Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) (10 page)

“But is it not worth it?” exclaimed N’rala, her dark eyes aglow. “With the power of Thuro Thuun in your hands you’ll have power, riches, pleasures — everything you want!”

UL QUORN looked at her, his handsome face oddly disdainful. “You think that’s why I seek power — for pleasure and fame? You don’t know me yet. Power to me means power to break all laws, crush all objectors, sweep aside all obstacles, in the search for ultimate scientific truths. I tried it on Earth a few years ago, and the sentimental fools called my ideas ‘hideous’ and sent me to Cerberus Prison. But wait till I have Thuro Thuun’s power. Then I’ll carry out my ideas on a
planetary
scale!”

N’rala shrank from him. “I do not understand,” she breathed.

“Of course you don’t. What would a super-beautiful wildcat, with a heart black as outer space, know of scientific ambition? But any great scientist would understand, even though my plans would horrify him. Even Captain Future, though he plans to destroy me, would understand.”

“Captain Future — that shrewd devil!” Hate and fear glittered in the Martian girl’s eyes. “Why haven’t you killed him before now? You know he’s Kovo, the tiger tamer.”

“You don’t kill a man like Future right after learning his identity,” Quorn said regretfully. “Plenty of men have tried it in the past, and they no longer exist. He’s too competent a scientist to be caught in simple traps, or to be surprised twice by even a weapon like the life disintegrator. He and I are probably the greatest scientists in the System’s history. It’s a pity that one of us must destroy the other.”

“You are contradicting yourself,” N’rala said perplexedly. “You have told me that you carry an old grudge against him and the Futuremen, that an old feud demands their deaths. Yet you speak of them almost with approval.”

Quorn laughed. “That’s the Earth attitude I inherited, N’rala. And that’s something no other race has ever been able to understand — why Earthmen are able to meet even their deadliest enemies with a smile and a pleasant word. But the Venusian in me tells me not to worry about enemies at all, to forget such unpleasant things and enjoy beauty. Yet the part of me that is Martian orders me never to forget the wrong done me long ago by the Futuremen. And I will
not
forget!”

A thin, scrawny Martian stuck his head timidly into the room.

“Si Twih bade me report that the Sons are all gathered and waiting for you,” he blurted, and hastily departed.

“Now for the play-acting,” Quorn said ironically as he rose and removed his cloak. “I must toss these fools hope, as one tosses a
chulat
a bone.”

With N’rala following, the mixed-breed strode down the dusky, chill stairways of crumbled cement, into a big room in the base of the ancient tower. It was circular, its windows masked by curtains. A cluster of uranite bulbs in the ceiling shed a glow on more than a hundred Martians.

Si Twih, the old, hollow-eyed Martian leader of the fanatic cult, stood on a low dais at one side of the room. Quorn stepped up beside him. Every eye turned hopefully on the handsome, straight figure of the mixed-breed scientist as he faced them.

“Brothers of the Two Moons,” Ul Quorn said in a low, clear voice, “the secret of Thuro Thuun shall soon be in our hands at last, if you continue your praiseworthy obedience. Then our common dream will be realized. The glory of Mars will blossom again!”

QUORN saw the eager, almost pathetic emotion that shone on every face. He glimpsed N’rala, standing at the far side of the room, smiling veiledly as she listened to him.

Before Quorn could continue, a big, stalwart Martian with a grizzled, hard face stepped forward.

“Is it permitted me to ask a question?” he asked.

“It is Mus Sigu, one of our brothers from Syrtis,” Si Twih said. “What would you ask, brother?”

Mus Sigu spoke challengingly to Quorn.

“We Sons of the Two Moons in the equatorial cities grow impatient with your promises, Doctor Quorn. We expected you to have this mysterious secret of Thuro Thuun before now. Maybe you have the formula and are trying to keep it for yourself!”

Quorn felt cold fury at this shot that came so close to the truth, yet he knew better than to let his temper master him.

“Your leader, Si Twih, knows that we do not have the secret yet. I have secured only four of the seven space stones, and must acquire the other three before the world-shaking power of Thuro Thuun will be ours.”

