Worsel was running out of time, fast. He couldn't treat the thing very much rougher without killing him, if he wasn't dead already. He couldn't take him aboard; he had to cut that screen here and now! He could see how the armor was put together; but, armored as he was, he could not take it apart. And, since the whole ship was empty of air, he could not open his own.
Or could he? He could. He could breathe space long enough to do what had to be done. He cut off his air, loosened a plate enough to release four or five gnarled hands, and, paying no attention to his involuntarily laboring lungs, set furiously to work. He tore open the Boskonian's armor, snapped off his thought-screen. The creature was not quite dead yet—good! He didn't know a thing, though, nor did any member of his crew, except ... yes, one man—a big shot—had got away. Who or what, was he?
"Tell me!" Worsel demanded, with the full power of mind and Lens, even while he was exploring with all his skill and speed. "TELL ME!"
But the Boskonian was dying fast. The ungentle treatment, and now the lack of air, were taking toll. His patterns were disintegrating by the second, faster and faster. Meaningless blurs, which, under Worsel's vicious probing, condensed into something which seemed to be a Lens.
A Lensman? Impossible—starkly unthinkable! But jet back—hadn't Kim intimated a while back that there might be such things as Black Lensmen?
But Worsel himself wasn't feeling so good. He was only half conscious. Red, black, and purple spots were dancing in front of every one of his eyes. He sealed his suit, turned on his air, gasped, and staggered. Two of the nearest Velantians, all of whom had, of course, been en rapport with him throughout, came rushing to his aid; arriving just as he recovered full control.
"Back to the Velan, everybody!" he ordered. "No time for any more fun—we've got to get that lifeboat!" Then, as soon as he had been obeyed: "Bomb that hulk ... good. Flit!"
Overtaking the lifeboat did not take long. Spearing it with a tractor and yanking it alongside required only seconds. For all his haste, Worsel found in it only something that looked as though it once might have been a Delgonian Lensman. It had blown itself apart with a grenade. Because of its reptilian tenacity of life, however, it was not quite dead; its Lens still showed an occasional flicker of light and its shattered mind was not yet entirely devoid of patterns. Worsel studied that mind until all trace of life had vanished, then again reported to the Co-ordinator.