Galactic Patrol

20: Mac is a Bone of Contention

Out from Radelix and into deep space shot the speedster bearing the Gray Lensman toward Boyssia II, where the Boskonian base was situated. The Patrol forces had not been able to locate it definitely, therefore it must be cleverly hidden indeed. Manned and staffed by Tellurians—and this was fairly close to the line first taken by the pilot of the pirate vessel whose crew had been so decimated by vanBuskirk and his Valerians. There couldn't be so many Boskonian bases with Tellurian personnel, Kinnison reflected. It was well within the bounds of possibility, even of probability, that he might encounter here his former, but unsuspecting, shipmates again.

Since the Boyssian system was less than a hundred parsecs from Radelix, a couple of hours found the Lensman staring down upon another strange planet, and this one was a very Earthly world indeed. There were polar ice–caps, areas of intensely dazzling white. There was an atmosphere, deep and sweetly blue, filled for the most part with sunlight, but flecked here and there with clouds, some of which were slowmoving storms. There were continents, bearing mountains and plains, lakes and rivers. There were oceans, studded with islands great and small.

But Kinnison was no planetographer, nor had he been gone from Tellus sufficiently long so that the eight of this beautiful and home–like world aroused in him any qualm of nostalgia. He was looking for a pirate base, and, dropping his speedster as low into the night side as he dared, he began his search.

Of man or of the works of man he at first found little enough trace. All human or near–human life was apparently still in a savage state of development, and, except for a few scattered races, or rather tribes, of burrowers and of cliff– or cave–dwellers, it was still nomadic, wandering here and there without permanent habitation or structure. Animals of scores of genera and species were there in myriads, but neither was Kinnison a biologist. He wanted pirates, and, it seemed, that was the one form of life which he was not going to find!

But finally, through sheer, grim, bull–dog pertinacity, he was successful. That base was there, somewhere. He would find it, no matter how long it took. He would find it, if he had to examine the entire crust of the planet, land and water alike, kilometer by plotted cubic kilometer! He set out to do just that, and it was thus that he found the Boskonian stronghold.

It had been built directly beneath a towering range of mountains, protected from detection by mile upon mile of native copper and of iron ore.

Its entrances, invisible before, were even now not readily perceptible, camouflaged as they were by outer layers of rock which matched exactly in form, color, and texture the rocks of the cliffs in which they were placed. Once those entrances were located, the rest was easy. Again he set his speedster into a carefully–observed orbit and came to ground in his armor. Again he crept forward, furtively and skulkingly, until he could perceive again a shimmering web of force.

With minor variations his method of entry into the Boskonian base was similar to that he had used in making his way into the Patrol. base upon Radelix. He was, however, working now with a surety and a precision which had then been lacking. His practice with the Patrolmen had given him knowledge and technique. His sitting in judgment, during which he had touched almost every mind in the vast assemblage, had taught him much. And above all, the grisly finale of that sitting, horribly distasteful and soul–wracking as it had been, had given him training of inestimable value, necessitating as it had the infliction of the ultimate penalty.

He knew that he might have to stay inside that base for some time, therefore he selected his hiding–place with care. He could of course blank out the knowledge of his presence in the mind of anyone chancing to discover him, but since such an interruption might come at a critical instant, he preferred to take up his residence in a secluded place. There were, of course, many vacant suites in the officers' quarters—all bases must have accommodations for visitors—and the Lensman decided to occupy one of them. It was a simple matter to obtain a key, and, inside the bare but comfortable little room, he stripped off his armor with a sigh of relief.

Leaning back in a deeply upholstered leather arm–chair, he closed his eyes and let his sense of perception roam throughout the great establishment. With all his newly developed power he studied it, hour after hour and day 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 happeningto 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?"

"Yea, 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 MacDougalI! 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 dumbbell. 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" be roared. "This is the first time in months that we have made such a haul as this, and a 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 redheaded 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, they may have spy–rays on us. I don't know anything, really, and the whole thing is too wildly impossible, too utterly fantastic to make sense. But pass the word along to all the girls to ride this out, because my Gray Lensman is in on it, somewhere and somehow. I don't see how he can be, possibly, but I Just know he is."

For, at the first mention of tea and toast, before she perceived even an inkling of the true situation, her mind had flashed back instantly to Kinnison, the most stubborn and rebellious patient she had ever had. More, the only man she had ever known who had treated her precisely as though she were a part of the hospital's very furniture. As is the way of women—particularly of beautiful women—she had orated of women's rights and of women's status in the scheme of things. She had decried all special privileges, and had stated, often and with heat, that she asked no odds of any man living or yet to be born. Nevertheless, and also beautiful—womanlike, the thought had bitten deep that here was a man who had never even realized that she was a woman, to say nothing of realizing that she was an extraordinarily beautiful one! And deep within her and sternly suppressed the thought had still rankled.

At the mention of beefsteak she had all but screamed, gripping her knees with frantic hands to keep her emotion down. For she had had no real hope, she was simply fighting with everything she had until the hopeless end, which she had known could not long be delayed. Now she gathered herself together and began to act.

When the word "dumb–bell" boomed from the speaker she knew, beyond doubt or peradventure, that it was Kinnison, the Gray Lensman, who was really doing that talking. It was crazy—it didn't make any kind of sense at all—but it was, it must be, true. And, again womanlike, she knew with a calm certainty that as long as that Gray Lensman were alive and conscious, he would be complete master of any situation in which he might find himself. Therefore she passed along her illogical but cheering thought, and the nurses, being also women, accepted it without question as the actual and accomplished fact.

