_The Hawk Strikes_
His face red, his breath coming in hoarse gasps, Judd the Kite
stumbled through the house's door on the heels of four of his men. He
swung rapidly and flung his weight against the door: locked and
double-locked it. A second later fists pounded on the outer panel, and
a voice, racked with fear and terror, screamed:
"Let me in! Let me in! Oh, God, let me in! Judd!"
Then there was the thud of drumming feet, and one awful shriek from
the man who had found the door locked against him.
But the Kite was not listening. A measure of courage returning to him
with the building's protection, he snapped:
"Get those other doors locked quick! And lights. Then search the
house."
The lighting tubes glowed, filling the room with soft radiance. Judd
survey his position.
He saw that it could have been far worse. But his men needed courage.
The rapid change from orgy to deadly peril had sobered them
completely. And they were frightened; nor was it fear of the beasts.
They came treading silently back from their inspection of the house,
reporting it empty; but their eyes kept shifting, their ray-guns ready
in hand. Each one knew, deep within him, who had fired the shots that
collapsed the fence. They had taken two captives; Friday had been
under their eyes; there was only one other, and he was--the Hawk.
Hawk Carse! The four men were nervous. More than a few lonely spots in
the countless leagues of space had seen his vengeance: and they--they
had killed his guards and his overseer, his radio-man, and, with the
fungus, his ship's crew; they had tortured Friday. They were now marks
for the fatal left hand: fugitives from gray, icy eyes. The Hawk was
loose!
* * * * *
Judd saw the fear gnawing at their vitals. He felt it too. But there
seemed no immediate danger, so, with a ray-gun in each hand, he
summoned a blustering courage and said to the others, harshly:
"Yes, it was that damned Carse! He must have got loose in some way.
But pull yourselves together: we're safe here. He's somewhere
outside."
He reasoned it out for them.
"He couldn't have done that shooting from the _Star Devil_; it's too
far away. And he's not in it now or he'd be using it to try and find
that black of his--if the black's still alive. No, he's not in the
ship, and he's not in this house. He's somewhere outside, and he can't
reach us here while the phantis have the place surrounded. We can
shoot them down from the attic, and they'll soon beat it for the
jungle. When that happens we'll rush to the ships, and before Carse
knows what it's all about we'll be up and away and he'll be marooned.
Then we'll get him later."
His words brought a return of confidence. It was true, the others
thought: the Hawk could not reach them as long as the phantis were
around the house; and when they were driven away, the ships were near
at hand and empty. All they had to do was get to the ships before
Carse. The adventurer certainly was not then in one of the craft, or
he would be wasting no time hunting for Friday--and raying their
stronghold. No doubt he was up a tree somewhere; perhaps gored and
dead.
One of the men snickered, and Judd smiled at the sound. Their
confidence in him was encouraging.
"Get to the windows of the attic," he ordered. "Some of those crazy
brutes are horning at the house. We've got to shoot them and get out
of here, quick!"
* * * * *
There were two rooms in the attic; the large one, used as a storeroom
for staple foods, had five windows, long, sloping affairs, three in
front and one in each side wall. The second room was small and at the
rear, and was used to store tools and spare technical apparatus. It
had one little window, set high up, and connected with the larger room
by a door set in the middle of the partition.
Judd placed one of his pirates at each of the windows of the large
room, taking himself the center one.
Around the house milled dozens of animal bodies, snorting, bellowing
and roaring, their little red eyes flashing, claws tearing the soil in
futile rage at the men they knew to be safely within. A babel of
brutish sounds rose from them. Two of the bulls fell foul of each
other and fought in fury, to suddenly turn and hurl their weight
against a ground floor door, quivering it. But their rashness was
answered by a streak of light from an attic window, and as one toppled
back, its body burnt through, the sights of the destroying ray-gun
were already on its fellow.
The huge fire the brigands had laid was dying, and night was seeping
ever thickening darkness over the scene. Glinting very slightly in the
starlight were the black shapes of the two silent space ships.
Then Judd the Kite, as he aimed and shot and aimed and shot again, was
suddenly struck by a disturbing idea. From where had Carse fired at
the corral fence? What was the logical vantage point for him?
A shiver trembled down his spine. He saw suddenly with terrible
clearness where that vantage point was--and it had not been searched.
The roof!
He turned swiftly, his lips opening to give orders.
And there, standing on the threshold of the door to the smaller
adjoining room, stood the figure of a man whose eyes were cold with
the absolute cold of space, and whose left hand held a steady-leveled
ray-gun that pointed as straight as his eyes at Judd!
"Hawk--Carse!"
"Judd," said the quiet, icy voice.
* * * * *
The Kite went white as a sheet. His men turned slowly as one. One of
them gasped at what he saw; another cursed; the other two simply
stared with fear-flooded eyes; only one thing flamed in every
mind--the never-failing vengeance of the Hawk.
"Carse!" repeated Judd stupidly. "You--again!"
