Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) (15 page)

"Well, here we are!" the wizard of science exclaimed gladly.

He stepped into a small clearing where stood a rough, sturdy cabin of green tree-trunks, with a thatched roof. There was a wattled chimney, and a small garden, and a number of queer little animals lounging in front of the heavy plank door.

"Hello, Hermit!" Curt shouted cheerily. "You have a caller!"

The door of the cabin burst open. Out of it bounded an irascible, elderly Earthman with a long white beard and mane of white hair. Dressed in tanned skin jacket and trousers, he waved a club threateningly.

"You get the hell off this asteroid!" the old man roared angrily. "I won't have curiosity-seekers from all over the System coming here to bother me, and —"

He stopped, peering more closely at Curt Newton. He recognized the tall figure, red hair and good-humored face of the young scientific wizard. The Hermit's anger disappeared.

"Captain Future!" he cried in welcome, dropping the club. "Well, that's different. Don't mind
you
stopping, but this flood of visitors I've been having lately has got me good and mad."

"How many visitors have been here?" Curt asked him.

The Hermit scratched his head.

"Well, there was one Mercurian explorer two years ago, and two Jovians hunting metals last year. I might as well be living back on one of those crowded, crazy worlds, if I'm going to have hordes of people like that dropping in here."

"Three visitors in two years?" Captain Future repeated. He chuckled. "That's a lot, all right."

"It's a lot too many!" shouted the Hermit. "If people keep swarming in on me like that, I'll have to find another asteroid."

Captain Future had known the Hermit of Space for several years. The Hermit was an old Earthman who was fanatically anti-scientific, passionately convinced that mechanical progress was all wrong for the race. Disgusted with the super-scientific civilization of Earth and the other planets, the Hermit had sought out the remote little asteroid, where he had made a solitary home. Curt had once chased away a crew of space bandits who wanted to make the asteroid their base. Because of that, he was the one person the Hermit would tolerate.

"But where's your ship?" the Hermit asked puzzledly.

WHEN Curt told him the story, the Hermit roared with rage.

"I always told you your gallivanting around in space would get you into trouble! That's what happens when people take up with these scientific ships and machines, instead of living a natural life."

"I've got to call the Futuremen to come here in the
Comet,"
Curt told him. "Haven't you a televisor here?"

The Hermit looked outraged.

"A televisor? I wouldn't have no such machine on my world! Why, I caught myself using a stick to pry out a stone with one day. I realized that I was using a lever, the first of all machines, so I threw it right away. Yes, sir. I wasn’t going to get that curse of machinery started here.”

“All right, don’t blow your rockets about it,” Curt soothed hastily. “I guess I can make a televisor. I have the tools in my belt. It’s lucky I took it off my dead double and put it under my jacket.”

“Hate to see any machinery built here, but I guess it’s all right if you’re really in trouble,” growled the Hermit.

The old man watched with dour disapproval as Captain Future began building a televisor transmitter from raw materials. It was a task that only the wizard of science would have attempted. Curt first took from his belt the super-compact tools and instruments he habitually carried in it. Then he assembled the materials he needed. His tiny atomic torch melted certain minerals down into glassite, which he carefully fused for his two big vacuum tubes. Metal from his space suit he used for tube-elements and wire-strips.

He did not attempt to create a visi-screen transmitter. He would be satisfied to get a vocal message through to the Futuremen. As he worked, the Hermit’s queer asteroid pets gathered around to watch, and the Hermit lectured him severely.

“All this space flying and talking across the void and other scientific nonsense — how much happier has it made people?” the old fanatic demanded. “Weren’t people happier in the old days on Earth, when they didn’t know any science and lived a normal, natural life?”

“According to that argument” — Curt grinned as he worked deftly — “people were happier still when they were just ignorant savages long ago, and didn’t even use fire.”

“Now you’re twisting my words around,” complained the Hermit. “You’re like everyone else. You won’t argue reasonably.”

Presently Captain Future straightened, his task finished. He had created a crude but powerful, efficient transmitter, powered by a chemical battery he had compounded of natural chemical salts.

