Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) (7 page)

Suddenly Curt Newton stiffened. He had felt a low, rhythmic reverberation of the ground upon which he lay. Its rhythm increased swiftly.

He knew what it meant, and the knowledge appalled him. It was the prelude to a tidal eruption. The Fire Sea, surging up into the cavernous spaces beneath these cliffs, was threatening to erupt in a geyser of flaming destruction at this very spot.

He jumped to his feet, having finished the scene. But Jeff Lewis shook his head dissatisfiedly.

“No, it won’t do,” declared the director. “We’ll have to film that scene again.”

Captain Future knew that he had to get them all out of this dangerous place at once. Destruction might burst forth at any moment, for the ominous rhythm of vibration was rapidly accelerating.

But none of them knew what it meant. The Jovian guide had returned to Jungletown. And if he told them what it meant, he would prove by so doing that he could not really be ‘Chan Carson,’ since no timid, Earthbound clerk such as he impersonated could know such a thing.

“Will you get back there and do that scene over again, Carson?” Lewis was barking impatiently.

Curt Newton made up his mind swiftly. There was only one way to get them out of here without betraying his real identity. And that way, distasteful as it was to him, he must take.

He cried out in a voice he made shrill with fear. “I won’t do the scene again,” he shrieked. “I won’t stay here any longer.” He pointed trembling at the heaving Five Sea. “This place is too dangerous.”

“Get hold of yourself, Carson,” said Jim Willard disgustedly. “Do you want everybody to think you’re a coward?”

“I don’t care what they think — I’m not making any more scenes here.”

Jeff Lewis threw up his hands. “I give up. That’s what I get for hiring a scary clerk to play my main role.”

His voice was bitter with disgust. “All right, folks — that’s all here. Since Carson’s got hysteria, we might as well make out with the scenes as we’ve filmed them. Load up the trucks, Jim.”

The others, though themselves a little nervous, cast contemptuous glances at Curt Newton as they prepared to return to the ship. Captain Future knew that all of them now thought of him as a shivering craven. But he was not thinking of that. He was holding his breath until they should be away from this increasingly dangerous spot. His keen ears told him that every moment the ominous underground rhythm of surging lava was growing stronger. He drew a long breath of relief when the rocket-trucks finally rolled away from the seething Fire Sea and entered the jungle trail. And at that moment, it happened. With a thunderous roar, the promontory they had just quitted exploded upward. The cliff had been cracked by the upward-surging lava, and the tidal eruption flung a terrific geyser of molten rock for hundreds of feet into the moons-light. “Good grief, it’s an eruption,” yelled Jeff Lewis, his eyes protruding in the lurid light.

“Hurry up, before that lava falls back on us,” Curt Newton cried.

The drivers of the rocket-trucks jammed their cyc-pedals to the floor, and the vehicles lurched wildly forward along the jungle trail.

Cries of panic came from actors and technicians as they saw their peril. The roaring geyser of fiery lava, shooting high into the light of the four moons, was about to rain down on them. Hot ashes and burning bits of rock hailed down around the racing trucks. A deluge of fire seemed breaking from the heavens. But the sudden spurt of the rocket-trucks saved them from being beneath the masses of molten lava that crashed down on the trail behind them.

LURA LIND was screaming in panic, others were chattering with terror, as the ground heaved sickeningly beneath the speeding vehicles. Curt Newton, seeing that they were out of danger, counterfeited a terror even more extreme than that of the others.

“Gods of space,” exclaimed Lo Quior, his spectacled face pallid as he looked back at the lurid, fire-shot sky. “If we hadn’t left just when we did, that eruption would have killed us all.”

Jeff Lewis mopped his brow shakily. “You’re right. It’s a lucky thing that Chan Carson got so scared, after all.”

Jon Valdane gave Captain Future a long, queer look.

“Yes, it is lucky,” the financier murmured. “It’s almost unbelievably lucky.”

Curt Newton felt a chill of apprehension. Had he betrayed himself to Valdane’s sharp eyes? Hastily, Curt Newton exaggerated his apparent panic.

“This world is a devil’s planet,” he shrilled. “We nearly got killed. I want to get away from here at once.”

