“Not ‘probably’,” Kinnison corrected him grimly. “‘Certainly’.”
“…and Morgan does know…except about Bennett, of course…and he would not, for obvious reasons, bring in his secret armed forces. You’re right, Rod, it will be the election.”
“Definitely; and it’s plain enough what their basic strategy will be.” Kinnison, completely mollified, sat down and lit another cigar. “His Nationalist party is now in power, but it was our Cosmocrats of the previous administration who so basely slipped one over on the dear pee-pul—who betrayed the entire North American Continent into the claws of rapacious wealth, no less—by ratifying that unlawful, unhallowed, unconstitutional, and so on, treaty. Scoundrels! Bribe-takers! Betrayers of a sacred trust! How Rabble-Rouser Morgan will thump the tub on that theme—he’ll make the welkin ring as it never rang before.”
Kinnison mimicked savagely the demagogue’s round and purple tones as he went on: “‘Since they had no mandate from the pee-pul to trade their birthright for a mess of pottage that nefarious and underhanded treaty is, a prima vista and ipso facto and a priori, completely and necessarily and positively null and void. People of Earth, arouse! Arise! Rise in your might and throw off this stultifying and degrading, this paralyzing yoke of the Monied Powers—throw out this dictatorial, autocratic, wealth-directed, illegal, monstrous Council of so-called Lensmen! Rise in your might at the polls! Elect a Council of your own choosing—not of Lensmen, but of ordinary folks like you and me. Throw off this hellish yoke, I say!’—and here he begins to positively froth at the mouth—‘so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth!’
“He has used that exact peroration, ancient as it is, so many times that practically everybody thinks he originated it; and it’s always good for so many decibels of applause that he’ll keep on using it forever.”
“Your analysis is vivid, cogent, and factual, Rod—but the situation is not at all funny.”
“Did I act as though I thought it was? If so, I’m a damned poor actor. I’d like to kick the bloodsucking leech all the way from here to the Great Nebula in Andromeda, and if I ever get the chance I’m going to!”
“An interesting, but somewhat irrelevant idea.” Samms smiled at his friend’s passionate outburst. “But go on. I agree with you in principle so far, and your viewpoint is—to say the least—refreshing.”
“Well, Morgan will have so hypnotized most of the dear pee-pul that they will think it their own idea when he renominates this spineless nincompoop Witherspoon for another term as President of North America, with a solid machine-made slate of hatchet-men behind him. They win the election. Then the government of the North American Continent—not the Morgan-Towne-Isaacson machine, but all nice and legal and by mandate and in strict accordance with the party platform—abrogates the treaty and names its own Council. And right then, my friend, the boys and I will do our stuff.”
“Except that, in such a case, you wouldn’t. Think it over, Rod.”
“Why not?” Kinnison demanded, in a voice which, however, did not carry much conviction.
“Because we would be in the wrong; and we are even less able to go against united public opinion than is the Morgan crowd.”
“We’d do something—I’ve got it!” Kinnison banged the desk with his fist. “That would be a strictly unilateral action. North America would be standing alone.”
“Of course.”
“So we’ll pull all the Cosmocrats and all of our friends out of North America—move them to Bennett or somewhere—and make Morgan and Company a present of it. We won’t declare martial law or kill anybody, unless they decide to call in their reserves. We’ll merely isolate the whole damned continent—throw a screen around it and over it that a microbe won’t be able to get through—one that would make that iron curtain I read about look like a bride’s veil—and we’ll keep them isolated until they beg to join up on our terms. Strictly legal, and the perfect solution. How about me giving the boys a briefing on it, right now?”
“Not yet.” Samms’ mien, however, lightened markedly. “I never thought of that way out… It could be done, and it would probably work, but I would not recommend it except as an ultimately last resort. It has at least two tremendous drawbacks.”
“I know it, but…”
“It would wreck North America as no nation has ever been wrecked; quite possibly beyond recovery. Furthermore, how many people, including yourself and your children, would like to renounce their North American citizenship and remove themselves, permanently and irrevocably, from North American soil?”
