Only Helmuth, in his inner-shielded control compartment, was left; and Helmuth was the directing intelligence, the master mind, and not a mere operator. And, now that he had no operators to direct, he was utterly helpless. He could see the stupendous fleet of the patrol; he could understand fully its dire menace; but he could neither stiffen his screens nor energize a single beam. He could only sit, grinding his teeth in helpless fury, and watch the destruction of the armament which, if it could only have been in operation, would have blasted those battleships and maulers from the skies as though they had been so many fluffy bits of thistledown.
Time after time he leaped to his feet, as if about to dash across to one of the control stations; but each time he sank back into his seat at the desk. One firing station would be little, if any, better than none at all. Besides, that accursed Lensman was back of this. He was—must be—right here in the dome, somewhere. He wanted him to leave this desk; that was what he was waiting for! As long as he stayed at the desk he himself was safe. For that matter, this whole dome was safe. The projector had never been mounted that could break down those screens. No—no matter what happened, he would stay at the desk!
Kinnison, watching, marveled at his fortitude. He himself could not have stayed there, he knew; and he also knew now that Helmuth was going to stay. Time was flying; five of the fifteen minutes were gone. He had hoped that Helmuth would leave that well-protected inner sanctum, with its unknown potentialities; but if the pirate would not come out, the Lensman would go in. The storming of that inner stronghold was what his new armor had been designed for.
In he went, but he did not catch Helmuth napping. Even before he crashed the screens his own defensive zones burst into furiously coruscant activity, and through that flame there came tearing the metallic slugs of a high-caliber machine rifle.
Ha! There was a rifle, even though he had not been able to find it! Clever guy, that Helmuth! And what a break that he had taken time to learn how to hold this suit up against the trickiest kind of machine-rifle fire!
Kinnison's screens were almost those of a battleship; his armor almost, relatively, as strong. And he could hold that armor upright. Therefore, through the raging beam of the semiportable projector he plowed, and straight up that torrent of raging steel he drove his way. And now from his own mighty projector, against Helmuth's armor, there raved out a beam scarcely less potent than that of a semiportable. The Lensman's armor did not mount a water-cooled machine rifle—there was a limit to what even that powerful structure could carry—but grimly, with every faculty of his newly enlarged mind concentrated upon that thought-screened, armored head behind the belching gun, Kinnison held his line and forged ahead.
But Helmuth could not now reach that ball of force—and Kinnison's mighty armor forged undamaged through the hail of metal.