Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Stories November 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazine.
One word in Chapter II could not be read. It has been marked
as illegible.
The Passing of Ku Sui
_A Complete Novelette_
By Anthony Gilmore
* * * * *
CONTENTS
Chapter
I The Plan
II Three Figures in the Dawn
III The Raid
IV The Voice of the Brains
V "My Congratulations, Captain Carse!"
VI The Deadline
VII To the Laboratory
VIII White's Brain--Yellow's Head
IX Four Bodies
X The Promise Fulfilled
XI Ordeal
XII Flight
XIII In Earth's Shadow
XIV The Hawk Strikes
XV There Is a Meteor
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
_The Plan_
[Illustration: _Like a projectile Hawk Carse shot out in a direction
away from Earth._]
[Sidenote: A screaming streak in the night--a cloud of billowing
steam--and the climax of Hawk Carse's spectacular "Affair of the
Brains" is over.]
The career of Hawk Carse, taken broadly, divides itself into three
main phases, and it is with the Ku Sui adventures of the second phase
that we have been concerned in this intimate narrative. John Sewell,
the historian, baldly condenses those adventures of a century ago
together, but on research and closer scrutiny they take on an
individuality and significance deserving of separate treatment, and
this they have been given here. For fictionized presentation, we have
spaced the adventures into four connected episodes, four acts of a
vibrant drama which ranged clear from Saturn to Earth, the core of
which was the feud between Captain Carse and the power-lusting
Eurasian scientist, Dr. Ku Sui--that feud the reverberations of whose
terrible settling still echo over the solar system--and in this last
act of the drama, set out below, we come to its spectacular climax.
The words of John Sewell's epic history sit lightly on paper; easy
words for Sewell, once the collection of data was over, to write; not
very significant words for the uninitiated and casual reader who does
not see the irresistible forces beneath them. But consider the full
meaning of these words, and glance for a moment at the two figures
conjured up by them. We see Hawk Carse, a man slender in build, but
with gray eyes and lithe, strong-fingered hands and cold, intent face
that give the clue to the steel of him; we see Dr. Ku Sui, tall,
suave, unhurried, formed as though by a master sculptor, in whose rare
green eyes slumbered the soul of a tiger, notwithstanding the courtesy
and the grace that masked always his most infamous moves. These two we
see looming through and dwarfing Sewell's words as they face each
other, for they were probably the most bitter, and certainly the most
spectacular, foe-men of that raw period before the patrol ships swept
up from the home of man to lay Earth's laws through space.
Carse and Ku Sui, adventurer and scientist, each with his own
distinctive strength and his own unyielding character--those two were
star-crossed, fated to be foes, and whenever they met there was blood,
and never was quarter asked nor quarter expected. How could it have
been otherwise? Ku Sui controlled the isuan drug trade, and Carse was
against it, as he was against everything underhanded and unclean; Ku
Sui had tricked and, by a single deed, driven Carse's loved comrade,
Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow, from his honored position on Earth,
and Carse was sworn to bring Ku Sui to Earth to clear the old
scientist's name. Either of these alone was enough to seal the feud,
but there was more. Carse was sworn to release from their bondage of
life-in-death Ku Sui's most prized possession, his storehouse of
wisdom--the brains of five great Earth scientists, kept alive though
their bodies were dead.
These, then, were the forces glossed over so lightly by John
Sewell's words. These the forces that clashed in the episode set out
below: that clashed, then drew apart, and knew not one another for
years....
* * * * *
It will be recalled that, in the second of these four episodes, "The
Affair of the Brains,"[1] Hawk Carse, Eliot Leithgow, and the Negro
Friday broke free from Dr. Ku's secret lair, his outwardly invisible
asteroid, and in doing so thought they had destroyed the Eurasian and
all his works, including the infamous machine of coordinated brains.
In the third episode, "The Bluff of the Hawk,"[2] it will be
remembered that the companions came in Dr. Ku's self-propulsive
space-suits to Satellite III of Jupiter; and that there Carse learned
that in reality the Eurasian and the brains had survived, and that Dr.
Ku might very possibly soon be in possession of a direct clue to
Leithgow's hidden laboratory on Satellite III. We saw Carse take the
lone course, as he always preferred, sending Leithgow and Friday to
his friend Ban Wilson's ranch while he went to erase the clue. And we
saw him achieve his end at the fort-ranch of Lar Tantril, strong
henchman of Ku Sui, and, in brilliant Carse fashion, turn the tables
and escape from the trap that had seemingly snared him, and proceed
towards where, fourteen miles away, Leithgow and the Negro were
waiting for him.
[Footnote 1: See the March, 1932, issue of Astounding Stories.]
[Footnote 2: See the May, 1932, issue of Astounding Stories.]
His three friends were waiting very uneasily that day. Eleven hours
had passed since Leithgow and Friday had parted from the Hawk, and
they had heard nothing from him. They knew he was going into high
peril: Leithgow had in vain tried to dissuade him; and so it was with
growing fear that they watched the hours pass by.
With Ban Wilson, they sat near dawn in the comfortable living room of
the ranch's central building. Although largely rested from the ordeal
of the journey to Satellite III, the huge Negro was fidgety, and even
Leithgow, more controlled, showed the strain by continually raising
his thin white fingers to his lined face and stroking it. Wilson's men
were on watch outside in the graying darkness, but often Friday
supplemented them, going to the door, staring down to the beach of the
bordering lake, staring up to the skies, staring at the black and
murmurous flanks of the jungle--staring, scowling and returning to sit
and look gloomily at the floor.
* * * * *
Ban Wilson was the most active physically. He was a miniature dynamo
of a man, throbbing with a restless, inexhaustible tide of energy.
