"Edmond Hamilton - Calling Captain Future" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

Cast with unerring accuracy,
the nets prisoned the
Futuremen (Chap. XVI)




Curtis Newton,
wizard of science,
and his trio of
futuremen blaze a
trail across the
stars to forestall
the coup of Dr.
Zarro тАУ leader of a
legion of peril!
 Edmond Hamilton тАУ CALLING CAPTAIN FUTURE

all the resources of the System. I and my Legion must
CHAPTER I
have temporary dictatorship over the System, if this ter-
The Menace from Space rible danger is to be averted."
The figure of Doctor Zarro vanished from the televi-

T HE big liner Pallas throbbed through space on it sor screen, leaving the operator and the mate of the Pal-
regular run from Venus to Earth. In the brightly las thunderstruck.
lighted saloons of the big shop, throngs of men and "Who the devil was that?" gasped the stocky mate.
women drank, laughed, talked or danced to the haunt- "He didn't look completely human!"
ing music of the native Venusian orchestra. The young operator shook bis head dazedly. Now
Up in the televisor room, "Sparks" yawned over his the Earth Spaceport dispatcher, reappearing in the tele-
instruments. Then the youthful Earthman operator visor, cried:
looked up quickly as the stocky first mate of the liner "Did you get that broadcast of the man who caned
entered the room. himself Doctor Zarro? He crowded onto all wave-bands
"Call Earth Spaceport Four and tell them we'll dock тАУ every televisor in the whole System heard him!"
at ten sharp tomorrow," the mate ordered. The dispatcher switched hastily off. Young Sparks
Sparks punched his switches, pressed the call-but- looked excitedly up at the mate.
ton. The televisor screen broke into light. In it appeared "Do you suppose there's anything to his warning? If
the chief dispatcher, on duty at Earth Spaceport 4. a dark star really is coming toward the System тАУ"
The dispatcher heard the report and then nodded. "Nuts, there can't be anything to it," the mate de-
"Okay, Pallas. We'll have Dock Fifteen ready for тАУ" clared. "It's just a publicity stunt, but a queer one."
Then it happened! "It didn't sound like a stunt," Sparks muttered uncer-
The televisor went blank as an untuned wave of in- tainly.
credible power crowded onto it. Then the image of a He pressed switches, tuning in on many stations. A
man appeared in it. kaleidoscope of faces passed across the televisor,
"What the devil тАУ" Sparks gasped. The man in the screen. A hurricane of messages was being flashed
screen was an extraordinary-looking individual. He back and forth between planets, concerning the startling
seemed an Earthman, yet his tall, gaunt, black-clothed broadcast of the self-styled Doctor Zarro.
figure, his enormous bulging forehead and skull, and "He's sure stirred up the System!" the operator de-
his hypnotically burning black eyes, gave to his aspect clared. "And judging from the messages, not everybody
some indefinable but startling aura of the superman. is as skeptical as you."