CHILDREN OF THE SUN A Captain Future Novelet By Edmond HAMILTON Curt Newton, in quest of a friend lost inside Vulcan, faces the most insidious dangers he has ever known in his entire galactic career ! Newton scanned the region near the great orb’s limb. The impatience that had CHAPTER I spurred him across half the System grew to an intolerable tension. Quest of the Futuremen He said almost angrily, “Why couldn't Carlin let well enough alone ? Why did he have to go to Vulcan ?” THE “For the same reason,” answered a ship was small and dark and precise metallic voice from behind his unobtrusive, speeding across the Solar shoulder, “that you went out to System. It had a worn battered look, its Andromeda. He is driven by the need to plates roughened by strange radiation, learn.” dented by tiny meteors, tarnished by alien “He wouldn't have gone if I hadn't told atmospheres. him all about Vulcan. It's my fault, It had been far, this ship. In its time it Simon.” had voyaged to the farthest shores of Curt Newton looked at his companion. infinity, carrying its little crew of four on He saw nothing strange in the small square an odyssey unmatched in human annals. It case hovering on its traction beams—the had borne them to perils far around the incredibly intricate serum-case that housed universe—and back again. the living brain of him who had been But not even the man who sat at its Simon Wright, a man. That artificial voice controls could dream that now, here inside had taught him his first words, the lens-like the familiar System, it was bearing him artificial eyes that watched him now had toward the most strange and soul-shaking watched his first stumbling attempts to experience of all. . . walk, the microphonic ears had heard his Curt Newton was oppressed, not by infant wails. premonitions but by a self-accusing regret. “Simon—do you think Carlin is dead ?” The deep worry that he felt showed in the “Speculation is quite useless, Curtis. tautness of his face, in the set of his lean We can only try to find him.” body. His red head was bent forward, his “We've got to find him,” Newton said, gray eyes anxiously searching the with somber determination. “He helped us sunbeaten reaches of space ahead. when we needed help. And he was our The little ship was inside the orbit of friend.” Mercury. The whole sky ahead was Friend. He had had so few close human dominated by the monster bulk of the Sun. friends, this man whom the System called It glared like a universe of flame, crowned Captain Future. Always he had stood in the by the awful radiance of its corona, shadow of a loneliness that was the reaching out blind mighty tentacles of fire. 1 inescapable heritage of his strange A man but no kin to the sons of Adam. childhood. An android, the perfect creation of Orphaned almost at birth he had grown scientific craft and wisdom—humanity to manhood on the lonely Moon, knowing carried to its highest power, and yet not no living creature but the three unhuman human. He carried his difference with an Futuremen. They had been his playmates, air but Curt Newton was aware that Otho his teachers, his inseparable companions. was burdened with a loneliness far more Inevitably by that upbringing he was keen than any he could know himself. forever set apart from his own kind. The android said quietly, “Take it easy, Few people had ever penetrated that Curt. The unit’s already functioning.” barrier of reserve. Philip Carlin had been He glanced through the window at the one of them. And now Carlin was gone glaring vista of space and shivered. “I get into mystery. edgy myself, playing around the Sun this “If I had been here,” Newton brooded, close.” “I'd never have let him go.” Newton nodded. Otho was right. It was one thing to come and go between the A planets, even between the stars. It was a BRILLIANT scientist Carlin had set wholly different thing to dare approach the out to study the mysteries of that strange Sun. world inside Vulcan which the Futuremen The orbit of Mercury was a boundary, a had discovered. He had hired a work-ship limit. Any ship that went inside it was with heavy anti- heat equipment to take him challenging the awful power of the great to Vulcan, arranging for it to come back solar orb. Only ships equipped with the there for him in six months. anti-heat apparatus dared enter that zone of But when the ship returned it had found terrible force—and then only at great peril. no trace of Carlin in the ruined city that Only the fourth of the Futuremen had been his base of operations. It had, seemed unworried. He crossed to the after a futile search, come back with the window, his towering metal bulk looming news of his disappearance. over them all. The same scientific genius All this had happened before the return that had created the android had shaped of the Futuremen from their epoch-making also this manlike metal giant, endowing voyage to Andromeda. And now Curt him with intelligence equal to the human Newton was driving sunward, toward and with a strength far beyond anything Vulcan, to solve the mystery of Carlin's human. fate. Grag’s photoelectric eyes gazed steadily Abruptly, from beyond the bulkhead from his strange metal face, into the wild door of the bridge-room, two voices, one shaking glare. “I don't know what you’re deep and booming, the other lighter and jumpy about,” he said. “The Sun doesn’t touched with an odd sibilance, were raised bother me a bit.” He flexed his great in an outburst of argument. gleaming arms. “It feels good.” Newton turned sharply. “Stop that “Stop showing off,” said Otho sourly. wrangling ! You'd better get those anti- “You'll burn out your circuits and we've heaters going or we'll all fry.” better things to do than trying to cram your The door slid open and the remaining carcass out through the disposal lock.” members of the unique quartet came in. The android turned to Captain Future. One of them, at first glance, appeared “You haven't raised Vulcan yet ?” wholly human—with a lithe lean figure Newton shook his head. “Not yet.” and finely-cut features. And yet in his Presently a faint aura of hazy force pointed white face and bright ironic eyes surrounded the little ship as it sped on—the there lurked a disturbing strangeness. anti-heater unit building up full power. 