“Listen, Hazel,” Kinnison said, holding up the now slightly stained paper. “ ‘Three six two’—that’s you, I suppose, and you’re the squad leader — ‘Men mentioned previously being investigated stop assign three nine eight’—that must be you, Java—
‘and make acquaintance stop if no further instructions received by eighteen hundred hours liquidate immediately stop party one.”
The blond operative lost for the first time her brazen control. “Why . . . that code is unbreakable!” she gasped.
“Wrong again, Gentle Alice. Some of us are specialists.’ He directed s thought at Northrop. “This changes things slightly, Mase. I was going to turn them loose, but now I don’t know. Better we take it up with the boss, don’t you think?”
“Pos-i-tive-ly!”
Samms was called, and considered the matter for approximately one minute.
“Your first idea was right, Jack. Let them go. The message may be helpful and informative, but the women would not. They know nothing. Congratulations, boys, on the complete success of Operation Red Herring.”
“Ouch!” Jack grimaced mentally to his partner after the First Lensman had cut off. “They know enough to be in on bumping you and me off, but that ain’t important, says be!”
“And it ain’t, bub,” Northrop grinned’ back. “Moderately so, maybe, if they had got us, but not at all so now they can’t. The Lensmen have landed and the situation is well in hand. It is written. Selah.”
“Check. Let’s wrap it up.” Jack turned to the blonde. “Come on, Hazel. Out. Number Four lifeboat. Do you want to come peaceably or shall I work on your neck again?”
“You could think of other places that would be more fun.” She got up and stared directly into his eyes, her lip curling. “That is, if you were a man instead of a sublimated Boy Scout.”
Kinnison, without a word, wheeled and unlocked a door. Hazel swaggered forward, but the taller girl hung back. “Are you sure there’s air-and they’ll pick us up? Maybe they’re going to make us breathe space . . .”
“Huh? They haven’t got the guts,” Hazel sneered. “Come on, Jane. Number Four, you said, darling?”
She led the way. Kinnison opened the portal. Jane hurried aboard, but Hazel paused and held our her arms.
“Aren’t you even going to kiss mama goodbye, baby boy?” she taunted.
“Better not waste much more time. We blow this boat, sealed or open, in fifteen seconds.” By what effort Kinnison held his voice level and expressionless, he hoped the wench would never know.
She looked at him, started to say something, looked again. She had gone just about as far as it was safe to go. She stepped into the boat and reached for the lever. And as the valve was swinging smoothly shut the men heard a tinkling laugh, reminiscent of icicles breaking against steel bells.
“Hell’s-Brazen-Hinges!” Kinnison wiped his forehead as the lifeboat shot away. Hazel was something brand new to him; a phenomenon with which none of his education, training, or experience had equipped him to cope. “I’ve heard about the guy who got hold of a tiger by the tail, but . . :’ His thought expired on a wondering, confused note.
“Yeah.” Northrop was in no better case. “We won – technically – I guess – or did we? That was a God-awful drubbing we took, mister.”
“Well, we got away alive, anyway . . . We’ll tell Parker his dope is correct to the proverbial twenty decimals. And now that we’ve escaped, let’s call Spud , and see how things came out.”
And Costigan-Jones assured them that everything had come out very well indeed. The shipment of thionite had been followed without any difficulty at all, from the spaceship clear through to Jones’ own office, and it exposed now in Department Q’s own safe, under Jones’ personal watch and ward. The pressure had lightened tremendously, just as Kinnison and Northrop had thought it would, when they set up their diversion. Costigan listened impassively to the whole story.
“Now should I have shot her, or not?” Jack demanded. “Not whether I could have or not—I couldn’t—but should I have, Spud?”
“I don’t know.” Costigan thought for minutes. “I don’t think so. No—not in cold blood. I couldn’t have, either, and wouldn’t if I could. It wouldn’t be worth it. Somebody will shoot her some day, but not one of us—unless, of course, it’s in a fight.”
