Captain Future 07 - The Magician of Mars (Summer 1941) (8 page)

“I always did think Lulanee was the most beautiful city in the System, at night,” commented Otho, drinking in the weird beauty.

Curt Newton nodded.

“Land at the Police station,” he ordered.

The luminous shooting-star emblem on the domed roof of the Planet Police station identified its location. The
Comet
dropped on its keel tubes into the landing-court behind the building. Here were parked fast cruisers of the Planet Patrol, swift Tarks and Rissmans.

A vice-marshal of the Planet Police, an alert young Venusian, came running out to meet Curt and the Futuremen as they emerged from their ship into the krypton-lit court.

Curt held out his identifying “nine-planet” ring. The young officer smiled eagerly.

“As though I didn’t know your ship and the Futuremen without that, Captain Future! What can we do for you here?”

“I’m after someone who needs a lot of radite,” Curt stated crisply, “and I hope to trace him in that way. The man I’m after is a criminal. He wouldn’t dare negotiate for the radite with the mine companies here. Is there any other source of radite on Uranus besides the established mines?”

“No reachable source,” the Venusian replied. “Radite is known to exist at one point far down in the great caves below the surface, but nobody has ever been able to obtain it from those endless depths.”

The young officer was referring to the labyrinthine caverns which honeycombed the mass of Uranus to unguessable depths — the most extensive caves in any of the nine worlds. But Grag did not understand.

“If no one’s ever been able to reach the radite down there in the caves, how do you know it’s there?” the big robot demanded.

“Radite is so powerfully radioactive that its emanations affect sensitive instruments at a great distance,” the officer explained. “Such instruments show a rich radite deposit far underground, north of here.”

“And no attempt’s ever been made to get at that deposit?” Captain Future demanded.

“Plenty of attempts were made at first, but all failed,” he was told. “You see, the only way to that deep-buried deposit would be through the great caverns. And the ferocious cave-creatures and the People of Darkness who inhabit that maze of lightless spaces, attack any intruder. After many attempts, all efforts to reach the deep deposit were abandoned.”

Captain Future’s gray eyes had a startled gleam in them. He turned to the Brain who hovered beside him.

“Simon, suppose Ul Quorn has reached that radite deposit down there? Suppose Quorn’s secret base is down in the great caves?”

“I believe you’ve hit it, lad,” muttered the Brain. “Quorn must have a large mass of radite fuel if he’s to enter the other universe in a larger ship. And that buried deposit in the deep caves is the only place where he could get it. Probably he’s building his new ship down there!”

“That’s a goofy theory,” Otho objected. “How would Quorn and his band get down into that cave, if nobody has ever managed to reach it?”

“Quorn could enter the cave easily,” Curt retorted. “He’d simply switch his little ship into the other universe, travel to a point in it corresponding to the location of the cave in our universe, and then switch back across the dimensional gulf. Then his ship would be inside the cavern!”

“Well, we can do the same thing as soon as we fit up the
Comet
with dimension-thrust apparatus!” Otho exclaimed triumphantly.

“That’s not soon enough,” snapped Captain Future. “It’ll take days to build a dimension-thrust mechanism capable of shifting the
Comet
into the other universe. By that time, Quorn will probably have his new ship built and will be gone into the other universe for the treasure.”

CURT’S face lengthened.

“And I think that treasure is something that will give Quorn great powers once he gets it. He wouldn’t be after it so keenly if it weren’t so. We may not be able to cope with Quorn if he secures the mysterious treasure!”

Otho scratched his head.

“That’s right. But I don’t see what we can do but take the chance. We have to take time to fit up the
Comet.”

“We don’t all have to,” Curt declared. His eyes gleamed with purpose. “Simon, you could build the dimension-thruster, couldn’t you?”

“Yes, I could,” answered the Brain. “I have a full record of our experiments on the subject, in our microfilm reference library.”

