He led the way through the shadowy grove, holding in his hand a watchlike instrument he had taken from his pocket. They advanced five minutes, and then the thing in his hand buzzed weakly. Its sensitive detectors were warning of atom-traps ahead that would loose a terrific blast upon an unwary prowler.
Quorn spent ten patient minutes using his detector to find the hidden trap. He disconnected the concealed guns before they risked continuing. Finally a massive structure only thirty feet in diameter stood before them.
“Is anyone awake at the house?” Quorn asked the Hearer.
They waited as the freak listened intently.
“Not a sound, Master. But I can hear the breathing of two guards at the vault.”
“I expected that,” Quorn said. He turned to the Chameleon Man. “Get those guards out into the open.”
The Saturnian silently glided forward, keeping his hand on the mechanism at his belt. He softly approached the door of the massive vault and knocked. At once, the Chameleon Man faded from view as his skin took on the exact hue of the moonlit concrete wall. Two guards, armed with heavy atom-guns, came to the door. They looked around puzzledly.
Quorn had put away his watchlike detector and held a small cube in his hand. He pressed its switch. A pulsing conical radiance sprang out and enveloped the two guards. They choked, fell, and lay in writhing heaps of dead-alive flesh.
“Haul those bodies out of sight,” Quorn ordered.
As the two freaks obeyed, the mixed-breed entered the vault. Inside was one brightly lit room at whose center was an enormous cylindrical safe. Quorn bent and feverishly examined the complicated controls.
“Permutation lock,” he muttered. “I expected that.”
He applied a tubular eye-piece to the edge of the lock, and prepared to use the penetrating vibrations of a little projector. It would enable him to see into the lock’s interior and decipher the permutation that would unlock it.
“Master!” came a frantic whisper from the Hearer outside. “A rocket is flying straight toward this place!”
Quorn stiffened. “Can it be Future? If it is, I’ll have a chance to settle our old accounts!”
Chapter 4: Mental Message
CAPTAIN FUTURE looked away from the hideous thing that had been Kenneth Lester, and stared around the softly lit study of the murdered archaeologist. Joan, Ezra Gurney and the Planet Police commander were silent, waiting for the wizard of science to speak. But Otho spoke first.
“I say it’s damned queer that we should have just been talking about ancient Martian science and then find that Lester was murdered by an ancient Martian weapon.”
Old Ezra Gurney stirred uneasily.
“I’ve seen men die in a lot of mighty bad ways, but I never saw anyone die like that.”
“Nobody else has, for ages,” Curt Newton replied somberly. “Simon and I have read of a weapon, used by the old Martians during the wars of the Ninth Dynasty, which caused this horrible disintegration. The nature of the weapon is still a mystery.”
Halk Anders, the bulldog-faced commander of the Planet Police, turned to Future.
“I had a call just before, from North Bonnel, the President’s secretary. He says that Professor Lester had called him tonight, asking to contact you.”
Curt Newton’s brows drew together.
“Contact me? Why?”
“Lester said he’d discovered something tremendous. He was excited.”
Curt felt that he was somehow touching the fringe of the mystery around this ghastly murder. His gray eyes swept the room, crowded with relics and unopened cases.
“Lester had been studying the fragments of Jovian civilization he brought back from the Cave of Ancients of Jupiter,” he said thoughtfully, “he told me he was eager to begin examining them.”
Captain Future’s memory swept back to that strange cavern on the shore of the great Fire Sea of Jupiter, where he, Grag and Lester had been trapped by the Space Emperor. The relics of Jovian science there had been given into Lester’s charge by the System Government.
“Maybe we could find out from his notes just what he was up to, Chief,” suggested Otho.
Curt nodded. “That file looks as though it contained his observations.”
For half an hour, while the others watched, the scientific wizard and the android leafed swiftly through the dead archaeologist’s notes. But when he had finished, Curt felt baffled.
