Part 7
"The boys," she enthused. "All of them. They're here because they _want_ to be--why, the officers don't even have whips! They _like_ them, actually! The officers who push the little buttons and things and those who walk around and look through the little glass things and even the gray-haired old man with the four stripes, why they like them all! And the boys were all putting on guns when I left--why, I never _heard_ of such a thing!--and they're just simply _crazy_ about you. I thought it was awfully funny that you took off your guns as soon as the ship left Lyrane and that you don't have guards around you all the time because I thought sure somebody would stab you in the back or something, but they don't even want to and that's what's so marvelous and Hank Henderson told me--"
"Save it!" he ordered. "Jet back, angel face, before you blow a fuse." He had been right in not operating--this girl was going to be a mine of information concerning Boskonian methods and operations, and all without knowing it. "That's what I have been trying to tell you about our Civilization; that it is founded upon the freedom of the individual to do pretty much as he pleases, as long as it is not to the public harm. And, as far as possible, equality of all the entities of Civilization."
"Uh-huh, I know you did," she nodded brightly, then sobered quickly, "but I couldn't understand it. I can't understand it yet; I can scarcely believe that you all are so--You know, don't you, what would happen if this were a Lonabarian ship and I would go running around talking to officers as though I were their equal?"
"No--what?"
"It's inconceivable, of course; it simply couldn't happen. But if it did, I would be punished terribly--perhaps, though, at a first offense, I might be given only a twenty-scar whipping." At his lifted eyebrow she explained, "One that leaves twenty scars that show for life.
"That's why I'm acting so intoxicated, I think. You see," she hesitated shyly, "I am not used to being treated as anybody's equal, except of course other girls like me. Nobody is, on Lonabar. Everybody is higher or lower than you are. I'm going to simply love this when I get accustomed to it." She spread both arms in a sweeping gesture. "I'd like to _squeeze_ this whole ship and everybody in it--I just can't wait to get to Tellus and really _live_ there!"
"That's a thing that has been bothering me," Kinnison confessed, and the girl stared wonderingly at his serious face. "We are going into battle, and we can't take time to land you anywhere before the battle starts."
"Of course not. Why should you?" she paused, thinking deeply. "You're not worrying about _me_, surely? Why, you're a high officer! Officers don't care whether a girl is shot or not, do they?" The thought was obviously, utterly new.
"We do. It's extremely poor hospitality to invite a guest aboard and then have her killed. All I can say, though, is that if our number goes up, I hope that you can forgive me for getting you into it!"
"Oh--thanks, Gray Lensman. Nobody ever spoke to me like that before. But I wouldn't land if I could. I like Civilization. If you ... if you don't win, I couldn't go to Tellus, anyway, so I'd much rather take my chances here than not, sir, really. I'll _never_ go back to Lonabar, in any case."
"'At a girl, Toots!" He extended his hand. She looked at it dubiously, then hesitantly stretched out her own. But she learned fast; she put as much pressure into the brief hand-clasp as Kinnison did. "You'd better blast off now, I've got work to do.
"Go anywhere you like until I call you. Before the trouble starts I'm going to put you down in the center, where you'll be as safe as possible."
* * * * *
The girl hurried away and the Lensman got into communication with Helen of Lyrane, who gave him then a resumé of everything that had happened. Two ships--big ships, immense space cruisers--appeared near the airport. Nobody saw them coming, they came so fast. They stopped, and without warning or parley destroyed all the buildings and all the people nearby with beams like Kinnison's needle beam, except much larger. Then the ships landed and men disembarked. The Lyranians killed ten of them by direct mental impact or by monsters of the mind, but after that everyone who came out of the vessel wore a thought-screen and the persons were quite helpless. The enemy had burned down and melted a part of the city, and as a further warning were then making formal plans to execute publicly a hundred leading Lyranians--ten for each man they had killed.
