THE FUTUREMEN
COMPANIONS OF CAPTAIN FUTURE
A Complete Collection of the Original Pulp Department
CONTENTS:
"Meet the Futuremen!" .........................................................................................................1
No. 1 - The Metal Robot .....................................................................................................2
(from: "Captain Future - Wizard of Science", Issue 1, Winter 1940: "Captain Future and the Space
Emperor")
No. 2 - The Synthetic Man ..................................................................................................4
(from: "Captain Future - Wizard of Science", Issue 3, Summer 1940: "Captain Future's Challenge")
No. 3 - The Living Brain ....................................................................................................6
(from: "Captain Future - Wizard of Science", Issue 4, Fall 1940: "The Triumph of Captain Future")
No. 4 - Marshal Ezra Gurney ..............................................................................................8
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 5, Winter 1941: "Captain Future and the Seven
Space
Stones")
No. 5 - Joan Randall of the Planet Police .........................................................................10
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 6, Spring 1941: "Star Trail to Glory")
No. 6 - The Comet ............................................................................................................12
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 8, Fall 1941: "The Lost World of Time")
No. 7 - The Moon Laboratory ...........................................................................................15
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 9, Winter 1942: "Quest Beyond the Stars")
No. 8 - Captain Future's Boyhood ....................................................................................18
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 10, Spring 1942: "Outlaws of the Moon")
No. 9 - How Curt Newton Became Captain Future ..........................................................22
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 11, Summer 1942: "The Comet Kings")
No. 10 - Captain Future Trails the Chameleon ..................................................................26
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 12, Fall 1942: "Planets in Peril")
No. 11 - The Puzzling Case of the Space Queen ...............................................................30
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 13, Winter 1943: "The Face of the Deep")
No. 12 - The Birth of Grag ................................................................................................36
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 14, Spring 1943: "Worlds to Come")
No. 13 - Captain Future's Strangest Adventure .................................................................40
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 15, Summer 1943: "The Star of Dread")
No. 14 - The Metamorphosis of Simon Wright .................................................................44
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 16, Winter 1944: "Magic Moon")
No. 15 - The Amazing Creation of Otho ...........................................................................48
(from: "Captain Future - Man of Tomorrow", Issue 17, Spring 1944: "Days of Creation")
No. 16 - Otho Finds a Mascot ............................................................................................51
(from: "Startling Stories", Spring 1945: "The Red Sun of Danger")
No. 17 - Grag's Pet, The Moon-Pup ..................................................................................55
(from: "Startling Stories", Winter 1946: "Outlaw World")
1
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 novel. 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.
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 1 - The Metal Robot
RAG the robot is the largest and strongest of
Captain Future's three strange comrades. He is
probably the strongest being in the whole Solar
System.
G
He towers over seven feet in height, a massive, man-
like figure of gleaming "inert" metal.
This metal, being impervious to most forces and
weapons, has protected Grag from destruction many
times. Yet old scars show where his body-plates have
been broken and rewelded in the past.
IMBUED WITH INTELLIGENCE
Grag was built in the cavern-laboratory on the moon
by Roger Newton, Captain Future's father, and Simon
Wright, the Brain, according to an intricate design.
The robot was not designed to be merely an automa-
ton, but to have an intelligence and individuality of his
own.
His creators endowed him with a brain consisting of
metal neurones roughly corresponding to the neurone-
pattern of a human brain, though more simple. The
thought-impulses set up inside this metal brain are elec-
trical. Electrical and magnetic "nerves" control the
robot's great limbs.
ATOMIC POWER
Grag's source of energy is atomic power. A com-
pact, super-powerful plant is located deep within his
metal torso for safety. A small amount of metal fuel in-
serted into this power-plant inside his body is sufficient
to keep his strength for many months.
The metal robot can hear better than any human be-
ing, because bis microphonic ears are super-sensitive.
They enable him to hear sounds which are above or
below the range of human audibility, and Captain Fu-
ture has sometimes made use of this fact to communi-
cate through Grag with planetary creatures who talk in
tones beyond the range of human hearing.
Grag has an immense and unshakable loyalty to
Captain Future, which is his chief emotion.
The robot tended Curt Newton through his infancy,
and because Curt needed constant watching then, Grag
thinks that his master still needs watching over.
THE BRAIN'S HANDS
Toward Simon Wright, Grag feels respect and some
awe. For he knows that Simon helped create him.
Also he has long been accustomed to acting as the
Brain's hands, performing experiments and researches
under the Brain's direction.
But toward Otho, the android, Grag is deeply jeal-
ous. For the robot's great desire is to be thought of as
human or near-human. Grag has always been angry
when anyone has referred to him as a machine, or au-
tomaton. He feels that he is just like other humans, ex-
cept that his body is made of metal instead of flesh.
But Otho, who was also created by Captain Future's
father and the Brain, likes to taunt the big robot on that
point. Long ago Otho found out that the great, simple-
minded robot was most sensitive about his unhuman
appearance, and ever since then Otho has gibed about
it.
CAMARADERIE
Grag invariably becomes furious at these taunts. Yet
the bickering between these two comrades of Captain
Future is at bottom one of mischievous camaraderie.
Each of them has saved the life of the other, more than
once, in a tight spot.
Grag has been able to extricate his comrades from
more than one perilous situation, through his great
strength or through his special capabilities. One of the
2
No. 1
THE METAL ROBOT
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 1 - The Metal Robot
most valuable of the robot's abilities is that he requires
no breathing apparatus.
This has enabled him to go where neither Captain
Future nor Otho could venture.
One time on Venus, when Curt and Otho and Simon
Wright were all trapped in deadly peril, and could not
be reached in any other way, Grag had walked days un-
der an ocean, over the sea-floor, to reach the island
where they were imprisoned. The robot was nearly lost
many times in that perilous traverse, in constant danger
of sinking into the ooze at the bottom of the sea, but he
finally made it and brought help to his trapped com-
rades.
CAST ADRIFT
Another time, Grag was cast adrift in space when
outlaws destroyed the little space-flier in which he was
trying to reach his master on Saturn.
The great robot floated in space for many days,
helpless and yet still living, needing no food or a air,
and finally was picked up by Curt Newton. Only the
robot could have survived such an experience.
There is a great weld-scar down the back of Grag's
metal back, which tells a tale of an adventure that nei-
ther he nor his master will ever forget.
Captain Future had penetrated into one of the cav-
erns of Uranus' chasmed abysses, with Grag. The out-
laws Curt was after blew up the tunnel entrance to that
cave.
Captain Future would have been crushed beneath
falling rock had not Grag, with his superhuman
strength, held up the masses of falling stone until his
master could jump clear. Grag himself was crushed be-
neath the rock, but Captain Future dug him out later,
and the great weld-scar on his back is his memento of
the adventure.
NO SENSE OF HUMOR
Grag has no sense of humor, as humans know it. He
is puzzled sometimes by Curt's jokes or the sly drollery
of Otho. And that makes him uneasy, for the robot's
great ambition is to be human in everything.
His happiest moments have been when Captain Fu-
ture has told him, "Grag, you are more human than
most humans I know."
Huge, incredible in strength, his great metal head
towering high, his photoelectric eyes gleaming and his
mighty metal arms raised, Grag is a terrible figure to
evildoers when he goes into battle at the side of Captain
Future and Otho.
And woe betide the person whom Grag suspects of
trying to harm his master!
3
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 2 - The Synthetic Man
THO, the android or synthetic man, is the only
being of his kind in the Solar System. He is a
man who was never born, but was artificially
made!
O
In his natural form no one would mistake him for a
human being. For the android's arms and legs have a
rubbery, boneless look. His artificially created flesh is
pure white, not pink like human flesh. Otho's dead-
white face has no eyebrows or eyelashes, and there is
no hair whatever upon his well-shaped white head. In a
beltlike harness he carries his ray-pistols, make-up
pouch and other belongings.
Otho's face was carefully molded by his maker, Cap-
tain Future's father, before the final "setting" of his
flesh. The man-made features are regular, yet there is
something unusual about Otho's expression.
Like a cat's eyes, his jade-green orbs can see in dark-
ness. And there is a queer, alien humor, a gay, mocking
deviltry in the cool way in which they stare.
THE WORLD'S FASTEST BEING
When Roger Newton and the Brain planned Otho's
Creation, they modeled the synthetic man after the hu-
man body, but simplified the pattern. Otho has no ap-
pendix or other such superfluous organs which in the
human body are atrophied and useless. The android's
physical make-up is streamlined for efficiency. To
more than one Earthman, he has seemed almost diabol-
ic - for his ironic, twisted mental outlook occasionally
leads to strange results.
The skeleton around which the synthetic man's
flesh was molded is composed, not of rigid bones, but
of artificial bones that are many times stronger and so
flexible that they can be bent double without breaking.
This fact, and the great strength of his artificial muscle-
tissues, gives Otho his wonderful agility and speed. The
fact that he is a superman has alienated him from nor-
mal beings, and at times, through sheer loneliness, the
android will assume a human disguise and visit Earth
incognito.
The android can run faster, jump higher, and move
more quickly in an emergency than almost any other
creature in the System. It was Otho who taught Captain
Future speed and skill in the days when Curt Newton
was a boy upon the moon.
It was he who taught Curt the method of super ju-jit-
su which he had evolved, and which enables him to
overpower an ordinary man in a twinkling. But, though
Captain Future is capable of faster action than any oth-
er human in the System, he can't quite match the unhu-
man Otho.
Otho's body requires both air and food to maintain
its metabolism. He must breathe - but his lungs are ca-
pable of breathing air that is so poisonous it would kill
the average human.
While he can eat ordinary human food, the android
prefers to take his nutrition in the elementary form of
simple chemical elements. It saves time, and Otho is al-
ways in a hurry about something.
POWERS OF DISGUISE
Most famous of Otho's accomplishments is his pow-
er of disguise. By softening and re-setting his synthetic
flesh, and changing the stature and posture of his flexi-
ble-skeletoned body, Otho can make himself up to be
an exact double of anyone in the System, no matter
what planetary race he belongs to.
Otho's power of assuming disguises has been of vital
4
No. 2
THE SYNTHETIC MAN
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 2 - The Synthetic Man
aid to Captain Future many times. Perhaps Otho's great-
est feat of make-up was disguising himself as one of the
Mind Men of Saturn.
That strange race who inhabit a legendary land hid-
den far in the endless Great Plains of Saturn are mere
immobile and featureless balls of flesh outwardly,
though they possess minds of incalculable power and
can use mental force as a powerful weapon.
Otho, by his wizardry of make-up, succeeded in the
incredible feat of passing himself off as one of the
Mind Men for a whole day, in a desperate emergency.
The unhuman Otho loves danger for its own sake.
He is soon bored when there is a lack of excitement.
For the android has neither the superhuman patience of
Grag, the robot, nor the cold, austere detachment of the
Brain.
LOYALTY TO CAPTAIN FUTURE
Otho would go through fire and water for Captain
Future. To him, as to the other two Futuremen, the
chief purpose of life is loyalty to the young wizard of
science whom they three reared from a helpless infant.
But while he would carry out any mission that Curt
Newton ordered, Otho will generally, through sheer
boredom and recklessness try to stir up a little excite-
ment on the way, and that often gets him into trouble.
Once, while on a mission for Captain Future, Otho
went too far off his course to pursue a fleeing enemy,
and got himself wrecked and marooned on an asteroid
with a poisonous atmosphere. A human would have
been asphyxiated there, but Otho's impervious lungs
breathed the lethal air without great harm. But he had
tramped the little world for a month before Grag finally
found him. Otho had passed the time by constructing an
underground hide-out which later proved invaluable.
The unhuman android's queer, mocking humor is
one of his strongest characteristics. He never tries
chaffing the Brain - Otho has too vast a respect for that
brooding, icy-minded being. But Grag is the great butt
of his gibes. He long ago found out that Grag has no
sense of humor, and he has been deviling the great,
simple-minded robot ever since.
OTHO'S FEUD WITH GRAG
The chief subject of his taunts is Grag's unhuman-
ness. The big, naive robot wouldlike more than any-
thing else to be thought human. Nothing so pleases
Grag as the idea that he is almost as human as other
people.
But Otho denies that Grag is human with sly, decep-
tive casualness, he keeps pointing out that humans
breathe, and eat, and have flesh instead of metal bodies,
and that Grag has none of these abilities. This invari-
ably excites the indignation of the robot, and makes
him deny vociferously that Otho is human, either.
And that always provokes an argument, for Otho
loses his temper easily. Grag's customary retort is that
humans can't remold their bodies and faces as Otho
does, and that therefore Otho isn't human. The two have
disputed the question all over the System from Mercury
to Pluto - usually they get so bitter about it that Captain
Future or the Brain has to interfere.
Yet neither Grag nor Otho are as serious in their
quarreling as they seem. They may be shouting at the
tops of their voices, but let any danger suddenly come
up, and robot and android will instantly stop their dis-
pute and work side by side in perfect co-operation.
Each knows that the other has special abilities which
cannot be matched, and that are often needed in the
dangerous adventures into which Captain Future leads
them.
SEEKS EXCITEMENT AND DANGER
It is when they are outward bound in space with per-
il and new scenes ahead that Otho is happiest. On the
other hand, when they spend a long period in Captain
Future's laboratory-home on the moon, Otho finds it
boring. While Curt and the Brain are engaged in their
abstruse scientific researches, and while Grag busies
himself in the simpler work of the cavern-dwelling,
Otho will saunter discontentedly among the lunar
craters in his space-suit, and look up disconsolately at
the starry spaces and wish something would happen.
High-tempered and impatient, fierce and gay by
turns, excitement-craving and utterly fearless and abso-
lutely loyal, Otho the android is one of the most strik-
ing of the three Futuremen who companion Captain Fu-
ture in his perilous quests through solar spaces.
One very human attribute of the android is that he
can dream, and in his dreams he is always on Earth, for
which he has a fierce loyalty, outwardly he can scorn or
mock anything in the Universe - but inside his shell of
impervious irony is a mind more sensitive and some-
times more unhappy than any Earthman could possess.
5
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 3 - The Living Brain
IMON WRIGHT, known by repute to all the peo-
ples of the System as the Brain, is the oldest and
perhaps the strangest of the Futuremen. His
queer history goes back many years in the past.
S
In that past time, he was a normal man, Doctor Si-
mon Wright of a great Earth university. Acclaimed as
the greatest biologist who had ever lived, Simon had as
his goal the creation of intelligent life by artificial
means. He worked on it for decades, with all the bril-
liant power of his intellect.
Simon was already old when he discerned at the uni-
versity a young student who gave great promise of a bi-
ological career. This young man was named Roger
Newton - he was to be the father of Captain Future.
The aging Simon Wright took the young student as
his assistant, then as his colleague in the researches to
create artificial life. Newton had already made some
brilliant discoveries. The old scientist and the young
one now prepared to attack this supreme problem.
Then tragedy struck the elderly scientist. Simon
Wright discovered he was the victim of an ailment that
would definitely cause his death within a few months -
a blight contracted by a too reckless experiment with
microscopic creatures. He would die, and his mind
would perish without ever completing his great attempt
to create life.
THE BRAIN IS REBORN
Simon Wright decided that even though his body
must die, his mind, his brain, must not die. He proposed
to Roger Newton that his brain be transferred into a
special serum-case in which it could live and think and
work.
Newton recoiled from the idea at first. "To live as a
brain in a box, without any body? It would be too un-
canny!"
"No, Roger," the dying scientist told him. "I have
lived a full life already, as a normal man. My only in-
terest now is in keeping up my work, my researches.
And I could do that, as a living brain, without being
hampered by this dying body of mine. I would be happy
so!"
Roger Newton finally saw the force of the old scien-
tist's reasoning, and agreed to perform the remarkable
operation.
All the biological genius of both men went into the
preparation of the case in which Simon's brain was
henceforth to live. It was made of transparent, inde-
structible metal, so that the interior mechanisms could
be inspected at a glance.
In it were placed tiny, compact atomic pumps which
would pump the serum that would nourish the isolated
brain and carry away fatigue-poisons. Repurifiers were
installed to keep the serum always pure. An atomic
heating apparatus with thermostatic control automati-
cally would maintain a constant body temperature in-
side the case.
When all was ready, Roger Newton performed the
operation. Working rapidly, he lifted Simon's brain
from his skull and placed it in the serum-case. Quickly,
he connected to its optic nerves the electric connections
of the artificial lens-eyes in the front of the case, and to
other nerves the connections from the microphone-ears
and the resonator by which the Brain speaks.
Ever since, Simon Wright has lived as the Brain, in
the serum-case. He has many limitations, of course. He
can speak, through the power-operated resonator whose
control is connected to one of his motor-nerve centers.
Another motor-nerve control allows him to turn his
eyes in any direction, and focus them. But he cannot do
6
No. 3
THE LIVING BRAIN
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 3 - The Living Brain
anything else. He can't move himself about - Grag, or
Otho, or Captain Future himself has to carry the serum-
case by its attached handle.
But mentally, Simon is completely free. He can
read, or study, or observe, or think, without ever need-
ing rest or sleep. He never needs food. The only re-
freshment he ever takes is a certain stimulating vibra-
tion, which he has played upon him.
THE MASTER OF THE TRIO
When Simon wishes to make records, he dictates
them into a special recording-device. And when he
wishes to conduct one of his many scientific experi-
ments, he uses Grag or Otho to carry out the physical
work. Usually it is Grag who is his helper, for the great
robot can be trusted upon to obey orders with implicit
fidelity, whereas Otho will often get restless and try to
hurry things along.
Both Grag and Otho regard their fellow-Futureman,
the Brain, with profound respect. For it was Simon and
Roger Newton who created the robot and the android,
in the lunar laboratory to which they and Newton's
bride had fled for refuge. Neither Grag nor Otho ever
try chaffing the Brain - they know that he can silence
them with a few well-chosen words in his cold, rasping
metallic voice.
In fact, though he was once a human man, Simon of-
ten seems more unhuman than either Grag or Otho.
That is because to the Brain, the pursuit of knowledge
is almost the most important end of existence. He is
prone to lose himself in scientific abstractions and
overlook the practical necessities of the situation, until
awakened to realization by Captain Future.
All Simon's human feelings, indeed, seem wrapped
up in Captain Future. To him, Curt Newton is not only
the daring interplanetary adventurer famed all over the
System, he is also the child whom the three Futuremen
reared to manhood. No father could watch over Curt
more anxiously than does the Brain, yet Simon would
scoff at the idea that he could be sentimental about any-
thing.
CAPTAIN FUTURE'S MENTOR
Simon's great aid to Captain Future and the other
Futuremen is in his encyclopedic scientific memory and
wonderful ability in research. Only the young wizard of
science whom he himself taught has ever excelled him
in scientific ability. For many decades the Brain has
been learning and has forgotten nothing - and there is
hardly a fact known to human science which he cannot
recall accurately and instantly from memory.
Simon has had some strange adventures during the
course of some of the Futuremen's exploits. Once, on
an asteroid whose people were inimical to Captain Fu-
ture, these hostile asteroidans raided Curt's camp when
only Simon was there. The asteroidans found the Brain,
but did not realize he was a living individual. They
thought him only a small scientific apparatus of some
kind, and Simon had the wit to keep silent and not en-
lighten them. They took the Brain back with them as a
puzzling curio, and, for many weeks, Simon's serum-
case rested on a shelf in a dingy shop, no one dreaming
he was alive. Finally Captain Future found him and res-
cued him from the strange situation.
Another time, on Venus, the Brain was vitally help-
ful to Curt in a precarious situation. Curt needed the aid
of a remote tribe of the ignorant swamp-men, but could
not prevail on them to follow him. These swamp-men
worshipped a small idol of an octopus-god. Captain Fu-
ture secretly put the Brain's case inside the idol, and
then Simon spoke to the people and ordered them to
obey the red-haired Earthman, which they hastily did.
Simon is most often to be found in the elaborate lab-
oratory in the Comet, his square case resting on the spe-
cial pedestal which Curt designed for him, his strange
eyes perusing a scientific micro-film book or observing
the course of an experiment which Grag patiently con-
ducts under his direction. And more than one ambitious
interplanetary criminal has come to grief because of the
scientific magic wielded by the Brain in that
laboratory! For the Brain's great powers are one of the
Chief reasons why Curt Newton and his band of Fu-
turemen are feared by evil-doers from Mercury to Plu-
to.
7
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 4 - Marshal Ezra Gurney
TRICTLY speaking, Ezra Gurney is not one of
Curt Newton's famous Futuremen - the famous
trio composed of Otho the android; Grag, the
robot; and Simon Wright, the Living Brain. Gurney is
technically a member of the Planet Police, that far-
flung organization which maintains order throughout
the Solar System.
S
But actually, Ezra Gurney, like Joan Randall, is al-
ways listed in Police Headquarters as on "special de-
tached service," for he and Joan always hold them-
selves in readiness to aid Captain Future and his band
whenever occasion requires.
Ezra is a valuable addition to Curt Newton's loyal
band. For the veteran of the Police, in his long years of
service, came to know the System's space-lanes and
ships and the ways of its evildoers better than anyone
except the Futuremen themselves. He was one of the
first officers in the Patrol, the space-branch of Police.
For four decades Ezra sailed in space as an officer
of the Patrol. When he first joined it, the laws of the
System Government were unknown on all the worlds.
The planetary boom towns opened up by interplanetary
travel were sinks of violence and crime. Space was in-
fested with swarms of space pirates who made mer-
chant traffic between the worlds a precarious business.
Ezra Gurney helped smash the great bands of the pi-
rates, winning promotion from cruiser-captain to
squadron-commander in the process. He was in the
thick of the terrific fighting that broke the fleet of Ju Ji-
mos, the Uranian corsair. He was squadron-commander
when the asteroid base of the notorious Rok Olor, the
Martian, was destroyed forever. And it was Ezra Gur-
ney who brought to an end the greatest of all the old pi-
rates, an exploit which will be described presently.
That last exploit, which ended the activities of the
great organized pirate bands on a big scale, caused Ezra
Gurney to ask for transference from space-duty to fron-
tier-duty. He was promoted to the rank of marshal, sec-
ond highest in the Police, and sent to maintain the law
in Kha Khalu, wild new radium-mining boom town
deep in the great mountains of northern Uranus.
GURNEY VS. ZORZO
Kha Khalu was famous at that time as the wildest
place in the System, thronged with interplanetary crimi-
nals, the scene of incessant bloodshed and robbery. One
Zorzo, a brutal, cunning Jovian criminal, was the undis-
puted tyrant of the evil place.
"I keep a graveyard here especially for Planet Po-
licemen - and there's plenty of graves in it," was Zor-
zo's boast.
Ezra Gurney knew that. And he acted with the grim
ruthlessness characteristic of him. He gave Zorzo no
time to set traps for him, but landed secretly and strode
into Zorzo's "Palace of Happiness" unexpectedly.
"Hear you've been planning a grave for me,"
drawled the veteran Police officer. "I'm ready to fill it.
All you got to do is beat me to it with your atom-pistol
- if you've got the nerve."
