"First, about Murgatroyd." In his office in The Hill Roderick Kinnison spoke aloud to the First Lensman. "What do you think should be done about him?"
"Murgatroyd. Hm ... m ... m." Samms inhaled a mouthful of smoke and exhaled it slowly; watched it dissipate in the air. "Ah, yes, Murgatroyd." He repeated the performance. "My thought, at the moment, is to let him alone."
"Check," Kinnison said. If Samms was surprised at his friend's concurrence he did not show it. "Why? Let's see if we check on that."
"Because he does not seem to be of fundamental importance. Even if we could find him ... and by the way, what do you think the chance is of our spies finding him?"
"Just about the same chance that theirs have of finding out about the Samms-Olmstead switch or our planet Bennett. Vanishingly small. Zero."
"Right. And even if we could find him--even find their secret base, which is certainly as well hidden as ours is--it would do us no present good, because we could take no positive action. We have, I think, learned the prime fact; that Towne is actually Murgatroyd's superior."
"That's the way I see it. We can almost draw an organization chart now."
"I wouldn't say 'almost'." Samms smiled half-ruefully. "There are gaping holes, and Isaacson is as yet a highly unknown quantity. I've tried to draw one a dozen times, but we haven't got enough information. An incorrect chart, you know, would be worse than none at all. As soon as I can draw a correct one, I'll show it to you. But in the meantime, the position of our friend James F. Towne is now clear. He is actually a Big Shot in both piracy and politics. That fact surprised me, even though it did clarify the picture tremendously."
"Me, too. One good thing, we won't have to hunt for him. You've been working on him right along, though, haven't you?"
"Yes, but this new relationship throws light on a good many details which have been obscure. It also tends to strengthen our working hypothesis as to Isaacson--which we can't prove yet, of course--that he is the actual working head of the drug syndicate. Vice-President in charge of Drugs, so to speak."
"Huh? That's a new one on me. I don't see it."
"There is very little doubt that at the top there is Morgan. He is, and has been for some time, the real boss of North America. Under him, probably taking orders direct, is President Witherspoon."
"Undoubtedly. The Nationalist party is strictly a la machine, and Witherspoon is one of the world's slimiest skinkers. Morgan is Chief Engineer of the Machine. Take it from there."
"We know that Boss Jim is also in the top echelon--quite possibly the Commander-in-Chief--of the enemy's Armed Forces. By analogy, and since Isaacson is apparently on the same level as Towne, immediately below Morgan...."
"Wouldn't there be three? Witherspoon?"
"I doubt it. My present idea is that Witherspoon is at least one level lower. Comparatively small fry."
"Could be--I'll buy it. A nice picture, Virge; and beautifully symmetrical. His Mightiness Morgan. Secretary of War Towne and Secretary of Drugs Isaacson; and each of them putting a heavy shoulder behind the political bandwagon. Very nice. That makes Operation Mateese tougher than ever--a triple-distilled toughie. Glad I told you it wasn't my dish--saves me the trouble of backing out now."
"Yes, I have noticed how prone you are to duck tough jobs." Samms smiled quietly. "However, unless I am even more mistaken than usual, you will be in it up to your not-so-small ears, my friend, before it is over."
"Huh? How?" Kinnison demanded.
"That will, I hope, become clear very shortly." Samms stubbed out the butt of his cigarette and lit another. "The basic problem can be stated very simply. How are we going to persuade the sovereign countries of Earth--particularly the North American Continent--to grant the Galactic Patrol the tremendous power and authority it will have to have?"
"Nice phrasing, Virge, and studied. Not off the cuff. But aren't you over-drawing a bit? Little if any conflict. The Patrol would be pretty largely inter-systemic in scope ... with of course the necessary inter-planetary and inter-continental ... and ... um ... m...."
"Exactly."