They carried on, and when the captured hospital ship had docked at base, Kinnison was completely ready to force matters to a conclusion. In addition to the chief communications officer, he now had under his control a highly capable observer. To handle two such minds was child's play to the intellect which had directed, against their full fighting wills, the minds of two and three quarters alert, powerful, and fully warned officers of the Galactic Patrol!

"Good girl, Mac" he put his mind en rapport with hers and sent his message. "Glad you got the idea. You did a good job of acting, and if you can do some more as good we'll be all set. Can do?"

"I'll say I can!" she assented fervently. "I don't know what you are doing, how you can possibly do it or where you are, but that can wait. Tell me what to do and I'll do it!"

"Make passes at the base commander," he instructed her. "Hate me—the ape I'm working through, you know, Blakeslee, his name is—like poison. Go into it big—all jets wide open. You maybe could love him, but if I get you you'll blow out your brains—if any. You know the line—play up to him with everything you can bring to bear, and hate me to hell and back. Help all you can to start a fight between us. If he falls for you hard enough the blow–off comes then and there. If not, he'll be able to do us all plenty of dirt. I can kill a lot of them, but not enough of them quick enough."

"He'll fall," she promised him gleefully, "like ten thousand bricks falling down a well. Just watch my jets!"

And fall he did. He had not even seen a woman for months, and he expected nothing except bitter–end resistance and suicide from any of these women of the Patrol. Therefore he was rocked to the heels—set back upon his very haunches—when the most beautiful woman he had ever seen came of her own volition into his arms, seeking in them sanctuary from his own chief communications officer.

"I hate him!" she sobbed, nestling against the huge bulk of the commander's body and turning upon him the full blast of the high powered projectors which were her eyes. "You wouldn't be so mean to me, I just know you wouldn't!" and her subtly perfumed head sank upon his shoulder. The outlaw was just so much soft wax.

"I'll say I wouldn't be mean to you" his voice dropped to a gentle bellow. "Why, you little sweetheart, I'll marry you. I will so, by all the gods of space!" It thus came about that nurse and base commander entered the control room together, arms about each other.

"There he is!" she shrieked, pointing at the chief communications officer. "He's the one! Now let's see you start something, you rat–faced clunker! There's one real man around here, and he won't let you touch me— ya–a–a!" She gave him a resounding Bronx cheer, and—her escort swelled visibly.

"Is–that–so?" Kinnison sneered. "Get this, glamor–puss, and get it straight. I marked you for mine as soon as, I saw you, and mine you're going to be, whether you like it or not and no matter what anybody says or does about it. As for you, captain, you're too late—I saw her first. And now, you red–headed tomato, come over here where you belong."

She snuggled closer into the commander's embrace and the big man turned purple.

"What d'you mean, too late!" he roared. "You took her away from the ship's captain, didn't you? You said that superior officers get first choice, didn't you? I'm the boss here and I'm taking her away from you, get me? You'll stand for it, too, Blakeslee, and like it. One word out of you and I'll have you spread–eagled across the mouth of number six projector!"

"Superior officers don't always get first choice," Kinnison replied, with bitter, cold ferocity, but choosing his words with care. "It depends entirely on who the two men are."

Now was the time to strike. Kinnison knew that if the commander kept his head, the lives of those valiant women were forfeit, and his own whole plan seriously endangered. He himself could get away, of course—but he could not see himself doing it under these conditions. No, he must goad the commander to a frenzy. And without swearing would be better—the ape was used to invectives that would raise blisters on armor plate. Mac would help. In fact, and without his suggestion, she was even then hard at work fomenting trouble between the two men.

"You don't have to take that kind of stuff off of anybody, big boy," she was whispering, urgently. "Don't call in a crew to spread–eagle him, either, beam him out yourself. You're a better man than he is, any time. Blast him down—that'll show him who's who around here!"

"When the inferior is such a man as I am, and the superior such a louse as you are," the biting, contemptuously sneering voice went on without a break, "Such a bloated swine, such a mangy, low–down cur, such a pussy–gutted tub of lard, such a brainless, filthy spawn of the lowest dregs of the rottenest scum of space, such an utterly incompetent, self–opinionated, misbegotten abortion as you are…."

The outraged pirate, bellowing profanity in wildly mounting rage, tried to break in, but Kinnison—Blakeslee's voice, if no louder than his, was far more penetrant.

"Then, in that case, the inferior keeps the redheaded wench himself. Put that on a tape, you white–livered coward, and eat it!"

Still bellowing, the fat man had turned and was leaping toward the arms cabinet.

"Blast him! Blast him down!" the nurse had been shrieking, and, as the raging commander neared the cabinet, no one noticed that her latest and loudest scream was "Kim! Blast him down! Don't wait any longer—beam him before he gets a gun!"

But the Lensman did not act—yet. Although almost every man of the pirate crew stared spell–bound, Kinnison's enslaved observer had for many seconds been jamming the sub–ether with Helmuth's personal and urgent call. It was of almost vital importance to his plan that Helmuth himself should see the climax of this scene. Therefore Blakeslee stood immobile while his profanely raving superior reached the cabinet and tore it open.