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

by Edmond Hamilton

  “Nobody’s been near this safe since we got here,” he stated flatly. “And we were here a couple of hours before Quorn reached Venus with that circus.”

  “Good,” Curt replied. “First thing I want to do is activate the jewel into transmitting its part of Thuro Thuun’s formula and make sure the stone’s safe with me. Then we’re going to set a neat little trap for Doctor Quorn when he comes for it.”

  Ezra stopped pawing in the safe. He whipped around, his face stupefied.

  “Why, the stone is gone!” he cried.

  “It can’t be!” Joan protested. “One of us was watching that safe every minute. Its door was never opened!”

  BUT search soon disclosed that the space stone had somehow been taken. Otho gave a hissing oath.

  “Fire-imps of Jupiter, Quorn beat us to it! But how?”

  “I tell you, the safe wasn’t opened,” Joan insisted.

  “Of course it wasn’t opened,” Future said angrily. “Quorn got the stone without having to open the safe. Why couldn’t I have suspected it? It’s obvious enough.”

  “How could he get the stone without opening the safe?” Joan asked bewilderedly.

  “Don’t you remember how he made a small animal pass through solid metal? He speeded up its body’s atoms so it would interpenetrate ordinary matter. That’s how Quorn got this space stone. He simply dematerialized one of his freaks, sent him into the safe to rematerialize in there, grab the jewel, dematerialize again, and walk out through the metal.”

  “But you can see a dematerialized man,” protested Ezra. “I remember that from our case on Jupiter. We didn’t see anyone entering the safe at all.”

  “Quorn would send him through the wall of the room and the back of the safe so you couldn’t see,” Curt explained.

  “Outwitted!” Otho yelled furiously. “This Quorn’s a devil!”

  “I warned you he was a cunning, highly intelligent scientist,” Curt reminded. “But I forgot my own warning.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Joan argued. “You couldn’t know the jewel would be in a safe like this. It’s all my fault.”

  “Self-accusation won’t help now,” cut in the Brain’s rasping voice. “We must plot our course of action.”

  “Why not let me go out to the Circus, find Quorn, break him in half, and take the space-stones?” Grag boomed.

  “Attractive, but impractical, Grag,” Curt said. “Quorn will have his four gems cunningly hidden, and he’ll be on guard against any sudden attack we might make on him. Since we still have no real proof against him, we’d be breaking Interplanetary Law ourselves by attacking him.”

  “We’re surely not going to give up and let him get away with Thuro Thuun’s secret!” exploded Otho.

  Curt’s tanned face hardened, and his gray eyes grew bleak. For one of the few times in his career, he felt almost inferior to a brilliant mixed-breed scientist against whom he had matched himself. And Captain Future didn’t like that feeling.

  “No, we’re not going to give up,” he gritted. “It’s going to take time and effort, but I have a plan. We’re sure Quorn has the four space stones and that he’s after the other three. But we haven’t proof yet. He’s traveling with his freaks so he can use the circus as a blind for his activities. We must watch him if we’re to checkmate his scheme and prove his guilt.

  “So the Futuremen are going to join that circus. We’ll be able to stick to Quorn till we find out where he has the stolen space stones, and can prevent him from getting the others. It’s the only way we can watch him all the time, without arousing his suspicion.”

  “JOIN the circus as performers?” Otho blurted. “How can we get away with it? I don’t get your wave at all, Chief.”

  “Everyone would recognize us as the Futuremen,” Grag boomed.

  “We’ll be in disguise, you blockheads,” Curt retorted. “Otho can easily disguise himself as the ‘Ultra-acrobat’ from Ganymede, or something. We’ll dummy up Grag with some artificial rubberoid flesh to make him look wholly human, and he can be the ‘Strong Man of Space.’ We’ll hide the Brain inside a phony-looking machine and call it the Thinking Machine. As for me, I’ll join as a wild animal tamer — Kovo, the Venusian swamp man, and his performing marsh tigers.”

  “Marsh tigers?” repeated Ezra Gurney, his faded eyes widening. “Hell, nobody in the System can tame marsh tigers. They’re the most ferocious, vicious, dangerous critters in the nine worlds.”

  “I can tame them.” Curt grinned. “After Otho’s helped me bring them back alive.”

