CHAPTER VIII
_White's Brain--Yellow's Head_
To Friday it was a bad mistake to reveal the location of thelaboratory to Dr. Ku Sui. From him above all men had that location upto now been kept. Just a few days before, Hawk Carse had risked hislife to preserve the secret. And yet now, deliberately, he was showingit to the Eurasian!
Nervously, Friday watched him, and he saw that his eyes were alivewith interest as they scanned the visi-screen. It was too much for theNegro.
"Captain Carse," he whispered, coming close to the adventurer, "look,suh--he's seein' it all! Shouldn't I blindfold him?"
Carse shook his head, but turned to Dr. Ku, where he sat bound in thechair scrutinizing the visi-screen.
"Yes, Doctor," he said, "there it is--what you have searched for solong--the refuge and the laboratory of Eliot Leithgow."
"There, Captain?" murmured the Eurasian. "I see nothing!"
And true, the visi-screen showed nothing but a hill, a lake, a swamp,and the distant, surrounding jungle.
That spot on Satellite III had been most carefully chosen by theMaster Scientist and Carse as best suiting their needs. It lay atleast a thousand miles--a thousand miles of ugly, primevaljungle--from the nearest unfriendly isuan ranch, and was diametricallyopposite Port o' Porno. Thus it allowed Leithgow and Carse to come andgo with but faint chance of being observed, and the steady watch keptthrough the laboratory's telescopic instruments lessened even that.And even if their movements to and from the laboratory had beenobserved, a spy could have discovered little, so ingeniously was thecamouflage contrived to use to best advantage the natural features ofthe landscape.
At this spot on Satellite III there was a small lake, long rather thanwide. At its shallow end, the lake lost itself in marshy, thick-grownswamps; at its deep end it washed against the slopes of a low, roundedhill. Topping the hill was a rude ranch-house, which to the casual eyewould appear the unimportant habitation of some poor jungle-squatter,with beds of various vegetables and fruits growing around it, andguarded against the jungle's animals by what looked like a makeshiftfence. The ground inside the fence had been cleared save for a fewthick, dead stumps of oxi trees, gnarled and weather-beaten, whichmade the whole outlay look crude and desolate.
So desolate, so poor, so humble, as not to deserve a second glancefrom the lowest of scavenger or pirate ships. So misleading!
* * * * *
Carse had brought the invisible asteroid to a halt perhaps a half mileabove the hill. The minutes were slipping by, bringing the two-hourdeadline ever closer, but he did not skimp his customary caution onapproaching the laboratory. From the control room, he swept theelectelscope over the surrounding terrain, and soon sighted the bandof isuanacs Eliot Leithgow had mentioned.
Through the 'scope's magnifying mirrors they seemed but yards away,though they were wandering knee-deep in the marshes at the far end ofthe lake. All their repulsive details stood out clearly.
More beasts than men, were such isuanacs (pronounced ee-swan-acs), socalled from the drug that had betrayed them step by step to a pit inwhich there was no intelligence, no light, no hope--nothing but theirmind-shattering craving. In many and unpredictable ways did the drugravish their bodies. They were outcasts from the port of outcasts,driven out of Porno into the wilderness, where they tracked out theirmiry ways searching ever for the isuan weed until some animal endedtheir enslavement, or the drug itself finally killed them inconvulsions. They were the legion of the damned.
This band of half a dozen was typical, grubbing through the slime ofthe swamp, snarling at each other, now and again fighting over a leaf,then squatting down in the mud where they were, to chew on it, theirtorture of mind and body momentarily forgotten. Rags, mud-caked andfoul, partly covered their emaciated bodies: their hair was matted,their eyes blood-shot....
Carse noted their position and looked up at Friday.
"Get the Master Scientist for me, please," he requested. The radioconnection took only seconds: and then he said into the microphone:
"Eliot? We're directly above you, as you probably have seen. Allwell?"
"Yes, Carse. The laboratory's in readiness. But thoseisuanacs--they're still outside."
"I've seen them, and I'm going to drive them away. Then I'll be downto you. Have the upper entrance ready."
* * * * *
The Hawk turned back to the controls. Taking the space-stick out ofneutral, he moved it very slightly down and to one side. Ban andFriday, not understanding his intention, watched the visi-screen.
The whole mass of rock that was the asteroid changed position at agentle speed. The band of isuanacs came nearer and nearer, and thenwere to the right. Completely oblivious of the great bulk hoveringabove them, they continued their grubbing through the swamp; and thenthe asteroid was over the jungle beyond them, and lowering its craggyunder-side.
