went. It was a peculiar sensation, this being out of harness—it felt good, though, at
that— and upon arriving at the bank she found to her surprise that she was both well
known and expected. An officer whom she had never seen before greeted her cordially
and led her into his private office.
“We have been wondering why you didn’t pick up your kit, Lensman
MacDougall,” he went on, briskly. “Sign here, please, and press your right thumb in this
box here, after peeling off this plastic strip, so.” She wrote in her boldly flowing script,
and peeled, and pressed; and watched fascinatedly as her thumb-print developed itself
sharply black against the bluish off-white of the Patrol’s stationery. “That transfers your
balance upon Tellus to the Patrol’s general fund. Now sign and print this, in
quadruplicate . . . Thank you. Here’s your kit. When this book of slips is gone you can
get another one at any bank or Patrol station anywhere. It has been a real pleasure to
have met you, Lensman MacDougall; come in again whenever you happen to be upon
Thrale,” and he escorted her to the street as briskly as he had ushered her in.
Clarrissa felt slightly dazed. She had gone in there to get the couple of hundred
credits which represented her total wealth; but instead of getting it she had meekly
surrendered her savings to the Patrol and had been given—what? She leafed through
the little book. One hundred blue-white slips; small things, smaller than currency bills. A
little printing, two lines for description, a blank for figures, a space for signature, and a
plastic-covered oblong area for thumb-print. That was all—but what an all! Any one of
those slips, she knew, would be honored without hesitation or question for any amount
of cash money she pleased to draw; for any object or thing she chose to buy.
Anything—absolutely anything—from a pair of half-credit stockings up to and beyond a
hundred-million-credit space-ship. ANYTHING! The thought chilled her buoyant spirit,
took away her zest for shopping.
“Kim, I can’t!” she wailed through her Lens. “Why didn’t they give me my own
money and let me spend it the way I please?”
“Hold everything, ace—Til be with you in a sec.” He wasn’t—quite—but it was not
long. “You can get all the money you want, you know—just give them a chit.”
“I know, but all I wanted was my own money. I didn’t ask for this stuff!”
“None of that, Cris—when you get to be a Lensman you’ve got to take what goes
with it. Besides, if you spend money foolishly all the rest of your life, the Patrol knows
that it will still owe you plenty for what you did on Lyrane II. Where do you want to
begin?”
“Brenleer’s,” she decided, after she had been partially convinced. “They aren’t
the largest, but they give real quality at a fair price.”
At the shop the two Lensmen were recognized at sight and Brenleer himself did
the honors.
“Clothes,” the girl said succinctly, with an all-inclusive wave of her hand. “All
kinds of clothes, except white uniforms.”
They were ushered into a private room and Kinnison wriggled as mannequins
began to appear in various degrees of enclothement.
“This is no place for me,” he declared. “I’ll see you later, ace. How long—half an
hour or so?”
“Half an hour?” The nurse giggled, and:
“She will be here all the rest of today, and most of the time for a week,” the
merchant informed him severely—and she was.
“Oh, Kim, I’m having the most marvelous time!” she told him excitedly, a few
days later. “But it makes me feel sick to think of how much of the Patrol’s money I’m
spending.”
“That’s what you think.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” she demanded, but he would not talk.
She found out, however, after the long-drawn-out business of selecting and
matching and designing and fitting was over.
“You’ve only seen me in real clothes once, and that time you hardly looked at
me. Besides, I got myself all prettied up in the beauty shop.” She posed provocatively.
“Do you like me, Kim?”
“Like you!” The man could scarcely speak. She had been a seven-sector call-out
in faded moleskin breeches and a patched shirt. She had been a thionite dream in
uniform. But now—radiantly, vibrantly beautiful, a symphony in her favorite dark green .
. . “Words fail. ace. Thoughts, too. They fold up and quit. The universe’s best, is all I can
say . . .”
And—later—they sought out Brenleer.
