Captain Future 18 - Red Sun of Danger (Spring 1945)

by Edmond Hamilton

  The news created a sensation in the crowd. Curt Newton had known it would. He was counting on that sensation to divert the crowd’s attention.

  His scheme worked. These people on Roo were news-hungry. And here was a stunning piece of news!

  “Will you get down?” Li Sharn said furiously to. “Rab Cain.”

  “You’re spoiling everything!”

  Newton dropped back to the ground, but was surrounded by a big section of curious persons.

  “A two-by-four Earthman like that beat our Future?” growled a big Neptunian. “I don’t believe it.”

  “If he did, he ought to be shot!” flashed a Venusian girl.

  Newton glanced swiftly toward the center of the plaza. Standing up there, Jed Harmer was vainly trying to recapture the crowd’s attention.

  But Ka Thaar, the young Mercurian, was glaring at Newton with a murderous hatred.

  Curt Newton was puzzled. “What in space makes him hate me like that? Is it possible he’s seen through my disguise?” Li Sharn had Newton by the arm.

  “We’re getting out of here,” snarled the Saturnian. “Come on, Cain.”

  They forced a way out of the crowd. Li Sharn led along a street to a hangar in which rocket-cars were stored, and brought out his own machine.

  As he got into the car, Captain Future looked back toward the plaza. The crowd had broken into groups, and Jed Harmer and the Mercurian had disappeared. At least, Curt Newton thought, he had succeeded in postponing a dangerous crisis.

  Li Sharn drove westward along a muddy road that ran between gray vitron-fields. The enormous red disk of Arkar, declining toward the horizon, poured down merciless heat. Not until they were well out of the town did the Saturnian turn and speak.

  “You blundering idiot! Why the devil did you sound off? Harmer had them all worked up.”

  Captain Future scowled. “How was I to know? I thought I was helping you.”

  “You’re a fool!” snapped the Saturnian. He looked at Newton sharply. “You’re too-hotheaded. Why should we trust you?”

  “Aw, don’t talk dumb,” scoffed Captain Future. “You didn’t pick me up because you liked my looks. I’d rather throw an atom-gun for your bunch than earn a living grubbing vitron-plants. Give me a good cut and I’ll play your game.” For a while Li Sharn drove in silence.

  “You’re not as dumb as I thought, Cain,” the Saturnian said at last. “Maybe we can use you. But that’s up to the chief, not me.”

  “Do you mean Jed Harmer?” queried Captain Future. “Don’t tell me that fat politician is the real head of your party?”

  Li Sharn gave him a level glance. “Cain, remember one thing — don’t try to learn too much. Got it?”

  “Rab Cain” shrugged. “Sure. I don’t care who the real boss is.”

  They drove on, and Li Sharn continued his grumbling. “The way you messed things up in the plaza, I don’t know whether or not Harmer will take you in.”

  More than ever now Curt Newton realized how desperate was the chance he was taking. If the rebellious party didn’t accept him, he would be ruthlessly silenced forever! His gaze rested on the long rows of spiky gray shrubs, baking in the glare of sunset. That vitron was the real stake for which a deadly game of intrigue and violence was being played in this remote star-colony. Those gray shrubs meant health and long life to the System peoples — but also they meant fabulous riches to the man who could monopolize them.

  “My holdings begin here,” grunted Li Sharn as they passed a boundary marker in the fields.

  LI SHARN’S plantation was not a large one. Half-mile fields of vitron, badly weed-grown and neglected, surrounded a squat, bare cement house to which were attached warehouse and bunksheds.

  A couple of yellow-faced Uranian workers lolling lazily on the unswept veranda rose to greet their employer. Curt Newton followed the Saturnian into a slovenly living-room.

  “We’ll have dinner and then go over and see Harmer,” said Li Sharn. “His plantation is the next one north of here.”

  As the brief twilight of Roo darkened, Captain Future lounged around the plantation. The warehouse was empty of dried vitron. The plantation was a mere mask for Li Sham’s real activities.

  He, the Saturnian, and the two Uranians shared a carelessly-cooked dinner which had been cooked by a stringy, sullen Neptunian. Then Newton followed Li Sharn out into the darkness to the rocket-car.

