Captain Future 10 - Outlaws of the Moon (Spring 1942) (14 page)

“So far, so good,” muttered Curt; “They appear to be accepting us as friends, though I imagine they’re keeping tabs on us.”

“I’ve got to learn their language as soon as possible,” he added determinedly. “We may need their help to put my scheme into effect before the Planet Patrol and King’s men get here.”

ALBERT WISSLER crouched fearfully in a corner of the dim room, watching as Captain Future keenly inspected the mass of transformers, condensers and other apparatus he had brought with him.

“We’ve got to build this equipment into a super-powered atomic generator and wave-transmitter,” Curt declared.

“We’ll need metal for cables and other parts, and that’s where we’ll require Lunarian help.”

Otho stared skeptically.

“You’re going to build a big wave-transmitter of some kind? What for? How the devil will that protect the radium mountain out there from the forces King is mustering?”

“If my plan works, it will protect the radium from the biggest army that could be brought down into the Moon,” Curt replied. “But we’re short on time. We don’t know how soon King’s forces will get down here.”

Curt went outside to find Reh Sel and Fwar Aj. But he found that the streets of the lunar town were now deserted, except for a small group of armed Lunarians loitering nearby, whom he guessed were watching them.

He came back ruefully.

“It seems that it’s night there now.”

“What do you mean, night?” exclaimed Grag. “It’s light as ever. That radium mountain out there never quits shining, does it?”

“No, but apparently the Lunarian have a ‘day’ and ‘night’ period artificially defined,” Captain Future surmised. “Probably it corresponds to the day and night of their ancient life on the Moon’s surface, back ages ago before the Moon’s diurnal period had lengthened to a fortnight.”

He spent some hours starting to connect up parts of his intricate apparatus, in a circuit that would form the basis of a wave-transmitter of peculiar and unprecedentedly powerful design. It would need to be powerful, Curt thought grimly, to do the stupendous thing he meant it to accomplish.

Simon Wright watched keenly. Grag was standing guard, fingering the atom-pistol he had taken from Wissler. Wissler himself was sleeping exhaustedly, and so was Otho.

After some hours of work, Curt slept, too.

He awoke to find the city of the Moon-men stirring with life. It was “morning,” it seemed. Lunarian men were setting off with tools of cultivation for the fields, with spear-bows for the jungles, or with nets and lines for the fishing boats on the beach.

Curt and Simon went through the town to find Reh Sel. A curious yet friendly Lunarian throng followed them, wonderingly eyeing the Brain. Captain Future found the old Lunarian chieftain and the grizzled Fwar Aj, earnestly conversing in the rambling building at the center of town. They greeted Curt and Simon with friendly gestures, and the two sat down.

“Now to see if I can’t get the hang of their language,” Curt murmured. “They look like an intelligent people, so it shouldn’t be hard.”

Curt began the task. Captain Future had become expert in learning strange planetary tongues. He had perfected his own system of acquiring a working vocabulary of an alien language in brief time.

He worked with Reh Sel and Fwar Aj through the hours of that “day.” By the time evening came, as evidenced by the return of the Lunarian workers, hunters and fishers, he was getting along fairly well.

OLD Reh Sel’s first question was tremulously eager.

“You came from the outer surface of our world? Fwar Aj told me he thought you did.”

“We did. But we were amazed to find air, water and living men down in these spaces. We deduced that you Lunarians yourselves migrated here from the surface of this world.”

“It is so,” admitted Reh Sel. He gestured upward with his webbed hand. “Thousands of generations ago was our great migration. We had lived always upon the surface of this world. As its air and water failed, we had retreated to the deeper chasms.

“Then, when life even in these became almost intolerable, explorers of our people discovered that air and water had drained into these deep spaces underground, and that in this underworld the Shining Mountain gave light that would support life.

“So our race left the surface and came down here, and here we have lived ever since. We have nothing to fear except the bigger beasts that haunt the Marsh of Monsters, on the northern shore of this sea. They, like the smaller animals of our jungles, migrated down here as we did.

