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                           GRAY LENSMAN

         serialized in "ASTOUNDING," Oct '39 - Jan '40;
           First book, Fantasy Press hardbound, 1951;


BY E. E. "DOC" SMITH


FOREWORD

Two thousand million or so years ago, at the time of the Coalescence, when the First and Second
Galaxies were passing through each other and when myriads of planets were coming into
existence where only a handful had existed before, two races of beings were already old; so old
that each had behind it many millions of years of recorded history. Both were so old that each
had perforce become independent of the chance formation of planets upon which to live. Each
had, in its own way, gained a measure of control over its environment; the Arisians by power of
mind alone, the Eddorians by employing both mind and mechanism.
     The Arisians were indigenous to this, our normal space-time continuum; they had lived
in it since the unthinkably remote time of their origin; and the original Arisia was very Earth-like
in mass, composition, size, atmosphere, and climate. Thus all normal space was permeated by
Arisian life-spores, and thus upon all Earth-like or Tellurian planets there came into being races
of creatures more or less resembling Arisians in the days of their racial youth. None except
Tellurians are Homo Sapiens, of course; few can actually be placed in Genus Homo; but many
millions of planets are peopled by races distantly recognizable or belonging to the great class of
MAN.
     The Eddorians, on the other hand, were interlopersùintruders. They were not native to
our normal space-time system, but came to it from some other, some alien and horribly different
other, plenum. For eons, in fact, they had been exploring the macrocosmic All; moving their
planets from continuum to continuum; seeking that which at last they foundùa space and a time
in which there were enough planets, soon to be inhabited by intelligent life, to sate even the
Eddorian lust for dominance. Here, in our own space-time, they would stay; and here supreme
they would rule.
     The Elders of Arisia, however, the ablest thinkers of the race, had known and had studied
the Eddorians for many cycles of time. Their integrated Visualization of the Cosmic All showed
what was to happen. No more than the Arisians themselves could the Eddorians be slain by any
physical means, however applied; nor could the Arisians, unaided, kill all of the invaders by
mental force. Eddore's All-Highest and his Innermost Circle, in their ultra-shielded citadel, could
be destroyed only by a mental bolt of such nature and magnitude that its generator, which was to
become known throughout two galaxies as the Galactic Patrol, would require several long
Arisian lifetimes for its building.
     Nor would that building be easy. The Eddorians must be kept in ignorance, both of Arisia
and of the proposed generator, until too late to take effective counter-measures. Also, no entity
below the third level of intelligence, evenùor especially?ùof the Patrol, could ever learn the
truth; for that knowledge would set up an inferiority complex and thus rob the generator of all
ability to do the work for which it was designed.
     Nevertheless the Arisians began building. On the four most promising planets of the First
Galaxyùour Earth or Sol Three, Velantia, Rigel Four, and Palain Sevenùbreeding programs,
aiming toward the highest mentality of which each race was capable, were begun as soon as
intelligent life developed.
     On our Earth there were only two blood lines, since humanity has only two sexes. One
was a straight male line of descent, and was always named Kinnison or its equivalent.
Civilizations rose and fell; Arisia surreptitiously and unobtrusively lifting them up, Eddore
callously knocking them down as soon as it became evident that they were not what Eddore
wanted. Pestilences raged, and wars, and famines, and holocausts and disasters that decimated
entire populations again and again, but the direct male line of descent of the Kinnisons was never
broken.
     The other line, sometimes male and sometimes female, which was to culminate in the
female penultimate of the Arisian program, was equally persistent and was characterized
throughout its prodigious length by a peculiarly spectacular shade of red-bronze-auburn hair and
equally striking gold-flecked, tawny eyes. Atlantis fell, but the red-headed, yellow-eyed child of
Captain Phryges had been sent to North Maya, and lived. Patroclus, the red-headed gladiator,
begot a red-headed daughter before he was cut down. And so it went.
     World Wars One, Two, and Three, occupying as they did only a few moments of Arisian-
Eddorian time, formed merely one incident in the eons-long game. That incident was important,
however, because immediately after it Gharlane of Eddore made what proved to be an error.
Knowing nothing of the Arisians, or of what they had done to raise the level of intelligence of
mankind, he assumed that the then completely ruined Earth would not require his personal
attention again for many hundreds of Tellurian years, and went elsewhere: to Rigel Four, to
Palain Seven, and to Velantia Two, or Delgon, where he found that his creatures, the Overlords,
were not progressing satisfactorily. He spent quite a little time there; time during which the men
of Earth, aided almost openly by the Arisians, made a phenomenally rapid recovery from the
ravages of atomic warfare and fantastically rapid advances in both sociology and technology.
     Virgil Samms, the auburn-haired, tawny-eyed Crusader who was to become the first
wearer of Arisia's Lens, took advantage of the general demoralization to institute a really
effective planetary police force. Then, with the advent of inter-planetary flight, he was
instrumental in forming the Interplanetary League. As head of the Triplanetary Service, he took
a leading part in the brief war with the Nevians, a race of highly intelligent amphibians who used
allotropic iron as a source of atomic power.
     Gharlane of Eddore came back to the Solarian System as Gray Roger, the enigmatic and
practically immortal scourge of space, only to find his every move blockedùblocked so
savagely and so completely that he could not even kill two ordinary human beings, Conway
Costigan and Clio Marsden. Nor were these two, in spite of some belief to the contrary, anything
but what they seemed. Neither of them ever knew that they were being protected; but Gharlane's
blocker was in fact an Arisian fusionùthe four-ply mentality which was to become known to
every Lensman of the Galactic Patrol as Mentor of Arisia.
     The inertialess drive, which made an interstellar trip a matter of minutes instead of
lifetimes, brought with it such an increase in crime, and made detection of criminals so difficult,
that law enforcement broke down almost completely. As Samms himself expressed it:
     "How can legal processes work efficientlyùwork at all, for that matterùwhen a man can
commit a murder or a pirate can loot a space-ship and be a hundred parsecs away before the
crime is even discovered? how can a Tellurian John Law find a criminal on a strange world that
knows nothing whatever of our Patrol, with a completely alien languageùmaybe no language at
allùwhen it takes months even to find out who and whereùif anyùthe native police officers
are?"Also, there was the apparently insuperable difficulty of the identification of authorized
personnel. Triplanetary's best scientists had done their best in the way of a non-counter-feitable
badgeùthe historic Golden Meteor, which upon touch impressed upon the toucher's
consciousness an unpronounceable, unspellable symbolùbut that best was not enough. What
physical science could devise and synthesize, physical science could analyze and duplicate; and
that analysis and duplication had caused trouble indeed.
     Triplanetary needed something vastly better than its meteor. In fact, without a better, its
expansion into an intersystemic organization would be impossible. It needed something to
identify a Patrolman, anytime and anywhere. It must be impossible of duplication or imitation. In
fact, it should kill, painfully, any entity attempting imposture. It should operate as a telepath, or
endow its wearer with telepathic powerù how else could a Tellurian converse with peoples such
as the Rigellians, who could not talk, see, or hear?
     Both Solarian Councillor Virgil Samms and his friend of old, Commissioner of Public
Safety Roderick Kinnison, knew these things; but they also knew how utterly preposterous their
thoughts were; how utterly and self-evidently impossible such a device was.
     But Arisia again came to the rescue. The scientist who had been assigned the meteor
problem, one Dr. Nels Bergenholm ùwho, all unknown to even his closest associates, was a
form of flesh energized at various times by various Arisiansùreported to Samms and Kinnison
that:
     1) Physical science could not then produce what was needed, and probably never could
do so. 2) Although it could not be explained in any symbology or language known to man, there
wasùthere must beùa science of the mind; a science whose tangible products physical science
could neither analyze nor imitate. 3) Virgil Samms, by going in person to Arisia, could obtain
exactly what was needed.
     "Arisia! Of all the hells in space, why Arisia?" Kinnison demanded. "How? Don't you
know that nobody can get anywhere near that damn planet?"
     "I know that the Arisians are very well versed in that science. I know that if Councillor
Samms goes to Arisia he will obtain the symbol he needs. I know that he will never obtain it
otherwise. As to how I know these thingsùI can'tùI justù I know them. I tell you!"
     And, since Bergenholm was already as well known for uncannily accurate "hunches" as
for a height of genius bordering perilously closely on insanity, the two leaders of Civilization did
not press him further, but went immediately to the hitherto forbidden planet. They
wereùapparentlyùreceived hospitably enough, and were given Lenses by Mentor of Arisia.
Lenses which, it developed, were all that Bergenholm had indicated, and more.
     The Lens is a lenticular structure of hundreds of thousands of tiny crystalloids, built and
tuned to match the individual life forceùthe ego, the personalityùof one individual entity.
While not, strictly speaking, alive, it is endowed with a sort of pseudo-life by virtue of which it
gives off a strong, characteristically-changing, polychromatic light as long as it is in circuit with
the living mentality with which it is in synchronization. Conversely, when worn by anyone
except its owner, it not only remains dark but it killsùso strongly does its pseudo-life interfere
with any life to which it is not attuned. It is also a telepathic communicator of astounding power
and rangeùand other things.
     Back on Earth, Samms set out to find people of Lensman caliber to send to Arisia.
Kinnison's son Jack, and his friend Mason Northrop, Conway Costigan, and Samms's daughter
Virgiliaùwho had inherited her father's hair and eyes, and who was the most accomplished
muscle-reader of her timeù went first. The boys got Lenses, but Jill did not. Mentor, who was to
her senses a woman seven feet tall, told her that she did not then and never would need a
Lensùand it should be mentioned here in passing that no two entities who ever saw Mentor ever
saw the same thing.
     Frederick Rodebush, Lyman Cleveland, young Bergenholm, and a couple of
commodores of the PatrolùClayton of North America and Schweikert of Europeùjust about
exhausted Earth's resources. Nor were the other Solarian planets very helpful, yielding only three
LensmenùKnobos of Mars, Dal-Nalten of Venus, and Rularion of Jove. Lensman material was
extremely scarce stuff.
     Knowing that his proposed Galactic Council would have to be made up exclusively of
Lensmen, and that it should represent as many solar systems as possible, Samms visited the
various systems which had been colonized by humanity, then went on: to Rigel Four, where he
found Dronvire the Explorer, who was of Lensman grade; and next to Pluto, where he found
Pilinixi the Dexitroboper, who very definitely was not; and finally to Palain Seven, an ultra-
frigid world where he found Tallick, who mightùor might notùgo to Arisia some day. And
Virgil Samms, being physically tough and mentally a real Crusader, survived these various
ordeals.
     For some time the existence of the newly-formed Galactic Patrol was precarious indeed.
Archibald Isaacson, head of Interstellar Spaceways, wanting a monopoly of interstellar trade,
first tried bribery; then, joining forces with the machine of Senator Morgan and Boss Towne,
assassination. The other Lensmen and Jill Samms saved her father's life, after which Kinnison
took Samms to the safest place on Earthùdeep underground beneath The Hill: the tremendously
fortified, superlatively armed fortress which had been built to be the headquarters of the
Triplanetary Service.
     But even there the First Lensman was attacked, this time by a fleet of space-ships in full
battle array. By that time, however, the Galactic Patrol had a fleet of its own, and again the
Lensmen won.
     Knowing that the final and decisive struggle would of necessity be a political one, the
Patrol took over the Cosmocrat party and set out to gather detailed and documented evidence of
corrupt and criminal activities of the Nationalists, the party then in power. Roderick ("Rod the
Rock") Kinnison ran for President of North America against the incumbent Witherspoon; and,
after a knock-down-and-drag-out political battle with Senator Morgan, the voice of the Morgan-
Towne-Isaacson machine, he was elected.
     And Morgan was murderedùsupposedly by disgruntled gangsters; actually by his
Kalonian boss, who was in turn a minion of the Eddoriansùsimply and merely because he had
failed.
North America was the most powerful continent of Earth; Earth was the Mother Planet, the
Leader, the Boss. Hence, under the sponsorship of the Cosmocratic Government of North
America, the Galactic Council and its arm, the Galactic Patrol, came into their own. At the end
of R. K. Kinnison's term of office, at which time he resumed his interrupted duties as Port
Admiral of the Patrol, there were a hundred planets adherent to Civilization. In ten years there
were a thousand; in a hundred years a million: and it is sufficient characterization of the light but
effective rule of the Galactic Council to say that in all the long history of Civilization no planet
whose peoples have ever voted to adhere to Civilization has ever withdrawn from it.
     Time went on; the prodigiously long blood-lines, so carefully manipulated by Mentor of
Arisia, neared culmination. Lensman Kimball Kinnison was graduated Number One of his
classùas a matter of fact, although he did not know it, he was Number One of his time. And his
female counterpart and complement, Clarrissa MacDougall of the red-bronze-auburn hair and
the gold-flecked tawny eyes, was a nurse in the Patrol's immense hospital at Prime Base.
     Shortly after graduation Kinnison was called to Prime Base by Port Admiral Haynes.
Space piracy had become an organized force; and, under the leadership of someone or something
known as "Boskone", had risen to such heights of power as to threaten seriously the Galactic
Patrol itself. In one respect Boskonia was ahead of the Patrol, its scientists having developed a
source of power vastly greater than any known to Galactic Civilization. It had fighting ships of a
new and extraordinary type, from which even convoyed shipping was no longer safe. Being
faster than the Patrol's fastest cruisers and yet more heavily armed than its heaviest battleships,
they had been doing practically as they pleased throughout space.
     For one particular purpose, the engineers of the Patrol had designed and built one
shipùthe Britannia. She was the fastest thing in space, but for offensive armament she had only
one weapon, the "Q-gun". Kinnison was put in command of this vessel, with orders to: 1)
Capture a Boskonian war-vessel of late model; 2) Learn her secrets of power; and 3) Transmit
the information to Prime Base.
     He found and took such a warship. Sergeant Peter vanBuskirk led the storming party of
Valeriansùmen of human ancestry, but of extraordinary size, strength, and agility because of
the enormous gravitation of the planet Valeriaùin wiping out those of the pirate crew not killed
in the battle between the two vessels.
     The Brittania's scientists secured the desired data. It could not be transmitted to Prime
Base, however, as the pirates were blanketing all channels of communication. Boskonian
warships were gathering for the kill, and the crippled Patrol ship could neither run nor fight
Therefore each man was given a spool of tape bearing a complete record of everything that had
occurred; and, after setting up a director-by-chance to make the empty ship pursue an
unpredictable course in space, and after rigging bombs to destroy her at the first touch of a ray,
the Patrolmen paired off by lot and took to the lifeboats.
     The erratic course of the cruiser brought her near the lifeboat manned by Kinnison and
vanBuskirk, and there the pirates tried to stop her. The ensuing explosion was so violent that
flying wreckage disabled practically the entire personnel of one of the attacking ships, which did
not have time to go free before the crash. The two Patrolmen boarded the pirate vessel and drove
her toward Earth, reaching the solar system of Velantia before the Boskonians headed them off.
Again taking to their lifeboat, they landed upon the planet Delgon, where they were rescued
from a horde of Catlats by one Worselùlater to become Lensman Worsel of Velantiaùa highly
intelligent winged reptile.
     By means of improvements upon Velantian thought-screens the three destroyed a group
of the Overlords of Delgon, a sadistic race of monsters who had been preying upon the other
peoples of the system by sheer power of mind. Worsel then accompanied the two Patrolmen to
Velantia, where all the resources of the planet were devoted to the preparation of defenses
against the expected attack of the Boskonians. Several other lifeboats reached Velantia, guided
by Worsel's mind working through Kinnison's ego and Lens.
     Kinnison intercepted a message from Helmuth, who "spoke for Boskone", and traced his
communicator beam, thus getting his first line upon Boskone's Grand Base. The pirates attacked
Velantia, and six of their warships were captured. In these six ships, manned by Velantian crews,
the Patrolmen again set out for Earth and Prime Base.
     Then Kinnison's Bergenholm, the generator of the force which makes inertialess flight
possible, broke down, so that he had to land upon Trenco for repairs. Trenco, the tempestuous,
billiard-ball-smooth planet where it rains forty-seven feet and five inches every night and where
the wind blows at eight hundred miles an hourùTrenco, the source of thionite, the deadliest of
all deadly drugsùTrenco, whose weirdly-charged ether and atmosphere so distort beams and
vision that it can be policed only by such beings as the Rigellians, who possess the sense of
perception instead of those of sight and hearing!
     Lensman Tregonsee, of Rigel Four, then in command of the Patrol's wandering base upon
Trenco, supplied Kinnison with a new Bergenholm and he again set out for Tellus.
     Meanwhile Helmuth had deduced that some one particular Lensman was the cause of all
his set-backs; and that the Lens, a complete enigma to all Boskonians, was in some way
connected with Arisia. That planet had always been dreaded and shunned by all spacemen. No
Boskonian who had ever approached that planet could be compelled, even by the certainty of
death, to go near it again.
     Thinking himself secure by virtue of thought-screens given him by a being from a
higher-echelon planet named Floor, Helmuth went alone to Arisia, determined to learn all about
the Lens. There he was punished to the verge of insanity, but was permitted to return to his
Grand Base alive and sane: "Not for your own good, but for the good of that struggling young
Civilization which you oppose."
     Kinnison reached Prime Base with the all-important data. By building super-powerful
battleships, called "maulers", the Patrol gained a temporary advantage over Boskonia, but a
stalemate soon ensued. Kinnison developed a plan of action whereby he hoped to locate
Helmuth's Grand Base; and asked Port Admiral Haynes for permission to follow it In lieu of that
however, Haynes told him that he had been given his Release; that he was an Unattached
Lensmanùa "Gray" Lens-man, popularly so called, from the color of the plain leather uniforms
they wear. Thus he earned the highest honor which the Patrol can give, for the Gray-Lensman
works under no supervision or direction whatever. He is as absolutely a free agent as it is
possible to be. He is responsible to no one; to nothing save his own conscience. He is no longer
of Tellus, nor of the Solarian System, but of Civilization as a whole. He is no longer a cog in the
immense machine of the Patrol: wherever he may go he is the Patrol!
     In quest of a second line upon Grand Base, Kinnison scouted a pirate stronghold upon
Aldebaran I. Its personnel, however, were not even near-human, but were wheelmen, possessed
of the sense of perception; hence Kinnison was discovered before he could accomplish anything
and was very seriously wounded. He managed to get back to his speedster and to send a thought
to Port Admiral Haynes, who rushed ships to his aid. In Base Hospital Surgeon-Marshal Lacy
put him back together; and, during a long and quarrelsome convalescence, Nurse Clarrissa
MacDougall held him together. And Lacy and Haynes connived to promote a romance between
nurse and Lensman.
     As soon as he could leave the hospital he went to Arisia in the hope that he might be
given advanced trainingùa theretofore unthought-of idea. Much to his surprise he learned that
he had been expected to return for exactly such training. Getting it almost killed him, but he
emerged from the ordeal infinitely stronger of mind than any man had ever been before; and
possessed of a new sense as wellùthe sense of perception, a sense somewhat analogous to sight,
but of vastly greater power, depth, and scope, and not dependent upon light.
     After trying out his new mental equipment by solving a murder mystery upon Radelix, he
succeeded in entering an enemy base upon Boyssia II. There he took over the mind of a
communications officer and waited for the opportunity of getting the second, all-important line
to Boskonia's Grand Base. An enemy ship captured a hospital ship of the Patrol and brought it in
to Boyssia Base. Nurse MacDougall, head nurse of the captured vessel, working under
Kinnison's instructions, stirred up trouble which soon became mutiny. Helmuth, from Grand
Base, took a hand; thus enabling Kinnison to get his second line.
     The hospital ship, undetectable by virtue of the Lensman's nullifier, escaped from
Boyssia II and headed for Earth at full blast. Kinnison, convinced that Helmuth was really
Boskone himself, found that the intersection of his two finesù and therefore the pirates' Grand
Baseùlay in star cluster AC 257-4736, well outside the galaxy. Pausing only long enough to
destroy the Wheelmen of Aldebaran I, the project in which his first attempt had failed so
dismally, he set out to investigate Helmuth's headquarters. He found a stronghold impregnable to
any massed attack the Patrol could throw against it, manned by beings each wearing a thought-
screen. His sense of perception was suddenly cut offùthe pirates had thrown a thought-screen
around the entire planet He then returned to Prime Base, deciding en route that boring from
within was the only possible way in which that stupendous fortress could be taken.
     In consultation with Port Admiral Haynes, the zero hour was set, at which time the
massed Grand Fleet of the Patrol was to attack Helmuth's base with every projector that could be
brought to bear.
     Pursuant to his plan, Kinnison again visited Trenco, where the Patrol forces extracted for
him fifty kilograms of thionite, the noxious drug which, in microgram inhalations, makes the
addict experience all the sensations of doing whatever it is that he wishes most ardently to do.
The larger the dose, the more intense the sensations; the slightest overdose resulting in an
ecstatic death. Thence to Helmuth's planet; where, working through the unshielded brain of a
dog, he let himself into the central dome. Here, just before the zero minute, he released his
thionite into the air-stream, thus wiping out all the pirate personnel except Helmuth, who, in his
inner sanctum, could not be affected.
     The Grand Fleet of the Patrol attacked, but Helmuth would not leave his retreat, even to
try to save his Base. Therefore Kinnison had to go in after him. Poised in the air of Helmuth's
inner sphere there was an enigmatic, sparkling ball of force which the Lensman could not
understand, and of which he was in consequence extremely suspicious.
     But the storming of that quadruply-defended inner stronghold was precisely the task for
which Kinnison's new and ultra-cumbersome armor had been designed; and in the Gray
Lensman went.

     CHAPTER 1
     PRIMARY BEAMS

     Among the world-girdling fortifications of a planet distant indeed from star cluster AC
257-4736 there squatted sullenly a fortress quite similar to Helmuth's own. Indeed, in some
respects it was even superior to the base of him who spoke for Boskone. It was larger and
stronger. Instead of one dome, it had many. It was dark and cold withal, for its occupants had
practically nothing in common with humanity save the possession of high intelligence.
     In the central sphere of one of the domes there sparkled several of the peculiarly radiant
globes whose counterpart had given Kinnison so seriously to think, and near them there
crouched or huddled or lay at ease a many-tentacled creature indescribable to man. It was not
like an octopus. Though spiny, it did not resemble at all closely a sea-cucumber. Nor, although it
was scaly and toothy and wingy, was it, save in the vaguest possible way, similar to a lizard, a
sea-serpent, or a vulture. Such a description by negatives is, of course, pitifully inadequate; but,
unfortunately, it is the best that can be done.
     The entire attention of this being was focused within one of the globes, the obscure
mechanism of which was relaying to his sense of perception from Helmuth's globe and mind at
clear picture of everything which was happening within Grand Base. The corpse-littered dome
was clear to his sight; he knew that the Patrol was attacking from without; knew that that
ubiquitous Lensman, who had already unmanned the citadel, was about to attack from within.
     "You have erred seriously," the entity was thinking coldly, emotionlessly, into the globe,
"in not deducing until after it was too late to save your base that the Lensman had perfected a
nullifier of sub-ethereal detection. Your contention that I am equally culpable is, I think,
untenable. It was your problem, not mine; I had, and still have, other things to concern me. Your
base is of course lost; whether or not you yourself survive will depend entirely upon the
adequacy of your protective devices."
     "But, Eichlan, you yourself pronounced them adequate!" "Pardon meùI said that they
seemed adequate." "If I survive---or, rather, after I have destroyed this Lens-manùwhat are your
orders?" "Go to the nearest communicator and concentrate our forces; half of them to engage this
Patrol fleet, the remainder to wipe out all the life of Sol III. I have not tried to give those orders
direct, since all the beams are keyed to your board and, even if I could reach them, no
commander in that galaxy knows that I speak for Boskone. After you have done that, report to
me here."
     "Instructions received and understood. Helmuth, ending message."
     "Set your controls as instructed. I will observe and record. Prepare yourself, the Lensman
comes. Eichlan, speaking for Boskone, ending message."
     The Lensman rushed. Even before he crashed the pirate's screens his own defensive
zones flamed white in the beam of semi-portable projectors and through that blaze came tearing
the metallic slugs of a high-calibre machine rifle. But the Lensman's screens were almost those
of a battleship, his armor relatively as strong; he had at his command projectors scarcely inferior
to those opposing his advance. Therefore, with every faculty of his newly-enlarged mind
concentrated upon that thought-screened, armored head behind the bellowing gun and the flaring
projectors, Kinnison held his line and forged ahead.
     Attentive as he was to Helmuth's thought-screen, the Patrolman was ready when it
weakened slightly and a thought began to seep through, directed at that peculiar ball of force. He
blanketed it savagely, before it could even begin to take form, and attacked the screen so
viciously that the Boskonian had either to restore full coverage instantly or else die there and
then.
     Kinnison feared that force-ball no longer. He still did not know what it was; but he had
learned that, whatever its nature might be, it was operated or controlled by thought. Therefore it
was and would remain harmless; for if the pirate chief softened his screen enough to emit a
thought he would never think again.
     Doggedly the Lensman drove in, closer and closer. Magnetic clamps locked and held.
Two steel-clad, waning figures rolled into the line of fire of the ravening automatic rifle.
Kinnison's armor, designed and tested to withstand even heavier stuff, held; wherefore he came
through that storm of metal unscathed. Helmuth's, however, even though stronger far than the
ordinary personal armor of space, failed; and thus the Boskonian died.
     Blasting himself upright, the Patrolman shot across the inner dome to the control panel
and paused, momentarily baffled. He could not throw the switches controlling the defensive
screens of the gigantic outer dome! His armor, designed for the ultimate of defensive strength,
could not and did not bear any of the small and delicate external mechanisms so characteristic of
the ordinary space-suit. To leave his personal tank at that time and in that environment was
unthinkable; yet he was fast running out of time. A scant fifteen seconds was all that remained
before zero, the moment at which the hellish output of every watt generable by the massed fleet
of the Galactic Patrol would be hurled against those screens in their furiously, ragingly
destructive might. To release the screens after that zero moment would mean his own death,
instantaneous and inevitable.
     Nevertheless he could open those circuitsùthe conservation of Boskonian property
meant nothing to him. He flipped on his own projector and flashed its beam briefly across the
banked panels in front of him. Insulation burst into flame, fairly exploding in its haste to
disintegrate; copper and silver ran in brilliant streams or puffed away in clouds of sparkling
vapor: high-tension arcs ripped, crashed, and crackled among the writhing, dripping, flaring bus-
bars. The shorts burned themselves clear or blew their fuses, every circuit opened, every
Boskonian defense came down; and then, and only then, could Kinnison get into communication
with his friends.
     "Haynes!" he thought crisply into his Lens. "Kinnison calling!"
     "Haynes acknowledging!" a thought instantly snapped back. "Congrat. . ."
     "Hold it! We're not done yet! Have every ship in the Fleet go free at once. Have them all,
except yours, put out full-coverage screens, so that they can't look at this baseùthat's to keep
'em from thinking into it."
     A moment passed. "Done!"
     "Don't come in any closerùI'm on my way out to you. Now as to you personallyùI don't
like to seem to be giving orders to the Port Admiral, but it may be quite essential that you
concentrate on me, and think of nothing else, for the next few minutes."
     "Right! I don't mind taking orders from you." "QXùnow we can take things a bit easier."
Kinnison had so arranged matters that no one except himself could think into that stronghold,
and he himself would not. He would not think into that tantalizing enigma, nor toward it, nor
even of it, until he was completely ready to do so. And how many persons, I wonder, really
realize just how much of a feat that was? Realize the sort of mental training required for its
successful performance?
     "How many gamma-zeta tracers can you put our, chief?" Kinnison asked then, more
conversationally.
     A brief consultation, then "Ten in regular use. By tuning in all our spares we can put out
sixty."
     "At two diameters' distance forty-eight fields will surround this planet at one hundred
percent overlap. Please have that many set that way. Of the other twelve, set three to go well
outside the first sphereùsay at four diameters outùcovering the line from this planet to
Landmark's Nebula. Set the last nine to be thrown out about half a detetùas far as you can read
them accurately to one decimalùcentering on the same line. Not much overlap is necessary on
these backing fieldsùjust contact. Release nothing, of course, until I get there. And while the
boys are setting things up, you might go inertùit's safe enough nowùso I can match your
intrinsic velocity and come aboard."
     There followed the maneuvering necessary for one inert body to approach another in
space, then Kinnison's incredible housing of steel was hauled into the airlock by means of space-
lines attached to magnetic clamps. The outer door of the lock closed behind him, the inner one
opened, and the Lensman entered the flagship.
     First to the armory, where he clambered stiffly out of his small battleship and gave orders
concerning its storage. Then to the control room, stretching and bending hugely as he went, in
vast relief at his freedom from the narrow and irksome confinement which he had endured so
long. He wanted a shower badlyùin fact, he needed oneùbut business came first.
     Of all the men in that control room, only two knew Kinnison personally. All knew of
him, however, and as the tall, gray-clad figure entered there was a loud, quick cheer. "Hi,
fellowsùthanks." Kinnison waved a salute to the room as a whole. "Hi, Port Admiral! Hi,
Commandant!" He saluted Haynes and von Hohendorff as perfunctorily, and greeted them as
casually, as though he had last seen them an hour, instead of ten weeks, before; as though the
intervening time had been spent in the veriest idleness, instead of in the fashion in which it
actually had been spent.
     Old von Hohendorff greeted his erstwhile pupil cordially enough, but:
     "Out with it!" Haynes demanded. "What did you do? How did you do it? What does all
this confounded rigmarole mean? Tell us all about itùall you can, I mean," he added, hastily.
     "There's no need for secrecy now, I don't think," and in flashing thoughts the Gray
Lensman went on to describe everything that had happened.
     "So you see," he concluded, "I don't really know anything. It's all surmise, suspicion, and
deduction. Maybe nothing at all will happen; in which case these precautions, while they will
have been wasted effort, will have done us no harm. In case something does happen,
howeverùand something will, for all the tea in Chinaùwell be ready for it."
     "But if what you are beginning to suspect is really true, it means that Boskonia is inter-
galactic in scopeùwider-spread even than the Patrol!"
     "Probably, but not necessarilyùit may mean only that they have bases farther outside.
And remember I'm arguing on a mighty slim thread of evidence. That screen was hard and tight,
and I couldn't touch the external beamùif there was oneùat all. I got just part of a thought, here
and there. However, the thought was 'that' galaxy; not just 'galaxy,' or 'this' or 'the' galaxyùand
why think that way if the guy was already in this galaxy?"
     "But nobody has ever . . . but skip it for nowùthe boys are ready for you. Take over!"
     "QX. First well go free again. Don't mink much, if any, of the stuff can come out here,
but no use taking chances. Cut your screens. Now, all you gamma-zeta men, throw out your
fields, and if any of you get a puncture, or even a flash, measure its position. You recording
observers, step your scanners up to fifty thousand. QX?"
     "QX!" the observers and recorders reported, almost as one, and the Gray Lensman sat
down at a plate.
     His-mind, free at last to make the investigation from which it had been so long and so
sternly barred, flew down into and through the dome, to and into that cryptic globe so
tantalizingly poised in the air of the Center.
     The reaction was practically instantaneous; so rapid that any ordinary mind could have
perceived nothing at all; so rapid that even Kinnison's consciousness recorded only a confusedly
blurred impression. But he did see something: in that fleeting millionth of a second he sensed a
powerful, malignant mental force; a force backing multiplex scanners and sub-ethereal stress-
fields interlocked in peculiarly unidentifiable patterns.
     For that ball was, as Kinnison had more than suspected, a potent agency indeed. It was,
as he had thought, a communicator; but it was far more than that. Ordinarily harmless enough, it
could be so set as to become an infernal machine at the vibrations of any thought not in a certain
coded sequence; and Helmuth had so set it.
     Therefore at the touch of the Patrolman's thoughts it exploded: liberating instantaneously
the unimaginable forces with which it was charged. More, it sent out waves which, attuned to
detonating receivers, touched off strategically-placed stores of duodecaplylatomate. "Duodec",
the concentrated quintessence of atomic violence!
     "Hell's . . . Jingling . . . Bells!" Port Admiral Haynes grunted in stunned amazement, then
subsided into silence, eyes riveted upon his plate; for to the human eye dome, fortress, and planet
had disappeared in one cataclysmically incandescent sphere of flame.
     But the observers of the Galactic Patrol did not depend upon eyesight alone. Their
scanners had been working at ultra-fast speed; and, as soon as it became clear that none of the
ships of the Fleet had been endangered, Kinnison asked that certain of the spools be run into a
visitank at normal tempo.
     There, slowed to a speed at which the eye could clearly discern sequences of events, the
two old Lensmen and the young one studied with care the three-dimensional pictures of what
had happened; pictures taken from points of projection close to and even within the doomed
structure itself.
     Deliberately the ball of force opened up, followed an inappreciable instant later by the
secondary centers of detonation; all expanding magically into spherical volumes of blindingly
brilliant annihilation. There were as yet no flying fragments: no inert fragment can fly from
duodec in the first few instants of its detonation. For the detonation of duodec is propagated at
the velocity of light, so that the entire mass disintegrates in a period of time to be measured only
in fractional trillionths of a second. Its detonation pressure and temperature have never been
measured save indirectly, since nothing will hold it except a Q-type helix of pure force. And
even those helices, which must be practically open at both ends, have to be designed and
powered to withstand pressures and temperatures obtaining only in the cores of suns.
     Imagine, if you can, what would happen if some fifty thousand metric tons of material
from the innermost core of Sinus B were to be taken to Grand Base, separated into twenty-five
packages, each package placed at a strategic point, and all restraint instantaneously removed.
What would have happened then, was what actually was happening!
     As has been said, for moments nothing moved except the ever-expanding spheres of
destruction. Nothing could moveù the inertia of matter itself held it in place until it was too
lateùeverything close to those centers of action simply flared into turgid incandescence and
added its contribution to the already hellish whole.
     As the spheres expanded their temperatures and pressures decreased and the action
became somewhat less violent. Matter no longer simply disappeared. Instead, plates and girders,
even gigantic structural members, bent, buckled, and crumbled. Walls blew outward and upward.
Huge chunks of metal and of masonry, many with fused and dripping edges, began to fly in all
directions.
     And not only, or principally, upward was directed the force of those inconceivable
explosions. Downward the effect was, if possible, even more catastrophic, since conditions there
approximated closely the oft-argued meeting between the irresistible force and the immovable
object. The planet was to all intents and purposes immovable, the duodec to the same degree
irresistible. The result was that the entire planet was momentarily blown apart. A vast chasm was
blasted deep into its interior, and, gravity temporarily overcome, stupendous cracks and fissures
began to yawn. Then, as the pressure decreased, the core-stuff of the planet became molten and
began to wreak its volcanic havoc. Gravity, once more master of the situation, took hold. The
cracks and chasms closed, extruding uncounted cubic miles of fiery lava and metal. The entire
world shivered and shuddered in a Gargantuan cosmic ague.
     The explosion blew itself out. The hot gases and vapors cooled. The steam condensed.
The volcanic dust disappeared. There lay the planet; but changedùhideously and awfully
changed. Where Grand Base had been there remained nothing whatever to indicate that anything
wrought by man had ever been there. Mountains were leveled, valleys were filled. Continents
and oceans had shifted, and were still shifting; visibly. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and other
seismic disturbances, instead of decreasing, were increasing in violence, minute by minute.
     Helmuth's planet was and would for years remain a barren and uninhabitable world.
     "Well!" Haynes, who had been holding his breath unconsciously, released it in an almost
explosive sigh. "That is inescapably and incontrovertibly that. I was going to use that base, but it
looks as though we'll have to get along without it."
     Without comment Kinnison turned to the gamma-zeta observers. "Any traces?" he asked.
     It developed that three of the fields had shown activity. Not merely traces or flashes, but
solid punctures showing the presence of a hard, tight beam. And those three punctures were in
the same line; a line running straight out into inter-galactic space.
     Kinnison took careful readings on the line, then stood motionless. Feet wide apart, hands
jammed into pockets, head slightly bent, eyes distant, he stood there unmoving; thinking with all
the power of his brain.
     "I want to ask three questions," the old Commandant of Cadets interrupted his cogitations
finally. "Was Helmuth Boskone, or not? Have we got them licked, or not? What do we do next,
besides mopping up those eighteen supermaulers?"
     "To all three the answer is 'I don't know.' " Kinnison's face was stern and hard. "You
know as much about the whole thing as I doùI haven't held back anything I even suspect. I
didn't tell you that Helmuth was Boskone; I said that everyone in any position to judge, including
myself, was as sure of it as one could be about anything that couldn't be proved. The presence of
this communicator line, and the other stuff I've told you about, makes me think he wasn't.
However, we don't actually know any more than we did before. It is no more certain now that
Helmuth was not Boskone than it was before that he was. The second question ties in with the
first, and so does the thirdùbut I see they've started to mop up."
     While von Hohendorff and Kinnison had been talking, Haynes had issued orders and the
Grand Fleet, divided roughly and with difficulty into eighteen parts, went raggedly outward to
surround the eighteen outlying fortresses. But, and surprisingly enough to the Patrol forces, the
reduction of those hulking monsters was to prove no easy task.
     The Boskonians had witnessed the destruction of Helmuth's Grand Base. Their master
plates were dead. Try as they would, they could get in touch with no one with authority to give
them orders, with no one to whom they could report their present plight. Nor could they escape:
the slowest mauler in the Patrol Fleet could have caught any one of them in five minutes.
     To surrender was not even thought ofùbetter far to die a clean death in the blazing
holocaust of space-battle than to be thrown ignominiously into the lethal chambers of the Patrol.
There was not, there could not be, any question of pardon or of sentence to any mere
imprisonment, for the strife between Civilization and Boskonia in no respect resembled the wars
between two fundamentally similar and friendly nations which small, green Terra knew so
frequently of old. It was a galaxy-wide struggle for survival between two diametrically opposed,
mutually exclusive, and absolutely incompatible cultures; a duel to the death in which quarter
was neither asked nor given; a conflict which, except for the single instance which Kinnison
himself had engineered, was and of stern necessity had to be one of ruthless, complete, and utter
extinction.
     Die, then, the pirates must; and, although adherents to a scheme of existence monstrous
indeed to our way of thinking, they were in no sense cowards. Not like cornered rats did they
conduct themselves, but fought like what they were; courageous beings hopelessly outnumbered
and outpowered, unable either to escape or to choose the field of operations, grimly resolved that
in their passing they would take full toll of the minions of that detested and despised Galactic
Civilization. Therefore, in suicidal glee, Boskonian engineers rigged up a fantastically potent
weapon of offense, tuned in their defensive screens, and hung poised in space, awaiting calmly
the massed attack so sure to come.
     Up flashed the heavy cruisers of the Patrol, serenely confident. Although of little
offensive strength, these vessels mounted tractors and pressors of prodigious power, as well as
defensive screens whichùtheoreticallyùno projector-driven beam of force could puncture.
They had engaged mauler after mauler of Boskonia's mightiest, and never yet had one of those
screens gone down. Theirs the task of immobilizing the opponent; since, as is of course well
known, it is under any ordinary conditions impossible to wreak any hurt upon an object which is
both inertialess and at liberty to move in space. It simply darts away from the touch of the
harmful agent, whether it be immaterial beam or material substance.
     Formerly the attachment of two or three tractors was all that was necessary to insure
immobility, and thus vulnerability; but with the Velantian development of a shear-plane to cut
tractor beams, a new technique became necessary. This was englobement, in which a dozen or
more vessels surrounded the proposed victim in space and held it motionless at the center of a
sphere by means of pressors, which could not be cut or evaded. Serene, then, and confident, the
heavy cruisers rushed out to englobe the Boskonian fortress.
     Flash! Flash! Flash! Three points of light, as unbearably brilliant as atomic vortices,
sprang into being upon the fortress' side. Three needle-rays of inconceivable energy lashed out,
hurtling through the cruisers' outer screens as though they had been so much inactive webbing.
Through the second and through the first. Through the wall-shield, even that ultra-powerful field
scarcely flashing as it went down. Through the armor, violating the prime tenet then held and
which has just been referred to, that no object free in space can be damagedùin this case, so
unthinkably vehement was the thrust, the few atoms of substance in the space surrounding the
doomed cruisers afforded resistance enough. Through the ship itself, a ravening cylinder of
annihilation.
     For perhaps a secondùcertainly no longerùthose incredible, those undreamed-of beams
persisted before winking out into blackness; but that second had been long enough. Three riddled
hulks lay dead in space, and as the three original projectors went black three more flared out.
Then three more. Nine of the mightiest of Civilization's ships of war were riddled before the
others could hurl themselves backward out of range!
     Most of the officers of the flagship were stunned into temporary inactivity by that
shocking development, but two reacted almost instantly.
     "Thorndyke!" the admiral snapped. "What did they do, and how?"
     And Kinnison, not speaking at all, leaped to a certain panel, to read for himself the
analysis of those incredible beams of force.
     "They made super-needle-rays out of their main projectors," Master Technician LaVerne
Thorndyke reported, crisply. "They must have shorted everything they've got onto them to burn
them out that fast."
     "Those beams were hotùplenty hot," Kinnison corroborated the findings. "These
recorders go to five billion and have a factor of safety of ten. Even that wasn't anywhere nearly
enoughùeverything in the recorder circuits blew."
     "But how could they handle them . . ." von Hohendorff began to ask.
     "They didn'tùthey pointed them and died," Thorndyke explained, grimly. "They traded
one projector and its crew for one cruiser and its crewùa good trade from their viewpoint."
     "There will be no more such trades," Haynes declared.
     Nor were there. The Patrol had maulers enough to en-globe the enemy craft at a distance
greater even than the effective range of those suicidal beams, and it did so.
     Shielding screens cut off the Boskonians' intake of cosmic power and the relentless
beaming of the bull-dog maulers began. For hour after hour it continued, the cordon ever
tightening as the victims' power lessened. And finally even the gigantic accumulators of the
immense fortresses were drained. Their screens went down under the hellish fury of the maulers'
incessant attack, and in a space of minutes thereafter the structures and their contents ceased to
exist save as cosmically atomic detritus.
     The Grand Fleet of the Galactic Patrol remade its formation after a fashion and set off
toward the galaxy at touring blast.
     And in the control room of the flagship three Lensmen brought a very serious conference
to a close.
     "You saw what happened to Helmuth's planet," Kinnison's voice was oddly hard, "and I
gave you all I could get of the thought about the destruction of all life on Sol III. A big enough
duodec bomb in the bottom of an ocean would do it. I don't really know anything except that we
hadn't better let them catch us asleep at the switch againùwe've got to be on our toes every
second."
     And the Gray Lensman, face set and stern, strode off to his quarters.

     CHAPTER 2
      WIDE-OPEN TWO-WAY

     During practically all of the long trip back to earth Kinnison kept pretty much to his
cabin, thinking deeply, blackly, and, he admitted ruefully to himself, to very little purpose. And
at Prime Base, through week after week of its feverish activity, he continued to think. Finally,
however, he was snatched out of his dark abstraction by no less a personage than Surgeon-
Marshal Lacy.
     "Snap out of it, lad," that worthy advised, smilingly. "When you concentrate on one thing
too long, you know, the vortices of thought occupy narrower and narrower loci, until finally the
effective volume becomes infinitesimal. Or, mathematically, the then range of cogitation,
integrated between the limits of plus and minus infinity, approaches zero as a limit. . ."
     "Huh? What are you talking about?" the Lensman demanded.
     "Poor mathematics, perhaps, but sound psychology," Lacy grinned. "It got your
undivided attention, didn't it? That was what I was after. In plain English, if you keep on
thinking around in circles you'll soon be biting yourself in the small of the back. Come on, you
and I are going places."
     "Where?"
     "To the Grand Ball in honor of the Grand Fleet, my boyù old Doctor Lacy prescribes it
for you as a complete and radical change of atmosphere. Let's go!"
     The city's largest ball-room was a blaze of light and color. A thousand polychromatic
lamps flooded their radiance downward through draped bunting upon an even more colorful
throng. Two thousand items of feminine loveliness were there, in raiment whose fabrics were the
boasts of hundreds of planets, whose hues and shades put the spectrum itself to shame. There
were over two thousand men, clad in plain or beribboned or bemedaled full civilian dress, or in
the variously panoplied dress uniforms of the many Services.
     "You're dancing with Miss Forrester first, Kinnison," the surgeon introduced them
informally, and the Lensman found himself gliding away with a stunning blonde, ravishingly and
revealingly dressed in a dazzlingly blue wisp of Manarkan glamoretteùfashion's dernier ori.
     To the uninformed, Kinnison's garb of plain gray leather might have seemed incongruous
indeed in that brilliantly and fastidiously dressed assemblage. But to those people, as to us of
today, the drab, starkly utilitarian uniform of the Unattached Lensman transcended far any other,
however resplendent, worn by man: and literally hundreds of eyes followed the strikingly
handsome couple as they slid rhythmically out upon the polished floor. But a measure of the tall
beauty's customary poise had deserted her. She was slimly taut in the circle of me Lensman's
arm, her eyes were downcast, and suddenly she missed a step.
     " 'Scuse me for stepping on your feet," he apologized. "A fellow gets out of practice,
flitting around in a speedster so much."
     "Thanks for taking the blame, but it's my fault entirelyù I know it as well as you do,"
she replied, flushing uncomfortably. "I do know how to dance, too, but . . . well, you're a Gray
Lensman, you know."
     "Huh?" he ejaculated, in honest surprise, and she looked up at him for the first time.
"What has that fact got to do with the price of Venerian orchids in Chicagoùor with my clumsy
walking all over your slippers?"
     "Everything in the world," she assured him. Nevertheless, her stiff young body relaxed
and she fell into the graceful, accurate dancing which she really knew so well how to do. "You
see, I don't suppose that any of us has ever seen a Gray Lensman before, except in pictures, and
actually to be dancing with one is . . . well, it's really a kind of shock. I have to get used to it
gradually. Why, I don't even know how to talk to you! One couldn't possibly call you plain
Mister, as one would any ord . . ."
     "It'll be QX if you just call me 'say'," he informed her. "Maybe you'd rather not dance
with a dub? What say we go get us a sandwich and a bottle of fayalin or something?"
     "Noùnever!" she exclaimed. "I didn't mean it that way at all. I'm going to have this full
dance with you, and enjoy every second of it And later I'm going to pack this dance cardùwhich
I hope you will sign for meùaway in lavender, so it will go down in history that in my youth I
really did dance with Gray Lensman Kinnison. Perhaps I've recovered enough now to talk and
dance at the same time. Do you mind if I ask you some silly questions about space?"
     "Go ahead. They won't be silly, if I'm any judge. Elementary, perhaps, but not silly."
     "I hope so, but I think you're being charitable again. Like most of the girls here, I
suppose, I've never been out in deep space at all. Besides a few hops to the moon. I've taken only
two flits, and they were both only interplanetaryùone to Mars and one to Venus. I never could
see how you deep-space men can really understand what you're doingùeither the frightful
speeds at which you travel, the distances you cover, or the way your communicators work. In
fact, according to the professors, no human mind can understand figures of those magnitudes at
all. But you must understand them, I should think . . . or, perhaps . . ."
     "Or maybe the guy isn't human?" Kinnison laughed deeply, infectiously. "No, the
professors are right. We can't understand the figures, but we don't have toùall we have to do is
to work with 'em. And, now that it has just percolated through my skull who you really are, that
you are Gladys Forrester, it's quite clear that you and I are in the same boat."
     "Me? How?" she exclaimed.
     "The human mind cannot really understand a million of anything. Yet your father, an
immensely wealthy man, gave you clear tide to a million credits in cash, to train you in finance
in the only way that really produces resultsùthe hard way of actual experience. You lost a lot of
it at first, of course; but at last accounts you had got it all back, and some besides, in spite of all
the smart guys trying to take it away from you. The fact that your brain can't envisage a million
credits hasn't interferred with your manipulation of that amount, has it?"
     "No, but that's entirely different!" she protested.
     "Not in any essential feature," he countered. "I can explain it best, perhaps, by analogy.
You can't visualize, mentally, the size of North America, either, yet that fact doesn't bother you
in the least while you're driving around on it in an automobile. What do you drive? On the
ground, I mean, not in the air?"
     "A DeKhotinsky sporter."
     "Um. Top speed a hundred and forty miles an hour, and I suppose you cruise between
ninety and a hundred. We'll have to pretend that you drive a Crownover sedan, or some other
big, slow jalopy, so that you tour at about sixty and have an absolute top of ninety. Also, you
have a radio. On the broadcast bands you can hear a program from three or four thousand miles
away; or, on short wave, from anywhere on Tellus. . ."
     "I can get tight-beam short-wave programs from the moon," the girl broke in. "I've heard
them lots of times."
     "Yes," Kinnison assented dryly, "at such times as there didn't happen to be any
interference."
     "Static is pretty bad, lots of times," the heiress agreed.
     "Well, change 'miles' to 'parsecs' and you've got the picture of deep-space speeds and
operations," Kinnison informed her. "Our speed varies, of course, with the density of matter in
space; but on the averageùsay one atom of substance per ten cubic centimeters of spaceùwe
tour at about sixty parsecs an hour, and full blast is about ninety. And our ultra-wave
communicators, working below the level of the ether, in the sub-ether. . ."
     "Whatever that is," she interrupted.
     "That's as good a definition of it as any," he grinned at her. "We don't know what even
the ether is, or whether or not it exists as an objective reality; to say nothing of what we so
nonchalantly call the sub-ether. We can't understand gravity, even though we make it to order.
Nobody yet has been able to say how it is propagated, or even whether or not it is
propagatedùno one has been able to devise any kind of an apparatus or meter or method by
which its nature, period, or velocity can be determined. Neither do we know anything about time
or space. In fact, fundamentally, we don't really know much of anything at all," he concluded.
     "Says you . . . but that makes me feel better, anyway," she confided, snuggling a little
closer. "Go on about the communicators."
     "Ultra-waves are faster than ordinary radio waves, which of course travel through the
ether with the velocity of light, in just about the same ratio as that of the speed of our ships to the
speed of slow automobilesùthat is, the ratio of a parsec to a mile. Roughly nineteen billion to
one. Range, of course, is proportional to the square of the speed."
     "Nineteen billion!" she exclaimed. "And you just said that nobody could understand even
a million!"
     "That's the point exactly," he went on, undisturbed. "You don't have to understand or
visualize it All you have to know is that deep-space vessels and communicators cover distances
in parsecs at practically the same rate that Tellurian automobiles and radios cover miles. So,
when some space-flea talks to you about parsecs, just think of miles in terms of an automobile
and a teleset and you'll know as much as he doesù maybe more."
     "I never heard it explained that way beforeùit does make it ever so much simpler. Will
you sign this, please?"
     "Just one more point." The music had ceased and he was signing her card, preparatory to
escorting her back to her place. "Like your supposedly tight-beam Luna-Tellus hookups, our
long-range, equally tight-beam communicators are very sensitive to interference, either natural
or artificial. So, while under perfect conditions we can communicate clear across the galaxy,
there are timesùparticularly when the pirates are scrambling the channelsùthat we can't drive a
beam from here to Alpha Centauri. . .. Thanks a lot for the dance."
     The other girls did not quite come to blows as to which of them was to get him next; and
shortlyùhe never did know exactly how it came aboutùhe found himself dancing with a
luscious, cuddly little brunette, cladùpartially clad, at leastùin a high-slitted, flame-colored
sheath of some new fabric which the Lensman had never seen before. It looked like solidified,
tightly-woven electricity!
     "Oh, Mr. Kinnison!" his new partner cooed, ecstatically, "I think all spacemen, and you
Lensmen particularly, are just too perfectly darn heroic for anything! Why, I think space is just
terrible! I simply can't cope with it at all!"
     "Ever been out, Miss?" he grinned. He had never known many social butterflies, and
temporarily he had forgotten that such girls as this one really existed.
     "Why, of course!" The young woman kept on being exclamatory.
     "Clear out to the moon, perhaps?" he hazarded.
     "Don't be ridicùever so much farther than thatùwhy, I went clear to Mars! And it gave
me the screaming meamies, no lessùI thought I would collapse!"
     That dance ended ultimately, and other dances with other girls followed; but Kinnison
could not throw himself into the gayety surrounding him. During his cadet days he had enjoyed
such revels to the full, but now the whole thing left him cold. His mind insisted upon reverting to
its problem. Finally, in the throng of young people on the floor, he saw a girl with a mass of red-
bronze hair and a supple, superbly molded figure. He did not need to await her turning to
recognize his erstwhile nurse and later assistant, whom he had last seen just this side of far-
distant Boyssia II.
     "Mac!" To her mind alone he sent out a thought. "For the love of Klono, lend a
handùrescue me! How many dances have you got ahead?"
     "None at allùI'm not dating ahead." She jumped as though someone had jabbed her with
a needle, then paused in panic; eyes wide, breath coming fast, heart pounding. She had felt
Lensed thoughts before, but this was something else, something entirely different Every cell of
his brain was open to herù and what was she seeing! She could read his mind as fully and as
easily as . . . as . . . as Lensmen were supposed to be able to read anybody's! She blanketed her
thoughts desperately, tried with all her might not to think at all!
     "QX, Mac," the thought went quietly on within her mind, quite as though nothing unusual
were occurring. "No intrusion meantùyou didn't think it; I already knew that if you started
dating ahead you'd be tied up until day after tomorrow. Can I have the next one?"
     "Surely, Kim."
     "Thanksùthe Lens is off for the rest of the evening." She sighed in relief as he snapped
the telepathic line as though he were hanging up the receiver of a telephone.
     "I'd like to dance with you all, kids," he addressed at large the group of buds surrounding
him and eyeing him hungrily, "but I've got this next one. See you later, perhaps," and he was
gone.
     "Sorry, fellows," he remarked casually, as he made his way through the circle of men
around the gorgeous red-head. "Sorry, but this dance is mine, isn't it, Miss MacDougall?"
     She nodded, flashing the radiant smile which had so aroused his ire during his
hospitalization. "I heard you invoke your spaceman's god, but I was beginning to be afraid that
you had forgotten this dance."
     "And she said she wasn't dating aheadùthe diplomat!" murmured an ambassador, aside.
     "Don't be a dope," a captain of Marines muttered in reply. "She meant with usùthat's a
Gray Lensman!"
     Although the nurse, as has been said, was anything but small, she appeared almost petite
against the Lensman's mighty frame as they took off. Silently the two circled the great hall once;
lustrous, goldenly green gownùof Earthly silk, this one, and less revealing than mostùswishing
in perfect cadence against deftly and softly stepping high-zippered gray boots.
     "This is better, Mac," Kinnison sighed, finally, "but I lack just seven thousand kilocycles
of being in tune with this. Don't know what's the matter, but it's clogging my jets. I must be
getting to be a space-louse."
     "A space-louseùyou? Uh-uh!" She shook her head. "You know very well what the
matter isùyou're just too much of a man to mention it."
     "Huh?" he demanded.
     "Uh-huh," she asserted, positively if obliquely. "Of course you're not in tune with this
crowdùhow could you be? I don't fit into it any more myself, and what I'm doing isn't even a
baffled flare compared to your job. Not one in ten of these fluffs here tonight has ever been
beyond the stratosphere; not one in a hundred has ever been out as far as Jupiter, or has ever had
a serious thought in her head except about clothes or men; not one of them all has any more idea
of what a Lensman really is than I have of hyper-space or of non-Euclidean geometry!"
     "Kitty, kitty!" he laughed. "Sheathe the little claws, before you scratch somebody!"
     "That isn't cattishness, it's the barefaced truth. Or perhaps," she amended, honestly, "it's
both true and cattish, but it's certainly true. And that isn't half of it. No one in the Universe
except yourself really knows what you are doing, and I'm pretty sure that only two others even
suspect. And Doctor Lacy is not one of them," she concluded, surprisingly.
     Though shocked, Kinnison did not miss a step. "You don't fit into this matrix, any more
than I do," he agreed, quietly. "S'pose you and I could do a little flit somewhere?"
     "Surely, Kim," and, breaking out of the crowd, they strolled out into the grounds. Not a
word was said until they were seated upon a broad, low bench beneath the spreading foliage of a
tree.
     Then: "What did you come here for tonight, Macùthe real reason?" he demanded,
abruptly.
     "I. . . we . . . you . . . I meanùoh, skip it!" the girl stammered, a wave of scarlet flooding
her face and down even to her superb, bare shoulders. Then she steadied herself and went on:
"You see, I agree with youùas you say, I check you to nineteen decimals. Even Doctor Lacy,
with all his knowledge, can be slightly screwy at times, I think."
     "Oh, so that's it!" It was not, it was only a very minor part of her reason; but the nurse
would have bitten her tongue off rather than admit that she had come to that dance solely and
only because Kimball Kinnison was to be there. "You knew, then, that this was old Lacy's idea?"
     "Of course. You would never have come, else. He thinks that you may begin wobbling on
the beam pretty soon unless you put out a few braking jots."
     "And you?"
     "Not in a million, Kim. Lacy's as cockeyed as Trenco's ether, and I as good as told him
so. He may wobble a bit, but you won't. You've got a job to do, and you're doing it You'll finish
it, too, in spite of all the vermin infesting all the galaxies of the macro-cosmic Universe!" she
finished, passionately.
     "Klono's brazen whiskers, Mac!" He turned suddenly and stared intently down into her
wide, gold-flecked, tawny eyes. She stared back for a moment, then looked away.
     "Don't look at me like that!" she almost screamed. "I can't stand itùyou make me feel
stark naked! I know your Lens is offùI'd simply die if it wasn'tùbut you're a mind-reader, even
without it!"
     She did know that that powerful telepath was off and would remain off, and she was glad
indeed of the fact; for her mind was seething with thoughts which that Lensman must not know,
then or ever. And for his part, the Lensman knew much better than she did that had he chosen to
exert the powers at his command she would have been naked, mentally and physically, to his
perception; but he did not exert those powersùthen. The amenities of human relationship
demanded that some fastnesses of reserve remain inviolate, but he had to know what this woman
knew. If necessary, he would take the knowledge away from her by force, so completely that she
would never know that she had ever known it. Therefore:
     "Just what do you know, Mac, and how did you find it out?" he demanded; quietly, but
with a stern finality of inflection that made a quick chill run up and down the nurse's back.
     "I know a lot, Kim." The girl shivered slightly, even though the evening was warm and
balmy. "I learned it from your own mind. When you called me, back there on the floor, I didn't
get just a single, sharp thought, as though you were speaking to me, as I always did before.
Instead, it seemed as though I was actually inside your own mindùthe whole of it I've heard
Lensmen speak of a wide-open two-way, but I never had even the faintest inkling of what such a
thing would be likeùno one could who has never experienced it. Of course I didn'tùI
couldn'tùunderstand a millionth of what I saw, or seemed to see. It was too vast, too incredibly
immense. 1 never dreamed any mortal could have a mind like that, Kim! But it was ghastly,
tooùit gave me the shrieking jitters and just about sent me down out of control. And you didn't
even know itùI know you didn't! I didn't want to look, really, but I couldn't help seeing, and I'm
glad I didùI wouldn't have missed it for the world!" she finished, almost incoherently.
     "Hm . . . m. That changes the picture entirely." Much to her surprise, the man's voice was
calm and thoughtful; not at all incensed. Not even disturbed. "So I spilled the beans myself, on a
wide-open two-way, and didn't even realize it . . . I knew you were backfiring about something,
but thought it was because I might think you guilty of petty vanity. And I called you a dumbbell
once!" he marveled.
     "Twice," she corrected him, "and the second time I was never so glad to be called names
in my whole life."
     "Now I know I was getting to be a space-louse."
     "Uh-uh, Kim," she denied again, gently. "And you aren't a brat or a lug or a clunker,
either, even though I have called you such. But, now that I've actually got all this stuff, what can
youùwhat can weùdo about it?"
     "Perhaps . . . probably . . . I think, since I gave it to you myself, I'll let you keep it,"
Kinnison decided, slowly.
     "Keep it!" she exclaimed. "Of course I'll keep it! Why, it's in my mindùI'll have to keep
itùnobody can take knowledge away from anyone!"
     "Oh, sureùof course," he murmured, absently. There were a lot of thing that Mac didn't
know, and no good end would be served by enlightening her farther. "You see, there's a lot of
stuff in my mind that I don't know much about myself, yet Since I gave you an open channel,
there must have been a good reason for it, even though, consciously, I don't know myself what it
was." He thought intensely for moments, then went on: "Undoubtedly the subconscious.
Probably it recognized the necessity of discussing the whole situation with someone having a
fresh viewpoint, someone whose ideas can help me develop a fresh angle of attack. Haynes and I
think too much alike for him to be of much help."
     "You trust me that much?" the girl asked, dumbfounded.
     "Certainly," he replied without hesitation. "I know enough about you to know that you
can keep your mouth shut."
     Thus unromantically did Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman, acknowledge the first
glimmerings of the dawning perception of a vast factùthat this nurse and he were two between
whom there never would nor could exist any iota of doubt or of question.
     Then they sat and talked. Not idly, as is the fashion of lovers, of the minutiae of their
own romantic affairs, did these two converse, but cosmically, of the entire Universe and of the
already existent conflict between the cultures of Civilization and Boskonia.
     They sat there, romantically enough to all outward seeming; their privacy assured by
Kinnison's Lens and by his ever-watchful sense of perception. Time after time, completely
unconsciously, that sense reached out to other couples who approached; to touch and to affect
their minds so insidiously that they did not know that they were being steered away from the tree
in whose black moon-shadow sat the Lensman and the nurse.
     Finally the long conversation came to an end and Kinnison assisted his companion to her
feet. His frame was straighter, his eyes held a new and brighter light.
     "By the way, Kim," she asked idly as they strolled back toward the ball-room, "who is
this Klono, by whom you were swearing a while ago? Another spaceman's god, like
Noshabkeming, of the Valerians?"
     "Something like him, only more so," he laughed. "A combination of Noshabkeming,
some of the gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans, all three of the Fates, and quite a few other
things as well. I think, originally, from Corvina, but fairly wide-spread through certain sections
of the galaxy now. He's got so much stuffùteeth and horns, claws and whiskers, tail and
everythingùthat he's much more satisfactory to swear by than any other space-god I know of."
     "But why do men have to swear at all, Kim?" she queried, curiously. "It's so silly."
     "For the same reason that women cry," he countered. "A man swears to keep from crying,
a woman cries to keep from swearing. Both are sound psychology. Safety valves ùmeans of
blowing off excess pressure that would otherwise blow fuses or burn out tubes."

