"Five seconds! Four...Three...Two...One...FIRE""

Twelve primary batteries flamed forth as one, each ravening beam smashing into, through, and past the already weakened shields of the Boskonian battleships. Like tissue paper in the flame of an oxyhydrogen torch, the dozen ships dissolved into whitehot gas.

As far as his detectors could scan, Ginnison could see that there was not a single threat in the ether about the Dentless.

"Navigator," he ordered crisply, "continue toward Cadilax."

From his coign of vantage, so many pa.r.s.ecs away, Banlon stared in unbelief at his instruments, knowing to the full what they had reported. But after that first momentary shock, the ultrahard logic of his ultracold brain rea.s.serted itself.

"s.h.i.t," he thought. And, flipping his speedster end-for-end, he turned around and ran.

Came, betimes, to Cadilax, a b.u.m. He showed up, un.o.btrusively, in the streets of Ardis, the capital of that disturbed planet. He was, apparently, a man approaching sixty-graying, flabby, rheumy-eyed, alcoholic, and not too bright. He was so typical of his kind that no one noticed him; he was merely one of ten thousand such who wandered about the streets of the various cities of Cadilax. He hung around the bars and bistros of the s.p.a.ceport, cadging drinks, begging for small change, leering innocuously at the hookers, and telling stories of the days of his youth, when he was "somebody." He claimed to have been a doctor, a lawyer, a pimp, a confidence man, a bartender, a judge, a police officer, a religious minister, and other such members of highly respected occupations, but he could never produce any proof that he had ever been anyone of them.

And no one expected him to, for that was the sine qua non of the s.p.a.ceport b.u.m. He was what he was, and no one expected more of him. He called himself Goniff, and, because of his vaguely erudite manner of speech, soon became known as "Professor" Goniff.

He was never completely sober, and never completely drunk.

The student of this history has, of course, already surmised that beneath this guise lay the keen mind and brain of Gimble Ginnison, Gray Lensman, and he is right.

Throughout this time, Ginnison was searching out and finding a wight bedight Gauntluth.

It had taken time. The Gray Lensman"s mind had probed into the depths of degradation, the valleys of vileness, the caverns of corruption, in the dregs of the noxious minds of the foulest folk of a planet before finding that name and that individual. He might have found him earlier, had he not been enjoying himself so much.

At first, only vaguely had he been able to construct from the clues available a picture of the all-powerful drug baron and pirate who ruthlessly ruled the underworld of Cadilax. Then, as time went on and more and more data came in, his visualization of Gauntluth became complete.

Gauntluth was tall, lean, and tough, with the all-pervading cadaverous blue of a Kalonian. His headquarters were in the Queen Ardis Hotel, the biggest luxury hotel on the planet, which catered only to the top fringe of the upper crust of the ultra-ultra.

There, in his superbly screened and shielded suite of offices, Gauntluth controlled, through an intricate webwork of communications" and by a highly efficiently organized army of minions, the drug traffic of half a dozen solar systems.

For long Ginninson pondered, and came to the obvious conclusion that "Professor" Goniff could in no wise gain admission to the elite society of the Queen Ardis Hotel. Therefore Goniff the b.u.m vanished.

Instead, it was Lester Q. Twodyce, cosmopolitan, and wealthy playboy, who checked into the Queen Ardis with an entourage of flunkies and yes-men, not one of whom could easily be detected as an officer of the Galactic Patrol. As was de rigeur on Cadilax, everyone of Twodyce"s men wore a thought-screen.

Carefully, step by step, Ginnison laid his trap. Through the highest ranks of Gauntluth"s organization, it became known that Lester Q. Twodyce had something valuable that he was eager to sell.

It became clear, even to Gauntluth, that whatever it was Twodyce had, it was certainly worth investigating.

Thus it came about that one evening, when the impeccably dressed Mr. Twodyce was seated at a table in the grand dining room of the hotel with two of his hard-faced gunmen, he was approached by two equally well-dressed men who bowed politely and smiled pleasantly.

One of them said: "Good evening, Mr. Twodyce. I trust we do not interrupt your repast?"

Twodyce looked up. "Not at all," he said. "Will you be seated?"

Then, almost as an afterthought: "May I order you drinks? Such distinguished men as yourselves deserve only the best, of course."

"You know, then, who we are?" asked the spokesman.

