Captain Future 07 - The Magician of Mars (Summer 1941) (4 page)

“Ul Quorn is out,” said James Carthew gravely.

There was a dead silence. Captain Future’s good-humored, handsome face suddenly froze. It became dark and grim as he heard the name of his great enemy.

“Quorn escaped?” gasped Otho. “Devils of space, then we
will
have our hands full!”

“An’ that ain’t all,” drawled Ezra Gurney. “He took out with him a dozen of the most dangerous prisoners on Cerberus.”

“How did they escape?” Captain Future demanded rapidly.

“Captain Future, we don’t know,” confessed Halk Anders. “Quorn got the others out of their cells somehow. A little ship suddenly appeared in the prison court. They piled in it, and then that ship disappeared.”

“You — mean, the ship escaped by becoming invisible?” Curt asked.

“No, it didn’t just become invisible — it just wasn’t there any more!” insisted the Commander. “Patrol cruisers were right on top of it when it vanished. They tore the air to ribbons with their blasts, but they didn’t get that ship. It was simply gone into nothingness!”

“That
is
unexplainable,” Captain Future muttered. “Unless Quorn used some totally new scientific principle —”

“Maybe he learned the accelerator-secret that Gray Garson used in his space-ship hijackings?” Joan Randall suggested.

“No, he couldn’t have,” Curt bleakly answered. “When we sent Garson to prison, we used my ‘mental eraser’ device to make him lose all memory of the accelerator-secret.”

HALK ANDERS went on to tell of the raids by Ul Quorn’s band on the Pluto laboratory and the Neptunian research-station.

“And his latest feat was to hold up the freighter
Eros
off Saturn and rob it of atomic tools,” the Commander concluded. “With that vanishing ship of his, he’s just laughed at the Patrol’s efforts to catch him.”

“That’s why it was decided to call you, Captain Future,” James Carthew said. “We’re afraid that these preparations of Quorn portend some big coup on his part.”

“There’s no doubt of it,” agreed Captain Future. “Quorn is no petty criminal, whatever else he is. He’s got something big planned.”

Halk Anders faced Curt. “The captain of the
Eros,
the ship that Quorn held up and robbed, landed in New York yesterday. He says that Ul Quorn gave him a message for you, Captain Future.”

Curt stiffened.

“A message for me from Quorn? Where is the man?”

“I can call him in a few minutes,” the Commander answered. “He said he’d be waiting near here.”

A few moments later the Commander returned to the office with a stiffly striding old spaceman whose bald head and face were deeply bronzed.

“This is Captain James Willis of the
Eros,”
he said.

Ezra Gurney strode forward.

“Jimmy Willis! I haven’t seen you since we were space-lads together!” the old marshal exclaimed delightedly.

Captain Willis stared a moment at the old marshal, and then held out his hand.

“Oh, Ezra Gurney,” he said. “Glad to see you, Ezra.”

Curt Newton stepped forward.

“I’m Captain Future. How is it that Ul Quorn came to give you a message for me?”

Captain Willis explained in a slow, deep voice.

“My freighter was two million miles off Saturn, bound for Neptune with a cargo of atomic machine tools to be used in undersea-ship construction. Quorn’s little ship suddenly appeared in space beside us. They had a couple of heavy atom-guns trained on us. We were unarmed and couldn’t resist.

“Quorn made me come aboard his craft as a hostage,” Captain Willis continued. “He sent his men into my freighter to rob it of part of our cargo of machine tools. Then, when he had what, he wanted, Quorn let me go back to my ship. But first he gave me a message that he said I was to deliver to Captain Future when I got back to Earth.”

“What was Quorn’s message?” Curt Newton demanded grimly.

Captain Willis fumbled in the pocket of his space-jacket.

“It was this,” he said.

And the freighter-captain drew an atom pistol from his pocket and fired it pointblank at Captain Future!

CURT NEWTON had moved swiftly a second before the freighter-captain drew the weapon. Curt had noticed something significant about the old spaceman’s appearance which warned him an instant before the deadly attack.

