Captain Future 10 - Outlaws of the Moon (Spring 1942) (3 page)

The tall red-haired figure of Captain Future, leading the stalking metal robot, the fierce-eyed android and the gliding Brain, seemed to petrify the motley crew inside the dome with amazement.

“The Futuremen!” somebody shouted.

The thin bony-faced man who had been giving orders turned and recoiled, appalled.

“The Futuremen — alive after all!” he muttered.

“Who are you?” Curt Newton demanded, his voice crackling.

“I’m Albert Wissler,” faltered the other. “Superintendent of this lunar base of the King Planetary Metals Company.”

“King? I’ve heard of him,” said Curt scathingly. His voice rang. “You’re breaking System law by mining here without a Government concession.”

“But we have a concession from the System Government!” cried Wissler feverishly. “It gives us full right to mine for the radium here.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Captain Future rapped contemptuously. “The Government would never give you a concession on the Moon, and you know it.”

For answer, the scared Wissler darted into the office building and returned with a document that he held out triumphantly.

Curt’s face changed as he examined the paper. In it, the System Government conceded rights to mine all lunar radium deposits to Larsen King’s Company. The concession was signed by James Carthew, the President.

“A cheap forgery,” grunted Grag.

“No, Carthew’s signature is genuine,” said Curt in bewilderment. “I can’t understand this.”

Wissler regained confidence.

“You see, we’ve every right to mine here and you’d best not try to interfere with us,” he began importantly.

Otho started furiously for him, but Curt stopped him.

“Wait, Otho!”

“Aren’t we going to run this gang of greedy rascals off the Moon?” Otho cried, his slant green eyes blazing with fury.

“Not that way,” Captain Future told him. “They must have got their concession by fraud. The President wouldn’t ordinarily sign such a permit without consulting us. We’re going to Earth and see him about this!”

Reluctantly, fiercely glaring back at Albert Wissler and the others, Otho and Grag followed Curt and Simon Wright back out to the
Comet
.

LIKE a falling meteor the
Comet
screamed down through the atmosphere of Earth. New York, seat of the Solar System Government, was on the daylight side of the planet. The clustered chromaloy towers of the metropolis caught and brilliantly reflected the Sun.

Curt steered down through the maze of interplanetary and local traffic toward the glittering pinnacle of Government Tower. This dominating spire was the center of authority for nine worlds and thirty-one moons. In it also was the general headquarters of the great Planet Police, whose swift, grim patrol cruisers enforced the law from Mercury to Neptune.

Curt landed skillfully on the little square deck atop the truncated tower. At once, he and the Futuremen started down the nearby stairs.

“We’ll soon find out what’s behind all this,” Curt muttered.

They came down into the big suite of offices from which James Carthew, the System President, guided the destinies of nine great worlds. Two men came toward them: One was North Bonnel, the young studious assistant to the President. The other man, of bulldog visage and formidable looking in his dark uniform, was Halk Anders, chief of the far-flung Planet Police.

Captain Future felt sharp relief at sight or them.

“Bonnel! Halk! Did you think we were never coming back?”

North Bonnel answered slowly.

“We thought you were dead. But a little while ago, we received word from the Moon that you had returned.”

Curt was astounded at the cold unfriendliness in their faces. They had ignored his outstretched hand. Halk Anders was frowning at him.

“Why, what’s the matter with you two?” Curt Newton asked, thoroughly puzzled. “Aren’t you glad to see us?”

“”What do you want here?” demanded Halk Anders flatly.

It was like a slap in Curt’s face. He was stunned by this hostile greeting from two old acquaintances with whom he had cooperated in more than one emergency.

“Why, I want to see the President,” he said, bewildered.

“But I don’t understand —”

“President Carthew has been inspecting the Mercurian migration, and won’t be back here until tonight,” Anders said coldly.

“You can ask for an appointment with him in the regular manner,” Bonnel told Curt indifferently.