“Um…m…m. Put that away, it doesn’t sound so good, does it? But what the hell else can we do?”
“Just what we have been planning on doing. We must win the election.”
“Huh?” Kinnison’s mouth almost fell open. “You say it easy. How? With whom? By what stretch of the imagination do you figure that you can find anybody with a loose enough mouth to out-lie and out-promise Morgan? And can you duplicate his machine?”
“We can not only duplicate his machine; we can better it. The truth, presented to the people in language they can understand and appreciate, by a man whom they like, admire, and respect, will be more attractive than Morgan’s promises. The same truth will dispose of Morgan’s lies.”
“Well, go on. You’ve answered my questions, after a fashion, except the stinger. Does the Council think it’s got a man with enough dynage to lift the load?”
“Unanimously. They also agreed unanimously that we have only one. Haven’t you any idea who he is?”
“Not a glimmering of one.” Kinnison frowned in thought, then his face cleared into a broad grin and he yelled: “What a damn fool I am—you, of course!”
“Wrong. I was not even seriously considered. It was the consensus that I could not possibly win. My work has been such as to keep me out of the public eye. If the man in the street thinks of me at all, he thinks that I hold myself apart and above him—the ivory tower concept.”
“Could be, at that; but you’ve got my curiosity aroused. How can a man of that caliber have been kicking around so long without me knowing anything about him?”
“You do. That’s what I’ve been working around to all afternoon. You.”
“Huh?” Kinnison gasped as though he had received a blow in the solar plexus. “Me? ME? Hell’s—Brazen—Hinges!”
“Exactly. You.” Silencing Kinnison’s inarticulate protests, Samms went on: “First, you’ll have no difficulty in talking to an audience as you’ve just talked to me.”
“Of course not—but did I use any language that would burn out the transmitters? I don’t remember whether I did or not.”
“I don’t, either. You probably did, but that would be nothing new. Telenews has never yet cut you off the ether because of it. The point is this: while you do not realize it, you are a better tub-thumper and welkin-ringer than Morgan is, when something—such as just now—really gets you going. And as for a machine, what finer one is possible than the Patrol? Everybody in it or connected with it will support you to the hilt—you know that.”
“Why, I… I suppose so…probably they would, yes.”
“Do you know why?”
“Can’t say that I do, unless it’s because I treat them fair, so they do the same to me.”
“Exactly. I don’t say that everybody likes you, but I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t respect you. And, most important, everybody—all over space—knows ‘Rod the Rock’ Kinnison, and why he is called that.”
“But that very ‘man on horseback’ thing may backfire on you, Virge.”
“Perhaps—slightly—but we’re not afraid of that. And finally, you said you’d like to kick Morgan from here to Andromeda. How would you like to kick him from Panama City to the North Pole?”
“I said it, and I wasn’t just warming up my jets, either. I’d like it.” The big Lensman’s nostrils flared, his lips thinned. “By God, Virge, I will!”
“Thanks, Rod.” With no display whatever of the emotion he felt, Samms skipped deliberately to the matter next in hand. “Now, about Eridan. Let’s see if they know anything yet.”
The report of Knobos and DalNalten was terse and exact. They had found—and that finding, so baldly put, could have filled and should fill a book—that Spaceways’ uranium vessels were, beyond any reasonable doubt, hauling thionite from Eridan to the planets of Sol. Spy-rays being useless, they had considered the advisability of investigating Eridan in person, but had decided against such action. Eridan was closely held by Uranium, Incorporated. Its population was one hundred percent Tellurian human. Neither DalNalten nor Knobos could disguise himself well enough to work there. Either would be caught promptly, and as promptly shot.
“Thanks, fellows,” Samms said, when it became evident that the brief report was done. Then, to Kinnison, “That puts it up to Conway Costigan. And Jack? Or Mase? Or both?”
“Both,” Kinnison decided, “and anybody else they can use.”
