“That mixed-breed devil,” rasped the Brain. “If we don’t —”
“Hush, Simon,” Curt interrupted. “Ul Quorn is coming toward us now!”
Chapter 9: Challenge to the Futuremen
UL QUORN was sauntering toward them, as though casually returning to his own pavilion. The Hearer and the conical mechanism that had almost trapped Curt had disappeared. There was a cool smile on Ul Quorn’s smooth, handsome red face and cold humor in his black eyes as he confronted Curt. “Let me congratulate you on your lucky escape, Kovo,” the mixed-breed said softly. “I was watching. You were indeed fortunate to escape death.”
Despite his anger. Curt Newton couldn’t help grinning. Ul Quorn’s audacity somehow appealed to him. He knew perfectly well that Quorn suspected him of being Captain Future, and he knew that Quorn knew he knew that. Yet the mixed-breed faced him fearlessly. “The marsh tigers were a little out of hand tonight,” Curt admitted negligently. “But I always manage to bring ‘em around.”
He spoke in the Venusian swamp dialect, though he was sure that Quorn was not deceived by his disguise.
Quorn laughed softly.
“Yours is a dangerous career, Kovo. Haven’t you ever thought you may some day tempt danger once too often?”
Curt understood the subtle threat, but he smiled.
“Taming wild beasts is my business. I’ve subdued a lot of them in my time.”
“No doubt,” Quorn murmured. “Yet isn’t there always a danger that you may meet one you can’t tame?”
Future recognized the veiled threat behind the innocent words, and his own reply was two-edged.
“Why, yes Doctor Quorn,” he admitted cheerfully. “I may run up against a wild beast too tough for me to handle. But — I’ve tamed them all over the System, and I’m looking for the kind you’re talking about.” A tiny shadow darkened Quorn’s mocking black eyes and was gone.
“Perhaps you have not pitted yourself against an antagonist of your own caliber,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it would be wise, when you meet such an antagonist, to withdraw from a useless struggle and save yourself from —”
He was interrupted by a babel of yells and angry shouts from the direction of the Congress of Freaks. The Moon Wolf came loping up to Quorn. The human-minded animal’s eyes were bright with frightened excitement.
“A prowler has been caught in your private pavilion, Doctor Quorn! The Hearer detected him.”
Quorn stared suspiciously at Captain Future. Then the mixed-breed scientist hastened after the weird animal.
“What shall we do, Simon?” muttered Curt anxiously. “Otho must have been caught.”
Simon Wright had remained motionless and silent in his cylinder while Quorn and Curt had sparred. Now he spoke quickly in his muffled, metallic voice.
“That fool android is a master at getting into trouble!”
“I’ve got to see he doesn’t,” Captain Future declared anxiously. “Otherwise, Quorn may put him out of the way with that cursed life disintegrator he used on Lester.”
“He didn’t try that ancient weapon on you in the cage tonight,” reminded the Brain.
“That was because he dared not use it in the open, before so many witnesses. He wanted to make it seem that the marsh tigers had turned on me. But Otho’s in real danger! You wait here, Simon. You mustn’t be seen moving or talking.”
Captain Future hastened toward the motion of voices from Quorn’s private pavilion.
THE hideous freaks were gathered around Quorn and the Martian girl N’rala. His face dark and menacing, Quorn was confronting a cocky white Ganymedean, at whom the Hearer and the Chameleon Man trained atom pistols.
“You’re the new acrobat that joined the circus,” Quorn was saying dangerously to Otho. “Why are you prowling in my private pavilion?”
“It’s nothing to blow your rockets about,” Otho answered with assumed annoyance. “I’m new to the show and I blundered in here by mistake.”
“He’s lying, Doctor,” the Hearer grated. “When I came back with the — the instrument you told me to return here, I heard this fellow searching through your belongings.”
“A spy, then?” Quorn asked with murderous calm. “Of course, I should have known. The Ultra-acrobat, the only being in the System who could do those impossible tricks.”
“Good, weren’t they?” Otho said blandly. “I sure gave the people in there a good show tonight.”
“Too good,” replied Quorn. “You gave your identity away, too.”
