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

red head slowly.
    “It’s always been considered theoretically possible that if the frequency of atomic vibration of an object or man were stepped up higher than the frequency of ordinary matter, that object or man could pass through ordinary matter, just as two electric signals of different frequency can pass through the same wire at the same time.”
    “But if that were the case, he would sink right down through the ground to the center of gravity of the planet!” Otho objected.
     
    IMPATIENTLY, Captain Future shook his head.
    “Not if he set his gravity equalizer at zero. And he could use reactive force-push of some kind to achieve that gliding lateral motion. Of course, he couldn’t breathe ordinary air, but inside that suit would be an air-supply whose atomic frequency would be changed along with his body.”
    “But how could he talk, and see, and hear us?” Otho wanted to know.
    “That I can’t understand yet myself,” Captain Future admitted ruefully. “The whole thing embodies a science that is not human science. No Earthman scientist has ever yet achieved such a vibration set-up.”
    “Then where did he get the secret, and the secret of the evolutionary horror?” the android demanded. “There’s supposed to have been a great civilization on Jupiter in the dim past. Now there’s nothing here now but these half-civilized Jovians who have no science. Do you think the Space Emperor could be a Jovian?”
    Curt shook his head. He felt baffled, for the moment. The sinister mystery around the dark plotter had deepened.
    And his pride in his scientific knowledge had received a bad blow. He had run up against someone who apparently possessed scientific secrets beyond even his own attainments.
    “We’ve got to find out who the Space Emperor is before we can even hope to get him,” he declared. He looked at Otho. “You can make up as a Jovian, can’t you?”
    Otho stiffened.
    “You know there isn’t a planetary being in the System I can’t disguise myself as, when I want to,” he boasted.
    “Then go ahead and assume Jovian disguise,” Curt said quickly, “and go back into the crowded quarter. Mingle with the Jovians there. Try to find out what they know about the Space Emperor, and above all, if he is a Jovian or an Earthman.”
    Otho nodded understandingly.
    “Shall I come back here if I learn anything?”
    “No, report back to the Comet,” Curt ordered. “I’m going to the Governor. There’s a lead there somewhere to the Space Emperor. For the Governor, remember, would be the only person here notified that we were coming to Jupiter — and yet the Space Emperor knew of our coming and set an ambush for us!”
    In surprisingly few minutes, Otho had shed the disguise of Orris and had assumed the likeness of a native Jovian.
    The android had used the oily chemical spray to soften the synthetic flesh of his face, hands and feet. Then he had molded his head and features into the round head and flat, circular-eyed face of a Jovian, and his hands, and feet into the flipper-like extremities of the planetary natives.
    He smeared green pigment from his make-up pouch smoothly over all his body. A skillful hunching of his rubbery figure gave him the squat appearance of a Jovian. And finally, he donned one of the black leather harnesses hanging beside the zipper-suits on the wall of the cabin. Earthmen often wore those scanty harnesses in the damp, hot jungles of Jupiter, for the sake of coolness and freedom.
    When Otho spoke, it was in the soft, slurred bass voice of a Jovian.
    “Will I pass?” he asked Curt.
    Captain Future smiled.
    “I wouldn’t recognize you myself,” he said. “Get going, and watch yourself.”
    Otho slipped out of the cabin, and was gone. In a moment, Curt emerged also into the moonlit night.
    The red-headed space-farer strode rapidly toward the silvered metal mass of buildings of the city, heading toward the central section where was located the seat of colonial