The Comet Kings by Edmond Hamilton

Author:Edmond Hamilton [Hamilton, Edmond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
ISBN: 9781610818407
Publisher: Radio Archives
Published: 2012-09-05T07:00:00+00:00

CAPTAIN FUTURE, glancing a little wildly around the crazy, crowded scene, spotted the fleeing noble for himself. He barely glimpsed the sinister Cometae councillor as Querdel darted out of the court into a palace passageway.

Instant alarm drummed in Curt’s mind. He remembered what Zarn had told them. “It’s said that Querdel has a way of communicating directly with the Alius.”

Was that why Querdel was fleeing the fight? There was no time to weigh the possibility. Captain Future plunged across the court toward the passage in which the old wizard had disappeared.

He had to fight his way half across the court, through still-resisting Cometae nobles and guards. He finally won past them and raced into the corridor.

He was aware of the Brain gliding beside him, and of Grag and Otho racing loyally down the passageway after him. Then Curt burst into a small, vaulted chamber that had the look of a primitive laboratory. Unfamiliar electrical instruments stood around its walls.

But Captain Future’s eyes flew to the center of the room. There stood the radiant figure of the old councillor, Querdel. The Cometae noble was facing an enigmatic object.

The thing was a towering, dull-black globe that was ten feet in diameter. It rested upon a tripodal metal pedestal. The most arresting feature was the fact that its deadblack spherical surface was covered with a crawling, metallic film, whose gleaming substance constantly changed pattern.

Querdel was standing utterly motionless and silent in front of this strange, looming object. But the terrible intensity in the old noble’s face and eyes as he confronted the globe was significant.

“He’s thinking into that thing!” Curt exclaimed sharply. “It’s some kind of transmitter of mental force, connecting with the Alius —”

Captain Future plunged forward with his sword poised. He meant to kill Querdel, without parley. For Curt sensed terrible danger in the superhuman efforts of the man to contact the mysterious Alius.

But before he ever reached Querdel, something happened. The crawling metallic film upon the black sphere suddenly spun and seethed with inconceivable rapidity.

Out from the sphere pulsed a wave of what looked like black light. An emanation of unguessable force, at sight of which Querdel’s strained eyes flamed in wild triumph.

“Curtis, look out!” came the thin cry of the Brain. “He’s reached the Alius — that’s a wave of force —”

The warning came too late. As it reached Curt’s ears, the pulsing wave of blackness took hold of him.

He stood petrified, rooted to the floor. For he was experiencing a sensation of mental assault such as he had never felt before.

Into his brain beat the sharp mental commands of other minds — a collective intelligence so vast and alien, Captain Future felt his mental defenses tottering and crashing before its assault.

He knew, in a wild flash of perception, what was happening to him. He knew that the electric mental pattern of his own brain was no longer commanding his body. The will of more powerful minds, broadcast as a wave of electromagnetic force, had invaded and taken possession of his brain and body.

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