The Bluff of the Hawk Part 5

"The gun in your belt," he said, "--drop it. Right on the floor.

There--better. I like you not with a gun near your hand, Ca.r.s.e."

The Hawk regarded him frigidly.

"And now what?" he asked.

Lar Tantril continued smiling. His ray-gun did not move for an instant from the line it held on the metal and fabric giant. He said at a tangent, quite pleasantly:

"Think fast, Captain Ca.r.s.e--think fast! Isn't that one of Dr. Ku's new suits?--a little s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p all your own? Why not plan a sudden sweep for that door in an attempt to crash through my men and get free up in the air--eh?"

"Why not?" said the Hawk.

"It might be possible," Tantril continued, "with your luck. _Unless something went wrong with your helmet gravity-plates._"

At this the Venusian's gun moved. Deliberately it came up and aimed at the crown of the adventurer's helmet. Tantril squeezed the trigger.

_Spang!_

A pencil-thin streak of orange stabbed between Venusian and Earthling; sparks hissed out where it struck the tip of the helmet; and for an instant life and strength seemed to leave the grotesquely clad figure.

Ca.r.s.e slumped down under a quick crus.h.i.+ng weight. Weight! It bent him low, and it was only with a great effort that he was able to straighten again. For the suit's full load of metal and fabric was upon him now, its enormous boots binding him to the ground since their weight was unrelieved by the partial lift of the helmet plates. An inch-wide, black-rimmed hole in the mechanism above the helmet told what had happened.

Lar Tantril chortled, and his men, most of them only half comprehending what he had done, echoed him.

"But even yet you've got a chance," the Venusian went on. "There's another set of plates in the boot-soles, for attraction. If you got a chance to stand on your head outside, you'd be gone! So--"

This time he lowered the gun, and carefully, accurately, he sent two spitting streams of orange through the soles of the great boots.

The danger Ca.r.s.e had feared had come to pa.s.s. His one weapon had been destroyed. He was worse than helpless; he was in a c.u.mbersome prison, all power of quick movement gone. He was a paralyzed giant, tied to the soil, the ways of the air hopelessly closed. The slightest step would cost great effort.

"You have protected yourself well, Lar Tantril," he said slowly.

Now Tantril laughed deeply and unrestrainedly. "Yes, and by Mother Venus," he cried, "it's good to see you this way, Ca.r.s.e, unarmed and in my power!" He turned to his circle of men and said: "Poor Hawk!

Can't fly any more! I've put him in a cage! So thoughtful of him to bring his cage along with him so I could trap him inside it! His own cage!" He guffawed, shaking, and the others laughed loud.

Through it all Hawk Ca.r.s.e stood motionless, his face cold and graven, his slender body bent under the burden of the dead suit. He still held in his right hand, limp by his side, the sheaf of papers and their all-important figure--and the thumb and forefinger of his hand were moving, so slowly as to be hardly noticeable, in what seemed to be a lone sign of nervous tension.

"You know, Ca.r.s.e," Tantril observed after his laugh, "I've been half expecting you, though I don't see how you knew I was the one who took those papers you're holding. Dr. Ku radioed me, you see. I think you were reading his message at the time I entered. Did you finish it?"

"No," said the Hawk.

"You'll find it interesting. Let me read it to you." And Tantril took up the memo.

"From Ku Sui to Lar Tantril: Search House No. 574 in Port o' p.o.r.no closely for anything pertinent to Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow or giving clue to his whereabouts. Keep what you obtain for me; I will come to your ranch in five days. Watch for Hawk Ca.r.s.e, Eliot Leithgow and a Negro, arriving from s.p.a.ce at Satellite III in self-propulsive s.p.a.ce-suits." There followed some details concerning the suits'

mechanism; then: "Ca.r.s.e caused me certain trouble and came near hurting my major inventions. I want him badly."

At this the adventurer's face tightened; his gray eyes went frosty.

All he and Leithgow had deduced, then, was true. Dr. Ku had survived the cras.h.i.+ng of the asteroid's dome. The mechanisms had also survived--and certainly the coordinated brains--the brains he, Hawk Ca.r.s.e, had promised to destroy! Now trapped, it seemed that promise could never be fulfilled....

Yet even through this torturing thought of a promise unkept, the Hawk's thumb and forefinger moved in their slight grinding motion on the first sheet of the sheaf of papers....

Lar Tantril reached out his hand for the sheaf. "So, obeying Dr. Ku's orders, I had the house searched and got these papers. They, must be valuable, Ca.r.s.e, since you wanted them so badly. Ku Sui will be pleased. Hand them over."

With but the barest flick of gray eyes downward. Hawk Ca.r.s.e gave the sheaf to Tantril.

But his brief glance at the top-most sheet told him all he wanted to know. Gradually, methodically, the motion of thumb and forefinger had totally effaced the revealing figure 5,576.34, the one clue to the location of Leithgow's laboratory. Enough! What he had set out to do was finished. The chief task was achieved!

"And now, perhaps," Lar Tantril chuckled, "a little entertainment."

His men p.r.i.c.ked up their ears. This language was more understandable.

Entertainment meant playing with the prisoner--torture. And alkite, probably, and isuan. A night of revelry!

But Hawk Ca.r.s.e smiled thinly at this.

"Entertainment, Tantril?" his cold voice said. He paused, and then added slowly: "What a fool you are!"

Lar Tantril was not annoyed by the words. He only laughed and slapped his thigh.

"Yes?" he mocked. "Truly, Captain Ca.r.s.e, you must be frightened, to try and anger me so I'll shoot! Do you fear a skewer-blade so much? We would leave most of you for Ku Sui!"

Ca.r.s.e shook his head. "No, Lar Tantril, I don't want you to shoot me.

I'm telling you you're a fool--because you think me one."

With a wave of his hands the Venusian protested: "No, no, not at all.

You're infernally clever, Ca.r.s.e. I'll always be the first to admit it."

"Then do you think I'd attack your ranch alone?"

"You'd like me to believe you have friends hidden somewhere?" Tantril asked, smiling tolerantly.

Ca.r.s.e's voice came back curtly. "Believe what you like, but learn this: It's your boast that your ranch is impregnable, guarded on every side and from every angle. I'm telling you it's not. Its vulnerable.

It's wide open to one way of attack and my friends and I know it well."

For a second the Venusian's a.s.surance wavered.

"Vulnerable?" he said. "Open to attack? You're just stalling!"

Whip-like words cut through.

"Wait and see. Wait till the ranch is stormed and wiped out. Wait twenty minutes! Only twenty!"

Hawk Ca.r.s.e was always listened to when he spoke in such manner. Lar Tantril stared at the hard gray eyes boring into his.

"Why do you tell me this?" he asked. Then, with a smile: "Why not wait until my ranch is wiped out, as you say?" His smile broadened. "Until these hidden friends attack?"