Piracy was rife. There was no suspicion, however, would there be for many years, that there was anything of very large purpose about the business. Murgatroyd was a Captain Kidd of space; and if he were actually with Galactic Spaceways, that would not be surprising. Such had always existed; the most and of the world in full partnership with the First Families of that world.
Virgil Samms was of and of when he left Senator Morgan's office. He was still of them while he was to Roderick Kinnison. Hence:
"But that's about this and me, Rod. Bring me up to date on Operation Boskone."
"Branching out no end. Your was right that Spaceways' to are phony. But it wasn't the attacks—that is, those cases in which the ship was found, later, with some or most of the alive—that gave us the information. They were all much alike. But when we the total we the jack-pot."
"That doesn't just right, but I'm listening."
"You'd better, since it goes than you suspected. It was no trouble at all to the and the names of the of the ships that were without a trace. Their relatives and friends—we mostly on wives—could be located, for the who moved around so much that they got lost. Spacemen young, you know, and their are still younger. Well, these got jobs, most of them remarried, and so on. In short, normal."
"And in the case of Spaceways, not normal?"
"Decidedly not. In the place, you'd be at how little was done of lists, and were not published at all. No use going into detail as to how we got the stuff, but we got it. However, nine of the had disappeared, and none had remarried. The only ones we were those who did not care, when their husbands were alive, they saw them again or not. But the big was—you the of that girls'-school ship?"
"Of course. It a of noise."
"An point in with that is that two days the ship off the was robbed. The was opened with and the whole Administration Building to the ground. All the school's records were destroyed. Thus, the list of missing had to be up from by friends, relatives, and what not."
"I something of the kind. My was, though, that the space-ship company furnished.... Oh!" The of Samms' sharply. "That was Spaceways, under cover?"
"Definitely. Our best is that there were a of about that time, of one. Austine's College had more students that year than or since. It was the extras, not the regulars, who on that cruise; the ones who it would be more to in space than to ordinary missing persons."
"But Rod! That would ... but where?"
"It means just that. And out 'where' will into a project. There are over two thousand in this galaxy, and the best is that there are more than that many by beings more or less in type. You know how much of the has been and how fast the work of the of it is going. Your is just as good as mine as to where those and and their and girl-friends are now. I am sure, though, of four things; none of which we can to prove. One; they didn't die in space. Two; they on a and very well Tellurian planet. Three; they a there. Four; that the Hill."
"Murgatroyd, do you suppose?" Although by Kinnison's report, Samms was not dismayed.
"No idea. No data—yet."
"And they'll keep on building," Samms said. "They had a much larger than the one they to meet. Now they'll one larger than all our forces. And since the politicians will always know what we are doing ... or it might be ... I wonder...?"
"You can stop wondering." Kinnison savagely.
"What do you mean?"
"Just what you were going to think about. You know the of the to Tellus, where that big in?"
"Yes."
"Across that rift, where it won't be for a thousand years, there's a that be Earth's sister. No energy, no space-drive, but and to welcome us. Project Bennett. Very, very hush-hush. Nobody Lensmen know anything about it. Two friends of Dronvire's—smart, operators—are in charge. It's going to be the Navy Yard of the Galactic Patrol."
"But Rod ..." Samms to protest, his mind ahead to the problems, the difficulties, in the program which his friend had so briefly.
"Forget it, Virge!" Kinnison cut in. "It won't be easy, of course, but we can do anything they can do, and do it better. You can go ahead with your own chores, that when—and notice that I say 'when', not 'if'—we need it we'll have a up our that will make the official one look like a force. But I see you're at the rendezvous, and there's Jill. Tell her 'hi' for me. And as the Vegians say—'Tail high, brother!'"
Samms was in the hotel's lobby; a of "boys" and Jill Samms were approaching. The girl him first.
"You had no trouble in me, then, my dear?"
"None at all, Uncle George." She him perfunctorily, the away. "So to see you—I've so much about you. The Marine Room, you said?"
"Yes. I a table."
And in that famous restaurant, in the of the city's and most night spot, they sparingly; ate not-so-sparingly; and talked not at all.
"It's perfectly safe here, you think?" Jill asked first.
"Perfectly. A super-sensitive couldn't anything, and it's so dark that a lip-reader, if he read us, would need a pair of twelve-inch night-glasses."
"Goody! They did a job, Dad. If it weren't for your ... well, your personality, I wouldn't you now."
"You think I'm safe, then?"
"Absolutely."
