‘You mean to tell me that that bleached blonde over there won’t spill everything she knows fifteen minutes after we leave here?’ Cloud demanded.
‘Just that. You can’t judge character by hair, even if it were bleached, which it isn’t. You owe her an apology, Storm.”
‘If you say so, I do, and I hereby apologize, but…’
‘But to get back to the subject,’ the Lensman went on, narrowing his thought down so sharply as to exclude Joan, ‘You can do something. You’re the only one who can. Such being the case, and since you are no longer indispensable, I withdraw all objections. Go ahead.’
Cloud started a thought, but Joan blanked him out. ‘Lensman, has Storm been sending—can he send information to you that 7 can’t dig out of his mind ?’
‘Very easily. He is an exceptionally fine tuner.’
‘I’m sorry, Joanie,’ Cloud thought, hastily, ‘but it sounded too much like bragging to let you in on. However, you’re in from now on.’
Then, aloud, ‘Vesta, I’m staying with you,’ he said, quietly.
‘I was sure you would,’ she said, as quietly. “You are my friend and Zamke’s. Although your customs are not exactly like ours, a man of your odor does not desert his friends.’
Cloud turned then to the four lieutenants, who stood close-grouped. ‘Will you four kids please go back to the ship, and take Joan with you?”
‘Not on Thursdays, Storm,’ Joe said, pointing to an incon-
166
spicuous bronze button set into a shoulder-strap. “We both rate Blaster Expert First. Count us in,’ and Bob added:
‘Joan has been telling us an earful, and what she didn’t tell us a couple of Vegian boys did, The Three Honorary Vegian Musketeers; that’s us. Lead on, d’Artagnan!’ ‘Bob and Joe are staying, too, Vesta.’ Cloud said then. ‘Of course. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you myself about being adopted, but I knew somebody would. But you, Joan and Barbara and Helen, you three had better go back to the ship. You can be of no use here.’
Two of them were willing enough to go, but: ‘Where Neal Cloud goes, I go,’ Joan said, and there was no doubt whatever that she meant exactly that.
‘Why?’ Vesta demanded. ‘Commander Cloud, the fastest gunman in all space, is necessary for the success of this our mission. He can, from a cold, bell-tone start, at thirty yards, burn the centers out of six irregularly-spaced targets …’
‘Nordquist! Lay off! What in hell do you think you’re doing?’ Cloud thought, viciously.
‘I don’t think—I know’ came instant reply. ‘Do you want her hanging on your left arm when the blasting starts? This is the only possible way Joan Janowick can be handled. Lay off yourself!’ and Vesta’s voice went calmly on:
‘… in exactly two hundred and forty nine mils. Lieutenant Mackay and Lieutenant Ingalls, although perhaps not absolutely necessary, are highly desirable. They are fast enough, and are of deadly accuracy. When either of them shoots a man in a crowd, however large, that one man dies, and not a dozen bystanders. Now just what good would you be, Lieutenant-Commander Janowick? Can you fire a blaster with any one of these men? Or bite a man’s throat out with me?’
For probably the first time in her life, Joan Janowick stood mute.
‘And suppose you do come along,’ Vesta continued relentlessly. ‘With you at his side, in the line of fire, do you suppose …’
‘Just a minute—shut up, Vesta!’ Cloud ordered, roughly. ‘Listen, all of you. The Lensman is doing this, not Vesta, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anybody, not even a Lensman, bedevil my Joan this way. So, Joan, wherever we go, you can come along. All I ask is, you’ll keep a little ways back?’
167
‘Of course I will, Storm,’ and Joan crept into the shelter of his arm.
‘Ha—I thought you’d pop off at about this point,’ Nordquist’s thought came chattily into Cloud’s mind. ‘Good work, my boy; you’ve consolidated your position no end.’
‘Well, what do we do now?’ Joe Mackay broke the somewhat sticky silence that followed.
‘We wait,” Vesta said, calmly. ‘We wait right here until we receive news.’
They waited; and, as they waited the tension mounted and mounted. Before it became intolerable, however, the news came in, and Cloud, reading Vesta’s mind as the ultra-sonic information was received, relayed it to other Tellurians. The murderer and his four bodyguards were at that moment entering a theater less than one city block away …
‘Why, they couldn’t be!’ Helen protested. ‘Nobody could be that stupid … or … I wonder …?’
