Kinnison fell silent, and while he frowned in thought Haynes dismissed the Chickladorian, with orders that his every want be supplied.
"What do you deduce from those facts?" the Port Admiral presently asked.
"Plenty," the Gray Lensman said, darkly. "I smell a rat. In fact, it stinks to high Heaven. Boskone."
"You may be right," the chief of staff conceded. It was hopeless, he knew, for him to try to keep up with this man's mental processes. "But why, and above all, how?"
"'Why' is easy. They both owe us a lot, and want to pay us in full. Both hate us all to pieces. 'How' is immaterial. One found the other, some way. They're together, just as sure as hell's a mantrap, and that's what matters. It's bad. Very, very bad, believe me."
"Orders?" asked Haynes. He was a big man; big enough to ask instructions from anyone who knew more than he did—big enough to make no bones of such asking.
"One does not give orders to the Port Admiral," Kinnison mimicked him lightly, but meaningly. "One may request, perhaps, or suggest, but—"
"Skip it! I'll take a club to you yet, you young hellion! You said you'd take orders from me. QX—I'll take 'em from you. What are they?"
"No orders yet, I don't think—" Kinnison ruminated. "No ... not until after we investigate. I'll have to have Worsel and Van Buskirk; we're the only three who have had experience. We'll take the Dauntless, I think—it'll be safe enough. Thought-screens will stop the Overlords cold, and a scrambler will take care of the invisibility business if they use the same principle we do, and they very probably do."