The Affair of the Brains Part 6

Friday scratched his head again.

"I guess I can't, suh," he replied. "I haven't felt any movement."

"The door is locked?"

"Oh, yes, suh. Tight."

"Very well. Now please be silent. I want to think."

He went over and leaned against the far wall of the cell. His right hand rose to the bangs of flaxen hair and with a slow regular movement began to smooth them. Lost in thought he stood there, thinking through the situation in which he found himself.

He had expected, of course, to subject himself to great risk in keeping the rendezvous with Dr. Ku Sui, but he had never thought he would be endangering Eliot Leithgow also. It was torture to know he had put the gentle old scientist into the Eurasian's web.

That was it: if he could not somehow shear through that web, he must destroy Leithgow himself, and follow on after. The scientist would prefer it so. For whatever Dr. Ku's exact reason for wanting the Master Scientist was, it was an ugly one: that it was worse than quick death, he knew full well.

Shear through the web. How? Where was the weak strand in Ku Sui's cunningly laid plot? The Hawk visualized all he could of the asteroid's mechanical details, and surveyed them painstakingly. Two great port-locks flanked by little ones; secret opening combinations--not much hope in that avenue. Judd's ship, resting above: could he reach it, and raise it and douse the buildings with its rays? No; Dr. Ku had spoken of defense rays--they would certainly be far more powerful than the _Scorpion's_. Then, somewhere there were the mighty gravity-plates batteries which motivated the asteroid and held it controlled in s.p.a.ce.

The dynamos. Two men, working swiftly, might wreak an unholy amount of damage in little time; in the resulting confusion anything might happen.

If!

Into the depths of his concentration came the odor of tsin-tsin flowers, followed by the familiar, silkie voice of his arch-enemy.

"I see you are deep in thought, my friend. I trust it indicates your complete recovery."

Dr. Ku Sui stood smiling in the doorway, his same bodyguard of three armed men behind him. His sardonic words brought no reply. He went on:

"I hope so. I have arranged, thanks to your kindness, a meeting with an old, dear friend of yours. An ill.u.s.trious friend: he already honors my establishment with his presence. I have come to ask you to join us."

The Hawk's gray eyes turned frigid: a lesser man would have blanched at the threat implied in his answer.

"G.o.d help you, Ku Sui."

The Eurasian turned it aside. "Always," he said, "G.o.d helps those who help themselves. But come with me, if you'll be so kind. We are expected in the laboratory."

This exchange pa.s.sed quickly. Friday was still grasping at its underlying meanings as they again filed down the short straight outside corridor. It brought a perverse satisfaction to see the coolie guards bearing their ray-guns unsheathed and ready. Ku Sui's general att.i.tude did not fool him. He knew that the man's suave mockery and flowery courtesy were camouflage for a very real fear of the quick wits and brilliant, pointed action of his famous master, the Hawk.

Ca.r.s.e walked steadily enough, but every step he took beat in his mind like the accents of a dirge. For he had betrayed into the hands of the Eurasian his most loved and loyal friend. Betrayed him! Despicably egotistical he had been in submitting to the chair, in not making one last wild break for freedom at that time. He had thought he could beat Ku Sui at his own game. Ku Sui, of all men!

Unseen hands opened from the other side the metal laboratory door, they pa.s.sed through and the close-fitting halves closed behind them. Ku Sui went to the main switchboard and Ca.r.s.e glanced rapidly around. Leithgow was not there. The wire-ball device was gone, but otherwise the details of the room were unchanged, even to the four white-clad a.s.sistants whose fine heads had eyes so lifeless and faces so expressionless. Emphasized, now, somehow, was the tall screen that hid something on one side of the room, and an intuition told the Hawk that what lay behind the screen was in some way connected with their fate.

He waited stolidly for what he knew was coming.

"Now," Dr. Ku murmured. He smiled at his two prisoners and pressed one of the switchboard's array of b.u.t.tons. A door opposite them swung open.

"Believe me, this is a pleasure," he said.

Flanked by two impressive slant-eyed guards, a frail figure in a rubber ap.r.o.n stood revealed.

Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow blinked as he looked about the laboratory. Helpless, pitifully alone he looked, with his small, slightly stooped body, his tragedy-aged, deeply-lined face. The blue veins showed under the transparent skin of his forehead; his light-blue eyes, set deep under snow-white eyebrows, darted from side to side, dazed by the light and perhaps still confused by the events which had s.n.a.t.c.hed him so suddenly from his accustomed round and struck him with such numbing force. His years and frailty were obviously fitted rather to some seat of science in a university on Earth than the raw conditions of the frontiers of s.p.a.ce.

Hawk Ca.r.s.e found words, but could not control his voice.

"This is the first time I've ever been sorry to see you, M. S.," he said simply.

CHAPTER VIII

_Dr. Ku Shows His Claws_

The scientist brushed back his thinning white hair with a trembling hand. He knew that voice. He walked over and put his hands on his friend's shoulders.

"Ca.r.s.e!" he exclaimed. "Thank G.o.d, you're alive!"

"And you," said the Hawk.

Ku Sui interrupted.

"I am most glad, honored Master Scientist," he said in the flowery Oriental fashion that he affected in his irony, "to welcome you here.

For me it is a memorable occasion. Your presence graces my home, and, however unworthily, distinguishes me, rewarding as it does aspirations which I have long held. I am humbly confident that great achievements will result from your visit----"

Quickly Eliot Leithgow turned and looked squarely at him. There was no bending of spirit in the frail old man. "Yes," he said, "my visit. Your sickening verbal genuflections beautifully evade the details--the house of my friend raided at night; he, himself, unarmed, shot down in cold blood; his house gutted! You are admirably consistent, Dr. Ku. A brilliant stroke, typical of your best!"

Five faint lines appeared across the Eurasian's high, narrow brow.

"What?" he exclaimed. "Is this true? My servitors must be reprimanded severely; and meanwhile I beg you not to hold their impetuousness against me."

Ca.r.s.e could stand it no longer. This suave mockery and the pathetic figure of his friend; the mention of raid and murder----

"It's all my fault," he blurted out. "I told him where you were. I thought----"

"Oh, no!" Dr. Ku broke in, pleasantly protesting. "Captain Ca.r.s.e is gallant, but the responsibility's not his. I have a little machine--a trifle, but most ingenious at extracting secrets which persons attempt to hold from me. The Captain couldn't help himself, you see----"

"It was not necessary to tell me that," said Leithgow.

"Of course," the Eurasian agreed and for the first time seriously; "but let me suggest that the end justifies the means. And that brings me to my point. Master Scientist, now you may know that I have for some time been working toward a mighty end. This end is now in sight, with you here, the final achievement can be attained. An achievement----" He paused, and the ecstasy of the inspired fanatic came to his eyes. Never before had the three men standing there so seen him. "I will explain."

His eyes changed, and imperiously he gave an order to his a.s.sistants. "A chair for Master Leithgow, and one for Ca.r.s.e. Place them there." Then, "Be seated," he invited them with a return of his usual seeming courtesy. "I'm sure you must be tired."

Slowly Eliot Leithgow lowered himself into the metal seat. Friday, ignored, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The Hawk did not sit down until with old habit he had sized up the whole layout of laboratory, a.s.sistants and chances. The two chairs faced toward ward the high screen; to each side stood the five coolie-guards; mechanically alert as always; the four Caucasian a.s.sistants made a group of strange statues to the right.

Ku Sui took position, standing before the screen. Seldom did the cold, hard iron of the man show through the velvet of his manner as now.