While servicing and checking over the speedster required only a couple
of hours, Kinnison did not leave Earth for almost two days. He had
requisitioned much special equipment, the construction of one item
of which--a suit of armor such as had never been seen upon Earth
before--caused almost all of the delay. When it was ready the greatly
interested port admiral accompanied the young Lensman out to the
steel-lined, sand-filled concrete dugout, in which the suit had already
been mounted upon a remote-controlled dummy. Fifty feet from that dummy
there was a heavy, water-cooled machine rifle, with its armored crew
standing by. As the two approached the crew leaped to attention.
"As you were," Haynes instructed.
"You checked those cartridges against those I brought in from Aldebaran
I?" asked Kinnison of the officer in charge, as, accompanied by the
port admiral, he crouched down behind the shields of the control panel.
"Yes, sir. These are twenty-five per cent over, as you specified."
"QX--commence firing!" Then, as the weapon clamored out its stuttering,
barking roar, Kinnison made the dummy stoop, turn, bend, twist, and
dodge, so as to bring its every plate, joint, and member into the hail
of steel. The uproar stopped.
"One thousand rounds, sir," the officer reported.
"No holes--no dents--not a scratch or a scar," Kinnison reported, after
a minute examination, and got into the thing. "Now give me two thousand
rounds, unless I tell you to stop. Shoot!"
Again the machine rifle burst into its ear-shattering song of hate;
and, strong as Kinnison was and powerfully braced by the blast of his
drivers, he could not stand against the awful force of those bullets.
Over he went, backward, and the firing ceased.
"Keep it up!" he snapped. "Think they're going to quit shooting at me
because I fall down?"
"But you had had nineteen hundred!" protested the officer.
"Keep on pecking until you run out of ammunition or until I tell you to
stop," ordered Kinnison. "I've got to learn how to handle this thing
under fire." The storm of metal again began to crash against the
reverberating shell of steel.
It hurled the Lensman down, rolled him over and over, slammed him
against the backstop. Again and again he struggled upright, only to
be hurled again to ground as the riflemen, really playing the game
now, swung their leaden hail from part to part of the armor, and
varied their attack from steady fire to short, but savage, bursts. But
finally, in spite of everything the gun crew could do, Kinnison learned
his controls.
* * * * *
Then, drivers flaring, he faced that howling, chattering muzzle and
strode straight into the stream of smoke- and flame-enshrouded steel.
Now the air was literally full of metal. Bullets and fragments of
bullets whined and shrieked in mad abandon as they ricocheted off
that armor in all directions. Sand and bits of concrete flew hither
and yon, filling the atmosphere of the dugout. The rifle yammered at
maximum, with its sweating crew laboring mightily to keep its voracious
maw full-fed. But, in spite of everything, Kinnison held his line and
advanced. He was a bare ten feet from that raving, steel-vomiting
muzzle when the firing again ceased.
"Twenty thousand, sir," the officer reported, crisply. "We'll have to
change barrels before we can give you any more."
"That's enough!" snapped Haynes. "Come out of there!"
Out Kinnison came. He removed heavy ear plugs, swallowed four times,
blinked and grimaced. Finally he spoke. "It works perfectly, sir,
except for the noise. It's a good thing I've got a Lens. Even though I
was wearing plugs, I won't be able to hear a sound for three days!"
"How about the springs and shock absorbers? Are you bruised anywhere?
You took some real bumps."
"Perfect--not a bruise. Let's look her over."
Every inch of that armor's surface was now marked by blurs, where the
metal of the bullets had rubbed on the shining alloy, but that surface
was neither scratched, scored, nor dented.
"QX, boys--thanks," Kinnison dismissed the riflemen. They probably
wondered how any man could see through a helmet built up of
inches-thick laminated alloys, with neither window nor port through
which to look; but if so, they made no mention of their curiosity.
They, too, were patrolmen.
"Is that thing an armor or a personal tank?" asked Haynes. "I aged ten
years while that was going on; but, at that, I'm glad you insisted on
testing it as you did. You can get away with anything now."
"I've found that it is much better technique to learn things among
friends here, than among enemies." Kinnison laughed. "It's heavy, of
course--over three hundred kilos, net. I won't be walking around in it
much, though; and even that little I'll be flying it instead of walking
it. Well, sir, since everything's all set, I think I'd better fly it
over to the speedster and start flitting, don't you? I don't know
exactly how much time I am going to need on Trenco."
"Might as well," the port admiral agreed, as casually, and Kinnison was
gone.
"What a man!" Haynes stared after the monstrous figure until it
vanished in the distance, then strolled slowly toward his office,
thinking as he went.
* * * * *
Nurse MacDougall had been highly irked and incensed at Kinnison's
casual departure, without idle conversation or formal leave
takings. Not so Haynes. That seasoned campaigner knew that gray
Lensmen--particularly young gray Lensmen--were prone to get that way.
