Children of the Lens by E. E. Smith ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

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spk_0 Children of the Lens by E. E. Doc Smith.

spk_0 Message of Transmiddell.

spk_0 Subject, the conclusion of the Bosconian War, a report by Christopher Kineson, L3 of

spk_0 Clovia, to the entity able to obtain and to read it.

spk_0 To you, the third-level intellect who has been guided to this imperishable container

spk_0 and who is able to break the seal and to read this tape and to your fellow's greetings.

spk_0 For reasons which will become obvious, this report will not be made available for an

spk_0 indefinite but very long time. Perhaps ten million, perhaps ten million, million galactic

spk_0 standard years. My present visualization of the cosmic all does not extend to the time at which

spk_0 such action will become necessary. Therefore, it is desirable to review briefly the most pertinent

spk_0 facts of the earlier phases of civilization's climatic conflict. Information which, while widely

spk_0 known at present, will probably in that future time exist otherwise only in the memories of my

spk_0 descendants. In early civilization, law enforcement lag behind crime because the police were limited

spk_0 in their spheres of action, while criminals were not. Each technological advance made that

spk_0 condition worse, until finally, when Bergenholm so perfected the crude and nirsheless space drive

spk_0 of road-bush and Cleveland, that commerce throughout the galaxy became an actuality, crime began to

spk_0 threaten civilizations very existence. Of course, it was not then suspected that there was anything

spk_0 organized, coherent, or of a large purpose about this crime. Centuries were to pass before my father,

spk_0 Kimble-Kinnison of Telus, now galactic coordinator, was to prove that Bosconia, an autocratic,

spk_0 dictatorial culture diametrically opposed to every ideal of civilization, was in fact back of

spk_0 practically all of the pernicious activities of the first galaxy. Even my father, however, has never

spk_0 had any inkling either of the existence and the doings of the Adorians, or of the fundamental

spk_0 raison d'etre of the Galactic Patrol, facts which can never be revealed to any mind not inherently

spk_0 stable at the third level of stress. Virgil Sam's, then chief of the secret service of the

spk_0 triplanetary league, perceived the general situation and foresaw the shape of the inevitable.

spk_0 He realized that unless and until his organization could secure an identifying symbol

spk_0 which could not be counterfeited, police work would remain relatively ineffectual.

spk_0 Telurian science had done its best in the golden meteors of triplanetary secret service,

spk_0 and its best was not good enough. Virgil Sam's became the first wearer of Euryseus lens,

spk_0 and during his life he began the rigid selection of those worthy of wearing it.

spk_0 For centuries the patrol grew and spread. It became widely known that the lens was a perfect

spk_0 telepath, that it glued with colored light only when worn by the individual to whose ego it was

spk_0 attuned, that it killed any other living being who attempted to wear it. Whatever his race or

spk_0 shape, anywhere of the lens was accepted as the embodiment of civilization.

spk_0 Kimbo Kinesim was the first entity of civilization to suspect that the Bosconian organization existed.

spk_0 He was the first lensman to realize that the lens was more than identification and a telepath.

spk_0 He was thus the first lensman to return to Euryseus to take the second stage of lensmanship,

spk_0 their treatment which only an exceptional brain can withstand,

spk_0 but which gives the second stage lensman any mental power which he needs,

spk_0 and which he can both visualize and control.

spk_0 Aided by lensman Worsal of Alanchia and Tregon's Sea of Rijol-4, the former

spk_0 a wiend reptile, the latter a four-legged, barrel-shaped creature with the sense of perception instead

spk_0 of sight. Kimbo Kinesim traced and surveyed Boscon's military organization in the first galaxy.

spk_0 He helped plan the attack upon grand base, the headquarters of Helmeth, who spoke for Boscon.

spk_0 By flooding the control dome of grand base with finite, that deadly drug native to the peculiar

spk_0 planet Trinco, he made it possible for civilization's grand fleet, under the command of Port Admiral Haines,

spk_0 now retired, to reduce that base. He personally killed Helmeth in hand-to-hand combat.

spk_0 He was instrumental in the almost complete destruction of the overlords,

spk_0 those sadistic, life-eating reptiles native to the planet Delgon of the Valanchian Solar System,

spk_0 who were the first to employ against humanity the hyperspacial tube.

spk_0 He was wounded more than once. In one of his hospitalizations, becoming acquainted with

spk_0 surgeon General Lacey, now retired, and with sector chief nurse Clarissa McDougall,

spk_0 who was later to become the widely known red lensman and still later my mother.

spk_0 In spite of the military defeat, however, Bosconian's real organization remained intact,

spk_0 and Kinesen's further search led into Lundmark's nebula, thenceforth called the second galaxy.

spk_0 The planet Miedon, being attacked by the Bosconians, was rescued from the enemy and was moved

spk_0 across intergalactic space to the first galaxy. Miedon made two notable contributions to civilization.

spk_0 First, electrical insulation, conductors, and switches, by whose means voltages and

spk_0 averages there to fore undreamed of could be handled. And later, Phillips, a posseemian surgeon,

spk_0 was able there to complete the researches which made it possible for human bodies to grow a new,

spk_0 any members or organs which have been lost. Kinesen decided that the drug syndicate was the

spk_0 most dangerous and surest line to Boscon, became wild Bill Williams, the meteor miner, a hard-drinking,

spk_0 bett-lim-eating, fast-shooting space-hellion. As Williams, he traced his will-nick line upward

spk_0 step-by-step to the planet Jarnavan in the second galaxy. Upon Jarnavan lived the Ike,

spk_0 frigid blooded monsters, more intelligent, more merciless, more truly Bosconian, even

spk_0 than the overlords of Delgon. He and Worsal, second-stage lensmen both,

spk_0 set out to investigate Jarnavan. He was captured, tortured, dismembered. But Worsal brought him back

spk_0 to tell us with his mind and knowledge intact, the enormously important knowledge that Jarnavan

spk_0 was ruled by a council of nine of the Ike, a council named Boscon. Kinesen was given a Phillips

spk_0 treatment and, again, Clarissa McDougall nursed him back to health. They loved each other,

spk_0 but they could not marry until the Great Lensman's job was done, until civilization had triumphed

spk_0 over Bosconia. The Galactic Patrol assembled its grand fleet composed of millions of units

spk_0 under the flagship Z9 M9Z. It attacked. The planet of Jalty, Bosconius director of the first

spk_0 galaxy, was consumed by a bomb of negative matter. Jarnavan was crushed between two colliding planets,

spk_0 positioned inertialists then inerted especially for that crushing. Grand fleet returned triumphant.

spk_0 But Bosconius struck back, sending an immense fleet against tellus through a hyperspacial tube

spk_0 instead of through normal space. This method of approach was not, however, unexpected.

spk_0 Survey ships and detectors were out. The scientists of the patrol had been for months hard at work

spk_0 upon the Sunbeam, a device to concentrate all the energy of the Sun into one frightful beam.

spk_0 With this weapon reinforcing the already vast powers of Grand Fleet, the invaders were wiped out.

spk_0 Again, Kinesen had to search for a high Bosconian, some authority higher than the council of Boscon.

spk_0 Taking his personal super dreadnought, the Dauntless, was carry his indetectable non-ferrous

spk_0 speedster. He found his will-knit trail and followed it to Dunstons region, and unexplored virtually

spk_0 unknown, outlying spiral arm of the first galaxy. It led to the planet Lyrein II, with its human

spk_0 matriarchy ruled by Helen its queen. There he found Ilona Potter, the ex-Aldebaranian dancer,

spk_0 who, turning against her Bosconian kidnappers, told him all she knew of the Bosconian planet Lonebar,

spk_0 upon which she had spent most of her life. Lonebar was unknown to the patrol and Ilona knew nothing

spk_0 of its location in space. She did, however, know its unique jewelry, James also completely unknown

spk_0 to civilization. Nadric of Palain VII, a frigid-blooded second-stage lensman, with one jewel as a clue

spk_0 set out to find Lonebar, while Kinesyn began to investigate Bosconian activities among the

spk_0 matriarchs. The Lyreinians, however, were fanatically non-cooperative. They hated all males. They

spk_0 despised and tested all non-human entities. Hence, Kinesyn, with the consent and assistance of

spk_0 mentor Varicia, made of Clarissa McDougall a second-stage lensman, and assigned to her the task of

spk_0 working Lyrein II. Nadric found and mapped Lonebar, and to build up an unimpeachable Bosconian

spk_0 identity, Kinesyn became Cardiff the Jeweler. Cardiff the Jewel Chief and Swindler. Cardiff the

spk_0 Fence. Cardiff the Murderer Outlaw. Cardiff the Bosconian Big Shot. He challenged and overthrew

spk_0 Menjobliko, the dictator of Lonebar, and before killing him took from his mind everything he knew.

spk_0 The Red Lensman secured information from which it was deduced that a cavern of the overlords of

spk_0 Delgon existed upon Lyrein II. This cavern was raided and destroyed. The patroman learning that

spk_0 the Ike themselves had a heavily fortified base upon Lyrein II.

spk_0 Nadric, master psychologist, invaded that base tracelessly. Learning that the Ike received orders

spk_0 from the Thralian Solar System and the Second Galaxy, and that frigid-blooded Kendra of Onlo,

spk_0 Thralis IX, was second in power only to human Alcon, the tyrant of Thral, Thralis II.

spk_0 Kines went to Thral, Nadric to Onlo. The operations of both being covered by the patrols invasion of

spk_0 the Second Galaxy. In that invasion, Bosconia's grand fleet was defeated, and the planet

spk_0 Chlobia was taken and fortified. Assuming the personality of Trasca Ganno, a Thralian,

spk_0 Kinesen worked his way upward in Alcon's military organization. Trapped in a hyperspacial tube,

spk_0 ejected into an unknown one of the infinity of parallel, co-existent, three-dimensional spaces,

spk_0 which comprise the cosmic all. He was rescued by mentor, working through the brain of Sir Austin

spk_0 Cardinj, the Thalurian mathematician. Returning to Thral, he fomented a revolution in which he killed

spk_0 Alcon and took his place as the tyrant of Thral. He then discovered that his prime minister,

spk_0 Faustin, who concealed his true appearance by means of a zone of hypnosis, had been Alcon's

spk_0 superior instead of his advisor. Neither quite ready for an open break, but both supremely

spk_0 confident of victory when that break should come, subtle hostilities began.

spk_0 Tyrant and prime minister planned and launched an attack upon Chlobia, but just before engagement,

spk_0 the hostilities between the two Bosconian leaders flared into an open fight for supremacy.

spk_0 After a terrific mental struggle, during the course of which the entire crew of the flagship

spk_0 died, leaving the Bosconian fleet at the mercy of the patrol, Kinesen I. He did not know, of course,

spk_0 and never will know, either that Faustin was in fact an adorian or that it was mentor who,

spk_0 in fact, overcame Faustin. Kinesen thought and mentor encouraged him to believe that the prime

spk_0 minister was an Erysian who had been insane since youth, and that Kinesen himself killed Faustin

spk_0 without assistance. It is a mere formality to emphasize at this point that none of this information

spk_0 must ever become available to any mind below the third level. Since to any entity able either to

spk_0 obtain or to read this report, it will be obvious that such revealment would produce an inferiority

spk_0 complex which must inevitably destroy both the Galactic Patrol and the civilization whose instrument

spk_0 it is. With Faustin dead and with Kinesen already the tyrant of Thrale, it was comparatively easy

spk_0 for the patrol to take over. Nadrake drove the Armonian garrisons insane so that all fought to the

spk_0 death among themselves, thus rendering on those mighty armament completely useless. Then,

spk_0 thinking that the Bosconian war was over, encouraged, in fact, by mentor so to think,

spk_0 Kinesen married Clarissa McDougall, established his headquarters upon Clovia, and assumed his

spk_0 duties as Galactic Coordinator. Kimball Kinesen, while not strictly speaking am mutant,

spk_0 was the penultimate product of a prodigiously long line of selective controlled breeding.

spk_0 So was Clarissa McDougall. Just what course the science of Erysia took in making those two what

spk_0 they are I can deduce, but I do not as yet actually know. Nor for the purpose of this record does it

spk_0 matter. Port Admiral Haines and Surgeon General Lacey thought that they brought them together and

spk_0 promoted their romance. Let them think so. As agents, they did. Whatever the method employed,

spk_0 the result was that the genes of those two uniquely complementary penultimates were precisely those

spk_0 necessary to produce the first and at present the only third stage Lensman. I was born upon Clovia,

spk_0 as were three or four Galactic Standard Years later, my four sisters, two pairs of twins.

spk_0 I had little babyhood, no childhood. Fathered and mothered by second stage Lensman,

spk_0 accustomed from infancy to wide open two ways with such beings as Warsaw of Alanchia,

spk_0 Tregancy of Rijgil IV and Nadrek of Palain VII, it would seem obvious that we did not go to school.

spk_0 We were not like other children of our age, but before I realized that it was anything unusual for

spk_0 a baby who could scarcely walk, to be computing highly perturbed asteroidal orbits as mental arithmetic.

spk_0 I knew that we would have to keep our abnormalities to ourselves, inso far as the bulk of mankind and

spk_0 of civilization was concerned. I traveled much, sometimes with my father or mother or both,

spk_0 sometimes alone. At least once a year I went to Eurycia for treatment. I took the last two years of

spk_0 Lensman ship, for physical reasons only, it went worth haul upon Tellus, instead of upon my native

spk_0 Clovia. Because upon Tellus, the name Kinesyn is not at all uncommon, while on Clovia the fact that

spk_0 Kinesyn was the son of the coordinator could not have been concealed. I graduated, and with my

spk_0 formal enlensment this record properly begins. Much has been told elsewhere, notably in Smith's

spk_0 history of civilization, but all such works are and of necessity must be pitifully incomplete.

spk_0 I have recorded this material as impersonally as possible, realizing fully that my sisters and

spk_0 I did only the work for which we were specifically developed and trained. Even as you who read this

spk_0 will do that for which you shall have been developed and are to be trained. Respectfully submitted,

spk_0 Christopher Kinesyn, L3 Clovia. End of Prologue

spk_0 You're listening to Classic Audiobook Collection. Give us five stars and show what the friend

spk_0 likes. Free audio books as much as we do. Now back to the show.

spk_0 Chapter 1 of Children of the Lens by E.E. Doc Smith

spk_0 This Libbervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 1

spk_0 Galactic coordinator Kim Bochineson finished his second cup of Tullurian coffee,

spk_0 got up from the breakfast table and prowled about in black abstraction. 20 ideas had changed him,

spk_0 but little. He weighed the same, or a few pounds less, although a little of his mass had shifted

spk_0 downward from his mighty chest and shoulders. His hair was still brown, his stern face was only faintly

spk_0 lined. He was mature, with a conscious maturity which no young man can know. Since when, Kim,

spk_0 did you think that you could get away with blocking me out of your mind? Clarissa Kinesyn

spk_0 directed the thought quietly. The years had dealt as lightly with the Red Lensman as with the gray.

spk_0 She had been gorgeous. She was now magnificent. This room is shielded, you know, against even the

spk_0 girls. Sorry, Chris. I didn't mean it that way. I know, she laughed. Automatic. But you've had

spk_0 that block up for two solid weeks, except when you force yourself to keep it down,

spk_0 and that means that you're way way off the beam. I've been thinking, incredible as it may seem.

spk_0 I know it. Let's have it cold. QX, you asked for it. Queer things have been going on all over.

spk_0 inexplicable things. No apparent reason. Such as? Almost any kind of insidious devil tree you care

spk_0 to name. Disaffections, psychoses, mass hysterias, hallucinations. Pointing toward a civilization

spk_0 white epidemic of revolution and uprisings for which there seems to be no basis or justification

spk_0 whatever. Why, Kim, how could there be? I haven't heard of anything like that. It hasn't got

spk_0 around. Each solar system thinks that it's a purely local condition, but it isn't. As

spk_0 Galactic coordinator with a broad view of the entire picture, my office would, of course,

spk_0 see such a thing before anyone else could. We saw it and set out to nip it in the bud. But

spk_0 he shrugged his shoulders and greeened Riley. But what? Clarysa persisted. It didn't nip.

spk_0 We sent Lensman to investigate, but none of them got to the first check station.

spk_0 Then I asked our second stage, Lensman, Warsaw, Nadric and Tragonsi to drop whatever they were doing

spk_0 and solve it for me. They struck it and bounced. They followed, and are still following,

spk_0 leads and clues galore. But they haven't got a mill's worth of results so far.

spk_0 What? You mean to say it's a problem they can't solve? That they haven't to date,

spk_0 he corrected absently, and that gives me furiously to think.

spk_0 It would, she conceded, and it also would make you itch to join them.

spk_0 Think at me, and it'll help you correlate. You should have gone over the data with me right at first.

spk_0 I had reasons not to, as you'll see. But I'm stumped now, so here goes.

spk_0 We'll have to go away back to before we were married. First, mentor told me, quote,

spk_0 only your descendants will be ready for that which you now so dimly grow up, unquote.

spk_0 Second, you were the only being ever able to read my thoughts without the aid of the Lens.

spk_0 Third, mentor told us, when we asked him if it was QX for us to go ahead,

spk_0 that our marriage was necessary, a choice of phraseology which bothered you somewhat at the time,

spk_0 but which I then explained as being in accord with his visualization of the cosmic all.

spk_0 Fourth, the patrol formula is to send the man best fitted for any job to do that job,

spk_0 and if he can't swing it, to send the number one graduate of the current class of Lensman.

spk_0 Fifth, a Lensman has got to use everything and everybody available, no matter what,

spk_0 or who it is. I used even you, you remember, in that lyraine affair and others.

spk_0 Sixth, Sir Austin Cardage believed to the day of his death, that we were thrown out of that

spk_0 hyperspecial tube and out of space deliberately. Well, go on, I don't see much of any connection.

spk_0 You will, if you think of those six points in connection with our present predicament.

spk_0 Kit graduates next month and he'll rank number one of all civilization for all the T in China.

spk_0 Of course, but after all, he's a Lensman. He will insist upon being assigned to some problem.

spk_0 Why not to that one? You don't yet see what that problem is.

spk_0 I've been adding two and two together for weeks and can't get any other answer than four.

spk_0 And if two and two are four, Kit has got to tackle Boscon, the real Boscon, the one that I never did

spk_0 and very probably never can reach. No, Kim, no, she almost shrieked. Not Kit, Kim, he's just a boy.

spk_0 Kit is unweighted, wordless. She got up across the room to him. He put his arm around her in the old,

spk_0 but ever in New Gesture. Lensman's load, Chris, he said quietly.

spk_0 Of course, she replied then as quietly. It was a shock at first coming after all these years,

spk_0 but if it has to be, it must. But he doesn't. Surely we can help him, Kim.

spk_0 Surely the man's arm tightened. When he hits space, I go back to work.

spk_0 So do Nadric and Worsal and Tragancy. So do you, if you're kind of a job turns up.

spk_0 And with us, Gray, Lensman, doing the blocking and with Kit to carry the ball. His thought died away.

spk_0 I'll say so, she breathed. Then, but you won't call me, I know, unless you absolutely have to.

spk_0 And to give up you and Kit both, why did we have to be Lensman, Kim? She protested rebelliously.

spk_0 Why could we have been ground-rippers? You used to growl that thought at me before I knew what a lens

spk_0 really meant. Well, some of us have got to be first violiners into orchestra. Kinesen misquoted

spk_0 in an attempt at lightness. They can't all push you in through their trombone. I suppose that's true.

spk_0 The red Lensman's somber air deepened. Well, we were going to start for tell us today anyway,

spk_0 to see Kit graduate. This doesn't change that. And in a distant room, four tall,

spk_0 shapely, arbor and haired, startlingly identical girls stared at each other briefly,

spk_0 then went on rapport. For their mother had erred greatly in saying that the breakfast room was

spk_0 screened against their minds. Nothing was or could be screened against them. They could think

spk_0 above, below, or by sufficient effort, straight through any thought screen that had ever been designed.

spk_0 Nothing in which they were interested was safe from them, and they were interested in practically

spk_0 everything. K, we've got ourselves a job! Catherine, older by minutes than Karen, excluded

spk_0 pointedly the younger twins Camilla and Constance, Cam and Con. At last, Karen exclaimed,

spk_0 I've been wondering what we were born for, with nine tenths of our minds so deep down

spk_0 that nobody except Kit even knows they're there, and so heavily blocked that we can't let

spk_0 even each other in without a conscious effort. This is it. We'll go places now, Cat, and really do

spk_0 things. What do you mean you'll go places and do things? Condemned indignantly. Do you think for

spk_0 a second that you've got jets enough to blast us out of all the fun? Certainly, Cat said equably,

spk_0 you're too young. We'll let you know what we're doing, though. K, conceded, magnanimously.

spk_0 You might even conceivably contribute an idea that we could use.

spk_0 Ideas, fooey, congeared. A real idea would crack both of your skulls. You haven't any more

spk_0 planned than a hush. Shut up, everybody, Cat commanded. This is too new for any of us to have any

spk_0 worthwhile ideas on yet. Tell you what let's do. We'll all think this over until we're aboard the

spk_0 Dauntless, halfway to Tellus. Then we'll compare notes and work out parts for all of us.

spk_0 They left Clovia that afternoon. Kinesen's personal super dreadnought, the mighty Dauntless,

spk_0 the fourth to bear that name, boared through the intergalactic space. Time passed. The four young red

spk_0 heads convened. I've got it all worked out. Cat burst out enthusiastically, forced-alling the other three.

spk_0 There will be four second-stage lensmen at work, and there are four of us. We'll circulate,

spk_0 percolate you might say, around and throughout the universe. We'll pick up ideas and facts and

spk_0 feed them to our gray lensmen, surreptitiously, sort of, so they'll think they got them themselves.

spk_0 I'll take dad from my partner. Cake and have, you'll do no such thing. A general clamor rose,

spk_0 Kahn's thought being the most insistent. If we aren't going to work with all indiscriminately,

spk_0 we'll draw lots, or throw dice to see who gets him. So there.

spk_0 See let snake hips please, cat requested sweetly. It is trite, but true to say that infants should

spk_0 be seen, but not heard. This is serious business. Snake hips, infant, Kahn interrupted, venomously.

spk_0 Listen, my steed topages and senile friend. Constance measured perhaps a quarter of an

spk_0 inch less in gluteal circumference that did her old assistor. She tipped the beam at one scant

spk_0 pound below her weight. You and K are a year older than Kahn and me, of course. A year ago,

spk_0 your minds were stronger than ours. That condition, however, no longer exists. We too are grown up,

spk_0 and to put that statement to test, what can you do that I can't?

spk_0 This, Catherine extended a bare arm, narrowed her eyes in concentration. A lens materialized about

spk_0 her wrist, not attached to it by a metallic bracelet, but a bracelet in itself, clinging

spk_0 sentially to the smooth, bronze skin. I felt that in this work there would be a need. I learned

spk_0 to satisfy it. Can you match that? They could. In a matter of seconds, the three others were

spk_0 similarly enlenced. They had not previously perceived the need, but after Cat had pointed it out

spk_0 to them by demonstrating the manner of its satisfaction, their acquisition of full knowledge

spk_0 had been virtually instantaneous. Or this then, Cat's lens disappeared. So did the other three.

spk_0 Each knew that no hint of this knowledge or of this power should ever be revealed.

spk_0 Each knew that in any moment of stress, the lens of civilization could be and would be hers.

spk_0 Logic then, and by reason, not by chance. Cat changed her tactics. I still get dead.

spk_0 Everybody knows who works best with whom. You can't have tagged around after

spk_0 a worse all your life. You used to ride him instead of a horse. She still does. Case knickered.

spk_0 He pretty nearly split her in two a while ago in a seven-gravity pull-out, and she almost broke

spk_0 a toe when she kicked him for it. Worse was nice. Con defended herself vigorously. He's more

spk_0 human than most people, and more fun, as well as having infinitely more brains. And you can't talk

spk_0 so cold-blooded that he freezes you even through armor at twenty feet. You'll get us cold and

spk_0 hard as he is if you don't. And every time Cam gets within five hundred parsecs of tregoncy,

spk_0 she goes into silences with him, contemplating rapidly the richnesses of the why.

spk_0 Catherine interrupted, for stalling recriminations. So you see, by the process of elimination,

spk_0 dead has got to be mine. Since they could not all have him, it was finally agreed that

spk_0 Catherine's claim would be allowed, and after a great deal of discussion and argument,

spk_0 a tentative plan of action was developed. In due course, the Dauntless landed upon tellus.

spk_0 The kinesens went to wet worth haul, the towering chromium and glass home of the

spk_0 Kinesens. Then, as the new Lensmen marched out to the magnificent cadences of our patrol,

spk_0 the Grey Lensmen, leaving his wife and daughters to their own devices, made his way to his

spk_0 to-lurry in office in prime base. Lensmen, Kinesens, sir, by appointment,

spk_0 his secretary announced, and as Kits rode in, Kinesens stood up and came to attention.

spk_0 Christopher Kinesen of Cloviess, sir, reporting for duty.

spk_0 Kits saluted crisply. The coordinator returned the salute punctiliously, then at rest, Kits.

spk_0 I am proud of you, mighty proud. We all are. The women want to heroize you, but I had to see you

spk_0 first to clear up a few things. An explanation, an apology, and an essence, commissaration.

spk_0 An apology, sir? Kits was dumbfounded. Why, that's unthinkable.

spk_0 For not graduating you in Grey, it has never been done, but that was not the reason.

spk_0 Your Commodat, the Board of Examiners, and Port Admiral LaForge, all recommended it,

spk_0 agreeing that none of us is qualified to give you either orders or directions.

spk_0 I blocked it. Of course, for the son of the coordinator to be the first

spk_0 Lensmen to graduate unattached would smell, especially since the fewer who know of my peculiar

spk_0 characteristics, the better. That can wait, sir. Not too long, sir.

spk_0 Kinesens smile was a trifle forced. Here's your release and your kit, and a request

spk_0 sign by the whole Galactic Council that you go to work on whatever it is that is going on.

spk_0 We rather think that it heads up somewhere in the second galaxy, but that is little more than a guess.

spk_0 I can start out from Clovia then? Good, I can go home with you. That's the idea,

spk_0 and on the way there you can study the situation. For your information, we have made up a series

spk_0 of tapes, carrying not only all the available data, but also our attempts at analysis and

spk_0 interpretation. Complete and up to date, except for one item which came in this morning.

spk_0 I can't figure out whether it means anything or not, but it should be inserted.

spk_0 Kinesens paced the room, scowling. Might as well tell me. I'll insert it when I scan the tape.

spk_0 QX. I don't suppose that you've heard much about the unusual shipping trouble we have been having,

spk_0 particularly in the second galaxy. Rumor, gossip only. I'd rather have it straight.

spk_0 It's on all the tapes, so I'll give you the bear as possible background.

spk_0 Losses are 25% above normal. A few highly peculiar derelicts have been found, peculiar in that

spk_0 they seem to have been wrecked by madmen. Not only wrecked, but gutted, and with every mark of

spk_0 identification obliterated. We can't determine even origin or destination, since the normal

spk_0 disappearances outnumber the abnormal ones by four to one. On the tapes, this is lumped in with

spk_0 the other psychoses you'll learn about. But this morning they found another derelict, in which the

spk_0 chief pilot had scrawled, where hell hold in sp across a plate? Connection with the other derelicts,

spk_0 if any, is obscure. If the pilot was sane when he wrote that message, it means something, but nobody

spk_0 knows what. If he wasn't, it doesn't. Many more than the dozens of obviously senseless. Excuse me,

spk_0 I should say apparently senseless messages which we have already recorded.

