“You were there, Graeme.”
The sour-faced Earthman started.
“Well, yes. But I went there after Zin Zibo, not before him. I found no more than he. But, like him, I started to follow the faint Fountain clue to the outer worlds.”
“You’re not a biologist,” Captain Future said sharply. “Why are you interested in the Fountain of Life?”
“The Fountain is just a fairy tale,” Graeme scoffed. “But the tale says the Fountain is in a country of winged people. Such a winged human race might actually exist on one of the planets. As an ethnologist, that possibility interests me tremendously. That’s why I’ve been trying to track dawn this old legend — to see if such a winged people ever did exist. I lost one of my men, too, at that trap in the Machine City. I also had to hire tough space-adventurers with criminal records. No ordinary guides would go.”
Future turned to Sus Urgal, the genial looking Martian author.
“And why are you interested in the Fountain?”
Sus Urgal smiled at him good-naturedly.
“I’m writing a book on Legends of the Solar System. This Fountain of Life legend is one of the best known of all interplanetary myths. That’s why I’ve been gathering material on it at the museum here in Ops.”
“Were you also in the Machine City?” Curt demanded.
“Not on your life,” Sus Urgal declared. “We natives of Mars know too much to go near that accursed place. No, I’ve just been traveling from world to world, gathering data on the old legends wherever I go. I’ve found masses of information here, and I’ve been working it up for same months.”
FUTURE looked questioningly at Renfrew Keene, the blond young Earthman. “What made you came all the way out to Saturn to investigate the old Fountain story?”
“I’m looking for my father,” Renfrew Keene answered earnestly. “His name was Thomas Keene, and he hues an inveterate dreamer and space-adventurer. He believed in the Fountain of Life legend. He thought if he could find it, its waters would make him young again. So he spent years searching for it over all the System. Just last year, he came out to Saturn on his quest for the Fountain. We couldn’t keep him from it, and he never came back. I came out here to try to find him. I’ve been trying to ascertain where he went by running down the Fountain legend myself.”
Khol Kor, the Governor, spoke up to Captain Future.
“I can corroborate this young fellow’s story. His father, this Thomas Keene, was in here to see me a year ago. The old man told me he was hunting the Fountain of Life, and wanted permission to go into the unexplored areas. I wouldn’t give it to him, but I guess he went anyway. He was this fellow’ father, all right. I can see the resemblance now.”
Captain Future kept silent for a moment, surveying the four men who faced him. Inwardly Curt felt a little baffled.
All these men had good enough excuses for their interest in the Fountain of Life. But was one of them lying?
“Someone has found the Fountain,” he told them. “That man is selling the poisonous Lifewater that comes from it.”
It was as though a bombshell had burst among the four men, their surprise was so great.
“You mean — the illegal Lifewater elixir comes from the Fountain?” burst Sus Urgal. “Why, I’d heard of the illicit traffic. But I didn’t think of connecting it with the old legend!”
“I still don’t believe it,” snapped Martin Graeme. “The Fountain of Life is a myth. Lifewater can’t come from something that doesn’t exist.”
But Zin Zibo showed excitement.
“Captain Future, if someone did find the Fountain, I think I know who it was. It’s someone in this room’.”
“What?” Curt exclaimed, stiffening.
The Venusian scientist explained with nervous eagerness.
“In going through the archives in Ops Museum, I found one old set of records had been stolen. I learned that the man who had stolen them was —”
Suddenly darkness crashed on them. In that utter blackness, every ray of light was smothered.
“A darkness bomb!” Curt yelled. “Grag, comb the floor for it!”
But on the heels of his command came a horrible, stifled scream, then the thump of a body falling to the boor.
“Got it, Master!” boomed Grag in the dark.
The blinding pall vanished as the robot smashed the darkness bomb he had found. That ended its light-damping effect.
Zin Zibo lay on the floor, stiff and unmoving. Curt knelt swiftly. The Venusian’s body was frozen! His contorted face and limbs were cold and hard as ice. A tiny blue wound stood out on his neck.
