CHAPTER XI
_Trapped in the Laboratory_
In his carefully welded plot-chain, Ku Sui left one weak link, though hewas not aware of it at the time. For it would not appear save by thetesting of it, and he had not expected it to be tested. Carse actedrecklessly; perhaps, if cold reason be applied to his move, senselessly.Dr. Ku had not thought he would dare make the break he did. But theadventurer did dare, and the loophole, the weak link, was exposed.
The Eurasian had a paranoic's vanity, and with it a lust accumulatedover years to exact the most terrible vengeance he could from theadventurer who had frustrated his schemes time and time again. Hisarrangement for subtly forcing Carse to watch the operation was part ofhis vengeance; but he planned more. He wanted his old foe, broken by theliving death of Eliot Leithgow, to die slowly later; wanted to crumplethat will of steel utterly; wanted to watch and pleasantly mock himduring the slow death agonies he had contrived for him. Therefore--andhere lay the weak link--Dr. Ku left orders for Carse to be kept alive.
If he had not instructed his coolie-guards to wound, and not kill, incase of a break for freedom, Carse and Friday could never possibly havegained the corridor alive. The four waiting ray-guns would have burnedout their lives within three seconds. But, as it was, the barrage ofshots from the ray-guns was directed at their legs, with the intentionof bringing them down--and their legs were moving very rapidly. And so,reckoning up the caliber of the two comrades, their wild fighting start,their fatalistic resolve to get as many as possible of the enemy beforethey died, the result of that first hectic scramble in the corridor wasmore or less inevitable.
* * * * *
With a savage war-whoop that rose, ear-shattering, above the clanging ofthe alarm bell, Friday flung his two hundred and twenty pounds of brawnand muscle after Carse into the thick of the guards, taking no morenotice of the spitting streaks of orange light that laced past his legsthan if they had been squirts from a water-pistol. The guards had beenbunched well together, but they scattered like ten-pins when Carse,followed by the living thunderbolt of fighting negro, crashed into them.In that first charge three of them were knocked flat, their guns eitherdropping or twisting loose from their hands.
Immediately recovering, the Hawk darted at the fourth with the speed ofa striking cobra; his wiry hands closed around the yellow throat: andtwo seconds later that coolie was no longer connected with theproceedings, a whacking head-thump being his passport intoinsensibility. Again Friday's exultant war-whoop bellowed out over thescene.
Carse pushed to his feet, his deadly fighting smile on his face, aray-gun in his hand. He stooped and picked up another.
"Get to the Master!" roared Friday, an ebon god of war between twofutilely attacking bodies. "I'm--followin'!"
In those red seconds, ultimate success was still too impossible a thingto even hope for. But they would at least try, then die like the menthey were.
Hawk Carse sped on down the corridor, a deadly, smoothly-functioningfighting machine. And after him a few seconds later came leaping thenegro, a whooping giant with a ray-gun in each hand and the light ofbattle flashing in his eyes. As his personal contribution to the fighthe was leaving in the rear three sprawled bodies, two knocked cold andthe third with a broken neck.
Their triumph had so far been a matter of but sixty seconds. The jangleof the alarm bell continued ominously. It summoned resistance,well-trained resistance; the defenses of the asteroid awoke to action.Doors spacing the corridor behind now began to open, releasing dozens ofOrientals. Nor had these men heard Ku Sui's orders. They would shoot tokill!
* * * * *
Three peering faces suddenly were in Hawk Carse's line of vision ahead:three ray-guns were settling on him. His famous left hand, the gun-handthat was known and dreaded throughout space, moved with the eye-blindingspeed that was necessary; his trigger finger bent only three times, buteach of the pencil-thin streaks of orange that spat forth brought down aman, and he had struck without slackening his stride for an instant.
Twice more his ray-gun spoke, and then the goal, the entrance to thecentral laboratory, was just ahead. Carse glanced back.
"Yes, suh!" a fierce voice yelled out to him. "Coming!"
Friday was bringing up the rear as fast as he could. He came sideways ina zigzag course ducking and whirling constantly, and in between firingpromptly at any portions of enemy anatomies that dared project into theline of the corridor. The Hawk covered the last few yards of hisretreat, and then they were together at the laboratory.
"The knob!" Carse ordered, spraying the corridor in general warning.
Friday tried it, but the door was locked. He hurled himself against it,but it did not budge.
How to get through? On the other side of the door was Leithgow, andprobably Ku Sui; on this side they were trapped in a blind end. Theycould never make it back down that gauntlet and live, and anything likeconcerted action on the part of the yellows would do for them where theywere.
That concerted action came at once. Seventy feet behind, a heavyshot-projector was pushed out on its little rollers from one of thedoors. A hand reached out and whirled it so that its muzzle borestraight down the corridor at them. Carse shot at the hand, but thetarget was too small even for his fine eye, and he missed; Fridaysilenced an emboldened orange spot of light that was spitting streaks atthem.
Hopeless! It looked like the end. Hawk Carse's face was in its old,emotionless mold as he waited, his gun sharp on the spot where the handmust reappear if they would fire the deadly projector. He had to getthat hand--and any others that took its place. An almost impossibleshot. He couldn't rush it and get it too. Not in time.
A moment passed. The hand flashed out; Carse shot and again missed. Thena narrow cone was along the corridor, a blinding orange streak.Instantly, with a rasp of thunder, it was gone, and the air wasstifling.
The Hawk was untouched; Friday, too, he saw. The bolt had been taken bythe door--and one of the door's two halves was ajar!
* * * * *
At once Hawk Carse acted. "Inside!" he yelled, then was through, thenegro right behind. Carse's eyes swept the laboratory. It was a place ofshadows, the sole light being a faint gleam from a tiny bulb-tippedsurgical tool which glimmered weirdly from the bank of instrumentswaiting by the operating table. Carse saw no one.
