_Jamboree_
Two hours later their eyes were taking in a fantastic, mad scene, one
that in some ways might have occurred in the days when buccaneers
roamed the Spanish Main of Earth.
A little over a hundred yards away, straight before them, was the
corral of the phantis: far behind it encroached the shadowy fringe of
the jungle: to their right, closer to the corral than to the space
ships, was the ranch house, lonely now and silent. But these objects
were only the background for what had grown in front of the corral
wire.
It was the roaring mass of the monster fire that had been lit, a
splash of fierce, leaping flames in the velvety cool of the night.
Black shapes were clustered around it; bottles were raised and
drained; and a frieze of shadows, staggered and jumped and danced
around the ruddy pile of fire. The carousal was in full swing; a
chorus of wild song rose noisily into the night; more cases were
smashed open and more alkite drawn out. The carcases of three animals
taken from the ranch's storehouse sizzled on the barbecue pits, to be
ripped apart and the rich, dripping meat torn at, tooth and claw. Ever
higher pierced the shrieks and oaths, till the calm night was
distorted and crazy.
Other heavier sounds accompanied the bedlam of human noise: deep
snortings and roarings and the scraping of scores of horn-shod feet.
Behind their wired electric fence was clustered the herd of phantis,
staring with their evil, red-shot little eyes at the flames and the
shapes of the hated men. The big bulls were bellowing, bucking their
heads angrily, churning up the soft soil with their strong,
dagger-spurred feet: the welter of noise and the sight of so many men
had wrought them up into a vicious and dangerous state.
Judd the Kite, a bottle in one hand and in the other a huge joint of
meat which he was tearing at with his teeth, suddenly paused with
mouth crammed full and stared over through the flickering light at the
phanti corral. A cruel light gleamed in his eyes: he gulped down the
meat and then turned to the shapes staggering around him. He yelled:
"Hey, there--let's get out the nigger! A little entertainment,
fellows! Bring him out; but don't touch Carse: he's Ku Sui's. Douse
him with water if he's unconscious."
* * * * *
They yelled in drunken delight at his words, and half of them reeled
off towards the _Star Devil_. Judd, lips up-curved in a smile, drew
his ray-gun and set the lever over for the low-power, continuous
ray-stream. These guns, unlike our present weapons, could shoot in two
ways: they could spit about twenty high-power discharges, a fraction
of a second each in duration and easily sufficient to burn a man's
head through; or they could deliver a long-lasting low-power stream,
just strong enough to sear and crisp a human skin. For the
entertainment Judd had in mind he needed low power.
The men sent to the _Star Devil_ shoved past the guards on watch near
the port-lock and over to the prisoners. They found them lying, very
close together near the after wall.
"Gonna have some fun with the black, Judd's orders," they explained to
the guards. "Still unconscious?"
Certainly Friday looked unconscious, his eyes closed, his full lips
slightly parted, showing the powerful white teeth.
"I'll give him a shot of the ray," another brigand cut in. "That'll
bring him to. Be ready to grab him."
They got an unpleasant shock when the low-power stream flicked the
negro's leg. With a gigantic bellow that rang throughout the ship,
Friday resisted.
It was like seeing a dead man come to life, and it startled them.
Bound as he was, Friday made things unhealthy for his would-be
captors; he shunted his legs up and down and squirmed mightily, and
once his gleaming teeth snapped into an arm, bringing a howl of pain
and several minutes of cursing. The unexpected resistance, once the
surprise was over, infuriated the rum-sodden men. One of them yelled:
"Sock him; Shorty!" A ray-gun's butt was slapped down on Friday's
head; the negro rolled over, stunned. Then he was picked up without
resistance and borne out into the night, where fantastic figures
cavorted around the towering fire.
"The black devil was faking all the time!" one of the guards said
amazedly. "He wasn't unconscious. What in hell did he do that for?"
"Dunno," snarled the other, rubbing a bruised leg. "Must have
suspected what he's gonna get. Wish we was over there."
"Well, we can watch from here," grumbled his companion, and returned
to the seats by the port-lock.
They both sat down, their backs half turned to the figure still lying
on the deck.
* * * * *
Carse had said nothing, made no protest, had not even moved when
Friday struggled in fierce resistance. He could have done much more,
but it would have been useless. Long before, he had seen the negro's
opening eyes and signaled him to feign unconsciousness thus deflecting
attention and making him appear harmless. He had also broached his
plan for escape to Friday. He had not, however, reckoned on Judd's
desire to torture: he would, he now saw, have to act with his greatest
speed to save his mate from as much pain as possible.
And he began to act.
The control cabin was streaked with patches of shadow and light, made
vague by pools of darkness thrown by the banks of instruments. Only
one lighting tube was dimly burning. In this indefinite half-light the
Hawk set about stalking his prey.
With eyes narrowed and steady on the two guards who were completely
absorbed in the happenings outside, he drew his hands from beneath
him. They were no longer bound. The rope knotted around them had been
gnawed through strand by strand--sliced by the strong white teeth of a
negro....
Cautiously, without a whisper of sound, Carse reached towards the
bonds on his legs. The lean fingers worked rapidly. Quickly the knots,
yielded and the rope was unwound. The legs were free. For a moment
Hawk Carse, ever with careful calculation of time, stretched his
cramped muscles, limbering them for action.
A mutter came from the port-lock. He froze. But it was only:
"Look at 'im! This is goin' to be good! Judd gets some damn clever
ideas!"
They were utterly wrapped up in the scene outside, and unconscious of
the low blot that moved with steely purpose behind them.
* * * * *
The Hawk got to hands and knees; moved forward, the ghost of a shadow.
