Captain Future 02 - Calling Captain Future (Spring 1940) by Edmond Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

into the heavy metal in a ragged, scorched gash. Deeper and deeper it cut.
    Curt was tense. His little jet of force was now burning deep into the metal, but he knew that the atomic energy stored in the tiny instrument must be almost exhausted. He played the jet up and down, seeking to cut through the bar outside.
    The hissing fire-jet sputtered, then went out. The little tool was exhausted, useless.
    Captain Future pressed gently against the door. It did not give. The bar outside still held.
    He felt a pang of disappointment. Putting his shoulder against the door, he heaved with all his strength.
    The door flew open. The bar had been almost cut through — and his strong push had broken it completely.
    “Come on!” Captain Future whispered to the others, his gray eyes snapping with excitement. “There’s a space-boat on the starboard side forward — I noticed it when the ship landed back there at the observatory.”
    They started forward in the corridor. Curt was looking for something as he advanced. Then he saw what he sought.
    There was a small gun-locker at the side of the corridor, hung with atomic weapons and tools. In there, upon a hook, hung his own gray tungstite belt and proton-pistol.
    “I was hoping I could find this,” he exclaimed joyfully, taking a rapid step toward the locker.
    “Captain Future!” Joan’s cry was low, agonized.
    A stiff-faced Legionary had just entered the corridor from the control-rooms forward. The man reached for his gun.
    Curt was already diving for the gun-locker. With the phenomenal speed that Otho the android had taught him, he snatched his proton-pistol, whirled, and fired.
    The thin, pale beam lanced down the corridor and dropped the Legionary stunned in his tracks.
    “Quick!” cried Captain Future, buckling his belt on hastily. “They’ll find this man in a minute.”
    He was leading them into a low, cramped compartment at the starboard side. Outside its wall, bolted to the hull of the cruiser, was one of the little space-boats intended for use as life-boats in case of wreck. A round door gave entrance through the wall of the cruiser into the little craft.
    Joan Randall scrambled through into the space-boat.
    Kansu Kane was following, when the little astronomer stopped.
    “I’ve got to go back to our cell!” he exclaimed. “I left some of my notes on the Andromedan binaries there — I was studying them and left them on the floor.”
    The little Venusian actually started back. But Captain Future grabbed him in time.
    “Are you crazy?” Curt demanded. “Get in there after Joan.”
    Kansu Kane sputtered. “You can’t order me around like a servant, sir! I have rights —”
    Curt ended the argument by shoving the irate little astronomer bodily into the space-boat. He leaped in after him, spun shut the round door of the space-boat; and then began hastily unscrewing the bolts that held it to the cruiser hull, With the wrench hung there for the purpose.
     
    THE last bolt gave way. Captain Future leaped forward through the single compartment of the space-boat, to the simple controls. He opened one of the throttles carefully.
    The space-boat veered aside from the towering wall of the racing cruiser, and began moving off in a course at right angles to that of the larger ship. It was impelled by a subdued blast of its own small rocket-tubes.
    The Legion ship, a black, unlighted mass, moved on away through the vast gulf of starry space, rapidly disappearing. Curt turned the space-boat in a course back Sunward.
    “We’ve made it!” Joan cried eagerly. “Oh, Captain Future, I never thought —”
    Kansu Kane interrupted wrathfully.
    “All my notes, all the fruit of weeks of work left in that ship!” he sputtered to Captain Future. “And you dared lay hands on me —”
    “Be quiet — we’re not out of danger,” Curt interrupted sternly. “They’ll find that stunned man quickly. When they do, and discover our escape in this boat, they’ll turn back —”
    He