Part 4 (1/2)

Then there were the long-range projectors whose muzzles studded the central building. And the ray-guns of the tower guards.

These were dangers that he knew, for he had experienced them. What others the ranch held, he could not well surmise. But he saw one significant thing that gave him pause and brought lines to his brow.

The ranch was expecting trouble. Over to one side of the clearing rested a great rounded object, on whose smooth hull gleamed coldly the light from the beacon--Lar Tantril's own personal s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p--and alongside it a smaller, somewhat similar shape, the ranch's air-car!

The s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p signified that the Venusian chief was present; the air-car, that all his men were gathered in the barracks, and not, as was their custom, in Port o' p.o.r.no for a night of revelry!

All waiting--all gathered here--all ready! All grouped for a strong defense! Did it mean what it would appear to--that he, the Hawk, was expected?

He could not know. He could not know if a trap was lying prepared there against his coming. He could but go ahead, and find out.

The only plan of attack he could think of had grown in his mind. Down and up: that was the essence of it: but the details were difficult. He had worked them out as far as he could with typical thoroughness. He had to reach the heart of the fort lying before him: had to reach the central house, Lar Tantril's own. The precious papers would be there, if anywhere.

The Hawk was ready.

He gathered his muscles. His face was cold and hard, his eyes mists of gray. There was no least sign in the man that, in the next few all-deciding minutes, death would lick close to him.

He poised where he was precariously balanced. His ray-gun was in his bare left hand; his face-plate was locked partly open. He raised his fingers to the direction rod on the suit's breast, gazed straight at the guard on the nearest watch-platform and snapped the direction rod out, pointing it at that guard.

What happened then struck so fast, so unexpectedly, that it took only thirty seconds to plunge the quiet ranch into chaos.

The Hawk came like a thunder-bolt, using to its full power his only weapon, the s.p.a.ce-suit. The sight of him might alone have been enough to strike terror. From the dark arms of the tree he hurtled, his bloated monstrous shape of metal and fabric dull in the glow of the watch-beacon, and crashed with a clang of metal into the platform he aimed at. Nothing there could withstand him. One second the guard on it was calmly gazing off into the sky: the next, like a nine-pin he was bowled over, to topple heels and head whirling to the ground sixty feet beneath. He lived, he kept consciousness, but he was sorely injured; and he never saw the outlandish projectile that struck him, nor saw it streak to the second watch-platform, bowling its guard out and to the ground likewise, and then repeating at the third and last!

A crash; a pause; a crash; a pause; then a third crash, and the thing of metal had completed the circuit, and all three watch-platforms were scooted empty!

Then came confusion.

There had been screams, but now a crazed voice began crying out mechanically, over and over:

”s.p.a.ce-suit! s.p.a.ce-suit! s.p.a.ce-suit! s.p.a.ce-suit!”

It came from the second guard, who lay twisting on the ground. His tongue, by some trick of nervous disorganization, beat out those words like a voice-disk whose needle keeps skipping its groove--and the effect was macabre.

The central buildings disgorged a crowd of men. Shorty, wiry, thin-faced Venusians, each with skewer-blade strapped to his side and some with ray-guns out, they came scrambling into the open, swearing and wondering. The second guard's insane repet.i.tions directed most of them in his direction; and they piled in a crowd around him. They had no attention for what was happening behind, within the buildings they had emptied. That was what Hawk Ca.r.s.e had planned.

A voice of authority roared up over the general hubbub.

”Rantol! Guard! Rantol, you fool! What happened? What attacked you?

Cut that crazy yelling! Answer me!--you, Rantol!”

”s.p.a.ce-suit! s.p.a.ce-suit! s.p.a.ce-suit! s.p.a.ce--”

”Lar Tantril!” A man with suspicious eyes caught the attention of the one who had spoken first. ”s.p.a.ce-suit, he says! A flying s.p.a.ce-suit!

Only Ku Sui has s.p.a.ce-suits that fly; or only Ku Sui _had_ them, rather. You know what that must mean!”