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

"If I was just in that cursed ship тАУ !" "It wasn't altogether my fault," flared Otho defen-
Otho had one trait that was even stronger than his sively. "I waited in the observatory as he ordered, and
devil-may-care lust for excitement and adventure. And when the Legion men came in, I delayed them as long
that was his loyalty to Captain Future. And now he had as I could, dodging about and not letting them catch
let Doctor Zarro's dark Legion take his chief prisoner. me. But then there was an alarm from the ship and they
'I've got to get back to the Comet!" he told himself returned to it тАУ I tried to follow, but was pushed off."
fiercely. And then he groaned. "What Grag will say to "If I had been there I would have torn that ship apart
me about letting the chief be taken! And I deserve it!" before I would have let them take away the master in
it!" Grag shouted.

O THO started across the starlit desert in a swift run, The cold, austere, rasping voice of the Brain cut
but in a moment he turned and came running back. across their argument like an icy sword.
He had remembered the dead body of the magically "Be quiet, Grag," Simon Wright ordered. "This will
transformed Legionary. That weird, furry corpse might get us nowhere. We must follow that ship, quickly."
be a clue to Doctor Zarro's Legion. He would take it for "I don't know where it's heading for," Otho admitted

18
 Edmond Hamilton тАУ CALLING CAPTAIN FUTURE

miserably. Then the android added quickly: "But I did The two other Futuremen relaxed their angry stiff-
bring back one of the Legion of Doom тАУ dead. And the ness. Bodiless the Brain might be, unable even to move
queerest thing happened to him as he died." without help, yet both Otho and Grag were subservient
to the vast, calm intellect housed in that transparent

H E told them of the magical transformation of the serum-case тАУ the intellect that had helped create them.
Earthman Legionary into a strange furred crea- "Put this body on the operating table under the X-
ture, in death. ray lamps," the Brain ordered. "I've been studying its
"I want to see that body," said the Brain instantly. eyes, and I think I have a clue to where it came from."
"Grag, put me down by it." Otho unfolded the operating table, and Grag laid the
The Brain's lens-eyes moved to and fro on their flex- white-furred body on it and switched on the powerful
ible stalks, keenly inspecting the grotesque corpse. X-ray lamps.
"I've never heard of a race like this before," mut- Through fluoroscopic spectacles that were slipped
tered Simon. "And I can't understand how it could look on over his lens-eyes, the Brain studied the interior
like an Earthman when it was living." anatomy of the furry corpse.
"It did look just like an Earthman, dressed in a uni- "I was right!" he declared finally. .'This creature is a
form." Otho affirmed emphatically. native of Pluto or somewhere near it."
"Did it feel like an Earthman when you were strug- "How can you tell?" Otho asked doubtfully.
gling with it?" "Those huge-pupiled eyes prove that the creature
Otho hesitated. "I don't remember very well тАУ yes. I originated on a world of eternal dusk, one with less
do remember now! It felt furry in my grasp, as we fell. light even than Neptune," the Brain answered. "The fur-
I'd forgotten that." ry, light-boned body must have evolved on a cold,
"Then," the Brain declared, "this creature was never medium-sized world. That means Pluto, for it's the only
an Earthman. It simply had some means of making it world in the System which answers those conditions."
appear like one, some strange means of giving the illu- "But maybe the creature came from some world out-
sion that it was an Earthman." side our System completely?" Otho suggested.
"But why should the illusion vanish so suddenly "No, that's impossible," rasped the Brain, "for its
when the thing died?" Otho demanded. eye-retinas are adapted to ultra-violet radiation exactly
"You see that broken instrument at the creature's like that of our Sun. No two suns emit exactly the same
belt?" the; Brain said. "It's too badly shattered to find kind of radiation. This creature comes from within our
out anything from. But I believe it may have been a de- System тАУ from Pluto."