Galactic Patrol

by E.E. "Doc" Smith

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E.E. "Doc" Smith - Galactic Patrol

E.E. "DOC" SMITH

GALACTIC PATROL

BOOK 3 OF THE LENSMEN CHRONICLES

Serialized in Astounding Stories, September 1937-February 1938
First book edition: Fantasy Press, 1950

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Graduation
2. In Command
3. In The Lifeboats
4. Escape
5. Worsel To The Rescue
6. Delgonian Hypnotism
7. The Passing Of The Overlords
8. The Quarry Strikes Back
9. Breakdown
10. Trenco
11. Grand Base
12. Kinnison Brings Home The Bacon
13. Maulers Afloat
14. Unattached
15. The Decoy
16. Kinnison Meets The Wheelmen
17. Nothing Serious At All
18. Advanced Training
19. Judge, Jury, And Executioner
20. Mac Is A Bone Of Contention
21. The Second Line
22. Preparing For The Test
23. Tregonsee Turns Zwilnik
24. Kinnison Bores From Within

1. GRADUATION

Dominating twice a hundred square miles of campus, parade-ground, Airport, and
spaceport, a ninety-story edifice of chromium and glass sparkled dazzlingly in
the bright sunlight of a June morning. This monumental pile was Wentworth Hall,
in which the Tellurian candidates for the Lens of the Galactic Patrol live and
move and have their being. One wing of its topmost floor seethed with tense
activity, for that wing was the habitat of the lordly FiveYear Men, this was
Graduation Day, and in a few minutes Class Five was due to report in Room A.

Room A, the private office of the Commandant himself, the dreadful lair into
which an undergraduate was summoned only to disappear from the Hall and from
the Cadet Corps, the portentous chamber into which each year the handful of
graduates marched and from which they emerged, each man in some subtle fashion
changed.

In their cubicles of steel the graduates scanned each other narrowly, making
sure that no wrinkle or speck of dust marred the space-black and silver
perfection of the dress uniform of the Patrol, that not even the tiniest spot
of tarnish or dullness violated the glittering golden meteors upon their
collars or the resplendently polished ray-pistols and other equipment at their
belts. The microscopic mutual inspection over, the kitboxes were snapped shut
and racked, and the embryonic Lensmen made their way out into the assembly hall.

In the wardroom Kimball Kinnison, Captain of the Class by virtue of graduating
at its head, and his three lieutenants, Clifford Maitland, Raoul LaForge, and
Widel Holmberg, had inspected each other minutely and were now simply awaiting,
in everincreasing tension, the zero minute.

"Now, fellows, remember that drop!" the young Captain jerked out. "We're
dropping the shaft free, at higher velocity and in tighter formation than any
class ever tried before. If anybody hashes the formation--our last show and with
the whole Corps looking on..."

"Don't worry about the drop, Kim," advised Maitland. "All three platoons will
take that like clockwork. What's got me all of a dither is what is really going
to happen in Room A."

"Uh-huh!" exclaimed LaForge and Holmberg as one, and... "You can play that
across the board for the whole Class," Kinnison agreed. "Well, we'll soon
know--it's time to get going," and the four officers stepped out into the
assembly hall, the Class springing to attention at their approach.

Kinnison, now all brisk Captain, stared along the mathematically exact lines
and snapped.

"Report!"

"Class Five present in full, sir!" The sergeant-major touched a stud at his
belt and all vast Wentworth Hall fairly trembled under the impact of an all-
pervading, lilting, throbbing melody as the world's finest military band
crashed into "Our Patrol."

"Squads left--March!" Although no possible human voice could have been heard in
that gale of soul-stirring sound and although Kinnison's lips scarcely moved,
his command was carried to the very bones of those for whom it was intended--and
to no one else--by the tight-beam ultra-communicators strapped upon their
chests.

"Close formation--forward--March!"

In perfect alignment and cadence the little column marched down the hall. In
their path yawned the shaft--a vertical pit some twenty feet square extending
from main floor to roof of the Hall, more than a thousand sheer feet of
unobstructed air, cleared now of all traffic by flaring red lights. Five left
heels clicked sharply, simultaneously upon the lip of the stupendous abyss.
Five right legs swept out into emptiness. Five right hands snapped to belts and
five bodies, rigidly erect, arrowed downward at such an appalling velocity that
to unpractised vision they simply vanished.

Six-tenths of a second later, precisely upon a beat of the stirring march,
those ten heels struck the main floor of Wentworth Hall, but not with a click.
Dropping with a velocity of almost two thousand feet per second though they
were at the instant of impact, yet those five husky bodies came from full speed
to an instantaneous, shockless, effortless halt at contact, for the drop had
been made under complete neutralization of inertia--"free," in space parlance.
Inertia restored, the march was resumed--or rather continued--in perfect time
with the band. Five left feet swung out, and as the right toes left the floor
the second rank, with only bare inches to spare, plunged down into the space
its predecessor had occupied a moment before.

Rank after rank landed and marched away with machinelike precision. The dread
door of Room A opened automatically at the approach of the cadets and closed
behind them.

"Column right--March!" Kinnison commanded inaudibly, and the Class obeyed in
clockwork perfection. "Column left--March! Squad right--March! Company--Halt!
Salute!"

In company front, in a huge, square room devoid of furniture, the Class faced
the Ogre--Lieutenant-Marshal Fritz von Hohendorff, Commandant of Cadets.
Martinet, tyrant, dictator--he was known throughout the System as the embodiment
of soullessness, and, insofar as he had ever been known to show emotion or
feeling before any undergraduate, he seemed to glory in his repute of being the
most pitilessly rigid disciplinarian that Earth had ever known. His thick,
white hair was roached fiercely upward into a stiff pompadour. His left eye was
artificial and his face bore dozens of tiny, threadlike scars, for not even the
marvelous plastic surgery of that age could repair entirely the ravages of
space-combat. Also, his right leg and left arm, although practically normal to
all outward seeming, were in reality largely products of science and art
instead of nature.

Kinnison faced, then, this reconstructed potentate, saluted crisply, and
snapped. "Sir, Class Five reports to the Commandant." "Take your post, sir."
The veteran saluted as punctiliously, and as he did so a semi-circular desk
rose around him from the floor--a desk whose most striking feature was an
intricate mechanism surrounding a splint-like form. "Number One, Kimball
Kinnison!" von Hohendorff barked. "Front and center--March!... The oath, sir."

"Before the Omnipotent Witness I promise never to lower the standard of the
Galactic Patrol," Kinnison said reverently, and, baring his arm, thrust it into
the hollow form.

From a small container labelled "#1, Kimball Kinnison," the Commandant shook
out what was apparently an ornament--a lenticular jewel fabricated of hundreds
of tiny, dead-white gems. Taking it up with a pair of insulated forceps he
touched it momentarily to the bronzed skin of the arm before him, and at that
fleeting contact a flash as of many-colored fire swept over the stones.
Satisfied, he dropped the jewel into a recess provided for it in the mechanism,
which at once burst into activity.

The forearm was wrapped in thick insulation, molds and shields snapped into
place, and there flared out an instantly-suppressed flash of brilliance
intolerable. Then the molds fell apart, the insulation was removed, and there
was revealed the LENS. Clasped to Kinnison's brawny wrist by a bracelet of
imperishable, almost unbreakable, metal in which it was imbedded it shone in
all its lambent splendor--no longer a whitely inert piece of jewelry, but a
lenticular polychrome of writhing, almost fluid radiance which proclaimed to
all observers in symbols of ever-changing flame that here was a Lensman of the
GALACTIC PATROL.

In similar fashion each man of the Class was invested with the symbol of his
rank. Then the stern-faced Commandant touched a button and from the bare metal
floor there arose deeply-upholstered chairs, one for each graduate.

"Fall out," he commanded, then smiled almost boyishly--the first intimation any
of the Class ever had that the hard-boiled old tyrant could smile--and went on
in a strangely altered voice.

"Sit down men, and smoke up. We have an hour in which to talk things over, and
now I can tell you what it is all about. Each of you will find his favorite
refreshment in the arm of his chair.

"No, there's no catch to it," he continued in answer to amazedly doubtful
stares, and lighted a huge black cigar of Venerian tobacco as he spoke. "You
are Lensmen now. Of course you have yet to go through the formalities of
Commencement, but they don't count. Each of you really graduated when his Lens
came to life.

"We know your individual preferences, and each of you has his favorite weed,
from Tilotson' s Pittsburgh stogies up to Snowden's Alsakanite cigarettes--even
though Alsakan is just about as far away from here as a planet can be and still
lie within the galaxy.

"We also know that you are all immune to the lure of noxious drugs. If you
were not, you would not be here today. So smoke up and break up--ask any
questions you care to, and I will try to answer them. Nothing is barred now
this room is shielded against any spy-ray or communicator beam operable upon
any known frequency."

There war a brief and rather uncomfortable silence, then Kinnison suggested,
diffidently.

"Might it not be best, sir, to tell us all about it, from the ground up? I
imagine that most of us are in too much of a daze to ask intelligent questions."

"Perhaps. While some of you undoubtedly have your suspicions, I will begin by
telling you what is behind what you have been put through during the last five,
yearn. Feel perfectly free to break in with questions at any time. You know
that every year one million eighteen-year-old boys of Earth are chosen as
cadets by competitive examinations. You know that during the first year, before
any of them see Wentworth Hall, that number shrinks to less than fifty
thousand. You know that by Graduation Day there are only approximately one
hundred left in the class. Now I am allowed to tell you that you graduates are
those who have come with flying colors through the most brutally rigid, the
moat fiendishly thorough process of elimination that it has been possible to
develop.

"Every than who can be made to reveal any real weakness is dropped. Most of
these are dismissed from the Patrol. There are many splendid men, however, who,
for some reason not involving moral turpitude, are not quite what a Lensman
must be. These men make up our organization, from grease-monkeys up to the
highest commissioned officers below the rank of Lensman. This explains what you
already know--that the Galactic Patrol is the finest body of intelligent beings
yet to serve under one banner.

"Of the million who started, you few are left. As must every being who has
ever worn or who ever will wear the Lens, each of you has proven repeatedly, to
the cold verge of death itself, that he is in every respect worthy to wear it.
For instance, Kinnison here once had a highly adventurous interview with a lady
of Aldebaran II and her friends. He did not know that we knew all about it, but
we did

Kinnison's very ears burned scarlet, but the Commandant went imperturbably on.

"So it was with Voelker and the hypnotist of Karalon, with LaForge and the
bentlam-eaters, with Flewelling when the Ganymede-Venus thionite smugglers
tried to bribe him with ten million in gold...

"Good Heavens, Commandant!" broke in one outraged youth. "Do you--did you--know
everything that happened?"

"Not quite everything, perhaps, but it is my business to know enough. No man
who can be cracked has ever worn, or ever will wear, the . Lens.. And none of
you need be ashamed, for you have passed every test. Those who did not pass
them were those who were dropped.

"Nor is it any disgrace to have been dismissed from the Cadet Corps. The
million who started with you were the pick of the planet, yet we knew in
advance that of that selected million scarcely one in ten thousand would
measure up in every essential. Therefore it would be manifestly unfair to
stigmatize the rest of them because they were not born with that extra
something, that ultimate quality of fiber which does, and of necessity must,
characterize the wearers of the Lens. For that reason not even the man himself
knows why he was dismissed, and no one save those who wear the Lens knows why
they were selected--and a Lensman does not talk.

"It is necessary to consider the history and background of the Patrol in order
to bring out clearly the necessity for such care in the selection of its
personnel. You are all familiar with it, but probably very few of you have
thought of it in that connection. The Patrol is of course an outgrowth of the
old Planetary Police systems, and, until its development, law enforcement
always lagged behind law violation. Thus, in the old days following the
invention of the automobile, state troopers could not cross state lines. Then
when the National Police finally took charge, they could not follow the rocket-
equipped criminals across the national boundaries.

"Still later, when interplanetary flight became a commonplace, the Planetary
Police were at the same old disadvantage. They had no authority off their own
worlds, while the public enemies flitted unhampered from planet to planet. And
finally, with the invention of the inertialess drive and the consequent traffic
between theworlds of many solar systems, crime became so rampant, so utterly
uncontrollable, that it threatened the very foundations of Civilization. A man
could perpetrate any crime imaginable without fear of consequences, for in an
hour he could be so far away from the scene as to be completely beyond the
reach of the law.

"And helping powerfully toward utter chaos were the new vices which were
spreading from world to world, among others the taking of new and horrible
drugs. Thionite, for instance, occurring only upon Trenco, a drug as much
deadlier than heroin as that compound is than coffee, and which even now
commands such a fabulous price than a man can carry a fortune in one hollow
boot-heel.

"Thus the Triplanetary Patrol and the Galactic Patrol came into being. The
first was a pitiful enough organization. It was handicapped from without by
politics and politicians, and honey-combed from within by the usual small but
utterly poisonous percentage of the unfit--grafters, corruptionists, bribe-
takers, and out-and-out criminals. It was hampered by the fact that there was
then no emblem or credential which could not be counterfeited--no one could tell
with certainty that the man in uniform was a Patrolman and not a criminal in
disguise.

"As everyone knows, Virgil Samms, then Head of the Triplanetary Patrol, became
First Lensman Samms and founded our Galactic Patrol. The Lens, which, being
proof against counterfeiting or even imitation, makes identification of Lensmen
automatic and positive, was what made our Patrol possible. Having the Lens, it
was easy to weed out the few unfit. Standards of entrance were raised ever
higher, and when it had been proved beyond 'question that every Lensman was in
fact incorruptible, the Galactic Council was given more and ever more
authority. More and ever more solar systems, having developed Lensmen of their
own, voted to join Civilization and sought representation on the Galactic
Council, even though such a course meant giving up much of their systemic
sovereignty.

"Now the power of the Council and its Patrol is practically absolute. Our
armament and equipment are the ultimate, we can follow the law-breaker wherever
he may go. Furthermore, any Lensman can commandeer any material or assistance,
wherever and whenever required, upon any planet of any solar system adherent to
Civilization, and the Lens is so respected throughout the galaxy that any
wearer of it may be called upon at any time to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Wherever he goes, upon, in, or through any land, water, air, or apace anywhere
within the confines of our Island Universe, his word is LAW.

"That explains what you have been forced to undergo. The only excuse for its
severity is that it produces results--no wearer of the Lens has ever disgraced
it.

"Now as to the Lens itself. Like every one else, you have known of it ever
since you could talk, but you know nothing of its origin or its nature. Now
that you are Lensmen, I can tell you what little I know about it. Questions?"

"We have all wondered about the Lens, sir, of course," Maitland ventured. "The
outlaws apparently keep up with us in science. I have always supposed that what
science can build, science can duplicate. Surely more than one Lens has fallen
into the hands of the outlaws?"

"If it had been a scientific invention or discovery it would have been
duplicated long ago," the Commandant made surprising answer. "It is, however,
not essentially scientific in nature. It is almost entirely philosophical, and
was developed for us by the Arisians.

"Yes, each of you was sent to Arisia quite recently," von Hohendorff went on,
as the newly commissioned officers stared, dumbfounded, at him and at each
other. "What did you think of them, Murphy?"

"At first, sir, I thought that they were some new kind of dragon, but dragons
with brains that you could actually feel. I was glad to get away, sir. They
fairly gave me the creeps, even though I never did see one of them so much as
move.,,

"They are a peculiar race," the Commandant went on. "Instead of being
mankind's worst enemies, as is generally believed, they are the sine qua non of
our Patrol and of Civilization. I cannot understand them, I do not know of
anyone who can. They gave us the Lens, yet Lensmen must not reveal that fact to
any others. They make a Lens to fit each candidate, yet no two candidates,
apparently, have ever seen the same things there, nor is it believed that
anyone has ever seen them as they really are. To all except Lensmen they seem
to be completely anti-social, and even those who become Lensmen go to Arisia
only once in their lives. They seem--although I caution you that this seeming
may contain no more of reality than the physical shapes you thought you saw-- to
be supremely, indifferent to all material things.

"For more generations than you can understand they have devoted themselves to
thinking, mainly of the essence of life. They say that they know scarcely
anything fundamental concerning it, but even so they know more about it than
does any other known race. While ordinarily they will have no intercourse
whatever with outsiders, they did consent to help the Patrol, for the good of
all intelligence.

"Thus, each being about to graduate into Lensmanship is sent to Arisia, where
a Lens is built to match his individual life force. While no mind other than
that of an Arisian can understand its operation, thinking of your Lens as being
synchronized with, or in exact resonance with, your own vital principle or ego
will give you a rough idea of it. The Lens is not really alive, as we
understand the term. It is, however, endowed with a sort of pseudo-life, by
virtue of which it gives off its strong, characteristically changing light as
long as it is in metal-to-flesh circuit with the living mentality for which it
was designed. Also by virtue of that pseudo-life, it acts as a telepath through
which you may converse with other intelligences, even though they may possess
no organs of speech or of hearing.

"The Lens cannot be removed by anyone except its wearer without dismemberment,
it glows as long as its rightful owner wears it, it ceases to glow in the
instant of its owner's death and disintegrates shortly thereafter. Also--and
here is the thing that renders completely impossible the impersonation of a
Lensman--not only does the Lens not glow if worn by an importer, but if a
Lensman be taken alive and his Lens removed, that Lens kills in a apace of
seconds any living being who attempts to wear it. As long as it glows--as long
as it is in circuit with its living owner--it is harmless, but in the dark
condition its pseudo-life interferes so strongly with any life to which it is
not attuned that that life is destroyed forthwith."

A brief silence fell, during which the young men absorbed the stunning import
of what their Commandant had been saying. More, there was striking into each
young consciousness a realization of the stark heroism of the grand old Lensman
before them, a man of such fiber that although physically incapacitated and
long past the retirement age, he had conquered his human emotions sufficiently
to accept deliberately his ogre's role because in that way he could best
further the progress of his Patron

"I have scarcely broken the ground," von Hohendorff continued. "I have merely
given you an introduction to your new status. During the next few weeks, before
you are assigned to duty, other officers will make clear to you the many things
about which you are still in the dark. Our time is growing short, but we
perhaps have time for one more question."

"Not a question, sir, but something more important," Kinnison spoke up. "I
speak for the Class when I say that we have misjudged you grievously, and we
wish to apologize.""I thank you sincerely for the thought, although it is
unnecessary. You could not have thought otherwise of me than as you did. It is
not a pleasant task that we old men have, that of weeding out those who do not
measure up. But We are too old for active duty in space--we no longer have the
instantaneous nervous responses that are for that duty imperative--so we do what
we can. However, the work has its brighter side, since each year there are
about a hundred found worthy of the Lens. This, my one hour with the graduates,
more than makes up for the year that precedes it, and the other oldsters have
somewhat similar compensations.

"In conclusion, you are now able to understand what kind of mentalities fill
our ranks. You know that any creature wearing the Lens is in every sense a
Lensman, whether he be human or, hailing from some strange and distant planet,
a monstrosity of a shape you have as yet not even imagined. Whatever his form,
you may rest assured that he has been tested even as you have been, that he is
as worthy of trust as are you yourselves. My last word is this--Lensmen die, but
they do not fold up, individuals come and go, but the Galactic Patrol goes on!"

Then, again all martinet.

"Class Five, attention!" he barked. "Report upon the stage of the main
auditorium!"

The Class, again a rigidly military unit, marched out of Room A and down the
long corridor toward the great theater in which, before the massed Cadet Corps
and a throng of civilians, they were formally to be graduated.

And as they marched along the graduates realized in what way the wearers of
the Lens who emerged from Room A were different from the candidates who had
entered. it such a short time before. They had gone in as boys, nervous,
apprehensive, and still somewhat unsure of themselves, in spite of their
survival through the five long years of grueling tests which now lay behind
them They emerged from Room A as men, men knowing for the first time the real
meaning of the physical and mental tortures they had undergone, men able to
wield justly the vast powers whose scope and scale they could even now but
dimly comprehend.



2. IN COMMAND

Barely a month after his graduation, even before he had entirely completed the
postgraduate tours of duty mentioned by von Hohendorff, Kinnison was summoned
to Prime Base by no less a personage than Port Admiral Haynes himself. There,
in the Admiral's private aero, whose flaring lights cut a right-of-way through
the swarming traffic, the novice and the veteran flew slowly over the vast
establishment of the Base.

Shops and factories, city-like barracks, landing-fields stretching beyond the
far horizon, flying craft ranging from tiny one-man helicopters through small
and large scouts, patrol-ships and cruisers up to the immense, globular
superdreadnaughts of space--all these were observed and commented upon. Finally
the aero landed beside a long, comparatively low building--a structure heavily
guarded, inside Base although it was--within which Kinnison saw a thing that
fairly snatched away his breath.

A space-ship it was--but what a ship! In bulk it was vastly larger even than
the superdreadnaughts of the Patrol, but, unlike them, it was .in shape a
perfect teardrop, streamlined to the ultimate possible degree.

"What do you think of her?" the Port Admiral asked.

'Think of her!" The young officer gulped twice before he attained coherence.
"I can't put it in words, sir, but some day, if I live long enough and develop
enough force, I hope to command a ship like that."

"Sooner than you think, Kinnison," Haynes told him, flatly. "You are in
command of her beginning tomorrow morning"

"Huh? Me?" Kinnison exclaimed, but sobered quickly. "Oh, I see, sir. It takes
ten years of proved accomplishment to rate command of a first-class vessel, and
I have no rating at all. You have already intimated that this ship is
experimental. There is, then, something about her that is new and untried, and
so dangerous that you do not want to risk an experienced commander in her. I am
to give her a work-out, and if I can bring her back in one piece I turn her
over to her real captain. But that's all right with me, Port Admiral--thanks a
lot for picking me out. What a chance--What a chance!" and Kinnison's eyes
gleamed at the prospect of even a brief command of such a creation.

"Right--and wrong," the old Admiral made surprising answer. "It is true that
she is new, untried, and dangerous, so much so that we are unwilling to give
her to any of our present captains. No, she is not really new, either. Rather,
her basic idea is so old that it has been abandoned for centuries. She uses
explosives, of a type that cannot be tried out fully except in actual combat.
Her primary weapon is what we have called the 'Q-gun'. The propellant is
heptadetonite, the shell carries a charge of twenty metric tons of
duodecaplylatomate."

'But, sir..." Kinnison began.

"Just a minute, I'll go into that later. While your premises were correct,
your conclusion is not. You graduated Number One, and in every respect save
experience you are as well qualified to command as is any captain of, the
Fleet, and since the Brittania is such a radical departure from any
conventional type, battle experience is not a prerequisite. Therefore if she
holds together through one engagement she is yours for good. In other words, to
make up for the possibility of having yourself scattered all over space, you
have a chance to win that ten years' rating you mentioned a minute ago, all in
one trip. Fair enough?"

"Fair? It's fine--wonderful! And thanks a..."

"Never mind the thanks until you get back. You were about to comment, I
believe, upon the impossibility of using explosives against a free opponent?"

"It can't be impossible, of course, since the Brittania has

been built. I just don't quite see how it could have been made effective."

"You lock to the pirate with tractors, screen to screen--about ten kilometers.
You blast a hole through his screens to his wall-shield. The muzzle of the Q-
gun mounts as annular multiplex projector which puts out a Q-type tube of
force--Q47SM9, to be exact. As you can see from the type formula, this helix
extends the gun-barrel from ship to ship and confines the propellent gases
behind the projectile, where they belong. When the shell strikes the wall-
shield of the pirate and detonates, something will have to give wayall the
Brains agree that twenty tons of duodec, attaining a temperature of about forty
million degrees absolute in less than one micro- second, simply cannot be
confined.

"The tube and tractors, being pure force and computed for this particular
combination of explosions, will hold, and our physicists have calculated that
the tenkilometer column of inert propellent gases will offer so much inertia
and resistance that any possible wall-shield will have to go down. That is the
point that cannot be tried out experimentally--it is quite within the bounds of
possibility that the pirates may have been able to develop wall-screens as
powerful as our Q-type helices, even though we have not.

"It should not be necessary to point out to you that if they have been able to
develop a wall-shield that will stand up under those conditions, the back-blast
through the breech of the Q-gun will blow the Brittania apart as though she
were so much matchwood. That is only one of the chances--and perhaps not the
greatest one--that you and your crew will have to take. They are all volunteers,
by the way, and will get plenty of extra rating if they come through alive. Do
you want the job?"

"You don't have to ask me that, Chief--you know I want it!"

"Of course, but I had to go through the formality of asking, sometime. But to
get on with the discussion, this pirate situation is entirely out of control,
as you already know. We doe t even know whether Boskone is a reality, a
figurehead, a symbol, or simply a figment of an old-time Lensman's imagination.
But whoever or whatever Boskone really is, some being or some group of beings
has perfected a mighty efficient organization of outlaws, so efficient that we
haven't even been able to locate their main base.

"And you may as well know now a fact that is not yet public property-- that
even conveyed vessels are no longer safe. The pirates have developed ships of a
new and extraordinary type, ships that are much faster than our heavy
battleships, and yet vastly more heavily armed than our fast cruisers. Thus,
they can outfight any Patrol vessel that can catch them, and can out-run
anything of ours armed heavily enough to stand up against their beams."

"That accounts for the recent heavy losses," Kinnison mused.

"Yes," Haynes went on, grimly. "Ship after ship of our best has been blasted
out of the ether, doomed before it pointed a beam, and more will be. We cannot
force an engagement on our terms, we must fight them where and when they please.

"That is the present intolerable situation. We must learn what the pirates'
new power-system is. Our scientists say that it may be anything, from cosmic-
energy receptors and converters down to a controlled space-warp--whatever that
may be. Anyway, they haven't been able to duplicate it, so it is up to us to
find out what it is. The Brittania is the tool our engineers have designed to
get that information. She is the fastest thing in space, developing at full
blast an inert acceleration of ten gravities. Figure out for yourself what
velocity that means free in open space!"

"You have just said that we can't have everything in one ship," Kinnison said,
thoughtfully. "What did they sacrifice to get that speed?"

"All the conventional offensive armament," Haynes replied frankly. "She has no
long-range beams at all, and only enough short-range stuff to help drive the Q-
helix through the enemy's screens. Practically her only offense is the Qgun.
But she has plenty of defensive screens, she has speed enough to catch anything
afloat, and she has the Q-gun--which we hope will be enough.

"Now well go over the general plan of action. The engineers will go into all
the technical details with you, during a test flight that will last as long as
you like. When you and your crew'are thoroughly familiar with every phase of
her operation, bring the engineers back here to Base and go out on patrol.

"Now we'll go over the general plan of action. Then engineers will go into all
the technical details with you, during a test flight that will last as long as
you like. When you and your crew are thoroughly familiar with every phase of
her operation, bring the engineers back here to Base and go out on patrol.

"Somewhere in the galaxy you will find a pirate vessel of the new type. You
lock to him, as I said before. You attach the Q-gun well forward, being sure
that the point of attachment is far enough away from the power-rooms so that
the essential mechanisms will not be destroyed. You board and storm-- another
revival of the technique of older time. Specialists in your crew, who will have
done nothing much up to that time, will then find out what our scientists want
to know. If at all possible they will send it in instantly via tight-beam
communicator. If for any reason it should be impossible for them to
communicate, the whole thing is again up to you."

The Port Admiral paused, his eyes boring into those of the younger man, then
went on impressively.

"That information MUST get back to Base. If it does not, the Brittania is a
failure, we will be back right where we started from, the slaughter of our men
and the destruction of our ships will continue unchecked. As to how you are to
do it we cannot give even general instructions. All I can say is that you have
the most important assignment in the Universe today, and repeat--that
information MUST GET BACK TO BASE. Now come aboard and meet your crew and the
engineers."

Under the expert tutelage of the designers and builders of the Brittania
Lieutenant Kinnison drove her hither and thither through the trackless wastes
of the galaxy. Inert and free, under every possible degree of power he
maneuvered her, attacking imaginary foes and actual meteorites with equal zeal.
Maneuvered and attacked until he and his ship were one, until he reacted
automatically to her slightest demand until he and every man of his eager and
highly trained crew knew to the final volt and to the ultimate ampere her
gargantuan capacity both to give it and to take it.

Then and only then did he return to Base, unload the engineers, and set out
upon the quest. Trail after trail he followed, but all were cold. Alarm after
alarm he answered, but always he arrived too late, arrived to find gutted
merchantman and riddled Patrol vessel, with no life in either and with nothing
to indicate in which direction the marauders might have gone.

Finally, however.

"QBT! Calling QBT!" The Britannia's code call blared from the sealed-band
speaker, and a string of numbers followed--the spatial coordinates of the
luckless vessel's position.

Chief Pilot Henry Henderson punched the figures upon his locator, and in the
"tank"--the enormous, minutely cubed model of the galaxy--there appeared a redly
brilliant point of light. Kinnison rocketed out of his narrow bunk, digging
sleep out of his eyes, and shot himself into place beside the pilot.

"Right in our laps!" he exulted. "Scarcely ten light-years away! Start
scrambling the ether(" and as the vengeful cruiser darted toward the scene of
depredation all space became filled with blast after blast of static
interference through which, it was hoped, the pirate could not summon the help
he was so soon to need.

But that howling static gave the pirate commander pause. Surely this was
something new? Before him lay a richlyladen freighter, its two convoying ships
already practically out of action. A few more minutes and the prize would be
his. Nevertheless he darted away, swept the ether with his detectors, saw the
Britannia, and turned in headlong flight. For if this streamlined fighter was
sufficiently convinced of its prowess to try to blanket the ether against hint,
that information was something that Boskone would value far above one shipload
of material wealth.

But the pirate craft was now upon the visiplates of the Britannia, and,
entirely ignoring the crippled space-ships, Henderson flung his vessel after
the other. Manipulating his incredibly complex controls purely by touch, the
while staring into his plate not only with his eyes, but with every fiber of
his being as well, he hurled his huge mount hither

and thither in frantic leaps. After what seemed an age he snapped down a
toggle switch and relaxed long enough to grin at Kinnison.

"Holding 'em?" the young commander demanded.

"Got 'em, Skipper," the pilot replied, positively. "It was touch and go for
ninety seconds, but I've got a CRX tracer on him now at full pull. He cant put
out enough jets to get away from that--I can hold him forever!"

"Fine work, Hen!" Kinnison strapped himself into his seat and donned his
headset. "General call! Attention! Battle stations! By stations, report!"

"Station One, tractor beams--hot!"

"Station Two, repellors--hot!"

"Station Three, projector One--hot!"

Thus station after station of the warship of the void reported, until.

"Station Fifty-Eight, the Q-gun--hot!" Kinnison himself reported, then gave to
the pilot the words which throughout the spaceways of the galaxy had come to
mean complete readiness to face any emergency.

"Hot and tight, Hen--let's take 'em!"

The pilot shoved his blast-lever, already almost at maximum, clear out against
its atop and hunched himself even more intently over his instruments, varying
by infinitesimals the direction of the thrust that was driving the Britannia
toward the enemy at the unimaginable velocity of ninety parsecs an hour--a
velocity possible only to inertialess matter being urged through an almost
perfect vacuum by a driving blast capable of lifting the stupendous normal
tonnage of the immense sky-rover against a gravity ten times that of her native
Earth.

Unimaginable? Completely so--the ship of the Galactic Patrol was hurling
herself through space at a pace in comparison with which any speed that the
mind can grasp would be the merest crawl, a pace to make light itself seem
stationary.

Ordinary vision would have been useless, but the observers of that day used no
antiquated optical systems. Their detector beams, converted into light only at
their plates, were heterodyned upon and were carried by subetheral ultra-waves,
vibrations residing far below the level of the ether and thus possessing a
velocity and a range infinitely greater than those of any possible ether-borne
wave.

Although stars moved across the visiplates in flaming, zig-zag lines of light
as pursued and pursuer passed solar system after solar system in fantastic,
light-years-long hops, yet Henderson kept his cruiser upon the pirate's tail
and steadily cut down the distance between them. Soon a tractor beam licked out
from the Patrol ship, touched the fleeing marauder lightly, and the two space-
ships flashed toward each other.

Nor was the enemy unprepared for combat. One of the crack raiders of Boskone,
master pirate of the known Universe, she had never before found difficulty in
conquering any vessel fleet enough to catch her. Therefore, her commander made
no attempt to cut the beans. Or rather, since the two inertialess vessels
flashed together to repellor-zone contact in such a minute fraction of a second
that any human action within that time was impossible, it would be more correct
to say that the pirate captain changed his tactics instantly from those of
flight to those of combat.

He thrust out tractor beams of his own, and from the already white-hot
refractors throats of his projectors there raved out horribly potent beams of
annihilation, beams of dreadful power which tore madly at the straining
defensive screens of the Patrol ship. Screens flared vividly, radiating all the
colors of the spectrum. Space itself seemed a rainbow gone mad, for there were
being exerted there forces of a magnitude to stagger the imagination, forces to
be yielded only by the atomic might from which they sprang, forces whose
neutralization set up visible strains in the very fabric of the ether itself.

The young commander clenched his fists and swore a startled deep-space oath as
red lights flashed and alarmbells clanged. His screens were leaking like
sieves--practically down--needle after needle of force incredible stabbing at
and
through his wall-shield--four stations gone already and more going l

"Scrap the plan!" he yelled into his microphone. "Open everything to absolute
top--short out all resistors--give 'em everything you can put through the bare
bus-bars. Dalhousie, cut all your repellors, bung us right up to their zone.
All you beamers, concentrate on Area Five. Break down those screens!' Kinnison
was hunched rigidly over his panel, his voice came grittily through locked
teeth. "Get through to that wallshield so I can use this Q-gun!"

Under the redoubled force of the Britannia's attack the defenses of the enemy
began to fail. Kinnison's hands flew over his controls. A port opened in the
Patrol-ship's armored side and an ugly snout protruded--the projector-ringed
muzzle of a squat and monstrous cannon. From its projector bands there leaped
out with the velocity of light a tube of quasi-solid force which was in effect
a continuation of the gun's grim barrel, a tube which crashed through the
weakened third screen of the enemy with a spacewracking shock and struck
savagely, with writhing, twisting thrusts, at the second. Aided by the massed
concentration of the Britannia's every battery of short-range beams, it went
through. And through the first. Now it struck the very wall-shield of the
outlaw--that impregnable screen which, designed to bear the brunt of any
possible inert collision, had never been pierced or ruptured by any material
substance, however applied.

To this inner defense the immaterial gun-barrel clung. Simultaneously the
tractor beams, hitherto exerting only a few dynes of force, stiffened into
unbreakable, inflexible rods of energy, binding the two ships of apace into one
rigid system, each, relative to the other, immovable.

Then Kinnison's flying finger tip touched a button and the Q-gun spoke. From
its sullen throat there erupted a huge torpedo. Slowly the giant projectile
crept along, watched in awe and amazement by the officers of both vessels. For
to those spacehardened veterans the velocity of light was a veritable crawl,
and here was a thing that would require four or five whole seconds to cover a
mere ten kilometers of distance[

But, although slow, this bomb weight prove dangerous, therefore the pirate
commander threw his every resource into attempts to cut the tube of force, to
blast away from the tractor beams, to explode the sluggish missile before it
could reach his wall-shield. In vain, for the Britannia's every beam was set to
protect the torpedo and the mighty rods of energy without whose grip the
inertialess mass of the enemy vessel would offer no resistance whatever to the
force of the proposed explosion.

Slowly, so slowly, as the age-long seconds crawled into eternity, there
extended from Patrol ship almost to pirate wall a raging, white-hot pillar-- the
gases of combustion of the propellant heptadetonite--ahead of which there rushed
the Q-gun's tremendous shell with its horridly destructive freight. What would
happen? Could even the almost immeasurable force of that frightful charge of
atomic explosive break down a wall-shield designed to withstand the cosmic
assaults of meteoric missiles? And what would happen if that wall-screen held?

In spite of himself Kinnison's mind insisted upon painting the ghastly
picture, the awful explosion, the pirate's screen still intact, the forward-
rushing gases driven backward along the tube of force. The bare metal of the Q-
gun's breech, he knew, was not and could not be reenforced by the infinitely
stronger, although immaterial shields of pure energy which protected the hull,
and no conceivable substance, however resistant, could impede save momentarily
the unimaginable forces about to be unleashed.

Nor would there be time to release the Q-tube after the explosion but before
the Brittania's own destruction, for if the enemy's shield stayed up for even a
fraction of a second the unthinkable pressure of the blast would propagate
backward through the already densely compressed gases in the tube, would sweep
away as though it were nothing the immensely thick metallic barrier of the gun-
breech, and would wreak within the bowels of the Patrol vessel a destruction
even more complete than that intended for the foe.

Nor were his men in better case. Each knew that this was the climactic instant
of his existence, that life itself hung poised upon the issue of the next split
second. Hurry it up! Snap into it! Will that crawling, creeping thing never
strike?

Some prayed briefly, some swore bitterly, but prayers and curses were alike
unconscious and had precisely the same meaning--each--each man, white of face
and
grim of jaw, clenched his hands and waited, tense and straining, for the impact.



3. IN THE LIFEBOATS

The missile struck, and in the instant of its striking the coldly brilliant
stars were blotted from sight in a vast globe of intolerable flame. The
pirate's shield had failed, and under the cataclysmic force of that horrific
detonation the entire nose-section of the enemy vessel had flashed into
incandescent vapor and had added itself to the rapidly expanding cloud of fire.
As it expanded the cloud cooled. Its fierce glare subsided to a rosy glow,
through which the stars again began to shine. It faded, cooled,
darkened--revealing the crippled hulk of the pirate ship. She was still
fighting, but ineffectually, now that all her heavy forward batteries were gone.

"Needlers, fire at will!" barked Kinnison, and even that feeble resistance was
ended. Keen-eyed needle-ray men, working at spy-ray visiplates, bored hole
after hole into the captive, seeking out and destroying the control- panels of
the remaining beams and screens.

"Pull 'er up!" came the next order. The two ships of space flashed together,
the yawning, blasted-open fore-end of the raider solidly against the
Brittania's armored side. A great port opened.

"Now, Bus, it's all yours. Classification to six places, straight A's-- they're
human or approximately so. Board and storm!"

Back of that port there had been massed a hundred fighting men, dressed in
full panoply of space armor, armed with the deadliest weapons known to the
science of the age, and powered by the gigantic accumulators of their ship. At
their head was Sergeant vanBuskirk, six and a half feet of Dutch Valerian
dynamite, who had fallen out of Valerian Cadet Corps only because of an innate
inability to master the intricacies of higher mathematics. Now the attackers
swept forward in a black-and-silver wave.

Four squatly massive semi-portable projectors crashed down upon their magnetic
clamps and in the fierce ardor of their beams the thick bulkhead before them
ran the gamut of the spectrum and puffed outward. Some score of defenders were
revealed, likewise clad in armor, and battle again was joined. Explosive and
solid bullets detonated against and ricocheted from that highly efficient
armor, the beams of DeLameter hand-projectors splashed in torrents of man-made
lightning off its protective fields of force. But that skirmish was soon over.
The semi-portables, whose vast energies no ordinary personal armor could
withstand, were brought up and clamped down, and in their holocaust of
vibratory destruction all life vanished from the pirates' compartment.

"One more bulkhead and we're in their control room!" vanBuskirk cried. Beam it
down!" But when the beamers pressed their switches nothing happened. The
pirates had managed to jury-rig a screen generator, and with it had cut the
power-beams behind the invading forces. Also they had cut loop-holes in the
bulkhead, through which in frantic haste they were trying to bring heavy
projectors of their own into alignment. "Bring up the ferral paste," the
sergeant commanded. "Get up as close to that wall as you can, so they can't
blast us!"

The paste--successor to thermite--was brought up and the giant Dutchman troweled
it on in furious swings, from floor up and around in a huge arc and back down
to floor. He fired it, and simultaneously some of the enemy gunners managed to
angle a projector sharply enough to reach the further ranks of the Patrolmen.
Then mingled the flashing, scintillating, gassy glare of the thermite and the
raving energy of the pirates' beam to make of that confined space a veritable
inferno.

But the paste had done its work, and as the semi-circle of wall fell out the
soldiers of the Lens leaped through the hole in the still-glowing wall to
struggle handtohand against the pirates, now making a desperate last stand. The
semi-portables and other heavy ordnance powered from the Brittania were of
course useless. Pistols were ineffective against the pirates' armor of hard
alloy, hand-rays were equally impotent against its defensive shields. Now heavy
hand-grenades began to rain down among the combatants, blowing Patrolmen and
pirates alike to bits--for the outlaw chiefs cared nothing that they killed many
of their own men if in so doing they could take toll of the Law. And worse, a
crew of gunners was swiveling a mighty projector around upon its hastily-
improvised mount to cover that sector of the compartment in which the policemen
were most densely massed.

But the minions of the Law had one remaining weapon, carried expressly for
this eventuality. The space-axe--a combination and sublimation of battle-axe,
mace, bludgeon, and lumberman's picaroon, a massively needle-pointed implement
of potentialities limited only by the physical strength and bodily agility of
its wielder. Now all the men of the Britannia's storming party were Valerians,
and therefore were big, hard, fast, and agile, and of them all their sergeant
leader was the biggest, hardest, fastest, and most agile. When the space-
tempered apex of that thirty-pound monstrosity, driven by the four-hundred-odd
pounds of rawhide and whalebone that was his body, struck pirate armor that
armor gave way. Nor did it matter whether or not that hellish beak of steel
struck a vital part after crashing through the armor. Head or body, leg or arm,
the net result was the same, a man does not fight effectively when he is
breathing space in lieu of atmosphere.

VanBuskirk perceived the danger to his men in the slowly turning projector and
for the first time called his chief. "Kim," he spoke in level tones into his
microphone. "Blast that delta-ray, will you?...Or have they cut this beam, so
you can't hear me?... Guess they have." "They've cut our communication," he
informed his troopers then. "Keep them off me as much as you can and I'll
attend to that delta-ray outfit myself."

Aided by the massed interference of his men he plunged toward the threatening
mechanism, hewing to right and to left as he strode. Beside the temporary
projectormount at last, he aimed a tremendous blow at the man at the deltaray
controls, only to feel the axe flash instantaneously to its mark and strike it
with a gentle push, and to see his Intended victim float effortless away from
the blow. The pirate commander had played his last card, vanBuskirk floundered,
not only weightless, but inertialess as well!

But the huge Dutchman's mind, while not mathematical, was even faster than his
muscles, and not for nothing had he spent arduous weeks in inertialess tests of
strength and skill. Hooking feet and legs around a convenient wheel he seized
the enemy operator and jammed his helmeted head down between the base of the
mount and the long, heavy steel lever by means of which it was turned. Then,
throwing every ounce of his wonderful body into the effort, he braced both feet
against the projector's grim barrel and heaved. The helmet flew apart like an
eggshell, blood and brains gushed out in nauseous blobs, but the delta-ray
projector was so jammed that it would not soon again become a threat.

Then vanBuskirk drew himself across the room toward the main control panel of
the warship. Officer after officer he pushed aside, then reversed two double-
throw switches, restoring gravity and inertia to the riddled cruiser.

In the meantime the tide of battle had continued in favor of the Patrol. Few
survivors though there were of the black-and-silver force, of the pirates there
were still fewer, fighting now a desperate and hopeless defensive. But in this
combat quarter was not, could not be thought of, and Sergeant vanBuskirk again
waded into the fray. Four times more his horribly effective hybrid weapon
descended like the hammer of Thor, cleaving and crushing its way through steel
and flesh and bone. Then, striding to the control board, he manipulated
switches and dials, then again spoke evenly to Kinnison.

"You can hear me now, can't you?... All mopped up--come and get the dope!"

The specialists, headed by Master Technician LaVerne Thorndyke, had been
waiting strainingly for that word for minutes. Now they literally flew at their
tasks, in furious haste, but following rigidly and in perfect coordination a
prearranged schedule. Every control and lead, every busbar and immaterial beam
of force was traced and checked. Instruments and machines were dismantled,
sealed mechanisms were ruthlessly torn apart by jacks or sliced open with
cutting beams. And everywhere, every thing and every movement was being
photographed, charted, and diagramed.

"Getting the idea now, Kim," Thorndyke said finally, during a brief lull in
his work. "A sweet system... * * . "Look at this!" a mechanic interrupted.
"Here's a machine that's all shot to hell!"

The shielding cover had been torn from a. monstrous fabrication of metal,
apparently a motor or 'generator of an exceedingly complex type. The insulation
of its coils and windings had fallen away in charred fragments, its copper had
melted down in sluggish, viscous streams.

"That's what we're looking for!" Thorndyke shouted. "Check those leads! Alpha!"

"Seven-three-nine-four!" and the minutely careful study went on until.

"That's enough, we've got everything we need now. Have you draftsmen and
photographers got everything down solid?"

"On the boards!" and "In the cans!" rapped out the two reports as one.

"Then let's go!"

"And go fast!" Kinnison ordered, briskly. "I'm afraid we're going to run out
of time as it is!"

All hands hurried back into the Brittania, paying no attention to the bodies
littering the decks. So desperate was the emergency, each man knew, that
nothing could be done about the dead, whether friend or foe. Every resource of
mechanism, of brain and of brawn, must needs be strained to the utmost if they
themselves were not soon to be in similar case.

"Can you talk, Nels?" demanded Kinnison of his Communications Officer, even
before the air-lock had closed.

"No, sir, they're blanketing us solid," that worthy replied instantly.
"Space's so full of static you couldn't drive a power-beam through it, let
alone a communicator. Couldn't talk direct, anyway--look where we are," and he
pointed out in the tank their present location.

"Hm-m-m. Couldn't have got much farther away without jumping the galaxy
entirely. Boskone got a warning, either from that ship back there or from the
disturbance. They're undoubtedly concentrating on us now... One of them will
spear us with a tractor, just as sure as hell's a man-trap... '

The fledgling commander rammed both hands into his pockets and thought in
black intensity. He must get this data back to Base--but how? HOW? Henderson was
already driving the vessel back toward Sol with every iota of her inconceivable
top speed, but it was out of the question even to hope that she would ever get
there. The life of the Brittania was now, he was coldly certain, to be measured
in hours--and all too scant measure, even of them. For there must be hundreds of
pirate vessels even now tearing through the void, forming a gigantic net to cut
off her return to Base. Fast though she was, one of that barricading horde
would certainly manage to clamp on a tractor--and when that happened her flight
was done.

Nor could she fight. She had conquered one first-class war-vessel of the
public enemy, it was true, but at what awful cost! One fresh vessel could blast
his crippled mount out of space, nor would there be only one. Within a space of
minutes after the attachment of a tracer the Brittania would be surrounded by
the cream of Boskone a fighters. There was only one chance, and slowly,
thoughtfully, and finally grimly, young Lieutenant Kinnison--now and briefly
Captain Kinnison--decided to take it.

"Listen, everybody!" he ordered. "We must get this information back to Base,
and we can't do it in the Brittania. The pirates are bound to catch us, and our
chance in an

other fight is exactly zero. We'll have to abandon ship and take to the
lifeboats, in the hope that at least one will be able to get through.

"The technicians and specialists will take all the data they, got--
information, descriptions, diagrams, pictures, everything--boil it down, and put
it on a spool of tape.

They will make about a hundred copies of it. The crew and the Valerian
privates will man boats starting with Number Twenty One and blast off as soon
as you can get your tapes. Once away, use very little detectable power, or
better yet no power at all, until you're sure the pirates have chased the
Brittania a good many parsecs away from where you are.

"The rest of us--specialist and the Valerian non-coms--will go last. Twenty
boats, two men to a boat, and each man will have a spool. We'll start launching
when we're as far as it's safe to go. Each boat will be strictly on its own. Do
it any way you can, but some way, any way, get your spool back to Base. There's
no use in me trying to impress you with the importance of this stuff, you know
what it means as well as I do.

"Boatmates will be drawn by lot. The quartermaster will write all our
names--and his own, to make it forty even--on slips of paper and draw them out
of
a helmet two at a time. If two navigators, such as Henderson and I, are drawn
together, both names go back into the pot. Get to work!"

Twice the name of "Kinnison" came out together with that of another skilled in
astronautics and was replaced. The third time, however, it came out paired with
"vanBuskirk," to the manifest joy of the giant Valerian and to the approval of
the crowd as well.

"That was a break for me, Kim!" the sergeant called, over the cheers of his
fellows. "I'm sure of getting back now!"

"That's throwing the off, big fellow--but I don't know of anybody I'd rather
have at my back than you," Kinnison replied, with a boyish grin.

The pairings were made, DeLameters, spare batteries, and other equipment were
checked and tested, the spools of tape were sealed in their corrosion-proof
containers and distributed, and Kinnison sat talking with the Master Technician.

"So they've solved the problem of the really efficient reception and
conversion of cosmic radiation!" Kinnison whistled softly through his teeth.
"And a sun--even a small one--radiates the energy given off by the annihilation
of one-to-several million tone of matter. per second! SOME power!"

"That's the story, Skipper, and it explains completely why their ships have
been so much superior to ours. They could have installed faster drives even
than the Brittania's--they probably will, now that it has become necessary.
Also, if the bus-bars in that receptor-convertor had been a few square
centimeters larger in cross-section, they could have held their wall- shield,
even against our duodec bomb. Then what?... They had plenty of intake, but not
quite enough distribution."

"Whey have atomic motors, the same as ours, just as big and just as
efficient," Kinnison cogitated. "But those motors are all we have got, while
they use them, and at full power, too, simply as first-stage exciters for the
cosmic-energy screens. Blinding blue blazes, what power! Some of us have got to
get back, Verne. If we don't, Boskone's got the whole galaxy by the tail, and
civilization is sunk without a trace."

"I'll say so, but also I'll say this for those of us who doe t get back-- it
won't be for lack of trying. Well, better I go check my boat. If I don't see
you again, Kim old man, clear ether!"

They shook hands briefly and Thorndyke strode away. Enroute, however, he
paused beside the quartermaster and signaled to him to disconnect his
communicator.

"Clever lad, Allerdyce!" Thorndyke whispered, with a grin. "Kinds loaded the
dice a trifle once or twice, didn't you? I don't think anybody but me smelled a
rat, though. Certainly neither the skipper nor Henderson did, or you'd've had
it to do over again."

"At least one team has got to get through," Allerdyce replied, quietly and
obliquely, "and the strongest teams we can muster will find the going none too
easy. Any team made up of strength and weakness is a weak team. Kinnison, our
only Lensman, is of course the best man aboard this buzz-buggy. Who would you
pick for number two?"

"VanBuskirk, of course, the same as you did. I wasn't criticizing you, man, I
was complimenting you, and thanking you, in a roundabout way, for giving me
Henderson.

He's got plenty of what it takes, too."

"It wasn't vanBuskirk, of course, by any means," the quartermaster rejoined.
"It's mighty hard to figure either you or Henderson third, to say nothing of
fourth, in any kind of company, however fast-mentally and physically. However,
it seemed to me that you fitted in better with the pilot. I could hand-pick
only two teams without getting caught at it--you spotted me as it was--but I
think I picked the two strongest teams possible. One of you will get through--if
none of you four can make it, nobody could."

"Well, here's hoping, anyway. Thanks again. See you again some time,
maybe--clear ether!"

Chief Pilot Henderson had, a few minutes since, changed the course of the
cruiser from right-line flight to fantastic, zig-zag leaps through space, and
now he turned frowningly to Kinnison.

"We'd better begin dumping them out pretty soon now, I think," be suggested.
"We haven't detected anything yet, but according to the figures it won't be
long now, and after they get their traps set we'll run out of time mighty
quick."

"Right," and one after another, but even so several light-years apart in
space, eighteen of the small boats were launched into the void. In the control
room there were left only Henderson and Thorndyke with vanBuskirk and Kinnison,
who were of course to be the last to leave the vessel.

"All right, Hen, now we'll try out your roulette-wheel director-by- chance,"
Kinnison said, then went on, in answer to Thorndyke's questioning glance. "A
bouncing ball on an oscillating table. Every time the ball carroms off a pin it
shifts the course through a fairly large, but unpredictable angle. Pure
chance--we thought it might cross them up a little."

Hairline beams were connected from panels to pins, and soon four interested
spectators looked on while, with no human guidance, the Brittania lurched and
leaped even more erratically than she had done under Henderson's direction.
Now, however, the ever-changing vectors of her course were as unexpected and
surprising to her passengers as to any possible external observer.

One more lifeboat left the vessel, and only the Lensman and his giant aide
remained. While they were waiting the required few minutes before their own
departure, Kinnison spoke.

"Bus, there's one more thing we ought to do, and I've just figured out how to
do it. We don't want this ship to fall into the pirates' hands intact, as
there's a lot of stuff in her that would probably be as new to them as it was
to us. They know we got the best of that ship of theirs, but they don't know
what we did or how. On the other hand, we want her to drive on as long as
possible after we leave her--the farther away fron2 us she gets, the better our
chance of getting away. We should have something to touch off those duodec
torpedoes we have left--all seven at once--at the first touch of a spy beam,
both
to keep them from studying her and to do a little damage if possible--they'll go
inert and pull her up close as soon as they get a tracer on her. Of course we
can't do it by stopping the spy-ray altogether, with a spyscreen, but I think I
can establish an R7TX7M field outside our regular screens that will interfere
with a TX7 just enough--say one-tenth of one percent--to actuate a relay in the
field-supporting beam."

