First Lensman by E. E. Smith (books to read to get smarter .TXT) 📗

even a good Number Two."

"A scratch!" Jill fairly seethed. "Do you call that horrible wound a scratch?"

"Huh? Why, certainly—that's all it is—thanks to you," he returned, in honest and complete surprise. "No bones shattered—no main arteries cut—missed the lung—he'll be as good as new in a couple of weeks."

"And now," he went on aloud, "if you ladies will please pick up this stretcher we will move en masse, and slowly, toward the door."

The women, no longer indignant but apparently enjoying the sensation of being the center of interest, complied with the request.

"Now, boys," Kinnison Lensed a thought. "Did any of you—Costigan?—see any signs of a concerted rush, such as there would have been to get the killer away if we hadn't interfered?"

"No, sir," came Costigan's brisk reply. "None within sight of me."

"Jack and Mase—I don't suppose you looked?"

They hadn't—had not thought of it in time.

"You'll learn. It takes a few things like this to make it automatic. But I couldn't see any, either, so I'm fairly certain there wasn't any. Smart operators—quick on the uptake."

"I'd better get at this, sir, don't you think, and let Operation Boskone go for a while?" Costigan asked.

"I don't think so." Kinnison frowned in thought. "This operation was planned, son, by people with brains. Any clues you could find now would undoubtedly be plants. No, we'll let the regulars look; we'll stick to our own ..."

Sirens wailed and screamed outside. Kinnison sent out an exploring thought.

"Alex?"

"Yes. Where do you want this ninety-sixty with the doctors and nurses? It's too wide for the gates."

"Go through the wall. Across the lawn. Right up to the door, and never mind the frippery they've got all over the place—have your adjutant tell them to bill us for damage. Samms is shot in the shoulder. Not too serious, but I'm taking him to the Hill, where I know he'll be safe. What have you got on top of the umbrella, the Boise or the Chicago? I haven't had time to look up yet."

"Both."

"Good man."

Jack Kinnison started at the monstrous tank, which was smashing statues, fountains, and ornamental trees flat into the earth as it moved ponderously across the grounds, and licked his lips. He looked at the companies of soldiers "frisking" the route, the grounds, and the crowd—higher up, at the hovering helicopters—still higher, at the eight light cruisers so evidently and so viciously ready to blast—higher still, at the long streamers of fire which, he now knew, marked the locations of the two most powerful engines of destruction ever built by man—and his face turned slowly white.

"Good Lord, Dad!" he swallowed twice. "I had no idea ... but they might, at that."

"Not 'might', son. They damn well would, if they could get here soon enough with heavy enough stuff." The elder Kinnison's jaw-muscles did not loosen, his darting eyes did not relax their vigilance for a fraction of a second as he Lensed the thought. "You boys can't be expected to know it all, but right now you're learning fast. Get this—paste it in your iron hats. Virgil Samms' life is the most important thing in this whole damned universe! If they had got him then it would not, strictly speaking, have been my fault, but if they get him now, it will be."

The land cruiser crunched to a stop against the very entrance, and a white-clad man leaped out.

"Let me look at him, please..."

"Not yet!" Kinnison denied, sharply. "Not until he's got four inches of solid steel between him and whoever wants to finish the job they started. Get your men around him, and get him aboard—fast!"

Samms, protected at every point at every instant, was lifted into the maw of the ninety-sixty; and as the massive door clanged shut Kinnison heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. The cavalcade moved away.

"Coming with us, Rod?" Commodore Clayton shouted.

"Yes, but got a couple minutes' work here yet. Have a staff car wait for me, and I'll join you." He turned to the three young Lensmen and the girl. "This fouls up our plans a little, but not too much—I hope. No change in Mateese or Boskone; you and Costigan, Jill, can go ahead as planned. Northrop, you'll have to brief Jill on Zwilnik and find out what she knows. Virgil was going to do it tonight, after the brawl here, but you know as much about it now as any of us. Check with Knobos, DalNalten, and Fletcher—while Virgil is laid up you and Jack may have to work on both Zabriska and Zwilnik—he'll Lens you. Get the dope, then do as you think best. Get going!" He strode away toward the waiting staff-car.

"Boskone? Zwilnik?" Jill demanded. "What gives? What are they, Jack?"

"We don't know yet—maybe we're going to name a couple of planets..."

"Piffle!" she scoffed. "Can you talk sense, Mase? What's Boskone?"

"A simple, distinctive, pronounceable coined word; suggested, I believe, by Dr. Bergenholm ..." he began.

"You know what I mean, you ..." she broke in, but was silenced by a sharply Lensed thought from Jack. His touch was very light, barely sufficient to make conversation possible; but even so, she flinched.

"Use your brain, Jill; you aren't thinking a lick—not that you can be blamed for it. Stop talking; there may be lip-readers or high-powered listeners around. This feels funny, doesn't it?" He twitched mentally and went on: "You already know what Operation Mateese is, since it's your own dish—politics. Operation Zwilnik is drugs, vice, and so on. Operation Boskone is pirates; Spud is running that. Operation Zabriska is Mase and me checking some peculiar disturbances in the sub-ether. Come in, Mase, and do your stuff—I'll see you later, aboard. Clear ether, Jill!"

Young Kinnison vanished from the fringes of her mind and Northrop appeared. And what a difference! His mind touched hers as gingerly as Jack's had done; as skittishly, as instantaneously ready to bolt away from anything in the least degree private. However, Jack's mind had rubbed hers the wrong way, right from the start—and Mase's didn't!

"Now, about this Operation Zwilnik," Jill began.

"Something else first. I couldn't help noticing, back there, that you and Jack ... well, not out of phase, exactly, or really out of sync, but sort of ... well, as though ..."

