Captain Future #6: Star Trail to Glory E-Book

Edmond Hamilton

• Herausgeber: Thrilling
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Follow the Futuremen along a multi-million miles of stellar speedway as they streak around the system in their greatest race for justice! The Captain Future saga follows the super-science pulp hero Curt Newton, along with his companions, The Futuremen: Grag the giant robot, Otho the android, and Simon Wright the living brain in a box. Together, they travel the solar system in series of classic pulp adventures, many of which written by the author of The Legion of Super-Heroes, Edmond Hamilton.  

Leseprobe

Star Trail to Glory

Captain Future book #6

by

Edmond Hamilton

Follow the Futuremen along a multi-million miles of stellar speedway as they streak around the system in their greatest race for justice!

Thrilling

Copyright Information

“Star Trail to Glory” was originally published in 1941. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Chapter I

Suicide Station

THE tall, bronzed young Earthman proudly touched the silver comet-emblem on the breast of his gray space jacket. It was the emblem of the Rocketeer, the highest rating any space pilot could attain. Jan Walker’s four young companions—a Martian, a Venusian and two Mercurians—all wore the emblem. They had just passed their final examinations, and they were looking as eagerly as Walker through the windows of the speeding rocket-flier. Beneath was the forbidding, savage Cold Side of Mercury, an eternally dark landscape that never saw the Sun. Tumbled black mountains and frozen black plains seamed by vast cracks stretched in the bitter darkness under the stars.

“Aren’t we almost there?” Jan Walker asked the lanky pilot.

“You wouldn’t be so anxious to get to Suicide Station if you knew the trouble waiting for you there,” the Saturnian grunted.

“We know a good many Rocketeers are killed in this test pilot work,” Walker admitted earnestly. “But we’re not afraid.”

“I’m not talking about the test piloting,” declared the pilot. “That’s tough enough, but that’s just the ordinary risk for a Rocketeer. I’m talking about the way ships have been vanishing here.”

“Ships vanishing?” repeated Ilo, Walker’s Venusian comrade. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Fellows here at Suicide Station take a new ship out for its speed and endurance tests. Suddenly they just find themselves floating in space, with their ship gone. It’s happened scores of times lately.”

“Scores of new ships disappearing?” Jan Walker blurted puzzledly. “Why, there’s been nothing in the tele-news about it!”

“Naturally,” grunted the older Rocketeer. “They don’t want to alarm the System. But it’s happening, just the same.”

Walker and his comrades looked at each other a little blankly. Anxious to pass the grueling tests that would make them or break them as Rocketeers, they felt their eagerness chilled by the cold shadow of mystery.

The Saturnian eased his controls and nodded downward.

“There it is,” he muttered.

Suicide Station, notorious as the destroyer of men and ships! Located on the dark Cold Side of little Mercury, this was the place where space ships turned out by the big factories in the Twilight Zone of Mercury were given exhaustive tests before being pronounced safe. Only the finest pilots could perform the hazardous duty of testing new ships. Jan Walker and his comrades knew that, and looked tensely down at the place where they had to make good.

ON THE frozen black plain stretched a big spaceport, rimmed by krypton lamps. Dozens of shining new Rissmans, Tarks and Kalbers were parked on its north end, and near them rose the metalloy barracks and office buildings. Jan Walker felt the bitter chill of the thin air as he and his comrades emerged from the flier and trooped toward the offices. A little knot of veteran Rocketeers was gathered there in the open.

“I’m Ka Kardak, chief Rocketeer here,” rumbled a squat, brawny Jovian. “So you’re the new pilots! What does the Bureau mean by giving Rocketeer rating to a lot of kids like you? Looks like anyone can get a comet on his chest now, just by asking for it.”

“We passed all the Government examinations to win our ratings, sir,” Jan Walker ventured.

“You passed the exams, did you?” Ka Kardak growled. “Well, isn’t that nice? You did a few loops and space-spins and they pinned a comet on you. So now you think you’re real Rocketeers. You’ll find out different. A Rocketeer has to be all steel and nerve and brain. Even then, he can blank out easy as not.”

A chuckle ran through the veteran Rocketeers watching. Ka Kardak pointed at Ilo, the young Venusian beside Walker.

“You, there. See that Rissman Twelve down on the tarmac?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Ilo puzzledly.

