Captain Future 06 - Star Trail to Glory (Spring 1941) (19 page)

"Otho, it's what we've waited for!" he cried. "The hijackers are attacking —"

Before Curt finished there was a vague sound at his side and a powerful, invisible force seemed to grip him.

"Otho, your time accelerator!" he yelled.

He was being whirled out of the pilot chair with blurring speed. But Curt's hand frantically snapped the switch of his time accelerator. He felt a vertiginous shock as the force flooded through his body, plunging him into a faster time-frame.

He was gripped by a towering metal machine man who was dragging him toward the door of the ship. One had grabbed Otho also. They had boarded the ship from their own craft. They and their ship had been invisible until Curt Newton had also entered that faster time.

He struck out to free himself from the grip of those mighty girder-arms. The machine man seemed momentarily amazed as Captain Future's unresisting, comparatively petrified figure suddenly came to life. But Curt could not free himself from the massive semi-intelligent mechanism. Desperation brought inspiration to him.

As the machine man dragged him toward the door of the ship, Curt plunged his free hand through the open metal skeleton of the creature.

Among the complex humming mechanisms that were the "internal organs" of his attacker, his hand found a slender cable. With all his strength he ripped it loose. The severing of that vital electrical connection had instant effect. The machine man froze motionless. His mechanical "life" had been shattered.

Otho was squirming desperately in the grip of the other mechanical monster. Curt leaped forward to the back of the machine man. By the same stratagem, he soon "killed" him.

"Imps of space!" gasped Otho, as his attacker fell clattering to the floor. "The things came out of nowhere."

"They both had time accelerators attached to their bodies," panted Curt, pointing to the square cases belted around the creatures. "They boarded us and the other racers from that ship out there."

OUT in space they could see a black ship dropping toward the Garson racer that was coming up. The black craft seemed to move quickly, while the Garson appeared frozen motionless in space, due to their faster time-sense. They saw two machine men drop from the black ship onto the Garson, open its space door and disappear inside.

"Quick, we can cut off our accelerators now!" Curt barked. "We've got to go with the rest of them, pretend this ship was captured. It's the chance we've worked for, to follow them to their base."

They turned off their time accelerators. Returning to normal, they looked out to see the Garson veering away after the captured Tark and Cruh-Cholo.

The black craft of the attackers had vanished.

"It's sped back to pick up the Kalber, too," Curt guessed. "Follow those other ships!"

Otho grabbed the throttles, trailed the three captured ships in space.

"They'll assume that this craft is now controlled by the two machine men they sent in here to capture it," Curt muttered. "We can follow them right to their main base."

"They're going to make a wide detour to Mercury, Chief," Otho said.

The captured ships ahead were not steering directly toward Mercury. They were curving far out in space to approach Mercury from the Hot Side.

"They're trying to keep off the race course, naturally," Captain Future explained.

Far around Mercury they followed the other captured craft, and then dropped toward the Hot Side. Beneath yawned the giant chasm of Vapor Valley. The captured ships began dropping into its depths. Curt and Otho were astonished, but they followed, sinking down into the vapor-shrouded depths of the mighty gorge, into deepening darkness.

THE gigantic chasm seemed bottomless, and it was so choked with swirling clouds of vaporized mercury that they could not see its walls. They could barely distinguish the vague shape of the ships they were following into these awesome depths.

"By all the space gods, their hidden base can't be down in this poisonous hole!" Otho swore in perplexity. Curt Newton's eyes were gleaming. He felt himself near the end of the trail that had led across the whole System and back.

"Look, they're going into that crack in the wall!" he exclaimed sharply.

The ships had ceased to descend and were entering one of the countless fissures which split the whole planetary mass of Mercury. Cautiously Otho edged their ship into it. They proceeded horizontally for a time, the sides of their ship almost scraping the walls of the chasm. There was no light, yet the ships ahead moved without hesitation.

"They know this way well enough," Captain Future muttered. "Now we're going to descend again."

The captured ships were dropping vertically into another dark fissure. Deeper and deeper they went into the bowels of the riven planet, feeling their way after their leaders. Suddenly they emerged into a great cavern that was blazing with light from many krypton bulbs. It was a scene of amazing activity.

"I'll be blasted!" Otho gasped. "This is main base of the hijackers — this cavern deep inside Mercury!"

"Apparently there was a city here long ago," Curt said.

Upon the floor of the cavern stood hundreds of deserted roofless stone buildings. The dust of ages lay over them.

Captain Future knew the legend of certain Mercurian races. Long ago they had descended into the interior of the planet, when its diurnal rotation had slowed down and it kept one face to the Sun.

"Look what they're doing to those ships!" Otho yelped.

At the edge of the dead city was a level space upon which were parked dozens of new space ships. Machine men were hard at work on them, replacing interior fittings, relacquering the hulls, changing rocket-tubes. The clangor of activity was deafening.

"My guess was right!" Captain Future exclaimed. "That is the motive for the stealing of all those ships!"

"Chief, those other ships are landing. Shall we land, too?"

The captured ships they had followed were being landed at the edge of the crowded level field.

"Yes, but get as near the city as you can, so we can slip out without being seen," Curt ordered. "We've got to find out who's running this show here."

Otho brought their Zamor down after the other captured ships, but landed close to the edge of the dead city. They saw the machine men who had captured the other racers stalking toward a large roofless structure.

"Going to make a report," Curt guessed. "Come on, Otho. We'll see just whom they report to."

