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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29298-h.zip b/29298-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..83802ce --- /dev/null +++ b/29298-h.zip diff --git a/29298-h/29298-h.htm b/29298-h/29298-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..99d5b5f --- /dev/null +++ b/29298-h/29298-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2092 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bluff of the Hawk, by Anthony Gilmore + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.img1 {border:solid 1px; } + +.f1 {font-size:xx-large; font-weight:bolder; } + +.blockquote { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bluff of the Hawk, by Anthony Gilmore + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bluff of the Hawk + +Author: Anthony Gilmore + +Release Date: July 3, 2009 [EBook #29298] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUFF OF THE HAWK *** + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Astounding Stories May 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> +</div> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/image_001.jpg" width="500" height="542" alt="Nothing there could withstand him." /> +<span class="caption">Nothing there could withstand him.</span> +</div> + + +<h1>The Bluff of the Hawk</h1> + +<h2>By Anthony Gilmore</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="sidenote">"A trick? Carse was famed for them. A trap? But how?"</div> + + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>ad not old John Sewell, the historian, recognized Hawk Carse for what +he was—a creator of new space-frontiers, pioneer of vast territories +for commerce, molder of history through his long feud with the +powerful Eurasian scientist, Ku Sui—the adventurer would doubtless +have passed into oblivion like other long-forgotten spacemen. We have +Sewell's industry to thank for our basic knowledge of Carse. His +"Space-Frontiers of the Last Century" is a thorough work and the +accepted standard, but even it had of necessity to be compressed, and +many meaty episodes of the Hawk's life go almost unmentioned. For +instance, Sewell gives a rough synopsis of "The Affair of the Brains," +but dismisses its aftermath entirely, in the following fashion (Vol. +II, pp. 250-251):</p> + +<blockquote><p>"... there was only one way out: to smash the great dome +covering one end of the asteroid and so release the +life-sustaining air inside. Captain Carse achieved this by +sending the space-ship <i>Scorpion</i> crashing through the dome +unmanned, and he, Friday and Eliot Leithgow were caught up +in the out-rushing flood of air and catapulted into space, +free of the dome and Dr. Ku Sui. Clad as they were in the +latter's self-propulsive space-suits, they were quite +capable of reaching Jupiter's Satellite III, only some +thirty thousand miles away.</p> + +<p>"Then speeding through space, Captain Carse discovered why +he had never been able to find the asteroid-stronghold. He +could not see it! Dr. Ku Sui had protected his lair by +making it invisible! But Carse was at least confident that +by breaking the dome he had destroyed all life within in, +including the coordinated brains.</p> + +<p>"So ended The Affair of the Brains.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>"The three comrades reached Satellite III safely, where, +after a few minor adventures, Captain Carse...."</p></blockquote> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See the March, 1932, Issue of Astounding Stories.</p></div> + +<p>Sewell's ruthless surgery is most evident in that last paragraph. Of +course his telescoping of the events was due to limited space; but +he did wish to draw a full-length, character-revealing portrait of +Hawk Carse, and with "... reached Satellite III safely, where, after a +few minor adventures, Captain Carse ..." learned old John Sewell slid +over one of his greatest opportunities.</p> + +<p>The resourcefulness of Hawk Carse! In these "few minor adventures" he +had but one weapon with which to joust against overwhelming odds on an +apparently hopeless quest. This weapon was a space-suit—nothing +more—yet so brilliantly and daringly did he wield its unique +advantages that he penetrated seemingly impregnable barriers and +achieved alone what another man would have required the ray-batteries +of a space-fleet to do.</p> + +<p>But here is the story, heard first from Friday's lips and told and +re-told down through the years on the lonely ranches of the outlying +planets, of that one dark, savage night on Satellite III and of the +indomitable man who winged his lone way through it. Hawk Carse! Old +adventurer! Rise from your unknown star-girdled grave and live again!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hirty thousand miles was the gap between Dr. Ku Sui's asteroid and +Satellite III, the nearest haven. Thirty thousand miles in a +space-ship is about the time of a peaceful cigarro. Thirty thousand +miles in a cramped awkward space-suit grow into a nightmare journey, +an eternity of suffering, and they will kill a good number of those +who traverse them so.</p> + +<p>For, take away the metal bulkheads and walls, soft lights and warmth of +a space-liner, get out in a small cramped space-suit, and space loses +its mask of harmlessness and stands revealed as the bleak, unfeeling +torturer it is. There is the loneliness, the sense of timelessness, the +sensation of falling, and above all there is the "weightless" feeling +from pressure-changes in man's blood-stream—changes sickening in effect +and soon resulting in delirium. Nothing definite; no gravity; no +"bottom," no "top"; merely a vacuum, comprehended by the human mind +through an all-enveloping nausea, and seen in confused spectral +labyrinths as the whole cold panorama of icy stars staggers and swirls +and the universe goes mad. Such a trip was enough to churn the +resistance of the hardiest traveler, but for Hawk Carse, Friday and +Eliot Leithgow there was more. On Ku Sui's asteroid they had gone +through hours of mental and physical tension without break or +relaxation, and they were sleep-starved and food-starved and their +brains fagged and dull. What would have been a strong reaction on land +hit them, in space, with tripled force.</p> + +<p>So Friday—our ultimate authority—remembered little of the transit. +He had bad short periods of wakefulness, when the recurring agony of +his body woke and racked him afresh, and only during these did he see +the other two grotesque figures, sometimes widely separated, sometimes +close, dazzlingly half-lit by Jupiter's light. But he was conscious +that one of the three was keeping them more or less together, though +only later did he know that this one was Carse—Carse, who hardly +slept, who drove off unconsciousness and fought through nausea to keep +at his task of shepherding, failing which they would have drifted +miles apart and become hopelessly separated. He was able to maintain +them in a fairly compact group by his discovery of a short metal +direction rod on the breast of the suit, which gave horizontal +movement in the direction it was pointed when its button was pressed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">B</span>ut though it seemed endless, the journey was not; Satellite III grew +and grew. Its pale circle spread outward; dark blurs took definition; +a spot of blue winked forth—the Great Briney Lake. The globe at last +became concave, then, after they entered its atmosphere, convex. This +last stretch was the most grueling.</p> + +<p>Friday remembered it in vivid flashes. Time after time he dropped into +confused sleep, each time to be awakened by Carse jarring into him, +shouting at him through the suits' small radio sets, keeping him—and +Leithgow—attentive to the job of decelerating. The man's efforts must +have been terrific, taxing all his enormous driving power, for he at +that time was without doubt more exhausted than they. But he +succeeded, and he was a haggard-faced, feverish shell of himself when +at last he had them in a dangling drunken halt in the air a hundred +feet from the surface.</p> + +<p>Primal savagery lay stretched out below, and there seemed to be no safe +spot whereon to land. The foul, deep swamp that reached for miles on +every side, the towering trees that sprouted their spiny trunks and +limbs from it, the interlaced razor-edged vines and creeper-growths—all +was a stirring welter of tropic life, life varied and voracious and +untamed. From the tiny poisonous bansi insects layers deep on the +nearest tree to the monster gantor that crouched in a clump of weeds, +gently sawing his fangs back and forth, all the creatures of this world +were against man.</p> + +<p>Carse scanned the scene wearily. They had to land; had to sleep under +normal conditions, and eat and drink, before they could go further. +But where? Where was haven? He snapped out the direction rod, moved +away a short distance, and then glimpsed, below and to the left, a +small peninsula of firm soil which seemed safe and uninhabited. And +there was a pool of fairly clear water before it, containing nothing +but an old uprooted stump. He came back to the others, shook them, and +led them down to the place he had discovered.</p> + +<p>They landed with a thump which seemed to shake all life from two of +them. Friday and Eliot Leithgow collapsed into inert heaps, asleep +immediately. Carse extracted a ray-gun from the belt of Leithgow's +suit and prepared to stand watch. But that was too much. He +over-estimated his capacity. He had come through thirty hours of +hellish sleep-denied delirium, and he could not stave sleep off any +longer. He staggered and went down, and his eyelids were glued in +sleep when his body hit the ground.</p> + +<p>But mechanically, with an instinct that sleep could not deny, his left +hand kept clasped around the butt of the ray-gun....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">S</span>atellite III's day has an average of seven hours' duration, her night +of six. It was perhaps the last hour of daylight when the three metal +and fabric-clad figures lying outsprawled on the little thumb-shaped +piece of soil had landed. Now quickly the huge sweeping rim of Jupiter +plunged down, and night fell over the land.</p> + +<p>Fierce darkness. Jungle and swamp awoke with their scale of savage +life. Swift swooping shapes winged out from the trees, prey-hungry +eyes gleaming green. And from the swamps came bellowings and stirrings +from monster mud-encrusted bodies, awakening to their nocturnal quest +for food. The night reechoed with the harsh cacophony of their cries.</p> + +<p>With lumbering caution, its smooth knob head waving on a long +reptilian neck, its heavy armored tail dragging behind its body's +folds of flesh, a giant night-thing came stumping out of a copse of +jungle growth—a buru. Its eyes were watchful, but centered mainly on +the pool of water to one side of the peninsula of firm soil. Its +drinking water was there. With several pauses, it went right out on +the spit, and a flat-bottomed foot twice the size of an elephant's +missed one of the sleeping forms by inches. But the buru cared not for +them. It was not a flesh-eater. Its undulating neck stretched far out; +its head dipped; water was lapped up—until it caught sight of the +uprooted giant stump lying pitched in the pool. The beast drank but +little after that, and retreated as cautiously as it had come.</p> + +<p>Five or six of its fellows of the swamps followed at intervals to the +water, grotesque hulking shapes, odorous and slimy with mud. All drank +from the same spot; all ignored, save for a tentative rooting snuffle, +the unconscious figures lying puny beneath them. But all noticed the +twisted roots of the stump, sticking out in a score of directions, and +avoided them.</p> + +<p>And then there came smaller, more cautious animals who did not drink +from the favored spot, who surveyed it, sniffed, hesitated, and +finally retreated. There was a good reason for this caution.</p> + +<p>For with the falling of night the stump had been at least thirty feet +out in the water; now it was not ten feet from the side of the spit, +and not twelve feet from the nearest sleeping figure. The suits that +clad the three figures were sealed, the face-plates closed, so there +was probably—after their trip through the void—no man smell to +attract the giants of swamp and trees. But those three figures had +moved. That was lure enough for one monster.</p> + +<p>When the first ruddy arrows of Jupiter's light laced through the +jungle's highest foliage, the twisted, gnarled stump was settled on +the peninsula's rim, half out of the water. And when day burst, when +Jupiter's flaming arch pushed over into view, the long seeming-roots +eeled forward in sinuous reptilian life.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">I</span>n one second Hawk Carse was snatched from sleep into the turmoil of a +fight for life.</p> + +<p>Something hard and enormously powerful was wrapping his waist with a +vise-like grip that threatened to cut him in two. He felt a leg go up +and crumple back, almost breaking under the force of a lashing blow. +He was squeezed in, caged, compressed, by a score of tough, encircling +tentacles, and his whole body was drawn toward a wide, flexible, +black-lipped mouth yawning in the center of the monster he had thought +a stump. Moving with loathsome life, its sinewy root-tentacles sucking +him whole into the maw, the thing hunched itself back to the water.</p> + +<p>The water frothed around Carse. He had been too dazed to resist; he +had not known what had gripped him in his unconsciousness and +weakness. But he remembered his ray-gun.</p> + +<p>The lips of the hideous mouth were pressing close. Both were now under +the surface. Carse's suit was still tight and he could breathe even +while totally submerged in the water. He strained his left arm against +the tentacle that looped it, worked the ray-gun still clasped in his +hand in line with the thing's monstrous carcass, and at once, gasping +and sick, pulled the trigger clear back.</p> + +<p>The orange stream sizzled as it cleared a path through the water and +bit true into the gaping mouth. There sounded a curious, subterranean +sob; beady eyes on each side of the mouth bulged; the woodish body +quivered in agony. Its tentacles slackened, and, half fainting, the +Hawk wrenched free. He staggered up onto the land, streams of water +running off the suit, and toppled over; and from there he saw the +thing drag its writhing shuddering shape farther out from the shore. +When perhaps sixty feet away it again subsided into a "harmless" +uprooted old stump....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">C</span>arse lay resting and collecting himself for a quarter of an hour, +while Leithgow and Friday slept on, unconscious of what had happened; +then he got to his feet, opened their face-plates and bathed +Leithgow's pale brow with water. The scientist awoke with the +quickness of old men, but Friday stirred and stretched and blinked and +sat up at last, yawning.</p> + +<p>The Hawk answered their questions about his wet suit with a brief +explanation of the fight, then got down to business.</p> + +<p>"There's water here, but we must have food," he said. "Friday, you go +back and find fruit; some isuan weed, too, if it's growing nearby. A +chew of it will stimulate us. Keep your ray-gun ready. I wouldn't be +here if I'd not had mine."</p> + +<p>The isuan was a big help. In its prepared form it is degrading, +mind-destroying, but in natural state it gives a powerful and +comparatively harmless stimulation. Chewing on the leaves that the +Negro brought back, they made strength and renewed vitality for their +bodies, and came, for the first time since they had started their +flight through space, to a near-normal state. Meaty, yellow globules +of pear-like fruit, followed by prudent drafts of water, aided also. +Friday's long-absent grin returned as he bit into the juicy fruit, and +he announced through a mouthful:</p> + +<p>"Well, things're lookin' sunny again! We've got food and water inside +us; we can reach Master Leithgow's laboratory in these here suits; an' +to top it all we've finished high an' mighty Ku Sui. He's dead at +last! Boy, it sure feels good to know it!"</p> + +<p>Eliot Leithgow was lying back, breathing deeply of the fresh morning +air. His lined, worn face and body were relaxed. "Yes," he murmured, +"it is good to know that Dr. Ku is now just a thing of the past. He +and his coordinated brains." He glanced aside at the Hawk, sitting +silent and still, and stroking, as always when in meditation, the +bangs of flaxen hair which obscured his forehead. "Why so serious, +Carse?" he asked.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he adventurer's gray eyes were cold and sober. No relaxation showed +in them. His hand paused in its slow smoothing movement and he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Why I overlooked it before," he said quietly, almost as if to +himself, "I don't know. Probably because I was too tired, and too +busy, and too sick to think. But now I see."</p> + +<p>"What?" Leithgow sat up straight.</p> + +<p>"Eliot," said the Hawk clearly, "doesn't it seem strange to you that +Ku Sui's asteroid continued to be invisible after we had smashed +through its dome?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"We've assumed that our smashing the dome and opening it to space +killed Ku Sui and everyone inside, and destroyed all the mechanisms, +including the coordinated brains. But the mechanism controlling the +asteroid's invisibility was not destroyed. The place remained +invisible."</p> + +<p>The old scientist's face grew tense. Carse paused for a moment.</p> + +<p>"That means," he went on, "that Ku Sui provided the invisibility +machine with special protection for just such an emergency. And do you +think he would give it such protection and not his coordinated brains? +Wouldn't he first protect the brains, his most cherished possession?"</p> + +<p>Eliot Leithgow knew what this meant. The Hawk had promised the brains +in that machine—brains of five renowned scientists, kept cruelly, +unnaturally alive by Dr. Ku—that he would destroy them. And his +promises were always kept.</p> + +<p>There was no evading the logic of this reasoning. The Master Scientist +nodded. "Yes," he answered. "He certainly would."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't damage the case they were in," Carse continued. "The whole +device seemed self-contained. It means just one thing: special +protection. Since the mechanism for invisibility survived the crashing +of the dome, we may be sure that the brain machine did too. And more +than that: we may assume that there was special protection for the +most precious thing of all to Dr. Ku Sui—his own life."</p> + +<p>Friday's mouth gaped open. The old scientist cried out:</p> + +<p>"My God! Ku Sui—still alive?"</p> + +<p>"It would seem so," said Hawk Carse.</p> + +<p>He amplified his evidence. "Look at these space-suits we're wearing. +We got them and escaped by them, but they're Dr. Ku's. Couldn't he +have protected himself with one too? He had plenty of time. And then +the construction of the asteroid's buildings—all metal, with tight, +sealed doors! Oh, stupid, stupid! Why didn't I see it all before? +Here, in my weakness and sickness, I thought we'd killed Ku Sui and +destroyed the coordinated brains!"