2 The terrible heat of the Sun could reach dark dot closely pendant to the skyfilling through space only as radiant vibrations. Sun. The aura generated by the anti- heaters Newton drove the Comet forward acted as a shield to refract and deflect most unrelentingly now. Every moment this of that radiant heat. close to the Sun there was peril. Let the Newton touched a button. Still another anti-heaters stop one minute and metal filter-screen, this one the heaviest of all, would soften and fuse, flesh would blacken slid across the window. Yet even through and die. all the screens the Sun poured dazzling Otho suddenly raised his hand to point, radiance. crying out, “Look ! Sun-children !” The temperature inside the ship was They had heard of the legendary “Sun- steadily rising. The anti-heaters could not children” from the Vulcanian natives, had deflect all the Sun's radiant heat. Only a once glimpsed one far off. But these two fraction got through but that was enough to were nearer. Newton, straining his eyes make the bridge-room an oven. against the solar glare, could barely see the An awed silence came upon the things—two whirling little wisps of flame, Futuremen as they looked at the mighty moving fast through the blinding radiance star that filled almost all the firmament of the corona. ahead. They had been this close to the Sun Then the two will-o-wisps of fire had before but no previous experience could disappeared in the vast glare. The eye lessen the impact of it. searched for them in vain. You never saw the Sun until you got “I still think,” Simon was saying, “that this close, Newton thought. Ordinary they're just wisps of flaming hydrogen that planet-dwellers thought of it as a are flung off the Sun and then fall back beneficent golden thing in the sky, giving again.” them heat and light and life. But here you “But the Vulcanians told of them saw the Sun as it really was, a throbbing coming down into Vulcan,” Otho object- seething core of cosmic force, utterly ed. “How could bits of flaming gas do that indifferent to the bits of ash that were its ?” planets and to the motes that lived upon CURT those ashes. NEWTON hardly listened. He They could, at this distance, clearly see was already whipping the ship in around gigantic cyclones of flame raging across Vulcan in a tight spiral few spacemen the surface of the mighty orb. Into those would have risked. Its brake rockets vortices of fire all Earth could have been thundering, it scudded low around the dropped and from around them exploded surface of the little world. burning geysers that could have shrivelled The whole surface was semi- molten worlds. rock. The heat of the planetoid’s Sweat was running down Curt Newton's stupendous neighbor kept its outer skin face now and he gasped a little for each half- melted. Lava sweltered in great pools, breath. “Temperature, Otho ?” he asked infernal lagoons framed by smoking rock without turning his head. hills. Fire burst up from the rocks, as “Only fifty degrees under the safety though called forth by the nearby Sun. limit and the anti- heaters running full Grag first saw what they were looking load,” said the android. “If we've for—a gaping round pit in the sunward miscalculated course—” side of the planetoid. Presently Captain “We haven't,” said Captain Future. Future had the Comet hovering on keel-jets “There's Vulcan ahead.” above the yawning shaft. He eased on the The planetoid, the strange lonely little power-pedal and the little ship dropped solar satellite, had come into view as a straight down into the pit. 3 This shaft was the one way inside the monoliths. The Futuremen went out into hollow solar satellite. At the planetoid's the steamy air. birth gases trapped within it had caused it “It was here that Carlin was to meet the to form as a hollow shell. Those gases, ship when it came,” said Captain Future. finally bursting out as pressure increased, “And he wasn't here.” He spoke in a had torn open this way to the outer surface. lowered voice. The brooding silence of this The ship sank steadily down the shaft. memorial of lost greatness laid a cold spell Light was around them for this side of upon them all. Vulcan was toward the Sun now and a These broken mighty stones were all great beam entered. that remained of a city of the Old Empire, Then, finally, the shaft debouched into a that mighty galactic civilization mankind vast space vaguely lighted by that beam— had attained to long ago. On worlds of the interior of the hollow world. every star its cities and monuments had “Whew, I'm glad to be in here out of risen, then had passed—had passed so that solar radiance,” breathed Otho. “Now completely that men had had no memory where ?” of it until the Futuremen probed back into Newton asked, “The ruins near Yellow cosmic history. Lake, wasn't it ?” Long ago the mighty ships of the star- “Yes,” answered the Brain's metallic conquering Empire had come to colonize voice. “It was where the ship left Carlin even hollow Vulcan. Men and women with and where it was to pick him up.” the powers of a brilliant science and with The Futuremen had been here inside proud legends of victorious cosmic Vulcan once before. Yet they felt again conquest had lived and loved and died the wonder of this strangest world in the here. But the Empire had fallen and its System as the Comet flew low over its cities had died and the descendants of its inner surface. people here were barbarians now. Beneath their flying ship stretched a “The first thing,” Newton was saying, weird landscape of fern jungles. It ex- “is to get in touch with the Vulcanians and tended into a shrouding haze ahead, the find out what they know about Carlin.” horizon fading away in an upward curve. Grag stood, his metal head swivelling as Over their heads now was the hazy “sky” he stared around the ruins. “No sign of of the planetoid's central hollow, cut across them here. But those primitives always are by the tremendous, glittering sword of the shy.” giant beam of sunlight that gave light to “We'll look around first for some trace this world. of Carlin here then,” Newton decided. As their ship slanted down over the fern The quartet started through the ruins— jungle toward their destination a feeling of the man and the mighty clanking robot, the gray futility came upon Curt Newton. lithe android and the gliding Brain. Months had passed since Philip Carlin had Newton felt more strongly the disappeared here. Could the scientist have oppressive somberness of this place of survived alone so long in his wild world ? vanished glory, as he looked up at the A city wrecked by time lay beneath inscriptions in the old language that were them, almost swallowed by the giant ferns. carved deep into the great stones. He could Only scattered crumbling stones of read that ancient writing and as he read massive dimensions had survived the those proud legends of triumphs long ravages of unthinkable ages. It was like sunken into oblivion he felt the crushing the flotsam of a lost ship, floating up out of sadness of that greatest of galactic the past. tragedies, the fall of the Old Empire. The Comet came to rest upon cracked paving surrounded by towering shattered 4 Simon's sharp, metallic voice roused “Something big,” Captain Future said him from his preoccupation. “Curtis ! Look slowly. “So big that he was afraid of here !” anyone else finding it. That's why he wrote Captain Future instantly strode to where this in the language of the Old Empire that the Brain hovered beside one of the no one but Simon and I could read.” towering monoliths. Simon said practically, “The Belt is “Did you find some trace, Simon ?” what the natives call the strip burned out “Look at that inscription ! It's in the old by the Beam, isn't it ? Well—we can soon language—but it's newly carved !” find out.” Newton's eyes widened. It was true. On “Shall we take the ship ?” that monolith, a few feet above the ground, Newton shook his head. “Too tricky was a chiseled legend in the language that navigating in here. The Belt isn't far had not been used for ages. Yet the away.” characters were raw, new, only faintly Grag flexed mighty metal limbs. “What weathered. are we