grand lots of stuff they _haven’t_ got, too. I wouldn’t trade half of
you for either one of them—or both of them together.”
“I believe that—at least, about _both_ of them,” Joan giggled mentally,
“but how many men. . . .”
“Well, how many men do you want?” Cloud interrupted.
“Touché, Storm . . . but do you really. . . .”
What would have developed into a scene of purely mental lovemaking was
put to an end by the arrival of Joe Mackay, who also paused and made
appropriate noises of appreciation.
“But there’s one thing I don’t quite like about this deal,” he said
finally. “I’m not too easy in my mind about making love to a moll who is
packing a Mark Twenty Eight DeLameter. The darn thing might go off.”
“Keep your distance, then, Lieutenant Mackay!” Helen laughed. “Well, are
we ready?”
They were. They left the ship and walked in a group through the throng
of cheering Vegians toward the nearby, gaily-decorated stands in which
the official greetings and thank-yous were to take place. Helen and Babs
loved it; just as though they were parading as finalists in a beauty
contest. Bob and Joe wished that they had stayed in the ship and kept
their clothes on. Joan didn’t quite know whether she liked this kind of
thing or not. Of the six Tellurians, only Neal Cloud had had enough
experience in public near-nudity so that it made no difference. And
Vesta?
Vesta was fairly reveling—openly, unashamedly reveling—in the
spotlight with her Tellurian friends. They reached the center stand,
were ushered with many flourishes to a reserved section already partly
filled by Captain Ross and the lesser officers and crewmen of the
good-will-touring Patrol ship _Vortex Blaster II_. Not all of the
officers, of course, since many had to stay aboard, and comparatively
few of the crew; for many men insist on wearing Tellurian garmenture and
refuse to tan their hides under ultra-violet radiation—and no untanned
white Tellurian skin can take with impunity more than a few minutes of
giant Vega’s blue-white fury.
Of the ceremonies themselves, nothing need be said; such things being
pretty much of a piece, wherever, whenever, or for whatever reason held.
When they were over, Vesta gathered her six friends together and led
them to the edge of the roped-off area. There she uttered a soundless
(to Tellurian ears) whistle, whereupon a group of Vegian youths and
girls formed a wedge around the seven and drove straight through the
milling crowd to its edge. There, by an evidently pre-arranged miracle,
they found enough copters to carry them all.
_Chapter 16_
▂▂▂▂▂▂VEGIAN JUSTICE
THE NEARER THEY got to their destination the more fidgety Vesta became.
“Oh, I _hope_ Zambkptkn could get away and be there by now—I haven’t
seen him for over half a year!”
“Who?” Helen asked.
“My brother. Zamke, you’d better call him, you can pronounce that. The
police officer, you know.”
“I thought you saw him this morning?” Joan said.
“I saw my other brothers and sisters, but not him—he was tied up on a
job. He wasn’t sure just when he could get away tonight.”
The copter dropped sharply. Vesta seized Cloud’s arm and pointed.
“That’s where we’re going; that big building with the landing-field on
the roof. The Caravanzerie. Zee?” In moments of emotion or excitement,
most of Vesta’s sibilants reverted to Z’s.
“I see. And this is your Great White Way?”
It was, but it was not white. Instead, it was a blaze of red, blue,
green, yellow—all the colors of the spectrum. And crowds! On foot, on
bicycles, on scooters, motorbikes, and motortricycles, in cars and in
copters, it seemed impossible that _anything_ could move in such a press
as that. And as the aircab approached its destination Neal Cloud,
space-hardened veteran and skillful flyer though he was, found himself
twisting wheels, stepping on pedals, and cutting in braking jets, none
of which were there.
How that jockey landed his heap and got it into the air again all in one
piece without dismembering a single Vegian, Cloud never did quite
understand. Blades were scant fractional inches from blades and rotors;
people were actually shoved aside by the tapering bumpers of the cab as
it hit the deck; but nothing happened. This, it seemed, was _normal_!
