"Where?" all three wanted to ask, but they didn't—the Gray Lensman was gone.
VII.
Kinnison did start his flit, but he did not get far. In fact, he did not even reach his squalid room before cold reason told him that the job was only half done—yes, less than half. He had to give Boskone credit for having brains, and it was not at all likely that even such a comparatively small unit as a planetary headquarters would have only one string to its bow. They certainly would have been forced to install duplicate controls of some sort or other by the trouble they had had after Helmuth's supposedly impregnable Grand Base had been destroyed.
There were other straws pointing the same way. Where had those five strange thought-screened men come from? Bominger hadn't known of them apparently. If that idea was sound, the other headquarters would have a spy ray on the whole thing. Both sides used spy rays freely, of course, and to block them was, ordinarily, worse than to let them come. The enemies' use of the thought-screen was different. They realized that it made it easy for the unknown Lensman to discover their agents, but they were forced to use it because of the deadliness of the supposed mind-ray. Why hadn't he thought of this sooner, and had the whole area blocked off? Too late to cry about it now, though.
Assume the idea correct. They certainly knew now that he was a Lensman; probably were morally certain that he was the Lensman. His instantaneous change from a drunken dock-walloper to a cold-sober, deadly-skilled rough-and-tumble brawler—and the unexplained deaths of half-a-dozen agents, as well as that of Bominger himself—this was bad. Very, very bad—a flare lit tip-off, if there ever was one. Their spy rays would have combed him, millimeter by plotted cubic millimeter: they knew exactly where his Lens was, as well as he did himself. He had put his tail right into the wringer—wrecked the whole job right at the start—unless he could get that other headquarters outfit, too, and get them before they reported in detail to Boskone.
In his room, then, he sat and thought, harder and more intensely than he had ever thought before. No ordinary method of tracing would do. It might be anywhere on the planet, and it certainly would have no connection whatever with the thionite gang. It would be a small outfit; just a few men, but under smart direction. Their purpose would be to watch the business end of the organization, but not to touch it save in an emergency. All that the two groups would have in common would be recognition signals, so that the reserves could take over in case anything happened to Bominger—as it already had. They had him, Kinnison, cold—What to do? What to do?
The Lens. That must be the answer—it had to be. The Lens—what was it, really, anyway? Simply an aggregation of crystalloids. Not really alive; just a pseudolife, a sort of a reflection of his own life—he wondered—great Klono's brazen teeth and tail, could that be it? An idea had struck him, an idea so stupendous in its connotations and ramifications that he gasped, shuddered, and almost went faint at the shock. He started to reach for his Lens, then forced himself to relax and shot a thought to Base.
"Gerrond! Send me a portable spy-ray block, quick!"
"But that would give everything away!" protested the vice-admiral. "That's why we haven't been using them."