"Don't tell me that there is such a base around here!" exclaimed the Tellurian in delight. "Is there, really?"
"There is. It is so strong that we have not been able to touch it, and it is manned and staffed by natives of your own planet, Tellus of Sol. We reported it to Prime Base some eighty-three days ago, just after we discovered it. You're direct from there——" He fell silent. This was no way to be talking to a gray Lensman.
"I was in the hospital then, fighting with my nurse because she wouldn't give me anything to eat," Kinnison explained with a laugh. "When I left Tellus I didn't check up on the late data—didn't think I would need it quite so soon. If you've got it, though——"
"Hospital! You?" queried one of the younger Lensmen.
"Yeah—bit off more than I could chew." And the Tellurian briefly described his misadventure with the Wheelmen of Aldebaran I. "This other thing has come up since then, though, and I won't be sticking my neck out that way again. If you've got such a made-to-order base as that in this region, it'll save me a long trip. Where is it?"
They gave him its coördinates and what little information they had been able to secure concerning it. They did not ask him why he wanted that data. They may have wondered at his temerity in daring to scout alone a fortress whose strength had kept at bay the massed patrol forces of the sector; but if they did so they kept their thoughts well screened. For this was a gray Lensman, and very evidently a super-powered individual, even of that select group whose weakest members were powerful indeed. If he felt like talking they would listen; but Kinnison did not talk. He did the listening.
Then, when he had learned everything they knew of the Boskonian base, he said, "Well, I'd better be buzzing. Clear ether, fellows!" And he was gone.
XX.
Out from Radelix and into deep space shot the speedster, bearing the gray Lensman toward Boyssia II, where the Boskonian base was situated. The patrol forces had not even yet been able to locate it definitely; therefore, it must be cleverly hidden indeed. It was manned and staffed by Tellurians—and this was fairly close to the line first taken by the pilot of the pirate vessel whose crew had been so decimated by VanBuskirk and his Valerians. There couldn't be so many Boskonian bases with Tellurian personnel, Kinnison reflected. It was well within the bounds of possibility, even of probability, that he might again encounter here his former, but unsuspecting, shipmates.