though, fella!”
And care was indeed necessary; extreme care that not a particle of matter from
the ship was used in the construction and that not a particle of the planet’s substance by
any mischance got aboard the spare-ship.
The actual work was simple enough. Cardynge knew exactly what had to be
done. Thorndyke knew exactly how to do it, as he had built precisely similar generators
for the experimental tubes upon Tellus. He had a staff of experts; the Dauntless carried
a machine shop and equipment second to none. Raw material was abundant, and it
was an easy matter to block out an inertialess room within which the projectors and
motors were built. And, after they were built, they worked.
It was not the work, then, but the strain which wore Kinnison down. The constant,
wearing strain of incessant vigilance to be sure that the Bergenholms and the small
units of the personal neutralizes did not falter for a single instant. He did not lose a man,
but again and again there flashed into his mind the ghastly picture of one of his boys
colliding with the solid metal of the planet at a relative velocity fifteen times that of light!
The strain of the endless checking and re-checking to make certain that there was no
exchange of material, however slight, between the ship and the planet.
Above all, the strain of knowing a thing which, apparently, no one else
suspected; that Cardynge, with all his mathematical knowledge, was not going to be
able to find his way back! He had never spoken of this to the scientist. He did not have
to. He knew that without a knowledge of the fundamental distinguishing characteristics
of our normal space —a knowledge even less to be expected than that a fish should
know the fundamental equations and structure of water—they never could, save by
sheerest accident, return to their own space. And as Cardynge grew more and more
tensely, unsocially immersed in his utterly insoluble problem, the more and more
uneasy the Gray Lensman became. But this last difficulty was resolved first, and in a
totally unexpected fashion.
“Ah, Kinnison of Tellus, here you are—I have been considering your case for
some twenty nine of your seconds,” a deep, well-remembered voice resounded within
his brain.
“Mentor!” he exclaimed, and at the sheer shock of his relief he came very near
indeed to fainting. “Thank Klono and Noshabkeming you found us! How did you do it?
How do we get ourselves out of here?”
“Finding you was elementary,” the Arisian replied, calmly.
“Since you were not in your own environment you must be elsewhere. It required
but little thought to perceive what was a logical, in fact an inevitable, development. Such
being the case, it needed very little additional effort to determine what had happened,
and how, and why; likewise precisely where you must now be. As for departure
therefrom, your mechanical preparations are both correct and adequate. I could give
you the necessary information, but it is rather technically specialized and not negligible
in amount; and since your brain is not of infinite capacity, it is better not to fill any part of
it with mathematics for which you will have no subsequent use. Put yourself en rapport,
therefore, with Sir Austin Cardynge. I will follow.”
He did so, and as mind met mind there ensued a conversation whose barest
essentials Kinnison could not even dimly grasp. For Cardynge, as has been said, could
think in the universal language of mathematics: in the esoteric symbology which very
few minds have ever been able even partially to master. The Lensman did not get it, nor
any part of it; he knew only that in that to him completely meaningless gibberish the
Arisian was describing to the physicist, exactly and fully, the distinguishing
characteristics of a vast number of parallel and simultaneously co-existent spaces.
If that was “rather” technical stuff, the awed Lensman wondered, what would
really deep stuff be like? Not that he wanted to find out! No wonder these mathematical
wizards were nuts—went off the beam—he’d be pure squirrel-food if he had half that
stuff in his skull!
But Sir Austin took to it like a cat lapping up cream or doing away with the
canary. He brightened visibly; he swelled: and, when the Arisian had withdrawn from his
mind, he preened himself and swaggered as he made meticulous adjustments of the
delicate meters and controls which the technicians had already built.
Preparations complete, Cardynge threw in the switches and everything belonging
to the Dauntless was rushed aboard —everything, that is, that was demonstrably
uncontaminated by any particle of Nth-space matter. The spacesuits that had been
worn on the planet and everything else, no matter what it was, that could not show an
unquestionable bill of health were dumped. The neutralizers, worn so long and
cherished so assiduously, were taken off with profound sighs of relief. The vessel was
briefly, tentatively inerted. QX—no faster-than-light meteorites tore volatizingly through
her mass. So far, so good.
Then the ship’s generators were energized and smoothly, effortlessly the big
battle-wagon took the inter-dimensional plunge. There came the expected, but
nevertheless almost unendurable acceleration; the imperceptible, unloggable flight
through the drably featureless grayness; the horrible deceleration. Stars flashed
beautifully upon the plates.
“We made it!” Kinnison shouted in relief when he had assured himself that they
had emerged into “real” space inside the Second Galaxy, only a few parsecs away from
their point of departure. “By Klono’s golden grin, Sir Austin, you figured it to a red
whisker! And when the Society meets, Tuesday week, won’t you just blast that ape
Weingarde to a cinder? Hot dog!”
“Having the basic data, the solution and the application followed of
necessity—automatically—uniquely,” the scientist said, austerely. He was highly
pleased with himself, he was tremendously flattered by the Lensman’s ebullient praise;
but not for anything conceivable would he have so admitted.
“Well, the first thing we’d better do is to find out what time of what day it is,”
Kinnison went on, as he directed a beam to the Patrol headquarters upon Klovia.
“Better ask ’em the year, too,” Henderson put in, pessimistically—he had missed
Illona poignantly—but it wasn’t that bad.
In fact, it was not bad at all; they had been gone only a little over a week of
Thralian time. This finding pleased Kinnison immensely, as he had been more than half
afraid that it had been a month. He could explain a week easily enough, but anything
over two weeks would have been tough to handle.
The supplies of the Thralian speedster were adjusted to fit the actual elapsed
time, and Worsel and Kinnison engraved upon the minds of the five unconscious
Guardsmen completely detailed—even though equally completely fictitious— memories
of what they and Major Gannel had done since leaving Thrale. Their memories were not
exactly alike, of course —each man had had different duties and experiences, and no
two observers see precisely the same things even while watching the same event—but
they were very convincing. Also, and fortunately, not even the slightest scars were left
by the operations, for in these cases no memory chain had to be broken at any point.
The Dauntless blasted off for Klovia; the speedster started for Thrale. Kinnison’s
crew woke up—without having any inkling that they had ever been unconscious or that
their knowledge of recent events did not jibe exactly with the actual occurrences—and
resumed work.
Immediately upon landing, Kinnison turned in a full official report of the mission,
giving himself neither too much nor too little credit for what had been accomplished.
They had found a Patrol sneak-boat near Line Eleven. They had chased it so many
parsecs, upon such-and-such a course, before forcing it to engage. They had crippled it
and boarded, bringing away material, described as follows, which had been turned over
to Space Intelligence. And so on. It would hold, Kinnison knew; and it would be
corroborated fully by the ultra-private reports which his men would make to their real
bosses.
The colonel made good; hence with due pomp and ceremony Major Traska
Gannel was inducted into the Household. He was given one of the spy-ray-screened
cigarette boxes in which Alcon’s most trusted officers were allowed to carry their private,
secret insignia. Kinnison was glad to get that—he could carry his Lens with him now, if
the thing was really ray-proof, instead of leaving it buried in a can outside the city limits.
The Lensman went to his first meeting of the Advisory Cabinet with his mind set
on a hair-trigger. He hadn’t been around Alcon very much, but he knew that the Tyrant
had a stronger mind-shield than any untreated human being had any right to have. He’d
have to play this mighty close to his chest—he didn’t want any zwilnik reading his mind,
yet he didn’t want to create suspicion by revealing the fact that he, too, had an
impenetrable block.
As he approached the cabinet chamber he walked into a zone of compulsion,