Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) (4 page)

Newton answered timidly. “No, I’ve never been off the Earth. I hope I don’t get space-sick on this trip.”

Her brown eyes snapped. “And you are going to play Captain Future.”

There was the ghost of a smile in Curt Newton’s eyes as he watched her and Jeff Lewis enter the producer’s office.

Jim Willard came up. “Ready for your space-exploits, Carson? The expedition is going to take off tomorrow morning.”

Newton managed to look nervous. “So soon?” he gulped.

He did not see Joan Randall again but later that morning he heard Jeff Lewis speak of her to the assistant director.

“That Randall girl would have delayed the whole expedition,” Lewis told young Willard. “But I thought up a way to convince her that the picture would be true to Future’s character.”

Next morning, the
Perseus
lay ready for take-off. Crowds jammed the spaceport to watch the “Ace of Space” expedition depart. The publicity given the picture had interested the whole System in it.

Bands were playing, thousands of hands waving, as the last actors and technicians came up the gangway. Captain Future, with “Rizo Thon” and Jim Willard, watched from the promenade deck.

“There’s Lura making her usual last-minute entrance,” said the cynical young assistant director. “And Valdane with her, as usual.”

The glamorous blonde actress was waving to the enthusiastic crowd as she came up the gangway. Behind her followed the chubby figure of Jon Valdane, a beaming smile on his pink face. He was accompanied by Su Thuar and by a tall, cadaverous-looking blue-skinned Saturnian.

“The Saturnian is Kin Kurri, one of Valdane’s stooges in the System Council,” remarked Willard. “He’s coming along as Valdane’s guest.”

Curt Newton’s eyes narrowed. The presence of the Saturnian politician more than ever convinced him that Valdane’s conspiracy against Styx was on a big scale. But what was the nature of it?

The space-doors slammed shut. Bells rang warning, and the loudspeakers of the ship uttered their mechanical caution. “Take-off time in five minutes.”

Curt Newton pretended shaky apprehension. He looked at Willard fearfully. “Will the start shake us up much?”

“No, it’ll be easy if you sit in one of these space-chairs,” Willard told him, and added ironically, “Remember, you’re the greatest spaceman alive — in this picture.” Newton huddled in one of the shock-absorbing deck-chairs, the picture of nervous timidity. Then with a thunderous crash of rockets, the
Perseus
rose in the air and roared rapidly upward through the sunlight.

Curt Newton gasped and choked. “I — I’d better go down to my cabin. I’m afraid I’m going to be space-sick.”

“Go ahead then, ‘Captain Future’,” said Willard with a shrug of disgust. Unsteadily, Newton rose to his feet. His real motive was a desire to inspect the lower decks as soon as possible.

Suddenly he stiffened. He saw, farther along the deck, a slim feminine figure in gray space-slacks who was looking down through the transparent deck-wall at the receding Earth. It was Joan Randall!

“She isn’t coming with us, is she?” he asked Willard in dismay.

Willard nodded. “Why, yes, she is. Jeff told me this morning.”

Captain Future felt stunned. He started along the deck, and then met Jeff Lewis and Valdane. The chubby financier was frowning.

“It’s the first I knew of it,” Jon Valdane was saying angrily. “Why in the world should you bring that snooping girl Patrol agent along?”

Lewis shrugged helplessly. “I had to. She was going to delay our starting, because she thought our picture would be a libel on her friends, the Futuremen. I finally had to offer to take her along so that she could check on the picture as we made it, and give it her okay.”

Jon Valdane’s ordinarily beaming pink face looked ugly.

“She could have been handled in other ways,” he snapped. “But it’s too late now.”

They passed on. Joan Randall had disappeared. And Captain Future remained rooted, chilled by premonitory dread.

Joan’s loyalty to himself had unwittingly catapulted her into this devil’s ship of conspiracy where her danger was extreme. Valdane did not want her aboard. He might take drastic means to get rid of her.

Curt Newton groaned inwardly. He could not reveal himself to her without entangling her further in danger. He must continue to play his strange part if he was to penetrate the great plot against Magic Moon.

