CHAPTER XIV
_The Hawk Strikes_
No surprise showed on the Hawk's face, though the others were visiblyshaken. He, at the helm, merely nodded and continued with furtherorders.
"Williams," he said to one of Leithgow's assistants, "get Thorpe andgo and dose Ku Sui with V-27. Give him plenty. Then both of youstation yourselves, ray guns in hand, outside his cabin. We'll take nochances with him, gassed or not. Friday, open our radio receiver tothe general band. Just the receiver, not the mike.... Our speed,Eliot?"
"Down to seven hundred, and falling steadily."
Carse went to the electelscope, after giving the controls over to Ban.
Squarely behind the _Sandra_, and within twenty-five miles, thepeanut-shaped body had come. It was an ominous and silent approach.The _Sandra_ remained pinned by the purple ray for minutes while theHawk studied her aggressor. As he watched the asteroid, the otherswatched him; Ban Wilson fidgety, Friday clenching and unclenching hisbig hands. Eliot Leithgow with whitened face and shoulders that seemedto have bowed a little.
The forward speed of the _Sandra_ decreased to four hundred miles anhour, and still the Hawk studied the massive body behind....
A sputter sounded in the radio receiver. Carse turned away from theelectelscope and listened to the heavy Venusian voice that wassuddenly speaking to him from it.
"Carse, I've got you! You've seen our ray, of course, but have youlooked at your speed-indicator? You're caught--and this time you'regoing to stay caught. You cannot possibly resist the magnetic ray Ihave on you, and in a few minutes you will be drawn right into me. Iadvise you to surrender peacefully. No tricks--though there's no trickthat could do you any good! Nothing! I have you this time!"
A frosty smile tightened the Hawk's lips.
"I was right, Eliot," he murmured. "The man behind the panel took theasteroid to Lar Tantril. He is our opponent."
* * * * *
Those were his words, but he did nothing. He seemed content to standwith cold, intent face looking back through the infra-redelectelscope. The _Sandra's_ speed sank to three hundred, two hundredand soon a hundred, and the asteroid, which was of course alsodecelerating, crept up remorselessly. Ban Wilson had every confidencein the Hawk, but finally the inaction grew too much for him to bear.
"Jumping Jupiter, Carse!" he sputtered. "--aren't you going to doanything? Use our rays! Try maneuvering to the side! Damn it, we'rejust letting them take us!"
The adventurer might not have heard, for all the sign he gave. TheEarth-clock on the wall ticked on; seconds built minutes, and theminutes passed. The asteroid was only ten miles astern.
"Eliot," said Carse quietly, "get me one of your infra-red glasses."
He took over the controls again. Carefully he varied the forwardrepulsion and sent current to the side gravity-plates, and slowly the_Sandra_ answered by rotating, longitudinally, reversing her position.Still maintaining a slight and dwindling speed toward Earth, her bowswung from that planet's eye-filling panorama and came to face,instead, the invisible asteroid. When turned completely around, themen in her control cabin looked through the bow windows right intothe brilliant cone of the purple ray.
Lar Tantril's voice again boomed from the broadcasting shell, and thistime it was harsh with anger.
"Try no tricks, Carse! I see what you intend. You plan to suddenly_answer_ my ray, instead of continuing to resist it, and so driveright past me and escape. But I warn you I have terrific power, and ifyou move towards me of your own volition, I can burn you to a cinderin three seconds, and I'll do it. You can't escape! If I have todestroy Ku Sui, all right--but I'll get you!"
* * * * *
The Hawk strapped over his eyes the infra-red glasses Leithgow nowgave him.
Reversing the _Sandra's_ ends had neither increased nor decreased therate at which the asteroid's purple stream was bringing her closer.Obviously the magnetic stream was being varied. The space-ship'sforward momentum merely continued to drop normally until the momentcame when she had no Earthward velocity at all; and then more quicklyshe moved toward the restraining asteroid.
With his infra-red glasses, through the bow windows, Carse could nowsee the massive body in full detail. There was the dome, a huge,gleaming cup of transparent stuff now showing wisps of blue, from thedefensive web around it; and inside were the several buildings, andminute black dots which were the figures of men. There was a greatnumber of them. The largest group was clustered inside one of thelarge ship-size port-locks in the dome. The lock's outer door wasopen, and it was from there that the purple ray seemed to originate.Obviously the intention of the enemy was to draw the _Sandra_ rightin. Five miles now separated asteroid and ship.
Again the Venusian chief spoke.
