The Complete Hawk Carse by Anthony Gilmore

Book Details

The complete saga of Hawk Carse as he battles the evil genius Dr. Ku Sui. Carse pits decisive action against Ku Sui’s henchmen as well as his cabinet of disembodied brains in the fight to preserve the solar system.

Hawk Carse (1931) – One of the spectacular exploits of Hawk Carse, greatest of space adventurers.
Chapter I – The Swoop of the Hawk
Chapter II – Pursuit
Chapter III – Death Rides the Star Devil
Chapter IV – The Hawk Prepares a Surprise
Chapter V – The Hawk and the Kite
Chapter VI – Back to Iapetus
Chapter VII – Jamboree
Chapter VIII – Stampede
Chapter IX – The Hawk Strikes

The Affair of the Brains (1932) – Hawk Carse himself goes to keep Judd the Kite’s rendezvous with the sinister genius Ku Sui
Chapter I – The Swoop of the Hawk
Chapter II – The Coming of Ku Sui
Chapter III – The Wave of a Handkerchief
Chapter IV – Soil
Chapter V – The Color-Storm
Chapter VI – Port o’ Porno
Chapter VII – The Coming of Leithgow
Chapter VIII – Dr. Ku Shows His Claws
Chapter IX – The Brain Speaks
Chapter X – In the Visi-Screen
Chapter XI – Trapped in the Laboratory
Chapter XII – Out Under the Dome
Chapter XIII – The Final Mystery

The Bluff of the Hawk (1932) – A trick? Carse was famed for them. A trap? But how?

The Passing of Ku Sui (1932) – A screaming streak in the night—a cloud of billowing steam—and the climax of Hawk Carse’s spectacular ‘Affair of the Brains’ is over.
Chapter I – The Plan
Chapter II – Three Figures in the Dawn
Chapter III – The Raid
Chapter IV – The Voice of the Brains
Chapter V – “My Congratulations, Captain Carse!”
Chapter VI – The Deadline
Chapter VII – To the Laboratory
Chapter VIII – White’s Brain—Yellow’s Head
Chapter IX – Four Bodies
Chapter X – The Promise Fulfilled
Chapter XI – Ordeal
Chapter XII – Flight
Chapter XIII – In Earth’s Shadow
Chapter XIV – The Hawk Strikes
Chapter XV – There Is a Meteor

The Return of Hawk Carse (1942) – Hawk Carse faced his greatest problem when he found that the sinister Ku Sui still lived; and with him seven other men who had died
Chapter I – “Diver” in the Sky
Chapter II – The Re-embodied Brains
Chapter III – The New Estapp
Chapter IV – Four More New Men
Chapter V – The Suicides
Chapter VI – The Hidden Word
Chapter VII – “Always Attack”
Chapter VIII – Swoop of the Hawk
Chapter IX – “Fun” with Esret
Chapter X – Mysterious Recordings
Chapter XI – The Secret Room
Chapter XII – The Strange Message
Chapter XIII – The Coming of Unborn Q

Harry Bates (1900-1981) was born Hiram Gilmore Bates III on October 9, 1900 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began working for William Clayton in the 1920s as the editor of adventure pulp magazines. When Clayton proposed a period adventure magazine, Bates suggested several alternatives that he said would be easier to edit, and Astounding Science Fiction was the result.

Using the pseudonyms Anthony Gilmore and H.G. Winter, Bates and his assistant editor Desmond Winter Hall collaborated on the “Hawk Carse” series and other stories. The Return of Hawk Carse was written by Harry Bates alone.

The Complete Hawk Carse has 16 illustrations.

Files:

1. Gilmore-CompleteHawkCarse.epub

Excerpt: Hawk Carse

Chapter I

The Swoop of the Hawk

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 tremendous commerce between Earth, Vulcan, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter. But, little of his fascinating character may be gleaned from the dry words of history; and it is Hawk Carse the adventurer, he of the spitting ray-gun and the phenomenal draw, of the reckless space ship maneuverings, of the queer bangs of flaxen hair that from a certain year hid his forehead, of the score of blood feuds and the one great feud that jarred nations in its final terrible settling—it is with that man we are concerned here.

A number of his exploits never recorded are still among the favorite yarns spun by lonely outlanders in the scattered trading posts of the planets, and among them is that of his final encounter with Judd the Kite. It shows typically the cold deadliness, the prompt repaying of a blood debt, the nerveless daring that were the outstanding qualities of this almost legendary figure.

