Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942) (8 page)

“They carried electrode weapons and trained them uncompromisingly upon the Futuremen.

“You four strangers are to come with us,” Khinkir snapped. “Sentence has been passed upon you. You are too dangerous, and are to die tonight.”

TO CAPTAIN FUTURE, the announcement was a thunderbolt that wrecked all their plans. He could not keep the sharp momentary dismay out of his face. And Khinkir saw it, and smiled thinly in triumph.

“You learn now what it means to defy the King and blaspheme the Great Ones, stranger,” he rasped. “For the Great Ones, through the wise Querdel, have decreed that you four might be a danger and that it is safer to destroy you at once.”

His smile widened.

“”But you will not die ingloriously, strangers. You are to die at the Lightning Feast. Your destruction will afford an enjoyable spectacle for our king and court.”

Curt Newton desperately decided that since all was lost, he would perish right here and now. And Khinkir read that, too, in his face. The Cometae captain recoiled and shouted a sharp order to his men, who brought their electrode weapons to bear on Captain Future’s heart.

“Curt!” cried a clear silvery voice in anxious alarm.

Joan Randall had appeared in the corridor outside! A dazzling electric-glowing figure of beauty, her radiant face was taut with apprehension.

Khinkir had turned startledly at her cry. The guards, too, had glanced sideward. That moment was enough for Grag. The great robot’s mighty metal arms reached out and seized the Cometae captain!

“Kill them!” shrieked Khinkir. But his scream was choked off as Grag’s arms crushed him.

With yells of alarm, the Cometae soldiers triggered their strange weapons to loose crackling blasts of electric force at the Futuremen. But Joan had bravely flung herself against the guards, distracting them and spoiling their aim. The blasts missed Curt Newton and Otho and Simon.

One of the electric blasts struck Joan’s shining body. Mad with apprehension for her, Captain Future plunged in at the soldiers with whom she was struggling.

He touched one of those Cometae guards — and was flung back half senseless by the paralyzing electric shock of contact. He fought to get to his feet, and was dimly aware of a tumult of shouting and running about him.

Curt’s eyes began to clear, as the first effects of the shock passed. Staggering drunkenly, he found himself witnessing an amazing scene of conflict.

Zarn and Aggar had arrived! With them were a score of other Cometae. All carried swords, and were hacking down the Cometae guards who had come with Khinkir. Even as Curt stumbled forward, the last guard fell a mangled, radiant corpse.

Khinkir himself lay on the corridor floor, a crushed and broken thing. And big Grag was straightening grimly.

“I told you that I could touch them!” the robot boomed.

The Futuremen were all unhurt. But Curt stumbled toward Joan Randall.

“Joan, are you all right? That electric blast that hit you —”

“It couldn’t hurt me,” she breathed. “No electric force can harm a Cometae, Curt.”

Zarn was close beside Captain Future, speaking wildly. “We’ve little time! The alarm will be given when Khinkir doesn’t return to the palace!”

“Release Tiko Thrin and Ezra Gurney and all the other captives,” Curt ordered. “You brought swords for us?”

“Yes, here they are,” said Aggar, pointing to a bundle of long, gray, saberlike weapons. “We had them hastily forged of dielectric metal. You can use them, even against the Cometae.”

JOAN spoke now in a sobbing rush. “Curt, I was afraid I’d be too late! I came here as soon as I heard that your executions had been ordered, though I didn’t know what I could do —”

“Joan, tell me quickly,” he interrupted. “You didn’t join the Cometae because you really wanted to, did you?”

“Oh, no, Curt! It broke my heart to have to keep up that pretense when I met you yesterday in the throne room.”

“But why did you keep it up with me?” he asked bewilderedly. “We were talking in our own English, which the Cometae couldn’t understand.”

“There were captives who had become Cometae, like myself, in the throne room,” she said earnestly. “If they’d heard and betrayed me —”

“Of course. What a fool I was not to think of that!” Captain Future exclaimed. “But even so, I knew it wasn’t the real you talking.”

