VORTEXBLASTER

As soon as they could extract certain data from Luda's mind, they could take Lune in short order. With Lune solidly theirs, they could bomb Dhil into submission in two years. The goal of many generations would have been reached. He, Darjeeb of Nhal, would have wealth, fame, and—best of all—power!

Gazing gloatingly at his captive with every eye he could bring to bear, Darjeeb strolled over to inspect again her chains and manacles. Let her radiate! No mentality in existence could break his blocks. Physically, however, she had to be watched.

* For the explanation of these somewhat peculiar facts, which is too long to go into here, the student is referred to Transactions of the Planetographical Society; Vol. 283, No. 11, P. 2745. E.E.S.

The irons were strong; but so was Luda. If she could break free he'd probably have to shoot her, which would be a very bad thing indeed. She hadn't caved in yet, but she would. When he got her to Nhal, where proper measures could be taken, she'd give up every scrap of knowledge she had ever had!

The chains were holding, all eight of them, and Darjeeb kept on gloating as he backed towards his control station. To him Luda's shape was normal enough, since his own was the same, but in the sight of any Tellurian she would have been more than a little queer.

The lower part of her body was somewhat like that of a small elephant; one weighing perhaps four hundred pounds. The skin, however, was clear and fine and delicately tanned; there were no ears or tusks; the neck was longer. The trunk was shorter, divided at the tip to form a highly capable hand; and between the somewhat protuberant eyes of this 'feeding' head there thrust out a boldly Roman, startlingly human nose. The brain in this head was very small, being concerned only with matters of food.

Above this not-too-unbelievable body, however, there was nothing familiar to us of Tellus. Instead of a back there were two pairs of mighty shoulders, from which sprang four tremendous arms, each like the trunk except longer and much stronger. Surmounting those massive shoulders there was an armored, slightly retractile neck which bore the heavily-armored 'thinking' head. In this head there were no mouths, no nostrils. The four equally-spaced pairs of eyes were protected by heavy ridges and plates; the entire head, except for its junction with the neck, was solidly sheathed with bare, hard, thick, tough bone.

Darjeeb's amazing head shone a clean-scrubbed white. But Luda's—the eternal feminine!—was really something to look at. It had been sanded, buffed, and polished. It had been inlaid with bars and strips and scrolls of variously-colored metals; then decorated tastefully in red and green and blue and black enamel; then, to cap the climax, lacquered!

But that was old stuff to Darjeeb; all he cared about was the tightness of the chains immobilizing Luda's hands and feet. Seeing that they were all tight, he returned his attention to his visiplates; for he was not yet in the clear. Enemies might be blasting off after him any minute.

A light flashed upon his detector panel. Behind him everything was clear. Nothing was coming from Dhil. Ah, there it was, coming in from open space. But nothing could move that fast! A space-ship of some kind ... Gods of the Ancients, how it was coming!

As a matter of fact the lifeboat was coming in at less than one light; the merest crawl, as space-speeds go. That velocity, however, was so utterly beyond anything known to his system that the usually phlegmatic Nhalian stood spellbound for a fraction of a second. Then he drove a hand toward a control. Too late— before the hand had covered half the distance the incomprehensibly fast ship struck his own without impact, jar, or shock.

Both vessels should have been blasted to atoms; but there the stranger was poised motionless beside him. Then, under the urge of a ridiculously tiny jet of flame, she leaped away; covering miles in an instant. Then something equally fantastic happened. She drifted heavily backward, against the full force of her driving blasts!

Only one explanation was possible—inertialessness! What a weapon! With that and Luda—even without Luda—the solar system would be his. No longer was it a question of Nhal conquering Dhil. He himself would become the dictator, not only of Nhal and Dhil and Lune, but also of all other worlds within reach. That vessel and its secrets must be his!

He blasted, then, to match the inert velocity of the smaller craft, and as his ship approached the other he reached out both telepathically—he could neither speak nor hear—and with a spyray to determine the most feasible method of taking over this Godsend.

Bipeds! Peculiar little beasts—repulsive. Only two arms and eyes—only one head. Weak, no weapons—good! Couldn't any of them communicate? Ah yes, there was one—an unusually thin, reed-like creature, bundled up in layer upon layer of fabric....

'I see that you are survivors of a catastrophe in outer space,' Darjeeb began. He correlated instantly, if not sympathetically, the smashed panel and the pilot's bleeding head. If the creature had had a head worthy of the name, it could have wrecked a dozen such frailties with it, and without taking hurt. 'Tell your pilot to let me in, so that I may guide you to safety. Hurry!

Those will come at any moment who will destroy us all without warning or palaver.'

'I am trying, sir, but I cannot get through to him direct. It will take a few moments.' The strange telepathist began to make motions with her peculiar arms, hands, and fingers. Others of the outlanders brandished various repulsive members and gesticulated with ridiculous mouths. Finally:

'He says he would rather not,' the interpreter reported. 'He asks you to go ahead. He will follow you down."

'Impossible. We cannot land upon this world or its primary, Dhil,' Darjeeb argued, reasonably. 'These people are enemies

—savages—I have just escaped from them. It is death to attempt to land anywhere in this system except on my own world Nhal

—that bluish one over there.'

'Very well, we'll see you there. We're just about out of air, but we can travel that far.'

But that wouldn't do, either, of course. Argument took too much time. He'd have to use force, and he'd better call for help. He hurled mental orders to a henchman, threw out his magnetic grapples, and turned on a broad low-powered beam.

'Open up or die,' he ordered. 'I do not want to blast you open, but time presses and I will if I must.'

Pure heat is hard to take. The portal opened and Darjeeb, after donning armor and checking his ray-guns, picked Luda up and swung nonchalantly out into space. Luda was tough—a little vacuum wouldn't hurt her much. Inside the lifeboat, he tossed his captive into a corner and strode toward the pilot.

'I want to know right now what it is that makes this ship to be without inertia!' Darjeeb radiated, harshly. He had been probing vainly at the pink thing's mind-block. 'Tell your pilot to tell me or I will squeeze it out of his brain.'

As the order was being translated he slipped an arm out of his suit and clamped a huge hand around the pilot's head. But just as he made contact, before he put on any pressure at all, the weakling fainted.

Also, two of his senses registered disquieting tidings. He received, as plainly as though it was intended for him, a welcome which the swaddled-up biped was radiating in delight to an unexpected visitor rushing into the compartment. He saw that that visitor, while it was also a biped, was not at all like the frightened and harmless creatures already cluttering the room.

It was armed and armored, in complete readiness for strife even with Darjeeb of Nhal.

The bonehead swung his ready weapon—with his build there was no need, ever to turn—and pressed a stud. A searing lance of flame stabbed out. Passengers screamed and fled into whatever places of security were available.

6: Driving Jets are Weapons

Cloud's swearing wasted no time; he could swear and act simultaneously. He flashed his vessel up near the lifeboat, went inert, and began to match its intrinsic velocity.

He'd have to board, no other way. Even if he had anything to blast it with, and he didn't—his vessel wasn't armed—he couldn't, without killing innocent people. What did he have?

He had two suits of armor; a G-P regulation and his vortex special, which was even stronger. He had his DeLameters. He had four semi-portables and two needle-beams, for excavating. He had thousands of duodec bombs, not one of which could be detonated by anything less violent than the furious heart of a loose atomic vortex.

What else? Well, there was his sampler. He grinned as he looked at it. About the size of a carpenter's hand-axe, with a savage beak on one side and a wickedly-curved, razor-sharp blade on the other. It had a double-grip handle, three feet long. A deceptive little thing, truly, for it was solid dureum. It weighed fifteen pounds, and its ultra-hard, ultra-tough blade could shear through neocarballoy as cleanly as a steel knife slices cheese. Considering what terrific damage a Valerian could do with a space-axe, he should be able to do quite a bit with this—it ought to qualify at least as a space-hatchet.

He put on his armor, set his DeLameters to maximum intensity at minimum aperture, and hung the sampler on a belt-hook. He eased off his blasts. There, the velocities matched. A minute's work with needle-beam, tractors, and pressor sufficed to cut the two smaller ships apart and to dispose of the Nhalian's magnets and cables. Another minute of careful manipulation and his scout was in place. He swung out, locked the port behind him, and entered the lifeboat.

He was met by a high-intensity beam. He had not expected instantaneous, undeclared war, but he was ready for it. Every screen he had was full out, his left hand held poised at hip a screened DeLameter. His return blast was, therefore, a reflection of Darjeeb's bolt, and it did vastly more damage. The hand in which Darjeeb held the projector was the one that had been manhandling the pilot, and it was not quite back inside the

Nhalian's screens. In the fury of Cloud's riposte, then, gun and hand disappeared, as did also a square foot of panel behind them. But Darjeeb had other hands and other guns and for seconds blinding beams raved against unyielding screens.

Neither screen went down. The Tellurian bolstered his weapons. It wouldn't take much of this stuff to kill the passengers remaining in the saloon. He'd go in with his sampler.

He lugged it up and leaped straight at the flaming projector, with all of his mass and strength going into the swing of his 'space-hatchet.' The monster did not dodge, but merely threw up a hand to flick the toy aside with his gun-barrel. Cloud grinned fleetingly as he realized what the other must be thinking—that the man must be puny indeed to be making such ado about wielding such a trifle—for to anyone not familiar with dureum it is sheerly unbelievable that so much mass and momentum can possibly reside in a bulk so small.

Thus when fiercely-driven cutting edge met opposing ray-gun it did not waver or deflect. It scarcely even slowed. Through the metal of the gun that vicious blade sliced resistlessly, shearing flesh as it sped. On down, urged by everything Cloud's straining muscles could deliver. Through armor it slashed, through the bony plating covering that tremendous double shoulder, deep into the flesh and bone of the shoulder itself; being stopped only by the impact of the hatchet's haft against the armor.

Then, planting one steel boot on the helmet's dome, he got a momentary stance with the other between barrel body and flailing arm, bent his back, and heaved. The deeply embedded blade tore out through bone and flesh and metal, and as it did so the two rear cabled arms dropped useless. That mighty rear shoulder and its appurtenances were out of action. The monster still had one good hand, however, and he was still full of fight.

That hand flashed out, to seize the weapon and to wield it against its owner. It came fast, too, but the man, strongly braced, yanked backward. Needle point and keen edge tore through flesh and snicked off fingers. Cloud swung his axe aloft and poised, making it limpidly clear that the next blow would be straight down into the top t>f the head.

That was enough. Darjeeb backed away, every eye glaring, and Cloud stepped warily over to Luda. A couple of strokes of

his blade gave him a length of chain. Then, working carefully to keep his foe threatened at every instant, he worked the chain into a tight loop around the monster's front neck, pulled it unmercifully taut around a stanchion, and welded it there with his DeLameter. He did not trust the other monster unreservedly, either, bound as she was. In fact, he did not trust her at all. In spite of family rows, like sticks to like in emergencies and they'd gang up on him if they could. Since she wasn't wearing armor, however, she didn't stand a chance with a DeLameter, so he could take time now to look around

The pilot, lying flat upon the floor, was beginning to come to. Not quite flat, either, for a shapely Chickladorian girl, wearing the forty one square inches of covering which were de rigueur in her eyes, had his bandaged head in her lap—or, rather, cushioned on one bare leg—and was sobbing gibberish over him. That wouldn't help. Cloud started for the first-aid locker, but stopped; a white-wrapped figure was already bending over the injured man with a black bottle in her hand. He knew what it was. Kedeselin. That was what he was after, himself; but he wouldn't have dared give a hippopotamus the terrific jolt she was pouring into him. She must be a nurse, or maybe a doctor; but Cloud shivered in sympathy, nevertheless.

