memories . . . or seem to . . . I'm not an idiot, I mean any more than usual . . ."

     "You've been taught a good many sheer lies, and quite a few half truths," he

informed her, evenly. "For instance, what did they tell you that hollow tooth would do to

you when you broke the seal?"

     "Make my mind a blank. But one of their doctors would get hold of me very soon

and give me the antidote that would restore me exactly as I was before."

     "That is one of the half truths. It would certainly have made your mind a blank,

but only by blasting most of your memory files out of existence. Their therapists would

'restore' you by substituting other memories for your real ones—whatever other ones

they pleased."

     "How horrible! How perfectly ghastly! That was why you treated it so, then; as

though it were a snake. I wondered at your savagery toward it. But how, really, do I

know that you are telling the truth?"

     "You don't," he admitted. "You will have to make your own decisions after

acquiring full information."

     "You are a therapist," she remarked, shrewdly. "But if you operated on my mind

you didn't 'save' me, because I still think exactly the same as 1 always did about the

Patrol and everything pertaining to it . . . or do I? . . . Or is this . . ." her eyes widened

with a startling possibility.

     "No, I didn't operate," he assured her. "No such operation can possibly be done

without leaving scars—breaks in the memory chains—that you can find in a minute if

you look for them. There are no breaks or blanks in any chain in your mind."

     "No—at least, I can't find any," she reported after a few minutes' thought. "But

why didn't you? You can't turn me loose this way, you know—a z . . . an enemy of your

society."

     "You don't need saving," he grinned. "You believe in absolute good and absolute

evil, don't you?"

     "Why of course—certainly! Everybody must!"

     "Not necessarily. Some of the greatest thinkers in the universe do not."1 His voice

grew somber, then lightened again. "Such being the case, however, all you need to

'save' yourself is experience, observation, and knowledge of both sides of the question.

You're a colossal little fraud, you know."

     "How do you mean?" She blushed vividly, her eyes wavered.

     "Pretending to be such a hard-boiled egg. 'Never broke yet'. Why should you

break, when you've never been under pressure?"

     "I have so!" she flared. "What do you suppose I'm carrying this knife for?"

     "Oh, that." He mentally shrugged the wicked little dagger aside as he pondered.

"You little lamb hi wolfs clothing . . . but at that, your memories may, I think, be

altogether too valuable to monkey with . . . there's something funny about this whole

matrix—damned funny. Come clean, baby-face— why?"

     "They told me to," she admitted, wriggling slightly. 'To act tough—really tough. As

though I were an adventuress who had been everywhere and had done . . . done

everything. That the worse I acted the better I would get along in your Civilization."

     "I suspected something of the sort. And what did you zwil—excuse me, you

folks—go to Lyrane for, hi the first place?"

     "I don't know. From chance remarks I gathered that we were to land on one of

the planets—any one, I supposed—and wait for somebody."

     "What were you, personally, going to do?"

     "I don't know that, either—not exactly, that is. I was to take some kind of a ship

somewhere, but I don't know what, or when, or where, or why, or whether I was to go

alone or take somebody. Whoever it was that we were going to meet was going to give

us orders."

     "How come those women killed your men? Didn't they have thought-screens,

too?"

     "No. They weren't agents—just soldiers. They shot about a dozen of the

Lyranians when we first landed, just to show their authority, then they dropped dead."

     "Um. Poor technique, but typically Boskonian. Your trip to Tellus was more or

less accidental, then?"

     "Yes. I wanted her to take me back to Lonabar, but she wouldn't. She couldn't

have, anyway, because she didn't know any more about where it is than I did."

     "Huh?" Kinnison blurted. "You don't know where your own home planet is? What

the hell kind of a pilot are you, anyway?"

     "Oh, I'm not really a pilot. Just what they made me learn after we left Lonabar, so

I'd be able to make that trip. Lonabar wasn't shown on any of the charts we had aboard.

Neither was Lyrane—that was why I had to make my own chart, to get back there from

Tellus."

     "But you must know something!" Kinnison fumed. "Stars? Constellations? The

Galaxy—the Milky Way?"

     "The Milky Way, yes. By its shape, Lonabar isn't anywhere near the center of the

galaxy. I've been trying to remember if there were any noticeable star configurations,

but I can't. You see, I wasn't the least bit interested in such things, then."

     "Hell's Brazen Hinges! You can't be that dumb—nobody can! Any Tellurian infant

old enough to talk knows either the Big Dipper or the Southern Cross! Hold it—I'm

coming in and find out for myself."

     He came—but he did not find out.

     "Well, I guess people can be that dumb, since you so indubitably are," he

admitted then. "Or—maybe—aren't there any?"

     "Honestly, Lensman, I don't know. There were lots of stars, of course . . . if there

were any striking configurations I might have noticed them; but I might not have, too. As

I said, I wasn't the least bit interested."

     "That was very evident," dryly. "However, excuse me, please, for talking so

rough."

     "Rough? Of course, sir," Illona giggled. "That wasn't rough, comparatively—and

nobody ever apologized before—I'd like awfully well to help you, sir, if I possibly can."

     "I know you would, Toots, and thanks. To get back onto the beam, what put it into

Helen's mind to go to Tellus?"

     "She learned about Tellus and the Patrol from our minds —none of them could

believe at first that there were any inhabited worlds except their own—and wanted to

study them at first hand. She took our ship and made me fly it."

     "I see. I'm not surprised. I thought that there was something remarkably screwy

about those activities—they seemed so aimless and so barren of results—but I couldn't

put my finger on it. And we crowded her so close that she decided to flit for home. You

could see her, but nobody else could—that she didn't want to."

     "That was it. She said that she was being hampered by a mind of power. That

was you, of course?"

     -And others. Well, that's that, for a while."

     He called the tailor in. No, he didn't have a thing to make a girl's dress out of,

especially not a girl like that. She should wear glamorette, and sheer—very sheer. He

didn't know a thing about ladies' tailoring, either; he hadn't made a gown since he was

knee-high to a duck. All he had hi the shop was coat-linings. Perhaps nylon would do,

after a fashion. He remembered now, he did have a bolt of nylon that wasn't any good

for linings—not stiff enough, and red. Too heavy, of course, but it would drape well.

     It did. She came swaggering back, an hour or so later, the hem of her skirt

swishing against the tops of her high-laced boots.

     "Do you like it?" she asked, pirouetting gayly.

     "Fine!" he applauded, and it was. The tailor had understated tremendously both

his ability and the resources of his shop.

     "Now what? I don't have to stay in my room all the time now, please?"

     "I'll say not. The ship is yours. I want you to get acquainted with every man on

board. Go anywhere you like—except the private quarters, of course—even to the

control room. The boys all know that you're at large."

     "The language—but I'm talking English now!"

     "Sure. I've been giving it to you right along. You know it as well as I do."

     She stared at him in awe. Then, her natural buoyancy asserting itself, she flirted

out of the room with a wave of her hand.

     And Kinnison sat down to think. A girl—a kid who wasn't dry behind the ears

yet—wearing beads worth a full grown fortune, sent somewhere . . . to do what? Lyrane

II, a perfect matriarchy. Lonabar, a planet of zwilniks that knew all about Tellus, but

wasn't on any Patrol chart, sending expeditions to Lyrane. To the system, perhaps not

specifically to Lyrane II. Why? For what? To do what? Strange, new jewels of fabulous

value. What was the hook-up? It didn't make any kind of sense yet. . . not enough data .

. .

     And faintly, waveringly, barely impinging upon the outermost, most tenuous

fringes of his mind he felt something: the groping, questing summons of an incredibly

distant thought.

     "Male of Civilization . . . Person of Tellus . . . Kinnison of Tellus . . . Lensman

Kinnison of Sol III . . . Any Lensbearing officer of the Galactic Patrol . . ." Endlessly the

desperately urgent, almost imperceptible thought implored.

     Kinnison stiffened. He reached out with the full power of his mind, seized the

thought, tuned to it, and hurled a reply— and when that mind really pushed a thought, it

traveled.

     "Kinnison of Tellus acknowledging!" His answer fairly crackled on its way.

     "You do not know my name," the stranger's thought came clearly now. "I am the

Toots', the 'Rep-Top', the 'Queen of Sheba", the 'Cleopatra', the Elder Person of Lyrane

II. Do you remember me, Kinnison of Tellus?"

     "I certainly do!" he shot back. What a brain—what a terrific brain—that sexless

woman had!

     "We are invaded by manlike beings in ships of space, who wear screens against

our thoughts and who slay without cause. Will you help us with your ship of might and

your mind of power?"

     "Just a sec, Toots—Henderson!" Orders snapped. The Dauntless spun end-for-

end.

     "QX, Helen of Troy," he reported then. "We're on our way back there at maximum

blast. Say, that name 'Helen of Troy' fits you better than anything else I have called you.

You don't know it, of course, but that other Helen launched a thousand ships. You're

launching only one; but believe me, Babe, the old Dauntless is SOME ship!"

     "I hope so." The Elder Person, ignoring the by-play, went directly to the heart of

the matter in her usual pragmatic fashion. "We have no right to ask; you have every

reason to refuse . . ."

     "Don't worry about that, Helen. We're all good little Boy Scouts at heart. We're

supposed to do a good deed every day, and we've missed a lot of days lately."

     "You are what you call 'kidding', I think." A matriarch could not be expected to

possess a sense of humor. "But I do not lie to you or pretend. We did not, do not now,

and never will like you or yours. With us now, however, it is that you are much the lesser

of two terrible evils. If you will aid us now we will tolerate your Patrol; we will even

promise to endure others of your kind."

     "And that's big of you, Helen, no fooling." The Lensman was really impressed.

The plight of the Lyranians must be desperate indeed. "Just keep a stiff upper lip, all of

you. We're coming loaded for bear, and we are not exactly creeping."

     Nor were they. The big cruiser had plenty of legs and she was using them all; the

engineers were giving her all the of her drivers would take. She was literally blasting a

hole through space; she was traveling so fast that the atoms of substance in the

interstellar vacuum, merely wave-forms though they were, simply could not get out of

the flyer's way. They were being blasted into nothingness against the Dauntless" wall-

shields.

     And throughout her interior the Patrol ship, always in complete readiness for

strife, was being gone over again with microscopic thoroughness, to be put into more

readiness, if possible, even than that.

     After a few hours Illona danced back to Kinnison's "con" room, fairly bubbling

over.

     "Why, they're marvelous, Lensman!" she cried, "simply marvelous!"

     "What are marvelous?"

     "The boys," she enthused. "All of them. They're here because they want to

be—why, the officers don't even have whips! They like them, actually! The officers who

push the little buttons and things and those who walk around and look through the little

glass things and even the gray-haired old man with the four stripes, why they like them

all! And the boys were all putting on guns when I left—why, I never heard of such a

thing!—and they're just simply crazy about you. I thought it was awfully funny you took

off your guns as soon as the ship left Lyrane and you don't have guards around you all

the time because I thought sure somebody would stab you in the back or something but

they don't even want to and that's what's so marvelous and Hank Henderson told me . .

."

     "Save it!" he ordered. "Jet back, angel-face, before you blow a fuse." He had

been right in not operating—this girl was going to be a mine of information concerning

Boskonian methods and operations, and all without knowing it. "That's what I've been

trying to tell you about our Civilization; that it's based on the freedom of the individual to

do pretty much as he pleases, as long as it is not to the public harm. And, as far as

possible, equality of all the entities of Civilization."

     "Uh-huh, I know you did," she nodded brightly, then sobered quickly, "but I

couldn't understand it. I can't understand it yet; I can scarcely believe that you all are so

. . . you know, don't you, what would happen if this were a Lonabarian ship and I would

go running around talking to officers as though I were their equal?"

     "No—what?"

     "It's inconceivable, of course; it simply couldn't happen. But if it did, I would be

punished terribly—perhaps though, at a first offense, I might be given only a twenty-scar

whipping." At his lifted eyebrow she explained, "One that leaves twenty scars that show

for life.

     "That's why I'm acting so intoxicated, I think. You see, I . . ." she hesitated shyly,

"I'm not used to being treated as anybody's equal, except of course other girls like me.

Nobody is, on Lonabar. Everybody is higher or lower than you are. I'm going to simply

love this when I get used to it." She spread both arms in a sweeping gesture. "I'd like to

squeeze this whole ship and everybody in it—I just can't wait to get to Tellus and really

live there!"

     "That's a .thing that has been bothering me," Kinnison confessed, and the girl

stared wonderingly at his serious face. "We're going into battle, and we can't take time

to land you anywhere before the battle starts."

     "Of course not Why should you?" she paused, thinking deeply. "You're not

worrying about me, surely? Why, you're a high officer! Officers don't care whether a girl

gets shot or not, do they?" The thought was obviously, utterly new.

     "We do. It's extremely poor hospitality to invite a guest aboard and then have her

killed. All I can say, though, is that if our number goes up . . . I still don't see how I could

have done anything else."

     "Oh . . . thanks, Gray Lensman. Nobody ever spoke to me like that before. But I

wouldn't land if I could. I like Civilization. If you . . . if you don't win, I couldn't go to Tellus

anyway, so I'd much rather take my chances here than not, sir, really. I'll never go back

to Lonabar, in any case."

     "At-a-girl, Toots!l" He extended his hand. She looked at it dubiously, then

hesitantly stretched out her own. But she learned fast; she put as much pressure into

the brief handclasp as Kinnison did. "You'd better flit now, I've got work to do."

     "Can I go up top? Hank Henderson is going to show me the primaries."

     "Sure. Go anywhere you like. Before the trouble starts I'll take you down to the

center and put you into a suit."

     "Thanks, Lensman!" The girl hurried away and Kinnison Lensed the master pilot.

     "Henderson? Kinnison. Official. Illona just told me about the primaries. They're

QX—but no etchings."

     "Of course not, sir."

     "And please pass a word around for me. I know as well as anybody does that she

doesn't belong aboard; but it couldn't be helped and I'm getting rid of her as soon as I

possibly can. In the meantime she's my personal responsibility. So—no passes'. She's

strictly off limits."

     "Ill pass the word, sir."

     "Thanks." The Gray Lensman broke the connection and got into communication

with Helen of Lyrane, who gave him a resume of everything that had happened.

     Two ships—big ships, immense space-cruisers—appeared near the airport.

Nobody saw them coming, they came so fast. They stopped, and without warning or

parley destroyed all the. buildings and all the people nearby with beams like Kinnison's

needle-beam, except much larger. Then the ships landed and men disembarked. The

Lyranians killed ten of them by direct mental impact or by monsters of the mind, but

after that everyone who came out of the vessel wore thought-screens and the persons

were quite helpless. The enemy had burned down and melted a part of the city, and as

a further warning were then making formal plans to execute publicly a hundred leading

Lyranians—ten for each man they had killed.

     Because of the screens no communication was possible, but the invaders had

made it clear that if there was one more sign of resistance, or even of non-cooperation,

the entire city would be beamed; every living thing in it blasted out of existence. She

herself had escaped so far. She was hidden in a crypt in the deepest sub-cellar of the

city. She was, of course, one of the ones they wanted to execute, but finding any of

Lyrane's leaders would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. They were still

searching, with .many persons as highly unwilling guides. They had indicated that they

would stay there until the leaders were found; that they would make the Lyranians tear

down their city, stone by stone, until they were found.

     "But how could they know who you leaders are?" Kinnison wanted to know.

     "Perhaps one of our persons weakened under their torture," Helen replied

equably. "Perhaps they have among them a mind of power. Perhaps in some other

fashion. What matters it? The thing of importance is that they do know."

