"In a lunar city?" Evans repeated. "Whoever got that idea?"
Seaworth shook his head. "It seemed crazy to me at first too, but there
were rumors that officials in one of the lunar cities were allowing the
Hawk to come there, and to refuel in exchange for a share of his loot.
I was sent up to investigate, and I found out enough to call the Hawk's
attention to me, and this is the second time he or his men nearly got
me. I couldn't find his base, but I did find that there's a man now on
earth who was formerly in his service and who could tell me where his
base is if he wanted to. So I started back to earth in my own ship to
see him. Well, the Hawk was waiting, and if you hadn't been within call
it would have been all up with me."
Evans considered. "It did seem mighty queer to us that the Hawk would
stoop to holding up one-man rockets," he admitted, "but that explains
it. So they've had a secret agent on his trail, eh?"
"A very secret agent," smiled the other. "My emblem," he smiled as he
opened his jacket and showed a little card sewed onto the inside.
Evans nodded. The card of an agent of the International Commission
merited any help he could furnish.
"In fact," continued Seaworth, "I doubt if a dozen men on earth outside
of the International Commission know what I've been doing. I've got no
business, really, telling even you about it, but it's about all wound
up now, for if I get the information I'm after on earth it means we'll
catch the Hawk in short order."
"Seems like catching the Hawk is work for the Earth-Guard rather than
for any secret agents," growled the bulldog-visaged Hartley. "We're
good enough to chase after all the common scum of space-pirates that
are always bobbing up, but when it comes to nabbing the Hawk someone
else wants the glory."
"The glory's been there for the Earth-Guard to take for some time,"
retorted Seaworth acidly. "I haven't seen it doing it, though."
Hartley's face went dull red, and Evans intervened in time. "No use
scrapping over it," he told them. "Anything that Seaworth finds out
will help us, and I for one don't give a continental who catches
the Hawk so long as he's caught. Every time I go into a teletheater
nowadays, all I hear is a lot of musty old cracks about the Hawk and
the Earth-Guard, and I don't mind telling you I'm getting tired of it."
Seaworth laughed. "Well, it was nearly a case of the catcher caught
with me this time. I suppose I don't need to tell you that I'd rather
make the rest of the trip with you?"
Evans nodded. "Of course. Though as a matter of fact the Hawk's
probably ten zones off by now. That's always his way--he swoops and
strikes and flashes off before anyone can get hands on him."
"Yes," said Seaworth, his eyes troubled, "but he happens to want me
devilish bad, you see. I'll admit I'm not going to have much taste for
the trip back to the moon--I wouldn't put it past him to hold up the
biggest passenger-ship in space if he knew I was travelling on it."
"I wouldn't myself," Evans said. "But we're heading back next week
after our relief-period. Why not go back with us?"
Seaworth's face cleared. "Thanks a lot, really, old man. It's a fact
I've been worried about this trip back, for if I get what I'm after on
earth, it means that when I get back to the moon we can find the Hawk's
base and make a trap of it to catch him when he comes in. And I want
to see him put away before I check out--it's got to be something of a
personal duel between us."
In the next half-score of hours in which they hurtled on toward earth,
Evans saw that Seaworth was indeed getting more and more impatient and
eager as the great disk grew large before them. He fretted at the delay
as they moved in through earth's atmosphere at slackening speed, and
down through the crowded converging space-lanes toward the huge New
York inter-stellar station. And when the great Earth-Guard ship shot
down into the funnel-shaped landing-framework and came to a halt with
all its nose-tubes firing, Seaworth emerged from it with its first
officers.
* * * * *
Briefly he assured himself once more that Evans was willing for him
to make the trip back out to the moon in the Earth-Guard craft in the
following week, and he also made certain that his own little rocket
could remain attached to the greater craft and be refueled with it.
Then he hastened away in the crowds that poured here and there across
and around the great rocket-station.
Evans stood still for a few moments gazing around him, bewildered a
little as he invariably was by the sudden transition from the silence
and gloom of the great void to this brilliant and hurried scene. Across
the great station at its departure-side a huge cargo-rocket was taking
off, its firing-tubes deafening the ears as it thundered up into the
sunlight and vanished. Already a great, sleek passenger-craft was being
slid into the ascension-framework just vacated, and as its warning-bell
rang out, the last belated passengers were hurrying toward it with
their porters and luggage.
There remained to Evans the disagreeable task for which he had been
bracing himself during the last hours of the trip--that of informing
crusty old Commander Cain of his encounter with the Hawk. When he had
been ushered into the office of the white-haired and white-mustached
old space-veteran who was head of the Earth-Guard, Evans made his brief
report with the other's stare piercing him to the marrow.
When he had finished, the Commander, as he had expected, delivered
himself of a furious blast of profanity.
He finally became articulate. "Evans, you must realize what a situation
the Earth-Guard is in. You know and I know that the Hawk must have
something new on his ship, whether a new fuel or a new firing-tube,
that gives his ship a speed beyond anything else in space. You know
as well as I do, too, that the Hawk is really the one outstanding
space-pirate left and that in the last decades we've cleared up the
others one by one.
"But the public doesn't see it that way! The public," and the Commander
smote his desk furiously, "the public sees only this one pirate, the
Hawk. They see him and his crew defying the whole five hundred ships of
the Earth-Guard. That's all the blankety blank public sees, and as a
result the Earth-Guard's getting to be a joke!"
"But sir!" Evans managed to say, "we have no hope of getting the Hawk
so long as he has his bases for refueling and resting. We must get his
lunar base before we can get him, and that's why I think this Seaworth
may win for us yet."
"Seaworth--." The Commander frowned thoughtfully. "It may be--it may
be. I didn't know that the International Commission had put secret
agents after the Hawk, but it may prove useful at that. You say
Seaworth's going back with you next week?"
"Yes, he thinks the Hawk is after him in dead earnest, and that if he
takes a passenger-rocket the Hawk will hold it up to get him."
"It wouldn't be beyond him," the Commander warned. "But we've another
thing to think of, too, Evans. If the Hawk wants this man Seaworth
badly enough, he may not even stick at holding up an Earth-Guard ship
to get him! I see you smile--you think it is incredible that even the
Hawk should ever try taking an Earth-Guard--but remember that he has a
reputation for doing things no pirate ever dared do before, and that in
this case he has the best reason in the world for trying it. And if he
ever took an Earth-Guard rocket--good-bye! No matter what we did after
that, the Guard would never be able to live it down!"