Captain Future 26 - Earthmen No More (March 1951) (5 page)

“We don’t have to smash in,” said Burke. “Lowther’s on his way here. We intercepted his message saying so. Well, he can’t land behind the barrier. There isn’t room.”

Curt nodded. “The same thing you pulled with me. Get Lowther in your hands...”

“And kill him, if we have to,” Burke finished quietly. “But, we’ll get our fuel.”

For the first time Simon spoke. “That is murder.”

Burke shrugged. “They’ll have to come a long way to catch us.” He added in a sudden fury, “Murder, is it? We’ve got our wives and families out there! They need the medicines, the tools, the seeds. What if they die for want of them? Isn’t that murder too?”

Simon said, “If you kill Lowther you can never come back for more.”

Curt had got to his feet. He was about to speak. Then Carey heard a voice clamoring over the annunciator, crying, “Radar room! We’ve just picked up Lowther’s ship! He’s still in free fall but he’s coming!”

Carey saw the fierce excitement that took the starmen. There was a sudden wolfish shouting, a ringing of boots on the deck-plates. Burke was yelling orders. The men in the passageways began to move.

Burke faced Curt Newton. “Well?”

Curt said, “Hold your men back.”

There was a tenseness about him now. It seemed to Carey that he was listening for something. “Hold them back!”

Burke’s face hardened. “I couldn’t if I wanted to.” He added slowly and meaningly, “They’ll trample anybody that gets in their way.”

He turned his back on Newton then and for a time nothing more was said or done. They listened to the voice of the radar man, calling out the position of Lowther’s ship. The voice became more and more puzzled.

Simon’s lens-like eyes were fixed intently on Curt Newton.

“He’s still in free fall,” said the radar man. “He hasn’t started his curve yet and the indicators don’t show any rockets.”

Burke put his mouth close to the speaker-grid. “Communications,” he said. “Are you getting anything from Lowther’s ship?”

The answer came back, “No. The Company station is calling Lowther but he doesn’t answer. It’s like he hasn’t any power.”

“Still no rockets,” said the radar man. “I can’t figure this one. He’s way past his point of approach and going wide.”

“Still no signals,” put in Communications. “He doesn’t answer.”

“Going
wide
—” The voice of the radar man reached a tight pitch of excitement. “He’s lost his landing-curve! He’s heading right out into space with no rockets!”

For some odd reason Curt Newton seemed to relax. But Burke and the other officers stared at each other with dawning comprehension and then with a joy that was more savage than their anger.

“He’s out of fuel,” said Burke. “Nothing else would kill both his rockets and communications. He’s out of fuel and heading right out into the stars in free fall with no power.”

He began to walk back and forth with short steps as though he could not bear to be still. His hands gripped fiercely at the air. “We don’t have to kill him now. It’s done and not a finger laid on him. And it’s better — better! He’ll learn before he dies. He’ll learn what it means to be between the stars with no fuel!”

Curt Newton turned sharply toward the door.

Simon glided before him. “Curtis,” he said, “this is your doing.”

Curt said quietly, “Get out of my way, Simon. I’m going after him.”

Burke heard. So did the others. Carey saw them move toward Newton.

“What do you mean — going after him?” cried Burke.

“There are other men in that ship besides Lowther. There’s no reason why they should die.”

“Oh no,” said Burke softly. “You’re not going to bring him back.”

Carey saw them closing in around Newton and he pushed in to stand with Otho beside the red-haired man.

“Listen,” said Newton. “I’ve fought for you. I’m still fighting for you. Are you going to trust me or aren’t you?”

Burke’s glance wavered before his. But he said, “It doesn’t make sense to bring him back.”

“Let him go,” said Simon Wright slowly. “He has done this thing for you. Now let him finish it.”

UNCERTAINLY, reluctantly, Burke stepped aside and Curt Newton went out of the star-ship with Carey and Otho and Simon Wright.

Not until the
Comet
was rising up from Pluto on a jet of flame, rushing out into the vast darkness where Lowther’s helpless ship was gone, did Simon speak again. He asked tonelessly, “How did you do it, Curtis?”