“Ought to work,” he mused. “As near as I can calculate, it’s tuned to the wave the Futuremen and I always use. Here goes, anyway.” He spoke loudly into the makeshift microphone. “Captain Future calling the
Comet!
I’m on the asteroid of the Hermit of Space. Come at once!”

He repeated the message at intervals of five minutes, for an hour. Then he turned off the rough transmitter.

“Nothing to do but to wait now,” he explained. “Hope they got it.”

“It won’t work, you’ll find out,” prophesied the Hermit. “Machinery always fails you when you depend on it. But while you’re waiting, how about something to eat?”

SHADOWS were falling across the small clearing as the brief day of the spinning little asteroid came to an end. The Hermit brought out fruit and odd cooked plants. He and the wizard of science ate at a little table in front of the cabin. Curt looked up into the heavens, blazing with a jungle of stars and spanned constantly by the fire-flashes of meteors. Far away in the starry wilderness, he saw a tiny yellowish point of light that he knew was the asteroid called the Pleasure Planet.

“Quorn’s nearly there by now, preparing to take the last two space stones — the last trick of the game,” Curt muttered worriedly. “Why don’t the Futuremen come?”

“Don’t have any meat, because the animals of this place are so tame, I can’t bear to kill any of them,” the Hermit was saying. “Look at that one there. It’s a meteor mimic. Ever see one before?”

The meteor mimic was a small animal, so named because it was found only on some of the larger bodies of the asteroid zone. It was a fat, bulbous white creature with a doughy-looking body on four shapeless legs, and two solemn, staring big eyes. It had the unique ability of controlling the shape and appearance of its body at will. It could cause its cells to assume new forms with protean quickness, enabling it to mimic anything its size.

It was sniffing around Curt’s televisor. Suddenly its body spun and changed — and there seemed
two
televisors resting on the ground! Then the one of them flowed back into the fat little animal.

“See, isn’t the thing clever?” chuckled the Hermit. “It’s always fooling me, mimicking something or other. Pesky nuisance!”

Curt declined the Hermit’s offer of a bunk in the cabin, and slept under the meteor-blazoned sky that night. He awoke with thin pale sunlight of the asteroid dawn in his eyes. He looked anxiously into the brassy heavens, but there was no sign of the
Comet.
Reaching down to pick up his belt from the ground, he discovered there were two belts, exactly alike. The one he tried to pick up writhed and changed in his hand. Instantly it became the meteor mimic.

“Your friends didn’t show up, eh?” said the Hermit, emerging from the cabin. His beard waggled in satisfaction. “I knew it. Machines always let you down. Now you can stay here with me and live a natural, normal life without scientific nonsense.”

“Not me!” Curt exclaimed, his eyes lighting. “Here comes the
Comet
now!”

HIS ears had detected the thin, buzz-saw whine of rockets which came from only one ship in the System. Around from the right side raced the
Comet,
landing with a roaring rush in the little clearing. Otho, Grag, the Brain, Joan and Ezra Gurney poured from the ship and ran toward Captain Future.

“Chief, we couldn’t believe our ears when we heard your call!” babbled Otho, his green eyes gleaming joyfully.

“We thought you dead, Master,” Grag boomed. “We found your body in space and gave it space burial. What happened?”

Curt rapidly told them what had occurred. Ezra Gurney slapped his knee in delight when he heard.

“You sure tricked that devil Quorn this time, Cap’n Future,” the veteran cried. “That double trick was the best yet.”

Joan’s expression was soft with happiness.

“We are glad you escaped, lad,” said Simon.

That was all, but all knew what the words meant, coming from the austere Brain. Otho handed Curt the unique emblem-ring.

“Took this from your body, Chief, as a memento of you.”

“I’m certainly glad you did,” Curt said thankfully. “I hated to risk losing the ring. But Quorn would have noticed if it hadn’t been on my dead double. I meant to go back later, if possible, and find the body in space. I’d mentally marked the location, velocity, and direction. But we’re blasting now for the Pleasure Planet! I think the last round of this contest for the space stones and for Thuun’s secret is going to be fought there.”

