Gray Lensman (10 page)

Luck!"

"Thanks, chief!"

"Down the hatch!" and again the Gray Lensman was gone. To the spaceport, into his speedster, and away—hurtling through the void at the maximum blast of the fastest space-flyer then boasted by the Galactic Patrol.

During the long trip Kinnison exercised, thought, and studied spool after spool of tape—the Radeligian language. Thoughts of the red-headed nurse obtruded themselves strongly at times, but he put them aside resolutely. He was, he assured himself, off of women forever—all women. He cultivated his new beard; trimming it, with the aid of a triple mirror and four stereoscopic photographs, into something which, although neat and spruce enough, was too full and bushy by half to be a Van Dyke. Also, he moved his Lens-bracelet up his arm and rayed the white skin thus exposed until his whole wrist was the same even shade of tan.

He did not drive his speedster to Radelix, for that racy little fabrication would have been recognized anywhere for what she was; and private citizens simply did not drive ships of that type. Therefore, with every possible precaution of secrecy, he landed her in a Patrol base four solar systems away. In that base Kimball Kinnison disappeared; but the tail, shock-haired, bushy-bearded Chester Q. Fordyce—cosmopolite, man of leisure, and dilettante in science—who took the next space-liner for Radelix was not precisely the same individual who had come to that planet a few days before with that name and those unmistakable characteristics.

Mr. Chester Q. Fordyce, then, and not Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison, disembarked at Ardith, the world-capital of Radelix. He took up his abode at the Hotel Ardith-Splendide and proceeded, with neither too much nor too little fanfare, to be his cosmopolitan self in those circles of society in which, wherever he might find himself, he was wont to move.

As a matter of course he entertained, and was entertained by, the Tellurian Ambassador.

Equally as a matter of course he attended divers and sundry functions, at which he made the acquaintance of hundreds of persons, many of them personages. That one of these should have been Lieutenant-Admiral Gerrond, Lensman in charge of the Patrol's Radeligian base, was inevitable.

It was, then, a purely routine and logical development that at a reception one evening Lensman Gerrond stopped to chat for a moment with Mr. Fordyce; and it was purely accidental that the nearest bystander was a few yards distant Hence, Mr. Fordyce's conduct was strange enough.

"Gerrond!" he said without moving his lips and
in
a tone almost inaudible, the while he was proffering an Alsakanite cigarette. "Don't look at me particularly right now, and don't show surprise. Study me for the next few minutes, then put your Lens on me and tell me whether you have ever seen me before or not." Then, glancing at the watch upon his left wrist—a timepiece just about as large and as ornate as a wrist-watch could be and still remain in impeccable taste—

he murmured something conventional and strolled away.

Ten minutes passed and he felt Gerrond's thought. A peculiar sensation, this, being on the receiving end of a single beam, instead of using his own Lens.

"As far as I can tell, I have never seen you before. You are certainly not one of our agents, and if you are one of Haynes’ whom I have ever worked with you have done a wonderful job of disguising. I must have met you somewhere, sometime, else there would be no point to your question; but beyond the evident—and admitted—fact that you are a white Tellurian, I can't seem to place you."

"Does this help?" This question was shot through Kinnison's own Lens.

"Since I have known so few Tellurian Lensmen it tells me that you must be Kinnison, but I do not recognize you at all readily. You seem changed—older—besides, who ever heard of an Unattached Lensman doing the work of an ordinary agent?"

"I am both older and changed—partly natural and partly artificial. As for the work, it's a job that no ordinary agent can handle—it takes a lot of special equipment. . ."

"You've got
that,
indubitably! I get goose-flesh yet every time I think of that trial."

"You think I'm proof against recognition, then, as long as I don't use my Lens?" Kinnison stuck to the issue.

"Absolutely so. . . You're here, then, on thionite?" No other is sue, Gerrond knew, could be grave enough to account for this man's presence. "But your wrist? I studied it. You can't have worn your Lens there for months—those Tellurian bracelets leave white streaks an inch wide."

"I tanned it with a pencil-beam. Nice job, eh? But what I want to ask you about is a little cooperation—as you supposed, I'm here to work on this drug ring."

