Captain Future 01 - The Space Emperor (Winter 1940) by Edmond Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

slightly.
    “According to what Orris told us, it’s the Space Emperor who’s stirred them into unrest.”
    “Look out!” yelled a wild voice suddenly from somewhere in the throng ahead. “He’s got it!”
    “Atavism — get away!” roared other voices.
    Curt saw men darting away from an Earthman who had been wandering dazedly along the street, but who now was beating his breast, frothing at the lips, his glazed eyes glaring bestially around.
    All shrank from the man thus suddenly stricken by the dread evolutionary blight. For a moment there was a frozen silence except for his growling cries. Then whistles shrilled and a rocket-car dashed along the street.
    Haggard-faced hospital orderlies grabbed the struggling man who had just been stricken, pulled him into the car, and dashed away.
    The tense silence lasted for an eternal moment, in which men stared sickly at each other. Then, as though desirous to get away from the spot, the motley throng moved rapidly on.
    “So that is what it is like to be stricken by the horror!” hissed Otho.
    A dangerous light flared in Captain Future’s gray eyes, and his big form tensed.
    “I think I’m going to enjoy meeting the black devil who’s causing this,” he said between his teeth.
    They moved on along the Street of Space Sailors, out of the lighted section of the dark end of the avenue. Before them lay the black, vague fields beyond the city. Curt’s keen eyes glimpsed a dark little metalloy cabin, that stood a little beyond the street end, beside a clump of towering, moonlit tree-ferns.
    “Orris’ cabin,” he muttered, his hand dropping to his proton-pistol. “Come on, Otho.”
     
    HE LISTENED at the door of the cabin, then pushed it open and entered the dark interior. The place was deserted.
    Curt pulled the cord that uncovered the glowing uranite bulb in the ceiling. The illumination revealed a slovenly metal room, with a bunk in one corner, some zipper-suits and a couple of Jovian leather harnesses on hooks. The wide windows were screened against those pests of the planet, sucker-flies and brain-ticks.
    Captain Future slipped his pistol inside his jacket. Then he stretched himself out on the bunk in the corner.
    “The Space Emperor should be here soon,” he told the android crisply. “When he comes, tell him you captured me, drugged me, and brought me here. Maneuver to get between him and the door.”
    Otho nodded his disguised head in understanding. There was a fierce, throbbing glitter in his eyes.
    “No more talk now,” Curt ordered tensely.
    Lying sprawled stiffly on the bunk in perfect simulation of a drugged stupor, Curt watched through half-closed eyes. The android walked nervously back and forth, as though awaiting someone.
    Eager suspense, gripped Curt’s mind. He, Captain Future, who had met and conquered so many evil ones in the past, was about to confront the most formidable adversary he had yet faced. His reckless soul almost exulted in the prospect.
    Curt heard a sudden, low exclamation of astonishment from Otho. He opened his eyelids a trifle more, and received a surprise that was like an electric shock.
    A black, weird figure now stood inside the cabin with them. The door had not opened, for Curt had been watching it. It was as though this dark visitant had come silently through the walls .
    The Space Emperor! The mysterious figure who was turning Jupiter into a planetary hell! Curt knew that he looked upon his unknown antagonist.
    The Space Emperor wore a grotesque, puffy black suit and helmet of mineraline, flexible material. The helmet had small eye-holes, but the eyes inside could not be seen. His real appearance was perfectly concealed by that puffy suit. It was impossible even to tell whether he was an Earthman or Jovian.
    “You — you’re here!” stammered Otho, in Orris’ voice, putting into it and into the expression of his disguised face the same dread that Orris had shown in speaking of the Space Emperor.
    Out of that helmet