     "Another thing of importance is that it'll hold them there until we get there,"

Kinnison thought "Typical Boskonian technique, I gather. It won't be many hours now.

Hold them off if you can."

     "I think that I can," came tranquil reply. "Through mental contact each person

acting as guide knows where each of us hidden ones is, and is avoiding all our hiding-

places."

     "Good. Tell me all you can about those ships, their size, shape, and armament."

     She could not, it developed, give him any reliable information as to size. She

thought that the present invaders were smaller than the Dauntless, but she could not be

sure. Compared to the little airships which were the only flying structures with which she

was familiar, both Kinnison's ship and those now upon Lyrane were so immensely huge

that trying to tell which was larger was very much like attempting to visualize, the

difference between infinity squared and infinity cubed. On shape, however, she was

much better; she spread in the Lensman's mind an accurately detailed picture of the two

space-ships which the Patrolman intended to engage.

     In shape they were ultra-fast, very much like the Dauntless herself. Hence they

certainly were not maulers. Nor, probably, were they first-line battleships, such as had

composed the fleet which had met Civilization's Grand Fleet off the edge of the Second

Galaxy. Of course, the Patrol had had in that battle ultra-fast shapes which were ultra-

powerful as well— such as this same Dauntless—and it was a fact that while Civilization

was designing and building, Boskonia could very well have been doing the same thing.

On the other hand, since the enemy could not logically be expecting real trouble in

Dunstan's Region, these buckets might very well be second-line or out-of-date stuff . . .

     "Are those ships lying on the same field we landed on?" he asked at that point in

his cogitations.

     "Yes."

     "You can give me pretty close to an actual measurement of the difference, then,"

he told her. "We left a hole in that field practically our whole length. How does it

compare with theirs?"

     "I can find that out, I think," and in due time she did so; reporting that the

Dauntless was the longer, by some twelve times a person's height.

     "Thanks, Helen." Then, and only men, did Kinnison call his officers into

consultation in the control room.

     He told them everything he had learned and deduced about the two Boskonian

vessels which they were about to attack. Then, heads bent over a visitank, the

Patrolmen began to discuss strategy and tactics.

CHAPTER 6

Back to Lyrane

     The Dauntless approached Lyrane II so nearly that the planet showed a

perceptible disk upon the plates, the observers began to study their detectors carefully.

Nothing registered, and a brief interchange of thoughts with the Chief Person of Lyrane

informed the Lensman that the two Boskonian warships were still grounded. Indeed,

they were going to stay grounded until after the hundred Lyranian leaders, most of

whom were still safely hidden, had been found and executed, exactly as per

announcement The strangers had killed many persons by torture and were killing more

in attempts to make them reveal the hiding-places of the leaders, but little if any real

information was being obtained.

     "Good technique, perhaps, from a bull-headed, dictatorial standpoint, but it

strikes me as being damned poor tactics," grunted Malcolm Craig, the Dauntless'

grizzled captain, when Kinnison had relayed the information.

     "Ill say it's poor tactics," the Lensman agreed. "If anybody of Helmuth's caliber

were down there one of those heaps would be out on guard, flitting all over space."

     "But how could they be expecting trouble 'way out here, nine thousand parsecs

from anywhere?" argued Chatway, the Chief Firing Officer.

     "They ought to be—that's the point." This from Henderson. "Where do we land,

Kim, did you find out?"

     "Not exactly; they're on the other side of the planet from here, now. Good thing

we don't have to get rid of a Tellurian intrinsic this time—it'll be a near thing as it is." And

it was.

     Scarcely was the intrinsic velocity matched to that of the planet when the

observers reported that the airport upon which the enemy lay was upon the horizon.

Inertialess, the Dauntless flashed ahead, going inert and into action simultaneously

when within range of the zwilnik ships. Within range of one of them, that is; for short as

the time had been, the crew of one of the Boskonian vessels had been sufficiently alert

to get her away. The other one did not move; then or ever.

     The Patrolmen acted with the flawless smoothness of long practice and perfect

teamwork. At the first sign of zwilnik activity as revealed by his spy-rays, Nelson, the

Chief Communications Officer, loosed a barrage of ethereal and sub-ethereal

interference through which no communications beam or signal could be driven. Captain

Craig barked a word into his microphone and every dreadful primary that could be

brought to bear erupted as one weapon. Chief Pilot Henderson, after a casual glance

below, cut in the Bergenholms, tramped in his blasts, and set the cruiser's narrow nose

into his tracer's line. One glance was enough. He needed no orders as to what to do

next It would have been apparent to almost anyone, even to one of the persons of

Lyrane, that that riddled, slashed, three-quarters fused mass of junk never again would

be or could contain aught of menace. The Patrol ship had not stopped: had scarcely

even paused. Now, having destroyed half of the opposition en passant, she legged it

after the remaining half.

     "Now what, Kim?" asked Captain Craig. "We cant englobe him and he no doubt

mounts tractor shears. We'll have to use the new tractor zone, won't we?" Ordinarily the

gray-haired four-striper would have made his own decisions, since he and he alone

fought his ship; but these circumstances were far from ordinary. First, any Unattached

Lensman, wherever he was, was the boss. Second, the tractor zone was new; so brand

new that even the Dauntless had not as yet used it. Third, the ship was on detached

duty, assigned directly to Kinnison to do with as he willed. Fourth, said Kinnison was

high in the confidence of the Galactic Council and would know whether or not the

present situation justified the use of the new mechanism.

     "If he can cut a tractor, yes," the Lensman agreed. "Only one ship. He can't get

away and he can't communicate—safe enough. Go to it."

     The Tellurian ship was faster than the Boskonian; and, since she had been only

seconds behind at the start, she came within striking distance of her quarry in short

order. Tractor beams reached out and seized; but only momentarily did they hold. At the

first pull they were cut cleanly away. No one was surprised; it had been taken for

granted that all Boskonian ships would by this time have been equipped with tractor

shears.

     These shears had been developed originally by the scientists of the Patrol.

Immediately following that invention, looking forward to the time when Boskone would

have acquired it, those same scientists set themselves to the task of working out

something which would be just as good as a tractor beam for combat purposes, but

which could not be cut. They got it finally—a globular shell of force, very much like a

meteorite screen except double in phase. That is, it was completely impervious to

matter moving in either direction, instead of only to that moving inwardly. Even if exact

data as to generation, gauging, distance, and control of this weapon were

available—which they very definitely are not—it would serve no good end to detail them

here. Suffice it to say that the Dauntless mounted tractor zones, and had ample power

to hold them.

     Closer up the Patrol ship blasted. The zone snapped on, well beyond the

Boskonian, and tightened. Henderson cut the Bergenholms. Captain Craig snapped out

orders and Chief Firing Officer Chatway and his boys did their stuff.

     Defensive screens full out, the pirate stayed free and tried to run. No soap. She

merely slid around upon the frictionless inner surface of the zone. She rolled and she

spun. Then she went inert and rammed. Still no soap. She struck the zone and

bounced; bounced with all of her mass and against all the power of her driving thrust.

The impact jarred the Dauntless to her very skin; but the zone's anchorages had been

computed and installed by top-flight engineers and they held. And the zone itself held. It

yielded a bit, but it did not fail and the shear-planes of the pirates could not cut it.

     Then, no other course being possible, the Boskonians fought. Of course,

theoretically, surrender was possible, but it simply was not done. No pirate ship ever

had surrendered to a Patrol force, however large; none ever would. No Patrol ship had

ever surrendered to Boskone—or would. That was the unwritten, but grimly understood

code of this internecine conflict between two galaxy-wide and diametrically-opposed

cultures; it was and had to be a war of utter and complete extermination. Individuals or

small groups might be captured bodily, but no ship, no individual, even, ever, under any

conditions, surrendered. The fight was—always and everywhere—to the death.

     So this one was. The enemy was well-armed of her type, but her type simply did

not carry projectors of sufficient power to crush the Dauntless" hard-held screens. Nor

did she mount screens heavy enough to withstand for long the furious assault of the

Patrol ship's terrific primaries.

     As soon as the pirate's screens went down the firing stopped; that order had

been given long since. Kinnison wanted information, he wanted charts, he wanted a few

living Boskonians. He got nothing. Not a man remained alive aboard the riddled hulk,

the chart-room contained only heaps of fused ash. Everything which might have been of

use to the Patrol had been destroyed, either by the Patrol's own beams or by the pirates

themselves after they saw they must lose.

     "Beam it out," Craig ordered, and the remains of the Boskonian warship

disappeared.

     Back toward Lyrane II, then, the Dauntless went, and Kinnison again made

contact with Helen, the Elder Sister. She had emerged from her crypt and was directing

affairs from her— "office" is perhaps the word—upon the top floor of the city's largest

building. The search for the Lyranian leaders, the torture and murder of the citizens, and

the destruction of the city had stopped, all at once, when the grounded Boskonian

cruiser had been blasted out of commission. The directing intelligences of the raiders

had remained, it developed, within the "safe" confines of their vessel's walls; and when

they ceased directing, their minions in the actual theater of operations ceased

operating. They had been grouped uncertainly in an open square, but at the first

glimpse of the returning Dauntless they had dashed into the nearest large building, each

man seizing one, or sometimes two persons as he went. They were now inside, erecting

defenses and very evidently intending to use the Lyranians both as hostages and as

shields.

     Motionless now, directly over the city, Kinnison and his officers studied through

their spy-rays the number, armament, and disposition of the enemy force. There were

one hundred and thirty of them, human to about six places. They were armed with the

usual portable weapons carried by such parties. Originally they had had several semi-

portable projectors, but since all heavy stuff must be powered from the mother-ship, it

had been abandoned long since. Surprisingly, though, they wore full armor. Kinnison

had expected only thought-screens, since the Lyranians had no offensive weapons

save those of the mind; but apparently either the pirates did not know that or else were

guarding against surprise.

     Armor was—and is—heavy, cumbersome, a handicap to fast action, and a

nuisance generally; hence for the Boskonians to have dispensed with it would not have

been poor tactics. True, the Patrol did attack, but that could not have been what was

expected. In fact, had such an attack been in the cards, that Boskonian punitive party

would not have been on the ground at all. It was equally true that canny old Helmuth,

who took nothing whatever for granted, would have had his men in armor. However, he

would have guarded much more completely against surprise . . . but few commanders

indeed went to such lengths of precaution as Helmuth did. Thus Kinnison pondered.

     "This ought to be as easy as shooting fish down a well— but you'd better put out

space-scouts just the same," he decided, as he Lensed a thought to Lieutenant Peter

vanBuskirk. "Bus? Do you see what we see?"

     "Uh-huh, we've been peeking a bit," the huge Dutch-Valerian responded, happily.

     "QX. Get your gang wrapped up in their tinware. I'll see you at the main lower

starboard lock in ten minutes." He cut off and turned to an orderly. "Break out my G-P

cage for me, will you, Spike? And I'll want the 'copters—tell them to get hot."

     "But listen, Kim!" and "You can't do that, Kinnison!" came simultaneously from

Chief Pilot and Captain, neither of whom could leave the ship in such circumstances as

these. They, the vessel's two top officers, were bound to her; while the Lensman,

although ranking both of them, even aboard the ship, was not and could not be bound

by anything.

     "Sure I can—you fellows are just jealous, that's all," Kinnison retorted, cheerfully.

"I not only can, I've got to go with the Valerians. I need a lot of information, and I can't

read a dead man's brain—yet."

     While the storming party was assembling the Dauntless settled downward,

coming to rest in the already devastated section of the town, as close as possible to the

building in which the Boskonians had taken refuge.

     One hundred and two men disembarked: Kinnison, vanBuskirk, and the full

company of one hundred Valerians.

     Each of those space-fighting wild-cats measured seventy eight inches or more

from sole to crown; each was composed of four hundred or more pounds of the

fantastically powerful, rigid, and reactive brawn, bone, and sinew necessary for survival

upon a planet having a surface gravity almost three times that of small, feeble Terra.

     Because of the women held captive by the pirates, the Valerians carried no

machine rifles, no semi-portables, no heavy stuff at all; only their DeLameters and of

course their space-axes. A Valerian trooper without his space-axe? Unthinkable! A dire

weapon indeed, the space-axe. A combination and sublimation of battle-axe, mace,

bludgeon, and lumberman's picaroon; thirty pounds of hard, tough, space-tempered

alloy; a weapon of potentialities limited only by the physical strength and bodily agility of

its wielder. And vanBuskirk's Valerians had both—plenty of both. One-handed, with

simple flicks of his incredible wrist, the smallest Valerian of the Dauntless" boarding

party could manipulate his atrocious weapon as effortlessly as, and almost unbelievably

faster than, a fencing master handles his rapier or an orchestra conductor waves his

baton.

     With machine-like precision the Valerians fell in and strode away; vanBuskirk in

the lead, the helicopters hovering overhead, the Gray Lensman bringing up the rear.

Tall and heavy, strong and agile as he was—for a Tellurian—he had no business in that

front line, and no one knew that fact better than he did. The puniest Valerian of the

company could do in full armor a standing high jump of over fourteen feet against one

Tellurian gravity; and could dodge, feint, parry, and swing with a blinding speed starkly

impossible to any member of any of the physically lesser breeds of man.

     Approaching the building they spread out, surrounded it; and at a signal from a

helicopter that the ring was complete the assault began. Doors and windows were

locked, barred, and barricaded, of course; but what of that? A few taps of the axes and

a few blasts of the DeLameters took care of things very nicely; and through the

openings thus made there leaped, dove, rolled, or strode the space-black-and-silver

warriors of the Galactic Patrol. Valerians, than whom no fiercer race of hand to hand

fighters has ever been known—no bifurcate race, and but very few others, however built

or shaped, have ever willingly come to grips with" the armored axe-men of Valeria!

     Not by choice, then, but of necessity and in sheer desperation the pirates fought.

In the vicious beams of their portables the stone walls of the room glared a baleful red;

in spots even were pierced through. Old-fashioned pistols barked, spitting steel-jacketed

lead. But the G-P suits were screened against lethal beams by generators capable of

withstanding anything of lesser power than a semi-portable projector; G-P armor was

proof against any projectile possessing less energy than that hurled by the high-caliber

machine rifle. Thus the Boskonian beams splashed off the Valerians' screens in torrents

of man-made lightning and in pyrotechnic displays of multi-colored splendor, their

bullets ricocheted harmlessly as spent, mis-shapen blobs of metal.

     The Patrolmen did not even draw their DeLameters during their inexorable

advance. They knew that the pirates' armor was as capable as theirs, and the women

were not to die if death for them could possibly be avoided. As they advanced the

enemy fell back toward the center of the great room; holding there with the Lyranians

forming the outer ring of their roughly-circular formation; firing over the women's heads

and between their naked bodies.

     Kinnison did not want those women to die. It seemed, however, that die they

must, from the sheer, tremendous reflection from the Valerians' fiercely radiant screens,

if the Patrolmen persisted in their advance. He studied the enemy formation briefly, then

flashed an order.

     There ensued a startling and entirely unorthodox maneuver, one possible only to

the troopers mere at work, as at Kinnison's command every Valerian left the floor in a

prodigious leap. Over the women's heads, over the heads of the enemy; but in mid-leap,

as he passed over, each Patrolman swung his axe at a Boskonian helmet with all the

speed and all the power he could muster. Most of the enemy died then and there, for

the helmet has never been forged which is able to fend the beak of a space-axe driven

as each of those was driven. The fact that the Valerians were nine or ten feet off the

floor at the time made no difference whatever. They were space-fighters, trained to

handle themselves and their weapons in any position or situation; with or without

gravity, with or without even inertia.

