Part 22
He was now only of the galaxy, not of any one tiny dust grain of it. He was of the patrol. He _was_ the patrol, and he was taking his new responsibilities very seriously indeed. In his fierce zeal to drive his campaign through to a successful end he would use man or woman, singly or in groups, ships, even Prime Base itself, exactly as he had used them: as pawns, as mere tools, as means to an end. And, having used them, he would leave them as unconcernedly and as unceremoniously as he would drop pliers and spanner, and with no realization that he had violated any of the nicer amenities of life as it is lived!
And as he strolled along and thought, the port admiral smiled quietly to himself. He knew, as Kinnison would learn in time, that the universe was vast, that time was long, and that the Scheme of Things, comprising the whole of eternity and the cosmic all, was a something incomprehensibly immense indeed. With which cryptic thought the space-hardened veteran sat down at his desk and resumed his interrupted labors.
But Kinnison had not yet attained Haynes' philosophic viewpoint, any more than he had his age, and to him the trip to Trenco seemed positively interminable. Eager as he was to put his plan of campaign to the test, he found that mental urgings, or even audible invectives, would not make the speedster go any faster than the already incomprehensible top speed of her drivers' maximum blast. Nor did pacing up and down the little control room seem to help very much. Physical exercise he had to perform, but it did not satisfy him. Mental exercise was impossible; he could think of nothing except Helmuth's base.
* * * * *
Eventually, however, he approached Trenco and located, without difficulty, the patrol's space port. Fortunately, it was then at about eleven o'clock, so that he did not have to wait long to land. He drove downward inert, sending a thought ahead of him: "Lensman of Trenco Space Port--Tregonsee or his relief? Lensman Kinnison of Sol III asking permission to land."
"It is Tregonsee," came back the thought. "Welcome, Kinnison. You are on the correct line. You have, then, perfected an apparatus to see truly in this distorting medium?"
"I didn't perfect it--it was given to me."
The landing bars lashed out, seized the speedster, and eased her down into the lock; and, as soon as she had been disinfected, Kinnison went into consultation with Tregonsee. The Rigellian was a highly important factor in the Tellurian's scheme; and, since he was also a Lensman, he was to be trusted implicitly.
Therefore, Kinnison told him briefly what occurred and what he had it in mind to do, concluding: "So you see, I need about fifty kilograms of thionite. Not fifty milligrams, or even grams, but fifty _kilograms_; and, since there probably isn't that much of the stuff loose in the whole galaxy, I came over here to ask you to make it for me."
Just like that. Calmly asking a Lensman, whose sworn duty it was to kill any being even attempting to gather a single Trenconian plant, to make for him more of the prohibited drug than was ordinarily processed throughout the galaxy during a solarian month! It would be just such an errand were one to walk into the treasury department in Washington and inform the chief of the narcotics bureau, quite nonchalantly, that he had dropped in to pick up ten tons of heroin! But Tregonsee did not flinch or question--he was not even surprised. This was a gray Lensman, and his plan would work.
"That should not be too difficult," Tregonsee replied, after a moment's study. "We have several thionite processing units, confiscated from zwilnik ships and not yet picked up by headquarters; and all of us are, of course, quite familiar with the technique of extracting and purifying the drug."
He issued orders and shortly Trenco Space Port presented the astounding spectacle of a full crew of the Galactic Patrol devoting its every energy to the whole-hearted breaking of the one law it was supposed most rigidly, and without fear or favor, to enforce!
* * * * *
It was a little after noon, the calmest hour of Trenco's day. The wind had died to "nothing"; which, on that planet, meant that a strong man could stand against it; could even, if he were agile as well as strong, walk about in it. Therefore, Kinnison donned his light armor and was soon busily harvesting the purple-leaved plants, which, he had been informed, were the richest sources of thionite.
He had been working for only a few minutes when one of the "natives" came crawling up to him; and, after ascertaining that his hard steel armor was not good to eat, drew off and observed him intently. Here was another opportunity for practice, and in a flash the Lensman availed himself of it. Having practiced for hours upon the minds of various Earthly animals, he entered this mind easily enough, finding that the Trenconian "flat" was considerably more intelligent than a dog. So much so, in fact, that the race had already developed a fairly comprehensive language.
Therefore, it did not take long for the Lensman to learn to use his subject's peculiar limbs and other members, and soon the flat was working like a Trojan. And, since he was ideally adapted for his wildly raging Trenconian environment, he actually accomplished more than all the rest of the force combined.
"It's a dirty trick I'm playing on you, fellow," Kinnison told his helper after a while. "Come on into the receiving room and I'll see if I can square it with you."
