Lensman from rigel, p.3
Lensman From Rigel, page 3
from the president-king down to the lowliest citizen, had been enthusiastic in their welcome for the great and legendary Tregonsee, now Gray-Emeritus, On Assignment. If any trouble might develop, it would be on the ground and the five-man Treg staff, with an additional pair of Preekoan Lensmen and a pair of Preekoan Patrolmen, would be sufficient to handle it. Certainly no threat had been expected here in the heart of friendly space. Dronvire, however, was never lax nor indifferent in its attitude or duty; the initial blows had easily been fended off.
Commander P. Lzbert, Lensman, of the GP pocket cruiser, happened to be on the bridge when the attack first took place. He had been called there by his second-in-command because the Preekoan picket ships, in deep space, part of the massive security for Tregonsee's visit, had reported strange readings, although no visual sightings. He had observed the pale blue defense barrier winking into life below, ringing and dividing the city into three concentric circles. Directly under his ship the shimmering roof of the barrier had formed, disrupting communications with the message center within Tregonsee's palace apartments.
As the two black privateers darted away at opposing right angles, repulsed by counter fire, all of the Dronvire crew tumbled into battle stations. Like a flock of birds startled by an unknown danger, the hundreds of pleasure craft scattered. Those diving for the ground were buffeted and damaged as they blundered into the energy net of the barrier. The police and guard ships, impossibly outmatched, circled helplessly.
"Signal red-brown, repeat red-brown, to HQ-T," Commander Lzbert said. He was a youngish gray-haired Martian hybrid with natural telepathic powers. His mind flashed around the crew, picking up every scrap of data, and then around again giving them the status of the moment. All the control deck dials, particularly those of the warning devices, were scanned by his own eyes, his own perception, and also through the senses of his crew.
"Sir, a nuclear device has exploded in Peace Square in the city center!" The scanner-crewman, face buried in a viewbox, pressed her report on the commander's brain.
"Yes, I've got it on the screens," the Martian said. "Give me the source!"
"Negative."
"Locate the enemy ships. They're off the trackers." "Negative. They're gone."
Commander Lzbert's deduction was quick and straight-forward--the aerial attackers had come and gone, a mere diversion; they hadn't dropped the bomb. One explosion, a small conventional nuclear device; that explosion seemed to indicate a separate ground action. The two actions were unrelated. The bomb was simply another diversion. Two diversions? Any more? The situation must be worse than it appeared to be. Diversions for what purpose?
He sent another message to HQ-T through regular channels and simultaneously Lensed it: "Signal brown-green, repeat brown-green. Diversionary double bird attack. Diversionary small A-bomb. No source. No contact. Captain Buyyer, full security measures red alert. Report."
Anxious seconds passed with no Lens-to-Lens contact. The delay was inordinate so the circumstances had to be unusual and serious. Confirmation of this came with the sudden connection with the mind of Lieutenant-Captain Bob Buyyer, chief Dronvire liaison officer assigned to the Treg staff. Tregonsee's apartments had been bounced. Raider dead. Patrol casualties. Headquarters-Treg untouched and safe. Some details being withheld.
"Being withheld?" the commander said, not quite sure he had felt the thought correctly. "Being withheld from me? Don't you mean being withheld from non-cleared personnel?"
"Commander!" The scanner-crewman, mind crackling with mental anguish, telepathically broke into his narrow projection. "Commander, sir! Tregonsee is dead!"
The commander felt Buyyer disconnect while the fantastic claim reverberated in his head. He overwhelmed his crewman's mind, shutting off the idea from anyone else. Tregonsee dead! He didn't believe it for a moment, but others might, and rumors would fly. "What's the evidence, chief?" He appealed directly to Tregonsee and his staff. "Who says so?" He tried to scan HQ-T and Buyyer with both his mind and his machines, but Buyyer as well as all of HQ-T were sealed off absolutely.
"Sir! It's an emergency squad report!"
Lzbert immediately monitored the emergency medical
THE NULL-TREG SECRET
communications with the palace, which were on-going, at the same time quickly reviewing the recorded messages of the immediate past. The information was there. Tregonsee was dead. Beyond a patch-up job. He still didn't believe it.
