Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) (8 page)

NOISILY blaring a raucous Martian march, the brilliantly uniformed band of the Interplanetary Circus marched around the big main pavilion. Krypton lights glowed on the metal walls for the thousands of people who jammed the innumerable rows of seats.

“Big show about to begin!” barkers outside could be heard shouting. “Hurry, hurry! Don’t miss it, folks!” Jur Nugat, the thin, blue Saturnian proprietor of the Interplanetary Circus, stepped into a spotlight as the band’s music ceased.

“Introducing the greatest galaxy of interplanetary acrobats ever gathered together!” he bellowed at the mob.

The crash of brass from the band and eager applause from the packed audience greeted the half-hundred men and girls who ran out and nimbly climbed to the high, swinging trapezes and wires.

“Each and every performer wears a standard gravitation equalizer!” Jur Nugat was announcing loudly. “A committee of reputable witnesses inspects them before each show. No gravitation fakery in this circus, folks!”

The band swung into a soft Earth waltz. The acrobats — Martians, Earthmen, a few Venusians, and a great number of swarthy Mercurians, began the giddy leaps and swings above the copper-gauze safety nets spread far below. They somersaulted, hung by one finger, danced on wires.

“Look at that bunch of amateurs,” growled Otho, eyeing with disdain the feats that held the spectators breathless. “They ought to be ashamed of taking money for such childish stunts. Wait till I show that audience something.”

Otho, disguised as a white-skinned Ganymedean, was wearing tight-fitting trunks. He stood casually beside Captain Future, who lounged negligently as a Venusian swamp man.

“Quiet, Otho, don’t seem to be talking to me,” whispered Curt without moving his lips. “I think Ul Quorn is watching us.”

Future’s keen eyes had noticed Ul Quorn standing with the Hearer in the shadow of the pavilion entrance. The mixed-breed’s handsome red face was imperturbable, but Curt saw him say something, and noticed the Hearer slip hastily away.

“Quorn’s up to something,” Captain Future mused. “If he has suspected us —”

A thunderous crash of applause interrupted him. The acrobats had finished their performance. Jur Nugat was introducing the next act.

“And now the greatest acrobat in all circus history, making his first appearance. The Ultra-acrobat from Ganymede!”

Otho stepped into the spotlight and bowed elaborately. Then he turned and spoke loudly to the circus laborers nearby.

“Take those nets away!” he ordered. “I don’t need ‘em.”

“But we always use nets —” Jur Nugat began to protest.

“Not for me!” Otho declared, making sure he was near the microphone. “Nets are for amateurs. Now watch a professional.”

As the laborers hastily rolled up the copper gauze nets, Curt swore beneath his breath.

“That reckless android would have to show off to a crowd, just when Quorn may be getting suspicious.”

Otho started climbing a rope toward the highest trapeze platform. He went up hand-over-hand so fast that the eye could hardly follow him. A cry of astonishment came from the crowd. The band played a pulsing Martian rhythm, and Otho went into his act. He dived straight toward the ground, a hundred feet below.

A YELL of horror broke from thousands of throats. But ten feet from death, the android caught a hanging rope. He swung in a dizzy arc up toward another trapeze platform, where he landed gracefully. Then he turned and bowed to the audience.

The crowd went wild. It was a feat such as no one had ever seen before. No human being could have performed it, of course. It required the utmost dexterity of even Otho, the fastest and most agile of all beings in the System.

Gratified by the applause, the android went on with his spectacular act. He swung free on a rope, leaped toward another rope twenty feet away, did eight somersaults in midair, and landed safely. He hopped loosely swinging wires on one hand, flashed between the ropes and wires so swiftly that sometimes he was hardly visible. When he finally slid down and stepped into the spotlight, the applause was terrific.

“You big ham!” Curt Newton whispered furiously as Otho paused beside him. “Showing off may make Quorn suspect you, too! He’s been watching every move you made.”

Otho glanced quickly across the pavilion. Quorn was still standing there. At that moment, he was rejoined by the Hearer. The freak had brought a small conical metal case.

