Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) (18 page)

Ul Quorn was a foot high, but he continued to shrink till he was only an inch high. A tiny space-suited pigmy, he ran toward the black space stone lying on the floor. They saw the infinitely tiny, still shrinking figure climb up on the seventh space stone and run toward the red sand-grain imbedded in it. Then the homunculus became too small for them to see.

“He’s disappeared into that grain of sand!” Otho yelped.

“He entered the sub-atomic universe inside that sand grain,” Captain Future explained hoarsely.

Otho stared. “You mean — that the speculations of the old scientists were right — that there exist sub-atomic universes, each atom of which is — a miniature solar system?”

Curt nodded, his face drawn and haggard.

“Yes. That sand grain is a tiny galaxy of such atomic systems. Thuro Thuun long ago found the secret of changing size. He went down into that sub-atomic galaxy. Now Ul Quorn has used the old Martian’s secret to follow him down into that tiny galaxy. Quorn means to unlock a forgotten threat in that miniature universe.”

READILY Captain Future understood the malefic possibilities of the situation, while Otho or Joan were completely baffled. But they read in his drawn face the desperate nature of the peril. “What can we do?” Joan whispered.

“If I could also get the whole formula from those space stones and build a size-changing mechanism like Quorn’s, I could go after him into that atomic galaxy,” Curt declared.

Joan paled. “That would be awful — to go down into another universe, and risk all its unguessable dangers.”

“No use worrying about it, for we’re chained here, and we’ll soon be quietly murdered by Bubas Uum,” Curt muttered. “And Quorn will come back from the sand-grain universe, with —”

“Curse it, if I could just get my hands out of these manacles!” swore Otho, twisting furiously.

The android’s words gave Curt an idea. Faint hope dawned in him. Maybe Captain Future wasn’t counted out yet! They were hanging from the wall-fetters to which their manacled wrists were hooked, but their legs were free. Curt raised his legs.

Hanging by his wrists, he touched Otho’s belt with his feet.

“What the devil, Chief!” said the android mystifiedly. “This isn’t any time for acrobatic tricks.”

“This particular acrobatic trick may get us out of this cell,” Curt said rapidly. “Listen, Otho. If I could get the chemical oil that softens your flesh out of your make-up kit, I could use it on your wrists. You could slip out of your manacles.”

“Blazing meteors, I never thought of that!” Otho cried.

“Hold still, while I try it,” Captain Future said. “Have to get these shoes off. Can’t grip anything with my feet unless I do.”

Curt kicked off his low space shoes. Then, hanging by his fettered wrists, he raised his legs until he could fumble at Otho’s belt with his bare feet. His toes worked feverishly till he got Otho’s make-up pouch open. By skillful manipulation, Captain Future pawed out of the pouch the flat sprayer flask of pink oil he wanted.

Otho’s synthetic flesh could be softened by application of this oil, then molded like plastic. The android took advantage of that phenomenon in making up his marvelous disguises. Captain Future meant to use the oil now for another purpose.

Holding the sprayer flask between his feet, he raised it up near Otho’s fettered wrists. Curt pressed the bulb with his ankles, and a fine spray of the pink chemical oil covered Otho’s wrists. Quickly the the synthetic flesh of the android’s forearms began to soften to puttylike consistency. It would remain in that state for only a few minutes, but that was enough for Otho. He pulled his wrists and hands until they easily slipped through the handcuffs.

“Good work, Chief!” he applauded as he stepped away, free. “I’ll have Joan and you out in a minute.”

Otho had to wait a few minutes for the flesh of his wrists and hands to re-harden. Then, with a tiny tool from his belt, he began to work on their manacles until both Curt Newton and Joan were freed.

“Now what?” Otho whispered tensely. “The door’s locked and guards are still outside.”

“Make up as Bubas Uum,” Curt ordered. “It may take them by surprise and get us out.”