  “It’s more than likely you’ll bring Otho back dead,” bleated the android. Curt ignored him.

  “First thing is to fix up the disguises for Grag and Simon. We others will join the circus separately, to avoid arousing any suspicion.”

  Curt and the Futuremen, with Ezra and Joan Randall, went back to the Comet. There Otho, the master of disguise, rapidly concocted a mass of rubberoid flesh. While it was still warm, he smoothly applied it to Grag’s giant metal body except the eyes and mouth. When the rubberoid cooled, it became firm, pink and elastic as real flesh. Otho put dark spectacles over Grag’s shining photo-electric eyes, and then regarded him with satisfaction.

  “You look almost human now, Grag,” he said.

  “What do you mean — almost?” roared Grag. “I am human, a lot more than you, you miserable son of a laboratory retort!”

  “I’m through with Simon,” Captain Future interrupted quietly.

  Curt had quickly constructed a small mechanism that looked like a rather phony machine, with arms, dials and blinking lights on the front of its cylindrical case. Small wheels stood beneath it. Captain Future put the Brain’s square case inside the cylindrical one, made necessary connections, and then closed the cover.

  “Hides you completely, Simon,” he said. “You can still see through those concealed openings, and listen and speak. Also, I’ve made it possible for you to roll from place to place or use those flexible arms on the side of the case, whenever you wish.”

  “That’s something new — Simon with a body,” said Otho.

  “I don’t want a body,” rasped the Brain. “It distracts the thought processes. But I’ll try it this time.”

  Curt gave Grag full instructions.

  “I understand, Master,” boomed the disguised robot, who now looked like a giant man. “I’m to call myself the Strong Man of Space, and say this Thinking Machine is a fake device I picked up, and get into the circus. But I’m not to know you or Otho when you appear.”

  “That’s it,” Curt replied. “You’d better get started now.”

  Obediently Grag picked up the apparently absurd Thinking Machine that hid the Brain, and disappeared into the darkness.

  “Now for the marsh tigers.” Curt turned to Otho. “We’ll run inland in the Comet to the Great South Marsh. We’ll find plenty of ‘em there.”

  “Too cursed plenty to suit me,” growled Otho as he took the controls. “But I suppose a fellow can die only once.”

  “What can Ezra and I do to help, Captain Future?” Joan Randall asked.

  “I want the two of you to stay with the Comet, and trail the circus from a safe distance. You’ll be in close touch then if I need the ship. You know how to operate it, Ezra.”

  “Sure, but it’s a very tricky craft to handle,” drawled the veteran of space. “Touch a throttle, and you’re out of the System.”

  An hour later, Otho brought the Comet down on a muddy hummock in the dark, vast Great South Marsh. Curt had been tinkering with a tiny instrument. He held the dumbbell-shaped mechanism in his hand as he and the android opened the door.

  “Where’s your proton gun, Chief?” Otho asked.

  “I’m not going to use any, Otho,” Curt replied calmly.

  Otho recoiled. “Hunting marsh tigers without a gun! Oh, well, why not? We’re tired of living, anyway.”

  They stepped out into darkness and oozy muck. Instantly, from the black swamp an enormous, green-eyed bu
lk charged, screaming. It was a marsh tiger, a scaled, black creature with four thick legs that were armed with razor talons. Its hideous snouted head was distorted by a gaping mouth bristling with great fangs.

  A glimpse of that hideous maw as it bore down on them sent Curt and Otho leaping into the muck to avoid its rush. It thundered past, then turned with appalling speed to rush them again.

  “I knew it!” Otho yelled, drawing his proton pistol. “We’re sunk!”

  “Don’t fire, Otho!” Curt ordered.

  He was aiming his small, dumbbell-shaped instrument at the marsh tiger. The instrument buzzed thinly as he pressed its button. The marsh tiger stopped. It made no threatening move when Curt boldly advanced and patted its scaly head.

  “Devils of space!” gasped Otho. “How in the Sun’s name —”

  “Simple.” Curt grinned. “This instrument is a ‘will-dampener,’ which Simon and I worked out a good while ago. It radiates a force that neutralizes almost completely the neuronic currents in this beast’s brain-cells, makes him stupid and docile as a lamb. We’ll collect a half-dozen of them in the same way.”

