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

the Legion men in there. "Not so loud!" Curt cautioned. Then he whirled
Curt found himself in utter darkness. He knew that round. "Too late тАУ you've done it now!"
be was now completely invisible. All light was being A shout of alarm from somewhere in the ship had
refracted around him тАУ and that left him entirely with- followed the girl's cry. Legion men from the stern ap-
out power of vision. peared in the corridor, running toward them. Curt's pro-
But Captain Future had spotted the exact direction ton-beam flashed and dropped half of them. But others
and distance of the door of the Legion ship. Now be were yelling to the party in the observatory.
moved toward it. "It's a trap of Captain Future! Come away!"
Curt, from long practice, and because of bis super- Curt plunged forward, triggering his proton-pistol.
keen sense of hearing, could move without sight almost But one of the Legion men, an evil-faced Earthman
as well as an ordinary man who saw. He crept hastily dwarf, had produced a handful of wriggling things that
forward, and as he neared the ship he could bear the he flung at Captain Future.
breathing of the two guards outside its door. "Rope-snakes!" screamed Joan. "Look out тАУ"
He passed right in between them, stepping up It was too late. The pink, wriggling things were Sat-
through the air-lock of the ship and into a metal corri- urnian rope-snakes, tamed and used by interplanetary
dor. He heard voices, throbbing cyclotrons. He stood, criminals.
waiting tensely for the invisibility to pass тАУ he must They flashed around Curt's limbs with incredible
have sight, to find Joan in this ship. The uproar from in- speed and tightened, pinioning him. Others had fas-
side the observatory was louder. Otho was doing nobly tened around Joan and Kansu Kane. Curt struggled to
in the job of making trouble for his abductors. Curt break the living bonds.
could imagine that the android was having a wonderful The evil-faced Legion dwarf was shouting to the
time in there. The darkness enveloping Captain Future outside.
began to dissipate. His invisibility was passing. In a "Kallak, come on! Let Gatola go тАУ we're blasting
moment, he could see. off!"
He stood in a corridor leading toward the stern of The Legion men from the observatory, led by a
the Legion cruiser. Back there were the droning power- huge, hulking Earthman giant, came rushing back into
cyclotrons, and the voices of the men who tended them. the cruiser.
Curt, from his encyclopedic knowledge of space craft, "Cyclotrons on тАУ blast off!" the dwarf yelled.
concluded the prisoners would be forward. The ship's rocket-tubes roared. It lurched up from
the ground as Captain Future fought furiously to free

T HE big red-headed young man found a corridor himself.
leading forward and raced soundlessly along its But Otho had come running toward the rising ship.
dim length, bis proton-pistol gripped in his hand. His eyes blazing, his body battered by fighting, the syn-
"Otho can't keep that up much longer," he muttered thetic man leaped up toward the still open door of the
under his breath. "Where the devil тАУ" ship.
A Legion man popped out into the corridor from a No one in the System but the android could have

13
 Edmond Hamilton тАУ CALLING CAPTAIN FUTURE

made the incredible leap. Otho's hands clutched the The dwarf was drawing an atom-gun from his belt
edge of the door, and he dangled in space as the ship when one of the Legion men stepped forward,
roared up across the dark desert. These men of the Legion of Doom, Curt saw, were
all Earthmen. Yet there was something queer about

C URT, struggling, yelled a warning as he saw a Le- their appearance, something that did not escape Captain
gion man stoop to drag Otho into the ship so the Future's keen eyes. There was a whiteness and immo-
door could be closed. The Legionary, still believing bility about their faces, a lack of expression in their
that the android was Gatola, was trying at the last eyes. Even their clothing had a strange, stiff look.