"Certainly, Mr. Thord," replied the Lensman suavely, "you and Mr. Thield are hardly anonymous."

Drinks were brought.

"These-" he gestured toward the men on either side of him. "-are my a.s.sociates, Mr. Kokomo and Mr. De Katur." After several minutes of preliminary conversation, the apefaced Thord finally broached the subject which they had all been antic.i.p.ating.

"I hear, Mr. Twodyce," he said, "you are here to do business."

"Not primarily," said the Lensman nonchalantly. "I am here to enjoy myself. Business is not a primary concern of mine."

"I understand," said Thord, "for such a man as yourself..."

"Nevertheless," continued Ginnison, "I do have a small trifle which I am willing to dispose of for a proper price."

The lizard-like Mr. Thield spoke. "And that is?"

Twodyce said off-handedly, "Fifty grams of clear-quill thionite."

There was a stunned silence from Thord and Thield.

Thionite! Thionite, that dreadful and dreadfully expensive drug which, in microgram doses, induces in the user clear, three-dimensional, stereosonic visions in which he indulges in his every desire to the point of ecstasy. Every desire, base or n.o.ble, mental or physical, conscious or subconscious. Whatever pleasurable experience he wishes for himself, he experiences. It is addictive to the nth degree. It is the ultimate high, but the slightest overdose is deadly.

It is also purple.

One milligram of that dire drug was enough for a thousand doses, and the insouciant Mr. Twodyce was offering fifty thousand times that amount!

"Gad!" murmured Mr. Thield.

"Indeed?" said Thord. "If that is true, we are prepared to offer..."

"You will offer nothing," Ginnison said calmly. "I do not deal with underlings."

Thord"s face darkened. "Underlings? Underlings? To whom do you think you are speaking, Mister Twodyce?"

"To underlings," said the unruffled Twodyce. "And you may tell Gauntluth I said so."

There was a momentary silence from Thord and Thield as their eyes darted from Ginnison"s face to those of the bodyguards. Each bodyguard was fingering his necktie, his right hand only inches away from the DeLameter that was undoubtedly in a shoulder holster concealed by the loose-fitting dress jacket that each man wore.

Thord and Thield rose, superficially regaining their composure. "We will speak to you later, Mr.

Twodyce," said Thord.

"You will not," said Ginnison in a low, deadly voice. "I have no desire to see either of you again.

Gauntluth may contact me if he so wishes. Tell Gauntluth that I caution him to think of a hamburger."

"A...a hamburger?" gasped Thord.

"Precisely. A hamburger."

"-But-"

"You may not be able to figure it out," Ginnison said coldly, "but your boss will. Now go."

Without another word, the two underlings turned and went.

That night, in his own suite, Lester Q. Twodyce was Lensing a thought to Lieutenant-Admiral Partisipple, the Lensman in charge of the Patrol base on Cadilax.

"Partisipple?"

"Yes, Ginnison, what is it?" came the Lensman-Admiral"s thought, "This thing"s about to bust wide open," Ginnison declared, "and I"ll need some help."

"Anything you want, Gray Lensman."

"Good. Can you get me about fifty logons?"

"Logons?" Lensed the base commander in astonishment. "LOGONS!"

There was reason for his astonishment, for the logon, or Cadiligian rateagle, is one of the nastiest, most vicious, and intractable beasts in the galaxy. Its warped mind is capable of containing but one emotion: HATRED! The Cadiligian rateagle hates anything and everything living, the only desire in the small compa.s.s of its mind being to reduce that life to something edible.

The logon resembles the Tellurian rat at its worst, but it is the size of a Tellurian terrier and has the wings and claws of an eagle. Logons do not make nice pets.

"Yes, logons," Ginnison replied. "I can control them."

"With your superior mental equipment," the base commander thought humbly, "I am sure you can.

How do you want them packaged?"

"Put them in a "copter. Have the pilot ready to release them on my order, within one kilometer of the roof of the Queen Ardis Hotel."

"Certainly. Clear ether, Gray Lensman."

"Clear ether, Partisipple."

Then, another Lensed thought to Woozle, in the Dentless, hovering invisibly in orbit high above the surface of Cadilax. "Woozle, old serpent, here"s the story so far." And in flashing thoughts he told the reptilian Lensman his plans. "So have Lieutenant Hess von Baschenvolks and his company of Dutch Valerians down here and ready to go."