Since food was the only logical tender, Kinnison brought out from his speedster a small can of salmon, a package of cheese, a bar of chocolate, a few lumps of sugar, and a potato, offering them to the Trenconian in order. The salmon and the cheese were both highly acceptable fare. The morsel of chocolate was a delightfully surprising delicacy. The lump of sugar, however, was what really rang the bell. Kinnison's own mind felt the shock of pure ecstasy as that wonderful substance dissolved in the trenco's mouth. He also ate the potato, of course--any Trenconian animal will, at any time, eat anything containing carbon, even limerock, gasoline, or truck grease--but it was merely food, nothing to rave about.
Knowing now what to do, Kinnison led his assistant out into the howling, shrieking gale and released him from control, throwing a lump of sugar upwind as he did so. The trenco seized it in the air, ate it, and went into a very hysteria of joy.
"More! More!" he insisted, attempting to climb up the Lensman's armored leg.
"You must work for more of it, if you want it," Kinnison explained. "Break off these plants here and carry them over into that empty thing over there, and you get more."
This was an entirely new idea to the native, but after Kinnison had taken hold of his mind and had shown him how to do consciously that which he had been doing unconsciously for an hour, he worked willingly enough. In fact, before it started to rain, thereby putting an end to the labor of the day, there were a dozen of them toiling at the harvest and the crop was coming in as fast as the entire crew of Rigellians could process it. And even after the space port was sealed they crowded up, paying no attention to the rain, bringing in their small loads of leaves and plaintively asking admittance.
* * * * *
It took some little time for Kinnison to make them understand that the day's work was done, but that they were to come back to-morrow morning. Finally, however, he succeeded in getting the idea across, and the last disconsolate turtle-man went reluctantly away. But sure enough, next morning, even before the mud had dried, the same twelve were back on the job. The two Lensmen wondered simultaneously how those trencos could have found the space port. Or had they stayed near it through the storm and flood of the night?
"I don't know," Kinnison answered the unasked question, "but I can find out." Again and more carefully he examined the minds of two or three of them. "No, they didn't follow us," he reported then. "They're not as dumb as I thought they were. They have a sense of perception, Tregonsee, about the same thing, I judge, as yours--perhaps even more so. I wonder--why couldn't they be trained into mighty efficient police assistants on this planet?"
"The way _you_ handle them, yes. I can converse with them a little, of course, but they have never before shown any willingness to coöperate with us."
"You never fed them sugar." Kinnison laughed. "You have sugar, of course--or do you? I was forgetting that many races do not use it at all."
"We Rigellians are one of those races. Starch is so much tastier and so much better adapted to our body chemistry that sugar is used only as a chemical. We can, however, obtain it easily enough. But there is something else. You can tell these trencos what to do and make them really understand you. I cannot."
"I can fix that up with a simple mental treatment that I can give you in five minutes. Also, I can let you have enough sugar to carry on with until you can get in a supply of your own."
In the few minutes during which the Lensmen had been discussing their potential allies, the mud had dried and the amazing coverage of dense, succulent "grass" was springing visibly into being. So incredibly rapid was its growth that in ten minutes more the plants were large enough to be gathered. The leaves were lush and rank, in color a vivid, crimsonish purple.
"These early-morning plants are the richest of any in thionite, but the zwilniks can never get more than a handful of them because of the wind," remarked the Rigellian. "Now, if you will give me that treatment, I will see what I can do with the Flats."
Kinnison did so, and the trencos worked for Tregonsee as industriously as they had for Kinnison--and ate his sugar as rapturously.
"That is enough," decided the Rigellian presently. "This will finish your fifty kilograms and to spare."
He then "paid off" his now enthusiastic helpers, with instructions to return when the sun was directly overhead, for more work and more sugar. And this time they did not complain, nor did they loiter around or bring in unwanted vegetation. They were learning fast.
Well before noon the last kilogram of impalpable, purplish-blue powder was put into its impermeable sack. The machinery was cleaned; the untouched leaves, the waste, and the contaminated air were blown out of the space port; and the room and its occupants were sprayed with anti-thionite. Then and only then did the crew remove their masks and air filters. Trenco Space Port was again a patrol post, no longer a zwilnik's paradise.
"Thanks, Tregonsee, and all you fellows----" Kinnison paused, then went on, dubiously, "I don't suppose that you will----"
"We will not," declared Tregonsee. "Our time is yours, as you know, without payment; and time is all that we gave you, really."
"Sure--that and about a thousand million credits' worth of thionite."
"That, of course, does not count, as you also know. You have helped us, I think, even more than we have helped you."
"I hope that I have done you some good, anyway. Well, I've got to flit. Thanks again. I'll see you sometime, maybe." And again the Tellurian Lensman was on his way.
XXIV.