Thus challenged, without time to call his men or use
his cunning Zorzo was forced to draw. He was too
slow, and, after that, Ezra Gurney's word was law in
Kha Khalu.
THE LAW OF THE PLANET POLICE
Yet, soon after, Ezra characteristically applied for
transfer on the ground that Kha Khalu was too tame.
From one boom town to another, from one savage
world to another, Ezra Gurney carried the law of the
Police. He came to be known as the most famous mar-
8
No. 4
MARSHAL EZRA GURNEY
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 4 - Marshal Ezra Gurney
shal in the System, and was offered the highest rank in
the Police, the post of commander.
"Think I'm goin' to sit in a shiny office on Earth and
watch other men go out and have fun?" he demanded.
"Give somebody else the commandership - I don't want
it."
Ezra Gurney was already a gray, grim veteran of the
service, when he first met Curt Newton and the Future-
men.
That was when Captain Future and his three unhu-
man comrades were first bursting dramatically upon the
System, blazing a crusade against the most dangerous
interplanetary criminals.
Curt Newton and Ezra Gurney were drawn to each
other at first meeting. The brilliant red-haired youth and
the grim, aging veteran had two things in common - un-
relenting courage and unrelenting hate of evil. They
came to know each other well.
GURNEY JOINS THE FUTUREMEN
It was the famous "Space Emperor" case on Jupiter,
that amazing plot which almost smashed the System
law on its greatest world, which brought Curt and Ezra
into work together. Since then, Ezra has participated in
most of Curt's exploits.
Beside his deep affection for Curt, Ezra admires the
Wizard of Science tremendously as a fighting-man. He
swears by Curt's ability as a space-fighter. But he some-
times gets impatient with Curt's deep scientific re-
searches. Ezra is a fighting-man, not a scientist, and in-
clines to think science can be a nuisance.
"Didn't go in for all these researches and laborato-
ries in my day," he will grumble. "We just unhitched
our atom-guns and hunted 'em out and blazed away."
He knows, quite well, that only the unparalleled sci-
entific ability of Curt and the Futuremen has brought
retribution to the super-scientific criminals Captain Fu-
ture quelled. But he likes to pretend he thinks it all a
waste of time.
THE COUP THAT GURNEY WON - AND LOST
Ezra can tell great yarns of his unrivaled experi-
ences in the old wild days, though the crusty veteran
seldom thaws enough to tell them to strangers. But
there is one story of his past that Ezra never told to any-
one but Curt Newton.
That is the story of how he destroyed the third of
those great space-pirates of past years. That pirate lead-
er, known as The Falcon, was considered the deadliest
corsair in space. He was known to be an Earthman, but
that was all. After one squadron-leader after another of
the Patrol had met defeat trying to destroy him, Ezra
Gurney was sent out against him.
The saga of Ezra Gurney's fight against the Falcon is
still told in the System wherever space-men meet. Ezra
brought the Falcon to bay off Saturn, and destroyed him
in one of the most terrific cruiser-action battles ever
seen. Immediately after, Ezra requested to be trans-
ferred from space-duty. Everyone wondered why, but
he never told the reason to anyone but Curt.
No one in the System but Curt knows that the Fal-
con was Ezra's own younger brother, gone wild in their
early space-days and drifting into piracy as his brother
entered the Patrol. And no one but Curt can quite ap-
preciate the grim, bleak strain in the crusty old veteran's
make-up, and the reason for it.
9
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 5 - Joan Randall of the Planet Police
OAN RANDALL, like Marshal Ezra Gurney, is
not strictly one of the Futuremen. For the Future-
men, Captain Future's trio of unhuman friends, are
composed of the Brain, Grag the robot, and Otho the
android. Yet Joan has been involved in many of Cap-
tain Future's cases, as an agent of the Planet Police, and
has come to be identified with the Futuremen through-
out the System.
J
Perhaps there should be inserted here a prefatory
word of explanation concerning the Planet Police. Ev-
eryone knows, of course, that the jurisdiction of the
Planet Police extends to every planet, asteroid, moon
and other celestial body in the Solar System. When the
Solar System Government was first organized, provi-
sion was made in its Constitution for such a police or-
ganization to enforce its laws.
Headquarters of the Planet Police are on Earth. It
has main planetary offices on every world, and besides
these nine main offices, it maintains a post in every
city, town or village of any importance in the whole
System.
THE FRONTIER POLICE
There are four chief divisions, or Sections as they
are called, of the Planet Police. Section One is the one
covering all police activities and posts in ordinary civi-
lized regions of the nine planets. The Planet Police offi-
cers you see striding along the streets of New York, or
Venusopolis, or Syrtis on Mars, or Tartarus on far Plu-
to, all belong to Section One. Their duties are essential-
ly local law enforcement.
Section Two is known as the "Frontier Police." This
takes in law-enforcement in wild, uncivilized planetary
regions where there is no structure of local government.
Boom towns like Jungletown on Jupiter and Karies on
Saturn are ruled by officers of Section Two of the Plan-
et Police.
Such officers must be picked with great care, for
they are legislature, judge, jury and police all in one.
Their verdicts are final. And since all such boom towns
and uncivilized regions swarm with hard-bitten charac-
ters, the job is no sinecure.
THE SPACE PATROL
Section Three of the Police organization is by far
the least known of all. It is the Secret Service of the
Planet Police. The number of its men and women oper-
atives is unknown. They embrace natives of every
world, many of them people of importance, who serve
in this most thankless and difficult branch of the ser-
vice. Joan Randall is technically still a member of Sec-
tion Three.
Section Four is far and away the most famous and
glamorous branch of the Planet Police. It is the
renowned Space Patrol whose armed cruisers keep the
law of the Solar System Government from Pluto to
Mercury. The men who staff those ships are some of
the finest space-men in the System.
They have a great tradition of the glories of their
service, of countless battles against pirates, rebels and
bandits in space. To become an officer in this service
requires a ten-year course in the famous Patrol Acade-
my, a course in every branch of space-navigation, pilot-
ing and gunnery.
Technically, the correct name of Section Four is
"The Space Patrol of the Planet Police." But popular
usage has shortened this to "Planet Patrol."
There is an old rivalry between the officers of the
Patrol and the Rocketeers. The Rocketeers, the ace
civilian pilots of the System, are inclined to sniff scorn-
10
No. 5
JOAN RANDALL OF THE PLANET POLICE
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 5 - Joan Randall of the Planet Police
fully at the Patrol men as a "lot of mechanical calculat-
ing-machines who couldn't fly a mile without a slide-
rule and do everything in space by the book." The Pa-
trol officers, in turn, generally refer to the Rocketeers
as "that crazy bunch of space-struck racing and test pi-
lots, who never heard of discipline."
As has been noted, Joan Randall technically belongs
to Section Three of the Planet Police. Joan entered that
dangerous secret service division as the result of family
tradition. Her father had been a captain in the Patrol,
and had been killed in an encounter with the famous
Falcon, the greatest space-pirate of the old days.
Joan lived her childhood on nearly every world in
the System, because of the constant shifts of her father's
post in the service. Thus she learned an extraordinary
number of the different planetary languages and gained
a wide knowledge of planetary customs.
Steeped in the tradition of the Planet Police, and
possessing excellent capabilities, it was natural for Joan
to enter the service. The one branch of it open to a
woman was, of course, Section Three. So she went into
the secret service and spent the next few years in dan-
gerous assignments that took her from one end of the
System to the other. On one case she would be imper-
sonating a rich young woman of fashion, on another she
would play the part of a dancing girl in a roaring Mar-
tian boom town. And so on.
RANDALL JOINS THE FUTUREMEN
It was on Jupiter that Joan first met Captain Future.
Posing there as a nurse, in an effort to help solve the
hideous Space Emperor mystery which had unloosed an
atavism blight on the hapless Jovians, Joan gave valu-
able help to Curt Newton and the Futuremen. Together,
they defeated the menace.
Captain Future remembered the girl well, and soon
met her again when Joan an Kansu Kane were kid-
napped by Doctor Zarro's Legion of Doom. Her aid in
the Futuremen's struggle on distant Pluto was again
timely.
So Joan, with Ezra Gurney, was detached from her
regular section for special service. She and Ezra had
proved they could work so well with Captain Future
that they were assigned to cooperate with the wizard of
science and the Futuremen whenever required.
Curt Newton likes to chaff Joan by pretending that
she is merely a thrill-hunter who is more trouble than
help.
"You only joined the Police for excitement," he ac-
cuses her. "And you got put on special service with us
Futuremen simply because you thought you'd be able to
dabble in more trouble that way."
Joan has a standard retort for that.
"That's what I get for running after you all over
space, and helping you," she complains. "If you weren't
such an unromantic idiot, you wouldn't make a girl
chase you all the way from Mercury to Pluto."
Beneath her jesting complaints, Joan's feelings to-
ward the famous planeteer are very real. And she sus-
pects that Curt Newton reciprocates, but can't get him
to admit it, which sometimes exasperates her.
But she knows that Captain Future feels that he can-
not let any other consideration interfere with his chosen
career of championing the cause of law and order in the
System. Until there's no further need for him to blast
the spaceways, he'll have no time for romance. And un-
til then, Joan Randall is glad to be one of the few co-
workers of Curt and his famous Futuremen.
11
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 6 - The Comet
O account of the Futuremen would be com-
plete without a description of their famous
space ship, the Comet.NThis craft is the fastest ship in space. It can go
where no other vessel would dare go, and contains
within its compact interior full equipment for almost
any emergency. It is, in fact, the flying laboratory of
Captain Future and his comrades.
The Comet was built on the Moon by Curt Newton
and the Futuremen. Into it, they put all their unparal-
leled scientific knowledge and skill. As a result, no ship
in the System can outrival the Comet.
The hull is of an odd shape, like that of an elongated
tear drop. This streamlined design was adopted because
it combats air-resistance perfectly. Of course, there is
no air-resistance in empty space. But streamlined con-
struction makes for efficiency when cleaving through
the atmosphere of a planet.
The hull is made with triple-sealed walls, each wall
composed of a secret alloy devised by Curt and the
Brain for special lightness and strength. The space be-
tween the walls is packed with a super-insulation. Thus
the Comet can resist temperatures that would destroy an
ordinary ship. Of course, when it ventures into extreme
heat like that of the solar corona, it has to be protected
by its "halo" of screening radiation.
The power-plant of the Comet consists of nine cy-
clotrons of unusual design. The cyclotrons are the heart
of any space ship. They convert powdered mineral fuel
into raving energy, by atomic disintegration. The pro-
cess is started by a switch which releases a powerful
flash of force from a condenser into the cycs. After
that, it is self-continuous, a small fraction of the gener-
ated power being constantly "fed back" into the cycs to
keep up the process of atomic disintegration.
The main flood of terrific atomic energy flows
through the control valves into the various rocket-tubes
of the ship, as directed by the pilot. If the energy is
blasted out of the tail rocket-tubes, it hurls the ship
straight forward. If directed into the bow or braking
tubes, it slows down the craft. If turned into the lateral
tubes along the aide of the ship, or the top tubes in the
upper side or the keel tubes in the lower, it pushes the
ship up or down or to one side.
THE SPACE-STICK
The Comet owes its unrivaled speed to the fact that
its massive cyclotrons are of such radical design that
they can produce an unprecedented output of atomic
power. These cycs are one of the greatest inventive
achievements of Captain Future.
The control of the Comet is essentially much like
that of any space ship. The pilot sits in his chair, the
main control panel in front of him. Above, easily in
view, is the broad space window. Between the pilot's
knees is the space-stick and under his feet are two ped-
als.
The space-stick is important. It is a device to control
the flow of the atomic power into the various rocket-
tubes at will, without the necessity of opening or clos-
ing the individual throttle of each tube. Such individual
throttles are on the control panel for delicate maneuver-
ing and special uses, but the space-stick is in use most
of the time.
When the space-stick is in upright position, all the
power of the cyclotrons is directed out of the tail-tubes,
flinging the ship straight ahead. But when you pull the
space-stick back toward you, it cuts some of the power
into the rear keel tubes, with the result that the ship
zooms upward in space. Similarly, when you push the
12
No. 6
THE COMET
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 6 - The Comet
space-stick forward, some of the power is cut into the
rear top rocket-tubes, which sends the ship diving
downward. The farther forward you push the stick, the
more power goes into the top tubes, and the steeper is
your dive. Moving the stick sideward cuts power into
the right or left lateral tubes and turns your ship to right
or left.
Under the pilot's right foot is the "cyc-pedal." This
controls the amount of energy produced by the cy-
clotrons by regulating the flow of powdered mineral
fuel into the cycs. When you want their full output, you
push the cyc-pedal to the floor. When you want to cut
the power off, you let the cyc-pedal come clear back.
Thus, when you get warning of a meteor close ahead
and want to zoom up sharply, you do two things simul-
taneously - you pull the space-stick sharply back, so
that the power flows to the tail and rear keel rocket-
tubes, and you push in hard on the cyc-pedal.
The pilot has beneath his left foot the brake-blast
pedal. When this is pushed inward, it instantly directs
the atomic energy of the cyclotrons into the bow or
brake-tubes which project from the ship's bow for a few
13
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 6 - The Comet
inches, just beneath the fore window. Pushing in on the
brake-blast pedal automatically cuts out all other tubes.
To make a quick stop, you simply jam both brake-blast
and cyc-pedals to the floor, which pours all the power
of the cycs into a blast ahead.
These standard principles of space ship control are
used by Captain Future and his companions in the
Comet. They are all such consummate pilots, however,
that they often ignore the convenience of the space-
stick and use the individual rocket-throttles, to cut a
course as close as possible.
INSTRUMENTS OF SPACE NAVIGATION
The control panel of any space ship is a bewildering
sight. But that of the Comet would baffle any ordinary
pilot, even if he were of Rocketeer rating. All the ordi-
nary instruments of space navigation are on the
Comet's panel - the meteorometers that warn of dis-
tance and direction of nearby meteors, the gravitome-
ters that indicate the pull of all bodies in space, the
ether-drift indicators and main cyc-switch and auxiliary
televisor screen and microphone. But also, the Comet
has on its panel a variety of unusual instruments.
There's the atmosphere-tester, an ingenious device
of Captain Future which automatically takes in and ana-
lyzes a sample of any air, and shows the percentage of
all elements in it. There's the comet-camouflage switch.
When turned on, it actuates a mechanism which ejects a
cloud of shining ions from all rocket-tubes, concealing
the Comet and making it look like a small real comet
with long, glowing tail.
There's the electroscope, one of the Brain's pet in-
struments, and which has done sterling service in track-
ing criminals in space. It's a device that can detect a re-
cent rocket-trail of a ship in space, by the faint trail of
ions always left in a rocket-discharge.
The two space chairs that flank the pilot's chair in
the control room of the Comet are so mounted that their
occupants can handle the two proton guns of heavy cal-
iber which project through the walls of the ship. These
weapons fire a flash of energy of unequaled range and
intensity.
The main cabin of the Comet is not built for com-
fort. Two folding bunks in one corner are the only
sleeping provisions. For neither the Brain nor Grag re-
quire any sleep, and Otho doesn't need much. Food and
other perishable articles are carried in a cold-storage
compartment sealed off from the rest of the cabin, and
open to the bitter cold of space.
Everything in the cabin is subordinated to scientific
requirements. In one corner is the powerful main televi-
sor set, the compact atomic motor generators which can
furnish auxiliary power for any undertaking, and the
locker of atomic tools of all descriptions.
In an opposite corner is the compact astronomical
observatory of the ship. There is a battery of electro-
telescopes and electrospectroscopes of high power.
These instruments have their light-gathering lenses
mounted outside the hull of the ship, and are control-
lable from inside so that they can be directed at any ce-
lestial object.
Light that falls on the lenses is transformed into
electricity by a unique photoelectric cell, led in through
a cable inside, and amplified and transformed back into
a vastly magnified image. Adjacent to these instruments
is a file of spectra of every planet, star and other body
of importance, and there is also a collection of atmo-
sphere samples from every world and moon in the Sys-
tem.
The chemical laboratory of the Comet is a concen-
trated mass of apparatus whose application has enabled
the scientific wizard and his companions to perform
those alchemical feats which have astounded the Sys-
tem. Beside it is the reference library, composed of ev-
ery important reference and scientific book, reduced to
micro-film form.
There is also a botanical cabinet, with specimens of
rare plants and vegetable drugs from faraway planets; a
surgical and biological corner with a folding operating-
table and instruments that have often worked strange
magic. There are other cabinets of instruments and
specimens and materials too numerous to list.
QUEEN OF THE SPACEWAYS
In one side of the ship is the air-lock entrance. It is
automatic. When the outer door is opened, the inner
door automatically closes, if it is not already closed. In-
side the little lock-chamber is a cabinet containing
space-suits, impellers, and similar equipment.
The Comet has many other unique features. Its rock-
et-tubes, for instance, have special check-valves which
make it possible for them to operate efficiently under
water. Thus the Comet can be used as a submarine in
case of emergency. Its cyclotrons are so designed that
they use infinitely less powdered mineral fuel than is
usual, and the mineral tanks beneath the deck which
hold the supply are sufficient for extraordinarily long
continuous operation.
The Comet has been in almost every corner of the
Solar System. Strange beings in unknown depths of re-
mote worlds have seen the tear-drop ship plunging
across the sky, and people of the greatest civilized
cities on the nine worlds have cried out in excitement
as they glimpsed it zooming toward the stars. For, all
over the System, the Comet is known and recognized,
and those who see it know always that the Futuremen
are out on the space-trail.
14
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 7 - The Moon Laboratory
OWN from the black vault of space, a small
space-ship cautiously sank upon blazing keel
rocket-tubes toward the barren airless surface
of the Moon. It was a ship that would look ludicrously
clumsy and obsolete now, but it was the last word in
design at that time.
D
It landed in Tycho crater, a vast circular plain of
rock glaring in the Sun, surrounded by titanic, jagged
peaks. From the ship emerged a man and a woman in
space-suits. The man carried a square, transparent case
of metal.
"This looks like a good place," the man said eagerly.
"The rock is soft, and it won't be hard to excavate an ar-
tificial cavern."
His serious, studious face was alive with keen inter-
est and anticipation as he looked around. But the face
of his young wife paled inside her helmet as her wide
gray eyes took in the savage, wild scene.
"It seems a terrible place to live, Roger," she mur-
mured to him over the connecting phone. "A terrible
place for our child to be born."
A voice came from the square case carried by the
man, a metallic, alien voice. "You will become accus-
tomed to it, Elaine," it encouraged. "And we can work
here in complete concealment and safety."
THE FLIGHT
The man was Roger Newton, the girl was his young
wife, and the voice from the square case had come from
Simon Wright, the Brain. It had been Newton, with his
scientific genius, who had on Earth not long before re-
moved Simon Wright's living brain from his aged, dy-
ing body and implanted it in that serum-case.
They three, fleeing from enemies who coveted New-
ton's scientific secrets, had fled here to the uninhabited,
airless satellite of Earth to work in peace upon New-
ton's great ambition of creating artificial life. They had
brought with them in their ship every tool, instrument
and device that they would need to make life possible
here.
Among these tools were several powerful atom-
blasts. With these, Roger Newton went to work on the
soft Moon-rock of the crater floor. The terrific energy
of the blasts ate away the rock like butter, and within a
comparatively short time, he had hollowed out a great
circular chamber under the surface of the crater. His
next work was to fuse certain lunar minerals into liquid
glassite which he cast into a great round window that
he set in the ceiling of the underground room.
He had left a small passage down into the strange
chamber. In this passage he installed an efficient air-
lock. Then he set up in the chamber a powerful appara-
tus for chemical conversion of lunar mineral elements
into the elements of air and water.
SUB-LUNAR LIFE
Until then, they had lived in the spaceship. Now
they moved into the sub-lunar dwelling. Newton toiled
to bring all the equipment crammed in the ship down
into their new home. He excavated adjoining caverns to
serve as sleeping rooms, supply rooms, and the like.
The big main chamber was to be their laboratory, and
in it he and the Brain arranged the complex scientific
equipment they had brought.
In this unique dwelling beneath the surface of the
Moon, the scientific genius of Roger Newton and the
Brain created Grag, the robot, and Otho, the android.
And in this wild place was born to Roger Newton and
his wife the infant son whose name was one day to be
blazoned across the whole Solar System - Curtis New-
15
No. 7
THE MOON LABORATORY
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 7 - The Moon Laboratory
ton.
It was here in the Moon-laboratory, after the tragic
death of his parents, that Curt Newton spent his strange
boyhood and youth under the tutorship of this three un-
human guardians. To him, the place was home, and he
knew and loved every corner of it as he knew and loved
the wild, sun-scorched lunar wastes around it.
A CITADEL OF SCIENCE
When he had reached manhood and had attained the
full stature of his scientific genius, Curt enlarged and
improved the Moon-laboratory. He made it into that
marvellous citadel of science that is now so famous
throughout the System, but which few visitors have
ever entered.
Captain Future's Moon-Laboratory is the only
dwelling of any kind upon the Moon, and the Future-
men are the only inhabitants. Few others in the whole
System could or would live on that wild, airless world,
but the four greatest planeteers of all time regard it as a
cherished home.
The Moon-Laboratory is built upon a circular plan.
16
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 7 - The Moon Laboratory
The inner circle is the large main laboratory originally
excavated by Curt's father. Its great glassite ceiling win-
dow gives a marvellous view of the starry sky, and of
the bulky green globe of Earth that always hangs almost
directly overhead. When the lunar "day" dawns, an in-
genious photoelectric cell comes into action which
turns on a device that makes the big window glare-
proof against the unsoftened blaze of the Sun.
It is in this great main room that the Futuremen are
most often to be found at home, for it is alike their
workshop and favorite lounging quarters. The work ta-
ble of Captain Future, upon which so many miraculous
scientific achievements have been accomplished, is di-
rectly beneath the window.
Ranged around the walls of the room are the bewil-
dering masses of scientific equipment - massive tele-
scopes and spectroscopes that are connected photoelec-
trically with lenses on the lunar surface, racks of atomic
tools, chemical, electrical and other equipment.
In a concentric circle around the main laboratory are
the separate chambers that open off it. Starting at the
entrance and working clockwise around the circle,
these separate chambers are as follows:
First, the frozen storage room in which perishable
specimens are preserved, the room being refrigerated
by an efficient atomic device. The next room is the
compact kitchen, used only by Curt and Otho since nei-
ther Grag nor the Brain eat ordinary food.
FRESH OXYGEN
The room beyond this contains the air generator that
assures a ceaseless supply of fresh oxygen derived by
chemical conversion of mineral oxides. It also contains
the atomic heater which automatically warms the air
when the lunar "night" has come and the temperature
inside the dwelling begins to fall.
The next room is Captain Future's own sleeping
room, an almost austere chamber that contains only his
bunk, clothing, and a few treasured mementoes of his
dead parents.
