Part 14
"Hm-m-m. That changes things. I've got to find a pirate ship. I was planning on following a freighter or liner out toward Alsakan. But if there aren't any to follow--I'll have to hunt around some----"
"That is easily arranged. Lots of them want to go. We will let one go, with a mauler accompanying her, but well outside detector range."
"That covers everything, then, except the assignment. I can't very well ask for leave, but maybe I could be put on special assignment, reporting direct to you?"
* * * * *
"Something better than that." And Haynes smiled broadly, in genuine pleasure. "Everything is fixed. Your release has been entered in the books. Your commission as captain has been canceled, so leave your uniform in your former quarters. Here is your credit book and here is the rest of your kit. You are now an unattached Lensman."
The release! The goal toward which all Lensmen strive, but which so comparatively few attain, even after years of work! He was now a free agent, responsible to no one and to nothing save his own conscience. He was no longer of Earth, nor of the solarian system, but of the galaxy as a whole. He was no longer a tiny cog in the immense machine of the Galactic Patrol; wherever he might go, throughout the immensity of the entire island universe, he _would be_ the Galactic Patrol!
"Yes, it's real." The older man was enjoying the youngster's stupefaction at his release, reminding him as it did of the time, long years ago, when he had won his own. "You go anywhere you please and do anything you please, for as long as you please. You take anything you want, whenever you want it, with or without giving reasons--although you will usually give a thumb-printed credit slip in return. You report if, as, when, where, how, and to whom you please--or not, as you please. You don't even get a salary any more. You help yourself to that, too, wherever you may be--as much as you want, whenever you want it."
"But, sir--I--you----I mean--that is----" Kinnison gulped three times before he could speak coherently. "I'm not ready, sir. Why, I'm nothing but a kid. I haven't got enough jets to swing it. Just the bare thought of it scares me into hysterics!"
"It would. It always does." The admiral was very much in earnest now, but it was a glad, proud earnestness. "You are to be as nearly absolutely free an agent as it is possible for a living, flesh-and-blood creature to be. To the man on the street that would seem to spell a condition of perfect bliss. Only a gray Lensman knows what a frightful load it really is; but it is a load that such a Lensman is glad and proud to carry."
"Yes, sir, he would be, of course, if he----"
"That thought will bother you for a time--if it did not, you would not be here--but do not worry about it any more than you can help. All I can say is that in the opinion of those who should know, not only have you proved yourself ready for release, but also you have earned it."
"How do they figure that out?" Kinnison demanded, hotly. "All that saved my bacon on that trip was luck--a burned-out Bergenholm--and at the time I thought that it was bad luck, at that. And VanBuskirk and Worsel and the other boys and Heaven knows who else pulled me out of jam after jam. I'd like awfully well to believe that I'm ready, sir, but I'm not. I can't take credit for pure dumb luck and for other men's abilities."
"Well, coöperation is to be expected, and we like to make gray Lensmen out of the lucky ones." Haynes laughed deeply. "It may make you feel better, though, if I tell you two more things: first, that so far you have made the best showing of any man yet graduated from Wentworth Hall; second, that we of the court believe you would have succeeded in that almost impossible mission without VanBuskirk, without Worsel, and without the lucky failure of the Bergenholm. In a different, and now, of course, unguessable fashion, but succeeded, nevertheless. Nor is this to be taken as in any sense a belittlement of the very real abilities of those others, nor a denial that luck, or chance, does exist. It is merely our recognition of the fact that you have what it takes to be an unattached Lensman.
"Seal it now, and buzz off!" he commanded, as Kinnison tried to say something; and, clapping him on the shoulder, he turned him around and gave him a gentle shove toward the door. "Clear ether, lad!"