The group re-formed and in flying-wedge fashion as before, gained the
elevators and finally the ground floor and the ballroom. Here Cloud drew
his first full breath for what seemed like hours. The ballroom was
tremendous—and it was less than three-quarters filled.
Just inside the doorway Vesta paused, sniffing delicately. “He _is_
here—come on!” She beckoned the six to follow her and rushed ahead, to
be met at the edge of the clear space in head-on collision. Brother and
sister embraced fervently for about two seconds. Then, reaching down,
the man broke his sister’s grip and flipped her around sidewise, through
half of a vertical circle, so that her feet pointed straight up. Then,
with a sharp “_Blavzkt!_” he snapped into a back flip.
“_Blavzkt—Zemp!_” she shouted back, bending beautifully into such an
arch that, as his feet left the floor, hers landed almost exactly where
his had been an instant before. Then for a full minute and a half the
joyous pair pinwheeled, without moving from the spot; while the dancers
on the floor, standing still now, applauded enthusiastically with
stamping, hand-clapping, whistles, cat-calls, and screams.
Vesta stopped the exhibition finally, and led her brother toward Cloud
and Joan. The music resumed, but the dancers did not. Instead, they made
a concerted rush for the visitors, surrounding them in circles a dozen
deep. Vesta, with both arms wrapped tightly around Cloud and her tail
around Joan, shrieked a highly consonantal sentence—which Cloud knew
meant “Lay off these two for a couple of minutes, you howling hyenas,
they’re mine”—then, switching to English: “Go ahead, you four, and have
fun!”
The first two men to lay hands on the two tall Tellurian beauties were,
by common consent and without argument, their first partners. Two of the
Vegian girls, however, were not so polite. Both had hold of Joe, one by
each arm, and stood there spitting insults at each other past his face
until a man standing near by snapped a few words at them and flipped a
coin. The two girls, each still maintaining her grip, leaned over
eagerly to see for themselves the result of the toss. The loser promptly
relinquished her hold on Joe and the winner danced away with him.
“Oh, this is _wonderful_, Storm!” Joan thought. “We’ve been
_accepted_—we’re the first group I ever actually _knew_ of to really
break through the crust.”
The Vegians moved away. Vesta released her captives and turned to her
brother.
“Captain Cloud, Doctor Janowick, I present to you my brother Zamke,” she
said. Then, to her brother: “They have been very good to me, Zambktpkn,
both of them, but especially the captain. You know what he did for me.”
“Yes, I know.” The brother spoke the English “S” with barely a trace of
hardness. He shook Cloud’s hand firmly, then bent over the hand,
spreading it out so that the palm covered his face, and inhaled deeply.
Then, straightening up: “For what you have done for my sister, sir, I
thank you. As she has said, your scent is pleasing and will be
remembered long, enshrined in the Place of Pleasant Odors of our house.”
Turning to Joan, and omitting the handshake, he repeated the performance
and bowed—and when an adult male Vegian sets out to make a production
of bowing, it is a production well worth seeing.
Then, with the suddenest and most complete change of manner either Cloud
or Joan had ever seen he said: “Well, now that the formalities have been
taken care of, Joan, how about us hopping a couple of skips around the
floor?”
Joan was taken slightly aback, but rallied quickly. “Why, I’d love it
. . . but not knowing either the steps or the music, I’m afraid I
couldn’t follow you very well.”
“Oh that won’t make any. . . .” Zamke began, but Vesta drowned him out.
“Of _course_ it won’t make any difference, Joan!” she exclaimed. “Just
go ahead and dance any way you want to. He’ll match your steps—and if
he so much as touches one of your slippers with his big, fat feet, I’ll
choke him to death with his own tail!”
“And I suppose it is irrefutable that you can and will dance with me
with equal dexterity, aplomb, and insouciance?” Cloud asked Vesta,
quizzically, after Joan and Zamke had glided smoothly out into the
throng.
