“Sure,” the Radeligian replied. “I knew I shouldn’t have blasted off as soon as I spoke.”
“Well, thanks a lot, fellows.” Kinnison set his empty glass down with a click. “I can make a nice progress report on this do-jig now. And one more thing. I did a little long range experimenting on one of your computers last night…”
“Desk Twelve? The one who thought he wanted to integrate something?”
“That’s the one. Tell him I was using him for a mind-ray subject, will you, and give him this fifty-credit bill? Don’t want the boys needling him too much.”
“Yes, and thanks…and… I wonder…” the Radeligian Lensman had something on his mind. “Well…can you make a man tell the truth with that? And if you can, will you?”
“I think so. Certainly I will, if I can. Why?” Kinnison knew that he could, but did not wish to seem cocksure.
“There’s been a murder.” The other three glanced at each other in understanding and sighed with profound relief. “A particularly fiendish murder of a woman—a girl, rather. Two men stand accused. Each has a perfect alibi, supported by honest witnesses; but you know how much an alibi means now. Both men tell perfectly straight stories, even under a lie-detector, but neither will let me—or any other Lensman so far—touch his mind.” Gerrond paused.
“Uh-huh,” Kinnison understood. “Lots of innocent people simply can’t stand Lensing and have mighty strong blocks.”
“Glad you’ve seen such. One of those men is lying with a polish I wouldn’t have believed possible, or else both are innocent. And one of them must be guilty; they are the only suspects. If we try them now we make fools of ourselves, and we can’t put the trial off very much longer without losing face. If you can help us out you’ll be doing a lot for the Patrol, throughout this whole sector.”
“I can help you,” Kinnison declared. “For this, though, better have some props. Make me a box—double Burbank controls, with five baby spots on it—orange, blue, green, purple, and red. The biggest set of headphones you’ve got, and a thick, black blindfold. How soon can you try ’em?”
“The sooner the better. It can be arranged for this afternoon.”
The trial was announced, and long before the appointed hour the great court-room of that world’s largest city was thronged. The hour struck. Quiet reigned. Kinnison, in his somber gray, strode to the judge’s desk and sat down behind the peculiar box upon it. In dead silence two Patrol officers approached. The first invested him reverently with the headphones, the second so enwrapped his head in black cloth that it was apparent to all observers that his vision was completely obscured.
“Although from a world far distant in space, I have been asked to try two suspects for the crime of murder,” Kinnison soon intoned. “I do not know the details of the crime nor the identity of the suspects. I do know that they and their witnesses are within these railings. I shall now select those who are about to be examined.”
Piercing beams of intense, vari-colored light played over the two groups, and the deep, impressive voice went on.
“I know now who the suspects are. They are about to rise, to walk, and to seat themselves as I shall direct.”
They did so; it being plainly evident to all observers that they were under some awful compulsion.
“The witnesses may be excused. Truth is the only thing of importance here; and witnesses, being human and therefore frail, obstruct truth more frequently than they further its progress. I shall now examine these two accused.”
Again the vivid, weirdly distorting glares of light lashed out; bathing in intense monochrome and in various ghastly combinations first one prisoner, then the other; all the while Kinnison drove his mind into theirs, plumbing their deepest depths. The silence, already profound, became the utter stillness of outer space as the throng, holding its very breath now, sat enthralled by that portentous examination.
“I have examined them fully. You are all aware that any Lensman of the Galactic Patrol may in case of need serve as judge, jury, and executioner. I am, however, none of these; nor is this proceeding to be a trial as you may have understood the term. I have said that witnesses are superfluous. I will now add that neither judge nor jury are necessary. All that is required is to discover the truth; since truth is all-powerful. For that same reason no executioner is needed here—the discovered truth will in and of itself serve us in that capacity.
