The Affair of the Brains Part 4

Within the whole hung a plain square boxlike device, attached to the chair and so placed that it would be directly in front of the eyes of anyone sitting there. Ropes were reeved through pulleys in the ceiling, for raising the wire-ball device to permit entrance. And standing ready around it, were four men in surgeons' smocks--white men with intelligent faces and dull, lifeless eyes.

The Hawk knew the answer to the question he curtly asked. "Its purpose, Dr. Ku?"

"That," came the suave reply, "it will be your pleasure to discover for yourself. I can promise you some novel sensations. Nothing harmful, though, however much they may tire you. Now!" He gave a sign; one of his a.s.sistants touched a switch. The wire ball rose, leaving the central seat free for entrance. "All is ready. May I ask you to enter?"

Hawk Ca.r.s.e faced his old foe. There was stillness in the laboratory then as his bleak gray eyes met and held for long seconds Ku Sui's enigmatic green-black ones.

"If I don't?"

For answer the Eurasian gestured apologetically to his guards.

"I see," Ca.r.s.e whispered. There was nothing to be done. Three coolies, each with ray-guns at the ready; four white a.s.sistants.... No hope. No chance for anything. He looked at the negro. "Don't move, Friday," he warned him. "They'll only shoot; it can do no good. Eight to two are big odds when the two are unarmed."

He turned and faced the Eurasian, holding him with his eyes. "Ku Sui,"

he said, clipping the words, "you have said that this would not permanently harm me, and, although I know you for the most deadly, vicious egomaniac in the solar system, I am believing you. I do not know you for a liar.... I will enter."

The faint smile on the Oriental's face did not alter one bit at this.

Ca.r.s.e stepped to the metal seat and sat down.

The web of shimmering wires descended, cupping him completely. Through them he saw Ku Sui go to a switchboard adjoining and study the indicators, finally placing one hand on a black-k.n.o.bbed switch and with the other drawing from some recess a little cone, trailing a wire, like a microphone. A breathless silence hung over the laboratory. The white-clad figures stood like statues, dumb, unfeeling, emotionless. The watching negro trembled, his mouth half open, his brow already bedewed with perspiration. But the only sign of strain or tension that showed in the slender flaxen-haired man sitting in the wire ball in the center of the laboratory, came when he licked his dry lips.

Then Dr. Ku Sui pulled the switch down, and there surged out a low-throated murmur of power. And immediately the ball of wire came to life. The fine, crisscrossing wires disappeared, and in their stead was color, every color in the spectrum. Like waves rhythmically rising and falling, the tinted brilliances dissolved back and forth through each other; and the reflected light, caroming off the surfaces of the instruments and tables and walls, so filled the laboratory that the group of men surrounding the fire-ball were like resplendent figures out of another universe.

Ku Sui pressed a b.u.t.ton, and the side of the boxlike device nearest Hawk Ca.r.s.e's eyes a.s.sumed transparency and started to glow. Beautiful colors began to float over its face, colors never still but constantly weaving and clouding into an infinity of combinations and designs. Eyes staring wide, as if unable to close them to the brilliant kaleidoscopic procession, the adventurer looked on.

Friday knew that his master at that moment was impotent to move, even to shut his eyes, and, with a wild notion that he was being electrocuted, he made a rash rush to destroy the device and free him. He learned discretion when two ray-streaks p.r.o.nged before him and forced him back; and thereafter he was given the undivided attention of two guards.

From the outside, through the ball of color, Ca.r.s.e was a ghostlike figure. Rigid and quivering, he sat in the chair and watched the color-maelstrom. His face was contorted; his cheek muscles stood out weltlike in his sweat-glistening skin; his eyes, which he could not close, throbbed with agony. But yet he was conscious; yet he still could will.

He defended his secret as best he could. Obviously this machine was being used to force from his mind the knowledge of Eliot Leithgow's whereabouts, and therefore he attempted to seal his mind. He fastened it on something definite--on Iapetus, satellite of Saturn, and his ranch there--and barred every other thought from his head. Mechanically he repeated to himself: "Iapetus, Iapetus--my ranch on Iapetus--Iapetus, Iapetus." Hundreds of times.... Hours.... Days....

The blinding waves of color rioted about him, submerged him, fatigued him. He had a strong impulse to sleep, but he resisted it.

