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

looking, iron-haired Earthman, a suave young Venusian, an ancient, wrinkled-faced Martian, and a Saturnian dwarf with a freakishly huge head.
    “The Four!” he muttered.
    “Yes, we are the Four, Captain Future,” coolly answered the crafty Earthman. “We have anticipated that sooner or later you would call upon us.”
    He laughed at Curt’s expression of surprise. “We knew of your reputation for resourcefulness and audacity. We believed that sooner or later you might be able to locate our base here, and that if you did, you would attempt to enter by passing yourself off as your own doubles! So we took the precaution of inspecting Crain and the other doubles with X-Ray scanners, each time before we let them enter. The scanners would show whether the robot was really a robot, or a man in disguise.”
    “Devils of space, so that’s what gave us away!” hissed Otho.
    “It was not hard to disarm and bind you three while you lay stunned by your fall below,” continued the Earthman. “I suppose you realize your helplessness. What did you do with Crain and the others?”
    Curt pretended to be crushed. “They’re out in our ship.” he muttered. “I suppose you’re going to murder us?”
    “After we have extracted as much valuable information as possible from you — certainly.”
     
    THE MYSTERIOUS CHESTS
    “Can’t we make a bargain?” Curt asked desperately. “Those chests we brought really have a fortune in platinum in them. We wanted to carry out our whole scheme just as though we were really Crain and the others, so there wouldn’t be any slip-ups. Won’t you take the platinum and let us go?”
    The Earthman pondered. “Bring in the chests,” he ordered.
    The young Venusian member of the Four did so, one by one. Curt saw that there was suspicion on the face of the Earthman.
    “Before we open the chests, use the X-Ray scanner on them,” he directed.
    The dwarfed Saturnian brought the instrument and peered through it at the chests.
    “Nothing in the chests but bars of metal,” he reported.
    “So you were telling the truth?” the leader of the Four remarked to Curt. “Your devotion to realism was carried too far, my dear Captain Future. You lose not only the platinum, but your lives, also.”
    He bent and unlocked one of the chests, and raised its lid. Whoosh! A cloud of invisible gas that had been stored in the chest of bars at high pressure suddenly burst out of it.
    The Earthman fell in his tracks as the gas reached his nostrils. Almost in the same instant, the other three of the Four and also Captain Future and Otho lost consciousness as the potent gas expanded.
     
    INVISIBLE “SLEEP-GAS”
    Curt awoke, to find Grag bending over him. He scrambled to his feet.
    “The Four are safe?”
    “Sure, I’ve got ‘em nicely trussed up,” Grag boomed. “Chief, I sure was surprised when that gas knocked everybody out. Everybody but me, that is. It couldn’t affect me, since I don’t breathe.”
    “Yes, I figured on that.” Curt grinned. “You see, I hoped we’d be able to nab the Four without trouble. But I thought that it was better to have a card up our sleeve in case Crain had tricked us and given us a wrong electrobell signal that would betray us. So when I put some metal bars in those chests, I also pumped the chests full of the invisible Uranian ‘sleep-gas,’ from that tank of it we carry for making ‘sleep-bombs.’ ”
    “I knew that the gas would get Otho and me, as well as the Four, if it were ever released,” Curt added. “But it wouldn’t affect you, and I counted on your being able to set things aright in the hour or so that we’d be unconscious.”
    “You didn’t count in vain, Chief,” boasted Grag proudly. “Though it took me nearly the whole time to cut that chain away from around me, by starting one of their atomic blasters and using its flame.”
    “Anyone could have done that, if he happened to be a creature too dumb to breathe,” snapped Otho to the robot.