“One of these men is guilty, the other is innocent. From the mind of the guilty one I am about to construct a composite, not of this one fiendish crime alone, but of all the crimes he has ever committed. I shall project that composite into the air before him. No innocent mind will be able to see any iota of it. The guilty man, however, will perceive its every revolting detail; and, so perceiving, he will forthwith cease to exist in this plane of life.”
One of the men had nothing to fear—Kinnison had told him so, long since. The other had been trembling for minutes in uncontrollable paroxysms of terror. Now this one leaped from his seat, clawing savagely at his eyes and screaming in mad abandon.
“I did it! Help! Mercy! Take her away! Oh…h…h!!” he shrieked, and died, horribly, even as he shrieked.
Nor was there noise in the court-room after the thing was over. The stunned spectators slunk away, scarcely daring even to breathe until they were safely outside.
Nor were the Radeligian officers in much better case. Not a word was said until the five were back in the base commander’s office. Then Kinnison, still white of face and set of jaw, spoke. The others knew that he had found the guilty man, and that he had in some peculiarly terrible fashion executed him. He knew that they knew that the man was hideously guilty. Nevertheless:
“He was guilty,” the Tellurian jerked out. “Guilty as all the devils in hell. I never had to do that before and it gripes me—but I couldn’t shove the job off onto you fellows. I wouldn’t want anybody to see that picture that didn’t have to, and without it you could never begin to understand just how atrociously and damnably guilty that hell-hound really was.”
“Thanks, Kinnison,” Gerrond said, simply. “Kinnison. Kinnison of Tellus. I’ll remember that name, in case we ever need you as badly again. But, after what you just did, it will be a long time—if ever. You didn’t know, did you, that all the inhabitants of four planets were watching you?”
“Holy Klono, no! Were they?”
“They were; and if the way you scared me is any criterion, it will be a long, cold day before anything like that comes up again in this system. And thanks again, Gray Lensman. You have done something for our whole Patrol this day.”
“Be sure to dismantle that box so thoroughly that nobody will recognize any of its component parts,” and Kinnison managed a rather feeble grin. “One more thing and I’ll buzz along. Do you fellows happen to know where there’s a good, strong pirate base around here anywhere? And, while I don’t want to seem fussy, I would like it all the better if they were warm-blooded oxygen-breathers, so I won’t have to wear armor all the time.”
“What are you trying to do, give us the needle, or something?” This is not precisely what the Radeligian said, but it conveys the thought Kinnison received as the base commander stared at him in amazement.
“Don’t tell me that there is such a base around here!” exclaimed the Tellurian in delight. “Is there, really?”
“There is. So strong that we haven’t been able to touch it; manned and staffed by natives of your own planet, Tellus of Sol. We reported it to Prime Base some eighty-three days ago, just after we discovered it. You’re direct from there…” He fell silent. This was no way to be talking to a Gray Lensman.
“I was in the hospital then, fighting with my nurse because she wouldn’t give me anything to eat,” Kinnison explained with a laugh. “When I left Tellus I didn’t check up on the late data—didn’t think I’d need it quite so soon. If you’ve got it, though…”
“Hospital! You?” queried one of the younger Radeligians.
“Yea
h—bit off more than I could chew,” and the Tellurian described briefly his misadventure with the Wheelmen of Aldebaran I. “This other thing has come up since then, though, and I won’t be sticking my neck out that way again. If you’ve got such a made-to-order base as that in this region, it’ll save me a long trip. Where is it?”
They gave him its coordinates and what little information they had been able to secure concerning it. They did not ask him why he wanted that data. They may have wondered at his temerity in daring to scout alone a fortress whose strength had kept at bay the massed Patrol forces of the sector: but if they did so they kept their thoughts well screened. For this was a Gray Lensman, and very evidently a super-powered individual, even of that select group whose weakest members were powerful indeed. If he felt like talking they would listen; but Kinnison did not talk. He listened; then, when he had learned everything they knew of the Boskonian base:
“Well, I’d better be flitting. Clear ether, fellows!” and he was gone.
