Read Captain Future 08 - The Lost World of Time (Fall 1941) for Free Online Page A

and small atomic welders, the Futuremen toiled in taut silence as their ship fell.
    Curt had no time to think of the ominous consequences of this unforeseen disaster. Their urgent expedition to Katain was likely to be ended by the coming crash. Even if they landed safely on Earth, they would be hopelessly marooned until they could secure metals and materials to repair their wrecked ship. They would be marooned in time, as well as in space, for the time-thruster could not operate without the power of all nine cycs.
    Panting, Curt finally straightened.
    "That's all we can do now," he said. "It'll at least give us the use of the bow rockets."
    They went forward with him to the control room. He took the pilot chair and tested the remaining cycs. Their throbbing was almost inaudible.
    "Landing on those weakened cycs will be safe as smacking a Jovian moon-bear in the teeth," declared Otho. "If they blow —"
    "We won't use them until we're actually about to crash," Curt interrupted. "That ought to be in a little more than an hour."
    Now that they had a chance to look out into space, awe possessed the Futuremen. "A different Solar System," muttered Simon Wright, "The System of time's dawn."
    Curt Newton felt as though they had been transported to a strange universe, so changed was almost every feature of the worlds they had known. The little second Moon, which was now far above and beyond them, was not the only different celestial feature. The familiar, farther Moon of their own time was equally strange. It had none of the giant craters they were used to seeing, but was a smooth, blank, shining sphere.
    Sweeping space with the electro-telescopes, the Futuremen perceived that Mars shone in the sky a brilliant green, instead of its usual somber red. Jupiter had eleven moons, not of the ten they knew, and the vast red spot of its Fire Sea was missing. Most startling of all, the great Rings of Saturn had not been formed and there were twelve moons around that planet, instead of ten.
    Curt fixed the telescope upon a blob of white light that lay inside the orbit of Jupiter, not far across the sky from that mighty world. The white blob was accompanied by a smaller speck.
    "That's Katain, the world whose people we came back to help!" he exclaimed. "It has a moon. It's a small world, no larger than Mars!"
    A thrill touched the Futuremen as they looked upon the legendary tenth planet, following its course between the paths of Mars and Jupiter. Curt's emotions were strongly stirred.
    "In this time, that world is near its doom. Somewhere on it is the scientist Darmur, who called to us across time for help, and his whole people, facing disaster."
    "We'll be lucky if we ever reach it," Otho predicted gloomily. "Look down below us."
     
    EARTH was a gigantic convex bowl beneath them now. The brilliant light of the two Moons illuminated most of it, for they were gliding down toward its night-shadowed half. Clear in the silvery light showed the outlines of its continents, but they were bafflingly unfamiliar.
    There was a great, sprawling continent where North America should have been. Asia was an enormous island. And South America, Africa and Australia were all connected, a giant crescent of land whose tips touched the Antarctic continent. No ice-fields were visible anywhere.
    "Of all ages, this is the last in which I'd choose to be cast away on Earth," muttered Curt. "The age of the giant reptiles, the Mesozoic."
    A faint screaming began as the falling Comet entered the thin outer atmosphere. Grag and Otho strapped hastily into recoil chairs beside Curt, holding their scared pets tightly in their laps.
    "You could leave the ship and glide down safely on your own beams, Simon," Curt suggested. "There's no use in your sharing the chance with us."
    The Brain's glass lens-eyes almost showed his disdain.
    "I shall remain with the ship," he rasped coldly. "Kindly stop talking nonsense."
    Curt tensely estimated the distance and speed as the Comet screamed