Captain Future 01 - The Space Emperor (Winter 1940) by Edmond Hamilton

came a voice that rasped the fibers of Captain Future’s spine. It was not a human-sounding voice. It was more like the deep voice of a Jovian, yet instead of being soft and slurred it was heavy, strong, vibrating with power.
    “I’m here, yes,” the Space Emperor said. “Did you and Skeel succeed in killing Captain Future?”
    “We did better than that,” Otho said, with assumed pride. “We captured him and I brought him here — see!”
    Otho pointed toward the bunk upon which Curt Newton lay sprawled in apparent coma.
    “Skeel was killed in the fight,” Otho went on, “but I got Captain Future, all right. I gave him a shot of somnal to keep him quiet, and brought him here for you.”
    “You fool!” came the deep voice of the Space Emperor, shaking now with rage. “Why did you not kill him out there at once? Don’t you know that this Captain Future is deadly dangerous as long as he is alive?”
    The Space Emperor advanced a little in his rage, his dark figure not walking but moving with a queer, smooth glide across the metal floor.
    Otho, pretending to shrink aside in fear, edged slowly to get between the dark visitant and the door.
    “I thought you’d want him alive,” Otho was apologizing abjectly. “I can kill him now, if you want me to.”
    “Kill him, at once!” throbbed the Space Emperor’s voice. “This man has spoiled great plans before. He is not going to spoil mine!”
     
    CURT NEWTON had been gathering his muscles for action. Now, as the last word vibrated, the red-haired adventurer launched himself upward in a flying spring at his enemy! Straight at that dark, erect figure plunged Curt. He expected to knock the mysterious plotter to the floor, overcome him. But Curt received the greatest surprise of his life.
    For Captain Future felt himself plunge through the Space Emperor as though the latter did not exist! Just as though the Space Emperor were but an immaterial phantom, Curt hurtled through his solid-seeming body and crashed against the wall with stunning force.
    “So!” cried the criminal’s deep voice. “One of Captain Future’s traps!”
    Otho had charged in almost the same instant as Curt. And the disguised android also had plunged through the dark figure.
    Curt had his proton-pistol out, as the black form started to glide swiftly across the room. Astounded, dazed as he was by the incredible thing that had happened, Captain Future did not lose his presence of mind for a moment.
    He pulled trigger, and a pale thin beam lanced from the slender pistol toward the gliding dark figure.
    Curt’s proton-pistol was more deadly than any of the atomic flare-guns used by other men. It could be set either to stun or kill, and it was set to kill now. But its concentrated jet of protons merely drove through the Space Emperor without harming him in the least.
    “At last you meet someone with powers greater than your own, Captain Future!” the hidden voice taunted.
    The dark figure glided away. The solid-seeming shape passed through the solid metal wall. Then it was gone.
    Otho stood still, numbed by the incredible sight. But Captain Future leaped toward the door, galvanized into action.
    He burst out into the moon-shot darkness and swept the obscurity with his eyes. There was no sign of the Space Emperor. He had disappeared completely.
    “He got away, that devil!” Curt cried, anger and self-reproach flaring in his voice.
    “He wasn’t real at all!” Otho exclaimed dazedly. “He was only a shadow, a phantom!”
    “A phantom couldn’t talk and be heard!” Curt snapped. “He’s as real as you or I.”
    “But he came and went through the wall —” the android muttered bewilderedly.
    Captain Future’s tanned face frowned in thought, as he tried to comprehend his enemy’s secret.
    “I believe,” he announced, “that the Space Emperor is using some secret of vibration to make himself effectively immaterial whenever he wishes.”
    Otho stared.
    “Immaterial?”
    Curt nodded his