     CHAPTER 3
     DEI EX MACHINA

     In the library of the port admiral's richly comfortable home, a room as heavily guarded
against all forms of intrusion as was his private office, two old but active Gray Lensmen sat and
grinned at each other like the two conspirators which in fact they were. One took a squat, red
bottle of fayalin from a cabinet and filled two small glasses. The glasses clinked, rim to rim.
     "Here's to love!" Haynes gave the toast.
     "Ain't it grand!" Surgeon-Marshal Lacy responded.
     "Down the hatch!" they chanted in unison, and action followed word.
     "You aren't asking if everything stayed on the beam." This from Lacy.
     "No needùI had a spy-ray on the whole performance." "You wouldùyou're the type.
However, I would have, too, if I had a panel full of them in my office. . .. Well, say it, you old
space-hellion!" Lacy grinned again, albeit a trifle wryly.
     "Nothing to say, saw-bones. You did a grand job, and you've got nothing to blow a jet
about."
     "No? How would you like to have a red-headed spitfire who's scarcely dry behind the
ears yet tell you to your teeth that you've got softening of the brain? That you had the mental
capacity of a gnat, the intellect of a Zabriskan fontema? And to have to take it, without even
heaving the insubordinate young jade into the can for about twenty-five well-earned black
spots?"
     "Oh, come, now, you're just blasting. It wasn't that bad!"
     "Perhaps notùquiteùbut it was bad enough."
     "She'll grow up, some day, and realize that you were foxing her six ways from the
origin."
     "Probably. . . . In the meantime, it's all part of the bigger job. . . . Thank God I'm not
young any more. They suffer so."
     "Check. How they suffer!"
     "But you saw the ending and I didn't How did it turn out?" Lacy asked.
     "Partly good, partly bad." Haynes slowly poured two more drinks and thoughtfully
swirled the crimson, pungently aromatic liquid around and around in his glass before he spoke
again. "Hookedùbut she knows it, and I'm afraid she'll do something about it."
     "She's a smart operatorùI told you she was. She doesn't fox herself about anything.
Hmm. . . . A bit of separation is indicated, it would seem."
     "Check. Can you send out a hospital ship somewhere, so as to get rid of her for two or
three weeks?"
     "Can do. Three weeks be enough? We can't send him anywhere, you know."
     "Plentyùhell be gone in two." Then, as Lacy glanced at him questioningly, Haynes
continued: "Ready for a shock? He's going to Lundmark's Nebula."
     "But he can't! That would take years! Nobody has ever got back from there yet, and
there's this new job of his. Besides, this separation is only supposed to last until you can spare
him for a while!"
     "If it takes very long he's coming back. The idea has always been, you know, that
intergalactic matter may be so thinù one atom per liter or soùthat such a flit won't take one-
tenth the time supposed. We recognize the dangerùhe's going well heeled."
     "How well?"
     The very best"
     "I hate to clog their jets this way, but it's got to be done. We'll give her a raise when I
send her outùmake her sector chief. Huh?"
     "Did I hear any such words lately as spitfire, hussy, and jade, or did I dream them?"
Haynes asked, quizzically.
     "She's all of them, and moreùbut she's one of the best nurses and one of the finest
women that ever lived, too!"
     "QX, Lacy, give her her raise. Of course she's good. If she wasn't, she wouldn't be in on
this deal at all. In fact, they're about as fine a couple of youngsters as old Tellus ever produced."
     "They are that. Man, what a pair of skeletons!"

                          *     *    *

     And in the Nurses' Quarters a young woman with a wealth of red-bronze-auburn hair and
tawny eyes was staring at her own reflection in a mirror.
     "You half-wit, you ninny, you lug!" she stormed, bitterly if almost inaudibly, at that
reflection. "You lame-brained moron, you red-headed, idiotic imbecile, you microcephalic
dumb-bell, you clunker! Of all the men in this whole cockeyed galaxy, you would have to make
a dive at Kimball Kinnison, the one man who thinks you're just part of the furniture. At a Gray
Lensman. . . ." Her expression changed and she whispered softly, "A. . . Gray. . . Lensman. He
can't love anybody as long as he's carrying that load. They can't let themselves be human . . .
quite . . . perhaps loving him will be enough. . .."
     She straightened up, shrugged, and smiled; but even that pitiful travesty of a smile could
not long endure. Shortly it was buried in waves of pain and the girl threw herself down upon her
bed.
     "Oh Kim, Kim!" she sobbed. "I wish . . . why can't you . . . Oh, why did I ever have to be
born!"

                         *     *     *

Three weeks later, far out in space, Kimball Kinnison was thinking thoughts entirely foreign to
his usual pattern. He was in his bunk, smoking dreamily, staring unseeing at the metallic ceiling.
He was not thinking of Boskone.
     When he had thought at Mac, back there at that dance, he had, for the first time in his
life, failed to narrow down his beam to the exact thought being sent. Why? The explanation he
had given the girl was totally inadequate. For that matter, why had he been so glad to see her
there? And why, at every odd moment, did visions of her keep coming into his mindùher form
and features, her eyes, her lips, her startling hair? . . . She was beautiful, of course, but not nearly
such a seven-sector callout as that thionite dream he had met on Aldebaran IIùand his only
thought of her was an occasional faint regret that he hadn't half-wrung her lovely neck . . . why,
she wasn't really as good-looking as, and didn't have half the je ne sais quoi of, that blonde
heiressùwhat was her name?ùoh, yes, Forrester. . .. There was only one answer, and it jarred
him to the coreùhe would not admit it, even to himself. He couldn't love anybodyùit just
simply was not in the cards. He had a job to do. The Patrol had spent a million credits making a
Lensman out of him, and it was up to him to give them some kind of a run for their money. No
Lensman had any business with a wife, especially a Gray Lensman. He couldn't sit down
anywhere, and she couldn't flit with him. Besides, nine out of every ten Gray Lensmen got killed
before they finished their jobs, and the one that did happen to live long enough to retire to a desk
was almost always half machinery and artificial parts. . . .
     No, not in seven thousand years. No woman deserved to have her life made into such a
hell on earth as that would beùyears of agony, of heart-breaking suspense, climaxed by
untimely widowhood; or, at best, the wasting of the richest part of her life upon a husband who
was half steel, rubber, and phenoline plastic. Red in particular was much too splendid a person to
be let in for anything like that. . ..
     But hold onùjet back! What made him think he rated any such girl? That there was even
a possibilityùespecially in view of the way he had behaved while under her care in Base
Hospitalùthat she would ever feel like being anything more to him than a strictly impersonal
nurse? Probably notù he had Klono's own gadolinium guts to think that she would marry him,
under any conditions, even if he made a full-power dive at her. . . .
     Just the same, she might. Look at what women did fall in love with, sometimes. So he'd
never make any kind of a dive at her; no, not even a pass. She was too sweet, too fine, too vital a
woman to be tied to any space-louse; she deserved happiness, not heartbreak. She deserved the
best there was in life, not the worst; the whole love of a whole man for a whole lifetime, not the
fractions which were all that he could offer any woman. As long as he could think a straight
thought he wouldn't make any motions toward spoiling her life. In fact, he hadn't better see
Reddy again. He wouldn't go near any planet she was on, and if he saw her out in space he'd go
somewhere else at a hundred parsecs an hour.
     With a bitter imprecation Kinnison sprang out of his bunk, hurled his half-smoked
cigarette at an ash-tray, and strode toward the control-room.

                         *     *     *

The ship he rode was of the Patrol's best. Superbly powered, for flight, defense, and offense, she
was withal a complete space-laboratory and observatory; and her personnel, over and above her
regular crew, was as varied as her equipment She carried ten Lensmen, a circumstance unique in
the annals of space, even for such trouble-shooting battle-wagon as the Dauntless was; and a
scientific staff which was practically a cross-section of the Tree of Knowledge. She carried
Lieutenant Peter vanBuskirk and his company of Valerian wildcats; Worsel of Velantia and three
score of his reptilian kinsmen; Tregonsee, the blocky Rigellian Lensman, and a dozen or so of
his fellows; Master Technician La Verne Thorndyke and his crew. She carried three Master
Pilots, Prime Base's bestù Henderson, Schermerhorn and Watson.
     The Dauntless was an immense vessel. She had to be, in order to carry, in addition to the
men and the things requisitioned by Kinnison, the personnel and the equipment which Port
Admiral Haynes had insisted upon sending with him.
     "But great Klono, Chief, think of what a hole you're making in Prime Base if we don't get
back!" Kinnison had protested.
     "You're coming back, Kinnison," the Port Admiral had replied, gravely. "That is why I
am sending these men and this stuff alongùto be as sure as I possibly can that you do come
back."
     Now they were out in inter-galactic space, and the Gray Lensman, closing his eyes, sent
his sense of perception out beyond the confining iron walls and let it roam the void. This was
better than a visiplate; with no material barriers or limitations he was feasting upon a spectacle
scarcely to be pictured in the most untrammeled imaginings of man.
     There were no planets, no suns, no stars; no meteorites, no particles of cosmic debris. All
nearby space was empty, with an indescribable perfection of emptiness at the very thought of
which the mind quailed in incomprehending horror. And, accentuating that emptiness, at such
mind-searing distances as to be dwarfed into buttons, and yet, because of their intrinsic
massiveness, starkly apparent in their three-dimensional relationships, there hung poised and
motionlessly stately the component galaxies of a Universe.
     Behind the flying vessel the First Galaxy was a tiny, brightly-shining lens, so far away
that such minutiae as individual solar systems were invisible; so distant that even the gigantic
masses of its accompanying globular star-clusters were merged indistinguishably into its sharply
lenticular shape. In front of her, to right and to left of her, above and beneath her were other
galaxies, never explored by man or by any other beings subscribing to the code of Galactic
Civilization. Some, edge on, were thin, wafer-like. Others appeared as full disks, showing faintly
or boldly the prodigious, mathematically inexplicable spiral arms by virtue of whose obscure
functioning they had come into being. Between these two extremes there was every possible
variant in angular dispacement.
     Utterly incomprehensible although the speed of the space-flyer was, yet those galaxies
remained relatively motionless, hour after hour. What distances! What magnificence! What
grandeur! What awful, what poignantly solemn calm!
     Despite the fact that Kinnison had gone out there expecting to behold that very scene, he
felt awed to insignificance by the overwhelming, the cosmic immensity of the spectacle. What
business had he, a sub-electronic midge from an ultra-microscopic planet, venturing out into
macro-cosmic space, a demesne comprehensible only to the omniscient and omnipotent Creator?
     He got up, shaking off the futile mood. This wouldn't get him to the first check-station,
and he had a job to do. And after all, wasn't man as big as space? Could he have come out here,
otherwise? He was. Yes, man was bigger even than space. Man, by his very envisionment of
macro-cosmic space, had already mastered it.
     Besides, the Boskonians, whoever they might be, had certainly mastered it; he was now
certain that they were operating upon an inter-galactic scale. Even after leaving Tellus he had
hoped and had really expected that his line would lead to a stronghold in some star-cluster
belonging to his own galaxy, so distant from it or perhaps so small as to have escaped the notice
of the chart-makers; but such was not the case. No possible error in either the determination or
the following of that line placed it anywhere near any such cluster. It led straight to and only to
Lundmark's Nebula; and that galaxy was, therefore, his present destination.
     Man was certainly as good as the pirates; probably better, on the basis of past
performance. Of all the races of the galaxy, man had always taken the initiative, had always been
the leader and commander. And, with the exception of the Arisians, man had the best brain in the
galaxy.
     The thought of that eminently philosophical race gave Kinnison pause. His Arisian
sponsor had told him that by virtue of the Lens the Patrol should be able to make Civilization
secure throughout the galaxy. Just what did that meanù that it could not go outside? Or did even
the Arisians suspect that Boskonia was in fact inter-galactic? Probably. Mentor had said that,
given any one definite fact, a really competent mind could envisage the entire Universe; even
though had added carefully that his own mind was not a really competent one.
     But this, too, was idle speculation, and it was time to receive and to correlate some more
reports. Therefore, one by one, he got in touch with scientists and observers.
     The density of matter in space, which had been lessening steadily, was now
approximately constant at one atom per four hundred cubic centimeters. Their speed was
therefore about a hundred thousand parsecs per hour; and, even allowing for the slowing up at
both ends due to the density of the medium, the trip should not take over ten days.
     The power situation, which had been his gravest care, since it was almost the only factor
not amenable to theoretical solution, was even better than anyone had dared hope; the cosmic
energy available in space had actually been increasing as the matter content decreasedùa fact
which seemed to bear out the contention that energy was continually being converted into matter
in such regions. It was taking much less excitation of the intake screens to produce a given flow
of power than any figure ever observed in the denser media within the galaxy.
     Thus, the atomic motors which served as exciters had a maximum power of four hundred
pounds an hour; that is, each exciter could transform that amount of matter into pure energy and
employ the output usefully in energizing the intake screen to which it was connected. Each
screen, operating normally on a hundred thousand to one ratio, would then furnish its receptor on
the ship with energy equivalent to the annihilation of four million pounds per hour of material
substance. Out there, however, it was being observed that the
     intake-exciter ratio, instead of being less than a hundred thousand to one, was actually
almost a million to one.
     It would serve no useful purpose here to go further into the details of any more of the
reports, or to dwell at any great length upon the remainder of the journey to the Second Galaxy.
Suffice it to say that Kinnison and his highly-trained crew observed, classified, recorded, and
conferred; and that they approached their destination with every possible precaution. Detectors
were full out, observers were at every plate, the ship itself was as immune to detection as
Hotchkiss' nullifiers could make it.
     Up to the Second Galaxy the Dauntless flashed, and into it. Was this Island Universe
essentially like the First Galaxy as to planets and peoples? If so, had they been won over or
wiped out by the horrid culture of Boskonia or was the struggle still going on?
     "If we assume, as we must, that the line we followed was the trace of Boskone's beam,"
argued the sagacious Worsel, "the probability is very great that the enemy is in virtual control of
this entire galaxy. Otherwiseùif they were in a minority or were struggling seriously for
dominionùthey could neither have spared the forces which invaded our galaxy, nor would they
have been in condition to rebuild their vessels as they did to match the new armaments
developed by the Patrol."
     "Very probably true," agreed Kinnison, and that was the consensus of opinion.
"Therefore we want to do our scouting very quietly. But in some ways that makes it all the
better. If they're in control, they won't be unduly suspicious."
     And thus it proved. A planet-bearing sun was soon located, and while the Dauntless was
still light-years distant from it, several ships were detected. At least, the Boskonians were not
using nullifiers!
     Spy-rays were sent out. Tregonsee the Rigellian Lensman exerted to the full his powers
of perception, and Kinnison hurled downward to the planet's surface a mental viewpoint and
communications center. That the planet was Boskonian was soon learned, but that was all. It was
scarcely fortified: no trace could he find of a beam communicating with Boskone.
     Solar system after solar system was found and studied, with like result. But finally, out in
space, one of the screens showed activity; a beam was in operation between a vessel then upon
the plates and some other station. Kinnison tapped it quickly; and, while observers were
determining its direction, hardness, and power, a thought flowed smoothly into the Lensman's
brain.
     ". . . proceed at once to relieve vessel P4K730. Eichlan, speaking for Boskone, ending
message."
     "Follow that ship, Hen!" Kinnison directed, crisply. "Not too close, but don't lose him!"
He then relayed to the others the orders which had been intercepted.
     "The same formula, huh?" VanBuskirk roared, and "Just another lieutenant, that sounds
like, not Boskone himself." Thorndyke added.
     "Perhaps so, perhaps not." The Gray Lensman was merely thoughtful. "It doesn't prove a
thing except that Helmuth was not Boskone, which was already fairly certain. If we can prove
that there is such a being as Boskone, and that he isn't in this galaxy . . . well, in that case, we'll
go somewhere else," he concluded, with grim finality.
     The chase was comparatively short, leading toward a yellowish star around which swung
eight average-sized planets. Toward one of these flew the unsuspecting pirate, followed by the
Patrol vessel, and it soon became apparent that there was a battle going on. One spot upon the
planet's surface, either a city or a tremendous military base, was domed over by a screen which
was one blinding glare of radiance. And for miles in every direction ships of space were waging
spectacularly devastating warfare.
     Kinnison shot a thought down into the fortress, and with the least possible introduction or
preamble, got into touch with one of its high officers. He was not surprised to learn that those
people were more or less human in appearance, since the planet was quite similar to Tellus in
age, climate, atmosphere, and mass.
     "Yes, we are fighting Boskonia," the answering thought came coldly clear. "We need
help, and badly. Can you. . . ?"
     "We're detected!" Kinnison's attention was seized by a yell from the board. "They're all
coming at us at once!"
     Whether the scientists of Boskone developed the detector-nullifier before or after
Helmuth's failure to deduce the Lensman's use of such an instrument is a nice question, and one
upon which a great deal has been said. While interesting, the point is really immaterial here; the
facts remaining the sameù that the pirates not only had it at the time of the Patrol's first visit to
the Second Galaxy, but had used it to such good advantage that the denizens of that recalcitrant
planet had been forced, in sheer desperation of self-preservation, to work out a scrambler for that
nullification and to surround their world with its radiations. They could not restore perfect
detection, but the condition for complete nullification was so critical that it was a comparatively
simple matter to upset it sufficiently so that an image of a sort was revealed. And, at that close
range, any sort of an image was enough.
     The Dauntless, approaching the planet, entered the zone of scrambling and stood
revealed plainly enough upon the plates of the enemy vessels. They attacked instantly and
viciously; within a second after the lookout had shouted his warning the outer screens of the
Patrol ship were blazing incandescent under the furious assaults of a dozen Boskonian beams.

     CHAPTER 4
     MEDON

     For a moment all eyes were fixed apprehensively upon meters and recorders, but there
was no immediate cause for alarm. The builders of the Dauntless had builded well; her outer
screen, the lightest of her series of four, was carrying the attackers' load with no sign of distress.
     "Strap down, everybody," the expedition's commander ordered then. "Inert her, Hen.
Match velocity with that base," and as Master Pilot Henry Henderson cut his Bergenholm the
vessel lurched wildly aside as its intrinsic velocity was restored.
     Henderson's fingers swept over his board as rapidly and as surely as those of an organist
over the banked keys of his console; producing, not chords and arpeggios of harmony, but
roaring blasts of precisely-controlled power. Each key-like switch controlled one jet. Lightly and
fleetingly touched, it produced a gentle urge; at sharp, full contact it yielded a mighty, solid
shove; depressed still farther, so as to lock into any one of a dozen notches, it brought into being
a torrent of propulsive force of any desired magnitude, which ceased only when its key-release
was touched.
     And Henderson was a virtuoso. Smoothly, effortlessly, but in a space of seconds the great
vessel rolled over, spiralled, and swung until her landing jets were in line and exerting five
gravities of thrust. Then, equally smoothly, almost imperceptibly, the line of force was varied
until the flame-enshrouded dome was stationary below them. Nobody, not even the two other
Master Pilots, and least of all Henderson himself, paid any attention to the polished perfection,
the consummate artistry, of the performance. That was his job. He was a Master Pilot, and one of
the hallmarks of his rating was the habit of making difficult maneuvers look easy.
     Take 'em now, Chief? Can't we, huh?" Chatway, the Chief Firing Officer, did not say
those words. He did not need to. The attitude and posture of the C.F.O. and his subordinates
made the thought tensely plain.
     "Not yet, Chatty," the Lensman answered the unsent thought. "We'll have to wait until
they englobe us, so we can get 'em all. It's got to be all or noneùif even one of them gets away
or even has time to analyze and report on the stuff we're going to use it'll be just too bad."
     He then got in touch with the officer within the beleaguered base and renewed the
conversation at the point at which it had been broken off.
     "We can help you, I think; but to do so effectively we must have clear ether. Will you
please order your ships away, out of even extreme range?"
     "For how long? They can do us irreparable damage in one rotation of the planet."
     "One-twentieth of that time, at mostùif we can't do it in that time we can't do it at all.
Nor will they direct many beams at you, if any. They'll be working on us."
     Then, as the defending ships darted away, Kinnison turned to his C.F.O.
     "QX, Chatty. Open up with your secondaries. Fire at will!"
     Then from projectors of a power theretofore carried only by maulers there raved out
against the nearest Boskonian vessels beams of a vehemence compared to which the enemies'
own seemed weak, futile. And those were the secondaries!
     As has been intimated, the Dauntless was an unusual ship. She was enormous. She was
bigger even than a mauler in actual bulk and mass; and from needle-beaked prow to jet-studded
stern she was literally packed with powerùpower for any emergency conceivable to the fertile
minds of Port Admiral Haynes and his staff of designers and engineers. Instead of two, or at
most three intake-screen exciters, she had two hundred. Her bus-bars, instead of being the
conventional rectangular coppers, of a few square inches cross-sectional area, were laminated
members built up of co-axial tubing of pure silver to a diameter of over a yardùmultiple and
parallel conductors, each of whose current-carrying capacity was to be measured only in millions
of amperes. And everything else aboard that mighty engine of destruction was upon the same
Gargantuan scale.
     Titanic though those thrusts were, not a pirate ship was seriously hurt. Outer screens went
down, and more than a few of the second lines of defense also failed. But that was the
Patrolmen's strategy; to let the enemy know that they had weapons of offense somewhat superior
to their own, but not quite powerful enough to be a real menace.
     In minutes, therefore, the Boskonians rushed up and proceeded to englobe the newcomer;
supposing, of course, that she was a product of the world below, that she was manned by the race
who had so long and so successfully fought off Boskonian encroachment.
     They attacked, and under the concentrated fury of their beams the outer screen of the
Patrol ship began to fail. Higher and higher into the spectrum it radiated, blinding white . . . blue
. . . an intolerable violet glare; then, patchily, through the invisible ultra-violet and into the black
of extinction. The second screen resisted longer and more stubbornly, but finally it also went
down; the third automatically taking up the burden of defense. Simultaneously the power of the
Dauntless' projectors weakened, as though she were shifting her power from offense to defense
in order to stiffen her third, and supposedly her last, shielding screen.
     "Pretty soon, now, Chatway," Kinnison observed. "Just as soon as they can report that
they've got us in a bad way; that it's just a matter of time until they blow us out of the ether.
Better report nowùI'll put you on the spool."
     "We are equipped to energize simultaneously eight of the new, replaceable-unit primary
projectors," the C.F.O. stated, crisply. "There are twenty-one vessels englobing us, and no others
within detection. With a discharge period of point six zero and a switching interval of point zero
nine, the entire action should occupy one point nine eight seconds."
     "Chief Communications Officer Nelson on the spool. Can the last surviving ship of the
enemy report enough in two seconds to do us material harm?"
     "In my opinion it can not, sir," Nelson reported, formally. "The Communications Officer
is neither an observer nor a technician; he merely transmits whatever material is given him by
other officers for transmission. If he is already working a beam to his base at the moment of our
first blast he might be able to report the destruction of vessels, but he could not be specific as to
the nature of the agent used. Such a report could do no harm, as the fact of the destruction of the
vessels will in any event become apparent shortly. Since we are apparently being overcome
easily, however, and this is a routine action, the probability is that this detachment is not in direct
communication with Base at any given moment. If not, he could not establish working control in
two seconds."
     "Kinnison now reporting. Having determined to the best of my ability that engaging the
enemy at this time will not enable them to send Boskone any information regarding our primary
armament, I now give the word to . . . FIRE!"
     The underlying principle of the destructive beam produced by overloading a regulation
projector had, it is true, been discovered by a Boskonian technician. Insofar as Boskonia was
concerned, however, the secret had died with its inventor; since the pirates had at that time no
headquarters in the First Galaxy. And the Patrol had had months of time in which to perfect it,
for that work was begun before the last of Helmuth's guardian fortresses had been destroyed.
     The projector was not now fatal to its crew, since they were protected from the lethal
back-radiation, not only by shields of force, but also by foot after impenetrable foot of lead,
osmium, carbon, cadmium, and paraffin. The refractories were of neo-carballoy, backed and
permeated by M K R fields; the radiators were constructed of the most ultimately resistant
materials known to the science of the age. But even so the unit had a useful life of but little over
half a second, so frightful was the overload at which it was used. Like a rifle cartridge, it was
good for only one shot. Then it was thrown away, to be replaced by a new unit.
     Those problems were relatively simple of solution. Switching those enormous energies
was the great stumbling block. The old Kimmerling block-dispersion circuit-breaker was prone
to arc-over under loads much in excess of a hundred billion KVA, hence could not even be
considered in this new application. However, the Patrol force finally succeeded in working out a
combination of the immersed-antenna and the semipermeable-condenser types, which they
called the Thorn-dyke heavy-duty switch. It was cumbersome, of courseùany device to interrupt
voltages and amperages of the really astronomical magnitudes in question could not at that time
be smallùbut it was positive, fast-acting, and reliable.
     At Kinnison's word of command eight of those indescribable primary beams lashed out;
stilettoes of irresistibly pentrant energy which not even a Q-type helix could withstand. Through
screens, through wall-shields, and through metal they hurtled in a space of time almost too brief
to be measured. Then, before each beam expired, it was swung a little, so that the victim was
literally split apart or carved into sections. Performance exceeded by far that of the hastily-
improvised weapon which had so easily destroyed the heavy cruisers of the Patrol; in fact, it
checked almost exactly with the theoretical figure of the designers.
     As the first eight beams winked out eight more came into being, then five more; and
meanwhile the mighty secondaries were sweeping the heavens with full-aperture cones of
destruction. Metal meant no more to those rays than did organic material; everything solid or
liquid whiffed into vapor and disappeared. The Dauntless lay alone in the sky of that new world.
     "Marvelousùwonderful!" the thought beat into Kinnison's brain as soon as he re-
established rapport with the being so far below. "We have recalled our ships. Will you please
come down to our space-port at once, so that we can put into execution a plan which has been
long in preparation?"
     "As soon as your ships are down," the Tellurian acquiesced. "Not sooner, as your landing
conventions are doubtless very unlike our own and we do not wish to cause disaster. Give me the
word when your field is entirely clear."
     That word came soon and Kinnison nodded to the pilots. Once more inertialess the
Dauntless shot downward, deep into atmosphere, before her inertia was restored. Rematching
velocity this time was a simple matter, and upon the towering, powerfully resilient pillars of her
landing-jets the inconceivable mass of the Tellurian ship of war settled toward the ground, as
lightly seeming as a wafted thistledown.
     "Their cradles wouldn't fit us, of course, even if they were big enoughùwhich they
aren't, by half," Schermerhorn commented, "Where do they want us to put her?"
     " 'Anywhere,' they say," the Lensman answered, "but we don't want to take that too
literallyùwithout a solid dock she'll make an awful hole, wherever we set her down. Won't hurt
her any. She's designed for itùwe couldn't expect to find cradles to fit her anywhere except on
Tellus. I'd say to lay her down on her belly over there in that corner, out of the way; as close to
that big hangar as you can work without blasting it out with your jets."
     As Kinnison had intimated, the lightness of the vessel was indeed only seeming.
Superbly and effortlessly the big boat seeped downward into the designated corner; but when she
touched the pavement she did not stop. Still easily and without jar or jolt she settledùa full
twenty feet into the concrete, re-enforcing steel, and hard-packed earth of the field before she
came to a halt.
     "What a monster! Who are they? Where could they have come from? . . ." Kinnison
caught a confusion of startled thoughts as the real size and mass of the visitor became apparent
to the natives. Then again came the clear thought of the officer.
     "We would like very much to have you and as many as possible of your companions
come to confer with us as soon as you have tested our atmosphere. Come in space-suits if you
must."
     The air was tested and found suitable. True, it did not match exactly that of Tellus, or
Rigel IV, or Velantia; but then, neither did that of the Dauntless, since that gaseous mixture was
a compromise one, and mostly artificial to boot.
     "Worsel, Tregonsee, and I will go to this conference," Kinnison decided. "The rest of you
sit tight. I don't need to tell you to keep on your toes, that anything is apt to happen, anywhere,
without warning. Keep your detectors full out and keep your noses cleanùbe ready, like the
good little Endeavorers you are, 'to do with your might what your hands find to do.' Come on,
fellows," and the three Lensmen strode, wriggled, and waddled across the field, to and into a
spacious room of the Administration Building.
     "Strangers, or, I should say friends, I introduce you to Wise, our President," Kinnison's
acquaintance said, clearly enough, although it was plain to all three Lensmen that he was
shocked at the sight of the Earthman's companions.
     "I am informed that you understand our language . .." the President began, doubtfully.
     He too was staring at Tregonsee and Worsel. He had been told that Kinnison, and
therefore, supposedly the rest of the visitors, were beings fashioned more or less after his own
pattern. But these two creatures!
     For they were not even remotely human in form. Tregonsee, the Rigellian, with his
leathery, multi-appendaged, oil-drum-like body, his immobile dome of a head and his four
blocky pillars of legs must at first sight have appeared fantastic indeed. And Worsel, the
Velantian, was infinitely worse. He was repulsive, a thing materialized from sheerest
nightmareùa leather-winged, crocodile-headed, crooked-armed, thirty-foot-long, pythonish,
reptilian monstrosity!
     But the President of Medon saw at once that which the three outlanders had in common.
The Lenses, each glowingly aflame with its own innate pseudo-vitalityùKinnison's clamped to
his brawny wrist by a bad of metallic alloy; Tregonsee's embedded in the glossy black flesh of
one mighty, sinuous arm; Worsel's apparently driven deep and with cruel force into the horny,
scaly hide squarely in the middle of his forehead, between two of his weirdly stalked, repulsively
extensible eyes.
     "It is not your language we understand, but your thoughts, by virtue of these our Lenses
which you have already noticed." The President gasped as Kinnison bulleted the information into
his mind. "Go ahead . .. Just a minute!" as an unmistakable sensation swept through his being.
"We've gone free; the whole planet, I perceive. In that respect, at least, you are in advance of us.
As far as I know, no scientist of any of our races has even thought of a Bergenholm big enough
to free a world."
     "It was long in the designing; many years in the building of its units," Wise replied. "We
are leaving this sun in an attempt to escape from our enemy and yours, Boskone. It is our only
chance of survival. The means have long been ready, but the opportunity which you have just
made for us is the first that we have had. This is the first time in many, many years that not a
single Boskonian vessel is in position to observe our flight."
     "Where are you going? Surely the Boskonians will be able to find you if they wish."
     "That is possible, but we must run that risk. We must have a respite or perish; after a long
lifetime of continuous warfare our resources are at the point of exhaustion. There is a part of this
galaxy in which there are very few planets, and of those few none are inhabited or habitable.
Since nothing is to be gained, ships seldom or never go there. If we can reach that region
undetected, the probability is that we shall be unmolested long enough to recuperate."
     Kinnison exchanged flashing thoughts with his two fellow Lensmen, then turned again to
Wise.
     "We come from a neighboring galaxy," he informed him, and pointed out to his mind just
which galaxy he meant "You are fairly close to the edge of this one. Why not move over to ours?
You have no friends here, since you think that yours may be the only remaining independent
planet. We can assure you of friendship. We can also give you some hope of peaceùor at least
semi-peaceùin the near future, for we are driving Boskonia out of our galaxy."
     "What you think of as 'semi-peace' would be tranquility incarnate to us," the old man
replied with feeling. "We have in fact considered long that very move. We decided against it for
two reasons: first, because we knew nothing about conditions there, and hence might be going
from bad to worse; and second and more important, because of lack of reliable data upon the
density of matter in inter-galactic space. Lacking that, we could not estimate the time necessary
for the journey, and we could have no assurance that our sources of power, great as they are,
would be sufficient to make up the heat lost by radiation."
     "We have already given you an idea of conditions and we can give you the data you
lack."
     They did so, and for a matter of minutes the Medonians conferred. Meanwhile Kinnison
went on a mental expedition to one of the power-plants. He expected to see super-colossal
engines; bus-bars ten feet thick, perhaps cooled in liquid helium; and other things in proportion.
But what he actually saw made him gasp for breath and call Tregonsee's attention. The Rigellian
sent out his sense of perception with Kinnison's, and he also was almost stunned.
     "What's the answer, Trig?" the Earthman asked, finally. "This is more down your alley
than mine. That motor's about the size of my foot, and if it isn't eating a thousand pounds an hour
I'm Klono's maiden aunt. And the whole output is going out on two wires no bigger than number
four, jacketed together like ordinary parallel pair. Perfect insulator? If so, how about switching?"
     "That must be it, a substance of practically infinite resistance," the Rigellian replied,
absently, studying intently the peculiar mechanisms. "Must have a better conductor than silver,
too, unless they can handle voltages of ten to the fifteenth or so, and don't see how they could
break such potentials . . . Guess they don't use switchesùdon't see anyù must shut down, the
prime sources . . . No, there it isù so small that I overlooked it completely. In that little box
there. Sort of a jam-plate type; a thin sheet of insulation with a knife on the leading edge,
working in a slot to cut the two conductors apartùkills the arc by jamming into the tight slot at
the end of the box. The conductors must fuse together at each make and burn away a little at
each break, that's why they have renewable tips. Kim, they've really got something! I certainly
am going to stay here and do some studying."
     "Yes, and well have to rebuild the Dauntless . . ."
     The two Lensmen were called away from their study by Worselùthe Medonians had
decided to accept the invitation to move to the First Galaxy. Orders were given, the course was
changed and the planet, now a veritable spaceship, shot away in the new direction.
     "Not as many legs as a speedster, of course, but at that, she's no slouchùwe're making
plenty of lights," Kinnison commented, then turned to the president. "It seems rather
presumptuous for us to call you simply 'Wise,' especially as I gather that that is not your name . .
."
     "That is what I am called, and that is what you are to call me," the oldster replied. "We of
Medon do not have names. Each has a number; or, rather, a symbol composed of numbers and
letters of our alphabetùa symbol which gives his full classification. Since these things are too
clumsy for regular use, however, each of us is given a nickname, usually an adjective, which is
supposed to be more or less descriptive. You of Earth we could not give a complete symbol;
your two companions we could not give any at all. However, you may be interested in knowing
that you three have already been named?"
     "Very much so."
     "You are to be called 'Keen.' He of Rigel IV is 'Strong,' and he of Velantia is 'Agile'."
     "Quite complimentary to me, but. . ."
     "Not bad at all, I'd say," Tregonsee broke in. "But hadn't we better be getting on with
more serious business?"
     "We should indeed," Wise agreed. "We have much to discuss with you; particularly the
weapon you used."
     "Could you get an analysis of it?" Kinnison asked, sharply.
     "No. No one beam was in operation long enough. However,
     a study of the recorded data, particularly the figures for intensityùfigures so high as to
be almost unbelievableù lead us to believe that the beam is the result of an enormous overload
upon a projector otherwise of more or less conventional type. Some of us have wondered why
we did not think of the idea ourselves . .."
     "So did we, when it was used on us," Kinnison grinned and went on to explain the origin
of the primary. "We will give you the formulae and also the working hook-upùincluding the
protective devices, because they're mighty dangerous without plenty of force-backingùof the
primaries, in exchange for some lessons in power-plant design."
     "Such an exchange of knowledge would be helpful indeed," Wise agreed.
     "The Boskonians know nothing whatever of this beam, and we do not want them to learn
of it," Kinnison cautioned. "Therefore I have two suggestions to make.
     "First, that you try everything else before you use this primary beam. Second, that you
don't use it even then unless you can wipe out, as nearly simultaneously as we did out there,
every Boskonian who may be able to report back to his base as to what really happened. Fair
enough?"
     "Eminently so. We agree without reservationùit is to our interest as much as yours that
such a secret be kept from Boskone."
     "QX, Fellows, let's go back to the ship for a couple of minutes." Then, aboard the
Dauntless: "Tregonsee, you and your crew want to stay with the planet, to show the Medonians
what to do and to help them along generally, as well as to learn about their power system.
Thorndyke, you and your gang, and probably Lensman Hotchkiss, had better study these things
tooùyou'll know what you want as soon as they show you the hook-up. Worsel, I'd like to have
you stay with the ship. You're in command of her until further orders. Keep her here for say a
week or ten days, until the planet is well out of the galaxy. Then, if Hotchkiss and Thorndyke
haven't got all the dope they want, leave them here to ride back with Tregonsee on the planet and
drill the Dauntless for Tellus. Keep yourself more or less disengaged for a while, and sort of
keep tuned to me. I may not need an ultra-long-range communicator, but you never can tell."
     "Why such comprehensive orders, Kim?" asked Hotchkiss. "Who ever heard of a
commander abandoning his expedition? Aren't you sticking around?"
     "Nopeùgot to do a flit. Think maybe I'm getting an idea. Break out my speedster, will
you, Allerdyce?" and the Gray Lensman was gone.

     CHAPTER 5
     DESSA DESPLAINES, ZWILNIK

     Klnnison's speedster shot away and made an undetectable, uneventful voyage back to
Prime Base.
     "Why the foliage?" the Port Admiral asked, almost at sight, for the Gray Lensman was
wearing a more-than-half-grown beard.
     "I may need to be Chester Q. Fordyce for a while. If I don't, I can shave it off quick. If I
do, a real beard is a lot better than an imitation," and he plunged into his subject
     "Very fine work, son, very fine indeed," Haynes congratulated the younger man at the
conclusion of his report "We shall begin at once, and be ready to rush things through when the
technicians bring back the necessary data from Medon. But there's one more thing I want to ask
you. How come you placed those sporting-screens so exactly? The beam practically dead-
centered them. You claimed it was surmise and suspicion before it happened, but you must have
had a much firmer foundation than any kind of a mere hunch. What was it?"
     "Deduction, based upon an unproved, but logical, cosmogonic theoryùbut you probably
know more about that stuff than I do."
     "Highly improbable. I read just a smattering now and then of the doings of the
astronomers and astrophysicists. I didn't know that that was one of your specialties, either."
     "It isn't, but I had to do a little cramming. Well have to go back quite a while to make it
clear. You know, of course, that a long time ago, before even inter-planetary ships were
developed, the belief was general that not more than about four planetary solar systems could be
in existence at any one time in the whole galaxy?"
     "Yes, in my youth I was exposed to Wellington's Theory. The theory itself is still good,
isn't it?"
     "Eminently soùevery other theory was wrecked by the hard facts of angular momentum
and filament energies. But you know already what I'm going to say."
     "No, just let's say that a bit of light is beginning to dawn. Go ahead."
     "QX. Well, when it was discovered that there were millions of times as many planets in
the galaxy as could be accounted for by a Wellington Incident occurring once in two times ten to
the tenth years or so, some way had to be figured out to increase, millionfold, the number of such
occurrences. Manifestly, the random motion of the stars within the galaxy could not account for
it. Neither could the vibration or oscillation of the globular clusters through the galaxy. The
meeting of two galaxiesùthe passage of them completely through each other, edgewiseùwould
account for it very nicely. It would also account for the fact that the solar systems on one side of
the galaxy tend to be somewhat older than the ones on the opposite side. Question, find the
galaxy. It was van der Schleiss, I believe, who found it. Lundmark's Nebula. It is edge on to us,
with a receding velocity of thirty one hundred and sixteen kilometers per secondùthe exact
velocity which, corrected for gravitational decrement, will put Lundmark's Nebula right here at
the time when, according to our best geophysicists and geochemists, old Earth was being born. If
that theory was correct, Lundmark's Nebula should also be full of planets. Four expeditions went
out to check the theory, and none of them came back. We know why, nowùBoskone got them.
We got back, because of you, and only you."
     "Holy Klono!" the old man breathed, paying no attention to the tribute. "It checksùhow
it checks!!"To nineteen decimals."
     "But still it doesn't explain why you set your traps on that line."
     "Sure it does. How many galaxies are there in the Universe, do you suppose, that are full
of planets?"
     "Why, all of them, I supposeùor no, not so many perhaps . . . I don't knowùI don't
remember having read anything on that question."
     "No, and you probably won't. Only loose-screwed space detectives, like me, and crackpot
science-fiction writers, like Wacky Williamson, have noodles vacuous enough to harbor such
thin ideas. But, according to our admittedly highly tenuous reasoning, there are only two such
galaxiesùLund-mark's nebula and ours."
     "Huh? Why?" demanded Haynes.
     "Because galactic coalescences don't occur much, if any, oftener than Wellingtons within
a galaxy do," Kinnison asserted. "True, they are closer together in space, relative to their actual
linear dimensions, than are stars; but on the other hand their relative motions are slowerùthat is,
a star will traverse the average interstellar distance much quicker than a galaxy will the inter-
galactic oneùso that the whole thing evens up. As nearly as Wacky and I could figure it, two
galaxies will collide deeply enough to produce a significant number of planetary solar systems
on an average of once in just about one point eight times ten to the tenth years. Pick up your
slide rule and check me on it, if you like."
     "I'll take your word for it," the old Lensman murmured, absently. "But any galaxy
probably has at least a couple of solar systems all the timeùbut I see your point. The probability
is overwhelmingly great that Boskone would be in a galaxy having hundreds of millions of
planets rather than in one having only a dozen or less inhabitable worlds. But at that, they could
all have lots of planets. Suppose that our wilder thinkers are right, that galaxies are grouped into
Universes, which are spaced, roughly, about the same as the galaxies are. Two of them could
collide, couldn't they?"
     "They could, but you're getting 'way out of my range now. At this point the detective
withdraws, leaving a clear field for you and the science-fiction imaginationeer."
     "Well, finish the thoughtùthat I'm wackier even than he is!" Both men laughed, and the
Port Admiral went on: "It's a fascinating speculation . . . it does no harm to let the fancy roam at
times . . . but at that, there are things of much greater importance. You think, then, that the
thionite ring enters into this matrix?"
     "Bound to. Everything ties in. Most of the intelligent races of this galaxy are oxygen-
breathers, with warm, red blood: the only kind of physiques which thionite affects. The more of
us who get the thionite habit the better for Boskone. It explains why we have never got to the
first check-station in getting any of the real higher-ups in the thionite game; instead of being an
ordinary criminal ring they've got all the brains and all the resources of Boskonia back of them.
But if they're that big . . . and as good as we know they are . . . I wonder why . . ." Kinnison's
voice trailed off into silence; his brain raced.
     "I want to ask you a question that's none of my business," the young Lensman went on
almost immediately, In a voice strangely altered. "Just how long ago was it that you started
losing fifth-year men just before graduation? I mean, that boys sent to Arisia to be measured for
their Lenses supposedly never got there? Or at least, they never came back and no Lenses were
ever received for them?"
     "About ten years. Twelve, I think, to be ex . . . ," Haynes broke off in the middle of the
word and his eyes bored into those of the younger man. "What makes you think there were any
such?"
     "Deduction again, hut this time I know I'm right. At least one every year. Usually two or
three."
     "Right, but there have always been space accidents . . . or they were caught by the pirates
. . . you think, then, that. . . ?"
     "I don't think. I know!" Kinnison declared "They got to Arisia, and they died there. All I
can say is, thank God for the Arisians. We can still trust our Lenses; they are seeing to that."
     "But why didn't they tell us?" Haynes asked, perplexed.
     "They wouldn'tùthat isn't their way," Kinnison stated, flatly and with conviction. "They
have given us an instrumentality, the Lens, by virtue of which we should be able to do the job,
and they are seeing to it that that instrumentality remains untarnished. We've got to learn how to
handle it, though, ourselves. We've got to fight our own battles and bury our own dead. Now that
we've smeared up the enemy's military organization in this galaxy by wiping out Helmuth and
his headquarters, the drug syndicate seems to be my best chance of getting a line on the real
Boskone. While you are mopping up and keeping them from establishing another war base here,
I think I'd better be getting at it, don't you?"
     "Probably soùyou know your own oysters best. Mind if I ask where you're going to start
in?" Haynes looked at Kinnison quizzically as he spoke. "Have you deduced that, too?"
     The Gray Lensman returned the look in kind. "No. Deduction couldn't take me quite that
far," he replied in the same tone. "You're going to tell me that, when you get around to it"
     "Me? Where do I come in?" the Port Admiral feigned surprise.
     "As follows. Helmuth probably had nothing to do with the dope running, so its
organization must still be intact. If so, they would take over as much of the other branch as they
could get hold of, and hit us harder than ever. I haven't heard of any unusual activity around
here, so it must be somewhere else. Wherever it is, you would know about it, since you are a
member of the Galactic Council; and Councillor Ellington, in charge of Narcotics, would hardly
take any very important step without conferring with you. How near right am I?"
     "On the center of the beam, all the wayùyour deducer is blasting at maximum," Haynes
said, in admiration. "Radelix is the worstùthey're hitting it mighty hard. We sent a full unit over
there last week. Shall we recall them, or do you want to work independently?"
     "Let them go on; I'll be of more use working on my own, I think. I did the boys over
there a favor a while backùthey would cooperate anyway, of course, but it's a little nicer to have
them sort of owe it to me. We'll all be able to play together very nicely, if the opportunity
arises."
     "I'm mighty glad you're taking this on. The Radeligians are stuck, and we had no real
reason for thinking that our men could do any better. With this new angle of approach, however,
and with you working behind the scenes, the picture looks entirely different"
     "I'm afraid that's unjustifiably high . . ."
     "Not a bit of it, lad. Just a minuteùTil break out a couple of breakers of fayalin . . .
Luck!"
     "Thanks, chief!"
     "Down the hatch!" and again the Gray Lensman was gone. To the spaceport, into his
speedster, and awayùhurtling through the void at the maximum blast of the fastest space-flyer
then boasted by the Galactic Patrol.
     During the long trip Kinnison exercised, thought, and studied spool after spool of
tapeùthe Radeligian language. Thoughts of the red-headed nurse obtruded themselves strongly
at times, but he put them aside resolutely. He was, he assured himself, off of women foreverùall
women. He cultivated his new beard; trimming it, with the aid of a triple mirror and four
stereoscopic photographs, into something which, although neat and spruce enough, was too full
and bushy by half to be a Van Dyke. Also, he moved his Lens-
     bracelet up his arm and rayed the white skin thus exposed until his whole wrist was the
same even shade of tan.
     He did not drive his speedster to Radelix, for that racy little fabrication would have been
recognized anywhere for what she was; and private citizens simply did not drive ships of that
type. Therefore, with every possible precaution of secrecy, he landed her in a Patrol base four
solar systems away. In that base Kimball Kinnison disappeared; but the tail, shock-haired,
bushy-bearded Chester Q. Fordyceùcosmopolite, man of leisure, and dilettante in scienceùwho
took the next space-liner for Radelix was not precisely the same individual who had come to that
planet a few days before with that name and those unmistakable characteristics.
     Mr. Chester Q. Fordyce, then, and not Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison, disembarked at
Ardith, the world-capital of Radelix. He took up his abode at the Hotel Ardith-Splendide and
proceeded, with neither too much nor too little fanfare, to be his cosmopolitan self in those
circles of society in which, wherever he might find himself, he was wont to move.
     As a matter of course he entertained, and was entertained by, the Tellurian Ambassador.
Equally as a matter of course he attended divers and sundry functions, at which he made the
acquaintance of hundreds of persons, many of them personages. That one of these should have
been Lieutenant-Admiral Gerrond, Lensman in charge of the Patrol's Radeligian base, was
inevitable.
     It was, then, a purely routine and logical development that at a reception one evening
Lensman Gerrond stopped to chat for a moment with Mr. Fordyce; and it was purely accidental
that the nearest bystander was a few yards distant Hence, Mr. Fordyce's conduct was strange
enough.
     "Gerrond!" he said without moving his lips and in a tone almost inaudible, the while he
was proffering an Alsakanite cigarette. "Don't look at me particularly right now, and don't show
surprise. Study me for the next few minutes, then put your Lens on me and tell me whether you
have ever seen me before or not." Then, glancing at the watch upon his left wristùa timepiece
just about as large and as ornate as a wrist-watch could be and still remain in impeccable tasteù
he murmured something conventional and strolled away.
     Ten minutes passed and he felt Gerrond's thought. A peculiar sensation, this, being on the
receiving end of a single beam, instead of using his own Lens.
     "As far as I can tell, I have never seen you before. You are certainly not one of our
agents, and if you are one of Haynes' whom I have ever worked with you have done a wonderful
job of disguising. I must have met you somewhere, sometime, else there would be no point to
your question; but beyond the evidentùand admittedùfact that you are a white Tellurian, I can't
seem to place you."
     "Does this help?" This question was shot through Kinnison's own Lens.
     "Since I have known so few Tellurian Lensmen it tells me that you must be Kinnison, but
I do not recognize you at all readily. You seem changedùolderùbesides, who ever heard of an
Unattached Lensman doing the work of an ordinary agent?"
     "I am both older and changedùpartly natural and partly artificial. As for the work, it's a
job that no ordinary agent can handleùit takes a lot of special equipment. . ."
     "You've got that, indubitably! I get goose-flesh yet every time I think of that trial."
     "You think I'm proof against recognition, then, as long as I don't use my Lens?" Kinnison
stuck to the issue.
     "Absolutely so. . . You're here, then, on thionite?" No other is sue, Gerrond knew, could
be grave enough to account for this man's presence. "But your wrist? I studied it. You can't have
worn your Lens there for monthsùthose Tellurian bracelets leave white streaks an inch wide."
     "I tanned it with a pencil-beam. Nice job, eh? But what I want to ask you about is a little
cooperationùas you supposed, I'm here to work on this drug ring."
     "Surelyùanything we can do. But Narcotics is handling that, not usùbut you know that,
as well as I do . . ." the officer broke off, puzzled.
     "I know. That's why I want youùthat and because you handle the secret service. Frankly,
I'm scared to death of leaks. For that reason I'm not saying anything to anyone except Lensmen,
and I'm having no dealings with anyone connected with Narcotics. I have as unimpeachable an
identity as Haynes could furnish. . .."
     "There's no question as to its adequacy, then," the Radeligian interposed.
     "I'd like to have you pass the word around among your boys and girls that you know who
I am and that I'm safe to play with. That way, if Boskone's agents spot me, it will be for an agent
of Haynes's, and not for what I really am. That's the first thing. Candor
     "Easily and gladly. Consider it done. Second?"
     "To have a boat-load of good, tough marines on hand if I should call you. There are some
Valerians coming over later but I may need help in the meantime. I may want to start a
fightùquite possibly even a riot."
     "They'll be ready, and they'll be big, tough, and hard. Anything else?"
     "Not just now, except for one question. You know Countess Avondrin, the woman I was
dancing with a while ago. Got any dope on her?"
     "Certainly notùwhat do you mean?"
     "Huh? Don't you know even that she's a Boskonian agent of some kind?"
     "Man, you're crazy! She isn't an agent, she can't be. Why, she's the daughter of a
Planetary Councillor, the wife of one of our most loyal officers."
     "She would beùthat's the type they like to get hold of."
     "Prove it!" the Admiral snapped. "Prove it or retract it!" He almost lost his poise, almost
looked toward the distant corner in which the bewhiskered gentleman was sitting so idly.
     "QX. If she isn't an agent, why is she wearing a thought-screen? You haven't tested her,
of course."
     Of course not. The amenities, as has been said, demanded that certain reserves of privacy
remain inviolate. The Tellurian went on:
     "You didn't, but I did. On this job I can recognize nothing of good taste, of courtesy, of
chivalry, or even of ordinary common decency. I suspect everyone who does not wear a Lens."
     "A thought-screen!" exclaimed Gerrond. "How could she, without armor?"
     "It's a late modelùbrand new. Just as good and just as powerful as the one I myself am
wearing," Kinnison explained. "The mere fact that she's wearing it gives me a lot of highly
useful information."
     "What do you want me to do about her?" the Admiral asked. He was mentally a-squirm,
but he was a Lensman.
     "Nothing whateverùexcept possibly, for our own information, to find out how many of
her friends have become thionite-sniffers lately. If you do anything you may warn them,
although I know nothing definite about which to caution you. I'll handle her. Don't worry too
much, though; I don't think she's anybody we really want. Afraid she's small fryùno such luck
as that I'd get hold of a big one so soon."
     "I hope she s small fry," Gerrond's thought was a grimace of distaste. "I hate Boskonia as
much as anybody does, but I don't relish the idea oú having to put that girl into the Chamber."
     "If my picture is half right she can't amount to much," Kinnison replied. "A good lead is
the best I can expect . . . Ill see what I can do."
     For days, then, the searching Lensman pried into minds: so insidiously that he left no
trace of his invasions. He examined men and women, of high and low estate. Waitresses and
ambassadors, flunkeys and bankers, ermined prelates and truck-drivers. He went from city to
city. Always, but with only a fraction of his brain, he played the part of Chester Q. Fordyce;
ninety-nine percent of his stupendous mind was probing, searching, and analyzing. Into what
charnel pits of filth and corruption he delved, into what fastnesses of truth and loyalty and high
courage and ideals, must be left entirely to the imagination; for the Lensman never has spoken
and never will speak of these things.
     He went back to Ardith and, late at night, approached the dwelling of Count Avondrin. A
servant arose and admitted the visitor, not knowing then or ever that he did so. The bedroom
door was locked from the inside, but what of that? What resistance can any mechanism offer to a
master craftsman, plentifully supplied with tools, who can perceive every component part,
however deeply buried?
     The door opened. The Countess was a light sleeper, but before she could utter a single
scream one powerful hand clamped her mouth, another snapped the switch of her supposedly
carefully concealed thought-screen generator. What followed was done very quickly.
     Mr. Fordyce strolled back to his hotel and Lensman Kinnison directed a thought at
Lensman Gerrond.
     "Better fake up some kind of an excuse for having a couple of guards or policemen in
front of Count Avondrin's town house at eight twenty five this morning. The Countess is going
to have a brainstorm."
     "What have . . . er, what will she do?"
     "Nothing much. Scream a bit, rush out-of-doors half dressed, and fight anything and
everybody that touches her. Warn the officers that she'll kick, scratch, and bite. There will be
plenty of signs of a prowler having been in her room, but if they can find him they're goodùvery
good. She'll have all the signs and symptoms, even to the puncture, of having
been given a shot in the arm of something the doctors won't be able to find or to identify. But
there will be no question raised of insanity or of any other permanent damageùshe'll be right as
rain in a couple of months."
     "Oh, that mind-ray machine of yours again, eh? And that's all you're going to do to her?"
     "That's all. I can let her off easy and still be just, I think. She's helped me a lot. She'll be a
good girl from now on, too; I've thrown a scare into her that will last her the rest of her life."
     "Fine business, Gray Lensman! What else?"
     "I'd like to have you at the Tellurian Ambassador's Ball day after tomorrow, if it's
convenient."
     "I've been planning on it, since it's on the 'must' list. Shall I bring anything or anyone
special?"
     "No. I just want you on hand to give me any information you can on a person who will
probably be there to investigate what happened to the Countess."
     "Ill be there," and he was.
     It was a gay and colorful throng, but neither of the two Lensmen was in any mood for
gayety. They acted, of course. They neither sought nor avoided each other; but, somehow, they
were never alone together.
     "Man or woman?" asked Gerrond.
     "I don't know. All I've got is the recognition."
     The Radeligian did not ask what that signal was to be. Not that he was not curious; but if
the Gray Lensman wanted him to know it he would tell himùif not, he wouldn't tell him even if
he asked.
     Suddenly the Radeligian's attention was wrenched toward the doorway, to see the most
marvelously, the most flawlessly beautiful woman he had ever seen. But not long did he
contemplate that beauty; for the Tellurian Lensman's thoughts were fairly seething, despite his
iron control.
     "Do you mean . . . you can't mean . . ." Gerrond faltered.
     "She's the one!" Kinnison rasped. "She looks like an angel, but take it from me, she isn't.
She's one of the slimiest snakes that ever crawledùshe's so low she could put on a tall silk hat
and walk under a duck. I know she's beautiful. She's a riot, a seven-section callout, a thionite
dream. So what? She is also Dessa Desplaines, formerly of Aldebaran IL Does that mean
anything to you?"
     "Not a thing, Kinnison."
     "She's in it, clear to her neck. I had a chance to wring her neck once, too, damn it all, and
didn't. She's got a carballoy crust, coming here now, with all our Narcotics on the job . . . wonder
if they think they've got Enforcement so badly whipped that they can get away with stuff as
rough as this . . . sure you don't know her, or know of her?"
     "I never saw her before, or heard of her."
     "Perhaps she isn't known, out this way. Or maybe they think they're ready for a show-
down . . . or don't care. But her being here ties me up in hard knotsùshe'll recognize me, for all
the tea in China. You know the Narcotics' Lensmen, don't you?"
     "Certainly."
     "Call one of them, right now. Tell him that Dessa Desplaines, the zwilnik houri, is right
here on the floor . . . What? He doesn't know her, either? And none of our boys are Lensmen!
Make it a three-way. Lensman Winstead? Kinnison of Sol in, Unattached. Sure that none of you
recognize this picture?" and he transmitted a perfect image of the ravishing creature then moving
regally across the floor. "Nobody does? Maybe that's why she's here, thenùthey thought she
could get away with it She's your meatùcome and get her."
     "You'll appear against her, of course?"
     "If necessaryùbut it won't be. As soon as she sees the game's up, all hell will be out for
noon."
     As soon as the connection had been broken, Kinnison realized that the thing could not be
done that way; that he could not stay out of it. No man alive save himself could prevent her from
flashing a warningùbadly as he hated to, he had to do it Gerrond glanced at him curiously: he
had received a few of those racing thoughts.
     "Tune in on this." Kinnison grinned wryly. "If the last meeting I had with her is any
criterion, it ought to be good. S'pose anybody around here understands Aldebaranian?"
     "Never heard it mentioned if they do."
     The Tellurian walked blithely up to the radiant visitor, held out his hand in Earthlyùand
Aldebaranianùgreeting, and spoke:
     "Madame Desplaines would not remember Chester Q. Fordyce, of course. It is of the
piteousness that I should be 10 accursedly of the ordinariness; for to see Madame but the one
time, as I did at the New Year's Ball in High Altamont, is to remember her forever."
     "Such a flatterer!" the woman laughed. "I trust that you will forgive me, Mr. Fordyce, but
one meets so many interesting . . ." her eyes widened in surprise, an expression which changed
rapidly to one of flaming hatred, not umnixed with fear.
     "So you do know me, you bedroom-eyed Aldebaranian hell-cat," he remarked, evenly. "I
thought you would."
     "Yes, you sweet, uncontaminated sissy, you overgrown superboy-scout, I do!" she hissed,
malevolently, and made a quick motion toward her corsage. These two, as has been intimated,
were friends of old.
     Quick though she was, the man was quicker. His left hand darted out to seize her left
wrist; his right, flashing around her body, grasped her right and held it rigidly in the small of her
back. Thus they walked away.
     "Stop!" she flared. "You're making a spectacle of me!"
     "Now isn't that just too bad?" His lips smiled, for the benefit of the observers, but his
eyes held no glint of mirth. "These folks will think that this is the way all Aldebaranian friends
walk together. If you think for a second you've got any chance at all of touching that
sounderùthink again. Stop wiggling! Even if you can shimmy enough to work it I'll smash your
brain to a pulp before it contacts once!"
     Outside, in the grounds: "Oh, Lensman, let's sit down and talk this over!" and the girl
brought into play everything she had. It was a distressing scene, but it left the Lensman cold.
     "Save your breath," he advised her finally, wearily. 'To me you're just another zwilnik, no
more and no less. A female louse is still a louse; and calling a zwilnik a louse is insulting the
whole louse family."
     He said that; and, saying it, knew it to be the exact and crystal truth: but not even that
knowledge could mitigate in any iota the recoiling of his every fiber from the deed which he was
about to do. He could not even pray, with immortal Merritt's Dwayanu:
     "Lukaùturn your wheel so I need not slay this woman/"
     It had to be. Why in all the nine hells of Valeria did he have to be a Lensman? Why did
he have to be the one to do it? But it had to be done, and soon; they'd be here shortly.
     "There's just one thing you can do to make me believe you're even partially innocent," he
ground out, "that you have even one decent thought or one decent instinct anywhere in you."
     "What is that, Lensman? Ill do it, whatever it is!"
     "Release your thought-screen and send out a call to the Big Shot."
     The girl stiffened. This big cop wasn't so dumbùhe really knew something. He must die,
and at once. How could she get word to . . .?
     Simultaneously Kinnison perceived that for which he had been waiting; the Narcotics
men were coming.
     He tore open the woman's gown, flipped the switch of her thought-screen, and invaded
her mind. But, fast as he was, he was lateùalmost too late altogether. He could get neither
direction line nor location; but only and faintly a picture of a space-dock saloon, of a repulsively
obese man in a luxuriously-furnished back room. Then her mind went completely blank and her
body slumped down, bonelessly.
     Thus Narcotics found them; the woman inert and flaccid upon the bench, the man staring
down at her in black abstraction.

