Free Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) by Edmond Hamilton

of the leader of the Clan of Winged Ones there is Skeen. Isn’t it?”
    It convinced the girl. And a wonderful change came over her face. Her brown eyes misted suddenly as she clutched his arm. “Curt, it’s really you? But I didn’t dream that you’d got back to the System yet.”
    “I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want to drag you into this danger,” he said, and added with a groan. “And now you’re in the thick of it in spite of my efforts.”
    “But what’s it all about?” she asked wonderingly. “Why is Kin Kurri here?”
    “It’s a plot of Jon Valdane’s against Styx, and Su Thuar and Kin Kurri are his right-hand men,” Captain Future answered rapidly. “And now it looks as though Kin Kurri has begun to suspect my imposture. For he sneaked in here with a bottle of make-up remover. He must have intended to drug or overpower me, and then see if I am really Chan Carson.”
    At that moment came a sound of anxious voices and footsteps hurrying along the corridor toward them. Curt Newton stiffened.
    “Your first outcry must have been heard,” he exclaimed in dismay.
    It was Jim Willard who came down the corridor, and behind the young assistant director were Lo Quior and Su Thuar.
    “What happened, Joan?” Willard asked her anxiously. “We were just coming down to turn in, when we thought we heard you cry out.”
    Then he stopped as he and the other two men caught sight of Kin Kurri lying unconscious, half inside Curt’s cabin.
    Su Thuar’s drowsy eyes instantly flared with suspicion, and his hand went to his hidden weapon. “What’s going on here?” he snapped.
    Captain Future answered with all the tremulous shakiness that befitted Chan Carson. “It’s my fault. I heard someone coming into my cabin in the dark. I was scared to death, so I hit him with a chair and knocked him out, before I found out it was Kin Kurri.”
    “You would get hysterical over nothing, and do that,” Jim Willard said disgustedly. “Of all the scary people, you’re the worst I’ve ever met.”
    Su Thuar was still glaring suspiciously, but Lo Quior bent and gave the Saturnian first-aid.
    Kin Kurri revived and looked about in a bewildered fashion.
    “Something hit me,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, my head!”
    “It was Chan Carson,” said Willard. “He lost his nerve and got panicky when he heard you come into his cabin in the dark.”
    Kin Kurri darted a sharp glance at Curt Newton. As he did so, the Saturnian was hastily stuffing the bottle into his pocket.
    “I remember now,” Kin Kurri said lamely. “I came to Carson’s cabin to see Rizo Thon, who shares it. I wanted to ask him something about his home world, Mercury. Then as I stepped in, everything exploded.”
    “I’m terribly sorry,” Curt Newton said earnestly. “I guess I did lose my nerve. But I’d been lying worrying about the submarine scenes we have to make when we get to Neptune, and when you came in in the dark I got scared.”
     
    JIM WILLARD interrupted. “Where is Rizo Thon?”
    Curt Newton looked blank. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since we left Jupiter.”
    “Nor have I,” said Willard, frowning. “There’s something queer about this.”
    Captain Future realized the danger of his situation. If he made a wrong move now, he would betray himself and wreck any chance he had of penetrating Valdane’s secret schemes.
    Jon Valdane did not yet really suspect him, he felt sure. The financier had suggested such a thing merely as a possibility. Kin Kurri had apparently come on his own initiative to investigate that possibility. For Su Thuar had been unmistakably astonished to find the Saturnian here.
    “I’m going to look for Rizo Thon,” Jim Willard was exclaiming.
    He and Lo Quior hurried away. Su Thuar helped Kin Kurri aft to their own quarters, the Saturnian holding his bruised head and looking malevolently back at Curt Newton.
    Joan Randall and Curt Newton were left alone together in his cabin for the moment. She