"All right, Worsel, snap it up!" Kinnison called, and went on to vanBuskirk, "Now, you big, flat–footed Valerian spacehound, I hope that spaceman's god of yours will see to it our luck holds good for just fourteen minutes more. We've had more luck already than we had any right to expect, but we can put a little more to most God–awful good use!"
"Noshabkeming does bring spacemen luck," insisted the giant, grimacing a peculiar salute toward a small, golden image set inside his helmet, "and the fact that you warty, runty, atheistic little space–fleas of Tellus haven't got sense enough to know it—not even enough sense to really believe in your own gods, even Klono—doesn't change matters at all."
"That's tellin'em, Bus!" Kinnison applauded. "But if it helps charge your batteries, go to it…Ready to blast! Lift!"
The Velantian had come aboard, the tiny airlock was again tight, and the little vessel shot away from Delgon toward far Velanda. And still the ether remained empty as far as the detectors could reach. Nor was this fact surprising, in spite of the Lensman's fears to the contrary, for the Patrolmen had given the pirates such an extremely long line to cover that many days must yet elapse before the minions of Boskone would get around to visit that unimportant, unexplored, and almost unknown solar system. En route to his home planet Worsel got in touch with the crew of the Velantian vessel already in space, ordering them to return to port post–haste and instructing them in detail what to think and how to act should they be stopped and searched by one of Boskone's raiders. By the time these instructions had been given, Velantia loomed large beneath the flying midget. Then, with Worsel as guide, Kinnison drove over a mighty ocean upon whose opposite shore lay the great city in which Worsel lived.
"But I would like to have them welcome you as befits what you have done, and have you go to the Dome!" mourned the Velantian. "Think of it! You have done a thing which for ages the massed power of the planet has been trying vainly to accomplish, and yet you insist that I alone take credit for it!"
'I don't insist on any such thing," argued Kinnison, "even though it's practically all yours, anyway. I insist only on your keeping us and the Patrol out of it, and you know as well as I do why you've got to do that. Tell them anything else you want to. Say that a couple of pink–haired Chickladorians helped you and then beat it back home. That planet's far enough away so that if the pirates chase them they'll get a real run for their money. After this blows over you can tell the truth—but not until then.
"And as for us going to the Dome for a grand hocus–pocus, that is completely and definitely OUT. We're not going anywhere except to 'the biggest airport you've got. You're not going to give us anything except a lot of material and a lot of highly–trained help that can keep their thoughts sealed.
"We've got to build a lot of heavy stuff fast, and we've got to get started on it just as quick as Klono and Noshabkeming will let us!"
8: The Quarry Strikes Back
Worsel knew his council of scientists, as well as might, since it developed that he himself ranked high in that select circle. True to his promise, the largest airport of the planet was immediately emptied of its customary personnel, which was replaced the following morning by an entirely new group of workmen.
Nor were these replacements ordinarily laborers. They were young, keen, and highly trained, taken to a man from behind the thought–screens of the Scientists. It is true that they had no inkling of what they were to do, since none of them had ever dreamed of the possibility of such engines as they were to be called upon to construct.
But, on the other hand, they were well versed in the fundamental theories and operations of mathematics, and from pure mathematics to applied mechanics is but a step. Furthermore, they had brains, knew how to think logically, coherently, and effectively, and needed neither driving nor supervision—only instruction. And best of all, practically every one of the required mechanisms already existed, in miniature, within the Brittania's lifeboat, ready at hand for their dissection, analysis, and enlargement. It was not lack of understanding which was to slow up the work, it was simply that the planet did not boast machine tools and equipment large enough or strong enough to handle the necessarily huge and heavy parts and members required.
While the construction of this heavy machinery was being rushed through, Kinnison and vanBuskirk devoted their efforts to the fabrication of an ultra– sensitive receiver, tunable to the pirates' scrambled wave–bands. With their exactly detailed knowledge, and with the cleverest technicians and the choicest equipment of Velantia at their disposal, the set was soon completed.
Kinnison was giving its exceedingly delicate coils their final alignment when Worsel wriggled blithely into the radio laboratory.
"Hi, Kimball Kinnison! of the Lens!" he called gaily. Throwing a few yards of his serpent's body in lightning loops about a convenient pillar, he made a horizontal bar of the rest of himself and dropped one wing–tip to the floor. Then, nonchalantly upside down, he thrust out three or four eyes and curled their stalks over the Lensman's shoulder, the better to inspect the results of the mechanics' efforts. Gone was the morose, pessimistic, death–haunted Worsel entirely, gay, happy, carefree, and actually frolicsome—if you can imagine a thirty–foot–long, crocodile headed, leather–winged python as being frolicsome!
"Hi, your royal snakeship!" Kinnison retorted in kind. "Still here, huh? Thought you'd be back on Delgon by this time, cleaning up the rest of that mess."
"The equipment is not ready, but there's no hurry about that," the playful reptile unwrapped ten or twelve feet of tail from the pillar and waved it airily about. "Their power is broken, their race is done. You are about to try out the new receiver?"
"Yes—going out after them right now," and Kinnison began deftly to manipulate the micrometric vernier of his dials.
Eyes fixed upon meters and gauges, he listened…listened. Increased his power and listened again. More and more power he applied to his apparatus, listening continually. Suddenly he stiffened, his hands becoming rock–still. He listened, if possible even more intently than before, and as he listened his face grew grim and granite–hard. Then the micrometers began again crawlingly to move, as though he were tracing a beam.
"Bus! Hook on the focusing beam–antenna!" he snapped. "It's going to take every milliwatt of power we've got in this hookup to tap his beam, but I think I've got Helmuth direct instead of through a pirate–ship relay!"
Again and again he checked the readings of his dials and of the directors of his antenna, each time noting the exact time of the Velantian day.
"There! As soon as we get some time, Worsel, I'd like to work out these figures with some of your astronomers. They'll give me a right line through Helmuth's headquarters—I hope. Some day, if I'm spared, I'll get another!"
"What kind of news did you get, chief?" asked vanBuskirk.
"Good and bad both," replied the Lensman. "Good in that Helmuth doesn't believe that we stayed with his ship as long as we did. He's a suspicious devil, you know, and is pretty well convinced that we tried to run the same kind of a blazer on him that we did the other time. Since he hasn't got .enough ships on the job to work the whole line, he's concentrating on the other end. That means that we've got plenty of days left yet. The bad part of it is that they've got four of our boats already and are bound to get more. Lord, how I wish I could call the rest of them! Some of them could certainly make it here before they got caught."