Captain Future 20 - The Solar Invasion (Fall 1946) (2 page)

“Did they try a gravity-finder?” asked Simon Wright.

“Yes, and it didn’t register any Moon.”

“Did they try a frequency-beam? A spectroscope?”

“They tried everything,” Joan replied. “And found no evidence, anywhere, of the Moon.”

“Poor Grag!” cried Otho in grief-stricken tones.

Turning, they saw that the android’s elastic face was twisted into an expression of deep sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” he moaned again. “He was my best friend.” He emitted something like a sob. “We pretended to quarrel but we really didn’t mean it. Gosh, this is tough!”

“Don’t feel bad, Otho,” Curt assured him grimly. “I’ve got a hunch he’s still alive and, if he is, cheer up! We’ll get him back, and the Moon with him.”

“But if the Moon’s destroyed —” began the Brain.

“We don’t know yet what happened to it,” said Curt Newton. “But I’m beginning to have a theory. We’re close to where the Moon should be, right now.”

The
Comet
had been hurtling through space at a speed approaching that of light, heading straight for the great gray-green sphere that was Earth. Curt Newton slackened speed, and turned to the Brain.

“Chart where the Moon should be, will you, Simon?” he requested.

“Of course, lad.” The Brain’s crystal case floated over to a great folder of papers on a work-table. A flick of a traction beam brought one out.” It would be almost at perigee — that is, if it still existed.”

“Maybe it still does exist,” Captain Future murmured. “Go on. Where’s the position?”

“Due ahead. We should be cracking right down on it.”

“Right!” Captain Future’s big, wise hands slowed the
Comet
still more. “Observe, everybody. Observe everything.”

For minutes the
Comet
continued its flight. No one spoke. Finally Captain Future addressed his companions:

“I judge we’ve passed through the space the Moon would have occupied. What do you get, any of you?”

“No spectroscopic reaction,” reported the Brain at once.

Otho closed a valve and peered through a system of lenses at a glass flask.

“No dust or other matter,” he said. “Vacuum — that’s all.”

“And no micro-gravitational impulses to a stray atom of solid matter,” finished Joan. “Convinced, Curt? The Moon has been taken away.”

CURT shifted controls.

“Stand by to land at New York. Simon, wouldn’t it stand to reason that any explosion or change of condition would leave a trace?”

“Yes, but there aren’t any traces,” replied the Brain.

“Could we be hypnotized?” offered Otho.

“Not all of us,” said Curt. “Remember, we first saw that the Moon was missing away out yonder on Asteroid Six-Ninety-Seven — surely too far from any fantastic machine to befuddle our minds. Also we have sailed right through the position in space the Moon ought to occupy.”

“Do you suppose that there’s been a displacement of molecules,” suggested Joan.

Curt looked at her sharply. “No. Remember we’ve found no spectroscopic reaction.”

“All you’re doing is eliminating the possibilities, one by one,” complained Otho.

“Let the lad alone,” the Brain scolded the android. “By eliminating possibilities, we get closer to the truth.”

Curt seemed musing in a realm whole light-years away. His hands moved as if in a dream, cutting the
Comet’s
speed and knifing them into the atmosphere of Mother Earth. The ship made a wide spiral and braked, to drop on the square deck atop the great gleaming spire of Government Tower.

As Captain Future threw open the airlock and stepped to the roof, two armed guards brought their proton rifles to the ready.

“Identify yourself,” said one.

“We’ve been waiting for them, sentry!” interposed a seam-faced, white-thatched man in the uniform of a marshal of the Planet Police. He was Ezra. “Come on, Captain Future and the rest of you — straight to the President!”

Curt Newton seemed suddenly to awaken.

“That’s it, Simon, he said. “All possibilities eliminated except the one true fact. The Moon wasn’t destroyed. She couldn’t have been snatched away or changed into something else.”

“She must still be there then,” growled Otho.

Captain Future snapped his fingers in triumph.

“Right, Otho! She’s still there!”

