Read Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950) for Free Online Page A

The air was filled with raging howls and flying girders and rivets as the Machs hammered each other.
    We skirted wide around the melee and I led the way over the planet-lit plain in the direction I had seen my space-sled carried away.
    “They’ll have put it with your own flier,” I told Gordon by our suit-communics.
    My brain was aching badly from the over-stimulation of actinium energy. My limbs were shaky. All I wanted to do was never to see this moon again.
    We found the space-sled and the flier. The Machs had tucked them into a cleft near the ore-beds. I was vastly relieved to find Eek still cringing in a corner of the space-sled.
    The little fellow greeted me with frantic joy.
    I told Gordon, “Now get out of here and see that you keep quiet about all this if you don’t want to be arrested for your unauthorized experiments.”
    “If I get safely back to Earth I never want to hear cybernetics mentioned again!” he said hoarsely.
    “Especially,” I told him emphatically, “don’t mention anything I did here. If you were to tell tales about me I wouldn’t like it!” And I flexed my hands meaningly, glaring at him.
    “Don’t worry, I won’t give you away — I mean, I won’t tell of your brilliant stratagem,” he assured me hastily.
    I saw him off in his flier, then took off in my own space-sled. I flew low over the work-base and looked down.
    The battle was over. The Machs had succeeded in battering each other to pieces and there was only a great scrap-heap of twisted girders, plates, treads and wheels.
    I zoomed out away from Dis, pointed the space-sled toward Earth and opened the power wide. Then I sat, with Eek nestled beside me, and waited for my brain to stop aching.
    When I finally walked into the Moon-laboratory, Curt and Otho and Simon stared at me in wonder. I hadn’t been able to smooth out the many dents and scars in my body and I knew how battered I looked.
    “What in the name of the moon-imps happened to y ou!” Otho demanded.
    I answered with dignity, “I have just gone alone through a terrible danger. Of course that wouldn’t worry you.”
    Curt asked, “Whatever happened, did it help your complexes any?”
    “Yes, it did,” I answered. “I am glad to say that my dangerous psychosis is all gone.”
    I added, “You see, those Machs had run completely wild. I was obliged to use physical force upon them and I’m sorry to say that I practically demolished them all. New Machs will have to be built but the old ones were thoroughly unreliable anyway.”
    “You demolished a crowd of Machs?” Otho cried. “Oh, no!”
    “If you don’t believe me go out to Dis and see for yourself,” I retorted.
    Captain Future nodded. “Of course — and the necessity of dominating those simple Machs would rid you of your inferiority complex.”
    I avoided his eye. “Yes,” I said. “That’s about it.”
    But later, when we were alone, Curt demanded, “Now tell me what really happened, Grag!”
    I said, worriedly, “I would but if Otho should overhear —”
    “I understand,” he nodded. “You write it up for our case-book. I’ll guarantee to keep Otho from ever seeing your report.”
    So I have written it. And I hope Curt’s promise holds good. For if Otho ever reads this my life won’t be worth living!
     
    THE END
     

Meet the Futuremen!
     
    In this department, which is a regular feature of CAPTAIN FUTURE, we acquaint you further with the companions of CAPTAIN FUTURE whom you have met in our complete book-length novels. Here you are told the off-the-record stories of their lives and anecdotes plucked from their careers. Follow this department closely, for it contains many interesting and fascinating facts to supplement those you read in our featured novels.
     

     
    Captain Future Trails the Chameleon
    From the Fall 1942 issue of Captain Future
     
    How the World’s Greatest Space-Farer Met Defeat in His Battle of Wits With a Wily Space Thief!
     
    WHENEVER men of the System talk