Read Online Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941) by Edmond Hamilton - Free Book Online
Book: Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941) by Edmond Hamilton
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Authors: Edmond Hamilton
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
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finish the Comet. We've got to get up there at once!"
They worked with furious haste to install the last rocket-tubes. Before they had finished, however, they heard a distant roar and saw the strange pencil-like black craft take off again and vanish quickly in the sky.
"Hurry!" Curt cried, his apprehension growing. "There's something queer about their leaving so soon."
The last big rocket-tube was hastily fused on. Curt fairly leaped to the control room and started the massive cycs throbbing loudly. The Comet bounded upward on the flame-blast of its keel tubes, then screamed low across the jungle toward the hills. Gigantic dinosaurs bolted in mad panic through the forest underneath them as they passed.
Curt landed deftly in the ancient quarry. As they raced out and peered frantically around, his heart sank. Neither Otho nor the girl was here-Ahla's spear lay on the ground, broken, and there were other signs of struggle.
"Whoever was in that space ship has killed or captured Otho and Ahla!" shouted Grag furiously.
Chapter 8: Planets of the Past
OTHO gayly hummed an old future space song as he and the girl Ahla made their way through the jungle to the ancient quarry. The adventuresome android was always most cheerful when he had new scenes about him, and this Earth of the Mesozoic age was certainly a strange new world. Dense towered the jungle about them, a mass of mixed palms, conifers, giant club-mosses, lianas and big ferns. Swarms of weird insects hummed in the shade, and featherless birds hopped amid the higher branches.
He and Ahla were following one of the broad game trails toward the hills. Ahla's dark, pretty face suddenly expressed alarm as they heard a faint thudding sound ahead. She drew Otho off the trail into a fern-clump.
"Make no sound or movement!" she whispered. "The Horned Ones come."
"What are they?" breathed Otho. "I don't — Demons of Mercury!"
The oath was wrung from him by a group of triceratops corning along the trail. They were huge beasts, like the rhinoceros of later ages, but larger and equipped with three great horns and a ruff of neck-armor. Not until long after they had lumbered by, shaking the ground, did Ahla and Otho again start on.
"Some playmates you have around here!" Otho told the girl. "Wish I could take one back to our own time. What a sensation that would make! Otho, the time-hunter — he brings 'em back alive from the Mesozoic!"
Ahla looked at him admiringly.
"Could you really capture a Horned One single-handed?"
"Sure, it'd be easy," boasted Otho. "First I'd pull their horns out, so they couldn't hurt me, and then I'd choke 'em to insensibility."
"I'd like to see you do that," declared Ahla soberly.
"Aw, it would be too easy," deprecated Otho. "What I'd really like to meet on this trail is a tyrannosaur."
"Why do you cross your fingers?" Ahla asked curiously.
"That's just an old custom in my time," Otho rejoined, flushing.
Otho had developed a strong liking for this lovely primitive girl. To her, he wasn't the freak that people in his own age usually thought him because he was an artificial man. She considered him something of a superman. Underneath all his scoffing and reckless deviltry, there were depths of loneliness in Otho's strange soul. Far more than simple-minded Grag, he brooded on the difference between himself and other men. Ahla's frank admiration had struck a chord of eager response from him.
They reached the crest of the low hills in which was the ancient quarry. Otho turned for a moment to look back. He could see far across the waving jungle, to the western marshes in which the domesticated brontosaurs of the tribesmen were splashing and browsing. Beyond the marshes was the distant glint of blue sea. To the south, big volcanoes smoked lazily.
He and the girl descended into the quarry and Otho deftly began disassembling the parts of the atomic smelter for easier carrying. He meant to take only the heart of the mechanism back to the
They worked with furious haste to install the last rocket-tubes. Before they had finished, however, they heard a distant roar and saw the strange pencil-like black craft take off again and vanish quickly in the sky.
"Hurry!" Curt cried, his apprehension growing. "There's something queer about their leaving so soon."
The last big rocket-tube was hastily fused on. Curt fairly leaped to the control room and started the massive cycs throbbing loudly. The Comet bounded upward on the flame-blast of its keel tubes, then screamed low across the jungle toward the hills. Gigantic dinosaurs bolted in mad panic through the forest underneath them as they passed.
Curt landed deftly in the ancient quarry. As they raced out and peered frantically around, his heart sank. Neither Otho nor the girl was here-Ahla's spear lay on the ground, broken, and there were other signs of struggle.
"Whoever was in that space ship has killed or captured Otho and Ahla!" shouted Grag furiously.
Chapter 8: Planets of the Past
OTHO gayly hummed an old future space song as he and the girl Ahla made their way through the jungle to the ancient quarry. The adventuresome android was always most cheerful when he had new scenes about him, and this Earth of the Mesozoic age was certainly a strange new world. Dense towered the jungle about them, a mass of mixed palms, conifers, giant club-mosses, lianas and big ferns. Swarms of weird insects hummed in the shade, and featherless birds hopped amid the higher branches.
He and Ahla were following one of the broad game trails toward the hills. Ahla's dark, pretty face suddenly expressed alarm as they heard a faint thudding sound ahead. She drew Otho off the trail into a fern-clump.
"Make no sound or movement!" she whispered. "The Horned Ones come."
"What are they?" breathed Otho. "I don't — Demons of Mercury!"
The oath was wrung from him by a group of triceratops corning along the trail. They were huge beasts, like the rhinoceros of later ages, but larger and equipped with three great horns and a ruff of neck-armor. Not until long after they had lumbered by, shaking the ground, did Ahla and Otho again start on.
"Some playmates you have around here!" Otho told the girl. "Wish I could take one back to our own time. What a sensation that would make! Otho, the time-hunter — he brings 'em back alive from the Mesozoic!"
Ahla looked at him admiringly.
"Could you really capture a Horned One single-handed?"
"Sure, it'd be easy," boasted Otho. "First I'd pull their horns out, so they couldn't hurt me, and then I'd choke 'em to insensibility."
"I'd like to see you do that," declared Ahla soberly.
"Aw, it would be too easy," deprecated Otho. "What I'd really like to meet on this trail is a tyrannosaur."
"Why do you cross your fingers?" Ahla asked curiously.
"That's just an old custom in my time," Otho rejoined, flushing.
Otho had developed a strong liking for this lovely primitive girl. To her, he wasn't the freak that people in his own age usually thought him because he was an artificial man. She considered him something of a superman. Underneath all his scoffing and reckless deviltry, there were depths of loneliness in Otho's strange soul. Far more than simple-minded Grag, he brooded on the difference between himself and other men. Ahla's frank admiration had struck a chord of eager response from him.
They reached the crest of the low hills in which was the ancient quarry. Otho turned for a moment to look back. He could see far across the waving jungle, to the western marshes in which the domesticated brontosaurs of the tribesmen were splashing and browsing. Beyond the marshes was the distant glint of blue sea. To the south, big volcanoes smoked lazily.
He and the girl descended into the quarry and Otho deftly began disassembling the parts of the atomic smelter for easier carrying. He meant to take only the heart of the mechanism back to the
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