Captain Future 11 - The Comet Kings (Summer 1942) Read Free Page A

bomb.
    “Don’t touch it, Chief — it may let go any minute!” the big robot cried. “Somebody must have put it in the ship while we were out.”
    Captain Future moved swiftly toward the bomb, snatched it up and tore open the airlock door to throw the thing out. But the “bomb” suddenly writhed and changed form in his hands.
    It changed with swift protean flow of outline, into a small, living animal. It was a doughy-looking little white beast, with big, solemn eyes that looked up innocently at Curt.
    “It’s my pet, Oog!” cried Otho. He jumped forward in alarm. “Don’t throw him out!”
    Curt disgustedly tossed the little animal to its master.
    “It isn’t his fault,” Otho said protectively. “You know Oog loves to imitate anything he sees. That’s his nature.”
    Oog was cuddling contentedly in his master’s arms. The little beast was a meteor-mimic, a species of asteroidal creature which had developed the art of protective coloration to great lengths. This species had the power of shifting its bodily cells to shape itself after any model, and completely controlled its own pigmentation. It could imitate anything.
    “I don’t mind your keeping the little nuisance around in the Moon-laboratory, but I told you not to bring any pets in this ship,” Captain Future bawled out the android.
    “Well, Grag brought along his pet, Eek, and so I thought I had a right to bring Oog,” Otho answered defensively.
     
    CURT uttered an exasperated snort. “So we’ve got Eek along, too? Where is he, Grag?”
    Reluctantly the great robot opened a cabinet and released another small animal, but one of a different species. It was a little gray, bearlike creature with beady black eyes and powerful jaws, now contentedly gnawing upon a small scrap of copper.
    Eek, as Grag called this pet of his, was a moon-pup. He was a member of the strange species of moon-dogs that inhabited the airless satellite of Earth. These creatures did not breathe air or eat ordinary food, but nourished their strange tissues by devouring metal or metallic ores. They were strongly telepathic, that being one of their chief senses.
    “Look at the beast — he’s chewed up half the copper instruments in that cabinet,” Curt said bitterly. “Why the devil did you bring him along?”
    Grag shifted uncomfortably.
    “Well, Chief, I had to do it. Eek can sense what people are thinking, you know, and he knew we were going and was upset about being left behind. He’s a sensitive little fellow.”
    “Sensitive? That walking four-legged nuisance? All he knows is to eat up valuable metal and to sleep,” Curt said witheringly.
    Simon Wright had paid no attention to the altercation over the pets. The Brain was too accustomed to such arguments to notice them. “Curtis, I want you to look at these figures,” he said.
    Curt went over to the side of the Brain, who was poised uncannily upon his pale tractor-beams above the mass of calculations. The brain had been marking small crosses upon a space-chart that showed the quadrant between the orbits of Jupiter and Uranus, ahead of them.
    “Each cross represents where one of the spaceships vanished, as nearly as I can figure it,” the Brain explained. Captain Future felt dismayed as he looked. The pattern of crosses was not focused around any one point. It extended in a long, strung-out oval, reaching almost from Uranus’ orbit to that of Jupiter.
    “I can’t understand this,” Curt muttered puzzledly. “I thought the ships would all have disappeared in the same part of space, and that by going there we could find the key to the mystery. But since that isn’t so, it means we’ll have to search the whole vast quadrant for a clue.”
    “I fear so, lad,” admitted the Brain. “And a search of such dimensions will take us weeks.”
    Curt went discouragedly back to the pilot chair. Gloomily he stared into the enormous, star-specked void ahead of the flying ship. It yawned empty to the eye, except for the