The Passing of Ku Sui Part 5

Still thrilling to the wonder of it, he went on:

"I have returned here to the asteroid with friends. Primarily I came to keep my promise to you, but I intend to do more. Dr. Ku Sui is not here now, and will not be for at least fifteen minutes; but when he does return, I am going to capture him. I am going to take him alive."

He was silent for a moment.

"Perhaps you do not know," he continued levelly, "but the people of Earth hold Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow responsible for your disappearance. He is therefore a fugitive, and there is a price on his head. It is my purpose to restore Eliot Leithgow to his old place by returning Dr. Ku to Earth to answer for the crimes he has effected on you.

"I am now ready to fulfil my promise to you. I expect no interruption this time. I regret exceedingly my inability to destroy you when I was here before, but I simply could not in the little time I had. I still do not know how best to go about it. Perhaps you will tell me. I will wait...."

An afterthought came to him. He added into the grille:

"There is no hurry. Your extraordinary position--your thoughts--I understand...."

Then there was a long silence. For once the Hawk was not impatient; in fact there was in him the feeling that the pause was only decent and fitting. For before him were the brains of five great scientists, who as captive remnants of men had asked him to end their cold and lonely bondage. Limbless, his was to be the hand of their self-immolation.

The present silent, slow-pa.s.sing minutes were to be their last of consciousness....

And then at last spoke the voice:

"_Captain Ca.r.s.e, I do not wish you to destroy me. I with you to give me new life. I wish you to transplant me within the bodies of five living men._"

The words, so unexpected, took Hawk Ca.r.s.e by perhaps the greatest surprise he had ever known. For a time he was completely astounded; he could hardly credit his ears. It required a full minute for him to summon even the most halting reply.

"But--but could that be done?" He strove to collect himself, to consider logically this course that he had never dreamed would be requested. "Who could do it? I know of no man."

"_Dr. Ku Sui could transplant me._"

"Ku Sui? He could, but he wouldn't. He would destroy you, rather."

Almost immediately the artificial voice responded:

"_You have said, Captain Ca.r.s.e, that you will soon have Ku Sui captive. Will you not attempt to force him to do as I desire?_"

Ca.r.s.e considered the suggestion, but it did not seem remotely possible. Ku Sui could not be prevented from having endless opportunities for destroying the brains while enjoying the manual freedom necessary to perform the operations of re-embodying them.

"I do not see how," he began--and then he cut off his words abruptly.

Something had come into his mind, a memory of something Eliot Leithgow had told him once, long before. Slowly the details came back in full, and at their remembrance his right hand rose to the odd bangs of flaxen hair concealing his forehead and began to smooth them, and a ghost of a smile appeared on his thin lips.

"Perhaps," he murmured. "I think ... perhaps...."

He said decisively into the grille:

"Yes! I think it's quite possible that I can force Ku Sui to transplant you into living bodies! I think--I _think_--I cannot be sure--that it can be done. At least I will make a very good attempt."

The toneless, mechanical voice uttered:

"_Captain Ca.r.s.e, you bring me hope. My thoughts are many, and they are grateful._"

But the Hawk had made a promise, and had to be formally freed of the duty it entailed.

"You release me, then," he asked, "from my original promise to destroy you?"

"_I release you, Captain Ca.r.s.e. And again I thank you._"

The adventurer returned the switches motivating the case, and the faint smile returned to his lips at the thought that had come to him.

But the smile vanished suddenly at the quick, excited words that came crackling into his helmet receiver.

"Ca.r.s.e? Ca.r.s.e? Do you hear me?"

He threw over his microphone control.

"Yes, Ban? What is it?"

"Come as fast as you can. Just caught sight of three distant figures flying straight towards here. It's Ku Sui, returning!"

CHAPTER V

_"My Congratulations, Captain Ca.r.s.e!"_

A few minutes later the trap was in readiness.

It had been swiftly planned and executed, and it promised well. Both the inner and outer doors of the smaller port-lock lay ajar. Hawk Ca.r.s.e was gone from view. The only figure visible there was that which lay sprawled face-downward on the ground close to the inner door of the port-lock.

The figure seemed to have been stricken down in sudden death. It was clad in the trim yellow smock of a coolie of Ku Sui. It was limp, its arms and legs spreadeagled, and it lay there as mute evidence that the dome of the asteroid had been attacked.

To one entering from outside, the figure was that of a dead coolie.

The coolie that had worn those clothes was dead; his clothes now covered the wiry length of freckle-faced Ban Wilson.

Ban played the game well. His face lay in the ground, pointed away from the lock, so he could not see what was going to happen behind him: but before the Hawk had directed him to take off his suit and don the yellow smock, he had glimpsed, rising swiftly over the southernmost barrier of hills that edged the valley, three black dots coming fast toward the asteroid in straight, disciplined flight, and he knew that the leader of the three was Dr. Ku Sui.

As he lay limp on the ground, playing his important part as the decoy of the trap, he knew that his life depended on the action and the skill and the timing of Hawk Ca.r.s.e. But he did not worry about that.

He had implicit faith in the Hawk, and trusted his life to his judgment without a tremor.

Still, it was hard for Ban to throttle down his excessively nervous nature and maintain the dead man pose for the long silent minutes that crawled by before there came any sound from behind. The Jupiter-light, flooding down on him from the glittering blue sky above, was hot and growing hotter, and of course he began to itch. Had he had the freedom of his limbs, he would not have itched, he knew; it happened only when he had to keep absolutely still; he cursed the phenomenon to himself.

Minute after minute, and no sound to tell him what was happening behind, or how close the three approaching figures had come, or whether Ca.r.s.e was at all visible or not--and the mounting, maddening itch right in the middle of his back!

At last Ban's mental cursings stopped. His straining ears had caught a sound.

It was quickly repeated, and again and again--the heavy, grating noise of metal on metal. The boots of s.p.a.ce-suits on the metal floor of the port-lock. They had arrived!