The two men who were his quarry were sitting close together, hunched a
little forward in their eagerness not to miss a single detail. Their
heads were not a foot apart. Each wore a ray-gun and had another lying
on the deck at his side.
Carse came near to their backs. He paused, imperceptibly tensed,
judged the distance carefully. Then in a sudden, snake-like movement,
he sprang.
A forearm of steel clamped around the back of each guard's head and
jerked it sharply into the other's. There was a quick crack; then,
dazed, only half-conscious, the two men toppled off their seats and
fell to the deck.
"Quiet!" warned an icy whisper. They stared, gaping, then staggered up
to their feet.
A ray-gun that just before had been lying on the deck was leveled
steadily at them, held in the hand of a gray-eyed man whose fine
features were as if graven from stone and on whose wrists were deep
blue lines that showed where ropes had pressed. The guards' faces
whitened as realization came. One of them choked:
"It's him!"
"Yes," whispered the Hawk dryly. He took a few steps backward, eyes
not moving. "Go to that locker," he said to the shorter of the men,
indicating with a curt nod the place where space suits were stowed.
"First draw your gun and lay it on that table. Hurry!"
The man hastily complied. Anything else was unthinkable; meant quick
and lonely and useless death. Shouts and laughter and drunken shrieks
were echoing from outside. No one would have ears for him.
When he had stepped into the locker, Carse closed and sealed the door.
"What you goin' to do with me?" croaked the remaining guard. He was
big and burly and he towered inches over the figure facing him, but
his lips were trembling and his eyes wild with fear.
"You," whispered the Hawk frigidly, "kicked me when I was bound." He
sheathed his ray-gun in his holster, then spoke again. "Go for your
gun."
The pirate trembled all over. His mouth fell open, and his eyes stuck
on Carse's shabby holster. He seemed half hypnotized.
"Draw."
The other's swarthy brow beaded with sudden-starting sweat. His hands
hung limp, twitching at the finger-tips. He watched death stare him in
the face.
"Damn you, Carse!" he burst out and suddenly went for his ray.
* * * * *
Carse deliberately let him get the gun out. Not until then did his
left hand move. But even with such a head-start, so bewildering was
the adventurer's speed that only one streak of orange light made a
flash in the cabin, and that streak was the Hawk's. The brigand
quivered, his face still contorted with his last desperate emotion;
then he fell slowly forward and thudded into the deck. His body
twitched a little, and in a spasm rolled over. Square between the eyes
was a crisp, smooth-burned hole.
Hawk Carse gave the body not a glance, but sheathed his ray-gun,
picked up the three others, stuck them in his belt, and glided to the
port-lock. There, he peered outside.
His face hardened.
Blobs of flame that flared from wood torches were clustered about the
nearest side of the phanti corral. A dark blur of figures were ringed
in a half-circle, and from it came yells of delight and almost
hysterical laughter. The Hawk's eyes were chilling to look at when he
saw, through gaps in the circle of black shapes, the figure of a huge
negro, standing with his back almost touching the wire fence of the
corral. The actions of Friday gave the clue to what was happening.
He was caught in a broad ray of orange light, and in it he shuddered
and hopped grotesquely from one leg to the other in an agony of pain,
his lips drawn back taut over the gleaming teeth, his face flexed and
the whites of his eyes showing as the eyeballs rolled. The glow that
in part hung around him streamed from a ray-gun that was held in the
right hand of Judd the Kite. Heat! Friday was being slowly crisped
alive; seared on his feet in a furnace of heat: and the men who ringed
him were yelling advice at him between their laughter. Carse strained
his ears. In a jumble, he caught:
"Jump over"--"Nah, he'd have to climb"--"Climb! The juice's
cut!"--"Into the corral!"--"Climb over, you black buzzard"--"Hoowee!"
* * * * *
About a foot behind Friday was the wire fence, behind which the
phantis, their snouts converged towards the pirates, their red-shot
eyes glaring, their powerful hind feet clawing at the ground, were
bellowing in wild and ferocious excitement. Sudden, awful death waited
on the other side of the fence; slow death by burning on this side.
Yet Friday still hoped, still had faith in his master, for he did not
put a quick end to his living death by rushing the devilish circle or
clambering over into the thick of the sharp stabbing spurs.
Carse's brain moved with the swiftness of light. He could not rush the
group: the odds were too great, and besides, Judd's gun was already
out. Nor could he dive at them with the _Star Devil_ itself, or ray
them from above: that would mean Friday's death too. It would have to
be something else--and in a moment he had it. Carefully he examined
all variations and checked the scheme back: it promised to be the
final move, engendering the final meeting, and there must be no slip.
First, the Hawk slipped shadow-like to the entrance port of the other
space ship, lying a few hundred feet away, shrouded in darkness. He
had to know if anyone were aboard.
Gruffly he called inside:
"Judd! Hey, Judd! You there?"
There was no answer. Again he called, but the gloomy interior's
silence was not broken. Satisfied that it was empty, he doubled back
with noiseless speed, skirted round the _Star Devil_ and arrived like
a wind-carried wraith at the rear wall of the ranch house.
A short leap and his hands closed on the copper drain. The muscles of
his wiry arms flexed, and the lean figure raised himself foot by foot
to the eaves, where a pull and press up brought him over the edge.
Stooping, he padded to the side which faced on the clearing and the
corral.
And then the ray-gun was drawn from its holster.
For seconds the cold gray eyes reckoned the shooting distance and the
angle. The weapon came up and rested at arm's length. The first finger
of the deadly left hand began to squeeze back.
A pencil-thin streak of orange light speared the air!