Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941)

by Edmond Hamilton

  Quorn felt cold fury at this shot that came so close to the truth, yet he knew better than to let his temper master him.

  “Your leader, Si Twih, knows that we do not have the secret yet. I have secured only four of the seven space stones, and must acquire the other three before the world-shaking power of Thuro Thuun will be ours.”

  “It is so, brothers,” Si Twih assured the crowd. “But there is good news. We have located the other three space stones. After this meeting, we will impart their location to Doctor Quorn, so that he may secure them as he has the others.”

  “Unless Captain Future interferes!” warned the girl, N’rala.

  An exclamation of fright went up from the fanatic throng.

  “Is Captain Future working against us?” cried one. “Then there’s danger. The whole System knows that the planeteer and his Futuremen are death to have against you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Quorn reassured them. “Future has met his match in me. He’s been hanging on my trail for days without being able to accomplish anything. He’ll soon be out of our way. I have an old score to settle with Future and the Futuremen.”

  The grizzled Martian, Mus Sigu, spoke loudly.

  “Tell me where Future is and I’ll kill him. I am not afraid of him!”

  “Don’t worry,” Quorn repeated coldly. “I’ve already made plans to take care of our enemy.”

  “You have heard the vow that soon the power of Thuro Thuun will be ours, brothers,” Si Twih addressed the crowd. “We must not continue this meeting longer, for the Planet Police are suspicious of us. Go now, and soon you shall be called together again to hear of our final success.”

  The Martian cultists began to leave unobtrusively, one by one. Quorn felt a sense of relief. It was a strain to play his part with these fanatics. Being the shrewdest, most ruthless of realists himself, he could not understand their intense devotion.

  “I’ll be glad when all this is over,” he mused. “It’s bad enough keeping Future off my back without having to juggle with these monomaniacs, too.”

  SI TWIH and two other leaders of the Sons of the Two Moons gestured to Ul Quorn. He followed them into a small chamber behind the dais. N’rala had returned to the tower room. In the small chamber, Quorn faced Si Twih and the others.

  “Well, you said you had located the other three space stones,” he urged tautly.

  Si Twih nodded. “It took all the resources of our organization to track them down. But it is going to take all your resources, Doctor Quorn, to get them.”

  “Where are they?”

  “One of the space stones,” Si Twih replied, “is on Deimos. The jewel is in the possession of a Martian who has an estate on that moon. He poses as a retired shipping magnate, but he’s really the retired space pirate, Rok Olor. Among the hoard of loot he still has is the space stone he took in a foray years ago.”

  “Good,” Quorn said. “It shouldn’t take long to get Rok Olor’s space stone, once I’ve put Future out of our way. Where are the other two space stones?”

  “They’re on the Pleasure Planet — that asteroid gambling paradise outside the limitations of System law. Bubas Uum, the fat spider who fleeces all who come there, has the two space stones. They were lost to him by their former owners, who came there and gambled their fortunes away.”

  “It’ll be harder getting those two stones,” Quorn said reflectively. “Bubas Uum is no fool. But I’ll do it, never fear. As soon as I get rid of Future and his cursed partners, I’ll get the space stone at Deimos. Then I’ll leave the circus and visit the Pleasure Planet to get the last two jewels.”

  “Doctor Quorn, can’t you tell us what this secret power of Thuro Thuun is?” Si Twih asked hesitantly. “You’re the only man in the System who even suspects what it is. I know you said you weren’t quite sure of it yet, but I believe that the leaders of the organization should be told what you have surmised.”

  Quorn shook his head. “No, Si Twih. I dare not give you misleading ideas. I will not be certain until I get all the stones and have Thuro Thuun’s complete formula. This much I will tell you. If my deductions are correct, the possessor of that secret will have absolute power over worlds!”

  The three Martian fanatics looked at him in speechless awe.

  MEANWHILE, N’rala had become restive as she waited in the chill, dimly lit tower room above. The lithe Martian girl shrugged impatiently and started down to the chamber. She stopped on the topmost step, stiffening like a Venusian swamp cat that scents peril. She drew a tiny atom pistol from her bodice.

  “Mus Sigu!” she breathed. “But why is he here?”

