Chapter VII

Kathryn Kinnison, trim and taut in black glamourette, strolled into the breakfast nook humming a lilting song. Pausing before a full-length mirror, she adjusted her cocky little black toque at an even more piquant angle over her left eye. She made a couple of passes at her riot of curls and gazed at her reflected self in high approval as, putting both hands upon her smoothly rounded hips, she--"wriggled" is the only possible term for it--in the sheer joy of being alive.

"Kathryn--" Clarrissa Kinnison chided gently, "don't be exhibitionistic, dear." Except in times of stress the Kinnison women used spoken language, "to keep in practice," as they said.

"Why not? It's fun." The tall girl bent over and kissed her mother upon the lobe of an ear. "You're sweet, Mums, you know that? You're the most _precious_ thing--Ha! Bacon and eggs? Goody!"

The older woman watched half-enviously as her eldest daughter ate with the carefree abandon of one who has no cares whatever either for her digestion or for her figure. She had no more understood her children, ever, than a hen can understand the brood of ducklings she has so unwittingly hatched out, and that comparison was more strikingly apt than Clarrissa Kinnison ever would know. She now knew, more than a little ruefully, that she never would understand them.

She had not protested openly at the rigor of the regime to which her son Christopher had been subjected from birth. That, she knew, was necessary. It was inconceivable that Kit should not be a Lensman, and for a man to become a Lensman he had to be given everything which he could possibly take. She was deeply glad, however, that her four other babies had been girls. Her daughters were _not_ going to be Lensmen. She, who had known so long and so heavily the weight of Lensman's load, would see to that. Herself a womanly, feminine woman, she had fought with every resource at her command to make her girl babies grow up into replicas of herself. She had failed.

They simply would not play with dolls, nor play house with other little girls. Instead, they insisted upon "intruding," as she considered it, upon Lensmen; preferably upon Second-Stage Lensmen, if any one of the four chanced to be anywhere within reach. Instead of with toys, they played with atomic engines and flitters; and, later, with speedsters and spaceships. Instead of primers, they read Galactic charts. One of them might be at home, as now, or all of them; or none. She never did know what to expect.

But they were in no sense disloyal. They loved their mother with a depth of affection which no other mother, anywhere, has ever known. They tried their very best to keep her from worrying about them. They kept in touch with her wherever they went--which might be at whim to Tellus or to Thrale or to Alsakan or to any unplumbed cranny of intergalactic space--and they informed her, apparently without reservation, as to everything they did. They loved their father and their brother and each other and themselves with the same whole-hearted fervor they bestowed upon her. They behaved always in exemplary fashion. None of them had ever shown or felt the slightest interest in any one of numerous boys and men; and this trait, if the truth is to be told, Clarrissa could understand least of all.

No. The only thing basically wrong with them was the fact, made abundantly clear since they first toddled, that they should not be and could not be subjected to any jot or tittle of any form of control, however applied.

Kathryn finished eating finally and gave her mother a bright, quick grin. "Sorry, Mums, you'll just have to give us up as hard cases, I guess." Her fine eyes, so like Clarrissa's except in color, clouded as she went on: "I _am_ sorry, Mother, really, that we can't be what you so want us to be. We've tried so hard, but we just can't. It's something here, and here--" She tapped one temple and prodded her midsection with a pink forefinger. "Call it fatalism or anything you please, but I think that we're slated to do a job of some kind, some day, even though none of us has any idea what that job is going to be."

Clarrissa paled. "I have been thinking just that for years, dear ... I have been afraid to say it, or even to think it. You are Kim's children, and mine. If there ever was a perfect, a predestined marriage, it is ours. And Mentor said that our marriage was necessary--" She paused, and in that instant she almost perceived the truth. She was closer to it than she had ever been before or ever would be again. But that truth was far too vast for her mind to grasp. She went on: "But I'd do it over again, Kathryn, knowing everything I know now. 'Vast rewards,' you know--"

"Of course you would," Kat interrupted. "Any girl would be a fool not to. The minute I meet a man like Dad I'm going to marry him, if I have to scratch Kay's eyes out and snatch Cam and Con bald-headed to get him. But speaking of Dad, just what do you think of l'affaire Radelix?"

