Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942) by Edmond Hamilton

as they swung along — the giant metal robot with his moon-pup clinging to his shoulder, and the lithe, fierce-eyed android, whose fat little pet cuddled affectionately under his arm.
    Grag, who was leading, suddenly stopped. He made a gesture of warning. Otho hastily came to his side. There was a break in the jungle ahead. It was a narrow ribbon of smooth white synthestone road — a highway that began at Mloon and ran straight north through the forest.
    “I never noticed this road before,” Crag declared. “Since the Cometae didn’t mention any other cities, where do you suppose it leads?”
    “It leads north, and that means it leads to the citadel of the cursed Alius,” Otho guessed immediately. “Come on, let’s get across it and out of sight.”
    At that moment they heard a humming sound, rapidly growing louder. It came from the south. Grag and Otho hastily dived back into the brush.
    They glimpsed one of the torpedo-shaped, six-wheeled power vehicles of the Cometae approaching from the south with great speed. The vehicle whizzed past them. But its occupants remained photographed on their minds.
     
    A COMETAE soldier was driving the strange car. Beside him sat old Querdel. And in the rear of the machine lay a prone figure with red hair.
    “That was the chief!” yelled Otho as the car streaked out of sight. “That figure in the back — that was Curt himself!”
    Both he and Grag rushed back out onto the highway in a vain effort to overtake the car. But it had already vanished. After their first frenzied sprint along the highway, they realized the futility.
    “That devil Querdel is taking the chief to the citadel of the Alius!” raged the android. “Why didn’t we kill that wizard when we had the chance?”
    Grag balled his mighty fists.
    “They’re not going to do anything to him. We’re going to his rescue!”
    As indomitably as though they had but a few miles to go, the two Futuremen started forward along the white highway in a swinging trot.
    The endurance of Grag was practically limitless. And that of Otho’s artificial body was almost as great. These two could stand indefinite exertion that would kill an ordinary man. For hour after hour, they followed the highway north through the jungle.
    They met no one on that road. Hours passed, as they trotted grimly northward. It was hard to measure time, for the coma-sky that flamed overhead never changed. Oog whimpered with hunger. Eek cowered in fright on Grag’s mighty shoulder, as flame-winged birds or flying reptiles flashed across the highway from the jungle.
    They knew they had covered many scores of miles, and yet the road went endlessly on. Then, through the scintillating haze, they glimpsed the outlines of a small black mountain ahead of them.
    They came closer. Both Futuremen cried out in amazement. It was not a small mountain that loomed ahead. It was a black structure of mountainous bulk, rising stupendously from the luminous green forest.
    “The citadel of the Alius!” whispered Otho, his slant eyes aflame. “Gods of space, what kind of beings are they?”
    The Futuremen had come to the jungle’s edge. A few hundred feet away rose the sky-storming black, eyeless walls of the sinister enigmatic castle.
    The citadel had the shape of a squat, truncated cone. Its massive walls of black synthestone were blank and windowless, and sloped slightly inward. The only break in those walls was an arched entrance, without any kind of gate or door. The white highway led into this passage.
    “Say, that’s a break for us!” Grag exclaimed. “There’s no gate or guards — we can walk right in.”
    “Don’t be an idiot!” hissed Otho. “If the Alius have no gate or guards, it’s because they don’t need them. Get it through your iron skull that we’re up against creatures such as our cosmos has never seen before. I’d as soon dive into the sun as to walk through that entrance.”
    “But the chiefs in there — we’ve got to get inside,”