The masses, still falling upon and through and past themselves and each other melted—boiled—vaporized incandescently. The entire mass, the mass of three fused worlds, began to equilibrate; growing hotter and hotter as more and more of its terrific motion was converted into pure heat. Hotter! Hotter! HOTTER!
And as the Grand Fleet of the Galactic Patrol blasted through inter– galactic space toward the First Galaxy and home, there glowed behind it a new, small, comparatively cool, and probably short–lived companion to an old and long– established star.
25: Attached
The uproar of the landing was over; the celebration of victory had not yet begun. Haynes had, peculiarly enough, set a definite time for a conference with Kinnison and the two of them were in the admiral's private office, splitting a bottle of fayalin and discussing—apparently—nothing at all.
"Narcotics has been yelling for you," Haynes finally got around to business. "But they don't need you to help them clean up the zwilnik mess; they just want to work with you. So I told Ellington, as diplomatically as possible, to take a swan–dive off of an asteroid. Hicks wants you, too; and Spencer and Frelinghuysen and thousands of others. See that basket–full of junk? All requests for you, to be submitted to you for your consideration. I submit "em, thus—into the circular file. You see, there's something really important…"
"Nix, chief, nix—jet back a minute, please!" Kinnison implored. "Unless it's something that's got to be done right away, gimme a break, can't you? I've got a couple of things to do—stuff to attend to. Maybe a little flit somewhere, too, I don't know yet."
"More important than Patrol business?" dryly.
"Until it's cleaned up, yes." Kinnison's face burned scarlet and his eyes revealed the mental effort necessary to make that statement. "The most important thing in the universe," he finished, quietly but doggedly.
"Well, of course I can't give you orders…" Haynes' frown was instinct with disappointment.
"Don't, chief—that hurts. I'll be back, honest, as soon as I possibly can, and I'll do anything you want me to…"
"That's enough, son." Haynes stood up and grasped Kinnison's hands—hard— in both his own. "I know. Forgive me for taking you for this little ride, but you and Mac suffer sol You're so young, so intense, so insistent upon carrying the entire Cosmos on your shoulders—I couldn't help it. You won't have to do much of a flit." He glanced at his chronometer. "You'll find all your unfinished business in Room 7295, Base Hospital."
"Huh? You know, then?"
"Who doesn't? There may be a few members of some backward race somewhere who don't know all about you and your red–headed sector riot, but I don't know…" He was addressing empty air.
Kinnison shot out of the building and, exerting his Gray Lensman's authority, he did a thing which he had always longed boyishly to do but which he had never before really considered doing. He whistled, shrill and piercingly, and waved a Lensed arm, even while he was directing a Lensed thought at the driver of the fast ground–car always inreadiness in front of Haynes' office.
"Base Hospital—full emergency blast!" he ordered, and the Jehu obeyed. That chauffeur loved emergency stuff and the long, low, wide racer took off with a deafening roar of unmuffled exhaust and a scream of tortured, burning rubber. Two projectors flamed, sending out for miles ahead of the bellowing roadster twin beams of a redness so thick as to be felt, not merely seen. Simultaneously the mighty, four–throated siren began its ululating, raucously overpowering yell, demanding and obtaining right of way over any and all traffic—particularly over police, fire, and other ordinary emergency apparatus—which might think it had some rights upon the street!
"Thanks, Jack—you needn't wait" At the hospital's door Kinnison rendered tribute to fast service and strode along a corridor. An express elevator whisked him up to the seventy–second floor, and there his haste departed completely. This was Nurses' Quarters, he realized suddenly. He had no more business there than…yes he did, too. He found Room 7295 and rapped upon its door. Boldly, he intended, but the resultant sound was surprisingly small.
"Come in!" called a clear contralto. Then, after a moment: "Come in!" more sharply; but the Lensman did not, could not obey the summons. She might be… dammitall, he didn't have any business on this floor! Why hadn't he called her up or sent her a thought or something…? Why didn't he think at her now?
The door opened, revealing the mildly annoyed sector chief. At what she saw her hands flew to her throat and her eyes widened in starkly unbelieving rapture.
"KIM!" She shrieked in ecstasy.
"Chris…my Chris!" Kinnison whispered unsteadily, and for minutes those two uniformed minions of the Galactic Patrol stood motionless upon the room's threshold, strong young arms straining; nurse's crisp and spotless white crushed unregarded against Lensman's pliant gray.
"Oh…I've missed you so terribly, my darling," she crooned. Her voice, always sweetly rich, was pure music.
"You don't know the half of it. This can't be real—nothing can feel this good!"
"You did come back to me—you really did!" she lilted. "I didn't dare hope you could come so soon."
"I had to." Kinnison drew a deep breath, "I simply couldn't stand it It'll be tough, maybe, but you were right—half a loaf is better man no bread."
"Of course it is!" She released herself—partially—after the first transports of their first embrace and eyed him shrewdly. "Tell me, Kim, did Lacy have a hand in this surprise?"
"Uh–uh," he denied. "I haven't seen him for ages—but jet back! Haynes told me—say, what'll you bet those two old hard–heads haven't been giving us the works?"
"Who are old hard–heads?" Haynes—in person—demanded. So deeply immersed had Kinnison been in his rapturous delirium that even his sense of perception was in abeyance; and there, not two yards from the entranced couple, stood the two old Lensmen under discussion!
The culprits sprang apart, flushing guiltily, but Haynes went on imperturbably, quite as though nothing out of the ordinary had been either said or done:
"We gave you fifteen minutes, then came up to be sure to catch you before you flitted off to the celebration or somewhere. We have matters to discuss."
"QX. Come in, all of you." As she spoke the nurse stood aside in invitation. "You know, don't you, that it's exceedingly much contra Regs for nurses to entertain visitors of the opposite sex in their rooms? Fifty demerits per offense. Most girls never get a chance at even one Gray "Lensman, and here I've got three!" She giggled infectiously. "Wouldn't it be one for the book for me to get a hundred and fifty black spots for this? And to have Surgeon–Marshal Lacy, Port Admiral Haynes, and Unattached Lensman Kim–ball Kinnison, all heaved into the clink to boot? Boy, oh boy, ain't we got fun?"
"Lacy's too old and I'm too moral to be affected by the wiles even of the likes of you, my dear," Haynes explained equably, as he seated himself upon the davenport—the most comfortable thing in the room.
"Old? Moral? Tommyrot!" Lacy glared an "I'll–see–you–later" look at the admiral, then turned to the nurse. "Don't worry about that, MacDougall. No penalties accrue—Regulations apply only to nurses in the Service…"
"And what…" she started to blaze, but checked herself and her tone changed instantly. "Go on—you interest me strangely, sir. I'm just going to love this!" Her eyes sparkled, her voice was vibrant with unconcealed eagerness.
'Told you she was quick on the uptake," Lacy gloated. "Didn't fox her for a second!"
"But say—listen—what's this all about, anyway?" Kinnison demanded.
"Never mind, you'll learn soon enough," from Lacy, and:
"Kinnison, you are very urgently invited to attend a meeting of the Galactic Council tomorrow afternoon," from Haynes.