A last wave of Delgonian slaves hurled themselves forward, futile projectors furiously aflame, only to disappear in the DeLameters’ fans of force. The Patrolmen hated to kill those mindless slaves, but it was a nasty job that had to be done. The slaves out of the way, those ravening beams bored on into the massed Overlords.
And now Kinnison and vanBuskirk killed, if not joyously, at least relentlessly, mercilessly, and with neither sign nor sensation of compunction. For this unbelievably monstrous tribe needed killing, root and branch—not a scion or shoot of it should be allowed to survive, to continue to contaminate the civilization of the galaxy. Back and forth, to and fro, up and down swept the raging beams; playing on until in all the vast volume of that gruesome chamber nothing lived save the two grim figures in its portal.
Assured of this fact, but with DeLameters still in hand, the two destroyers retraced their way to the tunnel’s mouth, where Worsel anxiously awaited them. Lines of communication again established, Kinnison informed the Velantian of all that had taken place and the latter gradually cut down the power of his thought-screen. Soon it was at zero strength and he reported jubilantly that for the first time in untold ages, the Overlords of Delgon were off the air!
“But surely the danger isn’t over yet!” protested Kinnison. “We couldn’t have got them all in this one raid. Some of them must have escaped, and there must be other dens of them on this planet somewhere?”
“Possibly, possibly;” the Velantian waved his tail airily—the first sign of joyousness he had shown. “But their power is broken, definitely and forever. With these new screens, and with the arms and armament which, thanks to you, we can now fabricate, the task of wiping them out completely will be comparatively simple. Now you will accompany me to Velantia; where, I assure you, the resources of the planet will be put solidly behind you in your own endeavors. I have already summoned a space-ship—in less than twelve days we will be back in Velantia and at work upon your projects. In the meantime…”
“Twelve days! Noshabkeming the Radiant!” vanBuskirk exploded, and Kinnison put in.
“Sure—you forget they haven’t got free drive. We’d better hop over and get our lifeboat, I think. It’s not so good, either way, but in our own boat we’ll be open to detection less than an hour, as against twelve days in the Velantians. And the pirates may be here any minute. It’s as good as certain that their ship will be stopped and searched long before it gets back to Velantia, and if we were aboard it’d be just too bad.”
“And, since the crew knows about us, the pirates soon will, and it’ll be just too bad, anyway,” vanBuskirk reasoned.
“Not at all,” Interposed Worsel. “The few of my people who know of you have been instructed to seal that knowledge. I must admit, however, that I am greatly disturbed by your conceptions of these pirates of space. You see, until I met you I knew nothing more of the pirates than I did of your Patrol.”
“What a world!” vanBuskirk exclaimed. “No Patrol and no pirates! But at that, life might be simpler without both of them and without the free space-drive—more like it used to be in the good old airplane days that the novelists rave about.”
“Of course I could not judge as to that.” The Velantian was very serious. “This in which we live seems to be an out-of-the-way section of the galaxy; or it may be that we have nothing the pirates want.”
“More likely it’s simply that, like the Patrol, they haven’t got organized into this district yet,” suggested Kinnison. “There are so many thousands of millions of solar systems in the galaxy that it will probably be thousands of years yet before the Patrol gets into them all.”
“But about these pirates,” Worsel went back to his point. “If they have such minds as those of the Overlords, they will be able to break the seals of our minds. However, I gather from your thoughts that their minds are not of that strength?”
“Not so far as I know,” Kinnison replied. “You folks have the most powerful brains I ever heard of, short of the Arisians. And speaking of mental power, you can hear thoughts a lot farther than I can, even with my Lens or with this pirate receiver I’ve got. See if you can find out whether there are any pirates in space around here, will you?”
While the Velantian was concentrating, vanBuskirk asked.
“Why, if his mind is so strong, could the Overlords put him under so much easier than they could us ‘weak-minded’ human beings?”
