Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942) (7 page)

“Always cheerful and optimistic, that’s Grag,” Otho chimed in sarcastically. “Why don’t you get a job haunting some dead planet?”

As they waited for “night,” Curt’s turmoil of spirit did not lessen. His feverish impatience was finally broken by the sound of steps down the corridor. The Futuremen listened tensely as the steps approached. Then they heard a low challenge from the guards posted outside their door, and the voice of Zarn replying.

THE door opened and Zarn came in. The prison captain clutched a bundle of scientific apparatus in his arms, and his shining face showed an extreme nervous excitement. With him was another man of the Cometae — a big, hulking, craggy-featured soldier who stared at the Futuremen.

“This is Aggar, a captain and one of my friends.” Zarn introduced him quickly. “He is one of us Cometae who have long desired to revolt against our heartless rulers.”

Zarn put down the bundle of apparatus.

“I think I got everything you described from your ship,” he told the Brain. “It was not easy to do so unobserved. But I got in here safely with it, for I had taken care to post guards ‘tonight’ who are of our secret party.”

“You have already spoken to your friends among the Cometae about a possible revolt?” Captain Future asked Zarn quickly.

The prison captain bobbed his head.

“We potential rebels have an undercover organization. I made contact with its heads, of whom Agar is one. They long to rise against the tyrants, against Thoryx and that old devil Querdel. But they will not do so unless certain that success will make it possible for us to be normal men once more.”

The hard-fisted Aggar spoke bluntly to Curt.

“Can you do that, stranger? Can you use those instruments to match the science of the Alius and undo what the Alius did to us?”

“I can’t tell without some study,” Captain Future answered honestly. “And my comrades and I would like the help of the man in the next cell — the Martian scientist Tiko Thrin. Can you get him in here, Zarn, and also the man named Ezra Gurney?”

“Yes, I can do that,” said Zarn, and hurriedly left the cell.

He was back in a few moments and with him came two men. One was an elderly little Martian, a small, withered creature with an incongruously big and bald red head, and weak eyes which peered through thick spectacles.

But it was the other man toward whom the Futuremen jumped with an exclamation of delight. This one was elderly, too, a wrinkled-faced Earthman with iron-gray hair and faded blue eyes, whose bleak depths now were sparkling with pleasure.

“Ezra Gurney!” Captain Future wrung the old Planet Patrol veteran’s hand. “You old buzzard of space. If there’s trouble anywhere in the System, you’ll find it.”

“Yes, an’ I found plenty of it in this cursed comet, Cap’n Future,” said Ezra earnestly in his drawling voice. “Did you find Joan?”

Curt’s face darkened.

“Yes. She’s become one of the Cometae.”

Ezra uttered an incredulous oath.

“It’s impossible! She’d never accept that Thoryx offer to join them!”

“She did it only for some purpose we don’t know,” Curt declared stoutly. “I’m convinced of that.”

Yet, even as he spoke, he had to force down that haunting doubt that had poisoned his thoughts ever since Joan had spoken to him so strangely.

Meantime Grag and Otho were slapping the old veteran on the back in high glee at the reunion. Even Oog and Eek, recognizing an old friend, had come trotting up eagerly from their corner.

Zarn intruded then. The face of the Cometae captain was anxious.

“We may be interrupted at any moment!” he warned. “Khinkir and other officers loyal to Thoryx often come snooping about this prison.”

Curt rapidly explained to Tiko Thrin what they had in mind.

“You have been here, observing the Cometae, for some time,” he told the old Martian scientist. “What do you think of the possibility of re-transforming them?”

Tiko Thrin wagged his head doubtfully.

“We can only try. It will not be easy. The science of the Alius may be far beyond our own.”

CAPTAIN FUTURE addressed Zarn and Aggar, who were waiting tensely, while the Brain and Otho set up the compact electron microscope, ray probers and other delicate electric apparatus.

