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Title: Evans of the Earth-guard
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Illustrator: Frank R. Paul
Release date: July 25, 2024 [eBook #74119]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Stellar Publishing Corporation, 1930
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVANS OF THE EARTH-GUARD ***
EVANS OF THE EARTH-GUARD
By EDMOND HAMILTON
_By the Author of "The Space Visitors," "Cities in the Air," etc._
[Illustration: EDMOND HAMILTON]
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Air Wonder Stories April 1930.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_The present likelihood is that the first interplanetary flight
will probably be by means of a rocket-propelled ship. As far as
our knowledge goes the rocket seems to be the most feasible means
of propulsion because it will reach its greatest efficiency in the
vacuum of inter-stellar space._
_If the conditions on other planets, including our moon, are not
too prohibitive, it is doubtless true that these planets will be
explored for whatever mineral wealth or possibilities of life they
may contain. The resulting interplanetary commerce will call into
being a host of problems, such as the protection of cargo and
passenger shipments against natural and human agents that might
wish to destroy them._
_In that case, the Earth-Guard that Mr. Hamilton describes so
vividly will play a most important part in the protection of such
commerce._
_Mr. Hamilton, as is usual with him, has, in this story, developed
it so that we were unable to predict from page to page what would
happen next. And the editors were just as fooled by the surprising
denouement as we believe our readers will be._
"All Earth-Guard rockets attention! One-man rocket _Pallas_ speaking.
Am pursued by pirate rocket believed to be that of the Hawk! I am
running toward earth on space-lane 18, now in zone 44-6, but am being
rapidly overtaken!"
As the clear voice came from the radiophone before him, Captain Wright
Evans slammed over the reply-switch and shouted back into it.
"Earth-Guard Rocket 283 answering. Standing toward you at top speed
instantly!"
Then he was up and bursting into the great rocket ship's squat little
pilot-house, where a man seated at the controls turned inquiringly to
him.
"Full speed ahead, Calden!" he cried. "The Hawk's out again and after a
one-man rocket not a thousand miles ahead--it's our chance to get him
at last!"
"Full speed it is," rejoined Calden calmly, his hands flashing forth to
flick down a half-score of the banked shining levers before him.
Instantly the great ship lurched and trembled as, from its rear,
came thunderous explosion on explosion. In a moment every one of its
rear-tubes was firing, and the speed-dial's arrow was creeping steadily
forward until in a few minutes more it registered the ship's top speed
of ten thousand miles an hour. The long gleaming craft, stubby of nose
and stern and fully five hundred feet in length, was like a giant
projectile, as it tore through the void, belching fire behind it.
From the squat pilot-house set atop it, Evans and Calden gazed
ahead. The great gray disk of earth filled a quarter of the heavens
before them, the outline of its continents and seas visible here and
there through its shifting screen of clouds. Behind them the moon's
silvery sphere was dwindling rapidly, as they had seen it dwindle now
for hours. It was hours that the great Earth-Guard rocket with its
half-hundred men had been hurtling toward earth after its weary week's
vigil in space, before this call had come.
And weary enough indeed was the vigil that the rocket ships of the
Earth-Guard kept around the earth and its moon, and had kept up for
more than fifty years. More than fifty years it had been since, back
in 1954, the first crude rocket had thundered out from earth into the
great void toward its shining satellite. Neither that first rocket nor
the twenty-first had reached their goal, but the next one had.
Thus had begun the commerce that now filled all the space-lanes between
the earth and moon. In their first flame of exploration, men had
headed out toward the nearer planets, too, but they had found them
unapproachable because of the fierce guard maintained by their strange
peoples. Every ship that had sought to explore another planet had
been annihilated on reaching it and we had finally realized that our
planetary neighbors were guarding fiercely their isolation.
* * * * *
There had remained to earth only its own moon. But that had become
swiftly a lure to all adventurous earthlings. Upon the moon's other
side were great mines in which men, dwelling in air-tight cities and
toiling in hermetically-tight metal suits, worked the rare metals and
minerals in which earth's satellite abounded. And upon the moon's
earthward side were other great air-tight cities, glass-roofed and
luxurious, to which went each year hundreds of thousands of the
earth's wealthy--there to spend their vacations--enjoying the wondrous
celestial views, the astounding strength and youth given them by the
moon's lesser gravity, and the chance to view the earth from the
outside.
So that there had grown gradually the commerce that kept endless
streams of ships moving between earth and moon--great and luxurious
passenger-craft laden with the wealthy and powerful of earth; and sleek
private ships bound like the others for the luxurious lunar cities.
Bulky and battered cargo-rockets had their own space-lanes, carrying
metals and minerals to the earth, and returning with loads of supplies
and tanks of the liquid rocket-fuel to the moon.
