CHAPTER X
_In the Visi-Screen_
There were those among the few claiming to have any insight into thereal Hawk Carse who declared that a month went out of his life for everyminute he spent in the cell then. The story, of course, came tricklingout through various unreliable sources; we who delve in the lore of thegreat adventurer have to thank for our authorities Sewell, the greathistorian of that generation--who personally traveled several millionmiles to get what meager facts the Hawk would divulge concerning hislife and career--equally with Friday, who shared this particularadventure with him. Friday's emotional eyes no doubt colored his memoryof the scenes he passed through, and it is likely that the facts lostnothing in the simple dramatic way he would relate them.
But certainly the black was as fearful of his master during that periodin the cell as he was of what he saw acted out on the screen.
We can picture him telling of the ordeal, his big eyes rolling and hisdeep rich voice trembling with the memories stamped forever in hisbrain; and picture too the men who, at one time or another, listened tohim, fascinated, their mouths agape and a tickling down the length oftheir spines. It was probably only Friday's genius as a narrator whichlater caused some of his listeners to swear that new lines were groovedin Carse's face and a few flaxen hairs silvered by the minutes he spentwatching Eliot Leithgow strapped down on that operating table, close tothe beautiful surgeon fingers of Dr. Ku Sui.
But whether or not that period of torture really pierced through hisiron emotional guard and set its mark on him permanently by aging him,it is impossible to say. However, there were deep things in Hawk Carse,and the deepest among them were the ties binding him to his friends;there was also that certain cold vanity; and considering these it isprobable that he came very close indeed to the brink of some frighteningemotional abyss, before which he had few shreds of mind andbody-discipline left....
* * * * *
He reentered the cell like a ghost; he stood very still, his handsslowly clenching and unclenching behind his back, and his pale faceinclined low, so that the chin rested on his chest. So he stood for someminutes, Friday not daring to disturb him, until the single door thatgave entrance clicked in its lock and opened again. At this he raisedhis head. Five men came in, all coolies, three of whom had ray-gunswhich they kept scrupulously on the white man and black while the othertwo rigged up an apparatus well up on one of the cell walls. Theyremained wholly unaffected the several times their dull eyes met thoseof the Hawk. Perhaps, being mechanicalized humans, practically robots,they got no reaction from the icy gray eyes in his strained white face.
The device they attached was some two square feet of faintly gleamingscreen, rimmed by metal and with little behind it other than two smallenclosed tubes, a cuplike projector with wires looping several terminalson its exterior, and a length of black, rubberized cable, which last waspassed through one of the five-inch ventilating slits high in the wall.Carse regarded it with his hard stare until the door clicked behind thecoolies and they were once more alone. Then his head returned to itsbowed position, and Friday approached the apparatus and began to examineit with the curiosity of the born mechanic he was.
"Let it be, Friday," the Hawk ordered tonelessly.
A dozen minutes passed in silence.
The silence was outward: there was no quiet in the adventurer's head. Hecould not stop the sharp remorseless voice which kept sounding in hisbrain. Its pitiless words flailed him unceasingly with their stingingtaunts. "You--you whom they call the Hawk," it would say; "you, theinfallible one--you, so recklessly, egotistically confident--you havebrought this to pass! Not only have you allowed yourself to be trapped,but Eliot Leithgow! He is out there now; and soon his brain will becondemned forever to that which you have seen! The brain that trustedyou! And you have brought this to pass! Yours the blame, thenever-failing Hawk! All yours--yours--yours!"
A voice reached him from far away. A soft negro voice which said,timidly:
"They're beginning, suh. Captain Carse? On the screen, suh; they'rebeginning."
That was worse. The real ordeal was approaching. True, he might havethrown himself on the coolie-guards who had just left--but his deathwould not have helped old M. S.
Friday spoke again, and this time his words leaped roaring into Carse'sears. He raised his head and looked.
The tubes behind the screen were crackling, and the screen itself hadcome to life. He was looking at the laboratory. But the place waschanged.
* * * * *
What had before been a wide circular room, with complicated machines andunnamed scientific apparatus following only its walls, so as to leavethe center of its floor empty and free from obstructions, was now aplace of deep shadow pierced by a broad cone of blinding white lightwhich shafted down from some source overhead and threw into brilliantemphasis only the center of the room.