"One-tenth of one percent of one milliwatt is one microwatt, isn't it? Not
much power, I'd say, but that's a little out of my line. Go ahead--IM observe
while you're busy."

Thus it came about that, a few minutes later, the immense sky-rover of the
Galactic Patrol darted along entirely untenanted. And it was her non-human
helmsman, operating solely by chance, that prolonged the chase far more than
even the most optimistic member of her crew could have hoped. For the pilots of
the pirate pursuers were Intelligent,.and assumed that their quarry also was
directed by intelligence. Therefore they aimed their vessels for points toward
which the Brittania should logically go, only and maddeningly to watch her go
somewhere else. Senselessly she hurled herself directly toward enormous suns,
once grazing one so nearly that the harrying pirates gasped at the
foolhardiness of such exposure to lethal radiation. For no reason at all she
shot straight backward, almost into a cluster of pirate craft, only to dash off
on another unexpected tangent before the startled outlaws could lay a beam
against her.

But finally she did it once too often. Flying between two vessels, she held
her line the merest fraction of a second too long. Two tractors lashed out and
the three vessels flashed together, zone to zone to zone. Then, instantly, the
two pirate ships became inert, to anchor in apace their wildly fleeing prey.
Then spy-beams licked out, to explore the Brittania's interior.

At the touch of those beams, light and delicate as they were, the relay
clicked and the torpedoes let go. Those frightful shells were so designed and
so charged that one of them could demolish any inert structure known to man,
what of seven? There was an explosion to stagger the imagination and which must
be left to the imagination, since no words in any language of the galaxy can
describe it adequately.

The Brittania, literally blown to bits, more-than-half fused and partially
volatilized by the inconceivable fury of the outburst, was hurled in all
directions in streamers, droplets, chunks, and masses, each component part
urged away from the center of pressure by the ragingly compressed gases of
detonation. Furthermore, each component was now of course inert and therefore
capable of giving up its full measure of kinetic energy to any inert object
with which it should come in contact.

One mass of wreckage, so fiercely sped that its victim had time neither to
dodge nor become inertialess, crashed full against the side of the nearer
attacker. Meteorite screens flared brilliantly violet and went down. The full-
driven wall-shield held, but so terrific was the concussion that what few of
the crew were not killed outright would take no interest in current events for
many hours to come.

The other, slightly more distant attacker was more fortunate. Her commander
had had time to render her inertialess, and as she rode lightly away, ahead of
the outermost, most tenuous fringe of vapor, he reported succinctly to his
headquarters all that had transpired. There was a brief interlude of silence,
then a speaker gave tongue.

"Helmuth, speaking for Boskone," snapped from it. "Your report is neither
complete nor conclusive. Find, study, photograph, and bring in to headquarters
every fragment and particle pertaining to the wreckage, paying particular
attention to all bodies or portions thereof."

"Helmuth, speaking for Boskone!" roared from the general-wave unscrambler.
"Commanders of all vessels, of every class and tonnage, upon whatever mission
bound, attention! The vessel referred to in our previous message has been
destroyed, but it is feared that some or all of her personnel were allowed to
escape. Every unit of that personnel must be killed before he has opportunity
to communicate with any Patrol base. Therefore cancel your present orders,
whatever they may be, and proceed at maximum blast to the region previously
designated. Scour that entire volume of space. Beam out of existence every
vessel whose papers do not account unquestionably for every intelligent being
aboard. Investigate every possible avenue of escape. More detailed orders will
be given each of you upon your nearer approach to the neighborhood under
search."



4. ESCAPE

Space-suited complete except for helmets, and with those ready to hand,
Kinnison and vanBuskirk sat in the tiny control room of their lifeboat as it
drifted inert through interstellar apace. Kinnison was poring over charts taken
from the Brittania's pilot room, the sergeant was gazing idly into a detector
plate.

"No clear ether yet, I don't suppose," the captain remarked, as he rolled up a
chart and tossed it aside.

"No let-up for a second, they're not taking any chances at all. Found out
where we are? Alsakan ought to be hereabouts somewhere, hadn't it?"

"Yeah. Not close, though, even for a ship--out of the question for us. Nothing
much inhabited around here, either, to say nothing of being civilized. Scarcely
one to the block. Don't think I've ever been out here before, have you?"

"0ff my beat entirely. How long do you figure it'll be before it's safe for us
to blast off?"

"Can't start blasting until your plates are clear. Anything we can detect can
detect us as soon as we start putting out power."

"We may be in for a spell of waiting, then..." VanBuskirk broke off suddenly
and his tone changed to one of tense excitement. "Help, Noshabkeming, help!
Look at that I"

"Blinding blue blazes!" Kinnison exclaimed, staring into the plate. "With all
macro-universal space and all eternity to play around in, why in all space's
hells did she have to come back here and now?"

For there, right in their laps, not a hundred miles away, lay the Brittania
and her two pirate captors!

"Better go free,, hadn't we?" whispered vanBuskirk.

"Damn!" Kinnison grunted. "At this range they'd spot us in a split second.
Acting like a hunk of loose metal's our only chance. We'll be able to dodge any
flying chunks, I think... there she goes!"

From their coign of vantage the two Patrolmen saw their gallant ship's
terrific end, saw the one pirate vessel suffer collision with the flying
fragment, saw the other escape inertialess, saw her disappear.

The inert pirate vessel had now almost exactly the same velocity as the
lifeboat, both in speed and in direction, only very slowly were the large craft
and the small approaching each other. Kinnison stood rigid, staring into his
plate, his nervous hands grasping the switches whose closing, at the first sign
of detection. would render them inertialess and would pour full blast into
their driving projectors. But minute after minute passed and nothing happened.

"Why don't they do something?" he burst out, finally. "They know we're
here--there isn't a detector made that could be badly enough out of order to
miss us at this distance. Why, they can see us from there, with no detectors at
all!"

"Asleep, unconscious, or dead," vanBuskirk diagnosed, "and they're not asleep.
Believe me, Kim, that ship was nudged. She must've been hit hard enough to lay
her whole crew out cold...--...and say, she's got a standard emergency inlet
port--how about it, huh?"

Kinnison's mind leaped eagerly at the daring suggestion of his subordinate,
but he did not reply at once. Their first, their only duty, concerned the
safety of two spools of tape. But if the lifeboat lay there inert until the
pirates regained control of their craft, detection and capture were certain.

The same fate was as certain should they attempt flight with all nearby space
so full of enemy fliers. Therefore, hare-brained though it appeared at first
glance, vanBus

kirk's wild idea was actually the safest course!

"All right, Bus, well try it. We'll take a chance on going free and using a
tenth of a dyne of drive for a hundredth of a second. Get into the lock with
your magnets."

The lifeboat flashed against the pirate's armored side and the sergeant, by
deftly manipulating his two small hand-magnets, worked it rapidly along the
steel plating, to

ward the driving jets. There, in the conventional location just forward of the
main driving projectors, was indeed the emergency inlet port, with its Galactic
Standard controls. In a few minutes the two warriors were inside, dashing
toward the control room. There Kinnison glanced at the board and heaved a sigh
of relief.

"Fine! Same type as the one we studied. Same race, too," he went on, eyeing
the motionless forms scattered about the floor. Seizing one of the bodies, he
propped it against a panel thus obscuring a multiple lens.

"That's the eye overlooking the control room," he explained unnecessarily. "We
can't cut their headquarters vial-beams without creating suspicion, but we
don't want them looking around in here until after we've done a little stage-
setting."

"But they'll get suspicious anyway when we go free," vanBuskirk protested.

"Sure, but we'll arrange for that later. First thing we've got to do is to
make sure that all the crew except possibly one or two in here, are really
dead. Don't beam unless you have to, we want to make it look as though
everybody got killed or fatally injured in the crash."

A complete tour of the vessel, with a grim and distasteful accompaniment, was
made. Not all of the pirates were dead, or even disabled, but, unarmored as
they were and taken completely by surprise, the survivors could offer but
little resistance. A cargo port was opened and the Brittania's lifeboat was
drawn inside. Then back to the control room, where Kinnison picked up another
body and strode to the main panels.

'This fellow," he announced, 'was hurt badly, but managed to get to the board.
He threw in the free switch, like this, and then full-blast drive, so. Then he
pulled himself over to the steering globe and tried to lay course back toward
headquarters but couldn't quite make it. He died with the course set right
there. Not exactly toward Sol, you notice

--that would be too much of a coincidence--but close enough to help a lot. His
bracelet got caught in the guard, like this. There is clear evidence as to
exactly what happened. Now we'll get out of range of that eye, and let the body
that's covering it float away naturally."'Now what?' asked vanBuskirk, after
the two had hidden themselves.

"Nothing whatever until we have to," was the reply. "Wish we could go on like
this for a couple of weeks, but no chance. Headquarters will get curious pretty
quick as to why we're shoving off."

Even as he spoke a furious burst of noise erupted from the communicator, a

noise which meant. "Vessel F47U5961 Where are you going, and why? Report!" At
that brusk command one of the still forms struggled weakly to its knees and

tried to frame words, but fell back dead.

"Perfect!" Kinnison breathed into vanBuskirk's ear. "Couldn't have been
better. Now they'll probably take their time about rounding us up... maybe we
can get back to somewhere near Tellus, after all... Listen, here comes some
more." The communicator was again sending. "See if you can get a line on their
transmitter."

"If there are any survivors able to report, do so at once!" Kinnison
understood the dynamic cone to say. Then, the voice moderating as though the
speaker had turned from his microphone to someone nearby, it went on, "No one
answers, sir. This, you know, is the ship that was lying closest to the new
Patrol ship when she exploded, so close that her navigator did not have time to
go free before collision with the debris. The crew were apparently all killed
or incapacitated by the shock."

"If any of the officers survive have them brought in for trial," a more
distant voice commanded. savagely. Boskone has no use for bunglers except to
serve as examples. Have the ship seized and returned here as soon as possible."

"Could you trace it, Bus?" Kinnison demanded. "Even one line on their
headquarters would be mighty useful." "No, it came in scrambled--couldn't
separate it from the rest of the static out

there. Now what?" "Now we eat and sleep. Particularly and most emphatically,
we sleep." "Watches?"

"No need, I'll be awakened in plenty of time if anything happens. My Lens, you
know."

They ate ravenously and slept prodigiously, then ate and slept again. Rested
and refreshed, they studied charts, but vanBuskirk's mind was very evidently
not upon the maps before them.

"You understand that jargon, and it doesn't even sound like a language to me,"
he pondered. "It's the Lens,. of course. Maybe it's something that shouldn't be
talked about?"

"No secret--not among us, at least," Kinnison assured him. 'The Lens receives
as pure thought any pattern of force which represents, or is in any way
connected with, thought. My brain receives this thought in English, since that
is my native language. At the same time my ears are practically out of circuit,
so that I actually hear the English language instead of whatever noise is being
made. I do not hear the foreign sounds at all. Therefore I haven't the
slightest idea what the pirates' language sounds like, since I have never heard
any of it.

"Conversely, when I want to talk to someone who doesn't know any language I
do, I simply think into the Lens and direct its force at him, and he thinks I
am talking to him in his own mother tongue. Thus, you are hearing me now in
perfect Valerian Dutch, even though you know that I can speak only a dozen or
so words of it, and those with a vile American accent. Also, you are hearing it
in my voice, even though you know I am actually not saying a word, since you
can see that my mouth is wide open and that neither my lips, tongue, nor vocal
cords are moving. If you were a Frenchman you would be hearing this in French,
or, if you were a Manarkan and couldn't talk at all, you would be getting it as
regular Manarkan telepathy."

"Oh... I see... I think," the astounded Dutchman gulped. "Then why couldn't
you talk back to them through their phones?"

"Because the Lens, although a mighty fine and versatile thing, is not
omnipotent," Kinnison replied, dryly. "It sends out only thought, and thought-
waves, lying below the level of the ether, cannot affect a microphone. The
microphone, not being itself intelligent, cannot receive thought. Of course I
can broadcast a thought--everybody does, more or less--but without a Lens at the
other end I can't reach very far. Power, they tell me, comes with practice I'm
not so good at it yet."

"You can receive a thought... everybody broadcasts... Then you can read
minds?" vanBuskirk stated, rather than asked.

"When I want to, yes. That was what I was doing while we were mopping up. I
demanded the location of their base from every one of them alive but none of
them knew it. I got a lot of pictures and descriptions of the buildings,
layout, arrangements and personnel of the base, but not a hint as to where it
is in space. The navigators ,.were all dead, and not even the Arisians
understand death. But that's getting pretty deep into philosophy and it's time
to eat again. Lets go!"

Days passed uneventfully, but finally the communicator again began to talk.
Two pirate ships were closing in upon the supposedly derelict vessel,
discussing with each other the exact point of convergence of the three courses.

"I was hoping we'd be able to communicate with Prime Base before they caught
up with us," Kinnison remarked. "But I guess it's no dice--I can't get anybody
on my Lens and the ether's as full of interference as ever. They're a
suspicious bunch, and they aren't going to let us get away with a single thing
if they can help it. You've got that duplicate of their communications
unscrambler built?"

'Yes--that was it you just listened to. I built it out of our own stuff, and
I've gone over the whole ship with a cleaner. There isn't a trace, not even a
finger-print, to show that anybody except her own crew has ever been aboard."

"Good work! This course takes us right through a planetary system in a few
minutes and well have to unload there. Let's see... this chart marks planets
two and three as inhabited, but with a red reference number, eleven twenty-
seven. Um-m-m, that means practically unexplored and unknown. No landing ever
made... no patrol representation or connection... no commerce... state of
civilization unknown... scanned only once, in the Third Galactic Survey, and
that was a hell of a long time ago. Not so good, apparently--but maybe all the
better for us, at that. Anyway, it's a forced landing, so get ready to shove
off."

They boarded their lifeboat, placed it in the cargo-lock, opened the outer
port upon its automatic block, and waited. At their awful galactic speed the
diameter of a solar system would be traversed in such a small fraction of a
second that observation would be impossible, to say nothing of computation.
They would have to act first and compute later.

They flashed into the strange system. A planet loomed terrifying close, at
their frightful velocity almost invisible even upon their ultra-vision plates.
The lifeboat shot out, becoming inert as it passed the screen. The cargo-port
swung shut. Luck had been with them, the planet was scarcely a million miles
away. While vanBuskirk drove toward it, Kinnison made hasty observations.

"Could have been better--but could have been a lot worse," he reported. "This
is planet four. Uninhabited, which is very good. Three, though, is clear over
across the sun, and Two isn't any too close for a space-suit flight--better than
eighty million miles. Easy enough as far as distance goes--we've all made longer
hops in our suits--but we'll be open to detection for about fifteen minutes.
Can't be helped, though... here we are I"

"Going to land her free, huh?" vanBuskirk whistled. "What a chance!"

'It'd be a bigger one to take the time to sand her inert. Her power will
hold--I hope. We'll inert her and match intrinsics with her when we come
back--we'll have more time then."

The lifeboat stopped instantaneously, in a free landing, upon the uninhabited,
desolate, rocky soil of the strange world. Without a word the two men leaped
out, carrying fully packed knapsacks. A portable projector was then dragged out
and its fierce beam directed into the base of the hill beside which they had
come to earth. A cavern was quickly made, and while its glassy walls were still
smoking hot the lifeboat was driven within it. With their DeLameters the two
wayfarers then undercut the hill, so that a great slide of soil and rock
obliterated every sign of the visit. Kinnison and vanBuskirk could find their
vessel again, from their accurately-taken bearings, but, they hoped, no one
else could.

Then, still without a word, the two adventurers flashed upward. The atmosphere
of the planet, tenuous and cold though it was, nevertheless so sorely impeded
their progress that minutes of precious time were required for the driving
projectors of their suits to force them through its thin layer. Eventually,
however, they were in interplanet

ary space and were flying at quadruple the speed of light. Then vanBuskirk
spoke.

"Landing the boat, hiding it, and this trip are the danger spots. Heard
anything yet?"

"No, and I don't believe we will. I think probably we've lost them completely.
Won't know definitely, though, until after they catch the ship, and that won't
be for ten minutes yet. We'll be landed by then."

A world now loomed beneath them, a pleasant, Earthly-appearing world of
scattered clouds, green forests, rolling plains, wooded and snow-capped
mountainranges, and rolling oceans. Here and there were to be seen what looked
like cities, but Kinnison gave them a wide berth, electing to land upon an open
meadow in the shelter of a black and glassy cliff.

"Ah, just in time, they're beginning to talk," Kinnison announced.
"Unimportant stuff yet, opening the ship and so on. I'll relay the talk as
nearly verbatim as possible when it gets interesting." He fell silent, then
went on in a singsong tone, as though he were reciting from memory, which in
effect he was.

"'Captains of ships PQ263 and EQ69B47 calling Helmuth! We have stopped and
have boarded the F47U596. Everything is in order and as deduced and reported by
your observers. Everyone aboard is dead. They did. not all die at the same
time, but they all died from the effects of the collision. There is no trace of
outside interference and all the personnel are accounted for.'

"'Helmuth, speaking for Boskone. Your report is inconclusive. Search the ship
minutely for tracks, prints, scratches. Note any missing supplies or misplaced
items of equipment. Study carefully all mechanisms, particularly converters and
communicators, for signs of tampering or dismantling.'

"Whew!" whistled Kinnison. "They'll find where you took that communicator
apart, Bus, just as sure as hell's a mantrap I" "No, they won't," declared
vanBuskirk as positively. "I did it with rubber-nosed

Pliers, and if I left a scratch or a scar or a print on it I'll eat it, tubes
and all!" A pause. "'We have studied everything most carefully, Oh Helmuth, and
find no trace of tampering or visit'

"Helmuth again. 'Your report is still inconclusive. Whoever did what has been
done is probably a Lensman, and certainly has brains. Give me the present
recorded serial number of all port openings, and the exact number of times you
have opened each port.'

"Ouch!" groaned Kinnison. "If that means what I think it does, all hell's out
for noon. Did you see any numbering recorders on those ports? I didn't--of
course neither of us thought of such a thing. Hold it--here comes some more
stuff.

"'Port-opening recorder serial numbers are as follows'... don't mean a thing
to us... 'we have opened the emergency inlet port once and the starboard main
lock twice. No other port at all.'

"And here's Helmuth again. 'Ah, as I thought. The emergency port was opened
once by outsiders, and the starboard cargo port twice. The Lensman came aboard,
headed the ship toward Sol, took his lifeboat aboard, listened to us, and
departed at his leisure. And this in the very midst of our fleet, the entire
personnel of which was supposed to be looking for him! How supposedly
intelligent spacemen could be guilty of such utter and indefensible
stupidity... ' He's tellin' 'em plenty, Bus, but there's no use repeating it.
The tone can't be reproduced, and it's simply taking the hide right off their
backs... here's some more... 'General broadcast! Ship F47U596 in its supposedly
derelict condition flew from the point of destruction of the Patrol ship, on
course... ' No use quoting, Bus, he's simply giving directions for scouring our
whole line of flight... Fading out--they're going on, or back. This outfit, of
course, is good for only the closest 'kind of close-up work."

"And we're out of the frying pan into the fire, huh?"

"Oh, no, we're a lot better off than we were. We're on a planet and not using
any power they can trace. Also, they've got to cover so much territory that
they can't comb it very fine, and that gives the rest of the fellows a break.
Furthermore..."

A crushing weight descended upon his back, and the Patrolmen found themselves
fighting for their lives. From the bare, supposedly evidently safe rack face of
the cliff there had emerged rope-tentacled monstrosities in a ravenously
attacking swarm. In the savage blasts of DeLameters hundreds of the gargoyle
horde vanished in vivid flares of radiance, but on they came, by thousands and,
it seemed, by millions. Eventually the batteries energizing the projectors
became exhausted. Then flailing coil met shearing steel, fierce-driven parrot
beaks clanged against space-tempered armor, bulbous heads pulped under hard-
swung axes, but not for the fractional second necessary for inertialess flight
could the two win clear. Then Kinnison sent out his SOS.

"A Lensman calling help! A Lensman calling help!" he broadcast with the full
power of mind and Lens, and Immediately a sharp, clear voice poured into his
brain. "Coming, wearer of the Lens! Coming at speed to the cliff of the
Catlats. Hold until I come! I arrive in thirty..."

Thirty what? What possible intelligible relative measure of that unknown and
unknowable concept, Time, can be conveyed by thought alone?

"Keep slugging, Bus!" Kinnison panted. "Help is on the way. A local cop voice
sounds like it could be a woman--will be here in thirty somethings. Don't know
whether it's thirty minutes or thirty days, but we'll still be there."

"Maybe so and maybe not," grunted the Dutchman. "Something's coming besides
help. Look up and see if you see what I think I do."

Kinnison did so. Through the air from the top of the cliff there was hurtling
downward toward them a veritable dragon, a nightmare's horror of hideously
reptilian head, of leathern wings, of viciously fanged jaws, of frightfully
taloned feet, of multiple knotty arms, of long, sinuous, heavily- scaled
serpent's body. In fleeting glimpses through the writhing tentacles of his
opponents Kinnison perceived little by little the full picture of that
unbelievable Monstrosity, and, accustomed as he was to the outlandish denizens
of worlds scarcely known to man, his very senses reeled.



5. WORSEL TO THE RESCUE

As the quasi-reptilian organism descended the cliff- dwellers went mad. Their
attack upon the two Patrolmen, already vicious, became insanely frantic.
Abandoning the gigantic Dutchman entirely, every Catlat within reach threw
himself upon Kinnison and so enwrapped the Lensman's head, arms, and torso that
he could scarcely move a muscle. Then entwining captors and helpless man moved
slowly toward the largest of the openings in the cliff's obsidian face.

Upon that slowly moving mass vanBuskirk hurled himself, deadly space-axe
swinging. But, hew and smite as he would, he could neither free his chief from
the grisly horde enveloping him nor impede measurably that horde's progress
toward its goal. However, he could and did cut away the comparatively few
cables confining Kinnison's legs.

"Clamp a leg-lock around my waist, Kim," he directed, the flashing thought in
no whit interfering with his prodigious axe-play, "and as soon as I get a
chance, before the real tussle comes, I'll couple us together with all the
beltsnaps I can reach--wherever we're going we're going together! Wonder why
they haven't ganged up on me, too, and what that lizard is doing? Been too busy
to look, but thought he'd've been on my back before this."

"He won't be on your back. That's Worsel, 'the lad who answered my call. I
told you his voice was funny? They can't talk or hear--use telepathy, like the
Manarkans. He's cleaning them out in great shape. If you can hold me for three
minutes he'll have the lot of them whipped."

"I can hold you for three minutes against all the vermin between here and
Andromeda,' vanBuskirk declared. "There, I've got four snaps on you."

"Not too tight, Bus," Kinnison cautioned. "Leave enough slack so you can cut
me loose if you have to. Remember that the spools are more important than any
one of us. Once inside that cliff we'll be all washed up--even Worsel can't help
us there--so drop me rather than go in yourself."

"Um," grunted the Dutchman, non-committally. "There, I've tossed my spool out
onto the ground. Tell Worsel that if they get us he's to pick it up and carry
on. We'll go ahead with yours, inside the cliff if necessary."

"I said cut me loose if you can't hold me!" Kinnison snapped, and I meant it.
That's an official order. Remember it!"

"Official order be damned!" snorted vanBuskirk, still plying his ponderous
mace. "Whey won't get you into that hole without breaking me in two, and that
will be a job of breaking in anybody's language. Now shut your pan," he
concluded grimly. "We're here, and I'm going to be too busy, even to think,
very shortly."

He spoke truly. He had already selected his point of resistance, and as he
reached it he thrust the head of his mace into the crack behind the open trap-
door, jammed its shaft into the shoulder-socket of his armor, set blocky legs
and Herculean arms against the cliffside, arched his mighty back, and held. And
the surprised Catlats, now inside the gloomy fastness of their tunnel, thrust
anchoring tentacles into crevices in the wall and pulled, harder, ever harder.

Under the terrific stress Kinnison's heavy armor creaked as its air-tight
joints accommodated themselves to their new and unusual positions. That armor,
or spacetempered alloy, of course would not give way--but what of its anchor?

Well it was for Kimball Kinnison that day, and well for our present
civilization, that the Brittania's quartermaster had selected Peter vanBuskirk
for the Lensman's mate, for death, inevitable and horrible, resided within that
cliff, and no human frame of Earthly growth, however armored, could have borne
for even a fraction of a second the violence of the Catlats' pull.

But Peter vanBuskirk, although of Earthly-Dutch ancestry, had been born and
reared upon the planet Valeria, and that massive planet's gravity--over two and
one half times Earth's--had given him a physique and a strength almost
inconceivable to us life-long dwellers upon small, green Terra. His head, as
has been said, towered seventyeight inches above the ground, but at that he
appeared squatty because of his enormous spread of shoulder and his startling
girth. His bones were elephantine--they had to be, to furnish adequate support
and leverage for the incredible masses of muscle overlaying and surrounding
them. But even vanBuskirk's Valerian strength was now being taxed to the
uttermost.

The anchoring chains hummed and snarled as the clamps bit into the rings.
Muscles writhed and knotted, tendons stretched and threatened to snap, sweat
rolled down his mighty back. His jaws locked in agony and his eyes started from
their sockets with the effort, but still vanBuskirk held.

"Cut me loose!" commanded Kinnison at last. "Even you can't take much more of
that. No use letting them break your back... Cut, I tell you... I said CUT, you
big, dumb, Valerian ape!"

But if vanBuskirk heard or felt the savagely-voiced commands of his chief he
gave no heed. Straining to the very ultimate fiber of his being, exerting every
iota of loyal mind and every atom of Brobdingnagian frame, grimly, tenaciously,
stubbornly the gigantic Dutchman held.

Held while Worsel of Velantia, that grotesquely hideous, that fantastically
reptilian ally, plowed toward the two Patrolmen through the horde of Catlats, a
veritable tornado of rending fang and shearing talon, of beating wing and
crushing snout of mailed hand and trenchant tail.

Held while that demon incarnate drove closer and closer, hurling entire
Catlats and numberless dismembered fragments of Catlats to the four winds as he
came.

Held until Worsel's snake-like body, a supple and sentient cable of living
steel, tipped with its double-edged, razor-keen, scimitar-like sting, slipped
into the tunnel beside Kinnison and wrought grisly havoc among the Catlats
close-packed there!

As the terrific tension upon him was suddenly released vanBuskirk's own
efforts hurled him away from the cliff. He fell to the ground, his overstrained
muscles twitching uncontrollably, and on top of him fell the fettered Lensman.
Kinnison, his hands now free, unfastened the clamps linking his armor to that
of vanBuskirk and whirled to confront the foe--but the fighting was over. The
Catlats had had enough of Worsel of Velantia, and, screaming and shrieking in
baffled rage, the last of them were disappearing into their caves.

VanBuskirk got shakily to his feet. "Thanks for the help, Worsel, we were just
about to run out of time... ' he began, only to be silenced by an insistent
thought from the grotesquely monstrous stranger.

"Stop that radiating! Do not think at all if you cannot screen your minds!"
came urgent mental commands. "These Catlats are a very minor pest of this
planet Delgon. There are others worse by far. Fortunately, your thoughts are
upon a frequency never used here--if I had not been so very close to you I would
not have heard you at all--but should the Overlords have a listener upon that
band your unshielded thinking may already have done irreparable harm. Follow
me. I will slow my speed to yours, but hurry all possible!"

"You tell 'im, Chief," vanBuskirk said, and fell silent, his mind as nearly a
perfect blank as his iron will could make it.

"This is a screened thought, through my Lens," Kinnison took up the
conversation. "You don't need to slow down on our account--we can develop any
speed you wish. Lead on!"

The Velantian leaped into the air and flashed away in headlong flight. Much to
his surprise the two human beings kept up with him effortlessly upon their
inertialess drives, and after a moment Kinnison directed another thought.

"If time is an object, Worsel, know that my companion and I can carry you
anywhere you wish to go at a speed hundreds of times greater than this that we
are using," he vouchsafed.

It developed that time was of the utmost possible Importance and the three
closed in. Mighty wings folded back, hands and talons gripped armor chains, and
the group, inertialess all, shot away at a pace that Worsel of Velantia had
never imagined even in his wildest dreams of speed. Their goal, a small,
featureless tent of thin sheet metal, occupying a barren spot in a writhing,
crawling expanse of lushly green jungle, was reached in a space of minutes.
Once inside, Worsel sealed the opening and turned to his armored guests.

"We can now think freely in open converse. This wall is the carrier of a
screen through which no thought can make its way."

"This world you call by a name I have interpreted as Delgon," Kinnison began,
slowly. "You are a native of Velantia, a planet now beyond the sun. Therefore I
assumed that you were taking us to your space-ship. Where is that ship?"

"I have no ship," the Velantian replied, composedly, "nor have I need of one.
For the remainder of my life--which is now to be measured in a few of your
hours--this tent is my only...

"No ship!" vanBuskirk broke in. "I hope we won't have to stay on this
Noshabkeming--forgotten planet forever--and I'm not very keen on going much
further in that lifeboat, either."

"We may not have to do either of those things," Kinnison reassured his
sergeant. "Worsel comes of a long-lived tribe, and the fact that he thinks his
enemies are going to get hint in a few hours doesn't make it true, by any
means--there are three of us to reckon with now. Also, when we need a space-ship
we'll get one, if we have to build it. Now, let's find out what this is all
about. Worsel, start at the beginning and don't skip a thing. Between us we can
surely find a way out, for all of us."

Then the Velantian told his story. There was much repetition, much roundabout
thinking, as some of the concepts were so bizarre as to defy transmission, but
finally the Patrolmen had a fairly complete picture of the situation then
obtaining within that strange solar system.

The inhabitants of Delgon were bad, being characterized by a type and a depth
of depravity impossible for a human mind to visualize. Not only were the
Delgonians enemies of the Velantians in the ordinary sense of the word, not
only were they pirates and robbers, not only were they their masters, taking
them both as slaves and as food-cattle, but there was something more, something
deeper and worse, something only partially transmissible from mind to mind--a
horribly and repulsively Saturnalian type of mental and intellectual, as well
as biological, parasitism. This relationship had gone on for ages, and during
those ages rebellion was impossible, as any Velantian capable of leading such a
movement disappeared before he could make any headway at all. Finally, however,
a thought screen had been devised, behind which Velantia developed a high
science of her own. The students of this science lived with but one purpose in
life, to free Velantia from the tyranny of the Overlords of Delgon. Each
student, as be reached the zenith of his mental power, went to Delgon, to study
and if possible to destroy the tyrants. And after disembarking upon the soil of
that dread planet no Velantian, whether student or scientist or private
adventurer, had ever returned to Velantia.

"But why don't you lay a complaint against them before the Council?" demanded
vanBuskirk. "They'd straighten things out in a hurry."

"We have not heretofore known, save by the most unreliable and roundabout
reports, that such an organization as your Galactic. Patrol really exists," the
Velantian replied, obliquely. 'Nevertheless, many years since, we launched a
space-ship toward its nearest reputed base. However, since that trip requires
three normal lifetimes, with deadly peril in every moment, it will be a miracle
if the ship ever completes it. Furthermore, even if the ship should reach its
destination, our complaint will probably not even be considered. because we
have not a single shred of real evidence with which to support it. No living
Velantian has even seen a Delgonian, nor can anyone testify to the truth of
anything I have told you. While we believe that that is the true condition of
affairs, our belief is based, not upon evidence admissible in a court of law,
but upon deductions from occasional thoughts radiated from this planet. Nor
were these thoughts alike in tenor...

"Skip that for a minute--we'll take the picture as correct," Kinnison broke in.
'Nothing you have said so far shows any necessity for you to die in the next
few hours."

"The only object in life for a trained Velantian is to liberate his planet
from the horrors of subjection to Delgon. Many such have come here, but not one
has found a workable idea, not one has either returned to or even communicated
with Velantia after starting work here. I am a Velantian. I am here. Soon I
shall open that door and get in touch with the enemy. Since better men than I
am have failed, I do not expect to succeed. Nor shall I return to my native
planet. As soon as I start to work the Delgonians will command me to come to
them. In spite of myself I will obey that command, and very shortly thereafter
I shall die, in what fashion I do not know."

"Snap out of it, Worsel!" Kinnison ordered, bruskly. "That's the rankest kind
of defeatism, and you know it. Nobody ever got to the first check-station on
that kind of fuel."

"You are talking about something now about which you know nothing whatever."
For the first time Worsel's thoughts showed passion. "Your thoughts are
idle--ignorant--vain. You know nothing whatever of the mental power of the
Delgonians."

"Maybe not--I make no claim to being a mental giant--but I do know that mental
power alone cannot overcome a definitely and positively opposed will. An
Arisian could probably break my will, but I'll stake my life that no other
mentality in the known Universe can do it!"

"You think so, Earthling?" and a seething sphere of mental force encompassed
the Tellurian's brain. Kinnison's senses reeled at the terrific impact, but he
shook off the attack and smiled.

"Come again, Worsel. That one jarred me to the heels, but it didn't quite ring
the bell."

"You flatter me," the Velantian declared in surprise. "I could scarcely touch
your mind--could not penetrate even its outermost defenses, and I exerted all my
force. But that fact gives me hope. My mind is n. course inferior to theirs,
but since I could not influence yea at all, even in direct contact and at full
power, you may .be able to resist the minds of the Delgonians. Are you willing
to hazard the stake you mentioned a moment ago? Or rather, I ask you, by the
Lens you wear, so to hazard it--with the liberty of an entire people dependent
upon the outcome."

"Why not? The spools come first, of course--but without you our spools would
both be buried now inside the cliff of the Catlats. Fix it so your people will
find these spools and carry on with them in case we fail, and I'm your man.
There--now tell me what we're apt to be up against, and then let loose your
dogs."

"That I cannot do. I know only that they will direct against us mental forces
such as you have never even imagined--I cannot forewarn you in any respect
whatever as to what forms those forces may appear to assume. I know, however,
that I shall succumb to the first bolt of force. Therefore bind me with these
chains before I open the shield. Physically I am extremely strong, as you know,
therefore be sure to put on enough chains so that I cannot possibly break free,
for if I can break away I shall undoubtedly kill both of you."

"How come all these things here, ready to hand?" asked vanBuskirk, as the two
Patrolmen so loaded the passive Velantian with chains, manacles, hand- cuffs,
leg-irons and straps that he could not move even his tail.

"It has been tried before, many times," Worsel replied bleakly, 'but the
rescuers, being Velantians, also succumbed to the force and took off the irons.
Now I caution you, with all the power of my mind--no matter what you see, no
matter what I may command you or beg of you, no matter how urgently you
yourself may wish to do so--DO NOT LIBERATE ME UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES unless
and until things appear exactly as they do now and that door is shut. Know
fully and ponder well the fact that if you release me while that door is open
it will be because you have yielded to Delgonian force, and that not only will
all three of us die, lingeringly and horribly, but also and worse, that our
deaths will not have been of any benefit to civilization. Do you understand?
Are you ready?"

"I understand--I am ready," thought Kinnison and vanBuskirk as one. "Open that
door. Kinnison did so. For a few minutes nothing happened. Then three-
dimensional pictures began to form before their eyes--pictures which they knew
existed only in their own minds, yet which were composed of such solid
substance that they obscured from vision everything else in the material world.
At first hazy and indistinct, the scene--for it was in no sense now a picture--
became clear and sharp. And, piling horror upon horror, sound was added to
sight. And directly before their eyes, blotting out completely even the solid
metal of the wall only a few feet distant from them, the two outlanders saw and
heard something which can be represented only vaguely by imagining Dante's
Inferno an actuality and raised to the Nth power!

In a dull and gloomy cavern there lay, sat, and stood hordes of things. These
beings--the "nobility" of Delgon--had reptilian bodies, somewhat similar to
Worsel's, but they had no wings and their heads were distinctly apish rather
than crocodilian. Every greedy eye in the vast throng was fixed upon an
enormous screen which, like that in a motion-picture theater, walled off one
end of the stupendous cavern.

Slowly, shudderingly, Kinnison's mind began to take in what was happening upon
that screen. And it was really happening, Kinnison was sure of that--this was
not a Picture any more than this whole scene was an illusion. It was all an
actuality--somewhere.

Upon that screen there were stretched out victims. Hundreds of these were
Velantians, more hundreds were winged Delgonians, and scores were creatures
whose like Kinnison had never seen. And all these were being tortured, tortured
to death both in fashions known to the Inquisitors of old and in ways of which
even those experts had never an inkling. Some were being twisted outrageously
in three-dimensional frames. Others were being stretched upon racks.

Many were being pulled horribly apart, chains intermittently but relentlessly
extending each helpless member. Still others were being lowered into pits of
constantly increasing temperature or were being attacked by gradually
increasing concentrations of some foully corrosive vapor which ate away their
tissues, little by little. And, apparently the piece de resistance of the
hellish exhibition, one luckless Velantian, in a spot of hard, cold light, was
being pressed out flat against the screen, as an insect might be pressed
between two panes of glass. Thinner and thinner he became under the influence
of some awful, invisible force, in spite of every exertion of inhumanly
powerful muscles driving body, tail, wings, arms, legs, and head in every
frantic maneuver which grim and imminent death could call forth.

Physically nauseated, brain-sick at the atrocious visions blasting his mind
and at the screaming of the damned assailing his ears, Kinnison strove to
wrench his mind away, but was curbed savagely by Worsel.

"You must stay! You must pay attention!" commanded the Velantian. "This is the
first time any living being has seen so much--you must help me novel They have
been attacking me from the first, but, braced by the powerful negatives in your
mind, I have been able to resist and have transmitted a truthful picture so
far. But they are surprised at my resistance and are concentrating more
force... I am slipping fast.... you must brace my minds. And when the picture
changes--as change it must, and soon--do not believe it. Hold fast, brothers of
the Lens, for your own lives and for the people of Velantia. There is more--and
worse!"

Kinnison stayed. So did vanBuskirk, fighting with all his stubborn Dutch mind.
Revolted, outraged, nauseated as they were at the sights and sounds, they
stayed. Flinching with the victims as they were fed into the hoppers of slowly
turning mills, wincing at the unbelievable acts of the boilers, the beaters,
the scourgers, the flayers, suffering themselves every possible and many
apparently impossible nightmares of slow and hideous torture--with clenched
fists and locked teeth, with sweating foreheads over white and straining faces,
Kinnison and vanBuskirk stayed.

The light in the cavern now changed to a strong, greenish-yellow glare, and .
in that hard illumination it was to be seen that each dying being was
surrounded by a palely glowing aura. And now, crowning horror of that
unutterably horrible orgy of Sadism resublimed, from the eyes of each one of
the monstrous audience there leaped out visible beams of force..These beams
touched the auras of the dying prisoners, touched and clung. And as they clung,
the auras shrank and disappeared.

The Overlords of Delgon were actually FEEDING upon the ebbing life-forces of
their tortured, dying victims!



6. DELGONIAN HYPNOTISM

Gradually and so insidiously that the velantian's dire warnings might as well
never have been uttered, the scene changed. Or rather, the scene itself did not
change, but the observers' perception of it slowly underwent such a radical
transformation that it was in no sense the same scene it had been a few minutes
before, and they felt almost abjectly apologetic as they realized how unjust
their previous ideas had been.

For the cavern was not a torture-chamber, as they had supposed. It was in
reality a hospital, and the beings they had thought victims of brutalities
unspeakable were in reality patients undergoing treatments and operations for
various ills. In proof whereof the patients--who should have been dead by this
time were the early ideas well founded--were now being released from the screen-
like operating theater. And not only was each one completely whole and sound in
body, but he was also possessed of a mental clarity, power, and grasp undreamed
of before his hospitalization and treatment by Delgon a super-surgeons!

Also the intruders had misunderstood completely the audience and its behavior.
They were really medical students, and the beams which had seemed to be
devouring rays were simply visibeams, by means of which each student could
follow, in close-up detail, each step of the operation in which be was most
interested. The patients themselves were living, vocal witnesses of the
visitors' mistakenness, for each, as he made his way through the assemblage of
students, was voicing his thanks for the marvelous results of his particular
treatment or operation.

Kinnison now became acutely aware that be himself was in need of immediate
surgical attention. His body, which he had always regarded so highly, he now
perceived to be sadly inefficient, his mind was in even worse shape than his
physique, and both body and mind would be improved immeasurably if he could get
to the Delgonian hospital before the, surgeons departed. In fact, he felt an
almost irresistible urge to rush away toward that hospital, instantly, without
the lose of a single precious second. And, since he had had no reason to doubt
the evidence of his own senses, his conscious mind was not aroused to active
opposition. However, in his--in his subconscious, or his essence, or whatever
you choose to call that ultimate something of file that made him a Lensman--a
"dead slow bell" began to sound.

"Release me and we'll all go, before the surgeons leave the hospital," came an
insistent thought from Worse!. "But hurry--we haven't much time!"

VanBuskirk, completely under the influence of the frantic compulsion, leaped
toward the Velantian, only to ix checked bodily by Kinnison, who was foggily
trying to isolate and identify one thing about the situation that did not ring
quite true.

"Just a minute, Bus--shut that door first!" he commanded.

"Never mind the door!" Worsel's thought came in a roaring crescendo. "Release
me instantly l Hurry l Hurry, or it will be too late, for all of us I"

"All this terrific rush doesn't make any kind of sense at all," Kinnison
declared, closing his mind resolutely to the clamor of the Velantian's
thoughts. "I want to go just as badly as you do, Bus, or maybe more so--but I
can't help feeling that there's something screwy somewhere. Anyway, remember
the last thing Worse! said, and let's shut the door before we unsnap a single
chain."

Then something clicked in the Lensman's mind.

"Hypnotism, through Worsel!" he barked, opposition now aflame. "So gradual
that it never occurred to me to build up a resistance. Holy Klono, what a fool
I've been! Fight 'em, Bus--fight 'em! Don't let 'em kid you any more, and pay no
attention to anything Worse! sends at you I" Whirling around, he leaped toward
the open door of the tent.

But as he leaped his brain was invaded by such a concentration of force that
he fell flat upon the floor, physically out of control. He must not shut the
door. He must release the Velantian. They must go to the Delgonian cavern.
Fully aware now, however, of the source of the waves of compulsion, he threw
the sum total of his mental power into an intense negation and struggled, inch-
wise, toward the opening.

Upon him now, in addition to the Delgonians' compulsion, beat at point- blank
range the full power of Worsel's mighty mind, demanding release and compliance.
Also, and worse, he perceived that some powerful mentality was being exerted to
make vanBuskirk kill him. One blow of the Valerian's ponderous mace would
shatter helmet and skull, and all would be over--once more the Delgonians would
have triumphed. But the stubborn Dutchman, although at the very verge of
surrender, was still fighting. One step forward he would take, bludgeon poised
aloft, only to throw it convulsively backward. Then in spite of himself, he
would go over and pick it up, again to _ step toward his crawling chief.

Again and again vanBuskirk repeated his futile performance while the Lensman
struggled nearer and nearer the door. Finally he reached it and kicked it shut.
Instantly the mental turmoil ceased and the two white and shaking Patrolmen
released the limp, unconscious Velantian from his bonds.

"Wonder what we can do to help him revive?" gasped Kinnison, but his
solicitude was unnecessary--the Velantian recovered consciousness as he spoke.

"Thanks to your wonderful power of resistance, I am alive, unharmed, and know
more of our foes and their methods than any other of my race has ever learned,"
Worsel thought, feelingly. "But it is of no value whatever unless I can send it
back to Valentia. The thought-screen is carried only by the metal of these
walls, and if I make an opening in the wall to think through, however small, it
will now mean death. Of course the science of your Patrol has not perfected an
apparatus to drive thought through such a screen?"

"No. Anyway, it seems to me that we'd better be worrying about something
besides thought-screens," Kinnison suggested. "Surely, now that they know where
we are, they'll be coming out here after us, and we haven't got much of any
defense."

"They don't know where we are, or care..." began the Velantian.

"Why not?" broke in vanBuskirk. "Any spy-ray capable of such scanning as you
showed us--I never saw anything like it before--would certainly be as easy to
trace as an out-and-out atomic blast!"

"I sent out no spy-ray or anything of the kind," Worsel thought, carefully.
"Since our science is so foreign to yours, I am not sure that I can explain
satisfactorily, but I shall try to do so. First, as to what you saw. When that
door is open, no barrier to thought exists. I merely broadcast a thought,
placing myself en rapport with the Delgonian Overlords in their retreat. This
condition established, of course I heard and saw exactly what they heard and
saw--and so, equally of course, did you, since you were also en rapport with me.
That is all."

"That's all!" echoed vanBuskirk. "What a system! You can do a thing like that,
without apparatus of any kind, and yet say 'that's all'!"

"It is results that count," Worsel reminded him gently. "While it is true
that--we have done much--this is the first time in history that any Velantian
has
encountered the mind of a Delgonian Overlord and lived--it is equally true that
it was the will-power of you Patrolmen that made it possible, not my mentality.
Also, it remains true that we cannot leave this room and live."

"Why won't we need weapons?" asked Kinnison, returning to his previous line of
thought.

"Thought-screens are the only defense we will require," Worsel stated
positively, "for they use no weapons except their minds. By mental power alone
they make us come to them, and, once there, their slaves do the rest. Of
course, if my race is ever to rid the planet of them, we must employ offensive
weapons of power. We have such, but we have never been able to use them. For,
in order to locate the enemy, either by telepathy or by spy-ray, we must open
our metallic shields--and the instant we release those screens we are lost. From
those conditions there is no escape," Worsel concluded, hopelessly.

"Don't be such a pessimist," Kinnison commanded. "There's a lot of things not
tried yet. For instance, from what I have seen of your generator equipment and
the pattern of that screen, you don't need a metallic conductor any more than a
snake needs hips. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we're a bit ahead of you there.
If a devil's projector can handle that screen--and I think it can, with special
tuning--vanBuskirk and I can fix things in an hour so that all three of us can
walk out of here in perfect safety--from mental interference, at least. While
we're trying it out, tell us all the new stuff you got on them just now, and
anything else that by any possibility may prove useful. And remember you said
this is the first time any of you had been able to cut them off. That fact
ought to make them sit up and take notice--probably they'll stir around more
than they ever did before. Come on, Bus--let's tear into all"

The deVilbiss projectors were rigged and tuned. Kinnison had been right-- they
worked. Then plan after plan was made, only to be discarded as its weaknesses
were pointed out.

"Whichever way we look there are too many 'Ifs' and 'buts' to suit me,"
Kinnison summed up the situation finally. "If we can find them, and if we can
get up close to them without losing our minds to them, we could clean them out
if we had some power in our accumulators. So I'd say the first thing for us to
do is to get our batteries charged. We saw some cities from the air, and cities
always have power. Lead us to power, Worselalmost any kind of power--and we'll
soon have it in our guns."

"There are cities, yes," Worsel was not at all enthusiastic, "dwelling- places
of the ordinary Delgonians, the people you saw being eaten in the cavern of the
Overlords. As you saw, they resemble us Velantians to a certain extent. Since
they are of a lower culture and are much weaker in life force than we are,
however, the Overlords prefer us to their own slave races.

"To visit any city of Delgon is out of the question. Every inhabitant of every
city is an abject slave and his brain is an open book. Whatever he sees,
whatever he thinks, is communicated instantly to his master. And I now perceive
that I may have misinformed you as to the Overlords' ability to use weapons.
While the situation has never arisen, it is only logical to suppose that as
soon as we are seen by any Delgonian the controllers will order all the
inhabitants of the city to capture us and bring us to them."

"What a guy!" interjected vanBuskirk. '"Did you ever see his top for looking
at the bright side of life?"

"Only in conversation," the Lensman replied. "When the ether gets crowded, you
notice, he's right in there, blasting away and not saying a word. But to get
back to the question of power. I've got only a few minutes of free flight left
in my battery, and with your mass, you must be just about out. Come to think of
it, didn't you land a trifle hard when we sat down here?"

"Fairly--I went into the ground up to my knees."

"I thought so. We've got to get some power, and the nearest city--out of the
question or not--is the best place to get it. Luckily, it isn't far."

VanBuskirk grunted. "As far as I'm concerned it might as well be on Mars,
considering what's between here and there. You can take my batteries and I'll
wait here."

"On your emergency food, water, and air? That's out!"

"What else, then?"

"I can spread my field to cover all three of us," proposed Kinnison. "That
will give us at least one minute of free flight--almost, if not quite, enough to
clear the jungle. They have night here, and, like us, the Delgonians are night-
sleepers. We start at dusk, and tonight we recharge our batteries."

The following hour, during which the huge, hot sun dropped to the horizon, was
spent in intense discussion, but no significant improvement upon the Lensman's
plan could be devised.

"It is time to go," Worsel announced, curling out one extensile eye toward the
vanishing orb. "I have recorded all my findings. Already I have lived longer
and, through you, have accomplished more, than anyone has ever believed
possible. I am ready to die--I should have been dead long since."

"Living on borrowed time's a lot better than not living at all," Kinnison
replied, with a grin. "Link up... Ready?... Got"

He snapped his switches and the close-linked group of three shot into the air
and away. As far as the eye could reach in any direction extended the sentient,
ravenous growth of the jungle, but Kinnison's eyes were not upon that
fantastically inimical green carpet. His whole attention was occupied by two
all-important meters and by the task of so directing their flight as to gain
the greatest possible horizontal distance with the power at his command.

Fifty seconds of flashing flight, then.

"All right, Worsel, get out in front and get ready to pull!" Kinnison snapped.
"Ten seconds of drive left, but I can hold us free for five seconds after my
driver quits. Pull!"

Kinnison's driver expired, its small accumulator completely exhausted, and
Worsel, with his mighty wings, took up the task of propulsion. Inertialess
still, with Kinnison and vanBuskirk grasping his tail, each beat a mile-long
leap, he struggled on. But all too soon the battery powering the neutralizers
also went dead and the three began to plummet downward at a sharper and sharper
angle, in spite of the Velantian's Herculean efforts to keep them aloft.

Some distance ahead of them the green of the jungle ended in a sharply cut
line, beyond which there was a heavy growth of fairly open forest. A couple of
miles of this and there was the city, their objective--so near and yet so far!

"Well either just make the timber or we just won't," Kinnison, mentally
plotting the course, announced dispassionately. "Just as well if we land in the
jungle, I think. It'll break our fall, anyway--hitting solid ground inert at
this speed would be bad."

"If we land in the jungle we will never leave it," Worsel's thought did not
slow the incredible tempo of his prodigious pinions, "but it makes little
difference whether I die now or later."

"It does--to us, you pessimistic croaker!" flared Kinnison. "Forget that dying
complex of yours for a minute! Remember the plan, arid follow itl We're going
to strike the jungle, about ninety or a hundred meters in. If you come in with
us you die at once, and the rest of our scheme is all shot to hell. So when we
let go, you go ahead and land in the woods. We'll join you there, never fear,
our armor will hold long enough for us to cut our way through a hundred meters
of any jungle that ever grew--even this one... Get ready, Bus... Leggo!"

They dropped. Through the lush succulence of close-packed upper leaves and
tentacles they crashed, through the heavier, woodier main branches below,
'through to the ground. And there they fought for their lives, for those
voracious plants nourished themselves not only upon the soil in which their
roots were imbedded, but also upon anything organic unlucky enough to come
within their reach. Flabby but tough tentacles encircled them, ghastly sucking
disks, exuding a potent corrosive, slobbered wetly at their armor, knobbed and
spiky bludgeons whanged against tempered steel as the monstrous organisms began
dimly to realize that these particular tid-bits were encased in something far
more resistant than skin, scales, or bark.

But the Lensman and his giant companion were not quiescent. They came down
oriented and fighting. VanBuskirk, in the van, swung his frightful space-axe as
a reaper swings his scythe--one solid, short step forward with each swing. And
close behind the Valerian strode Kinnison, his own flying axe guarding the
giant's head and back. Forward they pressed, and forward--not the strongest,
toughest stems of that monstrous weed could stay vanBuskirk's Herculean
strength, not the most agile of the striking tendrils and curling tentacles
could gain a manacling hold in the face of Kinnison's flashing speed in cut,
thrust, and slash.

Masses of the obscene vegetation crashed down upon their heads from above,
revoltingly cupped orifices sucking and smacking, and they were showered
continually with floods of the opaque, corrosive sap, to the action of which
even their armor was not entirely immune. But, hampered as they were and almost
blinded, they struggled on, while behind them an ever-lengthening corridor of
demolition marked their progress.

"Ain't we got fun?" grunted the Dutchman, in time with his swing. "But we're
quite a team at that, chief--brains and brawn, huh?"

"Ooh uh," dissented Kinnison, his weapon flying. "Grace and poise, or, if you
want to be really romantic, ham and eggs,..

"Rack and ruin will be more like it if we don't break out before this
confounded goo eats through our armor. But we're making it--the stuff's thinning
out and I think I can see trees up ahead. "

"It is well if you can," came a cold, clear thought from Worsel, "for I am
sorely beset. Hasten or I perish!"

