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

just as well have been back on Tellus.

"Mase!" he sent, with no change whatever in the vapid expression then on his face. "I'm still covered. Are you?"

"Covered!" the answering thought was a snort. "They're covering me like water covers a submarine!"

"Keep tuned. I'll call Spud. Spud!"

"Come in, Jack." Conway Costigan, alone now in the sanctum of Department Q, did not seem to be busy, but he was.

"That red herring they told us to drag across the trail was too damned red. They must be touchier than fulminate to spy-work on their armed forces—neither Mase nor I can do a lick of work. Anybody else covered?"

"No. All clear."

"Good. Tell them the zwilnik blockers took us out."

"I'll do that. Distance only, or is somebody on your tail?"

"Somebody; and I mean some body. A slick chick with a classy chassis; a blonde, with great, big come-hither eyes. Too good to be true; especially the falsies. Wiring, my friend—and I haven't been able to get a close look, but I wouldn't wonder if her nostrils had a skillionth of a whillimeter too much expansion. I want a spy-ray op—is it safe to use Fred?" Kinnison referred to the grizzled engineer now puttering about in a certain space-ship; not the one in which he and Northrop had come to Eridan.

"Definitely not. I can do it myself and still stay very much in character.... No, I don't know her. Not surprising, of course, since the policy here is never to let the right hand know what the left is doing. How about you, Mase? Have you got a little girl-friend, too?"

"Yea, verily, brother; but not little. More my size." Northrop pointed out a tall, trim brunette, strolling along with the effortless, consciously unconscious poise of the professional model.

"Hm ... m ... m. I don't know her, either," Costigan reported, "but both of them are wearing four-inch spy-ray blocks and are probably wired up like Christmas trees. By inference, P-gun proof. I can't penetrate, of course, but maybe I can get a viewpoint.... You're right, Jack. Nostrils plugged. Anti-thionite, anti-Vee-Two, anti-everything. In fact, anti-social. I'll spread their pictures around and see if anybody knows either of them."

He did so, and over a hundred of the Patrol's shrewdest operatives—upon this occasion North America had invaded Eridan in force—studied and thought. No one knew the tall brunette, but—

"I know the blonde." This was Parker of Washington, a Service ace for twenty five years. "'Hell-cat Hazel' DeForce, the hardest-boiled babe unhung. Watch your step around her; she's just as handy with a knife and knock-out drops as she is with a gun."

"Thanks, Parker. I've heard of her." Costigan was thinking fast. "Free-lance. No way of telling who she's working for at the moment." This was a statement, not a question.

"Only that it would have to be somebody with a lot of money. Her price is high. That all?"

"That's all, fellows." Then, to Jack and Northrop: "My thought is that you two guys are completely out-classed—out-weighed, out-numbered, out-manned, and out-gunned. Undressed, you're sitting ducks; and if you put out any screens it'll crystallize their suspicions and they'll grab you right then—or maybe even knock you off. You'd better get out of here at full blast; you can't do any more good here, the way things are."

"Sure we can!" Kinnison protested. "You wanted a diversion, didn't you?"

"Yes, but you already...."

"What we've done already isn't a patch to what we can do next. We can set up such a diversion that the boys can walk right on the thionite-carrier's heels without anybody paying any attention. By the way, you don't know yet who is going to carry it, do you?"

"No. No penetration at all."

"You soon will, bucko. Watch our smoke!"

"What do you think you're going to do?" Costigan demanded, sharply.

"This." Jack explained. "And don't try to say no. We're on our own, you know."

"We ... l ... l ... it sounds good, and if you can pull it off it will help no end. Go ahead."

The demurely luscious blonde stared disconsolately at the bulletin board, upon which another thirty minutes was being added to the time of arrival of a ship already three hours late. She picked up a book, glanced at its cover, put it down. Her hand moved toward a magazine, drew back, dropped idly into her lap. She sighed, stifled a yawn prettily, leaned backward in her seat—in such a position, Jack noticed, that he could not see into her nostrils—and closed her eyes. And Jack Kinnison, coming visibly to a decision, sat down beside her.

"Pardon me, miss, but I feel just like you look. Can you tell me why convention decrees that two people, stuck in this concourse by arrivals that nobody knows when will arrive, have got to suffer alone when they could have so much more fun suffering together?"

The girl's eyes opened slowly; she was neither startled, nor afraid, nor—it seemed—even interested. In fact, she gazed at him with so much disinterest and for so long a time that he began to wonder—was she going to play sweet and innocent to the end?

"Yes, conventions are stupid, sometimes," she admitted finally, her lovely lips curving into the beginnings of a smile. Her voice, low and sweet, matched perfectly the rest of her charming self. "After all, perfectly nice people do meet informally on shipboard; why not in concourses?"

"Why not, indeed? And I'm perfectly nice people, I assure you. Willi Borden is the name. My friends call me Bill. And you?"

"Beatrice Bailey; Bee for short. Tell me what you like, and we'll talk about it."

"Why talk, when we could be eating? I'm with a guy. He's out on the field somewhere—a big bruiser with a pencil-stripe black mustache. Maybe you saw him talking to me a while back?"

"I think so, now that you mention him. Too big—much too big." The girl spoke carelessly, but managed to make it very clear that Jack Kinnison was just exactly the right size. "Why?"

"I told him I'd have supper with him. Shall we hunt him up and eat together?"

"Why not? Is he alone?"

"He was, when I saw him last." Although Jack knew exactly where Northrop was, and who was with him, he had to play safe; he did not know how much this "Bee Bailey" really knew. "He knows a lot more people around here than I do, though, so maybe he isn't now. Let me carry some of that plunder?"