The room beyond Curt's is the private laboratory of
the Brain. It is soundproofed, and into it the Brain will
often retire for long periods in which he will rest utterly
motionless, brooding in strange reverie. Here are Si-
mon's data on pet experiments, and here too is kept the
small apparatus which emits stimulating vibrations that
are the Brain's occasional "food."
Next is the reference library, which contains tens of
thousands of scientific reference works in every plane-
tary field, reduced to microfilm.
There is next a large supply room, and then the
chamber that the Futuremen call the "trophy room."
That is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole
Moon-laboratory. In that room, Captain Future keeps
the most dangerous and most valuable objects and in-
struments that he has acquired in the course of his cru-
sading adventures on other worlds.
There are powers here, such as the atavism-appara-
tus of the Space Emperor, the "illusion-machine" of the
famous Doctor Zarro, and the legendary Water of Life
from Saturn, which are beyond all price.
This room of secrets is guarded by an invulnerable
metal door that is always securely locked.
Beyond the trophy room is Otho's chamber. Then
comes the underground passage that leads to the under-
ground hangar of the Comet, the space-ship of the Fu-
turemen. This hangar is so equipped that when the
Comet begins to rise from its floor, the doors overhead
automatically fold back to allow the ship to emerge.
When it re-enters the hangar, the doors automatically
close and at the same time a fresh air-supply is auto-
matically pumped into the hangar.
The doors themselves are camouflaged on their up-
per surface to resemble lunar rock.
GRAG NEVER SLEEPS
Beyond this passage is Grag's room. There is not
much real reason for Grag to have a sleeping-room,
since he never sleeps. But the fact that Otho had a room
made him jealous, and he demanded one also. The two
pets, Oog and Eek, usually are to be found sleeping
there.
There is, next to this, a special sealed laboratory in
which any condition of gravitation, atmosphere pres-
sure and atmosphere content can be reproduced. This
enables Captain Future to test out an instrument or ex-
periment under the theoretical conditions of any planet.
Beyond this is another large supply-room, and then
the cyc-room which contains a great battery of power-
ful cyclotrons and motor-generators capable of deliver-
ing almost unlimited power. And, finally, there is the
stair leading up through an air-lock to the lunar surface.
Such are the wonders of the Moon-laboratory,
citadel of the Futuremen and home of the greatest of
planeteers.
17
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 8 - Captain Future's Boyhood
RAG, the robot, was angry. He stood in one of
the big supply-rooms of the Moon-laboratory,
looking indignantly up at a redheaded boy who
peered down impishly from atop a pile of metal cases.
G
"Come down, Curtis - have I not told you it is time
for Simon Wright to give you your lesson?" boomed the
angry robot.
"I'm tired of lessons," announced fourteen-year old
Curtis Newton with exasperating calmness. "Every day,
one lesson after another. I want to go outside and ex-
plore."
"If you won't come down, I'll come up after you."
Grag menaced.
He started clambering up the pile of cases. But the
huge weight of his great metal figure brought the stack
down, and the robot fell to the floor amid a shower of
boxes with a reverberating clangor.
OTHO IS FAST
Young Curt Newton rocked with laughter atop his
perch. But into the supply-room, like a flying white
shadow, came the lithe figure of Otho, the android. He
surveyed big Grag's predicament with disdain.
"Of course, you couldn't catch him," Otho snapped.
"Watch me."
Curt Newton saw what was coming. The boy darted
across the stacks of cases to escape. But, fast as be was,
Otho was too fast for him and he was ignominiously
hauled down and marched into the laboratory.
Simon Wright, the Brain, turned his glittering lens-
eyes toward the boy.
"It is past time for your lesson in planetary botany,
Curtis," he reproved.
"He would not come," boomed Grag indignantly.
"He wanted to go outside."
Curt hung his red head. "It's fun to explore the
craters and plains," he muttered, half-ashamedly. "I'd
like to go out by myself."
Then the boy cried eagerly, "And I want to go far-
ther, to the Earth, to Mars, to Venus, to all the planets
you've taught me about! I want to know all space, not to
live here on the dead Moon all my life. I want to meet
other men!"
"You shall meet other men, when the time comes,"
promised the Brain. "You shall see every one of these
worlds of which we have been teaching you. But it is
not yet time. Grag and Otho and I have reared you here,
since your parents were killed here years ago, and have
educated you in preparation. In a few years, your edu-
cation will be complete, you will reach manhood, and
then you can meet other men. But until then, it is too
dangerous. Your dead father had many enemies."
There was a little silence, the red-haired boy staring
puzzledly into the lens-eyes of the Brain. Then Simon
spoke again.
"We will begin your lesson on planetary botany. De-
fine the phyla and subphyla of plant life on Venus."
In his clear high voice young Curt Newton began
reciting. "Phylum One - decalciate plants -"
SUPER-EDUCATION
For minutes he spoke, systematically cataloguing the
flora of Venus. Only super-education could have pro-
duced that knowledge - the education that for fourteen
years had been carried on by the three unhuman beings
who had made themselves the guardians of Curt New-
ton.
Yet when Curt had finished the long catalogue, the
Brain's rasping voice spoke no word of commendation.
"You made four mistakes," the Brain declared. "You
18
No. 8
CAPTAIN FUTURE'S BOYHOOD
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 8 - Captain Future's Boyhood
must restudy your Venusian botany until you discover
them for yourself."
Silently, Curt took the book and retired with it into
his own small chamber at the side of the Moon-labora-
tory. He sat down and dutifully tried to locate his er-
rors. But he could not concentrate today. His thoughts
kept wandering to what lay outside the laboratory, the
lonely, luring surface of the Moon. He loved that, the
wild lunar landscape where no one lived, the stupen-
dous peaks and blazing sunlight and deep shadows. He
was always happiest when outside there in his space-
suit, exploring.
LURE OF THE OUTSIDE
He laid down the book. His gray eyes were snapping
with excitement and resolution. He was not going to
study Venusian botany any longer today. He was going
to do what he had long wanted to do - go outside, all by
himself!
Silently, Curt slipped out of his little chamber. The
Brain was reading absorbedly and did not see him.
Otho and Grag could be heard arguing loudly back in
the supply room as they restacked the fallen cases.
Curt's small, lithe figure flew up the stairs into the
airlock chamber. He got into his space-suit and screwed
on the glassite helmet, then touched the stud that
opened the outer door of the lock.
He emerged on the rock surface of Tycho crater,
into blinding sunlight. Then he hurried in long strides
across the crater, toward the cunningly concealed un-
derground shelter nearby.
ROCKET FLYERS
In that camouflaged hangar rested the two small,
swift rocket-fliers which Grag and Otho had built. Curt
knew their operation thoroughly from Otho's instruc-
tions. The boy entered one, switched on the compact
cyclotrons. The craft rose rapidly up above the lunar
surface.
Curt steered up in a steep slant to cross Tycho's stu-
pendous ring of peaks and then headed northeastward.
Over the wild, lifeless lunar plains and mountains he
flew at high speed, through the blazing sunlight. In the
black vault overhead loomed the great green bulk of
Earth.
A high-pitched, ringing laugh of utter happiness
broke from the boy's lips as he flew on. For the first
time he was adventuring by himself, and he tasted his
freedom like a young eagle spreading its wings for the
initial flight. The wild pulse of long-repressed adven-
ture throbbed strongly in his veins.
He flew over the southern foothills of the looming
Riphaean Mountains and then glimpsed a long, torpe-
do-like metal shape on the plain.
"A ship!" young Curt Newton exclaimed wondering-
ly to himself.
MEN LIKE HIMSELF
Near the ship a little knot of figures wearing space-
suits and glassite helmets were engaged in hurried ac-
tivity.
"Why, they're men!" Curt told himself excitedly.
"Men like myself - the first I've ever seen!"
Immense excitement gripped him. He had never
known anyone but Grag and Otho and the Brain, had
never seen or talked with men like himself. They had
seen him, were pointing up at his rushing little flier.
He swooped down toward them, without the slight-
est thought of danger. At last, the boy thought eagerly,
he was to have his first meeting with other men like
himself!
He landed near the ship and strode eagerly toward
the men, his grey eyes shining in anticipation. There
were eight of the men. They had been digging ores out
of the lunar rock, to be used as fuel in the cyclotrons of
their ship. The ship itself was a small twelve-man cruis-
er that looked like a private yacht, but the men were a
hard-bitten, evil-faced lot.
Their leader was a burly, beady-eyed giant who kept
his hand on the hilt of his atom-pistol as he watched
Curt Newton approach. Curt heard the giant's voice
speaking to his men on the universal space-suit phone.
"It's only a boy, men. But where in the devil's name
did a boy come from in this cursed Moon-desert?"
"Maybe he lives here somewhere," suggested one of
the men.
"Maybe you're a fool!" retorted the giant. "Nobody
lives on the Moon - nobody ever visits it unless they
run out of fuel as we did."
SAVAGE FACES
Curt Newton had stopped a few feet from the men
and was looking at them eagerly. The first men he had
ever seen! He felt a little disappointed as he surveyed
their brutal faces. Somehow, he had not expected them
to look so coarse, so savage.
"Who are you, lad, and what are you doing here?"
rapped the giant leader suspiciously. "Spying on us?"
"Spying on you?" Curt repeated bewilderedly. "Why
should I spy on you? Are you running away from some-
one?"
One of the group snickered. "Well, Earth isn't exact-
ly a healthy place when you've mutinied and murdered
-"
"Shut up, you!" roared the giant. His savage eyes
swept Curt's small figure. "Where'd you come from,
boy - and who are you?"
"I'm Curtis Newton and I live here - over in Tycho
crater," he answered frankly.
The big man's eyes slitted and he stepped forward
and grabbed Curt's wrist. "You live here? Don't lie to
me, you little space-rat!"
Curt's wrist hurt and his surprise and amazement at
19
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 8 - Captain Future's Boyhood
being so received by the fellow-men he had been eager
to see made him react swiftly.
JU-JITSU
He ducked and spun around with a lightning move-
ment and thrust of shoulder muscles that Otho had
taught. The super-ju-jitsu trick sent the giant flying
back to sprawl on his back ten feet away.
Curt could have escaped, then. But he was still too
startled and bewildered by the unfriendly reception to
think of himself. He was grabbed by the other men be-
fore he could retreat.
The giant leader was livid with fury. "You cocky
brat, I'll -"
"Boss, wait!" cried one of his men excitedly. "This
boy said his name was Newton, didn't he? And he looks
just like that famous scientist who disappeared fifteen
years ago in space. His name was Newton, too."
"What of it?" roared the furious giant.
"The Newton who disappeared had scientific secrets
supposed to be worth billions!" cried the other. "If this
brat is his son -"
"By heaven!" swore the giant, his eyes lighting with
avarice. He demanded of Curt, "Where's this place in
Tycho crater you live at?"
Curt had had time to get over his amazement. The
boy had never seen men before. But he knew instinc-
tively that these men were evil.
CURT SENSES PERIL
He sensed peril to the Brain and Grag and Otho, if
he told these men where the Moon-laboratory lay. He
decided swiftly to tell nothing. With calm gray eyes, he
stared at his captors through his helmet.
"Won't tell, eh?" said the big leader. His lips twisted
in an ugly smile. "I've made tougher men than a
stripling kid talk. Hold him tight, men - this won't take
long."
He reached and turned the tap on the oxygen-tank of
Curt's space-suit, shutting off the flow of air into the
boy's suit.
"When you want bad enough to breathe, you can
start talking," he told the boy complacently.
Curt made no answer. The boy, held by a dozen
hands, knew an attempt to break free was useless.
He remained silent, looking with level eyes into the
brutal, helmeted faces of his captors.
His head began to spin dizzily as the air inside his
helmet became hot and foul. There was a roaring in his
ears -
Yet Curt Newton's purpling face did not change a
line in its expression, his glazing eyes still stared level-
ly at his captors. Even though his body was sagging
limp, the boy's stony face moved no muscle.
The men holding him stirred uneasily, their brutal
pleasure in cruelty changing gradually to an uneasy
wonder.
"The kid ain't human!" muttered one of them. "He's
dyin' - and he keeps looking at us the same way -"
A SOUL OF STEEL
Curt Newton felt that he was, indeed, dying. He
could only dimly see, the roar in his ears was deafen-
ing. But he would not show weakness or cry out, even
now. The rigid training of the Brain and the robot and
the android had put steel into his soul.
Then dimly, Curt heard a startled cry from one of
his captors. He felt himself released, saw the men claw-
ing out their atom-pistols and whirling frantically to
meet two charging figures.
The two were Grag and Otho. The android in his
space-suit and the robot, who needed none held heavy
metal bars raised aloft and their eyes were blazing with
deadly purpose.
The bars crashed down on one glassite helmet after
another as Otho moved with incredible speed and Grag
stalked like an avenging metal giant.
Men, suddenly suffocated by the shattering of their
helmets, fell clawing at their throats.
Curt Newton saw this much - and then for the first
time in his life lost consciousness. When he came to, he
found himself supported in Grag's mighty metal arms.
The robot had turned on his oxygen supply.
Beyond him and Otho, the boy saw the still figures
of the men.
"They are dead," came Otho's fierce, hissing voice.
"It is too bad there were no more of them to kill."
"You have been very bad," Grag boomed to Curt.
"Had not Simon Wright used the view-scope to locate
you, when we missed you, you might now be dead. You
go back now to Simon for punishment."
A very silent and chastened boy entered the Moon-
laboratory with his two guardians.
"I am ready to be punished, Simon," he said in a
subdued voice.
"There will be no punishment," the Brain said
metallically. "Sit down, Curtis."
THE REVELATION
Astonished, the boy seated himself. "The time has
come," said the Brain slowly, "when you must be told
who you are and how you came here on this lonely
Moon with us three."
"Those men said something about a Newton who
had discovered great scientific secrets!" Curt interrupt-
ed eagerly. "Was that my father?"
"That was your father," answered Simon solemnly.
"He and your mother died long ago - soon after you
were born. Listen, and you shall hear how they died."
The metallic voice rasped on, telling the story of
that long-dead day when Roger Newton and his young
wife had met their deaths at the hands of covetous men.
20
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 8 - Captain Future's Boyhood
And as the tale went on, young Curt Newton's boy-
ish face became strained and strange.
"So you see," concluded the Brain. "that there are
many evil men in the System who still would kill you
for the secrets in this laboratory. That is why we have
not let you go forth yet among other men. You are not
yet able to cope with the deadly enemies you would
meet."
The boy slowly nodded his red head. "I understand,
Simon. But I still want to go, out there among the other
worlds. I can go some day, can't I?"
"Yes, lad," answered the Brain thoughtfully. "Some-
day you can go, someday you will know all those
worlds. And I think that all the world will know you
someday -"
That was the first meeting with other men of the boy
whom the System was one day to know as Captain Fu-
ture.
21
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 9 - How Curt Newton Became Captain Future
PON the icy surface of the Arctic planet Pluto,
there gleamed a big glassite dome like a bubble
of warm light. This was the small Earthman
trading-town that was the one outpost of Earth on the
frontier planet. For this was in the wild, early years be-
fore the bigger domed cities to come had yet been built.
U
Across the blizzard-swept ice-fields of the bitter
planet, a small group of native Plutonians trudged to-
ward the Earthman trading town.
These natives of Pluto, towering men whose bodies
were completely covered with long black hair and
whose eyes were huge-pupiled ones of odd expression,
hauled with them several sledges piled high with the
furs they regularly brought to exchange with the Earth-
man traders.
THE YOUNG EARTHMEN
With the Plutonians marched an oddly dissimilar
figure - a young Earthman, hardly more than a youth.
He wore a heavy felt cold-suit that could not keep
out all the bitter chill of the screaming wind and snow.
Yet his youthful, handsome face and clear gray eyes
were vivid with excited interest.
"What do you get in exchange for the furs, Oraq?"
he asked the towering Plutonian leader beside him,
speaking the latter's tongue fluently.
Oraq answered gloomily. "We get little enough,
these days. The first Earthman traders were fair, but
now they cheat us."
Curt Newton - for the Earth youth was he - looked
incredulous. "You must be wrong, Oraq. Earthmen
wouldn't cheat you."
FIRST TO VISIT PLUTO
Curt Newton was eighteen years old. And this was
his first visit to Pluto.
This was the last stop upon a voyage that had taken
him and his three stranger tutors and guardians out
through the whole System. This exhaustive tour of the
System had been designed by the Brain as the conclu-
sion of Curt's unparalleled education.
Unparalleled had been Curt's education, indeed! For
eighteen years, he had lived upon Earth's Moon where
he had been born.
There his three guardians - Simon Wright, the
Brain, Otho, the android, and Grag, the robot - had
reared him and given him a training in scientific wiz-
ardry and in physical and mental skill which no other
tutors could have given.
The growing youth had chafed to leave the Moon, to
see the rest of the great System that pioneering Earth-
men had explored and colonized. But not until now had
the Brain deemed him ready.
PLANET TO PLANET
Now, for months, they had been making their way
from planet to planet in their small space-ship. Young
Curt Newton had learned the secrets of Martian deserts,
the depths of Jovian jungles, the great plains of Saturn
and the sky-storming mountains of Uranus, all at first
hand.
They had been for weeks here on Pluto. They had
been dwelling with the Plutonian natives, in their
strange ice-city of Qulun, north of the Avernus Sea.
Curt had already evinced his unique knack of making
22
No. 9
HOW CURT NEWTON BECAME CAPTAIN FUTURE
The World's Greatest Space-Farer Begins His Trail
of Adventure When He Battles for Justice on Pluto!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 9 - How Curt Newton Became Captain Future
friends with non-terrestrial planetary peoples.
He had become a comrade of the simple, primitive
Plutonians - sailing the stormy ocean with them, hunt-
ing the korlats and other great fur-bearing beasts, and
now he came with them to trade their furs with the
Earthmen.
The little party reached the double-doored entrance
of the small domed trading-town and entered. The inte-
rior was warm and light. Great atomic generators that
throbbed in a guarded building poured forth a flood of
power to heat and illuminate this domed enclosure.
Oraq, the Plutonian tribesman, grunted in discom-
fort. "It is too hot in here. Let us trade the furs and
leave before we grow sick."
But young Curt Newton had thrown back the felt
helmet from his red head and was breathing in the
warm air with relief.
"There is where we trade the furs," Oraq said, point-
ing to the biggest of the metalloy buildings crowded in-
side the dome.
THE TRADING POST
The building had a cavernous interior, piled with
great bundles of valuable Plutonian furs and with cases
of cheap trade-goods. There were a few other Plutoni-
ans hanging about, and a crowd of rough Earthman
hunters and trappers who stared at Curt as he entered
with the Plutonians.
"First time I ever saw an Earth youngster trail with
the Hairies," remarked a burly Earthman. "Look, he can
even talk their lingo."
Curt Newton felt uncomfortable. He didn't know
much about Earthmen. He'd had small contact with
them during his eighteen years.
The two proprietors of the trading post had come
forward - a gross-faced, stocky man of middle age and
a thin-lipped older man. They looked appraisingly at
the bundles of furs Oraq's men had hauled in.
"We trade," Oraq mumbled, speaking his few words
of the Earth language with difficulty. "We want knives,
spearheads."
The older man nodded and brought out six cheap
steel knives and as many spearheads, which he laid
down.
Oraq's face fell. "Not enough," the Plutonian articu-
lated.
"It's all you'll get," retorted the thin-lipped trader
calmly.
Curt Newton burst forth. He had been watching in-
dignantly. "Why, that's robbery!" he declared. "Those
furs are worth a thousand times what you're offering.
Take them someplace else, Oraq."
LORDS OF POWER
The men in the room burst into a guffaw. And the
thin-lipped older trader told Curt sourly, "You must be
new to Pluto, boy. There are no other traders on this
planet. Wilson and Kincaid - that's me and my partner
- have the only trading post here. For we have the only
atomic power plant here, to keep a post going with heat
and light."
"That's right, sonny," smirked Kincaid, his gross-
faced partner. "That's why these Hairies call us the
Lords of Power."
Curt looked incredulous. "But the Planet Patrol of
the System Government -"
Kincaid chuckled. "Sonny, the Patrol's got enough to
handle these days in the inner planets without coming
away out here. The only law out here is the law of the
Lords of Power, and don't you forget it."
Curt's eyes flashed. "I'll see that System law comes
here!" he flamed. "I'll see that the Government hears of
your cheating, thieving monopoly!"
The thin lips of Wilson, the older partner, became
thinner and he looked dangerously at the redhaired
youth.
"Boy, you've got things to learn," he said calmly.
"You've got to learn who the Lords of Power are." And
Wilson spoke to the burly men behind Curt in sharp
command. "Teach him who we are, men."
Curt tried to spin around, but a stunning blow from a
clenched fist caught him before he completed the
movement. He reeled and felt another blow split his
lips, and his head rang with the shock.
He was only dimly aware then of further smashing
blows, of falling strengthlessly to the floor, of heavy
boots kicking him. He slipped into a merciful uncon-
sciousness.
THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE
When he awoke, sore and bruised and cold, he
found himself being carried over the ice-fields by
Oraq's Plutonians. Oraq helped him as he unsteadily
tried to stand erect.
"They beat you and threw you out of the dome!"
raged Oraq. "They held us off with their atom-guns,
and would have slain us where we stood if we tried to
stop them."
The Plutonian added fiercely, "We shall gather all
the tribes and attack these evil Lords of Power, and de-
stroy them."
"No!" Curt said through puffed lips. "It's for me to
see that justice is done, Oraq. Take me back now to
your city."
When they reached the ice-city of Qulun, and Otho
and Grag and the Brain learned what had occurred, the
android and robot exploded with rage. Hands had been
laid upon their beloved ward and pupil!
"We'll go back there and blast them!" snarled Otho.
"We'll make these so-called Lords of Power sorry they
ever saw you before they die."
"No!" Curt Newton contradicted. His young eyes
23
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 9 - How Curt Newton Became Captain Future
had a strange, cold new light. "We'll mete out justice to
them - not mere vengeance. We'll force Wilson and
Kincaid to go back to Earth and surrender themselves
to the justice of the Government."
"But how can we do that?" Grag objected. "They'll
never leave Pluto of their own accord."
THE SONIC-SILENT BEAM
"I think they will," Curt declared. "The atomic gen-
erators are all that make their domed trading-town hab-
itable. And we can 'kill' those generators, by using the
inhibiting damping-ray that you showed me how to pro-
duce. That, and the Brain's 'sonic-silent' beam, will
force them out."
"The 'sonic-silent' beam?" cried Otho. "Say, I begin
to understand your plan now! You're figuring to use it
to -"
"Yes," Curt nodded. "That's what we're going to do."
Curt's youthful, bruised face suddenly changed from
its coldly grim expression. A look of dismay appeared
in his eyes as he met the oddly intent gaze of the Brain.
"I forgot myself for a moment," Curt said uncertain-
ly. "I was giving you orders. I didn't mean to do that."
The Brain broke a long silence. "Curtis, you need
not apologize. We shall do as you suggest."
THE DAWN OF MANHOOD
That moment, all four of them knew, marked a
change forever in their relations. It meant that Curt
Newton was no longer their pupil, their ward. It meant
that he had suddenly become their leader - that new,
grim purpose had suddenly brought manhood.