“It is so, brothers,” Si Twih assured the crowd. “But there is good news. We have located the other three space stones. After this meeting, we will impart their location to Doctor Quorn, so that he may secure them as he has the others.”

“Unless Captain Future interferes!” warned the girl, N’rala.

An exclamation of fright went up from the fanatic throng.

“Is Captain Future working against us?” cried one. “Then there’s danger. The whole System knows that the planeteer and his Futuremen are death to have against you.”

“Don’t worry,” Quorn reassured them. “Future has met his match in me. He’s been hanging on my trail for days without being able to accomplish anything. He’ll soon be out of our way. I have an old score to settle with Future and the Futuremen.”

The grizzled Martian, Mus Sigu, spoke loudly.

“Tell me where Future is and I’ll kill him. I am not afraid of him!”

“Don’t worry,” Quorn repeated coldly. “I’ve already made plans to take care of our enemy.”

“You have heard the vow that soon the power of Thuro Thuun will be ours, brothers,” Si Twih addressed the crowd. “We must not continue this meeting longer, for the Planet Police are suspicious of us. Go now, and soon you shall be called together again to hear of our final success.”

The Martian cultists began to leave unobtrusively, one by one. Quorn felt a sense of relief. It was a strain to play his part with these fanatics. Being the shrewdest, most ruthless of realists himself, he could not understand their intense devotion.

“I’ll be glad when all this is over,” he mused. “It’s bad enough keeping Future off my back without having to juggle with these monomaniacs, too.”

SI TWIH and two other leaders of the Sons of the Two Moons gestured to Ul Quorn. He followed them into a small chamber behind the dais. N’rala had returned to the tower room. In the small chamber, Quorn faced Si Twih and the others.

“Well, you said you had located the other three space stones,” he urged tautly.

Si Twih nodded. “It took all the resources of our organization to track them down. But it is going to take all your resources, Doctor Quorn, to get them.”

“Where are they?”

“One of the space stones,” Si Twih replied, “is on Deimos. The jewel is in the possession of a Martian who has an estate on that moon. He poses as a retired shipping magnate, but he’s really the retired space pirate, Rok Olor. Among the hoard of loot he still has is the space stone he took in a foray years ago.”

“Good,” Quorn said. “It shouldn’t take long to get Rok Olor’s space stone, once I’ve put Future out of our way. Where are the other two space stones?”

“They’re on the Pleasure Planet — that asteroid gambling paradise outside the limitations of System law. Bubas Uum, the fat spider who fleeces all who come there, has the two space stones. They were lost to him by their former owners, who came there and gambled their fortunes away.”

“It’ll be harder getting those two stones,” Quorn said reflectively. “Bubas Uum is no fool. But I’ll do it, never fear. As soon as I get rid of Future and his cursed partners, I’ll get the space stone at Deimos. Then I’ll leave the circus and visit the Pleasure Planet to get the last two jewels.”

“Doctor Quorn, can’t you tell us what this secret power of Thuro Thuun is?” Si Twih asked hesitantly. “You’re the only man in the System who even suspects what it is. I know you said you weren’t quite sure of it yet, but I believe that the leaders of the organization should be told what you have surmised.”

Quorn shook his head. “No, Si Twih. I dare not give you misleading ideas. I will not be certain until I get all the stones and have Thuro Thuun’s complete formula. This much I will tell you. If my deductions are correct, the possessor of that secret will have absolute power over
worlds!”

The three Martian fanatics looked at him in speechless awe.

MEANWHILE, N’rala had become restive as she waited in the chill, dimly lit tower room above. The lithe Martian girl shrugged impatiently and started down to the chamber. She stopped on the topmost step, stiffening like a Venusian swamp cat that scents peril. She drew a tiny atom pistol from her bodice.

“Mus Sigu!” she breathed. “But why is he here?”

The big circular room into which she was looking down was almost deserted, for the Sons of the Two Moons had dispersed — all but one. The exception was Mus Sigu, the grizzled Martian from Syrtis, who had dared to challenge Ul Quorn. He crouched against the door of the chamber in which were Quorn, Si Twih and the other leaders of the cult.

