The Passing of Ku Sui Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  _The Voice of the Brains_

  The central structure of the group of buildings was shaped like agreat plus-mark, each of its four wings of identical squareconstruction, with long smooth metal sides and top, and with a door atthe end giving entrance to a corridor that ran straight through to thechief central laboratory of Dr. Ku Sui.

  Carse skimmed swiftly, two feet off the glittering metallic soil,towards the end of the nearest wing, where he gently landed. He triedthe door giving entrance. It was open. He cautiously floated throughinto complete darkness.

  The Hawk was prepared for that. He drew a hand-flash from the belt ofhis suit, and, standing motionless, his raygun ready in his lefthand, he probed the darkness with a long white beam. Spaced evenlyalong the sides of the corridor were many identical doors, and at theend a larger, heavier door which gave entrance to the centrallaboratory. He found no life or anything that moved at all, so,methodically, he set about inspecting the side rooms.

  The doors were all unlocked, and he moved down the line without alarm,like a mechanical giant preceded by a sweeping, nervous flow of light.Such he might from the outside have appeared to be, but the man withinhimself was more like a cat scenting for danger, all muscles andsenses delicately tuned to alertness. Door by door, a cautious andthorough inspection; but he found nothing of danger. All the rooms ofthat wing were used merely for stores and equipment, and they werequite silent and deserted. When he came at last to its end, Carse knewthat the wing was safe.

  He paused a minute before the laboratory door. He had expected to findit locked, and that he would have to seek other means of entrance; butit was not. By pushing softly against it, it easily gave inward onsilent well-oiled hinges. He entered.

  * * * * *

  Carse found himself in a place of memories, and they were sharp andpainful in his brain as he stood there. Here so much had happened:here death, and even more than death, had been, and was, so near!

  The high-walled circular room was dimly lit by daylight tubes fromabove. The damage he, Carse, had wrought when besieged in it, a weekbefore, had all been repaired. The place was deserted--it seemed evendesolate--but in Carse's moment of memory it was peopled. There hadbeen the tall, graceful shape in black silk; there the operating tableand the frail old man bound on it; there the four other men, white menand gowned in the smocks of surgeons, but whose faces were lifelessand expressionless. Dr. Ku Sui and his four assistant surgeons and hisintended victim, Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow....

  They were all gone from the room now, but there was in it one thing oflife that had been there before. It lay behind the inlaid screenwhich, standing on roller-legs, lay along the wall at one place. TheHawk did not look behind the screen. He could see under it, to knowthat no one lurked there. He knew what it was meant to conceal. Therehis promise lay.

  But his promise could not be fulfilled immediately. There were fourwings to the building, four doors leading into the laboratory, and hehad inspected but one.

  An open door to his right revealed a corridor similar to the one hehad reconnoitered. He repeated down it his methodical search and foundno one. Then he returned to the laboratory.

  Surely there were men somewhere! Surely someone was behind one of thetwo closed doors remaining! Gun and flashlight still at the ready,Carse listened a moment at the nearest one.

  Silence. He grasped the knob, turned it and quickly threw the dooropen. A rapid glance revealed no one. Wary and alert, he passedthrough, and discovered that in this wing were the personal livingquarters of Dr. Ku Sui.

  The quarters were divided into five rooms: living room, bedroom,library, dining room and kitchen, and the huge metal figure passedthrough all five, the cold gray eyes taking in every detail of thecomfortable but not luxurious furnishings. There was a great interestto him, but it would have to wait.

  He reentered the laboratory and went to the remaining door. Bendinghis head he again listened. A sound--a faint whisper? He fancied heheard something.

  Ready for whatever it was, Carse pulled the door wide. And before himhe saw the control room of the asteroid, and the men for whom he hadbeen hunting.

  * * * * *

  They were white men. Carse recognized them immediately as the fourassistants of Dr. Ku Sui. Once, they had been eminent on Earth,respected doctors of medicine and brain surgery, leaders in theirprofession: now they were like the mechanicalized coolies. For theirbrains, too, the Eurasian had altered, divested of all humanity andindividuality, so as to utilize unhampered their skill with medicineand scalpel.