The pilot stiffened convulsively, then relaxed. His eyes rolled; he gasped and shuddered; but he came to life and sat up groggily.

'What the hell goes on here?' Cloud demanded urgently, in spaceal.

'I don't know,' the pink man replied. 'All the ape said, as near as I could get it, was that I had to give him our free drive.' He then spoke rapidly to the girl—his wife, Cloud guessed; if she wasn't, she ought to be—who was still holding him fervently.

The pink girl nodded. Then, catching Cloud's eye, she pointed at the two monstrosities, then at the nurse standing calmly near by. Startlingly slim, swathed to the eyes in billows of glamorette, she looked as fragile as a wisp of straw; but Cloud knew Manarkans. She, too, nodded at the Tellurian, then 'talked' rapidly with her hands to a short, thick-set, tremendously muscled woman of some race entirely strange to the Blaster. She was used to going naked; that was very evident. She had been wearing a light 'robe of convention,' but it had been pretty well demolished in the melee and she did not realize that what was left of it was hanging in tatters down her broad

back. The 'squatty' eyed the gesticulating Manarkan and spoke, in a beautifully modulated deep bass voice, to a supple, lithe, pantherish girl with vertically-slitted yellow eyes, pointed ears, and a long and sinuous, meticulously-groomed tail. The Vegian —by no means the first of her race Cloud had seen—spoke to the Chickladorian eyeful, who in turn passed the message along to her husband.

'The bonehead you had the argument with says to hell with you,' the pilot translated to Cloud in spaceal. 'He says his mob will be out here after him directly, and if you don't cut him loose and give him the dope he wants they'll burn us all to cinders.'

Luda was, meanwhile, trying to attract attention. She was bouncing up and down, rattling her chains, rolling her eyes, and in general demanding notice. More communication ensued, culminating in:

'The one with fancy-worked skull—she's a frail, but not the other bonehead's frail, I guess—says pay no attention to the ape. He's a murderer, a pirate, a bum, a louse, and so forth, she says. Says to take your axe—it's some cleaver, she says, and I check her to ten decimals on that—cut his goddam head clean off, chuck his stinking carcass out the port, and get the hell out of here as fast as you can blast.'

That sounded to Cloud like good advice, but he didn't want to take such drastic action without more comprehensive data.

'Why?'he asked.

But this was too much for the communications relays to handle. Cloud did not know spaceal any too well, since he had not been out in deep space very long. Also, spaceal is a very simple language, not well adapted to the accurate expression of subtle nuances of thought; and all those intermediate translations were garbling things up terrifically. Hence Cloud was not surprised that nothing much was coming through, even though the prettied-up monster was, by this time, just about throwing a fit.

'She's quit trying to spin her yarn,' the pilot said finally. 'She says she's been trying to talk to you direct, but she can't get through. Says to unseal your ports—cut your screens—let down your guard—something like that, anyway. Don't know what she does mean, exactly. None of us does except maybe the Manarkan, and if she does she can't get it across on her fingers.'

'Perhaps my thought-screen?' Cloud cut it.

'More yet," the Chickladorian went on, shortly. 'She says there's another one, just as bad or worse. On your head, she says ... No, on your head-bone—what the hell! Skull? No, inside your skull, she says now ... Hell's bells! I don't know what she is trying to say!'

'Maybe I do—keep still a minute, all of you.' A telepath undoubtedly, like the Manarkans—that was why she had to talk to her first. He'd never been around telepaths much—never tried it. He walked a few steps and stared directly into one pair of Luda's eyes—large, expressive eyes, now soft and gentle.

'That's it, chief! Now blast away ... baffle your jets ... relax, I guess she means. Open your locks and let her in.'

Cloud did relax, but gingerly. He didn't like this mind-to-mind stuff at all, particularly when the other mind belonged to such a monster. He lowered his mental barriers skittishly, ready to revolt at any instant; but as soon as he began to understand the meaning of her thoughts he forgot completely that he was not talking man to man. And at that moment—such was the power of Luda's mind and the precision of her telepathy—every nuance of thought became sharp and clear.

'I demand Darjeeb's life!' Luda stormed. 'Not because he is the enemy of all my race—that would not weigh with you— but because he has done what no one else, however base, has ever been so lost to shame as to do. In our city upon Lune he kindled an atomic flame which is killing us in multitudes. In case you do not know, such flames can never be extinguished.'

'I know. We call them loose atomic vortices; but they can be extinguished. In fact, putting them out is my business.'

'Oh—incredible but glorious news ...' Luda's thought seethed, became incomprehensible for a space. Then: 'To win your help for my race I perceive that I must be completely frank. Observe my mind closely, please—see for yourself that I withhold nothing. Darjeeb wants at any cost the secret of your vessel's speed. With it, his race would destroy mine utterly. I want it too, of course—with it we would wipe out the Nhalians. However, since you are so much stronger than would be believed possible—since you defeated Darjeeb in single combat—I realize my helplessness. I tell you, therefore, that both Darjeeb and I have long since summoned help. Warships of both sides are approaching, to capture one or both of these vessels. The

Nhalians are the nearer, and these secrets must not, under any conditions, go to Nhal. Dash out into space with both of these ships, so that we can plan at leisure. First, however, kill that unspeakable murderer—you have scarcely injured him the way it is—or give me that so deceptive little axe and I'll be only too glad to do it myself.'

A chain snapped ringingly; metal clanged against metal. Only two of Darjeeb's major arms had been incapacitated; his two others had lost only a few fingers apiece from their hands. His immense bodily strength was almost unimpaired. He could have broken free at any time, but he had waited; hoping to take Cloud by surprise or that some opportunity would arise for him to regain control of the lifeboat. But now, feeling sure that Luda's eminently sensible advice would be taken, he decided to let inertialessness go, for the moment, in the interest of saving his life.

'Kill him!' Luda shrieked the thought and Cloud swung his weapon aloft, but Darjeeb was not attacking. Instead, he was rushing into the airlock—escaping!

'Go free, pilot!' Cloud commanded, and leaped; but the inner valve swung shut before he could reach it.

As soon as he could operate the lock Cloud went through it. He knew that Darjeeb could not have boarded the scout, since her ports were locked. He hurried to his control room and scanned space. There the Nhalian was, falling like a plummet. There also were a dozen or so space-ships, too close for comfort, blasting upward.

Cloud cut in his Bergenholm, kicked on his driving blasts, cut off, and went back into the lifeboat.

'Safe enough now,' he thought. 'They'll never got out here inert. I'm surprised he jumped—didn't figure him as a suicidal type.'

'He isn't. He didn't,' Luda thought, dryly.

'Huh? He must have. That was a mightly long flit he took off on, and his suit wouldn't hold air.'

'He would stuff something into the holes. If necessary he could have made it without air—or armor, either. He's tough. He still lives, curse him! But it is of no use for me to bewail that fact now. Let us make plans. You must put out the flame, and the leaders of our people will convince you ...'

'Just a second—some other things come first.' He fell silent.

First of all, he had to report to the Patrol, so they could get some Lensmen and a task force out here to straighten up this mess. With ordinary communicators, that would take some doing—but wait, he had a double-ended tight beam to the laboratory. He could get through on that, probably, even from here. He'd have to mark the lifeboat as a derelict and get these people aboard his cruiser. No space-tube. The women could wear suits, but this Luda ...

'Don't worry about me!' that entity cut in. 'You saw how I came aboard. I don't enjoy breathing vacuum, but I'm as tough as Darjeeb is. So hurry! During every moment you delay, more of my people are dying!'

'QX. While we're transferring, give me the dope.'

Luda did so. Darjeeb's coup had been carefully planned and brilliantly executed. Drugged by one of her own staff, she had been taken without a struggle. She did not know how far-reaching the stroke had been, but she was pretty sure that most, if not all, of the Dhilian fortresses were now held by the enemy.

Nhal probably had the advantage in numbers and in fire-power then upon Lune—Darjeeb would not have made his bid unless he had found a way to violate the treaty of strict equality. Dhil was, however, much the nearer of the two worlds. Hence, if this initial advantage could be overcome, Dhil's reenforce-ments could be brought up much sooner that the enemy's. If, in addition, the vortex could be extinguished before it had done irreparable damage, neither side would have any real advantage and the conflict would subside instead of flaring into another tri-world holocaust.

Cloud pondered. He would have to do something, but what? That vortex had to be snuffed; but, with the whole Nhalian army to cope with, how could he make the approach? His vortex-bombing flitter was screened against radiation, not war-beams. His cruiser was clothed to stop anything short of G-P primaries, but it would take a month at a Patrol base to adapt her for vortex work ... and he'd have to analyze it, anyway, preferably from the ground. He had no beams, no, ordinary bombs, no nega-bombs. How could he use what he had to clear a station?

'Draw me a map, will you, Luda?' he asked.

She did so. The cratered vortex, where an immense building had been. The ring of fortresses: two of which were unusually

far apart, separated by a parkway and a shallow lagoon.

'Shallow? How deep?' Cloud interrupted. She indicated a depth of a couple of feet.

'That's enough map, then. Thanks.' Cloud thought for minutes. 'You seem to be quite an engineer. Can you give me exact details on your defensive screen? Power, radius, weave-form, generator type, phasing, interlocking, blow-off, and so on?'

She could. Complex mathematical equations and electrical formulae flashed through his mind, each leaving a residue of fact.

'Maybe we can do something,' the Blaster said finally, turning to the Chickladorian. 'Depends pretty much on our friend here. Are you a pilot, or just an emergency assignment?'

'Master pilot. Rating unlimited, tonnage or space.'

'Good! Think you're in shape to take three thousand centimeters of acceleration?'

'Pretty sure of it. If I was right I could take three thousand standing on my head. I'm feeling better all the time. Let's hot her up and find out.'

'Not until after we've unloaded these passengers somewhere,' and Cloud went on to explain what he had in mind.

'Afraid it can't be done.' The pilot shook his head glumly. 'Your timing has got to be too ungodly fine. I can do the piloting, meter the blast, and so on. I can balance her down on her tail, steady to a hair, but piloting's only half what you got to have. Pilots never land on a constant blast, and your leeway here is damn near zero. To hit it as close as you want, your timing has got to be accurate to a tenth of a second. You don't know it, mister, but it'd take a master computer half a day to ...'

'I know all about that. I'm a master computer and I'll have everything figured. I'll give you a zero exact to plus-or-minus a hundredth.'

'QX, then. Let's dump the non-combatants and flit.'

'Luda, where shall we land them? And maybe you'd better call out your army and navy—we can't blow out that vortex until we control both air and ground.'

'Land them there.' Luda swung the plate and pointed. 'The call was sent long since. They come.'

They landed; but four of the women would not leave the vessel. The Manarkan had to stay aboard, she declared, or be disgraced for life. What would happen if the pilot passed out again, with only laymen around? She was right, Cloud con-

ceded, and she could take it. She was a Manarkan, built of whalebone and rubber. She'd bend under 3 + G's, but she wouldn't break.

The squatty insisted upon staying. Since when had a woman of Tominga hidden from danger or run away from a fight? She could hold the pilot's head up through an acceleration that would put any damn-fragile Tellurian into a pack—or give her that funny axe and she'd show him how it ought to be swung!

