Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946) (17 page)

“You hear?” Curt Newton asked the others excitedly. “Ru Ghur and his raiders are at war with these Vulcanians, and have put up a powerful Lethe-ray projector to repel attacks.”

He swung back to Kah. “We too are enemies of the evil ones, and have tracked them here to destroy them.”

Kah and his tribesmen uttered eager cries.

“We’re on our way to find the stronghold of the evil ones now,” Captain Future said. “Will you guide us to it?”

Kah’s face fell. “It is death to go near it. The screaming trees around it give warning of anyone’s approach, and the evil ones use their terrible weapons.” Then the chieftain’s expression hardened. “But I will guide you. I may help you through the screaming trees, but I do not know how you will enter the citadel.”

“We’ll get in if we have to blast our way,” muttered Bork King.

KAH spoke to his tribesmen more rapidly than the Futuremen could follow. All but two of the Vulcanians vanished into the fern jungle.

“Where did you send them?” Curt demanded.

“To gather all our warriors,” Kah answered. “If you are able to force an entrance to the stronghold of the evil ones, we will follow you in and destroy them.”

“Lead the way,” Captain Future said urgently. “We have no time to lose.”

Kah looked up into the sky, where the Beam now was rapidly fading out. He and his two remaining tribesmen made a sign of religious reverence toward it.

“It will be night long before we reach the place,” said Kah. “The darkness may help us approach.”

With their guides, the Futuremen and the big Martian resumed their march through the darkening fern jungles, toward the great pit opening. The Beam died out completely. The surface of Vulcan in which the pit opened had rotated away from the Sun. But the darkness which quickly fell over the jungles was relieved somewhat by a pale, refracted afterglow.

The fern forest seemed to teem with life, rustling, whispering and stirring. Presently Captain Future made out that they were skirting a crumbled stone ruin, that loomed black and brooding in the dark.

“Did your people build that?” Curt asked Kah.

Kah shook his head. “We have not such magic powers. But our ancestors were like gods in their power. They reared great structures and cities, and had flying ships and fire blasting weapons like those of the evil ones. The greatest of those buildings of our ancestors was our most sacred temple, in which we worshipped the Beam. But the evil ones took our temple from us.”

“So these are the descendants of ancient Denebian colonists,” muttered Otho. “This is a lost, decayed outpost of that great galactic empire.”

Kah made a sign of warning a little later, and they halted.

“We are near the evil ones’ citadel,” he whispered. “But the screaming trees will instantly give warning unless we are careful.”

Captain Future saw ahead of them an extensive forest of the strange trees, their big leaves hanging limp.

“Walk as softly and slowly as you can,” Kah was warning. “Any sudden movement will set the trees in uproar.”

He led the way into the weird forest, moving on tiptoe. Captain Future followed, with Otho and Grag and big Bork King close behind him. Placing their feet with deliberate care each step, they entered the forest of the screaming trees.

Captain Future thought he understood now, that the weird trees were so highly sensitive to vibrations of the ground that such vibrations set off their hideous clamor.

Grag had to move most slowly of them all, for it was not easy for the giant robot to walk silently. Eek cowered on his shoulder, apparently the prey to extreme fright.

“Thank space that moon pup has no voice,” Curt thought. “If he had, he’d be yelling now.”

The forest of screaming trees seemed without end. Sooner or later, some accident would surely start the whole forest raging, Curt thought. Then he glimpsed lights ahead. He recognized that blue glimmer as krypton light. They were emerging from the perilous forest.

“Down, quickly!” exclaimed Kah as they came out of the forest onto open ground. “That is the citadel of the evil ones, ahead!”

They flattened themselves in the grass. Captain Future studied the place that loomed up in the darkness a hundred yards ahead.

“It’s Ru Ghur’s stronghold, all right!” whispered Otho. “See, there are their ships!”