“You zaid it, little chum!” Vesta exclaimed, gleefully. “And I know what
all those words mean, too, and if I ztep on either one of _your_ feet
I’ll choke _my_ zelf to death with my _own_ tail, zo there!”
Snuggling up to him blissfully, Vesta let him lead her into the crowd.
She of course was a superb dancer; so much so that she made him think
himself a much better dancer than he really was. After a few minutes,
when he was beginning to relax, he felt an itchy, tickling
touch—something almost impalpable was creeping up his naked back—the
fine, soft fur of the extreme tip of Vesta’s ubiquitous tail!
He grabbed for it, but, fast as he was, Vesta was faster, and she
shrieked with glee as he missed the snatch.
“See here, young lady,” he said, with mock sternness, “if you don’t keep
your tail where it belongs I’m going to wrap it around your lovely neck
and tie it into a bow-knot.”
Vesta sobered instantly. “Oh . . . do you _really_ think I’m lovely,
Captain Nealcloud—my neck, I mean?”
“No doubt about it,” Cloud declared. “Not only your neck—all of you.
You are most certainly one of the most beautiful things I ever saw.”
“Oh, thanks . . . I hadn’t. . . .” she stared into his eyes for moments,
as if trying to decide whether he really meant it or was merely being
polite; then, deciding that he did mean it, she closed her eyes, let her
head sink down onto his shoulder, and began to purr blissfully; still
matching perfectly whatever motions he chose to make.
In a few minutes, however, they heard a partially-stifled shriek and a
soprano voice, struggling with laughter, rang out.
“Vesta!”
“Yes, Babs?”
“What do you do about this tail-tickling business? I never had to cope
with anything like _that_ before!”
“Bite him!” Vesta called back, loudly enough for half the room to hear.
“Bite him good and hard, on the end of the tail. If you can’t catch the
tail, bite his ear. Bite it good.”
“_Bite_ him? Why, I _couldn’t_—not _possibly_!”
“Well, then give him the knee, or clout him a good, solid tunk on the
nose. Or better yet; tell him you won’t dance with him any more—he’ll
be good.”
“_Now_ you tell us what to do about tail-ticklers,” Cloud said then.
“S’pose I’d take a good bite at _your_ ear?”
“I’d bite you right back,” said Vesta, gleefully, “and I bet you’d taste
just as nice as you smell.”
The dance went on, and Cloud finally, by the aid of both Vesta and
Zamke, did finally manage to get one dance with Joan. And, as he had
known he would, he enjoyed it immensely. So did she.
“Having fun, chum? I never saw you looking so starry-eyed before.”
“Oh, brother!” she breathed. “To say that I was never the belle of any
ball in my schooldays is the understatement of the century, but here
. . . can you imagine it, Storm, _me_ actually outshining Barbara Benton
and Helen Worthington both at once?”
“Sure I can. I told you. . . .”
“Of course it’s probably because their own women are so big that I’m a
sort of curiosity,” she rushed on, “but whatever the reason, this dance
is going down in my memory book in great big letters in the reddest ink
I can find!”
“Good for you—hail the conquering heroine!” he applauded. “It’ll do you
good to have your ego inflated a little. But what do _you_ do about this
tail-tickling routine?”
“Oh, I grab their tails”—with her sense of perception, she could, of
course—“and when they try to wiggle them free I wiggle back at them,
like this,” she demonstrated, “and we have a perfectly wonderful time.”
“Wow! I’ll bet you do—and when I get you home, you shameless. . . .”
“Sorry, Storm, my friend,” the big Vegian who cut in wasn’t sorry at
all, and he and Cloud both knew it. “You can dance with Joan any time
and we can’t. So loosen all clamps, friend. Grab him, Vzelkt!”
