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whole plateau. They left our cruiser here to
avoid risk of damaging it. Those trinite
charges are so powerful they didn't want to
take any chances."
Curt Newton swung toward his friends. "Then
we've got to hurry. Otho, tie those men up.
Joan, you stay here with Zamok and Lin Sao to
guard them."
"I won't stay!" Joan retorted. "You know I
can handle an atom-gun better than most men,
and you'll need every weapon."
Curt Newton turned to expostulate with her.
But the words never left his lips. For as he
turned, his eyes had fallen upon the massive,
crumbling stone monolith beside which the
Comet had landed.
The monolith was no work of nature. It was
too squarely symmetrical in outline for that.
And upon its face were graven long rows of
half-crumbled hieroglyphics of curious shapes.
"Why, that's ancient Denebian writing!"
exclaimed Captain Future, amazed.
"What if it is?" cried Otho. "This is no time to
be thinking of planetary archaeology. We're
ready to start, chief!"
NEWTON paid no attention to the protest. He
strode toward the monolith. The presence of
the ancient hieroglyphics on this lonely moon
had suddenly brought the whisper of a terrible
suspicion into his mind.
His eyes tensely scanned the half-crumbled
inscription. Captain Future was one of the few
people in the universe who could read the
ancient Denebian writing -- he had learned to
do so at Deneb itself.
As he read, he was seized by an apprehension
close to horror. And the Brain, who had glided
to his side and was also searching the writing
with his lens eyes, seemed frozen by an equal
emotion.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Curt Newton,
thunderstruck. "We never guessed, we never
dreamed."
"Curt, what is it?" cried Joan.
Newton's brow was damp despite the chill of
the thin air and his eyes had a dazed look.
"This inscription--it proves that the belief of
the Roons about the Old Ones is true!"
Joan and the others stared incredulously.
"Curt, you can't mean that some of the ancient
Kangas are really sleeping in that Crypt?"
"The Kangas all became extinct a million
years ago," protested Ezra.
"We always thought they did," Newton said
hoarsely. "But the evidence of this inscription
is incontrovertible. The ancient Denebians
placed it here as a warning. Listen!"
Huskily, rapidly, he translated aloud the half-
defaced inscription upon the monolith. His lips
moved with words:
"--disturb not the white plain, for beneath it...
crypt in which lie the last of the Kangas. We of
Deneb . . . fought and conquered them on
many worlds, but on this world a remnant of
them fled from us and . . . buried themselves in
hiding here, passing into suspended animation
by their power of self-hypnosis.
"These were the most powerful of the dark
ancient ones and we thought it wisest not to
attempt to destroy them lest we wake them and
be unable to overcome them. It was safest . . .
let them sleep on, and place . . . warnings for
those of future ages.
"Heed the warnings! Disturb not the buried
dark ones! They will not wake until ages from
now this moon approaches so close its planet
that it breaks up and thus uncovers the crypt.
When . . . far future day comes, be on guard
then against the waking of the dark ones.
"Until then, seek not to unearth them! Let this
moon be deserted and shunned of men. Let the
dark ones sleep on until the far future break-up
of this moon, for by then . . . our race will be
powerful enough to be in no danger from
them."
Captain Future's hoarse voice seemed to have
cast a spell of horror on the others. They stared
at him wildly in the pink planet-glow.
"Then, if Lu Suur and the others blow the
plateau and uncover the Crypt, the Kangas
inside it will awake?" cried Joan.
"Yes, and that means awful danger for all
humans on Roo, perhaps for all the humans in
the universe," Curt Newton said thickly.
"Those monstrous survivals of the dim past,
those alien ones whom even the mighty
Denebians of old could hardly conquer,
coming forth--"
He broke off, his face glistening with
perspiration. "No time to lose now! Lu Suur's
got to be stopped before he blows the plateau."
Newton dived back into the Comet, came
bursting out in a moment. He was hastily
shoving an object into his blouse. He ran
forward.
"Come on! And if we have to shoot, shoot to
kill! We can't take any chances now!"
In the terrible urgency that drove him, he
made no protest at Joan Randall accompanying
them. He led the way in long, running strides
eastward through the low rock hills toward the
plateau.
Grag and Otho kept pace with him despite his
fierce haste, the Brain gliding beside them.
And Ezra and Joan and the bewildered,
stunned Philip Carlin were close behind.
Newton's soul was a turmoil of ancient and
awful fears, fears that had stalked the shadowy
history of the universe for ten thousand
centuries.
They ran through the rocky defiles, and
approached the last ridge between them and
the plateau.
"Up this way!" Captain Future said hoarsely.
"We should be able to spot Lu Suur and the
others from that ridge."
"Look out!" cried the Brain sharply, at that
moment.
FROM behind the crest of the ridge toward
which they had just started to climb, a small,
square black object hurtled up into the air. It
curved up and outward and then started to fall
directly toward them.
Newton instantly recognized the terrible
nature of the missle. It was a sealed charge of
trinite, most powerful of explosives. It would
fall directly among them, and the resulting
blast would obliterate them.
Captain Future took the only action possible.
The atom-pistol in his hand came up with
blurring speed, and from it a streak of white
fire lanced upward.
"Down, all!' Newton yelled at the same
moment he fired.
His aim had been unerring, and the
concentrated atom-blast from his pistol hit the
trinite charge falling toward them.
Next moment, a terrific blast exploded in the
air above them. The tremendous wave of
compressed air from it smashed down at them
in a stunning shock.
Curt Newton had thrown himself flat,
protecting Joan with his own body. But the
smashing shock smacked his head against the
ground with such force that consciousness
flowed out of him. As he fought fiercely to
retain his reeling senses his atom-pistol had
been snatched from his hand. Realization of
the fact spurred his stunned mind back to
clarity. He scrambled wildly to his feet.
Too late! As they had lain stunned, a half
dozen men had seized all their weapons and
now confronted them with the threatening
muzzles of their own atom-guns.
"Devils of space!" raged Otho. "Lu Suur's
men!"
A voice called down from the ridge. "Bring
them up here, if they're still living."
Curt Newton, appalled by the suddenness of
the disaster, perceived that none of his
comrades had been more than dazed. But
resistance to the menacing weapons leveled at
them was hopeless.
The vicious-eyed, squat green Jovian who
covered Newton with his weapon pointed up
the slope with it. "March, Cain! All of you!"
Grag was swearing blisteringly in his
rumbling voice. Two atom-guns covered the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]