spk_0 Hmm, interesting. I'll bear it in mind and tape it in its place.

spk_0 But speaking of peculiar things, I've got one I wanted to discuss with you,

spk_0 getting my release with such a shock that I almost forgot it.

spk_0 Reported it, but nobody thought it was anything important.

spk_0 Maybe, probably, it isn't. Tune your mind up to the top of the range.

spk_0 There. Did you ever hear of a race that thinks upon that band?

spk_0 I never did. It's practically unreachable. Why, have you?

spk_0 Yes, and no. Only once, and that only a touch, or rather a burst, as though a hard-held

spk_0 mind block had exploded, or the creature had just died of violent, instantaneous death.

spk_0 Not enough of it to trace, and I never found any more of it.

spk_0 Any characteristics? Bursts can be quite revealing at times. A few.

spk_0 It was on my last break-in trip in the second galaxy, out beyond Thrayal, about here.

spk_0 Kit marked the spot upon a mental chart. Mentality very high, precisionist grade,

spk_0 possibly beyond social needs, as the planet was a bare desert.

spk_0 No thought of cities, nor of water, although both may have existed without appearing in that

spk_0 burst of thought. The thing's bodily structure was RTSL to four places.

spk_0 No gross digestive tract, atmosphere nourished, or an energy converter, perhaps.

spk_0 The sun was a blue giant. No spectral data, of course, but at a rough guess,

spk_0 I'd say somewhere around class B5 or A0. Although the temperature was normal for him,

spk_0 it was quite evident that the planet would be unbearably hot for us. That's all I could get.

spk_0 That's a lot to get from one burst. It doesn't mean a thing to me right now,

spk_0 but I'll watch for a chance to fit it in somewhere.

spk_0 How casually they dismissed as unimportant that cryptic burst of thought.

spk_0 But if they both, right then, together, had been authoritatively informed that the description

spk_0 fitted exactly the physical form forced upon its denizens in its summer by the accurately

spk_0 described simply hellish climatic conditions, obtaining during that season on noxious planet plur,

spk_0 the information would still not have seemed important to either of them then.

spk_0 Anything else we ought to discuss before night?

spk_0 The older lensman went on without a break.

spk_0 Not that I know of. You said your release was a shock. Ready for another one?

spk_0 I can't think of a harder one. I'm braced. Blast.

spk_0 I have turned the office over to Vice-Cordinator Maillan for the duration.

spk_0 I am authorized to tell you that Warsaw, NADRIC, Trigon, C&I have resumed our unattached status,

spk_0 and while conducting our various investigations, we'll be holding ourselves ready at all times for your

spk_0 call. That is a shock, sir. Thanks. I hadn't expected. It's really overwhelming.

spk_0 And you said something about commiserating me?

spk_0 Kit lifted his red-thatched head. All of Clarissa's children had inherited her startling hair,

spk_0 and gray eyes stared leveled into eyes of gray.

spk_0 In a sense, yes. You'll understand later. Well, you better go hunt up criss on the kids

spk_0 after the festivities are over. I better cut them, hadn't I?

spk_0 Kit asked eagerly. Don't you think it'd be better for me to get started right away?

spk_0 Not on your life, Kinesim De Mird, positively. Do you think that I want that mob of strawberry

spk_0 blondes to snatch me bald-headed? You're in for a large day and evening of lionization,

spk_0 so take it like a man. As I was about to say, as soon as the brawl is over tonight,

spk_0 we'll all board the dauntless and do a flit for Clovia, where I'll fit you out with everything you

spk_0 want. Until then, son. Two big hands gripped. But I'll be seeing you around the hall,

spk_0 Kit exclaimed. You can't, no, I can't dodge the lionizing either,

spk_0 Kinesim Grint, but we won't be in a sealed and shielded room. So, son, I'm proud of you.

spk_0 Right back at you, big fellow, and thanks a million.

spk_0 Kit strode out, and a few minutes later, the coordinator did likewise.

spk_0 The brawl, which was the gala event of the Tolerian social year, was duly enjoyed by all the

spk_0 Kinesins. The dauntless made an uneventful flight to Clovia. Arrangements were made. Plans,

spk_0 necessarily sketchy and elastic were laid. Two big grey-clad lensmen stood upon the deserted

spk_0 spacefield, between two blackly, indetectable speedsters. Kinesim was massive, sure, calm with the

spk_0 poised calmness of maturity, experience, and power. Kit, with the broad shoulders and narrow

spk_0 waist of his ears and training, was taught and tense, fiery, eager to come to grips with civilizations

spk_0 foes. Remember, son, Kinesim said as the two gripped hands, there are four of us old timers

spk_0 who have been through the mill, on call every second. If you can use any one of us or all of us,

spk_0 don't wait to be too sure, snap out a call. I know, Dad, thanks. The four best ableist lensmen

spk_0 that ever lived. One of you may make a strike before I do. In fact, with the thousands of leaves we

spk_0 have, and with no way of telling how many of them are false, deliberately or otherwise, and with

spk_0 your vastly greater experience and knowledge, you probably will. So remember that it cuts both ways.

spk_0 If any of you can use me at any time, I'll come at max. QX, we'll get in touch from time to time

spk_0 anyway. Clear Etherkit, clear Ether Dad. What a wealth of meaning there was in that low-voiced

spk_0 simple exchange of the standard bone voyage. For minutes, as his speedster flashed through space,

spk_0 Kineson thought only of the boy. He knew exactly how he felt. He relived in memory the supremely

spk_0 ecstatic moments of his own first launching into space as a gray lensmen. But Kit had the stuff,

spk_0 stuff which he, Kineson knew that he could know nothing about, and he had his own job to do.

spk_0 Therefore, methodically, by the old campaigner he was, he said about it.

spk_0 QX,

spk_0 Q2, of children of the lens. This liberal box recording is in the public domain.

spk_0 Q2,

spk_0 Worsal to the Volantian, hard and durable and long lived as Volantians are,

spk_0 had in 20-tolerian years changed scarcely at all. As the first lensmen and the only second stage

spk_0 lensmen of his race, the 20 years have been very fully occupied indeed. He had solved the very

spk_0 technological and administrative problems, incident to the welding of a Lancia into the structure of

spk_0 civilization. He had worked at the many tasks which, in the opinion of the Galactic Council,

spk_0 fitted his peculiarly individual talents. In his spare time he had sought out in various parts of

spk_0 two galaxies and had ruthlessly slain, widely scattered groups of the overlords of Delgon.

spk_0 Continuously, however, he had taken an intense sort of god-fartedly interest in the Kineson

spk_0 children, particularly in Kit and in the youngest daughter Constance, finding in the girl a mentality

spk_0 surprisingly akin to his own. When Kineson's call came, he answered it. He was now out in space,

spk_0 not in the daughters, but in a ship of his own, under his own command. And what a ship!

spk_0 The Veland was manned entirely by beings of his own race. It carried Volantian air and Volantian

spk_0 temperature and pressure. Above all, it was built and powered for inert maneuvering at the atrocious

spk_0 accelerations employed by the Volantians in their daily lives, and were also loved with enthusiasm

spk_0 and a land. He had worked conscientiously and well with Kineson and with other entities of

spk_0 civilization. He and they had all known, however, that he could work more efficiently alone or with

spk_0 others of his own kind. Hence, except in emergencies, he had done so. And hence, except in similar

spk_0 emergencies, he would so continue to do. Out in deep space, Worsal and Twine himself in a

spk_0 Volantian's idea of comfort, in an intricate series of figures of eight around a couple of

spk_0 parallel bars and relaxed in thought. There were insidious deviltries of foot, Kineson had said.

spk_0 There were disaffections, psychoses, mass hysterias, and, oh, happy thought, hallucinations.

spk_0 There were also certain revolutions and sundry uprisings, which might or might not be connected or

spk_0 associated with the disappearances of a considerable number of persons of note. In these latter,

spk_0 however, Worsal of Elantia was not interested. He knew without being told that Kineson would

spk_0 pounce upon such blatant manifestations as those. He himself would work upon something much more to

spk_0 his taste. Hallucination was Worsal's dish. He had been born among hallucinations,

spk_0 having reared in an atmosphere of them. What he did not know about hallucinations could have

spk_0 been printed in Pica upon the smallest one of his scales. Therefore, isolating one section of his

spk_0 multi-compartmented mind from all of the others and from any control over his physical self,

spk_0 he sensitized it to receive whatever hallucinatory influences might be abroad.

spk_0 Simultaneously, he set two other parts of his mind to watch over the one to be victimized,

spk_0 to study and to analyze whatever figments of obtrusive mentality might be received and entertained.

spk_0 Then, using all of his naturally tremendous sensitivity and reach, all of his Erysian super-training,

spk_0 and the full power of his lens, he sent his mental receptors out into space.

spk_0 And then, although the thought is staggeringly incomprehensible to any Tolurian or near human mind,

spk_0 he relaxed. For day after day, as the Veland hurtled randomly through the void,

spk_0 he hung blissfully slack upon his bars, most of his mind a welter of the indescribable thoughts in

spk_0 which it is of Alantian's joy to revel. Suddenly, after an unknown interval of time,

spk_0 a thought impinged, a thought under the impact of which worsels body tight and so convulsively

spk_0 has to pull the bars of foot out of true. Overlords, the unmistakable, the body and mind-paralyzing

spk_0 hunting-called of the overlords of Delgon. Its crew had not felt it yet, of course, nor would they feel it.

spk_0 If they should, they would be worse than useless in the conflict to come.

spk_0 For they could not withstand that baneful influence. Worsal could. Worsal was the only

spk_0 Velandian who could. Thoughts greens all, his commanding thoughts snapped out. Then, even before the

spk_0 order could be obeyed, as you were. For the impenetrable shielded chambers of his mind told him

spk_0 immediately that this was no ordinary Delgonian hunting-call, or rather that it was more than that,

spk_0 much more. Mixed with, superimposed upon the overwhelming compulsion which generations of

spk_0 Alantians would come to know so bitterly and so well, were the very things for which he had been

spk_0 searching, hallucinations. To shield his crew, or accept in the subtlest possible fashion himself,

spk_0 simply would not do. Overlords everywhere knew that there was at least one Velandian

spk_0 Lensman who was mentally their master, and while they hated this Lensman tremendously,

spk_0 they feared him even more. Therefore, even though a Velandian was any overlords'

spk_0 choicest prey, at the first indication of an ability to disobey their commands,

spk_0 the monsters would cease entirely to radiate. Would withdraw at once every strand of their far

spk_0 flung mental nets into the fastnesses of their superbly hidden and indetectively shielded cavern.

spk_0 Therefore, Warsaw allowed the inimical influence to take over, not only the total minds of his crew,

spk_0 but the unshielded portion of his own as well, and stealthily, so insidiously, that no mind

spk_0 affected could discern the change, values gradually grew vague and reality began to alter.

spk_0 Loyalty dimmed and disbredecore, family ties and pride of race waned into meaninglessness.

spk_0 All concepts of civilization, of the Galactic Patrol degenerated into strengthless

spk_0 Gossamer into oblivion, and to replace those hitherto mighty motivations,

spk_0 they're crept in an overmastery need for, and the exact method of obtainment of,

spk_0 whatever it was that was each Philantian's deepest, most primal desire.

spk_0 Each crewman stared into an individual visit plate, whose substance was to him as real and

spk_0 as solid as the medal of his ship had ever been. Each saw upon that plate whatever it was that,

spk_0 consciously or unconsciously he wanted to see. Noble or base, lofty or low, intellectual or physical,

spk_0 spiritual or carnal, it made no difference to the overlords. Whatever each victim most wanted was there.

spk_0 No figment was, however, even to the Galantians actual or tangible. It was a picture upon a plate,

spk_0 transmitted from a well-defined point in space. There, upon that planet, was the actuality

spk_0 eagerly awaited. Toward into that planet must the Veland go at maximum blast.

spk_0 Into that line and at that blast then the pilots set their vessel without orders,

spk_0 and each of the crew saw upon his non-existent plate that she had so been set.

spk_0 If she had not been, if the pilots had been able to offer any resistance, the crew would have

spk_0 lauded them out of hand, as it was, all was well. And Warsaw, watching the affected portion of his

spk_0 mind accept the solutions as truth, and admiring unreservantly the consummate artistry with which the work

spk_0 was being done, was well content. He knew that only a hard, solidly driven, individually probing

spk_0 beam could force him to reveal the fact that a portion of his mind and all of his bodily control

spk_0 were being withheld. He knew that unless he made a slip, no such investigation was to be expected.

spk_0 He would not slip. No human or near-human mind can really understand how the mind of a

spk_0 Velantean works. A Tullarian can, by dent of training, learn to do two or more unrelated things

spk_0 simultaneously. But neither is done very well, and both must be more or less routine in nature.

spk_0 To perform any original or difficult operation successfully, he must concentrate upon it,

spk_0 and he can concentrate upon only one thing at a time. A Velantean, however, can and does concentrate

spk_0 upon half a dozen totally unrelated things at once. And with his multiplicity of arms, hands, and eyes,

spk_0 he can perform simultaneously an astonishing number of completely independent operations.

spk_0 The Velantean is, however, in no sense such a multiple personality, as would exist if six or

spk_0 eight human heads were mounted upon one body. There is no joint tenancy about it. There is only one

spk_0 ego permeating all those pseudo-independent compartments. No contradictory orders are, or ordinarily

spk_0 can be, set along the bundled nerves of the spinal cord. While individual in thought and in the

spk_0 control of certain actions, the mind compartments are basically fundamentally one mind.

spk_0 Worsal had progressed beyond his fellows. He was different, unique. In fact, the perception of the

spk_0 need of the ability to isolate certain compartments of his mind, to separate them completely from his

spk_0 real ego, was one of the things which had enabled him to become the only second stage lenseman of his

spk_0 race. L. II Worsal then held himself aloof and observed appreciatively everything that went on.

spk_0 More, he did a little hallucinating of his own. Under the Overlord's compulsion,

spk_0 he was supposed to remain motionless, staring rapidly into an imaginary visibly at an orgyastic

spk_0 saturnalia designed to make even his burly ego quail. Therefore, as far as the occupied portion of

spk_0 his mind and through it the overlords were concerned, he did so. Actually, however, his body moved

spk_0 purposefully about, under the direction only of his own grim will, moved to make ready against the

spk_0 time of landing. For Worsal knew that his opponents were not fools. He knew that they reduced their

spk_0 risks to the irreducible minimum. He knew that the mighty Veland, with her prodigious weaponry,

spk_0 would not be permitted to be within even extreme range of the cavern if the overlords could possibly

spk_0 prevent it when that cavern's location was revealed. His was the task to see to it that she was not

spk_0 only within range, but was at the very portal. The speeding spaceship approached the planets,

spk_0 when inert matched the planetary intrinsic landed. Her airlock's opened. Her crew rushed out headlong,

spk_0 sprang into the air, and erred away on mass. Then Worsal, grand master of hallucinations,

spk_0 went blithy but intensely to work. Thus, although he stayed at the Veland's control board,

spk_0 instead of joining the glammard valantians in their rush over the unfamiliar terrain,

spk_0 and although the huge spaceship lifted lightly into the air and followed them,

spk_0 neither the fiend possessed part of Worsal's mind nor any of his fellows, nor threw them the many

spk_0 overlords knew that either of those two things was happening. To that part of his mind, Worsal's

spk_0 body was under full control, flying along upon tireless wings in the midst of the crowd. To it and

spk_0 to all of the other valantians, and hands to the overlords, the Veland lay motionless and deserted

spk_0 upon the rocks far below and behind them. They watched the vessel diminish in apparent size in

spk_0 the distance. They saw advantage beyond the horizon. This was emitally tricky work,

spk_0 necessitating as it did such nicety of synchronization with Delgonian's own compulsions as to be

spk_0 indetectable even to the monsters themselves. Worsal was, however, an expert, one of the universe's

spk_0 best. He went at the task, not with any doubt whatever as to his ability to carry it through,

spk_0 but only with an uncontrollably shivering physical urge to come to grips with the hereditary

spk_0 enemies of his race. The flyer shot downward, and as a bolder camouflage entrance yand open in

spk_0 the mountainside, Worsal closed up and shot out a widely enveloping zone of thought-screen.

spk_0 The overlords control vanished. The valantians, realizing instantaneously what had happened,

spk_0 flew madly back to their ship. They jammed through the air-locks, flashed to their posts.

spk_0 The caverns' gates had closed by then, but the monsters had no screened fit to cope with the

spk_0 Veland's tremendous batteries. Down they went. Barriers, bastions, and a considerable portion of

spk_0 the mountain's face flamed away in fiery vapor or flowed away in molten streams.

spk_0 Through wreaking atmosphere, over red hot debris, the armored valantians flew to the attack.

spk_0 The overlords had, however, learned. This cavern, as well as being hidden, was defended by physical,

spk_0 as well as mental means. There were inner barriers of metal and a force. There were armed and

spk_0 armored defenders, who, dominated completely by the monsters, fought with the calis-feary of

spk_0 the robots which, in effect, they were. Nevertheless, against all opposition, the attackers bored

spk_0 relentlessly in. Heavy semi-portables blazed, hand-to-hand combat raised in the narrow confies of

spk_0 that noisome tunnel. In the wavering glaring light of the contending beams and screens,

spk_0 through the hot and rakely-stinking steam building away from the wreaking walls,

spk_0 the invaders fought their way. One by one and group by group, the defenders died where they stood

spk_0 and the valantians drove onward over their burned and dismembered bodies.

spk_0 Into the cavern at last. To the overlords, overlords. They, who for ages, had preyed upon generation

spk_0 after generation of helpless valantians, torturing their bodies to the point of death and then devouring

spk_0 ghoulishly the life-forces which their mangled bodies could no longer retain.

spk_0 Worsill and his crew threw away their delameters, only when it was absolutely necessary does any

spk_0 valantian use any artificial weapon against any overboard of Delgon. He is too furious, too berserk to do so.

spk_0 He is scared to the core of his being. The cold brew of a thousand finnishly eaten ancestors has

spk_0 bred that fear into the innermost atoms of his chemistry. But against that fear, negating and

spk_0 surmounting it is a hatred of such depth and violence as no human being has ever known. A starkly

spk_0 savage hatred which can be even partially asswaged only by the ultimate of violences, by

spk_0 rending his faux-apart member by member, by actually feeling the Delgonian's life depart

spk_0 under gripping hands and tearing talents and constricting body and shearing tale.

spk_0 It is best then not to go into to fine detail as to this conflict. Since there were almost

spk_0 a hundred of the Delgonians, insensitally vicious fighters went cornered, and since their physical

spk_0 makeup was very similar to the valantian's own, many of Worsill's troopers died.

spk_0 But since the Velen carried over 1500 and since less than half of her personnel could even get

spk_0 into the cavern, there were plenty of them left to operate and to fight the spaceship.

spk_0 Worsill took great care that the opposing commander was not killed with his minions.

spk_0 The fighting over, the valantians chained this soul survivor into one of his own racks and stretched

spk_0 him out into immobility. Then by restraining by main strength, the terrific urge to put the

spk_0 machine then and there to its fullest ghastly use, Worsill cut his screen through a couple of turns

spk_0 of tail around a convenient anchorage and face the Bosconian almost nose to nose.

spk_0 A weirdly stalked eyes curled out as he drove a probing thought beam against the monster's shield.

spk_0 I could use this or this or this, Worsill gloated. As he touched various wheels and levers,

spk_0 the chains hum slightly, sparks flashed, the rigid body twitched. I am not going to, however, yet,

spk_0 while you are still sane, I want to take and I shall take your total knowledge.

spk_0 And face to face, eye to eye, brain to brain, that silently and motionlessly cataclysmic battle was

spk_0 joined. As has been said, Worsill had hunted down and had destroyed many overlords. He had hunted

spk_0 them, however, like vermin. He had destroyed them with duodic bombs and with primary or secondary beams,

spk_0 or at closest hand with talons teeth and tail. He had not engaged in overlord mind to mind for

spk_0 over twenty to luring in years, not since he and Nadrek of Pellayne VII had captured alive the

spk_0 leaders of those who had been praying upon Helen's matriarchs and worrying upon civilization from

spk_0 their cavern upon lyreine too. Nor had he ever dueled one mentally to death without powerful support,

spk_0 kineson or some other lensman had always been nearby. But Worsill would need no help.

spk_0 He was not shivering and eager to snow. His body was as still as the solid rock upon which most of it lay.

spk_0 Every chamber and every faculty of his mind was concentrated upon battering down or cutting through

spk_0 the overlords stubbornly held shields. Brighter and brighter glowed the valantian's lens,

spk_0 flooding the gloomy cave with pulsating polychromatic light.

spk_0 Alert for any possible trickery, guarding intently against any possibility of repost or of

spk_0 counterthrust, Worsill leveled bolt after bolt of mental force. He surrounded the monster's mind

spk_0 with a searing, constricting field. He squeezed relentlessly and with appalling power.

spk_0 The overlord was beaten. He, who had never before encountered a foreign mind or a vital force

spk_0 stronger than his own, knew that he was beaten. He knew that at long last he had met that half

spk_0 fabulous valantian mensmen with whom not one of his monstrous race could cope.

spk_0 He knew starkly with the chilling, numbing terror possible only to such a being and such a

spk_0 position that he was doomed to die the same hideous and long drawn-out death which he had

spk_0 dealt out to so many others. He did not read into the mind of the bitterly vengeful,

spk_0 the implacably ferocious valantian, any more mercy or any more compunction that was actually there.

spk_0 He knew perfectly that of either there was no slightest trace,

spk_0 knowing these things with the blackly appalling certainty that was his, he quailed.

spk_0 There is an old but cogent saying that the brave man dies only once, the coward a thousand times.

spk_0 That overlord, during that lethal combat, died more times than it is pleasant to contemplate.

spk_0 Nevertheless, he fought. A cornered rat will fight and the delgonian was not a rat,

spk_0 not exactly that is an ordinary rat. His mind was competent, keen, powerful and utterly

spk_0 unscrupulous, and he brought to the defense of his beleaguered ego every resource of skill and

spk_0 of trickery and of sheer power at his command in vain. Deeper and deeper, in spite of everything he

spk_0 could do, the relentless lensment squeezed and smashed and cut and pried and bored, little by little,

spk_0 the overlord gave mental ground. This station is here. This staff is here. I am here then to

spk_0 read damage, all possible damage to the commerce and to the personnel of the Galactic Patrol,

spk_0 and civilization in every aspect. The overlord admitted haltingly as worrisoles pressure became

spk_0 intolerable. But such admissions, however unwillingly made or however revealing and substance,

spk_0 were not enough. Worse a wanted and would be satisfied with nothing less than his enemy's total

spk_0 knowledge. Hence, he maintained his assault until, unable longer to withstand the frightful

spk_0 battering, the overlord's barriers went completely down, until every convolution of his brain and

spk_0 every track of his mind lay open, helplessly exposed to Worsell's poignant scrutiny.

spk_0 Then, scarcely taking time to gloat over his victim, Worsell did scrutinize. Period.

spk_0 Hurdling through space toward a definite objective now, Worsell studied and analyzed some of the

spk_0 things which he had just learned. Worsell was not surprised that this overlord had not known of any

spk_0 of his superior officers in things or enterprises Bosconian, that he did not consciously know even that

spk_0 he had been obeying orders or that he had superiors. That technique by this time was familiar enough.

spk_0 The Bosconian psychologists were able operators to attempt to unravel the unknowable complexities of

spk_0 their subconscious compulsions would be a sheer waste of time. What the overlords had been doing,

spk_0 however, was clear enough. That outpost had indeed been wreaking havoc with civilization's commerce.

spk_0 Ship after ship had been lured from its course, had been compelled to land upon this barren planet.

spk_0 Some of those vessels had been destroyed. Some of them had been stripped and rifled as though by

spk_0 pirates of old. Some of them had been set upon new courses with hulls, mechanical equipment,

spk_0 and cargo's untouched. No crewman or passenger, however, escaped unscathed. Even though only 10%

spk_0 of them died in the overlordish fashion which Worsell knew so well. The overlord himself had wondered why

spk_0 they had not been able to kill them all. He knew that such forbearance was unnatural,

spk_0 was against all instinct and training. He knew that they wanted intensely enough to kill every one

spk_0 of their victims. That their greedy lust for life force simply could not be sated as long as

spk_0 life force was to be had. He knew only that something, none of them knew what, limited their actual

spk_0 killing to ten percent of the bag. Worsell grinned willfishly at that thought, even while he was admiring

spk_0 the quality of a psychology which could impress such a compulsion as that upon such repacious

spk_0 helians as those. That was the work of the Bosconian higher-ups. Who knew that 10% was the limit

spk_0 above which the deaths would have been too revealing to the statisticians of the Galactic Patrol.

spk_0 The other 90% however the Delgonians had played with, a procedure which although less satisfying

spk_0 to the overlords than the ultimate treatment was not very different in so far as the victims'

spk_0 egos were concerned. For none of them emerged from the ordeal with any memory of what had happened,

spk_0 or of what or who he had ever been. They were not all completely mad, some were only partially so.

spk_0 All had however been altered, changed, shockingly transformed. No two were alike. Each overlorded

spk_0 appeared, had striven with all his ultra-hellish ingenuity to excel his fellows in the manufacture

spk_0 of an outrageous something whose like had never been seen in or upon any land or sea or air or

spk_0 throughout any reach of space. These and many other facts and items Worsell had studied carefully.

spk_0 He was now heading for the region in which the patrol's computers had figured that the hellhole

spk_0 in space must lie. The planet he had just left, the overlords he had just slain, were not the original

spk_0 hellhole. Could have had nothing to do with it. Too far apart, they were not in the same possible

spk_0 volume of space. Worsell knew now though what the hellhole in space really was. It was a cavern

spk_0 of overlords. It simply couldn't be anything else. And in himself and his crew and his mighty

spk_0 vealant, he, Worsell of Alantia, overlords' layer, par excellence of two galaxies, had an ample

spk_0 measure, everything it took to exturpate any number of overlords. With what he had just learned,

spk_0 and with what he was so calmly certain he could do, the hellhole in space would take no more toll.

spk_0 Wherefore Worsell, coiled loosely around his hard bars, relaxed and happily planful thought.

spk_0 And in a couple of hours a solid clear cut thought impinged upon his lens.

spk_0 Worsell, con-calling, what goes on there fellow old snake? You've stuck that sharp tail of yours

spk_0 into some of my business, I hope. End of chapter 2

spk_0 Chapter 3 of Children of the Lens

spk_0 This Libbervox recordings in the public domain.

spk_0 Chapter 3

spk_0 Each of the second stage lensmen had exactly the same facts, the same data, upon which to theorize

spk_0 and from which to draw conclusions. Each had shared his experiences, his findings, and his

spk_0 deductions and inductions with all of the others. They had discussed minutely and wide open

spk_0 four ways, every phase of the Bosconian problem. Nevertheless, the approach of each to that problem,

spk_0 and the point of attack chosen by each was individual and characteristic.