     CHAPTER 6
     ROUGH-HOUSE

     "Suicide? or did you . . ." Gerrond paused, delicately. Winstead, the Lensman of
Narcotics, said nothing, but looked on intently.
     "Neither," Kinnison replied, still studying. "I would have had to, but she beat me to it."
     "What d'you mean, 'neither'? She's dead, isn't she? How did it happen?"
     "Not yet, and unless I'm more cockeyed even than usual, she won't be. She isn't the type
to rub herself out. Ever, under any conditions. As to 'how', that was easy. A hollow false tooth.
Simple, but new . . . and clever. But why? WHY?" Kinnison was thinking to himself more than
addressing his companions. "If they had killed her, yes. As it is, it doesn't make any kind of
senseùany of it."
     "But the girl's dying!" protested Gerrond. "What're you going to do?" . .
     "I wish to Klono I knew." The Tellurian was puzzled, groping. "No hurry doing anything
about herùwhat was done to her nobody can undo . . . BUT WHY? . . . unless I can fit these
pieces together into some kind of a pattern I'll never know what it's all about . . . none of it
makes sense . . ." He shook himself and went on: "One thing is plain. She won't die. If they had
intended to kill her, she would've died right then. They figure she's worth saving; in which I
agree with them. At the same time, they certainly aren't planning on letting me tap her
knowledge, and they may be figuring on taking her away from us. Therefore, as long^as she
stays aliveùor even not dead, the way she is now ùguard her so heavily that an army can't get
her. If she should happen to die, don't leave her body unguarded for a second until she's been
autopsied and you know she'll stay dead. The minute she recovers, day or night, call me. Might
as well take her to the hospital now, I guess."
     The call came soon that the patient had indeed recovered.
     "She's talking, but I haven't answered her," Gerrond reported. "There's-something strange
here, Kinnison."
     "There would beùbound to be. Hold everything until I get there," and he hurried to the
hospital.
     "Good morning, Dessa," he greeted her in Aldebaranian. "You are feeling better, I hope?"
     Her reaction was surprising. "You really know me?" she almost shrieked, and flung
herself into the Lensman's arms. Not deliberately; not with her wonted, highly effective
technique of bringing into play the equipment with which she was overpoweringly armed. No;
this was the uttery innocent, the wholly unselfconscious abandon of a very badly frightened
young girl. "What happened?" she sobbed, frantically, "Where am I? Why are all these strangers
here?"
     Her wide, child-like, tear-filled eyes sought his; and as he probed them, deeper and
deeper into the brain behind them, his face grew set and hard. Mentally, she now was a young
and innocent girl! Nowhere in her mind, not even in the deepest recesses of her subconscious,
was there the slightest inkling that she had even existed since her fifteenth year. It was
staggering; it was unheard of; but it was indubitably a fact. For her, now, the intervening time
had lapsed instantaneouslyùhad disappeared so utterly as never to have been!
     "You have been very ill, Dessa," he told her gravely, "and you are no longer a child." He
led her into another room and up to a triple mirror. "See for yourself."
     "But that isn't II" she protested. "It can't be! Why, she's beautiful!"
     "You're all of that," the Lensman agreed casually. "You've had a bad shock. Your
memory will return shortly, I think. Now you must go back to bed."
     She did so, but not to sleep. Instead, she went into a trance; and so, almost, did Kinnison.
For over an hour he 'ay intensely a-sprawl in an easy chair, the while he engraved, day by day, a
memory of missing years into that bare storehouse of knowledge. And finally the task was done.
     "Sleep, Dessa," he told her then. "Sleep. Waken in eight hours; whole."
     "Lensman, you're a maw/" Gerrond realized vaguely what had been done. "You didn't
give her the truth, of course?"
     "Far from it. Only that she was married and is a widow. The rest of it is highly
fictitiousùjust enough like the real thing so she can square herself with herself if she meets old
acquaintances. Plenty of lapses, of course, but they're covered by shock."
     "But the husband?" queried the inquisitive Radeligian.
     "That's her business," Kinnison countered, callously. "Shell tell you sometime, maybe, if
she ever feels like it. One thing I did do, thoughùthey'll never use her again. The next man that
tries to hypnotize her will be lucky if he gets away alive."
     The advent of Dessa Desplaines, however, and his curious adventure with her, had
altered markedly the Lensman's situation. No one else in the throng had worn a screen, but there
might have been agents . . . anyway, the observed facts would enable the higher-ups to link
Fordyce up with what had happened . . . they would know, of course, that the real Fordyce hadn't
done it. . . he could be Fordyce no longer . ..
     Wherefore the real Chester Q. Fordyce took over and a stranger appeared. A Posenian,
supposedly, since against the air of Radelix he wore that planet's unmistakable armor. No other
race of even approximately human shape could "see" through a helmet of solid, opaque metal.
     And in this guise Kinnison continued his investigations. That place and that man must be
on this planet somewhere; the sending outfit worn by the Desplaines woman could not possibly
reach any other. He h-'d a good picture of the ro~m and a fair pictureùseveral pictures, in
factùof the man. The room was an actuality; all he had to do was to fill in the details which
definitely, by unmistakable internal evidence, belonged there. The man was different. How much
of the original picture was real, and how much of it was bias?
     She was, he knew, physically fastidious in the extreme. He knew that no possible
hypnotism could nullify completely the basic, the fundamental characteristics of the
subconscious. The intrinsic ego could not be changed. Was the man really such a monster, or
was the picture in the girl's mind partially or largely the product of her physical revulsion?
     For hours he sat at a recording machine, covering yard after yard of tape with every
possible picture of the man he wanted. Pictures ranging from a man almost of normal build up to
a thing embodying every repulsive detail of the woman's mental image. The two extremes, he
concluded, were highly improbable. Somewhere in between . . . the man was fat, he guessed. Fat,
and had a mean pair of eyes. And, no matter how Kinnison had changed the man's physical
shape he had found it impossible to eradicate a personality that was definitely bad.
     "The guy's a louse," Kinnison decided, finally. "Needs killing. Glad of thatùif I have to
keep on fighting women much longer I'll go completely nuts. Got enough dope to identify the
ape now, I think."
     And again the Tellurian Lensman set out to comb the planet, city by city. Since he was
not now dealing with Lens-men, every move he made had to be carefully planned and as
carefully concealed. It was heartbreaking; but at long last he found a bartender who knew his
quarry. He was fat, Kinnison discovered, and he was a bad egg. From that point on, progress was
rapid. He went to the indicated city, which was, ironically enough, the very Ardith from which
he had set out; and, from a bit of information here and a bit there, he tracked down his man.
     Now what to do? The technique he had used so successfully upon Boysia II and in other
bases could not succeed here; there were thousands of people instead of dozens, and someone
would certainly catch him at it. Nor could he work at a distance. He ½╗s no Arisian, he had to be
right beside his job. He would have to turn dock-walloper.
     Therefore a dock-walloper he became. Not like one, but actually one. He labored
prodigiously, his fine hands and his entire being becoming coarse and hardened. He ate
prodigiously, and drank likewise. But, wherever he drank, his liquor was poured from the
bartender's own bottle or from one of similarly innocuous contents; for then as now bartenders
did not themselves imbibe the corrosively potent distillates in which they dealt. Nevertheless,
Kinnison became intoxicatedù boisterously, flagrantly, and pugnaciously so, as did his fellows.
     He lived scrupulously within his dock-walloper's wages. Eight credits per week went to
the company, in advance, for room and board; the rest he spent over the fat man's bar or gambled
away at the fat man's crooked gamesùfor Bominger, although engaged in vaster commerce far,
nevertheless allowed no scruple to interfere with his esurient rapacity. Money was money,
whatever its amount or source or however despicable its means of acquirement
     The Lensman knew that the games were crooked, certainly. He could see, however they
were concealed, the crooked mechanisms of the wheels. He could see the crooked workings of
the dealers' minds as they manipulated their crooked decks. He could read as plainly as his own
the cards his crooked opponents held. But to win or to protest would have set him apart, hence he
was always destitute before pay-day. Then, like his fellows, he spent his spare time loafing in the
same saloon, vaguely hoping for a free drink or for a stake at cards, until one of the bouncers
threw him out.
     But in his every waking hour, working, gambling, or loafing, he studied Bominger and
Bominger's various enterprises. The Lensman could not pierce the fat man's thought-screen, and
he could never catch him without it. However, he could and did learn much. He read volume
after volume of locked account books, page by page. He read secret documents, hidden in the
deepest recesses of massive vaults. He listened in on conference after conference; for a thought-
screen of course does not interfere with either sight or sound. The Big Shot did not
ownùlegallyùthe saloon, nor the ornate, almost palatial back room which was his office, or
sound. The Big Shot did not ownùlegallyùthe saloon, nor the narrow, cell-like rooms in which
addicts of twice a score of different noxious drugs gave themselves over libidinously to their
addictions. Nevertheless, they were his; and they were only a part of that which was his.
     Kinnison detected, traced, and identified agent after agent. With his sense of perception
he followed passages, leading to other scenes, utterly indescribable here. One comparatively
short gallery, however, terminated in a different setting altogether; for there, as here and perhaps
everywhere, ostentation and squalor lie almost back to back. Nalizok's CafΘ, the high-life hot-
spot of Radelix! Downstairs innocuous enough; nothing roughùthat is, too roughùwas ever
pulled there. Most of the robbery there was open and aboveboard, plainly written upon the
checks. But there were upstairs rooms, and cellar rooms, and back rooms. And there were
addicts, differing only from those others in wearing finer raiment and being of a self-styled
higher stratum. Basically they were the same.
     Men, women, girls even were there, in the rigid muscle-lock of thionite. Teeth hard-set,
every muscle tense and straining, eyes jammed closed, fists clenched, faces white as though
carved from marble, immobile in the frenzied emotion which characterizes the ultimately
passionate fulfilment of every suppressed desire; in the release of their every inhibition crowding
perilously close to the dividing line beyond which lay death from sheer ecstasy. That is the
technique of the thionite-snifferùto take every microgram that he can stand, to come to, shaken
and too weak even to walk; to swear that he will never so degrade himself again; to come back
after more as soon as he has recovered strength to do so; and finally, with an irresistible craving
for stronger and ever stronger thrills, to take a larger dose than his rapidly-weakening body can
endure and so to cross the fatal line.
     There also were the idiotically smiling faces of the hadive smokers, the twitching
members of those who preferred the Centralian nitrolabe-needle, the helplessly stupefied eaters
of bentlamùbut why go on? Suffice it to say that in that one city block could be found every
vice and every drug enjoyed' by Radeligians and the usual run of visitors; and if perchance you
were an unusual visitor, desiring something unusual, Bominger could get it for youùat a price.
     "But Kinnison studied, perceived, and analyzed. Also, he reported, via Lens, daily and
copiously, to Narcotics, under Lensman's Seal.
     "But Kinnison!" Winstead protested one day. "How much longer are you going to make
us wait?"
     "Until I get what I came after or until they get onto me," Kinnison replied, flatly. For
weeks his Lens had been hidden in the side of his shoe, in a flat sheath of highly charged metal,
proof against any except the most minutely searching spy-ray inspection; but this new location
did not in any way interfere with its functioning.
     "Any danger of that?" the Narcotics head asked, anxiously.
     "Plentyùand getting worse every day. More actors in the drama. Some day I'll make a
slipùI can't keep this up forever."
     "Turn us loose, then," Winstead urged. "We've got enough now to blow this ring out of
existence, all over the planet."
     "Not yet. You're making good progress, aren't you?"
     "Yes, but considering . . ."
     "Don't consider it yet Your present progress is normal for your increased force. Any
more would touch off an alarm. You could take this planet's drug personnel, yes, but that isn't
what I'm after. I want big game, not small fry. So sit tight until I give you the go ahead. QX?"
     "Got to be QX if you say so, Kinnison. Be careful!"
     "I am. Won't be long now, Fm sure. Bound to break very shortly, one way or the other. If
possible, I'll give you and Gerrond warning."
     Kinnison had everything lined up except the one thing he had come afterùthe real boss
of the-zwilniks. He knew where the stuff came in, and when, and how. He knew who received it,
and the principal distributors of it. He knew almost all of the secret agents of the ring, and not a
few even of the small-fry peddlers. He. knew where the remittances went, and how much, and
what for. But every lead had stopped at Bominger. Apparently the fat man was the absolute head
of the drug syndicate; and that appearance didn't make senseùit had to be false. Bominger and
the other planetary lieutenantsùthemselves only small fry if the Lensman's ideas were only half
rightùmust get orders from, and send reports and, in all probability, payments to some
Boskonian authority; of that Kinnison felt certain, but he had not been able to get even the
slightest trace of that higher up.
     That the communication would be established upon a thought-beam the Tellurian was
equally certain. The Boskonian would not trust any ordinary, tappable communicator beam, and
he certainly would not be such a fool as to - send any written or taped or otherwise permanently
recorded message, however coded. No, that message, when it came, would come as thought, and
to receive it the fat man would have to release his screen. Then, and not until then, could
Kinnison act. Action at that time might not prove simpleù judging from the precautions
Bominger was taking already, he would not release his screen without taking plenty more ùbut
until then the Lensman could do nothing.
     That screen had not yet been released, Kinnison could swear to that True, he had had to
sleep at times, but he had slept on a very hair-trigger, with his subconscious and his Lens set to
guard that screen and to give the alarm at the first sign of weakening.
     As the Lensman had foretold, the break came soon. Not in the middle of the night, as he
had half-thought that it would come; nor yet in the quiet of the daylight hours. Instead, it came
well before midnight, while revelry was at its height. It did not come suddenly, but was heralded
by a long period of gradually increasing tension, of a mental stress very apparent to the mind of
the watcher.
     Agents of the drug baron came in, singly and in groups, to an altogether unprecedented
number. Some of them were their usual viciously self-contained selves, others were slightly but
definitely ill at ease. Kinnison, seated alone at a small table, playing a game of Radeligian
solitaire, divided his attention between the big room as a whole and the office of Bominger; in
neither of which was anything definite happening.
     Then a wave of excitement swept over the agents as five men wearing thought-screens
entered the room and, sitting down at a reserved table, called for cards and drinks; and Kinnison
thought it time to send his warning.
     "Gerrond! Winstead! Three-way! It's going to break soon, now, I thinkùtonight. Agents
all over the placeùfive men with thought-screens here on the floor. Nervous tension high. Lots
more agents outside, for blocks. General precaution, I think, not specific. Not suspicious of me,
at least not exactly. Afraid of spies with a sense of perceptionùRigellians or Posenians or such.
Just killed an Ordovik on general principles, over on the next block. Get your gangs ready, but
don't come too closeùjust close enough so you can be here in thirty seconds after I call you."
     "What do you mean 'not exactly suspicious'? What have you done?"
     "Nothing I know ofùany one of a million possible small slips I may have made. Nothing
serious, though, or they wouldn't have let me hang around this long."
     "You're in danger. No armor, no DeLamater, no anything. Better come out of it while you
can."
     "And miss what I've spent all this time building up? Not a chance! Ill be able to take care
of myself, I think . . . Here comes one of the boys in a screen, to talk to me. Ill leave my Lens
open, so you can sort of look on."
     Just then Bominger's screen went down and Kinnison invaded his mind; taking complete
possession of it Under his domination the fat man reported to the^ Boskonian, reported truly and
fully. In turn he received orders and instructions. Had any inquisitive stranger been around, or
anyone on the planet using any kind of a mind-ray machine since that quadruply-accursed
Lensman had held that trial? (Oh, that was what had touched them off! Kinnison was glad to
know it.) No, nothing unusual at all. . .
     And just at that critical moment, when the Lensman's mind was so busy with its task, the
stranger came up to his table and stared down at him dubiously, questioningly.
     "Well, what's on your mind?" Kinnison growled. He could not spare much of his mind
just then, but it did not take much of it to play his part as a dock-walloper. "You another of them
slime-lizard house-numbers, snooping around to see if I'm trying to run a blazer? By Klono and
all his cubs, if I hadn't lost so much money here already I'd tear up this deck and go over to
Croleo's and never come near this crummy joint againùhis rot-gut can't be any worse than yours
is."
     "Don't burn out a jet, pal." The agent, apparently reassured, adopted a conciliatory tone.
     "Who in hell ever said you was a pal of mine, you Radelig-gig-gigian pimp?" The
supposedly three-quarters-drunken, certainly three-quarters-naked Lensman got up, wobbled a
little, and sat down again, heavily. "Don't 'pal' me, apeùI'm partic-hic-hicular about who I pal
with."
     "That's all right, big fellow; no offense intended," soothed the other. "Come on, I'll buy
you a drink."
     "Don't want no drink 'til I'VE finished this game," Kinnison grumbled, and took an
instant to flash a thought via Lens. "All set, boys? Things're moving fast. If I have to take this
drinkùit's doped, of courseùIT! bust this bird wide open. When I yell, shake the lead out of
your pants!"
     "Of course you want a drink!" the pirate urged. "Come and get itùit's on me, you know."
     "And who are you to be buying me, a Tellurian gentleman, a drink?" the Lensman roared,
flaring into one of the sudden, senseless rages of the character he had cultivated so assiduously.
"Did I ask you for a drink? I'm educated, I am, and I've got money, I have. I'll buy myself a
drink when I want one." His rage mounted higher and higher, visibly. "Did I ever ask you for a
drink, you (unprintable here, even in a modern and realistic novel, for the space of two long
breaths) . . . !"
     This was the blow-off. If the fellow was even half level, there would be a fight, which
Kinnison could make last as long as necessary. If he did not start slugging after what Kinnison
had just called him he was not what he seemed and the Lensman was surely suspect; for the
Earthman had dredged the foulest vocabularies of space.
     "If you weren't drunk I'd break every bone in your laxlo-soaked carcass." The other man's
anger was sternly suppressed, but he looked at the dock-walloper with no friendship in his eyes.
"I don't ask lousy space-port bums to drink with me every day, and when I do, they doùor else.
Do you want to take that drink now or do you want a couple of the boys to work you over first?
Barkeep! Bring two glasses of laxlo over here!"
     Now the time was short indeed, but Kinnison would not ùcould notùact yet.
Bominger's conference was still on; the Lensman didn't know enough yet. The fellow wasn't very
suspicious, certainly, or he would have made a pass at him before this. Bloodshed meant less
than nothing to these gentry; the stranger did not want to incur Bominger's wrath by killing a
steady customer. The fellow probably thought the whole mind-ray story was hocuspocus,
anywayùnot a chance in a million of it being true. Besides he needed a machine, and Kinnison
couldn't hide a thing, let alone anything as big as that "mind-ray machine" had been, because he
didn't have clothes enough on to flag a hand-car with. But that free drink was certainly doped . . .
Oh, they wanted to question him. It would be a truth-dope in the laxlo, thenù he certainly
couldn't take that drink!
     Then came the all-important second; just as the bartender set the glasses down
Bominger's interview ended. At the signing off, Kinnison got additional data, just as he had
expected; and in that instant, before the drugmaster could restore his screen, the fat man
diedùhis brain literally blasted. And in that same instant Kinnison's Lens fairly throbbed with
the power of the call he sent out to his allies.
     But not even Kinnison could hurl such a mental bolt without some outward sign. His face
stiffened, perhaps, or his eyes may have lost their drunken, vacant stare, to take on momentarily
the keen, cold ruthlessness that was for the moment his. At any rate, the enemy agent was now
definitely suspicious.
     "Drink that, bum, and drink it quickùor burn!" he snapped, DeLameter out and poised.
     The Tellurian's hand reached for the glass, but his mind also reached out, and faster by a
second, to the brains of two nearby agents. Those worthies drew their own weapons and, with
wild yells, began firing. Seemingly indiscriminately, yet in those blasts two of the thought-
screened minions died. For a fraction of a second even the hard-schooled mind of Kinnison's
opponent was distracted, and that fraction was time enough.
     A quick flick of the wrist sent the potent liquor into the Boskonian's eyes; a lightning
thrust of the knee sent the little table hurtling against his gun-hand, flinging the weapon afar.
Simultaneously the Lensman's ham-like fist, urged by all the strength and all the speed of his two
hundred and sixteen pounds of rawhide and whalebone, drove forward. Not for the jaw. Not for
the head or the face. Lensmen know better than to mash bare hands, break fingers and knuckles,
against bone. For the solar plexus. The big Patrolman's fist sank forearm-deep. The stricken
zwilnik uttered one shrieking grunt, doubled up, and collapsed; never to rise again. Kinnison
leaped for the fellow's DeLameterùtoo late, he was already hemmed in.
     Oneùtwoùthreeùfour of the nearest men died without having received a physical
blow; again and again Kinnison's heavy fists and far heavier feet crashed deep 4nto vital spots.
One thought-screened enemy dived at him bodily in a Tomingan donganeur, to fall with a broken
neck as the Lensman opposed instantly the only possible parryùa savage chop, edge-handed,
just below the base of the skull; the while he disarmed the surviving thought-screened stranger
with an accurately-hurled chair. The latter, feinting a swing, launched a vicious French kick. The
Lensman, expecting anything, perceived the foot coming. His big hands shot out like striking
snakes, closing and twisting savagely in the one fleeting instant, then jerking upward and
backward. A hard and heavy dock-walloper's boot crashed thuddingly to a mark. A shriek rent
the air and that foeman too was done.
     Not fair fighting, no; nor clubby. Lensmen did not and do not fight according to the
tenets of the square ring. They use the weapons provided by Mother Nature only when they
must; but they can and do use them with telling effect indeed when body-to-body brawling
becomes necessary. For they are skilled in the artùevery Lensman has a completely detailed
knowledge of all the lethal tricks of foul combat known to all the dirty fighters of ten thousand
planets for twice ten thousand years.
     And then the doors and windows crashed in, admitting those whom no other bifurcate
race has ever faced willingly in hand-to-hand combatùfull armed Valerians, swinging their
space-axes!
     The gangsters broke, then, and fled in panic disorder; but escape from Narcotics' fine-
meshed net was impossible. They were cut down to a man.
     "QX, Kinnison?" came two hard, sharp thoughts. The Lensmen did not see the Tellurian,
but Lieutenant Peter vanBuskirk did. That is, he saw him, but did not look at him.
     "Hi, Kim, you little Tellurian wart!" That worthy's thought was a yell. "Ain't we got
fun?"
     "QX, fellowsùthanks," to Gerrond and to Winstead, and "Ho, Bus! Thanks, you big,
Valerian ape!" to the gigantic Dutch-Valerian with whom he had shared so many experiences in
the past. "A good clean-up, fellows?"
     "One hundred percent, thanks to you. We'll put you . . ."
     "Don't, please. You'll clog my jets if you do. I don't appear in this anywhereùit's just one
of your good, routine jobs of mopping up. Clear ether, fellows, I've got to do a flit."
     "Where?" all three wanted to ask, but they didn'tùthe Gray Lensman was gone.

     CHAPTER 7
     AMBUSCADE

     Kinnison did start his flit, but he did not get far. In fact, he did not even reach his squalid
room before cold reason told him that the job was only half doneùyes, less than half. He had to
give Boskone credit for having brains, and it was not at all likely that even such a comparatively
small unit as a planetary headquarters would have only one string to its bow. They certainly
would have been forced to install duplicate controls of some sort or other by the trouble they had
had after Helmuth's supposedly impregnable Grand Base had been destroyed.
     There were other straws pointing the same way. Where had those five strange thought-
screened men come from? Bominger hadn't known of them apparently. If that idea was sound,
the other headquarters would have had a spy-ray on the whole thing. Both sides use3 spy-rays
freely, of course, and to block them was, ordinarily, worse than to let mem come. The enemies'
use of the thought-screen was different. They realized that it made it easy for the unknown
Lensman to discover their agents, but they were forced to use it because of the deadliness of the
supposed mind-ray. Why hadn't he thought of this sooner, and had the whole area blocked off?
Too late to cry about it now, though.
     Assume the idea correct. They certainly knew now that he was a Lensman; probably
were morally certain that he was the Lensman. His instantaneous change from a drunken dock-
walloper to a cold-sober, deadly-skilled rough-and-tumble brawler . . . and the unexplained
deaths of half-a-dozen agents, as well as that of Bominger himself . . . this was bad. Very, very
bad . . . a flare-lit tip-off, if there ever was one. Their spy-rays would have combed him,
millimeter by plotted -cubic millimeter: they knew exactly where his Lens was, as well as he did
himself. He had put his tail right into the wringer . . . wrecked the whole job right at the start . . .
unless he could get that other headquarters outfit, too, and get them before they reported in detail
to Boskone.
     In his room, then, he sat and thought, harder and more Intensely than he had ever thought
before. No ordinary method of tracing would do. It might be anywhere on the planet, and it
certainly would have no connection whatever with the thionite gang. It would be a small outfit;
just a few men, but under smart direction. Their purpose would bet to watch the business end of
the organization, but not to touch it save in an emergency. All that the two groups would have in
common would be recognition signals, so that the reserves could take over in case anything
happened to Bomingerùas it already had. They had him, Kinnison, cold . . . What to do?
WHAT TO DO? òft The Lens. That must be the answerùit had to be. The Lensùwhat was it,
really, anyway? Simply an aggregation of crystalloids. Not really alive; just a pseudo-life, a sort
of reflection of his own life . . . he wondered . . . Great Klono's tungsten teeth, could that be it?
An idea had struck him, an idea so stupendous in its connotations and ramifications that he
gasped, shuddered, and almost went faint at the shock. He started to reach for his Lens, then
forced himself to relax and shot a thought to Base.
     "Gerrond! Send me a portable spy-ray block, quick!"
     "But that would give everything awayùthat's why we haven't been using them."
     "Are you telling me?" the Lensman demanded. "Shoot it alongùI'll explain while it's on
the way." He went on to tell the Radeligian everything he thought it well for him to know,
concluding: "I'm as wide open as inter-galactic space ùnothing but fast and sure moves will do
us a bit of good."
     The block arrived, and as soon as the messenger had departed Kinnison set it going. He
was now the center of a sphere into which no spy-ray beam could penetrate. He was also an
object of suspicion to anyone using a spy-ray, but that fact made no difference, then. Snatching
off his shoe, he took out his Lens, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and placed it on the floor. Then,
just as though he still wore it, he directed a thought at Winstead.
     "All serene, Lensman?" he asked, quietly.
     "Everything's on the beam," came instant reply. "Why?"
     "Just checking, is all." Kinnison did not specify exactly what he was checking!
     He then did something which, so far as he knew, no Lensman had^ever before even
thought of doing. Although he felt stark naked without his Lens, he hurled a thought three-
quarters of the way across the galaxy to that dread planet Arisia; a thought narrowed down to the
exact pattern of Mentor himselfùthe gigantic, fearsome Brain who had been his teacher and his
sponsor.
     "Ah, 'tis Kimball Kinnison, of Earth," that entity responded, in precisely the same
modulation it had employed once before. "You have perceived, then, youth, that the Lens is not
the supremely important thing you have supposed it to be?"
     "I . . . you . . . I mean . . ." the flustered Lensman, taken completely aback, was cut off by
a sharp rebuke.
     "Stop! You are thinking muddilyùconduct ordinarily inexcusable! Now, youth, to
redeem yourself, you will explain the phenomenon to me, instead of asking me to explain it to
you. I realize that you have just discovered another facet of the Cosmic Truth; I know what a
shock it has been to your immature mind; hence for this once it may be permissible for me to
overlook your crime. But strive not to repeat the offense, for I tell you again in all possible
seriousnessù I cannot urge upon you too strongly the factùthat in clear and precise thinking
lies your only safeguard through that which you are attempting. Confused, wandering thought
will assuredly bring disaster inevitable and irreparable."
     "Yes, sir," Kinnison replied meekly; a small boy reprimanded by his teacher. "It must be
this way. In the first stage of training the Lens is a necessity; just as is the crystal ball or some
other hypnotic object in a seance. In the more advanced stage the mind is able to work without
aid. The Lens, however, may beùin fact, it must beùendowed with uses other than that of a
symbol of identification; uses about which I as yet know nothing. Therefore, while I can work
without it, I should not do so except when it is absolutely necessary, as its help will be
imperative if I am to advance to any higher stage. It is also clear that you were expecting my
call. May I ask if I am on time?"
     "You areùyour progress has been highly satisfactory. Also, I note with approval that you
are not asking for help in your admittedly difficult present problem."
     "I know it wouldn't do me any goodùand why." Kinnison grinned wryly. "But I'll bet
that Worsel, when he comes up for his second treatment, will know on the spot what it has taken
me all this time to find out."
     "You deduce truly. He did."
     "What? He has been back there already? And you told me . . ."
     "What I told you was true and is. His mind is more fully developed and more responsive
than yours; yours is of vastly greater latent capacity, capability, and force," and the line of
communication snapped.
     Calling a conveyance, Kinnison was whisked to Base, the spy-ray block full on all the
way. There, in a private room, he put his heavily-insulated Lens and a full spool of tape into a
ray-proof container, sealed it, and called in the base commander.
     "Gerrond, here is a package of vital importance," he informed him. "Among other things,
it contains a record of everything I have done to date. If I don't come back to 'claim it myself,
please send it to Prime Base for personal delivery to Port Admiral Haynes. Speed, will be no
object, but safety very decidedly of the essence."
     "QXùwe'll send it in by special messenger."
     "Thanks a lot. Now I wonder if I could use your visi-phone a minute? I want to talk to the
zoo."
     "Certainly."
     "Zoological Gardens?" and the image of an elderly, white-bearded man appeared upon
the plate. "Lensman Kinnison of TellusùUnattached. Have you as many as three oglons, caged
together?"
     "Yes. In fact, we have four of them in one cage."
     "Better yet. Will you please send them over here to base at once? Lieutenant-Admiral
Gerrond, here, will confirm."
     "It is most unusual, sir," the graybeard began, but broke off at a curt word from Gerrond
"Very well, sir," he agreed, and disconnected.
     "Oglons?" the surprised commander demanded. "OGLONS!"
     For the oglon, or Radeligian cateagle, is one of the fiercest, most intractable beasts of
prey in existence; it assays more concentrated villainy and more sheerly vicious ferocity to the
gram than any other creature known to science. It is not a bird, but a winged mammal; and is
armed not only with the gripping, tearing talons of the eagle, but also with the heavy, cruel,
needle-sharp fangs of the wildcat. And its mental attitude toward all other forms of life is anti-
social to the nth degree.
     "Oglons." Kinnison confirmed, shortly. "I can handle them."
     "You can, of course. But . . ." Gerrond stopped. This Gray Lensman was forever doing
amazing, unprecedented, incomprehensible things. But, so far, he had produced eminently
satisfactory results, and he could not be expected to spend all his time in explanations.
     "But you think I'm screwy, huh?"
     "Oh, no, Kinnison, I wouldn't say that. I only . . . well . . . after all, there isn't much real
evidence that we didn't mop up one hundred per cent."
     "Much? Real evidence? There isn't any," the Tellurian assented, cheerfully enough. "But
you've got the wrong slant entirely on these people. You are still thinking of them as gangsters,
desperadoes, renegade scum of our own civilization. They're not. They are just as smart as we
are; some of them are smarter. Perhaps I'm taking unnecessary precautions; but, if so, there's no
harm done. On the other hand, there are two things at stake which, to me at least, are extremely
important; this whole job of mine and my life: and remember thisùthe minute I leave this base
both of those things are in your hands."
     To that, of course, there could be no answer.
     While the two men had been talking and while the oglons were being brought out, two
trickling streams of men had been passing, one into and one out of the spy-ray-shielded confines
of the base. Some of these men were heavily bearded, some were shaven clean, but all had two
things in common. Each one was human in type and each one is some respect or other resembled
Kimball Kinnison.
     "Now remember, Gerrond," the Gray Lensman said impressively as he was about to
leave, "They're probably right here in Ardith, but they may be anywhere on the planet. Keep a
spy-ray on me wherever I go, and trace theirs if you can. That will take some doing, as he's
bound to be an expert. Keep those oglons at least a mileùthirty seconds flying time ùaway
from me; get all the Lensmen you can on the job; keep a cruiser and a speedster hot, but not too
close. I may need any of them, or all, or none of them, I can't tell; but I do know thisùif I need
anything at all, I'll need it fast. Above all, Gerrond, by the Lens you wear, do nothing whatever,
no matter what happens around me or to me, until I give you the word. QX?"
     "QX, Gray Lensman. Clear ether!"
     Kinnison took a ground-cab to the mouth of the narrow street upon which was situated
his dock-walloper's mean lodging. This was a desperate, a foolhardy trickùbut in its very
boldness, in its insolubly paradoxical aspects, lay its strength. Probably Boskone could solve its
puzzles, butù he hopedùthis ape, not being Boskone, couldn't. And, paying off the cabman, he
thrust his hands into his tattered pockets and, whistling blithely if a bit raucously through his
stained teeth, he strode off down the narrow way as though he did not have a care in the world.
But he was doing the finest job of acting of his short career; even though, for all he really knew,
he might not have any audience at all. For inwardly, he was strung to highest tension. His sense
of perception, sharply alert, was covering the full hemisphere around and above him; his mind
was triggered to jerk any muscle of his body into instantaneous action.

                         *     *     *

     Meanwhile, in a heavily guarded room, there sat a manlike being, humanoid to eight
places. For two hours he had been sitting at his spy-ray plate, studying with ever-growing
uneasiness the human beings so suddenly and so surprisingly numerously having business at the
Patrol's base. For minutes he had been studying minutely a man in a ground-cab, and his
uneasiness reached panic heights.
     "It is the Lensman!" he burst out. "It's got to be, Lens or no Lens. Who else would have
the cold nerve to go back there when he knows he's let the cat completely out of the bag!"
     "Well, get him, then," advised his companion. "All set, ain't you?"
     "But it can't be!" the chief went on, reversing himself in mid-flight. "A Lensman has got
to have a Lens, and a Lens can't be invisible! And this fellow has not now, and never has had, a
mind-ray machine. He hasn't got anything! And besides, the Lensman we're after wouldn't be
sticking aroundùhe disappears."
     "Well, drop him and chase somebody else, then," the lieutenant advised, unfeelingly.
     "But there's nobody nearly enough like him!" snarled the chief, in desperation. He was
torn by doubt and indecision. This whole situation was a messùit didn't add up right, from any
possible angle. "It's got to be himùit can't be anybody else. I've checked and rechecked him. It
is him, and not a double. He thinks he's safe enough; he can't know about usùcan't even suspect.
Besides, his only good double, Fordyceùand he's not good enough to stand the inspection I just
gave himùhasn't appeared anywhere."
     "Probably inside base yet. Maybe this is a better double. Perhaps this is the real Lensman
pretending he isn't, or maybe the real Lensman is slipping out while you're watching the man
in4he cab," the junior suggested, helpfully.
     "Shut up!" the superior yelled. He started to reach for a switch, but paused, hand in air.
     "Go ahead. That's it, call District and toss it into their laps, if it's too hot for you to
handle. I think myself whoever did this job is a warm numberùplenty warm."
     "And get my ears burned off with that æyour report is neither complete nor conclusive' of
his?" the chief sneered. "And get reduced for incompetence besides? No, we've got to do it
ourselves, and do it right . . . but that man there isn't the Lensmanùhe can't be!"
     "Well, you'd better make up your mindùyou haven't got all day. And nix on that 'we'
stuff. It's you that's got to do itùyou're the boss, not me," the underling countered, callously.
     For once, he was really glad that he was not the one in command. "And you'd better get
busy and do it, too." 'Til do it," the chief declared, grimly. "There's a way." There was a way.
One only. He must be brought in alive and compelled to divulge the truth. There was no other
way. The Boskonian touched a stud and spoke. "Don't kill himùbring him in alive. If you kill
him even accidentally I'll kill both of you, myself."
     The Gray Lensman made his carefree way down the alley-like thoroughfare, whistling
inharmoniously and very evidently at peace with the Universe.
     It takes something, friends, to walk knowingly into a trap; without betraying emotion or
stress even while a blackjack, wielded by a strong arm, is descending toward the back of your
head. Something of quality, something of fiber, something of je ne sais quoi. But whatever it
took Kinnison in ample measure had.
     He did not wink, flinch, or turn an eye as the billy came down. Only as it touched his hair
did he act, exerting all his marvelous muscular control to jerk forward and downward, with the
weapon and ahead of it, to spare himself as much as possible of the terrific blow.
     The black-jack crunched against the base of the Lensman's skull in a shower of
coruscating constellations. He fell. He lay there, twitching feebly.

     CHAPTER 8
     CATEAGLES

     As has been said, Kinnison rode the blow of the blackjack forward and downward, thus
robbing it of some of its power. It struck him hard enough so that the thug did not suspect the
truth; he thought that he had all but taken the Lensman's life. And, for all the speed with which
the Tellurian had yielded before the blow, he was hurt; but he was not stunned. Therefore,
although he made no resistance when the two bullies rolled him over, lashed his feet together,
tied his hands behind him, and lifted him into a car, he was fully conscious throughout the
proceedings.
     When the cab was perhaps half an hour upon its way the Lensman struggled back, quite
realistically, to consciousness.
     "Take it easy, pal," the larger of his thought-screened captors advised, dandling the
black-jack suggestively before his eyes. "One yelp out of you, or a signal, if you've got one of
them Lenses, and I bop you another one."
     "What the blinding blue hell's coming off here?" demanded the dock-walloper, furiously.
"Wha'd'ya think you're doing, you lop-eared . . ." and he cursed the two, viciously and
comprehensively.
     "Shut up or hell knock you kicking," the smaller thug advised from the driver's seat, and
Kinnison subsided. "Not that it bothers me any, but you're making too damn much noise."
     "But what's the matter?" Kinnison asked, more quietly. "What'd you slug me for and drag
me off? I ain't done nothing and I ain't got nothing."
     "I don't know nothing," the big agent replied. "The boss will tell you all you need to
know when we get to where we're going. All I know is the boss says to bop you easy-like and
bring you in alive if you don't act up. He says to tell you not to yell and not to use no Lens. If
you yell we burn you out. If you use any Lens, the boss he's got his eyes on all the bases and
spaceports and everything, and if any help starts to come this way hell tell us and we fry you and
buzz off. We can kill you and flit before any help can get near you, he says."
     "Your boss ain't got the brains of a fontema," Kinnison growled. He knew that the boss,
wherever he was, could hear every word. "Hell's hinges, if I was a Lensman you think I'd be
walloping junk on a dock? Use your head, cully, if you got one."
     "I wouldn't know nothing about that," the other returned, stolidly.
     "But I ain't got no Lens!" the dock-walloper stormed, in exasperation. "Look at meùfrisk
me! You'll see I ain't!"
     "All that ain't none of my dish." The thug was entirely unmoved. "I don't know nothing
and I don't do nothing except what the boss tells me, see? Now take it easy, all nice and quiet-
like. If you don't," and he flicked the blackjack lightly against the Lensman's knee, "I'll put out
your landing-lights. I'll lay you like a mat, and I don't mean maybe. See?"
     Kinnison saw, and relapsed into silence. The automobile rolled along. And, flitting
industriously about upon its delivery duties, but never much more or less than one measured
mile distant, a panel job pursued its devious way. Oddly enough, its chauffeur was a Lensman.
Here and there, high in the heavens, were a few airplanes, gyros, and copters; but they were
going peacefully and steadily about their businessù even though most of them happened to have
Lensmen as pilots.
     And, not at the base at all, but high in the stratosphere and so throughly screened that a
spy-ray observer could not even tell that his gaze was being blocked, a battle-cruiser, Lensman-
commanded, rode poised upon flare-baffled, softly hissing under-jets. And, equally high and as
adequately protected against observation, a keen-eyed Lensman sat at the controls of a speedster,
jazzing her muffled jets and peering eagerly through a telescopic sight. As far as the Patrol was
concerned, everything was on the trips.
     The car approached the gates of a suburban estate and stopped. It waited. Kinnison knew
that the Boskonian within was working his every beam, alert for any sign of Patrol activity;
knew that if there were any such sign the car would be off in an instant. But there was no
activity. Kinnison sent a thought to Gerrond, who relayed micrometric readings of the objective
to various Lensmen. Still everyone waited. Then the gate opened of itself, the two thugs jerked
their captive out of the car to the ground, and Kinnison sent out his signal.
     Base remained quiet, but everything else erupted at once. The airplanes wheeled, cruiser
and speedster plummeted downward at maximum blast. The panel job literally fell open, as did
the cage within it, and four ravening ca-eagles, with the silent ferocity of their kind, rocketed
toward their goal.
     Although the oglons were not as fast as the flying ships they did not have nearly as far to
go, wherefore they got there first. The thugs had no warning whatever. One instant everything
was under control; if the next the noiselessly arrowing destroyers struck their prey with the mad
fury that only a striking cateagle can exhibit. Barbed talons dug viciously into eyes, faces,
mouths, tearing, rending, wrenching; fierce-driven fangs tore deeply, savagely into defenseless
throats.
     Once each die thugs screamed in mad, lethal terror, but no warning was given; for by that
time every building upon that pretentious estate had disappeared in the pyrotechnic flare of
detonating duodec. The pellets were small, of courseùthe gunners did not wish either to destroy
the nearby residences or to injure Kinnisonùbut they were powerful enough for the purpose
intended. Mansion and outbuildings disappeared, and not even the most thoroughgoing spy-ray
search revealed the presence of anything animate or structural where those buildings had been.
     The panel job drove up and Kinnison, perceiving that the cateagles had done their work,
sent them back into their cage. The Lensman driver, after securely locking cage and truck, cut
the Earthman's bonds.
     "QX, Kinnison?" he asked.
     "QX, Barknettùthanks," and the two Lensmen, one in the panel truck and the other in
the gangsters' car, drove back to headquarters. There Kinnison recovered his package.
     "This has got me all of a soapy dither, but you have called the turn on every play yet,1'
Winstead told the Tellurian, later. "Is this all of the big shots, do you think, or are there some
more of them around here?"
     "Not around here, I'm pretty sure," Kinnison replied. "No, two main lines is all they
would have had, I think . . . this time. Next time . . ."
     "There won't be any next time," Winstead declared.
     "Not on this planet, no. Knowing what to expect, you fellows can handle anything that
comes up. I was thinking then of my next step."
     "Oh. But you'll get 'em, Gray Lensman!"
     "I hope so," soberly.
     "Luck, Kinnison!"
     "Clear ether, Winstead!" and this time the Tellurian really did flit.
     As his speedster ripped through the void Kinnison did more thinking, but he was afraid
that Menter would have considered the product muddy indeed. He couldn't seem to get to the
first check-station. One thing was limpidly clear; this line of attack or any very close variation of
it would never work again. He'd have to think up something new. So far, he had got away with
his stuff because he had kept one lap ahead of them, but how much longer could he manage to
keep up the pace?
     Bominger had been no mental giant, of course; but this other lad was nobody's fool and
this next higher-up, with whom he had had the interview via Bominger, would certainly prove to
be a really shrewd number.
     " "The higher the fewer,'" he repeated to himself the old saying, adding, "and in this case,
the smarter." He had to put out some jets, but where he was going to get the fuel he simply didn't
know.
     Again the trip to Tellus was uneventful, and the Gray Lens-man, the symbol of his rank
again flashing upon his wrist, sought interview with Haynes.
     "Send him in, certainlyùsend him in!" Kinnison heard the communicator crackle, and
the receptionist passed him along. He paused in surprise, however, at the doorway of the office,
for Surgeon-Marshal Lacy and a Posenian were in conference with the Port Admiral.
     "Come in, Kinnison," Haynes invited. "Lacy wants to see you a minute, too. Doctor
PhillipsùLensman Kinnison, Unattached. His name isn't Phillips, of course; we gave him that in
self-defense, to keep from trying to pronounce his real one."
     Phillips, the Posenian, was as tall as Kinnison, and heavier. His figure was somewhat
human in shape, but not in detail. He had four arms instead of two, each arm had two opposed
hands, and each hand had two thumbs, one situated about where a little finger would be
expected. He had no eyes, not even vestigial ones. He had two broad, flat noses and two toothful
mouths; one of each in what would ordinarily be called the front of his round, shining, hairless
head; the other in the back. Upon the sides of his head were large, volute, highly dirigible ears.
And, like most races having the faculty of perception instead of that of sight, his head was
relatively immobile, his neck being short, massive, and tremendously strong.
     "You look well, very well." Lacy reported, after feeling and prodding vigorously the
members which had been in his splints and casts so long. "Have to take a picture, of course,
before saying anything definite. No, we won't either, now. Phillips, look at his . . ." an interlude
of technical jargon . . . "and see what kind of a recovery he has made." Then, while the Posenian
was examining Kinnison's interior mechanisms, the Surgeon-Marshal went on:
     "Wonderful diagnosticians and surgeons, these Poseniansù can see into the patient
without taking him apart. In another few centuries every doctor will have to have the sense of
perception. Phillips is doing a research in neurologyùmore particularly a study of the neutral
synapse and the proliferation of neural dendrites . .."
     "Laùcy-y-y!" Haynes drawled the word in reproof. "I've told you a thousand times to
talk English when you're talking to me. How about it, Kinnison?"
     "Afraid I can't quite check you, chief," Kinnison grinned.
"Specialistsùprecisionistsùcan't talk in Basic."
     "Right, my boyùsurprisingly and pleasingly right!" Lacy exclaimed. "Why can't you
adopt that attitude, Haynes, and learn enough words so you can understand what a man's talking
about? But to reduce it to monosyllabic simplicity, Phillips is studying a thing that has baffled us
for thousands of years. The lower forms of cells are able to regenerate themselves; wounds heal,
bones knit. Higher types, such as nerve cells, regenerate imperfectly, if at all; and the highest
type, the brain cells, do not do so under any conditions." He turned a reproachful gaze upon
Haynes. "This is terrible. Those statements are pitifulùinadequateùfalse. Worse than
thatùpractically meaningless. What I wanted to say, and what .I'm going to say, is that. . ."
     "Oh no you aren't, not in this office," his old friend interrupted. "We got the idea
perfectly. The question is, why can't human beings repair nerves or spinal cords, or grow new
ones? If such a worthless beastie as a starfish can grow a whole new body to one leg, including a
brain, if any, why can't a really intelligent victim of simple infantile paralysisù or a
rayùrecover the use of a leg that is otherwise in perfect shape?"
     "Well, that's something like it, but I hope you can aim closer than that at a battleship,"
Lacy grunted. "We'll buzz off now, Phillips, and leave these two war-horses alone."
     "Here is my report in detail." Kinnison placed the package upon the Port Admiral's desk
as soon as the room was sealed behind the visitors. "I talked to you direct about most of itù this
is for the record."
     "Of course. Mighty glad you found Medon, for our sake as well as theirs. They have
things that we need, badly."
     "Where did they put them? I suggested a sun near Sol, so as to have them handy to Prime
Base."
     "Right next doorùAlpha Centauri. Didn't get to do much scouting, did you?"
     "I'll say we didn't. Boskonia owns that galaxy; lock, stock, and barrel. May be some other
independent planetsù bound to be, of course; probably a lot of themùbut it's too dangerous,
hunting them at this stage of the game. But at that, we did enough, for the time being. We proved
our point. Boskone, if there is any such being, is certainly in the Second Galaxy. However, it will
he a long time before we're ready to carry the war there to him, and in the meantime we've got a
lot to do. Check?"
     "To nineteen decimals."
     "It seems to me, then, that while you are rebuilding our first-line ships, super-powering
them with Medonian insulation and conductors, I had better keep on tracing Boskone along the
line of drugs. I'm just about sure that they're back of the whole drug business."
     "And in some ways their drugs are more dangerous to Civilization than their battleships.
More insidious and, ultimately, more fatal."
     "Check. And since I am perhaps as well equipped as any of the other Lensmen to cope
with that particular problem . . . ?" Kinnison paused, questioningly.
     "That certainly is no overstatement," the Port Admiral replied, dryly. "You're the only
one equipped to cope with it."
     "None of the other boys except Worsel, then? . . . I heard that a couple . . ."
     "They thought they had a call, but they didn't. All they had was a wish. They came back."
     "Too bad . . . but I can see how it would be. It's a rough course, and if a man's mind isn't
completely ready for it, it burns it out. It almost does, anyway . . . mind is a funny thing. But that
isn't getting us anywhere. Can you take time to let me talk at you a few minutes?"
     "I certainly can. You've got the most important assignment in the galaxy, and I'd like to
know more about it, if it's anything you can pass on."
     "Nothing that need be sealed from any Lensman. The main object of all of us, as you
know, is to push Boskonia out of this galaxy. From a military standpoint they practically are out.
Their drug syndicate, however, is very decidedly in, and getting in deeper all the time. Therefore
we next push the zwilniks out. They have peddlers and such small fry, who deal with distributors
and so on. These fellows form the bottom layer. Above them are the secret agents, the observers,
and the wholesale handlers; runners and importers. All these folks are directed and controlled by
one man, the boss of each planetary organization. Thus, Bominger was the boss of all zwilnick
activities on the whole planet of Radelix.
     "In turn the planetary bosses report to, and are synchronized and controlled by a Regional
Director, who supervises the activities of a couple of hundred or so planetary outfits. I got a line
on the one over Bominger, you knowù Prellin, the Kalonian. By the way, you knew, didn't you,
that Helmuth was a Kalonian, too?"
     "I got it from the tape. Smart people, they must be, but not my idea of good neighbors."
     "I'll say not. Well, that's all I really know of their organization. It seems logical to
suppose, though, that the structure is coherent all the way up. If so, the Regional Directors would
be under some higher-up, possibly a Galactic Director, who in turn might be under Boskone
himselfùor one of his cabinet officers, at least. Perhaps the Galactic Director might even be a
cabinet officer in their government; whatever it is?"
     "An ambitious program you've got mapped out for yourself. How are you figuring on
swinging it?"
     "That's the rubùI don't know," Kinnison confessed, rue-' fully. "But if it's done at all,
that's the way I've got to go about it. Any other way would take a thousand years and more men
than we'll ever have. This way works fine, when it works at all."
     "I can see thatùlop off the head and the body dies," Haynes agreed.
     "That's the way it worksùespecially when the head keeps detailed records and books
covering the activities of all the members of his body. With Bominger and the others gone, and-
with full transcripts of his accounts, the boys mopped up Radelix in a hurry. From now on it will
be simple to keep it clean, except of course for the usual bootleg trickle, and that can be reduced
to a minimum. Similarly, if we can put this Prellin away and take a good look at his ledgers, it
will be easy to clear up his two hundred planets. And so on."
     "Very clear, and quite simple . . . in theory." The older man was thoughtful and frankly
dubious. "In practice, difficult in the extreme."
     "But necessary," the younger insisted.
     "I suppose so," Haynes assented finally. "Useless to tell you not to take chancesùyou'll
have toùbut for all our sakes, if not for your own, be as careful as you can."
     "I'll do that, chief. I think a lot of me. As much as anybodyùmaybe moreùand 'Careful'
is my middle name." "Ummmh," Haynes grunted, skeptically. "We've noticed that. Anything
special you want done?"
     "Yes, very special," Kinnison surprised him by answering in the affirmative. "You know
that the Medonians developed a scrambler for a detector nullifier. Hotchkiss and the boys
developed a new line of attack on thatùagainst long-range stuff we're probably safeùbut they
haven't been able to do a thing on electromagnetics. Well, the Boskonians, beginning with
Prellin, are going to start wondering what has been happening. Then, if I succeed in getting
Prellin, they're bound to start doing things. One thing they'll do will be to fix up then-
headquarters so that they'll have about five hundred percent overlap on their electros. Perhaps
they'll have outposts, too, close enough together to have the same thing there ùpossibly two or
three hundred even on visuals." "In that case you stay out." "Not necessarily. What do electros
work on?" "Iron, I supposeùthey did when I went to school last." "The answer, then, is to build
me a speedster that is inherently indetectableùabsolutely non-ferrous. Berylumin and so on for
all the structural parts . . ."
     "But you've got to have silicon-steel cores for your electrical equipment!"
     "I was coming to that. Have you? I was reading in the Transactions' the other day that
force-fields had been used in big units, and were more efficient. Some of the smaller units,
instruments and so on, might have to have some iron, but wouldn't it be possible to so saturate
those small pieces with a dense field of detector frequencies that they wouldn't react?"
     "I don't know. Never thought of it. Would it?" "I don't know, eitherùI'm not telling you,
I'm just making suggestions. I do know one thing, though. We've got to keep ahead of
themùthink of things first and oftenest, and be ready to abandon them for something else as
soon as we've used them once."
     "Except for those primary projectors." Haynes grinned wryly. "They can't be
abandonedùeven with Medonian power we haven't been able to develop a screen that will stop
them. We've got to keep them secret from Boskoneù and in that connection I want to
compliment you on the suggestion of having Velantian Lensmen as mind-readers Wherever
those projectors are even being thought of."
     "You caught spies, then? How many?"
     "Now manyùthree or four in each baseùbut enough to have done the damage. Now, I
believe, for the first time in history, we can be sure of our entire personnel."
     "I think so. Mentor says the Lens is enough, if we use it properly. That's up to us."
     "But how about visuals?" Haynes was still worrying, and to good purpose.
     "Well, we have a black coating now that's ninety-nine percent absorptive, and I don't
need ports or windows. At that, though, one percent reflection would be enough to give me away
at a critical time. How'd it be to put a couple of the boys on that job? Have them put a decimal
point after the ninety nine and see how many nines they can tack on behind it?"
     "That's a thought, Kinnison. They'll have lots of time to work on it while the engineers
are trying to fill your specifications as to a speedster. But you're right, dead right. Weùor rather,
youùhave got to out-think them; and it certainly is up to us to do everything we can to build the
apparatus to put your thoughts into practice. And it isn't at some vague time in the future that
Boskone is going to start doing something about you and what you've done. It's right now; or
even, more probably, a week or so ago. But you haven't said a word yet about the really big job
you have in mind."
     "I've been putting that off until the last," the Gray Lens-man's voice held obscure
puzzlement. "The fact is that I simply can't get a tooth into itùcan't get a grip on it anywhere. I
don't know enough about math or physics. Everything comes out negative for me; not only
inertia, but also force, velocity, and even mass itself. Final results always contain an 'i', too, the
square root of minus one. I can't get rid of it, and I don't see how it can be built into any kind of
apparatus. It may not be workable at all, but before I give up the idea I'd like to call a conference,
if it's QX with you and the Council."
     "Certainly it is QX with us. You're forgetting again, aren't you, that you're a Gray
Lensman?" Haynes' voice held no reproof, he was positively beaming with a super-fatherly
pride.
     "Not exactly." Kinnison blushed, almost squirmed. "I'm just too much of a cub to be
sticking my neck out so far, is all. The idea may beùprobably isùwilder than a Radeligian
cateagle. The only kind of a conference that could even begin to handle it would cost a young
fortune, and I don't want to spend that much money on my own responsibility."
     "To date your ideas have worked out well enough so that the Council is backing you one
hundred percent," the older man said, dryly. "Expense is no object." Then, his voice changing
markedly, "Kim, have you any idea at all of the financial resources of the Patrol?"
     "Very little, sir, if any, I'm afraid," Kinnison confessed.
     "Here on Tellus alone we have an expendable reserve of over ten thousand million
credits. With the restriction of government to its proper sphere and its concentration into our
organization, resulting in the liberation of man-power into wealth-producing enterprise, and
especially with the enormous growth of inter-world commerce, world-income increased to such
a point that taxation could be reduced to a minimum; and the lower the taxes the more
flourishing business became and the greater the income.
     "Now the tax rate is the lowest in history. The total income tax, for instance, in the
highest bracket, is only three point five nine two percent. At that, however, if it had not been for
the recent slump, due to Boskonian interference with inter-systemic commerce, we would have
had to reduce the tax rate again to avoid serious financial difficulty due to the fact that too much
of the galactic total of circulating credit would have been concentrated in the expendable funds
of the Galactic Patrol. So don't even think of money. Whether you want to spend a thousand
credits, a million, or a thousand million; go ahead."
     "Thanks, Chief; glad you explained. I'll feel better now about spending money that
doesn't belong to me. Now if you'll give me, for about a week, the use of the librarian in charge
of science files and a galactic beam, I'll quit bothering you."
     "I'll do that." The Port Admiral touched a button and in a few minutes a trimly attractive
blonde entered the room. "Miss Hostetter, this is Lensman Kinnison, Unattached. Please turn
over your regular duties to an assistant and work with him until he releases you. Whatever he
says, goes; the sky's the limit"
     In the Library of Science Kinnison outlined his problem briefly to his new aide,
concluding:
     "I want only about fifty, as a larger group could not cooperate efficiently. Are your lists
arranged so that you can skim off the top fifty?"
     "Such a group can be selected, I think." The girl stood for a moment, lower lip held
lightly between white teeth. "That is not a standard index, but each scientist has a rating. I can
set the acceptor . . . no, the rejector would be betterùto throw out all the cards above any given
rating. If we take out all ratings over seven hundred we will have only the highest of the
geniuses."
     "How many, do you suppose?"
     "I have only a vague ideaùa couple of hundred, perhaps. If too many, we can run them
again at a higher level, say seven ten. But there won't be very many, since there are only two
galactic ratings higher than seven fifty. There will be duplications, tooùsuch people as Sir
Austin Cardynge will have two or three cards in the final rejects."
     "QXùwe'll want to hand-pick the fifty, anyway. Let's go!"
     Then for hours bale after bale of cards went through the machine; thousands of records
per minute. Occasionally one card would flip out into a rack, rejected. Finally:
     "That's all, I think. Mathematicians, physicists," the librarian ticked off upon pink
fingers, "Astronomers, philosophers, and this new classification, which hasn't been named yet."
     "The H.T.T.'s." Kinnison glanced at the label, lightly lettered in pencil, fronting the slim
packet of cards. "Aren't you going to run them through, too?"
     "No. These are the two I mentioned a minute agoùthe only ones higher than seven
hundred fifty."
     "A choice pair, eh? Sort of a creme de la creme? Let's look 'em over," and he extended
his hand. "What do the initials stand for?"
     "I'm awfully sorry, sir, really," the girl flushed in embarrassment as she relinquished the
cards in high reluctance. "If I'd had any idea we wouldn't have daredùwe call you, among
ourselves, the 'High-Tension Thinkers.'"
     "Us!" It was the Lensman's turn to flush. Nevertheless, he took the packet and read
sketchily the facer: "Class XIXùUnclassifiable at present . . . lack of adequate methods . . .
minds of range and scope far beyond any available indices . . . Ratings above high genius (750) .
. . yet no instability . . . power beyond any heretofore known . . . assigned ratings tentative and
definitely minimum."
     He then read the cards.
     "Worsel, Velantia, eight hundred."
     And:
     "Kimball Kinnison, Tellus, eight hundred seventy-five."

