Wherefore the Kalonian seethed, and, his minions stepped ever more softly and followed with ever-increasing punctilio the rigid Boskonian code. For the grapevine carries news swiftly; by this time the whole fleet knew that His Nibs had been taking a God-awful kicking around, and the first guy who gave him an excuse to blow his stack would be lucky if he only got skinned alive.
As the fleet spread out for inert maneuvering above the Kalonian atmosphere, Kinnison turned again to the young Lensman.
“One last word, Frank. I’m sure everything’s covered—a lot of smart people worked on this problem. Nevertheless, something may happen, so I’ll send you the data as fast as I get it. Remember what I told you before—if I get the dope we need, I’m expendable and it’ll be your job to get it back to Base. No heroics. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” The young Lensman gulped. “I hope, though, that it doesn’t…”
“So do I,” Kinnison grinned as he climbed into his highly special dureum armor, “and the chances are a million to one that it won’t. That’s why I’m going down there.”
In their respective speedsters Kinnison and Mendonai made the long drop to ground, and side by side they went into the office of Black Lensman Melasnikov. That worthy, too, wore heavy armor; but he did not have a mechanical thought-screen. With his terrific power of mind, he did not need one. Thyron, of course, did; a fact of which Melasnikov became instantly aware.
“Release your screen,” he directed, bruskly.
“Not yet, pal—don’t be so hasty,” Thyron advised. “Some things about this here hook-up don’t exactly click. We got a little talking to do before I open up.”
“No talk, worm. Talk, especially your talk, is meaningless. From you I want, and will have, the truth, and not talk. CUT THOSE SCREENS!”
* * * *
And lovely Kathryn, in her speedster not too far away, straightened up and sent out a call.
“Kit—Kay—Cam—Con…are you free?” They were, for the moment. “Stand by, please, all of you. I’m pretty sure something is going to happen. Dad can handle this Melasnikov easily enough, if none of the higher-ups step in, but they probably will. Their Lensmen are probably important enough to rate protection. Check?”
“Check.”
“So, as soon as dad begins to get the best of the argument, the protector will step in,” Kathryn continued, “and whether I can handle him alone or not depends on how high a higher-up they send in. So I’d like to have you all stand by for a minute or two, just in case.”
How different was Kathryn’s attitude now than it had been in the hyper-spatial tube! And how well for Civilization that it was!
“Hold it, kids, I’ve got a thought,” Kit suggested. “We’ve never done any teamwork since we learned how to handle heavy stuff, and we’ll have to get in some practice sometime. What say we link up on this?”
“Oh, yes!” “Let’s do!” “Take over, Kit!” Three approvals came as one, and:
“QX, Kit,” came Kathryn’s less enthusiastic concurrence, a moment later. Naturally enough, she would rather do it alone if she could; but she had to admit that her brother’s plan was the better.
Kit laid out the matrix and the four girls came in. There was a brief moment of snuggling and fitting; then each of the Five caught his breath in awe. This was new—brand new. Each had thought himself complete and full; each had supposed that much practice and at least some give-and-take would be necessary before they could work efficiently as a group. But this! This was the supposedly ultimately unattainable—perfection itself! This was UNITY: full; round; complete. No practice was or ever would be necessary. Not one micro-micro-second of doubt or of uncertainty would or ever could exist. This was the UNIT, a thing for which there are no words in any written or spoken language, a thing theretofore undreamed-of save as a purely theoretical concept in an unthinkably ancient, four-ply Arisian brain.
“U-m-n-g-n-k.” Kit swallowed a lump as big as his fist. “This, kids, is really…”
“Ah, children, you have done it.” Mentor’s thought rolled smoothly in. “You now understand why I could not attempt to describe the Unit to any one of you. This is the culminating moment of my life—of our lives, we may now say. For the first time in more years than you can understand, we are at last sure that our lives have not been lived in vain. But attend—that for which you are waiting will soon be here.”