What he did believe was that something bad had happened at HQ-T. Lzbert tried to get through by Lens and radio. And he kept on trying.
At HQ-T, the attempt by Lzbert was being noted.
"Captain Garner, the Dronvire is probing us. It's Commander Lzbert himself." Lieutenant-Captain Buyyer, the human Lensman, stuck his head out of the security room to make this report to the aide-de-camp. Then, to Tregonsee, he said directly, "He's asking for details on your death."
ADC Garner didn't seem to hear. He stood near where the Rigellian had fallen, viciously destroyed beyond all medical help, and said, soundlessly but clearly, "Meppy. Meppy gone. Mepauhurrat gone." And then, "Pat. Pat gone. Patrone-Ohhare gone." Their lurid deaths for the moment had crushed his spirit both professionally and personally.
Tregonsee didn't interrupt the captain in his grief. He tossed out his own mental reply to Buyyer, "No contact. Keep our seal tight, even with Dronvire." He continued to sweep the room with his sense of perception, seeing more than ordinary, light-frequency eyes could see, seeking information from the hair shed by Mando, the traces of perspiration, the impressions from the vibrations radiating from the discarded belt and equipment. "It's the medical team. And the hospital. Tell them to say nothing more. Let all inquiries come to you.--Get me P'Keen."
Tregonsee touched with the tip of one of his tentacles the spot on the carpet where the purple polyhedron had been shoved into the fibers. A slightly scorched and fused patch was clearly visible. Captain Garner knelt down to examine it more closely.
"Definitely has an Ordovik feel to it, Captain," Tregonsee said. "There's no doubt in my mind now. A hyperspacial tube was in this room. And an Ordovik is involved."
"A tube, sir? How is that possible? I thought that thing couldn't be controlled so precisely. And obviously so small. That small? What a terrible specter that raises...."
"Interesting questions. There's no problem about Cardynge's Limit--a tube as small as this seems to be wouldn't be circumscribed by the Limit. Especially considering that the Limit based on the mass of this system's sun could allow such a tube to be formed even a couple of planets nearer the sun. Precise control? It hasn't been perfected, as far as my knowledge goes, except by some dubious Ordovik experiments. So small? Entirely possible, but the problem is one of control. Accuracy, as far as I know, is lost within a diameter of several hundred yards. A terrible spectre? Yes. Emphatically yes. A controlled small tube is a threat to every high security area any place in the galaxies."
Tregonsee picked up Mando's belt with several of his thick jointless fingers near the end of a tapering tentacle, brushing other, finer, hair-like tendrils over the material. He held it ten feet away from his hemiglobular brainpan that sat on the flat plane of his circular upper body. His Lens of Arisia, usually worn on the upper flesh of a limb as a bracelet, now glowed instead between a pair of his noses, higher up, like an oversized scintillating special eye he had stuck on his broad brow to make up for the eyes he didn't have. He held the belt out as though the Lens could read its secrets.
"To answer your question you asked some minutes ago, Captain--Who was the Vegian? There's no doubt about it. It wasn't Writti. It was Mando. Yes, definitely. Mando."
Tregonsee dropped the belt and nudged it with one of his four feet.
"A dangerous man, Mando," he continued. "We knew he was on a high priority project in the Withered Arm Sector. But we never suspected he might be moved around by hyperspacial tube. That makes this a very big conspiracy. He was clever, we knew that. But on his own he was never a threat to the Patrol. I never suspected that his project might be me."
Tregonsee raised his dozens of tentacular parts outward and upward, making himself look like a tree, its many thick and thin branch ends shaking in a non-existent breeze, symmetrically spread out by his four main limbs. It was a gesture an intimate could recognize as expressing unresolved intellectual concerns.
"I need P'Keen now. Right now."
Captain Garner had a rare peep at Tregonsee's incredible mental powers for the merest microsecond: the Rigellian had sought, found and conveyed his command to P'Keen of Ordov even as the captain had understood Tregonsee's wish to call him. The Rigellian's mind had touched the Ordovik's--zing! --and the communication was over. Had P'Keen sensed Tregonsee's call even before Tregonsee had called?
