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"Huh!" he grunted. He rechecked all his figures and retraversed the chart, only to have his needle pierce again the same tiny hole. He stared at it for a full minute, studying the map all around his marker.

"Star cluster AC 257–4736," he ruminated. "The smallest most insignificant, least–known star–cluster he could find, and my. largest possible error can't put it anywhere else…kind of thought it might be in a cluster, but I never would have looked there. No wonder it took a lot of stuff to trace his beam—it would have to be four numbers Brinnell harder than a diamond drill to work from there."

Again whistling tunelessly to himself he rolled up the chart upon which he had been at work, stuck it under his arm, replaced the others in their compartments, and went back to the control room.

"How's tricks, fellows?" he asked.

"QX," replied Blakeslee. "We're through them and into clear ether. Not a ship on the plate, and nobody gave us even a tumble."

Fine! You won't have any trouble, then, from here in to Prime Base. Glad of it, too—I've got to flit. That'll mean long watches for you two, but it can't very well be helped."

"But I say, old bird, I don't mind the watches, but…"

"Don't worry about that, either. This crew can be trusted, to a man. Not one of you joined the pirates of your own free will, and not one of you has ever taken active part…

"What are you, a mind–reader or something?" Crandall burst out.

"Something like that," Kinnison assented with a grin, and Blakeslee put in.

"More than that, you mean. Something like hypnosis, only more so. You think I had something to do with this, but I didn't—the Lensman did it all himself."

"Um–m–m." Crandall stared at Kinnison, new respect in his eyes. "I knew that Unattached Lensmen were good, but I had no idea they were that good. No wonder Helmuth has been getting his wind up about you. I'll string along with any one who can take a whole base, single–handed, and make such a bally ass to boot out of such a keen old bird as Helmuth is. But I'm in a bit of a dither, not so say a funk, about what's going to happen when we pop into Prime Base without you. Every man jack of us, you know, is slated for the lethal chamber without trial. Miss MacDougall will do her bit, of course, but what I mean is has she enough jets to swing it, what?"

"She has, but to avoid all argument I've fixed that up, too. Here's a tape, telling all about what happened. It ends up with my recommendation for a full pardon for each of you, and for a job at whatever he is found best fitted for. Signed with my thumb–print. Give it or send it to Port Admiral Haynes as soon as you land. I've got enough jets, I think, so that it will go as it lays."

"Jets? You? Right–o! You've got jets enough to lift fourteen freighters off the North Pole of Valeria. What next?"

"Stores and supplies for my speedster. I'm doing a long flit and this ship has supplies to burn, so load me up, Plimsoll down."

The speedster was stocked forthwith. Then, with nothing more than a casually waved salute in the way of farewell, Kinnison boarded his tiny space–ship and shot away toward his distant goal. Crandall, the pilot, sought his bunk, while Blakeslee started his long trick at the board. In an hour or so the head nurse strolled in.

"Kim?" she queried, doubtfully.

"No, Miss MacDougall—Blakeslee. Sorry…"

"Oh, I'm glad of that—that means that everything's settled. Where's the Lensmanin bed?"

"He has gone, Miss."

"Gone! Without a word? Where?"

"He didn't say."

"He wouldn't, of course." The nurse turned away, exclaiming inaudibly, "Gone! I'd like to cuff him for that, the lug! GONE! Why, the great, big, lobsterly clinker!"

22: Preparing for the Test

But Kinnison was not heading for Helmuth's base yet. He was splitting the ether toward Aldebaran instead, as fast as his speedster could go, and she was one of the fastest things in the galaxy. He had two good reasons for going there before tackling Boskone's Grand Base. First, to try out his skill upon non–human intellects. If be could handle the Wheelmen he was ready to take the far greater hazard. Second, he owed those wheelers something, and he did not like to call in the whole Patrol to help him pay his debts. He could, he thought, handle that base himself.

Knowing exactly where it was, he had no difficulty in finding the volcanic shaft which was its entrance. Down that shaft his sense of perception sped. He found the lookout plates and followed their power leads. Gently, carefully, he insinuated his mind into that of the Wheelman at the board, discovering, to his great relief, that that monstrosity was no more difficult to handle than had been the Radeligian observer. Mind or intellect, he found, were not affected at all by the shape of the brains concerned, quality, reach, and power were the essential factors. Therefore he let himself in and took position in the same room from which he had been driven so violently. Kinnison examined with interest the wall through which he had been blown, noting that it had been repaired so perfectly that he could scarcely find the joints which had been made.

These wheelers, the Lensman knew, had explosives, since the bullets which had torn their way through his armor and through his flesh had been propelled by that agency. Therefore, to the mind within his grasp he suggested "the place where explosives are kept?" and the thought of that mind flashed to the store– room in question. Similarly, the thought of the one who had access to that room pointed out to the Lensman the particular Wheelman he wanted. It was as easy as that, and since he took care not to look at any of the weird beings, he gave no alarm.

Kinnison withdrew his mind delicately, leaving no trace of its occupancy, and went to investigate the arsenal. There he found a few cases of machine– rifle cartridges, and that was all. Then into the mind of the munitions officer, where he discovered that the heavy bombs were kept in a distant crater, so that no damage would be done by any possible explosion.

"Not quite as simple as I thought," Kinnison ruminated, "but there's a way out of that, too."

There was. It took an hour or so of time, and he had to control two Wheelmen instead of one, but he found that he could do that. When the munitions master took out a bomb–scow after a load of H.E., the crew had no idea that it was anything except a routine job. The only Wheelman who would have known differently, the one at the lookout board, was the other whom Kinnison had to keep under control. The scow went out, got its load, and came back. Then, while the Lensman was flying out into space, the scow dropped down the shaft. So quietly was the whole thing done that not a creature in that whole establishment knew that anything was wrong until it was too late to act—and then none of them knew anything at all. Not even the crew of the scow realized that they were dropping too fast.

Kinnison did not know what would happen if a mind—to say nothing of two of them—died while in his mental grasp, and he did not care to find out. Therefore, a fraction of a second before the crash, he jerked free and watched.

The explosion and its consequences did not look at all impressive from the Lensman's coign of vantage. The mountain trembled a little, then subsided noticeably. From its summit there erupted an unimportant little flare of flame, some smoke, and an insignificant shower of rock and debris.

However, when the scene had cleared there was no longer any shaft leading downward from that crater, a floor of solid rock began almost at its lip. Nevertheless the Lensman explored thoroughly all the region where the stronghold had been, making sure that the clean–up had been one hundred percent effective.

Then, and only then, did he point the speedster's streamlined nose toward star cluster AC 257–4736.

* * * * *

In his hidden retreat so far from the galaxy's crowded suns and worlds, Helmuth was in no enviable or easy frame of mind. Four times he had declared that that accursed Lensman, whoever he might be, must be destroyed, and had mustered his every available force to that end, only to have his intended prey slip from his grasp as effortlessly as a droplet of mercury eludes the clutching fingers of a child.