  “All right,” said Otho uncertainly. “But all hell’s going to break loose if your ‘lambs’ suddenly recover.”

  Chapter 7: Interplanetary Circus

  GRAG the robot, disguised as an Earthman of colossal stature, strode heavily through the dark streets of Venusopolis. In his enormous hand he carried the cylindrical Thinking Machine that hid the Brain. “The Interplanetary Circus is out by the spaceport, so I think this street will take us there,” boomed the robot.

  “Not so loud, Grag!” cautioned the metallic voice of the Brain. “Are you sure you know your part?”

  “Sure, I’ll be the Strong Man just like Master taught me,” Grag answered. “Only I hate to leave Eek in the Comet.”

  “Ezra and Joan will take care of him,” Simon assured him.

  Grag looked exactly like a hulking, giant Earthman as he tramped along. He had donned a loose zipper-suit over his great frame. But the pink rubberoid artificial flesh that covered his metal head now made him look like a blank-faced, dark-spectacled giant.

  He avoided the bright central region of the Venusian city and kept to the quieter, darker streets of beautiful white cement homes and dark, fragrant gardens. The scent of exquisite flowers mingled with the faint tang of the sea and the strong, rank breath from the great inland marshes. The marsh smell made Grag think of Captain Future, somewhere in the swamps on his dangerous mission.

  Grag worried constantly about Curt Newton. To the robot, Curt was still the impish, redheaded little boy he had helped to educate on the Moon.

  They passed the edge of the spaceport, a vast lighted tarmac rimmed by busy docks in which reared the high hulls of ships from all the nine worlds. Grag approached the adjoining field, where the Interplanetary Circus had pitched its pavilions. The circus traveled from world to world in its own space ships, which were docked at the edge of the field. Grag saw that most of the ships were ponderous Cruh-Cholo freighters, though there was one twenty-man Rissman cruiser that looked fast.

  Flaring krypton lights illuminated the pavilions of the circus. These pavilions were conical, made of thin sections of light, strong metal that could readily be unbolted and stacked away inside the big Cruh-Cholo freighters for the trip to the next world. Grag trudged toward the little pavilion marked “Office of the Proprietor.” A thin, blue Saturnian looked up as Grag entered.

  “What do you want?” the Saturnian demanded suspiciously, eying Grag’s seven-foot figure and stupid face.

  “You the boss of this circus?” Grag demanded loudly.

  “Yes, I’m Jur Nugat, proprietor and manager,” snapped the Saturnian. “And I’m a busy man, too.”

  Grag struck his breast with his free hand.

  “Me, I’m the Strong Man of Space! I’m the strongest man in the whole System, bar none. You think anybody’s stronger, you bring ‘em on. I’ll break ‘em in half!”

  JUR NUGAT looked annoyed at Grag’s boasting.

  “You may be strong as a Jovian stamper, but why bother me about it?”

  “You want a good strong man for your circus, huh?” Grag demanded, his blank, pink face never changing expression. “You hire me, and you got the best strong man in the business. Steelite bars or logs of swampwood — I can break ‘em all in half!”

  Jur Nugat shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t use you.”

  “You mean you think I’m no good? Why, I’ll break you in half!” He started forward menacingly. Jur Nugat hastily skipped back.

  “Wait a minute!” bleated the Saturnian. “I can’t use you, but maybe the side-show that travels with us can. Go over and see Ul Quorn.”

  Grag appeared to hesitate.

  “All right, I go. This fellow Quorn better hire me, or I’ll break him in half.”

  As Grag stalked away, carrying the Brain’s machine, he heard Jur Nugat muttering behind him:

  “Damned if he hasn’t got breaking things in half on his brain!”

  Grag chuckled. “Didn’t I put it over, Simon? It would be swell if we could get right into Quorn’s show.”

  “Quorn will be a harder customer to fool,” the Brain rasped in a low tone. “Don’t overdo it.”

  Grag threaded his way between the smaller pavilions. Toiling roustabouts, a motley crew from all nine planets, were sweating to bolt on the last metal sections. A Jovian stamper, huge, round-headed, elephantine brown beast, had been brought to push a cage into place. Calls and cries in a half-dozen interplanetary languages split the night. The roars of caged beasts being unloaded from the big Cruh-Cholo menagerie-ship were deafening. Grag strode in stupid placidity through the uproar, toward the pavilion of the “Congress of Nine World Wonders.”

