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

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СКАЧАТЬ after day. When he was hungry the pirate cooks fed him, not knowing that they did so—he had lived on iron rations long enough. When he was tired he slept, with his eternally vigilant Lens on guard.

      Finally he knew everything there was to be known about that stronghold and was ready to act. He did not take over the mind of the base commander, but chose instead the chief communications officer as the one most likely and most intimately to have dealings with Helmuth. For Helmuth, he who spoke for Boskone, had for many months been the Lensman’s definite objective.

      But this game could not be hurried. Bases, no matter how important, did not call Grand Base except upon matters of the most dire urgency, and no such matter eventuated. Nor did Helmuth call that base, since nothing out of the ordinary was happening—to any pirates’ knowledge, that is—and his attention was more necessary elsewhere.

      One day, however, there came crackling in a triumphant report—a ship working out of that base had taken noble booty indeed; no less a prize than a fully-supplied hospital ship of the Patrol itself! As the report progressed Kinnison’s heart went down into his boots and he swore bitterly to himself. How in all the nine hells of Valeria had they managed to take such a ship as that? Hadn’t she been escorted?

      Nevertheless, as chief communications officer he took the report and congratulated heartily, through the ship’s radio man, its captain, its officers, and its crew.

      “Mighty fine work; Helmuth himself shall hear of this,” he concluded his words of praise. “How did you do it? With one of the new maulers?”

      “Yes, sir,” came the reply. “Our mauler, accompanying us just out of range, came up and engaged theirs. That left us free to take this ship. We locked on with magnets, cut our way in, and here we are.”

      There they were indeed. The hospital ship was red with blood; patients, doctors, interns, officers and operating crew alike had been butchered with the horribly ruthless savagery which was the customary technique of all the agencies of Boskone. Of all that ship’s personnel only the nurses lived. They were not to be put to death—yet. In fact, and under certain conditions, they need not die at all.

      They huddled together, a little knot of white-clad misery in that corpse-littered room, and even now one of them was being dragged away. She was fighting viciously, with fists and feet, with nails and teeth. No one pirate could handle her; it took two strong men to subdue that struggling fury. They hauled her upright and she threw back her head, in panting defiance. There was a cascade of red-bronze hair and Kinnison saw—Clarrissa MacDougall! And remembered that there had been some talk that they were going to put her back into space service! The Lensman decided instantly what to do.

      “Stop, you swine!” he roared through his pirate mouthpiece. “Where do you think you’re going with that nurse?”

      “To the captain’s cabin, sir.” The huskies stopped short in amazement as that roar filled the room, but answered the question concisely.

      “Let her go!” Then, as the girl fled back to the huddled group in the corner: “Tell the captain to come out here and assemble every officer and man of the crew. I want to talk to you all at once.”

      He had a minute or two in which to think, and he thought furiously, but accurately. He had to do something, but whatever he did must be done strictly according to the pirates’ own standards of ethics; if he made one slip it might be Aldebaran I all over again. He knew how to keep from making that slip, he thought. But also, and this was the hard part, he must work in something that would let those nurses know that there was still hope; that there were more acts of this drama yet to come. Otherwise he knew with a stark, cold certainty what would happen. He knew of what stuff the space-nurses of the Patrol were made; knew that they could be driven just so far, and no farther—alive.

      There was a way out of that, too. In the childishness of his hospitalization he had called Nurse MacDougall a dumb-bell. He had thought of her, and had spoken to her quite frankly, in uncomplimentary terms. But he knew that there was a real brain back of that beautiful face, that a quick and keen intelligence resided under that red-bronze thatch. Therefore when the assembly was complete he was ready, and in no uncertain or ambiguous language he opened up.

      “Listen, you—all of you” he roared. “This is the first time in months that we have made such a haul as this, and you fellows have the brazen gall to start helping yourselves to the choicest stuff before anybody else gets a look at it. I tell you now to lay off, and that goes exactly as it lays. I, personally, will kill any man that touches one of those women before they arrive here at base. Now you, captain, are the first and worst offender of the lot,” and he stared directly into the eyes of the officer whom he had last seen entering the dungeon of the Wheelmen.

      “I admit that you’re a good picker.” Kinnison’s voice was now venomously soft, his intonation distinct with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Unfortunately, however, your taste agrees too well with mine. You see, captain, I’m going to need a nurse myself. I think I’m coming down with something. And, since I’ve got to have a nurse, I’ll take that red-headed one. I had a nurse once with hair just that color, who insisted on feeding me tea and toast and a soft-boiled egg when I wanted beefsteak; and I’m going to take my grudge out on this one here for all the red-headed nurses that ever lived. I trust that you will pardon the length of this speech, but I want to give you my reasons in full for cautioning you that that particular nurse is my own particular personal property. Mark her for me, and see to it that she gets here—exactly as she is now.”

      The captain had been afraid to interrupt his superior, but now he erupted.

      “But see here, Blakeslee!” he stormed. “She’s mine, by every right. I captured her, I saw her first, I’ve got her here .”

      “Enough of that back-talk, captain!” Kinnison sneered elaborately. “You know, of course, that you are violating every rule by taking booty for yourself before division at base, and that you can get shot for doing it.”

      “But everybody does it!” protested the captain.

      “Except when a superior officer catches him at it. Superiors get first pick, you know,” the Lensman reminded him suavely.

      “But I protest, sir! I’ll take it up with .”

      “Shut up!” Kinnison snarled, with cold finality. “Take it up with whom you please, but remember this, my last warning. Bring her in to me as she is and you live. Touch her and you die! Now, you nurses, come over here to the board!”

      Nurse MacDougall had been whispering furtively to the others and now she led the way, head high and eyes blazing defiance. She was an actress, as well as a nurse.

      “Take a good, long look at this button, right here, marked ‘Relay 46,’ ” came curt instructions. “If anybody aboard this ship touches any one of you, or even looks at you as though he wants to, press this button and I’ll do the rest. Now, you big, red-headed dumb-bell, look at me. Don’t start begging—yet. I just want to be sure you’ll know me when you see me.”

      “I’ll know you, never fear, you . you brat!” she flared, thus informing the Lensman that she had received his message. “I’ll not only know you—I’ll scratch your eyes out on sight!”

      “That’ll be a good trick if you can do it,” Kinnison sneered, and cut off.

      “What’s it all about, Mac? What has got into you?” demanded one of the nurses, as soon as the women were alone.

      “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Watch out, СКАЧАТЬ