Free Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) by Edmond Hamilton Page B

but he smiled.
    “Taming wild beasts is my business. I’ve subdued a lot of them in my time.”
    “No doubt,” Quorn murmured. “Yet isn’t there always a danger that you may meet one you can’t tame?”
    Future recognized the veiled threat behind the innocent words, and his own reply was two-edged.
    “Why, yes Doctor Quorn,” he admitted cheerfully. “I may run up against a wild beast too tough for me to handle. But — I’ve tamed them all over the System, and I’m looking for the kind you’re talking about.” A tiny shadow darkened Quorn’s mocking black eyes and was gone.
    “Perhaps you have not pitted yourself against an antagonist of your own caliber,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it would be wise, when you meet such an antagonist, to withdraw from a useless struggle and save yourself from —”
    He was interrupted by a babel of yells and angry shouts from the direction of the Congress of Freaks. The Moon Wolf came loping up to Quorn. The human-minded animal’s eyes were bright with frightened excitement.
    “A prowler has been caught in your private pavilion, Doctor Quorn! The Hearer detected him.”
    Quorn stared suspiciously at Captain Future. Then the mixed-breed scientist hastened after the weird animal.
    “What shall we do, Simon?” muttered Curt anxiously. “Otho must have been caught.”
    Simon Wright had remained motionless and silent in his cylinder while Quorn and Curt had sparred. Now he spoke quickly in his muffled, metallic voice.
    “That fool android is a master at getting into trouble!”
    “I’ve got to see he doesn’t,” Captain Future declared anxiously. “Otherwise, Quorn may put him out of the way with that cursed life disintegrator he used on Lester.”
    “He didn’t try that ancient weapon on you in the cage tonight,” reminded the Brain.
    “That was because he dared not use it in the open, before so many witnesses. He wanted to make it seem that the marsh tigers had turned on me. But Otho’s in real danger! You wait here, Simon. You mustn’t be seen moving or talking.”
    Captain Future hastened toward the motion of voices from Quorn’s private pavilion.
     
    THE hideous freaks were gathered around Quorn and the Martian girl N’rala. His face dark and menacing, Quorn was confronting a cocky white Ganymedean, at whom the Hearer and the Chameleon Man trained atom pistols.
    “You’re the new acrobat that joined the circus,” Quorn was saying dangerously to Otho. “Why are you prowling in my private pavilion?”
    “It’s nothing to blow your rockets about,” Otho answered with assumed annoyance. “I’m new to the show and I blundered in here by mistake.”
    “He’s lying, Doctor,” the Hearer grated. “When I came back with the — the instrument you told me to return here, I heard this fellow searching through your belongings.”
    “A spy, then?” Quorn asked with murderous calm. “Of course, I should have known. The Ultra-acrobat, the only being in the System who could do those impossible tricks.”
    “Good, weren’t they?” Otho said blandly. “I sure gave the people in there a good show tonight.”
    “Too good,” replied Quorn. “You gave your identity away, too.”
    N’rala’s eyes flashed with feline fury.
    “You mean he’s one of them?” she cried to Quorn. “Then why waste time?”
    From among the tense ring of freaks strode the huge figure of the Strong Man of Space.
    “You want me to take this snooper out and break him in half, Boss?” Grag bellowed.
    “No,” Quorn said softly. “There are other ways.”
    Curt thought it time to intervene, before Otho and Grag made a break and precipitated a crisis. He pushed past the freaks. Ul Quorn turned sharply.
    “You?” he exclaimed. Then he smiled thinly. “I might have known —"
    “I heard the Ultra-acrobat was in trouble,” Curt broke in coolly. “He’s a friend of mine, you know. I’m sure he just blundered into your pavilion by mistake. I’d let him go, if I were