Newton shrugged but would not meet his gaze. “There’s a certain chemical, you know, a pinch of which can kill a whole tank of ship-fuel. An anti-catalytic. Well, that night before we left Earth, I slipped into Lowther’s ship and used it to kill his Number Six, Seven and Eight fuel-tanks.”

He shrugged again. “One to Five would take him out around Neptune, I knew. But then he’d run out and couldn’t curve in toward Pluto.”

“But why?” Carey asked puzzledly. “Why do it and then save him?”

Simon said, “I can guess why. But I tell you, Curtis, even if you succeed it was harebrained. Once in the past your rashness made outlaws of us four. It could happen again.”

No more was said until Curt Newton’s masterful piloting brought the
Comet
at last alongside the dark silent ship that was steadily falling toward infinity. The emergency locks were coupled together with magnetic grapples. Curt and Otho were armed and Grag stood behind them like an iron colossus, guarding the narrow passage.

The locks were opened and Curt stood facing Lowther. Watching from the background Carey caught a glimpse of Lowther’s face, ugly with fear, with hatred.

“I might have known it would be you,” he said to Curt Newton. “You caused our fuel to go dead. How you did it I don’t know but —”

“You can’t prove that,” said Newton. He spoke to the men who were crowding behind Lowther. “Take it easy,” he told them. “You’re in no danger.”

A ray of hope crept into Lowther’s eyes. “You’re going to take us back?”

“Well,” said Newton, “I can’t tow you for my stern-grapples aren’t working. And my ship is small. I could take off your officers and crew but I’m afraid there wouldn’t be any room for you.”

Lowther thought about that. Carey could see it in his face — the visualization of his ship plunging on and on into the great deeps with him alone in it.

“You couldn’t do that,” he whispered.

“I wouldn’t have any choice,” said Newton.

Carey saw Lowther’s face whiten and crumble until it was hardly human. Then Newton said, “However, I might sell you fuel to get back to Pluto.”

Shrewd and biting even through the terror Lowther’s eyes fastened on him. “Now we’re getting to it,” he muttered. “All right, what’s the price?”

“As you know,” said Curt, “fuel is very high these days. But I’m not out for profit. You sign over all rights in
all
your Pluto mines and refineries to a Government foundation, for the furtherance of travel and exploration among the stars. And I’ll let you have a bunker full.”

Something like a smile touched Lowther’s mouth. He smothered it at once, beginning to protest and threaten, but Curt shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “There will be no repudiation of this deal later on when you’re safe on Pluto. You’re going to make out a full confession of your activities in gaining control of the five other companies. It will be kept in a safe place. And just to make doubly sure...”

Here he pointed to a fat-joweled little man behind Lowther’s shoulder — a man whom Carey recognized as one of the group who had been with Lowther that other time on Earth.

“... to make doubly sure,” Curt was saying, “
you
will go into another cabin and write out a separate confession. As Lowther’s secretary you know every angle of that deal because you helped him. And if the two confessions don’t match I will know that someone is lying — and that will be
two
people there won’t be room for in my ship.”

He turned again to Lowther and waited. Three different times Carey saw Lowther start to speak, and give it up. At last he made a gesture of defeat and Curt motioned him into the
Comet.
The secretary whimpered once and disappeared.

Less than an hour later, Curt Newton had the signed irrevocable papers and Lowther had his fuel.

* * *

Time had passed. The two great ships on the white plain of Pluto were readying for take-off. Rock and ice quivered to the deep hum of great generators running on test. Men were feverishly busy around the gangways.

Carey came hastening across the ice to where Newton and the Futuremen were watching. And as he ran he felt buoyantly and fully alive for the first time since his strange awakening.

“I’m going with them!” he cried. “I talked to Burke. He signed me on and I’m going with them — out to the stars!”

Otho laughed and said to Newton, “You were right about him.”

Suddenly Carey understood. He said, “That’s why you brought me out here with you? You knew!”

The red-haired man nodded. “I knew that only out on the edge, out on the frontier, would you find your own kind again.”