Because of the screens no communication was possible, but the invaders had made it clear that if there were one more sign of resistance, or even of non-co-operation, the entire city would be rayed and every living thing in it blasted out of existence. She herself had escaped so far. She was hidden in a crypt in the deepest subcellar of the city. She was, of course, one of the ones they wanted to execute, but finding any of Lyrane's leaders would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. They were still searching, with many persons as highly unwilling guides. They had indicated that they would stay there until the leaders were found; that they would make the Lyranians tear down their city, stone by stone, until they _were_ found.
"But how could they know who your leaders are?" Kinnison wanted to know.
"Perhaps one of our persons weakened under their torture," Helen replied equably. "Perhaps they have among them a mind of power. Perhaps in some other fashion. What matters it? The thing of importance is that they do know."
"Another thing of importance is that it'll hold them there until we get there," Kinnison thought. "Typical Boskonian technique, I gather. It won't be many hours now. Hold them off if you can."
"I think that I can," came tranquil reply. "Through mental contact each person acting as guide knows where each of us hidden ones is, and is avoiding all our hiding places."
"Good. Tell me all you can about those ships, their size, shape and armament."
She could not, it developed, give him any reliable information as to size. She thought that the present invaders were smaller than the _Dauntless_, but she could not be sure. Compared to the little airships which were the only flying structures with which she was familiar, both Kinnison's ships and those now upon Lyrane were so immensely huge that trying to tell which was larger was very much like attempting to visualize the difference between infinity squared and infinity cubed. On shape, however, she was much better; she spread in the Lensman's mind an accurately detailed picture of the two space ships which the Patrolmen intended to engage.
In shape they were ultrafast, very much like the _Dauntless_ herself. Hence they certainly were not maulers. Nor, probably, were they first-line battleships, such as had composed the fleet which had met Civilization's Grand Fleet off the edge of the Second Galaxy. Of course, the Patrol had had in that battle ultrafast ships which were ultrapowerful as well--such as this same _Dauntless_--and it was a fact that while Civilization was designing and building, Boskonia could very well have been doing the same thing. On the other hand, since the enemy could not logically be expecting real trouble in Dunstan's Region, these cans might very well be second-line or out-of-date stuff--
"Are those ships lying on the same field we landed on?" he asked at that point in his cogitations.
"Yes."
"You can give me pretty close to an actual measurement of the difference, then," he told her. "We left a hole in that field practically our whole length. How does it compare with theirs?"
"I can find that out, I think," and in due time she did so; reporting that the _Dauntless_ was the longer, by some twelve times a person's height.
"Thanks, Helen." Then, and only then, did Kinnison leave his private conning room and call his officers into consultation in the control room.
He told them everything he had learned and deduced about the two Boskonian vessels which they were about to attack. Then, heads bent over a visitank, the Patrolmen began to discuss strategy and tactics.
VI.
As the _Dauntless_ approached Lyrane II so nearly that the planet showed a perceptible disk upon the plates, the observers began to study their detectors carefully. Nothing registered, and a brief interchange of thoughts with the Chief Person of Lyrane informed the Lensman that the two Boskonian warships were still upon the ground. Indeed, they were going to stay upon the ground until after the hundred Lyranian leaders, most of whom were still safely hidden, had been found and executed, exactly as per announcement. The strangers had killed many persons by torture and were killing more in attempts to make them reveal the hiding places of the leaders, but little if any real information was being obtained.
"Good technique, perhaps, from a bullheaded, dictatorial standpoint, but it strikes me as being damned poor tactics," grunted Malcolm Craig, the _Dauntless'_ grizzled captain, when Kinnison had relayed the information.
"I'll say it's poor tactics," the Lensman agreed. "If Helmuth or one of the living military hot shots of his caliber were down there, one of those cans would be out on guard, flitting all over space."
"But how could they be expecting trouble 'way out here, nine thousand parsecs from anywhere?" argued Chatway, the chief firing officer.
