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Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from Astounding Stories,
March, 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
[Illustration: "I do not know you for a liar.... I will enter."]
The Affair of the Brains
_A Complete Novelette_
By Anthony Gilmore
CHAPTER I
_Off to the Rendezvous_
[Illustration: Hawk Carse himself goes to keep Judd the Kite's
rendezvous with the sinister genius Ku Sui.]
Though it is seldom nowadays that Earthmen hear mention of Hawk Carse,
there are still places in the universe where his name retains all its
old magic. These are the lonely outposts of the farthest planets, and
here when the outlanders gather to yarn the idle hours away their tales
conjure up from the past that raw, lusty period before the patrol-ships
came, and the slender adventurer, gray-eyed and with queer bangs of hair
obscuring his forehead, whose steely will, phenomenal ray-gun draw and
reckless space-ship maneuverings combined to make him the period's most
colorful figure. These qualities of his live again in the outlanders'
reminiscences and also of course his score of blood-feuds and the one
great feud that shook whole worlds in its final terrible settling--the
feud of Hawk Carse and Dr. Ku Sui.
Again and again the paths of the adventurer and the sinister, brilliant
Eurasian crossed, and each crossing makes a rich tale. Time after time
Ku Sui, through his several bands of space-pirates, his individual
agents and his ambitious web of power insidiously weaving over the
universe, whipped his tentacles after the Hawk, and always the tentacles
coiled back, repulsed and bloody. An almost typical episode is in the
affair which followed what has been called the Exploit of the Hawk and
the Kite.
It will be remembered--as related in "Hawk Carse"[1]--that Dr. Ku laid a
most ingenious trap for Carse on the latter's ranch on Iapetus, eighth
satellite of Saturn. Judd the Kite, pirate and scavenger, was the
Eurasian's tool in this plot, which started with a raid on the ranch.
The fracas which followed the Hawk's escape from the trap was bloody and
grim enough, and resulted in the erasure of Judd and all his men save
one; but the important thing to the following affair was that Judd's
ship, the Scorpion, fell into Carse's hands with one prisoner and the
ship's log, containing the space coordinates for a prearranged
assignation of Judd with Ku Sui.
[1] See the November, 1931, issue of Astounding Stories.
All other projects were postponed by the Hawk at this opportunity to
meet Dr. Ku face to face. The trail of the Eurasian was the guiding
trail of his life, and swiftly he moved along it.
There was work to be done before he could set out. Three men had emerged
alive from the clash between the Hawk and the Kite: Carse himself,
Friday, his gigantic negro companion in adventure, and a bearded
half-caste called Sako, sole survivor of Judd's crew. Aided sullenly by
this man, they first cleaned up the ravaged ranch, burying the bodies
of the dead, repairing fences and generally bringing order out of
confusion. Then, under Carse's instructions, Friday and the captive
brigand tooled the adventurer's own ship, the _Star Devil_, well into
the near-by jungle, while the Hawk returned to the _Scorpion_.
He went into her control cabin, opened her log book and once more
scanned what interested him there. The notation ran:
"E.D. (Earth Date) 16 January, E.T. (Earth Time) 2:40 P.M. Meeting
ordered by Ku Sui, for purpose of delivering the skeleton and
clothing of Carse to him, at N.S. (New System) X-33.7; Y-241.3;
Z-92.8 on E.D. 24 January, E.T. 10:20 P.M. Note: the ship is to
stand by at complete stop, the radio's receiver open to Ku Sui's
private wave (D37, X1293, R3) for further instructions."
He mulled over it, slowly stroking his flaxen bangs. It was a chance,
and a good one. Judd's ship would keep that rendezvous, but it would
sheathe the talons of the Hawk. This time a trap would be laid for Ku
Sui.
* * * * *
The plan was simple enough, on the face of it, but the Eurasian was a
master of cunning as well as a master of science, and high peril
attended any matching of wits with him. Carse closed the log, his face
bleak, his mind made up. A shuffle of feet brought his gaze up to the
port-lock entrance.
Friday, stripped to shorts, a sweat-glistening ebony giant, stood there.
Shaking the drops of steaming perspiration from his face, he reported:
"All finished, suh--got the _Star Devil_ in the jungle where you said to
hide her. An' now what? You still figurin' on keepin' that date with Dr.
Ku in this ship?"
Carse nodded, absently.
"Then where'll we pick up a crew, suh? Porno? It's the nearest port, I
reckon."
"I'm not taking any crew, Eclipse."
Friday gaped in surprise at his master, then found words:
"No crew, suh? Against Ku Sui? We'll be throwin' our lives----"
"I've lost enough men in the last two days," Carse cut in shortly. "And
this meeting with Dr. Ku is a highly personal affair. You and I and Sako
can run the ship; we've got to." One of the man's rare smiles relaxed
his face. "Of course," he murmured, "I'm risking your life, Eclipse.
Perhaps I'd better leave you somewhere?"
