CHAPTER IV
_Soil_
Hawk Carse awoke with a slight feeling of nausea, and the smell of thedrug faint in his nostrils. He found he was lying on the floor of alarge, square cell whose walls and ceiling were of some burnished brownmetal and which was bare of any kind of furnishing. In one wall was atightly closed door, also of metal and studded by the knob of a lock.Barred slits, high in opposite walls, gave ventilation; a single tubeset in the ceiling provided illumination.
He was not bound. He sat up and regarded the outflung figure of Friday,lying to one side. "Something in his look seemed to reach the giantnegro, for, as he watched, the man's eyelids flickered, and a sighescaped his full lips. He stared up at Carse, recognition, followed bygladness, flooding his eyes. The Hawk smiled also. There were closebonds between these two.
"Lord, I'm sure thankful to be with you, suh!" said the negro withrelief. His eyes rolled as he took in the cabinlike cell. "Hmff--nicehomey little place," he remarked. "Where do you reckon we are, suh?"
"I think we're at last at that place we have searched so long for--KuSui's headquarters, his own spaceship."
It will be remembered by those who have read their history that theEurasian's actual base of operations was for a long time the greatest ofthe mysteries that enveloped him. Half a dozen times had the Hawk andhis comrade in arms, Eliot Leithgow, hunted for it with all theirseparate skill of adventurer and scientist, and, although they had twicefound the man himself, always they had failed to find his actualretreat.
For those who are unacquainted with the histories of that raw period ahundred years ago, it will be impossible to understand the spell of fearwhich accompanied mention of Dr. Ku throughout the universe--a fearengendered chiefly by the man's unpredictable comings and goings, thanksto his secret hiding place. Those who were as close to him as henchmencould be--which was not very close--only added to the general mystery ofthe whereabouts of the base by their sincerely offered but utterlycontradictory notions and data. One thing all agreed on: the outlaw'slair was a place most frightening.
Therefore it can be understood why, on hearing the Hawk's opinion,Friday's face fell somewhat.
"Guess that means we're finished, suh," he opined moodily.
* * * * *
Carse had walked to the lone door and found, as he of course expected,that it was tightly locked. He responded crisply:
"It's not like you to talk that way, Eclipse. We're far from that. Wehave succeeded in the first step--if, as I suspect, this cell is part ofDr. Ku's real headquarters--and surely before he decides to eliminate uswe will be able to learn something of the nature of his space-ship;perhaps how it can be attacked and conquered."
Conversation always cheered the naturally social Friday; he seldom hadthe opportunity for it with his usually curt master. He objected:
"But what good'll that do us, suh, if we take what we've learned towhere it won't help anybody, least of all us? An' what chance we gotagainst Ku Sui now, when we're prisoners? Why, he's a magician; it ain'tnatural, what he does. Lands in our ship plop right out of empty space!Puts us out with a wave of his handkerchief!" With final misery in hisvoice he added: "We're sunk, suh. This time we surely are."
Carse smiled at his emotional friend. "All you need is a good fight,Eclipse. It's thinking that disintegrates your morale; you should nevertry to think. Why--there was an anesthetic on that handkerchief! Simpleenough; I might have expected it. As for his getting into our ship, heentered from behind, through the after port-lock, while we were lookingfor his ship on the visi-screen. I don't understand yet why we could notsee his craft. It's too much to suppose he could make it invisible.Paint, perhaps, or camouflage. He might have a way of preventing, from adistance, the registering of his ship on our screen. Oh, he's dangerous,clever, deep--but somewhere, there'll be a loophole. Somewhere. Therealways is." His tone changed, and he snapped: "Now be quiet. I want tothink."
* * * * *
His face stiffened into a cold, calm mask, but behind his gray eyes layanything but calmness. Ku Sui's easy assumption that the information asto Eliot Leithgow's whereabouts would be forthcoming from his lips,puzzled him, brought real anxiety. Torture would probably not be able toforce his tongue to betray his friend, but there were perhaps othermeans. Of these he had a vague and ominous apprehension. Dr. Ku waspreeminently a specialist in the human brain; he had implied his will tohave that information. Suppose he should use something it was impossibleto fight against?
And he alone, Hawk Carse, brought the responsibility. He had askedLeithgow where he would be, and he remembered well the place agreedupon. He dared not lose the battle of wits he knew was coming!...
His eyes shot to the door. It was opening. In a moment Ku Sui stoodrevealed there, and behind him, in the corridor, were three otherfigures, their yellow coolie faces strangely dumb and lifeless above thetasteful gray smocks which extended a little below their belted waists.Each bore embroidered on his chest the planetary insignia of Ku Sui inyellow, and each was armed with two ray-guns.
"I must ask forgiveness, my friend, for these retainers who accompanyme," the Eurasian began suavely. "Please don't let them disturb you,however; they are more robots than men, obeying only my words. A littleadjustment of the brain, you understand. I have brought them only foryour protection; for you would find it would result most unpleasantly tomake a break for freedom."
"Of course, _you're_ not the one who wants protection!" sneered Friday,with devastating sarcasm. "Or else you'd 'a' brought a whole army!"
