Since Kinnison's impenetrable shields of force had confined the damage
to the store's front, it was not long before Cartiff's reopened.
Business was and remained brisk; not only because of what had happened,
but also because Cartiff's top-lofty and arrogant snobbishness had
an irresistible appeal to the upper layers of Lonabar's peculiarly
stratified humanity. The Lensman, however, paid little enough attention
to business. Outwardly, seated at his ornate desk in haughty grandeur,
he was calmness itself, but inwardly he was far from serene.
If he had figured things right, and he was pretty sure that he had,
it was up to Bleeko to make the next move, and it would pretty nearly
have to be a peaceable one. There was enough doubt about it, however,
to make the Lensman a bit jittery inside. Also, from the fact that
everybody having any weight at all wore thought-screens, it was almost
a foregone conclusion that they had been warned against, and were on
the lookout for, THE Lensman--that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned
Tellurian Lensman who had already done so much hurt to the Boskonian
cause. That they now thought that one to be a well-hidden, unknown
director of Lensmen, and not an actual operative, was little
protection. If he made one slip, they'd have him, cold.
He hadn't slipped yet, they didn't suspect him yet; he was sure
of those points. With these people to suspect was to act, and his
world-circling ship, equipped with every scanning, spying, and
eavesdropping device known to science, would have informed him
instantly of any untoward development anywhere upon or near the planet.
And his fight with Bleeko was, after all, natural enough and very much
in character. It was of the very essence of Boskonian culture that
king snipes should do each other to death with whatever weapons came
readiest to hand. The underdog was always trying to kill the upper, and
if the latter was not strong enough to protect his loot, he deserved
everything he got. A callous philosophy, it is true, but one truly
characteristic of Civilization's inveterate foes.
The higher-ups never interfered. Their own skins were the only ones in
which they were interested. They would, Kinnison reflected, probably
check back on him, just to insure their own safety, but they would
not take sides in this brawl if they were convinced that he was, as
he appeared to be, a struggling young racketeer making his way up the
ladder of fame and fortune as best he could. Let them check--Cartiff's
past had been fabricated especially to stand up under precisely that
investigation, no matter how rigid it were to be!
Hence Kinnison waited, as calmly as might be, for Bleeko to move. There
was no particular hurry, especially since Chris was finding heavy
going and thick ether at her end of the line, too. They had been in
communication at least once every day, usually oftener; and Clarrissa
had reported seethingly, in near-masculine, almost deep-space verbiage,
that that damned red-headed hussy of a Helen was a hard nut to crack.
Kinnison grinned sourly every time he thought of Lyrane II. Those
matriarchs certainly were a rum lot. They were a pigheaded,
self-centered, mulishly stubborn bunch of cockeyed knotheads, he
decided. Non-galaxy minded; as shortsightedly antisocial as a flock
of mad Radeligian cateagles. He'd better--no, he hadn't better,
either--he'd have to lay off. If Chris, with all her potency and
charm, with all her drive and force of will, with all her sheer power
of mind and of Lens, couldn't pierce their armor, what chance did any
other entity of Civilization have of doing it? Particularly any male
creature? He'd like to half wring their beautiful necks, all of them;
but that wouldn't get him to the first check station, either. He'd just
have to wait until Chris broke through the matriarchs' crust--she'd do
it, too, by Klono's prehensile tail!--and then they'd really ride the
beam.
* * * * *
So Kinnison waited--and waited--and waited. When he got tired of
waiting he gave a few more lessons in snobbishness and in the
gentle art of self-preservation to the promising young Lonabarian
thug whom he had selected to inherit the business, lock, stock, and
barrel--including good will, if any--if, as, and when he was done
with it. Then he waited some more; waited, in fact, until Bleeko was
forced, by his silent pressure, to act.
It was not an overt act, nor an unfriendly--he simply called him up on
the visiphone.
"What do you think you're trying to do?" Bleeko demanded, his darkly
handsome face darker than ever with wrath.
"You." Kinnison made succinct answer. "You should have taken my advice
about pondering the various aspects of an iceberg."
"Bah!" the other snorted. "That silliness?"