"Same to you, sir--all of it there is. I still think that you and all the rest of the court are cockeyed; but I'll try not to let you down." And the newly unattached Lensman blundered out. He stumbled over the threshold, bumped against a stenographer who was hurrying along the corridor, and almost barged into the jamb of the entrance door instead of going through the opening. Outside he regained his physical poise and walked on air toward his quarters; but he never could remember afterward what he did or whom he met on that long, fast hike. Over and over the one thought pounded in his brain: unattached! _Unattached!!_ UNATTACHED!!
* * * * *
And behind him, in the port admiral's office, that high official sat and mused, smiling faintly with lips and eyes, staring unseeingly at the still-open doorway through which Kinnison had staggered. The boy had measured up in every particular. He would be a good man. He would marry. He did not think so now, of course--in his own mind his life was consecrate--but he would. If necessary, the patrol itself would see to it that he did. There were ways, and such stock was altogether too good not to be propagated. And, fifteen years or so from now--if he lived--when he was no longer fit for the grinding, grueling life to which he now looked forward so eagerly, he would select the Earthbound job for which he was best fitted and would become a good executive. For such were the executives of the patrol. But this daydreaming was getting him nowhere, fast; he shook himself and plunged again into his work.
Kinnison reached his quarters at last, realizing with a thrill that they were no longer his. He now had no quarters, no residence, no address. Wherever he might be, throughout the whole of illimitable space, there was his home. But, instead of being dismayed by the thought of the life he faced, he was filled by a fierce eagerness to be actually living it.
There was a tap at his door and an orderly entered, carrying a bulky package.
"Your grays, sir," he announced, with a crisp salute.
"Thanks." Kinnison returned the salute as smartly; and, almost before the door had closed, he was stripping off the space black-and-silver gorgeousness of the captain's uniform he wore, and was donning gray.
The gray--the unadorned, neutral-colored leather that was the proud garb of that branch of the patrol to which he was thenceforth to belong. It had been tailored to his measurements, and he could not help studying with approval his reflection in the mirror: the round, almost visorless cap, heavily and softly quilted in protection against the helmet of his armor; the heavy goggles, opaque to all radiation harmful to the eyes; the short jacket, emphasizing broad shoulders and narrow waist; the trim breeches and high-laced boots, incasing powerful, tapering legs.
"What an outfit--_what_ an outfit!" he breathed. "And maybe I ain't such a bad-looking ape, at that, in these grays!" He did not then, and never did realize that he was wearing the plainest, drabbest, most strictly utilitarian uniform in the known universe; for to him, as to all others who knew it, the sheer, stark simplicity of the unattached Lensman's plain gray leather transcended by far the gaudy trappings of the other branches of the service. He admired himself boyishly, as men do, feeling a trifle ashamed in so doing; but he did not then and never did appreciate what a striking figure of a man he really was as he strode out of quarters and down the wide avenue toward the _Brittania II's_ dock.
* * * * *
He was glad indeed that there had been no ceremony or public show connected with this, his real and only important graduation. For as his fellows--not only his own crew, but also his friends from all over the Reservation--thronged about him, mauling and pummeling him in congratulation and acclaim, he knew that he couldn't stand much more. If there were to be much more of it, he discovered suddenly, he would either pass out cold or cry like a baby. He didn't quite know which.
That whole howling, chanting mob clustered about him; and, considering it an honor to carry the least of his personal belongings, formed a yelling, cap-tossing escort. Traffic meant nothing whatever to that pleasantly mad crew, nor, temporarily, did regulations. Let traffic detour; let pedestrians, no matter how august, cool their heels; let cars, trucks, yes, even trains, wait until they got past; let everything wait, or turn around and go back, or go some other way. Here comes Kinnison! Kinnison, gray Lensman! Make way! And way was made--from the _Brittania II's_ dock clear across base to the slip in which the Lensman's new speedster lay.
And what a ship this little speedster was! Trim, trig, streamlined to the ultimate she lay there, quiescent but surcharged with power. Almost sentient she was, this power-packed, ultra-racy little fabrication of space-toughened alloy, instantly ready at his touch to liberate those tremendous energies which were to hurl him through the infinite reaches of the cosmic void.
