Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  Hawk Carse's eyes were frigid gray mists in a graven, expressionless face as he turned to the left of the case and pulled over one of the well-remembered knife switches. A low hum came; a ghost of rosy color diffused through the liquid in the case. The color grew until the whole was glowing jewel-like in the dim-lit laboratory, and the narrow tubes leading into the undersides of the brains were plainly visible. Something within the tubes pulsed at the rate of heart-beats. The stuff of life.

  When the color ceased to increase, Carse pulled the second switch, and moved close to the grille inset in a small panel above the case.

  Slowly, gently he said into the grille:

  "Master Scientist Cram, Professors Estapp and Geinst, Doctors Swanson and Norman--I wish to talk to you. I am Captain Carse, friend of Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow. Some days ago you aided us in our escape from here, and in return I made you a promise. Do you remember?"

  There was a pause, a silence so tense it was painful. And then functioned the miracle of Ku Sui's devising. There came from the grille a thin, metallic voice from the living dead.

  "I remember you, Captain Carse, and your promise."

  * * * * *

  A voice from living brain cells, through inorganic lungs and throat and tongue! A voice from five brains, speaking, for some obscure reason which even Ku Sui could not explain, in the first person, and setting to mechanical words the living, pulsing thoughts that sped back and forth inside the case and were coordinated into unity by the master brain, which had once been in the body of Master Scientist Cram. A voice out of nothingness; a voice from what seemed so clearly to be the dead. To Hawk Carse, man of action, it was unearthly; it was a miracle the fact of which he could not question, but which he could not hope to understand. And well might it have been unearthly to anyone. Even to-day.

  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-passing minutes were to be their last of consciousness....

  And then at last spoke the voice:

  "Captain Carse, 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 Carse 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 Carse, that you will soon have Ku Sui captive. Will you not attempt to force him to do as I desire?"

  Carse 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 Carse, 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 Carse. 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.

  "Carse? Carse? 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 Carse!"

  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 Carse 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 Carse. 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 Carse 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 space-suits on the metal floor of the port-lock. They had arrived!

  Ku Sui would be there, close behind him; probably gazing at his outflung figure; probably puzzled, and suspicious, and quickly looking around for the enemies that had apparently killed one of his coolies. With a raygun in hand--and guns in the hands of the two others with him--glancing warily around over the guard-chamber close to the port-lock, and the main buildings beyond, and the whole area inside the dome, and seeing no one.

  And then--approaching!

  Ban could tell it by the silence, then the harsh crunch of the great boots against the powdered, metallic upper crust of ground. But he lay without an eyelash's flickering, a dead coolie, limp, crumpled. He heard the crunch of boots come right up to him and then pause; and the feeling that came to his stomach told him unmistakably that a man was looking down on him....

  Now--while Ku Sui's attention was on him--now was the time! Now! Otherwise the Eurasian would turn him over and see that he was white!

  It seemed to Ban centuries later that he heard the welcome voice of the Hawk bark out:

  "You are covered, Dr. Ku! And your men. I advise you not to move. Tell your men to drop their guns--sh!"

  The sound of the voice from the guard-chamber was replaced by two spits of a raygun. Unable to restrain himself, Ban rolled over and looked up.

  He saw, first, the figure of the Hawk. Carse had stepped out from where he had been concealed, in the guard-chamber, and was holding the gun that had just spoken. Standing upright, close to the inner door of the port-lock, were two suit-clad coolies. Ban saw that they had turned to fire at Carse, and that now they were dead. Dead on their feet in the stiff, heavy stuff of their suits.

  Dr. Ku Sui was standing motionless above him, and through the open face-plate of the Eurasian's helmet Ban could see him gazing at Hawk Carse with a strange, faint smile on his beautifully chiselled, ascetic face.

  The Hawk came towards them, the raygun steady on his old foe; but while he was still yards away, and before he could do anything to prevent it, the Eurasian spoke a few unintelligible words into the microphone of his helmet-radio. Carse continued forward and stopped when a few feet away. Dr. Ku bowed as well as he could in his stiff suit and said courteously, in English:

  "So I am trapped. My congratulations, Captain Carse! It was very neatly done."

  * * * * *

  The two puffed-out, metal-gleaming figures faced each other for a moment without speaking. And in the silence, Ban Wilson, watchful, with a raygun he had drawn from his belt, fancied he could feel the long, bitter, bloody feud between the two, adventurer and scientist, there met again....

  Carse spoke first, his voice steel-cold.

  "You take it lightly, Dr. Ku. Do not rely too much on those words you spoke in Chinese. I could not understand them--but such things as I do not know about your asteroid I have already guarded against; and I think we can forestall whatever you have set in action.... You will please take off your space-suit."

  "Willingly, my friend!"

  "Watch close, Ban," said the Hawk.

  Dr. Ku Sui unbuckled the heavy clasps of his suit, unscrewed the cumbersome helmet, and in a moment stepped free. At the suit slid to the ground, there stood revealed his tall, slim-waisted form, clad in the customary silk. He wore a high-collared green silk blouse, tailored to the lines of his body, full trousers of the same material, and pointed red slippers and red sash, which set the green off tastefully. A lithe, silky figure; and above the silk the high forehead, the saffron, delicately carved face, the fine black hair. Half-veiled by their long lashes, his exotic eyes rested like a cat's on his old enemy.