Curt Newton was too dazed to speak. So were the Futuremen, with the exception of Otho. An oath ripped from the android’s lips.

“Here’s a cursed warm reception for us four you thought were dead! We come back to find the Moon overrun with miners operating by Government concession. And you tell us we can’t even see the President!”

“Did you think we’d greet you like conquering heroes?” spat Halk Anders. “Now that the whole System knows the truth about you?”

“The truth? What truth?” cried Curt Newton. “What the devil are you talking about?”

Before the man could answer, two newcomers hastily entered the room. One was a grizzled, gray-haired man in the black Planet Police uniform. The other was a dark-eyed, lovely girl.

“Ezra Gurney! Joan!” exclaimed Captain Future. “Maybe you can tell me what this is all about.”

JOAN RANDALL ran into his arms. Tears of joy glimmered in her eyes as her soft face lifted to his. In this moment, she did not look like the cool, alert girl agent of the Planet Police who had shared more than one dangerous adventure with Curt Newton.

“Captain Future, I knew you’d come back!” she cried. “Everyone said you’d met death out there in interstellar space but I knew you’d return some day!”

Ezra Gurney, veteran marshal of the Planet Police and another old comrade of the Futuremen, was pumping Curt’s hand.

“I also said that nothin’ could kill the Futuremen,” he drawled, grinning in delight. “Grag, you an’ Otho look perky as ever. What the devil were you four doin’ out there all these months?”

Curt Newton’s troubled face had softened for a moment as he kissed the eager girl. But now he discovered that North Bonnel and Halk Anders had left the room. The bewilderment came back into Captain Future’s eyes.

“Joan! Ezra! What’s happened?” he demanded tautly. “Bonnel and Halk were hostile, seemed to be accusing me of something —”

Gurney’s faded blue eyes were grave.

“You’ll find nearly everybody in the System unfriendly to you right now, Cap’n Future.”

“It’s a shame, the way people who owe you so much have turned against you!” exclaimed Joan, her fine eyes flaming with indignation.

Curt felt more and more amazed, Gurney took his arm.

“Come down to my office, Cap’n Future. I’ve plenty I want to tell you before the President gets back.”

Ezra Gurney’s small office was down in the Planet Police section of the great building. It was cluttered with worn atom-guns, old space charts, strange stone idol-heads from Saturn, Venusian swamp-bows and other souvenirs of the veteran marshal’s years in the Space Patrol.

Curt sat down wearily in the chair the old veteran pushed out. Joan’s dark eyes clung to his face, while the Futuremen gathered round.

“The man who’s turned the whole System against you,” drawled Ezra Gurney, “is Larsen King.”

“King?” Curt Newton’s eyes narrowed. “The promoter who got the concession on the Moon? How does it all hook up?”

Gurney’s brows knit:

“You see, you fellows were gone so long in Outer space that nearly everybody in the System figured you were dead. Because he thought that, a sneakin’ little scientist by name of Albert Wissler went snoopin’ around the Moon. He discovered that there’s a big deposit of radium ore inside the Moon, an’ he told Larsen King about it.

“Radium ores are in big demand all over the System, Cap’n Future. Usin’ those ores for fuel instead of copper, the big atomic-power plants can produce power a lot cheaper. An’ of course, everybody in the System, wants cheap power.

“So the radium deposits of the nine worlds have been worked to the limit. This big Moon deposit would be worth billions now. Larsen King knew that, and asked the Government for a lunar concession to mine that deposit...

“President Carthew didn’t want to grant King a concession. He told King that the Government didn’t grant concessions on the Moon without askin’ Captain Future’s consent, on account of the Futuremen’s past services. King claimed you Futuremen were dead anyway, but the President said that hadn’t been proved yet. So Larsen King put pressure on the Government, by floodin’ the whole System with lyin’ televisor propaganda.