The under-side brushed the crown of the jungle. The trees bent,crackled and broke, as if swept by a vicious but silent hurricane.Only a moment of contact; but in that moment a square mile ofinterwoven trees and vines was swept low--and to the isuanacs theeffect, as was intended, was terrifying.
They stared at the phenomenon. There had been no sound, no whip ofwind, nothing--yet all those trees had bent and crashed splintering tothe ground. Their slavering lips open, the isuan weed forgotten, theystared: and then howling and shrieking they broke and went splashingoff panic-stricken through the marsh.
In five minutes the band had disappeared into the jungle in theopposite direction and the district was cleared; and by that timeHawk Carse was again in his space-suit, out of the control room andbusy at the mechanism of one of the great ship-sized port-locks in thedome, having left behind him both Ban and Friday to guard Dr. Ku.
He mastered the controls of the port-lock quickly, and swung inner andouter doors open. He glided through, and then, a giant, clumsy figure,poised far out in the air, a soft breeze washing his face as he gazeddown at the hill five miles below, judging his descent. As he did notuse the infra-red instrument hanging from his neck, the asteroid mightnot have been there at all.
A moment or so later, after a straight, swift drop, Carse landed onthe hill, close to a particular, gnarled oxi-tree stump. The nearbyranch-house looked deserted, the whole place seemed desolate. The Hawkwaddled over to the stump, pressed a crooked little twig sticking outfrom it, and a section of the seeming-bark slid down, revealing thehollow, metal-sided interior of a cleverly camouflaged shaft.
There were rungs inside, but Carse could not use them. He squeezedhimself in, closed the entrance panel, and, carefully manipulating hisgravity controls, floated down. A descent of twenty-five feet, and hewas on the floor of a short, level corridor with gray walls andceiling.
Carse clumped along to the door at the other end of the corridor,opened it, and stepped into the hidden underground laboratory ofMaster Scientist Eliot Leithgow, which, with its storerooms, livingquarters and space-ship hangar, had been built into the hollowed-outhill.
* * * * *
"Welcome back, Carse!"
"Hello, Eliot," the Hawk nodded, rapidly divesting himself of thesuit but retaining his infra-red device. "You've lost no time, I see."
The elderly scientist, his frail form clad in a buff-colored smock,turned and surveyed the laboratory. In the center of the square roomfive improvised operating tables were drawn up, each one floodedindividually with, light from focused flood-tubes above in the whiteceiling. Flanking them were tables for instruments and sterilizers,and, more prominent, two small sleek cylindrical drums, from one ofwhich sprouted a tube ending in a breathing-cone.
"The best I could do on such short notice," Leithgow commented.
"Where are your assistants?"
"At work on the V-27. All I had on hand is in those cylinders."
"Much?"
"Enough for twelve hours for one man, but the process of itsmanufacture is accelerating;
fortunately I had plenty of ingredients.Of course I've divined your intention, Carse. Ku Sui to perform theoperations under the V-27. And it's possible, possible! It'sstupendous--and possible!"
"Yes," said the Hawk, "but more later. I'm going up now to get Dr. Ku.I'll use the air-car. It's ready?"
"Yes." Leithgow answered. "But, Carse--one question I must ask--"
The Hawk, already halfway to the door in the opposite wall of thelaboratory, paused and looked back inquiringly.
"What bodies are to be used?"
"The only ones available, Eliot," the adventurer replied, "since KuSui, in his attempt to destroy the brains, left us only two hours--nowone hour--to complete the first steps of the transfer. They'll bethose four white assistants of his--those men, you remember, whoseintellects he's dehumanized--"
"Yes, yes?" Leithgow pressed him eagerly. "And the fifth?"
"A robot coolie."
"Good God!"
"I know, Eliot! It won't be pleasant for one of those brains to finditself in a yellow body. But it's that or nothing."
The scientist nodded slowly, his first expression of shock leaving hisold face to sadness: "But, a coolie. A coolie...."
"Come, Eliot, we need speed! Speed! We've but an hour, remember, tocomplete the first steps! I'll have Ku Sui and the five men downimmediately."
The Hawk opened the door and strode down the long corridor beyond. Hisfootsteps were swiftly gone: and then the sound of another dooropening and closing. In the laboratory there was a murmur from the oldman.
"A coolie! A scientist's brain in that ugly yellow head! Whenconsciousness returns, what a cruel shock!"