Captain Future 01 - The Space Emperor (Winter 1940) (21 page)

“Brewer,” Curt added, “seemed the most logical suspect then. He was giving the Jovians guns, as I discovered. But when I found that he was doing it only to get them to dig his radium, I felt he could not be the Space Emperor. He would not stir up a planetary rebellion, when his desire was to get rich from his mine! He’d have everything to lose.

“Cannig,” Captain Future concluded, “had been seen with the Space Emperor, by Joan, and so he could not be the plotter. That only left Eldred Kells of the four original suspects.”

“I still can’t believe it of Kells!” Quale cried. “He was so capable and efficient and ambitious —”

“He was too ambitious; that was the trouble,” Captain Future said somberly. “He was chafing here as a mere vice-governor, and when he read the report of this wonderful discovery which Kenneth Lester sent to your office, Kells saw his opportunity to bid for planetary power.

“He saw himself as lord of Jupiter — even as the emperor of other worlds — using the great powers and weapons of the Ancients. He might have done it, too, had he been luckier!”

“Aye,” rasped Simon Wright, his glittering lens-eyes staring at the dead man. “That is the curse of you humans — lust for power. It has brought a many of you to their deaths, and it will bring many more.”

CAPTAIN FUTURE stood in the pale sunlight beside the open door of the
Comet,
with Grag and Otho and Simon Wright. The little ship rested on the ground at the edge of the wilderness outside Jungletown.

The big, red-headed adventurer faced three people — Joan Randall and Sylvanus Quale and Ezra Gurney.

“Must you leave Jupiter now?” Quale was asking earnestly.

Curt grinned.

“It’s got too tame around here, now that all the excitement is over.”

A brief Jovian week had passed. That week had seen the complete restoration of order in the demoralized colony.

The atavism cases were slowly returning to normal, being treated with the formula Simon Wright had devised. The Jovians were again on friendly terms with the Earthmen, and there seemed no doubt that they would remain so.

A scientific commission was on its way from Earth to consult Kenneth Lester and investigate the secrets of the Ancients stored in that cavern by the Fire Sea. Meanwhile, the place was guarded.

“Everything here’s washed up now,” Curt was saying. “I called President Carthew today and reported so, though of course this whole affair won’t be made public.”

Joan Randall spoke impulsively to the big redhead. “Then the people of the System will never know what you’ve done for them?”

Curt laughed.

“Why should they know? I’ve no desire to be a hero.”

“You are a hero, to every man and woman in the nine worlds,” Joan said steadily.

There was a throbbing emotion in the girl’s soft face as she looked into the big young adventurer’s gray eyes.

“And now you’re going back to that lonely home of yours on Earth’s moon, to live without another human being near?”

“I’m going back to my home, and my comrades will be with me,” Curt defended.

“Captain Future, are you always going to lead this hard, dangerous life?” the girl cried appealingly.

Curt’s face grew somber. His voice was low-pitched, his eyes looking far away, as he answered.

“Long ago, I dedicated my life to a task,” he said. “Until that task is finished, I must remain — Captain Future.”

He held out his hand, and the cheerful smile came back once more into his gray eyes.

“Good-by, Joan,” he said. “We’ll meet again, somewhere.”

He grinned at Gurney. “And I’m sure to meet
you
in that part of the System where trouble is the thickest.”

There was a glimmer of tears in the girl’s dark eyes as she watched Curt enter his little ship.

The cyclotrons droned, and the
Comet
shot upward into the pale sunlight. Up from Jupiter it roared, out through the dense atmosphere until the mighty planet was a vast white globe behind them, and black, starred space stretched ahead.

Toward the bright gray speck that was Earth, and the smaller white speck that was its moon, the little ship flew.

Curt Newton’s eyes were queerly abstracted as he sat at the throttles. He spoke to the Brain, slowly.

“That was a great girl, Simon,” he said. Then he added hastily, “Not that it can mean anything to me, you understand.”

“Aye, lad, I understand,” the Brain answered. “I was human once, too, you know.”

“We go back to the moon now, master?” Grag said pleasedly. “I like it on the moon best.”

“What’s good about it?” Otho hissed gloomily. “There’ll be no excitement, no action, nothing else for us to do —”

Curt grinned at the discontented android.

“Sooner or later, there’ll be another call from Earth, and then I hope there’s action enough for you, you crazy coot.”

Yes, sooner or later dire emergency would arise again to threaten the nine worlds, and set that great signal at the North Pole flashing its summons once more.

And when the summons came, Captain Future would answer!

THE END