“Take it out and blast around Mercury at full acceleration. Then make a straight speed-landing here when you get back.”

It was one of the standard tests, Walker knew, designed to test the ability of a ship to make a fast emergency landing.

“Do you mean right now, sir?” asked Ilo.

“Of course, right now!” barked Ka Kardak. “Do you expect to loaf around here a week before you start working? Hop to it!”

The Venusian youth dropped his bag and hurried down the line of parked ships toward the Rissman Twelve. The small cruiser had the curious elongated lines characteristic of all Rissmans, its twelve tail rocket-tubes projecting in a bunched cluster. Walker watched his Venusian friend climb into the torpedo-like craft and shut the door. He guessed that Ka Kardak’s idea was to plunge them right into danger without giving them a chance to get scared.

The Rissman Twelve shook to the hum of its cyclotrons. Then its bunched tail-tubes spouted flame, its keel-jets blasted. It zoomed steeply and was gone over the western mountains.

“Good fast start,” growled Ka Kardak grudgingly. “He ought to be back around quick enough.”

Walker felt his heart thudding. He waited, silent as the others in the freezing dark, staring eastward. At last the high-pitched scream of rockets split the thin Mercurian air. Over the eastern ridges came the Rissman. It dived sharply toward the spaceport. Jan Walker held his breath, then gasped in relief as the bow-tubes of the plunging ship spurted flame. The ship slowed its dive.

Abruptly the whole bow of the descending Rissman seemed to cave in. The ship gyrated dizzily, then broke into flame as its cyclotrons exploded. It fell in a blazing mass beyond the spaceport.

“Crash-cars!” yelled Ka Kardak over the roar.

WALKER heard sirens screeching, saw two crash-cars rocket down across the spaceport toward the blazing wreck.

“It’s no use, he’s gone,” someone muttered.

There was a sick silence as veterans and new Rocketeers stared at the flaming funeral pyre in the distance. Ka Kardak’s deep voice broke the silence.

“Defective girders behind the bow-tube thrust-struts. She couldn’t take deceleration and folded up.”

“Ilo killed—just to test that ship!” whispered a Mercurian cadet.

“Sure he was!” snarled Ka Kardak. “Better for him to be killed than have a whole shipful of people die later, isn’t it? That’s what we Rocketeers are for, to make space ships safe for other people. Take that Kalber Twenty off and give it the same test. Pump up speed around the planet and come in for a speed-landing.”

The Mercurian’s swarthy face went gray. He swallowed, took a few steps forward, then stopped. His face was ghastly with fear.

“I—I can’t do it right now!” he gasped. “Seeing Ilo crash like that—I’ll have to have a little time to get hold of myself—”

Ka Kardak grabbed the young Mercurian’s shoulder and with a big green hand tore the silver comet-emblem from the space jacket.

“You’re out,” he stated. “Report back to Solar City.”

The Mercurian stared. “You mean I’m washed up as a Rocketeer? But if you would just give me a little time—”

“Time is what we don’t have in this game,” rumbled Ka Kardak, “You can still be a space pilot, but you haven’t got Rocketeer stuff.”

He whirled on Jan Walker. “You, Earthman! Take that Kalber Twenty up and bring it back in a speed-landing.”

Walker felt bis bones turn to water. The blazing funeral pyre of Ilo’s ship was still bright against the black sky. But he forced himself to move toward the parked craft. It was better to die right here than lose the coveted Rocketeer emblem! He felt stiff and clumsy as he entered the stubby Kalber and shut its door. Numbly he put on a space-suit, as all test pilots must.

He climbed into the pilot chair, shut the switch that started the cyclotrons throbbing. Atomic power blasted back from the tail-tubes as he pulled out the throttles. The spaceport lights of Suicide Station dropped rapidly back from sight. Walker opened the throttles wider. The Kalber, new and untried, bucked and lurched crankily, but it plunged on with increased velocity.

Walker saw the Cold Side flashing past below. Frozen black plains, fissures and jagged hills unrolled at frightful speed. He was racing westward around Mercury at a speed mounting every minute. The Kalber cometed out of the eternal darkness of the Cold Side into the dusk of the Twilight Zone, the narrow band of habitable territory between the Hot and Cold Sides. He glimpsed in the south the lights of Solar City, the capital, and the towers of the big Rissman and Tark space ship factories. Then he was zooming over the Hot Side.