“Plutonian freezing-venom!” Curt Newton stated harshly, “Someone in this room used it, to murder Zin Zibo!”
Chapter 8: Secret Syndicate
IT WAS several hours earlier that same day that Joan Randall had decided to try penetrating the Lifewater syndicate on Saturn by undercover work.
In the Planet Police office in Ops, she and Ezra Gurney had reported after arriving from Jupiter. The girl secret agent eagerly explained her plan to the old interplanetary marshal.
“Captain Future’s message indicates that the heart of the Lifewater syndicate is here on Saturn,” she said excitedly, “I’m going to try contacting the local vendors of the elixir before he arrives.”
“Maybe you’d better wait for Cap’n Future to get here, Joan,” Ezra replied dubiously. “That syndicate’s poison to fool with.”
“I’ll disguise myself as an aging woman and pretend I want to buy the Lifewater. They won’t suspect me. And think how much it would help Captain Future if we could tell him where the local branch of the syndicate is. Perhaps we can even give him a sample of the Lifewater!”
Ezra shook his white head at her understandingly.
“You’d do anything to help Future, wouldn’t you?”
Joan flushed. The dark-eyed Earthgirl knew that Ezra was well aware of her feelings toward Curt Newton. Since she had first met and worked with the wizard of science, he had inspired her with an emotion that she realized was more than mere hero worship.
She remembered every moment she had spent with the debonair, brilliant, red-haired planeteer. Moments of peril, most of them had been. In the great jungles of Jupiter, Curt had fought to crush the Space Emperor. She recalled the dreaded Hall of Enemies on Pluto’s illusion-moon, that Black Isle in Neptune’s sea, where Captain Future had saved her from a ghastly fate. Perilous moments, they all had been, yet she cherished their memory.
“I’ll report back as soon as I find out anything,” she told the old marshal.
“But you can’t just go through the streets of Ops, shoutin’ that you want to buy the Lifewater.”
Joan smiled. “Don’t be foolish, Ezra. Of course I have a plan.
The girl agent locked herself into one of the rooms in Planet Police headquarters. Rapidly she began disguising herself.
Joan was not quite as adept at the art of disguise as was Captain Future, or Otho, the supreme master of makeup. But she was skilled enough to change her appearance radically in a short time.
A chemical wash made her shining dark hair look dull and tinged with gray. A cosmetic acid-paste, which she applied to her face, quickly roughened and wrinkled the skin, adding years to her apparent age. She changed the carriage of her lithe body, and made her voice huskier. Finally she donned a synthesilk dress of a flowery, frivolous pattern.
An aging Earthwoman, who seemed to be making a pathetic, attempt to look young, slipped out of the building. She started into the swarming streets of the great Saturnian city.
It was late afternoon, and the wide shopping streets of Ops were thronged. Blue-skinned Saturnian men and women were vastly in the majority, of course, though there was a sprinkling of other planetary peoples. Many of the Saturnians were tall, tough looking herdsmen from the Great Plains, staring wonderingly at the noisy city’s rocket-cars, fliers and crowds.
JOAN RANDALL had a keen, quick intelligence. No one without it cou
ld last as long as she had as a secret agent of the Planet Police. She knew she was dealing with a deadly and efficient criminal organization behind the, Lifewater syndicate. She must not arouse their suspicions by crude methods.
Therefore she directed her steps toward the fashionable street of Ops. There stood most of the beauty-science establishments. Joan entered one of the smaller places.
She recognized all the super-scientific devices and preparations common to such shops. The powerful ray projectors were meant to stimulate the skin. Martian ato-surgical appliances made possible the daring plastic surgery now carried on. She saw creams and perfumes from far-away Venus, dyes from Uranus, beauty preparations from half a dozen other worlds.
To the suave Saturnian proprietor, Joan gushed the story on which she had decided.
“I’ve just arrived on Saturn with my husband. He’s a high official of a shipping company. I’ve heard so much about your accomplishments as beauticians that I came at once to try them. Do you think you can make me look young again?’
