Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
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_
_Like a projectile Hawk Carse shot out in a directionaway from Earth._]
[Sidenote: A screaming streak in the night--a cloud of billowingsteam--and the climax of Hawk Carse's spectacular "Affair of theBrains" is over.]
The career of Hawk Carse, taken broadly, divides itself into threemain phases, and it is with the Ku Sui adventures of the second phasethat we have been concerned in this intimate narrative. John Sewell,the historian, baldly condenses those adventures of a century agotogether, but on research and closer scrutiny they take on anindividuality and significance deserving of separate treatment, andthis they have been given here. For fictionized presentation, we havespaced the adventures into four connected episodes, four acts of avibrant drama which ranged clear from Saturn to Earth, the core ofwhich was the feud between Captain Carse and the power-lustingEurasian scientist, Dr. Ku Sui--that feud the reverberations of whoseterrible settling still echo over the solar system--and in this lastact of the drama, set out below, we come to its spectacular climax.
The words of John Sewell's epic history sit lightly on paper; easywords for Sewell, once the collection of data was over, to write; notvery significant words for the uninitiated and casual reader who doesnot see the irresistible forces beneath them. But consider the fullmeaning of these words, and glance for a moment at the two figuresconjured up by them. We see Hawk Carse, a man slender in build, butwith gray eyes and lithe, strong-fingered hands and cold, intent facethat 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 raregreen eyes slumbered the soul of a tiger, notwithstanding the courtesyand the grace that masked always his most infamous moves. These two wesee looming through and dwarfing Sewell's words as they face eachother, for they were probably the most bitter, and certainly the mostspectacular, foe-men of that raw period before the patrol ships sweptup from the home of man to lay Earth's laws through space.
Carse and Ku Sui, adventurer and scientist, each with his owndistinctive strength and his own unyielding character--those two werestar-crossed, fated to be foes, and whenever they met there was blood,and never was quarter asked nor quarter expected. How could it havebeen otherwise? Ku Sui controlled the isuan drug trade, and Carse wasagainst it, as he was against everything underhanded and unclean; KuSui 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 oldscientist's name. Either of these alone was enough to seal the feud,but there was more. Carse was sworn to release from their bondage oflife-in-death Ku Sui's most prized possession, his storehouse ofwisdom--the brains of five great Earth scientists, kept alive thoughtheir bodies were dead.
These, then, were the forces glossed over so lightly by JohnSewell's words. These the forces that clashed in the episode set outbelow: that clashed, then drew apart, and knew not one another foryears....
* * * * *
It will be recalled that, in the second of these four episodes, "TheAffair of the Brains,"[1] Hawk Carse, Eliot Leithgow, and the NegroFriday broke free from Dr. Ku's secret lair, his outwardly invisibleasteroid, and in doing so thought they had destroyed the Eurasian andall his works, including the infamous machine of coordinated brains.In the third episode, "The Bluff of the Hawk,"[2] it will beremembered that the companions came in Dr. Ku's self-propulsivespace-suits to Satellite III of Jupiter; and that there Carse learnedthat in reality the Eurasian and the brains had survived, and that Dr.Ku might very possibly soon be in possession of a direct clue toLeithgow's hidden laboratory on Satellite III. We saw Carse take thelone course, as he always preferred, sending Leithgow and Friday tohis friend Ban Wilson's ranch while he went to erase the clue. And wesaw him achieve his end at the fort-ranch of Lar Tantril, stronghenchman of Ku Sui, and, in brilliant Carse fashion, turn the tablesand escape from the trap that had seemingly snared him, and proceedtowards where, fourteen miles away, Leithgow and the Negro werewaiting 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 hourshad passed since Leithgow and Friday had parted from the Hawk, andthey had heard nothing from him. They knew he was going into highperil: Leithgow had in vain tried to dissuade him; and so it was withgrowing fear that they watched the hours pass by.
With Ban Wilson, they sat near dawn in the comfortable living room ofthe ranch's central building. Although largely rested from the ordealof the journey to Satellite III, the huge Negro was fidgety, and evenLeithgow, more controlled, showed the strain by continually raisinghis thin white fingers to his lined face and stroking it. Wilson's menwere on watch outside in the graying darkness, but often Fridaysupplemented them, going to the door, staring down to the beach of thebordering lake, staring up to the skies, staring at the black andmurmurous flanks of the jungle--staring, scowling and returning to sitand look gloomily at the floor.