It was inevitable that all this traffic should need regulating, and so
there had been formed the Earth-Guard, an organization corresponding to
the old Coast-Guards of the nations, but controlled by an international
commission of earth's powers. The Earth-Guard boasted five hundred
gleaming rockets that patrolled ceaselessly the space between and
around the earth and moon, enforcing peace with their electric-guns and
guarding the lunar commerce.
For there were those against whom it must be guarded--space-pirates
who dashed forth from time to time from hidden bases on earth or moon
to harry and hold up in the void the rich lunar commerce. The boldest
and most dreaded of them all was that swift and flashing corsair of
the void known to all on earth and moon alike as the Hawk, and who for
years had been the despair of all the Earth-Guard.
"Lord, if we can get him!" Evans was praying as he gazed out of a port
hole from the hurtling ship's pilot-house. "I get so tired of jabs
about him that I'd lose an arm to get him."
"Well, everyone's turn comes sooner or later in that game,"
philosophized Calden. "It may be the Hawk's now."
Evans pulled a speaking-tube toward him and shouted down into it over
the roar of the rocket's explosions. "Hartley? Put full crews on all
the electric-guns and have them stand ready for action. Yes. And tell
them it's the Hawk we're after this time--it'll put them on their toes."
Calden grinned as a moment later a muffled cheer came up from the
gun-rooms beneath. "They're on their toes, evidently," he commented.
"They're as crazy to get their hands on the Hawk as you are."
Evans made no answer but started ahead with teeth clenched upon his
lower lip, glancing over now and then at the dials that recorded the
rocket's position between earth and moon. This recording was automatic,
being dependent on the change in the gravitational power of the two
bodies. Evans saw by them now that the rocket was hurtling into the
very zone in which the _Pallas_ had reported itself.
Missed!
He reached to turn a knob and there clicked up into position against
the lenses set in the pilot-house window two long metal tubes with
eye-pieces that formed powerful binoculars. Gazing ahead through these
he kept watch, while with fingers on the firing-levers of the rocket's
tubes Calden kept them steady on their course. Minutes passed before
Evans uttered a cry.
"They're just ahead!" he exclaimed. Then, into the tube--"All batteries
ready, Hartley, and use the port guns when we bank."
"Lord, look at that fellow!" breathed Calden as he too stared ahead.
"He sure can handle a rocket--the Hawk can't get his guns on him!"
Far ahead of them in the void the scene of combat to which they had
been summoned was rushing into view. A tiny and shining one-man rocket
was dodging and twisting and circling in space, with its firing-tubes
flaming first on one end and then on the other to keep it in an
ever-changing course. And around it, like a great grim pike rushing a
shining chub, was circling and swooping a long dead-black rocket of the
same size almost as the Earth-Guard craft. It was the dreaded black
rocket of the Hawk, reputed the swiftest craft in space.
The grim black rocket, whirling and dipping with a swiftness of
maneuver astounding in a ship of its size, was endeavoring to bring
the twisting little craft that evaded it into the line of its guns. As
their own ship thundered down on the scene, Evans and Calden saw the
one side of the Hawk's rocket stabbing forth a half-score slender jets
of blue fire as its electric-guns blasted toward the smaller craft. But
the latter had shot upward in time to avoid the fire, and in the next
moment the Earth-Guard rocket was rushing down upon the ebon attacker.
"Fire!" As Hartley's voice below shouted the order, the Earth-Guard
ship poured a deadly fire toward the black rocket of the Hawk. But
at the very instant of firing, with a swiftness born of a hundred
space-fights, the Hawk's rocket had shot upward.
"Missed him!" Calden cried. "Look out--he's tailing--!"
"Over quick!" Evans exclaimed. "Let him have the stern guns, Hartley!"
For in the instant after shooting upward to avoid their fire, the
rocket of the Hawk had flashed back down on them in the familiar
maneuver of "tailing," using all the firing-tubes placed in its nose
for braking purposes to halt it and reverse it in a flash.
Evans had a lightning glimpse of the great black shape rushing
stern-foremost down on them. Then he felt his own rocket dip and dive
like light as Calden's hands flashed on the firing-levers, and for a
moment Evans saw the white-lit pilot-house of the other rocket, with
the tense figures inside it, before it whirled out of view. He sensed
rather than saw the blast of the Hawk's guns above them as they dived
just in time to avoid the deadly missiles.
* * * * *
Evans heard shouting voices from their own gun-rooms and had no need to
cry to Calden the next order, for already the other was straightening
out their course and sending their ship soaring upward again. But the
long black craft of the Hawk was gone! After that one swift swoop and
blow it had flashed off the space-lane into the uncharted void, and
they glimpsed it only as a dwindling point of fire that vanished in the
next instant.
Evans, filled by a blind fury, whirled to give Calden the order that
would send them in wild pursuit, but checked himself as he realized,
despite his rage, the futility of such a pursuit. Once out of sight,
the Hawk in his immensely swift rocket could laugh at all pursuit, as
he had laughed many times. His face a study of conflicting emotions,
Evans turned back toward his second-officer.
"Back to our regular course on the space-lane," he ordered wearily.
"He's got away again."
Silently Calden headed the great Earth-Guard rocket again toward the
great disk of earth. But in a moment he motioned toward something
outside and above them. "It's the rocket the Hawk was attacking," he
said. "He's signalling for a contact."
"Let him come on, then," answered the other.
Calden pressed the studs that flashed from their own rocket's nose the
answering colored signal-lights, and quickly the shining smaller craft
drove down until it hung just over the big Earth-Guard ship. It settled
smoothly then on the greater craft's back, its nose firing-tubes
blasting it to a halt. The ring of metal contact-pins on its lower side
fitted smoothly into the standardized ring of openings ready for them
on the Earth-Guard's back.
Held thus to the greater craft, the little rocket was carried along
through space like a pilot-fish clinging to a great shark. In a moment
there was the clang of the contact-door opening, as the occupant of
the _Pallas_ passed into the Earth-Guard rocket through the latter's
similar door. In a moment more Hartley, the third officer, was striding
into the pilot-house with the man who had been the little craft's sole
occupant.
He was a tall young man with dark hair and dark, laughing eyes. He
came forward with hand outstretched to Evans and as the rocket-captain
grasped it, he introduced himself.
"Francis Seaworth," he named himself, "and just now mighty pleased to
see you! Indeed, if you hadn't come when you did, the Hawk would have
had me in another minute--I didn't have anyone to work my gun and could
only try to evade him till you came."
Evans laughed. "What in the devil made you start for earth all by
yourself?" he demanded. "Didn't you hear two days ago that the Hawk was
out?"
The other shook his head. "I heard," he said, "but that's just why
I chose this particular time for the trip. No, I don't mean that as
bravado," he added quickly, as he saw the incredulous smiles of the
three officers. "What I mean is that I knew the Hawk was waiting for a
chance to jump on me, and when I heard he was out on the space-lanes
again, I thought he'd be too busy at his usual trade to think of me."
Evans regarded him with more interest. "But what's the Hawk after you
for?" he asked.
Seaworth hesitated. "Well, I wouldn't want to spill too much." He
nodded toward the other officers.
Evans straightened with interest. "Anything you want to say you can
tell me in front of my officers."
"Well," said Seaworth, "I've been spending the last year as a secret
agent of the International Commission, looking for the Hawk's base on
the moon. They had an idea--just an idea--that the Hawk's base was
really inside one of the lunar cities."
Seaworth Explains
"In a lunar city?" Evans repeated. "Whoever got that idea?"
Seaworth shook his head. "It seemed crazy to me at first too, but there
were rumors that officials in one of the lunar cities were allowing the
Hawk to come there, and to refuel in exchange for a share of his loot.
I was sent up to investigate, and I found out enough to call the Hawk's
attention to me, and this is the second time he or his men nearly got
me. I couldn't find his base, but I did find that there's a man now on
earth who was formerly in his service and who could tell me where his
base is if he wanted to. So I started back to earth in my own ship to
see him. Well, the Hawk was waiting, and if you hadn't been within call
it would have been all up with me."
Evans considered. "It did seem mighty queer to us that the Hawk would
stoop to holding up one-man rockets," he admitted, "but that explains
it. So they've had a secret agent on his trail, eh?"
"A very secret agent," smiled the other. "My emblem," he smiled as he
opened his jacket and showed a little card sewed onto the inside.
Evans nodded. The card of an agent of the International Commission
merited any help he could furnish.
"In fact," continued Seaworth, "I doubt if a dozen men on earth outside
of the International Commission know what I've been doing. I've got no
business, really, telling even you about it, but it's about all wound
up now, for if I get the information I'm after on earth it means we'll
catch the Hawk in short order."
"Seems like catching the Hawk is work for the Earth-Guard rather than
for any secret agents," growled the bulldog-visaged Hartley. "We're
good enough to chase after all the common scum of space-pirates that
are always bobbing up, but when it comes to nabbing the Hawk someone
else wants the glory."
"The glory's been there for the Earth-Guard to take for some time,"
retorted Seaworth acidly. "I haven't seen it doing it, though."
Hartley's face went dull red, and Evans intervened in time. "No use
scrapping over it," he told them. "Anything that Seaworth finds out
will help us, and I for one don't give a continental who catches
the Hawk so long as he's caught. Every time I go into a teletheater
nowadays, all I hear is a lot of musty old cracks about the Hawk and
the Earth-Guard, and I don't mind telling you I'm getting tired of it."
Seaworth laughed. "Well, it was nearly a case of the catcher caught
with me this time. I suppose I don't need to tell you that I'd rather
make the rest of the trip with you?"
