equally sure that the situation was safe, for a time at least, in Kinnison’s highly capable
hands. She slowed down, allowed the distance between the two vessels to increase.
But she kept within range, for one or two more accidents might have to happen.
In the instant of the flicking of the switch the captain’s mind became Kinnison’s.
He was going to issue orders, to take the ship over in an orderly way, but his first
contact with the subjugated mind made him change his plans. Instead of uttering orders,
the captain leaped out of the chair toward the beam-controllers.
And not an instant too soon. Others had seen what had happened, had heard
that tell-tale click. All had been warned against that and many other contingencies. As
the captain leaped one of his fellows drew a bullet-projector and calmly shot him
through the head.
The shock of that bullet, the death of the mind in his own mind’s grasp, jarred the
Gray Lensman to the core. It was almost the same as though he himself had been
killed. Nevertheless, by sheer force of will he held on, by sheer power of will he made
that dead body take those last three steps and forced those dead hands to cut the
master circuit of the beams which were holding him helpless.
Free, he leaped forward; but not alone. The others leaped, too, and for the same
controls. Kinnison got there first—just barely first—and as he came he swung his
armored fist.
What a dureum-inlaid glove, driven by all the brawn of Kimball Kinnison’s mighty
right arm and powerful torso backed by all the momentum of body- and armor-mass, will
do to a human head met in direct central impact is nothing to detail here. Simply, that
head splashed. Pivoting nimbly, considering his encumbering armor, he swung a terrific
leg. His steel boot sank calf-deep into the abdomen of the foe next in line. Two more
utterly irresistible blows disposed of two more of the Boskonians; the last two turned
and, frantically, ran. But the Lensman by that time had the juice back on; and when a
man has been smashed against a bulkhead by the full power of a D2P pressor, all that
remains to be done must be accomplished with a scraper and a sponge.
Kinnison picked up his DeLameters, reconnected them, and took stock. So far,
so good. But there were other men aboard this heap—how many, he’d better find
out—and at least some of them wore dureum-inlaid armor as capable as his own.
And in her speedster, concluding that this wasn’t going to be so bad, after all,
Kathryn glowed with pride in her father’s prowess. She was no shrinking violet, this
Third-Stage Lensman; she held no ruth whatever for Civilization’s foes. She herself
would have driven that beam as mercilessly as had the Gray Lensman. She could have
told Kinnison what next to do; could even have inserted the knowledge stealthily into his
mind; but, heroically, she. refrained. She’d let him handle this in his own fashion as long
as he possibly could.
The Gray Lensman sent his sense of perception abroad. Twenty more of
them—the ship wasn’t very big. Ten aft, armored. Six forward, also armored. Four,
unarmored, in the control-room. That control-room was pure poison; he’d go aft first. He
searched around . . . surely they’d have dureum space-axes? Oh, yes, there they were.
He hefted them, selected one of the right weight and balance. He strode down the
companionway to the wardroom. He flung the door open and stepped inside.
His first care was to blast the communicator panels with his DeLameters. That
would delay the. mustering of reinforcements. The control room couldn’t guess, at least
for a time, that one man was setting out to capture their ship single-handed. His second,
ignoring the beams of hand-weapons splashing refulgently from his screens, was to
weld the steel door to the jamb. Then, sheathing his projectors, he swung up his axe
and went grimly to work. He thought fleetingly of how nice it would be to have
vanBuskirk, that dean of all axe-men, at his back; but he wasn’t too old or too fat to
swing a pretty mean axe himself. And, fortunately, these Boskonians, here in their
quarters, didn’t have axes. They were heavy, clumsy, and for emergency use only; they
were not a part of the regular uniform, as with Valerians.
The first foe swung up his DeLameter involuntarily as Kinnison’s axe swept
down. When the curved blade, driven as viciously as the Lensman’s strength could drive
it, struck the ray-gun it did not even pause. Through it it sliced, the severed halves
falling to the floor.
The dureum inlay of the glove held, and glove and axe smashed together against
the helmet. The Boskonian went down with a crash; but, beyond a broken arm or some
such trifle, he wasn’t hurt much. And no armor that a man had to carry around could be
made of solid dureum. Hence, Kinnison reversed his weapon and swung again, aiming
carefully at a point between the inlay strips. The axe’s wicked beak tore through steel
and skull and brain, stopping only with the sharply ringing impact of dureum shaft
against dureum stripping.
They were coming at him now, not only with DeLameters, but with whatever of
steel bars and spanners and bludgeons they could find. QX—his armor could take
oodles of that. They might dent it, but they couldn’t possibly get through. Planting one
boot solidly on his victim’s helmet, he wrenched his axe out through flesh and bone and
metal—no fear of breakage; not even a Valerian’s full savage strength could break the
helve of a space-axe—and struck again. And struck —and struck.
He fought his way to the door—two of the survivors were trying to unseal it and
get away. They failed; and, in failing, died. A couple of the remaining enemies shrieked
and ran in blind panic, and tried to hide; the others battled desperately on. But whether
they ran or fought there was only one possible end, if the Patrolman were to survive. No
enemy must or could be left alive behind him, to bring to bear upon his back some semi-
portable weapon with whose energies his armor’s screens could not cope.
When the grisly business was over Kinnison, panting, rested briefly. This was the
first real brawl he had been in for twenty years; and for a veteran—a white-collar man, a
coordinator to boot—he hadn’t done so bad, he thought. It was damned hard work and,
while he was maybe a hair short of wind, he hadn’t weakened a particle. To here, QX.
And lovely Kathryn, far enough back but not too far and reading imperceptibly his
every thought, agreed with him enthusiastically. She did not have a father complex, but
in common with her sisters she knew exactly what her father was. With equal exactitude
she knew what other men were. Knowing them, and knowing however imperfectly
herself, each of the Kinnison girls knew that it would be a physical and psychological
impossibility for her to become even mildly interested in any man not at least her
father’s equal. They each had dreamed of a man who would be her own equal,
physically and mentally, but it had not yet occurred to any of them that one such man
already existed.
Kinnison cut the door away and again sent out his sense of perception. With it
fanning out ahead of him he retraced his previous path. The apes in the control-room
had done something; he didn’t know just what. Two of them were tinkering with a
communicator panel; probably the one to the ward-room. They probably thought the
trouble was at their end. Or did they? Why hadn’t they reconnoitered? He dismissed that
problem as being of no pressing importance. The other two were doing something at
another panel. What? He couldn’t make head or tail of it—damn those full-coverage
screens! And Nadreck’s fancy drill, even if he had had one along, wouldn’t work unless
the screen were absolutely steady. Well, it didn’t make much, if any, difference. They
had called the men back from up forward, and here they came. He’d rather meet them
in the corridor than in an open room, anyway, he could handle them a lot easier . . .
But tensely watching Kathryn gnawed her lip. Should she tell him, or control him,
or not? No. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—yet. Dad could figure out that pilot-room trap
without her help . . . and she herself, with all her power of brain, could not visualize with
any degree of clarity the menace which was—which must be—at the tube’s end or even
now rushing along it to meet that Boskonian ship . . .
Kinnison met the oncoming six and vanquished them. By no means as easily as
he had conquered the others, since they had been warned and since they also now
bore space-axes, but just as finally. Kinnison did not consider it remarkable that he