Agents of the drug baron came in, singly and in groups, to an altogether unprecedented number. Some of them were their usual viciously self–contained selves, others were slightly but definitely ill at ease. Kinnison, seated alone at a small table, playing a game of Radeligian solitaire, divided his attention between the big room as a whole and the office of Bominger; in neither of which was anything definite happening.
Then a wave of excitement swept over the agents as five men wearing thought– screens entered the room and, sitting down at a reserved table, called for cards and drinks; and Kinnison thought it time to send his warning.
"Gerrond! Winstead! Three–way! It's going to break soon, now, I think— tonight. Agents all over the place—five men with thought–screens here on the floor. Nervous tension high. Lots more agents outside, for blocks. General precaution, I think, not specific. Not suspicious of me, at least not exactly. Afraid of spies with a sense of perception—Rigellians or Posenians or such. Just killed an Ordovik on general principles, over on the next block. Get your gangs ready, but don't come too close—just close enough so you can be here in thirty seconds after I call you."
"What do you mean 'not exactly suspicious'? What have you done?"
"Nothing I know of—any one of a million possible small slips I may have made. Nothing serious, though, or they wouldn't have let me hang around this long."
"You're in danger. No armor, no DeLamater, no anything. Better come out of it while you can."
"And miss what I've spent all this time building up? Not a chance! Ill be able to take care of myself, I think…Here comes one of the boys in a screen, to talk to me. Ill leave my Lens open, so you can sort of look on."
Just then Bominger's screen went down and Kinnison invaded his mind; taking complete possession of it Under his domination the fat man reported to the^ Boskonian, reported truly and fully. In turn he received orders and instructions. Had any inquisitive stranger been around, or anyone on the planet using any kind of a mind–ray machine since that quadruply–accursed Lensman had held that trial? (Oh, that was what had touched them off! Kinnison was glad to know it.) No, nothing unusual at all…
And just at that critical moment, when the Lensman's mind was so busy with its task, the stranger came up to his table and stared down at him dubiously, questioningly.
"Well, what's on your mind?" Kinnison growled. He could not spare much of his mind just then, but it did not take much of it to play his part as a dock– walloper. "You another of them slime–lizard house–numbers, snooping around to see if I'm trying to run a blazer? By Klono and all his cubs, if I hadn't lost so much money here already I'd tear up this deck and go over to Croleo's and never come near this crummy joint again—his rot–gut can't be any worse than yours is."
"Don't burn out a jet, pal." The agent, apparently reassured, adopted a conciliatory tone.
"Who in hell ever said you was a pal of mine, you Radelig–gig–gigian pimp?" The supposedly three–quarters–drunken, certainly three–quarters–naked Lensman got up, wobbled a little, and sat down again, heavily. "Don't 'pal' me, ape—I'm partic–hic–hicular about who I pal with."
"That's all right, big fellow; no offense intended," soothed the other. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink."
"Don't want no drink 'til I'VE finished this game," Kinnison grumbled, and took an instant to flash a thought via Lens. "All set, boys? Things're moving fast. If I have to take this drink—it's doped, of course—IT! bust this bird wide open. When I yell, shake the lead out of your pants!"
"Of course you want a drink!" the pirate urged. "Come and get it—it's on me, you know."
"And who are you to be buying me, a Tellurian gentleman, a drink?" the Lensman roared, flaring into one of the sudden, senseless rages of the character he had cultivated so assiduously. "Did I ask you for a drink? I'm educated, I am, and I've got money, I have. I'll buy myself a drink when I want one." His rage mounted higher and higher, visibly. "Did I ever ask you for a drink, you (unprintable here, even in a modern and realistic novel, for the space of two long breaths)…!"
This was the blow–off. If the fellow was even half level, there would be a fight, which Kinnison could make last as long as necessary. If he did not start slugging after what Kinnison had just called him he was not what he seemed and the Lensman was surely suspect; for the Earthman had dredged the foulest vocabularies of space.
"If you weren't drunk I'd break every bone in your laxlo–soaked carcass." The other man's anger was sternly suppressed, but he looked at the dock– walloper with no friendship in his eyes. "I don't ask lousy space–port bums to drink with me every day, and when I do, they do—or else. Do you want to take that drink now or do you want a couple of the boys to work you over first? Barkeep! Bring two glasses of laxlo over here!"
Now the time was short indeed, but Kinnison would not—could not—act yet. Bominger's conference was still on; the Lensman didn't know enough yet. The fellow wasn't very suspicious, certainly, or he would have made a pass at him before this. Bloodshed meant less than nothing to these gentry; the stranger did not want to incur Bominger's wrath by killing a steady customer. The fellow probably thought the whole mind–ray story was hocuspocus, anyway—not a chance in a million of it being true. Besides he needed a machine, and Kinnison couldn't hide a thing, let alone anything as big as that "mind–ray machine" had been, because he didn't have clothes enough on to flag a hand–car with. But that free drink was certainly doped…Oh, they wanted to question him. It would be a truth–dope in the laxlo, then—he certainly couldn't take that drink!
Then came the all–important second; just as the bartender set the glasses down Bominger's interview ended. At the signing off, Kinnison got additional data, just as he had expected; and in that instant, before the drugmaster could restore his screen, the fat man died—his brain literally blasted. And in that same instant Kinnison's Lens fairly throbbed with the power of the call he sent out to his allies.
But not even Kinnison could hurl such a mental bolt without some outward sign. His face stiffened, perhaps, or his eyes may have lost their drunken, vacant stare, to take on momentarily the keen, cold ruthlessness that was for the moment his. At any rate, the enemy agent was now definitely suspicious.
"Drink that, bum, and drink it quick—or burn!" he snapped, DeLameter out and poised.
The Tellurian's hand reached for the glass, but his mind also reached out, and faster by a second, to the brains of two nearby agents. Those worthies drew their own weapons and, with wild yells, began firing. Seemingly indiscriminately, yet in those blasts two of the thoughtscreened minions died. For a fraction of a second even the hard–schooled mind of Kinnison's opponent was distracted, and that fraction was time enough.
A quick flick of the wrist sent the potent liquor into the Boskonian's eyes; a lightning thrust of the knee sent the little table hurtling against his gun– hand, flinging the weapon afar. Simultaneously the Lensman's ham–like fist, urged by all the strength and all the speed of his two hundred and sixteen pounds of rawhide and whalebone, drove forward. Not for the jaw. Not for the head or the face. Lensmen know better than to mash bare hands, break fingers and knuckles, against bone. For the solar plexus. The big Patrolman's fist sank forearm–deep. The stricken zwilnik uttered one shrieking grunt, doubled up, and collapsed; never to rise again. Kinnison leaped for the fellow's DeLameter—too late, he was already hemmed in.
One—two—three—four of the nearest men died without having received a physical blow; again and again Kinnison's heavy fists and far heavier feet crashed deep 4nto vital spots. One thought–screened enemy dived at him bodily in a Tomingan donganeur, to fall with a broken neck as the Lensman opposed instantly the only possible parry—a savage chop, edge–handed, just below the base of the skull; the while he disarmed the surviving thought–screened stranger with an accurately–hurled chair. The latter, feinting a swing, launched a vicious French kick. The Lensman, expecting anything, perceived the foot coming. His big hands shot out like striking snakes, closing and twisting savagely in the one fleeting instant, then jerking upward and backward. A hard and heavy dock– walloper's boot crashed thuddingly to a mark. A shriek rent the air and that foeman too was done.