Read Online Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942) by Edmond Hamilton - Free Book Online Page A

must not be harmed under any circumstances.”
    “Agreed. Now let’s get out of here,” Zarn warned. “Everything would be ruined if we were discovered plotting together.”
    Tiko Thrin, the Martian, and Ezra Gurney were taken back to their own cells and the door of the Futuremen’s cell was relocked.
     
    OTHO paced to and fro excitedly. “Action at last: Anything’s better than rotting away in this cell.”
    The Brain looked at Curt.
    “The plan is a precarious one, lad. Suppose the Alius should intervene with their mastery of mental force.”
    “That’s exactly what I don’t understand,” Grag interposed puzzledly. “All this talk about mental force. What in the world is it?”
    Captain Future explained.
    “Thought is basically electrical, like life itself. Grag. When a man thinks or wills something, the synaptic pattern of his brain cells conducts to his nerves a definite electrical current, which energizes his physical body to obey that thought or will.
    “Theoretically,” Curt added, “it should be possible for a man to ‘broadcast’ his electric thought or will-impulses, as electromagnetic vibrations that would impinge upon and seize control of another man’s brain and body.
    “That’s what is meant by mental force. No man has ever possessed more than a fraction of this power. But it seems the Alius have mastered it.”
    The hours of the following day-period passed with dragging slowness. Tension built up with each passing hour. Captain Future labored under a growing nervous strain as “night” approached. He had never felt so tense at any time in the past, on the threshold of struggle.
    “Night” came at last. There was no lessening of the coma’s brilliant light from the window, but in the alabaster city outside the passing throngs of Cometae dwindled away. The sleep-period had come.
    Curt, watching tautly from the window, saw more and more of the six-wheeled Cometae vehicles arriving at the great palace across the plaza. The nobility of the Cometae were streaming into the big building.
    “They’re coming for the Lightning Feast that Aggar mentioned,” Curt muttered. “I wonder what kind of function it is, anyway.”
    “Sounds crazy, like everything else in this cursed comet,” Grag snorted.
    “Zarn should be here with the others, by now, to release us,” Captain Future said, biting his lip. “If he’s too late —”
    “I hear him coming now?” Otho exclaimed joyfully.
    The tramp of feet was clearly audible.
    In a moment their prison door was flung open.
    To their surprise and consternation, it was Captain of the Guards Khinkir and a half-dozen of the palace sentries who stood there.
    “They carried electrode weapons and trained them uncompromisingly upon the Futuremen.
    “You four strangers are to come with us,” Khinkir snapped. “Sentence has been passed upon you. You are too dangerous, and are to die tonight.”
     

     
Chapter 8: Lightning Feast
     
    TO CAPTAIN FUTURE, the announcement was a thunderbolt that wrecked all their plans. He could not keep the sharp momentary dismay out of his face. And Khinkir saw it, and smiled thinly in triumph.
    “You learn now what it means to defy the King and blaspheme the Great Ones, stranger,” he rasped. “For the Great Ones, through the wise Querdel, have decreed that you four might be a danger and that it is safer to destroy you at once.”
    His smile widened.
    “”But you will not die ingloriously, strangers. You are to die at the Lightning Feast. Your destruction will afford an enjoyable spectacle for our king and court.”
    Curt Newton desperately decided that since all was lost, he would perish right here and now. And Khinkir read that, too, in his face. The Cometae captain recoiled and shouted a sharp order to his men, who brought their electrode weapons to bear on Captain Future’s heart.
    “Curt!” cried a clear silvery voice in anxious alarm.
    Joan Randall had appeared in the corridor outside! A dazzling