Evans nodded. "Of course. Though as a matter of fact the Hawk's
probably ten zones off by now. That's always his way--he swoops and
strikes and flashes off before anyone can get hands on him."
"Yes," said Seaworth, his eyes troubled, "but he happens to want me
devilish bad, you see. I'll admit I'm not going to have much taste for
the trip back to the moon--I wouldn't put it past him to hold up the
biggest passenger-ship in space if he knew I was travelling on it."
"I wouldn't myself," Evans said. "But we're heading back next week
after our relief-period. Why not go back with us?"
Seaworth's face cleared. "Thanks a lot, really, old man. It's a fact
I've been worried about this trip back, for if I get what I'm after on
earth, it means that when I get back to the moon we can find the Hawk's
base and make a trap of it to catch him when he comes in. And I want
to see him put away before I check out--it's got to be something of a
personal duel between us."
In the next half-score of hours in which they hurtled on toward earth,
Evans saw that Seaworth was indeed getting more and more impatient and
eager as the great disk grew large before them. He fretted at the delay
as they moved in through earth's atmosphere at slackening speed, and
down through the crowded converging space-lanes toward the huge New
York inter-stellar station. And when the great Earth-Guard ship shot
down into the funnel-shaped landing-framework and came to a halt with
all its nose-tubes firing, Seaworth emerged from it with its first
officers.
* * * * *
Briefly he assured himself once more that Evans was willing for him
to make the trip back out to the moon in the Earth-Guard craft in the
following week, and he also made certain that his own little rocket
could remain attached to the greater craft and be refueled with it.
Then he hastened away in the crowds that poured here and there across
and around the great rocket-station.
Evans stood still for a few moments gazing around him, bewildered a
little as he invariably was by the sudden transition from the silence
and gloom of the great void to this brilliant and hurried scene. Across
the great station at its departure-side a huge cargo-rocket was taking
off, its firing-tubes deafening the ears as it thundered up into the
sunlight and vanished. Already a great, sleek passenger-craft was being
slid into the ascension-framework just vacated, and as its warning-bell
rang out, the last belated passengers were hurrying toward it with
their porters and luggage.
There remained to Evans the disagreeable task for which he had been
bracing himself during the last hours of the trip--that of informing
crusty old Commander Cain of his encounter with the Hawk. When he had
been ushered into the office of the white-haired and white-mustached
old space-veteran who was head of the Earth-Guard, Evans made his brief
report with the other's stare piercing him to the marrow.
When he had finished, the Commander, as he had expected, delivered
himself of a furious blast of profanity.
He finally became articulate. "Evans, you must realize what a situation
the Earth-Guard is in. You know and I know that the Hawk must have
something new on his ship, whether a new fuel or a new firing-tube,
that gives his ship a speed beyond anything else in space. You know
as well as I do, too, that the Hawk is really the one outstanding
space-pirate left and that in the last decades we've cleared up the
others one by one.
"But the public doesn't see it that way! The public," and the Commander
smote his desk furiously, "the public sees only this one pirate, the
Hawk. They see him and his crew defying the whole five hundred ships of
the Earth-Guard. That's all the blankety blank public sees, and as a
result the Earth-Guard's getting to be a joke!"
"But sir!" Evans managed to say, "we have no hope of getting the Hawk
so long as he has his bases for refueling and resting. We must get his
lunar base before we can get him, and that's why I think this Seaworth
may win for us yet."
"Seaworth--." The Commander frowned thoughtfully. "It may be--it may
be. I didn't know that the International Commission had put secret
agents after the Hawk, but it may prove useful at that. You say
Seaworth's going back with you next week?"
"Yes, he thinks the Hawk is after him in dead earnest, and that if he
takes a passenger-rocket the Hawk will hold it up to get him."
"It wouldn't be beyond him," the Commander warned. "But we've another
thing to think of, too, Evans. If the Hawk wants this man Seaworth
badly enough, he may not even stick at holding up an Earth-Guard ship
to get him! I see you smile--you think it is incredible that even the
Hawk should ever try taking an Earth-Guard--but remember that he has a
reputation for doing things no pirate ever dared do before, and that in
this case he has the best reason in the world for trying it. And if he
ever took an Earth-Guard rocket--good-bye! No matter what we did after
that, the Guard would never be able to live it down!"
Evans Endures It
Evans was impressed. "I'll keep a close watch for him going back, sir,"
he promised.
The Commander's warning rang in Evans' ears all the week that followed,
and he was forced during that week to admit that his superior's view
of the situation was correct. The Earth-Guard was suffering a distinct
loss of prestige. It seemed to Evans that wherever he went his blue
Earth-Guard uniform, once an envied garb, was greeted with titters and
derisive comments that made his ears burn.