N’rala’s eyes flashed with feline fury.
“You mean he’s one of them?” she cried to Quorn. “Then why waste time?”
From among the tense ring of freaks strode the huge figure of the Strong Man of Space.
“You want me to take this snooper out and break him in half, Boss?” Grag bellowed.
“No,” Quorn said softly. “There are other ways.”
Curt thought it time to intervene, before Otho and Grag made a break and precipitated a crisis. He pushed past the freaks. Ul Quorn turned sharply.
“You?” he exclaimed. Then he smiled thinly. “I might have known —"
“I heard the Ultra-acrobat was in trouble,” Curt broke in coolly. “He’s a friend of mine, you know. I’m sure he just blundered into your pavilion by mistake. I’d let him go, if I were you.”
“You would, would you?” Quorn murmured softly. “And if I don’t?”
Curt’s tanned hand was near the belt of his swamp-jacket, where the proton pistol butt protruded. His level eyes clashed with Quorn’s, meeting with a tangible shock.
“If you don’t,” Curt said quietly, “your conscience may keep you awake.”
The freaks edged back. An electric tension had suddenly reared like a charged wall between the two men. N’rala’s eyes glared pure hatred at Curt.
“Are you going to let him take his spy out of your hands?” she accused the mixed-breed.
“Of course,” Curt said with a taunting little laugh, “if you wish to try stopping me —”
It was an open challenge to Quorn. Curt hoped fervently that the mixed-breed would accept that challenge and draw his concealed weapon. It would give Curt a chance to have it out with him in a fair fight, once and for all, though Curt knew well that the deft magician might be even faster on the draw than he was. But Ul Quorn smiled inscrutably.
“You’d take the risk of fighting it out, wouldn’t you?” he said to Captain Future. “It won’t work. I shall take no chances of losing such a fight with you. I won’t draw my atom gun, and I know quite well that you, the champion of law, won’t force me.”
Curt pretended puzzlement, though he understood perfectly.
“Come on,” he ordered Otho. “These fellows are space-struck, I guess.”
As he left the pavilion, Curt heard Grag speak up loudly.
“Say, Boss, somebody mislaid my Thinking Machine. If I find out who did it, I’ll break ‘em in half!”
“Find your machine yourself and don’t bother me,” Quorn retorted. “I have other things to think of.”
CURT and Otho walked swiftly till they were well away from the pavilion of freaks, for they had learned the capabilities of the Hearer for eavesdropping. Not until they were approaching the dark main circus, where the Brain was, did Captain Future speak.
“You certainly scrambled the orbits for us in there, Otho. How the devil did you let yourself be caught?”
“That cursed Hearer!” swore the android. “I swear the fellow’s un-human. I wasn’t making sound enough to be heard a foot away, yet somehow he heard and gave the alarm.”
“You didn’t find Quorn’s four space stones?”
“No. They’re not in his pavilion. I made sure of that. The damned mixed-breed must carry them on him. I’ll catch him alone some dark night and snatch them from him. It’ll be easy.”
“No use,” Curt stated. “He doesn’t carry the space stones on him. First thing I did when I got here was to use an X-ray scanner
on him secretly, to see if he had them on his person. He doesn’t.”
They had reached the dark entrance where the cylinder that contained the Brain still rested. Grag came hurrying up as Curt and Otho reached the Brain. In the darkness, Curt spoke in a quick whisper to the three Futuremen.
“Mustn’t be seen together, or you and Grag will be suspected, Simon. Quorn knows I’m Captain Future and that the Ultra-acrobat is Otho, but he doesn’t suspect you two. Here’s how it stands. The four space stones Quorn has already secured are not in his pavilion nor on his person. Therefore they must be in his ship, the Rissman cruiser that transports his freak-show from world to world with the circus.”
“Then, lad,” said the Brain immediately, “our best chance to find the stones will be when Grag and I are in that ship with the freaks, on the way to Mars for the next stop.”
“The circus leaves for Korak, on Mars, a week from now,” Curt said. “Yes, I think you’d better not try anything until you’re actually on the way, Simon. Grag, you obey his orders utterly.”