The Chickladorian girl, too, stayed on. Her eyes—not pink, but a deep, cool green, brimming with unshed tears—flashed at the idea of leaving her man to die alone. She just knew they were all going to die. Even if she couldn't be of any use, what of it? If her Thlaskin died she was going to die too, right then, and that was all there was to it. If they made her go ashore she'd cut her own throat that very minute, so there! So that was that.

So did the Vegian. Tail-tip twitching slightly, eyes sparkling, she swore by three deities to claw the eyes out of, and then to strangle with her tail, anyone who tried to put her off ship. She had come on this trip to see things, and did Cloud think she was going to miss seeing this? Hardly!

Cloud studied her briefly. The short, thick, incredibly soft fur—like the fur on the upper lip of a week-old kitten, except more so—did not conceal the determined set of her lovely jaw; the tight shorts and the even tighter purely conventional breast-band did not conceal the tigerish strength and agility of her lovely body. It'd be better, the Blaster decided, not to argue the point.

A dozen armed Dhilians came aboard, as pre-arranged, and the cruiser blasted off. Then, while Thlaskin was maneuvering inert, to familiarize himself with the controls and to calibrate the blast, Cloud brought out the four semi-portable projectors. They were frightful weapons, designed for tripod mounting; so heavy that it took a very strong man to lift one on Earth. They carried no batteries or accumulators, but were powered by tight beams from the mother ship.

Luda was right; such weapons were unknown in that solar system. They had no beam transmission of power. The Dhilians radiated glee as they studied the things. They had stronger stuff, but it was fixed-mount and far too heavy to move. This was wonderful—these were magnificent weapons indeed!

High above the stratosphere, inert, the pilot found his spot

and flipped the cruiser around, cross-hairs centering the objective. Then, using his forward, braking jets as drivers, he blasted her straight downward.

She struck atmosphere almost with a thud. Only her fiercely-driven meteorite-screens and wall-shields held her together.

'I hope to Klono you know what you're doing, chum,' the Chickladorian remarked conversationally as the fortress below leaped upward with appalling speed. 'I've made hot landings before, but I always had a hair or two of leeway. If you don't hit this to a couple of hundredths we'll splash when we strike. We won't bounce, brother.'

'I can compute it to a thousandth and I can set the clicker to within five, but it's you that'll have to do the real hitting.' Cloud grinned back at the iron-nerved pilot. 'Sure a four-second call is enough to get your rhythm, allow for reaction time and lag, and blast right on the click?'

'Absolutely. If I can't get it in four I can't get it at all. Got your stuff ready?'

'Uh-huh.' Cloud, staring into the radarscope, began to sway his shoulders. He knew the exact point in space and the exact instant of time at which the calculated deceleration must begin; by the aid of his millisecond timer—two full revolutions of the dial every second—he was about to sej_the clicker to announce that instant. His hand swayed back and forth—a finger snapped down—the sharp-toned instrument began to give out its crisp, precisely-spaced clicks.

'Got it!' Cloud snapped. 'Right on the middle of the click! Get ready, Thlaskin—seconds! Four! Three! Two! One! Click!'

Exactly with the click the vessel's brakes cut off and her terrific driving blasts smashed on. There was a cruelly wrenching shock as everything aboard acquired suddenly a more-than-three-times-Earthly weight.

Luda and her fellows merely twitched. The Tomingan, standing behind the pilot, supporting and steadying his wounded head in its rest, settled almost imperceptibly, but her firmly gentle hands did not yield a millimeter. The Manarkan sank deeply into the cushioned bench upon which she was lying; her quick, bright eyes remaining fixed upon her patient.

The Chickladorian girl, in her hammock, fainted quietly.

The Vegian, who had flashed one hand up to an overhead

bar at the pilot's first move, stood up—although she seemed to shorten a good two inches and her tight upper garments parted with a snap as back- and shoulder-muscles swelled to take the strain. That wouldn't worry her. Cloud knew—what was she stewing about? Oh—her tail! It was too heavy for its own strength, great as it was, to lift! Her left hand came down, around, and back; with its help the tail came up. To the bar above her head, around it, tip pointing stiffly straight upward. Then, smiling gleefully at both Thlaskin and the Blaster, she shouted something that neither could understand, but which was the war-cry of her race: 'Tails high, brothers!'

Downward the big ship hurtled, toward the now glowing screens of the fortress. Driving jets are not orthodox weapons, but properly applied, they can be deadly ones indeed: and these were being applied with micromatric exactitude.

Down! DOWN! ! The threatened fortress and its neighbors hurled their every beam; Nhalian ships dived frantically at the invader and did their useless best to blast her down.

Down she drove, the fortress' screens flaming ever brighter under the terrific blast.

Closer! Hotter! Still closer! Hotter still! Nor did the furious flame waver—the Chickladorian was indeed a master pilot.

'Set up a plus ten, Thlaskin,' Cloud directed. 'Air density and temperature are changing. Their beams, too, you know.' 'Check. Plus ten, sir—set up.' 'Give it to her on the fourth click from ... this.' 'On, sir.' The vessel seemed to pause momentarily, to stumble; but the added weight was almost imperceptible.

A bare hundred yards now, and the ship of space was still plunging downward at terrific speed. The screens were furiously incandescent, but were still holding.

A hundred feet. Velocity appallingly high, the enemy's screens still up. Something had to give now! If that screen stood up the ship would vanish as she struck it, but Thlaskin the Chickladorian made no move and spoke no word. If the skipper was willing to bet his own life on his computations, who was he to squawk? But... he must have miscalculated!

No! While the vessel's driving projectors were still a few yards away the defending screens exploded into blackness; the awful streams of energy raved directly into the structures be-

neath. Metal and stone glared white, then flowed—sluggishly at first, but ever faster and more mobile—then boiled coruscantly into vapor.

The cruiser slowed—stopped—seemed to hang for an instant poised. Then she darted upward, her dreadful exhausts continuing and completing the utter devastation.

'That's computin', mister,' the pilot breathed as he cut the fierce acceleration to a heavenly one thousand. 'To figure a dive like that to three decimals and have the guts to hold to it cold— skipper, that's com-pu-iation/'

'All yours, pilot,' Cloud demurred. 'All I did was give you the dope. You're the guy that made it good. Hurt, anybody?'

Nobody was. 'QX. We'll repeat, then, on the other side of the lagoon.'

As the ship began to descend on the new course the vengeful Dhilian fleet arrived. Looping, diving, beaming, oftentimes crashing in suicidal collision, the two factions went maniacally to war. There were no attacks, however, against the plunging Tellurian ship. The Nhalians had learned that they could do nothing about that vessel.

The second fortress fell exactly as the first had fallen. The pilot landed the cruiser in the middle of the shallow lakelet. Cloud saw that the Dhilians, overwhelmingly superior in numbers now, had cleared the air of Nhalian craft.

'Can you fellows and your ships keep them off my flitter while I take my readings?'

'We can,' the natives radiated happily.

Four of the armored boneheads were wearing the semi-portables. They had them perched lightly atop their feeding heads, held immovably in place by two arms apiece. One hand sufficed to operate the controls, leaving two hands free to do whatever else might prove in order.

'Let us out!'

The lock opened, the Dhilian warriors sprang out and splashed away to meet the enemy, who were already dashing into the lagoon.

Cloud watched pure carnage. He hoped—yes, there they were! The loyalists, seeing that their cause was not lost, after all, had armed themselves and were smashing into the fray.

The Blaster broke out his flitter then, set it down near the vortex, and made his observations. Everything was normal. He

selected three bombs from his vast stock, loaded them into the tubes, and lofted. He set his screens, adjusted his goggles, and waited; while far above him and wide around him his guardian Dhilian war-vessels toured watchfully, their drumming blasts a reassuring thunder.

He waited, eyeing the sigma curve as it flowed backward from the recording pen, until he got a ten-second prediction. He shot the flitter forward, solving instantaneously the problems of velocity and trajectory. At exactly the correct instant he released a bomb. He cut his drive and went free.

The bomb sped truly, striking the vortex dead center. It penetrated deeply enough. The carefully-weighed charge of duodec exploded; its energy and that of the vortex combining in a detonation whose like no inhabitant of that solar system had ever even dimly imagined.

The noxious gases and the pall of smoke and pulverized debris blew aside; the frightful waves of lava quieted down. The vortex was out and would remain out. The Blaster drove back to the cruiser and put his flitter away.

'Oh—you did it! Thanks! I didn't believe that you—that anybody—really could!' Luda was almost hysterical in her joyous relief.

'Nothing to it,' Cloud deprecated. 'How are you doing on the mopping up?"

'Practically clean,' Luda answered, grimly. 'We now know who is who. Those who fought against us or who did not fight for us are, or very soon will be, dead. But the Nhalian fleet comes. Does yours? Ours takes off in moments.'

'Wait a minute!' Cloud sat down at his plate, made observations and measurements, calculated mentally. He turned on his communicator and conferred briefly.

'The Nhalian fleet will be here in seven hours and eighteen minutes. If your people go out to meet them it will mean a war that not even the Patrol can stop without destroying most of the ships and men both of you have in space. The Patrol task force will arrive in seven hours and thirty one minutes. Therefore, I suggest that you hold your fleet here, in formation but quiescent, under instructions not to move until you order them to, while you and I go out and see if we can't stop the Nhalians.'

'Stop them!' Luda's thought was not at all ladylike. 'What with, pray?'

'I don't know,' Cloud confessed, 'but it wouldn't do any harm to try, would it?"

'Probably not. We'll try.'

All the way out Cloud pondered ways and means. As they neared the onrushing fleet he thought at Luda:

'Darjeeb is undoubtedly with that fleet. He knows that this is the only inertialess ship in this part of space. He wants it more than anything else in the universe. Now if we could only make him listen to reason ... if we could make him see ...'

He broke off. No soap. You couldn't explain 'green' to a man born blind. These folks didn't know and wouldn't believe what real fire-power was. The weakest vessel in this oncoming task-force could blast both of these boneheads' fleets into a radiant gas in fifteen seconds flat—and the superdreadnoughts' primaries would be starkly incredible to both Luda and Darjeeb. They simply had to be seen in action to be believed; and then it would be too late.

These people didn't stand the chance of a bug under a sledgehammer, but they'd have to be killed before they'd believe it. A damned shame, too. The joy, the satisfaction, the real achievement possible only through cooperation with each other and with the millions of races of Galactic Civilization—if there were only some means of making them believe ...

'We—and they—do believe,' Luda broke into his somber musings.

'Huh? What? You do? You were listening?'

'Certainly. At your first thought I put myself en rapport with Darjeeb, and he and our peoples listened to your thoughts.'

'But... you really believe me?'

'We all believe. Some will cooperate, however, only as far as it will serve their own ends to do so. Your Lensmen will undoubtedly have to kill that insect Darjeeb and others of his kind in the interest of lasting peace.'

The insulted Nhalian drove in a protesting thought, but Luda ignored it and went on:

'You think, then, Tellurian, that your Lensmen can cope with even such as Darjeeb of Nhal?'

'I'll say they can!'

'It is well, then. Come aboard, Darjeeb—unarmed and un-armored, as I am—and we will together go to confer with these visiting Lensmen of Galactic Civilization. It is understood that

there will be no warfare until our return.'