HE AND Otho slipped out of the Zamor and darted into the shadowy shelter of the dead city without being observed by the machine men laboring over the ships. They had discarded the helmets of their space-suits, and Curt's proton pistol was cradled in his fist as they stole forward. He looked up at the walls and roof of the cavern. By the light of the krypton bulbs suspended over the city and landing-field, he could make out many big fissures branching away through the rock of the planet.

"That clinches it," he mused. "Behind all this can be only one man."

"I still don't understand, Chief," whispered Otho puzzledly. "What are those machine men out there doing to all those stolen ships?"

"They're refinishing them," Captain Future said, "The man behind all these thefts is one of the space ship magnates. He's had the machine men steal hundreds of new ships, re-finish them with new fittings, lacquers and name-plates, and then he's sold them as his own ships. Remember, new space ships are worth hundreds of thousands apiece. This super-hijacker has been making millions by his crafty scheme!"

"Fiends of Pluto!" gasped Otho. "But who —"

Captain Future made a warning signal. They were approaching the large structure in which the machine men had reported and gone to rejoin their mechanical companions in the work of disguising the stolen ships. Curt and Otho stole closer to the building. There were no windows, but Otho gathered himself and leaped up to the top of the roofless building. He hauled Curt up after him and they crouched, looking down into the interior of the structure.

It was a single lighted room that fixed their gaze. In it towered a machine man, but one different from the others. His cubical head was immensely larger than that of the others. This grotesque creature was facing a table. Upon that table, fastened down by metal bands, rested the square case of the Brain.

"Simon — a prisoner!" gasped Otho. "He must have trailed the hijackers here and been caught —"

"Listen!" breathed Captain Future.

The machine man below was speaking. His humming voice came clearly up to them as he addressed the Brain.

"You underestimated my resourcefulness when you thought you could come down here and spy on us without being detected. You might have known I'd have artificial eyes planted in the fissures to tell me of any strange intruders."

"So that's how you knew I was here, and had me trapped," the Brain rasped calmly. "But it will do you little good. Those who will not be trapped so easily will come after me."

"You refer to your idolized Captain Future? He is powerless against me. I've balked him at every turn."

Otho was plucking at Curt's sleeve.

"Chief, you said one of the magnates was head of this ring! But that's a machine man —"

"Quiet!" Curt whispered.

The machine man was advancing threateningly toward the helpless Brain.

"Your confidence may mean that you've already got word to Future of the location of this base," he hummed. "Have you?"

The Brain remained silent, his lens-eyes contemptuously staring at the monstrous metal face of his captor.

"I can make you talk, Brain!" warned the creature.

"We've got to act!" Curt said to the android. "Your time accelerator, Otho. Turn it on!"

He turned on his own accelerator. Again the vertiginous shock of being plunged into faster time-frames shook him. Everything in the cavern seemed frozen. The Machine man below appeared petrified in the act of threatening the Brain with an uplifted girder-arm.

CURT leaped down into the room, Otho following. Captain Future darted toward the towering machine man. His hand darted into the mechanical body and tore out the wire he knew to be a vital electric nerve. Only then did Curt and Otho turn off their time-accelerators. As they returned to normality, a glance showed them the machine man was "dead."

The Brain stared at them, not recognizing them in their Rocketeer disguises. Hastily Captain Future and his comrade announced their identity.

"Curtis, Otho!" rasped the Brain in amazement. "Where in space did you come from?"

Curt explained rapidly as he unfastened the metal bands that had held Simon fastened to the table.

"You're right, lad," the Brain agreed. "The stolen space ships have been refinished and disguised here, and sold as new ships. But if one of the manufacturers has been the head of this ring, why did this machine man talk as though he were the head?"

"I think this machine man is somewhat different from the others," Curt replied.

Captain Future swiftly removed the square metal case that covered the enormous cubical head of the creature. He scanned the intricate mass of electrical nerve connections that were the creature's "brain."

"As I thought," he declared, replacing the cover. "This isn't like the other machine men at all. They're semi-intelligent, have a certain life of their own. This thing is just an automaton that moves and speaks by remote control exerted through televisor waves."

"By the Sun, I get it now!" Otho cried excitedly. "The space ship magnate who's the real head of the ring used this automaton as a remote-controlled proxy."

"That's it," Curt responded. "And that's why, though the magnates were all shadowed, none of them made any contact with this hidden base."

"What'll we do now?" Otho demanded eagerly. "Call in the Planet Police and have 'em blast all those machine men out there to fragments?"

"No, that would be a crime," Curt asserted. "Those semi-intelligent, simple-minded creatures are not really guilty of anything. They simply obeyed the orders of the man who came out to their comet-world and told them he was the heir of the man who made them — Kelso."

"But we have to get out of here, and those things will try to stop us," Otho objected.

"Naturally." Curt grinned. "But I have an idea. Maybe it'll work."

He went to the big televisor in the room, by which the automaton-proxy had communicated with his followers in space. Curt took it down. From its microphone and certain coils and tubes, he constructed a small remote control box of standard design.

"I think that I can control the automaton-proxy with this," he said. "I'm so much closer to it that my control will overpower that of the criminal who's been using this thing as a tool."

He repaired the nerve connection in the body of the mechanical proxy. As he touched the buttons of his control case, the huge-headed mechanical figure strode stiffly toward the door of the room.

"It works, all right," Curt stated.

He sent the automaton striding out to the edge of the field, upon which the other machine men were patiently toiling to disguise ships.