Captain Future 19 - Outlaw World (Winter 1946) Read Online Free PDF

beautiful jungles were flower forests! Instead of trees, gigantic flowers towered on massive stalks to a height of a hundred feet. Huge, waving moon lilies, great flame roses whose blooms were thirty feet in diameter, enormous, nodding orchids — their dense thickets lay in the silvery light of great Jupiter like a vast garden planted by giants.
    Several of Jupiter’s smaller moons possessed such flower forests, due to an excess of carbon dioxide in their atmosphere. But the great flower jungles of this moon Leda were the wildest and most beautiful of all.
    Captain Future glimpsed the torpedo-shaped bulk of a small space-cruiser on the ground, half-hidden amid towering flame roses. Men were running toward the ship in alarm.
    Ru Ghur’s raider ships poised for a moment amid the gigantic flowers, their keel jets blasting. A great cloud of white vapor spurted down and enveloped the glade.
    “Sleep-gas!” Curt Newton exclaimed. “They had the keel-jets of their ship loaded with it!”
    The raider cruisers quickly landed beneath the towering fame roses. The raiders poured out.
    Captain Future waited tensely, watching for an opportunity to attack Ru Ghur when the odds were less suicidal.
    In the dappled planet light of the glade of giant flowers, Bork King’s Martian outlaws lay in stupefied sleep, though the breeze had quickly carried away the sleep-gas.
    Ru Ghur uttered sharp commands.
    “Gather up their guns, and find Bork King and bring him back to consciousness. Kra Kol, look for the radium.”
    The Saturnian entered the Martian cruiser, and returned a moment later.
    “The stuff’s in there, all right!” he said.
    “Good!” said Ru Ghur. “As soon as the men have made sure we have all the Martians, we’ll have them carry it into the Falcon .”
    Two raiders came up with a man whose hands were bound. “Here’s Bork King,” one of them said. “We revived him.”
     
    BORK KING, Curt saw, was a big, iron-framed Martian of middle age. His craggy red face, fierce black eyes and shock of bristling black hair made him an indomitably belligerent figure.
    “So it’s you and your cursed raiders who jumped us!” he shouted violently as he recognized Ru Ghur.
    Ru Ghur wagged his head sadly. “I’m sorry we had to do it. But you shouldn’t have gone after radium. That’s what brought us after you.”
    Bork King uttered an angry roar. “Since when do we Companions of Space have to ask your permission as to what we can loot?” he demanded.
    “You’re no ordinary pirate, Bork,” said Ru Ghur shrewdly. “I know your history, that until you were outlawed, you were one of the secret Martian officials called the Guardians of Mars.” The fat Uranian leaned forward. “I want to know more about the Guardians of Mars and what they guard. I believe that information would be valuable to me.”
    “You’ll get no information from me!” roared Bork King. “Untie my hands and I’ll settle this man to man!”
    Captain Future saw the Uranian shake his head. “I’m not a fighting man, Bork,” Curt heard him say, and sigh. “I’m just a peaceful old scientist. I hate violence and bloodshed. But since you are obstinate, I fear I’ll have to force you to tell me what I want to know. Kra Kol, bring him to my cabin in the Falcon .”
    Captain Future instantly leaped across the cabin and crouched behind the door, his atom-pistol in his fist.
    A grim little smile played over Curt Newton’s lips. This was the opportunity for which he had been waiting. The fat Uranian was going to get a disastrous surprise when he entered his cabin.
    Curt Newton seldom had underestimated an opponent of Ru Ghur’s caliber. But he did so in this case, and it was his mistake that was disastrous.
    For as Ru Ghur and Kra Kol and the big Martian prisoner came along the corridor to the cabin, Curt heard the tramp of their feet suddenly halt.
    “There’s something wrong!” Ru Ghur’s voice exclaimed. “The Lethe-ray machine in there is hardly