“Bound to. Everything ties in. Most of the intelligent races of this galaxy are oxygen-breathers, with warm, red blood: the only kind of physiques which thionite affects. The more of us who get the thionite habit the better for Boskone. It explains why we have never got to the first check-station in getting any of the real higher-ups in the thionite game; instead of being an ordinary criminal ring they’ve got all the brains and all the resources of Boskonia back of them. But if they’re that big . and as good as we know they are . I wonder why .” Kinnison’s voice trailed off into silence; his brain raced.
“I want to ask you a question that’s none of my business,” the young Lensman went on almost immediately, in a voice strangely altered. “Just how long ago was it that you started losing fifth-year men just before graduation? I mean, that boys sent to Arisia to be measured for their Lenses supposedly never got there? Or at least, they never came back and no Lenses were ever received for them?”
“About ten years. Twelve, I think, to be ex . ,” Haynes broke off in the middle of the word and his eyes bored into those of the younger man. “What makes you think there were any such?”
“Deduction again, but this time I know I’m right. At least one every year. Usually two or three.”
“Right, but there have always been space accidents . or they were caught by the pirates . you think, then, that . ?”
“I don’t think. I know!” Kinnison declared “They got to Arisia, and they died there. All I can say is, thank God for the Arisians. We can still trust our Lenses; they are seeing to that.”
“But why didn’t they tell us?” Haynes asked, perplexed.
“They wouldn’t—that isn’t their way,” Kinnison stated, flatly and with conviction. “They have given us an instrumentality, the Lens, by virtue of which we should be able to do the job, and they are seeing to it that that instrumentality remains untarnished. We’ve got to learn how to handle it, though, ourselves. We’ve got to fight our own battles and bury our own dead. Now that we’ve smeared up the enemy’s military organization in this galaxy by wiping out Helmuth and his headquarters, the drug syndicate seems to be my best chance of getting a line on the real Boskone. While you are mopping up and keeping them from establishing another war base here, I think I’d better be getting at it, don’t you?”
“Probably so—you know your own oysters best. Mind if I ask where you’re going to start in?” Haynes looked at Kinnison quizzically as he spoke. “Have you deduced that, too?”
The Gray Lensman returned the look in kind. “No. Deduction couldn’t take me quite that far,” he replied in the same tone. “You’re going to tell me that, when you get around to it.”
“Me? Where do I come in?” the Port Admiral feigned surprise.
“As follows. Helmuth probably had nothing to do with the dope running, so its organization must still be intact. If so, they would take over as much of the other branch as they could get hold of, and hit us harder than ever. I haven’t heard of any unusual activity around here, so it must be somewhere else. Wherever it is, you would know about it, since you are a member of the Galactic Council; and Councillor Ellington, in charge of Narcotics, would hardly take any very important step without conferring with you. How near right am I?”
“On the center of the beam, all the way—your deducer is blasting at maximum,” Haynes said, in admiration. “Radelix is the worst—they’re hitting it mighty hard. We sent a full unit over there last week. Shall we recall them, or do you want to work independently?”
“Let them go on; I’ll be of more use working on my own, I think. I did the boys over there a favor a while back—they would cooperate anyway, of course, but it’s a little nicer to have them sort of owe it to me. We’ll all be able to play together very nicely, if the opportunity arises.”
“I’m mighty glad you’re taking this on. The Radeligians are stuck, and we had no real reason for thinking that our men could do any better. With this new angle of approach, however, and with you working behind the scenes, the picture looks entirely different.”
“I’m afraid that’s unjustifiably high .”
“Not a bit of it, lad. Just a minute—I’ll break out a couple of breakers of fayalin . Luck!”
“Thanks, chief!”
“Down the hatch!” and again the Gray Lensman was gone. To the space-port, into his speedster, and away—hurtling through the void at the maximum blast of the fastest space-flyer then boasted by the Galactic Patrol.
During the long trip Kinnison exercised, thought, and studied spool after spool of tape—the Radeligian language. Thoughts of the red-headed nurse obtruded themselves strongly at times, but he put them aside resolutely. He was, he assured himself, off of women forever—all women. He cultivated his new beard; trimming it, with the aid of a triple mirror and four stereoscopic photographs, into something which, although neat and spruce enough, was too full and bushy by half to be a Van Dyke. Also, he moved his Lens-bracelet up his arm and rayed the white skin thus exposed until his whole wrist was the same even shade of tan.
He did not drive his speedster to Radelix, for that racy little fabrication would have been recognized anywhere for what she was; and private citizens simply did not drive ships of that type. Therefore, with every possible precaution of secrecy, he landed her in a Patrol base four solar systems away. In that base Kimball Kinnison disappeared; but the tall, shock-haired, bushy-bearded Chester Q. Fordyce—cosmopolite, man of leisure, and dilettante in science—who took the next space-liner for Radelix was not precisely the same individual who had come to that planet a few days before with that name and those unmistakeable characteristics.
Mr. Chester Q. Fordyce, then, and not Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison, disembarked at Ardith, the world-capital of Radelix. He took up his abode at the Hotel Ardith-Splendide and proceeded, with neither too much nor too little fanfare, to be his cosmopolitan self in those circles of society in which, wherever he might find himself, he was wont to move.
As a matter of course he entertained, and was entertained by, the Tellurian Ambassador. Equally as a matter of course he attended divers and sundry functions, at which he made the acquaintance of hundreds of persons, many of them personages. That one of these should have been Lieutenant-Admiral Gerrond, Lensman in charge of the Patrol’s Radeligian base, was inevitable.
It was, then, a purely routine and logical development that at a reception one evening Lensman Gerrond stopped to chat for a moment with Mr. Fordyce; and it was purely accidental that the nearest bystander was a few yards distant. Hence, Mr. Fordyce’s conduct was strange enough.
“Gerrond!” he said without moving his lips and in a tone almost inaudible, the while he was proffering an Alsakanite cigarette. “Don’t look at me particularly right now, and don’t show surprise. Study me for the next few minutes, then put your Lens on me and tell me whether you have ever seen me before or not.” Then, glancing at the watch upon his left wrist—a timepiece just about as large and as ornate as a wrist-watch could be and still remain in impeccable taste—he murmured something conventional and strolled away.
Ten minutes passed and he felt Gerrond’s thought. A peculiar sensation, this, being on the receiving end of a single beam, instead of using his own Lens.
“As far as I can tell, I have never seen you before. You are certainly not one of our agents, and if you are one of Haynes’ whom I have ever worked with you have done a wonderful job of disguising. I must have met you somewhere, sometime, else there would be no point to your question; but beyond the evident—and admitted—fact that you are a white Tellurian, I can’t seem to place you.”
“Does this help?” This question was shot through Kinnison’s own Lens.
“Since I have known so few Tellurian Lensmen it tells me that you must be Kinnison, but I do not recognize you at all readily. You seem changed—older—besides, who ever heard of an Unattached Lensman doing the work of an ordinary agent?”