Part 7

Nor were these outlandish beings inoffensive. Utterly careless of the service life of the pitifully weak Delgonian projectors, they were using them at maximum drain and at extreme aperture--and in the resultant beams the Delgonian soldier slaves fell in scorched and smoking heaps. On came reserves, platoon after platoon, only and continuously to meet the same fate; for as soon as one projector weakened the invincibly armored man would toss it aside and pick up another. But finally the last commandeered weapon was exhausted and the beleaguered pair brought their own DeLameters--the most powerful portable weapons known to the military scientists of the Galactic Patrol--into play.

And what a difference! In _those_ beams the attacking reptiles did not smoke or burn. They simply vanished in a blaze of flaming light, so did also the near-by walls and a good share of the building beyond! The Delgonian hordes having disappeared, VanBuskirk shut off his DeLameter.

Kinnison, however, left his on, angling its beam sharply upward, blasting into fiery vapor the ceiling and roof over their heads, remarking: "While we're at it we might as well fix things so that we can make a quick get-away if we want to."

Then they waited. Waited, watching the needles of their meters creep ever closer to the "full-charge" marks; waited while, as they shrewdly suspected, the distant, cowardly hiding Overlords planned some other, more promising line of physical attack.

Nor was it long in developing. Another small army appeared, armored this time; or, more accurately, advancing behind metallic shields. Knowing what to expect, Kinnison was not surprised when the beam of his DeLameter not only failed to pierce one of those shields, but did not in any way impede the progress of the Delgonian column.

"Well, we're all done here, anyway, as far as I'm concerned." Kinnison grinned at the Dutchman as he spoke. "My cans've been showing full back pressure for the last five minutes. How about yours?"

"Same here," VanBuskirk reported, and the two leaped lightly into the Velantian's refuge. Then, inertialess all, the three shot into the air at such a pace that to the slow senses of the Delgonian slaves they simply disappeared. Indeed, it was not until the barrier had been blasted away and every room, nook, and cranny of the immense structure had been literally and minutely combed that the Delgonians--and through their enslaved minds the Overlords--became convinced that their prey had in some uncanny and unknown fashion eluded them.

* * * * *

Now high in the air, the three troopers traversed, in a matter of minutes, the same distance that had cost them so much time and strife the day before. Over the monster-infected forest they sped, over the deceptively peaceful green lushness of the jungle, to slant down toward Worsel's thoughtproof tent. Inside that refuge they snapped off their thought-screens and Kinnison yawned prodigiously.

"Working days and nights both is all right for a while, but it gets monotonous in time. Since this seems to be the only really safe spot on the planet, I suggest that we take a day or so off and catch up on our eats and sleeps."

They slept and ate; slept and ate again.

"The next thing on the program," Kinnison announced then, "is to clean out that den of Overlords. Then Worsel will be free to help us get going about our own business."

"You speak lightly indeed of the impossible," Worsel, again all glum despondency, reproved him. "I have already explained why the task is, and must remain, beyond our power."

"Yes, but you don't quite grasp the possibilities of the stuff we've got to work with now," the Tellurian replied. "Listen: you could never do anything because you couldn't see through or work through your thought-screens. Neither we nor you could, even now, enslave a Delgonian and make him lead us to the cavern, because the Overlords would know all about it 'way ahead of time and the slave would lead us anywhere else except to the cavern. However, one of us can cut his screen and surrender; possibly keeping just enough screen up to keep the enemy from possessing his mind fully enough to learn that the other two are coming along. The big question is--which of us is to surrender?"

"That is already decided," Worsel made instant reply. "I am the logical--in fact, the _only_ one--to do it. Not only would they think it perfectly natural that they should overpower me, but also I am the only one of us three sufficiently able to control his thoughts so as to keep from them the knowledge that I am being accompanied. Furthermore, you both know that it would not be good for your minds, unaccustomed as they are to the practice, to surrender their control voluntarily to an enemy."

"I'll say it wouldn't!" Kinnison agreed, feelingly. "I might do it if I had to, but I wouldn't like it and don't think I'd ever quite get over it. I hate to put such a horrible job off onto you, Worsel, but you're undoubtedly the best equipped to handle it--and even you may have your hands full."

"Yes," the Velantian said, thoughtfully. "While the undertaking is no longer an absolute impossibility, it is difficult--very. In any event you will probably have to beam me yourselves, if we succeed in reaching the cavern. The Overlords will see to that. If so, do it without regret. Know that I expect it and am well content to die in that fashion. Thousands of better men than I am would be only too glad to be in my place, meaning what it does to all Velantia. Know also that I have already reported what is to occur, and that your welcome to Velantia is assured, whether or not I accompany you there."

"I don't think I'll have to kill you, Worsel," Kinnison replied, slowly, picturing in detail exactly what that steel-hard reptilian body would be capable of doing when, unshackled, its directing mind was completely taken over by an utterly soulless and conscienceless Overlord. "If we can't keep from going off the deep end, of course you'll get pretty tough and I know that you're hard to handle. However, as I told you back there, I think I can beam you unconscious without killing you. I may have to burn off a few scales, but I'll try not to do any damage that can't be repaired."