Short and wiry, he stared truculently at the universe through
wonderfully clear blue eyes, surrounded by a bumper crop of freckles
and topped by a mat of bristly red hair. His short stub nose had
prodded into countless hostile places where it most emphatically was
not wanted. It would be hardly necessary to old acquaintances of his
to say that he was now speaking.
"No, sir! I say the Hawk's safe and kicking! Can't kill _him_! By my
grandmother's false teeth, I swear I'd follow him to hell, knowin' I'd
come out alive and leavin' the devil yowlin' behind with his tail tied
into pretzels! He said he would meet you here? Well, then, he will."
Friday looked up mournfully.
"Yes, suh, Cap'n Ban; but Cap'n Carse was going into a pow'ful lot of
trouble. An' he was worn an' tired, an' he only had a space-suit an' a
raygun, an' you know he wouldn't stop for anything till he'd done
what he set out to. I kind of feel ... I dunno ... I dunno...."
"By Betelguese!" swore Ban Wilson, "if he doesn't come soon I'll take
that damned Porno apart till I find him!"
Eliot Leithgow gave up the late radio newscast from Earth he had been
pretending to read. A brief silence fell, and through it the old
scientist seemed to feel something, seemed to expect something. And he
was not mistaken.
"_Who's there?_"
It was a cry from one of the watchers outside. Friday leaped out of
his uneasy seat and was through the door even before Ban, who followed
with Leithgow. They heard the Negro roar from ahead:
"Cap'n Carse! Cap'n Carse! Sure enough, it's Cap'n Carse!"--and they
saw his great form go bounding down to the gray-lit beach of the lake,
to a slight, weary figure that came stumbling along it.
* * * * *
Hawk Carse had come as he said he would, but he was a sore figure of a
man. Though he was not in it now, for days he had worn the harsh,
grating metal and fabric of a space-suit, and its marks were left on
him. Even from a distance the others could see that his once-neat blue
trousers and soft flannel shirt were torn through in many places,
revealing ugly purplish bruises; on his haggard face was a nap of
flaxen beard, and in his blood-shot gray eyes utter exhaustion, both
mental and physical. The Hawk had been acting at high tension for days
past, and now the reaction was exacting its inevitable toll.
He came stumbling heavily along the beach, his feet dragging through
its coarse sand, and it seemed as if he would drop any moment. With a
slight smile he greeted Friday, then Eliot Leithgow and Wilson, all
running down.
"Hello, Eclipse," he murmured, "and Eliot--and Ban--"
There he wavered and half fell against the Negro's body. Friday wished
to carry him, but he would have none of it: by himself he walked up to
the ranch-house, where he slumped into a chair while Ban Wilson went
shouting into the galley for a mug of hot alkite.
After draining it, Carse revived slightly. Again aware of the three
men grouped around him, and recognizing their eagerness for his news,
he forced himself to speech.
"Sleepy--must sleep. But--yes--some things I'll tell you." In quick,
staccato sentences, his tired eyelids shut half the time, he sketched
his adventure at Lar Tantril's ranch, explaining how, even though
captured, he had destroyed the figures, telling of the location of
Leithgow's laboratory; and a slight smile appeared on his lips as he
told of the ruse by which he had escaped. "Got away. Told them the
lake-front was very dangerous to them. Made them let me show them. I
walked out--dozens of them round me, guns on me--walked out till I
went under water. Could do it in the suit. I walked under water half a
mile or so, then came up and cached the suit. I guess they're still
watching! Easy!"
* * * * *
He chuckled, and then, after a short pause, went on:
"But here's what's important--Ku Sui is alive. Yes, I know it. He has
an assignation with Tantril at Tantril's ranch. In five days. And the
coordinated brains I promised to destroy--they still exist. So, Eliot,
these are orders: prepare plans for infra-red and ultra-violet
devices--they ought to do it--so we can see Dr. Ku's invisible
asteroid when it comes. Friday, you go down and get my space-suit:
it's cached ten miles down the beach, beneath a big watrari tree. And
then--" His head slumped over; he appeared to have abruptly fallen to
sleep.
"Yes, Carse? What is your plan?" Eliot Leithgow asked softly. But the
Hawk was only making a great last effort to gather the threads of his
idea.
"Yes," he responded, "the plan. Ban stations a man to keep watch on
Tantril's ranch, while we go back to your laboratory, Eliot, where
you'll make the devices and repair the gravity-plates of my suit.
Then, four nights from now, if the watcher's seen no one arrive, Ban,
Friday and I return and lie in ambush round Tantril's ranch. Awaiting
Dr. Ku. When he comes, he'll surely leave his asteroid somewhere near.
And while he's at Tantril's, we capture the asteroid--and my promise
to the coordinated brains will be kept.
"Then--but that's enough for now; I am so tired. Ban, will you
please--some food--"
Wilson, who had been listening eagerly and, at the end, grinning in
prospect of action with the Hawk, darted off like a spark. A few
minutes later, after his third mouthful of food, Carse murmured:
"We'll use your ship to go to Eliot's lab in, Ban, but I think
you'll--have to--carry me--aboard. So sleepy. Wake me when we get
to--lab."
On this last word his sleep-denied body had its way, and at once he
was deep in the dreamless slumber of exhaustion.
While he slept, the others rapidly carried out his orders. Within two
hours Friday, in the ranch's air-car, had retrieved the cached suit.
Ban Wilson had manned and made ready his personal space-ship for the
trip to the laboratory, and Eliot Leithgow had jotted down a few
preliminary plans for the infra-red and ultra-violet instruments
which Carse would need in order to see the invisible asteroid of Dr.
Ku Sui.