“What is it?” “Who?” “Tell us how to…”
“We cannot.” Four separate Arisians smiled as one; a wash of ineffable blessing and benediction suffused the Five. “We who made the Unit possible are almost completely ignorant of the details of its higher functions. But that it will need no help from our lesser minds is certain; it is the most powerful and the most nearly perfect creation this universe has ever seen.”
The Arisian vanished; and, even before Kimball Kinnison had released his screen, a cryptic, utterly untraceable and all-pervasive foreign thought came in.
To aid the Black Lensman? To study this disturbing new element? Or merely to observe? Or what? The only certainty was that that thought was coldly, clearly, and highly inimical to all Civilization.
Again everything happened at once. Karen’s impenetrable block flared into being—not instantly, but instantaneously. Constance assembled and hurled, in the same lack of time, a mental bolt of whose size and power she had never been capable. Camilla, the detector-scanner, synchronized with the attacking thought and steered. And Kathryn and Kit, with all the force, all the will, and all the drive of human heredity, got behind it and pushed.
Nor was this, any of it, conscious individual effort. The children of the Lens were not now five, but one. This was the Unit at work; doing its first job. It is literally impossible to describe what happened; but each of the Five knew that one would-be Protector, wherever he had been in space or whenever in time, would never think again. Seconds passed. The Unit held tense, awaiting the riposte. No riposte came.
“Fine work, kids!” Kit broke the linkage and each girl felt hard, brotherly pats on her back. “That’s all there is to this one, I guess—must have been only one guard on duty. You’re good eggs, and I like you—How we can operate now!”
“But it was too easy, Kit!” Kathryn protested. “Too easy by far for it to have been an Eddorian. We aren’t that good. Why, I could have handled him alone… I think,” she added hastily, as she realized that she, although an essential part of the Unit, had as yet no real understanding of what that Unit really was.
“You hope, you mean!” Constance jeered. “If that bolt was as big and as hot as I’m afraid it was, anything it hit would have looked easy. Why didn’t you slow us down, Kit? You’re supposed to be the Big Brain, you know. As it was, we haven’t the faintest idea of what happened. Who was he, anyway?”
“Didn’t have time,” Kit grinned. “Everything got out of hand. All of us were sort of inebriated by the exuberance of our own enthusiasm, I guess. Now that we know what our speed is, though, we can slow down next time—if we want to. As for your last question, Con, you’re asking the wrong guy. Was it Eddorian, Cam, or not?”
“What difference does it make?” Karen asked.
“On the practical side, none. For the completion of the picture, maybe a lot. Come in, Cam.”
“It was not an Eddorian,” Camilla decided. “It was not of Arisian, or even near-Arisian, grade. Sorry to say it, Kit, but it was another member of that high-thinking race you’ve already got down on Page One of your little black book.”
“I thought it might be. The missing link between Kalonia and Eddore. Credits to millos it’s that dopey planet Ploor Mentor was yowling about. Oh, DAMN!”
“Why the capital damn?” asked Constance, brightly. “Let’s link up and let the Unit find it and knock hell out of it. That’d be fun.”
“Act your age, baby,” Kit advised. “Ploor is taboo—you know that as well as I do. Mentor told us all not to try to investigate it—that we’d learn of it in time, so we probably w
ill. I told him a while back I was going to hunt it up myself, and he told me if I did he’d tie both my legs around my neck in a lovers’ knot, or words to that effect. Sometimes I’d like to half-brain the old buzzard, but everything he has said so far has dead-centered the beam. We’ll just have to take it, and try to like it.”
* * * *
Kinnison was eminently willing to cut his thought-screen, since he could not work through it to do what had to be done here. Nor was he over-confident. He knew that he could handle the Black Lensman—any Black Lensman—but he also knew enough of mental phenomena in general and of Lensmanship in particular to realize that Melasnikov might very well have within call reserves about whom he, Kinnison, could know nothing. He knew that he had lied outrageously to young Frank in regard to the odds applicable to this enterprise; that instead of a million to one, the actuality was one to one, or even less.