     "You persons—run! Get out of here! SCRAM!" Kinnison fairly shouted the

thought as the Valerians left the floor, and the matriarchs obeyed—frantically. Through

doors and windows they fled, in all directions and at the highest possible speed.

     But in their enthusiasm to strike down the foe, not one of the Valerians had paid

any attention to the exact spot upon which he was to land; or, if he did, some one else

got there either first or just barely second. Besides, there was not room for them all in

the center of the ring, For seconds, therefore, confusion reigned and a boiler-works

clangor resounded for a mile around as a hundred and one extra-big and extra-heavy

men, a writhing, kicking, pulling tangle of armor, axes, and equipment, jammed into a

space which half their number would have filled over-full. Sulphurous Valerian profanity

and sizzling deep-space oaths blistered the very air as each warrior struggled madly to

right himself, to get one more crack at a pirate before somebody else beat him to it.

     During this terrific melee some of the pirates released their screens and

committed suicide. A few got out of the room, but not many. Nor far; the men in the

helicopters saw to that. They had needle-beams, powered from the Dauntless, which

went through the screens of personal armor as a knife goes through ripe cheese.

     "Save it, guys—hold everything!" Kinnison yelled as the tangled mass of

Valerians resolved itself into erect and warlike units. "No more axe-work—don't let them

kill themselves—catch them ALIVE!"

     They did so, quickly and easily. With the women out of the way, there was

nothing to prevent the Valerians from darting right up to the muzzles of the foes'

DeLameters. Nor could the enemy dodge, or run, half fast enough to get away.

Armored, shielded hands batted the weapons away— if an arm or leg broke in the

process, what the hell?—and the victim was held motionless until his turn came to face

the mind-reading Kinnison.

     Nothing. Nothing, flat, A string of zeros. And, bitterly silent, Kinnison led the way

back to the Dauntless. The men he wanted, the ones who knew anything, were the

ones who killed themselves, of course. Well, why not? In like case, officers of the Patrol

had undoubtedly done the same. The live ones didn't know where their planet was,

could give no picture even of where it lay in the galaxy, did not know where they were

going, nor why. Well, so what? Wasn't ignorance the prime characteristic of the bottom

layers of dictatorships everywhere? If they had known anything, they would have been

under compulsion to kill themselves, too, and would have done it.

     In his own room in the Dauntless his black mood lightened somewhat and he

called the Elder Person.

     "Helen of Troy? I suppose that the best thing we can. do now, for your peace of

mind, prosperity, well-being, et cetera, is to drill out of here as fast as Klono and

Noshabkeming will let us. Right?"

     "Why, I . . . you . . . um . . . that is . . ." The matriarch was badly flustered at the

Lensman's bald summation of her attitude. She did not want to agree, but she certainly

did not want these males around a second longer than was necessary.

     "Just as well say it, because it goes double for me—you can play it clear across

the board, Toots, that if I ever see you again it will be because I can't get out of it."

Then, to his chief pilot:

     "QX, Hen, give her the of—back to Tellus."

CHAPTER 7

Wide-Open N-Way

     Serenely the mighty Dauntless bored her way homeward through the ether, at

the easy touring blast—for her —of some eighty parsecs an hour. The engineers

inspected and checked their equipment, from instrument-needles to blast-nozzles;

relining, repairing, replacing anything and everything which showed any signs of wear or

strain because of what the big vessel had just gone through. Then they relaxed into

their customary routine of killing time—the games of a dozen planets and the vying with

each other in the telling of outrageously untruthful stories.

     The officers on watch lolled at ease in their cushioned seats, making much ado

of each tiny thing as it happened, even the changes of watch. The Valerians, as usual,

remained invisible in their own special quarters. There the gravity was set at twenty

seven hundred instead of at the Tellurian normal of nine hundred eighty, there the

atmospheric pressure was forty pounds to the square inch, there the temperature was

ninety six degrees Fahrenheit, and there vanBuskirk and his fighters lived and moved

and had their drills of fantastic violence and stress. They were irked less than any of the

others by monotony; being, as has been intimated previously, neither mental nor

intellectual giants.

     And Kinnison, mirror-polished gray boots stacked in all their majestic size upon a

corner of his desk, leaned his chair precariously backward and thought in black

concentration. It still didn't make any kind of sense. He had just enough

clues—fragments of clues—to drive a man nuts. Menjo Bleeko was the man he wanted.

On Lonabar. To find one was to find the other, but how in the steaming hells of Venus

was he going to find either of them? It might seem funny not to be able to find a thing as

big as a planet—but since nobody knew where it was, by fifty thousand parsecs, and

since there were millions and skillions and whillions of planets in the galaxy, a random

search was quite definitely out. Bleeko was a zwilnik, or tied in with zwilniks, of course;

but he could read a million zwilnik minds without finding, except by merest chance, one

having any contact with or knowledge of the Lonabarian.

     The Patrol had already scoured—fruitlessly—Aldebaran II for any sign, however

slight, pointing toward Lonabar. The planetographers had searched the files, the charts,

the libraries thoroughly. No Lonabar. Of course, they had suggested—what a

help!—they might know it under some other name. Personally, he didn't think so, since

no jeweler throughout the far-flung bounds of Civilization had as yet been found who

could recognize or identify any of the items he had described.

     Whatever avenue or alley of thought Kinnison started along, he always ended up

at the jewels and the girl. Illona, the squirrel-brained, romping, joyous little imp who by

now owned in fee simple half of the ship and nine-tenths of the crew. Why in Palain's

purple hells couldn't she have had a brain? How could anybody be dumb enough not to

know the galactic coordinates of their own planet? Not even to know anything that could

help locate it? But at that, she was probably about as smart as most—you couldn't

expect any other woman in the galaxy to have a mind like Mac's . . .

     For minutes, then, he abandoned his problem and reveled in visions of the

mental and physical perfections of his fiancee. But this was getting him nowhere, fast.

The girl or the jewels —which? They were the only real angles he had.

     He sent out a call for her, and in a few minutes she came swirling in. How

different she was from what she had been! Gone were the somberness, the dread, the

terror which had oppressed her; gone were the class-conscious inhibitions against

which she had been rebelling, however subconsciously, since childhood. Here she was

free! The boys were free, everybody was free! She had expanded

tremendously—unfolded. She was living as she had never dreamed it possible to live.

Each new minute was an adventure in itself. Her black eyes, once so dull, sparkled with

animation; radiated her sheer joy in living. Even her jet-black hair-seemed to have taken

on a new luster and gloss, in its every, precisely-arranged wavelet.

     "Hi, Lensman!" she burst out, before Kinnison could say a word or think a thought

in greeting. "I'm so glad you sent for me, because there's something I've been wanting

to ask you since yesterday. The boys are going to throw a blow-out, with all kinds of

stunts, and they want me to do a dance. QX, do you think?"

     "Sure. Why not?"

     "Clothes," she explained. "I told them I couldn't dance in a dress, and they said I

wasn't supposed to, that acrobats didn't wear dresses when they performed on Tellus,

that my regular clothes were just right. I said they were trying to string me and they

swore they weren't—said to ask the Old Man . . ." she broke off, two knuckles jammed

into her mouth, expressive eyes wide in sudden fright. "Oh, excuse me, sir," she

gasped. "I didn't. . ."

     " 'Smaller? What bit you?" Kinnison asked, then got it. "Oh —the 'Old Man', huh?

QX, angel-face, that's standard nomenclature in the Patrol. Not with you folks, though, I

take it?"

     "I'll say not," she breathed. She acted as though a catastrophe had been averted

by the narrowest possible margin. "Why, if anybody got caught even thinking such a

thing, the whole crew would go into the steamer that very minute. And if I would dare to

say 'Hi' to Menjo Bleeko . . . !" she shuddered.

     "Nice people," Kinnison commented.

     "But are you sure that the . . . that I'm not getting any of the boys into trouble?"

she pleaded. "For, after all, none of them ever dare call you that to your face, you

know."

     "You haven't been around enough yet," he assured her. "On duty, no; that's

discipline—necessary for efficiency. And I haven't hung around the wardrooms much of

late—been too busy. But at the party you'll be surprised at some of the things they call

me—if you happen to hear them. You've been practicing—keeping in shape?"

     "Uh-huh," she confessed. "In my room, with the spy-ray-block on."

     "Good. No need to hide, though, and no need to wear dresses any time you're

practicing—the boys were right on that. But what I called you in about is that I want you

to help me. Will you?"

     "Yes, sir. In anything I can—anything, sir," she answered, instantly.

     "I want you to give me every scrap of information you possibly can about

Lonabar; its customs and habits, its work and its play—everything, even its money and

its jewelry." This last apparently an after-thought. "To do so, you'll have to let me into

your mind of your own free will—you'll have to cooperate to the limit of your capability.

QX?"

     "That will be quite all right, Lensman," she agreed, shyly. "I know now that you

aren't going to hurt me."

     Illona did not like it at first, there was no question of that. And small wonder. It is

an intensely disturbing thing to have your mind invaded, knowingly, by another;

particularly when that other is the appallingly powerful mind of Gray Lensman Kimball

Kinnison. There were lots of things she did not want exposed, and the very effort not to

think of them brought them ever and ever more vividly to the fore. She squirmed

mentally and physically: her mind was for minutes a practically illegible turmoil. But she

soon steadied down and, as she got used to the new sensations, she went to work with

a will. She could not increase the planetographical knowledge which Kinnison had

already obtained from her, but she was a mine of information concerning Lonabars' fine

gems. She knew all about every one of them, with the completely detailed knowledge

one is all too apt to have of a thing long and intensely desired, but supposedly forever

out of reach.

     "Thanks, Illona." It was over; the Lensman knew as much as she did about

everything which had any bearing upon his quest. "You've helped a lot—now you can

flit."

     "I'm glad to help, sir, really—any time. I'll see you at the party, then, if not before."

Illona left the room in a far more subdued fashion than she had entered it. She had

always been more than half afraid of Kinnison; just being near him did things to her

which she did not quite like. And this last thing, this mind-searching interview, did not

operate to quiet her fears. It gave her the screaming meamies, no less!

     And Kinnison, alone in his room, started to call for a tight beam to Prime Base,

then changed his mind and Lensed a thought—gingerly and diffidently enough—to Port

Admiral Haynes.

     "Certainly I'm free!" came instant response. "To you, I'm free twenty four hours of

every day. Go ahead."

     "I want to try something that I don't know whether can be done or not. A wide-

open, Lens-to-Lens conference with all the Lensmen, especially all Unattached

Lensmen, who can be reached. Can it be done?"

     "Whew!" Haynes whistled. "I've been in such things up to a hundred or so . . . no

reason why it wouldn't work. Most of the people you want know me, and those who

don't can tune in through someone who does. If everybody tunes to me at the same

time, we'll all be en rapport with each other."

     "It's QX, then? The reason I. . ."

     "Skip it, son. No use explaining twice—I'll get it when the others do. I'll take care

of it. It'll take some little time. . . Would hour twenty, tomorrow, be soon enough?"

     "That'll be fine. Thanks a lot, chief."

     The next day dragged, even for the always-busy Kinnison. He prowled about,

aimlessly. He saw the spectacular Aldebaranian several times, noticing something

which tied in very nicely with a fact he had half-seen in the girl's own mind before he

could dodge it—that whenever she made a twosome with any man, the man was Henry

Henderson.

     "Blasted, Hen?" he asked, casually, when he came upon the pilot in a corner of a

ward-room, staring fixedly at nothing.

     "Out of the ether," Henderson admitted. "However, I haven't been making any

passes. No use telling you that, though."

     There wasn't. Unattached Lensmen, as well as being persons of supreme

authority, are supremely able mind-readers. Verbum sap.

     "I know you haven't" Then, answering the unasked question: "No, I haven't been

reading your mind. Nor anybody else's, except Illona's. I've read hers, up and down and

crosswise."

     "Oh . . . so you know, then . . . say, Kim, can I talk to you for a minute? Really

talk, I mean?"

     "Sure. On the Lens?"

     "That'd be better."

     "Here you are. About Illona, the beautiful Aldebaranian zwilnik, I suppose."

     "Don't, Kim." Henderson actually flinched, physically. "She isn't a zwilnik,

really—she can't be—I'd bet my last millo on that?"

     "Are you telling me or asking me?"

     "I don't know." Henderson hesitated. "I've been wanting to ask you . . . you've got

a lot of stuff we haven't, you know . . . whether she . . . I mean if I . . . Oh, hell! Kim, is

there any reason why I shouldn't. . . well, er . . . get married?"

     "Millions of reasons why you should, Hen. Everybody ought to."

     "Damnation, Kim! That isn't what I meant, and you know it!"

     "Think straight, then."

     "QX. Sir, would Unattached Lensman Kimball Kinnison approve of my marriage

to Illona Potter, if I've got jets enough to swing it?"

     Mighty clever, the Lensman thought. Since the men of the Patrol were

notoriously averse to going sloppy about it, he had wondered just how the pilot was

going to phrase his question. He had done it very neatly, by tossing the buck right back

at him. But he wouldn't go sloppy, either. This "untarnished-meteors-upon-the-collars-of-

our-heroes" stuff was QX for swivel-tongued spellbinders, but not for anybody else. So:

     "As far as I know—and I bashfully admit that I know it all —the answer is yes."

     "Great!" Henderson came to life with a snap. "Now, if . . . but I don't suppose

you'd . . ." the thought died away.

     'Til say I wouldn't. Unethical no end. I might cheat just a little bit, though. She

probably won't do much worse than beat your brains out with a two-inch spanner if you

ask her. And only about half of the twenty one hundred or so other guys aboard this

heap are laying awake nights trying to figure out ways of beating your time."

     "Huh? Those apes? Watch my jets!" Henderson strode away, doubts all resolved;

and Kinnison, seeing that hour twenty was very near, went to his own room.

     It is difficult for any ordinary mind to conceive of its being in complete accord with

any other, however closely akin. Consider, then, how utterly impossible it is to envision

that merging of a hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand, or a million—nobody

ever did know how many Lensmen tuned in that day—minds so utterly different that no

one human being can live long enough even to see each of the races there

represented! Probably less than half of them were even approximately human. Many

were not mammals, many were not warm-blooded. Not all, by far, were even oxygen-

breathers— oxygen, to many of those races, was sheerest poison. Nevertheless, they

had much in common. All were intelligent; most of them very highly so; and all were

imbued with the principles of freedom and equality for which Galactic Civilization stood

and upon which it was fundamentally based.

     That meeting was staggering, even to Kinnison's mind. It was appalling—yet it

was ultimately thrilling, too. It was one of the greatest, one of the most terrific thrills of

the Lensman's long life.

     "Thanks, fellows, for coming in," he began simply. "I will make my message very

short. As Haynes may have told you, I am Kinnison of Tellus. It will help greatly in

locating the head of the Boskonian culture if I can find a certain planet, known to me

only by the name of Lonabar. Its people are human beings to the last decimal; its rarest

jewels are these," and he spread in the collective mind a perfect, exactly detailed and

pictured description of the gems. "Does any one of you know of such a planet? Has any

one of you ever seen a stone like any of these?"

     A pause—a heart-breakingly long pause. Then a faint, soft, diffident thought

appeared; appeared as though seeping slowly from a single cell of that incredibly linked,

million-fold-composite Lensman's BRAIN.

     "I waited to be sure that no one else would speak, as my information is very

meager, and unsatisfactory, and old," the thought apologized.

