Captain Future 03 - Captain Future's Challenge (Summer 1940) by Edmond Hamilton

Author:Edmond Hamilton [Hamilton, Edmond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2012-09-05T07:00:00+00:00

VASC AVAM, the Jovian, made a sound of anger and stared fiercely at the scared gray Neptunian miners cowering nearby.

“If I had the spies among us who are sabotaging our domes, I’d kill them by slow torture!” he exclaimed.

“That dome was weakened and wrecked from outside,” Captain Future told him. “A cutting flame was used from outside to weaken the dome walls, and to sever the tubeway.”

The Jovian stared.

“It was done from outside? But who could there be out in the deep sea to do it? You surely don’t think it was the legendary sea-devils the Neptunians talk about?”

“Men in sea-suits could have approached the dome secretly from outside, and have done it!” Carson Brand exclaimed.

“Yes, they could have,” Captain Future agreed swiftly. “But such men would have to be brought out here to this region of the sea, and taken away again, by a boat. Where’s the boat? We ought to search the sea all around here.”

“We will — we’ll use the trouble-boat!” Brand cried, his eyes flashing. “Come on, Vase Avam!”

The three men jumped into the powerful craft that had brought them out from Amphitrite. Carson Brand started the motors, and yelled to the Jovian.

“Sweep the sea with the searchlight while I circle!”

Vase Avam snicked on the powerful fluoric searchlight outside the tubular hull. Its reddish beam sliced through the heavy darkness as Brand piloted the roaring craft outward.

Captain Future peered keenly with the Jovian, as Brand steered their craft in great, widening circles. The reddish beam of light showed nothing but the great, heaving tidal combers of the shoreless ocean. Then Curt’s eyes saw a black mass sliding away swiftly in the distance.

“A boat of some kind to starboard!” he cried to Brand.

Brand saw it, and sent the trouble-boat leaping after it like a hound after prey. The black craft in the distance, caught in the fluoric searchlight, put on speed to dart away.

“It must be the Wrecker’s bunch!” Brand cried excitedly. “They’re trying to escape —”

Curt slid back an upper transparent panel, cupped his hands, and shouted aloud as they overhauled the fleeing craft.

“Boat, ahoy! Stand by and wait for us or we’ll gun you out of the water!”

“But we haven’t any atom-guns on this craft,” Vase Avam objected puzzledly.

“They don’t know that,” Curt retorted coolly. “Ah, as I hoped — our little bluff worked.”

The boat ahead had stopped. Brand drove their own craft up beside it. Captain Future, his proton-gun cradled in his fist, leaped aboard the other craft, with Brand and the Jovian following.

The other boat was a much larger, heavier, broader-beamed one. The crew was a mixed lot of Neptunians, Venusians and representatives of other planets. Sullenly, half-scared, they faced Captain Future’s tall, commanding figure. Curt glimpsed a half-dozen heavy, jointed metal suits lying on the deck, still dripping.

“Those are sea-suits!” Carson Brand yelled. “These are the men who wrecked our mine from outside — the Wrecker’s men!”

“What’s this about the Wrecker?” demanded a man who had hastily emerged from below decks, and now faced them.

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