Newton paused and added, “You’re not the only one, Carey. I’ve seen it happen over and over again to spacemen in my own time. They go out young and eager, dreaming and talking of how someday they’ll come back to Earth with wealth and glory and live there happy the rest of their lives. And when they come back they find they can’t do it, they find they’re Earthmen no more.”

“Earthmen no more,” Carey repeated, wonderingly. “Why, yes. That was it, of course. It wasn’t Earth that changed so much. It was me.”

From the distance, amplified by an annunciator loudspeaker, roared Burke’s voice. “Time to lift, starmen!”

And Carey, slipping and hurrying, went back across the frozen plain, toward the ships and stars that waited.

THE END

In this department, which is a regular feature of CAPTAIN FUTURE, we acquaint you further with the companions of CAPTAIN FUTURE whom you have met in our complete book-length novels. Here you are told the off-the-record stories of their lives and anecdotes plucked from their careers. Follow this department closely, for it contains many interesting and fascinating facts to supplement those you read in our featured novels.

The Metamorphosis of Simon Wright

From the Winter 1944 issue of Captain Future

Roger Newton Preserves Simon Wright’s Mind from Oblivion and, as The Brain, the Doughty Old Scientist Begins the Task of Turning Curt Newton into a Wonder-Being, Captain Future!

SIMON Wright was dying, and he knew it. He lay in his cot in the monastic little bedroom adjoining his beloved laboratory, and calmly estimated how many hours of life remained to him.

His silvery head was raised upon the pillow, and his austere, wrinkled face was unperturbed as he looked down at his thin, angular body and wasted hands. Yet the approach of death did not find the old scientist wholly without regret.

“If I’d only been able to live long enough to help Roger finish our experiments,” he thought. “It’s a pity that a man spends a lifetime learning how to do his work, and then has to die before he can use his knowledge.”

The door opened, and a stalwart, red-haired young man whose spectacled face was pale and worried came into the little room.

“How are you now, Simon?” asked Roger Newton anxiously. “That last stimulant I gave you —”

“Wore off in an hour,” Simon Wright answered calmly. “It’s no use, Roger. You can’t patch up a machine that’s worn out with use. And that’s what my body is — a worn-out machine.”

He shrugged weakly and continued. “There’s no reason to feel badly about it. I’ve had a long and fairly useful life. Now my time has come.”

“But it’s such a waste of genius for you to die when your knowledge could benefit humanity so much,” burst out Roger Newton.

“Nature is wasteful,” murmured the old scientist. “It’s her way.”

ROGER NEWTON HAS AN INSPIRATION

Newton was silent for a few minutes. A queer emotion seemed to possess him. His spectacled face had a breathless look on it when he finally spoke.

“Simon, maybe your mind could continue to live after your body dies.”

He rushed on. “Remember all the advances we’ve made in tissue-culture recently? Isolated living hearts and other organs have been kept alive indefinitely in serum-cases. Even brains have been kept alive so.”

Startled understanding showed in Simon Wright’s old eyes.

“You’re proposing to remove my brain into a serum-case and keep it alive there?” he said after a pause. “But what good would that do? I wouldn’t be able to hear or see or do anything else but think.”

“No, listen,” continued the younger scientist earnestly. “I’ve always believed that it should be possible to connect artificial organs of speech, hearing and sight to an isolated human brain living in serum. I tried it with a rabbit’s brain and was successful. And though the human brain is much more complex, I still believe it could be done.”

Simon Wright brooded in silence upon the astounding proposal. Despite his deep wish to continue his researches, he felt a revulsion from the prospect that had been proposed to him.

He was a normal man. But he would not be one any longer, if he underwent this change. He would be something more, or less, than a man.

WRIGHT’S DUTY TO SCIENCE

“Think, Simon, of the work you could do, the years of research ahead of you,” urged Roger Newton. “It’s your duty to humanity to keep your vast scientific skill and knowledge alive.”

“I wouldn’t be able to do anything myself,” muttered the old man, voicing the doubt that was deepest in his mind. “I’d have no hands, no body.”

