The Passing of Ku Sui Part 15

"Gone? You're sure? Let me see."

Swiftly, Thorpe at his heels, Ca.r.s.e strode out from the room to a cubby just off the laboratory, the watch-post, where observational electelscopes and visi-screens provided a panorama of the surrounding territory.

He gazed through the electelscope, which had been equipped with an infra-red device and trained on the asteroid, and saw that now, where the ma.s.sive body of rock had been poised, there was nothing. Only the brilliant light of mid-afternoon, the cloudless sky. Ca.r.s.e swept the gla.s.s around. The search was fruitless. The heavens were bare. The asteroid had gone.

In half a minute Ca.r.s.e had reasoned out the disappearance, saw the consequences and made the inevitable decision. Gone was the torpor of sleep, the weariness of the laboratory; this was a crisis, and this was his work. During the operations, he had been able merely to obey orders and do manual work. Now he a.s.sumed command.

"Your lapse has imperilled us all," he said curtly to Thorpe. "From now on we're in great danger. Stay here and keep on watch, and sound the alarm immediately if the asteroid reappears."

"Yes, sir. I--I'm sorry--"

The adventurer cut him off with a frigid nod and ran on silent, rapid feet to the laboratory, where both Ban Wilson and Friday lay fast asleep. Roughly Ca.r.s.e shook them into consciousness. Trained to s.h.i.+pboard routine and the sudden emergencies of s.p.a.ce, they needed but little time to return to full wakefulness. In staccato sentences the new situation was outlined to them.

"The asteroid's gone. That means danger to everything here. We will have to evacuate. Ban, wake all the men, including Ku Sui and his a.s.sistants, then come to me for further orders. Friday, see that Leithgow's s.h.i.+p is ready for instant departure. Quick!"

Alarmed, but without questions, the two parted on their separate errands. Ca.r.s.e went to the room where Eliot Leithgow lay asleep.

The pallor and weariness of the old scientist's face were emphasized by the alarming news his friend brought him, but he took it with spirit, and his voice was level and controlled as he asked:

"What does it mean, Ca.r.s.e? What must we do?"

"Leave, Eliot, and at once. We have no choice. Our danger while here is immense. The asteroid, in the hands of enemies, could crush us like a fly, simply by coming down on the top of the hill."

"But who could have taken it? There was no one on it, was there?"

The Hawk said wryly: "I thought not, but well, you remember the secret panel in Dr. Ku's laboratory?"

"Through, which he escaped before? Yes."

"I suspected that he might have someone hidden behind it, and I intended to question him when he was under the V-27, but in the terrific rush of things it slipped my mind. Sheer carelessness, Eliot; I'm very sorry. I should have known, for when we captured Ku Sui he spoke some words in Chinese through his helmet-radio. Now I can see that they must have gone to some man of his hidden there; and that man, obeying instructions, simply lay low, heard all that pa.s.sed in Dr. Ku's laboratory, and then, at a suitable opportunity, took the asteroid away in search of allies. He knows his master is a prisoner here and unquestionably he will be back to release him. We must be out of here and far away by the time he arrives."

"Yes," Leithgow nodded slowly. "As you say, there is no choice."

"But your work here is finished, Eliot," Ca.r.s.e went on. "If only we can get to Earth safely, with Ku Sui and the brains in their new bodies, we will have achieved everything we wanted to achieve. We have proof of the crime done you, and we have Ku Sui, too. Your position will be restored and the blame put where it belongs. But we must leave for Earth at once! G.o.d knows how near the asteroid is, or who's on it."

"All right, Ca.r.s.e." The scientist got up. "What are your instructions?"

Ban Wilson appeared in the door, reporting that all the men had been accounted for and awakened. Ca.r.s.e started the wheels moving.

"Everything of value here must be transported aboard the s.h.i.+p. Eliot, you know better than I what to take, so you'll a.s.sume charge of the loading. Ban, you and all the men save two of Eliot's a.s.sistants will help. I'll need them to move the bodies. Send them to me in the laboratory. But first, be sure Ku Sui and his four men are safely confined. All right; let's go."

Within half an hour the general evacuation was finished and the s.h.i.+p loaded.

The _Sandra_, Leithgow's s.h.i.+p, bearing his daughter's name, was a st.u.r.dy vessel designed more for comfort and utility than speed, and so her appointments, including offensive and defensive weapons, though modern were limited. Her commodious cargo-holds were easily capable of accommodating all of the Master Scientist's laboratory instruments and devices, the volumes of his extensive library, his great ma.s.s of personal papers and more intimate effects; all the more important stores of the place, too, and its furnis.h.i.+ngs. The laboratory and its surrounding rooms were pretty well stripped.

The largest of the _Sandra's_ cabins was transformed under the direction of Leithgow into a hospital bay, and the five cots bearing the prostrate, unconscious bodies of the patients put there. Though hastily improvised, this hospital was complete, as fully equipped and nearly as efficient as if it were on Earth and not in the belly of a s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p. The chances of the patients for complete recovery were not diminished in any way by the sudden necessity for flight.

