Captain Future 07 - The Magician of Mars (Summer 1941) Read Free

slender, red-skinned man with a smooth, handsome face. He wore a striped Martian turban and a long, yellow-sleeved purple Martian robe.
    Alarm flashed in the eyes of the young Earthman as he recognized the leader.
    “You’re Doctor Ul Quorn, the criminal scientist that escaped from Cerberus prison!” he cried. “The one they call the Magician of Mars!”
    Ul Quorn bowed mockingly.
    “I see that my fame has reached you.”
    “What do you and your band want here?” demanded the Earthman.
    Quorn looked at the six massive cyclotrons.
    “We learned about those cyclotrons. We need them.”
    “You can’t have them!” flared the Earthman. “It’s taken us years to have them built. We’ll not give them up!”
    Ul Quorn shot him, his suave face impassive. The atom-blast from the mixed breed’s weapon dropped the Earthman in a heap.
    The other three engineers stared unbelievingly. Then one of the Plutonians lunged toward the televisor and flung open its switch.
    “Calling the Planet Patrol!” he yelled. “Quorn’s band is here at North Pluto Labor —”
    The atom blast of Thikar, the Jovian, cut the Plutonian down before he could say more. Two more crackling, lightning-like blasts stopped the other two engineers before they could make a move.
    “Now, get those cyclotrons out of here and into our ship at once!” Quorn ordered his followers.
    “That’ll be a job,” grunted Thikar, eying the massive machines.
    “You fool, we’ve got to have them!” Quorn lashed. “Without them, we haven’t the slightest chance of reaching the treasure I promised you.”
    The mention of the mysterious treasure inspired the criminals. They began the heavy work of transferring the eyes to their little ship. Ul Quorn watched them. Beside him waited the lithe Martian girl he had called N’Rala. Presently they had the last of the six cyclotrons aboard their craft.
    “Quick, out of here now before the Patrol comes!” Quorn ordered.
    Their little rocket-ship rose from the ice-field. Then magically, it vanished.
    The heaving blue sea that swept almost all the planet Neptune, gleamed in the sunlight. It washed against the rock cliffs of a small group of barren islands five hundred miles south of the Black Isles.
    Upon one of these desolate islets were the metalloy shops and docks of Neptunian Oceanic Research Station. The pompous, gray-skinned, peaked-skulled Neptunian who directed the activities of a half-score scientists here was shaking his head.
    “There’s a lot of money in those metal bars,” he declared.
     
    HE AND one of his subordinates were eying a mass of long bars of blue-gleaming metal which lay in one of the supply-houses.
    “Well, that alloy is expensive,” admitted his assistant. “But it’s about the strongest known to science. With it we can build a diving ship that will go down into even the greatest deeps of our ocean. Just think, sir, what that will mean! We can explore the great oceanic abysses for the first time,” he ended enthusiastically.
    “Yes, I know,” agreed the older Neptunian impatiently. “But this stuffs so valuable it might tempt thieves. It’s only been a few days since Ul Quorn’s band raided that North Pluto laboratory, remember.”
    The younger man scoffed politely at his superior’s apprehensions.
    “Oh, well, Quorn’s criminals probably just wanted those super-powered cyclotrons to give their ship more speed. They wouldn’t want this alloy.”
    The younger Neptunian was wrong. That evening a small rocket-ship appeared magically behind the research station. The staff of the station did not hear it, nor did they hear Ul Quorn and his men emerge from the ship.
    “Take no chances of them giving an alarm this time,” ordered Quorn, his black eyes merciless. “Cut them down at once.”
    The Neptunians had no chance. They were absorbed planning their new diving ship when the criminal band charged in upon them.
    The hideous crackle of atom-gun blasts was brief. Then the Neptunian