The newspapers and teletheaters were exploiting the situation to the
utmost. If Evans watched a troupe of dancers he was met with the
spectacle of a nimble black-garbed figure, representing the Hawk,
eluding with ease the slowly-moving blue-garbed figures symbolic of
the Earth-Guard. If he was introduced to anyone by a joking friend it
was always with a jesting reference to his imminent capture of the
Hawk. Small boys called after him that the Hawk was coming, and then
delightedly ran away.
The Hawk, indeed, was coming to have far more of the public sympathy
than the Earth-Guard. It was true that he held up defenseless
passenger-craft between earth and moon, forcing them under the menace
of his guns to cast loose for him in their life-rockets whatever of
value they carried. All knew that he was an outlaw of the void, and
would meet swift death at the hands of a firing-squad were he captured.
But if he was a space-pirate, he was not one like the earlier
space-buccaneers whose atrocities had roused a fury that had swept
them out of existence. He was, if anything, a gentleman-corsair of the
void, and though few had ever looked on his face, it was rumored that
he was exceptionally handsome. It was small wonder that by the end of
his week of relief Evans' nerves were ragged and he was longing for the
peacefulness of the space patrol.
When on the last day of their relief he found Calden and Hartley at the
New York station, inspecting the great Earth-Guard rocket, preparatory
to its start back out into space, he found their nerves as raw on the
subject as his own. They too had felt the whips of the public laughter.
"You know," growled Hartley as he ran a practised eye over the looming
rocket's stern firing-tubes, "I'm just about praying that we meet up
with the Hawk this trip. I'm not thin-skinned--but when my little
daughter begins to ask daddy why he doesn't catch the Hawk, I'm getting
to the busting point!"
* * * * *
Evans and Calden laughed despite themselves. "Well, you may get your
wish, Hartley," Evans told him. "Remember, Seaworth will be with us,
and the Hawk wants him bad."
Hartley looked at him blankly. "You don't mean that he'd ever try
holding us up? _Us?_ An Earth-Guard rocket?"
Evans shrugged. "It's Commander Cain's idea, not mine. Here he comes
now, to see us off. Evidently going to give us a final warning."
And that proved in fact to be the white-haired Commander's purpose when
he reached them through the throngs of hurrying mechanics around the
giant ship. He drew Evans aside from the others.
"Don't forget what I told you, Evans," he warned. "Keep double-watches
in the lookout-cells at all times, and if the Hawk does appear, send
out a general radiophone alarm before you engage. Remember, it isn't a
question of personal glory, but a matter of catching him."
"I'll remember," Evans promised. "I guess we're set to go--here comes
Seaworth now."
The secret agent's eyes were shining as he strode across the station
to them. When he reached Evans and the commander he tapped the black
leather case he carried.
"Got it!" he exclaimed. "My tip was a straight one and I've got the
dope from beginning to end. You're ready to go?"
Evans nodded, and Commander Cain shook hands with him and with
Seaworth, as he turned away.
"Good luck to the both of you," he told them, "and if you've really got
anything that will enable you to nab the Hawk, I'll resign cheerfully
on the day he's taken and you can shoot dice between you for my job!"
Evans and Seaworth laughed together as the commander strode away. "The
old man's nutty about the Hawk these days," Evans commented.
"Well, if I can get back to the moon with the information I have
here," the other said, "it means the end for Mr. Hawk. I found the man
I was hunting for--he'd been one of the Hawk's crew and had left him
on account of some squabble over the division of loot. He was pretty
much afraid of his old chief still--I guess the Hawk's got a deadly
record as regards traitors--but he gave me all I wanted for a price. I
have the exact location of the Hawk's base in one of the lunar cities,
the names of the officials who've been harboring him and selling him
fuel--all that we need."
"Once back on the moon we can set a trap there that will spring on the
Hawk the first time he comes into his base. There's only one queer
thing about it all, and that is that the man who told me all this
disappeared on the very next day. No one has the slightest idea what
became of him, though some of the officials I talked with thought
he'd merely decamped with the price of his information. I don't know,
though--it may have been something else."
"The Hawk?" Evans questioned, and the other slowly nodded.
"I'm afraid so--his way with traitors is short and sweet. It only
worries me because if it was he, then he knows what I've learned and
knows I'm taking back that information with me."
Ready to Start
Evans frowned. "That would make him desperate, all right. The Commander
has an idea that he might even attack our rocket to get you, Seaworth."
"You mean that he'd even try to take an Earth-Guard rocket?"
"Yes, but it's just an idea. We'll keep a mighty sharp lookout for him,
and whatever else the Hawk may have done, I think he's too wary a bird
to try tackling Earth-Guard rockets."
They were interrupted by a thunderous blast of firing-tubes as a
battered cargo ship of the tramp class, a quarter of its tubes out
of commission, hurtled upward from the great ascension-framework. At
once the huge machinery beside it that held the Earth-Guard rocket was
sliding it smoothly into the ascension-framework to go out also. The
warning-bell was jangling again and Calden and Hartley came up to the
two men.
