Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946) (11 page)

The raider ships were flying through the asteroid zone and Curt estimated that their course now was toward Mars. Why did the Guardian of Mars, the great mystery of the Red Planet, so interest Ru Ghur? There could only be one answer — radium. Somehow, radium must be connected with the Guardians.

“And he said they only need one more haul to carry out their great plan and master a world!” Curt thought with deepening dismay. “What is that plan? What is Ru Ghur going to do to the System?”

GRAG had no sooner dropped onto the ledge with the others, back in the chasm on Zuun, than he raised his great arms to catch Joan when Curt dropped her. But at that moment, the robot heard the thunderous impact of atomic beams and saw Curt whirl back with Joan.

There was a deafening reverberation, and the wall of the chasm split and buckled and leaned ominously out as it was ripped by the energy of the beams.

“The wall’s going to collapse!” bellowed Grag. “Get in that niche!”

He had glimpsed a small niche off the ledge. He shoved the others, including Bork King and his Martians, into the precarious protection of the shallow cavity.

Broken rock was already thundering down. Grag flung himself across the niche, bracing his giant metal body to shield those inside it.

As shattered stone fell upon him, he managed to remain erect, by exerting all his massive strength. Then he felt himself enveloped in thundering darkness. As the reverberations ceased, Grag tried to move. He could not. He was buried by tons of rock debris.

“Simon — Otho!” he called, his voice muffled.

He heard the Brain’s muffled reply.

“We’re trapped here in the niche. The stone has sealed it.”

“It’s sealed me up so I can’t move even a finger,” Grag called. “I’m completely buried in rock.”

“You aren’t smashed, are you. Grag?” Otho asked anxiously.

“No, I may be a little battered, but it takes more than falling stone to hurt me,” the robot answered. “What about Eek and Oog?”

“You would worry about your cursed moon pup even when you’re buried alive,” muttered Otho. “They’re all right. They ducked into the niche with us.”

“We’re got to get out of here!” Grag said. “The Chief and Joan are still up there!”

The giant robot exerted all his strength to move his arms. It was useless. He could not stir his limbs even an inch.

“I can’t move,” he finally had to admit to the others.

“Then we’re all goners,” Ezra Gurney muttered. “The air in this niche won’t last long.”

“I’ll use my atom-pistol to cut a way out,” roared Bork King. “That yellow devil, Ru Ghur, is up there, and I’m going to kill him.

“Cool down,” the Brain raspingly advised. “Your pistol-beam would only kick back on us if you tried using it in this pocket. Maybe I can get out. I’m the smallest of you all.”

They realized then that the Brain, whose boxlike case was all the “body” he had, could get through apertures the rest could not.

“We’re going to try picking a little tunnel through the broken rock for Simon,” Otho called to Grag. “Stand still, or you’ll bring the whole mass down on him.”

Grag heard the chip and rattle of rocks, as those trapped inside the niche began to work carefully. After a time the Brain wormed his way into the tiny opening they had made, and used his tractor-beams as hands with which to tug at the debris to open the way more.

An hour passed as the Brain patiently wormed his way through interstices in the mass of shattered rock. Grag waited impatiently, not daring to move lest he imperil Simon’s safety.

Finally came the distant, almost inaudible call of the Brain.

“I’m through! Now I can start removing the rock!”

Grag heard the rattle of masses of rock being rolled off. The Brain was working as rapidly as he could, but it seemed a long time before the stone debris was cleared from around the robot’s head and shoulders.

“All right, Simon — I’ll take over from here,” grunted Grag, once he got his arms free.

He made the rock masses fly, hurling the fragments into the chasm. Soon he had the niche unsealed. The others clambered hurriedly out.

“Come on!” called Otho. “Let’s see what’s happened to the Chief and Joan!”

When they reached the surface, their atom-pistols held ready, dawn was brightening across the rocky face of Zuun. They stared around the shattered rock valley and their hearts sank. The raider ships were gone. So were Captain Future and Joan.

“That double-blasted Uranian has taken the Chief with him, and this time he’s got Joan too!” howled Grag.

“Looks like it,” muttered old Ezra. “An’ this time we’ve no chance of findin’ ‘em.”

“How the devil did Ru Ghur know that the radium strike here was a fake?” Otho demanded furiously. “His ships just circled once overhead and they seemed to know, and attacked.”

“Ru Ghur’s uncanny knowledge where radium is concerned is as big a mystery as Outlaw World itself,” murmured the Brain thoughtfully.

EZRA GURNEY turned to Bork King and his half-dozen men. “Bork,” he said, “you’re outlaws and I maybe ought to arrest you. But Cap’n Future gave his word that you were to go free, so I won’t.”

For a moment a heavy look came to Bork’s face, and his shoulders sagged a little. Then he started on a run across the rock valley.

“I’m going to find the
Red Hope
, he yelled. “It crashed up there!”

The others hastened after him. They soon reached the spot, where the Martian ship had crashed. One look was enough. The
Red Hope
’s cyclotrons had exploded when it crashed. Nothing was living in that tangle of ripped, scorched metal.

In Bork King’s eyes was a look of agony. “Qi Thir and nine other good men, all dead because they followed me on a crazy quest!”

“What quest?” Ezra demanded. “What started you into piratin’ after you was outlawed?”

Bork King shook his head somberly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Bork,” the Brain said quickly, “We have to pursue Ru Ghur. Are you and your remaining men willing to go along with us, or would you prefer we took you to some place where you can get another ship?”

