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might suggest
to the boys that they check up here and there, particularly around the rough
spots. If
any of them find any trace anywhere of off-color, sour, or even slightly
rancid
Lensmanship, with or without a Lens appearing in the picture, burn a hole in
space
getting it to me. QX? . . . Thanks."
Viewed in this new perspective, Renwood of Antigan IV might have been
neither
a patriot nor a victim, but a saboteur. The tube could have been a prop, used
deliberately to cap the mysterious climax. The four honest and devoted guards
were the
real casualties. Renwoodùor whoever he wasùhaving accomplished his object of
undermining and destroying the whole planet's morale, might simply have gone
elsewhere to continue his nefarious activities. It was fiendishly clever. That
spectacularly theatrical finale was certainly one for the book. The whole
thing, though,
was very much of a piece in quality of workmanship with what he had done in
becoming
the Tyrant of Thrale. Far-fetched? No. He had already denied in his thoughts
that the
Boskonian operators were super-men. Conversely, he wasn't, either. He would
have to
admit that they might very well be as good as he was; to deny them the ability
to do
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anything he himself could do would be sheer stupidity.
Where did that put him? On Radelix, by Klono's golden gills! A good-sized
planet.
Important enough, but not too much so. People human. Comparatively little hell
being
raised thereùyet. Very few Lensmen, and Gerrond the top. Hm . . . m. Gerrond.
Not too
bright, as Lensmen went, and inclined to be a bit brass-hattish. To Radelix,
by all
means, next.
He went to Radelix, but not in the Dauntless and not in gray. He was a
passenger aboard a luxury liner, a writer in search of local color for another
saga of the
space-ways. Sybly Whyteùone of the Patrol's most carefully-established
figmentsùhad
a bullet-proof past. His omnivorous interest and his uninhibited nosiness were
the
natural attributes of his professionùeverything is grist which comes to an
author's mill.
Sybly Whyte, then, prowled about Radelix. Industriously and, to some
observers,
pointlessly. He and his red-leather notebook were apt to be seen anywhere at
any time,
day or night. He visited space-ports, he climbed through freighters, he lost
small sums
in playing various games of so-called chance in spacemen's dives. On the other
hand,
he truckled assiduously to the social elite and attended all functions into
which he could
wangle or could force his way. He made a pest of himself in the offices of
politicians,
bankers, merchant princes, tycoons of business and manufacture, and all other
sorts of
greats.
He was stopped one day in the outer office of an industrial potentate.
"Get out
and stay out," a peg-legged guard told him. "The boss hasn't read any of your
stuff, but I
have, and neither of us wants to talk to you. Data, huh? What the hell do you
need of
data on atomic cats and bulldozers to write them damn space-operas of yours?
Why
don't you get a roustabout job on a freighter and learn something
first-handed? Get
yourself a space-tan instead of that imitation you got under a lamp: work some
of that
lard off your carcass!" Whyte was definitely fatter than Kinnison had been;
and,
somehow, softer; he peered owlishly through heavy lenses which, fortunately,
did not
interfere with his sense of perception. "Then maybe some of your tripe will be
half-fit to
read ùbeat it!"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir; very much, sir." Kinnison bobbed obsequiously
and
scurried out, writing industriously in his notebook the while. He had,
however, found out
what he wanted to know. The boss was nobody he wanted.
Nor was an eminent statesman whom he button-holed at a reception. "I fail
to
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see, sir, entirely, any point in your interviewing me," that worthy informed
him, frigidly. "I
am not, I amùuhùsure, suitable material for any opus upon which you may be at
work."
"Oh, you can't ever tell, sir," Kinnison said. "You see, I never know who
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