"It would be," Kinnison interrupted with a nod, "for you to make such an admission as you have just made."
"—I do not trust unreservedly this communication line. If you join me now, you may do so in peace. If you do not come to me, here and now, it is war to the death."
"Fair enough, at that," the Lensman admitted. "After all, you've got to save your face, and I haven't—yet. And if I team up with you I can't very well stay out of your palace forever. But before I come there I want to give you three things—a reminder, a caution, and a warning. I remind you that our first exchange of amenities cost you a thousand times as much as it did me. I caution you to consider again, and more carefully this time, the iceberg. I warn you that if we again come into conflict you will lose not merely a mine, but everything you have, including your life. So see to it that you lay no traps for me. I come."
He went out into the shop. "Take over, Sport," he told his gangster protégé. "I'm going up to the palace to see Menjo Bleeko. If I'm not back in two hours, and if your grapevine reports that Bleeko is out of the picture, what I've left in the store here is yours until I come back and take it away from you."
"I'll take care of it, boss—thanks," and the Lensman knew that in true Lonabarian gratitude the youth was already, mentally, slipping a long, keen knife between his ribs.
Without a qualm, but with every sense stretched to the limit and in instant readiness for any eventuality, Kinnison took a cab to the palace and entered its heavily guarded portals. He was sure that they would not cut him down before he got to Bleeko's room—that room would surely be the one chosen for the execution. Nevertheless, he took no chances. He was supremely ready to slay instantly every guard within range of his sense of perception at the first sign of inimical activity. Long before he came to them, he made sure that the beams which were set to search him for concealed weapons were really search beams and not lethal vibrations.
And as he passed those beams each one of them reported him clean. Rings, of course; a stickpin, and various other items of adornment. But Cartiff, the great jeweler, would be expected to wear very large and exceedingly expensive gems. And the beam has never been projected which could penetrate those Worsel-designed, Thorndyke-built walls of force to show that any one of those flamboyant gems was not precisely what it appeared to be.
Searched, combed minutely, millimeter by cubic millimeter, Kinnison was escorted by a heavily armed quartet of Bleeko's personal guards into his supremacy's private study. All four bowed as he entered—but they strode in behind him, then shut and locked the door.
"You fool!" Bleeko gloated from behind his massive desk. His face flamed with sadistic joy and anticipation. "You trusting, greedy fool! I have you exactly where I want you now. How easy! How simple! This entire building is screened and shielded—by my screens and shields. Your friends and accomplices, whoever or wherever they are, can neither see you nor know what is to happen to you. If your ship attempts your rescue, it will be blasted out of the ether. I will, personally, gouge out your eyes, tear off your nails, strip your hide from your quivering carcass—" Bleeko was now, in his raging exaltation, fairly frothing at the mouth.