“Nothing there,” he muttered. “Apparently he was just making a routine examination of the relics. But wait a minute! Here’s a list of all the things Lester brought from Jupiter. Let’s just check it to make sure they’re all here.”
Curt called off the objects while Otho, Ezra and Joan, who were familiar with Jovian relics, checked off each object in the study.
“One space stone,” Curt read at last.
He waited for the others to find it.
“Nothing like that here, Chief,” Otho reported.
Curt frowned. “Let it go for the moment. We’ll see if everything else is here.”
All the other listed objects proved to be present in the study. Captain Future went back to the matter of the missing space stone. He read the description on the list.
“ ‘A space stone cut and faceted in the ancient Martian fashion, apparently brought to Jupiter from Mars when Jovians had contact with other worlds.’ The space stone is the only thing that’s missing. Could that be the reason for the murder?”
“Would it be that valuable?” Ezra asked skeptically. “I don’t know much about ‘em.”
“They’re the most valuable jewels in the System,” Captain Future declared. “Only about half a dozen of them have ever been found. They’re actually a rare isotope of carbon, found only in meteors that enter the System from outside.”
Halk Anders, the Police Commander, looked interested.
“There was a space stone involved in a murder case on Mercury a few weeks ago, Captain Future. A gem merchant was murdered and a space stone stolen,”
Curt stiffened. “Was the murder committed in the same ghastly fashion as this one?”
“I don’t know, but I can soon find out from Headquarters.”
The commander went to the desk televisor, while Otho spoke to Curt. “That description says the space stone was cut and faceted in the ancient Martian manner. Ancient Mars again! What the devil does it mean, Chief?”
“It may be just coincidence,” Curt said slowly.
“I know you don’t think so!” Otho exploded. “You’re thinking just what I’m thinking.”
The commander came back, his face excited.
“The murder of the gem merchant was committed just like this! And the space stone stolen was also cut in the old Martian style.”
“You see?” Otho exclaimed, his green eyes sparkling.
Curt was beginning to feel that the murder of Kenneth Lester was no mere isolated crime as he had at first thought. It seemed to be one ramification of some vast interplanetary plot that was tied up somehow with the rare space stones. Lester had told Bonnel that he had discovered something tremendous. Had Lester been killed because he had found out something, or had it been merely a murder for theft?
“Everything seems to revolve around the space stones!” Curt said ruefully. “We must find out more about them.”
“Best fellow for that would be Lockley, the specialist on interplanetary jewels,” Ezra Gurney answered. “We used to call him in whenever there was a gem question to be decided, eh, Halk?”
The commander nodded his massive head. “Call Lockley now,” Curt ordered. “Get him here fast.”
Lockley proved to be a thin, bespectacled, fussy little Earthman of advanced age, irked at being routed out so late at night.
“Couldn’t it wait till morning?” he demanded resentfully.
“I’m afraid it couldn’t,” Curt said. “We need information and we need it quickly.”
Lockley’s alert eye noticed the ring on Curt’s finger. The little jewel spec
ialist looked up in awe at the big, pleasant red-haired young man.
“Captain Future!” he cried.
Curt quickly explained the problem.
“Two space stones have been stolen and their owners murdered. One was a jewel merchant on Mercury, and the other an interplanetary archaeologist right here. I want to know how many other space stones there are and who are their owners. This whole murder mystery seems to revolve about those stones.”
The expert seemed eager to exhibit his knowledge.
“As far as is known, only seven space stones have been found in the whole System’s history. All seven are of different colors. They were apparently collected from meteors by the ancient Martians, for it is known that they once belonged to the so-called Doomed Kings, more than two hundred thousand years ago. But with the degeneration of Martian civilization, the seven space stones were scattered. Some of them seem to have vanished altogether.”
“How many are in known collections now?” Captain Future asked.
Lockley shrugged. “The blue stone you say this archaeologist had wasn’t known. Only three space stones are definitely listed. One was in the possession of the Mercurian jewel merchant you mentioned. A second is in the collection of Harrison Yale, a rich Earthman who lives near New York. The third is in the State Museum of Venus.”