spk_0 Kimbell Kinnison was by nature, forthright, direct. As has been seen, he could use the approach

spk_0 secuitous if necessary, but he much preferred and upon every possible occasion employed the

spk_0 approach direct. He liked plain, unambiguous clues much better than obscure ones. The more obvious

spk_0 and factual the clue was, the better he liked it. He was now therefore heading for Antigun 4,

spk_0 the scene of the latest and apparently the most outrageous of a long series of crimes of violence.

spk_0 He didn't know much about it. The request had come in through regular channels, not via lens,

spk_0 that he visit Antigun and take personal charge of the investigation of the supposed murder of

spk_0 the planetary president. As his speech or flashed through space, the gray lensmen mulled over in

spk_0 his mind the broad aspects of this crime wave. It was spreading far and wide, and the wider it spread

spk_0 and the intensity became the more vividly one salient fact stuck out. Selectivity, distribution.

spk_0 The solar systems of Thrayal, Valantia, Tellus, Clovia and Palain had not been affected.

spk_0 Thrayal, Tellus and Clovia were full of lensmen. Valantia, Rigel, Palain, and a good part of the

spk_0 time Clovia were the working headquarters of second stage lensmen. It seemed then that the trouble

spk_0 was roughly in inverse ratio to the numbers or the abilities of the lensmen in the neighborhood.

spk_0 Something therefore that lensmen, particularly second stage lensmen, were bad for.

spk_0 That was true, of course, for all crime. Nevertheless, this seemed to be a special case.

spk_0 And when he reached his destination, he found out that it was. The planet was seething.

spk_0 Its business and its everyday activity seemed to be almost paralyzed.

spk_0 Marshal Law had been declared. The streets were practically deserted, except for thick clustered

spk_0 groups of heavily armed guards. What few people were abroad were furtive and sly,

spk_0 sneaking hastily along with their fear-filled eyes trying to look in all directions at once.

spk_0 Wex, Wainwright, go ahead. Kineshsin directed brusquely, when,

spk_0 alone with the escorting patrol officers in a shielded car, he was being taken to the capital grounds.

spk_0 There's been too much secrecy, pussy-footing, about the whole affair. Spill it, please.

spk_0 Very well, sir. And Wainwright told his tale. Things have been happening for months,

spk_0 little things, but disturbing. Then murders and kidnappings and unexplained disappearances had

spk_0 begun to increase. The police forces have been falling farther and farther behind.

spk_0 The usual cries of incompetence and corruption have been raised only further to confuse the issue.

spk_0 Circutors, dodgers, hand-bills appeared all over the planet, from where nobody knew.

spk_0 The keenest detectives could find no clue to paper makers, printers, or distributors.

spk_0 The usual inflammatory, subversive propaganda, down with the patrol, give us back our freedom,

spk_0 and so on. But because of the high tension already prevailing, the stuff have been unusually

spk_0 effective in breaking down the morale of the citizenry as a whole. Then this last thing,

spk_0 for two solid weeks, the whole world was literally plastered with the announcement that at midnight

spk_0 on the 34th of Dreal, you're familiar with our calendar, I think, President Renwood would disappear.

spk_0 Two weeks warning, daring us. Wainwright got that far and stopped.

spk_0 Well, go on. He disappeared. I know. How? What did you fellow's do to prevent it? Why all the secrecy?

spk_0 If you insist, I'll have to tell you, of course, but I'd rather not. Wainwright flushed uncomfortably.

spk_0 You wouldn't believe it. Nobody could. I couldn't believe it myself if I hadn't been there.

spk_0 I'd rather you'd wait, sir, and let the vice-president tell you in the presence of the treasure

spk_0 and the others who were on duty that night. I see. Maybe.

spk_0 Kinesense mind raced. That's why nobody would give me details. A frayed I wouldn't believe it.

spk_0 That I think they'd been, he stopped. Hiptitized would have been the next word, but that would have

spk_0 been jumping at conclusions. Even if true, there was no sense in airing that hypothesis yet.

spk_0 Not afraid, sir. They knew that you wouldn't believe it.

spk_0 After entering government reservation, they went not to the president's private quarters,

spk_0 but into the treasury and down into the sub-basement housing, the most massive,

spk_0 the most utterly impregnable vault of the planet. There, the nation's most responsible officers

spk_0 told Kinesense with their entire minds as well as their tongues, what had happened.

spk_0 Upon that black day, business had been suspended. No visitors of any sort had been permitted to

spk_0 enter the reservation. No one had been allowed to approach the president, except old and trusted

spk_0 officers about whose loyalty there could be no question. Airships and spaceships had filled the

spk_0 sky. Troops, armed with semi-portables or manning fixed-mount heavy stuff, had covered the grounds.

spk_0 At five minutes before midnight, Renwood, a company by four secret servicemen,

spk_0 had entered the vault, which was there upon locked by the treasurer.

spk_0 All the cabinet-members saw them go in, as did the attendant corps of specially selected guards.

spk_0 Nevertheless, when the treasurer opened the vault at five minutes after midnight,

spk_0 the five men were gone. No trace of any one of them had been found from that time on.

spk_0 And that every word of it is true, the assembled minds yelled as one, all unconsciously into the

spk_0 mind of the Lensman. During all this telling, Kinesense had been searching mind after mind,

spk_0 inspecting each minute for the tell-tale marks of mental surgery. He found none, no hypnosis.

spk_0 This thing had happened exactly as they told it.

spk_0 Now, convinced of that fact, his eyes clouded with foreboding, he sent out his sense of

spk_0 perception and studied the vault itself. Millimeter by cubic millimeter he scanned the

spk_0 innermost details of its massive structure, a concrete, the neocarb alloy, the steel,

spk_0 the heat conductors, and the closely spaced gas cells. He traced the intricate wiring of the

spk_0 networks of alarms. Everything was sound, everything functioned, nothing had been disturbed.

spk_0 The sun of this system, although rather on the small side, was intensely hot. This planet,

spk_0 four, was a long way out. Pretty close to cardage's limit, or the Bosconians had improved their

spk_0 technique, tightened up their controls. A tube, of course, for all the T and China, it had to be a tube.

spk_0 Kinesh and Sagd, for the first time in his life, the indomitable Gray Lensman showed his years and more.

spk_0 I know that it happened. His voice was grim, quiet, as he spoke to the still protesting men.

spk_0 I also know how it was done, but that's all. How they demanded practically in one voice.

spk_0 A hyperspacial tube, and Kinesh and went on to explain, as well as he could, the functioning of a

spk_0 thing which could not be grasped intrinsically by any non-mathematical, three-dimensional mind.

spk_0 But what can we, or you, or anybody else do about it? The treasure asked, numbly.

spk_0 Nothing, whatever. Kinesh's voice was flat. When it's gone, it's gone. Where does the light go

spk_0 when a lamp goes out? No more trace. No more way. No way, whatever, of tracing it.

spk_0 Hundreds of millions of planets in this galaxy, as many in the second. Millions and millions of

spk_0 galaxies. All that in one universe, our own universe. And there are an infinite number. Too many to

spk_0 be expressed, let alone to be grasped, of universe is side by side, like pages in a book, except thinner,

spk_0 in the hyperdimension. So you can figure out for yourselves the chances of ever finding either

spk_0 President Renwood or the Bosconians who took him. So close to zero as to be indistinguishable from

spk_0 zero absolute. The treasure was crushed. Do you mean to say that there is no protection at all from

spk_0 this thing? That they can keep on doing away with us just as they please? The nation is going

spk_0 mad, sir, day by day. One more such occurrence, and we will be a planet of maniacs.

spk_0 Oh no, I didn't say that. The tension lightened. Just that we can't do anything about the President

spk_0 and his aides. The tube can be detected while it is in place, and anyone coming through it can

spk_0 be shot as soon as he can be seen. What you need is a couple of Rijelly and Lensman, or Ortevics.

spk_0 I'll see to it that you get them. I don't think with them here that they will even try to repeat.

spk_0 He did not add what he knew somberly to be a fact that the enemy would go elsewhere to some

spk_0 other planet not protected by Lensman able to perceive the intangible structure of a sphere of pure

spk_0 force. Frustrated, the Lensman again took to space. It was terrible this thing of having everything

spk_0 happening where he wasn't, and when he got there having nothing left to work on.

spk_0 Hit and run, stab in the back. How could a man fight something that he couldn't see,

spk_0 or sense, or feel, or find? But this chewing his fingernails to the elbow wasn't getting him

spk_0 anywhere either. He'd have to find something that he could stick a tooth into. What?

spk_0 All former avenues of approach were blocked. He was sure of that. The Bosconians, who were now

spk_0 in charge of things, could really think. No underling would know anything about any one of them,

spk_0 except at such times and places as the directors chose, and those conferences would be as nearly

spk_0 detection proof as they could be made. What to do? Easy. Catch a big operator in the act. He

spk_0 grinned Riley to himself. Easy to say, but not, however, it wasn't impossible.

spk_0 The Bosconians were not Superman. They didn't have any more jets than he did.

spk_0 Put himself in the other fellow's place, what would he do if he were a Bosconian big shot?

spk_0 He had had quite a lot of experience in the role. Were there any specific groups of crimes which

spk_0 reveal techniques similar to those which he himself would use in light case?

spk_0 He personally preferred to work direct and to attack in force. At need, however,

spk_0 he had done a smooth job of boring from within. In the face of the patrol's overwhelming

spk_0 superiority of armament, especially in the first galaxy, they would have to bore from within.

spk_0 How? By what means? He was a Lensman, they were not.

spk_0 Jet back. Or were they, perhaps? How did he know that they weren't?

spk_0 Maybe they were, by this time. Foster and the Renegade Arissian, no use kidding himself,

spk_0 Foster might have known as much about the Lens as mentor himself, and might have developed

spk_0 an organization that even mentor didn't know anything about. Or mentor might be figuring that

spk_0 it would be good for what ailed a certain fat headed Grey Lensman to have to dope this out for

spk_0 himself. QX, he shot a call to Vice Coordinator,

spk_0 who was now in complete charge of the office which Kinnison had temporarily abandoned.

spk_0 Cliff? Kim. Just gave birth to an idea. He explained rapidly what the idea was.

spk_0 Maybe nothing to it, but we better get up on our toes and find out. You might suggest to the boys

spk_0 that they check up here and there, particularly around the rough spots. If any of them find any

spk_0 trace anywhere of off-color, sour, or even slightly rancid Lensman ship, with or without a lens

spk_0 appearing in the picture, burn a hole in space getting it to me. QX? Thanks.

spk_0 QX, viewed in this new perspective, Renwood of Antigun IV might have been neither a patriot nor a

spk_0 victim, but a saboteur. The tube could have been a prop, used deliberately to cap the mysterious

spk_0 climax. The four honest and devoted guards were the real casualties. Renwood, or whoever he was,

spk_0 having accomplished his object of undermining and destroying the whole planet's morale, might

spk_0 simply have gone elsewhere to continue his nefarious activities. It was fiendishly clever.

spk_0 That spectacularly theatrical finale was certainly one for the book. The whole thing, though,

spk_0 was very much of a piece and quality of workmanship with what he had done in becoming the tyrant of

spk_0 Thrayal. Far fetched? No. He had already denied in his thoughts that the Baskonian operators were

spk_0 supermen. Conversely, he wasn't either. He would have to admit that they might very well be as good

spk_0 as he was. To deny them the ability to do anything which he himself could do would be sheer stupidity.

spk_0 Where did that put him? On Red Delix, by Clonus Golden Gills, a good-sized planet, important enough,

spk_0 but not too much so. People human, comparatively little hell being raised there, yet.

spk_0 Very few Lensman and Gerrand the top. Gerrand, not too bright as Lensman went, and inclined to be a

spk_0 bit brass haddish. To Red Delix, by all means, next. He went to Red Delix, but not in the Dauntless

spk_0 and not in Gray. He was a passenger upon a luxury liner, a writer in search of local color for

spk_0 another saga of the spaceways. Sibli White, one of the patrols most carefully established

spk_0 figments, had a bullet-proof past. He is omnivorous interest and his uninhibited nosiness with the

spk_0 natural attributes of his profession. Everything is grist which comes to an author's mill. Sibli White

spk_0 then prowled about Red Delix. Industrously, and to some observers, poitlessly. He and his red

spk_0 leather notebook were apt to be seen anywhere at any time, day or night. He visited space-ports,

spk_0 he climbed through freighters, he lost small sums and playing various games of so-called chance

spk_0 in spacemen's dives. Upon the other hand, he truckled assiduously to the social elite and

spk_0 attended all functions into which he could wangle or could force his way. He made a pest of himself

spk_0 in the offices of politicians, bankers, merchant princes, tycoons of business and manufacture,

spk_0 and all other sorts of grates. He was stopped one day in the outer office of an industrial potentate.

spk_0 Get out and stout, a peg-legged guard told him. The boss hasn't read any of your stuff, but I have,

spk_0 and neither of us wants to talk to you. Data, huh? What do you need of data on atomic cats and bulldozers

spk_0 to write them space-oppers of yours? Why do you get a roused about job on a freighter and learn

spk_0 something about what you're trying to write about? Get yourself a real space-tan instead of that

spk_0 imitation you got under a lamp. Work some of that lard off of your carcass. White was definitely

spk_0 fatter than Kinesen had been, and somehow softer. He peered out as he threw heavy lenses,

spk_0 which, fortunately, did not interfere with his sense of perception.

spk_0 Then maybe some of your trip will be half-fit to read. Beat it.

spk_0 Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, very much, sir. Kinesen bobbed up sequously and scurried out,

spk_0 writing industriously in his notebook the while. He had, however, found out what he wanted to know.

spk_0 The boss was nobody he was looking for. Nor was an eminent statesman whom he button-hold at a

spk_0 reception. I failed to see, sir, entirely any point in your interviewing me, that worthy

spk_0 informed him frigidly. I am not. I am, um, sure suitable material for any opus upon which you

spk_0 may be at work. Oh, you can't ever tell, sir. Kinesen said. You see, I never know who or what is

spk_0 going to get into any of my stories until after I start to write it, and sometimes not even then.

spk_0 The statesman glared and Kinesen retreated in disorder. To stay in character,

spk_0 Kinesen actually wrote a story while upon Redelix, a story which was later acclaimed as one of

spk_0 Sibli White's best. Quadgop the Mercotin slithered flatly around the after-bolge of the

spk_0 Tranship. One claw dug into the meter-stick armor of pure neutronium, then another.

spk_0 Its terrible ex-mex-like snout locked on. Its simultaneously polydactyl tongue crunched out,

spk_0 crashed down, rastped across. Slurp, slurp. At each abrasive stroke, the groove in the

spk_0 Tranship's plating deepened, and Quadgop leared more fiercely. Fools, did they think that the

spk_0 airlessness of absolute space, the heartlessness of absolute zero, the yieldlessness of absolute

spk_0 neutronium could stop Quadgop the Mercotin? And the stow away, that human wench Cynthia,

spk_0 cowering in helpless terror just beyond this thin and fragile wall.

spk_0 Kinesen was tapping merrily and verbosely along, at a central word, when his first real clue

spk_0 developed. A yellow attention-like gleamed upon his Visifone panel, a subdued chime gave notice

spk_0 that a message of importance was about to be broadcast to the world. Kinesen white flipped his

spk_0 switch, and the stern face of the provost marshal appeared upon the screen. Attention, please,

spk_0 the image spoke. Every citizen of Redelix is urged to be upon the lookout for the source of

spk_0 certain inflammatory and subversive literature, which is beginning to appear in various cities of

spk_0 this planet. Our officers cannot be everywhere at once. Use citizens are. It is hoped that by the aid

spk_0 of your vigilance, this threat to our planetary peace and security can be removed before it becomes

spk_0 really serious, that we can avoid the imposition of marshal law.

spk_0 This message, while not of extreme or urgent import to most right allegiance,

spk_0 held for Kinesen a profound and unique meaning. He was right. He had to do the thing 100%.

spk_0 He knew what was going to happen next and how. He knew that neither the law enforcement officers

spk_0 of Redelix nor its masked citizenry could stop it. They could not even impede it. A force of

spk_0 lensmen could stop it, but that would not get the patrol anywhere unless they could capture or kill

spk_0 the beings really responsible for what was done. To alarm them would not do. Whether or not he could

spk_0 do much of anything before the grand climax depended upon a lot of factors. Upon what that climax was,

spk_0 upon who was threatened with what? Upon whether or not the threatened one was actually a busconean.

spk_0 A great deal of investigation was indicated. If the enemy were going to repeat, as seemed

spk_0 probable, the president would be the victim. If he, Kinesen, could not get a line upon the higher

spk_0 rubs before the plot came to a head, he would have to let it develop right up to the point of

spk_0 disappearance. And for white to appear upon the scene at that time would be to attract undesirable

spk_0 attention. No, by that time he must already have been kicking around underfoot long enough to

spk_0 have become an unnoticeable fixture. Therefore he moved into quarters as close to the executive

spk_0 offices as he could possibly get. And in those quarters he worked openly and wordly at the

spk_0 bringing of the affair of Quadgop and the beautiful but dumb Cynthia to a satisfactory conclusion.

spk_0 End of chapter 3

spk_0 This liberal box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4

spk_0 In order to understand these and subsequent events, it is necessary to cut back briefly some

spk_0 twenty-odd years to the momentous interview upon Schilddark-Anlo, between monstrous Kandron and

spk_0 his superior in affairs busconean, the unspeakable Alcon, tyrant of Thrayal. At almost the end of that

spk_0 interview, when Kandron had suggested the possibility that his own base had perhaps been vulnerable to

spk_0 star A stars in Sidious manipulations, do you mean to admit that you may have been invaded and

spk_0 searched tracelessly? Alcon fairly shriek the thought. Certainly, Kandron replied coldly.

spk_0 While I do not believe that it has been done, the possibility must be conceded.

spk_0 What we could do we have done, but what science can do, science can circumvent.

spk_0 It is a virtual certainty that it is not Anlo and I who are their prime objectives,

spk_0 but Thrayal and you, especially you. You may be right. With no data whatever upon who or what star A

spk_0 star really is, with no tenable theory as to how he could have done what actually has been done,

spk_0 speculation is idle. Thus Alcon ended the conversation and almost immediately went back to Thrayal.

spk_0 After the tyrant's departure, Kandron continued to think, and the more he thought, the more uneasy he

spk_0 became. It was undoubtedly true that Alcon and Thrayal were the patrols' prime objectives.

spk_0 But those objectives attained, was it reasonable to suppose that he and Anlo would be spared?

spk_0 It was not. Should he warn Alcon further? He should not. If the tyrant, after all that had been said,

spk_0 could not see the danger he was in, he was not worth saving. If he preferred to stay and fight it out,

spk_0 that was his lookout. Kandron would take no chances with his own extremely valuable life.

spk_0 Should he warn his own men? How could he? They were able and hardened fighters all. No possible

spk_0 warning could make them defend their fortresses and their lives any more efficiently than they

spk_0 were already prepared to do. Nothing he could say would be of any use in preparing them for a threat

spk_0 whose basic nature even was completely unknown. Furthermore, this hypothetical invasion probably

spk_0 had not happened, and very well might not happen at all, and to flee from an imaginary foe would not

spk_0 rebound to his credit. No. As a personage of large affairs, not limited to Anlo, he would be called

spk_0 elsewhere. He would stay elsewhere until after whatever was going to happen had happened.

spk_0 If nothing happened during the ensuing few weeks, he would return from his official trip and all

spk_0 would be well. He inspected Anlo thoroughly. He cautioned his officers repeatedly and insistently

spk_0 to keep alert against every conceivable emergency while he was so unavoidably absent.

spk_0 Then he departed, with a fleet of vessels manned by hand-picked crews to along prepared and

spk_0 hitherto secret retreat. From that safe place he watched through the eyes and the instruments of

spk_0 his skilled observers everything that occurred. Thrayel fell and Anlo, the patrol triumphant,

spk_0 then knowing the full measure of the disaster and accepting it with the grim passivity so characteristic

spk_0 of his breed, Candron broadcasts certain signals, and one of his and Alcon superiors,

spk_0 gut in touch with him. He reported concisely. They conferred. He was given orders which were to

spk_0 keep him busy for over twenty tolorean years. He knew now that Anlo had been invaded,

spk_0 tracelessly, by some feat of mentality beyond comprehension and almost beyond belief.

spk_0 He knew that Anlo had fallen without any of its defenders having energized a single one of

spk_0 their gigantic engines of war. The fall of Thrayel and the manner of that falls accomplishment were

spk_0 plain enough. Human stuff. The work undoubtedly of human lensmen, perhaps the work of the human

spk_0 lensmen who was so frequently associated with Star A Star. But Anlo, Candron himself had set

spk_0 those snares along those intricately zigzag communication lines. He knew their capabilities.

spk_0 Candron himself had installed Anlo's blocking and shielding screens. He knew their might.

spk_0 He knew, since no other path existed leading to Thrayel, that those lines had been followed,

spk_0 and those screens had been penetrated, and all without setting off a single alarm.

spk_0 Those things had actually happened. Hence, Candron set his stupendous mind to the task of

spk_0 envisaging what the being must be mentally who could do them. What the mind of this Star A star,

spk_0 it could have been no one else, must in actuality be. He succeeded. He deduced Nadric of Palain Seven,

spk_0 practically in total, and for the Star A star thus envisaged, he set traps throughout

spk_0 both galaxies. They might or might not kill him. Killing him immediately, however, was not really

spk_0 of the essence. That matter could wait until he could give it his personal attention.

spk_0 The important thing was to see to it that Star A star could never, by any possible chance,

spk_0 discover a true lead to any high Bosconian. Snearingly, gloatingly, Candron issued orders,

spk_0 then flunk himself with all his zeal and ability into the task of reorganizing the shattered

spk_0 fragments of the Bosconian Empire into a force capable of wrecking civilization.

spk_0 Thus it was not strange that for more than twenty years, Nadric of Palain Seven made very little

spk_0 progress indeed. Time after time he graced a hot edge of death. Indeed, it was only by the exertion

spk_0 of his every Iodov skill, power, and calisophiciency that he managed to survive.

spk_0 He struck a few telling blows for civilization, but most of the time he was strictly upon the

spk_0 defensive. Every clue that he followed it seemed led subtly into a trap. Every course he pursued

spk_0 ended, always figuratively and all too often literally, in a cul-de-sac filled with semi-portable

spk_0 projectors all a gug to blast him out of the ether. Year by year he became more conscious of

spk_0 some imperceptible, indetectable, but potent foe, an individual enemy obstructing his every move

spk_0 and determined to make an end of him. And year by year, as material accumulated, it became more

spk_0 and more certain that the inimical entity was in fact Candron once of Onlo. When Kit went into space

spk_0 then and Kinnison called Nadrek into consultation, the usually-redicent and unlocuacious Pallini and was

spk_0 ready to talk. He told the Grey Lensman everything he knew, everything he deduced or suspected about the

spk_0 ex-Onloan chieftain. Candron of Onlo, Kinnison exploded, so violently as to seared the sub-either through

spk_0 which the thought passed. Holy clonus brazen bowels, and you sit there on your spiny

spk_0 tocus and tell me that Candron got away from you back there, and that you knew it and not only

spk_0 didn't do a thing about it yourself, but didn't even tell me or anybody else about it so that we could

spk_0 take steps? Certainly. Why take steps before they become necessary? Nadrek was entirely unmoved by

spk_0 the Tolerian's passion. My powers are admittedly small, my intellect feeble. However, even to me it was

spk_0 clear then, and it is clear now that Candron was then of no importance. My assignment was to

spk_0 reduce Onlo, I reduced it. Whether or not Candron was there at the time did not then have, and cannot

spk_0 now have anything to do with that task. Candron, personally, is another an entirely distinct problem.

spk_0 Kinnison swore a blistering deep space oath, then by main strength shut himself up.

spk_0 Nadrek wasn't human. There was no use even trying to judge him by human or near-human standards.

spk_0 He was fundamentally incomprehensibly and radically different, and it was just as well for humanity

spk_0 that he was. For if his hellishly able race had possessed the characteristically human abilities in

spk_0 addition to their own, civilization would of necessity have been basically Pellanian instead of

spk_0 basically human as it now is. QXAs he growled finally, skip it. But Candron has been hampering my

spk_0 activities for years, and now that you also have become interested in his operations against us,

spk_0 he has become a factor of which Cagnison should be taken. Nadrek went impreturbably on.

spk_0 He could no more understand Kinnison's viewpoint than the Tullarian could understand his.

spk_0 With your permission, therefore, I shall find and slay this Candron.

spk_0 Go to it, little chum. Kinnison sighed, bitingly and uselessly.

spk_0 Clear ether. While this conference was taking place, Candron reclined in a bitterly cold,

spk_0 completely unlighted room of his headquarters, and indulged in a little gloating concerning

spk_0 the predicament in which he was keeping Nadrek a Pellan VII, who was in all probability,

spk_0 the once dreaded Star A Star of the Galactic Patrol. It was true that the Lensman was still alive.

spk_0 He could probably, Candron mused quite pleasurably, remain alive until he himself could find the

spk_0 time to attend to him in person. He was an able operator, but one presenting no real menace,

spk_0 now that he was known and understood. There were other things more pressing, just as there had

spk_0 been ever since the fall of Thrayal. The revised plan was going nicely, and as soon as he resolved

spk_0 that human thing, the plurance had suggested, could it be possible after all that Nadrek of Pellan

spk_0 was not he who had been known so long only as Star A Star, that the human factor was actually

spk_0 through the operation of some unknowable sense. Candron knew that it was time for his aid to be

spk_0 at hand to report upon those human affairs. He sent out a signal, and another onlonian scuttled in.

spk_0 That unknown human element, Candron radiated harshly, I assumed that you are not reporting that it

spk_0 has been resolved. Sorry, Supremacy, but your assumption is correct. The creature radiated back

spk_0 in no very conciliatory fashion. The trap at Antigun IV was set particularly for him, specifically to

spk_0 match the man whose mentality you computed and diagrammed for us. Was it too obvious, thank you,

spk_0 Supremacy, or perhaps not quite obvious enough? Or the galaxy being large, is it perhaps that he

spk_0 simply did not learn of it in time? In the next attempt, what degree of obviousness should I employ,

spk_0 and what degree of repetition is desirable? The technique of the Antigun affair was flawless.

spk_0 Candron decided he did not learn of it, as he suggests, or we should have caught him.

spk_0 He is a master workman, always concealed by his very obviousness until after he has done his work.

spk_0 Thus we can never, say by mirror's chance, catch him before they act. We must make him come to us.

spk_0 We must keep on trying until he does come to us. It is of no great moment, really, whether we catch him

spk_0 now or five years hence. This work must be done in any event. It is simply a fortunate coincidence

spk_0 that the necessary destruction of civilization upon its own planets presents such a fine opportunity

spk_0 of trapping him. As to repeating the Antigun technique, we should not repeat it exactly,

spk_0 or hold. It might be best to do just that. To repeat a process is, of course, the mark of an inferior

spk_0 mind. But if that human can be made to believe that our minds are inferior, so much the better.

