not. Its vulnerable.It's wide open to one way of attack and my friends and I know itwell."
For a second the Venusian's assurance wavered.
"Vulnerable?" he said. "Open to attack? You're just stalling!"
Whip-like words cut through.
"Wait and see. Wait till the ranch is stormed and wiped out. Waittwenty minutes! Only twenty!"
Hawk Carse was always listened to when he spoke in such manner. LarTantril stared at the hard gray eyes boring into his.
"Why do you tell me this?" he asked. Then, with a smile: "Why not waituntil my ranch is wiped out, as you say?" His smile broadened. "Untilthese hidden friends attack?"
"Simply because I must insure my living. Nothing my friends could dowould prevent your having plenty of time to kill me before youyourselves were destroyed. I think, under the circumstances, you_would_ kill me. And I must go free. I have made a promise. A veryimportant promise. I must be free to carry it out."
"Just what are you aiming at?"
"I'm offering," said the Hawk, "to show you where your fort isvulnerable--in time for you to protect it. I'll do this if you'll letme go free. _You need not release me till afterwards._"
* * * * *
Lar Tantril's mouth fell half open at this surprising turn. He wasunquestionably taken aback. But he snapped his lips shut andconsidered the offer. A trick? Carse was famed for them. A trap? Buthow? He scanned his men. Fifty to one; fifty ray-guns on an unarmedman helpless in a hampering prison of metal and fabric. If a trap,Carse could not possibly escape death. But yet....
Tantril walked over to his man Esret, and, stepping apart, theyconferred in whispers.
"Is he trying to trick us?" the chief asked.
"I don't see how he can hope to. He can hardly move in that suit. Itties him down. We could keep tight guard upon him. He couldn'tpossibly get away. And at the slightest sign of something shady--"
"Yes; but you know him."
"What he says is sensible. Naturally he wants to live. He knows we'llshoot him if he tries to trick us, and he knows we'll do it if we'reattacked! We'll of course leave men at all defensive stations. Ifthere _is_ a weakness here, if the ranch _is_ vulnerable--we shouldlearn what it is. It'll cost us nothing. We can't lose, and we mightbe saving everything. Of course we won't let him go afterwards."
Tantril considered a moment longer, then said:
"Yes, I think you are right."
He turned back to the waiting Carse.
"Agreed," he said. "Show this vulnerable point to us and you'll bereleased. But no false moves! One sign of treachery and you're dead!"
The Hawk's strong-cut face showed no change. It was only inwardly thathe smiled.
* * * * *
Their very manner of accompanying him showed their respect for theslender adventurer.
He had no gun; he was stooped by the unrelieved weight of the massivehelmet, the suit itself and the chunky blocks of metal which were theboots; his every dragging step was that of a man shackled bychains--but he was Hawk Carse! And so, as he shuffled out through thefront door of the house and lumbered with painful effort across theclearing, he was surrounded by a glitter of ray-guns held by theclose-pressing circle of men. Tantril's own gun kept steady on hisbroad fabric-clad back, and of its proximity he kept reminding Carse.
New guards were already on watch on each of the threewatch-platforms, their eyes sweeping around the clearing and thejungle and the dark stretch of the lake, and often returning to thecrowd which marked the stumbling giant's progress below. Each point ofdefense was manned. In the ranch's central control room, asteel-sheathed cubby in the basement of Tantril's house, men stoodwatchful, their hands ready at the wheels and levers which commandedthe ranch's ray-batteries, their eyes on the vision-screen which gaveto this unseen heart of the place a panoramic view of what wastranspiring above. And all waited on what the grotesque, bloatedfigure they watched might reveal.
Watch--watch--watch. A hundred eyes, below, above, beside the Hawk,were centered and alert on each move of his clumsy progress. Thebarrels of two-score ray-guns transfixed him. Under such guard hearrived at the ranch's fence where it approached the Great Briney.
"Open the gate," said the Hawk curtly. "It's down there."