‘I wonder, too.’ This from Joan. “Yes, it would be the supremely clever thing to do; the perfect place to hide for a few hours while the worst of the storm blows over and they can complete their planned getaway. Provided, of course, they’re out-worlders and thus don’t know what we Vegians can do with our wonderful sense of smell. Of course they aren’t an Aldebarian and four Tellurians any more, are they?’
‘No, they are five Centralians now. Perfectly innocent. They think their blasters are completely hidden under those long over shins, but now and again a bulge shows—they’ve still got blasters on their hips. The theater’s crowded, but the five friends want to sit together. The manager thinks it could be arranged, by paying a small gratuity to a few seat holders who would like to make a fast credit that way … he’ll place them and it’s almost time for us to go. ‘Bye, Joanie—stay back, remember !’ and she was in his arms.
‘How about it, Helen?’ Joe asked. ‘Surely you’re going to kiss your Porthos goodbye, aren’t you?’
‘Of a surety, m’enfant!’ she exclaimed, and did so with enthusiasm. ‘But it’s more like Aramis, I think—he kissed everybody, you know—and since I’m not hooked like Joan is—yet— don’t think that this is establishing a precedent.’
‘Well, Babs, that leaves you and me.’ Bob reached out—she was standing beside him—and pulled her close. ‘QX ?’
168
‘Why, I … I guess so.’ Barbara blushed furiously. “But Bob … is it really dangerous?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know. Not very, really, I don’t think. At least I certainly hope not. But blasters are not cap-pistols, you know, and whenever one goes off it can raise pure hell. Why? Would you really miss me?’
‘You know I would, Bob,’ and her kiss had more fervor than either she or he would have believed possible a few minutes before. And at its end she laughed, shakily, and blushed again as she said, ‘I’ve got sort of used to having you around, so be sure and come back.’
They left the building and walked rapidly along a strangely quiet street to the theater. Without a word they were ushered up a short flight of stairs.
‘Hold up, Vesta!’ Cloud thought sharply. ‘We can’t see a thing—wait a couple of minutes.’
They waited five minutes, during which time they learned exactly where the enemy were and discussed every detail of the proposed attack.
‘I still can’t see well enough to shoot,’ Cloud said then. ‘Can they give us a little glow of light?’
They could. By almost imperceptible increments the thick, soft blackness was relieved.
‘That’s enough.’ The light, such as it was, steadied. ‘Ready?’ Vesta’s voice was a savage growl, low, deep in her throat. ‘Ready.’
‘No more noise, then.’
They walked forward to the balcony’s edge, leaned over it, looked down. Directly beneath Vesta’s head was seated a man in Centralian garb; four others were behind, in front of, and at each side of, their chief.
‘Now!’ Vesta yelled, and flung herself over the low railing. At her shout four Vegians ripped four Centralian shirts apart, seized four hip-holstered blasters, and shouted with glee—but they shouted too soon. For the real gun-slick, then as now, did not work from the hip, but out of his sleeve; and these were four of the coldest, fastest killers to be found throughout the far flung empire of Boskone. Thus, all four flashed into action even before they began rising to their feet.
But so did Storm Cloud; and his heavy weapon was already
169
out and ready. He knew what those hands were doing, in the instant of their starting to do it, and his DeLameter flamed three times in what was practically one very short blast. He had to move a little before he could sight on the fourth guard—Vesta’s furiously active body was in the way—so Joe and Bob each got a shot, too. Three bolts of lightning hit that luckless wight at once, literally cremating him in air as he half-crouched, bringing his blaster to bear on the catapulting thing attacking his boss.
When Vesta went over the rail she did not jump to the floor below. Instead, her hands locked on the edge; her feet dug into the latticework of the apron. She squatted. Her tail flashed down, wrapping itself twice around the zwilnik’s neck. She heaved, then, and climbed with everything she had; and as she stood upright on the railing, eager hands reached down to help her tail lift its burden up into the balcony. The man struck the floor with a thud and Vesta jumped at him.