spk_0 Keep on trying. Report as instructed. Remember that he must be taken alive,

spk_0 so that we can take from his living brain the secrets we have not yet been able to learn.

spk_0 Forget in the instant of leaving this room everything about me and about any connections between us

spk_0 until I force recollection upon you. Go. The minion went and Kandran set out to do more of the things

spk_0 which he could best do. He would have liked to take Nadrix trail himself. He could catch and he could

spk_0 kill that evasive entity and the task would have been a pleasant one. He would have liked to supervise

spk_0 the trapping of that enigmatic human lenseman who might, or might not, be that frequently and

spk_0 copiously damned star a star. That too would be an eminently pleasant chore. There were, however,

spk_0 other matters more pressing by far. If the great plan were to succeed and it absolutely must and would,

spk_0 every busconian must perform his assigned duties.

spk_0 Nadrix and his putative accomplice reside issues. Kandran's task was to set up and to direct certain

spk_0 psychoses and disorders, a ghastly train of mental ills of which he possessed such supreme mastery

spk_0 and which were surely and safely helping to destroy the foundation upon which galactic civilization

spk_0 rested. That part was his, and he could do it to the best of his ability. The other things,

spk_0 the personal and non-essential matters could wait. Kandran set out then and traveled fast and far,

spk_0 and wherever he went, their spread still further abroad, the already widespread blight,

spk_0 a disgusting, a horrible blight, with which no human physician or psychiatrist apparently could cope.

spk_0 One of, perhaps the worst of, the corrosive blights which had been eating so long at civilization's

spk_0 vitals. And El-Tunadric, having decided to find and slay the ex-ruler of Anno, went about it in his

spk_0 usual unhurried but eminently thorough fashion. He made no effort to locate him or to trace him

spk_0 personally. That would be bad, foolish, worse, it would be inefficient, worst, it would probably be

spk_0 impossible. No, he would find out where Kandran would be at some suitable future time and wait for him

spk_0 in that place. To that end, Nadric collected a vast mass of data concerning the occurrences and

spk_0 phenomena which the Big Four had discussed so thoroughly. He analyzed each item, sorting out those

spk_0 which bore the characteristic stamp of the arch-phope whom by now he had come to know so well.

spk_0 The internal evidence of Kandran's craftsmanship was unmistakable, and not now to his surprise,

spk_0 Nadric discerned that the number of the Anlonians' dark deeds was legion.

spk_0 There was the affair of the Prime Minister of De Silva III, who at a cabinet meeting shot and

spk_0 killed his sovereign and eleven chiefs of state before committing suicide. The president of Veridon,

spk_0 who at his press conference ran a muck with a cimitar snatched from a wall,

spk_0 hewing unsuspecting reporters to gory bits until he was overpowered and then swallowed poison.

spk_0 A variant of the theme, but still plainly Kandran's doing, was the interesting episode in which

spk_0 Galactic Counselor Edminson, while upon an ocean voyage, through fifteen women passengers overboard,

spk_0 then leaped after them dressed only in a life-jacket stuffed with lead.

spk_0 Another, out of the same whimsical mold, was that of Dilway, the highly respected operations chief

spk_0 of central spaceways. That potentate called his secretaries one by one into a sixty-th floor

spk_0 office, and unconsurably tossed them one by one out of the window. He danced to jig upon a coping

spk_0 before diving after them to the street. A particularly juicy and entertaining bit,

spk_0 Nadric thought, was the case of Narcourt base hospital, in which four of the planets, most

spk_0 eminent surgeons, decapitated every other person in the place. Patients, nurses, orderlies at all,

spk_0 with a fine disregard of age, sex, or condition, arranged the several heads, each upright and each

spk_0 facing due north, upon the tiled floor to spell the word revenge, and then hacked each other to

spk_0 death with scalples. These, and a thousand or more other events of similar technique,

spk_0 Nadric tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis.

spk_0 Scattered so widely throughout such a vast volume of space, they had created little or no general

spk_0 disturbance. Indeed, they had scarcely been noticed by civilization as a whole. Collected,

spk_0 they made a truly staggering, or revolting, and appalling total.

spk_0 Nadric, however, was inherently incapable of being staggered, revolted, or appalled.

spk_0 That repulsive summation, a thing which in its masked horror would have shaken to the core,

spk_0 shocked almost into paralysis, any being possessing any shred of sympathy or tenderness,

spk_0 was to Nadric, simply and interesting, and not too difficult problem in psychology and mathematics.

spk_0 He placed each episode in space, and in time, correlating each with all of its fellows in a

spk_0 space-time matrix. He determined the locus of centers and arrived the equations of its most

spk_0 probable motion. He extended it by extrapolation in accordance with that equation.

spk_0 Then, assuring himself that his margin of error was as small as he could make it,

spk_0 he set out for a planet in which Kandrain would most probably visit at a time far enough in the future,

spk_0 to enable him to receive the Unlonian. That planet, being inhabited by near-human beings,

spk_0 was warm, brightly sunlit, and had an atmosphere rich in oxygen.

spk_0 Nadric detested it, since his ideal of a planet was precisely the opposite.

spk_0 Fortunately, however, he would not have to land upon it until after Kandrain's arrival,

spk_0 possibly not then, and the fact that his proposed quarry was, like himself, a frigid-blooded

spk_0 poison breather, made the task of detection a simple one.

spk_0 Nadric set his indetectable speech-turn into a circuit or orbit around the planet, far enough

spk_0 out to be comfortable, and sent out course after course of delicate, extremely sensitive screen.

spk_0 Precision of pattern analysis was, of course, needless. The probability was that all legitimate

spk_0 movement of personnel to and from the planet would be composed of warm-blooded oxygen-breather's,

spk_0 that any visitor not so classified would be Kandrain.

spk_0 Any frigid-blooded visitor had at least to be investigated,

spk_0 hence his analytical screens had to be capable only of differentiating between two types of beings

spk_0 as far apart as the galactic poles in practically every respect.

spk_0 Nadric knew that no supervision would be necessary to perform such an open and shut separation as that.

spk_0 He would have nothing more to do until his electronic announcer should warn him of Kandrain's

spk_0 approach, or until the passage of time should inform him that the unlawful was not coming to this

spk_0 particular planet. Being a mathematician, Nadric knew that any data secured by extrapolation

spk_0 is of doubtful value. He thus knew that the actual probability of Kandrain's coming was less by

spk_0 some indeterminate amount than the mathematical one. Nevertheless, having done all that he could do,

spk_0 he waited with a monstrous, unhuman patience known only to such races as his.

spk_0 Day by day, week by week, the Spiester circled the planet and its big hot sun,

spk_0 and as it circled, the lone voyage were studied. He analyzed more data more precisely.

spk_0 He drew deeper and deeper upon his store of knowledge to determine what steps next to take in the

spk_0 event that this attempt should end as so many previous ones had ended in failure.

spk_0 Kineson, the author, toiled manfully at his epic of space whenever he was under any sort of

spk_0 observation, and enough at other times to avert any suspicion. Indeed, he worked as much as

spk_0 sibling white and advertisably temperamental writer had ever worked. Besides interviewing the high

spk_0 and the low and taking notes everywhere, he attended author's teas, at which he cursed his characters

spk_0 fluently and bitterly for their failure to cooperate with them. With short-haired women and long-haired

spk_0 men, he bemoaned the perversity of a public which compelled them to prostitute the real genius

spk_0 of which each was the unique possessor. He sympathized particularly with the fat woman writer of

spk_0 Dunnets, whose extremely unrealistic yet amazingly popular Grey Lensman hero had lived through

spk_0 ten full length novels and twenty million copies. Even though her real field was the drama,

spk_0 she wasn't writing the kind of detective tribe that most of these crankturners ground out,

spk_0 she confided to Kineson. She had known lots of Grey Lensman very intimately, and her stories were

spk_0 drawn for real life in every particular. Thus Kineson remained in character, and thus he was

spk_0 enabled to work completely unnoticed at his real job of finding out what was going on, how the

spk_0 Bosconians were operating to ruin Redelix as they had ruined Antigun IV. His first care was to

spk_0 investigate the planet's president. That took doing, but he did it. He examined that mind

spk_0 line by line and channel by channel with no results, whatever. No scars, no sign of tampering.

spk_0 Calling in assistance, he searched the president's past even more rigidly than fostered

spk_0 head search that of Trasca Ganoel. Still no soap. Everything checked, even to widely distributed

spk_0 boyhood pictures. Boring from within then was out. His first hypothesis was wrong.

spk_0 This invasion and this sabotage were being done from without. How?

spk_0 Those first leaflets were followed by others, each batch more vitriolic and toned than the

spk_0 preceding one. Apparently they came from empty stratosphere. At least no ships were to be

spk_0 detected in the nibbhood after any shower of the handbills had appeared. But that was not surprising.

spk_0 With its inertialist drive, any spaceship could have been parsecs away before the papers touched

spk_0 atmosphere, or they could have been bombed in from almost any distance. Or, as Kinesan thought

spk_0 most reasonable, they could have been simply dumped out of the mouth of a hyperspatial tube.

spk_0 In any event, the method was immaterial. The results only were important,

spk_0 and those results the lensmen discovered were entirely disproportionate to the ostensible

spk_0 causes. The subversive literature had some effect, of course, but essentially it must be a blind.

spk_0 No possible tonnage of anonymous printing could cause that much sheer demoralization.

spk_0 Crackpots societies of all kinds spring up everywhere, advocating everything from absolutism to

spk_0 anarchy. Queer culture rose, preaching free love, the imminent end of the world, and almost every

spk_0 other conceivable departure from the norm of thought. The author's league, of course, was affected more

spk_0 than any other organization of its size, because of its relatively large content of strong and

spk_0 intensely opinionated minds. Instead of becoming one radical group, it split into a dozen.

spk_0 Kinesan joined one of those down with everything groups, not as a leader, but as a follower.

spk_0 Not too sheep like a follower, but just inconspicuous enough to retain his invisibly average status.

spk_0 And from his place of concealment in the middle of the front reg, he studied the minds of each of his

spk_0 fellow anarchists. He watched those minds change. He found out who was doing the changing.

spk_0 When Kinesan's turn came, he was all set for trouble. He expected a battle of powerful mentality.

spk_0 He would not have been overly surprised to encounter another madderision, hiding behind a zone of

spk_0 hypnotic compulsion. He expected anything, in fact, except what he found, which was a very ordinary

spk_0 red-illigion therapist. The guy was a clever enough operator, of course, but he could not work

spk_0 against even the feebleest opposition. Hence, the Grey Linsman had no trouble at all, either in

spk_0 learning everything the fellow knew, or upon leaving him, in implanting within his mind, the knowledge

spk_0 that he had made sibley white into exactly the type of anarchist desired. The trouble was that

spk_0 the therapist didn't know a thing. This not entirely unexpected development posed Kinesan three

spk_0 questions. Did the higher-ups ever communicate with such small fry, or did they just give them one

spk_0 set of orders and cut them loose? Should he stay in this red-illigion's mind until he found out?

spk_0 If he was in control of the therapist when a big shot took over, did he have jets enough to

spk_0 keep from being found out? Risky business. Better scout around first anyway. He'd do a flit.

spk_0 He drove his black speech to a million miles. He covered red delics like a blanket around the

spk_0 equator and from pole to pole. Everywhere he found the same state of things. The planet was literally

spk_0 riddled with agitators. He found so many that he was forced to a black conclusion. There could be no

spk_0 connection or communication between such numbers of saboteurs and any higher authority.

spk_0 They must have been sent with one set of do-or-die instructions, whether they did or died was immaterial.

spk_0 Experimentally, Kinesan had a few of the ring leaders taken into custody, as each was arrested

spk_0 another took his place. Marshall Law was finally declared, but this measure succeeded only in driving

spk_0 the conspirators underground. What the subversive societies lost in numbers, they more than made up in

spk_0 desperation and violence. Crime raged unchecked and uncheckable. Murder became an everyday commonplace,

spk_0 insanity waxed rife. And Kinesan, knowing now that no channel to important prey would be opened

spk_0 until the climax watched grimly while the rape of the planet went on.

spk_0 The president of Redelix and Linsman-Garren sent message after message to Prime Bay's

spk_0 Santa Cluvia, imploring help. The replies to these pleas were all alike. The matter had been referred

spk_0 to the Galactic Council and to the Coordinator. Everything that could be done was being done.

spk_0 Neither office would say anything else, except that, with a galaxy in such a disturbed condition,

spk_0 each planet must do its best to solve its own problems.

spk_0 The thing built up toward its atrocious finale. Garen invited the president to a conference in a

spk_0 downtown hotel room, and there, eyes glancing from moment to moment, at the dials of a complete

spk_0 little test kit held open upon his lap. I have just had some starly news, sir. Garen said abruptly.

spk_0 Kinesan has been here on Redelix for weeks. What? Kinesan? Where is he? Why didn't he?

spk_0 Yes, Kinesan. Kinesan of Cluvia. The coordinator himself.

spk_0 I don't know where he is or was. I didn't ask him.

spk_0 The lanceman smiled fleetingly. One doesn't, you know. He discussed the situation with me at length.

spk_0 I am still amazed. Why doesn't he stop it then, the president demanded? Or can't he stop it?

spk_0 That's what I've got to explain to you. He can, but the time won't be ripe until the last act.

spk_0 Why not? I tell you, if this thing can be stopped, it's got to be stopped. I know

spk_0 matter what has to be done. It's got to be. Just a minute. Garen snapped. I know that you're out of

spk_0 control. I don't like to see Redelix torn apart any better than you do, but you ought to know by

spk_0 this time that Galactic Coordinator Kimbo Kinesan is in a better position to know what to do

spk_0 than any other man in the universe. Furthermore, his word is the last word. What he says goes.

spk_0 Of course, the president apologized. I am overrought. But to see our entire world pull down

spk_0 around us and upon us, our institutions, the work of centuries, destroyed millions of lives lost,

spk_0 all needlessly. It won't come to that, he says, if we all do our parts. And you, sir, are very much

spk_0 in the picture. I, how? Are you familiar with exactly what happened upon Antigone 4?

spk_0 Why, no. They had some trouble over there, I recall, but that's it. That's why this must go on.

spk_0 No planet cares particularly about what happens to any other planet, but the Coordinator cares

spk_0 about all of them as a whole. If this trouble is headed off now, it will simply spread to other

spk_0 planets. If it is allowed to come to a climax, there is a good chance that we can put an end to

spk_0 the whole trouble for good. But what has that to do with me? What can I personally do? Much.

spk_0 The last act upon Antigone 4, the thing that made it a planet of maniacs, was the kidnapping of

spk_0 planetary president Renwood. It is supposed that he was murdered, since no trace of him has ever been

spk_0 found. Oh, the older man's hands clenched, then loosened. I am willing, provided,

spk_0 is the coordinator fairly certain that my death will enable him? It won't get that far, sir.

spk_0 He intends to stop it just before that. He and his associates, I don't know who they are,

spk_0 have been listing every enemy agent they can find, and they will all be taken care of at once.

spk_0 He believes that Boscon will publish in advance a definite time at which they will take you away from us.

spk_0 That was the way it went at Antigone. Even from the patrol? From the base itself.

spk_0 Coordinator Kinesson is pretty sure that they can do it, except for something that he can bring

spk_0 into play only at the last moment. Incidentally, that is why we are having this meeting here,

spk_0 with this detector which he gave me. He is afraid that base is porous.

spk_0 In that case, what can he, the president, fell silent? All that I know is that we are to dress you

spk_0 in a certain suit of armor and have you in my private office in base a few minutes before the time

spk_0 they set. We in the guards leave the office at minus two minutes and walk down the corridor,

spk_0 just fast enough so that at minus one minute we are exactly in front of room 24.

spk_0 We are to rehearse it until our timing is perfect. I have no idea what is going to happen then,

spk_0 but I know that something will. We are not to discuss this again, even via lens,

spk_0 as he is pretty sure that you will very shortly be under surveillance every minute.

spk_0 Time passed. The Bosconian infiltration progressed strictly according to plan.

spk_0 Upon the surface, it appeared that Redelix was going in almost the same fashion in which Antigone

spk_0 forehad gone. Below the surface, however, there was one great difference. Every ship, whether

spk_0 liner or freighter or trap, which docked at any spaceport of Redelix, brought at least one man who

spk_0 did not leave. Some of these visitors were tall in life, some were short in fat, some were old,

spk_0 some were young, some were pale, some were burned to the complexion of ancient leather by the

spk_0 fur of it rays of space. They were like only in the look of eagles in their steady quiet eyes.

spk_0 Each landed and went about his ostensible business, interesting himself not at all in any of the others.

spk_0 Again, the Bosconians declared their contempt of the patrol by setting the exact time at which

spk_0 the President was to be taken. Again, the appointed hour was midnight.

spk_0 Vice Admiral Lensman Garand was, as Kineson had intimated frequently, somewhat of a brass hat.

spk_0 He did not. He simply could not believe that his base was as pregnantable as the coordinator

spk_0 had assumed it to be. Kineson, knowing that all ordinary defenses would be useless, had not even

spk_0 mentioned them. Garand, unable to believe that his hitherto invincible and invulnerable weapons and

spk_0 defenses were all of a sudden useless, mustered them of his own volition. All leaves have been

spk_0 cancelled. Every detector, every beam, every device of defense and of offense was fully manned.

spk_0 Every man was keyed up and alert, and Garand, while the least bit apprehensive that something

spk_0 was about to happen, which was not in the book, was pretty sure in his stout old war dog soul that

spk_0 he and his men had stuff enough. At two minutes before midnight, the armored President and his

spk_0 escorts left Garand's private office. One minute later, they were passing the door of the specified room.

spk_0 A bomb exploded shatteringly behind them. Armored men rushed yelling out of a branch corridor

spk_0 in their rear. Everybody stopped and turned to look. So, the hidden Kineson assured himself,

spk_0 did an unseen observer in an invisibly hovering three-dimensional hyper-circle.

spk_0 Kineson threw the door open, flashed an explanatory thought at the President, yanked him into the room

spk_0 and into the midst of a core of lensmen, armed with devices not usually encountered even in patrol

spk_0 bases. The door snapped shut, and Kineson stood where the President had stood an instant before,

spk_0 clad in armor identical with that which the President had worn. The exchange had required less than

spk_0 one second. It had been observed by no one. QX, Garand and you fellows? Kineson drove the thought.

spk_0 The President is safe. I'm taking over. Double-time straight ahead. Hipe. Get into the clear.

spk_0 Give us a chance to use our stuff. The unarmored men broke into a run, and as they did so,

spk_0 the door of room 24 swung open and stayed open. Weapons snouted out, shoved by armored men.

spk_0 Armored men and heavy weapons erupted from other doors and from more branch corridors.

spk_0 The hyper-circle, which was, in fact, the terminus of a hyperspacial tube, began to thicken toward

spk_0 visibility. It did not, however, materialize. Only by the intenseest effort of vision could it be

spk_0 discerned as the shearest whisp, more tenuous than the thinnest fog. The men within the ship,

spk_0 if ship it was, were visible only astriations in air are visible, and no more to be made out in detail.

spk_0 Instead of a full materialization, the only thing that was or became solid or tangible

spk_0 was a dead black thing which reached purposefully outward and downward toward Kinesen,

spk_0 a thing combined of tongs and coarse-mashed heavy net. Kinesen's delameters flamed at maximum

spk_0 intensity and minimum aperture. Useless. The stuff was durium, that unbelievably dense and

spk_0 ultimately refractory synthetic, which saturated with pure force, is the only known substance which

spk_0 can exist as an actuality both in normal space and in that pseudo-space which composes the

spk_0 hyperspacial tube. The lens went flicked on his neutralizer and shot away inertialists,

spk_0 but that maneuver too had been foreseen. The Bosconian engineers matched every move he made

spk_0 within a split second after he made it. The tong net gripped and closed.

spk_0 Semi-portables flamed then, heavy stuff, but they might just as well have remained cold.

spk_0 Their beams could not cut the durium linkages. They slid harmlessly past, not through,

spk_0 the rake-like, figmental invaders at whom they were aimed.

spk_0 Kinesen was hauled aboard the Bosconian vessel. Its structure and its furnishings and its crew

spk_0 becoming ever firmer and more substantial to his senses as he went from normal into pseudo-space.

spk_0 As the pseudo-world became real, the reality of the base behind him thinned into unreality.

spk_0 In seconds it disappeared utterly, and Kinesen knew that to the senses of his fellow human beings

spk_0 he advanced without leaving a trace. This ship, though, was real enough, so were his captors.

spk_0 The net opened, dumping the lensmen ignominiously to the floor. Tractor beams ranged his blazing

spk_0 delaminers out of his grasp. Whether or not hands and arms came with them was entirely his own look

spk_0 out. Tractor's impressors jerked him upright, slammed him against the steel wall of the room,

spk_0 held him motionless against it. Fieryously, he launched his ultimately lethal weapon. The

spk_0 control projector of thought-borne vibrations which decomposed the molecules without which

spk_0 thought and life itself could not exist. Nothing happened. He explored, finding that even his

spk_0 sense of perception was stopped a full foot away from every part of every one of those humanoid

spk_0 bodies. He settled down then and thought, a great light dawned, a shock struck sickeningly home.

spk_0 No such elaborate and super-powered preparations could have been made for the capture of any civilian.

spk_0 Presidents were old men, physically weak, and with no extraordinary powers of mind.

spk_0 No, this whole chain of events had been according to plan, a high Bosconian's plan.

spk_0 Ruining a planet was, of course, a highly desirable feature in itself, but it could not have been

spk_0 the main feature. Somebody with a real brain was out after the four second stage lensmen,

spk_0 and he wasn't fooling. And if Nadric, Horus, O'Tragonsi and himself were all to disappear,

spk_0 the patrol would know that it had been nudged. But yet back, which of the four other than himself

spk_0 would have taken that particular bait? Not one of them. Were it the out after them, too?

spk_0 Sure they were. They must be. Oh, if he could only warn them. But after all, what good would it do?

spk_0 They had all warned each other repeatedly to watch out for traps. All four had been constantly on guard.

spk_0 What possible foresight could have avoided a snare set so perfectly to match every detail of

spk_0 a man's physical and mental makeup? But he wasn't licked yet. They had to know what he knew,

spk_0 how he had done what he had done, whether or not he had any superiors and who they were.

spk_0 Therefore, they had had to take him alive, just as he had had to take various bosconian chiefs.

spk_0 And they'd find out that as long as he was alive, he'd be a dangerous buzzsaw to monkey with.

spk_0 The captain, or whoever was in charge, would send for him. That was a foregone conclusion.

spk_0 He would have to find out what it was that he had caught. He would have to make a preliminary

spk_0 report of some kind, and somebody would slip. One hundred percent vigilance was impossible,

spk_0 and Kinnison would be on his toes to take advantage of that slip, whatever or however slight it might be.

spk_0 But the captors did not take Kinnison to the captain. Instead, a company by half a dozen armored men

spk_0 that were the came to Kinnison. Start talking fellow and talk fast. The bosconian directed

spk_0 crisply in the lingua franca of deep space as the armored soldiers strode out.

spk_0 I want to know who you are, what you are, what you've done, and everything about you and the patrol.

spk_0 So talk, or do you want me to pull you apart with these tractors, armor and all?

spk_0 Kinnison paid no attention, but drove at the commander with his every mental force and weapon.

spk_0 Blocked. This ape too had a full body, full coverage screen.

spk_0 There was a switch at the captain's hip, handy for fingertip control. If he could only move,

spk_0 it would be so easy to flip that switch. Or if he could throw something or make one of those

spk_0 other fellows brush against him just right. Or if the guy happened to sit down a little too close

spk_0 to the arm of a chair. Or if there were a pet animal of any kind around, or a spider, or a worm,

spk_0 or even a net.

spk_0 This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6

spk_0 Second stage, Lensman, Tragancy of Rageal 4 did not rush medley out into space in quest of

spk_0 something or anything bosconian in response to Kinnison's call. To hurry was not Tragancy's way.

spk_0 He could move fast upon occasion, but before he would move at all, he had to know exactly how,

spk_0 where and why he should move. He conferred with his three fellows, he furnished them with all the

spk_0 data he possessed. He helped integrate the total facts into one composite. That composite

spk_0 pleased the others well enough so that they went to work, each in his own fashion, but it did not

spk_0 please Tragancy. He could not visualize any coherent whole from the available parts.

spk_0 Therefore, while Kinnison was investigating the fall of Antigone 4, Tragancy was sitting,

spk_0 or rather standing, still and thinking. He was still standing still and thinking when Kinnison

spk_0 went to Redelix. Finally, he called in and assisted to help him think. He had more respect for

spk_0 the opinions of Kamilikinnison than for those of any other entity outside of Aricia of the two

spk_0 galaxies. He had helped train all five of the Kinnison children, and in cam he had found a kindred

spk_0 soul, possessing a truer sense of values than any of his fellows. He alone realized that the

spk_0 peoples had long since passed their tutors, and it is a measure of his quality that the realization

spk_0 brought into Tragancy's tranquil soul, no tinge of ranker but only wonder. What those incredible

spk_0 children of the lens had, he did not know, but he knew that they, particularly Kamila, had extraordinary

spk_0 gifts. In the mind of this scarcely grown woman, he perceived depths which he could not plumb,

spk_0 extensions and vistas, the meanings of which he could not even vaguely grasp. He did not try either

spk_0 to plumb the abyss or to survey the expanses. He made no slightest effort ever to take from any of

spk_0 the children anything which the children did not first offer to reveal. In his own mind he tried to

spk_0 classify theirs, but realizing in the end that that task was and always would be beyond his power,

spk_0 he accepted that fact as calmly as he accepted the numberless others of nature's inexplicable facts.

spk_0 Tragancy came the closest of any second stage lensement to the real truth, but even he never did

spk_0 suspect the existence of the adorians. Kamila, as quiet as her twin sister Constance was boisterous,

spk_0 parked her spister in one of the capacious holes of the rigelian spaceship and joined him in the

spk_0 control room. You believe I take it that Dad's logic is faulty, his deduction seronious?

spk_0 The girl thought after a casual greeting. I'm not surprised, so do I. He jumped at conclusions,

spk_0 but then he does that, you know. Oh, I wouldn't say that exactly. However, it seems to me,

spk_0 Tragancy replied carefully, that he did not have sufficient basis in fact to form any definite

spk_0 conclusion as to whether or not Renwood of Antigen was a Bosconian operative. It is that point

spk_0 which I wish to discuss with you first. Kam concentrated. I don't see that it makes any

spk_0 difference fundamentally whether he has or not. She decided finally. A difference in method only,

spk_0 not in motivation. Interesting perhaps, but in material. It is virtually certain in either

spk_0 case that Candron of Anno or some other entity is the motive force and is the one who must be destroyed.

spk_0 Of course, my dear, but that is only the first differential. How about the second and the third?

spk_0 Method governs. Nadrek concerning himself only with Candron tabulated and studied only the

spk_0 Candron-esque manifestations. He may, probably will, eliminate Candron. It is by no means assured,

spk_0 however, that that step will be enough. In fact, for my preliminary study, I would risk a small

spk_0 wager that the larger and worse aspects would remain untouched. I would therefore suggest that we ignore

spk_0 for the time being Nadrek's findings and examine a new all the data available.

