He had gained much, but not enough by far. He had hoped to get all the data on Boskone, so that the zwilniks' headquarters could be stormed by Civilization's armada, invincible in its newly–devised might.
No soap. Before he could do that he would have to scout Jarnevon…in the Second Galaxy…alone. Alone? Better not. Better take the flying snake along. Good old dragon! That was a mighty long flit to be doing alone, and one with some mighty high–powered opposition at the other end of it.
19: Prellin is Eliminated
"Before you go anywhere; or, rather, whether you go anywhere or not, we want to knock down that Bronsecan base of Prellin's," Haynes declared to Kinnison in no uncertain voice. "It's a galactic scandal, the way we've been letting them thumb their noses at us. Everybody in space thinks that the Patrol has gone soft all of a sudden. When are you going to let us smack them down? Do you know what they've done now?"
"No—what?"
"Gone out of business. We've been watching them so closely that they couldn't do any queer business—goods, letters, messages, or anything—so they closed up the Bronseca branch entirely. 'Unfavorable conditions,' they said. Locked up tight—telephones disconnected, communicators cut, everything."
"Hm…m…In that case we'd better take 'em, I guess. No harm done, anyway, now—maybe all" the better. Let Boskone think that our strategy failed and we had to fall back on brute force."
"You say it easy. You think it'll be a push–over, don't you?"
"Sure—why not?"
"You noticed the shape of their screens?"
"Roughly cylindrical," in surprise. "They're hiding a lot of |tuflf, of course, but they can't possibly…"
"I'm afraid that they can, and will. I've been checking up on the building. Ten years old. Plans and permits QX except for the fact that nobody knows whether or not the building Resembles the plans in any way."
"Klono's whiskers!" Kinnison was aghast, his mind was racing. "How could that be, chief? Inspections—builders—contractors—workmen?"
"The city inspector who had the job came into money later, retired, and nobody had seen him since. Nobody can locate a single builder or workman who saw it constructed. No competent inspector has been in it since. Cominoche is lax—all cities are, for that matter—with an outfit as big as Wembleson's, who carries its own insurance, does its own inspecting, and won't allow outside interference. Wembleson's Isn't alone in that attitude—they're not all zwilniks, either."
"You think it's really fortified, then?"
"Sure of it. That's why we ordered a gradual, but com–|plete, evacuation of the city, beginning a couple of months ago."
"How could you?" Kinnison was growing more surprised by the minute. "The businesses—the houses—the expense!"
"Martial law—the Patrol takes over in emergencies, you know. Businesses moved, and mostly carrying on very well. People ditto—very nice temporary camps, lake– and river–cottages, and so on. As for expense, the Patrol pays damages. We'll pay for rebuilding the whole city if we have to—much rather that than leave that Boskonian base there alone."
"What a mess! Never thought of it that way, but you're right, as usual. They wouldn't be there at all unless they thought…but they must know, chief, that they can't hold off the stuff you can bring to bear."
"Probably betting that we won't destroy our own city to get them—if so, they're wrong. Or possibly they hung on a few days too long."
"How about the observers?" Kinnison asked. "They have four auxiliaries there, you know."
"That's strictly up to you." Haynes was unconcerned. "Smearing that base is the only thing I insist on. We'll wipe out the observers or let them observe and report, whichever you say; but that base goes—it has been there far too long already."
"Be nicer to let them alone," Kinnison decided. "We're not supposed to know anything about them. You won't have to use primaries, will you?"
"No. It's a fairly large building, as business blocks go, but it lacks a lot of being big enough to be a first class base. We can burn the ground out from under its deepest possible foundations with our secondaries."
He called an adjutant. "Get me Sector Nineteen." Then, as the seamed, scarred face of an old Lensman appeared upon a plate:
"You can go to work on Cominoche now, Parker. Twelve maulers. Twenty heavy caterpillars and about fifty units of Q–type mobile screen, remote control. Supplies and service. Have them muster all available fire–fighting apparatus. If desirable, import some—we want to save as much of the place as we can. I'll come over in the Dauntless."
He glanced at Kinnison, one eyebrow raised quizzically.
"I feel as though I rate a little vacation; I think I'll go and watch this," he commented.
"The Dauntless can get us there soon enough. Got time to come along?"
"I think so. It's more or less on my way to Lundmark's Nebula."
Upon Bronseca then, as the Dauntless ripped her way through protesting space, there converged structures of the void from a dozen nearby systems. There came maulers; huge, ungainly flying fortresses of stupendous might There came transports, bearing the commissariat and the service units. Vast freighters, under whose unimaginable mass the Gargantuanly braced and latticed and trussed docks yielded visibly and groaningly, crushed to a standstill and disgorged their varied cargoes.
What Haynes had so matter–of–factly referred to as "heavy" caterpillars were all of that, and the mobile screens were even heavier. Clanking and rumbling, but with their weight so evenly distributed over huge, flat treads that they sank only a foot or so into even ordinary ground, they made their ponderous way along Cominoche's deserted streets.
What thoughts seethed within the minds of the Boskonians can only be imagined. They knew that the Patrol had landed in force, but what could they do about it? At first, when the Lensmen began to infest the place, they could .have fled in safety; but at that time they were too certain of their immunity to abandon their richly established position. Even now, they would not abandon it until that course became absolutely necessary.
They could have destroyed the city, true; but it was not until after the noncombatant inhabitants had unobstrusively moved out that that course suggested itself as an advisability. Now the destruction of mere property would be a gesture worse than meaningless; it would be a waste of energy which would all too certainly be needed badly and soon.
Hence, as the Patrol's land forces ground dangerously into position the enemy made no demonstration. The mobile screens were in place, surrounding the doomed section with a wall of force to protect the rest of the city from the hellish energies so soon to be unleashed. The heavy caterpillars, mounting projectors quite comparable in size and power with the warships' own—weapons similar in purpose and function to the railway–carriage coast–defense guns of an earlier day—were likewise ready. Far back of the line, but still too close, as they were to discover later, heavily armored men crouched at their remote controls behind their shields; barriers both of hard–driven, immaterial fields of force and of solid, grounded, ultra–refrigerated walls of the most refractory materials possible of fabrication. In the sky hung the maulers, poised stolidly upon the towering pillars of flame erupting from their under–jets.
Cominoche, Bronseca's capital city, witnessed then what no one there present had ever expected to see; the warfare designed for the illimitable reaches of empty space being waged in the very heart of its business district!
For Port Admiral Haynes had directed the investment of this minor stronghold almost as though it were a regulation base, and with reason. He knew that from their coigns of vantage afar four separate Boskonian observers were looking on, charged with the responsibility of recording and reporting everything that transpired, and he wanted that report to be complete and conclusive. He wanted Boskone, whoever and wherever he might be, to know that when the Galactic Patrol started a thing it finished it; that the mailed fist of Civilization would not spare an enemy base simply because it was so located within one of humanity's cities that its destruction must inevitably result in severe property damage. Indeed, the Port Admiral had massed there thrice the force necessary, specifically and purposely to drive that message home.