E. E. SMITH Boxed Set. E. E. Smith

She’s one of the slimiest snakes that ever crawled—she’s so low she could put on a tall silk hat and walk under a duck. I know she’s beautiful. She’s a riot, a seven-section callout, a thionite dream. So what? She is also Dessa Desplaines, formerly of Aldebaran II. Does that mean anything to you?”

      “Not a thing, Kinnison.”

      “She’s in it, clear to her neck. I had a chance to wring her neck once, too, damn it all, and didn’t. She’s got a carballoy crust, coming here now, with all our Narcotics on the job . wonder if they think they’ve got Enforcement so badly whipped that they can get away with stuff as rough as this . sure you don’t know her, or know of her?”

      “I never saw her before, or heard of her.”

      “Perhaps she isn’t known, out this way. Or maybe they think they’re ready for a show-down . or don’t care. But her being here ties me up in hard knots—she’ll recognize me, for all the tea in China. You know the Narcotics’ Lensmen, don’t you?”

      “Certainly.”

      “Call one of them, right now. Tell him that Dessa Desplaines, the zwilnik houri, is right here on the floor . What? He doesn’t know her, either? And none of our boys are Lensmen! Make it a three-way. Lensman Winstead? Kinnison of Sol III, Unattached. Sure that none of you recognize this picture?” and he transmitted a perfect image of the ravishing creature then moving regally across the floor. “Nobody does? Maybe that’s why she’s here, then—they thought she could get away with it. She’s your meat—come and get her.”

      “You’ll appear against her, of course?”

      “If necessary—but it won’t be. As soon as she sees the game’s up, all hell will be out for noon.”

      As soon as the connection had been broken, Kinnison realized that the thing could not be done that way; that he could not stay out of it. No man alive save himself could prevent her from flashing a warning—badly as he hated to, he had to do it. Gerrond glanced at him curiously: he had received a few of those racing thoughts.

      “Tune in on this.” Kinnison grinned wryly. “If the last meeting I had with her is any criterion, it ought to be good. S’pose anybody around here understands Aldebaranian?”

      “Never heard it mentioned if they do.”

      The Tellurian walked blithely up to the radiant visitor, held out his hand in Earthly—and Aldebaranian—greeting, and spoke:

      “Madame Desplaines would not remember Chester Q. Fordyce, of course. It is of the piteousness that I should be so accursedly of the ordinariness; for to see Madame but the one time, as I did at the New Year’s Ball in High Altamont, is to remember her forever.”

      “Such a flatterer!” the woman laughed. “I trust that you will forgive me, Mr. Fordyce, but one meets so many interesting .” her eyes widened in surprise, an expression which changed rapidly to one of flaming hatred, not unmixed with fear.

      “So you do know me, you bedroom-eyed Aldebaranian hell-cat,” he remarked, evenly. “I thought you would.”

      “Yes, you sweet, uncontaminated sissy, you overgrown superboy-scout, I do!” she hissed, malevolently, and made a quick motion toward her corsage. These two, as has been intimated, were friends of old.

      Quick though she was, the man was quicker. His left hand darted out to seize her left wrist; his right, flashing around her body, grasped her right and held it rigidly in the small of her back. Thus they walked away.

      “Stop!” she flared. “You’re making a spectacle of me!”

      “Now isn’t that just too bad?” His lips smiled, for the benefit of the observers, but his eyes held no glint of mirth. “These folks will think that this is the way all Aldebaranian friends walk together. If you think for a second you’ve got any chance at all of touching that sounder—think again. Stop wiggling! Even if you can shimmy enough to work it I’ll smash your brain to a pulp before it contacts once!”

      Outside, in the grounds: “Oh, Lensman, let’s sit down and talk this over!” and the girl brought into play everything she had. It was a distressing scene, but it left the Lensman cold.

      “Save your breath,” he advised her finally, wearily. “To me you’re just another zwilnik, no more and no less. A female louse is still a louse; and calling a zwilnik a louse is insulting the whole louse family.”

      He said that; and, saying it, knew it to be the exact and crystal truth: but not even that knowledge could mitigate in any iota the recoiling of his every fiber from the deed which he was about to do. He could not even pray, with immortal Merritt’s Dwayanu:

      “Luka—turn your wheel so I need not slay this woman!”

      It had to be. Why in all the nine hells of Valeria did he have to be a Lensman? Why did he have to be the one to do it? But it had to be done, and soon; they’d be here shortly.

      “There’s just one thing you can do to make me believe you’re even partially innocent,” he ground out, “that you have even one decent thought or one decent instinct anywhere in you.”

      “What is that, Lensman? I’ll do it, whatever it is!”

      “Release your thought-screen and send out a call to the Big Shot.”

      The girl stiffened. This big cop wasn’t so dumb—he really knew something. He must die, and at once. How could she get word to . ?

      Simultaneously Kinnison perceived that for which he had been waiting; the Narcotics men were coming.

      He tore open the woman’s gown, flipped the switch of her thought-screen, and invaded her mind. But, fast as he was, he was late—almost too late altogether. He could get neither direction line nor location; but only and faintly a picture of a space-dock saloon, of a repulsively obese man in a luxuriously-furnished back room. Then her mind went completely blank and her body slumped down, bonelessly.

      Thus Narcotics found them; the woman inert and flaccid upon the bench, the man staring down at her in black abstraction.