spk_0 I wouldn't bet you a millow on that. Camilla caught her lower lip between white even teeth.

spk_0 Check. The probability is that Renwood was a loyal citizen. Let us consider every possible argument

spk_0 for and against that assumption. They went into a contact of mind so close that the separate

spk_0 thoughts simply could not be resolved into terms of speech. They remained that way, not for the

spk_0 period of a few minutes, which would have exhausted any ordinary brain, but for four solid hours.

spk_0 And at the end of that conference, they had arrived at a few tentative conclusions.

spk_0 Kinnison had said that there was no possibility of tracing a hyperspacial tube after it had ceased to

spk_0 exist. There were millions of planets in the two galaxies. There was an indefinite, quite possibly

spk_0 an infinite number of coexistent parallel spaces into any one of which the two might have led.

spk_0 Knowing these things, Kinnison had decided that the probability was infinitesimally small

spk_0 that any successful investigation could be made along those lines.

spk_0 Trigoncy and Camilla, starting with the same facts, arrived at entirely different results.

spk_0 There were many spaces true, but the inhabitants of any one space belonged to that space,

spk_0 and would not be interested in the conquest or the permanent taking over of any other.

spk_0 Four in spaces then need not be considered. Civilization had only one significant enemy, Bosconia.

spk_0 Bosconia then, captained possibly by Candron of Anlo, was the attacker. The two itself could not

spk_0 be traced, and there were millions of planets, yes, but those facts were not pertinent.

spk_0 Why not? Because X, who might or might not be Candron, was not operating from a fixed headquarters,

spk_0 receiving reports from subordinates who did the work. A rigid philosophical analysis of which

spk_0 few other minds would have been capable showed that X was doing the work himself, and was moving from

spk_0 solar system to solar system to do it. Those mass psychoses in which entire garrisons went mad

spk_0 all at once, those mass hysterias in which vast groups of civilians went reasonably out of control,

spk_0 could not have been brought about by any ordinary mind. Of all civilization, only Nadric of

spk_0 Pellain VII had their requisite ability. Was it reasonable to suppose that Bosconia had any such

spk_0 minds? No. X was either singular or a small integer. Which, could they decide the point?

spk_0 With some additional data, they could. Their linked minds went on rapport with Worsal,

spk_0 with Nadric, with Kinesen, and with the principal statistician at prime base.

spk_0 In addition to Nadric's locus, they determined two more. One of all inimical manifestations,

spk_0 the other of those which Nadric had not used in his computations. Their final exhaustive

spk_0 analysis showed that there were at least two, and very probably only two, prime intelligences,

spk_0 directing those Bosconian activities. They made no attempt to identify either of them.

spk_0 They communicated to Nadric their results and their conclusions.

spk_0 I am working on Kandron, the Pellainine replied flatly. I made no assumptions as to whether or

spk_0 not there were other prime movers at work, since the point has no bearing. Your information is

spk_0 very interesting, and may perhaps prove valuable, and I thank you for it, but my present assignment

spk_0 is to find and to kill Kandron of Onno. Trugansi and Camilla then set out to find X,

spk_0 not any definite actual or deduced entity, but the perpetrator of certain closely related and

spk_0 highly characteristic phenomena, Viz, Masycosis, and Masisterius. Nor did they extrapolate.

spk_0 They visited the last few planets which had been affected, in the order in which the

spk_0 attacks had occurred. They studied every phase of every situation. They worked slowly, but they

spk_0 hoped and they believed surely. Neither of them had any idea then that behind X lay plur

spk_0 and beyond plur edur. Having examined the planet latest to be stricken,

spk_0 they made no effort to pick out definitely the one next to be attacked.

spk_0 It might be any one of ten worlds, or possibly even twelve.

spk_0 Hence, neglecting entirely the mathematical and logical probabilities involved,

spk_0 they watched them all, each taking six. Each flitted from world to world,

spk_0 with senses alert to perceive the first sign of subversive activity.

spk_0 Trugansi was a retired magnate, spending his declining years and seeing the galaxy.

spk_0 Camilla was a Tullurian business girl on vacation.

spk_0 Young, beautiful, innocent looking girls who traveled alone were, then, as ever,

spk_0 regarded as fair game by the dawn one of any given human world.

spk_0 Scarsely had Camilla registered at the hotel grand, when a well-groomed, self-satisfied man-about-town

spk_0 made an approach. Hello, beautiful! Remember me, don't you? Old Tom Thomas?

spk_0 What say we split a bottle of fail-in to renew old? He broke off.

spk_0 For the red-headed eye-fulls reaction was in no sense orthodox.

spk_0 She was not coldly unaware of his presence. She was neither coy, nor angry, neither fearful,

spk_0 nor scornful. She was only and vastly amused.

spk_0 You think, then, that I am human and desirable? Her smile was devastating.

spk_0 Did you ever hear of the canthryps of Olanoel?

spk_0 She had never heard of them either before that instant, but this small implied

spk_0 mandacity did not bother her. No, I can't say that I have. The man, while very evidently

spk_0 taken aback by this new line of resistance, persevered. What kind of a brush-off do you think

spk_0 you're trying to give me? Brush off? See me as I am, you beast, and thank whatever gods you

spk_0 recognize that I am not hungry, having eaten just last night. In his sight her green-eyes darkened

spk_0 to a jetty black. The flecks of gold in them, scintillated, and began to emit sparks.

spk_0 Her hair turned into a mass of horribly clutching tentacles. Her teeth became fangs,

spk_0 her fingers talons, her strong, splendidly proportioned body, a monstrosity out of hell's

spk_0 grisliest depths. After a moment she allowed the frightful picture to fade back into her charming

spk_0 self, keeping the Romeo from fading by the power of her will. Call the manager if you like.

spk_0 He has been watching and has seen nothing except that you are pale and sweating.

spk_0 I, a friend of yours, have been giving you some bad news, perhaps.

spk_0 Tell your stupid police all about me if you wish to spend the rest of your life in a padded

spk_0 cell. I'll see you again in a day or two, I hope. I'll be hungry again by that time.

spk_0 She walked away, serene confident that the fellow would never willingly come within sight of her

spk_0 again. She had not damaged his ego permanently. He was not a neurotic type, but she had given him a

spk_0 jolt which he never would forget. Camilla Kineson, or any of her sisters, had anything to fear from

spk_0 any male or males infesting any planet or roaming any depths of space. The expected and awaited

spk_0 trouble developed. Traganci and Camilla landed and began their hunt. The leak for planetary purity

spk_0 it appeared was the primary focal point, hence the two attended a meeting of that crusading body.

spk_0 That was a mistake. Traganci should have stayed out in deep space concealed behind a solid

spk_0 thought screen. For Camilla was an unknown. Furthermore, her mind was inherently stable at a third

spk_0 level of stress. No lesser mind could penetrate her screens, or having failed to do so, could recognize

spk_0 the fact of failure. Traganci, however, was known throughout all civilized space. He was not wearing

spk_0 his lens, of course, but his very shape made him suspect. Worse, he could not hide from any mind

spk_0 as powerful as that of X. The fact that his mind was very decidedly not that of a retired

spk_0 by jelly and gentleman. Thus Camilla had known that the procedure was a mistake.

spk_0 She intimated as much, but she could not sway the unswerving Traganci from his determined course

spk_0 without revealing things which must forever remain hidden from him. She acquiesced therefore,

spk_0 but she knew what to expect. Hence, when the invading intelligence blanketed the assemblage lightly,

spk_0 only to be withdrawn instantly upon detecting the emanations of a mind of real power,

spk_0 Cam had a bare moment of time in which to act. She synchronized with the intruding thought,

spk_0 began to analyze it and trace it back to its source. She did not have time enough to succeed fully

spk_0 and either endeavor, but she did get a line. When the foreign influence vanished, she shot a message

spk_0 to Traganci and they sped away. Hurtling through space along the established line, Traganci's mind was

spk_0 a turmoil of thought, thoughts as plain as print to Camilla. She flushed uncomfortably. She could,

spk_0 of course, blush at will. I am not half the Superman whose picture you are painting, she said.

spk_0 That was true enough. No one this side of Eresia could have been.

spk_0 You're so famous you know, and I'm not. While he was examining you, I had a fraction of a second to

spk_0 work in. You didn't. That may be true. Although Traganci had no eyes, the girl knew that he was staring

spk_0 at her, scanning, but not intruding, with his highly developed sense of perception.

spk_0 She lowered her barriers so far that he thought they were completely down.

spk_0 You have, however, extraordinary and completely inexplicable powers, but being the daughter of

spk_0 Kimball and Clarissa Kinnison. That's it, I think. She paused then in a burst of girlish confidence and

spk_0 went on. I've got something I really do think, but the trouble is that I don't know what it is or

spk_0 what to do with it. Maybe in fifty years or so I will. This also was close enough to the truth,

spk_0 and it did serve to restore to Traganci his wanted poise. Be that as it may, I will take your advice

spk_0 next time if you will offer it. Try and stop me. I love to give advice. She laughed unaffectedly.

spk_0 It might not have turned out any differently this time, though, and it may not be any better next time.

spk_0 Then further to quiet the shrewd by jelly and suspicions, she strode over to the control panel

spk_0 and checked the course. Having done so, she fanned out detectors, centering upon that course to

spk_0 the fullest range of their power. She swaggered a little when she speared with a CRX tracer,

spk_0 a distant vessel in a highly satisfactory location. That act would cut her down to size in Traganci's mind.

spk_0 You think then that X is in that ship? He asked quietly. Probably not.

spk_0 She could not afford to act too dumb. She could fool a second stage lensman a little,

spk_0 but nobody could fool one very much. It may, however, give us a lead.

spk_0 It is practically certain that X is not in that vessel. Traganci thought. In fact, it may be a trap.

spk_0 We must, however, make the customary arrangements to take it into custody.

spk_0 Cam nodded and the Rijelian communications officers energized their long-range beams.

spk_0 Far ahead of the fleeing vessel, centering upon its line of flight, fast cruisers of the Galactic

spk_0 Patrol began to form a gigantic cup. Hours passed, and, on not unexpected circumstance,

spk_0 Traganci's super dreadnought gained rapidly upon the supposed Bosconian.

spk_0 The quarry did not swerve or dodge. Straight into the mouth of the cup it sped.

spk_0 Tractors and presses reached out, locked on, and were neither repulsed nor cut.

spk_0 The strange ship did not go inert. Did not put out a single course of screen. Did not fire a beam.

spk_0 She did not reply to signals. Spy-rays combed her from needle-nose to driving-jets, searching every

spk_0 compartment. There was no sign of life aboard. Spots of pink appeared upon Camilla's deliciously

spk_0 smooth cheeks, her eyes flashed. We've been had, Uncle Trigg. How we've been had,

spk_0 she exclaimed, and her chagrin was not at all assumed. She had not quite anticipated such a

spk_0 complete fiasco as this. Score one for X, Traganci said. He not only seemed to be, but actually was,

spk_0 calm and unmoved. We will now go back and pick up where we left off.

spk_0 They did not discuss the thing at all, nor did they wonder how X had escaped them. After the fact,

spk_0 they both knew. There had been at least two vessels. At least one of them had been inherently

spk_0 indetectable and screened against thought. In one of these latter, X had taken a course at some

spk_0 indeterminable angle to the one which they had followed. X was now at a safe distance. X was

spk_0 nobody's fool. XVI

spk_0 She adjusted her cocky little black toke at an even more peak at angle over her left eye.

spk_0 She made a couple of passes at her right of curls, engaged at reflected self in high approval.

spk_0 As putting both hands upon her smoothly rounded hips, she rigged, as the only possible turn for it,

spk_0 in the sheer joy of being alive. Catherine, Clarissa Kinnison chided gently.

spk_0 Don't be exhibitionistic, dear. Except in times of stress, the Kinnison women used spoken

spk_0 language to keep in practice, as they said. Why not? It's fun. The tall girl bent over and kissed

spk_0 her mother upon the lobe of an ear. Your sweet mums, you know that? You're the most precious thing.

spk_0 Ha, bacon and eggs? Goody. The older woman watched half-invously,

spk_0 as her eldest daughter, ate with the care-free abandon of one who has no cares whatever,

spk_0 either for her digestion or for her figure. She had no more understood her children ever,

spk_0 than a hand can understand the brood of ducklings she has so unwittingly hatched out,

spk_0 and that comparison was more strikingly apt than Clarissa Kinnison ever would know.

spk_0 She now knew more than a little roofily that she never would understand them.

spk_0 She had not protested openly at the rigor of the regime to which her son Christopher had been

spk_0 subjected from birth. That she knew was necessary. It was inconceivable that Kit should not be a

spk_0 Lensman, and for a man to become a Lensman he had to be given everything which he could possibly take.

spk_0 She was deeply glad, however, that her four other babies have been girls. Her daughters were not

spk_0 going to be Lensman. She, who had known so long and so heavily the weight of the Lensman's load,

spk_0 would see to that. Her self, a womanly feminine woman, she had fought with every resource at her command

spk_0 to make her girl babies grow up into replicas of herself. She had failed. They simply would not

spk_0 play with dolls, nor play house with the other little girls. Instead, they insisted upon intruding,

spk_0 as she considered it, upon Lensman. Preferably upon second stage Lensman, if any one of the four

spk_0 chance to be anywhere within reach. Instead of with toys, they played with atomic engines and flitters,

spk_0 and later with speedsters and spaceships. Instead of primers, they read galactic charts.

spk_0 One of them might be at home as now, or all of them, or none. She never did know what to expect.

spk_0 But they were in no sense disloyal. They loved their mother with a depth of affection,

spk_0 which no other mother anywhere has ever known. They tried their very best to keep her for worrying

spk_0 about them. They kept in touch with her wherever they went, which might be at whim to tell us,

spk_0 or to thray, or to elseaken, or to any unplumbed cranny of intergalactic space. And they informed her,

spk_0 apparently without reservation, as to everything they did. They loved their father and their brother

spk_0 and each other and themselves, with the same whole hearted fervor they bestowed upon her.

spk_0 They behaved always in exemplary fashion. None of them had ever shown or felt the slightest interest

spk_0 in any one of the numerous boys and men. And this trait, if the truth is to be told,

spk_0 Clarissa could understand least of all. No, the only thing basically wrong with them was the fact

spk_0 made abundantly clear since they first totalled, that they should not be and could not be

spk_0 subjected to any joct or tidal of any form of control, however applied.

spk_0 Catherine finished eating finally and gave her mother a bright quick grin.

spk_0 Sorry, mums, you'll just have to give us up as hard cases, I guess.

spk_0 Her fine eyes, so like Clarissa's except in color, clouded as she went on.

spk_0 I am sorry, mother, really, that we can't be what you so want us to be. We've tried so hard,

spk_0 but we just can't. It's something here and here. She tapped one temple and prodded her midsection

spk_0 with a pink forefinger. Call it fatalism or anything you please, but I think that we're slated to

spk_0 do a job of some kind someday, even though none of us has any idea what that job is going to be.

spk_0 Clarissa paled. I have been thinking just that for years, dear. I have been afraid to say it,

spk_0 or even to think it. You are Kim's children and mine. If there ever was a perfect, a pre-desident

spk_0 marriage, it is ours, and men to her set that our marriage was necessary. She paused, and in that

spk_0 instant she almost perceived the truth. She was closer to it than she had ever been before or

spk_0 ever would be again. But that truth was far too vast for her mind to grasp. She went on.

spk_0 But I do it over again, Catherine, knowing everything I know now.

spk_0 Vast rewards, you know. Of course you would, Cat interrupted. Any girl would be a fool, not to.

spk_0 The minute I meet a man like Dad, I'm going to marry him. If I have to scratch K's eyes out

spk_0 and snatch Cam and Khan bald-headed to get him. But speaking of Dad, just what do you think of

spk_0 Lafayre redelix? Gone every trace of levity both women stood up. Gold-flect tawny eyes

spk_0 stared deeply into the gold-flect eyes of dark and velvety green. I don't know, Clarissa spoke

spk_0 slowly, meaningfully. Do you? No, I wish that I did. Catherine's was not the voice of a girl,

spk_0 but that of an avenging angel. As Kits says, I'd give four front teeth and my right leg to the

spk_0 knee-joint to know who or what is back of that, but I don't. I feel very much in the mood to do a

spk_0 flit out that way. Do you? Clarissa paused. I'm glad. I'd go myself, in spite of everything he says,

spk_0 except that I know I couldn't do anything. If that should be the job you were talking about,

spk_0 oh, do anything you can, dear, anything to make sure that he comes back to me. Of course,

spk_0 moms. Catherine broke away almost by force from her mother's emotion. I don't think it is,

spk_0 at least I haven't got any cosmic hunch to that effect. And don't worry, it puts wrinkles in

spk_0 the girl's complexion. I'll do just a little look-see, stick around long enough to find out what's

spk_0 what and let you know all about it. Bye. At high velocity, Catherine drove her

spk_0 indetectable spiced her to redelix, and around and upon that planet she conducted invisible

spk_0 investigations. She learned a part of the true state of affairs, she deduced more of it,

spk_0 but she could not see even dimly the picture as a whole. This part, though, was clear enough.

spk_0 An interdimensional expert, she did not have to be at the one apparent mouth of a hyperspatial

spk_0 tube in order to enter it. She knew that while communication was impossible either through such a tube

spk_0 from space to space, or from the interior of the tube to either space, the quality of the tube was

spk_0 not the barrier. The interface was. Therefore, knowing what to expect immediately and working

spk_0 diligently to solve the whole problem, she waited. She watched Kineson's abduction. There was nothing she

spk_0 could do about that. She could not interfere then without setting up repercussions, which might

spk_0 very well shatter the entire structure of the galactic patrol. When the bosconean ship had

spk_0 disappeared, however, she tapped the tube and followed it. Almost nose to tail, she pressed it,

spk_0 tensily alert to do some helpful deed which could be ascribed to accident or to luck.

spk_0 For she knew starkly that Kineson's present captors would not slip, and that his every

spk_0 ability had been discounted in advance. Thus she was ready when Kineson's attention concentrated

spk_0 upon the switch, controlling the bosconean captain's thought-screen generator. There were no pets or

spk_0 spiders or worms or even gnats, but the captain could sit down. Around his screen then she drove a

spk_0 solid beam of thought upon a channel which neither the pirate nor the lensman knew existed.

spk_0 She took over in a trice the fellow's entire mind. He sat down, as Kineson had so earnestly

spk_0 hoped that he would do, the nearest fraction of an inch too close to the chair's arm.

spk_0 The switch handled flipped over and Catherine snatched her mind away. She was sure that her

spk_0 father would not suspect that that bit of luck was anything except purity for two at this.

spk_0 She was equally sure that the thing was safe for a time at least in Kineson's highly capable

spk_0 hands. She slowed down, allowed the distance between the two vessels to increase,

spk_0 but she kept within range, for it was more than probable that one or two more seemingly lucky

spk_0 accidents would have to happen before very long. In the instant of the flicking of the switch,

spk_0 the captain's mind became Kineson's. He was going to issue orders to take the ship over in an

spk_0 orderly way, but his first contact with the subjugated mind made him change his plans.

spk_0 Instead of uttering orders, the captain leaped out of the chair toward the beam controllers,

spk_0 and not an instant too soon. Others had seen what had happened, had heard that tail-tail click.

spk_0 All had been warned against that and many other contingencies. As the captain leaped,

spk_0 one of his fellows drew a bullet projector and calmly shot him through the head.

spk_0 The shock of that bullet, the death of the mind at his own mind's grasp,

spk_0 jared the gray lensman to the core. He was almost the same as though he himself had been killed.

spk_0 Nevertheless, by sheer force of will, he held on. By sheer power of will, he made that dead body take

spk_0 those last three steps and force those dead hands to cut the master's circuit of the beams which

spk_0 were holding them helpless. Freed, he leaped forward, but not alone. The others leaped too,

spk_0 and for the same switch. Kineson got there first, just barely first, and as he came, he swung his

spk_0 armored fist. What a durian-inlaid glove driven by all the brawn of Kimball Kineson's mighty right arm

spk_0 and powerful torso, backed by all the momentum of body and armor mass, will do to a human head,

spk_0 made in direct central impact, is nothing to dwell upon here. Simply that head splashed.

spk_0 Pivoting nimly, considering his encumbering armor, he swung a terrific leg.

spk_0 His massive steel boots sank half deep into the abdomen of the foe next in line.

spk_0 Two more utterly irresistible blows disposed of two more of the Bosconians. The last two turned and

spk_0 frantically ran, but the linsman by that time had the juice back on, and when a man has been

spk_0 smacked against a solid armor plate bulkhead by the full power of a D2P presser, all that remains

spk_0 to be done must be accomplished with a scraper and a mop, or a sponge. Kineson picked up his

spk_0 delameters, reconnected them, and took stock. So far, so good. But there were other men aboard this

spk_0 heap. How many, he better find out. And at least some of them wore durium in late armor as capable

spk_0 as his own. And in her speaster, concluding that this wasn't going to be so bad after all,

spk_0 Catherine glowed with pride in her father's prowess. She was no shrinking violet this third stage

spk_0 lenseman. She held no roof whatever for civilisations foes. She herself would have driven that beam

spk_0 as mercilessly as had the gray lenseman. She could have told Kineson what next to do, could even have

spk_0 inserted the knowledge stealthily into his mind. But heroically she refrained. She will let him

spk_0 handle this in his own fashion as long as he possibly could do so. The gray lenseman sent his sense

spk_0 of perception abroad. Twenty more of them. The ship wasn't very big. Ten aft armored. Six forward

spk_0 also armored. Four unarmored in the control room. That control room was poison. He go aft first.

spk_0 He searched around. Surely they'd have durium space-axes. Oh yes, there they were. He hefted them,

spk_0 selected one of the correct weight and balance. He strode on the companionway toward the

spk_0 ward room. He flung the door open and stepped inside. His first care was to blast the communicator

spk_0 panels with his delaminers. That would delay the mustering of reinforcements. The control room

spk_0 couldn't guess, at least for a time, that one man was setting out to capture their ship single

spk_0 handed. His second, ignoring the beams of hand-weapons splashing refulgently from his screens,

spk_0 was to weld the steel door solidly to the jam. Then sheathing his projectors, he swung up his axe

spk_0 and went grimly to work. He thought fleetingly of how nice it would be to have Van Busskirk,

spk_0 that dean of all axemen at his back, but he wasn't too old or too fat to swing a pretty mean axe

spk_0 himself. And fortunately, these Bosconians, here in their quarters, didn't have axes. They were

spk_0 heavy, clumsy, and for emergency use only. They were not a part of the regular uniform as upon

spk_0 Valeria. The Space Axe. Formally, that weapon had been forged from the hardest and toughest of

spk_0 alloy steels. For years, however, it had been made universally from durium. A deceptive little thing

spk_0 truly, a dainty-looking affair, a little larger than a broad hatchet. Unlike a hatchet, however,

spk_0 it had a mass of some twenty pounds and was equipped with a yard-long, double-gripped shaft,

spk_0 a sharply tapered spear in for thrusting, gouging, and stabbing. A wicked-decurved,

spk_0 needle-pointed beak for rending and tearing. A flatly rounded, razor-sharp blade capable of

spk_0 shearing through neo-carb alloy as cleanly as a scalpel through butter. The first foe swung up his

spk_0 delameter involuntarily as Kinesen's axe swept down. When the curved blade driven as viciously

spk_0 as the lensman's strength could drive it, struck the ray gun, it did not even pause.

spk_0 Through it it sliced the severed halves falling to the floor. The durium inlay of the glove held,

spk_0 and glove and axe smashed together against the helmet. The Bosconian went down with a crash,

spk_0 but beyond a broken armor, some such trifle, he wasn't hurt much, and no armor that a man had to

spk_0 carry around could be made of solid durium. Hence, Kinesen reversed his weapon and swung again,

spk_0 aiming carefully at a point between the inlay strips. The axe's wicked beak tore through

spk_0 steel, and skull, and brain, stopping only with the sharply ringing impact of durium shaft against

spk_0 durium stripping. They were coming at him now, not only with delameters, but with whatever

spk_0 steel bars and spanners and bludges they could find. QX, his armor could take oodles of that.

spk_0 They might dent it, but they couldn't possibly get through. Planting one boot soldered

spk_0 upon his victim's helmet, he raised his axe out through flesh and bone and metal, no fear of

spk_0 breakage. Not even a valerian's full savage strength could break that small fragile looking tool,

spk_0 and struck again, and struck, and struck. He fought his way to the door. Two of the survivors were

spk_0 trying to unseal it and to get away. They failed, and in failing, died. A couple of the remaining

spk_0 enemy shrieked and ran in blind panic and tried to hide. The others battled desperately on.

spk_0 But whether they ran or fought, there was only one possible end if the patroman were to survive.

spk_0 No enemy must or could be left alive behind him, to bring Debarra upon his back some semi-portable

spk_0 weapon with whose energies his armor screens could not cope. When the grizzly business was over,

spk_0 Kinnison panting rested briefly. This was the first real brawl he had been in for 20 years,

spk_0 and for a veteran, a white collar man, a coordinator to boot, he hadn't done so bad, he thought.

spk_0 This was hard work, and while he was maybe a hair-short unwend, he had weakened a particle.

spk_0 To hear, QX.

spk_0 And lovely Catherine, far enough back, but not too far, and reading imperceptibly his every thought,

spk_0 agreed with him enthusiastically. She did not have a father complex, but in common with her

spk_0 sisters she knew exactly what her father was. With equal exactitude she knew what other men were.

spk_0 Knowing them, and knowing, however imperfectly herself, each of the Kinnison girls knew that it

spk_0 would be a physical and psychological impossibility for her to become even mildly interested in any man,

spk_0 not at least her father's equal. The each had dreamed of a man who would be her own equal,

spk_0 physically and mentally, but it had not yet occurred to any of them that one such man already existed.

spk_0 Kinnison cut the doorway, and again set out his sense of perception. With it fanning out ahead of

spk_0 him, he retraced his previous path. The apes in the control room had done something. He did know

spk_0 just what. Two of them were tickering with a communicator panel, probably the one to the ward room.

spk_0 They probably thought that the trouble was at their end. Or did they? Why hadn't they reconnoitered?

spk_0 He dismissed that problem as being of no pressing importance. The other two were doing something at

spk_0 another panel. What? He could make head or tail of it, hang those full-coverage screens,

spk_0 and Nadrix' fancy drill, even if he had had one along, wouldn't work unless the screen were

spk_0 absolutely steady. Well, it didn't make much if any difference. They had called them in back

spk_0 from up forward, and here they came. He'd rather meet them in the corridor than in an open room

spk_0 anyway, he could handle them a lot easier. But tensely watching, Catherine nod her lip.

spk_0 Should she tell him or control him or not? No, she wouldn't. She couldn't, yet.

spk_0 Dad could figure out that pilot room trap without her help, and she herself, with all her power of

spk_0 brain, could not visualize with any degree of clarity the menace which was, which must be,

spk_0 at the tube's end, or even now rushing along it to meet that busconean ship.

spk_0 Kinnison met the oncoming six and vanquished them. By no means as easily as he had conquered the

spk_0 others since they had been warned and since they also now bore space-axis, but just as finally.

