New Lensman Part 15

officer and two nurses took her to another bedroom.

The doctor examined the bodyguard and then the other doctor. Both were unconscious but otherwise in good health. They were removed to other bedrooms under guard.

The doctor and Larry adjourned to the main room of the suite. Larry could see the hallway as they stood there.

'What did you find?' Larry asked.

'Well, first as you heard, the patient had a coronary. The computer finally pegged it at about 56 hours ago, based on supplementary information. No other problems of note.'

'That would be at least a day before he arrived here,' Larry commented for the benefit of the listeners in the surveillance room.

'Rest. Good food. Small amounts of exercise are about all we can do for him,' the doctor said.

'The woman has syphilis. No one else does.'

'How can you tell? Aren't lab tests required to determine that?'

'Not really. Lab tests confirm it. One of the symptoms is a dark area in the area across from the optic nerve of the eye. It's extremely reliable, almost infallible. She'll have to remain in quarantine here until cured. I'll check her for reaction to the usual specific, P-86.'

The ambulance driver had come out of the main bedroom and after a little hesitation gone into the bedroom containing Dr. Kalb. The man had left to go back to the ambulance while the group was waiting for the gas to decompose. Apparently he had followed them into the suite during the doctor's examination of the group. This was the first time Larry had seriously considered the man and for some reason he didn't like him. He realized that there was no conscious reason for it but he had followed his instincts before with success.

Larry frowned and the doctor mistook it for something else. 'I've wondered at the name too,' he said.

'Let's question the doctor first" Larry said. 'Let's go see how he's doing.'

They walked back into the bedroom. Larry hesitated in front of the door. Behind them the visiphone chimed. The doctor started to reach for the door but Larry stopped him. He put his hand on the door k.n.o.b, turned it and pushed it open with a quick gesture. As the door opened he was in a crouch, his right hand by his holster.

There was the sharp report of a gun.

Inside the ambulance driver had quietly drawn a gun from under his whites and, while the security officer and nurse were intent on the unconscious man, had shot the doctor in the head. Larry saw the ambulance driver, smoking revolver in hand, turning toward the security officer, who was trying to draw his weapon.

With a reaction built in from hundreds of hours of practice, Lt Larry McQueen thought the gun into his hand.

To one practiced in the fast draw, this is enough to trigger the reflexes needed. The holster used by the Solarian Patrol finished functionally evolving hundreds of years previously. It was a hard piece of leather, rigidly attached to the wide belt So it would not bend, twist or flop when the gun was drawn; of hard leather so the gun to which it was fitted would not bind or stick. Across the top of the holster was a strap of leather connected to the side of the holster with a snap.

The strap prevented the gun from falling out of the holster or being removed without the owner's knowledge. The end of the strap being curved out instead of flat against the side, indicated to those who knew the difference between an officer familiar with his weapon and one who was not. In the fast draw the heel of the hand comes up along the side of the holster, striking the curved arc of leather, releasing the snap and moving it out of the way. The fingers take hold of the b.u.t.t of the gun, moving it clear of the holster and turning it ready for firing. As the gun points, the thumb snaps off the safety and the gun fires. The whole operation takes considerably less than 200 miliseconds from intent to execution. The sequence of movements is automatic, since there is no time to think out any one of them. More than one person has, under pressure, shot a hole in his foot because he didn't have the sequence under control. Others, thinking themselves able to draw like lightening, were dead because they tried to outdraw someone who had them covered. Such would probably have been the case with the security officer, except for Larry's intervention.

The first shot got the ambulance driver in the chest, the second in the head, as Larry's gun climbed slightly in reaction to the first shot. The driver's shot went wild, missing the security officer. Both the driver and Dr. Kalb were dead when the doctor examined them moments later.

'I didn't realize he had a gun until he fired it,' the security officer said.

Lt. Larry McQueen looked at the man for a long moment and then shook his head. 'You were here to guard him. You didn't. He's dead! That's your responsibility! My job is 'to get information.

Instead, I saved you. The doctor and his murderer are dead and the fate of Copernicus may be in jeopardy. You'll have to bear a small part of that responsibility, too. Remember that! Now go try 5556

to help guard someone else,' he said angrily and dismissed the man.

When the security officer was gone Larry commented to the doctor, 'With our luck Kalb was the only one in the group who knew anything.'

He was right. When questioned, the others revealed that they had been hired on Tellus to play the parts. Larry couldn't even get a good description of the second man in the vacuum suit, other than the woman's wistful comment, 'He was sort of tall ...' The second alien was the only remaining source of information left.

With a quick call to the Security control centre, Larry made arrangements that the group be held in protective custody in the hospital until they could be returned to Tellus.

Lt Larry McQueen returned to the Security Division to question the team hunting the alien. They had no further success finding the missing prospector who had brought his rig into Copernicus.

Having some second thoughts on the matter, Larry asked, 'What if you turn up this prospector and he hasn't seen the alien, where are you?'

'What do you mean?'

'The alien's not with the entrance team. Right?'

'True.'

'And if he isn't inside Copernicus?'

There was a moment of silence and then the man started looking for a list on his desk.

'The only traffic outbound was a mooncar, going out to Mayer A.'

'OK,' Larry said. 'Let's talk to Copernicus Control about it.

Larry called Copernicus Control. A familiar face looked back out of the plate at him. 'Howdy, Mr.

Lt. 'McQueen, sir,' it said. Its owner had been told who Larry was.

'Howdy, Mr. Holt,' Larry said. It was said in all seriousness. One of the first things an agent of the Service learns is to deal with people on their own terms and on their own level. Especially the little people who wield the power. When you want cooperation, make it easy to provide. Larry had made it a point to find out the controller's name when he had visited Copernicus Control.

Someone else had clued in the controller.

'Sure, anything I can do for you?'

