the common scum of space-pirates that are
inside one of the lunar cities.”
always bobbing up, but when it comes to
nabbing the Hawk someone else wants the
IN a lunar city?” Evans repeated. “Whoever
glory.”
got that idea?”
“The glory’s been there for the Earth-
Seaworth shook his head. “It seemed
Guard to take for some time,” retorted
crazy to me at first too, but there were rumors
Seaworth acidly. “I haven’t seen it doing it,
that officials in one of the lunar cities were
though.”
Air Wonder Stories
6
Hartley’s face went dull red, and crowded converging space-lanes toward the Evans intervened in time. “No use scrapping
huge New York inter-stellar station. And
over it,” he told them. “Anything that when the great Earth-Guard ship shot down Seaworth finds out will help us, and I for one
into the funnel-shaped landing-framework and
don’t give a continental who catches the Hawk
came to a halt with all its nose-tubes firing,
so long as he’s caught. Every time I go into a
Seaworth emerged from it with its first
teletheater nowadays, all I hear is a lot of
officers.
musty old cracks about the Hawk and the
Earth-Guard, and I don’t mind telling you I’m
BRIEFLY he assured himself once more that
getting tired of it.”
Evans was willing for him to make the trip
Seaworth laughed. “Well, it was nearly
back out to the moon in the Earth-Guard craft
a case of the catcher caught with me this time.
in the following week, and he also made
I suppose I don’t need to tell you that I’d
certain that his own little rocket could remain
rather make the rest of the trip with you?”
attached to the greater craft and be refueled
Evans nodded. “Of course. Though as
with it. Then he hastened away in the crowds
a matter of fact the Hawk’s probably ten zones
that poured here and there across and around
off by now. That’s always his way—he the great rocket-station.
swoops and strikes and flashes off before
Evans stood still for a few moments
anyone can get hands on him.”
gazing around him, bewildered a little as he
“Yes,” said Seaworth, his eyes invariably was by the sudden transition from troubled, “but he happens to want me devilish
the silence and gloom of the great void to this
bad, you see. I’ll admit I’m not going to have
brilliant and hurried scene. Across the great
much taste for the trip back to the moon—I
station at its departure-side a huge cargo-
wouldn’t put it past him to hold up the biggest
rocket was taking off, its firing-tubes
passenger-ship in space if he knew I was deafening the ears as it thundered up into the traveling on it.”
sunlight and vanished. Already a great, sleek
“I wouldn’t myself,” Evans said. “But
passenger-craft was being slid into the
we’re heading back next week after our relief-
ascension-framework just vacated, and as its
period. Why not go back with us?”
warning-bell rang out, the last belated
Seaworth’s face cleared. “Thanks a lot,
passengers were hurrying toward it with their
really, old man. It’s a fact I’ve been worried
porters and luggage.
about this trip back, for if I get what I’m after
There remained to Evans the
on earth, it means that when I get back to the
disagreeable task for which he had been
moon we can find the Hawk’s base and make
bracing himself during the last hours of the
a trap of it to catch him when he comes in.
trip—that of informing crusty old Commander
And I want to see him put away before I check
out—it’s got to be something of a personal
he had been ushered into the office of the
duel between us.”
white-haired and white-mustached old space-
In the next half-score of hours in veteran who was head of the Earth-Guard, which they hurtled on toward earth, Evans
Evans made his brief report with the other’s
saw that Seaworth was indeed getting more
stare piercing him to the marrow.
and more impatient and eager as the great disk
When he had finished, the
grew large before them. He fretted at the delay
Commander, as he had expected, delivered
as they moved in through earth’s atmosphere
himself of a furious blast of profanity.
at slackening speed, and down through the
He finally became articulate. “Evans,
Evans of the Earth-Guard
7
you must realize what a situation the Earth-
Guard rocket—good-bye! No matter what we
Guard is in. You know and I know that the
did after that, the Guard would never be able
Hawk must have something new on his ship,
to live it down!”
whether a new fuel or a new firing-tube, that
gives his ship a speed beyond anything else in
EVANS was impressed. “I’ll keep a close
space. You know as well as I do, too, that the
watch for him going back, sir,” he promised.
