of theranch became visible.
The clearing was a circle some two hundred yards in diameter. Justinside the jungle wall was the first line of protection, asteel-barbed, twenty-foot-high fence, its strong corded linksinterwoven with electrified wires. Well within this fence stood fivebuildings, low, squat and one-storied, four of them forming a brokensquare around the central fifth. Two buildings were pierced by lowrows of lighted windows, evidence that they were the barracks of theworkers; two others, devoted to the processing of the isuan weed, werenow dark and silent. The central building was smaller, withwindow-ports that were glowing eyes in the smooth metal walls. It wasthe dwelling of the master, Lar Tantril.
Close to the central building rose a hundred-foot tower, topped by thewatch-beacon. At three equi-distant points around the encompassingfence, small, square platforms were held sixty feet aloft by mast-liketriangular towers, up which foot-rungs led. And on each platform couldbe made out the figure of a Venusian guard.
Ceaselessly these guards turned and scanned the jungle, the heavens,the unbroken dark prairie of the lake, alert for anything ofsuspicion. Lar Tantril had good reasons for maintaining a constantwatch over his stronghold, and his guards' eyes were sharpened byknowledge of the severe payment laxness would bring. Close at hand inthe platforms were knobs which, pressed, would ring a clanging alarmthrough all the buildings below; and each guard wore two ray-gunholsters.
Despite the guards and the ugly spikes of the fence, however, theranch from above appeared peaceful, calm and harmless. No men werevisible on its shadow-dappled clearing. Even the surrounding jungle,in the watch-beacon's shaded underside, might have been nothing but astage set, were it not for the occasional signs of the life that creptunseen through it--a long, far-distant howl, a quickly recedingcrashing in the undergrowth, a thumping from some small animal.
The guards were used to this pattern of nocturnal sounds. It was onlywhen, from a tree not thirty feet from one of the platforms, therecame a sudden sharp shaking in the upper branches, that the Venusianon that platform deigned to grip his ray-gun and peer suspiciously.All he saw was a large bird that flapped out and winged across theclearing, mewing angrily.
The guard released his grip on the gun. A snake, probably, haddisturbed the bird. Or some of those devilish little crimson bansis,half insect, half crab....
* * * * *
Hawk Carse breathed again. He had been sure his position would berevealed when, drifting with almost imperceptible motion into thetree, the bird had pecked at him, then flapped away in alarm. A long,painfully cautious approach from tree to tree to the selected one hadbeen necessary to the daring scheme of attack he had evolved.
He seemed to be safe. Through a fringe of leaves he saw the guard onthe platform glancing elsewhere. Carse steadied himself, rose slightlyand again scanned the ranch.
Yes, it looked harmless, but he knew that nothing could be furtherfrom the reality. Spaced around the inside edge of that spiky fencewere small metal nozzles protruding a few inches from the ground; andon the turning of a control wheel, they would hurl forth a deadlyorange swathe, fanning hundreds of feet into the sky. He had tastedtheir hot breath once when attacking the ranch in his _Star Devil_.Then there were the long-range projectors whose muzzles studded thecentral building. And the ray-guns of the tower guards.
These were dangers that he knew, for he had experienced them. Whatothers the ranch held, he could not well surmise. But he saw onesignificant thing that gave him pause and brought lines to his brow.
The ranch was expecting trouble. Over to one side of the clearingrested a great rounded object, on whose smooth hull gleamed coldly thelight from the beacon--Lar Tantril's own personal space-ship--andalongside it a smaller, somewhat similar shape, the ranch's air-car!The space-ship signified that the Venusian chief was present; theair-car, that all his men were gathered in the barracks, and not, aswas their custom, in Port o' Porno for a night of revelry!
All waiting--all gathered here--all ready! All grouped for a strongdefense! Did it mean what it would appear to--that he, the Hawk, wasexpected?
He could not know. He could not know if a trap was lying preparedthere against his coming. He could but go ahead, and find out.
The only plan of attack he could think of had grown in his mind. Downand up: that was the essence of it: but the details were difficult. Hehad worked them out as far as he could with typical thoroughness. Hehad to reach the heart of the fort lying before him: had to reach thecentral house, Lar Tantril's own. The precious papers would be there,if anywhere.
