Now the time was short indeed, but Kinnison would not —could not—act yet.
Bominger’s conference was still on; the Lensman didn’t know enough yet. The fellow wasn’t very suspicious, certainly, or he would have made a pass at him before this. Bloodshed meant less than nothing to these gentry; the stranger did not want to incur Bominger’s wrath by killing a steady customer. The fellow probably thought the whole mind-ray story was hocuspocus, anyway—not a chance in a million of it being true. Besides he needed a machine, and Kinnison couldn’t hide a thing, let alone anything as big as that “mind-ray machine” had been, because he didn’t have clothes enough on to flag a hand-car with. But that free drink was certainly doped . . .
Oh, they wanted to question him. It would be a truth-dope in the laxlo, then— he certainly couldn’t take that drink!
Then came the all-important second; just as the bartender set the glasses down Bominger’s interview ended. At the signing off, Kinnison got additional data, just as he had expected; and in that instant, before the drugmaster could restore his screen, the fat man died—his brain literally blasted. And in that same instant Kinnison’s Lens fairly throbbed with the power of the call he sent out to his allies.
But not even Kinnison could hurl such a mental bolt without some outward sign. His face stiffened, perhaps, or his eyes may have lost their drunken, vacant stare, to take on momentarily the keen, cold ruthlessness that was for the moment his. At any rate, the enemy agent was now definitely suspicious.
“Drink that, bum, and drink it quick—or burn!” he snapped, DeLameter out and poised.
The Tellurian’s hand reached for the glass, but his mind also reached out, and faster by a second, to the brains of two nearby agents. Those worthies drew their own weapons and, with wild yells, began firing. Seemingly indiscriminately, yet in those blasts two of the thought- screened minions died. For a fraction of a second even the hard-schooled mind of Kinnison’s opponent was distracted, and that fraction was time enough.
A quick flick of the wrist sent the potent liquor into the Boskonian’s eyes; a lightning thrust of the knee sent the little table hurtling against his gun-hand, flinging the weapon afar.
Simultaneously the Lensman’s ham-like fist, urged by all the strength and all the speed of his two hundred and sixteen pounds of rawhide and whalebone, drove forward. Not for the jaw. Not for the head or the face. Lensmen know better than to mash bare hands, break fingers and knuckles, against bone. For the solar plexus. The big Patrolman’s fist sank forearm-deep. The stricken zwilnik uttered one shrieking grunt, doubled up, and collapsed; never to rise again. Kinnison leaped for the fellow’s DeLameter—too late, he was already hemmed in.
One—two—three—four of the nearest men died without having received a physical blow; again and again Kinnison’s heavy fists and far heavier feet crashed deep 4nto vital spots.
One thought-screened enemy dived at him bodily in a Tomingan donganeur, to fall with a broken neck as the Lensman opposed instantly the only possible parry—a savage chop, edge-handed, just below the base of the skull; the while he disarmed the surviving thought-screened stranger with an accurately-hurled chair. The latter, feinting a swing, launched a vicious French kick. The Lensman, expecting anything, perceived the foot coming. His big hands shot out like striking snakes, closing and twisting savagely in the one fleeting instant, then jerking upward and backward. A hard and heavy dock-walloper’s boot crashed thuddingly to a mark. A shriek rent the air and that foeman too was done.
Not fair fighting, no; nor clubby. Lensmen did not and do not fight according to the tenets of the square ring. They use the weapons provided by Mother Nature only when they must; but they can and do use them with telling effect indeed when body-to-body brawling becomes necessary. For they are skilled in the art—every Lensman has a completely detailed knowledge of all the lethal tricks of foul combat known to all the dirty fighters of ten thousand planets for twice ten thousand years.
And then the doors and windows crashed in, admitting those whom no other bifurcate race has ever faced willingly in hand-to-hand combat—full armed Valerians, swinging their space-axes!
The gangsters broke, then, and fled in panic disorder; but escape from Narcotics’ fine- meshed net was impossible. They were cut down to a man.
