Gray Lensman

8: Cateagles

As has been said, Kinnison rode the blow of the blackjack forward and downward, thus robbing it of some of its power. It struck him hard enough so that the thug did not suspect the truth; he thought that he had all but taken the Lensman's life. And, for all the speed with which the Tellurian had yielded before the blow, he was hurt; but he was not stunned. Therefore, although he made no resistance when the two bullies rolled him over, lashed his feet together, tied his hands behind him, and lifted him into a car, he was fully conscious throughout the proceedings.

When the cab was perhaps half an hour upon its way the Lensman struggled back, quite realistically, to consciousness.

"Take it easy, pal," the larger of his thought–screened captors advised, dandling the black–jack suggestively before his eyes. "One yelp out of you, or a signal, if you've got one of them Lenses, and I bop you another one."

"What the blinding blue hell's coming off here?" demanded the dock– walloper, furiously. "Wha'd'ya think you're doing, you lop–eared…" and he cursed the two, viciously and comprehensively.

"Shut up or hell knock you kicking," the smaller thug advised from the driver's seat, and Kinnison subsided. "Not that it bothers me any, but you're making too damn much noise."

"But what's the matter?" Kinnison asked, more quietly. "What'd you slug me for and drag me off? I ain't done nothing and I ain't got nothing."

"I don't know nothing," the big agent replied. "The boss will tell you all you need to know when we get to where we're going. All I know is the boss says to bop you easy–like and bring you in alive if you don't act up. He says to tell you not to yell and not to use no Lens. If you yell we burn you out. If you use any Lens, the boss he's got his eyes on all the bases and spaceports and everything, and if any help starts to come this way hell tell us and we fry you and buzz off. We can kill you and flit before any help can get near you, he says."

"Your boss ain't got the brains of a fontema," Kinnison growled. He knew that the boss, wherever he was, could hear every word. "Hell's hinges, if I was a Lensman you think I'd be walloping junk on a dock? Use your head, cully, if you got one."

"I wouldn't know nothing about that," the other returned, stolidly.

"But I ain't got no Lens!" the dock–walloper stormed, in exasperation. "Look at me—frisk me! You'll see I ain't!"

"All that ain't none of my dish." The thug was entirely unmoved. "I don't know nothing and I don't do nothing except what the boss tells me, see? Now take it easy, all nice and quietlike. If you don't," and he flicked the blackjack lightly against the Lensman's knee, "I'll put out your landing– lights. I'll lay you like a mat, and I don't mean maybe. See?"

Kinnison saw, and relapsed into silence. The automobile rolled along. And, flitting industriously about upon its delivery duties, but never much more or less than one measured mile distant, a panel job pursued its devious way. Oddly enough, its chauffeur was a Lensman. Here and there, high in the heavens, were a few airplanes, gyros, and copters; but they were going peacefully and steadily about their business—even though most of them happened to have Lensmen as pilots.

And, not at the base at all, but high in the stratosphere and so throughly screened that a spy–ray observer could not even tell that his gaze was being blocked, a battle–cruiser, Lensmancommanded, rode poised upon flare– baffled, softly hissing under–jets. And, equally high and as adequately protected against observation, a keen–eyed Lensman sat at the controls of a speedster, jazzing her muffled jets and peering eagerly through a telescopic sight. As far as the Patrol was concerned, everything was on the trips.

The car approached the gates of a suburban estate and stopped. It waited. Kinnison knew that the Boskonian within was working his every beam, alert for any sign of Patrol activity; knew that if there were any such sign the car would be off in an instant. But there was no activity. Kinnison sent a thought to Gerrond, who relayed micrometric readings of the objective to various Lensmen. Still everyone waited. Then the gate opened of itself, the two thugs jerked their captive out of the car to the ground, and Kinnison sent out his signal.

Base remained quiet, but everything else erupted at once. The airplanes wheeled, cruiser and speedster plummeted downward at maximum blast. The panel job literally fell open, as did the cage within it, and four ravening ca– eagles, with the silent ferocity of their kind, rocketed toward their goal.

Although the oglons were not as fast as the flying ships they did not have nearly as far to go, wherefore they got there first. The thugs had no warning whatever. One instant everything was under control; if the next the noiselessly arrowing destroyers struck their prey with the mad fury that only a striking cateagle can exhibit. Barbed talons dug viciously into eyes, faces, mouths, tearing, rending, wrenching; fierce–driven fangs tore deeply, savagely into defenseless throats.

