Chapter VIII

A few hours before the time of rendezvous with the cruiser which was bringing Chris out to him, the detectors picked up a vessel whose course, it proved, was set to intersect their own. A minute or so later a sharp, clear thought came through Kinnison's Lens.

"Kim? Raoul. Been flitting around out Arisia way, and they called me in and asked me to bring you a package. Said you'd be expecting it. QX?"

"Hi, Spacehound! QX." Kinnison had very decidedly not been expecting it--he had thought that he would have to do the best he could without it--but he realized instantly, with a thrill of gladness, what it was. "Inert? Or can't you stay?"

"Free. Got to make a rendezvous. Can't take time to inert--that is, if you'll inert the thing in your cocoon. Don't want it to hole out on you, though."

"Can do. Free it is. Pilot room! Prepare for inertialess contact with vessel approaching. Magnets. Messenger coming aboard--free."

The two speeding vessels flashed together, at all their unimaginable velocities, without a thump or jar. Magnetic clamps locked and held. Air-lock doors opened, shut, opened; and at the inner port Kinnison met Raoul la Forge, his classmate through the four years at Wentworth Hall. Brief but hearty greetings were exchanged, but the visitor could not stop. Lensmen are busy men.

"Fine seeing you, Kim--be sure and inert the thing--clear ether!"

"Same to you, ace. Sure, I will--think I want to tear a guy's arm off?"

Indeed, inerting the package was the Lensman's first care, for in the free condition it was a frightfully dangerous thing. Its intrinsic velocity was that of Arisia, while the ship's was that of Lyrane II. They might be forty or fifty miles per second apart; and if the _Dauntless_ should go inert that harmless-looking package would instantly become a meteorite inside the ship. At the thought of that velocity he paused. The cocoon would stand it--but would the Lens? Oh, sure, the Arisian knew that this was coming; the Lens would be packed to stand it.

Kinnison wrapped the package in heavy gauze, then in roll after roll of spring steel mesh. He jammed heavy steel springs into the ends, then clamped the whole thing into a form with tool-steel bolts an inch in diameter. He poured in two hundred pounds of metallic mercury, filling the form to the top. Then a cover, also bolted on. This whole assembly went into the "cocoon," a cushioned, heavily padded affair suspended from all four walls, ceiling, and floor by every shock-absorbing device known to the engineers of the Patrol.

The _Dauntless_ inerted briefly at Kinnison's word and it seemed as though a troop of elephants were running silently amuck in the cocoon room. The package to be inerted weighed no more than eight ounces--but eight ounces of mass, at a relative velocity of fifty miles per second, possesses a kinetic energy by no means to be despised.

The frantic lurchings and bouncings subsided, the cruiser resumed her free flight, and the man undid all that he had done. The Arisian package looked exactly as before, but it was harmless now; it had the same intrinsic velocity as did everything else aboard the vessel.

Then the Lensman pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves and opened the package; finding, as he had expected, that the packing material was a dense, viscous liquid. He poured it out and there was the Lens--Chris' Lens! He cleaned it carefully, then wrapped it in heavy insulation. For of all the billions of unnumbered billions of living entities in existence, Clarrissa MacDougall was the only one whose flesh could touch that apparently innocuous jewel with impunity. Others could safely touch it while she wore it, while it glowed with its marvelously polychromatic cold flame; but until she wore it, and unless she wore it, its touch meant death to any life to which it was not attuned.

* * * * *

Shortly thereafter another Patrol cruiser hove in sight. This meeting, however, was to be no casual one, for the nurse could not be inerted from the free state in the _Dauntless'_ cocoon. No such device ever built could stand it--and those structures are stronger far than is the human frame. Any adjustment which even the hardest, toughest spacehound can take in a cocoon is measured in feet per second, not in miles.

Hundreds of miles apart, the ships inerted and their pilots fought with supreme skill to make the two intrinsics match. And even so the vessels did not touch, even nearly. A space line was thrown; the nurse and her space roll were quite unceremoniously hauled aboard.

Kinnison did not meet her at the air lock, but waited for her in his con room; and the details of that meeting will remain unchronicled. They were young, they had not seen each other for a long time, and they were very much in love. It is evident, therefore, that Patrol affairs were not the first matters to be touched upon. Nor, if the historian has succeeded even partially in portraying truly the characters of the two persons involved, is it either necessary or desirable to go at any length into the argument they had as to whether or not she should be inducted so cavalierly into a service from which her sex had always, automatically, been barred. He did not want to make her carry that load, but he had to; she did not--although for entirely different reasons--want to take it.