“I’ll get them at it.” Samms sent out thoughts. “And now, I wonder what that daughter of mine is doing? I’m a little worried about her, Rod. She’s too cocky for her own good—or strength. Some of these days she’s going to bite off more than she can chew, if she hasn’t already. The more we learn about Morgan, the less I like the idea of her working on Herkimer Herkimer Third. I’ve told her so, a dozen times, and why, but of course it didn’t do any good.”
“It wouldn’t. The only way to develop teeth is to bite with ’em. You had to. So did I. Our kids have got to, too. We lived through it. So will they. As for Herky the Third…” He thought for moments, then went on: “Check. But she’s done a job so far that nobody else could do. In spite of that fact, if it wasn’t for our Lenses I’d say to pull her, if you have to heave the insubordinate young jade into the brig. But with the Lenses, and the way you watch her…to say nothing of Mase Northrop, and he’s a lot of man… I can’t see her getting in either very bad or very deep. Can you?”
“No, I can’t.” Samms admitted, but the thoughtful frown did not leave his face. He Lensed her: finding, as he had supposed, that she was at a party; dancing, as he had feared, with Senator Morgan’s Number One Secretary.
“Hi, Dad!” she greeted him gaily, with no slightest change in the expression of the face turned so engagingly to her partner’s. “I have the honor of reporting that all instruments are still dead-centering the green.”
“And have you, by any chance, been paying any attention to what I have been telling you?”
“Oh, lots,” she assured him. “I’ve collected reams of data. He could be almost as much of a menace as he thinks he is, in some cases, but I haven’t begun to slip yet. As I have told you all along, this is just a game, and we’re both playing it strictly according to the rules.”
“That’s good. Keep it that way, my dear.” Samms signed off and his daughter returned her full attention—never noticeably absent—to the handsome secretary.
The evening wore on. Miss Samms danced every dance; occasionally with one or another of the notables present, but usually with Herkimer Herkimer Third.
“A drink?” he asked. “A small, cold one?”
“Not so small, and very cold,” she agreed, enthusiastically.
Glass in hand, Herkimer indicated a nearby doorway. “I just heard that our host has acquired a very old and very fine bronze—a Neptune. We should run an eye over it, don’t you think?”
“By all means,” she agreed again.
But as they passed through the shadowed portal the man’s head perked to the right. “There’s something you really ought to see, Jill!” he exclaimed. “Look!”
She looked. A young woman of her own height and build and with her own flamboyant hair, identical as to hair-do and as to every fine detail of dress and of ornamentation, glass in band, was strolling back into the ball-room!
Jill started to protest, but could not. In the brief moment of inaction the beam of a snub-nosed P-gun had played along her spine from hips to neck. She did not fall—he had given her a very mild jolt—but, rage as she would, she could neither struggle nor scream. And, after the fact, she knew.
But he couldn’t—couldn’t possibly! Nevian paralysis-guns were as outlawed as was Vee Two gas itself! Nevertheless, he had.
And on the instant a woman, dressed in crisp and spotless white and carrying a hooded cloak, appeared—and Herkimer now wore a beard and heavy, horn rimmed spectacles. Thus, very shortly, Virgilia Samms found herself, completely helpless and completely unrecognizable, walking awkwardly out of the house between a businesslike doctor and a solicitous nurse.
“Will you need me any more, Doctor Murray?” The woman carefully and expertly loaded the patient into the rear seat of a car.
“Thank you, no, Miss Childs.” With a sick, cold certainty Jill knew that this conversation was for the benefit of the doorman and the hackers, and that it would stand up under any examination. “Mrs. Harman’s condition is…er…well, nothing at all serious.”
The car moved out into the street and Jill, really frightened for the first time in her triumphant life, fought down an almost overwhelming wave of panic. The hood had slipped down over her eyes, blinding her. She could not move a single voluntary muscle. Nevertheless, she knew that the car traveled a few blocks—six, she thought—west on Bolton Street before turning left.
