Simon Wright had the little receiver of the Ear ready, and it was turned on. “I’ve been listening but haven’t heard anything yet. They’ve not returned to their quarters.”
“Listen — they’re coming in now,” said Grag.
They hung over the little receiver. From it came the sound of footsteps, then the slam of a door. And then Jon Valdane’s voice, cold and wrathful.
“You bungled it, you fool,” Valdane was accusing. “I sent you to make sure of the Randall girl, and here she is, still on the ship. Why didn’t you catch up to her on the trail and do away with her so that it would look as though she’d been attacked by jungle beasts, as I ordered?”
There came the answering, whining voice of Kin Kurri, the Saturnian politician. “I couldn’t do it. Someone trailed me. It was Rizo Thon, that Mercurian actor. He must have been a spy working with the Patrol.”
“What happened?” Valdane demanded in alarm. “Where’s Rizo Thon now?”
“Don’t worry — Rizo Thon is dead,” Kin Kurri answered. “I found he was trailing me, so I waited and took him by surprise and killed him. I tossed his body into the jungle. It’ll never be found.”
Curt Newton looked up at his two comrades, his face suddenly gray with pallor.
“If that’s true, Otho is dead,” he choked.
Chapter 7: Danger in Space
HORRIFIED, Curt Newton and the two Futuremen looked at each other, stunned by the incredible news they had just heard.
Otho dead? Their minds simply could not digest the possibility of it.
And as they stood petrified with consternation, there came the echoing clang of the ship’s bells in sharp signal.
“Take-off time!” warned the loudspeakers throughout the Perseus. “Take-off time!”
“Otho can’t be dead,” cried Grag wildly. He started for the door. “We’ll go back there and find him.”
“Wait, Grag — it’s too late now!” Captain Future ordered. “We’re starting.”
The roar of the keel rockets punctuated his words. The whole bulk of the Perseus lifted sharply into the air, and then the liner was roaring up through the lurid red glow of the Jovian night.
“Listen!” whispered the Brain.
Voices again were coming from the tiny receiver. Valdane and his companions had stopped talking during the shock of take-off, but now their voices came again.
“If you really killed Rizo Thon, there may be trouble when he’s missed,” Jon Valdane was saying. “You’ve botched the whole thing, Kin Kurri.”
The voice of the Saturnian answered sullenly. “Why didn’t you have Su Thuar handle it, then?”
“If I had, I would have made sure that the Randall girl did not get away,” put in the silky voice of the Venusian criminal.
“Su Thuar was busy here at the ship, getting those cases of blow-guns aboard when no one was here to see,” declared Valdane harshly.
“What good are those blow-guns going to be to us?” Kin Kurri demanded. “How are they going to help us accomplish anything on Styx?”
Jon Valdane’s voice rose angrily. “You’re still trying to learn what I’m planning, are you? I told you before and I tell you now, that you and Su Thuar will not be told the details of my scheme until we’ve reached Styx. I’m no fool. So long as I am the only one who knows the details of the scheme, there’s no danger of them leaking out.”
“If you’re worrying about the Randall girl —” Kin Kurri began.
“Su Thuar will take care of the girl before we reach Styx.” Valdane interrupted. “But if Rizo Thon was a Patrol spy, there may be others aboard. What about this Chan Carson, whose cabin Rizo Thon shared?”
“Carson?” repeated the Saturnian incredulously. “That timid, stuttering fool? You surely don’t have any suspicions of him?”
“Oh, well, I can make certain that Carson is no spy, if it’ll make you feel any easier,” growled Kin Kurd. “I know a way.”
At that moment, Curt Newton and Grag and Simon heard from the receiver the sound of a door opening. Then came Valdane’s angry command.
“Shut that door, Su Thuar. Do you want everyone on the ship to hear us?”
“It’s getting stuffy in here,” grumbled the Venusian. “You can hardly breathe.”
“The ventilator must be out of order,” Valdane retorted. “Take a look at it.”
The Brain glanced sharply at Captain Future. “Lad, if he opens that ventilator —”
Even as Simon Wright spoke, there came from the receiver a loud sound of jarring metal.