Hawk is really the one outstanding space-
The Commander’s warning rang in
pirate left and that in the last decades we’ve
Evans’ ears all the week that followed, and he
cleared up the others one by one.
was forced during that week to admit that his
“But the public doesn’t see it that way!
superior’s view of the situation was correct.
The public,” and the Commander smote his
The Earth-Guard was suffering a distinct loss
desk furiously, “the public sees only this one
of prestige. It seemed to Evans that wherever
pirate, the Hawk. They see him and his crew
he went his blue Earth-Guard uniform, once
defying the whole five hundred ships of the
an envied garb, was greeted with titters and
Earth-Guard. That’s all the blankety blank derisive comments that made his ears burn.
public sees, and as a result the Earth-Guard’s
The newspapers and teletheaters were
getting to be a joke!”
exploiting the situation to the utmost. If Evans
“But sir!” Evans managed to say, “we
watched a troupe of dancers he was met with
have no hope of getting the Hawk so long as
the spectacle of a nimble black-garbed figure,
he has his bases for refueling and resting. We
representing the Hawk, eluding with ease the
must get his lunar base before we can get him,
slowly-moving blue-garbed figures symbolic
and that’s why I think this Seaworth may win
of the Earth-Guard. If he was introduced to
for us yet.”
anyone by a joking friend it was always with a
“Seaworth—” The Commander jesting reference to his imminent capture of frowned thoughtfully.
“It may be—it may be.
the Hawk. Small boys called after him that the
I didn’t know that the International Hawk was coming, and then delightedly ran Commission had put secret agents after the
away.
Hawk, but it may prove useful at that. You say
The Hawk, indeed, was coming to
Seaworth’s going back with you next week?”
have far more of the public sympathy than the
“Yes, he thinks the Hawk is after him
Earth-Guard. It was true that he held up
in dead earnest, and that if he takes a defenseless passenger-craft between earth and passenger-rocket the Hawk will hold it up to
moon, forcing them under the menace of his
get him.”
guns to cast loose for him in their life-rockets
“It wouldn’t be beyond him,” the whatever of value they carried. All knew that Commander warned. “But we’ve another he was an outlaw of the void, and would meet thing to think of, too, Evans. If the Hawk
swift death at the hands of a firing-squad were
wants this man Seaworth badly enough, he
he captured.
may not even stick at holding up an Earth-
But if he was a space-pirate, he was
Guard ship to get him! I see you smile—you
not one like the earlier space-buccaneers
think it is incredible that even the Hawk whose atrocities had roused a fury that had should ever try taking an Earth-Guard—but
swept them out of existence. He was, if
remember that he has a reputation for doing
anything, a gentleman-corsair of the void, and
things no pirate ever dared do before, and that
though few had ever looked on his face, it was
in this case he has the best reason in the world
rumored that he was exceptionally handsome.
for trying it. And if he ever took an Earth-
It was small wonder that by the end of his
Air Wonder Stories
8
week of relief Evans’ nerves were ragged and
The secret agent’s eyes were shining
he was longing for the peacefulness of the
as he strode across the station to them. When
space patrol.
he reached Evans and the commander he
When on the last day of their relief he
tapped the black leather case he carried.
found Calden and Hartley at the New York
“Got it!” he exclaimed. “My tip was a
station, inspecting the great Earth-Guard straight one and I’ve got the dope from rocket, preparatory to its start back out into
beginning to end. You’re ready to go?”
space, he found their nerves as raw on the
Evans nodded, and Commander Cain
subject as his own. They too had felt the
shook hands with him and with Seaworth, as
whips of the public laughter.
he turned away.
“You know,” growled Hartley as he
“Good luck to the both of you,” he told
ran a practiced eye over the looming rocket’s
them, “and if you’ve really got anything that
stern firing-tubes, “I’m just about praying that
will enable you to nab the Hawk, I’ll resign
we meet up with the Hawk this trip. I’m not
cheerfully on the day he’s taken and you can
thin-skinned— but when my little daughter
shot dice between you for my job!”
begins to ask daddy why he doesn’t catch the
Evans and Seaworth laughed together
Hawk, I’m getting to the busting point!”
as the commander strode away. “The old
man’s nutty about the Hawk these days,”
EVANS and Calden laughed despite Evans commented.