"Surely—anything we can do. But Narcotics is handling that, not us—but you know that, as well as I do . . ." the officer broke off, puzzled.

"I know. That's why I want you—that and because you handle the secret service. Frankly, I'm scared to death of leaks. For that reason I'm not saying anything to anyone except Lensmen, and I'm having no dealings with anyone connected with Narcotics. I have as unimpeachable an identity as Haynes could furnish. . .."

"There's no question as to its adequacy, then," the Radeligian interposed.

"I'd like to have you pass the word around among your boys and girls that you know who I am and that I'm safe to play with. That way, if Boskone's agents spot me, it will be for an agent of Haynes's, and not for what I really am. That's the first thing. Candor

"Easily and gladly. Consider it done. Second?"

"To have a boat-load of good, tough marines on hand if I should call you. There are some Valerians coming over later but I may need help in the meantime. I may want to start a fight—quite possibly even a riot."

"They'll be ready, and they'll be big, tough, and hard. Anything else?"

"Not just now, except for one question. You know Countess Avondrin, the woman I was dancing with a while ago. Got any dope on her?"

"Certainly not—what do you mean?"

"Huh? Don't you know even that she's a Boskonian agent of some kind?"

"Man, you're crazy! She isn't an agent, she can't be. Why, she's the daughter of a Planetary Councillor, the wife of one of our most loyal officers."

"She would be—that's the type they like to get hold of."

"Prove it!" the Admiral snapped. "Prove it or retract it!" He almost lost his poise, almost looked toward the distant corner in which the bewhiskered gentleman was sitting so idly.

"QX. If she isn't an agent, why is she wearing a thought-screen? You haven't tested her, of course."

Of course not. The amenities, as has been said, demanded that certain reserves of privacy remain inviolate. The Tellurian went on:

"You didn't, but I did. On this job I can recognize nothing of good taste, of courtesy, of chivalry, or even of ordinary common decency. I suspect
everyone
who does not wear a Lens."

"A thought-screen!" exclaimed Gerrond. "How could she, without armor?"

"It's a late model—brand new. Just as good and just as powerful as the one I myself am wearing," Kinnison explained. "The mere fact that she's wearing it gives me a lot of highly useful information."

"What do you want me to do about her?" the Admiral asked. He was mentally a-squirm, but he was a Lensman.

"Nothing whatever—except possibly, for our own information, to find out how many of her friends have become thionite-sniffers lately. If you do anything you may warn them, although I know nothing definite about which to caution you. I'll handle her. Don't worry too much, though; I don't think she's anybody we really want. Afraid she's small fry—no such luck as that I'd get hold of a big one so soon."

"I hope she s small fry," Gerrond's thought was a grimace of distaste. "I hate Boskonia as much as anybody does, but I don't relish the idea o£ having to put that girl into the Chamber."

"If my picture is half right she can't amount to much," Kinnison replied. "A good lead is the best I can expect . . . Ill see what I can do."

For days, then, the searching Lensman pried into minds: so insidiously that he left no trace of his invasions. He examined men and women, of high and low estate. Waitresses and ambassadors, flunkeys and bankers, ermined prelates and truck-drivers. He went from city to city. Always, but with only a fraction of his brain, he played the part of Chester Q. Fordyce; ninety-nine percent of his stupendous mind was probing, searching, and analyzing. Into what charnel pits of filth and corruption he delved, into what fastnesses of truth and loyalty and high courage and ideals, must be left entirely to the imagination; for the Lensman never has spoken and never will speak of these things.

He went back to Ardith and, late at night, approached the dwelling of Count Avondrin. A servant arose and admitted the visitor, not knowing then or ever that he did so. The bedroom door was locked from the inside, but what of that? What resistance can any mechanism offer to a master craftsman, plentifully supplied with tools, who can perceive every component part, however deeply buried?

The door opened. The Countess was a light sleeper, but before she could utter a single scream one powerful hand clamped her mouth, another snapped the switch of her supposedly carefully concealed thought-screen generator. What followed was done very quickly.

Mr. Fordyce strolled back to his hotel and Lensman Kinnison directed a thought at Lensman Gerrond.

