He was successful in finding and in defeating such a vessel. Peter van Buskirk led the storming party of Valerians—men of remote Earth-human ancestry, but of extraordinary size, strength and agility because of the enormous gravitation of generations of life on the planet Valeria—in wiping out those of the pirate crew not killed in the combat between the two vessels.
The Brittania's scientists secured the required data, but were unable to report immediately to Prime Base, as the pirates were blanketing all available channels of communication. Boskonian ships were gathering for the kill, and the crippled Patrol ship could neither run nor fight. Therefore each man was given a spool of tape bearing a complete record of everything that had occurred; and, after setting up a director-by-chance to make the empty ship pursue an unpredictable course in space, and after rigging bombs to explode her at the first touch of a ray, the Patrolmen paired off by lot and took to the lifeboats.
The erratic course of the cruiser brought her near the lifeboat in which Kinnison and Van Buskirk were, and there the pirates attempted to stop her. The ensuing explosion was so violent that flying wreckage disabled practically the entire personnel of one of the attacking ships, which did not have time to go free—inertialess—before the crash. The two Patrolmen captured the pirate vessel and drove her toward Earth. They reached the solar system of Velantia before the Boskonians blocked them off, thus compelling them again to take to their lifeboat. They landed upon the planet Delgon, where they were rescued from a horde of Catlats by Worsel, a highly intelligent winged reptile, a native of the neighboring planet of Velantia.
By means of improvements upon Velantian thought-screens the three destroyed most of the Overlords of Delgon, a sadistic race of monsters who had been preying upon the other people of the system by sheer power of mind. Worsel then accompanied the two Patrolmen to Velantia, where all the resources of the planet were devoted to the preparation of defense against the expected attack of the Boskonians. Several other of the Brittania's lifeboats reached Velantia, guided by Worsel's mind working through Kinnison's mind and Lens.
Kinnison intercepted a message from Helmuth, who "spoke for Boskone," and traced his communicator beam, thus getting his first line upon Boskonia's Grand Base. The pirates attacked Velantia, and six of their vessels were captured. In these six ships, manned by Velantian crews and blanketing ether and subether against the pirates' own communicators, the Patrolmen again set out toward Earth and the Prime Base of the Galactic Patrol.
Then Kinnison's Bergenholm broke down. The Bergenholm, the generator of the force that neutralizes inertia—the sine qua non of interstellar speed. For, while any mass in the free condition can assume an almost unlimited velocity, inert matter cannot equal even that of light—the veriest crawl, as space speeds go. Also, there is no magic, no getting of something for nothing, in the operation of a Bergenholm. It takes power, plenty of power, to run one, and whenever one goes out, the ship dependent upon it is, to all intents and purposes, anchored in space.
Therefore the Patrolmen were forced to land upon Trenco—which, as almost everyone knows, is the planet upon which is produced thionite, perhaps the deadliest of all habit-forming drugs—for repairs.
Meanwhile Helmuth, the Boskonian, had deduced that it was a Lensman who had been giving him so much trouble. He had already connected the Lens with Arisia; therefore he set out for Arisia to find out for himself just what it was that made the Lens such a powerful thing. He discovered that he was no match at all for an Arisian. He was given terrific mental punishment, but was allowed to return to his Grand Base alive and sane; being informed that he was spared because his destruction would not be good for the budding Civilization to which Boskonian culture was opposed. He was told further that the Arisians had given Civilization the Lens; that by its intelligent use, Civilization should be able to conquer Boskone's alien, abhorrent culture; that if it could not learn to use the Lens, it was not yet ready to become a Civilization, and Boskonia would be allowed to flourish for a time.
After various adventures upon Trenco—a peculiar planet indeed—Kinnison secured a new Bergenholm and went on. This time he managed to reach Tellus, and, after a spectacular battle in the stratosphere with a blockading fleet of the enemy, got down to Prime Base with his precious data. There he first revealed his conviction that the Boskonians were not ordinary pirates, but in fact composed a culture almost, if not quite, as strong as Civilization itself; and asked that certain scientists of the Patrol should try to develop a detector nullifier. He predicted a stalemate, and intimated that such a nullifier might well prove to be the deciding factor in the entire war.
By building ultrapowerful battleships, called "maulers," the Patrol gained a temporary advantage, but the stalemate soon ensued. Kinnison thought out a plan of action, in the pursuit of which he scouted a pirate base upon Aldebaran I. The personnel of this base, however, instead of being human or near-human beings, were Wheelmen, beings possessed of a sense of perception unknown to man. The Lensman was discovered before he could accomplish anything, and in the fight which followed he was very seriously wounded.