Captain Future #5: The Seven Space Stones E-Book

Edmond Hamilton

• Herausgeber: Thrilling
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Curt Newton, spacefarer, and the Futuremen take off on the most thrilling treasure-hunt of all time in quest of the Solar System’s greatest prize! The Captain Future saga follows the super-science pulp hero Curt Newton, along with his companions, The Futuremen: Grag the giant robot, Otho the android, and Simon Wright the living brain in a box. Together, they travel the solar system in series of classic pulp adventures, many of which written by the author of The Legion of Super-Heroes, Edmond Hamilton.

Leseprobe

The Seven Space Stones

Captain Future book #5

by

Edmond Hamilton

Curt Newton, spacefarer, and the Futuremen take off on the most thrilling treasure-hunt of all time in quest of the Solar System’s greatest prize!

Thrilling

Copyright Information

“The Seven Space Stones” was originally published in 1941. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Chapter I

Martian Secret

PETRIFIED with astonishment, Kenneth Lester stared at the blue, faceted jewel. “The lost secret of Thuro Thuun—the mystery of ages—and part of the key is right here in my hand!” gasped the young archeologist.

The jewel seemed like an icy, menacing eye peering up at him. Its facets, unworn even by incalculable ages, reflected the white glow of the uranite bulbs in the ceiling of the study.

This room, on an upper level of the great Institute of Interplanetary Science in New York, held the relics that the young Earth scientist had brought home from faraway worlds. Ancient Jovian heads of black stone stared down at him. Unhuman metal busts from beneath Neptune’s sea leered from shadowy corners. A grotesque Uranian idol of dark cave-wood towered with webbed hands raised in a threatening gesture.

But Lester was blind to everything except the strange, cold blue gem in his hand. He did not hear the humming of the X-ray projector on his desk, the only sound that broke the midnight silence. Nor did he hear the door of his study softly being opened.

“Part of the secret of Thuro Thuun, locked in this space stone!” he whispered breathlessly. “The secret that would give its finder unlimited power—” A look of fear distorted his studious face. His whisper was thick with apprehension. “If somebody evil got the whole secret, it would be a nightmare!”

He stood irresolute, fearful, in the glow of the uranite bulbs. With abrupt determination, he strode to the desk televisor.

“There’s only one man in the Solar System who can be trusted with this discovery,” he muttered.

The square screen of the televisor broke into glowing light that quickly formed a picture of a young man in an elaborate office.

“Hello, Professor Lester!” the image cried. “I heard you got back from Jupiter weeks ago. Why haven’t you been around?”

“I’ve been studying a lot of relics I brought back from the Cave of Ancients on Jupiter,” Kenneth Lester explained hastily. “Bonnel, I want you to help me contact somebody.”

North Bonnel, secretary to the President of the System Government, smiled cheerfully.

“Sure. Who is it?”

“Captain Future!”

“Captain Future?” Bonnel blurted. “Why, even the President himself can’t do that except in direct emergency! Besides, nobody knows where Future is right now. He’s on a vacation.”

“Who ever heard of the Futuremen taking a vacation?” Lester asked unbelievingly.

BONNEL shrugged. “That’s what the President told me. Even he doesn’t know where Captain Future is right now. I think the President has some way to contact Future in extreme urgency. But I’m afraid your case can hardly be that, can it?”

“Perhaps not,” Lester said thoughtfully, “though I’ve uncovered something that’s tremendous. Be sure you let me know the first chance you get of contacting Captain Future.”

Lester switched off the televisor. As he did so, a soft voice spoke from behind him.

“So you wish to talk to Captain Future?”

The archeologist spun around. A man had stealthily entered his study.

“Doctor Ul Quorn!” Lester gasped.

Ul Quorn was a slender man, with the fine wrists and ankles and ageless good looks of a Venusian. But he also had the pallid red skin and high forehead of a Martian, and the intelligent black eyes and sleek black hair of an Earthman. Such interplanetary hybrids were not rare in those days of widespread colonization. But segregation had given them unpleasant characters. “What are you doing here?” demanded Kenneth Lester, his face hardening. “How can you come around the Institute after what happened to you here two years ago?”

“You refer to my dismissal and imprisonment for illegal research?” asked the mixed-breed coolly. “You still hold that unfortunate incident against me?”

“Every decent scientist has despised you for the hideous experiments you were making.”

Quorn shrugged. “You Earthmen are so quaintly sentimental. My remote Martian ancestors, who delved far deeper into science than any of you, had no such qualms.”

“That’s what I’d expect from a mixed-breed,” Kenneth Lester said contemptuously.

A terrible gleam lit the black depths of Quorn’s eyes. His voice suddenly became almost harsh.

“You smug Earthmen here always looked down on me because of my mixed blood! It mattered nothing to you that I was the superior of all of you in scientific craft and skill.” Then Ul Quorn shrugged again. The blazing passion that had flamed out was hidden again by the cool, ironical mask. “But I didn’t come here to talk about that.”

“What did you come for?” Lester snapped.

“For that space stone in your hand!”

KENNETH LESTER looked incredulously from the mixed-breed’s smooth red face to the blue-faceted jewel in his hand.

“This space stone?” he repeated. “Then you know?”

“Yes, my friend, I know,” Quorn said softly. “I know it is one of the seven space stones that contain the secret of Thuro Thuun, mightiest scientist of ancient Mars. I have one of those seven jewels already, and this one of yours will make two. When I get the other five, I’ll be master of Thuro Thuun’s secret. I, the despised mixed-breed, will control the most tremendous scientific power in the System!”

Lester stared at the cool, deadly face of the renegade scientist. Then the young Earthman made a sudden plunge at the televisor on the desk.

“I was afraid you would,” sighed Ul Quorn.

The mixed-breed pressed the switch on a tiny instrument in his hand. A pulsing cone of radiance sprang from it and enveloped Lester. The young Earthman stood frozen, a horrible change coming over his face. Abruptly he fell to the floor. His body twitched. It was still living, but not with Kenneth Lester’s life. A hideous new life now seethed in its tissues. He had dropped the space stone as he fell. Quorn quickly snatched it up. Calmly disregarding the horribly crawling body, he placed the space stone in the glow of the X-ray projector on the desk. Holding the jewel in that force, Quorn seemed to be listening. Triumph came into his black eyes.

“Two!” he whispered. “Two parts of the secret are mine! And when I have the other parts, the remaining jewels—”

A distant sound from far across the light-splashed towers of New York brought him out of his gloating. He slipped the space stone into his pocket and went softly to the door. Quorn paused, his eyes caught by a slim Venusian statuette of a beautiful kneeling girl.

“Exquisite,” murmured the mixed-breed. Then he stole noiselessly out of the room of hideous death.

HIGH in the night sky north of New York flamed huge letters of living gold.

AMUSEMENT CITY

ENTERTAINMENT CENTER OF THE NINE PLANETS

A great spread of brilliant, varicolored lights was Amusement City. Supermechanical rides whirled gasping people in dizzying, breath-taking swoops. Games of chance or skill drew crowds. Barkers shouted in stentorian voices of their unparalleled entertainers from far worlds.

Martians and Uranians, Mercurians and Jovians—people from all the worlds—were in the gay throngs along the midway.

Three Earthlings sauntering through the crowds appeared to be enjoying themselves. One of the two men was six feet four in height, his rangy body clad in a drab zipper-suit that could not conceal his broad shoulders and long, lithe muscles. A space cap was pulled down over his shock of curly red hair.

Beneath it, his tanned, handsome face and keen gray eyes were glowing with boyish eagerness.

“Haven’t had so much fun for ages,” he chuckled. “Wasn’t that last ‘Rocket Ride’ fun?”

The other man and the girl stared at him.

“You got a thrill out of that silly mechanical ride?” asked the girl incredulously. “You—Captain Future!”

Curtis Newton, the stalwart redheaded young man whom the whole Solar System knew as Captain Future, grinned at her.

“Sure I got a kick out of it, Joan. Why not?”

Joan Randall shook her dark head.

“I can’t understand it. You’ve been in every queer corner of the System. You’ve seen things none of these people here dream of. You’ve traveled thousands of times faster than anything here can move, yet you really enjoy all this!”