"Better fake up some kind of an excuse for having a couple of guards or policemen in front of Count Avondrin's town house at eight twenty five this morning. The Countess is going to have a brainstorm."

"What
have
. . . er, what will she do?"

"Nothing much. Scream a bit, rush out-of-doors half dressed, and fight anything and everybody that touches her. Warn the officers that she'll kick, scratch, and bite. There will be plenty of signs of a prowler having been in her room, but if they can find him they're good—
very
good. She'll have all the signs and symptoms, even to the puncture, of having been given a shot in the arm of something the doctors won't be able to find or to identify. But there will be no question raised of insanity or of any other permanent damage—she'll be right as rain in a couple of months."

"Oh, that mind-ray machine of yours again, eh? And that's all you're going to do to her?"

"That's all. I can let her off easy and still be just, I think. She's helped me a lot. She'll be a good girl from now on, too; I've thrown a scare into her that will last her the rest of her life."

"Fine business, Gray Lensman! What else?"

"I'd like to have you at the Tellurian Ambassador's Ball day after tomorrow, if it's convenient."

"I've been planning on it, since it's on the 'must' list. Shall I bring anything or anyone special?"

"No. I just want you on hand to give me any information you can on a person who will probably be there to investigate what happened to the Countess."

"Ill be there," and he was.

It was a gay and colorful throng, but neither of the two Lensmen was in any mood for gayety. They acted, of course. They neither sought nor avoided each other; but, somehow, they were never alone together.

"Man or woman?" asked Gerrond.

"I don't know. All I've got is the recognition."

The Radeligian did not ask what that signal was to be. Not that he was not curious; but if the Gray Lensman wanted him to know it he would tell him—if not, he wouldn't tell him even if he asked.

Suddenly the Radeligian's attention was wrenched toward the doorway, to see the most marvelously, the most flawlessly beautiful woman he had ever seen. But not long did he contemplate that beauty; for the Tellurian Lensman's thoughts were fairly seething, despite his iron control.

"Do you mean . . . you can't mean . . ." Gerrond faltered.

"She's the one!" Kinnison rasped. "She looks like an angel, but take it from me, she isn't.

She's one of the slimiest snakes that ever crawled—she's so low she could put on a tall silk hat and walk under a duck. I know she's beautiful. She's a riot, a seven-section callout, a thionite dream. So what? She is also Dessa Desplaines, formerly of Aldebaran IL Does that mean anything to you?"

"Not a thing, Kinnison."

"She's in it, clear to her neck. I had a chance to wring her neck once, too, damn it all, and didn't. She's got a carballoy crust, coming here now, with all our Narcotics on the job . . . wonder if they think they've got Enforcement so badly whipped that they can get away with stuff as rough as this . . . sure you don't know her, or know of her?"

"I never saw her before, or heard of her."

"Perhaps she isn't known, out this way. Or maybe they think they're ready for a show-down . . . or don't care. But her being here ties me up in hard knots—
she'll
recognize me, for all the tea in China. You know the Narcotics' Lensmen, don't you?"

"Certainly."

"Call one of them, right now. Tell him that Dessa Desplaines, the zwilnik5 houri, is right here on the floor . . . What? He doesn't know her, either? And none of our boys are Lensmen!

Make it a three-way. Lensman Winstead? Kinnison of Sol in, Unattached. Sure that none of you recognize this picture?" and he transmitted a perfect image of the ravishing creature then moving regally across the floor. "Nobody does? Maybe that's why she's here, then—they thought she could get away with it She's your meat—come and get her."

5Any entity connected with the illicit drug traffic. E.E.S.

"You'll appear against her, of course?"

"If necessary—but it won't be. As soon as she sees the game's up, all hell will be out for noon."

As soon as the connection had been broken, Kinnison realized that the thing could not be done that way; that he could not stay out of it. No man alive save himself could prevent her from flashing a warning—badly as he hated to, he had to do it Gerrond glanced at him curiously: he had received a few of those racing thoughts.

"Tune in on this." Kinnison grinned wryly. "If the last meeting I had with her is any criterion, it ought to be good. S'pose anybody around here understands Aldebaranian?”

“Never heard it mentioned if they do."