The light struck straight down upon an operating table. At its headstood a squat metal cylinder sprouting a long flexible tube which endedin a cone--no doubt the anesthetizing apparatus. A stepped-back tier ofwhite metal drawers flanked one side of the table, upon its variousupper surfaces an array of gleaming surgeon's tools. In neat squads theylay there: long thin knives with straight and curved cutting edges;handled wires, curved into hooks and eccentric corkscrew shapes;scalpels of different sizes; forceps, clasps, retractors, odd metalclaws, circular saw-blades and a variety of other unclassifiedinstruments. Sterilizers were convenient to one side, a thin wraith ofsteam drifting up from them into the source of the light.
Four men worked within the brilliant shaft of illumination--fourwhite-clad figures, hands gloved and faces swathed in surgeons' masks.Only their lifeless eyes were visible, concentrated on their tasks ofpreparation. Steam rose in increased mists as one figure lifted back thelid of a sterilizer and dropped in some gleaming instruments. The cloudswirled around his masked face and body with devilish infernolikeeffect.
All this in deadest silence. From the darkness came another figure, talland commanding, a shape whose black silk garments struck a new note inthe dazzling whiteness of the scene. He was pulling on operating gloves.His slanted eyes showed keen and watchful through the eyeholes of themask he already wore, as he surveyed the preparations. Ominous Ku Suilooked, among his white-clad assistants.
The Eurasian seemed to give an order, and a white figure turned andglanced off into the surrounding darkness, raising one hand. A doorshowed in faint outline as it opened. Through the door two shadowsmoved, wheeling something long and flat between them.
They came into the light, two coolies, and wheeled their conveyancealongside the operating table. Then they turned into the darkness andwere gone.
"Oh!" gasped Friday. "They've shaved off his head!"
* * * * *
The frail form of Eliot Leithgow, clad to the neck in loose whitegarments, showed clearly as he was lifted to the operating table. AsFriday said, his hair was all gone--shaved off close--stunningverification of what was to happen. Awfully alone and helpless helooked, yet his face was calm and he lay there composed, watching hissoulless inquisitors with keen blue eyes. But his expression alteredwhen Dr. Ku appeared over him and felt and prodded his naked head.
"I can't stand this!"
It was a whisper of agony in the silence of the cell where the two menstood watching, a cry from the fiber of the Hawk's innermost self. Thepath he left across the frontiers of space was primarily a lonely one;but Friday and Eliot Leithgow and two or three others were friends andvery precious to him, and they received all the emotion in his tough,hard soul. Especially Leithgow--old, alone, dishonored on Earth, frailand nearing the end of the long years--he needed protection. He hadtrusted Carse.
Trusted him! And now this!
Ku Sui's fingers were prodding Leithgow's head like that of any dumbanimal chosen as subject for experimentation. Prodding.... Feeling....
&n
bsp; "I can't stand it!" the Hawk whispered again.
The mask on his face, that famous self-imposed mask that hid allemotion, had broken. Lines were there, deep with agony; tiny drops ofsweat stood out all over. He saw Ku Sui pick up something and adjust itto his grip while looking down at the man who lay, now strapped on thetable. He saw him nod curtly to an assistant; saw the anestheticcylinder wheeled up a little closer, and the dials on it set toquivering....
His hands came up and covered his eyes. But only for a moment. He wouldnot be able to keep his sight away. That was the exquisite torture theEurasian had counted on: he well knew as he had arranged it that theadventurer would not be able to hold his eyes from the screen. Carse hadto look!
He took away his hands and raised his eyes.
The screen was blank!
* * * * *
Friday looked up with a grin from where he was kneeling before the knobon the door of the cell. Carse saw that the knob was of metal, centeredin an inset square of some dull fibrous composition.
"This door has an electric lock, suh," the negro explained rapidly. "Andthings worked by electricity can often be short-circuited!"
Quickly and silently he had disconnected from the television projectorthe wire which led back through the ventilating slit in the wall, andnow was holding its end with one hand while with the other he twistedout the screw which held in the knob. "Anyway, won't hurt to try," hesaid, removing the screw and laying it on the floor. In another secondthe knob lay beside it, and he was squinting into the hole where it hadfitted.
"Be quick!" Carse whispered.
Friday did not answer. He was guessing at the location of the mechanismwithin, and trying to summon up all the knowledge he had of such things.After a moment he bent one of the live ends of the wire he was holdinginto a gentle curve and felt his way down within the lock with it,carefully keeping the other end clear of all contacts.
