Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950) (2 page)

“But where shall I go?” I asked.

“Anywhere far off,” he replied. Then he added quickly, “I mean anywhere far off from people who damage your ego by their slurring comments. Go where people will appreciate you and look up to you.”

“I’ll do that, doctor,” I said earnestly. “But what about medicine? This has been a shock to me and I feel a little faint and strange.”

Doctor Perker looked puzzled again, but he got some capsules from a cabinet. “Of course,” he said. “Here are some sedative capsules.”

I hastily put the capsules into my fuel chamber. I was trembling to think how close I had been to disaster.

For the first time I almost envied Otho, whose primitive low mind couldn’t have a complex thought if it tried.

Chapter 2: Mission to Pluto

ON OUR way back to the Moon I said nothing about my condition. I knew that Curt would be badly worried about me and I didn’t want to upset him.

In fact I half expected that he would notice how shaky I was but he didn’t. Probably his own business with the Government was too much on his mind for him to notice.

But when we reached the Moon-laboratory, my Spartan attempts to conceal my condition were ruined by Eek.

Eek has been my pet for years — a little moon-pup of the silicate telepathic non-breathing species that inhabits the deeper caverns of the Moon and subsists on metallic nourishment. The little fellow loves me exceedingly.

By his telepathic power Eek sensed at once that something was wrong with me. He scrambled up onto my shoulder, peering at me with his intelligent little eyes and nuzzling me in frantic anxiety.

“What’s Eek so upset about?” Curt asked.

Otho put a gross interpretation on the little fellow’s conduct, of course. “He’s hungry as always. Grag must have forgotten to turn on the automatic feeder when we left.”

I retorted angrily, “Eek is upset because he’s concerned about my health, which is more than any of you seem to be.”

They seemed amazed. They stared at me and then Curt said, “Your
health?”

I saw that I had to confess the truth. There was no use being stoical about it. So I told them of my visit to Doctor Perker and of my psychoses that he had discovered.

“Grag, with psychoses?” Otho cried. “Oh,
no
— not that!” and he let out a whoop of laughter.

His callous derision of my condition so enraged me that in spite of my shakiness I started toward him to teach him more consideration for the ailing.

Curt too had begun to grin at first but he had evidently realized the true seriousness of my condition, for he stepped between us and reproved Otho severely.

“You shut up, Otho! The last time you got Grag angry made trouble enough. If he says he has psychoses, he has them. You bring in the
Comet.”

When Otho had gone I felt a reaction. Such angry emotion was not good for me in my present state. Again I thought I was feeling faint.

“Thanks, Curt,” I said. “If you don’t mind — I think I’d like to sit down.”

“But you’ve never sat down to rest in your life —” he began and then said, “All right. But don’t use a chair. This motor-support table will hold you.”

His face had a queer strained look as though he were suppressing his emotions. I realized how deep must be his concern.

“Don’t worry about me,” I reassured him weakly. “It’s just that psychoses like these react on the nervous system.”

Simon Wright had remained, hovering silent and motionless as is his way, those cool lenslike eyes of his surveying me. His rasping metallic voice was unsympathetic when he spoke.

“This is all foolishness,” he said. “I know your nervous system and brain better than you do and the idea that you could get such a derangement is nonsense.”

It was like Simon to say that. He has a great and brilliant mind but I’m afraid he lacks the ordinary human sympathies that the rest of us have.

“Better let me handle this, Simon,” said Curt. “Grag is really upset.”

He went with Simon toward the Brain’s private laboratory. His low voice floated back down the corridor to me.

“— imitativeness, really — long association with humans — cure him by —”

It was evident that Captain Future at least had a keen anxiety about my condition. That was a comfort to me.

And when Otho presently returned into the main room he seemed to have come to a realization that it was no laughing matter. For he came over and looked at me closely.

“Grag, it’s true that you don’t look so well,” he said. “I didn’t notice it before but I can see it now.”

I mistrusted Otho’s sudden solicitude. I said warily, “Yes?”

“Yes — it shows up in your face,” he said, shaking his head.

“My face is rigid metal, so how can anything show up?” I demanded.

“It’s your eyes I referred to,” Otho said. “They’re sort of dull — as though their photoelectric circuits were disarranged. And your voice has a timbre I don’t like.”

THIS news dismayed me. I felt even worse and weaker than before. “You should protect your mental circuits from these terrific temperature changes you subject them to,” Otho said earnestly. “I know heat and cold mean nothing to you usually but in a condition like this —”

He dashed out and came back with a thick blanket. “Here, this will insulate your head-circuits a little. Let me tuck it around you, Grag.”

He put it over my head like a shawl and wrapped it around me. Then he insisted on taking my temperature.

“I can do it by a thermocouple unit of high calibration put into your fuel-chamber,” he said.

I admit that I was a little touched by Otho’s anxiety. “Don’t worry about me, Otho,” I said weakly. “I’ll get over it. Don’t you bother.”

“Nothing’s too much bother for my old pal Grag!” he insisted. “I wish I could cheer you up a little. Wait — I’ll have Oog do his new trick for you.”

Now if there was one thing I didn’t want to see it was Otho’s pet Oog. That repulsive little beast is a meteor-mimic, an asteroidal species with a horribly uncanny ability to assume any desired bodily form.

But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I made no objection. He whistled and Oog came lolloping in — a fat doughy little white creature with vacant staring eyes.

“Do the new trick I just taught you, Oog!” ordered Otho.

Oog’s body changed shape, flowed, twisted and suddenly had assumed a new form.

He was now a manlike little figure, sitting with a cape of his own tissues wrapped around him, rocking back and forth and holding hands to his middle.

Otho suddenly went off into a roar of laughter. “That’s it, Oog!”

