"QX. Now we can take things a bit easier." Kinnison had so arranged matters that no one except himself could think into that stronghold, and he himself would not. He would not think into that tantalizing enigma, nor toward it, nor even of it, until he was completely ready to do so. And how many persons, I wonder, really realize just how much of a feat that was? Realize the sort of mental training that required?
"How many gamma-zeta tracers can you put out, chief?" Kinnison asked then, more conversationally.
A brief consultation; then, "Ten in regular use. By tuning in all our spares we can put out sixty."
"At two diameters' distance forty-eight fields will surround this planet at one-hundred-percent overlap. Please have that many set that way. Of the other twelve, set three to go well outside the first sphere—say at four diameters out—covering the line from this planet to Lundmark's Nebula. Set the last nine to be thrown out as far as you can read them accurately to only the first decimal on your screens, centering on the same line. Not much overlap is necessary on these backing fields—bare contact is enough. Release nothing, of course, until I get there. And while the boys are setting things up, you might go inert—it's safe enough now—so that I can match your intrinsic velocity and come aboard."
There followed the maneuvering necessary for one inert body to approach another in space, then Kinnison's incredible housing of steel was hauled into the airlock by means of space lines attached to magnetic clamps. The outer door of the lock closed behind him, the inner one opened, and the Lensman entered the flagship.
First to the armory, where he clambered stiffly out of his small battleship and gave orders concerning its storage. Then to the control room, stretching and bending hugely as he went, in vast relief at his freedom from the narrow and irksome confinement which he had endured so long.
Of all the men in that control room, only two knew Kinnison personally. All knew of him, however, and as the tall gray-clad figure entered there was a loud, quick cheer.
"Hi, fellows—thanks." Kinnison waved a salute to the room as a whole. "Hi, Port Admiral! Hi, Commandant!" He saluted Haynes and von Hohendorff as perfunctorily, and greeted them as casually, as though he had last seen them an hour, instead of ten weeks, before; as though the intervening time had been spent in the veriest idleness, instead of in the fashion in which it actually had been spent.
Old von Hohendorff greeted his erstwhile pupil cordially enough, but: "Out with it!" Haynes demanded. "What did you do? How did you do it? What does all this confounded rigmarole mean? Tell us all about it—all you can, I mean," he added, hastily.