Captain Future 02 - Calling Captain Future (Spring 1940) Read Free Page B

bearlike animal. “That damned moon-pup pet of his has eaten up one of my best pistols!”
     
    GRAG, the robot, cuddled the little gray moon-pup protectively with a great metal hand. “It’s not Eek’s fault, master,” he told Captain Future in loud indignation. “Eek was hungry — and he loves copper.”
    “Either that moon-pup leaves here or I leave!” stormed the android. “The beast eats any metal it can get its paws on — and when it gets hold of some precious metal, it gets howling drunk on it! It’s got a lot of other habits that make it a pest. It was crazy of Grag to catch the cursed thing and make a tame pet of it.”
    “We humans like to have pets,” the robot defended.
    “Otho does not understand, master, because he is not human like us.”
    “Not human like you?” Otho howled furiously. “Why, you walking machine-shop, anyone can see that I’m a flesh-and-blood human while you’re nothing but a clever mechanism! If I —”
    “Now don’t start that argument again!” Captain Future interrupted hastily. “I’ve heard enough of it.”
    “Aye, and so have I,” rasped Simon Wright, the Brain, his lens-eyes dourly surveying the two disputants. “You two are always arguing about which is the most human. And I, who really was human once, can tell you that it’s nothing worth arguing about.”
    “Simon is right,” Curt Newton said severely. “Every time you two have any time on your hands, you start scrapping with each other, and I’m getting tired of it.”
    Despite his severity of tone, there was a fond twinkle of affection in the gray eyes of the big red-headed scientific adventurer, as he surveyed the robot and the android and the Brain.
    These were the Futuremen, the loyal trio of comrades who had fought and sailed around the whole System with him! These three weird comrades of his, un-human in form yet superhuman in abilities, had stood at his side in more than one great struggle out in the solar spaces. And, furthermore, the three had reared Curt Newton from babyhood to manhood, in this very cavern home on the Moon.
    Twenty-five years before, Captain Future’s parents had come secretly to the moon. Roger Newton was a young Earth biologist who dreamed a great dream. He hoped to create life — artificial, intelligent living creatures who could serve mankind. But his work was in danger. Certain ambitious men coveted his scientific discoveries and tried to steal them.
    Roger Newton had decided to seek refuge on the wild, uninhabited Moon. He had sailed secretly in a small rocket for the Moon. And with him had gone his young wife, Elaine, and his loyal co-worker and assistant, Simon Wright — the Brain.
    Simon Wright had been a famous, aging scientist who was about to die of incurable disease. Newton had by brilliant surgery removed Simon’s brain and transferred it into a special serum-case. Ever since, the Brain had been his most loyal friend.
    Newton and his young wife and the Brain had reached the Moon safely, and had built an underground home beneath Tycho Crater. There, soon after their arrival, a son was born to the man and woman — a boy whom they named Curtis. And there they began the work of creating artificial living creatures.
     
    GRAG, the robot, was the first creature created by Roger Newton and the Brain. Their second creation was not of metal but of synthetic plastic flesh molded into a manlike android — Otho, the synthetic man. These two artificial creatures, intelligent, strong faithful, showed Roger Newton that he had at last realized his dream.
    Then disaster struck. The evil plotters who coveted Newton’s scientific secrets had trailed him to the Moon. There was a fight — and Roger Newton and his young wife were slain, before the robot and the synthetic man killed the murderers.
    Dying, Elaine Newton entrusted her infant son to the care of the three unhuman creatures, Brain, robot and android. She begged them to rear him to manhood and implant in him a