the peak of their unimaginably high pace, without finding a trace of any Boskonian
vessel. More remarkable still, and for the first time in years, the ether was absolutely
free from Boskonian interference.
Following an impulse, Kinnison asked and received permission to take his ship
on scouting duty. At maximum blast he drove toward the Velantian system, to the point
at which he had picked up Helmuth’s communication line. Along that line he drove for
days, halting only when well outside the galaxy. Ahead of him there was nothing
reachable except a few star-clusters. Behind him there extended the immensity of the
galactic lens in all its splendor, but Captain Kinnison had no eye for astronomical
beauty that day.
He held the Britannia there for an hour, while he mulled over in his mind what the
apparent facts could mean. He knew that he had covered the line, from its point of
determination out beyond the galaxy’s edge. He knew that his detectors, operating as
they had been in clear and undistorted ether, could not possibly have missed a thing as
large as Helmuth’s base must be, if it had been anywhere near that line, that their
effective range was immensely greater than the largest possible error in the
determination or the following of the line. There were, he concluded, four possible
explanations, and only four.
First, Helmuth’s base might also have been evacuated. This was unthinkable.
From what he himself knew of Helmuth that base would be as nearly impregnable as
anything could be made, and it was no more apt to be vacated than was Prime Base of
the Patrol. Second, it might be subterranean, buried under enough metal-bearing rock
to ground out all radiation. This possibility was just as unlikely as the first. Third,
Helmuth might already have the device he himself wanted so badly, and upon which
Hotchkiss and the other experts had been at work so long, a detector nullifier. This was
possible distinctly so. Possible enough, at least, to warrant filing the idea for future
consideration. Fourth, that base might not be in the galaxy at all, but in that starcluster
out there straight ahead of him, or possibly in one even farther away. That idea seemed
the best of the four. It would necessitate ultra-powerful communicators, of course, but
Helmuth could very well have them. It squared up in other ways-its pattern fitted into the
matrix very nicely.
But if that base were out there . . . . . it could stay there-for a while . . . . . a battle
cruiser just wasn’t enough ship for that job. Too much opposition out there, and not-
enough-ship . . . . Or too much ship? But he wasn’t ready, yet, anyway. He needed, and
would get, another line on Helmuth’s base. Therefore, shrugging his shoulders, he
whirled his vessel about and set out to rejoin the fleet.
While a full day short of junction, Kinnison was called to his plate to see upon its
lambent surface the visage of Port Admiral Haynes.
“Did you find out anything on your trip?” he asked.
“Nothing definite, sir. Just a couple of things to think about, is all. But I can say
that I don’t like this at all-I don’t like anything about it or any part of it.”
“No more do I,” agreed the admiral. “It looks very much as though your forecast
of a stalemate might be about to eventuate. Where are you headed for now?”
“Back to the Fleet.”
“Don’t do it. Stay on scouting duty for a while longer. And, unless something
more interesting turns up, report back here to me-we have something that may interest
you. The boys have been . . . . .”
The admiral’s picture was broken up into flashes of blinding light and his words
became a meaningless, jumbled roar of noise. A distress call had begun to come in,
only to be blotted out by a flood of Boskonian static interference, of which the ether had
for so long been clear. The young Lensman used his Lens.
“Excuse me, sir, while I see what this is all about?”
“Certainly, son.”
“Got its center located?” Kinnison yelped at his communications officer. “They’re
close-right in our laps !”
“Yes, sir!” and the radio man snapped out numbers.
“Blast!” the captain commanded, unnecessarily, for the alert pilot had already set
the course and was kicking in full-blast drive. “If that baby is what I think it is, all hell’s
out for noon.”
Toward the center of disturbance the Britannia flashed, emitting now a scream of
peculiarly patterned interference which was not only a scrambler of all un-Lensed
communication throughout that whole part of the galaxy, but also an imperative call for
any mauler within range. So close had the cruiser been to the scene of depredation that
for her to reach it required only minutes.
There lay the merchantman and her Boskonian assailant. Emboldened , by the
cessation of piratical activities, some shipping concern had sent out a freighter, loaded
probably with highly “urgent” cargo, and this was the result. The marauder, inert now,
had gripped her with his tractors and was beaming her into submission. She was
resisting, but feebly now, it was apparent that her screens were failing. Her crew must
soon open ports in token of surrender or roast to a man, and they would probably prefer
to roast.
Thus the situation obtaining in one instant. The next instant it was changed, the
Boskonian discovering suddenly that his beams, instead of boring through the weak
defenses of the freighter, were not even exciting to a glow the mighty protective
envelopes of a battle-cruiser of the Patrol. He switched from the diffused heat-beam he
had been using upon the merchantman to the hardest, hottest, most penetrating beam
of annihilation he mounted-with but little more to show for it and with no better results.
For the Britannia’s screens had been designed to stand up almost indefinitely against
the most potent beams of any ordinary war-ship, and they stood up.
Kinnison had tremendously powerful beams of his own, but he did not use them.
It would take the super-powerful offense of a mauler to produce a definite answer to the
question seething in his mind.
Increase power as the pirate would, to whatever ruinous overload, he could not
break down Kinnison’s screens, nor, dodge as he would, could he again get in position
to attack his former prey. And eventually the mauler arrived, fortunately it, too, had
been fairly close by. Out reached its mighty tractors. Out raved one of its tremendous
beams, striking the Boskonian’s defenses squarely amidships.
That beam struck and the pirate ship disappeared-but not in a hazily
incandescent flare of volatilized metal. The raider disappeared bodily, and still all in one
piece. He had put out super-shears of his own, snapping the mauler’s supposedly
unbreakable tractors like threads, and the velocity of his departure was due almost as
much to the pressor effect of the Patrol beam as it was to the thrust of his own drivers.
It was the beginning of the stalemate Kinnison had foreseen.
“I was afraid of that,” the young captain muttered, and, paying no attention
whatever to the merchantman, he called the commander of the mauler. At this close
range, of course, no ether scrambler could interfere with visual apparatus, and there on
his plate he saw the face of Clifford Maitland, the man who had graduated number two
in his own class.
“Hi, Kim, you old space-flea!” Maitland exclaimed in delight. “Oh, pardon me, sir,”
he went on in mock deference, with an exaggerated salute. “To a guy with four jets, I
should say . . . .”
“Seal that, Cliff, or I’ll climb up you like a squirrel, first chance I get!” Kinnison
retorted. “So they’ve got you skippering an El Ponderoso, huh? Think of a mere infant
like you being let play with so much high-power! What’ll we do about this heap here?”
“Damfino. It isn’t covered, so you’ll have to tell me, Captain.”
“Who’m I to be passing out orders? As you say, it Isn’t covered in the book-it’s
against G I regs for them to be cutting our tractors. But he’s all yours, not mine-I’ve got
to flit. You might find out what he’s carrying, from where, to where, and why. Then, if
you want to, you can escort him either back where he came from or on to where he’s
going, whichever you think best. If this interference doesn’t let up, maybe you’d better
Lens Prime Base for orders. Or use your own judgment, if any. Clear ether, Cliff, I’ve
got to buzz along.”
“Clear ether, spacehound !”
“Now, Hank,” Kinnison turned to his pilot, “we’ve got urgent business at Prime
Base-and when I say `urgent’ I don’t mean perchance. Let’s see you burn a hole in the
ether.”
The Britannia streaked Earthward, and scarcely had she touched ground when
Kinnison was summoned to the office of the Port Admiral. As soon as he was