“Say, what in the Sun’s name is that thing?” Otho blurted.

He was looking at the little meteor mimic. It had been mimicking a flying rabbit which had alighted nearby. After perfectly impersonating it, the mimic casually changed back into its own form. Captain Future explained to Otho, who had never seen the species before.

“Why, that creature’s the best disguise artist in the System, outside of myself!” Otho exclaimed. His eyes sparkled mischievously. “Wouldn’t it give Grag’s moon-pup a fight? Eek wouldn’t have a chance against a creature as clever as that.”

“You’re space-struck!” bellowed Grag. “Eek would wipe up the floor of the
Comet
with that disgusting little beast.”

“May I have it for a pet?” Otho asked the Hermit.

“Sure, take it. The damned thing’s a nuisance to me.”

Otho picked up the meteor mimic. The little animal looked up with solemn, friendly eyes. Suddenly he changed himself into a replica of the square gravitation equalizer on Otho’s chest, and as quickly changed back into his own form.

“You see, he likes me!” Otho said. “I’ll call him Oog.”

“You’re just adopting him because you think he’ll be able to whip Eek!” Grag accused loudly. “It won’t work. You’ll find out that Eek will chew him to ribbons.”

“I’ll stand your watches for a year if Oog doesn’t knock Eek silly in five minutes,” Otho challenged.

“And I’ll stand a year’s watches for you if Eek doesn’t send your Oog howling in two minutes,” Grag said furiously.

“All right, you’re on,” Otho said. “Come and watch me win my bet, folks.”

The android and the angry robot hastened toward the
Comet,
Otho carrying his new pet. As the others followed, Joan asked Curt worriedly:

“Won’t the two pets really hurt each other?”

“I’ll separate them before they can,” Curt assured her. “Let’s see who’s the best scrapper, Oog or Eek.”

THEY entered the
Comet.
Eek, the small, gray, bearlike moon-pup, had been gnawing on a fragment of copper. It came trotting eagerly forward when Grag called out in his booming voice. The moon-pup stiffened and stared with beady, bright eyes at Oog as Otho put the meteor mimic down. The fat, little, white protean beast stared back solemnly at Eek.

“Go ahead, Oog — tear him apart!” Otho urged. “Give him the works. That moon-pup’s a big coward, anyway.”

Grag was speaking loudly, too, voicing the message he was also communicating by telepathy to his pet.

“Mop up the ship with that fat little monster, Eek!” Grag boomed. “Don’t show him any mercy.”

All watched intently as Eek and Oog slowly approached each other. They came face to face, crouched and eyed each other. Then, to the surprise of all and the consternation of Grag and Otho, the two little animals began to rub noses in friendly fashion. They gamboled about on the floor, playfully chasing each other.

“Devils of space, they’re playing!” Otho moaned in dismay. “Go ahead, Oog. Knock that moon-pup even crazier!”

But all the attempts of Grag and Otho to incite the two pets to battle failed. Oog and Eek behaved like long-separated brothers. Finally, in an ecstasy of happiness, Oog used his mimicking ability to make himself into an exact double of Eek. Ezra Gurney shouted with laughter.

“You’ve got two pets now, Grag — both alike.”

“Which of them is Eek?” Grag boomed bewilderedly.

Oog solved the problem by returning to his normal form. He gamboled up to Otho and rubbed against his leg.

“You’re a disgrace, Oog,” growled Otho disgustedly. “How you can associate with that miserable moon-pup, I can’t imagine.”

“All right, you two,” Captain Future interrupted. “We have to blast for the Pleasure Planet.” He called out the door of the
Comet,
before he closed it. “See you again, Hermit. I’ll bring you a new power plant.”

“You know damned well I don’t want any of your confounded machinery!” yelled the old man.

As the
Comet
rose from the little asteroid, they saw that the Hermit was already using a big stone to demolish the televisor transmitter that Curt had built.

“Won’t have any science on his world,” Ezra chuckled.

Grag took over the controls. The rockets blasted full power as the
Comet
laid a course through the crowded asteroidal zone toward the Pleasure Planet.