"But it's logical enough, Virge, even at that, and has plenty of precedents, clear back to ancient history. 'Way back, before space-travel, when they first started to use atomic energy, and the only drugs they had to worry about were cocaine, morphine, heroin, and other purely Tellurian products. I was reading about it just the other day."
Kinnison swung around, fingered a book out of a matched set, and riffled its leaves. "Russia was the world's problem child then--put up what they called an iron curtain--wouldn't play with the neighbors' children, but picked up her marbles and went home. But yet--here it is. Original source unknown--some indications point to a report of somebody named Hoover, sometime in the nineteen forties or fifties, Gregorian calendar. Listen:
"'This protocol'--he's talking about the agreement on world-wide Narcotics Control--'was signed by fifty-two nations, including the U.S.S.R.'--that was Russia--'and its satellite states. It was the only international agreement to which the Communist countries'--you know more about what Communism was, I suppose, than I do."
"Just that it was another form of dictatorship that didn't work out."
"'... to which the Communist countries ever gave more than lip service. This adherence is all the more surprising, in view of the political situation then obtaining, in that all signatory nations obligated themselves to surrender national sovereignty in five highly significant respects, as follows:
"'First, to permit Narcotics agents of all other signatory nations free, secret, and unregistered entry into, unrestricted travel throughout, and exit from, all their lands and waters, wherever situate:
"'Second, upon request, to allow known criminals and known contraband to enter and to leave their territories without interference:
"'Third, to cooperate fully, and as a secondary and not as a prime mover, in any Narcotics Patrol program set up by any other signatory nation:
"'Fourth, upon request, to maintain complete secrecy concerning any Narcotics operation: and
"'Fifth, to keep the Central Narcotics Authority fully and continuously informed upon all matters hereinbefore specified.'
"And apparently, Virge, it worked. If they could do that, 'way back then, we certainly should be able to make the Patrol work now."
"You talk as though the situations were comparable. They aren't. Instead of giving up an insignificant fraction of their national sovereignty, all nations will have to give up practically all of it. They will have to change their thinking from a National to a Galactic viewpoint; will have to become units in a Galactic Civilization, just as counties used to be units of states, and states are units of the continents. The Galactic Patrol will not be able to stop at being the supreme and only authority in inter-systemic affairs. It is bound to become intra-systemic, intra-planetary, and intra-continental. Eventually, it must and it shall be the sole authority, except for such purely local organizations as city police."
"What a program!" Kinnison thought silently for minutes. "But I'm still betting that you can bring it off."
"We'll keep on driving until we do. What gives us our chance is that the all-Lensman Solarian Council is already in existence and is functioning smoothly; and that the government of North America has no jurisdiction beyond the boundaries of its continent. Thus, and even though Morgan has extra-legal powers both as Boss of North America and as the head of an organization which is in fact inter-systemic in scope, he can do nothing whatever about the fact that the Solarian Council has been enlarged into the Galactic Council. As a matter of fact, he was and is very much in favor of that particular move--just as much so as we are."
"You're going too fast for me. How do you figure that?"
"Unlike our idea of the Patrol as a coordinator of free and independent races, Morgan sees it as the perfect instrument of a Galactic dictatorship, thus: North America is the most powerful continent of Earth. The other continents will follow her lead--or else. Tellus can very easily dominate the other Solarian planets, and the Solar System can maintain dominance over all other systems as they are discovered and colonized. Therefore, whoever controls the North American Continent controls all space."
"I see. Could be, at that. Throw the Lensmen out, put his own stooges in. Wonder how he'll go about it? A tour de force? No. The next election, would be my guess. If so, that will be the most important election in history."
"If they decide to wait for the election, yes. I'm not as sure as you seem to be that they will not act sooner."
"They can't," Kinnison declared. "Name me one thing they think they can do, and I'll shoot it fuller of holes than a target."
"They can, and I am very much afraid that they will," Samms replied, soberly. "At any time he cares to do so, Morgan--through the North American Government, of course--can abrogate the treaty and name his own Council."
