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

rushing ride through the moon-shot Jovian jungle. The android had, more than any human could have, the capacity for taking things as they came.
    Whether he was battling through blinding red sandstorms on desert Mars or wading poisonous Venusian swamps, climbing down into the awful chasms of mighty-mountained Uranus or braving the terrible ice-fields of Pluto, he did not usually bother to look far ahead.
    But now the necessity of getting word to Captain Future weighed upon his mind. Several hours of unceasing riding passed without his getting a chance to use his pocket televisor. One or other of the three Jovians was always near him.
    Finally Guro pulled in on his reins and their lopers came gradually to a halt, as the others did likewise.
    “We stop here to eat,” Guro announced. “The lopers must have a little rest. We start again at dawn.”
    They dismounted, and the four lizardlike creatures stretched out upon the soft black ground of the little clearing in which they had halted.
    “I will get food,” Guro declared, and strode out of the clearing into the brush.
    The other two Jovians were seeing to the girths of their saddles. Otho saw his opportunity, and crouched down quickly as though relaxing, drawing out his watchlike pocket televisor.
    He touched its call-button hastily. He was not sure that the little instrument, designed for short distances, could reach as far back as Jovopolis. Tensely he waited for an answering buzz.
    There was no answer. Otho felt something as near despair as his fierce, resolute nature could experience. Again he jabbed the call-button, and again.
    Then came a faint answering whirr from the little instrument, an indication that his call-signal had been heard.
    “This is Otho speaking,” he whispered tensely into the tiny thing, not turning on its visi-wave. “I am going with Jovians northward. The Space Emperor is to be —”
    A shadow fell across the moonlit ground in front of him. And a deep voice sounded.
    “What are you doing?” it demanded.
    The android turned swiftly. Behind him stood Gurot a bunch of brilliant flame-fruit in his hand. He stared down at Otho with suspicious eyes.
     

     
Chapter 8: The Trail
     
    INSIDE Jovopolis’ former prison, Captain Future rapidly set his proton-pistol, then triggered quickly at the horde of monsters advancing down the corridor of the cell-block toward Joan and himself.
    The thin white beam from his weapon struck some of the creatures in the front of the savage mob. They collapsed as though struck by lightning, stunned by the potent beams.
    The others hesitated. But as more and more of them emerged from the unlocked cells, they came forward again.
    “Captain Future, it must have been the Space Emperor you spoke of who trapped us like this!” cried Joan Randall.
    “Yes,” gritted Curt, “and that means that the Space Emperor is one of those men who were with us in Quale’s office. Only they knew we had come here!”
    His mind was seething. Which of those men had followed them here and trapped them? Which one was the Space Emperor?
    Could it be Quale himself, he wondered? Or Lucas Brewer, or Kells, or young Cannig?
    As his mind grappled with that problem, he was firing again at the advancing monsters. Again the creatures retreated from the beam that had stunned a dozen of their number.
    A fight started between an ape-thing and a scaly green reptilian creature. Snarling, hissing, clawing each other, the two nightmare brutes soon had involved others in the battle. Their ferocity was bestial, terrifying.
    “What are we going to do?” cried Joan Randall. The girl’s face was deathly pale.
    Curt smiled grimly.
    “Don’t worry, we’ll get out somehow. I’ve been in worse spots than this.”
    Somehow the confidence of this tall, red-haired young man was reassuring to Joan, even in the face of inevitable death.
    “If these walls are rayproof, there’s no chance to call Grag and Simon on my pocket televisor,” he was muttering. “I