_The Hawk Prepares a Surprise_
Hawk Carse's icy poise in times of emotional stress never failed to
amaze friends and enemies alike. Most of them swore he had no nerves,
and that in that way he was not human. This estimate, of course, is
foolish; Carse was perhaps too human, as was proved by the
all-consuming object of his life. It was rather, probably, an inward
vanity that made him stand composed as a statue while death was
gnawing near; that had, once, led him actually to file his nails when
apparently trapped and hotly besieged, with the wicked hiss of
ray-guns all around.
And so he stood within his suit now--calm, quite collected, his face
graven, while the yellow tendrils carpeted the whole cabin, penetrated
between the twin banks of instruments on each side and clouded the bow
windows, visi-screen and positionals until the two living men aboard
that ship of death were completely shut off from outside vision.
Friday, his large white eyes never for a moment still, and waiting as
the Hawk was waiting to find whether or not their suits, too, harbored
the fungus, could quite easily have been scared into a state of panic;
but the sight of the steely figure near him eased his nerves and
brought a vague kind of reassurance.
Minutes went by. Presently the Hawk said softly into his microphone:
"We're safe, now, I think. You'd better go aft and see what state the
ship's in. Come right back." And as Friday left, wading through the
clinging growth, the trader went to the eye-piece of the electelscope.
He brushed the puffy covering of yellow silt away and adjusted the
instrument's controls as best he could, centering it on where Judd's
craft had last been. Then he peered through--and saw that which made
him start.
The _Star Devil_ was rolling round and round, like a ball!
* * * * *
Carse looked out on a star-studded panorama that was sweeping crazily
by. Now the cloudy globe of Iapetus, which had just before lain far
behind, came swinging into view, sliding rapidly from the bottom of
his field of view to the top, and so out of sight again, to quickly
give place to the flaming, ringed sphere of Saturn, which in turn
passed away and left the star-spangled blackness of space. Then
Iapetus once more. He snapped the electelscope off abruptly, and
turned from it to see Friday come clumping back.
"Swept everything clean, suh," the negro reported gloomily. "That
fungus's thick; cain't even see the men's bodies, it's so deep. It's
that way, all over."
"It's down in the gravity propulsion plates too," Carse said shortly.
"Their adjustment's been ruined by it, and we're out of control,
turning over and over. I couldn't possibly see Judd. Well, we've got
to go down to the plates and try and clean them."
It was a weird scene that faced him in the engine room. The complex
instruments and machinery were draped with straggling ferns of yellow;
up above, a solid clump some ten feet thick hung on the platform where
the engineer usually stood--a living tomb. The usual purr of the
mechanisms was muffled and hushed. So fecund was the fungus that the
path Friday had cleared in his passage aft was already filled, and
Carse had to clear a new one. The growth was deep there, but still
deeper in the next compartment.
It was practically a solid mass of yellow, for in it their invader had
found food. It had fed well on the lockers of supplies and devoured
all but the bones and clothing of the two men whom it had
caught--radio-operator and cook. Carse fought on through this tough,
clinging sea and came at last to the cargo hold, where, in the deck,
was the man-hole that gave passage down to the 'tween-decks
compartment where the rows of gravity propulsion plates were located.
* * * * *
Friday raised the cover with a wrench: then, preceded by the rays of
their hand-flashes, they climbed down and wormed forward as best they
could in their hampering suits, to the plates. They found they had
lost their customary glitter beneath powdery coatings of yellow,
sufficient to disturb their faint electric currents and
microscopically adjusted angles. On hands and knees--for the
compartment, though as wide as the ship's inner shell, was only three
feet in height--the Hawk stopped and said:
"We might be able to get some use out of these plates if we can keep
the fungus brushed off. It's thin: let's try it."
But the yellow growth's vitality baulked them. Sweating from their
awkward exertions inside the hot space-suits, they again and again
brushed clean the plates with pieces of waste--only to see the
feathery particles regather as quickly as they were cleared away.
There wasn't more than an inch of the fungus, but that inch stuck.
There was no removing it.
"No use, boss," gasped the negro, pausing breathless. "Cain't do it.