"Without my boys--the backbone and the guts of North America, as well as of the Patrol? Don't be stupid, Virge. They're loyal."
"Admitted--but at the same time they are being paid in North American currency. Of course, we will soon have our own Galactic credit system worked out, but...."
"What the hell difference would that make?" Kinnison wanted savagely to know. "You think they'd last until the next pay-day if they start playing that kind of ball? What in hell do you think I'd be doing? And Clayton and Schweikert and the rest of the gang? Sitting on our fat rumps and crying into our beers?"
"You would do nothing. I could not permit any illegal...."
"Permit!" Kinnison blazed, leaping to his feet. "Permit--hell! Are you loose-screwed enough to actually think I would ask or need your permission? Listen, Samms!" The Port Admiral's voice took on a quality like nothing his friend had ever before heard. "The first thing I would do would be to take off your Lens, wrap you up--especially your mouth--in seventeen yards of three-inch adhesive tape, and heave you into the brig. The second would be to call out everything we've got, including every half-built ship on Bennett able to fly, and declare martial law. The third would be a series of summary executions, starting with Morgan and working down. And if he's got any fraction of the brain I credit him with, Morgan knows damned well exactly what would happen."
"Oh." Samms, while very much taken aback, was thrilled to the center of his being. "I had not considered anything so drastic, but you probably would...."
"Not 'probably'," Kinnison corrected him grimly. "'Certainly'."
"... and Morgan does know ... except about Bennett, of course ... and he would not, for obvious reasons, bring in his secret armed forces. You're right, Rod, it will be the election."
"Definitely; and it's plain enough what their basic strategy will be." Kinnison, completely mollified, sat down and lit another cigar. "His Nationalist party is now in power, but it was our Cosmocrats of the previous administration who so basely slipped one over on the dear pee-pul--who betrayed the entire North American Continent into the claws of rapacious wealth, no less--by ratifying that unlawful, unhallowed, unconstitutional, and so on, treaty. Scoundrels! Bribe-takers! Betrayers of a sacred trust! How Rabble-Rouser Morgan will thump the tub on that theme--he'll make the welkin ring as it never rang before."
Kinnison mimicked savagely the demagogue's round and purple tones as he went on: "'Since they had no mandate from the pee-pul to trade their birthright for a mess of pottage that nefarious and underhanded treaty is, a prima vista and ipso facto and a priori, completely and necessarily and positively null and void. People of Earth, arouse! Arise! Rise in your might and throw off this stultifying and degrading, this paralyzing yoke of the Monied Powers--throw out this dictatorial, autocratic, wealth-directed, illegal, monstrous Council of so-called Lensmen! Rise in your might at the polls! Elect a Council of your own choosing--not of Lensmen, but of ordinary folks like you and me. Throw off this hellish yoke, I say!'--and here he begins to positively froth at the mouth--'so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth!'
"He has used that exact peroration, ancient as it is, so many times that practically everybody thinks he originated it; and it's always good for so many decibels of applause that he'll keep on using it forever."
"Your analysis is vivid, cogent, and factual, Rod--but the situation is not at all funny."
"Did I act as though I thought it was? If so, I'm a damned poor actor. I'd like to kick the bloodsucking leech all the way from here to the Great Nebula in Andromeda, and if I ever get the chance I'm going to!"
"An interesting, but somewhat irrelevant idea." Samms smiled at his friend's passionate outburst. "But go on. I agree with you in principle so far, and your viewpoint is--to say the least--refreshing."
"Well, Morgan will have so hypnotized most of the dear pee-pul that they will think it their own idea when he re-nominates this spineless nincompoop Witherspoon for another term as President of North America, with a solid machine-made slate of hatchet-men behind him. They win the election. Then the government of the North American Continent--not the Morgan-Towne-Isaacson machine, but all nice and legal and by mandate and in strict accordance with the party platform--abrogates the treaty and names its own Council. And right then, my friend, the boys and I will do our stuff."
