The face blurred, and now with distance sharpened into that of the evil features of Virgil Samms, Solarian Councilor.

Around him figures.

Men in uniform, grinning, evil.

Women in ballroom dresses, smiling, vacuous puppets.

An opulent ballroom, music, dancing.

At the edge of the crowd, a figure standing Out, different.

He moves toward the center slowly, purposefully.

They do not see him, they do not hear him.

His silhouette ringed in light.

He nears the evil one.

Draws and fires.

FLAME!.

Burned and blackened, The evil one falls to the ground.

The opulent walls fade, the female figures gone, A group of uniformed men of the Solarian Patrol Standing on a plane with mountains around, and one In the background, shorter than the rest, truncated, Sheathed in untarnished metal The Hill.

The uniformed figures scurry about looking for a place to hide, looking fearfully about.

In the sky a little dot grows and grows and grows, larger and larger.

The spot separates into many black dots.

s.p.a.ceships closing in. Beams flash down.

The evil patrolmen run and are burned to black figures.

Right triumphs.

The man was awake. His eyes were open and he was looking at Larry with his uniform of s.p.a.ce black- and-silver in horror.

[FEAR! SUICIDE!].

His heart stopped.

The doctor was unable to keep it going. The patient was mentally committing suicide!

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After it was over Larry Lensed k.n.o.bos.

[We are in the midst of an emergency,] k.n.o.bos replied. [Please be brief.]

[I have information. I'm not certain of its significance,] Larry stated, and then reviewed the major points of the two sequences he had received from the man he probed.

[Both sequences are significant,] k.n.o.bos told him. [A few minutes ago there was an attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate Virgil Samms. It failed. Please wait a moment.] k.n.o.bos contacted Samms and the Commissioner of Public Safety, Roderick Kinnison. In a few short sentences he explained the circ.u.mstances of Larry's information.

The three came into Larry's mind and Larry saw unfolded before him the minds and personalities of two of the most fantastic individuals he was ever to know. Two men who had just created a force they had been molding all their lives. A force which would become the backbone of civilization: the Galactic Patrol. They were good men. Tremendous men. Hard. Clean. Honest. And enormously capable. Without deceit, pettiness or self importance. The difference between them and the caricatures in the sequence he was to present was so absurd and farcical that Larry laughed.

When they had reviewed the sequences, Kinnison remarked, [I can appreciate your laughter. The intensity of this man's belief almost made me doubt Virgil.]

[The sequences are also important of themselves,] Samms said [They are too elaborate, too stylized for the mind that held them to create them on its own. Somehow they were implanted in exact detail by an expert.

[Red, your suspicions and Bergenholm's deductions are vindicated. It appears that your Grand Fleet emergency callout was fully justified. And it looks like your ensigns aren't going to have long gray whiskers before they see action. They may not even be able to finish shaving.

[Lensman McQueen,] Samms was formal, [Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention so quickly.] Then informal, [And Larry, drop in on me when this a.s.signment is over. I'd like to meet you again.]

Samms and Kinnison went back to work. k.n.o.bos remained only long enough to comment, [We will expect you Friday.]

Larry Lensed Hanovich. [I need a status report.]

[Did you hear about the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on Samms yet?] Hanovich asked excitedly.

[He didn't say much about it,] Larry answered dryly.

Hanovich did a mental double take as the implications of what Larry said registered. His att.i.tude began to change from one of equal status to deference.

[Status report?] Larry asked, again.

[Copernicus Control is in full operation on emergency power. The operators are in vacuum suits.

The substation will be out indefinitely. The V2 was coming from the fire extinguisher system.

Someone replaced a bottle of CO2, with V2. Thanks to Holt, they were back on the air in half an hour.

[Officer Bratmon's suspect suicide before they could get to him. He cut the control cable in two places. Estimates to repair run two to three days. We have armed, armored guards on the northern cables. No word on the prisoners]

[Both dead,] Larry reported. [Why so long to repair the cable?]

[Each is made up of 600 twisted, shielded pairs of conductors. It takes anywhere up to five minutes to strip, identify and splice a single one, and since the far end is inside the locked, auxilliary control room, they're still trying to find a way to identify wires in that end of the cable.]

[Tell Copernicus Control to get a crew ready to take over the battery from the control room when they get inside,] Larry commanded. [Did you hear about the Grand Fleet call out?]

[Yes,] Hanovich answered. [We're on full alert status. I've had all of the entrances closed and everything is fully manned. Everything's quiet.]

[All right,] Larry commented. [I'm late in mentioning this but have the guards watch for someone who comes out to find out how successful the attacks were. We caught both attackers, so their controller has no way of telling what happened. He'll probably have to do it in person.]

