Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) (18 page)

“You’re overlooking the possibility that the blight slowly withered and vanished in those long ages,” pointed out Otho.

“I don’t think the spores of the stuff would ever completely disappear unless they were destroyed by artificial means,” Captain Future declared. “But I can’t be sure till we’ve examined the stuff.”

Otho gestured ironically to the flecks of gray dust that floated here in the torchlit chamber, as everywhere else.

“There’s plenty of it to examine. All you need is an electron-microscope. And we can’t have one, or anything else made of metal.”

“Turn out your pockets,” Curt Newton ordered. “Let’s see just what we can salvage.”

They made a little heap of their belongings. It was a discouraging inventory that they took. Everything metallic had vanished. Of some things, only the plastic parts remained while metal parts were gone.

“We’ve got a plastic knife-handle, the stock of an atom-pistol, a gyro-compass without needle or rotors, a pocket chronometer whose works are all gone, and some other junk,” Otho said in a discouraged voice.

“Let’s have the lenses of the compass and chronometer,” said Curt Newton.

He examined them. They were magnifying lenses, so that the two instruments could be made tiny and yet read with ease.

“By fixing these two lenses apart at the correct focal distance, we’d have a microscope of sorts,” Captain Future declared. His brow knitted. “We’ll have to use these plastic cases as a tube for it.”

He began work, with the crudest of means. The light plastic cases of the ruined chronometer and compass, he softened into malleable state by skillful application of heat from one of the torches.

While Otho and Ezra watched skeptically, Newton’s deft fingers shaped the softened plastic into a new form. He drew it out into a short, thick tube, affixing the two lenses at its ends before it hardened.

Then he tested the crude little microscope. “It amounts to little more than a fairly strong magnifying-glass, but it may help.”

Newton now captured a fleck of the floating gray dust, and affixed it to a tiny mirror Otho had carried in his make-up kit. They placed the torches around this for the strongest illumination possible.

Captain Future then intently studied the fleck of dust with his improvised magnifier. He looked long through the tube, and his face wore a frown of doubt when he finally raised his head.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this blight before,” he said. “It resembles certain fungoid microscopic forms of life, able to drift as dormant spores which proliferate swiftly by fission when it reaches a favorable environment.

“The amazing thing is that these gray spores seem capable of feeding upon metals by producing from themselves certain combinations of chemical elements which cause an unbelievable electronic alteration of the metallic atoms, into atoms of organic substances the spores assimilate.”

“Wait a minute, Cap’n Future,” Ezra Gurney reminded him. “Remember I’m no scientist.”

“You can think of it this way, Ezra,” Newton simplified. “The gray blight is rust — living rust, that spreads like a swift contagion and feeds upon all metal it touches.”

“So how are you goin’ to kill off a blight like that?” Gurney wanted to know.

CURT NEWTON shook his head in despair. “I wish Simon were here. But I do have an idea. Past experiments have shown that hard electric radiation destroys microscopic fungoid forms somewhat similar to this strange new one. I think hard radiation would destroy this blight, too.”

Otho said bitterly, “That’s fine. All we need to do to kill off the blight is to set up a powerful generator of hard radiation. Only, we can’t ever do that because you can’t have a generator or anything else electrical without metal to build it of.”

“Cap’n Future, isn’t there any metal at all on this world?” Gurney asked.

Newton shook his head. “The surface metals of Styx were all destroyed ages ago, when the ancient Stygians released the blight. A few traces of cobalt and titanium survived because their peculiar crystalline compounds insulated them from the spores, but they’d be no help to us.

“We might dig down and find metals deep beneath the surface, but what good would it do us? As soon as we dug them up and refined them, the blight would destroy them too.”

“So our problem is this — to build a powerful electric generator and radiation-projector, without using a scrap of metal,” Otho said.

Ezra Gurney shook his head. “I can see it’s impossible. You got to have metal to conduct electricity.”

