_Back to Iapetus_
An indefinite time later Carse awoke to a trip-hammer of pain thudding
through his head. He groaned a little, and tried to turn over in an
effort to ease it. He found he could not. Then his eyes opened and he
blinked up.
He found himself lying on the deck of the control cabin, near the
after wall, and bound hand and foot with tightly strapped rope. Over
him, looking down, was Judd the Kite, hands on his hips, a gloating
smile on his coarse lips, and in his eyes a look of taunting, exultant
triumph. He drew back his foot and kicked the netted Hawk in the ribs.
The trader made no sound; his pale face did not change, except to set
a trifle more rigidly.
"Pretty easy the way my men got you, Carse," said Judd. "Seems to me
you're just a damned fool with a big rep you don't deserve. You're
too careless. You ought to know by now not to leave bound men in reach
of high-powered cable. It cuts as good as an electric knife. Does your
head hurt where you were hit?" Deliberately, still smiling, he rapped
his foot brutally against Carse's head.
The trader said nothing. He glanced around, to get the situation
clearly. Friday, he saw, was in the control cabin too, lying stretched
out and bound as he was, but evidently still unconscious from the
ugly, bloody welt on his head. One of Judd's men was at the ship's
space-stick, another stood by her dials, occasionally glancing back at
the prisoners and grinning; the two remaining pirates were apparently
aft. The body of the one whom Carse had killed had been removed.
Through the port bow window, far out, he noticed a small spot, half
black and half brilliant with the reflected light of Saturn: that
would be the other space ship, the Kite's, on the same course as they.
And ahead was the large-looming sphere of Iapetus. The pirate was
returning, then, to the ranch, probably to pick up his three men, and
perhaps to leave a small crew to work it.
"Yes. I'm afraid this is the end of the Sparrow Hawk!" Judd sneered
the name and laughed harshly. "A lot of people will be glad to hear
it. There'll be a big reward for me, too, from Ku Sui. Head still
bad?" And again he swung his leg and drove its heavy shoe into his
captive's head.
* * * * *
Carse's lips compressed till they were colorless. He looked steadily
at Judd's eyes and asked:
"What are you going to do with Friday and me?"
"Well," grinned the pirate, "I can't tell you definitely, but it's
sure to be interesting. It'd suit me best if I could teach you a few
little tricks with a peeling knife--the Venusians have some very neat
ones, you know--and then perhaps burn you full of holes. Little holes,
done with a mild needle-ray. But unfortunately I can't kill you
personally, for Ku Sui will want to do that himself. You're worth a
hell of a lot of money alive."
"I go to Ku Sui, then?"
"That's right. I'll hand you over when I have my rendezvous with him,
seven days from now. Clever man, Ku Sui! Half Chinese, you know. He'll
be tickled to get you alive."
A muscle in the Hawk's cheek quivered. Then he asked:
"And Friday?"
Judd laughed. "Oh, I don't much care; he's not worth anything. I'll
throw him in with you for good measure, probably. How's the head?"
Once more the foot swung.
Carse's gray eyes were as frigid as the snow caps of Mars. The left
eyelid was twitching a little; otherwise his pale face was as if
graven from stone.
"Judd," he whispered, so softly that his voice was almost inaudible.
"I shall kill you very soon. I shall make it a point to. Very soon.
Judd...."
The Kite stared at the pallid gray eyes. His lips parted slightly. And
then he remembered that his captive was bound, helpless. He spat.
"Bah!" he snarled. "Just your old stuff, Carse. It's all over with you
now. You'll be screaming to me to kill you when Ku Sui begins to touch
you up!" He guffawed, again kicked the man at his feet, and turned
away.
Hawk Carse watched him walk to the forward end of the cabin; and,
after a little while, he sighed. He could be patient. He was still
alive, and he would stay alive, he felt. A chance would come--he did
not know how or when; it perhaps would not be soon; it might not come
until he had been delivered to Ku Sui, but it would arrive. And
then....
Then there would be a reckoning!
The deceptively mild gray eyes of the Hawk were veiled by their lids.
* * * * *
Night had settled over the ranch by the time the _Star Devil_ and
Judd's accompanying ship were in the satellite's atmosphere. It was
the rare, deep, moonless night of Iapetus, when the only light came
from the far, cold, distant stars that hung faintly twinkling in the
great void above. Occasionally, the tiny world was lit clearly at
night by the rays of Saturn, reflected from one of the eight other
satellites; and occasionally, too, there was no night, the central sun
of the solar universe sending its distance-weakened shafts of fire to
light one side of the globe while ringed Saturn gilded the other.