“You are confusing ‘mind’ with ‘will,’ I think. Ages of submission to the Overlords made the Velantians’ will-power zero, as far as the bosses were concerned. On the other hand, you and I could raise stubbornness to sell to most people. In fact, if the Overlords had succeeded in really breaking us down, back there, the chances are we’d have gone insane.”
“Probably you’re right—we break, but don’t bend, huh?” and the Velantian was ready to report.
“I have scanned space to the nearer stars—some eleven of your light-years—and have encountered no intruding entities,” he announced.
“Eleven light-years—what a range!” Kinnison exclaimed. “However, that’s only a shade over two minutes for a pirate ship at full blast. But we’ve got to take a chance sometime, and the quicker we get started the sooner we’ll get back. We’ll pick you up here, Worsel. No use in you going back to your tent—we’ll be back here long before you could reach it. You’ll be safe enough, I think, especially with our spare DeLameters. Let’s get going, Bus!”
Again they shot into the air, again they traversed the airless depths of interplanetary space. To locate the temporary tomb of their lifeboat required only a few minutes, to disinter her only a few more. Then again they braved detection in the void; Kinnison tense at his controls, vanBuskirk in strained attention listening to and staring at his unscramblers and detectors. But the ether was still blank as the lifeboat struck Delgon’s atmosphere; it remained blank while the lifeboat, inert, blasted frantically to match Worsel’s intrinsic velocity.
“All right, Worsel, snap it up!” Kinnison called, and went on to vanBuskirk, “Now, you big, flat-footed Valerian spacehound, I hope that spaceman’s god of yours will see to it our luck holds good for just fourteen minutes more. We’ve had more luck already than we had any right to expect, but we can put a little more to most God-awful good use!”
“Noshabkeming does bring spacemen luck,” insisted the giant, grimacing a peculiar salute toward a small, golden image set inside his helmet, “and the fact that you warty, runty, atheistic little space-fleas of Tellus haven’t got sense enough to know it—not even enough sense to really believe in your own gods, even Klono—doesn’t change matters at all.”
“That’s tellin’ ’em, Bus!” Kinnison applauded. “But if it helps charge your batteries, go to it… Ready to blast! Lift!”
The Velantian had come aboard, the tiny airlock was again tight, and the little vessel shot away from Delgon toward far Velantia. And still the ether remained empty as far as the detectors could reach. Nor was this fact surprising, in spite of the Lensman’s fears to the contrary; for the Patrolmen had given the pirates such an extremely long line to cover that many days must yet elapse before the minions of Boskone would get around to visit that unimportant, unexplored, and almost unknown solar system. En route to his home planet Worsel got in touch with the crew of the Velantian vessel already in space, ordering them to return to port post-haste and instructing them in detail what to think and how to act should they be stopped and searched by one of Boskone’s raiders. By the time these instructions had been given, Velantia loomed large beneath the flying midget. Then, with Worsel as guide, Kinnison drove over a mighty ocean upon whose opposite shore lay the great city in which Worsel lived.
“But I would like to have them welcome you as befits what you have done, and have you go to the Dome!” mourned the Velantian. “Think of it! You have done a thing which for ages the massed power of the planet has been trying vainly to accomplish, and yet you insist that I alone take credit for it!”
&n
bsp; “I don’t insist on any such thing,” argued Kinnison, “even though it’s practically all yours, anyway. I insist only on your keeping us and the Patrol out of it, and you know as well as I do why you’ve got to do that. Tell them anything else you want to. Say that a couple of pink-haired Chickladorians helped you and then beat it back home. That planet’s far enough away so that if the pirates chase them they’ll get a real run for their money. After this blows over you can tell the truth—but not until then.
“And as for us going to the Dome for a grand hocus-Pocus, that is completely and definitely OUT. We’re not going anywhere except to the biggest airport you’ve got. You’re not going to give us anything except a lot of material and a lot of highly-trained help that can keep their thoughts sealed.