The dazzling glare of a monstrously huge sun beat down on the eternally scorched rocky desert. Far to the south, he could glimpse the gray sheen of the incredible Sea of Lead. Around the Hot Side he flashed, then tore across the Twilight Zone and again was over the Cold Side, rushing pack at terrific speed toward the spaceport. Jan Walker felt the hackles bristle on his nape as the krypton lamps of Suicide Station came into view.

“Here goes!” he whispered thickly inside his helmet.

SPEED-LANDING a ship—diving and using the bow-tubes for a last minute brake instead of dropping on the keel-jets—was always dangerous. In a new, untested ship it was murderous. Walker was almost over the spaceport. His hands gripped the throttles tightly. He estimated distances, then sent the Kalber diving straight down. The tarmac of the spaceport rushed up toward him. He could not even hear the terrific shriek of split air outside, for the ship was traveling faster than the speed of sound.

“Ah-h-h-h!” he yelled inside his suit, to tighten his ribs and diaphragm and prevent them from being crushed by inertia.

He cut the tail-tubes and opened the bow-jets. The impact of deceleration flung him forward in his harness, with a tortured scream from the recoil springs. He felt the blood roar in his ears and his vision blurred. But the Kalber checked its dive abruptly. It poised, its tail dropping. Walker’s shaking hand slammed on the keel-jets and the ship dropped on an even keel to the tarmac just below.

He cut the cyclotrons, got out of his suit and stumbled from the ship. His ears were still roaring as he faced Ka Kardak.

“Test completed, sir,” he reported thickly.

“Well, do you expect a medal for making a simple test-landing?” roared the Jovian, but there was a friendly gleam in his eyes.

Walker’s comrades all made high-speed landing tests on new ships. Not till they had finished did Ka Kardak give them a rest.

“That’s enough for today,” he rumbled. “Incidentally we observe artificial day and night here, since the Sun never touches us. Walker, you and Yalu will take that Kalber out for its speed-tests tomorrow.”

They trooped into the big barracks. Shaken as he was by the death of Ilo, Walker felt excited pride when he sat down to supper with these veteran Rocketeers. But he was more interested in their stories than in his food. They told of desperate test flights, of dire emergencies in the void, of space-racing and its thrills and perils.

“I say that a Rissman will win the Round-the-System Race again this year,” declared Losor, a gray Neptunian Rocketeer.

“I’m not so sure,” drawled old Yalu, the Martian pilot who had been assigned to work with Walker the next day. “They say the new Tark stock model’s faster than anything except Captain Future’s Comet.”

“Ho, wait till the race starts!” scoffed the Neptunian. “I hope I have the Rissman and you the Tark. You’ll eat my flame all the way.”

Twice Jan Walker heard ships landing with roaring tubes on the spaceport outside. They were returning from long-distance speed and endurance test flights. Their Rocketeer pilots came stalking in to take their seats at the tables, calling loud greetings to the others. But two chairs at the table remained unfilled. Walker saw big Ka Kardak looking worriedly at them.

“Where are Uzbo and Smith?” muttered the Jovian. “They should have been back with that Cruh-Cholo ship long ago.”

“Same thing must have happened to Uzbo and Smith as to lots of the rest of us,” drawled old Yalu, the Martian. “Another ship vanished.”

“That makes nine ships in the last three days,” grumbled Losor.

Jan Walker felt the sinister mystery of the missing ships hanging like a black pall over all these hard-bitten Rocketeers. The younger pilots swallowed hard and pushed their plates away.

Chapter II

Mystery in Space

WALKER tossed uneasily in his barracks bunk that “night”, dreaming of impossible speed-landings, of Ilo’s tragic death, and of space ships that vanished strangely. He awoke with a start. The bell that signaled “morning” was ringing. He emerged after breakfast to find other Rocketeers already trooping out toward the ships. The daily grind of testing was about to begin.

Suicide Station was maintained by the big space ship manufacturers for this purpose. All the big factories were located here on Mercury, and the manufacturers combined to pay the expense of this lonely station where their new ships could be tested.

Walker found Yalu warming up the Kalber Twenty. The old Martian Rocketeer already had his space-suit on.