Once each die thugs screamed in mad, lethal terror, but no warning was given; for by that time every building upon that pretentious estate had disappeared in the pyrotechnic flare of detonating duodec. The pellets were small, of course—the gunners did not wish either to destroy the nearby residences or to injure Kinnison—but they were powerful enough for the purpose intended. Mansion and outbuildings disappeared, and not even the most thoroughgoing spy–ray search revealed the presence of anything animate or structural where those buildings had been.

The panel job drove up and Kinnison, perceiving that the cateagles had done their work, sent them back into their cage. The Lensman driver, after securely locking cage and truck, cut the Earthman's bonds.

"QX, Kinnison?" he asked. "QX, Barknett—thanks," and the two Lensmen, one in the panel truck and the other in the gangsters' car, drove back to headquarters. There Kinnison recovered his package.

"This has got me all of a soapy dither, but you have called the turn on every play yet,1' Winstead told the Tellurian, later. "Is this all of the big shots, do you think, or are there some more of them around here?"

"Not around here, I'm pretty sure," Kinnison replied. "No, two main lines is all they would have had, I think…this time. Next time…"

"There won't be any next time," Winstead declared.

"Not on this planet, no. Knowing what to expect, you fellows can handle anything that comes up. I was thinking then of my next step."

"Oh. But you'll get 'em, Gray Lensman!"

"I hope so," soberly.

"Luck, Kinnison!"

"Clear ether, Winstead!" and this time the Tellurian really did flit.

As his speedster ripped through the void Kinnison did more thinking, but he was afraid that Menter would have considered the product muddy indeed. He couldn't seem to get to the first check–station. One thing was limpidly clear; this line of attack or any very close variation of it would never work again. He'd have to think up something new. So far, he had got away with his stuff because he had kept one lap ahead of them, but how much longer could he manage to keep up the pace?

Bominger had been no mental giant, of course; but this other lad was nobody's fool and this next higher–up, with whom he had had the interview via Bominger, would certainly prove to be a really shrewd number.

"The higher the fewer," he repeated to himself the old saying, adding, "and in this case, the smarter." He had to put out some jets, but where he was going to get the fuel he simply didn't know.

Again the trip to Tellus was uneventful, and the Gray Lens–man, the symbol of his rank again flashing upon his wrist, sought interview with Haynes.

"Send him in, certainly—send him in!" Kinnison heard the communicator crackle, and the receptionist passed him along. He paused in surprise, however, at the doorway of the office, for Surgeon–Marshal Lacy and a Posenian were in conference with the Port Admiral.

"Come in, Kinnison," Haynes invited. "Lacy wants to see you a minute, too. Doctor Phillips—Lensman Kinnison, Unattached. His name isn't Phillips, of course; we gave him that in self–defense, to keep from trying to pronounce his real one."

Phillips, the Posenian, was as tall as Kinnison, and heavier. His figure was somewhat human in shape, but not in detail. He had four arms instead of two, each arm had two opposed hands, and each hand had two thumbs, one situated about where a little finger would be expected. He had no eyes, not even vestigial ones. He had two broad, flat noses and two toothful mouths; one of each in what would ordinarily be called the front of his round, shining, hairless head; the other in the back. Upon the sides of his head were large, volute, highly dirigible ears. And, like most races having the faculty of perception instead of that of sight, his head was relatively immobile, his neck being short, massive, and tremendously strong.

"You look well, very well." Lacy reported, after feeling and prodding vigorously the members which had been in his splints and casts so long. "Have to take a picture, of course, before saying anything definite. No, we won't either, now. Phillips, look at his…" an interlude of technical jargon…"and see what kind of a recovery he has made." Then, while the Posenian was examining Kinnison's interior mechanisms, the Surgeon–Marshal went on:

"Wonderful diagnosticians and surgeons, these Posenians—can see into the patient without taking him apart. In another few centuries every doctor will have to have the sense of perception. Phillips is doing a research in neurology—more particularly a study of the neutral synapse and the proliferation of neural dendrites…"

"La—cy–y–y!" Haynes drawled the word in reproof. "I've told you a thousand times to talk English when you're talking to me. How about it, Kinnison?"

"Afraid I can't quite check you, chief," Kinnison grinned. "Specialists— precisionists—can't talk in Basic."

