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

by Edmond Hamilton

  Joan leaned forward. “We’re trying to find a Venusian named Lu Suur.”

  King appeared startled. “Lu Suur? What makes you think he’s here?”

  “You know the man then?” Joan asked quickly.

  “I never met him but I’ve good reason to remember his name,” Walker King answered bitterly. “I had a vitron plantation on Venus ten years ago. Lu Suur’s company swindled me.” He sighed. “I wish I’d stayed there. When the System Government wanted to name a colonist here as Governor a few years ago, my friends petitioned for my appointment. I wish now they’d never done so. This Roon trouble has made the job a nightmare.”

  JOAN cut off his complaints by showing him the old photograph of Lu Suur. “Is there anybody in the colony who resembles this picture?”

  Walter King shook his head. “No one I’ve seen.”

  “I’d like to see your records and pictures of all the men who arrived here in the first few years of the colony,” Joan requested.

  She and Ezra spent the next few hours carefully examining the records. But then, hunt was futile. By now Walker King had grasped the implications of their search.

  “You don’t think Lu Suur could be behind all our trouble here?” he asked anxiously. “Can this be the result of a deliberate plot? I thought Jed Harmer and his party were simply making political capital of the Roon raids.”

  “They’ll start a rebellion if they’re not stopped,” Ezra warned him grimly. “They’ve got the Roo colonists on the brink of secession. One more Roon attack will decide them.”

  “I know that, but what can I do to stop the Roons?” King exclaimed. “I’ve only got a handful of Patrol officers to police here. I’ve tried to use them as sentinels to give warning of Roon raids, but it hasn’t worked out.”

  “Why haven’t you sent scouts into the Roon country to find out just what’s stirred up the tribesmen to these attacks?” Ezra asked.

  King shook his head helplessly. “That’s impossible. Nobody can go into those jungles now without being killed by the Roons.”

  Joan remembered something Carlin had said. “Doesn’t Crazy Jonny, the madman we met outside this morning, still go in and out of the jungles?”

  “Oh, yes, Jonny still wanders everywhere, but the Roons wouldn’t hurt him,” King said. “They’ve always had a superstitious regard for him because of his madness.”

  “How long has he been mad?” the girl asked thoughtfully.

  “For seven or eight years,” was the reply. “Jonny was a fine, upstanding planter in the pioneer days here on Roo — had one of the first vitron plantations. Then one night, a sudden attack by night-dragons shocked him out of his sanity. He’s been a hopeless madman ever since, endlessly wandering through the colony and the jungles.”

  Joan frowned. “I’d like to question Crazy Jonny. Do you know where we could find him now?”

  King looked surprised. “His only home is still his old wrecked plantation-house, on the south edge of town. People bring him food and things. But I can’t understand what you hope to learn from him.”

  “If he still goes in and out of the jungles, he might be able to tell just what has stirred up the Roons to hostility,” Joan pointed out.

  Walker King looked dubious. “I doubt if he’s sane enough to answer your questions intelligently, but of course you can try.”

  “In the meantime,” said Joan as she rose to go, “you can help us by assembling every possible scrap of information about the colonists who came here in the first two years. I still think Lu Suur is here!”

  When she and Ezra Gurney emerged from the building into the hot red afternoon glare, the old marshal plainly was puzzled.

  “Why all this interest in Crazy Jonny?” he demanded.

  “King said that the Roons venerate the madman,” Joan explained. “Who better than Crazy Jonny could stir up the Roon’s superstitions as someone has done?”

  Ezra scratched his chin. “It don’t make sense. If the fellow’s crazy —”

  “He could still be used as a tool by someone who is not crazy,” retorted Joan. “Come on — we’re going to find out.”

  It took a couple of hours’ searching at the edge of town before they finally found Crazy Jonny’s old plantation house. It was a crumbling cement structure half hidden in an unkempt grove of feather-trees which was choked with high red weeds and wild bush-orchids.

  The door sagged open on broken hinges. Joan stepped into the place. The afternoon sunlight that filtered through dust-thick, cracked windows, disclosed unswept, littered rooms. There was a rude pallet in the corner of one. But the madman was not in the house.

  “Ten to one he’s gone back into the jungle,” growled Ezra. “When we saw him this mornin’ he was headin’ southward, remember.”

