New Lensman Part 6

'That's possible,' Larry said.

They were silent a moment, thinking.

'It seems strange,' Larry finally said, 'that none of Griffin's group penetrated Copernicus Control. They might have tapped lines. Or perhaps the direct approach: bribery, threats or blackmail. How good is Copernicus Control's security system?'

'Very good,' the Mayor said. 'Copernicus Control has more information about the movement of cargoes and s.p.a.cecraft in and around the Solar System than anyone outside of Grand Fleet Headquarters at The Hill. A lot of people would pay considerable amounts for this information, so we have to be careful. The man in charge of security reported directly to Johnstone.'

'From what I've heard of Johnstone from Pamela, I can't believe they got, or are going to get, anything out of him. I've also got a feeling that we're not going to find him alive when we get into the Sanctuary. I don't think he went with Griffin's group voluntarily. I think he was kidnapped because he knew too much about their operation.'

'For instance?'

'Like the ident.i.ty of their man in Copernicus Control.' Larry said. 'Maybe even what they plan to do. The only other reason they might have for taking him with them is if he still has some information they want That implies that they have a way out of the Sanctuary. Is there any way out?'

'No. The Sanctuary is buried in solid rock.'

'How were the survivors supposed to get out?'

Ron Love froze for a moment. He had the look of a man who suddenly realizes that a serious mistake has been made. In an unhappy voice he said, 'There are two mining machines down there. It was never considered worthwhile to dismantle them and bring them up.'

'Which way would they cut their way out?'

'Out. Toward the crater. The Slot Cutters are working in the other directions. The Smoother finished melting down the surface a couple of days ago. Ron paused a moment and then said, 'Dr.

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Kelvin should know if there are any holes. I'll call him.'

Dr. Kelvin knew of no such hole but freely admitted he was neither expecting nor had he looked for one. His people didn't have time just now to make a search. He suggested that the job be given the Port of Entry personnel.

The Director of the Port of Entry said they would send a couple of men in a transporter along the face of Copernicus to look for a hole, as soon as possible. The Mayor asked that would be and then exploded when he got an evasive answer. The Director finally said he would have someone on the job within an hour. Mayor Love demanded they report directly to him.

'How do we find out if we've had any visitors from Fauth within the last couple of hours?' Lt.

McQueen asked when the Mayor had finished.

The Mayor called Copernicus Control and talked to the operator in charge of crater activities.

'Yes, a transporter from Fauth came over this morning with a bunch to go to Tellus,' the operator said, chewing on a piece of gum between sentences. 'The driver took 'em sightseeing and almost got himself plated. I got him out, and he unloads his pa.s.sengers, and bang! he's back in the same trouble. I untangled him again and told him to get out of my crater. if I ever see his fat ...

'Has he gotten back to Fauth yet?' the Mayor interrupted.

'I'll check, wait one ...' the controller said.

'Yes,' he reported a moment later. "Bout half an hour ago. If I ever catch up with that fat...'

'Have any s.h.i.+ps taken off from Fauth recently?' Mayor love interrupted again.

' 'Taint my board but I'll check.'

'Yes, a deep s.p.a.ce job took off 'bout 5 minutes ago,' he reported back. 'Should be out of the system by now. Alphacent. Ought to be darn near there. It's a 20 minute run, y'know.'

'Thanks,' the Mayor said, and cleared the plate. He turned to Larry. 'Looks like we're too late.

We locked the front door and left the back door open.'

'The evidence is still just circ.u.mstantial. We're going to have to go down into the Sanctuary anyway.'

'I'll notify Hanovich that they may have gotten away.'

Larry looked at his wrist.w.a.tch. 'Don't bother. It's just about time to go anyway. If they're still down there, I'd rather Hanovich's people were expecting trouble. They'll be more cautious than if they think Griffin and company are gone. Would you check out Copernicus Control while I'm gone? I want to visit it when I get back, and if anything's wrong, I'd like to know in advance. OK?'

'Right,' the Mayor answered, and Larry left.

'Our spy-ray blocks cover this shaft and those adjoining,' Hanovich said. 'The blocks were installed when we started clearing out the foam, so they wouldn't know which shaft we're coming down.'

Hanovich spoke confidently to Larry and the five volunteer security men who were wearing full Solarian Patrol armor. They were about to go down the elevator shaft to the Sanctuary. Though he spoke with a.s.surance, he had scheduled himself to go down with the second group, the reinforcements who would arrive after the first group had entered. Larry was a little disappointed by this. He wanted to see how Hanovich operated under pressure. Larry wondered if he would panic and run, or stay and slug it out. He wondered how much of his a.s.surance was bravado and how much real self-confidence. Larry shrugged to himself in his armor. In spite of the confident manner, Hanovich seemed to value himself too highly to expose himself to any real danger.

