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

ordinary humans who peopled the two planets of this sun. Then when the sun died, and the planets became sheathed in eternal ice, the humans must have moved to this dead star itself, given it a thin artificial atmosphere and used chemical conversion to make food from the rock elements.
    “It’s Ber Del’s idea,” he went on, “that during the course of ages those people gradually evolved the power to ingest the raw rock elements directly into their bodies, and developed claws and teeth capable of digging and grinding the richer rock. Of course, their intelligence would degenerate — they’re little more than brutes, now.”
    “What’s on those spears of yours that kills them so quickly?” Curt asked.
    Skur Kal, the younger Antarian, answered.
    “We castaways discovered that a certain radioactive substance here was poisonous in an extreme degree to the mineral-men. So we made spears tipped with the radioactive poison, to repel them when they attacked us.”
    Hol Jor interrupted, pointing ahead.
    “There’s our camp. Won’t the others be surprised?”
    The camp of the interstellar castaways was in a hollow in the rock plain. The hollow had been gouged by the crash of a large, cylindrical shaped vessel that had been shattered into a total wreck.
    “That’s the ship of Ber Del — the other Vegans in his expedition were all killed in the crash,” Hol Jor explained. “Later, when we others drifted here from Wrecks, we found Ber Del living here and joined forces with him. We’ve lived ever since, using the rations in the wreck and utilizing a chemical conversion unit to make water from the rock-elements.”
    The Comet landed nearby, and the Antarians led the Futuremen into the camp. From the shattered wreck, three men came wonderingly forward to meet them. Hol Jor hailed them.
    “A ship at last, mates! Maybe it means we can finally get off this cursed globe!”
    He named the three men, one by one. Ber Del, the old Vegan, was a small, withered, blue-skinned man, completely hairless, with a bulging intellectual-looking skull, and colorless, faded eyes. Taunus Tar, the man from Fomalhaut’s worlds, was a pink-skinned plump, genial looking man of middle age whose small black eyes peered at them incredulously from between crinkling rolls of fat. Ki lllok, the castaway whose home was one of the suns of this Sagittarius region, was a brown man. The Sagittarian was compact, stocky, clipped of speech, brusque of manner. All three star rovers seemed astounded when Hol Jor told them how far across the galaxy the Futuremen had come.
    “These friends all understand my language — we’ve learned each other’s tongue, in the time we’ve been here,” he explained to Curt.
    “You came that far across the universe?” Ki lllok, the brown Sagittarian, repeated unbelievingly to Captain Future. “It’s hard to believe. Yet your companions certainly look alien.”
    “They came looking for the Birthplace of Matter as we did,” shrugged big Hol Jor. “Only they were luckier than we, and didn’t get completely wrecked when they tried to enter the cloud.”
    Ber Del, the withered old Vegan, shook his head. “Many men from different stars have met their deaths in this part of space, drawn by the lure of the Birthplace and the power its secret would give. And who knows — maybe all in vain. Maybe even if we could penetrate the cloud, we wouldn’t be able to reach the Birthplace against the will of the Watchers.”
    “The Watchers?” Curt repeated sharply. “Who are they? And what do they have to do with the Birthplace of Matter?”
    Big Hol Jor shrugged.
    “It’s just an old tradition that Ber Del mentioned — probably only a baseless legend.”
    “I wish I were sure it’s only a legend,” muttered the old Vegan nervously. “For if it should be true, the man who finally finds the Birthplace will enter a peril beyond anything ever dreamed.”
     

     
Chapter 6: City Beneath the Ice
     
    DIM in the darkness