     Kinnison started, but managed to conceal his surprise from the linkage. That

thought, so diamond-clear, so utterly precise, must have come from a Second-Stage

Lensman—and since it was neither Worsel nor Tregonsee, there must be another one

he had never heard of!

     "Whatever its nature, any information at all is very welcome," Kinnison replied,

without perceptible pause. "Who is speaking, please?"

     "Nadreck of Palain VII, Unattached. Many cycles ago I secured, and still have in

my possession, a crystal—or rather, a fragment of a super-cooled liquid—like one of the

red gems you showed us; the one having practically all its transmittance in a very

narrow band centering at point seven zero zero."

     "But you do not know what planet it came from—is that it?"

     "Not exactly," the soft thought went on. "I saw it upon its native planet, but

unfortunately I do not now know just what or where that planet was. We were exploring

at the time, and had visited many planets. Not being interested in any world having an

atmosphere of oxygen, we paused but briefly, nor did we map it. I was interested in the

fusion because of its peculiar filtering effect. A scientific curiosity merely."

     "Could you find that planet again?"

     "By checking back upon the planets we did map, and by retracing our route, I

should be able to—yes, I am certain that I can do so."

     "And when Nadreck of Palain VII admits to being certain of anything," another

thought appeared, "nothing in the macrocosmic universe is more certain."

     "I thank you, Twenty Four of Six, for the expression of confidence."

     "And I thank both of you particularly, as well as all of you collectively," Kinnison

broadcast. Intelligences by the millions broke away from the linkage. As soon as the two

were alone:

     "You're Second Stage, aren't you?"

     "Yes. I felt a need. I was too feeble. A certain project was impossible, since it was

so dangerous as to involve a distinct possibility of personal harm. Therefore Mentor

gave me advanced treatment, to render me somewhat less feeble than I theretofore

was."

     "I see."

     Kinnison didn't see, at all, since this was his first contact with a Palainian mind.

Who ever heard of a Lensman refusing a job because of personal risk? Lensmen

always went in . . . no matter how scared he was, of course he went in . . . that was the

Code . . . human Lensmen, that is . . . There were a lot of things he didn't know, and

other races could be—must be—different. He was astounded that there could be that

much difference; but after all, since the guy was an L2, he certainly had enough of what

it took to more than make up for any lacks. How did he know how short of jets he

himself looked, in the minds of other Second Stage Lensmen? These thoughts flashed

through his mind, behind his impervious shield, and after only the appropriate slight

pause his thought went smoothly on:

     "I had known of only Worsel of Velantia and Tregonsee of Rigel Four, besides

myself. I don't need to tell you how terrifically glad I am that there are four of us instead

of three. But at the moment the planet Lonabar is, I believe, more important to my job

than anything else in existence. You will map it for me, and send the data to me at

Prime Base?"

     "I will map the planet and will myself bring the data to you at Prime Base. Do you

want some of the gems, also?"

     "I don't think so." Kinnison thought swiftly. "No, better not. They'll be harder to get

now, and it might tip our hand too much. I'll get them myself, later. Will you inform me,

through Haynes, when to expect you?"

     "I will so inform you. I will proceed at once, with speed." "Thanks a million,

Nadreck—clear ether!" The ship sped on, and as it sped Kinnison continued to think. He

attended the "blowout". Ordinarily he would have been right in the thick of it; but this

time, young though he was and enthusiastic, he simply could not tune in. Nothing fitted,

and until he could see a picture that made some kind of sense he could not let go. He

listened to the music with half an ear, he watched the stunts with only half an eye.

     He forgot his problem for a while when, at the end, Illona Potter danced. For

Lonabarian acrobatic dancing is not like the Tellurian art of the same name. Or rather, it

is like it, except more so—much more so. An earthly expert would be scarcely a novice

on Lonabar, and Illona was a Lonabarian expert. She had been training, intensively, all

her life, and even in Lonabar's chill social and psychological environment she had loved

her work. Now, reveling as she was in the first realization of liberty of thought and of

person, and inspired by the heart-felt applause of the space-hounds so closely packed

into the hall, she put on something more than an exhibition of coldly impersonal skill and

limberness. And the feelings, both of performer and of spectators, were intensified by

the fact that, of all the repertoire of the Dauntless1 superb orchestra, Illona liked best to

dance to the stirring strains of "Our Patrol". "Our Patrol", which any man who has ever

worn the space-black-and-silver will say is the greatest, grandest, most glorious, most

terrific piece of music that ever was or ever will be written, played, or sung! Small

wonder, then, that the dancer really "gave"; or that the mighty cruiser's walls almost

bulged under the applause of Illona's "boys" at the end of her first number.

     They kept her at it until the captain stopped it, to keep the girl from killing herself.

"She's worn down to a nub," he declared, and she was. She was trembling. She was

panting, her almost-lacquered-down hair stood out in wild disorder. Her eyes were

starry with tears—happy tears. Then the ranking officers made short speeches of

appreciation and the spectators carried the actors—actual carrying, in Illona's case,

upon an improvised throne—off for refreshments.

     Back in his quarters, Kinnison tackled his problem again. He could work out

something on Lonabar now, but what about Lyrane? It tied in, too—there was an angle

there, somewhere. To get it, though, somebody would have to get close to —really

friendly with—the Lyranians. Just looking on from the outside wouldn't do. Somebody

they could trust and would confide in—and they were so damnably, so fanatically non-

cooperative! A man couldn't get a millo's worth of real information—he could read any

one mind by force, but he'd never get the right one. Neither could Worsel or Tregonsee

or any other non-human Lensman; the Lyranians just simply didn't have the galactic

viewpoint. No, what he wanted was a human woman Lensman, and there weren't any . .

.

     At the thought he gasped; the pit of his stomach felt cold. Mac! She was more

than half Lensman already—she was the only un-Lensed human being who had ever

been able to read his thoughts . . . But he didn't have the gall, the sheer, brazen crust,

to shove a load like that onto her . . . or did he? Didn't the job come first? Wouldn't she

be big enough to see it that way? Sure she would! As to what Haynes and the rest of

the Lensmen would think . . . let them think! In this, he had to make his own decisions . .

.

     He couldn't. He sat there for an hour; teeth locked until his jaws ached, fists

clenched.

     "I can't make that decision alone," he breathed, finally. "Not jets enough by half,"

and he shot a thought to distant Arisia and Mentor the Sage.

     "This intrusion is necessary," he thought coldly, precisely. "It seems to me to be

wise to do this thing which has never before been done. I have no data, however, upon

which to base a decision and the matter is grave. I ask, therefore—is it wise?"

     "You do not ask as to repercussions—consequences, either to yourself or to the

woman?"

     "I ask what I asked."

     "Ah, Kinnison of Tellus, you truly grow. You at last learn to think. It is wise," and

the telepathic link snapped.

     Kinnison slumped down in relief. He had not known what to expect. He would not

have been surprised if the Arisian had pinned his ears back; he certainly did not expect

either the compliment or the clear-cut answer. He knew that Mentor would give him no

help whatever in any problem which he could possibly solve alone; he was just

beginning to realize that the Arisian would aid him in matters which were absolutely,

intrinsically, beyond his reach.

     Recovering, he flashed a call to Surgeon-Marshal Lacy.

     "Lacy? Kinnison. I would like to have Sector Chief Nurse Clarrissa MacDougall

detached at once. Please have her report to me here aboard the Dauntless, en route, at

the earliest possible moment of rendezvous."

     "Huh? What? You can't . . . you wouldn't . . ." the old Lensman gurgled.

     "No, I wouldn't. The whole Corps will know it soon enough, so I might as well tell

you now. I'm going to make a" Lensman out of her."

     Lacy exploded then, but Kinnison had expected that.

     "Seal it!" he counseled, sharply. "I'm not doing it entirely on my own—Mentor of

Arisia made the final decision. Prefer charges against me if you like, but in the

meantime please do as I request."

     And that was that.

CHAPTER 8

Cartiff the Jeweler

     Few hours before the time of rendezvous with the cruiser which was bringing

Clarrissa out to him, the detectors picked up a vessel whose course, it proved, was set

to intersect their own. A minute or so later a sharp, clear thought came through

Kinnison's Lens.

     "Kim? Raoul. Been flitting around out Arisia way, and they called me in and

asked me to bring you a package. Said you'd be expecting it. QX?"

     "Hi, Spacehound! QX." Kinnison had very decidedly not been expecting it — he

had been intending to do the best he could without it — but he realized instantly, with a

thrill of gladness, what it was. "Inert? Or can't you stay?"

     "Free. Got to make a rendezvous. Can't take time to inert — that is, if you'll inert

the thing in your cocoon. Don't want it to hole out on you, though."

     "Can do. Free it is. Pilot room! Prepare for inertialess contact with vessel

approaching. Magnets. Messenger coming aboard — free."

     The two speeding vessels flashed together, at all their unimaginable velocities,

without a thump or jar. Magnetic clamps locked and held. Airlock doors opened, shut,

opened; and at the inner port Kinnison met Raoul LaForge, his classmate through the

four years at Wentworth Hall. Brief but hearty greetings were exchanged, but the visitor

could not stop. Lensmen are busy men.

     "Fine seeing you, Kim — be sure and inert the thing — clear ether!"

     "Same to you, ace. Sure I will — think I want to vaporize half of my ship?"

     Indeed, inerting the package was the Lensman's first care, for in the free

condition it was a frightfully dangerous thing. Its intrinsic velocity was that of Arisia,

while the ship's was that of Lyrane II. They might be forty or fifty miles per second apart;

and if the Dauntless should go inert that harmless-looking package would instantly

become a meteorite inside the ship. At the thought of that velocity he paused. The

cocoon would stand it—but would the Lens? Oh, sure, Mentor knew what was coming;

the Lens would be packed to stand it Kinnison wrapped the package in heavy gauze,

then in roll after roll of spring-steel mesh. He jammed heavy steel springs into the ends,

then clamped the whole thing into a form with high-alloy bolts an inch in diameter. He

poured in two hundred pounds of metallic mercury, filling the form to the top. Then a

cover, also bolted on. This whole assembly went into the "cocoon", a cushioned,

heavily-padded affair suspended from all four walls, ceiling, and floor by every shock-

absorbing device known to the engineers of the Patrol.

     The Dauntless incited briefly at Kinnison's word and it seemed as though a troop

of elephants were running silently amuck in the cocoon room. The package to be

inerted weighed no more than eight ounces—but eight ounces of mass, at a relative

velocity of fifty miles per second, possesses a kinetic energy by no means to be

despised.

     The frantic lurchings and bouncings subsided, the cruiser resumed her free flight,

and the man undid all that he had done. The Arisian package looked exactly as before,

but it was harmless now; it had the same intrinsic velocity as did everything else aboard

the vessel.

     Then the Lensman pulled on a pair of insulating gloves and opened the package;

finding, as he had expected, that the packing material was a dense, viscous liquid. He

poured it out and there was the Lens—Cris's Lens! He cleaned it carefully, then

wrapped it in heavy insulation. For of all the billions of unnumbered billions of living

entities in existence, Clarrissa MacDougall was the only one whose flesh could touch

that apparently innocuous jewel with impunity. Others could safely touch it while she

wore it, while it glowed with its marvelously polychromatic cold flame; but until she wore

it and unless she wore it its touch meant death to any life to which it was not attuned.

     Shortly thereafter another Patrol cruiser hove in sight. This meeting, however,

was to be no casual one, for the nurse could not be inerted from the free state in the

Dauntless" cocoon. No such device ever built could stand it—and those structures are

stronger far than is the human frame. Any adjustment which even the hardest, toughest

spacehound can take in a cocoon is measured in feet per second, not in miles.

     Hundreds of miles apart, the ships inerted and their pilots fought with supreme

skill to make the two intrinsics match. And even so the vessels did not touch, even

nearly. A space-line was thrown; the nurse and her space-roll were quite

unceremoniously hauled aboard.

     Kinnison did not meet her at the airlock, but waited for her in his con room; and

the details of that meeting will remain unchronicled. They were young, they had not

seen each other for a long time, and they were very much in love. It is evident,

therefore, that Patrol affairs were not the first matters to be touched upon. Nor, if the

historian has succeeded even partially in portraying truly the characters of the two

persons involved, is it either necessary or desirable to go at any length into the

argument they had as to whether or not she should be inducted so cavalierly into a

service from which her sex had always, automatically, been barred. He did not want to

make her carry that load, but he had to; she did not—although for entirely different

reasons—want to take it.

     He shook out the Lens and, holding it in a thick-folded corner of the insulating

blanket, flicked one of the girl's fingertips across the bracelet. Satisfied by the fleeting

flash of color which swept across the jewel, he snapped the platinum-iridium band

around her left wrist, which it fitted exactly.

     She stared for a minute at the smoothly, rhythmically flowing colors of the thing

so magically sprung to life upon her wrist; awe and humility in her glorious eyes. Then:

     "I can't,. Kim. I simply can't. I'm not worthy of it," she choked.

     "None of us are, Cris. We can't be—but we've got to do it, just the same."

     "I suppose that's true—it would be so, of course . . . I'll do my best. . . but you

know perfectly well, Kim, that I'm not —can't ever be—a real Lensman."

     "Sure you can. Do we have to go over all that again? You won't have some of the

technical stuff that we got, of course, but you carry jets that no other Lensman ever has

had. You're a real Lensman; don't worry about that—if you weren't, do you think they

would have made that Lens for you?"

     "I suppose not . . . it must be true, even though I can't understand it. But I'm

simply scared to death of the rest of it, Kim."

     "You needn't be. It'll hurt, but not more than you can stand. Don't think we'd

better start that stuff for a few days yet, though; not until you get used to using your

Lens. Coming at you, Lensman!" and he went into Lens-to-Lens communication,

broadening it gradually into a wide-open two-way. She was appalled at first, but

entranced some thirty minutes later, when he called the lesson to a halt.

     "Enough for now," he decided. "It doesn't take much of that stuff to be a great

plenty, at first."

     "I'll say it doesn't," she agreed. "Put this away for me until next time, will you,

Kim? I don't want to wear it all the time until I know more about it."

     "Fair enough. In the meantime I want you to get acquainted with a new girl-friend

of mine," and he sent out a call for Illona Potter. "Girl-friend!"

     "Uh-huh. Study her. Educational no end, and she may be important. Want to

compare notes with you on her later, is why I'm not giving you any advance dope on

her—here she comes."

     "Mac, this is Illona," he introduced them informally. "I told them to give you the

cabin next to hers," he added, to the nurse. "I'll go with you to be sure everything's on

the green." It was, and the Lensman left the two together. "I'm awfully glad you're here,"

Illona said, shyly. "I've heard so much about you, Miss . . ."

     " 'Mac' to you, my dear—all my friends call me that," the nurse broke in. "And you

don't want to believe everything you hear, especially aboard this space-bucket." Her lips

smiled, but her eyes were faintly troubled.

     "Oh, it was nice," Illona assured her. "About what a grand person you are, and

what a wonderful couple you and Lensman Kinnison make—why, you really are in love

with him, aren't you?" This in surprise, as she studied the nurse's face. "Yes,"

unequivocally. "And you love him, too, and that makes it. . ."

     "Good heavens, no!" the Aldebaranian exclaimed, so positively that Clarrissa

jumped.

     "What? You don't? Really?" Gold-flecked, tawny eyes stared intensely into

engagingly candid eyes of black. The nurse wished then that she had left her Lens on,

so she could tell whether this bejeweled brunette hussy was telling the truth or not.

     "Certainly not. That's what I meant—I'm simply scared to death of him. He's so . .

