It was a scene that might have puzzled a newcomer to the frontiers of space. Certainly there seemed to be nothing menacing about the slender figure that stood by the now open man-hole, both arms hanging easily at his sides; the advantage, on the contrary, appeared to be all with the men whom he confronted. All but one was big, and each was fully armed with a brace of ray-guns and knives. But, though there were four guns to one, they made no attempt to draw. For it was the Hawk they faced, the fastest, most accurate shot in all those millions of leagues of space, and in his two icy eyes was a menace that filled the control cabin with fine-drawn silence. At last Judd the Kite opened his lips and wetted them. "Where did you come from?" he stammered. "No matter," came the answer from the thinly smiling mouth. "Friday!" "Yes, suh!" boomed the big black's distant voice. Judd's three men turned their heads and saw Carse's famous satellite step into the control cabin, a ray-gun in each capacious hand. He was all flashing white teeth, so wide was his grin. "Well, well!" he chuckled. "Ain't this the pleasure! Certainly am pleased to meet old friends like this--yes, suh! Jus' drop in?" But the Kite's head had not turned; he seemed not to hear Friday's words; his eyes were held fascinated by Carse's. The attention of everyone came back to the two leaders. "Ku Sui is in back of this?" asked the Hawk. Judd licked his lips again. He had to spar for time: to divert for a while the vengeance he knew possessed the other's mind, so that he might find some chance, some loop-hole. "That's right," he began eagerly, "it was Ku Sui. I had to do this, Carse: I hadn't any choice. He's got something on me: I had to go through with it. Had to!" * * * * * The 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?"