he felt so inclined; could think in the abstruse symbology of pure mathematics with a
cogency equalled by few minds in the universe. Both Lensmen perceived those
thoughts, but neither could understand or follow them. No mind not a member of the
Conference of Scientists could have done so.
“They can’t!” of a sudden the mathematician cackled, gleefully disdainful.
“Impossible—quite definitely impossible. There are laws governing such things,
Kinnison, my impetuous and ignorant young friend. The terminus of the necessary
hyper-tube could not be established within such proximity to the mass of the sun. This is
shown by . . .”
“Never mind the proof—the fact is enough,” Kinnison interposed, hastily. “How
close to the sun could it be established?”
“I couldn’t say, off-hand,” came the cautiously scientific reply. “More than one
astronomical unit, certainly, but the computation of the exact distance would require
some little time. It would, however, be an interesting, if minor, problem. I will solve it for
you, if you like, and advise you of the exact minimum distance.”
“Please do so—thanks a million,” and the Lensmen disconnected.
“The conceited old goat!” Haynes snorted. “I’d like to smack him down!”
“I’ve felt like it more than once, but it wouldn’t do any good. You’ve got to handle
him with gloves—besides, you can afford to make concessions to a man with a brain
like that.”
“I suppose so. But how about that infernal tube? Knowing that it can not be set
up within or very near Tellus helps some, but not enough. We’ve got to know where it
is—if it is. Can you detect it?”
“Yes. That is, I can’t, but the specialists can, I think. Wise of Medon would know
more about that than anyone else. Why wouldn’t it be a thought to call him over here?”
“It would that”, and it was done.
Wise of Medon and his staff came, conferred, and departed.
Sir Austin Cardynge solved his minor problem, reporting that the minimum
distance from the sun’s center to the postulated center of the terminus of the
vortex—actually, the geometrical origin of the three-dimensional figure which was the
hyper-plane of intersection—was one point two six four seven, approximately,
astronomical units; the last figure being tentative and somewhat uncertain because of
the rapidly-moving masses of Jupiter . . .
Haynes cut the tape—he had no time for an hour of mathematical
dissertation—and called in his execs.
“Full-globe detection of hyper-spatial tubes,” he directed, crisply. “Kinnison will
tell you exactly what he wants. Hipe!”
Shortly thereafter, five-man speedsters, plentifully equipped with new
instruments, flashed at full drive along courses carefully calculated to give the greatest
possible coverage in the shortest possible time.
Unobtrusively the loose planets closed in; close enough so that at least three or
four of them could reach any designated point in one minute or less. The outlying units
of Grand Fleet, too, were pulled in. That fleet was not actually mobilized—yet—but
every vessel in it was kept in readiness for instant action.
“No trace,” came the report from the Medonian surveyors, and Haynes looked at
Kinnison, quizzically.
“QX, chief—glad of it,” the Gray Lensman answered the unspoken query. “If it
was up, that would mean they were on the way. Hope they don’t get a trace for two
months yet. But I’m next-to-positive that that’s the way they’re coming and the longer
they put it off the better—there’s a possible new projector that will take a bit of doping
out. I’ve got to do a flit—can I have the Dauntless?”
“Sure—anything you want—she’s yours anyway.”
Kinnison went. And, wonder of wonders, he took Sir Austin Cardynge with him.
From solar system to solar system, from planet to planet, the mighty Dauntless hurtled
at the incomprehensible velocity of her full maximum blast; and every planet so visited
was the home world of one of the most cooperative—or, more accurately, one of the
least non-cooperative—members of the Conference of Scientists. For days brilliant but
more or less unstable minds struggled with new and obdurate problems; struggled
heatedly and with friction, as was their wont. Few if any of those mighty intellects would
have really enjoyed a quietly studious session, even had such a thing been possible.
Then Kinnison returned his guests to their respective homes and shot his flying
warship-laboratory back to Prime Base. And, even before the Dauntless landed, the first
few hundreds of a fleet which was soon to be numbered in the millions of meteor-
miners’ boats began working like beavers to build a new and exactly-designed system
of asteroid belts of iron meteors.
