The Passing of Ku Sui Part 2

Straight in the three figures flew, without hesitation or swerving, closer and closer to the watching man in the tree. The Hawk's lips compressed as his old enemy neared, and into his watching gray eyes came the deadly cold emotionless look that was known and feared throughout s.p.a.ce, wherever outlaws walked or flew. Ku Sui--so close!

There, in that even-gliding figure, was the author of the infamy done to Leithgow, of the crime to the brains that lived though their bodies were dead; of the organized isuan trade. Go for him now? The thought flashed temptingly through Ca.r.s.e's head, but he saw sense at once. Far too dangerous, with the powerful, watching ranch so close. He could not jeopardize the success of his promise to the brains.

And so Dr. Ku Sui pa.s.sed, while two pairs of eyes from two leafy trees watched closely every instant of his pa.s.sing, and one man's hand dropped unconsciously to the b.u.t.t of a raygun.

Quickly, the Eurasian and his servitors were gone, their straight, steady flight obscured by the trees around Tantril's ranch, below which they slanted.

Dr. Ku Sui had arrived at his a.s.signation. But where was the asteroid?

Through his instrument, Ca.r.s.e sought horizon and heaven for the ma.s.sive body, but in vain. He spoke into his helmet-radio's mike.

"Ban?"

"Yes, Ca.r.s.e?"

"See the asteroid anywhere?"

"Nowhere, by Betelgeuse! I've looked till my eyes--"

The Hawk cut him short. "All right. Stand by. Friday?"

"Yes, suh?"

"Can you see anything special?"

"No, suh--only that the three platform guards keep lookin' down towards the center of the ranch."

"Good. That means Ku Sui's being received," said Ca.r.s.e; and then he considered swiftly for a minute. Decided, he continued:

"Ban and Friday, you both wait where you are, keeping a steady lookout. None of us can see the asteroid, but it must be somewhere comparatively near, for Dr. Ku has no reason to bother with a long journey in a s.p.a.ce-suit. I think the asteroid's close down, hidden by that distant ridge in the direction from which they came. I'm going to find it. When I do, I'll tell you where to come meet me. Inform me at once if Ku Sui leaves or if anything unusual happens. Understood?"

The a.s.senting voices rang back to him simultaneously.

"Right!" he said; and slowly his great bulging figure lifted.

Cautiously, the adventurer made through the watrari tree to the side facing away from the ranch. There, poising for a second, he manipulated the lateral direction-rod on the suit's chest, and, still very slowly, floated free from the shrouding leaves. Then, mindful of the lookouts on the towers behind, he employed the tactics he had used before, and kept constantly below the uneven crown of the jungle, gliding at an easy rate through the leafy lanes created by the banked tree-tops.

In that fas.h.i.+on, in the upthrust arms of the jungle, twisting, turning, sometimes doubling, but following always a path the objective of which was straight ahead, Hawk Ca.r.s.e soared soundlessly for miles.

He maneuvered his way with practised ease, and his speed increased as the need for hiding his flight decreased.

He was familiar with the landmarks of the region, and it was towards the most p.r.o.nounced of them that he flew. Soon it was looming far above him: a long, high ridge, rearing more than three miles above the level of the Great Briney, and crowded with trees even taller and st.u.r.dier than those of the lower jungle plains. Beyond it was the most likely spot....

The Hawk paused at the base of the ridge. There had been no warning from Ban or Friday, but, to make sure, he established radio connection.

"Friday?" he asked into the microphone. "Any activity on the ranch?

Any sign they're aware of our presence?"

Clear and deep from miles behind, the Negro's voice answered:

"No, suh. Dead still. I guess they're inside the buildings--except the guards, and they're taking things easy. Where are you, suh?"

"About ten miles from you, 'north' and a little 'east,' at the foot of the ridge. I think I'll know something soon now. Stand by."

Then Ca.r.s.e moved forward again, slowly winding up between the trees to the summit of the ridge.