themselves. “Well, you may get your wish,
“Well, if I can get back to the moon
Hartley,” Evans told him. “Remember, with the information I have here,” the other Seaworth will be with us, and the Hawk wants
said, “it means the end for Mr. Hawk. I found
him bad.”
the man I was hunting for—he’d been one of
Hartley looked at him blankly. “You
the Hawk’s crew and had left him on account
don’t mean that he’d ever try holding us up?
of some squabble over the division of loot. He
Us? An Earth-Guard rocket?”
was pretty much afraid of his old chief still—I
Evans shrugged. “It’s Commander guess the Hawk’s got a deadly record as Cain’s idea, not mine. Here he comes now, to
regards traitors—but he gave me all I wanted
see us off. Evidently going to give us a final
for a price. I have the exact location of the
warning.”
Hawk’s base in one of the lunar cities, the
And that proved in fact to be the names of the officials who’ve been harboring white-haired Commander’s purpose when he
him and selling him fuel—all that we need.”
reached them through the throngs of hurrying
“Once back on the moon we can set a
mechanics around the giant ship. He drew
trap there that will spring on the Hawk the
Evans aside from the others.
first time he comes into his base. There’s only
“Don’t forget what I told you, Evans,”
one queer thing about it all, and that is that the
he warned. “Keep double-watches in the man who told me all this disappeared on the lookout-cells at all times, and if the Hawk
very next day. No one has the slightest idea
does appear, send out a general radiophone
what became of him, though some of the
alarm before you engage. Remember, it isn’t a
officials I talked with thought he’d merely
question of personal glory, but a matter of
decamped with the price of his information. I
catching him.”
don’t know, though—it may have been
“I’ll remember,” Evans promised. “I
something else.”
guess we’re set to go—here comes Seaworth
“The Hawk?” Evans questioned, and
now.”
the other slowly nodded.
Evans of the Earth-Guard
9
“I’m afraid so—his way with traitors is
absorbing seats, the four men looked down
short and sweet. It only worries me because if
over the station and its swarming throngs, a
it was he, then he knows what I’ve learned
busy scene in the morning sunlight.
and knows I’m taking back that information
Just beside the ascension-framework rose the
with me.”
starter’s tower, from which, at intervals, the
streams of ships were allowed to start out into
EVANS frowned. “That would make him the various space-lanes. Lights were flashing desperate, all right. The Commander has an
and changing color on it each moment as the
idea that he might even attack our rocket to
minute for the departure of the Earth-Guard
get you, Seaworth.”
ship drew near. Already the machinery beside
“You mean that he’d even try to take
the ascension-framework was ready to move
an Earth-Guard rocket?”
into it the next rocket to start, a great
“Yes, but it’s just an idea. We’ll keep a
passenger-craft into which hundreds of
mighty sharp lookout fo
r him, and whatever
passengers were hastening, crowds of friends
else the Hawk may have done, I think he’s too
waving them bon voyage. Few in the station
wary a bird to try tackling Earth-Guard were paying any attention to the routine rockets.”
departure of the Earth-Guard’s craft.
They were interrupted by a thunderous
The lights on the starter’s tower had
blast of firing-tubes as a battered cargo ship of
flashed from yellow to green, and then to red.
the tramp class, a quarter of its tubes out of
Calden was watching them imperturbably, his
commission, hurtled upward from the great
hands resting on the main firing-levers, while
ascension-framework. At once the huge Evans, as always at the moment of starting, machinery beside it that held the Earth-Guard
involuntarily drew a deep preparatory breath.
rocket was sliding it smoothly into the Then the lights flashed suddenly pure white, ascension-framework to go out also. The Calden’s hands depressed the levers with a warning-bell was jangling again and Calden
single motion, and, as a thunderous blast of
and Hartley came up to the two men.
sound broke from the great rocket’s stern
“All ready,” Calden reported, saluting.
beneath them, they were pressed with
“The starter’s given us 9.40—that’s eight immeasurable force into their seats.
minutes from now.”
Evans nodded. “Time to go, THE sunlit station had vanished in a flash Seaworth,” and they strode toward the stern-from around them, and there was a dizzy
door of the big, upreared craft.
lurching and trembling of the great mass as it
“I see you’ve still got my little ship
shot upward and outward. From outside came