"If you can so stop me it will be wonderful indeed. Are we ready?"

They were ready. Worsel opened the door and in a moment was hurtling through the air, his giant wings arrowing him along at a pace no winged creature of Earth would even approach. And, following him easily at a little distance, floated the two patrolmen upon their inertialess drives.

* * * * *

During that long flight scarcely a thought was exchanged, even between Kinnison and VanBuskirk. To direct a thought at the Velantian was, of course, out of the question. All lines of communication with him had been cut; and, furthermore, his mind, able as it was, was being taxed to the ultimate cell in doing what he had set out to do. And the two patrolmen were reluctant to converse with each other, even upon their tight beams, radios, or sounders, for fear that some slight leakage of thought energy might reveal their presence to the ever-watchful Overlords. If this opportunity were lost, they knew, another chance to wipe out that hellish horde might never present itself.

Land was traversed, and sea; but finally a stupendous range of mountains reared before them and Worsel, folding back his tireless wings, shot downward in a screaming, full-weight dive. In his line of flight Kinnison saw the mouth of a cave, a darker spot of blackness in the black rock of the mountain's side. Upon the ledged approach there lay a Delgonian--a guard or lookout, of course.

The Lensman's DeLameter was already in his hand, and at sight of the guardian reptile he sighted and fired in one incredibly fast motion. But, rapid as it was, it was still too slow. The Overlords had seen that the Velantian had companions of whom he had been able to keep them in ignorance theretofore.

Instantly, Worsel's wings again began to beat, bearing him off at a wide angle; and, although the patrolmen were insulated against his thought, the meaning of his antics was very plain. He was telling them in every possible way that the hole below was _not_ the cavern of the Overlords, that it was over this way, that they were to keep on following him to it. Then, as they refused to follow him, he rushed upon Kinnison in mad attack.

"Beam him down, Kim!" VanBuskirk yelled. "Don't take any chances with that bird!" He leveled his own DeLameter.

"Lay off, Bus!" the Lensman snapped. "I can handle him--a lot easier out here than on the ground."

And so it proved. Inertialess as he was, the buffetings of the Velantian affected him not at all; and when Worsel coiled his supple body around him and began to apply pressure, Kinnison simply expanded his thought-screen to cover them both, thus releasing the mind of his temporarily inimical friend from the Overlord's grip. Instantly the Velantian became himself, snapped on his own shield, and the three continued, as one, their interrupted downward course.

Worsel came to a halt upon the ledge, beside the practically incinerated corpse of the lookout, knowing, unarmored as he was, that to go farther meant sudden death. The armored pair, however, shot on into the gloomy passage. At first they were offered no opposition. The Overlords had had no time to muster an adequate defense. Scattering handfuls of slaves rushed them, only to be blasted out of existence as their hand weapons proved useless against the armor of the Galactic Patrol. Defenders became more numerous as the cavern itself was approached; but neither were they allowed to stay the patrolmen's progress. Finally, a palely shimmering barrier of metal appeared to bar their way. Its fields of force neutralized or absorbed the blasts of the DeLameters, but its material substance offered but little resistance to a thirty-pound sledge swung by one of the strongest men ever produced by any planet colonized by the humanity of Earth.

* * * * *

Now they were in the cavern itself--the sanctum sanctorum of the Overlords of Delgon. There was the hellish torture screen, with its burden of mental and physical pain. There was the horribly avid audience, now milling about in a mob frenzy of panic. There, upon a raised balcony, were the "big shots" of this nauseous clan; now doing their utmost to marshal some force able to cope effectively with this unheard-of violation of their age-old immunity.

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 of the DeLameters, 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, 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_! Holy jumping rockets!" VanBuskirk exploded.

Kinnison said, "Sure--you forget that they knew nothing of our 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 two hours, 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 would 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 that 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 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' humans?"

"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, I believe that we would have been insane for the rest of our lives."

"Probably you're right. We break, but don't bend, huh?"

Then 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 they materialized in an inertialess landing beside the waiting Velantian.

"All right, Worsel, snap it up!" Kinnison called, and went on to VanBuskirk, "Now, you big, flat-footed Valerian space hound, I hope that that spaceman's god of yours will see to it that our luck holds good for just seven minutes more. We've had more luck already than we had any right to expect, but we can put a little more to most gosh-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 little space fleas of Tellus haven't got sense enough to know it, 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 air lock 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 posthaste 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 full and complete credit for it!"

"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 space yard 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 quickly as the gods of space will let us!"

VIII.

Worsel knew his council of scientists, as well he might, since it developed that he himself ranked high in that select circle. True to his promises, the largest space port 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 ordinary 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, upon 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 gayly. Throwing some twenty feet 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." 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 hook-up to tap his beam, but I think that 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.