Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) (15 page)

Sam Martin, the chief property-man, came down into the dark prop-room with his helpers and made the air ring with sharp orders.

“Get the stuff I listed up through the unloading hatches at once! The automaton and the dummy Brain, the Stygian costumes, the cameras and the krypton-spots. Snap into it!”

Grag resigned himself to being carted around again like the automaton they thought him to be. He heard a worried prop-man report.

“The dummy Brain isn’t here. And neither is the chest that had the Stygian costumes in it!”

“So that’s what was in that chestful of Stygian costumes,” thought Grag.

“They must be here somewhere. Look for them.” Martin ordered.

BUT the search was unavailing. Swearing, Sam Martin superintended the unloading of Grag and the other needed properties from the
Perseus.
They were loaded into the rocket-trucks ready outside the ship.

Jeff Lewis stormed when the property-man reported the loss.

“This picture is hoodooed. First Rizo Thon disappears. Now it’s the dummy Brain and our Stygian costumes.”

Jim Willard tried to reassure his boss. “We can leave the Brain out of our scenes till the boys make up a new dummy. As for the Stygian outfits, we won’t need them if Chan Carson wins the Stygians’ cooperation.”

“All right, but let’s get started before something else happens,” snorted the producer. “Where’s the old prospector who was going to guide us?”

“Right here,” drawled Ezra Gurney, stepping forward.

Grag had meanwhile been loaded onto one of the rocket-trucks. The actors and technicians were climbing aboard the vehicles.

“I know Styx as well as any outsider, which ain’t sayin’ much,” he heard Ezra telling the producer. “It’s easy for a man to get lost in these mists, but I can take you to the Furries’ city Dzong, all right.”

Jon Valdane had been standing beside the
Perseus,
watching the bustle of preparation. “We’re ready to start, Valdane,” Lewis told him.

The chubby financier answered quickly. “I’m not going with you on this trip. To tell the truth, I’m too tired. All this long voyage has worn me out.”

“It’s wearing me out too, the way things are happening,” Lewis said gloomily. “All right, Jim — start rolling.”

The rocket-trucks that contained the telepicture troupe and their equipment moved ponderously across the misty landing-field. As they passed the battered little cruiser that was the disguised ship of the Futuremen, Grag looked longingly at it. He wished he could see Eek.

The caravan of trucks throbbed toward Planet Town, more than a mile away, and then rolled through the sordid, noisy streets of metalloy structures and headed northward into the shrouding white fog.

Grag sat stiffly propped in a corner of the last truck, just as the property-men had carelessly left him. His mind was not so much on the indignity of being so treated, as it was upon the surprising fact that Jon Valdane had remained behind. Was Valdane, Grag wondered uneasily, up to something back there in Planet Town? Maybe he should have stayed to find out?

“But the chief told me to watch over Joan,” the robot told himself. “And I couldn’t stay, without them finding out I’m no automaton.”

Captain Future had impressed on Grag that if he once showed signs of life and intelligence, the whole precarious imposture of the Futuremen would be shattered. The truck-caravan throbbed northward through the drifting mists for an hour, first up the shallow valley and then over a rolling plain of blank white grass and towering club-mosses. There was little talk. The telepicture people were subdued by the oppressive, awesome mystery.

Grag heard Ezra Gurney’s drawling voice drift back. “Gettin’ pretty near the Furries’ city now,” Gurney was telling the producer.

“I hope Chan Carson was able to make friends with the Stygians by his Captain Future make-up,” Lewis said in a worried voice. “It’ll help a lot.”

Lo Quior suddenly cried a warning. “There are some Stygians just ahead.”

Startled, Grag managed to twist his head imperceptibly so that he could see. Nervous exclamations were coming from the whole party.

A half-score of the weird, white-furred natives stood, only half-visible in the shrouding mists. They formed a semi-circle across the path of the caravan’s advance. The Stygians suddenly raised long, slim tubes in an odd motion. Next moment, a vicious shower of deadly, tufted wooden darts whizzed through the mist and struck the rocket-trucks.

