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strangely as he went on: "What makes you think there was anything more, sir?
Do you... ?" The question trailed off into silence.
"I do. If what I think happened really did happen there was moreûquite a lot
moreûand worse. Wasn't there?"
"I'll say there was!" The navigator almost exploded in relief. "Or rather, I
think now that there was. But I can't describe any of it very wellûeverything
was getting fainter all the time, and I thought I must be imagining most of
it."
"You weren't imagining a thing..." the Lensman began, only to be interrupted
by Haynes.
"Hell's jingling bells!" that worthy shouted. "If you know what it was,
spill it!"
"Think I know, but not quite sure yetûgot to check it. Can't get it from
himûhe's told everything he really knows. He didn't really see anything, it
was practically invisible. Even if he had tried to describe the whole
performance you wouldn't have recognized it. Nobody could have except Worsel
and I, and possibly vanBuskirk. I'll tell you the rest of what actually
happened and Xylpic can tell us if it checks." His features grew taut, his
voice became hard and chill. "I saw it done, once. Worse, I heard it. Saw it
and heard it, clear and plain. Also, I knew what it was all about, so I can
describe it a lot better than Xylpic possibly can.
"Every man of that crew was killed by torture. Some were flayed alive, as
Xylpic said; then they were carved up, slowly and piecemeal. Some were
stretched, pulled apart by chains and hooks, on racks. Others twisted on
frames. Boiled, little by little. Picked apart, bit by bit. Gassed. Eaten away
by corrosives, one molecule at a time. Pressed out flat, as though between two
plates of glass. Whipped. Scourged. Beaten gradually to a pulp. Other methods,
lots of them indescribable. All slow, though, and extremely painful.
Greenish-yellow light, showing the aura of each man as he died. Beams from
somewhereûpossibly invisibleûconsuming the auras. Check, Xylpic?"
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"Yes, sir, it checks!" The Chickladorian exclaimed in profound relief; then
added, carefully: "That is, that's the way the torture was, exactly, sir, but
there was something funny, a difference, about their fading away. I can't
describe what was funny about it, but it didn't seem so much that they became
invisible as that they went away, sir, even though they didn't go any place."
"That's the way their system of invisibility works. Got to be-nothing else
will fit into..."
"The Overlords of Delgon!" Haynes rasped, sharply. "But if that's a true
picture how in all the hells of space did this Xylpic, alone of all the ship's
personnel, get away clean? Tell me that!"
"Simple!" the Gray Lensman snapped back sharply. "The rest were all
Radeligiansûhe was the only Chickladorian aboard. The Overlords simply didn't
know he was thereûdidn't feel him at all. Chickladorians think on a wave
nobody else in the galaxy usesûyou must have noticed that when you felt of him
with your Lens. It took me half a minute to synchronize with him.
"As for his escape, that makes sense, too. The Overlords are slow workers
and when they're playing that game they really concentrate on itûthey don't
pay any attention to anything else. By the time they got done and were ready
to take over the ship, he could be almost anywhere."
"But he says that there was no ship thereûnothing at all!" Haynes protested.
"Invisibility isn't hard to understand." Kinnison countered. "We've almost
got it ourselvesûwe undoubtedly could have it as good as that, with a little
more work on it. There was a ship there, beyond question. Close. Hooked on
with magnets, and with a space-tube, lock to lock.
"The only peculiar part of it, and the bad part, is something you haven't
mentioned yet. What would the Overlordsûif, as we must assume, some of them
got away from Worsel and his crewûbe doing with a ship? They never had any
space-ships that I ever knew anything about, nor any other mechanical devices
requiring any advanced engineering skill. Also, and most important, they never
did and never could invent or develop such an invisibility apparatus as that."
Kinnison fell silent; and while he frowned in thought Haynes dismissed the
Chickladorian, with orders that his every want be supplied.
"What do you deduce from those facts?" the Port Admiral presently asked.
"Plenty," the Gray Lensman said, darkly. "I smell a rat. In fact, it stinks
to high Heaven. Boskone."
"You may be right," Haynes conceded. It was hopeless, he knew, for him to
try to keep up with this man's mental processes. "But why, and above all,
how?"
" 'Why' is easy. They both owe us a lot, and want to pay us in full. Both
hate us to hell and back. 'How' is immaterial. One found the other, some way.
They're together, just as sure as hell's a man-trap, and that's what matters.
It's bad. Very, very bad, believe me."
"Orders?" asked Haynes. He was a big man; big enough to ask instructions
from anyone who knew more than he didûbig enough to make no bones of such
asking.
"One does not give orders to the Port Admiral," Kinnison mimicked him
lightly, but meaningly. "One may request, perhaps, or suggest, but..."
"Skip it! I'll take a club to you yet, you young hellion! You said you'd
take orders from me. QXûI'll take 'em from you. What are they?"
"No orders yet, I don't think..." Kinnison ruminated. "No... not until after
we investigate. I'll have to have Worsel and vanBuskirk; we're the only three
who have had experience. We'll take the Dauntless, I thinkûit'll be safe
enough. Thought-screens will stop the Overlords cold, and a scrambler will
take care of the invisibility business."
"Safe enough, then, you think, to let traffic resume, if they're all
protected with screens?"
"I wouldn't say so. They've got Boskonian superdreadnoughts now to use if
they want to, and that's something else to think about. Another week or so
won't hurt muchûbetter wait until we see what we can see. I've been wrong once
or twice before, too, and I may be again."
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He was. Although his words were conservative enough, he was certain in his
own mind that he knew all the answers. But how wrong he wasûhow terribly, now
tragically wrong! For even his mentality had not as yet envisaged the
incredible actuality; his deductions and perceptions fell far, far short of
the appalling truth!
CHAPTER 14
EICH AND OVERLORD
The fashion in which the Overlords of Delgon had come under the aegis of
Boskone, while obscure for a time, was in reality quite simple and logical;
for upon distant Jarnevon the Eich had profited signally from Eichlan's
disastrous raid upon Arisia. Not exactly in the sense suggested by Eukonidor
the Arisian Watchman, it is true, but profited nevertheless. They had learned
that thought, hitherto considered only a valuable adjunct to achievement, was
actually an achievement in itself; that it could be used as a weapon of
surpassing power.
Eukonidor's homily, as he more than suspected at the time, might as well
never have been uttered, for all the effect it had upon the life or upon the
purpose in life of any single, member of the race of the Eich. Eichmil, who
had been Second of Boskone, was now First; the others were advanced
correspondingly; and a new Eighth and Ninth had been chosen to complete the
roster of the Council which was Boskone.
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