“HE BROADCAST:

“ ‘This Moon radium would give all you people cheap power. But the President won’t let it be mined without Captain Future’s consent. But Captain Future, instead of being the hero you people thought, was tricking you all. He was selfishly hoarding all that Moon radium for himself, keeping it secret. Even if Future’s alive — which isn’t likely — why should he be consulted?’ ”

Gurney’s eyes were stormy.

“That’s the propaganda King’s company hammered away with, an’ they kept up till most people believed it, Cap’n Future.”

“So that’s it,” breathed Curt Newton. “They actually believe that I concealed the Moon radium’s existence because I was hoarding it for myself!”

Ezra Gurney’s gray head bobbed earnestly.

“Of course, Joan an’ I knew you had some good reason for keepin’ the radium a secret. But most people, even people like Halk Anders and North Bonnel, who ought’ve known better, were convinced. An’ the popular feelin’ against you brought such pressure on the Government that they had to grant King the lunar concession.”

Curt Newton’s tanned face had grown dark with passionate resentment, and now his voice rang bitterly.

“So that’s why you kept the radium a secret — so that it could be conserved for the System’s future use. I knew it must be something like that.”

“Apparently you two are the only ones who did have faith in me” Curt said bitterly. His gray eyes were hot with anger. “We went into outer space through hardship and danger to secure a secret that would help the System peoples. And we come back with that secret — to find what?”

“Let’s wash our hands of the whole cursed System and go back out to some of those other star-systems to live!” Otho cried furiously.

“Now, wait,” Ezra Gurney begged. “I know you Futuremen are mad, an’ Lord knows you got reason to be. But not everybody thought the worst of you. I didn’t, an’ Joan didn’t, an’ neither did President Carthew.”

“Then why did, the President let Larsen King have the lunar concession?” Captain Future demanded angrily.

“He was forced to by popular pressure on the System Council,” Gurney explained. But I’m sure the President would revoke King’s concession, if you explained to him why you were secretly conserving that radium.”

A ray of hope shot across Curt Newton’s dark, strained face.

“If Carthew would cancel the concession before King’s miners actually reached the radium, no real harm would have been done,” he said slowly.

His anger began to cool.

“I shouldn’t have flown off my orbit the wav I did. But we’ve been so tired in body and soul, and then to come back here to a reception like that —”

“It would be enough to make anybody explode!” Joan declared. Then: “Why don’t you get some sleep before, the President returns?” she suggested earnestly. “He won’t be here for several hours, and you look ready to drop.”

Curt reluctantly obeyed her advice, and stretched out in a chair, while Otho curled up in a corner. It had been many hours since either of them had rested. As he fell asleep, he heard Joan and Ezra Gurney talking in low voices to the Brain and Grag, who never slept.

A hand softly shaking his shoulder roused Curt. Night had come, and outside the window he glimpsed the marvelous vista of New York’s, brilliant towers silhouetted against the summer stars.

He rose, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and found that it was Joan who had awakened him. Her soft face was excited.

“President Carthew has returned!” she told him. “He’s up in his office now, and Larsen King is with him.”

Curt stiffened.

“King? Then he must be afraid that I’ll get them to revoke his concession.”

“Yes, an’ that sneakin’ satellite of his, Albert Wissler, is with him,” growled old Gurney.

“He must’ve come hurryin’ from the Moon.”

When Curt Newton and the Futuremen, with their two friends, returned to the President’s tower offices, they found both North Bonnel and Halk Anders still there. The unfriendly Planet Police chief frowned at them.

Larsen King was coming out of the President’s office, with Albert Wissler and a hawk-eyed younger man with a mean and predatory face.

“That fellow’s Gil Strike, one of King’s new men,” muttered Ezra Gurney. “He’s been out at the Moon mine with Wissler.”

Captain Future paid neither Strike nor the sneaking scientist any attention. He had stepped forward to confront King.

Larsen King coolly returned Curt’s gaze. He was a big, aggressive man of forty, broad shouldered and bullet-headed. His black brows and coldly challenging eyes lent his brusque face a hard strength. He radiated self-confidence and consciousness of power.