Weird Science #12

When Captain Harold Dexter and his crew aboard the Polaris-B encounter a planet where pets are the dominant species, they’re unprepared for the truth: the Gobl, a seemingly loyal alien, is actually the best friend of the Knogs—ruthless masters who rule through their animal companions. With Hawkins’ dog barking at every turn and the crew struggling to adapt, the line between pet and predator begins to blur in ways no one on the ship could have predicted.

In the quiet aftermath of a planet-ending explosion, Larry—once a daring balloonist—descends into a world reduced to silence, only to find the last living soul: his sister. As the sky still hums with the echo of destruction, their reunion becomes the fragile thread holding hope in a world with no one left to remember it.

In "The Android!", Ron Martin finds himself smitten with his new secretary, Ellen Corwin—only to realize too late that she might not be human. When his friend Cal Tennis suggests building an android of Ron so he can escape his marriage and be with Ellen, Ron agrees, unaware of the complications that could follow.

In "Chewed Out!", a well-meaning farmer’s amateur radio call to the stars accidentally draws the attention of tiny alien visitors—unbeknownst to him, they’ve already landed, hidden in the brine of a local hotdog vendor’s sauerkraut. When the military seizes his equipment and takes over his farm to await the extraterrestrial arrival, the real surprise comes when a soldier takes a bite out of his hotdog and discovers the truth: the aliens were never coming—they were already here, and they’ve been part of the snack all along.