Read Galactic Patrol for Free Online Page B

with that of another skilled in astronautics and was replaced. The third time, however, it came out paired with "vanBuskirk," to the manifest joy of the giant Valerian and to the approval of the crowd as well.
    "That was a break for me, Kim!” the sergeant called, over the cheers of his fellows. "I'm sure of getting back now!”
    "That's throwing the off, big fellow -- but I don't know of anybody I'd rather have at my back than you," Kinnison replied, with a boyish grin.
    The pairings were made, DeLameters, spare batteries, and other equipment were checked and tested, the spools of tape were sealed in their corrosion-proof containers and distributed, and Kinnison sat talking with the Master Technician.
    "So they've solved the problem of the really efficient reception and conversion of cosmic radiation!” Kinnison whistled softly through his teeth. "And a sun -- even a small one -- radiates the energy given off by the annihilation of one-to-several million tone of matter. per second! SOME power!”
    "That’s the story, Skipper, and it explains completely why their ships have been so much superior to ours. They could have installed faster drives even than the Brittania's –
    they probably will, now that it has become necessary. Also, if the busbars in that receptor-convertor had been a few square centimeters larger in cross-section, they could have held their wallshield, even against our duodec bomb. Then what? . . . . . They had plenty of intake, but not quite enough distribution."
    "Whey have atomic motors, the same as ours, just as big and just as efficient,"
    Kinnison cogitated. "But those motors are all we have got, while they use them, and at full power, too, simply as first-stage exciters for the cosmic-energy screens. Blinding blue blazes, what power! Some of us have got to get back, Verne. If we don't, Boskone's got the whole galaxy by the tail, and civilization is sunk without a trace."
    "I'll say so, but also I'll say this for those of us who doe t get back -- it won't be for lack of trying. Well, better I go check my boat. If I don't see you again, Kim old man, clear ether!”
    They shook hands briefly and Thorndyke strode away. Enroute, however, he paused beside the quartermaster and signaled to him to disconnect his communicator.
    "Clever lad, Allerdyce!” Thorndyke whispered, with a grin. "Kinds loaded the dice a trifle once or twice, didn't you? I don't think anybody but me smelled a rat, though.
    Certainly neither the skipper nor Henderson did, or you'd've had it to do over again."
    "At least one team has got to get through," Allerdyce replied, quietly and obliquely,
    "and the strongest teams we can muster will find the going none too easy. Any team made up of strength and weakness is a weak team. Kinnison, our only Lensman, is of course the best man aboard this buzz-buggy. Who would you pick for number two?"
    "VanBuskirk, of course, the same as you did. I wasn't criticizing you, man, I was complimenting you, and thanking you, in a roundabout way, for giving me Henderson.
    He's got plenty of what it takes, too."
    "It wasn't 'vanBuskirk, of course, by any means,' the quartermaster rejoined. "It's mighty hard to figure either you or Henderson third, to say nothing of fourth, in any kind of company, however fast-mentally and physically. However, it seemed to me that you fitted in better with the pilot. I could hand-pick only two teams without getting caught at it -- you spotted me as it was -- but I think I picked the two strongest teams possible. One of you will get through -- if none of you four can make it, nobody could."
    "Well, here's hoping, anyway. Thanks again. See you again some time, maybe --
    clear ether!”
    Chief Pilot Henderson had, a few minutes since, changed the course of the cruiser from right-line flight to fantastic, zig-zag leaps through space, and now he turned frowningly to Kinnison.
    "We'd better begin dumping them out pretty soon now, I think," be suggested.
    "We haven't detected