  The freak-show of Ul Quorn was already prepared for the next night’s performance. Grag strode past it to the small private office of Ul Quorn, outside which a cadaverous gray Neptunian was lounging.

  “That must be the freak Master said was called the Hearer,” Grag mused. “I must be careful what I say when he is around.”

  “Where is the boss?” he asked the Hearer loudly.

  “Inside,” answered the Neptunian. “But you can’t see him.”

  “He’ll see me!” roared Grag. “I’m the Strong Man of Space, and I’m going to see him right now.”

  The Hearer started to bar his way. Grag thrust him aside with a mere flick of his giant arm. The uproar brought a man and a girl from inside the tent. The girl was Martian, a dark-eyed, supple red girl of wildcat beauty. But Grag’s eyes swung at once to the man. Ul Quorn’s smooth, handsome, red features and intelligent black eyes produced a tangible shock inside Grag.

  “Why, I know this man,” Grag thought bewilderedly. “Yet I’m sure I never saw him before.”

  “What is all this commotion?” Ul Quorn was asking in a quiet yet somehow menacing voice.

  GRAG put down the machine that hid the Brain, and snatched up a girder lying nearby. By a tremendous exertion of his mighty arms, he bent the girder double.

  “See, I break ‘em all in half!” he pretended to pant. “You’ll hire me?”

  “Why don’t you get rid of this stupid lout?” the Martian girl said impatiently.

  “Not so fast, N’rala,” Quorn replied coolly. “A fellow with strength like that could be useful. He studied Grag’s stupid pink face, and spoke to him carefully, to reach his ignorant mind.

  “If I hire you, you’ll not only do a turn in the side-show but obey my orders in everything else. Do you understand?”

  “Sure, I do what you say, Boss,” Grag boomed cheerfully. “You don’t like anybody, you tell me. I’ll break ‘em in half.”

  Quorn laughed quietly, apparently able to see the humor in Grag’s loud, stupid boasting.

  “All right, you’re hired. But what’s this machine you’ve got?”

  “It’s a Thinking Machine that can answer your questions,” Grag explained. “It belongs to me. You a
sk it a question, Boss.”

  Ul Quorn, staring curiously at the cylindrical machine, addressed it mockingly.

  “Will we have good luck when we go to Mars?”

  Inside the cylinder, the Brain spoke in a slow, hesitating, mechanical voice that sounded quite artificial.

  “You will — go to Mars soon — and meet new — sweetheart.”

  “Not exactly an appropriate reply, but pretty good for a fake,” Ul Quorn said. He looked sharply at Grag. “Did you make it?”

  “No, Boss, I couldn’t make a thing like that,” Grag answered hastily. “The last show I was with busted up on Pluto and the manager couldn’t pay us. I said, ‘You pay me or I’ll break you in half.’ He said he’d give me this Thinking Machine for my back wages. He told me how it works, but I forgot. I think he said there are thousands of phrases on tiny voice records inside the machine. He said the words of a question automatically trip fairly appropriate phrases to answer. Yeah, that sounds like what he said.”

  “All right, you can use the thing as part of our show,” the mixed-breed scientist said disinterestedly. “The Hearer will show you a cubicle that you can use for a dressing room.”

  In the tiny room, Grag waited till he saw the Hearer stroll off across the grounds before he dared speak.

  “I think we’ve fooled Quorn, Simon,” he whispered to the disguised Brain. “But the man puzzles me. He looks familiar.”

  “I also felt as though I’d seen him before, though I know I never did,” the Brain answered perplexedly. “And Otho felt the same thing. Well, watch him as closely as you can without rousing suspicion.”

  Next morning, Grag devoted himself to learning as much as possible about Ul Quorn’s freak-show and its various performers. Besides the Hearer and the Chameleon Man, whom Captain Future had described, there were many other interplanetary oddities in the show. There was the “Intelligent Moon Wolf,” a six-legged beast from Io, who could read, write and calculate with amazing skill. Actually, as Grag soon learned, Ul Quorn had transferred part of a man’s brain into the Moon Wolf’s skull, giving it true human intelligence.