</p> + +<p>Leithgow looked suddenly very old and tired. The calamity did not end +there. There were other angles, and an immediate one of high danger. +In a lifeless voice he said:</p> + +<p>"Carse, our whole situation's changed by this. We intended to go +straight to my laboratory, but we may not be able to. The laboratory +may already be closed to us. And even if not, there'd be a big risk in +going there."</p> + +<p>"Closed to us by what?" the Hawk demanded sharply. "At risk from +what?"</p> + +<p>Old Leithgow pressed his hands over his face. "Let me think a moment," +he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>here were very good reasons why Eliot Leithgow maintained his chief +laboratory on the dangerous Satellite III. Other planets might have +offered more friendly locations, but III possessed stores of +accessible minerals valuable to the scientist's varied work, and its +position in the solar system was most convenient, being roughly +halfway between Earth and the outermost frontiers. Leithgow had +counterbalanced the inherent peril of the laboratory's location by +ingenious camouflage, intricate defenses and hidden underground +entrances; had, indeed, hidden it so well that none of the scavengers +and brigands and more personal enemies who infested Port o' Porno +remotely suspected that his headquarters was on the satellite at all. +Ships, men, could pass over it a score of times with never an inkling +that it lay below.</p> + +<p>After a short silence, Eliot Leithgow began his explanation.</p> + +<p>"You'll remember," he told the intent Hawk, "that Ku Sui's men +kidnapped me from our friend Kurgo's house in Porno. There were five +of them: robot-coolies. They took us entirely by surprise, and killed +Kurgo and bore me to Ku Sui's asteroid.</p> + +<p>"Well, I had come to Kurgo's house in the first place to arrange for +supplies for building an addition to my laboratory, and I had with me +a sheaf of papers containing plans for this addition. The plans are +not important; they tell nothing—but there was a figure on one of the +papers that might reveal everything! The figure 5,576.34. Do you know +what that stands for?"</p> + +<p>The adventurer thought for a moment, then shook his head. Leithgow +nodded. He went on:</p> + +<p>"Few would. <i>But among the few would be Ku Sui!</i></p> + +<p>"You'll remember that on building my laboratory we considered it +extremely important to have it on the other side of the globe from +Port o' Porno—diametrically opposite—so that the movements of our +ships to and from it would be hidden from that pirate port. +Diametrically opposite—remember? Well, the diameter of Satellite III +is 3,550 miles. This diameter multiplied by 3.1416 gives 11,152.63 +miles as the circumference, and one half the circumference is 5,576.34 +miles—the exact distance of my laboratory from Port o' Porno!"</p> + +<p>"I see," Carse murmured. "I see."</p> + +<p>"That figure meant nothing to you, nor would it to the average person; +but to a mathematician and astronomer—to Dr. Ku Sui—it would be a +challenge! He would be studying the paper on which it is written down. +One of Eliot Leithgow's papers. Plans for an addition to a laboratory. +Therefore, Eliot Leithgow's laboratory. And then the figure: half the +circumference of Satellite III. Why, he would at once deduce that it +gave the precise location of my laboratory!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he Hawk rose quickly. "If those papers fell into Dr. Ku's hands—"</p> + +<p>"He would know exactly where the laboratory is," Leithgow finished. +"He would search. Its camouflage would not hold him long. And that +would be the end of my laboratory—and us too, if we were caught +inside."</p> + +<p>"Yes," snapped the Hawk. "You imply that the papers were left in +Kurgo's house?"</p> + +<p>"I had them in the bottom drawer of the clothes-chest in the room I +always use. The coolies did not take them. At that time they wanted +nothing but me."</p> + +<p>Friday, rubbing his woolly crown, interjected: "But, even if Ku Sui's +still alive, he wouldn't know about them papers. Far's <i>I</i> can see, +they're safe."</p> + +<p>"No!" Leithgow cried. "That's it! They're not! Follow it logically, +point by point. Assuming that Dr. Ku's alive, he has one point of +contact with us—Kurgo's house, in Porno, where I was kidnapped. He +wants us badly. He will anticipate that one of us will go back to that +house: to care for Kurgo's body, to get my belongings—for several +reasons. So he will radio down—he probably can't come himself—for +henchmen to station themselves at the house and to ransack it +thoroughly for anything pertaining to me. The papers would fall into +their hands!"</p> + +<p>"All right," said Carse levelly. "We must get those papers. They will +either be still in the house or in the possession of Dr. Ku's men at +Porno. But whichever it is—<i>we must get them before Ku Sui does</i>." He +paused.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "that means me." He turned and looked down at the old +man and smiled. "There's no use risking the three of us. I'll go to +Kurgo's house myself."</p> + +<p>"If the papers are gone, suh?" asked Friday.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. What I do will depend on what I discover there."</p> + +<p>"But," said Leithgow, "there may be guards! There may be an ambush!"</p> + +<p>"I have a powerful weapon. M. S. Unknown, so far; new to Satellite +III. Ku Sui himself supplied it. This space-suit."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he Hawk scanned the "western" sky and began giving brisk orders.</p> + +<p>"Eliot, you've got to go to some place of safety until this is all +over. You too, Eclipse, to take care of him. Let me see.... There's +Cairnes, and Wilson.... Wilson's the one. He should be at his ranch +now. You remember it: Ban Wilson's ranch, on the Great Briney Lake? +Right. Both of you will go there and wait. I'll meet you there when +I'm finished. And at that time I'll either have the papers or know +that Ku Sui has found the laboratory."</p> + +<p>Again on his feet, the old Master Scientist regarded anxiously this +slender, coldly calculating man who was his closest friend. He was +afraid. "Carse," he said, "you're going back alone into probable +danger. The papers—the laboratory—they're important—but not so +important as your life."</p> + +<p>There was visible now in the Hawk's face that hard, unflinching +will-to-do that had made him the spectacular adventurer that he was. +"Did you ever know me to run from danger?" he asked softly. "Did you +ever know me to run from Ku Sui?..." And Eliot Leithgow knew that the +course was set, no matter what it might hold.</p> + +<p>Carse again glanced at Jupiter, hanging massive in the blue overhead. +"About three hours of daylight left," he observed. "Now, close +face-plates. We must go up—far up—to get our bearings."</p> + +<p>Altitude swept back the horizon as they arrowed up through the warm, +glowing air. From far in the heavens, perhaps twenty miles, Carse saw +what he looked for—a bright gleam of silver in the monochrome of the +terrain, where Jupiter's light struck on the smooth metal hides of a +group of space-ships resting in the satellite's lone port, Porno. +Eighty, a hundred miles away—some such distance. Into the helmet's +tiny microphone he said:</p> + +<p>"That's Porno, over to the 'north,' and there to one side is the Great +Briney. It's not far: you won't have to hurry, Eliot. Head straight +for the lake and follow the near shoreline toward Porno, and you'll +come to Ban Wilson's ranch. Now we part."</p> + +<p>The three clinging, giant forms separated. The direction-rods for +horizontal movement were out-hinged. A last touch of mitten-gloves on +the bloated suits fabric; a nod and a smile through the face-plates; +and a few parting words:</p> + +<p>"Good luck, old comrade!"—in Leithgow's soft voice; and the Negro's +deep, emphatic bass: "Don't know how far these little sets work, suh, +but if you need me, call. I'll keep listenin'!"</p> + +<p>And then white man and black were speeding away in the ruddy flood of +Jupiter-light, and Hawk Carse faced the danger trail alone, as was his +wont.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">C</span>aution rather than speed had to mark his journey, Carse knew. Several +ranches lay scattered in the jungle smother between him and the +port—stations where the weed isuan was collected and refined into the +deadly finished product. They were worked for the most part by +Venusians allied with Ku Sui: the Eurasian practically controlled the +drug trade; and therefore, if any alarm had been broadcast, many men +would already be on the lookout for him.</p> + +<p>So the Hawk dropped low, and chose a course through the screening +walls of the jungle. It did not take him long to attain full mastery +of the suit's controls, and soon he was gliding cleanly through the +hollows created by the mammoth outthrusting treetops in a course crazy +and twisted, but one which kept him pointing always towards Porno. +Presently he found an easier highway and a faster—a sluggish, dirty +yellow stream, quite broad, which ended, he was sure, in a swamp +within a mile of his destination.</p> + +<p>Flanked by the jungle growth which sprouted thickly from each bank, a +gray, ghostly shape in the shadows lying over the water, he sped +through the dying afternoon. He kept at least ten feet above the +surface, well out of reach of such water beasts as from time to time +reared up through the placid surface to scan him. Once a huge gantor, +gulping a drink from the bank, snorted and went trumpeting away at the +grotesque sight of him—flying without wings!—and once too, on rising +cautiously above the treetops to reconnoiter, Carse saw life far more +perilous to him: a small party of men, stooping over a swamp-brink and +plucking the ripe isuan weed. At this he dived steeply and fled on; +and he knew he had gone unobserved, for there came no outcry of +discovery from behind.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">J</span>upiter lowered its murky disk as the miles streamed past, breeding a +legion of shadows welcome to the fabric-clad monster skimming through +them and to the creatures who blinked and stirred as night approached. +The stream broadened into shallow pockets; patches of swamp appeared +and absorbed the stream; and Carse knew he was close to his +destination.</p> + +<p>He cut his speed and glanced around. Ahead, the dark spire of a giant +sakari tree climbed into the gloom. It would be a good place. The man +rose slowly; like a wraith on the wind he lifted into its top-most +branches; and there, in the broad, cuplike leaves, he warily ensconced +himself. For man-sounds came into his opened helmet, and through a +fringe of leaves, across a mile of tumbled swamp and marsh, he could +see the guarding fences of the cosmetropolis of Porno.</p> + +<p>A last slice of blotched, flaming red, the rim of setting Jupiter, +still silhouetted Porno, sprawled inside its high, electric-wired +fences, and the flood of fading light brushed the town with beauty. +The rows of tin shacks which housed its dives, the clustered, +nondescript hovels, the merchants' grim strongholds of steel—all +merged into a glowing mirage, a scene far alien to the brooding swamp +and savage jungle in whose breast it lay. Here and there several +space-ships reared their sunset-gilded flanks, glittering high-lights +in the final glorious burst of Jupiter-light....</p> + +<p>The planet's rim vanished abruptly, and Porno returned to true +character.</p> + +<p>For a moment it appeared what it was: a blotched, disordered huddle, +ugly, raw, fit companion of the swamp and jungle. Then beads of light +appeared, some still, some winking, one crooked line of flaring +illumination marking the Street of the Sailors, along which the +notorious kantrans flourished, now ready for their nightly brood of +men who sought forgetfulness in revelry. Soon, Carse knew, the faint +man-noises he heard would grow into a broad fabric of sound, stitched +across by shrieks and roars as the isuan and alkite flowed free. And +all around the lone watcher in the sakari tree the night-monsters were +crawling out in jungle and swamp on the dark routine of their lives +as, in the town, two-legged creatures even lower in their degradation +went abroad after the dope and liquor which gave them their vicious +recreation.</p> + +<p>The night flowed thicker around him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">F</span>rom somewhere behind, the Hawk heard a suck of half-fluid mud as a +giant body stretched in its sleeping place. A tree close to his +suddenly fluttered with the unseen life it harbored. A hungry gantor +raised its long deep bellow to the night, and another answered, and +another.</p> + +<p>It grew pitch black. Only a sprinkling of pin-points of light marked +Porno to the eye. The sky beyond the town matched the sky to the rear. +Jupiter's light now had fled the higher air levels. The time had come.</p> + +<p>Cautiously Carse brushed the branches aside, rose upright and pressed +the mitten switch over to repulsion. In instant response his giant's +bulk lifted lightly. He sped upward, straight and fast; and at two +thousand feet, still untouched by the sinking planet's rays, he +brought himself to an approximate halt and peered below.</p> + +<p>Port o' Porno lay spread out beneath, one thin line of light-pricks +off which angled fainter lines, extending only a short distance and +then dying widely off. There were perhaps two thousand men in the +town—men from all the countries of the three planets inhabited by +creatures that could be called human—and of these at least three +quarters knew Hawk Carse as an enemy, because of his intolerance for +their dope-trade. His approach to the house Number 574 had to be +swift, direct, unseen, unheard.</p> + +<p>He was able to make it so. Pointing the direction rod, he winged +forward until directly above an estimated spot, then dropped a +thousand feet. A pause while he searched; another drop. He knew +Kurgo's house well, but the scene was confusing from above, and the +street the house was on was always dark at night.</p> + +<p>He made it out at last. The squat two-storied structure, similar to +other merchants' strongholds, seemed unlit and unwatched. Carse swung +back the hinged mittens of the suit and slid his hands out ready for +action. In his left he took his ray-gun; then, pressing the +mitten-switch, he dropped straight, silent, swift, like the Hawk he +now truly was.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span> single window-port, high up, broke the smooth rear of Kurgo's house. +It faced a silent alleyway. The steel shutters were closed, but a pull +swung them noiselessly outward. For a brief moment Carse's bulging +giant's figure of metal and fabric hung black against the shadowed +window-port. The room he peered into was solid black. He heard no +sound. Clumsily he thrust out and stepped in.</p> + +<p>Silence. Inky nothingness—but the air was weighted with many things, +and among them one which brought the short hairs on the Hawk's neck +prickling erect. A smell! It was not to be mistaken—a faint, but rank +and fetid and altogether identifying smell—the body-smell of a +Venusian!</p> + +<p>For a moment Hawk Carse's breathing stopped. Metal clanked on metal +for an instant as he moved from the window-port and became one with +the darkness inside; then silence again, as his eyes trained into the +vault and his hand held ready on the ray-gun. He waited.</p> + +<p>Was it a trap? He had seen no guards watching the house; had sensed it +deserted. But the steep shutters, unlocked, readily permitting +entrance—and the smell! Even if not still there, a Venusian had been +in the room, and a Venusian of Port o' Porno was an enemy. A +Venusian.... There were only some sixty on the whole satellite, and, +of these, fifty were the men of Lar Tantril. Lar Tantril, powerful +henchman of Dr. Ku Sui, director of the Eurasian's drug trade on +Satellite III. But that line of thought had to wait.</p> + +<p>"I see you!" he whispered suddenly and sharply. "My gun's on you. Come +forward!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">N</span>o answer; not the slightest sign or stir in the darkness. He breathed +again.</p> + +<p>Carse knew the arrangement of Kurgo's house. He was in his +second-story sleeping-room. There was a door in the wall ahead, +leading into the room Leithgow was accustomed to use on his visits, +and there the papers should be. But first he would have to have light.</p> + +<p>His ears pitched for any betraying sound, Carse moved heavily to his +left until a wall arrested him. He felt along it, located the desk he +sought for and scoured through it. His fingers found the flash he knew +was there.</p> + +<p>The darkness then was slit by a hard straight line of white. It shot +over the room picking out overturned chairs, a bowl that had toppled +to the floor, scattering its contents of ripe akalot fruit, a sleeping +couch, its sheets and pillows awry, and—something human.</p> + +<p>A half-clothed body lay sprawled beside the couch, its hands thrust +clutching forward and its unseeing eyes still staring at the door +whence had come the shots that had burnt out the left side of its +chest. Dead. Three days dead. The murdered master of the house, Kurgo, +lying where Ku Sui's robot-coolies had shot him down.</p> + +<p>The Venusian-smell swept more strongly into his nostrils as the +adventurer opened the door into Leithgow's room. No Venusian had ever +been in those rooms <i>before</i> the abduction.</p> + +<p>Carse's light danced over the room's confusion: a laboratory table +overturned; apparatus spilled; several chains flung around, one +splintered: mute signs of the struggle Eliot Leithgow had offered his +kidnappers.</p> + +<p>In a corner stood a metal chest. In the bottom drawer was the +all-significant answer. Hawk Carse crossed the room and slid it open.</p> + +<p>The papers were gone!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">M</span>ethodically Carse hunted through every drawer and corner of the room, +but he found no trace of them. Every article that would be of value to +an ordinary thief was left; the one thing important to Dr. Ku Sui, the +sheaf of papers, was missing.</p> + +<p>The presence of the Venusian body-smell started an important train of +thought in the Hawk's mind. It signified that the papers had been +taken by henchmen of Ku Sui, which in turn signified that Ku Sui had +survived the crashing of the dome and was alive and again aggressively +dangerous. But was the Eurasian already on Satellite III? Was he +already in personal possession of the papers?—perhaps conducting a +search for Leithgow's laboratory?</p> + +<p>Or did it mean that Dr. Ku had merely radioed instructions for his +Venusian henchmen to ransack the house, take whatever pertained to +Leithgow, and wait for him?</p> + +<p>Venusians.... There was only one logical man; and as Hawk Carse +thought of him in that dark and silent house of tragedy, his right +hand slowly rose to the bangs of hair over his forehead and began to +stroke them....