"Hold the door!" he ordered. "I don't think it'll lock!"
Friday obeyed. He found the inner bolt melted and the lock inoperative;and, placing his forearms on either side of the middle crack of thedoor, he stood bracing it.
A furious pounding shook the door. A heavy pressure bent it inward.
"Quick!" the big black gasped. "Somethin' to wedge it!"
"A minute, Friday," the Hawk answered. "Hold it!"
He was already dragging a metal table there; and, upended under theknob, making an angle with the floor, it held stoutly closed the door,now thumping and quivering with blows given it from outside. The pantingnegro fell back from the door exhausted, but rose to help his master atthe need for placing additional barricades.
That finished, the Hawk wheeled, and at once, pantherlike, ray-guns atthe ready, stalked the room. There was no sign of the enemy. Heapproached the operating table.
A great relief flooded his grim face as he sighted Eliot Leithgow lyingthere, apparently untouched and still conscious. The elderly scientistwas strapped down tight, but he was smiling.
"I knew you'd come, Carse, if you could," he said simply.
There was no time for visiting. "Where's Ku Sui?" the adventurer asked.
"Gone," Leithgow answered. "I heard a door open and close--which one Icouldn't see. He went as soon as that bell began to ring. Theassistants, too."
Through the shouts and batterings at the barricaded door came a newsound--from another direction. Like a streak the Hawk was at one of thethree other doors, throwing its inside hand bolt; and by the ti
me he hadshot over the second, Friday had taken the cue and secured the remainingone.
The negro let out a vast breath. "Umph!" he said. "I'll tell theuniverse that was close!"
* * * * *
Hawk Carse said nothing. With eyes ever-watchful for sign of a trick ora trap in the apparently deserted laboratory, he quickly unbuckled thebands that held Leithgow to the operating table. Friday lifted thescientist to the floor, where he stretched weakly.
The adventurer smiled faintly, then his eyes went cold and serious.Crisply he said:
"We came, yes--but now I think we're trapped. There'll be men outsideeach of these four doors. The bolts may hold them a while, buteventually they'll get through. We must look for further weapons. Ifonly there were better light! Friday," he ordered, "look for a switch._Ah!_"
With a thud and a booming reverberation a systematic battering had begunon the metal door through which they had entered. It quivered visiblyand rang as the powerful blows from the other side bludgeoned into it,and evenly spaced, shrewdly delivered at the vital middle point._Whrang, whrang_--even strokes, ringing throughout the barredlaboratory--_whrang ... whrang_....
And then a similar piece settled into clanging routine on another door;then on the remaining two. The bolts holding them jumped with eachdeafening thud. Friday scowled, forgot to search farther for the switch,took a few short, indecisive steps, and then stood still again, lookingquestioningly at his master. The Hawk stood silent also, smoothing thebangs of flaxen hair above one temple, his face knit in concentration.
He had been afraid they would use the great projector on the door, andhad been somewhat cheered by the reflection that they dared not, forfear of destroying the contents of the laboratory, especially theirreplaceable brains. But this was worse; Ku Sui was without questiondirecting their efforts now. And that being the case, he could expect tosee one door after another battered down--and then a concerted,four-point rush which would end everything....
* * * * *
Eliot Leithgow said the extraordinary thing that pointed a way out. "MayI suggest," he said mildly, "that we try to get Dr. Ku Sui's brains tohelp us?"
"What do you mean?"
The older man smiled, a little sadly. "Those brains--they once werefriends of mine. It's possible they'll answer our questions. It won'thurt to try. We'll ask them how it might be possible to get out."
Hawk Carse cried: "Eliot, you've got it! There is a chance!"
But the negro shivered. The brains stood for magic, for ghosts--forawful, unknown things he wanted nothing to do with.
Carse shoved back the screen concealing the infamous device.
"We know where this switch is, at least. If only the current's not beenturned off!"
"Probably not," the Master Scientist said, out of his own technicalthought-train.
Friday hung back, loath to be concerned. He looked askance at the thing,his open mouth a small round circle.
The Hawk was at the switch, but his hand hesitated. In spite of theemergency at the doors, in spite of his innate promptness of action, hehesitated. This thing he was about to do--this awful human mechanismbefore him--they were so weird and unnatural....
Then he heard a faint click inside the laboratory--in a place where noone should be. Instinctively he whirled and crouched--and an orange raystreaked over his head with its wicked spit of death. At once his ownray-gun was up and answering to the spot where the other bolt hadstarted, and then he was flat on the floor and ceiling toward the wallopposite.
* * * * *
A high wide panel in the wall had slid open, with only the faint noiseCarse had heard to mark its movement. For just a few seconds it stayedopen. The Hawk covered the last few feet in a desperate rush, but hereached it too late. It clicked shut in his face, and there was no holdfor his hands when he tried to force it back.
Only a voice showed that someone was on the other side. In familiar,suave tones it said:
"Carse, I still will take you and Leithgow--alive. It would of course beidle to ask you to surrender, but that's not necessary, for you'retrapped and can't possibly last another five minutes. I intrude only towarn you away from my synchronized brains. I will destroy withoutcompunction anyone who meddles with them."
Dr. Ku's voice dropped away; the last words seemed to have come frombelow. Apparently he was descending by a stairway or hidden elevator.
"Without compunction!" Leithgow echoed with a bitter smile.
Carse ordered Friday curtly to watch the panel, then returned toLeithgow.
"Eliot," he said, "we've got to be quick."
And with his words the delicate, overstrained filament in the tinyinstrument bulb gave out, and the laboratory was plunged into ultimateblackness....