“I’d be your hands,” Newton declared eagerly. “Together we could go on with our work, instead of leaving it half-finished as it must remain if you die.”

That argument persuaded Simon Wright. He had long ago outlived most human emotions, but the flame of scientific passion still burned bright within him.

“All right, Roger,” he said finally. “I’m willing to try it. But you will have to prepare the serum-case quickly, for I have not long to live.”

The next few days were ones of frenziedly urgent preparation by the younger scientist. Only his powerful stimulants were keeping the dying old scientist alive.

Newton prepared the square serum-case of transparent metal. At its center was a shock-proofed chamber molded to receive a human brain. A maze of artificial arteries led to this chamber to supply the living brain with a constant flow of serum which would furnish its cells nutritional elements and carry away fatigue-poisons.

The serum was constantly circulated by a series of tiny, ingenious pumps inside the case. These forced the serum ceaselessly through purifying filters. The compact atomic motors of the pumps would run almost indefinitely without attention.

Two “ears” that were really sensitive microphones were fixed to the sides of the serum-case. From them, electric wires ran to the brain-chamber. Similarly, Roger Newton mounted on the front of the case two photoelectric eyes with artificial retinas. They were fixed upon the ends of movable metal stalks so that the direction of gaze could be changed. Wires ran also from these to the central brain-chamber.

The speech-apparatus was the most difficult. The production of intelligible speech by completely artificial means had been achieved in the so-called “voder,” far back in 1939. But to build such a device into small space and articulate its controls stretched all Roger Newton’s superb abilities.

AIDED BY WRIGHT’S GENIUS

The younger scientist could not have done all this, alone. It was the constant advice and aid of the dying Simon Wright that made possible completion of the serum-case, after four days and nights of toil.

Roger Newton stumbled to the side of his dying friend on that fourth night. “It’s all ready, Simon — but I can’t do it tonight,” he husked. “My hands are too unsteady for the operation. I must sleep first.”

Simon spoke as calmly as though of another person. “I will be dead before morning, if my self-diagnosis is correct. You must do it now.”

“I can’t — I won’t!” cried Newton. “It would be murder.”

He flung out of the room. But in a half-hour, he returned. His self-control had come back.

“You are right, Simon. It must be now.”

Roger Newton’s young wife served as his assistant as he prepared for the appalling task of lifting a man’s living brain from his skull and transferring it undamaged to the serum-case.

Simon Wright lay upon the table in the laboratory and looked up at their pale faces with affection.

“If you fail, this is goodbye,” he murmured. Then the anesthetic hissed into his nostrils and he knew nothing more.

THE BRAIN AWAKES

He awakened slowly. His first sensation was of a curious lightness and buoyancy. Then he heard sounds, oddly echoing.

“Simon, can you hear me? Can you hear?” He tried to open his eyes. Light blinded him. His vision seemed to focus queerly.

Then he saw Roger and Elaine Newton bending over him. There was awe in their faces.

Simon realized the truth. The transformation had been accomplished. He was now a brain living in an artificial case. That accounted for his unusual feeling of lightness and buoyancy. He no longer had a dying, weakened body dragging at his mind.

He attempted to speak. The effort of will actuated the controls of the little voder-device in his case. He heard his voice as a metallic, rasping monotone. “I — hear, Roger. Hard — form words — correctly —”

And then, with a feeling of triumph, “My mind — clear, strong, now — we can go on with our — work.”

He tested his new senses. He could hear with greater clarity than ever before. His eyes had perfect vision.

Weeks went by, and Simon Wright felt more at home in his strange new body. The absence of pain and weakness gave him a clarity of mind he had never attained before. He did not even need sleep.

His case rested usually on the laboratory table. There, he either advised and superintended Roger Newton in their joint researches, or studied volumes from their extensive scientific library.

They often asked him anxious questions. “Do you feel all right, Simon? You’re not sorry you made the change?”

“No, I’m not sorry in the least,” he replied truthfully. “I’m happy in the knowledge that I can continue my work.”