He shook out the Lens and, holding it in a thick-folded corner of the insulating blanket, flicked one of the girl's fingertips across the bracelet. Satisfied by the fleeting flash of color which swept across the jewel, he snapped the platinum-iridium band around her left wrist, which it fitted exactly.

Chris stared for a minute at the smoothly, rhythmically flowing colors of the thing so magically sprung to life upon her wrist; awe and humility in her glorious eyes. Then:

"I can't, Kim. I simply can't. I'm not worthy of it," she choked.

"None of us is, Chris. We can't be--but we've got to do it, just the same."

"I suppose that's true--it would be so, of course. I'll do my best--but you know perfectly well, Kim, that I'm not--can't ever be--a real Lensman."

"Sure, you can. Do we have to go over all that again? You won't have some of the technical stuff that we got, of course, but you carry jets that no other Lensman ever has had. You're a real Lensman; don't worry about that--if you weren't, do you think that they would have made that Lens for you?"

"In a way I see that that must be true, even though I can't understand it. But I'm simply scared to death of the rest of it, Kim."

"You needn't be. It'll hurt, but not more than you can stand. Don't think we'd better start that stuff for a few days yet, though; not until you get used to using your Lens. Coming at you, Lensman!" and he went into Lens-to-Lens communication, broadening it gradually into a wide-open two-way.

She was appalled at first, but entranced some thirty minutes later, when he called the lesson to a halt.

"Enough for now," he decided. "It doesn't take much of that stuff to be a great plenty, at first."

"I'll say it doesn't," she agreed. "Put this away for me until next time, will you, Kim? I don't want to wear it all the time until I know more about it."

"Fair enough. In the meantime I want you to get acquainted with a new girl friend of mine," and he sent out a call for Illona Potter.

"_Girl_ friend!"

"Uh-huh. Study her. Educational no end, and she may be important. Want to compare notes with you on her later, is why I'm not giving you any advance dope on her--here she comes."

"Mac, this is Illona," he introduced them informally. "I told them to give you the cabin next to hers," he added, to the nurse. "I'll go with you to be sure that everything's on the green."

It was, and the Lensman left the two together.

* * * * *

"I'm awfully glad you're here," Illona said, shyly. "I've heard _so_ much about you, Miss--"

"Mac to you, my dear--all of my friends call me that," the nurse broke in. "And you don't want to believe everything you hear, especially aboard this space can." Her lips smiled, but her eyes were faintly troubled.

"Oh, it was nice," Illona assured her. "About what a grand person you are, and what a wonderful couple you and Lensman Kinnison make ... why, you really _are_ in love with him, aren't you?" This in surprise, as she studied the nurse's face.

"Yes," unequivocally. "And you love him, too, and that makes it--"

"Good heavens, no!" the Aldebaranian exclaimed, so positively that Clarrissa jumped.

"What? You don't? _Really?_" Gold-flecked, tawny eyes stared intensely into engagingly candid eyes of black. Mac wished then that she had left her Lens on, so that she could tell whether this bejeweled brunet hussy was telling the truth or not.

"Certainly not. That's what I meant--I'm simply scared to death of him. He's so--well--so over-powering. He's so much more--tremendous--than I am. I didn't see how any girl could possibly love him--but I understand now how you could, perhaps. You're sort of--terrific--yourself, you know. I feel as though I ought to call you 'Your Magnificence' instead of just plain Mac."

"Why, I'm no such thing!" Clarrissa exclaimed; but she softened noticeably, none the less. "And I think that I'm going to like you a lot."

"Oh-h-h--honestly?" Illona squealed. "It sounds too good to be true, you're so marvelous. But if you do, I think that Civilization will be everything that I've been afraid--_so_ afraid--that it couldn't possibly be!"

No longer was it a feminine Lensman investigating a female zwilnik; it was two girls--two young, intensely alive, human girls--who chattered on and on.

Days passed. Mac learned the use of her Lens as well as any first stage Lensman had ever known it. Then Kinnison, one of the few then existent second stage Lensmen, began really to bear down. Since the acquirement of the second stage of Lensmanship has been described in detail elsewhere, it need be said here only that Clarrissa MacDougall had mental capacity enough to take it without becoming insane. He suffered as much as she did; after every mental bout he was as spent as she was; but both of them stuck relentlessly to it.