“Quiet down, Carson,” snapped the producer. “There’s no more danger now. And we’re leaving Jupiter before morning. We’ve made all the scenes we’ll need for this episode of the picture.”

“I wish I were back at my dry-goods counter on Earth,” Captain Future complained. “You didn’t tell me how risky that role was going to be.”

Inwardly, as he kept up his pretense of dread, Curt Newton was tensely anxious to reach the ship and find out from Otho whether Joan was safe.

The tidal eruption behind them was still painting the northern heavens with a bloody light that mingled weirdly with the silver radiance of the four clustered moons. When they rattled into Jungletown, they found the interplanetary frontier-town full of excitement over the thing.

The trucks bumped across the rough spaceport to the big, looming bulk of the
Perseus.

And Captain Future felt a throb of thankfulness as he saw that Joan Randall was there to meet them.

Joan Randall greeted Jeff Lewis indignantly. “That was a clever trick of yours to get rid of me — sending me a fake call from Earth!”

Jeff Lewis looked bewildered. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Someone sent me a fake message to return to Earth headquarters,” Joan said wrathfully. “I’d have gone, too, if I hadn’t suspected it was a trick and called headquarters myself.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” the producer said emphatically. “I’ve got troubles enough of my own right now. Sam! Lo Quior! Get ready for takeoff. We’re all through here on Jupiter.”

Though disappointed by the failure of his stratagem to get Joan out of this dangerous expedition, Captain Future nevertheless felt relief that she had come to no harm from Kin Kurri.

He looked around and saw Kin Kurri himself. The tall, cadaverous Saturnian had apparently been waiting at the ship.

Curt Newton didn’t see Otho, in the throng around the ship. Neither was Otho in the cabin they shared. Captain Future slipped down to the property-room, which by now had been re-loaded by Sam Martin’s men.

“Simon!” he whispered in the dark room. “Greg! Has Otho been here?”

Grag came stalking from the dark corner in which he had been stiffly standing, and the Brain also glided to Curt Newton from the shadows.

“Otho has not been here,” Simon Wright declared.

“I haven’t seen the pest, since he left us at the Fire Sea,” growled Grag.

“I sent him after Kin Kurri, whom I believed was trailing Joan,” Newton explained. “Kin Kurri is here, and so is Joan, but where is Otho?”

“Lad, I found out something when I searched Valdane’s suite today,” reported the Brain.

He went on to tell about Su Thuar’s bringing the cases of hollow wooden tubes.

“So that’s why Valdane left Su Thuar here — to get those aboard when no one was here to see,” muttered Captain Future thoughtfully. “Now what possible use has he got in mind for hollow wooden tubes?”

“We may be able to find that out,” the Brain said. “I took an Ear with me, and hung it inside the grating of the ventilator in Valdane’s suite.”

Captain Future uttered an approving exclamation. An Ear was a tiny supersensitive microphone and audio-transmitter which could pick up any nearby sound or speech and transmit it to a tuned receiver.

Simon Wright had the little receiver of the Ear ready, and it was turned on. “I’ve been listening but haven’t heard anything yet. They’ve not returned to their quarters.”

“Listen — they’re coming in now,” said Grag.

They hung over the little receiver. From it came the sound of footsteps, then the slam of a door. And then Jon Valdane’s voice, cold and wrathful.

“You bungled it, you fool,” Valdane was accusing. “I sent you to make sure of the Randall girl, and here she is, still on the ship. Why didn’t you catch up to her on the trail and do away with her so that it would look as though she’d been attacked by jungle beasts, as I ordered?”

There came the answering, whining voice of Kin Kurri, the Saturnian politician. “I couldn’t do it. Someone trailed me. It was Rizo Thon, that Mercurian actor. He must have been a spy working with the Patrol.”

“What happened?” Valdane demanded in alarm. “Where’s Rizo Thon now?”

“Don’t worry — Rizo Thon is dead,” Kin Kurri answered. “I found he was trailing me, so I waited and took him by surprise and killed him. I tossed his body into the jungle. It’ll never be found.”