“We’ve got to build a lot of heavy stuff fast; and we’ve got to get started on it just as quick as Klono and Noshabkeming will let us!”
CHAPTER
8
The Quarry Strikes Back
ORSEL KNEW HIS COUNCIL OF scientists, as well as might; since it developed that he himself ranked high in that select circle. True to his promise, the largest airport of the planet was immediately emptied of its customary personnel, which was replaced the following morning by an entirely new group of workmen.
Nor were these replacements ordinarily laborers. They were young, keen, and highly trained; taken to a man from behind the thought-screens of the Scientists. It is true that they had no inkling of what they were to do, since none of them had ever dreamed of the possibility of such engines as they were to be called upon to construct.
But, on the other hand, they were well versed in the fundamental theories and operations of mathematics, and from pure mathematics to applied mechanics is but a step. Furthermore, they had brains; knew how to think logically, coherently, and effectively; and needed neither driving nor supervision—only instruction. And best of all, practically every one of the required mechanisms already existed, in miniature, within the Brittania’s lifeboat; ready at hand for their dissection, analysis, and enlargement. It was not lack of understanding which was to slow up the work, it was simply that the planet did not boast machine tools and equipment large enough or strong enough to handle the necessarily huge and heavy parts and members required.
While the construction of this heavy machinery was being rushed through, Kinnison and vanBuskirk devoted their efforts to the fabrication of an ultra-sensitive receiver, tunable to the pirates’ scrambled wave-bands. With their exactly detailed knowledge, and with the cleverest technicians and the choicest equipment of Velantia at their disposal, the set was soon completed.
Kinnison was giving its exceedingly delicate coils their final alignment when Worsel wriggled blithely into the radio laboratory.
“Hi, Kimball Kinnison! of the Lens!” he called gaily. Throwing a few yards of his serpent’s body in lightning loops about a convenient pillar, he made a horizontal bar of the rest of himself and dropped one wing-tip to the floor. Then, nonchalantly upside down, he thrust out three or four eyes and curled their stalks over the Lensman’s shoulder, the better to inspect the results of the mechanics’ efforts. Gone was the morose, pessimistic, death-haunted Worsel who had wrought and fought beside the armored pair upon fantastically inimical Delgon. This was a new Worsel entirely; gay, happy, carefree, and actually frolicsome—if you can imagine a thirty-foot-long, crocodile-headed, leather-winged python as being frolicsome!
“Hi, your royal snakeship!” Kinnison retorted in kind. “Still here, huh? Thought you’d be back on Delgon by this time, cleaning up the rest of that mess.”
“The equipment is not ready, but there’s no hurry about that,” the playful reptile unwrapped ten or twelve feet of tail from the pillar and waved it airily about. “Their power is broken, their race is done. You are about to try out the new receiver?”
“Yes—going out after them right now,” and Kinnison began deftly to manipulate the micrometric verniers of his dials.
Eyes fixed upon meters and gauges, he listened… listened. Increased his power and listened again. More and more power he applied to his apparatus, listening continually. Suddenly he stiffened, his hands becoming rock-still. He listened, if possible even more intently than before; and as he listened his face grew grim and granite-hard. Then the micrometers began again crawlingly to move, as though he were tracing a beam.
“Bus! Hook on the focusing beam-antenna!” he snapped. “It’s going to take every milliwatt of power we’ve got in this hookup to tap his beam, but I think I’ve got Helmuth direct instead of through a pirate-ship relay!”
Again and again he checked the readings of his dials and of the directors of his antenna; each time noting the exact time of the Velantian day.
“There! As soon as we get some time, Worsel, I’d like to work out these figures with some of your astronomers. They’ll give me a right line through Helmuth’s headquarters—I hope. Some day, if I’m spared, I’ll get another!”
“What kind of news did you get, chief?” asked vanBuskirk.