'I'm interested in the mooncar that's going out to Mayer A. Who's handling it?' Larry asked.

'I'm handling the surface traffic tonight. You sure pick a bunch of characters to ask about.

Whatcha want to know about him?'

'What's he done?'

'Well, he showed up at l0-5-22 last shift and claimed his computer didn't work.'

'What's 10-5-22?'

'That's controller talk for the Northwest trail entrance. Them's the coordinates. Anyways, because his computer's out, he's got to manually drive, and when we check him, we got to locate him visually. That's a lotta trouble, but since this Tolliver fella is on a rescue trip out to Mayer A, Richy - that's the controller last shift - let's him go.

'Well, when I make the hourly check, I catch him zooming along at maybe 90 kilometers an hour.

After a meteor storm like we had, that's like committing suicide, so I stopped him and told him to either get his robot working or come back in. Well, that don't sit right with him, so he tried to give me a little back talk. That don't work. So it wasn't 10 minutes before he has it working. A loose wire he said. The robot took over and we ain't had a bit of trouble since.'

'Is this something an experienced prospector would have done?'

'No, sir! There ain't many people who can say they went 90 kilometers an hour across old Luna, leastways not alive there ain't A creeper's top speed is only 15 kloms an hour, and across unchecked areas they slow down to five, because even with a creva.s.se detector Out on a 18 meter boom, they ain't able to stop in time to keep from fallin'. You couldn't pay me enough to travel over even a checked trail at 30.'

'Is Tolliver experienced?'

'Yeah. I looked him up. He's an ex-prospector that retired when he struck pay dirt.'

'Anyone else in the mooncar with him?'

'I'll ask the robot,' Holt said. There was a short pause. 'Nope.'

Larry turned to the head of the team hunting the alien. 'It sounds like the man we want. Why don't you send some one over to Copernicus Control to keep an eye via satellite on him?'

'Right.'

'And keep an eye out for your prospector here in Copernicus. We could be wrong.'

Pete Miller quit to wait for the walls of the hole to cool before putting the creva.s.se bridge across it.

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'Why did you use the shadow magnetometer instead of a spy-ray?' Tolliver asked.

'Mostly habit I guess,' Pete answered. 'Spy-rays are all right if you want to look at something and you know where it is. I wanted to survey the whole area and a spy-ray just doesn't let you do that. You want to use it?'

'Yeah. I thought I'd go up and look over the area where the slide started.'

'OK. Mind if I tag along?' asked Pete.

'No,' Tolliver said.

'If you'll wait a couple of minutes, I'll get some tools,' Pete said.

When Pete, got inside the creeper he said, 'I'll try to stay in sight. Have the fighting unit cover us, even if you have to move it. Keep us in sight! Any questions?'

'Do you expect trouble?' asked the creeper.

'Yes, probably from Tolliver. I think be is a ringer,' Pete answered. Pete selected tools for the belt he put on. 'Some of these things can be used as weapons. I'll try not to turn my back on our friend out there. If anything happens to me, call the S. P. direct and tell them what we know and suspect. If I find evidence of the base, I'll make a comment about getting warm from the climb. If we find it, I'll say "I'm hot." Send me one click repeated at one-minute intervals whenever the satellite goes down, and three together when it comes up again. See you later.'

Pete and Tolliver went over the slide, and up toward the rim.

'What are the black pieces on the screen?' Tolliver asked, while he was examining the area.

'Probably iron ore,' Pete answered. 'From the size of the pieces, there may be a vein of it above us.' Pete didn't mention that unrefined ore would be much lighter in color. 'Let's go take a look.'

They continued climbing. The area from which the material in the slide came was obvious. The crystalline 'fairy castle' material ended abruptly at the edge. They stopped on a flat rock near the top. Tolliver examined the area and said, Is that a vein up there? You look.'

Pete took the instrument. 'I'm getting warm from the climb. That's a strange vein. Let's get a little closer.'

The object was buried about a foot below the surface. As they dug Pete heard a click from the creeper. 'It's a cable. Let's follow it.' Tolliver agreed, and they set off, Pete carefully bringing up the rear. It shortly became obvious that it was a very long cable.

'Creeper, use a spy-ray and follow this line,' Pete said.

'The cable goes around to the peak on the west side of the crater,' the creeper reported.

'What do you think?' Pete asked Tolliver.

'I think the hole has solidified enough for you to mount the creva.s.se bridge and get me out of here !' Harv broke in before Tolliver could answer.

'OK, be right down,' Tolliver answered.

The moon creeper was waiting for them as they came down the steep side. They rode on its radiation shield back to the slide.

Tolliver's attempt to kill Pete was performed very smoothly. They had l.u.s.t bolted the tractor beam in place on the creva.s.se bridge over the red-glowing pit. Pete was cutting away part of the bridge rail when Tolliver 'b.u.mped' against him. Pete went over the edge. The power line on the cutter held him, dangling over the pit.

'Pull me up!' Pete shouted.

Tolliver looked over the edge. 'Just a moment,' he said and disappeared.

Pete heard two clicks as he climbed the power cord.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

'A LENSMAN IS BORN'.

On Tellus one of the men responsible for the attempts to destroy Copernicus looked around the room at his other accomplices. 'Well?' he asked, sarcastically. 'Do any of you wise a.s.ses have any further suggestions? Another sophisticated plan to eliminate Copernicus? Some other clever idea that won't work? Or are you ready to my way?'

'Relax, Mossby,' another man spoke. 'It's too late to do it your way. Walk in there with an atomic bomb and you'll be nailed by their Customs. If it goes off at that point, you'll have killed a couple Customs Officers and flattened some worthless real estate.'

'We can get past them. Kill them !' Mossby flared.

'You might have been able to do that last week but now they're ready and waiting.'