</p> + +<p>His bangs were an unusual style for the period; they stamped him and +attracted unwanted attention; but he would wear his hair in that +fashion until he went down in death. For he had once been +trapped—trapped neatly by five men, and maltreated: one, Judd the +Kite, whose life had paid already for his part in the ugly business; +two others whom he was not now concerned with; the fourth, Dr. Ku Sui; +and the fifth—a Venusian....</p> + +<p>That fifth, the Venusian, was Lar Tantril, now one of Ku Sal's most +powerful henchmen, and director of his interplanetary drug +traffic—Lar Tantril, who possessed an impregnable isuan ranch only +twenty-five miles from Port o' Porno—<i>Lar Tantril, who probably had +directed the stealing of the papers from this room</i>! <i>The papers, if +not already in Ku Sui's hands</i>, <i>should be at Tantril's ranch</i>.</p> + +<p>Carse's deduction was followed by a swift decision. He had to raid Lar +Tantril's ranch.</p> + +<p>He knew the place fairly well. Once, even, he had attacked it, in his +<i>Star Devil</i>, seeking to wipe out his debt against Tantril; but he had +been driven off by the ranch's mighty offensive rays.</p> + +<p>It was impregnable, Tantril was fond of boasting. Situated on the +brink of the Great Briney, its other three sides were flanked by +thick, swampy jungle, in which the isuan grew and was gathered by +Tantril's Venusian workers. Ranch? More a fort than a ranch, with its +electrified, steel-spiked fence; its three watch-towers, lookouts +always posted there against the threat of hijackers or enemies; its +powerful ray-batteries and miscellany of smaller weapons. A less +vulnerable place for the keeping of Eliot Leithgow's papers could +hardly have been found in all the frontiers of the solar system.</p> + +<p>He, Carse, had raided it in a modern fighting space-ship, and failed. +Now, with nothing but a space-suit and a ray-gun, he had to raid it +again—and succeed!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he adventurer did not leave immediately. He thought it wise to make +what preparations he could. His important weapon was the space-suit; +therefore, he took it off and studied and inspected its several +intricate mechanisms as well as he could in the carefully guarded +light of his flash.</p> + +<p>It was motivated, he saw, by dual sets of gravity-plates, in separate +space-tight compartments. One set was located in the extremely thick +soles of the heavy boots; the other rested on the top of the helmet. +He saw why this was. The gravity-plates for repulsion were those in +the helmet; for attraction, those in the boot-soles. This kept the +wearer of the suit always in an upright, head-up position.</p> + +<p>The logical plan of attack had grown in Carse's mind: down and up! +Down to the papers, then up and away before the men on the ranch knew +what was happening: he could suppose that they, like all others on the +satellite, had no knowledge of a self-propulsive space-suit. The +success of his raid depended entirely on keeping the two gravity +mechanisms intact. If they were destroyed, or failed to function, he +would be locked to the ground in a prison of metal and fabric: clamped +down, literally, by a terrific dead weight! The suit was extremely +heavy, particularly the boots, and Carse learned that the wearer was +able to walk in it only because a portion of the helmet's repulsive +force was continually working to approximate a normal body gravity.</p> + +<p>A chance to succeed—if the two vital points were kept intact! If they +failed, he would have to slip out of the imprisoning suit and use his +quick wits and deadly ray-gun in clearing a path to Ban Wilson, his +nearest friend, whose ranch, fourteen miles from Tantril's stronghold, +was where Eliot Leithgow and Friday would be awaiting him.</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of Hawk Carse that he never even considered +calling on Wilson's resources of men and weapons to help him. A Hawk +he was: wiry, fierce-clawed, bold against odds and danger, most +capable and deadly when striking alone....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>fter scanning the whole project, Carse attended to other needs. He +ate some of the akalot fruit spilled over the floor of the adjoining +room; opened a can of water and drank deeply; limbered his muscles +well; even rested for five minutes. Then he was ready to leave.</p> + +<p>He soon was again in the cold space-suit, fastening on the helmet. He +left the face-plate open. The left mitten he hinged back, so as to be +able to grip the ray-gun in his bare hand. Then, a looming giant +shadow in the darkness, he shuffled to the rear window-port.</p> + +<p>Carse steadied himself on the sill. The night-bedlam from the Street +of the Sailors, punctuated by far, hungry bellows from swamp monsters, +sounded in his ears. Enemies, human and animal, ringed him in Kurgo's +house: but up above lay a clean, cold highway, an open highway, +stretching straight to the heart of the danger which was his +destination. He turned the mitten-switch over to quick repulsion and +leaped up to the waiting heavens.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">O</span>n the ground was a world of night: a mile up showed a great circle of +black, one edge of which was marked by a faint, eery glow from +further-setting Jupiter.</p> + +<p>Save for that far-off spectral hint of the giant occulted planet, Hawk +Carse sped in darkness. Through the open face-plate the night wind +buffeted his emotionless, stone-set face: his suit whistled a song of +speed as the gusts laced by it. Down and ahead his direction rod +pointed, and with ever-gathering momentum he followed its leading +finger. The lights of Porno dwindled to points; grew yet finer, then +were gone. Several times a sparse cluster of other lights, lonely in +the black tide of III's surface, ran beneath him, signaling a ranch. +The last of these melted into the ink behind, and there was a period +unrelieved by sign of man's presence below.</p> + +<p>And then at last one bright solitary spot of light appeared, far +ahead. It was a danger signal to the Hawk. He had to descend at once. +From then on, speed had to be forsaken for caution. Watchful eyes were +beneath that light, lying keen on the heavens; a whole intricate +offense and defense system surrounded it. It was the central +watch-beacon of Lar Tantril's ranch.</p> + +<p>Carse swooped low.</p> + +<p>He came into the night-world of the surface. No faint-lit horizon +showed; there was only the darkness, and darker shadows peopling it. +At the height of a mile there had been no signs of the satellite's +native life, but at an elevation scarcely above the treetops the +flying man was brought all too close to the reality of the denizens of +the gloomy jungle below. Out of the black smother came clues to the +life within it: sounds of monstrous bodies moving through the +undergrowth and mud, recurring death-screams, howls and angry +chatterings....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>his below; there was more above. He was not the only living thing +that soared in the night. Swift fleeting batlike shapes would appear +from nowhere for one sharp second, would beset him one after another +in an almost constant stream, thinking his comparatively clumsy, +bloated bulk easy prey, and then be gone. He snapped shut his +face-plate under their assault. Sometimes there came different, more +powerful wings, and he would duck in mechanical reaction, sensing the +wings sweep past, often feeling them as, with sharp pecks and quick +thudding blows, they sought to stun him. But the suit was stout; the +repulsed attackers could only follow a little, glaring at him with +fire-green malevolent eyes, then leave to seek smaller prey.</p> + +<p>The watch-beacon began to wink more often through the ranks of +intervening trees as he neared the ranch. Carse was gliding so low +that often branches raked and twisted him in his course. His low +transit allowed one tree to loose great peril upon him.</p> + +<p>The tree loomed a black giant in his path. Fifty feet away, he was +swerving to wind around it when he noticed its dark upper branches +a-tremble. He had only this for warning when, with chilling surprise, +what appeared to be the entire top of the tree rose, severed itself +completely from the rest and soared right out to meet him.</p> + +<p>A shape from a nightmare, it slid over the adventurer. He saw two +green-glowing saucer-sized eyes; heard the wings rattling bonily as +they spread to full thirty feet; heard the monster's life-thirsty +scream is it plunged. The stars were blotted out. It was upon him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">B</span>ut even in the sudden confusion of the attack, Carse knew the +creature for what it was: a full-grown specimen of the giant +carnivorous lemak, a seldom-seen, dying species, too clumsy, too slow, +too huge to survive. His ray-gun came around, but he was caught in a +feathered maelstrom and knocked too violently around to use it. +Without pause the lemak's claws raked his suit. Unable to rend the +tough fabric, it resorted to another method. With a strength so +enormous that it could overcome the force of the gravity-plates and +his forward momentum, the creature tossed him free. Dizzy, he hurtled +upward. But he knew that the bird's purpose was to impale him on the +long steely spike of its beak as he came twisting down.</p> + +<p>The lemak poised below, snout and spear-like beak raised. But it +waited in vain, for Carse did not come dropping down. A touch of the +control switch and he stayed at the new level, collecting himself. The +lemak, puzzled and angry, wheeled up to see what had become of the +victim that did not descend, and found instead a searing needle of +heat which burnt through its broad right wing. Then, screaming with +pain and in a frenzy to escape, it went with a rush into the far +darkness.</p> + +<p>The Hawk dropped low again, hoping that his gun's quick flash had not +been observed. He had not wished to wound the lemak mortally, for no +matter how accurate his shot the monster would take long to die, and +scream and thrash as it did so. One short spit of orange was +preferable to a prolonged hullabaloo. But even that might have +betrayed him....</p> + +<p>With elaborate caution, he reconnoitered Lar Tantril's ranch.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">F</span>rom above, the ranch clearing was a pool of faint light contained in +black leagues of jungle and the edge of the Great Briney. Slanting +shadows and the dark bulks of buildings that were unlit rendered the +details vague, but under prolonged scrutiny the appointments of the +ranch became visible.</p> + +<p>The clearing was a circle some two hundred yards in diameter. Just +inside the jungle wall was the first line of protection, a +steel-barbed, twenty-foot-high fence, its strong corded links +interwoven with electrified wires. Well within this fence stood five +buildings, low, squat and one-storied, four of them forming a broken +square around the central fifth. Two buildings were pierced by low +rows of lighted windows, evidence that they were the barracks of the +workers; two others, devoted to the processing of the isuan weed, were +now dark and silent. The central building was smaller, with +window-ports that were glowing eyes in the smooth metal walls. It was +the dwelling of the master, Lar Tantril.</p> + +<p>Close to the central building rose a hundred-foot tower, topped by the +watch-beacon. At three equi-distant points around the encompassing +fence, small, square platforms were held sixty feet aloft by mast-like +triangular towers, up which foot-rungs led. And on each platform could +be made out the figure of a Venusian guard.</p> + +<p>Ceaselessly these guards turned and scanned the jungle, the heavens, +the unbroken dark prairie of the lake, alert for anything of +suspicion. Lar Tantril had good reasons for maintaining a constant +watch over his stronghold, and his guards' eyes were sharpened by +knowledge of the severe payment laxness would bring. Close at hand in +the platforms were knobs which, pressed, would ring a clanging alarm +through all the buildings below; and each guard wore two ray-gun +holsters.</p> + +<p>Despite the guards and the ugly spikes of the fence, however, the +ranch from above appeared peaceful, calm and harmless. No men were +visible on its shadow-dappled clearing. Even the surrounding jungle, +in the watch-beacon's shaded underside, might have been nothing but a +stage set, were it not for the occasional signs of the life that crept +unseen through it—a long, far-distant howl, a quickly receding +crashing in the undergrowth, a thumping from some small animal.</p> + +<p>The guards were used to this pattern of nocturnal sounds. It was only +when, from a tree not thirty feet from one of the platforms, there +came a sudden sharp shaking in the upper branches, that the Venusian +on that platform deigned to grip his ray-gun and peer suspiciously. +All he saw was a large bird that flapped out and winged across the +clearing, mewing angrily.</p> + +<p>The guard released his grip on the gun. A snake, probably, had +disturbed the bird. Or some of those devilish little crimson bansis, +half insect, half crab....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>awk Carse breathed again. He had been sure his position would be +revealed when, drifting with almost imperceptible motion into the +tree, the bird had pecked at him, then flapped away in alarm. A long, +painfully cautious approach from tree to tree to the selected one had +been necessary to the daring scheme of attack he had evolved.</p> + +<p>He seemed to be safe. Through a fringe of leaves he saw the guard on +the platform glancing elsewhere. Carse steadied himself, rose slightly +and again scanned the ranch.</p> + +<p>Yes, it looked harmless, but he knew that nothing could be further +from the reality. Spaced around the inside edge of that spiky fence +were small metal nozzles protruding a few inches from the ground; and +on the turning of a control wheel, they would hurl forth a deadly +orange swathe, fanning hundreds of feet into the sky. He had tasted +their hot breath once when attacking the ranch in his <i>Star Devil</i>. +Then there were the long-range projectors whose muzzles studded the +central building. And the ray-guns of the tower guards.</p> + +<p>These were dangers that he knew, for he had experienced them. What +others the ranch held, he could not well surmise. But he saw one +significant thing that gave him pause and brought lines to his brow.</p> + +<p>The ranch was expecting trouble. Over to one side of the clearing +rested a great rounded object, on whose smooth hull gleamed coldly the +light from the beacon—Lar Tantril's own personal space-ship—and +alongside it a smaller, somewhat similar shape, the ranch's air-car! +The space-ship signified that the Venusian chief was present; the +air-car, that all his men were gathered in the barracks, and not, as +was their custom, in Port o' Porno for a night of revelry!</p> + +<p>All waiting—all gathered here—all ready! All grouped for a strong +defense! Did it mean what it would appear to—that he, the Hawk, was +expected?</p> + +<p>He could not know. He could not know if a trap was lying prepared +there against his coming. He could but go ahead, and find out.</p> + +<p>The only plan of attack he could think of had grown in his mind. Down +and up: that was the essence of it: but the details were difficult. He +had worked them out as far as he could with typical thoroughness. He +had to reach the heart of the fort lying before him: had to reach the +central house, Lar Tantril's own. The precious papers would be there, +if anywhere.</p> + +<p>The Hawk was ready.</p> + +<p>He gathered his muscles. His face was cold and hard, his eyes mists of +gray. There was no least sign in the man that, in the next few +all-deciding minutes, death would lick close to him.</p> + +<p>He poised where he was precariously balanced. His ray-gun was in his +bare left hand; his face-plate was locked partly open. He raised his +fingers to the direction rod on the suit's breast, gazed straight at +the guard on the nearest watch-platform and snapped the direction rod +out, pointing it at that guard.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">W</span>hat happened then struck so fast, so unexpectedly, that it took only +thirty seconds to plunge the quiet ranch into chaos.</p> + +<p>The Hawk came like a thunder-bolt, using to its full power his only +weapon, the space-suit. The sight of him might alone have been enough +to strike terror. From the dark arms of the tree he hurtled, his +bloated monstrous shape of metal and fabric dull in the glow of the +watch-beacon, and crashed with a clang of metal into the platform he +aimed at. Nothing there could withstand him. One second the guard on +it was calmly gazing off into the sky: the next, like a nine-pin he +was bowled over, to topple heels and head whirling to the ground sixty +feet beneath. He lived, he kept consciousness, but he was sorely +injured; and he never saw the outlandish projectile that struck him, +nor saw it streak to the second watch-platform, bowling its guard out +and to the ground likewise, and then repeating at the third and last!</p> + +<p>A crash; a pause; a crash; a pause; then a third crash, and the thing +of metal had completed the circuit, and all three watch-platforms were +scooted empty!</p> + +<p>Then came confusion.</p> + +<p>There had been screams, but now a crazed voice began crying out +mechanically, over and over:</p> + +<p>"Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit!"</p> + +<p>It came from the second guard, who lay twisting on the ground. His +tongue, by some trick of nervous disorganization, beat out those words +like a voice-disk whose needle keeps skipping its groove—and the +effect was macabre.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he central buildings disgorged a crowd of men. Shorty, wiry, +thin-faced Venusians, each with skewer-blade strapped to his side and +some with ray-guns out, they came scrambling into the open, swearing +and wondering. The second guard's insane repetitions directed most of +them in his direction; and they piled in a crowd around him. They had +no attention for what was happening behind, within the buildings they +had emptied. That was what Hawk Carse had planned.</p> + +<p>A voice of authority roared up over the general hubbub.</p> + +<p>"Rantol! Guard! Rantol, you fool! What happened? What attacked you? +Cut that crazy yelling! Answer me!—you, Rantol!"</p> + +<p>"Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit! Space—"</p> + +<p>"Lar Tantril!" A man with suspicious eyes caught the attention of the +one who had spoken first. "Space-suit, he says! A flying space-suit! +Only Ku Sui has space-suits that fly; or only Ku Sui <i>had</i> them, +rather. You know what that must mean!"</p> + +<p>He paused, peering at his lord. The coarse yellowy skin of Tantril's +brow wrinkled with the thought, then his tusk-like Venusian teeth +showed as his lips drew apart in speech.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" Lar Tantril said. "It's <i>Carse</i>!"</p> + +<p>And he ordered the now silent men around him:</p> + +<p>"Circle my house, all of you, your guns ready. You, Esret"—to his +second in command—"out gun and come with me."