“I just wanted to show ‘em what a real acrobat could do,” defended Otho. “Didn’t you hear that applause? Boy, did I go over big!”

“Listen to me, you idiotic hunk of rubberoid,” Curt hissed. “While Quorn and the Hearer are here, now is your chance to search Quorn’s pavilion. He may have the space stones stowed away in some hiding place there. Try to find them.”

“Okay, Chief. But you be careful with those damned marsh tigers.”

“Get out of here — Jur Nugat’s going to announce me,” Curt warned. “If you and I seem too friendly, it’ll ruin everything.”

As they conversed unnoticeably, the equestrian acts had been on. Star interplanetary riders had shown their skill in managing Earth horses, Jovian lopers and bucking, fierce Saturnian stads. “And now our new attraction, ladies and gentlemen!” the Saturnian proprietor announced. “The greatest wild-animal act in interplanetary history. The ravenous beasts never before tamed by man! The man who tamed them — Kovo the swamp man — and his marsh tigers!”

Curt shambled out like a typical swamp man and bowed clumsily to the crowd.

“Let them into the cage,” he ordered the waiting laborers.

From the round main pen, constructed of stout steelite bars, a passage led outside to the menagerie. Through this passage, prodded on by light touches with an atomic goad, the six marsh tigers charged. Roaring deafeningly, clawing viciously at the bars of the big cage, the huge, black-scaled beasts reared up on their thick hind legs, raising their hideous snouted heads. Their small reptilian eyes were blazing, their great fangs and razor-like talons gleaming.

Excited, fearful cries came from the audience. These Venusians knew that marsh tigers, the most terrible beasts of their world, had seldom been captured and never tamed. “Are you sure you want to go in there?” Jur Nugat asked Curt, and this time he spoke sincerely. His face was pale as he stared at the roaring monsters.

“They won’t hurt me,” Curt said casually.

“Take this atom pistol, anyway,” the Saturnian begged.

HE INSISTED on thrusting the weapon into Curt’s belt as Captain Future stepped toward the door of the cage. The entire audience was hushed, tense. The marsh tigers were snarling and quarreling at the side of the cage farthest from the gate. Curt Newton quietly slipped inside and quickly re-locked the door.

The scaled beasts turned at the click. Twelve reptilian eyes glared as the ferocious monsters crouched for the savage leap that no man could stop.

“They’re going to kill him!” screamed a hysterical Venusian woman in the audience.

“Look!” yelled another voice. “Gods of Venus, look!”

Curt’s hand had pressed the switch of the will-dampener instrument in his pocket. The instant the radiated neuronic electric force struck the vicious brains, the crouching marsh tigers relaxed. The will-dampener completely blanked out their natural ferocity, making them as docile as kittens.

The audience gasped incredulously as two of the marsh tigers shuffled up to Curt. But when he patted the hideous monsters, the Venusians cried out. They burst into thunderous, frantic applause as Curt mounted the largest and most terrible marsh tiger and negligently pulled its ears.

“Kovo! Kovo!” the audience yelled in frenzied applause. Curt Newton turned to bow to the audience. A terrific roar of fury behind him made him spin around. The marsh tigers were no longer docile and submissive. They were crouching again to spring at him. Ophidian eyes glared bestial hate at him, and deadly fangs glittered murderously.

“Devils of space!” Curt muttered. “The will-dampener’s out of order —”

Then he realized that the instrument was still buzzing away in his pocket, radiating its neuronic vibrations. But suddenly the marsh tigers seemed to have become immune to it.

Captain Future’s eyes flashed around the cage. He knew he was in the greatest peril. The marsh tigers were between him and the door of the cage. They would spring in another instant.

His keen eyes, photographing every detail even in that ghastly moment, glimpsed Ul Quorn and the Hearer. Back in the shadows of the pavilion entrance, the Hearer was holding a conical machine. He was aiming its apex directly at the cage, and Ul Quorn was smiling faintly at Curt.

