got up and stretched his body, to limber its muscles. "How long have
we been here?" he asked.

"Don't know suh; I was unconscious when they brought me here myself. But
I guess not less'n six or eight hours."

"Unconscious?" asked the Hawk, surprised. "You fought, and they knocked
you out?"

The big negro looked sheepish and scratched his woolly head.

"Well, no suh," he explained. "I was aimin' to butt in some, but they
wouldn't let me."

"Then how did you get unconscious?"

Friday fidgeted. He was acutely embarrassed. "Don't know, suh, Dog-gone,
I just can't figure it, unless I fainted."

"Oh." The Hawk smiled. "Fainted. Well so did I, I guess. I suppose," he
went on seriously, "you couldn't tell whether the asteroid moved or not.
I mean toward Satellite III."

Friday scratched his head again.

"I guess I can't, suh," he replied. "I haven't felt any movement."

"The door is locked?"

"Oh, yes, suh. Tight."

"Very well. Now please be silent. I want to think."

He went over and leaned against the far wall of the cell. His right hand
rose to the bangs of flaxen hair and with a slow regular movement began
to smooth them. Lost in thought he stood there, thinking through the
situation in which he found himself.

He had expected, of course, to subject himself to great risk in keeping
the rendezvous with Dr. Ku Sui, but he had never thought he would be
endangering Eliot Leithgow also. It was torture to know he had put the
gentle old scientist into the Eurasian's web.

That was it: if he could not somehow shear through that web, he must
destroy Leithgow himself, and follow on after. The scientist would
prefer it so. For whatever Dr. Ku's exact reason for wanting the Master
Scientist was, it was an ugly one: that it was worse than quick death,
he knew full well.

Shear through the web. How? Where was the weak strand in Ku Sui's
cunningly laid plot? The Hawk visualized all he could of the asteroid's
mechanical details, and surveyed them painstakingly. Two great
port-locks flanked by little ones; secret opening combinations--not much
hope in that avenue. Judd's ship, resting above: could he reach it, and
raise it and douse the buildings with its rays? No; Dr. Ku had spoken of
defense rays--they would certainly be far more powerful than the
_Scorpion's_. Then, somewhere there were the mighty gravity-plates
batteries which motivated the asteroid and held it controlled in space.
The dynamos. Two men, working swi