Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942) (15 page)

“Gods of space give me patience!” raved Otho. Then he uttered a grating laugh. “All right, if you’re determined on committing suicide, I’ll join you. I’d just as soon get killed here and now, as to have to put up with your company any longer.”

And as Grag strode forward into the entrance, Otho accompanied him with angry despair.

CAUTIOUSLY they entered the dark haze that curtained the doorway. They felt nothing whatever. And in a moment they had passed through it into a big, vaulted black gallery that was utterly empty. There was no alarm.

“You see?” said Grag blandly. “There wasn’t anything to be afraid of.”

“I can’t understand it!” stammered Otho, his jaw dropping in amazement. “The Alius must have put that hazy curtain of force there to bar out intruders! Why, in the name of all the ten thousand separate devils of the nine worlds, didn’t it keep us out?”

“I’m afraid your nerves aren’t very good, Otho,” said Grag patronizingly. The robot looked calmly aroused. “Let’s see what’s in here. I don’t see how we’re going to find Curt in this big labyrinth.”

Dumfounded by the fact that there had been no alarm or challenge, Otho followed the robot through one of the doors that pierced the walls of the big inside gallery.

They found themselves looking into a maze of curving passageways, whose black recesses were illumined by a bright, sourceless white light. Otho shrank back and pulled the robot with him, as he glimpsed two dark figures gliding across one of the distant corridors.

They were two Alius. The unearthly black, shadowy creatures of monstrously serpentine outline looked like dark ghosts as they moved across the distant passage. They trailed behind them the curious, dragging filaments of shadow that seemed permanently attached to their weird forms.

So those are the Alius,” muttered Grag, as the two black silhouettes disappeared. “They don’t look like any race I ever saw.”

Otho’s attention had shifted.

“What the devil is the matter with that cursed moon-pup?” he demanded angrily.

Eek, crouched on Grag’s shoulder, seemed convulsed by a spasm of terror. His little gray body was trembling violently, and his beady eyes were dilated with fear as he tried to hide under the robot’s arm.

Eek’s cowardice was notorious among the Futuremen. He was inclined to scare at anything unfamiliar. Yet never in the past had the moon-pup exhibited such abject terror as now.

“He’s afraid of the Alius,” Grag said solicitously. “You know, he’s strongly telepathic — it’s the way moon-dogs communicate. He must be getting some fearful thought-impressions from the Alius in here.”

“Say, maybe we can use Eek to find the chief:” Otho whispered excitedly. “We know Curt’s in here somewhere. But if we go blundering around searching for him, we’re sure to be discovered. But Eek ought to be able to sense Curt telepathically, and lead us to him.”

Grag at once accepted the suggestion.

“I’m sure he can do it. I’ll tell him what we want.”

Grag told Eek by thinking, since that was the way he always gave his orders to the telepathic moon-pup who could not speak or hear.

“Find Curt, Eek!” Grag ordered. He added as an inducement, “If you can get to Curt you’ll be safe, Eek!”

Safety was what Eek craved most, at the moment. Galvanized, he scrambled down onto the floor and started on a run along the outermost of the curving corridors before them.

The two Futuremen followed, praying inwardly that they would meet none of the Alius. They believed that Eek would sense and fearfully avoid the shadowy aliens, and so it proved. For after leading them for some minutes along the corridors, Eek darted through a door in the wall.

THE door was curtained by one of the barriers of dark, hazy force. That did not prevent the two Futuremen from entering. They found themselves in a small cell. Eek was leaping and bounding in frantic pleasure around a man who had risen in astonishment to his feet.

It was Curt Newton.

“Grag! Otho!” exclaimed Captain Future incredulously. “How in the name of all that’s holy did you get in here? Were you captured?”

Otho explained their adventures in swift, excited phrases. As he did so, the android noted the haggardness and pallor of Curt’s features. He thought that he had never seen such a strain on his leader’s face.

“So we walked right in through the front door, and Eek led us to you!” Otho finished. “Though I still don’t see how in the world we were able to pass the barrier of force across the entrance.”

“Otho, I can understand that,” Curt Newton said eagerly. “That barrier is a curtain of mental force — a pattern of electromagnetic thought-impulses — which impresses upon the brain of any man who enters it that he must on no account go through the door. My cell has such a barrier.

“But,” Curt continued, “that barrier of electromagnetic thought-impulses is designed to bar out
human
intruders. Its frequency must be the same as the frequency of impulses in the human brain. You and Grag, though, are not ordinary humans.

“Your artificially created brains function at a different electrical frequency than the human mind. Therefore the thought-barriers of the Alius have no effect upon you two.”

“Sure, that’s it,” said Grag complacently. “I figured that all out before, and that’s why I knew we could pass the barrier.”

“In a space-rat’s eye, you did!” retorted Otho wrathfully. “You were just dumb enough to try it, and got a lucky break, that’s all. I should have remembered that the Alius, mental force failed against us before.”

Captain Future interrupted with a fiercely impatient gesture.

“Listen to me! The coming of you two is a godsend. It may furnish a chance to save Joan from those alien devils.”

“Joan? Is she here?” exclaimed Otho startledly.

“She’ll be here soon,” Curt answered.

He told rapidly of the intention of the Alius to extort further information from him by threatening the girl.

“Why, the dirty so-and-sos!” swore Otho. “I’d like to exterminate the whole shadowy crowd of them!”

“Otho, maybe we can do just that, if we can make a particular effort,” Curt declared feverishly. “The clue that explains the nature of the Alius is in what you saw in that central court. I want you to tell me every detail you noticed, especially about that arched doorway into nothingness.”

Otho complied, quickly describing the entire scene he had witnessed, when he had spied upon the Alius from the roof of the citadel.

Captain Future’s gray eyes flashed.

