man was hideously guilty. Nevertheless.
“He was guilty,” the Tellurian jerked out. “Guilty as all the devils in hell. I never
had to do that before and it gripes me-but I couldn’t shove the job off onto you fellows. I
wouldn’t want anybody to see that picture that didn’t have to, and without it you could
never begin to understand just how atrociously and damnably guilty that hell-hound
really was.”
“Thanks, Kinnison,” Gerrond said, simply. “Kinnison. Kinnison of Tellus. I’ll
remember that name, in case we ever need you as badly again. But, after what you just
did, it will be a long time-if ever. You didn’t know, did you, that all the inhabitants of four
planets were watching you?”
“Holy Klono, no! Were they?”
“They were, and if the way you scared me is any criterion, it will be a long, cold
day before anything like that comes up again in this system. And thanks again, Gray
Lensman. You have done something for our whole Patrol this day.”
“Be sure to dismantle that box so thoroughly that nobody will recognize any of its
component parts,” and Kinnison managed a rather feeble grin. “One more thing and I’ll
buzz along. Do you fellows happen to know where there’s a good, strong pirate base
around here anywhere? And, while I don’t want to seem fussy, I would like it all the
better if they were warm-blooded oxygen-breathers, so I won’t have to wear armor all
the time.”
“What are you trying to do, give us the needle, or something?” This is not
precisely what the Radeligian said, but it conveys the thought Kinnison received as the
base commander stared at him in amazement.
“Don’t tell me that there is such a base around here!” exclaimed the Tellurian in
delight. “Is there, really?”
“There is. So strong that we haven’t been able to touch it, manned and staffed by
natives of your own planet, Tellus of Sol. We reported it to Prime Base some eighty-
three days ago, just after we discovered it. You’re direct from there . . . . . .” He fell
silent. This was no way to be talking to a Gray Lensman.
“I was in the hospital then, fighting with my nurse because she wouldn’t give me
anything to eat,” Kinnison explained with a laugh. “When I left Tellus I didn’t check up
on the late data-didn’t think I’d need it quite so soon. If you’ve got it, though . . . . .
“Hospital! You?” queried one of the younger Radeligians.
“Yeah-bit off more than I could chew,” and the Tellurian described briefly his
misadventure with the Wheelmen of Aldebaran I. “This other thing has come up since
then, though, and I won’t be sticking my neck out that way again. If you’ve got such a
made-to-order base as that in this region, it’ll save me a long trip. Where is it?”
They gave him its coordinates and what little information they had been able to
secure concerning it. They did not ask him why he wanted that data. They may have
wondered at his temerity in daring to scout alone a fortress whose strength had kept at
bay the massed Patrol forces of the sector, but if they did so they kept their thoughts
well screened. For this was a Gray Lensman, and very evidently a super-powered
individual, even of that select group whose weakest members were powerful indeed. If
he felt like talking they would listen, but Kinnison did not talk. He listened, then, when
he had learned everything they knew of the Boskonian base.
Well, I’d better be flitting. Clear ether, fellows!” and he was gone.
CHAPTER 20
Mac Is a Bone of Contention
Out from Radelix and into deep space shot the speedster bearing the Gray Lensman
toward Boyssia II, where the Boskonian base was situated. The Patrol forces had not
been able to locate it definitely, therefore it must be cleverly hidden indeed. Manned
and staffed by Tellurians-and this was fairly close to the line first taken by the pilot of
the pirate vessel whose crew had been so decimated by vanBuskirk and his Valerians.
There couldn’t be so many Boskonian bases with Tellurian personnel, Kinnison
reflected. It was well within the bounds of possibility, even of probability, that he might
encounter here his former, but unsuspecting, shipmates again.
Since the Boyssian system was less than a hundred parsecs from Radelix, a
couple of hours found the Lensman staring down upon another strange planet, and this
one was a very Earthly world indeed. There were polar ice-caps, areas of intensely
dazzling white. There was an atmosphere, deep and sweetly blue, filled for the most
part with sunlight, but flecked here and there with clouds, some of which were slow-
moving storms. There were continents, bearing mountains and plains, lakes and rivers.
There were oceans, studded with islands great and small.
But Kinnison was no planetographer, nor had he been gone from Tellus
sufficiently long so that the eight of this beautiful and home-like world aroused in him
any qualm of nostalgia. He was looking for a pirate base, and, dropping his speedster
as low into the night side as he dared, he began his search.
Of man or of the works of man he at first found little enough trace. All human or
near-human life was apparently still in a savage state of development, and, except for a
few scattered races, or rather tribes, of burrowers and of cliff- or cave-dwellers, it was
still nomadic, wandering here and there without permanent habitation or structure.
Animals of scores of genera and species were there in myriads, but neither was
Kinnison a biologist. He wanted pirates, and, it seemed, that was the one form of life
which he was not going to find!
But finally, through sheer, grim, bull-dog pertinacity, he was successful. That
base was there, somewhere. He would find it, no matter how long it took. He would find
it, if he had to examine the entire crust of the planet, land and water alike, kilometer by
plotted cubic kilometer! He set out to do just that, and it was thus that he found the
Boskonian stronghold.
It had been built directly beneath a towering range of mountains, protected from
detection by mile upon mile of native copper and of iron ore.
Its entrances, invisible before, were even now not readily perceptible,
camouflaged as they were by outer layers of rock which matched exactly in form, color,
and texture the rocks of the cliffs in which they were placed. Once those entrances
were located, the rest was easy. Again he set his speedster into a carefully-observed
orbit and came to ground in his armor. Again he crept forward, furtively and skulkingly,
until he could perceive again a shimmering web of force.
With minor variations his method of entry into the Boskonian base was similar to
that he had used in making his way into the Patrol. base upon Radelix. He was,
however, working now with a surety and a precision which had then been lacking. His
practice with the Patrolmen had given him knowledge and technique. His sitting in
judgment, during which he had touched almost every mind in the vast assemblage, had
taught him much. And above all, the grisly finale of that sitting, horribly distasteful and
soul-wracking as it had been, had given him training of inestimable value, necessitating
as it had the infliction of the ultimate penalty.
He knew that he might have to stay inside that base for some time, therefore he
selected his hiding-place with care. He could of course blank out the knowledge of his
presence in the mind of anyone chancing to discover him, but since such an
interruption might come at a critical instant, he preferred to take up his residence in a
secluded place. There were, of course, many vacant suites in the officers’ quarters-all
bases must have accommodations for visitors-and the Lensman decided to occupy one
of them. It was a simple matter to obtain a key, and, inside the bare but comfortable
little room, he stripped off his armor with a sigh of relief.
Leaning back in a deeply upholstered leather arm-chair, he closed his eyes and
let his sense of perception roam throughout the great establishment. With all his newly
developed power he studied it, hour after hour and day after day. When he was hungry
the pirate cooks fed him, not knowing that they did so-he had lived on iron rations long
enough. When he was tired he slept, with his eternally vigilant Lens on guard.
Finally he knew everything there was to be known about that stronghold and was ready
to act. He did not take over the mind of the base commander, but chose instead the
chief communications officer as the one most likely and most intimately to have
dealings with Helmuth. For Helmuth, he who spoke for Boskone, had for many months
been the Lensman’s definite objective.