Captain Future 27 - Birthplace of Creation (May 1951) by Edmond Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

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 jungle cat and scare him right out of his skin.”
    Grag was similarly admonishing his mascot. He 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 approached 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 meteor-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, dismayed. “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 confirmed 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 brothers.
    “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 service at a critical juncture.
    The Futuremen had been imprisoned deep in the marshes of Venus by the hirelings of a certain interplanetary criminal whom they were trailing. They had been entirely without weapons.
    But Oog was with them. By dint of much patient effort, 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 imprisonment.
    “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 into. Every time I think of all the instruments and apparatus 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 really 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,” Captain Future advised finally. “The more you try to stir up bad-blood between them, the more they love each other.”
    It was true. Eek and Oog had become the very Damon and Pythias of the outfit. They slept curled up together in the same corner. They sought each other out on all occasions. They might have been long-lost brothers.
    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