“Yes, Master,” boomed the robot obediently. “But I am afraid for you. Quorn will use the life disintegrator or some other means to put you out of the way.”
“Otho and I will have to look out for ourselves,” Curt answered. “Quorn may not try anything till we get to Korak. He must figure on getting the other three space stones somewhere on Mars.”
“I OVERHEARD a few words between him and N’rala,” the Brain said. “I gathered that that fanatic Martian cult, the Sons of the Two Moons, are to tell him where the other stones are when he reaches Mars.”
“So that’s it!” Curt muttered. “The cunning devil’s using those Martian fanatics as his tools, eh? He mustn’t get those other three stones. We can’t allow the secret power of Thuro Thuun, whatever it is, to fall into the hands of that brilliant, unscrupulous fiend!”
“Why in hell’s name don’t we just grab the whole crew of cursed conspirators and throw them into Interplanetary Prison?” Otho demanded furiously.
“Can we prove one single charge against them?” Curt demanded with equal fury. “Not unless we actually find the four stolen space stones in his possession. As Simon says, our best chance to find them will be for him and Grag to search the ship en route to Mars. I’ll televise Ezra Gurney and Joan to trail the circus in the Comet. We’d better not try to meet again till we reach Mars. Do your absolute best to find those space stones, Simon.”
“Aye, lad,” rasped the disguised Brain. “And you take care, for Quorn will surely strike at you sooner or later.”
Yet in the week that passed, Quorn made no attempt on Curt Newton’s life, nor had Otho been menaced. As the night approached for the circus to leave Venus, Future felt uneasy.
“Quorn has something up his sleeve, to use against us,” he muttered as he watched the mixed-breed’s freaks and properties being loaded aboard the big, fast Rissman cruiser. “I wish I knew what.”
“We’ll finish his tricks for him on Mars,” Otho vowed.
The circus ships began lifting with roaring rocket tubes. The ponderous Cruh-Cholo freighters clambered up first, followed by Quorn’s Rissman. Curt looked after it with deep foreboding as it blasted off to Mars.
Chapter 10: Sons of the Two Moons
DOWN over night-clad Mars, like the brooding, murmuring voice of long-dead glories, murmured the cold wind from the polar snows. It wailed in a low, keening dirge across the desert drylands that stretched in every direction beneath the two brilliant, hurtling moons. Into the ancient Martian city of Korak blew that icy breath, searching the crumbling stone streets and time-eaten walls, domes and bulbous, unearthly towers.
To the few Martian men and women abroad in the older part of the city, the wind was an unwelcome, frigid breath against which they wrapped their synthewool mantles more tightly. Most of the red-skinned, stilt-legged Martian men in the streets were heading southward toward the spaceport, where the brilliant diffraction sign of the newly arrived Interplanetary Circus already glowed in the moonlit sky.
But a few citizens of the red planet were quietly moving toward a certain squat, ancient cement tower in the west part of Korak, near the great Main West Canal. In a small room high in that tower, illuminated by a feeble uranite bulb, Ul Quorn sat, wrapped in a heavy cloak, waiting. His handsome face was brooding. His eyes gleamed with disgust as he looked around the crumbling walls and the lifelike murals of ancient Martian combats.
“Dead, like everything else on Mars,” he mused ironically. “These people live in the past, in the forgotten era when Mars was great and glorious. N’rala! Where in space are you?”
The Martian girl entered, brilliantly beautiful in her tight saffron bodice and slit skirt. But there was a hint of danger in the slumbrous depths of her dark eyes as she looked at the mixed-breed.
“I am here,” she said. “And I am no chulat to be called to heel like that! I’ve killed men for less.”
Ul Quorn smiled. “I’ve no doubt you have. That’s why I’m so fond of you, N’rala. You’re so damnably and single-mindedly wicked. At least there’s no hypocrisy about you.”
The girl’s passion faded. Her slender red hand touched his shoulder with possessive tenderness.
“Where is that old fool Si Twih?” he asked.
She shrugged her faultless shoulders. “Down below, greeting the Sons of the Two Moons as they arrive for the meeting. He said he would give you the signal to come down and speak to them.”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to reel off more nonsense to those fanatics,” Quorn said wearily. “Why doesn’t Si Twih tell me where the other three space stones are? He said he knew.”