That night, the big atomic generators in the domed
trading-town suddenly went dead. The puzzled engi-
neers, after working for a time in vain, summoned Wil-
son and Kincaid.
"We can't understand it," they told the two self-
styled Lords of Power. "The generators should work,
but they just don't."
"You mean, you don't know your business!" raged
Kincaid. "You get them working, before we all freeze."
But though the engineers labored frantically, the
great cyclotrons remained dead. The toiling men never
dreamed of the little ship that was hovering far up in
the dusky sky, playing upon the dome the invisible in-
hibiting force that "killed" all atomic activity.
CHILL IN THE AIR
The air in the dome began to grow cold as the pow-
erful atomic heaters ceased functioning. It had been
dark for hours except for make-shift lights. More and
more chill grew the air, frost gathering on the dome.
The shivering Earthmen watched anxiously as the
sweating engineers labored at their fruitless task under
the lashing words of their employers.
Then Kincaid and Wilson and all their men sudden-
ly started. A clear voice had suddenly spoken loudly
from the air around them.
"Go to Earth and surrender yourselves to System
law!" it commanded.
"Who said that?" snarled Kincaid, drawing his atom-
pistol.
"It's nobody - it just came out of the air!" gasped a
man.
Again the voice spoke, from the empty air around
them, repeating its command. It was loud, louder than
any ordinary voice.
The men could not dream that it was the "sonic-
silent" beam of the Brain that produced the effect - a
beam of sound vibrations pitched below the limits of
audibility but focused so as to become suddenly audible
vibrations at a selected distance from the transmitter.
Over and over it repeated its eerie command. The
darkness and increasing cold and the grim voice from
empty air began to crack nerves.
"We can't fix these cycs," the engineers finally con-
fessed.
"Let's get out o' here!" begged one of the men.
"We'll freeze if we don't. An' that voice means trouble."
"It's just a trick," hissed Kincaid. "But we'll go.
We'll head for Uranus and wait there a while, and come
back with new generators."
THE UNSEEN VOICE
They hastily loaded their great bales of valuable furs
into their space-ship, and took off for Uranus. They es-
tablished a camp among the Black Mountains of that
planet's equatorial region, near the Canyon of the End-
less River. But on their second day there, the unseen
voice spoke again.
"Go to Earth and surrender yourselves to System
law!"
For two days, the voice spoke, hour after hour, re-
peating that relentless command. The raging Wilson
and Kincaid searched furiously for its source without
success. In desperation, they turned their atom-guns at
random on the mist-hidden cliffs overhead. The only re-
sult was to start an avalanche from which they and their
ship barely escaped.
The Lords of Power and their men flew to Saturn.
24
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 9 - How Curt Newton Became Captain Future
They made new camp near the Valley of the Silicae
near the southern pole of that world. But again the
voice remorselessly prodded them. There seemed no
source of it. Curt and his comrades were projecting the
"sonic-silent" beam from miles away.
The Silicae came crawling upon the camp of Wilson
and Kincaid, attracted by their indiscriminate firing at
nothing. The great gray inorganic monsters made them
hastily remove camp northward. But in their new camp
by the Wandering Lakes, deadly puff-balls from the
Fungus Forest came upon the wind. And the grim, cold
voice was still with them.
NO ESCAPE!
More than a little fearful, the Lords of Power es-
sayed another attempt to escape their maddening tor-
mentors. They fled to Jupiter and endeavored to hide in
the vast fern-jungles south of the Fire Sea. But though
they had pitched their camp in the ancient Jovian ruins
which were shunned by all Jovians as the Place of the
Dead, the cold voice reached them.
"Go to Earth and surrender yourselves to System
law!"
In panic, the followers of Wilson and Kincaid de-
serted them, stumbling away through the fern-jungles in
mad flight from the unknown. And at last utterly bro-
ken in nerve, Wilson and Kincaid steered toward Earth.
Curt Newton's ship followed at a distance, still prod-
ding the fugitives with the "sonic-silent" beam as they
landed near Government Tower.
"Surrender yourselves to System law!" came the in-
exorable order.
At that a bewildered Planet Police chief and equally
bewildered System President listened as two broken,
haunted-looking men babbled a confession of having
defrauded Plutonian natives by means of an illegal
monopoly.
Later that night, the System President sat in his of-
fice high in Government Tower reflecting on the
strange occurrence. His thin, aging face expressed sud-
den startled wonder as he heard a space-ship landing on
the truncated top of the tower. No ship but his own ever
landed there.
FOUR STRANGE FIGURES
He rose to his feet to call officers. Then he froze. In
his office door had appeared four figures that seemed
unreal. They were a tall Earth youngster, with red hair
and clear, purposeful gray eyes; a lithe, green-eyed an-
droid; a giant metal robot; and a Brain brooding in a
square transparent serum-case, watching with lens-like
artificial eyes.
"It was we who drove Wilson and Kincaid to con-
fess," Curt Newton told the President quietly. "And I
wanted to tell you this: the furs in their ship were stolen
by fraud from the native Plutonians. The value of those
furs, in needed goods, should be given to the Plutoni-
ans."
The President stared, and then as the four strange
visitants turned to leave, he asked a dazed question.
"Who - who are you?"
The redheaded youngster turned, for a moment.
"Just someone who didn't want to see the whole future
of Pluto's people wrecked for profits."
Then a quick, humorous smile lit his gray eyes and
he added, "If you want a name to call me by, why, you
can call me Captain Future!"
It was thus that Curt Newton became Captain Fu-
ture!
25
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 10 - Captain Future Trails the Chameleon
HENEVER men of the System talk of Cap-
tain Future's brilliant exploits, someone
sooner or later is sure to say:W"Well, after all. Captain Future met his match once.
The Chameleon beat him."
The whole System knows that as the one major de-
feat on the record of the Futuremen. But the System
does not know all the story of that famous occasion
when Captain Future was bested by the Chameleon.
AN INTERPLANETARY ROBBER
The Chameleon was the most daring and notorious
interplanetary robber in the System. He was not one of
the space-pirates who infested the wild moons of the
outer worlds. He preferred almost always to work
alone, and his depredations were carried out with a
smoothness and skill and lack of bloodshed far re-
moved from the vicious raids of the brutal corsairs.
He was not a killer - he was a thief of genius.
It was the Chameleon who single-handed held up a
space-liner, by gaining mastery of its control-room and
then forcing the passengers to deposit their valuables in
a life-rocket in which he later vanished.
It was the Chameleon who stole the fire-emerald
eyes of the Venusian swampmen's god, though that idol
was at the center of a cage of ferocious marsh-tigers.
It was the Chameleon who impersonated an Earth
official come to Mars to collect the Government rev-
enues, and walked coolly off with the immense sum.
THE CHAMELEON LAUGHS
The Chameleon seemed to laugh at the attempts of
the Planet Patrol to catch him. Always, when they were
hottest on his trail, his little, swift black cruiser would
vanish as though space had swallowed it up.
It always vanished in a certain section - Sector 16 -
of the asteroidal zone. The implication was clear that
the Chameleon's base was somewhere in that sector, but
the Patrol searched for it in vain. So great became the
Chameleon's reputation, that merchant-ships plying
through the zone made long detours to avoid that sec-
tor.
It was this development which caused Halk Anders,
commander of the Patrol, to swallow his pride and ask
for Captain Future's help in catching the arch-thief of
the System.
"He's got us stumped!" swore the commander. "And
ships are having to make that long detour around Sector
l6, just because of one criminal. We're becoming the
laughing-stock of the System."
A SUBTLE TRAP
Captain Future, who wanted to get back to his Moon
home, was not interested in chasing slippery thieves
and said so.
"It's your job, Halk," he grinned. "You'll have to
search Sector 16 until you find out where the fellow has
his hidden base."
"I tell you, we've been over every inch of that sector
a hundred times!" exclaimed the frustrated commander.
"There's some dangerous meteor-swarms in it, and
there's Mazzatarra and Ferronia, a couple of small, air-
less asteroids. But there's no place where a man could
have a base. Yet the Chameleon has one there, some-
26
No. 10
CAPTAIN FUTURE TRAILS THE CHAMELEON
How the World's Greatest Space-Farer Met Defeat
in His Battle of Wits With a Wily Space Thief!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 10 - Captain Future Trails the Chameleon
where."
Curt Newton became more interested. "The fellow
must be clever. But why waste more time hunting for
his base. Why not make him walk right into your
arms?"
"You mean, set a trap for him?" asked Halk Anders.
"It wouldn't work. We've tried it, and the Chameleon's
too smart for that."
"You haven't set a subtle enough trap," Captain Fu-
ture told him. "The Chameleon would be clever enough
to investigate before making his play. I'll set a trap for
him that he can back-trail without having his suspicions
aroused - and he'll come walking into it."
PROSPECTOR'S LUCK
A short time later, the telenews headlined the sensa-
tional discovery of an Earth prospector on Mercury.
The prospector, John Willison, had found a dozen sun-
stones, the most valuable gem in the System, near the
edge of the Hot Side.
Captain Future was the lucky prospector, of course.
He had gone to Mercury and, well-disguised, had actu-
ally unearthed the rare sun-stones from a deposit which
the Futuremen had long known about.
As Willison, the lucky, newly-rich prospector, Curt
came to Earth. He was televised by the news-services,
showing his jewels to the System, bragging of his good
fortune, playing his part to the hilt.
"Aren't you worried over the safety of your jewels,
Mr. Willison?" the interviewer asked him smilingly.
"Not me!" Curt answered boastfully. "I'm an old
hand on the interplanetary frontier, and I know how to
look after what's mine. I've sold one of the stones, and
the rest are safe with me, from any thief."
Curt had really sold one of the jewels. With the
money thus derived, he set up as a newly-rich million-
aire in an elaborate mansion near New York. Otho, in
appropriate disguise, was his butler. The trap was now
ready, and they waited for the Chameleon to enter it.
AT LAST - A VISITOR!
Weeks passed, but nothing happened. Curt was not
impatient. He had known the Chameleon was clever,
and he guessed that the notorious thief was carefully
checking the trail of those jewels before acting.
Then one night, Otho came gravely into the library
and told Curt, " A caller to see you, Mr. Willison. It is a
Mr. Norman Thaine."
Under his breath, Otho hissed, "It's him! The X-Ray
alarm at the door showed that he's carrying an atom-pis-
tol."
"All right, show him in," Curt said loudly to his
"butler."
Mr. Norman Thaine was a well-dressed, studious
looking young Earthman of quite ordinary appearance.
He came to the point at once.
"Mr. Willison, like everyone else I've heard of your
sun-stones. I'm very much interested in them."
"What do you mean - interested?" barked the dis-
guised Captain Future, pretending to scowl suspicious-
ly.
"Let me explain." said Norman Thaine earnestly. "I
am a jewel-collector. I can afford to pay a good price
for your stones, since a space-ship invention of mine a
few years ago made me fairly wealthy. You can check
my references, if you wish. I'd like to see the jewels."
Curt looked over the documents Thaine handed him.
They seemed authentic. Yet he was certain that this
man was the Chameleon.
A SURPRISE ATTACK
He nevertheless went to a secret cupboard and took
from it the little casket in which were the eleven blaz-
ing yellow sun-stones.
"There they are, Mr. Thaine," he drawled. "Beauties,
aren't they? You sure you can afford to buy one?"
"Yes, of course," said Thaine. As he stepped for-
ward, his hand went into his jacket-pocket.
"No you don't, Chameleon!" exclaimed Curt, and
plunged forward before the man could draw the gun in
his pocket.
Captain Future's surprise attack caught the other be-
fore he could resist. Curt's swift ju-jitsu onslaught had
the man overpowered in a moment.
Ten minutes later, Commander Halk Anders of the
Patrol came in answer to Curt's call.
"There's your Chameleon, Halk," grinned Curt,
pointing to the prisoner.
"You must be crazy!" said Norman Thaine. "I'm not
the Chameleon."
"Then why," Curt asked him dryly, "were you reach-
ing for the atom-pistol in your pocket?"
"I wasn't reaching for that - I was reaching to show
you the money in my pocket, to convince you I could
buy one of the jewels." Thaine retorted. "I carried the
gun, for protection of my money."
"He did have a big sum of money in that pocket,"
Otho reported.
"Sure stolen money," grunted Halk Anders. "He's
the Chameleon all right."
"But I'm not!" Thaine insisted. "Those identity-pa-
pers -"
"All forged, without doubt," the Commander snort-
ed. "Captain Future, you've done the Patrol a big ser-
vice getting this fellow. I'm glad that I can tell those
scary shipping companies now that it's safe to go
through Sector l6, since the Chameleon's caught now."
THAINE PROVES HIS IDENTITY!
The telenews blazoned the news to the whole Sys-
tem in the following hour. The Chameleon captured at
last - by Captain Future!
27
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 10 - Captain Future Trails the Chameleon
People remarked, "Well, he was slick enough to fool
the Patrol a long while, but the Futuremen were a dif-
ferent matter."
But, up in headquarters of the Patrol in Government
Tower, Commander Anders was not feeling as tri-
umphant as he had felt at first.
"I can't understand this!" the commander told Cap-
tain Future. "We checked that fellow's papers, just as a
matter of routine - never doubting they were forged.
But they're not forged. Apparently, this man has a
solidly-established identity as Norman Thaine, Earth
inventor ."
"Of course, I'm Norman Thaine!" insisted the pris-
oner. "This is all nonsense about me being the
Chameleon."
Curt was unconvinced. "You're the Chameleon, and
we both know it," he asserted. "And I'm going to prove
it."
But, in the following days, Curt found that he could
not shake the identity of Norman Thaine. Thaine was
identified by several people, in particular, by the presi-
dent of the space-ship factory to whom he had sold an
invention a few years before.
"Yet he is the Chameleon, beyond doubt!" Captain
Future declared. "I see it all now. He's been clever
enough to establish two or three different identities,
through the past years, in preparation for just such a sit-
uation as this."
RELEASE!
"But we can't prove he's the Chameleon," Halk An-
ders said helplessly. "None of the Chameleon's former
victims can positively identify him. Yet he's not using
make-up or disguise - apparently the only disguise he
uses is cunning alterations of expression, and posture.
We can't prove he's the Chameleon, or even that he in-
tended to rob you of the sun-stones that night. And he
can prove he's Norman Thaine."
"And he's hired a lawyer who's demanding his re-
lease under the habeas corpus clause of interplanetary
law," put in an official.
"We'll have to release him, then," groaned Halk An-
ders. "By law, we can't hold him longer when we have
no proof of his guilt."
"But we know he's the Chameleon!" Curt Newton
exclaimed.
"Sure we do, but we'll have to let him go anyway,
and admit to the System that we didn't catch him after
all," Halk said unhappily.
Norman Thaine was brought into the Commander's
office, and handed his release. Not by an iota, did he
display any exultation.
"I'm going to charge you all with false arrest," he de-
clared indignantly.
THE DOOMED SPACE-LINER
Curt Newton knew that even as he spoke, the mas-
ter-thief was laughing to himself behind that indignant
mask.
"Get out of here, before I lose control of myself!"
Halk Anders blazed at Thaine. "If there was just one
shadow of proof -"
At that moment, there came an interruption. The
captain of the Mars station of the Patrol appeared, in
the televisor-screen nearby.
"Calling GHQ!" he was exclaiming. Then as Halk
Anders snapped a switch, the officer continued hastily,
"Just picked up SOS from the liner Starmaid! She was
running through Sector l6 of the asteroid zone when an
uncharted meteor-swarm caught her."
"The devil!" groaned Halk Anders. "I told the ship-
ping companies not to start going through Sector l6
again until it had been freshly charted!"
"The Starmaid was hard hit, sir," the other reported
tautly. "She telaudioed information that the ship was
completely crippled, that its passengers and crew were
abandoning her in the life-rockets, but that they had
only four life-rockets - the rest were smashed. Crowd-
ed in like that, they haven't air enough for more than
twenty hours."
"Good God!" muttered the Commander, appalled.
"They're doomed, then. We can't get a relief cruiser
from Mars station to that sector in less than ninety
hours."
"Isn't there any habitable 'toid in that sector where
they can land?" asked the Martian officer tensely. "I
could advise them -"
"You know there isn't - nothing but those meteors
and a couple of airless asteroids," groaned Anders.
"Not a place in that whole sector with air enough to
keep them alive that long -"
THE SECRET BASE
He stopped suddenly, as he saw that Captain Future
was looking at Norman Thaine, quietly and steadily.
"You have a secret base in that sector, Chameleon,"
Curt was saying. "There'd be air enough there to keep
those people alive. They could get to it - if you told us
where the base is."
"How can I tell you that?" Thaine retorted. "I'm not
the Chameleon - I don't know where his base is."
"There'll be women and children in those life-rock-
ets," Curt went on quietly. "Women and children who
will die of suffocation twenty hours from now, unless
they reach a place with air."
Sweat stood out on Norman Thaine's forehead. His
face took on a gray pallor, and he clenched his fists.
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "All right,
Captain Future. Tell those life-rockets to make for the
asteroid Ferronia. There's a crater-peak near its north-
ern pole. Down in that crater they'll find an airlock, and
28
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 10 - Captain Future Trails the Chameleon
beneath it is my cavern-base. It has oxygen-generators
enough to keep them all alive until help comes."
When Halk Anders had repeated that information to
be relayed by telaudio to the life-rockets, Captain Fu-
ture looked fixedly, at their prisoner.
"You realize, of course," Curt said to Norman
Thaine, "that you have just convicted yourself of being
the Chameleon?"
The Chameleon laughed harshly. "Sure, I know.
And just when I was free to walk out of here. I'm the
prize idiot of all time, eh?"
PLUTO PRISON FOR LIFE!
Anders said, movedly, "I wish I could tell you that
this would cancel out your record, Chameleon. But it
won't - the courts will have to send you out to Pluto
Prison for life in spite of what you did."
"Well, I was bound to go there sooner or later,"
shrugged the Chameleon.
Curt told the Commander. "I'll watch him while you
call the guards back to take him, Halk."
Looking at Curt a little puzzledly, Halk Anders went
out. Left alone, with the prisoner, Curt sat quietly bal-
ancing his proton-pistol on his knee. He spoke casually.
"The little rocket-flier I came here in tonight is up
on the landing-deck atop this Tower, Chameleon," he
remarked.
"What about it? I'm not going anywhere, said the
Chameleon half-bitterly.
"I don't know," drawled Captain Future. "A smart,
active fellow like you might be able to duck out of this
office before I had time to shoot, and make it to the top-
deck and get away in that flier."
A STRAIGHT SPACE-TRAIL
The Chameleon became rigid, staring at Captain Fu-
ture.
Curt spoke on casually, looking absently he ceiling.
"A fellow as smart as that," he said, "ought to be
smart enough to stop all this business of robbery and
blaze a straight space-trail from now on."
The Chameleon's eyes shone. "Thanks. Captain Fu-
ture," he whispered.
"Thanks for what?" Curt repeated. "I don't know
what you're talking about. I -"
He grinned, then. For the Chameleon was already
gone, like a shadow. Curt waited a moment, then fired a
crashing blast from his gun into a blank wall. He heard
a rocket-flier roaring away, overhead.
Halk Anders and other Patrol officers came running
in a moment later. They found Curt Newton the picture
of chagrin.
"He tricked me and got away!" Curt swore. "He was
gone before I even fired in his direction!"
CAPTAIN FUTURE CAN TAKE IT!
A few minutes later, when the Commander was
alone with Curt, he favored Captain Future with an un-
derstanding grin.
"I knew why you sent me out on that fool's errand,
Future. And I'm glad you did. A fellow who did what
the Chameleon did tonight deserves to have a few rules
broken for him."
Curt nodded. "Somehow, I think we've heard the last
of the Chameleon, Halk. I don't think he'll ever bother
the Patrol again."
Halk Anders pointed out, "You realize this is going
to make you look awful foolish? I'll have to admit that
the Chameleon tricked Captain Future to get away."
Curt shrugged. "Go ahead and admit it, Halk. I can
take it."
*****
The Chameleon never resumed depredations again.
But he has never been forgotten by the System.
For he was, as everybody knows, the one outlaw
who was smart enough to beat Captain Future!
29
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 11 - The Puzzling Case of the Space Queen
NE of the most astounding episodes in the ca-
reer of the Futuremen began with the puzzling
case of the Space Queen.OThe Space Queen, a big, fast liner in the outer planet
trade, was on its way from Saturn to Earth when it hap-
pened. The ship was twelve million miles inside the or-
bit of Jupiter when its instruments warned that another
craft was cutting across its course.
The other ship soon came into view. And the offi-
cers of the liner exclaimed in astonishment as they rec-
ognized that small, teardrop-shaped craft.
That ship was known to every rocketeer in the Sys-
tem.
"It's Captain Future's ship, the Comet! And he's sig-
naling us to slow down."
"Do so at once," ordered the captain promptly.
THE RADIUM CASES
As the liner slackened speed, the smaller ship came
almost close enough to touch it. Across the gulf be-
tween the two craft came hurtling three figures, only
two of whom wore space-suits.
They entered the Space Queen through its airlock
and were greeted by a somewhat anxious captain and
officers. The three visitors were a tall red-haired young
Earthman, a lithe, rubbery-looking man, and a huge
metal robot. Everyone recognized the famous trio in-
stantly.
"What's up, Captain Future?" asked the liner captain
worriedly.
"You have a cargo of radium aboard?" asked the
red-haired young Earthman crisply.
The captain nodded. "Yes, ten million dollars' worth
of the pure element."
A THIEVING PLOT
"There's a plot afoot to steal it from, you," the other
told him rapidly. "It would involve the wrecking of
your ship. I'm going to take that radium aboard the
Comet. I'll deliver it later to Earth."
Any other man in the System would have been met
by a burst of laughter had he made that suggestion. But
confidence in the integrity of the Futuremen was uni-
versal and absolute. The captain did not hesitate a mo-
ment.
"Very well, I'll help you transfer the radium cases.
And thanks a lot for stepping in to help us, Captain Fu-
ture!"
The small lead cases were soon transferred to the lit-
tle teardrop ship. With a final flash of its signals, it
drove away into the void. Vastly relieved, the captain
ordered the Space Queen to proceed to Earth.
Upon arrival at Earth, the officer reported to his
company officials what had happened. They took the
same view of it as he had done.
"We're lucky the Futuremen took a hand in the thing
- otherwise we might have lost radium and ship, too!
They'll probably bring the radium in before long."
A NEW METHOD OF PIRACY?
A few days later, a space-freighter came into Mars
with a tale of a similar experience. The Futuremen had
halted it in space, and had taken from it a shipment of
platinum whose safety Captain Future had declared to
30
No. 11
THE PUZZLING CASE OF THE SPACE QUEEN
An Interplanetary Pirate Impersonates Captain Future in
Order to Commit Acts of Robbery on an Incredibly Vast Scale!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 11 - The Puzzling Case of the Space Queen
be imperiled. In rapid succession half a dozen other
ships reported that the Futuremen had taken similar
valuable cargoes from them.