Vzelkt grabbed. So, in about a minute, did another Vegian girl; and then
after a few more minutes, it was Vesta’s turn again. No other girl could
dance with him more than once, but Vesta, by some prearranged priority,
could have him once every ten minutes.
“Where’s your brother, Vesta?” he asked once. “I haven’t seen him for an
hour.”
“Oh, he had to go back to the police station. They’re all excited and
working all hours. They’re chasing Public Enemy Number One—a Tellurian,
they think he is, named Fairchild—why?” as Cloud started,
involuntarily, in the circle of her arm. “Do you know him?”
“I know _of_ him, and that’s enough.” Then, in thought: “Did you get
that, Nordquist?”
“I got it.” Cloud was, as the Lensman had said that he would be, under
surveillance every second. “Of course, this one may not be Fairchild,
since there are three or four other suspects in other places, but from
the horrible time we and the Vegians both are having, trying to locate
this bird, I’m coming to think he is.”
The dance went on until, some hours later, there was an unusual tumult
and confusion at the door.
“Oh, the police are calling Vesta—something has happened!” his
companion exclaimed. “Let’s rush over—oh, hurry!”
Cloud hurried; but, as well as hurrying, he sent his sense of perception
on ahead, and meshed his mind imperceptibly with Vesta’s as well.
Her mind was a queerly turbid, violently turbulent mixture of emotions:
hot with a furiously passionate lust for personal,
tooth-and-claw-revenge; at the same time icily cold with the implacable,
unswervable resolve of the dedicated, remorseless, and merciless killer.
“Are you sure, beyond all doubt, that this is the garment of my
brother’s slayer?” Vesta was demanding.
“I am sure,” the Vegian policeman replied. “Not only did Zambkptkn hold
it pierced by the first and fourth fingers of his left hand—the sign
positive, as you know—but an eyewitness verified the scent and
furnished descriptions. The slayer was dressed as an Aldebaranian, which
accounts for the size of the garment your brother could seize before he
died; his four bodyguards as Tellurians, with leather belts and holsters
for their blasters.”
“QX.” Vesta accepted a pair of offered shears and began to cut off tiny
pieces of the cloth. As each piece began to fall it was seized in
mid-air by a Vegian man or girl who immediately ran away with it. And in
the meantime other Vegians, forming into a long line, ran past Vesta,
each taking a quick sniff and running on, out into the street. Cloud,
reaching outside the building with his perceptors, saw that all
vehicular traffic had paused. A Vegian stood on the walkway, holding a
bit of cloth pinched between thumb and fingernail. All passersby, on
foot or in any kind of vehicle, would pause, sniff at the cloth,
and—apparently—go on about their business.
But Cloud, after reading Vesta’s mind and the policeman’s, turned as
white as his space-tan would permit. In less than an hour almost every
Vegian in that city of over eight million would know the murderer by
scent and would be sniffing eagerly for him; and when any one of them
_did_ find him. . . .
Except for the two Vegians and the six Tellurians, the vast hall was now
empty. Vesta was holding a pose Cloud had never before seen—stiffly
erect, with her tail wrapped tightly around her body.
“Can they get a scent—a _reliable_ scent, I mean—that fast?” Cloud
asked.
“Zertainly,” Vesta’s voice was cold, level, almost uninflected. “How
long would it take you to learn that an egg you started to eat was
rotten? The man who wore this shirt is a class A Triple Prime
stinker—his odor is recognizable instantly and anywhere.”
“But as to the rest of it—_don’t_ do this thing, Vesta! Let the law
handle it.”
“The law comes second. He killed my brother; it is my right and my
privilege to kill him. . . .”
Cloud became conscious of the fact that Joan was in his mind. “You been
here all along?” he flashed.
“In or near. You and I are one, you know,” and Vesta’s voice went on:
“. . . and besides, the law is merciful. Its death is instant. Under my
claws and teeth he will live for hours—for a full day, I hope.”
“But officer, can’t _you_ do something?”
“Nothing. The law comes second. As she has said, it is her right and her
privilege.”
