Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) Read Online Free PDF

stunned. He started along the deck, and then met Jeff Lewis and Valdane. The chubby financier was frowning.
    “It’s the first I knew of it,” Jon Valdane was saying angrily. “Why in the world should you bring that snooping girl Patrol agent along?”
    Lewis shrugged helplessly. “I had to. She was going to delay our starting, because she thought our picture would be a libel on her friends, the Futuremen. I finally had to offer to take her along so that she could check on the picture as we made it, and give it her okay.”
    Jon Valdane’s ordinarily beaming pink face looked ugly.
    “She could have been handled in other ways,” he snapped. “But it’s too late now.”
    They passed on. Joan Randall had disappeared. And Captain Future remained rooted, chilled by premonitory dread.
    Joan’s loyalty to himself had unwittingly catapulted her into this devil’s ship of conspiracy where her danger was extreme. Valdane did not want her aboard. He might take drastic means to get rid of her.
    Curt Newton groaned inwardly. He could not reveal himself to her without entangling her further in danger. He must continue to play his strange part if he was to penetrate the great plot against Magic Moon.
     

     
Chapter 4: Peril on Jupiter
     
    CAPTAIN FUTURE leaped into the crumpled interior of the wrecked space-cruiser and crouched, his atom-pistol in his hand. “Otho, where are you?” he called loudly.
    “Here, chief!” answered the android. He was lying, trussed up in heavy bonds in a corner of the wreck. “They left me here to be killed when the wreck crashes.”
    “And the rats got away from me,” hissed Captain Future as he bent to untie the other. “By space, when we catch up to them —”
    “Cut!”
    It was Jeff Lewis’ order that suddenly brought the scene to an end. The big, twin-lensed stereofilm cameras stopped grinding, and the krypton spotlights were snapped off.
    Curt Newton and Otho turned toward the director. “How was it?”
    “Rizo Thon was all right,” Lewis answered. “But you still are too stiff and awkward, Carson. You still haven’t learned how to act as Captain Future would act.” This big room looked like an ordinary telepicture studio, with the set that represented the interior of a wrecked space-cruiser occupying half its length. The rest was crowded with cameras, spotlights, technicians and other actors of the troupe. This was the main hold of the Perseus. It had been converted into a small studio. And during all these days in which the liner had been speeding toward Jupiter, Jeff Lewis had here been busy upon interior scenes for “The Ace of Space.”
    It was hard to realize that they were in a ship going at tremendous velocity. The rockets had been shut off, and the Perseus moved through the void in a swift, soundless rush.
    “What you must do,” Lewis was lecturing Curt Newton, “is to tell yourself, ‘I am Captain Future.’ Then you’ll act more like him.”
    Curt Newton managed to keep his face solemn. “I’ll try, Mr. Lewis,” he stammered. “I’ve been space-sick so much, that it’s made it harder for me.”
    Ron King, the exquisite-looking juvenile lead of “The Ace of Space,” raised his eyebrows superciliously at Newton. “You really shouldn’t have taken the part when you’re such a bad space-sailor.”
    “He’s about as good a space-sailor as he is an actor,” gibed Lura Lind. “He’s ruined every scene with me so far.”
    “Let Carson alone,” growled the producer. “He’ll be all right.”
    Joan Randall, slim in her gray spaceslacks, had stood in the background watching the scene with a faint contempt in her brown eyes.
    “Captain Future wouldn’t use melodramatic language like that,” she told Jeff Lewis now. “It’s not like him at all.”
    “Miss Randall, will you please give me a little leeway in making this picture,” begged the producer impatiently. “I’m keeping my promise to stick to the truth in depicting the Futuremen’s