Read Online Captain Future 20 - The Solar Invasion (Fall 1946) by Manly Wade Wellman - Free Book Online Page A

it. Stand by to land.”
    They did so. As the ship settled down and cut its blasts, fissures stirred and came into view from the circumference of strange jungle — the pale, gnomelike figures of the strange race which planned to invade the Solar System.
    N’Rala was the first out, lifting a hand and speaking quickly, in the chirping language of the aliens.
    They lowered their weapons and a leader spoke:
    “In the tongue of your System, please. The Overlord commands that we grow familiar with it.”
    “And I want to grow familiar with the tongue of your System,” said N’Rala with a smile. “The Overlord knows that, too. You keep good guard here. Help unload this craft, and meet two new helpers.”
     
    SHE waved a hand to introduce the Earthmen mechanics.
    “And this man?” asked the pallid leader, nodding at the disguised Otho who had come forth, still manacled.
    “He’s a prisoner, and I have another in this hold. Go ahead, I’ll bring up the rear.”
    She superintended the unloading of the vessel, and after the party had gone toward the Futuremen’s laboratory that was now an invasion base, she smiled at Otho again.
    “Sit easy, Thikar,” she bade. “I’m not worried about you, but that dark-haired girl agent in the hold takes a bit of watching.”
    She ushered Joan from her prison, covering her with an atom pistol.
    “No foolishness,” she warned. “I feel toward you a little as Ul Quorn does toward Captain Future. In feminine powers of attraction and mystery you’re practically his equal. So much so that there’s really very little room in all the universes for both of us. So, if you give me an excuse, it won’t really distress me to obliterate you.”
    She kept her eyes on Joan, backing out of the ship. As she did so, she was aware again that figures were coming from the jungle into the open — figures she knew too well. At one elbow towered Grag, at the other stood Captain Future.
    “Don’t whirl around suddenly, N’Rala,” warned the flat voice of Simon Wright from just above her. “If you disobey me, I’ll have to drop my case on your head — un-gentlemanly but effective. Let that gun drop.”
    For one starkly furious moment N’Rala thought of firing into the face of helpless Joan Randall. But a movement of the big green body she thought was Thikar distracted her. Her prisoner was silently extending his manacled hands, stretching the links between them as if for a target.
    N’Rala aimed and sent a crackling spit of atomic force. The manacles broke apart.
    “Jump them, Thikar!” she cried. “I’ll forgive you then.”
    But the green giant stepped quickly and coolly forward. One of his hands snatched the weapon from her. “That completes this little scene of the comedy,” he said, in Otho’s voice. “How was my disguise, Chief? It had both N’Rala and Joan fooled.”
    N’Rala uttered a most unladylike Martian curse, and her lovely shoulders drooped in an attitude of surrender.
    “Stand back against the ship,” Captain Future ordered her. “Things are reversed — you’re our prisoner. Otho, you’re a genius of makeup.”
    “Because he’s a natural, instinctive trickster,” rumbled Grag. “I knew who it was all the time.”
    Otho paused in the midst of tearing off the padding that had made his lithe body seem gigantic. “So you’ve developed the mental ability to make second guesses, have you?” he snarled. “Some day I’ll make up as a robot and see if I can act as stupid as you really are!”
    Captain Future, who had taken N’Rala’s belt and tool-pouch, was divesting Joan of her handcuffs. He looked up at the hovering Brain, and chuckled in genuine amusement.
    “Like old times, eh, Simon?”
    “Right, lad,” and the Brain’s resonator achieved something like a chuckle. “Each of them was as close to tears as an artificial life-form can get, while he thought the other was in danger or destroyed. Now they’re quarreling again! But Joan doesn’t look as if