At that thought the two Patrolmen forged ahead in a burst of even more furious
activity. Crashing through the thinning barriers of the jungle's edge, they
wiped their lenses partially clear, glanced quickly about, and saw the
Velantian. That worthy was "sorely beset" indeed. Six animals--huge, reptilian,
but lithe and active--had him down. So helplessly immobile was Worsel that he
could scarcely move his tail, and the monsters were already beginning to gnaw
at his scaly, armored hide.

"I'll put a stop to that, Worsel!" called Kinnison, referring to the fact,
well known to all us moderns, that any real animal, no matter how savage, can
be controlled by any wearer of the Lens. For, no matter how low in the scale of
intelligence the animal is, the Lensman can get in touch with whatever mind the
creature has, and reason with it.

But these monstrosities, as Kinnison learned immediately, were not really
animals. Even though of animal form and mobility, they were purely vegetable in
motivation and behavior, reacting only to the stimuli of food and of
reproduction. Weirdly and completely inimical to all other forms of created
life, they were so utterly noisome, so completely alien that the. full power of
mind and Lens failed entirely to gain rapport.

Upon that confusedly writhing heap the Patrolmen flung themselves, terrible
axes destructively a-swing. In turn they were attacked viciously, but this
battle was not long to endure. VanBuskirk's first terrific blow knocked one
adversary away, almost spinning end over end. Kinnison took out one, the
Dutchman another, and the remaining three were no match at all for the
humiliated and furiously raging Velantian. But it was not until the
monstrosities had been gruesomely carved and torn apart, literally to bits,
that they ceased their insensately voracious attacks.

"They took me by surprise," explained Worsel, unnecessarily, as the three made
their way through the night toward their goal, "and six of them at once were
too much for me. I tried to hold their minds, but apparently they have none."

"How about the Overlords?" asked Kinnison. "Suppose they have received any of
our thoughts? Bus and I may have done some unguarded radiating."

"No," Worse! made positive reply. "The thought-screen batteries, while small
and of very little actual power, have a very long service life. Now let us go
over again the next steps of our plan of action."

Since no more untoward events marred their progress toward the Delgonian city,
they soon reached it. It was for the most part dark and quiet, its somber
buildings merely blacker blobs against a background of black. Here and there,
however, were to be seen automotive vehicles moving about, and the three
invaders crouched against a convenient wall, waiting for one to come along the
"street" in which they were. Eventually one did.

As it passed them Worsel sprang into headlong, gliding flight, Kinnison's
heavy knife in one gnarled fist. And as he sailed he struck--lethally. Before
that luckless Delgonian s brain could radiate a single thought it was in no
condition to function at all, for the head containing it was bouncing in the
gutter. Worsel backed the peculiar conveyance along the curb and his two
companions leaped into it, lying flat upon its floor and covering themselves
from sight as best they could.

Worsel, familiar with things Delgonian and looking enough like a native of the
planet to pass a casual inspection in the dark, drove the car. Streets and
thoroughfares he traversed at reckless speed, finally drawing up before a long,
low building, entirely dark. He scanned his surrounding with care, in every
direction. Not a creature was in sight.

"All is clear, friends," he thought, and the three adventurers sprang to the
building's entrance. The door--it had a door, of sorts--was locked, but
vanBuskirk's axe made short work of that difficulty. Inside, they braced the
wrecked door against intrusion, then Worsel led the way into the unlighted
interior. Soon he flashed his lamp about him and stepped upon a black,
peculiarly-marked tile set into the floor, whereupon a harsh, white light
illuminated the room.

"Cut it, before somebody takes alarm!" snapped Kinnison.

"No danger of that," replied the Velantian. "There are no windows in any of
these rooms, no light can be seen from outside. This is the control room of the
city's power plant. If you can convert any of this power to your uses, help
yourselves to it. In this building is also a Delgonian arsenal. Whether or not
anything in it can be of service to you is of course for you to say. I am now
at your disposal..,

Kinnison had been studying the panels and instruments. Now he and vanBuskirk
tore open their armor--they had already learned that the atmosphere of Delgon,
while not as wholesome for them as that in their suits, would for a time at
least support human life--and wrought diligently with pliers, screwdrivers, and
other tools of the electrician. Soon their exhausted batteries were upon the
floor beneath the instrument panel, absorbing greedily the electrical fluid
from the bus-bars of the Delgonians.

"Now, while they're getting filled up, let's see what these people use for
guns. Lead on, Worsel!"



7. THE PASSING OF THE OVERLORDS

With Worsel in the lead, the three interlopers hastened along a corridor, past
branching and intersecting hallways, to a distant wing of the structure. There,
it was evident, manufacturing of weapons was carried on, but a quick study of
the queer-looking devices and mechanisms upon the benches and inside the
storage racks lining the walls convinced Kinnison that the room could yield
them nothing of permanent benefit. There were high-powered beam-projectors, it
was true, but they were so heavy that they were not even semi-portable. There
were also hand weapons of various peculiar patterns, but without exception they
were ridiculously inferior to the DeLameters of the Patrol in every respect of
power, range, controllability, and storage capacity. Nevertheless, after
testing them out sufficiently to make certain of the above findings, he
selected an armful of the most powerful models and turned to his companions.

"Let's go back to the power room," he urged. "I'm nervous as a cat. I feel
stark naked without my batteries, and if anyone should happen to drop in there
and do away with them, we'd be sunk without a trace."

Loaded down with Delgonian weapons they hurried back the way they had come.
Much to Kinnison's relief he found that his forebodings had been groundless,
the batteries were still there, still absorbing myriawatt-hour after myriawatt-
hour from the Delgonian generators. Staring fixedly at the innocuous-looking
containers, he frowned in thought.

"Better we insulate those leads a little heavier and put the cans back in our
armor," he suggested finally. "They'll charge just as well in place, and it
doesn't stand to reason that this drain of power can go on for the rest of the
night without somebody noticing it. And when that happens those Overlords are
bound to take plenty of steps--none of which we have any idea what are going to
be."

"You must have power enough now so that we can all fly away from any possible
trouble," Worsel suggested.

"But that's just exactly what we're not going to do!" Kinnison declared, with
finality. "Now that we've found a good charger, we aren't going to leave it
until our accumulators are chock-a-block. It's coming in faster than full draft
will take it out, and we're going to get a full charge if we have to stand off
all the vermin of Delgon to do it."

Far longer than Kinnison had thought possible they were unmolested, but
finally a couple of Delgonian engineers came to investigate the unprecedented
shortage in the output of their completely automatic generators. At the
entrance they were stopped, for no ordinary tools could force the barricade
vanBuskirk had erected behind that portal. With leveled weapons the Patrolmen
stood, awaiting the expected attack, but none developed. Hour by hour the long
night wore away, uneventfully. At daybreak, however, a storming party appeared
and massive battering rams were brought into play.

As the dull, heavy concussions reverberated throughout the building the
Patrolmen--each picked up two of the weapons piled before them and Kinnison
addressed the Velantian.

"Drag a couple of those metal benches across that corner and coil up behind
them," he directed. "They'll be enough to ground any stray charges--if they
can't see you they won't know you're here, so probably nothing much will come
your way direct."

The Velantian demurred, declaring that he would not hide while his two
companions were fighting his battle, but Kinnison silenced him fiercely.

"Don't be a fool!" the Lensman snapped. "One of these beams would fry you to a
crisp in ten seconds, but the defensive fields of our armor could neutralize a
thousand of them, from now on. Do as I say, and do it quick, or I'll shock you
unconscious and toss you in there myself!"

Realizing that Kinnison meant exactly what he said, and knowing that,
unarmored as he was, he was utterly unable to resist either the Tellurian or
their common foe, Worsel unwillingly erected his metallic barrier and coiled
his sinuous length behind it. He hid himself just in time.

The outer barricade had fallen, and now a wave of reptilian forms flooded into
the control room. Nor was this any ordinary investigation. The Overlords had
studied the situation from afar, and this wave was one of heavily- armed-- for
Delgon--soldiery. On they came, projectors fiercely aflame, confident in their
belief that nothing could stand before their blasts. But how wrong they were!
The two repulsively erect bipeds before them neither burned nor fell. Beams, no
matter how powerful, did not reach. them at all, but spent themselves in
crackingly incandescent fury, inches from their marks. Nor were these
outlandish beings inoffensive. Utterly careless of the service-life of the
pitifully weak Delgonian projectors, they were using them at maximum drain and
at extreme aperture--and in the resultant beams the Delgonian soldier-slaves
fell in scorched and smoking heaps. On came reserves, platoon after platoon,
only and continuously to meet the same fate, for as soon as one projector
weakened the invincibly armored man would toss it aside and pick up another.
But finally the last commandeered weapon was exhausted and the beleaguered pair
brought their own DeLameters--the most powerful portable weapons known to the
military scientists of the Galactic Patrol--into play.

And what a difference! In those beams the attacking reptiles did not smoke or
burn. They. simply vanished in a blaze of flaming light, as did also the nearby
walls and a good share of the building beyond! The Delgonian hordes having
disappeared, vanBuskirk shut off his projector. Kinnison, however, left his on,
angling its beam sharply upward, blasting into fiery vapor the ceiling and roof
over their heads, remarking.

"While we're at it we might as well fix things, so that we can make a quick
getaway if we want to."

Then they waited. Waited, watching the needles of their meters creep ever
closer to the "full-charge" marks, waited while, as they suspected, the
distant, cowardlyhiding Overlords planned some other, more promising line of
physical attack.

Nor was it long in developing. Another small army appeared, armored this time,
or, more accurately, advancing behind metallic shields. Knowing what to expect,
Kinnison was not surprised when the beam of his DeLameter not only failed to
pierce one of those shields, but did not in any way impede the progress of the
Delgonian column.

"Well, were all done here, anyway, as far as I'm concerned," Kinnison grinned
at the Dutchman as he spoke. "My cans've been showing full back pressure for
the last two minutes. How about yours?"

"Same here," vanBuskirk reported, and the two leaped lightly into the
Velantian's refuge. Then, inertialess all, the three shot into the air at such
a pace that to the slow senses of the Delgonian slaves they simply disappeared.
Indeed, it was not until the barrier had been blasted away and every room,
nook, and cranny of the immense structure had been literally and minutely
combed that the Delgonians--and through their enslaved minds the
Overlords--became convinced that their prey had in some uncanny and unknown
fashion eluded them.

Now high in air, the three allies traversed in a matter of minutes the same
distance that had cost them so much time and strife the day before. Over the
monsterinfested forest they sped, over the deceptively peaceful green lushness
of the jungle, to slant down toward Worsel's thought proof tent. Inside that
refuge they snapped off their thought screens and Kinnison yawned prodigiously.

"Working days and nights both is all right for a while, but it gets monotonous
in time. Since this seems to be the only really safe spot on the planet, I
suggest that we take a day or so off and catch up on our eats and sleeps."

They slept and ate, slept and ate again.

"The next thing on the program," Kinnison announced then, "Is to clean out
that den of Overlords. Then Worsel will be free to help us get going about our
own business."

"You speak lightly indeed of the impossible," Worsel, all glum despondency,
reproved him. "I have already explained why the task is, and must remain,
beyond our power."

"Yes, but you don't quite grasp the possibilities of the stuff we've got now
to work with,' the Tellurian replied. "Listen, you could never do anything
because you couldn't see through or work through your thought screens. Neither
we nor you could, even now, enslave a Delgonian and make him lead us to the
cavern, because the Overlords would know all about it 'way ahead of time and
the slave would lead us anywhere else except to the cavern. However, one of us
can cut his screen and surrender, possibly keeping just enough screen up to
keep the enemy from possessing his mind fully enough to learn that the other
two are coming along. The big question is--which of us is to surren

der?" "That is already decided," Worsel made instant reply. "I am the
logical&mdash:in fact, the only one--to do it. Not only would they think it

perfectly natural that they should overpower me, but also I am the only one of
us three sufficiently able to control his thoughts as to keep from them the
knowledge that I am being accompanied. Furthermore, you both know that it would
not be good for your minds, unaccustomed as they are to the practice, to
surrender their control voluntarily to an enemy."

"I'll say it wouldn't!" Kinnison agreed, feelingly. "I might do it if I had
to, but I wouldn't like it and I don't think Pd ever quite get over it. I hate
to put such a horrible job off onto you, Worsel, but you're undoubtedly the
best equipped to handle it--and even you may have your hands full."

"Yes..." the Velantian said, thoughtfully. "While the undertaking is no longer
an absolute impossibility, it is difficult... very. In any event you will
probably have to beam me yourselves if we succeed in reaching the cavern... The
Overlords will see to that. If so, do it without regret--know that I expect it
and am well content to die in that fashion. Any one of my fellows would be only
too glad to be in my place, meaning what it does to all Velantia. Know also
that I have already reported what is to occur, and that your welcome to
Velantia is assured, whether or not I accompany you there."

"I don't think I'll have to kill you, Worsel," Kinnison replied, slowly,
picturing in detail exactly what that steel hard reptilian body would be
capable of doing when, unshackled, its directing mind was completely taken over
by an utterly soulless and conscienceless Overlord. "If you can't keep from
going off the deep end, of course you'll get tough and I know you're mighty
bard to handle. However, as I told you back there, I think I can beam you
unconscious without killing you. I may have to burn off a few scales, but I'll
try not to do any damage that can't be repaired."

"If you can so stop me it will be wonderful indeed. Are we ready?"

They were ready. Worsel opened the door and in a moment was hurtling through
the air, his giant wings arrowing him along at a pace no winged creature of
Earth could even approach. And, following him easily at a little distance,
floated the two Patrolmen upon their inertialess drives.

During that long flight scarcely a thought was exchanged, even between
Kinnison and vanBuskirk. To direct a thought at the Velantian was of course out
of the question. All lines of communication with him had been cut, and
furthermore his mind, able as it was, was being taxed to the ultimate cell in
doing what he had set out to do. And the two Patrolmen were reluctant to
converse with each other, even upon their tight-beams, radios, or sounders, for
fear that some slight leakage of thought-energy might reveal their presence to
the ever watchful Overlords. If this opportunity were lost, they knew, another
chance to wipe out that hellish horde might never present itself.

Land was traversed, and sea, but finally a stupendous range of mountains
reared before them and Worsel, folding back his tireless wings, shot downward
in a screaming, full weight dive. In his line of flight Kinnison saw the mouth
of a cave, a darker spot of blackness in the black rock of the mountain's side.
Upon the ledged approach there lay a Delgonian--a guard or lookout, of course.

The Lensman's DeLameter was already in his hand, and at sight of the guardian
reptile he sighted and fired in one fast motion. But, rapid as it was, it was
still too slow--the Overlords had seen that the Velantian had companions of whom
he had been able to keep them in ignorance theretofore.

Instantly Worsel's wings again began to beat, bearing him off at a wide angle,
and, although the Patrolmen were insulated against his thought, the meaning of
his antics wag very plain. He was telling them in every possible way that the
hole below was not the cavern of the Overlords, that it was over this way, that
they were to keep on following him to it. Then, as they refused to follow him,
he rushed upon Kinnison in mad attack.

"Beam him down, Kim!" vanBuskirk yelled. "Don't take any chances with that
bird!" and leveled his , own DeLameter. "Lay off, Bus!" the Lensman snapped. "I
can handle him--a lot easier out here than on the ground."

And so it proved. Inertialess as he was, the buffetings of the Velantian
affected him not at all, and when Worsel coiled his supple body around him and
began to apply pressure, Kinnison simply expanded his thought screen to cover
them both, thus releasing the mind of his temporarily inimical friend from the
Overlord's grip. Instantly the Velantian became himself, snapped on his own
shield, and the three continued as one their interrupted downward course.

Worsel came to a halt upon the ledge, beside the practically incinerated
corpse of the lookout, knowing, unarmored as he was, that to go further meant
sudden death. The armored pair, however, shot on into the gloomy passage. At
first they were offered no opposition--the Overlords had had no time to muster
an adequate defense. Scattering handfuls of slaves rushed them, only to be
blasted out of existence as their hand weapons proved useless against the armor
of the Galactic Patrol. Defenders became more numerous as the cavern itself was
approached, but neither were they allowed to stay the Patrolman's progress.
Finally a palely shimmering barrier of metal appeared to bar their way. Its
fields of force neutralized or absorbed the blasts of the DeLameters, but its
material substance offered but little resistance to a thirty-pound sledge,
swung by one of the strongest men ever produced by any planet colonized by the
humanity of Earth...

Now they were in the cavern itself--the sanctum sanctorum of the Overlords of
Delgon. There was the hellish torture screen, now licked clean of life. There
was the audience which had been so avid, now milling about in a mob frenzy of
panic. There, upon a raised balcony, were the "big shots" of this nauseous
clan, now doing their utmost to marshal some force able to cope effectively
with this unheard-of violation of their ages-old immunity.

A last wave of Delgonian slaves hurled themselves forward, futile projectors
furiously aflame, only to disappear in the DeLameters' fans of force. The
Patrolmen hated to kill those mindless slaves, but it was a nasty job that had
to be done. The slaves out of the way, those ravening beams bored on into the
massed Overlords.

And now Kinnison and vanBuskirk killed, if not joyously, at least
relentlessly, mercilessly, and with neither sign nor sensation of compunction.
For this unbelievably monstrous tribe needed killing, root and branch--not a
scion or shoot of it should be allowed to survive, to continue to contaminate
the civilization of the galaxy. Back and forth, to and fro, up and down swept
the raging beams, playing on until in all the vast volume of that gruesome
chamber nothing lived save the two grim figures in its portal.

Assured of this fact, but with DeLameters still in hand, the two destroyers
retraced their way to the tunnel's mouth, where Worsel anxiously awaited them.
Lines of communication again established, Kinnison informed the Velantian of
all that had taken place I and the latter gradually cut down the power of his
thought-screen. Soon it was at zero strength and he reported jubilantly that
for the first time in untold ages, the Overlords of Delgon were off the air!

"But surely the danger isn't over yeti" protested Kinnison. "We couldn't have
got them all in this one raid. Some of them must have escaped, and there must
be other dens of them on this planet somewhere?"

"Possibly, possibly," the Velantian waved his tail airily--the first sign of
joyousness he had shown. "But their power is broken, definitely and forever.
With these new screens, and with the arms and armament which, thanks to you, we
can now fabricate, the task of wiping them out completely will be comparatively
simple. Now you will accompany me to Velantia, where, I assure you, the
resources of the planet will be put solidly behind you in your own endeavors. I
have already summoned a space-ship in less than twelve days we will be back in
Velantia and at work upon your projects. In the meantime..."

"Twelve days! Noshabkeming the Radiant!" vanBuskirk exploded, and Kinnison put
in.

"Sure--you forget they haven't got free drive. We'd better hop over and get our
lifeboat, I think. It's not so good, either way, but in our own boat we'll be
open to detection less than an hour, as against twelve days in the Velantians .
And the pirates may be here any minute. It's as good as certain that their ship
will be stopped and searched long before it gets back to Velantia, and if we
were aboard it'd be just too bad."

And, since the crew knows about us, the pirates soon will, and it'll be just
too bad, anyway," vanBuskirk reasoned.

"Not at all," Interposed Worsel. "The few of my people who know of you have
been instructed to seal that knowledge. I must admit, however, that I am
greatly disturbed by your conceptions of these pirates of space. You see, until
I met you I knew nothing more of the pirates than I did of your Patrol."

"What a world!" vanBuskirk exclaimed. "No Patrol and no pirates! But at that,
life might be simpler without both of them and without the free space-
drive--more like it used to be in the good old airplane days that the novelists
rave about."

"Of course I could not judge as to that." The Velantian was very serious.
"This in which we live seems to be an out-of-the-way section of the galaxy, or
it may be that we have nothing the pirates want."

"More likely it's simply that, like the Patrol, they haven't got organized
into this district yet," suggested Kinnison. "There are so many thousands of
millions of solar systems in the galaxy that it will probably be thousands of
years yet before the Patrol gets into them all."

"But about these pirates," Worsel went back to his point. "If they have such
minds as those of the Overlords, they will be able to break the seals of cur
minds. However, I gather from your thoughts that their minds are not of that
strength?"

"Not so far as I know," Kinnison replied. "You folks have the most powerful
brains I ever heard of, short of the Arisians. And speaking of mental power,
you can hear thoughts a lot farther than I can, even with my Lens or with this
pirate receiver I've got. See if you can find out whether there are any pirates
in space around here, will you?"

While the Velantian was concentrating, vanBuskirk asked.

"Why, if his mind is so strong, could the Overlords put him under so much
easier than they could us 'weak-minded' human beings?"

"You are confusing 'mind' with 'will,' I think. Ages of submission to the
Overlords made the Velantians' willpower zero, as far as the bosses were
concerned. On the other hand, you and I could raise stubbornness to sell to
most people. In fact, if the Overlords had succeeded in really breaking us
down, back there, the chances are we'd have gone insane."

"Probably you're right--we break, but don't bend, huh?" and the Velantian was
ready to report.

"I have scanned space to the nearer stars--some eleven of your light-years--and
have encountered no intruding entities," he announced.

"Eleven light-years--what a range!" Kinnison exclaimed. "However, that's only a
shade over two minutes for a pirate ship at full blast. But we've got to take a
chance sometime, and the quicker we get started the sooner we'll get back.
We'll pick you up here, Worsel. No use in you going back to your tent--we'll be
back here long before you could reach it. You'll be safe enough, I think,
especially with our spare DeLameters. Let's get going, Bus!"

Again they shot into the air, again they traversed the airless depths of
interplanetary space. To locate the temporary tomb of their lifeboat required
only a few minutes, to disinter her only a few more. Then again they braved
detection in the void, Kinnison tense at his controls, vanBuskirk in strained
attention listening to and staring at his unscramblers and detectors. But the
ether was still blank as the lifeboat struck Delgon's atmosphere, it remained
blank while the lifeboat, inert, blasted frantically to match Worsel's
intrinsic velocity.

"All right, Worsel, snap it up!" Kinnison called, and went on to vanBuskirk,
"Now, you big, flat-footed Valerian spacehound, I hope that spaceman's god of
yours will see to it our luck holds good for just fourteen minutes more. We've
had more luck already than we had any right to expect, but we can put a little
more to most God-awful good use!"

"Noshabkeming does bring spacemen luck," insisted the giant, grimacing a
peculiar salute toward a small, golden image set inside his helmet, "and the
fact that you warty, runty, atheistic little space-fleas of Tellus haven't got
sense enough to know it--not even enough sense to really believe in your own
gods, even Klono--doesn't change matters at all."

"That's tellin'em, Bus!" Kinnison applauded. "But if it helps charge your
batteries, go to it... Ready to blast! Lift!"

The Velantian had come aboard, the tiny airlock was again tight, and the
little vessel shot away from Delgon toward far Velanda. And still the ether
remained empty as far as the detectors could reach. Nor was this fact
surprising, in spite of the Lensman's fears to the contrary, for the Patrolmen
had given the pirates such an extremely long line to cover that many days must
yet elapse before the minions of Boskone would get around to visit that
unimportant, unexplored, and almost unknown solar system. En route to his home
planet Worsel got in touch with the crew of the Velantian vessel already in
space, ordering them to return to port post-haste and instructing them in
detail what to think and how to act should they be stopped and searched by one
of Boskone's raiders. By the time these instructions had been given, Velantia
loomed large beneath the flying midget. Then, with Worsel as guide, Kinnison
drove over a mighty ocean upon whose opposite shore lay the great city in which
Worsel lived.

"But I would like to have them welcome you as befits what you have done, and
have you go to the Dome!" mourned the Velantian. "Think of it! You have done a
thing which for ages the massed power of the planet has been trying vainly to
accomplish, and yet you insist that I alone take credit for it!"

'I don't insist on any such thing," argued Kinnison, "even though it's
practically all yours, anyway. I insist only on your keeping us and the Patrol
out of it, and you know as well as I do why you've got to do that. Tell them
anything else you want to. Say that a couple of pink-haired Chickladorians
helped you and then beat it back home. That planet's far enough away so that if
the pirates chase them they'll get a real run for their money. After this blows
over you can tell the truth--but not until then.

"And as for us going to the Dome for a grand hocus-pocus, that is completely
and definitely OUT. We're not going anywhere except to 'the biggest airport
you've got. You're not going to give us anything except a lot of material and a
lot of highly-trained help that can keep their thoughts sealed.

"We've got to build a lot of heavy stuff fast, and we've got to get started on
it just as quick as Klono and Noshabkeming will let us!"



8. THE QUARRY STRIKES BACK

Worsel knew his council of scientists, as well as might, since it developed
that he himself ranked high in that select circle. True to his promise, the
largest airport of the planet was immediately emptied of its customary
personnel, which was replaced the following morning by an entirely new group of
workmen.

Nor were these replacements ordinarily laborers. They were young, keen, and
highly trained, taken to a man from behind the thought-screens of the
Scientists. It is true that they had no inkling of what they were to do, since
none of them had ever dreamed of the possibility of such engines as they were
to be called upon to construct.

But, on the other hand, they were well versed in the fundamental theories and
operations of mathematics, and from pure mathematics to applied mechanics is
but a step. Furthermore, they had brains, knew how to think logically,
coherently, and effectively, and needed neither driving nor supervision--only
instruction. And best of all, practically every one of the required mechanisms
already existed, in miniature, within the Brittania's lifeboat, ready at hand
for their dissection, analysis, and enlargement. It was not lack of
understanding which was to slow up the work, it was simply that the planet did
not boast machine tools and equipment large enough or strong enough to handle
the necessarily huge and heavy parts and members required.

While the construction of this heavy machinery was being rushed through,
Kinnison and vanBuskirk devoted their efforts to the fabrication of an ultra-
sensitive receiver, tunable to the pirates' scrambled wave-bands. With their
exactly detailed knowledge, and with the cleverest technicians and the choicest
equipment of Velantia at their disposal, the set was soon completed.

Kinnison was giving its exceedingly delicate coils their final alignment when
Worsel wriggled blithely into the radio laboratory.

"Hi, Kimball Kinnison! of the Lens!" he called gaily. Throwing a few yards of
his serpent's body in lightning loops about a convenient pillar, he made a
horizontal bar of the rest of himself and dropped one wing-tip to the floor.
Then, nonchalantly upside down, he thrust out three or four eyes and curled
their stalks over the Lensman's shoulder, the better to inspect the results of
the mechanics' efforts. Gone was the morose, pessimistic, death-haunted Worsel
entirely, gay, happy, carefree, and actually frolicsome--if you can imagine a
thirty-foot-long, crocodile headed, leather-winged python as being frolicsome!

"Hi, your royal snakeship!" Kinnison retorted in kind. "Still here, huh?
Thought you'd be back on Delgon by this time, cleaning up the rest of that
mess."

"The equipment is not ready, but there's no hurry about that," the playful
reptile unwrapped ten or twelve feet of tail from the pillar and waved it
airily about. "Their power is broken, their race is done. You are about to try
out the new receiver?"

"Yes--going out after them right now," and Kinnison began deftly to manipulate
the micrometric vernier of his dials.

Eyes fixed upon meters and gauges, he listened...listened. Increased his power
and listened again. More and more power he applied to his apparatus, listening
continually. Suddenly he stiffened, his hands becoming rock-still. He listened,
if possible even more intently than before, and as he listened his face grew
grim and granite-hard. Then the micrometers began again crawlingly to move, as
though he were tracing a beam.

"Bus! Hook on the focusing beam-antenna!" he snapped. "It's going to take
every milliwatt of power we've got in this hookup to tap his beam, but I think
I've got Helmuth direct instead of through a pirate-ship relay!"

Again and again he checked the readings of his dials and of the directors of
his antenna, each time noting the exact time of the Velantian day.

"There! As soon as we get some time, Worsel, I'd like to work out these
figures with some of your astronomers. They'll give me a right line through
Helmuth's headquarters--I hope. Some day, if I'm spared, I'll get another!"

"What kind of news did you get, chief?" asked vanBuskirk.

"Good and bad both," replied the Lensman. "Good in that Helmuth doesn't
believe that we stayed with his ship as long as we did. He's a suspicious
devil, you know, and is pretty well convinced that we tried to run the same
kind of a blazer on him that we did the other time. Since he hasn't got .enough
ships on the job to work the whole line, he's concentrating on the other end.
That means that we've got plenty of days left yet. The bad part of it is that
they've got four of our boats already and are bound to get more. Lord, how I
wish I could call the rest of them! Some of them could certainly make it here
before they got caught."

"Might I then offer a suggestion?" asked Worsel, of a sudden diffident.

"Surely!" the Lensman replied in surprise. "Your ideas have never been any
kind of poppycock. Why so bashful all at once?"

"Because this one is so... ah... so peculiarly personal, since you men regard
so highly the privacy of your minds. Our two sciences, as you have already
observed, are vastly different. You are far beyond us in mechanics, physics,
chemistry, and the other applied sciences. We, on the other hand, have delved
much deeper than you have into psychology and the other introspective studies.
For that reason I know positively that the Lens you wear is capable of
enormously greater things than you are at present able to make it perform. Of
course I cannot use your Lens directly, since it is attuned to your own ego.
However, if the idea appeals to you, I could, with your consent, occupy your
mind and use your Lens to put you en rapport with your fellows. I have not
volunteered the suggestion before because I know how averse your mind is to any
foreign control."

"Not necessarily to foreign control," Kinnison corrected him. "Only to enemy
control. The idea of friendly control never even occurred to me. That would be
an entirely different breed of cats. Go to it!"

Kinnison relaxed his mind completely, and that of the Velantian came welling
in, wave upon friendly, surging wave of benevolent power. And not only--or not
precisely--power. It was more than power, it was a dynamic poignancy, a vibrant
penetrance, a depth and clarity of perception that Kinnison in his most cogent
moments had never dreamed a possibility. The possessor of that mind knew
things, cameo-clear in microscopic detail, which the keenest minds of Earth
could perceive only as chaotically indistinct masses of mental light and shade,
of no recognizable pattern whatever!

"Give me the thought-pattern of him with whom you wish first to converse,"
came Worsel's thought, this time from deep within the Lensman's own brain.

Kinnison felt a subtle thrill of uneasiness at that new and ultra-strange dual
personality, but thought back steadily. "Sorry--I can't."

"Excuse me, I should have known that you cannot think in our patterns. Think,
then, of him as a person--as an individual. That will give me, I believe,
sufficient data."

Into the Earthman's mind there leaped a picture of Henderson, sharp and clear.
He felt his Lens actually tingle and throb as a concentration of vital force
such as he had never known poured through his whole being and into that almost-
living creation of the Arisians, and immediately thereafter he was in full
mental communication with the Master Pilot! And there, seated across the tiny
mess-table of their lifeboat, was LaVerne Thorndyke, the Master Technician.

Henderson came to his feet with a yell as the telepathic message bombshelled
into his brain, and it required several seconds to convince him that he was not
the victim of space-insanity or suffering from any other form of hallucination.
Once convinced, however, he acted--his life-boat shot toward far Velantia at
maximum blast.

Then, "Nelson! Allerdyce! Thompson! Jenkins! Uhlenhuth! Smith! Chatway!... "
Kinnison called the roll.

Nelson, the specialist in communications, answered his captain's call. So did
Allerdyce, the juggling quartermaster. So did Uhlenhuth, a technician. So did
those in three other boats. Two of these three were apparently well within the
danger zone and might get nipped in their dash, but their crews elected without
hesitation to take the chance. Four boats, it was already known, had been
captured by the pirates. The others...

"Only eight boats," Kinnison mused. "Not so good--but it could have been a lot
worse--they might have got us all by this tune--and maybe some of them are just
out of our reach." Then, turning to the Velantian, who had withdrawn his mind
as soon as the job was. done.

"Thanks, Worsel," he said simply. "Some of those lads coming in have got
plenty of just what it takes, and how we can use them!"

One by one the lifeboats made port, where their crews were welcomed briefly
but feelingly before they were put to work. Nelson, one of the last pair to
arrive, was particularly welcome.

"Nels, we need you badly," Kinnison informed him as soon as greetings had been
exchanged. "The pirates have a beam, carrying a peculiarly scrambled signal,
that they can receive and decode through any ordinary kind of blanketing
interference, and you're the best man we've got to study their system. Some of
these Velantian scientists can probably help you a lot on that--any race that
can develop a screen against thought figures ought to know more than somewhat
about vibration in general. We've got working models of the pirates'
instruments, so you can figure out their patterns and formulas. When you've
done that, I want you .and your Velantians to design something that will
scramble all the pirates' communicator beams in space, as far as you can reach.
If you can fix things so they can't talk any more than we can it'll help a lot,
believe me!"

"QX, Chief, we'll give if the works," and the radio man called for tools,
apparatus, and electricians.

Then throughout the great airport the many Velantians and the handful of
Patrolmen labored mightily, side by side, and to very good effect indeed.
Slowly the port became ringed about by, and studded everywhere with, monstrous
mechanisms. Everywhere there were projectors, refractory throated demons ready
to vomit forth every force known to the expert technicians of the Patrol. There
were absorbers, too, backed by their bleeder resistors, air-gaps, ground-rods,
and racks for discharged accumulators. There, too, were receptors and
converters for the cosmic energy which was to empower many of the devices.
There were, of course, atomic motor-generators by the score, and battery upon
battery of gigantic accumulators. And Nelson's highpowered scrambler was ready
to go to work.

These machines appeared crude, rough, unfinished, for neither time nor labor
had been wasted upon non-essentials. But inside each one the moving parts
fitted with micrometric accuracy and with hair-spring balance. All, without
exception, functioned perfectly.

At Worsel's call, Kinnison climbed up out of a great beam-proof pit, the top
of whose wall was practically composed of tractor-beam projectors. Pausing only
to make sure that a sticking switch on one of the screen-dome generators had
been replaced, he hurried to the heavily armored control room, where his little
force of fellow Patrolmen awaited him.

"They're coming, boys," he announced. "You all know what to do. There are a
lot more things we could have done if we'd had more time, but as it is we'll
just go to work on them with what we've got," and Kinnison, again all brisk
Captain, bent over his instruments.

In the ordinary course of events the pirate would have flashed up to the
planet with spy-rays out and issuing a peremptory demand for the planet to show
a clean bill of health or to surrender instantly such fugitives as might lately
have landed upon it. But Kinnison did not--could not--wait for that. The spy-
rays, he knew, would reveal the presence of his armament, and such armament
most certainly did not belong to this planet. Therefore he acted first, and
everything happened practically at once.

A tracer lashed out, the pilot-ray of the rim-battery of extraordinarily
powerful tractors. Under their terrific pull the inertialess ship flashed
toward their center of action. At the same moment there burst into activity
Nelson's scrambler, a dome-screen against cosmic-energy intake, and a full
circle of super-powered projectors.

All these things occurred in the twinkling of an eye, and the vessel was being
slowed down by the atmosphere of Velantia before her startled commander could
even realize that he was being attacked. Only the automatically-reacting
defensive screens saved that ship from instant destruction, but they did so
save it and in seconds the pirates' every weapon was furiously ablaze.

In vain. The defenses of that pit could take it. They were driven by
mechanisms easily able to absorb the output of any equipment mountable upon a
mobile base, and to his consternation the pirate found that his cosmic-energy
intake was at, and remained at, zero. He sent out call after call for help, but
could not make contact with any other pirate station--ether and sub- ether alike
were closed to him, his signals were blanketed completely. Nor could his
drivers, even though operating at ruinous overload, move him from the
geometrical center of that incandescently flaming pit, so inconceivably rigid
were the tractors' clamps upon him.

And soon his power began to fail. His vessel, designed to operate upon
cosmicenergy intake, carried only enough accumulators for stabilization of
power-flow, an amount ridiculously inadequate for a combat as profligate of
energy as this. But strangely enough, as his defenses weakened, so lessened the
power of the attack. It was no part of the Lensman's plan to destroy this
superdreadnaught of the void.

"That was one good thing about the old Brittania," he gritted, as he cut down
step by step the power of his beams, "what power she had, nobody could block
her off from!"

Soon the stored-up energy of the battleship was exhausted and she lay there,
quiescent. Then giant pressors went into action and she was lifted over the
wall of the pit, to settle down in an open space beside it--open, but still
under the domes of force.

Kinnison had no needle-rays as yet, the time at his disposal having been
sufficient only for the construction of the absolutely essential items of
equipment. Now, while he debated with his fellows as to what part of the vessel
to destroy in order to wipe out its crew, the pirates themselves ended the
debate. Ports yawned in the vessel's side and they came out fighting.

For they were not a breed to die like rats in a trap, and they knew that to
remain inside their vessel was to die whenever and however their captors
willed. They knew also that die they must if they could not conquer. Their
surrender, even if it should be accepted, would mean only a somewhat later
death in the lethal chambers of the Law. In the open, they could at least take
some of their foes with them.

Furthermore, not being men as we know men, they had nothing in common with
either human beings or Velantians. Both to them were vermin, as they themselves
were to the beings manning this surprisingly impregnable fortress here in this
waste corner of the galaxy. Therefore, space-hardened veterans all, they
fought, with the insane ferocity and desperation of the ultimately last stand,
but they did not conquer. Instead, and to the last man, they died.

As soon as the battle was over, before the interference blanketing the
pirates' communicators was cut off, Kinnison went through the captured vessel,
destroying the headquarters visiplates and every automatic sender which could
transmit any kind of a message to any pirate base. Then the interference was
stopped, the domes were released, and the ship was removed from the field of
operations. Then, while Thorndyke and his reptilian aides--themselves now radio
experts of no mean attainments--busied themselves at installing a high-powered
scrambler aboard her, Kinnison and Worsel scanned space in search of more prey.
Soon they found it, more distant than the first one had been--two solar systems
away--and in an entirely different direction. Tracers and tractors and
interference and domes of force again became the order of the day. Projectors
again raved out in their incandescent might, and soon another immense cruiser
of the void lay beside her sister ship. Another, and another, then for a long
time space was blank.

The Lensman then energized his ultra-receiver, pointing his antenna carefully
into the galactic line to Helmet's base, as laid down for him by the Velantian
astronomers. Again, so tight and hard was Helmuth's beam, he had to drive his
apparatus so unmercifully that the tube-noise almost drowned out the signals,
but again he was rewarded by hearing faintly the voice of the pirate Director
of Operations... four vessels, all within or near one of those five solar
systems, have ceased communicating, each cessation being accompanied by a
period of blanketing interference of a pattern never before registered. You two
vessels who are receiving these orders are instructed to investigate that
region with the utmost care. Go with screens out and everything on the trips,
and with automatic recorders set on me here. It is not believed that the Patrol
has anything to do with this, as ability has been shown transcending anything
it has been known to possess. As a working hypothesis it is assumed that one of
the solar systems, hitherto practically unexplored and unknown is in reality
the seat of a highly advanced race, which perhaps has taken offense at the
attitude or conduct of our first ship to visit them. Therefore proceed with
extreme caution, with a thorough spy-ray search at extreme range before
approaching at all. If you land, use tact and diplomacy instead of the
customary tactics. Find out whether our ships and crews have been destroyed, or
are only being held, and remember, automatic reporters on ma at all times.
Helmuth speaking for Boskone--off!"

For minutes Kinnison manipulated his controls in vain--he could not get another
sound. "What are you trying to get, Kim?" asked Thorndyke. "Wasn't that enough?"

"No, that's only half of it," Kinnison returned. "Helmuth's nobody's fool.
He's certainly trying to plot the boundaries of our interference, and I want to
see how he's coming out with it. But no dice. He's so far away and his beam's
so hard I can't work him unless he happens to be talking almost directly toward
us. Well, it won't be long now until we'll give him some real interference to
plot. Now let's see what we can do about those two other ships that are heading
this way."

Carefully as those two ships investigated, and sedulously as they sought to
obey Helmuth's instructions, all their precautions amounted to exactly nothing.
As ordered, they began to spy-ray survey at extreme range, but even at that
range Kinnison's tracers were effective and those pirates also ceased
communicating in a blaze of interference. Then recent history repeated itself.
The details were changed somewhat, since there were two vessels instead of one,
but the pit was of ample size to accommodate two ships, and the tractors could
hold two as well and as rigidly as one. The conflict was a little longer, the
beaming a little hotter and more coruscate, but the ending was the same.
Scramblers and other special apparatus were installed and Kinnison called his
men together.

"We're about ready to shove off again. Running away has worked twice so far
and should work once more, if we can ring in enough variations on the theme to
keep Helmuth guessing a while longer. Maybe, if the supply of pirateships holds
up, we can make Helmuth furnish us transportation clear back to Prime Base!

"Here's the idea. We've got six ships, and enough Velantians have volunteered
to man them--in spite of the fact that they probably won't get back. Six ships,
of course, isn't enough of a task force to fight its way through Helmuth's
fleets, so we'll spread out, covering plenty of parsecs and broadcasting every
watt of interference we can put out, in as many different shapes and sizes as
our generators can figure. We won't be able to talk to each other, but nobody
else can talk, either, anywhere near us, and that ought to give us a chance.
Each ship will be on its own, like we were before, in the boats, the big
difference being that we'll be in superdreadnaughts.

"Question--should we split up again or stick together? We'd better all go in
one ship, I think--with spools aboard the others, of course. What do you think?"
They agreed with him to a man and he directed a thought at the Velantian. "Now,
Worsel, about you fellows here--you probably won't have it so easy, either.

Sooner or later--and sooner would be my guess--Helmuth's boys will be coming to
see you. In force and cocked and primed and with blood in their eyes. It'll be
a battle, not a slaughter."

"Let them come, in whatever force they care to bring. The more who attack
here, the less there will be to halt your progress. This armament represents
the best of that possessed by both your Patrol and the pirates, with
improvements developed by your scientists and ours in full cooperation. We
understand thoroughly its construction, operation, and maintenance. You may
rest assured that the pirates will never levy tribute upon us, and that any
pirate visiting this system will remain in it--permanently!"

"At-a-snake, Worsel--long may you wiggle!" Kinnison exclaimed. Then, more
seriously, "Maybe, after this is all over, I'll see you again sometime. If not,
goodbye. Goodbye, all Velantia. All set, everybody? Clear ether--blast off!" Six
ships, one pirate craft, now vessels of the Galactic Patrol, hurled themselves
into and through Velantian air, into and through interplanetary space, out into
the larger, wider, opener emptiness of the interstellar void. Six ships, each
broadcasting with prodigious power and volume an all-inclusive interference
through which not even a CRX tracer could be driven.



9. BREAKDOWN

Kimball Kinnison sat at the controls, smoking a rare festive cigarette and
smiling, at peace with the entire universe. For this new picture was in every
element a different one from the old. Instead of being in a pitifully weak and
defenseless lifeboat, skulking and hiding, he was in one of the most powerful
battleships afloat, driving boldly at full blast almost directly toward home.
While the Patrolmen were so terribly few in number that most of them had to
work double shifts--Kinnison and Henderson had to do all the piloting and
navigating--they had under them a full crew of alert and highly-trained
Velantians. And the enemy, instead of being a close-knit group, keeping Helmuth
informed moment by moment of the situation and instantly responsive to his
orders, were now entirely out of communication with each other and with their
headquarters, groping helplessly. Literally as well as figuratively the pirates
were in the dark, the absolute blackness of interstellar space.

Thorndyke entered the room, frowning slightly. "You look like the fabled
Cheshire cat, Kim. I hate to spoil such perfect bliss, but I'm here to tell you
that we ain't out of the woods yet, by seven thousand rows of big, green,
peppermint trees."

"Maybe not," the Lensman returned blithely, "but compared to the jam we were
in a little while back we're not only sitting on top of the world, we're
perched right on the exact apex of the universe. They can't send or receive
reports or orders. and they can't communicate. Even their detectors are mighty
lame--you know how far they can get on electromagnetics and visual apparatus.
Furthermore, there isn't an identification number, symbol, or name on the
outside of this buzz-buggy. If it ever had one the friction and attrition have
worn it off, clear down to the armor. What can happen that we can't cope with?"

'These engines can happen," the technician responded, bluntly. "The Bergenholm
is developing a meter-jump that I don't like a little bit."

"Does she knock? Or even tick?" demanded Kinnison.

"Not yet," Thorndyke confessed, reluctantly.

"How big a jump?"

"Pretty near two thousandths maximum. Average a thousandth and a half."

"That's hardly a wiggle on the recorder line. Drivers run for months with
bigger jumps than that."

"Yeah--drivers. But of all the troubles anybody ever had with Bergenholms, a
meter-kick was never one of them, and that's what's got me guessing as to the
whichness of the why. I'm not trying to scare you--yet I'm just telling you."

The machine referred to was the neutralizer of inertia, the sine qua non of
interstellar speed, and it was not to be, wondered at that the slightest
irregularity in its performance was to the technician a matter of grave
concern. Day after day passed, however, and the huge converter continued to
function, taking in and sending out its wonted torrents of power. It developed
not even a tick, and the meter-jump did not grow worse. And during those days
they put an inconceivable distance behind them.

During all this time their visual instruments remained blank, to all optical
apparatus space was empty save for the normal tenancy of celestial bodies. From
time to time something invisible or beyond the range of vision registered upon
one of the electromagnet detectors, but so slow were these instruments that
nothing came of their signals. In fact, by the time the warnings were recorded,
the objects causing the disturbance were probably far astern.

One day, however, the Bergenholm quit--cold. There was no laboring, no
knocking, no heating up, no warning at all. One instant the ship was speeding
along in free flight, the next she was lying inert in space. Practically
motionless, for any possible velocity built up by inert acceleration is
scarcely a crawl, as free space-speeds go.

Then the whole crew labored like mad. As soon as they had the massive covers
off, Thorndyke scanned the interior of the machine and turned to Kinnison. "I
think we can patch her up, but it'll take quite a while. Maybe you'd be of more
use in the control room--this isn't quite as safe as church, is it, lying here
inert?"

"Most of the stuff is on automatic trip, but maybe I'd better keep an eye on
things, at that. Let me know occasionally how you're getting along," and the
Lensman went back to his controls--none too soon.

For one pirate ship was already beaming him viciously. Only the fact that his
defensive armament was upon its automatic trips had saved the stolen battleship
from practically instantaneous destruction. And as the surprised Lensman began
to check his other instruments another spaceship flashed into being upon his
other side and also went to work.

As Kinnison had already remarked more than once, Helmuth was far from being a
fool, and that new and amazingly effective blanketing of his every means of
communication was a problem whose solution was of paramount importance. Almost
every available ship had been for days upon the fringe of that interference,
observing and reporting continuously. So rapidly was it moving, however, so
peculiar was its apparent shape, and so contradictory were the directional
readings obtained, that Helmuth's computers had been baffled.

Then Kinnison's Bergenholm failed and his ship went inert. In a space of
minutes the location of one center of interference was known. Its coordinates
were determined and half a dozen warships were ordered to rush that spot. The
raider first to arrive had signaled, visually and audibly, then obtaining no
response, had anchored with a tractor and had loosed his bolts. Nor would the
result have been different had everyone aboard, instead of no one, been in the
control room at the time of the signaling. Kinnison could have read the
messages, but neither he nor anyone else then aboard the erstwhile pirate craft
could have answered them in kind.

The two space-ships attacking the turncoat became three, and still the Lensman
sat unworried at his board. His meters showed no dangerous overload, his noble
craft was taking everything her sister-ships could send.

Then Thorndyke stepped into the room, no longer a natty officer of space.
Instead, he was stripped to sweat-soaked undershirt and overalls, he was
covered with grease and grime, and what of his thickly smeared face was visible
was almost haggard with fatigue. lie opened his mouth to say something, then
snapped it shut as his eye was caught by a flaring visiplate.

"Holy Mono's claws!" he exclaimed, "At us already? Why didn't you yell?"

"How much good would that have done?" Kinnison wanted to know. "Of course, if
I had known that you were loafing on the job and could have snapped it up a
little, I would have. But there's no particular hurry about this. It'll take at
least four of them to break us down, and I was hoping you'd have us traveling
before they overload us. What was on your mind?"

"I came up here--One, to tell you that we're ready to blast, Two, to suggest
that you hit her easy at first, and Three, to ask if you know where there's any
grease-soap. But you can cancel Two and Three. We don't want to play around
with these boys much longer--they play too rough--and I ain't going to wash up
until I see whether she holds together or not. Blast away--and won't those guys
be surprised!"

"I'll say so--some of this stuff is NEW!"

The Lensman twirled a couple of knobs, then punched down hard upon three
buttons. As he did so the flaring plates became dark, they were again alone in
space. To the dumbfounded pirates it was as though their prey had slipped off
into the fourth dimension. Their tractors gripped nothing whatever, their
ravening beams bored unimpeded through the space occupied an instant before by
resisting screens, tracers were useless. They did not know what had happened,
or how, and they could neither report to nor be guided by the master mind of
Boskone.

For minutes Thorndyke, vanBuskirk, and Kinnison waited tensely for they knew
not what to happen, but nothing happened and then the tension gradually relaxed.

"What was the matter with it?" Kinnison asked, finally.

"Overloaded," was Thorndyke's terse reply.

"Overloaded--hooey!" snapped the Lensman. "How could they overload a
Bergenholm? And, even if they could, why in all the nine hells of Valeria would
they want to?"

"They could do it easily enough, in just the way they did do it, by banking
accumulators onto it in series-parallel. As to why, I'll let you do the
guessing. With no load on the Bergenholm you've got full inertia, with full
load you've got zero inertia--you can't go any further. It looks just plain dumb
to me. But then, I think all pirates are short a few lets somewhere--if they
weren't they wouldn't be pirates."

"I don't know whether you're right or not. Hope so, but afraid not.
Personally, I don't believe these folks are pirates at all, in the ordinary
sense of the word."

"Hub? What are they, then?"

"Piracy implies similarity of cube, I would think," the Lensman said,
thoughtfully. "Ordinary pirates are usually renegades, deficient somehow, as
you suggested, rebelling against a constituted authority which they themselves
have at one time acknowledged and of which they are still afraid. That pattern
doesn't fit into this matrix at all, anywhere."

"So what? Now I say 'hooey' right back at you. Anyway, why worry about it?

"Not worrying about it exactly, but somebody has got to do something about it,
or else..."

"I don't like to think, it makes my head ache," interrupted vanBuskirk.
"Besides, we're getting away from the Bergenholm."

"You'll get a real headache there," laughed Ikon, "because I'll bet a good
Tellurian beefsteak that the pirates were trying to set up a negative inertia
when they overloaded the Bergenholm, and thinking about that state of matter is
enough to make anybody's head ache!"

"I knew that some of the dippier Ph.D.'s in higher mechanics have been
speculating about it," Thorndyke offered, "but it can't be done that way, can
it?"

"Nor any other way that anybody has tried yet, and if such a thing is possible
the results may prove really startling. But you two had better shove off,
you're dead from the neck up. The Berg's spinning like a top--as smooth as that
much green velvet. You'll find a can of soap in my locker, I think.

"Maybe she'll hold together long enough for us to get some sleep." The
technician eyed a meter dubiously, although its needle was not wavering a
hair's breadth from the green line. "But I'll tell the cockeyed Universe that
we gave her a jury rigging if there ever was one. You can't depend on it for an
hour until after it's been pulled and gone over, and that, you know as well as
I do, takes a real shop, with plenty of equipment. If you take my advice you'll
sit down somewhere while you can and as soon as you can. That Bergenholm is in
bad shape, believe me. We can hold her together for a while by main strength
and awkwardness, but before very long she's going out for keeps--and when she
does you don't want to find yourself fifty years from a machine shop instead of
fifty minutes."

"I'll say not," the Lensman agreed. "But on the other hand, we don't want
those birds jumping us the minute we land, either. Let's see, where are we? And
where are the bases? Um-m-m... Sector bases are white rings, you know, sub-
sector bases red stars..." Three heads bent over charts.

"The nearest red-star marker seems to be in System 240.16-37 " Kinnison
finally announced. "Don't know the name of the planet--never been there...

"Too far, interrupted Thorndyke. "We'll never make it--might as well try direct
for Prime Base on Tellus. If you cant find a red closer than that, look for an
orange or a yellow."

"Bases of any kind seem to be scarce around here," the Lensman commented.
"You'd think they'd be thicker. Here's a violet triangle, but that wouldn't
help us--just an outpost... How about this blue square? It's just about on our
line to Tellus, and I can't see anything any better that we can possibly reach."

"That looks like our best bet," Thorndyke concurred, after a few minutes of
study. "It's probably several breakdowns away, but maybe we can make it--
sometime. Blues are pretty low-grade space-ports but they've got tools, anyway.
What's the name of it, Kim--or is it only a number?"

"It's that very famous planet, Trenco," the Lensman announced, after looking
up the reference numbers in the atlas.

"Trenco!" exclaimed Thorndyke in disgust. "The nuttiest dopiest wooziest
planet in the galaxy--we would draw something like that to sit down. on for
repairs, wouldn't we? Well, I'm on plus time for sleep. Call me if we go inert
before I wake up, will you?"

"I sure will, and I'll try to figure out a way of getting down to ground
without bringing all the pirates in space along with us."

Then Henderson came in to stand his watch, Kinnison slept, and the mighty
Bergenholm continued to bold the vessel inertialess. In fact, all the men were
thoroughly rested and refreshed before the expected breakdown came. And when it
did come they were more or less prepared for it. The delay was not sufficiently
long to enable the pirates to find them again, but from that point in space to
the ill-famed planet which was their destination, progress was one long series
of hops.