"All ready," Calden reported, saluting. "The starter's given us
9.40--that's eight minutes from now."
Evans nodded. "Time to go, Seaworth," and they strode toward the
stern-door of the big, upreared craft.
"I see you've still got my little ship tacked on," Seaworth commented
as they moved across the station.
"Yes, refueled and ready for you whenever we're near enough the moon
for you to leave safely."
They passed inside and the stern-door closed and whirred as Hartley
spun it carefully shut. Climbing the light metal ladders inside the
upreared craft the four men gained the pilot-house, where Calden
took his accustomed seat at the controls. Strapped into their
shock-absorbing seats, the four men looked down over the station and
its swarming throngs, a busy scene in the morning sunlight.
Just beside the ascension-framework rose the starter's tower, from
which, at intervals, the streams of ships were allowed to start out
into the various space-lanes. Lights were flashing and changing color
on it each moment as the minute for the departure of the Earth-Guard
ship drew near. Already the machinery beside the ascension-framework
was ready to move into it the next rocket to start, a great
passenger-craft into which hundreds of passengers were hastening,
crowds of friends waving them bon voyage. Few in the station were
paying any attention to the routine departure of the Earth-Guard's
craft.
The lights on the starter's tower had flashed from yellow to green, and
then to red. Calden was watching them imperturbably, his hands resting
on the main firing-levers, while Evans, as always at the moment of
starting, involuntarily drew a deep preparatory breath. Then the lights
flashed suddenly pure white, Calden's hands depressed the levers with a
single motion, and, as a thunderous blast of sound broke from the great
rocket's stern beneath them, they were pressed with immeasurable force
into their seats.
* * * * *
The sunlit station had vanished in a flash from around them, and
there was a dizzy lurching and trembling of the great mass as it shot
upward and outward. From outside came a steady roar of air against the
rocket's walls that was audible even above the thunder of continued
explosions from the rear; and the air grew suddenly warm about them.
Then the roar of air had ceased, the walls of the pilot-house were
cooling, and the diffused bright sunlight of the atmosphere was gone.
For in the immensity of space the sun flared fiercely on one side,
while a rayless gloom, gemmed with steady-burning stars, stretched away
on the other.
Ahead, the moon's brilliant disk, almost completely illumined by the
sun, gleamed calm and white amid the throbbing fires of the encircling
stars. Evans and Seaworth contemplated its beauty with a silent wonder
that not even long familiarity with the sight could dull. Calden,
meantime, was calmly checking over dials and controls, while Hartley
had already gone below to sleep against the next watch at the controls.
This vital station was filled by the craft's three officers in
successive watches of four hours each.
In the hours that followed, Evans felt slipping away from him the
hope that he had cherished of meeting the Hawk in straight battle in
mid-space. Since Commander Cain's warning to him, he had persuaded
himself that because of Seaworth's presence the Hawk might really
attack. Like all others in the Earth-Guard, Evans desired nothing more
ardently than a final battle with the elusive and dreaded corsair.
But though the lookouts at every one of the great rocket's
observation-cells kept an unceasing watch through the void, no sign of
the black rocket was to be seen. The Earth-Guard ship might have been
alone in space, had it not twice caught sight of great cargo-rockets
plowing their way moonward in the slower space-lanes, and once passed
an earth-bound Earth-Guard craft closely enough in a neighboring lane
to exchange with it a flashing "Salute" signal in passing.
When Evans ascended to the pilot-house for his third watch at the
controls, thirty-two hours after their start from earth, the moon's
gleaming sphere was huge in the heavens before them.
"A dozen hours more and we'll be there," he commented disappointedly
to Hartley and Seaworth, as he relieved the former at the controls. "I
guess there's no chance of your wreaking your wrath on the Hawk this
trip, Hartley."
"I told you it was crazy to think he'd tackle us," Hartley rejoined,
"though I admit I've been hoping he would."
"Well, I haven't," Seaworth told them, grinning. "It may be just play
to you lads in the Earth-Guard, but the Hawk nearly settled me twice
and I hate to think what he'd do if he got me now."
"No danger," Evans told him as Seaworth followed the yawning Hartley
down out of the pilot-house. "We'll have you safe and sound on the moon
in a half day more, and if you can nab the Hawk there, it'll punish him
for not showing up this trip."
* * * * *
Left alone in the pilot-house, Evans sat at the control-board with eyes
glancing from one to another of the recording dials above it. Now and
then he depressed a firing-lever, firing one of the rocket's side tubes
to keep it from leaving its proper space-lane, but for the most part
the great craft hurtled steadily onward in its course, and he occupied
himself in contemplating through the windows the moon's bright sphere
and the dazzling light-patches on it that marked the position of the
lunar cities.
