Captain Future 01 - The Space Emperor (Winter 1940) (14 page)

A STIR ran through the crowd of Jovians, and there was a movement near the far edge of the grotesque, moonlit crowd.

“He comes! The Living Ancient comes!” sped the rustling Jovian cry.

“The Living Ancient?” Curt wondered. “So that’s what he calls himself?”

Into the packed plaza from the jungle on the far side of the city was coming a dark shape.

Curt raised his proton-pistol. If he could blast the Space Emperor before he became immaterial —

He saw that it was indeed the Space Emperor, the same figure he had battled in Orris’ cabin in Jovopolis. A grotesque shape in his dark suit with its tiny eye-holes.

The Space Emperor was material, Curt saw at once. For he was
carrying
someone — the bound figure of a girl in a white synthe-silk uniform, whose dark, wavy hair fell back from her moonlit white face.

“Joan Randall!” Captain Future gasped. “That devil has seized her and brought her here for some reason!”

Curt’s whole plan of action was upset by the disastrous surprise. He knew the Space Emperor was now material and vulnerable. But he could not blast him down while he held Joan.

The Space Emperor uttered a few words in his deep voice. Out of the worshipful Jovian crowd, two green natives sprang in obedience. They took the bound girl from their sinister ruler’s arms.

As the Jovians stepped back with Joan, Curt’s pistol was poised to blast the super-criminal. But the Space Emperor had touched something at his belt as the Jovians stepped back. And now the Space Emperor moved glidingly forward,
through
the two Jovians.

“Too late!” Captain Future hissed, with a feeling of blind anger.

Too late! The Space Emperor had made himself immaterial, and no proton-beam could harm him.

A great cry arose from the Jovian horde as they saw the dark figure glide forward through their comrades, like an unreal phantom. It was a cry of fanatic worship.

The Space Emperor glided forward, until he reached the paving between the ground-drum pits. There he turned to face the Jovian throng, his back toward Captain Future.

Curt could see now that the dark criminal moved, in his immaterial state, by the reactive push of a force-tube attached to his belt. There was a small switch beside it, that he guessed was the control of the Space Emperor’s de-materializing apparatus. Apparently, the device that would return him to a normal state had also been changed into an immaterial state.

The two Jovians laid down Joan Randall’s helpless form a little to one side of and behind the Space Emperor. Then they stepped back into the throng. The deep, heavy voice of the black figure rolled out, speaking to the masses of Jovians in their own language.

“I bring to you again the command of the great Ancients, of whom I am the last living one,” vibrated his voice.

A sigh of awe swept through the horde of green natives as they heard, “You know that the spirits of the Ancients are wroth with the Earthmen who have come to this world,” the black figure continued. “You have seen our curse fall upon many of them and change them into beasts.”

“We have seen, lord,” came a great responding cry from the Jovians.

“It is the curse of our anger that has made them change so,” went on the Space Emperor. “Before you leave here, you shall see me put that curse upon this Earth girl.”

CAPTAIN FUTURE’S big body went rigid. The super-plotter was going to use the dread atavism weapon on Joan —

“The time is almost here,” the dark criminal was saying loudly, “when you must gather and sweep the Earthmen from this world to appease the anger of the Ancients. Are you ready for that?”

“We are ready, lord,” answered a big Jovian fervently from the throng. “We have obtained many of the Earth guns from the Earthman at the radium mine, in exchange for our labor. All through the jungles now, the villages of our people only await the great signal of the ground-drums to attack the Earthmen.”

“That signal will be given to you soon, perhaps within hours!” the Space Emperor declared. “I will lead you when the moment comes and we will sweep first upon the Earthman town they call Jungletown, and then upon the other Earthman cities until all are taken. Then I, the last of the Ancients, shall rule this world for your good.”

“You shall rule, lord,” answered the Jovians in a reverent, humble chorus.

Captain Future was clawing in his belt, working to extract something from that flat, capacious tungstite container.

“There’s only one chance to get Joan away before that devil inflicts the blight upon her,” he whispered fiercely to himself. “The invisibility charge —”

Captain Future extracted from his belt the little mechanism he wanted. It was a disclike instrument that was one of the greatest secrets of Curt and Simon Wright.

He took it, pressed a stud upon it, holding it above his head. He felt the unseen force that streamed down from it flood through every fiber of his body with stinging shock.

Quickly, Captain Future saw his own body becoming a little misty and translucent. For Curt was disappearing!

The little instrument was one which could give any matter a charge of force that caused all light to be refracted around it, thus making it invisible. But the charge only lasted temporarily, for ten minutes. Then the charge dissipated, and such matter became visible again.

Captain Future, as he became slowly invisible, felt an utter darkness close in around him. With all light refracted around him, he was now in complete darkness. He could see nothing whatever! For no light could reach his eyes. By that he knew finally that he had become completely invisible.

Curt started soundlessly around the corner of the ruined building, moving in an absolute and rayless blackness.

Captain Future could move in this darkness that now encompassed him, almost as well as by sight. His super-keen senses of hearing and touch, and his long practice in this, enabled him to do what no other man could have done.

He crept around the crumbling ruin. He knew that, had he been visible, he would be standing in full view of the Jovian thousands. He could hear the Space Emperor, still speaking in his heavy, disguised voice, exhorting the green natives.

CURT crept toward that voice. Moving with utter care, he crept on until he neared Joan. He could hear her frightened breathing. He clapped his invisible hand over her mouth and felt her body quiver in wild alarm.

“It’s me — Captain Future,” he murmured in the faintest of whispers in her ear. “Lie still, and I’ll untie you.”

He felt Joan stiffen, then relax. He groped at her bonds, which he discovered were tough metal cords.