The Hawk was ready.
He gathered his muscles. His face was cold and hard, his eyes mists ofgray. There was no least sign in the man that, in the next fewall-deciding minutes, death would lick close to him.
He poised where he was precariously balanced. His ray-gun was in hisbare left hand; his face-plate was locked partly open. He raised hisfingers to the direction rod on the suit's breast, gazed straight atthe guard on the nearest watch-platform and snapped the direction rodout, pointing it at that guard.
* * * * *
What happened then struck so fast, so unexpectedly, that it took onlythirty seconds to plunge the quiet ranch into chaos.
The Hawk came like a thunder-bolt, using to its full power his onlyweapon, the space-suit. The sight of him might alone have been enoughto strike terror. From the dark arms of the tree he hurtled, hisbloated monstrous shape of metal and fabric dull in the glow of thewatch-beacon, and crashed with a clang of metal into the platform heaimed at. Nothing there could withstand him. One second the guard onit was calmly gazing off into the sky: the next, like a nine-pin hewas bowled over, to topple heels and head whirling to the ground sixtyfeet beneath. He lived, he kept consciousness, but he was sorelyinjured; and he never saw the outlandish projectile that struck him,nor saw it streak to the second watch-platform, bowling its guard outand to the ground likewise, and then repeating at the third and last!
A crash; a pause; a crash; a pause; then a third crash, and the thingof metal had completed the circuit, and all three watch-platforms werescooted empty!
Then came confusion.
There had been screams, but now a crazed voice began crying outmechanically, over and over:
"Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit!"
It came from the second guard, who lay twisting on the ground. Histongue, by some trick of nervous disorganization, beat out those wordslike a voice-disk whose needle keeps skipping its groove--and theeffect was macabre.
* * * * *
The central buildings disgorged a crowd of men. Shorty, wiry,thin-faced Venusians, each with skewer-blade strapped to his side andsome with ray-guns out, they came scrambling into the open, swearingand wondering. The second guard's insane repetitions directed most ofthem in his direction; and they piled in a crowd around him. They hadno attention for what was happening behind, within the buildings theyhad emptied. That was what Hawk Carse had planned.
A voice of authority roared up over the general hubbub.
"Rantol! Guard! Rantol, you fool! What happened? What attacked you?Cut that crazy yelling! Answer me!--you, Rantol!"
"Space-suit! Space-suit! Space-suit! Space--"
"Lar Tantril!" A man with suspicious eyes caught the attention of theone who had spoken first. "Space-suit, he says! A flying space-suit!Only Ku Sui has space-suits that fly; or only Ku Sui _had_ them,rather. You know what that must mean!"
He paused, peering at his lord. The coarse yellowy skin of Tantril'sbrow wrinkled with the thought, then his tusk-like Venusian teethshowed as his lips drew apart in speech.
"Yes!" Lar Tantril said. "It's _Carse_!"
And he ordered the now silent men around him:
"Circle my house, all of you, your guns ready. You, Esret"--to hissecond in command--"out gun and come with me."
* * * * *
Even as Lar Tantril spoke, a giant sh
ape was passing clumsily throughthe kitchen of his house. Carse had entered from the rear, unseen.With gun in hand and eyes sharp he crossed the deserted kitchen withits foul odors of Venusian cookery. Quickly, his metal-shod feetcreating an unavoidable racket, he was through a connecting door andinto the well-furnished dining room. All was brightly lit; he couldeasily have been seen through the window-ports rimming each wall; buthe counted on the confusion outside to keep the Venusians engaged forseveral minutes more.
Then he went shuffling into the front room of the house, and saw atonce the most likely place.
It was in one corner--a large flat desk, and by it the broad panel ofa radio. Scattered over the desk were a number of papers. In secondsCarse was bending over them, scanning and discarding with eyes andhands.
Reports of various quantities of isuan ... orders for stores ... alist that seemed an inventory of weapons--and then the top page of asheaf covered with familiar, neat, small writing. Yes!
Plans and