Kinnison approached Star Cluster AC 257-4736 warily, as before; and as
before he insinuated his speedster through the loose outer cordon of
guardian fortresses. This time, however, he did not steer even remotely
near Helmuth's world. He would be there too long; there was altogether
too much risk of electromagnetic detection to set his ship into any
kind of an orbit around _that_ planet. Instead, he had computed a
long, narrow, elliptical orbit around its sun, well inside the zone
guarded by the maulers. He could compute it only approximately, of
course, since he did not know exactly either the masses involved or the
perturbing forces; but he thought that he could find his ship again
with an electro. If not, she would not be an irreplaceable loss. He set
the speedster, then, into the outward leg of that orbit and took off in
his new armor.
He knew that there was a thought-screen around Helmuth's planet,
and suspected that there might be other screens as well. Therefore,
shutting off every watt of power, he dropped straight down into the
night side, well clear of the citadel's edge. His flares were, of
course, heavily baffled; but even so he did not put on his brakes
until it was absolutely necessary. He landed heavily, then sprang
away in long, free hops, until he reached his previously selected
destination: a great cavern thickly shielded with iron ore and fully
five thousand miles from his point of descent. Deep within that cavern
he hid himself, then searched intently for any sign that his approach
had been observed. There was no such sign. So far, so good.
But during his search he had perceived with a slight shock that
Helmuth had tightened his defenses even more. Not only was every man
in the dome screened against thought, but also each was now wearing
full armor. Had he protected the dogs, too? Or killed them? No real
matter if he had--any kind of a pet animal would do; or, in a pinch,
even a wild rock-lizard! Nevertheless, he shot his perception into
the particular barracks he had noted so long before, and found with
some relief that the dogs were still there, and that they were still
unprotected. It had not occurred, even to Helmuth's cautious mind, that
a dog could be a source of mental danger.
With all due precaution against getting even a single grain of the
stuff into his own system, Kinnison transferred his thionite into the
special container in which it was to be used. Another day sufficed to
observe and to memorize the personnel of the gateway observers, their
positions, and the sequence in which they took the boards. Then the
Lensman, still almost a week ahead of schedule, settled down to await
the time when he should make his next move. Nor was this waiting unduly
irksome; now that everything was ready he could be as patient as a cat
on duty at a mouse hole.
* * * * *
The time came to act. Kinnison took over the mind of the dog, which
at once moved over to the bunk in which one particular observer lay
asleep. There would be no chance whatever of gaining control of any
observer while he was actually on the board, but here in barracks it
was almost ridiculously easy. The dog crept along on soundless paws; a
long, slim nose reached out and up; sharp teeth closed delicately upon
a battery lead; out came the plug. The thought-screen went down, and
instantly Kinnison was in charge of the fellow's mind.
And when that observer went on duty his first act was to admit Kimball
Kinnison, gray Lensman, to the Grand Base of Boskone! Low and fast
Kinnison flew, while the observer so placed his body as to shield from
any chance passer-by the all-too-revealing surface of his visiplate. In
a few minutes the Lensman reached a portal of the dome itself. Those
doors also opened--and closed behind him. He released the mind of the
observer and watched briefly. Nothing happened. All was still well!
Then, in every barracks save one, using whatever came to hand in the
way of dog or other unshielded animal, Kinnison wrought briefly but
effectively. He did not slay by mental force--he did not have enough
of that to spare--but the mere turn of an inconspicuous valve would do
just as well. Some of those now idle men would probably live to answer
Helmuth's call to extra duty, but not too many--nor would those who
obeyed that summons live long thereafter.
Down stairway after stairway he dived, down to the compartment in which
was housed the great air purifier. Now let them come! Even if they had
a spy ray on him, now it would be too late to do them a bit of good.
And now, by all the gods of space, that fleet had better be out there,
getting ready to blast!