“We know there is no air now on the surface, for our adventurous young men who follow game upward in the caves report that the air grows thinner and thinner until there is none at all. How can you men live on the surface?”

Captain Future explained briefly.

“We are men from another planet, the Earth, of which this Moon is a satellite. We can live on the surface of your Moon, because we dwell in air-tight shelters.”

“You are very welcome among us, strangers,” Reh Sel said eagerly. “For you can tell us of that surface world our ancestors long ago left.”

“We shall tell you all you wish to learn,” Curt Newton agreed readily. “But that can be later. Now, we need help from you.”

“We will help you in any way we can,” promised Reh Sel earnestly.

Captain Future nodded.

“We shall need metal of various kinds. And also we shall need a canoe, so that we can go to the Shining Mountain.”

To Curt’s surprise, the old Lunarian chieftain shook his head instantly in stern refusal.

“You cannot approach the Shining Mountain! It is death to go too near it, and it is forbidden by our laws. The mountain is sacred!”

“The devil!” muttered Curt to the Brain. “They’ve got some sort of superstitious religion centering on the radium peak. That’s bad.”

He tried another method with the old Lunarian.

“But we only wish to protect the mountain from other strangers, who are on their way down here at this very moment. They intend to possess it and to take it away piecemeal.”

Both, Reh Sel and the grizzled Fwar Aj showed excited alarm.

“Other strangers are coming to desecrate the mountain? How many of them?”

“They will be strong in numbers and weapons,” Curt warned them. “The captive whom my metal comrade brought down is one of their lot.”

The reaction of old Reh Sel was fierce and instant.

“Then your captive shall die at once, for his wicked intention to desecrate the mountain. He shall suffer the death our laws decree for all such sacrilegious deeds. He shall perish in the blaze of the Shining Mountain itself!”

The old Lunarian chieftain snapped out a command. “Fwar Aj, summon warriors and place the captive stranger, bound, in a canoe. Set him drifting toward the mountain to perish, as is our custom.”

Fwar Aj, his eyes blazing, sprang out of the building to obey. Captain Future heard his strong voice summoning warriors.

“Good heavens, they’re going to execute Wissler in that hideous way!” exclaimed the Brain.

CAPTAIN FUTURE had no reason to love Albert Wissler. The sneaking scientist’s discovery of the radium inside the Moon had been responsible for all that had happened, for King’s plot and the outlawing, of the Futuremen. Yet Wissler was an Earthman, and Curt could not see him die in the peculiarly horrible manner that was contemplated.

He pleaded earnestly with the old Lunarian chieftain, but Reh Sel was adamant. It was apparent that the Moon-men’s superstitious veneration for the Shining Mountain was such that no death was too horrible for one who meditated desecration of this supreme object of their worship.

“The man dies at once in the manner prescribed,” retorted the old Lunarian, rising and stalking out of the building. “Already the people come to witness.”

The Lunarian town was filled with excitement, throngs of the Moon people hastening down to the beach of the black sea. Curt hastened with Simon through the excited crowd toward their own lodging.

He found Grag and Otho coming to meet him.

“Fwar Aj and some of the Lunarians took Wissler away,” reported the big robot. “I gathered they were going to do something unpleasant to him, so I let them have him.”

“Why did you do that?” Curt flared. “They’re going to execute him by sending him to drift out to the radium mountain, to be burned alive.”

Grag shrugged.

“Weil, it’s a nasty end, but he deserves it.”

“We can’t let an Earthman die that way!” Curt rapped. “Give me that atom-pistol you took from him.”

“Chief, be reasonable!” cried Otho.”You can’t save him. You’ll just get us massacred if you try to take him from the Lunarians.”

Curt, unheeding, handed the atom-pistol to the Brain.

