Captain Future #21: The Solar Invasion E-Book

Manly Wade Wellman

• Herausgeber: Thrilling
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Curt Newton and the Futuremen cruise into a strange world peopled with weird, pallid inhabitants, on the quest of a lost satellite which was mysteriously plucked from the sky! The Captain Future saga follows the super-science pulp hero Curt Newton, along with his companions, The Futuremen: Grag the giant robot, Otho the android, and Simon Wright the living brain in a box. Together, they travel the solar system in series of classic pulp adventures, many of which written by the author of The Legion of Super-Heroes, Edmond Hamilton.

Leseprobe

The Solar Invasion

Captain Future book #21

by

Manly Wade Wellman

Curt Newton and the Futuremen cruise into a strange world peopled with weird, pallid inhabitants, on the quest of a lost satellite which was mysteriously plucked from the sky!

Thrilling

Copyright Information

“The Solar Invasion” was originally published in 1946. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Chapter I

Fugitive Futuremen

ASTEROID No. 697 is one of the countless worlds explored by Curt Newton—Captain Future to the peoples of the many planets for whom he has waged such brilliant conflict—and, unlike most explorers, about which he has said little to anyone beyond his own circle of strange comrades.

Asteroid No. 697 is not much larger than a flying mountain. Nevertheless it has a freak gravitational power which makes possible the retention of atmosphere and water. Rich green grass and shrubs and trees, myriads of flowers, and delicious fruits, grow there. The grotto in which they now were gathered was an ideal picnic spot. And as a picnic spot it was being used just now by Curt Newton and two companions.

They had come, ostensibly, to collect and examine specimens of edible plants, which early sketchy tests had shown to contain a new quasi-vitamin useful in prolonging life. But there were other reasons for coming to Asteroid No. 697—and for spending some time there. And so they lolled and rested, after the last specimen had been carefully packed and slid into a locker.

Curt, graceful, brawny and a bit more than normal size, knelt before a small fire, grilling a steak. A close-fitting green zipper-suit hugged the powerful muscles of his mighty shoulders and long legs. His red hair, never quite in order, was comfortably rumpled now, and his clear gray eyes were studying his cookery with the attention that he had so often turned upon a cosmic riddle of science, or upon overwhelming enemy odds.

“How can you eat that stuff?” asked Otho, the android, who was sprawling nearby, nibbling a cake of the synthetic chemical which was his favorite nourishment.

Otho, too, was gracefully built and clear-cut of feature. He had been made artificially, of elastic muscles and organs and tissues. His high skull was bald, his complexion rubbery white, and his sardonic eyes were green and ironical. Near him played Oog, the fat, doughy little meteor-mimic that was Otho’s cherished pet.

“How can he eat it?” repeated a raspy voice from overhead. “Why, he just puts it in his mouth, chews it and swallows. It’s the least of Captain Future’s problems.”

THAT was Simon Wright, the Brain, speaking. Long ago, on his deathbed, Simon had prevailed on Curt Newton’s father, the brilliant Roger Newton, to transplant his brain into a crystal box, where it would live and function forever in a bath of life-giving serum. Flexible metal stalks bore lens-eyes. On either side of the crystal box was an artificial ear. In front, beneath the eye-stalks, was fixed the Brain’s resonator speech-apparatus. By use of traction-beams, he could move, touch and work as though he had hands and feet.

Curt laughed. He deftly made a steak sandwich, doused it with sauce and relish, and took a grateful mouthful. For all his peerless science and deadly fighting skill, just now, Captain Future was but a healthy, hungry young man.

“Isn’t this cozy and peaceful?” he asked.

“Cozy and peaceful,” repeated the Brain. “That’s just it. Thank the planetary providences that we found out in time.”

“Mmm,” agreed Captain Future through his sandwich. “We cleared off the Moon just in time to miss the big ceremony and decorations. High-flown jabber over interplanetary radio hookups about how great and wonderful and valuable we are, is certainly a horrible ordeal.”

