galaxy. Give me a full report upon the screening of the planets upon which the
Lensman may try to land.”
“It is done, sir,’ came quick reply. “They are completely blockaded. Ships are
spaced s0 closely that even the electromagnetic detectors have a five hundred percent
overlap. Visual detectors have at least two hundred fifty percent overlap. Nothing as
large as one millimeter in any dimension can get through without detection and
observation.”
“And how about the search of Trenco?”
“Results are still negative. One of our ships, with Papers all in order, visited
Trenco space-port openly. No one was there except the regular force of Rigellians. Our
captain was in no position to be too inquisitive, but the missing ship was certainly not in
the port and he gathered that he was the first visitor they had had in a month. We
learned on Rigel IV that Tregonsee, the Lensman on duty on Trenco, has been there
for a month and will not be relieved for another month. He was the only Lensman there.
We are of course carrying on the search of the rest of the planet. About half the
personnel of each vessel to land has been. lost, but they started with double crews and
replacements are being sent.”
“The Lensman Tregonsee’s story may or may not be true,” Helmuth mused. “it
makes little difference. It would be impossible to hide that ship in Trenco space-port
from even a casual inspection, and if the ship is not there the Lensman is not. He may
be in hiding elsewhere on the planet, but I doubt it. Continue to search nevertheless.
There are many things he may have done . . . . I will have to consider them, one by
one.”
But Helmuth had very little time to consider what Kinnison might have done, for
the Lensman had left Trenco long since. Because of the flare-baffles upon his driving
projectors his pace was slow, but to compensate for this condition the distance to be
covered was not too long. Therefore, even as Helmuth was cogitating upon what next to
do, the Lensman and his crew were approaching the farflung screen of Boskonian war-
vessels investing the entire Solarian System.
To approach that screen undetected was a physical impossibility, and before
Kinnison realized that he was in a danger zone six tractors had flicked out, had seized
his ship, and had jerked it up to combat range. But the Lensman was ready for
anything, and again everything happened at once.
Warnings screamed into the distant pirate base and Helmuth, tense at his desk,
took personal charge of his mighty fleet. On the field of action Kinnison’s screens
flamed out in stubborn defense, tractors snapped under his slashing shears, the baffles
disappeared in an incandescent flare as he shot maximum blast into his drive, and
space again became suffused with the output of his now ultra-powered multiplex
scramblers.
And through that murk the Lensman directed a thought, with the full power of
mind and Lens.
“Port Admiral Haynes-Prime Base! Port Admiral Haynes-Prime Base! Urgent!
Kinnison calling from the direction of Sirius — urgent!” he sent out the fiercely-driven
message.
It so happened that at Prime Base it was deep night, and Port Admiral Haynes
was sound asleep, but, trigger-nerved old apace-cat that he was, he came instantly and
fully awake. Scarcely had an eye flicked open than his answer had been hurled back.
“Haynes acknowledging-send it, Kinnison!”
“Coming in, in a pirate ship. All the pirates in space are on our necks, but we’re
coming in, in spite of hell and high water! Don’t send up any ships to help us down-they
could blast you out of space in a second, but they can’t stop us. Get ready-it won’t be
long now!”
Then, after the Port Admiral had sounded the emergency alarm, Kinnison went
on.
“Our ship carries no markings, but there’s only one of us and you’ll know which
one it is-we’ll be doing the dodging. They’d be crazy to follow us down into atmosphere,
with all the stuff you’ve got, but they act crazy enough to do almost anything. If they do
follow us down, get ready to give ’em hell-here we are !”
Pursued and pursuers had touched the outermost fringe of the stratosphere,
and, slowed down to optical visibility by even that highly rarified atmosphere, the battle
raged in incandescent splendor. One ship was spinning, twisting, looping, gyrating,
jumping and darting hither and thither – performing every weird maneuver that the
fertile and agile minds of the Patrolmen could improvise-to shake off the horde of
attackers.