CHAPTER
20
Mac Is a Bone of Contention
UT FROM RADELIX AND INTO deep space shot the speedster bearing the Gray Lensman toward Boyssia II, where the Boskonian base was situated. The Patrol forces had not been able to locate it definitely, therefore it must be cleverly hidden indeed. Manned and staffed by Tellurians—and this was fairly close to the line first taken by the pilot of the pirate vessel whose crew had been so decimated by vanBuskirk and his Valerians. There couldn’t be so many Boskonian bases with Tellurian personnel, Kinnison reflected. It was well within the bounds of possibility, even of probability, that he might encounter here his former, but unsuspecting, shipmates again.
Since the Boyssian system was less than a hundred parsecs from Radelix, a couple of hours found the Lensman staring down upon another strange planet; and this one was a very Earthly world indeed. There were polar ice-caps, areas of intensely dazzling white. There was an atmosphere, deep and sweetly blue, filled for the most part with sunlight, but flecked here and there with clouds, some of which were slow-moving storms. There were continents, bearing mountains and plains, lakes and rivers. There were oceans, studded with islands great and small.
But Kinnison was no planetographer, nor had he been gone from Tellus sufficiently long so that the sight of this beautiful and home-like world aroused in him any qualm of nostalgia. He was looking for a pirate base; and, dropping his speedster as low into the night side as he dared, he began his search.
Of man or of the works of man he at first found little enough trace. All human or near-human life was apparently still in a savage state of development; and, except for a few scattered races, or rather tribes, of burrowers and of cliff- or cave-dwellers, it was still nomadic, wandering here and there without permanent habitation or structure. Animals of scores of genera and species were there in myriads, but neither was Kinnison a biologist. He wanted pirates; and, it seemed, that was the one form of life which he was not going to find!
But finally, through sheer, grim, bull-dog pertinacity, he was successful. That base was there, somewhere. He would find it, no matter how long it took. He would find it, if he had to examine the entire crust of the planet, land and water alike, kilometer by plotted cubic kilometer! He set out to do just that; and it was thus that he found the Boskonian stronghold.
It had been built directly beneath a towering range of mountains, protected from detection by mile upon mile of native copper and of iron ore.
Its entrances, invisible before, were even now not readily perceptible, camouflaged as they were by outer layers of rock which matched exactly in form, color, and texture the rocks of the cliffs in which they were placed. Once those entrances were located, the rest was easy. Again he set his speedster into a carefully-observed orbit and came to ground in his armor. Again he crept forward, furtively and skulkingly, until he could perceive again a shimmering web of force.
With minor variations his method of entry into the Boskonian base was similar to that he had used in making his way into the Patrol base upon Radelix. He was, however, working now with a surety and a precision which had then been lacking. His practice with the Patrolmen had given him knowledge and technique. His sitting in judgment, during which he had touched almost every mind in the vast assemblage, had taught him much. And above all, the grisly finale of that sitting, horribly distasteful and soul-wracking as it had been, had given him training of inestimable value; necessitating as it had the infliction of the ultimate penalty.
He knew that he might have to stay inside that base for some time, therefore he selected his hiding-place with care. He could of course blank out the knowledge of his presence in the mind of anyone chancing to discover him; but since such an interruption might come at a critical instant, he preferred to take up his residence in a secluded place. There were, of course, many vacant suites in the officers’ quarters—all bases must have accommodations for visitors—and the Lensman decided to occupy one of them. It was a simple matter to obtain a key, and, inside the bare but comfortable little room, he stripped off his armor with a sigh of relief.
Leaning back in a deeply upholstered leather arm-chair, he closed his eyes and let his sense of perception roam throughout the great establishment. With all his newly developed power he studied it, hour after hour and day after day. When he was hungry the pirate cooks fed him, not knowing that they did so—he had lived on iron rations long enough. When he was tired he slept, with his eternally vigilant Lens on guard.