“Curt, I only pretended to join the Cometae,” Joan cried. “I pretended to be allured by the prospect of immortality — but only because I thought it the only way in which I could learn the secret of this comet’s mystery.”

She came closer, her eyes wide and haunted as she looked up at him.

“Curt, there’s a threat in this mysterious setup. A strange, unguessable threat to our Solar System from those Alius who came from outside our cosmos. It’s not a physical menace, I feel certain of that.

“I’m convinced the Alius have in mind nothing so crude as a physical attack upon our System. But they are planning something! They direct everything the Cometae do, as incomprehensible details of some dark, baffling plan.”

Her shining face was earnest.

“I wanted to find out, to carry a warning out to the System, if warning was needed. So I pretended that I wanted to become a Cometae and live a deathless electric life. But I’ve found out so little!

“I was in an induced mental amnesia when I was taken to the citadel of the Alius and made a Cometae, so I remember nothing about them. And I’ve never seen any Alius since. I’m certain that only Querdel, Thoryx and a few others have really seen the Alius. And they themselves are in deadly fear of the dark masters!”

“But Joan, even if you’d found out anything, you couldn’t have escaped from here to give warning!” Curt exclaimed. “You couldn’t have lived outside the comet, now that your body feeds on the coma’s electric radiance.”

“I knew that, Curt. But I thought that if I could get away in a ship, my ship would be found and my written warning read — even if I died,” she answered simply.

Curt Newton felt a lump in his throat as he contemplated the girl’s matter-of-fact heroism. He took a step closer toward her.

“Joan —”

“Stay back, Curt!” Her warning was a sob. “You can’t touch me now, or ever again. I’m a Cometae!”

Captain Future felt a tumult of emotions such as he had never experienced before.

“Joan, I’m going to get you out of this terrible electric existence, no matter what else I do!” he vowed fiercely. “You and all these Cometae, after our revolt succeeds!”

By now the other prisoners in the rows of cells had been released. Tiko Thrin, the little Martian scientist, and Ezra Gurney were hastening toward Captain Future. After them came the other captives of the vanished spaceships — Plutonians, Earthmen, Venusians — a bewildered, heterogeneous crew.

ZARN spoke a warning to Curt Newton. “We mustn’t delay here any longer. The Lightning Feast will have begun by now. Our people are waiting!”

“Tiko Thrin, you keep Eek and Oog safe for us here!” cried Grag.

“Joan, you stay here with Tiko also,” Curt told the girl authoritatively. “No, I won’t have you with us! We’ll be back, never fear.”

“Oh, Curt — be careful!” she cried.

“It’s not Thoryx or the guards I’m afraid of, but Querdel and his evil link with the Alius.”

Curt had grabbed up one of the dielectric swords, and Otho and Ezra and the other released captives were similarly arming themselves.

“This way!” rumbled the deep voice of Aggar.

The hulking Cometae captain led them through the corridors of the prison building, toward another entrance than that which opened onto the plaza.

“Fiends of Pluto!” gasped old Ezra Gurney, hastening beside Captain Future. “This, is the queerest bunch I ever went into a fight with!”

Curt realized the strange spectacle he and his companions must present; the two radiant, electric forms of Zarn and Aggar leading, he and Ezra just behind them, the Brain gliding at their side, with lithe Otho and ponderous Grag following closely.

Behind them in turn came the fierce-eyed, newly released Venusians, Earthmen and other captives, followed by the score of Cometae, vanguard of the rebels who had joined forces with Zarn and Aggar.

All had swords for weapons. All were grimly tense as they emerged from the building into a narrow street at the rear of the towering prison. Aggar led the way along it, in a rapid trot.

They met no one. The city Mloon seemed deserted beneath the flaring coma-sky. It was well into the sleep-period, and most of the city of the Cometae was wrapped in slumber.