The pirates, on the other hand, were desperately determined that, whatever the
cost, THE Lensman should not land. Tractors would not hold and the inertialess ship
could not be rammed. Therefore their strategy was that which had worked so
successfully four times before in similar case – to englobe the ship completely and thus
beam her down. And while attempting this englobement they so massed their forces as
to drive the Lensman’s vessel as far as possible away from the grim and tremendously
powerful fortifications of Prime Base, almost directly below them.
But the four ships which the pirates had recaptured had been manned by
Velantians, whereas in this one Kinnison the Lensman and Henderson the Master Pilot
were calling upon their every resource of instantaneous nervous reaction of brilliant
brain and of lightning hand to avoid that fatal trap. And avoid it they did, by series after
series of fantastic maneuvers never set down in any manual of space combat.
Powerful as were the weapons of Prime Base, in that thick atmosphere their
effective range was less than fifty miles. Therefore the gunners, idle at their controls,
and the officers of the superdreadnaughts, chained by definite orders to the ground,
fumed and swore as, powerless to help their battling fellows, they stood by and watched
in their plates the furious engagement so high overhead.
But slowly, so slowly, Kinnison won his way downward, keeping as close over
Base as he could without being englobed, and finally he managed to get within range of
the gigantic projectors of the Patrol. Only the heaviest of the fixed-mount guns could
reach that mad whirlpool of ships, but each one of them raved out against the same
spot at precisely the same instant. In the inferno which that spot instantly became, not
even a full-driven wall-shield could endure, and a vast hole yawned where pirate ships
had been. The beams flicked off, and, timed by his Lens, Kinnison shot his ship through
that hole before it could be closed and arrowed downward at maximum blast.
Ship after ship of the pirate horde followed him down in madly suicidal last
attempts to blast him out of the ether, down toward the terrific armament of the base.
Prime Base itself, the most dreaded, the most heavily armed, the most impregnable
fortress of the Galactic Patrol! Nothing afloat could even threaten that citadel-the
overbold attackers simply disappeared in brief flashes of coruscant vapor.
Kinnison, even before inerting his ship preparatory to landing, called his
commander.
“Did any of the other boys beat us in, Sir?” he asked.
“No, sir,” came the curt response. Congratulations, felicitations, and celebration
would come later, Haynes was now the Port Admiral receiving an official report.
`Then, Sir, I have the honor to report that the expedition has succeeded,’ and he
could not help adding informally, youthfully exultant at the success of his first real
mission, “We’ve brought home the bacon!”
CHAPTER 13
Maulers Afloat
A powerful fleet had been sent to rescue those of the Britannia’s crew who might have
managed to stay out of the clutches of the pirates. The wildly enthusiastic celebration
inside Prime Base was over. Outside the force-walls of the Reservation, however, it was
just beginning. The specialists and the Velantians were in the thick of it. No one on
Earth knew anything about Velantia, and those highly intelligent reptilian beings knew
just as little of Tellus. Nevertheless, simply because they had aided the Patrolmen, the
visitors were practically given the keys to the planet, and they were enjoying the
experience tremendously.
“We want Kinnison-we want Kinnison!” the festive crowd, led by Universal
Telenews men, had been yelling, and finally the Lensman came out. But after one pose
before a lens and a few words into a microphone, he pleaded, “There’s my call, now-
urgent!” and fled back inside Reservation. Then the milling tide of celebrants rolled back
toward the city, taking with it every Patrolman who could get leave.
Engineers and designers were swarming through and over the pirate ship
Kinnison had driven home, each armed with a sheaf of blue-prints already prepared
from the long-cherished data-spool, each directing a corps of mechanics in dismantling
some mechanism of the great space-rover. To this hive of bustling activity it was that
Kinnison had been called. He stood there, answering as best he could the multitude of
questions being fired at him from all sides, until he was rescued by no less a personage