“Neutralizing my will-dampener in some way!” Future muttered. “I knew he suspected.”

Abruptly he shouted to the horror-stricken circus laborers outside the cage.

“Put the copper gauze nets around the cage. Quick!”

The sound of Curt’s voice acted as a trigger to the mindless ferocity of the six beasts. They charged. Then the audience saw something that none of them would ever forget. Curt Newton did not wait to be rended by fang and talon. There was one slim chance to escape death. As the marsh tigers sprang, he leaped to meet them!

OVER the head of the foremost monster he sprang and landed on its back. Grabbing its neck with one hand, Curt Newton rode the marsh tiger, using his free hand to fire swift flashes from his atom pistol at the other beasts.

To the audience, the big cage was a whirl of black, scaled bodies in which the man could hardly be seen. To Curt, it was a mad riot. The marsh tiger he clung to was bucking and rearing in roaring fury to dislodge him. But his hideous mount kept the other marsh tigers from reaching him for the moment, and his atom gun tended further to bewilder them. Though he clung to the beast with all his great strength, Curt knew that even he couldn’t last long.

A cold sensation gripped the heart of Captain Future. To die beneath rending fangs in a steelite cage — It couldn’t be! He had always known that someday one of his adventures must end in disaster. But he had always thought it would be out in the spaceways with the white eyes of the familiar stars for witnesses, not in a trap like this beneath the eyes of horrified thousands.

Suddenly the mad bucking and roaring of the marsh tiger stopped. The beast quieted down, stood plaintively purring. The other reptilian monsters had also grown docile again. The laborers outside the cage had succeeded in wrapping the copper gauze nets completely around the cage.

“Just in time,” Curt gasped. “Lucky those workers weren’t Quorn’s men, or he’d have countermanded my order.”

He still felt the reaction of the narrow escape, yet he let none of it show. He turned, dismounting from the quiet monster, and bowed again to the audience. They applauded until the thin metal walls of the pavilion shook wildly.

“Kovo! Kovo!” the roar went up.

Curt slipped out the door. Only when he was outside did he turn off the will-dampener in his pocket.

“I thought they had you, Kovo,” Jur Nugat stammered. “Gods of Saturn, you had me scared.”

Curt shrugged. “They were a little unruly tonight.”

The Saturnian’s blue jaw sagged.

“A little unruly?” he bleated.

Curt ran hastily to the dressing pavilion entrance. Half along the covered way stood a curious-looking machine, as though left there by a careless worker. It was the cylinder that contained Simon Wright.

“Lad!” rasped the metallic whisper of the Brain. “I came here to warn you. I rolled here in this fake body. I heard Ul Quorn speaking tonight to the Hearer. He suspects you’re Captain Future!”

“Your warning’s a little late, Simon,” Curt said with a grim chuckle. “Ul Quorn nearly got me a few moments ago. I’m the only man who ever invented and used a will-dampener. Remember my demonstrating it last year to the Uranian zoologists? Quorn must have heard of my invention. When he saw me controlling marsh tigers, he figured only a will-dampener could do it. Hence, I must be Captain Future.

“Quorn figured to kill me without seeming to be implicated, as he would be if he used an atom gun. He intended to neutralize my will-dampener by using a conical generator of powerful electro-magnetic vibrations that blanked out my instrument’s force. I guessed what he was doing at once. I had the Circus laborers put up the copper gauze nets around the cage to screen it from Quorn’s blanketing force. Then my will-dampener was able to function again.”

“That mixed-breed devil,” rasped the Brain. “If we don’t —”

“Hush, Simon,” Curt interrupted. “Ul Quorn is coming toward us now!”

UL QUORN was sauntering toward them, as though casually returning to his own pavilion. The Hearer and the conical mechanism that had almost trapped Curt had disappeared. There was a cool smile on Ul Quorn’s smooth, handsome red face and cold humor in his black eyes as he confronted Curt. “Let me congratulate you on your lucky escape, Kovo,” the mixed-breed said softly. “I was watching. You were indeed fortunate to escape death.”