“We’ll need a sample of your tissues,” Curt said slowly to the two Cometae men. “It’s the only way we can make a thorough study of the altered cells of your bodies.”

The big Aggar calmly drew his dagger and poised it over the skin of his glowing forearm.

“Just tell me how much,” he grunted.

Captain Future directed him. The big Cometae captain coolly cut a thin strip of skin from his forearm and placed it in the chamber of the electron microscope.

Curt and the Brain bent over the instrument. The apparatus was a compact adaptation of the old-fashioned electronic microscope, magnifying almost indefinitely by using magnetic action to focus rays of free electrons, instead of a lens to focus rays of light.

The strip of tissue still glowed with scintillating light under the microscope, although its luminescence seemed to be fading. Curt focused down until he was examining a single cell of that changing tissue. He and the Brain, and then Otho and Tiko Thrin, studied the enormously magnified cell.

As he straightened, Tiko Thrin shook his head.

“I’m afraid it’s beyond me,” he confessed. “The whole molecular pattern of the cell has been altered beyond recognition. I can’t see how the Alius did it or how it can be undone.”

“Curse it, the Alius must be gods or devils to accomplish a thing like this!” Otho swore.

The Brain was looking at Captain Future.

“Not only molecular change, but also atomic, lad,” said Simon.

Curt nodded his red head, frowning deeply.

“Yes. Some force has been utilized to break down each cell’s molecules, not only into atoms but into subatomic particles — and then recast them in a wholly new pattern.”

Captain Future was feeling a sensation he had never experienced before. This unthinkable tampering with the finest units of life was evidence of a science vast and alien beyond conception.

“Can you undo what was done to us, Captain Future?” Captain Zarn asked anxiously.

Curt knew that the hopes of a race hung upon his reply. That the fate of Joan Randall hung upon it, too. Yet he couldn’t answer in an unqualified affirmative, much as he would have liked to do so.

“I feel certain,” he said slowly, “that this process can be undone, that the molecular and atomic pattern of your cells can be recast to normal by the right force. But it will not be an easy thing to do!

“You see,” he explained, “the living cell is normally a tiny electric ‘battery,’ that by chemical action produces the electric energy which we call life. But the Alius have worked deep and subtle changes in your cells. They have recast their molecules and atoms so that now each cell forms a tiny transformer, which simply receives its energy from the coma radiation which permeates everything here.”

Zarn and Aggar seemed impressed by Curt’s knowledge.

“Then you’ll promise to change us all back to normal if our revolt succeeds?” they cried.

Captain Future took the plunge.

“I promise to restore you to normality — or to die trying!

AGGAR’S massive face glowed with hope and resolution.

“Then we of the Cometae will rise!”

Curt seized the opportunity.

“How many of your people will revolt against Thoryx?” he asked quickly. “How soon can you organize and strike?”

“Nine-tenths of the Cometae hate our rulers,” Aggar replied. “But not all of them will risk rebellion, at first. Our secret organization is what we must chiefly rely on. We number fully five thousand men.”

“How many fighting men can Thoryx count on?” Otho demanded.

“About as many,” Aggar admitted. “The regiments of the palace guard are loyal to him, because they are a favored class. The nobles, of course, will support Thoryx. So will some of the people, because of their superstitious regard for the Alius.”

“What about weapons?” Curt asked him. “Can you secure enough of those electrode-weapons?”

Aggar laughed.

“They would be of no avail against Cometae. They simply project a powerful electric blast, and that wouldn’t hurt one of us in the least. The things are used only to keep you captives under control.”

“Then what the devil do you use for weapons against each other?” Otho exclaimed.

“Swords and daggers are all that can be used effectively on a Cometae,” Zarn answered. “Only the soldiers are allowed to possess them.”

“All us captives here can fight with you, if you can get swords of dielectric material for us,” Curt told Zarn quickly. “You know we can’t touch you Cometae, even with an ordinary metal sword, without receiving a paralyzing electric shock.”

