Captain Future 22 - Children of the Sun (May 1950) by Edmond Hamilton
Authors: Edmond Hamilton
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
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Children of the Sun
A Curt Newton Novelet
From the May 1950 issue of Startling Stories
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!
Chapter 1: Quest of the Futuremen
THE ship was small and dark and unobtrusive, speeding across the Solar System. It had a worn battered look, its plates roughened by strange radiation, dented by tiny meteors, tarnished by alien atmospheres.
It had been far, this ship. In its time it had voyaged to the farthest shores of infinity, carrying its little crew of four on an odyssey unmatched in human annals. It had borne them to perils far around the universe — and back again.
But not even the man who sat at its controls could dream that now, here inside the familiar System, it was bearing him toward the most strange and soul-shaking experience of all...
Curt Newton was oppressed, not by premonitions but by a self-accusing regret. The deep worry that he felt showed in the tautness of his face, in the set of his lean body. His red head was bent forward, his gray eyes anxiously searching the sun-beaten reaches of space ahead.
The little ship was inside the orbit of Mercury. The whole sky ahead was dominated by the monster bulk of the Sun. It glared like a universe of flame, crowned by the awful radiance of its corona, reaching out blind mighty tentacles of fire.
Newton scanned the region near the great orb’s limb. The impatience that had spurred him across half the System grew to an intolerable tension.
He said almost angrily, “Why couldn’t Carlin let well enough alone? Why did he have to go to Vulcan?”
“For the same reason,” answered a precise metallic voice from behind his shoulder, “that you went out to Andromeda. He is driven by the need to learn.”
“He wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t told him all about Vulcan. It’s my fault, Simon.”
Curt Newton looked at his companion. He saw nothing strange in the small square case hovering on its traction beams — the incredibly intricate serum-case that housed the living brain of him who had been Simon Wright, a man. That artificial voice had taught him his first words, the lens-like artificial eyes that watched him now had watched his first stumbling attempts to walk, the microphonic ears had heard his infant wails.
“Simon — do you think Carlin is dead?”
“Speculation is quite useless, Curtis. We can only try to find him.”
“We’ve got to find him,” Newton said, with somber determination. “He helped us when we needed help. And he was our friend.”
Friend. He had had so few close human friends, this man whom the System called Captain Future. Always he had stood in the shadow of a loneliness that was the inescapable heritage of his strange childhood.
Orphaned almost at birth he had grown to manhood on the lonely Moon, knowing no living creature but the three unhuman Futuremen. They had been his playmates, his teachers, his inseparable companions. Inevitably by that upbringing he was forever set apart from his own kind.
Few people had ever penetrated that barrier of reserve. Philip Carlin had been one of them. And now Carlin was gone into mystery.
“If I had been here,” Newton brooded, “I’d never have let him go.”
A BRILLIANT scientist, Carlin had set out to study the mysteries of that strange world inside Vulcan which the Futuremen had discovered. He had hired a work-ship with heavy anti-heat equipment to take him to Vulcan, arranging for it to come back there for him in six months.
But when the ship returned it had found no trace of Carlin in the ruined city that had been his base of operations. It had, after a futile search, come back with the news of his disappearance.
All this had happened before the return of the Futuremen from their epoch-making voyage to Andromeda. And now Curt Newton was driving sunward, toward Vulcan, to solve the mystery of Carlin’s
A Curt Newton Novelet
From the May 1950 issue of Startling Stories
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!
Chapter 1: Quest of the Futuremen
THE ship was small and dark and unobtrusive, speeding across the Solar System. It had a worn battered look, its plates roughened by strange radiation, dented by tiny meteors, tarnished by alien atmospheres.
It had been far, this ship. In its time it had voyaged to the farthest shores of infinity, carrying its little crew of four on an odyssey unmatched in human annals. It had borne them to perils far around the universe — and back again.
But not even the man who sat at its controls could dream that now, here inside the familiar System, it was bearing him toward the most strange and soul-shaking experience of all...
Curt Newton was oppressed, not by premonitions but by a self-accusing regret. The deep worry that he felt showed in the tautness of his face, in the set of his lean body. His red head was bent forward, his gray eyes anxiously searching the sun-beaten reaches of space ahead.
The little ship was inside the orbit of Mercury. The whole sky ahead was dominated by the monster bulk of the Sun. It glared like a universe of flame, crowned by the awful radiance of its corona, reaching out blind mighty tentacles of fire.
Newton scanned the region near the great orb’s limb. The impatience that had spurred him across half the System grew to an intolerable tension.
He said almost angrily, “Why couldn’t Carlin let well enough alone? Why did he have to go to Vulcan?”
“For the same reason,” answered a precise metallic voice from behind his shoulder, “that you went out to Andromeda. He is driven by the need to learn.”
“He wouldn’t have gone if I hadn’t told him all about Vulcan. It’s my fault, Simon.”
Curt Newton looked at his companion. He saw nothing strange in the small square case hovering on its traction beams — the incredibly intricate serum-case that housed the living brain of him who had been Simon Wright, a man. That artificial voice had taught him his first words, the lens-like artificial eyes that watched him now had watched his first stumbling attempts to walk, the microphonic ears had heard his infant wails.
“Simon — do you think Carlin is dead?”
“Speculation is quite useless, Curtis. We can only try to find him.”
“We’ve got to find him,” Newton said, with somber determination. “He helped us when we needed help. And he was our friend.”
Friend. He had had so few close human friends, this man whom the System called Captain Future. Always he had stood in the shadow of a loneliness that was the inescapable heritage of his strange childhood.
Orphaned almost at birth he had grown to manhood on the lonely Moon, knowing no living creature but the three unhuman Futuremen. They had been his playmates, his teachers, his inseparable companions. Inevitably by that upbringing he was forever set apart from his own kind.
Few people had ever penetrated that barrier of reserve. Philip Carlin had been one of them. And now Carlin was gone into mystery.
“If I had been here,” Newton brooded, “I’d never have let him go.”
A BRILLIANT scientist, Carlin had set out to study the mysteries of that strange world inside Vulcan which the Futuremen had discovered. He had hired a work-ship with heavy anti-heat equipment to take him to Vulcan, arranging for it to come back there for him in six months.
But when the ship returned it had found no trace of Carlin in the ruined city that had been his base of operations. It had, after a futile search, come back with the news of his disappearance.
All this had happened before the return of the Futuremen from their epoch-making voyage to Andromeda. And now Curt Newton was driving sunward, toward Vulcan, to solve the mystery of Carlin’s
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