'Holy Klono!' Cloud gasped. 'He wouldn't do that, would he?'

'Certainly.' Luda was surprised at the question. 'Although he is an insect, and morally and ethically beneath contempt, he is, after all, a reasoning being.'

'QX.' Cloud was dumbfounded, but tried manfully not to show it.

Darjeeb came aboard. He was heavily bandaged and most of his hands were useless, but he seemed to bear no ill-will. Cloud gave orders; the ship flashed away to meet the Patrolmen.

The conference was held. The boneheads, after being taken through a superdreadnought and through a library by Lensmen as telepathic as themselves, capitulated to Civilization immediately and whole-heartedly.

'You won't need me any more, will you, admiral?' Cloud asked then.

'I don't think so—no. Nice job, Cloud.'

'Thanks. I'll be on my way, then; the people I picked up must be off my ship by this time. Clear ether.'

7: The Blaster Acquires a Crew

Cloud, returning to his cruiser, found that most of his shipwrecked passengers had departed. Five of them, however—the two Chickladorians, the Manarkan, the squatty, and the Vegian —were still on board. Thlaskin, now back to normal, came to attention and saluted crisply; the women bowed or nodded and looked at him with varying degrees of interrogation.

'How come, Thlaskin? I thought all the passengers were going back with the task-force."

'They are, boss. They've gone. We followed your orders, boss—chivied 'em off. I checked with the flagship about more crew besides us, and he says QX. Just tell me how many you want of what, and I'll get 'em.'

'I don't want anybody!' Cloud snapped. 'Not even you. Not any of you.'

'Jet back, boss!' Spaceal was a simple language, and inherently slangy and profane, but there was no doubt as to the intensity of the pilot's feelings. 'I don't know why you were running this heap alone, or how long, but I got a couple questions to ask. Do you know just how many million ways these goddam automatics can go haywire in? Do you know what to do about half of 'em when they do? Or are you just simply completely nuts?'

'No. Not too much. I don't think so.' As he answered the three questions in order Cloud's mind flashed back to what Phil Strong and several other men had tried so heatedly to impress upon him—the stupidity, the lunacy, the sheer, stark idiocy of a man of his training trying to go it solo in deep space. How did one say 'You have a point there, but before I make such a momentous decision we should explore the various possibilities of what is a completely unexpected development' in spaceal? One didn't! Instead:

'Maybe QX, maybe not. We'll talk it over. Tell the Manarkan to try to work me direct—maybe I can receive her now, after working the boneheads.'

She could. Communication was not, perhaps, as clear as between two Manarkans or two Lensmen, but it was clear enough.

'You wish to know why I have included myself in your crew,'

the white-swathed girl began, as soon as communication was established. 'It is the law. This vessel, the Vortex Blaster I, of Earth registry, belonging to the Galactic Patrol, is of a tonnage which obligates it to carry a medical doctor; or, in and for the duration of an emergency only, a registered graduate nurse. I am both R.N. and M.D. If you prefer to employ some other nursing doctor or doctor and nurse that is of course your right; but I can not and will not leave this ship until I am replaced by competent personnel. If I did such a thing I would be disgraced for life.'

'But I haven't got a payroll—I never have had one!' Cloud protested.

'Don't quibble, please. It is also the law that any master or acting master of any ship of this tonnage is authorized to employ for his owner—in this case the Galactic Patrol—whatever personnel is necessary, whenever necessary, at his discretion. With or without pay, however, I stay on until replaced.' 'But I don't need a doctor—or a nurse, either!' 'Personally, now, no,' she conceded, equably enough. 'I checked into that. As the chief of your great laboratory quoted to you, "This too, shall pass." It is passing. But you must have a crew; and any member of it, or you yourself, may require medical or surgical attention at any time. The only question, then, is whether or not you wish to replace me. Would you like to examine my credentials?'

'No. Having been en rapport with your mind, it is not necessary. But are you, after your position aboard the ship which was lost, interested in such a small job as this?' 'I would like it very much, I'm sure.'

'Very well. If any of them stay, you can—at the same pay you were getting.'

'Now, Thlaskin, the Vegian. No, hold it! We've got to have something better than spaceal, and a lot of Vegians go in for languages in a big way. She may know English or Spanish, since Vegia is one of Tellus' next-door neighbors. I'll try her myself.'

Then, to the girl, 'Do you speak English, miss?' 'No, eggzept in glimzzez only,' came the startling reply. 'Two Galactic Zdandard yearzz be pazz—come? Go?—'ere I mazzter zhe, zo perverze mood and tenze. Zhe izz zo difficult and abzdruze.'

Switching to Galactic Spanish, which language was threatening to become the common tongue of Galactic Civilization, she went on:

'But I heard you say "Zbanidge." I know Galactic Spanish very well. I speak it well, too, except for the sounds of "ezz" and "zeta," which all we Vegians must make too hard—z-z-z, zo. One hears that nearly all educated Tellurians have the Spanish, and you are educated, of a certainty. You speak it, no?'

'Practically as well as I do English.' Cloud made relieved reply. 'You have very little accent, and that little is charming. My name is Neal Cloud. May I ask yours?'

'Neelcloud? I greet you. Mine is Vezzptkn ... but no, you couldn't pronounce it. "Vezzta," it would have to be in your tongue.'

'QX. We have a name very close to that—Vesta.'

'That's exactly what I said—Vezz-ta.'

'Oh—excuse me, please. You were talking to this lady— Tomingan, she said? What language were you using?'

'Fourth-continent Tomingan, Middle Plateau dialect. Hers. She was an engineer in a big power plant on Manarka, is how she came to learn their sign language. Tomingans don't go in for linguistics much.'

'And you very evidently do. How many languages do you know, young lady?'

'Only fifty so far—plus their dialects, of course. I'm only halfway to my Master of Languages degree. Fifty more to learn yet, including your cursed Englidge. P-f-z-t-k.' Vesta wrinkled her nose, bared her teeth, and emitted a noise very similar to that made by an alley cat upon meeting a strange dog. 'I don't know whether spaceal will count for credit or not, but I'm going to learn it anyway.'

'Nice going, Vesta. Now, why did you appoint yourself a member of this party?'

'I wanted to go, and since I can't pay fare ...'

'You wouldn't have had to!' Cloud interrupted. 'If you lost your money aboard that ship, the Patrol would take you anywhere ...'

'Oh, I didn't mean that? She dipped into her belt-bag and held out for the man's inspection a book of Travelers' Cheques good for fifty thousand G-P credits! 'I wanted to continue with you, and I knew this wasn't a passenger ship. I can be useful—

who do you think lined up that translation relay?—and besides, I can work. I can cook—keep house—and I can learn any other job fast. You believe me?'

Cloud looked at her. She was as tall as he was, and heavier; stronger and faster. 'Yes, you can work, if you want to, and I think you would. But you haven't said why you want to go along.'

'Mostly because it's the best chance I'll ever have to learn English. I went to Tellus once before to learn it—but there are too many Vegians there. Young Vegians, like me, like to play too much. You know?'

'I've heard so. But teachers, courses ...?'

'I need neither teachers nor courses. What I need is what you have in your library—solid English.'

'QX. I'll reserve judgment on you, too. Now let's hear what the Tomingan has to say What's her name'}'

'You'd be surprised!' Vesta giggled in glee. 'Literally translated, it's "Little flower of spring, dwelling bashfully by the brook's damply sweet brink." And that's an exact transliteration, so help me—believe it or not!'

'I'll take your word for it. What shall we call her?'

'Urn ... m ... "Tommie" would be as good as anything, I guess.'

'QX. Tommie of Tominga. Ask her why she thinks she has to be a member of our crew.'

'Who else do you have who can repair one of your big atomic engines if it lets go?' came the answering question, in Vesta's flawlessly idiomatic Galactic Spanish.

Cloud was amazed at Tommie's changed appearance. She was powdered, perfumed, and painted: and made up to the gills. Her heavy blonde hair was elaborately waved. If it wasn't for her diesel-truck build, Cloud thought—and for the long black Venerian cigar she was smoking with such evident relish —she'd be a knockout on anybody's tri-di screen!

'I can.' The profoundly deep, but pleasantly and musically resonant voice went on; the fluent translation continued. 'What I don't know about atomic engines hasn't been found out yet. I don't know much about Bergenholms and a couple of other things pertaining solely to flight, and I don't know anything about communicators or detectors, which aren't engineers' business. I've laid in a complete supply of atomic service manuals

for class S-C ships, and I tell you this—if anything with a motor or an engine in it aboard this vessel ever has run, I can take it apart and put it back together so it'll run again. And by the way, you didn't have half enough spare parts aboard, but you have now. Besides, you might need somebody to really swing that axe of yours, some day.'

Cloud studied the Tomingan narrowly. She wasn't bragging, he decided finally. She was simply voicing what to her were simple truths.

'Your arguments have weight. Why do you want the job?'

'Several reasons. I've never done anything like this before, and it'll be fun. Main reason, though, is that I think I'll be able to talk you into doing a job on Tominga that has needed doing for a long time. I was a passenger, not an officer, on my way to talk to a party about ways of getting it done. You changed my mind. You and I, with some others who'll be glad to help, will be able to do it better.'

Tommie volunteered no more information, and Cloud asked no more questions. Explanation would probably take more time than could be spared.

'Now you, Thlaskin,' the Blaster said in spaceal. 'What have you got to say for yourself?'

'You've got me on a hell of a spot, boss,' the pilot admitted, ruefully. 'You've got to have a pilot, no question about that. You already know I'm one. I know automatics, and communicators, and detectors—the works. Ordinarily I'd say you'd have to have me. But this ain't a regular case. I wasn't a pilot on the heap that got knocked out of the ether, but a passenger. Malu-leme—she's my ... say, ain't there no word for ...'

He broke off and spoke rapidly to his wife, who relayed it to Vesta.

'They're newlyweds,' the Vegian translated. 'He was off duty and they were on their honeymoon ...'

Vesta's wonderfully expressive face softened, saddened. She appeared about to cry. 'I wish I were old enough to be a newly-wed,' she said, plaintively.

'Huh? Aren't you?' the Blaster demanded. 'You look old enough to me.'

'Oh, I'm as big as I ever will be, and I won't change outside. It's inside. About half a year yet. But she's saying—

'We know that pilots on duty, in regular service, can't have

their wives aboard. But this isn't a regular run, I know, so couldn't you—just this once—keep Thlaskin on as pilot and let me come too? Please, Mr. Neelcloud—she didn't know your name, but asked me to put it in—I can work my way. I'll do any of the jobs nobody else wants to do—I'll do anything, Mr. Neelcloud!'

The pink girl jumped up and took Cloud's left hand in both her own. Simultaneously Vesta took his right hand in her left, brought it up to her face, and laid the the incredibly downy softness of her cheek against the five-hour bristles of his; sounding the while a soft, low-pitched but unmistakable purr!

'Just this once wouldn't do any harm, would it, Captain Neelcloud?' Vesta purred. 'You zmell zo wonderful, and she zmells nice, too. Pleeze keep her on!'

'QX. You win!' The Blaster pulled himself loose from the two too-demonstrative females and addressed the group at large. 'I think I ought to have my head examined, but I'm signing all of you on as crew. But nobody else. I'll get the book.'

He got it. He signed them on. Chief Pilot Thlaskin. Chief Engineer Tommie. Linguist Vesta. Doctor ... what? He tried to call her attention by thinking at her, but couldn't. Then, through Vesta: Manarkans didn't have names, but were known by their personality patterns. Didn't they sign something to documents? No, they used finger-prints only, without signatures.

