Captain Future 10 - Outlaws of the Moon (Spring 1942) by Edmond Hamilton Page B

laboratory is,” he said eagerly. “If I find you’ve told the truth, I’ll see you getaway.”
    For answer, Grag suddenly flung away the heavy chains draped around him, and rose to his feet. The great robot’s steely hands gripped the neck of the thin scientist.
    Wissler’s eyes bulged in unbelieving horror at the massive metal giant standing over him. His knees buckled, his bony face was a pasty gray.
    “Don’t — don’t kill me!” he choked, in terrified accents.
    “I’m not going to kill you unless you make me,” Grag boomed grimly.
    He had possessed himself of the atom-pistol which the man had been too terrified to use.
    “You’re going with me, Wissler.”
    “Going with you? Where?” gasped the panicky scientist.
    “Down after the chief,” Grag retorted. “You’re going to be a hostage for us. And you’ll be a dead hostage, if you try any tricks.”
    They started down the narrow fissure, Grag stalking grimly behind the stumbling scientist. The robot had picked up one of the hand krypton lamps left by the planetary miners. He kept its beam flashing ahead. The blue ray illuminated a few hundred feet of the way ahead.
    The fissure was a mere narrow crack in the black Moon rock, angling this way and that as it dropped ever deeper into the lunar depths.
    A few minutes later, the two suddenly halted. There were signs of a recent struggle at this point. Grag flashed his beam on a little patch of red, glistening fluid on the jagged black rock wall.
    “That’s human blood!” the robot exclaimed anxiously. “The chief must have been in some kind of a fight here!”
     

     
Chapter 11: Moon-men
     
    CAPTAIN FUTURE, Otho and the Brain had remained frozen in suspense there in the narrow fissure, as they peered down at the dim shapes approaching them from below. Those vaguely monstrous figures were still just beyond the limits of the blue beam of Curt’s lamp. Then, as though cautious of the light, the two creatures came closer. They were now clearly outlined. And at the sight of these twin horrors of the lunar depths, gasps of amazement came from both Otho and Captain Future.
    “Those things aren’t real! They’re a bad dream!” yelled Otho incredulously.
    “Quick — get back!” shouted Curt Newton. “They’re coming up at us, and we haven’t a single weapon.”
    The two advancing horrors were centipedal monsters. They looked like giant white worms, with thick bodies twenty feet long, borne upon a network of very short legs. The head of each was a blunt monstrosity split by a mouth of gaping fangs. The eyes were huge round and phosphorescent.
    Even as he realized their extreme danger, Curt’s scientifically trained mind apprehended the nature of these creatures. He had seen sculptures of just such monsters in the dead Lunarian cities above. These many-legged things were living relics of the Moon’s dead youth.
    The centipedal horrors advanced more rapidly as the Futuremen backed up the passage. The creatures seemed to be making ready for a fierce rush. The glare of their phosphorescent eyes was hypnotic.”
    “And our proton-pistols are dead, and we’re trapped in this cursed fissure!” Otho groaned. “I knew we’d meet grief in these ancient holes inside the Moon.”
    “Looks like it,” Captain Future admitted tersely. “Better save yourself, Simon,” he told the Brain. “You can get away, but we can’t.”
    The centipedal monsters had now reared up their hideous bodies a little in the blue light. They seemed to tense themselves for the spring.
    “Lad, there’s a niche up in the wall of the fissure here!” came Simon Wright’s sharp, metallic voice. “If you can get up to it, we could perhaps hold the creatures off.”
    Curt turned his head for a swift glance. There was a shallow pocket in the black rock wall on their right, twenty feet over their heads.
    “Try to jump for it, Otho,” he ordered the android quickly. “If you can make it, you can help haul me up.”
    The