It was. From all over the galaxy that grand fleet had been assembled;
every patrol base had been stripped of almost everything mobile that
could throw a beam. Every vessel carried either a Lensman or some
other highly trusted officer; and each such officer had two detector
nullifiers--one upon his person, the other in his locker--either one of
which would protect his whole ship from detection.
In long lines, singly and at intervals, those untold thousands of ships
had crept between the vessels guarding Grand Base. Nor were the outpost
crews to blame. They had been on duty for months, and not even an
asteroid had relieved the monotony. Nothing had happened or would. They
watched their plates steadily enough--and, if they did nothing more,
why should they? And what could they have done? How could they suspect
that such a thing as a detector nullifier had been invented?
* * * * *
The patrol's grand fleet, then, was already massing over its primary
objectives, each vessel in a rigidly assigned position. The pilots,
captains, and navigators were chatting among themselves jerkily and
in low tones, as though even to raise their voices might reveal
prematurely to the enemy the concentration of the patrol forces. The
firing officers were already at their boards, eyeing hungrily the small
switches which they could not throw for so many long minutes yet.
And far below, beside the pirates' air purifier, Kinnison released the
locking toggles of his armor and leaped out. To burn a hole in the
primary duct took only a second. To drop into that duct his container
of thionite, to drench that container with the reagent which would in
sixty seconds dissolve completely that container's substance without
affecting either its contents or the metal of the duct, to slap a
flexible adhesive patch over the hole in the duct, and to leap back
into his armor--all these things required only a trifle over one
minute. Eleven minutes to go--QX.
Then in the last barracks, even while the Lensman was arrowing up
the stairways, a dog again deprived a sleeping man of his thought
screen. That man, however, instead of going to work, took up a pair
of pliers and proceeded to cut the battery leads of every sleeper in
the barracks, severing them so close that no connection could be made
without removing the armor.
As those leads were severed, men woke up and dashed into the dome.
Along catwalk after catwalk they raced, and apparently that was all
that they were doing. But each runner, as he passed a man on duty,
flicked a battery plug out of its socket; and that observer, at
Kinnison's command, opened the face plate of his armor and breathed
deeply of the now drug-laden atmosphere.
Thionite, as has been intimated, is perhaps the worst of all known
habit-forming drugs. In almost infinitesimal doses it gives rise
to a state in which the victim seems actually to experience the
gratification of his every desire, whatever that desire may be. The
larger the dose, the more intense the sensation, until--and very
quickly--the dosage is reached at which he passes into such an ecstatic
stupor that not a single nerve can force a stimulus into his frenzied
brain. In this stage he dies.
Thus there was no alarm, no outcry, no warning. Each observer sat or
stood entranced, holding exactly the pose he had been in at the instant
of opening his face plate. But now, instead of paying attention to
his duty, he was plunging deeper and deeper into the paroxysmally
ecstatic profundity of a thionite debauch from which there was to be
no awakening. Therefore, half of that mighty dome was unmanned before
Helmuth even realized that anything at all out of order was going on.
As soon as he realized that something was amiss, however, he sounded
the "all-hands-on-duty" alarm and rapped out instructions to the
officers in the barracks. But the cloud of death had arrived there
first, and to his consternation not one quarter of those officers
responded. Quite a number of men did get into the dome, but every one
of them collapsed before reaching the catwalks. And three fourths of
his working force were _hors de combat_ before he located Kinnison's
speeding messengers.
"Blast them down!" Helmuth shrieked, pointing, gesticulating madly.
Blast whom down? The minions of the Lensman were themselves blasting
away now, right and left, shouting contradictory but supposedly
authoritative orders.
"Blast those men not on duty!" Helmuth's raging voice now filled the
dome. "You, at Board 479! Blast that man on Catwalk 28, at Board 495!"
With such detailed instructions, Kinnison's agents, one by one, ceased
to be. But as one was beamed down another took his place, and soon
every one of the few remaining living pirates in the dome was blasting
indiscriminately at every other one. And then, to cap the Saturnalian
climax, came the zero second.