"Yes, captain," Tregonsee said, catching Garner's admiration, "P'Keen is frequently faster than me. We Rigellians get too much credit. The Ordovik sense of perception is as good as or better than any in the known universe. But you already know that; he's teaching you things you'd never learn from me. He's already on his way here. He left the president-king's quarters even before Mepauhurrat's body touched the floor."
Tregonsee's many arms had slowly floated back down to his sides. He turned toward the security room.
"P'Keen agrees with me. Fix this in your minds." Tregonsee was now impressing his thoughts strongly, not only in Captain Garner's head, but just as emphatically into those of the other staff Lensman and the two GP staff patrol officers there in the security room.
"The other Preekoan Lensman and his two Patrolmen are in the hospital--they don't know and won't know the facts. So, from those of us who have been on the scene there are only six who know for certain that I haven't been killed. The wounded probably think I've been assassinated. There may have been some eavesdroppers or a chance Lens tuned in who registered the death of a Rigellian. Certainly the enemy agents must be convinced of my death. Now, let's consider how that might be to our advantage."
"Are you suggesting a news blackout?" Garner said. "Do you think we can smoke out the identity of the assassins?"
"It's worth the trouble, I think," Tregonsee said. "No news about my death will be disturbing to them. First, they themselves want to know if they were successful. They'll take risks to find out if we say nothing. Second, they'll want the news spread throughout the galaxies to demoralize and weaken our secret organizations."
"News of your death, sir," Garner said, "will certainly be demoralizing to all of Civilization, not just to our own secret
service men. You won't have much time after the rumors start before you'll have to reveal the truth."
"I know. But we can try it for a while without any risk. We'll act as if the worst is true. Just among ourselves. No elaboration, just stick to no comment. Not even Lensman's Seal. Mepauhurrat can continue to play his role as my stand-in. Meppy's corpse can be taken for mine for weeks if precautions are taken. I'll stay dead while we watch the developments. We'll tempt the vultures into betraying themselves."
Tregonsee moved into the other room, followed by Garner.
"Send a message to Klovia. I want one of my other stand-ins to show himself to the Coordinator's staff. The rumors will soon get around that Null-Treg is alive and that it must have really been me who was killed here this morning."
"Sir, the staff here has been informed not to mention even an attack against us, let alone an assassination attempt against you," the ADC said, watching Buyyer send off the message to Klovia. Garner waved the transcript from the hospital which already had come through. "The victims have been deceptively identified as having been killed in that terrorist's bomb blast in Peace Square. Their racial classification hasn't been revealed." He clipped the report to his new case file folder. "No one will know a Rigellian is dead except the staff."
"Wrong, Captain Garner," Tregonsee said. "The Patrol will soon know. Not the general public, mind you, but the Patrol. The information will get out because our enemies will see to it that it gets out. My death will be galactic knowledge within the speed of the fastest transmissions. It's probably halfway to the other side of the galaxy already. The other Null-Treg's appearance even limited to the Coordinator's office will simply confirm the apparent fact despite all security."
"Despite all security, sir?" his aide-de-camp growled, more than a little disturbed. He was a loyal, devoted officer in not just the Secret Intelligence Services but the ultra-secret S.M.E, the Special Missions Forces. The idea that secrets could not be kept within the S.I.S., not to mention the Galactic Coordinator's office, was terribly irritating, utterly frustrating. He answered his own question with a disgusted grunt, "Yeah." Another grunt. "Yeah--I know, sir. But that
doesn't mean that Meppy was no secret, does it? Won't the fact that Mepauhurrat was here with us be made known, too? Who else now knows about Meppy being here?"
"Only us," Tregonsee replied. "Only one Rigellian came to Preeko. Me. Only me. The existence of a Null-Treg is common knowledge, even outside the Patrol--a Null-Treg is obvious mystification and misdirection. Standard cloak-and-dagger stuff. But it's assumed there is only one Null-Treg. And he is back on Klovia. Only we know about Mepauhurrat being here. Eventually, logically, the truth will come out about Meppy. But not from us. Any secret among the six of us is inviolable."