* * * * *
Ban Wilson was the most active physically. He was a miniature dynamoof a man, throbbing with a restless, inexhaustible tide of energy.Short and wiry, he stared truculently at the universe throughwonderfully clear blue eyes, surrounded by a bumper crop of frecklesand topped by a mat of bristly red hair. His short stub nose hadprodded into countless hostile places where it most emphatically wasnot wanted. It would be hardly necessary to old acquaintances of histo say that he was now speaking.
"No, sir! I say the Hawk's safe and kicking! Can't kill _him_! By mygrandmother's false teeth, I swear I'd follow him to hell, knowin' I'dcome out alive and leavin' the devil yowlin' behind with his tail tiedinto 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 oftrouble. An' he was worn an' tired, an' he only had a space-suit an' araygun, an' you know he wouldn't stop for anything till he'd donewhat 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 takethat damned Porno apart till I find him!"
Eliot Leithgow gave up the late radio newscast from Earth he had beenpretending to read. A brief silence fell, and through it the oldscientist seemed to feel something, seemed to expect something. And hewas not mistaken.
"_Who's th
ere?_"
It was a cry from one of the watchers outside. Friday leaped out ofhis uneasy seat and was through the door even before Ban, who followedwith Leithgow. They heard the Negro roar from ahead:
"Cap'n Carse! Cap'n Carse! Sure enough, it's Cap'n Carse!"--and theysaw 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 aman. 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 onhim. Even from a distance the others could see that his once-neat bluetrousers and soft flannel shirt were torn through in many places,revealing ugly purplish bruises; on his haggard face was a nap offlaxen beard, and in his blood-shot gray eyes utter exhaustion, bothmental and physical. The Hawk had been acting at high tension for dayspast, and now the reaction was exacting its inevitable toll.
He came stumbling heavily along the beach, his feet dragging throughits coarse sand, and it seemed as if he would drop any moment. With aslight smile he greeted Friday, then Eliot Leithgow and Wilson, allrunning down.
"Hello, Eclipse," he murmured, "and Eliot--and Ban--"
There he wavered and half fell against the Negro's body. Friday wishedto carry him, but he would have none of it: by himself he walked up tothe ranch-house, where he slumped into a chair while Ban Wilson wentshouting into the galley for a mug of hot alkite.
After draining it, Carse revived slightly. Again aware of the threemen 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 sketchedhis adventure at Lar Tantril's ranch, explaining how, even thoughcaptured, he had destroyed the figures, telling of the location ofLeithgow's laboratory; and a slight smile appeared on his lips as hetold of the ruse by which he had escaped. "Got away. Told them thelake-front was very dangerous to them. Made them let me show them. Iwalked out--dozens of them round me, guns on me--walked out till Iwent under water. Could do it in the suit. I walked under water half amile or so, then came up and cached the suit. I guess they're stillwatching! 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 hasan assignation with Tantril at Tantril's ranch. In five days. And thecoordinated brains I promised to destroy--they still exist. So, Eliot,these are orders: prepare plans for infra-red and ultra-violetdevices--they ought to do it--so we can see Dr. Ku's invisibleasteroid 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. Andthen--" His head slumped over; he appeared to have abruptly fallen tosleep.
"Yes, Carse? What is your plan?" Eliot Leithgow asked softly. But theHawk was only making a great last effort to gather the threads of hisidea.
"Yes," he responded, "the plan. Ban stations a man to keep watch onTantril's ranch, while we go back to your laboratory, Eliot, whereyou'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. AwaitingDr. 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 promiseto the coordinated brains will be kept.
"Then--but that's enough for now; I am so tired. Ban, will youplease--some food--"
Wilson, who had been listening eagerly and, at the end, grinning inprospect of action with the Hawk, darted off like a spark. A fewminutes later, after his third mouthful of food, Carse murmured:
"We'll use your ship to go to Eliot's lab in, Ban, but I thinkyou'll--have to--carry me--aboard. So sleepy. Wake me when we getto--lab."
On this last word his sleep-denied body had its way, and at once hewas deep in the dreamless slumber of exhaustion.
While he slept, the others rapidly carried out his orders. Within twohours Friday, in the ranch's air-car, had retrieved the cached suit.Ban Wilson had manned and made ready his personal space-ship for thetrip to the laboratory, and Eliot Leithgow had jotted down a fewpreliminary plans for the infra-red and ultra-violet instrumentswhich Carse would need in order to see the invisible asteroid of Dr.Ku Sui.