_Pursuit_
That was the Hawk's method, and it had given him the name which he had
made famous. It was characteristic of the man that he preferred to
strike at an enemy ship in a wild, breath-taking swoop, even as the
fierce hawk plummets from high heaven to sink its talons deep into the
flesh of its more sluggish prey. Nerves were uncomfortable things to
have on such occasions, and Harkness had them, and accordingly he felt
his heart hammer and something tight seemed to bind his throat. He
tried to assume the unshakable calmness of the motionless figure at
the stick, but could not, for his body was only flesh and blood--and
Hawk Carse was tempered, frosty, steel. Through staring eyes the
navigator watched the surface of Iapetus rushing into the bow ports,
watched it spread accelerating outward, until he could plainly see the
pirate ship lying there, and the nearby figures of men tugging at the
heavy boxes of horns.
His eyes were on those figures when they broke. First they teetered
hesitantly a moment, glancing wildly around and up at the vision of
death that was coming like a silver comet from the skies, and then
they melted apart. Three scrambled towards the rim of jungle foliage
close at hand, while their fellows leaped in the other direction,
trying to make an open port in their craft. Harkness saw them tumble
headlong through it and slam it shut. Then a web of blue streaks
appeared around the ship, and softened until her hull was bathed is
ghostly bluish light.
"Their defensive ray-web's on, sir!" he managed to gasp. Carse, though
close, might not have heard, so intently was he watching. The altitude
dial's pointer reached for one thousand and slid past. Harkness's face
was pale and drawn; his tight-gripped fingers and clenched teeth
showed that he expected to crash into the ground in a molten,
shapeless tomb of steel. But Friday was grinning, his teeth a slash of
white.
"Stand by bow projectors," sounded the Hawk's clipped voice. The negro
extended his hands and rumbled:
"Ready, suh."
"Fire."
"Fire!" Friday roared.
His rich laugh rang out and he whirled the wheels over. With a hissing
as of a hundred snakes, the rays struck.
* * * * *
Well aimed, the bolt speared straight and true. The distance was
short, and it came from generators that were perhaps not equaled in
space; no ordinary ship's defensive web could resist its vicious
thrust. From the streak of silver that represented the Hawk's swoop, a
stream of orange cut a swathe through the air ahead, holding
accurately on the brigand ship. For just a tick of time there was a
turmoil of color as offensive ray met defensive web; then the air
cleared again--and the pirate was unmarked!
By rights she should have been split in two; and, though his face did
not show it, it must have been surprising to Carse that she wasn't.
With one flick of the wrist he wrenched the _Star Devil_ out of her
plunge and sent her scudding, a hundred feet up, over the jungle rim.
Friday was gaping. Harkness, still numb from the dive, foolishly
staring; and then the brigand bared her fangs in return.
Orange light winked from her stern, and the Hawk's ship was bathed in
a streak of color. But the bolt caromed harmlessly off the side of the
arcing _Star Devil_! and the next instant the pirate's lean bulk
swayed, lifted a little and zoomed up into the heavens, abandoning the
boxes of horn without further fight.
"Runnin' foh it! Scared stiff!" muttered Friday, unholy joy in his
gleaming eyes. He looked at the figure at the stick. "Follow 'em now,
suh, an' wear out their projectors?"
Carse thoughtfully smoothed his bangs with his free hand. "Plenty of
time for that," he said patiently. "Some of the men on the ranch may
still be alive: we must care for them. I'm going to land. Tell the
engineer to keep watch through the electelscope on that ship. I'll
start overtaking it shortly."
"Funny our rays didn't ha'm 'em," Friday ruminated aloud. "Ain't no
ordinary craft, that. No, suh, they's more in this heah business than
hits yo' eyes!"
"Now you're getting cynical, Eclipse," the Hawk said dryly.
* * * * *
A quarter-mile-square block of land had been fenced off as a corral
for the ninety-head herd of bull phantis Carse kept on Iapetus. These
creatures resembled mostly the old ostrich of Earth, but grew no
feathers. The neck, however was shorter than the ostrich's; the
leathery skin of a drab gray color; the powerful hind feet, on which
they stood erect, prehensile and armed with short stabbing spurs; the
forearms short and used for plucking the delicate shoots and young
leaves on which they lived. There was a dim flicker of rudimentary
intelligence inside the bullet heads; they recognized men as their
enemies, and hated them. And therefore they necessitated careful
handling, for, even without the valuable head-horns, their
sharp-spurred feet could rip a human being into shreds in seconds.
They were clustered now behind the wire corral-fence, electrified to
prevent them from breaking through. They bellowed angrily and shoved
each other about as their wicked little blood-shot eyes caught sight
of the _Star Devil_ as she came dropping gently down.
At the electelscope of the descending craft was the ship's engineer.
He had just centered the instrument on the fleeing pirate craft that
by now was leaving the satellite's atmosphere, and the image was large
on the screen above the bow windows, where he kept a steady eye on it.
The inner door of the port-lock swung open, the outer door down, and
Carse walked through, followed by Friday and Harkness.