“A spy!” whispered N’rala fiercely. No hunting panther of any of the nine worlds could have moved more silently than the Martian girl. Soundless as a shadow, she approached Mus Sigu as he listened intently at the door. N’rala suddenly thrust the tiny pistol against the Martian’s back.

“Turn around, and draw no weapon!” she ordered venomously.

Mus Sigu turned, startled. In that moment of amazement, the grizzled Martian’s hard face looked different. But at once he regained control of his features. That instant, though, had been enough to reveal an incredible fact to N’rala.

“You!” she whispered. “You’re not Mus Sigu. You’re made up like him. You’re Captain Future!”

INSTANTLY Captain Future — for it was he in the disguise of Mus Sigu — felt the peril of his position as he faced the Martian girl. Before she could scream an alarm, he acted with all the audacity and unexpectedness that made the resourceful wizard of science most dangerous when cornered. In the art of echo ventriloquism, there was no greater master in the System.

Future’s eyes photographed in an instant the angle of the walls behind N’rala. He turned slightly. Without moving his lips or throat, he spoke in the deep, booming voice of Grag the robot. That cunningly disguised voice seemed to issue directly behind the Martian girl.

“Shall I kill her, Master?”

N’rala’s eyes flashed with startled fear. She turned with catlike swiftness. Then, remembering the famous tricks of Captain Future, she spun quickly back to Curt. But she was too late! Curt Newton grabbed her mouth and gripped the wrist of her gun hand.

“Thought you’d fall for that one,” he smiled. “Stop fighting, you darned wildcat!”

N’rala was indeed struggling in his grasp with the fury of a trapped feline. Curt hastily pressed a finger against a spot at the side of her forehead, numbing a vital nerve. The girl went limp all at once. Holding her sagging form, Curt listened intently. There was no sound of alarm from beyond the door. He had kept the pseudo-voice of Grag pitched low.

“Better blast out of this cursed place at full rocket,” Curt muttered. His gray eyes gleamed. “We’re doing better, thanks!”

He lifted the unconscious Martian girl in his stalwart arms, and strode hastily out of the old tower. The streets of old Korak were dark and silent, swept by the freezing polar wind. Few people were to be seen. Most of the Martians had been drawn to the Interplanetary Circus, which was setting up its pavilions near the spaceport.

Captain Future knew Korak as he knew every important city in the nine worlds. He strode noiselessly but swiftly through dark alleys and crumbling arcades, keeping out of the light of brilliant Phobos and Deimos. He emerged into the open plain on the side of the city opposite the spaceport. Curt’s keen eyes searched the moonlit plain as he moved on more slowly. Nothing was to be seen but whisking desert devils of wind-blown sand. Far in the north glittered the edge of the polar snows.

“Ezra and Joan should be right here with the
Comet,”
Curt said under his breath. “If Quorn somehow stopped them —”

“Gettin’ kind of careless, ain’t yuh, Future?”

The drawling voice behind made Curt spin sharply around, his proton gun leaping into his fist. Ezra Gurney had risen from behind a concealing dune. The old man’s withered face wore a grin of enjoyment.

“Surprised you, eh? First time I ever managed to slip up on you.”

“I must be getting stupid,” Captain Future said ruefully. “You’re the second one who has pulled that trick on me tonight.”

“What’s up?” Ezra asked eagerly. “That’s Quorn’s girl you’re carryin’, ain’t she? Where’d you pick her up?”

“She picked me up,” Curt admitted. “Damned near got me. I was so busy eavesdropping, I let her surprise me. Where’s the
Comet?”

“Right over here, between two dunes,” Ezra said, leading the way. “Joan and I have been waitin’ here since we trailed you and the circus in.”

CURT felt a vivid satisfaction at sight of the small, tear-drop craft concealed in the shadow between two tall sand dunes. As he entered the compact cabin-laboratory of the ship, Joan Randall eagerly ran forward to meet him. She stopped suddenly.