Curt Newton looked up at his two comrades, his face suddenly gray with pallor.

“If that’s true, Otho is dead,” he choked.

HORRIFIED, Curt Newton and the two Futuremen looked at each other, stunned by the incredible news they had just heard.

Otho dead? Their minds simply could not digest the possibility of it.

And as they stood petrified with consternation, there came the echoing clang of the ship’s bells in sharp signal.

“Take-off time!” warned the loudspeakers throughout the
Perseus.
“Take-off time!”

“Otho can’t be dead,” cried Grag wildly. He started for the door. “We’ll go back there and find him.”

“Wait, Grag — it’s too late now!” Captain Future ordered. “We’re starting.”

The roar of the keel rockets punctuated his words. The whole bulk of the
Perseus
lifted sharply into the air, and then the liner was roaring up through the lurid red glow of the Jovian night.

“Listen!” whispered the Brain.

Voices again were coming from the tiny receiver. Valdane and his companions had stopped talking during the shock of take-off, but now their voices came again.

“If you really killed Rizo Thon, there may be trouble when he’s missed,” Jon Valdane was saying. “You’ve botched the whole thing, Kin Kurri.”

The voice of the Saturnian answered sullenly. “Why didn’t you have Su Thuar handle it, then?”

“If I had, I would have made sure that the Randall girl did not get away,” put in the silky voice of the Venusian criminal.

“Su Thuar was busy here at the ship, getting those cases of blow-guns aboard when no one was here to see,” declared Valdane harshly.

“What good are those blow-guns going to be to us?” Kin Kurri demanded. “How are they going to help us accomplish anything on Styx?”

Jon Valdane’s voice rose angrily. “You’re still trying to learn what I’m planning, are you? I told you before and I tell you now, that you and Su Thuar will not be told the details of my scheme until we’ve reached Styx. I’m no fool. So long as I am the only one who knows the details of the scheme, there’s no danger of them leaking out.”

“If you’re worrying about the Randall girl —” Kin Kurri began.

“Su Thuar will take care of the girl before we reach Styx.” Valdane interrupted. “But if Rizo Thon was a Patrol spy, there may be others aboard. What about this Chan Carson, whose cabin Rizo Thon shared?”

“Carson?” repeated the Saturnian incredulously. “That timid, stuttering fool? You surely don’t have any suspicions of him?”

“Oh, well, I can make certain that Carson is no spy, if it’ll make you feel any easier,” growled Kin Kurd. “I know a way.”

At that moment, Curt Newton and Grag and Simon heard from the receiver the sound of a door opening. Then came Valdane’s angry command.

“Shut that door, Su Thuar. Do you want everyone on the ship to hear us?”

“It’s getting stuffy in here,” grumbled the Venusian. “You can hardly breathe.”

“The ventilator must be out of order,” Valdane retorted. “Take a look at it.”

The Brain glanced sharply at Captain Future. “Lad, if he opens that ventilator —”

Even as Simon Wright spoke, there came from the receiver a loud sound of jarring metal.

Then a cry in Su Thuar’s voice.

“There’s an Ear hung inside this grating,” exclaimed the Venusian criminal. “Someone has been listening to everything we said.”

“I told you there were other spies on this ship,” cried Jon Valdane. “Smash that Ear, you fool.”

Curt Newton and the two Futuremen heard a brief, shattering sound from the receiver. Then silence.

“They found the Ear,” Newton exclaimed. “Now they’ll be doubly on their guard.”

“It’s my fault, lad,” murmured the Brain. “I didn’t have time to replace the fans in the ventilating-tubes there, and they noticed it.”

GRAG interjected an anxious question. “Chief, what are we going to do about Otho?”

Curt Newton’s face softened. “I know how you feel, Grag. I’m worried too. But there’s nothing we can do yet. I can’t believe Otho is really dead. And if he’s alive, he’ll take care of himself and get word to us.”

He went on frowning. “All we learned this way about Valdane’s plans is that the hollow wooden tubes they brought aboard are native Jovian blow-guns. Why would Valdane want primitive weapons like blow-guns? There’s only one possible way of getting at the secret in his mind.”