Why didn’t somebody Lens her? Her father wouldn’t, she knew, until tomorrow. Neither of the Kinnisons would, nor Spud—they never did except on direct invitation. But Mase would, before he went to bed—or would he? It was past his bed-time now, and she had been pretty caustic, only last night, because she was doing a particularly delicate bit of reading. But he would…he must!
“Mase! Mase! MASE!”
And, eventually, Mase did.
Deep under The Hill, Roderick Kinnison swore fulminantly at the sheer physical impossibility of getting out of that furiously radiating mountain in a hurry. At New York Spaceport, however, Mason Northrop and Jack Kinnison not only could hurry, but did.
“Where are you, Jill?” Northrop demanded presently. “What kind of a car are you in?”
“Quite near Stanhope Circle.” In communication with her friends at last, Jill regained a measure of her usual poise. “Within eight or ten blocks, I’m sure. I’m in a black Wilford sedan, last year’s model. I didn’t get a chance to see its license plates.”
“That helps a lot!” Jack grunted, savagely. “A ten-block radius covers a hell of a lot of territory, and half the cars is town are black Wilford sedans.”
“Shut up, Jack! Go ahead, Jill—tell us all you can, and keep on sending us anything that will help at all.”
“I kept the right and left turns and distances straight for quite a while—about twenty blocks—that’s how I know it was Stanhope Circle. I don’t know how many times he went around the circle, though, or which way he went when he left it. After leaving the Circle, the traffic was very light, and here there doesn’t seem to be any traffic at all. That brings us up to date. You’ll know as well as I do what happens next.”
With Jill, the Lensmen knew that Herkimer drove his car up to the curb and stopped—parked without backing up. He got out and hauled the girl’s limp body out of the car, displacing the hood enough to free one eye. Good! Only one other car was visible; a bright yellow convertible parked across the street, about half a block ahead. There was a sign—“NO PARKING ON THIS SIDE 7 TO 10.” The building toward which he was carrying her was more than three stories high, and had a number—one, four—if he would only swing her a little bit more, so that she could see the rest of it—one four-seven-nine!
“Rushton Boulevard, you think, Mase?”
“Could be. Fourteen seventy nine would be on the downtown-traffic side. Blast!”
Into the building, where two masked men locked and barred the door behind them. “And keep it locked!” Herkimer ordered. “You know what to do until I come back dow
n.”
Into an elevator, and up. Through massive double doors into a room, whose most conspicuous item of furniture was a heavy steel chair, bolted to the floor. Two masked men got up and placed themselves behind that chair.
Jill’s strength was coming back fast; but not fast enough. The cloak was removed. Her ankles were tied firmly, one to each front leg of the chair. Herkimer threw four turns of rope around her torso and the chair’s back, took up every inch of slack, and tied a workmanlike knot. Then, still without a word, he stood back and lighted a cigarette. The last trace of paralysis disappeared, but the girl’s mad struggles, futile as they were, were not allowed to continue.
“Put a double hammerlock on her,” Herkimer directed, “but be damned sure not to break anything at this stage of the game. That comes later.”
Jill, more furiously angry than frightened until now, locked her teeth to keep from screaming as the pressure went on. She could not bend forward to relieve the pain; she could not move; she could only grit her teeth and glare. She was beginning to realize, however, what was actually in store; that Herkimer Herkimer Third was in fact a monster whose like she had never known.
He stepped quietly forward, gathered up a handful of fabric, and heaved. The strapless and backless garment, in no way designed to withstand such stresses, parted; squarely across at the upper strand of rope. He puffed his cigarette to a vivid coal—took it in his fingers—there was an audible hiss and a tiny stink of burning flesh as the glowing ember was extinguished in the clear, clean skin below the girl’s left armpit. Jill flinched then, and shrieked desperately, but her tormentor was viciously unmoved.
“That was just to settle any doubt as to whether or not I mean business. I’m all done fooling around with you. I want to know two things. First, everything you know about the Lens; where it comes from, what it really is, and what it does besides what your press-agents advertise. Second, what really happened at the Ambassadors’ Ball. Start talking. The faster you talk, the less you’ll get hurt.”
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