no difference at all could have been found within the ranks of the first fifty of the Patrol’s
Master Pilots, to say nothing of the first three or four. And the rest of the crew did
whatever they could.
For it was only in the newscasts that Cartiff’s crew was one of murderous and
villainous pirates. They were in fact volunteers; and, since everyone is familiar with what
that means in the Patrol, that statement is as informative as a book would be.
The chart was sketchy and incomplete, of course; around the flying ships were
hundreds, yes thousands, of stars which were not in the chart at all; but Nadreck had
furnished enough reference points so that the pilots could compute their orientation. No
need to fear detectors now, in these wild, waste spaces; they set a right-line course for
Lonabar and followed it.
As soon as Kinnison could make out the continental outlines of the planet he took
over control, as he alone of the crew was upon familiar ground. He knew everything
about Lonabar that Illona had ever learned; and, although the girl was a total loss as an
astronaut, she did know her geography.
Kinnison docked his ship boldly at the spaceport of Lonia, the planet’s largest city
and its capital. With equal boldness he registered as “Cartiff”; filling in some of the blank
spaces in the space-port’s routine registry form—not quite truthfully, perhaps—and
blandly ignoring others. The armored truck was hoisted out of the hold and made its
way to Lonia’s largest bank, into which it disgorged a staggering total of bar platinum, as
well as sundry coffers of hard, gray steel. These last items went directly into a private
vault, under the watchful eyes and ready weapons of Kinnison’s own guards.
The truck rolled swiftly back to the space-port and Cartiff’s ship took off—it did
not need servicing at the time—ostensibly for another planet unknown to the Patrol,
actually to go, inert, into a closed orbit around Lonabar and near enough to it to respond
to a call in seconds.
Immense wealth can command speed of construction and service. Hence, in a
matter of days, Cartiff was again in business. His salon was, upon a larger and grander
scale, a repetition of his Tellurian shop. It was simple, and dignified, and blatantly
expensive. Costly rugs covered the floor, impeccable works of art adorned the walls,
and three precisely correct, flawlessly groomed clerks displayed, with the exactly right
air of condescending humility, Caitiff’s wares before those who wished to view them.
Cartiff himself was visible, ensconced within a magnificent plate-glass-and-gold office in
the rear, but he did not ordinarily have anything to do with customers. He waited; nor did
he wait long before there happened that which he expected.
One of the super-perfect clerks coughed slightly into a microphone.
“A gentleman insists upon seeing you personally, sir,” he announced.
“Very well, I will see him now. Show him in, please,” and the visitor was
ceremoniously ushered into the Presence.
“This is a very nice place you have here, Mr. Cartiff, but did it ever occur to you
that. . .”
“It never did and it never will,” Kinnison snapped. He still lolled at ease in his
chair, but his eyes were frosty and his voice carried an icy sting. “I quit paying protection
to little shots a good many years ago. Or are you from Menjo Bleeko?”
The visitor’s eyes widened. He gasped, as though even to utter that dread name
was sheer sacrilege. “No, but Number . . .”
“Save it, slob!” The cold venom of that crisp but quiet order set the fellow back
onto his heels. “I am thoroughly sick of this thing of every half-baked tin-horn zwilnik in
space calling himself Number One as soon as he can steal enough small change to hire
an ape to walk around behind him packing a couple of blasters. If that louse of a boss of
yours has a name, use it. If he hasn’t call him The Louse”. But cancel that Number One
stuff. In my book there is no Number One in the whole damned universe. Doesn’t your
mob know yet who and what Cartiff is?”
“What do we care?” the visitor gathered courage visibly. “A good big bomb . . .”
“Clam it, you squint-eyed slime-lizard!” The Lensman’s voice was still low and
level, but his tone bit deep and his words drilled in. “That stuff?” he waved inclusively at
the magnificent hall. “Sucker-bait, nothing more. The whole works cost only a hundred
thousand. Chicken feed. It wouldn’t even nick the edge of the roll if you blew up ten of
them. Bomb it any time you feel the urge. But take notice that it would make me
sore—plenty sore—and that I would do things about it; because I’m in a big game, not
this petty-larceny racketeering and chiseling your mob is doing, and when a toad gets in
my way I step on it. So go back and tell that”—sulphurously and copiously
qualified—”Number One of yours to case a job a lot more thoroughly than he did this
one before he starts throwing his weight around. Now scram, before I feed your carcass
to the other rats around here!”
Kinnison grinned inwardly as the completely deflated gangster slunk out. Good
going. It wouldn’t take long for that blast to get action. This little-shot Number One
wouldn’t dare to lift a hand, but Bleeko would have to. That was axiomatic, from the very
nature of things. It was very definitely Bleeko’s move next. The only moot point was as
to which His Nibs, would do first—talk or act. He would talk, the Lensman thought. The
prime reward of being a hot-shot was to have people know it and bend the knee.
Therefore, although Caitiff’s salon was at all times in complete readiness for any form of
violence, Kinnison was practically certain that Menjo Bleeko would send an emissary
before he started the rough stuff.
He did, and shortly. A big, massive man was the messenger; a man wearing
consciously an aura of superiority, of boundless power and force. He did not simply
come into the shop—he made an entrance. All three of the clerks literally cringed before
him, and at his casually matter-of-fact order they hazed the already uncomfortable
customers out of the shop and locked the doors. Then one of them escorted the visitor,
with a sickening servility he had never thought of showing toward his employer and with
no thought of consulting Cartiff’s wishes in the matter, into Cartiff’s private sanctum.
Kinnison knew at first glance that this was Ghundrith Khars, Bleeko’s right-hand man.
Khars, the notorious, who knelt only to His Supremacy, Menjo Bleeko himself; and to
whom everyone else upon Lonabar and its subsidiary planets kneeled. The Visitor
waved a hand and the clerk fled in disorder.
“Stand up, worm, and give me that . . .” Khars began, loftily.
“Silence, fool! Attention!” Kinnison rasped, in such a drivingly domineering tone
that the stupefied messenger obeyed involuntarily. The Lensman, psychologist par
excellence that he was, knew that this man, with a background of twenty years of blind,
dumb obedience to Bleeko’s every order, simply could not cope with a positive and self-
confident opposition. “You will not be here long enough to sit down, even if I permitted it
in my presence, which I definitely do not. You came here to give me certain instructions
and orders. Instead, you are going to listen merely; I will do all the talking.
“First. The only reason you did not die as you entered this place is that neither
you not Menjo Bleeko knows any better. The next one of you to approach me in this
fashion dies in Ms tracks.
“Second. Knowing as I do the workings of that which your bloated leech of a
Menjo Bleeko calls his brain, I know that he has a spy-ray on us now. I am not blocking
it out as I want him to receive ungarbled—and I know that you would not have the
courage to transmit it accurately to His Foulness—everything I have to say.
“Third. I have been searching for a long time for a planet that I like. This is it. I
fully intend to stay here as long as I please. There is plenty of room here for both of us
without crowding.
“Fourth. Being essentially a peaceable man, I came in peace and I prefer a
peaceable arrangement. However, let it be distinctly understood that I truckle to no man
or entity; dead, living, or yet to be born.
“Fifth. Tell Bleeko from me to consider very carefully and very thoroughly an
iceberg; its every phase and aspect. That is all—you may go.”
“Bub-bub-but,” the big man stammered. “An iceberg?”
“An iceberg, yes—just that,” Kinnison assured him. “Don’t bother to try to think
about it yourself, since you’ve got nothing to think with. But His Putrescence Bleeko,
even though he is a mental, moral, and intellectual slime-lizard, can think—at least in a