The now fully reassured Delgonian snapped off his screen and a battle of wills ensued which made the subether boil. For Kinnison, although he no longer knew what the truth was, still possessed a large part of his mental power, and the Delgonian's mind, as has already been made clear, was a capable one indeed.
"Desist!" came the command. "Earthman, what happened?"
"Nothing," Kinnison replied truthfully. "Each of us could resist the other; neither could penetrate or control."
"Ah!" and nine Boskonian screens snapped off. Since the Lensman could not master one Delgonian, he would not be a menace to the massed minds of the nine of Boskone, and the questioning need not wait upon the slowness of speech. Thoughts beat into Kinnison's brain from all sides.
This power of mind was relatively new, yes. He did not know what it was. He went to Arisia, fell asleep, and woke up with it. A refinement, he thought, of hypnotism. Only advanced students in psychology could do it. He knew nothing except by hearsay of the old Brittania—he was a cadet then. He had never heard of Blakeslee, or of anything unusual concerning any one hospital ship. He did not know who had scouted Helmuth's base, or put the thionite into it. He had no idea who it was who had killed Helmuth. As far as he knew, nothing had ever been done about any Boskonian spies in Patrol bases. He had never happened to hear of the planet Medon, or of anyone named Bominger, or Madame Desplaines, or Prellin. He was entirely ignorant of any unusual weapons of offense—he was a psychologist, not an engineer or a physicist. No, he was not unusually adept with DeLameters—
"Hold on!" Eichmil commanded. "Stop questioning him, everybody! Now, Lensman, instead of telling us what you do not know, give us positive information, in your own way. How do you work? I am beginning to suspect that the man we really want is a director, not an operator."
This was a more productive line. Lensmen, hundreds of them, each worked upon a definite assignment. None of them had ever seen or ever would see the man who issued orders. He had not even a name, but was a symbol—Star A Star. They received orders through their Lenses, wherever they might be in space. They reported back to him in the same way. Yes, Star A Star knew what was going on in that room. He was reporting constantly—
A knife descended viciously. Blood spurted. The stump was dressed, roughly but effectively. They did not wish their victim to bleed to death when he died, and he was not to die in any fashion—yet.
And in the instant that Kinnison's Lens went dead, Worsel, from his safely distant nook, reached out direct to the mind of his friend, thereby putting his own life in jeopardy. He knew that there was an Overlord in that room, and the grue of a thousand helplessly sacrificed generations of forebears swept his sinuous length at the thought, despite his inward certainty of the new powers of his mind. He knew that of all the entities in the Universe, the Delgonians were most sensitive to the thought vibrations of Velantians. Nevertheless, he did it.