Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950)

Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950) Read Free Page B

Book: Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950) Read Free
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Ads: Link
air-supply, no rest-cabin. It was a long slim open hull or boat with high-powered atomic engines. Since I don’t breathe, riding in open space doesn’t bother me.
    When I was ready to depart, Eek sensed that I was leaving and clambered up onto my shoulder. I decided to take him with me. Since he didn’t breathe either, neither space nor the poisonous moon would affect him. And it would break his heart to be left behind again.
    Simon Wright came gliding out of his laboratory when he heard me bidding Curt goodbye.
    “Are you really going to let Grag go out there alone?” he asked Curt.
    “Someone has to look over things at Dis and Grag can do it easily,” Captain Future answered. “And I think it’ll get these ideas out of his mind.”
    Otho offered me a little satchel. “It has a first-aid kit in it, Grag. In your condition you might need it.”
    Suspiciously, I opened it. It contained a small atomic welder and some rivets. I promptly flung it at his head but he dodged with that slithery swiftness of his.
    Curt came up to the airlock with me. “Complexes or no complexes, you look out for yourself, Grag. You know we can’t get along without you.”
    I was touched by his affectionate emotion. And I was glad that he obviously didn’t fully realize my shakiness for he would not have let me go if he had.
    I went up through the lock to the surface and soon had my long space-sled out of its own hangar. Presently, standing at its control-post with Eek perched comfortably on my shoulder, I was zooming upward. I whipped around the Moon and laid my course for Pluto.
    There’s something about travelling in a space-ship, even the Comet, that gives me a slightly cramped feeling. It can’t compare to zipping along in an open craft, with the stars blazing undimmed all around you and the Sun glaring at your back. Also it was a pleasure not to have to worry about the effects of acceleration-pressure on others. I simply opened the power to the last notch.
    Ordinarily I’d always enjoyed these jaunts by myself back and forth in the System. But I couldn’t now. I was too worried about myself. A delicate instrument like my mind could stand only so much and I hoped I wouldn’t have too much trouble setting things right on Dis.
    To Eek, who crouched contentedly on my shoulder and gnawed an odd scrap of copper, I said, “We’ll have to be patient with the Machs out there, Eek. They’re not intelligent like your master. They’re just simple automatic machines with only elementary reaction-circuits.”
    It would be difficult, I knew, to set things aright if those mindless mechanicals had somehow cracked up. But since they had an inherent obedience to humans built into their crude reaction-circuits their awe of me would make it easier.
    “If we’re just patient with the poor stupid things they can be got back into their proper work-routine again,” I said.
    It was well for me that I could not foresee the terrible shock that my already delicate mental condition was to receive when we reached Pluto’s moon.
     

     
    Chapter 3: The Machs
     
    THE fourth moon of Pluto, which is so small compared to the other three that sometimes it isn’t even counted, is completely uninhabitable to ordinary humans. Its atmosphere contains a poison so virulent that the tiniest opening in a protective suit means instant death.
    That is why, when rich deposits of actinium were discovered there, no attempt was made to mine them in the ordinary way. Instead, automatic machines, adapted from ordinary machines, were designed that could do the work without need of intelligent direction.
    There were many Diggers, big shoveling and excavating machines to get up the ore. There were lorry-like haulers to transport it to the main work-base. There, self-powered and movable crushers reduced it by means of their ponderous pile-driver arms and loaders flung it into the barges, which could be picked up by spaceships. There were also automatic tenders to supply

Similar Books

Step Across This Line

Salman Rushdie

Flood

Stephen Baxter

The Peace War

Vernor Vinge

Tiger

William Richter

Captive

Aishling Morgan

Nightshades

Melissa F. Olson

Brighton

Michael Harvey

Shenandoah

Everette Morgan

Kid vs. Squid

Greg van Eekhout