Nothin' to do, I guess, but wait an' see what de Kite does. He'll sure
want this ship and the horn."
"I know," his captain answered slowly. "He'll want this ship, for it's
the fastest in space--but I can't understand how he'll board us. I'm
going up and see what I can find out. You stay here. Try cleaning the
plates again."
Up through the man-hole he went, and forward to the control cabin.
And, as before, the electelscope's eye-piece held a surprise for him.
Somehow, the _Star Devil's_ speed of wild tumbling had lessened. A
moment later the reason appeared. As her bow dipped down and down,
there slid across the field of view, about a mile away, the lighted
ports of another ship; and, from this other ship's nose there winked a
spot of green, the beginning of a ray-stream which stabbed across the
gulf to impinge on the _Star Devil's_ bow. Carse could feel his craft
steady as it struck. It was a gravital ray, with strong magnetic
properties, which Judd was using to stop her turnings so he and his
men could board!
* * * * *
Again and again the beam flashed across the Hawk's field of view, and
he knew it was raying its mark neatly each time her bow swung abeam,
for soon she was hardly turning at all. Then Judd evidently was
satisfied. The port-lights of his ship veered aside; drew to a
position abreast of the other. The two cold gray eyes that watched saw
the outer port-lock door of the pirate open, revealing six figures,
clad in space-suits and connected by a rope, that stepped out, pushed,
and came floating towards the _Star Devil_.
Swiftly Carse moved. For many reasons it was useless, he rapidly
decided, to try and surprise them as they boarded; there was a better
and surer way. And, as always, he attended to every little
detail--details that to others might have seemed trivial--of this
preferred way.
With quick, strong fingers he removed the fungus-choked body of
Harkness from its space-suit, and threw the suit into a nearby locker.
From another locker he selected a loop of yellow-encrusted rope.
Holding this over one arm, he made his way back rapidly to the aft
man-hole, closed it carefully behind him and crept forward to the
anxious negro who was still futilely dusting the plates. He told what
he had seen, but nothing else.
Friday noted the rope, and he twisted his whole body to get a sight of
Carse's gray eyes, through the face-shield.
"What we do, then, suh?" he asked. "Try an surprise 'em?"
"Can't do that; we'd still be helpless, without a way to remove this
fungus. They probably know how to do it, and we've got to give them a
chance."
Puzzlement pricked the negro. "Then what you goin' to do with that
rope?"
"You'll soon see," snapped Hawk Carse.
* * * * *
They waited.
It was hot and stuffy down in the belly of the ship, and also utterly
black, for the trader had flicked off his hand-flash. Friday was
unhappily possessed of an active curiosity; he wanted terribly to go
on with his questions and ask Carse what his plan was; but he did not
dare, for he knew very well from past experience that the Hawk was
impatient of detailing his schemes in advance. So he sat in silence,
and sweated, and stared gloomily into the darkness, thinking uneasy
thoughts.
True, he thought, Judd the Kite did not know that Carse and he were
still alive; on the contrary, he was probably convinced that they were
dead; but what good did that do? Surely it would have been better to
have surprised the brigands when boarding, but Captain Carse was
against that. And they were hopelessly outnumbered.
Friday remembered a tale told him once by a survivor of a trading ship
Judd the Kite had destroyed. It wasn't a nice tale. The Kite, so the
report ran, was diabolically ingenious with a long peeling knife, and
could improvise with it for hours. Friday pursued the tack of thought, and
then suddenly began to sweat in earnest. He recalled--horrible!--that Judd
possessed a special dislike for colored gentlemen!...
"Oh, Lawd!" he groaned, unconsciously--to have a cold voice ring in
his earphones.
"Quiet!" it snapped. "They're entering."
The negro threw a switch on his helmet so he could catch outside
noises. His body tensed. From above, unmistakably, had come the hiss
of the inner port-lock door opening. And again, moments later, the
hiss echoed. Twice! The lock could hold three men at a time. That
probably meant that all six had boarded. Friday turned in the darkness
and peered at Carse.
The adventurer without warning flicked on his hand-flash. The beam
fell on the parallel planes of the yellow-covered gravity plates. The
negro, every nerve in him jumping from impatience and suspense, gazed
at them, and suddenly straightened. The mold-like fungus which had
prevented them from getting the ship into control was slowly melting
away. It was dwindling into fine dust!