The suave Saturnian she had to admit, was tactful.
“We can do much to help you, madam. A three-months’ course of skin-stimulation treatments, and also —”
“But I don’t want just ordinary treatments!” Joan interrupted. “I want you to make me look twenty years younger, at once.”
The Saturnian shrugged. “I’m sorry, but you ask the impossible.”
“Then I’ll go somewhere else!” Joan declared indignantly.
She left, hoping someone would stop her. But no one did.
She tried two more of the beauty-science establishments, using the same approach. Each time she met no success. At none of these places could anyone suggest how she could become younger looking at once.
Almost ready to give up, she entered another shop.
The tall, sleek, blue Saturnian girl to whom she told her story eyed her narrowly. Then she made a smooth suggestion.
“No ordinary scientific beauty-methods can make you look young, madam,” the girl told her. “But there is a way in which you can not only look young, but be young — immediately.”
“What is this way you talk of?” Joan asked eagerly.
“It is a wonderful elixir, which you drink. It makes you young at once. It’s called the Lifewater.”
Joan pretended to recoil, though inwardly she was excited with her success.
“The Lifewater?” she repeated. But everybody says it’s a poison. If you start taking it, you must keep it up. That’s what the System Government said when it broadcast a warning not to drink the Lifewater.”
The girl smiled scornfully and made a scoffing gesture.
“The Government’s warning is a lie, madam. Naturally the Government doesn’t want people to drink the Lifewater. If everybody remained young, there’d be such a huge increase of population that all the worlds would be crowded. Of course it would make a problem for the Government. That’s why they put out this lie about the Lifewater.”
Joan Randall heard with intense interest. So this was how the Lifewater syndicate lulled the fears of those who hesitated to drink the elixir! She knew it was an effective method.
“It would be wonderful to be young again, if I could be sure the elixir is harmless,” she said doubtfully. “How much would I have to pay you for the Lifewater?”
“We do not sell it here,” the Saturnian girl replied hastily. “Put I can direct you to a place where you can buy it. You will have to be discreet, however.”
EFFUSIVELY Joan promised. The girl gave her a card on which was printed an address in the northern section of Ops.
Joan left, thrilled with excitement. Now she was getting somewhere! She realized that the Lifewater syndicate must have planted “steerers” in beauty establishments everywhere, to encourage youth-hungry women to buy the elixir. She had guessed that was their method of operation.
Night had already fallen. Beneath the bland, brilliant glow of the Rings and the five hurtling moons, Joan made her way over a bridge across the somber black Hyrcanian River, into the northern section.
The address that had been given her was in the shabby and disreputable section near the spaceport. Here were ill-lighted streets of one and two story black cement structures. Many of them specialized in providing entertainment and liquor for the space-sailors who came drifting into Ops from all over the System.
Joan heard a babel of planetary languages as she hurried along. Martians, stalking Neptunians, lounging Venusians, even a few white-furred Stygians from Pluto’s third moon — the System’s races were represented here. Nobody noticed one Earthwoman more or less. The crash and clamor of weird music spilled from drinking shops. At frequent intervals the streets shook to the thunderous reverberation of great space slips, blasting skyward from the neighboring field.
Joan found the address belonged to a dark, two-story building. On its front was a battered sign:
DOCTOR QARTH
PLANETARY PHYSICIAN
She rang the buzzer of the televis-announcer. The door release clicked.
She stepped late a small, feebly lit hall. A cold-eyed blue Saturnian man of indeterminate age confronted her.
“Yes” he asked noncommittally.
Joan showed the card the beauty shop girl had given her. “I want to buy some of the Lifewater,” she stammered.
“This way,” he said shortly.
She followed him through a door at the back of the little hall. They entered a more brightly lighted room.
She saw a table, on which stood a rack of vials that contained a milky, opalescent liquid. Her heart leaped at sight of that glowing fluid.