waiting for ?” “It was carved less than a year ago !” he Presently the quartet was moving said. His pulses suddenly hammered. through the jungle of giant ferns. All about “Simon, Carlin knew the old language ! them was silence in the heavy gathering He had me teach it to him, remember !” twilight. The bright sword of the Beam “You mean—Carlin carved this one ?” was fading, angling away as the opening in Otho exclaimed. the crust was rotated away from the Sun. “Read it !”cried Grag. Newton knew the direction of the Belt, Curt Newton read aloud, “To the that seared blackened strip in which the Futuremen, if they ever come—I have terrible heat of the Sun's single shaft permitted nothing to live. He steered their discovered an incredible secret, the course to head around the end of the Belt. strangest form of life ever dreamed. The Again a beast-scream came from far implications of that secret are so away. There seemed no other sound in the tremendous that I am going to investigate fern jungle. But presently the Brain spoke them first hand. If I do not return be softly. “We are being followed,” he said. warned that the old citadel beyond the Curt Newton nodded. Simon's micro- Belt holds the key of a staggering power.” phonic ears, far more acute than any human auditory system, had picked up faint rustlings of movement among the ferns. Now that he was listening for it CHAPTER II Newton could hear the stealthy padding of Citadel of Mystery many naked feet, moving with infinite caution. “I don't understand it,” he murmured. “These Vulcanian natives were friendly AS the echoes of Curt Newton's voice before. This furtiveness—” died away the four looked at each other in “Shall we stop and have it out with troubled wonder. The rank ferns drooped them ?” Otho demanded. unstirring in the weird half- light over the “No, let's go on. We have to find that broken arches and falling colonnades. citadel before dark. But keep alert—a Somewhere in the jungle a beast screamed thrown spear can be jus t as final as a harshly with a sound like laughter. blaster.” Otho finally broke the silence. “What “Not to me it can't,” rumbled Grag. could Carlin have found ?” “Curt didn't mean you—he meant us humans,” gibed Otho. 5 “Listen, plastic-puss,” Grag began stretched far away and he could catch the wrathfully. “I'm twice as human as you tawny gleam of Yellow Lake in the distant and—” dusk. “That's enough,” Newton rapped. “You THROUGH the twilight jungle, the Belt can carry on that old argument some other time.” stretched like a stygian river of deepest They went on and the unseen escort black. He could see no building or ruin of went with them. Soon they encountered the any kind on his side of the ebon strip. end of the Belt. “This must be the citadel Carlin meant,” Black calcined soil, smoking rocks, a he said. “Apparently a landslide has wave of dull heat from the ground itself covered it since he was here. We'll have to attested to the awful heat of the Sun whose dig a way in.” single great ray once each day traveled They found flat stones in the loose soil across this strip of Vulcan's interior. of the slide. Using them as hand-spades They made Captain Future feel again Newton and the android and robot began the terrible power of the gigantic solar orb pushing aside the ocher soil above the so close by that could reach in through a cupola of the buried building. single loophole and wreak this flaming Something flashed and hissed in the devastation where it touched. dusk. Curt Newton whirled. A long They crossed the end of that blackened quivering spear stuck in the slope some strip, Curt and Otho hastening over the hot distance below them. rocks, Grag plodding stolidly, Simon “I thought the Vulcanians were still with gliding ahead. us !” Otho muttered. Before them the fern jungle rose into Newton said quietly, “Just stand still. olive-colored hills, growing dark as the Let me talk to them.” dusk deepened. Almost at once Newton He faced down the slope toward the fern noticed something on the slope of the jungle. He called out in the language he nearest hill. It was a raw lumpy scar where had learned on his first visit to this lost a landslide had recently occurred. world—a debased form of the once- “Simon, look at that landslide ! Notice beautiful language of the Old Empire, sunk anything ?” now into barbarism like the men who The Brain hovered, his lens-eyes spoke it. surveying the dusky hillside. “Yes, the “Show us your faces, my brothers ! We outline. Definitely unnatural.” come as friends and our hands are empty Otho and Grag were staring now, too. of death !” “I don't see anything unnatural about it,” There was utter silence. In the distance boomed the metal giant. the fading shaft of sunlight lay like a “It covers a building that stood on that tarnished sword across the dusk. The dense hillside,” Newton informed him. “Look at jungle below was untouched by wind or the symmetry of it, even masked by soil— motion of any kind. Even the beasts were the central cupola, the two wings.” stilled by that strong human vo ice, Otho's bright eyes flashed. “The citadel speaking out across the desolation. Carlin mentioned ?” Newton did not speak again. He waited. “Perhaps. Let's have a look.” He seemed to have endless patience, and They moved on. In a brief time they complete assurance. After a time, half were climbing the slope to that great lumpy furtively and yet with a curious and scar of new soil. touching pride, a man came out of the Newton looked back down at the jungle and looked up at them. jungle. No one had followed them out of it He was clad in garments of white onto the bare slope. The giant ferns leather and his skin was white and the 6 falling mane of his hair was white and his fading Beam, which was to him a symbol eyes were pale as mist. His only weapons of godhead. were a knife and a spear. “He has gone there,” Kah whispered, In his carriage, in the fine modeling of “along the path of light. He has followed his head, Newton could still see lingering the Bright Ones, who do not return.” traces of the heritage that had given the “I do not understand you, Kah !” said men of the Old Empire supremacy over Newton sharply. “Is the body of my friend two galaxies. And it seemed sad that this in this buried place ? What happened ? man should look up at him with the shy Speak more clearly.” feral untrusting eyes of a wild thing. “No, I have talked too much of Simon Wright said quietly, “Do you not forbidden things.” Kah raised up his spear. know him, Curtis ?” “Go now ! Go—for I have no wish to slay “Of course.” In the Vulcanian dialect !” Newton said, “Is the memory of Kah so “You cannot slay, Kah, for your spears short that he does not know his brothers ?” will not fly this far. And the great one They had had dealings with Kah before. called Grag will be as a wall against your He was lord over a third of the tribes of coming.” Vulcan and had proved a man of his word, Rapidly, under his breath, Newton aiding the Futuremen in many ways. But spoke to the robot. “Keep them back, Grag now the suspicious catlike eyes studied !, They can't harm you, and it'll leave us them, utterly without warmth or welcome. free to dig.” “Kah remembers,” said the man soft