Gone every trace of levity, both women stood up. Gold-flecked tawny eyes stared deeply into gold-flecked eyes of dark and velvety green.

"I don't know." Clarrissa spoke slowly, meaningfully. "Do you?"

"No. I wish that I did." Kathryn's was not the voice of a girl, but that of an avenging angel. "As Kit says, I'd give four front teeth and my right leg to the knee joint to know who or what is back of that, but I don't. I feel very much in the mood to do a flit out that way."

"Do you?" Clarrissa paused. "I'm glad. I'd go myself, in spite of everything he says, except that I know I couldn't do anything. If that should be the job you were talking about--Oh, do anything you can, dear; _anything_ to make sure that he comes back to me!"

"Of course, Mums." Kathryn broke away almost by force from her mother's emotion. "I don't think it is; at least, I haven't got any cosmic hunch to that effect. And don't worry; it puts wrinkles in the girlish complexion. I'll do just a little look-see, stick around long enough to find out what's what, and let you know all about it. 'Bye."

* * * * *

At high velocity Kathryn drove her indetectable speedster to Radelix, and around and upon that planet she conducted invisible investigations. She learned a part of the true state of affairs, she deduced more of it, but she could not see, even dimly, the picture as a whole. This part, though, was clear enough.

An interdimensional expert, she did not have to be at the one apparent mouth of a hyperspatial tube in order to enter it; she knew that while communication was impossible either through such a tube from space to space or from the interior of the tube to either space, the quality of the tube was not the barrier. The interface was. Wherefore, knowing what to expect immediately and working diligently to solve the whole problem, she waited.

She watched Kinnison's abduction. There was nothing she could do about that. She could not interfere then without setting up repercussions which might very well shatter the entire structure of the Galactic Patrol. When the Boskonian ship had disappeared, however, she tapped the tube and followed it. Almost nose to tail she pressed it, tensely alert to do some helpful deed which could be ascribed to accident or to luck. For she knew starkly that Kinnison's present captors would not slip and that his every ability had been discounted in advance.

Thus she was ready, when Kinnison's attention concentrated upon the switch controlling the Boskonian captain's thought-screen generator. There were no pets or spiders or worms, or even gnats, but the captain could sit down. Around his screen, then, she drove a solid beam of thought, upon a channel which neither the pirate nor the Lensman knew existed. She took over in a trice the fellow's entire mind. He sat down, as Kinnison had so earnestly hoped that he would do, the merest fraction of an inch too close to the chair's arm. The switch-handle flipped over and Kathryn snatched her mind away. She was sure that her father would not suspect that that bit of luck was anything except purely fortuitous. She was equally sure that the thing was safe, for a time at least, in Kinnison's highly capable hands. She slowed down, allowed the distance between the two vessels to increase. But she kept within range, for it was more than probable that one or two more seemingly lucky accidents would have to happen before very long.

In the instant of the flicking of the switch the captain's mind became Kinnison's. He was going to issue orders, to take the ship over in an orderly way, but his first contact with the subjugated mind made him change his plans. Instead of uttering orders, the captain leaped out of the chair toward the beam-controllers.

And not an instant too soon. Others had seen what had happened, had heard that telltale click. All had been warned against that and many other contingencies. As the captain leaped, one of his fellows drew a bullet-projector and calmly shot him through the head.

The shock of that bullet, the death of the mind in his own mind's grasp, jarred the Gray Lensman to the core. It was almost the same as though he himself had been killed. Nevertheless, by sheer force of will he held on, by sheer power of will he made that dead body take those last three steps and forced those dead hands to cut the master circuit of the beams which were holding him helpless.

