The Passing of Ku Sui Part 1

The Pa.s.sing of Ku Sui.

by Anthony Gilmore.

CHAPTER I

_The Plan_

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Like a projectile Hawk Ca.r.s.e shot out in a direction away from Earth._]

[Sidenote: A screaming streak in the night--a cloud of billowing steam--and the climax of Hawk Ca.r.s.e's spectacular "Affair of the Brains" is over.]

The career of Hawk Ca.r.s.e, taken broadly, divides itself into three main phases, and it is with the Ku Sui adventures of the second phase that we have been concerned in this intimate narrative. John Sewell, the historian, baldly condenses those adventures of a century ago together, but on research and closer scrutiny they take on an individuality and significance deserving of separate treatment, and this they have been given here. For fictionized presentation, we have s.p.a.ced the adventures into four connected episodes, four acts of a vibrant drama which ranged clear from Saturn to Earth, the core of which was the feud between Captain Ca.r.s.e and the power-l.u.s.ting Eurasian scientist, Dr. Ku Sui--that feud the reverberations of whose terrible settling still echo over the solar system--and in this last act of the drama, set out below, we come to its spectacular climax.

The words of John Sewell's epic history sit lightly on paper; easy words for Sewell, once the collection of data was over, to write; not very significant words for the uninitiated and casual reader who does not see the irresistible forces beneath them. But consider the full meaning of these words, and glance for a moment at the two figures conjured up by them. We see Hawk Ca.r.s.e, a man slender in build, but with gray eyes and lithe, strong-fingered hands and cold, intent face that give the clue to the steel of him; we see Dr. Ku Sui, tall, suave, unhurried, formed as though by a master sculptor, in whose rare green eyes slumbered the soul of a tiger, notwithstanding the courtesy and the grace that masked always his most infamous moves. These two we see looming through and dwarfing Sewell's words as they face each other, for they were probably the most bitter, and certainly the most spectacular, foe-men of that raw period before the patrol ships swept up from the home of man to lay Earth's laws through s.p.a.ce.

Ca.r.s.e and Ku Sui, adventurer and scientist, each with his own distinctive strength and his own unyielding character--those two were star-crossed, fated to be foes, and whenever they met there was blood, and never was quarter asked nor quarter expected. How could it have been otherwise? Ku Sui controlled the isuan drug trade, and Ca.r.s.e was against it, as he was against everything underhanded and unclean; Ku Sui had tricked and, by a single deed, driven Ca.r.s.e's loved comrade, Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow, from his honored position on Earth, and Ca.r.s.e was sworn to bring Ku Sui to Earth to clear the old scientist's name. Either of these alone was enough to seal the feud, but there was more. Ca.r.s.e was sworn to release from their bondage of life-in-death Ku Sui's most prized possession, his storehouse of wisdom--the brains of five great Earth scientists, kept alive though their bodies were dead.

These, then, were the forces glossed over so lightly by John Sewell's words. These the forces that clashed in the episode set out below: that clashed, then drew apart, and knew not one another for years....

It will be recalled that, in the second of these four episodes, "The Affair of the Brains,"[1] Hawk Ca.r.s.e, Eliot Leithgow, and the Negro Friday broke free from Dr. Ku's secret lair, his outwardly invisible asteroid, and in doing so thought they had destroyed the Eurasian and all his works, including the infamous machine of coordinated brains.

In the third episode, "The Bluff of the Hawk,"[2] it will be remembered that the companions came in Dr. Ku's self-propulsive s.p.a.ce-suits to Satellite III of Jupiter; and that there Ca.r.s.e learned that in reality the Eurasian and the brains had survived, and that Dr.

Ku might very possibly soon be in possession of a direct clue to Leithgow's hidden laboratory on Satellite III. We saw Ca.r.s.e take the lone course, as he always preferred, sending Leithgow and Friday to his friend Ban Wilson's ranch while he went to erase the clue. And we saw him achieve his end at the fort-ranch of Lar Tantril, strong henchman of Ku Sui, and, in brilliant Ca.r.s.e fashion, turn the tables and escape from the trap that had seemingly snared him, and proceed towards where, fourteen miles away, Leithgow and the Negro were waiting for him.

[Footnote 1: See the March, 1932, issue of Astounding Stories.]

[Footnote 2: See the May, 1932, issue of Astounding Stories.]

His three friends were waiting very uneasily that day. Eleven hours had pa.s.sed since Leithgow and Friday had parted from the Hawk, and they had heard nothing from him. They knew he was going into high peril: Leithgow had in vain tried to dissuade him; and so it was with growing fear that they watched the hours pa.s.s by.

With Ban Wilson, they sat near dawn in the comfortable living room of the ranch's central building. Although largely rested from the ordeal of the journey to Satellite III, the huge Negro was fidgety, and even Leithgow, more controlled, showed the strain by continually raising his thin white fingers to his lined face and stroking it. Wilson's men were on watch outside in the graying darkness, but often Friday supplemented them, going to the door, staring down to the beach of the bordering lake, staring up to the skies, staring at the black and murmurous flanks of the jungle--staring, scowling and returning to sit and look gloomily at the floor.

Ban Wilson was the most active physically. He was a miniature dynamo of a man, throbbing with a restless, inexhaustible tide of energy.

Short and wiry, he stared truculently at the universe through wonderfully clear blue eyes, surrounded by a b.u.mper crop of freckles and topped by a mat of bristly red hair. His short stub nose had prodded into countless hostile places where it most emphatically was not wanted. It would be hardly necessary to old acquaintances of his to say that he was now speaking.