Evans had been sitting thus in solitude at the controls for some
minutes before he heard a strange popping sound from somewhere in the
rocket's interior beneath him. He listened sharply, and heard other
quick-following popping sounds, as of slight detonations; then came a
babel of cries from beneath, cries that were cut sharply short! Evans
sprang to his feet. There was silence below now, but suddenly the door
of the pilot-house was flung open and Seaworth burst up into it, his
face livid.
"The Hawk!" he gasped. And then, his eyes suddenly widening, he pointed
out through the windows beyond Evans. "Look there!" he cried.
Evans whirled toward the window. In the next instant he seemed to see a
curtain of flame descending before his eyes as something struck him a
crashing blow on the head. The flame-curtain was succeeded instantly by
the black depths of unconsciousness.
It was only slowly that he came back to himself. He became aware that
he was sitting against the wall, that the thunder of the rocket's
firing-tubes was coming to his ears, that his brain ached. He tried to
move, but found that his hands were tightly tied, his feet were bound,
and every movement made his head throb. He opened his eyes, then stared
uncomprehendingly, as if stupefied.
He was sitting against the pilot-house wall, and a half-dozen feet from
him, at the control-board, sat Seaworth. He was calmly manipulating the
firing-levers, and he looked up and smiled as he saw Evans' astounded
gaze upon him.
"It really was the Hawk after all, you see," he said. "Only instead
of being outside the rocket he was inside!" He laughed with genuine
amusement.
Evans struggled to speak. "Then you--you--"
"Yes, the Hawk, at your service," Seaworth calmly told him. "And as
a word of friendly advice, Captain Evans--when someone tells you
excitedly to look--look at _them_."
Evans, striving to understand, did not hear the mocking final words.
"You the Hawk! But we saw the Hawk's rocket attacking you there--we
came and saved you--"
* * * * *
The Hawk laughed again. "I'm sorry to take the glory of your rescue
away from you, Evans, but it was really no rescue at all. You don't
understand? It's simple enough. I decided some time ago that the
possession of an Earth-Guard rocket would give me very great advantages
in my trade of--ah--buccaneering. You see, every rocket in space will
stop at the command of an Earth-Guard ship, and since they all look
alike we could do just about as we pleased with the rocket-commerce if
we had one. Therefore I decided to get one.
"It was easy. I merely embarked in a little one-man ship and when
I knew your craft would be on the space-lane returning to earth, I
had my crew, in our regular black rocket, stage a faked attack upon
me. I called for help, you came; after a brief clash my crew fled as
instructed, and you took me aboard. You'd seen the Hawk attacking me,
and so believed me implicitly when I told you I was a secret agent whom
the Hawk was anxious to capture. Secret agents, you should be aware,
are really not so communicative as that. And of course, I couldn't
expect you to know that my card was forged.
"Then it was not hard for me to draw out from you the suggestion that
I might return to the moon with you on this trip. That was just what I
was playing for, of course--the chance to travel back in this rocket.
My mission on earth was the purest falsehood--the only thing I did
there was to enjoy the witty remarks about the Earth-Guard and the Hawk
which I heard all around me. That case I brought with me held enough
gas-bombs to paralyze your whole crew. They're all down there now
unconscious--I used a mask for myself, of course--but they're not hurt
and will be coming to in an hour.
"But I'm afraid that will be a little late. For I waited to make
this coup, to gas the crew and stun you, until we were just at this
particular position in space. It is the prearranged position, and less
than five thousand miles off this space-lane my own rocket and crew
are waiting for me. We're heading toward them now, and before your
crew wakes, Evans, we'll be with them and this rocket will be in their
hands. You and your crew won't be harmed, of course--we can set you
loose in a life ship near the moon--but this Earth-Guard craft we'll
keep and it should prove highly useful. An ingenious plan, everything
considered, don't you think? Nothing overlooked."
Evans' brain was spinning as the Hawk's amusement-filled voice ceased.
The great rocket was out of the space-lane by now, he knew--was heading
under the Hawk's guiding hands to the prearranged position in space
where the black rocket of the corsair waited with its crew to take
complete possession of the prize. And the Hawk had captured it, had
captured an Earth-Guard rocket, alone!
Evans raged at his bonds in senseless fury. His hands, tied before
him, were cut deeply by the cords holding them as he strained to break
these. The Hawk looked up from the bank of firing-levers with which he
was busy to shake his head in mocking reproof.
"Now, now, Captain Evans," he soothed, "don't take it so hard. Lots of
captains have found themselves in your position before this, remember.
Though I'll admit this is the first Earth-Guard rocket I've taken."
"No Earth-Guard rocket has ever been taken by an enemy," said Evans
thickly.
"Not until now," the Hawk conceded, depressing two more firing-levers.