‘Thanks, Spud; that makes me feel better. Off.”
Costigan-Jones’ desk was already clear, since there was little or no paper-work connected with his position in Department Q. Hence his preparations for departure were few and simple. He merely opened the safe, stuck the package into his pocket, closed and locked the safe, and took a company ground-car to the spaceport.
Nor was there any more formality about his leaving the planet. Eridan had, of course, a Customs frontier of sorts; but since Uranium Inc. owned Eridan in fee simple, its Customs paid no attention whatever to company ships or to low-number, gold-badge company men. Nor did Jones need ticket, passport, or visa. Company men rode company ships to and from company plants, wherever situated, without let or hindrance. Thus, wearing the aura of power of his new position—and Gold Badge Number Thirty Eight—George W. Jones was whisked out to the uranium ship and was shown to his cabin.
Nor was it surprising that the trip from Eridan to . Earth was completely without incident. This was an ordinary freighter, hauling uranium on a routine flight. Her cargo was valuable, of course—the sine qua non. of interstellar trade—but in no sense precious. Not pirate-bait, by any means. And only two men knew that this flight was in any whit different from the one which had preceded it or the one which would follow it. If this ship was escorted or guarded the fact was not apparent: and no Patrol vessel came nearer to it than four deters—Virgil Samms and Roderick Kinnison saw to that.
The voyage, however, was not tedious. Jones was busy every minute. In fact, there were scarcely minutes enough in which to assimilate the material which Isaacson had given him—the layouts, flow-sheets, and organization charts of Works Number Eighteen, on Tellus.
And upon arrival at the private spaceport which was an integral part of Works Number Eighteen, Jones was not surprised (he knew more now than be had known a few weeks before; and infinitely more than the man on the street) to learn that the Customs men of this particular North American Port of Entry were just as complaisant as were those of Eridan. They did not bother even to count the boxes, to say nothing of inspecting them. They stamped the ship’s papers without either reading or checking them. They made a perfunctory search, it is true, of crewmen and quarters, but a low number gold badge was still a magic talisman. Unquestioned, sacrosanct, he and his baggage were escorted to the ground-car first in line.
“Administration Building,” Jones-Costigan told the hacker, and that was that.
CHAPTER 16
It has been said that the basic drive of the Eddorians was a lust for power; a thought which should be elucidated and perhaps slightly modified. Their warrings, their strifes, their internecine intrigues and connivings were inevitable because of the tremendousness and capability—and the limitations—of their minds. Not enough could occur upon any one planet to keep such minds as theirs even partially occupied; and, unlike the Arisians, they could not satiate themselves in a static philosophical study of the infinite possibilities of the Cosmic All. They had to be doing something; or, better yet, making other and lesser beings do things to make the physical universe conform to their idea of what a universe should be.
Their first care was to set up the various echelons of control. The second echelon, immediately below the Masters, was of course the most important, and after a survey of both galaxies they decided to give this high honor to the Ploorans. Ploor, as is now well known, was a planet of a sun so variable that all Plooran life had to undergo radical cyclical changes in physical form in order to live through the tremendous climatic charges involved in its every year. Physical form, however, meant nothing to the Eddorians. Since no other planet even remotely like theirs existed in this, our normal plenum, physiques like theirs would be impossible; and the Plooran mentality left very little to be desired.
In the third echelon there were many different races, among which the frigid-blooded, poison-breathing Eich were perhaps the most efficient sad most callous; and in the fourth there were millions upon millions of entities representing thousands upon thousands of widely-variant races.
Thus, at the pinpoint in history represented by the time of Virgil Samms and Roderick Kinnison, and Eddorians were busy; and if such a word can be used, happy. Gharlane of Eddore, second in authority only to the All-Highest, His Ultimate Supremacy himself, paid little attention to any one planet or to any one race. Even such a mind .as his, when directing the affairs of twenty million and then sixty million and then a hundred million worlds, can do so only in broad, and not in fine.