Days seemed to pa.s.s.... Years.... Eons. All this.... Continued without change.... To the end of the world....

Dimly he knew that the color-storm was working on him; sensed danger when a great drowsiness stole over him; but he fought it off, his brain beating out hundreds of times more: "Iapetus, Iapetus--I have a ranch there--Iapetus, Iapetus...."

Then came excruciating pain!

An electric shock suddenly speared him. His nerves seemed to curl up, and for a second his mind was thoroughly disorganized before it again took up the drone about Iapetus. Recovery ... dullness ... a kind of peace--and again the shock leaped through him. It was followed by a question from afar off:

"_Where is Eliot Leithgow?_"

Somehow the question meant a great deal and should not be answered....

Again the stab of agony. Again the voice:

"_Where is Eliot Leithgow?_"

Again the shock, and again the voice. Alternating, over and over. He could brace himself against the shock, but the voice could in no way be avoided. It was everywhere about him, over, around, under him; he began to see it. Desperately he forced his brain on the path it must not leave. He had forgotten years ago why, but knew there must be some good reason.

"Iapetus, Iapetus--I have a ranch there--Iapetus, Iapetus--_Where is Eliot Leithgow?_--Iapetus, Iapetus--I have a ranch there--_Where is Eliot Leithgow_--I have a ranch there--a ranch there--Iapetus, a ranch--_Where is Eliot Leithgow?_--_Where is Eliot Leithgow?_--_Where is Eliot Leithgow?_" ...

After two hours and ten minutes the Hawk crumpled.

He was quite delirious at the time. The combined effect of the pain, the physical and nervous exhaustion of the shocks and light, the endlessly repeated question, his own close concentration on his Iapetus ranch--these were too much for any human body to stand against. He lost his grip on his mind, lost the fine control that had never been lost before, the control about which he was so vain. And the lump of flesh that was Hawk Ca.r.s.e gave the information that was tearing wildly at its prison.

A stammering voice came from the heart of the color-sphere:

"Port o' p.o.r.no, Satellite III--Port o' p.o.r.no, Satellite III--Port o'

p.o.r.no Sat----"

Dr. Ku Sui interrupted him; leaned forward.

"The house is number----?"

"574--574--574----"

"Ah!" breathed the Eurasian. "Port o' p.o.r.no! So near!"

Ku Sui returned the switch and pressed one of the b.u.t.tons. The pool of colors faded; the laboratory returned to comparative dimness. The machine in its center seemed but a great web of wire.

Slumped in the seat within it was a slender figure, his flaxen head bowed over on his chest, his eyes closed, and sweat still trickling down his unconscious brow.

And lying on the floor was another unconscious figure.

Friday had fainted.

CHAPTER VI

_Port o' p.o.r.no_

The pirate port of p.o.r.no is of course dead now, replaced by the clean lawfulness of Port Midway, but a hundred years ago, in the days before the patrol-ships came, she roared her bawdy song through the farthest reaches of the solar system. For crack merchant ships and dingy s.p.a.ce trading tramps alike, she was haven; drink and drugs, women and diversions unspeakable lured to her s.p.a.ce ports the cream and sc.u.m, adventures and riffraff of half a dozen worlds. Sailors and pirates paid off at her and stayed as long as their wages lasted in the Street of the Sailors; not a few remained permanently, their bodies flung to the beasts of the savage jungle that rimmed the port. There only the cunning and strong could live. Ray-guns were the surest law. Modern scientific progress stood side by side with murderous lawlessness as old as man himself.

The h.e.l.l town had grown with the strides of a giant, rising rapidly from a muddy street of _tio_ shacks to a small cosmetropolis. She was essentially a place of contrasts. Two of the big Earth companies had modern s.p.a.ce-ship hangars there, well-lighted, well-equipped, but under their very noses was a festering welter of dark, rutted byways extending all the way to the comparative orderliness of the short, narrow Street of the Merchants, itself flanked by the drunken bedlam of the Street of the Sailors. It can be understood why these men who flew, who needed a whole solar system for elbow room, disdained setting to order the measly few acres of dirt they stopped at, but it is a mystery why, when used to living through vast leagues of s.p.a.ce, they endured such narrow streets and cluttered houses. Probably, tired from their long cramped cruises, impatient for their fling, they just didn't care a whoop.

The whole jumble that was this famous s.p.a.ce port rested in the heart of Satellite III's primeval jungle.