"But there has to be a first time for everything--and from what I heard
on earth I don't think the capture of an Earth-Guard rocket will excite
any anger."
It would not, Evans reflected dully, sinking for the moment into an
apathy of despair. It would be merely with scornful laughter, that
the Earth-Guard would be met when this latest and greatest exploit
of the Hawk became known. What derision would meet the news of this
single-handed capture of a great rocket and all its crew, by the man
they were hunting! Evans could picture at the moment as clearly as
though a face were before his eyes, the shame and rage of fierce old
Commander Cain when the news reached him, and the shame of all his
companions in the Earth-Guard.
* * * * *
He could hear the thin, derisive laughter of the crowds; the new and
side-splitting witticisms in the teletheaters, the laughter of all
on earth and moon alike became audible to him. A fierce resolve, a
last expedient of his despair, rose in Evans' brain. He rose to his
feet, tied as they were, and swaying, leaned forward to catch at the
control-board's corner with his bound hands supporting himself. The
Hawk watched him curiously, with nothing to fear from this one man,
who, bound hand and foot, alone remained conscious of the rocket's
crew. Evans leaned across the control-board and its banked levers
toward the Hawk, and as he did so his two bound hands were moving,
slowly, unobtrusively, toward the control-board.
"No Earth-Guard rocket has ever yet been captured," he said slowly and
hoarsely, his hands very near the black plug at the control-board's
corner, "and none is ever going to be."
The Hawk's dark eyes, contemplating him, held something that seemed to
be almost sympathy. "Sorry, Captain Evans," he said lightly. "I know
how you must feel about it--but we're almost there now. My rocket will
be showing up in a few minutes--we've almost reached it."
Evans laughed grimly. "Your rocket will never see us again nor will
anyone else. You said you'd overlooked nothing, Hawk, but you did
overlook one thing!"
"And that?" The Hawk's figure was suddenly tense.
"That is something that you didn't know--that is the fact that in every
Earth-Guard rocket is placed a device for destroying the rocket in
case it has to be abandoned in space. That device is a plug which when
pulled out ignites the rocket's fuel tanks in six minutes. And that
plug--"
The Hawk's hands flashed toward Evans but before they could reach
his bound hands, Evans had seized with them the black plug at the
control-board's corner and with a crazy laugh had jerked it out!
For an instant there was a supreme silence in the pilot-house of
the hurtling rocket, the Hawk and Evans facing each other like two
statues. Then with a single motion the Hawk had whirled, was out of the
pilot-house. There came the clang of contact-doors above being opened
and shut with lightning rapidity, and then a blast of firing-tubes
as, in his own little rocket, the Hawk drove clear from the great
Earth-Guard craft. Evans stood still for a moment, then dragged himself
to the control-board's other side.
His bound hands pressed the firing-levers in quick succession and as
the great rocket lurched beneath their impetus it was turning in space,
turning back toward the space-lane from which the Hawk had taken it!
Evans grasped the black plug on the board and thrust it back into its
socket. A small ventilating fan at the other side of the pilot-house
that had ceased running when he had withdrawn the plug began spinning
again. Evans laughed weakly.
He straightened. There was a flash of fire above and he saw that it was
the tiny rocket of the Hawk, driving back over the great Earth-Guard
craft. Evans knew that the Hawk, from afar, had seen that the ship had
not exploded, and he was coming back. Evans realized that although
the Hawk could not make contact with the great Earth-Guard rocket
thundering at full speed through the void, with rocket-gun available,
he could still blast the Earth-Guard ship to pieces. Evans saw the
little rocket swooping down until it was just before and above him, and
braced himself with tight-set teeth for the blast from its electric gun.
It did not come. Instead, as the Hawk's little rocket dipped
low, there flashed from it the vari-colored lights of a signal.
Red--yellow--red--purple--Evans read the signal automatically,
uncomprehendingly for the moment. It was "Salute!" And then he
understood. The Hawk, knowing himself tricked, had come back not to
take revenge but to give that sportsmanlike hail to the man who had
tricked him. Evans' bound hands touched the signal-studs, and from the
great Earth-Guard rocket's nose in its turn flashed the same signal
"Salute!" Salute of the Earth-Guard's captain to the Hawk, as they
roared past each other in space! And then the Hawk was gone, his little
ship hurtling away into the chartless void outside the space-lanes
where his great black rocket waited. Evans slumped weakly against the
control-board.
They found him there when they burst up into the pilot-house a
half-hour later, Calden and Hartley and the others, babbling excitedly
and uncomprehendingly. They had just returned to consciousness. They
found Evans against the control-board with hands and feet still bound,
keeping the great rocket steady on the space-lane to which he had
brought it. When he turned toward them they saw with amazement that he
was laughing.
"I was just thinking," he said, "of what old Cain will say when he
finds out that he shook hands with the Hawk!"
The End
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