Captain Future 07 - The Magician of Mars (Summer 1941) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Future.”
    “It’s excitement she’s crazy about, and not me,” scoffed Curt Newton. He looked at the President. “Just what is it that’s happened?”
    “Ul Quorn is out,” said James Carthew gravely.
    There was a dead silence. Captain Future’s good-humored, handsome face suddenly froze. It became dark and grim as he heard the name of his great enemy.
    “Quorn escaped?” gasped Otho. “Devils of space, then we will have our hands full!”
    “An’ that ain’t all,” drawled Ezra Gurney. “He took out with him a dozen of the most dangerous prisoners on Cerberus.”
    “How did they escape?” Captain Future demanded rapidly.
    “Captain Future, we don’t know,” confessed Halk Anders. “Quorn got the others out of their cells somehow. A little ship suddenly appeared in the prison court. They piled in it, and then that ship disappeared.”
    “You — mean, the ship escaped by becoming invisible?” Curt asked.
    “No, it didn’t just become invisible — it just wasn’t there any more!” insisted the Commander. “Patrol cruisers were right on top of it when it vanished. They tore the air to ribbons with their blasts, but they didn’t get that ship. It was simply gone into nothingness!”
    “That is unexplainable,” Captain Future muttered. “Unless Quorn used some totally new scientific principle —”
    “Maybe he learned the accelerator-secret that Gray Garson used in his space-ship hijackings?” Joan Randall suggested.
    “No, he couldn’t have,” Curt bleakly answered. “When we sent Garson to prison, we used my ‘mental eraser’ device to make him lose all memory of the accelerator-secret.”
     
    HALK ANDERS went on to tell of the raids by Ul Quorn’s band on the Pluto laboratory and the Neptunian research-station.
    “And his latest feat was to hold up the freighter Eros off Saturn and rob it of atomic tools,” the Commander concluded. “With that vanishing ship of his, he’s just laughed at the Patrol’s efforts to catch him.”
    “That’s why it was decided to call you, Captain Future,” James Carthew said. “We’re afraid that these preparations of Quorn portend some big coup on his part.”
    “There’s no doubt of it,” agreed Captain Future. “Quorn is no petty criminal, whatever else he is. He’s got something big planned.”
    Halk Anders faced Curt. “The captain of the Eros, the ship that Quorn held up and robbed, landed in New York yesterday. He says that Ul Quorn gave him a message for you, Captain Future.”
    Curt stiffened.
    “A message for me from Quorn? Where is the man?”
    “I can call him in a few minutes,” the Commander answered. “He said he’d be waiting near here.”
    A few moments later the Commander returned to the office with a stiffly striding old spaceman whose bald head and face were deeply bronzed.
    “This is Captain James Willis of the Eros,” he said.
    Ezra Gurney strode forward.
    “Jimmy Willis! I haven’t seen you since we were space-lads together!” the old marshal exclaimed delightedly.
    Captain Willis stared a moment at the old marshal, and then held out his hand.
    “Oh, Ezra Gurney,” he said. “Glad to see you, Ezra.”
    Curt Newton stepped forward.
    “I’m Captain Future. How is it that Ul Quorn came to give you a message for me?”
    Captain Willis explained in a slow, deep voice.
    “My freighter was two million miles off Saturn, bound for Neptune with a cargo of atomic machine tools to be used in undersea-ship construction. Quorn’s little ship suddenly appeared in space beside us. They had a couple of heavy atom-guns trained on us. We were unarmed and couldn’t resist.
    “Quorn made me come aboard his craft as a hostage,” Captain Willis continued. “He sent his men into my freighter to rob it of part of our cargo of machine tools. Then, when he had what, he wanted, Quorn let me go back to my ship. But first he gave me a message that he said I was to deliver to Captain Future when I got back to