And soon, as such things go, new structures began to appear here and there in
the void. Comparatively small, these things were; tiny, in fact, compared to the Patrol’s
maulers. Unarmed, too; carrying nothing except defensive screen. Each was,
apparently, simply a power-house; stuffed skin full of atomic motors, exciters, intakes,
and generators of highly peculiar design and pattern. Unnoticed except by gauntly
haggard Thorndyke and his experts, who kept dashing from one of the strange craft to
another, each took its place in a succession of precisely-determined relationships to the
sun.
Between the orbits of Mars and of Jupiter, the new, sharply-defined rings of
asteroids moved smoothly. Most of Grand Fleet formed an enormous hollow
hemisphere. Throughout all nearby space the surveying speedsters and flitters rushed
madly hither and yon. Uselessly, apparently, for not one needle of the vortex-detectors
stirred from its zero-pin.
As nearly as possible at the Fleet’s center there floated the flagship. Technically
the Z9M9Z, socially the Directrix, ordinarily simply GFHQ, that ship had been built
specifically to control the operations of a million separate flotillas. At her million-plug
board stood—they had no need, ever, to sit— two hundred blocky, tentacle-armed
Rigellians. They were waiting, stolidly motionless.
Intergalactic space remained empty. Interstellar ditto, ditto. The flitters flitted,
fruitlessly.
But if everything out there in the threatened volume of space seemed quiet and
serene, things in the Z9M9Z were distinctly otherwise. Haynes and Kinnison, upon
whom the heaviest responsibilities rested, were tensely ill at ease.
The admiral had his formation made, but he did not like it at all. It was too big, too
loose, too cumbersome. The Boskonian fleet might appear anywhere, and it would take
him far, far too long to get any kind of a fighting formation made, anywhere. So he
worried. Minutes dragged—he wished that the pirates would hurry up and start
something!
Kinnison was even less easy in his mind. He was not afraid of negaspheres,
even if Boskonia should have them; but he was afraid of fortified, mobile planets. The
super-maulers were big and powerful, of course, but they very definitely were not
planets; and the big, new idea was mighty hard to jell. He didn’t like to bother Thorndyke
by calling him—the master technician had troubles of his own—but the reports that were
coming in were none too cheery. The excitation was wrong or the grid action was too
unstable or the screen potentials were too high or too low or too something. Sometimes
they got a concentration, but it was just as apt as not to be a spread flood instead of a
tight beam. To Kinnison, therefore, the minutes fled like seconds—but every minute that
space remained clear was one more precious minute gained.
Then, suddenly, it happened. A needle leaped into significant figures. Relays
clicked, a bright red light flared into being, a gong clanged out its raucous warning. A
fractional instant later ten thousand other gongs in ten thousand other ships came
brazenly to life as the discovering speedster automatically sent out its number and
position; and those other ships—surveyors all—flashed toward that position and dashed
frantically about. Theirs the task to determine, in the least number of seconds possible,
the approximate location of the center of emergence.
For Port Admiral Haynes, canny old tactician that he was, had planned his
campaign long since. It was standing plain in his tactical tank—to englobe the entire
space of emergence of the foe and to blast them out of existence before they could
maneuver. If he could get into formation before the Boskonians appeared it would be a
simple slaughter—if not, it might be otherwise. Hence seconds counted; and hence he
had had high-speed computers working steadily for weeks at the computation of
courses for every possible center of emergence.
“Get me that center—fast!” Haynes barked at the surveyors, already blasting at
maximum.
It came in. The chief computer yelped a string of numbers. Selected loose-leaf
binders were pulled down, yanked apart, and distributed on the double, leaf by leaf.
And:
“Get it over there! Especially the shock-globe!” the Port Admiral yelled.
For he himself could direct the engagement only in broad; details must be left to
others. To be big enough to hold in any significant relationship the millions of lights
representing vessels, fleets, planets, structures, and objectives, the Operations tank of
the Directrix had to be seven hundred feet in diameter; and it was a sheer physical