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

#5 Winter 1941

Introduction

A Complete Book-Length Scientifiction Novel

Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones

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!

Radio Archives • 2012

Copyright © 1941 by Better Publications, Inc. © 2012 RadioArchives.com. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form.

These pulp stories are a product of their time. The text is reprinted intact, unabridged, and may include ethnic and cultural stereotyping that was typical of the era.

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ISBN-978-1610818346

The original introduction to Captain Future as it appeared in issue #1

The Wizard of Science! Captain Future!

The most colorful planeteer in the Solar System makes his debut in this, America's newest and most scintillating scientifiction magazine — CAPTAIN FUTURE.

This is the magazine more than one hundred thousand scientifiction followers have been clamoring for! Here, for the first time in scientifiction history, is a publication devoted exclusively to the thrilling exploits of the greatest fantasy character of all time!

Follow the flashing rocket-trail of the
Comet
as the most extraordinary scientist the nine worlds have ever known explores the outposts of the cosmos to the very shores of infinity. Read about the Man of Tomorrow today!

Meet the companions of Captain Future, the most glamorous trio in the Universe!

Grag, the giant, metal robot; Otho, the man-made, synthetic android; and aged Simon Wright, the living Brain.

This all-star parade of the most unusual characters in the realm of fantasy is presented for your entertainment. Come along with this amazing band as they rove the enchanted space-ways — in each issue of CAPTAIN FUTURE!

A Complete Book-Length Scientifiction Novel

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!

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.