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">E</span>ven as Lar Tantril spoke, a giant shape was passing clumsily through +the kitchen of his house. Carse had entered from the rear, unseen. +With gun in hand and eyes sharp he crossed the deserted kitchen with +its foul odors of Venusian cookery. Quickly, his metal-shod feet +creating an unavoidable racket, he was through a connecting door and +into the well-furnished dining room. All was brightly lit; he could +easily have been seen through the window-ports rimming each wall; but +he counted on the confusion outside to keep the Venusians engaged for +several minutes more.</p> + +<p>Then he went shuffling into the front room of the house, and saw at +once the most likely place.</p> + +<p>It was in one corner—a large flat desk, and by it the broad panel of +a radio. Scattered over the desk were a number of papers. In seconds +Carse was bending over them, scanning and discarding with eyes and +hands.</p> + +<p>Reports of various quantities of isuan ... orders for stores ... a +list that seemed an inventory of weapons—and then the top page of a +sheaf covered with familiar, neat, small writing. Yes!</p> + +<p>Plans and calculations dealing with a laboratory! And, down in the +margin of the first page, the revealing, all-important figure—5,576.34!</p> + +<p>He had them—and before Ku Sui! Now, only to get away; out the front +door, and up—up from this trap he was in—up into clean and empty +space, and then to Leithgow and Friday at Ban Wilson's!</p> + +<p>But, as the Hawk turned to go, his eye took in a little slip on the +desk, a radio memo, with the name of Ku Sui at its top. Almost without +volition he glanced over it, hoping to discover useful information +about Ku Sui's asteroid—and with the passing of those few extra +seconds his chance for escaping out the door passed too.</p> + +<p>Carse's back was partly toward the front door when a voice, hard and +deadly, spoke from it:</p> + +<p>"Your hands up!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he adventurer's nerves twanged; he wheeled; and even as he did so +another voice bit out from the rear door:</p> + +<p>"Yes, up! One move and you're dead!"</p> + +<p>And Hawk Carse found himself caught between ray-guns held unswervingly +on his body by a man at each door. He was not fool enough to try to +shoot, even though his own gun was in his hand; his best speed would +be slow-motion in the hampering space-suit. He was fairly +caught—because for a few precious seconds he had let his mind slip +from the all-important matter of escaping.</p> + +<p>At a shout from someone, both doors filled with men, and thin faces +appeared at the window-ports. Their ray-guns made an impregnable fence +around the netted Hawk.</p> + +<p>And then a well-remembered voice, harsh as the man from whom it came, +cut through the room.</p> + +<p>"Apparently you're caught, Captain Carse!"</p> + +<p>The cold gray eyes narrowed, scanned the room, the blocked doors, the +barricade of guns held by the grim men at doorways and window-ports.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Hawk Carse murmured. "Apparently I am."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">L</span>ar Tantril, the Venusian chief, smiled. He was tall for one of his +race, even taller than the prisoner he faced. Clad in tight-fitting, +iron-gray mesh, he had the characteristic wiry body, thin legs and +arms of his kind. Spiky short-cropped hair grew like steel slivers +from the narrow dome of his long hatchet head, and the taut-stretched +skin of his face was burned a deep hard brown. He looked what he was: +a bold and unscrupulous leader of his men.</p> + +<p>"The gun in your belt," he said, "—drop it. Right on the floor. +There—better. I like you not with a gun near your hand, Carse."</p> + +<p>The Hawk regarded him frigidly.</p> + +<p>"And now what?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Lar Tantril continued smiling. His ray-gun did not move for an instant +from the line it held on the metal and fabric giant. He said at a +tangent, quite pleasantly:</p> + +<p>"Think fast, Captain Carse—think fast! Isn't that one of Dr. Ku's new +suits?—a little space-ship all your own? Why not plan a sudden sweep +for that door in an attempt to crash through my men and get free up in +the air—eh?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said the Hawk.</p> + +<p>"It might be possible," Tantril continued, "with your luck. <i>Unless +something went wrong with your helmet gravity-plates.</i>"</p> + +<p>At this the Venusian's gun moved. Deliberately it came up and aimed at +the crown of the adventurer's helmet. Tantril squeezed the trigger.</p> + +<p><i>Spang!</i></p> + +<p>A pencil-thin streak of orange stabbed between Venusian and Earthling; +sparks hissed out where it struck the tip of the helmet; and for an +instant life and strength seemed to leave the grotesquely clad figure. +Carse slumped down under a quick crushing weight. Weight! It bent him +low, and it was only with a great effort that he was able to +straighten again. For the suit's full load of metal and fabric was +upon him now, its enormous boots binding him to the ground since their +weight was unrelieved by the partial lift of the helmet plates. An +inch-wide, black-rimmed hole in the mechanism above the helmet told +what had happened.</p> + +<p>Lar Tantril chortled, and his men, most of them only half +comprehending what he had done, echoed him.</p> + +<p>"But even yet you've got a chance," the Venusian went on. "There's +another set of plates in the boot-soles, for attraction. If you got a +chance to stand on your head outside, you'd be gone! So—"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>his time he lowered the gun, and carefully, accurately, he sent two +spitting streams of orange through the soles of the great boots.</p> + +<p>The danger Carse had feared had come to pass. His one weapon had been +destroyed. He was worse than helpless; he was in a cumbersome prison, +all power of quick movement gone. He was a paralyzed giant, tied to +the soil, the ways of the air hopelessly closed. The slightest step +would cost great effort.</p> + +<p>"You have protected yourself well, Lar Tantril," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>Now Tantril laughed deeply and unrestrainedly. "Yes, and by Mother +Venus," he cried, "it's good to see you this way, Carse, unarmed and +in my power!" He turned to his circle of men and said: "Poor Hawk! +Can't fly any more! I've put him in a cage! So thoughtful of him to +bring his cage along with him so I could trap him inside it! His own +cage!" He guffawed, shaking, and the others laughed loud.</p> + +<p>Through it all Hawk Carse stood motionless, his face cold and graven, +his slender body bent under the burden of the dead suit. He still held +in his right hand, limp by his side, the sheaf of papers and their +all-important figure—and the thumb and forefinger of his hand were +moving, so slowly as to be hardly noticeable, in what seemed to be a +lone sign of nervous tension.</p> + +<p>"You know, Carse," Tantril observed after his laugh, "I've been half +expecting you, though I don't see how you knew I was the one who took +those papers you're holding. Dr. Ku radioed me, you see. I think you +were reading his message at the time I entered. Did you finish it?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the Hawk.</p> + +<p>"You'll find it interesting. Let me read it to you." And Tantril took +up the memo.</p> + +<p>"From Ku Sui to Lar Tantril: Search House No. 574 in Port o' Porno +closely for anything pertinent to Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow or +giving clue to his whereabouts. Keep what you obtain for me; I will +come to your ranch in five days. Watch for Hawk Carse, Eliot Leithgow +and a Negro, arriving from space at Satellite III in self-propulsive +space-suits." There followed some details concerning the suits' +mechanism; then: "Carse caused me certain trouble and came near +hurting my major inventions. I want him badly."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>t this the adventurer's face tightened; his gray eyes went frosty. +All he and Leithgow had deduced, then, was true. Dr. Ku had survived +the crashing of the asteroid's dome. The mechanisms had also +survived—and certainly the coordinated brains—the brains he, Hawk +Carse, had promised to destroy! Now trapped, it seemed that promise +could never be fulfilled....</p> + +<p>Yet even through this torturing thought of a promise unkept, the +Hawk's thumb and forefinger moved in their slight grinding motion on +the first sheet of the sheaf of papers....</p> + +<p>Lar Tantril reached out his hand for the sheaf. "So, obeying Dr. Ku's +orders, I had the house searched and got these papers. They, must be +valuable, Carse, since you wanted them so badly. Ku Sui will be +pleased. Hand them over."</p> + +<p>With but the barest flick of gray eyes downward. Hawk Carse gave the +sheaf to Tantril.</p> + +<p>But his brief glance at the top-most sheet told him all he wanted to +know. Gradually, methodically, the motion of thumb and forefinger had +totally effaced the revealing figure 5,576.34, the one clue to the +location of Leithgow's laboratory. Enough! What he had set out to do +was finished. The chief task was achieved!</p> + +<p>"And now, perhaps," Lar Tantril chuckled, "a little entertainment."</p> + +<p>His men pricked up their ears. This language was more understandable. +Entertainment meant playing with the prisoner—torture. And alkite, +probably, and isuan. A night of revelry!</p> + +<p>But Hawk Carse smiled thinly at this.</p> + +<p>"Entertainment, Tantril?" his cold voice said. He paused, and then +added slowly: "What a fool you are!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">L</span>ar Tantril was not annoyed by the words. He only laughed and slapped +his thigh.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" he mocked. "Truly, Captain Carse, you must be frightened, to +try and anger me so I'll shoot! Do you fear a skewer-blade so much? We +would leave most of you for Ku Sui!"</p> + +<p>Carse shook his head. "No, Lar Tantril, I don't want you to shoot me. +I'm telling you you're a fool—because you think me one."</p> + +<p>With a wave of his hands the Venusian protested: "No, no, not at all. +You're infernally clever, Carse. I'll always be the first to admit +it."</p> + +<p>"Then do you think I'd attack your ranch alone?"</p> + +<p>"You'd like me to believe you have friends hidden somewhere?" Tantril +asked, smiling tolerantly.</p> + +<p>Carse's voice came back curtly. "Believe what you like, but learn +this: It's your boast that your ranch is impregnable, guarded on every +side and from every angle. I'm telling you it's not. Its vulnerable. +It's wide open to one way of attack and my friends and I know it +well."</p> + +<p>For a second the Venusian's assurance wavered.</p> + +<p>"Vulnerable?" he said. "Open to attack? You're just stalling!"</p> + +<p>Whip-like words cut through.</p> + +<p>"Wait and see. Wait till the ranch is stormed and wiped out. Wait +twenty minutes! Only twenty!"</p> + +<p>Hawk Carse was always listened to when he spoke in such manner. Lar +Tantril stared at the hard gray eyes boring into his.</p> + +<p>"Why do you tell me this?" he asked. Then, with a smile: "Why not wait +until my ranch is wiped out, as you say?" His smile broadened. "Until +these hidden friends attack?"</p> + +<p>"Simply because I must insure my living. Nothing my friends could do +would prevent your having plenty of time to kill me before you +yourselves were destroyed. I think, under the circumstances, you +<i>would</i> kill me. And I must go free. I have made a promise. A very +important promise. I must be free to carry it out."</p> + +<p>"Just what are you aiming at?"</p> + +<p>"I'm offering," said the Hawk, "to show you where your fort is +vulnerable—in time for you to protect it. I'll do this if you'll let +me go free. <i>You need not release me till afterwards.</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">L</span>ar Tantril's mouth fell half open at this surprising turn. He was +unquestionably taken aback. But he snapped his lips shut and +considered the offer. A trick? Carse was famed for them. A trap? But +how? He scanned his men. Fifty to one; fifty ray-guns on an unarmed +man helpless in a hampering prison of metal and fabric. If a trap, +Carse could not possibly escape death. But yet....</p> + +<p>Tantril walked over to his man Esret, and, stepping apart, they +conferred in whispers.</p> + +<p>"Is he trying to trick us?" the chief asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't see how he can hope to. He can hardly move in that suit. It +ties him down. We could keep tight guard upon him. He couldn't +possibly get away. And at the slightest sign of something shady—"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but you know him."</p> + +<p>"What he says is sensible. Naturally he wants to live. He knows we'll +shoot him if he tries to trick us, and he knows we'll do it if we're +attacked! We'll of course leave men at all defensive stations. If +there <i>is</i> a weakness here, if the ranch <i>is</i> vulnerable—we should +learn what it is. It'll cost us nothing. We can't lose, and we might +be saving everything. Of course we won't let him go afterwards."</p> + +<p>Tantril considered a moment longer, then said:</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think you are right."</p> + +<p>He turned back to the waiting Carse.</p> + +<p>"Agreed," he said. "Show this vulnerable point to us and you'll be +released. But no false moves! One sign of treachery and you're dead!"</p> + +<p>The Hawk's strong-cut face showed no change. It was only inwardly that +he smiled.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>heir very manner of accompanying him showed their respect for the +slender adventurer.</p> + +<p>He had no gun; he was stooped by the unrelieved weight of the massive +helmet, the suit itself and the chunky blocks of metal which were the +boots; his every dragging step was that of a man shackled by +chains—but he was Hawk Carse! And so, as he shuffled out through the +front door of the house and lumbered with painful effort across the +clearing, he was surrounded by a glitter of ray-guns held by the +close-pressing circle of men. Tantril's own gun kept steady on his +broad fabric-clad back, and of its proximity he kept reminding Carse.</p> + +<p>New guards were already on watch on each of the three +watch-platforms, their eyes sweeping around the clearing and the +jungle and the dark stretch of the lake, and often returning to the +crowd which marked the stumbling giant's progress below. Each point of +defense was manned. In the ranch's central control room, a +steel-sheathed cubby in the basement of Tantril's house, men stood +watchful, their hands ready at the wheels and levers which commanded +the ranch's ray-batteries, their eyes on the vision-screen which gave +to this unseen heart of the place a panoramic view of what was +transpiring above. And all waited on what the grotesque, bloated +figure they watched might reveal.</p> + +<p>Watch—watch—watch. A hundred eyes, below, above, beside the Hawk, +were centered and alert on each move of his clumsy progress. The +barrels of two-score ray-guns transfixed him. Under such guard he +arrived at the ranch's fence where it approached the Great Briney.</p> + +<p>"Open the gate," said the Hawk curtly. "It's down there."</p> + +<p>He pointed to where the lake's pebbled beach shelved downward to the +tiny murmurous waves, a ten-foot stretch of ghostly white between the +guarding fence and the water.</p> + +<p>"Down there?" repeated Tantril slowly. "Down to the lake?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" Carse snapped irritably. "Well, will you open the gate? I'm +very tired: I can't bear this suit much longer."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">L</span>ar Tantril conferred uneasily with Esret, while his men cast +shivering glances out over the dark wind-rippled plain of the lake. +But no enemy showed there. The beach was clear for fifty yards on each +side.</p> + +<p>"By Iapetus!" the adventurer complained harshly, "are you children, +to be afraid of the dark? Tantril, put your gun into me, and shoot if +I try anything suspicious! Open the gate!"</p> + +<p>Finally the lock was unfastened and the gate swung out. Tantril +stationed a man there, ready to close and lock it in case of need, and +then, Hawk Carse, still surrounded by the alert Venusians, shuffled +down to the edge of the water.</p> + +<p>Over the Great Briney was silence. No shape broke its calm. The air +held only the nervous whispers of the crowd and the scrape and crunch +of the lone Earthling's dragging boots as they made wide furrows in +the hard pebbly soil of the beach.</p> + +<p>The men had fallen back a little, and now were a half circle around +him down to the water's brink. The watch-beacon's light caught them +full there, and threw great blots of shadows lakeward from them. Their +ray-guns were gripped tighter as their shifty eyes darted from his +huge bulk to the water ahead, and back. Doubt and fear swayed them +all.</p> + +<p>The Hawk wasted no time, but stepped out to knee-high level on the +sharply shelving bottom. At this Tantril objected.</p> + +<p>"Hold, Carse!" he roared. "You play for time, I think! Where is this +point of attack?"</p> + +<p>The bloated figure did not answer him, but bent over as if searching +for something under the tiny waves which now were slapping his thigh. +He reached one hand down and probed around with it, apparently +feeling. The eyes watching him were wide and fear-fascinated.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"H</span>ere—or no," the Hawk muttered to himself, though a dozen could hear +him. "A little farther, I think.... Here—but no, I forgot: the tide +has come in. A little farther...." He stopped suddenly and +straightened, turned to the Venusian chief. "Don't forget. Lar +Tantril, you have promised I can go free!"</p> + +<p>Then he resumed his search of the bottom, the black surface of water +up to his waist. Again the fearful Venusian leader roared an +objection:</p> + +<p>"You're tricking us. Carse, you little devil—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be an ass!" Carse snapped back. "As if I could get +away—your ray-guns on me!"</p> + +<p>Another half minute passed; a few more short steps were taken. A +muttered oath came from one of the wet, uncomfortable men in the grip +of fear. Several there were on the brink of turning in, a panicky dash +for the safety of the enclosure behind, the warm buildings, guarded by +ray-batteries—and yet an awful fascination held them. What metallic +horror of the deeps was being exposed?</p> + +<p>"Just a second, now," the Hawk was murmuring. "You'll all see.... +Somewhere ... right ... here ... somewhere...."</p> + +<p>He held them taut, expectant. The water licked around the waist of his +suit. One more slow step; one more yet.</p> + +<p>"<i>Here!</i>" he cried triumphantly, and clicked his face-plate closed. +And the men who stared, faces pale, hearts pounding, ray-guns at the +ready, saw him no longer. The water had closed over that shiny metal +helmet. Only a mocking ripple was left.</p> + +<p>Hawk Carse was gone!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">G</span>one!