CAPTAIN FUTURE leaped into the crumpled interior of the wrecked space-cruiser and crouched, his atom-pistol in his hand. “Otho, where are you?” he called loudly.

“Here, chief!” answered the android. He was lying, trussed up in heavy bonds in a corner of the wreck. “They left me here to be killed when the wreck crashes.”

“And the rats got away from me,” hissed Captain Future as he bent to untie the other. “By space, when we catch up to them —”

“Cut!”

It was Jeff Lewis’ order that suddenly brought the scene to an end. The big, twin-lensed stereofilm cameras stopped grinding, and the krypton spotlights were snapped off.

Curt Newton and Otho turned toward the director. “How was it?”

“Rizo Thon was all right,” Lewis answered. “But you still are too stiff and awkward, Carson. You still haven’t learned how to act as Captain Future would act.” This big room looked like an ordinary telepicture studio, with the set that represented the interior of a wrecked space-cruiser occupying half its length. The rest was crowded with cameras, spotlights, technicians and other actors of the troupe. This was the main hold of the
Perseus.
It had been converted into a small studio. And during all these days in which the liner had been speeding toward Jupiter, Jeff Lewis had here been busy upon interior scenes for “The Ace of Space.”

It was hard to realize that they were in a ship going at tremendous velocity. The rockets had been shut off, and the
Perseus
moved through the void in a swift, soundless rush.

“What you must do,” Lewis was lecturing Curt Newton, “is to tell yourself, ‘I am Captain Future.’ Then you’ll act more like him.”

Curt Newton managed to keep his face solemn. “I’ll try, Mr. Lewis,” he stammered. “I’ve been space-sick so much, that it’s made it harder for me.”

Ron King, the exquisite-looking juvenile lead of “The Ace of Space,” raised his eyebrows superciliously at Newton. “You really shouldn’t have taken the part when you’re such a bad space-sailor.”

“He’s about as good a space-sailor as he is an actor,” gibed Lura Lind. “He’s ruined every scene with me so far.”

“Let Carson alone,” growled the producer. “He’ll be all right.”

Joan Randall, slim in her gray spaceslacks, had stood in the background watching the scene with a faint contempt in her brown eyes.

“Captain Future wouldn’t use melodramatic language like that,” she told Jeff Lewis now. “It’s not like him at all.”

“Miss Randall, will you please give me a little leeway in making this picture,” begged the producer impatiently. “I’m keeping my promise to stick to the truth in depicting the Futuremen’s exploits, ain’t I? Please let me direct the dialogue myself.”

Jim Willard, his young assistant, intervened diplomatically. “The ‘day’ is about over, Jeff,” he remarked, glancing at his watch.

“All right, that’ll be all for this time,” Jeff Lewis said wearily to the troupe. “Hanged if I can get used to these ship ‘days’ and ‘nights’.”

Lo Quior and his technicians started stowing away the cameras. The actors streamed off to their cabins to remove their make-up before dinner.

“Chan Carson’ and ‘Rizo Thon’ shared a cabin on the mid-deck — Curt Newton had contrived that. When they reached it, instead of taking make-up off, they began to put make-up back on, Otho resuming his disguise as a Mercurian, and Newton deftly making the slight change in his appearance which converted him into ‘Chan Carson.’

“Did you hear what Lewis said about my acting?” Otho said vainly. “He thinks I’m good. I’ll bet I could be a telepicture star.”

“You’re turning into a stage-struck ham,” Curt Newton accused him witheringly. “Get your mind back on our job. Were you able to get into Jon Valdane’s suite?”

UTHO slowly shook his head.

“Chief, it’s impossible,” vowed the android. “You know he and his friend Kin Kurri, and Su Thuar and the rest of his tough ‘bodyguards’ have the whole aft part of this deck. Well, you just can’t get back there unobserved. Some of Valdane’s strong-arm men are lounging in the corridor there all the time.”

“We’ve got to get in, somehow, and search Valdane’s papers,” Captain Future declared. “We’ve learned nothing at all yet, and here we are almost to Jupiter.”