  Joan’s fine brows drew together. “Ezra, I’m sure now Jonny is the instrument the conspirators are using to incite the Roons to attack. The tribesmen would kill anyone else. Someone has sent Crazy Jonny into the jungles again today. We’ve got to overtake and stop him!”

  “With his head start if he’s in there, we won’t have much chance of findin’ him,” muttered Ezra. “But we can try.”

  They turned to the door, then stopped suddenly. Two men, holding atom-pistols, now stood in the open doorway.

  THE foremost was a lean, thin-faced young Mercurian whom Joan instantly recognized from description. Ka Thaar — Jed Harmer’s lieutenant!

  The other man was. “Rab Cain”! Captain Future himself in disguise, standing there with his weapon trained upon herself and Ezra!

  “Please make no outcry,” Ka Thaar said urgently, almost anxiously, to Joan. “I don’t want to be forced to hurt you.”

  “What does this mean?” Joan demanded.

  Ka Thaar had a curious respect in his manner as he answered. “You will not be harmed, either of you. But you have been prying into matters that must be kept secret, and so for the time being you must be held in a safe place under guard.”

  Joan Randall’s mind raced. Captain Future was scowling at her as though he had never seen her or Ezra before. Evidently. “Rab Cain” had been ordered to assist in seizing them. She realized at once she must not disclose Curt Newton’s true identity. Ezra had given no sign of recognizing. “Cain”. There was no danger to either of them, they knew, with Captain Future himself among their abductors.

  “We can’t argue with two atom-pistols,” Joan said in a bitter voice to the young Mercurian.

  Ka Thaar looked relieved. “I’m glad you’re sensible. I give you my word you won’t be hurt. But you must come with us.”

  Captain Future approached the girl and the old marshal, with a sneer on his disguised, scarred face.

  “So you’re the friends of Captain Future they talk about?” he gibed. “How’s he getting over that blasting I gave him on Venus?”

  “Cain, shut up and leave those people alone!” Ka Thaar’s tawny eyes had flared and there was a frozen anger in his thin, dark young face.

  Joan guessed that Captain Future had been seeking an opportunity to whisper to her, but he could not do so now under the Mercurian’s eyes.

  The compact atom-pistol in Joan’s pocket and Ezra’s holstered weapon were taken from them, and then Ka Thaar motioned them outside.

  In the red glare of setting Arkar, a rocket-car waited outside the crumbling house. At its wheel was a cadaverous gray Saturnian. She knew him to be Li Sharn — Otho.

  They got in and the car raced away. It was twilight by the time they reached the spaceport. Ka Thaar pointed through the dusk to a big rocket-flier waiting at the deserted, farther end of the big field.

  “There’s the Firebird,” he said, and Otho drove toward it.

  Curt Newton had guessed by now that the Firebird was Jed Harmer’s craft. It was waiting unlighted, a torpedo-shaped craft that was in reality a small space-ship with retractable — wings for atmospheric use.

  A half-dozen of Harmer’s motley “plantation workers” greeted them inside the lit
tle ship. They were a brutal-looking lot, all armed.

  “Start at once,” Ka Thaar ordered the Uranian at the controls. “We’re going to the Valley.”

  The Uranian sent the flier winging up rapidly into the twilight. They banked over Rootown’s scattered lights and then darted off at high speed through the gathering dusk.

  Joan did not look at either Curt Newton or Otho, not wishing to arouse the Mercurian’s suspicions. She must wait for a better chance to speak to Captain Future.

  In a half hour the Uranian pilot brought the little ship down in a long glide. A narrow valley, hardly more than a cleft in the dense jungle, opened below them.

  Joan looked down and saw that the valley was dotted with clumps of tall, pale flowers, nodding in the starlight. They looked like giant orchids, inconceivably lovely. But they had eyes, noses and mouths, and actually seemed to breathe!

  “This is the Valley of Dream Flowers,” Ka Thaar told her. “You will have to remain here, but will be quite safe.”

  Valley of Dream Flowers! It fitted the name, thought the girl, this lonely place of unreal, beautiful blossoms buried deep in the wild jungles of Roo.

  “Careful, you idiot!” Ka Thaar snapped to the pilot. “You’re bringing us right down on one of those clumps.”