"Except that, in such a case, you wouldn't. Think it over, Rod."
"Why not?" Kinnison demanded, in a voice which, however, did not carry much conviction.
"Because we would be in the wrong; and we are even less able to go against united public opinion than is the Morgan crowd."
"We'd do something--I've got it!" Kinnison banged the desk with his fist. "That would be a strictly unilateral action. North America would be standing alone."
"Of course."
"So we'll pull all the Cosmocrats and all of our friends out of North America--move them to Bennett or somewhere--and make Morgan and Company a present of it. We won't declare martial law or kill anybody, unless they decide to call in their reserves. We'll merely isolate the whole damned continent--throw a screen around it and over it that a microbe won't be able to get through--one that would make that iron curtain I read about look like a bride's veil--and we'll keep them isolated until they beg to join up on our terms. Strictly legal, and the perfect solution. How about me giving the boys a briefing on it, right now?"
"Not yet." Samms' mien, however, lightened markedly. "I never thought of that way out.... It could be done, and it would probably work, but I would not recommend it except as an ultimately last resort. It has at least two tremendous drawbacks."
"I know it, but...."
"It would wreck North America as no nation has ever been wrecked; quite possibly beyond recovery. Furthermore, how many people, including yourself and your children, would like to renounce their North American citizenship and remove themselves, permanently and irrevocably, from North American soil?"
"Um ... m ... m. Put that away, it doesn't sound so good, does it? But what the hell else can we do?"
"Just what we have been planning on doing. We must win the election."
"Huh?" Kinnison's mouth almost fell open. "You say it easy. How? With whom? By what stretch of the imagination do you figure that you can find anybody with a loose enough mouth to out-lie and out-promise Morgan? And can you duplicate his machine?"
"We can not only duplicate his machine; we can better it. The truth, presented to the people in language they can understand and appreciate, by a man whom they like, admire, and respect, will be more attractive than Morgan's promises. The same truth will dispose of Morgan's lies."
"Well, go on. You've answered my questions, after a fashion, except the stinger. Does the Council think it's got a man with enough dynage to lift the load?"
"Unanimously. They also agreed unanimously that we have only one. Haven't you any idea who he is?"
"Not a glimmering of one." Kinnison frowned in thought, then his face cleared into a broad grin and he yelled: "What a damn fool I am--you, of course!"
"Wrong. I was not even seriously considered. It was the concensus that I could not possibly win. My work has been such as to keep me out of the public eye. If the man in the street thinks of me at all, he thinks that I hold myself apart and above him--the ivory tower concept."
"Could be, at that; but you've got my curiosity aroused. How can a man of that caliber have been kicking around so long without me knowing anything about him?"
"You do. That's what I've been working around to all afternoon. You."
"Huh?" Kinnison gasped as though he had received a blow in the solar plexus. "Me? ME? Hell's--Brazen--Hinges!"
"Exactly. You." Silencing Kinnison's inarticulate protests, Samms went on: "First, you'll have no difficulty in talking to an audience as you've just talked to me."
"Of course not--but did I use any language that would burn out the transmitters? I don't remember whether I did or not."
"I don't, either. You probably did, but that would be nothing new. Telenews has never yet cut you off the ether because of it. The point is this: while you do not realize it, you are a better tub-thumper and welkin-ringer than Morgan is, when something--such as just now--really gets you going. And as for a machine, what finer one is possible than the Patrol? Everybody in it or connected with it will support you to the hilt--you know that."
"Why, I ... I suppose so ... probably they would, yes."
"Do you know why?"
"Can't say that I do, unless it's because I treat them fair, so they do the same to me."
"Exactly. I don't say that everybody likes you, but I don't know of anybody who doesn't respect you. And, most important, everybody--all over space--knows 'Rod the Rock' Kinnison, and why he is called that."
"But that very 'man on horseback' thing may backfire on you, Virge."
