Read Online Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950) by Edmond Hamilton - Free Book Online

Four. They usually can furnish what is needed, and they take a big percentage of the proceeds of the coup. They take none of the risks themselves, and so have never been caught. I’m sure that the Four are behind Crain’s impersonation of myself.”
    “Say, you don’t think the Four have their base somewhere on Pirates’ Planet?” Otho cried. “Maybe that’s why we’ve never been able to find it.”
    “It looks as though their base might be there,” Curt admitted. “But it’s sure to be cunningly hidden. Our best chance of finding it is through Crain. Catch him and we’ll have a real lead to the Four.”
    “But how the devil are we going to catch these doubles of ours?” Grag wanted to know.
    Captain Future grinned a little. “We’re going to let them catch themselves, as we’ve done with lots of others. Listen, here’s my idea...”
     
    ON THE TRAIL OF THE FOUR
    A few days later, a dumpy little freighter took off from New York spaceport. It was listed as the Willings, bound for Jupiter with a small but valuable cargo of refined platinum and tantalum.
    The little old freighter plugged slowly out past the orbit of Mars. Actually, it was not a freighter at all. It was the swift little Comet, ingeniously disguised by a fake superstructure of light metal plates built around it to make it look bigger and dumpier. Its only crew were the Futuremen.
    They were not far beyond the orbit of Mars when what Curt Newton had hoped for happened. A small ship came racing up toward them from the right quarter. It was an exact replica of their own Comet and it flashed an urgent signal.
    “Captain Future, requesting you to stand by for us to come aboard!” came from the televisor, in a voice uncannily like Curt’s own voice.
    “Okay, Captain Future!” Curt answered in a deepened voice. “We’re standing by!”
    The fake Comet drove alongside the disguised real Comet. From the pretenders ship came three figures, two of them in space-suits. The third was a great robot exactly resembling Grag.
    Grag himself was speechless.
    “There isn’t another intelligent metal man like me in the System!” he protested. “But that one looks like me!”
    “The nerve of those crooks!” Otho was raging. “Look, one of them is a dead ringer for me!”
    “Be ready now,” Captain Future ordered. “Here they come.”
    The three pretenders came into the airlock of the disguised Comet. And as soon as the three doubles were inside, the Futuremen grabbed them.
     
    FACING THEMSELVES
    It was as simple as that. The impostors hadn’t a chance to fight, because they had not been expecting the necessity. They found themselves facing a brace of deadly proton-guns, and stood speechless.
    The Futuremen were speechless too, for the moment. These three were uncannily exact replicas of Curt and Otho and Grag. For a dramatic moment, the real Futuremen and the impostors faced each other. And no outsider could have told which was which.
    Then Grag uttered a triumphant cry.
    “I knew there wasn’t another robot like me in the System! Look, Chief!”
    And Grag advanced upon the pseudo-Grag and tore at his metal body. The fake Grag was revealed to be a huge, vicious-faced Jovian criminal disguised in a metal space-suit made to resemble Grag’s metal body.
    Captain Future spoke crisply to his own glaring double.
    “A neat trick you’ve been using, Crain. Yes, I know who you are — Garis Crain, pirate and criminal, wanted by the Patrol for a dozen offenses.”
    Crain’s face, a face so amazingly like Curt’s own, became desperate and hunted in expression.
    “It was the Four who made you into my double, wasn’t it?” Curt pressed. “And their base is on Pirates’ Planet somewhere, isn’t it? Well, you’re going to take us there. You know the secret pirate wave-code and you can navigate us safely through the swarms.”
    Crain assumed an attitude of sullen defiance. “I won’t do it.”
    “Oh, yes, you will,” Curt said relentlessly.