“But it’s suicide, man—sheer _suicide_. You know that, don’t you?”
“Not necessarily. She will not be working alone. Whether she lives or
dies, however, it is still her right and her privilege.”
Cloud switched to thought. “Nordquist, _you_ can stop this if you want
to. _Do_ it.”
“I can’t, and you know I can’t. The Patrol does not and cannot interfere
in purely planetary affairs.”
“You intend, then,” Cloud demanded furiously, “to let this girl put her
naked hands and teeth up against four trigger-happy gunnies with
DeLameters?”
“Just that. There’s nothing else I or any other Patrolman can do. To
interfere in this one instance would alienate half the planets of
Civilization and set the Patrol back five hundred years.”
“Well, even though I’m a Patrolman—of sorts—_I_ can do something about
it!” Cloud blazed, “and by God, I will!”
“_We_ will, you mean, and we _will_, too,” Joan’s thought came forcibly
at first, then became dubious: “That is, if it doesn’t mean getting
_you_ blasted, too.”
“Just what?” Nordquist’s thought was sharp. “Oh, I see . . . and, being
a Vegian, as well as a Patrolman, and the acknowledged friend of both
the dead man and his sister. . . .”
“Who’s a Vegian?” Cloud demanded.
“You are, and so are the other five of your group, as you would have
been informed if the party had not been broken up so violently. Honorary
Vegians, for life.”
“Why, I never _heard_ of such a thing!” Joan exclaimed, “and I studied
them for years!”
“No, you never did,” Nordquist agreed. “There haven’t been many honorary
Vegians, and to my certain knowledge, not one of them has ever talked.
Vegians are very strongly psychic in picking their off-world friends.”
“You mean to tell me that that bleached blonde over there won’t spill
everything she knows fifteen minutes after we leave here?” Cloud
demanded.
“Just that. You can’t judge character by hair, even if it were bleached,
which it isn’t. You owe her an apology, Storm.”
“If you say so, I do, and I hereby apologize, but. . . .”
“But to get back to the subject,” the Lensman went on, narrowing his
thought down so sharply as to exclude Joan. “You can do something.
You’re the _only_ one who can. Such being the case, and since you are no
longer indispensable. I withdraw all objections. Go ahead.”
Cloud started a thought, but Joan blanked him out. “Lensman, has Storm
been sending—_can_ he send information to you that _I_ can’t dig out of
his mind?”
“Very easily. He is an exceptionally fine tuner.”
“I’m sorry, Joanie,” Cloud thought, hastily, “but it sounded too much
like bragging to let you in on. However, you’re in from now on.”
Then, aloud, “Vesta, I’m staying with you,” he said, quietly.
“I was sure you would,” she said, as quietly. “You are my friend and
Zamke’s. Although your customs are not exactly like ours, a man of your
odor does not desert his friends.”
Cloud turned then to the four lieutenants, who stood close-grouped.
“Will you four kids please go back to the ship, and take Joan with you?”
“Not on Thursdays, Storm,” Joe said, pointing to an inconspicuous bronze
button set into a shoulder-strap. “We both rate Blaster Expert First.
Count us in,” and Bob added:
“Joan has been telling us an earful, and what she didn’t tell us a
couple of Vegian boys did. The Three Honorary Vegian Musketeers; that’s
us. Lead on, d’Artagnan!”
“Bob and Joe are staying, too, Vesta,” Cloud said then.
“Of course. I’m sorry I didn’t get to tell you myself about being
adopted, but I knew somebody would. But you, Joan and Barbara and Helen,
you three had better go back to the ship. You can be of no use here.”
Two of them were willing enough to go, but:
“Where Neal Cloud goes, I go,” Joan said, and there was no doubt
whatever that she meant exactly that.
“Why?” Vesta demanded. “Commander Cloud, the fastest gunman in all
space, is necessary for the success of this our mission. He can, from a
cold, bell-tone start, at thirty yards, burn the centers out of six
irregularly-spaced targets. . . .”