. well, so overpowering—he's so much more—tremendous—than I am. I didn't see how

any girl could possibly love him—but I understand now how you could, perhaps. You're

sort of—terrific—yourself, you know. I feel as though I ought to call you 'Your

Magnificence' instead of just plain 'Mac'."

     "Why, I'm no such thing!" Clarrissa exclaimed; but she softened noticeably, none

the less. "And I think that I'm going to like you a lot."

     "Oh . . . h . . . h—honestly?" Illona squealed. "It sounds too good to be true,

you're so marvelous. But if you do, I think that Civilization will be everything that I've

been afraid—so afraid—that it couldn't possibly be!"

     No longer was it a feminine Lensman investigating a female zwilnik; it was two

girls—two young, intensely alive, human girls—who chattered on and on.

     Days passed. Clarrissa learned some of the uses of her Lens. Then Kimball

Kinnison, Second-Stage Lensman, began really to bear down. Since such training has

been described in detail elsewhere, it need be said here only that Clarrissa MacDougall

had mental capacity enough to take it without becoming insane. He suffered as much as

she did; after every mental bout he was as spent as she was; but both of them stuck

relentlessly to it.

     He did not make a Second Stage Lensman of her, of course. He couldn't. Much

of the stuff was too hazy yet; more of it did not apply. He gave her everything, however,

which she could handle and which would be of any use to her in the work she was to

do; including the sense of perception. He did it, that is, with a modicum of help; for, once

or twice, when he faltered or weakened, not knowing exactly what to do or not being

quite able to do it, a stronger mind than his was always there.

     At length, approaching Tellus fast, the nurse and Kinnison had a final

conference; the consultation of two Lensmen settling the last details of procedure in a

long-planned and highly important campaign.

     "I agree with you that Lyrane II is a key planet," she was saying, thoughtfully. "It

must be, to have those .expeditions from Lonabar and the as yet unknown planet 'X'

centering there."

     " 'X' certainly, and don't forget the possibility of 'Y' and 'Z' and maybe others," he

reminded her. "The Lyrane-Lonabar linkage is the only one we're sure of. With you on

one end of that and me on the other, it'll be funny if we can't trace out some more. While

I'm building up an authentic identity to tackle Bleeko, you'll be getting chummy with

Helen of Lyrane. That's about as far ahead as we can plan definitely right now, since

this groundwork can't be hurried too much."

     "And I report to you often—frequently, in fact." Clarrissa widened her expressive

eyes at her man.

     "At least," he agreed. "And I'll report to you between times."

     "Oh, Kim, it's nice, being a Lensman!" She snuggled closer. Some way or other,

the conference had become somewhat personal. "Being en rapport will be almost as

good as being together—we can stand it, that way, at least."

     "It'll help a lot, ace, no fooling. That was why I was afraid to go ahead with it on

my own hook. I couldn't be sure that my feelings were not in control, instead of my

judgment—if any."

     "I'd have been certain that it was your soft heart instead of your hard head if it

hadn't been for Mentor," she sighed, happily. "As it is, though, everything's on the

green."

     "All done with Illona?"

     "Yes, the darling . . . she's the sweetest thing, Kim . . . and a storehouse of

information if there ever was one. You and I know more of Boskonian life than anyone

of Civilization ever knew before, I'm sure. And it's so ghastly! We must win, Kim . . . we

simply must, for the good of all creation!"

     "We will." Kinnison spoke with grim finality.

     "But back to Illona. She can't go with me, and she can't stay here with Hank

aboard the Dauntless taking me back to Lyrane, and you can't watch her. I'd hate to

think of anything happening to her, Kim."

     "It won't," he replied, comfortably. "Ilyowicz won't sleep nights until he has her as

the top-flight solo dancer in his show—even though she doesn't have to work for a living

any more . . ."

     "She will, though, I think. Don't you?"

     "Probably. Anyway, a couple of Haynes' smart girls are going to be her best

friends, wherever she goes. Sort of keep an eye on her until she learns the ropes—it

won't take long. We owe her that much, I figure."

     "That much, at least. You're seeing to the selling of her jewelry yourself, aren't

you?"

     "No, I had a new thought on that. I'm going to buy it myself—or rather, Cartiff is.

They're making up a set of paste imitations. Cartiff has to buy a stock somewhere; why

not hers?"

     "That's a thought—there's certainly enough of them to stock a wholesaler . . .

'Caitiff—I can see that sign," she snickered. "Almost microscopic letters, severely plain,

in the lower right-hand corner of an immense plate-glass window. One gem in the

middle of an acre of black velvet. Cartiff, the most peculiar, if not quite the most

exclusive, jeweler in the galaxy. And nobody except you and me knows anything about

him. Isn't that something?"

     "Everybody will know about Cartiff pretty soon," he told her. "Found any flaws in

the scheme yet?"

     "Nary a flaw." She shook her head. "That is, if none of the boys over-do it, and

I'm sure they won't. I've got a picture of it," and she giggled merrily. "Think of a whole

gang of sleuths from the Homicide Division chasing poor Cartiff, and never quite

catching him!"

     "Uh-huh—a touching picture indeed. But there goes the signal, and there's

Tellus. We're about to land."

     "Oh, I want to see!" and she started to get up.

     "Look, then," pulling her down into her original place at his side. "You've got the

sense of perception now, remember; you don't need visiplates."

     And side by side, arms around each other, the two Lensmen watched the

docking of their great vessel.

     It landed. Jewelers came aboard with their carefully-made wares. Assured that

the metal would not discolor her skin, Illona made the exchange willingly enough. Beads

were beads, to her. She could scarcely believe that she was now independently

wealthy—in fact, she forgot all about her money after Ilyowicz had seen her dance.

     "You see," she explained to Kinnison, "there were two things I wanted to do until

Hank gets back—travel around a lot and, learn all I can about your Civilization. I wanted

to dance, too, but I didn't see how I could. Now I can do all three, and get paid for doing

them besides—isn't that marvelous?—and Mr. Ilyowicz said you said it was QX. Is it,

really?"

     "Right," and Illona was off.

     The Dauntless was serviced and Clarrissa was off, to far Lyrane.

     Lensman Kinnison was supposedly off somewhere, also, when Caitiff appeared.

Cartiff, the ultra-ultra; the Oh! so exclusive! Cartiff did not advertise. He catered, word

spread fast, to only the very upper flakes of the upper crust. Simple dignity was Caitiff's

key-note, his insidiously-spread claim; the dignified simplicity of immense wealth and

impeccable social position.

     What he actually achieved, however, was something subtly different. His

simplicity was. just a hair off-beam; his dignity was an affected, not a natural, quality.

Nobody with less than a million credits ever got past his door, it is true. However,

instead of being the real creme de la creme of Earth, Caitiffs clients were those who

pretended to belong to, or who were trying to force an entrance into, that select stratum.

Cartiff was a snob of snobs; he built up a clientele of snobs; and, even more than in his

admittedly flawless gems, he dealt in equally high-proof snobbery.

     Betimes came Nadreck, the Second Stage Lensman of Palain VII, and Kinnison

met him secretly at Prime Base. Soft-voiced, apologetic, diffident; even though Kinnison

now knew that the Palainian had a record of accomplishment as long as any one of his

arms. But it was not an act, not affectation. It was simply a racial trait, for the intelligent

and civilized race of that planet is in no sense human. Nadreck was utterly, startlingly

unhuman. In his atmosphere there was no oxygen, in his body there flowed no aqueous

blood. At his normal body temperature neither liquid water nor gaseous oxygen could

exist.

     The seventh planet out from any sun would of course be cold, but Kinnison had

not thought particularly about the point until he felt the bitter radiation from the heavily-

insulated suit of his guest; perceived how fiercely its refrigerators were laboring to keep

its internal temperature down.

     "If you will permit it, please, I will depart at once," Nadreck pleaded, as soon as

he had delivered his spool and his message. "My heat dissipators, powerful though they

are, cannot cope much longer with this frightfully high temperature."

     "QX, Nadreck, I won't keep you. Thanks a million. I'm mighty glad to have had

this chance of getting acquainted with you. We'll see more of each other, I think, from

now on. Remember, Lensman's Seal on all this stuff."

     "Of course, Kinnison. You will understand, however, I am sure, that none of our

races of Civilization are even remotely interested in Lonabar—it is as hot, as poisonous,

as hellish generally as is Tellus itself!" The weird little monstrosity scuttled out.

     Kinnison went back to Cartiff's; and very soon thereafter it became noised abroad

that Cartiff was a crook. He was a cheat, a liar, a robber. His stones were synthetic; he

made them himself. The stories grew. He was a smuggler; he didn't have an honest

gem hi his shop. He was a zwilnik, an out-and-out pirate; a red-handed murderer who, if

he wasn't there already, certainly ought to be in the big black book of the Galactic

Patrol. This wasn't just gossip, either; everybody saw and spoke to men who had seen

unspeakable things with their own eyes.

     Thus Cartiff was arrested. He blasted his way out, however, before he could be

brought to trial, and the newscasters blazed with that highly spectacular, murderous jail-

break. Nobody actually saw any lifeless bodies. Everybody, however, saw the Telenews

broadcasts of the shattered walls and the sheeted forms; and, since such pictures are

and always have been just as convincing as the real thing, everybody knew that there

had been plenty of mangled corpses in those ruins and that Cartiff was a fugitive

murderer. Also, everybody knew that the Patrol never gives up on a murderer.

     Hence it was natural enough that the search for Cartiff, the jeweler-murderer,

should spread from planet to planet and from region to region. Not exactly obtrusively,

but inexorably, it did so spread; until finally anyone interested in the subject could find

upon any one of a hundred million planets unmistakable evidence that the Patrol

wanted one Cartiff, description so-and-so, for murder in the first degree.

     And the Patrol was thorough. Wherever Cartiff went or how, they managed to

follow him. At first he disguised himself, changed his name, and stayed in the legitimate

jewelry business; apparently the only business he knew. But he never could get even a

start. Scarcely would his shop open than he would be discovered and forced again to

flee.

     Deeper and deeper he went, then, into the noisome society of crime. A fence

now—still and always he clung to jewelry. But always and ever the bloodhounds of the

law were baying at his heels. Whatever name he used was nosed aside and "Cartiff!"

they howled; so loudly that a thousand million worlds came to know that hated name.

     Perforce he became a traveling fence, always on the go. He flew a dead-black

ship, ultra-fast, armed and armored like a super-dreadnought, crewed—according to the

newscasts—by the hardest-boiled gang of cut-throats in the known universe. He traded

in, and boasted of trading in, the most blood-stained, the most ghost-ridden gems of a

thousand worlds. And, so trading, hurling defiance the while into the teeth of the Patrol,

establishing himself ever more firmly as one of Civilization's cleverest and most

implacable foes, he worked zig-zag-wise and not at all obviously toward the unexplored

spiral arm in which the planet Lonabar lay. And as he moved farther and farther away

from the Solarian System his stock of jewels began to change. He had always favored

pearls—the lovely, glorious things so characteristically Tellurian—and those he kept.

The diamonds, however, he traded away; likewise the emeralds, the rubies, the

sapphires, and some others. He kept and accumulated Borovan fire-stones, Manarkan

star-drops, and a hundred other gorgeous gems, none of which would be "beads" upon

the planet which was his goal.

     As he moved farther he also moved faster; the Patrol was hopelessly

outdistanced. Nevertheless, he took no chances. His villainous crew guarded his ship;

his bullies guarded him wherever he went—surrounding him when he walked, standing

behind him while he ate, sitting at either side of the bed in which he slept. He was a

king-snipe now.

     As such he was accosted one evening as he was about to dine in a garish

restaurant. A tall, somewhat fish-faced man in faultless evening dress approached. His

arms were at his sides, fingers bent into the "I'm not shooting" sign.

     "Captain Cartiff, I believe. May I seat myself at your table, please?" the stranger

asked, politely, in the lingua franca of deep space.

     Kinnison's sense of perception frisked him rapidly for concealed weapons. He

was clean. "I would be very happy, sir, to have you as my guest," he replied,

courteously.

     The stranger sat down, unfolded his napkin, and delicately allowed it to fall into

his lap, all without letting either of his hands disappear from sight, even for an instant,

beneath the table's top. He was an old and skillful hand. And during the excellent meal

the two men conversed brilliantly upon many topics, none of which were of the least

importance. After it Kinnison paid the check, despite the polite protestations of his vis-a-

vis. Then:

     "I am simply a messenger, you will understand, nothing else," the guest

observed. "Number One has been checking up on you and has decided to let you come

in. He will receive you tonight. The usual safeguards on both sides, of course— I am to

be your guide and guarantee."

     "Very kind of him, I'm sure." Kinnison's mind raced. Who could this Number One

be? The ape had a thought-screen1 on, so he was flying blind. Couldn't be a real big

shot, though, so soon—no use monkeying with him at all. "Please convey my thanks,

but also my regrets."

     "What?" the other demanded. His veneer of politeness had sloughed off, his eyes

were narrow, keen, and cold. "You know what happens to independent operators

around here, don't you? Do you think you can fight us?"

     "Not fight you, no." The Lensman elaborately stifled a yawn. He now had a clue.

"Simply ignore you—if you act up, squash you like bugs, that's all. Please tell your

Number One that I do not split my take with anybody. Tell him also that I am looking for

a choicer location to settle down upon than any I have found as yet. If I do not find such

a place near here, I shall move on. If I do find it I shall take it, in spite of God, man, or

the devil."

     The stranger stood up, glaring hi quiet fury, but with both hands still above the

table. "You want to make it a war, then, Captain Cartiff!" he gritted.

     "Not 'Captain' Cartiff, please," Kinnison begged, dipping one paw delicately into

his finger-bowl. " 'Cartiff' merely, my dear fellow, if you don't mind. Simplicity, sir, and

dignity; those two are my key-words."

     "Not for long," prophesied the other. "Number One'll blast you out of the ether

before you swap another stone."

     "The Patrol has been trying to do that for some time now, and I'm still here,"

Kinnison reminded him, gently. "Caution him, please, in order to avoid bloodshed, not to

come after me in only one ship, but a fleet; and suggest that he have something hotter

than Patrol primaries before he tackles me at all."

     Surrounded by his bodyguards, Kinnison left the restaurant, and as he walked

along he reflected. Nice going, this. It would get around fast. This Number One couldn't

be Bleeko; but the king-snipe of Lonabar and its environs would hear the news in short

order. He was now ready to go. He would flit around a few more days—give this bunch

of zwilniks a chance to make a pass at him if they felt like calling his bluff —then on to

Lonabar.

CHAPTER 9

Cartiff the Fence

     Kinnison did not walk far, nor reflect much, before he changed his mind and

retraced his steps; finding the messenger still in the restaurant.

     "So you got wise to yourself and decided to crawl while the crawling's good, eh?"

he sneered, before the Lensman could say a word. "I don't know whether the offer is still

good or not."

     "No—and I advise you to muffle your exhaust before somebody pulls one of your

legs off and rams it down your throat." Kinnison's voice was coldly level. "I came back to

tell you to tell your Number One that I'm calling his bluff. You know Checuster?"

     "Of course." The zwilnik was plainly discomfited.

     "Come along, then, and listen, so you'll know I'm not running a blazer."

     They sought a booth, wherein the native himself got Checuster on the visiplate.

     "Checuster, this is Cartiff." The start of surprise and the expression of pleased

interest revealed how well that name was known. "I'll be down at your old warehouse

day after tomorrow night about this time. Pass the word around that if any of the boys

have any stuff too hot for them to handle conveniently, I'D buy it; paying for it in either

Patrol credits or bar platinum, whichever they like."

