Captain Future 04 - The Triumph of Captain Future (Fall 1940) (16 page)

A few minutes later, four Planet Police rocket-cars screamed through the streets of the fashionable shopping section between the Hyrcanian River and Government Park.

Ezra Gurney was in one car with Simon Wright and Grag. The old marshal had given detailed orders to the uniformed officers in the other ears, which they now proceeded to execute.

Two of the four cars split off to block the rear entrance of the chemical shop, which was an impressive looking establishment, ostensibly dealing in rare planetary drugs. The other two cars drew up in the busy street in front of the place.

Whistles screamed and a gaping crowd began to gather in, the street, Ezra and Grag, the robot carrying the Brain plunged toward the door of the shop. They led the rest of the Police officers, as usual.

The door had been hastily locked by the occupants of the place.

“Bring that ato-torch!” Ezra yelled. “Cut through there!”

An officer wielded the hissing atomic flame, which seared through the heavy metal door like cheese. They burst inside.

The interior of the shop, lined with shelves of planetary drugs, was empty of human beings. Police were bursting in from the rear.

“Where the devil are they?” Ezra cried.

“Look in the sublevel,” rasped the Brain. “They’d conduct the Lifewater business from down there.”

They poured down the stair into the sublevel rooms. Here the Lifewater business had indeed been conducted. Empty racks, overturned tables, showed that the elixir and money had just been taken.

Eventually they found a secret tunnel through which the Lifewater vendors had escaped. They had blocked it by pulling out an underpinning and allowing the passageway to cave in.

“Got away, curse them!” Ezra swore. “And if Thomas Keene was with them, he got away with them.”

“If they’d just left one vial of the Lifewater!” muttered the Brain. “I could have analyzed it, perhaps even have found an antidote.

At that moment, a televisor in the wall broke into loud buzzing, a call-signal. Grag stepped warily toward the instrument with Simon.

“This televisor is set to a non-standard wave, Simon,” declared the robot.

“Then it must be the secret wavelength used by the syndicate!” the Brain exclaimed. “Those criminals who just escaped didn’t have time to smash this instrument. Turn on the receiver, Grag,but not the transmitter. Then we can hear and see without being seen.

Grag switch on the receiver of the televisor. In its screen a man shrouded in a growing blue aura. That’s the Life-lord! Grag whispered excitedly.

THE Life-lord was rapidly giving harsh orders from under his disguise.

“All syndicate branches and spaceships. General order. Rendezvous One in the fungus forest has been discovered by Captain Future. He raided it and nearly captured us, though we managed to leave him trapped there. Use of Rendezvous One will be discontinued from now on. We will use Rendezvous Two henceforth. All syndicate operatives, and all space ships coming from the other planets for new consignments of the Lifewater, will report at Rendezvous Two at the regularly scheduled times. That is all.”

The screen went dark, as the Life-lord clicked off. Grag, Simon and Ezra Gurney stared at each other.

“Rendezvous Two?” Ezra repeated. “Where can that be?”

“The Life-lord was too cunning to give its location on a wave that might be tapped,” muttered the Brain. “He’s been operating from a headquarters in the fungus forest. But he had another rendezvous in readiness somewhere, to be used if anything went wrong at the other one”

Grag twitched with extreme anxiety.

“Simon, you heard what he said. He left Master trapped in Rendezvous One in the fungus forest. Master may be in deadly peril!”

“We’re, going to find Curtis!” the Brain declared, sharing the robot’s fear. “Ezra, take us to the
Comet.”

Some twenty minutes later, the
Comet
rose from the landing court behind Government Building. Recklessly it dashed up through the swarming local traffic of rocket-flies. Then it hurtled eastward, over the sunlit streets of the great black Saturnian city.

Grag sat nervously at the controls. The big robot’s anxiety made him maintain a speed that set even the super-insulated ship’s friction alarms ringing wildly. Over the rolling fields and grassy blue swales they sped. Finally, in the thin, bright noonday sunshine, they glimpsed the ominous yellow blot of the great-valley of the fungi.

Low above the fantastic growths of the fungus forest swept the
Comet.
The photo-electric eyes of Grag and the faded, blue eyes of old Ezra. Gurney eagerly searched the grotesque, deadly forest for sign of Captain Future.

“There’s a clearin’ that’s been used for a landin’ field!” Ezra cried. “An’ there’s a metal buildin’ of some kind near it.”

At that moment, the televisor in the
Comet’s
control room broke into a buzz. Grag lipped the switch. To their relief, the resonant voice of Curt Newton came from the instrument.

“Grag! Simon I just spotted you coming. Otho, Joan and I are in the metal building — directly under you.

“You’re all right, lad? Asked the Brain worriedly.

“Right as can be,” reassured Captain Future. “Listen, I want you to land near this building. But don’t come out. We’ll come to you.”

THE
Comet
came to a flawless landing in the clearing. Then they saw Captain Future, Otho and Joan Randall, all wearing protective blue auras hurrying to them. The three entered the
Comet
taking care not to admit the deadly golden spore dust.

“You can kick me from Mercury to Pluto for a blundering fool,” Curt declared. “I let the Life-lord get away when I should have been able to collar him in there.”

“The chief only let the devil escape because he stopped to save Joan and me,” Otho protested loyally.

“So Otho gummed the works, as usual,” Grag snorted. Curt swiftly explained what had happened. “The Life-lord smashed a window as he sped off,” he concluded. “I had to stand with my aura against the window to keep the spore dust out, till Otho could roll over and let me untie him. By that time, the Life-lord was clean away.”

“Yes, lad, we knew he had escaped you,” the Brain replied, and told of the general televisor alarm the Life-lord sent out.

“So they’re going to operate now from another headquarters Rendezvous Two, as they call it,” Curt repeated. His tanned face tightened. “We’ve got them on the run, Simon. But till we find it, we can’t stop the cursed elixir traffic, while they operate from a new rendezvous.”

He drew from his jacket a dozen vials of milky, opalescent shining fluid — Lifewater!

“They left plenty of the elixir in there when they escaped,” Curt said. “I destroyed all the poison except what I saved for you to analyze, Simon.”

“Good. Now maybe I can find an antidote.”

“But who is the Life-lord?” Ezra persisted. “Keen, Graeme, or Sus Urgal? Until the slippery devil is identified an’ caught, the traffic will go on.”

“I know,” Curt Newton rapped out savagely, “We’ve got to work on those suspects fast. Keene and Graeme must be found without further delay. And I want to see that Martian, Sus Urgal.”

“This business gave you a new lead?” Ezra cried eagerly.

“Maybe,” Curt parried. “Head back for Ops, at once.”

JUST as the
Comet
landed again in the court behind the Government Building, a tall, rangy man hurried to meet them. It was Khol Kor, the Governor.

“Any luck, Captain Future?” the Saturnian cried.

“Not much,” Curt Newton answered, eying the Governor. “Have the Planet Police found Graeme or Thomas Keene yet?”

“No they haven’t,” Khol Kor replied. The Governor swore explosively. “Both those damned men have been around Ops for months and know every cursed alley. They’ve managed to keep out of sight.”

“What other place, besides the fungus forest, would be a good secret hideout around here?” Captain Future asked the Governor.

Khol Kor deliberated. “Well, I don’t know. North of here, there’s nothing but the Great Plains for hundreds of miles, and then the Mistlands that nobody ever enters. West, there’s the Hyrcanian and Katalbian River valleys. Southwards the Wandering Lakes country.”

“Will you try to find out if anyone has noticed, unusual activity at any isolated points in those, regions?” Curt asked.

“I’ll find out from the Planetography Bureau if they’ve heard of anything,” Khol Kor puzzledly assented.

When the Governor had gone, Curt Newton rapidly explained his plans to the Futuremen, Ezra and Joan.

“I’m going to search Graeme’s rooms, and then perhaps see Sus Urgal,” he stated. “Simon, you’ll want to start analyzing the Lifewater at once.”