"Right, my boy—surprisingly and pleasingly right!" Lacy exclaimed. "Why can't you adopt that attitude, Haynes, and learn enough words so you can understand what a man's talking about? But to reduce it to monosyllabic simplicity, Phillips is studying a thing that has baffled us for thousands of years. The lower forms of cells are able to regenerate themselves; wounds heal, bones knit. Higher types, such as nerve cells, regenerate imperfectly, if at all; and the highest type, the brain cells, do not do so under any conditions." He turned a reproachful gaze upon Haynes. "This is terrible. Those statements are pitiful—inadequate—false. Worse than that—practically meaningless. What I wanted to say, and what .I'm going to say, is that…"

"Oh no you aren't, not in this office," his old friend interrupted. "We got the idea perfectly. The question is, why can't human beings repair nerves or spinal cords, or grow new ones? If such a worthless beastie as a starfish can grow a whole new body to one leg, including a brain, if any, why can't a really intelligent victim of simple infantile paralysis—or a ray—recover the use of a leg that is otherwise in perfect shape?"

"Well, that's something like it, but I hope you can aim closer than that at a battleship," Lacy grunted. "We'll buzz off now, Phillips, and leave these two war–horses alone."

"Here is my report in detail." Kinnison placed the package upon the Port Admiral's desk as soon as the room was sealed behind the visitors. "I talked to you direct about most of it—this is for the record."

"Of course. Mighty glad you found Medon, for our sake as well as theirs. They have things that we need, badly."

"Where did they put them? I suggested a sun near Sol, so as to have them handy to Prime Base."

"Right next door—Alpha Centauri. Didn't get to do much scouting, did you?"

"I'll say we didn't. Boskonia owns that galaxy; lock, stock, and barrel. May be some other independent planets—bound to be, of course; probably a lot of them—but it's too dangerous, hunting them at this stage of the game. But at that, we did enough, for the time being. We proved our point. Boskone, if there is any such being, is certainly in the Second Galaxy. However, it will he a long time before we're ready to carry the war there to him, and in the meantime we've got a lot to do. Check?"

"To nineteen decimals."

"It seems to me, then, that while you are rebuilding our first–line ships, super–powering them with Medonian insulation and conductors, I had better keep on tracing Boskone along the line of drugs. I'm just about sure that they're back of the whole drug business."

"And in some ways their drugs are more dangerous to Civilization than their battleships. More insidious and, ultimately, more fatal."

"Check. And since I am perhaps as well equipped as any of the other Lensmen to cope with that particular problem…?" Kinnison paused, questioningly.

"That certainly is no overstatement," the Port Admiral replied, dryly. "You're the only one equipped to cope with it."

"None of the other boys except Worsel, then?…I heard that a couple…"

"They thought they had a call, but they didn't. All they had was a wish. They came back."

"Too bad…but I can see how it would be. It's a rough course, and if a man's mind isn't completely ready for it, it burns it out. It almost does, anyway… mind is a funny thing. But that isn't getting us anywhere. Can you take time to let me talk at you a few minutes?"

"I certainly can. You've got the most important assignment in the galaxy, and I'd like to know more about it, if it's anything you can pass on."

"Nothing that need be sealed from any Lensman. The main object of all of us, as you know, is to push Boskonia out of this galaxy. From a military standpoint they practically are out. Their drug syndicate, however, is very decidedly in, and getting in deeper all the time. Therefore we next push the zwilniks out. They have peddlers and such small fry, who deal with distributors and so on. These fellows form the bottom layer. Above them are the secret agents, the observers, and the wholesale handlers; runners and importers. All these folks are directed and controlled by one man, the boss of each planetary organization. Thus, Bominger was the boss of all zwilnick activities on the whole planet of Radelix.

"In turn the planetary bosses report to, and are synchronized and controlled by a Regional Director, who supervises the activities of a couple of hundred or so planetary outfits. I got a line on the one over Bominger, you know—Prellin, the Kalonian. By the way, you knew, didn't you, that Helmuth was a Kalonian, too?"

"I got it from the tape. Smart people, they must be, but not my idea of good neighbors."

"I'll say not. Well, that's all I really know of their organization. It seems logical to suppose, though, that the structure is coherent all the way up. If so, the Regional Directors would be under some higher–up, possibly a Galactic Director, who in turn might be under Boskone himself—or one of his cabinet officers, at least. Perhaps the Galactic Director might even be a cabinet officer in their government; whatever it is?"

"An ambitious program you've got mapped out for yourself. How are you figuring on swinging it?"

