well have been one of the accursed Arisians themselves. But since I did nothing to
arouse its suspicions, I got rid of it easily enough. Spread the warning!”
CHAPTER 10: CONSTANCE OUT-WORSELS WORSEL
While Kathryn Kinnison was working with her father in the hyper-spatial tube and
with Mentor of Arisia, and while Camilla and Tregonsee were sleuthing the inscrutable
“X”, Constance was also at work. Although she lay flat on her back, not moving a
muscle, she was working as she had never worked before. Long since she had put her
indetectable speedster into the control of a director-by-chance. Now, knowing nothing
and caring less of where she and her vessel might be or might go, physically completely
relaxed, she drove her “sensories” out to the full limit of their prodigious range and held
them there for hour after hour. Worsel-like, she was not consciously listening for any
particular thing; she was merely increasing her already incredibly vast store of
knowledge. One hundred percent receptive, attached to and concerned with only the
brain of her physical body, her mind sped at large; sampling, testing, analyzing,
cataloguing every item with which its most tenuous fringe came in contact. Through
thousands of solar systems that mind went; millions upon millions of entities either did
or did not contribute something worthwhile.
Suddenly there came something that jarred her into physical movement: a burst
of thought upon a band so high that it was practically always vacant. She shook herself,
got up, lighted an Alaskanite cigarette, and made herself a pot of coffee.
“This is important, I think,” she mused. “I’d better get to work on it while it’s
fresh.”
She sent out a thought tuned to Worsel, and was surprised when it went
unanswered. She investigated: finding that the Velantian’s screens were full up and held
hard— he was fighting Overlords so savagely that he had not felt her thought. Should
she take a hand in this brawl? She should not, she decided, and grinned fleetingly. Her
erstwhile tutor would need no help in that comparatively minor chore. She’d wait until he
wasn’t quite so busy.
“Worsel! Con calling. What goes on mere, fellow old snake?” She finally
launched her thought.
“As though you didn’t know!” Worsel sent back. “Been quite a while since I saw
you—how about coming aboard?”
“Coming at max,” and she did.
Before entering the Velan, however, she put on a gravity damper, set at 980
centimeters. Strong, tough, and supple as she was she did not relish the thought of the
atrocious accelerations used and enjoyed by Velantians everywhere.
“What did you make of that burst of thought?” she asked by way of greeting. “Or
were you having so much fun you missed it?”
“What burst?” Then, after Constance had explained, “I was busy; but not having
fun.”
“Somebody who didn’t know you might believe that,” the girl derided. “This
thought was important, I think—much more so than dilly-dallying with Overlords, as you
were doing. It was ‘way up—on this band here.” She illustrated.
“So?” Worsel came as near to whistling as one of his inarticulate race could
come. “What are they like?”
“VWZY, to four places.” Con concentrated. “Multi-legged. Not exactly
carapaceous, but pretty nearly. Spiny, too, I believe. The world was cold, dismal,
barren; but not frigid, but he—it—didn’t seem exactly like an oxygen-breather—more
like what a warm-blooded Palainian would perhaps look like, if you can imagine such a
thing. Mentality very high—precisionist grade—no thought of cities as such. The sun
was a typical yellow dwarf. Does any of this ring a bell in your mind?”
“No.” Worsel thought intensely for minutes. So did Constance. Neither had any
idea—then—that the girl was describing the form assumed in their autumn by the dread
inhabitants of the planet Ploor!
“This may indeed be important,” Worsel broke the mental silence. “Shall we
explore together?”
“We shall.” They tuned to the desired band. “Give it plenty of shove, too—Go!”
Out and out and out the twinned receptors sped; to encounter a tenuous, weak,
and utterly cryptic vibration. One touch—the merest possible contact—and it
disappeared. It vanished before even Con’s almost-instantaneous reactions could get
more than a hint of directional alignment; and neither of the observers could read any
part of it.
Both of these developments were starkly incredible, and Worsel’s long body
tightened convulsively, rock-hard, in the violence of the mental force now driving his
exploring mind. Finding nothing, he finally relaxed.