He knew, in a way she never would and never could know, that Kinnison
was no longer of Earth.
He was now only of the galaxy, not of any one tiny dust grain of it.
He was of the patrol. He _was_ the patrol, and he was taking his new
responsibilities very seriously indeed. In his fierce zeal to drive his
campaign through to a successful end he would use man or woman, singly
or in groups, ships, even Prime Base itself, exactly as he had used
them: as pawns, as mere tools, as means to an end. And, having used
them, he would leave them as unconcernedly and as unceremoniously as
he would drop pliers and spanner, and with no realization that he had
violated any of the nicer amenities of life as it is lived!
And as he strolled along and thought, the port admiral smiled quietly
to himself. He knew, as Kinnison would learn in time, that the
universe was vast, that time was long, and that the Scheme of Things,
comprising the whole of eternity and the cosmic all, was a something
incomprehensibly immense indeed. With which cryptic thought the
space-hardened veteran sat down at his desk and resumed his interrupted
labors.
But Kinnison had not yet attained Haynes' philosophic viewpoint,
any more than he had his age, and to him the trip to Trenco seemed
positively interminable. Eager as he was to put his plan of campaign
to the test, he found that mental urgings, or even audible invectives,
would not make the speedster go any faster than the already
incomprehensible top speed of her drivers' maximum blast. Nor did
pacing up and down the little control room seem to help very much.
Physical exercise he had to perform, but it did not satisfy him. Mental
exercise was impossible; he could think of nothing except Helmuth's
base.
* * * * *
Eventually, however, he approached Trenco and located, without
difficulty, the patrol's space port. Fortunately, it was then at about
eleven o'clock, so that he did not have to wait long to land. He drove
downward inert, sending a thought ahead of him: "Lensman of Trenco
Space Port--Tregonsee or his relief? Lensman Kinnison of Sol III asking
permission to land."
"It is Tregonsee," came back the thought. "Welcome, Kinnison. You are
on the correct line. You have, then, perfected an apparatus to see
truly in this distorting medium?"
"I didn't perfect it--it was given to me."
The landing bars lashed out, seized the speedster, and eased her down
into the lock; and, as soon as she had been disinfected, Kinnison went
into consultation with Tregonsee. The Rigellian was a highly important
factor in the Tellurian's scheme; and, since he was also a Lensman, he
was to be trusted implicitly.
Therefore, Kinnison told him briefly what occurred and what he had it
in mind to do, concluding: "So you see, I need about fifty kilograms of
thionite. Not fifty milligrams, or even grams, but fifty _kilograms_;
and, since there probably isn't that much of the stuff loose in the
whole galaxy, I came over here to ask you to make it for me."
Just like that. Calmly asking a Lensman, whose sworn duty it was to
kill any being even attempting to gather a single Trenconian plant, to
make for him more of the prohibited drug than was ordinarily processed
throughout the galaxy during a solarian month! It would be just such
an errand were one to walk into the treasury department in Washington
and inform the chief of the narcotics bureau, quite nonchalantly, that
he had dropped in to pick up ten tons of heroin! But Tregonsee did not
flinch or question--he was not even surprised. This was a gray Lensman,
and his plan would work.
"That should not be too difficult," Tregonsee replied, after a moment's
study. "We have several thionite processing units, confiscated from
zwilnik ships and not yet picked up by headquarters; and all of us
are, of course, quite familiar with the technique of extracting and
purifying the drug."
He issued orders and shortly Trenco Space Port presented the astounding
spectacle of a full crew of the Galactic Patrol devoting its every
energy to the whole-hearted breaking of the one law it was supposed
most rigidly, and without fear or favor, to enforce!
* * * * *
It was a little after noon, the calmest hour of Trenco's day. The wind
had died to "nothing"; which, on that planet, meant that a strong man
could stand against it; could even, if he were agile as well as strong,
walk about in it. Therefore, Kinnison donned his light armor and was
soon busily harvesting the purple-leaved plants, which, he had been
informed, were the richest sources of thionite.
He had been working for only a few minutes when one of the "natives"
came crawling up to him; and, after ascertaining that his hard steel
armor was not good to eat, drew off and observed him intently. Here was
another opportunity for practice, and in a flash the Lensman availed
himself of it. Having practiced for hours upon the minds of various
Earthly animals, he entered this mind easily enough, finding that the
Trenconian "flat" was considerably more intelligent than a dog. So much
so, in fact, that the race had already developed a fairly comprehensive
language.
Therefore, it did not take long for the Lensman to learn to use his
subject's peculiar limbs and other members, and soon the flat was
working like a Trojan. And, since he was ideally adapted for his wildly
raging Trenconian environment, he actually accomplished more than all
the rest of the force combined.
"It's a dirty trick I'm playing on you, fellow," Kinnison told his
helper after a while. "Come on into the receiving room and I'll see if
I can square it with you."
