Beast-girl of the Crimson Moon

James Abraham Carter

With his geologist’s hammer, David Elliott carefully chipped the strange glowing crystal free from the matrix of rock in which it was embedded. Though only an inch in length, the crystal was extraordinarily heavy and very warm to the touch. With difficulty, Elliott held up the hexagonal crimson element to his eye and examined it with the small but powerful magnifying instrument from his tool belt. The young man smiled with satisfaction. It was indeed pyranium as the detectors in his one-man exploration vessel had indicated.

Pyranium was a rare element much sought after. It was radioactive, but unlike other isotopes, it didn’t produce deadly ionizing emanations such as X-rays and gamma rays that were inimical to life. Rather, it emitted heat in the form of infrared radiation, radiation that, when concentrated, could boil water to steam, which would spin turbines and thus produce pollution-free green energy. The small moon that he had discovered had an abundance of the substance.

The moon should have been a lifeless, barren world like Earth’s dead satellite. But all around him were enormous ferns, growing in luxuriant fecundity and infused with a faint red glow from the all-pervasive pyranium. The weird element was very dense, so despite its small size, the moon’s gravity was almost as strong as that of Earth. Thus, the tiny world had an atmosphere, kept from freezing by the warmth of the crystals' beneficent radiation. In the sky, filling most of it with its enormous bulk, was the moon’s primary - a banded gas giant resembling Jupiter.

The young man was dreaming of the bonus his employer, Extrasolar Mines, would give him for his find when an arrow pinged off the rock face, missing his head by a fraction of an inch. Elliot swore in fright. He jumped from the rocky ledge he was squatting on into the crevasse behind him. He crashed through the dense, ferny growth and landed in a heap at the bottom. Elliott scrambled to his feet, his heart still pounding from the shock. Fortunately, the lesser gravity and the cushioning growth had saved him from serious injuries.

The grim-faced Earthman drew his stun pistol. In his excitement at discovering the mineral-rich moon, the thought that it might be inhabited by hostile, intelligent life hadn’t crossed his mind. His lack of foresight had almost proved fatal. Cautiously and determined not to repeat that mistake, Elliott moved deeper into the ferny growth. The creature that had shot at him wouldn’t be content to leave the matter unresolved. The Earthman was trespassing in the alien’s territory. It would hunt him down and complete the killing task.

Elliott hunkered down in a dense patch of ferns and waited, all his senses on high alert. It wasn’t long before he heard the subtle sounds of movement in the undergrowth. He kept as still as a rock, his eyes scanning the masses of strange plant life that choked the fissure. Then a shadowy figure emerged from the dense vegetation’s gloom.

The Earthman’s stun pistol hummed. A white ray flashed from the weapon’s barrel, and the shadowy figure fell among the ferns. Elliott waited for a minute. There was no sound, no movement. Cautiously, he exited his hiding place and approached the location of the creature he had shot. But there was nothing where he had seen it fall.

Suddenly, a body crashed against his back, felling him to the earth. The stun pistol flew from his hand. In seconds he was fighting for his life as small but powerful hands wrapped around his neck with crushing force. Elliott managed to roll onto his back. The unknown being was now beneath him. He grabbed the wrists of his attacker. It took all his strength to tear the clawing hands away. But the fight was far from over. The creature sank its teeth into his shoulder, biting hard. Elliott swore luridly. The Earthman drove his elbow back into his assailant. The blow connected solidly. The creature gasped. The biting teeth let go.

The frantic Earthman scrambled to his feet. He jerked his survival knife from its sheath. Elliott spun around, ready to strike a killing blow, and then stopped in shock at what he saw before him. Lying on the ground, glaring at him with animal fury, was a wild-looking young woman clad in absolutely nothing. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Her skin was dark, and her black hair was curly. If it weren’t for her four breasts, he would have sworn that she was human.

“Who the devil are you?” He gasped in complete shock. A slavering alien horror was what he had expected, not a being that looked like a pretty human woman.

The girl hissed at him like a spitting cat. She rose warily, her eyes staring at him with feral hatred. Her glare reminded Elliott of a pacing tiger he had once seen in a zoo when a boy - that same fierce, terrible, animalistic desire to lash out at its captors.

“My name is David,” he gently said, sheathing his knife, not expecting her to understand but hoping his tone and actions would convey his peaceful intentions. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m a geologist looking for pyranium. You look damnably human for an alien. I hope we can be friends.”

The girl tilted her head, and some of the fierceness faded from her face. “I am Eve. You are a geologist.” she said. “You are not one of them.”

Elliott was shocked. She could speak English. That was another thing that he hadn’t expected.

“One of whom?” he asked, puzzled. “I came alone in a one-man survey ship. I thought this moon was uninhabited. Are you human? Who else is here?”

“My creator is Josef Mengar,” explained the girl. “He came to the Crimson Moon many years ago; I was made here. There were just the two of us until the strangers came several days ago - two very rough-looking men who are associates of my creator. One got drunk, came into my compound and tried to rape me. But I fought him off and escaped through the door, which, in his intoxicated state, he had neglected to secure. With your back to me and the same pale hair, I thought you were another one of them. That is why I tried to kill you.”