The sweating, grunting, swearing engineers made one seemingly impossible
repair after another, by dint of what dodge, improvisation, and makeshift only
the fertile brain of LaVerne Thorndyke ever did know. The Master Technician,
one of the keenest and most highly trained engineers of the whole Solarian
System, was not used to working with his hands. Although young in years, he was
wont to use only his head, in directing the labors and the energies of others.

Nevertheless he was now working like a stevedore. He was permanently grimy and
greasy--their one can of mechanics soap had been used up long since--his
fingernails were black and broken his hands and face were burned, blistered,
and cracked. His muscles ached and shrieked at the unaccustomed effort, until
now they were on the build. But through it all he had stuck uncomplainingly,
even buoyantly, to his task. One day, during an interlude of free flight, he
strode into the control-room and glanced at the course-plotting goniometer,
then started into the "tank."

"Still on the original course, I see. Have you got anything doped out yet?"

"Nothing very good, that's why I'm staying on this course until we reach the
point closest to Trenco. I've figured until my alleged brain backfired on me
and here's all I can get.

"I've been shrinking and expanding our interference zone, changing its shape
as much as I could, and cutting it off entirely now and then, to cross up
their, surveyors as much as I could. When we come to the jumping-off place
we'll simply cut off everything that is sending out traceable vibrations. The
Berg will have to run, of course, but it doesn't radiate much and we can ground
out practically all of that. The drive is the bad feature--it looks as though
we'll have to cut down to where we can ground out the radiation."

"How about the flare?" Thorndyke took the. inevitable slide-rule from a pocket
of his overalls.

"I've already had the Velantians build us some baffles--we've got lots of spare
tantalum, tungsten, carballoy, and refractory, you know--just in case we should
want to use them."

"Radiation... detection... decrement... cosine squared theta... um... call it
point zero zero three eight," the engineer mumbled, squinting at his "slip-
stick." "Times half a million... about nineteen hundred lights will have to be
tops. Mighty slow, but we would get there sometime--maybe. Now about the
baffles," and he went into another bout of computation during which could be
distinguished a few such words as "temperature... inert corpuscles...
velocity... fusion-point... Weinberger's Constant..." Then.

"It figures that at about eighteen hundred lights your baffles go out," he
announced. "Pretty close check with the radiation limit. QX, I guess--but I
shudder to think of what we may have to do to that Bergenholm to hold it
together that long."

"It's not so hot. I don't think much of the scheme myself," admitted Kinnison
frankly. "Probably you can think up something better before..."

"Who, me? What with?" Thorndyke interrupted, with a laugh. "Looks to me like
our best bet--anyway, ain't you the master mind of this outfit? Blast off!"

Thus it came about that long later, the Lensman cut off his interference, cut
off his driving power, cut off every mechanism whose operation generated
vibrations which would reveal to enemy detectors the location of his cruiser.
Space-suited mechanics emerged from the stern lock and fitted over the still
white-hot vents of the driving projectors the baffles they had previously built.

It is of course well known that all. ships of space are propelled by the.
inert projection, by means of high-potential static fields, of nascent fourth-
order particles or "corpuscles," which are formed, inert, inside the
inertialess projector, by the conversion of some form of energy into matter.
This conversion liberates some heat, and a vast amount of light. This light, or
"flare," shining as it does directly upon and through the highly tenuous gas
formed by the, projected corpuscles, makes of a speeding spaceship one of the
most gorgeous spectacles known to man, and it was this very spectacular effect
that Kinnison and his crew must do away with if their bold scheme were to have
any chance at all of success.

The baffles were in place. Now, instead of shooting out in tell-tale
luminescence, the light was shut in--but so, alas, was approximately three
percent of the heat. And the generation of heat must be cut down to a point at
which the radiation-equilibrium temperature of the baffles would be below the
point of fusion of the refractories of which they were composed. This would cut
down their speed tremendously, but on the other hand, they were practically
safe from detection and would reach Trenco eventually--if the Bergenholm held
out.

Of course there was still the chance of visual or electromagnetic detection,
but that chance was vanishingly small. The proverbial task of finding a needle
in a haystack would be an easy one indeed, compared to that of seeing in a
telescope or upon visiplate or magneplate a dead-black, lightless bip in the
infinity of space. No, the Bergenholm was their great, their only concern, and
the engineers lavished upon that monstrous fabrication of metal a devotion to
which could be likened only that of a corps of nurses attending the ailing baby
of a multi-millionaire.

This concentration of attention did get results. The engineers still found it
necessary to sweat and to grunt and to swear, but they did somehow keep the
thing running--most of the time. Nor were they detected--then.

For the attention of the pirate high command was very much taken up with that
fast-moving, that ever-expanding, that peculiarly-fluctuating volume of
interference, utterly enigmatic as it was and impenetrable to their every
instrument of communication. In that system was the Prime Base of the Galactic
Patrol. Therefore it was the Lensman's work--undoubtedly the same Lensman who
had conquered one of their super-ships and, after having learned its every
secret, had escaped in a lifeboat through the fine-meshed net set to catch him!
And, piling Ossa upon Pelion, this same Lensman had--must have--captured ship
after unconquerable ship of their best and was even now sailing calmly home
with them! It was intolerable, unbearable, an insult that could not and would
not be borne.

Therefore, using as tools every pirate ship in that sector of space, Helmuth
and his computers and navigators were slowly but grimly solving the equations
of motion of that volume of interference. Smaller and smaller became the
uncertainties. Then ship after ship bored into the subethereal murk, to match
course and velocity with, and ultimately to come to grips with, each focus of
disturbance as it was determined.

Thus in a sense and although Kinnison and his friends did not then know it, it
was only the failure of the Bergenholm that was to save their lives, and with
those lives our present Civilization.

Slowly, hatingly, and, for reasons already given, undetected, Kinnison made
pitiful progress toward Trenco, cursing impatiently and impartially his ship,
the crippled generator, its designer and its previous operators as he went. But
at long last Trenco loomed large beneath them and the Lensman used his Lens.

"Lensman of Trenco space-port, or any other Lensman within call!" he sent out
clearly. "Kinnison of Tellus-Sol III--calling. My Bergenholm is almost out and I
must sit down at Trenco space-port for repairs. I have avoided the pirates so
far, but they may be either behind me or ahead of me, or both. What is the
situation there?"

"I fear that I can be of no help," came back a weak thought, without the
customary identification. "I am out of control. However, Tregonsee is in the
..."

Kinnison felt a poignant, unbearably agonizing mental impact that jarred him
to the very core, a shock that, while of sledge-hammer force, was still of such
a keenly penetrant timbre that it almost exploded every cell of his brain. It
seemed as though some mighty fist, armed with yard-long needles, had slugged an
actual blow into the most vitally sensitive nerve-center" of his being.

Communication ceased, and the Lensman knew, with a sick, shuddering certainty,
that while in the very act of talking to him a Lensman had died.



10. TRENCO

Judged by any earthly standards the planet trenco was--and is--a peculiar one
indeed. Its atmosphere, which is not sir, and its liquid, which is not water,
are its two outstanding peculiarities and the sources of most of its others.
Almost half of that atmosphere and by far the greater part of the liquid phase
of the planet is a substance of extremely low latent heat of vaporization, with
a boiling point such that during the daytime it is a vapor and at night a
liquid. To make matters worse, the other constituents of Trenco's gaseous
envelope are of very feeble blanketing power, low specific heat, and of high
permeability, so that its days are intensely hot and its nights are bitterly
cold.

At night, therefore, it rains. Words are entirely inadequate to describe to
anyone who has never been there just how it does rain during Trenco' s nights.
Upon Earth one inch of rainfall in an hour is a terrific downpour. Upon Trenco
that amount of precipitation would scarcely be considered a mist, for along the
equatorial belt, in less than thirteen Tellurian hours, it rains exactly forty-
seven feet and five inches every night--no more no less, each and every night of
every year.

Also there is lightning. Not in Terra's occasional flashes, but in one
continuous, blinding glare which makes night as we know it unknown there in
nerve-wracking, battering, sense-destroying discharges which make ether and sub-
ether alike impenetrable to any ray or signal short of a full driven power
beam. The days are practically as bad. The lightning is not violent then, but
the bombardment of Trenco's monstrous sun, through that outlandishly peculiar
atmosphere, produces almost the same effect.

Because of the difference in pressure set up by the enormous precipitation
always and everywhere upon Trenco there is wind--and what a wind! Except at the
very poles, where it is too cold for even Trenconian life to exist, there is
hardly a spot in which or a time at which an Earthly gale would not be
considered a dead calm, and along the equator, at every sunrise and at every
sunset, the wind blows from the day side to the night side at the rate of well
over eight hundred miles an hour!

Through countless thousands of years wind and wave have planed and scoured the
planet Trenco to a geometrically perfect oblate spheroid. It has no elevations
and no depressions. Nothing fixed in an Earthly sense grows or exists upon its
surface, no structure has ever been built there able to stay in one place
through one whole day of the cataclysmic meteorological phenomena which
constitute the natural Trenconian environment.

There live upon Trenco two types of vegetation, each type having innumerable
sub-divisions. One type sprouts in the mud of morning, flourishes flatly, by
dint of deeply sent and powerful roots, during the wind and the heat of the
day, comes to full fruit in later afternoon, and at sunset dies and is swept
away by the flood. The other type is freeloading. Some of its genera are
remotely like footballs, others resemble tumbleweeds, still others
thistledown,, hundreds of others have not their remotest counterparts upon
Earth. Essentially, however, they are alike in habits of life. They can sink in
the "water" of Trenco, then can burrow in its mud, from which they derive part
of their sustenance, they can emerge therefrom into the sunlight, they can,
undamaged float in or roll along before the ever-present Trenconian wind, and
they can enwrap, entangle, or otherwise seize and hold anything with which they
come in contact which by any chance may prove edible.

Animal life, too, while abundant and diverse, is characterized by three
qualities. From lowest to very highest it is amphibious, it is streamlined, and
it is omnivorous. Life upon Trenco is hard, and any form of life to evolve
there must of stern necessity be willing yes, even anxious, to eat literally
anything available. And for that reason all surviving forms of life, vegetable
and animal, have a voracity and a fecundity almost unknown anywhere else in the
galaxy.

Thionite, the noxious drug referred to earlier in this narrative, is the sole
reason for Trenco's galactic importance. As chlorophyll is to Earthly
vegetation, so is thionite to that of Trenco. Trenco is the only planet thus
far known upon which this substance occurs, nor have our scientists even yet
been able either to analyze or to synthesize it. Thionite is capable of
affecting only the races who breathe oxygen and possess warm blood, red with
hemoglobin. However, the planets peopled by such races are legion, and very
shortly after the drug's discovery hordes of addicts smugglers, peddlers, and
out-and-out pirates were rushing toward the new Bonanza. Thousands of these
adventurers died, either from each other's ray-guns or under an avalanche of
hungry Trenconian life, but, thionite being what it is, thousands more kept
coming. Also came the Patrol, to curb the evil traffic at its source by b
laming down ruthlessly any being attempting to gather any Trenconian vegetation.

Thus between the Patrol and the drug syndicate there rages a bitterly
continuous battle to the death. Arrayed against both factions is the massed
life of the noisome planet, omnivorous as it is, eternally ravenous, and of an
individual power and ferocity and a collective aggregate of numbers by no means
to be despised. And eternally raging against all these contending parties are
the wind, the lightning, the rain, the flood, and the hellish vibratory output
of Trenco' s enormous, malignant, blue-white sun.

This, then, was the planet upon which Kinnison had to land in order to repair
his crippled Bergenholm--and in the end how well it was to be that such was the
case! "Kinnison of Tellus, greetings. Tregonsee of Rigel IV calling from Trenco
space

port. Have you ever landed on this planet before?" "No, but what..."Skip that
for a time, it is most important that you land here quickly and safely.

Where are you in relation to this planet?"

"Your apparent diameter is a shade under six degrees. We are near the plane of
your ecliptic and almost in the plane of your terminator, on the morning side."

'That is well, you have ample time. Place your ship between Trenco and the
sun. Enter the atmosphere exactly fifteen GP minutes from the present moment,
at twenty degrees after meridian, as nearly as possible on the ecliptic, which
is also our equator. Go inert as you enter atmosphere, for a free landing upon
this planet is impossible. Synchronize with our rotation, which is twenty six
point two GP hours. Descend vertically until the atmospheric pressure is seven
hundred millimeters of mercury, which will be at an altitude of approximately
one thousand meters. Since you rely largely upon that sense called sight, allow
me to caution you now not to trust it. When your external pressure is seven
hundred millimeters of mercury your altitude will be one thousand meters,
whether you believe it or not. Stop at that pressure and inform me of the fact,
meanwhile holding yourself as nearly stationary as you can. Check so far?"

"QX--but do you mean to tell me that we can't locate each other at a thousand
meters?" Kinnison s amazed thought escaped him. "What kind of..."

"I can locate you, but you cannot locate me," came the dry reply. "Everyone
knows that Trenco is peculiar, but no one who has never been here can realize
even dimly how peculiar it really is. Detectors and spy-rays are useless,
electro-magnetics are practically paralyzed, and optical apparatus is
distinctly unreliable. You cannot trust your vision here--do not believe
anything you see. It used to require days to land a ship at this port, but with
our Lenses and my 'sense of perception,' as you call it, it will be a matter of
minutes."

Kinnison flashed his ship to the designated position.

"Cut the Berg, Thorndyke, we're all done with it. We've got to build up an
inert velocity to match the rotation, and land inert."

'Thanks be to all the gods of space for that." The engineer heaved a sigh of
relief. "I've been expecting it to blow its top for the last hour, and I don't
know whether we'd ever have got it meshed in again or not."

"QX on location and orbit," Kinnison reported to the as yet invisible space-
port a few minutes later. "Now, what about that Lensman? What happened?"

"The usual thing," came the emotionless response. "It happens to altogether
too many Lensmen who can see, in spite of everything we can tell them He
insisted upon going out after his zwilniks in a ground car, and of course we
had to let him go. He became confused, lost control, let something-- possibly a
zwilnik's bomb--get under his leading edge, and the wind and the trencos' did
the rest. He was Lageston of Mercator V--a good man, too. What is your pressure
now?"

"Five hundred millimeters."

"Slow down. Now, if you cannot conquer the tendency to believe your eyes, you
had better shut off your visiplates and watch only the pressure gauge."

"Being warned, I can disbelieve my eyes, I think," and for a minute or so
communication ceased.

At a startled oath from vanBuskirk, Kinnison glanced into the plate and it
needed all his nerve to keep from wrenching savagely at the controls. For the
whole planet was tipping, lurching. spinning, gyrating madly in a frenzy of
impossible motions, and even as the Patrolmen stared a huge mass of something
shot directly toward the ship!

"Sheer off, Kim!" yelled the Valerian.

"Hold it, Bus," cautioned the Lensman. 'That's what we've got to expect, you
know--I passed all the stuff along as I got it. Everything, that is, except that
a 'zwilnik' is anything or anybody that comes after thionite, and that a
'trenco' is anything, animal or vegetable, that lives on the planet. QX,
Tregonsee--seven hundred, and I'm holding steady--I hope!"

"Steady enough, but you are too far away for our landing beam to grasp you.
Apply a little drive... Shift course to your left and down... more left... up a
trifle... that's it... slow down... QX."

There was a gentle, snubbing shock, and Kinnison again translated to his
companions the stranger's thoughts.

"We have you. Cut off all power and lock all controls in neutral. Do nothing
more until I instruct you to come out."

Kinnison obeyed, and, released from all duty, the visitors stared in
fascinated incredulity into the visiplate. For that at which they stared was
and must forever remain impossible of duplication upon Earth, and only in
imagination can it be even faintly pictured. Imagine all the fantastic and
monstrous creatures of a delirium-tremens vision incarnate and actual. Imagine
them being hurled through the air, borne by a dust-laden gale more severe than
any the great American dust-bowl or Africa's Sahara Desert ever endured.
Imagine this scene as being viewed, not in an ordinary, solid distorting
mirror, but in one whose falsely reflecting contours were changing constantly,
with no logical or intelligible rhythm, into new and ever more grotesque warps.
If imagination has been equal to the task, the resultant is what the visitors
tried to see.

At first they could make nothing whatever of it. Upon nearer approach,
however, the ghastly distortion grew less and the flatly level expanse took on
a semblance of rigidity. Directly beneath them they made out something that
looked like an immense, flat blister upon the otherwise featureless terrain.
Toward this blister their ship was drawn.

A port opened, dwarfed in apparent size to a mere window by the immensity of
the structure one of whose entrances it was. Through this port the vast bulk of
the spaceship was wafted upon the landing-bars, and behind it the mighty bronze-
and-steel gates clanged shut. The lock was pumped to a vacuum, there was a hiss
of entering air, a spray of vaporous liquid bathed every inch of the vessel's
surface, and Kinnison felt again the calm thought of Tregonsee, the Rigellian
Lensman.

"You may now open your air-lock and emerge. If I have read aright our
atmosphere is sufficiently like your own in oxygen content so that you will
suffer no ill effects from it. It may be well, however, to wear your armor
until you have become accustomed to its considerably greater density."

"That'll be a relief!" growled vanBuskirk's deep bass, when his chief had
transmitted the thought. "I've been breathing this thin stuff so long I'm
getting lightheaded."

"That's gratitude!" Thorndyke retorted. "We've been running our air so heavy
that all the rest of us are thickheaded now. If the air in this space- port is
any heavier than what we've been having, I'm going to wear armor as long as we
stay here!"

Kinnison opened the, air-lock, found the atmosphere of the space-port
satisfactory, and stepped out, to be greeted cordially by Tregonsee the Lensman.

This--this apparition was at least erect, which was something. His body was the
size and shape of an oil-drum. Beneath this massive cylinder of a body were
four short, blocky legs upon which he waddled about with surprising speed.
Midway up the body, above each leg, there sprouted out a ten-foot-long,
writhing, boneless, tentacular arm, which toward the extremity branched out
into dozens of lesser tentacles, ranging in size from hair-like tendrils up to
mighty fingers two inches or more in diameter. Tregonsee's head was merely a
neckless, immobile, bulging dome in the center of the flat upper surface of his
body--a dome bearing neither eyes nor ears, but only four equallyspaced
toothless mouths and four single, flaring nostrils.

But Kinnison felt no qualm of repugnance at Tregonsee's monstrous appearance,
for embedded in the leathery flesh of one arm was the Lens. Here, the Lensman
knew, was in every essential a MAN--and probably a super- man.

"Welcome to Trenco, Kinnison of Tellus," Tregonsee was saying. "While we are
near neighbors in space, I have never happened to visit your planet. I have
encountered Tellurians here, of course, but they were not of a type to be
received as guests."

"No, a zwilnik is not a high type of Tellurian," Kinnison agreed. "I have
often wished that I could have your sense of perception, if only for a day. It
must be wonderful indeed to be able to perceive a thing as a whole, inside and
out, instead of having vision stopped at its surface, as is ours. And to be
independent of light or darkness, never to be lost or in need of instruments,
to know definitely where you are in relation to every other object or thing
around you--that, I think, is the most marvelous sense in the Universe."

"Just as I have wished for sight and hearing, those two remarkable and to us
entirely unexplainable senses. I have dreamed, I have studied volumes, on color
and sound. Color in art and in nature, sound in music and in the voices of
loved ones, but they remain meaningless symbols upon a printed page. However,
such thoughts are vain. In all probability neither of us would enjoy the
other's equipment if he bad it, and this interchange is of no material
assistance to you."

In flashing thoughts Kinnison then communicated to the other Lensman
everything that had transpired since he left Prime Base.

"I perceive that your Bergenholm is of standard fourteen rating," Tregonsee
said, as the Tellurian finished his story. "We have several spares here, and,
while they all have regulation Patrol mountings, it would take much less time
to change mounts than to overhaul your machine."

"That's so, too--I never thought of the possibility of your having spares on
bandand we've lost a lot of time al. ready. How long will it take?"

"One shift of labor to change mounts, at least eight to rebuild yours enough
to be sure that it will get you home."

"We'll change mounts, then, by all means. I'll call the boys..."

"There is no need of that. We are amply equipped, and neither you humans nor
the Velantians could handle our tools." Tregonsee made no visible motion nor
could Kinnison perceive a break in his thought, but while he was conversing
with the Tellurian half a dozen of his blocky Rigellians had dropped whatever
they had been doing and were scuttling toward the visiting ship. "Now I must
leave you for a time, as I have one more trip to make this afternoon."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" asked Kinnison.

"No," came the definite negative. "I will return in three hours, as well
before sunset the wind makes it impossible to get even a ground-car into the
port. I will then show you why you can be of little assistance to us."

Kinnison spent those three hours watching the Rigellians work upon the
Bergenholm, there was no need for direction or advice. They knew what to do and
they did it. Those tiny, hairlike fingers, literally hundreds of them at once,
performed delicate tasks with surpassing nicety and dispatch, when it came to
heavy tasks the larger digits or even whole arms wrapped themselves around the
work and, with the solid bracing of the four block-like legs, exerted forces
that even vanBuskirk's giant frame could not have approached.

As the end of the third hour neared, Kinnison watched with a spy-ray-- there
were no windows in Trenco spaceport--the leeward groundway of the structure. In
spite of the weird antics of Trenco's sun-gyrating, jumping, appearing and
disappearing--he knew that it was going down. Soon he saw the ground-car coming
in, scuttling crabwise, nose into the wind but actually moving backward and
sidewise. Although the "seeing" was very poor, at this close range the
distortion was minimized and he could see that, like its parent craft, the
ground-car was a blister. Its edges actually touched the ground all around,
sloping upward and over the top in such a smooth reverse curve that the harder
the wind blew the more firmly was the vehicle pressed downward.

The ground-flap came up just enough to clear the car's top and the tiny craft
crept up. But before the landing bars could seize her the ground-car struck an
eddy from the flap--an eddy in a medium which, although gaseous, was at that
velocity practically solid. Earth blasted away in torrents from the leading
edge, the car leaped bodily into the air and was flung away, end over end. But
Tregonsee, with consummate craftsmanship, forced her flat again, and again she
crawled up toward the flap. This time the landing-bars took hold and, although
the little vessel fluttered like a leaf in a gale, she was drawn inside the
port and the flap went down behind her. She was then

sprayed, and Tregonsee came out. "Why the spray?" thought Kinnison, as the
Rigellian entered his control-room. "Trencos. Much of the life of this planet
starts from almost imperceptible spores.

It develops rapidly, attains considerable size, and consumes anything organic
it touches. This port was depopulated time after time before the lethal spray
was developed. Now turn your spy-ray again to the lee of the port."

During the few minutes that had elapsed the wind had increased in fury to such
an extent that the very ground was boiling away from the trailing edge in the
tumultuous eddy formed there, ultra-streamlined though the space-port was. And
that eddy, far surpassing in violence any storm known to Earth, was to the
denizens of Trenco a miraculously appearing quiet spot in which they could stop
and rest, eat and be eaten.

A globular monstrosity had thrust pseudopodia deep into the boiling dirt.
Other limbs now shot out, grasping a tumble-weed-like growth. The latter fought
back viciously, but could make no impression upon the rubbery integument of the
former. Then a smaller creature, slipping down the polished curve of the
shield, was enmeshed by the tumbleweed. There ensued the amazing spectacle of
one-half of the tumbleweed devouring the newcomer, even while its other half
was being devoured by the globe!

"Now look out farther... still. farther," directed Tregonsee. "I can't. Things
take on impossible motions and become so distorted as to be

unrecognizable." "Exactly. If you saw a zwilnik out there, where would you
shoot?" "At him, I suppose--why?" "Because if you shot at where you think you
see him, not only would you miss

him, but the beam might very well swing around and enter your own back. Many
men have been killed by their own weapons in precisely that fashion. Since we
know, not only what the object is, but exactly where it is, we can correct our
lines of aim for the then existing values of distortion. This is of course the
reason why we Rigellians and other races possessing the sense of perception are
the only ones who can efficiently police this planet."

"Reason enough, I'd say, from what I've seen," and silence fell.

For minutes the two Lensmen watched, while creatures of a hundred kinds
streamed into the lee of the space-port and killed and ate each other. Finally
something came crawling up wind, against that unimaginable gale, a flatly
streamlined creature resembling somewhat a turtle, but shaped as was the ground-
car. Thrusting down long, hooked flippers into the dirt it inched along, paying
no attention. to the scores of lesser creatures who hurled themselves upon its
armored back, until it was close beside the largest football-shaped creature in
the eddy. Then, lightning-like, it drove a needlesharp organ at least eight
inches into the leathery mass of its victim. Struggling convulsively, the
stricken thing lifted the turtle a fraction of an inch--and both were hurled
instantly out of sight, the living ball still eating a luscious bit of prey
despite the fact that it was impaled upon the poniard of the turtle and was
certainly doomed.

"Good Lord, what was that?" exclaimed Kinnison. "The flat? That was a
representative of Trenco's highest life-form. It may develop a civilization in
time--it is quite intelligent now." "But the difficulties!" protested the
Tellurian. "Building cities, even homes..."

"Neither cities nor homes are necessary here, nor even desirable. Why build?
Nothing is or can be fixed on this planet, and since one place is exactly like
every other place, why wish to remain in any one particular spot? They do very
well, in their own mobile way. Here, you will notice, comes the rain."

The rain came--forty-four inches per hour of rain--and the incessant lightning.
The dirt became first mud, then muddy water being driven in fiercely flying
gouts and masses. Now, in the lee of the space-port, the outlandish denizens of
Trenco were burrowing down into the mud--still eating each other and anything
else that came within reach.

The water grew deeper and deeper, its upper surface now whipped into frantic
sheets of spray. The structure was now afloat, and Kinnison saw with
astonishment that, small as was the exposed surface and flatly curved, yet it
was pulling through the water at frightful speed the wide-spreading steel sea-
anchors which were holding its head to the gale.

"With no reference points how do you know where you're going?" he demanded.

"We neither know nor care," responded Tregonsee, with a mental shrug. "We are
like the natives in that. Since one spot is like every other spot, why choose
between them?"

"What a world--what a world! However, I am beginning to understand why thionite
is so expensive," and, overwhelmed by the ever-increasing fury raging outside,
Kinnison sought his bunk.

Morning came, a reversal of the previous evening. The liquid evaporated, the
mud dried, the flat-growing vegetation sprang up with shocking speed, the
animals emerged and again ate and were eaten.

And eventually came Tregonsee's announcement that it was almost noon, and that
now, for half an hour or so, it would be calm enough for the space-ship to
leave the port.

"You are sure that I would be of no help to you?" asked the Rigellian,
halfpleadingly.

"Sorry, Tregonsee, but I'm afraid you wouldn't fit into my matrix any better
than I would into yours. But here's the spool I told you about. If you will
take it to your base on your next relief you will do civilization and the
Patrol more good than you could by coming with us. Thanks for the Bergenholm,
which is covered by credits, and thanks a lot for your help and courtesy, which
can't be covered. Goodbye," and the now entirely space-worthy craft shot out
through the port, through Trenco's noxiously peculiar atmosphere, and into the
vacuum of space.



11. GRAND BASE

At some little distance from the galaxy, yet shackled to it by the flexible
yet powerful bonds of gravitation, the small but comfortable planet upon which
was Helmuth's base circled about its parent sun. This planet had been chosen
with the utmost care, and its location was a secret guarded jealously indeed.
Scarcely one in a million of Boskone's teeming myriads knew even that such a
planet existed, and of the chosen few who had ever been asked to visit it,
fewer still by far had been allowed to leave it.

Grand Base covered hundreds of square miles of that planet's surface. It was
equipped with all the arms and armament known to the military genius of the
age, and in the exact center of that immense citadel there arose a glittering
metallic dome.

The inside surface of that dome was lined with visiplates and communicators,
hundreds of thousands of them. Miles of catwalks clung precariously to the
inwardcurving wail. Control panels and instrument boards covered the floor in
banks and tiers, with only narrow runways between them. And what a personnel!
There were Solarians, Crevenians, Sirians. There were Antareans, Vandemarians,
Arcturians. There were representatives of scores, yes, hundreds of other solar
systems of the galaxy.

But whatever their external form they were all breathers of oxygen and they
were all nourished by warm, red blood. Also, they were all alike mentally. Each
had won his present high place by trampling down those beneath him and by
pulling down those above him in the branch to which he had first belonged of
the "pirate" organization. Each was characterized by a total lack of scruple,
by a coldly ruthless passion for power and place.

Kinnison had been eminently correct in his belief that Boskone's was not a
"pirate outfit" in any ordinary sense of the word, but even his ideas of its
true nature fell far short indeed of the truth. It was a culture already inter-
galactic in scope, but one built upon ideals diametrically opposed to those of
the civilization represented by the Galactic Patrol.

It was a tyranny, an absolute monarchy, a despotism not even remotely
approximated by the dictatorships of earlier ages. It had only one creed--"The
end justifies the means." Anything--literally anything at all--that produced the
desired result was commendable, to fail was the only crime. The successful
named their own rewards, those who failed were disciplined with an impersonal,
rigid severity exactly proportional to the magnitude of their failures.

Therefore no weaklings dwelt within that fortress, and of all its cold, hard,
ruthless crew far and away the coldest, hardest, and most ruthless was Helmuth,
the "speaker for Boskone," who sat at the great desk in the dome's geometrical
center. This individual was almost human in form and build, springing as he did
from a planet closely approximating Earth in mass, atmosphere, and climate.
Indeed, only his general, allpervasive aura of blueness bore witness to the
fact that he was not a native of Tellus.

His eyes were blue, his hair was blue, and even his skin was faintly blue
beneath its coat of ultra-violet tan. His intensely dynamic personality fairly
radiated bluenessnot the gentle blue of an Earthly sky, not the sweetly
innocuous blue of an Earthly flower, but the keenly merciless blue of a delta-
ray, the cold and bitter blue of a Polar iceberg, the unyielding, inflexible
blue of quenched and drawn tungsten-chromium steel.

Now a frown sat heavily upon his arrogantly patrician face as his eyes bored
into the plate before him, from the base of which were issuing the words being
spoken by the assistant pictured in its deep surface.

"...the fifth dove into the deepest ocean of Corvina II, in the depths of
which all rays are useless. The ships which followed have not as yet reported,
but they will do so as soon as they have completed their mission. No trace of
the sixth has been found, and it is therefore assumed that it was destroyed..."

"Who assumes so?" demanded Helmuth, coldly. "There is no justification
whatever for such an assumption. Go on!" "The Lensman, if there is one and if
he is alive, must therefore be in the fifth ship, which is about to be taken."

"Your report is neither complete nor conclusive, and I do not at all approve
of your intimation that the Lensman is simply a figment of my imagination. That
it was a Lensman is the only possible logical conclusion--none other of the
Patrol forces could have done what has been done. Postulating his reality, it
seems to me that instead of being a bare possibility, it is highly probable
that he has again escaped us, and again in one of our own vessels--this time in
the one you have so conveniently assumed to have been destroyed. Have you
searched the line of flight?"

"Yes, sir. Everything in space and every planet within reach of that line has
been examined with care, except, of course, Velantia and Trenco." "Velantia is,
for the time being, unimportant. The sixth ship left Velantia and did not go
back there. Why Trenco?" and Helmuth pressed a series of buttons. "Ah, I see".

To recapitulate, one ship, the one which in all probability is now carrying
the Lensman, is still unaccounted for. Where is it? We know that it has not
landed upon or near any Solarian planet, and measures are being taken to see to
it that it does not land upon or near any planet of 'Civilization.' Now, I
think, it has become necessary to comb that planet Trenco, inch by inch."

"But sir, how..." began the anxious-eyed underling.

"When did it become necessary to draw diagrams and make blue-prints for you?"
demanded Helmuth, harshly. "We have ships manned by Ordoviks and other races
having the sense of perception. Find out where they are and get them there at
full blast!" and he punched a button, to replace the image upon his plate by
another.

"It has now become of paramount importance that we complete our knowledge of
the Lens of the Patrol," he began, without salutation or preamble. "Have you
traced its origin yet?"

"I believe so, but I do not certainly know. It has proved to be a task of such
difficulty..."

"If it had been an easy one I would not have made a special assignment of it
to you. Go on!"

"Everything seems to point to the planet Arisia, of which I can learn nothing
definite whatever except..."

"Just a moment!" Helmuth punched more buttons and listened. "Unexplored...
unknown... shunned by all spacemen...

"Superstition, eh?" he snapped. "Another of those haunted planets?"

"Something more than ordinary spacemen's superstition, sir, but just what I
have not been able to discover. By combing my department I managed to make up a
crew of those who either were not afraid of it or bad never heard of it. That
crew is now en route there."

"Whom have we In that sector of space? I find it desirable to check your
findings."

The department head reeled off a list of names and numbers, which Helmuth
considered at length.

"Gildersleeve. the Valerian," he decided. "He is a good man, coming along
fast. Aside from a firm belief in his own peculiar gods, he has shown no signs
of weakness. You considered him?"

"Certainly." The henchman, as cold as his icy chief, knew that explanations
would not satisfy Helmuth, therefore be offered none. "He is raiding at the
moment, but I will put you on him if you like."

"Do so," and upon Helmuth's plate there appeared a deep-space scene of rapine
and pillage.

The convoying Patrol cruiser had already been blasted out of existence, only a
few idly drifting masses of debris remained to show that it had ever been.
Needlebeams were at work, and soon the merchantman hung inert and helpless. The
pirates, scorning to use the emergency inlet port, simply blasted away the
entire entrance panel. Then they boarded, an armored swarm, flaming DeLameters
spreading death and destruction before them.

The sailors, outnumbered as they were and over-armed, fought heroically-- but
uselessly. In groups and singly they fell, those who were not already dead
being callously tossed out into space in slitted space-suits and with smashed
drivers. Only the younger women--the stewardesses, the nurses, the one or two
such among the few passengers--were taken as booty, all others shared the fate
of the crew.

Then, the ship plundered from nose to after-jets and every article or thing of
value trans-shipped, the raider drew off, bathed in the blue-white glare of the
bombs that were destroying every trace of the merchant-ship's existence. Then
and only then did Helmuth reveal himself to Gildersleeve.

"A good, clean job of work, Captain," he commended. "Now, how would you like
to visit Arisia for me--for me, direct?"

A pallor overspread the normally ruddy face of the Valerian and an
uncontrollable tremor shook his giant frame. But as he considered the
implications resident in Helmuth's concluding phrase he licked his lips and
spoke.

"I hate to say no, sir, if you order me to and if there was any way of making
my crew do it. But we were near there once, sir, and we... I... they .... it
well, sir, I saw things, sir, and I was... was warned, sir!"

"Saw what? And was warned of what?"

"I can't describe what I saw, sir. I can't even think of It in thoughts that
mean anything. As for the warning, though, it was very definite, sir. I was
told very plainly that if 'ever go near that planet again I will die a worse
death than any I have dealt out to

any other living being." "But you will go there again?" "I tell you, sir, that
the crew will not do it," Gildersleeve replied, doggedly.

"Even if

I were anxious to go, every man aboard will mutiny if I try it." "Call them in
right now and tell them that you have been ordered to Arisia." The captain did
so, but he had scarcely started to talk when he was stopped in

no uncertain fashion by his first officer--also of course a Valerian--who pulled
his DeLameter and spoke savagely. "Cut it, Gill We are not going to Arisia. I
was with you before, you know. Set course within five points of that accursed
planet and I blast you where you sit!" "Helmuth, speaking for Boskone!" ripped
from the headquarters speaker. "This is

rankest mutiny. You know the penalty, do you not?" "Certainly I do--what of
it?" The first officer snapped back. "Suppose that I tell you to go to Arisia?"
Helmuth's voice was now soft and silky,

but instinct with deadly menace. "In that case I tell you to go to the ninth
hell--or to Arisia, a million times worse!" "What? You dare speak thus to me?"
demanded the arch-pirate, sheer amazement at the fellow's audacity blanketing
his rising anger.

"I so dare," declared the rebel, brazen defiance and unalterable resolve in
every line of his hard body and in every lineament of his hard face. "All you
can do is kill us. You can order out enough ships to blast us out of the ether,
but that's all you can do. That would be only death and we'd have the fun of
taking a lot of the boys along with us. If we go to Arisia, though, it would be
different--very, very different. No, Helmuth, and I throw this in your teeth, if
I ever go near Arisia again it will be in a ship in which you, Helmuth, in
person, are sitting at the controls. If you think this is an empty dare and doe
t like it, don't take it. Send on your dogs!"

"That will do! Report yourselves to Base D under..."

Then Helmuth's flare of anger passed and his cold reason took charge. Here was
something utterly unprecedented, an entire crew of the hardest-bitten marauders
in space offering open and barefaced mutiny--no, not mutiny, but actual
rebellion to him, Helmuth, in his very person. And not a typical, skulking,
carefully planned uprising, but the immovably brazen desperation of men making
an ultimately last-ditch stand. Truly, it must be a powerful superstition
indeed, to make that crew of hard-boiled hellions choose certain death rather
than face again the imaginary--they must be imaginary--perils of a planet
unknown
to and unexplored by Boskone's planetographers. But they were, after all,
ordinary space-men, of little mental force and of small real ability. Even so,
it was clearly indicated that in this case precipitate action was to be
avoided. Therefore he went on calmly and almost without a break. "Cancel all
this that has been spoken and that has taken place. Continue with your original
orders pending further investigation," and switched his plate back to the
department head.

"I have checked your conclusions and have found them correct," he announced,
as though nothing at all out of the way had transpired. "You did well in
sending a ship to investigate. No matter where I am or what I am doing, notify
me Instantly at the first sign of irregularity in the behavior of any member of
that ship's personnel."

Nor was that call long in coming. The carefully-selected crew--selected for
complete lack of knowledge of the dread planet which was their objective--
sailed along in blissful ignorance, both of the real meaning of their mission
and of what was to be its ghastly end. Soon after Helmuth's unsatisfactory
interview with Gildersleeve and his mate, the luckless exploring vessel reached
the barrier which the Arisians had set around their system and through which no
uninvited stranger was allowed to pass.

The free-flying ship struck that frail barrier and stopped.

In the instant of contact a wave of mental force flooded the mind of the
captain, who, gibbering with sheer, stark, panic terror, flashed his vessel
away from that horror impregnated wall and hurled call after frantic call along
his beam, back to headquarters. His first call, in the instant of reception,
was relayed to Helmuth at his central desk.

"Steady, man, report intelligently!" that worthy snapped, and his eyes, large
now upon the cowering captain's plate, bored steadily, hypnotically into those
of the expedition's leader. "Pull yourself together and tell me exactly what
happened. Everything!"

"Well, sir, when we stuck something--a screen of some sort--and stopped,
something came aboard. It was... oh... ay-ay-a-e!" his voice rose to a shriek,
but under Helmuth's dominating glare he subsided quickly and went on. "A
monster, sir, if there ever was one. A fire-breathing demon, sir, with teeth
and claws and cruelly barbed tail. He spoke to me in my own Crevenian language.
He said..."

"Never mind what he said. I did not hear it, but I can guess what it was. He
threatened you with death in some horrible fashion, did he not?" and the coldly
ironical tones did more to restore the shaking man's equilibrium than reams of
remonstrance could have done.

"Well, yes, that was about the size of it, sir," he admitted.

"And does that sound reasonable to you, the commander of a first class
battleship of Boskone's Fleet?" sneered Helmuth.

"Well, sir, put on that way, it does seem a bit farfetched," the captain
replied, sheepishly.

"It is far-fetched." The director, in the safety of his dome, could afford to
be positive. "We do not know exactly what caused that hallucination,
apparition, or whatever it was--you were the only one who could see it,
apparently, it certainly was not visible on our master-plates. It was probably
some form of suggestion or hypnotism and you know as well as we do that any
suggestion can be thrown off by a definitely opposed will. But you did not
oppose it, did you?"

"No, sir, I didn't have time."

"Nor did you have your screens out, nor automatic recorders on the trip. Not
much of anything, in fact .

I think that you had better report back here, at full blast " "Oh, no,
sir--please!" He knew what rewards were granted to failures, and Helmuth's
carefully chosen words had already produced the effect desired by their
speaker. "They took me by surprise then, but I'll go through this next time."

"very well, I will give you one more chance. When you get close to the
barrier, or whatever it is, go inert and put out all your screens. Man your
plates and weapons, for whatever can hypnotize can be killed. Go ahead at full
blast, with all the acceleration you can get. Crash through anything that
opposes you and beam anything that you can detect or see. Can you thin of
anything else?"

"That should be sufficient, sir." The captain's equanimity was completely
restored, now that the warlike preparations were making more and more nebulous
the sudden, but single, thought wave of the Arisian.

"Proceed!"

The plan was carried out to the letter. This time the pirate craft struck the
frail barrier inert, and its slight force offered no tangible bar to the
prodigious mass of metal. But this time, since the barrier was actually passed,
there was no mental warning and no possibility of retreat.

Many men have skeletons in their closets. Many have phobias, things of which
they are consciously afraid. Many others have them, not consciously, but buried
deep in the subconscious, specters which seldom or never rise above the
threshold of perception. Every sentient being has, if not such specters as
these, at least a few active or latent dislikes, dreads, or outright fears.
This is true, no matter how quiet and peaceful a life the being has led.

These pirates, however, were the scum of space. They were beings of hard and
criminal lives and of violent and lawless passions. Their hates and conscience-
searing deeds had been legion, their count of crimes long, black, and hideous.
Therefore, slight indeed was the effort required to locate in their conscious
minds--to say noting of the noxious depths of their subconscious ones--visions
of
horror fit to blast stronger intellects than theirs. And that is exactly what
the Arisian Watchman did. From each pirate's total mind, a veritable charnel
pit, he extracted the foulest, most unspeakable dregs, the deeply hidden things
of which the subject was in the greatest fear. Of these things he formed a
whole of horror incomprehensible and incredible, and this ghastly whole he made
incarnate and visible to the pirate who was its unwilling pent, as visible as
though it were composed of flesh and blood, of copper and steel. Is it any
wonder that each member of that outlaw crew, seeing such an abhorrent
materialization, went instantly mad?

It is of no use to go into the horribly monstrous shapes of the things, even
were it possible, for each of them was visible to only one man, and none of
them was visible to those who looked on from the safety of the distant base. To
them the entire crew simply abandoned their posts and attacked each other,
senselessly and in insane frenzy, with whatever weapons came first to hand.
Indeed, many of them fought bare-handed, weapons hanging unused in their belts,
gouging, beating, clawing, biting until life had been rived horribly away. In
other parts of the ship DeLameters flamed briefly, bars crashed crunchingly,
knives and axes sheared and trenchantly bit. And soon it was over--almost. The
pilot was still alive, unmoving and rigid at his controls.

Then he, too, moved, rapidly and purposefully. He cut in the Bergenholm, spun
the ship around, shoved her drivers up to maximum blast, and steadied her into
an exact course--and when Helmuth read that course even his iron nerves failed
him momentarily. For the ship was flying, not for its own home port, but
directly toward Grand Base, the jealously secret planet whose spatial
coordinates neither that pilot nor any other creature of the pirates' rank and
file had ever known!

Helmuth snapped out orders, to which the pilot gave no heed. His voice-- for
the first time in his career--rose to a howl, but the pilot still paid no
attention. Instead, eyes bulging with horror and fingers curved tensely into
veritable talons, he reared upright upon his bench and leaped as though to
clutch and to rend some unutterably appalling foe. He leaped over his board
into thin and empty air. He came down a-sprawl in a maze of naked, high-
potential busbars. His body vanished in a flash of searing flame and a cloud of
thick and greasy smoke.

The bus-bars cleared themselves of their gruesome "short" and the great ship,
manned now entirely by corpses, bored on.

"...stinking klebots, the lily-livered cowards!" the department head, who had
also been yelling orders, was still pounding his desk and yelling. "If they're
that afraid--go crazy and kill each ether without being touched--I'll have to go
myself..."

"No, Sansteed," Helmuth interrupted curtly. "You will not have to go. There
is, after all, I think, something there--something that you may not be able to
handle. You see, you missed the one essential key fact." He referred to the
course, the setting of which had shaken him to the very core.

"Let be," he silenced the other's flood of question and protest. "It would
serve no purpose to detail it to you now. Have the ship taken back to port."

Helmuth knew now that it was not superstition that made spacemen shun Arisia.
He knew that, from his standpoint at least, there was something very seriously
amiss. But he had not the faintest conception of the real situation, nor of the
real and terrible power which the Arisians. could, and upon occasion would,
wield.]



12. KINNISON BRINGS HOME THE BACON

Helmuth sat at his desk, thinking, thinking with all the coldly analytical
precision of which he was capable.

This Lensman was both powerful and tremendously resourceful. The cosmicenergy
drive, developed by the science of a world about which the Patrol knew nothing,
was Boskone's one great item of superiority. If the Patrol could be kept in
ignorance of that drive the struggle would be over in a year, the culture of
the iron hand would be unchallenged throughout the galaxy. If, however, the
Patrol should succeed in learning Boskone's top secret, the war between the two
cultures might well be prolonged indefinitely. This Lensman knew that secret
and was still at large, of that he was all too certain. Therefore the Lensman
must be destroyed. And that brought up the Lens.

What was it? A peculiar bauble indeed, impossible of duplication because of
some subtlety of intra-atomic arrangement, and possessing peculiar and dire
potentialities. The old belief that no one except a Lensman could wear a Lens
was truehe had proved it. The Lens must account in some way for the outstanding
ability of the Lensman, and it must tie in, somehow, with both Arisia and the
thought-screens. The Lens was the one thing possessed by the Patrol which his
own forces did not have. He must and would have it, for it was undoubtedly a
powerful arm. Not to be compared, of course, with their own monopoly of cosmic
energy--but that monopoly was now threatened, and seriously. That Lensman must
be destroyed.

But how? It was easy to say "Comb Trenco, inch by Inch," but doing it would
prove a Herculean task. Suppose that the Lensman should again escape, in that
volume of so fantastically distorted media? He had already escaped twice, in
much clearer ether than Trenco's. However, if his information should never get
back to Prime Base little harm would be done and ships had been thrown around
every solar system the Lensman could reach. Not even a grain-of-dust meteorite
could pass those screens without detection. So much for the Lensman. Now about
getting the secret of the Lens.

Again, how? There was something upon Arisia, something connected in some way
with the Lens and with thought--possibly also with those thought- screens...

His mind Bashed back over the unorthodox manner of his acquirement of those
devices--unorthodox in that he had neither stolen them nor murdered their
inventor. A person had come to him with pass-words and credentials which could
not be ignored, had handed him a heavily-sealed container, which, he said, had
come from a planet named Ploor, had remarked casually --"Thought-screen
data--you'll know when you need 'em", and had gone.

Whatever the Arisian was it had mental power, of that fact there could be no
doubt. Out of the full sphere of space, what was the mathematical probability
that the pilot of that deathship would have set by accident his course so
exactly upon Grand Base? Vanishingly small. Treachery would not explain the
facts--not only had the pilot been completely insane when he laid the course,
but also he did not know where Grand Base was.

As an explanation mental force alone seemed fantastic, but no other as yet
presented itself as a possibility. Also, it was supported by the unbelievable,
the absolutely definite refusal of Gildersleeve's normally fearless crew even
to approach the planet. It would take an unheard-of mental force so to affect
such crime-hardened veterans.

Helmuth was not one to underestimate an enemy. Was there a man beneath that
dome, save himself, of sufficient mental caliber to undertake the now necessary
mission to Arisia? There was not. He himself had the finest mind on the planet,
else that other had deposed him long since and had sat at the control desk
himself. He was sublimely confident that no outside thought could break down
his definitely opposed will--and besides, there were the thought screens, the
secret of which he had not as yet shared with anyone. The time had come to use
those screens.

It has already been made clear that Helmuth was not a fool. No more was he a
coward. If he himself could best of all his force do a thing, that thing he
did, with the coldly ruthless efficiency that marked alike his every action and
his every thought.

How should he go? Should he accept that challenge, and take Gildersleeve's
rebellious crew of cutthroats to Arisia? No. In the event of an outcome short
of complete success, it would not do to lose face before that band of ruffians.
Moreover, the idea of such a crew going insane behind him was not one to be
relished. He would go alone.

"Wolmark, come to the center," he ordered. When that worthy appeared he went
on. "Be seated, as this is to be a serious conference. I have watched with
admiration and appreciation, as well as some mild amusement, the development of
your lines of information, especially those concerning affairs which are most
distinctly not in your department. They are, however, efficient--you already
know exactly what has happened." A statement this, in no wise a question.

"Yes, sir," quietly. Wolmark was somewhat taken aback, but not at all abashed.

"That is the reason you are here now. I thoroughly approve of you. I am
leaving the planet for a few days, and you are the best man in the organization
to take charge in my absence."

"I suspected that you would be leaving, sir."

"I know you did, but I am now informing you, merely to make sure that you
develop no peculiar ideas in my absence, that there are at least a few things
which you do not suspect at all. That safe, for instance," nodding toward a
peculiarly shimmering globe of force anchoring itself in air. "Even your highly
efficient spy system has not been able to learn a thing about that."

"No, sir, we have not--yet," he could not forbear adding.

Nor will you, with any skill or force known to man. But keep on trying, it
amuses me. I know, you see, of all your attempts. But to get on. I now say, and
for your own good I advise you to believe, that failure upon my part to return
to this desk will prove highly unfortunate for you."

"I believe that, sir. Any man of intelligence would make such arrangement, if
he could. But sir, suppose that the Arisians..."

"If your 'if he could' implies a doubt, act upon it and learn wisdom," Helmuth
advised him coldly. "You should know by this time that I neither gamble nor
bluff. I have made arrangements to protect myself. both from enemies, such as
the Arisians and the Patrol, and from friends, such as ambitious youngsters who
are trying to supplant me. If I were not entirely confident of getting back
here safely, my dear Wolmark, I would not go."

"You misunderstand me, sir. Really, I have no idea of supplanting you."

"Not until you get a good opportunity, you mean--I understand you thoroughly,
and as I have said before, I approve of you. Go ahead with all your plans. I
have kept at least one lap ahead of you so far, and if the time should ever
come when I can no longer do so, I shall no longer be fit to speak for Boskone.
You understand, of course, that the most important matter now in work is the
search for the Lensman of which the combing of Trenco and the screening of the
Patrol's systems are only two phases?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. I can, I think, leave matters in your hands. If anything really
serious comes up, such as a development in the Lensman case, let me know at
once. Otherwise do not call me. Take the desk," and Helmuth strode away.

He was whisked to the space-port, where there awaited him his special
speedster, equipped long since with divers and sundry items of equipment whose
functions were known only to himself.

For him the trip to Arisia was neither long nor tedious. The little racer was
fully automatic, and as it tore through space he worked as coolly and
efficiently as he was wont to do at his desk. Indeed, more so, for here he
could concentrate without interruption. Many were the matters he planned and
the decisions he made, the while his portfolio of notes grew thicker and
thicker.

As he neared his destination he put away his work, actuated his special
mechanisms, and waited. When the speedster struck the barrier and stopped
Helmuth wore a faint, hard smile, but that smile disappeared with a snap as a
thought crashed into his supposedly shielded brain.

"You are surprised that your thought-screens are not effective?" The thought
was coldly contemptuous. "I know in essence what the messenger from Ploor told
you concerning them when he gave them to you, but he spoke in ignorance. We of
Arisia know thought in a way that no member of his race is now or ever will be
able to understand.

"Know, Helmuth, that we Arisians do not want and will not tolerate uninvited
visitors. Your presence is particularly distasteful, representing as you do a
despotic, degrading, and antisocial culture. Evil and good are of course purely
relative, so it cannot be said in absolute terms that your culture is evil. It
is, however, based upon greed, hatred, corruption, violence, and fear. Justice
it does not recognize, nor mercy, nor truth except as a scientific utility. It
is basically opposed to liberty. Now liberty--of person, of thought, of
action--is the basic and the goal of the civilization to which you are opposed,
and with which any really philosophical mind must find itself in accord.

"Inflated--overweeningly by your warped and perverted ideas, by your momentary
success in dominating your handful of minions, tied to you by bonds of greed,
of passion, and of crime, you come here to wrest from us the secret of the
Lens, from us, a race as much abler than yours as we are older--a ratio of
millions to one.

"You consider yourself cold, hard, ruthless. Compared to me, you are weak,
soft, tender, as helpless as a newborn child. That you may learn and appreciate
that fact is one reason why you are living at this present moment. Your lesson
will now begin."

Then Helmuth, starkly rigid, unable to move a muscle, felt delicate probes
enter his brain. One at a time they pierced his innermost being, each to a
definitely selected center. It seemed that each thrust carried with it the
ultimate measure of exquisitely poignant anguish possible of endurance, but
each successive needle carried with it an even more keenly unbearable thrill of
agony.

Helmuth was not now calm and cold. He could have screamed in wild abandon, but
even that relief was denied him. He could not even scream, all he could do was
sit there and suffer.