"Then we'll to business. You, Knobos, and DalNalten all have and powerful minds. You can't all be wrong. Spaceways, then, is in with the Towne-Morgan and with thionite. The logical of that—Dal of it, though he didn't mention it—would be ..." Samms paused.
"Check. That the Murgatroyd, of being just another chief, is for Spaceways and to the Towne-Morgan-Isaacson gang. But dad—what an idea! Can be that rotten, really?"
"They may be than that. Now the next thing. Who, in your opinion, is the boss?"
"Well, it is not Herkimer Herkimer Third." Jill him off on a pink forefinger. She had been asked for an opinion; she set out to give it without or hesitation. "He could—just about—direct the of a hot-dog stand. Nor is it Clander. He isn't a little fish; he's a minnow. Equally it is neither the Venerian the Martian. They may affairs, but nothing bigger. I haven't met Murgatroyd, of course, but I have had evaluations, and he not up with Towne. And Big Jim—and this me as much as it will you—is almost not the mover." She looked at him questioningly.
"That would have me yesterday; but after today—I'll tell you about that presently—it doesn't."
"I'm of that. I an argument, and I have been to question the of my own results, since they do not agree with common knowledge—or, rather, what is to be knowledge. That Isaacson and Senator Morgan." Jill in perplexity; seemed, for the time, unsure. "Isaacson is of a big man. Able. Well-informed. Extremely capable. A top-notch executive. Not only is, would have to be, to Spaceways. On the other hand, I have always that Morgan was nothing but a windbag...." Jill stopped talking; left the in air.
"So did I—until today," Samms grimly. "I that he was an corrupt, greedy, rabble-rousing politician. Our of him may have to be very radically."
Samms' mind raced. From two different of approach, Jill and he had at the same conclusion. But, if Morgan were the Big Shot, would he have to personally such small as Olmstead? Or was Olmstead's job of more than he, Samms, had supposed?
"I've got a dozen more to check with you," he on, almost without a pause, "but since this is the only one in which my would affect your judgment, I had tell you about what today...."
Tuesday came, and hour fourteen hundred; and Samms into an office. There was a big, clean desk; a wiry, intense, gray-haired man.
"Captain Willoughby?"
"Yes."
"George Olmstead reporting."
"Fourth Officer." The captain a button; the heavy, sound-proof door closed itself and locked.
"Fourth Officer? New rank, eh. What the ticket cover?"
"New, and special. Here's the articles; read it and it." He did not add "or else", it was not necessary. It was that Captain Willoughby, garrulous, to be particularly with his new subordinate.
Samms read. "... Fourth Officer ... shall ... no or in the operation or of said space-ship ... ..." Then came a which from the paper and his eyes: "when in of a detail the of said space-ship he shall enforce, by the of death or such other as he fit...."
The Lensman was to the heels, but did not it. Instead, he took the captain's pen—his own, as as Willoughby was concerned, have been with ink—and George Olmstead's name in George Olmstead's bold, script.
Willoughby then took him the good ship Virgin Queen and him to his cabin.
"Here you are, Mr. Olmstead. Beyond with the super-cargo and the of your men, you will have no for a days. You have full of the ship, with one exception. Stay out of the room until I call you. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir." Willoughby away and Samms, after his space-bag into the rack, took inventory.
The room was of very small; but, the of mass, it was almost supplied. There were shelves, or rather, tight racks, of books; there were sun-lamps and card-shelves and and games; there was a of in programs from almost in space. The room had only one lack; it did not have an ultra-wave visiplate. Nor was this surprising. "They" would let George Olmstead know where "they" were taking him.
Samms was surprised, however, when he met the men who were to be directly under his command; for of one, or at most two, they numbered forty. And they were all, he at glance, the and of the in space. Before long, however, he learned that they were not all space-rats and of Skid Rows. Six of them—the physically and the of the lot—were from chambers; and worse. He looked at the biggest, one of the six—a rock-drill-eyed, red-haired giant—and asked:
"What did they tell you, Tworn, that your job was going to be?"
"They didn't say. Just that it was dangerous, but if I done what my would tell me to do, and nothing else, I might not hurt. An' I was to take the the next week, see? That's just how it was, boss."
"I see," and one by one Virgil Samms, master psychologist, and his until he was called into the room.
The was covered; no were to be seen. The one "live" a and a blue-white sun.
"My orders are to tell you, at this point, all I know about what you've got to do and about that there. Trenco, they call it." To Virgil Samms, the of Civilization to it, that name meant nothing whatever. "You are to take about five of your men, go there, and all the green you can. Not green in color; of purplish. What they call is the best; about two long and a wide. But don't be too choosy. If there isn't any handy, anything you can of."