“Well, this is different from what I’m used to. That’s why I enjoy it. It’s a swell vacation for Otho and me, to be just ordinary folks for a change. Eh, Otho?”

“You said it, Chief,” replied the other man. “I’m certainly having myself a time. It was a great idea, coming to Earth incognito.”

The man called Otho looked like a slender young Earthman of medium stature, but there was a certain suggestion of rubberiness about him. His pallid face and slightly slanted green eyes had a devil-may-care recklessness. He was, in fact, Otho the android, one of Curt Newton’s famous band of Futuremen. He had been created in a laboratory, out of synthetic flesh. Yet he had intelligence, daring, humor, physical speed and skill in disguise far beyond those of any human being.

“Old Grag would have liked to come along too,” Otho chuckled, glancing up at the full Moon in the starry sky. “Was he burned up because we left him on the Moon with Simon!”

“You ought to be ashamed,” Joan reproached him. “Leaving your pal and laughing about it.”

“That clumsy robot my pal?” cried Otho. “If I’d had my way, he’d have been scrap-iron long ago.”

“Listen to that spiel,” Curt Newton interrupted. “Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?”

“This way to the dancing girls from the Hot Side of Mercury!”

“Come in and take a ride on an eight-legged Saturnian horse. Perfectly safe, folks, perfectly safe!”

Through this uproar came the shouting Curt Newton had referred to.

“Visit the Captain Future Museum! See all the exploits of the Wizard of Science and the Futuremen!”

“Why, it’s an outrageous fake!” Joan declared indignantly.

“Sure it is,” grinned Captain Future. “But let’s go in and find out just what we’ve done. You’re sure everything in this show is authentic?” he asked the ticket-seller solemnly.

“Brother, we got all this stuff straight from Captain Future himself,” the liar replied.

SMILING, they streamed in with the crowd. It was an enormous pavilion, around which were ranged cases of exhibits and models. A fat, red-faced man was loudly lecturing to the earnest crowd.

“Folks, you’ve all heard about Captain Future, the scientific wizard who lives up there on the Moon with his three queer Futuremen. You know he’s crushed dozens of super-criminals and scientific dangers that threatened us people of the nine worlds. You’ve never seen Future or his pals. Few people ever have. But you know that when danger threatens, they’re on the job. Well, you’re now going to learn all about Captain Future and the Futuremen.

“In the first place, folks, Future’s home is somewhere under Tycho crater on the Moon. He’s got a big laboratory and home there, and that’s where he keeps that super space ship you’ve all heard about, the Comet. He and his pals are the only people living on the Moon, and you can bet that nobody bothers them.”

“We know all that already,” complained a man beside Curt. “Tell us what Captain Future’s real name is. Where did he come from?”

“I’m just coming to that, brother,” said the barker majestically. He lowered his voice. “Folks, you think Captain Future is an Earthman. Well, he isn’t. Future is actually a man from Sirius!”

A murmur of surprise went up.

“Why, this is sheer nonsense!” Joan whispered indignantly.

“Sure, but the fellow has a real imagination,” Curt replied.

“This man from Sirius came to our System and made his home on the Moon, years ago. And that was the start of Captain Future, folks.”

Curt Newton’s grin faded, and he ceased to hear the barker’s absurdities. Curt’s mind was carried back to the real beginning of his career as Captain Future.

Chapter II

Newton’s Vacation Ends

YEARS ago, Curt’s father, Roger Newton, a brilliant young Earth scientist, had fled to the Moon with his young wife. With them had gone Simon Wright, the Living Brain, who was now one of the Futuremen. They had fled from the plots of Victor Corvo, an unscrupulous schemer who coveted Roger Newton’s scientific secrets.

In the underground laboratory-home they built beneath Tycho crater on the Moon, the refugee scientist and the Brain had labored to create intelligent synthetic life. Two intelligent artificial beings resulted—Grag the metal robot, and Otho the synthetic man. In the same year, Curt was born.

But Victor Corvo had followed them to the Moon. He killed Curt’s parents before he was himself killed by Otho and Grag.