Nevertheless, he was well content. He had neither lied nor exaggerated in saying that he himself was expendable. That was why Frank and the Dauntless were upstairs now. Getting the dope and getting it back to Base were what mattered. Nothing else did.
He was coldly certain that he could get all the information that Melasnikov had, once he had engaged the Kalonian Lensman mind to mind. No Boskonian power or thing, he was convinced, could treat him rough enough or kill him fast enough to keep him from doing that. And he could and would shoot the stuff along to Frank as fast as he got it. And he stood an even—almost even, anyway—chance of getting away afterward. If he could, QX. If he couldn’t…well, that would have to be QX, too.
Kinnison flipped his switch and there ensued a conflict of wills that made the sub-ether boil. The Kalonian was one of the strongest, hardest, and ablest individuals of his hellishly capable race; and the fact that he believed implicitly in his own complete invulnerability operated to double and to quadruple his naturally tremendous strength.
On the other hand, Kimball Kinnison was a Second-Stage Lensman of the Galactic Patrol.
Back and back, then, inch by inch and foot by foot, the Black Lensman’s defensive zone was forced; back to and down into his own mind. And there, appallingly enough, Kinnison found almost nothing of value.
No knowledge of the higher reaches of the Boskonian organization; no hint that any real organization of Black Lensmen existed; only the peculiarly disturbing fact that he had picked up his Lens on Lyrane IX. And “picked up” was literal. He had not seen, nor heard, nor had any dealings of any kind with anyone while he was there.
Since both armored figures stood motionless, no sign of the tremendous actuality of their mental battle was evident. Thus the Boskonians were not surprised to hear their Black Lensman speak.
“Very well, Thyron, you have passed this preliminary examination. I know all that I now need to know. I will accompany you to your vessel, to complete my investigation there. Lead the way.”
Kinnison did so, and as the speedster came to rest inside the Dauntless the Black Lensman addressed Vice-Admiral Mendonai via plate.
“I am taking Bradlow Thyron and his ship to the space-yards on Four, where a really comprehensive study of it can be made. Return to and complete your original assignment”
“I abase myself, Your Supremacy, but…but I… I discovered that ship!” Mendonai protested.
“Granted,” the Black Lensman sneered. “You will be given full credit in my report for what you have done. The fact of discovery, however, does not excuse your present conduct. Go—and consider yourself fortunate that, because of that service, I forbear from disciplining you for your intolerable insubordination.”
“I abase myself, Your Supremacy. I go.” He really did abase himself, this time, and the fleet disappeared.
Then, the mighty Dauntless safely away from Kalonia and on her course to rendezvous with the Velan, Kinnison again went over his captive’s mind; line by line and almost cell by cell. It was still the same. It was still Lyrane IX and it still didn’t make any kind of sense. Since Boskonians were certainly not supermen, and hence could not possibly have developed their own Lenses, it followed that they must have obtained them from the Boskonian counterpart of Arisia. Hence, Lyrane IX must be IT—a conclusion which was certainly fallacious. Ridiculous—preposterous—utterly untenable: Lyrane IX never had been, was not, and never would be the home of any Boskonian super-race. Nevertheless, it was a definite fact that Melasnikov had got his Lens there. Also, if he had ever had any special training, such as any Lensman must have had, he didn’t have any memory of it. Nor did he carry any scars of surgery. What a hash! How could anybody make any sense out of such a mess as that?
* * * *
Ever-watchful Kathryn, eyes narrowed now in concentration, could have told him, but she did not. Her visualization was beginning to clear up. Lyrane was out. So was Ploor. The Lenses originated on Eddore; that was certain. The fact that their training was subconscious weakened the Black Lensman in precisely the characteristics requisite for ultimate strength—although probably neither the Eddorians nor the Ploorans, with their warped, Boskonian sense of values, realized it. The Black Lensmen would never constitute a serious problem. QX.
* * * *
Kinnison, having attended to the unpleasant but necessary job of resolving Melasnikov into his component atoms, turned to his Lensman-aide.
“Hold everything, Frank, until I get back. This won’t take long.”
Nor did it, although the outcome was not at all what the Gray Lensman had expected.