The six men entered the stripped elevator cage and started their trip downwards. Most of the floor had been replaced. The workmen before them had dissolved the foam down to the top of the elevator doors of the top level of the Sanctuary. Direct entry by those doors was considered too dangerous.

The elevator halted inches above the top of the foam. One of the men picked up a s.h.i.+ny oval they had brought with them. It was a ring of high explosive backed by a metal container. While he held it up another man carefully tore off the tape covering the adhesive on the other side. The oval was pressed against the wall above the elevator doors.

On the other side of the wall was the secondary life support area over the first level of the Sanctuary. It contained the air purifying and conditioning equipment and empty food and water storage areas for the dormitory level below.

The circle stuck to the wall. Next a little detonater was pressed into place. Everyone leaned back against the nearest wall for support. Even a shaped charge with s.h.i.+elding can buffet a man around.

The explosive went off. It made a cloud of dust, which slowly began to disperse, and a hole in the wall. It was dark inside. Larry threw a 'light' grenade underhanded through the hole. Then he dove after it. Inside he rolled to his feet and threw two other grenades to the left and right.

Behind Larry the rest of the party was coming through the hole, carrying ma.s.sive weapons. when the first grenade hit a surface, it stuck there and went on.

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The light grenade lit the room with the stark, brilliant white light that only magnesium burning in pure oxygen can give. Anyone not having protection for his eyes would have been blinded.

They had a little perimeter established around the hole in seconds. Four 'Standish' combination vibratory projectors and machine guns were sitting on tripods with their screens up, manned and waiting. Squat and monstrous, they had the look of being capable of dealing out any amount of destruction required.

Larry fired his Lewiston at the television camera on the far wall and destroyed it.

'This level is clear,' reported the last man out of the elevator after a short pause. The alien's spy-ray block ended at the wall of the shaft. Once inside it, he had used the portable spy-ray unit he was carrying to see through obstructing objects and check the area.

'OK! Charlie, you cover the ladder over there. Pete, keep the hole behind us covered in case they come up from below.'

The men moved their equipment, covered by the two remaining men.

'Anyone on the level below?' Larry asked.

'The level below us is vacant,' the man with the portable spy-ray reported after a long pause.

'We'll take the dormitory below then. It's the only entrance to this area,' Larry said. He undogged and opened the hatch. He dropped down to the floor of the dormitory without bothering to use the stairway. He destroyed the television cameras as he dropped. Three men with weapons followed him. Larry a.s.signed them to the various entrances. He looked at his wrist watch and was amazed to see that less than two minutes had pa.s.sed. He had at least another two minutes to wait for his reinforcements. Their little force was extended as far as it could comfortably go and yet hold access to the elevator shaft. A minute later the spy-ray operator came down the stairs.

'I can't see much beyond a single wall or floor anyway,' he reported. 'There's too much metal here for this little unit. This level and the life support area just below us is clear. That's about all I can make out.'

They waited.

Hanovich and the reinforcements arrived and they spread out over the top level. A group took each of the four life support and dormitory areas on the top level and started moving down. The Sanctuary was empty. They found the blackened remains of the three gunmen on the fourth level down. When the spy-ray block was found and turned off, it was apparent that the a.n.a.lysis Larry had made in Mayor Love's office was correct. The bottom storage area of the Sanctuary was filled with the rock removed from a tunnel out toward the crater floor. Larry's clothing and most of his equipment was found in the control room of the Sanctuary. It had been discarded. Gone, however, was a wrist.w.a.tch and his Golden Meteor identification badge. Larry asked Hanovich to have some men check out the tunnel to make certain it was empty, and to use a spy-ray to search the contents of the storage area for anything discarded.

'Under all that rock would be the ideal place to bury a body, or anything else you didn't want found,' he pointed out. Then he left.

'Do you really expect Hanovich to find a body under all that rock?' Mayor Love asked.

'No, but it'll keep him out of trouble for a while,' Larry said with a smile. 'Besides, you can never tell what might turn up. One of the reasons I came back here was to use your visiphone. I want to call in a report to Fairchild, the Acting Chief of the Triplanetary Service at the New York office. Your office is the only area I know that is really secure. The Patrol Field Office isn't, and Hanovich's office is, ah, undesirable.'

'Do you want me to leave?'

'No, stay here. You helped and you might as well listen in.' Lt. McQueen placed the call. When Fairchild's face appeared on the plate, they went to cryptographic operation. Larry described what had happened, concluding with, 'I'm still not satisfied that we have uncovered all of their agents. Until I'm certain, I can't afford the time to check Fauth, and Uranium Inc. By the time I can, that lead will be stone cold, if it isn't already.'

Fairchild didn't commit himself, he just looked thoughtful for a moment.