Freed, he leaped forward; but not alone. The others leaped, too, and for the same switch. Kinnison got there first--just barely first--and as he came he swung his armored fist.

What a dureum-inlaid glove, driven by all the brawn of Kimball Kinnison's mighty right arm and powerful torso backed by all the momentum of body- and armor-mass, will do to a human head met in direct central impact is nothing to dwell upon here. Simply, that head splashed. Pivoting nimbly, considering his encumbering armor, he swung a terrific leg. His massive steel boot sank calf-deep into the abdomen of the foe next in line. Two more utterly irresistible blows disposed of two more of the Boskonians; the last two turned and, frantically, ran. But the Lensman by that time had the juice back on; and when a man has been smacked against a solid armor-plate bulkhead by the full power of a D2P pressor, all that remains to be done must be accomplished with a scraper and a mop--or a sponge.

Kinnison picked up his DeLameters, reconnected them, and took stock. So far, so good. But there were other men aboard this heap--how many, he'd better find out--and at least some of them wore dureum-inlaid armor as capable as his own.

And in her speedster, concluding that this wasn't going to be so bad, after all, Kathryn glowed with pride in her father's prowess. She was no shrinking violet, this Third-Stage Lensman; she held no ruth whatever for Civilization's foes. She herself would have driven that beam as mercilessly as had the Gray Lensman. She could have told Kinnison what next to do; could even have inserted the knowledge stealthily into his mind; but, heroically, she refrained. She would let him handle this in his own fashion as long as he possibly could do so.

* * * * *

The Gray Lensman sent his sense of perception abroad. Twenty more of them--the ship wasn't very big. Ten aft, armored. Six forward, also armored. Four, unarmored, in the control room. That control room was poison; he'd go aft first. He searched around--surely they'd have dureum space-axes? Oh, yes, there they were. He hefted them, selected one of the correct weight and balance. He strode down the companionway to the wardroom. He flung the door open and stepped inside.

His first care was to blast the communicator panels with his DeLameters. That would delay the mustering of reinforcements. The control room couldn't guess, at least for a time, that one man was setting out to capture their ship single-handed. His second, ignoring the beams of hand-weapons splashing refulgently from his screens, was to weld the steel door solidly to the jamb. Then, sheathing his projectors, he swung up his ax and went grimly to work. He thought fleetingly of how nice it would be to have VanBuskirk, that dean of all ax-men, at his back; but he wasn't too old or too fat to swing a pretty mean ax himself. And, fortunately, these Boskonians, here in their quarters, didn't have axes. They were heavy, clumsy, and for emergency use only; they were not a part of the regular uniform, as upon Valeria.

The space-ax! Formerly that weapon had been forged from the hardest and toughest of alloy steels. For years, however, it had been made universally from dureum. A deceptive little thing, truly! A dainty-looking affair a little larger than a broad-hatchet. Unlike a hatchet, however, it had a mass of some twenty pounds and was equipped with a yard-long, double-gripped shaft. A sharply tapered spear-end for thrusting, gouging, and stabbing; a wickedly curved, needle-pointed beak for rending and tearing; a flatly rounded, razor-sharp blade capable of shearing through neo-carballoy as cleanly as a scalpel through butter.

The first foe swung up his DeLameter involuntarily as Kinnison's ax swept down. When the curved blade, driven as viciously as the Lensman's strength could drive it, struck the ray-gun it did not even pause. Through it it sliced, the severed halves falling to the floor.

The dureum inlay of the glove held, and glove and ax smashed together against the helmet. The Boskonian went down with a crash; but, beyond a broken arm or some such trifle, he wasn't hurt much. And no armor that a man had to carry around could be made of solid dureum. Hence, Kinnison reversed his weapon and swung again, aiming carefully at a point between the inlay strips. The ax's wicked beak tore through steel and skull and brain, stopping only with the sharply ringing impact of dureum shaft against dureum stripping.