That was true. But in Simon Wright’s mind there was one doubt, one foreboding, that he never mentioned. It was the shadowing realization that he was unable to do anything himself.

He had never lived a life of physical action. But this realization that he would be unable to perform any physical act, no matter how dire the emergency, was the one flaw in his contentment. It bred in him a gnawing inferiority complex that he could not conquer.

CAPTAIN FUTURE IS BORN

Months passed. In the Moon-laboratory beneath Tycho crater, where they had taken refuge from Victor Corvo and the others who had sought to rob their scientific secrets, Elaine Newton’s son was born.

The Brain looked down from his table at Grag and Otho playing with the growing, red-haired infant. Secretly, he wished that he could join them. He, too, loved little Curtis Newton. But he could do nothing but look on. “If I weren’t only so utterly helpless,” he thought, brooding over his inferiority. “I never thought it would make any difference. But it does.”

Grag and Otho went out to excavate certain metallic ores from a vein they had opened in the wall of Tycho crater, some miles away. Roger Newton and the Brain were planning a spaceship of new design, and were gathering materials for the purpose.

An hour later, the airlock door of the Moon-laboratory suddenly burst open. Four men in space-suits, carrying heavy atom-guns, strode into the room. The Brain looked up startledly from the table upon which he had been studying a formula. He instantly recognized, through the glassite helmet, the dark, hawklike face of the intruders’ leader.

“Victor Corvo!” cried Simon. “Roger, call Grag and Otho.”

Newton sprang toward the telaudio transmitter on the table. He never completed the movement.

A COWARDLY MURDER

Corvo’s atom-gun blasted two crackling bolts of fiery energy. One cut down Roger Newton, killing him instantly. The other bolt drove into the side of his youthful wife as she sprang forward.

Simon Wright raved in his metallic voice, possessed by wild fury. The men behind Corvo stared at the Brain in uneasy wonder.

“What is that thing?” one of them demanded.

Corvo laughed. “It’s Simon Wright, the old scientist — or what’s left of him. I heard about it. Newton put his brain in that case. That’s all he is — a harmless brain in a box.”

His voice rose in triumph. “I told you we’d finally track Newton down. Now start going through this place. I want every scrap of paper, every formula and diagram in it. Newton and Wright worked out secrets worth billions. We’re going to take them all — and we’ll take that Brain with us, to explain anything we can’t understand.”

Simon Wright writhed mentally in anguish. Roger Newton and his wife were dead. And now Corvo and his band were going to take all the dead man’s scientific work and turn it to criminal purposes.

He must prevent that. But how could he? He was just what Corvo had taunted him with being, a helpless brain in a box. He could do nothing. If only Grag and Otho were here!

Simon Wright had a sudden wild idea. He was resting on the table only a few inches away from the telaudio transmitter which they used for communication with Otho and Grag when the two went out. He had no hands with which to turn on the transmitter. But maybe there was a way.

He glanced at Victor Corvo and his men. Ignoring the whimpering baby and the two still figures on the floor, the criminals were searching through the files and record-cabinets with feverish haste.

Simon made an effort of will, and extended his eye-stalks toward the telaudio transmitter’s switch-panel. His right eye touched the switch-button. It pressed, and there was a
click.
The instrument was on. The Brain at once spoke loudly, as though to Victor Corvo. “You are going to die for killing Roger Newton, Corvo.”

Corvo turned, and laughed. “A bodiless brain, threatening me!”

“You are a dead man now,” Simon Wright said coldly. “Vengeance is coming — terrible vengeance.”

From the airlock, two figures burst into the Moon-laboratory. Otho’s space-suit receiver had picked up the telaudio call, and he and Grag had come. They stood, incredible personifications of unhuman rage as they saw the bodies upon the floor.

“Grag! Otho! Kill!” yelled the Brain.

With a booming roar, Grag leapt forward. And the raging android was close behind the mighty robot.

Corvo and his men tried to raise their guns, but were battered down by Grag’s huge metal fists and Otho’s whirling blows. The four criminals lay dead in less than a minute.