ly. CLANKING “The name of the great one is Grag—and ponderously down the you are the flame-haired one who leads.” slope, a terrifying gigantic form in the Behind him, by twos and threes, his men dusk, Grag advanced on the Vulcanians. gathered silently at the foot of the slope. And Newton cried aloud to Kah, “We will They were all the same tall snow-haired not leave this place until we have found stock, wearing the white leather, bearing our friend !” the sharp spears. They watched, and Kah flung his spear. It fell short by no Newton saw that their eyes dwelt in more than two paces but Newton did not wonder upon the towering Grag. He stir. The Vulcanian drew back slowly remembered that they had been much before the oncoming Grag, who spread out impressed by Grag before. his mighty arms and roared and made the Kah said abruptly, “We have been ground tremble under his feet. friends and brothers, and therefore I have “The big ham !” whispered Otho. “He's stayed my hand. This place is sacred and enjoying it.” forbidden. Leave it while you still live.” There was a wavering among the ranks Newton answered steadily, “We cannot of the natives. A ragged flight of spears leave. We seek a friend who came here and pelted up the slope and some of the was lost.” obsidian points splintered with a sharp The Vulcanian chieftain voiced a long, ringing sound on Grag's metallic body. harsh Ah-h ! and every man with him lifted Grag laughed a booming laugh. He picked his spear and shook it. up a slab of stone and broke it in his hands “He entered the forbidden place,” said and flung the pieces at them. Kah, “and he is gone.” “That does it,” said Otho disgustedly. “Gone ? You mean he's dead ?” “I'm going to be sick.” Kah's hands shaped an age-old ritual Kah screamed suddenly, “The curse will gesture. Newton saw that they trembled. fall on you as it fell on the other who The Vulcanian turned and pointed to the entered there ! You too will go out along 7 the Beam, lost forever from the sight of The silence of age- long death was in the men !” place and the mingled smell of centuries He turned then and vanished into the and of the raw new soil. Newton led the jungle. way around the gallery, his footsteps “I have been studying this landslide,” ringing hollow against the vault of stone. said Simon Wright irrelevantly. “I believe He found a narrow stairway, going that it was artificially caused by the natives down. to seal this place after Carlin entered it.” They descended, passing the other “Very likely,” Captain Future answered. galleries, and came at last into a small He stood for a moment in deep though. “I chamber. It had had a door to the outside, wonder what Kah meant by the 'Bright a massive, age-tarnished metal door that Ones who do not return' ?” had buckled somewhat with pressure and “Probably an euphemism for the dead,” had let dirt sift through the cracks. said Otho pessimistically. “We'll know Opposite the door was a low, square better when we've found a way inside.” opening in the stone wall. Above it was an They turned to and began to dig again. inscription. Holding his lamp high, Curt The citadel stood on a sort of promontory, Newton read slowly, “Here is the partly blocked now by the slide, so that the birthplace of the Children of the Sun.” natives could only come at them up the slope, and Grag effectively barred the way. Now and again a spear whistled harmlessly into the dirt but there was no attack. CHAPTER III The last glowing thread of the Beam narrowed into nothingness and was gone. Dread Metamorphosis Utter darkness descended on the hidden world of Vulcan. Newton and Otho worked on by the light of belt- lamps. WONDERINGLY They struck the solid stone of the they went through building, and the work went faster. After a into the central chamber of the citadel. few minutes Otho cried, “There's an Dirt had spilled down from above, opening here !” covering a good part of the floor. Newton They discarded their improvised spades. realized that only the upper gallery, serving The loose dirt flew under their hands and as a stop for the soil to dam itself against, presently they had uncovered the upper had saved the interior of the citadel from arches of a triple window. From there the being heavily inundated. way was easy. He scrambled up onto that heap of rock Curt Newton was the first one inside. A and soil, and then stood still, gazing in great quantity of dirt had poured in through puzzled wonder. He saw now the sources the open arches but most of this upper of that dim, eerie light. Set in deep niches level was clear. Otho slid agilely after him, on opposite faces of the curving wall were and then the Brain. two seeming identical sets of apparatus, The lamps showed them a circular like nothing he had ever seen before. gallery, high up in the central cupola. The bases were of some dark metal, Below was a round and empty shaft. untouched by the passage of time. They Newton leaned out over the low carved were wide and low, separated so that their railing. Far down in the pit he could see a centers formed a dais. Each base bore two soft and curdled luminescence, like soaring coils of what seemed to be crystal spectral sunlight veiled in mist. The source tubing, as high as a tall man, braced in was hidden from him by the overhang of frames of platinum. other galleries lower down. 8 The coils pulsed and glowed with misty “He stripped here,” said Newton slowly. light—one set giving forth a gleam of “He left his clo thing and his kit behind purest gold, the other a darker hue of and—” His eyes lifted to the inscription bluish green. Opposite the arch through and he added very softly, “Phil Carlin went which they had entered was a third niche, through the portal, whatever it is and much smaller, having within it a wherever it leads.” complicated bank of instruments that might “I agree with your assumptions, have been a control panel. Curtis,” said Simon Wright. “I suggest that “Birthplace of the Children of the Sun,” you search Carlin's effects for any data he said Otho softly. “Look, Curt—there above may have left relative to this apparatus and the niches.” its uses. It is obvious that he spent months Again Captain Future read aloud, the in study and such a record seems warning messages cut deep in the ageless inevitable.” stone. Above the apparatus of the golden Simon's lens-eyes turned toward the coils it said, “Let him beware who steps small niche with the cryptic bank of beyond this portal. For death is the price of controls. eternal life !” “See, there are many close-packed Above the one of somber hue, the inscriptions on those walls, presumably inscription read “Death is a double instructions for the operation of these doorway. On which side of it is the true machines. He would surely have written life ?” down his translations for reference.” Simon Wright had approached the niche Captain Future was already going that held the strange glow of sunlight and through Carlin's pack. “Here it is !” he said was hovering over the edge of the fallen and held up a thick notebook. “Hold your soil there. “Curtis,” he said, “I think we light closer, Otho.” have found what we sought.” He thumbed rapidly through the pages Newton joined him. He bent and picked