“He’ll tell you later,” N’rala reassured him. “He just wants to be dramatic about it.”
“Children, all of them, with their outworn pretense of restoring the glories of Mars,” complained the mixed-breed. “And I have to act with them, to get possession of the space stones.”
“But is it not worth it?” exclaimed N’rala, her dark eyes aglow. “With the power of Thuro Thuun in your hands you’ll have power, riches, pleasures — everything you want!”
UL QUORN looked at her, his handsome face oddly disdainful. “You think that’s why I seek power — for pleasure and fame? You don’t know me yet. Power to me means power to break all laws, crush all objectors, sweep aside all obstacles, in the search for ultimate scientific truths. I tried it on Earth a few years ago, and the sentimental fools called my ideas ‘hideous’ and sent me to Cerberus Prison. But wait till I have Thuro Thuun’s power. Then I’ll carry out my ideas on a planetary scale!”
N’rala shrank from him. “I do not understand,” she breathed.
“Of course you don’t. What would a super-beautiful wildcat, with a heart black as outer space, know of scientific ambition? But any great scientist would understand, even though my plans would horrify him. Even Captain Future, though he plans to destroy me, would understand.”
“Captain Future — that shrewd devil!” Hate and fear glittered in the Martian girl’s eyes. “Why haven’t you killed him before now? You know he’s Kovo, the tiger tamer.”
“You don’t kill a man like Future right after learning his identity,” Quorn said regretfully. “Plenty of men have tried it in the past, and they no longer exist. He’s too competent a scientist to be caught in simple traps, or to be surprised twice by even a weapon like the life disintegrator. He and I are probably the greatest scientists in the System’s history. It’s a pity that one of us must destroy the other.”
“You are contradicting yourself,” N’rala said perplexedly. “You have told me that you carry an old grudge against him and the Futuremen, that an old feud demands their deaths. Yet you speak of them almost with approval.”
Quorn laughed. “That’s the Earth attitude I inherited, N’rala. And that’s something no other race has ever been able to understand — why Earthmen are able to meet even their deadliest enemies with a smile and a pleasant word. But the Venusia
n in me tells me not to worry about enemies at all, to forget such unpleasant things and enjoy beauty. Yet the part of me that is Martian orders me never to forget the wrong done me long ago by the Futuremen. And I will not forget!”
A thin, scrawny Martian stuck his head timidly into the room.
“Si Twih bade me report that the Sons are all gathered and waiting for you,” he blurted, and hastily departed.
“Now for the play-acting,” Quorn said ironically as he rose and removed his cloak. “I must toss these fools hope, as one tosses a chulat a bone.”
With N’rala following, the mixed-breed strode down the dusky, chill stairways of crumbled cement, into a big room in the base of the ancient tower. It was circular, its windows masked by curtains. A cluster of uranite bulbs in the ceiling shed a glow on more than a hundred Martians.
Si Twih, the old, hollow-eyed Martian leader of the fanatic cult, stood on a low dais at one side of the room. Quorn stepped up beside him. Every eye turned hopefully on the handsome, straight figure of the mixed-breed scientist as he faced them.
“Brothers of the Two Moons,” Ul Quorn said in a low, clear voice, “the secret of Thuro Thuun shall soon be in our hands at last, if you continue your praiseworthy obedience. Then our common dream will be realized. The glory of Mars will blossom again!”
QUORN saw the eager, almost pathetic emotion that shone on every face. He glimpsed N’rala, standing at the far side of the room, smiling veiledly as she listened to him.
Before Quorn could continue, a big, stalwart Martian with a grizzled, hard face stepped forward.
“Is it permitted me to ask a question?” he asked.
“It is Mus Sigu, one of our brothers from Syrtis,” Si Twih said. “What would you ask, brother?”
Mus Sigu spoke challengingly to Quorn.
“We Sons of the Two Moons in the equatorial cities grow impatient with your promises, Doctor Quorn. We expected you to have this mysterious secret of Thuro Thuun before now. Maybe you have the formula and are trying to keep it for yourself!”
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