motion toward her corsage. These two, as has been intimated, were friends of old.
Quick though she was, the man was quicker. His left hand darted out to seize her left wrist; his right, flashing around her body, grasped her right and held it rigidly in the small of her back. Thus they walked away.
"Stop!" she flared. "You're making a spectacle of me!"
"Now isn't that just too bad?" His lips smiled, for the benefit of the observers, but his eyes held no glint of mirth. "These folks will think that this is the way all Aldebaranian friends walk together. If you think for a second you've got any chance at all of touching that sounder—think again. Stop wiggling! Even if you can shimmy enough to work it I’ll smash your brain to a pulp before it contacts once!"
Outside, in the grounds: "Oh, Lensman, let's sit down and talk this over!" and the girl brought into play everything she had. It was a distressing scene, but it left the Lensman cold.
"Save your breath," he advised her finally, wearily. 'To me you're just another zwilnik, no more and no less. A female louse is still a louse; and calling a zwilnik a louse is insulting the whole louse family."
He said that; and, saying it, knew it to be the exact and crystal truth: but not even that knowledge could mitigate in any iota the recoiling of his every fiber from the deed which he was about to do. He could not even pray, with immortal Merritt's Dwayanu:
"Luka—turn your wheel so I need not slay this woman/"
It had to be. Why in all the nine hells of Valeria did he have to be a Lensman? Why did he have to be the one to do it? But it had to be done, and soon; they'd be here shortly.
"There's just one thing you can do to make me believe you're even partially innocent," he ground out, "that you have even one decent thought or one decent instinct anywhere in you."
"What is that, Lensman? Ill do it, whatever it is!"
"Release your thought-screen and send out a call to the Big Shot."
The girl stiffened. This big cop wasn't so dumb—he really knew something. He must die, and at once. How could she get word to . . .?
Simultaneously Kinnison perceived that for which he had been waiting; the Narcotics men were coming.
He tore open the woman's gown, flipped the switch of her thought-screen, and invaded her mind. But, fast as he was, he was late—almost too late altogether. He could get neither direction line nor location; but only and faintly a picture of a space-dock saloon, of a repulsively obese man in a luxuriously-furnished back room. Then her mind went completely blank and her body slumped down, bonelessly.
Thus Narcotics found them; the woman inert and flaccid upon the bench, the man staring down at her in black abstraction.
CHAPTER 6
ROUGH-HOUSE
"Suicide? or did you . . ." Gerrond paused, delicately. Winstead, the Lensman of Narcotics, said nothing, but looked on intently.
"Neither," Kinnison replied, still studying. "I would have had to, but she beat me to it."
"What d'you mean, 'neither'? She's dead, isn't she? How did it happen?"
"Not yet, and unless I'm more cockeyed even than usual, she won't be. She isn't the type to rub herself out. Ever, under any conditions. As to 'how’, that was easy. A hollow false tooth.
Simple, but new . . . and clever. But why? WHY?" Kinnison was thinking to himself more than addressing his companions. "If they had killed her, yes. As it is, it doesn't make any kind of sense—any of it."
"But the girl's dying!" protested Gerrond. "What're you going to do?" . .
"I wish to Klono I knew." The Tellurian was puzzled, groping. "No hurry doing anything about her—what was done to her nobody can undo . . . BUT WHY? . . . unless I can fit these pieces together into some kind of a pattern I’ll never know what it's all about . . . none of it makes sense . . ." He shook himself and went on: "One thing is plain. She won't die. If they had intended to kill her, she would've died right then. They figure she's worth saving; in which I agree
Quick though she was, the man was quicker. His left hand darted out to seize her left wrist; his right, flashing around her body, grasped her right and held it rigidly in the small of her back. Thus they walked away.
"Stop!" she flared. "You're making a spectacle of me!"
"Now isn't that just too bad?" His lips smiled, for the benefit of the observers, but his eyes held no glint of mirth. "These folks will think that this is the way all Aldebaranian friends walk together. If you think for a second you've got any chance at all of touching that sounder—think again. Stop wiggling! Even if you can shimmy enough to work it I’ll smash your brain to a pulp before it contacts once!"
Outside, in the grounds: "Oh, Lensman, let's sit down and talk this over!" and the girl brought into play everything she had. It was a distressing scene, but it left the Lensman cold.
"Save your breath," he advised her finally, wearily. 'To me you're just another zwilnik, no more and no less. A female louse is still a louse; and calling a zwilnik a louse is insulting the whole louse family."
He said that; and, saying it, knew it to be the exact and crystal truth: but not even that knowledge could mitigate in any iota the recoiling of his every fiber from the deed which he was about to do. He could not even pray, with immortal Merritt's Dwayanu:
"Luka—turn your wheel so I need not slay this woman/"
It had to be. Why in all the nine hells of Valeria did he have to be a Lensman? Why did he have to be the one to do it? But it had to be done, and soon; they'd be here shortly.
"There's just one thing you can do to make me believe you're even partially innocent," he ground out, "that you have even one decent thought or one decent instinct anywhere in you."
"What is that, Lensman? Ill do it, whatever it is!"
"Release your thought-screen and send out a call to the Big Shot."
The girl stiffened. This big cop wasn't so dumb—he really knew something. He must die, and at once. How could she get word to . . .?
Simultaneously Kinnison perceived that for which he had been waiting; the Narcotics men were coming.
He tore open the woman's gown, flipped the switch of her thought-screen, and invaded her mind. But, fast as he was, he was late—almost too late altogether. He could get neither direction line nor location; but only and faintly a picture of a space-dock saloon, of a repulsively obese man in a luxuriously-furnished back room. Then her mind went completely blank and her body slumped down, bonelessly.
Thus Narcotics found them; the woman inert and flaccid upon the bench, the man staring down at her in black abstraction.
CHAPTER 6
ROUGH-HOUSE
"Suicide? or did you . . ." Gerrond paused, delicately. Winstead, the Lensman of Narcotics, said nothing, but looked on intently.
"Neither," Kinnison replied, still studying. "I would have had to, but she beat me to it."
"What d'you mean, 'neither'? She's dead, isn't she? How did it happen?"
"Not yet, and unless I'm more cockeyed even than usual, she won't be. She isn't the type to rub herself out. Ever, under any conditions. As to 'how’, that was easy. A hollow false tooth.
Simple, but new . . . and clever. But why? WHY?" Kinnison was thinking to himself more than addressing his companions. "If they had killed her, yes. As it is, it doesn't make any kind of sense—any of it."
"But the girl's dying!" protested Gerrond. "What're you going to do?" . .
"I wish to Klono I knew." The Tellurian was puzzled, groping. "No hurry doing anything about her—what was done to her nobody can undo . . . BUT WHY? . . . unless I can fit these pieces together into some kind of a pattern I’ll never know what it's all about . . . none of it makes sense . . ." He shook himself and went on: "One thing is plain. She won't die. If they had intended to kill her, she would've died right then. They figure she's worth saving; in which I agree
Similar Books