spk_0 Kinnison did not consider it remarkable that he escaped practically unscathed. His armor was

spk_0 battered and dinged up, cut and torn, but he had only a couple of superficial wounds. He had met

spk_0 the enemy where they would come at him only one at a time. He was still the master of any weapon

spk_0 known to space warfare. It had been at no time evident that any outside influence was interfering

spk_0 with the normally rapid functioning of the busconean's minds. He was full of confidence,

spk_0 full of fight, and far from spent when he faced about to consider what he should do about that

spk_0 control room. There was plenty of stuff in there, tougher stuff than he had met up with so far.

spk_0 Catherine in her spister gridded her strong white teeth and clenched her shapely hands into hard

spk_0 little fists. This was bad, very, very bad, and it was going to get worse. Closing up fast,

spk_0 she uttered a bitter and exceedingly unlady-like expletive. Couldn't Dad see? Couldn't the dumb

spk_0 darling sense that he was after run out of time almost any minute now? She fairly rifeed in an

spk_0 agony of indecision, and indecision in a third stage-lensmen is a rare phenomenon indeed.

spk_0 She wanted intensely to take over, but if she did, was there any way this side of Pellanes'

spk_0 purple-hels that she could cover up her tracks? There was none yet.

spk_0 End of Chapter 7

spk_0 Chapter 8

spk_0 But Kinnison's mind, while slower than his daughters, and in many respects less able, was sure.

spk_0 The four Bosconians in the control room were screened against his every mental force,

spk_0 and it was idle even to hope for another such lucky break as he had just had.

spk_0 One was QX, and to be received, thankfully, but Kinnison's senses simply did not happen.

spk_0 They were armored by this time, and they had both machine rifles and semi-portable projectors.

spk_0 They were entrenched, evidently intending to fight to a delaying and defensive battle,

spk_0 knowing that if they could keep the aggressor at bay until the pseudo-space of the tube

spk_0 had been traversed, the Lensmen would not have a chance. Armed with all they could use of the

spk_0 most powerful mobile weapons aboard, and being four to one, they undoubtedly thought that they

spk_0 would win easily enough. Kinnison thought otherwise, since he could not use his mind against them,

spk_0 he would use whatever he could find, and this ship, having come upon such a mission,

spk_0 would be carrying plenty of weapons, and those four men certainly hadn't had time to

spk_0 them all. He might even find some negative matter bombs. Setting up a spy-ray block, he proceeded

spk_0 to rummage. They couldn't see him, and if any one of them had a sense of perception and cut his

spk_0 screen for even a fraction of a second to use it, the battle would end then and there, and if they

spk_0 decided to rush him, so much the better. They remained, however, forted up as he had thought they

spk_0 would, and he rummaged in peace. Various death-dealing implements, invitingly set up, he ignored after

spk_0 one cursory glance into their interiors. He knew weapons, these, had been fixed. He went on to the

spk_0 armory. He did not find any megabonds, but he found plenty of untouched weapons like those now

spk_0 in place in the control room. The rifles were beauties, high-caliber, water-cooled things,

spk_0 each with a heavy durium shield plate and a single-ply screen. Each also had a beam,

spk_0 but machine rifle beams weren't so hot. Conversely, the semi-portables had lots of screen, but very little

spk_0 durium. Kinnison lugged one rifle and two semi-portables by easy stages into the room next to the control

spk_0 room, so placing them that the control panels would be well out of the line of fire.

spk_0 What gave Kinnison his chance was the fact that the enemy's weapons were set to cover the door.

spk_0 Apparently, they had not considered the possibility that the Lensman would attempt to flank them by

spk_0 blasting through an inch and a half of alloy. Kinnison did not know whether he could do it

spk_0 fast enough to mow them down from the side before they could reset their magnetic clamps or not,

spk_0 but he'd give it the good old college try. It was bound to be a mighty near thing,

spk_0 and the Lensman grinned wolfishly behind the guard plates of his helmet, as he arranged his weapons

spk_0 to save every possible fractional second of time. Aiming one at a spot some three feet above the floor,

spk_0 the other a little lower, Kinnison cut in the full power of his semi-portables and left them on.

spk_0 He energized the rifle's beam, every little bit helped, set the defensive screens at full,

spk_0 and crouched down into the saddle behind the durium's shield.

spk_0 He had checked the feed's long since he had plenty of rounds.

spk_0 Two large spots and a small one smoked briefly, grew red. They turned bright red, then yellow,

spk_0 merged into one blinding spot. Metal melted, sluggishly at first, then thinly, then flaring,

spk_0 blowing out enraging coarsifications of sparks as the fiercely driven beams aid in.

spk_0 Through. The first small opening appeared directly in line between the muslim Kinnison's rifle

spk_0 and one of the guns of the enemy, and in the moment of its appearance, the patrolman's weapon began

spk_0 its stuttering, shattering roar. The Bosconians had seen the hot spot upon the wall,

spk_0 had known instantly what it meant, and were working frantically to swing their gunmouts around,

spk_0 so as to interpose their durium shields and to bring their own rifles to bear.

spk_0 They had almost succeeded. Kinnison caught just a bulge of one suit of armour in his sights,

spk_0 but that was enough. The kinetic energy of the stream of metal tore him out of the saddle.

spk_0 He was literally riddled while still in air. Two savage bursts took care of the semi-portables

spk_0 and their operators. As has been intimated, the shields of the semis were not designed to withstand

spk_0 the type of artillery Kinnison was using. That made it canon to canon, one to one, and the lensman knew

spk_0 that those two identical rifles could hammer at each other's defenses for an hour without doing

spk_0 any serious damage. He had, however, one big advantage. Being closer to the bulkhead, he could

spk_0 depress his line of fire more than could the Bosconian. He did so, aiming at the clamps, which were not

spk_0 built to take very much of that sort of punishment. Run front clamp let go, then the other,

spk_0 and the lensman knew what to do about the rear pair which he could not reach. He directed his

spk_0 fire upon the upper edge of the durium plate. Under the awful thrust of that terrific storm of steel,

spk_0 the useless front clamps lifted from the floor. The gunmout restrained from sliding by the

spk_0 unbreakable grip of the rear clamps reared up. Over it went, straight backward, exposing the gunner

spk_0 to the full blast of Kinnison's fire. That definitely was that. Catherine heaved a sigh of relief.

spk_0 As far as she could see, the tube was still empty. That's my pup she applauded inaudibly to herself.

spk_0 Now, she breathed, if the darling has just got jets enough to figure out what may be coming at him

spk_0 down this tube and sense enough to run back home before I can catch him. Kinnison had no suspicion

spk_0 at all that any danger to himself might lie within the tube. He had no desire, however, to land

spk_0 alone in a strange and possibly half-cripled enemy ship in the exact center of an enemy base,

spk_0 and no intention whatever of doing so. Moreover, he had once come altogether too close to permanent

spk_0 emulation in a foreign space because of the discontinuance of a hyperspatial tube while he was

spk_0 in it, and once was once too many. Also, he had just got done leading with his chin, and once of

spk_0 that too was once too many. Therefore, his soul thought was to get back into his own space as fast

spk_0 as he could get there, so soon as the opposition was silenced, he hurried into the control room and

spk_0 reversed the vessel's drive. Behind him, Catherine flipped her spister and for end and led the retreat.

spk_0 She left the tube before, before as an extremely loose and inaccurate word in this connection,

spk_0 but it conveys the idea better than any other ordinary term she got back to base.

spk_0 She caused an officer to broadcast an evacuation warning, then hung poised high above base,

spk_0 watching intently. She knew that Kinnison could not leave the tube except at its terminus,

spk_0 hence would have to materialize inside base itself. She had heard of what happened when two dense,

spk_0 hard solids attempted to occupy the same three-dimensional space at the same time,

spk_0 but to view that occurrence was not her purpose in lingering. She did not actually know whether there

spk_0 was anything in the tube or not, but she did know that if there were, and if it or they should

spk_0 follow her father out into normal space, even she would have need of every jet she could muster.

spk_0 Kinnison, maneuvering his Bosconian cruiser to a halt, just at the baris perceptible threshold of

spk_0 normal space, in the intermediate zone in which nothing except durian was solid in either space or

spk_0 pseudo space had already given a great deal of thought to the problem of disembarkation.

spk_0 This ship was small as space ships go, but even so it was a lot bigger than any corridor of base.

spk_0 Those corridor walls and floors were thick and contained a lot of steel. The ship's walls were

spk_0 solid alloy. He had never seen metal materialized within metal, and frankly he didn't want to be

spk_0 around even inside de-armor when it happened. Also, there were a lot of explosives aboard

spk_0 and atomic power plants, and the chance of touching off a loose atomic vortex in the very middle

spk_0 of base and within a few feet of himself was not one to be taken lightly. He had already rigged

spk_0 a line to a master switch. Power off with the ship's durian catwalk as close to the floor of the

spk_0 controls and poised himself for the running headlong dive. He could not feel redilligion

spk_0 gravitation, of course, but he was pretty sure that he could leap far enough to get through the

spk_0 interface. He took a short run, jerked the line, and hurled himself through the space ship's

spk_0 immaterial wall. The ship disappeared. Going through that interface was more of a shock than the

spk_0 acceleration brings malaise to which no one has ever become accustomed, and taking it so rapidly,

spk_0 fairly turned kinesen inside out. He was going to land with the rolling impact which constitutes

spk_0 perfect technique in such armoured maneuvering. As it was, he never did know how he landed,

spk_0 except that he made a border-shop racket, and that he brought up against the far wall of the

spk_0 corridor with a climactic clang. Beyond the addition of a few more bruises and contusions to his

spk_0 already abundant collection, however, he was not harmed. As soon as he could collect himself,

spk_0 he leapt to his feet and wrapped out orders. Tractors, pressers, shears, heavy stuff to anchor,

spk_0 not to clamp, hype! He knew what he was up against now, and if they just come back,

spk_0 he yanked them out of that tube so fast it'd break their neck.

spk_0 And Catherine, still watching intently, smiled. Her dad was a pretty smart old duck,

spk_0 but he wasn't using his noggin now. He was cocky as Tranko's ether in thinking that they might come

spk_0 back. If anything at all erupted from that hyper-circle, it would be something against which the stuff

spk_0 he was mustering would be precisely as effective as so much thin air. And she still had no concrete

spk_0 idea of what she so feared. It would not be essentially physical, she was pretty sure. It would

spk_0 be what could possibly put it across, and how, and above all, what could she do about it if they did?

spk_0 Eyes narrowed, brow furrowed in concentration. She thought as she had never thought before,

spk_0 and the harder she thought, the more cloud the picture became. For the first time in her triumphant

spk_0 life she felt small, weak, impotent. It was in that hour that Catherine Kinnison really grew up.

spk_0 The tube vanished. She heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. They, whoever they were,

spk_0 having failed to bring Kinnison to them this time, were not coming after him this time.

spk_0 Not an important enough game to play to the end. No, that wasn't it. Maybe they weren't ready.

spk_0 But the next time. Mentor the Erysian had told her bluntly the last time she had seen him,

spk_0 to come to him again when she had found out that she did not know everything there was to be known.

spk_0 Deep down she had believed that that day would never come. Now however, it had.

spk_0 This escape, if it had been an escape, had taught her much.

spk_0 Mother, she shot a call to distant clovia. I'm on redelix. Everything's on the green.

spk_0 Dad has just knocked out a flock of Bosconians into an outside loop and come through QX.

spk_0 I've got to do a little flip though before I come home. Bye.

spk_0 Kinnison stood intermittent guard over base for four days after the hyperspacial tube had

spk_0 disappeared before he gave up. Before he did any serious thinking upon what he should do next.

spk_0 Could he and should he keep on his sibling white? He could and he should. He decided

spk_0 he hadn't been gone long enough for white's absence to have been noticed. Nothing whatever connected

spk_0 white with Kinnison. If he really knew what he was doing, a more specific alias might be better.

spk_0 But as long as he was merely smelling around, white's was the best identity to use.

spk_0 He could go anywhere, do anything, ask anything of anybody, and all with a perfectly good excuse.

spk_0 And as sibling white then, for days that stretched into weeks he roamed, finding as he had been

spk_0 afraid that he would find nothing whatever. It seemed as though all Bosconian activity of the type

spk_0 in which he was most interested had ceased with his return from the hyperspacial tube.

spk_0 Just what that meant, he did not know. He was unthinkable that they had given up on him,

spk_0 much more probably they were hatching something brand new.

spk_0 And the frustration of inaction and the trying to figure out what was coming next was driving him

spk_0 not so slowly nuts. Then striking through the doldrums came a call from Mateland.

spk_0 Kim, you told me to lens you immediately about any off-color work. Don't know whether this is or not.

spk_0 The guy may be, probably is crazy. Conklin, who reported him, couldn't decide,

spk_0 neither can I, from Conklin's report. Do you want to send somebody special? Take over yourself or

spk_0 what? I'll take over. Kinnison decided instantly. If neither Conklin nor the vice-coordinator,

spk_0 Gray Lensman-Bolt could decide there was no point in sending anyone else.

spk_0 Where and who?

spk_0 Planet Minius II, not too far from where you are now. City, Miniateles,

spk_0 116-329-45-2217. Place, Jack's Haven, a meteor miner's hangout at the corner of Gold and

spk_0 Sapphire streets. Person, a man called Eddie. Thanks, I'll check.

spk_0 Mateland did not send and Kinnison did not want any additional information.

spk_0 Both knew that since the coordinator was going to investigate this thing himself,

spk_0 he should get his facts, and particularly his impressions, on prejudice and at first hand.

spk_0 Two Minius II then, and to Jack's Haven, Sibley White went, notebook very much in evidence.

spk_0 An ordinary enough space-dive Jack's turned out to be. Hire toned in that

spk_0 red-illigient space-doxiluna boom-ingers, much less flamboyant than notorious Miner's rest on

spk_0 far Ufrasini. I wish to interview a person named Eddie, he announced as he brought a bottle of wine.

spk_0 I have been informed that he has had deep space adventures worthy of incorporation into one of

spk_0 the Rockesley. That space-louse, somebody's been kidding you, Mr. He's nothing but a broken-down

spk_0 meteor miner. You know what a space-louse is, don't you? That we let clean cuspidores and do such

spk_0 like odd jobs for his keep? We don't throw him out like we do the others because he's kind of

spk_0 funny in one way. Every hour or so he throws a fit and that amuses people.

spk_0 White's eager beaver attitude did not change. His face reflected nothing of what

spk_0 Kinesan thought of this callous speech. For Kinesan did know exactly what a space-louse was.

spk_0 More he knew exactly what turned a man into one.

spk_0 Next, meteor miner himself, he knew what the awesome depths of space, the ever-present

spk_0 dangers, the privations, the solitude, the frustrations, did to any mind not adequately integrated.

spk_0 He knew that only the strong survived, that the many weeks succumbed.

spk_0 From sickening memory, he knew just what pitiful wrecks those many became.

spk_0 Nevertheless, and despite the fact that the information was not necessary,

spk_0 where is this Eddie now? That's him over there in the corner.

spk_0 By the way, he's acting, he'll have another fit pretty quick now.

spk_0 The shambling travesty of a man accepted Avathe the invitation to table and downed

spk_0 a gulp, the proper drink. Then, as though the mild potion had been a trigger, his wrecked body

spk_0 tensed and his features began to rife. Kedegles, he screamed, eyes rolling, breath coming in hard,

spk_0 frantic gasps, gangs of Kedegles, thousands, they're clawing me to bits, and the lensman,

spk_0 he's sickening them on. Oh, yo! He burst into unintelligible screams and threw himself to the floor.

spk_0 There, rolling convulsively over and over, he tried the impossible feat of covering

spk_0 simultaneously with his two claw-like hands, his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and throat.

spk_0 Ignoring the crowding spectators, Kinnison invaded the helpless mind before him.

spk_0 He winced mentally as he photographed upon his own brain the whole atrocious enormity of what

spk_0 was there. Then, while white, busily scribbled notes, he shot a thought to distant clovea.

spk_0 Cliff, I'm here in Jack's Haven, and I've got Eddie's data. What did you in Conklin make of it?

spk_0 You agree, of course, that the lensman is the crux. Definitely. Everything else is hop-happy

spk_0 space-drift. The fact that there are not, there can't be any lensman as Eddie imagined,

spk_0 makes him space-drift too, in our opinion. We called you in on the millionth chance.

spk_0 Sorry that we sent you out on a false alarm, but you said we had to be sure.

spk_0 You need me sorry. Kinnison's thought was the grimest Clifford Madeleine had ever felt.

spk_0 Eddie isn't an ordinary space-louse. You see, I happen to know one thing that you and Conklin

spk_0 don't, since you've never been there. Did you happen to notice a woman in the picture?

spk_0 Very faint, decidedly in the background? Now that you mentioned her, yes, there was one.

spk_0 So far in the background, and so faint, that it never occurred to either Conklin or me that

spk_0 she could be connected. How can she possibly have any bearing, Kim? Most every spaceman has a woman,

spk_0 or a lot of different ones, more or less on his mind all the time, you know? Definitely immaterial,

spk_0 and not germane, I'd say. So would I, maybe, except for the fact that she isn't really a woman at all,

spk_0 but a Lyranian. A Lyranian, Madeleine interrupted. Kinnison could feel the racing of his assistance

spk_0 and thoughts. That complicates things. But how in Palain's purple hells, Kim, could Eddie ever

spk_0 have got to Lyraine? And if he did, how did he get away alive? I don't know, Cliff.

spk_0 Kinnison's mind, too, was working fast. But you haven't got all the dope yet. Not only a

spk_0 Shea Lyranian, but I know her personally. She's that airport manager who tried her level best to

spk_0 kill me all the time I was on Lyraine, too. Hmm. Madeleine tried to digest that undigestible bit,

spk_0 tried and failed. That would seem to make the Lensman real too, then, real enough, at least,

spk_0 to investigate. Much as I hate to think of the possibility of a Lensman going that far off the beam,

spk_0 Madeleine's convictions died hard. Unless, could there be any possibility of coincidence?

spk_0 Coincidences out. Don't think it's a trap either. Hasn't got the right earmarks.

spk_0 You'll handle this yourself, then? Check, at least I'll help. There may be people better qualified

spk_0 than I am to do the heavy work. I'll get them at it. Thanks, Cliff. Clear either.

spk_0 He lined a thought to his wife, and after a short, warmly intimate contact, he told her everything

spk_0 that had happened. So you see, beautiful. He concluded, your wish is coming true. I couldn't keep

spk_0 you out of this if I wanted to. So check with the girls, put on your lens, take off your clothes,

spk_0 and go to work. I'll do that, Clibris a laughed and her soaring spirit flooded his mind.

spk_0 Thanks, my dear. Then and only then did Kimball-Kinison, master therapist, pay any further attention to

spk_0 that which lay contorted upon the floor. But when white folded up his notebook and left the place,

spk_0 the derelict was resting quietly. And in a space of time long enough so that the

spk_0 putative rider of space-operas would not be connected with the cure, those fits would end.

spk_0 Moreover, Eddie would return whole to the void. He would become what he had never before been,

spk_0 a successful meteor miner. Lensmen pay their debts, even to spiders and to worms.

spk_0 Her adventure in the hyperspacial tube had taught Catherine, Kinnison, much,

spk_0 realizing her inadequacy and knowing what to do about it, she drove her spester at high velocity

spk_0 to Aricia. Unlike the second stage, Lensmen, she did not even slow down as she approached the planet's

spk_0 barrier. But as one sure of her welcome, merely throughout ahead of her, an identifying thought.

spk_0 Ah, daughter Catherine, again, you're in time. Was there or was there not a trace of emotion,

spk_0 of welcome, even of affection, in that usually utterly emotionless thought?

spk_0 Lensmen, as usual. She neutralized her controls as she felt the mighty beams of the landing

spk_0 engine take hold of her little ship. Upon previous visits, she had questioned nothing. This time,

spk_0 she was questioning everything. Was she landing or not? Directing her every force inwards,

spk_0 she probed her own mind to its profoundest depths. Definitely, she was her own mistress throughout.

spk_0 No conceivable mind could take hers over so tracelessly. As definitely then, she was actually landing.

spk_0 She landed, the ground upon which she stepped was real. So the automatic flyer, neither plain

spk_0 nor helicopter, which whister from the spaceport to her familiar destination, an unpretentious

spk_0 residence upon the grounds of an immense hospital. The graveled walk, the flowering shrubs,

spk_0 the indescribably sweet and pungent perfume were real. As were the tiny pain and the drop of blood,

spk_0 which resulted when a needle-sharp thorn pierced her in cautious finger.

spk_0 Through automatically opening doors, she made her way to the familiar, comfortable,

spk_0 book-lined room, which she knew was mentor's study. And there, at his big desk, unchanged,

spk_0 sat mentor. A lot like her father, but older, much older. About 90 she had always thought,

spk_0 even though he didn't look over 60. This time, however, she drove a probe and got the shock of her life.

spk_0 Her thought was stopped, cold, not by superior mental force, which she could have taken unmoved,

spk_0 but by a seemingly ordinary thought-screen. And her fastest disintegrating morale began visibly

spk_0 to crack. Is all this, are you real or not? She burst out, finally. If it isn't, I'll go mad.

spk_0 That which you have tested and I are real, for the moment and as you understand reality,

spk_0 your mind in its present state of advancement cannot be deceived concerning such elementary

spk_0 matters. But it all wasn't before. Or don't you want to answer that? Since the sure knowledge

spk_0 will affect your growth, I will answer. It was not. This is the first time that your

spk_0 spister has landed physically upon Erecia. The girl shrank, appalled. You told me to come to you

spk_0 again when I learned that I did not know everything there was to know. She finally forced herself to say,

spk_0 I learned that in the tube. But I did not realize until just now that I don't know anything.

spk_0 Do you really think, mentor, that there is any use at all in going on with me?

spk_0 She concluded bitterly. Much, he assured her. Your development has been eminently satisfactory,

spk_0 and your present mental condition is both necessary and sufficient.

spk_0 Well, I'll be a sp-cather bit off the expletive and frowned.

spk_0 What were you doing to me before then when I thought I got everything?

spk_0 Power of mind, he informed her, sheer power and penetration and control,

spk_0 depth and speed, and all the other factors with which you are already familiar.

spk_0 But what is left? I know there is, lots of it, but I can't imagine what.

spk_0 Scope, mentor replied gravely. Each of those qualities and characteristics

spk_0 must be expanded to encompass the full sphere of thought.

spk_0 Neither words nor thoughts can give any adequate concept of what it means.

spk_0 A practically wide open two-way will be necessary.

spk_0 This cannot be accomplished, daughter, and the adolescent confines of your present mind.

spk_0 Therefore, enter fully into mind. She did so, and after less than a minute of that awful

spk_0 contact slumped to the floor. The Erysian, unchanged, unmoved, unmoving, gazed at her until

spk_0 finally she began to stir. That, father, mentor, that was, she blinked, she shook her head

spk_0 savagely, fought her way back to full consciousness. That was a shock.

spk_0 It was, he agreed. More so than you think. Of all the entities of your civilization,

spk_0 your brother and now you are the only ones that will not kill instantly.

spk_0 You now know what the word scope means, and are ready for your last treatment,

spk_0 in the course of which I shall take your mind as far along the road of knowledge as mine is

spk_0 capable of going. But that would mean you're implying, but my mind can't be superior to your

spk_0 as mentor. Nothing could be possibly, it's surely starkly unthinkable. But true daughter,

spk_0 nevertheless, while you are recovering your strength from that which was but the beginning

spk_0 of your education, I will explain certain matters previously obscure. You have long known, of course,

spk_0 that you five children are not like any others. You have always known many things without having

spk_0 learned them. You think upon all possible bans of thought. Your senses of perception, of sight,

spk_0 of hearing, of touch are so perfectly merged into one sense that you perceive at will any

spk_0 possible manifestation upon any possible plane or dimension of vibration.

spk_0 Also, although this may not have occurred to you as extraordinary, since it is not obvious,

spk_0 you differ physically from your fellows in some important respects.

spk_0 You have never experienced the slightest symptom of physical illness,

spk_0 not even a headache or a decayed tooth. You do not really require sleep.

spk_0 Vaccinations and inoculations do not take. No pathogenic organism, however virulent,

spk_0 no poison, however potent, stop mentor, Catherine Gasp, turning white. I can't take it.

spk_0 You really mean then that we aren't human at all? Yes, and no. A partial explanation, while long,

spk_0 may be in order. Many cycles of time ago, he became apparent to our more advanced thinkers that the

spk_0 ice and fall of civilizations was too rhythmic to be accidental. They studied this rhythm,

spk_0 but life was too short. They set out then deliberately to prolong their lives.

spk_0 Fewer and fewer numbers, they lived longer and longer. And the longer each lived, the more he learned.

spk_0 Their visualizations of the cosmic all became less tenuous, more complete.

spk_0 It became evident that there was some inimical force at work, a force implacably opposed to that

spk_0 which we know as civilization. Like a mouse in the power of a torturing cat, any civilization could

spk_0 go just so far, but no farther. For instance, that of Atlantis upon your father's native planet

spk_0 tell us. I was personally concerned in that and could not stop its fall.

spk_0 The Erysian was showing emotion now. His thought was bleak and bitter.

spk_0 Four of us were assigned to the problem of this opposing force. We learned that its final

spk_0 abatement would necessitate the development of a race superior to ours in every respect.

spk_0 We therefore selected bloodlines in each of the four strongest races of the galaxy,

spk_0 and began to eliminate as many as possible of their weaknesses and to concentrate all of their strengths.

spk_0 From your knowledge of genetics, you realized the magnitude of the task.

spk_0 You know that it would take much time uselessly to go into the details of its accomplishment.

spk_0 Your father and your mother were the penultimates of long, very long lines of matings.

spk_0 Their procreative cells were such that in their fusion, practically every gene

spk_0 carrying any trait of weakness was rejected. Conversely, you carried the genes of every trait

spk_0 of strength ever known to any member of your human race. Therefore, while in outward seeming,

spk_0 you are human. In every factor of importance, you are not. You are even less human than I am myself.

spk_0 And just how human is that? Catherine Flaerd, and again, her most penetrant probe of force flattened

spk_0 out against the Erysian screen. Later, daughter, not now. That knowledge will come at the end of your

spk_0 education, not at its beginning. I was afraid so. She stared at the Erysian, her eyes wide and hopeless,

spk_0 brimming in spite of her efforts at control with tears. You're a monster, and I am, or I'm going to

spk_0 be a worse one. A monster. And I'll have to live a million years alone. Why? Why, mentor,

spk_0 did you have to do this to me? Calm yourself, daughter. The shock while severe will pass.

spk_0 You have lost nothing, have gained much. Gained? Ba! The girl's thought was loaded with bitterness and

spk_0 scorn. I've lost my parents. I'll still be a girl long after they have died. I've lost every

spk_0 possibility of ever really living. I want love, and a husband, and children, and I can't have any

spk_0 of them ever. Even without this, I've never seen a man I wanted, and now I can't ever love anybody.

spk_0 I don't want to live a million years, mentor, especially alone. The thought was a veritable

spk_0 whale of despair. The time has come to stop this childish thinking. Mentor's thought, however,

spk_0 was only mildly approving. Such a reaction is only natural, but your conclusions are entirely

spk_0 erroneous. One single clear thought will show you that you have no present psychic, intellectual,

spk_0 emotional, or physical need of a compliment. That's true, but other girls of my age, exactly.

