Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) Read Online Free PDF Page A

exclaimed, his green eyes sparkling.
    Curt was beginning to feel that the murder of Kenneth Lester was no mere isolated crime as he had at first thought. It seemed to be one ramification of some vast interplanetary plot that was tied up somehow with the rare space stones. Lester had told Bonnel that he had discovered something tremendous. Had Lester been killed because he had found out something, or had it been merely a murder for theft?
    “Everything seems to revolve around the space stones!” Curt said ruefully. “We must find out more about them.”
    “Best fellow for that would be Lockley, the specialist on interplanetary jewels,” Ezra Gurney answered. “We used to call him in whenever there was a gem question to be decided, eh, Halk?”
    The commander nodded his massive head. “Call Lockley now,” Curt ordered. “Get him here fast.”
    Lockley proved to be a thin, bespectacled, fussy little Earthman of advanced age, irked at being routed out so late at night.
    “Couldn’t it wait till morning?” he demanded resentfully.
    “I’m afraid it couldn’t,” Curt said. “We need information and we need it quickly.”
    Lockley’s alert eye noticed the ring on Curt’s finger. The little jewel specialist looked up in awe at the big, pleasant red-haired young man.
    “Captain Future!” he cried.
    Curt quickly explained the problem.
    “Two space stones have been stolen and their owners murdered. One was a jewel merchant on Mercury, and the other an interplanetary archaeologist right here. I want to know how many other space stones there are and who are their owners. This whole murder mystery seems to revolve about those stones.”
    The expert seemed eager to exhibit his knowledge.
    “As far as is known, only seven space stones have been found in the whole System’s history. All seven are of different colors. They were apparently collected from meteors by the ancient Martians, for it is known that they once belonged to the so-called Doomed Kings, more than two hundred thousand years ago. But with the degeneration of Martian civilization, the seven space stones were scattered. Some of them seem to have vanished altogether.”
    “How many are in known collections now?” Captain Future asked.
    Lockley shrugged. “The blue stone you say this archaeologist had wasn’t known. Only three space stones are definitely listed. One was in the possession of the Mercurian jewel merchant you mentioned. A second is in the collection of Harrison Yale, a rich Earthman who lives near New York. The third is in the State Museum of Venus.”
    “That makes four space stones,” Otho pointed out. “What became of the other three?”
    “There’s been no trace of them for centuries. They merely dropped out of sight.”
    Curt Newton pondered. Confident that the space stones were somehow the clue to the mystery, he came to a rapid decision. “Otho and I are going to this Yale’s home. I want to study his space stone.”
     
    A FEW minutes later, Captain Future and the android were zipping north through the moonlight in a fast Rissman rocket flier he had borrowed from the Planet Police.
    “Why do we have to creep along at a thousand miles an hour?” Otho grumbled. “We could have got the Comet.”
    “And advertised to the whole planet that the Futuremen were out,” Curt said witheringly. Otho looked up at the full Moon sailing royally in the starry heavens.
    “Old Grag would be wild if he thought we were out on a trail without him,” he chuckled.
    “I wish Simon were here,” muttered Curt. “The Brain could shed light on this space stone mystery, if anyone could.”
    He brought the streamlined Rissman down in a silent swoop in front of the gleaming chromalloy mansion of Harrison Yale.
    Yale proved to be a distinguished-looking man of sixty, a retired interplanetary shipping magnate whose gem collection was apparently his chief interest now. The magnate was astounded when he learned the identity and purpose of his