Kinnison and Worsel, in an inert speedster, crossed the Hell-Hole’s barrier web at a speed of only miles per hour, and then slowed down. The ship was backing in on her brakes, with everything set to hurl her forward under full free drive should either Lensman flick a finger. Kinnison could feel nothing, even though, being en rapport with Worsel, he knew that his friend was soon suffering intensely.
“Let’s flit,” the Gray Lensman suggested, and threw on the drive. “I probed my limit, and couldn’t touch or feel a thing. Had enough, didn’t you?”
“More than enough—I couldn’t have taken much more.”
Each boarded his ship; and as the Dauntless and the Velan tore through space toward far Lyrane, Kinnison paced his room, scowling in black abstraction. Nor would a mind-reader have found his thoughts either cogent or informative.
“Lyrane Nine…Lyrane Nine… Lyrane Nine…LYRANE NINE…and something I can’t feel or sense or perceive that kills anybody and everybody else… KLONO’S tungsten TEETH and CURVING CARBALLOY CLAWS!!!”
CHAPTER
21
The Red Lensman on Lyrane
ELEN’S STORY WAS SHORT AND bitter. Human or near-human Boskonians came to Lyrane II and spread insidious propaganda all over the planet. Lyranian matriarchy should abandon its policy of isolationism. Matriarchs were the highest type of life. Matriarchy was the most perfect of all existing forms of government—why keep on confining it to one small planet, when it should by rights be ruling the entire galaxy? The way things were, there was only one Elder Person; all other Lyranians, even though better qualified than the then incumbent, were nothing…and so on. Whereas, if things were as they should be, each individual Lyranian person could be and would be the Elder Person of a planet at least, and perhaps of an entire solar system…and so on. And the visitors, who, they insisted, were no more males than the Lyranian persons were females, would teach them. They would be amazed at how easily, under Boskonian guidance, this program could be put into effect.
Helen fought the intruders with everything she had. She despised the males of her own race; she detested those of all others. Believing hers to be the only existing matriarchal race, especially since neither Kinnison nor the Boskonians seemed to know of any other, she was sure that any prolonged contact with other cultures would result, not in the triumph of matriarchy, but in its fall. She not only voiced these beliefs as she held them—violently—but also acted upon them in the same fashion.
Because of the ingrained matriarchially conservati
ve habit of Lyranian thought, particularly among the older persons, Helen found it comparatively easy to stamp out the visible manifestations; and, being in no sense a sophisticate, she thought the whole matter settled. Instead, she merely drove the movement underground, where it grew tremendously. The young, of course, rebellious as always against the hide-bound, mossbacked, and reactionary older generation, joined the subterranean New Deal in droves. Nor was the older generation solid. In fact, it was riddled by the defection of many thousands who could not expect to attain any outstanding place in the world as it was and who believed that the Boskonians’ glittering forecasts would come true.
Disaffection spread, then, rapidly and unobserved; culminating in the carefully-planned uprising which made Helen an ex-queen and put her under restraint to await a farcical trial and death.
“I see.” Clarrissa caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Very unfunny… You didn’t mention or think of any of your persons as ringleaders…peculiar that you couldn’t catch them, with your telepathy…no, natural enough, at that…but there’s one I want very much to get hold of. Don’t know whether she was really a leader, or not, but she was mixed up in some way with a Boskonian Lensman. I never did know her name. She was the wom—the person who managed your airport here when Kim and I were…”
“Cleonie? Why, I never thought…but it might have, at that…yes, as I look back…”
“Yes, hindsight is a lot more accurate than foresight,” the Red Lensman grinned. “I’ve noticed that myself, lots of times.”
“It did! It was a leader!” Helen declared, furiously. “I shall have its life, too, the damned, jealous cat—the blood-sucking, back-biting louse!”
“She’s all of that, in more ways than you know,” Clarrissa agreed, grimly, and spread in the Lyranian’s mind the story of Eddie the derelict. “So you see that Cleonie has got to be our starting-point. Have you any idea of where we can find her?”
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