Curt Newton had been reared in the strange home by the Brain, the robot and the synthetic android. The Brain, mightiest scientist of the System then, had developed Curt into a scientific genius who eventually surpassed his teacher. Grag the robot, strongest of all beings, fostered Curt’s physical strength. And Otho the android, swiftest and most cunning of all in the System, had taught Curt skill and quickness.

When Curt reached manhood, the career of Captain Future really began. A man who sought to use science for criminal purposes had slain Curt’s parents. Curt decided to use his own unparalleled education and abilities in a relentless crusade against all such men. He devoted himself to fighting for the System peoples against those who would thwart their future. That was why he had taken the name of Captain Future.

With the Brain, robot and android who had been his tutors and guardians, Curt Newton had taken to the space-ways in bitter conflict against the forces of evil. Whenever danger to the System arose, the President of the System Government would call Captain Future by a beacon of blazing light on Earth’s north pole.

Curt Newton thought of the struggle and danger that had taken him and the Futuremen to every world of the System. He listened as the raucous barker finished his imaginative spiel.

“As for the Futuremen you’ve heard about, the Living Brain was the first of them. He was once Simon Wright, a great Earth scientist. He was near death when he had his brain taken from his dying body and placed in a special serum-case. There it still lives and thinks and experiments, even though he has no body.”

“Well, he got that right, anyway,” Curt said to Joan.

“The second Futureman was the big metal robot. Grag is stronger than anyone ever heard of and intelligent, too. He could tear anyone of you to pieces.”

“Good thing Grag isn’t here to hear it or there’d be no living with him,” muttered Otho. He brightened up eagerly as the barker went on.

“As for the third Futureman, the one they call an android—”

“He’ll probably spin a lot of crazy stuff about my wonderful feats,” Otho whispered with assumed nonchalance.

“He’s the poorest of the lot. He’s a sort of synthetic dummy that the others take along.”

CURT burst into a roar of laughter. Otho, green eyes blazing with fury, uttered a hissing exclamation of rage.

“A dummy? I’ll break his neck!”

“Cut your rockets, Otho,” Curt ordered, still laughing as he held the angry android. “Be glad Grag didn’t hear that.”

“Now I’ll show you mementoes of Captain Future’s great cases, folks, in these exhibits,” the barker was saying. “There are souvenirs of his fight against the Space Emperor on Jupiter, of his struggle against Doctor Zarro out there on Pluto, and—”

“Come on, we don’t want to see a lot of fake souvenirs,” Curt said, taking Joan’s arm. “We’d better leave while we can still restrain Otho from murder.”

The android had not lost his fury when they reached the bright, crowded midway. To placate him, Curt pointed to a big group of metal pavilions over which flared a bright diffraction sign.

INTERPLANETARY CIRCUS—LAST WEEK ON EARTH

“Come on, Otho—maybe the circus will console you,” Curt suggested.

But Otho was still fuming as they approached the pavilions. “Let’s go in and see the freaks,” Curt invited.

The side-show was an ingeniously compact auditorium, containing metal benches and a stage. Under soft krypton lights, one of the “Nine World Wonders” was performing.

“The Chameleon Man!” an Earthling master of ceremonies was chanting. “Watch him change, folks. Watch him!”

The Chameleon Man was an ordinary-looking, blue-skinned, lanky Saturnian. But when he moved in front of a green square of the vari-colored curtain, his skin abruptly changed to an exactly matching shade of green. He moved before a red part of the curtain, and at once his skin turned red.

“How in the world does he do that?” Joan wondered.

Curt had quickly fathomed the secret.

“He’s being subjected to a ray that can alter skin pigmentation swiftly, just as actinic rays burn a white skin brown. His skin has been chemically prepared.”

The Chameleon Man was replaced by a peaked-headed, cadaverous gray Neptunian, who possessed enormous, round, cuplike ears.

“The Hearer can hear a leaf fall from a tree ten miles away,” boasted the showman. “Whisper to your neighbor, as low as you can, and he’ll tell you just what you said.”

Various members of the audience tried it and were amazed to find that the Hearer could detect each almost inaudible sound.

