Captain Future 04 - The Triumph of Captain Future (Fall 1940) Read Online Free Page A

safety. He constantly had made discoveries that unscrupulous men coveted. To escape them, Newton and his young wife had fled for refuge to the barren, airless Moon. They had taken with them the living brain that had once been Simon Wright.
    Roger Newton and the Brain dreamed of creating intelligent living beings. In the laboratory home they built beneath Tycho crater on the Moon, the two scientists labored toward that goal. They succeeded. They first created Grag, the intelligent metal robot and then Otho, the synthetic man. At almost the same time, Curt himself was born.
    Curt was still an infant when his parents were murdered by the unscrupulous plotters who had followed them to the Moon. The Brain, Grag and Otho swiftly avenged the murders. And as she lay dying, Curt’s mother had left the helpless infant in their care.
    The unhuman three reared Curt to manhood on the lonely Moon. It was the strangest boyhood and youth any man ever had. Besides they gave him the most exhaustive education conceivable. He learned scientific secrets from the Brain until he surpassed his teacher in scientific wizardry. He was taught swiftness and skill and cunning by Otho the android. His strength and powers of endurance were carefully fostered by the giant Grag.
    Thus Curt Newton reached manhood. He was a man such as the System had never seen before. His strength, speed and endurance were unmatched by those of any other human being. He knew a dozen sciences more thoroughly than any specialist. He had roamed the spaceways of the System since boyhood, daring all the perils of the far worlds with his three unhuman tutors. In the hardest manner possible, he learned the languages and dangers of the remotest worlds, asteroids and moons.
    Curt Newton saw then the work that could make best use of his amazing abilities. The System peoples needed a defender against evilly ambitious men who were making use of the expanding powers of science to further their own unscrupulous purposes. A champion was needed who could more than match such scientific criminals. Curt Newton, remembering how his parents had died, had resolved to become that champion.
    So was born — Captain Future!
    When Curt had first flown to Earth from his lonely lunar home and offered his services to the President, he had called himself by that name. The name was now famous from Mercury to Pluto. Time after time, Captain Future and the Futuremen had come from their home on the Moon in answer to the President’s call, to do battle with criminal men who wrongly used their scientific powers. And time after time, Curt and his comrades had, by sheer scientific wizardry and daring, beaten down such evil plotters.
    “We can’t always win,” Curt thought, again as he stared at Earth. Then he grinned. “But it’s a great game while it lasts.”
     
    SEVERAL hours later, the Comet screamed down through the darkness toward the blazing lights of New York, on the right side of Earth. Curt had not stopped at their Moon home. The emergency must certainly be vital.
    He headed the little ship toward the looming spire of Government Tower and landed it neatly on the truncated summit. Only two ships were allowed to land there — that of the President, and the Comet belonging to Captain Future.
    “Come along,” Curt said quickly. “Bring Simon, Grag.”
    They hurried down the private stair that led to the President’s office. The people in that office set in on alarm. Curt instantly recognized the President, Halk Anders, Ezra Gurney and Joan Randall.
    These four people, in turn, uttered relieved exclamations. They beheld the strange quartet — the tall, red-haired, young wizard of science, the metal robot, carrying the Brain, the lithe android.
    “Saw your signal, sir,” Curt said quickly to the President. “Hello, Joan, Ezra.”
    “You’re a darned welcome sight, Cap’n Future,” declared Ezra Gurney. “We’re in the devil of a mess, I sure don’t mind tellin’ you.”
    Joan’s brown