“Mengar,” gasped Elliott. “I remember now. He was a criminal South African scientist wanted for illegal experiments in human genetics. He was a white supremacist trying to create a race of slaves. Somehow, he managed to evade capture. That was about ten years ago.” The young man looked at Eve’s four breasts. “I… see,” he said, quite shocked by the inevitable conclusion.

“You are lucky,” she continued, thinking his strange expression was a sign of his realization of how close to death he had come. “My bowstring was cut when it snagged on a jagged rock as I was climbing down here. If it weren’t for that, I would have put an arrow in your back. Will you help me escape from both my cruel creator and the men who have arrived?”

“Yes, of course,” replied Elliott, also eager to leave now that he realized the moon had a secret research facility run by dangerous fanatics. “We’ll head for my ship. It’s this way,” he indicated as he retrieved his stun pistol and then handed her his knife. “Take this in case you need it.”

Both headed up the crevasse, which led roughly in the direction of the Earthman’s one-man survey ship. It would be rather cramped aboard the craft and a strain on the vessel’s life support systems, but circumstances left no other alternative.

They had been walking for about fifteen minutes when Eve called a halt. The girl squatted and began to urinate uninhibitedly in front of him. Elliott, considerably embarrassed, moved off into the bushes to give her privacy. Clearly, Mengal had treated her more like a lab rat than a person. She had been educated, probably to test her intellectual capacity. But the scientist, seeing her more as an animal than a human, hadn’t bothered to instruct her in appropriate behavior. Elliott realized he’d need to teach her a few things before they reached civilization.

Only about ten seconds had elapsed when Eve’s strident battle cry made Elliott jump. He dashed back to the girl, gun in hand, and gasped in shock at what he saw when he burst through the intervening undergrowth. A huge, spiny, ant-like creature was spraying Eve with green slime as the furiously hissing girl wildly slashed at the horror with her knife, keeping it at bay. The Earthman swiftly fired. The blazing ray struck the creature squarely in the head. But the flashing beam had absolutely no effect.

The weird beast lunged. Its hard mouthparts clamped on Eve’s knife and swiftly tore it from her grasp. Elliott swore. He quickly seized a fallen branch. Eve screamed as the horror sprang at her, its slavering jaws frighteningly agape. As the vile creature leapt, the Earthman swung a wild blow. It connected solidly, and the pouncing horror was violently hurled aside. It struck a tree and collapsed, twitching feebly. Elliott stepped in close and crushed its ugly head with another savage strike.

He turned to Eve, who was wiping the slime from her breasts and belly with a handful of leaves. “Are you all right?” He asked worriedly. “What the hell was that awful thing?”

“My creator named it a red devil,” she replied. “Its green venom is harmless to Earth people, and I am sufficiently human to be immune. Nonetheless, it would have torn my throat out if you hadn’t swiftly intervened. I shall not forget that your valiant actions saved my life. My creator never showed any concern or kindness toward me like you have.”

Eve stepped close and placed her arms affectionately around him. “When we are safe, I will reward you with the pleasure of my body,” she promised, giving him a smoldering look of hot desire. Mengal, who had all the warmth of a calculating machine, hadn’t been interested in Eve’s sexual needs, which were long overdue for satisfactory fulfillment.

“Um,” said the Earthman, unaccustomed to such directness and struggling to find a suitable reply. “That’s nice,” Elliott managed to lamely say. “Shall we move on?”

After another fifteen minutes of fighting their way through dense undergrowth, a disaster of a different kind manifested. A security alarm pinged on Elliott’s wrist instrument. He gazed at it, his eyes wide with sudden fright. A thunderous explosion sounded in the distance; the tremendous flash of erupting energy stained the sky with a blaze of fiery light. Then silence fell, leaving an unearthly quiet.

“What was that?” gasped Eve, noting the grim look on her companion’s face.

“My ship,” he said with fury. “Some bastard just blew it up.”

“It must be the work of the men who came,” Eve ventured. “I think they have been planning something for a long time. They do not want anyone to interfere with their scheme.”

“I see,” replied Elliott, his face hard with determination. “You said the men who came are Mengal’s associates. They are probably here to check on his research activities. The cult of white supremacists he belonged to was considered eliminated. Obviously, others also escaped imprisonment. We must get off this moon and inform the Interplanetary Police. But to do that, we need to take their ship.”

“I have a rough idea of where it is,” said Eve. “I will show you the way.”

**********

Several hours later, the pair were peering through a clump of ferns, their eyes locked on a cylindrical spacecraft resting horizontally on its landing gear. Three men stood by the ship, one in animated conversation close enough to overhear.

“Look, Himmel,” said Mengal in an exasperated tone, addressing a hard-faced, aristocratic-looking man. “I tell you, we cannot leave until the subject is captured. In a few months, the creature will become pregnant through parthenogenesis, which is when an unfertilized egg develops into a fetus. The female’s four babies will be much smaller than those of humans. The children will be clones of her. They will grow quickly. The female looks eighteen, but it took just five years for her to achieve that degree of physical and mental development. I need to monitor her gestation and the growth of her children, and then dissect them to determine if my experiment is a complete success.

“Success?” snarled Himmel, holding up his bandaged hand. “I invested a fortune in your research and this hidden facility. You promised me docile slaves. That bitch bit my hand when I tried to grab her. Why the hell did you use elements of canine DNA?”

“And if you hadn’t gotten drunk and left her compound door unlocked, she wouldn’t have escaped,” hotly retorted Mengal.

“Put aside your bickering,” interjected Klause, Himmel’s companion. “Remember, there is someone else on this moon. We blew up his ship, but he is still out there somewhere and possibly armed. The three of us are all that remain of the White Star Movement. We can’t afford to take risks. I say we leave now. All your research data is aboard. You can start again in a more secure location.”

Mengal bit his lip, thinking. “I suppose you’re right,” he said in reluctant agreement. “But what about the evidence we are leaving behind?”

“We have a missile with an antimatter warhead loaded in a launcher mounted on the ship’s underside,” replied Himmel. “When we’re at a safe distance, I’ll fire the weapon. It will vaporize the research facility and everything within a hundred-mile radius, including that bitch of yours. Problem solved. Now, get your ass aboard the ship.”

Elliott felt sick as he watched the trio walk toward the spacecraft’s boarding ramp. To think that they would stoop to killing children. Did their evil know no bounds? The only thing he knew for sure was that he couldn’t let these wicked men escape and perpetrate their cruelty elsewhere.

“I’m going to stop them,” he said to Eve. “My stun pistol is short-range. I’ll need to get close. Stay here.”

Elliott burst from the undergrowth before she could reply. He dashed madly toward the boarding ramp, firing quickly. The hissing beam struck Mengal. The scientist collapsed. Himmel swore. His blast pistol was out in a lightening draw. But Eve, who had ignored Elliot, was right behind him, and with her enhanced reflexes, was faster. She flung her knife with a snarl of leonine rage. The speeding blade struck Himmel in the shoulder. The man screamed, dropped the gun.

Klause, who had grabbed the unconscious Mengal, fired his own sidearm. Its red ray lashed out. Soil exploded at Elliott’s feet. Flying debris peppered him. He stumbled; his charge impeded.

“Into the ship,” shouted Klause as he hauled Mengal through the airlock. “The missile will take care of them.”

Himmell staggered after him. Eve dashed for the swiftly rising ramp, her face a mask of demonic fury. She leapt for it but missed. It retracted fully, and the hatch slammed shut. The ship began to lift as Elliott rushed to Eve’s side. The young man saw Himmel’s blast pistol lying on the ground where he had dropped it. He snatched it from the soil and grimly looked at the rising spacecraft. He knew that when the fiends were beyond the atmosphere, they would fire the missile. Nothing would escape the tremendous antimatter explosion. Grim-faced, he raised the blast pistol and took aim at the launcher, determined that if he and Eve were going to die, then he’d take these wicked men with him and thus end the menace that they posed.

Elliott’s pistol spat its deadly crimson beam. The ray struck the launcher. A coruscation of leaping sparks erupted, but the missile didn’t explode as he’d planned. Then the skyward-leaping ship was swiftly out of range. The young man swore. He fired again, even though he knew it was useless. The spacecraft was now a small black dot far above the ground.

Eve, her frightening fury now abated, approached Elliott and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You did all you could,” she said consolingly. “How long do we have?”

“Not long,” he replied as he put his arm around her slim waist. Both stood stoically, watching the sky, their arms around each other as they awaited the inevitable end. The torturous minutes slowly passed, then an intense burst of light appeared in the heavens and slowly faded to nothingness.

“Was that the launch of the missile?” asked Eve as she drew nearer to him.

Elliott grinned. “No,” he replied. “That was the missile exploding. My shot must have damaged it, and it detonated prematurely. As the old saying goes, they have been hoisted by their own petard.”

**********

Several years had passed. Elliott and Eve sat watching the children play. Some were solely hers, born by parthenogenesis; others he had fathered, for she was sufficiently human to bear children in the usual manner. All were healthy in mind and body. With the destruction of Elliott’s ship and that of Himmell, they were stranded on the Crimson Moon. Rescue was unlikely as Elliott had deviated from the exploration star chart he had been given by Extrasolar Mines, his employer.

But perhaps it was just as well, he reflected. If Eve and their children became known to the world, no doubt ruthless men would seek to profit from the knowledge. Human nature hadn’t changed that much since the time of the Roman Empire. There were still those who sought to enslave others, and the idea of custom made chattles would no doubt greatly appeal to their twisted minds.

Here, on this isolated moon, he and Eve were in the process of laying the foundation for a new civilization with a new people in control of their own destiny. He looked at Eve nestling in his arms. She had come a long way from being the experiment of a cruel and immoral man. She had found love and happiness, as had he, and Elliott was certain that a bright future lay ahead for all of them.

The End