Furthermore, you have never even troubled to deny accusations that you are in fact
playing a far deeper game than you appear upon the surface to be playing.”
“That reticence I have explained over and over as an overmastering
repugnance—call it a phobia if you like,” Kinnison rejoined, wearily. “I simply can’t and
won’t. Since you cannot understand that, denials would have been entirely useless.
Would you believe anything that I could possibly say— that I would swear by everything
I hold sacred—whether it was that I am whole-heartedly loyal to Boskonia or that I am in
fact Star A Star himself?”
“Probably not,” came the measured reply. “No, certainly not. Men—especially
men such as you, bent ruthlessly upon the acquisition of power—are liars . . . ah, could
it, by any chance, be that the reason for your intractability is that you have the effrontery
to entertain some insane idea of supplanting ME?”
Kinnison jumped mentally. That tore it—that was a flare-lit tip-off. This man—this
thing—being—entity—whatever he really was—instead of being just another Boskonian
big shot, must be the clear quill—the real McCoy—BOSKONE HIMSELF! The end of
the job must be right here! This was—must be—the real Brain for whom he had been
searching so long; here within three feet of him sat the creature with whom he had been
longing so fervently to come to grips!
“The reason is as I have said,” the Tellurian stated, quietly. “I will attempt to
make no secret, however, of a fact which you must already have deduced; that if and
when it becomes apparent that you have any authority above or beyond that of the
Tyrant of Thrale I shall take it away from you. Why not? Now that I have come so far,
why should I not aspire to sit in the highest seat of all?”
“Hrrummphhh!” the monster—Kinnison could no longer think of him as Fossten,
or as the prime minister, or as anything even remotely human—snorted with such utter,
such searing contempt that even the Lensman’s burly spirit quailed. “As well might you
attempt to pit your vaunted physical strength against the momentum of an inert planet.
Now, youth, have done. The time for temporizing is past. As 1 have said, I desire to
spare you, as I wish you to rule this part of Boskonia as my viceroy. Know, however,
that you are in no sense essential, and that if you do not yield your mind fully to mine,
here and now, before this coming battle is joined, you most certainly die.” At the grim
finality, the calmly assured certainty of the pronouncement, a quick chill struck into the
Gray Lensman’s vitals.
This thing who called himself Fossten . . . who or what was he? What was it that
he reminded him of? He thought and talked like . . . like . . . MENTOR! But it couldn’t be
an Arisian, possibly—that wouldn’t make sense . . . But then, it didn’t make any kind of
sense, anyway, any way you looked at it . . . Whoever he was, he had plenty of jets—
jets enough to lift a freighter off of the north pole of Valeria . . . and by the same token,
his present line of talk didn’t make sense, either—there must be some good reason why
he hadn’t made a real pass at him long before this, instead of arguing with him so
patiently—what could it be? . . . Oh, that was it, of course . . . He needed only a few
minutes more, now; he could probably stall off the final show-down that long by crawling
a bit—much as it griped him to let this zwilnik think that he was licking his boots . . .
“Your forebearance is appreciated, sire.” At the apparently unconscious tribute to
superiority and at the fact that the hitherto completely self-possessed Tyrant got up and
began to pace nervously up and down the control room, the prime minister’s austere
mien softened appreciably. “It is, however, a little strange. It is not quite in character; it
does not check quite satisfactorily with the facts thus far revealed. I may, perhaps, as
you say, be stupid. I may be overestimating flagrantly my own abilities. To one of my
temperament, however, to surrender in such a craven fashion as you demand comes
hard—extremely, almost unbearably hard. It would be easier, I think, if Your Supremacy
would condescend to reveal his true identity, thereby making plainly evident and
manifest that which at present must be left to unsupported words, surmise, and not too
much conviction.”
“But I told you, and now tell you again, that for you to look upon my real form is to
lose your reason!” the creature rasped.
“What do you care whether or not I remain sane?” Kinnison shot his bolt at last,
in what he hoped would be taken for a last resurgence of spirit. His time was about up.
In less than one minute now the screens of scout cruisers would be in engagement, and
either he or the prime minister or both would be expected to be devoting every cell of
their brains to the all-important battle of giants. And in that very nick of time he would
have to cripple the Bergenholms and thus inert the flagship. “Could it be that the real
reason for your otherwise inexplicable forbearance is that you must know how my mind
became as it now is, and that the breaking down of my barriers by mental force will
destroy the knowledge which you, for your own security, must have?”
This was the blow-off. Kinnison still paced the room, but his pacings took him
nearer and ever nearer to a certain control panel. Behind his thought-screen, which he
could not now trust, he mustered every iota of his tremendous force of mind and of will.
Only seconds now. His left hand, thrust into his breeches pocket, grasped the cigarette
case within which reposed his Lens. His right arm and hand were tensely ready to draw
and to fire his weapon.
“Die, then! I should have known from the sheer perfection of your work that you
were what you really are—Star A Star!”
The mental blast came ahead even of the first word, but the Gray Lensman,
supremely ready, was already in action. One quick thrust of his chin flicked off the
thought-screen. The shielded cigarette-case flew open, his more-than-half-alive Lens
blazed again upon his massive wrist. His blaster leaped out of its scabbard, flaming
destruction as it came— a ravening tongue of incandescent fury which licked out of
existence in the twinking of an eye the Bergenholms’ control panels and the operators
clustered before it. The vessel went inert—much work would have to be done before the
Boskonian flagship could again fly free!
These matters required only a fraction of a second. Well indeed it was that they
did not take longer, for the ever-mounting fury of the prime minister’s attack soon
necessitated more—much more—than an automatic block, however capable. But
Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman, Lensman of Lensmen had more—ever so much
more—than that!
He whirled, lips thinned over tight-set teeth in a savage fighting grin. Now he’d
see what this zwilnik was and what he had. No fear, no doubt of the outcome, entered
his mind. He had suffered such punishment as few minds have ever endured in learning
to ward off everything that Mentor, one of the mightiest intellects of this or of any other
universe, could send; but through that suffering he had learned. This unknown entity
was an able operator, of course, but he certainly had a thick, hard crust to think that he
could rub him out!
So thinking, the Lensman hurled a bolt of his own, a blast of power sufficient to
have slain a dozen men—and, amazedly, saw it rebound harmlessly from the premier’s
hard-held block.
Which of the two combatants was the more surprised it would be hard to say;
each had considered his own mind impregnable and invincible. Now, as the prime
minister perceived how astoundingly capable a foe he faced, he drove a thought toward
Eddore and the All-Highest.
Blocked!
Star A Star and the Arisian, then, were not two, but one!
He ordered the officers on duty to blast their Tyrant down. In vain. For, even so
early in that ultimately lethal struggle, he could not spare enough of his mind to control
effectively any outsider; and in a matter of seconds there were no minds left throughout
that entire room in any condition to be controlled.
For the first reverberations, the ricochets, the spent forces of the monster’s attack
against Kinnison’s shield had wrought grievously among the mentalities of all
bystanders. Those forces were deadly—deadly beyond telling—so inimical to and
destructive of intelligence that even their transformation products affected tremendously
the nervous systems of all within range.
Then, instants later, the spectacle of the detested and searingly feared Lens
scintillating balefully upon the wrist of their own ruler was an utterly inexpressible shock.