"No, sir! I say the Hawk's safe and kicking! Can't kill _him_! By my grandmother's false teeth, I swear I'd follow him to h.e.l.l, knowin' I'd come out alive and leavin' the devil yowlin' behind with his tail tied into pretzels! He said he would meet you here? Well, then, he will."

Friday looked up mournfully.

"Yes, suh, Cap'n Ban; but Cap'n Ca.r.s.e was going into a pow'ful lot of trouble. An' he was worn an' tired, an' he only had a s.p.a.ce-suit an' a raygun, an' you know he wouldn't stop for anything till he'd done what he set out to. I kind of feel ... I dunno ... I dunno...."

"By Betelguese!" swore Ban Wilson, "if he doesn't come soon I'll take that d.a.m.ned p.o.r.no apart till I find him!"

Eliot Leithgow gave up the late radio newscast from Earth he had been pretending to read. A brief silence fell, and through it the old scientist seemed to feel something, seemed to expect something. And he was not mistaken.

"_Who's there?_"

It was a cry from one of the watchers outside. Friday leaped out of his uneasy seat and was through the door even before Ban, who followed with Leithgow. They heard the Negro roar from ahead:

"Cap'n Ca.r.s.e! Cap'n Ca.r.s.e! Sure enough, it's Cap'n Ca.r.s.e!"--and they saw his great form go bounding down to the gray-lit beach of the lake, to a slight, weary figure that came stumbling along it.

Hawk Ca.r.s.e had come as he said he would, but he was a sore figure of a man. Though he was not in it now, for days he had worn the harsh, grating metal and fabric of a s.p.a.ce-suit, and its marks were left on him. Even from a distance the others could see that his once-neat blue trousers and soft flannel shirt were torn through in many places, revealing ugly purplish bruises; on his haggard face was a nap of flaxen beard, and in his blood-shot gray eyes utter exhaustion, both mental and physical. The Hawk had been acting at high tension for days past, and now the reaction was exacting its inevitable toll.

He came stumbling heavily along the beach, his feet dragging through its coa.r.s.e sand, and it seemed as if he would drop any moment. With a slight smile he greeted Friday, then Eliot Leithgow and Wilson, all running down.

"h.e.l.lo, Eclipse," he murmured, "and Eliot--and Ban--"

There he wavered and half fell against the Negro's body. Friday wished to carry him, but he would have none of it: by himself he walked up to the ranch-house, where he slumped into a chair while Ban Wilson went shouting into the galley for a mug of hot alkite.

After draining it, Ca.r.s.e revived slightly. Again aware of the three men grouped around him, and recognizing their eagerness for his news, he forced himself to speech.

"Sleepy--must sleep. But--yes--some things I'll tell you." In quick, staccato sentences, his tired eyelids shut half the time, he sketched his adventure at Lar Tantril's ranch, explaining how, even though captured, he had destroyed the figures, telling of the location of Leithgow's laboratory; and a slight smile appeared on his lips as he told of the ruse by which he had escaped. "Got away. Told them the lake-front was very dangerous to them. Made them let me show them. I walked out--dozens of them round me, guns on me--walked out till I went under water. Could do it in the suit. I walked under water half a mile or so, then came up and cached the suit. I guess they're still watching! Easy!"

He chuckled, and then, after a short pause, went on:

"But here's what's important--Ku Sui is alive. Yes, I know it. He has an a.s.signation with Tantril at Tantril's ranch. In five days. And the coordinated brains I promised to destroy--they still exist. So, Eliot, these are orders: prepare plans for infra-red and ultra-violet devices--they ought to do it--so we can see Dr. Ku's invisible asteroid when it comes. Friday, you go down and get my s.p.a.ce-suit: it's cached ten miles down the beach, beneath a big watrari tree. And then--" His head slumped over; he appeared to have abruptly fallen to sleep.

"Yes, Ca.r.s.e? What is your plan?" Eliot Leithgow asked softly. But the Hawk was only making a great last effort to gather the threads of his idea.

"Yes," he responded, "the plan. Ban stations a man to keep watch on Tantril's ranch, while we go back to your laboratory, Eliot, where you'll make the devices and repair the gravity-plates of my suit.

Then, four nights from now, if the watcher's seen no one arrive, Ban, Friday and I return and lie in ambush round Tantril's ranch. Awaiting Dr. Ku. When he comes, he'll surely leave his asteroid somewhere near.

And while he's at Tantril's, we capture the asteroid--and my promise to the coordinated brains will be kept.

"Then--but that's enough for now; I am so tired. Ban, will you please--some food--"

Wilson, who had been listening eagerly and, at the end, grinning in prospect of action with the Hawk, darted off like a spark. A few minutes later, after his third mouthful of food, Ca.r.s.e murmured:

"We'll use your ship to go to Eliot's lab in, Ban, but I think you'll--have to--carry me--aboard. So sleepy. Wake me when we get to--lab."

On this last word his sleep-denied body had its way, and at once he was deep in the dreamless slumber of exhaustion.

While he slept, the others rapidly carried out his orders. Within two hours Friday, in the ranch's air-car, had retrieved the cached suit.

Ban Wilson had manned and made ready his personal s.p.a.ce-ship for the trip to the laboratory, and Eliot Leithgow had jotted down a few preliminary plans for the infra-red and ultra-violet instruments which Ca.r.s.e would need in order to see the invisible asteroid of Dr.

Ku Sui.

CHAPTER II