"Perhaps--slightly--but we're not afraid of that. And finally, you said you'd like to kick Morgan from here to Andromeda. How would you like to kick him from Panama City to the North Pole?"
"I said it, and I wasn't just warming up my jets, either. I'd like it." The big Lensman's nostrils flared, his lips thinned. "By God, Virge, I will!"
"Thanks, Rod." With no display whatever of the emotion he felt, Samms skipped deliberately to the matter next in hand. "Now, about Eridan. Let's see if they know anything yet."
The report of Knobos and DalNalten was terse and exact. They had found--and that finding, so baldly put, could have filled and should fill a book--that Spaceways' uranium vessels were, beyond any reasonable doubt, hauling thionite from Eridan to the planets of Sol. Spy-rays being useless, they had considered the advisability of investigating Eridan in person, but had decided against such action. Eridan was closely held by Uranium, Incorporated. Its population was one hundred percent Tellurian human. Neither DalNalten nor Knobos could disguise himself well enough to work there. Either would be caught promptly, and as promptly shot.
"Thanks, fellows," Samms said, when it became evident that the brief report was done. Then, to Kinnison, "That puts it up to Conway Costigan. And Jack? Or Mase? Or both?"
"Both," Kinnison decided, "and anybody else they can use."
"I'll get them at it." Samms sent out thoughts. "And now, I wonder what that daughter of mine is doing? I'm a little worried about her, Rod. She's too cocky for her own good--or strength. Some of these days she's going to bite off more than she can chew, if she hasn't already. The more we learn about Morgan, the less I like the idea of her working on Herkimer Herkimer Third. I've told her so, a dozen times, and why, but of course it didn't do any good."
"It wouldn't. The only way to develop teeth is to bite with 'em. You had to. So did I. Our kids have got to, too. We lived through it. So will they. As for Herky the Third...." He thought for moments, then went on: "Check. But she's done a job so far that nobody else could do. In spite of that fact, if it wasn't for our Lenses I'd say to pull her, if you have to heave the insubordinate young jade into the brig. But with the Lenses, and the way you watch her ... to say nothing of Mase Northrop, and he's a lot of man ... I can't see her getting in either very bad or very deep. Can you?"
"No, I can't." Samms admitted, but the thoughtful frown did not leave his face. He Lensed her: finding, as he had supposed, that she was at a party; dancing, as he had feared, with Senator Morgan's Number One Secretary.
"Hi, Dad!" she greeted him gaily, with no slightest change in the expression of the face turned so engagingly to her partner's. "I have the honor of reporting that all instruments are still dead-centering the green."
"And have you, by any chance, been paying any attention to what I have been telling you?"
"Oh, lots," she assured him. "I've collected reams of data. He could be almost as much of a menace as he thinks he is, in some cases, but I haven't begun to slip yet. As I have told you all along, this is just a game, and we're both playing it strictly according to the rules."
"That's good. Keep it that way, my dear." Samms signed off and his daughter returned her full attention--never noticeably absent--to the handsome secretary.
The evening wore on. Miss Samms danced every dance; occasionally with one or another of the notables present, but usually with Herkimer Herkimer Third.
"A drink?" he asked. "A small, cold one?"
"Not so small, and very cold," she agreed, enthusiastically.
Glass in hand, Herkimer indicated a nearby doorway. "I just heard that our host has acquired a very old and very fine bronze--a Neptune. We should run an eye over it, don't you think?"
"By all means," she agreed again.
But as they passed through the shadowed portal the man's head jerked to the right. "There's something you really ought to see, Jill!" he exclaimed. "Look!"
She looked. A young woman of her own height and build and with her own flamboyant hair, identical as to hair-do and as to every fine detail of dress and of ornamentation, glass in hand, was strolling back into the ball-room!