"What is the opposition?" Samms asked, quietly. "And what have they got that makes them so tough?"
"Nothing. No inhabitants, even. Just the itself. Next to Arisia, it's the God in space. I've been any closer to it than this, and I will, so I don't know anything about it what I hear; but there's something about it that kills men or them crazy. We seven or eight every trip, and thirty-five or men, and the biggest that took away from here was just under two hundred of leaf. A good many times we don't any."
"They go crazy, eh?" In of his control, Samms paled. But it couldn't be like Arisia. "What are the symptoms? What do they say?"
"Various. Main thing to be that they their sight. Don't go blind, exactly, but can't see where anything is; or, if they do see it, it isn't there. And it over every night, and yet it all up by morning. The in the universe, and wind-velocities—I can you on that—of over eight hundred miles an hour."
"Whew! How about time? With your permission, I would like to do some I try to land."
"A idea. A of the other boys had the same, but it didn't help—they didn't come back. I'll give you two Tellurian days—no, three—before I give you up and start sending out the other boats. Pick out your five men and see what you can do."
As the away, Willoughby's voice came from a speaker. "I know that you five men have got ideas. Forget 'em. Fourth Officer Olmstead has the authority and the orders to put a half-ounce through the of any or all of you that don't jump, and jump fast, to do what he tells you. And if that makes any moves I blast it out of the ether. Good harvesting!"
For forty-eight Tellurian hours, taking time out only to sleep, Samms and the Trenco; and the more he it, the more it became.
Trenco was, and is, a indeed. Its is not air as we know air; its not water. Half of that and most of that are one chemical, a of very low of and having a point of about seventy-five Fahrenheit. Trenco's days are hot; its nights are cold.
At night, therefore, it rains: and by a Tellurian of one hour is a drizzle. Upon Trenco it rains—forty seven and five of precipitation, every night of every Trenconian year. And this of wind. Willoughby's were accurate. Except at Trenco's very there is not a spot in which or a time at which an Earthly would not a calm; and along the equator, at every and every sunset, the wind from the day into the night at a which no Tellurian or cyclone, violent, has approached.
Also, therefore, there is lightning. Not in the mild and occasional which we of Terra know, but in a continuous, which a normal sun; in battering, shattering, multi-billion-volt which not only make unknown there, but also and the and the of space itself. Sight is almost in that medium. So is the ultra-beam.
Landing on the side, possibly at exact noon, would be of the wind, the ship for more than a of minutes. Landing on the night would be as bad, of the the would up—unless the something that be into a leaker. Did it? It did.
Time after time, from to and from midnight around the clock, Samms Visibeam and spy-ray toward Trenco's falsely-visible surface, with and results. The tipped, lurched, spun, and danced. It up into chunks, each of which to paths.
Finally, in desperation, he a and it down. Again he saw the up his eyes, but this time he on. He that he was well out of the stratosphere, a good two hundred miles up. Nevertheless, he saw a of down, with velocity, upon his lifeboat!
Unfortunately the crew, to he had not been paying attention of late, saw it, too; and one of them, with a yell, toward Samms and the controls. Samms, for pistol and blackjack, around just in time to see the big red-head the would-be out cold with a hand's-edge at the of the skull.
"Thanks, Tworn. Why?"
"Because I want to out of this alive, and he'd've had us all in in fifteen minutes. You know a of a more than we do, so I'm playin' it your way. See?"
"I see. Can you use a sap?"
"An artist," the big man admitted, modestly. "Just tell me how long you want a guy to be out and I won't miss it a minute, either way. But you'd that crumb's out, right now. He ain't no good."
"Not until after I see he can work or not. You're a Procian, aren't you?"
"Yeah. Midlands—North Central."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing much, at first. Just killed a guy that needed killing; but the had a of money, so they give me twenty five years. I didn't like it very well, and rough, so they give me solitary—boot, bandage, and so on. So I a break—killed six or eight, maybe a dozen, guards—but didn't make it. So they me for the big whiff. That's all, boss."
"I'm promoting you, now, to leader. Here's the sap." He Tworn his blackjack. "Watch 'em—I'll be too to. This landing is going to be tough."
"Gotcha, boss." Tworn was his by himself on the leg. "Go ahead. As as these are concerned, you've got this air-tank all to yourself."
Samms had what he was going to do. He the on the side, his little ship nearer to than to midnight, and "cut the rope". He took one quick reading on the sun, cut off his plates, and let her drop, only his pressure and gyros.
