First Lensman E. E. Smith (superbooks4u txt) 📖

of him. But it’ll keep until Monday, anyway, and if he handles it right he’s just about in.”

Jones grinned. “A bit brutal, perhaps, but a sure way to find out. ’Bye.”

“So long.” Olmstead strolled out, nonchalantly picking up the wrong lunch box on the way, and left the building.

He ordered his Dillingham, and tossed the lunch-box aboard as carelessly as though it did not contain an unknown number of millions of credits’ worth of clear-quill, uncut thionite.

“I hope you have a nice weekend, sir,” the yardman said, as he helped stow baggage and tackle.

“Thanks, Otto. I’ll bring you a couple of fish Monday, if I catch that many,” and it should be said in passing that he brought them. Lensmen keep their promises, under whatever circumstances or however lightly given.

It being mid-afternoon of Friday, the traffic was already heavy. Northport was not a metropolis, of course; but on the other hand it did not have metropolitan multi-tiered, one-way, nonintersecting streets. But Olmstead was in no hurry. He inched his spectacular mount⁠—it was a violently iridescent chrome green in color, with highly polished chromium gingerbread wherever there was any excuse for gingerbread to be⁠—across the city and into the northbound side of the superhighway. Even then, he did not hurry. He wanted to hit the inspection station at the edge of the Preserve at dusk. Ninety miles an hour would do it. He worked his way into the ninety-mile lane and became motionless relative to the other vehicles on the strip.

It was a peculiar sensation; it seemed as though the cars themselves were stationary, with the pavement flowing backward beneath them. There was no passing, no weaving, no cutting in and out. Only occasionally would the formation be broken as a car would shift almost imperceptibly to one side or the other; speeding up or slowing down to match the assigned speed of the neighboring way.

The afternoon was bright and clear, neither too hot nor too cold. Olmstead enjoyed his drive thoroughly, and arrived at the turnoff right on schedule. Leaving the wide, smooth way, he slowed down abruptly; even a Dillingham Super-Sporter could not make speed on the narrow, rough, and hilly road to Chesuncook Lake.

At dusk he reached the Post. Instead of stopping on the pavement he pulled off the road, got out, stretched hugely, and took a few drum-major’s steps to take the kinks out of his legs.

“A lot of road, eh?” the smartly-uniformed trooper remarked. “No guns?”

“No guns.” Olmstead opened up for inspection. “From Northport. Funny, isn’t it, how hard it is to stop, even when you aren’t in any particular hurry? Guess I’ll eat now⁠—join me in a sandwich and some hot coffee or a cold lemon sour or cherry soda?”

“I’ve got my own supper, thanks; I was just going to eat. But did you say a cold lemon sour?”

“Uh-huh. Ice-cold. Zero degrees Centigrade.”

“I will join you, in that case. Thanks.”

Olmstead opened a frost-lined compartment; took out two half-liter bottles; placed them and his open lunch-box invitingly on the low stone wall.

“Hm⁠ ⁠… m⁠ ⁠… m. Quite a zipper you got there, mister.” The trooper gazed admiringly at the luxurious, two-wheeled monster; listened appreciatively to its almost inaudible hum. “I’ve heard about those new supers, but that is the first one I ever saw. Nice. All the comforts of home, eh?”

“Just about. Sure you won’t help me clean up on those sandwiches, before they get stale?”

Seated on the wall, the two men ate and talked. If that trooper had known what was in the box beside his leg he probably would have fallen over backward; but how was he even to suspect? There was nothing crass or rough or coarse about any of the work of any of Boskone’s high-level operators.

Olmstead drove on to the lake and took up his reservation at the ramshackle hotel. He slept, and bright and early the next morning he was up and fishing⁠—and this part of the performance he really enjoyed. He knew his stuff and the fish were there; big, wary, and game. He loved it.

At noon he ate, and quite openly and brazenly consigned the “empty” box to the watery deep. Even if he had not had so many fish to carry, he was not the type to lug a cheap lunch-box back to town. He fished joyously all afternoon, without getting quite the limit, and as the sun grazed the horizon he started his putt-putt and skimmed back to the dock.

The thing hadn’t sent out any radiation yet, Northrop informed him tensely, but it certainly would, and when it did they’d be ready. There were Lensmen and Patrolmen all over the place, thicker than hair on a dog.

And George Olmstead, sighing wearily and yet blissfully anticipatory of one more day of enthralling sport, gathered up his equipment and his fish and strolled toward the hotel.

XVII

Forty thousand miles from Earth’s center the Chicago loafed along a circular arc, inert, at a mere ten thousand miles an hour; a speed which, and not by accident, kept her practically stationary above a certain point on the planet’s surface. Nor was it by chance that both Virgil Samms and Roderick Kinnison were aboard. And a dozen or so other craft, cruisers and such, whose officers were out to put space-time in their logs, were flitting aimlessly about; but never very far away from the flagship. And farther out⁠—well out⁠—a cordon of diesel-powered detector ships swept space to the full limit of their prodigious reach. The navigating officers of those vessels knew to a nicety the place and course of every ship lawfully in the ether, and the appearance of even one unscheduled trace would set in motion a long succession of carefully-planned events.

And far below, grazing atmosphere, never very far from the direct line between the Chicago and Earth’s core, floated a palatial pleasure yacht. And this craft carried not one Lensman, or two, but eight; two of whom kept their eyes fixed upon their