In a second, much smaller cabin, Dr. Ku Sui was confined by himself.

Its walls, of course, were of metal, and there was no possible means of exit from it save by the door, which bore double locks. The Eurasian, silent and drugged and stupid, immediately stretched his tall form out on the single berth and in seconds was again sound asleep. A third cabin was made over to his four a.s.sistants.

With everything completed, the underground refuge bare of articles of value and the _Sandra_ stored and made ready for the long trip, the inner door of the exit tube swung open, and the s.h.i.+p slid slowly out of her cradle and into the water chamber for the last time. Her flight to Earth had begun.

Eliot Leithgow stood near the Hawk in the control cabin, and his old face was made sad by many memories. For years, this place that he was now leaving had been his only home, his one sure haven. How carefully, long ago, had he and Ca.r.s.e planned it and built it! How many times had they met there, often when danger was close and enemies near, and cemented still more firmly the bonds between them! To Leithgow, the hill symbolized safety and friends.h.i.+p and his beloved work. Dangerous, weary years, those he had spent in the hill, but priceless nevertheless, warmed as they were by his achievements and the friends.h.i.+p of Hawk Ca.r.s.e.

Now he was leaving it and going back to Earth. The outlaw years, it seemed, were ended: Ku Sui was a prisoner, and the proof of his great crime, which had been laid to Leithgow, was aboard. Earth--green Earth! Separate, distinct, peerless in the universe; home of men, of his kind! He had loved and worked and known honor and respect on Earth; it held the grave of his wife, and the fresh, warm young love of his wife reincarnate, his daughter Sandra. He was at last going home to Earth from his exile on this desolate, raw frontier post.

There was a choking in Eliot Leithgow's throat at leaving the hill, and he turned away, afraid at that moment of being observed by the steel-gray eyes of his friend, Hawk Ca.r.s.e....

The _Sandra_ swam up through the lake's muddy tide and launched herself, dripping, into the warm air of afternoon. Her generators hummed with life given them by the firm hand at the controls, and swiftly she arrowed forth into the blue. With a few words as to the visual course, Ca.r.s.e handed the s.p.a.ce-stick over to Friday, and devoted himself to the matter of the watches.

Satellite III dropped swiftly to concavity, as the _Sandra_ was expertly jockeyed through the rare outer layer of the stratosphere, became a true globe again. The Negro reported:

"Through the atmosphere, suh. Orders?"

"Full acceleration. Continue visually for the present. I'll work out the true course in a few minutes."

"Yes, suh!"

The hum of the generators deepened. In a matter of ten minutes, s.h.i.+pboard routine was arranged, Ca.r.s.e, Friday and Ban splitting the watches. The Hawk, as was his custom, took the first. Friday was relieved of the s.p.a.ce-stick and immediately went back for sleep, as did Wilson. Eliot Leithgow did not retire right away, however.

He watched Ca.r.s.e snap on the automatic control and go to an electelscope which had been equipped with an infra-red device. He directed it rearward on Satellite III, back along the course the _Sandra_ had described, and peered through its eyepiece for several minutes. Then he turned to the old scientist.

"Nothing," he said. "No sign of the asteroid as yet. We'll have to keep careful watch. The visi-screen's useless against the invisibility of the asteroid; and the high magnification of this scope, with its resulting small field of view, will require us continually and methodically to search through a wide circle behind, in the attempt to pick up the asteroid, should it appear. A tedious job, with chances of sighting it about even.... At any rate, we'll have some sort of a head-start," he finished.

This was the opportunity Leithgow had waited for; he wanted a few frank words with his friend.

"Ca.r.s.e," he said slowly, "I wonder just where that man concealed behind the secret panel would take the asteroid?"

"I've thought about that too," replied the Hawk. "We may be sure that he went for allies: Dr. Ku has several on Satellite III. Of them all, I think he would go for Lar Tantril."

"Tantril?"

"Yes, I think so. Lar Tantril, the Venusian. A fellow of much self-confidence and one of Ku Sui's chief agents, and who at present"--he smiled faintly--"nurses a special bitterness against me.

I told you how I tricked him on his ranch. He'd be very eager to pursue us in the asteroid simply for the opportunity of repaying me for that trick." The adventurer's left hand rose to the bangs of flaxen hair combing down over his forehead, and he murmured, musingly: "I rather hope it _is_ Lar Tantril...."

"You hope so?" Leithgow repeated, surprised. "When he hates you so?

And would be on the lookout for tricks? Why?"

"I would guess, Eliot, that Lar Tantril is not notable for intellect.

Bl.u.s.tering, domineering--pretty much of a braggart, you know.

Certainly he is not a model of caution; and he is not acquainted with Dr. Ku's asteroid, for he did not even know it existed. He will be able to run it, of course, with the advice of this hidden man, but surely he will not have the perception to discern the weakness in it.