     CHAPTER 9
     EICH AND ARISIAN

     The port admiral was eminently correct in supposing that Boskone, whoever or whatever
he or it might be, was already taking action upon what the Tellurian Lensman had done. For,
even as Kinnison was at work in the Library of Science, a meeting which was indirectly to affect
him no little was being called to order.
     In the immensely distant Second Galaxy was that meeting being held; upon the then
planet Jarnevon of the Eich; within that sullen fortress already mentioned briefly. Presiding over
it was the indescribable entity known to history as Eichlan; or, more properly, Lan of the Eich.
     "Boskone is now in session," that entity announced to the eight other similar
monstrosities who in some fashion indescribable to man were stationed at the long, low, wide
bench of stone-like material which served as a table of state. "Nine days ago each of us began to
search for whatever new facts might bear upon the activities of the as yet entirely hypothetical
Lensman who, Helmuth believed, was the real force back of our recent intolerable reverses in the
Tellurian Galaxy.
     "As First of Boskone I will report as to the military situation. As you know, our positions
there became untenable with the fall of our Grand Base and all our mobile forces were
withdrawn. In order to facilitate reorganization, coordinating ships were sent out. Some of these
ships went to planets held in toto by us. Not one of these vessels has been able to report any
pertinent facts whatever. Ships approaching bases of the Patrol, or encountering Patrol ships of
war in space, simply ceased communicating. Even their automatic recorders ceased to function
without transmitting any intelligible data, indicating complete destruction of those ships. A
cascade system, in which one ship followed another at long range and with analytical
instruments set to determine the nature of any beam or weapon employed, was attempted. The
enemy, however, threw out blanketing zones of tremendous power; and we lost six more vessels
without obtaining the desired data. These are the facts, all negative. Theorizing, deduction,
summation, and integration will as usual come later. Eichmil, Second of Boskone, will now
report."
     "My facts are also entirely negative," the Second began. "Soon after our operations upon
the planet Radelix became productive of results a contingent of Tellurian narcotic agents arrived;
which may or may not have included the Lensman . . ."
     "Stick to facts for the time being." Eichlan ordered, curtly.
     "Shortly thereafter a minor agent, a female instructed to wear a thought-screen at all
times, lost her usefulness by suffering a mental disorder which incapacitated her quite seriously.
Then another agent, also a female, this time one of the third order and who had been very useful
up to that time, ceased reporting. A few days later Bominger, the Planetary Director, failed to
report, as did the Planetary Observer; who, as you know, was entirely unknown to, and had no
connection with, the operating staff. Reports from other sources, such as importers and
shippersùthese, I believe, are here admissable as factsùindicate that all our personnel upon
Radelix have been liquidated. No unusual developments have occurred upon any other planet,
nor has any significant fact, however small, been discovered."
     "Eichnor, Third of Boskone."
     "Also negative. Our every source of information from within the bases of the Patrol has
been shut off. Every one of our representatives, some of whom have been reporting regularly for
many years, has been silent, and every effort to reach any of them has failed."
     "Eichsnap, Fourth of Boskone."
     "Utterly negative. We have been able to find no trace whatever of the planet Medon, or
of any one of the twenty one warships investing it at the time of its disappearance."
     And so on, through nine reports, while the tentacles of the mighty First of Boskone
played intermittently over the keys of a complex instrument or machine before him.
     "We will now reason, theorize, and draw conclusions,"
     the First announced, and each of the organisms fed his ideas and deductions into the
machine. It whirred briefly, then ejected a tape, which Eichlan took up and scanned narrowly.
     "Rejecting all conclusions having a probability of less than ninety five percent," He
announced, "we have: First, a set of three probabilities of a value of ninety nine and ninety nine
one-hundredthsùvirtual certaintiesùthat some one Tellurian Lensman is the prime mover
behind what has happened; that he has acquired a mental power heretofore unknown to his race;
and that he has been in large part responsible for the development of the Patrol's new and
formidable weapons. Second, a probability of ninety-nine percent that he and his organization
are no longer on the defensive, but have assumed the offensive. Third, one of ninety-seven
percent that it is not primarily Tellus which is an obstacle, even though the Galactic Patrol and
Civilization did originate upon that planet, but Arisia; that Helmuth's report was at least partially
true. Fourth, one of ninety-five and one half percent that the Lens is also concerned in the
disappearance of the planet Medon. There is a lesser probability, but still of some ninety-four
percent, that that same Lensman is involved here.
     "I will not interpolate here that the vanishment of that planet is a much more serious
matter than it might appear, on the surface, to be. In situ, it was a thing of no concernùgone, it
becomes an affair of almost vital import. To issue orders impossible of fulfillment, as Helmuth
did when he said 'Comb Trenco, inch by inch,' is easy. To comb this galaxy star by star for
Medon would be an even more difficult and longer task; but what can be done is being done.
     "To return to the conclusions, they point out a state of things which I do not have to tell
you is really grave. This is the first major set-back which the culture of the Boskone has
encountered since it began its rise. You are familiar with that rise; how we of the Eich took over
in turn a city, a race, a planet, a solar system, a region, a galaxy. How we extended our sway into
the Tellurian Galaxy, as a preliminary to the extension of our authority throughout all the
populated galaxies of the macro-cosmic Universe.
     "You know our creed; to the victor the power. He who is strongest and fittest shall
survive and shall rule. This so-called Civilization which is opposing us, which began upon Tellus
but whose driving force is that which dwells upon Arisia, is a soft, weak, puny-spirited thing
indeed to resist the mental and material power of our culture. Myriads of beings upon each
planet, each one striving for power and, so striving, giving of that power to him above. Myriads
of planets, each, in return for our benevolently despotic control, delegating and contributing
power to the Eich. All this power, delegated to the thousands of millions of the Eich of this
planet, culminates in and is wielded by the nine of us, who comprise Boskone.
     "Power! Our forefathers thought that control of one planet was enough. Later it was
declared that mastery of a galaxy, if realized, would sate ambition. We of Boskone, however,
now know that our power shall be limited only by the bounds of the Material Cosmic Allùevery
world that exists throughout space shall and must pay homage and tribute to Boskone! What,
gentlemen, is the sense of this meeting?"
     "Arisia must be visited!" There was no need of integrating this thought; it was dominant
and unanimous.
     "I would advise caution, however," the Eighth of Boskone amended his ballot. "We are
an old race, it is true, and able. I cannot help but believe, however, that in Arisia there exists an
unknown quality, an 'x' which we as yet are unable to evaluate. It must be borne in mind that
Helmuth, while not of the Eich, was nevertheless an able being; yet he was handled so
mercilessly there that he could not render a complete or conclusive report of his expedition, then
or ever. With these thoughts in mind I suggest that no actual landing be made, but that the
torpedo be launched from a distance."
     "The suggestion is eminently sound," the First approved. "As to Helmuth, he was, for an
oxygen-breather, fairly able. He was, however, mentally soft, as are all such. Do you, our
foremost psychologist, believe that any existent or conceivable mindùeven that of a
Plooranùcould break yours with no application of physical force or device, as Helmuth's reports
seemed to indicate that his was broken? I use the word 'seemed' advisedly, for I do not believe
that Helmuth reported the actual truth. In fact, I was about to replace him with an Eich, however
unpleasant such an assignment would be to any of our race, because of that weakness."
     "No," agreed the Eighth. "I do not believe that there exists in the Universe a mind of
sufficient power to break mine. It is a truism that no mental influence, however powerful, can
affect a strong, definitely and positively opposed will. For that reason I voted against the use of
thought-screens by our agents. Such screens expose them to detection and can be of no real
benefit. Physical means wereùmust have beenù used first, and, after physical subjugation, the
screens were of course useless."
     "I am not sure that I agree with you entirely," the Ninth put in. "We have here cogent
evidence that there have been employed mental forces of a type or pattern with which we are
entirely unfamiliar. While it is the consensus of opinion that the importance of Helmuth's report
should be minimized, it seems to me that we have enough corroborative evidence to indicate that
this mentality may be able to operate without material aid? If so, rigid screening should be
retained, as offering the only possible safeguard from such force."
     "Sound in theory, but in practice dubious," the psychologist countered. "If there were any
evidence whatever that the screens had done any good I would agree with you. But have they?
Screening failed to save Helmuth or his base; and there is nothing to indicate that the screens
impeded, even momentarily, the progress of the suppositious Lensman upon Radelix. You speak
of 'rigid' screening. The term is meaningless. Perfectly effective screening is impossible. If, as
we seem to be doing, we postulate the ability of one mind to control another without physical,
bodily contactùnor is the idea at all far-fetched, considering what I myself have done to the
minds of many of our agentsùthe Lensman can work through any unshielded mentality
whatever to attain his ends. As you know, Helmuth deduced, too late, that it must have been
through the mind of a dog that the Lensman invaded Grand Base."
     "Poppycock!" snorted the Seventh. "Or, if not, we can kill the dogsùor screen their
minds, too," he sneered.
     "Admitted," the psychologist returned, unmoved. "You might conceivably kill all the
animals that run and all the birds that fly. You cannot, however, destroy all life in any locality at
all extended, clear down to the worms in their burrows and the termites in their hidden retreats;
and the mind does not exist which can draw a line of demarcation and say 'here begins intelligent
life.'"
     "This discussion is interesting, but futile," put in Eichlan, forestalling a scornful reply. "It
is more to the point, I think, to discuss that which must be done; or, rather, who is to do it, since
the thing itself admits of only one solutionùan atomic bomb of sufficient power to destroy
every trace of life upon that accursed planet. Shall we send someone, or shall some of us
ourselves go? To overestimate a foe is at worst only an unnecessary precaution; to underestimate
this one may well prove fatal. Therefore it seems to me that the decision in this matter should lie
with our psychologist. I will, however, if you prefer, integrate our various conclusions."
     Recourse to the machine was unnecessary; it was agreed by all that Eichamp, the Eighth
of Boskone, should decide.
     "My decision will be evident," that worthy said, measuredly, "when I say that I myself,
for one, am going. The situation is admittedly a serious one. Moreover, I believe, to a greater
extent than do the rest of you, that there is a certain amount of truth in Helmuth's version of his
experiences. My mind is the only one in existence of whose power I am absolutely certain; the
only one which I definitely know will not give way before any conceivable mental force,
whatever its amount or whatever its method of application. I want none with me save of the
Eich, and even those I will examine carefully before permitting them aboard ship with me."
     "You decide as I thought," said the First. "I also shall go. My mind will hold, I think."
     "It will holdùin your case examination is unnecessary," agreed the psychologist.
     "And I! And I!" arose what amounted to a chorus.
     "No," came curt denial from the First. "Two are enough to operate all machinery and
weapons. To take any more of the Boskone would weaken us here injudiciously; well you know
how many are working, and in what fashions, for seats at this table. To take any weaker mind,
even of the Eich, might conceivably be to court disaster. We two should be safe; I because I have
proven repeatedly my right to hold the title of First of this Council, the rulers and masters of the
dominant race of the Universe; Eichamp because of his unparalleled knowledge of all
intelligence. Our vessel is ready. We go."
     As has been indicated, none of the Eich were, or ever had been, cowards. Tyrants they
were, it is true, and dictators of the harshest, sternest, and most soulless kind; callous and
merciless they were; cold as the rocks of their frigid world and as utterly ruthless and
remorseless as the fabled Juggernaut: but they were as logical as they were hard. He who of them
all was best fitted to do any thing did it unquestioningly and as a matter of course; did it with the
calmly emotionless efficiency of the machine which in actual fact he was. Therefore it was the
First and the Eighth of Boskone who went
     Through the star-studded purlieus of the Second Galaxy the black, airless, lightless vessel
sped; through the reaches, vaster and more tenuous far, of inter-galactic space; into the Tellurian
Galaxy; up to a solar system shunned then as now by all uninvited intelligencesùdread and
dreaded Arisia.
     Not close to the planet did even the two of Boskone venture; but stopped at the greatest
distance at which a torpedo could be directed surely against the target But even so the vessel of
the Eich had punctured a screen of mental force; and as Eichlan extended a tentacle toward the
firing mechanism of the missiles, watched in as much suspense as they were capable of feeling
by the planet-bound seven of Boskone, a thought as penetrant as a needle and yet as binding as a
cable of tempered steel drove into his brain.
     "Hold!" that thought commanded, and Eichlan held, as did also his fellow Boskonian.
     Both remained rigid, unable to move any single voluntary muscle; while the other seven
of the Council looked on in uncomprehending amazement. Their instruments remained
deadùsince those mechanisms were not sensitive to thought, to them nothing at all was
occurring. Those seven leaders of the Eich knew that something was happening; something
dreadful, something untoward, something very decidedly not upon the program they had helped
to plan. They, however, could do nothing about it; they could only watch and wait.
     "Ah, 'tis Lan and Amp of the Eich," the thought resounded within the minds of the
helpless twain. "Truly, the Elders are correct. My mind is not yet competent, for, although I have
had many facts instead of but a single one upon which to cogitate, and no dearth of time in which
to do so, I now perceive that I have erred grievously in my visualization of the Cosmic All. You
do, however, fit nicely into the now enlarged Scheme, and I am really grateful to you for
furnishing new material with which, for many cycles of time to come, I shall continue to build.
     "Indeed, I believe that I shall permit you to return unharmed to your own planet. You
know the warning we gave Helmuth, your minion, hence your lives are forfeit for violating
knowingly the privacy of Arisia; but wanton or unnecessary destruction is not conducive to
mental growth. You are, therefore, at liberty to depart. I repeat to you the instructions given your
underling; do not return, either in person or by any form whatever of proxy."
     The Arisian had as yet exerted scarcely a fraction of his power; although the bodies of the
two invaders were practically paralyzed, their minds had not been punished. Therefore the
psychologist said, coldly:
     "You are not now dealing with Helmuth, nor with any other weak, mindless oxygen-
breather, but with the Eich," and, by sheer effort of will, he moved toward the controls.
     "What boots it?" The Arisian compressed upon the Eighth's brain a searing force which
sent shrieking waves of pain throughout all nearby space. Then, taking over the psychologist's
mind, he forced him to move to the communicator panel, upon whose plate could be seen the
other seven of Boskone, gazing in wonder.
     "Set up planetary coverage," he directed, through Eichamp's organs of speech, "so that
each individual member of the entire race of the Eich can understand what I am about to
transmit." There was a brief pause, then the deep, measured voice rolled on;
     "I am Eukonidor of Arisia, speaking to you through this mass of undead flesh which was
once your Chief Psychologist; Eichamp, the Eighth of that high council which you call Boskone.
I had intended to spare the lives of these two simple creatures, but I perceive that such action
would be useless. Their minds and the minds of all you who listen to me are warped, perverted,
incapable of reason. They and you would have misinterpreted the gesture completely; would
have believed that I did not slay them only because I could not do so. Some of you would have
offended again and again, until you were so slain; you can be convinced of such a fact only by an
unmistakable demonstration of superior force. Force is the only thing you are able to understand.
Your one aim in life is to gain material power; greed, corruption, and crime are your chosen
implements.
     "You consider yourselves hard and merciless. In a sense and according to your abilities
you are, although your minds are too callow to realize that there are depths of cruelty and of
depravity which you cannot even faintly envision.
     "You love and worship power. Why? To any thinking mind it should be clear that such a
lust intrinsically is, and forever must by its very nature be, futile. For, even if any one of you
could command the entire material Universe, what good would it do him? None. What would he
have? Nothing. Not even the satisfaction of accomplishment, for that lust is in fact insatiableùit
would then turn upon itself and feed upon itself. I tell you as a fact that there is only one power
which is at one and the same time illimitable and yet finite; insatiable yet satisfying; one which,
while eternal, yet invariably returns to its possessor the true satisfaction of real accomplishment
in exact ratio to the effort expended upon it. That power is the power of the mind. You, being so
backward and so wrong of development, cannot understand how this can be, but if any one of
you will concentrate upon one single fact, or small object, such as a pebble or the seed of a plant
or other creature, for as short a period of time as one hundred of your years, you will begin to
perceive its truth.
     "You boast that your planet is old. What of that? We of Arisia dwelt in turn upon many
planets, from planetary youth to cosmic old age, before we became independent of the chance
formation of such celestial bodies.
     "You prate that you are an ancient race. Compared to us you are sheerly infantile. We of
Arisia did not originate upon a planet formed during the recent inter-passage of these two
galaxies, but upon one which came into being in an antiquity so distant that the figure in years
would be entirely meaningless to your minds. We were of an age to your mentalities starkly
incomprehensible when your most remote ancestors began to wriggle about in the slime of your
parent world.
     " 'Do the men of the Patrol know . . . ?' I perceive the question in your minds. They do
not. None save a few of the most powerful of their minds has the slightest inkling of the truth. To
reveal any portion of it to Civilization as a whole would blight that Civilization irreparably.
Though Seekers after Truth in the best sense, they are essentially juvenile and their life-spans are
ephemeral indeed. The mere realization that there is in existence such a race as ours would place
upon them such an inferiority complex as would make further advancement impossible. In your
case such a course of events is not to be expected. You will close your minds to all that has
happened, declaring to yourselves that it was impossible and that therefore it could not have
taken place and did not Nevertheless, you will stay away from Arisia henceforth.
     "But to resume. You consider yourselves long-lived. Know then, insects, that your life
span of a thousand of your years is but a moment. I, myself, have already lived many such
periods, and I am but a youthùa mere watchman, not yet to be entrusted with really serious
thinking.
     "I have spoken over long; the reason for my prolixity being that I do not like to see the
energy of a race so misused, so corrupted to material conquest for its own sake. I would like to
set your minds upon die Way of Truth, if perchance such a thing should be possible. I have
pointed out that Way; whether or not you follow it is for you to decide. Indeed, I fear that most
of you, in your short-sighted pride, have already cast my message aside; refusing point-blank to
change your habits of thought. It is, however, in the hope that some few of you will perceive the
Way and will follow it that I have discoursed at such length.
     "Whether or not you change your habits of thought, I advise you to heed this, my
warning. Arisia does not want and will not tolerate intrusion. As a lesson, watch these two
violators of our privacy destroy themselves."
     The giant voice ceased. Eichlan's tentacles moved toward the controls. The vast torpedo
launched itself.
     But instead of hurtling toward distant Arisia it swept around in a circle and struck, in
direct central impact, the great cruiser of the Eich. There was an appalling crash, a space-
wracking detonation, a flare of incandescence incredible and indescribable as the energy
calculated to disruptùalmost to volatilizeùa world expended itself upon the insignificant mass
of one Boskonian battleship and upon the unresisting texture of the void.

     CHAPTER 10
     THE NEGASPHERE

     Considerably more than the stipulated week passed before Kinnison was done with the
librarian and with the long-range communicator beam, but eventually he succeeded in enlisting
the aid of the fifty three most eminent scientists and thinkers of all the planets of Galactic
Civilization. From all over the galaxy were they selected; from Vandemar and Centralia and
Alsakan; from Chickladoria and Radelix; from the solar systems of Rigel and Sinus and Antares.
Millions of planets were not represented at all; and of the few which were, Tellus alone had
more than one delegate. This was necessary, Kinnison explained carefully to each of the chosen.
Sir Austin Cardynge, the man whose phenomenal brain had developed a new mathematics to
handle the positron and the negative energy levels, was the one who would do the work; he
himself was present merely as a coordinator and observer. The meeting-place, even, was not
upon Tellus, but upon Medon, the newly acquired and hence entirely neutral planet. For the Gray
Lensman knew well the minds with which he would have to deal.
     They were all geniuses of the highest rank, but in all too many cases their stupendous
mentalities verged altogether too closely upon insanity for any degree of comfort. Even before
the conclave assembled it became evident that jealousy was to be rife and rampant; and after the
initial meeting, at which the problem itself was propounded, it required all of Kinnison's ability,
authority, and drive: and all of Worsel's vast diplomacy and tact, to keep those mighty brains at
work.
     Time after time some essential entity, his dignity outraged and his touchy ego infuriated
by some real or fancied insult, stalked off in high dudgeon to return to his own planet; only to be
coaxed or bullied, or even mentally man-handled by Kinnison or Worsel, or both, into returning
to his task.
     Nor were those insults all, or even mostly, imaginary. Quarreling and bickering were
incessant, violent flare-ups and passionate scenes of denunciation and vituperation were of
almost hourly occurrence. Each of those minds had been accustomed to world-wide adulation, to
the unquestioned acceptance as gospel of his every idea or pronouncement, and to have to submit
his work to the scrutiny and to the unwor-shipful criticisms of lesser mindsùactually to have to
give way, at times, to those inferior mentalitiesùwas a situation quite definitely intolerable.
     But at length most of them began to work together, "as they appreciated the fact that the
problem before them was one which none of them singly had been able even partially to solve;
and Kinnison let the others, the most fanatically non-cooperative, go home. Then progress
beganùand none too soon. The Gray Lensman had lost twenty five pounds in weight, and even
the iron-thewed Worsel was a wreck. He could not fly, he declared, because his wings buckled in
the middle; he could not crawl, because his belly-plates clashed against his back-bone!
     And finally the thing was done; reduced to a set of equations which could be written
upon a single sheet of paper. It is true that those equations would have been meaningless to
almost anyone then alive, since they were based upon a system of mathematics which had been
brought into existence at that very meeting, but Kinnison had taken care of that.
     No Medonian had been allowed in the Conferenceùthe admittance of one to
membership would have caused a massed exodus of the high-strung, temperamental maniacs
working so furiously thereùbut the Tellurian Lensman had had recorded every act, almost every
thought, of every one of those geniuses. Those records had been studied for weeks, not only by
Wise of Medon and his staff, but also by a corps of the less brilliant, but infinitely better
balanced scientists of the Patrol proper.
     "Now you fellows can really get to work." Kinnison heaved a sigh of profound relief as
the last member of the Conference figuratively shook the dust of Medon off his robe as he
departed homeward. "I'm going to sleep for a week. Call me, will you, when you get the model
done?"
     This was sheerest exaggeration, of course, for nothing could have kept the Lensman from
watching the construction of that first apparatus. He watched the erection of a spherical shell of
loosely latticed truss-work some twenty feet in diameter. He watched the installation, at its six
cardinal points, of atomic exciters, each capable of transforming ten thousand pounds per hour of
substance into pure energy. He knew that those exciters were driving their intake screens at a
ratio of at least twenty thousand to one; that energy equivalent to the annihilation of at least six
hundred thousand tons per hour of material was being hurled into the center of that web from the
six small mechanisms which were in fact super-Bergenholms. Nor is that word adequate to
describe them; their fabrication would have been utterly impossible without Medonian
conductors and insulation.
     He watched the construction of a conveyor and a chute, and looked on intently while a
hundred thousand tons of refuseùrocks, sand, concrete, scrap iron, loose metal, debris of all
kindsùwere dropped into that innocuous-appearing sphere, only to vanish as though they had
never existed.
     "But we ought to be able to see it by this time, I should think!" Kinnison protested once.
     "Not yet, Kim," Master Technician LaVerne Thorndyke informed him. "Just forming the
vortexùmicroscopic yet. I haven't the faintest idea of what is going in there; but, man, dear man,
am I glad I'm here to help make it go on!"
     "But when?" demanded the Lensman. "How soon will you know whether it's going to
work or not? I've got to do a flit."
     "You can flit any timeùnow, if you like," the technician told him, brutally. "We don't
need you any moreùyou've done your bit. It's working now. If it wasn't, do you think we could
pack all that stuff into that little space? We'll have it done long before you'll need it"
     "But I want to see it work, you big lug!" Kinnison retorted, [only half playfully.
     "Come back in three-four daysùmaybe a week; but don't expect to see anything but a
hole."
     "That's exactly what I want to see, a hole in space," and that was precisely what, a few
days later, the Lensman did see.
     The spherical framework was unchanged, the machines were still carrying easily their
incredible working load. Materialùany and all kinds of stuffùwas still disappearing;
instantaneously, invisibly, quietly, with no flash or fury to mark its passing.
     But at the center of that massive sphere there now hung poised a . . . a something. Or was
it a nothing? Mathematically, it was a sphere, or rather a negasphere, about the size of a baseball;
but the eye, while it could see something, could not perceive it analytically. Nor could the mind
envision it in three dimensions, for it was not essentially three-dimensional in nature. Light sank
into the thing, whatever it was, and vanished. The peering eye could see nothing whatever of
shape or of texture; the mind behind the eye reeled away before infinite vistas of nothingness.
     Kinnison hurled his extra-sensory perception into it and jerked back, almost stunned. It
was neither darkness nor blackness, he decided, after he recovered enough poise to think
coherently. It was worse than thatùworse than anything imaginableùan infinitely vast and yet
non-existent realm of the total absence of everything whatever . . . ABSOLUTE NEGATION!
     "That's it, I guess," the Lensman said then. "Might as well stop feeding it now."
     "We would have to stop soon, in any case," Wise replied, "for our available waste
material is becoming scarce. It will take the substance of a fairly large planet to produce that
which you require. You have, perhaps, a planet in mind which is to be used for the purpose?"
     "Better than that I have in mind the material of just such a planet, but already broken up
into sizes convenient for handling."
     "Oh, the asteroid belt!" Thorndyke exclaimed. "Fine! Kill two birds with one stone, huh?
Build this thing and at the same time clear out the menaces to inert interplanetary navigation?
But how about the miners?"
     "All covered. The ones actually in development will be let alone. They're not menaces,
anyway, as they all have broadcasters. The tramp miners we sendùat Patrol expense and
grubstakeùto some other system to do their mining. But there's one more point before we flit.
Are you sure you can shift to the second stage without an accident?"
     "Positive. Build another one around it, mount new Bergs, exciters, and screens on it, and
let this one, machines and all, go in to feed the kittyùwhatever it is."
     "QX. Let's go, fellows!"
     Two huge Tellurian freighters were at hand; and, holding the small framework between
them in a net of tractors and pressors, they set off blithely toward Sol. They took a couple of
hours for the journeyùthere was no hurry, and in the handling of this particular freight caution
was decidedly of the essence.
     Arrived at destination, the crews tackled with zest and zeal this new game. Tractors
lashed out, seizing chunks of iron . . .
     "Pick out the little ones, men," cautioned Kinnison. "Nothing over about ten feet in
section-dimension will go into this frame. Better wait for the second frame before you try to
handle the big ones."
     "We can cut 'em up," Thorndyke suggested. "What've we got these shear-planes for?"
     "QX if you like. Just so you keep the kitty fed."
     "We'll feed her!" and the game went on.
     Chunks of debrisùsome rock, but mostly solid meteoric nickel-ironùshot toward the
vessels and the ravening sphere, becoming inertialess as they entered a wide-flung zone. Pressors
seized them avidly, pushing them through the interstices of the framework, holding them against
the voracious screen. As they touched the screen they disappeared; no matter how fast they were
driven the screen ate them away, silently and unspectacularly, as fast as they could be thrown
against it. A weird spectacle indeed, to see a jagged fragment of solid iron, having a mass of
thousands of tons, drive against that screen and disappear! For it vanished, utterly, along a
geometrically perfect spherical surface. From the opposite side the eye could see the mirror
sheen of the metal at the surface of disintegration; it was as though the material were being
shoved out of our familiar three-dimensional space into another universeùwhich, as a matter of
cold fact, may have been the case.
     For not even the men who were doing the work made any pretense of understanding what
was happening to that iron. Indeed, the only entities who did have any comprehension of the
phenomenonùthe forty-odd geniuses whose mathematical wizardry had made it
possibleùthought of it and discussed it, not in the limited, three-dimensional symbols of every-
day existence, but only in the language of high mathematics; a language in which few indeed are
able really and readily to think.
     And while the crews became more and more expert at the new technique, so that metal
came in faster and fasterù huge, hot-sliced bars of iron ten feet square and a quarter of a mile
long were being driven into that enigmatic sphere of extinctionùan outer framework a hundred
and fifty miles in diameter was being built Nor, contrary to what might be supposed, was a
prohibitive amount of metal or of labor necessary to fabricate that mammoth structure. Instead of
six there were six cubedùtwo hundred sixteenùworking stations, complete with generators and
super-Bergenholms and screen generators, each mounted upon a massive platform; but, instead
of being connected and supported by stupendous beams and trusses of metal, those platforms
were Linked by infinitely stronger bonds of pure force. It took a lot of ships to do the job, but the
technicians of the Patrol had at call enough floating machine shops and to spare.
     When the sphere of negation grew to be about a foot in apparent diameter it had been
found necessary to surround it with a screen opaque to all visible light, for to look into it long or
steadily then meant insanity. Now the opaque screen was sixteen feet in diameter, nearing
dangerously the sustaining framework, and the outer frame was ready. It was time to change.
     The Lensman held his breath, but the Medonians and the Tellurian technicians did not
turn a hair as they mounted their new stations and tested their apparatus.
     "Ready," "Ready," "Ready." Station after station reported; then, as Thorndyke threw in
the master switch, the primary sphereùinvisible now, through distance, to the eye, but plain
upon the visiplatesùdisappeared; a mere morsel to those new gigantic forces.
     "Swing into it, boys!" Thorndyke yelled into his transmitter. "We don't have to feed her
with a teaspoon any more. Let her have it!"
     And "let her have it" they did. No more cutting up of the larger meteorites; asteroids ten,
fifteen, twenty miles in diameter, along with hosts of smaller stuff, were literally hurled through
the black screen into the even lusher blackness of that which was inside it, without complaint
from the quietly humming motors.
     "Satisfied, Kim?" Thorndyke asked.
     "Uh-huh!" the Lensman assented, vigorously. "Nice! . . . Slick, in fact," he commended.
"I'll buzz off now, I guess."
     "Might as wellùeverything's on the green. Clear ether, spacehound!"
     "Same to you, big fella. I'll be seeing you, or sending you a thought. There's Tellus, right
over there. Funny, isn't it, doing a flit to a place you can actually see before you start?"
     The trip to Earth was scarcely a hop, even in a supply-boat. To Prime Base the Gray
Lensman went, where he found that his new non-ferrous speedster was done; and during the next
few days he tested it out thoroughly. It did not register at all, neither upon the regular, long-range
ultra-instruments nor upon the short-range emergency electros. Nor could it be seen in space,
even in a telescope at point-blank range. True, it occulted an occasional star; but since even the
direct rays of a search-light failed to reveal its shape to the keenest eyeùthe Lensmen-chemists
who had worked out that ninety nine point nine nine percent absolute black coating had done a
wonderful jobùthe chance of discovery through that occurrence was very slight.
     "QX, Kim?" the Port Admiral asked. He was accompanying the Gray Lensman on a last
tour of inspection.
     "Fine, chief. Couldn't be betterùthanks a lot."
     "Sure you're non-ferrous yourself?"
     "Absolutely. Not even an iron nail in my shoes."
     "What is it, then? You look worried. Want something expensive?"
     "You hit the thumb, Admiral, right on the nail. But it's not only expensiveùwe may
never have any use for it."
     "Better build it, anyway. Then if you want it you'll have it, and if you don't want it we
can always use it for something. What is it?"
     "A nut-cracker. There are a lot of cold planets around, aren't there, that aren't good for
anything?"
     "Thousands of themùmillions."
     "The Medonians put Bergenholms on their planet and flew it from Lundmark's Nebula to
here in a few weeks. Why wouldn't it be a sound idea to have the planetographers pick out a
couple of useless worlds which, at some points in their orbits, have diametrically opposite
velocities, to within a degree or two?"
     "You've got something there, my boy. Will do. Very much worth having, just for its own
sake, even if we never have any use for it. Anything else?"
     "Not a thing in the universe. Clear ether, chief!"
     "Light landings, Kinnison!" and gracefully, effortlessly, the dead-black sliver of semi-
precious metal lifted herself away from Earth.

                         *     *     *

     Through Bominger, the Radeligian Big Shot, Kinnison had had a long and eminently
satisfactory interview with Prellin, the regional director of all surviving Boskonian activities.
Thus he knew where he was, even to the street address, and knew the name of the firm which
was his aliasù Ethan D. Wembleson and Sons, Inc., 4627 Boulevard De-zalies, Cominoche,
Quadrant Eight, Bronseca. That name had been his first shock, for that firm was one of the
largest and most conservative houses in galactic trade; one having an unquestioned AAA-1
rating in every mercantile index.
     However, that was the way they worked, Kinnison reflected, as his speedster reeled off
the parsecs. It wasn't far to Bronsecaùeasy Lens distanceùhe'd better call somebody there and
start making arrangements. He had heard about the planet, although he'd never been there.
Somewhat warmer than Tellus, but otherwise very Earthlike. Millions of Tellurians lived there
and liked it His approach to the planet Bronseca was characterized by all possible caution, as
was his visit to Cominoche, the capital city. He found that 4627 Boulevard Dezalies was a
structure covering an entire city block and some eighty stories high, owned and occupied
exclusively by Wembleson's. No visitors were allowed except by appointment. His first stroll
past it showed him that an immense cylinder, comprising almost the whole interior of the
building, was shielded by thought screens. He rode up and down in the elevators of nearby
buildingsùno penetration. He visited a dozen offices in the neighborhood upon various errands,
choosing his time with care so that he would have to wait in each an hour or so in order to see his
man.
     These leisurely scrutinies of his objective failed to reveal a single fact of value. Ethan D.
Wembleson and Sons, Inc., did a tremendous business, but every ounce of it was legitimate!
That is, the files in the outer offices covered only legitimate transactions, and the men and
women busily at work there were all legitimately employed. And the inner officesùvastly more
extensive than the outer, to judge by the number of employees entering in the morning and
leaving at the close of businessùwere sealed against his prying, every second of every day.
     He tapped in turn the minds of dozens of those clerks, but drew only blanks. As far as
they were concerned, there was nothing "queer" going on anywhere in the organization. The
"Old Man"ùHoward Wembleson, a grand-nephew or something of Ethanùhad developed a
complex lately that his life was in danger. Scarcely ever left the buildingùnot that he had any
need to, as he had always had palatial quarters thereùand then only under heavy guard.
     A good many thought-screened persons came and went, but a careful study of them and
their movements convinced the Gray Lensman that he was wasting his time.
     "No soap," he reported to a Lensman at Bronseca's Base. "Might as well try to stick a pin
quietly into a cateagle. He's been told that he's the next link in the chain, and he's got the jitters
right. I'll bet he's got a dozen loose observers, instead of only one. I'll save time, I think, by
tracing another line. I have thought before that my best bet is in the asteroid dens instead of on
the planets. I let them talk me out of itùit's a dirty job and I've got to establish an identity of my
own, which will be even dirtierùbut it looks as though I'll have to go back to it."
     "But the others are warned, too," suggested the Bron-secan. "They'll probably be just as
bad. Let's blast it open and take a chance on finding the data you want."
     "No," Kinnison said, emphatically. "Not a chanceùthat's not the way to get anything I'm
looking for. The others are probably warned, yes, but since they aren't on my direct line to the
throne, they probably aren't taking it as seriously as this Prellinùor Wemblesonùis. Or if they
are, they won't keep it up as long. They can't, and get any joy out of life at all.
     "And you can't say a word to Prellin about his screens, either," the Tellurian went on in
reply to a thought. "They're legal enough; just as much so as spy-ray blocks. Every man has a
right to privacy. Just one question here, or just one suspicious move, is apt to blow everything
into a cocked hat. You fellows keep on working along the lines we laid out and I'll try another
line. If it works I'll come back and we'll open this can the way you want to. That way, we may be
able to get the low-down on about four hundred planetary organizations at one haul."
     Thus it came about that Kinnison took his scarcely-used indetectable speedster back to
Prime Base; and that, in a solar system prodigiously far removed from both Tellus and Bronseca
there appeared another tramp meteor-miner.
     Peculiar people, these toilers in the inter-planetary voids; flotsam and jetsam; for the
most part the very scum of space. Some solar systems contain more asteroidal and meteoric
debris than did ours of Sol, others less, but few if any have none at all. In the main this material
is either nickel-iron or rock, but some of these fragments carry prodigious values in platinum,
osmium, and other noble metals, and occasionally there are discovered diamonds and other gems
of tremendous size and value. Hence, in the asteroid belts of every solar system there are to be
found those universally despised, but nevertheless bold and hardy souls who, risking life and
limb from moment to moment though they are, yet live in hope that the next lump of cosmic
detritus will prove to be Bonanza.
     Some of these men are the sheer misfits of life. Some are petty criminals, fugitives from
the justice of their own planets, but not of sufficient importance to be upon the "wanted" lists of
the Patrol. Some are of those who for some reason or otherùaddiction to drugs, perhaps, or the
overwhelming urge occasionally to go on a spreeùare unable or unwilling to hold down the
steady jobs of their more orthodox brethren. Still others, and these are many, live that horridly
adventurous life because it is in their blood; like the lumber-jacks who in ancient times dwelt
upon Tellus, they labor tremendously and unremittingly for weeks, only and deliberately to
"blow in" the fruits of their toil in a few wild days and still wilder nights of hectic, sanguine, and
lustful debauchery in one or another of the spacemen's hells of which every inhabited solar
system has its quota.
     But, whatever their class, they have much in common. They all live for the moment only,
from hand to mouth. They all are intrepid space-men. They have to beùno others last long.
They all live hardly, dangerously, violently. They are men of red and gusty passions, and they
have, if not an actual contempt, at least a loud-voiced scorn of the law in its every phase and
manifestation. "Law ends with atmosphere" is the galaxy-wide creed of the clan, and it is a fact
that no law save that of the ray-gun is even yet really enforced in the badlands of the asteroid
belts.
     Indeed, the meteor miners as a matter of course take their innate lawlessness with them
into their revels in the crimson-lit resorts already referred to. In general the nearby Planetary
Police adopt a laissez-faire attitude, particularly since the asteroids are not within their
jurisdictions, but are independent worlds, each with its own world-government If they kill a
dozen or so of each other and of the bloodsuckers who batten upon them, what of it? If
everybody in those hells could be killed at once, the universe would be that much better
off!ùand if the Galactic Patrol is compelled, by some unusually outrageous performance, to
intervene in the revelry, it comes in, not as single policemen, but in platoons or in companies of
armed, full-armored infantry going to war!
     Such, then, were those among whom Kinnison chose to cast his lot, in a new effort to get
in touch with the Galactic Director of the drug ring.

     CHAPTER 11
     HI-JACKERS

     Although Kinnison left Bronseca, abandoning that line of attack completelyùthereby, it
might be thought, forfeiting all the work he had theretofore done upon itùthe Patrol was not
idle, nor was Prellin-Wembleson of Cominoche, the Boskonian Regional Director, neglected.
Lensman after Lensman came and went, unobstrusively, but grimly determined. There came
Tellurians, Venerians, Manarkans, Borovans; Lensmen of every human breed, say of whom
might have been, as far as the minions of Boskone knew, the one foe whom they had such good
cause to fear.
     Rigellian Lensmen came also, and Posenians, and Ordoviks; representatives, in fact, of
almost every available race possessing any type or kind of extra-sensory perception, came to test
out their skill and cunning. Even Worsel of Velantia came, hurled for days his mighty mind
against those screens, and departed.
     Whether or not business went on as usual no one could say, but the Patrol was certain of
three things. First, that while the Boskonians might be destroying some of their records, they
were moving none away, by air, land, or tunnel; second, that there was no doubt in any zwilick
mind that the Lensmen were there to stay until they won, in one way or another; and third, that
Prellin's life was not a happy one!
     And while his brothers of the Lens were so efficiently pinch-hitting for himùeven
though they were at the same time trying to show him up and thereby win kudos for
themselvesùin mentally investing the Regional stronghold of Boskone, Kinnison was
establishing an identity as a wandering hellion of the asteroid belts.
     There would be no slips this time. He would be a meteor miner in every particular, down
to the last, least detail. To this end he selected his equipment with the most exacting care. It must
be thoroughly adequate and dependable, but neither new nor of such outstanding quality or
amount as to cause comment.
     His ship, a stubby, powerful space-tug with an oversized air-lock, was a used jobùhard-
used, tooùsome ten years old. She was battered, pitted, and scarred; but it should be noted here,
perhaps parenthetically, that when the Patrol technicians finished their rebuilding she was
actually as staunch as a battleship. His space-armor, Spalding drills, DeLameters, tractors and
pressors, and "spee-gee" (torsion specific-gravity apparatus) were of the same grade. AH bore
unmistakable evidence of years of hard use, but all were in perfect working order. In short, his
outfit was exactly that which a successful meteor-minerùeven such a one as he Was going to
becomeùwould be expected to own.
     He cut his own hair, and his whiskers too, with ordinary shears, as was good technique.
He learned the polyglot of the trade; the language which, made up of words from each of
hundreds of planetary tongues, was and is the everyday speech of human or near-human meteor
miners, whereever found. By "near-human" is meant a six-place classification of
AAAAAAùmeaning oxygen-breathing, warm-blooded, erect, and having more or less
humanoid heads, arms, and legs. For, even in meteor-mining, like runs with like. Warmblooded
oxygen-breathers find neither welcome nor enjoyment in a pleasure-resort operated by and for
such a race, say, as the Trocanthers, who are cold-blooded, quasi-reptilian beings who abhor
light of all kinds and who breathe a gaseous mixture not only paralyzingly cold but also
chemically fatal to man.
     Above all he had to learn how to drink strong liquors and how to take drugs, for he knew
that no drink that had ever been distilled, and no drug, with the possible exception of thionite,
could enslave the mind he then had. Thionite was out, anyway. It was too scarce and too
expensive for meteor miners; they simply didn't go for it. Hadive, heroin, opium, nitrolabe,
bentlamùthat was it, bentlam. He could get it anywhere, all over the galaxy, and it was very
much in character. Easy to take, potent in results, and not as damagingùif you didn't become a
real addictùto the system as most of the others. He would become a bentlam-eater. " Bentlam,
known also to the trade by such nicknames as "benny," "benweed," "happy-sleep," and others, is
a shredded, moistly fibrous material of about the same consistency and texture as fine-cut
chewing tobacco. Through his friends of Narcotics the Gray Lensman obtained a supply of "the
clear quill, first chop, in the original tins" from a prominent bootlegger, and had it assayed for
potency.
     The drinking problem required no thought; he would learn to drink, and apparently to
like, anything and everything that would pour. Meteor miners did.
     Therefore, coldly, deliberately, dispassionately, and with as complete a detachment as
though he were calibrating a burette or analyzing an unknown solution, he set about the task. He
determined his capacity as impersonally as though his physical body were a volumetric flask; he
noted the effect of each measured increment of high-proof beverage and of habit-forming drug
as precisely as though he were studying a chemical reaction in which he himself was not
concerned save as a purely scientific observer.
     He detested the stuff. Every fiber of his being rebelled at the sensations evokedùthe loss
of coordination and control, the inflation, the aggrandizement, the falsity of values, the sheer
hallucinationsùnevertheless he went through with the whole program, even to the extent of
complete physical helplessness for periods of widely varying duration. And when he had
completed his researches he was thoroughly well informed.
     He knew to a nicety, by feel, how much active principle he had taken, no matter how
strong, how weak, or how adulterated the liquor or the drug had been. He knew to a fraction how
much more he could take; or, having taken too much, almost exactly how long he would be
incapacitated. He learned for himself what was already widely known, that it was better to get at
least moderately illuminated before taking the drug; that bentlam rides better on top of liquor
than vice versa. He even determined roughly the rate of increase with practice of his tolerances.
Then, and only then, did he begin working as a meteor miner.
     Working in an asteroid belt of one solar system might have been enough, but the Gray
Lensman took no chances at all of having his new identity traced back to its source. Therefore he
worked, and caroused, in five; approaching stepwise to the solar system of Borova which was his
goal.
     Arrived at last, he gave his chunky space-boat the average velocity of an asteroid belt just
outside the orbit of the fourth planet, shoved her down into it, turned on his Bergenholm, and
went to work. His first job was to "set up"; to install in the extra-large air-lock, already equipped
with duplicate controls, his tools and equipment. He donned space-armor, made sure that his
DeLameters were sitting prettyùall meteor miners go armed as routine, and the Lensman had
altogether too much at stake in any case to forego his accustomed weaponsùpumped the air of
the lock back into the body of the ship, and opened the outer port For meteor miners do not work
inside their ships. It takes too much time to bring the metal in through the air-locks. It also
wastes air, and air is precious; not only in money, al-though that is no minor item, but also
because no small ship, stocked for a six-weeks run, can carry any more air than is really needed.
     Set up, he studied his electros and flicked his tractor beams out to a passing fragment of
metal, which flashed up to him, almost instantaneously. Or, rather, the inertialess tugboat flashed
across space to the comparatively tiny, but inert, bit of metal which he was about to investigate.
With expert ease Kinnison clamped the meteorite down and rammed into it his Spalding drill,
the tool which in one operation cuts out and polishes a cylindrical sample exactly one inch in
diameter and exactly one inch long. Kinnison took the sample, placed it in the jaw of his spee-
gee, and cut his Berg. Going inert in an asteroid belt is dangerous business, but it is only one of a
meteor miner's hazards and it is necessary; for the torsiometer is the quickest and simplest means
of determining the specific gravity of metal out in space, and no torsion instrument will work
upon inertialess matter.
     He read the scale even as he turned on the Berg. Seven point nine. Iron. Worthless. Big
operators could use itù the asteroid belts had long since supplanted the mines of the worlds as
sources of ironùbut it wouldn't do him a bit of good. Therefore, tossing it aside, he speared
another. Another, and another. Hour after hour, day after day; the back-breaking, lonely labor of
the meteor miner. But very few of the bona-fide miners had the Gray Lensman's physique or his
stamina, and not one of them all had even a noteworthy fraction of his brain. And brain counts,
even in meteor-mining. Hence Kinnison found pay-metal; quite a few really good, although not
phenomenally dense, pieces.
     Then one day there happened a thing which, if it was not in actual fact premeditated, was
as mathematically improbable, almost, as the formation of a planetary solar system; an
occurrence that was to exemplify in startling and hideous fashion the doctrine of tooth and fang
which is the only law of the asteroid belts. Two tractor beams seized, at almost the same instant,
the same meteor! Two ships, flashing up to zone contact in the twinkling of an eye, the
inoffensive meteor squarely between them! And in the air lock of the other tug there were two
men, not one; two men already going for their guns with the practiced ease of space-hardened
veterans to whom the killing of a man was the veriest bagatelle!
     They must have been hi-jackers, killing and robbing as a business, Kinnison concluded,
afterward. Bona-fide miners almost never work two to a boat, and the fact that they actually beat
him to the draw, and yet were so slow in shooting, argued that they had not been taken by
surprise, as had he. Indeed, the meteor itself, the bone of contention, might very well have been a
bait
     He could not follow his natural inclination to let go, to let them have it. The tale would
have spread far and wide, branding him as a coward and a weakling. He would have had to kill,
or have been killed by, any number of lesser bullies who would have attacked him on sight. Nor
could he have taken over their minds quickly enough to have averted death. One, perhaps, but
not two; he was no Arisian. These thoughts, as has been intimated, occurred to him long
afterward. During the actual event there was no time to think at all. Instead, he acted;
automatically and instantaneously.
     Kinnison's hands flashed to the worn grips of his DeLamaters, sliding them from the
leather and bringing them to bear at the hip with one smoothly flowing motion that was a marvel
of grace and speed. But, fast as he was, he was almost too late. Four bolts of lightning blasted,
almost as one. The two desperadoes dropped, cold; the Lensman felt a stab . of agony sear
through his shoulder and the breath whistled out of his mouth and nose as his space-suit
collapsed. Gasping terribly for air that was no longer there, holding onto his senses doggedly and
grimly, he made shift to close the outer door of the lock and to turn a valve. He did not lose
consciousnessùquiteùand as soon as he recovered the use of his muscles he stripped off his
suit and examined himself narrowly in a mirror.
     Eyes, plenty bloodshot. Nose, bleeding copiously. Ears, bleeding, but not too badly;
drums not ruptured, fortunately ùhe had been able to keep the pressure fairly well equalized.
Felt like some internal bleeding, but he could see nothing really serious. He hadn't breathed
space long enough to do any permanent damage, he guessed.
     Then, baring his shoulder, he treated the wound with Zinsmaster burn-dressing. This was
no trifle, but at that, it wasn't so bad. No bone goneùit'd heal in two or three weeks. Lastly, he
looked over his suit If he'd only had his G-P armor onùbut that, of course, was out of the
question. He had a spare suit, but he'd rather . . . Fine, he could replace the burned section easily
enough. QX.
     He donned his other suit, re-entered the air lock, neutralized the screens, and crossed
over; where he did exactly what any other meteor miner would have done. He divested the
bloated corpses of their space-suits and shoved them off into space. He then ransacked the ship,
transferring from it to his own, as well as four heavy meteors, every other item of value which he
could move and which his vessel could hold. Then, inerting her, he gave her a couple of notches
of drive and cut her loose, for so a real miner would have done. It was not compunction or
scruple that would have prevented any miner from taking the ship, as well as the supplies. Ships
were registered, and otherwise were too hot to be handled except by organized criminal rings.
     As a matter of routine he tested the meteor which had been the innocent cause of all this
strifeùor had it been a bait?ùand found it worthless iron. Also as routine he kept on working.
He had almost enough metal now, even at Miners' Rest prices, for a royal binge, but he couldn't
go in until his shoulder was well. And a couple of weeks later he got the shock of his life.
     He had brought in a meteor; a mighty big one, over four feet in its smallest dimension.
He sampled it, and as soon as he cut the Berg and flicked the sample experimentally from hand
to hand, his skilled muscles told him that that metal was astoundingly dense. Heart racing, he
locked the test-piece into the spee-gee; and that vital organ almost stopped beating entirely as the
indicator needle went up and up and upùstopping at a full twenty two, and the scale went only
to twenty four!
     "Klono's brazen hoofs and diamond-tipped horns!" he ejaculated. He whistled stridently
through his teeth, then measured his find as accurately as he could. Then, speaking aloud "Just
about thirty thousand kilograms of something noticeably denser than pure platinumùthirty
million credits or I'm a Zabriskan fontema's maiden aunt. What to do?"
     This find, as well it might, gave the Gray Lensman pause. It upset all his calculations. It
was unthinkable to take that meteor to such a fence's hideout as Miners' Rest. Men had been
murdered, and would be again, for a thousandth of its value. No matter where he took it, there
would be publicity galore, and that wouldn't do. If he called a Patrol ship to take the white
elephant off his hands he might be seen; and he had put too much work on this identity to
jeopardize it. He'd have to bury it, he guessedùhe had maps of the system, and the fourth planet
was close by.
     He cut off a chunk of a few pounds' weight and made a nuggetùa tiny meteorùof it,
then headed for the planet, a plainly visible disk some fifteen degrees from the sun. He had a
fairly large-scale chart of the system, with notes. Borova IV was uninhabited, except by low
forms of life, and by outposts. Cold. Atmosphere thinùgood, that meant no clouds. No oceans.
No volcanic activity. Very good! He'd look it over, and the first striking landmark he saw, from
one diameter out, would be his cache.
     He circled the planet once at the equator, observing a formation of five mighty peaks
arranged in a semi-circle, cupped toward the world's north pole. He circled it again, seeing
nothing as prominent, and nothing else resembling it at all closely. Scanning his plate narrowly,
to be sure nothing was following him, he drove downward in a screaming dive toward the
middle mountain.
     It was an extinct volcano, he discovered, with a level-floored crater more than a hundred
miles in diameter. Practically level, that is, except for a smaller cone which reared up in the
center of that vast, desolate plain of craggy, tortured lava. Straight down into the cold vent of the
inner cone the Lensman steered his ship; and in its exact center he dug a hole and buried his
treasure. He then lifted his tug-boat fifty feet and held her there, poised on her raving under-jets,
until the lava in the little crater again began sluggishly to flow, and thus to destroy all evidence
of his visit. This detail attended to, he shot out into space and called Haynes, to whom he
reported in full.
     "I'll bring the meteor in when I comeùor do you want to send somebody out here after
it? It belongs to the Patrol, of course."
     "No, it doesn't, Kimùit belongs to you."
     "Huh? Isn't there a law that any discoveries made by any employes of the Patrol belong
to the Patrol?"
     "Nothing as broad as that. Certain scientific discoveries, by scientists assigned to an
exact research, yes. But you're forgetting again that you're an Unattached Lensman, and as such
are accountable to no one in the Universe. Even the ten-per-cent treasure-trove law couldn't
touch you. Besides, your meteor is not in that category, as you are its first owner, as far as we
know. If you insist I'll mention it to the Council, but I know in advance what the answer will be."
     "QX, Chiefùthanks," and the connection was broken.
     There, that was that. He had got rid of the white elephant, yet it wouldn't be wasted. If the
zwilniks got him, the Patrol would dig it up; if he lived long enough to retire to a desk job he
wouldn't have to take any more of the Patrol's money as long as he lived. Financially, he was all
set.
     And physically, he was all set for his first real binge as a meteor-miner. His shoulder and
arm were as good as new. He had a lot of metal; enough so that its proceeds would finance, not
only his next venture into space, but also a really royal celebration in the spacemen's resort he
had already picked out.
     For the Lensman had devoted a great deal of thought to that item. For his purpose, the
bigger the resortùwithin limitsùthe better. The man he was after would not be a small operator,
nor would he deal directly with such. Also, the big king-pins did not murder drugged miners for
their ships and outfits, as the smaller ones sometimes did. The big ones realized that there was
more long-pull profit in repeat business.
     Therefore Kinnison set his course toward the great asteroid Euphrosyne and its festering
hell-hole, Miners' Rest. Miners' Rest, to all highly moral citizens the disgrace not only of a solar
system but of a sector; the very name of which was (and is) a by-word and a hissing to the blue-
noses of twice a hundred inhabited and civilized worlds.