spk_0 K. Mentor's dry rejoinder. Thinking of yourself as an adult homo sapien, you were judging yourself

spk_0 by false standards. As a matter of fact, you are an adolescent, not an adult. In new time,

spk_0 you will come to love a man, and he, you, with a fervor and depth which you at present cannot even

spk_0 dimly understand. But that still leaves my parents. Catherine felt much better.

spk_0 I can apparently age, of course, as easily as I can put on a hat. But I really do love them,

spk_0 you know, and it will simply break mother's heart to have all her daughters turn out to be,

spk_0 as she thinks, spinsters. On that point, too, you may rest at ease. I am taking care of that.

spk_0 Kimball and Clarissa both know, without knowing how they know it, that your life cycle is tremendously

spk_0 longer than theirs. They both know that they will not live to see their grandchildren.

spk_0 Be assured, daughter, that before they pass from this cycle of existence into the next,

spk_0 about which I know nothing, they shall know that all is to be supremely well with their line.

spk_0 Even though to civilization at large, it shall apparently end with you five.

spk_0 End with us? What do you mean? You have a destiny, the nature of which your mind is not yet qualified

spk_0 to receive. In new time, the knowledge shall be yours. Suffice it now to say that the next 40 or

spk_0 50 years will be but a fleeting moment in the span of life which is to be yours.

spk_0 But time at the moment presses. You are now fully recovered, and we must get on with this,

spk_0 your last period of study with me, at the end of which you will be able to bear the fullest

spk_0 closest impact of my mind as easily as you have here to forebourn full contact with your sisters.

spk_0 Let us proceed with the work.

spk_0 Work it was, and it went on for weeks.

spk_0 Catherine took and survived those shattering treatments, one after another.

spk_0 Emerging finally with a mind whose power and scope can no more be explained to any mind below

spk_0 the third level than can the general theory of relativity be explained to which impans E?

spk_0 Was forced, not natural, yes. The Erysian said gravely, as the girl was about to leave.

spk_0 You are many millions of your years ahead of your natural time. You realize, however, the

spk_0 necessity of that forcing. You also realize that I can give you no more formal instruction.

spk_0 I will be with you or on call at all times. I will be evade in crises, but in larger matters,

spk_0 your further development is in your own hands.

spk_0 Catherine shivered. I realize that, and it scares me clear through,

spk_0 especially this coming conflict, at which you hint so vaguely.

spk_0 I wish that you would tell me at least something about it so that I could get ready for it.

spk_0 Daughter, I can't. For the first time in Catherine's experience, mentor the Erysian was unsure.

spk_0 It is certain that we have been on time. But since the Adorians have minds of power little,

spk_0 if any, inferior to our own, there are many details which we cannot derive with certainty,

spk_0 and to advise you wrongly would be to do you irreparable harm.

spk_0 All I can say is that, if my visualization in that respective sound, and I am practically sure

spk_0 that it is, sufficient warning will be given by your learning, with no specific effort on your part,

spk_0 and from some source other than myself, that there does in fact exist a planet named Plur,

spk_0 a name which to you is now only a meaning to symbol. Go now, Daughter, Catherine, and work.

spk_0 Catherine went, knowing that the Erysian had said all that he would say. In truth,

spk_0 he had told her vastly more than she had expected him to divulge.

spk_0 And it chilled her to the marrow to think that she, who had always looked up to the Erysians as

spk_0 demigods of sorts, would from now on be expected to act as their equal, in some ways perhaps as their

spk_0 superior. As her speech or tour through space toward distant clovia, she wrestled with herself,

spk_0 trying to shake her new self down into a personality as well integrated as her old one had been.

spk_0 She had not quite succeeded when she felt a thought.

spk_0 Help, I am in difficulty with this, my ship. Will any entity receiving my call and possessing

spk_0 the tools of a mechanic please come to my assistance, or lacking such tools, possessing a vessel

spk_0 of power sufficient to tow mine to the place where I must immediately go?

spk_0 Catherine was startled out of her introspective trance. That thought was on a terrifically high band.

spk_0 One so high that she knew no race using it. So high that an ordinary human mind could not

spk_0 possibly have either sent or received it. Its phraseology, while peculiar, was utterly precise in

spk_0 definition. The mind behind it was certainly of her precisionist grade. She acknowledged upon

spk_0 the stranger's wave and sent out a locator. Good, he wasn't far away. She flashed toward the

spk_0 derelict, matched in trinsics at a safe distance, and began scanning, only to encounter a screen

spk_0 around the whole vessel. To her it was porous enough, but if the creature thought that his screen was

spk_0 tight, let him keep on thinking so. It was his move. Well, what are you waiting for? The thought

spk_0 fairly snapped. Come closer so that I may bring you in. Not yet, Catherine snapped back.

spk_0 Cut your screen so that I can see what you are like. I carry equipment for many environments,

spk_0 but I must know what yours is and equip for it before I can come aboard. You will note that my

spk_0 screens are down. Of course, excuse me, I suppose that you are one of our own. There came the thought

spk_0 of an unspellable and unpronounceable name. Since none of the lower orders can receive our thoughts

spk_0 direct. Can you equip yourself to come aboard with your tools? Yes. The stranger's light was

spk_0 fear-stuff, 98 percent of its energy being beyond the visible. His lamps were beam-held atomics,

spk_0 nothing less, but there was very little gamma and few neutrons. She could handle it easily enough,

spk_0 she decided, as she finished donning her heat armor and a helmet of practically opaque diamond

spk_0 hard plastic. As she was wafted gently across the intervening space upon a pencil of force,

spk_0 Catherine took her first good look at the precisionist himself, or herself. She, it, looked something

spk_0 like a dillion she thought at first. There was the squat, powerful, elephantine body with its

spk_0 four stocky legs, the tremendous double shoulders and enormous arms, the domed, almost immobile head,

spk_0 but there the resemblance ended. There was only the one head, the thinking head, and that one had

spk_0 no eyes and was not covered with bone. There was no feeding head, the thing could neither eat nor breathe.

spk_0 There was no trunk, and what a skin. It was worse than a hide, really, worse even than a Martians.

spk_0 The girl had never seen anything like it. It was incredibly thick, dry, pliable,

spk_0 filled minutely with cells of a liquid gaseous something which she knew to be a more perfect

spk_0 insulator even than the fibers of the tegment itself. RTSLQP

spk_0 She classified the creature readily enough to six places, then stopped and wrinkled her forehead.

spk_0 Seventh place, that incredible skin. What? SRT? It would have to be R.

spk_0 You have the requisite tools I perceive. The creature greeted Catherine as she entered the central

spk_0 compartment of the strange spister, no larger than her own. I can tell you what to do if

spk_0 I know what to do. She unbolted a cover, wrought briefly with pliers and splice her,

spk_0 and in ten minutes was done. It doesn't seem to make sense to me that a person of your obvious

spk_0 intelligence, manifestly knowing enough to make such minor repairs yourself, would go so far

spk_0 from home alone in such a small ship without any tools. Burnouts and shorts are apt to happen

spk_0 anytime you know. Not in vessels of the—again, Catherine felt that unpronounceable symbol.

spk_0 She also felt the stranger stiffen in offended dignity. We of the higher orders you should know

spk_0 do not perform labor. We think, we direct. Others work and do their work well or suffer accordingly.

spk_0 This is the first time in nine full four-cycle periods that such a thing has happened,

spk_0 and it will be the last. The punishment which I shall meet out to the guilty mechanic will

spk_0 ensure that I shall at end have his life. Oh, come now, Catherine protested. Surely it's no life

spk_0 and death, Matt, silence came, curd command. It is intolerable that one of the lower order should

spk_0 attempt to silence yourself at the fierce power of the repost, the creature wist physically and mentally.

spk_0 I did this bit of dirty work for you because you apparently couldn't do it for yourself.

spk_0 I did not object to the matter of course way you accepted it because some races are made that way

spk_0 and can't help it. But if you insist on keeping yourself placed five rungs above me on any ladder

spk_0 you can think of, I'll stop being a lady or even a good girl scout and start doing things about it

spk_0 and I'll start at any signal you care to call. Get ready and say when.

spk_0 The stranger taken fully aback throughout a lightning tentacle of thought, a feeder which was

spk_0 stopped cold a full foot from their girl's radiant armor. This was a human female or was it?

spk_0 It was not. No human being had ever had, nor ever would have, a mind like that.

spk_0 Therefore I have made a grave error, the thing apologized handsomely,

spk_0 in thinking that you are not at least my equal. Will you grant me pardon please?

spk_0 Certainly if you don't repeat it, but I still don't like the idea of you're having that

spk_0 mechanic skin to live. She thought intensely, lip-caught between strong white teeth.

spk_0 Perhaps there is a way. Where are you going and when do you want to get there?

spk_0 To my home planet, pointing out mentally its location in the galaxy, I must be there in 200 of your GP hours.

spk_0 I see, Catherine nodded her head. You can, if you promise that you will do nothing

spk_0 whatever to punish your mechanic, and remember that I can tell whether you really mean it or not.

spk_0 As I promise, so I do, but suppose that I do not promise.

spk_0 In that case, you'll get there in about a hundred thousand GP years frozen stiff.

spk_0 For I shall fuse your burg and home down so that it can't ever be fixed.

spk_0 Then, after welding your ports solidly to the outer shell, I'll attach to your plating the

spk_0 generator of a screen to which you cannot think. Since you have no tools, I'll leave the rest to

spk_0 your imagination. Decide now what you wish to do. I promise not to harm the mechanic in any way.

spk_0 He surrendered stiffly and made no undue protest at Catherine's entrance into his mind to make

spk_0 sure that the promise would be kept. Flushed by her easy conquest of a mine which she would

spk_0 previously have been unable to touch and engrossed in the problem of setting her own tremendously

spk_0 enlarged mind to rights, why should it have occurred to the girl that there was anything worthy of

spk_0 investigation concealed in the depths of that chance met strangers' mentality? Returning to her own

spk_0 speedster, she shed her arm and shot away, and it was just as well for her peace of mind that she

spk_0 was not aware of the tight-beamed thought even then speeding from the flitter so far behind her

spk_0 to the dread and distant plur. But it was very definitely not a human female. I could not touch it.

spk_0 It may very well have been one of the accursed Erysians themselves, but since I did nothing to

spk_0 arouse its suspicions, I got rid of it easily enough. Spread the warning. End of chapter 9

spk_0 This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 10

spk_0 While Catherine Kineson was working with her father in the hyperspacial tube and with mentor

spk_0 of Erysia, and while Camilla and Tragancy were sleuthy via inscrutable ex, Constance was also at work.

spk_0 Although she lay flat upon her back, not moving a muscle, she was working as she had never worked before.

spk_0 Long since, she had put her indetectable speedster into the control of a director by chance.

spk_0 Now, knowing nothing and caring less of where she and her vessel might be or might go,

spk_0 physically completely relaxed, she drove her sensory out to the full limit of their prodigious range

spk_0 and held them there for hour after hour. Or so like she was not consciously listening for any

spk_0 particular thing. She was merely increasing your already incredibly vast store of knowledge.

spk_0 One hundred percent receptive, attached to and concerned with, only the brain of her physical body,

spk_0 her mind sped at large sampling, testing, analyzing, cataloging every item with which its most

spk_0 tenuous fringe came in contact. Through thousands of solar systems that mind went,

spk_0 millions upon millions of entities either did or did not contribute something worthwhile.

spk_0 Suddenly there came something that jarged her into physical movement, a burst of thought upon a

spk_0 band so high that it was practically always vacant. She shook herself, got up, lighted and

spk_0 else sock a night cigarette and made herself a pot of coffee. This is important, I think,

spk_0 she mused. I'd better get to work on it while it's fresh. She sent out a thought tuned to

spk_0 worsel and surprised when it went unanswered. She investigated, finding that the valantian

spk_0 screens were full up and held hard. He was fighting over Lord Soh savagely that he had not felt her thought.

spk_0 Should she take a hand in this brawl? She should not, she decided, and grinned fleetingly.

spk_0 Her erstwhile tutor would need no help in that comparatively minor chore. She should wait,

spk_0 rest up a bit and eat before she called him. Worsal, con-calling, what goes on their fellow old snake?

spk_0 She finally launched her thought. You've stuck that sharp tail of ears into some of my business,

spk_0 I hope. I hope so, worsel sent back. Been quite a while since I saw you close up. How about coming

spk_0 aboard? Coming at Max? And she did. Before entering the Veland, however, she put on a personal

spk_0 gravity damper, set at 980 centimeters. Strong, tough and supple as she was. She did not relish the

spk_0 thought of the atrocious accelerations used and enjoyed by the valantians everywhere.

spk_0 What did you make of that burst of thought? She asked by way of greeting. Or were you having so much

spk_0 fun that you missed it? What burst? Then, after Constance had explained, I was busy, but not having fun.

spk_0 Somebody who didn't know you might believe that, the girl derided. This thought was important,

spk_0 I think, much more so than dilly-dallying with overlords as you were doing. It was way up there

spk_0 on this band here. She illustrated. So, worsel came as near to whistling as one of his inarticulate

spk_0 race could come. What were they like? Tell me all that you can. VWZY to four places, con-concentrated.

spk_0 Multiligged. Not exactly carrepaceous, but pretty nearly. Spiny too, I believe.

spk_0 The world was cold, dismal, barren, but not frigid, but he, it, didn't seem exactly like an oxygen

spk_0 breather. More like what a warm-blooded palanian would perhaps look like if you can imagine such a thing.

spk_0 Mentality very high. Precisionist grade. No thought of cities as such.

spk_0 The sun was a typical yellow dwarf. Does any of this ring a bell in your mind?

spk_0 No. Worsal thought intensely for minutes. So, did Constance. Neither had any idea that the girl was

spk_0 describing the form assumed in their autumn by the dreaded inhabitants of the planet Plur.

spk_0 This may indeed be important. Worsal broke the mental silence. Shall we explore together?

spk_0 We shall. They tuned to the desired band. Give it plenty of shove, too. Go.

spk_0 Out and out and out. The twin receptor is sped. To encounter, finally, a tenuous, weak and utterly

spk_0 cryptic vibration. One touch, the nearest possible contact, and it disappeared. It vanished

spk_0 before even Con-Solectronics fast reactions could get more than a hint of directional alignment,

spk_0 and neither of the observers could read any part of it. Both of these developments were starkly

spk_0 incredible. And Worsal's long body, Titan convulsively, rock hard in the violence of the mental

spk_0 force, now driving his exploring mind. Finding nothing he finally relaxed. Any lensman anywhere

spk_0 can read and understand any thought, however garbled or scrambled or however expressed.

spk_0 He thought at Constance. Also, I have always been able to get an exact line on anything I could

spk_0 perceive. But all I know about this one is that it seemed to come mostly from somewhere over that

spk_0 way. Did you do any better? Not much, if any. If the thing was surprising to Worsal, it was

spk_0 surely astounding to his companion. She, knowing the measure of her power, thought to herself,

spk_0 not to the Valantian. Girl, file this one carefully away in the big black book.

spk_0 Slight as were the directional leads, the Veland tour along the indicated line at maximum blast.

spk_0 Day after day she sped, a wide flung mental net out far ahead and out farther still on all sides.

spk_0 They did not find what they sought, but they did find something.

spk_0 What is it? Worsal demanded of the Quivering telepath who had made the report. I don't know, sir.

spk_0 Not on that ultra-band, but well below it. There. Not an overlord, certainly, but something,

spk_0 perhaps, equally unfriendly. An eich. Both Worsal and Khan exclaimed that thought and the girl went on.

spk_0 It was practically certain that we couldn't get them all on Jarnavan, of course, but none have

spk_0 been reported before. Where are they anyway? Get me a chart, somebody. It's Novena, and they're on

spk_0 the ninth planet out. Novena nine. Tune up your heavy artillery, Worsal. It'd be nice if we could

spk_0 take the headman alive, but that much luck probably isn't in the cards. The Valantian, even though he

spk_0 had issued instantaneously the order to drive at full blast toward the indicated planet, was momentarily

spk_0 at a loss. Kinneson's daughter entertained no doubts as to the outcome of the encounter she was

spk_0 proposing, but she had never seen an eich close up. He had. So had her father. Kinneson had come out

spk_0 a very poor second in that affair, and Worsal knew that he could have done no better if as well.

spk_0 However, that had been upon Jarnavan, actually inside one of its strongest citadels,

spk_0 and neither he nor Kinneson had been prepared. What's the plan, Worsal?

spk_0 Condemned vibrantly. How are you figuring on taking them? Depends on how strong they are.

spk_0 If it's a long established base, we'll simply have to report it to La Forge and go on about our

spk_0 business. If, as seems more probable from the fact that it hasn't been reported before,

spk_0 it is a new establishment of refugees from Jarnavan, or possibly only a grounded spaceship so far.

spk_0 We'll go to work on them ourselves. We'll soon be close enough to find out.

spk_0 QX, an affleading grin passed over Kahn's vivacious face. For a long time, she had been working with

spk_0 mentor the Erysian, specifically to develop the ability to outworsal Worsal, and now was the best time

spk_0 she ever would have to put her hard schooling to test. Hence, master of hallucination, though he was,

spk_0 the valantian had no hint of realization when his clovian companion, working through a channel

spk_0 which he did not even know existed, took control of every compartment of his mind.

spk_0 Nor did the crew, in particular, or on mass, suspect anything amiss when she performed the

spk_0 infinitely easier task of taking over theirs. Nor did the unlikely Ike, when the flying Yveland

spk_0 had approached their planet closely enough to make it clear that their establishment was indeed a new

spk_0 one, being built around the nucleus of a cripple boscony in battleship. Except for their commanding

spk_0 officer, they died then and there, and Kahn was to regret bitterly later that she had made this

spk_0 engagement such a one-girl affair. The battleship apparently was not in shape to meet the

spk_0 Yveland in open space, since it did not. But it could have operated, and wall-seeming did operate

spk_0 as a formidable fortress indeed from its fixed position on the ground. Under the fierce impact

spk_0 of its offensive beams, the valantians saw their very wall shields flame violet. In return,

spk_0 they saw their mighty secondary beams stopped cold by the boscony in inner screens, and had to bring

spk_0 it to play the inconceivable energies of their primaries before the enemy spaceship fortress

spk_0 could be knocked out. And this much of the battle was real. Instrument and recorded tapes could be

spk_0 and were being doctored to fit, but spent primary shells could not be simulated. Nor was it

spk_0 thinkable that this tremendous ship in its insipiate base should be allowed to survive.

spk_0 Hence, after the dreadful primaries had quieted, the Ike's main batteries and had reduced the

spk_0 groundworks to flaming pools of lava, needle-beamers went to work on every minor and secondary control board.

spk_0 Then, the great vessel definitely helped us as a fighting unit. Worsal and his hard-bitten crew

spk_0 thought that they went, thought-screened, full-armored, armed with semi-portables and delaminers,

spk_0 joyously into the hand-to-hand combat which each so craved. Worsal and two of his strongest

spk_0 henchmen attacked the armed at armored Baskonian captain. After a satisfying terrific struggle in

spk_0 the course of which all three of the valantians and some others were appropriately burned and wounded,

spk_0 they overpowered him and carried him bodily into the control room of the Veland.

spk_0 This part of the episode two was real. As was the complete melting down of the Baskonian vessel,

spk_0 which occurred while the transfer was being made. Then, while Khan was engaged in the exceedingly

spk_0 delicate task of withdrawing her mind from Worsals without leaving any detectable trace that she

spk_0 had ever been in it, there happened the completely unexpected. The one thing for which she was utterly

spk_0 unprepared. The mind of the captain was wrenched from her control as palpably as a loosely held

spk_0 stickest snatch from a physical hand. And at the same time there was hurled against her impenetrable

spk_0 barriers and attack which could not possibly have stemmed from any Ike in mind.

spk_0 If her mind had been free, she could have coped with the situation, but it was not.

spk_0 She had to hold Worsal. She knew with cold certainty what would ensue if she did not.

spk_0 The crew? They could be blocked out temporarily. Unlike the valantian lensmen,

spk_0 no one of them could even suspect that he had been in a stasis unless it were long enough to be

spk_0 noticeable upon such timepieces as clocks. The procedure, however, occupied a millisecond or so

spk_0 a precious time, and considerably longer interval was required to withdraw with the required

spk_0 tracelessness for Worsals' mind. Thus, before she could do anything except protect herself and

spk_0 the valantian from that surprisingly powerful invading intelligence, all tracess of it disappeared,

spk_0 and all that remained of her captive was a dead body. Worsal and Constance stared at each other

spk_0 wordless for seconds. The valantian had a completely and accurately detailed memory of everything

spk_0 that had happened up to that instant. The only matter not quite clear, being the fact that

spk_0 their hard-won captive was dead. The girl's mind was racing to fabricate a bullet-proof

spk_0 explanation of that startling fact. Worsal saved her the trouble.

spk_0 It is, of course, true, he thought, and, or finally, that any mind of sufficient power can

spk_0 destroy by force of will alone the entity of flesh in which it resides. I never thought about this

spk_0 matter before in connection with the Ike, but no detail of the experience her father and I had with

spk_0 them on Jarnavan would support any contention that they do not have minds of the requisite power.

spk_0 And today's battle, being purely physical, would not throw any light on the subject.

spk_0 I wonder if a thing like that could be stopped, that is, if we had been on time.

spk_0 That's it, I think. Con put on her most disarming, most engaging grin in preparation

spk_0 for the most outrageous series of lies over long career.

spk_0 And I don't think it can be stopped, at least I couldn't stop him. You see, I got into

spk_0 him a fraction of a second before you did, and in that instant, just like that. In spite of the

spk_0 fact that Worsal could not hear, she snapped her finger ringingly. Faster even than that, he was gone.

spk_0 I didn't think of it until you brought it up, but you are as right as can be.

spk_0 He killed himself to keep us from finding out whatever it was that he knew about what is left of

spk_0 Baskonia. Worsal stared at her with six eyes now, instead of one, gimliate probes which

spk_0 glanced imperceptibly off her shield. He was not consciously trying to break down her barriers,

spk_0 to his fullest perception, they were already down. No barriers were there. He was not consciously

spk_0 trying to integrate or reintegrate any detail or phase of the episode just past. No Iota or trace

spk_0 of falsity had appeared at any point or instant. Nevertheless, deep down within those extra

spk_0 reaches that made Worsal a valantia what he was, a vague disquiet refuse to down. It was too

spk_0 too Worsal's consciousness could not supply the adjective. Had it been too easy? Very decidedly,

spk_0 it had not. His utterly worn out, battered and wounded crew refuted that thought.

spk_0 So did his own body, slashed and burned, as well as did the litter of primary shells and the

spk_0 heaps of smoking slag, which had once been an enemy stronghold. Also, even though he had not

spk_0 there to forethought that he and his crew possessed enough force to do what he had just done,

spk_0 it was starkly unthinkable that anyone, even an arisian, could have helped him do anything without

spk_0 his knowledge. Particularly, how could this girl, daughter of Kimball-Kinnison, although she was,

spk_0 possibly have stuff enough to play unperceived the part of guardian angel to him, Worsal of

spk_0 a valantia? Least able of all the second stage-lensmen to appreciate what the children of the

spk_0 lands really were, he did not, then or ever, have any inkling of the real truth. But Constance,

spk_0 far behind her cheerfully innocent mask, shivered as she read exactly his disturbed and disturbing

spk_0 thoughts. For conversely, an unresolved enigma would affect him more than it would any of his fellow

spk_0 L2s. He would work on it until he did resolve it one way or another. This thing had to be settled now.

spk_0 And there was a way, a good way. But I did help you, you big lug. She stormed,

spk_0 stamping her booted foot in emphasis. I was in there every second, slugging away with everything I

spk_0 had. Didn't you even feel me? You dope? She allowed a thought to become evident,

spk_0 wind her eyes and startled incredulity. You didn't, she accused hotly. You were reveling so

spk_0 repulsively in the thrill of body-to-body fighting, just like you were back there in that cavern of

spk_0 overlords, that you couldn't have felt a thought if it was driven into you with a D2P presser.

spk_0 And I'll bet credit to millows that I did help you too. That if I hadn't been in their

spk_0 pitching, dulling their edges here and there at critical moments, you'd have had a time getting

spk_0 them at all. I'm good to flip right now, and I hope I never see you again as long as I live.

spk_0 This vicious counterattack, completely amendacious though it was, fitted the fact so exactly

spk_0 that morsels incoate doubts vanished. Moreover, he was even less well equipped than our human

spk_0 men to cope with the peculiarly feminine weapons Constance was using so effectively.

spk_0 Wherefore the valantian capitulated almost objectively, and the girl allowed herself to be coaxed

spk_0 down from her high horse and to become her usual sunny and impish self. But when the

spk_0 thought was this intellect of the same race as the one whose burst of thought she had caught such

spk_0 a short time before or not. She could not decide, not enough data. The first thought had been

spk_0 unconscious and quite revealing. This one simply elite the weapon, driven with a power the very

spk_0 memory of which made her gasp again. They could, however, be the same, the mind with which she had

spk_0 been on rapport could very well be capable of generating the force she had felt. If they were the

spk_0 saying they were something that should be studied intensively and at once, and she herself had

spk_0 kicked away her only chance to make that study. She had better tell somebody about this even if it

spk_0 meant confessing her own bird-brained part and get some competent advice. Who? Kit? No. Not because

spk_0 he would smack her down. She ought to be smacked down. But because his brain wasn't enough better

spk_0 than her own to do any good. In fact, it wasn't a bit better than hers. Mentor? At the very thought she

spk_0 shuttered mentally and physically. She would call him in fast enough regardless of consequences to

spk_0 herself if it would do any good, but it wouldn't. She was starkly certain of that. He wouldn't smack her

spk_0 down, little kid would, but he wouldn't help her either. He just sit there and sneer at her

spk_0 while she stoo'd hotter and hotter in her own juice. In a childish, perverted and grossly exaggerated

spk_0 way, daughter-constants, you are right. Thierryson's thought rolled sonnerously into a stounded mind.

spk_0 You got yourself into this? Get yourself out. One promising fact, however I perceive,

spk_0 although seldom and late, you at last begin reading to think.

spk_0 In that hour, Constance Kinesen grew up.

spk_0 In fact, there was no word in the vocabulary of his race, even remotely resembling the term in definition,

spk_0 connotation, or implication. From his galaxy-wide study, he had a dim, imperfect idea of what such

spk_0 an emotion or feeling might be, but he could not begin to understand it. Nor was he, in the least,

spk_0 disturbed by the fact that Kandra and did not appear. Instead, he held his orbits until the

spk_0 minute arrived at which the mathematical probability became point 998 that his proposed quarry was not

spk_0 going to appear. Then, as matter of factly as though he had merely taken half an hour out for lunch,

spk_0 he abandoned his position and set out upon the course so carefully planned for exactly this event.

spk_0 The search for further clues was long and uneventful, but monstrously, unhumidly patient

spk_0 Nadrik stuck to it until he found one. True, it was so slight as to be practically not existent,

spk_0 a mere fragment of a whisper of Zwilny construction, but it bore Kandra's unmistakable imprint.

