he Hawk's eyes were glacial; the ghost of a smile hovered once more around the corners of his lips.
"Go on," he said. "What was that fungus?"
"I don't know. Ku Sui developed it in his laboratory. He just gave me a sealed cartridge of the spores with instructions to raid your ranch, as you saw, and plant them in a drilled-out phanti horn. There was a simple mechanism in the cartridge that allowed us to release the spores by a radio wave from our ship. When I wanted them to grow I simply—"
"I see. A clever scheme," Carse said. "Quite up to Ku Sui's standard. The idea of those three men running for the jungle when I came down on Iapetus was to insure my taking the horn cargo aboard, of course. The raid was only incidental to your scheme to get me. And Crane, the radio operator, was dead when I received that S.O.S. It was faked, to bring me quickly for your schedule."
Judd stared at him. "How in hell did you know that? Damn you, Carse, you're—"
"Where," interrupted the adventurer coldly, "is Ku Sui?"
The pirate's eyes shifted nervously. "I don't know," he muttered.
"Where," came the steady question again, "is Ku Sui?"
The other licked his lips. His fingers clenched, unclenched, gripped tight. "I don't know!" he protested. His eyes widened as he saw the Hawk's left hand stir slightly, and he started as he heard the whip-like word: