The heavy metal of the door was glowing bright-to-dull red “over half its area, and that area was spreading rapidly. The air of the room grew hot and hotter. Bursts of live steam billowed out and, condensing, fogged the helmets.
The glowing metal dulled, brightened, dulled. The prisoners could only guess at the intensity of the battle being waged. They could follow its progress only by the ever-shifting temperature of the barrier which the zwilniks were so suicidally determined to bum down. For hours, it seemed, the conflict raged. The thuddings and jarrings grew worse. The water, which had been
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a trickle, was now a stream and scalding hot.
Then a blast of bitterly cold air roared from the ventilator, clearing away the gas and steam, and the speaker came to life.
‘Good work, Cloud and you other two,’ it said, chattily. ‘Glad to see you’re all on deck. Get into this corner over here, so the zwilniks won’t hit you when they hole through. They won’t have time to locate you—we’ve got a semi right at the corner now.’
The door grew hotter, flamed fiercely white. A narrow pencil sizzled through, burning steel sparkling away in all directions— but only for a second. It expired. Through the hole there flared the reflection of a beam brilliant enough to pale the noon-day sun. The portal cooled; heavy streams of water hissed and steamed. Hot water began to spurt into the cell. An atomic-hydrogen cutting torch sliced away the upper two-thirds of the fused and battered door. The grotesquely-armored lieutenant peered in.
‘They tell me all three of you are QX. Check?’
‘Check.’
‘Good. We’ll have to carry you out. Step up here where we can get hold of you.’
‘I’ll walk and I’ll carry Jackie myself,’ Ryder protested, while two of the armored warriors were draping Cloud tastefully around the helmet of a third.
‘You’d get boiled to the hips—this water is deep and hot. Come on!’
The slowly rising water was steaming; the walls and ceiling of the corridor gave mute but eloquent testimony of the appalling forces that had been unleashed. Tile, concrete, plastic, metal —nothing was as it had been. Cavities yawned. Plates and pilasters were warped, crumbled, fused into hellish stalactites; bare girders hung awry. In places complete collapse had necessitated the blasting out of detours.
Through the wreckage of what had been a magnificent building the cavalcade made its way, but when the open air was reached the three rescued ones were not released. Instead, they were escorted by a full platoon of soldiery to an armored car, which was in turn escorted to the Patrol station.
‘I’m afraid to take chances with you until we find out who’s who and what’s what around here,’ the young commander explained. ‘The Lensmen will be here in the morning, with half
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an army, so I think you’d better spend the rest of the night here, don’t you?’
‘Protective custody, eh?’ Cloud grinned. ‘I’ve never been arrested in such a polite way before, but it’s QX with me. You, too, I take it?’
‘Us, too, decidedly,” Ryder assented. ‘This is a very nice jail-house, especially in comparison with where we’ve …’
‘I’ll say so!” Jackie broke in, giggling almost hysterically. ‘I never thought I’d be tickled to death at getting arrested, but I am!’
Lensmen came, and companies of Patrolmen equipped in various fashions, but it was several weeks before the situation was completely clarified. Then Ellington—Councillor Ellington, the Unattached Lensman in charge of all Narcotics—called the three into the office.
“How about Graves and Fairchild?’ Cloud demanded before the councillor could speak.
‘Both dead,’ Ellington said. ‘Graves was shot down just as he took off, but he blasted Fairchild first, just as he intimated he would. There wasn’t enough of Fairchild left for positive identification, but it couldn’t very well have been anyone else. Nobody left alive seems to know much of anything of the real scope of the thing, so we can release you three now. Thanks, from me as well as the Patrol. There is some talk that you two youngsters have been contemplating a honeymoon out Chick-ladoria way?’
‘Oh, no, sir—that is …” Both spoke at once. ‘That was just talk, sir.’
‘I realize that the report may have been exaggerated, or premature, or both. However, not as a reward, but simply in appreciation, the Patrol would be very glad to have you as its guests throughout such a trip—all expenses—if you like.’
They liked.
‘Thank you. Lieutenant, please take Miss Cochran and Mr. Ryder to the disbursing office. Dr. Cloud, the Patrol will take cognizance of what you have done. In the meantime, however, I would like to say that in uncovering this thing you have been of immense assistance to us.’
‘Nothing much sir, I’m afraid. I shudder to think of what’s coming. If zwilniks can grow Trenconian broadleaf anywhere …’
4?
‘Not at all, not at all,’ Ellington interrupted. ‘If such an entirely unsuspected firm as Tellurian Pharmaceuticals, with all their elaborate preparations and precautions, could not do much more than start, it is highly improbable that any other attempt will be a success. You have given us a very potent weapon against zwil-nik operations—not only thionite, but heroin, ladolian, nitrolabe, and the rest.’
‘What weapon?” Cloud was puzzled.
‘Statistical analysis and correlation of apparently unrelated indices.’
‘But they’ve been used for years!’
‘Not the way you used them, my friend. Thus, while we cannot count upon any more such extraordinary help as you gave us, we should not need any. Can I give you a lift back to Tellus?’
‘I don’t think so, thanks. My stuff is en route now. I’ll have to blow out this vortex anyway. Not that I think there’s anything unusual about it—those were undoubtedly murders, not vortex casualties at all—but for the record. Also, since I can’t do any more exinguishing until my arm finishes itself up, I may as well stay here and keep on practising.’
‘Practising? Practising what?’
‘Gun-slinging—the lightning draw. I intend to get at least a lunch while the next pirate who pulls a DeLameter on me is getting a square meal.’
And Councillor Ellington conferred with another Gray Lens-man; one who was not even vaguely humanoid.
‘Did you take him apart?’
‘Practically cell by cell.’
‘What do you think the chances are of finding and developing another like him?’
‘With a quarter of a million Lensmen working on it now, and the number doubling every day, and with a hundred thousand million planets, with almost that many different cultures, it is my considered opinion that it is merely a matter of time.’
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5: The Boneheads
Since becoming the Vortex Blaster, Neal Cloud lived alone. Whenever he decently could, he traveled alone and worked alone. He was alone now, hurtling through a barren region of space toward Rift Seventy One and the vortex next upon his list. In the interests of solitude, convenience, and efficiency he was now driving a scout-class ship which had been converted to one-man and automatic operation. In one hold was his vortex blasting flitter; in the others his duodec bombs and other supplies.
During such periods of inaction as this, he was wont to think flagellantly of Jo and the three kids; especially of Jo. Now, however, and much to his surprise and chagrin, the pictures which had been so vividly clear were beginning to fade. Unless he concentrated consciously, his thoughts strayed elsewhere: to the last meeting of the Society; to the new speculations as to the why and how of supernovae; to food; to bowling—maybe he’d better start that again, to see if he couldn’t make his hook roll smoothly into the one-two pocket instead of getting so many seven-ten splits. Back to food—for the first time in the Vortex Blaster’s career he was really hungry.
Which buttons would he push for supper? Steak and Venerian mushrooms would be mighty good. So would fried ham and eggs, or high-pressured gameliope …
An alarm bell jangled, rupturing the silence; a warm-blooded oxygen-breather’s distress call, pitifully weak, was coming in. It would have to be weak, Cloud reflected, as he tuned it in as sharply as he could; he was a good eighty-five parsecs—at least an hour at maximum blast—away from the nearest charted traffic lane. It was getting stronger. It hadn’t just started, then; he had just gotten into its range. He acknowledged, swung his little ship’s needle nose into the line and slammed on full drive. He had not gone far on the new course however, when a tiny but brilliant flash of light showed on his plate and the distress-call stopped. Whatever had occurred was history.
Cloud had to investigate, of course. Both written and unwritten laws are adamant that every call must be heeded by any warm-blooded oxygen-breather receiving it, of whatever race
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or class or tonnage or upon whatever mission bound. He broadcast call after call of his own. No reply. He was probably the only being in space who had been within range.