As is now well known, the prime requisite of all such advanced treatment is to know with the utmost precision exactly what knowledge or ability is required. Mac had no idea as to what she wanted or needed; but Kinnison did.

He could not give her everything that the Arisian had given him, of course. Much of it was too hazy yet; more of it did not apply. He gave her everything, however, which she could handle and which would be of any use to her in the work she was to do; including the sense of perception. He did it, that is, with a modicum of help; for, once or twice, when he faltered or weakened, not knowing exactly what to do or not being quite able to do it, a stronger mind than his was always there.

* * * * *

At length, approaching Tellus fast, Mac and Kim had a final conference; the consultation of two Lensmen settling the last details of procedure in a long-planned and highly important campaign.

"I agree with you that Lyrane II is a key planet," the nurse was saying, thoughtfully. "It must be, to have those expeditions from Lonabar and the as yet unknown planet 'X' centering there."

"'X' certainly, and don't forget the possibility of 'Y' and 'Z' and maybe others," he reminded her. "The Lyrane-Lonabar linkage is the only one we are sure of. With you on one end of that and me on the other, it'll be funny if we can't trace out some more. While I'm building up an authentic identity to tackle Bleeko, you'll be getting chummy with Helen of Lyrane. That's about as far ahead as we can plan definitely right now, since this ground-work can't be hurried too much."

"And I report to you often--frequently, in fact." Mac widened her expressive eyes at her man.

"At least," he agreed. "And I'll report to you between times."

"Oh, Kim, it's nice, being a Lensman!" She snuggled closer. Some way or other, the conference had become somewhat personal. "Being _en rapport_ will be almost as good as being together--we can stand it, that way, at least."

"It'll help a lot, ace, no fooling. That was why I was afraid to go ahead with it on my own hook. I couldn't be sure that my feelings were not in control, instead of my judgment--if any."

"I'd have been certain that it was your soft heart instead of your hard head if it hadn't been for Mentor," she sighed, happily. "As it is, though, I know that everything is on the green."

"All done with Illona?"

"Yes, the darling. She's the _sweetest_ thing, Kim--and a storehouse of information if there ever was one. You and I know more of Boskonian life than anyone of Civilization ever knew before, I am sure. And it's so ghastly! We _must_ win, Kim--we simply _must_, for the good of all creation!"

"We will." Kinnison spoke with grim finality.

"But back to Illona. She can't go with me, and she can't stay here with Hank aboard the _Dauntless_ taking me back to Lyrane, and you can't watch her. I'd hate to think of anything happening to her, Kim."

"It won't," he replied, comfortably. "Ilyowicz won't sleep nights until he has her as the top-flight solo dancer in his show--even though she doesn't have to work for a living any more."

"She will, though, I think. Don't you?"

"Probably. Anyway, a couple of Haynes' smart girls are going to be her best friends, wherever she goes. Sort of keep an eye on her until she learns the ropes--it won't take long. We owe her that much, I figure."

"That much, at least. You're seeing to the selling of her jewelry yourself, aren't you?"

"No, I had a new thought on that. I'm going to buy it myself--or rather, Cartiff is. They're making up a set of paste imitations. Cartiff has to buy a stock somewhere; why not hers?"

"That's a thought--there's certainly enough of them to stock a wholesaler. 'Cartiff'--I can see that sign," she snickered. "Almost microscopic letters, severely plain, in the lower right-hand corner of an immense plate-glass window. One gem in the middle of an acre of black velvet. Cartiff, the most peculiar, if not quite the most exclusive, jeweler in the Galaxy. And nobody except you and me knows anything about him. Isn't that something?"

"Everybody will know about Cartiff pretty soon," he told her. "Found any flaws in the scheme yet?"

"Nary a flaw." She shook her head. "That is, if none of the boys overdo it, and I'm sure they won't. I've got a picture of it," and she giggled merrily. "Think of a whole gang of sleuths from the homicide division chasing poor Cartiff, and never quite catching him!"

"Uh-huh--a touching picture indeed. But there goes the signal, and there's Tellus. We're about to land."

"Oh, I want to see!" and she started to get up.

"Look, then," pulling her down into her original place at his side. "You've got the sense of perception now, remember; you don't need visiplates."

And side by side, arms around each other, the two Lensmen watched the docking of their great vessel.

* * * * *

It landed. Jewelers came aboard with their carefully made wares. Assured that the metal would not discolor her skin, Illona made the exchange willingly enough. Beads were beads, to her. She could scarcely believe that she was now independently wealthy--in fact, she forgot all about her money after Ilyowicz had seen her dance.