SWIFTLY the android, the greatest master of disguise in the System, used the softening oil on his head and body. He remolded himself into the puffy figure and face of Bubas Uum. Then, with his stains and dyes, he made himself the exact replica of the fat green Jovian.

“How’s it look, Chief?” he asked in Bubas’ voice.

“Disgusting but good,” Curt said quickly. He had been gathering up the seven space stones and thrusting them into his belt. “Now call the guards. Pretend you’ve been in here all the time.”

Otho went to the little loophole in the door and called to the guards outside, using Bubas’ harsh, shrill voice.

“All right, men. You can let me out of here now.”

A guard peered in and seemed thunderstruck at sight of Bubas Uum. Otho stood so the guard could not see Curt or Joan.

“Why, I thought you had left, Master.”

“You fool, you’re seeing things,” Otho snapped. “Open up!”

The guard wonderingly obeyed. As the door swung open, Otho and Curt leaped out on the two gold-uniformed men. The guards, taken by surprise, went down under hammerlike punches. Curt and the android dragged the stunned men in and locked the door.

“Now out of here to the
Comet,”
Curt cried. “Lead on, Otho.”

They hurried down the passage and up a back stair. Another guard at the top drew his atom pistol. He replaced it when he saw what seemed to be Bubas Uum leading the other two.

“It’s all right,” Otho said harshly to the man. “Stand aside.”

They emerged into the soft, summery night of the Pleasure Planet. Hastening away from the brilliant Palace of Hazard, the three companions left the City of Chance by dark back streets. Soon they were skirting the space port, racing away from a sudden clamor behind them.

“Found out we escaped,” Curt panted. “Hurry!”

He grabbed Joan’s hand, half-dragging her along. The
Comet
loomed out of the darkness. Without pausing to look back, they rushed into the ship.

“No time to explain now — they’re after us!” Curt panted to Grag, Simon and Ezra. “Blast off the Planet at full rockets, Grag!”

The big robot jumped for the controls. Abruptly the
Comet
screamed up into the darkness. When it was clear of the planetoid’s atmosphere, it zoomed out of the night-shadow into clear space.

“That’s far enough,” Curt ordered. “Hold her here and keep circling the Planet.” Then he looked at the Brain, and his face was grim as he spoke.

“It’s what we guessed, Simon — a sub-atomic universe, that Thuro Thuun entered long ago. Quorn’s down in it now.”

“What are yuh talkin’ about?” Ezra asked, mystified.

Curt brought out the seven space stones. He pointed to the black jewel on the face of which was imbedded the red sand-grain.

“A tiny universe is in that grain of sand, Ezra. And a sleeping threat lies in it. Quorn’s trying to unloose it for his own purposes. He’s down there, in that sand grain, this very minute. He mustn’t succeed. Which means that I have to go after him.”

“Are you crazy, to talk about goin’ to a sand grain?” Ezra Gurney blurted.

PAYING no attention to the old man’s bewilderment, Captain Future was ranging the first six space stones on the laboratory table of the cabin, beneath a swinging X-ray projector.

“These six stones contain Thuro Thuun’s mental record of how he went down into the sand grain universe,” Curt muttered abstractedly. “The seventh stone contains the sand grain itself. First we’ve got to hear the formula of Thuro Thuun — all of it, at last.”

He started the hard radiation pouring down on the space stones, one after another. As the superpowerful radiation hit the gems, it seemed to all of them that the mental voice of the long-dead Martian scientist was speaking clearly in their mind. A section of his message was coming from each of the six stones.

“I, Thuro Thuun, am a scientist of Mars. Our world is dying, our civilization withering. I sought to find a new universe — a sub-atomic solar system — to which we could migrate. Having found a way to increase or decrease size at will, I believed there must be many habitable sub-atomic planets in the atoms of our world. With the aid of my discovery, I became small and went down into a grain of desert sand. As I had expected, it contained a whole galaxy of atomic systems. But only one of them, the system of a great red sun, was habitable.