  They were clad in soft yellow robes and seated at ease at one end of aroom crowded with a bewildering profusion of gauges, machines,instruments, screens, wheels, levers, and other nameless controllingdevices. They did not show surprise at the huge clumsy figure thatstood suddenly before them, a raygun in one hand. Like the coolies,their clean-cut features did not change under emotion. All they didwas rise silently, as one, gazing at the adventurer out of blank eyes,saying nothing, and making no other move.

  Carse tried simple measures in dealing with them. His voice gentle yetfirm, he said:

  "You must not try to obstruct me. You have seen me before underunfortunate conditions, yet I want you to know that I am really yourfriend. I mean you no harm; but you must realize that I have a gun,and believe that I will not hesitate to use it if you resist me. Soplease do not. I only want you to come with me. Will you?"

  They were simple words, and what he asked was simple, but would themeaning reach these violated brains? Or would there instead be thedesperate reaction of the coolies, who had tried to kill him? Carsewaited with genuine anxiety. It would be hard to shoot them, and heknew he could not shoot to kill.

  A moment of indecision--and then with relief he saw all four, withapparent willingness, move forward towards him. He directed themthrough the laboratory and, without sign of resistance, herded themdown the corridor he had first searched to the outside.

  * * * * *

  The light of Jupiter, flooding undiminished through the dome, dazzledhim at first. When he could see clearly, he distinguished the greatform that was Friday standing motionless by the small port-lock, and,an equal distance away, moving around one of the out-buildings,another similar figure. He spoke by radio.

  "Find any, Ban?"

  Cheerful words came humming back.

  "Only one coolie, Carse. Had no trouble after I disarmed him. He's nowlocked inside a room in this building. Safe place for prisoners."

  "Good," said Carse. "You can see I've got four men--white men. Ibelieve they're unarmed and quite harmless, but I want you to takethem, search them and put them away in that room too."

  "Coming!"

  The distant form rose lightly, skimmed low over the open area between,and grew into the grinning, freckle-faced Ban Wilson. He bounced downawkwardly, almost losing his balance, then surveyed, wonderingly, thefour assistants of Ku Sui.

  "By Betelgeuse!" he muttered, "--like robots! Horrible!"

  "Yes," said the Hawk shortly. "You had no trouble, eh?"

  Ban grinned again. "Nothing to mention. This has been soft, hasn'tit?"

  "Don't be too optimistic, Ban. All right--when you've put these men inthe room, please relieve Friday. Send him to me in the laboratory--heknows where it is--and stand watch yourself. If Ku Sui appears--"

  "I'll let you know on the instant!"

  Hawk Carse nodded and turned back into the corridor from which he hadjust come. Now he would fulfil his promise. With no possibility of asurprise attack from anyone within the dome, and Ban Wilson postedagainst the return of Ku Sui, he could attend unhampered to the vowwhich had brought him there.

  * * * * *

  He returned to the central laboratory. Quickly be rolled back the highscreen lying across one part of the curved wall and stood looking atwhat was behind it. The monstrousness of that dead-and-alive m
echanismoverwhelmed his thoughts again.

  Before him stood a case, transparent, hard and crystal-like, as longas a man's body and half as deep, standing level on short metal legs.What it contained was the most jealously guarded, the most precious ofall Dr. Ku Sui's works, the very consummation of his mighty genius,his treasure-house of wisdom as profound as man then could know. Andmore: it held the consummation of all that was so coldly unhuman inthe Eurasian. For there, in that case, he had bound to his will thebrains of five of Earth's greatest scientists, and kept them alive,with their whole matured store of knowledge subservient to his need,although their bodies were long since dead and decayed.

  For some time the adventurer stood lost in a mood of thoughts andemotions rare to him--until he was startled back into reality by aheavy, clumping noise coming down the corridor through which he hadentered. His gun-hand flickered to readiness, but it was only Friday,coming as he had been ordered. Carse greeted the Negro with a nod, andsaid briefly:

  "There's a panel in this room--over there somewhere--you remember--theplace through which Ku Sui escaped when we were here before. It's anunknown quantity, so I want you to stand watch by it. Open yourface-plate wide, and warn me at the slightest sound or sight ofpossible danger."

  The Negro nodded and moved as silently as was possible in hisspace-suit to obey. And Carse turned again to the thing to which hehad made a promise.

