Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) (14 page)

Quorn left the cabin with N’rala and the Hearer. The Chameleon Man remained. Standing with a drawn atom pistol, he watched Curt with an alert, nervous gaze. Captain Future thrust aside his amazement at discovering that Ul Quorn was son of Victor Corvo, who had murdered his own father. That explained a lot of things, but it wasn’t important now. What was important was the necessity of getting out of his cell, and at once.

But how? He was tied to a stanchion in the corner of the cabin, by stout strips of Plutonian leather. He might be able to work himself loose, for he knew tricks with ropes and knots. But if he tried it, the Chameleon Man, only a few feet away, would stop him. Curt Newton attacked the problem with all the resources of his powerful mind, exactly as though he faced some puzzling problem of scientific research. His racing brain examined and rapidly discarded several possibilities.

THE Chameleon Man, the hollow-eyed blue Saturnian who could change color at will, watched Curt every moment. Now and then the sharp signals of the meteor alarm could be heard from the control room, followed by a blast of rocket tubes to avoid the meteors of the asteroidal wilderness. Each time the cruiser veered, the standing Chameleon Man lurched to one side or the other, thrown off-balance.

Curt noticed that. The fact that his legs were not tied to the stanchion gave Captain Future the opening he had been looking for. He waited, listening tensely for the meteor alarm. It buzzed three times, indicating meteors ahead and to the right. The cruiser veered sharply to the left. Curt groaned inwardly. Why couldn’t those meteors have been on the other side?

Then his fervent prayer was answered. The distant meteor alarm buzzed twice, warning of meteors to the left. Curt drew up his knees slightly. An instant later, as he had expected, the cruiser veered sharply to the right. The Chameleon Man was again thrown off-balance. He lurched a little to one side — toward Curt!

Captain Future’s legs suddenly shot out, caught the guard in the pit of the stomach. The Saturnian freak was hurled back, gasping for breath and unable to shout. His head struck the cabin wall so sharply that he fell unconscious. Instantly Curt was busy with the strips of Plutonian leather that held him to the stanchion. Shrinking his arm muscles and slipping his wrist temporarily out of joint proved painful. But Curt set his teeth and persisted until he had loosened one hand behind him.

The Chameleon Man began returning to consciousness. Curt worked frantically to release his other hand. The freak staggered dazedly to his feet, just as Future succeeded in freeing himself. The Chameleon Man grabbed up his atom pistol and leveled it at Curt’s breast. Captain Future leaped in at the freak, diving under the weapon and against it to force it to fire upward. The Chameleon Man had been pressing the trigger. Curt’s lunge knocked his weapon back. The streak of force from the gun tore into the freak’s own breast. He crumpled, dead. Captain Future realized the peril of his predicament. He must get out of this ship, taking Quorn’s five space stones with him if possible. But escape was more important, to beat Quorn to the Pleasure Planet and the last two space stones. Overcoming Quorn and his crew of freaks was out of the question. Curt knew that too vast an issue depended on him to take such a mad risk. He must use some stratagem. But what? His eye fell on the dead Chameleon Man.

“That’s it!” he breathed.

Curt Newton still wore the belt which contained his emergency scientific kit and make-up case. He snatched out the case and began applying his art of disguise to the dead freak.

WAXITE pads changed the shape of the Chameleon man’s features. Artificial curly hair, stained red, went onto his skull. A smooth cream made his face tan instead of blue. Curt put his own zipper-suit on the dead freak, and slipped his emblem-ring on the finger of the corpse.

“Can get it back later, if my little plan succeeds,” he muttered. “Have to risk the ring, though, or everything may fall through.”

The transformation was uncanny. The dead Chameleon Man was now an exact duplicate of Captain Future himself. Curt tied the corpse to the stanchion. Then he went to work with the make-up on himself, staining his face blue, dyeing his hair, changing his features, donning the freak’s clothes. When he had finished, Curt was a double of the dead Chameleon Man. He had exchanged identities with the freak!