But the negro paled a little when the Oriental's green tiger eyes caughthim full. It was with a physical shock--such was the power of theman--that he received the soft-spoken reply:
"Yours is a most subtle and entertaining wit, black one; I am overcomewith the honor and pleasure of having you for my guest. But perhaps--mayI suggest?--that you save your humor for a more suitable occasion. Iwould like to make the last few hours of your visit as pleasant aspossible."
* * * * *
He turned to Hawk Carse. "I have thought that an inspection of this, myhome in space, would intrigue you more than anything else my poorhospitality affords. May I do you the honor, my friend?"
"You are too good to me," the Hawk replied frostily. "I will duplicateyour kindness some day."
The Eurasian bowed. "After you," he said, and waited until Friday andthe Hawk passed first through the door. Close after them came the threeautomatons of yellow men.
The passageway was square, plain and bare, and spaced at intervals byother closed doors. "Storerooms in this wing," the Eurasian explained asthey progressed. He stopped in front of one of the doors and pressed abutton beside it. It slid noiselessly open, revealing, not another room,but a short metal spider ladder. Up this they climbed, one of the guardsgoing first in the half darkness; then a trap-door above opened to dousethem with warm ruddy light. They stepped out.
And the scene that met them took them completely off guard. Fridaygasped, and Carse so far lost his habitual poise as to stare in wonder.
Soil! And a great glassy dome!
* * * * *
Not a space-ship, this realm of Ku Sui. Soil--soil with a wholesettlement built upon it! Hard, grayish soil, and on it severalbuildings of the familiar burnished metal. And overhead, cupping theentire outlay, arched a great hemisphere of what resembled glass, ribbedwith silvery supporting beams and struts: an enormous bowl, turned down,and on its other side the glorious vista of space.
Straight above hung the red-belted disk of Jupiter, with the pale globesof Satellites II and III wheeling close, _and all of them were of thesame relative size they had appeared when last seen from the Scorpion!_
Dr. Ku smiled unctuously at the puzzlement that showed on the faces ofhis captives.
"Have you noticed," he asked, "that you are still in the neighborhood ofthe spot in spa
ce where we had our rendezvous? But this isn't another ofJupiter's satellites. Ah, no. This is my own world--my own personallycontrolled little world!"
"Snakes of the Santo!" Friday gasped, the whites of his eyes showing allaround. "Then we must be on an asteroid!"
They were. From the far side of the dome ahead of them the asteroidstretched back hard and sharp in Jupiter's ruddy light against thebackdrop of black space. It was a craggy, uneven body, seemingly abouttwenty miles in length, pinched in the middle and thus shaped roughlylike a peanut shell. One end had been leveled off to accommodate thedome with its cradled buildings; outside the dome all was untouched. Thelandscape was a gargantuan jumble of coarse, hard, sharp rocks which hadcrystallized into a maze of hollows, crevices, long crazy splits andjagged out-thrusting lumps of boulders. Without an atmosphere, with butthe feeblest of gravities and utterly without any form of life--save forthat within the dome built upon it--it was simply a typical smallasteroid, of which race only the largest are globe-shaped.
"Once," the Eurasian went on softly as they took all this in, "thisworld of mine circled with its thousands of fellows between Mars andJupiter. I picked it from the rest because of certain mineral qualities,and had this air-containing dome constructed on it, and these buildingsinside the dome. Then, with batteries of gravity-plates insertedprecisely in the asteroid's center of gravity, I nullified the gravitalpull of Mars and Jupiter, wrenched it from its age-old orbit and swungit free into space. An achievement that would command the respect evenof Eliot Leithgow, I think. So now you see, Carse; now you know. _This_is my secret base, _this_ my hidden laboratory. I take it always withme, and I travel where I will."
The Hawk nodded coldly his acceptance of the astounding fact; he was toobusy to make comment. He was observing the buildings, the nature ofthem, the exits from the dome, how they could best be reached.
* * * * *
They stood on the roof of the largest and central building, a low metalstructure with four wings, crossing at right angles to make the figureof a great plus mark. The hub was probably Dr. Ku's chief laboratory,Carse conjectured. On each side stood other buildings, low, long, likebarracks, with figures of coolies moving in and out. Workshops, livingquarters, power-rooms, he supposed: power-rooms certainly, for a softhum filled the air.
There were two great port-locks at ground level in the dome, one on eachside, each sizable enough to admit the largest space-ship and eachflanked by a smaller, man-sized lock. To reach them....
"And over there," Dr. Ku's voice broke in, "you see your borrowed ship,the _Scorpion_. But please don't let it tempt you to cut short yourvisit with me, my friend. It would avail you nothing even if you reachedher, for it requires a secret combination to open the port-locks, and myservants' brains have been so altered that they are physically incapableof divulging it to you. And of course I have offensive rays and otherdevices hidden about--just in case. All rather hopeless, isn't it? Butsurely interesting.
"Let us go: I have more. Below, in my main laboratory in the center ofthis building, there's something far more interesting, and it concernsyou, Carse, and me, and also Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow." He letthe words sink in. "Will you follow me?"
And so they went below again, down the spider ladder into the corridor.There was nothing else to do: the guards, ever watchful, pressed closebehind. But a tattoo of alarm was beating in Hawk Carse's brain. EliotLeithgow again--the hint of something ominous to be aimed at him, Carse,for the extraction of information he alone possessed: the whereabouts ofhis elderly friend the Master Scientist.