Then he began to see things. There, actually materializing in the empty air of
the speedster, he saw in endless procession things he had done, either in
person or by proxy, both during his ascent to his present high place in the
pirates' organization and since the attainment of that place. Long was the
list, and black. As it unfolded his torment grew more and ever more intense,
until finally, after an interval that might have been a fraction of a second or
might have been untold hours, he could stand no more. He fainted, sinking
beyond the reach of pain into a sea of black unconsciousness.

He awakened white and shaking wringing wet with perspiration and so weak that
he could scarcely sit erect, but with a supremely blissful realization that,
for the time being at least, his punishment was over.

"This, you will observe, has been a very mild treatment," the cold Arisian
accents went on inside his brain. "Not only do you still live, you are even
still sane. We now come to the second reason why you have not been destroyed.
Your destruction by us would not be good for that struggling young civilization
which you oppose.

"We have given that civilization an instrument by virtue of which it should
become able to destroy you and everything for which you stand. If it cannot do
so it is not yet ready to become a civilization and your obnoxious culture
shall be allowed to conquer and to flourish for a time.

"Now go back to your dome. Do not return. I know that you will not have the
temerity to do so in person. Do not attempt to do so by any form whatever of
proxy."

There were no threats, no warnings, no mention of consequences, but the level
and incisive tone of the Arisian put a fear into Helmuth's cold heart the like
of which he had never before known.

He whirled his speedster about and hurled her at full blast toward his home
planet. It was only after many hours that he was able to regain even a
semblance of his customary poise, and days elapsed before he could think
coherently enough to consider as a whole the shocking, the unbelievable thing
that had happened to him.

He wanted to believe that the creature, whatever it was, had been
bluffing--that it could not kill him, that it had done its worst. In similar
case he would have killed without mercy, and that course seemed to him the only
logical one to pursue. His cold reason, however, would not allow him to
entertain that comforting belief. Deep down he knew that the Arisian could have
killed him as easily as it had slain the lowest member of his band, and the
thought chilled him to the marrow.

What could he do? What could he do? Endlessly, as the miles and light- years
reeled off behind his hurtling racer, this question reiterated itself, and when
his home planet loomed close it was still unanswered.

Since Wolmark believed implicitly his statement that it would be poor
technique to oppose his return, the planet's screens went down at Helmuth's
signal. His first act was to call all the department heads to the center, for
an extremely important council of war. There he told them everything that had
happened, calmly and concisely, concluding.

"They are aloof, disinterested, unpartisan to a degree I find it impossible to
understand. They disapprove of us on purely philosophical grounds, but they
will take no active part against us as long as we stay away from their solar
system. Therefore we cannot obtain knowledge of the Lens by direct action, but
there are other methods which shall be worked out in due course.

"The Arisians do approve of the Patrol, and have helped them to the extent of
giving them the Lens. There, however, they stop. If the Lensmen do not know how
to use their Lenses efficiently--and I gather that they do not--we 'shall be
allowed to conquer and to flourish for a time. We will conquer, and we will see
to it that the time of bur flourishing, will be a long one indeed.

"The whole situation, then, boils down to this, our cosmic energy against the
Lens of the Patrol. Ours is the much more powerful ant, but our only hope of
immediate success lies in keeping the Patrol in ignorance of our cosmic- energy
receptors and converters. One Lensman already has that knowledge. Therefore,
gentlemen, it is very clear that the death of that Lensman has now become
absolutely imperative. We must find him, if it means the abandonment of our
every other enterprise throughout this galaxy. Give me a full report upon the
screening of the planets upon which the Lensman may try to land."

"It is done, sir,' came quick reply. "They are completely blockaded. Ships are
spaced s0 closely that even the electromagnetic detectors have a five hundred
percent overlap. Visual detectors have at least two hundred fifty percent
overlap. Nothing as large as one millimeter in any dimension can get through
without detection and observation."

"And how about the search of Trenco?"

"Results are still negative. One of our ships, with Papers all in order,
visited Trenco space-port openly. No one was there except the regular force of
Rigellians. Our captain was in no position to be too inquisitive, but the
missing ship was certainly not in the port and he gathered that he was the
first visitor they had had in a month. We learned on Rigel IV that Tregonsee,
the Lensman on duty on Trenco, has been there for a month and will not be
relieved for another month. He was the only Lensman there. We are of course
carrying on the search of the rest of the planet. About half the personnel of
each vessel to land has been. lost, but they started with double crews and
replacements are being sent."

"The Lensman Tregonsee's story may or may not be true," Helmuth mused. "it
makes little difference. It would be impossible to hide that ship in Trenco
space-port from even a casual inspection, and if the ship is not there the
Lensman is not. He may be in hiding elsewhere on the planet, but I doubt it.
Continue to search nevertheless. There are many things he may have done... I
will have to consider them, one by one."

But Helmuth had very little time to consider what Kinnison might have done,
for the Lensman had left Trenco long since. Because of the flare-baffles upon
his driving projectors his pace was slow, but to compensate for this condition
the distance to be covered was not too long. Therefore, even as Helmuth was
cogitating upon what next to do, the Lensman and his crew were approaching the
farflung screen of Boskonian warvessels investing the entire Solarian System.

To approach that screen undetected was a physical impossibility, and before
Kinnison realized that he was in a danger zone six tractors had flicked out,
had seized his ship, and had jerked it up to combat range. But the Lensman was
ready for anything, and again everything happened at once.

Warnings screamed into the distant pirate base and Helmuth, tense at his desk,
took personal charge of his mighty fleet. On the field of action Kinnison's
screens flamed out in stubborn defense, tractors snapped under his slashing
shears, the baffles disappeared in an incandescent flare as he shot maximum
blast into his drive, and space again became suffused with the output of his
now ultra-powered multiplex scramblers.

And through that murk the Lensman directed a thought, with the full power of
mind and Lens.

"Port Admiral Haynes-Prime Base! Port Admiral Haynes-Prime Base! Urgent!
Kinnison calling from the direction of Sirius--urgent!" he sent out the
fiercely-
driven message.

It so happened that at Prime Base it was deep night, and Port Admiral Haynes
was sound asleep, but, trigger-nerved old apace-cat that he was, he came
instantly and fully awake. Scarcely had an eye flicked open than his answer had
been hurled back.

"Haynes acknowledging--send it, Kinnison!"

"Coming in, in a pirate ship. All the pirates in space are on our necks, but
we're coming in, in spite of hell and high water! Don't send up any ships to
help us down--they could blast you out of space in a second, but they can't stop
us. Get ready--it won't be long now!"

Then, after the Port Admiral had sounded the emergency alarm, Kinnison went on.

"Our ship carries no markings, but there's only one of us and you'll know
which one it is--we'll be doing the dodging. They'd be crazy to follow us down
into atmosphere, with all the stuff you've got, but they act crazy enough to do
almost anything. If they do follow us down, get ready to give 'em hell--here we
are!"

Pursued and pursuers had touched the outermost fringe of the stratosphere,
and, slowed down to optical visibility by even that highly rarified atmosphere,
the battle raged in incandescent splendor. One ship was spinning, twisting,
looping, gyrating, jumping and darting hither and thither-- performing every
weird maneuver that the fertile and agile minds of the Patrolmen could
improvise--to shake off the horde of attackers.

The pirates, on the other hand, were desperately determined that, whatever the
cost, THE Lensman should not land. Tractors would not hold and the inertialess
ship could not be rammed. Therefore their strategy was that which had worked so
successfully four times before in similar case--to englobe the ship completely
and thus beam her down. And while attempting this englobement they so massed
their forces as to drive the Lensman's vessel as far as possible away from the
grim and tremendously powerful fortifications of Prime Base, almost directly
below them.

But the four ships which the pirates had recaptured had been manned by
Velantians, whereas in this one Kinnison the Lensman and Henderson the Master
Pilot were calling upon their every resource of instantaneous nervous reaction
of brilliant brain and of lightning hand to avoid that fatal trap. And avoid it
they did, by series after series of fantastic maneuvers never set down in any
manual of space combat.

Powerful as were the weapons of Prime Base, in that thick atmosphere their
effective range was less than fifty miles. Therefore the gunners, idle at their
controls, and the officers of the superdreadnaughts, chained by definite orders
to the ground, fumed and swore as, powerless to help their battling fellows,
they stood by and watched in their plates the furious engagement so high
overhead.

But slowly, so slowly, Kinnison won his way downward, keeping as close over
Base as he could without being englobed, and finally he managed to get within
range of the gigantic projectors of the Patrol. Only the heaviest of the fixed-
mount guns could reach that mad whirlpool of ships, but each one of them raved
out against the same spot at precisely the same instant. In the inferno which
that spot instantly became, not even a full-driven wall-shield could endure,
and a vast hole yawned where pirate ships had been. The beams flicked off, and,
timed by his Lens, Kinnison shot his ship through that hole before it could be
closed and arrowed downward at maximum blast.

Ship after ship of the pirate horde followed him down in madly suicidal last
attempts to blast him out of the ether, down toward the terrific armament of
the base. Prime Base itself, the most dreaded, the most heavily armed, the most
impregnable fortress of the Galactic Patrol! Nothing afloat could even threaten
that citadel--the overbold attackers simply disappeared in brief flashes of
coruscant vapor.

Kinnison, even before inerting his ship preparatory to landing, called his
commander.

"Did any of the other boys beat us in, Sir?" he asked.

"No, sir," came the curt response. Congratulations, felicitations, and
celebration would come later, Haynes was now the Port Admiral receiving an
official report.

'Then, Sir, I have the honor to report that the expedition has succeeded,' and
he could not help adding informally, youthfully exultant at the success of his
first real mission, "We've brought home the bacon!"



13. MAULERS AFLOAT

A powerful fleet had been sent to rescue those of the Britannia's crew who
might have managed to stay out of the clutches of the pirates. The wildly
enthusiastic celebration inside Prime Base was over. Outside the force-walls of
the Reservation, however, it was just beginning. The specialists and the
Velantians were in the thick of it. No one on Earth knew anything about
Velantia, and those highly intelligent reptilian beings knew just as little of
Tellus. Nevertheless, simply because they had aided the Patrolmen, the visitors
were practically given the keys to the planet, and they were enjoying the
experience tremendously.

"We want Kinnison--we want Kinnison!" the festive crowd, led by Universal
Telenews men, had been yelling, and finally the Lensman came out. But after one
pose before a lens and a few words into a microphone, he pleaded, "There's my
call, nowurgent!" and fled back inside Reservation. Then the milling tide of
celebrants rolled back toward the city, taking with it every Patrolman who
could get leave.

Engineers and designers were swarming through and over the pirate ship
Kinnison had driven home, each armed with a sheaf of blue-prints already
prepared from the long-cherished data-spool, each directing a corps of
mechanics in dismantling some mechanism of the great space-rover. To this hive
of bustling activity it was that Kinnison had been called. He stood there,
answering as best he could the multitude of questions being fired at him from
all sides, until he was rescued by no less a personage than Port Admiral Haynes.

"You gentlemen can get your information from the data sheets better than you
can from Kinnison," he remarked with a smile, "and I want to take his report
without any more delay."

Hand under arm, the old Lensman led the young one away, but once inside his
private office he summoned neither secretary--nor recorder. Instead, he pushed
the buttons which set up a complete-coverage shield and spoke.

"Now, son, open up. Out with it--everything that you have been holding back
ever since you landed. I got your signal."

"Well, yes, I have been holding back," Kinnison admitted. "I haven't got
enough jets to be sticking my neck out in fast company, even if it were
something to be discussed in public, which it isn't. I'm glad you could give me
this time so quick. I want to go over an idea with you, and with no one else.
It may be as cockeyed as Trenco's ether--you're to be the sole judge of that--
but
you'll know I mean well, no matter how goofy it is."

"That certainly is not an overstatement," Haynes replied, dryly. "Go ahead."

"The great peculiarity of space combat is that we fly free, but fight inert,"
Kinnison began, apparently irrelevantly, but choosing his phraseology with
care. To force an engagement one ship locks to the other first with tracers,
then with tractors, and goes inert. Thus, relative speed determines the ability
to force or to avoid engagement, but it is relative power that determines the
outcome. Heretofore the pirates --"And by the way, we are belittling our
opponents and building up a disastrous overconfidence in ourselves by calling
them pirates. They are not--they can't be. Boskonia must be more than a race or
a system--it is very probably a galaxy-wide culture. It is an absolute
despotism, holding its authority by means of a rigid system of rewards and
punishments. In our eyes it is fundamentally wrong, but it works-- how it works
! It is organized just as we are, and is apparently as strong in bases,
vessels, and personnel.

"Boskonia has had the better of us, both in speed--except for the Britannia's
momentary advantage--and in power. That advantage is now lost to them. We will
have, then, two immense powers, each galactic in scope, each tremendously
powerful in arms, equipment, and personnel, each having exactly the same
weapons and defenses, and each determined to wipe out the other. A stalemate is
inevitable, an absolute deadlock, a sheerly destructive war of attrition which
will go on for centuries and which must end in the annihilation of both
Boskonia and civilization."

"But our new projectors and screens!" protested the older man. "They give us
an overwhelming advantage. We can force or avoid engagement, as we please. You
know the plan to crush them--you helped to develop it."

"Yes, I know the plan. I also know that we will not crush them. So do you. We
both know that our advantage will be only temporary." The young Lensman,
unimpressed, was in deadly earnest.

The Admiral did not reply for a time. Deep down, he himself had felt the
doubt, but neither he nor any other of his school had ever mentioned the thing
that Kinnison had now so baldly put into words. He knew that whatever one side
had, of weapon or armor or equipment, would sooner or later become the property
of the other, as was witnessed by the desperate venture which Kinnison himself
had so recently and so successfully concluded. He knew that the devices
installed in the vessels captured upon Velantia had been destroyed before
falling into the hands of the enemy, but he also knew that with entire fleets
so equipped the new arms could not be kept secret indefinitely. Therefore he
finally replied.

"That may be true." He paused, then went on like the indomitable veteran that
he was. "But we have the advantage now and we'll drive it while we've got it.
After all, we nay be able to hold it long enough."

"I've just thought of one more thing that would help--communication," Kinnison
did not argue the previous point, but went ahead. "It seems to be impossible to
drive any kind of a communicator beam through the double interference...

"Seems to be!" barked Haynes. "It is impossible! Nothing but a thought... ."

"That's it exactly--thought!" interrupted Kinnison in turn. "The Velantians can
do things with a lens that nobody would believe possible. Why not examine some
of them for Lensmen? I'm sure that Worsel could pass, and probably many others.
They can drive thoughts through anything except their own thought-screens--and
what communicators they would make!"

"That idea has distinct possibilities and will be followed up. However, it is
not what you wanted to discuss. Go ahead."

"QX." Kinnison went into Lens-to-Lens communication.

"I want some kind of a shield or screen that will neutralize or nullify a
detector. I asked Hotchkiss, the communications expert, about it--under seal. He
said it had never been investigated, even as an academic problem in research,
but that it was theoretically possible."

"This room is shielded, you know.' Baynes was surprised at the use of the
Lenses. "Is it that important?"

"I don't know. As I said before, I may be cockeyed, but if my idea is any good
at all that nullifier is the most important thing in the universe, and if word
of it gets out it may be useless. You see, sir, over the long route, the only
really permanent advantage that we have over Boskonia, the one thing they can't
get, is the Lens. There must be some way to use it. If that nullifier is
possible, and if we can keep it secret for a while, I believe I've found it. At
least, I want to try something. It may not work--probably it won't, it's a
mighty slim chance--but if it does, we may be able to wipe out Boskonia in a few
months instead of carrying on forever a war of attrition. First, I want to
go..."

"Hold on!" Haynes snapped. "I've been thinking, too. I can't see any possible
relation between such a device and any real military weapon, or the Lens,
either. If I can't, not many others can, and that's a point in your favor. If
there's anything at all in your idea, it's too big to share with anyone even
me. Keep it to yourself."

"But it's a peculiar hook-up, and may not be any good at all," protested
Kinnison. "You might want to cancel it"

"No danger of that," came the positive statement. "You know more about the
pirates--pardon me, about Boskonia--than any other Patrolman. You believe that
your idea has some slight chance of success. Very well--that fact is enough to
put every resource of the Patrol back of you. Put your idea on a tape under
Lensman's Seal, so that it will not be lost in case of your death. Then go
ahead. If it is possible to develop that nullifier you shall have it. Hotchkiss
will take charge of it, and have any other Lensmen he wants. No one except
Lensmen will work on it or know anything about it. No records will be kept. It
will not even exist until you yourself release it to us."

"Thanks, sir," and Kinnison left the room.

Then for weeks Prime Base was the scene of an activity furious indeed. New
apparatus was designed and tested--new shears new generators, new scramblers,
and many other new things. Each item was designed and tested, redesigned and
retested, until even the most skeptical of the Patrol's engineers could no
longer find in it anything to criticize. Then throughout the galaxy the ships
of the Patrol were recalled to their sector bases to be rebuilt.

There were to be two great classes of vessels. Those of the first--special
scouting cruisers--were to have speed and defense--nothing else. They were to be
the fastest things in space, and able to defend themselves against attack--that
was all. Vessels of the second class had to be built from the keel upward,
since nothing even remotely like them had theretofore been conceived. They were
to be huge, ungainly, slow--simply storehouses of incomprehensibly vast powers
of offense. They carried projectors of a size and power never before set upon
movable foundations, nor were they dependent upon cosmic energy. They carried
their own, in bank upon bank of stupendous accumulators. In fact, each of these
monstrous floating fortresses was to be able to generate screens of such design
and power that no vessel anywhere near them could receive cosmic energy!

This, then, was the bolt which civilization was preparing to hurl against
Boskonia. In theory the thing was simplicity itself. The ultra-fast cruisers
would catch the enemy, lock on with tractors so hard that they could not be
sheared, and go inert, thus anchoring the enemy in space. Then, while absorbing
and dissipating everything that the opposition could send, they would put out a
peculiarly patterned interference, the center of which could easily be located.
The mobile fortresses would then come up, cut off the Boskonians' power intake,
and finish up the job.

Not soon was that bolt forged, but in time civilization was ready to launch
its terrific and, it was generally hoped and believed, conclusive attack upon
Boskonia. Every sector base and sub-base was ready, the zero hour had been set.

At Prime Base Kimball Kinnison, the youngest Tellurian ever to wear the four
silver bars of captain, sat at the conning-plate of the heavy battle cruiser
Britannia, so named at his own request. He thrilled inwardly as he thought of
her speed. Such was her force of drive that, streamlined to the ultimate degree
although she was, she had special wall-shields, and special dissipators to
radiate into space the heat of friction of the medium through which she tore so
madly. Otherwise she would have destroyed herself in an hour of full blast,
even in the hard vacuum of interstellar space!

And in his office Port Admiral Haynes watched a chronometer. Minutes to gothen
seconds. "Clear ether!" His deep voice was gruff with unexpressed emotion.
"Five seconds--four--three--two--one--Lift!" and the Fleet shot into the sir.

The first objective of this Tellurian fleet was very close indeed to home, for
the Boskonians had established a base upon Neptune's moon, right here in the
Solarian System. So close to Prime Base that only intensive screening and
constant vigilance had kept its spy-rays out, so powerful that the ordinary
battleships of the Patrol had not been sent against it. Now it was to be
reduced.

Short as was the time necessary to traverse any Interplanetary distance, the
Solarians were detected and were met in force by the ships of Boskone. But
scarcely had battle been joined when the enemy began to realize that this was
to be a battle the like of which they had never before seen, and when they
began to understand it, it was too late. They could not run, and all space was
so full of interference that they could not even report to Helmuth what was
going on. These first, peculiarly teardrop-shaped vessels of the Patrol did not
fight at all. They simply held on like bull-dogs, taking without response
everything that the white-hot projectors could throw at them. Their defensive
screens radiated fiercely, high into the violet, under the appalling punishment
being dealt out to them by the batteries of ship and shore, but they did not go
down. Nor did the grip of a single tractor loosen from its anchorage. And in
minutes the squat and monstrous maulers came up. Out went their cosmic-energy
blocking screens, out shot their tractor beams, and out from the refractory
throats of their stupendous projectors raved the most terrifically destructive
forces ever generated by mobile machinery.

Boskonian outer screens scarcely even flickered as they went down before the
immeasurable, the incredible violence of that thrust. The second course offered
a briefly brilliant burst of violet radiance as it gave way. The inner screen
resisted stubbornly as it ran the spectrum in a wildly coruscant display of
pyrotechnic splendor, but it, too, went through the ultra-violet and into the
black. Now the wallshield itself--that inconceivably rigid fabrication of pure
force which only the detonation of twenty metric tons of duodec had ever been
known to rupture--was all that barred from the base metal of Boskonian walls the
utterly indescribable fury of the maulers' beams. Now force was streaming from
that shield in veritable torrents. So terrible were the conflicting energies
there at grips that their neutralization was actually visible and tangible. In
sheets and masses, in terrific, ether-wracking vortices, and in miles-long,
pillaring streamers and flashes, those energies were being hurled away. Hurled
to all the points of the sphere's full compass, filling and suffusing all
nearby space.

The Boskonian commanders stared at their instruments, first in bewildered
amazement and then in sheer, stark, unbelieving horror. as their power-intake
dropped to zero and their wall-shields began to fail--and still the attack
continued in neverlessening power. Surely that beaming must slacken down
soon--no conceivable mobile plant could throw such a load for long!

But those mobile plants could--and did. The attack kept up, at the terrifically
high level upon which it had begun. No ordinary storage cells fed those mighty
projectors, along no ordinary bus-bars were their Titanic amperages borne.
Those maulers were designed to do just one thing--to maul--and that one thing
they did well, relentlessly and thoroughly.

Higher and higher into the spectrum the defending wallshields began to
radiate. At the first blast they had leaped almost through the visible
spectrum, in one unbearably fierce succession of red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, and indigo, up to a sultry, coruscating, blindingly hard violet. Now the
doomed shields began leaping erratically into the ultra-violet. To the eye they
were already invisible, upon the recorders they were showing momentary flashes
of black.

Soon they went down, and in the instant of each failure one vessel of Boskonia
was no mote. For, that last defense gone, nothing save unresisting metal was
left to withstand the ardor of those ultra-powerful, ravening beams. As has
already been said, no substance, however refractory or resistant or inert, can
endure even momentarily in such a field of force. Therefore every atom, alike
of vessel and of contents, went to make up the searing, seething burst of
brilliant, incandescently luminous vapor which suffused all circumambient space.

Thus passed out of the Scheme of Things the vessels of the Solarian Detachment
of Boskonia. Not a single vessel escaped, the cruisers saw to that. And then
the attack thundered on to the base. Here the cruisers were useless, they
merely formed an observant fringe, the while continuing to so blanket all
channels of communication that the doomed pirates could send out no word of
what was happening. The maulers moved up and grimly, doggedly, methodically
went to work.

Since a base is always much more powerfully armored than is a battleship, the
reduction of the fortresses took longer than had the destruction of the fleet.
But their receptors could no longer draw power from the sun or from any other
heavenly body, and their other sources of power were comparatively weak.
Therefore their defenses also failed under that incessant assault. Course after
course their screens went down, and with the last ones went every structure.
The maulers' beams went through metal and masonry as effortlessly as steel-
jacketed bullets go through butter, and bored on, deep into the planet's bed-
rock, before their frightful force was spent.

Then around and around they spiraled until nothing whatever was left of the
Boskonian works, until only a seething, white-hot lake of molten lava in the
midst of the satellite's frigid waste was all that remained to show that
anything had ever been built there.

Surrender had not been thought of. Quarter or clemency had not been asked or
offered. Victory of itself was not enough. This was, and of stern necessity had
to be, a war of utter, complete, and merciless extinction.



14. UNATTACHED

The enemy stronghold so insultingly close to Prime Base having been
obliterated, Regional Fleets, in loose formations, began to scour the various
Galactic Regions. For a few weeks game was plentiful enough. Hundreds of
raiding vessels were overtaken and held by the Patrol cruisers, then blasted to
vapor by the maulers.

Many Boskonian bases were also reduced. The locations of most of these had
long been known to the Intelligence Service, others were detected or discovered
by the fast-flying cruisers themselves. Marauding vessels revealed the sites of
others by succeeding in reaching them before being overtaken by the cruisers.
Others were found by the tracers and loops of the Signal Corps.

Very few of these bases were hidden or in any way difficult of access, and
most of them fell before the blasts of a single mauler. But if one mauler was
not enough, others were summoned until it did fall. One fortress, a hitherto
unknown and surprisingly strong Sector Base, required the concentration of
every mauler of Tellus, but they were brought up and the fortress fell. As had
been said, this was a war of extinction and every pirate base that was found
was wiped out.

But one day a cruiser found a base which had not even a spy-ray shield up, and
a cursory inspection showed it to be completely empty. Machinery, equipment,
stores, and personnel had all been evacuated. Suspicious, the Patrol vessels
stood off and beamed it from afar, but there were no untoward occurrences. The
structures simply slumped down into lava, and that was all.

Every base discovered thereafter was in the same condition, and at the same
time the ships of Boskone, formerly so plentiful, disappeared utterly from
space. Day after day the cruisers sped hither and thither throughout the vast
reaches of the void, at the peak of their unimaginably high pace, without
finding a trace of any Boskonian vessel. More remarkable still, and for the
first time in years, the ether was absolutely free from Boskonian interference.

Following an impulse, Kinnison asked and received permission to take his ship
on scouting duty. At maximum blast he drove toward the Velantian system, to the
point at which he had picked up Helmuth's communication line. Along that line
he drove for days, halting only when well outside the galaxy. Ahead of him
there was nothing reachable except a few star-clusters. Behind him there
extended the immensity of the galactic lens in all its splendor, but Captain
Kinnison had no eye for astronomical beauty that day.

He held the Britannia there for an hour, while he mulled over in his mind what
the apparent facts could mean. He knew that he had covered the line, from its
point of determination out beyond the galaxy's edge. He knew that his
detectors, operating as they had been in clear and undistorted ether, could not
possibly have missed a thing as large as Helmuth's base must be, if it had been
anywhere near that line, that their effective range was immensely greater than
the largest possible error in the determination or the following of the line.
There were, he concluded, four possible explanations, and only four.

First, Helmuth's base might also have been evacuated. This was unthinkable.
From what he himself knew of Helmuth that base would be as nearly impregnable
as anything could be made, and it was no more apt to be vacated than was Prime
Base of the Patrol. Second, it might be subterranean, buried under enough metal-
bearing rock to ground out all radiation. This possibility was just as unlikely
as the first. Third, Helmuth might already have the device he himself wanted so
badly, and upon which Hotchkiss and the other experts had been at work so long,
a detector nullifier. This was possible distinctly so. Possible enough, at
least, to warrant filing the idea for future consideration. Fourth, that base
might not be in the galaxy at all, but in that starcluster out there straight
ahead of him, or possibly in one even farther away. That idea seemed the best
of the four. It would necessitate ultra-powerful communicators, of course, but
Helmuth could very well have them. It squared up in other ways--its pattern
fitted into the matrix very nicely.

But if that base were out there... it could stay there--for a while... a battle
cruiser just wasn't enough ship for that job. Too much opposition out there--and
not enoughship... Or too much ship? But he wasn't ready, yet, anyway. He
needed, and would get, another line on Helmuth's base. Therefore, shrugging his
shoulders, he whirled his vessel about and set out to rejoin the fleet.

While a full day short of junction, Kinnison was called to his plate to see
upon its lambent surface the visage of Port Admiral Haynes.

"Did you find out anything on your trip?" he asked.

"Nothing definite, sir. Just a couple of things to think about, is all. But I
can say that I don't like this at all--I don't like anything about it or any
part of it."

"No more do I," agreed the admiral. "It looks very much as though your
forecast of a stalemate might be about to eventuate. Where are you headed for
now?"

"Back to the Fleet."

"Don't do it. Stay on scouting duty for a while longer. And, unless something
more interesting turns up, report back here to me--we have something that may
interest you. The boys have been..."

The admiral's picture was broken up into flashes of blinding light and his
words became a meaningless, jumbled roar of noise. A distress call had begun to
come in, only to be blotted out by a flood of Boskonian static interference, of
which the ether had for so long been clear. The young Lensman used his Lens.

"Excuse me, sir, while I see what this is all about?"

"Certainly, son."

"Got its center located?" Kinnison yelped at his communications officer.
"They're close--right in our laps!"

"Yes, sir!" and the radio man snapped out numbers.

"Blast!" the captain commanded, unnecessarily, for the alert pilot had already
set the course and was kicking in full-blast drive. "If that baby is what I
think it is, all hell's out for noon."

Toward the center of disturbance the Britannia flashed, emitting now a scream
of peculiarly patterned interference which was not only a scrambler of all un-
Lensed communication throughout that whole part of the galaxy, but also an
imperative call for any mauler within range. So close had the cruiser been to
the scene of depredation that for her to reach it required only minutes.

There lay the merchantman and her Boskonian assailant. Emboldened , by the
cessation of piratical activities, some shipping concern had sent out a
freighter, loaded probably with highly "urgent" cargo, and this was the result.
The marauder, inert now, had gripped her with his tractors and was beaming her
into submission. She was resisting, but feebly now, it was apparent that her
screens were failing. Her crew must soon open ports in token of surrender or
roast to a man, and they would probably prefer to roast.

Thus the situation obtaining in one instant. The next instant it was changed,
the Boskonian discovering suddenly that his beams, instead of boring through
the weak defenses of the freighter, were not even exciting to a glow the mighty
protective envelopes of a battle-cruiser of the Patrol. He switched from the
diffused heat-beam he had been using upon the merchantman to the hardest,
hottest, most penetrating beam of annihilation he mounted--with but little more
to show for it and with no better results. For the Britannia's screens had been
designed to stand up almost indefinitely against the most potent beams of any
ordinary war-ship, and they stood up.

Kinnison had tremendously powerful beams of his own, but he did not use them.
It would take the super-powerful offense of a mauler to produce a definite
answer to the question seething in his mind.

Increase power as the pirate would, to whatever ruinous overload, he could not
break down Kinnison's screens, nor, dodge as he would, could he again get in
position to attack his former prey. And eventually the mauler arrived,
fortunately it, too, had been fairly close by. Out reached its mighty tractors.
Out raved one of its tremendous beams, striking the Boskonian's defenses
squarely amidships.

That beam struck and the pirate ship disappeared--but not in a hazily
incandescent flare of volatilized metal. The raider disappeared bodily, and
still all in one piece. He had put out super-shears of his own, snapping the
mauler's supposedly unbreakable tractors like threads, and the velocity of his
departure was due almost as much to the pressor effect of the Patrol beam as it
was to the thrust of his own drivers.

It was the beginning of the stalemate Kinnison had foreseen.

"I was afraid of that," the young captain muttered, and, paying no attention
whatever to the merchantman, he called the commander of the mauler. At this
close range, of course, no ether scrambler could interfere with visual
apparatus, and there on his plate he saw the face of Clifford Maitland, the man
who had graduated number two in his own class.

"Hi, Kim, you old space-flea!" Maitland exclaimed in delight. "Oh, pardon me,
sir," he went on in mock deference, with an exaggerated salute. "To a guy with
four jets, I should say..."

"Seal that, Cliff, or I'll climb up you like a squirrel, first chance I get!"
Kinnison retorted. "So they've got you skippering an El Ponderoso, huh? Think
of a mere infant

like you being let play with so much high-power! What'll we do about this heap
here?"

"Damfino. It isn't covered, so you'll have to tell me, Captain."

"Who'm I to be passing out orders? As you say, it Isn't covered in the
book--it's against G I regs for them to be cutting our tractors. But he's all
yours, not mine--I've got to flit. You might find out what he's carrying, from
where, to where, and why. Then, if you want to, you can escort him either back
where he came from or on to where he's going, which-ever you think best. If
this interference doesn't let up, maybe you'd better Lens Prime Base for
orders. Or use your own judgment, if any. Clear ether, Cliff, I've got to buzz
along."

"Clear ether, spacehound!"

"Now, Hank," Kinnison turned to his pilot, "we've got urgent business at Prime
Base--and when I say 'urgent' I don't mean perchance. Let's see you burn a hole
in the ether."

The Britannia streaked Earthward, and scarcely had she touched ground when
Kinnison was summoned to the office of the Port Admiral. As soon as he was
announced, Haynes bruskly cleared his office and sealed it against any possible
form of intrusion or eavesdropping. He had aged noticeably since these two had
had that memorable conference in this same room. His face was lined and
careworn, his eyes and his entire mien bore witness to days and nights of
sleeplessly continuous work.

"You were right, Kinnison," he began, Lens to Lens. "A stalemate it is, a
hopeless deadlock. I called you in to tell you that Hotchkiss has your
nullifier done, and that it works perfectly against all long-range stuff.
Against electromagnetics, however, it is not very effective. About all that can
be done, it seems, is to shorten the range, and it doesn't interfere with
vision at all."

"I can get by with that, I think--I will be out of electromagnetic range most
of the time, and nobody watches their electos very close, anyway.-- Thanks a
lot. It's ready to install?"

"Doesn't need installation. It's such a little thing you can put it in your
pocket. It's self-contained and will work anywhere."

"Better and better. In that case I'll need two of them--and a ship. I would
like to have one of those new automatic speedsters. Lots of legs, cruising
range, and screens. Only one beam, but I probably won't use even that one..."

"Going alone?" interrupted Haynes. "Better take your battle-cruiser, at least.
I don't like the idea of you going into deep space alone."

"I don't particularly relish the prospect, either, but leg got to be that way.
The whole fleet, maulers and all, isn't enough to do by force what's got to be
done, and even two men is too many to do it in the only way it can be done. You
see, sir..."

"No explanations, please. It's on the spool, where we can get it if we need
it. Are you informed as to the latest developments?"

"No, sir. I heard a little coming in, but not much."

"We are almost back where we were before you took off in the first Britannia.
Commerce is almost at a standstill. All shipping firms are practically idle.
but that is neither all of it nor the worst of it. You may not realize how
Important interstellar trade is, but as a result of its stoppage general
business has slowed down tremendously. As is only. to be expected, perhaps,
complaints are coming in by the thousand because we have not already blasted
the pirates out of space, and demands that we do so at once. They do not
understand the true situation, nor realize that we are doing everything we can.
We cannot send a mauler with every freighter and liner, and mauler-escorted
vessels are the only ones to arrive at their destinations."

"But why? With tractor shears on all ships, how can they hold them?" asked
Kinnison.

"Magnets!" snorted Haynes. "Plain, old-fashioned electromagnets. No pull to
speak of, at a distance, of course, but with the raider running free they don't
need much. Close up--lock on--board and storm--all done!"

"Hm-m-m. That changes things. I've got to find a pirate ship. I was planning
on following a freighter or liner out toward Alsakan, but if there aren't any
to follow... I'll have to hunt around..."

"That is easily arranged. Lots of them want to go. We will let one go, with a
mauler accompanying her, but well outside detector range." "That covers
everything, then, except the assignment. I can't very well ask for leave, but
maybe I could be put on special assignment, reporting direct to you?"

"Something better than that," and Haynes smiled broadly, in genuine pleasure.
"Everything is fixed. Your Release has been entered in the books. Your
commission as captain has been cancelled, so leave your uniform in your former
quarters. Here is your credit book and here is the rest of your kit. You are
now an Unattached Lensman."

The Release! The goal toward which all Lensmen strive, but which so few
attain! He was now a free agent, responsible to no one and to nothing save his
own conscience. He was no longer of Earth, nor of the Solarian System, but of
the galaxy as a whole. He was no longer a tiny cog in the immense machine of
the Galactic Patrol, wherever he might go, throughout the immensity of the
entire Island Universe, he would be the Galactic Patrol!

"Yes, it's real." The older man was enjoying the youngster's stupefaction at
his Release, reminding him as it did of the time, long years before, when he
had won his own. "You go anywhere you please and do anything you please, for as
long as you please. You take anything you want, whenever you want it, with or
without giving reasons--although you will usually give a thumb- printed credit
slip in return. You report if, as, when, where, how, and to whom you please--or
not, as you please. You don't even get a salary any more. You help yourself to
that, too, wherever you may be, as much as you want, whenever you want it."

"But, sir... I... you... I mean... that is..." Kinnison gulped three times
before he could speak coherently. "I'm not ready, sir. Why, I'm nothing but a
kid--I haven't got enough jets to swing it. Just the bare thought of it scares
me into hysterics!"

"It would--it always does." Haynes was very much in earnest now, but it was a
glad, proud earnestness. "You are to be as nearly absolutely free an agent as
it is possible for a living, flesh-and-blood creature to be. To the man on the
street that would seem to spell a condition of perfect bliss. Only a Gray
Lensman knows what a frightful load it really is, but it is a load that such a
Lensman is glad and proud to carry."

"Yes, sir, he would be, of course, if he..."

"That thought will bother you for a time--if it did not, you would not be
here--but don't worry about it any more than you can help. All I can say is that
in the opinion of those who should know, not only have you proved yourself
ready for Release, but also you have earned It."

"How do they figure that out?" Kinnison demanded, hotly. "All that saved my
bacon on that trip was luck--a burned-out Bergenholm--and at the time I thought
it was bad luck, at that. And vanBuskirk and Worsel and the other boys and the
Lord knows who else pulled me out of jam after jam. I'd like awfully well to
believe that I'm ready, sir, but I'm not. I can't take credit for pure dumb
luck and for other men's abilities."

"Well, cooperation is to be expected, and we like to make Gray Lensmen out of
the lucky ones." Haynes laughed deeply. "It may make you feel better, though,
if I tell you two more things. First, that so far you have made the best
showing of any man yet graduated from Wentworth Hall. Second that we of the
Court believe that you would have succeeded in that almost impossible mission
without vanBuskirk, without Worsel, and without the lucky failure of the
Bergenholm. In a different, and now of course unguessable fashion, but
succeeded, nevertheless. Nor is this to be taken as in any sense a belittlement
of the very real abilities of those others, nor a denial that luck, or chance,
does exist. It is merely our recognition of the fact that you have what it
takes to be an Unattached Lensman.

"Seal it now, and buzz off!" he commanded, as Kinnison tried to say something,
and, clapping him on the shoulder, he turned him around and gave him a gentle
shove. toward the door. "Clear ether, lad I"

"Same to you, sir--all of it there is. I still think that you and all the rest
of the Court are cockeyed, but I'll try not to let you down," and the newly
unattached Lensman blundered out. He stumbled over the threshold, bumped
against a stenographer who was hurrying along the corridor, and almost barged
into the jamb of the entrance door instead of going through the opening.
Outside he regained his physical poise and walked on air toward his quarters,
but he never could remember afterward what he did or whom he met on that long,
fast hike. Over and over the one thought pounded in his brain, unattached!
Unattached!! UNATTACHED!!!

And behind him, in the Port Admiral's office, that high official sat and
mused, smiling faintly with lips and eyes, staring unseeingly at the still open
doorway through which Kinnison had staggered. The boy had measured up in every
particular. He would be a good man. He would marry. He did not think so now, of
course--in his own mind his life was consecrate--but he would. If necessary, the
Patrol itself would see to it that he did. There were ways, and such stock was
altogether too good not to be propagated. And, fifteen years from now--if he
lived--when he was no longer fit for the grinding, grueling life to which he now
looked forward so eagerly, he would select the Earthbound job for which he was
best fitted and would become a good executive. For such were the executives of
the Patrol. But this day-dreaming was getting him nowhere, fast, he shook
himself and plunged again into his work.

Kinnison reached his quarters at last, realizing with a thrill that they were
no longer his. He now had no quarters, no residence, no address. Wherever he
might be, throughout the whole of illimitable space, there was his home. But,
instead of being dismayed by the thought of the life he faced, he was filled by
a fierce eagerness to be actually living it.

There was a tap at his door and an orderly entered, carrying a bulky package.
"Your Grays, sir," he announced, with a crisp salute. "Thanks." Kinnison
returned the salute as smartly, and, almost before the door

had closed, he was yanking off the space-black-and-silver-and-gold
gorgeousness of the uniform he wore.

Stripped bare, he made the quick, meaningful gesture he had not really
expected ever to be able to make. Gray Seal. No entity has ever donned or ever
will don the Gray unmoved, --nor without dedicating himself anew to that for
which it stands.

The Gray--the unadorned, neutral-colored leather that was the proud garb of
that branch of the Patrol to which he was thenceforth to belong. It had been
tailored to his measurements, and he could not help studying with approval his
reflection in the mirror. The round, almost visorless cap, heavily and softly
quilted in protection against the helmet of his armor. The heavy goggles,
opaque to all radiation harmful to the eyes. The short jacket, emphasizing
broad shoulders and narrow waist. The trim breeches and high boots, encasing
powerful, tapering legs.

"What an outfit--what an outfit!" he breathed. "And Maybe I ain't such a
badlooking ape, at that, in these Grays."

He did not then, and never did realize that he was wearing the plainest,
drabbest, most strictly utilitarian uniform in existence, for to him, as to all
others who knew it, the sheer, stark simplicity f the Unattached Lensman's
plain gray leather transcended by far the gaudy trappings of the other branches
of the Service. He had admired him. self boyishly, as men do, feeling a trifle
ashamed in so doing, but he did not then and never did appreciate what a
striking figure of a man he really was as he strode out of Quarters and down
the wide avenue toward the Britannia's dock.

He was glad indeed that there had been no ceremony or public show connected
with this, his real and only Important graduation. For as his fellows--not only
his own crew, but also his friends from all over the Reservation--thronged about
him, mauling and pummeling him in congratulation and acclaim, he knew that he
couldn't stand much more. If there were to be much more of it, he discovered
suddenly, he would either pass out cold or cry like a baby--he didn't quite know
which.

That whole howling, chanting mob clustered about him, and. considering it an
honor to carry the least of his personal belongings, formed a yelling, cap-
tossing escort. Traffic meant nothing whatever to that pleasantly mad crew,
nor, temporarily, did regulations. Let traffic detour--let pedestrians no matter
how august, cool their heels--let cars, trucks, yes, even trains, wait until
they got past--let everything wait, or turn around and go back, or go some other
way. Here comes Kinnison! Kimball Kinnison! Kimball Kinnison Gray Lensmanl Make
way! And way was made, from the Brittania's dock clear across the base to the
slip in which the Lensman's new speedster lay.

And what a ship this little speedster was! Trim, trig, streamlined to the
ultimate she lay there, quiescent but surcharged with power. Almost sentient
she was, this powerpacked, ultraracy little fabrication of space-Toughened
alloy, instantly ready at his touch to liberate those tremendous energies which
were to hurl him through the infinite reaches of the cosmic void.

None of the mob came aboard of course. They backed off, still frantically
waving and throwing whatever came closest to hand, and as Kinnison touched a
button and shot into the air he swallowed several times in a vain attempt to
dispose of an amazing lump which had somehow appeared in his throat.



15. THE DECOY

It so happened that for many long weeks there had been lying in New York
Spaceport an urgent shipment for Alsakan, and that urgency was not merely a one-
way affair. For, with the possible exception of a few packets whose owners had
locked them in vaults and would not part with them at any price, there was not
a single Alsakanite cigarette left on Earth!

Luxuries, then as now, soared feverishly in price with scarcity. Only the rich
smoked Alsakanite cigarettes, and to those rich the price of anything they
really wanted was a matter of almost complete indifference. And plenty of them
wanted, and wanted badly, their Alsakanite cigarettesthere was no doubt of
that. The current market report upon them was.

"Bid, one thousand credits per packet of ten. Offered, none at any price."

With that ever-climbing figure in mind, a merchant prince named Matthews had
been trying to get an Alsakan-bound ship into the ether. He knew that one cargo
of Alsakanite cigarettes safely landed in any Tellurian spaceport would yield
more profit than could be made by his entire fleet in ten years of normal
trading. Therefore he had for weeks been pulling every wire, and even every
string, that he could reach, political, financial, even at times verging
altogether too close for comfort upon the criminal--but without results.

For, even if he could find a crew willing to take the risk, to launch the ship
without an escort would be out of the question. There would be no profit in a
ship that did not return to Earth. The ship was his, to do with as he pleased,
but the escorting maulers were assigned solely by the Galactic Patrol, and the
Patrol would not give his ship an escort.

In answer to his first request, he had been informed that only cargoes classed
as "necessary" were being escorted at all regularly, that "semi- necessary"
loads were escorted occasionally, when of a particularly useful or desirable
commodity and if opportunity offered, that "luxury" loads such as his were not
being escorted at all, that he would be notified if, as, and when the
Prometheus could be given escort. Then the merchant prince began' his siege.

Politicians of high rank, local and national, sent in "requests" of varying
degrees of diplomacy. Financiers first offered inducements, then threatened to
"bear down," then put on all the various kinds of pressure known to their
pressure-loving ilk. Pleas, demands, threats, and pressures were alike,
however, futile. The Patrol could not be coaxed or bullied, cajoled, bribed, or
cowed, and all further communications upon the subject, from whatever source
originating were ignored.

Having exhausted his every resource of diplomacy, politics, guile, and
finance, the merchant prince resigned himself to the inevitable and stopped
trying to get his ship off the ground. Then New York Base received from Prime
Base an open message, not even coded, which read.

"Authorize space-ship Prometheus to clear for Alsakan at will, escorted by
Patrol ship B 42 TC 838, whose present orders are hereby cancelled. Signed,
Haynes."

A demolition bomb dropped into that sub-base would not have caused greater
excitement than did that message. No one could explain it--the base commander,
the mauler's captain, the captain of the Prometheus, or the highly pleased but
equally surprised Matthews--but all of them did whatever they could to expedite
the departure of the freighter. She was, and had been for a long time,
practically ready to sail.

As the base commander and Matthews sat in the office, shortly before the
scheduled time of departure, Kinnison arrived--or, more correctly, let them know
that he was there. He invited them both into the control-room of his speedster,
and invitations from Gray Lensmen were accepted without question or demur.

"I suppose you are wondering what this is all about," he began. "I'll make it
as short as I can. I asked you in here because this is the only convenient
place in which I know that what we say will not be overheard. There are lots of
spy-rays around here, whether you know it or not. The Prometheus is to be
allowed to go to Alsakan, because that is where pirates seem to be most
numerous, and we do not want to waste time hunting all over space to find one.
Your vessel was selected, Mr. Matthews, for three reasons, and in spite of the
attempts you have been making to obtain special privileges, not because of
them. First, because there is no necessary or semi-necessary freight waiting
for clearance into that region. Second, because we do not want your firm to
fail. We do not know of any other large shipping line in such a shaky position
as yours, nor of any firm anywhere to which one single cargo would make such an
immense financial difference."

"You are certainly right there, Lensman!" Matthews agreed, whole- heartedly.
"It means bankruptcy on the one hand and a fortune on the other."

"Here's what is to happen. The ship and the mauler blast off on schedule,
fourteen minutes from now. They get about to Valeria, when they are both
recalledurgent orders for the mauler to go on rescue work. The mauler comes
back, but your captain will, in all probability, keep on going, saying that he
started out for Alsakan and that's where he's going..."

"But he wouldn't--he wouldn't dare!" gasped the shipowner.

"Sure he would," Kinnison insisted, cheerfully enough. "That is the third good
reason your vessel is being allowed to set out, because it certainly will be
attacked. You didn't know it until now, but your captain and over half of your
crew are pirates themselves, and are going to..."

"What? Pirates!" Matthews bellowed. "I'll go down there and..."

"You'll do nothing whatever, Mr. Matthews, except watch things, and you will
do that from here. The situation is under control."

"But my ship! My cargo!" the shipper wailed. "We'll be ruined if they..."

"Let me finish, please," the Lensman interrupted. "As soon as the mauler turns
back it is practically certain that your captain will send out a message,
letting the pirates know that he is easy prey. Within a minute after sending
that message, he dies. So does every other pirate aboard. Your ship lands on
Valeria and takes on a crew of space fighting wildcats, headed by Peter
vanBuskirk. Then it goes on toward Alsakan, and when the pirates board that
ship, after its pre-arranged half-hearted resistance and easy surrender, they
are going to think that all hell's out for noon. Especially since the mauler,
back from her rescue work, will be tagging along, not too far away."

"Then my ship will really go to Alsakan, and back, safely?" Matthews was
almost dazed. Matters were entirely out of his hands, and things had moved so
rapidly that he hardly knew what to think. "But if my own crews are pirates,
some of them may... but I can of course get police protection if necessary."

"Unless something entirely unforeseen happens, the Prometheus will make the
round trip in safety, cargoes and all--under mauler escort all the way. You will
of course have to take the other matter up with your local police."

"When is the attack to take place, sir?" asked the base commander.

"That's what the mauler skipper wanted to know when I told him what was ahead
of him," Kinnison grinned. "He wanted to sneak up a little closer about that
time. I'd like to know, myself, but unfortunately that will have to be decided
by the pirates after they get the signal. It will be on the way out, though,
because the cargo she has aboard now is a lot more valuable to Boskone than a
load of Alsakanite cigarettes would be."

"But do you think you can take the pirate ship that way?" asked the commander,
dubiously. "No, but we will cut down his personnel to such an extent that he
will have to

head back for his base." "And that's what you want--the base. I see." He did
not see--quite--but the Lensman did not enlighten him further. There was a
brilliant double flare as freighter and mauler lifted into the air, and

Kinnison showed the ship-owner out. "Hadn't I better be going, too?" asked the
commander. "Those orders, you know."

"A couple of minutes yet. I have another message for you--official. Matthews
won't need a police escort long--if any. When that ship is attacked it is to be
the signal for cleaning out every pirate in Greater New York--the worst pirate
hot-bed on Tellus. Neither you nor your force will be in on it directly, but
you might pass the word around, so that our own men will be informed ahead of
the Telenews outfits."

"Good! That has needed doing for a long time." "Yes, but you know it takes a
long time to line up every man in such a big organization. They want to get
them all, without getting any innocent bystanders."

"Who's doing it--Prime Base?"

"Yes. Enough men will be thrown in here to do the whole job in an hour."

"That is good news--clear ether, Lensman!" and the base commander went back to
his post.

As the air-lock toggles rammed home, sealing the exit behind the departing
visitor, Kinnison eased his speedster into the air and headed for Valeria.
Since the two vessels ahead of him had left atmosphere inertialess as would he,
and since several hundred seconds had elapsed since their take-off, he was of
course some ten thousand miles off their line as well as being uncounted
millions of miles behind them. But the larger distance meant no more than the
smaller, and neither of them meant anything at all to the Patrol's finest
speedster. Kinnison, on easy touring blast, caught up with them in minutes.
Closing up to less than one light-year, he slowed his pace to match theirs and
held his distance.

Any ordinary ship would have been detected long since, but Kinnison rode no
ordinary ship. His speedster was immune to all detection save electromagnetic
or visual, and therefore, even at that close range--the travel of half a minute
for even a slow space-ship in open space--he was safe. For electromagnetics are
useless at that distance, and visual apparatus, even with subether converters,
is reliable only up to a few mere thousands of miles, unless the observer knows
exactly what to look for and where to look for it.

Kinnison, then, closed up and followed the Prometheus and her mauler escort,
and as they approached the Valerian solar 'system the recall message came
booming in. Also, as had been expected, the renegade captain of the freighter
sent his defiant answer and his message to the pirate high command. The mauler
turned back, the merchantman kept on. Suddenly, however, she stopped, inert,
and from her ports were ejected discrete bits of matter-- probably the bodies of
the Boskonian members of her crew. Then the Prometheus, again inertialess,
flashed directly toward the planet Valeria.

An inertialess landing is, of course, highly irregular, and is made only when
the ship is to take off again immediately. It saves all the time ordinarily
lost in spiraling and deceleration, and saves the computation of a landing
orbit, which is no task for an amateur computer. It is, however, dangerous. It
takes power, plenty of it, to maintain the force which neutralizes the inertia
of mass, and if that force fails even for an instant while a ship is upon a
planet's surface, the consequences are usually highly disastrous. For in the
neutralization of inertia there is no magic, no getting of something for
nothing, no violation of Nature's law of the conservation of matter and energy.
The instant that force becomes inoperative the ship possesses exactly the same
velocity, momentum, and inertia that it possessed at the instant the force took
effect. Thus, if a space-ship takes off from Earth, with its orbital velocity
of about eighteen and one-half miles per second relative to the sun, goes free,
dashes to Mars, lands free, and then goes inert, its original velocity, both in
speed and in direction, is instantly restored, with consequences better
imagined than described. Such a velocity of course might take the ship
harmlessly into the sir, but it probably would not.

Inertialess vessels do not ordinarily load freight. They do, however, take on
passengers, especially military personnel accustomed to open-space maneuvers in
powered space-suits. Men and ship must go inert--separately, of
course--immediately after leaving the planet, so that the men can match their
intrinsic velocity to the ship's, but that takes only a very small fraction of
the time required for an inert landing.

Hence the Prometheus landed free, and so did Kinnison. He stepped out, fully
armored against Valeria's extremely heavy atmosphere, and laboring a trifle
under its terrific gravitation, to be greeted cordially by Lieutenant
vanBuskirk, whose fighting men were already streaming aboard the freighter.

"Hi, Kim!" the Dutchman called, gaily. "Everything went off like clockwork.
Won't hold you up long--be blasting off in ten minutes."

