Titanic, breath-taking in its majesty of sheer bulk, the asteroid of Dr. Ku Sui was made visible.
It hung suspended, low over the tree-tops of the valley, and it filled the valley with rock and towered above it. This was the asteroid, exploded into a separate entity by the cataclysm that gave birth to the planets, which Dr. Ku Sui had wrenched from the asteroidal belt between Mars and Jupiter and built into a world of his own, swinging it through space as he willed, and cloaking it with invisibility to baffle those who marveled at how he came and went, unseen, on his various errands. This was the mighty rock fortress in which lay the key-stone of his mounting power. This his lonely, unsuspected home, come for a while to rest....
Hawk Carse scanned it closely.
It lay roughly head-on to him, its nearest massive, craggy end lying some three miles from where he hung. On that end lived the life of the asteroid, and were located all Ku Sui's works. On a space planed flat in the rock, rested the dome, like an inverted quarter-mile-wide bowl of glittering glasslike substance, laced inside with spidery supporting struts—the half bubble from inside which men guided the mass. Therein an artificial atmosphere was maintained, even as on any space-ship, and there lay the group of buildings, chief of which was the precious laboratory in which were the coordinated brains to whom the Hawk had made his promise.
Carse lowered the glasses, and again the Jupiter-light poured normally around him, the valley hushed and seemingly empty once more. He put through his call to Friday and Ban, giving them simple directions how to find him. And twenty-five minutes after that, he saw, looking back down the ridge, their two giant metallic figures come twisting and turning in noiseless flight through the top lanes of the jungle below, and they were together.
t was seldom that Friday would intrude his thoughts when with his master and his master's friends, so when he arrived he merely surveyed the asteroid through his glasses and was silent. But Ban Wilson, after a long, comprehensive stare, during which one could almost feel the amazement leaping through him, sputtered:
"By jumping Jupiter, Carse—I never would've believed it! That Ku Sui's sure a genius! To have that whole asteroid there, man, and to take it with him wherever he wants to go! Look at it! Fifteen, twenty miles long, it must be! And that dome—"
"Yes," said the Hawk shortly, "but easy on that now. We've work to do, and it's got to be done quickly. Now listen: