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

eyes were shining with pleasure as she greeted the tall, rangy planeteer she had helped in several of his past cases.
    “We’ve been helpless against the horrible, mysterious trade that’s going on, Captain Future,” she cried impulsively. “This Lifewater traffic —”
    “Lifewater?” Curt’s brows met. “What’s that?”
    “It’s a dreadful poison that’s spreading over the System, Captain Future,” President Carthew answered haggardly.
    Carthew rapidly told of the mysterious traffic that had begun months before. He explained the strange Lifewater which could make aging people temporarily young again. But he told how it also made them addicts of the insidious elixir of rejuvenation.
    Curt’s gray eyes narrowed as he and the Futuremen listened. Joan and the others were watching him with eager hope.
    “So the Planet Police can’t break up the syndicate that’s selling the deadly stuff,” Carthew finished. “They can’t find the heart of this deadly web, the source of the poison.”
    “We’ve learned that the man at the head of the syndicate is called the Life-lord,” Joan put in. “But who is he? On what world does he have his headquarters?
    Where does he get the Lifewater? We can’t find any of that out.”
    Captain Future’s tanned face went hard. He was feeling the cold bitter anger that always arose in him when he crossed the trail of those who dared to use scientific secrets for evil purposes.
    The Lifewater traffic was the most abominable, vicious traffic he had ever encountered. Playing upon the wistful desire of aging people for youth disgusted him. He was horrified by the callous promise of rejuvenation, which made them hopeless slaves of the mysterious elixir.
    He turned to the Brain.
    “This Lifewater, Simon. Could it tie up with the Fountain legend?”
    “I was thinking of that,” rasped the Brain. “It’s possible, lad, though the Fountain has usually been considered only a myth.”
    “What are you referring to, Captain Future?” the President asked bewilderedly. “What’s this Fountain you mention?”
    “Since the first days of space travel, there have been legends all over the System. Every race mentions a wonderful Fountain of Life that’s supposed to exist on some world. The Fountain pours forth waters that presumably have the power of renewing youth. Haven’t you ever heard that story?”
    “Say, I’ve heard it, though I’d forgotten it!” Ezra gurney declared suddenly. When I was a boy and first went to space, lots of people still believed the story. Crazy dreamers were always going off to search for the Fountain of Life.”
    Curt nodded. “That’s the story. Some believed the Fountain of Life was on Mars, others that it was on Saturn, or Neptune, or Pluto. Nearly everyone now considers the tale a myth. But suppose it isn’t a myth? Suppose someone actually found the Fountain of Life, and that it is the source of this poisonous Lifewater?”
    “It seems incredible that an old legend like that could be true,” Joan Randall said wonderingly. “Yet if it is —”
    “Let’s have a look at Webber’s body,” Captain Future interrupted. “We should learn something from the body of a man who suddenly aged and died when the temporary effect of the Lifewater expired.”
    The President led him to the covered corpse in the corner. Curt bent over it.
    “Bring Simon here, Grag.”
    The gray eyes of Captain Future and the glass lens eyes of the Brain keenly inspected the withered cadaver of Wilson Webber.
    Otho and Grag had bent over the pitiful corpse, too. The others in the room maintained a silence that had a quality of awe, as they watched the four strange comrades working together in their quick, sure way.
    “Looks like the Lifewater’s effect was to step up the rate of his body’s metabolism tremendously,” Curt muttered. “As a human body ages, its metabolic processes slow down, weakening the body. I believe the Lifewater’s effect is to accelerate the