"They ought to be--that's the point." This from Henderson. "Where do we land, Kim? Did you find out?"
"Not exactly; they're on the other side of the planet from here, now. Good thing we don't have to get rid of a Tellurian intrinsic this time--it'll be a near thing as it is." And it was. Scarcely was the intrinsic velocity matched to that of the planet when the observers reported that the airport upon which the enemy lay was upon the horizon. Inertialess, the _Dauntless_ flashed away, going inert and into action simultaneously when within range of the zwilnik ships. Within range of one of them, that is; for, short as the time had been, the crew of one of the Boskonian vessels had been sufficiently alert to get her away. The other one did not move; then or ever.
The Patrolmen acted with the flawless smoothness of long practice and perfect teamwork. At the first sign of zwilnik activity as revealed by his spy-rays, Nelson, the chief communications officer, loosed a barrage of ethereal and sub-ethereal static interference through which no communications beam or signal could be driven. Captain Craig barked a word into his microphone and every dreadful primary that could be brought to bear erupted as one weapon. Chief Pilot Henderson, after a casual glance below, cut in the Bergenholms, tramped in his blasts, and set the cruiser's narrow nose into his tracer's line. One glance was enough. He needed no orders as to what to do next. It would have been apparent to almost anyone, even to one of the persons of Lyrane, that that riddled, slashed, three-quarters fused mass of junk never again would be or could contain aught of menace. The Patrol ship had not stopped: had scarcely even paused. Now, having destroyed half of the opposition _en passant_, she legged it after the remaining half.
"Now what, Kim?" asked Captain Craig. "We can't inglobe him and he no doubt mounts tractor shears. We'll have to use the new tractor zone, won't we?"
Ordinarily the gray-haired four-striper would have made his own decisions, since he and he alone fought his ship; but these circumstances were far from ordinary. First, any Unattached Lensman, wherever he was, was the boss. Second, the tractor zone was new; so brand-new that even the _Dauntless_ had not as yet used it. Third, the ship was on detached duty, assigned directly to Kinnison to do with as he willed. Fourth, said Kinnison was high in the confidence of the Galactic Council and would know whether or not the present situation justified the use of the new mechanism.
"If he can cut a tractor, yes," the Lensman agreed. "Only one ship. He can't get away and he can't communicate--safe enough. Go to it."
* * * * *
The Tellurian ship was faster than the Boskonian; and, since she had been only seconds behind at the start, she came within striking distance of her quarry in short order. Tractor beams reached out and seized; but only momentarily did they hold. At the first pull they were cut cleanly away. No one was surprised; it had been taken for granted that all Boskonian ships would by this time have been equipped with tractor shears.
These shears had been developed originally by the scientists of the Patrol. Immediately following that invention, looking forward to the time when Boskone would have acquired it, those same scientists set themselves to the task of working out something which would be just as good as a tractor beam for combat purposes, but which could not be cut. They got it finally--a globular shell of force, very much like a meteorite screen except double in phase. That is, it was completely impervious to matter moving in either direction, instead of only to that moving inwardly. Even if exact data as to generation, gauging, distance, and control of this weapon were available--which they very definitely are not--it would serve no good end to detail them here. Suffice it to say that the _Dauntless_ mounted tractor zones, and had ample power to hold them.
Closer up the Patrol ship blasted. The zone snapped on, well beyond the Boskonian, and tightened. Henderson cut the Bergenholms. Captain Craig snapped out orders and Chief Firing Officer Chatway and his boys did their stuff.
Defensive screens full out, the pirate stayed free and tried to run. No soap. She merely slid around upon the frictionless inner surface of the zone. She rolled and she spun. Then she went inert and rammed. Still no soap. She struck the zone and bounced; bounced with all of her mass and against all the power of her driving thrust. The impact jarred the _Dauntless_ to her very skin; but the zone's anchorage had been computed and installed by top-flight engineers and they held. And the zone itself held. It yielded a bit, but it did not fail and the shear planes of the pirates could not cut it.