The officials of the shipping companies and the Sys-
tem Government speculated as to what was going on. It
was believed that some big plot to rob interplanetary
shipping by a cunning new method of piracy had been
hatched, and that the Futuremen had intervened to baf-
fle the plotters.
"They can't get ahead of Captain Future," remarked
several officials, satisfied. "He got wind somehow of
what was being planned, and is acting to prevent it.
Look at the valuable cargoes he's saving."
But as days went by, a certain doubt began to arise.
The Futuremen were still operating in a puzzling way,
out among the planets. Curt Newton and his followers
were relieving one ship after another of valuable ship-
ments, but not one of those shipments of precious ores
and metals had yet been delivered to their destinations.
That was brought to the attention of the System
President.
"Oh, it's all right - Future will bring the stuff in
when he has time," he said.
"Nobody doubts that, but the delay is embarrassing
several companies," pointed out his secretary. "Won't
you call him about it?"
The President acceded. He put through a televisor
call-signal tuned to the secret wave which few people
knew. He was calling the laboratory-home of the Fu-
turemen, on Earth's Moon.
A SHOCK FOR CAPTAIN FUTURE
Captain Future answered. And Curt Newton listened
with increasing bewilderment to what the President
said.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Curt ex-
claimed. "I never took any shipments off those ships.
Grag and Otho and Simon and I have been right here on
the Moon for weeks, working out a new invention."
"But that's impossible!" said the President. "Those
ship officers all saw and talked with you, when they
turned over the shipments to you."
In the televisor-screen. Curt's keen face showed
alarm.
"There's something wrong. I'm coming to Earth at
once."
When Curt and the three Futuremen reached the of-
fice of the president, the famous planeteer listened
closely to the official's recital.
Then he asked, "Call in any of those ship officers
who are on Earth now."
The captain of the Space Queen was one of them.
"You say you turned over that radium shipment to
me?" Curt asked him sharply. "Are you quite sure it
was me?"
"Of course I'm sure," replied the captain. "You were
as close to me as you are now - you and your two pals
there." He pointed toward Grag and Otho.
"Why, you're cra -" Grag started to ejaculate, but
Curt silenced him. He told the captain and other offi-
cers, "That's all I wanted to know. Just a routine ac-
knowledgement for the Government."
A CRIMINAL IMPERSONATOR
Satisfied by that explanation, the ship officers with-
drew. Captain Future looked steadily at the President.
"It's clear now what is going on," he declared.
"Someone is impersonating me. Someone who is using
my name, and the confidence of the System in me, to
perpetrate robbery on a vast scale."
The President was dumbfounded. "But those ship-
officers all swore it was you and your Futuremen they
met! They saw Grag and Otho, as well as yourself. And
there isn't another robot in the System like Grag!"
"I know that, and I can't understand it," Curt admit-
ted. "But it's certain that I've got a criminal double, and
that he and other pirates are impersonating me and the
Futuremen."
"Good Lord, he's still taking millions away from
ships and isolated planetary towns by this trick!" ex-
claimed the President, aghast. He reached for the televi-
sor. "We'll broadcast warning to the whole System of
what's going on."
"No, don't do that!" Curt intervened quickly. "It
would throw all the companies into a panic. They'd
storm your office, demanding that their shipments be
recovered. The criminals behind this would know that
we had already fathomed their plot.
"Also," Captain Future added grimly, "it would
make things plenty hot for me. A lot of people wouldn't
believe that we Futuremen could have doubles so per-
fect as to deceive everyone. A lot of people would think
that we had actually robbed all those ships of their car-
goes."
"Holy sun-imps, I never thought of that!" Otho ex-
claimed. "Say, our reputations are ruined forever unless
we catch these doubles of ours!"
"More than that, our usefulness in the System will
be permanently impaired," Curt warned. "Unless we
capture and expose these plotters, there'll always be a
lurking doubt as to our innocence."
THE FIRST FAINT CLUE
Their problem was complicated by the time factor.
Already, the shipping companies were murmuring com-
plaints because the Futuremen had not yet delivered the
valuable cargoes they had taken. Those murmurs would
soon grow into open expressions of doubt.
Curt Newton attacked the mystery with characteris-
tic concentration. His first quest was to ascertain the
identity of the criminal masquerading as himself.
"Only plastic surgery of the most advanced type
31
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 11 - The Puzzling Case of the Space Queen
could make that criminal into such an exact double of
myself," he pointed out. "But even super-surgery has its
limitations. It can't alter height, weight or certain skull-
measurements. Therefore, the criminal selected to be
my double would have to coincide with me in those
measurements."
That gave the first faint clue. They went through the
voluminous criminal records of the Planet Patrol, each
card of which gave data concerning one of the System's
criminals. They searched the Earthman section.
The photo-electric scanning-machine, once it was
set, went rapidly through the cards and threw out sever-
al scores of them which gave the descriptions of crimi-
nals who were of Captain Future's exact height.
Another scanning of these cards threw out a few
dozen criminal descriptions, corresponding to Curt in
weight. Continuing this cross-check against other unal-
terable factors of skull-measurement, the cards were fi-
nally narrowed down to one.
THE FATAL CARD
"Garis Crain, Earthman, aged 26," read Captain Fu-
ture. "Black hair, brown eyes, scar on left cheek. Con-
victed first for robbery of a Venusian kulga warehouse
-" He read off the long list of crimes, ending with, "-
escaped Syrtis Prison on Mars, June eleventh, two
thousand - unapprehended."
"Ten to one, this Garis Crain is my double," Curt
said keenly. "Listen to this final notation, dated only a
year ago."
He read, "'Crain believed to have been leader of pi-
rate band which raided the mining town of Noomat, on
southern Saturn, August fourteenth. Pirates were pur-
sued to the Zone, but escaped.' "
"Well, how does all that help us?" Otho demanded
skeptically.
"It proves that Crain has been operating from within
the Asteroid Zone," Curt affirmed. "You know where
his base would be there."
"Pirates' Planet, of course," said the Brain.
Captain Future nodded. "No doubt of it. That old
thieves' asteroid is still a hangout for the mid-System
outlaw bands." He went on puzzledly, "But who could
have made Crain into such an exact double of myself?
Remember, it would take super-skill in plastic surgery.
There aren't a hundred surgeons in the System who
could use instruments well enough to do that, and who
would know how to effect re-coloration of hair and
eyes."
At once, they brought out the file cards on the sur-
geons of the System and scanned it.
"Crain may have kidnapped a surgeon for the pur-
pose," Curt was saying. "If one is missing -"
CRIME'S BRAIN TRUST
They soon discovered that the only surgeon of suffi-
ciently high skill who was presently missing was one
Thua Quar of Venusopolis.
"Listen to this!" Curt read. "'Thua Quar disappeared
four years ago, after being sought by the Venus section
of the police for having used his plastic surgical skill to
give a new face to a criminal fugitive. Rumors of the
System underworld name Thua Quar as one of the
Four.'"
"The Four?" repeated the President perplexedly.
"Who are the Four?"
Curt's eyes were gleaming. "They're a quartet we Fu-
turemen have been after for a couple of years! They
are, actually, a brain trust of crime. We believe they've
been behind some of the biggest criminal coups in re-
cent times. The vague information we've picked up is
that they consist of four master scientists, an Earthman,
a Venusian, a Martian and a Saturnian, who maintain a
secret consulting service for criminals.
"Any pirate or criminal who needs a special scientif-
ic weapon for his purposes, goes to the Four. They usu-
ally can furnish what is needed, and they take a big per-
centage of the proceeds of the coup. They take none of
the risks themselves, and so have never been caught.
I'm sure that the Four are behind Crain's impersonation
of myself."
"Say, you don't think the Four have their base some-
where on Pirates' Planet?" Otho cried. "Maybe that's
why we've never been able to find it."
"It looks as though their base might be there," Curt
admitted. "But it's sure to be cunningly hidden. Our
best chance of finding it is through Crain. Catch him
and we'll have a real lead to the Four."
"But how the devil are we going to catch these dou-
bles of ours?" Grag wanted to know.
Captain Future grinned a little. "We're going to let
them catch themselves, as we've done with lots of oth-
ers. Listen, here's my idea . . ."
ON THE TRAIL OF THE FOUR
A few days later, a dumpy little freighter took off
from New York spaceport. It was listed as the Willings,
bound for Jupiter with a small but valuable cargo of re-
fined platinum and tantalum.
The little old freighter plugged slowly out past the
orbit of Mars. Actually, it was not a freighter at all. It
was the swift little Comet, ingeniously disguised by a
fake superstructure of light metal plates built around it
to make it look bigger and dumpier. Its only crew were
the Futuremen.
They were not far beyond the orbit of Mars when
what Curt Newton had hoped for happened. A small
ship came racing up toward them from the right quarter.
It was an exact replica of their own Comet and it
flashed an urgent signal.
"Captain Future, requesting you to stand by for us to
come aboard!" came from the televisor, in a voice un-
32
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 11 - The Puzzling Case of the Space Queen
cannily like Curt's own voice.
"Okay, Captain Future!" Curt answered in a deep-
ened voice. "We're standing by!"
The fake Comet drove alongside the disguised real
Comet. From the pretenders ship came three figures,
two of them in space-suits. The third was a great robot
exactly resembling Grag.
Grag himself was speechless.
"There isn't another intelligent metal man like me in
the System!" he protested. "But that one looks like me!"
"The nerve of those crooks!" Otho was raging.
"Look, one of them is a dead ringer for me!"
"Be ready now," Captain Future ordered. "Here they
come."
The three pretenders came into the airlock of the
disguised Comet. And as soon as the three doubles
were inside, the Futuremen grabbed them.
FACING THEMSELVES
It was as simple as that. The imposters hadn't a
chance to fight, because they had not been expecting
the necessity. They found themselves facing a brace of
deadly proton-guns, and stood speechless.
The Futuremen were speechless too, for the mo-
ment. These three were uncannily exact replicas of Curt
and Otho and Grag. For a dramatic moment, the real
Futuremen and the impostors faced each other. And no
outsider could have told which was which.
Then Grag uttered a triumphant cry.
"I knew there wasn't another robot like me in the
System! Look, Chief!"
And Grag advanced upon the pseudo-Grag and tore
at his metal body. The fake Grag was revealed to be a
huge, vicious-faced Jovian criminal disguised in a met-
al space-suit made to resemble Grag's metal body.
Captain Future spoke crisply to his own glaring dou-
ble.
"A neat trick you've been using, Crain. Yes, I know
who you are - Garis Crain, pirate and criminal, wanted
by the Patrol for a dozen offenses."
Crain's face, a face so amazingly like Curt's own, be-
came desperate and hunted in expression.
"It was the Four who made you into my double,
wasn't It?" Curt pressed. "And their base is on Pirates'
Planet somewhere, isn't it? Well, you're going to take us
there. You know the secret pirate wave-code and you
can navigate us safely through the swarms."
Crain assumed an attitude of sullen defiance. "I
won't do it."
"Oh, yes, you will," Curt said relentlessly. "Because
if you don't, we'll be wrecked in the swarms. And you
don't want to die. You'd a lot rather go to Interplanetary
Prison, than die."
The Futuremen securely bound their prisoners. They
disabled the fake Comet and left it drifting. They
shucked away the disguise from the real Comet, and
started into the Zone toward Pallas.
Curt steered right toward the dangerous meteor-
swarms around Pallas. And when disaster seemed im-
minent what he had foreseen happened. Crain's nerve
broke. The criminal hastily babbled the secret wave-
code by means of which they could steer their way
through the dangerous swarms.
PIRATES' PLANET
Thus the Comet came to Pirates' Planet. It descended
toward the night side, and poised above the dark blot of
Red Lake. Miles to the west, the lights of the pirate
city, Freetown, threw a glow into the sky.
"Now take us to the hidden base of the Four," or-
dered Curt.
"Captain Future, I don't dare!" Crain cried. "You
don't know what the Four are like. They're devils! It
was they who thought up this whole imposture, and
picked myself and two others to play it because we
were the right height and so on. If you try to meddle
with them, they'll kill you - and then kill me for bring-
ing you here!"
Curt again applied pressure. "Crain, unless you take
us to the Four, do you know what I'll do? I'll drop you
over there in Freetown. The pirates over there don't
know about your impersonation of me. You'd not be
fool enough to tell them or anyone. So when you drop
in on them, they'll think you're really Captain Future.
You know how those outlaws hate me. You can guess
what they'll do to you, thinking that you're me!"
Crain's ghastly face showed that he knew only too
well what the bloodthirsty corsairs would do if they
thought they had captured Captain Future.
"All right," he choked. "I'll take you to the base of
the Four. But you'll never come out of it alive."
He directed Curt to steer the Comet toward a rocky
hill on the eastern shore of Red Lake.
"The whole hill is hollowed out," he explained.
"The secret laboratories of the Four are inside of it."
"Good - we'll land right by it," Curt declared. "The
Four will think our ship is the fake Comet returning.
And they'll think that Grag and Otho and I are Crain
and the other doubles coming back from the trip!"
The audacity of the plan was typical of Captain Fu-
ture. And it held good chance of success. His hopes
were high as he landed the Comet in the darkness be-
side the rocky hill.
Crain shakily gave them directions. But before leav-
ing the ship, Curt rapidly prepared three heavy little
metal chests which he and Grag and Otho took with
them. Simon remained to guard the prisoners.
"Why do we have to carry these things?" grumbled
Grag.
"We're supposed to be bringing back platinum and
tantalum, aren't we?" Curt countered. "Besides, they
may be useful in other ways."
33
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 11 - The Puzzling Case of the Space Queen
CRIMINALS' HIDE-OUT
Otho was chuckling as they made their way toward a
cunningly disguised opening in the side of the hollow
hill.
"The Four will get an awful shock when they find
out the doubles are the real Futuremen."
They entered the cavernous opening in the hillside.
A passage led through solid rock to a square rock
chamber in which was a heavy door.
Curt touched the electrobell beside the door in the
signal he had extorted from Crain. His hand rested on
his proton-pistol as they waited.
"Be ready to jump them the minute we have all four
together," he muttered to the others.
At that moment, a trap-door opened beneath them.
They plummeted down through a vertical shaft into a
space beneath. Curt struck a stone floor with a stunning
shock. . . .
Curt woke to find himself tightly bound. Otho was
bound also, sitting beside him, and Grag was secured
by a heavy chain.
They were in a big, brightly lit laboratory some-
where inside the hollow hill. Four men faced them - a
crafty looking, iron-haired Earthman, a suave young
Venusian, an ancient, wrinkled-faced Martian, and a
Saturnian dwarf with a freakishly huge head.
"The Four!" he muttered.
"Yes, we are the Four, Captain Future," coolly an-
swered the crafty Earthman. "We have anticipated that
sooner or later you would call upon us."
He laughed at Curt's expression of surprise. "We
knew of your reputation for resourcefulness and audaci-
ty. We believed that sooner or later you might be able
to locate our base here, and that if you did, you would
attempt to enter by passing yourself off as your own
doubles! So we took the precaution of inspecting Crain
and the other doubles with X-Ray scanners, each time
before we let them enter. The scanners would show
whether the robot was really a robot, or a man in dis-
guise."
"Devils of space, so that's what gave us away!"
hissed Otho.
"It was not hard to disarm and bind you three while
you lay stunned by your fall below," continued the
Earthman. "I suppose you realize your helplessness.
What did you do with Crain and the others?"
Curt pretended to be crushed. "They're out in our
ship." he muttered. "I suppose you're going to murder
us?"
"After we have extracted as much valuable informa-
tion as possible from you - certainly."
THE MYSTERIOUS CHESTS
"Can't we make a bargain?" Curt asked desperately.
"Those chests we brought really have a fortune in plat-
inum in them. We wanted to carry out our whole
scheme just as though we were really Crain and the oth-
ers, so there wouldn't be any slip-ups. Won't you take
the platinum and let us go?"
The Earthman pondered. "Bring in the chests," he
ordered.
The young Venusian member of the Four did so, one
by one. Curt saw that there was suspicion on the face of
the Earthman.
"Before we open the chests, use the X-Ray scanner
on them," he directed.
The dwarfed Saturnian brought the instrument and
peered through it at the chests.
"Nothing in the chests but bars of metal," he report-
ed.
"So you were telling the truth?" the leader of the
Four remarked to Curt. "Your devotion to realism was,
carried too far, my dear Captain Future. You lose not
only the platinum, but your lives, also."
He bent and unlocked one of the chests, and raised
its lid. Whoosh! A cloud of invisible gas that had been
stored in the chest of bars at high pressure suddenly
burst out of it.
The Earthman fell in his tracks as the gas reached
his nostrils. Almost in the same instant, the other three
of the Four and also Captain Future and Otho lost con-
sciousness as the potent gas expanded.
INVISIBLE "SLEEP-GAS"
Curt awoke, to find Grag bending over him. He
scrambled to his feet.
"The Four are safe?"
"Sure, I've got 'em nicely trussed up," Grag boomed.
"Chief, I sure was surprised when that gas knocked ev-
erybody out. Everybody but me, that is. It couldn't af-
fect me, since I don't breathe."
"Yes, I figured on that." Curt grinned. "You see, I
hoped we'd be able to nab the Four without trouble. But
I thought that it was better to have a card up our sleeve
in case Crain had tricked us and given us a wrong elec-
trobell signal that would betray us. So when I put some
metal bars in those chests, I also pumped the chests full
of the invisible Uranian 'sleep-gas,' '' from that tank of it
we carry for making 'sleep-bombs.' "
"I knew that the gas would get Otho and me, as well
as the Four, if it were ever released," Curt added. "But
it wouldn't affect you, and I counted on your being able
to set things aright in the hour or so that we'd be uncon-
scious."
"You didn't count in vain, Chief," boasted Grag
proudly. "Though it took me nearly the whole time to
cut that chain away from around me, by starting one of
their atomic blasters and using its flame."
"Anyone could have done that, if he happened to be
a creature too dumb to breathe," snapped Otho to the
robot. "Come on and help me carry these four precious
rascals out to the ship. They're going to keep Crain
34
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 11 - The Puzzling Case of the Space Queen
company out in Interplanetary Prison."
*****
That is why, out in the great prison on Pluto's moon
Cerberus, a life sentence is being served by a man who
is an uncanny double of Curt Newton. And his life is
not easy there. Too many of his fellow prisoners persist
in believing that he is the hated Captain Future!
35
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 12 - The Birth of Grag
HE tall red-haired man who stood in the center
of the moon-laboratory stood back for a moment
and surveyed the robot's body. In the laboratory
itself, the humming of atomic motors could be heard,
supplying light and heat, purifying the air, making the
rockbound retreat livable.
T
But looking out through the plastex windows, he
could see the barren airless landscape of Earth's satel-
lite, covered with dark and gloomy shadows that of-
fered almost perfect hiding places for the dangerous
metal-eating moon-wolves. There, all was cold, silent,
almost as empty of life and as dangerous as space itself.
Soon there would be five of them on the Moon, but
at the moment there were only four - Roger Newton,
the red-haired man himself; his wife, his infant son,
Curtis; and Simon Wright, a grizzled old scientist who
had been Roger's friend for years.
Simon was ailing, and already could see death ap-
proaching, but he had as yet no suspicion of the strange
fate that would eventually be his - to live as a Brain
without a body, to exist, and yet to be free of almost all
human cares.
Now he was still human, with the thoughts and emo-
tions of a man.
He was the most brilliant scientist that Earth had
produced in generations, and at the moment the most
excited one. For today was to see the climax of years of
careful work.
A METAL BODY IS BUILT
Roger Newton moved toward a speaking tube.
"Well, Simon," he said, "it's time for our robot to be
born."
A moment later Simon entered the laboratory. The
huge room was full of strange instruments and novel
forms of apparatus, most of them constructed by Roger
and Simon themselves, implements unknown anywhere
else on the solar planets or their satellites.
But none was more wonderful than the metal body
of the robot, and the matchless mechanism of hy-
drophilic colloid metal that was to be his brain.
The body lay upon a sturdy table, a suggestion of la-
tent power in the motionless limbs that had been con-
structed so carefully of specially treated steel. No other
robot possessed a body like it, but none the less it had
taken the scientists little enough time to fabricate.
It was the making of the brain that had delayed the
birth of Grag. The plans for it had first been drawn up
ten years before by Simon. It had taken a long time for
them to come to fruition, but now the task was done,
with hundreds of thousands of brain paths carefully
traced in the finely divided metal, each path so tiny and
delicate as to be invisible, and yet possessed of suffi-
cient strength to control the motions of the mighty mon-
ster that would soon come to life.
The brain had been placed in a temporary case of
strong steel. Now Simon, with more caution than if he
had been handling a new born babe, lifted it out and in-
serted it into the cavity prepared for it within the robot's
head.
Here it would be protected by the strongest metal
yet known - magnasteel, beside which ordinary steel
had the strength of wet paper. There was one more task
to do, the connecting of numerous brain endings with
36
No. 12
THE BIRTH OF GRAG
The Astonishing Facts in the Experiments of Roger Newton and
Simon Wright Which Brought a Thinking Robot into Being!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 12 - The Birth of Grag
the metal spinal cord.
CONNECTING THE BRAIN
Simon's skilled hands worked quickly, while Roger
Newton handled the bank of electrical instruments that
sent a pulsing current through the newly made joints.
It was necessary to fuse each joint thoroughly and at
the same time avoid overheating. In a half hour Simon
was finished, and stepped back to examine his handi-
work.
The robot was ready. Simon and Roger exchanged
glances, and Roger pushed a switch toward his elderly
colleague.
"You bring him to life, Simon," he said. "He's really
your baby."
He could see the veins throbbing in Simon's temple
as the elderly scientist's hand moved toward the switch.
Emotion was a thing that had for years seemed utterly
alien to Simon's nature, but now a feeling of excite-
ment, almost of fear, seemed to pervade his every fiber.
What if somewhere he had made a tiny mistake, if
the robot did not come to life, or if he came to life, and
failed to possess the qualities for which Simon had
toiled so painfully? Simon's fingers pressed down on
the tiny knob of plastic.
The robot's photo-electric eyes suddenly glowed
with light.
"Stand up," ordered Simon, and Grag arose as readi-
ly as if he had been following orders for years.
"I obey. Master," he said in a deep mechanical
voice.
There was a gleam of triumph in Simon's eyes.
Years of effort had been crowned with success. The
robot was alive, and acting exactly as he should act.
PERIL IN THE LUCENITE PIT
It required several days before he and Roger realized
that something was wrong. Neither scientist could put
his finger on the thing that aroused his uneasiness, but
they both felt it. Grag obeyed orders well - perhaps
even too well. But it seemed absurd to find a reason for
complaint in that.
Then there came the day when Roger Newton dis-
covered the rare mineral in one of the moon craters. Si-
mon, working in the laboratory, heard his excited voice
through the audiophone the two scientists always wore
when one or both of them worked afield from the main
home.
"Come quickly, Simon, I've discovered a large de-
posit of lucenite!"