"I warn you once more, Sparrow Hawk, try no tricks. You can see themen I have here, but you can't see my ray projectors. They're hidden,but they're centered on you, every one, and my hand's at the controlthat fires them. They have terrific power, Carse. Better not attemptanything!"
The Hawk switched on the extension microphone at his side. He saidlevelly into it:
"Lar Tantril, I'll make a bargain with you: a favor for a favor."
"What?" shot from the loudspeaker.
"I will agree to surrender peaceably when you've drawn my ship insideif, for your part, you promise to free Eliot Leithgow, who is aboardwith me, and the five patients on whom Ku Sui operated. If you don'tgrant me that, I will oppose you to the last pull of my finger ontrigger."
"But, Carse--" the Master Scientist began, horrified: but hisexpression of amazement faded when the slender man at the radio turnedhis head and half-closed one eye in a wink.
"You will agree to that--and no tricks?" Tantril's voice repeated.
"I will agree to it. And as for tricks, what could I possibly try?Your rays could burn through the maximum power of my web in threeseconds, as you say: I know it as well as you. I only wish there was achance to get out of your range in time."
"All right!" the Venusian replied decisively. "I agree. I'll releaseLeithgow and the five patients. Keep away from the controls and I'lldraw you in."
* * * * *
Carse switched off the microphone.
"A hell of a lot Tantril's word is worth!" muttered Ban Wilson. Oncemore, surprisingly, the Hawk winked. Friday was grinning now. Foronce in his life he had guessed his master's strategy before theothers.
A mile and a half to the front lay the dome-end of the asteroid.Perhaps nine hundred miles to the rear lay the tremendous mottledcurve of Earth with her dangerous upper layers of the stratosphere alltoo close. In the very face of Earth, all three on a line, the shiplay linked by a stream of purple to the great rough-hewn, errantasteroid. Half the bulk of all three lay sharply outlined against theblack of space by the intense yellow light of the flaming distant sun.
The asteroid neared to a mile, then a half-mile. Hawk Carse saidcurtly:
"Ban, when I give the word, put all the power we've got into ourdefensive web. Load the generators; overload them; tax them to thelimit. That web must be as tough as possible for five seconds."
"Got you, Carse."
"You've--a trick?" ventured Leithgow timidly.
"I think I have, Eliot. Lar Tantril might have caught on when I turnedthe ship, but unfortunately for him his brain is incapable ofproceeding past a certain point.... All right, Ban."
"Feel it!"
In answer to Ban's hands, the deck of the control cabin was literallyvibrating under the mounting speed of the generators in thepower-room. The generators could not stand that terrific overloadlong: they would burn out. But Carse needed only a few seconds of it.
The asteroid was a quarter of a mile away, seen through the infra-red.The dome loomed large.
"All right!" whispered Hawk Carse. "Hold on!"
With the words he unleashed the _Sandra's_ full acceleration.
* * *
* *
It was a risk and a big one, but the Hawk had it calculated to afraction of a second, and so, without hesitation, he took the chance.A little less than four seconds to reach his objective, he reckoned; alittle more than one second for Tantril to release the asteroid'sdisintegrating rays as he had threatened; therefore about two and ahalf seconds for the _Sandra_ to be exposed to those rays. The chancethat her defensive web could resist them for that long would decideit.
From almost a standing start, the _Sandra_ swept ahead, generatorshumming, her web a blue mist around her, acceleration at the full.Straight down through the heart of the narrowing purple ray she sped,a hurtling metallic projectile, hundreds of tons in mass, her stub bowlevelled dead at the dome.
After a second the asteroid bared its fangs.
A cone of brilliant orange flamed and washed around the _Sandra's_bow, and a storm of soundless sparks engulfed her. She was caught in amaw of fire, and held there for the remaining terrific seconds of herwild forward dash. But the seconds passed; the hands of Hawk Carsewere delicate on her controls; and the _Sandra_, curving slightlyupward, struck, crashed, wrenched terribly in every joint; and thenthe jolt and the protesting wrench and the spluttering sparks weregone from her, and there was around her only the deep silence oflifeless space.
At three hundred miles an hour the _Sandra_ had nicked the upperplates of the dome and streaked on, unharmed!