None of the mob came aboard, of course. They backed off, still frantically waving and throwing whatever came closest to hand; and as Kinnison touched a button and shot into the air he swallowed several times in a vain attempt to dispose of an amazing lump which had somehow appeared in his throat.
XV.
It so happened that for many long weeks there had been lying in New York space port an urgent shipment for Alsakan. And not only was that urgency a one-way affair. For, with the possible exception of a few packets, whose owners had locked them in vaults and would not part with them at any price, there was not a single Alsakanite cigarette left on Earth!
Luxuries, then as now, soared feverishly in price with scarcity. Only the rich smoked Alsakanite cigarettes, and to those rich the price of anything they really wanted was a matter of almost complete indifference. And plenty of them wanted, and wanted badly, their Alsakanite cigarettes. There was no doubt of that.
The current market report upon them was: "Bid, one thousand credits per packet of ten. Offered, none at any price."
With that ever-climbing figure in mind, a merchant prince named Matthews had been trying to get an Alsakanbound ship into the ether. He knew that one cargo of Alsakanite cigarettes safely landed in any Tellurian space port would yield more profit than could be made by his entire fleet in ten years of normal trading. Therefore, he had for weeks been pulling every wire, and even every string, that he could reach--political, financial, even at times verging altogether too close for comfort upon the criminal--but without results.
For, even if he could find a crew willing to take the risk, to launch the ship without an escort would be out of the question. There would be no profit in a ship that did not return to Earth. The ship was his, to do with as he pleased, but the escorting maulers were assigned solely by the Galactic Patrol, and that patrol would not give his ship an escort.
In answer to his first request, he had been informed that only cargoes classed as necessary were being escorted at all regularly; that seminecessary loads were escorted occasionally, when of a particularly useful or desirable commodity and if opportunity offered; that luxury loads, such as his, were not being escorted at all; that he would be notified if, as, and when the _Prometheus_ could be given escort. Then the merchant prince began his siege.
* * * * *
Politicians of high rank, local and national, sent in "requests" of varying degrees of diplomacy. Financiers first offered inducements, then threatened to "bear down," then put on all the various kinds of pressure known to their pressure-loving ilk. Pleas, demands, threats, and pressures were alike, however, futile. The patrol could not be coaxed or bullied, cajoled, bribed, or cowed; and all further communications upon the subject, from whatever source originating, were ignored.
Having exhausted his every resource of diplomacy, politics, guile, and finance, the merchant prince resigned himself to the inevitable and stopped trying to get his ship off the ground.
Then, like the proverbial bolt from the blue, New York sub-base received from Prime Base an open message, not even coded, which read:
Authorize space ship _Prometheus_ to clear for Alsakan at will, escorted by patrol ship B 42 TC 838, whose present orders are hereby canceled. Signed, Haynes.
A demolition bomb dropped into that sub-base would not have caused greater excitement than did that message. Neither the base commander, the captain of the mauler, the captain of the _Prometheus_, nor the highly pleased but equally surprised Matthews could explain it; but all of them did whatever they could to expedite the departure of the freighter. She was, and had been for a long time, practically ready to sail.
As the base commander and Matthews sat in the office, shortly before the scheduled time of departure, Kinnison arrived--or, more correctly, let them know that he was there. He invited them both into the control room of his speedster; and invitations from gray Lensmen were accepted without question or demur.
"I suppose that you are wondering what this is all about," he began. "I'll make it as short as I can. I asked you in here because this is the only convenient place in which I _know_ that what we say will not be overheard. There are lots of spy rays around here, whether you know it or not. The _Prometheus_ is to be allowed to go to Alsakan, because that is where pirates seem to be most numerous, and we do not want to waste time hunting all over space to find one.
"Your vessel was selected, Mr. Matthews, for three reasons, and in spite of the attempts you have been making to obtain special privileges, not because of them: first, because there is no necessary or seminecessary freight waiting for clearance into that region; second, because we do not want your firm to fail. We do not know of any other large shipping line in such a shaky position as yours, nor of any firm anywhere to which one single cargo would make such an immense financial difference."
