Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) (19 page)

“A chance that’s cursed slim, when it depends on building a completely nonmetallic electric machine in a day or two,” Otho muttered.

Yet Otho plunged into the labor with the same unremitting zeal as Curt Newton himself. Joan Randall joined them in the work, as did Lo Quior, the little Martian telepicture technician. Their workshop was in the big council-hall itself.

Madly impossible task it seemed, indeed, to build a complicated electric generator and projector without the use of metal. Yet Captain Future’s energy and genius drove the work forward despite all difficulties.

THE source of electric power did not present so many obstacles. A series of powerful Sanderson chemical batteries were soon constructed, using glass tanks and the chemicals which had been dropped from the
Comet.

The coils and tubes of the hard-radiation generator were the great problem, since they had no wire. Curt Newton planned to use carbon for the filaments of his coils and valves, though its mediocre conductivity would make the generator one of comparatively low efficiency.

“The point is, to destroy the blight in a small area at least,” Captain Future declared. “Then ships can land safely in that area, bringing equipment with which to construct a bigger, efficient generator.”

He and Otho made their coil-forms of glass. Upon these forms they toilsomely wound their coils, using cord of twisted moss-fibers instead of wire.

“How in space can that moss-cord replace metal wire?” Ezra Gurney demanded skeptically.

“It will work, though the efficiency will be poor,” Newton insisted. “I made preliminary tests of the fiber, and it’s the best material available for our purpose.”

When the coils were completely wound, they were subjected to carefully-controlled heat in an improvised oven. The high degree of heat slowly carbonized the fibers, burning away impurities.

Curt Newton inspected the coils after the baking. They were now of brittle, delicate carbon wiring, whose large diameter partly made up for its indifferent conductivity.

“Now the tubes,” he exclaimed. “Otho, while I’m working on that you bake out the carbon rods we’ll need for our connections.”

Night had come. They were working now by torchlight. The Stygians watched their labors wonderingly, thinking that it was part of their effort to communicate with their ship. Curt Newton did not undeceive them.

Ezra Gurney and Jim Willard returned from a reconnoitering expedition out in the darkness. They reported no sign yet of attackers.

“But they’ll come soon, I’m thinkin’,” muttered the old veteran. “What I’d give for a couple of atom-guns when they do come.”

Dawn found Captain Future reeling with fatigue. He had not slept for two nights, and even his iron frame felt leaden from weariness.

But he insisted on driving the work ahead. Their motor-generator was completely finished, though the radiation projector was not. He tested the generator, closing the circuit of rigid carbon rods that connected it with the series of Sanderson batteries.

The rotor of the big, crude motor turned with shrieking noisiness upon its axles of toughened glass. But it delivered current from the attached generator-high voltage current to operate the projector.

“Turn it off,” Newton ordered. “That’s enough for a test-run. Those vibrations might shatter the carbon cells if it runs too long.”

He had improvised tubes with nonmetallic grids and filaments. These were a failure. He had to go to work on them again.

Then, in later afternoon, two Stygian scouts rode their kurus hastily through the mists into the city.

“The aliens of Planet Town are coming,” the scouts reported excitedly. “They are only a couple of miles away.”

“Ezra — Willard — Lewis — get our men on the walls and at the gate,” Curt Newton ordered. “I’m going on with this. Perhaps it will be possible to finish it before they get here. And if it works, and kills the blight in this area, the
Comet
and other ships can land.”

“What about Valdane?” asked Ezra grimly, jerking a thumb toward the chubby, terrified financier whom they had kept under guard with the other prisoner, Rosson.

“Leave him there,” said Newton. “He’d be no good as a hostage, for Su Thuar doesn’t care whether we kill him or not.”

Old Qu Lur and Th’ Thaan had gathered their Stygians. The moon-men all wore the strange telepathic lenses upon their foreheads.

“We will use our powers to the utmost to halt the attackers,” Qu Lur declared earnestly.

Curt Newton kept Otho with him, toiling with desperate haste in the fabrication of new tubes for the projector. Time was running out, now.

His hands trembled as they finally finished the task and inserted the new tubes in the apparatus. Again, he closed the circuit that sent the batteries’ current flowing into the makeshift mechanism.

The shrieking of the generator’s glass axles did not quite drown the slow, rising hum that came from the projector. Its radiating-sphere of carbon showed no change, and they felt nothing.

But Curt Newton knew that the mechanism was emitting hard radiation that was drenching the area for at least a dozen miles in every direction.

“Is it working?” Joan Randall whispered. “Is it killing the blight?”

“I don’t know yet,” he answered in taut tones. “It should work quickly, if at all.”

The shrieking, spinning rotors of the generator threatened to shatter their carbon coils at any moment. Curt Newton imprisoned a speck of the gray dust that still floated everywhere, and inspected it through his make-shift magnifier.

He uttered a hoarse cry of triumph. The gray spores were turning black. They were dying — killed by the radiation.

“It’s working,” he cried. “The blight in this area is destroyed, clear up to the limits of the atmosphere. The projector will keep any living spores from entering this area, so long as it continues to run.”

At that moment, there broke upon their ears a fierce, distant chorus of raging yells that came from the southern side of Dzong.

“Su Thuar’s band,” cried Joan Randall. “They’re here.”

“There’s still time enough,” Curt Newton answered feverishly, racing toward the door. “I can call the
Comet
to come, by the heliograph.”

Then, as he and Joan emerged from the tower in which he had built his projector, Curt Newton stopped, appalled.

He had forgotten one thing. He had forgotten the mist! The big, drifting bank that had shrouded Dzong all day still lay over it.

And while that mist veiled the city, he could not use the heliograph, could not flash his message to Simon Wright and Grag.

The bitter irony of it struck to Captain Future’s soul. He and the others had achieved the impossible, only to have their work made futile by mere mist.

