"Get ready, please, to cut your screens and to synchronize with me in case anything slips and he tries to break away," Nadreck cautioned; but nothing slipped.
The Eich came up unseeing to die speedster's side and stopped. The drill disappeared. A thought–screen encompassed die group narrowly. Kinnison and Worsel released their screens and also tuned in to die creature's mind. And Kinnison swore briefly, for what they found was meager enough.
He knew a great deal concerning die zwilnik doings of die First Galaxy; but so did die Lensmen; they were not interested in diem. Neither were they interested, at die moment, in the files or hi die records. Regarding die higher– ups, he knew of two, and only two, personalities. By means of an inter–galactic communicator he received orders from, and reported to, a clearly–defined, somewhat Eich–like entity known to him as Kandron; and vaguely, from occasional stray and unintentional thoughts of this Kandron, he had visualized as being somewhere in die background a human being named Alcon. He supposed that die planets upon which these persons lived were located in die Second Galaxy, but he was not certain, even of that. He had never seen either of diem; he was pretty sure that none of his group ever would be allowed to see diem. He had no means of tracing diem and no desire whatsoever to do so. The only fact he really knew was dial at irregular intervals Kandron got into communication with this base of die Eich.
That was all. Kinnison and Worsel let go and Nadreck, with a minute attention to detail which would be wearisome here, jockeyed die unsuspecting monster back into die dome. The native knew full where he had been, and why. He had inspected the generator and found it in good order. Every second of elapsed time was accounted for exactly. He had not the slightest inkling dial anything out of the ordinary had happened to him or anywhere around him.
As carefully as die speedster had approached die planet, she departed from it. She rejoined the Dauntless, in whose control room Kinnison lined out a solid communicator beam to the Z9M9Z and to Port Admiral Haynes. He reported crisply, rapidly, everything that had transpired.
"So our best bet is for you and the Fleet to get out of here as fast as Klono will let you," he concluded. "Go straight out Rift Ninety Four, staying as far away as possible from both the spiral arm and the galaxy proper. Unlimber every spotting–screen you've got—put them to work along the line between Lyrane and the Second Galaxy. Plot all the punctures, extending the line as fast as you can. We'll join you at max and transfer to the Z9M9Z—her tank is just what the doctors ordered for the job we've got to do."
"Well, if you say so, I suppose that's the way it's got to be," Haynes grumbled. He had been growling and snorting under his breath ever since it had become evident what Kinnison's recommendation was to be. "I don't like this thing of standing by and letting zwilniks thumb their noses at us, like Prellin did on Bronseca. That once was once too damned often."
"Well, you got him, finally, you know," Kinnison reminded, quite cheerfully, "and you can have these Eich, too—sometime."
"I hope," Haynes acquiesced, something less than sweetly. "QX, then—but put out a few jets. The quicker you get out here the sooner we can get back and clean out this hoo–raw's nest."
Kinnison grinned as he cut his beam. He knew that it would be some time before the Port Admiral could hurl the metal of the Patrol against Lyrane VIII; but even he did not realize just how long a time it was to be.
What occasioned the delay was not the fact that the communicator was in operation only at intervals: so many screens were out, they were spaced so far apart, and the punctures were measured and aligned so accurately that the periods of nonoperation caused little or no loss of time. Nor was it the vast distance involved; since, as has already been pointed out, the matter in the inter–galactic void is so tenuous that spaceships are capable of enormously greater velocities than any attainable in the far denser medium filling interstellar space.
No: what gave the Boskonians of Lyrane VIII their greatly lengthened reprieve was simply the direction of the line established by the communicator–beam punctures. Reasoning from analogy, the Lensmen had supposed that it would lead them into a star–cluster, fairly well away from the main body of the Second Galaxy, in either the zenith or the nadir direction. Instead of that, however, when the Patrol surveyors got close enough so that their possible error was very small, it became clear that their objective lay inside the galaxy itself.
"I don't like this line a bit, chief," Kinnison told the admiral then. "It'd smell like Limburger to have a fleet of this size and power nosing into their home territory, along what must be one of the hottest lines of communication they've got."
"Check," Port Admiral Haynes agreed. "QX so far, but it would begin to stink pretty quick now. We've got to assume that they know about spotting screens, whether they really do or not. If they do, they'll have this line trapped from stem to gudgeon, and the minute they detect us they'll cut this line out entirely. Then where'll you be?"
"Right back where I started from—that's what I'm yowling about. To make matters worse, it's credits to millos that the ape we're looking for isn't going to be anywhere near the end of this line."
"Huh? How do you figure that?" Haynes demanded. "Logic. We're getting up now to where these zwilniks can really think. We've already assumed that they know about our beam tracers and detector nullifiers. Aren't they apt to know that we have inherently indetectable ships and almost perfectly absorptive coatings? Where does that land you?"
"Um–m–m. I see. Since they can't change the nature of the beam, they'll run it through a series of relays…with each leg trapped with everything they can think of…at the first sign of interference they'll switch, maybe half way across the galaxy. Also, they might very well switch around once in a while, anyway, just on general principles."
"Check. That's why you'd better take the fleet back home, leaving Nadreck and me to work the rest of this line with our speedsters."
"Don't be dumb, son; you can think straighter than that." Haynes gazed quizzically at the younger man.
"What else? Where am I overlooking a bet?" Kinnison demanded.
"It is elementary tactics, young man," the admiral instructed, "to cover up any small, quiet operation with a large and noisy one. Thus, if I want to make an exploratory sortie in one sector I should always attack in force in another."
"But what would it get us?" Kinnison expostulated. "What's the advantage to be gained, to make up for the unavoidable losses?"
"Advantage? Plenty! Listen!" Haynes' bushy gray hair fairly bristled in eagerness. "We've been on the defensive long enough. They must be weak, after their losses at Tellus; and now, before they can rebuild, is the time to strike. It's good tactics, as I said, to make a diversion to cover you up, but I want to do more than that. We should start an actual, serious invasion, right now. When you can swing it, the best possible defense—even in general—is a powerful offense, and we're all set to go. We'll begin it with this fleet, and then, as soon as we're sure that they haven't got enough power to counter– invade, we'll bring over everything that's loose. We'll hit them so hard that they won't be able to worry about such a little thing as a communicator line."
"Hm…m. Never thought of it from that angle, but it'd be nice. We were coming over here sometime, anyway—why not now? I suppose you'll start on the edge, or in a spiral arm, just as though you were going ahead with the conquest of the whole galaxy?"
"Not 'just as though'," Haynes declared. "We are going through with it. Find a planet on the outer edge of a spiral arm, as nearly like Tellus as– possible…"