  The big circular room into which she was looking down was almost deserted, for the Sons of the Two Moons had dispersed — all but one. The exception was Mus Sigu, the grizzled Martian from Syrtis, who had dared to challenge Ul Quorn. He crouched against the door of the chamber in which were Quorn, Si Twih and the other leaders of the cult.

  “A spy!” whispered N’rala fiercely. No hunting panther of any of the nine worlds could have moved more silently than the Martian girl. Soundless as a shadow, she approached Mus Sigu as he listened intently at the door. N’rala suddenly thrust the tiny pistol against the Martian’s back.

  “Turn around, and draw no weapon!” she ordered venomously.

  Mus Sigu turned, startled. In that moment of amazement, the grizzled Martian’s hard face looked different. But at once he regained control of his features. That instant, though, had been enough to reveal an incredible fact to N’rala.

  “You!” she whispered. “You’re not Mus Sigu. You’re made up like him. You’re Captain Future!”

  Chapter 11: On the Martian Moon

  INSTANTLY Captain Future — for it was he in the disguise of Mus Sigu — felt the peril of his position as he faced the Martian girl. Before she could scream an alarm, he acted with all the audacity and unexpectedness that made the resourceful wizard of science most dangerous when cornered. In the art of echo ventriloquism, there was no greater master in the System.

  Future’s eyes photographed in an instant the angle of the walls behind N’rala. He turned slightly. Without moving his lips or throat, he spoke in the deep, booming voice of Grag the robot. That cunningly disguised voice seemed to issue directly behind the Martian girl.

  “Shall I kill her, Master?”

  N’rala’s eyes flashed with startled fear. She turned with catlike swiftness. Then, remembering the famous tricks of Captain Future, she spun quickly back to Curt. But she was too late! Curt Newton grabbed her mouth and gripped the wrist of her gun hand.

  “Thought you’d fall for that one,” he smiled. “Stop fighting, you darned wildcat!”

  N’rala was indeed struggling in his grasp with the fury of a trapped feline. Curt hastily pressed a finger against a spot at the side of her forehead, numbing a vital nerve. The girl went limp all at once. Holding her sagging form, Curt listened intently. There was no sound of alarm from beyond the door. He had kept the pseudo-voice of Grag pitched low.

  “Better blast out of this cursed place at full rocket,” Curt muttered. His gray eyes gleamed. “We’re doing better, thanks!”

  He lifted the unconscious Martian girl in his stalwart arms, and strode hastily out of the old tower. The streets of old Korak were dark and silent, swept by the freezing polar wind. Few people were to be seen. Most of the Martians had been drawn to the Interplanetary Circus, which was setting up its pavilions near the spaceport.

  Captain Future knew Korak as he knew every important city in the nine worlds. He strode noiselessly but swiftly through dark alleys and crumbling arcades, keeping out of the light of brilliant Phobos and Deimos. He emerged into the open plain on the side of the city opposite the spaceport. Curt’s keen eyes searched the moonlit plain as he moved on more slowly. Nothing was to be seen but whisking desert devils of wind-blown sand. Far in the north glittered the edge of the polar snows.

  “Ezra and Joan should be right here with the Comet,” Curt said under his brea
th. “If Quorn somehow stopped them —”

  “Gettin’ kind of careless, ain’t yuh, Future?”

  The drawling voice behind made Curt spin sharply around, his proton gun leaping into his fist. Ezra Gurney had risen from behind a concealing dune. The old man’s withered face wore a grin of enjoyment.

  “Surprised you, eh? First time I ever managed to slip up on you.”

  “I must be getting stupid,” Captain Future said ruefully. “You’re the second one who has pulled that trick on me tonight.”

  “What’s up?” Ezra asked eagerly. “That’s Quorn’s girl you’re carryin’, ain’t she? Where’d you pick her up?”

  “She picked me up,” Curt admitted. “Damned near got me. I was so busy eavesdropping, I let her surprise me. Where’s the Comet?”

  “Right over here, between two dunes,” Ezra said, leading the way. “Joan and I have been waitin’ here since we trailed you and the circus in.”

