"I'll say not. The ship is yours. I want you to get acquainted with every man on board. Go anywhere you like—except the private quarters, of course—even to the control room. The boys all know that you're at large."
"The language—but I'm talking English now!"
"Sure. I've been giving it to you right along. You know it as well now as I do."
She stared at him in awe. Then, her natural buoyancy asserting itself, she flitted out of the room with a wave of her hand.
And Kinnison sat down to think. A girl—a kid who wasn't dry behind the ears yet—wearing beads worth a full-grown fortune, sent somewhere—to do what? Lyrane II, a perfect matriarchy. Lonabar, a planet of zwilniks that knew all about Tellus, but that Tellus had never even heard of, sending expeditions to Lyrane. To the System, perhaps not specifically to Lyrane II. Why? For what? To do what? Strange, new jewels of fabulous value. What was the hookup? It didn't make any kind of sense yet—not enough data.
And faintly, waveringly, barely impinging upon the outermost, most tenuous fringes of his mind he felt something: the groping, questing summons of an incredibly distant thought.
"Male of Civilization ... Person of Tellus ... Kinnison of Tellus ... Lensman Kinnison of Sol III.... Any Lens-bearing officer of the Galactic Patrol—" Endlessly the desperately urgent, almost imperceptible thought implored.
Kinnison stiffened. He reached out with the full power of his mind, seized the thought, tuned to it, and hurled a reply—and when that mind really pushed a thought, it traveled.
"Kinnison of Tellus acknowledging!" His answer fairly crackled on its way.