"Will do, Ginnison. Clear ether."

"Clear ether."

In the office on the top floor of the Queen Ardis Hotel, the inscrutable face of Gauntluth stared thoughtfully at the banks of screens, meters, switches, dials, indicators, k.n.o.bs, b.u.t.tons, and flickering lights on the panels and control boards which surrounded him.

Finally, after long pondering, he touched a b.u.t.ton on one of his control panels. "Give me suite 3305," he said.

Ginnison was waiting for the call when it came. The cadaverous blue face of the gaunt Gauntluth appeared on his visiscreen. "Yes?" he said calmly.

"I am told," came Gauntluth"s rasping voice, "that you are in a position to deal with me concerning a certain-ah-article."

"As long as the deal is on the up-and-up, I am," replied Ginnison. "Of course, the usual precautions must be taken on both sides."

"Of course, my dear fellow," Gauntluth said agreeably. "Shall we, then, make arrangements that are agreeable to both sides?"

"Let us do so," said Ginnison.

On cold and distant Jugavine, the planet of the Meich, the First of the frightful Council, Meichfrite, radiated harshly to the others: "you have all scanned the tapes containing the report of our agent, Banlon of Downlo. Somehow, by what means we know not, the Lensman, Ginnison, escaped the trap Banlon set for him. Twelve of our ships have vanished utterly, and Banlon"s report is neither complete nor conclusive. I would now like to hear your comments. Meichrobe."

"It seems to me," that worthy radiated, "that the strawberries are-"

"Forget the G.o.ddam strawberries!" Meichfrite riposted. "What about Ginnison?"

"Well, then," Meichrobe thought raspingly, "our computers have calculated that with a probability of point oh oh four, Gimble Ginnison has either gone to Cadilax or somewhere else."

"Indeed," Meichfrite thought thoughtfully. "Meichrodot, Fifth of the Meich, give us your thoughts on this subject."

"Our reports from Cadilax," informed Meichrodot, "indicate that all is going smoothly. There is no trace of the Lensman on or near the planet. However, Banlon"s agent Gauntluth has reported through Banlon that he is running short of thionite. He wants to make a buy."

Meichfrite turned his attention to the Sixth of the Meich. "Meichroft, this is your department."

"Banlon," Meichroft emitted, "must go to Trenco."

Trenco! That planet was, and is, unique. Its atmosphere and its liquid are its two outstandingpeculiarities. Half of the atmosphere and almost all of the liquid of the planet is a compound with an extremely low heat of vaporization. It has a boiling point such that during the day it is a vapor and it condenses to a liquid at night. The days are intensely hot, the nights intensely cold.

The planet rotates on its axis in a little less than twenty-six hours; during the night it rains exactly forty-seven feet, five inches-no more and no less, every night of every year.

The winds are of more than hurricane velocity, rising to some eight hundred miles per hour, accompanied by blinding, almost continuous lightning discharges.

What makes the planet unique, however, is that, with compounds of such low latent heat, the energy transfer is almost nil. Theoretically, the hot days should evaporate that liquid as quietly and gently as a ghost evaporates in a spotlight, and during the night it should condense as softly as dew from heaven falling upon the place beneath. Thermodynamically speaking, the planet Trenco should be about as turbulent as a goldfish bowl. n.o.body can figure out where those winds or the lightning come from.

Be that as it may, Trenco was, and is, the only planet where the plant known as Trenconian broadleaf grows, and that plant is the only source of thionite in any of several galaxies.

In addition, Trenco has a strong Galactic Patrol base, manned by Rigellian Patrolmen whose sole job it isto kill anyone who comes to Trenco. One can well understand why thionite was, and is, so expensive.

"Ah, a cogent thought indeed!" radiated Meichfrite. "Very well, then, relay to Banlon that he is to proceed at speed to Trenco and pick up a cargo of broadleaf, to bring here for processing. Meantime he is to order his underling Gauntluth to report directly to us."

In his office atop the Queen Ardis, Gauntluth the Kalonian watched with hard, steel-blue eyes as a figure on his spy-ray plate moved toward his suite of offices.

Twodyce, with the exception of the DeLameter in his shoulder holster, was unarmed; he was carrying nothing else but the hermetically sealed container which bore within itself fifty grams of almost impalpable purple powder.