  CURT felt a vivid satisfaction at sight of the small, tear-drop craft concealed in the shadow between two tall sand dunes. As he entered the compact cabin-laboratory of the ship, Joan Randall eagerly ran forward to meet him. She stopped suddenly.

  “Who is that?” she asked, frowning at the Martian girl Curt was setting down in a chair.

  “Ain’t jealous, are yuh?” Ezra asked significantly.

  “Of course not!” Joan denied, flushing. She looked up at Curt. “What about Doctor Quorn?”

  Curt told them rapidly what he had done after joining the circus.

  “When I reached here with the circus, I found out from Police records that a certain Mus Sigu was known to be a member of the Sons of the Two Moons. I wanted to penetrate the organization, to be there when Quorn expounded his plans to it. So I had Mus Sigu arrested, made myself up as his double, and took his place. I did learn something, too, before N’rala surprised me.

  “Two of the three space stones Quorn hasn’t acquired are in the possession of Bubas Uum, proprietor of the Pleasure Planet. The other space stone is on Deimos, owned by a certain retired space pirate named Rok Olor.”

  “Rok Olor!” The name burst explosively from Ezra Gurney’s lips. “Why, Rok Olor disappeared thirty years ago. He’s supposed to’ve died right after.”

  “It seems he didn’t die, Ezra. He went into retirement as a supposedly honest ex-planter on Deimos.”

  “That blasted old space fox!” Ezra Gurney swore. “He always was the most tricky devil in the System. Many’s the time he gave me the slip in the old Patrol days, after I’d trailed him for weeks.”

  “I’m going to Deimos at once, to get the space stone he has before Quorn can get it,” Curt said.

  “And I’m goin’ with you!” Ezra snapped. “Wait till that old buzzard sees me step in and arrest him, after all these years!”

  “It’ll take us only a few hours to get to Deimos and back,” Captain Future added. “We’ll take this girl N’rala with us, for there’s something I want to find out from her. In the meantime, I want you to carry a message to Otho, Joan. Tell him to stage a big rumpus of some kind when he puts on his Ultra-acrobat act in the circus tonight.”

  Joan nodded. “I’ll tell him. Then I’ll come back here and wait for you.”

  She slipped out of the Comet and hastened across the moonlit dryland toward the lights of Korak.

  With Captain Future’s hand on the throttles, the tear-drop ship zoomed up into the sky. Rushing out through the thin Martian atmosphere, it headed at terrific pace toward the hurtling, bright little sphere of Deimos.

  AS THE little moon broadened out in the fore-port of the control room, old Ezra Gurney sat staring at it with fierce eagerness in his faded eyes.

  “Just wait till I get my hands on that old devil Rok Olor!” he kept repeating. “To run him down, after all these years —”

  “We’ve got to find him first,” Curt reminded. “He’ll be living under some false name. Call the Syrtis office of the Planet Police on Mars. Describe Rok Olor as you remember him, and ask them what planter of that description lives on Deimos.”

  As Ezra obeyed, Curt rapidly removed the disguise which had enabled him to assume the identity of Mus Sigu. Removing waxite pads from his cheeks, he washed off the red skin-stain and discarded the cunningly devised aids which had given him a stiltlike Martian figure. Ezra Gurney reported as Curt finished the task.

  “Retired planter livin’ near the south pole of Deimos. He calls himself Xex Iza, but he answers Rok Olor’s description. He’s our man!”

  Soon the Comet was dropping toward the surface of Deimos. The night side showed as a tiny green world of parklike estates. Having been given atmosphere and hydrosphere by synthetic air and water creators, the little satellite was a favorite residence of wealthy Martians, whose gravitation equalizers enabled them to live comfortably there. Curt Newton landed not far from a gleaming chromalloy mansion. Small, but exquisitely beautiful, it was set amid formal Martian gardens.

  “That’s the house,” Captain Future declared. “Come on, Ezra.”

  “What about the girl?” Ezra asked.

  N’rala still lay unconscious in the space chair.

  “She won’t come to till I bring her out of it,” Curt replied.

  He and the veteran emerged into the soft night of Deimos. Mars hung in the sky like an immense, dull-red moon. Flower scents made the warm breeze fragrant. It was easy to see why rich Martians preferred this blossoming little world to Mars. Captain Future and Ezra strode rapidly toward the chromalloy house. Their gravitation equalizers had automatically adjusted to the lighter gravitation.