It was not necessary now to use infra-red glasses to see the asteroid.It was there in the visi-screen for naked eyes, but for seconds notone of the men in the ship's control-cabin thought to look. The awfulacceleration and shock had dazed them. They had not known what wascoming, except Friday and the Hawk, and only the latter was able toretain reasonable alertness. He, almost immediately after the impact,cut down the load on the generators, and brought the _Sandra_ out ofher mad drive forward, rotating the ship until she was facing backtowards the asteroid. Then all of them looked through the bow windows,and what they saw told the story in an instant.
"It's visible! See--the invisibility's gone!" cried Friday.
* * * * *
A score of miles away the body lay, fully revealed, its starboard halfgleaming hard and sharp in the sunlight. Cautiously the _Sandra_ drewcloser. Carse gave the controls to Ban and examined it carefullythrough the electelscope, after removing the infra-red attachment.
He saw that the keel of the _Sandra_ had torn a great, mangled rent inthe dome and through this the air had rushed out. Space had takenpossession. The disintegrating rays which had been burning at the_Sandra_ had been snapped off with the sheathing of invisibility; inthat one wild second of impact, all the asteroid's functioningmechanism had been destroyed. Lar Tantril had not thought quite farenough: he had not sealed the buildings air-tight against a possiblecrashing of the dome, and for that reason alone he and his men hadgone down in full defeat under the drive of the Hawk.
Shreds of flotsam drifting and turning in space around the dome nowbecame visible--bits of wreckage hurled out from the tear, and also anumber of white, bloated things which once had been the bodies of men.The outrushing tide of air had taken them along, and now they drifted,shapeless, all of a kind, in the lifelessness of space.
"Merciful heaven!" whispered Eliot Leithgow, staring at thedesolation. "Gone! Just snuffed out!"
The Hawk took over again and brought and held the _Sandra_ in aposition a quarter of a mile above the now rapidly falling asteroid.
"They're all dead, I'm sure," he said in a voice hard and emotionlessas his graven face. "They must be, for the asteroid is now visible,and that means that the doors of the power building were open. Insideand out, all there is dead, machinery and men.... Still, it had to bedone. It was they or we. A variation of the trick we used to escapefrom the dome before, Eliot; and Tantril of course didn't expect itand protect himself as Ku Sui did that other time. It's all donenow--yes, its gravity-plates too, for see, it's turning."
"And fast!" murmured Friday.
The body was rotating around its longer axis at about twice the speedof an Earth-watch's second hand. Now the dome was sliding under, outof their sight, the craggy rock belly coming up to take its place.Nine hundred miles away was Earth--rather, less than that, for thebody was now free to accept the tremendous gravity pull of the planetso near. Soon it would plunge to destruction there....
* * * * *
A thought came to Carse, and he said:
"Perhaps Ku Sui would like to see what has become--"
On the last word he stopped and whirled around. His eyes were suddenlyintense and his face startled.
"I heard a hiss!" said Friday.
"You too? Then it was a port-lock!" Carse turned to the visi-screen."Look there!" he cried.
In the screen Earth made a titanic background against which, afalling, dwindling figure in a clear-cut in the sunlight, gleamedspace-suit. Down it went, rapidly, even as they stared, until it hungjust off the also-falling asteroid. It was obviously preparing toenter the dome.
"Take the helm, Ban, and watch him!" Carse ordered harshly, and ranaft from the control cabin.
Leithgow and Friday, following at once, found him inside the open doorof Dr. Ku Sui's cabin, examining two figures stretched limp at hisfeet. The men were Thorpe and Williams, who had been set to gas andguard the Eurasian. Carse said:
"Both dead. Poison. Look at Thorpe's wrist."
On the right wrist of the dead man was a line of red, a scratch, andswollen, discolored flesh was ugly around it. One cheek of Williamsbore a similar patch. Both had been armed with rayguns, but now theywere gone. Half to himself, the Hawk murmured:
"Yes, poison. It might have been in the ring. Everyone else was in thecontrol cabin. The men entered the door, Ku Sui was waiting--quickdeath.... Well, I'm going after him."
Not understanding, still horrified by the contorted face of the man onthe deck, the other two gazed at the adventurer.
"But, Carse!" Leithgow broke out. "How can you? How can youpossibly--"
"He's gone back to the dome," the Hawk cut in frostily. "He can't makeit to Earth as he is now, for we'd see him and easily be able to pickhim up. No; he's got some reason for returning, to the dome. Somethingimportant. He thinks he's escaped.... He's mistaken."
A shudder passed over Friday, for Hawk Carse's eyes had fallen on him,and they were deadly.
"Let me by, Eliot," the man whispered. "This time he goes or I go, butby the gods of space it'll be one of us!"