Magic Moon by Edmond Hamilton

Author:Edmond Hamilton [Hamilton, Edmond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
ISBN: 9781610818537
Publisher: Radio Archives
Published: 2012-09-05T07:00:00+00:00

TAKING infinite care to avoid being sighted by anyone in the ship, the gliding Brain and he made their way up through the little-used aft passages to the middle deck. He peered around the corner into the main mid-deck corridor. Rosson, Valdane’s tough-looking Earthman satellite, was again lounging alertly outside his employer’s door. Captain Future raised and aimed the gas-tube silently. He depressed its trigger briefly. A tiny cloud of almost colorless gas shot from it and hit Rosson’s face. The tough Earthman sank to the floor.

Curt Newton now raced down the corridor, the Brain close behind. He listened for a moment at the door. A vague murmur of voices came from inside. Curt Newton applied the end of his gas-tube to the keyhole of the door. He depressed the trigger, holding it down so that the full charge of compressed sleep-gas would enter the rooms beyond.

He heard the beginning of an alarmed exclamation — then the thump and thud of two falling bodies. Instantly Captain Future was deftly working with the lock of the door. The door clicked open. He dragged the senseless form of Rosson swiftly inside with them as he and the Brain entered.

Jon Valdane and Kin Kurd lay unconscious. The sleep-gas had already been carried away by the repaired ventilation system, but it had done its work.

“Close the door, Simon,” Captain Future directed as he bent over the prostrate figure of Jon Valdane with the brain-scanner.

Carefully, Curt Newton strapped the two flat little induction-coils of the apparatus to Valdane’s head, so that one of the coils lay flat against each of the financier’s temples. He checked the cables leading from the coils to the machine. Then he snapped a switch and carefully turned a rheostat on the front panel of the apparatus. “There won’t be anything selective about this,” Curt Newton muttered as he waited. “But if we’re lucky, we’ll pick up enough from Valdane’s mind to enlighten us about his plans.”

“We haven’t unlimited time,” warned Simon Wright. “If some of Valdane’s men come here —”

He left the idea unfinished. For now, out of the little loud-speaker attached to the apparatus, a monotonous voice was speaking.

It was an artificially articulated “voder” voice. And what it was speaking were thoughts! The thoughts and memories of the unconscious Jon Valdane were being detected by the delicate induction coils of this incredible instrument, and translated artificially into intelligible speech.

“— must be powerful,” the machine was saying monotonously. “To be powerful, I must be rich. It is my only way of excelling. I —”

“Just subconscious stuff,” muttered Captain Future. He turned the rheostat a trifle. “We’ve got to pick up his recent memories.”

Two wizards of dark, unfathomable science he and Simon Wright seemed, as they crouched tensely listening to their machine drag the inmost mental secrets from the senseless man. Yet this thing which he and Simon Wright had years ago invented was based upon simple scientific principles.

Their brain-scanner was simply an advanced development of experiments that were very old.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.