Curt Newton had begun to feel a little desperate. During all these days since the departure from Earth, he had not succeeded in penetrating the secret of Jon Valdane’s mysterious conspiracy against Magic Moon.

Valdane was no fool. He had talked a lot but had never even mentioned Styx. Nor had Captain Future or Otho been able to spy upon him, since his quarters were always guarded.

“We’ll slip down to the prop-room tonight and see Simon and Grag,” Curt decided. “I have an idea that may work.”

After dinner that night, the troupe of actors and technicians retired early. For Jeff Lewis warned them that they would land on Jupiter early the next day.

“We’re landing at Jungletown, close to the Fire Sea,” the producer informed the cast. “I want to make our scenes as quickly as possible and get out of that dangerous place.”

When everyone had retired and the rushing liner was quiet except for the steady throb of the ventilators, Curt Newton and Otho stole out of their cabin and made their way down to the prop-room in the hold.

In that shadowy clutter of costumes, space-suits, strange weapons and grotesque objects, they found Simon Wright and Grag. The Brain was resting on a shelf, and Grag’s mighty figure stood immobile in a corner.

“It’s Otho and I,” Captain Future whispered quickly.

Grag immediately flexed his mighty metal limbs and came stalking forward.

“How much longer have I got to stand down here like a frozen statue?” he demanded indignantly. “I’m getting bored with this.”

“You’ll be getting out of here tomorrow, Grag,” Newton assured him. “For you’ll be needed for the scenes they make by the Fire Sea.”

“I have not minded this inactivity,” rasped the Brain. “It has given me a chance to work out the mental solution of several complex astrophysical formula which I have long pondered.”

“That’s fine, but I’ve got a job for you tomorrow, Simon,” said Captain Future. “When everyone is out of the ship, I want you to search Valdane’s quarters. There must be some clue in his effects as to his plan against Styx. Do you think you can get into his suite?”

“I shall do my best,” replied the Brain in his austere way.

“Do, Simon — we must find out soon what Valdane and his crowd are planning against Magic Moon,” Curt Newton said earnestly.

“Chief, what about Joan?” Grag asked.

“I want her to leave this ship at Jupiter. She must stay there. For she’ll be in danger from Valdane’s crowd if she doesn’t. Valdane isn’t going to let a Patrol agent like Joan go much farther on this trip, even though her status is unofficial.”

“But how are you going to get her to leave the ship at Jupiter?” Otho demanded.

“Otho, that will be your job,” Captain Future replied. “You won’t be in these Fire Sea scenes, according to the script. So you’ll have a chance to make sure that Joan stays on Jupiter.”

Otho was dismayed. “How in the name of space am I going to contrive that?”

“A fake message calling her back to Earth would be your best bet,” Curt Newton told him. “If that fails — well, then you’ll have to try something else.”

Next ‘morning,’ the
Perseus
threaded through Jupiter’s maze of moons and slid down into the vast atmosphere of the monarch planet.

Curt Newton looked down with the others from the promenade deck. He pretended a marveling awe that fitted timid ‘Chan Carson,’ though he knew this planet better than any other man in the System.

Yet not all of his awe was assumed. Jupiter, even seen for the hundredth time, was a stunning spectacle. Its vast greenish sphere filled all the heavens beneath them, a majestic panorama of huge oceans and colossal continents. And upon the breast of the continent of South Equatoria, toward which they were dropping, burned the Fire Sea.

The Fire Sea, the most terrifying natural wonder in the Solar System. A flaming ocean of red, molten lava, it stretched eight thousand miles in width and thrice that in length. This stupendous infernal sea was visible even from Earth, where it had once been called the Red Spot of Jupiter.

Jungletown lay in the dense fern-jungles only a little south of the Fire Sea. The place was a mining town, which constantly shifted its location and migrated northward to follow the uranium and radium diggings. It was now quite close to the flaming ocean.

The
Perseus,
riding the jets of its keel rockets, dropped down into the raw field that served the mining town as a spaceport. The doors opened, and the company started emerging into the sunlight.