The Patrol had already scoured—fruitlessly—Aldebaran II for any sign, however slight, pointing toward Lonabar. The planetographers had searched the files, the charts, the libraries thoroughly. No Lonabar. Of course, they had suggested—what a help!—they might know it under some other name. Personally, he didn't think so, since no jeweler throughout the far–flung bounds of Civilization had as yet been found who could recognize or identify any of the items he had described.
Whatever avenue or alley of thought Kinnison started along, he always ended up at the jewels and the girl. Illona, the squirrel–brained, romping, joyous little imp who by now owned in fee simple half of the ship and nine– tenths of the crew. Why in Palain's purple hells couldn't she have had a brain? How could anybody be dumb enough not to know the galactic coordinates of their own planet? Not even to know anything that could help locate it? But at that, she was probably about as smart as most—you couldn't expect any other woman in the galaxy to have a mind like Mac's…
For minutes, then, he abandoned his problem and reveled in visions of the mental and physical perfections of his fiancee. But this was getting him nowhere, fast. The girl or the jewels—which? They were the only real angles he had.
He sent out a call for her, and in a few minutes she came swirling in. How different she was from what she had been! Gone were the somberness, the dread, the terror which had oppressed her; gone were the class–conscious inhibitions against which she had been rebelling, however subconsciously, since childhood. Here she was free! The boys were free, everybody was free! She had expanded tremendously—unfolded. She was living as she had never dreamed it possible to live. Each new minute was an adventure in itself. Her black eyes, once so dull, sparkled with animation; radiated her sheer joy in living. Even her jet–black hair–seemed to have taken on a new luster and gloss, in its every, precisely– arranged wavelet.
"Hi, Lensman!" she burst out, before Kinnison could say a word or think a thought in greeting. "I'm so glad you sent for me, because there's something I've been wanting to ask you since yesterday. The boys are going to throw a blow–out, with all kinds of stunts, and they want me to do a dance. QX, do you think?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Clothes," she explained. "I told them I couldn't dance in a dress, and they said I wasn't supposed to, that acrobats didn't wear dresses when they performed on Tellus, that my regular clothes were just right. I said they were trying to string me and they swore they weren't—said to ask the Old Man…" she broke off, two knuckles jammed into her mouth, expressive eyes wide in sudden fright. "Oh, excuse me, sir," she gasped. "I didn't…"
"'Smatter? What bit you?" Kinnison asked, then got it. "Oh—the 'Old Man', huh? QX, angel–face, that's standard nomenclature in the Patrol. Not with you folks, though, I take it?"
"I'll say not," she breathed. She acted as though a catastrophe had been averted by the narrowest possible margin. "Why, if anybody got caught even thinking such a thing, the whole crew would go into the steamer that very minute. And if I would dare to say 'Hi' to Menjo Bleeko…!" she shuddered.
"Nice people," Kinnison commented.
"But are you sure that the…that I'm not getting any of the boys into trouble?" she pleaded. "For, after all, none of them ever dare call you that to your face, you know."
"You haven't been around enough yet," he assured her. "On duty, no; that's discipline—necessary for efficiency. And I haven't hung around the wardrooms much of late—been too busy. But at the party you'll be surprised at some of the things they call me—if you happen to hear them. You've been practicing— keeping in shape?"
"Uh–huh," she confessed. "In my room, with the spy–ray–block on."
"Good. No need to hide, though, and no need to wear dresses any time you're practicing—the boys were right on that. But what I called you in about is that I want you to help me. Will you?"
"Yes, sir. In anything I can—anything, sir," she answered, instantly.
"I want you to give me every scrap of information you possibly can about Lonabar; its customs and habits, its work and its play—everything, even its money and its jewelry." This last apparently an after–thought. "To do so, you'll have to let me into your mind of your own free will—you'll have to cooperate to the limit of your capability. QX?"
"That will be quite all right, Lensman," she agreed, shyly. "I know now that you aren't going to hurt me."
Illona did not like it at first, there was no question of that. And small wonder. It is an intensely disturbing thing to have your mind invaded, knowingly, by another; particularly when that other is the appallingly powerful mind of Gray Lensman Kimball Kinnison. There were lots of things she did not want exposed, and the very effort not to think of them brought them ever and ever more vividly to the fore. She squirmed mentally and physically: her mind was for minutes a practically illegible turmoil. But she soon steadied down and, as she got used to the new sensations, she went to work with a will. She could not increase the planetographical knowledge which Kinnison had already obtained from her, but she was a mine of information concerning Lonabars' fine gems. She knew all about every one of them, with the completely detailed knowledge one is all too apt to have of a thing long and intensely desired, but supposedly forever out of reach.
"Thanks, Illona." It was over; the Lensman knew as much as she did about everything which had any bearing upon his quest. "You've helped a lot—now you can flit."
"I'm glad to help, sir, really—any time. I'll see you at the party, then, if not before." Illona left the room in a far more subdued fashion than she had entered it. She had always been more than half afraid of Kinnison; just being near him did things to her which she did not quite like. And this last thing, this mind–searching interview, did not operate to quiet her fears. It gave her the screaming meamies, no less!
And Kinnison, alone in his room, started to call for a tight beam to Prime Base, then changed his mind and Lensed a thought—gingerly and diffidently enough—to Port Admiral Haynes.
"Certainly I'm free!" came instant response. "To you, I'm free twenty four hours of every day. Go ahead."
"I want to try something that I don't know whether can be done or not. A wideopen, Lens–to–Lens conference with all the Lensmen, especially all Unattached Lensmen, who can be reached. Can it be done?"
"Whew!" Haynes whistled. "I've been in such things up to a hundred or so…no reason why it wouldn't work. Most of the people you want know me, and those who don't can tune in through someone who does. If everybody tunes to me at the same time, we'll all be en rapport with each other."
"It's QX, then? The reason I…"
"Skip it, son. No use explaining twice—I'll get it when the others do. I'll take care of it. It'll take some little time…Would hour twenty, tomorrow, be soon enough?"
"That'll be fine. Thanks a lot, chief."
The next day dragged, even for the always–busy Kinnison. He prowled about, aimlessly. He saw the spectacular Aldebaranian several times, noticing something which tied in very nicely with a fact he had half–seen in the girl's own mind before he could dodge it—that whenever she made a twosome with any man, the man was Henry Henderson.
"Blasted, Hen?" he asked, casually, when he came upon the pilot in a corner of a ward–room, staring fixedly at nothing.
"Out of the ether," Henderson admitted. "However, I haven't been making any passes. No use telling you that, though."
There wasn't. Unattached Lensmen, as well as being persons of supreme authority, are supremely able mind–readers. Verbum sap.
"I know you haven't" Then, answering the unasked question: "No, I haven't been reading your mind. Nor anybody else's, except Illona's. I've read hers, up and down and crosswise."
"Oh…so you know, then…say, Kim, can I talk to you for a minute? Really talk, I mean?"