“You interest me.” The Boskonian’s language again became intelligible to the
group at large. “We will forget Harkleroy—stupidity brings its own reward and the
property damage is of no present concern. From what I have been able to learn of you,
you have never belonged to that so-called Civilization. I know for a fact that you are not,
and never have been, one of us. How have you been able to survive? And why do you
work alone?”
” ‘How’ is easy enough—by keeping one jump ahead of the other guy, like I did
with your pal here, and by being smart enough to have good engineers put into my ship
everything that any other one ever had and everything they could dream up besides. As
to ‘why’, that’s simple, too. I don’t trust nobody. If nobody knows what I’m going to do,
nobody’s going to stick a knife into me when I ain’t looking— see? So far, it’s paid off
big. I’m • still around and still healthy. Them that trusted other guys ain’t.”
“I see. Crude, but graphic. The more I study you, the more convinced I become
that you make a worth-while addition to our force . . .”
“No deal, Mendonai,” Kinnison interrupted, shaking his unkempt head positively.
“I never yet took no orders from no damn boss, and I ain’t going to.”
“You misunderstand me, Thyron.” The zwilnik was queerly patient and much too
forbearing. Kinnison’s insulting omission of his title should have touched him off like a
rocket. “I was not thinking of you in any minor capacity, but as an ally. An entirely
independent ally, working with us in certain mutually advantageous undertakings.”
“Such as? Kinnison allowed himself to betray. his first sign of interest. “You may
be talking sense now, brother, but what’s in it for me? Believe me, there’s got to be
plenty.”
“There will be plenty. With the ability you have already shown, and with our vast
resources back of you, you will take more every week than you have been taking in a
year.”
“Yeah? People like you just love to do things like that for people like me. What do
you figure on getting out of it?” Kinnison wondered, and Lensed a sharp thought to his
junior at the board.
“On your toes, Frank. He’s stalling for something, and I’m betting it’s maulers.”
“None detectable yet, sir.”
“We stand to gain, of course,” the pirate admitted, smoothly. “For instance, there
are certain features of your vessel which might—just possibly, you will observe, and
speaking only to mention an example—be of interest to our naval designers. Also, we
have heard that you have an unusually hot battery of primary beams. You might tell me
about some of those things now; or at least re-focus your plate so that I can see
something besides your not unattractive face.”
“I might not, too. What I’ve got here is my own business, and stays mine.”
“Is that what we are to expect from you in the way of cooperation?” The
commander’s voice was still low and level, but now bore a chill of deadly menace.
“Cooperation, hell!” The cutthroat chief was unimpressed. “I’ll maybe tell you a
thing or two—eat out of your dish— after I get good and sold on your proposition,
whatever it is, but not one damn second sooner!”
The commander glared. “I weary of this. You probably are not worth the trouble,
after all. I might as well blast you out now as later. You know that I can, of course, as
well as I do.”
“Do I?” Kinnison did sneer, this time. “Act your age, pal. As I told that fool
Harkleroy, this ain’t the first planet I ever sat down on, and it won’t be the last. And don’t
call no maulers,” as the Boskonian officer’s hand moved almost imperceptibly toward a
row of buttons. “If you do, I start blasting as soon as we spot one on our plates, and
they’re full out right now.”
“You would start blasting?” The zwilnik’s surprise was plain, but the hand
stopped its motion.
“Yeah—me. Them heaps you got up there don’t bother me a bit, but maulers I
can’t handle, and I ain’t afraid to tell you so because you probably know it already. I
can’t stop you from calling ’em, if you want to, but bend both ears to this—I can out-run
’em and I’ll guarantee that you personally won’t be alive to see me run. Why? Because
your ship will be the first one I’ll whiff on the way out. And if the rest of your junkers stick
around long enough to try to stop me I’ll whiff twenty-five or thirty more before your
maulers get close enough so I’ll have to do a flit. Now, if your brains are made out of the
same kind of thick, blue mud as Harkleroy’s, start something!”
This was an impasse. Kinnison knew what he wanted the other to do, but he
could not give him a suggestion, or even a hint, without tipping his hand. The officer,
quite evidently, was in a quandary. He did not want to open fire upon this tremendous,
this fabulous ship. Even if he could destroy it, such a course would be
unthinkable—unless, indeed, the very act of destruction would brand as false rumor the
tales of invincibility and invulnerability which had heralded its coming, and thus would
operate in his favor at the court-martial so sure to be called. He was very much afraid,
however, that those rumors were not false—a view which was supported very strongly
both by Thyron’s undisguised contempt for the Boskonian warships threatening him and
by his equally frank declaration of his intention to avoid engagement with any craft of
really superior force. Finally, however, the Boskonian perceived one thing that did not
quite fit.
“If you are as good as you claim to be, why aren’t you blasting right now?” he
asked, skeptically.
“Because I don’t want to, that’s why. Use your head, pal.” This was better.
Mendonai had shifted the conversation into a line upon which the Lensman could do a
bit of steering. “I had to leave the First Galaxy because it got too hot for me, and I got
no connections at all, yet, here in the Second. You folks need certain kinds of stuff that
I’ve got and I need other kinds, that you’ve got. So we could do a nice business, if you
wanted to. Like I told you, that’s why I come to see Harkleroy. I’d like to do business
with some of you people, but I just got bit pretty bad, and I’ve got to have some kind of
solid guarantee that you mean business, and no monkey business, before I take a
chance again. See?”
“I see. The idea is good, but the execution may prove difficult. I could give you
my word, which I assure you has never been broken.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Kinnison snorted. “Would you take mine?”
“The case is different. I would not. Your point, however, is well taken. How about
the protection of a high court of law? I will bring you an unalterable writ from any court
you say.”
“Uh-uh,” the Gray Lensman dissented. “There never was no court yet that didn’t
take orders from the big shots who keep the fat cats fat,_and lawyers are the
crookedest ‘damn crooks in the universe. You’ll have to do better than that, pal.”
“Well, then, how about a Lensman? You know about Lensmen, don’t you?”
“A Lensman!” Kinnison gasped. He shook his head violently. “Are you completely
nuts, or do you think I am? I do know Lensmen, cully—a Lensman chased me from
Alaskan to Vandemar once, and if I hadn’t had a dose of hell’s own luck he’d of got me.
Lensmen chased me out of the First Galaxy—why the hell else do you think I’m here?
Use your brain, mister; use your brain!”
“You’re thinking of Civilization’s Lensmen; particularly of Gray Lensmen.”
Mendonai was enjoying Thyron’s passion. “Ours are different—entirely different. They
have as much power, or more, but don’t use it the same way. They work with us right
along. In fact, they’ve been bumping Gray Lensmen off right and left lately.”
“You mean he could open up, for instance, your mind and mine, so we could see
the other guy wasn’t figuring on running in no stacked decks? And he’d sort of referee
this business we got on the fire? Do you know one yourself, personally?”
“He could, and would, do all that. Yes, I know one personally. His name is
Melasnikov, and his office is on Three, just a short flit from here. He may not be there at
the moment, but he’ll come in if I call. How about it—shall I call him now?”
“Don’t work up a sweat. Sounds like it might work, if we can figure the approach.
I don’t suppose you and him would come out to me in space?”