“I found peril there, for the red sun’s worlds were inhabited by atomic people who desired to migrate upward — into our System! Thus had I put my own people in danger, for the atomites tormented me to lead them back whence I came. I pretended to agree, and said I would return with many such mechanisms as I wore. By thus beguiling them, I prevailed on them to let me go. When I returned, I resolved never again to unlock that danger. It would be better for my people to struggle against the death of their world than to risk being crowded off it.

“Naturally I do not wish to destroy my great discovery, and therefore do I put it into these stones. It may be that in some future day the people of my world will face absolute disaster. Through this formula, they may take refuge in some different sub-atomic universe. Great care will have to be employed in selecting a world, however. In order to enter the infinitesimal, it was necessary for me to slow the rotation and revolution of every celestial body in the grain of sand. Since their days and years are now much the same length as ours, the inevitable death of that universe has been partially averted.

“I leave my secret to be used only in the last extreme, in the hope that the atomic peoples have solved their difficulty. If they have, then the size of men may be increased or decreased by a simple process of force-condensation, or accretion. The sub-electron, the ultimate unit of matter, is really only a particle of force. It can be condensed or expanded by draining its force or adding force to it, by using positive or negative charges.

“A small generator must be constructed, which shall be capable of emitting vibrations within the thirteenth division of the eighth octave of the electro-magnetic spectrum. These are the carrier waves, which must be so projected by the generator as to enclose the subject and affect every atom of his body and clothing. These carrier waves must be used to transmit a pure charge of negative undimensional force to his atoms, when he wishes to reduce size.

“The stronger the negative charge, the smaller be becomes. Similarly a positive charge must be used when one wishes to grow larger. But should you use this process, be sure not to enter the sand grain universe. The pitifully crowded people of its last dying worlds, who begged me to lead them up into my own System, might use force to make you do so. Sad as is their plight, we cannot allow them to enter our own System.”

CAPTAIN FUTURE switched off the X-ray projector and looked around at the faces of Joan, Ezra and the three Futuremen.

“Now you know Thuro Thuun’s story,” Curt declared. “The irony of it! He went down into the sub-universe, looking for worlds to lead his people to. Instead, he found worlds whose people were in even worse plight than his. No wonder he was afraid to use the process again.”

“It’s unbelievable,” Joan whispered. “A race struggling against extinction, down in a dying universe in that grain!”

“And Ul Quorn is down there, too,” Curt reminded. “His plan is perfectly clear. He can bargain with that wretched, hard-pressed atomic race, agree to lead them up into our System if they obey all his commands. And they’re apparently in such dire straits that they’ll do it.”

“Say, it’ll be easy to get Quorn then!” Otho cried. “He’s down in the sand-grain universe. We’ll just destroy the grain with a flash of force, and that’s the end of Doctor Quorn!”

Curt looked at him sternly.

“It would be the end of the atomic race, too — a race that’s making a pitiful last fight for life in a dying universe.”

“No, we couldn’t destroy them,” the Brain rasped. “Thuro Thuun couldn’t bring himself to a crime like that. That’s why he must have imbedded the sand grain in the seventh space stone, hoping, perhaps, that some day he could help the atomic race.”

“The only way to stop Quorn from playing on that wretched people’s disaster is for me to go down after him,” Captain Future said. “Simon, we’ve got to build a generator like the one Thuro Thuun’s record describes. Quorn took weeks to build his. We must build ours in minutes.”

“We’ll try, Curtis,” rasped the Brain. “Though whether or not we can do it —”

“There’s
nothing
the four greatest scientists in the System can’t do!” cried Ezra Gurney loyally.

They began a period of tense, unceasing toil in the laboratory-cabin of the
Comet,
as the little ship circled the Pleasure Planet. Captain Future, renowned wizard of science, and the three Futuremen, were racing against time and using every iota of their unparalleled scientific abilities.