Kinnison approached Star Cluster AC 257-4736 warily, as before; and as before he insinuated his speedster through the loose outer cordon of guardian fortresses. This time, however, he did not steer even remotely near Helmuth's world. He would be there too long; there was altogether too much risk of electromagnetic detection to set his ship into any kind of an orbit around _that_ planet. Instead, he had computed a long, narrow, elliptical orbit around its sun, well inside the zone guarded by the maulers. He could compute it only approximately, of course, since he did not know exactly either the masses involved or the perturbing forces; but he thought that he could find his ship again with an electro. If not, she would not be an irreplaceable loss. He set the speedster, then, into the outward leg of that orbit and took off in his new armor.
He knew that there was a thought-screen around Helmuth's planet, and suspected that there might be other screens as well. Therefore, shutting off every watt of power, he dropped straight down into the night side, well clear of the citadel's edge. His flares were, of course, heavily baffled; but even so he did not put on his brakes until it was absolutely necessary. He landed heavily, then sprang away in long, free hops, until he reached his previously selected destination: a great cavern thickly shielded with iron ore and fully five thousand miles from his point of descent. Deep within that cavern he hid himself, then searched intently for any sign that his approach had been observed. There was no such sign. So far, so good.
But during his search he had perceived with a slight shock that Helmuth had tightened his defenses even more. Not only was every man in the dome screened against thought, but also each was now wearing full armor. Had he protected the dogs, too? Or killed them? No real matter if he had--any kind of a pet animal would do; or, in a pinch, even a wild rock-lizard! Nevertheless, he shot his perception into the particular barracks he had noted so long before, and found with some relief that the dogs were still there, and that they were still unprotected. It had not occurred, even to Helmuth's cautious mind, that a dog could be a source of mental danger.
With all due precaution against getting even a single grain of the stuff into his own system, Kinnison transferred his thionite into the special container in which it was to be used. Another day sufficed to observe and to memorize the personnel of the gateway observers, their positions, and the sequence in which they took the boards. Then the Lensman, still almost a week ahead of schedule, settled down to await the time when he should make his next move. Nor was this waiting unduly irksome; now that everything was ready he could be as patient as a cat on duty at a mouse hole.
* * * * *
The time came to act. Kinnison took over the mind of the dog, which at once moved over to the bunk in which one particular observer lay asleep. There would be no chance whatever of gaining control of any observer while he was actually on the board, but here in barracks it was almost ridiculously easy. The dog crept along on soundless paws; a long, slim nose reached out and up; sharp teeth closed delicately upon a battery lead; out came the plug. The thought-screen went down, and instantly Kinnison was in charge of the fellow's mind.
And when that observer went on duty his first act was to admit Kimball Kinnison, gray Lensman, to the Grand Base of Boskone! Low and fast Kinnison flew, while the observer so placed his body as to shield from any chance passer-by the all-too-revealing surface of his visiplate. In a few minutes the Lensman reached a portal of the dome itself. Those doors also opened--and closed behind him. He released the mind of the observer and watched briefly. Nothing happened. All was still well!
Then, in every barracks save one, using whatever came to hand in the way of dog or other unshielded animal, Kinnison wrought briefly but effectively. He did not slay by mental force--he did not have enough of that to spare--but the mere turn of an inconspicuous valve would do just as well. Some of those now idle men would probably live to answer Helmuth's call to extra duty, but not too many--nor would those who obeyed that summons live long thereafter.
Down stairway after stairway he dived, down to the compartment in which was housed the great air purifier. Now let them come! Even if they had a spy ray on him, now it would be too late to do them a bit of good. And now, by all the gods of space, that fleet had better be out there, getting ready to blast!
It was. From all over the galaxy that grand fleet had been assembled; every patrol base had been stripped of almost everything mobile that could throw a beam. Every vessel carried either a Lensman or some other highly trusted officer; and each such officer had two detector nullifiers--one upon his person, the other in his locker--either one of which would protect his whole ship from detection.
In long lines, singly and at intervals, those untold thousands of ships had crept between the vessels guarding Grand Base. Nor were the outpost crews to blame. They had been on duty for months, and not even an asteroid had relieved the monotony. Nothing had happened or would. They watched their plates steadily enough--and, if they did nothing more, why should they? And what could they have done? How could they suspect that such a thing as a detector nullifier had been invented?
* * * * *
The patrol's grand fleet, then, was already massing over its primary objectives, each vessel in a rigidly assigned position. The pilots, captains, and navigators were chatting among themselves jerkily and in low tones, as though even to raise their voices might reveal prematurely to the enemy the concentration of the patrol forces. The firing officers were already at their boards, eyeing hungrily the small switches which they could not throw for so many long minutes yet.