An ugly scene lay spread out before them in the glaring daylight. The
trader had only gone a few paces when he paused and looked down at an
outsprawled thing that had once been a man. Stooping, he very gently
turned the mess of charred flesh over and peered at what was left of
the face. There were small, burnt holes in it, and the flesh
surrounding them looked as though it had been suspended for some time
over a slow fire....
Carse rose and stared into space.
"Ruthers, a guard," he said softly, as if speaking to himself. He
walked on.
Another heap of flesh was pitched before the front wall of the
ranch-house. The man it had been a little while before had evidently
been running for the door when the deadly rays had got him. His
ray-gun was lying a few feet away. Again Carse stooped and again very
gently pulled the ragged thing over.
"By God!" stammered Harkness suddenly, staring, his face white,
"that--that's Jack O'Fallon--old Jack O'Fallon! Why, we went to
navigation school together! We--"
"Yes," said the Hawk, "O'Fallon, overseer." He stepped into the house.
Friday, impassive and grim, pulled Harkness away from the distorted
body.
* * * * *
Three more were tumbled together behind a splintered table in the main
room. The rays had done their work well. Three were welded, it seemed,
into one.... It was some time before the Hawk's frigid whisper came.
"Martin ... Olafson ... and this--Antil ... Antil was the only
Venusian I ever liked...."
The chairs and tables in the room were overturned, most of them bore
the seared scars of ray-guns, which showed plainly enough that there
had been a desperate last minute hand-to-hand struggle there, after
the defensive ray-web had failed and the pirates rushed the building.
The radio alcove was choked with seared, cracked wreckage. Crane, the
operator, still sat in his seat, but he was slumped over forward, and
his head and chest were pitted with slanting ray holes. One hand had
been reaching for a dial. The other was twisted and charred.
"And Crane, the last," said Hawk Carse, and for some moments he stood
there, his face cold and unmoving save for the tiny twitching of the
left eyelid. Utter silence rested over the bitter three--a silence
broken only by the occasional roar of an angry phanti bull outside in
the enclosure.
Finally Carse took a deep breath and turned to Friday.
"You'll see to their burying," he ordered quietly. "Get the power ray
from the ship and burn out two big pits on that knoll off the corner
of the corral."
Friday looked at him in puzzlement. "Two, suh?" he repeated. "Why two?
Why not put 'em all in one?"
"You will put all my men in one. I'll need the other later.... You,"
he went on, to Harkness, "get the cargo of horns aboard. We can't
leave it out there, for three of those pirates fled into the jungle. I
haven't time to find them, and they'd come out and bury the horns if
we left them. I'll be with you soon. We take off in ten minutes."
"Yes, sir," answered the navigator, and he and the negro went out.
* * * * *
For a little while Carse stayed in the cubby. As he softly stroked the
flaxen bangs of hair over his brow, he visualized what had happened
inside that house of death, piecing a number of things together and
forming a whole. On the surface it seemed plain enough, and yet there
were one or two points.... His face showed a trace of puzzlement. He
shook his head slightly; then he stooped and picked up the radio
operator's body with an ease that might have seemed surprising from
such a slender man, and walked out of the house.
Beyond one corner of the corral, upon a slight rise in the ground,
Friday was melting out the second grave with the ship's great portable
ray-gun. Carse laid Crane's body gently down in the first grave, then
went to where Harkness, with the _Star Devil's_ radio-man and cook,
was loading the cargo of horns aboard. The trader opened several of
the boxes, glanced at the upper layers to inspect the quality, and,
satisfied, closed them again. All the boxes were trundled soon into
the craft's open port and aft to her cargo hold.
The engineer on watch at the electelscope and visi-screen felt a hand
on his shoulder and looked around to find his captain standing by him.
He pointed up at the screen: on it, the brigand ship was a mere four
inches in size, and bearing straight out on an unwavering course. "I
reckoned their speed to be about ten thousand an hour, a minute ago,
sir," he reported. "Now about five thousand miles away."
"How soon," Carse asked, "do you think we could overhaul them?"
The other grinned. "If you're in a hurry, sir, about two hours and a
half."
"I am in a hurry. I want all the speed you can muster."
"Yes, sir. Might be able to get it down, to two."
The Hawk nodded. "Try. Return to your post."
Outside, through the port, he saw Friday smoothing over the grave, the
burying finished, and he beckoned him in. At that second Harkness
reported the cargo all fastened down. Carse snapped out his orders.
"Harkness," he said shortly, "you and Friday with me in the control
cabin. Sparks, you can get an hour's sleep, but leave the radio
receiver open. Cook, an hour's rest if you want it--and I think you'd
better want it. There's war ahead. Close port!"
The inner and outer doors nestled snugly, one after the other, into
place with a hiss; the rows of gravity plates in the ship's belly
angled ever so slightly. She quivered, then, in a surge of power,
lifted straight up and poised; then, answering the touch of
space-stick and accelerator, she went streaking through the atmosphere
on the trail of the distant craft that had left its mark of blood on
Iapetus and provoked the vengeance of the Hawk....