gether, white man and black crumpled to the deck....

CHAPTER VI

_Back to Iapetus_

An indefinite time later Carse awoke to a trip-hammer of pain thudding
through his head. He groaned a little, and tried to turn over in an
effort to ease it. He found he could not. Then his eyes opened and he
blinked up.

He found himself lying on the deck of the control cabin, near the
after wall, and bound hand and foot with tightly strapped rope. Over
him, looking down, was Judd the Kite, hands on his hips, a gloating
smile on his coarse lips, and in his eyes a look of taunting, exultant
triumph. He drew back his foot and kicked the netted Hawk in the ribs.
The trader made no sound; his pale face did not change, except to set
a trifle more rigidly.

"Pretty easy the way my men got you, Carse," said Judd. "Seems to me
you're just a damned fool with a big rep you don't deserve. You're
too careless. You ought to know by now not to leave bound men in reach
of high-powered cable. It cuts as good as an electric knife. Does your
head hurt where you were hit?" Deliberately, still smiling, he rapped
his foot brutally against Carse's head.

The trader said nothing. He glanced around, to get the situation
clearly. Friday, he saw, was in the control cabin too, lying stretched
out and bound as he was, but evidently still unconscious from the
ugly, bloody welt on his head. One of Judd's men was at the ship's
space-stick, another stood by her dials, occasionally glancing back at
the prisoners and grinning; the two remaining pirates were apparently
aft. The body of the one whom Carse had killed had been removed.

Through the port bow window, far out, he noticed a small spot, half
black and half brilliant with the reflected light of Saturn: that
would be the other space ship, the Kite's, on the same course as they.
And ahead was the large-looming sphere of Iapetus. The pirate was
returning, then, to the ranch, probably to pick up his three men, and
perhaps to leave a small crew to work it.

"Yes. I'm afraid this is the end of the Sparrow Hawk!" Judd sneered
the name and laughed harshly. "A lot of people will be glad to hear
it. There'll be a big reward for me, too, from Ku Sui. Head still
bad?" And again he swung his leg and drove its heavy shoe into his
captive's head.

* * * * *

Carse's lips compressed till they were colorless. He looked steadily
at Judd's eyes and asked:

"What are you going t