—and laughing to himself.</p> + +<p>The space-suit, his heavy prison of metal and fabric, would protect +him from water as well as from space! It offered his golden—his +only—opportunity. It had been pierced by Tantril's shots, back in the +house, but only the gravity-plate compartments, which were sealed and +separate. It was still—after he had closed the mittens—air-tight, an +effective little submarine in the dark waters of the Great Briney!</p> + +<p>So Carse followed his black course over the lake-bottom laughing and +laughing. In his mind he could see what he had left behind: the men, +shivering there in the water for an instant, completely befogged, and +perhaps firing one or two shots at where he had disappeared; then +turning and breaking back in a grand rush for the fence and safety. +And the ray-batteries, all manned and centered on the lake; Tantril, +in a very fury of rage, but fearful, preparing for a siege; preparing +for anything that might loom suddenly from the water! And all of them +wondering what lay beneath its calm surface; what he, Hawk Carse, had +gone to join!</p> + +<p>For days they would stare fearfully at the lake, while the tides +rolled steadily in and out; for days the ray-batteries would be held +ready, and none would venture outside the fence. It might take hours +for the realization of his trick to sink in—but they still would not +be sure of anything, and would have to keep vigilant against the +still-possible attack.</p> + +<p>Fourteen miles up the coast was Ban Wilson's ranch, and Eliot Leithgow +and Friday waiting there. He would rest for a while, and then the +three of them would go home to the laboratory—whose location was now +still secret. And then, later, there was his promise to the +coordinated brains to be kept....</p> + +<p>But that was in the future. For the present, he went his dark, watery +way, laughing. Laughing and laughing again....</p> + +<p>Yes, John Sewell, first of all Hawk Carse's traits was his +resourcefulness!</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Bluff of the Hawk, by Anthony Gilmore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUFF OF THE HAWK *** + +***** This file should be named 29298-h.htm or 29298-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/9/29298/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bluff of the Hawk + +Author: Anthony Gilmore + +Release Date: July 3, 2009 [EBook #29298] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUFF OF THE HAWK *** + + + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Astounding Stories May 1932. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the + U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + [Illustration: _Nothing there could withstand him._] + + + The Bluff of the Hawk + + By Anthony Gilmore + + * * * * * + + + + +[Sidenote: "A trick? Carse was famed for them. A trap? But how?"] + + +Had not old John Sewell, the historian, recognized Hawk Carse for what +he was--a creator of new space-frontiers, pioneer of vast territories +for commerce, molder of history through his long feud with the +powerful Eurasian scientist, Ku Sui--the adventurer would doubtless +have passed into oblivion like other long-forgotten spacemen. We have +Sewell's industry to thank for our basic knowledge of Carse. His +"Space-Frontiers of the Last Century" is a thorough work and the +accepted standard, but even it had of necessity to be compressed, and +many meaty episodes of the Hawk's life go almost unmentioned. For +instance, Sewell gives a rough synopsis of "The Affair of the Brains," +but dismisses its aftermath entirely, in the following fashion (Vol. +II, pp. 250-251): + + "... there was only one way out: to smash the great dome + covering one end of the asteroid and so release the + life-sustaining air inside. Captain Carse achieved this by + sending the space-ship _Scorpion_ crashing through the dome + unmanned, and he, Friday and Eliot Leithgow were caught up + in the out-rushing flood of air and catapulted into space, + free of the dome and Dr. Ku Sui. Clad as they were in the + latter's self-propulsive space-suits, they were quite + capable of reaching Jupiter's Satellite III, only some + thirty thousand miles away. + + "Then speeding through space, Captain Carse discovered why + he had never been able to find the asteroid-stronghold. He + could not see it! Dr. Ku Sui had protected his lair by + making it invisible! But Carse was at least confident that + by breaking the dome he had destroyed all life within in, + including the coordinated brains. + + "So ended The Affair of the Brains.[1] + + "The three comrades reached Satellite III safely, where, + after a few minor adventures, Captain Carse...." + +[Footnote 1: See the March, 1932, Issue of Astounding Stories.] + +Sewell's ruthless surgery is most evident in that last paragraph. Of +course his telescoping of the events was due to limited space; but +he did wish to draw a full-length, character-revealing portrait of +Hawk Carse, and with "... reached Satellite III safely, where, after a +few minor adventures, Captain Carse ..." learned old John Sewell slid +over one of his greatest opportunities. + +The resourcefulness of Hawk Carse! In these "few minor adventures" he +had but one weapon with which to joust against overwhelming odds on an +apparently hopeless quest. This weapon was a space-suit--nothing +more--yet so brilliantly and daringly did he wield its unique +advantages that he penetrated seemingly impregnable barriers and +achieved alone what another man would have required the ray-batteries +of a space-fleet to do. + +But here is the story, heard first from Friday's lips and told and +re-told down through the years on the lonely ranches of the outlying +planets, of that one dark, savage night on Satellite III and of the +indomitable man who winged his lone way through it. Hawk Carse! Old +adventurer! Rise from your unknown star-girdled grave and live again! + + * * * * * + +Thirty thousand miles was the gap between Dr. Ku Sui's asteroid and +Satellite III, the nearest haven. Thirty thousand miles in a +space-ship is about the time of a peaceful cigarro. Thirty thousand +miles in a cramped awkward space-suit grow into a nightmare journey, +an eternity of suffering, and they will kill a good number of those +who traverse them so. + +For, take away the metal bulkheads and walls, soft lights and warmth of +a space-liner, get out in a small cramped space-suit, and space loses +its mask of harmlessness and stands revealed as the bleak, unfeeling +torturer it is. There is the loneliness, the sense of timelessness, the +sensation of falling, and above all there is the "weightless" feeling +from pressure-changes in man's blood-stream--changes sickening in effect +and soon resulting in delirium. Nothing definite; no gravity; no +"bottom," no "top"; merely a vacuum, comprehended by the human mind +through an all-enveloping nausea, and seen in confused spectral +labyrinths as the whole cold panorama of icy stars staggers and swirls +and the universe goes mad. Such a trip was enough to churn the +resistance of the hardiest traveler, but for Hawk Carse, Friday and +Eliot Leithgow there was more. On Ku Sui's asteroid they had gone +through hours of mental and physical tension without break or +relaxation, and they were sleep-starved and food-starved and their +brains fagged and dull. What would have been a strong reaction on land +hit them, in space, with tripled force. + +So Friday--our ultimate authority--remembered little of the transit. +He had bad short periods of wakefulness, when the recurring agony of +his body woke and racked him afresh, and only during these did he see +the other two grotesque figures, sometimes widely separated, sometimes +close, dazzlingly half-lit by Jupiter's light. But he was conscious +that one of the three was keeping them more or less together, though +only later did he know that this one was Carse--Carse, who hardly +slept, who drove off unconsciousness and fought through nausea to keep +at his task of shepherding, failing which they would have drifted +miles apart and become hopelessly separated. He was able to maintain +them in a fairly compact group by his discovery of a short metal +direction rod on the breast of the suit, which gave horizontal +movement in the direction it was pointed when its button was pressed. + + * * * * * + +But though it seemed endless, the journey was not; Satellite III grew +and grew. Its pale circle spread outward; dark blurs took definition; +a spot of blue winked forth--the Great Briney Lake. The globe at last +became concave, then, after they entered its atmosphere, convex. This +last stretch was the most grueling. + +Friday remembered it in vivid flashes. Time after time he dropped into +confused sleep, each time to be awakened by Carse jarring into him, +shouting at him through the suits' small radio sets, keeping him--and +Leithgow--attentive to the job of decelerating. The man's efforts must +have been terrific, taxing all his enormous driving power, for he at +that time was without doubt more exhausted than they. But he +succeeded, and he was a haggard-faced, feverish shell of himself when +at last he had them in a dangling drunken halt in the air a hundred +feet from the surface. + +Primal savagery lay stretched out below, and there seemed to be no safe +spot whereon to land. The foul, deep swamp that reached for miles on +every side, the towering trees that sprouted their spiny trunks and +limbs from it, the interlaced razor-edged vines and creeper-growths--all +was a stirring welter of tropic life, life varied and voracious and +untamed. From the tiny poisonous bansi insects layers deep on the +nearest tree to the monster gantor that crouched in a clump of weeds, +gently sawing his fangs back and forth, all the creatures of this world +were against man. + +Carse scanned the scene wearily. They had to land; had to sleep under +normal conditions, and eat and drink, before they could go further. +But where? Where was haven? He snapped out the direction rod, moved +away a short distance, and then glimpsed, below and to the left, a +small peninsula of firm soil which seemed safe and uninhabited. And +there was a pool of fairly clear water before it, containing nothing +but an old uprooted stump. He came back to the others, shook them, and +led them down to the place he had discovered. + +They landed with a thump which seemed to shake all life from two of +them. Friday and Eliot Leithgow collapsed into inert heaps, asleep +immediately. Carse extracted a ray-gun from the belt of Leithgow's +suit and prepared to stand watch. But that was too much. He +over-estimated his capacity. He had come through thirty hours of +hellish sleep-denied delirium, and he could not stave sleep off any +longer. He staggered and went down, and his eyelids were glued in +sleep when his body hit the ground. + +But mechanically, with an instinct that sleep could not deny, his left +hand kept clasped around the butt of the ray-gun.... + + * * * * * + +Satellite III's day has an average of seven hours' duration, her night +of six. It was perhaps the last hour of daylight when the three metal +and fabric-clad figures lying outsprawled on the little thumb-shaped +piece of soil had landed. Now quickly the huge sweeping rim of Jupiter +plunged down, and night fell over the land. + +Fierce darkness. Jungle and swamp awoke with their scale of savage +life. Swift swooping shapes winged out from the trees, prey-hungry +eyes gleaming green. And from the swamps came bellowings and stirrings +from monster mud-encrusted bodies, awakening to their nocturnal quest +for food. The night reechoed with the harsh cacophony of their cries. + +With lumbering caution, its smooth knob head waving on a long +reptilian neck, its heavy armored tail dragging behind its body's +folds of flesh, a giant night-thing came stumping out of a copse of +jungle growth--a buru. Its eyes were watchful, but centered mainly on +the pool of water to one side of the peninsula of firm soil. Its +drinking water was there. With several pauses, it went right out on +the spit, and a flat-bottomed foot twice the size of an elephant's +missed one of the sleeping forms by inches. But the buru cared not for +them. It was not a flesh-eater. Its undulating neck stretched far out; +its head dipped; water was lapped up--until it caught sight of the +uprooted giant stump lying pitched in the pool. The beast drank but +little after that, and retreated as cautiously as it had come. + +Five or six of its fellows of the swamps followed at intervals to the +water, grotesque hulking shapes, odorous and slimy with mud. All drank +from the same spot; all ignored, save for a tentative rooting snuffle, +the unconscious figures lying puny beneath them. But all noticed the +twisted roots of the stump, sticking out in a score of directions, and +avoided them. + +And then there came smaller, more cautious animals who did not drink +from the favored spot, who surveyed it, sniffed, hesitated, and +finally retreated. There was a good reason for this caution. + +For with the falling of night the stump had been at least thirty feet +out in the water; now it was not ten feet from the side of the spit, +and not twelve feet from the nearest sleeping figure. The suits that +clad the three figures were sealed, the face-plates closed, so there +was probably--after their trip through the void--no man smell to +attract the giants of swamp and trees. But those three figures had +moved. That was lure enough for one monster. + +When the first ruddy arrows of Jupiter's light laced through the +jungle's highest foliage, the twisted, gnarled stump was settled on +the peninsula's rim, half out of the water. And when day burst, when +Jupiter's flaming arch pushed over into view, the long seeming-roots +eeled forward in sinuous reptilian life. + + * * * * * + +In one second Hawk Carse was snatched from sleep into the turmoil of a +fight for life. + +Something hard and enormously powerful was wrapping his waist with a +vise-like grip that threatened to cut him in two. He felt a leg go up +and crumple back, almost breaking under the force of a lashing blow. +He was squeezed in, caged, compressed, by a score of tough, encircling +tentacles, and his whole body was drawn toward a wide, flexible, +black-lipped mouth yawning in the center of the monster he had thought +a stump. Moving with loathsome life, its sinewy root-tentacles sucking +him whole into the maw, the thing hunched itself back to the water. + +The water frothed around Carse. He had been too dazed to resist; he +had not known what had gripped him in his unconsciousness and +weakness. But he remembered his ray-gun. + +The lips of the hideous mouth were pressing close. Both were now under +the surface. Carse's suit was still tight and he could breathe even +while totally submerged in the water. He strained his left arm against +the tentacle that looped it, worked the ray-gun still clasped in his +hand in line with the thing's monstrous carcass, and at once, gasping +and sick, pulled the trigger clear back. + +The orange stream sizzled as it cleared a path through the water and +bit true into the gaping mouth. There sounded a curious, subterranean +sob; beady eyes on each side of the mouth bulged; the woodish body +quivered in agony. Its tentacles slackened, and, half fainting, the +Hawk wrenched free. He staggered up onto the land, streams of water +running off the suit, and toppled over; and from there he saw the +thing drag its writhing shuddering shape farther out from the shore. +When perhaps sixty feet away it again subsided into a "harmless" +uprooted old stump.... + + * * * * * + +Carse lay resting and collecting himself for a quarter of an hour, +while Leithgow and Friday slept on, unconscious of what had happened; +then he got to his feet, opened their face-plates and bathed +Leithgow's pale brow with water. The scientist awoke with the +quickness of old men, but Friday stirred and stretched and blinked and +sat up at last, yawning. + +The Hawk answered their questions about his wet suit with a brief +explanation of the fight, then got down to business. + +"There's water here, but we must have food," he said. "Friday, you go +back and find fruit; some isuan weed, too, if it's growing nearby. A +chew of it will stimulate us. Keep your ray-gun ready. I wouldn't be +here if I'd not had mine." + +The isuan was a big help. In its prepared form it is degrading, +mind-destroying, but in natural state it gives a powerful and +comparatively harmless stimulation. Chewing on the leaves that the +Negro brought back, they made strength and renewed vitality for their +bodies, and came, for the first time since they had started their +flight through space, to a near-normal state. Meaty, yellow globules +of pear-like fruit, followed by prudent drafts of water, aided also. +Friday's long-absent grin returned as he bit into the juicy fruit, and +he announced through a mouthful: + +"Well, things're lookin' sunny again! We've got food and water inside +us; we can reach Master Leithgow's laboratory in these here suits; an' +to top it all we've finished high an' mighty Ku Sui. He's dead at +last! Boy, it sure feels good to know it!" + +Eliot Leithgow was lying back, breathing deeply of the fresh morning +air. His lined, worn face and body were relaxed. "Yes," he murmured, +"it is good to know that Dr. Ku is now just a thing of the past. He +and his coordinated brains." He glanced aside at the Hawk, sitting +silent and still, and stroking, as always when in meditation, the +bangs of flaxen hair which obscured his forehead. "Why so serious, +Carse?" he asked. + + * * * * * + +The adventurer's gray eyes were cold and sober. No relaxation showed +in them. His hand paused in its slow smoothing movement and he spoke. + +"Why I overlooked it before," he said quietly, almost as if to +himself, "I don't know. Probably because I was too tired, and too +busy, and too sick to think. But now I see." + +"What?" Leithgow sat up straight. + +"Eliot," said the Hawk clearly, "doesn't it seem strange to you that +Ku Sui's asteroid continued to be invisible after we had smashed +through its dome?