Jill started to protest, but could not. In the brief moment of inaction the beam of a snub-nosed P-gun had played along her spine from hips to neck. She did not fall--he had given her a very mild jolt--but, rage as she would, she could neither struggle nor scream. And, after the fact, she knew.
But he couldn't--couldn't possibly! Nevian paralysis-guns were as outlawed as was Vee Two gas itself! Nevertheless, he had.
And on the instant a woman, dressed in crisp and spotless white and carrying a hooded cloak, appeared--and Herkimer now wore a beard and heavy, horn rimmed spectacles. Thus, very shortly, Virgilia Samms found herself, completely helpless and completely unrecognizable, walking awkwardly out of the house between a businesslike doctor and a solicitous nurse.
"Will you need me any more, Doctor Murray?" The woman carefully and expertly loaded the patient into the rear seat of a car.
"Thank you, no, Miss Childs." With a sick, cold certainty Jill knew that this conversation was for the benefit of the doorman and the hackers, and that it would stand up under any examination. "Mrs. Harman's condition is ... er ... well, nothing at all serious."
The car moved out into the street and Jill, really frightened for the first time in her triumphant life, fought down an almost overwhelming wave of panic. The hood had slipped down over her eyes, blinding her. She could not move a single voluntary muscle. Nevertheless, she knew that the car traveled a few blocks--six, she thought--west on Bolton Street before turning left.
Why didn't somebody Lens her? Her father wouldn't, she knew, until tomorrow. Neither of the Kinnisons would, nor Spud--they never did except on direct invitation. But Mase would, before he went to bed--or would he? It was past his bed-time now, and she had been pretty caustic, only last night, because she was doing a particularly delicate bit of reading. But he would ... he must!
"Mase! Mase! MASE!"
And, eventually, Mase did.
Deep under The Hill, Roderick Kinnison swore fulminantly at the sheer physical impossibility of getting out of that furiously radiating mountain in a hurry. At New York Spaceport, however, Mason Northrop and Jack Kinnison not only could hurry, but did.
"Where are you, Jill?" Northrop demanded presently. "What kind of a car are you in?"
"Quite near Stanhope Circle." In communication with her friends at last, Jill regained a measure of her usual poise. "Within eight or ten blocks, I'm sure. I'm in a black Wilford sedan, last year's model. I didn't get a chance to see its license plates."
"That helps a lot!" Jack grunted, savagely. "A ten-block radius covers a hell of a lot of territory, and half the cars in town are black Wilford sedans."
"Shut up, Jack! Go ahead, Jill--tell us all you can, and keep on sending us anything that will help at all."
"I kept the right and left turns and distances straight for quite a while--about twenty blocks--that's how I know it was Stanhope Circle. I don't know how many times he went around the circle, though, or which way he went when he left it. After leaving the Circle, the traffic was very light, and here there doesn't seem to be any traffic at all. That brings us up to date. You'll know as well as I do what happens next."
With Jill, the Lensmen knew that Herkimer drove his car up to the curb and stopped--parked without backing up. He got out and hauled the girl's limp body out of the car, displacing the hood enough to free one eye. Good! Only one other car was visible; a bright yellow convertible parked across the street, about half a block ahead. There was a sign--"NO PARKING ON THIS SIDE 7 TO 10." The building toward which he was carrying her was more than three stories high, and had a number--one, four--if he would only swing her a little bit more, so that she could see the rest of it--one four-seven-nine!
"Rushton Boulevard, you think, Mase?"
"Could be. Fourteen seventy nine would be on the downtown-traffic side. Blast!"
Into the building, where two masked men locked and barred the door behind them. "And keep it locked!" Herkimer ordered. "You know what to do until I come back down."
Into an elevator, and up. Through massive double doors into a room, whose most conspicuous item of furniture was a heavy steel chair, bolted to the floor. Two masked men got up and placed themselves behind that chair.