In the darkness rose the black stone mass of a great, ancient building. In cross section, it was an elongated oval. Its frowning sides had formerly supported a big central dome and two smaller ones, but those on the right had fallen in. The massive wall had also fallen in, in many places.

Blue krypton lights flared in the ruined castle. Their lights glinted off the hulls of the four raider cruisers parked inside the wall. From the dome on the left came in intermittent sound of throbbing machinery.

“This place isn’t more than a half-mile from the pit that leads out to the surface of Vulcan,” Curt muttered.

HE WAS remembering the giant rocket-tubes imbedded in that pit shaft to fire outward, and propel Vulcan in space. The power-plant for those tubes was in this ancient stronghold,

“Hear that throbbing?” Grag exclaimed. “That’s cyclotrons being tested, and mighty big ones from the sound of them!”

Bork King started forward, pistol in hand.

“Then that’s where the cursed Uranian and his stolen radium is!”

Captain Future grabbed the Martian’s arm. “Wait, Bork! we can’t bull our way in like that. There are a couple of hundred men in there.” He turned to Kah and asked: “Are guards usually posted around the place? I don’t see any.”

Kah was sweating with fear. “It is guarded by phantoms. If a man goes too close to the wall, alarms sound and the evil ones use their fire weapons and their terrible weapon that destroys the mind.”

“Invisible electric-eye circuits around the wall,” Curt muttered. “But I think we can get through them. But remember, our first business is to get Joan out of there. Then we’ll smash Ru Ghur.” He told the Vulcanian chieftain in a rapid whisper, “You and your men wait here for your warriors. But make no move to attack the castle until I give you a signal of five quick blasts of my fire-weapon.”

He took a tiny instrument from his pocket — a little detector extremely sensitive to electric energy.

“I brought this in case Ru Ghur had traps set around his base,” he said. “Let me go first. Keep down and make no sound.”

They crawled forward toward the ominous black mass of the citadel. Captain Future kept the little detector outstretched in his left hand, his right hand-gripping his atom pistol.

As they approached the wall, they could hear voices inside it. Then again came the mighty throbbing of huge cyclotrons — and Captain Future knew that the radium-fueled power of those cyclotrons was intended by Ru Ghur to hurl Vulcan out of its orbit, which would entail cosmic catastrophe.

The detector emitted a tiny buzzing. The almost inaudible sound was a warning that electric-eye circuits were across their path.

“Don’t move!” Curt muttered. “I’ll see just where the rays are.”

It was a ticklish situation, fraught with deadly danger. If they allowed the electric-eye rays to detect their presence all would be lost just at a moment when a chance at victor — and the defeat of Ru Ghur was in sight.

Captain Future was well aware of the importance of extreme caution.

He slowly moved the detector up and down and discovered, by the increase and decrease of its buzzing, that there were no less than four electric-eye rays across their path, at heights of one, three, five, and seven feet.

“We’ll have to slide between the two bottom rays, without touching them,” he said. “One at a time, now.”

He went first. It was like clambering through the bars of a fence, but these bars were invisible and the slightest touch against them would give the alarm.

He stood watching as the others readied themselves to come through. He saw their tenseness and he — knew they realized the peril of even the slightest misstep.

Otho came through after him with ease, and Bork King carefully followed. Getting Grag through was the hardest job for the mighty metal body of the robot would barely pass between the unseen rays.

“Quick, get in the shadow of the wall!” Curt whispered. “Then we can take a look inside.”

They crouched down outside the crumbling where it was less than five feet high. Then, leaning over, they looked into a vast stone-paved court which surrounded the oval castle and was itself surrounded by the wall. The four raider cruisers were parked some distance to their left. Blue krypton lights and voices came from open windows.

Captain Future saw no one except a few raiders loitering by the distant ships. Bork King pointed suddenly upward. On what was left of the ruined central dome, there was a light metal platform on which were mounted heavy atom-guns and an object like a big searchlight.

“A big Lethe-ray projector,” Captain Future murmured. He turned as he felt Otho come up beside him.