Finally he knew everything there was to be known about that stronghold and was ready to act. He did not take over the mind of the base commander, but chose instead the chief communications officer as the one most likely and most intimately to have dealings with Helmuth. For Helmuth, he who spoke for Boskone, had for many months been the Lensman’s definite objective.
But this game could not be hurried. Bases, no matter how important, did not call Grand Base except upon matters of the most dire urgency, and no such matter eventuated. Nor did Helmuth call that base, since nothing out of the ordinary was happening—to any pirates’ knowledge, that is—and his attention was more necessary elsewhere.
One day, however, there came crackling in a triumphant report—a ship working out of that base had taken noble booty indeed; no less a prize than a fully-supplied hospital ship of the Patrol itself! As the report progressed Kinnison’s heart went down into his boots and he swore bitterly to himself. How in all the nine hells of Valeria had they managed to take such a ship as that? Hadn’t she been escorted?
Nevertheless, as chief communications officer he took the report and congratulated heartily, through the ship’s radio man, its captain, its officers, and its crew.
“Mighty fine work; Helmuth himself shall hear of this,” he concluded his words of praise. “How did you do it? With one of the new maulers?”
“Yea, sir,” came the reply. “Our mauler, accompanying us just out of range, came up and engaged theirs. That left us free to take this ship. We locked on with magnets, cut our way in, and here we are.”
There they were indeed. The hospital ship was red with blood; patients, doctors, interns, officers and operating crew alike had been butchered with the horribly ruthless savagery which was the customary technique of all the agencies of Boskone. Of all that ship’s personnel only the nurses lived. They were not to be put to death—yet. In fact, and under certain conditions, they need not die at all.
They huddled together, a little knot of white-clad misery in that corpse-littered room, and even now one of them was being dragged away. She was fighting viciously, with fists and feet, with nails and teeth. No one pirate could handle her, it took two strong men to subdue that struggling fury. They hauled her upright and she threw back her head in panting defiance. There was a cascade of red-bronze hair and Kinnison saw—Clarrissa MacDougall! And remembered that there had been some talk that they were going to put her back into space service! The Lensman decided instantly what to do.
“Stop, you swine!”
he roared through his pirate mouthpiece. “Where do you think you’re going with that nurse?”
“To the captain’s cabin, sir.” The huskies stopped short in amazement as that roar filled the room, but answered the question concisely.
“Let her go!” Then, as the girl fled back to the huddled group in the corner: “Tell the captain to come out here and assemble every officer and man of the crew. I want to talk to you all at once.”
He had a minute or two in which to think, and he thought furiously, but accurately. He had to do something, but whatever he did must be done strictly according to the pirates’ own standards of ethics; if he made one slip it might be Aldebaran I all over again. He knew how to keep from making that slip, he thought. But also, and this was the hard part, he must work in something that would let those nurses know that there was still hope; that there were more acts of this drama yet to come. Otherwise he knew with a stark, cold certainty what would happen. He knew of what stuff the space-nurses of the Patrol were made; knew that they could be driven just so far, and no farther—alive.
There was a way out of that, too. In the childishness of his hospitalization he had called Nurse MacDougall a dumb-bell. He had thought of her, and had spoken to her quite frankly, in uncomplimentary terms. But he knew that there was a real brain back of that beautiful face, that a quick and keen intelligence resided under that red-bronze thatch. Therefore when the assembly was complete he was ready, and in no uncertain or ambiguous language he opened up.
“Listen, you—all of you!” he roared. “This is the first time in months that we have made such a haul as this, and you fellows have the brazen gall to start helping yourselves to the choicest stuff before anybody else gets a look at it. I tell you now to lay off, and that goes exactly as it lays. I, personally, will kill any man that touches one of those women before they arrive here at base. Now you, captain, are the first and worst offender of the lot,” and he stared directly into the eyes of the officer whom he had last seen entering the dungeon of the Wheelmen.
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