     He then turned to the messenger. "Did you get that straight, Lizard-Puss?"

     The man nodded.

     "Relay it to Number One," Kinnison ordered and strode off. This time he got to

his ship, which took off at once.

     Cartiff had never made a habit of wearing visible arms, and his guards, while

undoubtedly fast gun-men, were apparently only that. Therefore there was no reason for

Number One to suppose that his mob would have any noteworthy difficulty in cutting

this upstart Cartiff down. He was, however, surprised; for Cartiff did not come afoot or

unarmed.

     Instead, it was an armored car that brought the intruding fence through the truck-

entrance into the old warehouse. Not a car, either; it was more like a twenty-ton tank

except for the fact that it ran upon wheels, not treads. It was screened like a cruiser; it

mounted a battery of projectors whose energies, it was clear to any discerning eye,

nothing short of battle-screen could handle. The thing rolled quietly to a stop, a door

swung open, and Kinnison emerged. He was neither unarmed nor unarmored now.

Instead, he wore a full suit of G-P armor or a reasonable facsimile thereof, and carried a

semi-portable projector.

     "You will excuse the seeming discourtesy, men," he announced, "when I tell you

that a certain Number One has informed me that he will blast me out of the ether before

I swap a stone on this planet. Stand clear, please, until we see whether he meant

business or was just warming up his jets. Now, Number One, if you're around, come

and get it!"

     Apparently the challenged party was not present, for no overt move was made.

Neither could Kinnison's sense of perception discover any sign of unfriendly activity

within its range. Of mind-reading there was none, for every man upon the floor was, as

usual, both masked and screened.

     Business was slack at first, for those present were not bold souls and the

Lensman's overwhelmingly superior armament gave them very seriously to doubt his

intentions. Many of them, in fact, had fled precipitately at the first sight of the armored

truck, and of these more than a few—Number One's thugs, no doubt—did not return.

The others, however, came filtering back as they perceived that there was to be no

warfare and as cupidity overcame their timorousness. And as it became evident to all

that the stranger's armament was for defense only, that he was there to buy or to barter

and not to kill and thus to steal, Cartiff trafficked ever more and more briskly, as the

evening wore on, in the hottest gems of the planet.

     Nor did he step out of character for a second. He was Cartiff the fence, all the

time. He drove hard bargains, but not too hard. He knew jewels thoroughly by this time,

he knew the code, and he followed it rigorously. He would give a thousand Patrol

credits, in currency good upon any planet of Civilization or in bar platinum good

anywhere, for an article worth five thousand, but which was so badly wanted by the law

that its then possessor could not dispose of it at all.

     Or, in barter, he would swap for that article another item, worth fifteen hundred or

so, but which was not hot—at least, not upon that planet. Fair enough—so fair that it

was almost morning before the silently-running truck slid into its storage inside the

dead-black space-ship.

     Then, insofar as Number One, the Patrol, and Civilization was concerned, Cartiff

and his outfit simply vanished. The zwilnik sub-chief hunted him viciously for a space,

then bragged of how he had run him out of the region. The Patrol, as usual, was on a

cold scent. The general public forgot him completely in the next sensation to arise.

     Fairly close although he then was to the rim of the galaxy, Kinnison did not take

any chances at all of detection in a line toward that rim. The spiral arm beyond Rift

Eighty Five was unexplored. It had been of so little interest to Civilization that even its

various regions were nameless upon the charts, and the Lensman wanted it to remain

that way, at least for the time being. Therefore he left the galaxy in as nearly a straight

nadir line as he could without coming within detection distance of any trade route. Then,

making a prodigious loop, so as to enter the spiral arm from the nadir direction, he threw

Nadreck's map into the pilot tank and began the computations which would enable him

to place correctly in that three-dimensional chart the brilliant point of light which

represented his ship.

     In this work he was ably assisted by his chief pilot. He did not have Henderson

now, but he did have Watson, who rated Number Two only by the hair-splitting of the

supreme Board of Examiners. Such hair-splitting was, of course, necessary; otherwise

no difference at all could have been found within the ranks of the first fifty of the Patrol's

Master Pilots, to say nothing of the first three or four. And the rest of the crew did

whatever they could.

     For it was only in the newscasts that Cartiff's crew was one of murderous and

villainous pirates. They were in fact volunteers; and, since everyone is familiar with what

that means in the Patrol, that statement is as informative as a book would be.

     The chart was sketchy and incomplete, of course; around the flying ships were

hundreds, yes thousands, of stars which were not in the chart at all; but Nadreck had

furnished enough reference points so that the pilots could compute their orientation. No

need to fear detectors now, in these wild, waste spaces; they set a right-line course for

Lonabar and followed it.

     As soon as Kinnison could make out the continental outlines of the planet he took

over control, as he alone of the crew was upon familiar ground. He knew everything

about Lonabar that Illona had ever learned; and, although the girl was a total loss as an

astronaut, she did know her geography.

     Kinnison docked his ship boldly at the spaceport of Lonia, the planet's largest city

and its capital. With equal boldness he registered as "Cartiff"; filling in some of the blank

spaces in the space-port's routine registry form—not quite truthfully, perhaps—and

blandly ignoring others. The armored truck was hoisted out of the hold and made its

way to Lonia's largest bank, into which it disgorged a staggering total of bar platinum, as

well as sundry coffers of hard, gray steel. These last items went directly into a private

vault, under the watchful eyes and ready weapons of Kinnison's own guards.

     The truck rolled swiftly back to the space-port and Cartiff's ship took off—it did

not need servicing at the time—ostensibly for another planet unknown to the Patrol,

actually to go, inert, into a closed orbit around Lonabar and near enough to it to respond

to a call in seconds.

     Immense wealth can command speed of construction and service. Hence, in a

matter of days, Cartiff was again in business. His salon was, upon a larger and grander

scale, a repetition of his Tellurian shop. It was simple, and dignified, and blatantly

expensive. Costly rugs covered the floor, impeccable works of art adorned the walls,

and three precisely correct, flawlessly groomed clerks displayed, with the exactly right

air of condescending humility, Caitiff's wares before those who wished to view them.

Cartiff himself was visible, ensconced within a magnificent plate-glass-and-gold office in

the rear, but he did not ordinarily have anything to do with customers. He waited; nor did

he wait long before there happened that which he expected.

     One of the super-perfect clerks coughed slightly into a microphone.

     "A gentleman insists upon seeing you personally, sir," he announced.

     "Very well, I will see him now. Show him in, please," and the visitor was

ceremoniously ushered into the Presence.

     "This is a very nice place you have here, Mr. Cartiff, but did it ever occur to you

that. . ."

     "It never did and it never will," Kinnison snapped. He still lolled at ease in his

chair, but his eyes were frosty and his voice carried an icy sting. "I quit paying protection

to little shots a good many years ago. Or are you from Menjo Bleeko?"

     The visitor's eyes widened. He gasped, as though even to utter that dread name

was sheer sacrilege. "No, but Number . . ."

     "Save it, slob!" The cold venom of that crisp but quiet order set the fellow back

onto his heels. "I am thoroughly sick of this thing of every half-baked tin-horn zwilnik in

space calling himself Number One as soon as he can steal enough small change to hire

an ape to walk around behind him packing a couple of blasters. If that louse of a boss of

yours has a name, use it. If he hasn't call him The Louse". But cancel that Number One

stuff. In my book there is no Number One in the whole damned universe. Doesn't your

mob know yet who and what Cartiff is?"

     "What do we care?" the visitor gathered courage visibly. "A good big bomb . . ."

     "Clam it, you squint-eyed slime-lizard!" The Lensman's voice was still low and

level, but his tone bit deep and his words drilled in. "That stuff?" he waved inclusively at

the magnificent hall. "Sucker-bait, nothing more. The whole works cost only a hundred

thousand. Chicken feed. It wouldn't even nick the edge of the roll if you blew up ten of

them. Bomb it any time you feel the urge. But take notice that it would make me

sore—plenty sore—and that I would do things about it; because I'm in a big game, not

this petty-larceny racketeering and chiseling your mob is doing, and when a toad gets in

my way I step on it. So go back and tell that"—sulphurously and copiously

qualified—"Number One of yours to case a job a lot more thoroughly than he did this

one before he starts throwing his weight around. Now scram, before I feed your carcass

to the other rats around here!"

     Kinnison grinned inwardly as the completely deflated gangster slunk out. Good

going. It wouldn't take long for that blast to get action. This little-shot Number One

wouldn't dare to lift a hand, but Bleeko would have to. That was axiomatic, from the very

nature of things. It was very definitely Bleeko's move next. The only moot point was as

to which His Nibs, would do first—talk or act. He would talk, the Lensman thought. The

prime reward of being a hot-shot was to have people know it and bend the knee.

Therefore, although Caitiff's salon was at all times in complete readiness for any form of

violence, Kinnison was practically certain that Menjo Bleeko would send an emissary

before he started the rough stuff.

     He did, and shortly. A big, massive man was the messenger; a man wearing

consciously an aura of superiority, of boundless power and force. He did not simply

come into the shop—he made an entrance. All three of the clerks literally cringed before

him, and at his casually matter-of-fact order they hazed the already uncomfortable

customers out of the shop and locked the doors. Then one of them escorted the visitor,

with a sickening servility he had never thought of showing toward his employer and with

no thought of consulting Cartiff's wishes in the matter, into Cartiff's private sanctum.

Kinnison knew at first glance that this was Ghundrith Khars, Bleeko's right-hand man.

Khars, the notorious, who knelt only to His Supremacy, Menjo Bleeko himself; and to

whom everyone else upon Lonabar and its subsidiary planets kneeled. The Visitor

waved a hand and the clerk fled in disorder.

     "Stand up, worm, and give me that . . ." Khars began, loftily.

     "Silence, fool! Attention!" Kinnison rasped, in such a drivingly domineering tone

that the stupefied messenger obeyed involuntarily. The Lensman, psychologist par

excellence that he was, knew that this man, with a background of twenty years of blind,

dumb obedience to Bleeko's every order, simply could not cope with a positive and self-

confident opposition. "You will not be here long enough to sit down, even if I permitted it

in my presence, which I definitely do not. You came here to give me certain instructions

and orders. Instead, you are going to listen merely; I will do all the talking.

     "First. The only reason you did not die as you entered this place is that neither

you not Menjo Bleeko knows any better. The next one of you to approach me in this

fashion dies in Ms tracks.

     "Second. Knowing as I do the workings of that which your bloated leech of a

Menjo Bleeko calls his brain, I know that he has a spy-ray on us now. I am not blocking

it out as I want him to receive ungarbled—and I know that you would not have the

courage to transmit it accurately to His Foulness—everything I have to say.

     "Third. I have been searching for a long time for a planet that I like. This is it. I

fully intend to stay here as long as I please. There is plenty of room here for both of us

without crowding.

     "Fourth. Being essentially a peaceable man, I came in peace and I prefer a

peaceable arrangement. However, let it be distinctly understood that I truckle to no man

or entity; dead, living, or yet to be born.

     "Fifth. Tell Bleeko from me to consider very carefully and very thoroughly an

iceberg; its every phase and aspect. That is all—you may go."

     "Bub-bub-but," the big man stammered. "An iceberg?"

     "An iceberg, yes—just that," Kinnison assured him. "Don't bother to try to think

about it yourself, since you've got nothing to think with. But His Putrescence Bleeko,

even though he is a mental, moral, and intellectual slime-lizard, can think—at least in a

narrow, mean, small-souled sort of way—and I advise him in all seriousness to do so.

Now get the hell out of here, before I burn the seat of your pants off."

     Khars got, gathering together visibly the shreds of his self-esteem as he did so;

the clerks staring the while in dumbfounded amazement. Then they huddled together,

eyeing the owner of the establishment with a brand-new respect—a subservient

respect, heavily laced with awe.

     "Business as usual, boys," he counseled them, cheerfully enough. "They won't

blow up the place until after dark."

     The clerks resumed their places then and trade did go on, after a fashion; but

Cartiff's force had not recovered its wonted blas6 aplomb even at closing time.

     "Just a moment." The proprietor called his employees together and, reaching into

his pocket, distributed among them a sheaf of currency. "In case you don't find the shop

here in the morning, you may consider yourselves on vacation at full pay until I call you."

     They departed, and Kinnison went back to his office. His first care was to set up

a spy-ray block—a block which had been purchased upon Lonabar and which was

therefore certainly pervious to Bleeko's instruments. Then he prowled about, apparently

in deep and anxious thought. But as he prowled, the eavesdroppers did not, could not

know that his weight set into operation certain devices of his own highly secret

installation, or that when he finally left the shop no really serious harm could be done to

it except by an explosion sufficiently violent to demolish the neighborhood for blocks

around. The front wall would go, of course. He wanted it to go; otherwise there would be

neither reason nor excuse for doing that which for days he had been ready to do.

     Since Caitiff lived rigorously to schedule and did not have a spy-ray block in his

room, Bleeko's methodical and efficient observers always turned off their beams when

the observee went to sleep. This night, however, Kinnison was not really asleep, and as

soon as the ray went off he acted. He threw on big clothes and sought the street, where

he took a taxi to a certain airport. There he climbed into a prop-and-rocket job already

hot and waiting.

     Hanging from her screaming props the fantastically powerful little plane bulleted

upward in a vertical climb, and as she began to slow down from lack of air her rockets

took over. A tractor reached out, seizing her gently. Her wings retracted and she was

drawn into Cartiff's great spaceship; which, a few minutes later, hung poised above one

of the largest, richest jewel-mines of Lonabar.

     This mine was, among others, Menjo Bleeko's personal property. Since over-

production would glut the market, it was being worked by only one shift of men; the day-

shift. It was now black night; the usual guards were the only men upon the premises.

The big black ship hung there and waited. "But suppose they don't, Kim?" Watson

asked. "Then we'll wait here every night until they do," Kinnison replied, grimly. "But

they'll do it tonight, for all the tea in China. They'll have to, to save Bleeko's face."

     And they did., In a couple of hours the observer at a high-powered plate reported

that Cartiff's salon had just been blown to bits. Then the Patrolmen went into action.

     Bleeko's mobsmen hadn't killed anybody at Cartiff's, therefore the Tellurians

wouldn't kill anybody here. Hence, while. ten immense beam-dirigible torpedoes were

being piloted carefully down shafts and along tunnels into the deepest bowels of the

workings, the guards were given warning that, if they got into their flyers fast enough,

they could be fifty miles away and probably safe by zero time. They hurried.

     At zero time the torpedoes let go as one. The entire planet quivered under the

trip-hammer shock of detonating duodec. For those frightful, those appalling charges

had been placed, by computations checked and rechecked, precisely where they would

wreak the most havoc, the utmost possible measure of sheer destruction. Much of the

rock, however hard, around each one of those incredible centers of demolition was

simply blasted out of existence. That is the way duodec, in massive charges, works.

Matter simply cannot get out of its way in the first instants of its detonation; matter's own

inherent inertia forbids.

     Most of the rock between the bombs was pulverized the merest fraction of a

second later. Then, the distortedly-spherical explosion fronts merging, the total

incomprehensible pressure was exerted as almost pure lift. The field above the mine-

works lifted, then; practically as a mass at first. But it could not remain as such. It could

not move fast enough as a whole; nor did it possess even a minute fraction of the

tensile strength necessary to withstand the stresses being applied. Those stresses, the

forces of the explosions, were to all intents and purposes irresistible. The crust

disintegrated violently and almost instantaneously. Rock crushed grindingly against

rock; practically the whole mass reducing in the twinkling of an eye to an impalpable

powder.