     CHAPTER 12
     WILD BILL WILLIAMS, METEOR MINER

     As has been implied, miners' rest was the biggest, widest-open, least restrained joint in
that entire sector of the galaxy. And through the underground activities of his fellows of the
Patrol, Kinnison knew that of all the king-snipes of that lawless asteroid, the man called
Strongheart was the Big Shot
     Therefore the Lensman landed his battered craft at Strong-heart's Dock, loaded the
equipment of the hi-jacker's boat into a hand truck, and went into to talk to Strongheart himself.
"SuppliesùEquipmentùMetalùBought and Sold" the sign read; but to any experienced eye it
was evident that the sign was conservative indeed; that it did not cover Strong-heart's business,
by half. There were dance-halls, there were long and ornate bars, there were rooms in plenty
devoted to various games of so-called chance, and most significant, there were scores of those
unmistakable cubicles.
     "Welcome, stranger! Glad to see youùhave a good trip?" The dive-keeper always
greeted new customers effusively. "Have a drink on the house!"
     "Business before pleasure," Kinnison replied, tersely. "Pretty good, yes. Here's some
stuff I don't need any more that I aim to sell. What'll you gimme for it?"
     The dealer inspected the suits and instruments, then bored a keen stare into the miner's
eyes; a scrutiny under which Kinnison neither flushed nor wavered.
     "Two hundred and fifty credits for the lot," Strongheart decided.
     "Best you can do?"
     "Tops. Take it or leave it,"
     "QX, they're yours. Gimme it."
     "Why, this just starts our business, don't it? Ain't you got cores? Sure you have."
     "Yeah, but not for no"ùdoubly and unprintably qualified ù"damn robber. I like a louse,
but you suit me altogether too damn well. Them suits alone, just as they lay, are worth a
thousand."
     "So what? For why go to insult me, a business man? Sure I can't give what that stuff is
worthùwho could? You ought to know how I got to get rid of hot goods. You killed, ain't it, the
guys what owned it, so how could I treat it except like it's hot? Now be your ageùdon't burn out
no jets," as the Lensman turned with a blistering, sizzling deep-space oath. "I know they shot
first, they always do, but how does that change things? But keep your shirt on yet, I don't tell
nobody nothing. For why should I? How could I make any money on hot stuff if I talk too much
with my mouth, huh? But on cores, that's something else again. Meteors is legitimate
merchandise, and I pay you as much as anybody, maybe more."
     "QX," and Kinnison tossed over his cores. He had sold the bandits' space-suits and
equipment deliberately, in order to minimize further killing.
     This was his first visit to Miners' Rest, but he intended to become an habitue of the place;
and before he would be accepted as a "regular" he knew that he would have to prove his quality.
Buckos and bullies would be sure to try him out. This way was much better. The tale would
spread; and any gunman who had drilled two hi-jackers, dead-center through the face-plates, was
not one to be challenged lightly. He might have to kill one or two, but not many, nor frequently.
     And the fellow was honest enough in his buying of the metal. His Spaldings cut honest
coresùKinnison put micrometers on them to be sure of that fact. He did not underread his
torsiometer, and he weighed the meteors upon certified balances. He used Galactic Standard
average-value-density tables, and offered exactly half of the calculated average value; which,
Kinnison knew, was fair enough. By taking his metal to a mint or a rare-metals station of the
Patrol, any miner could get the precise value of any meteor, as shown by detailed analysis.
However, instead of making the long trip and waitingùand payingùfor the exact analyses, the
miners usually preferred to take the "fifty-percent-of-average-density-value" which was the
customary offer of the outside dealers.
     Then, the meteors unloaded and hauled away, Kinnison dickered with Strongheart
concerning the supplies he would need during his next trip; the hundred-and-one items which are
necessary to make a tiny space-ship a self-contained, self-sufficient, warm and inhabitable
worldlet in the immense and unfriendly vacuity of space. Here, too, the Lensman was
overcharged shamelessly; but that, too, was routine. No one would, or could be expected to, do
business in any such place as Miners' Rest at any sane or ordinary percentage of profit.
     When Strongheart counted out to him the net proceeds of the voyage, Kinnison scratched
reflectively at his whiskery chin.
     "That ain't hardly enough, I don't think, for the real, old-fashioned, stem-winding bender
I was figuring on," he ruminated. "I been out a long time and I was figuring on doing the thing
up brown. Have to let go of my nugget, too, I guess. Kinda hate toùbeen packing it round quite
a whileùbut here she is." He reached into his kit-bag and tossed over the lump of really precious
metal. "Let you have it for fifteen hundred credits."
     "Fifteen hundred! An idiot you must be, or you should think I'm one, I don't know!"
Strongheart yelped, as he juggled the mass lightly from hand to hand. "Two hundred, you mean .
. . well two fifty, then, but that's an awful high bid, mister, believe me . . . I tell you, I couldn't
give my own mother over three hundredùI'd lose money on the goods. You ain't tested it, what
makes you think it's such a much?"
     "No, and I notice you ain't testing it, neither," Kinnison countered. "Me and you both
know metal well enough so we don't need to test no such nugget as that. Fifteen hundred or I flit
to a mint and get full value for it. I don't have to stay here, you know, by all the nine hells of
Valeria. They's millions of other places where I can get just as drunk and have just as good a
time as I can here."
     There ensued howls of protest, but Strongheart finally yielded, as the Lensman had
known that he would. He could have forced him higher, but fifteen hundred was enough.
     "Now, sir, just the guarantee and you're all set for a lot of fun," Strongheart's anguish had
departed miraculously upon the instant of the deal's closing. "We take your keys, and when your
money's gone and you come back to get 'em, to sell your supplies or your ship or whatever, we
takes you, without hurting you a bit more than we have to, and sober you up, quick as scat. A
room here, whenever you want it, included. Padded, sir, very nice and comfortableùyou can't
hurt yourself, possibly. We been in business here for years, with perfect satisfaction. Not one of
our customers, and we got hundreds who never go nowhere else, have we ever let sell any of the
stuff he had laid in for his next trip, and we never steal none of his supplies, neither. Only two
hundred credits for the whole service, sir. Cheap, sirùvery, very cheap at the price."
     "Um . . . m . . . m." Kinnison again scratched meditatively, this time at the nape of his
neck.
     "I'll take your guarantee, I guess, because sometimes, when I get to going real good, I
don't know just exactly when to stop. But I won't need no padded cell. Me, I don't never get
violentùI always taper off on twenty four units of benny. That gives me twenty four hours on
the shelf, and then I'm all set for another stretch out in the ether. You couldn't get me no benny, I
don't suppose, and if you could it wouldn't be no damn good."
     This was the critical instant, the moment the Lensman had been approaching so long and
so circuitously. Mind Was already reading mind; Kinnison did not need the speech which
followed.
     "Twenty four units!" Strongheart exclaimed. That was a heroic joltùbut the man before
him was of heroic mold. "Sure of that?"
     "Sure I'm sure; and if I get cut weight or cut quality I cut the guy's throat that peddles it
to me. But I ain't out. I got a couple of belts leftùguess I'll use my own, and when it gets gone
go buy me some from a fella I know that's about half honest."
     "Don't handle it myself," this, the Lensman knew, was at least partially true, "but I know
a man who has a friend who can get it. Good stuff, too, in the original tins; special import from
Corvina II. That'll be four hundred altogether. Gimme it and you can start your helling around."
     "Whatja mean, four hundred?" Kinnison snorted. "Think I'm just blasting off about
having some left, huh? Here's two hundred for your guarantee, and that's all I want out of you."
     "Wait a minuteùjet back, brother!" Strongheart had thought that the newcomer was
entirely out of his drug, and could therefore be charged eight prices for it "How much do you get
it for, mostly, the clear quill?"
     "One credit per unitùtwenty four for the belt," Kinnison replied, tersely and truly. That
was the prevailing price charged by retail peddlers. "I'll pay you that, and I don't mean twenty
five, neither."
     "QX, gimme it. You don't need to be afraid of being bumped off or rolled here, neither.
We got a reputation, we have."
     "Yeah, I been told you run a high-class joint," Kinnison agreed, amiably. "That's why I'm
here. But you wanna be mighty sure the ape don't gyp me on the heft of the beltù looky here!"
     As the Lensman spoke he shrugged his shoulders and the dive-keeper leaped backward
with a shriek; for faster than sight two ugly DeLameters had sprung into being in the miner's
huge, dirty paws and were pointing squarely at his midriff!
     "Put 'em away!" Strongheart yelled.
     "Look 'em over first," and Kinnison handed them over, butts first. "These ain't like them
buzzards' cap-pistols what I sold you. These is my own, and they're hot and tight. You know
guns, don't you? Look 'em over, palùreal close."
     The renegade did know weapons, and he studied these two with care, from the worn,
rough-checkered grips and full-charged magazines to the burned, scarred, deeply-pitted orifices.
Definitely and unmistakably they were weapons of terrific power; weapons, withal, which had
seen hard and frequent service; and Strongheart personally could bear witness to the blinding
speed of this miner's draw.
     "And remember this," the Lensman went on. "I never yet got so drunk that anybody
could take my guns away from me, and if I don't get a full belt of benny I get mighty peevish."
     The publican knew thatùit was a characteristic of the drugùand he certainly did not
want that miner running amok with those two weapons in his highly capable hands. He would,
he assured him, get his full dose.
     And, for his part, Kinnison knew that he was reasonably safe, even in this hell of hells.
As long as he was active he could take care of himself, in any kind of company; and he was
fairly certain that he would not be slain, during his drug-induced physical helplessness, for the
value of his ship and supplies. This one visit had yielded Strongheart a profit at least equal to
everything he had left, and each subsequent visit should yield a similar amount
     "The first drink's on the house, always," Strongheart derailed his guest's train of thought
"What'll it be? Tellurian, ain't youùwhiskey?"
     "Uh-uh. Close, thoughùAldebaran II. Got any good old Aldebaranian bolega?"
     "No, but we got some good old Tellurian whiskey, about the same thing."
     "QXùgimme a shot." He poured a stiff three fingers, downed it at a gulp, shuddered
ecstatically, and emitted a wild yell. "Yip-yip-yippee! I'm Wild Bill Williams, the ripping,
roaring, ritoodolorum from Aldebaran II, and this is my night to howl. Whee . . . yow . . . owrie-
e-e!" Then, quieting down, "This rot-gut wasn't never within a million parsecs of Tellus, but it
ain't badùnot bad at all. Got the teeth and claws of holy old Klono himselfùgoes down your
throat just like swallowing a cateagle. Clear ether, pal, I'll be back shortly."
     For his first care was to tour the entire Rest, buying scrupulously one good stiff drink, of
whatever first came to hand, at each hot spot as he came to it
     "A good-will tour," he explained joyously to Strongheart upon his return. "Got to do it,
pal, to keep 'em from calling down the curse of Klono on me, but I'm going to do all my serious
drinking right here."
     And he did. He drank various and sundry beverages, mixing them with a sublime
disregard for consequences which surprised even the hard-boiled booze-fighters assembled there.
"Anything that'll pour," he declared, loud and often, and acted accordingly. Potent or mild;
brewed, fermented, or distilled; loaded, cut, or straight, all one. "Down the hatch!" and down it
went. Here was a two-fisted drinker whose like had not been seen for many a day, and bis fame
spread throughout the Rest
     Being a "happy jag," the more he drank the merrier he became. He bestowed largess
hither and yon, in joyous abandon. He danced blithely with the "hostesses" and tipped them
extravagantly. He did not gamble, explaining frequently and painstakingly that that wasn't none
of his dish; he wanted to have fun with his money.
     He fought, even, without anger or rancor; but gayly, laughing with Homeric gusto the
while. He missed with terrific swings that would have felled a horse had they landed; only
occasionally getting in, as though by chance, a paralyzing punch. Thus he accumulated an
entirely unnecessary mouse under each eye and a sadly bruised nose.
     However, his good humor was, as is generally the case in such instances, quite close to
the surface, and was prone to turn into passionate anger with less real cause even than the
trivialities which started the friendly fist-fights. During various of these outbursts of wrath he
smashed four chairs, two tables, and assorted glassware.
     But only once did he have to draw a deadly weaponù the news, as he had known it
would, had spread abroad that with a DeLameter he was nobody to monkey withùand even then
he didn't have to kill the guy. Just winging himù a little bit of a burn through his gun-armùhad
been enough.
     So it went for days. And finally, it was in immense relief that the hilariously drunken
Lensman, his money gone to the last millo, went roistering up the street with a two-quart bottle
in each hand; swigging now from one, then from the other; inviting bibulously the while any and
all chance comers to join him in one last, fond drink. The sidewalk was not wide enough for him,
by half; indeed, he took up most of the street. He staggered and reeled, retaining any semblance
of balance only by a miracle and by his rigorous spaceman's training.
     He threw away one empty bottle, then the other. Then, as he strode along, so
purposefully and yet so futilely, he sang. His voice was not paricularly musical, but what it
lacked in quality of tone it more than made up in volume. Kinnison had a really remarkable
voice, a bass of tremendous power, timbre, and resonance; and, pulling out all the stops, tones
audible for two thousand yards against the wind, he poured out his zestfully lusty reveler's soul.
His song was a deep-space chanty that would have blistered the ears of any of the gentler spirits
who had known him as Kimball Kinni-son, of Earth; but which, in Miners' Rest, was merely a
humorous and sprightly ballad.
      Up the full length of the street he went. Then back, as he put it, to "Base." Even if this
final bust did make him sicker at the stomach than a ground-gripper going free for the first time,
the Lensman reflected, he had done a mighty good job. He had put Wild Bill Williams, meteor-
miner, of Aldebaran II, on the map in a big way. It wasn't a faked and therefore fragile identity,
either; it was solidly, definitely his own.
     Staggering up to his friend Strongheart he steadied himself with two big hands upon the
latter's shoulders and breathed a forty-thousand-horsepower breath into his face.
     "I'm boiled like a Tellurian hoot-owl," he announced, still happily. "When I'm this stewed
I can't say 'partic-hic-hicu-lar-ly' without hic-hicking, but I would partic-hic-hicularty like just
one more quart. How about me borrowing a hundred on what I'm going to bring in next time, or
selling you. . ." "You've had plenty, Bill. You've had lots of fun. How about a good chew of
sleepy-happy, huh?"
     "That's a thought!" the miner exclaimed eagerly. "Lead me to it!"
     A stranger came up unobstrusively and took him by one elbow. Strongheart took the
other, and between them they walked him down a narrow hall and into a cubicle. And while he
walked flabbily along Kinnison studied intently the brain of the newcomer. This was what he
was after!
     The ape had had a screen; but it was such a nuisance he took it off for a rest whenever he
came here, No Lensmen on Euphrosyne! They had combed everybody, even this drunken bum
here. This was one place that no Lensman would ever come to; or, if he did, he wouldn't last
long. Kinnison had been pretty sure that Strongheart would be in cahoots with somebody bigger
than a peddler, and so it had proved. This guy knew plenty, and the Lensman was taking the
informationùall of it. Six weeks from now, eh? Just rightù time to find enough metal for
another royal binge here . . .
     And during that binge he would really do things . . . Six weeks. Quite a while . . . but . . .
QX. It would take some time yet, anyway, probably, before the Regional Directors would, like
this fellow, get over their scares enough to relax a few of their most irksome precautions. And,
as has been intimated, Kinnison, while impatient enough at times, could hold himself in check
like a cat watching a mousehole whenever it was really necessary.
     Therefore, in the cell, he seated himself upon the bunk and seized the packet from the
hand of the stranger. Tearing it open, he stuffed the contents into his mouth; and, eyes rolling
and muscles twitching, he chewed vigorously; expertly allowing the potent juice to trickle down
his gullet just fast enough to keep his head humming like a swarm of angry bees. Then, the cud
sucked dry, he slumped down upon the mattress, physically dead to the world for the ensuing
twenty four G-P hours.
     He awakened; weak, flimsy, and supremely wretched. He made heavy going to the
office, where Strongheart returned to him the keys of his boat.
     "Feeling low, sir." It was a statement, not a question.
     "I'll say so," the Lensman groaned. He was holding his spinning head, trying to steady the
gyrating universe. "I'd have to look upù'way, 'way up, with a number nine visi-plateùto see a
snake's belly in a swamp. Make that damn cat quit stomping his feet, can't you?"
     "Too bad, but it won't last long." The voice was unctuous enough, but totally devoid of
feeling. "Here's a pick-upù you need it."
     The Lensman tossed off the potion, without thanks, as was good technique in those parts.
His head cleared miraculously, although the stabbing ache remained.
     "Come in again next time. Everything's been on the green here, ain't it, sir?"
     "Uh-huh, very nice," the Lensman admitted. "Couldn't ask for better. I'll be back in five
or six weeks, if I have any luck at all."
     As the battered but staunch and powerful meteor-boat floated slowly upward a desultory
conversation was taking place in the dive he had left. At that early hour-business was slack to the
point of non-existence, and Strongheart was chatting idly with a bartender and one of the
hostesses.
     "If more of the boys was like him we wouldn't have no trouble at all," Strongheart stated
with conviction. "Nice, quiet, easy-goingùa right guy, I say."
     "Yeah, but at that maybe it's a good gag nobody riled him up too much," the barkeep
opined. "He could be rough if he wanted to, I bet a quart. Drunk or sober, he's chain lightning
with them DeLameters."
     "He's so refined, such a perfect gentleman," sighed the woman. "He's nice." To her, he
had been. She had had plenty of credits from the big miner, without having given anything save
smiles and dances in return. "Them two guys he drilled must have needed killing, or he wouldn't
have burned 'em."
     And that was that As the Lensman had intended, Wild Bill Williams was an old, known,
and highly respected resident of Miners' Rest!
     Out among the asteroids again; more muscle-tearing, back-breaking, lonesome labor.
Kinnison did not find any more fabulously rich meteorsùsuch things happen only once in a
hundred lifetimesùbut he was getting his share of heavy stuff. Then one day when he had about
half a load there came screaming in upon the emergency wave a call for help; a call so loud that
the ship broadcasting it must be very close indeed. Yes, there she was, right in his lap; startlingly
large even upon the low-power plates of his space-tramp.
     "Help! Space-ship 'Kahlotus', position . . ." a rattling string of numbers. "Bergenholm
dead, meteorite screens practically disabled, intrinsic velocity throwing us into the asteroids.
Any space-tugs, any vessels with tractorsùhelp! And hurry!"
     At the first word Kinnison had shoved his blast-lever full over. A few seconds of free
flight, a minute of inert maneuvering that taxed to the utmost his Lensman's skill and powerful
frame, and he was within the liner's air-lock.
     "I know something about Bergs!" he snapped. "Take this boat of mine and pull! Are you
evacuating passengers?" he shot at the mate as they ran toward the engine room.
     "Yes, but afraid we haven't boats enoughùoverloaded," was the gasped reply.
     "Use mineùfill 'er up!" If the mate was surprised at such an offer from a despised space-
rat he did not show it. There were many more surprises in store.
     In the engine room Kinnison brushed aside a crew of helplessly futile gropers and threw
in switch after switch. He looked. He listened. Above all, he pried into that sealed monster of
power with all his sense of perception. How glad he was now that he and Thorndyke had
struggled so long and so furiously with a balky Bergenholm on that trip to tempestuous Trenco!
For as a result of that trip he did know Bergs, with a sure knowledge possessed by few other men
in space.
     "Number four lead is shot somewhere," he reported. "Must be burned off where it clears
the pilaster. Careless overhaul last timeùgot to take off the lower port third cover. No time for
wrenchesùget me a cutting beam, and get the lead out of your pants!"
     The beam was brought on the double and the Lensman himself blasted away the
designated cover. Then, throwing an insulated plate over the red-hot casing he lay on his
backù"Hand me a light!"ùand peered briefly upward into the bowels of the gargantuan
mechanism.
     "Thought so," he grunted. "Piece of four-oh stranded, eighteen inches long. Ditmars
number six clip ends, twenty inches on centers. Myerbeer insulation on center section, doubled.
Snap it up! One of you other fellows, bring me a short, heavy screw-driver and a pair of Ditmars
six wrenches!"
     The technicians worked fast and in a matter of seconds the stuff was there. The Lensman
labored briefly but hugely; and much more surely than if he were dependent upon the rays of the
hand-lamp to penetrate the smoky, steamy, greasy murk in which he toiled. Then:
     "QXùgive her the juice!" he snapped.
     They gave it, and to the stunned surprise of all, she took it. The liner again was free!
     "Kind of a jury rigging I gave it, but it'll hold long enough to get you into port, sir," he
reported to the captain in his sanctum, saluting crisply. He was in for it now, he knew, as the
officer stared at him. But he couldn't have let that shipload of passengers get ground up into
hamburger. Anyway, there was a way out
     In apparent reaction he turned pale and trembled, and the officer hastily took from his
medicinal stores a bottle of choice old brandy.
     "Here, drink this," he directed, proferring the glass.
     Kinnison did so. More, he seized the bottle and drank that, tooùall of itùa draft which
would have literally turned him inside out a few months since. Then, to the captain's horrified
disgust, he took from his filthy dungarees a packet of bentlam and began to chew it, idiotically
blissful. Thence, and shortly, into oblivion.
     "Poor devil . . . you poor, poor devil," the commander murmured, and had him put into a
bunk.
     I When he had come to and had had his pickup, the captain came and regarded him
soberly.
     | "You were a man once. An engineerùa top-bracket engineerùor I'm an oiler's pimp,"
he said levelly.
      "Maybe," Kinnison replied, white and weak. "I'm all right yet, except once in a while . .
."
     "I know," the captain frowned. "No cure?"
     "Not a chance. Tried dozens. So . . ." and the Lensman spread out his hands in a hopeless
gesture.
     "Better tell me your name, anywayùyour real name. That'll let your planet know you
aren't. . ."
     "Better not," the sufferer shook his aching head. "Folks think I'm dead. Let them keep on
thinking so. Williams is the name, sir; William Williams, of Aldabaran II."
     "As you say."
     "How far are we from where I boarded you?"
     "Close. Less than half a billion miles. This, the second, is our home planet; your asteroid
belt is just outside the orbit of the fourth."
     "I'll do a flit, then."
     "As you say," the officer agreed, again. "But we'd like to . . ." and he extended a sheaf of
currency.
     "Rather not, sir, thanks. You see, the longer it takes me to earn another stake, the longer
it'll be before . . ."
     "I see. Thanks, anyway, for us all," and captain and mate helped the derelict embark.
They scarcely looked at him, scarcely dared look at each other . . . but. . .
     Kinnison, for his part, was content. This story, too, would get around. It would be in
Miners' Rest before he got back there, and it would help . . . help a lot.
     He could not possibly let those officers know the truth, even though he realized full well
that at that very moment they were thinking, pityingly:
     "The poor devil. . . the poor, brave devil!"

     CHAPTER 13
     ZWILNIK CONFERENCE

     The Gray Lensman went back to his mining with a will and with unimpaired vigor, for
his distress aboard the ship had been sheerest acting. One small bottle of good brandy was
scarcely a cocktail to the physique that had stood up under quart after quart of the crudest,
wickedest, fieriest beverages known to space; that tiny morsel of bentlamù scarcely half a
unitùaffected him no more than a lozenge of licorice.
     Three weeks. Twenty one days, each of twenty four G-P hours. At the end of that time,
he had learned from the mind of the zwilnik, the Boskonian director of this, the Boro-van solar
system, would visit Miners' Rest, to attend some kind of meeting. His informant did not know
what the meet-big was to be about, and he was not unduly curious about it. Kinnison, however,
did and was.
     The Lensman knew, or at least very shrewdly suspected, that that meeting was to be a
regional conference of big-shot zwilniks; he was intensely curious to know all about everything
that was to take place; and he was determined to be present
     Three weeks was lots of time. In fact, he should be able to complete his quota of heavy
metal in two, or less. It was there, there was no question of that. Right out there were the
meteors, uncountable thousands of millions of them, and a certain proportion of them carried
values. The more and the harder he worked, the more of these worth-while wanderers of the void
he would find. Wherefore he labored long, hard, and rapidly, and his store of high-test meteors
grew apace.
     To such good purpose did he use beam and Spalding drill that he was ready more than a
week ahead of time. That was QXùhe'd much rather be early than late. Something might have
happened to hold him upùthings did happen, too oftenùand he had to be at that meeting!
     Thus it came about that, a few days before the all-important date, Kinnison's battered
treasure-hunter blasted herself down to her second landing at Strongheart's Dock. This time the
miner was welcomed, not as a stranger, but as a friend of long standing.
     "Hi, Wild Bill!" Strongheart yelled at sight of the big space-hound. "Right on time, I
seeùglad to see you! Luck, too, I hopeùlots of luck, and all good, I bet meùain't it?"
     "Ho, Strongheart!" the Lensman roared in return, pummel-ing the divekeeper
affectionately. "Had a good trip, yeahùa fine trip. Struck a rich sectorùtwice as much as I got
last time. Told you I'd be back in five or six weeks, and made it in five weeks and four days."
     "Keeping tabs on the days, huh?"
     "I'll say I do. With a thirst like mine a guy can't do nothing elseùI tell you all my guts're
dryer than any desert on the whole of Rhylce. Well, what're we waiting for? Check this plunder
of mine in and let me get to going places and doing things!"
     The business end of the visit was settled with neatness and dispatch. Dealer and miner
understood each other thoroughly; each knew what could and what could not be done to the
other. The meteors were tested and weighed. Supplies for the ensuing trip were bought. The
guarantee and twenty four units of bennyùQX. No argument. No hysterics. No bickering or
quarreling or swearing. Everything on the green, aft the way. Gentlemen and friends. Kinnison
turned over his keys, accepted a thick sheaf of currency, and, after the first formal drink with his
host, set out upon the self-imposed, superstitious tour of the other hot spots which would bring
him the favorùor at least would avert the active disfavor ùof Klono, his spaceman's deity.
     This time, however, that tour took longer. Upon his first ceremonial round he had entered
each saloon in turn, had bought one drink of whatever was nearest, had tossed it down, and had
gone on to the next place; unobserved and inconspicuous. Now, how different it all was!
Wherever he went he was the center of attention.
     Men who had met him before flung themselves upon him with whoops of welcome; men
who had never seen him clamored to drink with him; women, whether or not they knew him,
fawned upon him and brought into play their every lure and wile. For not only was this man a
hero and a celebrity of sorts; he was a luckyùor a skillfulùminer whose every trip resulted in
wads of money big enough to clog the under-jets of a freighter! Moreover, when he was lit up he
threw it round regardless, and he was getting stewed as fast as he could swallow. Let's keep him
hereùor, if we can't do that, let's go along, wherever he goes!
     This, too, was strictly according to the Lensman's expectations. Everybody knew that he
did not do any serious drinking glass by glass at the bar, but bottle by bottle; that he did not buy
individual drinks for his friends, but let them drink as deeply as they would from whatever
container chanced then to be in hand; and his vast popularity gave him a sound excuse to begin
his bottle-buying at the start instead of waiting until he got back to Strongheart's. He bought,
then, several or many bottles and tins in each place, instead of a single drink. And, since
everybody knew for a fact that he was a practically bottomless drinker, who was even to suspect
that he barely moistened his gullet while the hangers-on were really emptying the bottles, cans,
and flagons?
     And during his real celebration at Strongheart's, while he drank enough, he did not drink
too much. He waxed exceedingly happy and frolicsome, as before. He was as profligate, as
extravagant in tips. He had the same sudden flashes of hot anger. He fought enthusiastically and
awkwardly, as Wild Bill Williams did, although only once or twice, that time; and he did not
have to draw his DeLameter at allùhe was so well known and so beloved! He sang as loudly
and as raucously, and with the same fine taste in madrigals.
     Therefore, when the infiltration of thought-screened men warned him that the meeting
was about to be called Kinnison was ready. He was in fact cold sober when he began his tuneful,
last-two-bottles trip up the street, and he was almost as sober when he returned to "Base," empty
of bottles and pockets, to make the usual attempt to obtain more money from Strongheart and to
compromise by taking his farewell chew of bentlam instead.
     Nor was he unduly put out by the fact that both Strong-heart and the zwilnik were now
wearing screens. He had taken it for granted that they might be, and had planned accordingly. He
seized the packet as avidly as before, chewed its contents as ecstatically, and slumped down as
helplessly and as idiotically. That much of the show, at least, was real. Twenty four units of that
drug will paralyze any human body, make it assume the unmistakable pose and stupefied mien
of the bentlam eater. But Kinnison's mind was not an ordinary one; the dose which would have
rendered any bona-fide ''miner's brain as helpless as his body did not affect the Lensman's new
equipment at all. Alcohol and bentlam together were bad, but the Lensman was sober. Therefore,
if
     anything, the drugging of his body only made it easier to dissociate his new mind from it.
Furthermore, he need not waste any thought in making it act There was only one way it could
act, now, and Kinnison let his new senses roam abroad without even thinking of the body he was
leaving behind him.
     In view of the rigorous orders from higher up the conference room was heavily guarded
by screened men; no one except old and trusted employees were allowed to enter it, and they
were also protected. Nevertheless, Kinnison got in, by proxy.
     A clever pick-pocket brushed against a screened waiter who was about to enter the sacred
precincts, lightning fingers flicking a switch. The waiter began to protestùthen forgot what he
was going to say, even as the pick-pocket forgot completely the deed he had just done. The
waiter in turn was a trifle clumsy in serving a certain Big Shot, but earned no rebuke thereby; for
the latter forgot the offense almost instantly. Under Kinnison's control the director fumbled at his
screen-generator for a moment, loosening slightly a small but important resistor. That done, the
Lensman withdrew delicately and the meeting was an open book.
     ò "Before we do anything," the director began, "Show me that all your screens are on."
He bared his ownùit would have taken an expert service man an hour to find that it was not
functioning perfectly.
     "Poppycock!" snorted the zwilnik. "Who in all the hells of space thinks that a Lensman
wouldùor couldùcome to Euphrosyne?"
     "Nobody can tell what this particular Lensman can or can't do, and nobody knows what
he's doing until just before he dies. Hence the strictness. You've searched everybody here, of
course?"
     "Everybody," Strongheart averred, "even the drunks and the dopes. The whole building is
screened, besides the screens we're wearing."
     "The dopes don't count, of course, provided they're really doped." No one except the
Gray Lensman himself could possibly conceive of a Lensman beingùnot seeming to be, but
actually beingùa drunken sot, to say nothing of being a confirmed addict of any drug. "By the
way, who is this Wild Bill Williams we've been hearing about?"
     Strongheart and his friend looked at each other and laughed. "I checked up on him early,"
the zwilnik chuckled. "He isn't the Lensman, of course, but I thought at first he might be an
agent We frisked him and his ship thoroughlyùno diceùand checked back on him as a miner,
four solar systems back. He's clean, anyway; this is his second bender here. He's been guzzling
everything in stock for a week, getting more pie-eyed every day, and Strongheart and I just put
him to bed with twenty four units of benny. You know what that means, don't you?"
     "Your own benny or his?" the director asked. "My own. That's why I know he's clean. All
the other dopes are too. The drunks we gave the bum's rush, like you told us to."
     "QX. I don't think there's any danger, myselfùI think the hot-shot Lensman they're
afraid of is still working Bronsecaùbut these orders not to take any chances at all come from
'way, 'way up."
     "How about this new system they're working on, that nobody knows his boss any more?
Hooey, I call it."
     "Not ready yet. They haven't been able to invent an absolutely safe one that'll handle the
work. In the meantime, we're using these books. Cumbersome, but absolutely safe, they say,
unless and until the enemy gets onto the idea. Then one group will go into the lethal chambers of
the Patrol and the rest of us will use something else. Some say this code can't be cracked; others
say any code can be read in time. Anyway here's your orders. Pass them along. Give me your
stuff and we'll have supper and a few drinks."
     They ate. They drank. They enjoyed an evening and a night of high revelry and low
dissipation, each to his taste; each secure in the knowledge that his thought-screen was one
hundred percent effective against the one enemy he really feared. Indeed, the screens were that
effectiveùthenùsince the Lensman, having learned from the director all he knew, had restored
the generator to full efficiency in the instant of his relinquishment of control.
     Although the heads of the zwilniks, and therefore their minds, were secure against
Kinnison's prying, the books of record were not. And, though his body was lying helpless, inert
upon a drug-fiend's cot, his sense of perception read those books; if not as readily as though they
were in his hands and open, yet readily enough. And, far off in space, a power-brained Lensman
yclept Worsel recorded upon imperishable metal a detailed account, including names, dates,
facts, and figures, of all the doings of all the zwilniks of a solar system!
     The information was coded, it is true; but, since Kinnison knew the key, it might just as
well have been printed in English. To the later consternation of Narcotics, however, that tape
was sent in under Lensman's Sealùit could not be read until the Gray Lensman gave the word.
     In twenty four hours Kinnison recovered from the effects of his debauch. He got his keys
from Strongheart. He left the asteroid. He knew the mighty intellect with whom he had next to
deal, he knew where that entity was to be found; but, sad to say, he had positively no idea at all
as to what he was going to do or how he was going to do it.
     Wherefore it was that a sense of relief tempered the natural apprehension he felt upon
receiving, a few days later, an insistent call from Haynes. Truly this must be something really
extraordinary, for while during the long months of his service Kinnison had called the Port
Admiral several times, Haynes had never before Lensed him.
     "Kinnison! Haynes calling!" the message beat into his consciousness.
     "Kinnison acknowledging, sir!" the Gray Lensman thought back.
     "Am I interrupting anything important?" "Not at all. I'm just doing a little flit."
     "A situation has come up which we feel you should study, not only in person, but also
without advance information or pre-conceived ideas. Can you come in to Prime Base
immediately?"
     "Yes, sir. In fact, a little time right now might do me good in two waysùlet me mull a
job over, and let a nut mellow down to a point where maybe I can crack it At your orders, sir!"
     "Not orders, Kinnison!" the old man reprimanded him sharply. "No one gives Unattached
Lensmen orders. We request or suggest, but you are the sole judge as to where your greatest
usefulness lies."
     "Please believe, sir, that your requests are orders, to me," Kinnison replied in all
seriousness. Then, more lightly, "Your Calling me in suggests an emergency, and travelling in
this miner's scow of mine is just a trifle faster than going afoot How about sending out
something with some legs to pick me up?"
     "The Dauntless, for instance?"
     "Ohùyou've got her rebuilt already?"
     "Yes."
     "I'll bet she's a sweet clipper! She was a mighty slick stepper before; now she must have
more legs than a centipede!"
     And so it came about that in a region of space entirely empty of all other vessels as far as
ultra-powerful detectors could reach, the Dauntless met Kinnison's tugboat. The two went inert
and maneuvered briefly, then the immense warship engulfed her tiny companion and flashed
away.
     "Hi, Kim, you old son-of-a-space-flea!" A general yell arose at sight of him, and
irrepressible youth rioted, regardless of Regs, in this reunion of old comrades in arms who were
yet scarcely more than boys in years.
     "His Nibs says for you to call him, Kim, when we're about an hour out from Prime Base,"
Maitland informed his class-mate irreverently, as the Dauntless neared the Solarian system.
     "Plate or Lens?"
     "Didn't sayùas you like, I suppose."
     "Plate then, I guessùdon't want to butt in," and in moments Port Admiral and Gray
Lensman were in image face to face.
     "How are you making out, Kinnison?" Haynes studied the young man's face intently,
gravely, line by line. Then, via Lens, "We heard about the shows you put on, clear over here on
Tellus. A man can't drink and dope the way you did without suffering consequences. I've been
wondering if even you can fight it off. How about it? How do you feel now?"
     "Some craving, of course," Kinnison replied, shrugging his shoulders. "That can't be
helpedùyou can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. However, it's nothing I can't lick.
I've got it pretty well boiled out of my system already."
     "Mighty glad to hear that, son. Only Ellison and I know who Wild Bill Williams really is.
You had us scared stiff for a while." Then, speaking aloud:
     "I would like to have you come to my office as soon as possible."
     "I'll be there, chief, two minutes after we hit the bumpers," and he was.
     "The admiral busy, Ruby?" he asked, waving an airy salute at the attractive young
woman in Haynes' outer office.
     "Go right in, Lensman Kinnison, he's waiting for you," and opening the door for him, she
stood aside as he strode into the sanctum.
     The Port Admiral returned the younger man's punctilious salute, then the two shook
hands warmly before Haynes referred to the third man in the room.
     - "Navigator Xylpic, this is Lensman Kinnison, Unattached. Sit down, please; this may
take some time. Now, Kinnison, I want to tell you that ships have been disappearing, right and
left, disappearing without sending out an alarm or leaving a trace. Convoying makes no
difference, as the escorts also disappear . . ."
     "Any with the new projectors?" Kinnison flashed the question via Lensùthis was
nothing to talk about aloud.
     "No," came the reassuring thought in reply. "Every one bottled up tight until we find out
what it's all about. Sending out the Dauntless after you was the only exception."
     "Fine. You shouldn't have taken even that much chance." This interplay of thought took
but an instant; Haynes went on with scarcely a break in his voice:
     ". . . with no more warning or report than the freighters and liners they are supposed to be
protecting. Automatic reporting also failsùthe instruments simply stop sending. The first and
only sign of lightùif it is such a sign; which frankly, I doubtùcame shortly before I called you
in, when Xylpic here came to me with a tall story."
     Kinnison looked then at the stranger. Pink. Unmistakably a Chickladorianùpink all over.
Bushy hair, triangular eyes, teeth, skin; all that same peculiar color. Not the flush of red blood
showing through translucent skin, but opaque pigment; the brick-reddish pink so characteristic of
the near-humanity of that planet.
     "We have investigated this Xylpic thoroughly," Haynes went on, discussing the
Chickladorian as impersonally as though he were upon his home planet instead of there in the
room, listening. "The worst of it is that the man is absolutely honestùor at least, he thinks he
isùin telling this yarn. Also, except for this one thingùthis obsession, fixed idea, hallucination,
call it what you like; it seems incredible that it can be a factùhe not only seems to be, but
actually is, sane. Now, Xylpic, tell Kinnison what you told the rest of us. And Kinnison, I hope
you can make sense of itù none of the rest of us can."
     "QX Go ahead, I'm listening." But Kinnison did far more than listen. As the fellow began
to talk the Gray Lensman insinuated his mind into that of the Chickladorian. He groped for
moments, seeking the wave-length; then he, Kimball Kinnison, was actually re-living with the
pink man an experience which harrowed his very soul.
     "The second navigator of a Radeligian vessel died in space, and when it landed on
Chickladoria I took the berth. About a week out, the whole crew went crazy, all at once. The first
I knew of it was when the pilot on duty beside me left his board, picked up a stool, and smashed
the automatic recorder. Then he went inert and neutralized all the controls.
     "I yelled at him, but he didn't answer me, and all the men in the control room acted
funny. They just milled around like men in a trance. I buzzed the captain, but he didn't
acknowledge either. Then the men around me left the control room and went down the
companionway toward the main lock. I was scaredùmy skin prickled and the hair on the back of
my neck stood straight upùbut I followed along, quite a ways behind, to see what they were
going to do. The captain, all the rest of the officers, and the whole crew joined them in the lock.
Everybody was in an awful hurry to get somewhere.
     "I didn't go any nearerùI wasn't going to go out into space without a suit on. I went back
into the control room to get at a spy-ray, then changed my mind. That was the first place they
would come to if they boarded us, as they probably wouldùother ships had disappeared in
space, plenty of them. Instead, I went over to a life-boat and used its spy. And I tell you, sirs,
there was nothing thereùnothing at all!" The stranger's voice rose almost to a shriek, his mind
quivered in an ecstasy of horror.
     "Steady, Xylpic, steady," the Gray Lensman said, quietingly. "Everything you've said so
far makes sense. It all fits right into the matrix. Nothing to go off the beam about, at all."
     "What! You believe me!" the Chickladorian stared at Kinnison in amazement, an
emotion very evidently shared by the Port Admiral.
     "Yes," the man in gray leather asserted. "Not only that, but I have a very fair idea of
what's coming next. Shoot!"
     "The men walked out into space." The pink man offered this information diffidently,
although positivelyùan oft-repeated but starkly incredible statement. "They did not float
outward, sirs, they walked; and they acted as if they were breathing air, not space. And as they
walked they sort of faded out; became thin, misty-like. This sounds crazy, sir," to Kinnison
alone, "I thought then maybe I was cuckoo, and everybody around here thinks I am now, too.
Maybe I am nuts, sirùI don't know."
     "I do. You aren't." Kinnison said calmly. "Well, and here comes the worst of it, they
walked around just as though they were in a ship, growing fainter all the time. Then some of
them lay down and something began to skin one of themùskin him alive, sirùbut there was
nothing there at all. I ran, then. I got into the fastest lifeboat on the far side and gave her all the
oof she'd take. That's all, sir." "Not quite all, Xylpic, unless I'm badly mistaken. Why didn't you
tell the rest of it while you were at it?"
     "I didn't dare to, sir. If I'd told any more they would have known I was crazy instead of
just thinking so . . ." He broke off sharply, his voice altering strangely as he went on: "What
makes you think there was anything more, sir? Do you . . . ?" The question trailed off into
silence.
     "I do. If what I think happened really did happen there was moreùquite a lot moreùand
worse. Wasn't there?"
     "I'll say there was!" The navigator almost exploded in relief. "Or rather, I think now that
there was. But I can't describe any of it very wellùeverything was getting fainter all the time,
and I thought I must be imagining most of it."
     "You weren't imagining a thing . . ." the Lensman began, only to be interrupted by
Haynes.
     "Hell's jingling bells!" that worthy shouted. "If you know what it was, spill it!"
      "Think I know, but not quite sure yetùgot to check it. Can't get it from himùhe's told
everything he really knows. He didn't really see anything, it was practically invisible. Even if he
had tried to describe the whole performance you. wouldn't have recognized it. Nobody could
have except Worsel and I, and possibly vanBuskirk. I'll tell you the rest of what actually
happened and Xylpic can tell us if it checks." His features grew taut, his voice became hard and
chill. "I saw it done, once. Worse, I heard it. Saw it and heard it, clear and plain. Also, I knew
what it was all about, so I can describe it a lot better than Xylpic possibly can.
     "Every man of that crew was killed by torture. Some were flayed alive, as Xylpic said;
then they were carved up, slowly and piecemeal. Some were stretched, pulled apart by chains
and hooks, on racks. Others twisted on frames. Boiled, little by little. Picked apart, bit by bit.
Gassed. Eaten away by corrosives, one molecule at a time. Pressed out flat, as though between
two plates of glass. Whipped. Scourged. Beaten gradually to a pulp. Other methods, lots of
themùindescribable. All slow, though, and extremely painful. Greenish-yellow light, showing
the aura of each man as he died. Beams from somewhereùpossibly invisibleùconsuming the
auras. Check, Xylpic?"
     "Yes, sir, it checks!" The Chickladorian exclaimed in profound relief; then added,
carefully: "That is, that's the way the torture was, exactly, sir, but there was something funny, a
difference, about their fading away. I can't describe what was funny about it, but it didn't seem so
much that they became invisible as that they went away, sir, even though they didn't go any
place."
     "That's the way their system of invisibility works. Got to beùnothing else will fit into . .
."
     "The Overlords of Delgon!" Haynes rasped, sharply. "But if that's a true picture how in
all the hells of space did this Xylpic, alone of all the ship's personnel, get away clean? Tell me
that!"
     "Simple!" the Gray Lensman snapped back sharply. "The rest were all Radeligiansùhe
was the only Chickladorian aboard. The Overlords simply didn't know he was thereù didn't feel
him at all. Chickladorians think on a wave nobody else in the galaxy usesùyou must have
noticed that when you felt of him with your Lens. It took me half a minute to synchronize with
him.
     "As for his escape, that makes sense, too. The Overlords are slow workers and when
they're playing that game they really concentrate on itùthey don't pay any attention to anything
else. By the time they got done and were ready to take over the ship, he could be almost
anywhere."
     "But he says that there was no ship thereùnothing at all!" Haynes protested.
     "Invisibility isn't hard to understand." Kinnison countered. "We've almost got it
ourselvesùwe undoubtedly could have it as good as that, with a little more work on it. There
was a ship there, beyond question. Close. Hooked on with magnets, and with a space-tube, lock
to lock.
     "The only peculiar part of it, and the bad part, is something you haven't mentioned yet.
What would the Overlordsùif, as we must assume, some of them got away from Worsel and his
crewùbe doing with a ship? They never had any space-ships that I ever knew anything about,
nor any other mechanical devices requiring any advanced engineering skill. Also, and most
important, they never did and never could invent or develop such an invisibility apparatus as
that."
     Kinnison fell silent; and while he frowned in thought Haynes dismissed the
Chickladorian, with orders that his every want be supplied.
     "What do you deduce from those facts?" the Port Admiral presently asked.
     "Plenty," the Gray Lensman said, darkly. "I smell a rat. In fact, it stinks to high Heaven.
Boskone."
     "You may be right," Haynes conceded. It was hopeless, he knew, for him to try to keep
up with this man's mental processes. "But why, and above all, how?"
     " 'Why' is easy. They both owe us a lot, and want to pay us in full. Both hate us to hell
and back. 'How' is immaterial. One found the other, some way. They're together, just as sure as
hell's a man-trap, and that's what matters. It's bad. Very, very bad, believe me."
     "Orders?" asked Haynes. He was a big man; big enough to ask instructions from anyone
who knew more than he didù big enough to make no bones of such asking.
     "One does not give orders to the Port Admiral," Kinnison mimicked him lightly, but
meaningly. "One may request, perhaps, or suggest, but. . ."
     "Skip it! I'll take a club to you yet, you young hellion! You said you'd take orders from
me. QXùI'll take 'em from you. What are they?"
     "No orders yet, I don't think . . ." Kinnison ruminated. "No . . . not until after we
investigate. I'll have to have Worsel and vanBuskirk; we're the only three who have had
experience. We'll take the Dauntless, I thinkùit'll be safe enough. Thought-screens will stop the
Overlords cold, and a scrambler will take care of the invisibility business."
     "Safe enough, then, you think, to let traffic resume, if they're all protected with screens?"
     "I wouldn't say so. They've got Boskonian superdreadnoughts now to use if they want to,
and that's something else to think about. Another week or so won't hurt muchù better wait until
we see what we can see. I've been wrong once or twice before, too, and I may be again."
     He was. Although his words were conservative enough, he was certain in his own mind
that he knew all the answers. But how wrong he wasùhow terribly, now tragically wrong! For
even his mentality had not as yet envisaged the incredible actuality; his deductions and
perceptions fell far, far short of the appalling truth!

     CHAPTER 14
     EICH AND OVERLORD

     The fashion in which the Overlords of Delgon had come under the aegis of Boskone,
while obscure for a time, was in reality quite simple and logical; for upon distant Jarnevon the
Eich had profited signally from Eichlan's disastrous raid upon Arisia. Not exactly in the sense
suggested by Eukonidor the Arisian Watchman, it is true, but profited nevertheless. They had
learned that thought, hitherto considered only a valuable adjunct to achievement, was actually an
achievement in itself; that it could be used as a weapon of surpassing power.
     Eukonidor's homily, as he more than suspected at the time, might as well never have been
uttered, for all the effect it had upon the life or upon the purpose in life of any single, member of
the race of the Eich. Eichmil, who had been Second of Boskone, was now First; the others were
advanced correspondingly; and a new Eighth and Ninth had been chosen to complete the roster
of the Council which was Boskone.
     "The late Eichlan," Eichmil stated harshly after calling the new Boskone to orderùwhich
event took place within a day after it became apparent that the two bold spirits had departed to a
bourne from which there was to be no returningù"erred seriously, in fact fatally, in
underestimating an opponent, even though he himself was prone to harp upon the danger of that
very thing.
     "We are agreed that our objectives remain unchanged; and also that greater
circumspection must be used until we have succeeded in discovering the hitherto unsuspected
potentialities of pure thought. We will now hear from one of our new members, the Ninth, also a
psychologist, who most fortunately had been studying this situation even before the inception of
the expedition which yesterday came to such a catastrophic end."
     "It is clear," the Ninth of Boskone began, "that Arisia is at present out of the question.
Perceiving the possibility of some such denouementùan idea to which I repeatedly called the
attention of my predecessor psychologist, the late EighthùI have been long at work upon certain
alternative measures.
     "Consider, please, the matter of the thought-screens. Who developed them first is
immaterialùwhether Arisia stole them from Ploor, or vice versa, or whether each developed
them independently. The pertinent facts are two:
     "First, that the Arisians can break such screens by the application of mental force, either
of greater magnitude than they can withstand or of some new and as yet unknown composition
or pattern.
     "Second, that such screens were and probably still are used largely and commonly upon
the planet Velantia. Therefore they must have been both necessary and adequate. The deduction
is, I believe, defensible that they were used as a protection against entities who were, and who
still may be, employing against the Velantians the weapons of pure thought which we wish to
investigate and to acquire.
     "I propose, therefore, that I and a few others of my selection continue this research, not
upon Arisia, but upon Velantia and perhaps elsewhere."
     To this suggestion there was no demur and a vessel set out forthwith. The visit to
Velantia was simple and created no disturbance whatever. In this connection it must be
remembered that the natives of Velantia, then in the early ecstasies of discovery by the Galactic
Patrol and the consequent acquisition of inertialess flight, were fairly reveling in visits to and
from the widely-variant peoples of the planets of hundreds of other suns. It must be borne in
mind that, since the Eich were physically more like the Velantians than were the men of Tellus,
the presence of a group of such entities upon the planet would create less comment than that of a
group of human beings. Therefore that fateful visit went unnoticed at the time, and it was only
by long and arduous research, after Kinnison had deduced that some such visit must have been
made, that it was shown to have been an actuality.
     Space forbids any detailed account of what the Ninth of Boskone and his fellows did,
although that story of itself would be no mean epic. Suffice it to say, then, that they became well
acquainted with the friendly Velantians; they studied and they learned. Particularly did they seek
information concerning the noisome Overlords of Delgon, although the natives did not care to
dwell at any length upon the subject.
     "Their power is broken," they were wont to inform the questioners, with airy flirtings of
tail and wing. "Every known cavern of them, and not a few hitherto unknown caverns, have been
blasted out of existence. Whenever one of them dares to obtrude his mentality upon any one of
us he is at once hunted down and slain. Even if they are not all dead, as we think, they certainly
are no longer a menace to our peace and security."
     Having secured all the information available upon Velantia, the Eich went to Delgon,
where they devoted all the power of their admittedly first-grade minds and all the not
inconsiderable resources of their ship to the task of finding and uniting the remnants of what had
once been a flourishing race, the Overlords of Delgon.
     The Overlords! That monstrous, repulsive, amoral race which, not excepting even the
Eich themselves, achieved the most universal condemnation ever to have been given in the long
history of the Galactic Union. The Eich, admittedly deserving of the fate which was theirs, had
and have their apologists. The Eich were wrong-minded, all admit. They were anti-social, blood-
mad, obsessed with an insatiable lust for power and conquest which nothing except complete
extinction could extirpate. Their evil attributes were legion. They were, however, brave. They
were organizers par excellence. They were, in their own fashion, creators and doers. They had
the courage of their convictions and followed them to the bitter end.
     Of the Overlords, however, nothing good has ever been said. They were debased, cruel,
perverted to a degree starkly unthinkable to any normal intelligence, however housed. In their
native habitat they had no weapons, nor need of any. Through sheer power of mind they reached
out to their victims, even upon other planets, and forced them to come to the gloomy caverns in
which they had their being. There the victims were tortured to death in numberless unspeakable
fashions, and while they died the captors fed, ghoulishly, upon the departing life-principle of the
sufferers.
     The mechanism of that absorption is entirely unknown; nor is there any adequate
evidence as to what end was served by it in the economy of that horrid race. That these orgies
were not essential to their physical well-being is certain, since many of the creatures survived for
a long time after the frightful rites were rendered impossible.
     Be that is it may, the Eich sought out and found many surviving Overlords. The latter
tried to enslave the visitors and to bend them to their hideously sadistic purposes, but to no avail.
Not only were the Eich protected by thought-screens; they had minds stronger even than the
Overlord's own. And, after the first overtures had been made and channels of communication
established, the alliance was a natural.
     Much has been said and written of the binding power of love. That, and other noble
emotions, have indeed performed wonders. It seems to this historian, however, that all too little
has been said of the effectiveness of pure hate as a cementing material. Probably for good and
sufficient moral reasons; perhaps becauseùand for the bestùits application has been of
comparatively infrequent occurrence. Here, in the case in hand, we have history's best example
of two entirely dissimilar peoples working efficiently together under the urge, not of love or of
any other lofty sentiment, but of sheer, stark, unalloyed and corrosive, but common, hate.
     Both hated Civilization and everything pertaining to it. Both wanted revenge; wanted it
with a searing, furious need almost tangible: a gnawing, burning lust which neither countenanced
palliation nor brooked denial. And above all, both hated vengefully, furiously, esurientlyùevery
way except blindlyùan as yet unknown and unidentified wearer of the million-times-accursed
Lens of the Galactic Patrol!
     The Eich were hard, ruthless, cold; not even having such words in their language as
"conscience," "mercy," or "scruple." Their hatred of the Lensman was then a thing of an
intensity unknowable to any human mind. Even that emotion however, grim as it was and
fearsome, paled beside the passionately vitriolic hatred of the Overlords of Delgon for the being
who had been the Nemesis of their race.
     And when the sheer mental power of the Overlords, unthinkably great as it was and
operative withal in a fashion utterly incomprehensible to us of Civilization, was combined with
the ingenuity, resourcefulness, and drive, as well as with the scientific ability of the Eich, the
results would in any case have been portentous indeed.
     In this case they were more than portentous, and worse. Those prodigious intellects,
fanned into fierce activity by fiery blasts of hatred, produced a thing incredible.

     CHAPTER 15
     OVERLORDS OF DELGON

     Before his ship was serviced for the flight into the unknown Kinnison changed his mind.
He was vaguely troubled about the trip. It was nothing as definite as a "hunch"; hunches are, the
Gray Lensman knew, the results of the operation of an extra-sensory perception possessed by all
of us in greater or lesser degree. It was probably not an obscure warning to his super-sense from
an other, more pervasive dimension. It was, he thought, a repercussion of the doubt in Xylpic's
mind that the fading out of the men's bodies had been due to simple invisibility.
     "I think I'd better go alone, chief," he informed the Port Admiral one day. "I'm not quite
as sure as I was as to just what they've got."
     "What difference does that make?" Haynes demanded.
     "Lives," was the terse reply.
     "Your life is what I'm thinking about You'll be safer with the big ship, you can't deny
that."
     "We-ll, perhaps. But I don't want. . ."
     "What you want is immaterial."
     "How about a compromise? I'll take Worsel and van-Buskirk. When the Overlords
hypnotized him that time it made Bus so mad that he's been taking treatments from Worsel.
Nobody can hypnotize him now, Worsel says, not even an Overlord."
     "No compromise. I can't order you to take the Dauntless, since your authority is
transcendent. You can take anything you like. I can, however, and shall, order the Dauntless to
ride your tail wherever you go."
     "QX, I'll have to take her then." Kinnison's voice grew somber. "But suppose half the
crew don't get back . . . and that I do?"
     "Isn't that what happened on the Brittania?"
     "No," came flat answer. "We were all taking the same chance thenùit was the luck of the
draw. This is different."
     "How different?"
     "I've got better equipment than they have . . . I'd be a murderer, cold."
     "Not at all, no more than then. You had better equipment then, too, you know, although
not as much of it. Every commander of men has that same feeling when he sends men to death.
But put yourself in my place. Would you send one of your best men, or let him go, alone on a
highly dangerous mission when more men or ships would improve his chances? Answer that,
honestly."
     "Probably I wouldn't," Kinnison admitted, reluctantly.
     "QX. Take all the precautions you canùbut I don't have to tell you that. I know you
will."
     Therefore it was the Dauntless in which Kinnison set out a day or two later. With him
were Worsel and vanBuskirk, as well as the vessel's full operating crew of Tellurians. As they
approached the region of space in which Xylpic's vessel had been attacked every man in the
crew got his armor in readiness for instant use, checked his sidearms, and took his emergency
battle-station. Kinnison turned then to Worsel.
     "How d'you feel, fellow old snake?" he asked.
     "Scared," the Velantian replied, sending a rippling surge of power the full length of the
thirty-foot-long cable of supple, leather-hard flesh that was his body. "Scared to the tip of my
tail. Not that they can treat me as they did beforeùwe three, at least, are safe from their
mindsùbut at what they will do. Whatever it is to be, it will not be what we expect. They
certainly will not do the obvious."
     "That's what's clogging my jets," the Lensman agreed. "As a girl told me once, I'm
getting the screaming meamies."
     "That's what you mugs get for being so brainy," vanBuskirk put in. With a flick of his
massive wrist he brought his thirty-pound space-axe to the "ready" as lightly as though it were a
Tellurian dress saber. "Bring on your Overlordsù squish! Just like that!" and a whistling sweep
of his atrocious weapon was illustration enough.
     "May be something in that, too, Bus," he laughed. Then, to the Velantian, "About time to
tune in on 'em, I guess."
     He was in no doubt whatever as to Worsel's ability to reach them. He knew that that
incredibly powerful mind, without Lens or advanced Arisian instruction, had been able to cover
eleven solar systems: he knew that, with his present ability, Worsel could cover half of space!
     Although every fiber of his being shrieked protest against contact with the hereditary foe
of his race, the Velantian put his mind en rapport with the Overlords and sent out his thought. He
listened for seconds, motionless, then glided across the room to the thought-screened pilot and
hissed directions. The pilot altered his course sharply and gave her the gun.
     "I'll take her over now," Worsel said, presently. "It'll look better that wayùmore as
though they had us all under control."
     He cut the Bergenholm, then set everything on zeroùthe ship hung, inert and practically
motionless, in space. Simultaneously twenty unscreened menùvolunteersùdashed toward the
main airlock, overcome by some intense emotion.
     "Now! Screens on! Scramblers!" Kinnison yelled; and at his words a thought-screen
enclosed the ship; high-powered scramblers, within whose fields no invisibility apparatus could
hold, burst into action. There the vessel was, right beside the Dauntless, a Boskonian in every
line and member! "Fire!"
     But even as she appeared, before a firing-stud could be pressed, the enemy craft almost
disappeared again; or rather, she did not really appear at all, except as the veriest wraith of what
a good, solid ship of space-alloy ought to be. She was a ghost-ship, as unsubstantial as fog.
Misty, tenuous, immaterial; the shadow of a shadow. A dream-ship, built of the gossamer of
dreams, manned by figments of horror recruited from sheerest nightmare. Not invisibility this
time, Kinnison knew with a profound shock. Something elseù something entirely
differentùsomething utterly incomprehensible. Xylpic had said it as nearly as it could be put
into understandable wordsùthe Boskonian ship was leaving, although it was standing still! It
was monstrousùit couldn't be done!
     Then, at a range of only feet instead of the usual "point-blank" range of hundreds of
miles, the tremendous secondaries of the Dauntless cut loose. At such a ridiculous range as
that?ùwhy, the screens themselves kept anything further away from them than that ship
wasùthey couldn't miss. Nor did they; but neither did they hit. Those ravening beams went
through and through the tenuous fabrication which should have been a vessel, but they struck
nothing whatever. They went pastùentirely harmlessly pastùboth the ship itself and the
wraithlike but unforgettable figures which Kinnison recognized at a glance as Overlords of
Delgon. His heart sank with a thud. He knew when he had had enough; and this was altogether
too much.
     "Go free!" he rasped. "Give 'er the oof!"
     Energy poured into and through the great Bergenholm, but nothing happened; ship and
contents remained inert. Not exactly inert, either, for the men were beginning to feel a new and
unique sensation.
     Energy raved from the driving jets, but still nothing happened. There was none of the
thrust, none of the reaction of an inert start; there was none of the lashing, quivering awareness
of speed which affects every mind, however hardened to free flight, in the instant of change from
rest to a motion many times faster than that of light.
     "Armor! Thought-screen! Emergency stations all!" Since they could not run away from
whatever it was that was coming, they would face it
     And something was happening now, there was no doubt of that. Kinnison had been
seasick and airsick and spacesick. Also, since cadets must learn to be able to do without artificial
gravity, pseudo-inertia, and those other refinements which make space-liners so comfortable, he
had known the nausea and the queasily terrifying endless-fall sensations of weightlessness, as
well as the even worse outrages to the sensibilities incident to inertialessness in its crudest, most
basic applications. He thought that he was familiar with all the untoward sensations of every
mode of travel known to science. This, however, was something entirely new.
     He felt as though he were being compressed; not as a whole, but atom by atom. He was
being twistedùcorkscrewed in a monstrously obscure fashion which permitted him neither to
move from his place nor to remain where he was. He hung there, poised, for hoursùor was it for
a thousandth of a second? At the same time he felt a painless, but revolting transformation
progress in a series of waves throughout his entire body; a rearrangement, a writhing, crawling
distortion, an incomprehensibly impossible extrusion of each ultimate corpuscle of his substance
in an unknowable and non-existent direction!
     As slowlyùor as rapidly?ùas the transformation had waxed, it waned. He was again
free to move. As far as he could tell, everything was almost as before. The Dauntless was about
the same; so was the almost-invisible ship attached to her so closely. There was, however, a
difference. The air seemed thick . . . familiar objects were seen blurrily, dimly . . . distorted . . .
outside the ship there was nothing except a vague blur of grayness . . . no stars, no constellations
. . .
     A wave of thought came beating into his brain. He had to leave the Dauntless. It was
most vitally important to get into that dimly-seen companion vessel without an instant's delay!
And even as his mind instinctively reared a barrier, blocking out the intruding thought, he
recognized it for what it wasùthe summons of the Overlords!
     But how about the thought screens, he thought in a semi-daze, then reason resumed
accustomed sway. He was no longer in spaceùat least, not in the space he knew. That new,
indescribable sensation had been one of accelerationù when they attained constant velocity it
stopped. Acceleration ùvelocityùin what? To what? He did not know. Out of space as he knew
it, certainly. Time was distorted, unrecognizable. Matter did not necessarily obey the familiar
laws. Thought? QXùthought, lying fa the sub-ether, probably was unaffected. Thought-screen
generators, however, being material might notùin fact, did notùwork. Worsel, vanBuskirk, and
he did not need them, but those other poor devils. . .
     He looked at them. The menùall of them, officers and allùhad thrown off their armor,
thrown away their weapons, and were again rushing toward the lock. With a smothered curse
Kinnison followed them, as did the Velantian and the giant Dutch-Valerian. Into the lock.
Through it, into the almost invisible space-tube, which, he noticed, was floored with a solider-
appearing substance. The air felt heavy; dense, like water, or even more like metallic mercury. It
breathed, however, QX. Into the Boskonian ship, along corridors, into a room which was
precisely such a torture-chamber as Kinnison had described. There they were, ten of them; ten of
the dragon-like, reptilian Overlords of Delgon!
     They moved slowly, sluggishly, as did the Tellurians, in that thick, dense medium which
was not, could not be, air.
     Ten chains were thrown, like pictures in slow motion, about ten human necks; ten
entranced men were led unresistingly to anguished doom. This time the Gray Lensman's curse
was not smotheredùwith a blistering deep-space oath he pulled his DeLameter and firedùonce,
twice, three times. No soapùhe knew it, but he had to try. Furious, he launched himself. His
taloned fingers, ravening to tear, went past, not around, the Overlord's throat; and the scimitared
tail of the reptile, fierce-driven, apparently went through the Lensman, screens, armor, and
brisket, but touched none of them in passing. He hurled a thought, a more disastrous bolt by far
than he had sent against any mind since he had learned the art. In vainùthe Overlords,
themselves masters of mentality, could not be slain or even swerved by any forces at his
command.
     Kinnison reared back then in thought. There must be some ground, some substance
common to the planes or dimensions involved, else they could not be here. The deck, for
instance, was as solid to his feet as it was to the enemy. He thrust out a hand at the wall beside
himùit was not there. The chains, however, held his suffering men, and the Overlords held the
chains. The knives, also, and the clubs, and the other implements of torture being wielded with
such peculiarly horrible slowness.
     To think was to act. He leaped forward, seized a maul and made as though to swing it in
terrific blow; only to stop, shocked. The maul did not move! Or rather, it moved, but so slowly,
as though he were hauling it through putty! He dropped the handle, shoving it back, and received
another shock, for it kept on coming under the urge of his first mighty heaveùkept coming,
knocking him aside as it came! Mass! Inertia! The stuff must be a hundred tunes as dense as
platinum!
     "Bus!" he flashed a thought to the staring Valerian. "Grab one of these clubs hereùa
little one, even you can't swing a big oneùand get to work!"
     As he thought, he leaped again; this time for a small, slender knife, almost a scalpel, but
with a long, keenly thin blade. Even though it was massive as a dozen broadswords he could
swing it and he did so; plunging lethally as he swung. A full-arm sweepùrazor edge shearing,
crunching through plated, corded throatùgrisly head floating one way, horrid body the other!
Then an attack in waves of his own men! The Overlords knew what was toward. They
commanded their slaves to abate the nuisance, and the Gray Lensman was buried under an
avalanche of furious, although unarmed, humanity.
     "Chase 'em off me, will you, Worsel?" Kinnison pleaded. "You're husky enough to
handle 'em allùI'm not. Hold 'em off while Bus and I polish off this crowd, huh?" And Worsel
did so.
     VanBuskirk, scorning Kinnison's advice, had seized the biggest thing in sight, only to
relinquish it sheepishlyùhe might as well have attempted to wield a bridge-girder! He finally
selected a tiny bar, only half an inch in diameter and scarcely six feet long; but he found that
even this sliver was more of a bludgeon than any space-axe he had ever swung.
     ò Then the armed pair went joyously to war, the Tellurian with his knife, the Valerian
with his magic wand. When the Overlords saw that a fight to the finish was inevitable they also
seized weapons and fought with the desperation of the cornered rats they were. This, however,
freed Worsel from guard duty, since the monsters were fully occupied in defending themselves.
He seized a length of chain, wrapped six feet of tail in an unbreakable anchorage around a torture
rack, and set viciously to work.
     Thus again the intrepid three, the only minions of Civilization theretofore to have
escaped alive from the clutches of the Overlords of Delgon, fought side by side. VanBuskirk
particularly was in his element. He was used to a gravity almost three times Earth's, he was
accustomed to enormously heavy, almost viscous air. This stuff, thick as it was, tasted infinitely
better than the vacuum that Tellurians liked to breathe. It let a man use his strength; and the
gigantic Dutchman waded in happily, swinging his frightfully massive weapon with devastating
effect. Crunch! Splash! THWUCK! When that bar struck it did not stop. It went through; blood,
brains, smashed heads and dismembered limbs flying in all directions. And Worsel's lethal chain,
driven irresistibly at the end of the twenty-five-foot lever of his free length of body, clanked,
hummed, and snarled its way through reptilian flesh. And, while Kinnison was puny indeed in
comparison with his two brothers-in-arms, he had selected a weapon which would make his skill
count; and his wicked knife stabbed, sheared, and trenchantly bit.
     And thus, instead of dealing out death, the Overlords died.

