Captain Future 16 - Magic Moon (Winter 1944) Read Free Page A

if he looks the part. This Carson fellow does. He’s the only one we’ve found yet who looks even remotely like Captain Future. Make-up will erase the differences, and your coaching will get him through his scenes.”
    Chan Carson’s earnest face flushed with eager hope as he listened. “I’ll do anything you say if you pick me for the part, Mr. Lewis,” he promised in fervent tones.
    His eagerness was not assumed. He had to get this part, Curt Newton was telling himself. For ‘Chan Carson,’ underneath a slightly disguised exterior, was none other than Captain Future himself!
    It was Newton’s audacious scheme to get himself included in this mysteriously-motived telepicture expedition which Jon Valdane was backing. He had explained it to the astounded President, the night before.
    “It’ll be a perfect disguise for me, if I can do it,” he had told Daniel Crewe. “They’re hunting for someone who looks like Captain Future, to play his part in their picture. If I can get that part, I can go along on the expedition without Valdane or his men dreaming that I’m really Captain Future. I’ll have a real chance to discover and checkmate their plans.”
    Newton had known better than to look too much like himself when he applied for the role. That might arouse suspicion. So he had slightly altered the shape of his nose and the shade of his eyes and hair.
    Jeff Lewis was speaking to the skeptical Willard. “Remember, this will be an action picture. He won’t have to do any emoting in close-ups.”
    They were interrupted by the arrival of a stunning blonde girl who clung possessively to the arm of a chubby, middle-aged Earthman.
    Curt Newton instantly recognized them both. He knew from posters around the studios that the girl was Lura Lind, one of the most popular feminine stars in telepictures. With her smooth platinum hair, flawless features and supple figure, she was dazzling. The man with her was Jon Valdane. Crewe’s description left no doubt. Yet it seemed incredible that this chubby little man with the kewpie-like face and beaming blue eyes could be the plotter who was scheming to loot a world.
    Newton remembered the President’s warning. “He doesn’t look it, but he’s ruthless as a Venusian swamp-adder.”
    Valdane was speaking in a piping voice to the producer. “I’m all ready to go with you when the expedition leaves, Lewis. My friend Kin Kurd, the Saturnian politician, is going with me too.”
    “That’s fine, Mr. Valdane.” It seemed to Newton that Jeff Lewis’ words lacked heartiness. “Of course, you know that this will be no pleasure cruise. We’re going into the most dangerous spots in the System.”
    If the producer was trying to dissuade Jon Valdane from the trip, he failed. The chubby little financier answered confidently.
    “It’s worth a few hardships to be near Lura,” he said, with an infatuated glance at the blonde star. “And to make sure there’s no risk, I’m taking along my own personal bodyguard, Su Thuar.”
    “Su Thuar.” Captain Future repeated that name to himself with sudden dismay. He knew the ‘bodyguard’ to whom the financier referred.
    Su Thuar was a young Venusian criminal with whom Curt Newton had clashed four years before. He had killed the Venusian’s brother in an underworld rendezvous on Saturn, and had sent Su Thuar himself to prison.
    He knew that Su Thuar wanted vengeance for that. If the Venusian’s hate-sharpened eyes penetrated his identity during the trip, it might mean disaster.
    Jeff Lewis was introducing him to Valdane and the blonde star. “This is Chan Carson, folks — our ‘Captain Future’. He’s only a dry-goods clerk now, but I’ll make an actor of him.”
     
    CURT NEWTON bowed to them. Lura Lind inspected him with scornful blue eyes, and then spoke to Lewis with strident resentment.
    “If you think I’m going to play opposite a rabbity clerk who’ll spoil all my scenes, you’re crazy,” she told the