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Updated: May 13, 2025
Do you know?" Dr. Ku raised his head at this, though he seemed only mildly interested in what the reply would be. "I think for two of the remaining three hours." "All right!" said Hawk Carse decisively. He threw off the case's switches. "Dr. Ku," he said, "you've only succeeded in accelerating things. Now for speed! Friday, we're taking this asteroid to Eliot Leithgow's laboratory.
There was a choking in Eliot Leithgow's throat at leaving the hill, and he turned away, afraid at that moment of being observed by the steel-gray eyes of his friend, Hawk Carse.... The Sandra swam up through the lake's muddy tide and launched herself, dripping, into the warm air of afternoon.
Ku Sui's fingers were prodding Leithgow's head like that of any dumb animal chosen as subject for experimentation. Prodding.... Feeling.... "I can't stand it!" the Hawk whispered again. The mask on his face, that famous self-imposed mask that hid all emotion, had broken. Lines were there, deep with agony; tiny drops of sweat stood out all over.
At once the air-car made towards it and slid into the tube leading through the hill. Quickly it was in the chamber of the lock, the outer door closed automatically behind, the water was drained out, and then the inner door opened and the car, dripping, emerged into the brilliantly-lit hangar and went to rest in its mooring cradle beside Leithgow's space-ship.
Even when he was normal there are only moments when, through some recorded speech or action of his, we can peer past the man's personality into his brain; how great a sealed mystery must his thoughts remain to us when held in that abnormal state by Eliot Leithgow's V-27!
Not the bodies of normal men, of those with life ahead of them. No. That would be murder. Four bodies of condemned men men with no hope left, nothing left to live for. I can get them!" He brushed aside Ku Sui's and Leithgow's questions. He was all steel now, frigid, intent, hard. "Ban!" he called. "Ban Wilson!" "Yes, Carse?" Ban had been waiting outside the laboratory.
Systematically and carefully the men stationed at the electelscope turned it through the region behind, but never did their watching eyes discern the bulk of the asteroid. Its disappearance, and the kindred mystery of who had been on it, remained unsolved. Therefore peace came to Eliot Leithgow's face, and the tiredness left his eyes.
"There were two others, but we let them go. They were worse." The gray eyes looked steadily at Eliot Leithgow. "I know," the Hawk said. "It's horrible but it can't be helped. It was these or nothing. There was no choice." Hawk Carse had fulfilled his promise. He had brought back four isuanacs. Ordeal Five bodies lay on the operating tables in Eliot Leithgow's laboratory.
Eliot Leithgow's own personal space-ship, the Sandra, rested there on its mooring cradle, and by its side was the laboratory's air-car, an identical shape in miniature, designed for atmospheric transit. The adventurer, a silent, swift figure, went straight to the air-car and climbed into its control seat.
But Leithgow's answer was abstracted. Four minutes for Carse to come! Or else, everything lost! He busied himself helping the four surgeons and two of his own assistants into the white, sterilized gowns, and the masks that left only the eyes free and the skin-tight rubber gloves, but his mind was not with his actions.
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