“His ears have been enlarged and made supersensitive by some surgical process, Chief,” Otho declared.

Curt nodded. “Must be, though it would take a master physiologist to do it.”

“And now, before the main show begins in the circus, we present our greatest act,” the stagemaster was announcing. “You have all heard of the scientific powers of the ancient Martians, the mighty dynasties that perished long before any Earthman ever traveled space. You’re going to see a man who has discovered the great secrets of those ancient wonder-workers. The Magician of Mars!”

“The prize faker of all,” jeered Otho.

Future stiffened as a man came out on the stage, holding two cumbersome, puzzling instruments in his hands. He had the red skin of a Martian but Earthly black hair, black, intelligent eyes that surveyed his audience with veiled scorn, and smooth, handsome features.

“Why, that’s Doctor Ul Quorn!” Curt exclaimed.

“Ul Quorn?” Joan repeated. “Who is he?”

“He was as brilliant a scientist as the nine worlds possessed,” Curt said thoughtfully. “He’s half Earthman, a quarter Martian, a quarter Venusian. He had a high post at the Institute of Interplanetary Science before certain rather ghastly experiments of his were discovered, which got him a year in Cerberus prison and made him an outcast among all decent scientists. I’m sorry to see as brilliant a man as Quorn doing cheap scientific fakery in an outfit like this. I suppose it’s the only way he can live, though.”

“Look at what he’s doing!” Otho blurted.

An attendant had brought out a small Earth rodent, a furry, frightened little animal. Ul Quorn placed it on a suspended metal plate and aimed one of his instruments at it. The animal suddenly fell through the solid metal! Quorn passed the plate around to show it was perfectly solid.

“Imps of space, this Quorn has something!” Otho swore. “That’s the same dematerialization effect the old Jovians had mastered, that gave us so much trouble in the Jupiter case.”

“Yes,” Curt frowned. “Archaeologists believe the Jovians picked it up, like a lot of their old science, from the ancient Martians.”

“Is it possible that this man has really uncovered the long-lost science of the Martians?” Joan asked.

“I wish I knew,” Captain Future muttered. “Look at that.”

Ul Quorn, his handsome face expressionless as ever, had taken a seedling and was subjecting it to pulsating flashes of green light. Instantly the seedling swelled to a sapling, then to a large, rootless tree. A cry of wonder came from the audience.

“That’s no illusion,” Curt stated. “It’s the old Martian ‘accelerated growth’ technique. Quorn really has found something!”

Otho had been staring hard at the face of the magician.

“There’s something uncannily familiar about this Quorn’s face,” he said. “Somehow, even though I never saw him before, I feel that I’ve met him—and that we weren’t friends.”

Joan suddenly straightened. Curt’s quick ears caught the buzz from the tiny instrument in her pocket, a pocket televisor such as every agent of the Planet Police carried. She bent her head. Curt heard the metallic voice from the little televisor.

“Agent Randall? Police Headquarters speaking. You knew Professor Kenneth Lester, the archaeologist?”

“Yes, I met him on Jupiter,” Joan whispered into the minute transmitter. “He was involved in the Space Emperor case.”

“Lester has just been murdered in his study at the Institute. Since you knew him personally, you may be able to help in the investigation. I know you’re on detached service, but will you help anyway?”

“Of course,” Joan agreed swiftly. “I’ll be at the Institute in twenty minutes.”

She raised her eyes to Curt and Otho. Curt looked grim.

“I’ll go with you,” he said tersely.

“But this is your vacation—” she protested.

“Lester and I became friends in that Jupiter case,” Captain Future reminded her. “If I can, I’d like to see his murderer brought to justice….”

TWENTY minutes later, Curt and Otho followed Joan into the softly lit, crowded study of the murdered archaeologist. A dark-uniformed officer of the Planet Police barred the way to the two men.

“You may be with Miss Randall, but you can’t enter,” he said stiffly. “Only members of the police are allowed.”

Curt wordlessly took a large, curious ring from inside his belt. Around its glowing sun-jewel, nine planet-jewels revolved slowly.

“Captain Future!” gasped the officer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Go right in—”