His companions clustered around him.

“Tell us!” they pleaded.

“Just a moment,” begged Curt Newton.

“You can think while you walk,” said Ezra Gurney.

He led the group across the landing stage and down a flight of stairs. On the floor below, where waited another familiar figure — burly, grim-eyed Halk Anders, commander of the System’s police organization.

“Quite a gathering of notables,” muttered Otho. “But I don’t see any medals being shoved at us.”

“Medals will wait, Otho,” said Anders. “You may get double decorations — or just epitaphs.”

“If there’s any of us left to make funerals worth while,” added Ezra Gurney. “The Moon, two thousand miles in diameter, has been blotted out of existence!”

“Joan told us,” said Captain Future. “You said President Carthew wants us? Lead on.”

Down more stairs, and into the office of the President of the Solar System.

James Carthew was gray-haired, distinguished-looking, a big-framed man, a brilliant scholar, who, in his younger days, had been an athlete. In two of the interplanetary wars he’d also been a daring officer of fighting men. Now, at the height of his career and powers, he was the beloved president of all habitable worlds within the space-latitudes dominated by Old Sol.

He looked up from his desk as the group entered.

“Captain Future!” he cried. “Welcome to you and your friends. Once more the united worlds depend on your wisdom and courage.”

“What shall we do first, Mr. President?” answered Newton.

“The Moon has vanished,” replied Carthew. “Undoubtedly you know the facts by now, and realize the implications are tremendous. It may indicate that some cosmic danger threatens to snatch other worlds — perhaps our own — into oblivion, too.”

SLOWLY Captain Future nodded. “I agree so far, sir,” he said. “What specific theories have been advanced?”

“Thousands,” said the President. “The Science Committees are fighting, arguing, debating, as usual. What’s your own opinion?”

“A speculative one,” said Curt. “I believe the Moon is still where it has always been. Our instruments show there’s no dust or vapor — no visible remains — not even a spectroscopic trace. An explosion or chemical change would have left behind debris. We find nothing our normal instruments can identify. Therefore the Moon is still there — in a dimension beyond our own, slipped there, in its entirety, by agencies not now apparent.”

The President stared at him blankly. Then he nodded his gray head.

“You’ve traveled from one dimension to another before, you know about these things,” Carthew said. “But I know little about such matters. Explain further.”

“Take a two-dimensional universe, sir. It’s a plane, bounded by length and breadth, like the top of this desk.” He laid his big hand upon it. “My hand’s there on the desk-top. But I take it way, through height, the third dimension —” He lifted his hand. “Not a trace left. Right?”

“Right,” agreed President Carthew. “Then the Moon, which has three-dimensions, has vanished by the Fourth dimension?”

“Not necessarily, sir. The fourth dimension has been judged to be time.” He thought a moment. “I’ll illustrate this way. I’m three-dimensional, and I’m here in the office. But suppose I took ten seconds to leave and close the door. I’d have traveled ten seconds in time — the fourth dimension — and would be present here no more, but somewhere else.”

“I follow you again,” said the President. “The Moon has gone — where?”

“Into another dimension between the four we normally know. Suppose we call it Dimension X. The Moon’s there, away from our sight and sense.”

“And Grag’s there, too,” said Otho. “Poor Grag — my best friend, my old partner! What is Dimension X doing to him?”

WHEN Grag had been directed by Captain Future to remain on the Moon, in charge of the routine laboratory work while the other Futuremen eluded the unwelcome effort to lionize them, he was pleased at his luck.

His great robot voice boomed to little Eek, the moon-pup that looked like a toy bear come to life.

“At least we’re spared the sneers of Otho, and the antics of that little monstrosity, Oog. And if the Authorities come here and find only me — well, I won’t fight off any medals. One would look good, soldered on here.”