“QX, Kinnison?” came two hard, sharp thoughts. The Lensmen did not see the Tellurian, but Lieutenant Peter vanBuskirk did. That is, he saw him, but did not look at him.
“Hi, Kim, you little Tellurian wart!” That worthy’s thought was a yell. “Ain’t we got fun?”
“QX, fellows—thanks,” to Gerrond and to Winstead, and “Ho, Bus! Thanks, you big, Valerian ape!” to the gigantic Dutch-Valerian with whom he had shared so many experiences in the past. “A good clean-up, fellows?”
“One hundred percent, thanks to you. We’ll put you . . .”
“Don’t, please. You’ll clog my jets if you do. I don’t appear in this anywhere—it’s just one of your good, routine jobs of mopping up. Clear ether, fellows, I’ve got to do a flit.”
“Where?” all three wanted to ask, but they didn’t—the Gray Lensman was gone.
CHAPTER 7 – AMBUSCADE
Kinnison did start his flit, but he did not get far. In fact, he did not even reach his squalid room before cold reason told him that the job was only half done—yes, less than half. He had to give Boskone credit for having brains, and it was not at all likely that even such a comparatively small unit as a planetary headquarters would have only one string to its bow. They certainly would have been forced to install duplicate controls of some sort or other by the trouble they had had after Helmuth’s supposedly impregnable Grand Base had been destroyed.
There were other straws pointing the same way. Where had those five strange thought- screened men come from? Bominger hadn’t known of them apparently. If that idea was sound, the other headquarters would have had a spy-ray on the whole thing. Both sides use3 spy-rays freely, of course, and to block them was, ordinarily, worse than to let mem come. The enemies’ use of the thought-screen was different. They realized that it made it easy for the unknown Lensman to discover their agents, but they were forced to use it because of the deadliness of the supposed mind-ray. Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner, and had the whole area blocked off?
Too late to cry about it now, though.
Assume the idea correct. They certainly knew now that he was a Lensman; probably were morally certain that he was the Lensman. His instantaneous change from a drunken dock- walloper to a cold-sober, deadly-skilled rough-and-tumble brawler . . . and the unexplained deaths of half-a-dozen agents, as well as that of Bominger himself . . . this was bad. Very, very bad . . . a flare-lit tip-off, if there ever was one. Their spy-rays would have combed him, millimeter by plotted -cubic millimeter: they knew exactly where his Lens was, as well as he did himself. He had put his tail right into the wringer . . . wrecked the whole job right at the start . . . unless he could get that other headquarters outfit, too, and get them before they reported in detail to Boskone.
In his room, then, he sat and thought, harder and more Intensely than he had ever thought before. No ordinary method of tracing would do. It might be anywhere on the planet, and it certainly would have no connection whatever with the thionite gang. It would be a small outfit; just a few men, but under smart direction. Their purpose would bet to watch the business end of the organization, but not to touch it save in an emergency. All that the two groups would have in common would be recognition signals, so that the reserves could take over in case anything happened to Bominger—as it already had. They had him, Kinnison, cold . . . What to do?
WHAT TO DO? •ft The Lens. That must be the answer—it had to be. The Lens—what was it, really, anyway? Simply an aggregation of crystalloids. Not really alive; just a pseudo-life, a sort of reflection of his own life . . . he wondered . . . Great Klono’s tungsten teeth, could that be it?
An idea had struck him, an idea so stupendous in its connotations and ramifications that he gasped, shuddered, and almost went faint at the shock. He started to reach for his Lens, then forced himself to relax and shot a thought to Base.
“Gerrond! Send me a portable spy-ray block, quick!”
“But that would give everything away—that’s why we haven’t been using them.”
“Are you telling me?” the Lensman demanded. “Shoot it along—I’ll explain while it’s on the way.” He went on to tell the Radeligian everything he thought it well for him to know, concluding: “I’m as wide open as inter-galactic space —nothing but fast and sure moves will do us a bit of good.”