Clarrissa glanced at the sender and thought that she recognized the face. Her
new channels functioned instantaneously; she remembered every detail.
“Lensman Clarrissa, formerly of Sol III. Unattached. I remember you, Ladora,
although you were only a child when I was here. Do you remember me?
“Yes, I repeat, what do you want?” The memory did not decrease Ladora’s
hostility.
“I would like to speak to the former Elder Person, if I may.”
“You may not. It is no longer with us. Leave at once, or we will shoot you down.”
‘Think again, Ladora.” Clarrissa held -her tone even and calm. “Surely your
memory is not so short that you have forgotten the-Dauntless and its capabilities.”
“I remember. You may take up with me whatever it is that you wish to discuss
with my predecessor.”
“You are familiar with the Boskonian invasion of years ago. It is suspected that
they are planning new and galaxy-wide outrages, and that this planet is in some way
involved. I have come here to investigate the situation.”
“We will conduct our own investigations,” Ladora declared, curtly. “We insist that
you and all other foreigners stay away from this planet.”
“You investigate a galactic condition?” In spite of herself, Clarrissa almost let the
connotations of that question become perceptible. “If you give me permission I will land
alone. If you do not, I shall call the Dauntless and we will land in force. Take your
choice.”
“Land alone, then, if you must land.” Ladora yielded seemingly. “Land at City
Airport”
“Under those guns? No, thanks; I am neither invulnerable nor immortal. I land
where I please.”
She landed. During her previous visit she had had a hard enough time getting
any help from these pig-headed matriarchs, but this time she encountered a non-
cooperation so utterly fanatical that it put her completely at a loss. None of them tried to
harm her in any way; but not one of them would have anything to do with her. Every
thought, even the friendliest, was stopped by a full-coverage block; no acknowledgment,
even, was ever made.
“I can crack those blocks easily enough, if I want to,” she declared, one bad
evening, to her mirror, “and if they keep this up very much longer, by Klono’s emerald-
filled gizzard, I will!”
CHAPTER 14: KINNISON-THYRON, DRUG RUNNER
When Kimball Kinnison received his son’s call he was in Ultra Prime, the Patrol’s
stupendous Klovian base, about to enter his ship. He stopped for a moment; practically
in mid-stride. While nothing was to be read in his expression or in his eyes, the
lieutenant to whom he had been talking had been an interested, if completely
uninformed, witness to many such Lensed conferences and knew that they were usually
important. He was therefore not surprised when the Lensman turned around and
headed for an exit.
“Put her back, please. I won’t be going out for a while, after all,” Kinnison
explained, briefly. “Don’t know exactly how long.”
A fast flitter took him to the hundred-story pile of stainless steel and glass which
was the coordinator’s office. He strode along a corridor, through an unmarked door.
“Hi, Phyllis—the boss in?”
“Why, Coordinator Kinnison! Yes, sir . . . no, I mean . . .”
His startled secretary touched a button and a door opened; the door of his private
office.
“Hi, Kim—back so soon?” Vice-Coordinator Maitland also showed surprise as he
got up from the massive desk and shook hands cordially. “Good! Taking over?”
“Emphatically no. Hardly started yet. Just dropped in to use your plate, if you’ve
got a free high-power wave. QX?”
“Certainly. If not, you can free one fast enough.”
“Communications.” Kinnison touched a stud. “Will you please get me Thrale?
Library One; Principal Librarian Nadine Ernley. Plate to plate.”
This request was surprising enough to the informed. Since the coordinator
practically never dealt personally with anyone except Lensmen, and usually Unattached
Lensmen at that, it was a rare event indeed for him to use any ordinary channels of
communication. And as the linkage was completed, subdued murmurs and sundry
squeals gave evidence of the intense excitement at the other end of the line.
“Mrs. Ernley will be on in one moment, sir.” The operator’s business was done.
Her crisp, clear-cut voice ceased, but the background noise increased markedly.