     CHAPTER 16
     OUT OF THE VORTEX

     The carnage over, Kinnison made his way to the control-board, which was more or less
standard in type. There were, however, some instruments new to him; and these he examined
with care, tracing their leads throughout their lengths with his sense of perception before he
touched a switch. Then he pulled out three plungers, one after the other.
     There was a jarring "thunk"! and a reversal of the inexplicable, sickening sensations he
had experienced previously. They ceased; the ships, solid now and still locked side by side, lay
again in open, familiar space.
     "Back to the Dauntless," Kinnison directed, tersely, and they went; taking with them the
bodies of the slain Patrolmen. The ten who had been tortured were dead; twelve more had
perished under the mental forces or the physical blows of the Overlords. Nothing could be done
for any of them save to take their remains back to Tellus.
     "What do we do with this shipùlet's burn her out, huh?" asked vanBuskirk.
     "Not on Tuesdaysùthe College of Science would fry me to a crisp in my own lard if I
did," Kinnison retorted. "We take her in, as is. Where are we, Worsel? Have you and the
navigator found out yet?"
     " 'Way, 'way outùalmost out of the galaxy," Worsel replied, and one of the computers
recited a string of numbers, then added, "I don't see how we could have come so far in that short
a time."
     "How much time was itùgot any idea?" Kinnison asked, pointedly.
     "Why, by the chronometers . . . Oh . . ." the man's Voice trailed off.
     "You're getting the idea. Wouldn't have surprised me much if we'd been clear out of the
known Universe. Hyper-space is funny that way, they say. Don't know a thing about it myself,
except that we were in it for a while, but that's enough for me."
     Back to Tellus they drove at the highest practicable speed, and at Prime Base scientists
swarmed over and throughout the Boskonian vessel. They tore down, rebuilt, measured,
analyzed, tested, and conferred.
     "They got some of it, but they say you missed a lot," Thorndyke reported to his friend
Kinnison one day. "Old Cardynge is mad as a cateagle about your report on that vortex or tunnel
or whatever it was. He says your lack of appreciation of the simplest fundamentals is something
pitiful, or words to that effect. He's going to blast you to a cinder as soon as he can get hold of
you."
     "Vell, ve can't all be first violiners in der orchestra, some of us got to push vind t'rough
der trombone," Kinnison quoted, philosophically. "I done my damndestùhow's a guy going to
report accurately on something he can't hear, see, feel, taste, smell, or sense? But I heard that
they've solved that thing of the interpenetrability of the two kinds of matter. What's the low-
down on that?"
     "Cardynge says it's simple. Maybe it is, but I'm a technician myself, not a mathematician.
As near as I can get it, the Overlords and their stuff were treated or conditioned with an
oscillatory of some kind, so that under the combined action of the fields generated by the ship
and the shore station all their substance was rotated almost out of space. Not out of space,
exactly, either, more like, say, very nearly one hundred eighty degrees out of phase; so that two
bodiesùone untreated, our stuffùcould occupy the same place at the same time without
perceptible interference. The failure of either force, such as your cutting the ship's generators,
would relieve the strain."
     "It did more than thatùit destroyed the vortex . . . but it might, at that," the Lensman
went on, thoughtfully. "It could very well be that only that one special force, exerted in the right
place relative to the home-station generator, could bring the vortex into being. But how about
that heavy stuff, common to both planes, or phases, of matter?"
     "Synthetic, they say. They're working on it now."
     "Thanks for the dope. I've got to flitùgot a date with Haynes. I'll see Cardynge later and
let him get it off his chest," and the Lensman strode away toward the Port Admiral's office.

                         *     *     *

     Haynes greeted him cordially; then, at sight of the storm signals flying in the younger
man's eyes, he sobered.
     "QX," he said, wearily. "If we have to go over this again, unload it, Kim."
     "Twenty two good men," Kinnison said, harshly. "I murdered them. Just as surely, if not
quite as directly, as though I brained them with a space-axe."
     "In one way, if you look at it fanatically enough, yes," the older man admitted, much to
Kinnison's surprise. "I'm not asking you to look at it in a broader sense, because you probably
can'tùyet. Some things you can do alone; some things you can do even better alone than with
help. I have never objected, nor shall I ever object to your going alone on such missions,
however dangerous they may be. That is, and will be, your job. What you are forgetting in the
luxury of giving way to your emotions is that the Patrol comes first. The Patrol is of vastly
greater importance than the lives of any man or group of men in it."
     "But I know that, sir," protested Kinnison. "I. . ."
     "You have a peculiar way of showing it, then," the admiral broke in. "You say that you
killed twenty two men. Admitting it for the moment, which would you say was better for the
Patrolùto lose those twenty two good men in a successful and productive operation, or to lose
the life of one Unattached Lensman without gaining any information or any other benefit
whatever thereby?"
     "Why . . . I . . . If you look at it that way, sir . . ." Kinnison still knew that he was right,
but in that form the question answered itself.
     "That is the only way it can be looked at," the old man returned, flatly. "No heroics on
your part, no maudlin sentimentality. Now, as a Lensman, is it your considered judgment that it
is best for the Patrol that you traverse that hyperspatial vortex alone, or with all the resources of
the Dauntless at your command?"
     Kinnison's face was white and strained. He could not lie to the Port Admiral. Nor could
he tell the truth, for the dying agonies of those fiendishly tortured boys still racked him to the
core.
     "But I can't order men into any such death as that," he broke out, finally.
     "You must," Haynes replied, inexorably. "Either you take the ship as she is or else you
call for volunteersùand you know what that would mean."
     Kinnison did, too well. The surviving personnel of the two Brittanias, the full present
complement of the Dauntless, the crews of every other ship in Base, practically everybody on
the ReservationùHaynes himself certainly, even Lacy and old von Hohendorff, everybody, even
or especially if they had no business on such a trip as thatùwould volunteer; and every man jack
of them would yell his head off at being left out Each would have a thousand reasons for going.
     "QX, I suppose. You win." Kinnison submitted, although with ill grace, rebelliously.
"But I don't like it, nor any part of it. It clogs my jets."
     "I know it, Kim," Haynes put a hand upon the boy's shoulder, tightening his fingers. "We
all have it to do; it's part of the job. But remember always, Lensman, that the Patrol is not an
army of mercenaries or conscripts. Any one of them, just as would you yourself, would go out
there, knowing that it meant death in the torture-chambers of the Overlords, if in so doing he
knew that he could help to end the torture and the slaughter of non-combatant men, women, and
children that is now going on."
     Kinnison walked slowly back to the field; silenced, but not convinced. There was
something screwy somewhere, but he couldn't. . ."
     "Just a moment, young man!" came a sharp, irritated voice. "I have been looking for you.
At what time do you propose to set out for that which is being so loosely called the 'hyperspatial
vortex'?"
     He pulled himself out of his abstraction to see Sir Austin Cardynge. Testy, irascible,
impatient, and vitriolic of tongue, he had always reminded Kinnison of a frantic hen attempting
to mother a brood of ducklings.
     "Hi, Sir Austin! Tomorrowùhour fifteen. Why?" The Lensman had too much on his
mind to be ceremonious with this mathematical nuisance.
     "Because I find that I must accompany you, and it is most damnably inconvenient, sir.
The Society meets Tuesday week, and that ass Weingarde will. . ."
     "Huh?" Kinnison ejaculated. "Who told you that you had to go along, or that you even
could, for that matter?"
     "Don't be a fool, young man!" the peppery scientist advised. "It should be apparent even
to your feeble intelligence that after your fiasco, your inexcusable negligence in not reporting
even the most elementary vectorial-tensorial analysis of that extremely important phenomenon,
someone with a brain should . . ."
     "Hold on, Sir Austin!" Kinnison interrupted the harangue, "You want to come along just
to study the mathematics of that damn . . . ?"
     "Just to study it!" shrieked the old man, almost tearing his hair. "You doltùyou
blockhead! My God, why should anything with such a brain be permitted to live? Don't you even
know, Kinnison, that in that vortex lies the solution of one of the greatest problems in all
science?"
     "Never occurred to me," the Lensman replied, unruffled by the old man's acid fury. He
had had weeks of it, at the Conference.
     "It is imperative that I go," Sir Austin was still acerbic, but the intensity of his passion
was abating. "I must analyze those fields, their patterns, interactions and reactions, myself.
Unskilled observations are useless, as you learned to your sorrow, and this opportunity is
pricelessùpossibly it is unique. Since the data must be not only complete but also entirely
authoritative, I myself must go. That is clear, is it not, even to you?"
     "No. Hasn't anybody told you that everybody aboard is simply flirting with the
undertaker?"
     "Nonsense! I have subjected the affair, every phase of it, to a rigid statistical analysis.
The probability is significantly greater than zeroùoh, ever so much greater, almost point one
nine, in factùthat the ship will return, with my notes."
     "But listen, Sir Austin," Kinnison explained patiently. "You won't have time to study the
generators at the other end, even if the folks there felt inclined to give us the chance. Our object
is to blow the whole thing clear out of space."
     "Of course, of courseùcertainly! The mere generating mechanisms are immaterial.
Analyses of the forces themselves are the sole desiderata. Vectorsùtensorsùperformance of
mechanisms in receptionùetheral and sub-ethereal
phenomenaùpropagationùextinctionùphase anglesùcomplete and accurate data upon
hundreds of such itemsù slighting even one would be calamitous. Having this material,
however, the mechanism of energization becomes a mere detailùcomplete solution and design
inevitable, absoluteùchildishly simple."
     "Oh." The Lensman was slightly groggy under the barrage. "The ship may get back, but
how about you, personally?" "What difference does that make?" Cardynge snapped fretfully.
"Even if, as is theoretically probable, we find that communication is impossible, my notes have a
very good chanceùvery good indeedùof getting back. You do not seem to realize, young man,
that to science that data is necessary. I must accompany you."
     Kinnison looked down at the wispy little man in surprise. Here was something he had
never suspected. Cardynge was a scientific wizard, he knew. That he had a phenomenal mind
there was no shadow of doubt, but the Lensman bed never thought of him as being physically
brave. It was not merely courage, he decided. It was something biggerùbetter. Transcendent. An
utter selflessness, a devotion to science so complete that neither physical welfare nor even life
itself could be given any consideration whatever.
     "You think, then, that this data is worth sacrificing the lives of four hundred men,
including yours and mine, to get?" Kinnison asked, earnestly.
     "Certainly, or a hundred times that many," Cardynge snapped, testily. "You heard me
say, did you not, that this opportunity is priceless, and may very well be unique?"
     "QX, you can come," and Kinnison went on into the Dauntless.
     He went to bed wondering. Maybe the chief was right He woke up, still wondering.
Perhaps he was taking himself too seriously. Perhaps he was, as Haynes had more than
intimated, indulging in mock heroics.
     He prowled about. The two ships of space were still locked together. They would fly
together to and along that dread tunnel, and he had to see that everything was on the green.
     He went into the wardroom. One young officer was thumping the piano right tunefully
and a dozen others were rending the atmosphere with joyous song. In that room any formality or
"as you were" signal was unnecessary; the whole bunch fell upon their commander gleefully and
with a complete lack of restraint, in a vociferous hilarity very evidently neither forced nor
assumed.
     Kinnison went on with his tour. "What was it?" he demanded of himself. Haynes didn't
feel guilty. Cardynge was worseùhe would kill forty thousand men, including the Lensman and
himself, without batting an eye. These kids didn't give a damn. Their fellows had been slain by
the Overlords, the Overlords had in turn been slain. All squareù QX. Their turn next? So what?
Kinnison himself did not want to dieùhe wanted to liveùbut if his number came up that was
part of the game.
     What was it, this willingness to give up life itself for an abstraction? Science, the Patrol,
Civilizationùnotoriously ungrateful mistresses. Why? Some inner forceùsome compensation
defying sense, reason, or analysis?
     Whatever it was, he had it, too. Why deny it to others? What in all the nine hells of
Valeria was he griping about?
     "Maybe I'm nuts!" he concluded, and gave the word to blast off.
     To blast offùto find and to traverse wholly that awful hyper-tube, at whose far terminus
there would be lurking no man knew what

     CHAPTER 17
     DOWN THE HYPER-SPATIAL TUBE

     Out in open space Kinnison called the entire crew to a mass meeting, in which he
outlined to them as well as he could that which they were about to face.
     "The Boskonian ship will undoubtedly return automatically to her dock," he concluded.
"That there is probably docking-space for only one ship is immaterial, since the Dauntless will
remain free. That ship is not manned, as you know, because no one knows what is going to
happen when the fields are released in the home dock. Consequences may be disastrous to any
foreign, untreated matter within her. Some signal will undoubtedly be given upon landing,
although we have no means of knowing what that signal will be and Sir Austin has pointed out
that there can be no communication between that ship and her base until her generators have
been cut.
     "Since we also will be in hyper-space until that time, it is clear that the generator must be
cut from within the vessel. Electrical and mechanical relays are out of the question. Therefore
two of our personnel will keep alternate watches in her control-room, to pull the necessary
switches. I am not going to order any man to such a duty, nor am I going to ask for volunteers. If
the man on duty is not killed outrightù this is a distinct possibility, although perhaps not a
probability ùspeed in getting back here will be decidedly of the essence. It seems to me that the
best interests of the Patrol will be served by having the two fastest members of our force on
watch. Time trials from the Boskonian panel to our airlock are, therefore, now in order."
     This was Kinnison's device for taking the job himself. He was, he knew, the fastest man
aboard, and he proved it. He negotiated the distance in seven seconds flat, over half a second
faster than any other member of the crew. Then:
     "Well, if you small, slow runts are done playing creepie-mousie, get out of the way and
let folks run that really can," vanBuskirk boomed. "Come on, Worsel, I see where you and I are
going to get ourselves a job."
     "But see here, you can't!" Kinnison protested, aghast "I said members of the crew."
     "No, you didn't," the Valerian contradicted. "You said 'two of our personnel,' and if
Worsel and I ain't personnel, what are we? We'll leave it to Sir Austin."
     "Indubitably 'personnel,'" the arbiter decided, taking a moment from the apparatus he was
setting up. "Your statement that speed is a prime requisite is also binding."
     Whereupon the winged Velantian flew and wriggled the distance in two seconds, and the
giant Dutch-Valerian ran it in three!
     "You big, knot-headed Valerian ape!" Kinnison hissed a malevolent thought; not as the
expedition's commander to a subordinate, but as an outraged friend speaking plainly to friend.
"You knew I wanted that job myself, you clunkerù damn your thick, hard crust!"
     "Well, so did I, you poor, spindly little Tellurian wart, and so did Worsel," vanBuskirk
shot back in kind. "Besides, it's for the good of the Patrolùyou said so yourself! Comb that out
of your whiskers, half-portion!" he added, with a wide and toothy grin, as he swaggered away,
lightly brandishing his ponderous mace.
     The run to the point in space where the vortex had been was made on schedule. Switches
drove home, most of the fabric of the enemy vessel went out of phase, the voyagers experienced
the weirdly uncomfortable acceleration along an impossible vector, and the familiar firmament
disappeared into an impalpable but impenetrable murk of featureless, textureless gray.
     Sir Austin was in his element. Indeed, he was in a seventh heaven of rapture as he
observed, recorded, and calculated. He chuckled over his interferometers, he clucked over his
meters, now and again he emitted shrill whoops of triumph as a particularly abstruse bit of
knowledge was torn from its lair. He strutted, he gloated, he practically purred as he recorded
upon the tape still another momentous conclusion or a gravid equation, each couched in terms of
such incomprehensibly formidable mathematics that no one not a member of the Conference of
Scientists could even dimly perceive its meaning.
     Cardynge finished his work; and, after doing everything that could be done to insure the
safe return to Science of his priceless records, he simply preened himself. He wasn't like an old
hen, after all, Kinnison decided. More like a lean, gray tomcat One that has just eaten the canary
and, contemplatively smoothing his whiskers, is full of pleasant, if somewhat sanguine visions of
what he is going to do to those other felines at that next meeting.
     Time wore on. A long time? Or a short? Who could tell? What possible measure of that
unknown and intrinsically unknowable concept exists or can exist in that fantastic region
ofùhyper-space? Inter-space? Pseudo-space? Call it what you like.
     Time, as has been said, wore on. The ships arrived at the enemy base, the landing signal
was given. Worsel, on duty at the time, recognized it for what it wasùwith his brain that was a
foregone conclusion. He threw the switches, then flew and wriggled as even he had never done
before, hurling a thought as he came.
     And as the Velantian, himself in the throes of weird deceleration, tore through the
thinning atmosphere, the queasy Gray Lensman watched the development about them of a
forbiddingly inimical scene.
     They were materializing upon a landing field of sorts, a smooth and level expanse of
black igneous rock. Two suns, one hot and close, one pale and distant, cast the impenetrable
shadows so characteristic of an airless world. Dwarfed by distance, but still massively, craggily
tremendous, there loomed the encircling rampart of the volcanic crater upon whose floor the
fortress lay. And what a fortress; Newùrawùcrude . . . but fanged with armament of might.
There was the typically Boskonian dome of control, there were powerful ships of war in their
cradles, there beside the Dauntless was very evidently the power-plant in which was generated
the cryptic force which made inter-dimensional transit an actuality. But, and here was the saving
factor which the Lensman had dared only half hope to find, those ultra-powerful defensive
mechanisms were mounted to resist attack from without, not from within. It had not occurred to
the foe, even as a possibility, that the Patrol might come upon them in panoply of war through
their own hyper-spatial tube!
     Kinnison knew that it was useless to assault that dome. He could, perhaps, crack its
screens with his primaries, but he did not have enough stuff to reduce the whole establishment
and therefore could not use the primaries at all. Since the enemy had been taken completely by
surprise, however, he had a lot of timeùat least a minute, perhaps a trifle more ùand in that
time the old Dauntless could do a lot of damage. The power-plant came first; that was what they
had come out here to get.
     "All secondaries fire at will!" Kinnison barked into his microphone. He was already at
his conning board; every man of the crew was at his station. "All of you who can reach twenty-
seven three-oh-eight, hit itùhard. The rest of you do as you please."
     Every beam which could be brought to bear upon the power-house, and there were plenty
of them, flamed out practically as one. The building stood for an instant, starkly outlined in a
raging inferno of incandescence, then slumped down flabbily; its upper, nearer parts flaring
away in clouds of sparklingly luminous vapor even as its lower members flowed sluggishly
together in streams of molten metal. Deeper and deeper bore the frightful beams; foundations,
sub-cellars, structural members and gargantuan mechanisms uniting with the obsidian of the
crater's floor to form a lake of bubbling, frothing lava.
     "QXùthat's good!" Kinnison snapped. "Scatter your stuff, fellowsùhit 'em!" He then
spoke to Henderson, his chief pilot "Lift us up a bit, Hen, to give the boys a better sight. Be
ready to flit, fast; all hell's going to be out for noon any second now!"
     The time of the Dauntless was short, but she was working fast. Her guns were not being
tripped. Instead, every firing lever was jammed down into its last notch and was locked there.
Into the plates stared hard-faced young firing officers, keen eyes glued to crossed hair-lines,
grimly steady right and left hands spinning controller-rheostats by touch alone, tensely crouched
as though by sheer driving force of will they could energize to even higher levels the ravening
beams which were weaving beneath and around the Patrol's super-dreadnought a writhing,
flaming pattern of death and destruction.
     Shipsùwarships of Boskone's mightiestùcaught cold. Some crewless; some half-
manned; none ready for the stunning surprise attack of the Patrolmen. Through and through them
the ruthless beams tore; leaving, not ships, but nondescript masses of half-fused metal. Hangars,
machine-shops, supply depots suffered the same fate; a good third of the establishment became a
smoking, smouldering heap of junk.
     Then, one by one, the fixed-mount weapons of the enemy, by dint of what Herculean
efforts can only be surmised, were brought to bear upon the bold invader. Brighter and brighter
flamed her prodigiously powerful defensive screens. Number One faded out; crushed flat by the
hellish energies of Boskone's projectors. Number Two flared into even more spectacular
pyrotechnics, until soon even its tremendous resources of power became inadequateùblotchily,
in discrete areas, clinging to existence with all the might of its Medonian generators and
transmitters, it, too, began to fail.
     "Better we flit, Hen, while we're all in one pieceùright now," Kinnison advised the pilot
then. "And I don't mean loaf, eitherùlet's see you burn a hole in the ether."
     Henderson's fingers swept over his board, depressing to maximum and locking down key
after key. From her jets flared blast after blast of energies whose intensity paled the brilliance of
the madly warring screens, and to Boskone's Observers the immense Patrol raider vanished from
all ken.
     At that drive, the Dauntless" incomprehensible maximum, there was little danger of
pursuit: for, as well as being the biggest and the most powerfully armed, she was also the fastest
thing in space.
     Out in open inter-galactic spaceùsafeùdiscipline went by the board as though on signal
and all hands joined in a release of pent-up emotion. Kinnison threw off his armor and, seizing
the scandalized and highly outraged Cardynge, spun him around in dizzying, though effortless
circles.
     "Didn't lose a manùNOT A MAN!" he yelled, exuberantly.
     He plucked the now idle Henderson from his board and wrestled with him, only to drift
lightly away, ahead of a tremendous slap aimed at his back by vanBuskirk. Inertia-lessness takes
most of the edge off of rough-housing, but the performance did relieve the tension and soon the
ebullient youths quieted down.
     The enemy base was located well outside the galaxy. Not, as Kinnison had feared, in the
Second Galaxy, but in a star cluster not too far removed from the First. Hence the flight to Prime
Base" did not take long.
     Sir Austin Cardynge was more like a self-satisfied tomcat than ever as he gathered up his
records, gave a corps of aides minute instructions regarding the packing of his equipment, and
set out, figuratively but very evidently licking his chops, rehearsing the scene in which he would
confound his allegedly learned fellows, especially that insufferable puppy, that upstart
Weingarde . . .
     "And that's that," Kinnison concluded his informal report to Haynes. "They're all washed
up, there, at least. Before they can rebuild, you can wipe out the whole nest. If there Should
happen to be one or two more such bases, the boys know now how to handle them. I think I'd
better be getting back onto my own job, don't you?"
     "Probably so," Haynes thought for moments, then continued: "Can you use help, or can
you work better alone?"
     "I've been thinking about that. The higher the tougher, and it might not be a bad idea at
all to have Worsel standing by in my speedster: close by and ready all the time. He's pretty much
of an army himself, mental and physical. QX?"
     "Can do," and thus it came about that the good ship Dauntless flew again, this time out
Borova way; her sole freight a sleek black speedster and a rusty, battered meteor-tug, her
passengers a sinuous Velantian and a husky Tellurian.
     "Sort of a thin time for you, old man, I'm afraid." Kinnison leaned unconcernedly against
the towering pillar of his friend's tail, whereupon four or five grotesquely stalked eyes curled out
at him speculatively. To these two, each other's appearance and shape were neither repulsive nor
strange. They were friends, in the deepest, truest sense. "He's so hideous that he's positively
distinguished-looking," each had boasted more than once of the other to friends of his own race.
     "Nothing like that." The Velantian flashed out a leather wing and flipped his tail aside in
a playfully unsuccessful attempt to catch the Earthman off balance. "Some day, if you ever learn
really to think, you will discover that a few weeks' solitary, undisturbed and concentrated
thought is a rare treat. To have such an opportunity in the line of duty makes it a pleasure
unalloyed."
     "I always did think that you were slightly screwy at times, and now I know it," Kinnison
retorted, unconvinced. "Thought isùor should beùa means to an end, not an end in itself; but if
that's your idea of a wonderful time I'm glad to be able to give it to you."
     They disembarked carefully in far space, the complete absence of spectators assured by
the warship's fullest reach of detectors, and Kinnison again went down to Miners Rest Not, this
time, to carouse. Miners were not carousing there. Instead, the whole asteroid was buzzing with
news of the fabulously rich finds which were being made in the distant solar system of Tressilia.
     Kinnison had known that the news would be there, for it was at his instructions that those
rich meteors had been placed there to be found. Tressilia III was the home of the regional
director with whom the Gray Lensman had important business to transact; he had to have a solid
reason, not a mere excuse, for Bill Williams to leave Borova for Tressilia.
     The lure of wealth, then as ever, was stronger even than that of drink or of drug. Miners
came to revel, but instead they outfitted in haste and hied themselves to the new Klondike. Nor
was this anything out of the ordinary. Such stampedes occurred every once in a while, and
Strong-heart and his minions were not unduly concerned. They'd be back, and in the meantime
there was the profit on a lot of metal and an excess profit due to the skyrocketing prices of
supplies.
     "You too, Bill?" Strongheart asked without surprise.
     "I'll tell the Universe!" came ready answer. "If they's metal there I'll find it, pal." In
making this declaration he was not boasting, he was merely voicing a simple truth. By this time
the meteor belts of a hundred solar systems knew for a fact that Wild Bill Williams of Aldebaran
II could find metal if metal was there to be found.
     "If it's a bloomer, Bill, come back," the dive-keeper urged. "Come back anyway when
you've worked it a couple of drunks, and we never refer to any man's past. As an Aldebaranian
gentleman we would welcome you. And, in the extremely remote contingency to which you
refer, I assure you that you would not have to act, Any guest so boorish would be expelled."
     "In that case I would really enjoy spending a little time with you. It has been a long time
since I associated with persons of breeding," he explained, with engaging candor.
     "Ill have a boy see to the transfer of your things," and thus the Gray Lensman allowed the
zwilnik to persuade him to visit the one place in the Universe where he most ardently wished to
be.
     For days in the new environment everything went on with the utmost decorum and
circumspection, but Kinnison was not deceived. They would feel him out some way, just as
effectively if not as crassly as did the zwilniks of Miners' Rest. They would have toùthis was
Regional Headquarters. At first he had been suspicious of thionite, but since the high-ups were
not wearing anti-thionite plugs in their nostrils, he wouldn't have to either.
     Then one evening a girlùyoung, pretty, vivaciousù approached him, a pinch of purple
powder between her fingers. As the Gray Lensman he knew that the stuff was not thionite, but as
William Williams he did not
     "Do have a tiny smell of thionite, Mr. Williams!" she urged, coguettishly, and made as
though to blow it into his face.
     Williams reacted strangely, but instantaneously. He ducked with startling speed and the
fiat of his palm smacked ringingly against the girl's cheek. He did not slap her hardùit looked
and sounded much worse than it really wasùthe only actual force was in the follow-up push that
sent her flying across the room.
     "Wha'ja mean, you? You can't slap girls around like that here!" and the chief bouncer
came at him with a rush.
     This time the Lensman did not pull his punch. He struck with everything he had, from
heels to finger-tips. Such was the sheer brute power of the blow that the bouncer literally
somersaulted half the length of the room, bringing up with a crash against the wall; so accurate
was its placement that the victim, while not killed outright, would be unconscious for hours to
come.
     Others turned then, and paused; for Williams was not running away; he was not even
giving ground. Instead, he stood lightly poised upon the balls of his feet, knees bent the veriest
trifle, arms hanging at ready, eyes as hard and as cold as the iron meteorites of the space he knew
so well.
     "Any others of you damn zwilniks want to make a pass at me?" he demanded, and a
concerted gasp arose: the word "zwilnik" was in those circles far worse than a mere fighting
word. It was absolutely tabu: it was never, under any circumstance, uttered.
     Nevertheless, no action was taken. At first the cold arrogance, the sheer effrontery of the
man's pose held them in check; then they noticed one thing and remembered another, the
combination of which gave them most emphatically to pause.
     No garment, even by the most deliberate intent, could possibly have been designed as a
better hiding-place for DeLameters than the barrel-topped full-dress jacket of Aldebaran II;
andù
     Mr. William Williams, poised there in steel-spring readiness for action; so coldly self-
confident; so inexplicably, so scornfully derisive of that whole roomful of men not a few of
whom he knew must be armed; was also the Wild Bill Williams, meteor miner, who was widely
known as the fastest and deadliest performer with twin DeLameters who had ever infested space!

     CHAPTER 18
     CROWN ON SHIELD

     Edmund Crowninshield sat in his office and seethed quietly, the all-pervasive blueness of
the Kalonian brought out even more prominently than usual by his mood. His plan to find out
whether or not the ex-miner was a spy had back-fired, badly. He had had reports from
Euphrosyne that the fellow was notùcould not beùa spy, and now his test had confirmed that
conclusion, too thoroughly by far. He Would have to do some mighty quick thinking and
perhaps some salve-spreading or lose him. He certainly didn't want to lose a client who had over
a quarter of a million credits to throw away, and who could not possibly resist his cravings for
alcohol and bentlam very much longer! But curse him, what had the fellow meant by having a
kit-bag built of indurite, with a lock on it that not even his cleverest artists could pick?
     "Come in," he called, unctuously, in answer to a tap. "Oh, it's you! What did you find
out?"
     "Janice isn't hurt. He didn't make a mark on herùjust gave her a shove and scared hell
out of her. But Clovis was nudged, believe me. He's still outùwill be for an hour, the doctor
says. What a sock that guy's got! He looks like he'd been hit with a tube-maul."
     "You're sure he was armed?"
     "Must have been. Typical gun-fighter's crouch. He was ready, not bluffing, believe me.
The man don't live that could bluff a roomful of us like that. He was betting he could whiff us all
before we could get a gun out, and I wouldn't wonder if he was right."
     "QX. Beat it, and don't let anyone come near here except Williams."
     Therefore the ex-miner was the next visitor.
     "You wanted to see me, Crowninshield, before I flit." Kinnison was fully dressed, even to
his flowing cloak, and he was carrying his own kit. This, in an Aldebaranian, implied the
extremes! height of dudgeon.
     "Yes, Mr. Williams, I wish to apologize for the house. However," somewhat exasperated,
"it does seem that you were abrupt, to say the least, in your reaction to a childish prank."
     "Prank!" The Aldebaranian's voice was decidedly unfriendly. "Sir, to me thionite is no
prank. I don't mind nitrolabe or heroin, and a little bentlam now and then is good for a man, but
when anyone comes around me with thionite I object, sir, vigorously, and I don't care who
knows it."
     "Evidently. But that wasn't really thioniteùwe would never permit itùand Miss Carter
is an examplary young lady . . ."
     "How was I to know it wasn't thionite?" Williams demanded. "And as for your Miss
Carter, as long as a woman acts like a lady I treat her like a lady, but if she acts like a zwilnik . .
."
     "Please, Mr. Williams . . .!"
     "I treat her like a zwilnik, and that's that."
     "Mr. Williams, please! Not that word, ever!"
     "No? A planetary idiosyncrasy, perhaps?" The ex-miner's towering wrath abated into
curiosity. "Now that you mention it, I do not recall having heard it lately, nor hereabouts. For its
use please accept my apology."
     Oh, this was better. Crowninshield was making headway. The big Aldebaranian didn't
even know thionite when he saw it, and he had a rabid fear of it.
     "There remains, then, only the very peculiar circumstance of your wearing arms here in a
quiet hotel. . ."
     "Who says I was armed?" Kinnison demanded.
     "Why . . . I . . . it was assumed . . ." The proprietor was flabbergasted.
     The visitor threw off his cloak and removed his jacket, revealing a shirt of sheer
glamorette through which could be plainly seen his hirsute chest and the smooth, bronzed skin of
his brawny shoulders. He strode over to his kit-bag, unlocked it, and took out a double
DeLameter harness and his weapons. He donned them, put on jacket and cloak ùopen, now, this
latterùshrugged his shoulders a few times to settle the burden into its wonted position, and
turned again to the hotel-keeper.
     "This is the first time I have worn this hardware since I came here," he said, quietly.
"Having the name, however, you may take it upon the very best of authority that I will be armed
during the remaining minutes of my visit here. With your permission, I shall leave now."
     "Oh, no, that won't do, sir, really." Crowninshield was almost abject at the prospect. "We
should be desolated. Mistakes will happen, sirùplanetary prejudicesùmisunderstandings . . .
Give us a little more time to get really acquainted, sir . . ." and thus it went.
     Finally Kinnison let himself be mollified into staying on. With true Adlebaranian
mulishness, however, he wore his armament, proclaiming to all and sundry his sole reason
therefore: "An Aldebaranian gentleman, sir, keeps his word; however lightly or under whatever
circumstances given. I said that I would wear these things as long as I stay here; therefore wear
them I must and I shall. I will leave here any time, sir, gladly; but while here I remain armed,
every minute of every day."
     And he did. He never drew them, was always and in every way a gentlemen.
Nevertheless, the zwilniks were always uncomfortably conscious of the fact that those grim,
formidable portables were thereùalways there and always ready. The fact that they themselves
went armed with weapons deadly enough was all too little reassurance.
     Always the quintessence of good behavior, Kinnison began to relax his barriers of
reserve. He began to drinkùto buy, at leastùmore and more. He had taken regularly a little
bentlam; now, as though his will to moderation had begun to go down, he took larger and larger
doses. It was not a significant fact to any one except himself that the nearer drew the time for a
certain momentous meeting the more he apparently drank and the larger the doses of bentlam
became.
     Thus it was a purely unnoticed coincidence that it was upon the afternoon of the day
during whose evening the conference was to be held that Williams' quiet and gentlemanly
drunkenness degenerated into a noisy and obstreperous carousal. As a climax he demandedùand
obtainedù the twenty four units of bentlam which, his host knew, comprised the highest-ceiling
dose of the old, unregenerate mining days. They gave him the Titanic jolt, undressed him, put
him carefully to bed upon a soft mattress covered with silken sheets, and forgot him.
     Before the meeting every possible source of interruption or spying was checked,
rechecked, and guarded against; but no one even thought of suspecting the free-spending, hard-
drinking, drug-soaked Williams. How could they?
     And so it came about that the Gray Lensman attended that meeting also; as insidiously
and as successfully as he had the one upon Euphrosyne. It took longer, this time, to read the
reports, notes, orders, addresses, and so on, for this was a regional meeting, not merely a local
one. However, the Lensman had ample time and was a fast reader withal; and in Worsel he had
an aide who could tape the stuff as fast as he could send it in. Wherefore when the meeting broke
up Kinnison was well content He had forged another link in his chainùwas one link nearer to
Boskone, his goal.
     As soon as Kinnison could walk without staggering he sought out his host. He was
ashamed, embarrassed, bitterly and painfully humiliated; but he was stillùor againùan
Aldebaranian gentleman. He had made a resolution, and gentlemen of that planet did not take
their gentlemanliness lightly.
     "First, Mr. Crowninshield, I wish to apologize, most humbly, most profoundly, sir, for
the fashion in which I have outraged your hospitality." He could slap down a girl and half-kill a
guard without loss of self-esteem, but no gentleman, however inebriated, should descend to such
depths of commonness and vulgarity as he had plumbed here. Such conduct was inexcusable. "I
have nothing whatever to say in defense or palliation of my conduct. I can only say that in order
to spare you the task of ordering me out, I am leaving."
     "Oh, come, Mr. Williams, that is not at all necessary. Anyone is apt to take a drop too
much occasionally. Really, my friend, you were not at all offensive: we have not even
entertained the thought of your leaving us." Nor had he. The ten thousand credits which the
Lensman had thrown away during his spree would have condoned behavior a thousand times
worse; but Crowninshield did not refer to that.
     "Thank you for your courtesy, sir, but I remember some of my actions, and I blush with
shame," the Aldebaranian rejoined, stiffly. He was not to be mollified. "I could never look your
other guests in the face again. I think, sir, that I can still be a gentleman; but until I am certain of
the factùuntil I know I can get drunk as a gentleman shouldùI am going to change my name
and disappear. Until a happier day, sir, goodbye."
     Nothing could make the stiff-necked Williams change his mind, and leave he did,
scattering five-credit notes abroad as he departed. However, he did not go far. As he had
explained so carefully to Crowninshield, William Williams did disappearùforever, Kinnison
hoped; he was all done with himùbut the Gray Lensman made connections with Worsel.
     "Thanks, old man," Kinnison shook one of the Velantian's gnarled, hard hands, even
though Worsel never had had much use for that peculiarly human gesture. "Nice work. I won't
need you for a while now, but I probably will later. If I succeed in getting the data I'll Lens it to
you as usual for recordùI'll be even less able than usual, I imagine, to take recording apparatus
with me. If I can't get it I'll call you anyway, to help me make other arrangements. Clear ether,
big fella!"
     "Luck, Kinnison," and the two Lensmen went their separate ways; Worsel to Prime Base,
the Tellurian on a long flit indeed. He had not been surprised to learn that the galactic director
was not in the galaxy proper, but in a star cluster; nor at the information that the entity he wanted
was one Jalte, a Kalonian. Boskone, Kinnison thought, was a highly methodical sort of a
chapùhe marked out the best way to do anything, and then stuck by it through thick and thin.
Kinnison was almost wrong there, for not long afterward Boskone was called in session and that
very question was discussed seriously and at length.
     "Granted that the Kalonians are good executives," the new Ninth of Boskone argued.
"They are strong of mind and do produce results. It cannot be claimed, however, that they are in
any sense comparable to us of the Eich. Eichlan was thinking of replacing Helmuth, out he put
off acting until it was too late."
     "There are many factors to consider," the First replied, gravely. "The planet is
uninhabitable save for warm-blooded oxygen-breathers. The base is built for such, and such is
the entire personnel. Years of time went into the construction there. One of us could not work
efficiently alone, insulated against its heat and its atmosphere. If the whole dome were
conditioned for us, we must needs train an entire new organization to man it. Then, too, the
Kalonians have the work well in hand and, with all due respect to you and others of your mind, it
is by no means certain that even Eichlan could have saved Helmuth's base had he been there.
Eichlan's own doubt upon this point had much to do with his delay in acting. In the end it comes
down to efficiency, and some Kalonians are efficient. Jalte is one. And, while it may seem as
though I am boasting of my own selection of directors, please note that Prellin, the Kalonian
director upon Bronseca, seems to have been able to stop the advance of the Patrol."
     " 'Seems to' may be too exactly descriptive for comfort," said another, darkly.
     "That is always a possibility," was conceded, "but whenever that Lensman has been able
to act, he has acted. Our keenest observers can find no trace of his activities elsewhere, with the
possible exception of the misfunctioning of the experimental hyper-spatial tube of our allies of
Delgon. Some of us have from the first considered that venture ill-advised, premature; and its
seizure by the Patrol smacks more of their able mathematical physicists than of a purely
hypothetical, super-human Lensman. Therefore it seems logical to assume that Prellin has
stopped him. Our observers report that the Patrol is loath to act illegally without evidence, and
no evidence can be obtained. Business was hurt, but Jalte is reorganizing as rapidly as may be."
     "I still say that the galactic base should be rebuilt and manned by the Eich," Nine
insisted. "It is our sole remaining Grand Headquarters there, and since it is both the brain of the
peaceful conquest and the nucleus of our new military organization, it should not be subjected to
any unnecessary risk."
     "And you will, of course, be glad to take that highly important command, man the dome
with your own people, and face the Lensmanùif and when he comesùbacked by the forces of
the Patrol?"
     "Why . . . ah . . . no," the Ninth managed. "I am of so much more use here . . ."
     "That's what we all think," the First said, cynically. "While I would like very much to
welcome that hypothetical Lensman here, I do not care to meet him upon any other planet. I
really believe, however, that any change in our organization would weaken it seriously. Jalte is
capable, energetic, and is as well informed as is any of us as to the possibilities of invasion by
the Lensman or his Patrol. Beyond asking him whether he needs anything, and sending him
everything he may wish of supplies and of reenforcements, I do not see how we can improve
matters."
     They argued pro and con, bringing up dozens of points which cannot be detailed here,
then voted. The decision sustained the First: they would send, if desired, munitions and men to
Jalte.
     But even before the question was put, Kinnison's blackly invisible, indetectable speedster
was well within the star cluster. The guardian fortresses were closer spaced by far than
Helmuth's had been. Electromagnetics had a three hundred percent overlap; ether and sub-ether
alike were suffused with vibratory fields in which nullification of detection was impossible, and
the observers were alert and keen. To what avail? The speedster was non-ferrous, intrinsically
indetectable; the Lensman slipped through the net with ease.
     Sliding down the edge of the world's black shadow be felt for the expected thought-
screen, found it, dropped cautiously through it, and poised there; observing during one whole
rotation. This had been a fair, green worldùonce. It had had forests. It had once been peopled by
intelligent, urban dwellers, who had had roads, works, and other evidences of advancement. But
the cities had been melted down into vast lakes of lava and slag. Cold now for years, cracked,
fissured, weathered; yet to Kinnison's probing sense they told tales of horror, revealed all too
clearly the incredible ferocity and ruthlessness with which the conquerors had wiped out all the
population of a world. What had been roads and works were jagged ravines and craters of
destruction. The forests of the planet had been burned, again and again; only a few charred
stumps remaining to mark where a few of the mightiest monarchs had stood. Except for the
Boskonian base the planet was a scene of desolation and ravishment indescribable.
     "They'll pay for that, too," Kinnison gritted, and directed his attention toward the base.
Forbidding indeed it loomed; thrice a hundred square miles of massively banked offensive and
defensive armament, with a central dome of such colossal mass as to dwarf even the stupendous
fabrications surrounding it. Typical Boskonian layout, Kinnison thought, very much like
Helmuth's Grand Base. Fully as large and as strong, or stronger . . . but he had cracked that one
and he was pretty sure that he could crack this. Exploringly he sent out his sense of perception;
nor was he surprised to find that the whole aggregation of structures was screened. He had not
thought that it would be as easy as that!
     He did not need to get inside the dome this time, as he was not going to work directly
upon the personnel. Inside the screen anywhere would do. But how to get there?. The ground all
around the thing was flat, as level as molten lava would cool, and every inch of it was bathed in
the white glare of flood-lights. They had observers, of course, and photo-cells, which were
worse.
     Approach then, either through the air or upon the ground, did not look so promising. That
left only underground. They got water from somewhereùwells, perhapsùand their sewage went
somewhere unless they incinerated it, which was highly improbable. There was a river over
there; he'd see if there wasn't a trunk sewer running into it somewhere. There was. There was
also a place within easy flying distance to hide his speedster, an overhanging bank of smooth
black rock. The risk of his being seen was nil, anyway, for the only intelligent life left upon the
planet inhabited the Boskonian fortress and did not leave it.
     Donning his space-black, indetectable armor, Kinnison flew down the river to the sewer's
mouth. He lowered himself into the placid stream and against the sluggish current of the sewer
he made his way. The drivers of his suit were not as efficient in water as they were in air or in
space, and in the dense medium his pace was necessarily slow. But he was in no hurry. It was
fast enoughùin a few hours he was beneath the stronghold.
     Here the trunk began to divide into smaller and smaller mains. The tube running toward
the dome, however, was amply large to permit the passage of his armor. Close enough to his
objective, he found 'a long-disused manhole and, bracing himself upright, so that he would be
under no muscular strain, he prepared to spend as long a time as would prove necessary.
     He then began his study of the dome. It was like Helmuth's in some ways, entirely
different from it in others. There were fully as many firing stations, each with its operators ready
at signal to energize and to direct the most terrifically destructive agencies known to the science
of the time. There were fewer visiplates and communicators, fewer catwalks; but there were
vastly more individual offices and there were ranks and tiers of filing cabinets. There would
have to be; this was headquarters for the organized illicit commerce of an entire galaxy. There
was the familiar center, in which Jalte sat at his great desk; and near that desk there sparkled the
peculiar globe of force which the Lensman now knew was an intergalactic communicator.
     "Hal" Kinnison exclaimed triumphantly if inaudibly to himself, "the real boss of the
outfitùBoskoneùis in the Second Galaxy!
     He would have to wait until that communicator went into action, if it took a month. But
in the meantime there was plenty to do. Those cabinets at least were not thought-screened, they
held all the really vital secrets of the drug ring, and it would take many days to transmit the
information which the Patrol must have if it were to make a one hundred percent clean-up of the
whole zwilnik organization.
     He called Worsel, and, upon being informed that the recorders were ready, he started in.
Characteristically, he began with Prellin of Bronseca, and memorized the data covering that
wight as he transmitted it. The next one to go down upon the steel tape was Crowninshield of
Tressilia. Having exhausted all the filed information upon the organizations controlled by those
two regional directors, he took the rest of them in order.
     He had finished his real task and had practically finished a detailed survey of the entire
base when the forceball communicator burst into activity. Knowing approximately the analysis
of the beam and exactly its location in space, it took only seconds for Kinnison to tap it; but the
longer the interview went on the more disappointed the Lensman grew. Orders, reports,
discussions of broad matters of policyùit was simply a conference between two high executives
of a vast business firm. It was interesting enough, but in it there was no grist for the Lensman's
mill, There was no new information except a name. There was no indication as to who Eich-mil
was, or where, there was no mention whatever of Boskone. There was nothing even remotely of
a personal nature until the very last
     "I assume from lack of mention that the Lensman has made no farther progress." Eichmil
concluded.
     "Not so far as our best men can discover," Jalte replied, carefully, and Kinnison grinned
like the Cheshire cat in his secure, if uncomfortable, retreat It tickled his vanity immensely to be
referred to so matter-of-factly as "the" Lensman, and he felt very smart and cagy indeed to be
within a few hundred feet of Jalte as the Boskonian uttered the words. "Lensmen by the score are
still working Prellin's base in Cominoche. Some twelve of theseùhuman or approximately
soùhave been, returning again and again. We are checking those with care, because of the
possibility that one of them may be the one we want, but as yet I can make no conclusive report."
     The connection was broken, and the Lensman's brief thrill of elated self-satisfaction died
away.
     "No soap," he growled to himself in disgust "I've got to get into that guy's mind, some
way or other!"
     How could he make the approach? Every man in the base wore a screen, and they were
mighty careful. No dogs or other pet animals. There were a few birds,, but it would smell very
cheesy indeed to have a bird flying around, pecking at screen generators. To anyone with half a
brain that would tell the whole story, and these folks were really smart What, then?
     There was a nice spider up there in a corner. Big enough to do light work, but not big
enough to attract much, if any, attention. Did spiders have minds? He could soon find out
     The spider had more of a mind than he had supposed, and he got into it easily enough.
She could not really think at all, and at the starkly terrible savagery of her tiny ego the Lensman
actually winced, but at that she had redeeming features. She was willing to work hard and long
for a comparatively small return of food. He could not fuse his mentality with hers smoothly; as
he could do in the case of creatures of greater brain power, but he could handle her after a
fashion.
     At least she knew that certain actions would result in nourishment.
     Through the insect's compound eyes the room and all its contents were weirdly distorted,
but the Lensman could make them out well enough to direct her efforts. She crawled al^ng the
ceiling and dropped upon a silken rope to Jalte's belt. She could not pull the plug of the power-
packùit loomed before her eyes, a gigantic metal pillar as immovable as the Rock of
Gibraltarùtherefore she scampered on and began to explore the mazes of the set itself. She
could not see the thing as a whole, it was far too immense a structure for that; so Kinnison, to
whom the device was no larger than a hand, directed her to the first grid lead.
     A tiny thing, thread-thin in gross; yet to the insect it was an ordinary cable of stranded
soft-metal wire. Her powerful mandibles pried loose one of the component strands and with very
little effort pulled it away from its fellows beneath the head of a binding screw. The strand bent
easily, and as it touched the metal of the chassis the thought-screen vanished.
     Instantly Kinnison insinuated his mind in Jalte's and began to dig for knowledge. Eichmil
was his chiefùKinnison knew that already. His office was in the Second Galaxy, on the planet
Jarnevon. Jalte had been there . . . coordinates so and so, courses such and such . . . Eichmil
reported to Boskone . . .
     The Lensman stiffened. Here was the first positive evidence he had found that his
deductions were correctùor even that there really was such an entity as Boskone! He bored
anew.
     Boskone was not a single entity, but a council . . . probably of the Eich, the natives of
Jarnevon . . . weird impressions of coldly intellectual reptilian monstrosities, horrific,
indescribable . . . Eichmil must know exactly who and where Boskone was. Jalte did not.
Kinnison finished his research and abandoned the Kalonian's mind as insidiously as he had
entered it. The spider opened the short, restoring the screen to usefulness. Then, before he did
anything else, the Lensman directed his small ally to a whole family of young grubs just under
the cover of his manhole. Lensmen paid their debts, even to spiders.
     Then, with a profound sigh of relief, he dropped down into the sewer. The submarine
journey to the river was made without incident, as was the flight to his speedster. Night fell, and
through its blackness there darted the even blacker shape which was the Lensman's little ship.
Out into inter-galactic space she flashed, and homeward. And as she flew the Tellurian scowled.
     He had gained much, but not enough by far. He had hoped to get all the data on Boskone,
so that the zwilniks' headquarters could be stormed by Civilization's armada, invincible in its
newly-devised might.
     No soap. Before he could do that he would have to scout Jarnevon . . . in the Second
Galaxy . . . alone. Alone? Better not. Better take the flying snake along. Good old dragon! That
was a mighty long flit to be doing alone, and one with some mighty high-powered opposition at
the other end of it.