"'Hunting'?" she suggested.

"Not exactly ... 'forcing' might be better—like holding a tight beam together when it wants to fall apart. So you noticed it yourself?"

"Of course, but I thought Jack and I were the only ones who did. Like scratching a blackboard with your finger-nails—you can do it, but you're awfully glad to stop ... and I like Jack, too, darn it—at a distance."

"And you and I fit like precisely tuned circuits. Jack really meant it, then, when he said that you ... that is, he ... I didn't quite believe it until now, but if ... you know, of course, what you've already done to me."

Jill's block went on, full strength. She arched her eyebrows and spoke aloud—"why, I haven't the faintest idea!"

"Of course not. That's why you're using voice. I've found out, too, that I can't lie with my mind. I feel like a heel and a louse, with so much job ahead, but you've simply got to tell me something. Then—whatever you say—I'll hit the job with everything I've got. Do I get heaved out between planets without a space-suit, or not?"

"I don't think so." Jill blushed vividly, but her voice was steady. "You would rate a space-suit, and enough oxygen to reach another plan—another goal. And now we'd better get to work, don't you think?"

"Yes. Thanks, Jill, a million. I know as well as you do that I was talking out of turn, and how much—but I had to know." He breathed deep. "And that's all I ask—for now. Cut your screens."

She lowered her mental barriers, finding it surprisingly easy to do so in this case; let them down almost as far as she was in the habit of doing with her father. He explained in flashing thoughts everything he knew of the four Operations, concluding:

"I'm not assigned to Zabriska permanently; I'll probably work with you on Mateese after your father gets back into circulation. I'm to act more as a liaison man—neither Knobos nor DalNalten knows you well enough to Lens you. Right?"

"Yes, I've met Mr. Knobos only once, and have never even seen Dr. DalNalten."

"Ready to visit them, via Lens?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

The two Lensmen came in. They came into his mind, not hers. Nevertheless their thoughts, superimposed upon Northrop's, came to the girl as clearly as though all four were speaking to each other face to face.

"What a weird sensation!" Jill exclaimed. "Why, I never imagined anything like it!"

"We are sorry to trouble you, Miss Samms...." Jill was surprised anew. The silent voice deep within her mind was of characteristically Martian timber, but instead of the harshly guttural consonants and the hissing sibilants of any Martian's best efforts at English, pronunciation and enunciation were flawless.

"Oh, I didn't mean that. It's no trouble at all, really, I just haven't got used to this telepathy yet."

"None of us has, to any noticeable degree. But the reason for this call is to ask you if you have anything new, however slight, to add to our very small knowledge of Zwilnik?"

"Very little, I'm afraid; and that little is mostly guesses, deductions, and jumpings at conclusions. Father told you about the way I work, I suppose?"

"Yes. Exact data is not to be expected. Hints, suggestions, possible leads, will be of inestimable value."

"Well, I met a very short, very fat Venerian, named Ossmen, at a party at the European Embassy. Do either of you know him?"

"I know of him," DalNalten replied. "A highly reputable merchant, with such large interests on Tellus that he has to spend most of his time here. He is not in any one of our books ... although there is nothing at all surprising in that fact. Go on, please, Miss Samms."

"He didn't come to the party with Senator Morgan; but he came to some kind of an agreement with him that night, and I am pretty sure that it was about thionite. That's the only new item I have."

"Thionite!" The three Lensmen were equally surprised.

"Yes. Thionite. Definitely."

"How sure are you of this, Miss Samms?" Knobos asked, in deadly earnest.

"I am not sure that this particular agreement was about thionite, no; but the probability is roughly nine-tenths. I am sure, however, that both Senator Morgan and Ossmen know a lot about thionite that they want to hide. Both gave very high positive reactions—well beyond the six-sigma point of virtual certainty."

There was a pause, broken by the Martian, but not by a thought directed at any one of the three.

"Sid!" he called, and even Jill could feel the Lensed thought speed.

"Yes, Knobos? Fletcher."

"That haul-in you made, out in the asteroids. Heroin, hadive, and ladolian, wasn't it? No thionite involved anywhere?"

"No thionite. However, you must remember that part of the gang got away, so all I can say positively is that we didn't see, or hear about, any thionite. There was some gossip, of course: but you know there always is."

"Of course. Thanks, Sid." Jill could feel the brilliant Martian's mental gears whirl and click. Then he went into such a flashing exchange of thought with the Venerian that the girl lost track in seconds.

"One more question, Miss Samms?" DalNalten asked. "Have you detected any indications that there may be some connection between either Ossmen or Morgan and any officer or executive of Interstellar Spaceways?"

"Spaceways! Isaacson?" Jill caught her breath. "Why ... nobody even thought of such a thing—at least, nobody ever mentioned it to me—I never thought of making any such tests."

"The possibility occurred to me only a moment ago, at your mention of thionite. The connection, if any exists, will be exceedingly difficult to trace. But since most, if not all, of the parties involved will probably be included in your Operation Mateese, and since a finding, either positive or negative, would be tremendously significant, we feel emboldened to ask you to keep this point in mind."

"Why, of course I will. I'll be very glad to."

"We thank you for your courtesy and your help. One or both of us will get in touch with you from time to time, now that we know the pattern of your personality. May immortal Grolossen speed the healing of your father's wound."

CHAPTER 7

Late that night—or, rather, very early the following morning—Senator Morgan and his Number One secretary were closeted in the former's doubly spy-ray-proofed office. Morgan's round, heavy, florid face had perhaps lost a little of its usual color; the fingers of his left hand drummed soundlessly upon the glass top of his desk. His shrewd gray eyes, however, were as keen and as calculating as ever.

"This thing smells, Herkimer ... it reeks ... but I can't figure any of the angles. That operation was