*

Hawk Carse smiled. "Your conceit lends you an extraordinary optimism,
Dr. Ku."

"Not unfounded, I am sure. I desire very much to meet our old friend
Leithgow again: his is the only other brain in this universe at all
comparable to mine. And did I tell you that I always get what I desire?
Well, will you give me this information? Of course, there are ways...."

For a moment he waited.

The Hawk only looked at him.

"Always in character," the Eurasian said regretfully. "Very well." He
turned his head and took in Friday and Sako, standing near-by. "You are
Sako?" he asked the latter. "It is most unfortunate that you had to
deceive me a little while ago. We shall have to see what to do about it.
Later. For the present, move farther back, out of the way. So. You,
black one, next to my friend Carse: we must be moving along. So."

Ku Sui surveyed then with inscrutable eyes. Gracefully, he drew close.

Carse missed not a move. He watched the Eurasian draw, from one of the
long sleeves of his blouse, a square of lustrous black silk.

"This bears my personal insignia, you see," he murmured. "You will
remember it." And he languidly waved it just under their eyes.

Friday stared at it; Carse too, wonderingly. He saw embroidered in
yellow on the black a familiar insignia composed of an asteroid in the
circle of ten planets. And then alarm lit his brain and he grimaced.
There was a strange odor in his nostrils and it came from the square of
silk.

"Characteristic, Dr. Ku," he said. "Quite characteristic."

The Eurasian smiled. An expression of stupid amazement came over
Friday's face. The design of asteroid and planets wavered into a blur as
the Hawk fought unconsciousness; a short, harsh sound came from his
lips; he lurched uncertainly. The negro crumpled up and stretched out on
the deck. Carse's desire to sleep grew overpowering. Once more, as from
a distance, he glimpsed Ku Sui's smile. He tried to back to the wall;
made it; then a heavy thump suggested to his dimming mind that he had
collapsed to the deck. He was asleep at once....

CHAPTER IV

_Soil_

Hawk Carse awoke with a slight feeling of nausea, and the smell of the
drug faint in his nostrils. He found he was lying on the floor of a
large, square cell whose walls and ceiling were of some burnished brown
metal and which was bare of any kind of furnishing. In one wall was a
tightly closed door, also of metal and studded by the knob of a lock.
Barre