Pausing only to slip on a space helmet and to bark a
curt order to Grag to follow, Simon hastened out of the
laboratory. He found Roger gazing in triumph at a de-
posit of pinkish-gray mineral that spread over a patch
of several square yards.
Within the patch, Roger had been digging, and al-
though he was now a dozen feet beneath the surface,
the end of the lucenite was not yet in sight.
"Here it is, Simon, enough to supply us for years!
Now we'll no longer have to import rare metals from
Earth!"
Simon's eyes showed his pleasure. "It'll save us valu-
able time," he said. And then he looked around quickly.
A slight noise, transmitted through the ground, had
reached his ears.
A pack of moon-wolves was approaching. The giant,
long-fanged beasts, their grayish metallic bodies gleam-
ing, had scented food. They preferred to eat metal, but
in case of need would devour anything living that came
their way. And neither Roger nor Simon had remem-
bered to bring weapons.
Simon's lips tightened. "You run for it, Roger," he
said. "I'll try to hold them off."
Roger shook his head as he hefted the pick he had
been working with.
Simon persisted, "You've got your wife to live for -
and Curt. I'm an old man. I'm going soon, anyhow."
"We'll run together - if Grag can hold them off," de-
cided Newton.
GRAG'S FIRST TRIAL
Together they stared at the giant robot, who was re-
garding the approaching and snarling beasts with great
interest. "We've made him strong enough," admitted Si-
mon. "If only he has enough intelligence -"
Roger spoke directly to the robot. "Grag, we are re-
turning to the laboratory. Do not let the moon-wolves
follow us. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master," boomed Grag. "I shall obey."
They watched Grag move slowly toward the ap-
proaching monsters. Then, without further delay, they
turned and ran.
They were not followed. Evidently Grag was not
finding it as difficult as they had feared to fight off the
moon-wolves. Simon dashed into the moon-laboratory
and immediately made for the cupboard where several
atom-guns were stored.
They were weapons of especially large caliber, and
projected beams that would drill through a moon-wolf
as easily as an ordinary beam would drill through a
man. They had been constructed especially for that pur-
pose.
Each holding a pair of the guns, Simon and Roger
retraced their steps. As they came within sight of the
snarling beasts, Roger stared in bewilderment.
"Where is he?"
Grag was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, the
beasts had remained in the same spot where the men
had left them, and were quarreling over something that
lay on the ground.
"It's Grag's brain-case," suddenly cried Simon
hoarsely. "The magnasteel has resisted their teeth! But
37
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 12 - The Birth of Grag
they've eaten the rest of him!"
He plunged toward the animals with a shout of rage,
both guns, blasting. A pair of moon-wolves fell, but an-
other trio came leaping toward him. One howled sound-
lessly while still in the air, then fell motionless as an
atom-ray blasted him. The others came on.
Roger fired quickly, and the leading beast fell just as
his teeth closed over Simon's leg. The other moon-wolf
hesitated, turned to run, and snarled one last time in de-
fiance at the deadly beam which penetrated his body.
Of the entire pack, only one of the creatures suc-
ceeded in gaining the nearby shadows safely.
THE MYSTERY OF GRAG'S DEFEAT
Simon's leg was torn and bleeding, but he evidently
felt no pain. He picked up Grag's brain-case, his own
face white. As they were to discover later, Grag's brain
was functioning inside it as well as ever. But of Grag's
enormously powerful body there was not a trace. The
beasts, in their lust for metal, had devoured it all.
"He didn't put up a struggle!" exclaimed Roger in
amazement.
"He just let them eat his body." Simon's face was
working with emotion. "Roger, I've made a terrible mis-
take. This robot is worthless. I may as well throw this
brain away and start all over again ... except that I won't
live long enough to complete another one."
"All you need do is make a slight change," suggest-
ed Roger.
"It'll require more than that. I made the mistake,
Roger, of distrusting our robot, and therefore made him
too obedient. It's impossible to go over each of those
brain-paths again, and alter that. He'll be like this as
long as he lives."
Roger was silent. Then he spoke as if to himself.
"All we need do is supply him with a few reflexes that
will take the place of an instinct of self-preservation. If
we succeed in that, he'll continue to obey us just as he's
done - and he'll resist the will of any one else."
Simon scowled. "It isn't so easy to supply only the
reflexes we want, and nothing else."
"You are forgetting the lucenite," replied Roger.
There was a startled look on Simon's face. "The
lucenite! Of course! We can immerse the brain in a
suitable solution, subject it to lucenite radiations, and
only those ions will penetrate that are sufficiently hy-
drophilic! And then, if we send a few telepathic cur-
rents through the solution -"
"It won't take long."
"A matter of weeks. To work," said Simon grimly.
"My time is short."
THE NEW GRAG
Rebuilding Grag's body took just as long a time as
making the alterations in his brain. Then, once more Si-
mon pressed the life-giving switch, once more the inan-
imate metal became a living robot. Observing Grag ca-
sually, the two scientists could detect no change in him.
Had the treatment of his brain produced any effect?
It was a day later that they had the answer. Simon
barked out an order, received no reply, and looked
around. Grag had disappeared. He was not in the moon-
laboratory, and no one had seen him go.
"He is different," observed Simon. "In his previous
existence he never went away without receiving a spe-
cific order to do so."
"I wonder where he is," said Roger.
"Someplace where those moon-wolves can get at
him, I suppose. Did he take an atom-gun along?"
All the atom-guns were still in the laboratory. Simon
and Roger exchanged gloomy glances. If the same thing
happened this time that had happened before, they
would know that the robot was not worth saving.
The hours passed slowly, and within the laboratory
there grew a feeling of tenseness and of irritation. Grag
had not only left without receiving orders to leave, but
he had done worse than that. By omitting to perform
the tasks that the two scientists had counted on his per-
forming, he had disarranged the laboratory's work.
It was more than six hours before Grag returned.
When he came, he was dragging the dead bodies of half
a dozen moon-wolves behind him.
"Where have you been?" asked Simon coldly.
"Out killing these beasts," boomed Grag. "I heard
you talking, Master, and I realized they were pests. So I
figured I'd go hunting and get rid of a bunch of them.
Just to make things safer around here."
Roger smiled. Grag might be a trifle difficult to con-
trol in the future, but there was no doubt about his intel-
ligence.
"Did it take you all this time to kill a half dozen?"
asked Simon.
"I killed about fifty," growled the robot. "I just didn't
want to take the trouble to bring them all back. First it
was easy, because they scented me, and came running.
After a time, when the others saw what happened to the
first batch, I had to go look for them."
"How did you find them in the shadows?" demanded
Roger.
"That was easy. Master," boasted Grag. "They're
telepathic, and I could sense the mind-currents coming
from them."
GRAG LEARNS TO BOAST
Roger nodded. The moon-wolves were slightly tele-
pathic, and Grag, as a result of his own brain being sub-
jected to telepathic currents, was more sensitive to their
presence than a human being would have been.
"You're sure you killed about fifty?" asked Simon,
his manner still cold.
"Well, maybe it was only thirty," admitted Grag, un-
abashed. "But I could have killed fifty if they had been
38
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 12 - The Birth of Grag
there. I could have killed a hundred, a thousand. It was
easy, Master. I didn't need an atom-gun, I just pulled
them apart."
He flexed his metallic muscles, while the two scien-
tists stared.
"You don't realize, Master, just how strong I am.
Why, there was never anybody like me. I'll show you
what I can do -"
"Don't bother," interrupted Simon, smiling in spite
of himself.
"Whatever you say, Master. But it was a cinch,
pulling them apart. I can tear apart anything that exists.
I can take a space ship, and throw it off the Moon.
Why, with my atomic motors -"
"Get into the laboratory," commanded Simon. "Pre-
pare that colloid solution for the android we're creat-
ing."
"Yes, Master," said Grag humbly, and obeyed.
Roger laughed. But Simon scowled. "He's going to
be insufferable."
"At first. But he'll straighten out. After all, he's only
a couple of days old," reminded Roger Newton. "I think
we're going to enjoy Grag."
"I hope you're right, Because if you're not -" But the
implied threat was never carried out. As Roger had pre-
dicted, Grag did improve. But never again did he dis-
play the touching confidence in others that he had
shown in his first incarnation.
He was always to remain slightly vain, selfish,
proud of his strength, eager to show it off - in a word,
he was always to remain more human. He would get
along.
39
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 13 - Captain Future's Strangest Adventure
APTAIN FUTURE still isn't sure whether or
not it really happened. Grag swears that it was
all a dream. Otho believes that they were all
temporarily out of their minds. But the Brain insists
that the whole crazy adventure was scientifically possi-
ble.
C
It happened to the Futuremen on their way back
from that long star-quest to the cosmic cloud near the
galaxy's center. The Comet was droning back toward
the System at tremendous speed when Otho came into
the control-room to report.
"We're nearly out of fuel, Chief," he told Curt.
"We'll have to stop somewhere for copper soon."
FUEL SHORTAGE
The atomic generators which powered the Comet's
vibration-drive used powdered copper fuel. During this
long voyage through the galaxy, they had been forced
to stop at several star-systems to replenish the fuel.
Captain Future frowned. "The nearest star is a long
way out of our course. I hate to lose time going there
for copper."
The ship was traversing a rather empty region of the
galaxy, and the nearest star with planets was several
light-years on their left.
"Maybe there's a dark star somewhere nearer than
that," suggested Simon Wright. "Take a look around
with the spectro-telescope, Grag."
Grag went to the instrument and for some minutes
carefully swept space with it. He suddenly uttered a sat-
isfied exclamation.
"We're in luck! There's a 'rogue planet' only a few
billion miles away from us, and almost in our course."
ROGUE PLANET
A "rogue planet" was the name given to wandering
planets of the void not attached to any star-system. The
Futuremen had encountered many such solitary, wan-
dering worlds which unguessable cosmic disasters had
torn loose from their parent suns and set raving alone.
Curt at once shifted the course of the Comet toward
the unseen "rogue" world. It soon bulked up ahead of
them in the blaze of the galaxy's stars, a planet of medi-
um size. It had atmosphere, and there was an odd pearly
glow of light about it.
They landed in that soft, dawn-like glow upon a
rolling, grassy plain. Their instruments showed that the
atmosphere was oxygenated and had a warmth as sur-
prising as the sourceless light.
"Queer looking planet," Curt commented, puzzledly.
"Well, we've no time for exploring. We'll just scout
around until we find some copper and then get on our
way."
They emerged into the soft, warm air. They needed
no space-suits, but Curt carried an instrument capable
of locating copper deposits by means of a principle of
atomic resonance.
The instrument showed nothing. He looked around
at the silent landscape and then pointed to some low
hills westward.
"We'll try those hills. If there's copper there, the res-
onator will locate it.
40
No. 13
CAPTAIN FUTURE'S STRANGEST ADVENTURE
On a Mysterious "Rogue Planet" the Futuremen Encounter
an Amazing Fantastic Experience While in Search of Fuel!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 13 - Captain Future's Strangest Adventure
WISH FULFILLMENT
The Futuremen started forward, striding across the
grassy plain in the soft glow.
"I was hoping we'd find something edible here - I'm
tired of synthetic rations," complained Otho. "I could
go for a juicy Jovian marsh-apple right now."
The words were no sooner out of his mouth, than an
incredible thing happened. There was a swirl of mist
close by them, and suddenly a squat, many-branched
tree came magically into existence.
It was an unmistakable Jovian marsh-apple tree.
And it was loaded with pale, heavy fruit.
"Imps of Space!" yelled Otho, recoiling. "Do you
others see it too?"
"It wasn't there a minute ago - it just appeared out
of nothing!" stammered Grag.
Curt-Newton had swiftly drawn his proton-pistol.
He was looking around in sharp alarm.
"That tree can't be real!" he exclaimed. "It's an illu-
sion of our minds. That means that we're being some-
how hypnotically attacked."
"Hang it, the thing looks real enough," Otho protest-
ed. He stepped forward, jerked one of the big marsh-ap-
ples off a twig, and sank his teeth into it. He looked up,
stupefied. "It is real! And it's good."
He reached to pick another of the fruits. But, as he
made the motion, the tree abruptly dissolved into mist
and was gone.
"It's gone again!" Grag shouted. "Chief, what does it
mean?"
The Brain spoke sharply. "There's some fantastic
power at work on this world. I think we'd better leave
here at once."
CAPTAIN FUTURE PROVES STUBBORN
But Captain Future's stubborn streak was aroused. "I
still think it was just a trick of illusion. And we're going
to get copper here before we go."
"That marsh-apple was no illusion - it was real and
solid," Otho insisted.
"Say, maybe this is a Wishing World, of some
kind?" Grag suggested eagerly. "Maybe all you have to
do is wish for something here and you get it?"
"Don't be childish," Curt said acidly.
"I'm going to try it, anyway," Grag persisted. "I wish
- I wish I had a diamond as big as my fist."
With breathtaking rapidity, a brilliant, blazing some-
thing appeared on the ground at their feet. It was a pure
white diamond, and it was as large as Grag's huge metal
fist.
"Holy space-imps!" yelled Otho. "It really works!
You can wish for anything here and get it."
He rubbed his hands together. "Here's where I get
myself a lot of things I always wanted. First, though,
I'm thirsty. I wish I had some water."
The word "water" had no sooner left his lips, than
all four of them found themselves struggling in a deep
lake. Grag went down through the blue waters like a
stone. The Brain darted up into the air, while Curt and
Otho swam rapidly toward the nearest shore.
As they emerged dripping from the miraculously-
formed lake, Grag came striding up out of the waters.
The robot could not drown, and he had walked along
the bottom as they swam.
Grag sputtered furiously. "Next time you wish for
anything, Otho, you specify how much of it you want!"
THE STRANGER
Curt asked the Brain, stunned: "What do you make
of it, Simon? I still believe it's all illusion."
"If so, it's a remarkably convincing one," rasped the
Brain.
"Say, look - there's somebody coming!" exclaimed
Otho.
They all swung around, drawing their weapons. A
tall, dark, pleasant-faced young man in an ordinary zip-
per-suit was approaching them.
"Watch it!" Curt rasped. "If we've been undergoing
some kind of hypnotic attack, this fellow may be re-
sponsible."
The stranger stopped, looking at them with interest.
He spoke, in the interstellar lingua franca whose root is
the ancient Denebian tongue.
"You're visitors from outside?" he said to Curt.
"Welcome to our world. My name is Ptar."
"Will you tell us what kind of crazy world this is?"
exploded Captain Future. "We landed here to get cop-
per for fuel, and we've been wondering whether or not
we've all lost our minds."
Ptar laughed. "I'll tell you all about it. But you must
come along to my peoples' city. We have plenty of cop-
per there."
Curt hesitated, then agreed. If this were a fantastic
dream, it didn't matter whether or not he went. And if
this were real, he wanted to learn what was at the bot-
tom of it.
THE SCIENCE OF PTAR
"You see," said Ptar as they started westward toward
the low hills, "this is a very peculiar planet. If you want
anything, and concentrate your mind on it, you can cre-
ate it."
"But how?" asked Curt exasperatedly.
Ptar shrugged. "We don't understand the scientific
basis of it ourselves. It seems obvious that matter and
energy do not follow the same natural laws here as in
the rest of the universe."
He stopped, and said casually, "It's too far to walk to
my city. We'd better have a car."
Instantly, beside Ptar appeared a low-slung rocket-
car of shining metal. Ptar motioned them to enter, and
took the driver's seat himself.
41
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 13 - Captain Future's Strangest Adventure
As the car scudded westward over the plain at a
rapid rate, Curt first pinched himself and then ham-
mered the metal side of the vehicle. He bruised his fist
against its very real solidity.
"I can't understand it," he gasped. "There's a people
on Neptune's moon, back in our own System, who can
perform some weird feats of creation; but they really
create only insubstantial phantoms. This car is real!"
"Well, it's made life easy for my people," Ptar said
practically. "I suppose that's the reason we're' not very
advanced scientifically. We have no need of science,
when we can get whatever we need by just wanting it."
A big glassite jug of Venusian brandy appeared sud-
denly in Otho's lap.
"None of that, Otho!" exclaimed Curt. "You can
wish that stuff right back out of existence - things are
upsetting enough, without you starting to drink."
Otho looked guilty, and the jug of brandy swirled
into mist and vanished as rapidly as it had appeared.
"Can I help it if my mind wanders?" demanded the
android.
The speeding car approached a city. It was like a
great blue jewel, its sapphire domes resting upon the
plain like shimmering iridescent bubbles.
Men and women thronged its streets. Children
played in blossoming gardens. There was a noisy bustle
of activity around big markets.
Ptar drove the rocket-car into the center of the sap-
phire city and there stopped it. He asked Curt, as they
got out of the vehicle:
"How do you like our city?"
"It's beautiful," Captain Future declared. "One of the
loveliest places I've seen in the universe."
Ptar shook his head doubtfully. "I'm not completely
satisfied with the city. To tell the truth, I'm not satisfied
with myself. I guess I'll just do away with it all."
And, incredibly, the whole thronged, busy city, with
all its buildings and crowds, shivered into swirling mist
and was gone. At the same moment, with a clear, mock-
ing laugh, Ptar himself vanished.
The dazed Futuremen found themselves standing in
the middle of the empty, grassy plain.
"That settles it!" shouted Grag. "We are dreaming. I
knew it all the time."
"Illusion - all of it illusion, of some kind," muttered
the Brain.
"It wasn't illusion - that rocket-car and that man
were solid and real as ourselves!" insisted Captain Fu-
ture, staggered.
He turned. "We're getting off this world, pronto. We
can get copper somewhere else. I know when I've had
enough!"
SYNTHETIC OBSTACLES
They started back toward the Comet, in a trot. Be-
fore they had gone more than a few steps, a wall of mist
swirled up in front of them.
The mist suddenly became a huge, towering moun-
tain-range whose precipitous slopes loomed thousands
of feet above them. The mighty escarpment ran north
and south for miles, and was between them and the
Comet.
"Who wished for those mountains?" bellowed Grag
furiously. "Was it you, Otho?"
"Good Lord, no!" stammered the startled android.
"None of us did. There's a power on this planet that
has been playing with us ever since we landed here!"
Captain Future gritted. "Come on - we'll have to climb
over this range."
The looming barrier was real enough, as they la-
bored and sweated to scale its lofty slopes. They gained
the ridge, and scrambled down the other side until they
again stood upon the level plain.
But now a deep, broad river ran between them and
their distant ship. It had not been there before.
"Nothing to do but swim it," Curt rasped. "Simon,
you can fly over and Grag can walk it. Come on, Otho."
He and Otho, poised on the bank and dived into the
river. Before they hit the water, the river instantaneous-
ly" swirled into mist and vanished.
Curt and the android found themselves colliding
with the hard earth.
Otho scrambled up, sputtering with rage. "Jokes, is
it! If I get my hands on whoever's behind all this -"
"Hey, look out!" yelled Grag wildly.
A herd of enormous reptilian monsters was bearing
down on them from the north. The ground quaked to
the rumbling tread of the scaled monstrosities.
They whipped out their weapons. Before they could
fire, the menacing creatures melted into mist and were
gone.
"There's the Comet!" Curt cried. "Run for it!"
PTAR EXPLAINS
They reached and tumbled into the ship. Then they
froze. In the cabin, sitting and smiling pleasantly at
them, was Ptar.
"Now I know we're all out of our heads!" Otho
groaned.
Curt's proton-gun covered the pleasant-faced young
stranger. "I don't know whether you're real or not, but
I'm going to find out!" Captain Future gritted.
"Wait a moment, please," said Ptar unruffledly. "I
owe you an explanation, before you leave my world. I
give it to you, because you have afforded me a brief
welcome relaxation by this little jest I have been play-
ing on you.
"This planet has no other inhabitant than a single In-
telligence. I, that Intelligence, am speaking to you. I am
a mind, vast and ancient beyond your imagining. Long
ago, I freed myself of physical body and took this
whole uninhabited planet as my body. "I control every
42
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 13 - Captain Future's Strangest Adventure
atom and electron of this world, just as you control
your fingers. I can thus instantly by effort of will shift
electrons and atoms here into new combinations, into
new substances and shapes, and can dissolve them as
swiftly.
"When you landed here, I amused myself by mysti-
fying you. Now that you are departing, I shall recom-
pense you for the relaxation you have afforded me, by
giving you not only this explanation but also the copper
which you need."
As he spoke the last words, Ptar's figure shifted into
swirling mists. The mists almost instantly resolidified
in different form.
Where Ptar had stood, there was now a neat pile of
copper ingots.
"Let's get out of here," begged Otho shakily. "I can't
take much more of this."
REFUELED AND HEADED HOME
The Comet was soon arrowing up into space. Not
until the incredible planet was far out of sight behind,
did Captain Future dazedly examine the mass of copper
ingots.
"It's pure copper, as far as I can make out," he de-
clared. "We'll see whether it works in the cycs."
He used two of the ingots as fuel for the cyclotrons.
The generators throbbed cheerfully loud.
"It works!" exclaimed Curt unbelievingly. "And
we've far more of it than we need to get back to the
System."
When they had reached home, Curt and the Brain
utilized every scientific instrument in the Moon-labora-
tory to test the remaining copper ingots. The tests
showed only that the ingots were of absolutely pure but
ordinary copper.
"I give up," Curt said finally. "Either that impossible
explanation was true, or else we landed somewhere and
mined and smelted copper and then forgot all about it. I
don't know which solution is the more fantastic."
Grag still maintains that it was all a dream. But ev-
ery now and then, the big robot secretly takes out that
pile of copper ingots and sits staring fixedly at them for
a long time. He has a sneaking idea that if he wishes
hard enough, he can turn them into diamonds.
43
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 14 - The Metamorphosis of Simon Wright
IMON Wright was dying, and he knew it. He lay
in his cot in the monastic little bedroom adjoin-
ing his beloved laboratory, and calmly estimated
how many hours of life remained to him.
S
His silvery head was raised upon the pillow, and his
austere, wrinkled face was unperturbed as he looked
down at his thin, angular body and wasted hands. Yet
the approach of death did not find the old scientist
wholly without regret.
"If I'd only been able to live long enough to help
Roger finish our experiments," he thought. "It's a pity
that a man spends a lifetime learning how to do his
work, and then has to die before he can use his knowl-
edge."
The door opened, and a stalwart, red-haired young
man whose spectacled face was pale and worried came
into the little room.
"How are you now, Simon?" asked Roger Newton
anxiously. "That last stimulant I gave you -"
"Wore off in an hour," Simon Wright answered
calmly. "It's no use, Roger. You can't patch up a ma-
chine that's worn out with use. And that's what my body
is - a worn-out machine."
He shrugged weakly and continued. "There's no rea-
son to feel badly about it. I've had a long and fairly use-
ful life. Now my time has come."
"But it's such a waste of genius for you to die when
your knowledge could benefit humanity so much,"
burst out Roger Newton.
"Nature is wasteful," murmured the old scientist.
"It's her way."