[I'll see to it immediately,] Hanovich answered.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE LAST SPY.

Lensman Larry McQueen was on his way to the Security control center when his communicator beeped.

It was Hanovich. Once Larry knew, he bypa.s.sed the device and Lensed Hanovich directly.

[I understand these people tend to suicide?] Hanovich asked cautiously.

[Yes. The sight of a Patrol uniform seems to panic them.]

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[How would you like to scare another one to death?]

[Where is he?] Larry asked.

[She should show up at the north pa.s.sageway tube any minute now,] Hanovich answered. [We checked Out your inquiry about people asking questions. A woman posing as a correspondent for Universal Telenews showed up about half an hour ago at the south pa.s.sageway asking questions. She's just about had time to get to the north pa.s.sageway. Her credentials don't check. The guards have been alerted and will try to hold her until you get there.]

[How many guards have you got there?] Larry asked after giving orders to the transporter driver.

[Two,] Hanovich answered. [You met them.]

[I wasn't paying that much attention at the time. Weapons?]

[They have a semi-portable, a Standish and sidearms.]

[What do you need me out there for? Just to bring her in?] Larry asked, puzzled.

[Backup, and as a witness in case she suicides,] Hanovich answered candidly. Larry thought it a little uncharacteristic of him but a.s.sumed it was part of a changing att.i.tude. [Besides, someone has to bring her in and question her.]

On the way Out to the tube Larry considered his own reluctance to bring the woman in. He discovered with surprise that he was reluctant to deal with any of these people. Why? In spite of their good intentions, they were wrong in what they were trying to do and he had to stop them.

Why? He knew why. The victims. The innocent. The good and kind. The children. Regardless of intentions, the victims suffered.

Suddenly he realized how the man back there in the hospital had gotten to him. Had gotten to him deeply because Larry had a.s.sociated him with the victims. In a way the man had been a victim but he had tried to make other people victims too. He had been used. He, and others like him, had to be stopped from using and destroying others. And if in stopping them, they would die, it would be by their own hand or under the control of others. They were both offenders and victims. He'd like to get his hands on the one behind this.

All right, Larry resolved, someday I'm going to nail the person behind it all. Whoever he is, someday I'm going to nail his hide up on the wall. Meanwhile, I'm going to stop his first victims, his agents, from creating more victims. Then I'm going after him. Personally.

Larry's communicator beeped again. It was Hanovich with more news. In talking to the security detail at Earthside Communications, they had mentioned a woman calling up and asking for her husband in Maintenance. There was no such person and no one from Maintenance had visited them that night. She had also just called Copernicus Control and found out that they were back in operation.

Larry listened without comment. It sounded like there had been an attack planned on Earthside Communications, which aborted through lack of personnel. Why was she collecting this information?

To report to someone, obviously. Maybe it would be worthwhile playing cat and mouse for awhile.

[Hanovich. Are you monitoring the phone traffic from here to Tellus?] Larry asked.

[No. I can't,] Hanovich answered. [That's interplanetary and I can't do it without authorization.]

[Great! Wake up the paper shuffler at the local Patrol office and get him moving. Tell him anything. Tell him you talked to Kinnison himself and he'll personally authorize it!]

Hanovich agreed.

Larry arrived at the tube before the woman. An armored guard stopped him at the airtight door. Up ahead two transporters were parked sideways across the roadway with the Standish between them. The second guard sat behind it.

Waiting.

'What would you like us to do, lieutenant?' the guard asked. 'Exactly what you're doing,' Larry said. 'For the moment he considered getting back into the armor lying in the rear of his transporter, then discarded the idea. Two men in armor should be enough. He doubted if she'd try V2 again. He told the driver to park the transporter by the roadside and get behind the blockade.

He could wear Larry's armor, if that made him feel safer.

Then they waited.

She arrived driving her own transporter, a gaily decorated one.

'h.e.l.lo,' she said, looking up at Larry and smiling.

Larry could feel her shudder in fear, though there was no visible sign of it.

'Please park over there,' the guard said, pointing to the side of the road behind the other transporter.

'Hi,' Larry said, and smiled broadly.

She wheeled the transporter smartly into place, got out and came walking back. She was a few centimeters shorter than Larry; blond and very busty. Really something to look at.

'My name's Glinda Hasla,' she said. 'I'm a correspondent with University Telenews.'

Lt. Larry McQueen, Solarian Patrol, at your service,' Larry said, and nodded his head in salute.

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He looked her in the eye, and deliberately made his eyes get a little larger.