Two other men were in the room. One was a wizened, yellow Uranian. The other was a big Jovian who, as she entered, was putting on a pair of thick-lensed spectacles.
Joan felt exultant. She had found one of the Ops outlets of the elixir syndicate! Now she could report it to Captain Future. And if she could take him a sample vial of the Lifewater too.
“How much will the elixir cost me?” she asked with pretended anxiety.
The Jovian answered, in a deep voice, staring at her through his curious spectacles as he spoke.
“It will cost you nothing, because you are not going to buy any. You are a spy. Grab her, Qarth!”
BEFORE Joan could flash out the atom pistol she had concealed in the pocket of her dress, the Saturnian seized her arms from behind. The Uranian jumped startledly to his feet.
“A spy?” Qarth exclaimed, holding the girl. “Are you sure?”
The Jovian took of the thick spectacles.
“Take a look for yourself. You’ll see that her aged appearance is just makeup. She’s a young girl masquerading as a middle-aged woman. Search her.”
The search discovered for them the little Planet Police emblem hidden in the sole of Joan’s slipper.
“A Police agent!” the Saturnian exclaimed.
“You’d have got away with it,” the Jovian told Joan mockingly, “if it hadn’t been for the X-ray spectacles.”
Joan understood then. Those curious spectacles were designed to permit their wearer to see through any makeup. Apparently the Lifewater vendors used them as a routine check on their new customers.
Her heart sank. She had accomplished nothing by her scheme to help Captain Future, except to get herself captured by the syndicate. And she had been so confident of success a moment ago!
Doctor Qarth, the Saturnian who seemed to be the leader of the three syndicate criminals, took command of the situation.
“This is serious. We’ll take this girl at once to Rendezvous One and hold her for the Life-lord to question. If the Planet Police have spotted our branch here, we mustn’t linger. You tie the girl and take her out to the car. I’ll gather up everything here.”
After the Jovian and Uranian hastily bound and gagged Joan, they carried her out of the room by a rear door. She glimpsed Doctor Qarth hastily gathering up papers, Lifewater vials, and money. Her two captors emerged with her
into a dark court behind the building. Here a rocket-car was parked, a vague metal bulk in the shadows. The two criminals took her into the vehicle, tossed her on the floor. The Uranian started the atomic motors of the car, while he and the Jovian waited for their colleague.
Minutes passed, but Doctor Qarth did not appear. The two criminals became restless.
“Why is he taking so long?” hissed the Uranian. “This girl may have sent word to Police headquarters before she visited us. They may raid the place any minute.”
“Qarth will be here soon,” Joan heard the Jovian answer. “He’s taking care to clean up every clue in the place.”
A moment later, Joan Randall saw the Saturnian physician hasten from the building, out to the rocket-car. Carrying a bulging case in his hand, he seated himself beside the bound girl.
“All right, get going,” Qarth ordered. “I’ll watch this girl.”
The Uranian started without delay. The rocket-car hummed out of the court and into the noisy street. Then it started threading through the ancient streets of Ops, traveling speedily in an eastward direction.
Doctor Qarth bent over Joan, in the rear of the ear. Apparently he was making certain that her bonds were tight. To the girl agent’s amazement, the Saturnian whispered in her ear.
“Take it easy, Joan.”
The voice was that of Otho the android!
JOAN RANDALL was stupefied into astonished speechlessness. She baked up at the Saturnian who was bending over her. He didn’t look like Otho in the least, yet that hissing whisper was unmistakable.
As he kept whispering, the sound was effectively covered by the humming of the rocket-car’s motor.
“We reached Saturn a few hours ago,” Otho explained swiftly. “When Captain Future heard where you’d gone, he knew you’d be in danger and sent me after you. I trailed you through the beauty shops you’d visited. Finally I found you’d gone to this Doctor Qarth’s address, to buy the Lifewater. I came after, and realized they’d already discovered you were a spy. I saw them taking you out to this car.
Captain Future 04 - The Triumph of Captain Future (Fall 1940) Page 8