ROGER NEWTON HAS AN INSPIRATION
Newton was silent for a few minutes. A queer emo-
tion seemed to possess him. His spectacled face had a
breathless look on it when he finally spoke.
"Simon, maybe your mind could continue to live af-
ter your body dies."
He rushed on. "Remember all the advances we've
made in tissue-culture recently? Isolated living hearts
and other organs have been kept alive indefinitely in
serum-cases. Even brains have been kept alive so."
Startled understanding showed in Simon Wright's
old eyes.
"You're proposing to remove my brain into a serum-
case and keep it alive there?" he said after a pause. "But
what good would that do? I wouldn't be able to hear or
see or do anything else but think."
"No, listen," continued the younger scientist earnest-
ly. "I've always believed that it should be possible to
connect artificial organs of speech, hearing and sight to
an isolated human brain living in serum. I tried it with a
rabbit's brain and was successful. And though the hu-
man brain is much more complex, I still believe it could
be done."
Simon Wright brooded in silence upon the astound-
ing proposal. Despite his deep wish to continue his re-
searches, he felt a revulsion from the prospect that had
been proposed to him.
He was a normal man. But he would not be one any
longer, if he underwent this change. He would be some-
thing more, or less, than a man.
44
No. 14
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF SIMON WRIGHT
Roger Newton Preserves Simon Wright's Mind from Oblivion and,
as The Brain, the Doughty Old Scientist Begins the Task of Turn-
ing Curt Newton into a Wonder-Being, Captain Future!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 14 - The Metamorphosis of Simon Wright
WRIGHT'S DUTY TO SCIENCE
"Think, Simon, of the work you could do, the years
of research ahead of you," urged Roger Newton. "It's
your duty to humanity to keep your vast scientific skill
and knowledge alive."
"I wouldn't be able to do anything myself," muttered
the old man, voicing the doubt that was deepest in his
mind. "I'd have no hands, no body."
"I'd be your hands," Newton declared eagerly. "To-
gether we could go on with our work, instead of leaving
it half-finished as it must remain if you die."
That argument persuaded Simon Wright. He had
long ago outlived most human emotions, but the flame
of scientific passion still burned bright within him.
"All right, Roger," he said finally. "I'm willing to try
it. But you will have to prepare the serum-case quickly,
for I have not long to live."
The next few days were ones of frenziedly urgent
preparation by the younger scientist. Only his powerful
stimulants were keeping the dying old scientist alive.
Newton prepared the square serum-case of transpar-
ent metal. At its center was a shock-proofed chamber
molded to receive a human brain. A maze of artificial
arteries led to this chamber to supply the living brain
with a constant flow of serum which would furnish its
cells nutritional elements and carry away fatigue-poi-
sons.
The serum was constantly circulated by a series of
tiny, ingenious pumps inside the case. These forced the
serum ceaselessly through purifying filters. The com-
pact atomic motors of the pumps would run almost in-
definitely without attention.
Two "ears" that were really sensitive microphones
were fixed to the sides of the serum-case. From them,
electric wires ran to the brain-chamber. Similarly,
Roger Newton mounted on the front of the case two
photoelectric eyes with artificial retinas. They were
fixed upon the ends of movable metal stalks so that the
direction of gaze could be changed. Wires ran also from
these to the central brain-chamber.
The speech-apparatus was the most difficult. The
production of intelligible speech by completely artifi-
cial means had been achieved in the so-called "voder,"
far back in 1939. But to build such a device into small
space and articulate its controls stretched all Roger
Newton's superb abilities.
AIDED BY WRIGHT'S GENIUS
The younger scientist could not have done all this,
alone. It was the constant advice and aid of the dying
Simon Wright that made possible completion of the
serum-case, after four days and nights of toil.
Roger Newton stumbled to the side of his dying
friend on that fourth night. "It's all ready, Simon - but I
can't do it tonight," he husked. "My hands are too un-
steady for the operation. I must sleep first."
Simon spoke as calmly as though of another person.
"I will be dead before morning, if my self-diagnosis is
correct. You must do it now."
"I can't - I won't!" cried Newton. "It would be mur-
der."
He flung out of the room. But in a half-hour, he re-
turned. His self-control had come back.
"You are right, Simon. It must be now."
Roger Newton's young wife served as his assistant
as he prepared for the appalling task of lifting a man's
living brain from his skull and transferring it undam-
aged to the serum-case.
Simon Wright lay upon the table in the laboratory
and looked up at their pale faces with affection.
"If you fail, this is goodbye," he murmured. Then
the anaesthetic hissed into his nostrils and he knew
nothing more.
THE BRAIN AWAKES
He awakened slowly. His first sensation was of a cu-
rious lightness and buoyancy. Then he heard sounds,
oddly echoing.
"Simon, can you hear me? Can you hear?" He tried
to open his eyes. Light blinded him. His vision seemed
to focus queerly.
Then he saw Roger and Elaine Newton bending over
him. There was awe in their faces.
Simon realized the truth. The transformation had
been accomplished. He was now a brain living in an ar-
tificial case. That accounted for his unusual feeling of
lightness and buoyancy. He no longer had a dying,
weakened body dragging at his mind.
He attempted to speak. The effort of will actuated
the controls of the little voder-device in his case. He
heard his voice as a metallic, rasping monotone. "I -
hear, Roger. Hard - form words - correctly -"
And then, with a feeling of triumph, "My mind -
clear, strong, now - we can go on with our - work."
He tested his new senses. He could hear with greater
clarity than ever before. His eyes had perfect vision.
Weeks went by, and Simon Wright felt more at
home in his strange new body. The absence of pain and
weakness gave him a clarity of mind he had never at-
tained before. He did not even need sleep.
His case rested usually on the laboratory table.
There, he either advised and superintended Roger New-
ton in their joint researches, or studied volumes from
their extensive scientific library.
They often asked him anxious questions. "Do you
feel all right, Simon? You're not sorry you made the
change?"
"No, I'm not sorry in the least," he replied truthfully.
"I'm happy in the knowledge that I can continue my
work."
That was true. But in Simon Wright's mind there
was one doubt, one foreboding, that he never men-
45
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 14 - The Metamorphosis of Simon Wright
tioned. It was the shadowing realization that he was un-
able to do anything himself.
He had never lived a life of physical action. But this
realization that he would be unable to perform any
physical act, no matter how dire the emergency, was the
one flaw in his contentment. It bred in him a gnawing
inferiority complex that he could not conquer.
CAPTAIN FUTURE IS BORN
Months passed. In the Moon-laboratory beneath Ty-
cho crater, where they had taken refuge from Victor
Corvo and the others who had sought to rob their scien-
tific secrets, Elaine Newton's son was born.
The Brain looked down from his table at Grag and
Otho playing with the crowing, red-haired infant. Se-
cretly, he wished that he could join them. He, too,
loved little Curtis Newton. But he could do nothing but
look on. "If I weren't only so utterly helpless," he
thought, brooding over his inferiority. "I never thought
it would make any difference. But it does."
Grag and Otho went out to excavate certain metallic
ores from a vein they had opened in the wall of Tycho
crater, some miles away. Roger Newton and the Brain
were planning a spaceship of new design, and were
gathering materials for the purpose.
An hour later, the airlock door of the Moon-labora-
tory suddenly burst open. Four men in space-suits, car-
rying heavy atom-guns, strode into the room. The Brain
looked up startledly from the table upon which he had
been studying a formula. He instantly recognized,
through the glassite helmet, the dark, hawklike face of
the intruders' leader.
"Victor Corvo!" cried Simon. "Roger, call Grag and
Otho."
Newton sprang toward the telaudio transmitter on
the table. He never completed the movement.
A COWARDLY MURDER
Corvo's atom-gun blasted two crackling bolts of
fiery energy. One cut down Roger Newton, killing him
instantly. The other bolt drove into the side of his
youthful wife as she sprang forward.
Simon Wright raved in his metallic voice, possessed
by wild fury. The men behind Corvo stared at the Brain
in uneasy wonder.
"What is that thing?" one of them demanded.
Corvo laughed. "It's Simon Wright, the old scientist
- or what's left of him. I heard about it. Newton put his
brain in that case. That's all he is - a harmless brain in a
box."
His voice rose in triumph. "I told you we'd finally
track Newton down. Now start going through this
place. I want every scrap of paper, every formula and
diagram in it. Newton and Wright worked out secrets
worth billions. We're going to take them all, - and we'll
take that Brain with us, to explain anything we can't un-
derstand."
Simon Wright writhed mentally in anguish. Roger
Newton and his wife were dead. And now Corvo and
his band were going to take all the dead man's scientific
work and turn it to criminal purposes.
He must prevent that. But how could he? He was
just what Corvo had taunted him with being, a helpless
brain in a box. He could do nothing. If only Grag and
Otho were here!
Simon Wright had a sudden wild idea. He was rest-
ing on the table only a few inches away from the telau-
dio transmitter which they used for communication
with Otho and Grag when the two went out. He had no
hands with which to turn on the transmitter. But maybe
there was a way.
He glanced at Victor Corvo and his men. Ignoring
the whimpering baby and the two still figures on the
floor, the criminals were searching through the files and
record-cabinets with feverish haste.
Simon made an effort of will, and extended his eye-
stalks toward the telaudio transmitter's switch-panel.
His right eye touched the switch-button. It pressed, and
there was a click. The instrument was on. The Brain at
once spoke loudly, as though to Victor Corvo. "You are
going to die for killing Roger Newton, Corvo."
Corvo turned, and laughed. "A bodiless brain,
threatening me!"
"You are a dead man now," Simon Wright said cold-
ly. "Vengeance is coming - terrible vengeance."
From the airlock, two figures burst into the Moon-
laboratory. Otho's space-suit receiver had picked up the
telaudio call, and he and Grag had come. They stood,
incredible personifications of unhuman rage as they
saw the bodies upon the floor.
"Grag! Otho! Kill!" yelled the Brain.
With a booming roar, Grag leapt forward. And the
raging android was close behind the mighty robot.
Corvo and his men tried to raise their guns, but were
battered down by Grag's huge metal fists and Otho's
whirling blows. The four criminals lay dead in less than
a minute.
They found then that Elaine Newton was not quite
gone. She whispered a word, and Grag put the whim-
pering baby beside her. Then she looked up with fading
eyes.
"Simon!" she whispered. "You prevented them from
killing Curtis too, as they would have done."
She choked, then went on. "I leave him to the care
of you three. You are the only ones I can trust to rear
him safely. Keep him here upon the Moon, until he
grows to manhood."
"We will," promised the Brain, wrung by tragic
grief.
And with confidence and content in her eyes, Elaine
Newton died.
46
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 14 - The Metamorphosis of Simon Wright
THE BRAIN BECOMES CHIEF
Grag and Otho turned instinctively to Simon Wright,
as though to a leader. He conquered his agonized grief
and spoke to them.
"We will do what Elaine asked," said the Brain.
"Together, we can protect little Curtis from his father's
enemies who still live. And together, we can give him
an education such as no man ever has had."
And as he spoke, Simon Wright realized that that
feeling of inferiority that had so shadowed his new ex-
istence during the last months was now gone forever.
He had been unable to prevent the most saddening
tragedy of his life. But he had revenged that tragedy.
He had proved to himself that he was not utterly help-
less, that he was no mere thinking brain.
Later, he promised himself, he would work until he
had devised for himself a means of using magnetic
beams as limbs to give him free powers of movement
and action. But even without that, he would never again
be haunted by that secret doubt of himself.
47
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 15 - The Amazing Creation of Otho
IMON WRIGHT emitted a loud call. "Grag, here,
quickly!" he cried.SIn response, the giant robot ran as rapidly as his
metal legs would take him. In all his brief span of life,
he had never seen such excitement in the Moon-Labo-
ratory. The aging scientist, his eyes shining, was warm-
ing a bubbling fluorescent mass of serum with a burner
held in one hand, while with the other he measured a
yellowish liquid into a graduate.
Beside him, his face flushed as with fever, Roger
Newton was vigorously bending back and forth the life-
less rubbery arms of what appeared to be a great white
doll that swam uncertainly in a huge tank in the center
of the laboratory.
"Start the thermostat," yelled Simon Wright.
SERUM IS INJECTED
Grag hastened to obey. Moments later, when the
tank had risen once more to the proper temperature, and
the serum had been injected into the white doll's unre-
sisting arms, the two men relaxed.
Simon Wright dropped wearily into a chair.
"That was close," he sighed. "Too close for com-
fort."
"A half year's work almost thrown away," agreed
Roger Newton. He gestured toward the robot. "Grag's
body was much less trouble. I sometimes wonder why
we decided to make this android of colloid, instead of
metal."
"Because it was a challenge to our skill," replied Si-
mon thoughtfully. "The search for the proper sort of
plastic alone required months. ... Remember how we
made the mistake of attempting to use protein-like con-
densation products?"
"Only to discover eventually that a simple hydro-sil-
licane polymer was easier to make and more satisfacto-
ry."
BRAIN PROVES TROUBLESOME
"And then the brain." Simon Wright shook his head
ruefully. "It took us another month to realize that a ter-
rifically complicated system of synthetic cerebral paths,
such as Grag has, not only wasn't necessary - it would-
n't do. A plastic android requires a much less differenti-
ated mass of combined carbon-silicon condensation
product. The cerebral paths must be formed after life
has begun, and not before."
Grag interposed. "Does that mean, Master, that this
new thing will be born with no more sense than a baby
- like little Curt?" he inquired.
NO PROPHETS HERE!
No more sense than "little Curt." Years later, the
robot was to recall this remark, and think of it in won-
der. Neither he nor any of the others dreamed of the
Curt Newton of the future - the tall, sturdy keen-eyed
figure that would be the terror of criminals throughout
the System, the brilliant scientist whose mind would
absorb all that the Brain could impart, and even surpass
his teacher in the magnificence of his achievements.
"Little Curt" indeed!
"That's right," answered Simon Wright. "He'll be
48
No. 15
THE AMAZING CREATION OF OTHO
From Bubbling Test-Tubes, Great Scientists Roger Newton
and Simon Wright Create a New Being Who Attains Full
Mental Growth Within an Astonishingly Short Time!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 15 - The Amazing Creation of Otho
born without knowledge of any kind."
"He'll make a nice pet," boomed the great robot.
Roger Newton smiled, and left the laboratory. Grag,
it seemed, had delusions.
In the part of the Moon-home set aside for the daily
routine of living, Roger Newton found his young wife.
She was staring out of one of the glassite windows at
the bleak lunar landscape. In the distance, a moon-wolf
was snarling soundlessly at some unseen rival cowering
in a crater.
MOONSCAPE IS FANTASTIC
No land on Earth, no matter how wild and craggy,
could possess the fascinating horror of the fantastic
hills and mountains of the Moon. It was a horror that,
for strangers, was to persist even long after the Future-
men had built their improved laboratory, and come to
regard the forbidding spot as their permanent home. For
a young girl, accustomed to the comforts of Earth civi-
lization, and forced to flee for life from powerful and
evil enemies, its desolation was almost unendurable.
As Roger Newton joined her, the moon-wolf sprang
with bared teeth into the crater. The girl shuddered.
"Now they're tearing each other apart, as happens
every day. Oh, Roger, it's so frightening."
"I know." The scientist stroked her hair. "We've
been here tor more than a year now, and after the novel-
ty wore off, it can't have been pleasant for you. The
loneliness, the lack of amusements, the lack of compan-
ionship. ... Simon and I are so busy in the laboratory
that for most of the day we might just as well not be
here. But it's necessary to stay on the Moon, dear. We
have no choice."
"I'm not complaining, Roger."
SEEK FOR COMPANIONS
"As a matter of fact," went on her husband thought-
fully, "I've felt the loneliness here almost as much as
you have. Simon, of course, is so wrapped up in the
work that it matters little to him where he is. But I had
hoped, when he created Grag, that he might seem al-
most like a companion."
She shook her head.
"His appearance is too frightening. No matter how
human he is inside, I can't accustom myself to him."
"I think you'll find the android looks human enough.
And I believe that you'll like him."
A few days later, Otho was finally born. In contrast
to the dramatic and almost terrifying awakening of the
robot, Otho's entry into the world was placid, and al-
most unimpressive. At the proper time, Simon Wright's
skillful hand injected a trace of piniferalone, a hormon-
al extract from the pineal gland, into the serum that cir-
culated through the doll's body.
DOLL BEGINS TO MOVE
Some hours later, Grag, who was observing, noticed
the white doll's arms and legs begin to kick spasmodi-
cally.
"He's alive, Master," boomed the robot. Roger New-
ton and Simon Wright hurried toward the android. They
lifted his head out of the thermostat into the artificial
air of the Moon-Laboratory. Otho gasped deeply for
breath. The next moment his arms and legs flew about
in a spasm of excitement.
Otho was already as well-grown physically as he
would ever be, and it was only his mental powers that
needed to develop. It was necessary for him to learn
how to use his arms and legs, how to adjust himself to
his environment. He picked this up with a speed that
amazed the huge robot.
OTHO STANDS ERECT
The day after he was born, he stood up unsteadily.
"Say, he's doing better already than I expected," ex-
claimed the robot.
"Naturally," said Simon Wright dryly, "Otho is
physically mature, and is growing mentally at the rate
of a year a day."
"By all the Moon-devils!" gasped Grag. "How long
will it take him to grow up?"
"He won't maintain the same pace for long. But I
think that the end of a month should see him a mature
android."
The next day, Otho exhibited his delight in the dis-
covery of his own agility, bouncing around the labora-
tory like a great rubber ball until Grag finally secured
him and put him out of harm's way. The day after found
him mixing half a dozen chemicals and creating an ex-
plosion that blew away a section of the laboratory. The
day after that found him holding out some of his own
food to the robot and snatching it away in delight as
Grag pretended to reach for it.
SHOWS LOVE OF MISCHIEF
"Why, the green-eyed little devil is trying to tease
me," declared Grag.
Roger and Simon Wright smiled. Roger's wife
laughed as Otho impishly snatched at one of her own
hats and, putting it on his own head, strutted proudly
about.
"He likes to dress up," she exclaimed. "From now
on, none of our clothes will be safe around here!"
"I don't think we need worry," asserted Roger. "Oth-
o's intelligent. And it won't take him long to learn disci-
pline."
He was right. The android was mischievous, but en-
tirely without malice, and he learned quickly what sort
of actions were permitted him and which were forbid-
den. By the end of the month following his birth, Otho
was as quick and alert mentally as the average man, de-
49
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 15 - The Amazing Creation of Otho
spite the great gaps in his knowledge. And when those
were filled, predicted Simon, he would be a better labo-
ratory assistant than Grag or any human being could
possibly be.
OTHO'S FIRST BIG JOKE
It was then that there occurred the incident that Grag
was ever after to think of as the "great double-cross."
It began one day when the robot returned to the lab-
oratory after a short trip over the surface of the Moon,
where he had been digging at a deposit of ore Simon
had discovered. The grizzled figure of Simon Wright
greeted him.
"You've been gone a long time, Grag. What have
you brought back?"
Grag stared in bewilderment. "Why, nothing, Mas-
ter. You asked me to loosen the ore so that -"
"I ordered you to bring it with you!" The voice that
shrieked at Grag was shrill with indignation. "You
stupid, clumsy metal imitation of a man, you haven't the
brains of a moon-pup!"
"But I distinctly remember -" Grag began again
helplessly.
"Don't tell me what I said, you imitation junk-heap.
You go right back and bring a ton of that ore with you."
"Yes, Master."
"Just a moment," came the stern order. "I'm taking
no more chances with that feeble brain of yours. I'm go-
ing to write everything down so that even you can't
make a mistake."
ORDERS ARE CANCELED
The figure of Simon Wright disappeared into the
next room. A moment later Grag heard other footsteps.
"I'm waiting - oh, I thought you were Simon, Master."
"What's wrong, Grag?"
"Simon says he ordered me to get a ton of that ore.
Now I have to go back for it."
"Nonsense. I distinctly heard him tell you to do
nothing but dig it up. And you can't go back because I
have something else for you to do."
"But he said -" began the robot.
"Never mind what he said," roared the figure of
Roger Newton. "I'm the one that's giving you orders. I
want you to take off your right arm and dissolve it in an
acid mixture."
"What?"
TRUE SIMON WRIGHT APPEARS
It was at this moment that Simon Wright stepped
into the room. Grag turned toward him pathetically.
"He wants me to dissolve my right arm in acid," he
complained. "But you told me to go back after that ore.
What am I supposed to do?"
"Quite a problem, isn't it?" observed Simon Wright.
And just then Roger Newton, accompanied by his wife,
stepped into the room.
The dazed robot's eyes shifted from one Roger New-
ton to the other. The newcomer caught Simon Wright's
glance, and smiled.
"So, Otho, you still retain your childhood passion
for disguises?"
The false Roger Newton grinned in delight. "You
should have heard the way I fooled him, Master - first
as Simon, then as yourself. He didn't know what to do."
GRAG SEES BIG LIGHT
A light of understanding was dawning in the robot's
photoelectric eyes.
"Why, it's that rubbery son of a test tube," he roared.
"That mess of colloid, that white-faced imitation of a
man!"
"Imitation yourself," returned Otho. "You're nothing
but a collection of rusty rivets, a refugee from a scrap
yard. You have a muddled brain to go with your metal
body. You're -"
Otho's flow of insults was cut short as Grag roared
and lunged at him. But almost as the robot's fingers
reached him, the android had slipped aside and flashed
into the next room. With a bellow of rage, Grag fol-
lowed.
Roger Newton's wife was laughing so hard that tears
were starting from her eyes.
STAY FRIENDS DESPITE JOKES
Suddenly she stopped short.
"But suppose Grag catches him?"
"He'll give Otho a walloping that he well deserves.
But he won't harm him."
Simon Wright nodded. "They insult each other like
deadly enemies, but in actuality, there's a great deal of
affection between them. They're going to be the best
comrades in the world."
"I'm so pleased." She smiled. "I don't think I'm going
to be lonely from now on. Now that Otho's here, even
Grag seems more human. And when they start to insult
each other - it's as good as being back on Earth watch-
ing a show."
"I thought Otho would please you. I'm glad, for your
sake, if for nothing else, that we decided to make him
differently from Grag. And I think," he added, "that
none of us will ever regret making either of them."
Years later, Simon Wright was to remember those
prophetic words.
50
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 16 - Otho Finds a Mascot
T WAS one of the countless asteroids that whirl be-
tween the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was only a
tiny worldlet, but it was green and forest-covered
and parklike, with a thin atmosphere and gleaming little
streams and lakes.
I
Flame-birds darted in shining trails above the
forests. Asteroid-rats scurried beneath the flat fronds of
the trees. The hum of insects, the sigh of the breeze
through the foliage and flowers, these were the only
sounds to break the silence. For this asteroid had but
one human inhabitant.
He was an old man, this hermit of space - an Earth-
man, and something of a fanatic. For in the midst of an
expanding scientific civilization, he was a bitter oppo-
nent of scientific progress. An eccentric rebel who had
come to this lonely little asteroid, deliberately maroon-
ing himself here without tools or instruments, building
his own cabin, cultivating his own food, and living
completely out of the rush of Solar civilization.