Since food was the only logical tender, Kinnison brought out from
his speedster a small can of salmon, a package of cheese, a bar of
chocolate, a few lumps of sugar, and a potato, offering them to the
Trenconian in order. The salmon and the cheese were both highly
acceptable fare. The morsel of chocolate was a delightfully surprising
delicacy. The lump of sugar, however, was what really rang the bell.
Kinnison's own mind felt the shock of pure ecstasy as that wonderful
substance dissolved in the trenco's mouth. He also ate the potato,
of course--any Trenconian animal will, at any time, eat anything
containing carbon, even limerock, gasoline, or truck grease--but it was
merely food, nothing to rave about.
Knowing now what to do, Kinnison led his assistant out into the
howling, shrieking gale and released him from control, throwing a lump
of sugar upwind as he did so. The trenco seized it in the air, ate it,
and went into a very hysteria of joy.
"More! More!" he insisted, attempting to climb up the Lensman's armored
leg.
"You must work for more of it, if you want it," Kinnison explained.
"Break off these plants here and carry them over into that empty thing
over there, and you get more."
This was an entirely new idea to the native, but after Kinnison had
taken hold of his mind and had shown him how to do consciously that
which he had been doing unconsciously for an hour, he worked willingly
enough. In fact, before it started to rain, thereby putting an end to
the labor of the day, there were a dozen of them toiling at the harvest
and the crop was coming in as fast as the entire crew of Rigellians
could process it. And even after the space port was sealed they crowded
up, paying no attention to the rain, bringing in their small loads of
leaves and plaintively asking admittance.
* * * * *
It took some little time for Kinnison to make them understand that the
day's work was done, but that they were to come back to-morrow morning.
Finally, however, he succeeded in getting the idea across, and the
last disconsolate turtle-man went reluctantly away. But sure enough,
next morning, even before the mud had dried, the same twelve were back
on the job. The two Lensmen wondered simultaneously how those trencos
could have found the space port. Or had they stayed near it through the
storm and flood of the night?
"I don't know," Kinnison answered the unasked question, "but I can
find out." Again and more carefully he examined the minds of two or
three of them. "No, they didn't follow us," he reported then. "They're
not as dumb as I thought they were. They have a sense of perception,
Tregonsee, about the same thing, I judge, as yours--perhaps even more
so. I wonder--why couldn't they be trained into mighty efficient police
assistants on this planet?"
"The way _you_ handle them, yes. I can converse with them a little, of
course, but they have never before shown any willingness to coöperate
with us."
"You never fed them sugar." Kinnison laughed. "You have sugar, of
course--or do you? I was forgetting that many races do not use it at
all."
"We Rigellians are one of those races. Starch is so much tastier and
so much better adapted to our body chemistry that sugar is used only
as a chemical. We can, however, obtain it easily enough. But there is
something else. You can tell these trencos what to do and make them
really understand you. I cannot."
"I can fix that up with a simple mental treatment that I can give you
in five minutes. Also, I can let you have enough sugar to carry on
with until you can get in a supply of your own."
In the few minutes during which the Lensmen had been discussing their
potential allies, the mud had dried and the amazing coverage of dense,
succulent "grass" was springing visibly into being. So incredibly
rapid was its growth that in ten minutes more the plants were large
enough to be gathered. The leaves were lush and rank, in color a vivid,
crimsonish purple.
"These early-morning plants are the richest of any in thionite, but
the zwilniks can never get more than a handful of them because of
the wind," remarked the Rigellian. "Now, if you will give me that
treatment, I will see what I can do with the Flats."
Kinnison did so, and the trencos worked for Tregonsee as industriously
as they had for Kinnison--and ate his sugar as rapturously.
"That is enough," decided the Rigellian presently. "This will finish
your fifty kilograms and to spare."
He then "paid off" his now enthusiastic helpers, with instructions
to return when the sun was directly overhead, for more work and more
sugar. And this time they did not complain, nor did they loiter around
or bring in unwanted vegetation. They were learning fast.
Well before noon the last kilogram of impalpable, purplish-blue powder
was put into its impermeable sack. The machinery was cleaned; the
untouched leaves, the waste, and the contaminated air were blown out
of the space port; and the room and its occupants were sprayed with
anti-thionite. Then and only then did the crew remove their masks and
air filters. Trenco Space Port was again a patrol post, no longer a
zwilnik's paradise.
"Thanks, Tregonsee, and all you fellows----" Kinnison paused, then went
on, dubiously, "I don't suppose that you will----"
"We will not," declared Tregonsee. "Our time is yours, as you know,
without payment; and time is all that we gave you, really."
"Sure--that and about a thousand million credits' worth of thionite."
"That, of course, does not count, as you also know. You have helped us,
I think, even more than we have helped you."
"I hope that I have done you some good, anyway. Well, I've got to flit.
Thanks again. I'll see you sometime, maybe." And again the Tellurian
Lensman was on his way.