     Upward and outward, then, the ragingly compressed gases of detonation drove,

hurling everything before them. Chunks blew out sidewise, flying for miles: the mind-

staggeringly enormous volume of dust was hurled upward clear into the stratosphere.

     Finally that awful dust-cloud was wafted aside, revealing through its thinning

haze a strangely and hideously altered terrain. No sign remained of the buildings or the

mechanisms of Bleeko's richest mine. No vestige was left to show that anything built by

or pertaining to man had ever existed there. Where those works had been there now

yawned an absolutely featureless crater; a crater whose sheer geometrical perfection of

figure revealed with shocking clarity the magnitude of the cataclysmic forces which had

wrought there.

     Kinnison, looking blackly down at that crater, did not feel the glow of satisfaction

which comes of a good deed well done. He detested it—it made him sick at" the

stomach. But, since he had had it to do, he had done it. Why in all the nine hells of

Valeria did he have to be a Lensman, anyway?

     Back to Lonia. then, the Lensman made his resentful way, and back to bed.

     And in the morning, early, workmen began the reconstruction of Cartiff's place of

business.

CHAPTER 10

Bleeko and the Iceberg

     Kinnison's impenetrable shields of force had confined the damage to the store's

front, it was not long before Cartiff's reopened. Business was and remained brisk; not

only because of what had happened, but also because Cartiff's top-lofty and arrogant

snobbishness had an irresistible appeal to the upper layers of Lonabar's peculiarly

stratified humanity. The Lensman, however, paid little enough attention to business.

Outwardly, seated at his ornate desk in haughty grandeur, he was calmness itself, but

inwardly he was far from serene.

     If he had figured things right, and he was pretty sure that he had, it was up to

Bleeko to make the next move, and it would pretty nearly have to be a peaceable one.

There was enough doubt about it, however, to make the Lensman a bit jittery inside.

Also, from the fact that everybody having any weight at all wore thought-screens, it was

almost a foregone conclusion that they had been warned against, and were on the

lookout for, THE Lensman—that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Lensman who had

already done so much hurt to the Boskonian cause. That they now thought that one to

be a well-hidden, unknown Director of Lensmen, and not an actual operative, was little

protection. If he made one slip they'd have him, cold.

     He hadn't slipped yet, they didn't suspect him yet; he was sure of those points.

With these people to suspect was to act, and his world-circling ship, equipped with

every scanning, spying, and eavesdropping device known to science, would have

informed him instantly of any untoward development anywhere upon or near the planet.

And his fight with Bleeko was, after all, natural enough and very much in character. It

was of the very essence of Boskonian culture that king-snipes should do each other to

death with whatever weapons came readiest to hand. The underdog was always trying

to kill the upper, and if the latter was not strong enough to protect his loot, he deserved

everything he got. A callous philosophy, it is true, but one truly characteristic of

Civilization's inveterate foes.

     The higher-ups never interfered. Their own skins were the only ones in which

they were interested. They would, Kinnison reflected, probably check back on him, just

to insure their own safety, but they would not take sides in this brawl if they were

convinced that he was, as he appeared to be, a struggling young racketeer making his

way up the ladder of fame and fortune as best he could. Let them check—Cartiff's past

had been fabricated especially to stand up under precisely that investigation, no matter

how rigid it were to be!

     Hence Kinnison waited, as calmly as might be, for Bleeko to move. There was no

particular hurry, especially since Cris was finding heavy going and thick ether at her end

of the line, too. They had been in communication at least once every day, usually

oftener; and Clarrissa had reported seethingly, in near-masculine, almost-deep-space

verbiage, that that damned red-headed hussy of a Helen was a hard nut to crack.

     Kinnison grinned sourly every time he thought of Lyrane II. Those matriarchs

certainly were a rum lot. They were a pig-headed, self-centered, mulishly stubborn

bunch of cockeyed knotheads, he decided. Non-galaxy-minded; as shortsightedly anti-

social as a flock of mad Radeligian cateagles. He'd better . . . no, he hadn't better,

either—he'd have to lay off. If Cris, with all her potency and charm, with all her drive and

force of will, with all her sheer power of mind and of Lens, couldn't pierce their armor,

what chance did any other entity of Civilization have of doing it? Particularly any male

creature? He'd like to half-wring their beautiful necks, all of them; but that wouldn't get

him to the first check-station, either. He'd just have to wait until she broke through the

matriarchs' crust—she'd do it, too, by Klono's prehensile tail!—and then they'd really

ride the beam.

     So Kinnison waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. When he got tired of waiting

he gave a few more lessons in snobbishness and in the gentle art of self-preservation to

the promising young Lonabarian thug whom he had selected to inherit the business,

lock, stock, and barrel—including goodwill, if any—if, as, and when he was done with it.

Then he waited some more; waited, in fact, until Bleeko was forced, by his silent

pressure, to act.

     It was not an overt act, nor an unfriendly—he simply called him up on the

visiphone.

     "What do you think you're trying to do?" Bleeko demanded, his darkly handsome

face darker than ever with wrath.

     "You." Kinnison made succinct answer. "You should have taken my advice about

pondering the various aspects of an iceberg."

     "Bah!" the other snorted. "That silliness?"

     "Not as silly as you think. That was a warning, Bleeko,' that the stuff showing

above the surface is but a very small portion of my total resources. But you could not or

would not learn by precept. You had to have it the hard way. Apparently, however, you

have learned. That you have not been able to locate my forces I am certain. I am almost

as sure that you do not want to try me again, at least until you have found out what you

do not know. But I can give you no more time—you must decide now, Bleeko, whether it

is to be peace or war between us. I still prefer a peaceful settlement, with an equitable

division of the spoils; but if you want war, so be it."

     "I have decided upon peace," the Lonabarian said, and the effort of it almost

choked him. "I, Menjo Bleeko the Supreme, will give you a place beside me. Come to

me here, at once, so that we may discuss the terms of peace."

     "We will discuss them now," Kinnison insisted.

     "Impossible!.Barred and shielded as this room is . . ."

     "It would be," Kinnison interrupted with a nod, "for you to make such an

admission as you have just made."

     ". . . I do not trust unreservedly this communication .line. If you join me now, you

may do so in peace. If you do not come to me, here and now, it is war to the death."

     "Fair enough, at that," the Lensman admitted. "After all, you've got to save your

.face, and I haven't—yet. And if I team up with you I can't very well stay out of your

palace forever. But before I come there I want to give you three things—a reminder, a

caution, and a warning. I remind you. that our first exchange of amenities cost you a

thousand times as much as it did me. I caution you to consider again, and more

carefully this time, the iceberg. I warn" you that if we again come into conflict you will

lose not only a mine, but everything you have, including your life. So see to it that you

lay no traps for me. I come."

     He went out into the shop. "Take over, Sport," he told his gangster protege. "I'm

going up to the palace to see Menjo Bleeko. If I'm not back in two hours, and if your

grapevine reports that Bleeko is out of the picture, what I've left in the store here is

yours until I come back and take it away from you."

     "I'll take care of it, Boss—thanks," and the Lensman knew that in true Lonabarian

gratitude the youth was already, mentally, slipping a long, keen knife between his ribs.

     Without a qualm, but with every sense stretched to the limit and in instant

readiness for any eventuality, Kinnison took a cab to the palace arid entered its heavily-

guarded portals. He was sure that they would not cut him down before he got to

Bleeko's room—that room would surely be the one chosen for the execution.

Nevertheless, he took no chances. He was supremely ready to slay instantly every

guard within range of his sense of perception at the first sign of inimical activity. Long

before he came to them, he made sure that the beams which were set to search him for

concealed weapons were really search-beams and not lethal vibrations.

     And as he passed those beams each one of them reported him clean. Rings, of

course; a stick-pin, and various other items of adornment. But Cartiff, the great jeweler,

would be expected to wear very large and exceedingly costly gems. And the beam has

never been projected which could penetrate those Worsel-designed, Thorndyke-built

walls of force; to show that any one of those flamboyant gems was not precisely what it

appeared to be.

     Searched, combed minutely, millimeter by cubic millimeter, Kinnison was

escorted by a heavily-armed quartette of Bleeko's personal guards into His

Supremacy's private study. All four bowed as he entered—but they strode in behind

him, then shut and locked the door.

     "You fool!" Bleeko gloated from behind his massive desk. His face flamed with

sadistic joy and anticipation. "You trusting, greedy fool! I have you exactly where I want

you now. How easy! How simple! This entire building is screened and shielded—by my

screens and shields. Your friends and accomplices, whoever or wherever they are, can

neither see you nor know what is to happen to you. If your ship attempts your rescue it

will be blasted out of the ether. I will, personally, gouge out your eyes, tear off your

nails, strip your hide from your quivering carcass . . ." Bleeko was now, in his raging

exaltation, fairly frothing at the mouth.

     "That would be a good trick if you could do h," Kinnison remarked, coldly. "But

the real fact is that you haven't even tried to use that pint of blue mush that you call a

brain. Do you think me an utter idiot? I put on an apt and you fell for it . . ."

     "Seize him, guards! Silence his yammering—tear out his tongue!" His Supremacy

shrieked, leaping out of his chair as though possessed.

     The guards tried manfully, but before they could touch him —before any one of

them could take one full step—they dropped. Without being touched by material object

or visible beam, without their proposed victim having moved a muscle, they died and

fell. Died instantly, in their tracks; died completely, effortlessly, painlessly, with every

molecule of the all-important compound without which life cannot even momentarily

exist shattered instantaneously into its degradation products; died not knowing even

that they died.

     Bleeko was shaken, but he was not beaten. Needle-ray men, sharpshooters all,

were stationed behind those walls. Gone now the dictator's intent to torture his victim to

death. Slaying him out of hand would have to suffice. He flashed a signal to the

concealed marksmen, but that order too went unobeyed. For Kinnison had perceived

the hidden gunmen long since, and before any of them could align his sights or press

his firing stud each one of them ceased to live. The zwilnik then flipped on his

communicator and gobbled orders. Uselessly; for death sped ahead. Before any mind at

any switchboard could grasp the meaning of the signal, it could no longer, think.

     "You fiend from hell!" Bleeko screamed, in mad panic now, and wrenched open a

drawer in order to seize a weapon of his own. Too late. The Lensman had already

leaped, and as he landed he struck—not gently. Lonabar's tyrant collapsed upon the

thick-piled rug in a writhing, gasping heap; but he was not unconscious. To suit

Kinnison's purpose he could not be unconscious; he had to be in. full possession of his

mind.

     The Lensmen crooked one brawny arm around the zwilnik's neck in an

unbreakable strangle-hold and flipped off his thought-screen. Physical struggles were of

no avail: the attacker knew exactly what to do to certain nerves and ganglia to paralyze

all such activity. Mental resistance was equally futile against the overwhelmingly

superior power of the Tellurian's mind. Then, his subject quietly passive, Kinnison tuned

in and began his search for information. Began it—and swore soulfully. This couldn't be

so . . . it didn't make any kind of sense . . . but there it was.

     The ape simply didn't know a thing about any ramification whatever of the vast

culture to which Civilization was opposed. He knew all about Lonabar and the rest of the

domain which he had ruled with such an iron hand. He knew much—altogether too

much—about humanity and Civilization, and plainly to be read in his mind were the

methods by which he had obtained those knowledges and the brutally efficient

precautions he had taken to make sure that Civilization would not in turn learn of him.

     Kinnison scowled blackly. His deductions simply couldn't be that far off . . . and

besides, it wasn't reasonable that this guy was the top or that he had done all that work

on his own account . . . He pondered deeply, staring unseeing at Bleeko's placid face;

and as he pondered, some of the jigsaw blocks of the puzzle began to click into a

pattern.

     Then, ultra-carefully, with the utmost nicety of which he was capable, he again

fitted his mind to that of the dictator and began to trace, one at a time, the lines of

memory. Searching, probing, coursing backward and forward along those deeply-buried

time-tracks, until at last he found the breaks and the scars. For, as he had told Illona, a

radical mind-operation cannot be performed without leaving marks. It is true that upon

cold, unfriendly Jarnevon, after Worsel had so operated upon Kinnison's mind, Kinnison

himself could not perceive that any work had been done. But that, be it remembered,

was before any actual change had occurred; before the compulsion had been applied.

The false memories supplied by Worse] were still latent, non-existent; the true memory

chains, complete and intact, were still in place.

     The lug's brain had been operated upon, Kinnison now knew, and by an expert.

What the compulsion was, what combination of thought-stimuli it was that would restore

those now non-existent knowledges, Kinnison had utterly no means of finding out.

Bleeko himself, even subconsciously, did not know. It was, it had to be, something

external, a thought-pattern impressed upon Bleeko's mind by the Boskonian higher-up

whenever he wanted to use him; and to waste time in trying to solve that problem would

be the sheerest folly. Nor could he discover how that compulsion had been or could be

applied. If he got his orders from the Boskonian high command direct, there would have

to be an inter-galactic communicator; and it would in all probability be right here, in

Bleeko's private rooms. No force-ball, or anything else that could take its place, was to

be found. Therefore Bleeko was, probably, merely another Regional Director, and took

orders from someone here in the First Galaxy.

     Lyrane? The possibility jarred Kinnison. No real probability pointed that way yet,

however; it was simply a possibility, born of his own anxiety. He couldn't worry about

it—yet.

     His study of the zwilnik's mind, unproductive although it was of the desired details

of things Boskonian, had yielded one highly important fact. His Supremacy of Lonabar

had sent at least one expedition to Lyrane II; yet there was no present memory in his

mind that he had ever done so. Kinnison had scanned those files with surpassing care,

and knew positively that Bleeko did not now know even that such a planet as Lyrane II

existed.

     Could he, Kinnison, be wrong? Could somebody other than Menjo Bleeko have

sent that ship? Or those ships, since it was not only possible, but highly probable, that

that voyage was not an isolated instance? No, he decided instantly. Illona's knowledge

was far too detailed and exact Nothing of such importance would be or could be done

without the knowledge and consent of Lonabar's dictator. And the fact that he did not

now remember it was highly significant. It meant—it must mean—that the new Boskone

or whoever was back of Boskone considered the solar system of Lyrane of such vital

importance that knowledge of it must never, under any circumstances, get to Star A

Star, the detested, hated, and feared Director of Lensmen of the Galactic Patrol! And

Mac was on Lyrane II—ALONE! She had been safe enough so far, but . . .

     "Cris!" he sent her an insistent thought.

     "Yes, Kim?" came flashing answer.

     "Thank Klono and Noshabkeming! You're QX, then?"

     "Of course. Why shouldn't I be, the same as I was this morning?"

     "Things have changed since then," he assured her, grimly. "I've finally cracked

things open here, and I find that Lonabar is simply a dead end. It's a feeder for Lyrane,

nothing else.

     It's not a certainty, of course, but there's a very distinct possibility that Lyrane is

FT. If it is, I don't need to tell you that you're on a mighty hot spot So I want you to quit

whatever you're doing and run. Hide. Crawl into a hole and pull it in after you. Get into

one of Helen's deepest crypts and have somebody sit on the lid. And do it right

now—five minutes ago would have been better."

     "Why, Kim!" she giggled. "Everything here is exactly as it has always been. And

surely, you wouldn't have a Lensman hide, would you? Would you, yourself?"

     That question was, they both knew, unanswerable. "That's different," he of

course protested, but he knew that it was not. "Well, anyway, be careful," he insisted.

"More careful than you ever were before in your life. Use everything you've got, every

second, and if you notice anything, however small, the least bit out of the way, let me

know, right then."