“I would like to ask you to do me a tremendous favor,” he said, hesitantly, without
filling in any of the blanks upon the blue-white slip the girl had proffered. “If, instead of
paying for these things, you would write upon this voucher the date and ‘my fall outfit
and much of my trousseau were made by Brenleer of Thrale . . .'” His voice expired
upon a wistful note.
“Why . . . I never even thought of such a thing . . . would it be quite ethical, do
you think, Kim?”
“You said that he gives value for price, so I don’t see why not . . . Lots of things
they never let any of us pay for . . .” Then, to Brenleer, “Never thought of that angle, of
what a terrific draw she’d be . . . you’re figuring on displaying that chit unobtrusively in a
gold and platinum frame four feet square.”
Brenleer nodded. “Something like that. This will be the most fantastically lucky
break a man in my position ever had, if you approve of it.”
“I don’t see why not,” Kinnison said again. “You might as well give him a break,
Cris. What tore it was buying so much stuff here, not admitting the fact over your
signature and thumb-print.”
She wrote and they went out.
“You mean to tell me I’m so . . . so . . .”
“Famous? Notorious?” he helped out.
“Ufa-hull. Or words to that effect.” A touch of fear darkened her glorious eyes.
“All of that, and then some. I never thought of what your buying so much plunder
in one store would do, but it’d have the pulling power of a planetary tractor. It’s bad
enough with us regulars—half the chits we issue are never cashed—but you are
absolutely unique. The first Lady Lensman—the only Red Lensman—and what a
Lensman! Wow! As I think it over one gets you a hundred if any chit you ever sign ever
will get cashed. There have been collectors, you know, ever since Civilization
began—maybe before.”
“But I don’t like it!” she stormed.
“That won’t change the facts,” he countered, philosophically. “Are you ready to
flit? The Dauntless is hot, they tell me.”
“Uh-huh, all my stuff is aboard,” and soon they were en-route to Klovia.
The trip was uneventful, and even before they reached that transformed planet it
became evident that it was theirs from pole to pole. Their cruiser was met by a horde of
spaceships of all types and sizes, which formed a turbulent and demonstrative escort of
honor. The seething crowd at the space-port could scarcely be kept out of range of the
dreadnought’s searing landing-blasts. Half the brass bands of the world, it seemed,
burst into “Our Patrol” as the Lensmen disembarked, and their ground-car and the
street along which it slowly rolled were decorated lavishly with deep-blue flowers.
“Thorn-flowers!” Clarrissa choked. “Thralian thorn-flowers, Kim—how could
they?”
“They grow here as well as there, and when they found out that you liked them
so well they imported them by the shipload,” and Kinnison himself swallowed a lump.
Their brief stay upon Klovia was a hectic one indeed. Parties and balls, informal
and formal, and at least a dozen Telenews poses every day. Receptions, at which there
were presented the personages and the potentates of a thousand planets; at which the
uniforms and robes and gowns put the solar spectrum to shame.
And from tens of thousands of planets came Lensmen, to make or to renew
acquaintance with the Galactic Co-ordinator and to welcome into their ranks the
Lensman-bride. From Tellus, of course, they came in greatest number and enthusiasm,
but other planets were not too far behind. They came from Manarka and Velantia and
Chickladoria and Alsakan and Vandemar, from the worlds of Canopus and Vega and
Antares, from all over the galaxy. Human, near-human, non-human, monstrous; there
even appeared briefly quite large numbers of frigid-blooded Lensmen, whose fiercely-
laboring refrigerators chilled the atmosphere for yards around their insulated and
impervious suits. All those various beings came with a united purpose, with a common
thought—to congratulate Kinnison of Tellus and to wish his Lensman-mate all the luck
and all the happiness of the universe.
Kinnison was surprised at the sincerity with which they acclaimed him; he was
amazed at the genuineness and the tensity of their adoption of his Clarrissa as their