But this season was the one of dark, full-bodied nights; and it was
into the hush of their blackness that the _Star Devil_ and her
attendant brigand ship glided.
Below, on the surface of the Satellite, glowed the pin-prick of a
camp-fire. When the ships were some fifteen thousand feet up, Judd's
orders caused long light-rays to shaft out from the _Star Devil_ and
finger the ground. They rested on the ranch house and then passed on
to douse with white the figures of three men standing by the fire.
Through the electelscope the pirate chief saw them wave their arms in
greeting.
Ten minutes later the two ships nestled down close together a hundred
yards or more from the ranch clearing, and Judd said to his mate,
standing next to him:
"We'll have a little celebration to-night. Break out a few cases of
alkite and send three of the boys to the ranch's storeroom after meat
for the cook to barbecue."
"What you goin' to do with them two?" the other asked.
"Carse and the nig? Keep them here in the control cabin; I'll detail a
couple of men to guard them. I'm taking no chances: they must be in
sight every minute. Carse is too damned dangerous." He peered back at
the captives. The trader's eyes were shut; Friday still appeared
unconscious from the brutal blow on his head. "Asleep. Well, they'd
better sleep--while they have eyelid's to close!" Judd said mockingly,
and his mate laughed in appreciation of his wit.
But neither the Hawk or Friday was asleep. Nor was the negro
unconscious. Carse had ascertained this some time before by cautious
signals.
A little stir had come within him when he heard Judd say there would
be a celebration, for a celebration, to these men, meant a debauch and
relaxed discipline, and relaxed discipline meant--a chance. First,
however, there were the tight bonds of rope; they were expertly tied,
and strong. But the Hawk was not particularly concerned about them.
He had dismissed them as a problem after a few minutes of
consideration, and his mind ran farther ahead, planning coldly,
mechanically, the payment of his blood debts....
* * * * *
All in all, Judd was to blame for what happened that night on Iapetus.
He was an old hand and a capable one, and certainly he should have
known that extraordinary measures had to be adopted when Hawk Carse
became his prisoner. By rights, he should have killed Friday
immediately, and steered straight for his rendezvous with Ku Sui,
keeping his eye on Carse all the time. He would have had to loaf on
his way to the rendezvous, of course, for it needed but five days to
get there, and he had seven; and he would also have had to pick up his
three marooned men later. But that was what he should have done.
Yet, when one regards the personal angles, it is necessary to divide
Judd's responsibility for succeeding events. He felt like having a
celebration, and certainly he and his men had earned one. He had
captured the man who had stood, more than anyone else, in his and in
Ku Sui's way for years; the man who had quashed any number of their
outlaw schemes, and who had given more trouble to them than all the
forces of law and order on Earth and the patrol ships in space. More,
he had captured him alive, and that meant a much fatter reward from Ku
Sui. He possessed the valuable cargo of phanti horn; he had taken a
brand new ship, alone worth millions, besides being the fastest in
space. Judd was naturally elated; he had two nights and a day to
spare; he felt expansive, and ordered a celebration.
Such decisions--trivial when seen from the eminence of a hundred
years--have directed the tide of history more than once.
There were thirteen men left of Judd's crew, including the three
posted on Iapetus; these three and the six who manned the pirate's own
craft came running to the _Star Devil_ and piled into her open
port-lock. They milled around in the control cabin, shouting in high
spirits, swearing, throwing clumsy jests at the two silent figures on
the deck; and Judd joined with them. There was much loot to be split,
and the Hawk was snared at last! Their chief stilled them for a moment
and said:
"Well, I guess we deserve a little jamboree. I'm breaking out some
alkite and meat; make a big fire outside and dig some barbecue pits.
Go ahead--out of here! But wait: you, Sharkey, and you, Keyger."
These last two men, more husky and alert than most of their fellows,
he detailed for guard duty ever Carse and Friday. They were much cast
down at the job, but he premised them a larger slice of the loot for
recompense, and then stalked out after the other men.
The two guards stuck a brace of ray-guns in their belts and looked
over the captives. Angry at missing the carousal, the man called
Keyger kicked Friday, whose eyelids did not budge and whose body did
not quiver, and then, more gingerly, kicked Carse and swore at
him--but he turned somewhat hastily when the mild gray eyes slowly
opened and stared up into his.
Then the two guards pulled out chairs and placed them by the open
port-lock, where they could command a view of the celebration. They
drew one ray-gun each, laid them ready, close by, and sat down.