The Affair of the Brains Read online

  CHAPTER II

  _The Coming of Ku Sui_

  Straight through the vast cold reaches that stretched between one mightyplanet and another the _Scorpion_ arrowed, Carse and Friday standingwatch and watch, Sako always on duty with the latter. Behind, Saturn'srings melted smaller, and ahead a dusky speck grew against the vault ofspace until the red belts and one great seething crimson spot thatmarked it as Jupiter stood out plainly. By degrees, then, the ship'scourse was altered as Carse checked his calculations and made minorcorrections in speed and direction. So they neared the rendezvous. And apuzzled furrow grew on Friday's brow.

  What was bothering his master? Instead of becoming more impassive andcoldly emotionless as the distance shortened, he showed distinct signsof worry. This might be natural in most men, but it was unusual in theHawk. Often the negro found him abstractedly smoothing his bangs ofhair, pacing the length of the control cabin, glancing, plainly worried,at the visi-screen. What special thing was wrong? Friday wondered againand again--and then, in a flash, he knew.

  "Why--how we goin' to _see_ Dr. Ku?" he burst out. "Didn't that Judd saysomethin'----"

  The Hawk nodded. "That's just the problem, Eclipse. For you'll rememberJudd said that Ku Sui 'comes out of darkness, out of empty space.' Thatmight mean invisibility or the Fourth Dimension--and God help us if he'ssolved the problem of dimensional traveling. I don't know--but it'ssomething I can't well prepare against." He fell to musing again,utterly lost in thought.

  * * * * *

  A day and a half later found Friday genuinely worried--an unusual statefor the always cheerful black. The laugh wrinkles of his face werere-twisted into lines of anxiety which gave his face a most solemn andlugubrious expression. From time to time he grasped the butt of hisray-gun with a grip that would have pulped an orange; occasionally hisrolling brown eyes sought the gray ones of the Hawk, only to return asby a magnet to the visi-screen, whose five adjoining squares mirroredthe whole sweep of space around them.

  Jupiter now filled one side of the forward observation window. It was avast, red-belted disk, an eye-thrilling spectacle at their distance,roughly a million miles. Against it were poised two small pale globes,the larger of which was Satellite III. Several hours before, when theyhad been closer to the satellite, Carse had scrutinized it through theelectelscope and made out above its surface a silver dot which was aspace-ship. It was bound inward toward Port o' Porno, and might wellhave been one of Ku Sui's. But the _Scorpion_, slowing down for herrendezvous, had attracted no attention and had passed undisturbed.

  Now she hung motionless--that is, motionless with respect to the sun.Only the whisper of the air-renewing machinery disturbed the tension inher control cabin where the three men stood waiting, glancing back andforth from the visi-screen to the Earth clock and its calendarattachment. The date the clock showed was 24 January, the time, 10:21 P.M. Dr. Ku Sui was one minute late.

  Sako, the captive, was sullen and restless, and made furtive glances atthe Hawk, who stood detached, arms hanging carelessly at his sides, grayeyes half closed, giving in his attitude no hint of the strain theothers were feeling. But his attitude of being relaxed and off his guardwas deceptive--as Sako found out. Suddenly his left hand seemed todisappear; there was a hiss, an arrowing streak of spitting orangelight; and Sako was gaping foolishly at the arm he had stealthily raisedto one of the radio switches. A smoking sear had appeared as if by magicacross it.

  Hawk Carse sheathed his gun. "I would advise you to try no more obvioustricks," he said coldly. "Cutting in our microphone is too simple a wayto give warning to Dr. Ku Sui. Move away from there. And don't forgetyour lines when Dr. Ku calls. You will never act a part before a morecritical and deadly audience."

  Sako mumbled something and rubbed his arm. A pitying smile came toFriday's face as he comprehended what had happened. "You damned fool!"he said.

  * * * * *

  It was 10:22 P.M. Still, in the visi-screen, no other ship. Nothing butthe giant planet, the smaller satellites poised against it, and the deepstar-spangled curtain of black space all around.

  They had carefully followed the instructions in the log. They were atthe exact place noted there: checked and double-checked. The radioreceiver was tuned to the wave-length given in the log. But of Ku Sui,nothing.

  And yet, in a way, he was with them. His enigmatic personality, hisseldom-seen figure was very present in their minds, and with it wereovertones of all the diabolic cunning and suave ironic cruelty that menalways associated with him. "He comes out of darkness, out of emptyspace...." Friday licked his lips. He was not built for mental strain:his lips kept drying and his tongue was as leather.

  A little sputtering sound tingled the nerves of the three waiting men,and as one their eyes went to the radio loudspeaker. A contact questionwas being asked in the usual way:

  "Are you there, Judd? Are you there, Judd? Are you there, Judd?"

  The voice was not that of Ku Sui. It was a dead voice, toneless,emotionless, mechanical.

  "Are you there, Judd?" it went on, over and over.

  "The mike switch, Friday," the Hawk said, and then was at Sako's side,his ray-gun transfixing the man with its threatening angle. "Play yourpart well," was the whisper from his lips.

  The switch went over with a click. Trembling, Sako faced the microphone.

  "This is Sako," he said.

  "Sako?" the dead voice asked. "I want Judd. Where is Judd?"

  "Judd is dead. The trap failed, and there was a fight on Iapetus. Juddwas killed by Carse, and most of the others. Only two of us are left,but we have Carse and the negro, prisoners, alive. What are yourinstructions?"

  A half minute went by, and the three men hardly breathed.

  "How do we know you are Sako?" said the voice at last. "Give therecognition."

  "The insignia of Dr. Ku Sui?"

  "Yes. It is----"

  Carse's ray-gun prodded the stomach of the sweating Sako.

  "An asteroid," he said hastily, "in the center of a circle of the tenplanets."

  The unseen speaker was quiet. Evidently he was conferring with someoneelse, probably Ku Sui.

  "All right," his toneless voice came back at last. "You will remainmotionless in your present position, keeping your radio receiver openfor further instructions. We are approaching and will be with you inthirty minutes."

  Carse motioned to Friday to switch off the mike. Sako sank limply into achair, soaked with perspiration.

  "Now we must wait again," the Hawk murmured, crossing his arms andscanning the visi-screen.

  * * * * *

  They had heard from Ku Sui, but that had not answered the old tormentingquestion of how he would come. It was more puzzling than ever. Thevisi-screen showed nothing, and it should have shown the Eurasian'sdecelerating ship even at twice thirty minutes' time away. They lookedupon the same vista of Jupiter and his satellites, framed in eternalblackness; there was no characteristic steely dot of an approaching shipto give Carse the enemy's position and enable him to shape his plan ofreception definitely.

  Twenty minutes went by. The strain the Hawk was under showed only in hispulling at the bangs of flaxen hair that covered his forehead as far asthe eyebrows. He had, from Judd's words, expected a mystery in Ku Sui'sapproach. There was nothing to do but wait; he had made what few plansand preparations he could in advance.

  Friday broke the tense silence in the control cabin. "He's _got_ to be_somewhere_!" he exploded. "It isn't natural for the screen not to shownothin'! Isn't there somethin' we can do?"

  The Hawk was surprisingly patient. "I'm afraid not," he said. "It'sinvisibility he's using, or else the fourth dimension, as Judd said. Butwe've got one good chance. He'll send more instructions by radio, andsurely, after that, his ship will appear----"

  A new voice, bland and unctuous, spoke in the control cabin from behindthe three men.

  "_Not necessarily,
my honored friend Carse_," it said. "_You willobserve there is no need for a ship to appear._"

  Ku Sui had come.