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

against most conceivable forces, so the Brain was unaffected.
    Simon’s lens eyes turned on their flexible metal stalks toward Captain Future.
    “Lad, can’t you move at all?” he asked.
    “Not — a muscle,” Curt breathed in struggling, unarticulated speech. “But — if we stand here — much longer — the transmutation effect — will begin — to operate.”
    “Ten thousand space devils — take men who — built this cursed thing!” Otho managed to curse.
    “If only I could do something!” the Brain exclaimed. “I’m the only one unaffected, and I can do nothing.”
    Curt Newton desperately racked his brain. Some expedient must permit them to escape from this deadly captivity before the slow force began to transmute them into metal.
    His alert mind considered every phase of their situation. He and Otho, unable to move a muscle, could do nothing. Therefore the only hope lay in the Brain. But the Brain was dangling from Otho’s grasp. Simon could move only his flexible eye stalks.
    A wild hope came into Curt’s mind.
    The Brain was hanging very close to the half-raised pistol in Otho’s other hand. In that fact there might just be a chance for salvation.
    “Simon — listen!” he breathed. “Can you — touch Otho’s — proton pistol — with your eye stalks?”
    Puzzledly the Brain extended the flexible metal stalks of his strange eyes to their full length. Then he answered.
    “Yes, I can do that,” he rasped. “Why, lad?”
    “Our only chance,” Curt breathed. “Try to raise Otho’s pistol-hand a little — to make the pistol-point at that — blazing disk in the wall — I’ll direct you.”
    The Brain suddenly understood. He exerted all the power of his flexible eye stalks to raise the other hand of the paralyzed android.
    Slowly Otho’s hand and proton pistol rose a little. Curt watched hopefully, then called out in a panting cry.
    “That’s — enough, Simon!”
    The Brain stopped his efforts. The proton pistol in Otho’s hand now pointed directly at the quartz disk in the wall, from which the paralyzing radiance was streaming on them.
    “Now — try to pull — trigger!” Captain Future breathed.
     
    OTHO’S arm was frozen in the new position. The Brain inserted its eye stalks into the trigger opening of the pistol.
    Curt saw that Simon was exerting all the force of his movable eyes, pressing back against the trigger. Could he do it?
    The trigger of the pistol clicked back suddenly. A pale proton beam lanced from the weapon...
    Squarely it struck the radiant quartz disk in the wall!
    The disk was shattered. The paralyzing transmutation force vanished. Curt Newton and Otho instantly regained their powers of movement.
    “Split my atoms, it worked!” Otho yelled. “Chief, that idea was a lifesaver! If you hadn’t thought of it —”
    Sweat was standing out on Curt’s brow. He mopped his forehead.
    “I don’t want another five minutes like that! That device must have been set there by the Machine-masters to protect the precious jewels in that mosaic. All these metal statues around us are men who were caught by the thing, and turned into metal.”
    Carefully, now that they had been taught caution by their unnerving experience, Curt and the two Futuremen advanced to the wall. They stared with new respect at the wonderful mosaic of precious jewels.
    The mosaic picture undoubtedly depicted the legendary Fountain of Life, Curt thought. It showed a glowing, geyserlike fountain, composed of white Uranian diamonds set in the stone wall.
    Below it, other jewels had been set. On each jewel was carved a word in the ancient Martian writing.
    “The secret of the Waters of Immortal Youth,” Curt read from the jewel-writing. “We, the mighty Machine-masters, found the Fountain of those waters far out on the world of —”
    “That’s all there is to the writing!” Otho exclaimed disappointedly, “The rest of the jewels are gone.”
    In fact, the jewels, on which had been written the