Curt could not untie the cords, nor break them. Frantically he clawed in his belt, and brought out a sharp little tool. Slowly, so as to make no twanging sound, he cut the cords.

“Don’t get up,” he murmured to the girl. “I’ll drag you slowly back around the ruin. If the Jovians notice you, we’ll have to run for it.”

He gripped Joan’s shoulders firmly. Then, with infinite care to make no sound, he drew the girl back from the loudly declaiming Space Emperor.

In the darkness, Curt was tensely listening for signs of discovery. But he heard no sound of alarm from the Jovian throng. Intently listening to their leader, Curt guessed that they were not watching the half-hidden shape of the girl.

Captain Future’s hopes were soaring when he heard a wild cry from a Jovian in the throng.

“See! A spirit of the Ancients appears to us now!”

At the same moment, faint light began to penetrate the rayless blackness in which Curt moved.

He looked down at himself. His ten minutes of invisibility had expired. He was becoming visible again!

THERE was a taut silence in the little office of Jovian Mines in Jungletown, as Simon Wright and Grag and the disguised Otho realized the situation.

Mark Cannig stood before the incredible trio of comrades, fear evident in his eyes. The young mine superintendent’s face was flushed and queer, as though he labored under strong emotion.

“You know what happened to Joan, Cannig,” rasped the Brain. “You’d better talk, quickly.”

“I tell you I don’t know anything,” asserted Cannig desperately, his voice thick and hoarse.

“We can make you talk, you know!” hissed Otho ominously, his eyes blazing. “Where is the girl? And where is Captain Future?”

Grag took a ponderous step forward toward the young man, and half-raised his enormous metal hands.

“Shall I squeeze the truth out of him, Simon?” boomed the great robot questioningly.

Mark Cannig appealed wildly to Ezra Gurney who stood beside the unhuman trio.

“Marshal Gurney, you can’t let them harm me!” cried the young man hoarsely.

Ezra Gurney’s weatherbeaten face was grim and his blue eyes cold.

“I’m with them on this, Cannig,” he said uncompromisingly. “You’ve done something to that girl, and you’re going to tell what.”

Cannig made a bolt for the door. But before he reached it, Otho had moved with blurring speed to intercept him.

The android hauled him back despite his struggles and yells.

“He’s guilty as hell or he wouldn’t have tried to get away!” cried Ezra Gurney.

“What’s going on in here?” demanded a startled voice from the door.

Sylvanus Quale stood there, and behind him was the vice-governor, Eldred Kells. The governor’s colorless face was amazed as he looked in at the strange tableau presented by the brain and robot and android, and to the two Earthmen.

Quale and Kells strode inside. And at once Cannig appealed hoarsely to the governor.

“Captain Future’s comrades are planning to torture me!” he cried.

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea, at that,” Gurney said.

The marshal told the governor what had happened and showed him the Planet Police badge they had found upon the floor.

“Captain Future and Joan both missing?” Quale exclaimed. His face grew strange. “I was afraid things were going wrong up here at Jungletown. That’s why I just flew up here to check.”

“Do you suppose that Cannig could be the Space Emperor?” Eldred Kells exclaimed excitedly.

“I’m not — I’m not!” howled Cannig, his face distorted and his cry almost unrecognizable.

“Where’s Lucas Brewer?” Quale demanded of him, but he did not answer.

“Brewer may be out at the mine, or he may be lying low somewhere here in Jungletown,” Gurney answered. “I’ve an idea hell is going to pop tonight.”

“And meanwhile we’re wasting time here!” Otho hissed fiercely.

“You’d better talk fast, Cannig,” rasped Simon Wright to the young superintendent. “Grag and Otho will do some unpleasant things to you if you don’t.”

CANNIG’S nerve seemed to break. His voice babbled hoarsely all of a sudden.

“I’ll tell you what I know! I don’t know anything about where Captain Future is, but Joan was taken from here tonight by the Space Emperor, because she saw us together.”

“You’ve been an accomplice of that criminal, then?” Simon rasped instantly.

Mark Cannig nodded, slowly and dazedly.

“Yes,” he muttered. “There’s no use denying it now.”

“Who is the Space Emperor, Cannig?” the Brain demanded quickly.

“I don’t know,” Cannig choked. “I never knew who he was.”

“Tell the truth!” Otho hissed, his voice threatening.

“I’m telling the truth!” choked Cannig dazedly. “I was just a pawn of the Space Emperor, like Orris and Skeel and a few others. The Space Emperor never appeared to me except inside that concealing suit. And he was almost always immaterial. He didn’t take any chances.”

Cannig seemed struggling for words, his glazed eyes wild and his voice thick and stumbling.

“He told me he would soon hold supreme power on Jupiter, and that I would share that power if I helped him. I agreed, like a fool. Then when the atavism cases began, I realized that he was causing that horror.

“He said he’d found powers beyond any Earth science, and that one of them was the atavism force. He was using it on Earthmen at random, to create a demoralization of horror and influence the superstitious Jovians, through whom he meant to win power over the whole planet. He inflicted the blight with an invisible beam. Victims didn’t feel it at the time, but a few days later the horrible change began.”

“And you were helping him?” cried Eldred Kells, looking at the young man in utter loathing.

“I had to obey him. I was afraid of him!” Cannig cried hoarsely. “That black devil has been more and more menacing to me of late, because of the protests I made to him against the horror he was causing.”

“Did he say just when he intended to lead the Jovians against the Earthman towns?” Simon Wright demanded.

Mark Cannig nodded dazedly.

“Yes, he said that —”

Cannig stopped, the words trailing from his lips, his eyes glazed and strange. He passed a hand unsteadily over his face.

“He said that —” he started to continue, in the same stumbling voice.

But again, his thick voice trailed off. He looked from one to another of them with blank, empty eyes.