"Boys, take her upstairs," Kinnison-Thyron ordered, and the tremendous raider--actually the _Dauntless_ in disguise--floated serenely upward to a station immediately astern of the vice admiral's flagship. All three courses of multi-ply defensive screen were out, as were full-coverage spy-ray blocks and thought-screens. As the fleet blasted in tight formation for Kalonia III, Vice Admiral Mendonai tested the _Dauntless'_ defenses thoroughly, and found them bottle-tight. No intrusion was possible. The only open channel was that one plate-to-plate, the other end of which was so villainously fogged that nothing could be seen except Bradlow Thyron's face. Convinced at last of that fact, Mendonai sat back and seethed quietly, his pervasive Kalonian blueness pointing up his grim and vicious mood. He had never, in all his long life, been insulted so outrageously. Was there anything--_anything!_--he could do about it? There was not. Thyron, personally, he could not touch--yet--and the fact that the outlaw had so brazenly and so nonchalantly placed his vessel in the exact center of the Boskonian fleet made it pellucidly clear to any Boskonian mind that he had nothing whatever to fear from that fleet. Wherefore the Kalonian seethed, and his minions stepped ever more softly and followed with ever-increasing punctilio the rigid Boskonian code. For the grapevine carries news swiftly; by this time the whole fleet knew that His Nibs had been taking a God-awful kicking around, and that the first guy who gave him an excuse to blow off steam would be lucky if he only got boiled in oil. As the fleet spread out for inert maneuvering above the Kalonian stratosphere, Kinnison turned again to the young Lensman. "One last word, Frank. I am as sure as I can be that I am fully covered--a lot of smart people worked on this problem. Nevertheless, something may happen, so I will send you the data as fast as I get it. Remember what I told you before--if I get the dope we need, I'm expendable and it'll be your job to get it back to Base. No heroics. Is that clear?" "Yes, sir." The young Lensman gulped. "I hope, though, that it doesn't--" "So do I," Kinnison grinned as he climbed into his highly special dureum armor, "and the chances are a million to one that it won't. That's why I'm going down there." In their respective speedsters Kinnison and Mendonai made the long drop to the ground, and side by side they went into the office of Black Lensman Melasnikov. That worthy, too, wore heavy armor; but he did not have a mechanical thought-screen. Arrogantly conscious of his tremendous power of mind, what did any Black Lensman need of mechanical shields? Thyron, of course, did; a fact of which Melasnikov became instantly aware. "Release your screen," he directed, brusquely. "Not yet, pal--don't be so hasty," Thyron advised. "There're some things about this here hookup that I don't exactly like. We got quite a bit of talking to do before I open up."