One hundred of mercury. Three hundred. Five hundred. He her down. He was going to a thin liquid, but if he it too hard he would the boat, and he had no idea what the pressure at Trenco's surface would be. Six hundred. Even this late at night, it might be than Earth's ... and it might be a less. Seven hundred.
Slower and slower he downward, his than did the of the gage. This was an landing with a vengeance! Eight hundred. How was the taking it? How many of them had Tworn had to disable? He around. None! Now that they not see the images upon the plates, they were not at all—he himself was the only one who was the strain!
Nine hundred ... nine hundred forty. The "hit the drink" with a crashing, impact. Its was slow enough, however, and the liquid was enough, so that no was done. Samms a little power and his craft's nose into the line toward the sun. The little ship slowly forward, as nearly just as Samms keep her; as as a river steam-boat upon a mud-flat. The slackened; the Lensman that the second moment was at hand.
"Strap down, men, until we see what this wind is going to do to us."
The atmosphere, moving at a well above that of sound, was in not a gas, but a solid. Even a spaceboat's hard skin of plate, with all its bracing, not take what was next. Inert, she would be open, smashed, out, and into pretzels. Samms' down; the Berg into action; the free just as that blast of quasi-solid her into the air.
The second was much and much than the first. Nor, this time, did Samms or drive toward shore. Knowing now that this was not to his vessel, he let her to the bottom. More, he her on her and her at a into the bottom; so that the of her lock was with the ocean's floor. Again they waited; and this time the wind did not the away.
Upon purely Samms had that the of must be a of distance, and his so had been in with that hypothesis. Now, slowly and cautiously, he sent out a visibeam. Ten ... twenty ... ... all clear. At fifty the was definitely bad; at sixty it impossible. He to and to study the vegetation, with such speed that the leaves, pressed to the ground by the and there by rootlets, were already long. There was also what to be animal life, of sorts, but Samms was not, at the moment, in Trenconian zoology.
"Are them the plants we're going to get, boss?" Tworn asked, into the plate over Samms' shoulder. "Shall we go out now an' start pickin' 'em?"
"Not yet. Even if we open the port the blast would us. Also, it would your off, with the coaming, as fast as you it out. This wind should off after a while; we'll go out a little noon. In the meantime we'll ready. Have the boys out a of Number Twelve struts, some and chain, four blocks, and a hundred of space-line....
"Good," he on, when the order had been obeyed. "Rig the line from the through here, and here, and here, so I can you against the wind. While you are doing that I'll a on the winch."
Shortly Trenco's fierce, blue-white sun meridian, the six men space-suits and Samms opened the air-lock ports. They worked. The wind was now more than an Earthly hurricane; the plants, upward, were almost half-way to the vertical. The were almost grown.
Four men their to the line. The line was paid out. Each man two leaves; the largest, fattest, purplest ones he reach. Samms them and the loot; Tworn the away. Again—again—again.
With there came a minutes of "calm". A man against the now wind; move around without being the horizon; and those minutes all six men leaves. That time, however, was very short. The wind into the direction with ever-increasing fury; and space-line again came into play. And in a hour, when the line to an almost note under its load, Samms to call it quits.
"That'll be all for today, boys," he announced. "About twice more and this line will part. You've done too good a job to you. Secure ship."
"Shall I the air, sir?" Tworn asked.
"I don't think so." Samms for a moment. "No. I'm to take the chance. This stuff, it is, is as as cyanide. We'll keep our on and into space."
Time passed. "Night" came; the rain and the flood. The softened. Samms the out of the and away from the planet. He opened the valves, then air-lock ports; the air was replaced by the ultra-hard of the inter-planetary void. He the Virgin Queen; the was taken aboard.
"Quick trip, Olmstead," Willoughby him. "I'm that you got at all, to say nothing of with so much and not a man. Give me the weight, mister, fast!"
"Three hundred and eight pounds, sir," the super-cargo reported.
"My God! And all pure broadleaf! Nobody did that before! How did you do it, Olmstead?"
"I don't know that would be any of your or not." Samms' was not insulting; thoughtful. "Not that I give a damn, but my way might not help else much, and I think I had report to the main office first, and let them do the telling. Fair enough?"
"Fair enough," the conceded, ungrudgingly. "What a load! And no losses!"
"One of air, is all; but air is out here." Samms a point, deliberately.
"Air!" Willoughby snorted. "I'll you a hundred of air, any time, for any one of those leaves!" Which was what Samms wanted to know.