His mighty metal fist struck the huge curve of his torso, and clanged like a super alarm bell. Grag was like a seven-foot suit of medieval armor come to life. His great bulbous head was set with two photo-electric eyes and housed a brain of colloid metal — a brain not quite as stupid as Otho liked to pretend, but nevertheless the least acute of all the Futuremen. What he did have was strength. He was a living derrick, a walking tractor, for power.

Just now he was in the upper wing of the great laboratory-headquarters which the Futuremen maintained on the Moon, sealed from the outer airlessness, the cold of lunar day, by thick walls and airtight locks and panels. He was watching the progress of a dozen minor experiments, marking the result of each on a pad alongside. Eek hopped along near him, nuzzling the huge corrugated-soled feet.

“I know, I know,” crooned Grag in a voice like an affectionate klaxon. “You’re hungry, Eek. Well, come on, we’ll have lunch.”

He led the way to a cubical room, made more than ordinary size to accommodate his gigantic proportions. From a work-bench he caught a fistful of broken metal, worn-out small parts from repaired motors and experimental engines. These he laid on the floor under Eek’s nose.

“Some of this had chromium in it,” he told Eek. “You like chromium, Eek. I’ll have copper, as usual.”

He took a big lump of red-glowing metal and fed it into the special digestion chopper inside his torso.

“And now,” he said, “Uncle Grag will tell you a story.”

Eek hopped up on Grag’s knee. He sat up, nibbling on a flawed cog, like a squirrel on a nut.

“It all began with Roger Newton and Simon Wright, who built this laboratory,” said Grag. “With them was Elaine, Roger Newton’s wife. They made many things — time-travelers, copper-temperers, atom-busters, interplanetary fuels. They made Otho, too, on a day when they weren’t up to par. But the most wonderful, useful thing they ever made was your Uncle Grag.”

The robot’s massive jointed shoulders shook with mirth.

“After a triumph like that, it was nothing for Roger Newton to make Simon Wright’s brain immortal by transferring it to a crystal case,” he continued. “And, after Victor Corvo killed Roger and Elaine Newton, it was your Uncle Grag who raised their boy Curt to be Captain Future, with Otho and Simon Wright helping a little. When the Futuremen went cruising through space, Victor Corvo had the bad judgment to fight us and, instead of Victor Corvo, he became Vanquished Corvo — ha! ha! ha!”

Grag’s laughter was like a metal sea raging against metal rocks.

“That’s what men call a joke, Eek. Victor, vanquished — understand? Well, when Ul Quorn tried to avenge his father, Victor Corvo, we chased him right up against the sun. And he whiffed away in flame, ship and all —”

The robot broke off suddenly.

“Eek,” he said slowly. “Don’t you feel as if the floor was somehow slanting?”

Eek hopped down, as if to investigate. Grag rose from where he sat. His big frame tottered.

“Things are out of plumb — but how could they be?” There was a quiver in the booming voice. “The walls look funny, too. Somehow angles aren’t right angles. I wonder —”

He tramped to the door and opened it.

Things were black out there.

The upper wing of the laboratory was dimly lighted and several figures were grouped there, studying the experiments. Grag’s photo-electric eyes, keener in the dark than normal human optics, counted five intruders.

ONE of the five strangers was dressed in brilliant turban and Martian cloak, and was human, but the others were beings that even Grag, who had been everywhere on the
Comet’s
star-spanning flights, could not identify.

They were two legged and upright but grotesque of action and proportion.

Grag could see their pallid bodies, scantily dressed in metallic-gleaming jerkins and kilts, belted around with strange weapons. Their legs were short and bandy, like those of a frog, and their huge, flat, flapping feet were clad in shiny sandals. By contrast, their arms were long and brawny. Their hands had only three fingers.

At first glance they seemed to have no necks at all to support round hairless heads, which had mere holes for ears and noses, dark wide eyes and mouths like gaping slashes clear across the face. Though stocky, they were less than average human height. Even the man in the turban was shorter than customary.

“Space-burglars!” growled Grag. “I’ll scoop them up — I can do it with one arm — and keep them for Captain Future!”