"Say!" bellowed the negro indignantly.
The Hawk's smile broadened at the spontaneous exclamation of loyalty.
"Very well, then," he said. "Now send Sako to me, and prepare ship for
casting off."
But as Friday went aft on a final thorough inspection of all mechanisms,
he muttered over and over, "Two of us--against Ku Sui! Two of us!" and
he was still very much disturbed when, after Carse had had a few crisp
words with the captive Sako, telling him that he would be free but
watched and that it would be wise if he confined himself to his duties,
the order came through to the engine room:
"Break ground!"
Gently the brigand ship _Scorpion_ stirred. Then, in response to the
delicate incline of her space-stick, she lifted sweetly from the crust
of Iapetus and at ever-increasing speed burned through the satellite's
atmosphere toward the limitless dark leagues beyond.
The Hawk was on the trail!
* * * * *
Carse took the first watch himself. Except for occasional glances at the
banks of instruments, the screens and celestial charts, he spent his
time in deep thought, turning over in his mind the several variations of
situation his dangerous rendezvous might take.
First, how would Ku Sui contact the _Scorpion_? Any of three ways, he
reasoned: come aboard from his own craft accompanied by some of his men;
stay behind and send some men over to receive the remains of the
Hawk--for either of which variations he was prepared; or, a third, and
more dangerous, direct that the remains of Carse be brought over to his
ship, without showing himself or any of his crew.
Whatever variations their contacting took, there was another
consideration, Carse's celestial charts revealed, and that was the
proximity of the rendezvous to Jupiter's Satellite III, less than three
hundred thousand miles. Satellite III harbored Port o' Porno, main
refuge and home of the scavengers, the hi-jackers, and out-and-out
pirates of space, so many of whom were under Ku Sui's thumb. Several
brigand ships were sure to be somewhere in the vicinity, and one might
easily intrude, destroying the hairbreadth balance in Carse's favor....
There was peril on every side. The Hawk considered that it would be wise
to make provision against the odds proving too great. So, his gray eyes
reflective, he strode to the _Scorpion's_ radio panel and a moment later
was saying over and over in a toneless voice:
"XX-1 calling XX-2--XX-1 calling XX-2--XX-1 calling XX-2...."
* * * * *
After a full two minutes there was still no answer from the loudspeaker.
He kept calling: "XX-1 calling XX-2--XX-1 calling XX-2--XX-1
calling----"
He broke off as words in English came softly from the loudspeaker:
"XX-2 answering XX-1. Do you hear me?"
"Yes. Give me protected connection. Highly important no outsider
overhears."
"All right," the gentle voice answered. "Protected. Go ahead, old man."
The Hawk relaxed and his face softened. "How are you, Eliot?" he asked
almost tenderly.
"Just fine, Carse," came in the clear, cultured voice of Master
Scientist Eliot Leithgow, probably the greatest scientific mind in the
solar system, Ku Sui being the only possible exception. He spoke now
from his secret laboratory on Jupiter's Satellite III, near Porno, this
transcendent genius who, with Friday, was one of Carse's two trusted
comrades-in-arms. "I've been expecting you," he went on. "Has something
happened?"
"I'm concerned with Ku Sui again," the Hawk told him swiftly. "Please
excuse me; I have to be brief. I can't take any chances of his hearing
any of this." He related the events of the last two days: Judd's attack
on the Iapetus ranch, the subsequent fight and outcome, and finally his
present position and intention of keeping the rendezvous. "The odds are
pretty heavily against me, M. S.," he went on. "It would be stupid not
to admit that I may not come out of this affair alive--and that's why
I'm calling. My affairs, of course, are in your hands. You know where my
storerooms and papers are. Sell my trading posts and ranches; Hartz of
Newark-on-Venus is the best man to deal through. But I'd advise you to
keep for yourself that information on the Pool of Radium. Look into it
sometime. I'm in Judd's ship, the _Scorpion_; our _Star Devil's_ on
Iapetus, hidden in the jungle near the ranch. That's all, I think."
"Carse, I should be with you!"
"No, M. S.--couldn't risk it. You're too valuable a man. But don't
worry, you know my luck. I'll very likely be down to see you after this
meeting, and perhaps with a visitor who will enable you once again to
return to an honorable position on Earth. Where will you be?"
"In eight Earth days? Let's make it Porno, at the house you know. I'll
come in for some supplies and wait for you."
"Good," the Hawk said shortly. "Good-by, M. S."
He paused, his hand on the switch. There came a parting wish:
"Good luck, old fellow. Get him! _Get him!_"
The Master Scientist's voice trembled at the end. Through Ku Sui he had
lost honor, position, home--all good things a man on Earth may have;
through Ku Sui he, the gentlest of men, was regarded by Earthlings as a
black murderer and there was a price on his head. Hawk Carse did not
miss the trembling in his voice. As he switched off, the adventurer's
eyes went bleak as the loneliest deeps of space....