Seconds went by as his fingers delicately worked--seconds that toldterribly on Hawk Carse. For the screen was blank and lifeless, and therewas no way of knowing how far the work in the laboratory had meanwhileprogressed. In his mind remained each detail of the scene as he hadviewed it last: the strapped-down figure, the approaching anestheticcylinder, the knives lying in readiness.... How was he to know if one ofthose instruments were not already tinged with scarlet?
"Oh, be quick!" he cried again.
"If I can touch a live part of the lock's circuit," grunted Friday,absorbed, "there ought--to--be--trouble."
* * * * *
Suddenly currents clashed with a sputtering hiss, and a shower of sparksshot out of the knob-hole and were instantly gone. Short-circuited! Itremained to be seen whether it had destroyed the mechanism of the lock.Friday dropped the hot, burned-through wire he was holding and reachedfor the knob, but the Hawk had leaped into life and was ahead of him.
In a moment the knob was in the door and its holding screw part-way in.Gently the Hawk tried the knob. It turned!
But they did not leave the cell--then. Ku Sui's voice was echoingthrough the room, more than a trace of irritation in its tone:
"Hawk Carse, you are beginning to annoy me--you and your too-cleverblack satellite."
Carse's eyes flashed to the ceiling. A small disklike object, almostunnoticeable, lay flat against it in one place.
"Yes," continued Ku Sui, "I can talk to you, hear you and see you. Ibelieve you have succeeded in destroying the lock. So open it and glanceinto the corridor--and escape, if you still want to. I rather wish you'dtry, for I'm extremely busy and must not be disturbed again."
Graven-faced, without comment Carse turned the knob and opened the dooran inch. He peeped through, Friday doing so also over his head--peepedright into the muzzles of four ray-guns, held by an equal number ofcoolie-guards waiting there.
"So that's it," Friday said, dejectedly. "He saw me workin' on the lockan' sent those guards here at once. Or else had them there all thetime."
* * * * *
The Hawk closed the door and considered what to do. Ku Sui's voicereturned.
"Yes," it sounded metallically, "I've an assistant posted here who'swatching every move you make. Don't, therefore, hope to surprise me byanything you may do.
"Now I am going to resume work. Reconnect the screen: I've had theburned-out fuse replaced. If you won't, I'll have it done for you--andhave you so bound that you'll be forced to look at it.
"Don't tamper with any of my hearing and seeing mechanisms again,please. If you do, I will be forced to have you destroyed within fiveminutes.
"But--if you'd like to leave your cell, you have my full permission. Youshould find it easy, now that the lock is broken."
The voice said no more. Carse ordered Friday harshly:
"Reconnect the screen."
The negro hastened to obey. His master's gray eyes again fastened on thescreen. Fiercely, for a moment, he smoothed his bangs.
The laboratory flashed into clear outline again. There was the shaft ofwhite light; the operating table, full under it; the anestheticcylinder, the banks of instruments, the sterilizers with their wisps ofsteam curling ceaselessly up. There were the efficient white-cladassistant-surgeons, their dull eyes showing through the holes in theirmasks. And there was the black figure of Ku Sui, an ironic smile on hislips, and before him the resigned and helpless form of Eliot Leithgow.
The Eurasian gestured. An assistant found the pulse in Leithgow's wrist,and another bent over him in such fashion that the prisoners could notsee what he was doing. Ku Sui too bent over, something in his hands. Theprelude to living death had begun....
* * * * *
At that moment Hawk Carse was a different man, recovered from theweakness that had made him cry out at his friend's imminent destructiona short time before. The old characteristic fierceness and recklessnesshad come back to him; he had decided on action--on probable death. "I'vebeen too cautious!" he exclaimed violently in his thoughts.
"Friday!" he whispered sharply to the negro, going close.
"Yes, suh?"
"Four men outside--a sudden charge through that door when I nod. We'lldie, too, by God! Willing?"
Friday was held by the man's iron will to succeed or die. Withouthesitation he whispered back:
"Yes, suh!"
Their whispers had been low. Dr. Ku Sui had not been warned, for thescreen still showed him bending over his victim.
"You'll open the door; you're nearest. I'll go through first," the Hawkmurmured, and smiled at the loyalty behind the promptness of his man'sgrin of understanding.
Then both smiles faded. The muscles of the negro's huge body bunched inreadiness for the signal as tensely he watched the flaxen-haired headclose to him.
Suddenly it nodded.
The door swung wide and white man and black went charging out.
And immediately there burst in their ears the furious clanging of ageneral alarm bell, sounding throughout the whole building!