“Did those two missing pilots get back with their ship?” Walker asked. Yalu shook his head, his wrinkled face gloomy.

“Kardak had a televisor call from them after you turned in. Their ship was stolen, like all the rest. They don’t know how it was done. They woke up floating in space, after suddenly going unconscious. A Venus-Mercury freighter picked them up. It’s getting on my nerves. The Planet Police has one of their ace men here investigating. He can’t find out who’s doing it, or how.”

Walker got into his space-suit while Yalu screwed shut the Kalber’s door. At the Martian’s signal, he took the pilot chair.

“All right, Earthling, take her off,” the old Rocketeer ordered. “We’ll run out past the orbit of Venus, cut out of the ship-lane into clear space, and then let her out for the speed trials.”

The Kalber’s cyclotrons throbbed cheerfully as they blasted off from Suicide Station. They soon left Mercury a dwindling brown ball behind them, and zoomed outward toward the orbit of Venus. Earth was a bright green star with the Moon a smaller silver companion star. Beyond lay the great deeps of the outer System. They throbbed on through space until they were past the orbit of Venus. Then Walker veered out of the standard ship-lane.

“All right, Earthman, let her out for all she’s worth,” drawled the old Martian Rocketeer.

Walker’s hands gripped the throttles, but he never opened them. There was a sudden wild blurring of everything around him, a sensation as though he were being flung at awful speed through a howling vortex.

His senses slowly cleared. He still wore his space-suit, but he was not in the Kalber. He was floating in empty space, and there was no ship in sight. Stupefied, he stared around and glimpsed another man floating nearby. Walker snatched the portable impeller from his belt and drove himself toward old Yalu. The Martian’s face was as bewildered as his own.

“Our ship—gone!” choked the veteran, clinging to Walker’s arm. “They got it, whoever they are, like they got the others.”

“But how?” cried Walker. “We saw nobody! There was just a crazy blurring of everything and then—this!”

“It’s some blasted mystery weapon they use,” the old Martian groaned. “It’s like ghosts had taken the ship from us! We’re not far from the ship-lane, so we may be picked up. But how are we going to report another new ship stolen? And how the orange imps of Phoebe are they doing it? Who is doing it? Why?”

For many hours the two men drifted together in space. Jan Walker’s thoughts were bitter. In his first day as a Rocketeer, he had lost the valuable ship he was supposed to test. He felt so discouraged that he almost dreaded being picked up and returned to Mercury.

Suddenly old Yalu gripped his arm and pointed sunward.

“There’s a ship! We’ll use our impellers to flash a signal.”

Frantically they blasted bright flame from their impellers, to catch the attention of the black speck they could see against the Sun. The speck grew larger. The ship had turned and was coming straight toward them. It was a new Garson Sixteen.

When it paused beside them, and they were pulled inside, they found that the craft was piloted by Losor, the tall Neptunian Rocketeer.

“Figured you’d be somewhere in this sector,” he declared. “Ka Kardak sent me out to look for you when you didn’t return. Where’s your ship?”

Jan Walker shrugged gloomily. “It was hijacked from us.”

“Same way as all the other hijackings, Losor,” said Yalu. “Everything suddenly blurred. Then we found ourselves floating in space.”

“This mystery is getting too much for me!” Losor swore. “Three ships gone in two days! No wonder Ka Kardak is burning.”

Ka Kardak in fact seemed boiling with suppressed emotion when he came striding out to meet them as they landed at Suicide Station.

“Of all the space-struck idiots!” he roared. “Letting your ship be taken like that—you two must have fallen asleep!”

“No, we didn’t,” defended Yalu earnestly. “Some queer force hit us.”

“Bah, I ought to wash you both up for this! Three of the space ship magnates are here right now, riding me about these vanished ships. And old Gurney, the Planet Patrol ace, is here with them. Come along, you two imbeciles!”

With sinking heart, Jan Walker followed the Jovian and Yalu into the Station offices. A middle-aged Uranian, fat, yellow-skinned and beady-eyed, came forward to meet them. It was Ak Kalber, head of the big Kalber Space Ship Company.

“That new Twenty of yours is gone,” rumbled Ka Kardak. “Taken off these two men of mine, the same as all the others.”

“This is too much!” hissed Ak Kalber. “Nineteen of my ships have been lost this way, new ships worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Something’s got to be done about this, and done quickly!”