  “Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking with Harmer,” warned Li Sharn as they started. “And keep clear of Ka Thaar. He’s dangerous.”

  Night stretched over wild Roo in a velvety darkness gemmed with a million stars. The ghostly, glimmering sphere of Black Moon was rising, a satellite so dim that one could barely distinguish the outlines of its shadowed surface.

  Jed Harmer’s plantation was only two miles north of the Saturnian’s. Their rocket-car pulled up in front of a square cement house set amid a grove of grotesque labyrinth-trees, whose myriad limbs intertwined inextricably a few yards above the ground.

  A Venusian servant, who looked far too burly to be a mere houseman, let them into the place. They found Jed Harmer bent over a desk of papers in a comfortable room, explaining something to Ka Thaar. Harmer scowled as he looked up and saw. “Rab Cain.”

  “Why did you bring that idiot here, Li?”

  “Rab Cain wants to work for our party,” Li Sharn said. “He’s been of good service to me, Jed.”

  “This afternoon he spoiled things in the plaza!” exploded Jed Harmer. “If he hadn’t interrupted, I’d have had those people in open rebellion.”

  “I’m sorry — I didn’t know the score,” mumbled Captain Future. “I was trying to help you.”

  “He’s a handy man with an atom-gun, Jed,” said Li Sharn meaningly. “Anybody who could best Future is good.”

  Harmer looked at. “Rab Cain” curiously. “Did you really outdraw Captain Future in a fair fight?”

  “Sure I did,” boasted Curt Newton. “He was bullying me in Venusopolis that night, and started to draw his atom-pistol, but I was too fast for him.”

  “You’re lying!”

  Newton turned, startled. Ka Thaar was looking across the desk at him with an expression that held the quintessence of hatred.

  The young Mercurian’s thin, swarthy face was dark, his tawny eyes slitted. “There never was a day when a space-tramp like you could outmatch Captain Future in fair fight! You played some cowardly trick on him if you did beat him.”

  Newton let out an angry bellow. “That’s not so! What the devil are you — a friend of Future’s?”

  Ka Thaar rose to his feet, his face seeming to freeze. The youngster spoke in a whisper. “Don’t talk to me in that tone, Cain.”

  His hand hovered beside his jacket, inside which the outline of an atom-pistol was plain. Death loomed menacingly, there in the lamp-lighted room.

  Jed Harmer hurriedly intervened. “Take it easy, Ka! And you, Cain — you watch the way you talk here.”

  “All right, but he can’t bully me,” grumbled Newton. “I don’t like Future and I don’t like his friends, either.”

  Inwardly, he was puzzled by Ka Thaar’s bitterness. The Mercurian youngster was a killer, an outlaw wanted in the System under another name. Why should he take this attitude?

  “I’m not a friend of Captain Future’s,” Ka Thaar said raspingly. “I only saw him once, ten years ago when I was a boy on Mercury. I know that Future’s a man. If a cheap ruffian like you managed to shoot him, it was in the back. We can’t use men of your type. I advise you to leave Roo.”

  “Now wait a minute, Ka,” complained Jed Harmer. “It’s not yours to decide. After all, I’m the leader of this movement.”

  Ka Thaar looked at the pudgy politician and laughed ironically. “You’re really beginning to think you are, aren’t you?”

  CURT NEWTON did not miss the implication. Then Jed Harmer was only a figurehead of the conspiracy, as they had calculated?

  But who, then, was the rea
l leader of the plot? Ka Thaar himself? Captain Future did not think so.

  “We will need every loyal supporter we can get when the rebellion begins,” Harmer was declaring. “You, Rab Cain, can be useful to us. Li Sharn will hire you as one of his plantation workers. You will comprehend our movement better when you have been with us a little. We are only seeking the good of the people of Roo. The remote control of the System Government is stifling this world. We must set it free of those shackles.”

  Captain Future perceived that Jed Harmer was the type of hypocrite who can deceive even himself.

  “If you insist on taking him in, all right,” Ka Thaar conceded sullenly. “But keep out of my way, Cain!”

  “Are there any orders for me?” Li Sharn asked.

  “We’ll inform you in the morning,” said Harmer noncommittally. “Better get back to your plantation, now.”

