Captain Future 27 - Birthplace of Creation (May 1951)

by Edmond Hamilton

  A DESTRUCTIVE PET

  Captain Future was interested. “Then the moon-hounds must communicate with each other telepathically. I never thought of that, but it’s quite logical, when you think of it, that they’d evolve such a faculty on a soundless world.”

  Grag’s discovery enabled him to complete the taming of Eek in short order. The little moon-pup appeared able to sense Grag’s mental commands, even at a comparatively great distance. And Grag was inordinately proud of his accomplishments, and of Eek’s devotion to him.

  Unfortunately, Eek still retained his worst vice, that of eating up any scrap of metal upon which he could fasten his teeth. He preferred silver and copper, but would take anything that was metallic. Time after time, he wreaked havoc by his uncontrollable appetite.

  What was even more unfortunate, Eek always seemed to choose Otho’s weapons, instruments and various other metal possessions for his depredations. The android reached a higher pitch of indignation with each new foray.

  “Grag is doing it!” Otho accused. “He’s putting the idea into that moon-pup’s head to gnaw at my belongings.”

  “I’ve done nothing of the kind,” Grag declared. “You’re always picking on Eek.”

  Their arguments raged incessantly. And finally, Eek capped the climax.

  EEK’S LAST CHANCE

  The Futuremen had to make a rush trip to Venus, and during their absence, Grag left his pet locked in a storeroom with an ample supply of ore-bearing rock for food. But apparently, it had not been ample enough for Eek.

  When they returned, they discovered that during their absence Eek had gnawed through the cement wall of the room, got into the main laboratory, and eaten most of the copper parts of their biggest cyclotron. When they entered, the moon-pup was found sprawled beside the ruined cyc in an unparalleled state of intoxication.

  “That settles it,” Captain Future declared with finality. “Eek has got to go.”

  Grag made a desperate appeal.

  “Give him one more chance, chief. I can break him of this habit, in a little more time.”

  Curt relented a little.

  “Grag, I’ll give you one more month. If by that time, Eek hasn’t reformed, he’s definitely leaving.”

  “I’ll work every minute of that month, training him,” Grag said earnestly.

  HALL OF ENEMIES

  But chance, and the machinations of a certain powerful interplanetary criminal, destined otherwise.

  The criminal in question was Cole Romer, the Earthman whose amazing plot to bluff the System into a reign of terror broke that very day. The call for the Futuremen’s aid came within the next two hours.

  When they answered that urgent call for help, Grag took Eek with them in the Comet. But in the days of extreme hardship, danger and struggle that followed, he had no chance to give Eek any attention.

  The course of that struggle of the Futuremen with Cole Romer has been described elsewhere. The climax of that great duel came on one of the moons of Pluto, where Cole Romer’s forces captured the Futuremen.

  Romer maintained upon that moon what he called his Hall of Enemies. It was a room of his stronghold in which were several dozens of hermetically-sealed glassite cases. In each case sat one of Cole Romer’s captives — paralyzed in strange suspended animation by a subtle gas which froze the metabolism of every living cell, holding them in living death.

  Into this dreaded Hall of Enemies, Cole Romer brought the captured Futuremen and Joan Randall. Each of them was thrust into one of the glassite cases. Each case was hermetically sealed, and then the freezing-gas was released in each.

  A LIVING CORPSE

  Curt Newton, Joan, Simon and Otho, became so many living statues. Sitting there in the prisoning case, Captain Future was unable to move a muscle. Even his breathing was halted, his whole body’s metabolism paralyzed. He could only stare straight ahead, like the others. And the most horrible feature was that, he was still fully conscious.

  Cole Romer laughed as he left them.

  “It’s worse than death, isn’t it, Future?” he taunted. “You will sit like that, unchanging, for years and years.”

  The misery of their fate was enough to bring madness to a lesser man. Never, in all his hazardous career, had Captain Future been caught in a predicament that seemed so hopeless.

  He could not even turn his head. He could only stare fixedly across the shadowy, silent Hall of Enemies whose only other occupants were the other frozen, conscious captives, each in his own sealed case.

  Nor was there hope from outside. Romer’s forces ruled this moon. Grag had been disabled and left for dead by the criminal’s men. He lay on the floor, his electrical “nerves” severed by an atom-blast.

  Hours went by in which Captain Future fought off madness. Then, he saw a small, gray creature creep fearfully into the shadowy Hall.

  SKEPTICAL MOON-DOG

  It was Eek. The moon-pup, lonely for Grag, had followed them to this place. Eek now pawed distressedly at the unconscious robot.

  Captain Future had a wild idea. “That moon-pup! It might help —”

  Curt only had one power left — the power of thought. He used it now.

  He knew that Grag could give Eek telepathic orders. He tried it now himself, projecting a concentrated thought at the moon-pup.

  “Here, Eek!” he thought. “Come here!”

  The moon-pup turned and looked at him. Then it came doubtfully over to the glassite case in which Captain Future sat rigidly frozen.

  Curt hurled another thought at the strange little creature. “There is silver in the wall of this case, Eek. Silver!”

  Now if there was one metal that Eek loved even better than copper as food, it was silver. The beady eyes of the moon-pup glistened, and he advanced and sank his teeth into the corner of the glassite case.

  He retreated a moment later, and spat out a mouthful of broken chips of glassite. He looked up at Captain Future reproachfully.

  Curt redoubled his telepathic effort. “You did not bite deep enough to get the silver, Eek!” he thought. “Bite deeper! You will find luscious silver, all you can eat!”

  A little distrustfully now, Eek again advanced and started chewing on the corner of the case. His jewel-hard teeth gnawed into the glassite.

  Again, after a few moments, he turned away. And this time he turned his back on Captain Future, with the injured air of one who had been deceived.

  TO THE RESCUE

  But his teeth had penetrated the thick glassite wall of the case, this time! The freezing-gas started to escape singingly through the tiny aperture. And as it escaped, and was replaced by air, Captain Future felt life come back into his paralyzed limbs.

  In a minute more, he was breaking out of the case and freeing the others. Swiftly, they repaired Grag’s severed nerves and brought the robot back to life.

  By the time their captors received the alarm, the Futuremen had freed all the other prisoners in the Hall of Enemies. And the battle that followed sealed the doom of Cole Romer.

  Not until after that climactic struggle, did Curt Newton have time to relate to Grag how Eek had freed them. And Grag seemed to swell with pride when he heard.

  APPLAUSE FOR EEK

  “Didn’t I tell you Eek was smart?” Grag cried. “You won’t make me give him up now, will you, chief?”

  Curt shook his head. “Grag, Eek is a pest. He’s a thief, a drunk, and a good bit of a coward. But, for what he did today, Eek gets my okay for life.”

  Otho groaned. “Do you mean that I’ll have to put up with that miserable little critter from now on? Life won’t be worth living.”

  “Otho is merely jealous because he doesn’t have a pet like Eek,” Grag commented loftily.

  Otho swore. “When I get myself a mascot, it’ll be one that has a few brains — and one that will be able to beat Eek into a pulp!”

  How Otho carried out that promise, and how the advent of his mascot Oog brought complications, is another story. That lay in the futur
e. For the present, Grag was at last completely happy. Eek had justified himself.

  THE END

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