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"We've assumed that our smashing the dome and opening it to space +killed Ku Sui and everyone inside, and destroyed all the mechanisms, +including the coordinated brains. But the mechanism controlling the +asteroid's invisibility was not destroyed. The place remained +invisible." + +The old scientist's face grew tense. Carse paused for a moment. + +"That means," he went on, "that Ku Sui provided the invisibility +machine with special protection for just such an emergency. And do you +think he would give it such protection and not his coordinated brains? +Wouldn't he first protect the brains, his most cherished possession?" + +Eliot Leithgow knew what this meant. The Hawk had promised the brains +in that machine--brains of five renowned scientists, kept cruelly, +unnaturally alive by Dr. Ku--that he would destroy them. And his +promises were always kept. + +There was no evading the logic of this reasoning. The Master Scientist +nodded. "Yes," he answered. "He certainly would." + +"I couldn't damage the case they were in," Carse continued. "The whole +device seemed self-contained. It means just one thing: special +protection. Since the mechanism for invisibility survived the crashing +of the dome, we may be sure that the brain machine did too. And more +than that: we may assume that there was special protection for the +most precious thing of all to Dr. Ku Sui--his own life." + +Friday's mouth gaped open. The old scientist cried out: + +"My God! Ku Sui--still alive?" + +"It would seem so," said Hawk Carse. + +He amplified his evidence. "Look at these space-suits we're wearing. +We got them and escaped by them, but they're Dr. Ku's. Couldn't he +have protected himself with one too? He had plenty of time. And then +the construction of the asteroid's buildings--all metal, with tight, +sealed doors! Oh, stupid, stupid! Why didn't I see it all before? +Here, in my weakness and sickness, I thought we'd killed Ku Sui and +destroyed the coordinated brains!" + +Leithgow looked suddenly very old and tired. The calamity did not end +there. There were other angles, and an immediate one of high danger. +In a lifeless voice he said: + +"Carse, our whole situation's changed by this. We intended to go +straight to my laboratory, but we may not be able to. The laboratory +may already be closed to us. And even if not, there'd be a big risk in +going there." + +"Closed to us by what?" the Hawk demanded sharply. "At risk from +what?" + +Old Leithgow pressed his hands over his face. "Let me think a moment," +he said. + + * * * * * + +There were very good reasons why Eliot Leithgow maintained his chief +laboratory on the dangerous Satellite III. Other planets might have +offered more friendly locations, but III possessed stores of +accessible minerals valuable to the scientist's varied work, and its +position in the solar system was most convenient, being roughly +halfway between Earth and the outermost frontiers. Leithgow had +counterbalanced the inherent peril of the laboratory's location by +ingenious camouflage, intricate defenses and hidden underground +entrances; had, indeed, hidden it so well that none of the scavengers +and brigands and more personal enemies who infested Port o' Porno +remotely suspected that his headquarters was on the satellite at all. +Ships, men, could pass over it a score of times with never an inkling +that it lay below. + +After a short silence, Eliot Leithgow began his explanation. + +"You'll remember," he told the intent Hawk, "that Ku Sui's men +kidnapped me from our friend Kurgo's house in Porno. There were five +of them: robot-coolies. They took us entirely by surprise, and killed +Kurgo and bore me to Ku Sui's asteroid. + +"Well, I had come to Kurgo's house in the first place to arrange for +supplies for building an addition to my laboratory, and I had with me +a sheaf of papers containing plans for this addition. The plans are +not important; they tell nothing--but there was a figure on one of the +papers that might reveal everything! The figure 5,576.34. Do you know +what that stands for?" + +The adventurer thought for a moment, then shook his head. Leithgow +nodded. He went on: + +"Few would. _But among the few would be Ku Sui!_ + +"You'll remember that on building my laboratory we considered it +extremely important to have it on the other side of the globe from +Port o' Porno--diametrically opposite--so that the movements of our +ships to and from it would be hidden from that pirate port. +Diametrically opposite--remember? Well, the diameter of Satellite III +is 3,550 miles. This diameter multiplied by 3.1416 gives 11,152.63 +miles as the circumference, and one half the circumference is 5,576.34 +miles--the exact distance of my laboratory from Port o' Porno!" + +"I see," Carse murmured. "I see." + +"That figure meant nothing to you, nor would it to the average person; +but to a mathematician and astronomer--to Dr. Ku Sui--it would be a +challenge! He would be studying the paper on which it is written down. +One of Eliot Leithgow's papers. Plans for an addition to a laboratory. +Therefore, Eliot Leithgow's laboratory. And then the figure: half the +circumference of Satellite III. Why, he would at once deduce that it +gave the precise location of my laboratory!" + + * * * * * + +The Hawk rose quickly. "If those papers fell into Dr. Ku's hands--" + +"He would know exactly where the laboratory is," Leithgow finished. +"He would search. Its camouflage would not hold him long. And that +would be the end of my laboratory--and us too, if we were caught +inside." + +"Yes," snapped the Hawk. "You imply that the papers were left in +Kurgo's house?" + +"I had them in the bottom drawer of the clothes-chest in the room I +always use. The coolies did not take them. At that time they wanted +nothing but me." + +Friday, rubbing his woolly crown, interjected: "But, even if Ku Sui's +still alive, he wouldn't know about them papers. Far's _I_ can see, +they're safe." + +"No!" Leithgow cried. "That's it! They're not! Follow it logically, +point by point. Assuming that Dr. Ku's alive, he has one point of +contact with us--Kurgo's house, in Porno, where I was kidnapped. He +wants us badly. He will anticipate that one of us will go back to that +house: to care for Kurgo's body, to get my belongings--for several +reasons. So he will radio down--he probably can't come himself--for +henchmen to station themselves at the house and to ransack it +thoroughly for anything pertaining to me. The papers would fall into +their hands!" + +"All right," said Carse levelly. "We must get those papers. They will +either be still in the house or in the possession of Dr. Ku's men at +Porno. But whichever it is--_we must get them before Ku Sui does_." He +paused. + +"Well," he said, "that means me." He turned and looked down at the old +man and smiled. "There's no use risking the three of us. I'll go to +Kurgo's house myself." + +"If the papers are gone, suh?" asked Friday. + +"I don't know. What I do will depend on what I discover there." + +"But," said Leithgow, "there may be guards! There may be an ambush!" + +"I have a powerful weapon. M. S. Unknown, so far; new to Satellite +III. Ku Sui himself supplied it. This space-suit." + + * * * * * + +The Hawk scanned the "western" sky and began giving brisk orders. + +"Eliot, you've got to go to some place of safety until this is all +over. You too, Eclipse, to take care of him. Let me see.... There's +Cairnes, and Wilson.... Wilson's the one. He should be at his ranch +now. You remember it: Ban Wilson's ranch, on the Great Briney Lake? +Right. Both of you will go there and wait. I'll meet you there when +I'm finished. And at that time I'll either have the papers or know +that Ku Sui has found the laboratory." + +Again on his feet, the old Master Scientist regarded anxiously this +slender, coldly calculating man who was his closest friend. He was +afraid. "Carse," he said, "you're going back alone into probable +danger. The papers--the laboratory--they're important--but not so +important as your life." + +There was visible now in the Hawk's face that hard, unflinching +will-to-do that had made him the spectacular adventurer that he was. +"Did you ever know me to run from danger?" he asked softly. "Did you +ever know me to run from Ku Sui?..." And Eliot Leithgow knew that the +course was set, no matter what it might hold. + +Carse again glanced at Jupiter, hanging massive in the blue overhead. +"About three hours of daylight left," he observed. "Now, close +face-plates. We must go up--far up--to get our bearings." + +Altitude swept back the horizon as they arrowed up through the warm, +glowing air. From far in the heavens, perhaps twenty miles, Carse saw +what he looked for--a bright gleam of silver in the monochrome of the +terrain, where Jupiter's light struck on the smooth metal hides of a +group of space-ships resting in the satellite's lone port, Porno. +Eighty, a hundred miles away--some such distance. Into the helmet's +tiny microphone he said: + +"That's Porno, over to the 'north,' and there to one side is the Great +Briney. It's not far: you won't have to hurry, Eliot. Head straight +for the lake and follow the near shoreline toward Porno, and you'll +come to Ban Wilson's ranch. Now we part." + +The three clinging, giant forms separated. The direction-rods for +horizontal movement were out-hinged. A last touch of mitten-gloves on +the bloated suits fabric; a nod and a smile through the face-plates; +and a few parting words: + +"Good luck, old comrade!"--in Leithgow's soft voice; and the Negro's +deep, emphatic bass: "Don't know how far these little sets work, suh, +but if you need me, call. I'll keep listenin'!" + +And then white man and black were speeding away in the ruddy flood of +Jupiter-light, and Hawk Carse faced the danger trail alone, as was his +wont. + + * * * * * + +Caution rather than speed had to mark his journey, Carse knew. Several +ranches lay scattered in the jungle smother between him and the +port--stations where the weed isuan was collected and refined into the +deadly finished product. They were worked for the most part by +Venusians allied with Ku Sui: the Eurasian practically controlled the +drug trade; and therefore, if any alarm had been broadcast, many men +would already be on the lookout for him. + +So the Hawk dropped low, and chose a course through the screening +walls of the jungle. It did not take him long to attain full mastery +of the suit's controls, and soon he was gliding cleanly through the +hollows created by the mammoth outthrusting treetops in a course crazy +and twisted, but one which kept him pointing always towards Porno. +Presently he found an easier highway and a faster--a sluggish, dirty +yellow stream, quite broad, which ended, he was sure, in a swamp +within a mile of his destination. + +Flanked by the jungle growth which sprouted thickly from each bank, a +gray, ghostly shape in the shadows lying over the water, he sped +through the dying afternoon. He kept at least ten feet above the +surface, well out of reach of such water beasts as from time to time +reared up through the placid surface to scan him. Once a huge gantor, +gulping a drink from the bank, snorted and went trumpeting away at the +grotesque sight of him--flying without wings!--and once too, on rising +cautiously above the treetops to reconnoiter, Carse saw life far more +perilous to him: a small party of men, stooping over a swamp-brink and +plucking the ripe isuan weed. At this he dived steeply and fled on; +and he knew he had gone unobserved, for there came no outcry of +discovery from behind. + + * * * * * + +Jupiter lowered its murky disk as the miles streamed past, breeding a +legion of shadows welcome to the fabric-clad monster skimming through +them and to the creatures who blinked and stirred as night approached. +The stream broadened into shallow pockets; patches of swamp appeared +and absorbed the stream; and Carse knew he was close to his +destination. + +He cut his speed and glanced around. Ahead, the dark spire of a giant +sakari tree climbed into the gloom. It would be a good place. The man +rose slowly; like a wraith on the wind he lifted into its top-most +branches; and there, in the broad, cuplike leaves, he warily ensconced +himself. For man-sounds came into his opened helmet, and through a +fringe of leaves, across a mile of tumbled swamp and marsh, he could +see the guarding fences of the cosmetropolis of Porno. + +A last slice of blotched, flaming red, the rim of setting Jupiter, +still silhouetted Porno, sprawled inside its high, electric-wired +fences, and the flood of fading light brushed the town with beauty. +The rows of tin shacks which housed its dives, the clustered, +nondescript hovels, the merchants' grim strongholds of steel--all +merged into a glowing mirage, a scene far alien to the brooding swamp +and savage jungle in whose breast it lay. Here and there several +space-ships reared their sunset-gilded flanks, glittering high-lights +in the final glorious burst of Jupiter-light.... + +The planet's rim vanished abruptly, and Porno returned to true +character. + +For a moment it appeared what it was: a blotched, disordered huddle, +ugly, raw, fit companion of the swamp and jungle. Then beads of light +appeared, some still, some winking, one crooked line of flaring +illumination marking the Street of the Sailors, along which the +notorious kantrans flourished, now ready for their nightly brood of +men who sought forgetfulness in revelry. Soon, Carse knew, the faint +man-noises he heard would grow into a broad fabric of sound, stitched +across by shrieks and roars as the isuan and alkite flowed free. And +all around the lone watcher in the sakari tree the night-monsters were +crawling out in jungle and swamp on the dark routine of their lives +as, in the town, two-legged creatures even lower in their degradation +went abroad after the dope and liquor which gave them their vicious +recreation. + +The night flowed thicker around him. + + * * * * * + +From somewhere behind, the Hawk heard a suck of half-fluid mud as a +giant body stretched in its sleeping place. A tree close to his +suddenly fluttered with the unseen life it harbored. A hungry gantor +raised its long deep bellow to the night, and another answered, and +another. + +It grew pitch black. Only a sprinkling of pin-points of light marked +Porno to the eye. The sky beyond the town matched the sky to the rear. +Jupiter's light now had fled the higher air levels. The time had come. + +Cautiously Carse brushed the branches aside, rose upright and pressed +the mitten switch over to repulsion. In instant response his giant's +bulk lifted lightly. He sped upward, straight and fast; and at two +thousand feet, still untouched by the sinking planet's rays, he +brought himself to an approximate halt and peered below. + +Port o' Porno lay spread out beneath, one thin line of light-pricks +off which angled fainter lines, extending only a short distance and +then dying widely off. There were perhaps two thousand men in the +town--men from all the countries of the three planets inhabited by +creatures that could be called human--and of these at least three +quarters knew Hawk Carse as an enemy, because of his intolerance for +their dope-trade. His approach to the house Number 574 had to be +swift, direct, unseen, unheard. + +He was able to make it so. Pointing the direction rod, he winged +forward until directly above an estimated spot, then dropped a +thousand feet. A pause while he searched; another drop. He knew +Kurgo's house well, but the scene was confusing from above, and the +street the house was on was always dark at night. + +He made it out at last. The squat two-storied structure, similar to +other merchants' strongholds, seemed unlit and unwatched. Carse swung +back the hinged mittens of the suit and slid his hands out ready for +action. In his left he took his ray-gun; then, pressing the +mitten-switch, he dropped straight, silent, swift, like the Hawk he +now truly was. + + * * * * * + +A single window-port, high up, broke the smooth rear of Kurgo's house. +It faced a silent alleyway. The steel shutters were closed, but a pull +swung them noiselessly outward. For a brief moment Carse's bulging +giant's figure of metal and fabric hung black against the shadowed +window-port. The room he peered into was solid black. He heard no +sound. Clumsily he thrust out and stepped in. + +Silence. Inky nothingness--but the air was weighted with many things, +and among them one which brought the short hairs on the Hawk's neck +prickling erect. A smell! It was not to be mistaken--a faint, but rank +and fetid and altogether identifying smell--the body-smell of a +Venusian! + +For a moment Hawk Carse's breathing stopped. Metal clanked on metal +for an instant as he moved from the window-port and became one with +the darkness inside; then silence again, as his eyes trained into the +vault and his hand held ready on the ray-gun. He waited. + +Was it a trap? He had seen no guards watching the house; had sensed it +deserted. But the steep shutters, unlocked, readily permitting +entrance--and the smell! Even if not still there, a Venusian had been +in the room, and a Venusian of Port o' Porno was an enemy. A +Venusian.... There were only some sixty on the whole satellite, and, +of these, fifty were the men of Lar Tantril. Lar Tantril, powerful +henchman of Dr. Ku Sui, director of the Eurasian's drug trade on +Satellite III. But that line of thought had to wait. + +"I see you!" he whispered suddenly and sharply. "My gun's on you. Come +forward!" + + * * * * * + +No answer; not the slightest sign or stir in the darkness. He breathed +again. + +Carse knew the arrangement of Kurgo's house. He was in his +second-story sleeping-room. There was a door in the wall ahead, +leading into the room Leithgow was accustomed to use on his visits, +and there the papers should be. But first he would have to have light. + +His ears pitched for any betraying sound, Carse moved heavily to his +left until a wall arrested him. He felt along it, located the desk he +sought for and scoured through it. His fingers found the flash he knew +was there. + +The darkness then was slit by a hard straight line of white. It shot +over the room picking out overturned chairs, a bowl that had toppled +to the floor, scattering its contents of ripe akalot fruit, a sleeping +couch, its sheets and pillows awry, and--something human. + +A half-clothed body lay sprawled beside the couch, its hands thrust +clutching forward and its unseeing eyes still staring at the door +whence had come the shots that had burnt out the left side of its +chest. Dead. Three days dead. The murdered master of the house, Kurgo, +lying where Ku Sui's robot-coolies had shot him down. + +The Venusian-smell swept more strongly into his nostrils as the +adventurer opened the door into Leithgow's room. No Venusian had ever +been in those rooms _before_ the abduction. + +Carse's light danced over the room's confusion: a laboratory table +overturned; apparatus spilled; several chains flung around, one +splintered: mute signs of the struggle Eliot Leithgow had offered his +kidnappers. + +In a corner stood a metal chest. In the bottom drawer was the +all-significant answer. Hawk Carse crossed the room and slid it open. + +The papers were gone! + + * * * * * + +Methodically Carse hunted through every drawer and corner of the room, +but he found no trace of them. Every article that would be of value to +an ordinary thief was left; the one thing important to Dr. Ku Sui, the +sheaf of papers, was missing. + +The presence of the Venusian body-smell started an important train of +thought in the Hawk's mind. It signified that the papers had been +taken by henchmen of Ku Sui, which in turn signified that Ku Sui had +survived the crashing of the dome and was alive and again aggressively +dangerous. But was the Eurasian already on Satellite III? Was he +already in personal possession of the papers?