'But we've got to have something we can put in the book!' Cloud protested. 'Tell her to pick one.'

'No preference,' Vesta reported. 'I'm to do it. I knew a lovely Tellurian named "Nadinevandereckelberg" once. Let's call her that?'

'Nadine van der Eckelberg? Better not. Not common enough —there might be repercussions. We can use part of it, though. "Nadine", bracketed with her prints ..'. there. Now how about Maluleme?' He turned to the 'Classification' listing and frowned. 'What to class her as I'll never know. She's got just about as much business aboard this bucket as I would have in a sultan's harem.'

'You might find quite a lot—and that I'd like to see!' Vesta snickered. 'But look under 'Mizzelaneouz", there."

Her stiff, sharp fingernail ran down the column almost to the end. '"Zupercargo"? We have no cargo. "Zupernumerary"?

That's it! See? I read: "Zupernumerary—Perzonnel beyond the nezezzary or uzhual; ezpedjially thoze employed not for regular zervize, but only to fill the plazez of otherz in caze of need." Perfect!'

'Whose place could she fill?'

'The cook's—if the automatics break down,' Vesta explained, gleefully. 'She says she can really cook—so even if they didn't break down she can tape lots of nice things to eat that aren't in your kitchen banks.'

'Could be. I can get away with that. "Supernumerary (cook 1/c) Maluleme" and her prints ... there. Now we're organized —let's flit. Ready, Thlaskin?'

•Ready, sir,' and the good ship Vortex Blaster I took off.

'Now, Vesta, I s'pose you've all picked out your cabins and got located?'

'Yes, sir,'

'QX. Tell 'em all, except Tommie, to go and do whatever they think they ought to be doing. Tell Tommie to sit down at the chart-table. We'll join her. I want to find out what she's got on her mind.'

Pulling a chart and rolling it out flat on the table, Cloud went on: 'We're in this unexplored region, here, about thirty two dash twenty five.* We're headed for Nixson II, about sixty one dash forty six."

'Nixson? Why, that's only three thousand parsecs—a day and a half, say—from Tominga, where I want you to go!' Tommie exclaimed.

'Check. That's why I'm going to listen to what you have to say. We can pick Manarka up—sixty five dash thirty five, here; they've got two really bad ones—on the way back. It's a long flit to Chickladoria—'way over there, one seventy seven dash thirty four—but I've got to go there pretty quick, anyway. It's way up on the A list. So, Tommie, start talking.'

The run to Nixson II was uneventful, and Cloud rid that planet of its loose atomic vortices in a few hours. The cruiser then headed directly for Tominga, one man short, for Tommie

* Rough locations are expressed in degrees of galactic longitude and hundredths of the distance from Centralia to the Arbitrary Rim of the galaxy. This convention ignores the galaxy's thickness and is used only in first approximations. E.E.S.

was not aboard.

'Now remember, no matter what happens, you don't know any one of us,' had been the Blaster's parting instructions to her. 'After we've checked in at the hotel we'll meet in the lobby. Be sure you're sitting—or standing—some place where Vesta can pass a couple of words with you without anybody catching on. Check?'

'Check.'

8: Vesta the Vegian

Immediately after supper Cloud called Vesta and Nadine into his cabin.

'You first, Nadine.' He caught her eyes and stopped talking, but went on thinking. He was amazed at how easy it had been to learn the knack of telepathy with both Luda and the Manarkan. 'How did you make out with Tommie? Can't she read you at all?'

. 'Not at all. I can read her easily enough, but she can neither send nor receive.'

'How about Vesta, then? Any more progress?'

'No. Just like you. She learned very quickly to receive, but that is all. She cannot tune her mind; I have to do it all.' It also amazed the Blaster that, after learning one half of telepathy so easily, he had been unable even to get a start on the other half. 'We might try it again, though, all three of us together?'

They tried, but it was no use. Think as they would, of even the simplest things—squares, crosses, triangles, and circles— staring eye to eye and even holding hands, neither the Blaster nor the Vegian could touch the other's mind. Nor could the Manarkan tell them or show them what to do.

'Well, that's out, then.' Cloud frowned in concentration, the fingers of his left hand drumming almost soundlessly on the table's plastic top. 'Nadine, you can't send simultaneously to both Vesta and me, because we can't tune ourselves into resonance with you, as a real telepath could. However, could you read me and send my thoughts to Vesta, and do it fast enough to keep up? As fast as I talk, say?'

'Oh, easily. I don't have to tune sharply to receive—unless there's a lot of interference, of course—and even then, Vesta can read my shorthand. She learned it before we met you.'

'Hm ... m. Interesting. Let's try it out. I'll think at you, you put it down in shorthand. You, Vesta, tape it in Spanish. Get your notebook and recorder .. ready? Let's go!'

There ensued a strange spectacle. Cloud, leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed, mumbled to himself in English, to slow his thoughts dow nto approximately two hundred words per minute. Nadine, paying no visible attention to the man, wrote

unhurried, smoothly-flowing—most of the time—symbols. Vesta, throat-mike in place and yellow-eyed gaze nailed to the pencil's point, kept pace effortlessly—most of the time.

'That's all. Play it back, Vesta. If you girls got half of that, you're good.'

The speaker came to life, giving voice to a completely detailed and extremely technical report on the extinction of an imaginary atomic vortex, and as the transcription proceeded Cloud's amazement deepened. It was evident, of course, that neither of the two translators knew anything at all about many of the scientific technicalities involved. Nevertheless the Manarkan had put down—and Vesta had recorded in good, idiomatic Galactic Spanish—an intelligent layman's idea of what it was that had been left out. That impromptu, completely unrehearsed report would have been fully informative to any expert of the Vortex Control Laboratory!

'Girls, you are good—very good.' Cloud paid deserved tribute to ability. 'First chance we get, I'll split a bottle of fayalin with you. Now we'd better hit the sack. We land early in the morning, and since we're going to stay here a while we'll have to go through quarantine and customs. So pack your bags and have 'em ready for inspection.'

They landed at the spaceport of Tommie's home town, which Cloud, after hearing Vesta's literal translation of its native name, had entered in his log as 'Mingia'. They passed their physicals and healths easily enough—the requirements for leaving a planet of warm-blooded oxygen-breathers are so severe and so comprehensive that the matter of landing on a similar one is always a matter of simple routine.

'Manarkan doctors we know of old; you are welcome indeed. We see very few Tellurians or Vegians, but the standards of those worlds are. very high and we are glad to welcome you. But Chickladoria? I never heard of it—we've had no one from that planet since I took charge of this port of entry ...'

The Tomingan official punched buttons, gabbled briefly, and listened.

'Oh, yes. Excellent! The health, sanitation, and exit requirements of Chickladoria are approved by the Galactic Medical Society. We welcome you. You all may pass.'

They left the buildint? and boarded a copter for their hotel.

'... and part of its name is "Forget-me-not"! Isn't that a dilly

of a name for a hotel?' Vesta, who had been telepathing busily with Nadine, was giggling sunnily.

Suddenly, however, she stopped laughing and, eyes slitted, leaped for the door. Too late: the craft was already in the air.

'Do you know what that ... that clunker back there really thought of us?' she flared. 'That we're weak, skinny, insipid, underdeveloped little runts! By Zevz and Tlazz and Jadkptn, I'll show him—I'll take a tail-wrap around his neck and ...'

'Pipe down, Vesta—listen!' Cloud broke in sharply. 'You're smart enough to know better than to explode that way. For instance, you're stronger than I am, and faster—admitted. So what? I'm still your boss. And Tommie isn't, even though, as you ought to know by this time, she could pull your tail out by the roots and beat you to death with the butt end of it in thirty seconds flat.'

'Huh?' Vesta's towering rage subsided miraculously into surprised curiosity. 'But you're admitting it!' she marvelled. 'Even that / am stronger and faster than you are!'

'Certainly. Why not? Servos are faster still, and ordinary derricks are stronger. It's brains that count. I'd much rather have your linguistic ability than the speed and strength of a Valerian.'

'So would I, really,' Vesta purred. 'You're the nicest man!'

'So watch yourself, young lady,' Cloud went on evenly, 'and behave yourself. If you don't, important as you are to this project, I'll send you back to the ship in irons. That's a promise.'

'P-f-z-t-k!' Vesta fairly spat the expletive. Her first thought was sheer defiance, but under the Blaster's level stare she changed her mind visibly. 'I'll behave myself Captain Neel-cloud.'

'Thanks, Vesta. You'll be worth a whole platoon of Tomin-gans if you do.'

The copter landed on the flat roof of the hotel. The guests were registered and shown to their rooms. The Forget-Me-Not's air was hot and humid, and the visitors wore the only clothing to be seen. Nevertheless, Cloud was too squeamish to go all the way, so he still wore shorts and sandals, as well as the side-arm of his rank, when he went back up to the lobby to meet his crew.

Vesta, tail-tip waving gracefully a foot and a half above her head, was wearing only her sandals. Thlaskin wore shorts and space-boots. Maluleme had reduced her conventional forty one

square inches of covering to a daring twenty five—two narrow ribbons and a couple of jewels. Nadine, alone of them all, had made no concession to that stickily sweltering climate. She'd be disgraced for life, Cloud supposed, if she cut down by even one the hundreds of feet of white glamorette in which she was swathed. But Manarkans didn't sweat like Tellurians, he guessed—if they did, she'd either peel or smother before this job was over!

Cloud scanned the lobby carefully. Were they attracting too much attention? They were not. They had had to pose for Telenews shots, of course—the Chickladorians in particular had been held in the spots for all of five minutes—but that was all. Like any other space-port city, Mingia was used to outlandish forms of warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life. Not counting his own group, he could see members of four different non-Tomin-gan races, two of which were completely strange to him. And Tommie, standing alone in front of one of the row of shop-windows comprising one wall of the lobby—and very close to a mirrored pillar—was intently studying a tobacconist's display of domestic and imported cigars.

'QX,' the Blaster said then. 'We aren't kicking up any fuss. Do your stuff, Vesta.'

The girl sauntered over to the mirror, licked her forefinger, and began to smooth an imaginary roughness out of one perfect eyebrow. Thus, palm covering mouth—

'He still hangs out here, Tommie?'

'He eats supper here every night, in the same private room.' Tommie did not move or turn her head; her voice could not be heard three feet away.

'When he comes in, take one good look at him and think "This is the one"—Nadine'll take over from there. Then sneak down to the chief's suite and join us.'

Vesta, with a final approving pat at her sleek head, sauntered on; past a display of belt pouches in which she was not interested, pausing before one of ultra-fancy candies in which she very definitely was, and back to her own group.

'On the green,' she reported.

'Then I'll go about my business of getting things lined up to blow out vortices. You, Thlaskin and Maluleme, just run around and play. Act innocent—you're just atmosphere for now. Nadine

and Vesta, go down to my suite—here's a key—and get your recorder and stuff ready. I'll see you later.'

Cloud came back, however, rather sooner than he had intended.

'I didn't get far—I'll have to take you along if I want to get any business done,' he explained to Vesta. 'Up to now, I've got along very nicely with English, Spanish, and spaceal, but not here. We're a long ways from either Tellus or Vegia.'

