particularly about its shape, provided that it was not too narrow an ellipse-and cut off all
his power. He was now safe from detection. Leaning back in his seat and closing his
eyes, he hurled his sense of perception into and through the massed fortifications of
Grand Base.
For a long time he did not find a single living creature. Hundreds of miles he
traversed, perceiving only automatic machinery, bank after towering, miles-square’ bank
of accumulators, and remote-controlled projectors and other weapons and apparatus.
Finally, however, he came to Helmuth’s dome, and in that dome he received’ another
severe shock. The- personnel in that dome were to be numbered by the hundreds, but
he could not make mental contact with any one of them. He could not touch their minds
at all, he was stopped cold. Every member of Helmuth’s band was protected by a
thought-screen as effective as the Lensman’s own!
Around and around the planet the speedster circled, while Kinnison struggled
with this new and entirely unexpected setback. This looked as though Helmuth knew
what was coming. Helmuth was nobody’s fool, Kinnison knew, but how could he
possibly have suspected that a mental attack was in the book? Perhaps he was just
playing safe. If so, the Lensman’s chance would come. Men would be careless,
batteries weakened and would have to be changed.
But this hope was also vain, as continued watching revealed that each battery
was listed, checked, and timed. Nor was any screen released, event for an instant,
when its battery was changed, the fresh power source being slipped into service before
the weakening one was disconnected.
“Well, that tears it-Helmuth knows,” Kinnison cogitated, after watching vainly
several such changes. “He’s a wise old bird. The guy really has jets-I still don’t see what
I did that could have put him wise to what was going on.”
Day after day the Lensman studied every detail of construction, operation, and
routine of that base, and finally an idea began to dawn. He shot his attention toward a
barracks he had inspected frequently of late, but stopped, irresolute.
“Uh uh, Kim, maybe better not,” he advised himself.
“Helmuth’s mighty quick on the trigger, to figure out that Boyssian thing so fast . .
. . .
His projected thought was sheared off without warning, thus settling the question
definitely. Helmuth’s big apparatus was at work, the whole planet was screened against
thought.
“Oh well, probably better, at that,” Kinnison went on arguing with himself. “If I’d
tried it out maybe he’d’ve got onto it and laid me a stymie next time, when I really need
it.”
He went free and hurled his speedster toward Earth, now distant indeed. Several
times during that long trip he was sorely tempted to call Haynes through his Lens and
get things started, but he always thought better of it. This was altogether too important a
thing to be sent through so much sub-ether, or even to be thought about except inside
an absolutely thought-tight, room. And besides, every waking hour of even that long trip
could be spent very profitably in digesting and correlating the information he had
obtained and in mapping out the salient features of the campaign that was to come.
Therefore, before time began to drag, Kinnison landed at Prime Base and was taken
directly to Port Admiral Haynes.
“Mighty glad to see you, son,” Haynes greeted the young Lensman cordially as
he sealed the room thought-tight. “Since you came in under your own power, I assume
that you are here to make a constructive report?”
“Better than that, sir-I’m here to start something in a big way. I know at last where
their Grand Base is, and have detailed plans of it. I think I know who and where
Boskone is. I know where Helmuth is, and I have worked out a plan whereby, if it works,
we can wipe out that base. Boskone, Helmuth, and all the lesser master minds, at one
wipe.”
“Mentor did come through, huh?” For the first time since Kinnison had known him
the old man lost his poise. He leaped to his feet and seized Kinnison by the arm. “I
knew you were good, but not that goods He gave you what you wanted?”
“He sure did,” and the younger man reported as briefly as possible everything
that had happened.
“I’m just as sure that Helmuth is Boskone as I can be of anything that can’t be
proved,” Kinnison continued, unrolling a sheaf of drawings. “Helmuth speaks for
Boskone, and nobody else ever does, not even Boskone himself. None of the other big
shots know anything about Boskone or ever heard him speak, but they all jump through
their hoops when Helmuth, speaking for Boskone, cracks the whip. And I couldn’t get a
trace of Helmuth ever taking anything up with any higher-ups. Therefore I’m dead
certain that when we get Helmuth we get Boskone.
“But that’s going to be a job of work. I scouted his headquarters from stem to
gudgeon, as I told you, and Grand Base is absolutely impregnable as it stands. I never
imagined anything like it-it makes Prime Base here look like a deserted cross-roads
after a hard winter. They’ve got screens, pits, projectors, accumulators, all on a gigantic
scale. In fact, they’ve got everything-but you can get all that from the tape and these
sketches. They simply can’t be taken by any possible direct frontal attack. Even if we
used every ship and mauler we’ve got they could stand us off. And they can match us,
ship for ship-we’d never get near Grand Base at all if they knew we were coming . . . . .’
“Well, if it’s such an impossible job, what . . . . . ”
“I’m coming to that. It’s impossible as ft stands, but there’s a good chance that I’ll
be able to soften it up,’ and the young Lensman went on to outline the plan upon which
he had been working so long. “You know, like a worm-bore from within. That’s the only
possible way to do it. You’ll have to put detector nullifiers on every ship assigned to the
job, but that’ll be easy. We’ll need everything we’ve got.”
“The important thing, as I gather it, is timing.”
“Absolutely. To the minute, since I won’t be able to communicate, once I get
inside their thought-screens. How long will it take to assemble our stuff and put it in, that
cluster?”
“Seven weeks-eight at the outside.”
“Plus two for allowances. QX—-at exactly hour 20, ten weeks from today, let
every projector of every vessel you can possibly get there cut loose on that base with
everything they can pour in. There’s a detailed drawing in here somewhere . . . here-
twenty-six main objectives, you See. Blast them all, simultaneously to the second. If
they all go down, the rest will be possible-if not, it’ll be just too bad. Then work along
these lines here, straight from those twenty-six stations to the dome, blasting everything
as you go. Make it last exactly fifteen minutes, not a minute more or less. If, by fifteen
minutes after twenty, the main dome hasn’t surrendered by cutting its screen, blast that,
too, if’ you can-it’ll take a lot of blasting, I’m afraid. From then on you and the five-star
admirals will have to do whatever is appropriate to the occasion.”
“Your plan doesn’t cover that, apparently. Where will you be-how will you be
fixed-if the main dome does mot cut its screens?”
“I’ll be dead, and you’ll be just starting the damndest war that this galaxy ever
saw.”
CHAPTER 23
Tregonsee Turns Zwilnik
While servicing and checking the speedster required only a couple of hours, Kinnison
did not leave Earth for almost two days. He’ had requisitioned much special equipment,
the construction of one item of which-a suit of armor such as had never been seen
before-caused almost all of the delay. When it was ready the greatly interested Port
Admiral accompanied the young Lensman out to the steel-lined, sand-filled concrete
dugout, in which the suit had already been mounted upon a remote-controlled dummy.
Fifty feet from that dummy there was a heavy, water-cooled machine rifle, with its
armored crew standing by. As the two approached the crew leaped to attention.
“As you were,” Haynes instructed, and.
“You checked those cartridges against those I brought in from Aldebaran I?”
asked Kinnison of the officer in charge, as, accompanied by the Port Admiral, he
crouched down behind the shields of the control panel.
“Yes, Sir. These are twenty-five percent over, as you specified.”
“QX – commence firing!” Then, as the weapon clamored out its stuttering,
barking roar, Kinnison made the dummy stoop, turn, bend, twist and dodge, so as to
bring its every plate joint, and member, into that hail of steel. The uproar stopped.
“One thousand rounds, sir,” the officer reported.
“No holes-no dents-not a scratch or a scar,” Kinnison reported, after a minute