Lan Tark, the tall, solemn-eyed red Martian tycoon of the famous Tark factories, nodded emphatic agreement.

“Kalber’s right. We need action. We can’t stand this heavy loss of brand-new ships.”

The third space ship magnate was Gray Garson, an Earthman with deep lines of worry in his homely, rugged face.

“I’ve lost only six new ships, but that’s a tremendous loss for a small company like mine,” he said ruefully.

Ak Kalber turned toward the fourth man in the office, a grizzled old Earthman in the dark uniform of the Planet Police. He was chewing rial leaf, his faded blue eyes watching everything.

“Marshal Gurney, something must be done to stop these thefts before we’re bankrupted!” the Uranian declared.

JAN WALKER felt his pulse jump as he looked at the bleak-eyed old Police marshal. This was the famous Ezra Gurney, veteran of the Patrol, a companion in arms of the legendary Captain Future himself!

“You still got no idea who’s stealin’ these ships, and why, and how it’s bein’ done?” asked Ezra Gurney thoughtfully.

“I have an idea, yes!” declared Ak Kalber. He looked vindictively at Jan Walker and Yalu. “I believe these Rocketeers are deliberately turning over our new ships to someone, and then coming back with this fantastic story!”

Jan Walker and Yalu bristled at the accusation. Before they could defend themselves, Ka Kardak stepped in.

“No one can call my Rocketeers crooked! They’re a bunch of soft-heads. They have to have me riding them every minute to keep them working, but they’re not crooks. I’ll beat the head off anyone who says they are!”

“Easy, there,” drawled Ezra Gurney to the enraged Jovian. “Gettin’ mad’s not goin’ to help things any. These space ship manufacturers have a right to be worked up, they’ve lost so many valuable new ships. And we Planet Police haven’t been able to track down a single one of those hijacked ships, worse luck. If these thefts keep up, they’ll disorganize the whole space ship manufacturing industry. And so far we haven’t been able to get even an idea where all the stolen ships are taken, or why and how they’re bein’ stolen.”

The old marshal seemed to reach a decision.

“I’m goin’ back to Earth and see the System President about this. I’m goin’ to ask him to call in Cap’n Future!”

“Captain Future?” Kalber exclaimed. He seemed almost taken aback. “Do you think he would investigate this mystery?”

“He would if the President calls him, and I think I can convince the President,” stated Ezra. “We can’t let the whole space ship industry be disorganized this way without doin’ somethin’ about it.”

Gray Garson nodded emphatic agreement, a new light of hope on his rugged face.

“If Captain Future could break up these mysterious thefts, he’d save some of us from bankruptcy!”

“Even we bigger manufacturers can’t stand such losses long,” Lan Tark, the solemn Martian magnate declared. “Rissman and Zamor and the others will all be encouraged to learn that Captain Future may take a hand in this.”

Ezra Gurney strode toward the door.

“I’m goin’ back to Solar City and then blast for Earth. Remember, not a word of this to anyone except the other manufacturers!”

WHEN Ezra Gurney left Mercury an hour later, he would have been less confident of secrecy had he been able to see into a certain small room with walls of smooth stone, a low cement ceiling and no windows. A dim clangor came from outside, but it was impossible to guess its nature, or the location of this secret room. Under a cluster of bright uranite bulbs gleamed the square bulk of a powerful televisor. In front of it stood a weird machine that grotesquely resembled a man.

The machine man stood upon girder-legs and had jointed girder-arms. Behind his metal ribs were compact generators and motors and cogged gears, crowded closely together. His head was a big cubical metal box. In one side of it were two visi-plates that served as eyes. From the mouthlike orifice came a deep, humming voice as the machine man spoke into the televisor.

“This is One speaking. Calling Forty-four at Venus Base!”

The mechanical creature who called himself “One” stood motionless, awaiting a reply. The televisor screen glowed with light. Then it showed another metal machine man, similar to One, except that his cubical head or brain-case was not so large.

“Forty-four speaking. What is it, One?”

“Your report, Forty-four?” demanded One.

“Two space ships captured today,” said the other machine man. “A new Kalber Twenty and a Zamor Eight. We have them safe here at Venus Base.”

“What about their Rocketeer pilots?”