not at all thin-skinned, was quick on the uptake. "Hush-hush? T. S.?"
"Top Secret. Very much so," Samms confirmed, "and we are going to keep some things about the Lens secret as long as we possibly can."
"Fair enough. Sorry folks, but you will agree that they're right on that. Well, then, Mr. Samms, who do you think it was that tried to kill you, and where do you think the Black Fleet came from?"
"I have no idea," Samms said, slowly and thoughtfully. "No. No idea whatever."
"What? Are you sure of that? Aren't you holding back maybe just a little bit of a suspicion, for diplomatic reasons?"
"I am holding nothing back; and through my Lens I can make you certain of the fact. Lensed thoughts come from the mind itself, direct, not through such voluntary muscles as the tongue. The mind does not lie—even such lies as you call 'diplomacy'."
The Lensman demonstrated and the reporter went on:
"He is sure, folks, which fact knocked me speechless for a second or two—which is quite a feat in itself. Now, Mr. Samms, one last question. What is all this Lens stuff really about? What are all you Lensmen—the Galactic Council and so on—really up to? What do you expect to get out of it? And why would anybody want to make such an all-out effort to get rid of you? And give it to me on the Lens, please, if you can do it and talk at the same time—that was a wonderful sensation, folks, of getting the dope straight and knowing that it was straight."
"I can and will answer both by voice and by Lens. Our basic purpose is ..." and he quoted verbatim the resounding sentences which Mentor had impressed so ineradicably upon his mind. "You know how little happiness, how little real well-being, there is upon any world today. We propose to increase both. What we expect to get out of it is happiness and well-being for ourselves, the satisfaction felt by any good workman doing the job for which he is best fitted and in which he takes pride. As to why anyone should want to kill me, the logical explanation would seem to be that some group or organization or race, opposed to that for which we Lensmen stand, decided to do away with us and started with me."
"Thank you, Mr. Samms. I am sure that we all enjoyed this interview very much. Now, folks, you all know 'Rocky Rod', 'Rod the Rock', Kinnison ... just a little closer, please ... thank you. I don't suppose you have any suspicions, either, any more than...."
"I certainly have!" Kinnison barked, so savagely that five hundred million people jumped as one. "How do you want it; voice, or Lens, or both?" Then on the Lens: "Think it over, son, because I suspect everybody!"
"Bub-both, please, Mr. Kinnison." Even Universal's star reporter was shaken by the quiet but deadly fury of the big Lensman's thought, but he rallied so quickly that his hesitation was barely noticeable. "Your Lensed thought to me was that you suspect everybody, Mr. Kinnison?"
"Just that. Everybody. I suspect every continental government of every world we know, including that of North America of Tellus. I suspect political parties and organized minorities. I suspect pressure groups. I suspect capital and I suspect labor. I suspect an organization of criminals. I suspect nations and races and worlds that no one of us has as yet heard of—not even you, the top-drawer newshawk of the universe."
"But you have nothing concrete to go on, I take it?"
"If I did have, do you think I'd be standing here talking to you?"
* * * * *
First Lensman Samms sat in his private quarters and thought.
Lensman Dronvire of Rigel Four stood behind him and helped him think.
Port Admiral Kinnison, with all his force and drive, began a comprehensive program of investigation, consolidation, expansion, redesigning, and rebuilding.
Virgilia Samms went to a party practically every night. She danced, she flirted, she talked. How she talked! Meaningless small talk for the most part—but interspersed with artless questions and comments which, while they perhaps did not put her partner of the moment completely at ease, nevertheless did not quite excite suspicion.
Conway Costigan, Lens under sleeve, undisguised but inconspicuous, rode the ether-lanes; observing minutely and reporting fully.
Jack Kinnison piloted and navigated and computed for his friend and boat-mate:
Mason Northrop; who, completely surrounded by breadboard hookups of new and ever-more-fantastic complexity, listened and looked; listened and tuned; listened and rebuilt; listened and—finally—took bearings and bearings and bearings with his ultra-sensitive loops.
DalNalten and Knobos, with dozens of able helpers, combed the records of three worlds in a search which produced as a by-product a monumental "who's who" of crime.
Skilled technicians fed millions of cards, stack by stack, into the most versatile and most accomplished machines known to the statisticians of the age.
And Dr. Nels Bergenholm, abandoning temporarily his regular line of work, devoted his peculiar talents to a highly abstruse research in the closely allied field of organic chemistry.
The walls of Virgil Samms' quarters became covered with charts, diagrams, and figures. Tabulations and condensations piled up on his desk and overflowed into baskets upon the floor. Until:
"Lensman Olmstead, of Alphacent, sir," his secretary announced.
"Good! Send him in, please."
The stranger entered. The two men, after staring intently at each other for half a minute, smiled and shook hands vigorously. Except for the fact that the newcomer's hair was brown, they were practically identical!
"I'm certainly glad to see you, George. Bergenholm passed you, of course?"
"Yes. He says that he can match your hair to mine, even the individual white ones. And he has made me a wig-maker's dream of a wig."
"Married?" Samms' mind leaped ahead to possible complications.
"Widower, same as you. And...."
"Just a minute—going over this once will be enough." He Lensed call after call. Lensmen in various parts of space became en rapport with him and thus with each other.
"Lensmen—especially you, Rod—George Olmstead is here, and his brother Ray is available. I am going to work."
"I still don't like it!" Kinnison protested. "It's too dangerous. I told the Universe I was going to keep you covered, and I meant it!"
"That's what makes it perfectly safe. That is, if Bergenholm is sure that the duplication is close enough ..."
"I am sure." Bergenholm's deeply resonant pseudo-voice left no doubt at all in any one of the linked minds. "The substitution will not be detected."
"... and that nobody knows, George, or even suspects, that you got your Lens."
"I am sure of that." Olmstead laughed quietly. "Also, nobody except us and your secretary knows that I am here. For a good many years I have made a specialty of that sort of thing. Photos, fingerprints, and so on have all been taken care of."
"Good. I simply can not work efficiently here," Samms expressed what all knew to be the simple truth. "Dronvire is a much better analyst-synthesist than I am; as soon as any significant correlation is possible he will know it. We have learned that the Towne-Morgan crowd, Mackenzie Power, Ossmen Industries, and Interstellar Spaceways are all tied in together, and that thionite is involved, but we have not been able to get any further. There is a slight correlation—barely significant—between deaths from thionite and the arrival in the Solarian System of certain Spaceways liners. The fact that certain officials of the Earth-Screen Service have been and are spending considerably more than they earn sets up a slight but definite probability that they are allowing space-ships or boats from space-ships to land illegally. These smugglers carry contraband, which may or may not be thionite. In short, we lack fundamental data in every department, and it is high time for me to begin doing my share in getting it."
"I don't check you, Virge." None of