“Good and bad both,” replied the Lensman. “Good in that Helmuth doesn’t believe that we stayed with his ship as long as we did. He’s a suspicious devil, you know, and is pretty well convinced that we tried to run the same kind of a blazer on him that we did the other time. Since he hasn’t got enough ships on the job to work the whole line, he’s concentrating on the other end. That means that we’ve got plenty of days left yet. The bad part of it is that they’ve got four of our boats already and are bound to get more. Lord, how I wish I could call the rest of them! Some of them could certainly make it here before they got caught.”
“Might I then offer a suggestion?” asked Worsel, of a sudden diffident.
“Surely!” the Lensman replied in surprise. “Your ideas have never been any kind of poppycock. Why so bashful all at once?”
“Because this one is so…ah…so peculiarly personal, since you men regard so highly the privacy of your minds. Our two sciences, as you have already observed, are vastly different. You are far beyond us in mechanics, physics, chemistry, and the other applied sciences. We, on the other hand, have delved much deeper than you have into psychology and the other introspective studies. For that reason I know positively that the Lens you wear is capable of enormously greater things than you are at present able to make it perform. Of course I cannot use your Lens directly, since it is attuned to your own ego. However, if the idea appeals to you, I could, with your consent, occupy your mind and use your Lens to put you en rapport with your fellows. I have not volunteered the suggestion before because I know how averse your mind is to any foreign control.”
“Not necessarily to foreign control,” Kinnison corrected him. “Only to enemy control. The idea of friendly control never even occurred to me. That would be an entirely different breed of cats. Go to it!”
Kinnison relaxed his mind completely, and that of the Velantian came welling in; wave upon friendly, surging wave of benevolent power. And not only—or not precisely—power. It was more than power; it was a dynamic poignancy, a vibrant penetrance, a depth and clarity of perception that Kinnison in his most cogent moments had never dreamed a possibility. The possessor of that mind knew things, cameo-clear in microscopic detail, which the keenest minds of Earth could perceive only as chaotically indistinct masses of mental light and shade, of no recognizable pattern whatever!
“Give me the thought-pattern of him with whom you wish first to converse,” came Worsel’s thought, this time from deep within the Lensman’s own brain.
Kinnison felt a subtle thrill of uneasiness at that new and ultra-strange dual personality, but thought back steadily: “Sorry—I can’t.”
“Excuse me, I should have known that you cannot think in our patterns. Think, then, of him as a person—as an individual. That will give me, I believe, sufficient data.”
Into the Earthman’s mind there leaped a picture of Henderson, sharp and clear. He felt his Lens actually tingle and throb as a concentra
tion of vital force such as he had never known poured through his whole being and into that almost-living creation of the Arisians; and immediately thereafter he was in full mental communication with the Master Pilot! And there, seated across the tiny mess-table of their lifeboat, was LaVerne Thorndyke, the Master Technician.
Henderson came to his feet with a yell as the telepathic message bombshelled into his brain, and it required several seconds to convince him that he was not the victim of space-insanity or suffering from any other form of hallucination. Once convinced, however, he acted—his life-boat shot toward far Velantia at maximum blast.
Then: “Nelson! Allerdyce! Thompson! Jenkins! Uhlenhuth! Smith! Chatway!…” Kinnison called the roll.
Nelson, the specialist in communications, answered his captain’s call. So did Allerdyce, the juggling quartermaster. So did Uhlenhuth, a technician. So did those in three other boats. Two of these three were apparently well within the danger zone and might get nipped in their dash, but their crews elected without hesitation to take the chance. Four boats, it was already known, had been captured by the pirates. The others…
“Only eight boats,” Kinnison mused. “Not so good—but it could have been a lot worse—they might have got us all by this time—and maybe some of them are just out of our reach.” Then, turning to the Velantian, who had withdrawn his mind as soon as the job was done:
“Thanks, Worsel,” he said simply. “Some of those lads coming in have got plenty of just what it takes, and how we can use them!”
One by one the lifeboats made port, where their crews were welcomed briefly but feelingly before they were put to work. Nelson, one of the last pair to arrive, was particularly welcome.
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