Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) by Edmond Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

secretly.”
    Soon the Comet was screaming down through the clouds into the clear, moonless Venusian night. Curt’s instruments had not misled him. Below stretched Venusopolis, sprawling between the dark inland marshes and the tossing Western Sea.
    “The Interplanetary Circus is here already,” Otho said, pointing to a spread of colored lights just east of the city.
    “I knew Quorn would be here,” Future said confidently. “But there’s nothing to worry about, with Ezra and Joan guarding the space stone in the museum.”
    He cut the rockets to a purring hum, and the Comet glided lower over the coastline toward the lighted city. Venusopolis was a community of graceful white structures, interlaced with the dark gardens of the esthetic Venusians. He headed for an oblong, many-pillared structure that he knew was the State Museum of Venus. Quietly he brought the ship down into the groves around it.
    “Come on,” he whispered. “Bring along Simon, Grag.”
    They emerged into the balmy Venusian darkness, heavy with the smell of rank vegetation drifting from the marshes. At the entrance to the great museum, a guard challenged them. But he awedly admitted them when Captain Future showed his ring.
    “Marshal Gurney and Miss Randall are waiting for you in the Room of Jewels.”
    Curt nodded and led the way through the silent, dim halls and corridors. They entered a brilliantly lighted room containing glassite cases of rare planetary gems. Old Ezra Gurney and Joan Randall rose eagerly from chairs to greet them. The veteran had his atom pistol in his hand.
    “The space stone’s safe?” Curt asked quickly.
    “Quorn hasn’t had a chance to get it,” Joan said. “It’s in there.”
    She pointed to a big metal safe against a side of the room. Ezra Gurney limped to it and unlocked the door.
    “Nobody’s been near this safe since we got here,” he stated flatly. “And we were here a couple of hours before Quorn reached Venus with that circus.”
    “Good,” Curt replied. “First thing I want to do is activate the jewel into transmitting its part of Thuro Thuun’s formula and make sure the stone’s safe with me. Then we’re going to set a neat little trap for Doctor Quorn when he comes for it.”
    Ezra stopped pawing in the safe. He whipped around, his face stupefied.
    “Why, the stone is gone!” he cried.
    “It can’t be!” Joan protested. “One of us was watching that safe every minute. Its door was never opened!”
     
    BUT search soon disclosed that the space stone had somehow been taken. Otho gave a hissing oath.
    “Fire-imps of Jupiter, Quorn beat us to it! But how?”
    “I tell you, the safe wasn’t opened,” Joan insisted.
    “Of course it wasn’t opened,” Future said angrily. “Quorn got the stone without having to open the safe. Why couldn’t I have suspected it? It’s obvious enough.”
    “How could he get the stone without opening the safe?” Joan asked bewilderedly.
    “Don’t you remember how he made a small animal pass through solid metal? He speeded up its body’s atoms so it would interpenetrate ordinary matter. That’s how Quorn got this space stone. He simply dematerialized one of his freaks, sent him into the safe to rematerialize in there, grab the jewel, dematerialize again, and walk out through the metal.”
    “But you can see a dematerialized man,” protested Ezra. “I remember that from our case on Jupiter. We didn’t see anyone entering the safe at all.”
    “Quorn would send him through the wall of the room and the back of the safe so you couldn’t see,” Curt explained.
    “Outwitted!” Otho yelled furiously. “This Quorn’s a devil!”
    “I warned you he was a cunning, highly intelligent scientist,” Curt reminded. “But I forgot my own warning.”
    “It’s not your fault,” Joan argued. “You couldn’t know the jewel would be in a safe like this. It’s all my fault.”
    “Self-accusation won’t help now,” cut in the Brain’s rasping voice.