Captain Willoughby was smart. He that the way to succeed was to use and then to upon his inferiors; to to such as were too to be and thus supplanted. He this Olmstead had what it took to be a big shot. Therefore:
"They told me to keep you in the dark until we got to Trenco," he more than to his Fourth Officer after the Virgin Queen away from the Trenconian system. "But they didn't say anything about afterwards—maybe they you wouldn't be any more, as usual—but anyway, you can right here in the room if you want to."
"Thanks, Skipper, but mightn't it be just as well," he his toward the other officers, "to play the out, this trip? I don't where we're going, and we don't want to any ideas."
"That'd be a better, of course—as long as you know that your cards are all aces, as as I'm concerned."
"Thanks, Willoughby. I'll that."
Samms had not been with the private captain. From the time to make the trip, he to a parsecs Trenco's from Sol. He did not know the direction, since the was so great that he had not been able to any star or constellation. He did know, however, the upon which the then was, and he would know and from then on. He was well content.
A of days passed. Samms was again called into the room, to see that the ship was a three-sun system.
"This where we're going to land?" he asked, indifferently.
"We ain't going to land," Willoughby told him. "You are going to take the in your boat, close so that you can parachute it to where it has to go. Way 'nuff, pilot, go and match intrinsics. Now, Olmstead, watch. You've like this before?"
"No, but I know about them. Those two over there are a of a and away than they look, and this one here, much smaller, is in the Trojan position. Have those big got any planets?"
"Five or six apiece, they say; all and than the of hell. This sun here has seven, but Number Two—'Cavenda', they call it—is the only Tellurian in the system. The thing we look for is a big, diamond-shaped ... there's only one of that shape ... there it is, over there. Notice that one end is than the other—that end is north. Strike a line to the in two and measure from the north end one-third of the length of the line. That's the point we're at now ... see that crater?"
"Yes." The Virgin Queen, although still hundreds of miles up, was rapidly. "It must be a big one."
"It's a good fifty miles across. Go until you're sure that the box will land the of that crater. Then it. The parachute and the are automatic. Understand?"
"Yes, sir; I understand," and Samms took off.
He was more in the stars, however, than in the broadleaf. The directly Sol from he was might be recognizable. Its shape would be smaller and more or less distorted; its smaller stars, to Earthly only of their nearness, would be dimmer, invisible; the picture would be by intervening, nearby, strangers; but such as Canopus and Rigel and Betelgeuse and Deneb would be visible if he only them. From Trenco his search had failed; but he was still trying.
There was something familiar! Sweating with the effort, he out the too-near, too-bright and those that were left. A blue-white and a red were most prominent. Rigel and Betelgeuse? Could that be Orion? The Belt was very faint, but it was there. Then Sirius ought to be about there, and Pollux about there; and, at this distance, about bright. They were. Aldebaran would be orange, and about one than Pollux; and Capella would be yellow, and a still. There they were! Not too close to where they should be, but close enough—it was Orion! And this way-station, then, was near right seventeen hours and plus ten degrees!
He returned to the Virgin Queen. She off. Samms asked very questions and Willoughby very little information; the First Lensman learned more than anyone of his would have possible. Aloof, taciturn, to a degree, he to all of his time in his when he was not actually at work; but he his and his ears wide open. And Virgil Samms, as has been intimated, had a brain.
The Virgin Queen a quick from Cavenda to Vegia, on time; a proud, clean space-ship as high above as Calpurnia herself. Samms her cargo; replaced it with one for Earth. She was serviced. She a fast, to Tellus. She at New York Spaceport. Virgil Samms walked into an ordinary-looking rest-room; George Olmstead, informed, walked out.
As soon as he could, Samms Lensed Northrop and Jack Kinnison.
"We up a thousand and one signals, sir," Northrop reported for the pair, "but only one of them a message, and it didn't make sense."
"Why not?" Samms asked, sharply. "With a Lens, any of a message, garbled, coded, or interrupted, makes sense."
"Oh, we what it said," Jack came in, "but it didn't say enough. Just 'READY—READY—READY'; over and over."
"What!" Samms exclaimed, and the boys his mind work. "Did that signal, by any chance, near seventeen hours and plus ten degrees?"
"Very near. Why? How did you know?"
"Then it make sense!" Samms exclaimed, and called a of Lensmen.
"Keep along these same lines," Samms directed, finally. "Keep Ray Olmstead in the Hill in my place. I am going to Pluto, and—I hope—to Palain Seven."
Roderick Kinnison of protested; but, of course, his were over-ruled.
