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That finished, the Hawk wheeled, and at once, pantherlike, ray-guns at the ready, stalked the room. There was no sign of the enemy. He approached the operating table. A great relief flooded his grim face as he sighted Eliot Leithgow lying there, apparently untouched and still conscious. The elderly scientist was strapped down tight, but he was smiling.
Linda Beach, in fine sincerity and in tribute to the children, made a statement which was utterly explosive. When the show ended, people all over the world were roused and horrified and enraged. Only small children, waiting in space-helmets and with ray-guns ready, complained aggrievedly that there hadn't been any monsters. The adults felt that there had been. That there were.
If he had not instructed his coolie-guards to wound, and not kill, in case of a break for freedom, Carse and Friday could never possibly have gained the corridor alive. The four waiting ray-guns would have burned out their lives within three seconds.
It was opening. In a moment Ku Sui stood revealed there, and behind him, in the corridor, were three other figures, their yellow coolie faces strangely dumb and lifeless above the tasteful gray smocks which extended a little below their belted waists. Each bore embroidered on his chest the planetary insignia of Ku Sui in yellow, and each was armed with two ray-guns.
Friday still stood in back of the chairs where were seated his two friends. He was scared to death from the thing he had seen. His face was a sickly, ashy gray, and his eyes large round rolling white marbles; but at the slightest sign of a break he would have metamorphosed into a demon of destruction, however hopeless the try, with ray-guns covering him at all times.
"Perhaps you and the black had better return to your cell." Certain little muscles in the Hawk's face were trembling as he turned to go, and his feet would not work well. The ray-guns of the coolie-guards covered his every move. Friday followed just behind. As the adventurer came to the door he stopped and turned, and his eyes went back to those of the frail, elderly scientist.
"Always," he said, "God helps those who help themselves. But come with me, if you'll be so kind. We are expected in the laboratory." This exchange passed quickly. Friday was still grasping at its underlying meanings as they again filed down the short straight outside corridor. It brought a perverse satisfaction to see the coolie guards bearing their ray-guns unsheathed and ready.
Carse passed the three bulky suits to him, and also two extra ray-guns he had found in the locker. "Now, Eliot up!" With the Hawk's help, Leithgow clambered onto the cabinet. He was just mounting the operating table when, from behind, came a thin, metallic voice: "Master Leithgow Eliot Leithgow please, a favor?" Leithgow turned and stared, then understood. It was the coordinated brains.
So surprised was the expression on their faces, that he turned and looked too and saw the Scorpion, her entrance ports still open, forty feet off the ground and rising with swift acceleration. Faster and faster she rose; all ray-guns were silenced before her astounding ascent. Higher and higher faster and faster till with a stunning, ear-deafening crash she struck the great dome and was through.
There was stillness in the laboratory then as his bleak gray eyes met and held for long seconds Ku Sui's enigmatic green-black ones. "If I don't?" For answer the Eurasian gestured apologetically to his guards. "I see," Carse whispered. There was nothing to be done. Three coolies, each with ray-guns at the ready; four white assistants.... No hope. No chance for anything. He looked at the negro.
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