“Nordquist! Lay off! What in _hell_ do you think you’re doing?” Cloud
thought, viciously.
“I don’t think—I _know_,” came instant reply. “Do you want her hanging
on your left arm when the blasting starts? This is the only _possible_
way Joan Janowick can be handled. Lay off yourself!” and Vesta’s voice
went calmly on:
“. . . in exactly two hundred and forty nine mils. Lieutenant Mackay and
Lieutenant Ingalls, although perhaps not absolutely necessary, are
highly desirable. They are fast enough, and are of deadly accuracy. When
either of them shoots a man in a crowd, however large, that one man
dies, and not a dozen bystanders. Now just what good would _you_ be,
Lieutenant-Commander Janowick? Can you fire a blaster with any one of
these men? Or bite a man’s throat out with me?”
For probably the first time in her life, Joan Janowick stood mute.
“And suppose you _do_ come along,” Vesta continued relentlessly. “With
_you_ at his side, in the line of fire, do you suppose. . . .”
“Just a minute—shut up, Vesta!” Cloud ordered, roughly. “Listen, all of
you. The Lensman is doing this, not Vesta, and I’ll be damned if I’ll
let anybody, not even a Lensman, bedevil my Joan this way. So, Joan,
wherever we go, you can come along. All I ask is, you’ll keep a little
ways back?”
“Of course I will, Storm,” and Joan crept into the shelter of his arm.
“Ha—I thought you’d pop off at about this point,” Nordquist’s thought
came chattily into Cloud’s mind. “Good work, my boy; you’ve consolidated
your position no end.”
“Well, what do we do now?” Joe Mackay broke the somewhat sticky silence
that followed.
“We wait,” Vesta said, calmly. “We wait right here until we receive
news.”
They waited; and, as they waited the tension mounted and mounted. Before
it became intolerable, however, the news came in, and Cloud, reading
Vesta’s mind as the ultra-sonic information was received, relayed it to
other Tellurians. The murderer and his four bodyguards were at that
moment entering a theater less than one city block away. . . .
“Why, they _couldn’t_ be!” Helen protested. “_Nobody_ could be _that_
stupid . . . or . . . I wonder. . . ?”
“I wonder, too.” This from Joan. “Yes, it would be the supremely clever
thing to do; the perfect place to hide for a few hours while the worst
of the storm blows over and they can complete their planned getaway.
Provided, of course, they’re out-worlders and thus don’t know what we
Vegians can do with our wonderful sense of smell. Of course they aren’t
a Tellurian and four Aldebaranians any more, are they?”
“No, they are five Centralians now. Perfectly innocent. They think their
blasters are completely hidden under those long over shirts, but now and
again a bulge shows—they’ve still got blasters on their hips. The
theater’s crowded, but the five friends want to sit together. The
manager thinks it could be arranged, by paying a small gratuity to a few
seat-holders who would like to make a fast credit that way . . . he’ll
place them and it’s almost time for us to go. ’Bye, Joanie—stay back,
remember!” and she was in his arms.
“How about it, Helen?” Joe asked. “Surely you’re going to kiss your
Porthos good-bye, aren’t you?”
“Of a surety, m’enfant!” she exclaimed, and did so with enthusiasm. “But
it’s more like Aramis, I think—he kissed everybody, you know—and since
I’m not hooked like Joan is—yet—don’t think that this is establishing
a precedent.”
“Well, Babs, that leaves you and me.” Bob reached out—she was standing
beside him—and pulled her close. “QX?”
“Why, I . . . I guess so.” Barbara blushed furiously. “But Bob . . . is
it really _dangerous_?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. Not very, really, I don’t think. At least I certainly
_hope_ not. But blasters are _not_ cap-pistols, you know, and whenever
one goes off it can raise pure hell. Why? Would you really miss me?”