"That's the rub—I don't know," Kinnison confessed, rue–' fully. "But if it's done at all, that's the way I've got to go about it. Any other way would take a thousand years and more men than we'll ever have. This way works fine, when it works at all."

"I can see that—lop off the head and the body dies," Haynes agreed.

"That's the way it works—especially when the head keeps detailed records and books covering the activities of all the members of his body. With Bominger and the others gone, andwith full transcripts of his accounts, the boys mopped up Radelix in a hurry. From now on it will be simple to keep it clean, except of course for the usual bootleg trickle, and that can be reduced to a minimum. Similarly, if we can put this Prellin away and take a good look at his ledgers, it will be easy to clear up his two hundred planets. And so on."

"Very clear, and quite simple…in theory." The older man was thoughtful and frankly dubious. "In practice, difficult in the extreme."

"But necessary," the younger insisted.

"I suppose so," Haynes assented finally. "Useless to tell you not to take chances—you'll have to—but for all our sakes, if not for your own, be as careful as you can."

"I'll do that, chief. I think a lot of me. As much as anybody—maybe more—and 'Careful' is my middle name."

"Ummmh," Haynes grunted, skeptically. "We've noticed that. Anything special you want done?"

"Yes, very special," Kinnison surprised him by answering in the affirmative. "You know that the Medonians developed a scrambler for a detector nullifier. Hotchkiss and the boys developed a new line of attack on that—against long– range stuff we're probably safe—but they haven't been able to do a thing on electromagnetics. Well, the Boskonians, beginning with Prellin, are going to start wondering what has been happening. Then, if I succeed in getting Prellin, they're bound to start doing things. One thing they'll do will be to fix up thenheadquarters so that they'll have about five hundred percent overlap on their electros. Perhaps they'll have outposts, too, close enough together to have the same thing there—possibly two or three hundred even on visuals."

"In that case you stay out."

"Not necessarily. What do electros work on?"

"Iron, I suppose—they did when I went to school last."

"The answer, then, is to build me a speedster that is inherently indetectable—absolutely non–ferrous. Berylumin and so on for all the structural parts…"

"But you've got to have silicon–steel cores for your electrical equipment!"

"I was coming to that. Have you? I was reading in the Transactions' the other day that force–fields had been used in big units, and were more efficient. Some of the smaller units, instruments and so on, might have to have some iron, but wouldn't it be possible to so saturate those small pieces with a dense field of detector frequencies that they wouldn't react?"

"I don't know. Never thought of it. Would it?"

"I don't know, either—I'm not telling you, I'm just making suggestions. I do know one thing, though. We've got to keep ahead of them—think of things first and oftenest, and be ready to abandon them for something else as soon as we've used them once."

"Except for those primary projectors." Haynes grinned wryly. "They can't be abandoned—even with Medonian power we haven't been able to develop a screen that will stop them. We've got to keep them secret from Boskone—and in that connection I want to compliment you on the suggestion of having Velantian Lensmen as mind–readers Wherever those projectors are even being thought of."

"You caught spies, then? How many?"

"Now many—three or four in each base—but enough to have done the damage. Now, I believe, for the first time in history, we can be sure of our entire personnel."

"I think so. Mentor says the Lens is enough, if we use it properly. That's up to us."

"But how about visuals?" Haynes was still worrying, and to good purpose.

"Well, we have a black coating now that's ninety–nine percent absorptive, and I don't need ports or windows. At that, though, one percent reflection would be enough to give me away at a critical time. How'd it be to put a couple of the boys on that job? Have them put a decimal point after the ninety nine and see how many nines they can tack on behind it?"

"That's a thought, Kinnison. They'll have lots of time to work on it while the engineers are trying to fill your specifications as to a speedster. But you're right, dead right. We—or rather, you—have got to out– think them; and it certainly is up to us to do everything we can to build the apparatus to put your thoughts into practice. And it isn't at some vague time in the future that Boskone is going to start doing something about you and what you've done. It's right now; or even, more probably, a week or so ago. But you haven't said a word yet about the really big job you have in mind."

"I've been putting that off until the last," the Gray Lens–man's voice held obscure puzzlement. "The fact is that I simply can't get a tooth into it—can't get a grip on it anywhere. I don't know enough about math or physics. Everything comes out negative for me; not only inertia, but also force, velocity, and even mass itself. Final results always contain an 'i', too, the square root of minus one. I can't get rid of it, and I don't see how it can be built into any kind of apparatus. It may not be workable at all, but before I give up the idea I'd like to call a conference, if it's QX with you and the Council."