“Chief, someone’s coming this way!” Otho warningly hissed, The android’s keen ears had caught the sound of footsteps.

They glimpsed a slight figure coming along the dark courtyard. Captain Future felt an incredulous joy as the figure crossed a bar of krypton light. He recognized the pale, lovely face of Joan Randall.

He sprang over the wall. The girl turned quickly, startled.

“Joan!” he whispered joyfully. “It’s Curt! I’m going to get you out!”

UNRECOGNIZING, and amazed, Joan stared at Curt Newton. Then, to his horror, she recoiled from him fearfully and her lips parted to utter a cry of alarm. But she never uttered it, for in a flash Captain Future darted forward and clapped a hand over her mouth smothering her cry.

The stiffness of her white face and the vague expression in her eyes had told him instantly that she was in a mental daze. She struggled weakly as he hastily dragged her over the low wall into the shadow.

“Imps of Pluto, what’s the matter with Joan?” gasped Otho.

Curt Newton’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Ru Ghur has been keeping her under the Lethe-ray until she’s in a complete mental fog.” He hurried on hopefully. “But we can soon bring her back to herself. She must be taken to the
Comet
at once. You must do that, Otho.”

“Leave you and Grag and Bork King to see it through alone?” Otho objected strenuously. “I won’t do it!”

“You’ll obey my orders!” Curt Newton flared. Then his voice lowered to earnestness. “You’re the only one of us agile enough to get her through that barrier without setting off the alarms. And we won’t be alone against the raiders. The Vulcanians are gathering out there in the forest. We’re going to wreck the Lethe-ray projector and heavy atom-guns, then the Vulcanian warriors can attack. We’ll overwhelm the raiders. But it will make a devil’s playground of this place, and I want Joan out.”

“Eek will go back with you too,” Grag added anxiously. “I’ve given him telepathic orders to follow you.”

Otho snorted. “Don’t worry. If that moon pup heard a fight start, he’d turn himself inside out getting away.”

Joan had been struggling weakly to escape Curt’s grasp. But he had held her firmly, his hand over her lips. He knew she was so dazed by long imprisonment under the Lethe-ray that Ru Ghur had not even found it necessary to confine her more closely.

Otho took her from him now. The lithe android picked her up like a child, his fingers muffling her lips, and turned away.

“I’ll be back with Simon and Ezra in the
Comet
, to pitch in when you lead the Vulcanian attack!” he whispered. “Nobody is going to do me out of this fight!”

He moved cautiously back through the darkness, Oog and Eek trotting behind him. Since the little animals could pass easily under the lower ray of the electric-eye barrier, they presented no danger.

Immediately Captain Future, Bork King, and Grag vaulted over the low wall into the court.

“Now to kill Ru Ghur!” muttered the Martian, starting fiercely toward the far end of the court.

“Bork, wait — not that way!” whispered Curt. “First we’ve got to wreck the Lethe-ray projector and guns up there. Then I’ll signal Kah’s warriors, and they’ll keep, the raiders’ hands full while we get to Ru Ghur and, his machines.”

Curt leaped across the courtyard into the shadow of the citadel’s side. They started along it toward the central dome where the powerful weapons were mounted.

Before they had taken five steps there came a sudden clangor of alarm bells.

“Devils of space!” groaned Grag. “Otho’s set off the electric-eye alarms!”

Ru Ghur’s voice was yelling orders somewhere, lights snapped on to flood the whole citadel with brilliance, and alarmed raiders came pouring out of the great pile.

“I’ll get Ru Ghur, anyway!” yelled Bork King. The bloodthirsty Martian ran forward.

But Captain Future sprang toward the light metal stair that led to the platform on which the Lethe-ray projector and guns were set. He heard a deafening clamor from the forest of screaming trees, and despite the disaster of his own plans, he felt a sharp relief. That sound meant that Otho was getting out through the forest with Joan.