“Good!” Curt exclaimed. “I’m going to leave you and Otho here to build the machine. Meanwhile, I’m going with Grag to try to penetrate directly to Quorn’s cavern base, and make sure he doesn’t get away. Grag and I will attempt to go down through the caves to that radite cavern.”

The young Venusian officer made strenuous protests. “Don’t try it, Captain Future! Nobody has ever succeeded in getting past the creatures in those deeper caves!”

“We’ll have a few wrinkles most of the explorers didn’t have,” Curt retorted. “We’ve got to make it. As soon as you have the
Comet
fitted, Simon, you and Otho can follow us by the fifth-dimension short-cut.”

“Say, do you think you’re going to leave me here while you take Grag off on a jaunt?” cried Otho rebelliously. “Not much!”

Curt saw mutiny brewing. He had his own reasons for wanting Grag as his companion on this venture instead of Otho. To prevent the inevitable argument, he took Otho aside and spoke to him in a low voice.

“You’ve got to stay, Otho,” he whispered. “Grag wouldn’t be any good helping Simon with the dimension-thruster. Grag’s faithful and strong but you know as well as I do that he hasn’t your skill in science.”

Otho expanded under the praise.

“Sure, Chief, I know that,” he answered cockily. “His iron fingers can’t handle instruments deftly.”

“That’s it,” Curt agreed seriously. “But don’t tell him I said this. We don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“Depend on me to keep quiet about it, Chief,” promised Otho.

Ten minutes later, Curt Newton and Grag rose above the city in a small, fast Tark Twelve rocket-ship borrowed from the Planet Patrol station. At high speed, it screamed north through the night over the black mountains that rimmed the Shining Sea.

Curt was heading for the famous Valley of Voices. He had been told that there was an entrance to the labyrinth of caverns that extended deep down into the planet. He had brought certain instruments and weapons from the
Comet.
But he realized that even armed with scientific powers as he was, it was a hazardous descent he was about to make into the bottomless caverns from which no explorer had ever returned.

JOHNNY KIRK had been inordinately proud when Captain Future had asked him to remain and guard the
Comet.
The tough youngster did not suspect that it was only a device to keep him in the ship.

After Curt and the Futuremen had departed toward the looming tower of Skal Kar’s laboratory, Johnny began standing guard in dead earnest. He took a proton gun from the space-suit locker and sat in the airlock-door, looking out across the green-lit landscape of Ariel.

Johnny Kirk was the product of one of the toughest environments in the System — the space-dock district of New York. He had grown up, parentless and friendless, in those shabby slums. He had learned to take care of himself, to outwit his enemies, and to hate the authority of the law. He had a hearty dislike for the “sky-cops” — the Planet Police. But Captain Future had always been his supreme hero. He had dreamed of being one of those glamorous Futuremen who followed the red-haired planeteer on his flashing, adventurous space-trails. And now it had happened! Here he was, almost a Futureman himself!

“Wish the gang back by the space-docks could see me now,” he thought happily.

Johnny suddenly sprang to his feet. A small ship was swooping down from the planet-lit sky. It landed only a dozen yards from the
Comet.
From it hastily emerged a giant green Jovian, a fat Earthman and a tall Martian. Johnny heard the Jovian call to the other two.

“Come on — now’s our chance to grab the ship, while they’re in the laboratory!”

The three men came running toward the
Comet.
Johnny Kirk, bristling belligerently, bounded out with his proton gun.

“Grab this ship? Not much!” snapped the tough Earth youngster. He pressed the trigger of his weapon and a thin, pale blue ray drilled through the Martian of the trio. He fell in a dead heap.

At that moment, Johnny Kirk heard a yell from the distant tower and knew that the Futuremen had heard and were coming.

“No chance now!” he heard the big Jovian curse. “Back out of here before those devils get us!”

“You don’t get away so easy!” Johnny snapped, and plunged after them. He pursued the Jovian and the fat Earthman right to the door of their little ship. The great Jovian whirled with astonishing swiftness. His outflung fist caught Johnny’s head.