"You are certainly right there, Lensman!" Matthews agreed, whole-heartedly. "It means bankruptcy on the one hand and a fortune on the other."
* * * * *
"Here's what is to happen. The ship and the mauler blast off on schedule, fourteen minutes from now. They get about to Valeria, when they are both recalled--urgent orders for the mauler to go on rescue work. The mauler comes back, but your captain will, in all probability, keep on going, saying that he started out for Alsakan and that's where he's going----"
"But he wouldn't. He wouldn't _dare_!" gasped the ship owner.
"Sure he would," Kinnison insisted, cheerfully enough. "That is the third good reason your vessel is being allowed to set out: because it certainly will be attacked. You didn't know it until now, but your captain and over half of your crew are pirates themselves, and----"
"What? Pirates!" Matthews bellowed. "I'll go down there and----"
"You'll do nothing whatever, Mr. Matthews, except watch things, and you will do that from here. The situation is entirely under control."
"But my ship! My cargo!" the shipper wailed. "We'll be ruined if----"
"Let me finish, please," the Lensman interrupted. "As soon as the mauler turns back it is practically certain that your captain will send out a message, letting the pirates know that he is easy prey. Within a minute after sending that message, he dies. So does every other pirate aboard. Your ship lands on Valeria and takes on a crew of space-fighting wildcats, headed by Peter VanBuskirk. Then it goes on toward Alsakan. When the pirates board that ship, after its prearranged, half-hearted resistance and easy surrender, they are going to think that all hell's out for noon. Especially since the mauler, back from her 'rescue work,' will be tagging along, not too far away."
"Then my ship will really go to Alsakan, and back, safely?" Matthews was almost dazed. Matters were entirely out of his hands, and things had moved so rapidly that he hardly knew what to think. "But if my own crews are pirates, some of them may----But I can, of course, get police protection if necessary."
"Unless something entirely unforseen happens, the _Prometheus_ will make the round trip in safety, cargoes and all--under mauler escort all the way. You will, of course, have to take the other matter up with your local police."
"When is the attack to take place, sir?" asked the base commander.
"That's what the mauler skipper wanted to know when I told him what was ahead of him." Kinnison grinned. "He wanted to sneak up a little closer about that time. I'd like to know, myself, but unfortunately that will have to be decided by the pirates after they get the signal. It will be on the way out, though, because the cargo she has aboard now is a lot more valuable to Boskone than a load of Alsakanite cigarettes would be."
"But do you think you can take the pirate ship that way?" asked the commander, dubiously.
"No. But he will cut down his personnel to such an extent that he will have to head back for base."
"And that's what you want--the base. I see."
He did not see--quite--but the Lensman did not enlighten him further.
* * * * *
There was a brilliant double flare as freighter and mauler lifted into the air. Kinnison showed the ship owner out.
"Hadn't I better be going, too?" asked the commander. "Those orders, you know."
"A couple of minutes yet. I have another message for you--official. Matthews won't need a police escort long--if any. When that ship is attacked it is to be the signal for cleaning out every pirate in Greater New York--the worst pirate hotbed on Tellus. Neither you nor your force will be in on it directly, but you might pass the word around, so that our own men will be informed ahead of the Telenews outfits."
"Good! That has needed doing for a long time."
"Yes. But you know it takes a long time to line up every man in such a big organization. They want to get them all, without getting any innocent by-standers."
"Who's doing it? Prime Base?"
"Yes. Enough men will be thrown in here to do the whole job in an hour."
"That _is_ good news. Clear ether, Lensman!" And the base commander went back to his post.