"Ho, Lefty!" the Lensman acknowledged, as cordially, but saluting the newly
commissioned officer with an exaggerated formality. "Say, Bus, I've been doing
some thinking. Why wouldn't it be a good idea to..."

"Uh-uh, it would not," denied the fighter, positively. "I know what you're
going to say--that you want in on this party --but don't say it."

"But I..." Kinnison began to argue.

"Nix," the Valerian declared flatly. "You've got to stay with your speedster.
No room for her inside, she's clear full of cargo and my men. You can't clamp
on outside, because that would give the whole thing away. And besides, for the
first and last time in my life I've got a chance to give a Gray Lensman orders.
Those orders are to stay out of and away from this ship--and I'll see to it that
you do, too, you little Tellurian shrimp! Boy, what a kick I get out of that!"

"You would, you big, dumb Valerian ape--you always were a small-souled types"
Kinnison retorted. "Piggy-piggy... Haynes, huh?"

"Uh-huh." VanBuskirk nodded. "How else could I talk so rough to you and get
away with it? However, don't feel too bad--you aren't missing a thing, really.
It's in the cans already, and your fun is up ahead somewhere. And by the way,
Kim, congratulations. You had it coming. We're all behind you, from here to the
Magellanic Clouds and back."

"Thanks. The same to you, Bus, and many of 'em. Well, if you won't let me stow
away, I'll tag along behind, I guess. Clear ether--or rather, I hope it's full
of pirates by tomorrow morning.--Won't be, though, probably, don't imagine
they'll move until we're almost there."

And tag along Kinnison did, through thousands and thousands of parsecs of
uneventful voyage.

,Part of the time he spent in the speedster dashing hither and yon. Most of
it, however, he spent in the vastly more comfortable mauler, to the armored
side of which his tiny vessel clung with its magnetic clamps while he slept and
ate, gossiped and read, exercised and played with the mauler's officers and
crew, in deep-space comradery. It so happened, however, that when the long-
awaited attack developed he was out in his speedster, and thus saw and heard
everything from the beginning.

Space was filled with the old, familiar interference. The raider flashed up,
locked on with magnets, and began to beam. Not heavily--scarcely enough to warm
up the defensive screens--and Kinnison probed into the pirate with his spy-ray.

"Terrestrials--North Americans!" he exclaimed, half aloud, startled for an
instant. "But naturally they would be, since this is a put-up job and over half
the crew were New York gangsters."

"The blighter's got his spy-ray screens up," the pilot was grumbling to his
captain. The fact that he spoke in English was immaterial to the Lensman, he
would have understood equally well any other possible form of communication or
of thought exchange. "What wasn't part of the plan, was it?"

If Helmuth or one of the other able minds at Grand Base had been directing
that attack it would have stopped right there. The pilot had shown a flash of
feeling that, with a little encouragement, might have grown into a suspicion.
But the captain was not an imaginative man. Therefore.

"Nothing was said about it, either way," he replied. "Probably the mate's on
dutyhe isn't one of us, you know. The captain will open up. If he doesn't do it
pretty quick I'll open her up myself... there, the port's opening. Slide a
little forward... hold it! Go get 'em, men!"

Men, hundreds of them, armed and armored, swarmed through the freighter's
locks. But as the last man of the boarding party passed the portal something
happened that was most decidedly not on the program. The outer port slammed
shut and its toggles drove home!

"Blast those screens! Knock them down--get in there with a spray-ray!" barked
the pirate captain. He was not one of those hardy and valiant souls who, like
Gildersleeve, led in person the attacks of his cut-throats. He emulated instead
the higher Boskonian officials and directed his raids from the safety of his
control-room, but, as has been intimated, he was not exactly like those
officials. It was only after it was too late that he became suspicious. "I
wonder if somebody could have double-crossed us?... Highjackers?"

"We'll bally soon know," the pilot growled, and even as he spoke the spy- ray
got through, revealing a very shambles.

For vanBuskirk and his Valerians had not been caught napping, nor were they a
crew--unarmored, partially armed, and rendered even more impotent by internal
mutiny, strife, and slaughter--such as the pirates had expected to find.

Instead, the boarders met a force that was overwhelmingly superior to their
own. Not only in the strength and agility of its units, but also in that at
least one semiportable projector commanded every corridor of the freighter. In
the blasts of those projectors most of the pirates died instantly, not knowing
what struck them.

They were the fortunate ones. The others knew what was coming and saw it as it
came, for the Valerians did not even draw their DeLameters. They knew that the
pirates' armor could withstand for minutes any hand-weapon's beams, and they
disdained to remount the heavy semi-portables. They came in with their space-
axes, and at the sight the pirates broke and ran screaming in panic fear. But
they could not escape. The toggles of the exit port were socketed and locked.

Therefore the storming party died to the last man, and, as vanBuskirk had
foretold, it was scarcely even a struggle. For ordinary armor is so much tin-
plate against a Valerian swinging a space-axe.

The spy-ray of the pirate captain got through just 3n time to see the ghastly
finale of the massacre, and his face turned first purple, then white.

"The Patrol!" he gasped. "Valerians--a whole company of them! I'll say we've
been double-crossed!"

"Righto--we've been jolly well had," the pilot agreed. "You don't know the half
of it, either. Somebody's coming, and it isn't a boy scout. If a mauler should
suck us in, we'd be very much a spent force, what?"

"Cut the gabble!" snapped the captain. "Is it a mauler, or not?"

"A bit too far away yet to say, but it probably is. They wouldn't have sent
those jaspers out without cover, old bean--they know we can burn that
freighter's screens down in an hour. Better get ready to run, what?"

The commander did so, wild thoughts racing through his mind. If a mauler got
close enough to him to use magnets, he was done. His heaviest beams wouldn't
even warm up a mauler's screens, his defenses wouldn't stand up for a second
against a mauler's blasts... , and he'd be ordered back to base..."

"Tally ho, old fruit!" The pilot slammed on maximum blast. "It's a mauler and
we've been bloody well jobbed. Back to base?"

"Yes," and the discomfited captain energized his communicator, to report to
his immediate superior the humiliating outcome of the supposedly carefully-
planned coup.



16. KINNISON MEETS THE WHEELMEN

As the pirate fled into space Kinnison followed, matching his quarry in course
and speed. He then cut in the automatic controller on his drive, the automatic
recorder on his plate, and began to tune in his beam-tracer, only to be brought
up short by the realization that the spyray's point would not stay in the
pirate's control room without constant attention and manual adjustment. He had
known that, too. Even the most precise of automatic controllers, driven by the
most carefully stabilized electronic currents, are prone to slip a little at
even such close range as ten million miles, especially in the bumpy ether near
solar systems, and there was nothing to correct the slip. He had not thought of
that before, the pilot always made those minor corrections as a matter of
course.

But now he was torn between two desires. He wanted to listen to the
conversation that would ensue as soon as the pirate captain got into
communication with his superior officers, and, especially should Helmuth put in
his beam, he very much wanted to trace it and thus secure another line on the
headquarters he was so anxious to locate. He now feared that be could not do
both--a fear that soon was to prove well grounded--and wished fervently that for
a few minutes he could be two men. Or at least a Velantian, they had eyes and
hands and separate brain-compartments enough so that they could do half-a-dozen
things at once and do each one well. He could not, but he could try. Maybe he
should have brought one of the boys along, at that. No, that would wreck
everything, later on, he would have to do the best he could.

Communication was established and the pirate captain began to make his report,
and by using one hand on the ray and the other on the tracer, he managed to get
a partial line and to record scraps of the conversation. He missed, however,
the essential part of the entire episode, that part in which the base commander
turned the unsuccessful captain over to Helmuth himself. Therefore Kinnison was
surprised indeed at the disappearance of the beam he was so laboriously trying
to trace, and to hear Helmuth conclude his castigation of the unlucky captain
with:...not entirely your fault, I will not punish you at all severely this
time. Report to our base on Aldebaran I, turn your vessel over to commander
there, and do anything he tells you to for .thirty of the days of that planet."

Frantically Kinnison drew back his tracer and searched for Helmuth's beam, but
before he could synchronize with it the message of the pirates' high chief was
finished and his beam was gone. The Lensman sat back in thought.

Aldebaran I Practically next door to his own Solarian System, from which he
had come so far. How had they possibly managed to keep concealed, or to re-
establish, a base so close to Sol, through all the intensive searching that had
been done? But they had--that was the important thing. Anyway, he knew where he
was going, and that helped. One other thing he hadn't thought of, and one that
might have spoiled everything, was the fact that he couldn't stay awake
indefinitely to follow that ship! He had to sleep sometime, and while he was
asleep his quarry was bound to escape. He of course had a CRX tracer, which
would hold a ship without attention as long as it was anywhere within even
extreme range, and it would have been a simple enough matter to have had a
photo-cell relay put in between the plate of the CRX and the automatic controls
of the spacer and driver--but he had not asked for it. Well, luckily, he now
knew where he was going, and the trip to Aldebaran would. be long enough for
him to build a dozen such controls. He had all the necessary parts and plenty
of tools.

Therefore, following the pirate ship easily as it tore through space, Kinnison
built his automatic "chaser," as he called it. During each of the first four or
five "nights" he lost the vessel he was pursuing, but found it without any
great difficulty upon awakening. Thereafter he held it continuously, improving
day by day the performance of his apparatus until it could do almost anything
except talk. After that he devoted his time to an intensive study of the
general problem before him. His results were highly unsatisfactory, for in
order to solve any problem one must have enough data to set it up, either in
actual equations or in logical sequences, and Kinnison did not have enough data.

He had altogether too many unknowns and not enough knowns.

The first specific problem was that of getting into the pirate base. Since the
searchers of the Patrol had not found it, that base must be very well hidden
indeed. And hiding anything as large as a base on Aldebaran I, as he remembered
it, would be quite a feat in itself. He had been in that system only once,
but...

Alone in his ship, and in deep space although he was, he blushed painfully as
he remembered what had happened to him during that visit. He had chased a
couple of dope runners to Aldebaran II, and there he had encountered the most
vividly, the most flawlessly, the most remarkably and intriguingly beautiful
girl. he had ever seen. He had seen beautiful women, of course, before and in
plenty. He had seen beauties amateur and professional, social butterflies,
dancers, actresses, models, and posturers, both in the flesh and in
Telenewscasts, but he bad never supposed that such an utterly ravishing
creature as she was could exist outside of a thionite dream. As a timidly
innocent damsel in distress she had been perfect, and if she had held that pose
a little longer Kinnison shuddered to think of what might have happened.

But, having known too many dope-runners and too few Patrolmen, she misjudged
entirely, not only the cadet's sentiments, but also his reactions. For, even as
she came amorously into his arms, he had known that there was something screwy.
Women like that did not play that kind of game for nothing. She must be mixed
up with the two he had been chasing. He got away from her, with only a couple
of scratches, just in time to capture her confederates as they were making
their escape--and he had been afraid of beautiful women ever since. He'd like to
see that Aldebaranian hell-cat again--just once. He'd been just a kid then, but
now...

But that line of thought was getting him nowhere, fast. It was Aldebaran I
that he had better be thinking of. Barren, lifeless, desolate, airless,
waterless. Bare as his hand, covered with extinct volcanoes, cratered, jagged,
and torn. To hide a base on that planet would take plenty of doing, and,
conversely, it would be correspondingly difficult to approach. If on the
surface at all, which he doubted very strongly, it would be covered. In any
event, all its approaches would be thoroughly screened and equipped with
lookouts on the ultra-violet and on the infra-red, as well as on the visible.
His detector nullifier wouldn't help him much there. Those screens and lookouts
were badvery, very bad. Question--could anything get into that base without
setting off an alarm?

His speedster could not even get close, that was certain. Could he, alone? He
would have to wear armor, of course, to hold his air, and it would radiate. Not
necessarily--he could land out of range and walk, without power, but there were
still the screens and the lookouts. If the pirates were on their toes it simply
wasn't in the cards, and he had to assume that they would be alert.

What, then, could pass those barriers? Prolonged consideration of every fact
of the situation gave definite answer and marked out clearly the course he must
take. Something admitted by the. pirates themselves was the only thing that
could get in. The vessel ahead of his was going in. Therefore he must and would
enter that base within the pirate vessel itself. With that point derided there
remained only the working out of a method, which proved to be almost
ridiculously simple.

Once inside the base, what should he--or rather, what could he--do? For days he
made and discarded plans, but finally he tossed them all out of his mind. So
much depended upon the location of the base, its personnel, its arrangement,
and its routine, that he could develop not even the rough draft of a working
plan. He knew what he wanted to do, but he had not even the remotest idea as to
how he could go about doing it. Of the openings that appeared, he would have to
choose the most feasible and fit his actions to whatever situation then and
there obtained.

So deciding, he shot his spy-ray toward the planet and studied it with care.
It was indeed as he had remembered it, or worse. Bleakly, hotly arid, it had no
soil whatever, its entire surface being composed of igneous rock, lava, and
pumice. Stupendous ranges of mountains cries-crossed and intersected each other
at random, each range a succession of dead volcanic peaks and blown-off
craters. Mountainside and rocky plain, crater-wall and valley floor, alike and
innumerably were pockmarked with sub-craters and with immensely yawning shell-
holes, as though the whole planet had been throughout geologic ages the target
of an incessant cosmic bombardment.

Over its surface and through and through its volume he drove his spy-ray,
finding nothing. He bored into its substance with his detectors and his
tracers, with results completely negative. Of course, closer up, his
electromagnetics would report iron--plenty of it--but that information would
also
be meaningless. Practically all planets had iron cores. As far as his
instruments could tell--and he had given Aldebaran I a more thorough going-over
by far than any ordinary surveying ship would have given it--there was no base
of any kind upon or within the planet. Yet he knew that a base was there. So
what?--maybe--Helmuth's base might be inside the galaxy after all, protected
from
detection in the same way, probably by solid miles of iron or of iron ore. A
second line upon that base had now become imperative. But they were approaching
the system fast, he had better get ready.

He belted on his personal equipment, including a nullifier, then inspected his
armor, checking its supplies and apparatus carefully before he hooked it ready
to his hand. Glancing into the plate, he noted with approval that his "chaser"
was functioning perfectly. Pursued and pursuer were now both well inside the
solar system of Aldebaran, and, as slowed the pirate so slowed the speedster.
Finally the leader went inert in preparation for his spiral, but Kinnison was
no longer following. Before .he went inert he flashed down to within fifty
thousand miles of the planet's forbidding surface. He then cut his Bergenholm,
threw the speedster into an almost circular orbit, well away from the landing
orbit selected by the pirate, cut off all his power, and drifted. He stayed in
the speedster, observing and computing, until he had so exactly defined its
path that he could find it unerringly at any future instant. Then he went into
the airlock, stepped out into space, and, waiting only to be sure that the
portal had snapped shut behind him, set his course toward the pirate's spiral.

Inert now, his progress was so slow as to seem imperceptible, but he had
plenty of time. And it was only relatively that his speed was low. He was
actually hurtling through space at the rate of well over two thousand miles an
hour, and his powerful little driver was increasing that speed constantly by an
acceleration of two Earth gravities.

Soon the vessel crept up, beneath him now, and Kinnison increasing his drive
to five gravities, shot toward it in a long, slanting dive. This was the most
ticklish minute of the trip, but the Lensman had assumed correctly that the
ship's officers would be looking ahead of them and down, not backward and up.
They were, and he made his approach unseen. The approach itself, the boarding
of an inert spaceship at its frightful landing-spiral velocity, was elementary
to any competent space-man. There was not even a flare to bother him or to
reveal him to sight, as the braking jets were now doing all the work. Matching
course and velocity ever more closely, he crept up--flung his magnet-- pulled
up,
hand over hand--opened the emergency inlet lock--and there he was.

Unconcernedly he made his way along the sternway and into the now deserted
quarters of the fighters. There he lay down in a hammock, snapped the
acceleration straps, and shot his spy-ray into the control room. And there, in
the pirate captain's own visiplate, he observed the rugged and torn topography
of the terrain below as the pilot fought his ship down, mile by mile. Tough
going, this, Kinnison reflected, and the bird was doing a nice job, even if he
was taking it the hard way, bringing her down straight on her nose instead of
taking one more spiral around the planet and then sliding in on her under jets,
which were designed and placed specifically for such work. But taking it the
hard way he was, and his vessel was bucking, kicking, bouncing and spinning on
the terrific blasts of her braking jets. Down she came, fast, and it was only
after she was actually inside one of those stupendous craters, well below the
level of its rim, that the pilot flattened her out and assumed normal landing
position.

They were still going too fast, Kinnison thought, but the pirate pilot knew
what he was doing. Five miles the vessel dropped, straight down that Titanic
shaft, before the bottom was reached. The shaft's wall was studded with
windows, in front of the craft loomed the outer gate of a gigantic airlock. It
opened, the ship was trundled inside, landing-cradle and all, and the massive
gate closed behind it. This was the pirates' base, and Kinnison was inside it!

"Men, attention!" The pirate commander snapped then. "The air is deadly
poison, so put on your armor and be sure your tanks are full. They have rooms
for us, having good air, but don't open your suits a crack until I tell you to.
Assemble! All of you that are not here in this Control room in five minutes
will stay on board and take your own chances!"

Kinnison decided instantly to assemble with the crew. He could do nothing in
the ship, and it would be inspected, of course. He had plenty of air, but space-
armor all looked alike, and his Lens would warn him in time of any unfriendly
or suspicious thought. He had better go. If they called a roll... but he would
cross that bridge when he came to it.

No roll was called, in fact, the captain paid no attention at all to his men.
They would come along or not, just as they pleased. But since to stay in the
ship meant death, every man was prompt. At the expiration of the five minutes
the captain strode away, followed by the crowd. Through a doorway, left turn,
and the captain was met by a creature whose shape Kinnison could not make out.
A pause, a straggling forward, then a right turn.

Kinnison decided that he would not take that turn. He would stay here, close
to the shaft, where he could blast his way out if' necessary, until he had
studied the whole base thoroughly enough to map out a plan of campaign. He soon
found an empty and apparently unused room, and assured himself that through its
heavy, crystal-clear window he could indeed look out into the vastly
cylindrical emptiness of a volcanic shaft.

Then with his spy-ray he watched the pirates as they were escorted to the
quarters prepared for them. Those might have been rooms of state, but it looked
to Kinnison very much as though his former shipmates were being jailed
ignominiously, and he was glad that he had taken leave of them. Shooting his
ray here and there throughout the structure, he finally found what he was
looking for, the communicator room. That room was fairly well lighted, and at
what he saw there his jaw dropped in sheerest amazement.

He had expected to see men, since Aldebaran II, the only inhabited planet in
the system, had been colonized from Tellus and its people were as truly human
and Caucasian as those of Chicago or of Paris. But there... these things... he
had been around quite a bit, but he had never seen nor heard of their like.
They were wheels, really. When they went anywhere they rolled. Heads where hubs
ought to be... eyes... arms, dozens of them, and very capable-looking hands...

"Vogenar!" a crisp thought flashed from one of the peculiar entities to
another, impinging also upon Kinnison 's Lens. "Someone--some outsider--is
looking at me. Relieve me while I abate this intolerable nuisance."

"One of those creatures from Tellus? We will teach them very shortly that such
intrusion is not to be borne."

"No, it is not one of them. The touch is similar, but the tone is entirely
different. Nor could it be one of them, for not one of them is equipped with
the instrument which is such a clumsy substitute for inherent power of mind.
There, I will now..."

Kinnison snapped on his thought-screen, but the damage had already been done.
In the violated Communications Room the angry observer went on.

"...attune myself and trace the origin of that prying look. It has disappeared
now, but its sender cannot be distant, since our walls are shielded and
screened... Ah, there is a blank space, which I cannot penetrate, in the
seventh room of the fourth corridor. In all probability it is one of our
guests, hiding now behind a thought screen.' Then his orders boomed out to a
corps of guards. "Take him and put him with the others!"

Kinnison had not heard the order, but he was ready for anything, and those who
came to take him found that it was much easier to issue such orders than to
carry them out.

"Halt!" snapped the Lensman, his Lens carrying the crackling command deep into
the Wheelmen's minds. "I do not wish to harm you, but come no closer!"

"You? Harm us?" came a cold, clear thought, and the creatures vanished. But
not for long. They or others like them were back in moments, this time armed
and armored for strife.

Again Kinnison found that DeLameters were useless. The armor of the foe
mounted generators as capable as his own, and, although the air in the room
soon became one intolerably glaring field of force, in which the very walls
themselves began to crumble and to vaporize, neither he nor his attackers were
harmed. Again, then, the Lensman had recourse to his mediaeval weapon,
sheathing his DeLameter and wading in with his axe. Although not a vanBuskirk,
he was, for an Earthman, of unusual strength, skill, and speed, and to those
opposing him he was a very Hercules.

Therefore, as he struck and struck and struck again, the cell became a gorily
reeking slaughter-pen, its every corner high-piled with the shattered corpses
of the Wheelmen and its floor running with blood and slime. The last few of the
attackers, unwilling to face longer that irresistible steel, wheeled away, and
Kinnison thought flashingly of what he should do next.

This trip was a bust so far. He couldn't do himself a bit of good here now,
and he'd better flit while he was still in one piece. How? The door? No.
Couldn't make ithe'd run out of time quick that way. His screens would stop
small-arms projectiles, but they knew that as well as he did. They'd use a
young cannon--or, more probably, a semiportable. Better take out the wall. That
would give them something else to think about, too, while he was doing his flit.

Only a fraction of a second was taken up by these thoughts, then Kinnison was
at the wall. He set his DeLamater to minimum aperture and at maximum blast, to
throw an irresistible cutting pencil. Through the wall that pencil pierced, up,
over, and around.

But, fast as the Lensman had acted, he was still too late. There came
trundling into the room behind him a low, four-wheeled truck, bearing a complex
and monstrous mechanism. Kinnison whirled to face it. As he turned the section
of the wall upon which he had been at work blew outward with a crash. The
ensuing rush of escaping atmosphere swept the Lensman up and whisked him out
through the opening and into the shaft. In the meantime the mechanism upon the
truck had begun a staccato, grinding roar, and as it roared Kinnison felt slugs
ripping through his armor and tearing through his flesh, each as crushing,
crunching, paralyzing a blow as though it had been inflicted by vanBuskirk's
space axe.

This was the first time Kinnison had ever been really badly wounded, and it
made him sick. But. sick and numb, senses reeling at the shock of his slug-torn
body, his right hand flashed to the external controller of his neutralizer. For
he was falling inert. Only ten or fifteen meters to the bottom, as remembered
it--he had mightily little time to waste if he were not to land inert. He
snapped the controller. Nothing happened. Something had been shot away. His
driver, too, was dead. Snapping the sleeve of his armor into its clamp he began
to withdraw his arm in order to operate the internal controls, but he ran out
of tine. He crashed, on the top of a subsiding pile of masonry which had
preceded him, but which had not yet attained a state of equilibrium, underneath
a shower of similar material which rebounded from his armor in a boilershop
clangor of noise.

Well it was that that heap of masonry had not yet had time to settle into
form, for in some slight measure it acted as a cushion to break the Lensman's
fall. But an inert fall of forty feet, even cushioned by sliding rocks, is in
no sense a light one. Kinnison crashed. It seemed as though a thousand pile-
drivers struck him at once. Surges of almost unbearable agony swept over him as
bones snapped and bruised flesh gave way, and he knew dimly that a merciful
tide of oblivion was reaching up to engulf his shrieking, suffering mind.

But, foggily at first in the stunned confusion of his entire being, something
stirred, that unknown and unknowable something, that indefinable ultimate
quality that had made him what he was. He lived, and while a Lensman lived he
did not quit. To quit was to die then and there, since he was losing sir fast.
He had plastic in his kit, of course, and the holes were small. He must plug
those leaks, and plug them quick. His left arm, he found, he could not move at
all. It must be smashed pretty badly. Every shallow breath was a searing
pain--that meant a rib or two gone out. Luckily, however, he was not breathing
blood, therefore his lungs must still be intact. He could move his right arm,
although it seemed like a lump of clay or a limb belonging to someone else.
But, mustering all his power of will, he made it move. He dragged it out of the
armor's clamped sleeve, and forced the leaden hand to slide through the welter
of blood that seemed almost to fill the bulge of his armor. He found his kit-
box, and, after an eternity of pain-wracked time, he compelled his sluggish
hand to open it and to take out the plastic.

Then, in a continuously crescendo throbbing of agony, he forced his maimed,
crushed, and broken body to writhe and to wriggle about, so that his one sound
hand could find and stop the holes through which his precious air was whistling
out and away. Find them he did, and quickly, and seal them tight, but when he
had plugged the last one he slumped down, spent and exhausted. He did not hurt
so much, now, his suffering had mounted to such terrific heights of intolerable
keenness that the nerves themselves, in outraged protest at carrying such a
load, had blocked it off.

There was much more to do, but he simply could not do it without a rest. Even
his iron will could not drive his tortured muscles to any further effort until
they had been allowed to recuperate a little from what they had gone through.

How much air did he have left, if any, he wondered, foggily and with an
entirely detached. and disinterested impersonality. Maybe his tanks were empty.
Of course it couldn't have taken him so long to plug those leaks as it had
seemed to, or he wouldn't have had any air left at all, in tanks or suit. He
couldn't, however, have much left. He would look at his gauges and see.

But now he found that he could not move even his eyeballs, so deep was the
coma that was enveloping him. Away off somewhere there was a billowy expanse of
blackness, utterly heavenly in its deep, softly-cushioned comfort, and from
that sea of peace and surcease there came reaching to embrace him huge, soft,
tender arms. Why suffer, something crooned at him. It was so much easier to let
go!



17. NOTHING SERIOUS AT ALL

Kinnison did not lose consciousness--quite. There was too much to do, too much
that had to be done. He had to get out of here. He had to get back to his
speedster. He had, by hook or by crook, to get back to Prime Basel Therefore,
grimly, doggedly, teeth tightlocked in the enhancing agony of every movement,
he drew again upon those hidden, those deeply buried resources which even he
had no idea he possessed. His code was simple, the code of the Lens. While a
Lensman lived he did not quit. Kinnison was a Lensman. Kinnison lived. Kinnison
did not quit.

He fought back that engulfing tide of blackness, wave by wave as it came. He
beat down by sheer force of will those tenderly beckoning, those sweetly
seducing arms of oblivion. He forced the mass of protesting putty that was his
body to do what had to be done. He thrust styptic gauze into the most copiously
bleeding of his wounds. He was burned, too, he discovered then--they must have
had a high-powered needle-beam on that truck, as well as the rifle--but he could
do nothing about burns. There simply wasn't time.

He found the power lead that had been severed by a bullet. Stripping the
insulation was an almost impossible job, but it was finally accomplished, after
a fashion. Bridging the gap proved to be even a worse one. Since there was no
slack, the ends could not be twisted together, but had to be joined by a short
piece of spare wire, which in turn had to be stripped and then twisted with
each end of the severed lead. That task, too, he finally finished, working
purely by feel although he was, and halfconscious withal in a wracking haze of
pain.

Soldering those joints was of course out of the question. He was afraid even
to try to insulate them with tape, lest the loosely-twined strands should fall
apart in the attempt. He did have some dry handkerchiefs, however, if he could
reach them. He could, and did, and wrapped one carefully about the wires' bare
joints. Then, apprehensively, he tried his neutralizer. Wonder of wonder, it
worked! So did his driver!

In moments then he was rocketing up the shaft, and as he passed the opening
out of which he had been blown he realized with amazement that what had seemed
to him like hours must have been minutes only, and few even of them. For the
frantic Wheelmen were just then lifting into place the temporary shield which
was to stem the mighty outrush of their atmosphere. Wonderingly, Kinnison
looked at his air-gauges. He had enough--if he hurried.

And hurry he did. He could hurry, since there was practically no atmosphere to
impede his flight. Up the five-miles-deep shaft he shot and out into space. His
chronometer, built to withstand even severer shocks than that of his fall, told
him where his speedster was to be found, and in a matter of minutes he found
her. He forced his rebellious right arm into the sleeve of his armor and
fumbled at the lock. It yielded. The port swung open. He was inside his own
ship again.

Again the encroaching universe of blackness threatened, but again he fought it
off. He could not pass out--yet! Dragging himself to the board, he laid his
course upon Sol., too distant by far to permit of the selection of such a tiny
objective as its planet Earth. He connected the automatic controls.

He was weakening fast, and he knew it. But from somewhere and in some fashion
he must get strength to do what trust be done--and somehow he did it. He cut in
the Berg, cut in maximum blast. Hang on, Kim! Hang on for just a second more!
He disconnected the spacer. He killed the detector nullifiers. Then, with the
utterly last remnant of his strength he thought into his Lens.

"Haynes." The thought went out blurred, distorted, weak. "Kinniston. I'm
coming.... com..."

He was done. Out, cold. Utterly spent. He had already done too much--far, far
too much. He had driven that pitifully mangled body of his to its ultimately
last possible movement, his wracked and tortured mind to its ultimately last
possible thought. The last iota of even his tremendous reserve of vitality was
consumed and he plunged, parsecs deep, into the black depths of oblivion which
bad so long and so unsuccessfully been trying to engulf him. And on and on the
speedster flashed 'at the very peak of her unimaginably high speed, carrying
the insensible, the utterly spent, the sorely wounded, the abysmally
unconscious Lensman toward his native Earth.

* * * * *

But Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman, had done everything that had had to be
done before he blacked out. His final thought, feeble though it was, and
incomplete, did its work.

Port Admiral Haynes was seated at his desk, discussing matters of import with
an office-full of executives, when that thought arrived. Hardened old
spacehound that he was, and survivor of many encounters and hospitalizations,
he knew instantly what that thought connoted and from the depths of what dire
need it had been sent.

Therefore, to the amazement of the officers in the room, he suddenly leaped to
his feet, seized his microphone, and snapped out orders. Orders, and still more
orders. Every vessel in seven sectors, of whatever class or tonnage, was to
shove its detectors out to the limit. Kinnison's speedster is out there
somewhere. Find her--get her--kill her drive and drag her in here, to number ten
landing field. Get a pilot here, fast--no, two pilots, in armor. Get them off
the top of the board, too--Henderson and Watson or Schermerhorn if they're
anywhere within range. He then Lensed his lifelong friend Surgeon-Marshal Lacy,
at Base Hospital.

"Sawbones, I've got a boy out that's badly hurt. He's coming in free--you know
what that means. Send over a good doctor. And have you got a nurse who knows
how to use a personal neutralizer and who isn't afraid to go into the net?"

"Coming myself. Yes." The doctor's thought was as crisp as the admiral's.
"When do you want us?"

"As soon as they get their tractors on that speedster--you'll know when that
happens."

Then, neglecting all other business, the Port Admiral directed in person the
farflung screen of ships searching for Kinnison's flying midget.

Eventually she was found, and Haynes, cutting off his plates, leaped to a
closet, in which was hanging his own armor. Unused for years, nevertheless it
was kept in readiness for instant service, and now, at long last, the old Space-
hound had a good excuse to use it again. He could have sent out one of the
younger men, of course, but this was one job that he was going to do himself.

Armored, he strode out into the landing field across the paved way. There
awaiting him were two armored figures, the two top-bracket pilots. There were
the doctor and the nurse. He barely saw--or, rather, he saw--without noticing--a
saucy white cap atop a riot of red-bronze-auburn curls, a symmetrical young
body in its spotless white. He did not notice the face at all. What he saw was
that there was a neutralizer strapped snugly into the curve of her back, that
it was fitted properly, and that it was not yet functioning.

For this that faced them was no ordinary job. The speedster would land free.
Worse, the admiral feared--and rightly--that Kinnison would also be free, but
independently, with an intrinsic velocity different from that of his ship. They
must enter the speedster, take her out into space, and inert her. Kinnison must
be taken out of the speedster, inerted, his velocity matched to that of the
flier, and brought back aboard. Then and only then could doctor and nurse begin
to work on him. Then they would have to land as fast as a landing could be
made--the boy should have been in hospital long ago.

And during all these evolutions and until their return to ground the rescuers
themselves would remain inertialess. Ordinarily such visitors left the ship,
inserted themselves, and came back to it inert, under their own power. But now
there was no time for that. They had to get Kinnison to the hospital, and
besides, the doctor and the nurse--particularly the nurse--could not be expected
to be space-suit navigators. They would all take it in the net, and that was
another reason for haste. For while they were gone their intrinsic velocity
would remain unchanged, while that of their present surroundings would be
changing constantly. The longer they were gone the greater would become the
discrepancy. Hence the net.

The net--a leather-and-canvas sack, lined with sponge-rubber-padded coiled
steel, anchored to ceiling and to walls and to floor through every shock-
absorbing artifice of beryllium-copper springs and of rubber and nylon cable
that the mind of man had been able to devise. It takes something to absorb and
to dissipate the kinetic energy which may reside within a human body when its
intrinsic velocity does not match the intrinsic velocity of its
surroundings--that is, if that body is not to be mashed to a pulp. It takes
something, also, to enable any human being to face without flinching the
prospect of going into that net, especially in ignorance of exactly how much
kinetic energy will have to be dissipated. Haynes cogitated, studying the
erect, supple young back, then spoke.

"Maybe we'd better cancel the nurse, Lacy, or get her a suit...

"Time is too important," the girl herself put in, crisply. "Don't worry about
me, Port Admiral, I've been in the net before."

She turned toward Haynes as she spoke, and for the first time he really saw
her face. Why, she was a real beauty--a knockout--a seven-sector callout...

"Here she is!" In the grip of a tractor the speedster flashed to ground in
front of the waiting five, and they hurried aboard.

They . hurried, but there was no flurry, no confusion. Each knew exactly what
to do, and each did it.

Out into space shot the little vessel, jerking savagely downward and sidewise
as one of the pilots cut the Bergenholm. Out of the airlock flew the Port
Admiral and the helpless, unconscious Kinnison, inertialess both and now
chained together. Off they darted, in a new direction and with tremendous speed
as Haynes cut Kinnison's neutralizer. There was a mighty double flare as the
drivers of both space-suits went to work.

As soon as it was safe to do so, out darted an armored figure with a space-
line, whose grappling end clinked into a socket of the old man's armor as the
pilot rammed it home. Then, as an angler plays a fish, two husky pilots, feet
wide--braced against the steel portal of the air-lock and bodies sweating with
effort, heaving when they could and giving line only when they must helped the
laboring drivers to overcome the difference in velocity.

Soon the Lensmen, young and old, were inside. Doctor and nurse went instantly
to work, with the calmness and precision so characteristic of their highly-
skilled crafts. In a trice they had him out of his armor, out of his leather,
and into a hammock, perceiving at once that except for a few pads of gauze they
could do nothing for their patient until they had him upon an operating table.
Meanwhile the pilots, having swung the hammocks, had been observing, computing
and conferring.

"She's got a lot of speed, Admiral--most of it straight down," Henderson
reported. "On her landing jets it'll take close to two G's on a full revolution
to bring her in. Either one of us can balance her down, but it'll have to be
straight on her tail and it'll mean over five G's most of the way. Which do you
want?"

"Which is more important, Lacy, time or pressure?" Haynes transferred decision
to the surgeon.

"Time." Lacy decided .instantly. "Fight her down!" His patient had been
through so much already of force and pressure that a little more would not do
additional hurt, and time was most decidedly of the essence. Doctor, nurse, and
admiral leaped into hammocks, pilots at their controls tightened safety belts
and acceleration straps--five gravities for over half an hour is no light
matter--and the fight was on.

Starkly incandescent flares ripped and raved from driving jets and aide jets.
The speedster spun around viciously, only to be curbed, skillfully if savagely,
at the precisely right instant. Without an orbit, without even a corkscrew or
other spiral, she was going down--straight down. And not upon her under jets was
this descent to be, nor upon her even more powerful braking jets. Master Pilot
Henry Henderson, Prime Base's best, was going to kill the awful inertia of the
speedster by "balancing her down on her tail." Or, to translate from the jargon
of space, he was going to hold the tricky, cranky little vessel upright upon
the terrific blasts of her main driving projectors, against the Earth's
gravitation and against all other perturbing forces, while her driving force
counteracted, overcame, and dissipated the full frightful measure of the
kinetic energy of her mass and speed!

And balance her down he did. Haynes was afraid for a minute that that intrepid
wight was actually going to land the speedster on her tail. He didn't--quite--
but
he had only a scant hundred feet to spare when he nosed her over and eased her
to ground on her under-jets.

The crash-wagon and its crew were waiting, and as Kinnison was rushed to the
hospital the others hurried to the net room. Doctor Lacy first, of course, then
the nurse, and, to Haynes' approving surprise, she took it like a veteran.
Hardly had the surgeon let himself out of the "cocoon" than she was in it, and
hardly had the terrific surges and recoils of her own not inconsiderable one
hundred and forty-five pounds of mass abated than she herself was out and
sprinting across the sward toward the hospital.

Haynes went back to his office and tried to work, but he could not
concentrate, and made his way back to the hospital. There he waited, and as
Lacy came out of the operating room he buttonholed him.

"How about it, Lacy, will be live?" he demanded.

"Live? Of course he'll live." the surgeon replied, gruffly. "Can't tell you
details yetwe won't know, ourselves, for a couple of hours yet. Do a flit,
Haynes. Come back at sixteen forty--not a second before--and I'll tell you all
about it."

Since there was no help for it the Port Admiral did go away, but he was back
promptly on the tick of the designated hour.

"How is he?" he demanded without preamble. "Will he really live, or were you
just giving me a shot in the arm?"

"Better than that, much better," the surgeon assured him. "Definitely so, yes.
He's in much better shape than we dared hope. Must have been a very light crash
indeed--nothing seriously the matter with him at all. We won't even have to
amputate, from what we can see now. He should make a one hundred percent
recovery, not only without artificial members, but with scarcely a scar. He
couldn't have been in a space crack--up at all, or he wouldn't have come out
with so little injury."

"Fine, Doc--wonderful! Now the details."

"Here's the picture." The doctor unrolled a full-length X-ray print, showing
every anatomical detail of the Lensman's interior structure. "First, just
notice that skeleton. It is really remarkable. Slightly out of true here and
there right now, of course, but I believe it's going to turn out to be the
first absolutely perfect male skeleton I have ever seen. That young man will go
far, Haynes."

"Sure he will. Why else do you suppose we put him in Gray? But I didn't come
over here to be told that--show me the damage."

"Look at the picture--see for yourself. Multiple and compound fractures, you
notice, of legs and arm, and a few ribs. Scapula, of course--there. Oh, yes,
there's a skull fracture, too, but it doesn't amount to much. That's all--the
spine, you see, isn't injured at all."

"What d'you mean, 'that's all'? How about his wounds? I saw some of them
myself, and they were not pin-pricks."

"Nothing of the least importance. A few punctured wounds and a couple of
incised ones, but nothing even close to a vital part. He won't need even a
transfusion, since he stopped the major hemorrhages himself, shortly after he
was wounded. There are a few burns, of course, but they are mostly
superficial--none that will not yield quite readily to treatment."

"Mighty glad of that. He'll be here six weeks, then?"

"Better call it twelve, I think--ten at least. You see, some of the fractures,
especially those in the left leg, and a couple of burns, are rather severe, as
such things go. Then, too, the length of time elapsing between injury and
treatment didn't do anything a bit of good."

"In two weeks hell be wanting to get up and go places and do things, and in
six hell be tearing down your hospital, stone by stone."

"Yes." The surgeon smiled. "He isn't the type to make an ideal patient, but,
as I have told you before, I like to have patients that we do not like."

"And another thing. I want the files on his nurses, particularly the red-
headed one."

"I suspected that you would, so I had them sent down. Here you are. Glad you
noticed MacDougall--she's by way of being my favorite. Clarrissa
MacDougall--Scotch, of course, with that name--twenty years old. Height, five
feet six, weight, one forty-five and a half. Here are her pictures,
conventional and X-ray. Man, look at that skeleton! Beautiful! The only really
perfect skeleton I ever saw in a woman."

"It isn't the skeleton Im interested in," grunted Haynes. "It's what is
outside the skeleton that my Lensman will be looking at.'

"You needn't worry about MacDougall," declared the surgeon. "One good look at
that picture will tell you that. She classifies--with that skeleton she has to.
She couldn't leave the beam a millimeter, even if she wanted to. Good, bad, or
indifferent, male or female, physical, mental, moral, and psychological, the
skeleton tells the whole story."

"Maybe it does to you, but not to me," and Haynes took up the "conventional"
photograph a stereoscope in full, true color, an almost living duplicate of the
girl in question. Her thick, heavy hair was not red, but was a vividly intense
and brilliant auburn, a coppery bronze, flashed with red and gold. Her eyes...
bronze was all that he could think of, with flecks of topaz and of tawny gold.
Her skin, too, was faintly bronze, glowing with even more than healthy youth's
normal measure of sparkling vitality. Not only was she beautiful, the Port
Admiral decided, in the words of the surgeon, she "classified."

"Hm... m. Dimples, too," Haynes muttered. "Worse even than I thought-- she's a
menace to civilization," and he went on to read the documents. "Family... hm.
History... experiences... reactions and characteristics... behavior patterns...
psychology... mentality..."

"She'll do, Lacy," he advised the surgeon finally. "Keep her on with him..."

"Do!" Lacy snorted. "It isn't a question of whether she rates. Look at that
hairthose eyes. Pure Samms. A man to match her would have to be one in a
hundred thousand million. With that skeleton, though, he is."

"Of course he is. You don't seem to realize, you myopic old appendix-
snatcher, that he's pure Kinnison!"

"Ah... so maybe we could... but he won't be falling for anybody yet, since
he's just been unattached. He'll be bullet-proof for quite a while. You ought
to know that young, Lensmen--especially young Gray Lensmen--can't see anything
but their jobs, for a couple of years, anyway."

"His skeleton tells you that, too, huh?" Haynes grunted, skeptically.
"Ordinarily, yes, but you never can tell, especially in hospitals...

"More of your layman's misinformation!" Lacy snapped. "Contrary to popular
belief, romance does not thrive in hospitals, except, of course, among the
staff. Patients oftentimes think that they fall in love with nurses, but it
takes two people to make one romance. Nurses do not fall in love with patients,
because a man is never at his best under hospitalization. In fact, the better a
man is, the poorer a showing he is apt to make."

"And, as I forget who said, a long time ago, 'no generalization is true, not
even this one'," retorted the Port Admiral. "When it does hit him it will hit
hard, and we'll take no chances. How about the black-haired one?"

"Well, I just told you that MacDougall has the only perfect skeleton I ever
saw in a woman. Brownies is very good, too, of course, but..."

"But not good enough to rate Lensman's Mate, eh?" Haynes completed the
thought. "Then take her out. Pick the best skeletons you've got for this job,
and see that no others come anywhere near him. Transfer them to some other
hospital--to some other floor of this one, at least. Any woman that he ever
falls for will fall for him, in spite of your ideas as to the one-wayness of
hospital romance, and I don't want him to have such a good chance of making a
dive at something that doesn't rate up. Am I right or wrong, and for how much?"

"Well, I haven't had time yet to really study his skeleton, but..."

"Better take a week off and study it. I've studied a lot of people in the last
sixtyfive years, and I'll match my experience against your knowledge of bones,
any time. Not saying that he will fall this trip, you understand--just playing
safe."



18. ADVANCED TRAINING

Kinnison came to--or, rather, to say that he came half-to would be a more
accurate statement--with a yell directed at the blurrily-seen figure in white
which he knew must be a nurse.

"Nurse!" Then, as a searing stab of pain shot through him at the effort, he
went on, thinking at the figure in white through his Lens.

"My speedster! I must have landed her free! Get the space-port..."

"There, there, Lensman," a low, rich voice crooned, and a red head bent over
him. "The speedster has been taken care of. Everything Is on the green, go to
sleep and rest' "Never mind your ship," the unctuous voice went on. "It was
landed and put away..."

"Listen, dumb-bell!" snapped the patient, speaking aloud now, in spite of the
pain, the better to drive home his meaning. "Don't try to soothe met What do
you think I am, delirious? Get this and get it straight I said I landed that
speedster free. If you don't know what that means, tell somebody that does. Get
the space-port--get Haynes--get..."

"We got them, Lensman, long ago.' Although her voice was still creamily,
sweetly sofa, an angry color burned into the nurse's face. "I said everything
is on zero. Your speedster was inserted, how else could you be here, inert? I
helped do it myself, so I know she's inert'

"QX." The patient relapsed instantly into unconsciousness and the nurse turned
to an interne standing by--wherever that nurse was, at least one doctor could
almost always be found.

"But my ship..."

"Dumb-bell" she flared. "What a sweet mess he's going to be to take care of I
Not even conscious yet, and he's calling names and picking fights already!"

In a few days Kinnison was fully and alertly conscious. In a week most of the
pain had left him, and he was beginning to chafe under restraint In ten days he
was "fit to be tied," and his acquaintance with his head nurse, so
inauspiciously begun, developed even more inauspiciously as time went on. For,
as Haynes and Lacy had each more than anticipated, the Lensman was by no means
an ideal patient.

Nothing that could be done would satisfy him. All doctors were fat-heads, even
Lacy, the man who had put him together. All nurses were dumb-bells, even--or
especially? "Mac," who with almost superhuman skill, tact, and patience had
been holding him together. Why, even fat-heads and dumb-bells, even high-grade
morons, ought to know that a man needed food!

Accustomed to eating everything he could reach, three or four or five times a
day, he did not realize--nor did his stomach--that his now quiescent body could
no longer use the five thousand or more calories that it had been wont to burn
up, each twentyfour hours, in intense effort He was always hungry, and he was
forever demanding food.

And food, to him, did not mean orange juice or grape juice or tomato juice or
milk. Nor did it mean weak tea and hard, dry toast and an occasional anemic
softboiled egg. If he ate eggs at all be wanted them fried, three or four of
them, accompanied by two or three thick slices of ham.

He wanted--and demanded in no uncertain terms, argumentatively and
persistently--a big, thick, rare beefsteak. He wanted baked beans, with plenty
of fat pork. He wanted bread in thick slices, piled high with butter, and not
this quadruply--and unmentionably--qualified toast. He wanted roast beef, rare,
in big, thick slabs. He wanted potatoes and thick brown gravy. He wanted corned
beef and cabbage. He wanted pie--any kind of pie--in large, thick quarters. He
wanted peas and corn and asparagus and cucumbers, and also various other-
worldly staples of diet which he often and insistently mentioned by name.

But above all he wanted beefsteak. He thought about it days and dreamed about
it nights. One night in particular he dreamed about it--an especially luscious
porterhouse, fried in butter and smothered in mushrooms--only to wake up, mouth
watering, literally starved, to face again the weak tea, dry toast, and, horror
of horrors, this time a flabby, pallid, flaccid poached egg! It was the last
straw.

"Take it away," he said, weakly, then, when the nurse did not obey, he reached
out and pushed the breakfast, tray and all, off the table. Then, as it crashed
to the floor, he turned away, and, in spite of all his efforts, two hot tears
forced themselves between his eyelids.

It was a particularly trying ordeal, and one requiring all of even Mac's
skill, diplomacy, and forbearance, to male the recalcitrant patient eat the
breakfast prescribed for him. She was finally successful, however, and as she
stepped out into the corridor she met the ubiquitous interns.

"How's your Lensman?" he asked, in the privacy of the diet kitchen.

"Don't call him my Lensman!" she stormed. She was about to explode with the
pent-up feelings which she of course could not vent upon such a pitiful,
helpless thing as her star patient. "Beefsteak! I almost wish they would give
him a beefsteak, and that he'd choke on it--which of course he would. He's worse
than a baby. I never saw such a... such a brat in my life. I'd like to spank
him--he needs it. I'd like to know how he ever got to be a Lensman, the big
cantankerous clunker! I'm going to spank him, too, one of these days, see if I
don't!"

"Don't take it so hard, Mac," the interns urged. He was, however, very much
relieved that relations between the handsome young Lensman and the gorgeous
redhead were not upon a more cordial basis. "He won't be here very long. But I
never saw a patient clog your jets before."

"You probably never saw a patient like him before, either. I certainly hope he
never gets cracked up again."

"Huh?"

"Do I have to draw you a chart?" she asked, sweetly. "Or, if he does get
cracked up again, I hope they send him to some other hospital," and she
flounced out.

Nurse MacDougall thought that when the Lensman could eat the meat he craved
her troubles would be over, but she was mistaken. Kinnison was nervous, moody,
brooding, by turns irritable, sullen, and pugnacious. Nor is it to be wondered
at. He was chained to that bed, and in his mind was the gnawing consciousness
that he had failed. And not only failed--he had made a complete fool of himself.
He had underestimated an enemy, and as a result of his own stupidity the whole
Patrol had taken a setback. He was anguished and tormented. Therefore.

"Listen, Mac," he pleaded one day. "Bring me some clothes and let me take a
walk. I need exercise."

"Uh uh, Kim, not yet," she denied him gently, but with her entrancing smile in
full evidence. "But pretty quick, when that leg looks a little less like a
Chinese puzzle, you and nursie go bye-bye."

"Beautiful, but dumb!" the Lensman growled. "Can't you and those cockeyed
croakers realize that I'll never get any strength back if .you keep me in bed
all the rest of my life? And don't talk baby-talk at me, either. I'm well
enough at least so you can wipe that professional smile off your pan and cut
that soothing bedside manner of yours."

"Very well--I think so, too!" she snapped, patience at long last gone.
"Somebody should tell you the truth. I always supposed that Lensmen had to have
brains, but you've been a perfect brat ever since you've been here. First you
wanted to eat yourself sick, and now you want to get up, with bones half-knit
and burns half-healed, and undo everything that has been done for you. Why
don't you snap out of it and act your age for a change?"

"I never did think nurses had much sense, and now I know they haven't."
Kinnison eyed her with intense disfavor, not at all convinced. "I'm not talking
about going back to work. I mean a little gentle exercise, and I know what I
need."

"You'd be surprised at what you don't know," and the nurse walked out, chin in
air. In five minutes, however, she was back, her radiant smile again flashing.

"Sorry, Rim, I shouldn't have blasted off that way--I know that you're bound to
back-fire and to have brainstorms. I would, too, if I were..."

"Cancel it, Mac," he began, awkwardly. "I don't know why I have to be crabbing
at you all the time."

"QX, Lensman," she replied, entirely serene now. "I do. You're not the type to
stay in bed without it griping you, but when a man has been ground up into such
hamburger as you are, he has to stay in bed whether he likes it or not,. and no
matter how much he pope off about it. Roll over here, now, and I'll glue you an
alcohol rub. But it won't be long now, really-pretty soon, we'll have you out
in a wheel-chair..."

Thus it went for weeks. Kinnison knew his behavior was atrocious, abominable,
but he simply could not help it. Every so often the accumulated pressure of his
bitterness and anxiety would blow off, and, like a jungle tiger with a
toothache, he would bite and claw anything or anybody within reach.

Finally, however, the last picture was studied, the last bandage removed, and
he was discharged as fit. And he was not discharged, bitterly although he
resented his "captivity," se he called it, until he really was fit. Haynes saw
to that. And Haynes had allowed only the most sketchy interviews during that
long convalescence. Discharged, however, Kinnison sought him out.

"Let me talk first," Haynes instructed him at sight. "No self-reproaches, no
destructive criticism. Everything constructive. Now, Kimball, I'm mighty glad
to hear that you made a perfect recovery. You were in bad shape. Go ahead."

"You have just about shut my mouth by your first order." Kinnison smiled
sourly as he spoke. "Two words--flat failure. No, let me add two more--as yet."

"That's the spirit!" Haynes exclaimed. "Nor do we agree with you that it was a
failure. It was merely not a success far--which is an altogether different
thing. Also, I may add that we had very fine reports indeed on you from the
hospital."

"Huh?" Kinnison was amazed to the point of being inarticulate. "You just about
tore it down, of course, but that was only to be expected." "But, sir, I made
such a..." "Exactly. As Lacy tells me quite frequently, he likes to have
patients over there

that they don't like. Mull that one over for a bit--you may understand it
better as you get older. The thought, however, may take some of the load off
your mind." "Well, sir, I am feeling a trifle low, but if you and the rest of
them still think .

.." "We do so think. Cheer up and get on with the story." "I've been doing a
lot of thinking, and before I go around sticking out my neck

again I'm going to..." "You don't need to tell me, you know." "No, sir, but I
think I'd better. I'm going to Arisia to see if I can get me a few

treatments for swell-head and lame-brain. I still think that I know how to use
the Lens to good advantage, but I simply haven't got enough jets to do it. You
see, I..." he stopped. He would not offer anything that might sound like an
alibi, but his. thoughts were plain as print to the old Lensman.

"Go ahead, son. We know you wouldn't."

"If I thought at all, I assumed that I was tackling men, since those on the
ship were men, and men were the only known inhabitants of the Aldebaranian
system. But when those wheelers took me so easily and so completely, it became
very evident that I didn't have enough stuff. I ran like a scared pup, and I
was lucky to get home at all. It wouldn't have happened if..." he paused.