  The Uranian hastily changed their course of descent by a blast of the lateral rockets. The Firebird swerved to avoid the tall clumps of flowers, and landed in deep grass.

  Joan and Ezra stepped silently out, with the others following closely. In the starlight, a little stream chuckled down the center of the valley. Not far away stood a large hut outside which they could glimpse an armed man waiting.

  “This way,” said Ka Thaar, and started toward the hut. Joan noticed that he gave a wide berth to all the tall, nodding flowers.

  Stumbling a little, Joan brought her foot down upon a tiny seedling flower and its white bud. Instantly such a drugging breath of overpowering perfume assailed her nostrils that her senses reeled.

  She felt herself falling. As she staggered, a larger blossom reached forth with an arm-like petal and seized her about the waist. To her fading consciousness time seemed to drag out, seconds became hours. Vaguely she saw the disguised Otho whip out his atom pistol and fire, destroying the stem of the plant that was dragging her to a horrible doom. Then Ka Thaar leaped forward and snatched her to safety.

  Then her senses cleared. Ka Thaar spoke to her in sharp warning.

  “Never go near any of the flowers, or step on even the tiniest of them!” he warned. “These flowers give out an exhalation of narcotic vapors which overcomes any living thing — a natural defense against browsing animals. A man, stupefied by one of the flowers, can lie senseless till he dies. Even the Roons are afraid to come here, and that’s why we use this place.”

  Chapter 13: Quest for the Crypt

  WHEN they came nearer, the armed man who stood waiting in front of the hut greeted them. He was a stocky, stolid — looking Venusian, who was obviously on guard here. “Anything happened, Quord?” asked Ka Thaar. The Venusian shook his head. “Not a thing. Even the night — dragons stay away.”

  They entered the hut, the Venusian turning on a self-powered krypton-lamp. The building was a ramshackle one hastily constructed of logs, and was half filled with stacks of long plastic cases.

  “Atom-guns and shells,” commented Captain Future, instantly identifying the cases. “So this is your arsenal for the rebellion, eh?”

  Ka Thaar nodded, then spoke earnestly to Joan and Ezra. “You two will have to remain here for some days. But as soon as the rebellion is over, you’ll be released unharmed.”

  Joan was convinced that the young Mercurian was sincere.

  “Of course you realize that then you’ll be liable for the forcible seizure of two Planet Patrol officers,” she said.

  Ka Thaar was unfrightened. “By that time, Roo will no longer be under the law of the System Government, Miss Randall.” He turned to Captain Future. “Cain, you and Quord have the men bring in some food and bedding from the Firebird.”

  As Curt Newton supervised the carrying out of the order by the brutal-looking crew of the little ship, he was hoping desperately for a chance to speak surreptitiously to Joan. She and Ezra had discovered something important or their abduction would not have been ordered. But what was it?

  To Newton’s dismay, he had no chance yet to speak to the girl. For Ka Thaar was now questioning Joan and Ezra.

  “Where are the Futuremen?” he demanded.

  “You ought to know,” she retorted. “It was your friend Rab Cain here who shot down Captain Future on Venus.”

  “Cain is no friend of mine, he’s simply a hired gunman our party is using,” Ka Thaar said glancing at Curt Newton with bitter dislike. “I’d hate to be him when Cap’n Future gets better and he and the Futuremen come after him,” drawled Ezra Gurney.

  “So the Futuremen are staying with their leader on Venus?” said Ka Thaar. “Yes, I suppose they would. Everyone knows their loyalty.” He lighted a rial cigarette and looked at Joan through its curling green smoke. “You know Captain Future pretty well, don’t you? Everybody tells of the adventures you and Marshal Gurney have shared with him.”

  There was an oddly eager curiosity in his question, something almost boyish that was incongruous in this thin-faced, deadly youngster.

  She could not keep her glance from straying to. “Rab Cain”, lounging sneeringly in the background.

  “Yes, we’ve worked often with Captain Future,” she answered. “You never met him.”

