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

Upon the floor of Tycho Crater glittered something
like a round crystal lake. It was a big, glassite window set
in the lunar rock. Underneath that window, excavated out
of the soft rock, was the artificial cavern that was the lab-
oratory and home of the most famous man in the System
тАУ Captain Future.
The big laboratory of the cavern home was bathed in
light from the window above it. Here loomed mechanisms
and racks of instruments in bewildering array. Giant gen-
erators and condensers that could furnish limitless
atomic power. Big telescopes and spectro-telescopes
whose tubes protruded through the lunar surface.


Saturnian rope-snakes pinioned
Curt's limbs (Chap. III)




5
 Edmond Hamilton тАУ CALLING CAPTAIN FUTURE

Chemical and electrical apparatus of bewildering com- "You're an old fraud, Simon," he accused. "You
plexity and design. All the crowded equipment of the know as well as I do that I could never have achieved it
System's supreme master of science! if you hadn't worked with me."
The two individuals working tensely in a corner of At that moment, there was a sudden explosion of an-
the laboratory could be heard over the throbbing of a gry, arguing voices from another chamber of the cavern
machine. home. One was a loud, Booming, mechanical-sounding
"Time to shift the electron-flow, Simon?" the deep, voice. The other voice was hissing, sibilant and furious.
clear voice of one was asking. "Grag and Otho are at each other again!" exclaimed
"Not yet, Curtis," answered the other's voice, a rasp- Captain Future impatiently. "I swear those two will
ing, metallic, unhuman one. "Transmutation is not com- drive me crazy yet."
plete yet." He raised his voice in a call. "Grag! Otho!"
These two were working with a spherical machine Two creatures of unhumanly weird appearance en-
into which the great atomic generators were pouring tered the laboratory in answer to his call.
vast power. One of them was a rubbery white android, or syn-
One of the two was a big, red-headed young man in thetic man. Otho, the android, was manlike in figure,
a gray synthesilk zipper suit. His lithe, broad-shoul- his synthetic flesh having been molded into human
dered figure towered six feet four. His tanned, hand- form when he had been made. But his hairless white
some, debonair face and flashing gray eyes had a rol- head and face, his slitted green eyes that were flashing
licking humor in them that could not hide keen intelli- now with anger, were not like any human's. Nor could
gence and deep purpose. any human move with his wonderful quickness and
He wore a big ring on his left hand тАУ a ring whose agility.
nine jewels were motivated by a tiny atomic power en- Grag, the metal robot, was the other disputant. Tow-
gine that kept them moving slowly around a glowing ering seven feet high, his mighty metal arms hinted in-
central jewel. This ring, whose jewels represented the credible strength. The chief features in his bulbous met-
nine worlds, was known to the whole System as the al head were his two photo-electric eyes that gleamed
identifying emblem of Captain Future, the wizard of with living light, and the mouthlike opening of his
science and the implacable foe of evil. speech mechanism. There was no creature in the whole