"If what? Reason it out, son,' Haynes advised, pointedly. "You are wrong, dead
wrong. You made no mistake, either in judgment or in execution. You have been
blaming yourself for assuming that they were men. Suppose you had assumed that
they were the Arisians themselves. Then what? After close scrutiny, even in the
light of after-knowledge, we do not see how you could have changed the
outcome." It did not occur, even to the sagacious old admiral, that Kinnison
need not have gone in. Lensmen always went in.

"Well, anyway, they licked me, and that hurts," Kinnison admitted, frankly.
"So I'm going back to Arisia for more training, if they'll give it to me. I may
be gone quite a while, as it may take even Mentor a long time to increase the
permeability of my skull enough so that an idea can filter through it in
something under a century."

'Didn't Mentor tell you never to go back there?" "No, sir." Kinnison grinned
boyishly. "He must've forgot it in my case--the only slip he ever made, I guess.
,That's what gives me an out."

"Um-m-m." Haynes pondered this startling bit of information. He knew, far
better than young Kinnison could, the Arisian power of mind, he did not believe
that Mentor of Arisia had ever forgotten anything, however tiny or unimportant.
"It has never been done... they are a peculiar race, incomprehensible... but
not vindictive. He may refuse you, but nothing worse-- that is, if you do not
cross the barrier without invitation. It's a splendid idea, I think, but be
very careful to strike that barrier free and at almost zero power--or else don't
strike it at all."

They shook hands, and in a space of minutes the speedster was again tearing
through apace. Kinnison now knew exactly what he wanted to get, and he utilized
every waking hour of that long trip fn physical and mental exercise to prepare
himself to take it. Thus the time did not seem long. He crept up to the barrier
at a snail's pace, stopping instantly as he touched it, and through that
barrier he sent a thought.

"Kimball Kinnison of Sol Three calling Mentor of Arisia. Is it permitted that
I approach your planet?" He was neither brazen nor obsequious, but was matter-
of-factly asking a simple question and expecting a simple reply. "It is
permitted, Kimball Kinnison of Tellus," a slow, deep, measured voice resounded
in his brain. "Neutralize your controls. You will be landed."

He did so, and the inert speedster shot forward, to come to ground in a
perfect landing at a regulation space-port. < He strode into the office, to
confront the same grotesque entity who had measured him for his Lens not so
long ago. Now, however, he stared straight into that entity's unblinking eyes,
in silence.

"Ali, you have progressed. You realize now that vision is not always reliable.
At our previous interview you took it for granted that what you saw must really
exist, and did not wonder as to what our true shapes might be."

"I am wondering now, seriously," Kinnison replied, "and ,if it is permitted, I
intend to stay here until I can see your v true shapes." "This?" and the figure
changed instantly into that of an old, white-bearded, scholarly gentleman.

"No. There is a vast difference between seeing something myself and having you
show it to me. I realize fully that you can make me see you as anything you
choose. You could appear to me as .a perfect copy of myself, or as any other
thing, person or object conceivable to my mind." .

"Ah, your development has been eminently satisfactory. It is now permissible
to tell you, youth, that your present quest, not for mere information, but for
real knowledge, was expected."

"Huh? How could that be? I didn't decide definitely, myself, until only a
couple of weeks ago." "It was inevitable. When we fitted your Lens we knew that
you would return if you lived. As we recently informed that one known as
Helmuth..."

"Helmuth! You know, then, where..." Kinnison choked himself off. He would not
ask for help in that--he would fight his own battles and bury his own dead. If
they volunteered the information, well and good, but he would not ask it. Nor
did the Arisian furnish it.

"You are right," the sage remarked, imperturbably. "For proper development it
is essential that you secure that information for yourself." Then he continued
his previous thought.

"As we told Helmuth recently, we have given your civilization an
instrumentality--the Lens--by virtue of which it should be able to make itself
secure throughout the galaxy. Having given it, we could do nothing more of real
or permanent benefit until you Lensmen yourselves began to understand the true
relationship between mind and Lens. That understanding has been inevitable, for
long we have known that in time a certain few of your minds would become strong
enough to discover that theretofore unknown relationship. As soon as any mind
made that discovery it would of course return to Arisia, the source of the
Lens, for additional instruction, which, equally of course, that mind could not
have borne previously.

"Decade by decade your minds have become stronger. Finally you came to be
fitted with a Lens. Your mind, while pitifully undeveloped, had a latent
capacity and a power that made your return here certain. There are several
others who will, return. Indeed, it has become a topic of discussion among us
as to whether you or one other would be the first advanced student."

"Who is that other, if I may ask?" "Your friend, Worsel the Velantian."

"He's got a real mind--'way, 'way ahead of mine," the Lensman stated, as a
matter of self-evident fact.

"In some ways, yes. In other and highly important characteristics, no."

"Huh?" Kinnison exclaimed. "In what possible way have I got it over him?"

"I am not certain that I can explain it exactly in thoughts which you
canunderstand. Broadly speaking, his mind is the better trained, the more fully
developed. It is of more grasp and reach, and of vastly greater present power.
It is more controllable, more responsive, more adaptable than is yours--now. But
your mind, while undeveloped, is of considerable greater capacity than his, and
of greater and more varied latent capabilities. Above all, you have a driving
force, a will to do, an undefeatable mental urge that no one of his race will
ever be able to develop. Since I predicted that you would be the first to
return, I am naturally gratified that you have developed in accordance with
that prediction."

"Well, I have been more or less under pressure, and I got quite a few lucky
breaks. But at that, ft seemed to me that I was progressing backward instead of
forward."

"It is ever thus with the really competent. Prepare yourself!" He launched a
mental bolt, at the impact of which Kinnison's mind literally turned

inside out in a wildly gyrating spiral vortex of dizzyingly confused images.
"Resists" came the harsh command. "Resist! How--?" demanded the writhing,
sweating Lensman. "You might as well

tell a fly to resist an inert spaceship!"

"Use your will--your force--your adaptability. Shift your mind to meet mine at
every point. Apart from these fundamentals neither I nor anyone else can tell
you how, each mind must find its own medium and develop its own technique. But
this is a very mild treatment indeed, one conditioned to your present strength.
I will increase it gradually in severity, but rest assured that I will at no
time raise it to the point of permanent damage. Constructive exercises will
come later, the first step must be to build up your resistance. Therefore
resist!''

The force, .which had not slackened for an instant, waxed slowly to the very
verge of intolerability, and grimly, doggedly, the Lensman fought it. Teeth
locked, muscles straining, fingers digging savagely into the hard leather
upholstery of his chair he fought it, mustering his every ultimate resource to
the task...

Suddenly the torture ceased and the Lensman slumped down, a mental and
physical wreck. He was white, trembling, sweating, shaken to the very core of
his being. He was ashamed of his weakness. He was humiliated and bitterly
disappointed at the showing he had made, but from the Arisian there came a
calm, encouraging thought.

"You need not feel ashamed, you should instead feel proud, for you have made a
start which is almost surprising, even to me, your sponsor. This may seem to
you like needless punishment, but it is not. This is the only possible way in
which that which you seek may be found."

"In that case, go to it," the Lensman declared. "I can take it."

The "advanced instruction" went on, with the pupil becoming ever stronger,
until he was taking without damage thrusts that would at first have slain him
instantly. The bouts became shorter and shorter, requiring as they did such
terrific outpourings of mental force that no human mind could stand the awful
strain for more than half an hour at a time.

And now these savage conflicts of wills and minds were interspersed with real
instruction, with lessons neither painful nor unpleasant. In these the aged
scientists probed gently into the youngster's mind, opening it out and exposing
to its owner's gaze vast caverns whose very presence he had never even
suspected. Some of these storehouses were already partially or completely
filled, needing only arrangement and connection. Others were nearly empty.
These were catalogued and made accessible. And in all, permeating everything,
was the Lens.

"Just like clearing out a clogged-up water system, with the Lens the pump that
couldn't work!" exclaimed Kinnison one day.

"More like that than you at present realize," assented the Arisian. "You have
observed, of course, that I have not given you any detailed instructions nor
pointed out any specific abilities of the Lens which you have not known how to
use. You will have to operate the pump yourself, and you have many surprises
awaiting you as to what your Lens will pump, and how. Our sole task is to
prepare your mind to work with the Lens, and that task is not yet done. Let us
on with it." After what seemed to Kinnison like weeks the time came when he
could block

out Mentor's suggestions completely, nor, now blocked out. should the Arisian
be able to discern that fact. The Lensman gathered all his force together,
concentrated it, and hurled it back at his teacher, and there ensued a struggle
none the less Titanic because of its essential friendliness. The very ether
seethed and boiled with the fury of the mental forces there at grips, but
finally the Lensman beat down the other's screens. Then, boring deep into his
eyes, he willed with all his force to see that Arisian as he really was. And
instantly the scholarly old man subsided into a... a BRAIN I There were a few
appendages, of course, and appurtenances, and incidentalia to nourishment,
locomotion, and the like, but to all intents and purposes the Arisian was
simply and solely a brain.

Tension ended, conflict ceased, and Kinnison apologized.

"Think nothing of it," and the brain actually smiled into Kinnison s mind.
"Any mind of power sufficient to neutralize the forces which I have employed is
of course able to hurl no feeble bolts of its own. See to it, however, that you
thrust no such force at any lesser mind, or it dies instantly."

Kinnison started to stammer a reply, but the Arisian went on.

"No, son, I knew and know that the warning is superfluous. If you were not
worthy of this power and were you not able to control it properly you would not
have it. You have obtained that which you sought. Go, then, with power."

"But this is only one phase, barely a beginning!" protested Kinnison.

"Ah, you realize even that? Truly, youth, you have come far, and fast. But you
are not yet ready for more, and lit is a truism that the reception of forces
for which a mind is not prepared will destroy that mind. Thus, when you came to
me you knew exactly what you wanted. Do you know with equal certainty what more
you want from us?"

"No"

'Nor will you for years, if ever. Indeed, it may well be--that only your
descendants will be ready for that for which you now so dimly grope. Again I
say, young man, go with power."

Kinnison went.



19. JUDGE, JURY, AND EXECUTIONER

It had taken the lensman a long time to work out in his mind exactly what it
was that he had wanted from the Arisians, and from no single source had the
basic idea come. Part of it had come from his own knowledge of ordinary
hypnosis, part from the ability of the Overlords of Delgon to control from a
distance the minds of others, part from Worsel, who, working through Kinnison's
own mind, had done such surprising things with a Lens, and a great--part indeed
from the Arisians themselves, who had the astounding ability literally and
completely to superimpose their own mentalities upon those of others, wherever
situation. Part by part and bit by bit the Tellurian Lensman had built up his
plan, but he had not had the sheer power of intellect to make it work. Now he
had that, and was ready to go.

Where? His first impulse was to return to Aldebaran I and to invade again the
stronghold of the Wheelmen, who had routed him so ignominiously in his one
encounter with them. Ordinary prudence, however, counseled against that course.

"You'd better lay off them a while, Kim, old boy," he told himself quite
frankly. "They've got a lot of jets and you don't know how to use this new
stuff of yours yet. Better pick out something easier to take!''

Ever since leaving Arisia he had been subconsciously aware of a difference in
his eyesight. He was seeing things much more clearly than he had ever seen them
before, more sharply and in greater detail. Now this awareness crept into his
consciousness and he glanced toward his tube-lights. They were out--except for
the tiny lamps and bulls-eyes of his instrument board the vessel must be in
complete darkness. He remembered then with a shock that when he entered the
speedster he had not turned on his lights--he could see and had not thought of
them at all.

This, then was the first of the surprises the Arisian had promised him. He now
had the sense of perception of the Rigellians. Or was it that of the Wheelmen?
Or both? Or were they the same sense? Intently aware now, he focused his
attention upon a meter before him. First upon its dial, noting that the needle
was exactly upon the green hair-line of normal operation. Then deeper.
Instantly the face of the instrument disappeared--moved behind his point of
sight, or so it seemed--so that he could see its coils, pivots, and other
interior parts. He could look into and study the grain and particlesize of the
dense, hard condensite of the board itself. His vision was limited, apparently,
only by his will to see.

"Well--ain't that something?" he demanded of the universe at large, then, as a
thought struck him, "I wonder if they blinded me in the process?"

He switched on his lamps, discovering that his vision was unimpaired and
normal in every respect, and a rigid investigation proved to him conclusively
that in addition to ordinary vision he now had an extra sense--or perhaps two of
them--and that he could change from one to the other, or use them
simultaneously, at will! But the very fact of this discovery gave Kinnison
pause.

He hadn't better go anywhere, or do anything, until he had found out something
about his new equipment. The fact was that he didn't even know what he had, to
say nothing of knowing how to use it. If he had the sense of a Zabriskan
fontema he would go somewhere where he could do a little experimenting without
getting his jets burned off in case something slipped at a critical moment.
Where was the nearest Patrol base? A big one, fully defended .

Let's see... Radelix would be about the closest Sector Base, he guessedhe'd
find out if he could raid that outfit without getting caught at it.

Off he shot, and in due course a fair, green, Earthlike planet lay beneath his
vessel's keel. Since it was Earthlike in climate, age, atmosphere, and mass,
its people were of course more or less similar to humanity in general
characteristics, both of body and of mind. If anything, they were even more
intelligent than Earthlings, and their Patrol base was a very strong one
indeed. His spy-ray would be useless, since all Patrol bases were screened
thoroughly and continuously--he would see what a sense of perception would do.
From Tregonsee's explanation, it ought to work at this range.

It did. When Kinnison concentrated his attention upon the base he saw it. He
advanced toward it at the speed of thought and entered it, passing through
screens and metal walls without hindrance and without giving alarm. He saw men
at their accustomed tasks and heard, or rather sensed, their conversation, the
everyday chat of their professions. A thrill shot through him at a dazzling
possibility thus revealed.

If he could make one of those fellows down there do something without his
knowing that he was doing it, the problem was solved. That computer, say, make
him uncover that calculator and set up a certain integral on it. It would be
easy enough to get into touch with him and have him do it, but this was
something altogether different.

Kinnison got into the computer's mind easily enough, and willed intensely what
he was to do, but the officer did not do it. He got up, then, staring about him
in bewilderment, sat down again.

"What's the matter?" asked one of his fellows. "Forget something?"

"Not ,exactly," the computer still stared. "I was going to set up an integral.
I didn't want it, either--I could swear that somebody told me to set it up."

"Nobody did," grunted the other, "and you'd better start staying home
nights--then maybe you wouldn't get funny ideas."

This wasn't so good, Kinnison reflected. The guy should have done it, and
shouldn't have remembered a thing about it. Well, he hadn't really thought he
could put it across at that distance, anyway--he didn't have the brain of an
Arisian. He'd have to follow his original plan, of close-up work.

Waiting until the base was well into the night side of the planet and making
sure that his flare-baffles were in place, he allowed the speedster to drop
downward, landing at some little distance from the fortress. There he left the
ship and made his way toward his objective in a rapid series of long,
inertialess hops. Lower and shorter became the hops. Then he cut off his power
entirely and walked until he saw before him, rising from the ground and
stretching interminably upward, an almost invisibly shimmering web of force.
This, the prowler knew, was the curtain which marked the border of the
Reservation, the trigger upon which a touch, either of solid object or of beam,
would initiate a succession of events which he was in no position to stop.

To the eye that base was not impressive, being merely a few square miles of
level ground, outlined with low, broad pill-boxes and studded here and there
with harmless-looking, bulging domes. There were a few clusters of buildings.
That was allto the eye--but Kinnison was not deceived. He knew that the base
itself was a thousand feet underground, that the pill-boxes housed lookouts and
detectors, and that those domes were simply weathershields which, rolled back,
would expose projectors second in power not even to those of Prime Base itself.

Far to the right, between two tall pylons of metal, was a gate, the nearest
opening in the web. Kinnison had avoided it purposely, it was no part of his
plan to subject himself yet to the scrutiny of the all-inclusive photocells of
that entrance. Instead, with his new sense of perception, he sought out the
conduits leading to those cells and traced them down, through concrete and
steel and masonry, to the control room far below. He then superimposed his mind
upon that of the man at the board and flew boldly toward the entrance. He now
actually had a dual personality, since one part of his mind was in his body,
darting through the the air toward the portal, while the other part was deep in
the base below, watching him come and acknowledging his signals.

A trap lifted, revealing a sloping, tunneled ramp, down which the Lensman
shot. He soon found a convenient storeroom, and, slipping within it, he
withdrew his control carefully from the mind of the observer, wiping out all
traces of that control as he did so. He then watched apprehensively for a
possible reaction. He was almost sure that he had performed the operation
correctly, but he had to be absolutely certain, more than his life depended
upon the outcome of this test. The observer, however, remained calm and placid
at his post, and a close reading of his thoughts showed that he had not the
faintest suspicion that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

One more test and he was through. He must find out how many minds he could
control simultaneously, but he'd better do that openly. No use making a man
feel like a fool needlessly--he'd done that once already, and once was one time
too many.

Therefore, reversing the procedure by which he had come, he went back to his
speedster, took her out into the ether, and slept. Then, when the light of
morning flooded the base, he cut his detector nullifier and approached it
boldly.

"Radelix base! Lensman Kinnison of Tellus, Unattached, asking permission to
land. I wish to confer with your commanding officer, Lensman Gerrond."

A spy-ray swept through the speedster, the web disappeared, and Kinnison
landed, to be greeted with a quiet and cordial respect. The base-commander knew
that his visitor was not there purely for pleasure--Gray Lensmen did not take
pleasure jaunts. Therefore he led the way into his private office and shielded
it.

"My announcement was not at all informative," Kinnison admitted then, "but my
errand is nothing to be advertised. I've got to try out something, and I want
to ask you and three of your best and--�stubbornness', if I may use the term-
officers to cooperate with me for a few minutes. QX?"

"Of course."

Three officers were called in and Kinnison explained. "I've been working for a
long time on a mind-controller, and I want to see if it works. I'll put your
books on this table, one in front of each of you. Now I would like to try to
make two or three of youall four of you if I can--each bend over, pick up his
book, and hold it. Your part of the game will be for each of you to try not to
pick it up, and to put it back as soon as you possibly can if I do make you
obey. Will you?"

"Sure!" three of them chorused, and "There will be no mental damage, of
course?" asked the commander.

"None whatever, and no after-effects. I've had it worked on myself, a lot."

"Do you want any apparatus?"

"No, I have everything necessary. Remember, I want top resistance."

"Let her come! You'll get plenty of resistance. If you can make any one of us
pick up a book, after all this warning, I'll say you've got something."

Officer after officer, in spite of strainingly resisting mind and body, lifted
his book from the table, only to drop it again as Kinnison's control relaxed
for an instant. He could control two of them--any two of them--but he could not
quite handle three. Satisfied, he ceased his efforts, and, as the base
commander poured long, cold drinks for the sweating five, one of his fellows
asked.

"What did you do, anyway, Kinnison--oh, pardon me, I shouldn't have asked."

"Sorry," the Tellurian replied uncomfortably, "but it isn't ready yet. You'll
all know about it as soon as possible, but not just now."

"Sure," the Radeligian replied. "I knew I shouldn't have blasted off as soon
as I spoke."

"Well, thanks a lot, fellows." Kinnison set his empty glass down with a click.
"I can make a nice progress report on this do--jig now. And one more thing. I
did a little long range experimenting on one of your computers last night.

"Desk Twelve? The one who thought he wanted to integrate something?"

"That's the one. Tell him I was using him for a mind-ray subject, will you,
and give him this fifty-credit bill? Don't want the boys needling him too much."

"Yes, and thanks... and... I wonder... the Radeligian Lensman had something on
his mind. "Well... can you make a man tell the truth with that? And if you can,
will you?"

"I think so. Certainly I will, if I can. Why?" Kinnison knew that he could,
but did not wish to seem cocksure.

"There's been a murder." The other three glanced at each other in
understanding and sighed with profound relief. "A particularly fiendish murder
of a woman--a girl, rather. Two men stand accused. Each has a perfect alibi,
supported by honest witnesses, but you know how much an alibi means now. Both
men tell perfectly straight stories, even under a lie-detector, but neither
will let me--or any other Lensman so fartouch his mind." Gerrond paused.

"Uh-huh," Kinnison understood. "Lots of innocent people simply can't stand
Lensing and have mighty strong blocks."

"Glad you've seen such. One of those men is lying with a polish I wouldn't
have believed possible, or else both are innocent. And one of them must be
guilty, they are the only suspects. If we try them now. we make fools of
ourselves, and we can't put the trial off very much longer without losing face.
If you can help us out you'll be doing a lot for the Patrol, throughout this
whole sector."

"I can help you," Kinnison declared. "For this, though, better have some
props. Make me a box--double Burbank controls, with five baby spots on it--
orange, blue, green, purple, and red. The biggest set of headphones you've got,
and a thick, black blindfold. How soon can you try 'em?"

"The sooner the better. It can be arranged for this afternoon."

The trial was announced, and long before the appointed hour the great court
room of that world's largest city was thronged. The hour struck. Quiet reigned.
Kinnison, in his somber gray, strode to the judge's desk and sat down behind
the peculiar box upon it. In dead silence two Patrol officers approached. The
first invested him reverently with the headphones, the second so enwrapped his
head in black cloth that it was apparent to all observers that his vision was
completely obscured.

"Although from a world far distant in space, I have been asked to try two
suspects for the crime--of murder,"' Kinnison son intoned. "I do not know the
details of the crime nor the identity of the suspects. I do know that they and
their witnesses are within these railings. I shall now select those who are
about to be examined."

Piercing beams of intense, vari-colored light played over the two groups, and
the deep, impressive voice went on.

"I know now who the suspects are. They are about to rise, to walk, and to seat
themselves as I shall direct."

They did so, it being plainly evident to all observers that they were under
some awful compulsion.

"The witnesses may be excused. Truth is the only thing of importance here, and
witnesses, being human and therefore frail, obstruct truth more frequently than
they further its progress. I shall now examine these two accused."

Again the vivid, weirdly distorting glares of light lashed out, bathing in
intense monochrome and in various ghastly combinations first one prisoner, then
the other, all the while Kinnison drove his mind into theirs, plumbing their
deepest depths. The silence, already profound, became the utter stillness of
outer space as the throng, holding its very breath now, sat enthralled by that
portentous examination.

"I have examined them fully. You are all aware that any Lensman of the
Galactic Patrol may in case of need serve as judge, jury, and executioner. I
am, however, none of these, nor is this proceeding to be a trial as you may
have understood the term. I have said that witnesses are superfluous. I will
now add that neither judge nor jury are necessary. All that is required is to
discover the truth, since truth is all-powerful. For that same reason no
executioner is needed here--the discovered truth will in and of itself serve us
in that capacity.

"One of these men is guilty, the other is innocent. From the mind of the
guilty one I am about to construct a composite, not of this one fiendish crime
alone, but of all the crimes he has ever committed. I shall project that
composite into the air before him. No innocent mind will be able to see any
iota of it. The guilty man, however, will perceive its every revolting detail,
and, so perceiving, he will forthwith cease to exist in this plane of life."

One of the men had nothing to fear--Kinnison had told him so, long since. The
other had been trembling for minutes in uncontrollable paroxysms of terror. Now
this one leaped from his seat, clawing savagely at his eyes and screaming in
mad abandon.

"I did it! Help! Mercy! Take her away! Oh-h-h!" he shrieked, and died,
horribly, even as he shrieked.

Nor was there noise in the court-room after the thing was over. The stunned
spectators slunk away, scarcely daring even to breathe until they were safely
outside.

Nor were the Radeligian officers in much better case. Not a word was said
until the five were back in the base commander's office. Then Kinnison, still
white of face and set of jaw, spoke. The others knew that he had found the
guilty man, and that he had in some peculiarly terrible fashion executed him.
He knew that they knew that the man was hideously guilty. Nevertheless.

"He was guilty," the Tellurian jerked out. "Guilty as all the devils in hell.
I never had to do that before and it gripes me--but I couldn't shove the job off
onto you fellows.

wouldn't want anybody to see that picture that didn't have to, and without it
you could never begin to understand just how atrociously and damnably guilty
that hell-hound really was."

"Thanks, Kinnison," Gerrond said, simply. "Kinnison. Kinnison of Tellus. I'll
remember that name, in case we ever need you as badly again. But, after what
you just did, it will be a long time--if ever. You didn't know, did you, that
all the inhabitants of four planets were watching you?"

"Holy Klono, no! Were they?"

"They were, and if the way you scared me is any criterion, it will be a long,
cold day before anything like that comes up again in this system. And thanks
again, Gray Lensman. You have done something for our whole Patrol this day."

"Be sure to dismantle that box so thoroughly that nobody will recognize any of
its component parts," and Kinnison managed a rather feeble grin. "One more
thing and I'll buzz along. Do you fellows happen to know where there's a good,
strong pirate base around here anywhere? And, while I don't want to seem fussy,
I would like it all the better if they were warm-blooded oxygen- breathers, so
I won't have to wear armor all the time."

"What are you trying to do, give us the needle, or something?" This is not
precisely what the Radeligian said, but it conveys the thought Kinnison
received as the base commander stared at him in amazement.

"Don't tell me that there is such a base around here!" exclaimed the Tellurian
in delight. "Is there, really?"

"There is. So strong that we haven't been able to touch it, manned and staffed
by natives of your own planet, Tellus of Sol. We reported it to Prime Base some
eightythree days ago, just after we discovered it. You're direct from there...
" He fell silent. This was no way to be talking to a Gray Lensman.

"I was in the hospital then, fighting with my nurse because she wouldn't give
me anything to eat," Kinnison explained with a laugh. "When I left Tellus I
didn't check up on the late data--didn't think I'd need it quite so soon. If
you've got it, though... .

"Hospital! You?" queried one of the younger Radeligians.

"Yeah--bit off more than I could chew," and the Tellurian described briefly his
misadventure with the Wheelmen of Aldebaran I. "This other thing has come up
since then, though, and I won't be sticking my neck out that way again. If
you've got such a made-to-order base as that in this region, it'll save me a
long trip. Where is it?"

They gave him its coordinates and what little information they had been able
to secure concerning it. They did not ask him why he wanted that data. They may
have wondered at his temerity in daring to scout alone a fortress whose
strength had kept at bay the massed Patrol forces of the sector, but if they
did so they kept their thoughts well screened. For this was a Gray Lensman, and
very evidently a super-powered individual, even of that select group whose
weakest members were powerful indeed. If he felt like talking they would
listen, but Kinnison did not talk. He listened, then, when he had learned
everything they knew of the Boskonian base.

Well, I'd better be flitting. Clear ether, fellows!" and he was gone.



20. MAC IS A BONE OF CONTENTION

Out from Radelix and into deep space shot the speedster bearing the Gray
Lensman toward Boyssia II, where the Boskonian base was situated. The Patrol
forces had not been able to locate it definitely, therefore it must be cleverly
hidden indeed. Manned and staffed by Tellurians--and this was fairly close to
the line first taken by the pilot of the pirate vessel whose crew had been so
decimated by vanBuskirk and his Valerians. There couldn't be so many Boskonian
bases with Tellurian personnel, Kinnison reflected. It was well within the
bounds of possibility, even of probability, that he might encounter here his
former, but unsuspecting, shipmates again.

Since the Boyssian system was less than a hundred parsecs from Radelix, a
couple of hours found the Lensman staring down upon another strange planet, and
this one was a very Earthly world indeed. There were polar ice-caps, areas of
intensely dazzling white. There was an atmosphere, deep and sweetly blue,
filled for the most part with sunlight, but flecked here and there with clouds,
some of which were slowmoving storms. There were continents, bearing mountains
and plains, lakes and rivers. There were oceans, studded with islands great and
small.

But Kinnison was no planetographer, nor had he been gone from Tellus
sufficiently long so that the eight of this beautiful and home-like world
aroused in him any qualm of nostalgia. He was looking for a pirate base, and,
dropping his speedster as low into the night side as he dared, he began his
search.

Of man or of the works of man he at first found little enough trace. All human
or near-human life was apparently still in a savage state of development, and,
except for a few scattered races, or rather tribes, of burrowers and of cliff-
or cave-dwellers, it was still nomadic, wandering here and there without
permanent habitation or structure. Animals of scores of genera and species were
there in myriads, but neither was Kinnison a biologist. He wanted pirates, and,
it seemed, that was the one form of life which he was not going to find!

But finally, through sheer, grim, bull-dog pertinacity, he was successful.
That base was there, somewhere. He would find it, no matter how long it took.
He would find it, if he had to examine the entire crust of the planet, land and
water alike, kilometer by plotted cubic kilometer! He set out to do just that,
and it was thus that he found the Boskonian stronghold.

It had been built directly beneath a towering range of mountains, protected
from detection by mile upon mile of native copper and of iron ore.

Its entrances, invisible before, were even now not readily perceptible,
camouflaged as they were by outer layers of rock which matched exactly in form,
color, and texture the rocks of the cliffs in which they were placed. Once
those entrances were located, the rest was easy. Again he set his speedster
into a carefully-observed orbit and came to ground in his armor. Again he crept
forward, furtively and skulkingly, until he could perceive again a shimmering
web of force.

With minor variations his method of entry into the Boskonian base was similar
to that he had used in making his way into the Patrol. base upon Radelix. He
was, however, working now with a surety and a precision which had then been
lacking. His practice with the Patrolmen had given him knowledge and technique.
His sitting in judgment, during which he had touched almost every mind in the
vast assemblage, had taught him much. And above all, the grisly finale of that
sitting, horribly distasteful and soul-wracking as it had been, had given him
training of inestimable value, necessitating as it had the infliction of the
ultimate penalty.

He knew that he might have to stay inside that base for some time, therefore
he selected his hiding-place with care. He could of course blank out the
knowledge of his presence in the mind of anyone chancing to discover him, but
since such an interruption might come at a critical instant, he preferred to
take up his residence in a secluded place. There were, of course, many vacant
suites in the officers' quarters--all bases must have accommodations for
visitors--and the Lensman decided to occupy one of them. It was a simple matter
to obtain a key, and, inside the bare but comfortable little room, he stripped
off his armor with a sigh of relief.

Leaning back in a deeply upholstered leather arm-chair, he closed his eyes and
let his sense of perception roam throughout the great establishment. With all
his newly developed power he studied it, hour after hour and day after day.
When he was hungry the pirate cooks fed him, not knowing that they did so--he
had lived on iron rations long enough. When he was tired he slept, with his
eternally vigilant Lens on guard. Finally he knew everything there was to be
known about that stronghold and was ready to act. He did not take over the mind
of the base commander, but chose instead the chief communications officer as
the one most likely and most intimately to have dealings with Helmuth. For
Helmuth, he who spoke for Boskone, had for many months been the Lensman's
definite objective.

But this game could not be hurried. Bases, no matter how important, did not
call Grand Base except upon matters of the most dire urgency, and no such
matter eventuated.

Nor did Helmuth call that base, since nothing out of the ordinary was
happeningto any pirates' knowledge, that is--and his attention was more
necessary elsewhere.

One day, however, there came crackling in a triumphant report--a ship working
out of that base had taken noble booty indeed, no less a prize than a fully-
supplied hospital ship of the Patrol itself! As the report progressed
Kinnison's heart went down into his boots and he swore bitterly to himself. How
in all the nine hells of Valeria had they managed to take such a ship as that?
Hadn't she been escorted?

Nevertheless, as chief communications officer he took the report and
congratulated heartily, through the ship's radio man, its captain, its
officers, and its crew.

"Mighty fine work, Helmuth himself shall hear of this," he concluded his words
of praise. "How did you do it? With one of the new maulers?"

"Yea, sir," came the reply. "Our mauler, accompanying us just out of range,
came up and engaged theirs. That left us free to take this ship. We locked on
with magnets, cut our way in, and here we are."

There they were indeed. The hospital ship was red with blood, patients,
doctors, interns, officers and operating crew alike had been butchered with the
horribly ruthless savagery which was the customary technique of all the
agencies of Boskone. Of all that ship's personnel only the nurses lived. They
were not to be put to death--yet. In fact, and under certain conditions, they
need not die at all.

They huddled together, a little knot of white-clad misery in that corpse-
littered room, and even now one of them was being dragged away. She was
fighting viciously, with fists and feet, with nails and teeth. No one pirate
could handle her, it took two strong men to subdue that struggling fury. They
hauled her upright and she threw back her head in panting defiance. There was a
cascade of red-bronze hair and Kinnison saw--Clarrissa MacDougalI! And
remembered that there had been some talk that they were going to put her back
into space service! The Lensman decided instantly what to do.

"Stop, you swine!" he roared through his pirate mouthpiece. "Where do you
think you're going with that nurse?"

"To the captain's cabin, sir." The huskies stopped short in amazement as that
roar filled the room, but answered the question concisely.

"Let her go!" Then, as the girl fled back to the huddled group in the corner.
"Tell the captain to come out here and assemble every officer and man of the
crew. I want to talk to you all at once."

He had a minute or two in which to think, and he thought furiously, but
accurately. He had to do something, but whatever he did must be done strictly
according to the pirates' own standards of ethics, if he made one slip it might
be Aldebaran I all over again. He knew how to keep from making that slip, he
thought. But also, and this was the hard part, he must work in something that
would let those nurses know that there was still hope, that there were more
acts of this drama yet to come. Otherwise he knew with a stark, cold certainty
what would happen. He knew of what stuff the space-nurses of the Patrol were
made, knew that they could be driven just so far, and no farther--alive.

There was a way out of that, too. In the childishness of his hospitalization
he had called Nurse MacDougall a dumbbell. He had thought of her, and had
spoken to her quite frankly, in uncomplimentary terms. But he knew that there
was a real brain back of that beautiful face, that a quick and keen
intelligence resided under that red-bronze thatch. Therefore when the assembly
was complete he was ready, and in no uncertain or ambiguous language he opened
up.

"Listen, you--all of you" be roared. "This is the first time in months that we
have made such a haul as this, and a you fellows have the brazen gall to start
helping yourselves to the choicest stuff before anybody else gets a look at it.
I tell you now to lay off, and that goes exactly as it lays. I, personally,
will kill any man that touches one of those women before they arrive here at
base. Now you, captain, are the first and worst offender of the lot," and he
stared directly into the eyes of the officer whom he had last seen entering the
dungeon of the Wheelmen.

"I admit that you're a good picker." Kinnison's voice was now venomously soft,
his intonation distinct with thinly veiled sarcasm "Unfortunately, however,
your taste agrees too well with mine. You see, captain, I'm going to need a
nurse myself. I think I'm coming down with something. And, since I've got to
have a nurse, I'll take that redheaded one. I had a nurse once with hair just
that color, who insisted on feeding me tea and toast and a soft-boiled egg when
I wanted beefsteak, and I'm going to take my grudge out on this one here for
all the red-headed nurses that ever lived. I trust that you will pardon the
length of this speech, but I want to give you my reasons in full for cautioning
you that that particular nurse is my own particular personal property. Mark her
for me, and see to it that she gets here--exactly as she is now."

The captain had been afraid to interrupt his superior, but now he erupted.

"But see here, Blakeslee!" he stormed. "She's mine, by every right. I captured
her, I saw her first, I've got her here..."

"Enough of that back-talk, captain!" Kinnison sneered elaborately. "You know,
of course, that you are violating every rule by taking booty for yourself
before division at base, and that you can get shot for doing it."

"But everybody does it!" protested the captain.

"Except when a superior officer catches him at it. Superiors get first pick,
you know," the Lensman reminded him suavely.

"But I protest, sir! I'll take it up with...

"Shut up!" Kinnison snarled, with cold finality. "Take it up with whom you
please, but remember this, my last warning. Bring her in to me as she is and
you live. Touch her and you die! Now, you nurses, come over here to the board !"

Nurse MacDougall had been whispering furtively to the others and now, she led
the way, head high and eyes blazing defiance. She was an actress, as well as a
nurse.

"Take a good, long look at this button, right here, marked 'Relay 46,"' came
curt instructions. "If anybody aboard this ship touches any one of you, or even
looks at you as though he wants to, press this button and I'll do the rest.
Now, you big, red-headed dumb-bell, look at me. Don't start begging--yet. I just
want to be sure you'll know me when you see me."

"I'll know you, never fear, you... you brat" she flared, thus informing the
Lensman that she had received his message. "I'll not only know you--I'll scratch
your eyes out on sight!"

"That'll be a good trick if you can do it," Kinnison sneered, and cut off.

"What's it all about, Mac? What has got into you?" demanded one of the nurses,
as soon as the women were alone.

"I don't know,". she whispered. "Watch out, they may have spy-rays on us. I
don't know anything, really, and the whole thing is too wildly impossible, too
utterly fantastic to make sense. But pass the word along to all the girls to
ride this out, because my Gray Lensman is in on it, somewhere and somehow. I
don't see how he can be, possibly, but I Just know he is."

For, at the first mention of tea and toast, before she perceived even an
inkling of the true situation, her mind had flashed back instantly to Kinnison,
the most stubborn and rebellious patient she had ever had. More, the only man
she had ever known who had treated her precisely as though she were a part of
the hospital's very furniture. As is the way of women--particularly of beautiful
women--she had orated of women's rights and of women's status in the scheme of
things. She had decried all special privileges, and had stated, often and with
heat, that she asked no odds of any man living or yet to be born. Nevertheless,
and also beautiful--womanlike, the thought had bitten deep that here was a man
who had never even realized that she was a woman, to say nothing of realizing
that she was an extraordinarily beautiful one! And deep within her and sternly
suppressed the thought had still rankled.

At the mention of beefsteak she had all but screamed, gripping her knees with
frantic hands to keep her emotion down. For she had had no real hope, she was
simply fighting with everything she had until the hopeless end, which she had
known could not long be delayed. Now she gathered herself together and began to
act.

When the word "dumb-bell" boomed from the speaker she knew, beyond doubt or
peradventure, that it was Kinnison, the Gray Lensman, who was really doing that
talking. It was crazy--it didn't make any kind of sense at all--but it was, it
must be, true. And, again womanlike, she knew with a calm certainty that as
long as that Gray Lensman were alive and conscious, he would be complete master
of any situation in which he might find himself. Therefore she passed along her
illogical but cheering thought, and the nurses, being also women, accepted it
without question as the actual and accomplished fact.

They carried on, and when the captured hospital ship had docked at base,
Kinnison was completely ready to force matters to a conclusion. In addition to
the chief communications officer, he now had under his control a highly capable
observer. To handle two such minds was child's play to the intellect which had
directed, against their full fighting wills, the minds of two and three
quarters alert, powerful, and fully warned officers of the Galactic Patrol!

"Good girl, Mac" he put his mind en rapport with hers and sent his message.
"Glad you got the idea. You did a good job of acting, and if you can do some
more as good we'll be all set. Can do?"

"I'll say I can!" she assented fervently. "I don't know what you are doing,
how you can possibly do it or where you are, but that can wait. Tell me what to
do and I'll do it!"

"Make passes at the base commander," he instructed her. "Hate me--the ape I'm
working through, you know, Blakeslee, his name is--like poison. Go into it
big--all jets wide open. You maybe could love him, but if I get you you'll blow
out your brains--if any. You know the line--play up to him with everything you
can bring to bear, and hate me to hell and back. Help all you can to start a
fight between us. If he falls for you hard enough the blow-off comes then and
there. If not, he'll be able to do us all plenty of dirt. I can kill a lot of
them, but not enough of them quick enough."

"He'll fall," she promised him gleefully, "like ten thousand bricks falling
down a well. Just watch my jets!"

And fall he did. He had not even seen a woman for months, and he expected
nothing except bitter-end resistance and suicide from any of these women of the
Patrol. Therefore he was rocked to the heels--set back upon his very
haunches--when the most beautiful woman he had ever seen came of her own
volition into his arms, seeking in them sanctuary from his own chief
communications officer.

"I hate him!" she sobbed, nestling against the huge bulk of the commander's
body and turning upon him the full blast of the high powered projectors which
were her eyes. "You wouldn't be so mean to me, I just know you wouldn't!" and
her subtly perfumed head sank upon his shoulder. The outlaw was just so much
soft wax.

"I'll say I wouldn't be mean to you" his voice dropped to a gentle bellow.
"Why, you little sweetheart, I'll marry you. I will so, by all the gods of
space!" It thus came about that nurse and base commander entered the control
room together, arms about each other.

"There he is!" she shrieked, pointing at the chief communications officer.
"He's the one! Now let's see you start something, you rat-faced clunker!
There's one real man around here, and he won't let you touch me-- ya-a-a!" She
gave him a resounding Bronx cheer, and--her escort swelled visibly.

"Is-that-so?" Kinnison sneered. "Get this, glamor-puss, and get it straight. I
marked you for mine as soon as, I saw you, and mine you're going to be, whether
you like it or not and no matter what anybody says or does about it. As for
you, captain, you're too late--I saw her first. And now, you red-headed tomato,
come over here where you belong."

She snuggled closer into the commander's embrace and the big man turned purple.

"What d'you mean, too late!" he roared. "You took her away from the ship's
captain, didn't you? You said that superior officers get first choice, didn't
you? I'm the boss here and I'm taking her away from you, get me? You'll stand
for it, too, Blakeslee, and like it. One word out of you and I'll have you
spread-eagled across the mouth of number six projector!"

"Superior officers don't always get first choice," Kinnison replied, with
bitter, cold ferocity, but choosing his words with care. "It depends entirely
on who the two men are."

Now was the time to strike. Kinnison knew that if the commander kept his head,
the lives of those valiant women were forfeit, and his own whole plan seriously
endangered. He himself could get away, of course--but he could not see himself
doing it under these conditions. No, he must goad the commander to a frenzy.
And without swearing would be better--the ape was used to invectives that would
raise blisters on armor plate. Mac would help. In fact, and without his
suggestion, she was even then hard at work fomenting trouble between the two
men.

"You don't have to take that kind of stuff off of anybody, big boy," she was
whispering, urgently. "Don't call in a crew to spread-eagle him, either, beam
him out yourself. You're a better man than he is, any time. Blast him
down--that'll show him who's who around here!"

"When the inferior is such a man as I am, and the superior such a louse as you
are," the biting, contemptuously sneering voice went on without a break, "Such
a bloated swine, such a mangy, low-down cur, such a pussy-gutted tub of lard,
such a brainless, filthy spawn of the lowest dregs of the rottenest scum of
space, such an utterly incompetent, self-opinionated, misbegotten abortion as
you are... ."

The outraged pirate, bellowing profanity in wildly mounting rage, tried to
break in, but Kinnison--Blakeslee's voice, if no louder than his, was far more
penetrant.

"Then, in that case, the inferior keeps the redheaded wench himself. Put that
on a tape, you white-livered coward, and eat it!"

Still bellowing, the fat man had turned and was leaping toward the arms cabinet.

"Blast him! Blast him down!" the nurse had been shrieking, and, as the raging
commander neared the cabinet, no one noticed that her latest and loudest scream
was "Kim! Blast him down! Don't wait any longer--beam him before he gets a gun!"

But the Lensman did not act--yet. Although almost every man of the pirate crew
stared spell-bound, Kinnison's enslaved observer had for many seconds been
jamming the sub-ether with Helmuth's personal and urgent call. It was of almost
vital importance to his plan that Helmuth himself should see the climax of this
scene. Therefore Blakeslee stood immobile while his profanely raving superior
reached the cabinet and tore it open.



21. THE SECOND LINE

Blakeslee was already armed--Kinnison had seen to that--and as the base
commander wrenched open the arms cabinet Helmuth's private look-out set began
to draw current. Helmuth himself was now looking on and the enslaved observer
had already begun to trace his beam. Therefore as the furious pirate whirled
around with raised DeLameter he faced one already ablaze, and in a matter of
seconds there was only a charred and smoking heap where he had stood.

Kinnison wondered that Helmuth's cold voice was not already snapping from the
speaker, but he was soon to discover the reason for that silence. Unobserved by
the Lensman, one of the observers had recovered sufficiently from his shocked
amazement to turn in a riot alarm to the guard-room. Five armed men answered
that call on the double, stopped and glanced around.

"Guards! Blast Blakeslee down!" Helmuth's unmistakable voice blared from his
speaker.

Obediently and manfully enough the five guards tried, and, had it actually
been Blakeslee confronting them so defiantly, they probably would have
succeeded. It was the body of the communications officer, it is true. The mind
operating the muscles of that body, however, was the mind of Kimball Kinnison,
Gray Lensman, the fastest man with a hand-gun old Tellus had ever produced,
keyed up, expecting the move, and with two DeLameters out and poised at hip!
This was the being whom Helmuth was so nonchalantly ordering his minions to
slay! Faster than any watching eye could follow, five bolts of lightning
flicked from Blakeslee's DeLameters. The last guard went down, his head a
shriveled cinder, before a single pirate bolt could be loosed. Then.

"You see Helmuth," Kinnison spoke conversationally to the board, his voice
dripping vitriol, "playing it safe from a distance and making other men pull
your chestnuts out of the fire, is a very fine trick as long as it works. But,
when it fails to work, as now, it puts you exactly where I want you. I for one,
have been for a long time completely fed up with taking orders from a mere
voice, especially from the voice of one whose entire method of operation proves
him to be the prize coward of the galaxy."

"Observer! You other at the board!" snarled Helmuth, paying no attention to
Kinnison's barbed shafts. "Sound the assembly--armed!"

"No use, Helmuth, he'd stone deaf," Kinnison explained, voice smoothly
venomous. "I'm the only man in this base you can talk to, and you won't be able
to do even that very much longer."

"And you really think that you can get away with this mutiny--this barefaced
insubordination--this defiance of my authority?"

"Sure I can--that's what I've been telling you. If you were here in person, or
ever had been, if any of the boys had ever seen you, or had ever known you as
anything except a disembodied voice, maybe I couldn't. But, since nobody has
ever seen even your face, that gives me a chance...

In his distant base Helmuth's mind had flashed over every aspect of this
unheard-of situation. He decided to play for time, therefore, even as his hands
darted to buttons here and there, he spoke.

"Do you want to see my face?" he demanded. "If you do see it, no power in the
galaxy..."

"Skip it, Chief," sneered Kinnison, "Don't try to kid me into believing you
wouldn't kill me now, under any conditions, if you possibly could. As for your
face, it makes no difference to me whether I ever see your ugly pan or not."

"Well, you shall!" and Helmuth's visage appeared, concentrating upon the
rebellious officer a glare of such fury and such power that any ordinary man
must have quailed. But not Blakeslee--Kinnison!

"Well! Not so bad, at that--the guy looks almost human!" Kinnison exclaimed in
the tone most carefully designed to drive even more frantic the helpless and
inwardly aging pirate leader. "But I've got things to do. You can guess at what
goes on around here from now on," and in the blaze of a DeLameter Helmuth's
plate, set, and "eye" disappeared. Kinnison had also been playing for time, and
his observer had checked and rechecked this second and highly important line to
Helmuth's ultra-secret base.

Then, throughout the fortress, there blared out the urgent assembly call, to
which the Lensman added, verbally.

"This is a one hundred percent callout, including crews of ships in dock,
regular base personnel, and all prisoners. Come as you are and come fast--the
doors of the auditorium will be locked in five minutes and any man outside
those doors will be given ample reason to wish that he had been inside."

The auditorium was immediately off the control room, and was so arranged that
when a partition was rolled back the control room became its stage. All
Boskonian bases were arranged thus, in order that the supervising officers at
Grand Base could oversee through their instruments upon the main panel just
such assemblies as this one was supposed to be. Every man hearing that call
assumed that it came from Grand Base, and every man hurried to obey it.

Kinnison rolled back the partition between the two rooms and watched for
weapons as the men came streaming into the auditorium. Ordinarily only the
guards went armed, but possibly a few of the ships' officers would be wearing
their DeLameters... four-five-six. The captain and the pilot of the battleship
that had taken the hospital ship, Vice-Commander Krimsky of the base, and three
guards. Knives, billies, and such did not count.

"Time's up. Lock the doors. Bring the keys and the nurses up here," he ordered
the six armed men, calling each by name. "You women take these chairs over
here, you men sit there."

Then, when all were seated, Kinnison touched a button and the steel partition
slid smoothly into place.

"What's coming off here?" demanded one of the officers. "Where's the
commander? How about Grand Base? Look at that board!"

"Sit tight." Kinnison directed. "Hands on knees--I'll burn any or all of you
that make a move. I have already burned the old man and five guards, and have
put Grand Base out of the picture. Now I want to find out just how us seven
stand." The Lensman already knew, but he was not tipping his hand.

"Why us seven?"

"Because we are the only ones who happened to be wearing side-arms. Everyone
else of the entire personnel is unarmed and is now locked in the auditorium.
You know how apt they are to get out until one of us lets them out."

"But Helmuth--he'll have you blasted for this!"

"Hardly--my plans were not made yesterday. How many of you fellows are with me?"

"What's your scheme?"

"To take these nurses to some Patrol base and surrender. I'm sick of this
whole game, and, since none of them have been hurt, I figure they're good for a
pardon and a fresh start--a light sentence at least."

"Oh, so that's the reason..." growled the captain.

"Exactly--but I don't want anyone with me whose only thought would be to burn
me down at the first opportunity."

"Count me in," declared the pilot. "I've got a strong stomach, but enough of
these jobbies is altogether too much. If you wangle anything short of a life
sentence for me I'll go along, but I bloody well won't help you against..."

"Sure not. Not until after we're out in space. I don't need any help here."

"Do you want my DeLameter?"

"No, keep it. You won't use it on me. Anybody else?"

One guard joined the pilot, standing aside, the other four wavered.

"Time's up!" Kinnison snapped. "Now, you four fellows, either go for your
DeLameters or turn your backs, and do it right now!"

They elected to turn their backs and Kinnison collected their weapons, one by
one. Having disarmed them, he again rolled back the partition and ordered them
to join the wondering throng in the auditorium. He then addressed the
assemblage, telling them what he had done and what he had it in mind to do.

"A good many of you must be fed up on this lawless game of piracy and anxious
to resume association with decent men, if you can do so without incurring too
great a punishment," he concluded. "I feel quite certain that those of us who
man the hospital ship in order to return these nurses to the Patrol will get
light sentences, at most. Miss MacDougall is a head nurse--a commissioned
officer of the Patrol. We will ask her what she thinks."

"I can say more than that," she replied clearly. "I am not 'quite certain'
either--I am absolutely sure that whatever men Mr. Blakeslee selects for his
crew will not be given any sentences at all. They will be pardoned, and will be
given whatever jobs they can do best."

"How do you know, Miss?" asked one. "We're a black lot."

"I know you are." The head nurse's voice was serenely positive. "I won't say
how I know, but you can take my word for it that I do know."

''Those of you who want to take a chance with us line up over here," Kinnison
directed, and walked rapidly down the line, reading the mind of each man in
turn. Many of them he waved back into the main group, as he found thoughts of
treachery or signs of inherent criminality. Those he selected were those who
were really sincere in their desire to quit forever the ranks of Boskone, those
who were in those ranks because of some press of circumstance rather than
because of a mental taint. As each man passed inspection he armed himself from
the cabinet and stood at ease before the group of women.

Having selected his crew, the Lensman operated the controls that opened the
exit nearest the hospital ship, blasted away the panel, so that that exit could
not be closed, unlocked a door, and turned to the pirates.

"Vice-Commander Krimsky, as senior officer, you are now in command of this
base," he remarked. "While I am in no sense giving you orders, there are a few
matters about which you should be informed. First, I set no definite time as to
when you may leave this room--I merely state that you will find it decidedly
unhealthy to follow us at all closely as we go from here to the hospital ship.
Second, you haven't a ship fit to take the ether, your main injector toggles
have all been broken off at the pivots. If your mechanics work at top speed,
new ones can be put on in exactly two hours. Third, there is going to be a
severe earthquake in precisely two hours and thirty minutes, one which should
make this base merely a memory."

"An earthquake! Don't bluff, Blakeslee--you couldn't do that!"

Well, perhaps not a regular earthquake, but something that will do just as
well. If you think I'm bluffing, wait and find out. But common sense should
give you the answer to that--I know exactly what Helmuth is doing now, whether
you do or not. At first I intended to wipe you all out with out warning, but I
changed my mind. I decided to leave you alive, so that you could report to
Helmuth exactly what happened. I wish I could be watching him when he finds out
how easily one man took him, and how far from foolproof his system is--but we
can't have everything. Let's go!"

As the group hurried away, Mac loitered until she was near Blakeslee, who was
bringing up the rear.

"Where are you, Kim?" she whispered urgently.

"I'll join up at the next corridor. Keep farther ahead, and get ready to run
when we do!"

As they passed that corridor a figure in gray leather, carrying an extremely
heavy object, stepped out of it. Kinnison himself set his burden down, yanked a
lever, and ran--and as he ran fountains of intolerable heat erupted and cascaded
from the mechanism he had left upon the floor. Just ahead of him, but at some
distance behind the others, ran Blakeslee and the girl.

"Gosh, I'm glad to see you, Kim", she panted as the Lensman caught up with
them and all three slowed down. "What is that thing back there?"

"Nothing much--just a KJ41Z hot-shot. Won't do . any real damage--just melt this
tunnel down so they can't interfere with our get-away."

"Then you were bluffing about the earthquake?" she asked, a shade of
disappointment in her tone.

"Hardly," he reproved her. "That isn't due for two hours and a half yet, but
it'll happen on scheduled time."

"How?"

