Chapter 5: The Hawk and the Kite

In the deck of the control cabin, between a bank of instruments and the starboard wall, was another man-hole that gave entrance from the ‘tween hulls compartment to the cabin.

Only two men besides Carse knew of its existence. The adventurer for good reasons of his own had it built in; and so cunningly was its cover fitted on that its outlines were not visible.

Beneath it, now, on the three-rung ladder that led up from the lower shell, Hawk Carse waited.

He could hear quite clearly the angry, snarling voice of Judd the Kite, haranguing his men.

“Rinker, you go down and see what’s wrong. Just because Jake and Sako don’t come back right away, you guys seem to think the ship’s haunted! Haunted! By Betelguese! A sweet bunch of white-livered cowards I’ve got for a crew--”

“Ah, lay off!” growled a deep, sullen voice. “I ain’t scared, but this looks fishy to me. Something’s wrong down there ‘tween the hulls--damn wrong, I tell you. We only found four skeletons, an’ four, ain’t the full crew for a ship like this. There oughta to be a couple more somewhere. Carse, blast him! he’s got nine lives. How do we know he was one of the four?”

Another spoke up, as Rinker evidently hesitated. “I say we all go down and investigate together.”

“Stow it!” thundered Judd. “They didn’t get their space-suits out, did they? Why, they hadn’t a chance to escape--none of ‘em. They were killed, every one, quick! And four’s plenty to work this ship. Carse is dead, see, dead! This was one trick he didn’t know--one time he couldn’t worm out. He was clever, all right, but he couldn’t quite stack up against me. I swore I’d get him and I did. He’s dead!”

“Judd,” said a low, clear voice.

The Kite whirled around. He stared. The hand-flash he was holding dropped to the deck with a clang. His hands went limp, and his voice was suddenly weak and dazed.

“My God--Carse! Hawk Carse!”

“Yes,” a whisper answered. “Hawk Carse. And not dead.”

It was a scene that might have puzzled a newcomer to the frontiers of space. Certainly there seemed to be nothing menacing about the slender figure that stood by the now open man-hole, both arms hanging easily at his sides; the advantage, on the contrary, appeared to be all with the men whom he confronted. All but one was big, and each was fully armed with a brace of ray-guns and knives.

But, though there were four guns to one, they made no attempt to draw. For it was the Hawk they faced, the fastest, most accurate shot in all those millions of leagues of space, and in his two icy eyes was a menace that filled the control cabin with fine-drawn silence.

At last Judd the Kite opened his lips and wetted them.

“Where did you come from?” he stammered.

“No matter,” came the answer from the thinly smiling mouth. “Friday!”

“Yes, suh!” boomed the big black’s distant voice.

Judd’s three men turned their heads and saw Carse’s famous satellite step into the control cabin, a ray-gun in each capacious hand. He was all flashing white teeth, so wide was his grin.

“Well, well!” he chuckled. “Ain’t this the pleasure! Certainly am pleased to meet old friends like this--yes, suh! Jus’ drop in?”

But the Kite’s head had not turned; he seemed not to hear Friday’s words; his eyes were held fascinated by Carse’s. The attention of everyone came back to the two leaders.

“Ku Sui is in back of this?” asked the Hawk.

Judd licked his lips again. He had to spar for time: to divert for a while the vengeance he knew possessed the other’s mind, so that he might find some chance, some loop-hole.

“That’s right,” he began eagerly, “it was Ku Sui. I had to do this, Carse: I hadn’t any choice. He’s got something on me: I had to go through with it. Had to!”

The Hawk’s eyes were glacial; the ghost of a smile hovered once more around the corners of his lips.

“Go on,” he said. “What was that fungus?”

“I don’t know. Ku Sui developed it in his laboratory. He just gave me a sealed cartridge of the spores with instructions to raid your ranch, as you saw, and plant them in a drilled-out phanti horn. There was a simple mechanism in the cartridge that allowed us to release the spores by a radio wave from our ship. When I wanted them to grow I simply--”

“I see. A clever scheme,” Carse said. “Quite up to Ku Sui’s standard. The idea of those three men running for the jungle when I came down on Iapetus was to insure my taking the horn cargo aboard, of course. The raid was only incidental to your scheme to get me. And Crane, the radio operator, was dead when I received that S.O.S. It was faked, to bring me quickly for your schedule.”

Judd stared at him. “How in hell did you know that? Damn you, Carse, you’re--”

“Where,” interrupted the adventurer coldly, “is Ku Sui?”

The pirate’s eyes shifted nervously. “I don’t know,” he muttered.

“Where,” came the steady question again, “is Ku Sui?”

The other licked his lips. His fingers clenched, unclenched, gripped tight. “I don’t know!” he protested. His eyes widened as he saw the Hawk’s left hand stir slightly, and he started as he heard the whip-like word:

“Talk!”

“Carse. I swear it! No one knows where he is. When he wants to see me personally, he comes out of darkness--out of empty space. I don’t know whether it’s done by invisibility or the fourth dimension, but one moment his ship’s not there; the next it is; I don’t know where his base is; and if he knew I’d told you what I have, he’d--”