“Stand back! Get back! Give him air!” Men began to shout, the while pressing closer themselves.
“You men, stand back. Some of you go get a stretcher. You women, come here.” Kinnison’s heavy, parade-ground voice smashed down all lesser noises. “Is there a doctor here?”
There was; and, after being “frisked” for weapons, he went busily to work.
“Joy-Betty-Jill-Clio,” Kinnison called his own wife and their daughter, Virgilia
Samms, and Mrs. Costigan. “You four first. Now you-and you-and you-and you . . .” he went on, pointing out large, heavy women wearing extremely extreme gowns, “Stand here, right over him. Cover him up, so that nobody else can get a shot at him. You other women, stand behind and between these-closer yet-fill those spaces up solid-there! Jack, stand there. Mase, there. Costigan, the other end; I’ll take this one. Now, everybody, listen. I know damn well that none of you women are wearing guns above the waist, and you’ve all got long skirts-thank God for ballgowns! Now, fellows, if any one of these women makes a move to lift her skirt, blow her brains out, right then, without waiting to ask questions.”
“Sir, I protest! This is outrageous!” one of the dowagers exclaimed.
“Madam, I agree with you fully. It is.” Kinnison smiled as genuinely as be could under the circumstances. “It is, however, necessary. I will apologize to all you ladies, and to you, doctor-in writing if you like-after we have Virgil Samms aboard the Chicago; but until then I would not trust my own grandmother.”
The doctor looked up. “Me Chicago? This wound does not appear to be a very serious one, but this man is going to a hospital at once. Ah, the stretcher. So . . . please . . . easy . . . there, that is excellent. Call an, ambulance, please, immediately.”
“I did. Long ago. But no hospital, doctor. All those windows—open to the public-or the whole place bombed – by no means. I’m taking no chances whatever.-“
“Except with your own life!” Jill, put in sharply, looking up from her place at her father’s side. Assured that the First Lensman was in no danger of dying, she had begun to take interest in other things. “You are important, too, you know, and you’re standing right out there in the open. Get another stretcher, lie down on it, and we’ll guard you, too . . . and don’t be too stiff-necked to take your own advice!” she flared, as he hesitated.
“I’m not, if it were necessary, but it isn’t. If they had killed him, yes. I’d probably be next in line. But since he got only a scratch, there’d be no point at all in killing even a good Number Two.”
“A scratch!” Jill fairly seethed. “Do you call that horrible wound a scratch?”
“Huh? Why, certainly-that’s all it is-thanks to you,” he returned, in honest and complete surprise. “No bones shattered-no main arteries cut-missed the lung-he’ll be as good as new in a couple of weeks.”
“And now,” he went on aloud, “if you ladies will please pick up this stretcher we will move en masse, and slowly, toward the door.”
The women, no longer indignant but apparently enjoying the sensation of being the center of interest, complied with the request.
“Now, boys,” Kinnison Lensed a thought. “Did any of you -Costigan?-see any signs of a concerted rush, such as there would have been to get the killer away if we hadn’t interfered?”
“No, sir,” came Costigan’s brisk reply. “None within sight of me.”
“Jack and Mase-I don’t suppose you looked?”
They hadn’t-had not thought of it in time.
“You’ll learn. It takes a few things like this to make it automatic. But I couldn’t see any, either, so I’m fairly certain there wasn’t any. Smart operators-quick on the uptake.”
“I’d better get at this, sir, don’t you think, and let Operation Boskone go for a while?” Costigan asked.
“I don’t think so.” Kinnison frowned in thought. “This operation was planned, son, by people with brains. Any clues you could find now would undoubtedly be plants. No, we’ll let the regulars look; we’ll stick to our own . . .”
Sirens wailed and screamed outside. Kinnison sent out an exploring thought.
“Alex?”
“Yes. Where do you want this ninety-sixty with the doctors and nurses? It’s too wide for the gates.”
