Captain Future 25 - Moon of the Unforgotten (January 1951) Read Free Page A

the Europans’ viewpoint.
    Otho nodded. “The trap could be at the other end. These beasts have been there before. They must know the way without being guided.”
    “One thing sure,” said Captain Future, “they’ll have to stop us somewhere.”
    The old man lifted the heavy bar of the gate.
    The paddock was not too large for the herd of twenty or so Europan mounts that it contained. They were huddled together, drowsing in the Jupiter-light — serpentine scaly creatures with powerful legs and tails like wire lashes. Their narrow heads were crowned with fleshy yellow combs. They blinked and peered at the men with shining wicked eyes as red as coals.
    “Take your choice,” said the old Europan, standing by the gate.
    Curt and Otho went forward with the bridles.
     
    AT THEIR approach the beasts hissed softly and backed away. Their padded feet made a nervous thumping on the ground. Curt spoke softly but the herd began to shift.
    “I don’t think they like the smell of us,” said Otho.
    Curt reached out swiftly and caught one golden comb. The creature plunged and whistled as he fitted the rude bridle. Then suddenly from behind them there came the clang of the gate-bar dropping and he knew that there would be no waiting for the silence of the dark hills, that this, here and now, was the trap — and that they were in it.
    Otho had spun around, holding his bridled mount. He was cursing the old man. Curt kept his grip on his unwilling mount, turning with it to keep clear of the clawed forefeet. The paddock walls were high, worn smooth as glass by the rubbing of many flanks. There was no escape that way.
    The herd was stirring uneasily, moving with a hiss and flickering of scaly tails, a quivering of muscles. Curt cried out a warning to Otho but it was already too late.
    A makeshift torch of flaming rags whirled in over the gate, leaving a trail of oily smoke. Curt heard the old man’s voice lifted in a cracked Hai-hai, urgent, shrill. A second wad of burning cloth shot in, dropping in the middle of the herd with a burst of sparks. Instantly there was brute panic, pent up and turned upon itself by the paddock walls.
    Plunging, trampling, screaming, the penned beasts tried to flee the smoke and the stinging fire. Curt’s mount reared and dragged him and he clung to its comb with the grip of a man who knows he is lost if he lets go. He dug his heels into the dusty ground, twisted the brute’s head until its neck-bones cracked and leaped up, clamping his legs around the slender belly.
    Dimly through the dust and turmoil he saw Otho. An ordinary man would have been trampled to death in those first seconds. But Otho was not a man. Swift, sure-footed, incredibly strong, the android had imitated Curt’s example and had swung himself to the back of his plunging mount, getting an iron grip on its comb.
    It was only temporary escape. The maddened beasts had turned to fighting among themselves. Curt knew it was only a matter of time and not much of it before his creature would fall or be thrown. The paddock was a swirling madness of leaping bodies and tearing jaws and dust and noise. Nothing could stand for long in that.
    The old Europan remained beyond the gate. He held another of the makeshift torches in his hands, waving it slowly back and forth so that all the beasts shied away from the opening.
    A solemn proud fine-cut old man. Later he would be very sorry for this tragic accident. He would know nothing more than that two spacemen had drunk wine in the tavern and had then gone staggering in among the beasts and frightened them and been most regrettably slain.
    Even in that moment of fury Curt found time to wonder what strange madness drove these men — the madness of the mysterious Second Life that urged them to any length.
    He was trying to reach the gate when his mount stumbled over another that was down and kicking its life out in the dust and blood. He heard a wild yell from Otho and a commotion by the gate. The