“That makes four space stones,” Otho pointed out. “What became of the other three?”
“There’s been no trace of them for centuries. They merely dropped out of sight.”
Curt Newton pondered. Confident that the space stones were somehow the clue to the mystery, he came to a rapid decision. “Otho and I are going to this Yale’s home. I want to study his space stone.”
A FEW minutes later, Captain Future and the android were zipping north through the moonlight in a fast Rissman rocket flier he had borrowed from the Planet Police.
“Why do we have to creep along at a thousand miles an hour?” Otho grumbled. “We could have got the Comet.”
“And advertised to the whole planet that the Futuremen were out,” Curt said witheringly. Otho looked up at the full Moon sailing royally in the starry heavens.
“Old Grag would be wild if he thought we were out on a trail without him,” he chuckled.
“I wish Simon were here,” muttered Curt. “The Brain could shed light on this space stone mystery, if anyone could.”
He brought the streamlined Rissman down in a silent swoop in front of the gleaming chromalloy mansion of Harrison Yale.
Yale proved to be a distinguished-looking man of sixty, a retired interplanetary shipping magnate whose gem collection was apparently his chief interest now. The magnate was astounded when he learned the identity and purpose of his caller.
“Why, I’d be only too glad to show you the space stone, Captain Future,” he blurted. “I’m proud of it. Paid a fortune for it.”
He led the way to the massive vault that gleamed silver in the Moon. The magnate exclaimed in horror.
“The door’s unlocked! The guards are gone!”
“Maybe the man we’re after has already been here,” Curt cried. “See if the space stone is gone.”
They burst inside the tower. Yale sprang to the massive metal vault and hastily touched the buttons of the permutation block. The door flew open. He hauled out neatly arranged drawers. Scintillating rays stung their eyes as jewels gave back the light. Milky Uranian opals glowed like misty little suns. Ice diamonds from far Pluto flashed and dazzled. Mercurian sarkones, blacker than outer space, glittered in somber splendor. Moonstones from the satellites of distant Saturn shone placidly white.
“Nothing seems to be missing,” Yale was muttering as he frantically examined the trays. “The great fire ruby of Jupiter. The three green pearls of Neptune —”
“But the space stone,” Curt snapped.
Yale drew out a small drawer and opened it, then uttered an exclamation of relief. “It’s still here!”
A faceted green globe, it looked up at them like an alien eye. Its facets appeared sharp and clean, as though carved yesterday. But Curt, taking from his flat gray tungstite belt a small tubular instrument, applied his eye to it. The electronic microscope showed him minute, pitlike scars on the facets.
“As though the thing had been bombarded with hard radiation for some reason,” Curt mused. He brought out a small projector used for X-ray vision. “Let’s see if the hard rays show any difference in it.”
Turning on the projector, he bent over the jewel. Curt received an electric shock of surprise. He heard a faraway, thin voice that was not speaking aloud. He heard it in his mind!
“Thus had I put my own people in danger,” that remote mental voice said, “for they wished me to lead them back whence I came. I pretended to agree, and said I would return with many such mechanisms as I wore myself. By thus beguiling them, I prevailed on them to let me go. I returned, resolved never again to unlock that danger. It would be better for my people to struggle against hardships than take such risk again. But not wishing altogether to destroy my great discovery, I put it into these gems.”
“Good Lord!” gasped Captain Future. “The secret of the space stones!”
“Look out, Chief!” yelled Otho in alarm.
There had been a clicking sound from the darkness outside the open door of the treasure vault. A pulsing cone of radiance shot into the room, aimed at Future’s tall figure.
BUT with the blinding speed that only the android possessed, Otho dived at Curt and knocked him clear of the path of the deadly cone. They snatched out their proton pistols almost as they hit the floor. But Curt felt a hand grab the space stone from his grip.