A flame leaped into the Martian’s eyes. “We’ll go with you!” he said promptly. “We, too, want to catch Ru Ghur!”

“Then come on,” said Simon Wright. “We’ll get the
Comet
and start searching the zone for Ru Ghur’s ships!”

They raced along the valley to where Grag and Otho had parked the
Comet
down in the dark chasm. They had started down toward the broad ledge on which the ship rested, when they suddenly stopped short.

“Great space imps, we can’t get the ship now!” swore Ezra. “Them cave apes is all over the ledge!”

The fungus grove on this dusky ledge appeared to be a favorite hunting ground of the giant cave apes. A dozen or more of the great white creatures were hunting amid the tall fungi.

“We can’t fight our way through them critters to the ship, with only a few atom-pistols!” said Ezra.

“Then Grag will have to go down and get the ship,” Otho declared. “He fooled them before into thinking he was a young cave ape. He can do it again.”

Grag still wore the coat of white paint, but the robot objected strenuously to the plan.

“I’m not going to play ape again if we never get the ship!”

“Grag,” snapped the Brain, “Curtis is in deadly danger.” That overruled the robot’s objections.

“Oh, all right,” he groaned. “Here, you hold Eek, Otho.”

Otho took the moon pup, whose teeth were chattering from terror at sight of the monsters. Then Grag started down to the dusky ledge, shambling like a young ape. But hardly had he reached the edge of the fungus grove, when one of the big apes sighted him and started toward him.

“It’s all up with poor old Grag!” muttered Ezra.

“No, wait,” Otho said. “Yes, it’s just as I thought. It’s Grag’s ‘mama!’ ”

The giant mother ape who had attempted to adopt Grag on the previous occasion lumbered forward with uncouth bounds of joy, and grabbed Grag, hugging him with all the joy of a mother who has found her long-lost young. Big as he was, the robot was helpless in the huge eighteen-foot creature’s grasp. He struggled furiously, and received a resounding slap.

The mother ape seemed a little puzzled by her adopted child’s metallic skin. But the great creature evidently decided to ignore this shortcoming, for she sat lovingly snuggling Grag in her arms. Otho and Ezra were shaking with laughter, yet they realized the seriousness of the situation.

“We’ve got to get him out of that, somehow,” said Ezra.

“He’s yelling to us!” shouted Bork King.

Grag, clutched in those giant loving arms, was bellowing at the top of his voice: “Scare her away from me!”

Grag’s bellowing had an effect on which he had not calculated. The mother ape, apparently deciding that her adopted child was crying from hunger, dropped him and started purposefully into the fungi.

GRAG scrambled up to run for the ship. Before he got more than a few steps, the giant creature was back and seized him again. She proudly offered him a small cave crab. Grag pretended to eat the thing, then he set up another lusty bellowing, louder than before.

As he had hoped, his “parent” took it as a sign that his hunger continued. Again the great ape put him down and started hunting for another such tasty morsel.

Grag wasted no time in stretching his metal legs through the fungus grove. He reached the
Comet
, switched off the protective electric charge, tumbled into the ship, and sent it roaring upward with a roar that frightened all the hunting monsters.

When he landed the ship on the surface, and the others hastily entered it, Grag roared: “The first one of you who ribs me about my ‘mama’ will get his head broken!”

“Why, no one said a word,” Otho replied innocently.

He was putting down Eek as he spoke. But Oog, who remained in his arms, suddenly underwent an amazing transformation. Oog was a fat little white animal with chameleon-like powers of changing his shape and appearance to imitate other creatures. Suddenly he twisted himself into an exact miniature replica of Grag as he had looked when snuggled into the cave ape’s arms. And Oog uttered a loud, whining cry similar to the outcry Grag had made.

“I’ll kill that pest if you let him mock me like that!” bellowed Grag.

“Why, Oog means no harm,” Otho chuckled. “He just wants to play Grag and mama.”

Grag started forward, but Simon Wright intervened with a sharp command.

“Get in that pilot-chair and take the ship off! We’ve lost enough time as it is.”

The
Comet
roared up across the sunlit, rocky surface of Zuun and tore out through its thin atmosphere into space.

“Ru Ghur’s ship can’t have got far from here yet,” the Brain declared. “See if we can spot them before they get clean away.”

Ezra Gurney and Otho manned the look-out-lenses as Grag skillfully steered the
Comet
through the meteor swarms and planetoid families. They cruised in a widening spiral around Zuun, since they had no idea of the direction taken by the radium raiders. But as minutes passed without their sighting the four black cruisers, they were oppressed by a realization that they had lost the trail.

“They could be a hundred thousand miles from here now, on their way back to Outlaw World,” Ezra Gurney said heavily.

“And we still haven’t got the faintest idea where Outlaw World is,” muttered Grag. “Unless Bork King knows.”

The big Martian shook his he. “Not even we Companions of Space know that, and we know the System from Vulcan to Pluto.”

“I see something far ahead!” yelled Otho suddenly. “A flare of light at the edge of the meteor-swarm!”

They rushed to the lenses. Far ahead, at the edge of z cloud of sparks they knew to be a big meteor swarm, there had suddenly burgeoned a little flare of intensely brilliant light.

“Maybe one of Ru Ghur’s ships collided with a meteor!” cried Bork King.

“Head toward it at top speed, Gag!” exclaimed the Brain.