They were coming at him now, not only with DeLameters, but with whatever of steel bars and spanners and bludgeons they could find. QX--his armor could take oodles of that. They might dent it, but they couldn't possibly get through. Planting one boot solidly upon his victim's helmet, he wrenched his ax out through flesh and bone and metal--no fear of breakage; not even a Valerian's full savage strength could break that small, fragile-looking tool--and struck again. And struck--and struck.

He fought his way to the door--two of the survivors were trying to unseal it and to get away. They failed; and, in failing, died. A couple of the remaining enemies shrieked and ran in blind panic, and tried to hide; the others battled desperately on. But whether they ran or fought there was only one possible end, if the Patrolman were to survive. No enemy must or could be left alive behind him, to bring to bear upon his back some semiportable weapon with whose energies his armor's screens could not cope.

When the grisly business was over Kinnison, panting, rested briefly. This was the first real brawl he had been in for twenty years; and for a veteran--a white-collar man, a Co-ordinator to boot--he hadn't done so bad, he thought. That was hard work and, while he was maybe a hair short on wind, he hadn't weakened a particle. To here, QX.

* * * * *

And lovely Kathryn, far enough back but not too far and reading imperceptibly his every thought, agreed with him enthusiastically. She did not have a father complex, but in common with her sisters she knew exactly what her father was. With equal exactitude she knew what other men were. Knowing them, and knowing however imperfectly herself, each of the Kinnison girls knew that it would be a physical and psychological impossibility for her to become even mildly interested in any man not at least her father's equal. They each had dreamed of a man who would be her own equal, physically and mentally, but it had not yet occurred to any of them that one such man already existed.

Kinnison cut the door away and again sent out his sense of perception. With it fanning out ahead of him he retraced his previous path. The apes in the control room had done something; he didn't know just what. Two of them were tinkering with a communicator panel; probably the one to the ward room. They probably thought that the trouble was at their end. Or did they? Why hadn't they reconnoitered? He dismissed that problem as being of no pressing importance. The other two were doing something at another panel. What? He couldn't make head or tail of it--hang those full-coverage screens! And Nadreck's fancy drill, even if he had had one along, wouldn't work unless the screen were absolutely steady. Well, it didn't make much, if any, difference. They had called the men back from up forward, and here they came. He'd rather meet them in the corridor than in an open room, anyway, he could handle them a lot easier.

But tensely watching Kathryn gnawed her lip. Should she tell him, or control him, or not? No. She wouldn't--she couldn't--yet. Dad could figure out that pilot room trap without her help--and she herself, with all her power of brain, could not visualize with any degree of clarity the menace which was--which _must_ be--at the tube's end or even now rushing along it to meet that Boskonian ship.

Kinnison met the oncoming six and vanquished them. By no means as easily as he had conquered the others, since they had been warned and since they also now bore space-axes, but just as finally. Kinnison did not consider it remarkable that he escaped practically unscathed--his armor was battered and dinged up, cut and torn, but he had only a couple of superficial wounds. He had met the enemy where they could come at him only one at a time; he was still the master of any weapon known to space warfare; it had been at no time evident that any outside influence was interfering with the normally rapid functioning of the Boskonians' minds.

He was full of confidence, full of fight, and far from spent when he faced about to consider what he should do about that control room. There was plenty of stuff in there--tougher stuff than he had met up with so far.

Kathryn in her speedster gritted her strong white teeth and clenched her shapely hands into hard little fists. This was bad--very, _very_ bad--and it was going to get worse. Closing up fast, she uttered a bitter and exceedingly unladylike expletive.

Couldn't Dad _see_--couldn't the dumb darling _sense_--that he was apt to run out of time almost any minute now?

She fairly writhed in an agony of indecision; and indecision, in a Third-Stage Lensman, is a rare phenomenon indeed. She wanted intensely to take over, but if she did, was there any way this side of Palain's purple hells that she could cover up her tracks?

There was none--yet.