"Not as silly as you think. It was a warning, Bleeko, that that which
appears above the surface is but a very small portion of my total
resources. But you could not or would not learn by precept; you had
to have it the hard way. Apparently, however, you have learned. That
you have not been able to locate my forces I am certain. I am almost
as sure that you do not want to try me again, at least until you have
found out what you do not know. But I can give you no more time--you
must decide now, Bleeko, whether it is to be peace or war between us. I
still prefer a peaceful settlement, with an equitable division of the
spoils; but if you want war, so be it."
"I have decided upon peace," the big shot said, and the effort of it
almost choked him. "I, Menjo Bleeko the Supreme, will give you a place
beside me. Come to me here, at once, so that we may discuss the terms
of peace."
"We will discuss them now," Kinnison insisted.
"Impossible! Barred and shielded as this room is--"
"It would be," Kinnison interrupted with a nod, "for you to make such
an admission as you have just made."
"--I do not trust unreservedly this communication line. If you join me
now, you may do so in peace. If you do not come to me, here and now, it
is war to the death."
"Fair enough, at that," the Lensman admitted. "After all, you've got to
save your face, and I haven't--yet. And if I team up with you I can't
very well stay out of your palace forever. But before I come there I
want to give you three things--a reminder, a caution, and a warning.
I remind you that our first exchange of amenities cost you a thousand
times as much as it did me. I caution you to consider again, and more
carefully this time, the iceberg. I warn you that if we again come into
conflict you will lose not merely a mine, but everything you have,
including your life. So see to it that you lay no traps for me. I come."
He went out into the shop. "Take over, Sport," he told his gangster
protégé. "I'm going up to the palace to see Menjo Bleeko. If I'm not
back in two hours, and if your grapevine reports that Bleeko is out of
the picture, what I've left in the store here is yours until I come
back and take it away from you."
"I'll take care of it, boss--thanks," and the Lensman knew that in true
Lonabarian gratitude the youth was already, mentally, slipping a long,
keen knife between his ribs.
* * * * *
Without a qualm, but with every sense stretched to the limit and in
instant readiness for any eventuality, Kinnison took a cab to the
palace and entered its heavily guarded portals. He was sure that they
would not cut him down before he got to Bleeko's room--that room would
surely be the one chosen for the execution. Nevertheless, he took
no chances. He was supremely ready to slay instantly every guard
within range of his sense of perception at the first sign of inimical
activity. Long before he came to them, he made sure that the beams
which were set to search him for concealed weapons were really search
beams and not lethal vibrations.
And as he passed those beams each one of them reported him clean.
Rings, of course; a stickpin, and various other items of adornment. But
Cartiff, the great jeweler, would be expected to wear very large and
exceedingly expensive gems. And the beam has never been projected which
could penetrate those Worsel-designed, Thorndyke-built walls of force
to show that any one of those flamboyant gems was not precisely what it
appeared to be.
Searched, combed minutely, millimeter by cubic millimeter, Kinnison was
escorted by a heavily armed quartet of Bleeko's personal guards into
his supremacy's private study. All four bowed as he entered--but they
strode in behind him, then shut and locked the door.
"You fool!" Bleeko gloated from behind his massive desk. His face
flamed with sadistic joy and anticipation. "You trusting, greedy fool!
I have you exactly where I want you now. How easy! How simple! This
entire building is screened and shielded--by _my_ screens and
shields. Your friends and accomplices, whoever or wherever they are,
can neither see you nor know what is to happen to you. If your ship
attempts your rescue, it will be blasted out of the ether. I will,
personally, gouge out your eyes, tear off your nails, strip your
hide from your quivering carcass--" Bleeko was now, in his raging
exaltation, fairly frothing at the mouth.
"That would be a good trick if you could do it," Kinnison remarked,
coldly. "But the real fact is that you haven't even tried to use that
pint of blue mush that you call a brain. Do you think that I am an
utter idiot? I put on an act and you fell for it--"
"Seize him, guards! Silence his yammering--tear out his tongue!" His
supremacy shrieked, leaping out of his chair as though possessed.
The guards tried manfully, but before they could touch him--before
any one of them could take one full step--they dropped. Without being
touched by material object or visible beam, without their proposed
victim having moved a muscle, they died and fell. Died instantly, in
their tracks; died completely, effortlessly, painlessly, with every
molecule of the all-important compound without which life cannot even
momentarily exist shattered instantaneously into its degradation
products; died not knowing even that they died.