“They’re attacking us,” yelled Jim Willard. One of the darts had ripped through his lower arm.

Sam Martin had taken a dart through his throat and was sprawled dead, half out of his truck. A technician was clawing at a missile that had stuck in his chest, and another prop-man was yelling in agony.

“Turn the trucks around,” Jeff Lewis cried hoarsely. “Start back to Planet Town.”

“It seems incredible,” exclaimed Joan Randall. “I’ve never heard of Stygians killing anyone before.”

EZRA GURNEY, whipping out an atom-pistol from inside his jacket, fired a crackling bolt. One of the Stygians crumpled. But the other Stygians instantly melted back into the mist, out of sight. And from these invisible attackers there continued to whiz the deadly darts that now were striking down more of the party.

The telepicture troupe was giving way to panic. The rocket-trucks had jammed together when their drivers had run into that one which Sam Martin had been driving, and which had stalled when he was killed. As they jammed, Ron King yelled in pain and terror as a dart grazed his cheek. And Lura Lind’s shrieking rose shrilly above the whole babel.

“Those aren’t Stygians,” Grag exclaimed to himself, thunderstruck. “The costumes that were stolen from the property-room —”

There was no time for Grag to complete the thought. The panic that had seized the telepicture troupe was costing lives.

Ezra Gurney had the only weapon in this unarmed party. He could not use it now, for there were no targets. The attackers had retired into the concealing mist, from which their darts continued to rain on the party.

“This is where an automaton comes to life,” thought Grag. Then he exploded into action.

He leaped off the truck and began to advance in great, clanking strides toward the unseen foes in the mist.

“Stop that automaton,” yelled Jeff Lewis through the din. “It must have rolled off. Something set its switches going. It’s running wild.”

But Grag was already plunging into the mist. Darts rattled off his metal body without harming him in the least. He began to seek for the attackers. Then his sensitive microphone ears located the source of the whizzing darts, and he charged in that direction.

Two of the weird, white-furred men who were crouching in the mist and loosing their missiles toward the telepicture party, suddenly looked up to see the giant metal robot looming over them with his photoelectric eyes blazing down like stars in the mist.

The men uttered yells and recoiled. Grag’s mighty metal arms caught them and hurled them senseless to the ground. He stalked on, found another of the attackers. But this one was already fleeing. The attackers retreated from the enraged robot as he searched the fog.

Grag heard Jeff Lewis shouting over the din. “Get Martin’s truck started. Turn back to Planet Town.”

Grag would dearly have loved to remain and hunt down the ambushers, but Captain Future had told him to guard Joan. Mindful of that order, the big robot turned and tramped hastily back to the troupe. The trucks had been turned around and the telepicture troupe was panically streaming southward with its dead and wounded.

Deadly darts still whizzed out of the mist at them, taking toll of more actors as they retreated. Grag found Joan Randall and Ezra at the rear of the panic-stricken retreat, Ezra firing furiously in the mist.

“Can’t see them to shoot at, dang them!” swore the old veteran.

Grag picked up Joan bodily and carried her as though she were a feather, his great metal body shielding her from the whizzing darts.

“Put me down,” cried the furious girl. “I’m going on after Curt.”

“You’re going back to the ship,” the inflexible robot replied. “The chief ordered me to keep you out of harm.”

With Ezra Gurney beside him, he strode rapidly through the mist after the fleeing telepicture caravan as they retreated to Planet Town with their unseen attackers still following and showering darts upon them.

UPON hearing the news the Brain had brought, Captain Future, in the Stygian city, had had a disastrous divination.

“We’ve got to head off the telepicture party and turn them back to Planet Town,” he cried as he raced for the door. “They’re coming into danger and death.”

Qu Lur and Th’ Thaan and the other Stygians were with them as they burst out of the big stone tower into the misty daylight.