“Not necessarily,” Curt Newton corrected him thoughtfully. “Carbon is a fair conductor. Remember, back in the dim dawn of Earth electrical science, they used it for the filaments and electrodes of their lighting devices.”

He went on. “We could rig a Sanderson single-fluid chemical battery without using metal. And we might be able to build the coils of our generator from carbon.”

“But we haven’t even got the tools and substances to try that,” Otho burst out. “And we can’t get them from any place.”

“There are enough non-metallic tools in the
Comet
to give us a fighting chance,” Captain Future reminded. “Grag and Simon will be hovering over Styx’ atmosphere, for I told them to stay there and warn off all approaching ships. If we could get into communication with them and have them drop the things we need without entering the atmosphere.”

“Sure, all we have to do is to build a telaudio transmitter,” Otho retorted. “It’s easy, without metal. I’ll dream one up right way.”

“Not a telaudio, a heliograph,” Curt Newton said. “It’s not always misty in the day. A big enough heliograph would flash reflected sunlight brightly enough to be seen by Grag and Simon.”

Hope dawned on Otho’s face for the first time. “Chief, I didn’t think of that.”

“We’ll start to work on it at once,” Curt Newton said. “The Stygians will give us the glass and other materials for it, when they understand we want to communicate with our friends. We’ve got to have the thing ready to use tomorrow. We may have little enough time in which to work!”

Dawn found the work of constructing the heliograph going forward by torchlight in the open plaza of the city. Curt Newton and Otho had got Lo Quior and Jim Willard, with other of the telepicture technicians to help them. A number of Stygians watched their labors curiously.

Captain Future’s improvised heliograph consisted of a wooden frame twenty feet square, to which were attached a number of parallel wooden axles that each bore an oblong section of glittering glass. These shutters would reflect the sunlight brilliantly when they were closed.

“We need to rig a single control for all the shutters, so that we can send sharp code-flashes,” Curt Newton explained.

A kuru came galloping through the dawn-misty streets of Dzong and was pulled up beside them. Th’ Thaan hastily dismounted.

“Someone is coming from Planet Town,” the Stygian reported. “Our sentries on the wall have just told me.”

Captain Future stiffened. “Is that devil Su Thuar starting already?” They hastened to the wall. Out on the foggy plain, a single man was approaching the city in an uncertain, staggering run.

“Why, it’s Jon Valdane, alone,” Joan Randall exclaimed in amazement.

CURT NEWTON’S face hardened. “Then it must be a trick of some kind. Keep your eyes open.”

Valdane staggered up to the gate and beat upon it.

“Let me in!” he wailed.

“I can’t see anybody else coming,” Newton declared. “Keep watch while I open the gate.”

Jon Valdane tottered inside and collapsed in a limp heap when the gates were opened. The chubby financier was a pitiful sight. His sagging face bore the livid red weal of a recent blow, and he was gasping wildly for breath. His clothes were stained and torn.

“Why did you come here?” Curt snapped. “Did Su Thuar send you here as a spy?”

Valdane looked up with wild eyes.

“Su Thuar is a devil from the pit!” he croaked. “He told me that since we’re all prisoners for life on Styx, my wealth and my pay meant nothing more to him. He treated me like a servant. He struck me when I objected.”

Captain Future looked down at him grimly. “Your greedy plot ruined this world, Valdane. Now it’s recoiled on yourself. That’s only justice. You can’t stay here. Go back to your friends.”

“No, don’t send me back to those devils,” Valdane pleaded. He clutched Newton’s arm. “Let me stay, and I’ll tell you what they’re planning.

Joan Randall’s fine eyes showed pity. “Let him stay, Curt.”

“We ought to wring his neck,” Otho declared disgustedly.

“You can remain here but it’ll be to face trial on Earth if we ever get back there,” Captain Future told the shattered man. “Now, what is Su Thuar planning?”