It began one crisp, early morning on Iapetus, and it ended on Iapetus, with the streaks of ray-guns searing the air; and it explains why there are two square mounds of soil on Iapetus, eighth satellite of Saturn.

CARSE pioneered Iapetus and considered its product his by right of prior exploration. One or two men had landed there before he came to the frontiers of space and reported the satellite habitable, possessed of gravital force only slightly under Earth’s, despite its twelve-hundred-mile diameter, and of an atmosphere merely a trifle rarer; but they had gone no further. They had noticed the forms of certain strange animals flitting through the satellite’s jungles, but had not investigated. It was Carse who captured one of the creatures and saw the commercial possibilities of the pointed seven-inch horn that grew on its head, and who named it phanti, after the now extinct Venusian bird-mammal.

“There were great herds of them, and they constituted Iapetus’ highest form of life. The space trader cut off a few of their opalescent and green-veined horns and sent them as samples to Earth; and, upon their being valued highly, he two months later established his ranch on Iapetus, and thus laid the foundation for the grim business that men sometimes call the Exploit of the Hawk and the Kite.

No doubt Carse expected trouble over the ranch. To protect the valuable twice-yearly harvest of horn from Ku Sui’s several bands of pirates, and other semi-piratical traders who roamed space, he built a formidable ranch-house with generators for powerful offensive rays and a strong defensive ray-web, and manned it with six competent men. Moreover, he came personally twice a year to transport the cargo of horn, and let it be known throughout the frontiers that the sign of the Hawk was on that portion of Iapetus, and that all who trespassed would have to answer to him. This should have been, ordinarily, enough. But there was always the sinister, brilliant Dr. Ku Sui, plotting against him and his belongings, and reckless others to whom the ranch might look like easy pickings. From these Carse had long anticipated a raid on Iapetus.

AND NOW he was worried. Clad as usual in a faded blue tunic, open at the neck, soft blue trousers and old-fashioned rubber soled shoes, he showed it by pulling occasionally at the bangs of flaxen hair that had been trained to hang down his forehead to the thick, straw-colored eyebrows. In his new cruiser, the Star Devil, he was within an hour’s time of Iapetus, which lay before the bow observation ports of the control cabin like a giant buff-tinted orange, dark-splotched by seas and jungles, on the third of his semi-annual voyages for the harvest of horn. Away to the left, scintillating and flaming in the blackness of space, whirled Saturn, his rings clear-cut and brilliant, his hard light filling the control cabin. Carse was staring unseeingly at the magnificent spectacle when the giant negro standing nearby at the space-stick rumbled:

“Well, suh, Ah cain’t think they’s anything wrong—no, suh. They’s nobody’d dare touch that ranch! No, suh—not Hawk Carse’s ranch.”

This was “Friday,” the herculean black Earthling whom Carse had rescued years before from one of the Venusian slave-ships, and now a member of that strange trio of totally dissimilar comrades, the third of whom was Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow, now absent and at work in his secret laboratory. Friday thought the Hawk just about the greatest man in the Solar System, and many times already had he given proof of his devotion.

Carse looked full at him. “You’re a good mechanic, Eclipse,” he said, “but in some ways very innocent. Crane hasn’t replied to us for seventy minutes. He knows we’re coming and he should be on duty. That cargo’s valuable, and it’s all ready and packed.”

“Hmff,” Friday grunted. “But who you think’d dare try an’ swipe it when we’re so close? One o’ Ku Sui’s gang, maybe?”

“Perhaps. I haven’t heard anything of Ku Sui for some time, and he’s never more dangerous than when he keeps silent,” said the Hawk thoughtfully. “But Crane might be sick. Or his radio might have broken down temporarily. Still—”

It was then that the third man in the cabin, Harkness, the navigator, straightened abruptly and put a sharp end to the trader’s last word by calling out:

“Radio, sir!”

A  RED dot of light was winking on a switchboard. Friday watched the Hawk move in his quick, effortless way to it and pull a lever down, all in the same motion, and then the negro’s neck muscles corded as he listened to the sounds that came, choking and barely intelligible, from a loudspeaker:

“Carse—Hawk Carse—Crane speaking from the ranch. We’re besieged—pirate ship—outnumbered—can’t hold out much longer. We got most of the cargo inside here, but our generators—they’re weakening—and I’m fading, I guess, and the others that’re left are wounded. Carse—hurry—hurry….”

Excerpt From: Anthony Gilmore. “The Complete Hawk Carse.”