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

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СКАЧАТЬ a full day short of junction, Kinnison was called to his plate, to see upon its lambent surface the visage of Port Admiral Haynes.

      “Did you find out anything on your trip?” he asked.

      “Nothing definite, sir. Just a couple of things to think about, is all. But I can say that I don’t like this at all—I don’t like anything about it or any part of it.”

      “No more do I,” agreed the admiral. “It looks very much as though your forecast of a stalemate might be about to eventuate. Where are you headed for now?”

      “Back to the Fleet.”

      “Don’t do it. Stay on scouting duty for a while longer. And, unless something more interesting turns up, report back here to me—we have something that may interest you. The boys have been .”

      The admiral’s picture was broken up into flashes of blinding light and his words became a meaningless, jumbled roar of noise. A distress call had begun to come in, only to be blotted out by a flood of Boskonian static interference, of which the ether had for so long been clear. The young Lensman used his Lens.

      “Excuse me, sir, while I see what this is all about?”

      “Certainly, son.”

      “Got its center located?” Kinnison yelped at his communications officer. “They’re close—right in our laps!”

      “Yes, sir!” and the radio man snapped out numbers.

      “Blast!” the captain commanded, unnecessarily; for the alert pilot had already set the course and was kicking in full-blast drive. “If that baby is what I think it is, all hell’s out for noon.”

      Toward the center of disturbance the Brittania flashed, emitting now a scream of peculiarly patterned interference which was not only a scrambler of all un-Lensed communication throughout that whole part of the galaxy, but also an imperative call for any mauler within range. So close had the cruiser been to the scene of depredation that for her to reach it required only minutes.

      There lay the merchantman and her Boskonian assailant. Emboldened by the cessation of piratical activities, some shipping concern had sent out a freighter, loaded probably with highly “urgent” cargo; and this was the result. The marauder, inert now, had gripped her with his tractors and was beaming her into submission. She was resisting, but feebly now; it was apparent that her screens were failing. Her crew must soon open ports in token of surrender or roast to a man; and they would probably prefer to roast.

      Thus the situation obtaining in one instant. The next instant it was changed; the Boskonian discovering suddenly that his beams, instead of boring through the weak defenses of the freighter, were not even exciting to a glow the mighty protective envelopes of a battle-cruiser of the Patrol. He switched from the diffused heat-beam he had been using upon the merchantman to the hardest, hottest, most penetrating beam of annihilation he mounted—with but little more to show for it and with no better results. For the Brittania’s screens had been designed to stand up almost indefinitely against the most potent beams of any ordinary warship, and they stood up.

      Kinnison had tremendously powerful beams of his own, but he did not use them. It would take the super-powerful offense of a mauler to produce a definite answer to the question seething in his mind.

      Increase power as the pirate would, to whatever ruinous overload, he could not break down Kinnison’s screens; nor, dodge as he would, could he again get in position to attack his former prey. And eventually the mauler arrived; fortunately it, too, had been fairly close by. Out reached its mighty tractors. Out raved one of its tremendous beams, striking the Boskonian’s defenses squarely amidships.

      That beam struck and the pirate ship disappeared—but not in a hazily incandescent flare of volatilized metal. The raider disappeared bodily, and still all in one piece. He had put out super-shears of his own, snapping the mauler’s supposedly unbreakable tractors like threads; and the velocity of his departure was due almost as much to the pressor effect of the Patrol beam as it was to the thrust of his own drivers.

      It was the beginning of the stalemate Kinnison had foreseen.

      “I was afraid of that,” the young captain muttered; and, paying no attention whatever to the merchantman, he called the commander of the mauler. At this close range, of course, no ether scrambler could interfere with visual apparatus, and there on his plate he saw the face of Clifford Maitland, the man who had graduated number two in his own class.

      “Hi, Kim, you old space-flea!” Maitland exclaimed in delight. “Oh, pardon me, sir,” he went on in mock deference, with an exaggerated salute. “To a guy with four jets, I should say .”

      “Seal that, Cliff, or I’ll climb up you like a squirrel, first chance I get!” Kinnison retorted. “So they’ve got you skippering an El Ponderoso, huh? Think of a mere infant like you being let play with so much high-power! What’ll we do about this heap here?”

      “Damfino. It isn’t covered, so you’ll have to tell me, Captain.”

      “Who’m I to be passing out orders? As you say, it isn’t covered in the book—it’s against G I regs for them to be cutting our tractors. But he’s all yours, not mine—I’ve got to flit. You might find out what he’s carrying, from where, to where, and why. Then, if you want to, you can escort him either back where he came from or on to where he’s going; whichever you think best. If this interference doesn’t let-up, maybe you’d better Lens Prime Base for orders. Or use your own judgment, if any. Clear ether, Cliff, I’ve got to buzz along.”

      “Clear ether, spacehound!”

      “Now, Hank,” Kinnison turned to his pilot, “we’ve got urgent business at Prime Base—and when I say ‘urgent’ I don’t mean perchance. Let’s see you burn a hole in the ether.”

      The Brittania streaked Earthward, and scarcely had she touched ground when Kinnison was summoned to the office of the Port Admiral. As soon as he was announced, Haynes bruskly cleared his office and sealed it against any possible form of intrusion or eavesdropping. He had aged noticeably since these two had had that memorable conference in this same room. His face was lined and careworn, his eyes and his entire mien bore witness to days and nights of sleeplessly continuous work.

      “You were right, Kinnison,” he began, Lens to Lens. “A stalemate it is; a hopeless deadlock. I called you in to tell you that Hotchkiss has your nullifier done, and that it works perfectly against all long-range stuff. Against electromagnetics, however, it is not very effective. About all that can be done, it seems, is to shorten the range; and it doesn’t interfere with vision at all.”

      “I can get by with that, I think—I will be out of electromagnetic range most of the time, and nobody watches their electros very close, anyway. Thanks a lot. It’s ready to install?”

      “Doesn’t need installation. It’s such a little thing you can put it in your pocket. It’s self-contained and will work anywhere.”

“Better and better. In that case I’ll need two of them—and a ship. I would like to have one of those new automatic speedsters.^[4] Lots of legs, cruising range, and screens. Only one beam, but I probably won’t use even that one .”

      “Going alone?” interrupted Haynes. “Better take your battle-cruiser, at least. I don’t like the idea of you going into deep СКАЧАТЬ