* * * * *
The grand fleet of the Galactic Patrol had assembled. Every cruiser,
every battleship, every mauler hung poised above its assigned target.
Every vessel was stripped for action. Every accumulator cell was full
to its ultimate watt; every generator and every arm was tuned and
peaked to its highest attainable efficiency. Every firing officer upon
every ship sat tensely at his board, his hand hovering near, but not
touching, his firing keys, his eyes fixed glaringly upon the second
hand of his synchronized electric timer, his ears scarcely hearing the
droning, soothing voice of Port Admiral Haynes.
For the old man had insisted upon giving the firing order himself, and
he now sat at the master timer, speaking into the master microphone.
Beside him sat von Hohendorff, the grand old commandant of cadets. Both
of these veterans had thought long since that they were done with space
war forever; but only an order of the full Galactic Council could have
kept either of them at home. They were grimly determined that they
were going to be in at the death, even though they were not at all
certain whose death it was to be. If it should turn out that it was
to be Helmuth's, all well and good--everything would be on the green.
If, on the other hand, young Kinnison had to go, they would, in all
probability, have to go, too--and so be it.
"Now remember, boys, keep your hands off those keys until I give you
the word." Haynes' soothing voice droned on, giving no hint of the
terrific strain he himself was under. "I'll give you lots of warning.
I am going to count the last five seconds for you. I know that you all
want to shoot the first bolt, but remember that I, personally, will
strangle any and every one of you who beats my signal by a thousandth
of a second. It won't be long now; the second hand is starting around
on its last lap. Keep your hands off those keys. Keep away from them, I
tell you, or I'll smack you down. Fifteen seconds yet. Stay away, boys;
let 'em alone. Going to start counting now." His voice dropped lower
and lower. "Five--four--three--two--one--_fire!_" he yelled.
Perhaps some of the boys did beat the gun a trifle; but not many, or
much. To all intents and purposes it was one simultaneous blast of
destruction that flashed down from a hundred thousand projectors,
each delivering the maximum blast of which it was capable. There was
no thought now of service life, of equipment or of holding anything
back for a later effort. They had to hold that blast for only fifteen
minutes; and if the task ahead of them could not be done in those
fifteen minutes it probably could not be done at all.
Therefore, it is entirely useless even to attempt to describe what
happened then, or to portray the spectacle that ensued when beam met
screen. Why try to describe high C to a man born deaf? Suffice it to
say that those patrol beams bored down, and that Helmuth's automatic
screens resisted to the limit of their ability. Nor was that resistance
small. It was of such power that, years later, astronomers observed and
recorded a peculiarly behaving Nova in Star Cluster AC 257-4736.
Had Helmuth's customary staff of keen-eyed, quick-witted lieutenants
been at their posts, to reënforce those primary screens with the
practically unlimited power which could have been put behind them, his
defenses would not have failed, even under the unimaginable force of
that Titanic thrust; but those lieutenants were not at their posts. The
screens of the twenty-six primary objectives failed, and the twenty-six
stupendous flotillas moved slowly, grandly, voraciously, each along its
designated line.
* * * * *
Every alarm in Helmuth's dome had burst into frantic warning as the
massed might of the Galactic Patrol was first hurled against the
twenty-six vital points of Grand Base; but those alarms clamored in
vain. No hands were raised to the switches whose closing would unleash
the hellish energies of Boskone's irresistible projectors; no eyes were
upon the sighting devices which would align them against the attacking
ships of war.
Only Helmuth, in his inner-shielded control compartment, was left;
and Helmuth was the directing intelligence, the master mind, and not
a mere operator. And, now that he had no operators to direct, he was
utterly helpless. He could see the stupendous fleet of the patrol; he
could understand fully its dire menace; but he could neither stiffen
his screens nor energize a single beam. He could only sit, grinding
his teeth in helpless fury, and watch the destruction of the armament
which, if it could only have been in operation, would have blasted
those battleships and maulers from the skies as though they had been so
many fluffy bits of thistledown.
