Captain Future 05 - Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones (Winter 1941) by Edmond Hamilton Page A

flesh that covered his metal head now made him look like a blank-faced, dark-spectacled giant.
    He avoided the bright central region of the Venusian city and kept to the quieter, darker streets of beautiful white cement homes and dark, fragrant gardens. The scent of exquisite flowers mingled with the faint tang of the sea and the strong, rank breath from the great inland marshes. The marsh smell made Grag think of Captain Future, somewhere in the swamps on his dangerous mission.
    Grag worried constantly about Curt Newton. To the robot, Curt was still the impish, redheaded little boy he had helped to educate on the Moon.
    They passed the edge of the spaceport, a vast lighted tarmac rimmed by busy docks in which reared the high hulls of ships from all the nine worlds. Grag approached the adjoining field, where the Interplanetary Circus had pitched its pavilions. The circus traveled from world to world in its own space ships, which were docked at the edge of the field. Grag saw that most of the ships were ponderous Cruh-Cholo freighters, though there was one twenty-man Rissman cruiser that looked fast.
    Flaring krypton lights illuminated the pavilions of the circus. These pavilions were conical, made of thin sections of light, strong metal that could readily be unbolted and stacked away inside the big Cruh-Cholo freighters for the trip to the next world. Grag trudged toward the little pavilion marked “Office of the Proprietor.” A thin, blue Saturnian looked up as Grag entered.
    “What do you want?” the Saturnian demanded suspiciously, eying Grag’s seven-foot figure and stupid face.
    “You the boss of this circus?” Grag demanded loudly.
    “Yes, I’m Jur Nugat, proprietor and manager,” snapped the Saturnian. “And I’m a busy man, too.”
    Grag struck his breast with his free hand.
    “Me, I’m the Strong Man of Space! I’m the strongest man in the whole System, bar none. You think anybody’s stronger, you bring ‘em on. I’ll break ‘em in half!”
     
    JUR NUGAT looked annoyed at Grag’s boasting.
    “You may be strong as a Jovian stamper, but why bother me about it?”
    “You want a good strong man for your circus, huh?” Grag demanded, his blank, pink face never changing expression. “You hire me, and you got the best strong man in the business. Steelite bars or logs of swampwood — I can break ‘em all in half!”
    Jur Nugat shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t use you.”
    “You mean you think I’m no good? Why, I’ll break you in half!” He started forward menacingly. Jur Nugat hastily skipped back.
    “Wait a minute!” bleated the Saturnian. “I can’t use you, but maybe the side-show that travels with us can. Go over and see Ul Quorn.”
    Grag appeared to hesitate.
    “All right, I go. This fellow Quorn better hire me, or I’ll break him in half.”
    As Grag stalked away, carrying the Brain’s machine, he heard Jur Nugat muttering behind him:
    “Damned if he hasn’t got breaking things in half on his brain!”
    Grag chuckled. “Didn’t I put it over, Simon? It would be swell if we could get right into Quorn’s show.”
    “Quorn will be a harder customer to fool,” the Brain rasped in a low tone. “Don’t overdo it.”
    Grag threaded his way between the smaller pavilions. Toiling roustabouts, a motley crew from all nine planets, were sweating to bolt on the last metal sections. A Jovian stamper, huge, round-headed, elephantine brown beast, had been brought to push a cage into place. Calls and cries in a half-dozen interplanetary languages split the night. The roars of caged beasts being unloaded from the big Cruh-Cholo menagerie-ship were deafening. Grag strode in stupid placidity through the uproar, toward the pavilion of the “Congress of Nine World Wonders.”
    The freak-show of Ul Quorn was already prepared for the next night’s performance. Grag strode past it to the small private office of Ul Quorn, outside which a cadaverous gray Neptunian was lounging.
    “That must be