"You see," she explained to Mac and Kinnison, "there were two things I wanted to do until Hank gets back--travel around a lot and learn all I can about your Civilization. I wanted to dance, too, but I didn't see how I could. Now I can do all three, and get paid for doing them besides--isn't that _marvelous_? And Mr. Ilyowicz said that you said that it was QX. Is it, really?"

"Right," and Illona was off.

The _Dauntless_ was serviced and Mac was off, to far Lyrane.

Lensman Kinnison was supposedly off somewhere, also, when Cartiff appeared. Cartiff, the ultra-ultra; the, oh, so exclusive! Cartiff did not advertise. He catered, word spread fast, to only the very upper flakes of the upper crust. Simple dignity was Cartiff's keynote, his insidiously spread claim; the dignified simplicity of immense wealth and impeccable social position.

What he actually achieved, however, was something subtly different. His simplicity was just a hair off beam; his dignity was an affected, not a natural, quality. Nobody with less than a million credits ever got past his door, it is true. However, instead of being the real _crème de la crème_ of Earth, Cartiff's clients were those who pretended to belong to, or who were trying to force an entrance into, that select stratum. Cartiff was a snob of snobs; he built up a clientele of snobs; and, even more than in his admittedly fine and flawless gems, he dealt in equally high-proof snobbery.

Betimes came Nadreck, the Unattached Lensman of Palain VII, and Kinnison met him secretly at Prime Base. Soft-voiced as ever, apologetic, diffident; even though Kim had learned that the Palainian had a record of accomplishment as long as any one of his arms. But it was not an act, not affectation. It was simply a racial trait, for the intelligent and civilized race of that planet is in no sense human. Nadreck was utterly, startlingly unhuman. In his atmosphere there was no oxygen, in his body there flowed no aqueous blood. At his normal body temperature neither liquid water nor gaseous oxygen could exist.

The seventh planet out from any sun would, of course, be cold, but Kinnison had not thought particularly about the point until he felt the bitter radiation from the heavily insulated suit of his guest; perceived how fiercely its refrigerators were laboring to keep its internal temperature down.

"If you will permit it, please, I will depart at once," Nadreck pleaded, as soon as he had delivered his spool and his message. "My heat dissipators, powerful though they are, cannot cope much longer with this frightfully high temperature."

"QX, Nadreck--thanks a million," and the weird little monstrosity scuttled out. "Remember, Lensman's Seal on all this stuff until Prime Base releases it."

"Of course, Kinnison. You will understand, however, I am sure, that none of our races of Civilization are even remotely interested in Lonabar--it is as hot, as poisonous, as hellish generally as is Tellus itself!"

* * * * *

Kinnison went back to Cartiff's; and very soon thereafter it became noised abroad that Cartiff was a crook. He was a cheat, a liar, a robber. His stones were synthetic; he made them himself. The stories grew. He was a smuggler; he didn't have an honest gem in his shop. He was a zwilnik, an out-and-out pirate; a red-handed murderer who, if he wasn't there already, certainly ought to be in the big black book of the Galactic Patrol. This wasn't just gossip, either; everybody saw and spoke to men who had seen unspeakable things with their own eyes.

Thus Cartiff was arrested. He blasted his way out, however, before he could be brought to trial, and the newscasters blazed with that highly spectacular, murderous jail break. Nobody actually saw Cartiff escape, nobody actually saw any lifeless bodies. Everybody, however, saw the telenews broadcasts of the shattered walls and the sheeted forms; and, since such pictures are and always have been just as convincing as the real thing, everybody knew that there had been plenty of mangled corpses in those ruins and that Cartiff was a fugitive murderer. Also, everybody knew that the Patrol never gives up on a murderer.

Hence it was natural enough that the search for Cartiff, the jeweler-murderer, should spread from planet to planet and from region to region. Not exactly obtrusively, but inexorably, it did so spread; until finally anyone interested in the subject could find upon any one of a hundred million planets unmistakable evidence that the Patrol wanted one Cartiff, description so-and-so, for murder in the first degree.

And the Patrol was thorough. Wherever Cartiff went or how, they managed to follow him. At first he disguised himself, changed his name, and stayed in the legitimate jewelry business; apparently the only business he knew. But he never could get even a start. Scarcely would his shop open than he would be discovered and forced again to flee.

