GRAY LENSMAN by E. E. Doc Smith

Author:E. E. Doc Smith [Smith, E. E. Doc]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-01T18:17:58+00:00

CHAPTER 13 - ZWILNIK CONFERENCE

The Gray Lensman went back to his mining with a will and with unimpaired vigor, for his distress aboard the ship had been sheerest acting. One small bottle of good brandy was scarcely a cocktail to the physique that had stood up under quart after quart of the crudest, wickedest, fieriest beverages known to space; that tiny morsel of bentlam— scarcely half a unit—affected him no more than a lozenge of licorice.

Three weeks. Twenty one days, each of twenty four G-P hours. At the end of that time, he had learned from the mind of the zwilnik, the Boskonian director of this, the Boro-van solar system, would visit Miners’ Rest, to attend some kind of meeting. His informant did not know what the meet-big was to be about, and he was not unduly curious about it. Kinnison, however, did and was.

The Lensman knew, or at least very shrewdly suspected, that that meeting was to be a regional conference of big-shot zwilniks; he was intensely curious to know all about everything that was to take place; and he was determined to be present Three weeks was lots of time. In fact, he should be able to complete his quota of heavy metal in two, or less. It was there, there was no question of that. Right out there were the meteors, uncountable thousands of millions of them, and a certain proportion of them carried values. The more and the harder he worked, the more of these worth-while wanderers of the void he would find. Wherefore he labored long, hard, and rapidly, and his store of high-test meteors grew apace.

To such good purpose did he use beam and Spalding drill that he was ready more than a week ahead of time. That was QX—he’d much rather be early than late. Something might have happened to hold him up—things did happen, too often—and he had to be at that meeting!

Thus it came about that, a few days before the all-important date, Kinnison’s battered treasure-hunter blasted herself down to her second landing at Strongheart’s Dock. This time the miner was welcomed, not as a stranger, but as a friend of long standing.

“Hi, Wild Bill!” Strongheart yelled at sight of the big space-hound. “Right on time, I see—glad to see you! Luck, too, I hope—lots of luck, and all good, I bet me—ain’t it?”

“Ho, Strongheart!” the Lensman roared in return, pummel-ing the divekeeper affectionately. “Had a good trip, yeah—a fine trip. Struck a rich sector—twice as much as I got last time. Told you I’d be back in five or six weeks, and made it in five weeks and four days.”

“Keeping tabs on the days, huh?”

“I’ll say I do. With a thirst like mine a guy can’t do nothing else—I tell you all my guts’re dryer than any desert on the whole of Rhylce. Well, what’re we waiting for? Check this plunder of mine in and let me get to going places and doing things!”

The business end of the visit was settled with neatness and dispatch.

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