until he found what he was hoping and something up, shaking it free from the dirt praying for—a section headed, in Carlin's that half buried it. Mutely he nodded and rneticulous script, TRANSLATION OF showed the thing to Otho. It was a coverall FORMULAE, CONTROL NICHE. of tough synthetic cloth, much stained and “Long, complicated and heavily worn. On the label inside the collar was annotated by Carlin,” he said. “It will take woven the name, Philip Carlin. us the rest of the night to puzzle this out, “He was here then, Otho. “But what but it's a godsend all the same.” happened to him ? Why would he strip— He sat down in the dirt, the book open wait !” on his knees. Simon hovered close over his The android's sharp eyes had perceived shoulder. The two were already absorbed a mound in the soil, vaguely manlike in in those all- important pages. shape. Together he and Newton uncovered “Otho,” said Newton, “will you go up it and then looked at each other in vast and give Grag a hand in ? The natives relief. won't dare to follow us in here on “It’s only his knapsack and bedroll,” forbidden ground.” said Newton thankfully. AND that was the last thing he said that “And his boots.” Otho shook his head “I don't get it at all. There's no sign of blood night, except to excha nge a few terse on his clothes—” remarks with Simon on the intricacies of Newton was looking now at the yel- some formulae or equation. crystal coils, the suggestive dais- like space Grag and Otho waited. They did not between them. The thing was close to him, speak. From beyond the high windows almost close enough to touch. 9 came a distant sound of voices that was He paused as though trying to shape like a bitter dirge. what he had learned into simpler terms. Curt Newton read on and on in Carlin's “In the days of the Old Empire the record. And as he read the terrible Vulcanian scientists had a predominant suspicion that had been born in his mind interest in the Sun. In fact it appears that took form and shape and crystallized at last Vulcan was first settled as an outpost for into a truth as horrifying as it was the study of solar physics. And inescapable. somewhere, in the course of those There was more in that record than mere centuries- long researches into the life of scientific data. There were history and the Sun, one man discovered a method of hope and terror and a great dream and a converting the ordinary matter of the conclusion so staggering that the mind human body into something resembling reeled before it—a conclusion that brought solar energy—a cohesive pattern of living in itself a dreadful punishment. force able to come and go at will into the Or was it, after all, a punishment ? very heart of the Sun. Curt Newton flung the book from him. “This was not destruction, you He leaped up and fo und that he was understand—merely conversion of a trembling in every limb, his body bathed in matter-pattern into an analogous sweat. “It’s ghastly, Simon !” he cried. functioning energy-pattern. By reversing “Why would they have let such an the field the changed matter could be experiment go forward ?” returned to its original form. And, since the Simon’s lens- like eyes regarded him mental and sensory centers remained calmly. “No knowledge can be wrong in functioning in the altered pattern, thought itself—only in its application. And the men and perception remained intact though of the Old Empire did forbid the use of this different. apparatus when they learned its effect. “Never before had there been such a Carlin quotes here the inscription he found possibility of uncovering the inmost secrets in the ruined city that so states. Also he of solar life—and the study of suns was mentions that he himself broke the seals on vital to a transgalactic civilization. The the great door.” scientists entered the conversion field and “The fool,” whispered Newton. “The became—Children of the Sun.” crazy fool !” He glanced at the twin sets of Otho caught his breath with a sharp glowing coils and then upward at the hissing sound. dome. “So that's the meaning of the “He changed and went out along the inscription—and the legend ! Do you mean Beam. And the natives, horrified by what that those little wisps of flames we saw he had done, caused the landslide to seal were once men ?” this place.” Newton did not answer, looking away at “But Carlin did not come back,” said the the tall golden coils tha t seemed to pulse Brain. with the Sun's own light. But the Brain “No,” said Newton, broodingly. “No, he spoke dryly. didn't. Perhaps for some reason he “Curtis did not tell you quite all. The couldn't.” lure of the strange life in the Sun proved The android's bright eyes were watching too much for many of the men who were him. “What was it that Carlin changed into, changed. They did not come back. And Curt ?” therefore the use of the converters was Curt Newton tur ned and said slowly, forbidden and this laboratory was sealed— “It's an almost unbelievable story. Yet until Carlin came and opened it again.” Carlin notes every source, here and in the “And now he's out there,” said Captain ruined city.” Future as though to himself. “Carlin 10 changed and went out there, and then bound to bring disaster some time. I think couldn't get back.” He swung around this may be the time.” suddenly to face them. His tanned face was But he came to the controls. These were set. “And I'm going after him,” he said. simple and the careful translation of the “I'm going to bring him back.” inscriptions made their operation quite clear. They found that Carlin had adjus ted OTHO cried out, “No ! Curt, you're mad them with great delicacy. He had meant to return. Yet he had not ! You can't do such a thing !” returned. Why not ? Newton could not “Carlin did.” believe that a landslide of soil could be “Yes, and maybe he's dead or worse !” barrier to a shape of living energy that The android caught Newton's arm. He could penetrate the depths of the Sun. pleaded, “Even if you went after him how Why then had Carlin not come back ? could you find him ? And if you did What was there out in the blazing suppose you found that you couldn't get thundering fury of that Sun-world that held back either ? These machines are ancient and trapped those who went there ? and might fail.” Captain Future remembered the “For once,” said Grag emphatically, inscriptions above the niches and the “Otho is right. Every word of it !” somber words of Simon Wright and “And I must agree with both of them,” shuddered, somewhere deep within him. said Simon Wright. “Curtis, this course of Almost in that moment he wavered. But action is both madness and folly.” over his head the light of the Beam burned Newton's gray eyes had grown cold with and brightened and he could not have a remoteness that made Otho step back stopped then, even if he had so wished. away from him. His face was now flint- “You understand now ?” he asked his like in its stubborn resolution. “Carlin was comrades. “The machines draw their our friend,” he said quietly. “He stood by power from the magnetic field of Vulcan us when we needed him. I have to go after itself, which is tremendous—cutting as it him.” does across the magnetic field of the Sun. “Very well, Curtis,” Simon answered. So