First Lensman by E. E. Smith (epub e ink reader .TXT) 📕

Samms thought for minutes. “No⁠ ⁠… not yet, at least. We don’t know enough yet.”

“I know it⁠—that’s why it looks to me like a good time and place to learn something,” Kinnison argued. “We know⁠—almost know, at least⁠—that a super-fast ship, carrying thionite, has just landed there. This is the hottest lead we’ve had. I say englobe the planet, declare martial law, and not let anything in or out until we find it. Somebody there must know something, a lot more than we do. I say hunt him out and make him talk.”

“You’re just popping off, Rod. You know as well as I do that nabbing a few of the small fry isn’t enough. We can’t move openly until we can strike high.”

“I suppose not,” Kinnison grumbled. “But we know so damned little, Virge!”

“Little enough,” Samms agreed. “Of the three main divisions, only the political aspect is at all clear. In the drug division, we know where thionite comes from and where it is processed, and Eridan may be⁠—probably is⁠—another link. On the other end, we know a lot of peddlers and a few middlemen⁠—nobody higher. We have no actual knowledge whatever as to who the higher-ups are or how they work; and it’s the bosses we want. Concerning the pirates, we know even less. ‘Murgatroyd’ may be no more a man’s name than ‘zwilnik’ is.⁠ ⁠…”

“Before you get too far away from the subject, what are you going to do about Eridan?”

“Nothing, for the moment, would be best, I believe. However, Knobos and DalNalten should switch their attention from Spaceways’ passenger liners to the uranium ships from Eridan to all three of the inner planets. Check?”

“Check. Particularly since it explains so beautifully the merry-go-round they have been on so long⁠—chasing the same packages of dope backwards and forwards so many times that the corners of the boxes got worn round. We’ve got to get the top men, and they’re smart. Which reminds me⁠—Morgan as Big Boss does not square up with the Morgan that you and Fairchild smacked down so easily when he tried to investigate the Hill. A loud-mouthed, chiseling politician might have a lockbox full of documentary evidence about party bosses and power deals and chorus girls and Martian tekkyl coats, but the man we’re after very definitely would not.”

“You’re telling me?” This point was such a sore one that Samms relapsed into idiom. “The boys should have cracked that box a week ago, but they struck a knot. I’ll see if they know anything yet. Tune in, Rod. Ray!” He Lensed a thought at his cousin.

“Yes, Virge?”

“Have you got a spy-ray into that lockbox yet?”

“Glad you called. Yes, last night. Empty. Empty as a sub-deb’s skull⁠—except for an atomic-powered gimmick that it took Bergenholm’s whole laboratory almost a week to neutralize.”

“I see. Thanks. Off.” Samms turned to Kinnison. “Well?”

“Nice. A mighty smart operator.” Kinnison gave credit ungrudgingly. “Now I’ll buy your picture⁠—what a man! But now⁠—and I’ve got my ears pinned back⁠—what was it you started to say about pirates?”

“Just that we have very little to go on, except for the kind of stuff they seem to like best, and the fact that even armed escorts have not been able to protect certain types of shipments of late. The escorts, too, have disappeared. But with these facts as bases, it seems to me that we could arrange something, perhaps like this.⁠ ⁠…”

A fast, sleek freighter and a heavy battle-cruiser bored steadily through the interstellar void. The merchantman carried a fabulously valuable cargo: not bullion or jewels or plate of price, but things literally above price⁠—machine tools of highest precision, delicate optical and electrical instruments, fine watches and chronometers. She also carried First Lensman Virgil Samms.

And aboard the warship there was Roderick Kinnison; for the first time in history a mere battle-cruiser bore a Port Admiral’s flag.

As far as the detectors of those two ships could reach, space was empty of man-made craft; but the two Lensmen knew that they were not alone. One and one-half detets away, loafing along at the freighter’s speed and paralleling her course, in a hemispherical formation open to the front, there flew six tremendous teardrops; superdreadnaughts of whose existence no Tellurian or Colonial government had even an inkling. They were the fastest and deadliest craft yet built by man⁠—the first fruits of Operation Bennett. And they, too, carried Lensmen⁠—Costigan, Jack Kinnison, Northrop, Dronvire of Rigel Four, Rodebush, and Cleveland. Nor was there need of detectors: the eight Lensmen were in as close communication as though they had been standing in the same room.

“On your toes, men,” came Samms’ quiet thought. “We are about to pass within a few light-minutes of an uninhabited solar system. No Tellurian-type planets at all. This may be it. Tune to Kinnison on one side and to your captains on the other. Take over, Rod.”

At one instant the ether, for one full detet in every direction, was empty. In the next, three intensely brilliant spots of detection flashed into being, in line with the dead planet so invitingly close at hand.

This development came as a surprise, since only two raiders had been expected: a battleship to take care of the escort, a cruiser to take the merchantman. The fact that the pirates had become cautious or suspicious and had sent three superdreadnaughts on the mission, however, did not operate to change the Patrol’s strategy; for Samms had concluded, and Dronvire and Bergenholm and Rularion of Jupiter had agreed, that the real commander of the expedition would be aboard the vessel that attacked the freighter.

In the next instant, then⁠—each Lensman saw what Roderick Kinnison saw, in the very instant of his seeing it⁠—six more points of hard, white light sprang into being upon the plates of guileful freighter and decoying cruiser.

“Jack and Mase, take the leader!” Kinnison snapped out the thought. “Dronvire and Costigan, right wing⁠—he’s the one that’s going after the freighter. Fred and Lyman, left wing. Hipe!”

The pirate ships flashed up, filling ether and sub-ether alike with a solid