His projected thought was sheared off without warning, thus settling the question definitely. Helmuth’s big apparatus was at work, the whole planet was screened against thought.
“Oh well, probably better, at that,” Kinnison went on arguing with himself. “If I’d tried it out maybe he’d’ve got onto it and laid me a stymie next time, when I really need it.”
He went free and hurled his speedster toward Earth, now distant indeed. Several times during that long trip he was sorely tempted to call Haynes through his Lens and get things started; but he always thought better of it. This was altogether too important a thing to be sent through so much sub-ether, or even to be thought about except inside an absolutely thought-tight room. And besides, every waking hour of even that long trip could be spent very profitably in digesting and correlating the information he had obtained and in mapping out the salient features of the campaign that was to come. Therefore, before time began to drag, Kinnison landed at Prime Base and was taken directly to Port Admiral Haynes.
“Mighty glad to see you, son,” Haynes greeted the young Lensman cordially as he sealed the room thought-tight. “Since you came in under your own power, I assume that you are here to make a constructive report?”
“Better than that, sir—I’m here to start something in a big way. I know at last where their Grand Base is, and have detailed plans of it. I think I know who and where Boskone is. I know where Helmuth is, and I have worked out a plan whereby, if it works, we can wipe out that base. Boskone, Helmuth, and all the lesser master minds, at one wipe.”
“Mentor did come through, huh?” For the first time since Kinnison had known him the old man lost his poise. He leaped to his feet and seized Kinnison by the arm. “I knew you were good, but not that good! He gave you what you wanted?”
“He sure did,” and the younger man reported as briefly as possible everything that had happened.
“I’m just as sure that Helmuth is Boskone as I can be of anything that can’t be proved,” Kinnison continued, unrolling a sheaf of drawings. “Helmuth speaks for Boskone, and nobody else ever does, not even Boskone himself. None of the other big shots know anything about Boskone or ever heard him speak; but they all jump through their hoops when Helmuth, ‘speaking for Boskone,’ cracks the whip. And I couldn’t get a trace of Helmuth ever taking anything up with any higher-ups. Therefore I’m dead certain that when we get Helmuth we get Boskone.
“But that’s going to be a job of work. I scouted his headquarters from stem to gudgeon, as I told you; and Grand Base is absolutely impregnable as it stands. I never imagined anything like it—it makes Prime Base here look like a deserted cross-roads after a hard winter. They’ve got screens, pits, projectors, accumulators, all on a gigantic scale. In fact, they’ve got everything—but you can get all that from the tape and these sketches. They simply can’t be taken by any possible direct frontal attack. Even if we used every ship and mauler we’ve got they could stand us off. And they can match us, ship for ship—we’d never get near Grand Base at all if they knew we were coming .”
“Well, if it’s such an impossible job, what .”
“I’m coming to that. It’s impossible as it stands; but there’s a good chance that I’ll be able to soften it up,” and the young Lensman went on to outline the plan upon which he had been working so long. “You know, like a worm—bore from within. That’s the only possible way to do it. You’ll have to put detector nullifiers on every ship assigned to the job, but that’ll be easy. We’ll need everything we’ve got.”
“The important thing, as I gather it, is timing.”
“Absolutely. To the minute, since I won’t be able to communicate, once I get inside their thought-screens. How long will it take to assemble our stuff and put it in that cluster?”
“Seven weeks—eight at the outside.”
“Plus two for allowances. QX—at exactly hour 20, ten weeks from today, let every projector of every vessel you can possibly get there cut loose on that base with everything they can pour in. There’s a detailed drawing in here somewhere . here—twenty-six main objectives, you see. Blast them all, simultaneously to the second. If they all go down, the rest will be possible—if not, it’ll be just too bad. Then work along these lines here, straight from those twenty-six stations to the dome, blasting everything as you go. Make it last exactly fifteen minutes, not a minute more or less. If, by fifteen minutes after twenty, the main dome hasn’t surrendered by cutting its screen, blast that, too, if you can—it’ll take a lot of blasting, I’m afraid. From then on you and the five-star admirals will have to do whatever is appropriate to the occasion.”
“Your plan doesn’t cover that, apparently. Where will you be—how will you be fixed—if the main dome does not cut its screens?”
“I’ll be dead, and you’ll be just starting the damnedest war that this galaxy ever saw.”
CHAPTER 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 they’re 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