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

plain of the Sea of Visions on their left. They slogged on, heading up the narrowing strait between that Sea and the Dragon Sea on their right. By now, Curt knew, they were not many miles south of Great North Chasm. His eyes constantly scanned the horizon for the gorge he sought. Finally he described it, a dark line across the desert horizon.
    “There it is!” he exclaimed, his pulse leaping with renewed hope. “That’s the gorge that has a fissure I think may lead us down through the caves to the radium. Our troubles are over for the time being!”
    “You mean, our troubles are just beginning!” Otho retorted. “It’s full day, remember. And the cursed Moon Dogs that haunt this gorge will be roaming through it hunting for food.”
    “Moon Dogs are nothing to be afraid of,” said Grag patronizingly. “It’s all in the way you handle them. Look how well I tamed little Eek.”
     
    THE gorge was so deep that the blazing sunlight did not reach its bottom, which was a place of great boulders and shadows. There were cracks of yawning fissures in the precipitous walls. And bright streaks of metallic ores gleamed at many places in the rock. It was these metal ores, Curt knew, that drew the Moon Dogs here. The strange, non-breathing creatures could ingest metallic elements as their food. They could sense the presence of such elements from afar. That was what made them dangerous to men wearing metal space-suits.
    “The fissure I noticed when we formerly explored this place is near the west end of the gorge,” Captain Future declared. “Come on!”
    They clambered down into the shadowy bottom of the gorge, and starred between the masses of jagged boulders toward its distant west end. As they came around one looming mass of rock, they suddenly confronted two Moon Dogs. The creatures were big, wolflike beasts with gray silicate flesh, whose curiously filmed eyes glared at the Futuremen. Then they sprang, their chisel-like teeth and talons gleaming brightly. Curt and Otho shot with their proton-pistols, though they knew it was useless. No proton beam could harm the inorganic silicate flesh of the Moon Dogs. The rays splashed off the creatures, without stopping them.
    But Grag halted them. Swinging his heavy metal bar, the great robot knocked the two lunging beasts off their feet with one blow. The Moon Dogs scrambled up and hastily retreated ahead of the Futuremen.
    “See what I told you? It’s all in knowing how to handle them,” Grag boasted.
    “I hope you know how to handle a lot of them!” Otho yelled. “There’s a whole pack of the devils coming after us!”
     

     
Chapter 8: Lunar Caves
     
    CURT and the other Futuremen swung about, startled. Their encounter with the two Moon Dogs had prevented them from noticing that a huge pack of the weird gray beasts was racing along the shadowy gorge from behind. The uncanny silence in which the creatures charged was more nerve-chilling than if they had been able to howl.
    Their chisel-like fangs gleamed brightly in the shadows. The Futuremen knew that if they were once swept from their feet by that horde, those formidable teeth and talons would rip the metal of their space-suits and of Grag’s body to shreds: It was the Moon Dogs’ mysterious ability to sense the metal that had brought the pack after them.
    “Make for that fissure!” Captain Future yelled. “It’s our only chance. Once in it, we can hold them off!”
    They plunged forward, sprinting through the shadows and boulders toward the western end of the gorge. The Brain, of course, could have glided up out of danger in a moment. But it was not Simon’s way to desert. Curt had spotted the fissure ahead, a narrow black crevasse in the northern rock wall of the gorge. But whether or not they could reach it seemed doubtful, for the Moon Dogs were rapidly overtaking them.
    “Why don’t you stay and show how you can handle ‘em, Grag?” Otho could not resist yelling as they ran. “Tame ‘em, like you tamed