"Certainly it is QX with us. You're forgetting again, aren't you, that you're a Gray Lensman?" Haynes' voice held no reproof, he was positively beaming with a super–fatherly pride.

"Not exactly." Kinnison blushed, almost squirmed. "I'm just too much of a cub to be sticking my neck out so far, is all. The idea may be—probably is— wilder than a Radeligian cateagle. The only kind of a conference that could even begin to handle it would cost a young fortune, and I don't want to spend that much money on my own responsibility."

"To date your ideas have worked out well enough so that the Council is backing you one hundred percent," the older man said, dryly. "Expense is no object." Then, his voice changing markedly, "Kim, have you any idea at all of the financial resources of the Patrol?"

"Very little, sir, if any, I'm afraid," Kinnison confessed.

"Here on Tellus alone we have an expendable reserve of over ten thousand million credits. With the restriction of government to its proper sphere and its concentration into our organization, resulting in the liberation of man– power into wealth–producing enterprise, and especially with the enormous growth of inter–world commerce, world–income increased to such a point that taxation could be reduced to a minimum; and the lower the taxes the more flourishing business became and the greater the income.

"Now the tax rate is the lowest in history. The total income tax, for instance, in the highest bracket, is only three point five nine two percent. At that, however, if it had not been for the recent slump, due to Boskonian interference with inter–systemic commerce, we would have had to reduce the tax rate again to avoid serious financial difficulty due to the fact that too much of the galactic total of circulating credit would have been concentrated in the expendable funds of the Galactic Patrol. So don't even think of money. Whether you want to spend a thousand credits, a million, or a thousand million; go ahead."

"Thanks, Chief; glad you explained. I'll feel better now about spending money that doesn't belong to me. Now if you'll give me, for about a week, the use of the librarian in charge of science files and a galactic beam, I'll quit bothering you."

"I'll do that." The Port Admiral touched a button and in a few minutes a trimly attractive blonde entered the room. "Miss Hostetter, this is Lensman Kinnison, Unattached. Please turn over your regular duties to an assistant and work with him until he releases you. Whatever he says, goes; the sky's the limit"

In the Library of Science Kinnison outlined his problem briefly to his new aide, concluding: "I want only about fifty, as a larger group could not cooperate efficiently. Are your lists arranged so that you can skim off the top fifty?"

"Such a group can be selected, I think." The girl stood for a moment, lower lip held lightly between white teeth. "That is not a standard index, but each scientist has a rating. I can set the acceptor…no, the rejector would be better—to throw out all the cards above any given rating. If we take out all ratings over seven hundred we will have only the highest of the geniuses."

"How many, do you suppose?"

"I have only a vague idea—a couple of hundred, perhaps. If too many, we can run them again at a higher level, say seven ten. But there won't be very many, since there are only two galactic ratings higher than seven fifty. There will be duplications, too—such people as Sir Austin Cardynge will have two or three cards in the final rejects."

"QX—we'll want to hand–pick the fifty, anyway. Let's go!"

Then for hours bale after bale of cards went through the machine; thousands of records per minute. Occasionally one card would flip out into a rack, rejected. Finally:

"That's all, I think. Mathematicians, physicists," the librarian ticked off upon pink fingers, "Astronomers, philosophers, and this new classification, which hasn't been named yet."

"The H.T.T.'s." Kinnison glanced at the label, lightly lettered in pencil, fronting the slim packet of cards. "Aren't you going to run them through, too?"

"No. These are the two I mentioned a minute ago—the only ones higher than seven hundred fifty."

"A choice pair, eh? Sort of a creme de la creme? Let's look 'em over," and he extended his hand. "What do the initials stand for?"

"I'm awfully sorry, sir, really," the girl flushed in embarrassment as she relinquished the cards in high reluctance. "If I'd had any idea we wouldn't have dared—we call you, among ourselves, the 'High–Tension Thinkers.'"

"Us!" It was the Lensman's turn to flush. Nevertheless, he took the packet and read sketchily the facer: "Class XIX—Unclassifiable at present…lack of adequate methods…minds of range and scope far beyond any available indices…Ratings above high genius (750)…yet no instability…power beyond any heretofore known…assigned ratings tentative and definitely minimum."

He then read the cards.

"Worsel, Velantia, eight hundred."

And:

"Kimball Kinnison, Tellus, eight hundred seventy–five."