'We are indeed. I don't know what they do use for an interstellar language here—I'll have to find out and see if I know it yet.' Vesta then switched to English. 'While we wait, do you mind if I zpeak at you in Englizh? And will you ztop me and correct, please, the errors I will make? My pronunziazion is getting better, but I still have much trouble with your irregular verbs and pronouns. I come, but I am not yet arrive.'

'I'll say you're better!' Cloud knew that she had been studying hard; studying with an intensity of concentration comparable only to that of a cat on duty at a mouse-hole; but he had expected no such progress as this. 'It's amazing—you have scarcely any more accent now in English than in Spanish. I'll be glad to coach you. What you just said was QX except for the last sentence. Idiomatically, you should have said "I'm coming along, but I'm not there yet",' and Cloud explained in detail. 'Now, for practice, brief me on this job we've got here.'

'Thankz a lot. Tommie's brother, whom we'll call Jim, runs a tobacco zhop here in town.' Cloud had had to explain what 'briefing' meant, and he corrected many slight errors which are not given here. 'A man who called himself "Number One" organized a Protective Azzoziazion. Anyone not joining, he zaid, would zuffer the conzequenzez of a looze atomic vortex in his power plant. When he zhowed he meant buzzinez by exploding one right where and when he zaid he would, many merchants joined and began to pay. Jim did not. Inztead, he ... I forget the idiom?'

' "Stalled." That means delayed, played for time.'

'Oh, yez. Jim ztalled, and Tommie went looking for help, knowing the government here thoroughly corrupt. Impozzible to alleviate intolerable zituazion.'

'What a vocabulary!'

'Iz wrong?' Vesta demanded.

'No, is right,' Cloud assured her. 'I was complimenting you,

young lady—you'll be teaching me English before this trip is over.'

The class in English Conversation went on until the Manar-kan warned its two participants to get ready; that Tommiej having identified the gangster, had left the lobby, had joined her brother, and was bringing him with her.

'Is that safe, do you think?' Vesta asked.

'For now, before anything starts, yes.' Cloud replied. 'After tonight, no.'

The Tomingans arrived; Vesta let them in and introduced Jim to Nadine and Cloud. The brother was taller, heavier, craggier than the sister; his cigar was longer, thicker, and blacker than hers. Otherwise, they were very much alike. Cloud waved them both into comfortable chairs, for there was no time for conversation. Nadine began to write; Vesta to record.

The Big Shot—Nadine took an instant to flash into Cloud's mind a very good picture of the fellow—was in his private room, but if a dinner were to be on the program it would be later. There were two men in the room; Number One and another man, whom he thought of and spoke to as 'Number Nine'. At present the affair was strictly business. Number Nine was handing money to Number One, who was making notes in a book. Twenty credits from Number Seventeen; 50 from No. 20; 25 from No. 26; 175 from No. 29; 19 credits—all he could raise— from No. 30; 125 from No. 31, and so on....

The gangsters thought that they were being very smart and cagey in using numbers instead of names, but neither had any idea of the power of a really good telepathic mind, or of that of a really good linguist. Each of those numbers meant something to either or to both of those men, and whatever it was—a name, a picture, a storefront or address, or a fleeting glimpse of personality pattern—Nadine seized and transmitted, either in shorthand or by force of mind, or both; and Vesta taped, in machine-gun-fast Spanish, every written word and every nuance of thought.

The list was long. At its end:

'Three more didn't pay up, huh? The same ones holding out as last time, and three more besides, huh?' This was Number One, thinking deeply. 'I don't like it ... Ninety Two, huh? I don't like it a bit—or him, either. I'll have to do something about him.'

'Yeah. Ninety Two. The others all give the same old tear-jerker that they didn't have it, that our assessments were too stiff for their take, and so on, but Ninety Two didn't, this time. He simply blew his top. He was hotter than the business end of a blow-torch.' Not much to Cloud's surprise, Nadine at this point poured into his mind the picture of excessively angry Jim. 'Not only he didn't fork over, he told me to tell you something.'

There was a long pause.

'Well, spill it!' Number One barked. 'What did he say?'

'Shall I give it to you straight boss, or maybe I better tone it down some?'

'Straight!'

'He said for you to go roast, for fourteen thousand years, in the hottest corner you can find of the hottest hell of Telemachia, and take your Srizonified association with you. Take your membership papers and stick 'em. Blow his place up and be damned to you, he says. If you kill him in the blast he's left stuff in a deposit box that'll blow all the Srizonified crooked politicians and lawmen in the Fourth Continent off their perches and down onto their Srizonified butts. An' if you don't get him, he says, he'll come after you with blasters in both hands. Make it plain, he says, that it's you he'll be after—not me. That's exactly what he told me to tell you, boss.'

'Me? ME?' Number One demanded. The towering rage, which he had been scarcely able to control, subsided into a warily intense speculation. 'How did he find out about me? Somebody'11 burn for this!'

'I dunno, boss, but it looks like you said a mouthful about having to do something about him. We got to make an example of somebody, boss—or else—in my book it'd better be 92. He's organizing, sure as hell, and if we don't knock him off it'll spread fast.'

'Hm ... m ... m. Yes, but just him personally, not his place. I'm not afraid of any evidence he can leave, of itself, but in connection with the other thing it might be bad. His place is too big; too centrally located. No matter what time of night it goes off it'll kill too many people and do too much damage. Yellow Castle might dump us instead of trying to ride out such a storm.' 'Yeah, they might, at that. Prob'ly would. And the do-gooders might get some of them Srizonified Lensmen in here besides. But an ordinary bomb would do the job.'

'No. Got to be a vortex. We promised 'em an atomic flare, so that's what it's got to be. It doesn't have to be 92, though. We can get away easy enough with killing a few people, so I'd say somebody in the outskirts—53 would be as good as any. So tell 53 his place gets it at midnight tomorrow night, and the fewer people in it the more will stay alive.'

'Check. And I'll take care of 92?'

'Of course. You don't have to be told every move to make.'

'Just wanted to make sure, is all. What do I do in the big fireworks?' It was clear that the underling was intensely curious about the phenomenon, but his curiosity was not to be satisfied.

'Nothing,' his chief informed him flatly. 'That isn't your dish. Now we'll eat.'

Number One stopped talking, but he did not stop thinking; and Nadine could read, and Vesta could transcribe, thoughts as well as words.

'Besides, it's about time for 31 to earn some of the credits we're paying him,' was the grimly savage thought.

This thought was accompanied by a picture, which Nadine spread in full in Cloud's mind. A tall, lean, gray Tellurian was aiming a mechanism—the details of which were so vague that it could have been anything from a vest-pocket flash-pencil up to a half-track mobile projector—at a power-plant, which immediately and enthusiastically went out of control in a blind-ingly incandescent flare of raw energy.

Fairchild!

Cloud's mind raced. That vortex on Deka hadn't been accidental, then, even though there had been no evidence—no suspicion—even the Lensmen hadn't guessed that the radiation-ist had been anything other than a very minor cog in Graves' thionite-producing machine! Nobody except Fairchild knew what he did or how he did it—the mob must have tried to find out, too, but he wouldn't give—but this stuff was very definitely for the future; not for now.

'QX, girls. A nice job—thanks,' he said. 'Now Vesta, please tape the actual facts and the actual words of the interview— none of the pictures or guesses—in Middle Plateau Tomingan. Wherever possible, bracket real names and addresses with the code numbers. Tommie and Jim can help you on that.'

She did so.

When the came to that part of the transcription dealing with

Number Ninety Two, Jim stiffened and swelled with rage.

'Ask him if that's an accurate report,' Cloud directed.

'It's accurate enough as far as it goes,' Jim boomed. His voice, deeper and louder than Tommie's, and not nearly as musical, almost shook the walls. 'But he left out half of it. What I really told him would have burned all the tape off that recorder.'

'But they left in that ... that awful one, three times.' Tommie, tough as she was, was shocked. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

'Srizonified?' Cloud whispered to Vesta. 'It sounded bad, but not that hot. It it?'

'Yes, the hottest in the language. I never saw it in print, and heard it only once, and that was by accident. Like most such things, though, it doesn't translate—"descended from countless generations of dwellers in stinking, unflowering mud" is as close as I can come to it in Spanish.'

'QX. Finish up the tape and make two copies of it.'

When the copies were ready Cloud handed them to Tommie.

'Tell him to take one of these down to the Tomingan equivalent of the D.A.'s office the first thing in the morning,' he instructed Vesta. 'The other ought to go to a big law firm—an honest one, if she knows of any. Now ask Jim what he thinks he's going to do.'

'I'm going to get a pair of blasters and ...'

'Yeah?' Cloud's biting monosyllable, so ably translated by the Vegian, stopped him in mid-sentence. 'What chance do you thing you stand of getting home tonight in one piece? Your copter is probably mined right now, and they've undoubtedly made arrangements to blast you if you leave here any other way, even on foot. If you want to stay alive, though, I've got a suggestion to make.'

'You may be right, sir.' Jim's bluster died away as he began really to think. 'Do you see a way out?'

'Yes. Ordinary citizens don't wear armor here, any more than anywhere else, so ordinary gangsters don't use semi-portables. So, when you leave here, go to Tommie's room instead of out. They'll lay for you, of course, but while they're waiting Tommie will go to our ship and bring back my G-P armor. You put it on, walk out openly and take a ground-car—not a copter—to the ship. If they know armor they won't shoot at you, because you could shoot back. When you get to the ship go in, lock the port

behind you, and stay there until I tell you to come out.'

Jim, influenced visibly by the pleasant possibility of shooting back, accepted the plan joyously; and, after making sure that there were no spies or spy-rays on watch, the two Tomingans left the room.

A few minutes later, with the same precaution, Vesta and the Manarkan went to their own rooms; but they were on hand again after breakfast next morning.

'You know, of course, that you have no evidence admissible in even an honest court,' Nadine began. 'You knew it when you changed your mind about having a Tomingan voice, not Vesta's, on those tapes.'

'Yes. Communicator-taps are out—violation of privacy.'

'Exactly. And telepathy is worse. Any attempt to introduce telepathic testimony, on almost any non-telephathic world, does more harm than good. So, beyond establishing the fact of guilt in your own mind—a fact already self-evident, since such outrages can happen only when both courts and police are corrupt from top to bottom—I fail to see what you hope to gain.'

'Wouldn't a Tomingan Lensman be interested?'

'There are none. There never have been any.'

'Well, then, I'll take it up myself, with..."

Cloud stopped in mid-thought. With whom? He could talk to Phil Strong, certainly, but he wouldn't get anywhere. He knew, as well as Nadine did, that the Galactic Patrol would not interfere with purely local politics unless something of inter-systemic scope was involved. The Galactic Council held, and probably rightly, that any people got the kind of local government they deserved. He certainly couldn't expect the Patrol to over-ride planetary sovereignty in regard to a thing that hadn't happened yet! ! He wrenched his mind away.

'Having any trouble following her, Nadine?' he asked.

'No. She's just leaving the fast-way now; going into his office.'

Thus, through Nadine, Cloud accompanied Tommie into the office of the District Attorney, saw her tender the spool of tape, heard her explain in stormy language what it was.

'How did you get hold of it?' the D.A. demanded.

'How do you suppose?' Tommie shot back. 'Do we have to come down to City Hall and take out a license to hang an ear onto such a stinking crumb, such a notorious mobster and general all-round heel as Number One is? Public Enemy Num-

ber One, it ought to be!'

