Captain Future 09 - Quest Beyond the Stars (Winter 1942) by Edmond Hamilton

Author:Edmond Hamilton [Hamilton, Edmond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2012-09-05T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9: In the Palace Dungeons

THE BRAIN waited for some time after Captain Future and the others had left, before moving from the table on which he rested. Then he rose smoothly into the air.

“Now to see if there’s a way out of this trap we’re in,” Simon muttered to himself.

The Brain detested action. His icy mentality, almost completely divorced from ordinary emotions by his lack of a human body, took its chief delight in scientific speculation and experiment. He would often remain motionless, brooding for hours on end, wrapped in some intricate problem.

But one emotion still beat strongly in the mind of Simon Wright. That was his utter devotion to Captain Future. Since the long-dead day upon the Moon when he and Grag and Otho had undertaken the guardianship of the helpless infant who then was Curtis Newton, the devotion of the Brain to his brilliant pupil had never wavered. It was anxiety for Curt’s safety that now spurred Simon into action. He glided softly across the room, moving with a smooth effortlessness upon his traction beams. Those magnetic beams, which Simon could jet from apertures in his square case in any direction, not only gave him great powers of free movement, but could also be used as arms and hands. He made a weird sight as he softly approached the door, opened it by means of one of his beams and peered down the corridor outside with his lens-like eyes.

“As I expected,” he murmured to himself, closing the door. “These Korians are taking no chances.”

A dozen Korian guards were still on duty in the corridor outside. Exit by that way was impossible. So Simon turned toward the windows.

He examined the latticework of silvery metal outside the windows. Its interstices were much too small to permit him to pass through. Investigation showed him that the metal bars of the lattices were extremely heavy, composed of an unknown alloy of great hardness and strength which would resist almost any force.

“This suite,” the Brain decided, “is a disguised prison, as we thought. But there still remain the ventilation tubes.”

He directed his effortless movement toward the square opening high in the copper wall of this corner chamber. Hovering outside it, he peered and listened intently for a few minutes. The aperture was obviously the mouth of a ventilating tube. A constant current of cool, fragrant air poured out of it. The aperture was not barred, for it was too small for a man to enter. But the Brain could enter it! He found by cautious test that his square case would pass through the opening into the squared tube behind it, with a few inches of room to spare.

“There must be a network of such tubes inside the walls of this palace,” he thought. “And if I can find a way outside —”

Without hesitation, he glided into the darkness of the tube. It dropped vertically, inside the wall. The Brain sank cautiously down its shaft upon his traction beams, hearing the rush of air pumped upward all around him.

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