Read Online Captain Future 01 - The Space Emperor (Winter 1940) by Edmond Hamilton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Edmond Hamilton
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
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prospectors and the like who make it their base.
“The first cases were of a few radium prospectors,” Quale went on. “They stumbled out of the jungle, already horribly transformed into ape-like creatures. Since then, more people have been stricken every day. Most of the cases have been at Jungletown, but there have been a large number down here at Jovopolis, and others elsewhere.”
“We’re completely in the dark about the cause of this awful disease,” Eldred Kells added hopelessly.
“It’s not a disease,” Curt told them forcefully. “It’s being deliberately caused.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Lucas Brewer. “What man would do such a fiendish thing?”
“I didn’t say it was a man doing it,” Captain Future retorted. “The one who is causing it calls himself — the Space Emperor.”
He watched their faces closely as he spoke the name. Brewer looked blank. Young Mark Cannig shifted uneasily. But Kells and the governor only started wonderingly.
“Have any of you ever heard that name?” Curt demanded.
All of them shook their heads negatively. Curt came quickly to a decision.
“I want to see the victims you have here in Jovopolis,” he declared. “I’d like to study them. You spoke of an Emergency Hospital you’re keeping them in?”
Sylvanus Quale nodded.
“We converted our Colony Prison into an emergency hospital. It alone could hold those — creatures. Miss Randall and I can take you there.”
Curt’s big figure strode with the governor and the nurse out of the office and through the halls of the mansion. They emerged into the soft, heavy night, which was now illuminated by only Europa and Io.
The two bright moons cast queer forked shadows down among the tall, solemn tree-ferns as they went through the grounds. The buildings housing the colonial government bordered the square around the governor’s mansion. The Emergency Hospital, formerly a prison, was a massive structure with heavy blank walls of synthetic metal.
As they entered the vestibule, in which nervous-looking orderlies were on guard, an aide rushed in after the governor.
“There’s an urgent televisor call for you from Jungletown, sir,” he told Sylvanus Quale breathlessly.
“I’ll have to go back and answer it,” Quale said to Captain Future. “Miss Randall will show you the atavism cases.”
THE girl led the way from the vestibule into a long, lighted main hall of the prison. She went to the heavy, solid metal door of the first cell-block. There she touched a switch outside the door, and they heard its bolt shoot back.
They stepped into the cell-block. It was a windowless barracks with solid metal walls, lighted by a half-dozen glowing uranite bulbs in the ceiling. Cell doors were ranged along either side of the corridor which they had entered.
“These are cases of varying dates,” the pale girl told Curt. “Some of them are recent and are only apelike, but others are — you can see for yourself.”
Curt went down the row of doors, peering through the gratings into the cells.
The cells contained a nightmare assortment of ghastly horrors. In some were huge ape-like creatures standing erect and beating with hairy fists at their doors, roars of rage coming from their throats.
In others were creatures that were even more bestial, quadrupedal hairy brutes with pouched bodies and blazing feral eyes and wide jaws bristling with fangs. Still other cells held scaled green reptilian monsters shuffling forward on four limbs and crawling with their talons to reach Curt and Joan Randall.
Captain Future was shaken by a storm of fierce wrath such as he had never felt before. Never before, on any of the nine worlds, had he encountered a horror like this. He felt in the presence of something utterly unclean and monstrous.
“God help the devil who did this if I get my hands on him,” he gritted.
Joan Randall, who had followed him down the corridor, looked up into his face.
“If it was an Earthman who
“The first cases were of a few radium prospectors,” Quale went on. “They stumbled out of the jungle, already horribly transformed into ape-like creatures. Since then, more people have been stricken every day. Most of the cases have been at Jungletown, but there have been a large number down here at Jovopolis, and others elsewhere.”
“We’re completely in the dark about the cause of this awful disease,” Eldred Kells added hopelessly.
“It’s not a disease,” Curt told them forcefully. “It’s being deliberately caused.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Lucas Brewer. “What man would do such a fiendish thing?”
“I didn’t say it was a man doing it,” Captain Future retorted. “The one who is causing it calls himself — the Space Emperor.”
He watched their faces closely as he spoke the name. Brewer looked blank. Young Mark Cannig shifted uneasily. But Kells and the governor only started wonderingly.
“Have any of you ever heard that name?” Curt demanded.
All of them shook their heads negatively. Curt came quickly to a decision.
“I want to see the victims you have here in Jovopolis,” he declared. “I’d like to study them. You spoke of an Emergency Hospital you’re keeping them in?”
Sylvanus Quale nodded.
“We converted our Colony Prison into an emergency hospital. It alone could hold those — creatures. Miss Randall and I can take you there.”
Curt’s big figure strode with the governor and the nurse out of the office and through the halls of the mansion. They emerged into the soft, heavy night, which was now illuminated by only Europa and Io.
The two bright moons cast queer forked shadows down among the tall, solemn tree-ferns as they went through the grounds. The buildings housing the colonial government bordered the square around the governor’s mansion. The Emergency Hospital, formerly a prison, was a massive structure with heavy blank walls of synthetic metal.
As they entered the vestibule, in which nervous-looking orderlies were on guard, an aide rushed in after the governor.
“There’s an urgent televisor call for you from Jungletown, sir,” he told Sylvanus Quale breathlessly.
“I’ll have to go back and answer it,” Quale said to Captain Future. “Miss Randall will show you the atavism cases.”
THE girl led the way from the vestibule into a long, lighted main hall of the prison. She went to the heavy, solid metal door of the first cell-block. There she touched a switch outside the door, and they heard its bolt shoot back.
They stepped into the cell-block. It was a windowless barracks with solid metal walls, lighted by a half-dozen glowing uranite bulbs in the ceiling. Cell doors were ranged along either side of the corridor which they had entered.
“These are cases of varying dates,” the pale girl told Curt. “Some of them are recent and are only apelike, but others are — you can see for yourself.”
Curt went down the row of doors, peering through the gratings into the cells.
The cells contained a nightmare assortment of ghastly horrors. In some were huge ape-like creatures standing erect and beating with hairy fists at their doors, roars of rage coming from their throats.
In others were creatures that were even more bestial, quadrupedal hairy brutes with pouched bodies and blazing feral eyes and wide jaws bristling with fangs. Still other cells held scaled green reptilian monsters shuffling forward on four limbs and crawling with their talons to reach Curt and Joan Randall.
Captain Future was shaken by a storm of fierce wrath such as he had never felt before. Never before, on any of the nine worlds, had he encountered a horror like this. He felt in the presence of something utterly unclean and monstrous.
“God help the devil who did this if I get my hands on him,” he gritted.
Joan Randall, who had followed him down the corridor, looked up into his face.
“If it was an Earthman who
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