'No, I wouldn't say that you would,' the politician soothed. He had been thinking fast. Til run this tape as soon as I can take a minute alone in my chambers, and I promise you full and fast action. They've gone too far, this time. Just what, specifically, do you want me to do?'

'I'm no lawyer, so I don't know who does what, but I want this Protective Association junked and I want those murderers arrested. Today.'

'Some of these matters lie outside the province of this office, but I can and will take initiatory steps. No one will be harmed, I assure you.'

Apparently satisfied, Tommie left the D.A.'s office, but Nadine did not leave the D.A.'s mind. This was what the Blaster was after!

Sure enough, as soon as Tommie was out of sight, the official dashed into his private office and called Number One.

'One, they hung an ear on you last night!' he exclaimed, as soon as connection was made. 'How come you didn't...'

'Horsefeathers!' the gangster snarled. 'Who d'ya think you're kidding?'

'But they did! I've got a copy of it right here.'

'Play it!'

The tape was played, and it was very clear that it was in no Tomingan's voice.

'No, it wasn't an ear,' the D.A. admitted.

'And I was blocked against spy-rays,' said Number One, 'so it must have been a snooper. A snooper with a voice. Manarkans are snoopers, but they can't talk. Most snoopers can't ... except maybe Ordoviks. There were a couple of them around last night. Can Ordoviks talk? And Chickladorians—are they snoopers?"

'I don't know.'

'I don't know either, but I'll find out, and when I do I'll go gunning.'

Tommie came back to Cloud's room and her serenity, skin-deep at best, vanished completely as the new tape was played.

'Condemn and blast that lying, slimy, two-faced, double-crossing snake!' she roared. Til call out the ...'

'You won't either—pipe down!' Cloud ordered, sharply. 'Mob rule never settled anything. That's what you expected, isn't it?'

'Well... more or less, I suppose ... yes.'

'QX We got something to work on now, but we need more, and we've got only today to get it Who's the crookedest judge in town—the one most apt to be in on this kind of deal?'

'Trellis. High Judge Rose Trellis of the Enchanting ...'

'Skip the embellishments. Take both of these tapes to Judge Trellis and insist on seeing him at once.'

'It isn't a him—she's a her.'

'Her, then. Make it snappy. And don't blow up if she gives you the brush-off. We're after data. And on your way back, pick up that newspaper editor and bring him along.'

9: Trouble on Tominga

Tommie left, accompanied mentally by Nadine, and reached the judge's antechamber; with Vesta taping in Middle-Plateau Tomingan everything that occurred. The approach was difficult, and Tommie's temper grew shorter and shorter.

'Get out of my way!' she bellowed finally at the sergeant-at-arms barring her way to the judicial Presence, in a voice that rattled the windows and was audible above four blocks of city traffic. 'Or shoot, if you want to get yourself and this building and half of Mingia blown clear up into the stratosphere! Jump! Before I take that blaster and shove it so far down your throat it'll hit day-before-yesterday's breakfast!'

The guard did not have quite enough nerve to shoot and Tommie almost wrenched the door of the judge's inner office off its hinges as she went in.

'What's this, pray? Get out! Sergeant-at...'

'Shut up, Rose Trellis of the Enchanting Vistas of Exotic Blooms—you're listening, not "talking. Here's two tapes of what Number One and his misbegotten scum have been doing. Play 'em! And then do something about 'em! And listen, you lying, double-crossing, back-biting slime-lizard!' Tommie's prettily-made-up face was in shocking contrast to the venomous fury in Tommie's eyes as she leaned over the judge's massive desk until nose was a scant ten inches from nose. 'If that atomic blast goes off tonight you and your whole Srizonified crew will wish to all your devils you'd never been born!'

Whirling around, Tommie strode out; nor did anyone attempt to stop her. No one knew what would happen if they did; and no one cared to find out.

Judge Trellis did not play the tapes. In panic fashion she called the District Attorney, who promptly made it a three-way with Number One. The three talked busily for minutes, then met in person, together with several lesser lights, in a heavily-guarded room. This conference, the subject matter of which was so obvious as to require no detailing here, went on for a long time.

So long, in fact, that Tommie and the newspaper man got back to Cloud's hotel room while Vesta was still taping a word-

by-word report of the proceedings. Tommie was subdued, almost apologetic.

'I know you told me not to blow up, Captain Cloud, but they made me so mad I couldn't help it.'

'In this case just as well you did; maybe better. You scared her into calling a meeting, and they've spilled every bean in the pot. We've got exactly what we wanted—enough to stop that gang right in its tracks. Now, as soon as the girls get the last of it, we'll let your editor in on it.'

It was soon over, and Cloud, after a quick run-down of the situation and a play-back of parts of the tapes for the newshawk's benefit, concluded:

'So, over the long pull, the issue isn't—can't be—in doubt. Public opinion will be aroused. There are honest judges, there are a lot of honest cops. At the next election this corrupt regime will be thrown out of office. However, that election is a year away, the present powers-that-be are all in the syndicate, and we must do something today to stop the destruction scheduled for tonight. Little Flower-and-so-on tells me that you're a crusading type, fighting a losing battle against this mob—that they've got you just about whipped—so I thought you would be interested in taking a slug at 'em by getting out an extra— strong enough to stir up enough public sentiment so they wouldn't dare go ahead. Would you like to do that?'

'Would I?' The newsman grinned wolfishly. 'I'll get out the extra, yes; but I'll do a lot more than that. I'll print a hundred thousand dodgers and drop 'em from copters. I'll have blimps dragging streamers all over the sky. I'll buy time on every radio and tri-di station in town—have the juiciest bits of these tapes broadcast, every hour on the hour. Mister, I'll tear this town wide open before sundown tonight!'

He left, breathing fire and sulphurous smoke, and Cloud made motions to attract the Manarkan's attention.

'Nadine? These Tomingans take things big, don't they? All to the good, with one exception—will any repercussions—flare-backs—hit you? Those characters are tough, and will be desperate, and I wouldn't want to put you in line with a blaster.'

TSTo ... almost certainly not,' Nadine replied, after a minute of thought. 'They are looking for a telepath with a voice, which they won't find on Tominga. They know Manarkans well— many of us live here permanently—and I'm quite sure that none

of the gang would suspect such an unheard-of thing as Vesta and I have been doing. They are not imaginative, and such a thing never happened before—not here, at least.' 'No? Why not? What's strange about it?' 'The whole situation is new—unique. This is probably the first time in history that these exact circumstances—especially in regard to personnel—have come together. Consider, please, the ingredients: a real and bitter grievance, victims willing and anxious to take drastic action, a sympathetic telepath who is also an expert in shorthand, a master linguist, and, above all, a director or programmer—you—both able and willing to fit the parts together so that they work.'

'Um ... m ... m. Never thought of it in that way. Could be, I guess. Well, all we can do now is wait and see what happens.'

They waited, and saw. The crusading editor did everything he had promised. The extra hit the streets, its headlines screaming 'CORRUPTION!' in the biggest type possible to use. The taped conversations, with names, amounts, times, and places, were printed in full. The accompanying editorial should have been written with sulphuric acid on asbestos paper. The leaflets, gaily littering the city, were even more vitriolic. Every hour, on the hour, speakers gave out what sound trucks were blaring continuously—irrefutable proof that the city of Mingia was being run by a corrupt, rotten, vicious machine.

Mingia's citizens responded, but not quite as enthusiastically as the Blaster, from his limited acquaintance with the breed, had expected. There was some organizing, some demonstrating; but there was also quite a lot of 'So what? If they don't, some other gang of politicians will.'

Cloud, however, when he went to his rooms after supper, was well pleased with what he had seen. They couldn't blast 53, not after the events of the afternoon. The Chickladorians and Vesta and Nadine, when they came in, agreed with him. The situation was under control. They were tired, they said. It had been a long, hard day, and they were going to hit the sack. They left.

Cloud intended to stay awake until midnight, just to see what would happen, but he didn't. He was tired, too, and within a couple of minutes after he relaxed, alone, he was sound asleep in his chair.

Thus he did not hear the vicious thunder-clap of the atomic explosion at midnight; did not see the reflected brilliance of its

glare. Nor did he hear the hurrying footsteps in the hotel's corridors. What woke him up was the concussion that jarred the whole neighborhood when a half-ton bomb demolished the building which had been Number One's headquarters.

Cloud jumped up, then, and ran out into the hall and along it to Vesta's room. He pounded. No answer. The door was unlocked. He opened it. Vesta was not there!

Nadine was gone, too. So were the Chickladorians.

He rushed up to the lobby, only to encounter again the difficulty that had stopped him short before. He could not make himself understood! He didn't know three words of Upper Plateau, and nobody he could find knew even one word of English, Spanish, spaceal, or any other language at his command.

He took an elevator down to the street level and flagged a cruising cab. He handed the driver the largest Tomingan bill he had; then, pointing straight ahead and making furious pushing motions, he made it plain that he knew were he wanted to go, and wanted to get there in a hurry. The hacker, stimulated by more cash than he had seen for a week, drove wherever Cloud pointed; and broke—or at least bent—most of Mingia's speed-laws in his eagerness to oblige.

Cloud's destination, of course, was the space-port; but when he got to the Vortex Blaster I, Jim wasn't there any more. None of his crew was aboard, either. The lifeboats were all in place, but the flitter was gone. So were both suits of armor—and the semi-portables—and the spare DeLameters—and both needles —even his space-hatchet!

He went up to the control room and glanced over the board. Everything was on zero except one meter, which was grazing the red. All four semis and both needles were running wide open—pulling every watt they could possibly draw!

Angry as he was, Cloud did not think of cutting the circuit. If he had thought of it he wouldn't have done it. He didn't know exactly what his officers were doing, of course, but he could do a shrewd job of guessing. If he had known what they were up to he wouldn't have permitted it, but it was too late to do anything about it now. With those terrific weapons in operation they might get back alive—without them, they certainly would not. What a land-office business those semis were doing!

They were.

Tommie and her brother, wearing Cloud's two suits of armor,

were each carrying a semi-portable; wielding it, if not as easily as an Earthly gunner wields a sub-machine-gun, much more effectively. They were burning down a thick steel door. Well behind them, the third semi was bathing the whole front of the building in a blinding glare of radiance. In back, the fourth was doing the same to the rear wall. On the sides, the two needle-beams were darting from window to window, burning to a crisp any gangster gunner daring to show his head to aim.

For the Tomingans had not been nearly as optimistic as had Cloud, and they had made complete preparation for reprisal in case Number One should make good his threat. The Manarkan had been willing to cooperate. Thlaskin, ditto. Vesta had been quiveringly eager. Maluleme had gone along. They had not mutinied—they simply did not tell Cloud a thing about what they were going to do.

Number One had not been in his headquarters, of course, when that thousand-pound bomb let go. He thought himself safe—but he wasn't. Nadine the telepath knew exactly where he was and exactly what he was doing. Vesta the linguist poured the information along, via the Hitter's broadcaster, to the receivers of hundreds of ground-cars and copters far below. Thlaskin the Master Pilot kept the flitter close enough to the fleeing Number One so that Nadine could read him—fully, she thought—but far enough away to avoid detection. Thus, where-ever he went, Number One was pursued relentlessly, and his merciless pursuers closed in faster and faster.