there is a never- failing power source. “But you are not going for friendship nor The controls are properly set. Your job will to save Philip Carlin. You are going be to see that they aren’t touched.” because you yourself want to.” Grag and Otho nodded silently. Simon Wright said nothing. He was watching Curt NEWTON with a bitter concentration. turned a sharp and startled Newton walked toward the converter. glance upon the Brain. He stood where Carlin had stood and “And remember,” Simon added, “if you stripped himself naked. Then he paused, do not return none of us can go after you.” looking at the tall coils of crystal that were The stone vault was silent then. High full of golden fire. The corded muscles of above through the triple windows a gleam his body quivered and his eyes were of light came dancing in, cruel and bright strange. He stepped up onto the dais as a golden spear. Vulcan had turned her between the coils. face sunward and the Beam was come A blaze of golden light enveloped him. again. He could see the others through it as Newton said softly, “I’ll come back. I through a burning veil, Otho's pointed face promise you. Now come here and study full of fear and sadness and a kind of rage, these controls.” huge Grag looking almost pathetically In somber surrender Simon Wright said, puzzled and worried in the way he leaned “Your eagerness for the unknown was 11 forward with outstretched arms, Simon pattern of his new being seemed to gather hovering and watching broodingly. strength from them, to take in the surging Then the light curdled and thickened energy and grow upon it. and they were gone. Newton felt the awful Far away he saw the gap in the planet's subtle strength that sprang from the surface that let in the mighty Beam. He glowing coils, the intricate force- fields that willed himself toward it, consumed with a centered their focus in his flesh. He wanted strange hunger to be quit of the planetary to scream. walls that hid the universe. He had no voice. There was a He was part of all that now, the vastness moment—an eternity—of vertigo, of of elemental creation. Child of the Sun, panic, of a dreadful change and brother to the stars—he wanted to be free dissolution. in open space, to look upon the naked And then he was free. glory to which he himself was kin. Blurred and strangely he could perceive Out along the Beam he sped, eager, the interior of the citadel, the three silent joyous, and faintly as an echo out of some Futuremen watching, above the bright forgotten past he remembered the words of insistent shaft of light that drew him like a Kah. “He has followed the Bright Ones calling voice. He wished to rise toward it who do not return !” and he did, soaring upward with a marvelous swiftness that was a thing of joy and wonder even in that first confusion of the change. CHAPTER IV He heard a name cried out and knew it The Bright Ones for his own. He did not answer. He could not. Sight and hearing he still had though in a different way. He seemed now to absorb impressions through his whole THE firmament was filled with fire. All being rather than through the limited else was blotted out, forgotten—the farther organs of the human body. stars, the little worlds of men. There was And he was no longer human. He was a flame, a core of brilliant force, infinitely nothing else anywhere but the raging storming beauty of the Sun. strong, infinitely free. Free ! Free of all the The little wisp of flame that had been a clumsy shackles of the flesh, light and man hung motionless in space, absorbing swift—eternal ! through every sentient atom of his being He flew upward toward the triple arch that meant delivery from the confining the overmastering wonder. He had come up out of shadowed Vulcan into the full stone. Into the light he flashed and upward. destroying light, the unmasked splendor of Neither space nor time had any meaning the burning star that was lord of all the for him now. With the strange perceptive planets. sense that he still thought of as sight he looked toward the Beam, stabbing its He had risen toward it, rapidly at first, then more and more slowly as his new and searing length along the blackened land. untried perceptions brought home to him He rushed toward it, a small bright star the magnitude of the scene. Awe overcame against the tented gloom of Vulcan's inner him and he remained poised in mid- flight, sky. As a swimmer plunges into a long- struggling with sensations not given to any creature of corporeal form. sought stream the Sun-Child that had been He could feel the pressure of light. It Curt Newton plunged into the path of the came in a headlong rush from out of the Beam. The blinding glare, the deadly heat boiling cauldron of atomic dissolution, had no terrors for him now. The alien 12 reaching away to unguessed limits of now torn wide to show the sullen space, and he that had been Curt Newton chromosphere below. felt its strength pushing against him. He dropped down through one of those Particles of raw energy struck the sudden chasms, countless miles, with the tenuous fires of his new body, with a speed of a shaft of light, and plunged into myriad of bright and tingling shocks. They the red obscurity of the chromosphere. pleased him and he fed upon them. And he It seemed to him that here was found that he could hear the Sun. It was concentrated all the anger of the Sun. not hearing as he had known it. There was Torrents of raging scarlet gases swept by, no medium here to carry sound waves. It twisted here and there into blood-red was a more subtle thing, an inner pulsation whirlpools the size of a continent, their of his own new being. edges whipped to a burning froth where Yet he heard—the vast solemn savage they chafed against other currents, meeting roar of the never-ending tumult of sometimes head-on in a spout of savage destruction and rebirth, the hissing scream flame as dark as cinnabar. of world-high tongues of flame, the deep Elemental rage, the fury of life—the booming thunder of solar continents and new-born Child of the Sun scudded along seas of fire, shaped eternally out of the on the crimson tides, whirling, dancing, maelstrom and eternally sundered, only to tossing high on the crests, probing the be shaped again in different form. darkest ruby of the whirlpools. Below him He watched the wheeling of the Sun still, a vague rolling sphere of fire, lay the upon its axis. With a perception that sensed photosphere. intensely every color of the spectrum he He dropped down lower still, and saw the heaving mountains, the seas and looked upon the surface of the Sun. plains and storming clouds of fire, as Upheaval, chaos, beauty unimaginable, spectral shapes of amethyst and crimson, strangeness beyond belief. An immensity emerald and gold, barred and streaked with of golden flame, denser than those outer every conceivable shading from palest layers, writhing, surging, lifting up huge violet to deepest angry red. molten ranges that clawed at the crimson Gradually, lost in the wonder of his new sky and then slid down in titanic cataclysm life, his sense of awe abated. He began to to be lost in a weltering plain of fire. feel a sort of power as though the last of Cresting waves that could