The Affair of the Brains Read online

  CHAPTER III

  _The Wave of a Handkerchief_

  He stood smiling in the door-frame leading aft to the rear entranceport. There was all grace in his posture, in the easy angle at which onearm rested against the side bulkhead, in the casual way in which he heldthe ray-gun that bored straight at Carse. Height and strength he had,and a perfectly proportioned figure. Beauty, too, of face, with skin ofclearest saffron, soft, sensitive mouth and ascetic cheeks. His hair wasfine and black, and swept straightly back from the high narrow foreheadwhere lived his tremendous intelligence.

  It was his eyes that gave him away, his eyes of rare green that from adistance looked black. Slanting, veiled, unreadable beneath the loweredsilky lashes, there was the soul of a tiger in their sinister depths. Itwas his eyes that his victims remembered....

  "So you have arrived, Dr. Ku," whispered Hawk Carse, and for a second hetoo smiled, with eyes as bleak and hard as frosty chilled steel. Theirglances met and held--the cold, hard, honest rapier; the subtle perfumedpoison. The other men in the cabin were forgotten; the feeling wasbetween these two. Strikingly contrasted they stood there: Carse, inrough blue denim trousers, faded work-shirt, open at the neck,old-fashioned rubber shoes and battered skipper's cap askew on hisflaxen hair; Ku Sui, suavely impeccable in high-collared green silkblouse, full-length trousers of the same material, and red slippers, tomatch the wide sash which revealed the slender lines of his waist. Aperfume hung about the man, the indescribable odor of tsin-tsin flowersfrom the humid jungles of Venus.

  "You see I meet you halfway, my friend," the Eurasian said with delicatemock courtesy. "A surpassing pleasure I have anticipated for a longtime. _No, no!_ I see that already I shall have to ask you a smallfavor. A thousand pardons: it's my deplorable ability to read your mindthat requires me to ask it. Your so justly famed speed on the draw mightpossibly overcome this advantage"--he raised his ray-gun slightly--"and,though I know you would not kill me--save in the direst emergency, sinceyou wish to take me a living prisoner--I would find it most distressingto have to carry for the rest of my life a flaw on my body. So, may Irequest you to withdraw your ray-guns with two fingertips and put themon the floor? Observe--your fingertips. Will you be so kind?"

  * * * * *

  The Hawk looked at him for a minute. Then silently he obeyed. He knewthat the Eurasian would have no compunctions about shooting him down incold blood; but, on the other hand, even as the man had said, he couldnot kill Ku Sui, but had to capture him, in order to take him to Earthto confess to crimes now blamed on Eliot Leithgow. "Do as he says,Friday," he instructed the still staring negro; and, like a man in atrance, Friday obeyed.

  "Thank you," the Eurasian said. "It was a most friendly thing to do." Hepaused. "I suppose you are wondering how I arrived here, and why you didnot see me come. Well, I shall certainly tell you, in return for yourfavor. But first--ah, friend Carse--your gesture! A reminder, I assume."

  Slowly the Hawk was stroking the bangs of hair which had been trained toobscure his forehead. There was no emotion on his chilly face as heanswered, no slightest sign of feeling unless it were a slight tremblingof the left eyelid--significant enough to those who could read it.

  "Yes," he whispered, "a reminder. I do not like to wear my hair likethis, Ku Sui, and I want you to know that I've not forgotten; that,though I'm now in your power, there'll be a day----"

  "But you wouldn't threaten your host!" the other said with mocksurprise. "And surely you wouldn't threaten me, of all men. Must I pointout how useless it has always been for you to match yourself, merely askilful gunman, against me, against a brain?"

  "Usually," the cold whisper came back, "the brain has failed in thetraps it has laid for the gunman."

  "Only because of the mistakes of its agents. Unfortunately for you, thebrain is dealing with you directly this time, my friend. It's quite adifferent matter. But this small talk--although you honor----"

  "Of course you intend to kill me," said the Hawk. "But when?"

  Dr. Ku gestured deprecatingly. "You insist on introducing theseunpleasant topics! But to relieve your mind, I've not yet decided how Ican entertain you most suitably. I have come primarily to ask you onetrifling thing."

  "And that is?"

  "The whereabouts of Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow."

  * * * * *

  Hawk Carse smiled. "Your conceit lends you an extraordinary optimism,Dr. Ku."

  "Not unfounded, I am sure. I desire very much to meet our old friendLeithgow again: his is the only other brain in this universe at allcomparable to mine. And did I tell you that I always get what I desire?Well, will you give me this information? Of course, there are ways...."

  For a moment he waited.

  The Hawk only looked at him.

  "Always in character," the Eurasian said regretfully. "Very well." Heturned his head and took in Friday and Sako, standing near-by. "You areSako?" he asked the latter. "It is most unfortunate that you had todeceive me a little while ago. We shall have to see what to do about it.Later. For the present, move farther back, out of the way. So. You,black one, next to my friend Carse: we must be moving along. So."

  Ku Sui surveyed then with inscrutable eyes. Gracefully, he drew close.

  Carse missed not a move. He watched the Eurasian draw, from one of thelong sleeves of his blouse, a square of lustrous black silk.

  "This bears my personal insignia, you see," he murmured. "You willremember it." And he languidly waved it just under their eyes.

  Friday stared at it; Carse too, wonderingly. He saw embroidered inyellow on the black a familiar insignia composed of an asteroid in thecircle of ten planets. And then alarm lit his brain and he grimaced.There was a strange odor in his nostrils and it came from the square ofsilk.

  "Characteristic, Dr. Ku," he said. "Quite characteristic."

  The Eurasian smiled. An expression of stupid amazement came overFriday's face. The design of asteroid and planets wavered into a blur asthe Hawk fought unconsciousness; a short, harsh sound came from hislips; he lurched uncertainly. The negro crumpled up and stretched out onthe deck. Carse's desire to sleep grew overpowering. Once more, as froma distance, he glimpsed Ku Sui's smile. He tried to back to the wall;made it; then a heavy thump suggested to his dimming mind that he hadcollapsed to the deck. He was asleep at once....