And far below, beside the pirates' air purifier, Kinnison released the locking toggles of his armor and leaped out. To burn a hole in the primary duct took only a second. To drop into that duct his container of thionite, to drench that container with the reagent which would in sixty seconds dissolve completely that container's substance without affecting either its contents or the metal of the duct, to slap a flexible adhesive patch over the hole in the duct, and to leap back into his armor--all these things required only a trifle over one minute. Eleven minutes to go--QX.
Then in the last barracks, even while the Lensman was arrowing up the stairways, a dog again deprived a sleeping man of his thought screen. That man, however, instead of going to work, took up a pair of pliers and proceeded to cut the battery leads of every sleeper in the barracks, severing them so close that no connection could be made without removing the armor.
As those leads were severed, men woke up and dashed into the dome. Along catwalk after catwalk they raced, and apparently that was all that they were doing. But each runner, as he passed a man on duty, flicked a battery plug out of its socket; and that observer, at Kinnison's command, opened the face plate of his armor and breathed deeply of the now drug-laden atmosphere.
Thionite, as has been intimated, is perhaps the worst of all known habit-forming drugs. In almost infinitesimal doses it gives rise to a state in which the victim seems actually to experience the gratification of his every desire, whatever that desire may be. The larger the dose, the more intense the sensation, until--and very quickly--the dosage is reached at which he passes into such an ecstatic stupor that not a single nerve can force a stimulus into his frenzied brain. In this stage he dies.
Thus there was no alarm, no outcry, no warning. Each observer sat or stood entranced, holding exactly the pose he had been in at the instant of opening his face plate. But now, instead of paying attention to his duty, he was plunging deeper and deeper into the paroxysmally ecstatic profundity of a thionite debauch from which there was to be no awakening. Therefore, half of that mighty dome was unmanned before Helmuth even realized that anything at all out of order was going on.
As soon as he realized that something was amiss, however, he sounded the "all-hands-on-duty" alarm and rapped out instructions to the officers in the barracks. But the cloud of death had arrived there first, and to his consternation not one quarter of those officers responded. Quite a number of men did get into the dome, but every one of them collapsed before reaching the catwalks. And three fourths of his working force were _hors de combat_ before he located Kinnison's speeding messengers.
"Blast them down!" Helmuth shrieked, pointing, gesticulating madly.
Blast whom down? The minions of the Lensman were themselves blasting away now, right and left, shouting contradictory but supposedly authoritative orders.
"Blast those men not on duty!" Helmuth's raging voice now filled the dome. "You, at Board 479! Blast that man on Catwalk 28, at Board 495!"
With such detailed instructions, Kinnison's agents, one by one, ceased to be. But as one was beamed down another took his place, and soon every one of the few remaining living pirates in the dome was blasting indiscriminately at every other one. And then, to cap the Saturnalian climax, came the zero second.
* * * * *
The grand fleet of the Galactic Patrol had assembled. Every cruiser, every battleship, every mauler hung poised above its assigned target. Every vessel was stripped for action. Every accumulator cell was full to its ultimate watt; every generator and every arm was tuned and peaked to its highest attainable efficiency. Every firing officer upon every ship sat tensely at his board, his hand hovering near, but not touching, his firing keys, his eyes fixed glaringly upon the second hand of his synchronized electric timer, his ears scarcely hearing the droning, soothing voice of Port Admiral Haynes.
For the old man had insisted upon giving the firing order himself, and he now sat at the master timer, speaking into the master microphone. Beside him sat von Hohendorff, the grand old commandant of cadets. Both of these veterans had thought long since that they were done with space war forever; but only an order of the full Galactic Council could have kept either of them at home. They were grimly determined that they were going to be in at the death, even though they were not at all certain whose death it was to be. If it should turn out that it was to be Helmuth's, all well and good--everything would be on the green. If, on the other hand, young Kinnison had to go, they would, in all probability, have to go, too--and so be it.
"Now remember, boys, keep your hands off those keys until I give you the word." Haynes' soothing voice droned on, giving no hint of the terrific strain he himself was under. "I'll give you lots of warning. I am going to count the last five seconds for you. I know that you all want to shoot the first bolt, but remember that I, personally, will strangle any and every one of you who beats my signal by a thousandth of a second. It won't be long now; the second hand is starting around on its last lap. Keep your hands off those keys. Keep away from them, I tell you, or I'll smack you down. Fifteen seconds yet. Stay away, boys; let 'em alone. Going to start counting now." His voice dropped lower and lower. "Five--four--three--two--one--_fire!_" he yelled.
Perhaps some of the boys did beat the gun a trifle; but not many, or much. To all intents and purposes it was one simultaneous blast of destruction that flashed down from a hundred thousand projectors, each delivering the maximum blast of which it was capable. There was no thought now of service life, of equipment or of holding anything back for a later effort. They had to hold that blast for only fifteen minutes; and if the task ahead of them could not be done in those fifteen minutes it probably could not be done at all.