     CHAPTER 19
     PRELLIN IS ELIMINATED

     "Before you go anywhere; or, rather, whether you go anywhere or not, we want to knock
down that Bronsecan base of Prellin's," Haynes declared to Kinnison in no uncertain voice. "It's
a galactic scandal, the way we've been letting them thumb their noses at us. Everybody in space
thinks that the Patrol has gone soft all of a sudden. When are you going to let us smack them
down? Do you know what they've done now?"
     "Noùwhat?"
     "Gone out of business. We've been watching them so closely that they couldn't do any
queer businessùgoods, letters, messages, or anythingùso they closed up the Bronseca branch
entirely. 'Unfavorable conditions,' they said. Locked up tightùtelephones disconnected,
communicators cut, everything."
     "Hm . . . m . . . In that case we'd better take 'em, I guess. No harm done, anyway,
nowùmaybe all" the better. Let Boskone think that our strategy failed and we had to fall back
on brute force."
     "You say it easy. You think it'll be a push-over, don't you?"
     "Sureùwhy not?"
     "You noticed the shape of their screens?"
     "Roughly cylindrical," in surprise. "They're hiding a lot of |tuflf, of course, but they can't
possibly. . . ."
     "I'm afraid that they can, and will. I've been checking up on the building. Ten years old.
Plans and permits QX except for the fact that nobody knows whether or not the building
Resembles the plans in any way."
     "Klono's whiskers!" Kinnison was aghast, his mind was racing. "How could that be,
chief? Inspectionsùbuildersù contractorsùworkmen?"
     "The city inspector who had the job came into money later, retired, and nobody had seen
him since. Nobody can locate a single builder or workman who saw it constructed. No
competent inspector has been in it since. Cominoche is laxùall cities are, for that matterùwith
an outfit as big as Wembleson's, who carries its own insurance, does its own inspecting, and
won't allow outside interference. Wembleson's Isn't alone in that attitudeùthey're not all
zwilniks, either."
     "You think it's really fortified, then?"
     "Sure of it. That's why we ordered a gradual, but com-|plete, evacuation of the city,
beginning a couple of months ago."
     "How could you?" Kinnison was growing more surprised by the minute. "The
businessesùthe housesùthe expense!"
     "Martial lawùthe Patrol takes over in emergencies, you know. Businesses moved, and
mostly carrying on very well. People dittoùvery nice temporary camps, lake- and river-cottages,
and so on. As for expense, the Patrol pays damages. We'll pay for rebuilding the whole city if we
have toùmuch rather that than leave that Boskonian base there alone."
     "What a mess! Never thought of it that way, but you're right, as usual. They wouldn't be
there at all unless they thought . . . but they must know, chief, that they can't hold off the stuff
you can bring to bear."
     "Probably betting that we won't destroy our own city to get themùif so, they're wrong.
Or possibly they hung on a few days too long."
     "How about the observers?" Kinnison asked. "They have four auxiliaries there, you
know."
     "That's strictly up to you." Haynes was unconcerned. "Smearing that base is the only
thing I insist on. We'll wipe out the observers or let them observe and report, whichever you say;
but that base goesùit has been there far too long already."
     "Be nicer to let them alone," Kinnison decided. "We're not supposed to know anything
about them. You won't have to use primaries, will you?"
     "No. It's a fairly large building, as business blocks go, but it lacks a lot of being big
enough to be a first class base. We can burn the ground out from under its deepest possible
foundations with our secondaries."
     He called an adjutant. "Get me Sector Nineteen." Then, as the seamed, scarred face of an
old Lensman appeared upon a plate:
     "You can go to work on Cominoche now, Parker. Twelve maulers. Twenty heavy
caterpillars and about fifty units of Q-type mobile screen, remote control. Supplies and service.
Have them muster all available fire-fighting apparatus. If desirable, import someùwe want to
save as much of the place as we can. I'll come over in the Dauntless."
     He glanced at Kinnison, one eyebrow raised quizzically.
     "I feel as though I rate a little vacation; I think I'll go and watch this," he commented.
"The Dauntless can get us there soon enough. Got time to come along?"
     "I think so. It's more or less on my way to Lundmark's Nebula."
     Upon Bronseca then, as the Dauntless ripped her way through protesting space, there
converged structures of the void from a dozen nearby systems. There came maulers; huge,
ungainly flying fortresses of stupendous might There came transports, bearing the commissariat
and the service units. Vast freighters, under whose unimaginable mass the Gargantuanly braced
and latticed and trussed docks yielded visibly and groaningly, crushed to a standstill and
disgorged their varied cargoes.
     What Haynes had so matter-of-factly referred to as "heavy" caterpillars were all of that,
and the mobile screens were even heavier. Clanking and rumbling, but with their weight so
evenly distributed over huge, flat treads that they sank only a foot or so into even ordinary
ground, they made their ponderous way along Cominoche's deserted streets.
     What thoughts seethed within the minds of the Boskonians can only be imagined. They
knew that the Patrol had landed in force, but what could they do about it? At first, when the
Lensmen began to infest the place, they could .have fled in safety; but at that time they were too
certain of their immunity to abandon their richly established position. Even now, they would not
abandon it until that course became absolutely necessary.
     They could have destroyed the city, true; but it was not until after the noncombatant
inhabitants had unobstrusively moved out that that course suggested itself as an advisability.
Now the destruction of mere property would be a gesture worse than meaningless; it would be a
waste of energy which would all too certainly be needed badly and soon.
     Hence, as the Patrol's land forces ground dangerously into position the enemy made no
demonstration. The mobile screens were in place, surrounding the doomed section with a wall of
force to protect the rest of the city from the hellish energies so soon to be unleashed. The heavy
caterpillars, mounting projectors quite comparable in size and power with the warships'
ownùweapons similar in purpose and function to the railway-carriage coast-defense guns of an
earlier day ùwere likewise ready. Far back of the line, but still too close, as they were to
discover later, heavily armored men crouched at their remote controls behind their shields;
barriers both of hard-driven, immaterial fields of force and of solid, grounded, ultra-refrigerated
walls of the most refractory materials possible of fabrication. In the sky hung the maulers, poised
stolidly upon the towering pillars of flame erupting from their under-jets.
     Cominoche, Bronseca's capital city, witnessed then what no one there present had ever
expected to see; the warfare designed for the illimitable reaches of empty space being waged in
the very heart of its business district!
     For Port Admiral Haynes had directed the investment of this minor stronghold almost as
though it were a regulation base, and with reason. He knew that from their coigns of vantage afar
four separate Boskonian observers were looking on, charged with the responsibility of recording
and reporting everything that transpired, and he wanted that report to be complete and
conclusive. He wanted Boskone, whoever and wherever he might be, to know that when the
Galactic Patrol started a thing it finished it; that the mailed fist of Civilization would not spare an
enemy base simply because it was so located within one of humanity's cities that its destruction
must inevitably result in severe property damage. Indeed, the Port Admiral had massed there
thrice the force necessary, specifically and purposely to drive that message home.
     At the word of command there flamed out almost as one a thousand lances of energy
intolerable. Masonry, brickwork, steel, glass, and chromium trim disappeared; flaring away in
sparkling, hissing vapor or cascading away in brilliantly mobile streams of fiery, corrosive
liquid. Disappeared, revealing the unbearably incandescent surface of the Boskonian defensive
screen.
     Full-driven, that barrier held, even against the Titanic thrusts of the maulers above and of
the heavy defense-guns below. Energy rebounded in scintillating torrents, shot off in blinding
streamers, released itself in bolts of lightning hurling themselves frantically to ground.
     Nor was that superbly-disguised citadel designed for defense alone. Knowing now that
the last faint hope of continuing in business upon Bronseca was gone, and grimly determined to
take full toll of the hated Patrol, the defenders in turn loosed their beams. Five of them shot out
simultaneously, and five of the panels of mobile screen flamed instantly into eye-tearing violet
Then black. These were not the comparatively feeble, antiquated beams which Haynes had
expected, but were the output of up-to-the-minute, first-line space artillery!
     Defenses down, it took but a blink of time to lick up the caterpillars. On, then, the
destroying beams tore, each in a direct line for a remote-control station. Through tremendous
edifices of masonry and steel they drove, the upper floors collapsing into the cylinder of
annihilation only to be consumed almost as fast as they could fall.
     "All screen-control stations, back! Fast!" Haynes directed, crisply. "Back, dodging. Put
your screens on automatic block until you get back beyond effective range. Spy-ray men! See if
you can locate the enemy observers directing fire!"
     Three or four of the crews were caught, but most of the men were able to get away, to
move back far enough to save their lives and their equipment. But no matter how far back they
went, Boskonian beams still sought them out in grimly persistent attempts to slay. Their
shielding fields blazed white, their refractories wavered in the high blue as the overdriven
refrigerators strove mightily to cope with the terrific load. The operators, stifling, almost roasting
in their armor of proof, shook sweat from the eyes they could not reach as they drove themselves
and their mechanisms on to even greater efforts; cursing luridly, fulminantly the while at
carrying on a space-war in the hotly reeking, the hellishly reflecting and heat-retaining
environment of a metropolis!
     And all around the embattled structure, within the Patrol's now partially open wall of
screen, spread holocaust supreme, holocaust spreading wider and wider during each fractional
split second. In an instant, it seemed, nearby buildings burst into Same. The fact that they were
fireproof meant nothing whatever. The air inside them, heated in moments to a point far above
the ignition temperature of organic material, fed furiously upon furniture, rugs, drapes, and
whatever else had been left in place. Even without such adventitious aids the air itself, expanding
tremendously, irresistibly, drove outward before it the glass of windows and the solid brickwork
of walls. And as they fell glass and brick ceased to exist as such. Falling, they fused; coalescing
and again splashing apart as they descended through the inferno of annihilatory vibrations in an
appalling rain which might very well have been sprinkled from the hottest middle of the central
core of hell itself. And in this fantastically potent, this incredibly corrosive flood the very
ground, the metaled pavement, the sturdily immovable foundations of sky-scrapers, dissolved as
do lumps of sugar in boiling coffee. Dissolved, slumped down, flowed away in blindingly
turbulent streams. Superstructures toppled into disintegration, each discrete particle contributing
as it fell to the utterly indescribable fervency of the whole.
     More and more panels of mobile screen went down. They were not designed to stand up
under such heavy projectors as "Wembleson's" mounted, and the Boskonians blasted them down
in order to get at the remote-control operators back of them. Swath after swath of flaming ruin
was cut through the Bronsecan metropolis as the enemy gunners followed the dodging caterpillar
tractors.
     "Drop down, maulers!" Haynes ordered. "Low enough so that your screens touch ground.
Never mind damageùthey'll blast the whole city if we don't stop those beams. Surround him!"
     Down the maulers came, ringwise; mighty protective envelopes overlapping, down^until
the screens bit ground. Now the caterpillar and mobile-screen crews were safe; powerful as
Prellin's weapons were, they could not break through those maulers' screens.
     Now holocaust waxed doubly infernal. The wall was tight, the only avenue of escape of
all that fiercely radiant energy was straight upward; adding to the furor were the flaring
underletsùthemselves destructive agents by no means to be despised!
     Inside the screens, then, raged pure frenzy. At the line raved the maulers' prodigious
lifting blasts. Out and away, down every avenue of escape, swept torrents of superheated air at
whose touch anything and everything combustible burst into flame. But there could be no fire-
fightingùyet. Outlying fires, along the line of destruction previously cut, yes; but personal
armor has never been designed to enable life to exist in such an environment as that near those
screens then was.
     "Burn out the -ground under them!" came the order. 'Tip them overùslag them down!"
     Sharply downward angled two-score of the beams which had been expending their
energies upon Boskone's radiant defenses. Downward into the lake of lava which had once been
pavement. That lake had already been seething and bubbling; from moment to moment emitting
bursts of lambent flame. Now it leaped into a frenzy of its own, a transcendent fury of
volatilization. High-explosive shells by the hundred dropped also into the incandescent mess,
hurling the fiery stuff afar; deepening, broadening the sulphurous moat .
     "Deep enough," Haynes spoke calmly into his microphone. "Tractors and pressors as
assignedùtip him over."
     The intensity of the bombardment did not slacken, but from the maulers to the north there
reached out pressors, from those upon the south came tractors: each a beam of terrific power,
each backed by all the mass and all the driving force of a veritable flying fortress.
     Slowly that which had been a building leaned from the perpendicular, its inner defensive
screen still intact.
     "Chief?" From his post as observer Kinnison flashed a thought to Haynes. "Are you
beginning to think any funny thoughts about that ape down there?"
     "No. Are you? What?" asked the Port Admiral in surprise.
     "Maybe I'm nuts, but it wouldn't surprise me if he'd start doing a flit pretty quick. I've got
a CRX tracer on him, just in case, and it might be smart to caution Henderson to be on his toes."
     "Your diagnosisù'nuts'ùis correct, I think," came the answering thought; but the Port
Admiral followed the suggestion, nevertheless.
     And none too soon. Deliberately, grandly the Colossus was leaning over, bowing in
stately fashion toward the awful lake in which it stood. But only so far. Then there was a flash,
visible even in the inferno of energies already there at war, and the already coruscant lava was
hurled to all points of the compass as the full-blast drive of a superdreadnought was cut loose
beneath its surface!
     To the eye the thing simply and instantly disappeared; but not to the ultra-vision of the
observers' plates, and especially not to the CRX tracers solidly attached by Kinnison and by
Henderson. They held, and the chief pilot, already warned, was on the trail as fast as he could
punch his keys.
     Through atmosphere, through stratosphere, into interplanetary space flew pursued and
pursuer at ever-increasing speed. The Dauntless overtook her proposed victim fairly easily. The
Boskonian was fast, but the Patrol's new flyer was the fastest thing in space. But tractors would
not hold against the now universal standard equipment of shears, and the heavy secondaries
served only to push the fleeing vessel along all the faster. And the dreadful primaries could not
be usedùyet
     "Not yet," cautioned the admiral. "Don't get too closeùwait until there's nothing
detectable in space."
     Finally an absolutely empty region was entered, the word to close up was given and
Prellin drank of the bitter cup which so many commanders of vessels of the Patrol had had to
drainùthe gallingly fatal necessity of engaging a ship which was both faster and more powerful
than his own. The Boskonian tried, of course. His beams raged out at full power against the
screens of the larger ship, but without effect. Three primaries lashed out as one. The fleeing
vessel, structure and contents, ceased to be. The Dauntless returned to the torn and ravaged city.
     The maulers had gone. The lumbering caterpillarsùwhat were left of themùwere
clanking away; reeking, smoking hot in every plate and member. Only the firemen were left,
working like Trojans now with explosives, rays, water, carbon-dioxide snow, clinging and
smothering chemicals; anything and everything which would isolate, absorb, or dissipate any
portion of the almost incalculable heat energy so recently and so profligately released.
     Fire apparatus from four planets was at work. There were pumpers, ladder-trucks, hose-
and chemical-trucks. There were men in heavily-insulated armor. Vehicles and men alike were
screened against the specific wave-lengths of heat; and under the direction of a fire-marshal in
his red speedster high in air they fought methodically and efficiently the conflagration which
was the aftermath of battle. They fought, and they were winning.
     And then it rained. As though the heavens themselves had been outraged by what had
been done they opened and rain sluiced down in level sheets. It struck hissingly the nearby
structures, but it did not touch the central area at all. Instead it turned to steam in midair, and,
rising or being blown aside by the tempestuous wind, it concealed the redly glaring, raw wound
beneath a blanket of crimson fog.
     "Well, that's that," the Port Admiral said, slowly. His face was grim and stern. "A good
job of clean-up . . . expensive, in men and money, but well worth the price . . . so be it to every
pirate base and every zwilnik hideout in the galaxy . . . Henderson, land us at Cominoche Space-
Port."
     And from four other cities of the planet four Boskonian observers, each unknown to all
the others, took off in four spaceships for four different destinations. Each had reported fully and
accurately to Jalte everything that had transpired until the two flyers faded into the distance.
Then, highly elatedù and probably, if the truth could be known, no little surprised as wellùat
the fact-that he was still alive, each had left Bronseca at maximum blast.
     The galactic director had done all that he could, which was little enough. At the Patrol's
first warlike move he had ordered a squadron of Boskone's ablest fighting ships to Prellin's aid.
It was almost certainly a useless gesture, he knew as he did it. Gone were the days when pirate
bases dotted the Tellurian Galaxy; only by a miracle could those ships reach the Bronsecan's line
of flight in time to be of service.
     Nor could they. The howl of interfering vibrations which was smothering Prelin's
communicator beam snapped off into silence while the would-be rescuers were many hours
away. For minutes then Jalte sat immersed in thought, his normally bluish face turning a sickly
green, before he called the planet Jarnevon to report to Eichmil, his chief.
     "There is, however, a bright side to the affair," he concluded. "Prellin's records were
destroyed with him. Also there are two factsùthat the Patrol had to use such force as practically
to destroy the city of Cominoche, and that our four observers escaped unmolestedùwhich
furnish conclusive proof that the vaunted Lensman failed completely to penetrate with his mental
powers the defenses we have been using against him."
     "Not conclusive proof," Eichmil rebuked him harshly.
     "Not proof at all, in any senseùscarcely a probability. Indeed, the display of force may
very well mean that he has already attained his objective. He may have allowed the observers to
escape, purposely, to lull our suspicions. You yourself are probably the next in line. How certain
are you that your own base has not already been invaded?"
     "Absolutely certain, sir." Jalte's face, however, turned a shade greener at the thought.
     "You use the term 'absolutely' very looselyùbut I hope that you are right. Use all the
men and all the equipment we have sent you to make sure that it remains impenetrable."

     CHAPTER 20
     DISASTER

     In their non-magnetic, practically invisible speedster Kinnison and Worsel entered the
terra incognita of the Second Galaxy and approached the solar system of the Eich, slowing down
to a crawl as they did so. They knew as much concerning dread Jarnevon, the planet which was
their goal, as did Jalte, from whom die knowledge had been acquired; but that was all too little.
     They knew that it was the fifth planet out from the sun and that it was bitterly cold. It had
an atmosphere, but one containing no oxygen, one poisonous to oxygen-breathers. It had no
rotationùor, rather, its day coincided with its yearùand its people dwelt upon its eternally dark
hemisphere. If they had eyes, a point upon which there was doubt, they did not operate upon the
frequencies ordinarily referred to as "visible" light. In fact, about the Eich as persons or identities
they knew next to nothing. Jalte had seen them, but either he did not perceive them clearly or
else his mind could not retain their true likeness; his only picture of the Eichian physique being a
confusedly horrible blue.
     "I'm scared, Worsel," Kinnison declared. "Scared purple, and the closer we come the
worse scared I get."
     And he was scared. He was afraid as he had never before been afraid in all his short life.
He had been in dangerous situations before, certainly; not only that, he had been wounded
almost fatally. In those instances, however, peril had come upon him suddenly. He had reacted to
it automatically, having had little if any time to think about it beforehand.
     Never before had he gone into a place in which he knew in advance that the advantage
was all upon the other side; from which his chance of getting out alive was so terrifyingly small.
It was worse, much worse, than going into that vortex. There, while the road was strange, the
enemy was known to be one he had conquered before, and furthermore, he had had the
Dauntless, its eager young crew, and the scientific self-abnegation of old Cardynge to back him.
Here he had the speedster and Worselùand Worsel was just as scared as he was.
     The pit of his stomach felt cold, his bones seemed bits of rubber tubing. Nevertheless the
two Lensman were going in. That was their job. They had to go in, even though they knew that
the foe was at least their equal mentally, was overwhelmingly their superior physically and was
upon his own ground.
     "So am I," Worsel admitted. "I'm scared to the tip of my tail. I have one advantage over
you, howeverùI've been that way before." He was referring to the time when he had gone to
Delgon, abysmally certain that he would not return. "What is fated, happens. Shall we prepare?"
     They had spent many hours in discussion of what could be done, and in the end had
decided that the only possible preparation was to make sure that if Kinnison failed his failure
would not bring disaster to the Patrol.
     "Might as well. Come in, my mind's wide open."
     The Velantian insinuated his mind into Kinnison's and the Earthman slumped down,
unconscious. Then for many minutes Worsel wrought within the plastic brain. Finally:
     "Thirty seconds after you leave me these inhibitions will become operative. When I
release them your memory and your knowledge will be exactly as they were before I began to
operate," he thought; slowly, intensely, clearly. "Until that time you know nothing whatever of
any of these matters. No mental search, however profound; no truth-drug, however potent; no
probing even of the subconscious will or can discover them. They do not exist. They have never
existed. They shall not exist until I so allow. These other matters have been, are, and shall be
facts until that instant Kimball Kinnison, awaken!"
     The Tellurian came to, not knowing that he had been out. Nothing had occurred, for him
no time whatever had elapsed. He could not perceive even that his mind had been touched.
     "Sure it's done, Worsel? I can't find a thing!" Kinnison, who had himself operated
tracelessly upon so many minds, could scarcely believe his own had been tampered with.
     "It is done. If you could detect any trace of the work it would have been poor work, and
wasted."
     Down dropped the speedster, as nearly as the Lensmen dared toward Jarnevon's
tremendous primary base. They did not know whether they were being observed or not. For all
they knew these incomprehensible beings might be able to see or to sense them as plainly as
though their ship were painted with radium and were landing openly, with searchlights ablaze
and with bells a-clang. Muscles tense, ready to hurl their tiny flyer away at the slightest alarm,
they wafted downward.
     Through the screens they dropped. Power off, even to the gravity-pads; thought, even,
blanketed to zero. Nothing happened. They landed. They disembarked. Foot by foot they made
their cautious way forward.
     In essence the plan was simplicity itself. Worsel would accompany Kinnison until both
were within the thought-screens of the dome. Then the Tellurian would get, some way or other,
the information which the Patrol had to have, and the Velantian would get it back to Prime Base.
If the Gray Lensman could go too, QX. And after all, there was no real reason to think that he
couldn'tùhe was merely playing safe on general principles. But, if worst came to worst . . . well.
. .
     They arrived.
     "Now remember, Worsel, no matter what happens to me, or around me, you stay out.
Don't come in after me. Help me all you can with your mind, but not otherwise. Take everything
I get, and at the first sign of danger you flit back to the speedster and give her the oof, whether
I'm around or not Check?"
     "Check," Worsel agreed, quietly. Kinnison's was the harder part Not because he was the
leader, but because he was the better qualified. They both knew it The Patrol came first It was
bigger, vastly more important, than any being or any group of beings in it
     The man strode away and in thirty seconds underwent a weird and striking mental
transformation. Three-quarters of his knowledge disappeared so completely that he had no
inkling that he had ever had it. A new name, a new personality were his, so completely and
indisputably his that he had no faint glimmering of a recollection that he had ever been
otherwise.
     He was wearing his Lens. It could do no possible harm, since it was almost inconceivable
that the Eich could be made to believe that any ordinary agent could have penetrated so far, and
the fact should not be revealed to the foe that any Lensman could work without his Lens. That
would explain far too much of what had already happened. Furthermore, it was a necessity in the
only really convincing role which Kinnison could play in the event of capture.
     As he neared his objective he slowed down. There were pits beneath the pavement, he
observed, big enough to hold a speedster. Traps. He avoided them. There were various
mechanisms within the blank walls he skirted. More traps. He avoided them. Photo-cells, trigger-
beams, invisible rays, networks. He avoided them all. Close enough.
     Delicately he sent out a mental probe, and almost in the instant of its sending cables of
steel came whipping from afar. He perceived them as they came, but could not dodge them. His
projectors flamed briefly, only to be sheared away. The cables wrapped about his arms, binding
him fast. Helpless, he was carried through the atmosphere, into the dome, through an airlock into
a chamber containing much grimly unmistakable apparatus. And in the council chamber, where
the nine of Boskone and one armored Delgonian Overlord held meeting, a communicator buzzed
and snarled.
     "Ah!" exclaimed Eichmil. "Our visitor has arrived and is awaiting us in the Delgonian
hall of question. Shall we meet again, there?"
     They did so; they of the Eich armored against the poisonous oxygen, the Overlord naked.
All wore screens.
     "Earthling, we are glad indeed to see you here," the First of Boskone welcomed the
prisoner. "For a long time we have been anxious indeed
     "I don't see how that can be," the Lensman blurted. "I just graduated. My first big
assignment, and I have failed," he ended, bitterly.
     A start of surprise swept around the circle. Could this be?
     "He is lying." Eichmil decided. "You of Delgon, take him out of his armor." The
Overlord did so, the Tellurian's struggles meaningless to the reptile's superhuman strength.
"Release your screen and see whether or not you can make him tell the truth."
     After all, the man might not be lying. The fact that he could understand a strange
language meant nothing. All Lens-men could.
     "But in case he should be the one we seek. . ." the Overlord hesitated.
     "We will see to it that no harm comes to you . . ."
     "We cannot," the Ninthùthe psychologistùbroke in. "Before any screen is released I
suggest that we question him verbally, under the influence of the drug which renders it
impossible for any warm-blooded oxygen-breather to tell anything except the complete truth."
     The suggestion, so eminently sensible, was adopted forth-with.
     "Are you the Lensman who has made it possible for the Patrol to drive us out of the
Tellurian Galaxy?" came the sharp demand.
     "No," was the flat and surprising reply.
     "Who are you, then?"
     "Philip Morgan, Class of . . ."
     "Oh, this will take forever!" snapped the Ninth. "Let me question him. Can you control
minds at a distance and without previous treatment?"
     "If they are not too strong, yes. All of us specialists in psychology can do that."
     "Go to work upon him, Overlord!"
     The now reassured Delgonian snapped off his screen and a battle of wills ensued which
made the sub-ether boil. For Kinnison, although he no longer knew what the truth was, still
possessed the greater part of his mental power, and the Delgonian's mind, as has already been
made clear, was a capable one indeed.
     "Desist!" came the command. "Earthman, what happened?"
     "Nothing," Kinnison replied, truthfully. "Each of us could resist the other; neither could
penetrate or control."
     "Ah!" and nine Boskonian screens snapped off. Since the Lensman could not master one
Delgonian, he would not be a menace to the massed minds of the Nine of Boskone and the
questioning need not wait upon the slowness of speech. Thoughts beat into Kinnison's brain from
all sides.
     This power of mind was relatively new, yes. He did not know what it was. He went to
Arisia, fell asleep, and woke up with it. A refinement, he thought, of hypnotism. Only advanced
students in psychology could do it. He knew nothing except by hearsay of the old Brittaniaùhe
was a cadet then. He had never heard of Blakeslee, or of anything unusual concerning any one
hospital ship. He did not know who had scouted Helmuth's base, or put the thionite into it. He
had no idea who it was who had killed Helmuth. As far as he knew, nothing had ever been done
about any Boskonian spies in Patrol bases. He had never happened to hear of the planet Medon,
or of anyone named Bominger, or Madame Desplaines, or Prellin. He was entirely ignorant of
any unusual weapons of offenseùhe was a psychologist, not an engineer or a physicist. No, he
was not unusually adept with DeLameters . . .
     "Hold on!" Eichmil commanded. "Stop questioning him, everybody! Now, Lensman,
instead of telling us what you do not know, give us positive information, in your own way. How
do you work? I am beginning to suspect that the man we really want is a director, not an
operator."
     That was a more productive line. Lensmen, hundreds of them, each worked upon definite
assignment. None of them had ever seen or ever would see the man who issued orders. He had
not even a name, but was a symbolùStar A Star. They received orders through their Lenses,
wherever they might be in space. They reported back to him in the same way. Yes, Star A Star
knew what was going on there, he was reporting constantly . . .
     A knife descended viciously. Blood spurted. The stump was dressed, roughly but
efficiently. They did not wish their victim to bleed to death when he died, and he was not to die
in any fashionùyet
     And in the instant that Kinnison's Lens went dead Worsel, from his safely distant nook,
reached out direct to the mind of his friend, thereby putting his own life in jeopardy. He knew
that there was an Overlord in that room, and the grue of a thousand helplessly-sacrificed
generations of forebears swept his sinuous length at the thought, despite his inward certainty of
the new powers of his mind. He knew that of all the entities in the Universe the Delgonians were
most sensitive to the thought-vibrations of Velantians. Nevertheless, he did it.
     He narrowed the beam down to the smallest possible coverage, employed a frequency as
far as possible from that ordinarily used by the Overlords, and continued to observe. It was risky,
but it was necessary. It was beginning to appear as though die Earthman might not be able to
escape, and he must not die in vain.
     "Can you communicate now?" In the ghastly chamber the relentless questioning went on.
     "I can not communicate."
     "It is well. In one way I would not be averse to letting your Star A Star know what
happens when one of his minions dares to spy upon the Council of Boskone itself, but the
information is as yet a trifle premature. Later, he shall learn . . ."
     Kinnison did not consciously thrill at that thought. He did not know that the news was
going beyond his brain; that he had achieved his goal. Worsel, however, did; and Worsel thrilled
for him. The Gray Lensman had finished his job; all that was left to do was to destroy that base
and the power of Boskone would be broken. Kinnison could die, now, content.
     But no thought of leaving entered Worsel's mind. He would of course stand by as long as
there remained the slightest shred of hope, or until some development threatened his ability to
leave the planet with his priceless information. And the pitiless inquisition went on.
     Star A Star had sent him to investigate their planet, to discover whether or not there was
any connection between it and the zwilnik organization. He had come alone, in a speedster. No,
he could not tell them even approximately where the speedster was. It was so dark, and he had
come such a long distance on foot. In a short time, though, it would start sending out a thought-
signal which he could detect . . .
     "But you must have some ideas about this Star A Star!" This director was the man they
want so desperately to get They believed implicitly in this figment of a Lensman-Director.
Fitting in so perfectly with their own ideas of efficient organization, it was more convincing by
far than the actual truth would have been. They knew now that he would be hard to find. They
did not now insist upon facts; they wanted every possible crumb of surmise. "You must have
wondered who and where Star A Star is? You must have tried to trace him?"
     Yes, he had tried, but the problem could not be solved. The Lens was non-directional,
and the signals came in at practically the same strength, anywhere in the galaxy. They were,
however, very much fainter out here. That might be taken to indicate that Star A Star's office was
in a star cluster, well out in either zenith or nadir direction . . .
     The victim sucked dry, eight of the Council departed, leaving Eichmil and the Overlord
with the Lensman.
     "What you have in mind to do, Eichmil, is childish. Your basic idea is excellent, but your
technique is pitifully inadequate."
     "What could be worse?" Eichmil demanded. "I am going to dig out his eyes, smash his
bones, flay him alive, roast him, cut him up into a dozen pieces, and send him back to his Star A
Star with a warning that every creature he sends into this galaxy will be treated the same way.
What would you do?"
     "You of the Eich lack finesse," the Delgonian sighed. "You have no subtlety, no
conception of the nicer possibilities of torture, either of an individual or of a race. For instance,
to punish Star A Star adequately this man must be returned to him alive, not dead."
     "Impossible! He dies, here!"
     "You misunderstand me. Not alive as he is nowùbut not entirely dead. Bones broken,
yes, and eyes removed; but those minor matters are but a beginning. If I were doing it, I should
then apply several of these devices here, successively; but none of them to the point of complete
incompatibility with life. I should inoculate the extremities of his four limbs with an organism
which growsùshall we say unpleasantly? Finally, I should extract his life force and consume
itùas you know, that material is a rarely satisfying delicacy with usùtaking care to leave just
enough to maintain a bare existence. I should then put what is left of him aboard his ship, start it
toward the Tellurian Galaxy, and send notice to the Patrol as to its exact course and velocity."
     "But they would find him alive!" Eichmil stormed.
     "Exactly. For the fullest vengeance they must, as I have said. Which is worse, think you?
To find a corpse, however dismembered, and to dispose of it with full military honors, or to find
and to have to take care of for a full lifetime a something that has not enough intelligence even to
swallow food placed in its mouth? Remember also that the organism will be such that they
themselves will be obliged to amputate all four of the creature's limbs to save its life."
     While thinking thus the Delgonian shot out a slender tentacle which, slithering across the
floor, flipped over the tiny switch of a small mechanism in the center of the room. This entirely
unexpected action almost stunned Worsel. He had been debating for moments whether or not to
release the Gray Lensman's inhibitions. He would have done so instantly if he had had any
warning of what the Delgonian was about to do. Now it was too late.
     "I have set up a thought-screen about the room. I do not wish to share this tid-bit with any
of my fellows, as there is not enough to divide," the monster explained, parenthetically. "Have
you any suggestion as to how my plan may be improved?"
     "No. You have shown that you understand torture better than we do."
     "I should, since we Overlords have practiced it as a fine art since our beginnings as a
race. Do you wish .the pleasure of breaking his bones now?"
     "I do not break bones for pleasure. Since you do, you may carry out the procedure as
outlined. All I want is the assurance that he will be an object-lesson and a warning to Star A Star
of the Patrol."
     "I can assure you definitely that it will be both. More, I will show you the results when I
have finished my work. Or, if you like, I would be glad to have you stay and look onùyou will
find the spectacle interesting, entertaining, and highly instructive."
     "No, thanks." Eichmil left the room and the Delgonian turned his attention to the bound
and helpless Lensman.
     It is best, perhaps, to draw a kindly veil over the events of the next two hours. Kinnison
himself refuses positively to discuss it, except to say:
     "I knew how to set up a nerve-block then, so I cant say that any of it really hurt me. I
wouldn't let myself feel it. But all the time I knew what he was doing to me and it made me sick.
Did you ever watch a surgeon while he was taking out your appendix? Like that, only worse. It
wasn't funny. I didn't like it a bit. Your readers wouldn't like it, either, so you'd better lay off that
stuff entirely."
     The mere fact that the Overlord had established coverage was of course sufficient to set
up in the Lensman's mind a compulsion to knock it down. He had to break that screen! But there
were no birds here; no spiders. Was there any life at all? There was. That torture room had been
used fully and often; the muck in its drains was rich pasture for the Jarnevonian equivalent of
worms.
     Selecting a big one, long and thick, Kinnison tuned down to its mental level and probed.
This took timeùmuch, much too much time. The creature did not have nearly the intelligence of
a spider, but it did have a dim consciousness of being, and therefore an ego of a sort. Also, when
Kinnison finally got in touch with that ego, it reacted very favorably to his suggestion of food.
     "Hurry, worm! Snap it up!" and the little thing really did hurry. Scrambling, squirming,
almost leaping along the floor it hurried, in a very grotesquerie of haste.
     The Delgonian's leisurely preliminary work was done. The feast was ready. The worm
reached the generator while the Overlord was warming up the tubes of the apparatus which was
to rive away that which made the man Kinnison everything that he was.
     Curling one end of its sinuous shape around a convenient anchorage, Kinnison's small
proxy reached up and looped the other about the handle of the switch. Then, visions of choice
viands suffusing its barely existent consciousness, it contracted convulsively. There was a snap
and the mental barrier went out of existence.
     At the tiny sound the Delgonian whirledùand stopped. Worsel's gigantic mentality had
been beating ceaselessly against that screen ever since its erection, and in the instant of its fall
Kinnison again became the Gray Lensman of old. And in the next instant both those prodigious
mindsùthe two most powerful then known to Civilizationùhad hurled themselves against that
of the Delgonian. Bitter though the ensuing struggle was, it was brief. Nothing short of an
Arisian mind could have withstood the venomous fury, the Berserk power, of that concerted and
synchronized attack.
     Brain half burned out, the Overlord wilted; and, docility itself, he energized the
communicator.
     "Eichmil? The work is done. Thoroughly done and well. Do you wish to inspect it before
I put what is left of the Lensman into his ship?"
     "No." Eichmil, as a high executive, was accustomed to delegating far more important
matters than that to competent underlings. "If you are satisfied, I am."
     Weirdly enough to any casual observer, the Overlord's first act was to deposit the worm,
carefully and tenderly, in a spot in which the muck was particularly rich and toothsome. Then,
picking up the hideously mangled thing that was Kinnison's body, he encased it in its armor and,
donning his own, wriggled boldly away with his burden.
     "Clear the way for me, please," he requested of Eichmil. "I go to place this residuum
within its ship and to return it to Star A Star."
     "You will be able to find the speedster?"
     "Certainly. He was to find it. Whatever he could have done I, working through the cells
of his brain, can likewise do."
     "Can you handle him alone, Kinnison?" Worsel asked presently. "Can you hold out to the
speedster?"
     "Yes to both. I can handle himùwe whittled him down to a nub. I'll lastùI'll make
myself last long enough."
     "I go, then, lest they be observing with spy-rays."
     To the black flyer, then, the completely subservient Delgonian carried his physically
disabled master, and carefully he put him aboard. Worsel helped openly there, for he had
screened the speedster against all forms of intrusion. The vessel took off and the Overlord
wriggled blithely back toward the dome. He was full of the consciousness of a good job well
done. He even felt the sensation of repletion concomitant with having consumed practically all
of Kinnison's life force! "I hate to let him go!" Worsel's thought was a growl of baffled hatred.
"It gripes me to let him think that he did everything he set out to do, even though I know it had to
be that way. I wantedùI still wantùto tear him apart for what he has done to you, my friend."
     "Thanks, old snake." Kinnison's thought came faintly. "Just temporary. He's living on
borrowed time. He'll get his. You've got everything under control, haven't you?"
     "On the green. Why?"
     "Because I can't hold this nerve-block any longer . . . It hurts . . . I'm sick. I think I'm
going to . . ."
     He fainted. More, he plunged parsecs deep into the blackest depths of oblivion as
outraged Nature took the toll she had been so long denied.
     Worsel hurled a call to Earth, then turned to his maimed and horribly broken companion.
He-applied splints to the shattered limbs, he dressed and bandaged the hideous wounds and the
raw sockets which had once held eyes, he ministered to the raging, burning thirst. Whenever
Kinnison's mind wearied he held for him the nerve-block; the priceless anodyne without which
the Gray Lensman must have died from sheerest agony.
     "Why not allow me, friend, to relieve you of all consciousness until help arrives?" the
Velantian asked, pityingly.
     "Can you do it without killing me?"
     "If you so allow, yes. If you offer any resistance, I do not believe that any mind in the
universe could."
     "I won't resist. Come in," and Kinnison's suffering ended.
     But kindly Worsel could do nothing about the fantastically atrocious growth which were
transforming the Earthman's legs and arms into monstrosities out of nightmare.
     He could only waitùwait for the skilled assistance which he knew must be so long in
coming.

     CHAPTER 21
     AMPUTATION

When worsel's hard-driven call impinged upon the Port Admiral's Lens he dropped everything to
take the report himself. Characteristically Worsel sent first and Haynes first recorded a complete
statement of the successful mission to Jarnevon. Last came personalities, the tale of Kinnison's
ordeal and his present plight
     "Are they following you in force, or cant you tell?"
     "Nothing detectable, and at the time of our departure there had been no suggestion of any
such action," Worsel replied, carefully.
     "Well come in force, anyway, and fast. Keep him alive until we meet you," Haynes
urged, and disconnected.
     It was an unheard-of occurrence for the Port Admiral to turn over his very busy and
extremely important desk to a subordinate without notice and without giving him instructions,
but Haynes did it now.
     "Take charge of everything, Southworth!" he snapped. "I'm called awayùemergency.
Kinnison found Boskoneù got awayùhurtùI'm going after him in the Dauntless. Taking the
new flotilla with me. Indefinite timeùprobably a few weeks."
     He strode toward the communicator desk. Hie Dauntless was, as. always, completely
serviced and ready for any emergency. Where was that fleet of her sister-ships, on its shakedown
cruise? He'd shake them down! They had with them the new hospital-ship, tooùthe only Red
Cross ship in space that could leg it, parsec for parsec, with the Dauntless.
     "Get me Navigations . . . Figure best point of rendezvous for Dauntless and Flotilla ZKD,
both at full blast, en route to Lundmark's Nebula. Fifteen minutes departure. Figure approximate
time of meeting with speedster, also at full blast, leaving that nebula hour nine fourteen today.
Correction! Cancel speedster meeting, we can compute that more accurately later. Advise
adjutant Admiral Southworth will send order, through channels. Get me Base Hospital. . . Lacy,
please . . . Kinnison's hurt, sawbones, bad. I'm going out after him. Coming along?"
     "Yes. How about. . ."
     "On the green. Flotilla ZKD, including your new two-hundred-million-credit hospital, is
going along. Slip twelve, Dauntless, eleven and one-half minutes from now. Hipe!" and the
Surgeon-Marshal "biped."
     Two minutes before the scheduled take-off Base Navigations called the chief navigating
officer of the Dauntless.
     "Course to rendezvous with Flotilla ZKD latitude three fifty four dash thirty longitude
nineteen dash forty two time approximately twelve dash seven dash twenty six place one dash
three dash zero outside arbitrary galactic rim check and repeat" rattled from the speaker without
pause or punctuation. Nevertheless the chief navigator got it, recorded it, checked and repeated it
     "Figures only approximations because of lack of exact data on variations in density of
medium and on distance necessarily lost in detouring stars" the speaker chattered on "suggest
instructing your second navigator to communicate with navigating officers Flotilla ZKD at time
twelve dash zero to correct courses to compensate unavoidably erroneous assumptions in
computation Base Navigations off."
     "Ill say he's off! 'Way off!" growled the Second. "What does he think I amùa complete
nitwit? Pretty soon he'll be telling me two plus two equals four point zero."
     The fifteen-second warning bell sounded. Every man came to the ready at his post, and
precisely upon the designated second the super-dreadnought blasted off. For four or five miles
she rose inert upon her under-jets, sirens and flaring lights clearing her way. Then she went free,
her needle prow slanted sharply upward, her full battery of main driving projectors burst into
action, and to all intents and purposes she vanished.
     The Earth fell away from her at an incredible rate, dwindling away into invisibility in less
than a minute. In two minutes the sun itself was merely a bright star, in five it had merged
indistinguishably into the sharply-defined, brilliantly white belt of the Milky Way.
     Hour after hour, day after day the Dauntless hurtled through space, swinging almost
imperceptibly this way and that to avoid the dense ether in the neighborhood of suns through
which the designated course would have led; but never leaving far or for long the direct line,
almost exactly in the equatorial plane of the galaxy, between Tellus and the place of meeting.
Behind her the Milky Way clotted, condensed, gathered itself together; before her and around
her the stars began rapidly to thin out. Finally there were no more stars in front of her. She had
reached the "arbitrary rim" of the galaxy, and the second navigator, then on duty, plugged into
Communications.
     "Please get me Flotilla ZKD, Flagship Navigations," he requested; and, as a clean-cut
young face appeared upon his plate, "Hi, Harvey, old spacehound! Fancy meeting you out here!
It's a small Universe, ain't it? Say, did that crumb back there at Base tell you, too, to be sure and
start checking course before you over-ran the rendezvous? If he was singling me out to make
that pass at, I'm going to take steps, and not through channels, either."
     "Yeah, he told me the same. I thought it was funny, tooù an oiler's pimp would know
enough to do that without being told. We figured maybe he was jittery on account of us meeting
the admiral or something. What's burned out all the jets, Paul, to get the big brass hats 'way out
here and all dithered up, and to pull us offa the cruise this way? Must be a hell of an important
flit! You're computing the Old Man himself, you must know something. What's this speedster
that we're going to escort, and why? Give us the dope!"
     "I don't know anything, Harvey, honest, any more than you do. They didn't put out a
thing. Well, we'd better be getting onto the courseù'to compensate unavoidably erroneous
assumptions in computation,'" he mimicked, caustically. "What do you read on my lambda?
Fourteenùthree ùpoint zero sixùdecrement. . ."
     The conversation became a technical jargon; because of which, however, the courses of
the flying space-ships changed subtly. The flottila swung around, through a small arc of a circle
of prodigious radius, decreasing by a tenth its driving force. Up to it the Dauntless crept; through
it and into the van. Then again in cone formation, but with fifty five units instead of fifty four,
the flotilla screamed forward at maximum blast.
     Well before the calculated time of meeting the speedster a Velantian Lensman who knew
Worsel well put himself en rapport with him and sent a thought out far ahead of the flying
squadron. It found its goalùLensmen of that race, as has been brought out, have always been
extraordinarily capable communicatorsùand once more the course was altered slightly. In due
time Worsel reported that he could detect the fleet, and shortly thereafter:
     "Worsel says to cut your drive to zero," the Velantian transmitted. "He's coming up . . .
He's close. . . He's going to go inert and start driving . . . We're to stay free until we see what his
intrinsic velocity is . . . Watch for his flare."
     It was a weird sensation, this of knowing that a speedster ùquite a sizable chunk of boat,
reallyùwas almost in their midst, and yet having all their instruments, even the electros, register
empty space . . .
     There it was! The flare of the driving blast, a brilliant streamer of fierce white light,
sprang into being and drifted rapidly away to one side of their course. When it had attained a
safe distance:
     "All ships of the flotilla except the Dauntless go inert," Haynes directed. Then, to his
own pilot. "Back us off a bit, Henderson, and do the same," and the new flagship, too, went inert.
     "How can I get onto the Pasteur the quickest, Haynes?" Lacy demanded.
     "Take a gig," the Admiral grunted, "and tell the boys how much you want to take. Three
G's is all we can use without warning and preparation."
     There followed a curious and fascinating spectacle, for the hospital ship had an intrinsic
velocity entirely different from that of either Kinnison's speedster or Lacy's powerful gig. The
Pasteur, gravity pads cut to zero, was braking down by means of her under-jets at a conservative
one point four gravitiesùhospital ships were not allowed to use the brutal accelerations
employed as a matter of course by ships of war.
     The gig was on her brakes at five gravities, all that Lacy wanted to takeùbut the
speedster! Worsel had put his patient into a pressure-pack and had hung him on suspension, and
was "balancing her down on her tail" at a full eleven gravities!
     But even at that, the gig first matched the velocity of the hospital ship. The intrinsics of
those two were at least of the same order of magnitude, since both had come from the same
galaxy. Therefore Lacy boarded the Red Cross vessel and was escorted to the office of the chief
nurse while Worsel was still blasting at eleven G'sùfifty thousand miles distant then and getting
farther away by the secondùto kill the speedster's Lundmarkian intrinsic velocity. Nor could the
tractors of the warships be of any assistanceùthe speedster's own vicious jets were fully capable
of supplying more acceleration than even a pressure-packed human body could endure.
     "How do you do, Doctor Lacy? Everything is ready." Clarrissa MacDougall met him,
hand outstretched. Her saucy white cap was worn as perkily cocked as ever: perhaps even more
so, now that it was emblazoned with the cross-surmounted wedge which is the insignia of sector
chief nurse. Her flaming hair was as gorgeous, her smile as radiant, her bearing as
confidentlyùKinnison has said of her more than once that she is the only person he has ever
known who can strut sitting down!ùas calmly poised. "I'm very glad to see you, doctor. It's
been quite a while . . ." Her voice died away, for the man was looking at her with an expression
defying analysis.
     For Lacy was thunder-struck. If he had ever known itùand he must haveùhe had
completely forgotten that MacDougall had this ship. This was awfulùterrible!
     "Oh, yes ,. . yes, of course. How do you do? Mighty glad to see you again. How's
everything going?" He pumped her hand vigorously, thinking frantically the while what he
wouldù what he could say next "Oh, by the way, who is to be in charge of the operating room?"
     "Why, I am, of course," she replied in surprise. "Who else would be?"
     "Anyone else!" he wanted to say, but did notùthen. "Why, that isn't at all necessary . . . I
would suggest . . ."
     "You'll suggest nothing of the kind!" She stared at him intently; then, as she realized
what his expression really meantùshe had never before seen such a look of pitying anguish
upon his usually sternly professional faceùher own turned white and both hands flew to her
throat.
     "Not Kirn, Lacy!" she gasped. Gone now was everything of poise, of insouciance, which
had so characterized her a moment before. She who had worked unflinchingly upon all sorts of
dismembered, fragmentary, maimed and mangled men was now a pleading, stricken, desperately
frightened girl. "Not Kimùplease! Oh, merciful God, don't let it be my Kirn!"
     "You can't be there, Mac." He did not need to tell her. She knew. He knew that she knew.
"Somebody elseùanybody else."
     "No!" came the hot negative, although the blood drained completely from her face,
leaving it as white as the immaculate uniform she wore. Her eyes were black, burning holes. "It's
my job, Lacy, in more ways than one. Do you think I'd let anyone else work on him?" she
finished passionately.
     "You'll have to," he declared. "I didn't want to tell you this, but he's a mess." This, from a
surgeon of Lacy's long and wide experience, was an unthinkable statement. Nevertheless:
     "All the more reason why I've got to do it. No matter what shape he's in I'll let no one
else work on my Kim!"
     "I say no. That's an orderùofficial!"
     "Damn such orders!" she flamed. "There's nothing back of itùyou know that as well as I
do!"
     "See here, young woman . . . !"
     "Do you think you can order me not to perform the very duties I swore to do?" she
stormed. "And even if it were not my job, I'd come in and work on him if I had to get a torch and
cut my way in to do it. The only way you can keep me out is to have about ten of your men put
me into a strait-jacketùand if you do that I'll have you kicked out of the Service bodily!"
     "QX, MacDougall, you win." She had him there. This girl could and would do exactly
that. "But if you faint I'll make you wish. . . ."
     "You know me better than that, doctor." She was cold now as a woman of marble. "If he
dies I'll die too, right then; but if he lives I'll stand by."
     "You would, at that," the surgeon admitted. "Probably you would be able to hold together
better than any one else could. But there'll be after-effects in your case, you know."
     "I know." Her voice was bleak. "I'll live through them . . . if Kim lives." She became all
nurse in the course of a breath. White, cold, inhuman; strung to highest tension and yet placidly
calm, as only a truly loving woman in life's great crises can be. "You have had reports on him,
doctor. What is your provisional diagnosis?"
     "Something like elephantiasis, only worse, affecting both arms and both legs. Drastic
amputations indicated. Eye-sockets. Burns. Multiple and compound fractures. Punctured and
incised wounds., Traumatism, ecchymosis, extensive extravasations, oedema. Profound systemic
shock. The prognosis, however, seems to be favorable, as far as we can tell."
     "Oh, I'm glad of that," she breathed, the woman for a moment showing through the armor
of the nurse. She had not dared even to think of prognosis. Then she had a thought. "Is that really
true, or are you just giving me a shot in the arm?" she demanded.
     "The truthùstrictly," he assured her. "Worsel has an excellent sense of perception, and
has reported fully and clearly. His brain, mind, and spine are not affected in any way, and we
should be able to save his life. That is the one good feature of the whole thing."
     The speedster finally matched the intrinsic velocity of the hospital ship. She went free,
flashed up to the Pasteur, inerted, and maneuvered briefly. The larger vessel engulfed the
smaller. The Gray Lensman was carried into the operating room. The anaesthetist approached
the table and Lacy was stunned at a thought from Kinnison.
     "Never mind the anaesthetic, Doctor Lacy. You can't make me unconscious without
killing me. Just go ahead with your work. I held a nerve-block while the Delgonian was doing
his stuff and I can hold it while you're doing yours."
     "But we can't, man!" Lacy exclaimed. "You've got to be under a general for this jobùwe
can't have you conscious. You're raving, I think. It will workùit always has. Let us try it,
anyway, won't you?"
     "Sure. It'll save me the trouble of holding the block, even though it won't do anything
else. Go ahead."
     The attendant doctor did so, with the same cool skill and to the same end-point as in
thousands of similar and successful undertakings. At its conclusion, "Gone now, aren't you,
Kinnison?" Lacy asked, through his Lens.
     "No," came the surprising reply. "Physically, it worked. I can't feel a thing and I can't
move a muscle, but mentally I'm still here."
     "But you shouldn't be!" Lacy protested. "Perhaps you were right, at thatùwe can't give
you much more without danger of collapse. But you've got to be unconscious! Isn't there some
way in which you can be made so?"
     "Yes, there is. But why do I have to be unconscious?" he asked, curiously.
     'To avoid mental shockùseriously damaging," the surgeon explained. "In your case
particularly the mental aspect is graver than the purely physical one."
     "Maybe you're right, but you can't do it with drugs. Call Worsel; he has done it before.
He had me unconscious most of the way over here except when he had to give me a drink or
something to eat. He's the only man this side of Arisia who can operate on my mind."
     Worsel came. "Sleep, my friend," he commanded, gently but firmly. "Sleep profoundly,
body and mind, with no physical or mental sensations, no consciousness, no perception even of
the passage of time. Sleep so until someone having authority to do so bids you awaken."
     And Kinnison slept; so deeply that even Lacy's probing Lens could elicit no response.
     "He will stay that way?" Lacy asked in awe.
     "Yes."
     "For how long?"
     "Indefinitely. Until one of you doctors or nurses tells him to wake up, or until he dies for
lack of food or water."
     "He'll get nourishment. He would make a much better recovery if we could keep him in
that state until his injuries are almost healed. Would that hurt him?"
     "Not at all."
     Then the surgeons and the nurses went to work. Since it has already been made amply
plain what had to be done to the Gray Lensman, no good end is to be served by following in
revolting detail the stark hideousness of its actual doing. Suffice it to say, then, that Lacy was not
guilty of exaggeration when he described Kinnison as being a "mess." He was. The job was long
and hard. It was heart-breaking, even for those to whom Kinnison was merely another case, not a
beloved personality. What they had to do they did, and the white-marble chief nurse carried on
through every soul-wrenching second, through every shocking, searing motion of it. She did her
part, stoically, unflinchingly, as efficiently as though the patient upon the table were a total
stranger undergoing a simple appendectomy and not the one man in her entire Universe
undergoing radical dismemberment. Nor did she faintùthen.
     "Three or four of the girls fainted dead away, and a couple of the internes turned sort of
green around the gills," she explained to your historian in reply to a direct question. She can
bring herself to discuss the thing, now that it is so happily past, although she does not like to do
so. "But I held on until it was all over. I did more than faint then." She smiled wryly at the
memory. "I went into such a succession of hysterical cat-fits that they had to give me hypos and
keep me in bed, and they didn't let me see Kim again until we had him back in Base Hospital, on
Tellus. But even old Lacy himself was so woozy that he had to have a couple of snifters of
brandy, so the shew I put on wasn't too much out of order, at that."
     Back in Base Hospital, then, time wore on until Lacy decided that the Lensman could be
aroused from his trance. Clarrissa woke him up. She had fought for the privilege: first claiming it
as a right and then threatening to commit mayhem upon the person of anyone else who dared
even to think of doing it
     "Wake up, Kim dear," she whispered. "The worst of it is over now. You are getting well."
     The Gray Lensman came to instantly, in full command of every faculty, knowing
everything that had happened up to the instant of his hypnosis by Worsel. He stiffened, ready to
establish again the nerve-block against the intolerable agony to which he had been subjected so
long, but there was no need. His body was, for the first time in untold eons, free from pain; and
he relaxed blissfully, reveling in the sheer comfort of it.
     "I'm so glad that you're awake, Kim," the nurse went on. "I know that you can't talk to
meùwe can't unbandage your jaw until next weekùand you can't think at me, either, because
your new Lens hasn't come yet. But ^ can talk to you and you can listen. Don't be discouraged,
Kim. Don't let it get you down. I love you just as much as I ever did, and as soon as you can talk
we're going to get married. I am going to take care of you . . ."
     "Don't 'poor dear' me, Mac," he interrupted her with a vigorous thought. "You didn't say
it, I know, but you were thinking it. I'm not half as helpless as you think I am. I can still
communicate, and I can see as well as I ever could, or better. And if you think I'm going to let
you marry me to take care of me, you're crazy."
     "You're raving! Delirious! Stark, staring mad!" She started back, then controlled herself
by an effort. "Maybe you can think at people without a Lensùof course you can, since you just
did, at meùbut you can't see, Kim, possibly. Believe me, boy, I know you can't. I was there . . ."
     "I can, though," he insisted. "I got a lot of stuff on my second trip to Arisia that I couldn't
let anybody know about then, but I can now. I've got as good a sense of perception as Tregonsee
hasùmaybe better. To prove it, you look thin, wornùwhittled down to a nub. You've been
working too hardùon me."
     "Deduction," she scoffed. "You'd know I would."
     "QX. How about those roses over there on the table? White ones, yellow ones, and red
ones? With ferns?"
     "You can smell them, perhaps," dubiously. Then, with more assurance, "You would
know that practically all the flowers known to botany would be here."
     "Well, I'll count 'em and point 'em out to you, thenù or better, how about that little gold
locket, with 'CM' engraved on it, that you're wearing under your uniform? I can't smell that, nor
the picture in it. . ." The man's thought faltered in embarrassment. "My picture! Klono's
whiskers, Mac, where did you get thatùand why?"
     "It's a reduction that Admiral Haynes let me have made. I am wearing it because I love
youùI've said that before."
     The girl's entrancing smile was now in full evidence. She knew now that he could see,
that he would never be the helpless hulk which she had so gallingly thought him doomed to
become, and her spirits rose in ecstatic relief. But he would never take the initiative now. QX,
thenùshe would; and this was as good an opening as she would ever have with the stubborn
brute. Therefore:
     "More than that, as I also said before, I am going to marry you, whether you like it or
not." She blushed a heavenly (and discordant) magenta, but went on unfalteringly: "And not out
of pity, either, Kim, or just to take care of you. It's older than thatùmuch older."
     "It can't be done, Mac." His thought was a protest to high Heaven at the injustice of Fate.
"I've thought it over out in space a thousand timesùthought until I was black in the faceùbut I
get the same result every time. It's just simply no soap. You are much too fine a womanùtoo
splendid, too vital, too much of everything a woman should beùto be tied down for life to a
thing that's half steel, rubber, and phenoline. It just simply isn't on the wheel, that's all."
     "You're full of pickles, Kim." Gone was all her uncertainty and nervousness. She was
calm, poised; glowing with a transcendent inward beauty. "I didn't really know until this minute
that you love me, too, but I do now. Don't you realize, you big, dumb, wonderful clunker, that as
long as there's one single, little bit of a piece of you left alive I'll love that piece more than I ever
could any other man's entire being?"
     "But I can't, I tell you!" He groaned the thought. "I can't and I won't! My job isn't done
yet, either, and next time they'll probably get me. I can't let you waste yourself, Mac, on a
fraction of a man for a fraction of a lifetime!"
     "QX, Gray Lensman." Clarrissa was serene, radiantly untroubled. She could make things
come out right now; everything was on the green. "Well put this back up on the shelf for a while.
I'm afraid that I have been terribly remiss in my duties as nurse. Patients mustn't be excited or
quarreled with, you know."
     "That's another thing. How come you, a sector chief, to be doing ordinary room duty, and
night duty at that?"
     "Sector chiefs assign duties, don't they?" she retorted sunnily. "Now I'll give you a rub
and change some of these dressings."