"You remember about the curious cat, don't you? However, no particular secret
about it, I guess--three lithium-hydride bombs placed where they'll do the most
good and timed for exactly simultaneous detonation. Here we are--don't tell
anybody I'm here."

Aboard the vessel, Kinnison disappeared into a stateroom while Blakeslee
continued in charge. Men were divided into watches, duties were assigned,
inspections were made, and the ship shot into the air. There was a brief halt
to pick up Kinnison's speedster, then, again on the way, Blakeslee turned the
board over to Crandall, the pilot, and went into Kinnison's room.

There the Lensman withdrew his control, leaving intact the memory of
everything that had happened. For minutes Blakeslee was almost in a daze, but
struggled through it and held out his hand.

"Mighty glad to meet you, Lensman. Thanks. All I can say is that after I got
sucked in I couldn't...

"Sure, I know all about it--that was one of the reasons I picked you out. Your
subconscious didn't fight back a bit, at any time. You're to be in charge, from
here to Tellus. Please go and chase everybody out of the control room except
Crandall."

"Say, I just thought of something!" exclaimed Blakeslee when Kinnison joined
the two officers at the board. "You must be that particular Lensman who has
been getting in Helmuth's hair so much lately I"

"Probably--that's my chief aim in life."

"I'd like to see Helmuth's face when he gets the report of this. I've said
that before, haven't I? But I mean it now, even more than I did before."

"I'm thinking of Helmuth, too, but not that way." The pilot had been scowling
at his plate, and now turned to Blakeslee and the Lensman, glancing curiously
from one to the other. "Oh I say... A Lensman, what? A bit of good old light
begins to dawn, but that can wait. Helmuth is after us, foot, horse, and
marines. Look at that plate!"

"Four of 'em already!" exclaimed Blakeslee. "And there's another! And we
haven't got a beam hot enough to light a cigarette, nor a screen strong enough
to stop a firecracker. We've got legs, but not as many as they've got. You knew
all about that, though, before we started, and from what you've pulled off so
far you've got something left on the hooks. What is it? What's the answer?"

"For some reason or other they can't detect us. All you have to do is to stay
out of range of their electros and drill for Tellus."

"Some reason or other, eh? Nine ships on the plate now--all Boskonians and all
looking for us--and not seeing us--some reason! But I'm not asking questions...

"Just as well not to. I'd rather you'd answer one. Who or what is Boskone?"

"Nobody knows. Helmuth speaks for Boskone, and nobody else ever does, not even
Boskone himself--if there is such a person. Nobody can prove it, but everybody
knows that Helmuth and Boskone are simply two names for the same man. Helmuth,
you know, is only a voice--nobody ever saw his face until today."

"I'm beginning to think so, myself," and Kinnison strode away, to call at the
office of Head Nurse MacDougall.

"Mac, here's a small, but highly important box," he told her, taking the
neutralizer from his pocket and handing it to her. "Put it in your locker until
you get to Tellus. Then take it, yourself, in person, and give it to Haynes,
himself, in person, and to nobody else. Just tell him I sent it--he knows all
about it."

"But why not keep it and give it to him yourself? You're coming with us,
aren't you?"

"Probably not all the way. I imagine I'll have to do a flit before long."

"But I want to talk to you!" she exclaimed. "Why, I've got a million questions
to ask you!"

"That would take a long time," he grinned at her, "and time is just what we
ain't got right now, neither of us," and he strode back to the board.

There he labored for hours at a calculating machine and in the tank, finally
to squat down upon his heels, staring at two needle-like rays of light in the
tank and whistling softly between his teeth. For those two lines, while exactly
in the same plane, did not intersect in the tank at all! Estimating as
carefully as he could the point of intersection of the lines, he punched the
"cancel" key to wipe out all traces of his work and went to the chart-room.
Chart after chart he hauled down, and for many minutes he worked with calipers,
compass, goniometer, and a carefully-set adjustable triangle. Finally he marked
a point--exactly upon a numbered dot already upon the chart--and again whistled.
Then.

"Huh!" he grunted. He rechecked all his figures and retraversed the chart,
only to have his needle pierce again the same tiny hole. He stared at it for a
full minute, studying the map all around his marker.

"Star cluster AC 257-4736," he ruminated. "The smallest most insignificant,
least-known star-cluster he could find, and my. largest possible error can't
put it anywhere else... kind of thought it might be in a cluster, but I never
would have looked there. No wonder it took a lot of stuff to trace his beam--it
would have to be four numbers Brinnell harder than a diamond drill to work from
there."

Again whistling tunelessly to himself he rolled up the chart upon which he had
been at work, stuck it under his arm, replaced the others in their
compartments, and went back to the control room.

"How's tricks, fellows?" he asked.

"QX," replied Blakeslee. "We're through them and into clear ether. Not a ship
on the plate, and nobody gave us even a tumble."

Fine! You won't have any trouble, then, from here in to Prime Base. Glad of
it, too--I've got to flit. That'll mean long watches for you two, but it can't
very well be helped."

"But I say, old bird, I don't mind the watches, but..."

"Don't worry about that, either. This crew can be trusted, to a man. Not one
of you joined the pirates of your own free will, and not one of you has ever
taken active part...

"What are you, a mind-reader or something?" Crandall burst out.

"Something like that," Kinnison assented with a grin, and Blakeslee put in.

"More than that, you mean. Something like hypnosis, only more so. You think I
had something to do with this, but I didn't--the Lensman did it all himself."

"Um-m-m." Crandall stared at Kinnison, new respect in his eyes. "I knew that
Unattached Lensmen were good, but I had no idea they were that good. No wonder
Helmuth has been getting his wind up about you. I'll string along with any one
who can take a whole base, single-handed, and make such a bally ass to boot out
of such a keen old bird as Helmuth is. But I'm in a bit of a dither, not so say
a funk, about what's going to happen when we pop into Prime Base without you.
Every man jack of us, you know, is slated for the lethal chamber without trial.
Miss MacDougall will do her bit, of course, but what I mean is has she enough
jets to swing it, what?"

"She has, but to avoid all argument I've fixed that up, too. Here's a tape,
telling all about what happened. It ends up with my recommendation for a full
pardon for each of you, and for a job at whatever he is found best fitted for.
Signed with my thumb-print. Give it or send it to Port Admiral Haynes as soon
as you land. I've got enough jets, I think, so that it will go as it lays."

"Jets? You? Right-o! You've got jets enough to lift fourteen freighters off
the North Pole of Valeria. What next?"

"Stores and supplies for my speedster. I'm doing a long flit and this ship has
supplies to burn, so load me up, Plimsoll down."

The speedster was stocked forthwith. Then, with nothing more than a casually
waved salute in the way of farewell, Kinnison boarded his tiny space-ship and
shot away toward his distant goal. Crandall, the pilot, sought his bunk, while
Blakeslee started his long trick at the board. In an hour or so the head nurse
strolled in.

"Kim?" she queried, doubtfully.

"No, Miss MacDougall--Blakeslee. Sorry..."

"Oh, I'm glad of that--that means that everything's settled. Where's the
Lensmanin bed?"

"He has gone, Miss."

"Gone! Without a word? Where?"

"He didn't say."

"He wouldn't, of course." The nurse turned away, exclaiming inaudibly, "Gone!
I'd like to cuff him for that, the lug! GONE! Why, the great, big, lobsterly
clinker!"



22. PREPARING FOR THE TEST

But Kinnison was not heading for Helmuth's base yet. He was splitting the
ether toward Aldebaran instead, as fast as his speedster could go, and she was
one of the fastest things in the galaxy. He had two good reasons for going
there before tackling Boskone's Grand Base. First, to try out his skill upon
non-human intellects. If be could handle the Wheelmen he was ready to take the
far greater hazard. Second, he owed those wheelers something, and he did not
like to call in the whole Patrol to help him pay his debts. He could, he
thought, handle that base himself.

Knowing exactly where it was, he had no difficulty in finding the volcanic
shaft which was its entrance. Down that shaft his sense of perception sped. He
found the lookout plates and followed their power leads. Gently, carefully, he
insinuated his mind into that of the Wheelman at the board, discovering, to his
great relief, that that monstrosity was no more difficult to handle than had
been the Radeligian observer. Mind or intellect, he found, were not affected at
all by the shape of the brains concerned, quality, reach, and power were the
essential factors. Therefore he let himself in and took position in the same
room from which he had been driven so violently. Kinnison examined with
interest the wall through which he had been blown, noting that it had been
repaired so perfectly that he could scarcely find the joints which had been
made.

These wheelers, the Lensman knew, had explosives, since the bullets which had
torn their way through his armor and through his flesh had been propelled by
that agency. Therefore, to the mind within his grasp he suggested "the place
where explosives are kept?" and the thought of that mind flashed to the store-
room in question. Similarly, the thought of the one who had access to that room
pointed out to the Lensman the particular Wheelman he wanted. It was as easy as
that, and since he took care not to look at any of the weird beings, he gave no
alarm.

Kinnison withdrew his mind delicately, leaving no trace of its occupancy, and
went to investigate the arsenal. There he found a few cases of machine- rifle
cartridges, and that was all. Then into the mind of the munitions officer,
where he discovered that the heavy bombs were kept in a distant crater, so that
no damage would be done by any possible explosion.

"Not quite as simple as I thought," Kinnison ruminated, "but there's a way out
of that, too."

There was. It took an hour or so of time, and he had to control two Wheelmen
instead of one, but he found that he could do that. When the munitions master
took out a bomb-scow after a load of H.E., the crew had no idea that it was
anything except a routine job. The only Wheelman who would have known
differently, the one at the lookout board, was the other whom Kinnison had to
keep under control. The scow went out, got its load, and came back. Then, while
the Lensman was flying out into space, the scow dropped down the shaft. So
quietly was the whole thing done that not a creature in that whole
establishment knew that anything was wrong until it was too late to act--and
then none of them knew anything at all. Not even the crew of the scow realized
that they were dropping too fast.

Kinnison did not know what would happen if a mind--to say nothing of two of
them--died while in his mental grasp, and he did not care to find out.
Therefore, a fraction of a second before the crash, he jerked free and watched.

The explosion and its consequences did not look at all impressive from the
Lensman's coign of vantage. The mountain trembled a little, then subsided
noticeably. From its summit there erupted an unimportant little flare of flame,
some smoke, and an insignificant shower of rock and debris.

However, when the scene had cleared there was no longer any shaft leading
downward from that crater, a floor of solid rock began almost at its lip.
Nevertheless the Lensman explored thoroughly all the region where the
stronghold had been, making sure that the clean-up had been one hundred percent
effective.

Then, and only then, did he point the speedster's streamlined nose toward star
cluster AC 257-4736.

* * * * *

In his hidden retreat so far from the galaxy's crowded suns and worlds,
Helmuth was in no enviable or easy frame of mind. Four times he had declared
that that accursed Lensman, whoever he might be, must be destroyed, and had
mustered his every available force to that end, only to have his intended prey
slip from his grasp as effortlessly as a droplet of mercury eludes the
clutching fingers of a child.

That Lensman, with nothing except a speedster and a bomb, had taken and had
studied one of Boskone's new battleships, thus obtaining for his Patrol the
secret of cosmic energy. Abandoning his own vessel, then crippled and doomed to
capture or destruction, he had stolen one of the ships searching for him and in
it he had calmly sailed to Velantia, right through Helmuth's screen of
blockading vessels. He had in some way so fortified Velantia as to capture six
Boskonian battleships. In one of those ships he had won his way back to Prime
Base, with information of such immense importance that it had robbed the
Boskonian organization of its then overwhelming superiority. More, he had found
or had developed new items of equipment which, save for Helmuth's own success
in obtaining them, would have given the Patrol a definite and decisive
superiority over Boskonia. Now both sides were equal, except for that Lensman
and... the Lens.

Helmuth still quailed inwardly whenever he thought of what he had undergone at
the Arisian barrier, and he had given up all thought of securing the secret of
the Lens by force or from Arisia. But there must be other ways of getting it...

And just then there came in the urgent call from Boyssia II, followed by the
stunningly successful revolt of the hitherto innocuous Blakeslee, culminating
as it did in the destruction of Helmuth's every Boyssian device of vision or of
communication. Bluewhite with fury, the Boskonian flung his net abroad to take
the renegade, but as he settled back to await results a thought struck him like
a blow from a fist. Blakeslee was innocuous. He never had had, did not now have
and never would have, the cold nerve and the sheer, dominating power he had
just shown. Toward what conclusion did that fact point?

The furious anger disappeared from Helmuth's face as though it had been wiped
therefrom with a sponge, and he became again the cold calculating mechanism of
flesh and blood that he ordinarily was. This conception changed matters
entirely. This was not an ordinary revolt of an ordinary subordinate. The man
had done something which he could not possibly do. So what? The Lens again...
again that accursed Lensman, the one who had somehow learned really to use his
Lens!

"Wolmark call every vessel at Boyssia base," he directed crisply. "Keep on
calling them until someone answers. Get whoever is in charge there now and put
him on me here."

A few minutes of silence followed, then Vice-Commander Krimsky reported in
full everything that had happened and told of the threatened destruction of the
base.

"You have an automatic speedster there, have you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Turn over command to the next in line, with orders to move to the nearest
base, taking with him as much equipment as is possible. Caution him to leave on
time, however, for I very strongly suspect that it is now too late to do
anything to prevent the destruction of the base. You, alone, take the speedster
and bring away the personal files of the men who went with Blakeslee. A
speedster will meet you at a point to be designated later and relieve you of
the records."

An hour passed. Two, then three.

"Wolmark! Blakeslee and the hospital ship have vanished, I presume?"

"They have." The underling, expecting a verbal flaying, was greatly surprised
at the mildness of his chief's tone and at the studious serenity of his face.

"Come to the center." Then, when the lieutenant was seated, "I do not suppose
that you as yet realize what--or rather, who--it is that is doing this?"

"Why, Blakeslee is doing it, of course."

"I thought so, too, at first. That was what the one who really did it wanted
us to think."

"It must have been Blakeslee. We saw him do it, sir--how could it have been
anyone else?"

"I do not know. I do know, however, and so should you, that he could not have
done it. Blakeslee, of himself, is of no importance whatever."

"We'll catch him, sir, and make him talk. He can't get away."

"You will find that you will not catch him and that he can get away. Blakeslee
alone, of course, could not do so, any more than he could have done the things
he apparently did do. No. Wolmark, we are not dealing with Blakeslee."

"Who then, sir?"

"haven't you deduced that yet? The Lensman, fool--the same Lensman who has been
thumbing his nose at us ever since he took one of our first-class battleships
with a speed-boat and a firecracker."

"But--how could he?"

"Again I admit that I do not know--yet. The connection, however, is quite
evident. Thought. Blakeslee was thinking thoughts utterly beyond him. The Lens
comes from Arisia. The Arisians are masters of thought--of mental forces and
processes incomprehensible to any of us. These are the elements which, when
fitted together, will give us the complete picture."

"I don't see how they fit.'

"Neither do I--yet. However, surely he can't trace..."

"Just a moment! The time has come when it is no longer safe to say what that
Lensman can or cannot do. Our communicator beams are hard and tight, yes. But
any beam can be tapped if enough power be applied to it, and any beam that can
be tapped can be traced. I expect him to visit us here, and we shall be
prepared for his visit. That is the reason for this conference with you. Here
is a device which generates a field through which no thought can penetrate. I
have had this device for some time, but for obvious reasons have not released
it. Here are the diagrams and complete constructional data. Have a few hundred
of them made with all possible speed, and see to it that every being upon this
planet wears one continuously. Impress upon everyone, and I will also, that it
is of the utmost importance that absolutely continuous protection be
maintained, even while changing batteries.

"Experts have been working for some time upon the problem of protecting the
entire planet with a screen, and there is some little hope of success in the
near future, but individual protection will still be of the utmost importance.
We cannot impress it too forcibly upon everyone that every man's life is
dependent upon each one maintaining his thought-screen in full operation at all
times. That is all."

When the messenger brought in the personal files of Blakeslee and the other
deserters, Helmuth and his psychologists went over them with minutely
painstaking care. The more they studied them the clearer it became that the
chief's conclusion was the correct one. THE Lensman could read minds.

Reason and logic told Helmuth that the Lensman's only purpose in attacking the
Boyssian base was to get a line on Grand Base, that Blakeslee's flight and the
destruction of the base were merely diversions to obscure the real purpose of
the visit, that the Lensman had staged that theatrical performance especially
to hold him, Helmuth, while his beam was being traced, and that that was the
only reason why the visiset was not sooner put out of action, and finally, that
the Lensman had scored another clean hit.

He, Helmuth himself, had been caught flat-footed, and his face hardened and
his jaw set at the thought. But he had not been taken in. He was forewarned and
he would be ready, for he was coldly certain that Grand Base and he himself
were the real objectives of the Lensman. That Lensman knew full well that any
number of ordinary bases, ships, and men could be destroyed without damaging
materially the Boskonian cause.

Steps must be taken to make Grand Base as impregnable to mental forces as it
already was to physical ones. Otherwise, it might well be that even Helmuth's
own life would presently be at stake--a thing precious indeed. Therefore council
after council was held, every contingency that could be thought of was brought
up and discussed, every possible precaution was taken. In short, every resource
of Grand Base was devoted to the warding off of any possible mental threat
which might be forthcoming.

* * * * *

Kinnison approached that star cluster with care. Small though it was, as
cosmic groups go, it yet was composed of some hundreds of stars and an unknown
number of planets. Any one of those planets might be the one he sought, and to
approach it unknowingly might prove disastrous. Therefore he slowed down to a
crawl and crept up, light-year by light-year, with his ultra-powered detectors
fanning out before him to the limit of their unimaginable reach.

He had more than half expected that he would have to search that cluster,
world by world, but in that, at least, he was pleasantly disappointed. One
corner of one of his plates began to show a dim glow of detection. A bell
tinkled and Kinnison directed his most powerful master plate into the region
indicated. This plate, while of very narrow field, had tremendous resolving
power and magnification, and in it he saw that there were eighteen small
centers of radiation surrounding one vastly larger one.

There was no doubt then as to the location of Helmuth's base, but there arose
the question of approach. The Lensman had not considered the possibility of a
screen of lookout ships--if they were close enough together so that the
electromagnetics had even a fifty percent overlap, he might as well go back
home. What were those outposts, and exactly how closely were they spaced? He
observed, advanced, and observed again, computing finally that, whatever they
were, they were so far apart that there could be no possibility of any electro
overlap at all. He could get between them easily enough--he wouldn't even have
to baffle his flares. They could not be guards at all, Kinnison concluded, but
must be simply outposts, set far outside the solar system of the planet they
guarded, not to ward off one-man speedsters, but to warn Helmuth of the
possible approach of a force large enough to threaten Grand Base.

Closer and closer Kinnison flashed, discovering that the central object was
indeed a base, startling in its immensity and completely and intensively
fortified, and that the outposts were huge, floating fortresses, practically
stationary in space relative to the sun of the solar system they surrounded.
The Lensman aimed at the center of the imaginary square formed by four of the
outposts and drove in as close to the planet as he dared. Then, going inert, he
set his speedster into an orbit--he did not care particularly about its shape,
provided that it was not too narrow an ellipse--and cut off all his power. He
was now safe from detection. Leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, he
hurled his sense of perception into and through the massed fortifications of
Grand Base.

For a long time he did not find a single living creature. Hundreds of miles he
traversed, perceiving only automatic machinery, bank after towering, miles-
square' bank of accumulators, and remote-controlled projectors and other
weapons and apparatus. Finally, however, he came to Helmuth's dome, and in that
dome he received' another severe shock. The personnel in that dome were to be
numbered by the hundreds, but he could not make mental contact with any one of
them. He could not touch their minds at all, he was stopped cold. Every member
of Helmuth's band was protected by a thought-screen as effective as the
Lensman's own!

Around and around the planet the speedster circled, while Kinnison struggled
with this new and entirely unexpected setback. This looked as though Helmuth
knew what was coming. Helmuth was nobody's fool, Kinnison knew, but how could
he possibly have suspected that a mental attack was in the book? Perhaps he was
just playing safe. If so, the Lensman's chance would come. Men would be
careless, batteries weakened and would have to be changed.

But this hope was also vain, as continued watching revealed that each battery
was listed, checked, and timed. Nor was any screen released, event for an
instant, when its battery was changed, the fresh power source being slipped
into service before the weakening one was disconnected.

"Well, that tears it--Helmuth knows," Kinnison cogitated, after watching vainly
several such changes. "He's a wise old bird. The guy really has jets--I still
don't see what I did that could have put him wise to what was going on."

Day after day the Lensman studied every detail of construction, operation, and
routine of that base, and finally an idea began to dawn. He shot his attention
toward a barracks he had inspected frequently of late, but stopped, irresolute.

"Uh uh, Kim, maybe better not," he advised himself.

"Helmuth's mighty quick on the trigger, to figure out that Boyssian thing so
fast...

His projected thought was sheared off without warning, thus settling the
question definitely. Helmuth's big apparatus was at work, the whole planet was
screened against thought.

"Oh well, probably better, at that," Kinnison went on arguing with himself.
"If I'd tried it out maybe he'd've got onto it and laid me a stymie next time,
when I really need it."

He went free and hurled his speedster toward Earth, now distant indeed.
Several times during that long trip he was sorely tempted to call Haynes
through his Lens and get things started, but he always thought better of it.
This was altogether too important a thing to be sent through so much sub-ether,
or even to be thought about except inside an absolutely thought-tight, room.
And besides, every waking hour of even that long trip could be spent very
profitably in digesting and correlating the information he had obtained and in
mapping out the salient features of the campaign that was to come. Therefore,
before time began to drag, Kinnison landed at Prime Base and was taken directly
to Port Admiral Haynes.

"Mighty glad to see you, son," Haynes greeted the young Lensman cordially as
he sealed the room thought-tight. "Since you came in under your own power, I
assume that you are here to make a constructive report?"

"Better than that, sir--I'm here to start something in a big way. I know at
last where their Grand Base is, and have detailed plans of it. I think I know
who and where Boskone is. I know where Helmuth is, and I have worked out a plan
whereby, if it works, we can wipe out that base. Boskone, Helmuth, and all the
lesser master minds, at one wipe."

"Mentor did come through, huh?" For the first time since Kinnison had known
him the old man lost his poise. He leaped to his feet and seized Kinnison by
the arm. "I knew you were good, but not that goods He gave you what you wanted?"

"He sure did," and the younger man reported as briefly as possible everything
that had happened.

"I'm just as sure that Helmuth is Boskone as I can be of anything that can't
be proved," Kinnison continued, unrolling a sheaf of drawings. "Helmuth speaks
for Boskone, and nobody else ever does, not even Boskone himself. None of the
other big shots know anything about Boskone or ever heard him speak, but they
all jump through their hoops when Helmuth, speaking for Boskone, cracks the
whip. And I couldn't get a trace of Helmuth ever taking anything up with any
higher-ups. Therefore I'm dead certain that when we get Helmuth we get Boskone.

"But that's going to be a job of work. I scouted his headquarters from stem to
gudgeon, as I told you, and Grand Base is absolutely impregnable as it stands.
I never imagined anything like it--it makes Prime Base here look like a deserted
cross-roads after a hard winter. They've got screens, pits, projectors,
accumulators, all on a gigantic scale. In fact, they've got everything--but you
can get all that from the tape and these sketches. They simply can't be taken
by any possible direct frontal attack. Even if we used every ship and mauler
we've got they could stand us off. And they can match us, ship for ship--we'd
never get near Grand Base at all if they knew we were coming... '

"Well, if it's such an impossible job, what..."

"I'm coming to that. It's impossible as ft stands, but there's a good chance
that I'll be able to soften it up,' and the young Lensman went on to outline
the plan upon which he had been working so long. "You know, like a worm-bore
from within. That's the only possible way to do it. You'll have to put detector
nullifiers on every ship assigned to the job, but that'll be easy. We'll need
everything we've got."

"The important thing, as I gather it, is timing."

"Absolutely. To the minute, since I won't be able to communicate, once I get
inside their thought-screens. How long will it take to assemble our stuff and
put it in, that cluster?"

"Seven weeks--eight at the outside."

"Plus two for allowances. QX----at exactly hour 20, ten weeks from today, let
every projector of every vessel you can possibly get there cut loose on that
base with everything they can pour in. There's a detailed drawing in here
somewhere... here--twenty-six main objectives, you See. Blast them all,
simultaneously to the second. If they all go down, the rest will be possible--if
not, it'll be just too bad. Then work along these lines here, straight from
those twenty-six stations to the dome, blasting everything as you go. Make it
last exactly fifteen minutes, not a minute more or less. If, by fifteen minutes
after twenty, the main dome hasn't surrendered by cutting its screen, blast
that, too, if' you can--it'll take a lot of blasting, I'm afraid. From then on
you and the fivestar admirals will have to do whatever is appropriate to the
occasion."

"Your plan doesn't cover that, apparently. Where will you be--how will you be
fixed--if the main dome does mot cut its screens?"

"I'll be dead, and you'll be just starting the damndest war that this galaxy
ever saw."



23. TREGONSEE TURNS ZWILNIK

While servicing and checking the speedster required only a couple of hours,
Kinnison did not leave Earth for almost two days. He' had requisitioned much
special equipment, the construction of one item of which--a suit of armor such
as had never been seen before--caused almost all of the delay. When it was ready
the greatly interested Port Admiral accompanied the young Lensman out to the
steel-lined, sand-filled concrete dugout, in which the suit had already been
mounted upon a remote-controlled dummy. Fifty feet from that dummy there was a
heavy, water-cooled machine rifle, with its armored crew standing by. As the
two approached the crew leaped to attention.

"As you were," Haynes instructed, and.

"You checked those cartridges against those I brought in from Aldebaran I?"
asked Kinnison of the officer in charge, as, accompanied by the Port Admiral,
he crouched down behind the shields of the control panel.

"Yes, Sir. These are twenty-five percent over, as you specified."

"QX--commence firing!" Then, as the weapon clamored out its stuttering, barking
roar, Kinnison made the dummy stoop, turn, bend, twist and dodge, so as to
bring its every plate joint, and member, into that hail of steel. The uproar
stopped.

"One thousand rounds, sir," the officer reported.

"No holes--no dents--not a scratch or a scar," Kinnison reported, after a minute
examination, and got into the thing. "Now give me two thousand rounds, unless I
tell you to stop. Shoot!"

Again the machine rifle burst into its ear-shattering song of hate, and,
strong as Kinnison was and powerfully braced by the blast of his drivers, he
could not stand against the awful force of those bullets. Over he went,
backward, and the firing ceased.

"Keep it up!" he snapped. "Think there going to quit shooting at me because I
fall down?"

"But you had had nineteen hundred!" protested the officer.

"Keep on pecking until you run out of ammunition or until I tell you to stop,"
ordered Kinnison. "I've got to learn how to handle this thing under fire," and
the storm of metal' again began to crash against the reverberating shell of
steel.

It hurled the Lensman down, rolled him over and over, slammed him against the
back-stop. Again and again he struggled upright, only to be hurled again to
ground as the riflemen, really playing the game now, swung their leaden hail
from part to part of the armor, and varied their attack from steady fire to
short but savage bursts. But finally, in spite of .everything the gun crew
could do, Kinnison learned his controls.

Then, drivers flaring, he faced that howling, chattering muzzle and strode
straight into the stream of smoke- and flame-enshrouded steel. Now the air was
literally full of metal. Bullets and fragments of bullets whined and shrieked
in mad abandon as they ricocheted in all directions off that armor. Sand and
bits of concrete flew hither and yon, filling the atmosphere of the dugout. The
rifle yammered at maximum, with its sweating crew laboring mightily to keep its
voracious maw full-fed. But, in spite of everything, Kinnison held his line and
advanced. He was barely six feet from that yelling, steelvomiting muzzle when
the firing again ceased.

"Twenty thousand, sir," the officer reported, crisply. "We'll have to change
barrels before we can give you any more."

'That's enough!" snapped Haynes. "Come out of there" Out Kinnison came. He
removed heavy ear-plugs, swallowed four times blinked and grimaced. Finally he
spoke.

"It works perfectly, sir, except for the noise. "It's a good thing I've got a
Lens--in spite of the plugs I won't be able to hear anything for three days!"

"How about the springs and shock-absorbers? Are you bruised anywhere? You took
some real bumps."

"Perfect--not a bruise. Let's look her over."

Every inch of that armor's surface was now marked by blurs, where the metal of
the bullets had rubbed itself off upon the shining alloy, but that surface was
neither scratched, scored, nor dented.

"QX, boys--thanks," Kinnison dismissed the riflemen. They probably wondered how
any man could see out through a helmet built up of inches-thick laminated
alloys, with neither window nor port through which to look, but if so, they,
made no mention of their curiosity. They, too, were Patrolmen.

"Is that thing an armor or a personal tank?" asked Haynes. "I aged ten years
while that was going on, but at that I'm glad you insisted on testing it. You
can get away with anything now."

"It's much better technique to learn things among friends than enemies,"
Kinnison laughed. "It's heavy, of course--pretty close to a ton. I won't be
walking around in it, though, I'll be flying it. Well, sir, since everything's
all set, I think I'd better fly it over to the speedster and start flitting,
don't you? I don't know exactly how much time I'm going to need on Trench."

"Might as well," the Port Admiral agreed, as casually, and Kinnison was gone.

"What a man!" Haynes stared after the monstrous figure until it vanished in
the distance, then strolled slowly toward his office, thinking as he went.

Nurse MacDougall had been highly irked and incensed at Kinnison's casual
departure, without idle conversation or formal leave-takings. Not so Haynes.
That seasoned campaigner knew that Gray Lensmen--especially young Gray
Lensmen--were prone to get that way. He knew, as she would one day learn, that
Kinnison was no longer of Earth.

He was now only of the galaxy, not of any one tiny dust-grain of it. He was of
the Patrol. He was the Patrol, and he was taking his new responsibilities very
seriously indeed. In his fierce zeal to drive his campaign through to a
successful end he would use man or woman, singly or in groups, ships, even
Prime Base itself, exactly as he had used them. as pawns, as mere tools, as
means to an end. And, having used them, he would leave them as unconcernedly
and as unceremoniously as he would drop pliers and spanner, and with no more
realization that he had violated any of the nicer amenities of life as it is
lived!

And as he strolled along and thought, the Port Admiral smiled quietly to
himself. He knew, as Kinnison would learn in time, that the universe was vast,
that time was long, and that the Scheme of Things, comprising the whole of
eternity and the Cosmic All, was a something incomprehensibly immense indeed,
with which cryptic thought the space-hardened veteran sat down at his desk and
resumed his interrupted labors.

But Kinnison had not yet attained Haynes' philosophic viewpoint, any more than
he had his age, and to him the trip to Trench seemed positively interminable.
Eager as he was to put his plan of campaign to the test, he found that mental
urgings, or even audible invective, would not make the speedster go any faster
than the already incomprehensible top speed of her drivers' maximum blast. Nor
did pacing up and down the little control room help very much. Physical
exercise he had to perform, but it did not satisfy him. Mental exercise was
impossible, he could think of nothing except Helmuth's base.

Eventually, however, he approached Trench and located without difficulty the
Patrol's space-port. Fortunately, it was then at about eleven o'clock, so that
he did not have to wait long to land. He drove downward inert, sending ahead of
him a thought.

"Lensman of Trench Space-port--Tregonsee or his relief? Lensman Kinnison of Sol
III asking permission to land."

"It is Tregonsee," came back the thought. "Welcome, Kinnison. You are on the
correct line. You have, then, perfected an apparatus to see truly in this
distorting medium?"

"I didn't perfect it--it was given to me."

The landing bars lashed out, seized the speedster, and eased her down into the
lock, and, as soon as she had been disinfected, Kinnison went into consultation
with Tregonsee. The Rigellian was a highly important factor in the Tellurian's
scheme, and since he was also a Lensman he was to be trusted implicitly.
Therefore Kinnison told him briefly what occurred and what he had it in mind to
do, concluding.

"So you see, I need about fifty kilograms of thlonite. Not fifty milligrams,
or even grams, but fifty kilograms, and, since there probably isn't that much
of the stuff louse in the whole galaxy, I came over here to ask you to make it
for me."

Just like that. Calmly asking a Lensman. whose duty it was to kill any being
even attempting to gather a single Treconian plant, to make for him more of the
prohibited drug than was ordinarily processed throughout the galaxy during a
Solarian month! It would be just such an errand were one to walk into the
Treasury Department at Washington and Inform the Chief of the Narcotics Bureau,
quite nonchalantly, that he had dropped in to pick up ten tons of heroin! But
Tregonsee did not flinch or questionhe was not even surprised. This was a Gray
Lensman.

"That should not be too difficult," Tregonsee replied, after a moment's study.
"We have several thionite processing units, confiscated from zwilnik outfits
and not yet sent in, and all of us are of course familiar with the technique of
extracting and Purifying the drug."

He issued orders and shortly Trench Space-port presented the astounding
spectacle of a full crew of the Galactic Patrol devoting its every energy to
the wholehearted breaking of the one law it was supposed most rigidly, and
without fear or favor, to enforce!

It was a little after noon, the calmest hour of Trench's day. The wind had
died to "nothing", which, on the planet, meant that a strong man could stand
against it, could even, if he were agile as well as strong, walk about in it.
Therefore Kinnison donned his light armor and was soon busily harvesting broad-
leaf, which, he had been informed, was the richest source of thionite.

He had been working for only a few minutes when a flat came crawling up to
him, and, after ascertaining that his armor was not good to eat, drew off and
observed him intently. Here was another opportunity for practice and in a flash
the Lensman availed himself of it. Having practiced for hours upon the minds of
various Earthly animals, he entered this mind easily enough, finding that the
trench was considerably more intelligent than a dog. So much so, in fact, that
the race had already developed a fairly comprehensive language. Therefore it
did not take long for the Lensman to learn to use his subject's peculiar limbs
and other members, and soon the flat was working as though he were in the
business for himself. And since he was ideally adapted to his idly raging
Trenconian environment, he actually accomplished more than all the rest of the
force combined.

"It's a dirty trick I'm playing on you, Spike," Kinnison told his helper after
a while. "Come on into the receiving room and I'll see if I can square it with
you."

Since food was the only logical tender, Kinnison brought out from his
speedster a small can of salmon, a package of cheese, a bar of chocolate, a few
lumps of sugar, and a potato, offering them to the Trenconian in order. The
salmon and cheese were both highly acceptable fare. The morsel of chocolate was
a delightfully surprising delicacy. The lump of sugar, however, was what really
rang the bell--Kinnison's own mind felt the shock of pure ecstasy as that
wonderful substance dissolved in the trench's mouth. He also ate the potato, of
course--any Trenconian animal will, at any time, eat practically anything--but
it
was merely food, nothing to rave about.

Knowing now what to do, Kinnison led his assistant out into the howling,
shrieking gale and released him from control, throwing a lump of sugar up-wind
as he did so. The trench seized it in the air, ate it, and went into a very
hysteria of joy.

"More! More!" he insisted, attempting to climb up the Lensman's armored leg.

"You must work for more of it, if you want it," Kinnison explained. "Break off
broad-leaf plants and carry them over into that empty thing over there, and you
get more"

This was an entirely new idea to the native, but after Kinnison had taken hold
of his mind and had shown him how. to do consciously that which he had been
doing unconsciously for an hour, he worked willingly enough. In fact, before it
started to rain, thereby putting an end to the labor of the day, there were a
dozen of them toiling at the harvest and the crop was coming in as fast as the
entire crew of Rigellians could process it. And even after the spaceport was
sealed they crowded up, paying no attention to the rain, bringing in their
small loads of leaves and plaintively asking admittance.

It took some little time for Kinnison to make them understand that the day's
work was done, but that they were to come back tomorrow morning. Finally,
however, he succeeded in getting the idea across, and the last disconsolate
turtle-man swam reluctantly away. But sure enough, next morning, even before
the mud had dried, the same twelve were back on the job, and the two Lensmen
wondered simultaneouslyhow could those trencos have found the space-port? Or
had they stayed near it through the storm and flood of the night.

"I don't know," Kinnison answered the unasked question, "but I can find out."
Again and more carefully he examined the minds of two or three of them. "No,
they didn't follow us," he reported then. "They're not as dumb as I thought
they were. They have a sense of perception, Tregonsee, about the same thing, I
judge, as yours perhaps even more so. I wonder... why couldn't they be trained
into mighty efficient police assistants on this planet?"

"The way you handle them, yes. I can converse with them a little, of course,
but they have never before shown any willingness to cooperate with us."

"You never fed them sugar," Kinnison laughed. "You have sugar, of course-- or
do you? I was forgetting that many races do not use it at all."

"We Rigellians are one of those races. Starch is so much tastier and so much
better adapted to our body chemistry that sugar is used only as a chemical. We
can, however, obtain it easily enough. But there is something else--you can tell
these trencos what to do and make them really understand you. I can not."

"I can fix that up with a simple mental treatment that I can give you in five
minutes. Also, I can let you have enough sugar to carry on with until you can
get in a supply of your own."

In the few minutes during which the Lensman had been discussing their
potential allies, the mud had dried and the amazing coverage of vegetation was
springing visibly into being. So incredibly rapid was its growth that in less
than an hour some species were large enough to be gathered. The leaves were
lush and rank in color or a vivid crimsonish purple.

"These early morning plants are the richest of any in thionite--much richer
than broad-leaf--but the zwilniks can never get more than a handful of them
because of the wind," remarked the Rigellian. "Now, if you will give me that
treatment, I will see what I can do with the flats."

Kinnison did so, and the trencos worked for Tregonsee as industriously as they
had for Kinnison--and ate his sugar as rapturously.

"That's enough," decided the Rigellian presently. "This will finish your
'fifty kilograms' and to spare."

He then paid off his now enthusiastic helpers, with instructions to return
when the sun was directly overhead, for more work and more sugar. And this time
they did not complain, nor did they loiter around or bring in unwanted
vegetation. They were learning fast.

Well before noon the last kilogram of impalpable, purplish blue powder was put
into its impermeable sack. The machinery was cleaned, and untouched leaves, the
waste, and the contaminated sir were blown out of the space-port, and the room
and its occupants were sprayed with antithionite. Then and only then did the
crew remove their masks and air-filters. Trench Space-port was again a Patrol
post, no longer a zwilnik's paradise.

"Thanks, Tregonsee and all you fellows..." Kinnison paused, then went on,
dubiously, "I don't suppose that you will...

"We will not," declared Tregonsee. "Our time is yours, as you know, without
payment, and time is all that we gave you, really."

"Sure--that and a thousand million credits' worth of thionite."

"That, of course, does not count, as you also know. You have helped us, I
think, even more than we have helped you."

"I hope I've done you some good, anyway. Well, I've got to flit. Thanks
again--I'll see you again sometime, maybe," and again the Tellurian Lensman was
on his way.



24. KINNISON BORES FROM WITHIN

Kinnison approached star cluster ac 257-4736 warily, as before, and as before
he insinuated his speedster through the loose outer cordon of guardian
fortresses. This time, however, he did not steer even remotely near Helmuth's
world. He would be there too long--there was altogether too much risk of
electromagnetic detection to set his ship into any kind of an orbit around that
planet. Instead, he had computed a long, narrow, elliptical orbit around its
sun, well inside the zone guarded by the maulers. He could compute it only
approximately, of course, since he did not know exactly either the masses
involved or the perturbing forces, but he thought that he could find his ship
again with an electro. If not, she would not be an irreplaceable loss. He set
the speedster, then, into the outward leg of that orbit and took off in his new
armor.

He knew that there was a thought-screen around Helmuth's planet, and suspected
that there might be other screens as well. Therefore, shutting off every watt
of power, he dropped straight down into the night side, almost halfway around
the planet from Grand Base. His flares were of course heavily baffled, but even
so he did not put on his brakes until it was absolutely necessary. He landed
heavily, then sprang away in long, free hops, until he reached his previously-
selected destination, a great cavern thickly shielded with iron ore and within
working range of his Objective. Deep within the cavern he hid himself, then
searched intently for any sign that his approach had been observed. There was
no such sign--so far, so good.

But during his search he had perceived with a slight shock that Helmuth had
tightened his defenses even more. Not only was every man in the dome screened
against thought but also each was now wearing full armor. Had he protected the
dogs, too? Or killed them? No real matter if he had--any kind of a pet animal
would do, or, in a pinch, even a wild rock-lizard l Nevertheless he shot his
perception into the particular barracks he had noted so long before, and found
with some relief that the dogs were still there, and that they were still
unprotected. It had not occurred, even to Helmuth's cautious mind, that a dog
could be a source of mental danger.

With all due precaution against getting even a single grain of the stuff into
his own system, Kinnison transferred his thionite into the special container in
which it was to be used. Another day sufficed to observe and to memorize the
personnel of the gateway observers, their positions, and the sequence in which
they took the boards. Then the Lensman, still almost a week ahead of schedule,
settled down to wait the time when he should make his next move. Nor was this
waiting unduly irksome, now that everything was ready he could be as patient as
a cat on duty at a mousehole.

The time came to act. Kinnison took over the mind of the dog, which at once
moved over to the bunk in which one particular observer lay asleep. There would
be no chance whatever of gaining control of any observer while he was actually
on the board, but here in barracks it was almost ridiculously easy. The dog
crept along on soundless paws--a long, slim nose reached out and up--sharp teeth
closed delicately upon a battery lead--out came the plug. The thought-screen
went down, and instantly Kinnison was in charge of the fellow's mind.

And when that observer went on duty his first act was to let Kimball Kinnison,
Gray Lensman, into Boskone's Grand Basel Low and fast Kinnison flew, while the
observer so placed his body as to shield from any chance passer-by the all too
revealing surface of his visiplate. In a few minutes the Lensman reached a
portal of the dome itself. That door also opened--and closed behind him. Ire
released the mind of the observer and watched briefly. Nothing happened. All
was still well!

Then, in every barracks save one using whatever came to hand in the way of dog
or other unshielded animal, Kinnison wrought briefly but effectively. He did
not slay by mental force--he did not have enough of that to spare --but the mere
turn of an inconspicuous valve would do just as well. Some of those now idle
men would probably live to answer Helmuth's call to extra duty, but not too
many--nor would those who obeyed that summons live long thereafter.

Down stairway after stairway he dove, down to the compartment in which was
housed the great air-purifier. Now let them come! Even if they had a spy-ray on
him now it would be too late to do them a bit of good. And now, by Mono's
golden gills, that fleet had better be out there, getting ready to blast!

It was. From all over the galaxy Grand Fleet had come, every Patrol base had
been stripped of almost everything mobile that could throw a beam. Every vessel
carried either a Lensman or some other highly trusted officer, and each such
officer had two detector nullifiers--one upon his person, the other in his
locker--either of which would protect his whole ship from detection.

In long lines, singly and at intervals, those untold thousands of ships had
crept between the vessels guarding Grand Base. Nor were the outpost crews to
blame. They had been on duty for months, and not even an asteroid had relieved
the monotony. Nothing had happened or would. They watched their plates steadily
enough--and, if they did nothing more, why should they have? And what could they
have done? How could they suspect that such a thing as a detector nullifier had
been invented?

The Patrol's Grand Fleet, then, was already massing over its primary
objectives, each vessel in a rigidly assigned position. The pilots, captains,
and navigators were chatting among themselves, jerkily and in low tones, as
though even to raise their voices might reveal prematurely to the enemy the
concentration of the Patrol forces. The firing officers were already at their
boards, eyeing hungrily the small switches which they could not throw for so
many long minutes yet.

And far below, beside the pirates' air-purifier, Kinnison released the locking
toggles of his armor and leaped out. To burn a hole in the primary duct took
only a second. To drop into that duct his container of thionite, to drench that
container with the reagent which would in sixty seconds dissolve completely the
container's substance without affecting either its contents or the metal of the
duct, to slap a flexible adhesive patch over the hole in the duct, and to leap
back into his armor, all these things required only a trifle over one minute.
Eleven minutes to go--QX.

In the nearest barracks, even while the Lensman was arrowing up the stairways,
a dog again deprived a sleeping man of his thought-screen. That man, however,
instead of going to work, took up a pair of pliers and proceeded to cut the
battery leads of every sleeper in the barracks, severing them so closely that
no connection could be made without removing the armor.

As those leads were severed men woke up and dashed into the dome. Along
catwalk after catwalk they raced, and apparently that was all they were doing.
But each runner, as he passed a man on duty, flicked a battery plug out of its
socket, and that observer, at Kinnison's command, opened the face-plate of his
armor and breathed deeply of the now drug-laden atmosphere.

Thionite, as has been intimated, is perhaps the worst of all known habit-
forming drugs. In almost infinitesimal doses it gives rise to a state in which
the victim seems actually to experience the gratification of his every desire,
whatever that desire may be. The larger the dose, the more intense the
sensation, until--and very quickly--the dosage is reached at which he passes
into
an ecstasy so unbearable that death ensues forthwith.

Thus there was no alarm, no outcry, no warning. Each observer sat or stood
entranced, holding exactly the pose he had been in at the instant of opening
his faceplate. But now, instead of paying attention to his duty, he was
plunging deeper and deeper into the paroxysmally ecstatic profundity of a
thionite debauch from which there was to be no awakening. Therefore half of
that mighty dome was unmanned before Helmuth even realized that anything out of
order was going on.

As soon as he realized that something was amiss, however, he sounded the "all
hands on duty" alarm and rapped out instructions to the officers in the
barracks. But the cloud of death had arrived there first, and to his
consternation not one-quarter of those officers responded. Quite a number of
men did get into the dome, but every one of them collapsed before reaching the
catwalks. And three-fourths of his working force died before he located
Kinnison's speeding messengers.

"Blast them down!" Helmuth shrieked, pointing, gesticulating madly. Blast whom
down? The minions of the Lensmen were themselves blasting away now, right and
left, shouting contradictory but supposedly authoritative orders. "Blast those
men not on duty!" Helmuth's rating voice now filled the dome. "You, at board
4791 Blast that man on catwalk 28, at board 4951"

With such detailed instructions, Kinnison's agents one by one ceased to be.
But as one was beamed down another took his place, and soon every one of the
few remaining living pirates in the dome was blasting indiscriminately at every
other one. And then, to cap the Saturnalian climax, came the zero second.

* * * * *

The Galactic Patrol's Grand Fleet had assembled. Every cruiser, every
battleship, every mauler hung poised above its assigned target. Every vessel
was stripped for action. Every accumulator cell was full to its ultimate watt,
every generator and every arm was tuned and peaked to its highest attainable
efficiency. Every firing officer upon every ship, eat tensely at his board, his
hand hovering near, but not touching, his firing key, his eyes fixed glaringly
upon the second-hand of his precisely synchronized timer, his ears scarcely
hearing the droning, soothing voice of Port Admiral Haynes.

For the Old Man had insisted upon giving the firing order himself, and he now
sat at the master timer, speaking into the master microphone. Beside him sat
von Hohendorff, the grand old Commandant of Cadets. Both of these veterans had
thought long since that they were done with space-war forever, but only an
order of the full Galactic Council could have kept either of them at home. They
were grimly determined that they were going to be in at the death, even though
they were not at all certain whose death it was to be. If it should turn out
that it was to be Helmuth's, well and goodeverything would be on the green. If,
on the other hand, young Kinnison had to go, they would in all probability have
to go, too--and so be it.

"Now, remember, boys, keep your hands oft of those keys until I give you the
word," Haynes' soothing voice droned on, giving no hint of the terrific strain
he himself was under. "I'll give you lots of warning... I am going to count the
last five seconds far you. I know that you all want to shoot the first bolt,
but remember that I personally will strangle any and every one of you who beats
my signal by a thousandth of a second. It won't be long now, the second hand is
starting around an its last lap... Seep your hands off of those keys... keep
away from them, I tell you, or I'll smack you down... fifteen seconds yet...
stay away, boys, let 'em alone.... going to start counting now." His voice
dropped lower and lower. "Five--four--three--two-- one--FIRE! he yelled.

Perhaps some of the boys did beat the gun a trifle, but not many, or much. To
all intents and purposes it was one simultaneous blast of destruction that
flashed down from a hundred thousand projectors, each delivering the maximum
blast of which it was capable. There was no thought now of service life of
equipment or of holding anything back for a later effort. They had to hold that
blast for only fifteen minutes, and if the task ahead of them could not be done
yin those fifteen minutes it probably could not be done at all.

Therefore it is entirely useless even to attempt to describe what happened
then, or to portray the spectacle that ensued when beam met screen. Why try to
describe pink to a man born blind? Suffice it to say that those Patrol beams
bid down, and that Helmuth's automatic screens resisted to the limit of their
ability. Nor was that resistance small.

Had Helmuths customary staff of keen-eyed, quick-witted lieutenants been at
their posts, to reenforce those Primary screens with the practically unlimited
power which could have been put behind them, his defense would not have failed
under even the unimaginable force of that Titanic thrust, but those lieutenants
were not at their posts. The screens of the twenty-six primary objectives
failed, and the twenty-six stupendous flotillas moved slowly, grandly, each
along its designated line.

* * * * *

Every alarm in Helmuths dome had burst into frantic warning as the massed
might of the Galactic Patrol was hurled against the twenty-six vital points of
Grand Base, but those alarms clamored in vain. No hands were raised to the
switches whose closing would unleash the hellish energies of Boskone's
irresistible projectors, no eyes were upon the sighting devices which would
align them against the attacking ships of war. Only Helmuth, in his
Innershielded control compartment, was left, and Helmuth was the directing
intelligence, the master mind, and not a mere operator. And, now that he had no
operators to direct, he was utterly helpless. He could see the stupendous fleet
of the Patrol, he could understand fully its dire menace, but he could neither
stiffen his screens nor energize a single beam. He could only sit, grinding his
teeth in helpless fury, and watch the destruction of the armament which, if it
could only have been in operation, would have blasted those battleships and
maulers from the skies as though they had been so many fluffy bits of
thistledown.

Time after time he leaped to his feet, as if about to dash across to one of
the control stations, but each time he sank back into his seat at the desk. One
firing-station would be little, if any, better than none at all. Besides, that
accursed Lensman was back of this. He was--must be right here in the dome,
somewhere. He wanted him to leave this desk--that was what he was waiting fort
As long as he stayed at the desk he himself was safe. For that matter, this
whole dome was safe. The projector had never been mounted that could break down
those screens. No--no matter what happened, he would stay at the desk!

Kinnison, watching, marveled at his fortitude. He himself could not have
stayed there, he knew, and he also knew now that Helmuth was going to stay.
Time was flying, five of the fifteen minutes were gone. He had hoped that
Helmuth would leave that wellprotected inner sanctum, with its unknown
potentialities, but if the pirate would not come out, the Lensman would go in.
The storming of that inner stronghold was what his new armor was for.

In he went, but he did not catch Helmuth napping. ,Even before he crashed the
screens his own defensive zones burst into furiously coruscant activity, and
through that flame there came tearing the metallic slugs of a high-power
machine rifle.

Ha! There was a rifle, even though he had not been able to find it! Clever
guy, that Helmuth! And what a break that he had taken time to learn how to hold
this suit up against the trickiest kind of machine-rifle fire!

Kinnison's screens were almost those of a battleship, his armor almost,
relatively, as strong. And he could hold that armor upright. Therefore through
the raging beam of the semi-portable projector he plowed and straight up that
torrent of raging steel he drove his way. And now from his own mighty
projector, against Helmuth's armor, there raved out a beam scarcely less potent
than that of a semi-portable. The Lensman's armor did not mount a water-cooled
machine rifle--there was a limit to what even that powerful structure could
carry--but grimly, with every faculty of his newly enlarged mind concentrated
upon that thought screened, armored head behind the belching gun, Kinnison held
his line and forged ahead.

Well it was that the Lensman was concentrating upon that screened head, for
when the screen weakened slightly and a thought began to seep through it toward
an enigmatically sparkling ball of force, Kinnison was ready. He blanketed the
thought savagely, before it could take form, and attacked the screen so
viciously that Helmuth had either to restore full coverage instantly or die
then and there. For the Lensman had studied that ball long and earnestly. It
was the one thing about the whole base that he could not understand, the one
thing, therefore, of which he had been afraid.

But he was afraid of it no longer. It was operated, he now knew, by thought,
and, no matter how terrific its potentialities might be, it now was and would
remain perfectly harmless, for if the pirate chief softened his screen enough
to emit a thought, he would never think again.

Therefore he rushed. At full blast he hurdled the rifle and crashed full
against the armored figure behind it. Magnetic clamps locked and held, and,
driving projectors furiously ablaze, he whirled around and forced the madly
struggling Helmuth back, toward the line along which the bellowing rifle was
still spewing forth a continuous storm of metal.

Helmuth's utmost efforts sufficed only to throw the Lensman out of balance,
and both figures crashed to the floor. And now the madly fighting armored pair
rolled over and over--straight into the line of fire.

First Kinnison, the bullets whining, shrieking off the armor of his personal
battleship and crashing through or smashing ringingly against whatever happened
to be in the ever-changing line or ricochet. Then Helmuth, and as the fierce-
driven metal slugs tore in their multitudes through his armor and through and
through his body, riddling his every vital organ, that was...THE END
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