Upward and outward, then, the ragingly compressed gases of detonation drove, hurling everything before them. Chunks blew out sidewise, flying for miles: the mindstaggeringly enormous volume of dust was hurled upward clear into the stratosphere.
Finally that awful dust–cloud was wafted aside, revealing through its thinning haze a strangely and hideously altered terrain. No sign remained of the buildings or the mechanisms of Bleeko's richest mine. No vestige was left to show that anything built by or pertaining to man had ever existed there. Where those works had been there now yawned an absolutely featureless crater; a crater whose sheer geometrical perfection of figure revealed with shocking clarity the magnitude of the cataclysmic forces which had wrought there.
Kinnison, looking blackly down at that crater, did not feel the glow of satisfaction which comes of a good deed well done. He detested it—it made him sick at" the stomach. But, since he had had it to do, he had done it. Why in all the nine hells of Valeria did he have to be a Lensman, anyway?
Back to Lonia. then, the Lensman made his resentful way, and back to bed.
And in the morning, early, workmen began the reconstruction of Cartiff's place of business.
10: Bleeko and the Iceberg
Kinnison's impenetrable shields of force had confined the damage to the store's front, it was not long before Cartiff's reopened. Business was and remained brisk; not only because of what had happened, but also because Cartiff's top–lofty and arrogant snobbishness had an irresistible appeal to the upper layers of Lonabar's peculiarly stratified humanity. The Lensman, however, paid little enough attention to business. Outwardly, seated at his ornate desk in haughty grandeur, he was calmness itself, but inwardly he was far from serene.
If he had figured things right, and he was pretty sure that he had, it was up to Bleeko to make the next move, and it would pretty nearly have to be a peaceable one. There was enough doubt about it, however, to make the Lensman a bit jittery inside. Also, from the fact that everybody having any weight at all wore thought–screens, it was almost a foregone conclusion that they had been warned against, and were on the lookout for, THE Lensman—that never–to–be– sufficiently–damned Lensman who had already done so much hurt to the Boskonian cause. That they now thought that one to be a well–hidden, unknown Director of Lensmen, and not an actual operative, was little protection. If he made one slip they'd have him, cold.
He hadn't slipped yet, they didn't suspect him yet; he was sure of those points. With these people to suspect was to act, and his world–circling ship, equipped with every scanning, spying, and eavesdropping device known to science, would have informed him instantly of any untoward development anywhere upon or near the planet. And his fight with Bleeko was, after all, natural enough and very much in character. It was of the very essence of Boskonian culture that king–snipes should do each other to death with whatever weapons came readiest to hand. The underdog was always trying to kill the upper, and if the latter was not strong enough to protect his loot, he deserved everything he got. A callous philosophy, it is true, but one truly characteristic of Civilization's inveterate foes.
The higher–ups never interfered. Their own skins were the only ones in which they were interested. They would, Kinnison reflected, probably check back on him, just to insure their own safety, but they would not take sides in this brawl if they were convinced that he was, as he appeared to be, a struggling young racketeer making his way up the ladder of fame and fortune as best he could. Let them check—Cartiff's past had been fabricated especially to stand up under precisely that investigation, no matter how rigid it were to be!
Hence Kinnison waited, as calmly as might be, for Bleeko to move. There was no particular hurry, especially since Cris was finding heavy going and thick ether at her end of the line, too. They had been in communication at least once every day, usually oftener; and Clarrissa had reported seethingly, in near–masculine, almost–deep–space verbiage, that that damned red–headed hussy of a Helen was a hard nut to crack.
Kinnison grinned sourly every time he thought of Lyrane II. Those matriarchs certainly were a rum lot. They were a pig–headed, self–centered, mulishly stubborn bunch of cockeyed knotheads, he decided. Non–galaxy–minded; as shortsightedly antisocial as a flock of mad Radeligian cateagles. He'd better…no, he hadn't better, either—he'd have to lay off. If Cris, with all her potency and charm, with all her drive and force of will, with all her sheer power of mind and of Lens, couldn't pierce their armor, what chance did any other entity of Civilization have of doing it? Particularly any male creature? He'd like to half–wring their beautiful necks, all of them; but that wouldn't get him to the first check–station, either. He'd just have to wait until she broke through the matriarchs' crust—she'd do it, too, by Klono's prehensile tail!—and then they'd really ride the beam.
So Kinnison waited…and waited…and waited. When he got tired of waiting he gave a few more lessons in snobbishness and in the gentle art of self– preservation to the promising young Lonabarian thug whom he had selected to inherit the business, lock, stock, and barrel—including goodwill, if any—if, as, and when he was done with it. Then he waited some more; waited, in fact, until Bleeko was forced, by his silent pressure, to act.
It was not an overt act, nor an unfriendly—he simply called him up on the visiphone.
"What do you think you're trying to do?" Bleeko demanded, his darkly handsome face darker than ever with wrath.
"You." Kinnison made succinct answer. "You should have taken my advice about pondering the various aspects of an iceberg."
"Bah!" the other snorted. "That silliness?"
"Not as silly as you think. That was a warning, Bleeko,' that the stuff showing above the surface is but a very small portion of my total resources. But you could not or would not learn by precept. You had to have it the hard way. Apparently, however, you have learned. That you have not been able to locate my forces I am certain. I am almost as sure that you do not want to try me again, at least until you have found out what you do not know. But I can give you no more time—you must decide now, Bleeko, whether it is to be peace or war between us. I still prefer a peaceful settlement, with an equitable division of the spoils; but if you want war, so be it."
"I have decided upon peace," the Lonabarian said, and the effort of it almost choked him. "I, Menjo Bleeko the Supreme, will give you a place beside me. Come to me here, at once, so that we may discuss the terms of peace."
"We will discuss them now," Kinnison insisted.
"Impossible!.Barred and shielded as this room is…"
"It would be," Kinnison interrupted with a nod, "for you to make such an admission as you have just made."
"…I do not trust unreservedly this communication .line. If you join me now, you may do so in peace. If you do not come to me, here and now, it is war to the death."
"Fair enough, at that," the Lensman admitted. "After all, you've got to save your .face, and I haven't—yet. And if I team up with you I can't very well stay out of your palace forever. But before I come there I want to give you three things—a reminder, a caution, and a warning. I remind you. that our first exchange of amenities cost you a thousand times as much as it did me. I caution you to consider again, and more carefully this time, the iceberg. I warn" you that if we again come into conflict you will lose not only a mine, but everything you have, including your life. So see to it that you lay no traps for me. I come."