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semi-portable. The
Lensman's armor did not mount a water-cooled machine rifle-there was a limit
to what
even that powerful structure could carry-but grimly, with every faculty of his
newly
enlarged mind concentrated upon that thought screened, armored head behind the
belching gun, Kinnison held his line and forged ahead.
Well it was that the Lensman was concentrating upon that screened head,
for
when the screen weakened slightly and a thought began to seep through it
toward an
enigmatically sparkling ball of force, Kinnison was ready. He blanketed the
thought
savagely, before it could take form, and attacked the screen so viciously that
Helmuth
had either to restore full coverage instantly or die then and there. For the
Lensman had
studied that ball long and earnestly. It was the one thing about the whole
base that he
could not understand, the one thing, therefore, of which he had been afraid.
But he was afraid of it no longer. It was operated, he now knew, by
thought, and,
no matter how terrific its potentialities might be, it now was and would
remain perfectly
harmless, for if the pirate chief softened his screen enough to emit a
thought, he would
never think again.
Therefore he rushed. At full blast he hurdled the rifle and crashed full
against the
armored figure behind it. Magnetic clamps locked and held, and, driving
projectors
furiously ablaze, he whirled around and forced the madly struggling Helmuth
back,
toward the line along which the bellowing rifle was still spewing forth a
continuous storm
of metal.
Helmuth's utmost efforts sufficed only to throw the Lensman out of
balance, and
both figures crashed to the floor. And now the madly fighting armored pair
rolled over
and over-straight into the line of fire.
First Kinnison, the bullets whining, shrieking off the armor of his
personal
battleship and crashing through or smashing ringingly against whatever
happened to be
in the ever-changing line or ricochet. Then Helmuth, and as the fierce-driven
metal
slugs tore in their multitudes through his armor and through and through his
body,
riddling his every vital organ, that was THE END
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