'There's also a possibility that the transporter they escaped on was originally empty and that it took part of the group to Interstellar s.p.a.ceways Flight 1726 to Tellus,' Lt. McQueen continued.

'Finally, they kept my badge.'

Fairchild abruptly shook his head. 'I should pull you off this job. The Patrol has taken over all work on pirate and potential pirate activities. The Service has been a.s.signed to narcotics control exclusively. However, in this case I'll make an exception and keep you on the job. I'll forward your in formation to Kinnison's office, and they can handle following through on the leads.'

'Don't worry about the badge,' Fairchild continued. 'Samms has a new badge, a Lens. You are scheduled to come here after you finish your present a.s.signment. Samms, or someone, will check you 2728

out for one of them.'

'Check me out?'

'It's an exclusive club,' Fairchild said, sarcastically. 'They call themselves "Lensmen". Very original. Samms is out recruiting E. T. Lensmen on Rigel IV and won't be back until Wednesday. Do you think you can bring your work to some form of definite conclusion by then?'

'I can try. But I can't foresee my checking being done before next Friday,' Lt. McQueen answered.

On this note the report ended.

Afterwards Mayor Love commented, 'From his tone of voice, I gather Fairchild doesn't like either these Lensmen or Extra Terrestrials.'

Larry smiled. 'Fairchild has problems. When Virgil Samms became a member of the Solarian Council, they needed someone to act as his a.s.sistant in handling the operations of the Triplanetary Service. The job carried too much potential power to get all the members of the Council to agree to put any of the obvious candidates in his place. So they chose a second-rater that everyone figured wouldn't be smart enough to take advantage of the position. So far, they've been right, and Fairchild knows it.

'What was he before? I vaguely remember the name.'

'He was Samms' public relations officer.'

'Oh,' Mayor Love said.

'One thing you can be sure of: if Samms has started a club, it's worth joining if you can.'

'Did you find out anything about Copernicus Control?' Larry asked.

'No, nothing,' Mayor Love answered. 'There's nothing unusual in the Central File computer's records that I could find. No one has made a lot of money recently or obviously changed his spending habits.'

'All right. It's later than I expected, and I'm beat,' Larry said. 'Let's wait and see what happens at the Board of Directors meeting tomorrow. We should be able to tell where Harness stands, and afterwards I can work down through the rest of the organization.'

A few moments later Lt. McQueen and Mayor Love parted. Neither knew that the Monday morning Board of Directors meeting would never be held.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

EMERGENCY!.

The next morning Al Lewis sat at his station in Copernicus Control watching the digital clock at the top of the console click off the seconds. All was quiet for the moment. In two more hours, at 0800, his s.h.i.+ft would be over. Two hours seemed like forever. He looked over the edge of the balcony, where the operators sat, down into the tank. Thousands of colored lights blinked back, each representing some object in the 60-foot, tri-dimensional model of the Solar System. It was the largest, most complete plotting tank in the Solar System outside the 300-foot unit at Solarian Patrol Headquarters in The Hill. This Unit, however, was just for commercial use.

Al pulled down the visor he was wearing and started the color filters cycling through it. With each new color different lights in the tank sprang into prominence. Normally, he didn't have time to look into the tank itself. The edited information he wanted was directly displayed on his console. During the first s.h.i.+ft there were six operators to handle traffic. During the graveyard s.h.i.+ft there were two, because of the reduced local activities. The tank was actually rarely used except as a general reference and to impress visiting firemen.

The filters continued to flick into place. He knew them by heart. Planets, asteroids, manned stations, unmanned stations, manned commercial s.p.a.cecraft, manned military s.p.a.cecraft, private s.p.a.cecraft, unmanned cargoes in orbit, meteoroids, navigational satellites...

Suddenly, Al Lewis had the feeling again of something being wrong. But what?

The filters continued through all the major cla.s.sification and then started at the beginning again. And again. He shortened the cycle, eliminating the obviously superfluous filters. A buzzing in his ear indicated that someone wanted to talk to him. Without bothering to look at his board, he pressed the busy switch.

'The filters cycled again. Then he saw it. Over there! A meteoroid? There couldn't be a meteoroid in that sector! It would be on his vision plate! Al Lewis turned, and called up the meteoroid display. There was no sign of the meteoroid he had seen in the tank. He expanded the area where he had seen it. Still nothing. He checked the tank, then his settings. Everything should be okay, but where was that meteoroid? He opened a line to the computer.

'I can see a meteoroid in the tank about 700,000 miles above Grimaldi. Why isn't it on my console?'

'All meteoroids of over 10,000 cubic feet in volume are called directly to the attention of the Director or a.s.sistant Director of Copernicus Control. I have been instructed that operator 2829

cognizance is not required,' the computer answered.

'When and where is that one due to land?'

'It will land in 5 hours, 46 minutes, inside the boundary of Copernicus City.'