Bleeko was shaken, but he was not beaten. Needle-ray men,
sharp-shooters all, were stationed behind those walls. Gone now the
dictator's intent to torture his victim to death. Slaying him out
of hand would have to suffice. He flashed a signal to the concealed
marksmen, but that order, too, went unobeyed. For Kinnison had
perceived the hidden gunmen long since, and before any of them could
align his sights or press his firing stud each one of them ceased to
live. The zwilnik then flipped on his communicator and gobbled orders.
Uselessly; for death sped ahead. Before any mind at any switchboard
could grasp the meaning of the signal, it could no longer think.
"You fiend!" Bleeko screamed, in mad panic now, and wrenched open a
drawer in order to seize a weapon of his own. Too late. The Lensman
had already leaped, and as he landed he struck--not gently. Lonabar's
tyrant collapsed upon the thick-piled rug in a writhing, gasping heap;
but he was not unconscious. To suit Kinnison's purpose he could not be
unconscious; he had to be in full possession of his mind.
* * * * *
The Lensman crooked one brawny arm around the zwilnik's neck in an
unbreakable strangle hold and flipped off his thought-screen. Physical
struggles were of no avail: the attacker knew exactly what to do to
certain nerves and ganglia to paralyze all such activity. Mental
resistance was equally futile against the overwhelmingly superior power
of the Tellurian's mind. Then, his subject quietly passive, Kinnison
tuned in and began his search for information. Began it--and swore
soulfully. This _couldn't_ be so--it didn't make any kind of
sense--but there it was.
The ape simply didn't know a thing about any ramification whatever
of the vast culture to which Civilization was opposed. He knew all
about Lonabar and the rest of the domain which he had ruled with such
an iron hand. He knew much--altogether too much--about humanity and
Civilization, and plainly to be read in his mind were the methods by
which he had obtained those knowledges and the brutally efficient
precautions he had taken to make sure that Civilization would not, in
turn, learn of him.
Kinnison scowled blackly. His deductions simply _couldn't_ be that
far off--and besides, it wasn't reasonable that this guy was the top or
that he had done all that work on his own account. He pondered deeply,
staring unseeing at Bleeko's placid face; and as he pondered, some of
the jig-saw blocks of the puzzle began to click into a pattern.
Then, ultracarefully, with the utmost nicety of which he was capable,
he again fitted his mind to that of the dictator and began to trace,
one at a time, the lines of memory. Searching, probing, coursing
backward and forward along those deeply buried time tracks, until at
last he found the breaks and the scars for which he was hunting. For,
as he had told Illona, a radical mind operation cannot be performed
without leaving scars. It is true that upon cold, unfriendly Jarnevon,
after Worsel had so operated upon Kinnison's mind, Kinnison himself
could not perceive that any work had been done. But that, be it
remembered, was before any actual change had occurred; before the
compulsion had been applied. The false memories supplied by Worsel were
still latent, nonexistent; the true memory chains, complete and intact,
were still in place.
This lug's brain had been operated upon, Kinnison now knew, and by an
expert. What the compulsion was, what combination of thought stimuli it
was that would restore those now nonexistent knowledges, Kinnison had
utterly no means of finding out. Bleeko himself, even subconsciously,
did not know. It was, it had to be, something external, a thought
pattern impressed upon Bleeko's mind by the Boskonian higher-up
whenever he wanted to use him; and to waste time in trying to solve
_that_ problem would be the sheerest folly. Nor could he discover
how that compulsion had been or could be applied. If he got his orders
from the Boskonian high command direct, there would have to be an
intergalactic communicator; and it would in all probability be right
here, in Bleeko's private rooms. No force-ball, or anything else that
could take its place, was to be found. Therefore Bleeko was, probably,
merely another Regional Director, and took orders from someone here in
the First Galaxy.
Lyrane? The possibility jarred Kinnison. No real probability pointed
that way yet, however; it was simply a possibility, born of his own
anxiety. He couldn't worry about it--yet.
His study of the zwilnik's mind, unproductive although it was of the
desired details of things Boskonian, had yielded one highly important
fact. His supremacy of Lonabar had sent at least one expedition to
Lyrane II; yet there was no present memory in his mind that he had ever
done so. Kinnison had scanned those files with surpassing care, and
knew positively that Bleeko did not now know even that such a planet as
Lyrane II existed.
* * * * *
Could he, Kinnison, be wrong? Could somebody other than Menjo Bleeko
have sent that ship? Or those ships, since it was not only possible,
but highly probable, that that voyage was not an isolated instance?