“We go with you,” exclaimed Qu Lur. “You can go faster upon our kurus.”

The kurus were the big, kangaroo-like animals which the Stygians used as steeds. A row of them, already saddled, was tethered outside the council tower. Both Curt Newton and Otho had ridden them before. They sprang into the saddles as the Stygians also hastily mounted. In a moment, their mounts were galloping in long, hopping leaps through the stone streets of Dzong. As they rode, the Brain glided swiftly beside them.

Otho called out to Captain Future. “Chief, what is it?” he asked. “What’s the danger to the telepicture caravan?”

“It’s Valdane’s plot,” exclaimed Curt. “I was blind not to see it before, when every clue pointed to it. I know now what he meant by ‘the loophole in the Stygian treaty.’ That treaty provides that the Stygians retain complete authority over their own world, but only so long as they maintain order on it!” Curt Newton reminded fiercely. “That’s the loophole in it. If Valdane can bring about an attack by the Stygians on this much-publicized telepicture party, the System will ring with resentment against the Stygians. The treaty will be broken, and the System Government will take over Styx.”

Qu Lur, riding beside them, had heard and now uttered a cry of unbelief. “But we Stygians have no intention of attacking anyone. We never use violence.”

“If I’m not wrong, Valdane has taken care of that problem too,” growled Captain Future.

There was no chance for further talk, for now they were outside the Stygian city and the kurus were galloping in a dead run. The big, leaping white steeds raced southward through the mist, back in the direction of Planet Town. Though their speed was great, they seemed slow to Curt Newton as he thought of Joan Randall’s peril.

The misty, subdued daylight was darkening to a deeper dusk as night approached. The shrouding fog through which they rode seemed to press more closely upon them. They had galloped a half hour when one of the kurus snorted and shied. There came a call from Th’ Thaan, its rider.

“There is a dead man here upon the ground.”

Curt Newton’s heart chilled. He rode swiftly with the others to Th’ Thaan’s side and dismounted. Upon the white turf lay the limp, dead figure of what appeared to be a Stygian. The white fur of his chest was scorched and blackened by the atom-blast that had killed him.

“One of our people-slain,” exclaimed Qu Lur.

“No, not one of yours,” Curt Newton said. “Look here.”

He had bent over the dead figure and was tugging at it. The white-furred skin seemed to come suddenly away from the body, and with it came the mask that had covered the face.

It was as Earthman who lay here dead. He had worn a close-fitted zipper-suit and mask which had made him an exact replica of a Stygian.

“It is a costume to make him look like us,” cried old Qu Lur in anger.

“Valdane’s planning,” rapped Captain Future, his face dark with passion. “He had to have Stygians attack the telepicture party, to set his machinations working. He knew real Stygians never would attack, no matter what the provocation. So he sent Su Thuar and his ‘bodyguards’ ahead, wearing these Stygian costumes from the telepicture properties, to ambush the caravan. That’s why they brought the Jovian blow-guns.”

HE AND Otho and the Brain made a quick search of the surrounding plain. They found no other bodies. But they did find clear signs of what had taken place. The telepicture caravan had fled back to Planet Town with the disguised attackers pursuing.

Qu Lur and Th’ Thaan and the other Stygians came riding up through the foggy dusk to where Curt Newton and the two Futuremen were searching.

The old Stygian’s face was solemn with purpose. “We have seen enough,” he told Captain Future. “We know now that our world is in danger from these ruthless men. So we must act now to protect it.”

His voice deepened. “This night, every alien visitor on Styx must leave our world. For if they do not go before Pluto rises tonight, we unloose the Destroyer on them.”

Curt Newton uttered an exclamation. “You must not do that, no matter what the danger. It would cause a planetary disaster.”

“Too long have we been patient,” Qu Lur declared firmly. “Because we will never use violence or take life, the alien men in Planet Town have believed that they could safely mock our laws. Now this final outrage forces us to use our great weapon of defense.