"Yes," whispered the trader. "And for the last time. We settle now.
There are a few debts--a few lives--a few blows and kicks--and a
matter of some torture to be paid for. The accounts must be squared,
Judd."
And slowly he raised his right hand to the queer bangs of flaxen hair
which hung down over his forehead. He stroked them gently. Judd's
eyes, dry, hot, held fascinated on the hand. He shuddered.
"It's not pleasant," came the whisper, "to always have to wear my hair
like this. That's another debt--the largest of all--I have to settle.
_Sheathe your guns!_"
The voice cracked like a whip. They obeyed without sound, though they
read death in the frigid gray eyes. As their guns went into holsters,
Carse's followed suit; he stood then with both hands hanging at his
sides. And he said, in the whisper that carried more weight to them
than the trumpets of a host:
"Once before we were interrupted. This time we won't be. This time we
will see certainly for whom the number five brings death. Count,
Judd."
With a jerk, the Kite regained some control over himself. The odds
were five to one. Five guns to one gun. Carse was a great shot, but
such odds were surely too great. Perhaps--perhaps there might be a
chance. He said in a strained voice to his men:
"Shoot when I reach five."
Then he swallowed and counted:
"One."
Aside from the tiny flickering of the left eyelid, the Hawk was
graven, motionless, apparently without feeling. Judd, he knew, was
just fairly fast; as for the others--
"Two."
--they were unknown quantities, except for one, the man called Jake.
He had the reputation of possessing a lightning draw; his eyes were
narrowed, his hands steady, and the body crouched, a sure sign of--
"Three."
--a gunman who knew his business, who was fast. His hip holsters were
not really worn on the hips, but in front, very close together; that
meant--
"Four."
--that he would probably draw both guns. So Judd must wait; the other
three, being unknowns, disposed of in the order in which they were
standing; but Jake must be--
"Five!"
--first!
* * * * *
One second there was nothing; the next, wicked pencils of orange light
were snaking across the attic! And then two guns clanged on the floor,
unfired, and the man called Jake staggered forward, crumpled and fell,
a puzzled look on his face and accurately between his eyes a little
round neat hole that had come as if by magic. Two others, similarly
stricken, toppled down, their fingers still tensed on ray-gun
triggers; the fourth pirate, his heart drilled, went back from the
force of it and crashed into the wall, slithering down slowly into a
limp heap. But Judd the Kite was still on his feet.
His lips were twisted in a snarl; his hands seemed locked. His eyes
met the two cold gray ones across the room--and then his coarse face
contorted, and he croaked:
"Damn you, Carse! Damn you--"
His body spun around and flattened out on the floor with arms and legs
flung wide. A tiny black hole was visible through his shirt. He had
been last, and the Hawk had struck him less accurately than his
fellows.
The trader was unwounded. He stood there for several minutes,
surveying what lay before him. He looked at each body in turn, and his
eyes were calm and clear and mild, his face devoid of expression.
Silence hung over the attic, for the bellowings and snortings of the
beasts outside had died into faint murmurings as they straggled off
for their jungle home. The single living man of the six who had lived
and breathed there minutes before holstered his still warm ray-gun;
and then the sound of a step on the stairs leading from the rooms
below made him look up.
A man stood in the doorway of the attic.
* * * * *
He was big and brawny; but, though his arms and bare torso were
streaked with blood, and his trousers torn into shreds, and his legs
crisscrossed with cuts, there was broad grin on his face--a grin that
widened as his rolling white eyes took in what lay on the attic floor.
Neither said anything for a moment. Then the Hawk smiled, and there
was all friendliness and affection in his face.
"You made the pit, Eclipse?" he asked, softly.
Friday nodded, and chuckled. "Yes, suh! But only just. If Ah'd bin a
leap an' a skip slower Ah'd bin a _tee-total_ eclipse!"
Dancing lights of laughter came to the Hawk's eyes.
"Still feeling chipper," he said, "--in spite of your burns. Well,
good for you. But I guess you've had enough of Ku Sui for a little
while!"
The negro grunted indignantly. "You surely don't imply Ah'm _sca'ed_
of that yellow Chink? Hell, no! Why--"
Carse chuckled and cut him off.
"I see. Well, then, drag these carrion out to your pit. And then--"
There was something in the air, something big. Friday listened
eagerly. "Yes, suh?" he reminded his master after a pause.
"Judd," said Hawk Carse softly, "was to have had a rendezvous with Dr.
Ku Sui in seven days. The place of the rendezvous is entered in the
log of his ship. I've got the last of Judd's crew a captive on the
_Star Devil_...."
The adventurer paused a moment in thought, and when he resumed his
words came clipped and decisive.
"I myself am going to keep that rendezvous with Ku Sui. I want to see
him very badly."
Friday looked at the man's gray eyes, his icy graven face, the bangs
of flaxen hair which obscured his forehead. He understood.
* * * * *