“Sh . . . sh . . . sh! It’s the Gray Lensman, himself!” Everywhere upon Klovia,
Tellus, and Thrale, and in many localities of many other planets, the words “Gray
Lensman”, without surname, had only one meaning.
“Not the Gray Lensman.”
“It can’t be!”
“It is, really—I know him—I actually met him once!”
“Let me look—just a peek!”
“Sh . ,. sh! He’ll hear you!”
“Switch on the vision. If we’ve got a moment, let’s get acquainted,” Kinnison
suggested, and upon his plate there burst into view a bevy of excitedly embarrassed
blondes, brunettes, and redheads. “Hi, Madge! Sorry I don’t know the rest of you, but I’ll
make it a point to meet you all—before long, I think. Don’t go away.” The head of the
library was coming on the run. “You’re all in on this. Hi, Nadine! Long time no see.
Remember that bunch of squirrel food you rounded up for me?”
“I remember, sir.” What a question! As though Nadine Ernley, nee Hostetter,
could ever forget her share in that famous meeting of the fifty-three greatest scientific
minds of all Civilization! “I’m sorry that I was out in the stacks when you called.”
“QX—we all have to work sometime, I suppose. What I’m calling about is that I’ve
got a mighty big job for you and those smart girls of yours. Something like that other
one, only a lot more so. I want all the information you can dig up about a planet named
Kalonia, just as fast as you can possibly get it. What makes it extra tough is that I have
never even heard of the planet itself and don’t know of anyone who has. There may be
a million other names for it, on a million other planets, but we don’t know any of them.
Here’s all I know.” He summarized; concluding: “If you can get it for me in less than four
point nine five G-P days from now I’ll bring you, Nadine, a Manarkan star-drop; and you
can have each of your girls go down to Brenleer’s and pick out a wrist-watch, or
whatever else she likes, and I’ll have it engraved to her ‘In appreciation, Kimball
Kinnison’. This job is important—my son Kit bet me ten millos that we can’t do it that
fast.”
“Ten millos!” Four or five of the girls gasped as one. “Fact,” he assured them,
gravely. “So whenever you get the dope, tell Communications—no, you listen while I tell
them myself. Communications, all along the line, come in!” They came. “I expect one of
these librarians to call me, plate to plate, within the next few days. When she does, no
matter what time of day or night it is, and no matter what I or anyone else happen to be
doing, that call will have the right-of-way over any other business in the Universe. Cut!”
The plates went dead, and in Library One: “But he was joking, surely!”
“Ten millos—and a star-drop—why, there aren’t more than a dozen of them on all
Thrale!”
“Wrist-watches—or something—from the Gray Lensman!” “Be quiet, everybody!”
Madge exclaimed, “I see now. That’s the way Nadine got her watch, that she always
brags about so insufferably and that makes everybody’s eyes turn green. But I don’t
understand that silly ten-millo bet . . . do you, Nadine?”
“I think so. He does the nicest things—things that nobody else would think of.
You’ve all seen Red Lensman’s Chit, in Brenleer’s.” This was a statement, not a
question. They all had, with what emotions they all knew. “How would you like to have
that one-cento piece, ‘in a thousand-credit frame, here in our main hall, with die legend
‘won from Christopher Kinnison for Kimball Kinnison by . . .’ and our names? He’s got
something like that in mind, I’m sure.”
The ensuing clamor indicated that they liked the idea. “He knew we would; and
he knew that doing it this way would make us dig like we never dug before. He’ll give us
the watches and things anyway, of course, but we won’t get that one-cento piece unless
we win it. So let’s get to work. Take everything out of the machines, finished or not.
Madge, you might start by interviewing Lanion and the other—no, I’d better do that
myself, since you are more familiar with the encyclopedia than I am. Run the whole
English block, starting with K, and follow up any leads, however slight, that you can find.
Betty, you can analyze for synonyms, starting with the Thralian equivalent of Kalonia
and spreading out to the other Boskonian planets. Put half a dozen techs on it, with
transformers. Frances, you can study Prellin and Bronseca. Joan, Leona, Edna—Jalte,