Then a cry in Su Thuar’s voice.
“There’s an Ear hung inside this grating,” exclaimed the Venusian criminal. “Someone has been listening to everything we said.”
“I told you there were other spies on this ship,” cried Jon Valdane. “Smash that Ear, you fool.”
Curt Newton and the two Futuremen heard a brief, shattering sound from the receiver. Then silence.
“They found the Ear,” Newton exclaimed. “Now they’ll be doubly on their guard.”
“It’s my fault, lad,” murmured the Brain. “I didn’t have time to replace the fans in the ventilating-tubes there, and they noticed it.”
GRAG interjected an anxious question. “Chief, what are we going to do about Otho?”
Curt Newton’s face softened. “I know how you feel, Grag. I’m worried too. But there’s nothing we can do yet. I can’t believe Otho is really dead. And if he’s alive, he’ll take care of himself and get word to us.”
He went on frowning. “All we learned this way about Valdane’s plans is that the hollow wooden tubes they brought aboard are native Jovian blow-guns. Why would Valdane want primitive weapons like blow-guns? There’s only one possible way of getting at the secret in his mind.”
Simon Wright spoke in his cold metallic way. “I think I understand, lad. You mean, to use a brain-scanner?”
“That’s my idea,” Curt Newton admitted. “What do you think, Simon? Could you build one here?”
Simon looked around the crowded equipment, instruments, costumes and sets that filled the property-room. “I could construct a fairly efficient brain-scanner from parts of the telepicture apparatus here, I think. But would it enable us to get Valdane’s secret? You remember that when we invented the thing, we found it only worked on the subconscious mind.”
“There’s a chance we can pry what we want out of Valdane’s mind with it, if we’re able to get him into unconscious condition,” Curt Newton said. “In a few days, we’ll reach Neptune. While we’re there filming scenes in the submarine cities, we should have a chance to try our scheme. We’ve got to, for it’s our last stop before reaching Styx! So you’d better get to work on the scanner at once, Simon.”
“I’ll do my best,” promised the Brain. “But you must get back to your cabin. When they miss ‘Rizo Thon’, they’ll come there looking for him and you must be there.”
Captain Future hastened back through the dimly-lit corridors toward his own cabin. The Perseus was throbbing through the void, its rockets blasting with monotonous regularity as they hurled it on toward their next goal, the ocean-covered world of Neptune in whose strange submarine cities the next scenes of the telepicture were to be filmed. Curt Newton stopped suddenly as he entered the passage upon which lay his own cabin. A man was crouching at his cabin door, fumbling with the catch. The catch gave way and the crouching figure stealthily stepped into Curt Newton’s dark cabin. He clutched in his hand a small, gleaming object.
Captain Future had already drawn his atom-pistol from inside his jacket. He tip-toed silently but swiftly down the corridor. He reached his open door and vaguely glimpsed the dark figure of the stealthy visitant, just inside it.
Curt Newton leaped in, his weapon raised. His pistol-barrel rang down on the head of the shadowy prowler. The man slumped back down in the doorway. By the dim light from the corridor, Curt Newton now saw the senseless figure’s face.
“Kin Kurd,” he exclaimed, as he recog
nized the pale blue countenance of the Saturnian politician. "Now what the blazes —”
Then he noticed that the Saturnian held in his hand a small bottle. Captain Future inspected it. It contained a colorless oil which he recognized as the oil used to remove artificial make-up.
“So that’s why he sneaked in here when he thought I would be sleeping,” Curt Newton muttered.
“What have you done to Kin Kurd?” a clear voice suddenly demanded.
Captain Future turned, dismayed. It was Joan Randall. She had been coming along the corridor but had stopped at his open door. He realized instantly how incriminating it must look to her, to find him stooping thus over Kin Kurd’s senseless body.
“You’ve stunned him,” she explained as she perceived the bruise on the Saturnian’s forehead. Her brown eyes flashed. “I’m going to call the captain to investigate this.”
Joan Randall turned to carry out her intention, but Captain Future hastily grasped her arm.