“Take this and fly out over the radium mountain as quickly as you can, Simon. Keep high so the radiation won’t affect you. Drop the pistol on the peak.”

“It will explode and cause a minor atomic eruption in that radium!” the Brain protested, started.

“Exactly,” Curt clipped. “Get going — and don’t let yourself be seen by the Lunarians.”

The Brain, clutching the atom-pistol in one of his tractor beams, flashed up out of view in the throbbing green radiance, flying with all the swiftness of which he was capable toward the distant mountain.

Captain Future, with Grag and Otho at his heels, plunged down toward the beach of the black ocean. Thousands of the Lunarians were gathered there, watching in awed silence as Fwar Aj’s warriors bound Albert Wissler hand and foot and dumped him into a canoe.

Wissler was a pitiable spectacle, seeming more dead than alive with terror. He had evidently guessed the fate in store for him. Old Reh Sel was sternly watching as the sentence was carried out. Fwar Aj’s men were ready to start towing the canoe out toward the mountain.

“Wait!” exclaimed Captain Future in the Lunarian tongue. “You do wrong to kill this man. The Shining Mountain itself will be wroth at you.”

“It is our law!” rejoined Reh Sel inflexibly. “Carry out the sentence, Fwar Aj.”

Curt glanced anxiously toward the distant peak out there in the black sea. Then he saw that he had been hoping for.

“Look!” he cried, pointing dramatically. “The Shining Mountain itself shows its wrath at this thing you intend to do!”

A BURSTING blaze of dazzling white was exploding from one point on the radiant peak. It was the result of the minor atomic explosion caused by dropping the pistol there, and it lasted but briefly.

But its effect on the Lunarians was tremendous. They fell to their knees in superstitious panic.

“It is true — the Shining Mountain is angry!” gasped Reh Sel. “Set free the captive stranger!”

Wissler was hastily unbound and staggered ashore. The panic of the Lunarians gradually lessened as they perceived that the eruption of the radiant mountain had ceased.

“Thanks, Captain Future!” exclaimed Wissler hoarsely. “You saved me from a horrible death, I’ll never forget it.”

“I don’t know why I did it,” Curt retorted disgustedly. “You deserve it, for helping Larsen King murder the President.”

“I had no part in the murder of President Carthew!” Albert Wissler exclaimed earnestly. “I didn’t even know it was planned until after it occurred. I may have done some wrong things, but I’m no murderer.”

“Who did help King with the murder, then?” Curt demanded.

“It was Gil Strike,” Wissler replied nervously. “Strike operated the remote control of the telautomaton that killed Carthew. And he also substituted that faked Ear-record that placed the blame on you. King told him to do that and destroy the real Ear-record at once. I didn’t know about it till later.”

“I don’t think even Strike wanted to do it,” Wissler added. “But he was afraid that if he didn’t, King would freeze him out of his share of the radium profits. Strike hasn’t trusted King from the first. I wish I hadn’t trusted him at all. Look what he’s got me into!”

Captain Future had listened intently. He thought he saw in this information a gambling chance to clear himself of the murder. But he knew he would do nothing until the radium deposit was made safe.

Next morning, Curt found that his prestige among the superstitious Lunarians was greatly enhanced by the previous night’s incident. He took advantage of this to outline to Reh Sel and Fwar Aj his urgent need of certain metals. Curt discovered that, as he had hoped, there were lead and copper deposits in this lunar underworld.

“I shall need a quantity of both metals,” he told the Lunarian chieftain. “If I have them soon, they will help me achieve my plan of protecting the Shining Mountain from those who will be coming from above.”

“I will send our young men forth for the metals at once,” Reh Sel said promptly. “The deposits are in the cliff wall near the Marsh of Monsters, on the north side of our world.

They can be back by evening.”

By the end of the Lunarian day, the young Moon-men sent upon the mission had returned with the needed metallic ores. They already know how to smelt them down, for they used the metals themselves for weapons, instruments and vessels. Curt set them to work smelting at once.