“He’s going to lead those brutes in Planet Town here and take the city away from the Stygians,” Valdane babbled. “Now that Planet Town is in ruins, they say they’ll live in this unharmed city and use the Stygians as their slaves. Su Thuar is their undisputed leader now.”

“When are they going to attack us?” Curt Newton asked quickly.

“As soon as they can prepare weapons,” Valdane said in husky tones. “Su Thuar has already got them to work making more blow-guns and stone clubs.”

Curt Newton’s heart sank. When that attack by the brutal mob of the interplanetary town came, he would have to meet it with only a handful of men. The Stygians’ creed would prevent them from resisting by physical violence. And if the attack succeeded, Su Thuar would be master of this moon and everyone upon it.

SILENTLY Captain Future fought down the despairing foreboding that had gripped him. His red head raised indomitably, and his voice rang.

“That means Su Thuar and his band will be here tomorrow or the next day. Very well, we’ll get ready for them.”

“What can we do?” Ezra Gurney muttered hopelessly. “We ain’t got time now for you to rig this blight-destroyer you were planning.”

“I’m going ahead with that,” Newton declared. “It’s our one best chance of escape, if we can contrive to build it. Meanwhile, Ezra, you and Jim Willard start preparing weapons. Make swords of tough glass.”

He looked at Th’ Thaan, the Stygian. “Can’t the Stygians forget your pacifistic creed and fight? It’s that, or slavery for you.”

For a moment Th’ Thaan seemed tortured by deep doubts. “It is forbidden for us kill,” he said at last. “We can resist only with our powers of illusion.”

Ezra Gurney and the young assistant director began feverishly to superintend preparation of long, keen glass swords and knives with which to arm their party. The Stygians made no objection to their work.

Meanwhile, as full daylight came, Captain Future and Otho waited for the mists to clear so that they could use their heliograph. As the morning advanced, the mists did not clear. The fog might not clear for days, Curt Newton knew. He waited with agonizing uncertainty.

A slight wind was blowing. The great bank of fog was moving, but had not thinned out. Then, before noon, it began to clear.

“It’s lifting,” Otho exclaimed. “Now’s our chance.”

Captain Future stood ready at the lever of the big, rude heliograph. Finally, the mists were gone. The small, distant Sun shone from the dusky sky.

Somewhere up in that shadowy sky, the
Comet
was hovering outside Styx’ atmosphere. Curt Newton was banking on his knowledge of Simon Wright and Grag that they would be keeping anxious telescopic watch on this part of Styx.

He closed the mirror-covered shutters of the heliograph. The glittering glass surface brilliantly reflected the pale sunlight into the sky. Newton rapidly opened and closed the shutters, in long and short flashes that spelled out a message in the standard interplanetary code.

“Calling the
Comet!”
he signaled swiftly. “Stand by and do not enter atmosphere. But drop the following materials and tools to us, here in Dzong —”

He listed their requirements, from his knowledge of what the
Comet’s
equipment could provide.

“Hurry up,” Otho warned. “The mist’s thickening again.”

Curt Newton hastily finished the message, as another bank of fog came drifting across the heavens.

“They’ll soon drop the stuff, if they saw our flashes,” he said tautly. “Now all we can do is to wait, hoping the message was seen.”

Twenty minutes later, he and the other anxious watchers saw a white parachute floating down from the misty heavens nearby.

“Good old Simon and Grag — they saw!” exulted Otho.

When they got to where the improvised parachute lay, they found it attached to a bundle that contained the non-metallic instruments, materials and chemicals for which Captain Future had asked.

There was also a brief note from Simon Wright.

“The whole System is stunned by the disaster to Styx,” it read. “A full squadron of Planet Patrol cruisers has arrived, but I have prevented them from entering the Stygian atmosphere by my warning. We are waiting, and will be watching.”

“This stuff gives us a fighting chance, at any rate,” Captain Future declared, eagerly.