Thus it was that when the crackling blast of atomic force from the pistol shot toward him, Captain Future was already lunging beneath it. It blazed past his red head. The next moment he was upon Willis. A quick wrench of the freighter-captain’s wrist sent the weapon from his hand.

The others had been too stunned by the unexpected attack to move. But now, with a booming roar of rage, Grag leaped forward and pinioned Captain Willis inside his great metal arms.

“He tried to kill you, Chief!” roared the robot. “I’ll break him into bits!”

“No, wait!” Curt cried to Grag. “Hold him, but don’t hurt him!”

Ezra Gurney uttered a dumfounded exclamation.

“Devils of space, I can’t understand this! Jimmy Willis is one of my oldest space-pals. Why would he try to kill you?”

“Ul Quorn bribed him to do this!” Joan cried, her eyes blazing.

“No, not that,” declared Curt Newton. “This man isn’t responsible for his actions — he’s a mere tool of Quorn’s, operated by remote brain-control.”

“Remote brain-control?” repeated Halk Anders bewilderedly. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s one of the pleasant little devices of the Magician of Mars,” Curt answered grimly. “A tiny instrument which, when it is imbedded in a man’s skull and attached to his brain’s nerve-centers, completely cuts out his own will and personality and makes him a mere automaton controlled from a distance by a similar instrument. The control is along an undimensional beam that operates almost instantaneously over any distance.”

Curt pointed to a faint scar on the crown of the bald head of Captain Willis.

“That’s where the control-instrument was implanted in his skull. This man is a mere automaton now. From somewhere in the System, Ul Quorn is at this moment seeing and hearing through this man’s eyes and ears.”

“A trick of that devil Quorn to murder you, Chief!” Otho cried. “He must have planted the control in Willis’ skull when he had him as a hostage aboard his own ship, and then sent him here to get you!”

Captain Future nodded calmly.

“Undoubtedly he did. That’s why I was on guard when this man came in. It seemed strange to me that Ul Quorn would have allowed him to go free after the robbery of his ship. Quorn is ordinarily ruthless, as shown by the fact that he left no survivors after his Pluto and Neptune raids. I figured he had some hidden reason for letting Captain Willis go. And observing Willis closely, I noticed that he didn’t seem to know his friend Ezra Gurney. That made me remember Quorn’s brain-control device. I spotted the scar on his head just before he acted.”

James Carthew, the President, had witnessed the astounding scene with unbelieving eyes. Now he spoke incredulously.

“Then that man Quorn can at this moment see and hear us through the senses of Captain Willis?”

“He can,” Curt Newton declared. “Ul Quorn’s will rules this man’s body from whatever place in the System that Quorn is lurking in at this moment.”

Captain Willis spoke. His eyes stared straight into Captain Future’s face as his loud, deep voice sounded.

“You’re right, Future,” he said. “This is Ul Quorn talking.”

The President shivered.

“Good God — this is uncanny!”

Willis’ stiff lips moved again.

“I knew you’d be called in against me, Future, so I laid this little plan. Neat, wasn’t it? It would have succeeded against any other man. I compliment you on your alertness.”

Curt Newton spoke bleakly to Captain Willis.

“Quorn, I know you can hear me through this man even though you’re millions of miles away. I warn you now — I’m not out to put you away in prison this time, but to destroy you. After your killings in those raids, there’ll be no quarter!”

“No quarter suits me, Captain Future!” rang Willis’ hollow voice. “When I have accomplished what I intend to do, I’ll be able to hunt you and your precious Futuremen down and repay you for everything.”

THE scene was one of weird drama. Captain Future and his great antagonist, the Magician of Mars, facing each other in bitter challenge through the automaton-like form of the old space captain! Facing each other, even though at this very moment they were miles apart in the universe!

“War to the death!” Quorn repeated in Willis’ voice. “And this time, Future, I’ll have a weapon that can crush even you!”

Captain Willis suddenly went limp and fell in a senseless heap.