Then, no other course being possible, the Boskonians fought. Of course, theoretically, surrender was possible, but it simply was not done. No pirate ship ever had surrendered to a Patrol force, however large; none ever would. No Patrol ship had ever surrendered to Boskone--or would. That was the unwritten but grimly understood code of this internecine conflict between two galaxy-wide and diametrically opposed cultures; it was and had to be a war of utter and complete extermination. Individuals or small groups might be captured bodily; but no ship, no individual, even, ever, under any conditions, surrendered. The fight was--always and everywhere--to the death.
So this one was. The enemy was well armed of her type, but her type simply did not carry projectors of sufficient power to break down the _Dauntless'_ hard-held defensive screens. Nor did she mount screens heavy enough to withstand for long the furious assault of the Patrol ship's terrific primaries.
As soon as the pirate's screens went down the firing stopped; that order had been given long since. Kinnison wanted information, he wanted charts, he wanted a few living Boskonians. He got nothing. Not a man remained alive aboard the riddled hulk; the chart room contained only heaps of fused ash. Everything which might have been of use to the Patrol had been destroyed, either by the Patrol's own beams or by the pirates themselves after they saw they must lose.
"Beam it out," Craig ordered, and the remains of the Boskonian warship disappeared.
* * * * *
Back toward Lyrane II, then, the _Dauntless_ went, and Kinnison again made contact with Helen, the Elder Sister. She had emerged from her crypt and was directing affairs from her--"office" is perhaps the word--upon the top floor of the city's largest building. The search for the Lyranian leaders, the torture and murder of the citizens, and the destruction of the city had stopped, all at once, when the grounded Boskonian cruiser had been blasted out of commission. The directing intelligences of the raiders had remained, it developed, within the "safe" confines of their vessel's walls; and when they ceased directing, their minions in the actual theater of operations ceased operating. They had been grouped uncertainly in an open square, but at the first glimpse of the returning _Dauntless_ they had dashed into the nearest large building, each man seizing one or sometimes two persons as he went. They were now inside, erecting defenses and very evidently intending to use the Lyranians both as hostages and as shields.
Motionless now, directly over the city, Kinnison and his officers studied through their spy-rays the number, armament, and disposition of the enemy force. There were one hundred and thirty of them, human to about six places. They were armed with the usual portable weapons carried by such parties.
Originally they had had several semiportable projectors, but since all heavy stuff must be powered from the mother ship, it had been abandoned long since. Surprisingly, though, they wore full armor. Kinnison had expected only thought-screens, since the Lyranians had no offensive weapons save those of the mind; but apparently either the pirates did not know that or else were guarding against surprise.
Armor was--and is--heavy, cumbersome, a handicap to fast action, and a nuisance generally; hence for the Boskonians to have dispensed with it would not have been poor tactics. True, the Patrol _did_ attack, but that could not have been what was expected. In fact, had such an attack been in the cards, that Boskonian punitive party would not have been on the ground at all. It was equally true that canny old Helmuth, who took nothing whatever for granted, would have had his men in armor. However, he would have guarded much more completely against surprise--but few commanders indeed went to such lengths of precaution as Helmuth did. Thus Kinnison pondered.
"This ought to be as easy as shooting fish down a well--but you'd better put out space scouts just the same," he decided, as he punched a call for Lieutenant Peter Van Buskirk. "Bus? Do you see what we see?"
"Uh-huh, we've been peeking a bit," the huge Dutch-Valerian responded, happily.
"QX. Get your gang wrapped up in their tinware. I'll see you at the main lower stabbard lock in ten minutes." He switched off and turned to an orderly. "Break out my G-P cage for me, will you, Spike? And I'll want the 'copters--tell them to get hot."
"But listen, Kim!" and:
"You can't do that, Kinnison!" came simultaneously from chief pilot and captain, neither of whom could leave the ship in such circumstances as these. They, the vessel's two top officers, were bound to her; while the Lensman, although ranking both of them, even aboard ship, was not and could not be bound by anything.
