een given here. For fictionized presentation, we have
spaced the adventures into four connected episodes, four acts of a
vibrant drama which ranged clear from Saturn to Earth, the core of
which was the feud between Captain Carse and the power-lusting
Eurasian scientist, Dr. Ku Sui--that feud the reverberations of whose
terrible settling still echo over the solar system--and in this last
act of the drama, set out below, we come to its spectacular climax.

The words of John Sewell's epic history sit lightly on paper; easy
words for Sewell, once the collection of data was over, to write; not
very significant words for the uninitiated and casual reader who does
not see the irresistible forces beneath them. But consider the full
meaning of these words, and glance for a moment at the two figures
conjured up by them. We see Hawk Carse, a man slender in build, but
with gray eyes and lithe, strong-fingered hands and cold, intent face
that give the clue to the steel of him; we see Dr. Ku Sui, tall,
suave, unhurried, formed as though by a master sculptor, in whose rare
green eyes slumbered the soul of a tiger, notwithstanding the courtesy
and the grace that masked always his most infamous moves. These two we
see looming through and dwarfing Sewell's words as they face each
other, for they were probably the most bitter, and certainly the most
spectacular, foe-men of that raw period before the patrol ships swept
up from the home of man to lay Earth's laws through space.

Carse and Ku Sui, adventurer and scientist, each with his own
distinctive strength and his own unyielding character--those two were
star-crossed, fated to be foes, and whenever they met there was blood,
and never was quarter asked nor quarter expected. How could it have
been otherwise? Ku Sui controlled the isuan drug trade, and Carse was
against it, as he was against everything underhanded and unclean; Ku
Sui had tricked and, by a single deed, driven Carse's loved comrade,
Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow, from his honored position on Earth,
and Carse was sworn to bring Ku Sui to Earth to clear the old
scientist's name. Either of these alone was enough to seal the feud,
but there was more. Carse was sworn to release from their bondage of
life-in-death Ku Sui's most prized possession, his storehouse of
wisdom--the brains of five great Earth scientists, kept alive though
their bodies were dead.

These, then, were the forces glossed over so lightly by John
Sewell's