  Captain Future was thinking fast. If they expected to have orders for Li Sharn by morning, it meant they were to see the unknown leader of the conspiracy tonight. “Here’s a chance to learn the identity of the man behind this thing at once!” Newton thought.

  He left the house with Li Sharn. As they drove back to the Saturnian’s plantation, Newton’s brain was busy with a plan.

  The plantation was dark. Newton retired to the dusty bedroom assigned him, and stretched out on the cot. After an hour, he silently arose. From his space-bag he fished out a tiny instrument. He stuffed this into his pocket, silently opened the screen of his window, and stole across the dark veranda.

  Captain Future moved straight across the starlit vitron fields toward Harmer’s plantation. He had soon covered the two miles and was warily approaching the rear of the house.

  He slipped from shadow to shadow through the grotesque, twined labyrinth-trees, alert for automatic alarms. Light was gleaming from the shuttered window of the room in which he had met Harmer and Ka Thaar. They were still there, then. Who was in there with them?

  Curt Newton did not approach the window. He knelt near it and affixed to the cement wall the instrument he had brought. It was a super-stethoscope, invaluable for eavesdropping.

  He dimly heard Harmer’s voice. “— But it wasn’t my fault!”

  Suddenly the muzzle of an atom-pistol jabbed Curt Newton’s back. Startled, he turned his head. Li Sharn stood behind him.

  In the starlight, the Saturnian’s face was furious. “A spy then, after all?” he growled. “You might have known I’d watch you at first, Cain! You fool!”

  Captain Future knew the man was on the point of pressing the trigger, and knew too with icy certainty that he could not possibly move in time to escape instant death.

  Chapter 8: Alien Mystery

  PHILIP CARLIN remained stunned by dismay in the plaza of Rootown after the crowd began to break up. Though relieved that open rebellion had been temporarily averted, the young scientist was now prey to a greater anxiety.

  “You heard, Zamok?” he gasped. “Captain Future’s been shot, badly hurt. That’s why he hasn’t arrived on Roo!”

  “I can’t believe it,” said the elderly Martian.

  “You heard what that fellow Rab Cain said,” Carlin reminded him. Zamok’s wrinkled red face wore a frown. “Let’s find out more about this.”

  They started across the plaza to where the group of emigrants from the Starfarer stood bunched together.

  Walker King, the Governor, had approached them and was speaking earnestly to the bewildered group of newcomers.

  “You people have had an unfortunate introduction to Roo,” King was saying. “But don’t let it worry you. Things will quiet down. You’ll be assigned temporary quarters here in town until your land-grants can be surveyed and your new homes constructed.”

  “Will our land be out on the edge of the colony?” asked a serious-faced young Jovian emigrant.

  Walker King reluctantly admitted it. “You see, we continually clear more land from the jungle, and of course that’s what is granted.”

  “But from what we heard, the Roons raid the outer plantations?” persisted the Jovian, uneasiness in his face.

  “The Roons’ll come and kill you, sure!” cackled a shrill voice from behind the group.

  It was “Crazy” Jonny. The hunched, grizzled madman was wagging his head wisely as he surveyed the startled emigrants.

  “You don’t know what a Roon raid is like, do you? You’ll find out, if you stay on Roo. Better leave!”

  “Jonny, shut up and get out of here before I have you locked up,” said the governor angrily. He added to the emigrants, “Don’t pay any attention. The fellow’s been out of his mind for years.”

  He went to summon the officials who would assign them to temporary quarters. The discouraged emigrants looked at each other.

  Carlin approached John Gordon. “We’re research scientists working here on vitron,” Carlin introduced himself and Zamok. “Is it true Rab Cain shot Captain Future?”

  “I’m afraid it’s true,” Gordon nodded. “Cain admitted it when our ship’s captain, got an undimensional-wave message. The rat must have some basis for a self-defense plea, for the Patrol sent no order to detain him.”

  Carlin’s heart sank. When Gordon and the other emigrants moved off to their new quarters, he remained looking morosely at Zamok. “Zamok, what are we going to do?”

  “The Futuremen may come, anyway,” Zamok said thoughtfully. “Though if he’s badly wounded, they wouldn’t leave him.” Carlin rallied his courage.

  “We’ve got to go on, anyway. We’ve still got the Roon we captured last night. We still may be able to learn something from him.”