“Go through the wall. Across the lawn. Right up to the door, and never mind the frippery they’ve got all over the place—have your adjutant tell them to bill us for damage. Samms is shot in the shoulder. Not too serious, but I’m taking him to the Hill, where I know he’ll be safe. What have you got, on top of the umbrella, the Boise or the Chicago? I haven’t had time to look up yet.”
“Both.”
“Good man.”,
Jack Kinnison started at the monstrous tank, which was smashing statues, fountains, and ornamental trees flat into the earth as it moved ponderously across the grounds, and licked his lips. He looked at the companies of soldiers “frisking” the route, the grounds, and the crowd-higher up, at the hovering helicopters-still higher, at the eight light cruisers so evidently and so viciously ready to blast higher still, at the long streamers of fire which, he now knew, marked the locations of the two most powerful engines of destruction ever built by man-and his face turned slowly white.
“Good Lord, Dad!” he swallowed twice. “I had no idea . . . but they might, at that.”
“Not ‘might’, son. They damn well would, if they could get here soon enough with heavy enough stuff.” The elder Kinnison’s jaw-muscles did not loosen, his darting eyes did not relax their vigilance for a fraction of a second as he Lensed the thought. “You boys can’t be expected to know it all, but right now you’re learning fast. Get this-paste it in your iron hats. Virgil Samms’ life is the most important thing in this whole damned universe! If they had got him then it would not, strictly speaking, have been my fault, but if they get him now, it will be.”
The land cruiser crunched to a stop against the very entrance, and a white-clad man leaped out.
“Let me look at him, please . . .”
“Not yet!” Kinnison denied, sharply. “Not until he’s got four inches of solid steel between him and -whoever wants to finish the job they started. Get your men around him, and get him aboard-fast!”
Samms, protected at every point at every instant, was lifted into the maw of the ninety-sixty; and as the massive door clanged shut Kinnison heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. The cavalcade moved away.
“Coming with us, Rod?” Commodore Clayton shouted.
“Yes, but got a couple minutes’ work here yet. Have a staff car wait for me, and
I’ll join you.” He turned to the three young Lensmen and the girl. “’This fouls up our plans a little, but not too much-I hope. No change in Mateese or Boskone; you and Costigan, Jill, can go ahead as planned. Northrop, you’ll have to brief Jill on Zwilnik and find out what she knows. Virgil was going to do it tonight, after the brawl here, but you know as much about it now as any of us. Check with Knobos, DalNalten, and Fletcher-while Virgil is laid up you and Jack may have to work on both Zabriska and Zwilnik -he’ll Lens you. Get the dope, then do as you think best. Get going!” He strode away toward the waiting staff-car.
“Boskone? Zwilnik?” Jill demanded. “What gives? What are they, Jack?”
“We don’t know yet-maybe we’re going to name a couple of planets . . .”
“Piffle!” she scoffed. “Can you talk sense, Mase? What’s Boskone?”
“A simple, distinctive, pronounceable coined word; suggested, I believe, by Dr.
Bergenholm . . . “ he began.
“You know what I mean, you . . .” she broke in, but was silenced by a sharply Lensed thought from Jack. His touch was very light, barely sufficient to make conversation possible; but even so, she flinched.
“Use your brain, Jill; you aren’t thinking a lick-not that you can be blamed for it. Stop talking; there may be lip-readers or high-powered listeners around. This feels funny, doesn’t it? He twitched mentally and went on: “You already know what Operation Mateese is, since it’s your own dish – politics. Operation Zwilnik is drugs, vice, and so on. Operation Boskone is pirates; Spud is running that. Operation Zabriska is Mase and me checking some peculiar disturbances in the sub-ether. Come in, Mase, and do your stuff-I’ll see you later, aboard. Clear ether, Jill!”
Young Kinnison vanished from the fringes of her mind and Northrop appeared. And what a difference! His mind touched hers as gingerly as Jack’s had done; as skittishly, as instantaneously ready to bolt away from anything in the least degree private. However, Jack’s mind had rubbed hers the wrong way, right from the start-and Mase’s didn’t!