Jill's strength was coming back fast; but not fast enough. The cloak was removed. Her ankles were tied firmly, one to each front leg of the chair. Herkimer threw four turns of rope around her torso and the chair's back, took up every inch of slack, and tied a workmanlike knot. Then, still without a word, he stood back and lighted a cigarette. The last trace of paralysis disappeared, but the girl's mad struggles, futile as they were, were not allowed to continue.
"Put a double hammerlock on her," Herkimer directed, "but be damned sure not to break anything at this stage of the game. That comes later."
Jill, more furiously angry than frightened until now, locked her teeth to keep from screaming as the pressure went on. She could not bend forward to relieve the pain; she could not move; she could only grit her teeth and glare. She was beginning to realize, however, what was actually in store; that Herkimer Herkimer Third was in fact a monster whose like she had never known.
He stepped quietly forward, gathered up a handful of fabric, and heaved. The strapless and backless garment, in no way designed to withstand such stresses, parted; squarely across at the upper strand of rope. He puffed his cigarette to a vivid coal--took it in his fingers--there was an audible hiss and a tiny stink of burning flesh as the glowing ember was extinguished in the clear, clean skin below the girl's left armpit. Jill flinched then, and shrieked desperately, but her tormentor was viciously unmoved.
"That was just to settle any doubt as to whether or not I mean business. I'm all done fooling around with you. I want to know two things. First, everything you know about the Lens; where it comes from, what it really is, and what it does besides what your press-agents advertise. Second, what really happened at the Ambassadors' Ball. Start talking. The faster you talk, the less you'll get hurt."
"You can't get away with this, Herkimer." Jill tried desperately to pull her shattered nerves together. "I'll be missed--traced...." She paused, gasping. If she told him that the Lensmen were in full and continuous communication with her--and if he believed it--he would kill her right then. She switched instantly to another track. "That double isn't good enough to fool anybody who really knows me."
"She doesn't have to be." The man grinned venomously. "Nobody who knows you will get close enough to her to tell the difference. This wasn't done on the spur of the moment, Jill; it was planned--minutely. You haven't got the chance of the proverbial celluloid dog in hell."
"Jill!" Jack Kinnison's thought stabbed in. "It isn't Rushton--fourteen seventy-nine is a two-story. What other streets could it be?"
"I don't know...." She was not in very good shape to think.
"Damnation! Got to get hold of somebody who knows the streets. Spud, grab a hacker at the Circle and I'll Lens Parker...." Jack's thought snapped off as he tuned to a local Lensman.
Jill's heart sank. She was starkly certain now that the Lensmen could not find her in time.
"Tighten up a little, Eddie. You, too, Bob."
"Stop it! Oh, God, STOP IT!" The unbearable agony relaxed a little. She watched in horrified fascination a second glowing coal approach her bare right side. "Even if I do talk you'll kill me anyway. You couldn't let me go now."
"Kill you, my pet? Not if you behave yourself. We've got a lot of planets the Patrol never heard of, and you could keep a man interested for quite a while, if you really tried. And if you beg hard enough maybe I'll let you try. However, I'd get just as much fun out of killing you as out of the other, so it's up to you. Not sudden death, of course. Little things, at first, like we've been doing. A few more touches of warmth here and there--so....
"Scream as much as you please. I enjoy it, and this room is sound-proof. Once more, boys, about half an inch higher this time ... up ... steady ... down. We'll have half an hour or so of this stuff"--Herkimer knew that to the quivering, sensitive, highly imaginative girl his words would be practically as punishing as the atrocious actualities themselves--"then I'll do things to your finger-nails and toe-nails, beginning with burning slivers of double-base flare powder and working up. Then your eyes--or no, I'll save them until last, so you can watch a couple of Venerian slasher-worms work on you, one on each leg, and a Martian digger on your bare belly."
Gripping her hair firmly in his left hand, he forced her head back and down; down almost to her hard-held hands. His right hand, concealing something which he had not mentioned and which was probably starkly unmentionable, approached her taut-stretched throat.