"You might carry those books—thanks. But the field is so big—how do you expect to find him? Or do you know where he is?"

"Uh-uh!" he denied, vigorously. This was the critical moment. She certainly wasn't suspicious—yet—but she was showing signs of not wanting to go out there, and if she refused to go.... "To be honest, I don't care whether I find him or not—the idea of ditching him appeals to me more and more. So how about this? We'll dash out to the third dock—just so I won't have to actually lie about looking for him—and dash right back here. Or wouldn't you rather have it a twosome?"

"I refuse to answer, by advice of counsel." The girl laughed gaily, but her answer was plain enough.

Their rate of progress was by no means a dash, and Kinnison did not look—with his eyes—for Northrop. Nevertheless, just south of the third dock, the two young couples met.

"My cousin, Grace James," Northrop said, without a tremor or a quiver. "Wild Willi Borden, Grace—usually called Baldy on account of his hair."

The girls were introduced; each vouchsafing the other a completely meaningless smile and a colorlessly conventional word of greeting. Were they, in fact as in seeming, total strangers? Or were they in fact working together as closely as were the two young Lensmen themselves? If that was acting, it was a beautiful job; neither man could detect the slightest flaw in the performance of either girl.

"Whither away, pilot?" Jack allowed no lapse of time. "You know all the places around here. Lead us to a good one."

"This way, my old and fragrant fruit." Northrop led off with a flourish, and again Jack tensed. The walk led straight past the third-class, apparently deserted dock of which a certain ultra-fast vessel was the only occupant. If nothing happened for fifteen more seconds....

Nothing did. The laughing, chattering four came abreast of the portal. The door swung open and the Lensmen went into action.

They did not like to strong-arm women, but speed was their first consideration, with safety a close second; and it is impossible for a man to make speed while carrying a conscious, lithe, strong, heavily-armed woman in such a position that she cannot use fists, feet, teeth, gun or knife. An unconscious woman, on the other hand, can be carried easily and safely enough. Therefore Jack spun his partner around, forced both of her hands into one of his. The free hand flashed upward toward the neck; a hard finger pressed unerringly against a nerve; the girl went limp. The two victims were hustled aboard and the space-ship, surrounded now by full-coverage screen, took off.

Kinnison paid no attention to ship or course; orders had been given long since and would be carried out. Instead, he lowered his burden to the floor, spread her out flat, and sought out and removed item after item of wiring, apparatus, and offensive and defensive armament. He did not undress her—quite—but he made completely certain that the only weapons left to the young lady were those with which Nature had endowed her. And, Northrop having taken care of his alleged cousin with equal thoroughness, the small-arms were sent out and both doors of the room were securely locked.

"Now, Hell-cat Hazel DeForce," Kinnison said, conversationally, "You can snap out of it any time—you've been back to normal for at least two minutes. You've found out that your famous sex-appeal won't work. There's nothing loose you can grab, and you're too smart an operator to tackle me bare-handed. Who's the captain of your team—you or the clothes-horse?"

"Clothes-horse!" the statuesque brunette exclaimed, but her protests were drowned out. The blonde could—and did—talk louder, faster, and rougher.

"Do you think you can get away with this?" she demanded. "Why, you ..." and the unexpurgated, trenchant, brilliantly detailed characterization could have seared its way through four-ply asbestos. "And just what do you think you're going to do with me?"

"As to the first, I think so," Kinnison replied, ignoring the deep-space verbiage. "As to the second—as of now I don't know. What would you do if our situations were reversed?"

"I'd blast you to a cinder—or else take a knife and...."

"Hazel!" the brunette cautioned sharply. "Careful! You'll touch them off and they'll...."

"Shut up, Jane! They won't hurt us any more than they have already; it's psychologically impossible. Isn't that true, copper?" Hazel lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew a cloud of smoke at Kinnison's face.

"Pretty much so, I guess," the Lensman admitted, frankly enough, "but we can put you away for the rest of your lives."

"Space-happy? Or do you think I am?" she sneered. "What would you use for a case? We're as safe as if we were in God's pocket. And besides, our positions will be reversed pretty quick. You may not know it, but the fastest ships in space are chasing us, right now."

"For once you're wrong. We've got plenty of legs ourselves and we're blasting for rendezvous with a task-force. But enough of this chatter. I want to know what job you're on and why you picked on us. Give."

"Oh, does 'oo?" Hazel cooed, venomously. "Come and sit on mama's lap, itty bitty soldier boy, and she'll tell you everything you want to know."

Both Lensmen probed, then, with everything they had, but learned nothing of value. The women did not know what the Patrolmen were trying to do, but they were so intensely hostile that their mental blocks, unconscious although they were, were as effective as full-driven thought screens against the most insidious approaches the men could make.

"Anything in their hand-bags, Mase?" Jack asked, finally.

"I'll look.... Nothing much—just this," and the very tonelessness of Northrop's voice made Jack look up quickly.

"Just a letter from the boy-friend." Hazel shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing hot—not even warm—go ahead and read it."

"Not interested in what it says, but it might be smart to develop it, envelope and all, for invisible ink and whatnot." He did so, deeming it a worth-while expenditure of time. He already knew what the hidden message was; but no one not of the Patrol should know that no transmission of intelligence, however coded or garbled or disguised or by whatever means sent, could be concealed from any wearer of Arisia's Lens.

"Listen, Hazel," Kinnison said, holding up the now slightly stained paper. "'Three six two'—that's you, I suppose, and you're the squad leader—'Men mentioned previously being investigated stop assign three nine eight'—that must be you, Jane—'and make acquaintance stop if no further instructions received by eighteen hundred hours liquidate immediately