"Sure, I can--you fellows are just jealous, that's all," Kinnison retorted, cheerfully. "I not only can, I've _got_ to go with the Valerians. I need a lot of information, and I can't read a dead man's brain--yet."
* * * * *
While the storming party was assembling, the _Dauntless_ settled downward, coming to rest in the already devastated section of the town, as close as possible to the building in which the Boskonians had taken refuge.
One hundred and two men disembarked: Kinnison, Van Buskirk, and the full company of one hundred Valerians. Each of those space-fighting wild cats measured seventy-eight inches or more from sole to crown; each was composed of four hundred or more pounds of the fantastically powerful, rigid, and reactive brawn, bone, and sinew necessary for survival upon a planet having a surface gravity almost three times that of small, feeble Terra.
Because of the women held captive by the pirates, the Valerians carried no machine rifles, no semiportables, no heavy stuff at all; only their DeLameters and, of course, their space axes. A Valerian trooper without his space ax? Unthinkable! A dire weapon indeed, the space ax. A combination and sublimation of battle-ax, mace, bludgeon, and lumberman's picaroon; thirty pounds of hard, tough, space-tempered alloy; a weapon of potentialities limited only by the physical strength and bodily agility of its wielder. And Van Buskirk's Valerians had both--plenty of both. One-handed, with simple flicks of his incredible wrist, the smallest Valerian of the _Dauntless_ boarding party could manipulate his atrocious weapon as effortlessly as, and almost unbelievably faster than, a fencing master handles his rapier or an orchestra conductor waves his baton.
With machinelike precision the Valerians fell in and strode away; Van Buskirk in the lead, the helicopters hovering overhead, the Gray Lensman bringing up the rear. Tall and heavy, strong and agile as he was--for a Tellurian--he had no business in that front line, and no one knew that fact better than he did. The puniest Valerian of the company could do in full armor a standing high jump of over fourteen feet; and could dodge, feint, parry, and swing with a blinding speed starkly impossible to any member of any of the physically lesser breeds of man.
Approaching the building they spread out, surrounded it; and at a signal from a helicopter that the ring was complete, the assault began. Doors and windows were locked, barred, and barricaded, of course; but what of that? A few taps of the axes and a few blasts of the DeLameters took care of things very nicely; and through the openings thus made there leaped, dove, rolled, or strode the space black-and-silver warriors of the Galactic Patrol. Valerians, than whom no fiercer race of hand-to-hand fighters has ever been known--no bifurcate race, and but very few others, however built or shaped, have ever willingly come to grips with the armored axmen of Valeria!
Not by choice, then, but of necessity and in sheer desperation the pirates fought. In the vicious beams of their portables the stone walls of the room glared a baleful red; in spots even were pierced through. Old-fashioned pistols barked, spitting steel-jacketed lead. But the G-P suits were screened against lethal beams by generators capable of withstanding anything of lesser power than a semiportable projector; G-P armor was proof against any projectile possessing less energy than that hurled by the high caliber machine rifle. Thus the Boskonian beams splashed off the Valerian's screens in torrents of man-made lightning and in pyrotechnic displays of multicolored splendor, their bullets ricocheted harmlessly as spent, misshapen blobs of metal.
* * * * *
The Patrolmen did not even draw their DeLameters during their inexorable advance. They knew that the pirates' armor was as capable as theirs, and the women were not to die if death for them could possibly be avoided. As they advanced the enemy fell back toward the center of the great room; holding there with the Lyranians forming the outer ring of their roughly circular formation; firing over the women's heads and between their naked bodies.
Kinnison did not want those women to die. It seemed, however, that die they must, from the sheer, tremendous reflection from the Valerians' fiercely radiant screens, if the Patrolmen persisted in their advance. He studied the enemy formation briefly, then flashed an order.