     "Ill do that. You're coming, of course." It was a statement, not a question.

     "Ill say I am—in force! 'Bye, Cris—BE CAREFUL!" and he snapped the line. He

had a lot to do. He had to act fast, and had to be right—and he couldn't take all day in

deciding, either.

     His mind flashed back over what he had done. Could he cover up? Should he

cover up, even if he could? Yes and no. Better not even try to cover Cartiff up, he

decided. Leave that trail just as it was; wide and plain—up to a certain point. This point,

right here. Cartiff would disappear here, in Bleeko's palace.

     He was done with Cartiff, anyway. They would smell a rat, of course—it stunk to

high heaven. They might not—they probably would not—believe that he had died in the

ruins of the palace, but they wouldn't know that he hadn't. And they would think that he

hadn't found out a thing, and he would keep them thinking so as long as he could. The

young thug in Cartiff's would help, too, all unconsciously. He would assume the name

and station, of course, and fight with everything Kinnison had taught him. That would

help—Kinnison grinned as he realized just how much it would help.

     The real Cartiff would have to vanish as completely, as absolutely without a trace

as was humanly possible. They would figure out in time that Caitiff had done whatever

was done in the palace, but it was up to him to see to it that they could never find out

how it was done. Wherefore he took from Menjo's mind every iota of knowledge which

might conceivably be of use to him thereafter. Then Menjo Bleeko died and the

Lensman strode along corridors and down stairways. And wherever he went, there went

Death.

     This killing griped Kinnison to the core of his being, but it had to be. The fate of

all Civilization might very well depend upon the completeness of his butchery this day;

upon the sheer mercilessness of his extermination of every foe who might be able to

cast any light, however dim, upon what he had just done.

     Straight to the palace arsenal he went, where he labored briefly at the filling of a

bin with bombs. A minute more to set a timer and he was done. Out of the building he

ran. No one stayed him; nor did any, later, say that they had seen him go. He dumped a

dead man out of a car and drove it away at reckless speed. Even at that, however, he

was almost too slow—hurtling stones from the dynamited palace showered down

scarcely a hundred feet behind his screeching wheels.

     He headed for the space-port; then, changing his mind, braked savagely as he

sent Lensed instructions to Watson. He felt no compunction about fracturing the rules

and regulations made and provided for the landing of space-ships at space-ports

everywhere by having his vessel make a hot-blast, unauthorized, and quite possibly

highly destructive landing to pick him up. Nor did he fear pursuit. The big shots were, for

the most part, dead. The survivors and the middle-sized shots were too busy by far to

waste time over an irregular incident at a space-port. Hence nobody would give

anybody any orders, and without explicit orders no Lonabarian officer would act. No,

there would be no pursuit. But They—the Ones Kinnison was after—would interpret

truly every such irregular incident; wherefore there must not be any.

     Thus it came about that when the speeding ground-car was upon an empty

stretch of highway, with nothing in sight in any direction, a space-ship eased down upon

muffled under-jets directly above it. A tractor beam reached down; car and man were

drawn upward and into the vessel's hold. Kinnison did not want the car, but he could not

leave it there. Since many cars had been blown out of existence with Bleeko's palace,

for this one to disappear would be natural enough; but for it to be found abandoned out

in the open country would be a highly irregular and an all too revealing occurrence.

     Upward through atmosphere and stratosphere the black cruiser climbed; out into

inter-stellar space she flashed. Then, while Watson coaxed the sleek flyer to do even

better than her prodigious best, Kinnison went to his room and drilled a thought to Prime

Base and Port Admiral Haynes.

     "Kinnison. Are you too busy to give me a couple of minutes?"

     "You always have the right-of-way, Kim, you know that —you're the most

important thing in the galaxy right now," Haynes said, soberly.

     "Well, a minute or so wouldn't make any difference—not that much difference,

anyway," Kinnison replied, uncomfortably. "I don't like to Lens you unless I have to," and

he began his report.

     Scarcely had he started, however, when he felt a call impinge upon his own

Lens. Clarrissa was calling him from Lyrane II.

     "Just a sec, admiral! Come in, Cris—make it a three-way with Admiral Haynes!"

     "You told me to report anything unusual, no matter what," the girl began. "Well, I

finally managed to get chummy enough with Helen so she'd really 'talk to me. The

death-rate from airplane crashes went up sharply a while ago and is still rising. I am

reporting that fact as per instructions."

     "Hm . . . m . . . m. What kind of crashes?" Kinnison asked.

     "That's the unusual feature of it. Nobody knows—they just disappear."

     "WHAT?" Kinnison yelled the thought, so forcibly that both Clarrissa and Haynes

winced under its impact.

     "Why, yes," she replied, innocently—somewhat too innocently. "But as to what it

means . . ."

     "You know what it means, don't you?" Kinnison snapped.

     "I don't know anything. I can do some guessing, of course, but for the present I'm

reporting a fact, not personal opinions."

     "QX. That fact means that you do, right now, crawl into the deepest, most heavily

thought-screened hole in Lyrane and stay there until I, personally, come and dig you

out," he replied, grimly. "It means, Admiral Haynes, that I want Worsel and Tregonsee

as fast as I can get them—not orders, of course, but very, very urgent requests. And I

want vanBuskirk and his gang of Valerians, and Grand Fleet, with all the trimmings,

within easy striking distance of Dunstan's Region as fast as you can possibly get them

there. And I want. . ."

     "Why all the excitement, Kim?" Haynes demanded. "You're 'way ahead of me,

both of you. Give!"

     "I don't know anything, either," Kinnison emphasized the verb very strongly.

"However, I suspect a lot. Everything, in fact, grading downward from the Eich. I'd say

Overlords, except that I don't see how . . . what do you think, Cris?"

     "What I think is too utterly fantastic for words—my visualization of the Cosmic All

calls for another Eich-Overlord alliance."

     "Could be, I guess. That would . . ."

     "But they were all destroyed, weren't they?" Haynes interrupted.

     "Far from it." This from the nurse. "Would the destruction of Tellus do away with

all mankind? I am beginning to think that the Eich are to Boskonia exactly what we are

to Civilization."

     "So am I," Kinnison agreed. "And, such being the case, I'm going to get in touch

with Nadreck of Palain Seven—I think I know his pattern well enough to Lens him from

here."

     "Nadreck? Your new playfellow? Why?" Clarrissa asked, curiously.

     "Because he's a frigid-blooded, poison-breathing, second-stage Gray Lensman,"

Kinnison explained. "As such he is much closer to the Eich, in every respect, than we

are, and may very well have an angle that we haven't." And in a few minutes the

Palanian Lensman became en rapport with the group.

     "An interesting development, truly," his soft thought came in almost wistfully

when the situation had been made clear to him. "I fear greatly that I cannot be of any

use, but I am not doing anything of importance at the moment and will be very glad

indeed to give you whatever slight assistance may be possible to one of my small

powers. I come at speed to Lyrane II."

CHAPTER 11

Alcon of Thrale

     Kinnison Had not underestimated the power and capacity of his as yet unknown

opposition. Well it was for him and for his Patrol that he was learning to think; for, as

has already been made clear, this phase of the conflict was not essentially one of

physical combat. Material encounters did occur, it is true, but they were comparatively

unimportant. Basically, fundamentally, it was brain against brain; the preliminary but

nevertheless prodigious skirmishing of two minds—or, more accurately, two teams of

minds—each trying, even while covering up its own tracks and traces, to get at and to

annihilate the other.

     Each had certain advantages.

     Boskonia—although we know now that Boskone was by no means the prime

mover in that dark culture which opposed Civilization so bitterly, nevertheless

"Boskonia" it was and still is being called—for a long time had the initiative, forcing the

Patrol to wage an almost ^purely defensive fight. Boskonia knew vastly more about

Civilization than Civilization knew about Boskonia. The latter, almost completely

unknown, had all the advantages of stealth and of surprise; her forces could and did

operate from undeterminable points against precisely-plotted objectives. Boskonia had

the hyper-spatial tube long before the Conference of Scientists solved its mysteries; and

even after the Patrol could use it it could do Civilization no good unless and until

something could be found at which to aim it.

     Civilization, however, had the Lens. It had the backing of the Arisians;

maddeningly incomplete and unsatisfactory though that backing seemed at times to be.

It had a few entities, notably one Kimball Kinnison, who were learning to think really

efficiently. Above all, it had a massed purpose, a loyalty, an esprit de corps back-boning

a morale which the whip-driven ranks of autocracy could never match and which the

whip-wielding drivers could not even dimly understand.

     Kinnison, then, with all the powers of his own mind and the minds of his friends

and co-workers, sought to place and to identify the real key mentality at the destruction

of which the mighty Boskonian Empire must begin to fall apart; that mentality in turn was

trying with its every resource to find and to destroy the intellect which, pure reason

showed, was the one factor which had enabled Civilization to throw the fast-conquering

hordes of Boskonia back into their own galaxy.

     Now, from our point of vantage in time and space, we can study at leisure and in

detail many things which Kimball Kinnison could only surmise and suspect and deduce.

Thus, he knew definitely only the fact that the Boskonian organization did not collapse

with the destruction of the planet Jarnevon.

     We know now, however, all about the Thrallian solar system and about Alcon of

Thrale, its unlamented Tyrant. The planet Thrale—planetographically speaking, Thrallis

II —so much like Tellus that its natives, including the unspeakable Alcon, were human

practically to the limit of classification; and about Onlo, or Thrallis IX, and its monstrous

natives. We know now that the duties and the authorities of the Council of Boskone

were taken over by Alcon of Thrale; we now know how, by reason of his absolute

control over both the humanity of Thrale and the monstrosities of Onlo, he was able to

carry on.

     Unfortunately, like the Eich, the Onlonians simply cannot be described by or to

man. This is, as is already more or less widely known, due to the fact that all such non-

aqueous, sub-zero-blooded, non-oxygen-breathing peoples have of necessity a

metabolic extension into the hyper dimension; a fact which makes even their three-

dimensional aspect subtly incomprehensible to any strictly three-dimensional mind.

     Not all such races, it may be said here, belonged to Boskonia. Many essentially

similar ones, such as the natives of Palain VII, adhered to our culture from the very first.

Indeed, it has been argued that sexual equality is the most important criterion of that

which we know as Civilization. But, since this is not a biological treatise, this point is

merely mentioned, not discussed.

     The Onlonians, then, while not precisely describable to man, were very similar to

the Eich—as similar, say, as a Posenian and a Tellurian are to each other in the

perception of a Palainian. That is to say practically identical; for to the unknown and

incomprehensible senses of those frigid beings the fact that the Posenian possess four

arms, eight hands, and no eyes at all, as compared with the Tellurian's simply paired

members, constitutes a total difference so slight as to be negligible.

     But to resume the thread of history, we are at liberty to know things that Kinnison

did not. Specifically, we may observe and hear a conference which tireless research

has reconstructed in toto. The place was upon chill, dark Onlo, in a searingly cold room

whose normal condition of utter darkness was barely ameliorated by a dim blue glow.

The time was just after Kinnison had left Lonabar for Lyrane II. The conferees were

Alcon of Thrale and his Onlonian cabinet officers. The armor-clad Tyrant, in whose

honor the feeble illumination was, lay at ease in a reclining chair; the pseudo-reptilian

monstrosities were sitting or standing in some obscure and inexplicable fashion at a

long, low bench of stone.

     "The fact is," one of the Onlonians was radiating harshly, "that our minions in the

other galaxy could not or would not or simply did not think. For years things went so

smoothly that no one had to think. The Great Plan, so carefully worked out, gave every

promise of complete success. It was inevitable, it seemed, that that entire galaxy would

be brought under our domination, its Patrol destroyed, before any inkling of our purpose

could be perceived by the weaklings of humanity.

     "The Plan took cognizance of every known factor of any importance. When,

however, an unknown, unforeseeable factor, the Lens of the Patrol, became of real

importance, that Plan of course broke down. Instantly upon the recognition of an

unconsidered factor the Plan should have been revised. All action should have ceased

until that factor had been evaluated and neutralized. But no—no one of our

commanders in that galaxy or handling its affairs ever thought of such a thing . . ."

     "It is you who are not thinking now," the Tyrant of Thrale broke in. "If any

underling had dared any such suggestion you yourself would have been among the first

to demand his elimination. The Plan should have been revised, it is true; but the fault

does not lie with the underlings. Instead, it lies squarely with the Council of Boskone . . .

by the way, I trust that those six of that Council who escaped destruction upon Jarnevon

by means of their hyper-spatial tube have been dealt with?"

     "They have been liquidated," another officer replied.

     "It is well. They were supposed to think, and the fact that they neither coped with

the situation nor called it to your attention until it was too late to mend matters, rather

than any flaw inherent in the Plan, is what has brought about the present intolerable

situation.

     "Underlings are not supposed to think. They are supposed to report facts; and, if

so requested, opinions and deductions. Our representatives there were well-trained and

skillful. They reported accurately, and that was all that was required of them. Helmuth

reported truly, even though Boskone discredited his reports. So did Prellin, and

Crowninshield, and Jalte. The Eich, however, failed in their duties of supervision and

correlation; which is why their leaders have been punished and their operators have

been reduced in rank—why we have assumed a task which, it might have been

supposed and was supposed, lesser minds could have and should have performed.

     "Let me caution you now that to underestimate a foe is a fatal error. Lan of the

Eich prated largely upon this very point, but in the eventuality he did in fact

underestimate very seriously the resources and the qualities of the Patrol; with what

disastrous consequences we are all familiar. Instead of thinking he attempted to subject

a purely philosophical concept, the Lens, to a mathematical analysis. Neither did the

heads of our military branch think at all deeply, or they would not have tried to attack

Tellus until after this new and enigmatic factor had been resolved. Its expeditionary

force vanished without sign or signal—in spite of its primaries, its negative-matter

bombs, its supposedly irresistible planets —and Tellus still circles untouched about Sol

its sun. The condition is admittedly not to be borne; but I have always said, and I now do

and shall insist, that no further action be taken until the Great Plan shall have been so

revised as reasonably to take into account the Lens . . . What of Arisia?" he demanded

of a third cabineteer.

     "It is feared that nothing can be done about Arisia at present," that entity replied.

"Expeditions have been sent, but they were dealt with as simply and as effectively as

were Lan and Amp of the Eich. Planets have also been sent, but they were detected by

the Patrol and were knocked out by far-ranging dirigible planets of the enemy. However,

I have concluded that Arisia, of and by itself, is not of prime immediate importance. It is

true that the Lens did in all probability originate with the Arisians. It is hence true that the

destruction of Arisia and its people would be highly desirable, in that it would insure that

no more Lenses would be produced. Such destruction would not do away, however with

the myriads of the instruments which are already in use and whose wearers are

operating so powerfully against us. Our most pressing business, it seems to me, is to

hunt down and exterminate all Lensmen; particularly the one whom Jalte called THE

Lensman; whom Eichmil was informed by Lensman Morgan, was known to even other

Lensmen only as Star A Star. In that connection, I am forced to wonder—is Star A Star

in reality only one mind?"

     "That question has been considered both by me and by your chief psychologist,"

Alcon made answer. "Frankly, we do not know. We have not enough reliable data upon

which to base a finding of fact Nor does it matter in the least. Whether one or two or a

thousand, we must find and we must slay until it is feasible to resume our orderly

conquest of the universe. We must also work unremittingly upon a plan to abate the

nuisance which is Arisia. Above all, we must see to it with the utmost diligence that no

iota of information concerning us ever reaches any member of the Galactic Patrol—I do