The beam was brought on the double and the Lensman himself blasted away the designated cover. Then, throwing an insulated plate over the red-hot casing he lay on his back—“Hand me a light!”—and peered briefly upward into the bowels of the gargantuan mechanism.
“Thought so,” he grunted. “Piece of four-oh stranded, eighteen inches long. Ditmars number six clip ends, twenty inches on centers. Myerbeer insulation on center section, doubled.
Snap it up! One of you other fellows, bring me a short, heavy screw-driver and a pair of Ditmars six wrenches!”
The technicians worked fast and in a matter of seconds the stuff was there. The Lensman labored briefly but hugely; and much more surely than if he were dependent upon the rays of the hand-lamp to penetrate the smoky, steamy, greasy murk in which he toiled. Then: “QX—give her the juice!” he snapped.
They gave it, and to the stunned surprise of all, she took it. The liner again was free!
“Kind of a jury rigging I gave it, but it’ll hold long enough to get you into port, sir,” he reported to the captain in his sanctum, saluting crisply. He was in for it now, he knew, as the officer stared at him. But he couldn’t have let that shipload of passengers get ground up into hamburger. Anyway, there was a way out In apparent reaction he turned pale and trembled, and the officer hastily took from his medicinal stores a bottle of choice old brandy.
“Here, drink this,” he directed, proferring the glass.
Kinnison did so. More, he seized the bottle and drank that, too—all of it—a draft which would have literally turned him inside out a few months since. Then, to the captain’s horrified disgust, he took from his filthy dungarees a packet of bentlam and began to chew it, idiotically blissful. Thence, and shortly, into oblivion.
“Poor devil . . . you poor, poor devil,” the commander murmured, and had him put into a bunk.
I When he had come to and had had his pickup, the captain came and regarded him soberly.
“You were a man once. An engineer—a top-bracket engineer—or I’m an oiler’s pimp,” he said levelly.
“Maybe,” Kinnison replied, white and weak. “I’m all right yet, except once in a while . .
.”
“I know,” the captain frowned. “No cure?”
“Not a chance. Tried dozens. So . . .” and the Lensman spread out his hands in a hopeless gesture.
“Better tell me your name, anyway—your real name. That’ll let your planet know you aren’t. . .”
“Better not,” the sufferer shook his aching head. “Folks think I’m dead. Let them keep on thinking so. Williams is the name, sir; William Williams, of Aldabaran II.”
“As you say.”
“How far are we from where I boarded you?”
“Close. Less than half a billion miles. This, the second, is our home planet; your asteroid belt is just outside the orbit of the fourth.”
“I’ll do a flit, then.”
“As you say,” the officer agreed, again. “But we’d like to . . .” and he extended a sheaf of currency.
“Rather not, sir, thanks. You see, the longer it takes me to earn another stake, the longer it’ll be before . . .”
“I see. Thanks, anyway, for us all,” and captain and mate helped the derelict embark.
They scarcely looked at him, scarcely dared look at each other . . . but. . .
Kinnison, for his part, was content. This story, too, would get around. It would be in Miners’ Rest before he got back there, and it would help . . . help a lot.
He could not possibly let those officers know the truth, even though he realized full well that at that very moment they were thinking, pityingly: “The poor devil. . . the poor, brave devil!”
CHAPTER 13 – ZWILNIK CONFERENCE
The Gray Lensman went back to his mining with a will and with unimpaired vigor, for his distress aboard the ship had been sheerest acting. One small bottle of good brandy was scarcely a cocktail to the physique that had stood up under quart after quart of the crudest, wickedest, fieriest beverages known to space; that tiny morsel of bentlam— scarcely half a unit—affected him no more than a lozenge of licorice.
Three weeks. Twenty one days, each of twenty four G-P hours. At the end of that time, he had learned from the mind of the zwilnik, the Boskonian director of this, the Boro-van solar system, would visit Miners’ Rest, to attend some kind of meeting. His informant did not know what the meet-big was to be about, and he was not unduly curious about it. Kinnison, however, did and was.