--perhaps conducting a +search for Leithgow's laboratory? + +Or did it mean that Dr. Ku had merely radioed instructions for his +Venusian henchmen to ransack the house, take whatever pertained to +Leithgow, and wait for him? + +Venusians.... There was only one logical man; and as Hawk Carse +thought of him in that dark and silent house of tragedy, his right +hand slowly rose to the bangs of hair over his forehead and began to +stroke them.... + +His bangs were an unusual style for the period; they stamped him and +attracted unwanted attention; but he would wear his hair in that +fashion until he went down in death. For he had once been +trapped--trapped neatly by five men, and maltreated: one, Judd the +Kite, whose life had paid already for his part in the ugly business; +two others whom he was not now concerned with; the fourth, Dr. Ku Sui; +and the fifth--a Venusian.... + +That fifth, the Venusian, was Lar Tantril, now one of Ku Sal's most +powerful henchmen, and director of his interplanetary drug +traffic--Lar Tantril, who possessed an impregnable isuan ranch only +twenty-five miles from Port o' Porno--_Lar Tantril, who probably had +directed the stealing of the papers from this room_! _The papers, if +not already in Ku Sui's hands_, _should be at Tantril's ranch_. + +Carse's deduction was followed by a swift decision. He had to raid Lar +Tantril's ranch. + +He knew the place fairly well. Once, even, he had attacked it, in his +_Star Devil_, seeking to wipe out his debt against Tantril; but he had +been driven off by the ranch's mighty offensive rays. + +It was impregnable, Tantril was fond of boasting. Situated on the +brink of the Great Briney, its other three sides were flanked by +thick, swampy jungle, in which the isuan grew and was gathered by +Tantril's Venusian workers. Ranch? More a fort than a ranch, with its +electrified, steel-spiked fence; its three watch-towers, lookouts +always posted there against the threat of hijackers or enemies; its +powerful ray-batteries and miscellany of smaller weapons. A less +vulnerable place for the keeping of Eliot Leithgow's papers could +hardly have been found in all the frontiers of the solar system. + +He, Carse, had raided it in a modern fighting space-ship, and failed. +Now, with nothing but a space-suit and a ray-gun, he had to raid it +again--and succeed! + + * * * * * + +The adventurer did not leave immediately. He thought it wise to make +what preparations he could. His important weapon was the space-suit; +therefore, he took it off and studied and inspected its several +intricate mechanisms as well as he could in the carefully guarded +light of his flash. + +It was motivated, he saw, by dual sets of gravity-plates, in separate +space-tight compartments. One set was located in the extremely thick +soles of the heavy boots; the other rested on the top of the helmet. +He saw why this was. The gravity-plates for repulsion were those in +the helmet; for attraction, those in the boot-soles. This kept the +wearer of the suit always in an upright, head-up position. + +The logical plan of attack had grown in Carse's mind: down and up! +Down to the papers, then up and away before the men on the ranch knew +what was happening: he could suppose that they, like all others on the +satellite, had no knowledge of a self-propulsive space-suit. The +success of his raid depended entirely on keeping the two gravity +mechanisms intact. If they were destroyed, or failed to function, he +would be locked to the ground in a prison of metal and fabric: clamped +down, literally, by a terrific dead weight! The suit was extremely +heavy, particularly the boots, and Carse learned that the wearer was +able to walk in it only because a portion of the helmet's repulsive +force was continually working to approximate a normal body gravity. + +A chance to succeed--if the two vital points were kept intact! If they +failed, he would have to slip out of the imprisoning suit and use his +quick wits and deadly ray-gun in clearing a path to Ban Wilson, his +nearest friend, whose ranch, fourteen miles from Tantril's stronghold, +was where Eliot Leithgow and Friday would be awaiting him. + +It was characteristic of Hawk Carse that he never even considered +calling on Wilson's resources of men and weapons to help him. A Hawk +he was: wiry, fierce-clawed, bold against odds and danger, most +capable and deadly when striking alone.... + + * * * * * + +After scanning the whole project, Carse attended to other needs. He +ate some of the akalot fruit spilled over the floor of the adjoining +room; opened a can of water and drank deeply; limbered his muscles +well; even rested for five minutes. Then he was ready to leave. + +He soon was again in the cold space-suit, fastening on the helmet. He +left the face-plate open. The left mitten he hinged back, so as to be +able to grip the ray-gun in his bare hand. Then, a looming giant +shadow in the darkness, he shuffled to the rear window-port. + +Carse steadied himself on the sill. The night-bedlam from the Street +of the Sailors, punctuated by far, hungry bellows from swamp monsters, +sounded in his ears. Enemies, human and animal, ringed him in Kurgo's +house: but up above lay a clean, cold highway, an open highway, +stretching straight to the heart of the danger which was his +destination. He turned the mitten-switch over to quick repulsion and +leaped up to the waiting heavens. + + * * * * * + +On the ground was a world of night: a mile up showed a great circle of +black, one edge of which was marked by a faint, eery glow from +further-setting Jupiter. + +Save for that far-off spectral hint of the giant occulted planet, Hawk +Carse sped in darkness. Through the open face-plate the night wind +buffeted his emotionless, stone-set face: his suit whistled a song of +speed as the gusts laced by it. Down and ahead his direction rod +pointed, and with ever-gathering momentum he followed its leading +finger. The lights of Porno dwindled to points; grew yet finer, then +were gone. Several times a sparse cluster of other lights, lonely in +the black tide of III's surface, ran beneath him, signaling a ranch. +The last of these melted into the ink behind, and there was a period +unrelieved by sign of man's presence below. + +And then at last one bright solitary spot of light appeared, far +ahead. It was a danger signal to the Hawk. He had to descend at once. +From then on, speed had to be forsaken for caution. Watchful eyes were +beneath that light, lying keen on the heavens; a whole intricate +offense and defense system surrounded it. It was the central +watch-beacon of Lar Tantril's ranch. + +Carse swooped low. + +He came into the night-world of the surface. No faint-lit horizon +showed; there was only the darkness, and darker shadows peopling it. +At the height of a mile there had been no signs of the satellite's +native life, but at an elevation scarcely above the treetops the +flying man was brought all too close to the reality of the denizens of +the gloomy jungle below. Out of the black smother came clues to the +life within it: sounds of monstrous bodies moving through the +undergrowth and mud, recurring death-screams, howls and angry +chatterings.... + + * * * * * + +This below; there was more above. He was not the only living thing +that soared in the night. Swift fleeting batlike shapes would appear +from nowhere for one sharp second, would beset him one after another +in an almost constant stream, thinking his comparatively clumsy, +bloated bulk easy prey, and then be gone. He snapped shut his +face-plate under their assault. Sometimes there came different, more +powerful wings, and he would duck in mechanical reaction, sensing the +wings sweep past, often feeling them as, with sharp pecks and quick +thudding blows, they sought to stun him. But the suit was stout; the +repulsed attackers could only follow a little, glaring at him with +fire-green malevolent eyes, then leave to seek smaller prey. + +The watch-beacon began to wink more often through the ranks of +intervening trees as he neared the ranch. Carse was gliding so low +that often branches raked and twisted him in his course. His low +transit allowed one tree to loose great peril upon him. + +The tree loomed a black giant in his path. Fifty feet away, he was +swerving to wind around it when he noticed its dark upper branches +a-tremble. He had only this for warning when, with chilling surprise, +what appeared to be the entire top of the tree rose, severed itself +completely from the rest and soared right out to meet him. + +A shape from a nightmare, it slid over the adventurer. He saw two +green-glowing saucer-sized eyes; heard the wings rattling bonily as +they spread to full thirty feet; heard the monster's life-thirsty +scream is it plunged. The stars were blotted out. It was upon him. + + * * * * * + +But even in the sudden confusion of the attack, Carse knew the +creature for what it was: a full-grown specimen of the giant +carnivorous lemak, a seldom-seen, dying species, too clumsy, too slow, +too huge to survive. His ray-gun came around, but he was caught in a +feathered maelstrom and knocked too violently around to use it. +Without pause the lemak's claws raked his suit. Unable to rend the +tough fabric, it resorted to another method. With a strength so +enormous that it could overcome the force of the gravity-plates and +his forward momentum, the creature tossed him free. Dizzy, he hurtled +upward. But he knew that the bird's purpose was to impale him on the +long steely spike of its beak as he came twisting down. + +The lemak poised below, snout and spear-like beak raised. But it +waited in vain, for Carse did not come dropping down. A touch of the +control switch and he stayed at the new level, collecting himself. The +lemak, puzzled and angry, wheeled up to see what had become of the +victim that did not descend, and found instead a searing needle of +heat which burnt through its broad right wing. Then, screaming with +pain and in a frenzy to escape, it went with a rush into the far +darkness. + +The Hawk dropped low again, hoping that his gun's quick flash had not +been observed. He had not wished to wound the lemak mortally, for no +matter how accurate his shot the monster would take long to die, and +scream and thrash as it did so. One short spit of orange was +preferable to a prolonged hullabaloo. But even that might have +betrayed him.... + +With elaborate caution, he reconnoitered Lar Tantril's ranch. + + * * * * * + +From above, the ranch clearing was a pool of faint light contained in +black leagues of jungle and the edge of the Great Briney. Slanting +shadows and the dark bulks of buildings that were unlit rendered the +details vague, but under prolonged scrutiny the appointments of the +ranch became visible. + +The clearing was a circle some two hundred yards in diameter. Just +inside the jungle wall was the first line of protection, a +steel-barbed, twenty-foot-high fence, its strong corded links +interwoven with electrified wires. Well within this fence stood five +buildings, low, squat and one-storied, four of them forming a broken +square around the central fifth. Two buildings were pierced by low +rows of lighted windows, evidence that they were the barracks of the +workers; two others, devoted to the processing of the isuan weed, were +now dark and silent. The central building was smaller, with +window-ports that were glowing eyes in the smooth metal walls. It was +the dwelling of the master, Lar Tantril. + +Close to the central building rose a hundred-foot tower, topped by the +watch-beacon. At three equi-distant points around the encompassing +fence, small, square platforms were held sixty feet aloft by mast-like +triangular towers, up which foot-rungs led. And on each platform could +be made out the figure of a Venusian guard. + +Ceaselessly these guards turned and scanned the jungle, the heavens, +the unbroken dark prairie of the lake, alert for anything of +suspicion. Lar Tantril had good reasons for maintaining a constant +watch over his stronghold, and his guards' eyes were sharpened by +knowledge of the severe payment laxness would bring. Close at hand in +the platforms were knobs which, pressed, would ring a clanging alarm +through all the buildings below; and each guard wore two ray-gun +holsters. + +Despite the guards and the ugly spikes of the fence, however, the +ranch from above appeared peaceful, calm and harmless. No men were +visible on its shadow-dappled clearing. Even the surrounding jungle, +in the watch-beacon's shaded underside, might have been nothing but a +stage set, were it not for the occasional signs of the life that crept +unseen through it--a long, far-distant howl, a quickly receding +crashing in the undergrowth, a thumping from some small animal. + +The guards were used to this pattern of nocturnal sounds. It was only +when, from a tree not thirty feet from one of the platforms, there +came a sudden sharp shaking in the upper branches, that the Venusian +on that platform deigned to grip his ray-gun and peer suspiciously. +All he saw was a large bird that flapped out and winged across the +clearing, mewing angrily. + +The guard released his grip on the gun. A snake, probably, had +disturbed the bird. Or some of those devilish little crimson bansis, +half insect, half crab.... + + * * * * * + +Hawk Carse breathed again. He had been sure his position would be +revealed when, drifting with almost imperceptible motion into the +tree, the bird had pecked at him, then flapped away in alarm. A long, +painfully cautious approach from tree to tree to the selected one had +been necessary to the daring scheme of attack he had evolved. + +He seemed to be safe. Through a fringe of leaves he saw the guard on +the platform glancing elsewhere. Carse steadied himself, rose slightly +and again scanned the ranch. + +Yes, it looked harmless, but he knew that nothing could be further +from the reality. Spaced around the inside edge of that spiky fence +were small metal nozzles protruding a few inches from the ground; and +on the turning of a control wheel, they would hurl forth a deadly +orange swathe, fanning hundreds of feet into the sky. He had tasted +their hot breath once when attacking the ranch in his _Star Devil_. +Then there were the long-range projectors whose muzzles studded the +central building. And the ray-guns of the tower guards. + +These were dangers that he knew, for he had experienced them. What +others the ranch held, he could not well surmise. But he saw one +significant thing that gave him pause and brought lines to his brow. + +The ranch was expecting trouble. Over to one side of the clearing +rested a great rounded object, on whose smooth hull gleamed coldly the +light from the beacon--Lar Tantril's own personal space-ship--and +alongside it a smaller, somewhat similar shape, the ranch's air-car! +The space-ship signified that the Venusian chief was present; the +air-car, that all his men were gathered in the barracks, and not, as +was their custom, in Port o' Porno for a night of revelry! + +All waiting--all gathered here--all ready! All grouped for a strong +defense! Did it mean what it would appear to--that he, the Hawk, was +expected? + +He could not know. He could not know if a trap was lying prepared +there against his coming. He could but go ahead, and find out. + +The only plan of attack he could think of had grown in his mind. Down +and up: that was the essence of it: but the details were difficult. He +had worked them out as far as he could with typical thoroughness. He +had to reach the heart of the fort lying before him: had to reach the +central house, Lar Tantril's own. The precious papers would be there, +if anywhere. + +The Hawk was ready. + +He gathered his muscles. His face was cold and hard, his eyes mists of +gray. There was no least sign in the man that, in the next few +all-deciding minutes, death would lick close to him. + +He poised where he was precariously balanced. His ray-gun was in his +bare left hand; his face-plate was locked partly open. He raised his +fingers to the direction rod on the suit's breast, gazed straight at +the guard on the nearest watch-platform and snapped the direction rod +out, pointing it at that guard. + + * * * * * + +What happened then struck so fast, so unexpectedly, that it took only +thirty seconds to plunge the quiet ranch into chaos. + +The Hawk came like a thunder-bolt, using to its full power his only +weapon, the space-suit. The sight of him might alone have been enough +to strike terror. From the dark arms of the tree he hurtled, his +bloated monstrous shape of metal and fabric dull in the glow of the +watch-beacon, and crashed with a clang of metal into the platform he +aimed at. Nothing there could withstand him. One second the guard on +it was calmly gazing off into the sky: the next, like a nine-pin he +was bowled over, to topple heels and head whirling to the ground sixty +feet beneath. He lived, he kept consciousness, but he was sorely +injured; and he never saw the outlandish projectile that struck him, +nor saw it streak to the second watch-platform, bowling its guard out +and to the ground likewise, and then repeating at the third and last! + +A crash; a pause; a crash; a pause; then a third crash, and the thing +of metal had completed the circuit, and all three watch-platforms were +scooted empty! + +Then came confusion. + +There had been screams, but now a crazed voice began crying out +mechanically, over and over: + +"Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit!" + +It came from the second guard, who lay twisting on the ground. His +tongue, by some trick of nervous disorganization, beat out those words +like a voice-disk whose needle keeps skipping its groove--and the +effect was macabre. + + * * * * * + +The central buildings disgorged a crowd of men. Shorty, wiry, +thin-faced Venusians, each with skewer-blade strapped to his side and +some with ray-guns out, they came scrambling into the open, swearing +and wondering. The second guard's insane repetitions directed most of +them in his direction; and they piled in a crowd around him. They had +no attention for what was happening behind, within the buildings they +had emptied. That was what Hawk Carse had planned. + +A voice of authority roared up over the general hubbub. + +"Rantol! Guard! Rantol, you fool! What happened? What attacked you? +Cut that crazy yelling! Answer me!