A semi-invisible, flying shadow was darting out the door. Curt and Otho fired together. But the needle rays of their proton pistols were an instant too late.
“After them!” Captain Future shouted.
He and the android jumped for the door. Harrison Yale could only stand stupefied. Clouds flying across the moon obscured the trees and gardens around them. Fiercely Curt’s eyes swept the darkness in search of their mysterious attackers.
“This way, Chief!” Otho hissed. “I hear men running.”
Captain Future and the android plunged together through the shrubbery. A roar of rockets blasted from close ahead as a little Tark flier flashed up out of the trees into the moonlight, its rocket tubes spuming back a curving trail of fire. Rapidly it disappeared westward in the night.
“We’ll chase ‘em down!” Otho cried. “Nobody’s going to take pot shots at us and then rocket clear!”
“Save it,” Curt retorted. “We might catch them with the Comet’s speed and instruments. But this little Rissman flier will never run them down when they have that much of a start.”
Curt was not as calm as his tanned, set face indicated. No more than any other man did Captain Future enjoy having his life threatened from ambush. But he was not one to let anger cloud his judgment. He led the way back to the jewel vault. Otho was still cursing audibly. Harrison Yale sprang to their side as they entered.
“The space stone?” cried the millionaire collector anxiously.
“They got it,” Curt gritted. “There was someone in this room when we entered. He grabbed the jewel from my hand.”
Yale stared. “Why, nobody could have been in this room when we entered. We’d have seen him.”
“Then it was somebody we couldn’t see,” Curt said.
“You mean somebody has an invisibility secret like yours, Chief?” Otho blurted.
“No. It wasn’t quite invisibility. I could glimpse him as a sort of vague, flying shadow. It was someone who couldn’t be seen as long as he crouched motionless against the wall — someone like that Chameleon Man in the freak-show tonight.”
Before the android could speak, Curt went on rapidly.
“This mystery is far bigger than I dreamed. It’s no mere theft of space stones for their commercial value. I learned that while I was examining that incredible gem.” He turned to Yale. �
�I’m afraid I can’t promise the return of your space stone, but I’m going to do my best to run down the robbers. Come on, Otho. We’ve got to hurry.”
Chapter 5: Home to the Moon
WHEN they were in the little Rissman flier, rocketing back to New York through the moonlit night, Otho asked eagerly:
“What’s up, Chief? Are we really going to hit the space trail again?” A gleam lit Otho’s eyes.
“We are,” Curt said grimly. “And I have an idea that for once you may get your fill of danger.”
He made no further explanation until they were back in Lester’s study in the Institute of Interplanetary Science. Then, to Ezra Gurney and Joan and the Police commander, Curt spoke rapidly.
“There’s hell behind these space stone robberies. Those seven jewels contain a tremendous secret. If my guess is right, each stone contains a part of the secret.”
“How in time could seven jewels hold a secret?” Ezra asked.
“It’s recorded in the space stones by mental transcription,” Curt declared. He smiled at their puzzled faces. “Psychologists discovered, a long time ago, that thought is really an electrical vibration of the brain’s electro-chemical neuron pattern. It can be transcribed in a permanent record like sound or light. Various substances will take a thought transcription, and play it back when hard radiation stimulates the record.
“It appears that the complex carbon isotope which forms a space stone will take a thought transcription. Examining Yale’s gem with X-rays before it was snatched from me, I received the thought record in it. I am sure now that the other six space stones have similar thought records in them, together forming one vast secret.”
Otho uttered an excited yelp and pointed to the small X-ray projector that stood on Kenneth Lester’s desk.
“Look, Chief! Lester was using that projector! I’ll bet he was using it to examine the space stone he had and accidentally got the thought record in it.”
“Just what did you hear in the thought message of the stone you examined?” Joan Randall asked.
“ ‘Thus had I put my own people in danger, for they wished me to lead them back whence I came. I pretended to agree, and —’ ” Curt went on to the end of the message, word for word.
Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) Page 3
