The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith
he slumped down, spent and exhausted. He did not hurt so much, now; his suffering had mounted to such terrific heights of intolerable keenness that the nerves themselves, in outraged protest at carrying such a load, had blocked it off.
There was much more to do, but he simply could not do it without a rest. Even his iron will could not drive his tortured muscles to any further effort until they had been allowed to recuperate a little from what they had gone through.
How much air did he have left, if any, he wondered: foggily and with an entirely detached and disinterested impersonality. Maybe his tanks were empty. Of course it couldn’t have taken him so long to plug those leaks as it had seemed to, or he wouldn’t have had any air left at all, in tanks or suit. He couldn’t, however, have much left. He would look at his gauges and see.
But now he found that he could not move even his eyeballs, so deep was the coma that was enveloping him. Away off somewhere there was a billowy expanse of blackness, utterly heavenly in its deep, softly-cushioned comfort; and from that sea of peace and surcease there came reaching to embrace him huge, soft, tender arms. Why suffer, something crooned at him. It was so much easier to let go!
CHAPTER 17
Nothing Serious at All
Kinnison did not lose consciousness—quite. There was too much to do, too much that had to be done. He had to get out of here. He had to get back to his speedster. He had, by hook or by crook, to get back to Prime Base! Therefore, grimly, doggedly, teeth tight-locked in the enhancing agony of every movement, he drew again upon those hidden, those deeply buried resources which even he had no idea he possessed. His code was simple: the code of the Lens. While a Lensman lived he did not quit. Kinnison was a Lensman. Kinnison lived. Kinnison did not quit.
He fought back that engulfing tide of blackness, wave by wave as it came. He beat down by sheer force of will those tenderly beckoning, those sweetly seducing arms of oblivion. He forced the mass of protesting putty that was his body to do what had to be done. He thrust styptic gauze into the most copiously bleeding of his wounds. He was burned, too, he discovered then—they must have had a high-powered needle-beam on that truck, as well as the rifle—but he could do nothing about burns. There simply wasn’t time.
He found the power lead that had been severed by a bullet. Stripping the insulation was an almost impossible job, but it was finally accomplished, after a fashion. Bridging the gap proved to be even a worse one. Since there was no slack, the ends could not be twisted together, but had to be joined by a short piece of spare wire, which in turn had to be stripped and then twisted with each end of the severed lead. That task, too, he finally finished; working purely by feel although he was, and half-conscious withal in a wracking haze of pain.
Soldering those joints was of course out of the question. He was afraid even to try to insulate them with tape, lest the loosely-twined strands should fall apart in the attempt. He did have some dry handkerchiefs, however, if he could reach them. He could, and did; and wrapped one carefully about the wires’ bare joints. Then, apprehensively, he tried his neutralizer. Wonder of wonder, it worked! So did his driver!
In moments then he was rocketing up the shaft, and as he passed the opening out of which he had been blown he realized with amazement that what had seemed to him like hours must have been minutes only, and few even of them. For the frantic Wheelmen were just then lifting into place the temporary shield which was to stem the mighty outrush of their atmosphere. Wonderingly, Kinnison looked at his air-gauges. He had enough—if he hurried.
And hurry he did. He could hurry, since there was practically no atmosphere to impede his flight. Up the five-miles-deep shaft he shot and out into space. His chronometer, built to withstand even severer shocks than that of his fall, told him where his speedster was to be found, and in a matter of minutes he found her. He forced his rebellious right arm into the sleeve of his armor and fumbled at the lock. It yielded. The port swung open. He was inside his own ship again.
Again the encroaching universe of blackness threatened, but again he fought it off. He could not pass out—yet! Dragging himself to the board, he laid his course upon Sol, too distant by far to permit of the selection of such a tiny objective as its planet Earth. He connected the automatic controls.
He was weakening fast, and he knew it. But from somewhere and in some fashion he must get strength to do what must be done—and somehow he did it. He cut in the Berg, cut in maximum blast. Hang on, Kim! Hang on for just a second more! He disconnected the spacer. He killed the detector nullifiers. Then, with the utterly last remnant of his strength he thought into his Lens.
“Haynes.” The thought went out blurred, distorted, weak. “Kinnison. I’m coming . . . . com . . . .”
He was done. Out, cold. Utterly spent. He had already done too much—far, far too much. He had driven that pitifully mangled body of his to its ultimately last possible movement; his wracked and tortured mind to its ultimately last possible thought. The last iota of even his tremendous reserve of vitality was consumed and he plunged, parsecs deep, into the black depths of oblivion which had so long and so unsuccessfully been trying to engulf him. And on and on the speedster flashed at the very peak of her unimaginably high speed; carrying the insensible, the utterly spent, the sorely wounded, the abysmally unconscious Lensman toward his native Earth.
But Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman, had done everything that had had to be done before he blacked out. His final thought, feeble though it was, and incomplete, did its work.
Port Admiral Haynes was seated at his desk, discussing matters of import with an office-full of executives, when that thought arrived. Hardened old spacehound that he was, and survivor of many encounters and hospitalizations, he knew instantly what that thought connoted and from the depths of what dire need it had been sent.
Therefore, to the amazement of the officers in the room, he suddenly leaped to his feet, seized his microphone, and snapped out orders. Orders, and still more orders. Every vessel in seven sectors, of whatever class or tonnage, was to shove its detectors out to the limit. Kinnison’s speedster is out there somewhere. Find her—get her—kill her drive and drag her in here, to number ten landing field. Get a pilot here, fast—no, two pilots, in armor. Get them off the top of the board, too—Henderson and Watson or Schermerhorn if they’re anywhere within range. He then Lensed his life-long friend Surgeon-Marshal Lacy, at Base Hospital.
“Sawbones, I’ve got a boy out that’s badly hurt. He’s coming in free—you know what that means. Send over a good doctor. And have you got a nurse who knows how to use a personal neutralizer and who isn’t afraid to go into the net?”
“Coming myself. Yes.” The doctor’s thought was as crisp as the admiral’s. “When do you want us?”
“As soon as they get their tractors on that speedster—you’ll know when that happens.”
Then, neglecting all other business, the Port Admiral directed in person the far-flung screen of ships searching for Kinnison’s flying midget.
Eventually she was found; and Haynes, cutting off his plates, leaped to a closet, in which was hanging his own armor. Unused for years, nevertheless it was kept in readiness for instant service; and now, at long last, the old spacehound had a good excuse to use it again. He could have sent out one of the younger men, of course, but this was one job that he was going to do himself.
Armored, he strode out into the landing field across the paved way. There awaiting him were two armored figures, the two top-bracket pilots. There were the doctor and the nurse. He barely saw—or, rather, he saw without noticing—a saucy white cap atop a riot of red-bronze-auburn curls; a symmetrical young body in its spotless white. He did not notice the face at all. What he saw was that there was a neutralizer strapped snugly into the curve of her back, that it was fitted properly, and that it was not yet functioning.
For this that faced them was no ordinary job. The speedster would land free. Worse, the admiral feared—and rightly—that Kinnison