“No, you mustn’t do that.”
“Why shouldn’t I, Chan Carson?” she flared. “I knew you were a timid little coward but I didn’t think you were vicious enough to make an attack like this on an unoffending man.”
CURT NEWTON desperately realized that as things stood he could not dissuade her from giving the alarm. To her, this looked like an utterly unprovoked attack by him upon Kin Kurd.
But if she gave the alarm, if the ship’s officers and company were aroused, it would ruin his own plans. He realized that there was only one way in which he could insure Joan’s silence.
“Joan, listen,” he begged earnestly. “You must be silent. This is Curt speaking. I’m not really Chan Carson — I’m Curt Newton.”
Joan Randall’s brown eyes grew hot with scorn. “You’re trying to deceive me with a clumsy trick. And it won’t work.”
“It’s true,” Captain Future insisted. “I’ve been playing the part of Chan Carson, from the first. I’m on board on a dangerous mission —”
He saw that she did not believe a word of it, that she was about to shout an alarm. Racking his brain for a means of convincing her, Curt suddenly thought of something.
“Listen, Joan. You were with the Futuremen on Aar, the world of Deneb, a world no one else in the System has ever visited. If I tell you the name of the leader of the Clan of the Winged Ones on Aar, won’t that convince you that I’m Captain Future?”
Joan Randall looked startled. “How can you know anything about our trip to Aar?”
“I know, because I was with you,” Curt Newton retorted. “The name of the leader of the Clan of Winged Ones there is Skeen. Isn’t it?”
It convinced the girl. And a wonderful change came over her face. Her brown eyes misted suddenly as she clutched his arm. “Curt, it’s really you? But I didn’t dream that you’d got back to the System yet.”
“I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want to drag you into this danger,” he said, and added with a groan. “And now you’re in the thick of it in spite of my efforts.”
“But what’s it all about?” she asked wonderingly. “Why is Kin Kurri here?”
“It’s a plot of Jon Valdane’s against Styx, and Su Thuar and Kin Kurri are his right-hand men,” Captain Future answered rapidly. “And now it looks as though Kin Kurri has begun to suspect my imposture. For he sneaked in here with a bottle of make-up remover. He must have intended to drug or overpower me, and then see if I am really Chan Carson.”
At that moment came a sound of anxious voices and footsteps hurrying along the corridor toward them. Curt Newton stiffened.
“Your first outcry must have been heard,” he exclaimed in dismay.
It was Jim Willard who came down the corridor, and behind the young assistant director were Lo Quior and Su Thuar.
“What happened, Joan?” Willard asked her anxiously. “We were just coming down to turn in, when we thought we heard you cry out.”
Then he stopped as he and the other two men caught sight of Kin Kurri lying unconscious, half inside Curt’s cabin.
Su Thuar’s drowsy eyes instantly flared with suspicion, and his hand went to his hidden weapon. “What’s going on here?” he snapped.
Captain Future answered with all the tremulous shakiness that befitted Chan Carson. “It’s my fault. I heard someone coming into my cabin in the dark. I was scared to death, so I hit him with a chair and knocked him out, before I found out it was Kin Kurri.”
“You would get hysterical over nothing, and do that,” Jim Willard said disgustedly. “Of all the scary people, you’re the worst I’ve ever met.”
Su Thuar was still glaring suspiciously, but Lo Quior bent and gave the Saturnian first-aid.
Kin Kurri revived and looked about in a bewildered fashion.
“Something hit me,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, my head!”
“It was Chan Carson,” said Willard. “He lost his nerve and got panicky when he heard you come into his cabin in the dark.”
Kin Kurri darted a sharp glance at Curt Newton. As he did so, the Saturnian was hastily stuffing the bottle into his pocket.
“I remember now,” Kin Kurri said lamely. “I came to Carson’s cabin to see Rizo Thon, who shares it. I wanted to ask him something about his home world, Mercury. Then as I stepped in, everything exploded.”
“I’m terribly sorry,” Curt Newton said earnestly. “I guess I did lose my nerve. But I’d been lying worrying about the submarine scenes we have to make when we get to Neptune, and when you came in in the dark I got scared.”