Number One's flight, however, was not aimless. He knew that a snooper was on him, and had enough power of mind to shield a few highly important thoughts. He wasn't really THE Big Shot. He had called Yellow Castle, though, and they had told him that he could come in in one hour—the army would be ready. But did he have an hour, or not?

He did; just barely. The saps were snapping at his heels when he switched to a jet job and took off in a screaming straight line for the Castle.

Vesta wanted to ram him, to drop a lifeboat on him, to wreck him in any way possible; but Thlaskin refused. Captain Cloud would be mad enough at what they'd done already—any such rought stuff as that would be altogether too damn much! And, since the rebel jets were still on the ground, Number One had reached sanctuary unharmed.

Yellow Castle, however, was not as impregnable as the gangsters had supposed. They had armor, true, but it was not at all like Cloud's. They had weapons, true, but nothing even faintly resembling the frightful semi-portable projectors of the Galactic Patrol—nothing even remotely approaching the Patrol's beam-fed needle beams.

Thus the Tomingans, Tommie and Jim, stood in armor of proof scarcely an arm's length from Yellow Castle's heavy steel door and burned it down into a brooklet of molten metal. Then on in; blasting down everything that resisted and, finally, everything that moved. Nor did any gangster escape. Those who managed to avoid the armored pair were blasted by one of the other semis or speared by one of the needles.

Yellow Castle, already furiously ablaze, was left to burn. Jim, after giving instructions as to how his lieutenants were to dispose of such small fry as might be left alive in the city proper, helped his sister load the Blaster's weapons and armor into a ground car. They drove out into the middle of a great open field. The flitter landed; Cloud's borrowed equipment was hauled aboard. Tommie and Jim followed it.

'If you were really smart, I think you'd flit right now,' Vesta said to Tommie. 'Captain Cloud isn't going to like this a little bit.'

'I know it. I'm not smart. This was worth anything he cares to do about it. Besides, I want to thank him myself and tell him goodbye in person.'

The flitter took off and returned to her mother-ship. Tommie and Thlaskin put her away, then the peculiarly assorted six went up to the control room and faced the quietly seething Tellurian.

Not boldly—only Tommie and Nadine were really at ease. Jim was defiant. Thlaskin was nervous and apprehensive; Malu-leme was just plain scared. So was Vesta—her tail drooped to the floor; she seemed to have shrunk to four-fifths her normal size; her usual free-swinging, buoyant gait had changed almost to a slink.

Cloud stared at Nadine—chill, stern, aloof; an up-to-date Joan of Arc or a veritable destroying angel—nodded at her to synchronize with his mind. She did so, and her mind bore out everything implied by her attitude and expression. She was outraged to her innermost fiber by the conditions she had just

helped to correct.

'You were the prime operator in this thing,' he thought, flatly. 'With your knowledge of law and your supposed respect for it, how could you take it into your own hands? Become part of a law-breaking mob?"

'It was necessary. Law in Mingia was shackled—completely inoperative. We freed it."

'By murder?'

'It was not murder. The lives of all who were killed were already forfeit. The corrupt judges, officials, and police officers will be dealt with by Mingian law, now again operative. Of all your crew, only Tommie could by any chance have been taken or recognized. If our coup had failed, she and Jim would have been shot without trial. Since we succeeded, however, Tommie was not recognized, being in your armor, and Jim is now Mingia's hero. He is also the new Commissioner of Police. Hence, aside from breaking local laws—which, as I have explained, do not count—we are guilty only of unauthorized use of Patrol equipment."

'Huh? How about interfering in planetary affairs, the worst in the book? And revealing Stage Ten stuff to a Stage Eight planet?"

'You are wrong on both counts,' Nadine informed him. 'We were on shore leave—that fact is in the log. We volunteered, purely as individuals, for one day of service in the Underground. This procedure, while of course forbidden to armed personnel of the Patrol, is perfectly legal to its civilian employees. A special ruling would have to be made to cover this particular incident, and no ex post facto penalties could be imposed.'

'That's quibbling if I ever heard any, but you're probably right—legally—at that. But how do you wiggle out of the "revealing" charge?'

'In the specific meaning of the word, as denned by the highest courts, nothing was revealed. Weapons and armor were seen, of course; but they have been seen on Tominga before. Nothing new was learned; hence there was no revealment. And as for Jim's leaving the ship against your orders, you had no right to issue such orders in the first place.'

Still seething, but on a considerably lower level, Cloud pondered. It wasn't murder—nobody would or could call it that. 'Extermination' would be more like it—or 'justifiable germicide'.

She was probably right on the rest of it, too. Even though he was, by virtue of being the captain of the Vortex Blaster I, an officer of the Patrol—strictly speaking a commander, not a captain—there wasn't a thing in the world he could do about it.

Nadine had been keeping Vesta posted; and the latter, recovering miraculously her wonted spirit and with tail again aloft, was passing the good news along to the others.

'Don't get too cocky, sister!' Tommie advised her sharply. 'Not yet, anyway.'

'Huh?' Vesta's tail dropped to half-mast. 'Why not?'

'You just said she pleaded guilty for all of us to unauthorized use of Patrol equipment. For what we really did that's certainly a featherweight plea—if I ever get into a real jam I certainly want her for my lawyer—but he can make it plenty tough for us if he wants to.'

'I got a question to ask, boss,' Thlaskin put in, before Cloud said anything. 'You got a license to be sore as hell, no argument about that, but I ask you—are you sore mostly because we took the stuff or because we didn't let you in on it? We couldn't do that, boss, and you know why.'

Cloud did know why. The pilot had put his finger right on the sore spot, and the Blaster was honest enough to admit it.

'That's it, I guess.' He grinned wryly.

Tommie, who had been whispering to Vesta, asked: 'You got back here while we were still sucking juice, didn't you?'

'Yes, and as Nadine will undoubtedly point out if I don't, that fact makes me an accomplice for not pulling the switches on you. So, already being an accessory during and after the fact, I may as well go the route. If any of us gets hauled up, we all do.'

'No fear of that,' Tommie assured him. 'One thing Tomin-gans are good at is keeping their mouths shut. Maluleme and Vesta will spill everything they know, and brag about it sooner or later,' The Vegian did not relish translating this passage, but she did so, and accurately, nevertheless, 'but that won't do any harm. It's you that's in the driver's seat. You could've nailed us all to the cross if you liked, and I for one didn't expect to get off easy. Thanks. I'll remember this. So will everybody else who knows. You're washing me out, of course?'

'Not unless you want to stay here on Tominga. You're a good engineer, and I can't picture this as happening again, can you?'

'Hardly. I like this better than stationary work. Thanks again,, chief. My brother wants to thank you, too.'

After the sincerely grateful and appreciative Tomingan had gone, Cloud said:

'Vesta and Maluleme—if Tommie was right about you two having to talk, make a note of this. Don't do it as long as you're members of this crew. If you do, I'll fire you the second I find out about it. Now everybody—as far as I'm concerned none of this ever happened. We came here to blow out vortices and that's all we did. We'll go back to the hotel, get a few hours sleep and . . .'

The long-range communicator, silent for weeks, came suddenly to life in English.

'Calling space-ship Vortex Blaster One, Commander Neal Cloud. Acknowledge, please. Calling space-ship Vortex Blaster One . . :

'Space-ship Vortex Blaster One acknowledging.' The detector-coupled projector had swung into exact alignment. 'Commander Cloud speaking.'

'Space-ship YB216P9, of First Continent, Tominga, relaying message from Philip Strong of Tellus. Will you accept message?"

'Will accept message. Ready.'

'Begin message. Report in person as soon as convenient. Answer expected. End message. Signed Philip Strong. Repeat, please. We will relay reply.'

Cloud repeated. Then: 'Reply. To Philip Strong, Vortex Control Laboratory, Tellus. Begin message. Remess. Will leave Manarka fourteenth Sol for Tellus. End of message. Signed Neal Cloud. Repeat, please."

That done, he turned to his crew. 'Now we'll have to go to work!'

With Vesta to translate, two days sufficed to rid Tominga of her loose atomic vortices; and no one so much as suspected that the Patrol ship or any of its crew had had anything to do with the upheaval in Mingia.

The trip to Manarka, a two-day flit, was uneventful. So was the extinguishment of Manarka's vortices.

When the job was done, Nadine's mind and Cloud's met briefly. No direct reference was made to the unpleasantness on Tominga, nor to their somewhat variant ideas concerning it. Nadine wanted to stay on. She liked the job and she liked

Cloud. He was somewhat impractical and visionary, a bit too idealistic in his outlook at times; but a strong and able man and a top-bracket commander, nevertheless.

And the Manarkan, in Cloud's mind, was not only a top-bracket medico, but also a very handy hand to have around.

On the fourteenth of Sol, then, the good ship Vortex Blaster I took off for Tellus, with Cloud wondering more than a little as to what was in the wind. He wasn't the type to be unduly perturbed about being called up on the carpet per se; but Phil didn't go in for mystery much—he explained things ... He couldn't possibly know anything about that Mingian business so soon ... and he was going to tell him all about it anyway ...

There was plenty of Laboratory business that shouldn't be relayed all over space, and this was undoubtedly some of it. Whatever it was, it'd have to keep until he got to Tellus, anyway, so he'd forget it until then.

But he didn't.

100

10: Janowick

Back on Tellus, Cloud took a fast copter to the Vortex Control Laboratory, still wondering what it was all about.

'Go right in, Dr Cloud," Strong's secretary told him, even before he stopped at her desk. 'He's been gnawing his nails ever since you landed.'

Cloud went in. The Lensman was not alone; a woman who had been seated beside the desk was now standing, studying him eagerly.

'Hi, Phil,' the Blaster said. 'Why all the haste, and why so cryptic? I've been wondering if you found where I hid the body—and which body it was.'

'Hi, Storm. Nothing like that!' Strong laughed. 'Doctor Janowick, Doctor Cloud—or rather, Joan, this is Storm. You know all about him that anybody does.'

They shook hands, Cloud wondering all the more, and as he wondered he studied the woman, just as she was studying him.

Janowick? Janowick! He'd never heard of any female Janowick, so she couldn't be anybody much in nucleonics. Not exactly fat, but definitely on the plump side. About a hundred and thirty five pounds, he guessed; and about five feet two. About his own age—no, a bit younger, thirty-some, probably. Brown hair, with a few white ones showing; wide-spaced gray eyes—slightly myopic, by the looks of her pixeyish, you-be-damned spectacles. Smart and keen—all in all, a prime number.

'This is why I pulled you in, Storm,' the Lensman went on. 'As you know, we've been combing all Civilization, trying to find somebody—anybody—with enough of the right qualities. She's it. Head of the Department of Semantics at the Galactic Institute for Advanced Study. Doctor of Semantics, Ph.D in cybernetics, D,Sc. in symbolic logic, and so on for half the alphabet. She is also a very good self-made telepath, and the only self-made per-ceiver I ever heard of. She's very good at that, too—she can outrange a Rigellian. And besides all that, she's a Past Grand Master at chess.'

'Past Grand Master? Oh, I see—— I don't suppose it would be quite de rigueur for a top-bracket telepath to win all the Grand Masters' championships. Also, in view of the perception

101

business, I imagine all this is more than somewhat hush-hush?'

'Very much so. A few Lensmen and now you are all who are in on it. It'll have to stay top secret until we find out whether an ordinary mind can be developed into one like yours, or whether her brain, like yours, is something out of the ordinary.'

'Yes, it'd be very bad to have billions of people screaming for a treatment that can't be given.'