Deeper and deeper he went, then, into the noisome society of crime. A fence now--still and always he clung to jewelry. But always and ever the bloodhounds of the law were baying at his heels. Whatever name he used was nosed aside and "Cartiff" they howled; so loudly that a thousand million worlds came to know that despised and hated name.

Perforce he became a traveling fence, always on the go. He flew a dead-black ship, ultrafast, armed and armored like a superdreadnought, crewed--according to the newscasts--by the hardest-boiled gang of cutthroats in the known universe. He traded in, and boasted of trading in, the most bloodstained, the most ghost-ridden gems of a thousand worlds. And, so trading, hurling defiance the while into the teeth of the Patrol, establishing himself ever more firmly as one of Civilization's cleverest and most implacable foes, he worked zigzagwise and not at all obviously toward the unexplored spiral arm in which the planet Lonabar lay. And as he moved farther and farther away from the Solarian System his stock of jewels began to change. He had always favored pearls--the lovely, glorious things so characteristically Tellurian--and those he kept. The diamonds, however, he traded away; likewise the emeralds, the rubies, the sapphires, and some others. He kept and accumulated Borovan firestones, Manarkan star drops, and a hundred other gorgeous gems, none of which would be "beads" upon the planet which was his goal.

He visited planets only fleetingly now; the Patrol was hopelessly out-distanced. Nevertheless, he took no chances. His villainous crew guarded his ship; his bullies guarded him wherever he went--surrounding him when he walked, standing behind him while he ate, sitting at either side of the bed in which he slept. He was a king snipe now.

As such he was accosted one evening as he was about to dine in a garish restaurant. A tall, somewhat fish-faced man in faultless evening dress approached. His arms were at his sides, fingertips bent into the "I'm not shooting" sign.

* * * * *

"Captain Cartiff, I believe. May I seat myself at your table, please?" the stranger asked, politely, in the _lingua franca_ of deep space.

Kinnison's sense of perception frisked him rapidly for concealed weapons. He was clean. "I would be very happy, sir, to have you as my guest," he replied, courteously.

The stranger sat down, unfolded his napkin, and delicately allowed it to fall into his lap, all without letting either of his hands disappear from sight, even for an instant, beneath the table's top. He was an old and skillful hand. And during the excellent meal the two men conversed brilliantly upon many topics, none of which were of the least importance. After it Kinnison paid the check, despite the polite protestations of his vis-à-vis. Then:

"I am simply a messenger, you will understand, nothing else," the guest observed. "No. 1 has been checking up on you, and has decided to let you come in. He will receive you tonight. The usual safeguards on both sides, of course--I am to be your guide and guarantee."

"Very kind of him, I'm sure." Kinnison's mind raced. Who could this No. 1 be? The ape had a thought-screen on, so he was flying blind. Couldn't be a real big shot, though, so soon--no use monkeying with him at all. "Please convey my thanks, but also my regrets."

"What?" the other demanded. His veneer of politeness had sloughed off; his eyes were narrow, keen, and cold. "You know what happens to independent operators around here, don't you? Do you think that you can fight _us_?"

"Not fight you, no." The Lensman elaborately stifled a yawn. He now had a clue. "Simply ignore you--if you act up, smash you like bugs, that's all. Please tell your No. 1 that I do not split my takes with anybody. Tell him also that I am looking for a choicer location to settle down upon than any I have found as yet. If I do not find such a place near here, I shall move on. If I do find it I shall take it, in spite of man or the devil."

The stranger stood up, glaring in quiet fury, but with both hands still above the table. "You want to make it a war, then, Captain Cartiff!" he gritted.

"Not 'Captain' Cartiff, please," Kinnison begged, dipping one paw delicately into his finger bowl. "'Cartiff' merely, my dear fellow, if you don't mind. Simplicity, sir, and dignity; those two are my key words."

"Not for long," prophesied the other. "No. 1 will blast you out of the ether before you can swap another necklace."

"The Patrol has been trying to do that for some time now, and I'm still here," Kinnison reminded him, gently. "Caution him, please, in order to avoid bloodshed, not to come after me in only one ship, but a fleet; and suggest that he have something hotter than Patrol primaries before he tackles me at all."

Surrounded by his bodyguards, Kinnison left the restaurant, and as he walked along he reflected. Nice going, this. It would get around fast. This No. 1 couldn't be Bleeko; but the king snipe of Lonabar and its environs would hear the news in short order. He was now ready to go. He would flit around a few more days--give this bunch of zwilniks a chance to make a pass at him if they felt like calling his bluff--then on to Lonabar.