Captain Future 01 - The Space Emperor (Winter 1940) Read Free

creatures who would be able to think and work to serve humanity. He had already made great strides toward that goal, and felt on the verge of success.
    But a certain unscrupulous politician with sinister ambitions had heard of Roger Newton’s potent discoveries. He had made several daring attempts to steal them. There was danger to humanity if those discoveries passed into such hands. So Newton decided to seek a safe refuge in which he could work secretly.
    On a night in that June of 1990, the young biologist communicated his decision to his only intimates, his young wife Elaine, and his loyal co-worker, Simon Wright.
    Restlessly pacing the big, crowded laboratory of their secluded Adirondack farm, his red hair disordered and his lean, sensitive young face and blue eyes worried, Roger Newton addressed them.
    “Victor Corvo’s agents will find us here sooner or later,” he asserted. “Think of my discoveries in Corvo’s hands! We must leave Earth — go to a place where he’ll never find us.”
    “But where can we go, Roger?” appealed Elaine Newton anxiously, her soft gray eyes fretful, her small hand grasping his sleeve.
    “Yes, where can we go?” echoed Simon Wright in his metallic, unhuman voice. “To one of the colonized planets?”
    “No, Corvo’s agents would be sure to find us in any of the planetary colonies, sooner or later,” Newton replied.
    “Then where is this refuge you speak of, if it’s not on Earth or any of the planets?” demanded Simon Wright, his lenslike artificial eyes boring questionably into Newton’s face.
    Simon Wright was not a man. He had once been a man. He had once been a famous, aging scientist whose body was racked by an incurable disease. To save his brilliant brain from death, Newton had acceded to the old man’s plea and had removed Wright’s living brain from his body and had encased it in a serum-case in which it could live indefinitely.
     
    THE case stood now on a table beside Newton and his wife. It was a transparent metal box a foot square. Made of a secret alloy, it was insulated against shock, heat and cold, and contained a tiny battery that could operate its compact perfusion pump and serum purifier for a year.
    Set in its sides were the microphones that were Simon Wright’s ears. In front was the resonator by which he spoke, and his artificial lens-eyes, mounted on little flexible metal stalks he could turn at will. In that box lived the greatest brain in scientific history.
    “Where can we find refuge, if not on Earth or any of the planets?” Wright repeated in his rasping, metallic voice.
    Newton went to a window and drew aside the curtain. Outside lay the peaceful, nighted hills, washed with silver by the effulgent rays of the full moon that was rising in glorious majesty.
    The white disc of the great satellite, mottled by its dark mountain ranges and plains, shone starkly clear in the heavens. Newton pointed up to it, as girl and brain watched wondering.
    “There is our refuge,” Roger Newton said. “Up there, on the moon.”
    “On the moon?” cried Elaine Newton, her hand going to her throat. “Oh, no, Roger — it’s impossible!”
    “Why impossible?” he countered. “A good interplanetary rocket can make the trip easily. We have enough money from my father’s estate, to buy such a rocket.”
    “But the moon!” Elaine exclaimed, deep repulsion shadowing her eyes. “That barren, airless globe that no one ever visits! How could anyone live there?”
    “We can live there quite easily, dear,” her young husband replied earnestly. “We shall take with us tools and equipment capable of excavating an underground home, with a glassite ceiling open to the sun and stars. Atomic energy will enable us to heat or cool it as we need, and to transmute rock into hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen for air and water. We can take sufficient concentrated food with us to last us for a lifetime.”
    “I believe your plan is good, Roger,” said Simon