Galactic Patrol

23: Tregonsee Turns Zwilnik

While servicing and checking the speedster required only a couple of hours, Kinnison did not leave Earth for almost two days. He' had requisitioned much special equipment, the construction of one item of which—a suit of armor such as had never been seen before—caused almost all of the delay. When it was ready the greatly interested Port Admiral accompanied the young Lensman out to the steel–lined, sand–filled concrete dugout, in which the suit had already been mounted upon a remote–controlled dummy. Fifty feet from that dummy there was a heavy, water–cooled machine rifle, with its armored crew standing by. As the two approached the crew leaped to attention.

"As you were," Haynes instructed, and.

"You checked those cartridges against those I brought in from Aldebaran I?" asked Kinnison of the officer in charge, as, accompanied by the Port Admiral, he crouched down behind the shields of the control panel.

"Yes, Sir. These are twenty–five percent over, as you specified."

"QX—commence firing!" Then, as the weapon clamored out its stuttering, barking roar, Kinnison made the dummy stoop, turn, bend, twist and dodge, so as to bring its every plate joint, and member, into that hail of steel. The uproar stopped.

"One thousand rounds, sir," the officer reported.

"No holes—no dents—not a scratch or a scar," Kinnison reported, after a minute examination, and got into the thing. "Now give me two thousand rounds, unless I tell you to stop. Shoot!"

Again the machine rifle burst into its ear–shattering song of hate, and, strong as Kinnison was and powerfully braced by the blast of his drivers, he could not stand against the awful force of those bullets. Over he went, backward, and the firing ceased.

"Keep it up!" he snapped. "Think there going to quit shooting at me because I fall down?"

"But you had had nineteen hundred!" protested the officer.

"Keep on pecking until you run out of ammunition or until I tell you to stop," ordered Kinnison. "I've got to learn how to handle this thing under fire," and the storm of metal' again began to crash against the reverberating shell of steel.

It hurled the Lensman down, rolled him over and over, slammed him against the back–stop. Again and again he struggled upright, only to be hurled again to ground as the riflemen, really playing the game now, swung their leaden hail from part to part of the armor, and varied their attack from steady fire to short but savage bursts. But finally, in spite of .everything the gun crew could do, Kinnison learned his controls.

Then, drivers flaring, he faced that howling, chattering muzzle and strode straight into the stream of smoke– and flame–enshrouded steel. Now the air was literally full of metal. Bullets and fragments of bullets whined and shrieked in mad abandon as they ricocheted in all directions off that armor. Sand and bits of concrete flew hither and yon, filling the atmosphere of the dugout. The rifle yammered at maximum, with its sweating crew laboring mightily to keep its voracious maw full–fed. But, in spite of everything, Kinnison held his line and advanced. He was barely six feet from that yelling, steelvomiting muzzle when the firing again ceased.

"Twenty thousand, sir," the officer reported, crisply. "We'll have to change barrels before we can give you any more."

'That's enough!" snapped Haynes. "Come out of there" Out Kinnison came. He removed heavy ear–plugs, swallowed four times blinked and grimaced. Finally he spoke.

"It works perfectly, sir, except for the noise. "It's a good thing I've got a Lens—in spite of the plugs I won't be able to hear anything for three days!"

"How about the springs and shock–absorbers? Are you bruised anywhere? You took some real bumps."

"Perfect—not a bruise. Let's look her over."

Every inch of that armor's surface was now marked by blurs, where the metal of the bullets had rubbed itself off upon the shining alloy, but that surface was neither scratched, scored, nor dented.

"QX, boys—thanks," Kinnison dismissed the riflemen. They probably wondered how any man could see out through a helmet built up of inches–thick laminated alloys, with neither window nor port through which to look, but if so, they, made no mention of their curiosity. They, too, were Patrolmen.

"Is that thing an armor or a personal tank?" asked Haynes. "I aged ten years while that was going on, but at that I'm glad you insisted on testing it. You can get away with anything now."

"It's much better technique to learn things among friends than enemies," Kinnison laughed. "It's heavy, of course—pretty close to a ton. I won't be walking around in it, though, I'll be flying it. Well, sir, since everything's all set, I think I'd better fly it over to the speedster and start flitting, don't you? I don't know exactly how much time I'm going to need on Trench."

"Might as well," the Port Admiral agreed, as casually, and Kinnison was gone.

"What a man!" Haynes stared after the monstrous figure until it vanished in the distance, then strolled slowly toward his office, thinking as he went.

Nurse MacDougall had been highly irked and incensed at Kinnison's casual departure, without idle conversation or formal leave–takings. Not so Haynes. That seasoned campaigner knew that Gray Lensmen—especially young Gray Lensmen—were prone to get that way. He knew, as she would one day learn, that Kinnison was no longer of Earth.

