her left, commanding the central view of the floor, was a redhead, sitting in a revolving, reclining chair, the only such seat in the room. Probably the Big Noise herself—the Elder One. No matter, he wasn’t interested in her, either—yet. His attention flashed back to his proposed quarry and he almost gasped.
For she, like Dessa Desplaines, was an Aldebaranian, and she was everything that the Desplaines woman had been—more so, if possible. She was a seven-sector call-out, a thionite dream if there ever was one. And jewelry! This Lyranian tiger hadn’t exaggerated that angle very much, at that. Her breast-shields were of gold and platinum filigree, thickly studded with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, in intricate designs. Her shorts, or rather trunks, made of something that looked like glamorete, blazed with gems. A cleverly concealed dagger, with a jeweled haft and a vicious little fang of a blade. Rings, even a thumb-ring. A necklace which was practically a collar flashed all the colors of the rainbow. Bracelets, armlets, anklets and knee-bands. High-laced dress boots, jeweled from stem to gudgeon. Ear-rings, and a meticulous, micrometrically precise coiffure held in place by at least a dozen glittering buckles, combs and barrettes.
“Holy Klono’s brazen tendons!” the Lensman whistled to himself, for every last, least one of those stones was the clear quill. “Half a million credits if it’s a millo’s worth!”
But he was not particularly interested in this jeweler’s vision of what the well-dressed lady zwilnik will wear. There were other, far more important things. Yes, she had a thought-screen. It was off, and its battery was mighty low, but it would still work; good thing he had blocked the warning. And she had a hollow tooth, too, but he’d see to it that she didn’t get a chance to swallow its contents. She knew plenty, and he hadn’t chased her this far to let her knowledge be obliterated by that hellish Boskonian drug.
They were at the door now. Disregarding the fiercely-driven mental protests of his companion, Kinnison flung it open, stiffening up his mental guard as he did so. Simultaneously he invaded the zwilnik’s mind with a flood of force, clamping down so hard that she could not move a single voluntary muscle. Then, paying no attention whatever to the shocked surprise of the assembled Lyranians, he strode directly up to the Aldebaranian and bent her head back into the crook of his elbow. Forcibly but gently he opened her mouth. With thumb and forefinger he deftly removed the false tooth. Releasing her then, mentally and physically, he dropped his spoil to the cement floor and ground it savagely to bits under his hard and heavy heel.
The zwilnik screamed wildly, piercingly at first. However, finding that she was getting no results, from Lensman or Lyranian, she subsided quickly into alerty watchful waiting.
Still unsatisfied, Kinnison flipped out one of his DeLameters and flamed the remains of the capsule of worse than paralyzing fluid, caring not a whit that his vicious portable, even in that brief instant, seared a hole a foot deep into the floor. Then and only then did he turn his attention to the redhead in the boss’s chair.
He had to hand it to Elder Sister—through all this sudden and to her entirely unprecedented violence of action she hadn’t turned a hair. She had swung her chair around so that she was facing him. Her back was to the athletic dancer who, now holding a flawlessly perfect pose, was going on with the act as though nothing out of the ordinary were transpiring. She was leaning backward in the armless swivel chair, her right foot resting upon its pedestal. Her left ankle was crossed over her right knee, her left knee rested lightly against the table’s top. Her hands were clasped together at the nape of her neck, supporting her red-thatched head; her elbows spread abroad in easy, indolent grace. Her eyes, so deeply, darkly green as to be almost black stared up unwinkingly into the Lensman’s—“insolently” was the descriptive word that came first to his mind.
If the Elder Sister was supposed to be old, Kinnison reflected as he studied appreciatively the startlingly beautiful picture which the artless Chief Person of this tribe so unconsciously made, she certainly belied her looks. As far as looks went, she really qualified—whatever it took, she in abundant measure had. Her hair was not really red, either. It was a flamboyant, gorgeous auburn, about the same color as Clarrissa’s own, and just as thick. And it wasn’t all haggled up. Accidentally, of course, and no doubt because on her particular job her hair didn’t get in the way very often, it happened to be a fairly even, shoulder-length bob. What a mop! And damned if it wasn’t wavy! Just as she was, with no dolling up at all, she’d be a primary beam on any man’s planet. She had this zwilnik houri here, knockout that she was and with all her war-paint and feathers, blasted clear out of the ether. But this queen bee had a sting; she was still boring away at his shield. He’d better let her know that she didn’t even begin to have enough jets to swing that load.
“QX, ace, cut the gun!” he directed, crisply. “Ace”, from him, was a complimentary term indeed. “Pipe down—that’s all of that kind of stuff from you. I stood for this much of it, just to show you that you can’t get to the first check-station with that kind of fuel, but enough is a great plenty.” At the sheer cutting power of the thought, rebroadcast no doubt by the airport manager, Lyranian activity throughout the room came to a halt. This was decidedly out of the ordinary. For a male mind—any male mind—to be able even momentarily to resist that of the meanest person of Lyrane was starkly unthinkable. The Elder’s graceful body tensed, into her eyes there crept a dawning doubt, a peculiar, wondering uncertainty. Of fear there was none; all these sexless Lyranian women were brave to the point of foolhardiness.
“You tell her, draggle-pate,” he ordered his erstwhile guide. “It took me hell’s own time to make you understand that I mean business, but you talk her language—see how fast you can get the thing through Her Royal Nibs’s skull.”
It did not take long. The lovely, dark-green eyes held conviction, now; but also a greater uncertainty.
“It will be best, I think, to kill you now, instead of allowing you to leave .” she began.
“Allow me to leave!” Kinnison exploded. “Where do you get such funny ideas as that killing stuff? Just who, Toots, is going to keep me from leaving?”
“This.” At the thought a weirdly conglomerate monstrosity which certainly had not been in the dining hall an instant before leaped at Kinnison’s throat. It was a frightful thing indeed, combining the worst features of the reptile and the feline, a serpent’s head upon a panther’s body. Through the air it hurtled, terrible claws unsheathed to rend and venomous fangs out-thrust to stab.
Kinnison had never before met that particular form of attack, but he knew instantly what it was—knew that neither leather nor armor of proof nor screen of force could stop it. He knew that the thing was real only to the woman and himself, that it was not only invisible, but non-existent to everyone else. He also knew how ultimately deadly the creature was, knew that if claw or fang should strike him he would die then and there.
Ordinarily very efficient, to the Lensman this method of slaughter was crude and amateurish. No such figment of any other mind could harm him unless he knew that it was coming; unless his mind was given ample time in which to appreciate—in reality, to manufacture—the danger he was in. And in that time his mind could negate it. He had two defenses. He could deny the monster’s existence, in which case it would simply disappear. Or, a much more difficult, but technically a much nicer course, would be to take over control and toss it back at her.
Unhesitatingly he did the latter. In mid-leap the apparition swerved, in a full right-angle turn, directly toward the quietly-poised body of the Lyranian. She acted just barely in time; the madly-reaching claws were within scant inches of her skin when they vanished. Her eyes widened in frightened startlement; she was quite evidently shaken to the core by the Lensman’s viciously skillful riposte. With an obvious effort she pulled herself together.
“Or these, then, if I must,” and with a sweeping gesture of thought she indicated the roomful of
