Captain Future 09 - Quest Beyond the Stars (Winter 1942) Read Free

pride. For to the Brain, as to the other two Futuremen, Curt was not only a leader but a son. The three unhuman beings had reared him from helpless babyhood to brilliant manhood.
    Years ago, Roger Newton, young Earth scientist, had come to the Moon to establish a hidden laboratory. With him had — come his youthful bride and his scientific colleague, the Brain. They had built this laboratory-home beneath Tycho crater. Here they had labored at their great experiment of creating artificial life. Here they had created Grag, the intelligent metal robot, and Otho, the synthetic man. And here, too, Curtis Newton had been born.
    It was in this very laboratory, soon afterward, that Curtis Newton’s young parents had been slain by enemies. And in this citadel on the barren, airless satellite, the Brain and the robot and the android had reared the orphaned infant. They had given him an education of unparalleled depth and scope. That education and his inherited genius made Curt Newton the audacious, brilliant scientific adventurer and crusader whom the whole Solar System knew as Captain Future.
    “Make unlimited supplies of matter out of nothing?” Otho was echoing incredulously to Curt. “How in the sun’s name is that possible?”
    “All matter,” Curt reminded, “is electrical in nature. Electrons are really particles of immaterial electricity. Why couldn’t matter be synthesized out of units of immaterial electric force?”
    “It might be theoretically possible,” Grag rumbled unbelievingly to Captain Future. “But actually, it has never been done.”
    “It has never been done by any scientist,” Curt corrected quietly. “But is has been done, and is being done right now, by the forces of nature.”
    He pointed upward at the big glassite window in the ceiling, which framed a circle of burning stars and space in which swam the great green bulk of Earth and the dazzling Sun.
    “Far in the central depths of our galaxy of stars, thousands of light-years away, matter is constantly being created out of electrical energy upon a gigantic scale.”
    “You refer to the Birthplace of Matter?” rasped the Brain, startled.
    Curt nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking of, Simon. If we could learn the secret of the Birthplace —”
    “The Birthplace? What are you talking about, chief?” rumbled big Grag puzzledly.
    Curt countered with a question.
    “You know the theory that Millikan first proposed away back in the 20th century, that was later proved — the theory of the cyclic change of radiation and matter?”
    “Sure, even a dumb robot like Grag knows that,” Otho cut in impatiently. “The matter of the galaxy’s suns tends constantly to melt away into radiation, into heat, light and other electromagnetic energy. It was thought for a while that the process would go on until all matter disappeared. Then Millikan guessed the truth, that somewhere in the galaxy is a point where radiation is somehow retransformed into matter, and that the so-called cosmic rays are the ‘birth-cry’ of newborn matter.”
    “That’s right,” Captain Future nodded. “And it was found that that Birthplace of Matter is somewhere at the center of our galaxy, in the region of thick star-clusters and nebulae beyond Sagittarius. From that point stream out the tides of cosmic dust which are the new-born matter, and from that point emanate the cosmic rays, their ‘birth-cry’.
    “We have no idea of how radiation is built into matter at the Birthplace,” Curt went on, as calmly as though he were not about to make the most audacious proposal in the history of the System. “But there is a chance that if we went to the Birthplace we could learn how. With that secret, we could create unlimited matter from radiation, could solve the problem of reviving Mercury’s wasted atmosphere.”
     
    “IS THAT your idea?” Otho yelped unbelievingly. The android’s slitted green eyes were wide with amazement. “You must be spacestruck, chief. That