“Why can’t the System Government see that a big ceremony and reception for us would be bad?” inquired Otho. “We do our best work because we’re not too well known by sight. If the whole System saw us on television it would ruin our effectiveness.” He nibbled more chemical-cake. “I’d look silly wearing the System Medal for Distinction.”

“What’s that you’re wearing?” inquired the Brain, dropping down a couple of feet to peer.

Otho glanced down—and gasped. On the chest of his zipper-suit hung a broad, glittering piece of jewelry—a ten-pointed star, inches across, jeweled and enameled and inscribed in five planetary languages.

“The System Medal!” cried Curt. “Otho, I thought you wanted to steer clear of all decorations!”

“Where did it come from?” Otho clawed at the magnificent creation. It dropped from him like a fruit from a tree, bounced on the floor of the grotto, shook itself and flowingly shifted shape—and changed into Oog who stared solemnly at his master. Oog had just been exercising the meteor-mimic faculty of changing himself into anything.

“The little imp!” cried Otho. “He’s beginning to understand our talk. By gosh, he can imitate anything!”

“Amazing,” agreed the Brain. “Well, here we are, anyway, quietly picnicking. No fuss, no decorations!” He closed the jaws of his resonator with an emphatic snap.

“The difficulty is,” resumed Curt, finishing his sandwich, “the Solar System thinks its major troubles are over, and we can think of retiring. It’s my experience that when everything seems smoothest, danger threatens in its most deadly form. I wish President Carthew and his cabinet would realize that.”

“Grag’s back on the Moon,” the Brain reminded him. “Maybe they’ll go there and give him all the glory.”

“Grag—bah!” snorted Otho. “That big heap of junk! Those tin brains of his don’t realize what a bore it would be!”

He broke off, staring at Oog. The meteor-mimic had again melted, stirred his cells, and now stood up in the form of a little metal dwarf, sturdily made, with jointed limbs, bulbous metal head and tiny photo-electric eyes.

“He’s mimicking Grag—except that Grag’s seven feet tall!” cried Otho. “I told you that Oog is getting smart!”

Oog melted himself yet again and shaped his substance into a little square box—transparent, with flexible eye-stalks.

“Now he’s the Brain,” said Curt with a laugh. “He understands a lot, Otho. This last shift means that he agrees with you about his smartness.”

He put out the fire and relaxed against a wall of the grotto.

“We’re out of sight of the Comet, parked out yonder,” he mused. “Even if they signal the Comet, we don’t know it, so our consciences will be free—”

“Look at Oog,” said the Brain suddenly. “He senses something.”

PERCHED on Otho’s knee, Oog was undergoing another shift of shape. His doughy body slimmed out in one place, curved at another, and altered into a tiny living statuette of a young woman, slender and vigorous, in a silken space-jacket and slacks, with rippling black hair and a face of flawless beauty.

“Holy sun-imps!” cried Captain Future. “It’s Joan Randall.”

“No, it isn’t,” came a silvery voice from outside the grotto. “It’s only an imitation of the genuine article. Joan Randall is right here.”

OTHO and Curt got to their feet as Joan Randall entered the grotto. Lovely, intelligent, brave, she was one of Halk Anders’ best secret service agents in the Planet Patrol department. Again and again she had done splendid service as a lieutenant of Captain Future, whom she loved very devotedly.

“All right, so we’ve been tracked to our hiding place,” groaned the big red-haired chief of the Futuremen. “How did you find us, Joan?”

“Not at all hard to do,” she told him. “They fired one red warning torpedo into these latitudes but you didn’t give any response. So they fired another, with a follower-beam on it to chart its course. And I jumped into a speedy racer-rocket and came along.” She smiled dazzlingly and went on: “So here I am.”

“That’s womanly intuition,” observed Otho, cuddling Oog. “How does it feel to have it used on you, Curt?”

“I can remember also what it means,” said the Brain, laughing. “Women are marvelous creatures.”