Time after time he leaped to his feet, as if about to dash across
to one of the control stations; but each time he sank back into his
seat at the desk. One firing station would be little, if any, better
than none at all. Besides, that accursed Lensman was back of this. He
was--must be--right here in the dome, somewhere. He _wanted_ him to
leave this desk; that was what he was waiting for! As long as he stayed
at the desk he himself was safe. For that matter, this whole dome
was safe. The projector had never been mounted that could break down
_those_ screens. No--no matter what happened, he would stay at the desk!
Kinnison, watching, marveled at his fortitude. He himself could not
have stayed there, he knew; and he also knew now that Helmuth was going
to stay. Time was flying; five of the fifteen minutes were gone. He had
hoped that Helmuth would leave that well-protected inner sanctum, with
its unknown potentialities; but if the pirate would not come out, the
Lensman would go in. The storming of that inner stronghold was what his
new armor had been designed for.
* * * * *
In he went, but he did not catch Helmuth napping. Even before he
crashed the screens his own defensive zones burst into furiously
coruscant activity, and through that flame there came tearing the
metallic slugs of a high-caliber machine rifle.
Ha! There _was_ a rifle, even though he had not been able to find
it! Clever guy, that Helmuth! And what a break that he had taken
time to learn how to hold this suit up against the trickiest kind of
machine-rifle fire!
Kinnison's screens were almost those of a battleship; his armor
almost, relatively, as strong. And he could hold that armor upright.
Therefore, through the raging beam of the semiportable projector he
plowed, and straight up that torrent of raging steel he drove his way.
And now from his own mighty projector, against Helmuth's armor, there
raved out a beam scarcely less potent than that of a semiportable. The
Lensman's armor did not mount a water-cooled machine rifle--there was
a limit to what even that powerful structure could carry--but grimly,
with every faculty of his newly enlarged mind concentrated upon that
thought-screened, armored head behind the belching gun, Kinnison held
his line and forged ahead.
[Illustration: _But Helmuth could not now reach that ball of
force--and Kinnison's mighty armor forged undamaged through the hail of
metal._]
Well it was that the Lensman _was_ concentrating upon that screened
head; for when the screen weakened slightly and a thought began to seep
through it toward an enigmatically sparkling ball of force, Kinnison
was ready. He blanketed the thought savagely, before it could take
form, and attacked the screen so viciously that Helmuth had either to
restore full coverage instantly or die then and there. For the Lensman
had studied that ball long and earnestly. It was the one thing about
the whole base that he could not understand, the one thing, therefore,
of which he had been uneasily afraid.
But he was afraid of it no longer. It was operated, he now knew, by
thought; and, no matter how terrific its potentialities might be, it
now was and would remain perfectly harmless; for if the pirate chief
softened his screen enough to emit a thought, he would never think
again.
Therefore, Kinnison rushed. At full blast he hurdled the rifle and
crashed full against the armored figure behind it. Magnetic clamps
locked and held; and, driving projectors furiously ablaze, he whirled
around and forced the madly struggling Helmuth back, toward the line
along which the bellowing rifle was still spewing forth a continuous
storm of metal.
Helmuth's utmost efforts sufficed only to throw the Lensman out of
balance, and both figures crashed to the floor. Now the madly fighting
armored pair rolled over and over--straight into the line of fire.
First Kinnison--the bullets whining, shrieking off the armor of his
personal battleship and crashing through or smashing ringingly against
whatever happened to be in the ever-changing line of ricochet. Then
Helmuth--and the fierce-driven metal slugs tore, in their multitudes,
through his armor and through his body, riddling his every vital organ.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Note: Chapter V. heading missing in original text.]