Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946) (15 page)

“I’d follow Ru Ghur into the Sun itself to kill that devil and get Mars’ radium back!” blazed Bork King.

“An’ the rest of us feel the same way,” drawled Ezra. “You ain’t the only one that’s worryin’ about Joan, Curt.”

RETURNING with the
Comet
to the Moon laboratory, hastily, the adventurers packed every available inch of the ship with powdered copper fuel for its cyclotrons. Then, with Captain Future at the space-stick, the little ship rose from the Moon and plunged toward the glaring Sun on its daring journey.

Grag and Otho checked the anti-heaters carefully. Those big mechanisms in the cyc room would alone enable them to penetrate the solar heat, by emitting a constant counter wave to dampen the vibrations of the Sun’s radiant heat.

Finally, the ship rushed across the orbit of Mercury. It seemed to poise for the final plunge into peril.

“There it is, close to the Sun!” Captain Future called. “You can just see it in the lens.”

Dark-ray filters had been slipped over the lookout lenses. Even with this protection, the vista that confronted them was terrifying. The Sun loomed up in colossal majesty, the blinding orb appearing to fill half the firmament, with its burning corona extending far out from it.

Close to the outer edge of that corona hung a dark body that was but a speck beside the mighty star — Vulcan.

“Don’t start the anti-heaters yet,” Curt called. “We can stand this, and we’ll need every ounce of fuel.”

It was already uncomfortably hot, even in this insulated ship. And the temperature was mounting as they roared on into increasing heat.

Curt had slipped on ray-proof sun glasses, but even so the glare of the great star dazed his eyes. He was sweating in the stifling heat, and old Ezra was gasping for breath. Little Eek clawed at Grag’s foot, while Oog was whimpering in complaint.

“The hull won’t take much more heat than this!” warned Otho.

“Throw in the anti-heaters now,” ordered Captain Future.

He opened the cyclotrons to the last notch. But now most of their power was diverted to the anti-heaters which threw a protective aura around the
Comet
. The heat in it abated a little.

Curt looked anxiously at the fuel gauges. The cycs, at full power, were eating up the fuel at a rapid rate. They would have about enough to reach Vulcan, and little more.

“Which means we get copper at Vulcan, or else,” he thought grimly.

“Gods of Mars!” gasped Bork King. “Look at the Sun now!”

The whole heavens ahead were Sun to their dazed eyes. Minds reeled as they flung on toward the Titan orb and its satellite.

The fiery radiance of the great star penetrated even through the protective aura of the anti-heaters. The air inside the ship was suffocatingly hot. Blood was pounding in Curt’s temples, from the heat. He heard the deafening roar of the cycs and hum of the anti-heaters only dimly.

“We’re nearly there!” he called back finally. “It won’t get any worse than this. We’ll land and replenish our copper fuel, then —”

“Replenish our fuel on Vulcan?” cried Grag. “Chief, we can’t! Look down there, through the lookout lens!”

Captain Future looked down at the solar satellite toward which they were descending. And he felt the blood leave his heart. Vulcan was a molten ball! Its surface was an unbroken expanse of fiery liquid rock, on which danced changing flames.

It would be impossible to get copper here. And in less than an hour, their fuel would give out, the cyclotrons and anti-heaters would fail and let them perish in the flaming heat!

* * * * *

Joan Randall awoke slowly, her head throbbing with pain. She tried to raise a hand to her forehead, and could not. Her arms and legs were bound once more, and she was fastened to a chair. And even as she opened her eyes the crashing roar of heavy atom-guns struck her ears.

She was in a small cabin in a spaceship of considerable size, and remembered then that she was once more a prisoner in Ru Ghur’s
Falcon
. Opposite her stood a wizened, rat-faced Mercurian with a heavy atom-pistol in his hand. He showed rial-stained teeth in a vicious grin as he met Joan’s eyes.

“Just keep quiet or I’ll blast you,” he said. “You won’t trick me like you two did Kra Kol.”

Another heavy volley of atom-guns shook the ship. Joan realized suddenly that the craft was not in space, but on solid ground.

Memory rushed back to her. She remembered her stratagem to permit Curt Newton to escape, so that he might utilize the clue he had gained to the radium raiders’ activities.

Her self-sacrificial throwing of herself in the path of the returning raider cruisers had succeeded. They had stopped to capture her. She had struggled, had felt a blow on her helmet, then all had been darkness.

“Where are we?” Joan asked. Then, as she twisted her head to glance out through the port-hole, she cried: “Why this is Mars!”

“You’ve been unconscious a good while,” admitted the ratlike Mercurian.

JOAN was appalled by the scene she glimpsed. The
Falcon
and the three other raider cruisers had landed on a field of snow she identified as on Mars because it was lighted by two moons. The ships’ heavy atom-guns were playing bolts of force upon the side of a small black mountain.

She saw the brilliant blasts of energy tear open a hole in the side of the mountain, uncovering a tunnel. At once, the firing ceased. Raiders charged across the snow into the tunnel.

In a half-hour, Joan saw them emerging, carrying small, heavy lead boxes. She was witnessing a raid on a secret Martian radium hoard!

Ru Ghur’s triumphant voice rang through the ship.

“We’ve got it — the last radium we needed! At last we can show the System what we’re going to do with it! Take off for base immediately.”

The raider cruisers rose from the Martian polar snow and tore out into space. They headed upward, away from the Solar System.

Joan’s heart sank. They were on their way back to mysterious Outlaw World, somewhere outside the System.