A suspicion seized me. I looked more closely at Oog. The manlike, sitting figure he was imitating — it was me!

“Oog is now playing ‘Sick Robot!’ ” guffawed Otho.

I leaped up, flung aside the blanket and started toward Otho. “This does it, android!” I roared. “This time you’ve gone too far!”

My anger at being thus mocked when I was unwell was so great that I don’t know what I would have done to Otho if my voice hadn’t brought Curt running.

“Otho, get out of here!” snapped Captain Future. “I told you to let him alone.”

“I’ll crush that plastic-puss synthetic imitation of a man back into his original chemicals!” I said furiously.

“Grag, don’t lose your temper — it’s bad for you if you have any psychotic trouble,” Curt reminded me.

That cooled me down. I’d forgotten my precarious psychological condition.

Captain Future continued quickly, “Grag, you said your psychoanalyst told you to get away from people to cure your inferiority complex?”

“Yes — he said people were bad for me and that New York was especially bad that way, so I wasn’t to come back to him,” I said.

Curt’s face again twisted in that queer strained look I knew indicated deep worry. “He wasn’t so dumb,” Captain Future commented. “But I think he was right. I think it might do you good to get away from humans — I mean of course us
other
humans — for a little while.

“And it so happens,” he went on, “that you can carry out a rather urgent mission for us at the same time. You’ve heard of the moon Dis?”

“Pluto’s fourth little moon?” I said. “The one where they do the remote-control actinium mining?”

Captain Future nodded. “That’s the place. It’s rich in actinium but has a poisonous atmosphere that instantly kills oxygen-breathers. So it has been exploited by automatic machine-workers, which mine, crush and load the actinium into barges to be picked up without need of any humans living on the poisonous little moon.

“But now something’s wrong there. They told me at Government headquarters that they’d got a flash on it from the ship that went to Dis to pick up the loaded barges. The barges weren’t loaded this time and the Machs, the automatic machine-workers, were not around.

“Since it will take time to prepare an expedition to investigate that dangerous little world, they asked if we Futuremen could have a quick look now to see why the Machs have failed. I told them we would if we could.”

“What’s all this got to do with my condition?” I demanded.

“This — I want
you
to go out there and look things over,” he explained. “Simon and I are busy with the Andromeda data. But you could run out there and investigate, since naturally the poison there doesn’t affect you and you wouldn’t need any protection.

“It’ll give you the change your doctor ordered, Grag. It’d get you away from humans for there’s nobody on Dis except those Machs. And they’re merely clever automatic machines — you could set them right wherever they’ve gone wrong and get them to working again.”

I THOUGHT it over. I hated to leave Curt but after all, I had to follow doctor’s orders. “It’ll be pretty tough on me with only a bunch of dumb machines like that for company,” I said.

“Yes, their reaction-circuits are of the most elementary sort,” Curt admitted. “But you can soon set them right, Grag. They’ll naturally be absolutely subservient to you — subservience to human commands is inherent in their circuits.”

“Well, I don’t like to leave human society to give orders to a lot of dumb mindless machines but if Doctor Perker thinks it’ll be good for my condition I’ll do it.”

“Grag, I think it’d be the best thing in the world for your inferiority complex,” Captain Future said, smiling in his relief.

My preparations were soon made. I wouldn’t need the
Comet
— the space-sled would be enough for me. It was a streamlined craft I’d built for my own use — nobody else could use it for it had no over-deck, no air-supply, no rest-cabin. It was a long slim open hull or boat with high-powered atomic engines. Since I don’t breathe, riding in open space doesn’t bother me.

When I was ready to depart, Eek sensed that I was leaving and clambered up onto my shoulder. I decided to take him with me. Since he didn’t breathe either, neither space nor the poisonous moon would affect him. And it would break his heart to be left behind again.

Simon Wright came gliding out of his laboratory when he heard me bidding Curt goodbye.

“Are you really going to let Grag go out there alone?” he asked Curt.

“Someone has to look over things at Dis and Grag can do it easily,” Captain Future answered. “And I think it’ll get these ideas out of his mind.”

Otho offered me a little satchel. “It has a first-aid kit in it, Grag. In your condition you might need it.”

Suspiciously, I opened it. It contained a small atomic welder and some rivets. I promptly flung it at his head but he dodged with that slithery swiftness of his.

Curt came up to the airlock with me. “Complexes or no complexes, you look out for yourself, Grag. You know we can’t get along without you.”

I was touched by his affectionate emotion. And I was glad that he obviously didn’t fully realize my shakiness for he would not have let me go if he had.

I went up through the lock to the surface and soon had my long space-sled out of its own hangar. Presently, standing at its control-post with Eek perched comfortably on my shoulder, I was zooming upward. I whipped around the Moon and laid my course for Pluto.

There’s something about travelling in a space-ship, even the
Comet,
that gives me a slightly cramped feeling. It can’t compare to zipping along in an open craft, with the stars blazing undimmed all around you and the Sun glaring at your back. Also it was a pleasure not to have to worry about the effects of acceleration-pressure on others. I simply opened the power to the last notch.

Ordinarily I’d always enjoyed these jaunts by myself back and forth in the System. But I couldn’t now. I was too worried about myself. A delicate instrument like my mind could stand only so much and I hoped I wouldn’t have too much trouble setting things right on Dis.

To Eek, who crouched contentedly on my shoulder and gnawed an odd scrap of copper, I said, “We’ll have to be patient with the Machs out there, Eek. They’re not intelligent like your master. They’re just simple automatic machines with only elementary reaction-circuits.”

It would be difficult, I knew, to set things aright if those mindless mechanicals had somehow cracked up. But since they had an inherent obedience to humans built into their crude reaction-circuits their awe of me would make it easier.