“It may work,” Curt whispered tensely. “It has to.”

The tread of feet outside told him of Quorn’s return. Curt thrust the freak’s atom pistol into his own belt. He looked up with assumed nervousness as Quorn, N’rala and the Hearer entered the cabin. Quorn saw the dead man tied to the stanchion. The mixed-breed turned stormily on Curt.

“You fool, why did you kill him?”

“He was trying to escape,” Curt answered in the whining voice of the real Chameleon Man: “I had to stop him.”

“You could have called me,” snapped Ul Quorn. “I wanted the pleasure of seeing him squirm before he died.”

“He wouldn’t have squirmed,” N’rala said thoughtfully, looking at the dead pseudo-Future. “He was too strong for that.”

Quorn’s rage faded as he stared musingly at the dead man.

“You are right,” he admitted. “There was real genius to that man, foolish as were the altruistic ideals he followed. Even now that I have settled part of the old feud between his family and mine, I almost regret having extinguished so great a scientist.” The mixed-breed shrugged. “Well, there is no profit in being sentimental about it. Toss his body out into space.”

Curt helped the Hearer cast the dead body out through the air-lock. It gave Captain Future an uncanny feeling to see what looked like his own dead body drifting off into the starry void. Quorn gazed ahead through the swarming specks of light that were the numberless asteroids and meteor swarms of the zone.

“Now for the Pleasure Planet — and the last two space stones,” the mixed-breed said to N’rala. “We have five of them. Just these last two to get, N’rala!”

“They may be the most difficult,” the Martian girl warned. “Bubas Uum is wily. It will be hard to trick him.”

“I beat the unbeatable Captain Future,” Quorn reminded her.

Casually Captain Future sauntered back along the passage from the airlock vestibule, and entered the cyclotron room. The six squat, massive machines were droning steadily, producing the atomic energy which was released from the rocket tubes to drive the swift Rissman. Since the mechanisms were almost completely automatic and controlled from the pilot room, no one was on duty there. Curt grabbed up a wrench and sprang toward the Number One cyclotron. Again he began removing its radiation-proof cover.

“If I can get the stones and escape from this damned ship, things will look up,” Curt panted. “The asteroid of the Hermit of Space isn’t far from here. I could contact the
Comet
there.”

“What are you doing?” demanded a voice from the door.

CURT spun in alarm. The Hearer stood at the door. The uncanny freak had detected the sound Curt made in dissassembling the cyclotron, and he had come to investigate. Curt knew he was about to shout an alarm, for suspicion was flaring in his eyes. Captain Future leaped in and brought his gun butt down on the Hearer’s head. But the freak uttered a broken cry!

Shouts from the fore part of the ship answered it. Curt knew it was too late now to get the space stones. Quorn’s suspicions would soon expose the trick of imposture he had played.

“Must get out of here now, or not at all!” Curt gasped.

He plunged toward the air-lock vestibule, grabbed a space suit and an impeller. Hurriedly he scrambled into the suit, for he realized that the paramount necessity was to beat Quorn to the Pleasure Planet. Getting the last two space stones was vital. It was too late now to try to get the other five stones. Quorn already knew those parts of the formula, anyway.

Curt glimpsed Quorn, the Plutonian dwarfs and the other freaks rushing down the passageway. Captain Future touched the stud that sent the outer air-lock door flying open. The air in the lock whiffed out into space. Curt made a powerful spring into the void, away from the traveling ship.

His leap sent him flying far out into the empty, star-jeweled blackness, carrying him entirely clear of the ship’s gravitational attraction. Looking back, he saw the Rissman rocketing on at high speed. But a moment later, he bit his lip worriedly. The ship was turning around.

“Coming back after me!” he exclaimed. His keen mind attacked the problem swiftly. “That swarm’s my best bet — if I can make it.”

Not far from him rushed a cluster of glinting specks of light, one of the largest of the hurtling, tumbling meteor swarms of the zone.