He was now only of the galaxy, not of any one tiny dust–grain of it. He was of the Patrol. He was the Patrol, and he was taking his new responsibilities very seriously indeed. In his fierce zeal to drive his campaign through to a successful end he would use man or woman, singly or in groups, ships, even Prime Base itself, exactly as he had used them. as pawns, as mere tools, as means to an end. And, having used them, he would leave them as unconcernedly and as unceremoniously as he would drop pliers and spanner, and with no more realization that he had violated any of the nicer amenities of life as it is lived!

And as he strolled along and thought, the Port Admiral smiled quietly to himself. He knew, as Kinnison would learn in time, that the universe was vast, that time was long, and that the Scheme of Things, comprising the whole of eternity and the Cosmic All, was a something incomprehensibly immense indeed, with which cryptic thought the space–hardened veteran sat down at his desk and resumed his interrupted labors.

But Kinnison had not yet attained Haynes' philosophic viewpoint, any more than he had his age, and to him the trip to Trench seemed positively interminable. Eager as he was to put his plan of campaign to the test, he found that mental urgings, or even audible invective, would not make the speedster go any faster than the already incomprehensible top speed of her drivers' maximum blast. Nor did pacing up and down the little control room help very much. Physical exercise he had to perform, but it did not satisfy him. Mental exercise was impossible, he could think of nothing except Helmuth's base.

Eventually, however, he approached Trench and located without difficulty the Patrol's space–port. Fortunately, it was then at about eleven o'clock, so that he did not have to wait long to land. He drove downward inert, sending ahead of him a thought.

"Lensman of Trench Space–port—Tregonsee or his relief? Lensman Kinnison of Sol III asking permission to land."

"It is Tregonsee," came back the thought. "Welcome, Kinnison. You are on the correct line. You have, then, perfected an apparatus to see truly in this distorting medium?"

"I didn't perfect it—it was given to me."

The landing bars lashed out, seized the speedster, and eased her down into the lock, and, as soon as she had been disinfected, Kinnison went into consultation with Tregonsee. The Rigellian was a highly important factor in the Tellurian's scheme, and since he was also a Lensman he was to be trusted implicitly. Therefore Kinnison told him briefly what occurred and what he had it in mind to do, concluding.

"So you see, I need about fifty kilograms of thlonite. Not fifty milligrams, or even grams, but fifty kilograms, and, since there probably isn't that much of the stuff louse in the whole galaxy, I came over here to ask you to make it for me."

Just like that. Calmly asking a Lensman. whose duty it was to kill any being even attempting to gather a single Treconian plant, to make for him more of the prohibited drug than was ordinarily processed throughout the galaxy during a Solarian month! It would be just such an errand were one to walk into the Treasury Department at Washington and Inform the Chief of the Narcotics Bureau, quite nonchalantly, that he had dropped in to pick up ten tons of heroin! But Tregonsee did not flinch or questionhe was not even surprised. This was a Gray Lensman.

"That should not be too difficult," Tregonsee replied, after a moment's study. "We have several thionite processing units, confiscated from zwilnik outfits and not yet sent in, and all of us are of course familiar with the technique of extracting and Purifying the drug."

He issued orders and shortly Trench Space–port presented the astounding spectacle of a full crew of the Galactic Patrol devoting its every energy to the wholehearted breaking of the one law it was supposed most rigidly, and without fear or favor, to enforce!

It was a little after noon, the calmest hour of Trench's day. The wind had died to "nothing", which, on the planet, meant that a strong man could stand against it, could even, if he were agile as well as strong, walk about in it. Therefore Kinnison donned his light armor and was soon busily harvesting broad– leaf, which, he had been informed, was the richest source of thionite.

He had been working for only a few minutes when a flat came crawling up to him, and, after ascertaining that his armor was not good to eat, drew off and observed him intently. Here was another opportunity for practice and in a flash the Lensman availed himself of it. Having practiced for hours upon the minds of various Earthly animals, he entered this mind easily enough, finding that the trench was considerably more intelligent than a dog. So much so, in fact, that the race had already developed a fairly comprehensive language. Therefore it did not take long for the Lensman to learn to use his subject's peculiar limbs and other members, and soon the flat was working as though he were in the business for himself. And since he was ideally adapted to his idly raging Trenconian environment, he actually accomplished more than all the rest of the force combined.

"It's a dirty trick I'm playing on you, Spike," Kinnison told his helper after a while. "Come on into the receiving room and I'll see if I can square it with you."