     CHAPTER 22
     REGENERATION

     "Hi, skeleton-gazer!"
     "Ho, Big Chief Feet-on-the-Desk!"
     "I see your red-headed sector chief is still occupying all strategic salients in force."
Haynes had paused in the Surgeon-Marshal's -office on his way to another of his conferences
with the Gray Lensman. "Can't you get rid of her or don't you want to?"
     "Don't want to. Couldn't, anyway, probably. The young vixen would tear down the
hospitalùshe might even resign, marry him out of hand, and lug him off somewhere. You want
him to recover, don't you?"
     "Don't be any more of an idiot than you have to. What a question!"
     "Don't work up a temperature about MacDougall, then. As long as she's around himùand
that's twenty four hours a dayùhell get everything in the universe that he can get any good out
of."
     "That's so, too. This other thing's out of our hands now, anyway. Kinnison can't hold his
position long against her and himself bothùoverwhelmingly superior force. Just as well,
tooùCivilization needs more like those two."
     "Check, but the affair isn't out of our hands, by any meansùwe've got quite a little fine
work to do there yet, as you'll see, before it'll be a really good job. But about Kinnison . . ."
     "Yes. When are you going to fit arms and legs on him? He should be practising with
them at this stage of the game, I should thinkùI was."
     "You should thinkùbut unfortunately, you don't," was the surgeon's dry rejoinder. "If
you did, you would have paid more attention to what Phillips has been doing. He's making the
final test today. Come along and we'll explain it to you againùyour conference with Kinnison
can wait half an hour."
     In the research laboratory which had been assigned to Phillips they found von
Hohendorff with the Posenian. Haynes was surprised to see the old Commandant of Cadets, but
Lacy quite evidently had known that he was to be there.
     "Phillips," the Surgeon-Marshal began, "explain to this warhorse, in words of as few
syllables as possible, what you are doing."
     "The original problem was to discover what hormone or other agent caused proliferation
of neural tissue . . ."
     "Wait a minute, I'd better do it," Lacy broke in. "Besides, you wouldn't do yourself
justice. The first thing he found out was that the problem of repairing damaged nervous tissue
was inextricably involved with several other unknown things, such as the original growth of such
tissue, its relationship to growth in general, the regeneration of lost members in lower forms, and
so on. You see, Haynes, it's a known fact that nerves do grow, or else they could not exist; and in
lower forms of life they regenerate. Those facts were all he had, at first. In higher forms, even
during the growth stage, regeneration does not occur spontaneously. Phillips set out to find out
why.
     "The thyroid controls growth, but does not initiate it, he learned. This fact seemed to
indicate that there was an unknown hormone involvedùthat certain lower types possess an
endocrine gland which is either atrophied or non-existent in higher types. If the latter, it was no
landing. He reasoned, however, since higher types evolved from lower, that the gland in question
might very well exist in a vestigial state. He studied animals, 'thousands of them, from the germ
upward. He exhausted the patience of the Posenian authorities; and when they cut off his
appropriation, on the ground that the thing was impossible, he came here. We felt that if he were
so convinced of the importance of the work as to be willing to spend bis whole life on it, the
least we could do would be to support him. We gave him carte blanche.
     "The man is a miracle of perseverance, a keen observer, a shrewd reasoner, and a
mechanic par excellenceùa born researcher. So he finally found out what it must beùthe
pineal. Then he had to find the stimulant. Drugs, chemicals, the spectrum of radiation; singly and
in combination. Years of plugging, with just enough progress to keep him at it. Visits to other
planets peopled by races human to two places or more; learning everything that had been done
along that line. When you fellows moved Medon over here he visited it as routine, and there he
hit the jackpot. Wise himself is a surgeon, and the Medonians have had warfare and grief enough
to develop the medical and surgical arts no end.
     "They knew how to stimulate the pineal, but their method was dangerous. With Phillips'
fresh viewpoint, his wide-knowledge, and his mechanical genius, they worked out a new and
highly satisfactory technique. He was going to try it out on a pirate slated for the lethal chamber,
but von Hohendorff heard about it and insisted on being the guinea pig. Got up on his
Unattached Lensman's high horse and won't come down. So here we are."
     "Hm . . . m . . . interesting!" The admiral had listened attentively. "You're pretty sure it'll
work, then, I gather?"
     "As sure as we can be of any technique so new. Ninety percent probability, sayùperhaps
ninety five."
     "Good enough odds." Haynes turned to von Hohendorff. "What do you mean, you old
reprobate, by sneaking around behind my back and horning in on my reservation? I rate
Unattached too, you know, and it's mine. You're out, Von."
     "I saw it first and I refuse to relinquish." Von Hohendorff was adamant
     "You've got to," Haynes insisted. "He isn't your cub any more, he's my Lensman.
Besides, I'm a better test than you areùI've got more parts to replace than you have."
     "Four or five make just as good a test as a dozen," the commandant declared.
     "Gentlemen, think!" the Posenian pleaded. "Please consider that the pineal is actually
inside the brain. It is true that I have not been able to discover any brain injury so far, but the
process has not yet been applied to a Tellurian brain and I can offer no assurance whatever that
some obscure injury will not result."
     "What of it?" and the two old Unattached Lensmen resumed their battle, hammer and
tongs. Neither would yield a millimeter.
     "Operate on them both, then, since they're both above law or reason," Lacy finally
ordered in exasperation. "There ought to be a law to reduce Gray Lensmen to the ranks when
they begin to suffer from ossification of the intellect"
     "Starting with yourself, perhaps?" the admiral shot back, not at all abashed.
     Haynes relented enough to let von Hohendorff go first, and both were given the
necessary injections. The commandant was then strapped solidly into a chair; his head was
immobilized with clamps.
     The Posenian swung his needle-rays into place; two of them, each held rigidly upon
micrometered racks and each operated by two huge, double, rock-steady hands. The operator
looked entirely aloofùbeing eyeless and practically headless, it is impossible to tell from a
Posenian's attitude or posture anything about the focal point of his attentionùbut the watchers
knew that he was observing in microscopic detail the tiny gland within the old Lensman's skull.
     Then Haynes. "Is this all there is to it, or do we come back for more?" he asked, when he
was released from his shackles.
     "That's all," Lacy answered. "One stimulation lasts for life, as far as we know. But if the
treatment was successful you'll come backùabout day after tomorrow, I thinkùto go to bed
here. Your spare equipment won't fit and your stumps may require surgical attention."
     Sure enough, Haynes did come back to the hospital, but not to go to bed. He was too
busy. Instead, he got a wheel-chair and in it he was taken back to his now boiling office. And in
a few more days he called Lacy in high exasperation.
     "Know what you've done?" he demanded. "Not satisfied with taking my perfectly good
parts away from me, you took my teeth too! They don't fitùI can't eat a thing! And I'm hungry
as a wolfùI don't think I was ever so hungry in my life! I can't live on soup, man; I've got work
to do. What are you going to do about it?"
     "Ho-ho-haw!" Lacy roared. "Serves you rightùvon Hohendorff is taking it easy here,
sitting on top of the world. Easy, now, sailor, don't rupture your aorta. Ill send a nurse over with
a soft-boiled egg and a spoon. Teethingù at your ageùHaw-ho-haw!"
     But it was no ordinary nurse who came, a few minutes later, to see the Port Admiral; it
was the sector chief herself. She looked at him pityingly as she trundled him into his private
office and shut the door, thereby establishing complete coverage.
     "I had no idea, Admiral Haynes, that you . . . that there . . ." she paused.
     "That I was so much of a rebuild?" complacently. "Except in the matter of eyesùwhich
he doesn't need anywayùour mutual friend Kinnison has very little on me, my dear. I got so
handy with the replacements that very few people knew how much of me was artificial. But it's
these teeth that are taking all the joy out of life. I'm hungry, confound it! Have you got anything
really satisfying that I can eat?"
     "I'll say I have!" She fed him; then, bending over, she squeezed him tight and kissed him
emphatically. "You and the commandant are just perfectly wonderful old darlings, and I love
you!" she declared. "Lacy was simply poisonous to laugh at you the way he did. Why, you're two
of the world's very best! And he knew perfectly well all the time, the lug, that of course you'd be
hungry; ,that you'd have to eat twice as much as usual while your legs and things are growing.
Don't worry, admiral, I'll feed you until you bulge. I want you to hurry up with this, so they'll do
it to Kim."
     "Thanks, Mac," and as she wheeled him back into the main office he considered her
anew. A ravishing creature, but sound. Rash, and a bit stubborn, perhaps; impetuous and
headstrong; but clean, solid metal all the way through. She had what it takesùshe qualified. She
and Kinnison would make a mighty fine couple when the lad got some of that heroic damn
nonsense knocked out of his head . . . but there was work to do.
     There was. The Galactic Council had considered thoroughly Kinnison's reports; its every
member had conferred with him and with Worsel at length. Throughout the First Galaxy the
Patrol was at work in all its prodigious might, preparing to wipe out the menace to Civilization
which was Boskone. First-line super-dreadnoughtsùno others would go upon that
missionùwere being built and armed, rebuilt and re-armed.
     Well it was that the Galactic Patrol had previously amassed an almost inexhaustible
supply of wealth, for its "reserves of expendable credit" were running like water.
     Weapons, supposedly already of irresistible power, were made even more powerful.
Screens already "impenetrable" were stiffened into even greater stubbornness. Primary
projectors were made to take even higher loads for longer times. New and heavier Q-type helices
were designed and built. Larger and more destructive duodec bombs were hurled against already
ruined, torn, and quivering test-planets. Uninhabited worlds were being equipped with super-
Bergenholms and with driving projectors. The negasphere, the most incredible menace to
navigation which had ever existed in space, was being patrolled by a cordon of guard-ships.
     And all this activity centered in one vast building and culminated in one manùPort
Admiral Haynes, Galactic Councillor. And Haynes could not get enough to eat because he was
cutting a new set of teeth!
     He cut them, all thirty two of them. Arm and leg, foot and hand grew perfectly, even to
the nails. Hair grew upon what had for years been a shining expanse of pate. But, much to Lacy's
relief, it was old skin, not young, that covered the new limbs. It was white hair, not brown, that
was dulling the glossiness of Haynes' bald old head. His trifocals, unchanged, were still
necessary if he were to see anything clearly, near or far.
     "Our experimental animals aged and died normally," he explained graciously, "but I was
beginning to wonder if we had rejuvenated you two, or perhaps endowed you with eternal life.
Glad to see that the new parts have the same physical age as the rest of youùIt would be mildly
embarrassing to have to kill two Gray Lensmen to get rid of them."
     "You're about as funny as a rubber crutch," Haynes grunted. "When are you going to give
Kinnison the works? Don't you realize we need him?"
     "Pretty quick now. Just as soon as we give you and Von your psychological
examinations."
     "Bah! That isn't necessaryùmy brain's QX!"
     "That's what you think, but what do you know about brains? Worse! will tell us what
shape your mindùif any ùIs in."
     The Velantian put both Haynes and von Hohendorff through a gruelling examination,
finding that their minds had not been affected in any way by the stimulants applied to their
pineal glands.
     Then and only then did Phillips operate upon Kinnison; and in his case, too, the operation
was a complete success. Arms and legs and eyes replaced themselves flawlessly. The scars of his
terrible wounds disappeared, leaving no sign of ever having been.
     He was a little slower, however, somewhat clumsy, and woefully weak. Therefore,
instead of discharging him from the hospital as cured, which procedure would have restored to
him automatically all the rights and privileges of an Unattached Lensman, the Council decided to
transfer him to a physical-culture camp. A few weeks there would restore to him entirely the
strength, speed, and agility which had formerly been his, and he would then be allowed to
resume active duty.
     Just before he left the hospital, Kinnison strolled with Clarrissa out to a bench in the
grounds.
     ". . . and you're making a perfect recovery," the girl was saying. "You'll be exactly as you
were. But things between us aren't just as they were, and they never can be again. You know
that, Kim. We've got unfinished business to transactùlet's take it down off the shelf before you
go."
     "Better let it lay, Mac." All the new-found joy of existence went out of the man's eyes.
"I'm whole, yes, but that angle was really the least important of all. You never yet have faced
squarely the fact that my job isn't done and that my chance of living through it is just about one
in ten. Even Phillips can't do anything about a corpse."
     "I won't face it, either, unless and until I must." Her reply was tranquility itself. "Most of
the troubles people worry about in advance never do materialize. And even if it did, you ought to
know that I . . . that any woman would rather . . . well, that half a loaf is better than no bread."
     "QX. I haven't mentioned the worst thing. I didn't want toùbut if you've got to have it,
here it is," the man wrenched out. "Look at what I am. A bar-room brawler. A rum-dum. A hard-
boiled egg. A cold-blooded, ruthless murderer; even of my own men . . ."
     "Not that, Kirn, ever, and you know it," she rebuked him.
     "What else can you call it?" he grated. "A killer besidesù a red-handed butcher if there
ever was one; then, now, and forever. I've got to be. I can't get away from it. Do you think that
you, or any other decent woman, could stand it to live with me? That you could feel my arms
around you, feel my gory paws touching you, without going sick at the stomach?"
     "Oh, so that's what's been really griping you all this time?" Clarrissa was surprised, but
entirely unshaken. "I don't have to think about that, KimùI know. If you were a murderer or had
the killer instinct, that would be different, but you aren't and you haven't. You are hard, of
course. You have to be . . . but do you think I'd be running a temperature over a softy? You
brawl, yesùlike the world's champion you are. Anybody you ever killed needed killing, there's
no question of that. You don't do these things for fun; and the fact that you can drive yourself to
do the things that have to be done shows your real size.
     "Nor have you even thought of the obverse; that you lean over backwards in wielding
that terrific power of yours. The Desplaines woman, the countessùlots of other instances. I
respect and honor you more than any other man I have ever known. Any woman who really
knew you would òùshe must!
     "Listen, Kim. Read my mind, all of it. You'll really know me then, and understand me
better than I can ever explain myself."
     "Have you got a picture of me doing that?" he asked, flatly.
     "No, you big, unreasonable clunker, I haven't!" she flared, "and that's just what's driving
me mad!" Then, voice dropping to a whisper, almost sobbing; "Cancel that, KimùI didn't mean
it. You wouldn'tùyou couldn't, I suppose, and still be you, the man I love. But isn't there
somethingù anythingùthat will make you understand what I really am?"
     "I know what you are." Kinnison's voice was uninflected, weary. "As I told you
beforeùthe universe's best It's what I am that's clogging the jetsùwhat I have been and what
I've got to keep on being. I simply don't rate up, and you'd better lay off me, Mac, while you can.
There's a poem by one of the ancientsùKiplingùthe 'Ballad of Boh Da Thone'ùthat describes
it exactly. You wouldn't know it. . ."
     "You just think I wouldn't," nodding brightly. "The only trouble is, you always think of
the wrong verses. Part of it really is descriptive of you. You know, where all the soldiers of the
Black Tyrone thought so much of their captain?"
     She recited:
     " 'And worshipped with fluency, fervor, and zeal
     " The mud on the boot-heels of "Crook" O'Neil.'
     "That describes you to a 'T.'"
     "You're crazy for the lack of sense," he demurred. "I don't rate like that."
     "Sure you do," she assured him. "All the men think of you that way. And not only men.
Women, too, darn 'emù and the next time I catch one of them at it I'm going to kick her cursed
teeth out, one by one!"
     Kinnison laughed, albeit a trifle sourly. "You're raving, Mac. Imagining things. But to get
back to that poem, what I was referring to went like this. . ."
     "I know how it goes. Listen:

     " 'But the captain had quitted the long-drawn strife
     " 'And in far Simoorie had taken a wife;

     " 'And she was a damsel of delicate mold,
     " 'With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold.

     " 'And little she knew the arms that embraced
     " 'Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist:

     " 'And little she knew that the loving lips
     " 'Had ordered a quivering life's eclipse,

     " 'And the eyes that lit at her lightest breath
     " 'Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death.

     " '(For these be matters a man would hide,
     "'As a general thing, from an innocent bride.)*

     That's what you mean, isn't it?" she asked, quietly.
     "Mac, you know a lot of things you've got no business knowing." Instead of answering
her question, he stared at her speculatively. "My sprees and brawls, Dessa Desplaines and the
Countess Avondrin, and now this. Would you mind telling me how you get the stuff?"
     "I'm closer to you than you suspect, KirnùI've always been. Worsel calls it being 'en
rapport.' You don't need to think at meùin fact, you have to put up a conscious block to keep me
out. So I know a lot that I shouldn't, but Lensmen aren't the only ones who don't talk. You'd been
thinking about that poem a lotùit worried youùso I checked with Archeology on it. I
memorized most of it."
     "Well, to get the true picture of me you'll have to multiply that by a thousand. Also, don't
forget that loose heads might be rolling, out onto your breakfast table almost any morning
instead of only once."
     "So what?" she countered evenly. "Do you think I could sit for Kipling's portrait of Mrs.
O'Neil? Nobody ever called my mold delicate, and Kipling, if he had been describing me, would
have said:

     " "With hair like a conflagration,
     " 'And a heart of solid brass!'

     "Captain O'Neil's bride, as well as being innocent and ignorant, strikes me as having been
a good deal of a sissy, something of a weeping willow, and no little of a shrinking violet Tell me,
Kirn, do you think she would have made good as a sector chief nurse?"
     "No, but that's neither . . ."
     "It is, too," she interrupted. "You've got to consider that I did, and that it's no job for any
girl with a weak stomach. Besides, the Boh's head took the fabled Mrs. O'Neil by surprise. She
didn't know that her husband used to be in the wholesale mayhem-and-killing business. I do.
     "And lastly, you big lug, do you think I'd be making such bare-faced passes at you unless
I knew exactly what the score isùexactly where you stand? You're too much of a gentleman to
read my mind; but I'm not that sque . . . I had to know."
     "Huh?" he demanded, blushing fiercely. "You really know, then, that. . ." he would not
say it, even then.
     "Of course I know!" She nodded; then, as the man spread his hands helplessly, she
abandoned her attempt to keep the conversation upon a light level.
     "I know, my dear. There's nothing we can do about ft yet." Her voice was unsteady, her
heart in every word. "You have to do your job, and I honor you for that, even if it does take you
away from me. It'll be easier for you, though, I think, and I know it will be easier for me, to have
it out in the open. Whenever you're ready, Kim, I'll be hereùor somewhereùwaiting. Clear
ether, Gray Lensman!" and, rising to her feet, she turned back toward the hospital.
     "Clear ether, Chris!" Unconsciously he used the pet name by which he had thought of her
so long. He stared after her for a minute, hungrily. Then, squaring his shoulders, he strode away.
     And upon far Jarnevon Eichmil, the First of Boskone, was conferring with Jalte via
communicator. Long since, the Kalonian had delivered through devious channels the message of
Boskone to an imaginary director of Lensmen; long since had he received this cryptically direful
reply:
     "Morgan lives, and so doesùStar A Star."
     Jalte had not been able to report to his chief any news concerning the fate of that which
the speedster bore, since spies no longer existed within the reservations of the Patrol. He had
learned of no discovery that any Lensman had made. He could not venture a hypothesis as to
how this Star A Star had heard of Jarnevon or had learned of its location. He was sure of only
one thing, and that was a grimly disturbing fact indeed. The Patrol was re-arming throughout the
galaxy, upon a scale theretofore unknown. Eichmil's thought was cold:
     "That means but one thing. A Lensman invaded you and learned of us hereùin no other
way could knowledge of Jarnevon have come to them."
     "Why me?" Jalte demanded. "If there exists a mind of power sufficient to break my
screens and tracelessly to invade my mind, what of yours?"
     "It is proven by the outcome." The Boskonian's statement was a calm summation of fact.
"The messenger sent against you succeeded; the one against us failed. The Patrol intends and is
preparing: certainly to wipe out our remaining forces within the Tellurian Galaxy; probably to
attack your stronghold; eventually to invade our own galaxy."
     "Let them come!" snarled the Kalonian. "We can and will hold this planet forever against
anything they can bring through space!"
     "I would not be too sure of that," cautioned the superior. "In fact, ifùas I am beginning
to regard as a probabilityù the Patrol does make a concerted drive against any significant
number of our planetary organizations, you should abandon your base there and return to
Kalonia, after disbanding and so preserving for future use as many as possible of the planetary
units."
     "Future use? In that case there will be no future."
     "There will so," Eichmil replied, coldly vicious. "We are strengthening the defenses of
Jarnevon to withstand any conceivable assault. If they do not attack us here of their own free will
we shall compel them to do so. Then, after destroying their every mobile force, we shall again
take over their galaxy. Anns for the purpose are even now in the building. Is the matter clear?"
     "It is clear. We shall warn all our groups that such an order may issue, and we shall
prepare to abandon this base should such a step become desirable."
     So it was planned; neither Eichmil nor Jalte even suspecting two startling truths:
     First, that when the Patrol was ready it would strike hard and without warning, and
     Second, that it would strike, not low, but high!

     CHAPTER 23
     ANNIHILATION

     Kinnison played, worked, rested, ate, and slept, he boxed, strenuously and viciously, with
masters of the craft He practised with his DeLameters until he had regained his old-time speed
and dead-center accuracy. He swam for hours at a time, he ran in cross-country races. He lolled,
practically naked, in hot sunshine. And finally, when his
     muscles were writhing and rippling as of yore beneath the bronzed satin of his skin, Lacy
answered his insistent demands by coming to see him.
     The Gray Lensman met the flyer eagerly, but his face fell when he saw that the surgeon-
marshal was alone.
     "No, MacDougall didn't comeùshe isn't around any more," he explained, guilefully.
     "Huh?" came startled query. "How come?"
     "Out in spaceùout Borova way somewhere. What do you care? After the way you acted
you've got the crust of a rhinoceros to . . ."
     "You're crazy, Lacy. Why, we . . . she . . . it's all fixed up."
     "Funny kind of fixing. Moping around Base, crying her red head off. Finally, though, she
decided she had some Scotch pride left, and I let her go aboard again. If she isn't all done with
you, she ought to be." This, Lacy figured, would be good for what ailed the big sap-head. "Come
on, and IT! see whether you're fit to go back to work or not."
     He was fit "QX, ladùflit!" Lacy discharged him informally with a slap upon the back.
"Get dressed and IT! take you back to Haynesùhe's been snapping at me like a turtle ever since
you've been out here."
     At Prime Base Kinnison was welcomed enthusiastically by the admiral.
     "Feel those ringers, Kim!" he exclaimed. "Perfect! Just like the originals!"
     "Mine, too. They do feel good."
     "It's a pity you got your new ones so quick. You'd appreciate 'em much more after a few
years without 'em. But to get down to business. The fleets have been taking off for weeksùwe're
to join up as the line passes. If you haven't anything better to do I'd like to have you aboard the
Z9M9Z."
     "I don't know of any place I'd rather be, sirùthanks."
     "QX. Thanks should be the other way. You can make yourself mighty useful between
now and zero time." He eyed the younger man speculatively.
     Haynes had a special job for him, Kinnison knew. As a Gray Lensman, he could not be
given any military rank or post, and he could not conceive of the admiral of Grand Fleet wanting
him around as an aide-de-camp.
     "Spill it, chief," he invited. "Not orders, of courseùI understand that perfectly. Requests
orùah-humùsuggestions."
     "I will crown you with something yet, you whelp!" Haynes snorted, and Kinnison
grinned. These two were very close, in spite of their disparity in years; and very much of a piece.
"As you get older you'll realize that it's good tactics to stick pretty close to Gen Regs. Yes, I have
got a job for you, and a nasty one. Nobody has been able to handle it, not even two companies of
Rigellians. Grand Fleet Operations."
     "Grand Fleet Operations!" Kinnison was aghast. "HolyùKlono'sùIndiumùIntestines!
What makes you think I've got jets enough to swing that load?"
     "I haven't any idea whether you can or not. If you cant, though, nobody can; and in spite
of all the work we've done on the thing we'll have to operate as a mob, the way we did before;
not as a fleet. If so, I shudder to think of the results."
     "QX. If you'll send for Worsel well try it a fling or two. It'd be a shame to build a whole
ship around an Operations tank and then not be able to use it. By the way, I haven't seen my head
nurseùMiss MacDougall, you knowùaround any place lately. Have you? I ought to tell her
'thanks' or somethingùmaybe send her a flower."
     "Nurse? MacDougall? Oh, yes, the red-head. Let me seeù did hear something about her
the other day. Married? No . . . took a hospital ship somewhere. Alsakan? Vandemar? Didn't pay
any attention. She doesn't need thanksùor flowers, eitherùgetting paid for her work. Much
more important, jdon't you think, to get Operations straightened out?"
     "Undoubtedly, sir," Kinnison replied, stiffly; and as he Went out Lacy came in.
     The two old conspirators greeted each other with knowing grins. Was Kinnison taking it
big! He was falling, like ten thousand bricks down a well.
     "Do him good to undermine his position a bit. Too cocky 'altogether. But how they
suffer!" "Check!"
     The Gray Lensman rode toward the flagship in a mood which even he could not have
described. He had expected to see her, as a matter of course . . . he wanted to see her . . .
confound it, he had to see her! Why did she have to do a flit now, of all the times on the
calendar? She knew the fleet was shoving off, and that he'd have to go along . . . and nobody
knew where she was. When he got back he'd find her if he had to chase her all over the galaxy.
He'd put and end to this. Duty was duty, of course . . . but Chris was CHRIS . . . and half a loaf
was better than no bread!
     He jerked back to reality as he entered the gigantic teardrop which was technically the
Z9M9Z, socially the Directrix, and ordinarily GFHQ. She had been designed and built
specifically to be Grand Fleet Headquarters, and nothing else. She bore no offensive armament,
but since she had to protect the presiding geniuses of combat she had every possible defense.
     Port Admiral Haynes had learned a bitter lesson during the expedition to Helmuth's base.
Long before that relatively small fleet got there he was sick to the core, realizing that fifty
thousand vessels simply could not be controlled or maneuvered as a group. If that base had been
capable of an offensive or even of a real defense, or if Boskone could have put their fleets into
that star-cluster in time, the Patrol would have been defeated ignominiously; and Haynes, wise
old tactician that he was, knew it.
     Therefore, immediately after the return from that "triumphant" venture, he gave orders to
design and to build, at whatever cost, a flagship capable of directing efficiently a million combat
units.
     The "tank"ùthe minutely cubed model of the galaxy which is a necessary part of every
pilot roomùhad grown and grown as it became evident that it must be the prime agency in
Grand Fleet Operations. Finally, in this last rebuilding, the tank was seven hundred feet in
diameter and eighty feet thick in the middleùover seventeen million cubic feet of space in
which more than two million tiny lights crawled hither and thither in helpless confusion. For,
after the technicians and designers had put that tank into actual service, they had discovered that
it was useless. No available mind had been able either to perceive the situation as a whole or to
identify with certainty any light or group of lights needing correction; and as for linking up any
particular light with its individual, blanket-proof communicator in time to issue orders in space-
combat. . . !
     Kinnison looked at the tank, then around the full circle of the million-plug board
encircling it. He observed the horde of operators, each one trying frantically to do something.
Next he shut his eyes, the better to perceive everything at once, and studied the problem for an
hour.
     "Attention, everybody!" he thought then. "Open all circuitsùdo nothing at all for a
while." He then called Haynes.
     "I think we can clean this up if you'll send over some Simplex analyzers and a crew of
technicians. Helmuth had a nice set-up on multiplex controls, and Jalte had some ideas, too. If
we add them to this we may have something."
     And by the time Worsel arrived, they did.
     "Red lights are fleets already in motion," Kinnison explained rapidly to the Velantian.
"Greens are fleets still at their bases. Ambers are the planets the -reds took off from
ùconnected, you see, by Ryerson string-lights. The white star is us, the Directrix. That violet
cross 'way over there is Jalte's planet, our first objective. The pink comets are our free planets,
their tails showing their intrinsic velocities. Being so slow, they had to start long ago. The purple
circle is the negasphere. It's on its way, too. You take that side, I'll take this. They were
supposed to start from the edge of the twelfth sector. The idea was to make it a smooth, bowl-
shaped sweep across the galaxy, converging upon the objective, but each of the system marshals
apparently wants to run this war to suit himself. Look at that guy thereùhe's beating the gun by
nine thousand parsecs. Watch me pin his ears back!"
     He pointed his Simplex at the red light which had so offendingly sprung into being.
There was a whirring click and the number 449276 flashed above a board. An operator flicked a
switch.
     "Grand Fleet Operations!" Kinnison's thought snapped across space. "Why are you taking
off without orders?"
     "Why, I. . . I'll give you the marshal, sir . . ."
     "No time! Tell your marshal that one more such break will put him in irons. Land at
once! GFOùoff.
     "With around a million fleets to handle we can't spend much time on any one," he
thought at Worsel. "But after we get them lined up and get our Rigellians broken in, it wont" be
so bad."
     The breaking in did not take long; definite and meaningful orders flew faster and faster
along the tiny, but steel-hard beams of the communicators.
     "Take off . . . Increase drive four point five . . . Decrease drive two point eight . . .
Change course to . ." and so it went, hour after hour and day after day.
     And with the passage of time came order out of chaos. The red lights formed a
gigantically sweeping, curving wall; its almost imperceptible forward crawl representing an
actual velocity of almost a hundred parsecs an hour. Behind that wall blazed a sea of amber,
threaded throughout with the brilliant filaments which were the Ryerson lights. Ahead of it lay a
sparkling, almost solid blaze of green. Closer and closer the wall crept toward the bright white
star.
     And in the "reducer"ùthe standard, ten-foot tank in the lower wellùthe entire spectacle
was reproduced in miniature. It was plainer there, clearer and much more readily seen: but it was
so crowded that details were indistinguishable.
     Haynes stood beside Kinnison's padded chair one day, staring up into the immense lens
and shaking his head. He went down the flight of stairs to the reducer, studied that, and again
shook his head.
     "This is very pretty, but it doesn't mean a thing," he thought at Kinnison. "It begins to
look as though I'm going along just for the ride. Youùor you and Worselùwill have to do the
fighting, too, I'm afraid."
     "Uh-uh," Kinnison demurred. "What do weùor anyone elseùknow about tactics,
compared to you? You've got to be the brains. That's why we had the boys rig up the original
working model there, for a reducer. On that you can watch the gross developments and tell us in
general terms what to do. Knowing that, well know who ought to do what, from the big chart
here, and pass your orders along."
     "Say, that will work, at that!" and Haynes brightened visibly. "Looks as though a couple
of those reds are going to knock our star out of the tank, doesn't it?"
     "It'll be close in that reducerùthey'll probably touch. Close enough in real spaceùless
than three parsecs."
     The zero hour came and the Tellurian armada of eighty one sleek space-shipsùeighty
super-dreadnoughts and the Directrixùspurned Earth and took its place in that hurtling wall of
crimson. Solar system after solar system was passed: fleet after fleet leaped into the ether and
fitted itself into the smoothly geometrical pattern which Grand Fleet Operations was nursing
along so carefully.
     Through the galaxy the formation swept and out of it, toward a star cluster. It slowed its
mad pace, the center hanging back, the edges advancing and folding in.
     "Surround the cluster and close in," the admiral directed; and, under the guidance now of
two hundred Rigellians, Civilization's vast Grand Fleet closed smoothly in and went inert.
Drivers flared white as they fought to match the intrinsic velocity of the cluster.
     "Marshals of all system-fleets, attention! Using secondaries only, fire at will upon any
enemy object coming within range. Engage outlying structures and such battle craft as may
appear. Keep assigned distance from planet and stiffen cosmic screens to maximum.
Haynesùoff!"
     From millions upon millions of projectors there raved out gigantic rods, knives, and
needles of force, under the impact of which the defensive screens of Jalte's guardian citadels
flamed into terrible refulgence. Duodec bombs were hurled ùtight-beam-directed monsters of
destruction which, looping around in vast circles to attain the highest possible measure of
momentum, flung themselves against Boskone's defenses in Herculean attempts to smash them
down. They exploded; each as it burst filling all nearby space with blindingly intense violet light
and with flying scraps of metal. Q-type helices, driven with all the frightful kilowattage possible
to Medonian conductors and insulation, screwed in; biting, gouging, tearing in wild abandon.
Shear-planes, hellish knives of force beside which Tellurian lightning is pale and wan, struck
and struck and struck againùfiendishly, crunchingly.
     But those grimly stolid fortresses could take it. They had been repowered; their defenses
stiffened to such might as to defy, in the opinion of Boskone's experts, any projectors capable of
being mounted upon mobile bases. And not only could they take itùthose formidably armed and
armored planetoids could dish it out as well. The screens of the Patrol ships flared high into the
spectrum under the crushing force of sheer enemy power. Not a few of those defenses were
battered down, clear to the wall-shields, before the unimaginable ferocity of the Boskonian
projectors could be neutralized.
     And at this spectacularly frightful deep-space engagement Galactic Director Jalte, and
through him Eichmil, First of Boskone itself, stared in stunned surprise.
     "It is insane!" Jalte gloated. "The fools judged our strength by that of Helmuth, not
considering that we, as well as they, would be both learning and doing during the intervening
time. They have a myriad of ships, but mere numbers will never conquer my outposts, to say
nothing of my works here."
     "They are not fools. I am not so sure . . ." Eichmil cogitated.
     He would have been even less sure could he have listened to a conversation which was
even then being held.
     "QX, Thorndyke?" Kinnison asked.
     "On the green," came instant reply. "Intrinsic, placement, releasesùeverything on the
green."
     "Cut!" and the lone purple circle disappeared from tank and from reducer. The master
technician had cut his controls and every pound of metal and other substance surrounding the
negasphere had fallen into that enigmatic realm of nothingness. No connection or contact with it
was now possible; and with its carefully established intrinsic velocity it rushed engulfingly
toward the doomed planet One of the mastodonic fortresses, lying in its path, vanished utterly,
with nothing save a burst of invisible cosmics to mark its passing. It approached its goal. It was
almost upon it before any of the defenders perceived it, and even then they could neither
understand nor grasp it. All detectors and other warning devices remained static, but:
     "Look! There! Something's coming!" an observer jittered, and Jalte swung his plate. He
sawùnothing. Eichmil saw the same thing. There was nothing to see. A vast, intangible
nothingùyet a nothing tangible enough to occult everything material in a full third of the cone
of vision! Jalte's operators hurled into it their mightiest beams. Nothing happened. They struck
nothing and disappeared. They loosed their heaviest duodec torpedoes; gigantic missiles whose
warheads contained enough of that frightfully violent detonate to disrupt a world. Nothing
happenedùnot even an explosion. Not even the faintest flash of light. Shell and contents alike
merelyùand Oh! so incredibly peacefully!ùceased to exist There were important bursts of
cosmics, but they were invisible and inaudible; and neither Jalte nor any member of his force
was to live long enough to realize how terribly he had already been burned.
     Gigantic pressors shoved against it: beams of power sufficient to deflect a satellite;
beams whose projectors were braced, in steel-laced concrete down to bedrock, against any
conceivable thrust. But this was negative, not positive matter ùmatter negative in every respect
of mass, inertia, and force. To it a push was a pull. Pressors to it were tractors ùat contact they
pulled themselves up off their massive foundations and hurtled into the appalling blackness.
     Then the negasphere struck. Or did it? Can nothing strike anything? It would be better,
perhaps, to say that the spherical hyper-plane which was the three-dimensional cross-section of
the negasphere began to occupy the same volume of space as that in which Jalte's unfortunate
world already was. And at the surface of contact of the two the materials of both disappeared.
The substance of the planet vanished, the incomprehensible nothingness of the negasphere faded
away into the ordinary vacuity of empty space.
     Jalte's base, the whole three hundred square miles of it, was taken at the first gulp. A vast
pit opened where it had been, a hole which deepened and widened with horrifying rapidity. And
as the yawning abyss enlarged itself the stuff of the planet fell into it, in turn to vanish.
Mountains tumbled into it, oceans dumped themselves into it. The hot, frightfully compressed
and nascent material of the planet's core sought to eruptùbut instead of moving, it, too,
vanished. Vast areas of the world's surface crust, tens of thousands of square miles in extent,
collapsed into it, splitting off along crevasses of appalling depth, and became nothing. The
stricken globe shuddered, trembled, ground itself to bits in paroxysm after ghastly paroxysm of
disintegration.
     What was happening? Eichmil did not know, since his "eye" was destroyed before any
really significant developments could eventuate. He and his scientists could only speculate and
deduceùwhich, with surprising accuracy, they did. The officers of the Patrol ships, however,
knew what was going on, and they were scanning with tensely narrowed eyes the instruments
which were recording instant by instant the performance of the new cosmic super-screens which
were being assaulted so brutally.
     For, as has been said, the negasphere was composed of negative matter. Instead of
electrons its building-blocks were positronsùthe "Dirac holes" in an infinity of negative energy.
Whenever the field of a positron encountered that of an electron the two neutralized each other,
giving rise to two quanta of hard radiation. And, since those encounters were occurring at the
rate of countless trillions per second, there was tearing at the Patrol's defenses a flood of cosmics
of an intensity which no space-ship had ever before been called upon to withstand. But the new
screens had been figured with a factor of safety of five, and they stood up.
     The planet dwindled with soul-shaking rapidity to a moon, to a moonlet, and finally to a
discretely conglomerate aggregation of meteorites before the mutual neutralization ceased.
     "Primaries now," Haynes ordered briskly, as the needles of the cosmic-ray-screen meters
dropped back to the green lines of normal functioning. The probability was that the defenses of
the Boskonian citadels would now be automatic only, that no life had endured through that awful
flood of lethal radiation; but he was taking no chances. Out flashed the penetrant super-rays and
the fortresses, too, ceased to exist save as the impalpable infra-dust of space.
     And the massed Grand Fleet of the Galactic Patrol, remaking its formation, hurtled
outward through the inter-galactic void.

     CHAPTER 24
     PASSING OF THE EICH

     They are not fools, I am not so sure . . ." Eichmil had said; and when the last force-ball,
his last means of inter-galactic communication, went dead the First of Boskone became very
unsure indeed. The Patrol undoubtedly had something newùhe himself had had glimpses of
itùbut what was it?"
     That Jalte's base was gone was obvious. That Boskone's hold upon the Tellurian Galaxy
was gone followed as a corollary. That the Patrol was or soon would be wiping out Boskone's
regional and planetary units was a logical inference. Star A Star, that accursed Director of
Lensmen, hadùmust haveùsucceeded in stealing Jalte's records, to be willing to destroy out of
hand the base which housed them.
     Nor could Boskone do anything to help the underlings, now that the long-awaited attack
upon Jarnevon itself was almost certainly coming. Let the Patrol comeùthey were ready. Or
were they, quite? Jalte's defenses were strong, but they had not withstood that unknown weapon
even for seconds.
     Eichmil called a joint meeting of Boskone and the Academy of Science. Coldly and
precisely he told them everything that he had seen. Discussion followed.
     "Negative matter beyond a doubt," a scientist summed up. "It has long been surmised that
in some other, perhaps hyper-spatial, universe there must exist negative matter of mass sufficient
to balance the positive material of the universe we know. It is conceivable that by hyper-spatial
explorations and manipulations the Tellurians have discovered that other universe and have
transported some of its substance into ours."
     "Can they manufacture it?" Eichmil demanded.
     "The probability that such material can be manufactured is exceedingly small," was the
studied reply. "An entirely new mathematics would be necessary. In all probability they found it
already existent."
     "We must find it also, then, and at once."
     "We will try. Bear in mind, however, that the field is large, and do not be optimistic of an
early success. Note also that that substance is not necessaryùperhaps not even desirableùin a
defensive action."
     "Why not?"
     "Because, by directing pressors against such a bomb, Jalte actually pulled it into his base,
precisely where the enemy wished it to go. As a surprise attack, against those ignorant of its true
nature, such a weapon would be effective indeed; but against us it will prove a boomerang. All
that is needful is to mount tractor heads upon pressor bases, and thus drive the bombs back upon
those who send them." It did not occur, even -to the coldest scientist of them all, that that bomb
had been of planetary mass. Not one of the Eich suspected that all that remained of the entire
world upon which Jalte's base had stood was a handful of meteorites.
     "Let them come, then," said Eichmil, grimly. "Their dependence upon a new and
supposedly unknown weapon explains what would otherwise be insane tactics. With that weapon
impotent they cannot possibly win a long war waged so far from their bases. We can match them
ship for ship, and more; and our supplies and munitions are close at hand. We will wear them
downùblast them outùthe Tellurian Galaxy shall yet be Ours!"

                         *     *     *

     Admiral Haynes spent almost every waking hour setting up and knocking down tactical
problems in the practice tank, and gradually his expression changed from one of strained anxiety
to one of pleased satisfaction. He went over to his sealed-band transmitter, called all
communications officers to attention, and thought:
     "Each vessel will direct its longest-range detector, at highest possible power, centrally
upon the objective galaxy. The first observer to find detectable activity, however faint, will
report it instantly to GHQ. We will send out a general C.B., at which every vessel in Grand Fleet
will cease blasting at once; remaining motionless in space until further orders." He then called
Kinnison.
     "Look here," he directed the attention of the younger man into the reducer, which now
represented inter-galactic space, with a portion of the Second Galaxy filling one edge. "I have a
solution, but its practicability depends upon whether or not it calls for the impossible from you,
Worsel, and your Rigellians. You remarked at the start that I knew my tactics. I wish I knew
moreùor at least could be certain that Boskone and I agree on what constitutes good tactics. I
feel quite safe in assuming, however, that we shall meet their Grand Fleet well outside the
galaxy . . ."
     "Why?" asked the startled Kinnison. "If I were Eichmil I'd pull every ship I had in around
Jarnevon and keep it there! They can't force engagement with us!"
     "Poor tactics. The very presence of their fleet out in space will force engagement, and a
decisive one at that. From his viewpoint, if he defeats us there, that ends it If he loses, that's only
his first line of defense. His observers will have reported fully. He will have invaluable data to
work upon, and much time before even his outlying fortresses can be threatened.
     "From our viewpoint, we cant refuse battle if his fleet is there. It would be suicidal for us
to enter that galaxy, leaving intact outside it a fleet as powerful as that one is bound to be."
     "Why? Harrying us from the rear might be bothersome, but I don't see how it could be
disastrous."
     "Not that They could, and would, attack Tellus."
     "OhùI never thought of that But couldn't they anyway ùtwo fleets?"
     "No. He knows that Tellus is very strongly held, and that this is no ordinary fleet He will
have to concentrate everything he has upon either one or the otherùit is almost inconceivable
that he would divide his forces."
     "QX. I said that you're the brains of the outfit You are!"
     "Thanks, lad. At the first sign of detection, we stop. They may be able to detect us, but I
doubt it, since we're looking for them with special instruments. But that's immaterial.
     What I want to know is, can you and your crew split Grand Fleet, making two big,
hollow hemispheres of it? Let this group of ambers represent the enemy. Since they know well
have to carry the battle to them, they'll probably be in fairly close formation. Set your two
hemispheresùthe redsù there, and there. Close them in, thus englobing their whole fleet. Can
you do it?"
     Kinnison whistled through his teeth, a long, low, unmelodious whistle. "Yesùbut
Klono's carballoy claws, chief, suppose they catch you at it?"
     "How can they? If you were using detectors, instead of double-end, tight-beam binders,
how many of our own vessels could you locate?"
     "That's right, tooùabout two percent of them. They couldn't tell that they were being
englobed until long after it was done. They could, however, globe up inside us. . ."
     "Yesùand that would give them the tactical advantage of position," the admiral
admitted. "We probably have, however, enough superiority in fire-power, if not in actual
tonnage, to make up the difference. Also, we have speed enough, I think, so that we could retire
in good order. But you're assuming that they can maneuver as rapidly and as surely as we can, a
condition which I do not consider at all probable. If, as I believe much more likely, they have no
better Grand Fleet Operations than we had in Helmuth's star-clusterùif they haven't the
equivalent of you and Worse! and this super-tank hereùthan what?"
     "In that case it'd be just too bad. Just like pushing baby chicks into a pond." Kinnison saw
the possibilities very clearly after they had been explained to him.
     "How long will it take you?"
     "With Worsel and me and both full crews of Rigellians I would guess it at about ten
hoursùeight to compute and assign positions and two to get there."
     "Fast enoughùfaster than I would have thought possible. Oil up your Simplexes and
calculating machines and get ready."
     In due time the enemy fleet was detected and the "cease blasting" signal was given.
Civilization's prodigious fleet stopped dead; hanging motionless in space at the tantalizing limit
of detectability from the warships awaiting them. For eight hours two hundred Rigellians stood
at whining calculators, each solving course-and-distance problems at the rate of ten per minute.
Two hours or less of free flight and Haynes rejoiced audibly in the perfection of the two red
hemispheres shown in his reducer. The two huge bowls flashed together, rim.to rim. The sphere
began inexorably to contract. Each ship put out a red K6T screen as a combined battle flag and
identification, and the greatest naval engagement of the age was on.
     It soon became evident that the Boskonians could not maneuver their forces efficiently.
The fleet was too huge, too unwieldy for their Operations officers to handle. Against an equally
uncontrollable mob of battle craft it would have made a showing, but against the carefully-
planned, chronometer-timed attack of the Patrol individual action, however courageous or
however desperate, was useless.
     Each red-sheathed destroyer hurtled along a definite course at a definite force of drive for
a definite length of time. Orders were strict; no ship was to be lured from course, pace, or time.
They could, however fight en passant with their every weapon if occasion arose; and occasion
did arise, some thousands of times. The units of Grand Fleet flashed inward, lashing out with
their terrible primaries at everything in space not wearing the crimson robe of Civilization. And
whatever those beams struck did not need striking again.
     The warships of Boskone fought back. Many of the Patrol's defensive screens blazed hot
enough almost to mask the scarlet beacons; some of them went down. A few Patrol ships were
englobed by the concerted action of two or three sub-fleet commanders more cooperative or
more far-sighted than the rest, and were blasted out of existence by an overwhelming
concentration of power. But even those vessels took toll with their primaries as they went out:
few indeed were the Boskonians who escaped through holes thus made.
     At a predetermined instant each dreadnought stopped: to find herself one unit of an
immense, red-flaming hollow sphere of ships packed almost screen to screen. And upon signal
every primary projector that could be brought to bear hurled bolt after bolt, as fast as the burned-
out shells could be replaced, into the ragingly incandescent inferno which that sphere's interior
instantly became. For two hundred million discharges such as those will convert a very large
volume of space into something utterly impossible to describe.
     The raving torrents of energy subsided and keen-eyed observers swept the scene of
action. Nothing was there except jumbled and tumbling white-hot wreckage. A few vessels had
escaped during the closing in of the sphere, but none inside it had survived this climactic
actionùnot one in five thousand of Boskone's massed fleet made its way back to Jarnevon.
     "Maneuver fifty-eightùhipe!" Haynes ordered, and again Grand Fleet shot away. There
was no waiting, no hesitation. Every course and time had been calculated and assigned.
     Into the Second Galaxy the scarcely diminished armada of the Patrol hurtledùto
Jarnevon's solar systemùaround it. Once again the crimson sheathing of Civilization's
messengers almost disappeared in blinding coruscance as the outlying fortresses unleashed their
mighty weapons; once again a few ships, subjected to such concentrations of force as to overload
their equipment, were lost; but this conflict, though savage in its intensity, was brief. Nothing
mobile could withstand for long the utterly hellish energies of the primaries, and soon the
armored planetoids, too, ceased to be.
     "Maneuver fifty-nineùhipe!" and Grand Fleet closed in upon dark Jarnevon.
     "Sixty!" It rolled in space, forming an immense cylinder; the doomed planet the mid-
point of its axis.
     "Sixty-one!" Tractors and pressors leaped out from ship to ship and from ship to shore.
The Patrolmen did not know whether or not the scientists of the Eich could render their planet
inertialess, and now it made no difference. Planet and fleet were for the time being one rigid
system.
     "Sixty-twoùBlast!" And against the world-girdling battlements of Jarnevon there flamed
out in all their appalling might the dreadful beams against which the defensive screens of
battleships and of mobile citadels alike had been so pitifully inadequate.
     But these which they were attacking now were not the limited installations of a mobile
structure. The Eich had at their command all the resources of a galaxy. Their generators and
conductors could be of any desired number and size. Hence Eichmil, in view of prior
happenings, had strengthened Jarnevon's defenses to a point which certain of his fellows derided
as being beyond the bounds of sanity or reason.
     Now those unthinkably powerful screens were being tested to the utmost. Bolt after bolt
of quasi-solid lightning struck against them, spitting mile-long sparks in baffled fury as they
raged to ground. Plain and encased in Q-type helices they came: biting, tearing, gouging. Often
and often, under the thrust of half a dozen at once, local failures appeared; but these were only
momentary and even the newly devised shells of the Patrol's projectors could not stand the load
long enough to penetrate effectively Boskone's indescribably capable defenses. Nor were
Jarnevon's offensive weapons less capable.
     Rods, cones, planes, and shears of pure force bored, cut, stabbed, and slashed. Bombs
and dirigible torpedoes charged to the skin with duodec sought out the red-cloaked ships. Beams,
sheathed against atmosphere in Q-type helices, crashed against and through their armoring
screens; beams of an intensity almost to rival that of the Patrol's primary weapons and of a
hundred times their effective aperture. And not singly did those beams come. Eight, ten, twelve
at once they clung to and demolished dreadnought after dreadnought of the Expeditionary Force.
     Eichmil was well content. "We can hold them and we are burning them down," he
gloated. "Let them loose their negative-matter bombs! Since they are burning out projectors they
cannot keep this up indefinitely. We will blast them out of space!"
     He was wrong. Grand Fleet did not stay there long enough to suffer serious losses. For
even while the cylinder was forming Kinnison was in rapid but careful consultation with
Thorndyke, checking intrinsic velocities, directons, and speeds. "QX, Verne, cut!" be yelled.
     Two planets, one well within each end of the combat cylinder, went inert at the word;
resuming instantaneously their diametrically opposed intrinsic velocities of some thirty miles per
second. And it was these two very ordinary, but utterly irresistible planets, instead of the
negative-matter bombs with which the Eich were prepared to cope, which hurtled then along the
axis of the immense tube of warships toward Jarnevon. Whether or not the Eich could make their
planet inertialess has never been found out Free or inert, the end would have been the same.
     "Every Y14M officer of every ship of the Patrol, attention!" Haynes ordered. "Don't get
all tensed up. Take it easy, there's lots of time. Any time within a second after I give the word
will be p-l-e-n-t-y o-f t-i-m-e . . . CUT!"
     The two worlds rushed together, doomed Jarnevon squarely between them. Haynes
snapped out his order as the three were within two seconds of contact; and as he spoke all the
pressors and all the tractors were released. The ships of the Patrol were already freeùnone had
been inert since leaving Jalte's ex-planetùand thus could not be harmed by flying debris.
     The planets touched. They coalesced, squishingly at first, the encircling warships drifting
lightly away before a cosmically violent blast of superheated atmosphere. Jarnevon burst open,
all the way around, and spattered; billions upon billions of tons of hot core-magma being hurled
afar in gouts and streamers. The two planets, crashing through what had been a world, met,
crunched, crushed together in all the unimaginable momentum of their masses and velocities.
They subsided, crashingly. Not merely mountains, but entire halves of worlds disrupted and fell,
in such Gargantuan paroxysms as the eye of man had never elsewhere beheld. And every motion
generated heat. The kinetic energy of translation of two worlds became heat. Heat added to heat,
piling up ragingly, frantically, unable to escape!
     The masses, still falling upon and through and past themselves and each other
meltedùboiledùvaporized incandescently. The entire mass, the mass of three fused worlds,
began to equilibrate; growing hotter and hotter as more and more of its terrific motion was
converted into pure heat. Hotter! Hotter! HOTTER!
     And as the Grand Fleet of the Galactic Patrol blasted through inter-galactic space toward
the First Galaxy and home, there glowed behind it a new, small, comparatively cool, and
probably short-lived companion to an old and long-established star.

     CHAPTER 25
     ATTACHED

     The uproar of the landing was over; the celebration of victory had not yet begun. Haynes
had, peculiarly enough, set a definite time for a conference with Kinnison and the two of them
were in the admiral's private office, splitting a bottle of fayalin and discussingùapparentlyù
nothing at all.
     "Narcotics has been yelling for you," Haynes finally got around to business. "But they
don't need you to help them clean up the zwilnik mess; they just want to work with you. So I told
Ellington, as diplomatically as possible, to take a swan-dive off of an asteroid. Hicks wants you,
too; and Spencer and Frelinghuysen and thousands of others. See that basket-full of junk? All
requests for you, to be submitted to you for your consideration. I submit "em, thusùinto the
circular file. You see, there's something really important. . ."
     "Nix, chief, nixùjet back a minute, please!" Kinnison implored. "Unless it's something
that's got to be done right away, gimme a break, can't you? I've got a couple of things to
doùstuff to attend to. Maybe a little flit somewhere, too, I don't know yet."
     "More important than Patrol business?" dryly.
     "Until it's cleaned up, yes." Kinnison's face burned scarlet and his eyes revealed the
mental effort necessary to make that statement. "The most important thing in the universe," he
finished, quietly but doggedly.
     "Well, of course I can't give you orders . . ." Haynes' frown was instinct with
disappointment.
     "Don't, chiefùthat hurts. I'll be back, honest, as soon as I possibly can, and I'll do
anything you want me to . . ."
     "That's enough, son." Haynes stood up and grasped Kinnison's handsùhardùin both his
own. "I know. Forgive me for taking you for this little ride, but you and Mac suffer sol You're so
young, so intense, so insistent upon carrying the entire Cosmos on your shouldersùI couldn't
help it. You won't have to do much of a flit." He glanced at his chronometer. "You'll find all
your unfinished business in Room 7295, Base Hospital."
     "Huh? You know, then?"
     "Who doesn't? There may be a few members of some backward race somewhere who
don't know all about you and your red-headed sector riot, but I don't know . . ." He was
addressing empty air.
     Kinnison shot out of the building and, exerting his Gray Lensman's authority, he did a
thing which he had always longed boyishly to do but which he had never before really
considered doing. He whistled, shrill and piercingly, and waved a Lensed arm, even while he
was directing a Lensed thought at the driver of the fast ground-car always inreadiness in front of
Haynes' office.
     "Base Hospitalùfull emergency blast!" he ordered, and the Jehu obeyed. That chauffeur
loved emergency stuff and the long, low, wide racer took off with a deafening roar of unmuffled
exhaust and a scream of tortured, burning rubber. Two projectors flamed, sending out for miles
ahead of the bellowing roadster twin beams of a redness so thick as to be felt, not merely seen.
Simultaneously the mighty, four-throated siren began its ululating, raucously overpowering yell,
demanding and obtaining right of way over any and all trafficùparticularly over police, fire, and
other ordinary emergency apparatusùwhich might think it had some rights upon the street!
     "Thanks, Jackùyou needn't wait" At the hospital's door Kinnison rendered tribute to fast
service and strode along a corridor. An express elevator whisked him up to the seventy-second
floor, and there his haste departed completely. This was Nurses' Quarters, he realized suddenly.
He had no more business there than . . . yes he did, too. He found Room 7295 and rapped upon
its door. Boldly, he intended, but the resultant sound was surprisingly small.
     "Come in!" called a clear contralto. Then, after a moment: "Come in!" more sharply; but
the Lensman did not, could not obey the summons. She might be . . . dammitall, he didn't have
any business on this floor! Why hadn't he called her up or sent her a thought or something . . . ?
Why didn't he think at her now?
     The door opened, revealing the mildly annoyed sector chief. At what she saw her hands
flew to her throat and her eyes widened in starkly unbelieving rapture.
     "KIM!" She shrieked in ecstasy.
     "Chris . . . my Chris!" Kinnison whispered unsteadily, and for minutes those two
uniformed minions of the Galactic Patrol stood motionless upon the room's threshold, strong
young arms straining; nurse's crisp and spotless white crushed unregarded against Lensman's
pliant gray.
     "Oh . . . I've missed you so terribly, my darling," she crooned. Her voice, always sweetly
rich, was pure music.
     "You don't know the half of it. This can't be realùnothing can feel this good!"
     "You did come back to meùyou really did!" she lilted. "I didn't dare hope you could
come so soon."
     "I had to." Kinnison drew a deep breath, "I simply couldn't stand it It'll be tough, maybe,
but you were right ùhalf a loaf is better man no bread."
     "Of course it is!" She released herselfùpartiallyùafter the first transports of their first
embrace and eyed him shrewdly. "Tell me, Kim, did Lacy have a hand in this surprise?"
     "Uh-uh," he denied. "I haven't seen him for agesùbut jet back! Haynes told meùsay,
what'll you bet those two old hard-heads haven't been giving us the works?"
     "Who are old hard-heads?" Haynesùin personùdemanded. So deeply immersed had
Kinnison been in his rapturous delirium that even his sense of perception was in abeyance; and
there, not two yards from the entranced couple, stood the two old Lensmen under discussion!
     The culprits sprang apart, flushing guiltily, but Haynes went on imperturbably, quite as
though nothing out of the ordinary had been either said or done:
     "We gave you fifteen minutes, then came up to be sure to catch you before you flitted off
to the celebration or somewhere. We have matters to discuss."
     "QX. Come in, all of you." As she spoke the nurse stood aside in invitation. "You know,
don't you, that it's exceedingly much contra Regs for nurses to entertain visitors of the opposite
sex in their rooms? Fifty demerits per offense. Most girls never get a chance at even one Gray
"Lensman, and here I've got three!" She giggled infectiously. "Wouldn't it be one for the book
for me to get a hundred and fifty black spots for this? And to have Surgeon-Marshal Lacy, Port
Admiral Haynes, and Unattached Lensman Kim-ball Kinnison, all heaved into the clink to boot?
Boy, oh boy, ain't we got fun?"
     "Lacy's too old and I'm too moral to be affected by the wiles even of the likes of you, my
dear," Haynes explained equably, as he seated himself upon the davenportùthe most
comfortable thing in the room.
     "Old? Moral? Tommyrot!" Lacy glared an "I'll-see-you-later" look at the admiral, then
turned to the nurse. "Don't worry about that, MacDougall. No penalties accrueùRegulations
apply only to nurses in the Service . . ."
     "And what . . ." she started to blaze, but checked herself and her tone changed instantly.
"Go onùyou interest me strangely, sir. I'm just going to love this!" Her eyes sparkled, her voice
was vibrant with unconcealed eagerness.
     'Told you she was quick on the uptake," Lacy gloated. "Didn't fox her for a second!"
     "But sayùlistenùwhat's this all about, anyway?" Kinnison demanded.
     "Never mind, you'll learn soon enough," from Lacy, and:
     "Kinnison, you are very urgently invited to attend a meeting of the Galactic Council
tomorrow afternoon," from Haynes.
     "Huh? What's up now?" Kinnison protested. His arm tightened about the girl's supple
waist and she snuggled closer, a trace of foreboding beginning to dim the eagerness in her eyes.
     "Promotion. We want to make you somethingùgalactic coordinator, director, something
like thatùthe job hasn't been named yet. In plain language, the Big Shot of the Second Galaxy,
formerly known as Landmark's Nebula."
     "But listen, chief ! I couldn't handle such a job as thatù I simply haven't got the jets!"
     "You always yelp about a dynage deficiency whenever a new job is mentioned, but you
deliver the goods. Who else could we wish it onto?"
     "Worsel," Kinnison declared with hesitation. "He's . . ."
     "Balloon-juice!" snorted the older man.
     "Well, then . . . ah . . . er . . ." he stopped. Clarrissa opened her mouth, then shut it,
ridiculously, without having uttered a word.
     "Go ahead, MacDougall. You're an interested party, you know."
     "No." She shook her spectacular head. "I'm not saying a word nor thinking a thought to
sway his decision one way or the other. Besides, he'd have to flit around then as much as now."
     "Some travel involved, of course," Haynes admitted. "All over that galaxy, some in this
one, and back and forth between the two. However, the Dauntlessùor something newer, bigger,
and fasterùwill be his private yacht, and I don't see why it is either necessary or desirable that
his flits be solo."
     "Say, I never thought of that!" Kinnison blurted; and as thoughts began to race through
his mind of what he could do, with Chris beside him all the time, to straighten out the mess in
the Second Galaxy:
     "Oh, Kirn!" Clarrissa squealed in ecstasy, squeezing his arm even tighter against her side.
     "Hooked!" Lacy chortled in triumph.
     "But I'd have to retire!" That thought was the only thorn in Kinnison's whole wreath of
roses. "I wouldn't like that."
     "Certainly you wouldn't," Haynes agreed. "But remember that all such assignments are
conditional, subject to approval, and with a very definite cancellation agreement in case of what
the Lensman regards as an emergency. If a Gray Lensman had to give up his right to serve the
Patrol in any way he considered himself most able, they'd have to shoot us all before they could
make executives out of us. And finally, I don't see how the job we're talking about can be figured
as any sort of a retirement. You'll be as active as you are nowùyes, more so, unless I miss my
guess."
     "QX. I'll be thereùI'll try it," Kinnison promised.
     "Now for some more news," Lacy announced. "Haynes didn't tell you, but he has been
made president of the Galactic Council. You are his first appointment. I hate to say anything
good about the old scoundrel, but he has one outstanding ability. He doesn't know much or do
much himself, but he certainly can pick the men who have to do the work for him!"
     "There's something vastly more important than that," Haynes steered the acclaim away
from himself.
     "Just a minute," Kinnison interposed. "I haven't got this all straight yet. What was the
crack about active nurses awhile ago?"
     "Why, Doctor Lacy was just intimating that I had resigned, goose," Clarrissa chuckled. "I
didn't know a thing about it myself, but I imagine it must have been just before this conference
started. Am I right, doctor?" she asked innocently.
     "Or tomorrow, or even yesterdayùany convenient time will do," Lacy blandly assented.
"You see, young man, MacDougall has been a mighty busy girl, and wedding preparations take
time, too. Therefore we have very reluctantly accepted her resignation."
     "Especially preparations take time when it's going to be such a wedding as the Patrol is
going to throw," Haynes commented. "That was what I was starting to talk about when I was so
rudely interrupted."
     "Nix! Not in seven thousand years!" Kinnison exploded. "Cancel that, right nowùI won't
stand for itùI'll not. . ."
     "Cancel nothing. Baffle your jets, Kim," the admiral said, firmly. "Bridegrooms are to be
seenùjust barely visibleù but that's all. No voice. Weddings are where the girls really strut
their stuff. How about it, you gorgeous young menace to Civilization?"
     "I'll say so!" she exclaimed in high animation. "I'd just love it, admiral . . ." She broke
off, aghast Her face fell. "No, I'll take that back. Kirn's right. Thanks a million, just the same,
but. . ."
     "But nothing!" Haynes broke in. "I know what's the matter. Don't try to fox an old
campaigner, and don't be silly. I said the Patrol was throwing this wedding. All you have to do is
participate in the action. Got any money, Kinnison? On you, I mean?"
     "No," in surprise. "What would I be doing with money?"
     "Here's ten thousand creditsùPatrol funds. Take it and . . ."
     "He will not!" the nurse stormed. "No! You can't, admiral, really. Why, a bride has got to
buy her own clothes!"
     "She's right, Haynes," Lacy announced. The admiral stared at him in wrathful
astonishment and even Clarrissa seemed disappointed at her easy victory. "But listen to this. As
surgeon-marshal, et cetera, in recognition of the unselfish services, et cetera, unflinching bravery
under fire, et cetera, performances beyond and above requirements or reasonable expectations, et
cetera, et cetera; Sector Chief Nurse Clarrissa May MacDougall, upon the occasion of her
separation from the Service, is hereby granted a bonus of ten thousand credits. That goes on die
record as of hour twelve, today.
     "Now, you red-headed young spit-fire, if you refuse to accept that bonus I'll cancel your
resignation and put you back to work. What do you say?"
     "I say thanks, Doctor Lacy. Th . . . thanks a million . . . both of you . . . you're two of the
most wonderful men that ever lived, and I . . . I . . . I just love you!" The happy girl kissed them
both, then turned to Kinnison.
     "Let's go and hike about ten miles, shall we, Kirn? I've got to do something or I'll
explode!"
     And the tall Lensmanùno longer unattachedùand the radiant nurse swung down the
hall.
     Side by side; in step; heads up; laughing: a beginning symbolical indeed of the life they
were to live together.