DEEP fog still hid the skies but, sooner or later Curt Newton knew the mist would pass. It would pass, in time — but time was what they would not have if Su Thuar’s forces won the city. That would end all hope, indeed.

“We’ve got to hold them off, till the mist clears and we can get a heliograph message through to the
Comet!”
Newton exclaimed.

He started forward with Otho on a run, toward the south wall of the city. Joan Randall started to accompany him, but he motioned her back.

“No, Joan! Somebody’s got to stay here by the heliograph, to send the message the moment the mist clears. And you’re the only one of these people who knows the message-code.”

She protested, but he was deaf to her objections as he and the android ran to join the other defenders.

“Just let me get my hands on that devil Su Thuar,” Otho was swearing. “I wish to blazes we’d killed him that night on Saturn four year ago, when you shot it out with his brother.”

They climbed up to the south wall, upon whose parapet were Ezra Gurney and Jeff Lewis and young Jim Willard.

The Stygians were there too, ranged all along the wall, their faces turned toward the misty plain southward, each man wearing the telepathic lens upon his forehead.

“They’re comin’,” Ezra Gurney grimly told Captain Future. “Hear them?”

Out of the mist came again that chorus of ferocious yells. Then from the fog appeared the mass of hundreds of men, advancing rapidly.

Curt Newton recognized Su Thuar at their head. Behind the Venusian criminal followed the motley throng of interplanetary adventurers who, deeming themselves trapped forever on Styx, were willing to follow their leader to conquer and enslave the Stygians.

“They’ve got plenty of those blowguns, as well as war-clubs,” Jim Willard explained. “Su Thuar hasn’t been idle.”

Old Qu Lur spoke from his station on the wall, to his rows of waiting Stygians.

“Now!”

Captain Future and the other watchers perceived then a sight that stunned them with wonder.

Out from the city Dzong there suddenly rushed a magically-materialized band of stalwart men in the gray uniform of the Planet Patrol. They charged the attackers, leveling their heavy atom-guns as they did so.

“The Patrol,” yelled a terrified Saturnian behind Su Thuar. “They’ve landed somehow. There they come.”

The whole mob halted in its tracks, wavered on the verge of flight. Curt Newton was breathless with hope.

But Su Thuar’s cunning and courage reversed the situation. The Venusian shouted to his followers. “Don’t be fools. It’s only one of the Furries’ illusion-tricks.” But the mob still held back. For now the advancing Patrol band was triggering its atom-guns, loosing brilliant bolts of energy toward them.

Su Thuar’s yell came clearly. “See that? Those atom-guns haven’t killed a one of us. They’re just illusion.”

His motley followers, taking courage from the fact that none of them had fallen, again rushed forward howling.

And the Patrol band vanished. They were gone like a snapped-out picture film. Qu Lur turned to Curt Newton, registering defeat. “We placed our hope in that illusion, and it’s failed. But maybe others will succeed.”

He and the Stygians proceeded in their desperate extremity to give a magnificent demonstration of their hypnotic powers of illusion.

Ravening monsters of hideous aspect appeared to hurl themselves toward the attackers. Tidal waves of water rolled menacingly upon them. A wall of flaming fire sprang up in their faces. And it was all illusion, mass hypnotism practiced on everyone here by the Stygians’ concentration.

But Su Thuar’s rallying voice kept his men advancing. They had plucked up confidence and now were defying the fearsome-looking obstacles in their path. And now they were but a few hundred feet from the wall.

THE Venusian yelled an order and they brought their blow-guns into play. A shower of keen darts swept the parapet of the wall. Poorly aimed as many of them were, still a half-dozen found their mark and four Stygians and two of the telepicture technicians fell back wounded.

“Get down under cover,” Curt Newton yelled. “You’re not doing any good exposing yourselves. Wait till they try to climb the wall and then use your swords.” He and Otho had provided themselves with two of the tough glass swords with which the telepicture men and Ezra Gurney were armed.

But they soon learned that Su Thuar had no intention of trying to scale the wall. They heard the Venusian’s ringing command. “Bring that battering-ram ahead. Quick!”

“They’re goin’ to bust in the gate, Cap’n Future,” cried Gurney.

“Down behind it, then,” Curt Newton cried. “Get more stones to brace it!” Curt ordered. He saw a score of the motley mob running forward through the others, bearing a massive club-moss trunk that had been shorn of branches.

As Curt Newton leaped down with the others to take a station behind the gate, the battering-ram crashed into it from the outside. He looked up wildly at the sky. The bank of mist was still drifting slowly across Dzong. Not yet had the sky cleared.

“They’ll be through in a minute,” Otho yelled with wolfish excitement, his green eyes blazing. “I wish old Grag were here with us now.”

Crash! The right leaf of the massive stone gate shattered off its crude, ancient hinge and was driven in against the stones that braced it. Through the opening, Su Thuar and his brutal horde came pouring.

“The city’s ours,” yelled the Venusian. “Kill all the Futuremen and the telepicture fools — but not the women.”

It was that command and its hideous implications that exploded cold fury in Curt Newton’s brain. He sprang forward with his little group of comrades to stem the entrance of the invaders.

Blown-gun darts whistled past his face. He was seeking Su Thuar, but in the cramped, choked confusion of that staggering fight, he came face to face not with the Venusian but with Jos Vakos, the Jovian.

The Jovian’s green face was a brutal, distorted mask of ferocity as he raised his stone-studded war-club for a shattering blow.

Curt Newton ducked and stabbed upward under his opponent’s descending arm. The slim glass blade of the sword ripped into the Jovian’s heart, and he staggered and fell. “There ain’t enough of us,” Ezra Gurney was panting as he fought beside Curt in the narrow combat. “They’re pushing us back.”