“Aye, lad,” rasped the Brain. “Grag can help me.”

“It’s always Grag who has to stay and help,” complained the big robot “Why not Otho? He’s no good for anything else.”

“Listen to what’s talking!” Otho sneered. “A big hunk of old iron that goes wallowing off in space when he’s needed. He drifts around with that moon-pup while we’re in trouble on Mars.”

The two Futuremen’s voices rose. Joan Randall, laughing, asked Curt a question that had often puzzled him.

“Don’t they ever get tired of scrapping?”

“They don’t, but I do” Curt sighed. “Cut your rockets, you two! You’re both staying here in the
Comet.
Ezra will go with me.”

Ezra Gurney and Captain Future were soon threading the teeming, ancient, narrow black streets of Ops. The old marshal knew where to find Martin Graeme’s rooms, which were not far away.

“Danged if I like to see so many blue faces,” Ezra growled as he and Curt shouldered through the Saturnian throngs. “Makes me remember the first time I ever landed on this world, long before you were born. I had a hangover from the Martian liquor we’d drunk the night before to celebrate our successful voyage. I wake up to find we’ve already landed, and I look out an’ see a thousand blue men. Blazin’ meteors, what a shock!”

Curt grinned “You don’t sound very repentant, you old reprobate. Those were the good old days, eh?”

“That they were,” replied Ezra with a wheezy chuckle. Then he sobered. “Here’s where Graeme’s apartment is.”

WHEN they entered the ordinary apartment building of black cement, they found Graeme’s door locked. No one answered the televis-announcer. But Curt deftly manipulated the electro lock till its bolt slid back.

Martin Graeme’s rooms were empty. The Earthman ethnologist was not here, but some of his baggage and belongings were.

Captain Future began a swift, thorough search. He found a number of abstruse ethnological reference works in various planetary languages, some large scale maps of Saturn, a note-book in which had been jotted many references to the possibility of a winged race having existed.

“Looks innocent enough,” muttered Ezra. “You’d judge from this that he’s just what he claimed an ethnologist hipped on the idea that once there was a race of winged men on this planet.”

“Maybe,” Curt answered thoughtfully. “Look at these, Ezra.”

He had found two papers. One was a scrawled note in Martian handwriting.

Thank you for reading the manuscript of my “Legends of the Solar System, “ Doctor Graeme. Your criticisms are most welcome, and agree with those made by Doctor Zin Zibo when he read the ms. I am grateful for your expert assistance.

SUS URGAL

The other paper Captain Future had found was a receipted bill from an Ops company which rented rocket-fliers.

Captain Future went to the televisor and called the rocket flier company.

“Doctor Graeme rented a flier from us a few days ago, and took off in it this morning, heading north,” they told Curt. “No, we don’t know his destination. But he said he wanted a flier capable of non-stop flight to the north border of the Great Plains.”

Captain Future repeated the information to the old marshal, who dropped his jaw puzzledly.

“What would Graeme think he could find north of the Plains? There’s nothing up there but the Mistlands!”

“I know,” Curt said abstractedly. “We’ll investigate that angle later. Right now I want to see Sus Urgal.”

The building in which Sus Urgal, the Martian author, had his rooms was only a few blocks away. A secret Planet Police agent lounged outside.

“The Martian hasn’t been out all day,” the agent reported. “I’ve been watching the entrance.”

Captain Future and Ezra went up to the Martian’s rooms and rang the televis-announcer. They got no answer.

“I’ll bet Sus Urgal skipped, too!” exclaimed Ezra.

“We’ll soon see,” Curt said, and started working on lock.

In a few moments, they entered the rooms.

“Name o’ the Sun!” yelled the old marshal “Sus Urgal’s been murdered!”

The Martian author lay on the floor, his body hideously contorted, and stiffened. A glass needle projected from his neck.

Captain Future knelt swiftly.

“The Plutonian freezing venom!” he rapped out the same poison that was used on Zin Zibo!”