Children of the lens

by E. E. Smith

VIII.

But Kinnison's mind, while slower than his daughter's and in many respects less able, was sure. The four Boskonians in the control room were screened against his every mental force and it was idle even to hope for another such lucky break as he had just had. One was QX and to be received thankfully, but coincidences simply did not happen. They were armored by this time and they had both machine rifles and semiportable projectors. They were entrenched; evidently intending to fight a delaying and defensive battle, knowing that if they could keep the aggressor at bay until the pseudospace of the tube had been traversed, the Lensman would not have a chance. Armed with all they could use of the most powerful mobile weapons aboard and being four to one, they undoubtedly thought that they could win easily enough.

Kinnison thought otherwise. Since he could not use his mind against them he would use whatever he could find, and this ship, having come upon such a mission, would be carrying plenty of weapons—and those four men certainly hadn't had time to tamper with them all. He might even find some negative-matter bombs.

Setting up a spy-ray block, he proceeded to rummage. They couldn't see him, and, if any one of them had a sense of perception and cut his screen for even a fraction of a second to use it, the battle would end then and there. And, if they decided to rush him, so much the better. They remained, however, forted up, as he had thought that they would, and he rummaged in peace. Various death-dealing implements, invitingly set up, he ignored after one cursory glance into their interiors. He knew weapons—these had been fixed. He went on to the armory.

He did not find any negabombs, but he found plenty of untouched weapons like those now emplaced in the control room. The rifles were beauties, high-caliber, water-cooled things, each with a heavy dureum shield-plate and a single-ply screen. Each had also a beam, but machine-rifle beams weren't so hot. Conversely, the semiportables had lots of screen, but very little dureum. Kinnison lugged one rifle and two semiportables, by easy stages, into the room next to the control room; so placing them that the control panels would be well out of the line of fire.

What gave Kinnison his chance was the fact that the enemies' weapons were set to cover the door. Apparently they had not considered the possibility that the Lensman would attempt to flank them by blasting through an inch and a half of alloy. Kinnison did not know whether he could do it fast enough to mow them down from the side before they could reset their magnetic clamps, or not; but he'd give it the good old college try. It was bound to be a mighty near thing, and the Lensman grinned wolfishly behind the guard plates of his helmet as he arranged his weapons to save every possible fractional second of time.

Aiming one at a spot some three feet above the floor, the other a little lower, Kinnison cut in the full power of his semiportables and left them on. He energized the rifle's beam—every little bit helped—set the defensive screens at "full", and crouched down into the saddle behind the dureum shield. He had checked the feeds long since; he had plenty of rounds.

Two large spots and a small one smoked briefly, grew red. They turned bright red, then yellow, merged into one blinding spot. Metal melted, sluggishly at first, then thinly, then flaring, blowing out in raging coruscations of sparks as the fiercely-driven beams ate in. Through!

The first small opening appeared directly in line between the muzzle of Kinnison's rifle and one of the guns of the enemy, and in the moment of its appearance the Patrolman's weapon began its stuttering, shattering roar. The Boskonians had seen the hot spot upon the wall, had known instantly what it meant, and were working frantically to swing their gun mounts around so as to interpose their dureum shields and to bring their own rifles to bear. They had almost succeeded. Kinnison caught just the bulge of one suit of armor in his sights, but that was enough. The kinetic energy of the stream of metal tore him out of the saddle; he was literally riddled while still in air. Two savage bursts took care of the semiportables and their operators—as has been intimated, the shields of the semis were not designed to withstand the type of artillery Kinnison was using.