The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hawk Carse, by Anthony Gilmore

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Title: Hawk Carse

Author: Anthony Gilmore

Release Date: October 21, 2009 [EBook #30307]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories November 1931.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

Hawk Carse

_A Complete Novelette_

By Anthony Gilmore

* * * * *

CHAPTER I

_The Swoop of the Hawk_

[Illustration: _The Hawk stood there, both arms hanging easily at his
sides._]

[Sidenote: One of the spectacular exploits of Hawk Carse, greatest of
space adventurers.]

Hawk Carse came to the frontiers of space when Saturn was the frontier
planet, which was years before the swift Patrol ships brought Earth's
law and order to those vast regions. A casual glance at his slender
figure made it seem impossible that he was to rise to be the greatest
adventurer in space, that his name was to carry such deadly
connotation in later years. But on closer inspection, a number of
little things became evident: the steadiness of his light gray eyes;
the marvelously strong-fingered hands; the wiry build of his
splendidly proportioned body. Summing these things up and adding the
brilliant resourcefulness of the man, the complete ignorance of fear,
one could perhaps understand why even his blood enemy, the impassive
Ku Sui, a man otherwise devoid of every human trait, could not face
Carse unmoved in his moments of cold fury.

His name, we know, enters most histories of the period 2117-2148 A.
D., for he has at last been recognized as the one who probably did
most--unofficially, and not with the authority of the Earth
Government--to shape the raw frontiers of space, to push them outward
and to lay the foundations of the present tre