Captain Future 23 - The Harpers of Titan (September 1950) by Edmond Hamilton Page B

you forget it.”
    Curt’s eyes flashed. “I’ll see that System law comes here!” he flamed. “I’ll see that the Government hears of your cheating, thieving monopoly!”
    The thin lips of Wilson, the older partner, became thinner and he looked dangerously at the redhaired youth.
    “Boy, you’ve got things to learn,” he said calmly. “You’ve got to learn who the Lords of Power are.” And Wilson spoke to the burly men behind Curt in sharp command. “Teach him who we are, men.”
    Curt tried to spin around, but a stunning blow from a clenched fist caught him before he completed the movement. He reeled and felt another blow split his lips, and his head rang with the shock.
    He was only dimly aware then of further smashing blows, of falling strengthlessly to the floor, of heavy boots kicking him. He slipped into a merciful unconsciousness.
     
    THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE
    When he awoke, sore and bruised and cold, he found himself being carried over the ice-fields by Oraq’s Plutonians. Oraq helped him as he unsteadily tried to stand erect.
    “They beat you and threw you out of the dome!” raged Oraq. “They held us off with their atom-guns, and would have slain us where we stood if we tried to stop them.”
    The Plutonian added fiercely, “We shall gather all the tribes and attack these evil Lords of Power, and destroy them.”
    “No!” Curt said through puffed lips. “It’s for me to see that justice is done, Oraq. Take me back now to your city.”
    When they reached the ice-city of Qulun, and Otho and Grag and the Brain learned what had occurred, the android and robot exploded with rage. Hands had been laid upon their beloved ward and pupil!
    “We’ll go back there and blast them!” snarled Otho. “We’ll make these so-called Lords of Power sorry they ever saw you before they die.”
    “No!” Curt Newton contradicted. His young eyes had a strange, cold new light. “We’ll mete out justice to them — not mere vengeance. We’ll force Wilson and Kincaid to go back to Earth and surrender themselves to the justice of the Government.”
    “But how can we do that?” Grag objected. “They’ll never leave Pluto of their own accord.”
     
    THE SONIC-SILENT BEAM
    “I think they will,” Curt declared. “The atomic generators are all that make their domed trading-town habitable. And we can ‘kill’ those generators, by using the inhibiting damping-ray that you showed me how to produce. That, and the Brain’s ‘sonic-silent’ beam, will force them out.”
    “The ‘sonic-silent’ beam?” cried Otho. “Say, I begin to understand your plan now! You’re figuring to use it to —”
    “Yes,” Curt nodded. “That’s what we’re going to do.”
    Curt’s youthful, bruised face suddenly changed from its coldly grim expression. A look of dismay appeared in his eyes as he met the oddly intent gaze of the Brain.
    “I forgot myself for a moment,” Curt said uncertainly. “I was giving you orders. I didn’t mean to do that.”
    The Brain broke a long silence. “Curtis, you need not apologize. We shall do as you suggest.”
     
    THE DAWN OF MANHOOD
    That moment, all four of them knew, marked a change forever in their relations. It meant that Curt Newton was no longer their pupil, their ward. It meant that he had suddenly become their leader — that new, grim purpose had suddenly brought manhood.
    That night, the big atomic generators in the domed trading-town suddenly went dead. The puzzled engineers, after working for a time in vain, summoned Wilson and Kincaid.
    “We can’t understand it,” they told the two self-styled Lords of Power. “The generators should work, but they just don’t.”
    “You mean, you don’t know your business!” raged Kincaid. “You get them working, before we all freeze.”
    But though the engineers labored frantically, the great cyclotrons remained dead. The toiling men never dreamed of the little ship that was hovering far up in the dusky sky, playing upon the