Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“It is obvious that the Cometae are preparing some important venture, but I have no idea what it is. They are only obeying the orders of the Alius in what they do.”
    “The Alius? Who are they?”
    “That, too, I don’t know,” the Martian replied. “I only know that the Alius are the real masters of this strange comet-world, and that these Cometae regard them with a respect and awe verging on dread.”
    “Are the Alius men? What do they look like?” Curt demanded.
    “None of us prisoners has ever seen any Alius,” Tiko Thrin tapped back. “The Alius never come to this city of the Cometae, but inhabit some mysterious place in the north. The Cometae speak always of the Alius as ‘the dark masters’ or as ‘they from beyond the veil.’ ”
    “Devil take all these mysteries!” Otho exclaimed violently. “What I want to know is — how are we going to get out of here?”
    When Curt tapped that question, Tiko Thrin’s reply was flatly discouraging.
    “I fear that even you Futuremen cannot escape this place. You will be confined until you learn the language of the Cometae. Then you will be taken to the rulers.”
    The Martian added a warning.
    “Do not attempt any rash attack upon the Cometae. They have very powerful weapons, as well as the protective charge of electricity which keeps their bodies immortal.”
    Immortal Curt repeated. “You mean that these electric folk are deathless?”
    “Yes. The Cometae cannot die unless they should leave this comet. Then they would perish for lack of the electric radiation that is their food.”
    “These Cometae live on electricity?” Curt tapped incredulously.
    “They do,” replied the Martian. “As you no doubt know, life itself is essentially electrical. We get our vital electricity from the chemical batteries of our body cells. When the cells wear out and can no longer produce the vital electric current, we age and die.
    “But the cells of the Cometae have somehow been so altered that they do not produce this all-important energy but simply receive it from the coma’s electric radiation — the same radiation you doubtless feel tingling through your bodies now.
    “Thus the Cometae do not need to eat or drink, for their cells absorb their vital energy from the coma’s electric radiance. Because of that, they cannot age and cannot die — unless killed by accident.”
    “This is very interesting,” the Brain declared absorbedly. He had Curt tap a further question to the Martian. “Were the Cometae always like this, or were they once ordinary human people?”
    “I am sure, according to what is passed along the prison ‘grapevine,’ that until a few years ago they were ordinary humans,” replied the Martian scientist. “It is said that only a few years ago, the Alius changed them from normal people into undying electric men.”
    “Whoever these mysterious Alius are, they must wield incredible scientific power if they can accomplish a feat like that!” said Otho startledly.
     
    THE exchange of messages was interrupted by a deep vibration of sound that traveled through the window. It sounded like the note of a great bell.
    “It means that ‘night’ has come,” tapped Tiko Thrin in answer to Curt’s question. “There is no real night upon this world, of course, but the Cometae have a period of sleep which they all observe.”
    The activity in the city outside lessened. Soon but few of the shining electric folk were to be seen in the streets.
    Next “morning” the small panel in the door of the Futuremen’s cell was again opened and another ration of synthetic food thrust in to them. One of the Cometae guards spoke to them through the door, asking what seemed to be a question in his unfamiliar language. Receiving no answer, the guard went on.
    For three “days” the guard followed the same procedure. Curt spent nearly all of the time in intensive study of the Cometae language. He assumed from Tiko Thrin’s information that when they could