"Talk or not, just as you please." The voice was utterly callous, as chill as the death she now knew he was so willing to deal. "But listen. If you elect to talk, tell the truth. You won't lie twice. I'll count to ten. One."
Jill uttered a gurgling, strangling noise and he lifted her head a trifle.
"Can you talk now?"
"Yes."
"Two."
Helpless, immobile, scared now to a depth of terror she had never imagined it possible to feel, Jill fought her wrenched and shaken mind back from insanity's very edge; managed with a pale tongue to lick bloodless lips. Pops Kinnison always said a man could die only once, but he didn't know ... in battle, yes, perhaps ... but she had already died a dozen times--but she'd keep on dying forever before she'd say a word. But--
"Tell him, Jill!" Northrop's thought beat at her mind. He, her lover, was unashamedly frantic; as much with sheer rage as with sympathy for her physical and mental anguish. "For the nineteenth time I say tell him! We've just located you--Hancock Avenue--we'll be there in two minutes!"
"Yes, Jill, quit being a damned stubborn jackass and tell him!" Jack Kinnison's thought bit deep; but this time, strangely enough, the girl felt no repugnance at his touch. There was nothing whatever of the lover; nor of the brother, except of the fraternity of arms. She belonged. She would come out of this brawl right side up or none of them would. "Tell the goddam rat the truth!" Jack's thought drove on. "It won't make any difference--he won't live long enough to pass it on!"
"But I can't--I won't!" Jill stormed. "Why, Pops Kinnison would...."
"Not this time I wouldn't, Jill!" Samms' thought tried to come in, too, but the Port Admiral's vehemence was overwhelming. "No harm--he's doing this strictly on his own--if Morgan had had any idea he'd've killed him first. Start talking or I'll spank you to a rosy blister!"
They were to laugh, later, at the incongruity of that threat, but it did produce results.
"Nine." Herkimer grinned wolfishly, in sadistic anticipation.
"Stop it--I'll tell!" she screamed. "Stop it--take that thing away--I can't stand it--I'll tell!" She burst into racking, tearing sobs.
"Steady." Herkimer put something in his pocket, then slapped her so viciously that fingers-long marks sprang into red relief upon the chalk-white background of her cheek. "Don't crack up; I haven't started to work on you yet. What about that Lens?"
She gulped twice before she could speak. "It comes from--ulp!--Arisia. I haven't got one myself, so I don't know very much--ulp!--about it at first hand, but from what the boys tell me it must be...."
Outside the building three black forms arrowed downward. Northrop and young Kinnison stopped at the sixth level; Costigan went on down to take care of the guards.
"Bullets, not beams," the Irishman reminded his younger fellows. "We'll have to clean up the mess without leaving a trace, so don't do any more damage to the property than you absolutely have to."
Neither made any reply; they were both too busy. The two thugs standing behind the steel chair, being armed openly, went first; then Jack put a bullet through Herkimer's head. But Northrop was not content with that. He slid the pin to "full automatic" and ten more heavy slugs tore into the falling body before it struck the floor.
Three quick slashes and the girl was free.
"Jill!"
"Mase!"
Locked in each other's arms, straining together, no bystander would have believed that this was their first kiss. It was plainly--yes, quite spectacularly--evident, however, that it would not be their last.
Jack, blushing furiously, picked up the cloak and flung it at the oblivious couple.
"P-s-s-t! P-s-s-t! Jill! Wrap 'em up!" he whispered, urgently. "All the top brass in space is coming at full emergency blast--there'll be scrambled eggs all over the place any second now--Mase! Damn your thick, hard skull, snap out of it! He's always frothing at the mouth about her running around half naked and if he sees her like this--especially with you--he'll simply have a litter of lizards! You'll get a million black spots and seven hundred years in the clink! That's better--'bye now--I'll see you up at New York Spaceport."
Jack Kinnison dashed to the nearest window, threw it open, and dived headlong out of the building.
