Captain Future 04 - The Triumph of Captain Future (Fall 1940) by Edmond Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

did not hear the haunting, quivering music as he stared thoughtfully out the window into starry space.
    Concern for Grag confused his thoughts of a grim realization. This struggle against the Lifewater syndicate had developed into the most perilous adventure he had ever entered.
    The syndicate was strong, he had found out. But it was strong not only on one world, but on all of them. That disciplined, coldly efficient organization enmeshed the whole System. And at the center of that web of evil, he knew, was a powerful, remorseless, directing mind.
    The Comet hurtled on toward Mars — and what Curt Newton hoped would be a mortal blow at the center of the octopuslike traffic.
    “Mars below, I’m cutting the rockets,” Otho finally called back in his hissing voice. “How near to the Machine City do we land?”
    “A mile is near enough,” Curt advised. “It’s on the night side now, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, and all lit up and gay as usual,” Otho answered. “You’d think people were really living there.”
    Captain Future watched with the android from the control room. Their ship was spinning down into the shadow of Mars’ night side, toward the region of the red planet near the southern pole.
     
    AVAST, dim desert stretched below them in the light of the two moons. Far ahead on that darkling plain rose a city whose brilliantly lighted towers flung a white glare against the sky.
    The Cornet landed softly on the desert, its rocket-tubes flurrying the sand in a miniature storm and then failing silent.
    Captain Future picked up a heavy, boxlike little instrument he had been working on during the last few hours.
    “All right, Otho,” he said, and turned to the Brain. “You’re coming along, aren’t you, Simon?”
    “Yes,” said the Brain. “Pick me up, Otho.”
    The android did so, and they emerged from the little ship into the biting chill of the Martian night.
    The gravitation-neutralizers they wore had automatically set to the lesser Martian gravity. Feeling no change in weight, Curt tramped with his strange comrades across the soft sand, toward the dazzling illuminated towers of the distant city.
    Have to watch from here on,” he cautioned Otho. “There will be real danger if the syndicate’s headquarters is here.”
    “There’s danger here, anyway,” retorted Otho ruefully. “Those cursed machine guards are still patrolling.”
    The brilliantly lighted city, which the three comrades were approaching, was one of the strangest and most mysterious relics in the whole System.
    Long ages ago, a human race with a highly advanced civilization and great scientific powers had flourished in this part of Mars. They were known even to have achieved space travel and to have explored other worlds. But with their passing, this achievement had been lost.
    That ancient Martian people had had wonderful mechanical aptitude. They delighted in constructing ever more complex labor-saving machines to spare them the necessity of any drudgery. They had called themselves the Machine-masters because all labor in their metropolis was eventually performed by imperishable, self-powered machines that worked in fixed, unalterable routines.
    But the Machine-masters, with no toil or struggle to stimulate their energies, soon fell into decadence. There was no need to worry about food. It was all raised and brought to them by machines. Their clothing was made by other machines. They had not even any enemies to fear. Around their city, mindless machine guards patrolled which would instantly slay any intruder.
    So the Machine-masters, sinking further into decadence, had finally passed away. But their wondrous Machine City remained. In it, the imperishable machines continued the unalterable routine of labor and guarding that their masters had started. For age upon age, the machines of this place had been working on in the same old way. Everyone in the System had heard of the Machine City. But few had ever dared even to approach it, so