“Welcome, Joan,” said Captain Future. “Sit down and I’ll broil you a steak. The finest steak you ever dreamed of. Such a delicious bribe certainly ought to keep you from betraying our refuge out of sheer gratitude.”

“This isn’t a question of gratitude!” Joan retorted. “You’re wanted—badly—at Headquarters. Ezra Gurney wants you to report in at once.”

“He’s only a marshal,” said Curt. “We can ignore him.” He grinned at the pretty girl. “They’ve got Grag. Isn’t one Futureman enough for President Carthew to pin medals on?”

“That’s just the trouble,” said Joan in tones that were very deeply worried. “We can’t find Grag!”

“What do you mean?” Curt Newton was frankly astonished. “We left Grag at our laboratory to look after things and make a check on some experiments he’s conducting. I am sure Grag would never leave while on duty.”

“Please!” cried Joan Randall, so desperately that they all fell silent and stared at her. “You haven’t given me a chance to tell you what it was that made me follow you here.”

“All I was saying,” finished Curt rather sadly, “was that Grag wouldn’t go away from the Moon.”

“That’s just it,” said Joan. “We can’t find the Moon either.”

The three surprised stares that were leveled at Joan betokened more than mere stunned astonishment on the part of Simon Wright, Otho and Captain Future.

The Moon was their home. It was the staunch citadel where they stored their records and experiments. Captain Future had been born there. Otho had been synthesized there. Simon Wright had let his physical body perish there when he had taken on the new guise of the Brain. All three loved the Moon.

And now the Moon was no more!

THE BRAIN was the first to break the silence.

“You mean, some catastrophe has destroyed Luna?”

“We don’t know,” said Joan. “The moon just isn’t there.”

“I can’t believe it,” Otho protested. “A solid chunk of mineral, two thousand miles in diameter, doesn’t just vanish. I say, I can’t believe it.”

“If seeing is believing, come to the telaudio,” said Joan.

They trooped together to the Comet, which lay careened on the lush grass outside. In the control room, Joan spun the dials of the telaudio.

She got the wave-length and the image she wanted, clarified the image, and turned back to the Futuremen.

“Look,” she cried.

Against a rectangle of black, star-sprinkled sky hung the round silver-green disk of the Earth, with the continents of Europe and Africa, and also most of Asia, wreathed in clouds.

“Yep, that’s Earth,” the Brain acknowledged.

“But—where’s the Moon?” asked Joan Randall almost fiercely. “Where’s the Moon, I say!”

“It’s gone!” muttered Captain Future.

Chapter II

Truant Satellite

NO TRACE, in the telaudio, could they see of the satellite that had been Earth’s consort of eons of time. The Moon simply wasn’t there.

Where had it gone? And how? What force, mused Captain Future, red-haired master scientist, could remove a massive world totaling more than fifty billion cubic miles in volume, without leaving behind a fragment or a cloud of dust? There remained not a clue to show where it had gone. The whole thing was mystifying.

“Maybe the Moon’s on the other side of the Earth,” Otho suggested somewhat feebly.

“Let’s look,” said Joan.

She spun more dials, and the Earth became translucent. They could see the opposite hemisphere, with North and South America well defined, now.

“And where is the Moon?” Joan asked again.

“Not in sight, certainly,” agreed the Brain. “And not blacked out, either, or we’d catch its silhouette against the stars. When did this happen?”

“Let’s head back,” said Captain Future suddenly. “Hitch that little rocket of yours onto our stern, Joan, and ride with us. You can talk while we travel.”

Quickly Joan set the beam-mechanism which would serve as a tow-rope between her own craft and the Comet, and within five minutes they had cleared from Asteroid No. 697 on the Earthward trail.

“It happened about four a. m. today, New York time,” Joan began. “The Moon had been at the full, bright enough to read sizable print by, and so on. It went out like a snuffed candle. Right away there was wild excitement in the observatories. They couldn’t explain it.”

“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.