  * * * * *

  The icy-glittering case was full of a colorless liquid in which weregrouped at the bottom, several delicate, colored instruments, allinterconnected by a maze of countless spidery silver wires. Sheathesof other wires ran up from the lower devices to the case's maincontent--five grayish, convoluted mounds that lay in shallowpans--five brutally naked things that were the brains of scientistsonce honored and eminent on Earth.

  Their bodies has long since been cast aside as useless to the ends ofKu Sui, but the priceless brains had been condemned to live on in anunlit, unseeing deathless existence: machines serving the man who hadtrapped them into life in death. Alive--and with stray memories, whichKu Sui could not banish entirely, of Earth, of love, of the work andthe respect that had once been theirs. Alive--with an unnatural andhorrible life, without sensation, without hope. Alive--and made to aidwith their knowledge the man who had brought them into slaveryunspeakable....

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

  When the color ceased to increase, Carse pulled the second switch, andmoved 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 Swansonand Norman--I wish to talk to you. I am Captain Carse, friend ofMaster Scientist Eliot Leithgow. Some days ago you aided us in ourescape from here, and in return I made you a promise. Do youremember?"

  There was a pause, a silence so tense it was painful. And thenfunctioned the miracle of Ku Sui's devising. There came from thegrille 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 throatand tongue! A voice from five brains, speaking, for some obscurereason which even Ku Sui could not explain, in the first person, andsetting to mechanical words the living, pulsing thoughts that spedback and forth inside the case and were coordinated into unity by themaster brain, which had once been in the body of Master ScientistCram. A voice out of nothingness; a voice from what seemed so clearlyto be the dead. To Hawk Carse, man of action, it was unearthly; it wasa miracle the fact of which he could not question, but which he couldnot hope to understand. And well might it have been unearthly toanyone. Even to-day.

  Still thrilling to the wonder of it, he went on:

  "I have returned here to the asteroid with friends. Primarily I cameto keep my promise to you, but I intend to do more. Dr. Ku Sui is nothere now, and will not be for at least fifteen minutes; but when hedoes 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 ofEarth hold Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow responsible for yourdisappearance. He is therefore a fugitive, and there is a price on hishead. It is my purpose to restore Eliot Leithgow to his old place byreturning Dr. Ku to Earth to answer for the crimes he has effected onyou.

  "I am now ready to fulfil my promise to you. I expect no interruptionthis time. I regret exceedingly my inability to destroy you when I washere before, but I simply could not in the little time I had. I stilldo not know how best to go about it. Perhaps you will tell me. I willwait...."

  An afterthought came to him. He added into the grille:

  "There is no hurry. Your extraordinary position--your thoughts--Iunderstand...."

  Then there was a long silence. For once the Hawk was not impatient; infact there was in him the feeling that the pause was only decent andfitting. For before him were the brains of five great scientists, whoas captive remnants of men had asked him to end their cold and lonelybondage. Limbless, his was to be the hand of their self-immolation.The present silent, slow-passing minutes were to be their last ofconsciousness....

  And then at last spoke the voice:

  "_Captain Carse, I do not wish you to destroy me. I wish you to giveme new life. I wish you to transplant me within the bodies of fiveliving men._"

  * * * * *

  The words, so unexpected, took Hawk Carse by perhaps the greatestsurprise he had ever known. For a time he was completely astounded; hecould hardly credit his ears. It required a full minute for him tosummon even the most halting reply.

  "But--but could that be done?" He strove to collect himself, toconsider logically this course that he had never dreamed would berequested. "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 Suicaptive. Will you not attempt to force him to do as I desire?_"

  Carse considered the suggestion, but it did not seem remotelypossible. Ku Sui could not be prevented from having endlessopportunities for destroying the brains while enjoying the manualfreedom 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 Leithgowhad told him once, long before. Slowly the details came back in full,and at their remembrance his right hand rose to the odd bangs offlaxen hair concealing his forehead and began to smooth them, and aghost 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 totransplant you into living bodies! I think--I _think_--I cannot besure--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 aregrateful._"

  But the Hawk had made a promise, and had to be formally freed of theduty it entailed.

  "You release me, then," he asked, "from my original promise to destroyyou?"

  "_I release you, Captain Carse. And again I thank you._"

  The adventurer returned the switche
s motivating the case, and thefaint smile returned to his lips at the thought that had come to him.

  But the smile vanished suddenly at the quick, excited words that camecrackling 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 figuresflying straight towards here. It's Ku Sui, returning!"