Curt turned on his impeller, using the rocket flash of the tube to kick him through space toward the massed planetoids. If he could get into the swarm, Quorn wouldn’t dare follow him in with the ship. The fact that he would also be in deadly danger scarcely mattered to Curt. Facing danger was a habit with him.

He used the impeller continuously to urge him on toward the swarm. Now he could plainly see it as a great field of whirling, zipping meteors, from sand-grain size to enormous, jagged masses.

He glanced back again. The Rissman was coming after him with all rockets blasting. Quorn had seen and understood the maneuver. He was using every erg of the cruiser’s enormous power in trying to cut off Captain Future before he could enter the swarm...

LOOKING back, Captain Future had seen the Rissman cruiser thundering down on him, plumed with tails of fire from its blasting rocket tubes. Now he realized that Quorn was trying to run him down in space, smash him against the cruiser’s bow! Curt floated in space, waiting, as the ship rushed toward him. It took steel nerve to let that monstrous murder craft boom toward him. But he made no move until the Rissman was a few hundred feet away. With a sudden flash of his impeller, he flipped aside.

The Rissman grazed past, its rocket blast glaring in his eyes. The cruiser curved up sharply to avoid the meteor swarm, rolled over in a sharp space-spin. It came around in a broad curve to repeat the maneuver.

“Not this time, Quorn!” Captain Future gritted.

The minute the cruiser had passed him, Curt had turned on his impeller full force to carry him to the very edges of the rushing, tumbling, hurtling, whirling planetoids that swarmed between Jupiter and Mars. An instant later, he was flying along with the pack. All he could do was pray for fast reflexes. If one of those jagged rocks hit him, he knew his career was finished.

He chuckled as he saw the Rissman veer sharply away from the meteor swarm, ending its pursuit. Ul Quorn apparently was of no mind to risk suicide by following Curt into the swarm. With visible regret, the Rissman turned and moved away, disappearing in a counter-sunward direction through the asteroid zone.

“Continuing to the Pleasure Planet, to get Bubas Uum’s two space stones before I can interfere,” Curt guessed. “Now where is the Hermit of Space’s worldlet? If I can call the Futuremen from there to come in the
Comet,
I can still scramble Quorn’s orbit.”

No man could know the entire complex wilderness that made up the asteroidal zone. But Captain Future knew that maze of tiny worlds and meteors better than any other man. He had friends on some of the little planets. One of those friends was the Hermit of Space. Curt had figured, before escaping from the Rissman, that the Hermit’s asteroid was nearby. Emerging with intense relief from the dangerous meteor swarm, Curt Newton floated in space. He peered through his helmet till he located the small green speck of the Hermit’s worldlet. He used the impeller to kick himself toward that small point of light. Before long, he was floating down to its surface.

It was a green, forest-covered, parklike little planet, with a clear, thin atmosphere, shining little streams and lakes, and an abundance of strange animals and vegetable life. Captain Future fell toward an open glade in the forest. Though he used his impeller to brake his fall, he rolled over and over when he landed. He got to his feet, gasping for breath.

"Now where is the Hermit?" he mused. "I suppose the old fanatic is as opposed to science as ever, but he must have a televisor stowed away somewhere for emergency use."

CURT started traveling through the forest in a widening spiral. Presently he found a well worn path. It led from a fishing place on the shore of a small pond through the forest. After taking time out at the pond to remove his now useless Chameleon Man disguise, Captain Future followed the clearly marked path.

Pale sunlight flickered down through the queer, flat fronds of the green-trunked trees. Grotesque little furred, winged creatures like flying rabbits flitted to and fro, nibbling on the high branches. Curt noticed other forms of the strange indigenous life of this isolated little world. Borers inserted their serpentine bodies into tree-trunks and hollowed them out from within. Asteroid bees flew in a compact conical formation at such speed that they could drive through obstacles like a bullet.