“It all fits together,” he breathed. “It’s incredible, but I believe it’s true.”

“You mean, you know now what the Alius are?” Grag asked, staring.

“I’m sure of it,” Curt replied. “There’s only one explanation that fits all the facts. The Alius have no material existence at all!”

“What are you talking about?” exclaimed Otho dismayedly. “Chief, are you sure you’re not delirious?”

“I tell you, it’s the only answer,” Curt insisted. “The home of the Alius is in the four-dimensional void outside the bubble of our three-dimensional cosmos. Therefore, the material bodies of the Alius out there must be four-dimensional matter.”

HIS eyes flared with excitement. “Such matter could not enter our three-dimensioned cosmos! That’s not just my own opinion. When he questioned me, Ruun remarked that energy could pass from one universe to the other, whereas matter could not. Therefore, it’s scientifically impossible for the Alius to exist in our cosmos!”

“The ones in this cursed citadel certainly exist!” Otho exclaimed. “Why, they’ve mastered this whole world!”

They do exist, but not materially,” Curt qualified. “Those shadowy figures consist not of matter, but of photons — particles of energy!”

Rapidly, Captain Future unfolded the astounding explanation that his brilliant mind had pieced together from the scientific evidence.

“The Alius are real, four-dimensional creatures inhabiting the four-dimensional abyss outside our cosmos. They needed power, and decided to enter our cosmos and set up here a giant transformer, which would draw in the energy of our sun and pour it into their own strange universe. Their initial step was to open a door between universes, first getting into contact with Querdel and the Cometae rulers and persuading them to aid.

“The door was open — but the Alius couldn’t themselves come through it. Their four-dimensional bodies couldn’t exist in our cosmos. But energy, which is dimensionless, could pass back and forth through that door between universes. Atoms, which are particles of matter, couldn’t pass through. But photons, which are particles of energy, could.

“So the Alius projected artificial bodies of photons through the door! Their shadowy figures that we see here are merely photon-patterns, which are directly connected by those filaments of energy with their tangible bodies on the other side of the door. They project their minds along that filament into the black photon-bodies that we see here. Thus, in those photon-shapes, the Alius are able to act in this universe.”

Captain Future’s gray eyes were blazing now.

“It’s the only possible scientific explanation. And it gives us a thousand-to-one chance of ridding our cosmos forever of the Alius’ threat.”

Otho gasped. “I get it, Chief! If we could close that door —”

“If we could close the door, it would cut the filament connection between the Alius’ real bodies in the outer abyss and their photon-bodies here and thus end all their internal activities in this universe!” Curt finished for him.

THE three comrades gazed at each other with a common excitement, crouching close together in the little black cell.

“Can we do it, Chief?” asked Grag quickly. “Can we close that door?”

“It should be possible,” muttered Curt Newton. “From Otho’s description, the mechanism consists of a frame of super-powered magnetic coils, which set up intersecting fields that cause an unprecedented spaces-train. Theoretically, scientists have always known that a strong enough strain would rip open an aperture in three-dimensional space. Actually, it’s never been done by any System scientist, because it would require vast power.

“But the Alius are using vast power — power of this comet’s electric coma. By means of it, they keep the space-strain always operating, the door constantly open. They daren’t let it close.”

“Then if we wrecked those magnet coils, the door would close?” cried Otho.

Captain Future nodded.

“It would. But can we get at the coils? You said the wall of electric flame around the court had no break in it.”

“The devil, I forgot that!” exclaimed Otho, crestfallen. “And that stumps us. The photon-bodies of the Alius could go through that ring of electric fire, but it would blast you or me in an instant.”

“I don’t think it would blast me.” Grag suggested eagerly. “You know the outer surface of my body is dielectric metal. I’ll bet I could get through it.”

“I doubt it.” Curt hesitated. “Yet there’s no other possibility. Grag, if you’re willing, we’ll try it. Come on let’s get out of here.”

“I thought you couldn’t pass through the barrier of mental force across the door of this cell?” objected Otho.

“I can’t, of my own accord,” retorted Curt. “But you two can drag me through it.”

“Great space-gods, I never thought of that!” exclaimed the android. “Come on, Grag — get hold of the chief.”

Grasping Captain Future firmly by the arms, the two Futuremen approached the cell door. As they entered the curtain of hazy force across it, a frantic clamor awoke in Curt’s brain.

“I don’t want to go out into the hall!” he thought fiercely. “I don’t want to leave the cell!”

His obsession was so powerful that he struggled fiercely to pull back into his prison. But Grag’s great grip dragged him out through the hazy curtain, despite his resistance. The moment they were out in the corridor and clear of the mental barrier, Curt’s mental revulsion ceased to exist.

“Thanks, boys!” he muttered. “Now we’ve got to find a way to that central court where the door is located. It should be in this direction. I suppose we have not much chance of reaching it without the Alius’ knowledge.”

“I’ve got Eek here with me,” drag told him. “He’s scared to death of the Alius, and can sense them long before we can see them. He’ll warn us of any of them ahead.”

They began the hazardous search through the labyrinthine halls and corridors of the vast black citadel. Twice in the next few minutes, Eek, showed wild panic when they were about to enter passageways. They hastily took other turnings, knowing that the little moon-pup had sensed Alius ahead.

They passed unoccupied laboratories and supply rooms, in which lay great masses of mechanisms and apparatus of totally new and unfamiliar design.

Curt guessed that these were part of the giant transformer the Alius planned to build, for the theft of limitless power from this cosmos.

ONCE only Eek’s panicky warning enabled them to shrink back as one of the dark Alius glided across the corridor ahead. Curt was near despair. Their time was short, for soon Querdel would arrive with Joan. Then he Alius would summon him and find him gone from his cell.