Johnny saw stars, and was aware that he was stumbling and falling inside the door of the outlaws’ ship. He heard the Jovian yelling.

“Up out of here, Xexel! This brat spoiled the whole plan!”

Johnny heard a door slam and then, with a roar of rocket-tubes, the ship lurched skyward. Still on the floor, he glimpsed the Jovian’s hands reaching down.

“I’ll fix this cub for what he did!” snarled the giant green man.

“No, Thikar!” cried the throaty voice of the fat one. “We can use him alive. Throw him in that locker.”

A heavy hand grabbed the half-dazed youngster, and he was slammed into a crowded little locker whose door clanged shut. Johnny groggily gathered himself up into a sitting position.

“I let them take me like a little sissy,” Johnny thought wrathfully. “I ought to have blasted them down, instead of ordering ‘em to stop. Well, anyway I got one — and Captain Future will get these others.”

THE boy’s tremendous confidence in Captain Future was unshaken. He wasn’t afraid. Sooner or later, Captain Future would rescue him.

He could hear Thikar, the big, brutal Jovian, yelling to the man at the controls of the little ship.

“Faster, Xexel! There comes the
Comet
after us!”

“Can’t go faster!” whined a cracked voice. “Future’s ship can fly rings around us. We’ll have to make the dimension-shift now or they’ll have us!”

“All right!” Thikar bellowed. “Brace yourselves — here goes!”

Johnny heard Thikar start some mechanism whose powerful hum rose swiftly to a penetrating, tingling vibration. Then the lad suddenly felt a ghastly shock. He seemed thrust into a bellowing blackness in which each atom of his body was wrenched by supernal forces. Finally the awful sensation passed, leaving him quivering and shaken.

“What in the devil was that?” Johnny wondered bewilderedly.

He could see nothing, locked as he was in the dark metal cabinet. But he heard Thikar’s coarse laugh.

“We’re safe now,” the Jovian criminal exulted. “Captain Future can’t follow us
here.
How I’d like to have seen his face when we disappeared in front of his eyes!”

Johnny Kirk’s bewilderment increased. What had that awful shock of strange force meant? How had this craft escaped the
Comet?

“Head back to base, Xexel,” Thikar was ordering. “Keep over
on this side
until we’re in the right spot — then shift back over.”

“All right, all right,” quavered the cracked voice of the old pilot, Xexel. “But I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when we do get back. Quorn’s going to be plenty angry with you for bungling the thing.”

“Was it my fault?” roared the Jovian. “How could we know that they’d have that brat watching their ship? Who is he, anyway?”

“We’ll find out when we get to our base,” answered the voice of the fat Earthman, Lucas Brewer. “By taking at least a hostage back to Quorn, we’ll be able to placate that devil a little for our failure.”

Indifferent to this peril, Johnny Kirk became drowsy from the close air and monotonous drone of the rocket-tubes. He did not know how much time had passed before he was aroused by the sound of Thikar’s bull voice.

“The dual sextant shows we’re there, Xexel. Hold her steady while I shift back over.”

Once more Johnny heard the penetrating vibration begin. He braced himself. And, as he expected, there came again the mysterious, rending shock of uncanny force which seemed to plunge him into a black abyss.

His consciousness swam up out of the blackness a few moments later. Presently the locker door was unlocked and opened. Johnny Kirk, who had braced himself for this moment, plunged out like a mad wildcat. His small fists flailed right and left at the criminals. He beat a devil’s tattoo on the paunch of the Earthman before the hand of the towering Jovian grabbed his collar and shook him to a state of limpness.

“Try that again and I’ll snap your neck,” roared Thikar.

“Aw, go chase a meteor, you big greenie,” gasped Johnny, shaken but unterrified.

They hauled him out of the ship. And Johnny Kirk momentarily forgot his belligerence in the amazement of the scene.