Children of the lens

by E. E. Smith

"What kind of planet is this, anyway?" he demanded, hotly. "I come here to see this louse Harkleroy because a friend of mine tells me that he's a big shot and so interested in my line that we can do a lot of business with each other. I give the lug fair warning, too—tell him plain that I've been around plenty and that if he tries to give me the works I'll rub him out like a pencil mark. So what happens? In spite of what I just tell him he tries dirty work on me, and I go to work on him—which he certainly has got coming to him. Then you and your flock of little tin boats come barging in as though I'd busted a law or something. Who do you think you are, anyway? What license you got to be butting into a private business deal?"

"Ah, I had not heard that version." Vision came on; the face upon the plate was typically Kalonian—blue, cold, cruel, and keen. "Harkleroy was warned, you say? Definitely?"

"I warned him plenty definitely. Ask any of the zwilniks in that private office of his. Most of them are still alive, and they all must of heard it."

The plate fogged, the speaker again gave out gibberish. The Lensmen knew, however, that the commander of the cruisers above them was indeed questioning the dead zwilnik's guards. They knew that Kinnison's story was being corroborated in full.

"You interest me." The Boskonian's language again became intelligible to the group at large. "We will forget Harkleroy—stupidity brings its own reward and the property damage is of no present concern. From what I have been able to learn of you, you have never belonged to that so-called Civilization. I know for a fact that you are not, and never have been, one of us. How have you been able to survive? And why do you work alone?"

"'How' is easy enough—by keeping one jump ahead of the other guy, like I did with your pal here, and by being smart enough to have good engineers put into my ship everything that any other one ever had and everything they could dream up besides. As to 'why,' that's simple, too. I don't trust anybody except myself. If nobody except myself ever knows what I'm going to do, or when, nobody except myself is ever going to be able to stick a knife into me when I ain't looking—see? So far, it's paid off big. I'm still around, and still healthy, while them that trusted other guys ain't."

"I see. Crude, but graphic. The more I study you, the more convinced I become that you would be a worth-while addition to our force—"

"No deal, Mendonai," Kinnison interrupted, shaking his unkempt head positively. "I never yet took orders from no boss, and I ain't going to, never."

"You misunderstand me, Thyron." The zwilnik was queerly patient and much too forbearing. Kinnison's insulting omission of his title should have touched him off like a rocket. "I was not thinking of you in any minor capacity, but as an ally. An entirely independent ally, working with us in certain mutually advantageous undertakings."

"Such as?" Kinnison allowed himself to betray his first sign of interest. "You may be talking sense now, brother, but what's in it for me? Believe me, there's got to be plenty."