Law enforcement -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space pirates -- Fiction; Space ships -- Fiction
The secret agent's eyes were shining as he strode across the station
to them. When he reached Evans and the commander he tapped the black
leather case he carried.
"Got it!" he exclaimed. "My tip was a straight one and I've got the
dope from beginning to end. You're ready to go?"
Evans nodded, and Commander Cain shook hands with him and with
Seaworth, as he turned away.
"Good luck to the both of you," he told them, "and if you've really got
anything that will enable you to nab the Hawk, I'll resign cheerfully
on the day he's taken and you can shoot dice between you for my job!"
Evans and Seaworth laughed together as the commander strode away. "The
old man's nutty about the Hawk these days," Evans commented.
"Well, if I can get back to the moon with the information I have
here," the other said, "it means the end for Mr. Hawk. I found the man
I was hunting for--he'd been one of the Hawk's crew and had left him
on account of some squabble over the division of loot. He was pretty
much afraid of his old chief still--I guess the Hawk's got a deadly
record as regards traitors--but he gave me all I wanted for a price. I
have the exact location of the Hawk's base in one of the lunar cities,
the names of the officials who've been harboring him and selling him
fuel--all that we need."
"Once back on the moon we can set a trap there that will spring on the
Hawk the first time he comes into his base. There's only one queer
thing about it all, and that is that the man who told me all this
disappeared on the very next day. No one has the slightest idea what
became of him, though some of the officials I talked with thought
he'd merely decamped with the price of his information. I don't know,
though--it may have been something else."
"The Hawk?" Evans questioned, and the other slowly nodded.
"I'm afraid so--his way with traitors is short and sweet. It only
worries me because if it was he, then he knows what I've learned and
knows I'm taking back that information with me."
Ready to Start
Evans frowned. "That would make him desperate, all right. The Commander
has an idea that he might even attack our rocket to get you, Seaworth."
"You mean that he'd even try to take an Earth-Guard rocket?"
"Yes, but it's just an idea. We'll keep a mighty sharp lookout for him,
and whatever else the Hawk may have done, I think he's too wary a bird
to try tackling Earth-Guard rockets."
They were interrupted by a thunderous blast of firing-tubes as a
battered cargo ship of the tramp class, a quarter of its tubes out
of commission, hurtled upward from the great ascension-framework. At
once the huge machinery beside it that held the Earth-Guard rocket was
sliding it smoothly into the ascension-framework to go out also. The
warning-bell was jangling again and Calden and Hartley came up to the
two men.
"All ready," Calden reported, saluting. "The starter's given us
9.40--that's eight minutes from now."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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