Chapter 2: Pursuit

That was the Hawk’s method, and it had given him the name which he had made famous. It was characteristic of the man that he preferred to strike at an enemy ship in a wild, breath-taking swoop, even as the fierce hawk plummets from high heaven to sink its talons deep into the flesh of its more sluggish prey. Nerves were uncomfortable things to have on such occasions, and Harkness had them, and accordingly he felt his heart hammer and something tight seemed to bind his throat. He tried to assume the unshakable calmness of the motionless figure at the stick, but could not, for his body was only flesh and blood--and Hawk Carse was tempered, frosty, steel. Through staring eyes the navigator watched the surface of Iapetus rushing into the bow ports, watched it spread accelerating outward, until he could plainly see the pirate ship lying there, and the nearby figures of men tugging at the heavy boxes of horns.

His eyes were on those figures when they broke. First they teetered hesitantly a moment, glancing wildly around and up at the vision of death that was coming like a silver comet from the skies, and then they melted apart. Three scrambled towards the rim of jungle foliage close at hand, while their fellows leaped in the other direction, trying to make an open port in their craft. Harkness saw them tumble headlong through it and slam it shut. Then a web of blue streaks appeared around the ship, and softened until her hull was bathed is ghostly bluish light.

“Their defensive ray-web’s on, sir!” he managed to gasp. Carse, though close, might not have heard, so intently was he watching. The altitude dial’s pointer reached for one thousand and slid past. Harkness’s face was pale and drawn; his tight-gripped fingers and clenched teeth showed that he expected to crash into the ground in a molten, shapeless tomb of steel. But Friday was grinning, his teeth a slash of white.

“Stand by bow projectors,” sounded the Hawk’s clipped voice. The negro extended his hands and rumbled:

“Ready, suh.”

“Fire.”

“Fire!” Friday roared.

His rich laugh rang out and he whirled the wheels over. With a hissing as of a hundred snakes, the rays struck.

Well aimed, the bolt speared straight and true. The distance was short, and it came from generators that were perhaps not equaled in space; no ordinary ship’s defensive web could resist its vicious thrust. From the streak of silver that represented the Hawk’s swoop, a stream of orange cut a swathe through the air ahead, holding accurately on the brigand ship. For just a tick of time there was a turmoil of color as offensive ray met defensive web; then the air cleared again--and the pirate was unmarked!

By rights she should have been split in two; and, though his face did not show it, it must have been surprising to Carse that she wasn’t. With one flick of the wrist he wrenched the Star Devil out of her plunge and sent her scudding, a hundred feet up, over the jungle rim. Friday was gaping. Harkness, still numb from the dive, foolishly staring; and then the brigand bared her fangs in return.

Orange light winked from her stern, and the Hawk’s ship was bathed in a streak of color. But the bolt caromed harmlessly off the side of the arcing Star Devil! and the next instant the pirate’s lean bulk swayed, lifted a little and zoomed up into the heavens, abandoning the boxes of horn without further fight.

“Runnin’ foh it! Scared stiff!” muttered Friday, unholy joy in his gleaming eyes. He looked at the figure at the stick. “Follow ‘em now, suh, an’ wear out their projectors?”

Carse thoughtfully smoothed his bangs with his free hand. “Plenty of time for that,” he said patiently. “Some of the men on the ranch may still be alive: we must care for them. I’m going to land. Tell the engineer to keep watch through the electelscope on that ship. I’ll start overtaking it shortly.”

“Funny our rays didn’t ha’m ‘em,” Friday ruminated aloud. “Ain’t no ordinary craft, that. No, suh, they’s more in this heah business than hits yo’ eyes!”

“Now you’re getting cynical, Eclipse,” the Hawk said dryly.

A quarter-mile-square block of land had been fenced off as a corral for the ninety-head herd of bull phantis Carse kept on Iapetus. These creatures resembled mostly the old ostrich of Earth, but grew no feathers. The neck, however was shorter than the ostrich’s; the leathery skin of a drab gray color; the powerful hind feet, on which they stood erect, prehensile and armed with short stabbing spurs; the forearms short and used for plucking the delicate shoots and young leaves on which they lived. There was a dim flicker of rudimentary intelligence inside the bullet heads; they recognized men as their enemies, and hated them. And therefore they necessitated careful handling, for, even without the valuable head-horns, their sharp-spurred feet could rip a human being into shreds in seconds.

They were clustered now behind the wire corral-fence, electrified to prevent them from breaking through. They bellowed angrily and shoved each other about as their wicked little blood-shot eyes caught sight of the Star Devil as she came dropping gently down.

At the electelscope of the descending craft was the ship’s engineer. He had just centered the instrument on the fleeing pirate craft that by now was leaving the satellite’s atmosphere, and the image was large on the screen above the bow windows, where he kept a steady eye on it. The inner door of the port-lock swung open, the outer door down, and Carse walked through, followed by Friday and Harkness.

An ugly scene lay spread out before them in the glaring daylight. The trader had only gone a few paces when he paused and looked down at an outsprawled thing that had once been a man. Stooping, he very gently turned the mess of charred flesh over and peered at what was left of the face. There were small, burnt holes in it, and the flesh surrounding them looked as though it had been suspended for some time over a slow fire...