"Gas," came a soft whisper to him. "As I expected, Judd's cleaning it
out with some sort of gas. But the plates won't work yet--not until
they're polished bright." Unthinking, Friday raised his hand to his
helmet fastenings. "Keep your face-shield shut!" he was ordered
crisply. "The gas would be as fatal as the fungus."
* * * * *
Silence rested tensely over the two men, to be broken at last by the
clump of feet proceeding aft on the deck above.
Carse switched off the light. His voice was but faintly audible.
"Coming down to clean off the dust. He'll have a flash. Hide behind
the truss-work at your side, and when he gets here seize him by the
neck. I'll be with you right away. I want no noise."
Friday saw a great light, and grinned in the confidence it brought
him. Of course! That explained the rope. The plan was so simple it had
escaped him. Already he felt cheerful. It was only mental worries, and
never physical hazards, that unsettled him. He angled around the
truss-work and shrank into as small a space as possible--which wasn't
very small, as he still wore his bulky, clumsy suit.
The clump-clump of feet had died: now there came the sound of the
man-hole aft being raised. A white beam pronged down into the
darkness, felt around and flicked off. Boots clanged on the connecting
ladder; reached the bottom. The light appeared again, lower now, and
came slowly forward. Limned faintly against the reflected light was
the outline of a crouching man's body.
He went to hands and knees and progressed carefully, his flash darting
to left and right. Suddenly, in a certain light, the two who awaited
his coming saw a swarthy, black-stubbled face in profile. He wore no
space-suit! That meant, Friday reflected, that the brigands had
cleared the ship of the gas in some way. It meant that they could get
out of their own suits.
But they could not possibly do so at the moment. They heard the nearby
pirate's breathing, a harsh oath as he stubbed a toe. The negro
tightened his giant arms and held himself ready, his eyes steady on
the black outline which signified his quarry. Then the pirate was
close enough.
It was over in seconds. Rounding the truss, Friday caught the man in
the armored crook of his arm. A startled croak preluded the thump of
two bodies on the hull; there was the tinkle of a falling hand-flash
and a slight squirming which was quickly stopped by a belting punch.
* * * * *
Then Carse was there in the darkness, looping his rope around the
pirate's arms and legs--a difficult job when wearing a bulky
space-suit in such cramped quarters. He used a bunch of waste for a
gag and then hauled the captive to a girder farther forward and bound
him sitting to it. By the time he had finished, Friday was out of his
space-suit and asking:
"Shall I rub him out, suh? Best make sure of him."
"Never in cold blood," said the Hawk acidly. "You should know that
well enough by now!
"Now, there should be five left above, and I think they'll send
another down. We must get him, too. Get back where you were."
He took off his space-suit also: then, after minutes of silence, they
heard voices upraised in argument coming from the control cabin. Once
more came the sound of feet overhead; another flash bit down through
the man-hole, and another man wriggled into the compartment. He was
obviously uneasy and suspicious. He called:
"Jake! Hey, Jake! You there? Where the hell are you?"
Mumbling oaths, he advanced, his light ray weaving over every inch
before him.
"What you doing, Jake? Where are you?"
Friday gathered his muscles, unhampered now by the restricting suit.
But light must have been reflected by the round whites of his eyes,
for the pirate suddenly stopped and called in sharp alarm:
"What's that? What's that there? You, Jake? Hey! I'll ray you--"
And that was all he said. Friday was too far away to reach him in
time, but the Hawk was closer; he approached behind the brigand,
crouched on silent cat's feet. Two powerful arms reached out and
tightened in a strangle hold--and two minutes later the second man was
bound and gagged.
Carse loosened his ray-gun in its holster.
"Now we attack," he whispered. "Four to two are fair odds, I think.
You go aft and wait by the man-hole; wait till you hear me call. Don't
be seen--wait. And when I call, come at once."
"Yes, suh. You goin' forward 'tween the hulls?"
A curt nod answered him.
"Then up through that--"
"Don't ask so many questions!" the Hawk rasped crisply.
They separated.