Since food was the only logical tender, Kinnison brought out from his speedster a small can of salmon, a package of cheese, a bar of chocolate, a few lumps of sugar, and a potato, offering them to the Trenconian in order. The salmon and cheese were both highly acceptable fare. The morsel of chocolate was a delightfully surprising delicacy. The lump of sugar, however, was what really rang the bell—Kinnison's own mind felt the shock of pure ecstasy as that wonderful substance dissolved in the trench's mouth. He also ate the potato, of course—any Trenconian animal will, at any time, eat practically anything—but it was merely food, nothing to rave about.

Knowing now what to do, Kinnison led his assistant out into the howling, shrieking gale and released him from control, throwing a lump of sugar up–wind as he did so. The trench seized it in the air, ate it, and went into a very hysteria of joy.

"More! More!" he insisted, attempting to climb up the Lensman's armored leg.

"You must work for more of it, if you want it," Kinnison explained. "Break off broad–leaf plants and carry them over into that empty thing over there, and you get more"

This was an entirely new idea to the native, but after Kinnison had taken hold of his mind and had shown him how. to do consciously that which he had been doing unconsciously for an hour, he worked willingly enough. In fact, before it started to rain, thereby putting an end to the labor of the day, there were a dozen of them toiling at the harvest and the crop was coming in as fast as the entire crew of Rigellians could process it. And even after the spaceport was sealed they crowded up, paying no attention to the rain, bringing in their small loads of leaves and plaintively asking admittance.

It took some little time for Kinnison to make them understand that the day's work was done, but that they were to come back tomorrow morning. Finally, however, he succeeded in getting the idea across, and the last disconsolate turtle–man swam reluctantly away. But sure enough, next morning, even before the mud had dried, the same twelve were back on the job, and the two Lensmen wondered simultaneouslyhow could those trencos have found the space–port? Or had they stayed near it through the storm and flood of the night.

"I don't know," Kinnison answered the unasked question, "but I can find out." Again and more carefully he examined the minds of two or three of them. "No, they didn't follow us," he reported then. "They're not as dumb as I thought they were. They have a sense of perception, Tregonsee, about the same thing, I judge, as yours perhaps even more so. I wonder…why couldn't they be trained into mighty efficient police assistants on this planet?"

"The way you handle them, yes. I can converse with them a little, of course, but they have never before shown any willingness to cooperate with us."

"You never fed them sugar," Kinnison laughed. "You have sugar, of course— or do you? I was forgetting that many races do not use it at all."

"We Rigellians are one of those races. Starch is so much tastier and so much better adapted to our body chemistry that sugar is used only as a chemical. We can, however, obtain it easily enough. But there is something else—you can tell these trencos what to do and make them really understand you. I can not."

"I can fix that up with a simple mental treatment that I can give you in five minutes. Also, I can let you have enough sugar to carry on with until you can get in a supply of your own."

In the few minutes during which the Lensman had been discussing their potential allies, the mud had dried and the amazing coverage of vegetation was springing visibly into being. So incredibly rapid was its growth that in less than an hour some species were large enough to be gathered. The leaves were lush and rank in color or a vivid crimsonish purple.

"These early morning plants are the richest of any in thionite—much richer than broad–leaf—but the zwilniks can never get more than a handful of them because of the wind," remarked the Rigellian. "Now, if you will give me that treatment, I will see what I can do with the flats."

Kinnison did so, and the trencos worked for Tregonsee as industriously as they had for Kinnison—and ate his sugar as rapturously.

"That's enough," decided the Rigellian presently. "This will finish your 'fifty kilograms' and to spare."

He then paid off his now enthusiastic helpers, with instructions to return when the sun was directly overhead, for more work and more sugar. And this time they did not complain, nor did they loiter around or bring in unwanted vegetation. They were learning fast.

Well before noon the last kilogram of impalpable, purplish blue powder was put into its impermeable sack. The machinery was cleaned, and untouched leaves, the waste, and the contaminated sir were blown out of the space–port, and the room and its occupants were sprayed with antithionite. Then and only then did the crew remove their masks and air–filters. Trench Space–port was again a Patrol post, no longer a zwilnik's paradise.

"Thanks, Tregonsee and all you fellows…" Kinnison paused, then went on, dubiously, "I don't suppose that you will…

"We will not," declared Tregonsee. "Our time is yours, as you know, without payment, and time is all that we gave you, really."

"Sure—that and a thousand million credits' worth of thionite."

"That, of course, does not count, as you also know. You have helped us, I think, even more than we have helped you."

"I hope I've done you some good, anyway. Well, I've got to flit. Thanks again—I'll see you again sometime, maybe," and again the Tellurian Lensman was on his way.