"You do not know my name," the stranger's thought came clearly now. "I am the 'Toots,' the 'Queen of Sheba,' the 'Cleopatra,' the 'Elder Person' of Lyrane II. Do you know me, O Kinnison of Sol III?"
"I know you," he shot back. What a brain—what a terrific brain—that sexless woman had!
"We are invaded by manlike beings in ships of space, who wear screens against our thoughts and who slay without cause. Will you help us with your ship of might and your mind of power?"
"Just a sec, Toots—Henderson!" Orders snapped. The Dauntless spun end-for-end.
"QX, Helen of Troy," he reported then. "We're on our way back there at maximum blast. Say, that name 'Helen of Troy' fits you better than anything else I have called you. You don't know it, of course, but that other Helen launched a thousand ships. You're launching only one; but, believe me, Babe, the old Dauntless is SOME ship!"
"I hope so." The Person of Lyrane II, ignoring the byplay, went directly to the heart of the matter in her usual pragmatic fashion. "We have no right to ask; you have every reason to refuse—"
"Don't worry about that, Helen. We're all good little boy scouts at heart. We're supposed to do a good deed every day, and we have missed a lot of days lately."
"You are what you call 'kidding,' I think." A matriarch could not be expected to possess a sense of humor. "But I do not lie to you or pretend. We did not, do not now, and never will like you or yours. With us now, however, it is that you are much the lesser of two terrible evils. If you will aid us now, we will tolerate your Patrol."
"And that's big of you, Helen, no fooling." The Lensman was really impressed. The plight of the Lyranians must be desperate indeed. "Just keep a stiff upper lip, all of you. We're coming loaded for bear, and we are not exactly creeping."
Nor were they. The big cruiser had plenty of legs and she was using them all; the engineers were giving her all the oof that her drivers would take. She was literally blasting a hole through space; she was traveling so fast that the atoms of substance in the interstellar vacuum, merely wave forms though they were, simply could not get out of the flier's way. They were being blasted into nothingness against the Dauntless' wall shields.