“I can touch them!” said Grag loudly. To prove it, he laid his heavy metal hand capon Zarn’s shoulder. “It’s only inside me that I have steelite parts. The whole outside of my body is of dielectric metal, a nonconductor!”

“Good of Grag!” chuckled Ezra Gurney. “You won’t need any sword.”

“Yeah, for once your dumb metal carcass will come in handy,” said Otho gibingly.

“How soon can you strike?” Curt was asking Aggar intently. “What is your plan?”

“The only possible plan,” replied Aggar, “is to attack the palace, overcome Thoryx guards in the first rush, and round up the tyrant and his spitfire queen and the nobles in short order.”

“Especially,” put in Zarn anxiously, “it is necessary to grab that old wizard Querdel at once. It’s said that he has a way of communicating with the Alius.”

Captain Future saw again that chill shadow of dread creep into the eyes of the two Cometae captains at mention of the Alius. But Aggar forced the fear away.

“The Alius have never come out of their citadel in the north, and they won’t now,” the husky fighter said emphatically. He turned to Captain Future. “We can be ready to strike by tomorrow ‘night’. It’s the ‘night’ of the Lightning Feast, and Thoryx and all the nobility will be gathered in the palace, ours for the taking.”

The plan was quickly arranged. Aggar and Zarn were to mobilize the Cometae rebels around the plaza when the next ‘night’ came. Zarn would release the Futuremen and the other captives. At a given signal, they would join forces and attack the palace.

“One more thing!” said Curt urgently. “The Earthgirl who is now one of the Cometae — she must not be harmed under any circumstances.”

“Agreed. Now let’s get out of here,” Zarn warned. “Everything would be ruined if we were discovered plotting together.”

Tiko Thrin, the Martian, and Ezra Gurney were taken back to their own cells and the door of the Futuremen’s cell was relocked.

OTHO paced to and fro excitedly. “Action at last: Anything’s better than rotting away in this cell.”

The Brain looked at Curt.

“The plan is a precarious one, lad. Suppose the Alius should intervene with their mastery of mental force.”

“That’s exactly what I don’t understand,” Grag interposed puzzledly. “All this talk about mental force. What in the world is it?”

Captain Future explained.

“Thought is basically electrical, like life itself. Grag. When a man thinks or wills something, the synaptic pattern of his brain cells conducts to his nerves a definite electrical current, which energizes his physical body to obey that thought or will.

“Theoretically,” Curt added, “it should be possible for a man to ‘broadcast’ his electric thought or will-impulses, as electromagnetic vibrations that would impinge upon and seize control of another man’s brain and body.

“That’s what is meant by mental force. No man has ever possessed more than a fraction of this power. But it seems the Alius have mastered it.”

The hours of the following day-period passed with dragging slowness. Tension built up with each passing hour. Captain Future labored under a growing nervous strain as “night” approached. He had never felt so tense at any time in the past, on the threshold of struggle.

“Night” came at last. There was no lessening of the coma’s brilliant light from the window, but in the alabaster city outside the passing throngs of Cometae dwindled away. The sleep-period had come.

Curt, watching tautly from the window, saw more and more of the six-wheeled Cometae vehicles arriving at the great palace across the plaza. The nobility of the Cometae were streaming into the big building.

“They’re coming for the Lightning Feast that Aggar mentioned,” Curt muttered. “I wonder what kind of function it is, anyway.”

“Sounds crazy, like everything else in this cursed comet,” Grag snorted.

“Zarn should be here with the others, by now, to release us,” Captain Future said, biting his lip. “If he’s too late —”

“I hear him coming now?” Otho exclaimed joyfully.

The tramp of feet was clearly audible.

In a moment their prison door was flung open.

To their surprise and consternation, it was Captain of the Guards Khinkir and a half-dozen of the palace sentries who stood there.