As the air-lock toggles rammed home, sealing the exit behind the departing visitor, Kinnison eased his speedster into the air and headed for Valeria. Since the two vessels ahead of him had left atmosphere inertialess, as would he, and since several hundred seconds had elapsed since their take-off, he was, of course, some ten thousand miles off their line as well as being uncounted millions of miles behind them. But the larger distance meant no more than the smaller, and neither of them meant anything at all to the patrol's finest speedster. Kinnison, on easy touring blast, caught up with them in minutes. Closing up to less than one light year, he slowed his pace to match theirs and held his distance.
Any ordinary ship would have been detected instantly--long since, in fact--but Kinnison rode no ordinary ship. His speedster was immune to all detection save electromagnetic or visual, and, therefore, even at that close range--the travel of half a minute for even a slow space ship in open space--he was safe. For electromagnetics are useless at that distance; and visual apparatus, even with subether converters, is reliable only up to a few mere thousands of miles, unless the observer knows exactly what to look for and where to look for it.
* * * * *
Kinnison, then, closed up and followed the _Prometheus_ and her mauler escort; and as they approached the Valerian solar system, sure enough, the recall messages came booming in. Also, as had been expected, the renegade captain of the freighter sent back, first his defiant answer, and then his message to the pirate high command. The mauler turned back; the merchantman kept on. Suddenly, however, she stopped, inert, and from her ports were ejected discrete bits of matter--probably the bodies of the Boskonian members of her crew. Then the _Prometheus_, again inertialess, flashed directly toward the planet Valeria.
An inertialess landing is, of course, highly irregular, and is made only when the ship is to take off again immediately. It saves all the time ordinarily lost in spiraling and deceleration, and saves the computation of a landing orbit, which is no task for an amateur computer. It is, however, dangerous.
It takes power, plenty of it, to maintain the force which neutralizes the inertia of mass, and if that force fails, even for an instant, while a ship is upon a planet's surface, the consequences are usually highly disastrous. For in the neutralization of inertia there is no magic, no getting of something for nothing, no violation of Nature's law of the conservation of matter and energy. The instant that force becomes inoperative the ship possesses exactly the same velocity, momentum, and inertia that it possessed at the instant the force took effect.
Thus, if a space ship takes off from Earth, with its orbital velocity of about eighteen and one half miles per second relative to the Sun, goes free, dashes to Mars, lands free, and then goes inert, its original velocity, both in speed and in direction, is instantly restored, with consequences better imagined than described. Such a velocity, of course, _might_ take the ship harmlessly into the air; but it probably would not.
But the _Prometheus_ landed free, and so did Kinnison. He stepped out, fully armored against Valeria's extremely heavy atmosphere and laboring a trifle under its terrific gravitation, to be greeted cordially by _Lieutenant_ VanBuskirk, whose fighting men were already streaming aboard the freighter.
"Hi, chief!" the Dutchman called, gayly. "Everything went off like clockwork. Won't hold you up long--be blasting off in ten minutes."
"Ho, Lefty!" the Lensman acknowledged, as cordially, but saluting the newly commissioned officer with an exaggerated formality. "Say, Bus, I've been doing some thinking. Why wouldn't it be a good idea to----"
"Uh-uh, it would _not_," denied the fighter, positively. "I know what you're going to say--that you want in on this party--but don't say it."
"But I----" Kinnison began to argue.
"Nix," the Valerian declared flatly. "You've got to stay with your speedster. No room for her inside, as she's full to the last meter with cargo and with my men. You can't clamp on outside, as that would give the whole thing away. And besides, for the first and last time in my life I've got a chance to give a gray Lensman orders. Those orders are to stay out of and away from this ship--and I'll see to it that you do, too, you little Tellurian wart! Boy, what a kick I get out of that!"
"You would, you big, dumb Valerian ape. You always were a small-souled type!" Kinnison retorted. "Piggy-piggy----Haynes, huh?"
"Uh-huh." VanBuskirk nodded. "How else could I talk so rough to _you_ and get away with it? However, don't feel too bad. You aren't missing a thing, really. This thing is in the cans already, and your fun is up ahead somewhere. And by the way, Kim, congratulations. You had it coming. We're all behind you, from here to the next universe and back."