He pointed to where the lake's pebbled beach shelved downward to thetiny murmurous waves, a ten-foot stretch of ghostly white between theguarding fence and the water.
"Down there?" repeated Tantril slowly. "Down to the lake?"
"Yes!" Carse snapped irritably. "Well, will you open the gate? I'mvery tired: I can't bear this suit much longer."
* * * * *
Lar Tantril conferred uneasily with Esret, while his men castshivering glances out over the dark wind-rippled plain of the lake.But no enemy showed there. The beach was clear for fifty yards on eachside.
"By Iapetus!" the adventurer complained harshly, "are you children,to be afraid of the dark? Tantril, put your gun into me, and shoot ifI try anything suspicious! Open the gate!"
Finally the lock was unfastened and the gate swung out. Tantrilstationed a man there, ready to close and lock it in case of need, andthen, Hawk Carse, still surrounded by the alert Venusians, shuffleddown to the edge of the water.
Over the Great Briney was silence. No shape broke its calm. The airheld only the nervous whispers of the crowd and the scrape and crunchof the lone Earthling's dragging boots as they made wide furrows inthe hard pebbly soil of the beach.
The men had fallen back a little, and now were a half circle aroundhim down to the water's brink. The watch-beacon's light caught themfull there, and threw great blots of shadows lakeward from them. Theirray-guns were gripped tighter as their shifty eyes darted from hishuge bulk to the water ahead, and back. Doubt and fear swayed themall.
The Hawk wasted no time, but stepped out to knee-high level on thesharply shelving bottom. At this Tantril objected.
"Hold, Carse!" he roared. "You play for time, I think! Where is thispoint of attack?"
The bloated figure did not answer him, but bent over as if searchingfor something under the tiny waves which now were slapping his thigh.He reached one hand down and probed around with it, apparentlyfeeling. The eyes watching him were wide and fear-fascinated.
* * * * *
"Here--or no," the Hawk muttered to himself, though a dozen could hearhim. "A little farther, I think.... Here--but no, I forgot: the tidehas come in. A little farther...." He stopped suddenly andstraightened, turned to the Venusian chief. "Don't forget. LarTantril, you have promised I can go free!"
Then he resumed his search of the bottom, the black surface of waterup to his waist. Again the fearful Venusian leader roared anobjection:
"You're tricking us. Carse, you little devil--"
"Oh, don't be an ass!" Carse snapped back. "As if I could getaway--your ray-guns on me!"
Another half minute passed; a few more short steps were taken. Amuttered oath came from one of the wet, uncomfortable men in the gripof fear. Several there were on the brink of turning in, a panicky dashfor the safety of the enclosure behind, the warm buildings, guarded byray-batteries--and yet an awful fascination held them. What metallichorror of the deeps was being exposed?
"Just a second, now," the Hawk was murmuring. "You'll all see....Somewhere ... right ... here ... somewhere...."
He held them taut, expectant. The water licked around the waist of hissuit. One more slow step; one more yet.
"_Here!_" he cried triumphantly, and clicked his face-plate closed.And the men who stared, faces pale, hearts pounding, ray-guns at theready, saw him no longer. The water had closed over that shiny metalhelmet. Only a mocking ripple was left.
Hawk Carse was gone!
* * * * *
Gone!--and laughing to himself.
The space-suit, his heavy prison of metal and fabric, would protecthim from water as well as from space! It
offered his golden--hisonly--opportunity. It had been pierced by Tantril's shots, back in thehouse, but only the gravity-plate compartments, which were sealed andseparate. It was still--after he had closed the mittens--air-tight, aneffective little submarine in the dark waters of the Great Briney!
So Carse followed his black course over the lake-bottom laughing andlaughing. In his mind he could see what he had left behind: the men,shivering there in the water for an instant, completely befogged, andperhaps firing one or two shots at where he had disappeared; thenturning and breaking back in a grand rush for the fence and safety.And the ray-batteries, all manned and centered on the lake; Tantril,in a very fury of rage, but fearful,