The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith

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      CHAPTER 8

      The Quarry Strikes Back

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      Worsel knew his council of scientists, as well he might; since it developed that he himself ranked high in that select circle. True to his promise, the largest airport of the planet was immediately emptied of its customary personnel, which was replaced the following morning by an entirely new group of workmen.

      Nor were these replacements ordinarily laborers. They were young, keen, and highly trained; taken to a man from behind the thought-screens of the Scientists. It is true that they had no inkling of what they were to do, since none of them had ever dreamed of the possibility of such engines as they were to be called upon to construct.

      But, on the other hand, they were well versed in the fundamental theories and operations of mathematics, and from pure mathematics to applied mechanics is but a step. Furthermore, they had brains; knew how to think logically, coherently, and effectively; and needed neither driving nor supervision—only instruction. And best of all, practically every one of the required mechanisms already existed, in miniature, within the Brittania’s lifeboat; ready at hand for their dissection, analysis, and enlargement. It was not lack of understanding which was to slow up the work; it was simply that the planet did not boast machine tools and equipment large enough or strong enough to handle the necessarily huge and heavy parts and members required.

      While the construction of this heavy machinery was being rushed through, Kinnison and vanBuskirk devoted their efforts to the fabrication of an ultra-sensitive receiver, tunable to the pirates’ scrambled wave-bands. With their exactly detailed knowledge, and with the cleverest technicians and the choicest equipment of Velantia at their disposal, the set was soon completed.

      Kinnison was giving its exceedingly delicate coils their final alignment when Worsel wriggled blithely into the radio laboratory.

      “Hi, Kimball Kinnison of the Lens!” he called gaily. Throwing a few yards of his serpent’s body in lightning loops about a convenient pillar, he made a horizontal bar of the rest of himself and dropped one wing-tip to the floor. Then, nonchalantly upside down, he thrust out three or four eyes and curled their stalks over the Lensman’s shoulder, the better to inspect the results of the mechanics’ efforts. Gone was the morose, pessimistic, death-haunted Worsel entirely; gay, happy, carefree, and actually frolicsome—if you can imagine a thirty-foot-long, crocodile-headed, leather-winged python as being frolicsome!

      “Hi, your royal snakeship!” Kinnison retorted in kind. “Still here, huh? Thought you’d be back on Delgon by this time, cleaning up the rest of that mess.”

      “The equipment is not ready, but there’s no hurry about that,” the playful reptile unwrapped ten or twelve feet of tail from the pillar and waved it airily about. “Their power is broken, their race is done. You are about to try out the new receiver?”

      “Yes—going out after them right now,” and Kinnison began deftly to manipulate the micrometric verniers of his dials.

      Eyes fixed upon meters and gauges, he listened . listened. Increased his power and listened again. More and more power he applied to his apparatus, listening continually. Suddenly he stiffened, his hands becoming rock-still. He listened, if possible even more intently than before; and as he listened his face grew grim and granite-hard. Then the micrometers began again crawlingly to move, as though he were tracing a beam.

      “Bus! Hook on the focusing beam-antenna!” he snapped. “It’s going to take every milliwatt of power we’ve got in this hook-up to tap his beam, but I think I’ve got Helmuth direct instead of through a pirate-ship relay!”

      Again and again he checked the readings of his dials and of the directors of his antenna; each time noting the exact time of the Velantian day.

      “There! As soon as we get some time, Worsel, I’d like to work out these figures with some of your astronomers. They’ll give me a right-line through Helmuth’s headquarters—I hope. Some day, if I’m spared, I’ll get another!”

      “What kind of news did you get, chief?” asked vanBuskirk.

      “Good and bad both,” replied the Lensman. “Good in that Helmuth doesn’t believe that we stayed with his ship as long as we did. He’s a suspicious devil, you know, and is pretty well convinced that we tried to run the same kind of a blazer on him that we did the other time. Since he hasn’t got enough ships on the job to work the whole line, he’s concentrating on the other end. That means that we’ve got plenty of days left yet. The bad part of it is that they’ve got four of our boats already and are bound to get more. Lord, how I wish I could call the rest of them! Some of them could certainly make it here before they got caught.”

      “Might I then offer a suggestion?” asked Worsel, of a sudden diffident.

      “Surely!” the Lensman replied in surprise. “Your ideas have never been any kind of poppycock. Why so bashful all at once?”

      “Because this one is so . ah . so peculiarly personal, since you men regard so highly the privacy of your minds. Our two sciences, as you have already observed, are vastly different. You are far beyond us in mechanics, physics, chemistry, and the other applied sciences. We, on the other hand, have delved much deeper than you have into psychology and the other introspective studies. For that reason I know positively that the Lens you wear is capable of enormously greater things than you are at present able to make it perform. Of course I cannot use your Lens directly, since it is attuned to your own ego. However, if the idea appeals to you, I could, with your consent, occupy your mind and use your Lens to put you en rapport with your fellows. I have not volunteered the suggestion before because I know how averse your mind is to any foreign control.”

      “Not necessarily to foreign control,” Kinnison corrected СКАЧАТЬ