The block arrived, and as soon as the messenger had departed Kinnison set it going. He was now the center of a sphere into which no spy-ray beam could penetrate. He was also an object of suspicion to anyone using a spy-ray, but that fact made no difference, then. Snatching off his shoe, he took out his Lens, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and placed it on the floor. Then, just as though he still wore it, he directed a thought at Winstead.
“All serene, Lensman?” he asked, quietly.
“Everything’s on the beam,” came instant reply. “Why?”
“Just checking, is all.” Kinnison did not specify exactly what he was checking!
He then did something which, so far as he knew, no Lensman had^ever before even thought of doing. Although he felt stark naked without his Lens, he hurled a thought three- quarters of the way across the galaxy to that dread planet Arisia; a thought narrowed down to the exact pattern of Mentor himself—the gigantic, fearsome Brain who had been his teacher and his sponsor.
“Ah, ‘tis Kimball Kinnison, of Earth,” that entity responded, in precisely the same modulation it had employed once before. “You have perceived, then, youth, that the Lens is not the supremely important thing you have supposed it to be?”
“I . . . you . . . I mean . . .” the flustered Lensman, taken completely aback, was cut off by a sharp rebuke.
“Stop! You are thinking muddily—conduct ordinarily inexcusable! Now, youth, to redeem yourself, you will explain the phenomenon to me, instead of asking me to explain it to you. I realize that you have just discovered another facet of the Cosmic Truth; I know what a shock it has been to your immature mind; hence for this once it may be permissible for me to overlook your crime. But strive not to repeat the offense, for I tell you again in all possible seriousness— I cannot urge upon you too strongly the fact—that in clear and precise thinking lies your only safeguard through that which you are attempting. Confused, wandering thought will assuredly bring disaster inevitable and irreparable.”
“Yes, sir,” Kinnison replied meekly; a small boy reprimanded by his teacher. “It must be this way. In the first stage of training the Lens is a necessity; just as is the crystal ball or some other hypnotic object in a seance. In the more advanced stage the mind is able to work without aid. The Lens, however, may be—in fact, it must be—endowed with uses other than that of a symbol of identification; uses about which I as yet know nothing. Therefore, while I can work without it, I should not do so except when it is absolutely necessary, as its help will be imperative if I am to advance to any higher stage. It is also clear that you were expecting my call. May I ask if I am on time?”
“You are—your progress has been highly satisfactory. Also, I note with approval that you are not asking for help in your admittedly difficult present problem.”
“I know it wouldn’t do me any good—and why.” Kinnison grinned wryly. “But I’ll bet that Worsel, when he comes up for his second treatment, will know on the spot what it has taken me all this time to find out.”
“You deduce truly. He did.”
“What? He has been back there already? And you told me . . .”
“What I told you was true and is. His mind is more fully developed and more responsive than yours; yours is of vastly greater latent capacity, capability, and force,” and the line of communication snapped.
Calling a conveyance, Kinnison was whisked to Base, the spy-ray block full on all the way. There, in a private room, he put his heavily-insulated Lens and a full spool of tape into a ray-proof container, sealed it, and called in the base commander.
“Gerrond, here is a package of vital importance,” he informed him. “Among other things, it contains a record of everything I have done to date. If I don’t come back to ‘claim it myself, please send it to Prime Base for personal delivery to Port Admiral Haynes. Speed, will be no object, but safety very decidedly of the essence.”
“QX—we’ll send it in by special messenger.”
“Thanks a lot. Now I wonder if I could use your visi-phone a minute? I want to talk to the zoo.”
“Certainly.”
“Zoological Gardens?” and the image of an elderly, white-bearded man appeared upon the plate. “Lensman Kinnison of Tellus—Unattached. Have you as many as three oglons, caged together?”
“Yes. In fact, we have four of them in one cage.”
“Better yet. Will you please send them over here to base at once? Lieutenant-Admiral Gerrond, here, will confirm.”
“It is most unusual, sir,” the graybeard began, but broke off at a curt word from Gerrond “Very well, sir,” he agreed, and disconnected.
“Oglons?” the surprised commander demanded. “OGLONS!”
For the oglon, or Radeligian cateagle, is one of the fiercest, most intractable beasts of prey in existence; it assays more concentrated villainy and more sheerly vicious ferocity to the gram than any other creature known to science. It is not a bird, but a winged mammal; and is armed not only with the gripping, tearing talons of the eagle, but also with the heavy, cruel, needle-sharp fangs of the wildcat. And its mental attitude toward all other forms of life is anti- social to the nth degree.
“Oglons.” Kinnison confirmed, shortly. “I can handle them.”
“You can, of course. But . . .” Gerrond stopped. This Gray Lensman was forever doing amazing, unprecedented, incomprehensible things. But, so far, he had produced eminently satisfactory results, and he could not be expected to spend all his time in explanations.
“But you think I’m screwy, huh?”
“Oh, no, Kinnison, I wouldn’t say that. I only . . . well . . . after all, there isn’t much real evidence that we didn’t mop up one hundred per cent.”
“Much? Real evidence? There isn’t any,” the Tellurian assented, cheerfully enough. “But you’ve got the wrong slant entirely on these people. You are still thinking of them as gangsters, desperadoes, renegade scum of our own civilization. They’re not. They are just as smart as we are; some of them are smarter. Perhaps I’m taking unnecessary precautions; but, if so, there’s no harm done. On the other hand, there are two things at stake which, to me at least, are extremely important; this whole job of mine and my life: and remember this—the minute I leave this base both of those things are in your hands.”
To that, of course, there could be no answer.
While the two men had been talking and while the oglons were being brought out, two trickling streams of men had been passing, one into and one out of the spy-ray-shielded confines of the base. Some of these men were heavily bearded, some were shaven clean, but all had two things in common. Each one was human in type and each one is some respect or other resembled Kimball Kinnison.
“Now remember, Gerrond,” the Gray Lensman said impressively as he was about to leave, “They’re probably right here in Ardith, but they may be anywhere on the planet. Keep a spy-ray on me wherever I go, and trace theirs if you can. That will take some doing, as he’s bound to be an expert. Keep those oglons at least a mile—thirty seconds flying time —away from me; get all the Lensmen you can on the job; keep a cruiser and a speedster hot, but not too close. I may need any of them, or all, or none of them, I can’t tell; but I do know this—if I need anything at all, I’ll need it fast. Above all, Gerrond, by the Lens you wear, do nothing whatever, no matter what happens around me or to me, until I give you the word. QX?”
“QX, Gray Lensman. Clear ether!”
Kinnison took a ground-cab to the mouth of the narrow street upon which was situated his dock-walloper’s mean lodging. This was a desperate, a foolhardy trick—but in its very boldness, in its insolubly paradoxical aspects, lay its strength. Probably Boskone could solve its puzzles, but— he hoped—this ape, not being Boskone, couldn’t. And, paying off the cabman, he thrust his hands into his tattered pockets and, whistling blithely if a bit raucously through his stained teeth, he strode off down the narrow way as though he did not have a care in the world.
But he was doing the finest job of acting of his short career; even though, for all he really knew, he might not have any audience at all. For inwardly, he was strung to highest tension. His sense of perception, sharply alert, was covering the full hemisphere around and above him; his mind was triggered to jerk any muscle of his body into instantaneous action.
* * * Meanwhile, in a heavily guarded room, there sat a manlike being, humanoid to eight places. For two hours he had been sitting at his spy-ray plate, studying with ever-growing uneasiness the human beings so suddenly and so surprisingly numerously having business at the Patrol’s base. For minutes he had been studying minutely a man in a ground-cab, and his uneasiness reached panic heights.