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

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      CHAPTER 21

      The Second Line

       Table of Contents

      Blakeslee was already armed—Kinnison had seen to that—and as the base commander wrenched open the arms cabinet Helmuth’s private look-out set began to draw current. Helmuth himself was now looking on and the enslaved observer had already begun to trace his beam. Therefore as the furious pirate whirled around with raised DeLameter he faced one already ablaze; and in a matter of seconds there was only a charred and smoking heap where he had stood.

      Kinnison wondered that Helmuth’s cold voice was not already snapping from the speaker, but he was soon to discover the reason for that silence. Unobserved by the Lensman, one of the observers had recovered sufficiently from his shocked amazement to turn in a riot alarm to the guard-room. Five armed men answered that call on the double, stopped and glanced around.

      “Guards! Blast Blakeslee down!” Helmuth’s unmistakable voice blared from his speaker.

      Obediently and manfully enough the five guards tried; and, had it actually been Blakeslee confronting them so defiantly, they probably would have succeeded. It was the body of the communications officer, it is true. The mind operating the muscles of that body, however, was the mind of Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman, the fastest man with a hand-gun old Tellus had ever produced; keyed up, expecting the move, and with two DeLameters out and poised at hip! This was the being whom Helmuth was so nonchalantly ordering his minions to slay! Faster than any watching eye could follow, five bolts of lightning flicked from Blakeslee’s DeLameters. The last guard went down, his head a shrivelled cinder, before a single pirate bolt could be loosed. Then:

      “You see, Helmuth,” Kinnison spoke conversationally to the board, his voice dripping vitriol, “Playing it safe from a distance, and making other men pull your chestnuts out of the fire, is a very fine trick as long as it works. But when it fails to work, as now, it puts you exactly where I want you. I, for one, have been for a long time completely fed up with taking orders from a mere voice; especially from the voice of one whose entire method of operation proves him to be the prize coward of the galaxy.”

      “Observer! You other at the board!” snarled Helmuth, paying no attention to Kinnison’s barbed shafts. “Sound the assembly—armed!”

      “No use, Helmuth, he’s stone deaf,” Kinnison explained, voice smoothly venomous. “I’m the only man in this base you can talk to, and you won’t be able to do even that very much longer.”

      “And you really think that you can get away with this mutiny—this barefaced insubordination—this defiance of my authority?”

      “Sure I can—that’s what I’ve been telling you. If you were here in person, or ever had been; if any of the boys had ever seen you, or had ever known you as anything except a disembodied voice; maybe I couldn’t. But, since nobody has ever seen even your face, that gives me a chance .”

      In his distant base Helmuth’s mind had flashed over every aspect of this unheard-of situation. He decided to play for time; therefore, even as his hands darted to buttons here and there, he spoke:

      “Do you want to see my face?” he demanded. “If you do see it, no power in the galaxy .”

      “Skip it, Chief,” sneered Kinnison. “Don’t try to kid me into believing you wouldn’t kill me now, under any conditions, if you possibly could. As for your face, it makes no difference to me whether I ever see your ugly pan or not.”

      “Well, you shall!” and Helmuth’s visage appeared; concentrating upon the rebellious officer a glare of such fury and such power that any ordinary man must have quailed. But not Blakeslee-Kinnison!

      “Well! Not so bad, at that—the guy looks almost human!” Kinnison exclaimed, in the tone most carefully designed to drive even more frantic the helpless and inwardly raging pirate leader. “But I’ve got things to do. You can guess at what goes on around here from now on,” and in the blaze of a DeLameter Helmuth’s plate, set, and “eye” disappeared. Kinnison had also been playing for time, and his observer had checked and rechecked this second and highly important line to Helmuth’s ultra-secret base.

      Then, throughout the fortress, there blared out the urgent assembly call, to which the Lensman added, verbally:

      “This is a one hundred percent callout, including crews of ships in dock, regular base personnel, and all prisoners. Come as you are and come fast—the doors of the auditorium will be locked in five minutes and any man outside those doors will be given ample reason to wish that he had been inside.”

      The auditorium was immediately off the control room, and was so arranged that when a partition was rolled back the control room became its stage. All Boskonian bases were arranged thus, in order that the supervising officers at Grand Base could oversee through their instruments upon the main panel just such assemblies as this one was supposed to be. Every man hearing that call assumed that it came from Grand Base, and every man hurried to obey it.

      Kinnison rolled back the partition between the two rooms and watched for weapons as the men came streaming into the auditorium. Ordinarily only the guards went armed, but possibly a few of the ships’ officers would be wearing their DeLameters . four—five—six. The captain and the pilot of the battleship that had taken the hospital ship, Vice-Commander Krimsky of the base, and three guards. Knives, billies, and such did not count.

      “Time’s up. Lock the doors. Bring the keys and the nurses up here,” he ordered the six armed men, calling each by name. “You women take these chairs over here, you men sit there.”

      Then, when all were seated, Kinnison touched a button and the steel partition slid smoothly into place.

      “What’s coming off here?” demanded one of the officers. “Where’s the commander? How about Grand Base? Look at that board!”

      “Sit tight.” Kinnison directed. “Hands on knees—I’ll burn any or all of you that make a move. I have already burned the old man and five guards, and have put Grand Base out of the picture. Now I want to find out just how us seven stand.” The Lensman already knew, but he was not tipping his hand.

      “Why us seven?”

      “Because we are the only ones who happened to be wearing side-arms. Everyone else of the entire personnel is unarmed and is now locked in the auditorium. You know how apt they are to get out until one of us lets them out.”

      “But Helmuth—he’ll have you blasted for this!”

      “Hardly—my plans were not made yesterday. How many of you fellows are with me?”

      “What’s your scheme?”

      “To take these nurses to some Patrol base and surrender. I’m sick of this whole game; and, since none of them have been hurt, I figure they’re good for a pardon and a fresh start—a light sentence at least.”

      “Oh, so that’s the reason .” growled the captain.

      “Exactly—but I don’t want anyone with me whose only thought would be to burn me down at the first opportunity.”

      “Count me in,” declared the pilot. “I’ve got a strong stomach, but enough СКАЧАТЬ