--you, Rantol!" + +"Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit! Space--" + +"Lar Tantril!" A man with suspicious eyes caught the attention of the +one who had spoken first. "Space-suit, he says! A flying space-suit! +Only Ku Sui has space-suits that fly; or only Ku Sui _had_ them, +rather. You know what that must mean!" + +He paused, peering at his lord. The coarse yellowy skin of Tantril's +brow wrinkled with the thought, then his tusk-like Venusian teeth +showed as his lips drew apart in speech. + +"Yes!" Lar Tantril said. "It's _Carse_!" + +And he ordered the now silent men around him: + +"Circle my house, all of you, your guns ready. You, Esret"--to his +second in command--"out gun and come with me." + + * * * * * + +Even as Lar Tantril spoke, a giant shape was passing clumsily through +the kitchen of his house. Carse had entered from the rear, unseen. +With gun in hand and eyes sharp he crossed the deserted kitchen with +its foul odors of Venusian cookery. Quickly, his metal-shod feet +creating an unavoidable racket, he was through a connecting door and +into the well-furnished dining room. All was brightly lit; he could +easily have been seen through the window-ports rimming each wall; but +he counted on the confusion outside to keep the Venusians engaged for +several minutes more. + +Then he went shuffling into the front room of the house, and saw at +once the most likely place. + +It was in one corner--a large flat desk, and by it the broad panel of +a radio. Scattered over the desk were a number of papers. In seconds +Carse was bending over them, scanning and discarding with eyes and +hands. + +Reports of various quantities of isuan ... orders for stores ... a +list that seemed an inventory of weapons--and then the top page of a +sheaf covered with familiar, neat, small writing. Yes! + +Plans and calculations dealing with a laboratory! And, down in the +margin of the first page, the revealing, all-important figure--5,576.34! + +He had them--and before Ku Sui! Now, only to get away; out the front +door, and up--up from this trap he was in--up into clean and empty +space, and then to Leithgow and Friday at Ban Wilson's! + +But, as the Hawk turned to go, his eye took in a little slip on the +desk, a radio memo, with the name of Ku Sui at its top. Almost without +volition he glanced over it, hoping to discover useful information +about Ku Sui's asteroid--and with the passing of those few extra +seconds his chance for escaping out the door passed too. + +Carse's back was partly toward the front door when a voice, hard and +deadly, spoke from it: + +"Your hands up!" + + * * * * * + +The adventurer's nerves twanged; he wheeled; and even as he did so +another voice bit out from the rear door: + +"Yes, up! One move and you're dead!" + +And Hawk Carse found himself caught between ray-guns held unswervingly +on his body by a man at each door. He was not fool enough to try to +shoot, even though his own gun was in his hand; his best speed would +be slow-motion in the hampering space-suit. He was fairly +caught--because for a few precious seconds he had let his mind slip +from the all-important matter of escaping. + +At a shout from someone, both doors filled with men, and thin faces +appeared at the window-ports. Their ray-guns made an impregnable fence +around the netted Hawk. + +And then a well-remembered voice, harsh as the man from whom it came, +cut through the room. + +"Apparently you're caught, Captain Carse!" + +The cold gray eyes narrowed, scanned the room, the blocked doors, the +barricade of guns held by the grim men at doorways and window-ports. + +"Yes," Hawk Carse murmured. "Apparently I am." + + * * * * * + +Lar Tantril, the Venusian chief, smiled. He was tall for one of his +race, even taller than the prisoner he faced. Clad in tight-fitting, +iron-gray mesh, he had the characteristic wiry body, thin legs and +arms of his kind. Spiky short-cropped hair grew like steel slivers +from the narrow dome of his long hatchet head, and the taut-stretched +skin of his face was burned a deep hard brown. He looked what he was: +a bold and unscrupulous leader of his men. + +"The gun in your belt," he said, "--drop it. Right on the floor. +There--better. I like you not with a gun near your hand, Carse." + +The Hawk regarded him frigidly. + +"And now what?" he asked. + +Lar Tantril continued smiling. His ray-gun did not move for an instant +from the line it held on the metal and fabric giant. He said at a +tangent, quite pleasantly: + +"Think fast, Captain Carse--think fast! Isn't that one of Dr. Ku's new +suits?--a little space-ship all your own? Why not plan a sudden sweep +for that door in an attempt to crash through my men and get free up in +the air--eh?" + +"Why not?" said the Hawk. + +"It might be possible," Tantril continued, "with your luck. _Unless +something went wrong with your helmet gravity-plates._" + +At this the Venusian's gun moved. Deliberately it came up and aimed at +the crown of the adventurer's helmet. Tantril squeezed the trigger. + +_Spang!_ + +A pencil-thin streak of orange stabbed between Venusian and Earthling; +sparks hissed out where it struck the tip of the helmet; and for an +instant life and strength seemed to leave the grotesquely clad figure. +Carse slumped down under a quick crushing weight. Weight! It bent him +low, and it was only with a great effort that he was able to +straighten again. For the suit's full load of metal and fabric was +upon him now, its enormous boots binding him to the ground since their +weight was unrelieved by the partial lift of the helmet plates. An +inch-wide, black-rimmed hole in the mechanism above the helmet told +what had happened. + +Lar Tantril chortled, and his men, most of them only half +comprehending what he had done, echoed him. + +"But even yet you've got a chance," the Venusian went on. "There's +another set of plates in the boot-soles, for attraction. If you got a +chance to stand on your head outside, you'd be gone! So--" + + * * * * * + +This time he lowered the gun, and carefully, accurately, he sent two +spitting streams of orange through the soles of the great boots. + +The danger Carse had feared had come to pass. His one weapon had been +destroyed. He was worse than helpless; he was in a cumbersome prison, +all power of quick movement gone. He was a paralyzed giant, tied to +the soil, the ways of the air hopelessly closed. The slightest step +would cost great effort. + +"You have protected yourself well, Lar Tantril," he said slowly. + +Now Tantril laughed deeply and unrestrainedly. "Yes, and by Mother +Venus," he cried, "it's good to see you this way, Carse, unarmed and +in my power!" He turned to his circle of men and said: "Poor Hawk! +Can't fly any more! I've put him in a cage! So thoughtful of him to +bring his cage along with him so I could trap him inside it! His own +cage!" He guffawed, shaking, and the others laughed loud. + +Through it all Hawk Carse stood motionless, his face cold and graven, +his slender body bent under the burden of the dead suit. He still held +in his right hand, limp by his side, the sheaf of papers and their +all-important figure--and the thumb and forefinger of his hand were +moving, so slowly as to be hardly noticeable, in what seemed to be a +lone sign of nervous tension. + +"You know, Carse," Tantril observed after his laugh, "I've been half +expecting you, though I don't see how you knew I was the one who took +those papers you're holding. Dr. Ku radioed me, you see. I think you +were reading his message at the time I entered. Did you finish it?" + +"No," said the Hawk. + +"You'll find it interesting. Let me read it to you." And Tantril took +up the memo. + +"From Ku Sui to Lar Tantril: Search House No. 574 in Port o' Porno +closely for anything pertinent to Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow or +giving clue to his whereabouts. Keep what you obtain for me; I will +come to your ranch in five days. Watch for Hawk Carse, Eliot Leithgow +and a Negro, arriving from space at Satellite III in self-propulsive +space-suits." There followed some details concerning the suits' +mechanism; then: "Carse caused me certain trouble and came near +hurting my major inventions. I want him badly." + + * * * * * + +At this the adventurer's face tightened; his gray eyes went frosty. +All he and Leithgow had deduced, then, was true. Dr. Ku had survived +the crashing of the asteroid's dome. The mechanisms had also +survived--and certainly the coordinated brains--the brains he, Hawk +Carse, had promised to destroy! Now trapped, it seemed that promise +could never be fulfilled.... + +Yet even through this torturing thought of a promise unkept, the +Hawk's thumb and forefinger moved in their slight grinding motion on +the first sheet of the sheaf of papers.... + +Lar Tantril reached out his hand for the sheaf. "So, obeying Dr. Ku's +orders, I had the house searched and got these papers. They, must be +valuable, Carse, since you wanted them so badly. Ku Sui will be +pleased. Hand them over." + +With but the barest flick of gray eyes downward. Hawk Carse gave the +sheaf to Tantril. + +But his brief glance at the top-most sheet told him all he wanted to +know. Gradually, methodically, the motion of thumb and forefinger had +totally effaced the revealing figure 5,576.34, the one clue to the +location of Leithgow's laboratory. Enough! What he had set out to do +was finished. The chief task was achieved! + +"And now, perhaps," Lar Tantril chuckled, "a little entertainment." + +His men pricked up their ears. This language was more understandable. +Entertainment meant playing with the prisoner--torture. And alkite, +probably, and isuan. A night of revelry! + +But Hawk Carse smiled thinly at this. + +"Entertainment, Tantril?" his cold voice said. He paused, and then +added slowly: "What a fool you are!" + + * * * * * + +Lar Tantril was not annoyed by the words. He only laughed and slapped +his thigh. + +"Yes?" he mocked. "Truly, Captain Carse, you must be frightened, to +try and anger me so I'll shoot! Do you fear a skewer-blade so much? We +would leave most of you for Ku Sui!" + +Carse shook his head. "No, Lar Tantril, I don't want you to shoot me. +I'm telling you you're a fool--because you think me one." + +With a wave of his hands the Venusian protested: "No, no, not at all. +You're infernally clever, Carse. I'll always be the first to admit +it." + +"Then do you think I'd attack your ranch alone?" + +"You'd like me to believe you have friends hidden somewhere?" Tantril +asked, smiling tolerantly. + +Carse's voice came back curtly. "Believe what you like, but learn +this: It's your boast that your ranch is impregnable, guarded on every +side and from every angle. I'm telling you it's not. Its vulnerable. +It's wide open to one way of attack and my friends and I know it +well." + +For a second the Venusian's assurance wavered. + +"Vulnerable?" he said. "Open to attack? You're just stalling!" + +Whip-like words cut through. + +"Wait and see. Wait till the ranch is stormed and wiped out. Wait +twenty minutes! Only twenty!" + +Hawk Carse was always listened to when he spoke in such manner. Lar +Tantril stared at the hard gray eyes boring into his. + +"Why do you tell me this?" he asked. Then, with a smile: "Why not wait +until my ranch is wiped out, as you say?" His smile broadened. "Until +these hidden friends attack?" + +"Simply because I must insure my living. Nothing my friends could do +would prevent your having plenty of time to kill me before you +yourselves were destroyed. I think, under the circumstances, you +_would_ kill me. And I must go free. I have made a promise. A very +important promise. I must be free to carry it out." + +"Just what are you aiming at?" + +"I'm offering," said the Hawk, "to show you where your fort is +vulnerable--in time for you to protect it. I'll do this if you'll let +me go free. _You need not release me till afterwards._" + + * * * * * + +Lar Tantril's mouth fell half open at this surprising turn. He was +unquestionably taken aback. But he snapped his lips shut and +considered the offer. A trick? Carse was famed for them. A trap? But +how? He scanned his men. Fifty to one; fifty ray-guns on an unarmed +man helpless in a hampering prison of metal and fabric. If a trap, +Carse could not possibly escape death. But yet.... + +Tantril walked over to his man Esret, and, stepping apart, they +conferred in whispers. + +"Is he trying to trick us?" the chief asked. + +"I don't see how he can hope to. He can hardly move in that suit. It +ties him down. We could keep tight guard upon him. He couldn't +possibly get away. And at the slightest sign of something shady--" + +"Yes; but you know him." + +"What he says is sensible. Naturally he wants to live. He knows we'll +shoot him if he tries to trick us, and he knows we'll do it if we're +attacked! We'll of course leave men at all defensive stations. If +there _is_ a weakness here, if the ranch _is_ vulnerable--we should +learn what it is. It'll cost us nothing. We can't lose, and we might +be saving everything. Of course we won't let him go afterwards." + +Tantril considered a moment longer, then said: + +"Yes, I think you are right." + +He turned back to the waiting Carse. + +"Agreed," he said. "Show this vulnerable point to us and you'll be +released. But no false moves! One sign of treachery and you're dead!" + +The Hawk's strong-cut face showed no change. It was only inwardly that +he smiled. + + * * * * * + +Their very manner of accompanying him showed their respect for the +slender adventurer. + +He had no gun; he was stooped by the unrelieved weight of the massive +helmet, the suit itself and the chunky blocks of metal which were the +boots; his every dragging step was that of a man shackled by +chains--but he was Hawk Carse! And so, as he shuffled out through the +front door of the house and lumbered with painful effort across the +clearing, he was surrounded by a glitter of ray-guns held by the +close-pressing circle of men. Tantril's own gun kept steady on his +broad fabric-clad back, and of its proximity he kept reminding Carse. + +New guards were already on watch on each of the three +watch-platforms, their eyes sweeping around the clearing and the +jungle and the dark stretch of the lake, and often returning to the +crowd which marked the stumbling giant's progress below. Each point of +defense was manned. In the ranch's central control room, a +steel-sheathed cubby in the basement of Tantril's house, men stood +watchful, their hands ready at the wheels and levers which commanded +the ranch's ray-batteries, their eyes on the vision-screen which gave +to this unseen heart of the place a panoramic view of what was +transpiring above. And all waited on what the grotesque, bloated +figure they watched might reveal. + +Watch--watch--watch. A hundred eyes, below, above, beside the Hawk, +were centered and alert on each move of his clumsy progress. The +barrels of two-score ray-guns transfixed him. Under such guard he +arrived at the ranch's fence where it approached the Great Briney. + +"Open the gate," said the Hawk curtly. "It's down there." + +He pointed to where the lake's pebbled beach shelved downward to the +tiny murmurous waves, a ten-foot stretch of ghostly white between the +guarding fence and the water. + +"Down there?" repeated Tantril slowly. "Down to the lake?" + +"Yes!" Carse snapped irritably. "Well, will you open the gate? I'm +very tired: I can't bear this suit much longer." + + * * * * * + +Lar Tantril conferred uneasily with Esret, while his men cast +shivering glances out over the dark wind-rippled plain of the lake. +But no enemy showed there. The beach was clear for fifty yards on each +side. + +"By Iapetus!" the adventurer complained harshly, "are you children, +to be afraid of the dark? Tantril, put your gun into me, and shoot if +I try anything suspicious! Open the gate!" + +Finally the lock was unfastened and the gate swung out. Tantril +stationed a man there, ready to close and lock it in case of need, and +then, Hawk Carse, still surrounded by the alert Venusians, shuffled +down to the edge of the water. + +Over the Great Briney was silence. No shape broke its calm. The air +held only the nervous whispers of the crowd and the scrape and crunch +of the lone Earthling's dragging boots as they made wide furrows in +the hard pebbly soil of the beach. + +The men had fallen back a little, and now were a half circle around +him down to the water's brink. The watch-beacon's light caught them +full there, and threw great blots of shadows lakeward from them. Their +ray-guns were gripped tighter as their shifty eyes darted from his +huge bulk to the water ahead, and back. Doubt and fear swayed them +all. + +The Hawk wasted no time, but stepped out to knee-high level on the +sharply shelving bottom. At this Tantril objected. + +"Hold, Carse!" he roared. "You play for time, I think! Where is this +point of attack?" + +The bloated figure did not answer him, but bent over as if searching +for something under the tiny waves which now were slapping his thigh. +He reached one hand down and probed around with it, apparently +feeling. The eyes watching him were wide and fear-fascinated. + + * * * * * + +"Here--or no," the Hawk muttered to himself, though a dozen could hear +him. "A little farther, I think.... Here--but no, I forgot: the tide +has come in. A little farther...." He stopped suddenly and +straightened, turned to the Venusian chief. "Don't forget. Lar +Tantril, you have promised I can go free!" + +Then he resumed his search of the bottom, the black surface of water +up to his waist. Again the fearful Venusian leader roared an +objection: + +"You're tricking us. Carse, you little devil--" + +"Oh, don't be an ass!" Carse snapped back. "As if I could get +away--your ray-guns on me!" + +Another half minute passed; a few more short steps were taken. A +muttered oath came from one of the wet, uncomfortable men in the grip +of fear. Several there were on the brink of turning in, a panicky dash +for the safety of the enclosure behind, the warm buildings, guarded by +ray-batteries--and yet an awful fascination held them. What metallic +horror of the deeps was being exposed? + +"Just a second, now," the Hawk was murmuring. "You'll all see.... +Somewhere ... right ... here ... somewhere...." + +He held them taut, expectant. The water licked around the waist of his +suit. One more slow step; one more yet. + +"_Here!_" he cried triumphantly, and clicked his face-plate closed. +And the men who stared, faces pale, hearts pounding, ray-guns at the +ready, saw him no longer. The water had closed over that shiny metal +helmet. Only a mocking ripple was left. + +Hawk Carse was gone! + + * * * * * + +Gone!--and laughing to himself. + +The space-suit, his heavy prison of metal and fabric, would protect +him from water as well as from space! It offered his golden--his +only--opportunity. It had been pierced by Tantril's shots, back in the +house, but only the gravity-plate compartments, which were sealed and +separate. It was still--after he had closed the mittens--air-tight, an +effective little submarine in the dark waters of the Great Briney! + +So Carse followed his black course over the lake-bottom laughing and +laughing. In his mind he could see what he had left behind: the men, +shivering there in the water for an instant, completely befogged, and +perhaps firing one or two shots at where he had disappeared; then +turning and breaking back in a grand rush for the fence and safety. +And the ray-batteries, all manned and centered on the lake; Tantril, +in a very fury of rage, but fearful, preparing for a siege; preparing +for anything that might loom suddenly from the water! And all of them +wondering what lay beneath its calm surface; what he, Hawk Carse, had +gone to join! + +For days they would stare fearfully at the lake, while the tides +rolled steadily in and out; for days the ray-batteries would be held +ready, and none would venture outside the fence. It might take hours +for the realization of his trick to sink in--but they still would not +be sure of anything, and would have to keep vigilant against the +still-possible attack. + +Fourteen miles up the coast was Ban Wilson's ranch, and Eliot Leithgow +and Friday waiting there. He would rest for a while, and then the +three of them would go home to the laboratory--whose location was now +still secret. And then, later, there was his promise to the +coordinated brains to be kept.... + +But that was in the future. For the present, he went his dark, watery +way, laughing. Laughing and laughing again.... + +Yes, John Sewell, first of all Hawk Carse's traits was his +resourcefulness! + + * * * * * + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Bluff of the Hawk, by Anthony Gilmore + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUFF OF THE HAWK *** + +***** This file should be named 29298.txt or 29298.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/9/29298/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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