remarked as he began to manipulate various and sundry controls, “but you already
know from the nature of our problem that any extraneous thought will wreak untold
harm. For that reason I beg of you to keep your thought-screens up at all times, no
matter what happens. It is, however, imperative that you be kept informed, since I may
require aid or advice at any moment. To that end I ask you to hold these electrodes,
which are connected to a receptor. Do not hesitate to speak freely to each other or to
me; but please use only a spoken language, as I am averse to Lensed thoughts at this
juncture. Are we agreed? Are we ready?”
They were agreed and ready. Nadreck actuated Ms peculiar drill—a tube of force
somewhat analogous to a Q-type helix except in that it operated within the frequency-
range of thought—and began to increase, by almost infinitesimal increments, its power.
Nothing, apparently, happened; but finally the Palainian’s instruments registered the fact
that it was through.
“This is none too safe, friends,” the Palainian announced from one part of his
multi-compartmented brain, without distracting any part of his attention from the
incredibly delicate operation he was performing. “May I suggest, Kinnison, in my
cowardly way, that you place yourself at the controls and be ready to take us away from
this planet at speed and without notice?”
“I’ll say you may!” and the Tellurian complied, with alacrity. “Right now, cowardice
is indicated—copiously!”
But through course after course of screen the hollow drill gnawed its cautious
way without giving alarm; until at length there began to come through the interloping
tunnel a vague impression of foreign thought. Nadreck stopped the helix, then advanced
it by tiny steps until the thoughts came in coldly clear—the thoughts of the Eich going
about their routine businesses. In the safety of their impregnably shielded dome the
proudly self-confident monsters did not wear their personal thought-screens; which, for
Civilization’s sake, was just as well.
It had been decided previously that the mind they wanted would be that of a
psychologist; hence the thought sent out by the Palainian was one which would appeal
only to such a mind; in fact, one practically imperceptible to any other. It was extremely
faint; wavering uncertainly upon the very threshold of perception. It was so vague, so
formless, so inchoate that it required Kinnison’s intensest concentration even to
recognize it as a thought. Indeed, so starkly unhuman was Nadreck’s mind and that of
his proposed quarry that it was all the Tellurian Lensman could do to so recognize it. It
dealt, fragmentarily and in the merest glimmerings, with the nature and the mechanisms
of the First Cause; with the fundamental ego, its ration d’etre, its causation, its
motivation, its differentiation; with the stupendously awful concepts of the Prime Origin
of all things ever to be.
Unhurried, monstrously patient, Nadreck neither raised the power of the thought
nor hastened its slow tempo. Stolidly, for minute after long minute he held it, spraying it
throughout the vast dome as mist is sprayed from an atomizer nozzle. And finally he got
a bite. A mind seized upon that wistful, homeless, incipient thought; took it for its own. It
strengthened it, enlarged upon it, built it up. And Nadreck followed it.
He did not force it; he did nothing whatever to cause any suspicion that the
thought was or ever had been his. But as the mind of the Eich busied itself with that
thought he all unknowingly let down the bars to Nadreck’s invasion.
Then, perfectly in tune, the Palainian subtly insinuated into the mind of the Eich
the mildly disturbing idea that he had forgotten something, or had neglected to do some
trifling thing. This was the first really critical instant, for Nadreck had no idea whatever of
what his victim’s duties were or what he could have left undone. It had to be something
which would take him out of the dome and toward the Patrolman’s concealed speedster,
but what it was, the Eich would have to develop for himself; Nadreck could not dare to
attempt even a partial control at this stage and at this distance.
Kinnison clenched his teeth and held his breath, his big hands clutching fiercely
the pilot’s bars; Worsel unheedingly coiled his supple body into an ever smaller, ever
harder and more compact bale.
“Ah!” Kinnison exhaled explosively. “It worked!” The psychologist, at Nadreck’s
impalpable suggestion, had finally thought of the thing. It was a thought-screen
generator which had been giving a little trouble and which really should have been
checked before this.
Calmly, with the mild self-satisfaction which comes of having successfully
recalled to mind a highly elusive thought, the Eich opened one of the dome’s
unforceable doors and made his unconcerned way directly toward the waiting Lensmen;
and as he approached Nadreck stepped up by logarithmic increments the power of his
hold.
“Get ready, please, to cut your screens and to synchronize with me in case
anything slips and he tries to break away,” Nadreck cautioned; but nothing slipped.
The Eich came up unseeing to die speedster’s side and stopped. The drill
disappeared. A thought-screen encompassed die group narrowly. Kinnison and Worsel
released their screens and also tuned in to die creature’s mind. And Kinnison swore
briefly, for what they found was meager enough.
He knew a great deal concerning die zwilnik doings of die First Galaxy; but so did
die Lensmen; they were not interested in diem. Neither were they interested, at die
moment, in the files or hi die records. Regarding die higher-ups, he knew of two, and
only two, personalities. By means of an inter-galactic communicator he received orders
from, and reported to, a clearly-defined, somewhat Eich-like entity known to him as
Kandron; and vaguely, from occasional stray and unintentional thoughts of this
Kandron, he had visualized as being somewhere in die background a human being
named Alcon. He supposed that die planets upon which these persons lived were
located in die Second Galaxy, but he was not certain, even of that. He had never seen
either of diem; he was pretty sure that none of his group ever would be allowed to see
diem. He had no means of tracing diem and no desire whatsoever to do so. The only
fact he really knew was dial at irregular intervals Kandron got into communication with
this base of die Eich.
That was all. Kinnison and Worsel let go and Nadreck, with a minute attention to
detail which would be wearisome here, jockeyed die unsuspecting monster back into die
dome. The native knew full where he had been, and why. He had inspected the
generator and found it in good order. Every second of elapsed time was accounted for
exactly. He had not the slightest inkling dial anything out of the ordinary had happened
to him or anywhere around him.
As carefully as die speedster had approached die planet, she departed from it.
She rejoined the Dauntless, in whose control room Kinnison lined out a solid
communicator beam to the Z9M9Z and to Port Admiral Haynes. He reported crisply,
rapidly, everything that had transpired.
“So our best bet is for you and the Fleet to get out of here as fast as Klono will let
you,” he concluded. “Go straight out Rift Ninety Four, staying as far away as possible
from both the spiral arm and the galaxy proper. Unlimber every spotting-screen you’ve
got—put them to work along the line between Lyrane and the Second Galaxy. Plot all
the punctures, extending the line as fast as you can. We’ll join you at max and transfer
to the Z9M9Z—her tank is just what the doctors ordered for the job we’ve got to do.”
“Well, if you say so, I suppose that’s the way it’s got to be,” Haynes grumbled. He
had been growling and snorting under his breath ever since it had become evident what
Kinnison’s recommendation was to be. “I don’t like this thing of standing by and letting
zwilniks thumb their noses at us, like Prellin did on Bronseca. That once was once too
damned often.”
“Well, you got him, finally, you know,” Kinnison reminded, quite cheerfully, “and
you can have these Eich, too—sometime.”
“I hope,” Haynes acquiesced, something less than sweetly. “QX, then—but put
out a few jets. The quicker you get out here the sooner we can get back and clean out
this hoo-raw’s nest.”
Kinnison grinned as he cut his beam. He knew that it would be some time before
the Port Admiral could hurl the metal of the Patrol against Lyrane VIII; but even he did
not realize just how long a time it was to be.
What occasioned the delay was not the fact that the communicator was in
operation only at intervals: so many screens were out, they were spaced so far apart,
and the punctures were measured and aligned so accurately that the periods of non-
operation caused little or no loss of time. Nor was it the vast distance involved; since, as