No, he decided instantly. Illona's knowledge was far too detailed and
exact. Nothing of such importance would be or could be done without the
knowledge and consent of Lonabar's dictator. And the fact that he did
not now remember it was highly significant. It meant--it _must_
mean--that the new Boskone or whoever was back of Boskone considered
the solar system of Lyrane of such vital importance that knowledge
of it must never, under any circumstances, get to Star A Star, the
detested, hated, and feared Director of Lensmen of the Galactic Patrol!
And Mac was on Lyrane II--ALONE! She had been safe enough so far, but--
"Chris!" he sent her an insistent thought.
"Yes, Kim?" came flashing answer.
"Thank Klono and Noshabkeming! You're QX, then?"
"Why, of course. Why shouldn't I be, the same as I was this morning?"
"Things have changed since then," he assured her, grimly. "I've finally
cracked things open here, and I find that Lonabar is simply a dead
end. It's a feeder for Lyrane, nothing else. It's not a certainty, of
course, but there's a very distinct possibility that Lyrane is IT. If
it is, I don't need to tell you that you're on a mighty hot spot. So
I want you to quit whatever you're doing and run. Hide. Crawl into a
hole and pull it in after you. Get into one of Helen's deepest crypts
and have somebody sit on the lid. And do it right now--five minutes ago
would have been better."
"Why, Kim!" she giggled. "Everything here is exactly as it has always
been. And surely, you wouldn't have a Lensman hide, would you? Would
you, yourself?"
That question was, they both knew, unanswerable. "That's different,"
he, of course, protested, but he knew that it was not. "Well, anyway,
be careful," he insisted. "More careful than you ever were before in
your life. Use everything you've got, every second, and if you notice
anything, however small, the least bit out of the way, let me know,
right then."
"I'll do that. You're coming, of course." It was a statement, not a
question.
"I'll say I am--in force! 'By, Chris--BE CAREFUL!" and he snapped the
line. He had a lot to do. He had to act fast, and had to be right--and
he couldn't take all day in deciding, either.
* * * * *
Kinnison's mind flashed back over what he had done. Could he cover up?
Should he cover up, even if he could? Yes and no. Better not even try
to cover Cartiff up, he decided. Leave that trail just as it was; wide
and plain--up to a certain point. This point, right here. Cartiff would
disappear here, in Bleeko's palace.
He was done with Cartiff, anyway. They would smell a rat, of course--it
stunk to high heaven. They might not--they probably would not--believe
that he had died in the ruins of the palace, but they wouldn't
_know_ that he hadn't. And they would think that he hadn't found
out a thing, and he would keep them thinking so as long as he could.
The young thug in Cartiff's would help, too, all unconsciously. He
would assume the name and station, of course, and fight with everything
Kinnison had taught him. That _would_ help--Kinnison grinned as he
realized just how much it would help.
The real Cartiff would have to vanish as completely, as absolutely
without a trace as was humanly possible. They would, of course, figure
out in time that Cartiff had done whatever was done in the palace, but
it was up to him to see to it that they could never find out how it was
done. Wherefore he took from Menjo's mind every iota of knowledge which
might conceivably be of use to him thereafter. Then Menjo Bleeko died.
His corpse fell into a heap upon the floor and the Lensman strode along
corridors and down stairways. And wherever he went, there Death went
also.
This killing griped Kinnison to the core of his being, but it had
to be. The fate of all Civilization might very well depend upon the
completeness of his butchery this day; upon the sheer mercilessness
of his extermination of every foe who might be able to cast any light,
however dim, upon what he had just done.
Straight to the palace arsenal he went, where he labored briefly at
the filling of a bin with bombs. A minute more to set a timer and he
was done. Out of the building he ran. No one stayed him; nor did any,
later, say that they had seen him go. He dumped a dead man out of a
car and drove it away at reckless speed. Even at that, however, he was
almost too slow--hurtling stones from the dynamited palace showered
down scarcely a hundred feet behind his screeching wheels.
He headed for the spaceport; then, changing his mind, braked savagely
as he sent Lensed instructions to Watson. He felt no compunction about
fracturing the rules and regulations made and provided for the landing
of spaceships at spaceports everywhere by having his vessel make a hot
blast, unauthorized, and quite possibly highly destructive landing
to pick him up. Nor did he fear pursuit. The big shots were, for the
most part, dead; the survivors and the middle-sized shots were too
busy by far to waste time over an irregular incident at a spaceport.
