"How about the observers?" Kinnison asked. "They have four auxiliaries there, you know."
"That's strictly up to you." Haynes was unconcerned. "Smearing that base is the only thing I insist on. We'll wipe out the observers or let them observe and report, whichever you say; but that base goes—it has been there far too long already."
"Be nicer to let them alone," Kinnison decided. "We're not supposed to know anything about them. You won't have to use the primaries, will you?"
"No. It's a fairly large building, as business blocks go, but it lacks a lot of being big enough to be a first-class base. We can burn the ground out from under all its foundations with our secondaries."
He called an adjutant. "Get me Sector 19." Then, as the seamed, scarred face of an old Lensman appeared upon a plate:
"You can go to work on Cominoche now, Parker. Twelve maulers. Twenty heavy caterpillars and about fifty units of Q-type screen, remote control. Supplies and service. Have them muster all available fire-fighting apparatus. If desirable, import some—we want to save as much of the place as we can. I'll come over in the Dauntless."
He glanced at Kinnison, one eye-brow raised quizzically.
"I feel as though I rate a little vacation; I think I'll go and watch this," he commented. "Got time to come along?"
"I think so. It's more or less on my way to Lundmark's Nebula."