  “I saw him, once,” Ka Thaar said thoughtfully. “It was twelve years ago on Mercury, when I was just a boy. It was when he and the Futuremen came back from their first star-trip with the creation converters that were to replenish our world’s dying atmosphere. People almost mobbed the Futuremen in their crazy joy. I never forgot it.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Like every other boy on Mercury, I took Captain Future as my hero. I was going to be a spaceman just like him, when I grew up.” Joan felt strangely touched.

  “Why don’t you be like him, then?” she asked him. “Drop this intrigue you’re mixed in. You’re wrong to follow Jed Harmer.”

  Ka Thaar snorted contemptuously. “Harmer? I care nothing about him and the others and their schemes. But they hired my skill with an atom-pistol when I came to Roo. I’ve taken their pay and I stick with them. It’s too late for me to turn honest now, anyway. The Patrol wants me back in the System, under another name. I started out to be a spaceman like Captain Future, but a brawl one night on Saturn and a too-ready atom-pistol in my hand made me an outlaw, and so I wind up here working against Future’s friends. Strange, isn’t it?”

  Curt Newton had listened with deep interest. He understood now that queer attitude of Ka Thaar’s which had puzzled him. A boyhood hero-worship of the Futuremen still lingered in the young outlaw’s mind.

  Ka Thaar turned. “I’ve got to go, for I and the men have work to do. You two will be quite safe here as long as you don’t attempt to escape. It’d be quite useless, anyway, for I’m leaving Li Sharn and Cain here with Quord to guard you.”

  Curt Newton protested. “Aw, don’t leave me here in this forsaken hole? I signed up with your bunch for action.”

  NEWTON secretly wanted to go back with Ka Thaar, hoping to be led to the mysterious leader of the conspiracy. Joan and Ezra would be safe, for Otho would be with them. Otho, he knew, could find out what Joan had learned.

  But Ka Thaar overruled his protest. “You’re staying here, Cain! And you and Quord are under Li Sham’s orders.”

  Captain Future was stymied. What was he to do? Throw off the mask and overpower Ka Thaar and the others here and now? No, the risk in a showdown here was too great — the risk not only to his mission but also to Joan’s safety. He could not afford to challenge Ka Thaar and the whole crew. “All right, I’ll stay,” Newton grumbled.

  Ka Thaar signed to. “Li Sharn” to accompany him as he left the hut. Captain Future, edging
unobtrusively toward the door without arousing Quord’s notice, heard the Mercurian speaking in a low voice outside.

  “Li, I’m leaving Cain here because I still don’t entirely trust him. Those two prisoners must not be hurt. You and Quord watch him.”

  “I’ll keep Rab Cain in line,” Otho promised. “How soon is the break coming?”

  “You know that as well as I,” retorted Ka Thaar. “We’re going in the Firebird to set off the last blasts tomorrow night. By that time, Crazy Jonny will have the Roons all primed for the blow-off.”

  Curt Newton did not understand the references any more than Otho, and Otho dared not ask for explanations without betraying himself.

  Ka Thaar and his crew entered the Firebird, and it took off from the Valley of Dream Flowers with a low roar of tubes.

  Otho re-entered the hut. Newton glanced significantly at Quord, and the android understood his meaning. He addressed the Venusian.

  “Ka Thaar left orders for you to take a look along the Valley each night and day to make sure no one is spying on us,” Otho said. “You’d better start now.”

  The stocky Venusian was disgusted. “It’s a lot of foolishness,” he said. “There hasn’t been even an insect come here all the time I’ve been guarding the arsenal. And it’s tricky avoiding those flowers at night.”

  Nevertheless, he stalked outside to carry out the order. As soon as his steps receded, the tension of the four comrades relaxed.

  “Will somebody tell me just what’s goin’ on?” Ezra Gurney demanded of Captain Future. “First you and Otho join Harmer’s bunch in disguise. Then you help the rest of the bunch run off with us?”

  “We had to obey, Otho and I, or betray ourselves,” Newton declared. “Even so, our plan’s gone wrong. Otho and I are left here, while Harmer’s secession scheme is rushing toward a climax. Joan did you find Lu Suur’s trail?”

  Joan told of her talk with Governor Walker King and of its fruitless result.

  “But, Curt, we did learn something,” Joan went on. She described her encounter with Crazy Jonny and her suspicion that the madman was being used as an instrument to incite the Roons. “We tried to find Crazy Jonny but he’s gone into the jungle again.”