"Message sent and acknowledged, T," Buyyer said. "The Dronvire is getting insistent."
"Let Commander Lzbert through. Keep the beam narrow. No Lens. I'm dead. Remember. I'm destroyed." Tregonsee sat down on the floor by withdrawing his legs upward into his cylindrical torso. The bony, padded circle of his base rested on the matting. The soft tips of his tentacles sorted through the punched cards of the situation report as he listened.
"Lieutenant-Captain Buyyer!" It was Commander Lzbert being formal in oral transmission. "Let's go Lens-to-Lens."
Buyyer turned to look quizzically at Tregonsee, who couldn't see the facial gesture in the same way that Captain Garner could, but who understood the implicit question through his perception. The Rigellian moved a tentacle in a thoroughly human gesture of denial.
"Sorry, sir." Buyyer could imagine the surprise at the other end. "Lens-to-Lens is ruled out."
"By whom?" the commander said. And then, after the merest pause, "By Captain Garner? Let me speak to him."
"Garner here, sir."
"Let's go Lens-to-Lens, Captain."
"Sorry, sir. We can't."
"Why not?" The commander's voice was calm, but his tone was cold.
The captain was slightly flustered by not having a reasonable excuse. "Standing orders, sir."
"Whose standing orders, Captain? A live T? Or a dead T?" The commander was no fool. He was a Lensman. All Lensmen were superior Patrolmen. And he was a superior
Lensman. Everyone in that security room knew that Commander Lzbert could not be deceived by indirection. Only a Lensman's lie could trick him.
"We are under top security, Commander," the hoarse-voiced Garner said. "I have my standing orders."
Commander Lzbert tried a different tack. "A message has been intercepted by me signed by Buyyer by order of Tregonsee. Null-Treg has been ordered to show himself on Klovia. Buyyer, who really gave that order?"
"Standing order, sir," said Lieutenant-Captain Buyyer.
"Not bloody well likely, Buyyer! Let me speak to Captain Garner again.... Captain! Let's go Lens-to-Lens! That's an order!"
"Sorry, Commander," the Klovian said, "it's--"
"I know, I know," Lzbert interrupted. "It's a standing
order. Is it a standing order that you don't take orders from
your senior officer?" "No, sir."
"Well, then are you still under T's orders, or are you under mine, as ranking officer?"
There was no way out to avoid the showdown, they all could see that; Tregonsee jabbed a narrow thought into Garner's head. "You're my ranking officer, sir, of course," Garner lied, repeating Tregonsee's instructions. "But we have full security here. May I respectfully request that you come down for a conference?"
"Me go there?" The commander was a bit disturbed by the idea. "Shouldn't you come here? Shouldn't you all come on up to the ship? It seems to me you've confirmed a calamitous situation. I have a hospital report that a Rigellian has been fatally wounded. If immediate steps are taken by us all, if Dronvire leaves as soon as possible with the Rigellian, there may be a chance at a Phillips recovery. Reconstruction or regeneration. I certainly don't want to waste the time." The commander tried to sound reasonable and not sarcastic. "Is this all covered by your standing orders, Captain Garner?"
"Yes, sir," Garner said, knowing that his answer was an impossible lie.
The commander tried for a final time to get a hint. "I'll send an honor guard immediately to take custody of the
remains. Under plus-plus security blackout, of course. Am I to understand that such an honor guard is proper?" "Yes, sir, of course, sir."
For the first time since contact, Commander Lzbert's voice sounded strained. "I now accept the incredible! There's no time to waste! Get your butts the hell up here as fast as possible!"
"No, Commander. We'll wrap it up here."
"Garner! Buyyer! Such action sounds inappropriate! In fact, it's preposterous! But I'm on my way! Don't do another damn thing until I arrive to take over! Your standing orders better make more sense than you do!"
"Yes, sir, come as fast as possible," the lieutenant-captain said and broke the connection. "I feel as though I've kicked the commander in the shins."
"Don't be disconcerted," Tregonsee said. "Commander Lzbert is properly upset, but we'll straighten him out. He'll have to know the real situation. Let's get to work--we've got to have our action plan ready for him when he gets here."