  “I hope so,” muttered the Martian. “Let’s get back to the plantation and find out.”

  The red disk of Arkar had already set, and darkness was complete when they reached their own plantation. Not a light showed from the house.

  “Why doesn’t Lin Sao have a light?” murmured Carlin uneasily. “You don’t suppose anything has happened?”

  He entered the house and found the living room-laboratory in complete darkness. Before he could find the switch, Carlin heard a heavy, clanking sound beside him. Gigantic arms encircled him in a crushing grip.

  “Zamok, get back!” he yelled. “Someone is —”

  “Quiet!” rumbled a deep voice. “It’s all right, Ezra. Turn on the lights.”

  The krypton-bulbs in the ceiling exploded brilliance. In the daylight glare, Philip Carlin looked around, stunned.

  He was being held by an incredible metal giant whose shining photoelectric eyes looked down at him from a seven-foot height. Opposite him, a lithe, white-skinned man, in close-fitting drab zipper-suit, held an atom-pistol raised, covering them.

  THE third person in the room, the man who had just switched on the lights, was an Earthman, iron-haired, elderly, with faded blue eyes in a weatherbeaten face.

  Carlin did not know him but he knew the others.

  “The Futuremen!” he choked. “Thank God you’re here! We were afraid you wouldn’t come.”

  Grag released him. “Sorry to startle you,” boomed the big robot. “But we couldn’t be sure who was coming, in the dark.”

  “We got here less than an hour ago,” Otho explained swiftly. “On the way here, we’d picked up the undimensional code-message you sent back to the System as planned, giving the location of this place. We landed the Comet under cover of darkness in the trees behind the house.”

  Carlin felt a rush of relief. His discouragement vanished. They weren’t going to have to fight this battle unaided, after all. They were going to have the mightiest of allies.

  He gaped, as a slim young Earthgirl, dark haired and dark eyed, wearing a simple jacket and space-slacks, came from the back of the room.

  “This is Joan Randall, Patrol agent,” Otho said. “And that old buzzard there is Marshal Ezra Gurney.” Carlin knew her now. He had heard of both her and Ezra.

  He looked around eagerly. “And Captain Future? He’s here?”

  �
�With us?” retorted Otho. “Don’t be foolish. The chief came on to Roo in disguise. He’ll meet us as soon as he can.”

  Joan explained to the bewildered scientists. “Curt had to come in as assumed identity if he was to accomplish anything. He built up a notorious new character for himself. He is now called Rab Cain.”

  “Rab Cain?” The name burst from the lips of Carlin and Zamok. “He got in on the Star-farer this afternoon.”

  He told them rapidly of the scene at Rootown when Harmer’s harangue to the rebellious colonists had been interrupted by Rab Cain’s swaggering boasts.

  “And he bragged he shot Captain Future!” finished Carlin. “Then he went off with Li Sharn.”

  A flash sparked from Joan Randall’s dark eyes, and was mirrored in the slanted green eyes of Otho — a vivid electric excitement.

  “Then Curt’s on the trail!” she exclaimed. “That’s why he isn’t here now. But it’s dangerous, working under cover by himself.”

  “Where is Li Sham’s place?” Otho demanded of Carlin.

  The botanist told him. “And Jed Harmer’s plantation is only a mile or two north of it. Li Sharn is known as one of Harmer’s party.”

  “I’ll go in there and find the chief, and see what he wants us to do,” Otho declared, starting toward the door.

  Grag interposed his metal bulk. “No,” the robot boomed. “You stay here. The chief said we were to wait till he got word to us.”

  Otho flared at the metal giant. “Can’t you see that the whole set-up’s changed? That mechanical brain of yours must have stripped a gear.”

  Grag uttered a howl of anger and strode forward. “I’m a peaceful individual,” he announced loudly, “but there’s a limit to the insults I’ll take from this synthetic rubberoid imitation of a man.”

  Philip Carlin was startled by the bellowing voice and unhuman wrath of the towering robot. But Joan’s quick smile reassured him.

  “Will you cut out this bickerin’?” old Ezra was demanding. “All the way out here in the Comet I had to listen to you two arguin’, and I’m tired of it.”

  “I still think I ought to find the chief,” Otho persisted.