, Captain Future!”

Curt Newton knew that by some hell-born magic of Quorn’s science, Brewer could see them, while they were unable to see anything. He knew Brewer was going to release a bolt of atomic energy on him.

Curt acted. He still carried the impeller hand-rocket in his hand. He touched its stud, and the blast of force from the tube sent him hurtling forward like a human projectile to the location of Brewer’s voice.