At the top he stopped. His eyes took in a long, wide valley, of which the ridge where he hung was the southernmost barrier. He knew at once something was wrong. Through his opened face-plate he was aware of a breathless hush that hovered over the valley, a hush which embraced its fifty miles or more of jungle length, a hush which was rendered actually visible in several places by the unmoving, limp-hanging leaves of the trees. Below, in the valley, all the myriad life of the jungle seemed to have frozen, and only occasionally was the pause of life and sound disturbed by the faint, m.u.f.fled cry of a bird.

What had wrought the hush? Nothing showed to the naked eye.

From the summit of the ridge, Hawk Ca.r.s.e lifted Leithgow's gla.s.ses to his eyes. And the valley was suddenly changed, and the hush explained.

The miracle lay before him.

CHAPTER III

_The Raid_

A dim, s.h.i.+mmering outline through the infra-red, the valley lay revealed as a great natural cradle for a mammoth body of rock which had been swung down from the deeps of s.p.a.ce to the surface of Satellite III.

t.i.tanic, breath-taking in its majesty of sheer bulk, the asteroid of Dr. Ku Sui was made visible.

It hung suspended, low over the tree-tops of the valley, and it filled the valley with rock and towered above it. This was the asteroid, exploded into a separate ent.i.ty by the cataclysm that gave birth to the planets, which Dr. Ku Sui had wrenched from the asteroidal belt between Mars and Jupiter and built into a world of his own, swinging it through s.p.a.ce as he willed, and cloaking it with invisibility to baffle those who marveled at how he came and went, unseen, on his various errands. This was the mighty rock fortress in which lay the key-stone of his mounting power. This his lonely, unsuspected home, come for a while to rest....

Hawk Ca.r.s.e scanned it closely.

It lay roughly head-on to him, its nearest ma.s.sive, craggy end lying some three miles from where he hung. On that end lived the life of the asteroid, and were located all Ku Sui's works. On a s.p.a.ce planed flat in the rock, rested the dome, like an inverted quarter-mile-wide bowl of glittering gla.s.slike substance, laced inside with spidery supporting struts--the half bubble from inside which men guided the ma.s.s. Therein an artificial atmosphere was maintained, even as on any s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p, and there lay the group of buildings, chief of which was the precious laboratory in which were the coordinated brains to whom the Hawk had made his promise.

Ca.r.s.e lowered the gla.s.ses, and again the Jupiter-light poured normally around him, the valley hushed and seemingly empty once more. He put through his call to Friday and Ban, giving them simple directions how to find him. And twenty-five minutes after that, he saw, looking back down the ridge, their two giant metallic figures come twisting and turning in noiseless flight through the top lanes of the jungle below, and they were together.

It was seldom that Friday would intrude his thoughts when with his master and his master's friends, so when he arrived he merely surveyed the asteroid through his gla.s.ses and was silent. But Ban Wilson, after a long, comprehensive stare, during which one could almost feel the amazement leaping through him, sputtered:

"By jumping Jupiter, Ca.r.s.e--I never would've believed it! That Ku Sui's sure a genius! To have that whole asteroid there, man, and to take it with him wherever he wants to go! Look at it! Fifteen, twenty miles long, it must be! And that dome--"

"Yes," said the Hawk shortly, "but easy on that now. We've work to do, and it's got to be done quickly. Now listen:

"There are two main port-locks in the dome for s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+ps, and the starboard one has a smaller man-size lock beside it. We're going to the smaller one. There'll no doubt be a guard on watch at it, so to him we're Ku Sui and the two men who accompanied him. We'll have to chance recognition; but at least there's no difference in the suits we're wearing, and we'll clasp our gla.s.ses on all the way to the lock, for surely Dr. Ku has to use some similar device. Keep your faces averted as much as you can though, when near, and your rayguns in your belts. If there's to be gunplay, leave the first shot to me. You'll both follow me just as those two followed Dr. Ku."

Ban Wilson asked: "Will you go down into the valley between the trees, then up the face of the rock? The guard wouldn't see us until we were right at the lock."

"No, he wouldn't: but he'd wonder why Ku Sui was being so cautious.

We'll go straight across, in full view. We'll get in easily, or--well, that depends. Ready?"