“Ul Quorn has relaxed his control of the man,” Curt declared.

“Can’t you take that hellish thing out of his skull?” Ezra Gurney asked anxiously. “Jimmy Willis is one of my oldest friends.”

“It won’t be hard to remove the brain-control,” Captain Future answered. “Get the surgical kit from the
Comet,
Otho.”

Otho was back in a moment with the instruments. The others witnessed the uncanny surgical skill of Captain Future as he deftly made an incision and removed a tiny, button-like instrument from Willis’ head.

“He’ll come back to consciousness as his normal self,” Curt promised as the unconscious space-captain was taken out. “Quorn’s strike at me missed. Though that devil will strike again as soon as possible.”

Curt paced up and down the office, frowning.

“We’ve got to find out the nature of Quorn’s vanishing ship, his power to disappear and reappear at will. Until we know how to combat that power, we can’t hope to meet Quorn on even terms.”

He looked at Halk Anders.

“Wasn’t there any clue at all as to how Quorn’s ship was able to vanish into nothingness?”

The Commander hesitated. “We have something that
might
be a clue, Captain Future. Some weeks ago, a young Saturnian scientist named Skal Kar was mysteriously murdered. He had a secret laboratory on Ariel, the inmost moon of Uranus. One night he brought to his laboratory a Martian girl with whom he’d become infatuated. He took her into the building. A little later, the guards outside heard a disturbance. They forced their way into the laboratory. They found Skal Kar murdered — and the Martian girl had vanished into nothingness!

“She vanished from that building, just as Quorn’s ship is able to vanish,” Anders continued. “We’ve not been able to find her. But we’ve suspected there might be a connection with Quorn’s escape from Cerberus. For the Martian girl answers the description of — N’Rala.”

“N’Rala — Quorn’s sweetheart?” exclaimed Curt. His gray eyes narrowed. From Otho and Grag came exclamations of surprise.

They had good reason to remember Ul Quorn’s wicked Martian sweetheart, from the previous epic struggle between Curt and Quorn.

“I thought that that girl was still in prison,” rasped the Brain.

“No, she was released a few months ago,” informed Halk Anders. “She got a light sentence in Mars prison, at the time you rounded up Quorn’s accomplices in the Space-stones case. She pleaded that she’d only been an innocent tool of Quorn, that he’d hypnotized her.”

Joan Randall sniffed.

“That Martian hell-cat innocent? She ought to have been given a life sentence.”

Ezra Gurney grinned at the indignant girl agent.

“You’re still jealous of N’Rala because she tried to use her wiles on Cap’n Future, eh?”

“Jealous of that red devil?” exploded Joan. “Why, you —”

Curt was asking the Commander another question.

“What scientific work was this Skal Kar engaged in?”

Halk Anders shrugged. “We don’t know. He was so secret about it he didn’t let even his own guards into his laboratory.”

“He must have been plenty secret about it, to carry it on upon that wild little jungle moon,” Curt muttered. “The way N’Rala vanished after she murdered him seems to indicate that she stole from Skal Kar the power of vanishing that Ul Quorn is now using. If we could learn what Skal Kar was working on, we’d know what Quorn’s new power is!”

Halk Anders handed Newton some folded papers.

“Here’s the report of our Uranus branch on the murder, but I’m afraid it won’t help any in our search.”

Curt studied the report closely. There was a brief biography of Skal Kar, the murdered man. He was a native Saturnian, had been educated in science at a college in Ops on Saturn, had taken graduate courses in Solar System University on Earth, and then had established a laboratory on wild, lonely little Ariel.

Skal Kar had hired guards to maintain the electrified stockade which protected his laboratory from the ferocious monsters of the moon. But these guards had never known the nature of their employer’s work.

“There’s no clue in this to Skal Kar’s research,” rasped Simon.

“No, but there’s a possible lead,” Captain Future declared. “Skal Kar took a graduate course at Solar System University, here in New York, before going out there to Ariel for secret research. If we knew what he studied at the University here, it might give us a pointer.”