Read Online Captain Future 07 - The Magician of Mars (Summer 1941) by Edmond Hamilton - Free Book Online

Our task now is to find Ul Quorn. He and his band must have a secret base somewhere.”
    “My guess is that it’s around Uranus,” rasped the Brain. “And that Quorn gave orders to set a little trap here for us.”
     
    NEWTON nodded thoughtfully. “It looks like it. Quorn’s clever. He would figure that we’d be here sooner or later, following his trail. So he had some of his men waiting in that ship. I think they meant to steal the Comet and then blast open the stockade — let the gas-beasts in on us. We couldn’t escape, and it would have wiped us out.”
    A queer light danced in Captain Future’s gray eyes.
    “I’ll say this for Ul Quorn — he’s a foeman worthy of our steel. But we conquered him before and we will again!”
    Curt brought the Comet back down to a landing inside the stockade. He was not yet finished with his investigation there.
    He and the Futuremen first examined the dead Martian criminal whom Johnny Kirk had killed in his intrepid defense of the Comet. They found nothing remarkable on his body, except a trace of shining blue dust which Captain Future noticed in his pockets and cuffs.
    “That blue dust is radite,” Curt muttered. “This man has been somewhere recently working with the mineral.”
    He looked up at the Brain, who was hovering beside him.
    “It all checks up, Simon. Quorn is amassing a stock of radite, the super-powered cyclotron fuel. And Quorn is either building or planning to build a larger dimension-shifting space ship that will have great power and cruising radius.”
    “Hold on, Chief!” Otho interrupted brashly. “How do you know Quorn’s building a bigger ship?”
    Captain Future shrugged.
    “By using my wits, as you ought to now and then,” Curt replied caustically. He took a paper from his pocket. “This is the list of objects stolen by Quorn’s band in their raids, as reported by Ezra. The list includes six massive super-cyclotrons, a mass of high-test alloy bars, and a number of atomic machine tools used in ship construction.
    “Those are the chief materials and tools which would be required for construction of a larger and more powerful space ship,” Curt Newton continued keenly. “The conclusion is inescapable that Ul Quorn has some secret base at which he plans to build such a ship. In that ship, fueled with radite, Quorn and his band will go into the co-existing universe in search of the mysterious treasure Harris Haines told about.”
    “Good reasoning, lad,” approved the Brain. “I believe now we’re getting somewhere.”
    “Hanged if I can see it yet,” Otho objected. “Why should Quorn have to build a larger ship to go on this treasure hunt in the other universe? Why not just use the little ship they stole from Skal Kar, the ship they’re using now? That craft can enter the other universe.”
    “That puzzled me at first,” Captain Future admitted, “but I believe I’ve figured the answer. Suppose, once they shift into the other universe, the treasure they’re after is a long way off in space? A small craft such as Skal Kar’s model couldn’t travel any vast distance in the space of the other universe, any more than it could here. They’d have to have a larger ship with a vastly greater cruising radius, one that could hold more fuel.”
    “But, Chief,” Otho asked, “what the devil is this mysterious treasure they’re after?”
    “I wish I knew,” Curt said thoughtfully. “It must be something big. Ul Quorn doesn’t play for small stakes.”
    Captain Future rose decisively to his feet.
    “But there’s nothing more we can learn here. We’ve got to run down Ul Quorn before he departs into the other universe.”
    “You talk about running down Ul Quorn as though all we had to do was walk in on him and grab him,” muttered Otho gloomily. “How in space can we track him when he ducks in and out of the other universe?”
    “Don’t be so cursed dismal, Otho,” Captain Future reproved. “As I see it, we’ve got two