FUTUREMEN VISIT HERMIT
The Futuremen were the only visitors to the hermit's
little world. They had first chanced upon it in running
down certain pirates. Since then, they had stopped here
more than once.
Oddly enough, Curt Newton liked the old man. He
the supreme wizard of modern Solar science, recog-
nized a certain strain of bitter truth in the old Earth-
man's condemnation of that science.
"He's a corrective," Captain Future answered when
the others wonderingly asked the reason for his liking.
"Whenever I get too vain about what we modern men
are doing with science, I like to hear the old boy point
out just how much we haven't done."
It was on the hermit's little asteroid that Otho finally
found what he had been looking for - a pet that would
outshine Grag's mascot.
OTHO SEEKS PET
Ever since Grag had adopted the moon-pup Eek as a
pet, Otho had been secretly a little jealous. He had re-
solved to outdo Grag.
"I'm so blasted tired of hearing Grag drool about that
confounded moon-pup's abilities, that I'm going to fix
him for good," Otho told Curt Newton. "I mean to grab
myself some kind of a little critter that will make Eek's
life miserable for him."
"What are you going to do - get another moon-
pup?" Newton asked.
"No, I'll find some kind of animal that will not only
be smarter than Eek but will also be able to thrash the
life out of Eek. Grag will go wild, then!"
On the asteroid of the hermit, Otho on this particular
morning noticed a small beast gamboling near the
Comet. It was short-legged, and fat and white, with a
round head whose two incongruously big, solemn eyes
gave it an irresistibly comic appearance.
Otho started toward it with casual interest. Spotting
his approach, the little animal suddenly underwent an
astounding transformation.
51
No. 16
OTHO FINDS A MASCOT
On the tiny asteroid of a hermit, the famous android
discovers his moon-mimic, Oog, which after much
goading, stages a Battle Of The Ages with Grag's Eek!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 16 - Otho Finds a Mascot
A STRANGE CREATURE
The fat, doughy-looking white body and head
seemed to flow and twist and change color at the same
time. In a second, the little beast had changed itself into
a perfect replica of an ordinary asteroid-rabbit.
"What the devil! Am I seeing things?" yelled Otho.
He started toward the asteroid-rabbit. It hopped
away among some gray stones. Again, its body changed
with protean rapidity. Now it had become a perfect sim-
ulacrum of a gray stone.
Otho yelled for the others. When Captain Future
came with the hermit, the android pointed excitedly at
the thing.
"First it was a little fat white animal, then it changed
into an asteroid-rabbit, now it's a stone! I must be going
crazy."
The old eccentric stepped forward and uttered a
shrill whistle. The gray stone suddenly changed back
into a little white animal, looking solemnly up at them.
"It's a meteor-mimic," said the hermit. "There's a
few of them on this asteroid and they've got tame be-
cause I never hurt them. And are they pests! They fool
me a dozen times a day with their tricks."
METEOR-MIMICS ARE RARE
Captain Future was interested. "I've heard of meteor-
mimics, but this is the first I've seen. They're a rare
species, living only on a few of the smaller asteroids."
"How the devil does the critter accomplish those
changes?" Otho wanted to know.
"They're one of the strangest species of System life
known," Curt Newton said. "These meteor-mimics have
all their vital organs in a compact core at the center of
their bodies. The rest of the body is merely a mass of
loosely organized cells whose structure the creature can
almost instantly shift by an effort of will. Undoubtedly,
they evolved this perfect camouflage-capacity as a
method of defense."
Otho's enthusiasm kindled. "Say, this is just the
mascot I've been looking for! One that will be able to
give Eek the licking of his life."
Captain Future grinned. "It's certainly appropriate as
a pet for a disguise-expert like yourself. But I'm not so
sure it can thrash Eek."
"Of course it can - when it can change itself into
any kind of creature it desires!" Otho pointed out. He
chortled. "Is Grag going to get the shock of his life!
This will kill him."
HERMIT COMPLAINS OF PESTS
The hermit made no objection to giving up the mete-
or-mimic. "Wish you could take them all," he growled.
"Every time I turn around the little pests fool me by
looking like something else."
Nor was it hard for Otho to make friends with the
little animal. Oog, as he decided on the spot to name his
pet, was the friendliest beast alive. In ten minutes, he
was snuggling contentedly in Otho's arm.
As they went to the ship to rejoin Grag and Simon
Wright, Otho could not contain his elation.
"For all these months, I've been listening to Grag's
boasting about that miserable moon-pup. Wait till he
sees Oog clean up the floor with Eek."
"Eek has got wicked teeth and claws," Captain Fu-
ture reminded Otho. "I wouldn't be too sure about how
this scrap will turn out."
"Oog can grow teeth and claws better than Eek's,"
Otho retorted. "What's more, Eek is the biggest coward
alive, scared of his own shadow. He won't have a
chance."
When they rejoined the others in the Comet, Grag
stared scornfully at Otho's new acquisition.
"That heap of dough for a pet?" scoffed Grag.
"Why, it's the stupidest-looking beast I ever saw in my
life."
"Stupid, is it?" said Otho. "Just watch this."
OOG PLAYS A TRICK
He put Oog down beside a mass of books on Si-
mon's desk, and then clapped his hands sharply to star-
tle the meteor-mimic. Instantly, Oog changed into an-
other book, perfectly camouflaging himself.
Otho stroked him to reassure him, and he changed
back to his normal shape. The android looked proudly
at Grag.
"It's disgusting!" Grag said emphatically. "It gives
me the creeps to see it twist and change like that. I hope
you're not really going to take it along with us."
"Not only is it going along with me," Otho replied,
"but I want to warn you to keep Eek out of its way. I'd
sort of hate to see it make a punching-bag out of that
poor, dim-witted little moon-pup."
Grag rose to the challenge as expected. "That thing
make a punching-bag of Eek?" he boomed angrily.
"Why, you're space-struck! Eek would tear that bag of
dough wide open."
"We'll soon see," Otho affirmed. "Bring out your lit-
tle pest, if you want to watch him take a thrashing."
THEY PREPARE FOR WAR
Grag wrathfully agreed. He went into the cyc-room
and soon stalked back with the moon-pup in his grasp.
Eek was chewing a scrap of silver and looking very
contented with the world. Then the moon-pup's beady
eyes fell on Oog, and he stared fixedly.
They put the two small animals down on the floor,
while Captain Future watched, grinning.
"Go in and mop him up, Oog," hissed Otho.
"Change yourself into a moon-snake and squeeze him
to death, or make like a Jovian junglecat and scare him
right out of his skin."
Grag was similarly admonishing his mascot. He
52
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 16 - Otho Finds a Mascot
spoke aloud, though it was his thought that he hoped
the telepathic moon-pup was getting.
"Show that disgusting little creature who's boss on
this ship, Eek! Give him the beating of his life."
They watched intently as Oog and Eek slowly ap-
proached each other. At last, Otho felt on the verge of
his ambition. A moment more would see the end of
Grag's boastings.
FRIENDLY WARRIORS
Then the totally unexpected happened. Oog sniffed
at Eek in friendly fashion. Eek, in turn, eyed the mete-
or-mimic without hostility. They rubbed against each
other affectionately. Finally they lay down together as
if they were the best friends in the world.
"That's not the idea, Oog!" exclaimed Otho, dis-
mayed. "You're supposed to be tough. Get up and tear
into him."
Grag indignantly remonstrated with Eek in the same
vein. But it was all without effect The two just would
not fight.
The truth was that Oog was too friendly a creature
to start a fight without reason. And Eek was a con-
firmed pacifist, who regarded all fighting with distaste.
All the urging of Grag and Otho, in the weeks that
followed, could not incite a battle. To the disgust of
both masters, Oog and Eek loved each other like broth-
ers.
"Eek is too big-hearted to pick on Oog," said Grag
later. "But he'll turn on him some day, and that'll be the
end of poor Oog. Better get rid of him, Otho. It's not as
though the critter was any use."
"No use?" cried Otho. "I suppose it wasn't Oog that
saved all our necks on Venus last month?"
OOG SAVES FUTUREMEN
He was referring to an episode in which Oog's
strange ability of shape-shifting had given sterling ser-
vice at a critical juncture.
The Futuremen had been imprisoned deep in the
marshes of Venus by the hirelings of a certain inter-
planetary criminal whom they were trailing. They had
been entirely without weapons.
But Oog was with them. By dint of much patient ef-
fort, Otho had finally succeeded in getting Oog to
change himself into the perfect simulacrum of a high-
powered atomic bomb. With the fake bomb that was
Oog, they had bluffed their way out of their imprison-
ment.
"That was just a fluke," Grag retorted disdainfully.
"And it doesn't make up for the nuisance of having Oog
around. Every time I go to pick up anything, it's apt to
change into Oog."
"Eek is the real pest on this ship," declared Otho.
"Chewing up every bit of metal he can get his teeth in-
to. Everytime I think of all the instruments and appara-
tus he's ruined, I get sore."
A CEASELESS DEBATE
The argument went on endlessly in the months that
followed. Again and again, the two masters tried to get
their two pets into a scrap, but always without success.
It was not that either wanted the other's mascot real-
ly hurt. Each simply wanted to see his own pet give the
other a harmless thrashing, so as to be able to crow
about it.
"You might as well give up egging them on," Cap-
tain Future advised finally. "The more you try to stir up
bad-blood between them, the more they love each oth-
er."
It was true. Eek and Oog had become the very Da-
mon and Pythias of the outfit. They slept curled up to-
gether in the same comer. They sought each other out
on all occasions. They might have been long-lost broth-
ers.
Otho tried all his ingenuity in stratagems to breakup
this beautiful friendship. He and Grag by now had bet
half their possessions on who would win a fight of the
pets, but they couldn't get the fight started.
Then, at last, what they had been vainly trying for
happened by pure accident. Oog and Eek, at long last,
fell one day to fighting.
It was the first and last time that the two pets ever
scrapped, and it was a scrap that had a totally unexpect-
ed outcome.
Otho, Grag and Captain Future were working in the
main room of the Moon-laboratory, that day. Otho was
using an atomic welder to fasten copper bars into the
mechanism they were constructing.
Oog, playing around Otho's feet, amused himself by
changing himself abruptly into a perfect replica of a big
copper bar.
By ill fortune, at this particular moment, Eek came
ambling into the room. He looked around. His beady
eyes fixed on the big bar of copper on the floor.
Now if there was one metal that Eek loved to devour
most of all, it was copper. He almost drooled as he
sprang forward and fastened his sharp teeth in that lus-
cious metal bar.
Next moment the Futuremen heard a startled yelp of
pain and rage and a scuffle under their feet. They
looked down.
Oog, who had changed back with the speed of light
to his own doughy white shape, was standing stiff-
legged and glaring at Eek. Then, growling, the meteor-
mimic advanced toward the moon-pup.
"By space, they're at it at last!" Otho exclaimed ex-
citedly. "Here's where we finally see Eek get his beat-
ing!"
"Stand up to him, Eek!" boomed Grag. "Knock the
daylight out of him."
53
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 16 - Otho Finds a Mascot
OOG OPENS ATTACK
Next moment, Oog had jumped. His fat white body
and the gray, agile one of Eek whirled over and over.
Then Eek's strong paws, paws equipped with dia-
mond-hard talons that could dig metal out of pure rock,
came into play. With a rake of those powerful paws he
sent Oog flying against the wall.
Grag cheered deafeningly. "That's the stuff, Eek!"
Oog shook himself, then came determinedly back to-
ward his opponent. Eek was waiting, his paws raised
for another blow.
Oog paused suddenly. His body twisted, flowed,
changed shape and color. Suddenly, he was an exact
replica of Eek himself.
It was as though two Eeks faced each other on the
floor, advancing toward each other and then locking in
battle.
"Holy space-imps!" exclaimed Otho, startled. "He
figured Eek's paws were too strong for him, so he made
himself just like Eek. But which of them is which?"
There was no possibility of distinguishing between
the real and the fake Eek as they scrambled around on
the floor in their struggle.
But soon it became evident that one Eek was giving
the other a terrible whipping. In a few moments, one of
the two identical antagonists deserted the struggle and
retreated out of the room at top speed, with the other in
pursuit.
"That was Oog doing the chasing!" Otho claimed, as
he and the others started after them.
"You're crazy - it was Eek! Oog was running for his
life!" retorted Grag.
GENTLEMEN, THE WINNAH!
The two pets had disappeared. They searched
through one after another of the Moon-laboratory's
branching chambers and corridors.
It was not until an hour later, in the underground
hangar of the Comet, that they found Oog and Eek. Oog
wore his own proper shape, now.
He and Eek, apparently little the worse for wear,
were curled up together in a corner - asleep!
"The devil! They got over their scrapping and made
friends again!" exclaimed Otho.
"But which one of them was it that won?" asked
Captain Future slyly.
"Oog, of course - didn't you see?" Otho countered.
"If you had decent eyes, you'd know it was Eek!"
stormed Grag.
They made attempts to start the scrap going again.
But it was in vain. Oog and Eek were as good friends as
ever, once more. They calmly refused to be incited to
more battle.
Who had been victor, Grag's pet or Otho's? No one
would ever know. But the argument has gone on ever
since.
54
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 17 - Grag's Pet, The Moon-Pup
ILD and forbidding in the harsh glare of un-
softened sunlight, stretched the lifeless sur-
face of the Moon. This savage landscape
was without vegetation, water or air. It was a rumpled
expanse of giant mountain ranges, cruel craters, and
vast rock plains seamed by deep, narrow canyons.
W
At the shadowy bottom of one of those canyons,
Captain Future, Otho and the Brain were intent on the
task of unearthing a mass of gleaming metal ore. Curt
Newton and the android wore their spacesuits. The
Brain, who needed no such protection, hovered beside
them.
Curt finally dislodged the mass of ore, and then
straightened, leaning on his steelite bar. He looked
down the canyon.
"Where did Grag wander off to?" he demanded.
"Depend on that crazy robot to stray away when
there's heavy work to do," complained Otho.
A MOON-HOUND PACK
They started down the canyon in search of Grag.
Then, as they squeezed through a narrow part of the
chasm, they saw a giant figure approaching them. It
was the massive, metal robot.
Grag held a small gray animal that was struggling
and squirming in his grasp. It was a moon-pup, a young
individual of the fierce moon-hounds that are the
Moon's strange, non-breathing species of life.
"Look, I picked up a maverick moon-pup!" Grag ex-
claimed. "I'm going to tame it and make a pet of it."
Captain Future interrupted sharply. "Where there's
one of those creatures, there's more of them! We'd bet-
ter get out of - listen!"
There was no sound, of course, outside the short-
range telaudio instruments by which they conversed.
But Curt Newton had felt a faint vibration, a rushing
murmur, from the rock beneath his feet.
"Moon-hounds - a pack!" yelled Otho. "Look
there!"
IMPENETRABLE CREATURES
Down the canyon toward them was coming a raging
horde of gray, terrible beasts - wolflike quadrupeds
with enormous fangs and talons. Their small eyes
glared red as they charged.
Moon-hounds could not be harmed by ordinary
weapons. Their flesh was siliceous, its curious bodily
metabolism maintained by their use of raw rock and
metal elements as food. Atom-guns would not hurt
them.
"Back up the canyon, quick!" yelled Curt. "If those
beasts get us down, we're done for!"
Curt and the three Futuremen rapidly retreated along
the chasm, firing a volley of brilliant atomic bolts to
discourage their pursuers. But the moon-hounds, find-
ing that the bolts of force did not harm them, rushed
forward boldly.
Curt and his comrades squeezed back through the
narrow part of the chasm. As they did so, Captain Fu-
ture delayed a second to thrust something into a niche
of the cliff. Then he darted hastily on.
CAPTURED PUP
Next moment, a soundless explosion rocked the
55
No. 17
GRAG'S PET, THE MOON-PUP
Captain Future is averse to adopting the fierce, un-
tamed creature - until Grag's faith in it is fully justified!
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 17 - Grag's Pet, The Moon-Pup
chasm around them. Its force tore away great masses of
shattered rock that crashed down from the precipitous
sides and completely blocked the narrow chasm. The
block formed an impassible barrier between the moon-
hounds and the Futuremen.
"That was too blamed close," panted Curt Newton.
"If I hadn't brought along a couple of atomic blasting-
cartridges to help us dig the ore, the pack would have
been on our necks."
"And it was all Grag's fault, for picking up that mis-
erable moon-pup," accused Otho.
"You'd better leave the little beast here, Grag," ad-
vised Captain Future. "You can't make a pet of it. No-
body's ever tamed a moon-hound yet."
"I'll tame this one," Grag insisted. "It likes me al-
ready. You can see that."
NEVER BEEN TAMED
The little gray moon-pup, squirming frantically in
his grasp, chose that moment to get his head free. The
animal instantly tried to sink its powerful, jewel-hard
teeth into Grag's metal arm, actually scarring the steel-
ite.
"Yes, we can see how much it likes you," jeered
Otho. "Its affection is positively touching."
"It will learn better," Grag affirmed. "Let me keep it,
chief. I always wanted a pet."
Curt Newton understood. Grag, mighty man of met-
al, knew himself to be irrevocably different from ordi-
nary humanity. That knowledge had nursed a certain in-
feriority complex in the mind of the intelligent robot.
He felt a dim apprehension that ordinary human people
looked down on him because of his difference from
them.
Grag craved to be looked up to, by somebody or
something. That was why the robot so eagerly wanted
this moon-pup as a pet. Curt understood this, and so
against his better judgment he gave a conditional per-
mission.
"All right, Grag, you can keep it, though I don't be-
lieve you'll ever tame it," he answered. "But if it starts
making any trouble for us, it'll have to go."
STRANGE METABOLISM
When they returned to the moon-laboratory, Grag
secured the moon-pup to the wall by means of a light
steelite collar and chain.
The little gray animal was only two feet long. Its
squat body was supported by four short legs whose
paws ended in powerful, chisel-like digging-talons. Be-
low its sharp little snout, were jaws set with equally
powerful grinder-teeth. Its small black eyes were bright
with hostility as it faced the Futuremen.
Curt Newton inspected it with considerable interest.
He had never been able to make so close an examina-
tion of an individual of the moon-hound species, one of
the strangest forms of life in the System.
Once, long ago, the Moon had had an atmosphere
and many forms of life had flourished on it. Then as the
satellite slowly lost its air by molecular dispersion,
most of its life had perished. But a few species had
managed to adapt themselves even to the airless condi-
tions.
The moon-hounds were such a species. They needed
no air because they did not breathe. Their bodies were
of strange inorganic flesh, in which silicon replaced
carbon as the basic element. They ingested the elements
they required to replenish their tissues, directly from
the raw rock and ore they dug out and pulverized in
their grinding teeth. This weird metabolism of their
bodies was aided by photosynthetic processes.
A METAL JAG
"I'm going to call it Eek," Grag announced. He ex-
tended his hand coaxingly to the moon-pup. "Here,
Eek!"
Eek, the moon-pup, responded by showing his teeth
menacingly at the outstretched hand.
"It can't hear you, Grag," Captain Future said.
"Moon-hounds have no auditory or vocal organs, since
sound is impossible on the Moon."
"I'll tame it, anyway," Grag insisted. "First, I'll give
it something to eat."
He brought some bits of metal-bearing rock and
proffered them to Eek. The moon-pup, watching them
suspiciously with its beady little eyes, champed the
rock to dust between its teeth and swallowed it.
Grag tried it with a scrap of pure copper. Eek de-
voured that with amazing speed. He brought it more
copper, which was greedily bolted.
"Copper and other pure metals, to them, must be like
candy to a human being," Curt commented.
"You've given it too much - it's sick," Simon Wright
told Grag.
Eek had begun to wobble on his legs. His head
swayed to and fro and a glazed look came into his eyes.
"Sick, nothing - the little pest is drunk," Otho said
disgustedly.
Captain Future broke into a shout of laughter. "Oth-
o's right. So much pure copper stimulated its
metabolism too fast."
Eek was staggering. The little moon-pup tried to
take a step and fell down on his face. He stumbled up
again and stood, his head wagging foolishly.
"Boy, has he got a bender on!" exclaimed Otho.
EEK UNDERSTANDS
Grag was dismayed. "It's not his fault," he defended.
"I just gave him too much at one time. I'll cut down on
his food."
Two days later, the Futuremen returned to the
moon-laboratory to find that Grag's cut in the moon-
56
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 17 - Grag's Pet, The Moon-Pup
pup's rations had had its sequel.
Eek had, in their absence, eaten up his own steelite
chain, had then devoured all the copper parts of one of
Otho's best atom-pistols, and was now staggering
around the room in a high state of intoxication.
Otho stormed that the moon-pup had to go at once.
But Grag insisted that he would soon be able to tame
and train the creature.
The next day, Grag's bellowing shout brought Curt
and the other two Futuremen on the run from the under-
ground hangar in which they were at work refitting the
Comet.
"What's wrong?" Curt demanded sharply of the
robot as they burst into the moon-laboratory.
"It's Eek," said Grag, proudly. "I've learned how to
talk to him."
"You're dreaming!" scoffed Otho. "How can you
talk to a beast that can't possibly hear a sound?"
"I talk to him telepathically," Grag declared. "He
can hear my thoughts. I've made friends with him that
way. Watch, and I'll tell him to come here to me."
Eek was chewing on a bit of rock in a far part of the
room. Grag stared silently at the moon-pup. In a mo-
ment, Eek turned his head. Then he came trotting over
to Grag and looked up inquiringly.
"You see?" Grag said. "I just gave him a mental
command to come to me, and he did."
A DESTRUCTIVE PET
Captain Future was interested. "Then the moon-
hounds must communicate with each other telepathical-
ly. 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 tam-
ing of Eek in short order. The little moon-pup appeared
able to sense Grag's mental commands, even at a com-
paratively 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 var-
ious 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 belong-
ings."
"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 intoxi-
cation.
"That settles it," Captain Future declared with finali-
ty. "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 at that month, training him,"
Grag said earnestly.
HALL OF ENEMIES
But chance, and the machinations of a certain pow-
erful 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 ex-
treme 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 glas-
site cases. In each case sat one of Cole Romer's cap-
tives - 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 freez-
ing-gas was released in each.
A LIVING CORPSE
Curt Newton, Joan, Simon and Otho, became so
57
THE FUTUREMEN: No. 17 - Grag's Pet, The Moon-Pup
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 par-
alyzed. He could only stare straight ahead, like the oth-
ers. 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 mad-
ness 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, con-
scious 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 fol-
lowed 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 Cap-
tain Future sat rigidly frozen.
Curt hurled another thought at the strange little crea-
ture. "There is silver in the wall of this case, Eek. Sil-
ver!"
Now if there was one metal that Eek loved even bet-
ter 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 Fu-
ture 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 Fu-
turemen 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 New-
ton 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 ad-
vent of his mascot Oog brought complications, is anoth-
er story. That lay in the future. For the present, Grag
was at last completely happy. Eek had justified himself.
58