JIM WILLARD interrupted. “Where is Rizo Thon?”
Curt Newton looked blank. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since we left Jupiter.”
“Nor have I,” said Willard, frowning. “There’s something queer about this.”
Captain Future realized the danger of his situation. If he made a wrong move now, he would betray himself and wreck any chance he had of penetrating Valdane’s secret schemes.
Jon Valdane did not yet really suspect him, he felt sure. The financier had suggested such a thing merely as a possibility. Kin Kurri had apparently come on his own initiative to investigate that possibility. For Su Thuar had been unmistakably astonished to find the Saturnian here.
“I’m going to look for Rizo Thon,” Jim Willard was exclaiming.
He and Lo Quior hurried away. Su Thuar helped Kin Kurri aft to their own quarters, the Saturnian holding his bruised head and looking malevolently back at Curt Newton.
Joan Randall and Curt Newton were left alone together in his cabin for the moment. She came swiftly into his arms.
“Joan,” he murmured, holding her, “it’s been torture not being able to tell you who I was.”
He explained rapidly what little he had learned of Jon Valdane’s nefarious scheme to get control of the rich diamond-deposits of Styx.
“In a couple of days we reach Neptune,” Curt Newton concluded, “and Simon and I are going to make a final try there with a brain-scanner to expose this plot. It’ll be difficult, but it’s the only chance we have.”
They were interrupted by the return of Jim Willard. With him now were Jeff Lewis, and Jon Valdane himself.
“Rizo Thon is not anywhere on the ship,” Jim Willard told Joan. “He must have missed boarding it when we left Jupiter.”
“Perhaps he was caught by that terrible Fire Sea eruption that we escaped,” Curt Newton suggested nervously. “He didn’t leave the location-camp at the same time we did, you remember.”
“That’s what must have happened,” Jon Valdane agreed quickly. His chubby pink face assumed a look of sorrow. “Poor chap.”
Jeff Lewis swore. “This would have to happen to me. Well, there’s only one thing we can do. Somebody else will have to double in the role of Otho. Cesar Crail, our heavy, would be the best bet.”
“Crail doesn’t look the part, and he isn’t good at make-up,” Willard pointed out.
“I know, but the Neptune submarine scenes will all be in sea-suits so he can get away wi
th it there,” Lewis replied. “By the time we get to Styx, we’ll work out effective make-up for him.”
“Will I have to go out undersea when we make the Neptune scenes?” Curt Newton asked in trembling tones.
“Yes, Carson, you will,” barked the producer. “And I’ll have no complaints from you about it. I’m getting fed up with your scariness.”
Joan gave Curt a look of contempt, simulated to perfection.
“It’s a libel on Captain Future to have him played by such a man as that,” she said scathingly. Then they all departed, leaving Curt Newton alone.
Captain Future’s assumed fearfulness faded into an expression of real worry as he looked after them. He realized that every hour of their flight, every mile that they came nearer to Magic Moon, increased Joan Randall’s danger. For her sake, he must not fail at Neptune!
Chapter 8: In Neptunian Depths
LOUD, sharp words of an announcement from the loudspeaker system of the ship awoke Curt Newton, a few mornings later. "Approaching Neptune!”
When he went up to the promenade deck, he found the whole company gathering there to gaze with wondering amazement at the world ahead. Few of them had ever been so far as this remote planet before.
As the Perseus had hurtled toward it in the last days, Jeff Lewis had kept his actors working steadily on interior scenes for “The Ace of Space.” Captain Future had been unable except at ‘night’ to steal down to the property-room to help Simon Wright construct a brain-scanner. Grag had been of little help in such delicate work. And Grag was obsessed with a desire for vengeance for Otho. The wrathful robot flamed with a consuming hatred of Jon Valdane and his associates. Curt Newton could only restrain Grag by assuring him that Otho could not be dead.
Curt Newton had had no further visitations like that of Kin Kurd to his cabin. But it seemed to him that the Saturnian constantly watched and trailed him through the ship, and he had been on his guard.
Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) Page 6