Ru Ghur entered, and a bland smile creased his moonlike yellow face.

“Conscious again, Miss Randall? You gave us a lot of trouble. And all you accomplished was to get Captain Future killed.”

“You can’t make me believe he’s dead,” Joan answered. “You wouldn’t have dared go into that meteor swarm after him.”

The fat Uranian chuckled. “We didn’t have to. We simply blasted the swarm with our batteries. And even if he escaped that, he would soon run out of oxygen and would perish even more miserably.”

The ships were rushing out into space at a terrific rate. Joan glanced through the port-hole, glimpsed the System falling away beneath them.

“Ah, you’re wondering where we’re going?” Ru Ghur smiled.

“I don’t care if Outlaw World is at the other end of the universe,” Joan said firmly. “Curt and the Futuremen will track you down.”

He laughed, and left her.

A few hours later, she was surprised when the four raider ships abruptly changed course. They headed back toward the System, in a sweeping curve. And Joan’s mystification increased when she saw that their course now apparently had for its goal the Sun itself.

Lower and lower toward the Sun rushed the four vessels. It began to get uncomfortably hot in the
Falcon
, Then the girl agent heard anti-heaters begin their familiar hum, and the temperature eased off somewhat.

Ru Ghur, returned and seemed amused by her astonishment.

“No, Outlaw World isn’t in the Sun as you may be thinking,” he said. “But it’s close to it.”

“Vulcan!” exclaimed Joan. “No, it couldn’t be!”

“But it is,” the fat Uranian assured, “Yes, Vulcan is Outlaw World. The mysterious place that everyone has been hunting for, has been right here in the center of the System all the rime.”

“But it’s a molten world,” Joan said incredulously.

Ru Ghur smiled, “Everyone has always thought so. But I had long believed differently. My particular field of science was radiation, and I had studied Vulcan with the idea of setting up a station there for research into solar radiation. My study of the little world, especially its low specific gravity, made me believe it might be partly habitable.

“So a year ago I risked my life on that belief when Captain Future and his band hunted me out of the Solar System because of my Lethe-ray. My little ship couldn’t possibly reach another star, but it had anti-heaters. So I made for Vulcan, and found that my theory was correct. Vulcan offered me a safe refuge.”

Ru Ghur’s small eyes glistened, “it offered me more than that, for I saw how Vulcan could be used as a weapon against the whole System, a weapon that would make me unconquerable! All I would need was radium, for power.

So, I assembled a force of raiders and then went after that radium.”

“And after every raid you’ve been, heading out into deep space, then doubling back to Vulcan!” Joan exclaimed.

THE four raider ships were now dropping through a terrific glare toward the surface of the solar satellite. Joan gasped as she saw it through the port-hole. For the whole surface of Vulcan was a semi-liquid mass of burning rock, a molten plain. No ship could land on it.

“You’re beginning to think that poor old Ru Ghur is crazy?” mocked the fat Uranian. “Wait — in a moment you’ll see.”

Then Joan saw that below them was a big, crater-like opening in the burning surface. The four raider ships descended straight down into that open pit! It was brilliantly illuminated by the glare of the Sun, and she saw that a little way down the molten rock gave way to solid rock.

The ships approached the bottom of the pit. Massive metal-lined tubes were set around its sides, but Joan paid their no attention as she gazed downward, stunned. The ship were dropping into a vast, open space inside Vulcan.

“Vulcan is a hollow world!” she gasped.

“And inside it is my base.” Ru Ghur nodded. He added, “In a way, I regret that you are learning the mystery of Outlaw World. For of course this seals your fate.”

LOOKING down from the
Comet
at the burning, molten surface of Vulcan, Captain Future could hardly believe his eyes. He had been so sure that the solar satellite somehow must be habitable despite the heat. Now his convictions were rudely shattered.

“Chief, what are we going to do?” cried Grag.

“There’s only one thing we can do,” declared Ezra Gurney, “Get away from the Sun at once.”

“We couldn’t make it out of the heat-zone before our fuel gave out,” rapped Curt. “There must be some habitable refuge on Vulcan. Our only chance now is to find it in time.”

The others looked skeptical, but did not protest his decision, though a fiery death seemed inevitable.

“If there is some refuge here, that’s where Ru Ghur’s base is,” Captain Future said positively. “And that’s where his radium hoard is. See if the radium compass shows anything, Simon.”

The Brain manipulated the radium detecting instrument to sweep the molten little world over which the
Comet
hovered.

“The radium’s here, all right,” reported the Brain. “We’re so close to it that it’s almost blown out the compass. It’s located about a quarter of the way around the equator.”

Instantly Curt Newton started the
Comet
screaming around the equator of the Sun-scorched satellite.

All Vulcan’s surface was molten rock. There was no sign of anything solid.

“The whole surface must be like this,” muttered Otho gloomily.

They reached the point on the equator that Simon had indicated. All strained their eyes against the terrific glare, to peer downward.

“Nothing but burning rock!” exclaimed Bork King. “And if we die here, Mars dies and Ru Ghur escapes vengeance!”

“Wait a minute!” Curt exclaimed sharply. “There’s something down there — a crater or hole of some kind.”

He sent the ship swooping down in a long slant until they were hanging above what looked like a big circular natural crater a mile in diameter. Captain Future, peering intently down through the lookout-lens, glimpsed a vast space into which the crater debouched. He felt a staggering shock of enlightenment.