Captain Future 09 - Quest Beyond the Stars (Winter 1942) by Edmond Hamilton Read Free Book Online

of excitement at the thought that there were on the worlds of perhaps countless stars, human races who, in many cases, might have reached an advanced stage of civilization and scientific progress. Hol Jor was asking a question. “From what star do you come?”
    Curt pointed to the tiny spark of his own Sun, barely visible in the low eastern sky.
    “From that star. We call it Sol.”
    Hol Jor’s jaw sagged in astonishment. “You came from there? But that sun as far away across the galaxy. Why, none of us castaways came from so remote a system.”
    Curt seized on his reference.
    “You mean that there are other castaways here beside you two Antarians?”
    “Three others — survivors of different wrecks who managed to reach this cursed sphere,” Hol Jor affirmed. “One is a Vegan, one is from Fomalhaut, and another is a native of one of the stars here in Sagittarius.”
    Hol Jor gave his own names to the stars, but by pointing them out or describing them, made it possible for Curt to identify them.
    “We two Antarians have been castaway here the shortest time,” he continued. “We are the sole survivors of an expedition of ten. We managed to drift to this dark star in space-suits, but the rest of our crew perished when our ship was wrecked trying to enter that cursed cloud.
    He pointed, as he spoke, toward the vast black blot of the cosmic cloud that covered the bigger part of the firmament above — the cloud from which the Futuremen had just escaped perilously.
    Curt stiffened.
    “Why were you trying to enter the cloud?” he asked keenly.
    “To find the Birthplace of Matter, of course,” Hol Jor replied. “Isn’t that why you came to this part of the galaxy?”
    “It is,” Curt admitted. “But we did not dream that men of other stars might be on the same quest.”
    Skur Kal, the younger Antarian, spoke to Captain Future.
    “We desired to find the Birthplace and learn how to make matter from radiation, so that we could revive our dying worlds. Antares is a fading, aging sun. Life is hard on our worlds, and the secret of matter-mastery would make it easy once more.”
    “We are after the same secret for the same reason,” Curt Newton admitted.
    “Of course,” commented Hol Jor unsurprisedly. “The other castaways here were on expeditions with the same purpose. The secret of the hidden Birthplace is a lure that has brought star-explorers here from distant suns for ages, or so old Ber Del says.”
    The big Antarian rose to his feet.
    “Speaking of Ber Del, he and our other friends will be wondering where we are. Let’s go back to our camp, and you can talk to the others yourselves.”
     
    CAPTAIN FUTURE at once accepted the invitation. He led the way into the Comet. The two Antarians looked around the crowded ship in amazement, and Hol Jor uttered a whistle as he surveyed the great generators of the vibration drive.
    “It looks like terrific motive power you’ve got here, even though I can’t fathom its design,” he declared. “Our own ship used a form of electron jets for propulsion, but we could never have got up to speeds capable of coming as far as you have.”
    “Our drive ring is broken and will have to be repaired — that’s why we landed here,” Curt explained. “But we can travel on rocket drive to your camp.”
    When the Comet rose into the dusky sky, Hol Jor tersely explained the direction of the camp. Grag, at the controls, drove the ship low across the cindery plain.
    In the eternal twilight, the surface of the dark star lay infinitely desolate and deathly. As they scudded above the rolling plains and hills of dun-colored slag and cinders, they sighted a small group of gray mineral-men digging in the ground.
    “What are those creatures, anyway?” Otho demanded of the Antarians. “They look like men, but curse me if I ever saw men who could eat raw rock.”
    “Ber Del, my old Vegan friend here, has a theory about them,” Hol Jor replied. “He thinks that long ago they were