have his human fetters had fallen away, leaving swallowed worlds raced and ravaged him completely free. The void was his, the across the face of the Sun, crashing down Sun was his. He was beyond harm or fear in wild thundering avalanches, spouting, or death. He was alive and eternal as the spuming, unutterably brilliant, majestic stars. beyond any sight given to human eyes. He shot inward toward the Sun and the He watched, and felt the pattern of his shimmering veils of the corona wrapped new being tremble. His humanity was still him in a mist of glory. too recent for him to look upon that He was in no hurry. Time had ceased for unthinkable Sun-world without awe and him. The delicate diamond fires of these fear. upper mists were inexpressibly beautiful. Two great waves, thousand of miles in He played among them, a fleck of living height, reared up and rushed together golden flame, darting and wheeling like across a hollow trough wider than all of some fabled bird. He saw how the veils of Earth. They met and out of that sundering the corona were whipped and shaken as collision was born a prominence that burst though by great winds, now curling upon upward in a pouring river of flame. themselves in dense amethystine folds, 13 CURT NEWTON felt himself caught in river that ran across the face of the Sun. And they talked. that titanic current. He fought it, finding “Are you—were you Philip Carlin ?” that he could stand against it, finding a “Philip Carlin ? No. In human I was glory in his own new strength. A kind of Thardis, chief physicist to Fer Roga, Lord ecstasy shot through him. He let himself go of Vulcan. That was long ago.” and the current took him and whirled him Silence, except for the booming up, swift almost as light, past the thunders of the Sun. chromosphere, past the corona, sheer into “Tell me, little brother. You are new empty space. He rode it out, wild with here ?” exhilaration. “Yes.” He emerged from the prominence, “Do they still come then, the Bright swooping in a great circle, catching a Ones ? Is the portal open still ?” fleeting glimpse of distant worlds spangled “It has been lost and forgotten for many with light, and a memory came to him of ages. And then he found it, who was my his mission here and why he had left his friend—and he came through. Do you human form to make this pilgrimage into know him, Thardis ? Do you know of the Sun. Philip Carlin ?” More soberly now he plunged again “No. My studies keep me much alone. through the pale mists and the crimson Do you know, little brother, that I have tides and hovered over the photosphere, almost attained the boundaries of pure seeking others of his kind. thought ? The greatest minds of the Empire Across unthinkable distances he said that was impossible. But I shall do it searched and found no one. A terrible !” loneliness came upon him. He entered an Two flecks of living fire, whirling, area of storm where the great vortices of tossing on the solar winds above the the sun-spots whirled and thundered in a flaming river. And Thardis said, “What of maelstrom of electronic currents. the Empire ? What of Vulcan ? Was the He fled from them, deafened, shaken, portal forbidden and did our scientists and found himself crying out desperately, forget ?” “Carlin ! Carlin ! Where are you ?” “It was forbidden,” Newton answered. Crying not with tongue or voice but “And then. . .” He told Thardis slowly how with the power of his mind. And when he the Old Empire had crashed and died, how understood that he could speak that way he its far-flung peoples had sunk into called again and again, darting this way barbarism, how only yesterday as time and that across the burning oceans, heading goes in the universe they had climbed back the vast funnels of the solar storms. part way up the ladder of knowledge. “Carlin ! Carlin !” He told Thardis many things and most And someone answered. He heard the of them were bitter and sad. But even as he voice quite clearly in his mind or the part told them he knew that to the other they of his new being that was sensitive to the were less than dreams. He had gone too far reception of thought. away into some strange distance of his “Who calls, little brother ?” own. Golden bright against the crimson “So it is all gone,” mused Thardis. “The chromosphere above, he saw winging star-worlds, the captains, the many-throned toward him another of the Children of the kings. It is the law. You will learn it here, Sun. little brother. You will watch the cycle— He went to meet the stranger. Wheeling birth and death and eternity—repeated and dancing like two incredible butterflies forever in the heart of the Sun.” of flame they hovered above a burning 14 His tenuous body rippled, poised for flowing force as a man walks against the flight. “Farewell, little brother. Perhaps we wind, finding exhilaration in the battle. shall meet again.” Newton joined him, and felt his own “Wait ! Wait !” cried Newton. “You do strength surge in joyous pleasure. not understand. I can't remain here. I must The gold began to fade, gathering the find my friend and then go back with him.” diamond shards of color into itself, “Go back ?” repeated Thardis. “Ah, you lightening, paling. Newton became aware are new ! Once, I remember, I started to go of a glow ahead, more terrible than all the back.” fires he had yet seen—a supernal His thought was silent for a long while whiteness so searing in its intensity that and then it came again with a kind of sad even his new senses found it hard to bear. amusement. “The little Sun Child, who is The patterned energy of his flame- like so very new ! Come then, I shall help you body was shaken by waves of awful force. find your friend.” He had been afraid before. Now he was He led off across the tortured moving beyond fear. He crept after Thardis like a mountains of the Sun, across the lashing child creeping to the feet of Creation. He burning seas. Newton followed and as would have stopped but Thardis led him on Thardis went he called and presently from into the inmost solar furnace, into the out of the veils and clouds of fire came two living heart of the Sun. others who joined them. And he who had been Philip Carlin was Thardis asked, “Do you know of one there, wrapped in a silent awe, watching called Carlin ? He is new.” the mystic terrible forges beating out the One did not but the other answered, “I unthinkable energies of the death and know him. He bas gone deep into the inner renascence of ma tter. fires to study the Sun's life.” Newton had no thought for Carlin now. “I will take you to him,” Thardis said to The awful voices of creation were Newton. “Come.” hammering against his senses, dazing He dropped swiftly downward into the them, numbing them. He shuddered raging wilderness of flame. And Newton beneath that godlike fury of sound. The was afraid to follow. stripped and fleeing atoms burst through Then he was ashamed. If Carlin had him, filling him with an exalted pain. He gone that way he could go. He plunged too watched, lost utterly in a cosmic awe of down after the fleeting Thardis. his own. Atomic change exploded ceaselessly THE crested waves of holocaust reached here, thundering, throbbing—hydrogen flashing through all the