Hence nobody would give anybody any orders, and without explicit orders
no Lonabarian officer would act. No, there would be no pursuit. But
They--the Ones Kinnison was after--would interpret truly every such
irregular incident; wherefore there must not be any.
Thus it came about that when the speeding ground car was upon an empty
stretch of highway, with nothing in sight in any direction, a spaceship
eased down upon muffled under jets directly above it. A tractor beam
reached down; car and man were drawn upward and into the vessel's
hold. Kinnison did not want the car, but he could not leave it there.
Since many cars had been blown out of existence with Bleeko's palace,
for this one to disappear would be natural enough; but for it to be
found abandoned out in the open country would be a highly irregular and
an all-too-revealing occurrence.
Upward through atmosphere and stratosphere the black cruiser climbed;
out into interstellar space she flashed. Then, while Watson coaxed the
sleek flier to do even better than her prodigious best, Kinnison seated
himself at the ultrabeam communicator and drilled a beam to Prime Base
and Port Admiral Haynes.
* * * * *
"Lens-to-Lens, chief, please," Kinnison cautioned, when the handsome
old face, surmounted now by a shock of bushy gray hair, appeared upon
his plate. "Didn't want to interrupt anything important, is why I
called you through the office instead of direct."
"You always have the right of way, Kim, you know that--you're the most
important thing in the Galaxy right now," Haynes said, soberly.
"Well, a minute or so wouldn't make any difference--not _that_
much difference, anyway," Kinnison replied, uncomfortably. "I don't
like to Lens you unless I have to," and he began his report.
Scarcely had he started, however, when he felt a call impinge upon his
own Lens. Clarrissa was calling him from Lyrane II.
"Just a sec, admiral!" he thought, rapidly. "Come in, Chris--make it a
three-way with Admiral Haynes!"
"You told me to report anything unusual, no matter what," the girl
began. "Well, I finally managed to get almost chummy with Helen, and
absolutely the only unusual thing I can find out about the whole planet
or race is that the death rate from airplane crashes began to go up
awhile ago and is still rising. I don't see how that fact can have any
bearing, but am reporting it as per instructions."
"Hm-m-m. What kind of crashes?" Kinnison asked.
"That's the unusual feature of it. Nobody knows--they just disappear."
"WHAT?" Kinnison yelled the thought, so forcibly that both Clarrissa
and Haynes winced under its impact.
"Why, yes," she replied, innocently. "But I don't see yet that it
means--"
"It means that you _do_, right now, crawl into the deepest,
most heavily thought-screened hole in Lyrane and stay there until I,
personally, come and dig you out," he replied, grimly. "It means,
admiral, that I want Worsel and Tregonsee as fast as I can get
them--not orders, of course, but very, _very_ urgent requests. And
I want Van Buskirk and his gang of Valerians, and Grand Fleet, with all
the trimmings, within easy striking distance of Dunstan's Region as
fast as you can possibly get them there. And I want--"
"Why all the excitement, Kim?" and "What do you know, son?" The two
interruptions came almost as one.
"I don't _know_ anything." Kinnison emphasized the verb very
strongly. "However, I suspect a lot. Everything, in fact, grading
downward from the Eich."
"But they were all destroyed, weren't they?" the girl protested.
"Far from it." This from Haynes. "Would the destruction of Tellus do
away with all mankind? I am beginning to think that the Eich are to
Boskonia exactly what we are to Civilization."
"So am I," Kinnison agreed. "And, such being the case, will you please
get hold of Nadreck of Palain VII for me? I don't know his pattern well
enough to Lens him from here."
"Why?" Clarrissa asked, curiously.
"Because he's a frigid, poison-breathing second stage Gray Lensman,"
Kinnison explained. "As such he is much closer to the Eich, in every
respect, than we are, and may very well have an angle that we haven't."
And in a few minutes the Palainian Lensman became _en rapport_
with the group.
"An interesting development, truly," his soft thought came in almost
wistfully when the status quo had been made clear to him. "I fear
greatly that I cannot be of any use, but I am not doing anything of
importance at the moment and will be very glad indeed to give you
whatever slight assistance may be possible to one of my small powers. I
come at speed to Lyrane II."