“We’re circling around the plaza to approach the palace from the rear,” Zarn told Captain Future as they hurried along. “Our comrades were to meet us there at this hour.”

From a branching street of the alabaster city, a solid mass of armed Cometae poured out to join them a few moments later. As they hastened on, other bands of the Cometae were coming in from side streets.

Aggar’s secret organization of rebels was functioning well. By the time they approached the network of narrow streets behind the looming palace dome, the conspirators numbered into the hundreds.

“The others will be on their way here by now,” Aggar declared as he signaled to halt. “But there are two thousand guards inside the palace, and as many more within easy call.”

“What’s your plan — to rush the entrances?” Captain Future asked tensely.

“No. The guards would slam the gates on us before we could get through,” grunted the big Cometae rebel.

He turned to his fellow officer.

“Zarn, I’m going inside with a small band, by a little-used entrance I learned of when I was captain of the palace guards myself. We’ll try to dispose quietly of the gate guards. You can bring the main force in when you hear our signal.”

“I’m going with you, Aggar,” Curt said quietly. And the other Futuremen and Ezra Gurney hastily chimed in.

Aggar laughed.

“All right. The one you call Grag may be useful.”

Aggar quickly designated a score of Cometae to accompany them. Then he and the Futuremen led the small band toward the palace.

THE vast, white synthestone structure loomed above them like a man-made mountain when they reached its massive rear wall. Aggar led them to a narrow entrance in one of the indented angles in the wall.

“A servants’ entrance,” he muttered. “There should be only two guards on duty. Stay back out of sight.”

They remained as he bade them, while Aggar himself sheathed his sword and strode boldly toward the inconspicuous entrance.

Two Cometae palace guards sprang suddenly from the entrance and barred his way with drawn swords.

Why are you here, Captain Aggar?” one demanded suspiciously. “You are not on palace duty any longer.”

“You fools? Haven’t you heard that Khinkir is dead and that I’ve replaced him?” snarled Aggar.

Half convinced, yet still doubtful, the two guards lowered their swords a little. Then Curt and his companions saw a wonderful feat of swordsmanship.

They saw Aggar suddenly hurl himself forward, drawing his blade as he plunged its and wielding it like a brand of light. It ripped into the breast of a Cometae guard and out again, struck down the other man at the very moment his mouth was opened to yell an alarm.

“Hot work,” panted Aggar as Curt and the others came running up. His massive face hardened. “And don’t waste any pity on these palace guards, strangers. They’ve long been the instruments of Thoryx’s tyranny over the people. I myself was one of them, until I could stand such injustice no longer.”

They had crowded into the entrance now and stood inside the palace of the Cometae kings. A narrow corridor, which could be closed by a huge gate of metal, led to a flight of ascending steps.

“Up this way,” said Aggar, hastening up the stairs. “We’re working on scant margin of time now!”

Curt Newton heard then, from somewhere deep within the great palace, a burst of thrilling, rippling music. Long, falling chords quivered in his ears with alien tonal beauty of muted strings.

“That’s from the Lightning Feast,” Aggar grunted. “But it hasn’t begun yet or we’d hear it.”

They came up into a long gallery, one of a maze of cross-halls and passages that intersected the palace’s vast bulk. Luxury was evident everywhere here, the alabaster walls hung with beautiful tapestries of red and gold, the floors soft with silken rugs.

Aggar shot rapid orders at the score of Cometae he had brought along, directing them to work their way back through the palace and overcome the gate guards at the main rear entrances.

“Then give the signal. Zarn and the others will pour in, and all will be on the knees of the gods!” finished the husky Cometae officer.

He turned to Curt.

“The main force of the palace guards is always close to Thoryx. They’ll be in the great court for the festival. This way!”

They raced along deserted, splendid halls whose occupants had apparently all been drawn by the mysterious festivity. Soon they reached an upper gallery, from which they could peer down into a large court that was situated in a wing of the palace.