The Lensman knew, or at least very shrewdly suspected, that that meeting was to be a regional conference of big-shot zwilniks; he was intensely curious to know all about everything that was to take place; and he was determined to be present Three weeks was lots of time. In fact, he should be able to complete his quota of heavy metal in two, or less. It was there, there was no question of that. Right out there were the meteors, uncountable thousands of millions of them, and a certain proportion of them carried values. The more and the harder he worked, the more of these worth-while wanderers of the void he would find. Wherefore he labored long, hard, and rapidly, and his store of high-test meteors grew apace.
To such good purpose did he use beam and Spalding drill that he was ready more than a week ahead of time. That was QX—he’d much rather be early than late. Something might have happened to hold him up—things did happen, too often—and he had to be at that meeting!
Thus it came about that, a few days before the all-important date, Kinnison’s battered treasure-hunter blasted herself down to her second landing at Strongheart’s Dock. This time the miner was welcomed, not as a stranger, but as a friend of long standing.
“Hi, Wild Bill!” Strongheart yelled at sight of the big space-hound. “Right on time, I see—glad to see you! Luck, too, I hope—lots of luck, and all good, I bet me—ain’t it?”
“Ho, Strongheart!” the Lensman roared in return, pummel-ing the divekeeper affectionately. “Had a good trip, yeah—a fine trip. Struck a rich sector—twice as much as I got last time. Told you I’d be back in five or six weeks, and made it in five weeks and four days.”
“Keeping tabs on the days, huh?”
“I’ll say I do. With a thirst like mine a guy can’t do nothing else—I tell you all my guts’re dryer than any desert on the whole of Rhylce. Well, what’re we waiting for? Check this plunder of mine in and let me get to going places and doing things!”
The business end of the visit was settled with neatness and dispatch. Dealer and miner understood each other thoroughly; each knew what could and what could not be done to the other. The meteors were tested and weighed. Supplies for the ensuing trip were bought. The guarantee and twenty four units of benny—QX. No argument. No hysterics. No bickering or quarreling or swearing. Everything on the green, aft the way. Gentlemen and friends. Kinnison turned over his keys, accepted a thick sheaf of currency, and, after the first formal drink with his host, set out upon the self-imposed, superstitious tour of the other hot spots which would bring him the favor—or at least would avert the active disfavor —of Klono, his spaceman’s deity.
This time, however, that tour took longer. Upon his first ceremonial round he had entered each saloon in turn, had bought one drink of whatever was nearest, had tossed it down, and had gone on to the next place; unobserved and inconspicuous. Now, how different it all was!
Wherever he went he was the center of attention.
Men who had met him before flung themselves upon him with whoops of welcome; men who had never seen him clamored to drink with him; women, whether or not they knew him, fawned upon him and brought into play their every lure and wile. For not only was this man a hero and a celebrity of sorts; he was a lucky—or a skillful—miner whose every trip resulted in wads of money big enough to clog the under-jets of a freighter! Moreover, when he was lit up he threw it round regardless, and he was getting stewed as fast as he could swallow. Let’s keep him here—or, if we can’t do that, let’s go along, wherever he goes!
This, too, was strictly according to the Lensman’s expectations. Everybody knew that he did not do any serious drinking glass by glass at the bar, but bottle by bottle; that he did not buy individual drinks for his friends, but let them drink as deeply as they would from whatever container chanced then to be in hand; and his vast popularity gave him a sound excuse to begin his bottle-buying at the start instead of waiting until he got back to Strongheart’s. He bought, then, several or many bottles and tins in each place, instead of a single drink. And, since everybody knew for a fact that he was a practically bottomless drinker, who was even to suspect that he barely moistened his gullet while the hangers-on were really emptying the bottles, cans, and flagons?