the two men conversed brilliantly upon many topics, none of which were of the least
importance. After it Kinnison paid the check, despite the polite protestations of his vis-a-
vis. Then:
“I am simply a messenger, you will understand, nothing else,” the guest
observed. “Number One has been checking up on you and has decided to let you come
in. He will receive you tonight. The usual safeguards on both sides, of course— I am to
be your guide and guarantee.”
“Very kind of him, I’m sure.” Kinnison’s mind raced. Who could this Number One
be? The ape had a thought-screen1 on, so he was flying blind. Couldn’t be a real big
shot, though, so soon—no use monkeying with him at all. “Please convey my thanks,
but also my regrets.”
“What?” the other demanded. His veneer of politeness had sloughed off, his eyes
were narrow, keen, and cold. “You know what happens to independent operators
around here, don’t you? Do you think you can fight us?”
“Not fight you, no.” The Lensman elaborately stifled a yawn. He now had a clue.
“Simply ignore you—if you act up, squash you like bugs, that’s all. Please tell your
Number One that I do not split my take with anybody. Tell him also that I am looking for
a choicer location to settle down upon than any I have found as yet. If I do not find such
a place near here, I shall move on. If I do find it I shall take it, in spite of God, man, or
the devil.”
The stranger stood up, glaring hi quiet fury, but with both hands still above the
table. “You want to make it a war, then, Captain Cartiff!” he gritted.
“Not ‘Captain’ Cartiff, please,” Kinnison begged, dipping one paw delicately into
his finger-bowl. ” ‘Cartiff’ merely, my dear fellow, if you don’t mind. Simplicity, sir, and
dignity; those two are my key-words.”
“Not for long,” prophesied the other. “Number One’ll blast you out of the ether
before you swap another stone.”
“The Patrol has been trying to do that for some time now, and I’m still here,”
Kinnison reminded him, gently. “Caution him, please, in order to avoid bloodshed, not to
come after me in only one ship, but a fleet; and suggest that he have something hotter
than Patrol primaries before he tackles me at all.”
Surrounded by his bodyguards, Kinnison left the restaurant, and as he walked
along he reflected. Nice going, this. It would get around fast. This Number One couldn’t
be Bleeko; but the king-snipe of Lonabar and its environs would hear the news in short
order. He was now ready to go. He would flit around a few more days—give this bunch
of zwilniks a chance to make a pass at him if they felt like calling his bluff —then on to
Lonabar.
CHAPTER 9
Cartiff the Fence
Kinnison did not walk far, nor reflect much, before he changed his mind and
retraced his steps; finding the messenger still in the restaurant.
“So you got wise to yourself and decided to crawl while the crawling’s good, eh?”
he sneered, before the Lensman could say a word. “I don’t know whether the offer is still
good or not.”
“No—and I advise you to muffle your exhaust before somebody pulls one of your
legs off and rams it down your throat.” Kinnison’s voice was coldly level. “I came back to
tell you to tell your Number One that I’m calling his bluff. You know Checuster?”
“Of course.” The zwilnik was plainly discomfited.
“Come along, then, and listen, so you’ll know I’m not running a blazer.”
They sought a booth, wherein the native himself got Checuster on the visiplate.
“Checuster, this is Cartiff.” The start of surprise and the expression of pleased
interest revealed how well that name was known. “I’ll be down at your old warehouse
day after tomorrow night about this time. Pass the word around that if any of the boys
have any stuff too hot for them to handle conveniently, I’D buy it; paying for it in either
Patrol credits or bar platinum, whichever they like.”
He then turned to the messenger. “Did you get that straight, Lizard-Puss?”
The man nodded.
“Relay it to Number One,” Kinnison ordered and strode off. This time he got to
his ship, which took off at once.
Cartiff had never made a habit of wearing visible arms, and his guards, while
undoubtedly fast gun-men, were apparently only that. Therefore there was no reason for
Number One to suppose that his mob would have any noteworthy difficulty in cutting
this upstart Cartiff down. He was, however, surprised; for Cartiff did not come afoot or
unarmed.
Instead, it was an armored car that brought the intruding fence through the truck-
entrance into the old warehouse. Not a car, either; it was more like a twenty-ton tank
except for the fact that it ran upon wheels, not treads. It was screened like a cruiser; it
mounted a battery of projectors whose energies, it was clear to any discerning eye,
nothing short of battle-screen could handle. The thing rolled quietly to a stop, a door
swung open, and Kinnison emerged. He was neither unarmed nor unarmored now.
Instead, he wore a full suit of G-P armor or a reasonable facsimile thereof, and carried a
semi-portable projector.
“You will excuse the seeming discourtesy, men,” he announced, “when I tell you
that a certain Number One has informed me that he will blast me out of the ether before
I swap a stone on this planet. Stand clear, please, until we see whether he meant
business or was just warming up his jets. Now, Number One, if you’re around, come
and get it!”
Apparently the challenged party was not present, for no overt move was made.
Neither could Kinnison’s sense of perception discover any sign of unfriendly activity
within its range. Of mind-reading there was none, for every man upon the floor was, as
usual, both masked and screened.
Business was slack at first, for those present were not bold souls and the
Lensman’s overwhelmingly superior armament gave them very seriously to doubt his
intentions. Many of them, in fact, had fled precipitately at the first sight of the armored
truck, and of these more than a few—Number One’s thugs, no doubt—did not return.
The others, however, came filtering back as they perceived that there was to be no
warfare and as cupidity overcame their timorousness. And as it became evident to all
that the stranger’s armament was for defense only, that he was there to buy or to barter
and not to kill and thus to steal, Cartiff trafficked ever more and more briskly, as the
evening wore on, in the hottest gems of the planet.
Nor did he step out of character for a second. He was Cartiff the fence, all the
time. He drove hard bargains, but not too hard. He knew jewels thoroughly by this time,
he knew the code, and he followed it rigorously. He would give a thousand Patrol
credits, in currency good upon any planet of Civilization or in bar platinum good
anywhere, for an article worth five thousand, but which was so badly wanted by the law
that its then possessor could not dispose of it at all.
Or, in barter, he would swap for that article another item, worth fifteen hundred or
so, but which was not hot—at least, not upon that planet. Fair enough—so fair that it
was almost morning before the silently-running truck slid into its storage inside the
dead-black space-ship.
Then, insofar as Number One, the Patrol, and Civilization was concerned, Cartiff
and his outfit simply vanished. The zwilnik sub-chief hunted him viciously for a space,
then bragged of how he had run him out of the region. The Patrol, as usual, was on a
cold scent. The general public forgot him completely in the next sensation to arise.
Fairly close although he then was to the rim of the galaxy, Kinnison did not take
any chances at all of detection in a line toward that rim. The spiral arm beyond Rift
Eighty Five was unexplored. It had been of so little interest to Civilization that even its
various regions were nameless upon the charts, and the Lensman wanted it to remain
that way, at least for the time being. Therefore he left the galaxy in as nearly a straight
nadir line as he could without coming within detection distance of any trade route. Then,
making a prodigious loop, so as to enter the spiral arm from the nadir direction, he threw
Nadreck’s map into the pilot tank and began the computations which would enable him
to place correctly in that three-dimensional chart the brilliant point of light which
represented his ship.
In this work he was ably assisted by his chief pilot. He did not have Henderson
now, but he did have Watson, who rated Number Two only by the hair-splitting of the
supreme Board of Examiners. Such hair-splitting was, of course, necessary; otherwise