"At least," he agreed. "And I'll report to you between times."
"Oh, Kim, it's nice, being a Lensman!" She snuggled closer. Some way or other, the conference had become somewhat personal. "Being en rapport will be almost as good as being together—we can stand it, that way, at least."
"It'll help a lot, ace, no fooling. That was why I was afraid to go ahead with it on my own hook. I couldn't be sure that my feelings were not in control, instead of my judgment—if any."
"I'd have been certain that it was your soft heart instead of your hard head if it hadn't been for Mentor," she sighed, happily. "As it is, though, everything's on the green."
"All done with Illona?"
"Yes, the darling…she's the sweetest thing, Kim…and a storehouse of information if there ever was one. You and I know more of Boskonian life than anyone of Civilization ever knew before, I'm sure. And it's so ghastly! We must win, Kim…we simply must, for the good of all creation!"
"We will." Kinnison spoke with grim finality.
"But back to Illona. She can't go with me, and she can't stay here with Hank aboard the Dauntless taking me back to Lyrane, and you can't watch her. I'd hate to think of anything happening to her, Kim."
"It won't," he replied, comfortably. "Ilyowicz won't sleep nights until he has her as the top–flight solo dancer in his show—even though she doesn't have to work for a living any more…"
"She will, though, I think. Don't you?"
"Probably. Anyway, a couple of Haynes' smart girls are going to be her best friends, wherever she goes. Sort of keep an eye on her until she learns the ropes—it won't take long. We owe her that much, I figure."
"That much, at least. You're seeing to the selling of her jewelry yourself, aren't you?"
"No, I had a new thought on that. I'm going to buy it myself—or rather, Cartiff is. They're making up a set of paste imitations. Cartiff has to buy a stock somewhere; why not hers?"
"That's a thought—there's certainly enough of them to stock a wholesaler… 'Caitiff—I can see that sign," she snickered. "Almost microscopic letters, severely plain, in the lower right–hand corner of an immense plate–glass window. One gem in the middle of an acre of black velvet. Cartiff, the most peculiar, if not quite the most exclusive, jeweler in the galaxy. And nobody except you and me knows anything about him. Isn't that something?"
"Everybody will know about Cartiff pretty soon," he told her. "Found any flaws in the scheme yet?"
"Nary a flaw." She shook her head. "That is, if none of the boys over–do it, and I'm sure they won't. I've got a picture of it," and she giggled merrily. "Think of a whole gang of sleuths from the Homicide Division chasing poor Cartiff, and never quite catching him!"
"Uh–huh—a touching picture indeed. But there goes the signal, and there's Tellus. We're about to land."
"Oh, I want to see!" and she started to get up.
"Look, then," pulling her down into her original place at his side. "You've got the sense of perception now, remember; you don't need visiplates."
And side by side, arms around each other, the two Lensmen watched the docking of their great vessel.
It landed. Jewelers came aboard with their carefully–made wares. Assured that the metal would not discolor her skin, Illona made the exchange willingly enough. Beads were beads, to her. She could scarcely believe that she was now independently wealthy—in fact, she forgot all about her money after Ilyowicz had seen her dance.
"You see," she explained to Kinnison, "there were two things I wanted to do until Hank gets back—travel around a lot and, learn all I can about your Civilization. I wanted to dance, too, but I didn't see how I could. Now I can do all three, and get paid for doing them besides—isn't that marvelous?—and Mr. Ilyowicz said you said it was QX. Is it, really?"
"Right," and Illona was off.
The Dauntless was serviced and Clarrissa was off, to far Lyrane.
Lensman Kinnison was supposedly off somewhere, also, when Caitiff appeared. Cartiff, the ultra–ultra; the Oh! so exclusive! Cartiff did not advertise. He catered, word spread fast, to only the very upper flakes of the upper crust. Simple dignity was Caitiff's key–note, his insidiously–spread claim; the dignified simplicity of immense wealth and impeccable social position.
What he actually achieved, however, was something subtly different. His simplicity was. just a hair off–beam; his dignity was an affected, not a natural, quality. Nobody with less than a million credits ever got past his door, it is true. However, instead of being the real creme de la creme of Earth, Caitiffs clients were those who pretended to belong to, or who were trying to force an entrance into, that select stratum. Cartiff was a snob of snobs; he built up a clientele of snobs; and, even more than in his admittedly flawless gems, he dealt in equally high–proof snobbery.
Betimes came Nadreck, the Second Stage Lensman of Palain VII, and Kinnison met him secretly at Prime Base. Soft–voiced, apologetic, diffident; even though Kinnison now knew that the Palainian had a record of accomplishment as long as any one of his arms. But it was not an act, not affectation. It was simply a racial trait, for the intelligent and civilized race of that planet is in no sense human. Nadreck was utterly, startlingly unhuman. In his atmosphere there was no oxygen, in his body there flowed no aqueous blood. At his normal body temperature neither liquid water nor gaseous oxygen could exist.
The seventh planet out from any sun would of course be cold, but Kinnison had not thought particularly about the point until he felt the bitter radiation from the heavilyinsulated suit of his guest; perceived how fiercely its refrigerators were laboring to keep its internal temperature down.
"If you will permit it, please, I will depart at once," Nadreck pleaded, as soon as he had delivered his spool and his message. "My heat dissipators, powerful though they are, cannot cope much longer with this frightfully high temperature."
"QX, Nadreck, I won't keep you. Thanks a million. I'm mighty glad to have had this chance of getting acquainted with you. We'll see more of each other, I think, from now on. Remember, Lensman's Seal on all this stuff."
"Of course, Kinnison. You will understand, however, I am sure, that none of our races of Civilization are even remotely interested in Lonabar—it is as hot, as poisonous, as hellish generally as is Tellus itself!" The weird little monstrosity scuttled out.
Kinnison went back to Cartiff's; and very soon thereafter it became noised abroad that Cartiff was a crook. He was a cheat, a liar, a robber. His stones were synthetic; he made them himself. The stories grew. He was a smuggler; he didn't have an honest gem hi his shop. He was a zwilnik, an out–and–out pirate; a red–handed murderer who, if he wasn't there already, certainly ought to be in the big black book of the Galactic Patrol. This wasn't just gossip, either; everybody saw and spoke to men who had seen unspeakable things with their own eyes.
Thus Cartiff was arrested. He blasted his way out, however, before he could be brought to trial, and the newscasters blazed with that highly spectacular, murderous jailbreak. Nobody actually saw any lifeless bodies. Everybody, however, saw the Telenews broadcasts of the shattered walls and the sheeted forms; and, since such pictures are and always have been just as convincing as the real thing, everybody knew that there had been plenty of mangled corpses in those ruins and that Cartiff was a fugitive murderer. Also, everybody knew that the Patrol never gives up on a murderer.
Hence it was natural enough that the search for Cartiff, the jeweler– murderer, should spread from planet to planet and from region to region. Not exactly obtrusively, but inexorably, it did so spread; until finally anyone interested in the subject could find upon any one of a hundred million planets unmistakable evidence that the Patrol wanted one Cartiff, description so–and– so, for murder in the first degree.