“Any Lensmen, anywhere, can read and understand any thought, however
garbled or scrambled, or however expressed,” he thought at Constance. “Also, I have
always been able to get an exact line on anything I could perceive, but all I know about
this one is that it seemed to come mostly from somewhere over that way. Did you do
any better?”
“Not much, if any.” If the thing was surprising to Worsel, it was sheerly
astounding to his companion. She, knowing the measure of her power, thought to
herself—not to the Velantian—”Girl, file this one carefully away in the big black book!”
Slight as were the directional leads, the Velan tore along the indicated line at
maximum blast. Day after day she sped, a wide-flung mental net out far ahead and out
farther still on all sides. They did not find what they sought, but they did
find—something.
“What is it?” Worsel demanded of the quivering telepath who had made the
report.
“I don’t know, sir. Not on that ultra-band, but well below it . . . there. Not an
Overlord, certainly, but something perhaps equally unfriendly.”
“An Eich!” Both Worsel and Con exclaimed the thought, and the girl went on, “It
was practically certain that we couldn’t get them all on Jarnevon, of course, but none
have been reported before . . . where are they, anyway? Get me a chart, somebody . . .
It’s Novena IX . . . QX—tune up your heavy artillery, Worsel—it’d be nice if we could
take the head man alive, but that’s a little too much luck to expect.”
The Velantian, even though he had issued instantaneously the order to drive at
full blast toward the indicated planet, was momentarily at a loss. Kinnison’s daughter
entertained no doubts as to the outcome of the encounter she was proposing—but she
had never seen an Eich close up. He had. So had her father. Kinnison had come out a
very poor second in that affair, and Worsel knew that he could have done no better, if as
well. However, that had been upon Jarnevon, actually inside one of its strongest
citadels, and neither he nor Kinnison had been prepared.
“What’s the plan, Worsel?” Con demanded, vibrantly. “How’re you figuring on
taking “em?”
“Depends on how strong they are. If it’s a long-established base, we’ll simply
have to report it to LaForge and go on about our business. If, as seems more probable
because it hasn’t been reported before, it’s a new establishment—or possibly only a
grounded space-ship so far—we’ll go to work on them ourselves. We’ll soon be close
enough to find out.”
“QX”, and a fleeting grin passed over Con’s vivacious face. For a long time she
had been working with Mentor the Arisian, specifically to develop the ability to “cut-
Worsel Worsel,” and now was the best time she ever would have to put her hard
schooling to test.
Hence, Master of Hallucination though he was, the Velantian bad no hint of
realization when his Klovian companion, working through a channel which he did not
even know existed, took control of every compartment of his mind. Nor did the crew, in
particular or en masse, suspect anything amiss when she performed the infinitely easier
task of taking over theirs. Nor did the unlucky Eich, when the flying Velan had
approached their planet closely enough to make it clear that their establishment was
indeed a new one, being built around the nucleus of a Boskonian battleship. Except for
their commanding officer they died then and there—and Con was to regret bitterly, later,
that she had made this engagement such a one-girl affair.
The grounded battleship was a formidable fortress indeed. Under the fierce
impact of its offensive beams the Velantians saw their very wall-shields flame violet. In
return they saw their mighty secondary beams stopped cold by the Boskonian’s inner
screens, and had to bring into play the inconceivable energies of their primaries before
the enemy’s space-ship-fortress could be knocked out. And this much of the battle was
real. Instrument- and recorder-tapes could be and were being doctored to fit; but spent
primary shells could not be simulated. Nor was it thinkable that this super-dreadnaught
and its incipient base should be allowed to survive.
Hence, after the dreadful primaries had quieted the Eich’s main batteries and had
reduced the ground-works to flaming pools of lava, needle-beamers went to work on
every minor and secondary control board. Then, the great vessel definitely helpless as a
fighting unit, Worsel and his hard-bitten crew thought that they went—thought-screened,