Part 2

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