shifting up and received them and buried them in transformations of the carbon- nitrogen depths of smoky gold, shot through with cycle to final helium, the residual energy gouts and shafts of blazing color. They bursting blindly outward in raving power. entered a region of denser matter and to Newton began to be aware of his own Newton it was like swimming under danger. He knew that if he stayed too long troubled waters, sensible of the pressure he would never go again. He was a and the awful turmoil, blending his own scientist and this was the ultimate core of substance with the medium that held him. learning. He would remain, drunk and He clung close to Thardis. Gradually as fascinated with the lure of knowledge, with they sank deeper and deeper beneath the the incredible life that could exist in this surface the golden depths grew quieter, the crucible of energy. He would remain flashing colors softer. Buried currents ran forever, with the other Children of the Sun. fiercely like rivers under the sea. Thardis entered one of these, breasting the mighty 15 Temptation whispered, “Why go back ? Yes, I must take back what I have learned. Why not remain, a clean, eternal flame, And yet. . .” free to learn, free to live ?” He burst out, bitter, passionate, “And He remembered the three who waited yet to leave all this !” for him in the citadel and the promise he “You must, Carlin !” had made. And he forced himself with a Another pause. And then, “If I must go bitter effort to speak. “Carlin ! Philip let us go at once, Curt !” Carlin !” Newton became aware then that Thardis The other Sun Child stirred, and asked, still hovered beside them. And Thardis told “Who calls ?” them, “Come, I will guide you.” And when he heard his rapt mind woke They three went winging upward from to emotion. “Curt Newton ? You here ? I the depths of the Sun—swiftly up through had almost forgotten.” the golden many-tinted photosphere, past Strange meeting of two friends no the angry crimson tides above, high, high, longer human, in the thundering solar fires through the whipping veils of the corona ! Newton forced himself to think only of into empty space. his purpose. “I've come after you, Carlin ! DAZED, I followed you to bring you back !” his shaken senses reeling, The other's response was a fierce, Newton perceived across the gulf the tiny instinctive recoil. “No ! I will not go back semi- molten ball of Vulcan. He fixed upon !” it, knowing that if he faltered now he was And Carlin's thought raced eagerly. lost. “Look—look about you ! How could I Thardis said, “Go quickly, little leave ? A million years from now, two brothers. I know. I too once started back.” million, when I have learned all I can. . . “Come !” cried Newton desperately. No, Curt. No scientist could leave this !” He plunged out across the gulf, swift as Newton felt the fatal force of that a shooting star, and by the very force of his argument. He too felt the irresistible mind he dragged the wavering Carlin with attraction of the undying life that had him. trapped men here for a million years. Too much had happened, too much to He felt it—too strongly ! He knew bear. Newton's mind was clouded, torn desperately that he must succumb to it between exaltation and pain of loss, dazed unless he left quickly. The knowledge with sights and sounds beyond human nerved him to clutch at the one persuasion power to endure. It was as in a dream that that might still sway Carlin. they rushed toward Vulcan. “But if you stay here all the knowledge Down the Beam into the hollow world you have gathered here will be lost forever they flashed and he perceived only vaguely ! The secrets of the Sun, the key to the the jungle and hills and the citadel. They mysteries of the universe prisoned here passed together through the triple arch and with you, never to be known !" sank down into the dimness where the He had been right. It was the one Futuremen waited. argument that could move this man whose Carlin went first into the space between life bad been spent in the gathering and the somber coils. Newton saw him enter interchange of knowledge. He felt the the force-field, a tenuous thing of flame, doubt, the turmoil, in Carlin's shaken mind. and step fo rth from it a man—a dazed and The unwillingness and yet the strong tug of reeling man. Otho caught him as he fell. lifetime habits of mind. Curt Newton followed him, into the The thunders of the Sun's heart roared blue-green light. And all consciousness left about them as Newton poised waiting. him. And at last, reluctantly, Carlin said “Yes. 16 He found himself standing upright with crust. Curt Newton sat at the controls. He Grag's great arm around him. It was as who had ridden the Beam before, free and though his body was encased in lead now, unfettered, now maneuvered the man- made his senses muffled, the very life in him ship along that pathway. His face was dimmed. harsh with strain and in his eyes was Otho was shouting at him. Grag’s voice something strange and haunted. boomed in his ear. “Curt, you got back ! The three who were with him in the And you brought him—” bridge-room kept silent as by tacit Simon Wright's metallic cry cut across agreement while the little ship sped swiftly their excited babble. “Carlin !” through the opening into the naked glare of Newton swung around. Philip Carlin the Sun. had recovered consciousness. He stood, Newton's eyes were dazzled but he swaying, in the center of the chamber. He could not turn them away from that mighty was not looking at them. He was looking orb of flame. down at his own body, slowly raising his And he remembered. own arms and staring at them. Would he always remember how he had And in his face was such white misery looked upon the Sun unveiled and seen the as Newton had seen on no man's face beating of its heart ? Would he always feel before. the tearing pang he felt now, remembering “I can't,” whispered Carlin, his voice the freedom and the strength ? Would he rusty, croaking. “I can't be like this again, some day return alone to that buried citadel prisoned in leaden flesh. No !” With the that held the secret of life and death ? word he moved with clumsy reeling In fierce denial he pressed down the swiftness toward the tall golden-shining firing-keys. The Comet leaped forward and coils of the other converter. behind it Vulcan dwindled and was lost, a Newton sprang shakily to intercept him tiny mote swallowed in the eternal fires of but his own legs buckled and he went to the Sun. his knee. “Carlin, wait !” The scientist turned a face transfigured by agony of resolve. “You weren't there as long as I, Curt. You don't know why I have to go back to that other life, that real life. “But you'll understand at least. You'll remember and maybe you too some day— ” He hurled himself forward onto the dais and was lost in a flare of yellow light. A small bright star flashed upward toward the triple arch—a living star, swift and free and joyous, seeking the Beam, the pathway to the Sun. And below, on the dark floor of the citadel, Curt Newton bent his head and hid his face between his hands. ***** The Comet rose on blasting keel-jets, gathered speed and roared out above the blackened Belt toward the gap in Vulcan's 17