Free Captain Future 01 - The Space Emperor (Winter 1940) by Edmond Hamilton

resentment.
    “I am only trying to find the way out of here,” Otho told them, “yet these Earthmen will not even allow me to walk freely through the city.”
    The Jovians looked at him. One of them was a very large individual, with strong intelligence in the stamp of his unhuman green face and his dark, round eyes.
    “Are you a stranger in this country?” he asked Otho. “I have never seen you in our northern villages.”
    “I am not from the north,” Otho answered quickly. “I come from a village which lies far east of here in the jungle. My name is Zhil.”
    “And I am Guro, chief of my people,” the big Jovian told Otho, pride in his deep, bass tones.
    At that moment there was an interruption to their talk. Out of a doorway farther down the street burst another Earthman who had suddenly fallen victim to the dreaded blight.
    “Atavism!” went up the familiar, dreaded cry from scores of voices. “Call the police!”
    “Keep away from him or you’ll catch it!” yelled others in horror.
     
    IN VERY few moments, a rocket-car had come and the growling, frothing Earthman had been overcome and taken away. And, as Otho had noticed before, the throng in the street hastened fearfully away from the place as though hoping to escape possible contagion.
    “The curse of the Ancients spread fast,” said Guro solemnly to his two Jovian companions and Otho.
    “Yes, the time grows near,” one of the other two green natives declared.
    Otho felt a dawning surprise. What did they mean by the curse of the Ancients?
    He knew that the Jovians believed the mighty, mysterious ruins in the jungle had once been the cities of a race of demigods they called the Ancients. But what had that legend to do with this avatism terror?
    Otho decided upon a bold attempt. He had to find out what these Jovians knew about the Space Emperor, and for that reason he risked exposure by his next words.
    “Our dark leader told us the truth,” Otho said solemnly, looking at the others.
    Guro’s round eyes expressed surprise.
    “Then you of the eastern villages have seen and heard the Living Ancient also? He has appeared to you as he has to us?”
    The Living Ancient? So that was what the Jovians called the Space Emperor? Otho wondered what the name could mean.
    “Yes, he has appeared to us,” he told Guro. “He brought his message to us also.”
    That could cover almost anything, Otho thought. Yet he was puzzled over the calling of the Space Emperor the living Ancient. Was it possible their enemy was a Jovian?
    “Then you will also be ready to rise and sweep away the Earthmen when the Living Ancient gives the word?” Guro asked.
    So his guess had been right! Otho almost gave himself away by a slight start of surprise which he could not wholly suppress.
    A rising of the Jovians against the Earthmen? Was that the mainspring of the mysterious Space Emperor’s gigantic plot? But how could such an attack of the natives hope to succeed? Their weapons were very primitive. And how was the spread of the atavism terror connected with it?
    The thoughts flashed swiftly through the android’s mind in a moment. But he did not hesitate in answering Guro.
    “Yes, we too are ready when the word comes,” he told Guro fervently.
    “Good!” muttered the big Jovian. “And the word will come soon. The wrath of the mighty Ancients grows ever greater against the Earthmen, making more and more of them into brute beasts. Soon the Living Ancient will give us the word.”
    Otho thought quickly, and then spoke in the same fervent tones.
    “I was to bring word to the Living Ancient of our preparations,” he told Guro. “He commanded us to send such word when we were ready. But I do not know where to find our mighty leader.”
    “The Living Ancient is to appear to us tomorrow night in a spot near my own village,” Guro told him in a bass whisper. “That spot is the Place of the Dead.”
    “I know that,” lied Otho. “But how shall I hope to find it, when I