  The Hawk moved close to him, and swiftly patted one hand over his body. From inside one of the blouse's sleeves he drew a pencil-thin blade of steel from its hidden sheath. He found no other weapon. Stepping back, he quickly divested himself of his suit also.

  "And now, Captain?" the Eurasian murmured softly.

  "Now, Dr. Ku," answered Carse, once again a slender, wiry figure in soft blue shirt and blue denim trousers, "we are going to have a little talk. In your living room, I think.

  "Ban," he continued. "I don't believe there's anyone else who can even see the asteroid, but we have to be careful. Will you stay on guard here by the port-lock? Good. Close its doors, and yell or come to me if anything should occur."

  He turned to the waiting Eurasian again.

  "You may go first, Dr. Ku. Into the laboratory, and then to the living room of your quarters."

  * * * * *

  They found Friday on guard where he had been stationed in the laboratory. The big Negro, on recognizing the Eurasian, grinned from ear to ear and gave him what he considered a witty greeting.

  "Well, well!" he said with gusto, "--come right in. Dr. Ku Sui! Make yourself at home, suh! Sure glad to have you come visitin' us!" He laughed gleefully.

  But his words were wasted on Dr. Ku. His eyes at once fastened on the case of coordinated brains, standing at one side. Carse noticed this.

  "No. Dr. Ku," he said. "I have not touched the brains. Not yet. But that's what we're going to talk about." He motioned to one of the four doors connecting the central laboratory with the building's wings. "Into your living room please, and be seated there. And no sudden moves, of course: I have a certain skill with a raygun. Friday, keep doubly alert now. Better take off your suit. I will call for you in a few minutes."

  Ku Sui walked on silent feet into the first division of his personal quarters, the softly-lit living room. A lush velvet carpet made the floor soft; ancient Chinese tapestries hid the pastelled metal of the walls; books were everywhere. It was a quiet and restful room, with no visible reminder of the asteroid and its controlling mechanics.

  Dr. Ku sank into a deep armchair, linked his fingers before him and looked up inquiringly.

  "We were going to talk about the brains?" he asked.

  * * * * *

  Carse had closed the door behind him, and now remained standing. He met the masked green eyes squarely.

  "Yes." He was silent for a little, then, quietly and coldly he went to the point.

  "You'll be interested to hear that I have talked with the brains and been relieved of my premise to destroy them. They requested something else. Now I have committed myself to attempt their restoration into living bodies."

  "So?" murmured the Eurasian. "So. Yes, Captain, that is very interesting."

  "Very." The Hawk spoke without trace of emotion. "And some courtroom on Earth will find more than interesting the testimony of your re-embodied brains."

  Dr. Ku Sui smiled in answer. "Oh, no doubt. But, my friend--this transplantation--you accept its possibility so casually! Won't it prove rather difficult for you, who have never even pretended to be a scientist?"

  "Not difficult. Impossible."

  "And Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow--I have unbounded respect for his genius, but brain surgery is a specialty and I really think that this task would be outside even his capabilities. I am sure he himself would admit it."

  "You are right, Dr. Ku: he has admitted it. We both realize there is only one person in the universe who could achieve it--you. So you will have to perform the operations."

  "Well!" said Dr. Ku Sui. The smooth, fine skin of his brow wrinkled slightly as he gazed up at the intent man facing him. "Is this just stupidity on your part, Captain? Or do you attempt a joke at which in courtesy I should smile?"

  The Hawk answered levelly: "I was never farther from
joking in my life."

  * * * * *

  With a delicate shrug of his silken shoulders, Ku Sui averted his eyes. As if bored, he glanced around the room. Slowly he unclasped his hands.

  "I am a very fast shot, Dr. Ku," whispered Carse. "You must not make a single move without my permission."

  At that the Eurasian laughed aloud, a liquid laugh that showed his even teeth between the finely cut lips.

  "But I am so completely in your power, Captain Carse!" He held on to the last syllable, a low, sustained hiss--and then he snapped it off.

  "S-s-stah!" His mood had changed: the smile vanished from a face suddenly thin and cruel; the green eyes unmasked, to show in their depths the tiger.

  "What insane talk! You say such things to me! Don't you know that to coordinate those brains I worked for years with a devotion, a concentration, a genius you can never hope even to comprehend? Don't you realize they're the most precious possession of the greatest surgeon and the greatest mind in the universe? Don't you understand that I've fashioned a miracle? Realize these things, then, and marvel at yourself--you who, with your gun and your egotism, think you can make me undo their wonderful coordination!"

  The tiger returned behind the veil, its power and fury again leashed, and Dr. Ku Sui relaxed his green eyes once more masked and enigmatic. Hawk Carse asked simply:

  "Could you transplant the brains?"

  "You insist on continuing this farce?" murmured the Eurasian. "I would not be rude, but really you try my patience!"

  "Could you transplant the brains?"

  Dr. Ku Sui looked at the colorless face with its eyes of ice. With a trace of irritation, he said:

  "Of course! What I have once transplanted, I can transplant again. But I will not do it--and my will no one, and no force, can alter. Perhaps it is clear now? In no way can you touch my will. I am sorry that I so grossly insulted you, Carse, for there are certain things about you that in a small way I respect. But here you are helpless."