  “Just watch Rok Olor’s face when he sees me, and he realizes he’s goin’ to Cerberus Prison!” crowed Ezra.

  As they entered the vestibule, a Martian servant came into the dimly lighted marble hall to greet them.

  “Just two friends to see Xex Iza,” Curt said easily. “We’d rather not give names. We want to surprise him.”

  They heard a limping step. A small, shriveled-looking Martian of advanced age, with a scarred, seamed face and proud, brilliant eyes, entered the vestibule. When he saw Ezra Gurney, he went rigid.

  “Devils of Mars, Captain Gurney of the Patrol!”

  “Marshal Gurney now, Rok,” drawled Ezra. “Surprised to see me, eh? Thought the Police never was goin’ to find you.”

  Rok Olor’s shriveled figure seemed to sag for a moment. Then he raised his bald head defiantly.

  “No, Gurney. I always felt that some day you would find me. I kept trying to tell myself it was nonsense, that I was safe here till I died. But underneath, I wasn’t sure. You always track a man till you get him.”

  “Well, Rok,” said Ezra in a somewhat softer tone, “the fact is that I stumbled on you by accident. This is Cap’n Future here. He spotted you.”

  ROK OLOR looked long and speculatively at Curt Newton.

  “So you’re this Captain Future we all hear about,” he said at last. “You must be all they say you are, to have tracked me here. Guess maybe you’d have outmatched any of us pirates in the wild days.”

  “Sorry to have to expose you after all this time, Rok Olor,” Curt said, uncomfortably. “But you realize the old charges against you still hold, and that Ezra must arrest you.”

  “I know that. I ask no mercy.”

  “You can help me out in a big case,” Curt went on earnestly. “If you do, I’ll see that you get the shortest possible sentence.”

  Rok Olor shrugged. “I haven’t so long to live. Even the shortest sentence on Cerberus will finish me. But I’ll help you, if I can.”

  “You’ve got a space stone, haven’t you?” Curt pursued.

  Rok Olor drew back, surprised.

  “Yes, I have a space stone. Took it in a raid on the Venus shipping lanes years ago, before I retired. It belonged to some Venusian collector who was on board.”

  “That was the raid you carried out off Earth’s orbit, wasn’t it?” Ezra yelped. “I remember it. How the hell did you escape that t
ime? You just seemed to melt into thin space.”

  “That was an easy one,” Rok Olor retorted, a faint grin on his shriveled face. “We put out our ‘haloes’ for protection and ran beyond Mercury, right close to the Sun. Then we circled half around, and lined out for Mars and the asteroid zone.”

  “I’ll be damned!” swore Ezra. “We never figured you had halo equipment, and that’s where we slipped. Say, you remember the time I was chasing you out past Saturn, and you —”

  “First, what about the space stone?” Curt interrupted.

  “I’ll get it,” Rok Olor said. “It’s in my safe.”

  He came back in a few moments, holding out the jewel. Eagerly Future took it. Yellow in color, faceted as sharply as if it were new, it blinked and burned in the palm of his hand. Curt hastily took his little X-ray scanner from his belt. He applied its radiation to the space stone, holding the gem close to his face. Into his mind, as the hard radiation freed the mental record in the gem, came that thin, remote voice of the past.

  “A small generator must be constructed which shall be capable of emitting vibrations within the thirteenth division of the eighth octave of the electro-magnetic spectrum. These are the carrier waves, which must be so projected by the generator as to enclose the subject and affect every atom of his body and clothing.”

  Captain Future turned off his scanner and stared at the space stone with deeply thoughtful eyes. Remembering the other one-seventh of the secret he had learned from Yale’s space stone, his super-keen scientific mind was trying to find a connection. Faint, dawning intimations of what Thuro Thuun’s secret might be crept into Curt’s mind. It seemed fantastic, yet it might be. And if Thuro Thuun’s secret was that —

  “No wonder Quorn’s so eager to get it,” Curt muttered. “Good Lord, imagine power like that in any one man’s hands!”