spk_0 The Pallanian had expected no more. Kandra and would not slip.

spk_0 Momentary leakages from faulty machines would have to occur from time to time,

spk_0 but Kandra's machines would not be at fault either often or long at a time.

spk_0 Nadrik, however, had been ready. Course after course of the most delicate spotting screen ever

spk_0 devised had it out for weeks. So had tracers, radiation absorbers, and every other in

spk_0 city's locating device known to the science of the age. The standard detectors remained blank,

spk_0 of course. No more so than his own conveyance with that of the Unlonian be detectable by any

spk_0 ordinary instruments. And as the Pallanian spister shot away along the most probable course,

spk_0 some fifty delicate instruments in its bow began stabbing that entire region of space with a pattern

spk_0 of needles of force through which a terrestrial barrel could not have floated untouched.

spk_0 Thus the Bosconian craft and inherently indetectable spister was located, and in that instant was

spk_0 speared by three modified CRX tracers. Nadrik then went in urge and began to plot the other

spk_0 spistures course. He soon learned that that course was unpredictable, that the vessel was being

spk_0 operated statistically, completely at random. This too then was a trap. This knowledge disturbed Nadrik

spk_0 no more than any more or less similar event of the previous twenty odd years. He had realized

spk_0 fully that the leakage could as well have been deliberate as accidental. He had no time underestimated

spk_0 Kandron's ability. The future alone would reveal whether or not Kandron would at any time underestimate his.

spk_0 He would follow through. There might be a way in which this particular trap could be used against

spk_0 its setter. Leg after leg of meaningless course Nadrik followed, until there came about that

spk_0 which the Pilenian knew would happen in time. The spister held a straight course for more

spk_0 parsecs than six sigma limits a probability could ascribe to pure randomness. Nadrik knew what that

spk_0 meant. The spister was returning to its base for servicing, which was precisely the event for which

spk_0 he had been waiting. It was the base he wanted, not the spister, and that base would never

spk_0 under any conceivable conditions emit any detectable quantity of traceable radiation.

spk_0 To its base then Nadrik followed the little spaceship, and to say that he was on the alert as he

spk_0 approached that base as a gross understatement indeed. He expected to set off at least one,

spk_0 and probably many blasts of force. That would almost certainly be necessary in order to secure

spk_0 sufficient information concerning the enemy's defensive screens. It was unnecessary, but when

spk_0 those blasts arrived, Nadrik was elsewhere, calmly analyzing the data secured by his instruments

spk_0 during the brief contact which had triggered the Bosconian projectors into action.

spk_0 So light, so fleeting, and so unorthodox have been Nadrik's touch, that the personnel of the

spk_0 dude base could not have known with any certainty that any visitor had actually been there.

spk_0 If there had been, the logical supposition would have been that he and his vessel had been resolved

spk_0 into their component atoms. Nevertheless, Nadrik waited. As has been shown, he was good at waiting,

spk_0 until the burst of extra vigilance set up by the occurrence would have subsided into ordinary

spk_0 watchfulness. Then he began to act. At first this action was an ultra-slow motion.

spk_0 One millimeter per hour his drill advanced. Drill was synchronized precisely with screen,

spk_0 and so guarded as to give an alarm at a level of interference far below that necessary to

spk_0 energize any probable detector at the generators of the screen being attacked.

spk_0 Through defense, after defense, Nadrik made his cautious,

spk_0 indetectable way into the dome. It was a small base as such things go,

spk_0 manned as expected by escapees from Onlo. Scum, too, for the most part, creatures of even

spk_0 baser and more violent passions than those upon whom he had worked in Kandron's Alonian stronghold.

spk_0 To keep those intractable entities in line during their brutally long hours of duty,

spk_0 a psychological therapist had been given authority second only to that of the base commander.

spk_0 That knowledge, and the fact that there was only one populated dome,

spk_0 made the Pylanean come as close to grinning as one of his unsmining race can.

spk_0 The psychologist wore multiplexed thought screen, of course, as did everyone else,

spk_0 but that did not bother Nadrik. Kinnison had opened such screens many times,

spk_0 not only by means of his own hands, but also at various times by the use of a dog's jaws,

spk_0 a spider's legs and mandibles, and even a worm's sinuous body.

spk_0 Wherefore, through the agency of a quasi-fourth-dimensional lifeform,

spk_0 literally indescribable to three-dimensional man, Nadrik's ego was soon comfortably

spk_0 asconced in the mind of the Onloan. That entity knew in detail every weakness of each of his personnel.

spk_0 It was his duty to watch those weaknesses, to keep them down, to condition each of his

spk_0 words in such fashion that friction and strife would be minimized. Now, however, he proceeded to do

spk_0 exactly the opposite. One hated another. That hate became a searing obsession, requiring the

spk_0 concentration of every effort upon ways and means of destroying its object. One feared another.

spk_0 That fear ate in, searing as it went, destroying every normality of outlook and of reason.

spk_0 Many were jealous of their superiors. This emotion, requiring as it does nothing except

spk_0 its own substance upon which to feed, became a fantastically spreading, costically corrosive blight.

spk_0 To name each ugly, noisement-passion or trait resident in that dome is to call the complete roster

spk_0 of the vile, and calmly, mercilessly, unmovably, ultra-efficiently, Nadrik worked upon them all.

spk_0 As though he were playing a satanic organ, he touched a nerve here, a synapse there,

spk_0 a channel somewhere else, bringing the whole group with a lone exception of the commander,

spk_0 simultaneously to the point of explosion. Nor was any sign of this perfect work evident externally.

spk_0 For everyone there, having lived so long under the iron code of Bosconia,

spk_0 knew exactly the consequences of any infraction of that code.

spk_0 The moment came when passion overmastered sense. One of the monsters stumbled, jostling another.

spk_0 That nudge became, in its recipient-seeding mind, a lethal attack by his bitterest enemy.

spk_0 A forbidden projector flamed viciously. The offended one was saving his lust so insensitely

spk_0 that he scarcely noticed the bolt that in turn rived away his own life.

spk_0 Detonated by the sensitive, the personnel of the base exploded as one. Blasters raved briefly,

spk_0 knives and swords bit and slashed, improvised bludges crashed against pre-selected targets,

spk_0 hard talent appendages gouged in tour. And Nadrik, who had long since withdrawn from the mind of the

spk_0 psychologist, timed with a stopwatch the duration of the whole grisly affair, from the instant of

spk_0 the first stumble to the death of the last onlonium outside the commanders locked an armored sanctum.

spk_0 98 and 3, 10 seconds. Good. A nice job.

spk_0 The base commander, as soon as it was safe to do so, rushed out of his guarded room to investigate.

spk_0 Amazed, disgruntled, dismayed by the two him, completely inexplicable phenomena, and he had just

spk_0 witnessed, he fell in easy prey to the Polanian lensman. Nadrik invaded his mind and explored it

spk_0 channel by channel, finding, not entirely unexpectedly, that this number one knew nothing whatever of interest.

spk_0 Nadrik did not destroy the base. Instead, after setting up a small instrument in the commander's office,

spk_0 he took that unfortunate white to board his speech-ster and drove off into space.

spk_0 He immobilized his captive, not by loading him with manacles, but by deathly severing a few

spk_0 essential nerve trunks. Then he really studied the onlonian's mind, lined by line this time,

spk_0 almost cell by cell. A master, almost certainly can draw on himself, had operated here.

spk_0 There was not the slightest trace of tampering. No leads to, or indications of, what the activating

spk_0 stimulus would have to be. All that the fellow now knew was that it was his job to hold his base

spk_0 in violet against any and every form of intrusion. And to keep that speech-ster flitting around

spk_0 all over space on a director by chance as much as possible of the time, leaking slightly a certain

spk_0 signal now and then. Even under this microscopic re-examination, he knew nothing whatever of

spk_0 Kandron, nothing of Anno or of Thrayal, nothing of any boscony in organization, activity, or thing.

spk_0 And Nadrik, although baffled still, remained undisturbed. This trap he thought could almost certainly

spk_0 be used against the trapper. Until a certain call came through his relay in the base,

spk_0 he would investigate the planets of this system. During the investigation, a thought impinged upon

spk_0 his lens from Karen Kinnison, one of the very few warm-blooded beings for whom he had any real liking or

spk_0 respect. Busy Nadrik, she asked, as casually as though she had seen him hours instead of weeks before.

spk_0 In large, yes, in detail and at the moment no. Is there any small problem in which I can be of

spk_0 assistance? Not small, big. I just got the funniest distress call I ever heard or heard of.

spk_0 On a high band, way, way up, there. Do you know of any race that thinks on that band?

spk_0 I do not believe so. He thought for a moment. Definitely no. Neither do I. It wasn't broadcast either,

spk_0 but was directed at any member of a special race or tribe, very special. Classification

spk_0 straight Z's to ten or twelve places, she, or it, seemed to be trying to specify.

spk_0 A frigid race of extreme type adapted to an environment having a temperature of only a few

spk_0 degrees absolute. Yes, like you, only more so. K paused, trying to put into intelligible thought,

spk_0 a picture inherently incapable of reception or recognition by her as yet strictly three-dimensional

spk_0 intelligence. Something like the Ike too, but not much. Their visible aspect was obscure, fluid,

spk_0 amorphous, indefinite, skip it. I couldn't really perceive it. Let alone describe it. I wish you

spk_0 had caught that thought. I wish so too. It is extremely interesting. But tell me, if the thought

spk_0 was directed, not broadcast, how could you have received it? That's the funniest part of the whole

spk_0 thing. Madric could feel the girl frown in concentration. It came at me from all sides at once.

spk_0 Never felt anything like it. Naturally, I started feeling around for the source,

spk_0 particularly since it was a distress signal. But before I could get even a general direction of the

spk_0 origin, it, it, well, it didn't really disappear or really weaken, but something happened to it.

spk_0 I couldn't read it anymore, and that really did throw me for a loss.

spk_0 She paused, then went on. It didn't so much go away as go down, some way or other.

spk_0 Then it vanished completely, without really going anywhere.

spk_0 I know that I'm not making myself clear. I simply can't. But have I given you enough

spk_0 leave so that you can make any sense at all out of any part of it? I am very sorry to say that I

spk_0 cannot. Nor could he ever, for excellent reasons. That girl had a mind whose power, scope,

spk_0 depth and range she herself did not, could not even dimly understand. A mind to be fully

spk_0 comprehended only by an adult of her own third level. That mind had in fact received in

spk_0 total a purely fourth-dimensional thought. If Madric had received it, he would have understood it

spk_0 and recognized it for what it was, only because of his advanced or busy in training.

spk_0 No other Pellanian could have done so, and it would have been

spk_0 surely unthinkable to him that any warm blooded, and therefore strictly three-dimensional

spk_0 entity, could by any possibility receive such a thought, or having received it, could understand

spk_0 any figment of it. Nevertheless, if he had really concentrated the full powers of his mind upon

spk_0 the girl's attempted description, he might very well have recognized in it the clearest

spk_0 possible three-dimensional delineation of such a thought, and from that point he could have

spk_0 gone on to a full understanding of the children of the lands. However, he did not so concentrate.

spk_0 It was constitutionally impossible for him to devote real mental effort to any matter not

spk_0 immediately pertaining to the particular task in hand. Therefore neither he nor Karen Kinison

spk_0 were to know until much later that she had been on rapport with one of civilization's bitterest,

spk_0 most implacable foes. That she had seen with clairvoyant and telepathic accuracy,

spk_0 the intrinsically three-dimensionally indescribable form assumed in their winter by the horrid,

spk_0 the monstrous inhabitants of that viciously hostile world, the unspeakable planet, plur.

spk_0 I was afraid you couldn't. Case thought came clear. That makes it all the more important.

spk_0 Important enough for you to drop whatever it is that you're doing now and join me in getting

spk_0 to the bottom of it, if you could be made to see it, which of course you can't.

spk_0 I am about to take Kendron, and nothing in the universe can be as important as that.

spk_0 Nadreck stated quietly as a simple matter of fact.

spk_0 You have observed this that lies here? Yes.

spk_0 Karen, on rapport with Nadreck, was of course cognizant of the captive, but it had not occurred to her

spk_0 to mention the monster. When dealing with Nadreck, she, against all the tenets of her sex,

spk_0 exhibited as little curiosity as did the coldly emotionless lensman himself.

spk_0 Since you bid so obviously for the question, why are you keeping it alive, or rather not dead?

spk_0 Because he is my sure link to Kendron. If Nadreck of Plain ever was known to gloat, it was then.

spk_0 He is Kendron's creature, placed by Kendron personally as an agency of my destruction.

spk_0 Kendron's brain alone holds the key compulsion, which will restore his memories.

spk_0 At some future time, perhaps a second from now, perhaps a cycle of years,

spk_0 Kendron will use that key to learn how his minion fares.

spk_0 Kendron's thought will energize my retransmitter in the dome. The compulsion will be forwarded

spk_0 to this still living brain. The brain, however, will be in my speech, not in that undamaged fortress.

spk_0 You now understand why I cannot stray far from this being's base. You should see that you

spk_0 should join me instead of me joining you. No, not definite enough, Karen counter decisively.

spk_0 I can't see myself passing up a thing like this for the opportunity of spending the next ten

spk_0 years floating around in an orbit doing nothing. However, I check you to a certain extent.

spk_0 When and if anything really happens, shoot me a thought and I'll rally round.

spk_0 The linkage broke without formal aduse. Nadric went his way, Karen went hers.

spk_0 She did not, however, go far along the way she had had in mind. She was still precisely nowhere

spk_0 in her quest when she felt a thought of a type that only her brother or an Erysian could send.

spk_0 It was Kit.

spk_0 Hi, Kay. A warm, brotherly contact. How are you doing, sis? Are you growing up?

spk_0 I'm grown up. What a question. Don't get stiff, Kay. There's method in this. Got to be sure.

spk_0 All trace of levity gone. He probed her unmercifully. Not too bad at that for a kid.

spk_0 As Dad would express it, if he could feel you this way, your twenty-nine numbers brinell harder

spk_0 than a diamond drill. Plenty of jets for this job, and by the time the real one comes,

spk_0 you'll probably be ready. Cut the rigour roll kit. She snapped and hurled the vicious bolt of her own.

spk_0 If Kit did not counter it as easily as he had handled her earlier efforts, he did not reveal the fact.

spk_0 What job? What do you think you're talking about? I'm on a job now that I wouldn't drop

spk_0 her in NADRAC, and I don't think I'll drop it for you. You'll have to. Kit's thought was grim.

spk_0 Mother is going to have to go to work on lyraine, too. The probability is pretty certain that there

spk_0 is or will be something there that she can't handle. Remote control is out, or I do it myself,

spk_0 but I can't work on lyraine, too, in person. Here's the whole picture. Look at over.

spk_0 You can see, sis, that you're elected, so hop to it.

spk_0 I won't, she stormed. I can't. I'm too busy. How about asking Khan, or Cat, or Cam?

spk_0 They don't fit the picture. He explained patiently for him. In this case, hardness is indicated

spk_0 as you can see for yourself. Hardness fooey, she jeered. To handle Latora of lyraine, she thinks she's

spk_0 a hard-boiled egg I know, but listen, you hard-brain-not-head. Kit cut in venomously. You're fogging the issue

spk_0 deliberately. Stop it. I spread you the whole picture. You know as well as I do that while there's

spk_0 nothing definite as yet, the thing needs covering, and you're the one to cover it. But no, just because

spk_0 I'm the one to suggest or ask anything of you, you've always got to go into that mule-ish

spk_0 active yours. Be silent children, and attend. Both flushed violently as mentor came between them.

spk_0 Some of the weaker thinkers here are beginning to despair of you, but my visualization of your

spk_0 development is still clear. To mold such characters as yours sufficiently, and yet not too much,

spk_0 is a delicate task indeed. But one which must and shall be done. Christopher, come to me at once in

spk_0 person. Karen, I would suggest that you go to lyraine and do there whatever you find necessary to do.

spk_0 I won't. I've still got this job here to do. Karen defied even the ancient Erysian sage.

spk_0 That daughter can and should wait. I tell you solemnly as a fact that if you do not go to lyraine,

spk_0 you will never get the fattest clue as to that which you now seek.

spk_0 Christopher Kinnison drove toward Erysia seething. Why couldn't those sisters of his have

spk_0 sensed to match their brains? Or why couldn't he have had some brothers? Especially right now,

spk_0 K. If she had the sense of a zabriskin fontema, she'd know that this job was important and would

spk_0 snap into it instead of wild goose chasing all over space. If he were mentor, he'd straighten her out.

spk_0 He had decided to straighten her out once himself and he grinned Riley to himself at the memory of

spk_0 what had happened. What mentor had done to him before he even got started was really rugged.

spk_0 What he would like to do next time he got within reach of her was to shaker until her teeth rattled.

spk_0 Or would he? Uh-uh. By no stretch of the imagination could he picture himself hurting any one of them.

spk_0 They were swell kids. In fact, the finest people he had ever known. He had roughhoused and

spk_0 wrestled with them plenty of times, of course. He liked it, and so did they. He could handle any one of

spk_0 them. He surveyed without his usual complacence, his 200 plus pounds of meat, bone, and gristle.

spk_0 He ought to be able to, since he outweighed them by 50 or 60 pounds, but it wasn't easy.

spk_0 Worst and valerians, just like taking on a combination of boa constrictor and cat eagle,

spk_0 and when cat and con ganged up on him that time, they mauled him to a pulp in nothing flat.

spk_0 But jet-back, weight wasn't it, except maybe among themselves. He had never met a valerian yet,

spk_0 whose shoulders he couldn't pin flat to the mat in a hundred seconds, and the very smallest of

spk_0 them outweighed him two to one. Conversely, although he had never thought of it before,

spk_0 what his sisters had taken from him without even a bruise would have broken any ordinary woman

spk_0 up into a mess of compound fractures. They were, they must be, made of different stuff.

spk_0 His thoughts took a new tack. The kids were special in another way, too, he had noticed lately,

spk_0 without paying it any particular attention. It might tie in. They didn't feel like other girls.

spk_0 After dancing with one of them, other girls felt like robots made out of putty.

spk_0 Their flesh was different. It was firmer, finer, infinitely more responsive.

spk_0 Each individual cell seemed to be endowed with a flashing, sparkling life.

spk_0 A life which, interlicking with that of one of his own cells, made their bodies as intimately one

spk_0 as were their perfectly synchronized minds. But what did all this have to do with their lack of

spk_0 sense? QX, they were nice people. QX, he couldn't beat their brains out either, physically or mentally.

spk_0 But there ought to be some way of driving some ordinary common sense through their fine-grained,

spk_0 thick, hard, tough skulls. Thus it was that kid approached Erysia in a decidedly mixed frame of mind.

spk_0 He shot through the barrier without slowing down and without notification. Innerding his ship,

spk_0 he fought her into an orbit around the planet. The shape of the orbit was immaterial,

spk_0 as long as its every inch was well inside Erysia's innermost screen.

spk_0 For young Kineson knew precisely what those screens were and exactly what they were for.

spk_0 He knew that distance of itself meant nothing. Mentor could give anyone either basic or advanced

spk_0 treatments just as well from a distance of a thousand million Parsecs as at hand to hand.

spk_0 The reason for the screens and for the personal visits was the existence of the Adorians,

spk_0 who had minds probably as capable as the Erysian's own.

spk_0 And throughout all the infinite reaches of the macrocosmic universe, only within these

spk_0 highly special screens was their certainty of privacy from the spying senses of the ultimate foe.

spk_0 The time has come, Christopher, for the last treatment I am able to give you.

spk_0 Mentor announced without preamble as soon as kit had checked his orbit.

spk_0 Oh, so soon I thought you were pulling me into pin my ears back for fighting with K, the dim wit.

spk_0 That, while a minor matter, is worthy of passing mention, since it is illustrative of the difficulties

spk_0 inherent in the project of developing without over-controlling such minds as yours.

spk_0 On route here you made a masterly summation of the situation with one outstanding omission.

spk_0 Huh? What omission? I covered it like a blanket.

spk_0 You assumed throughout and still assume, as you always do in dealing with your sisters,

spk_0 that you are unassailably right. That your conclusion is the only tenable one, that they are always wrong.

spk_0 But they are. That's why you said Catedly rain.

spk_0 In these conflicts with your sisters, you have been right in approximately half of the cases.

spk_0 Mentor informed him. But how about their fights with each other?

spk_0 Do you know of any such? Why can't say that I do?

spk_0 Kid's surprise was plain. But since they fight with me so much, they must.

spk_0 That does not follow, and for a very good reason. We may as well discuss that reason now,

spk_0 as it is a necessary part of the education which you are about to receive.

spk_0 You already know that your sisters are very different, each from the other.

spk_0 Know now that each was specifically developed to be so completely different that there is no

spk_0 possible point which could be made an issue between any two of them.

spk_0 It took some time for Kid to digest that news. Then where do I come in that they all fight with

spk_0 me at the drop of a hat? That too, while regrettable, is inevitable.

spk_0 Each of your sisters, as you may have suspected, is to play a tremendous part in that which is to come.

spk_0 The Lensmen, we of Arisium, all will contribute, but upon you children of the Lens,

spk_0 especially upon the girls, will fall the greater share of the load.

spk_0 Your individual task will be that of coordinating the whole, a duty which no Arisian is or ever

spk_0 can be qualified to perform. You will have to direct the efforts of your sisters,

spk_0 reinforcing every heavily attacked point with your own incomparable force and drive,

spk_0 keeping them smoothly in mesh and in place. As a side issue, you will also have to coordinate

spk_0 the feeble efforts of Asavaricia, the Lensmen, the Patrol, and whatever other minor forces we may

spk_0 be able to employ. Holy, clonos, claws! Kid was gasping like a fish.

spk_0 Just where, mentor, do you figure I'm going to pick up the jest to swing that load?

spk_0 And as to coordinating the kids, that's out. I'd make just one suggestion to any one of them,

spk_0 and she forget all about the battle and tear into me. No, I'll take that back.

spk_0 The stickier, the going, the closer they rally round. Right, it will always be so.

spk_0 Now youth that you have these facts, explain these matters to me as a sort of preliminary exercise.

spk_0 I think I see. Kid thought intensely. The kids don't fight with each other because they don't

spk_0 overlap. They fight with me because my central field overlaps them all. They have no occasion to

spk_0 fight with anybody else, nor have I, because with anybody else our viewpoint is always right,

spk_0 and the other fellows know it, except for Pallanians and such who think along different lines than we do.

spk_0 Thus, Kay never fights with Nadric. When he goes off the beam, she simply ignores him and goes

spk_0 on about her business. But with them and me, we'll have to learn to arbitrate or something,

spk_0 I suppose. His thought trailed off. Manifestations of adolescence. With adulthood,

spk_0 now coming fast, they will pass. Let us get on with the work. But wait a minute,

spk_0 kit protested. About this coordinator thing. I can't do it. I'm too much of a kid.

spk_0 I won't be ready for a job like that for a thousand years.

spk_0 You must be ready. Mentor's thought was inexorable. And when the time comes, you shall be.

spk_0 Now, come fully into my mind. There is no use in repeating in detail the progress of an

spk_0 Eurasian super-education, especially since the most accurate possible description of the most

spk_0 important of those details would be intrinsically meaningless. When, after a few weeks of it,

spk_0 kit was ready to leave Eurasia. He looked much older and more mature than before.

spk_0 He felt immensely older than he looked. The concluding conversation of that visit, however,

spk_0 is worth recording. You now know, Kinnison, mentor-mused, what your children are and how you came to be.

spk_0 You are the accomplishment of long lifetimes of work. It is with most profound satisfaction that I

spk_0 now perceive clearly that those lifetimes have not been spent in vain. Yours, you mean?

spk_0 Kid was embarrassed, but one point still bothered him.

spk_0 Dad met and married mother, yes. But how about the others? Tragonsy, Warsaw and Nadric.

spk_0 They and the corresponding females were also penultimates of lines as long as ours.

spk_0 Your counsel decided that the human stock was best, so none of the other second stage

spk_0 lansmen ever met their female compliments. Not that it could make any difference to them, of course,

spk_0 but I should think that three of your fellow students wouldn't feel so good.

spk_0 I am very glad indeed that you mentioned the point. The Eurasians thought was positively gleeful.

spk_0 You have at no time then detected anything peculiar about this that you know as mentor of Eurasia?

spk_0 Why, of course not. How could I? Or rather, why should I?

spk_0 Any lapse on your part, however slight, from practically perfect synchronization would have

spk_0 revealed to such a mentality as yours that I, whom you know as mentor, am not an individual, but for.

spk_0 Why do we each work as individuals upon all of the experimental lines?

spk_0 Whenever we dealt with any one of the penultimates or ultimates, we did so as a fusion.

spk_0 This was necessary, not only for your fullest possible development, but also to be sure that each

spk_0 of us had complete data upon every minute facet of the truth. While it was no sense important to

spk_0 the work itself, to keep you in ignorance of mentor's plurality, the fact that we could keep

spk_0 you ignorant of it, particularly now that you have become an adult, showed that our work was being

spk_0 done in a really workman-like fashion. Kit whistled, a long low whistle which was tribute

spk_0 enough to those who knew what it meant. He knew what he meant, but there were not enough words or

spk_0 thoughts to express it. But you're going to keep on being mentor, aren't you? He asked.

spk_0 I am. The real task, as you know, lies ahead. QX, you say that I'm adults, I'm not.

spk_0 You imply that I'm more than several notches above you in qualifications. I could laugh myself

spk_0 silly about that one, if it wasn't so serious. Why any one of your rissians has forgotten more than I

spk_0 know and could tie me up into bonuts. There are elements of truth in your thought

spk_0 that you can now be called adult, however, does not mean that you have attained your full power.

spk_0 Only that you are able to use effectively the powers you have and are able to acquire other

spk_0 and larger powers. But what are those powers, Kit demanded? You've hinted on that same theme a thousand

spk_0 times, and I don't know what you mean any better than I did before. You must develop your own powers.

spk_0 Mentor's thought was as final as fate. Your mind is potentially far abler than mine.

spk_0 You will in time come to know my mind in full. I never will be able to know yours.

spk_0 For the lesser but full mind to attempt to instruct in methodology the greater, although

spk_0 emptier one, is to set that greater mind in an undersized mold and thus to do it irreparable harm.

spk_0 You have the abilities and the powers. You will have to develop them yourself by the perfection

spk_0 of techniques concerning which I can give you no instructions, whatever. But surely you can give me

spk_0 some kind of a hint, Kit pleaded. I'm just a kid I tell you. I don't even know how or where to begin.

spk_0 Under Kit startled mental gaze, mentor split suddenly into four parts,

spk_0 laced together by a pattern of thought so intricate and so rapid as to be unrecognizable.

spk_0 The parts fused and again mentor spoke. I can point the way in only the broadest most general

spk_0 terms. It has been decided, however, that I can give you one hint or more properly, one illustration.

spk_0 The surest test of knowledge known to us is the visualization of the cosmic all.

spk_0 All science is, as you know, one. The true key to power lies in the knowledge of the underlying

spk_0 reasons for the succession of events. If it is pure causation, that is, if any given state of

spk_0 things follows as an inevitable consequence because of the state existing and infinitesimal

spk_0 instant before, then the entire course of the macrocosmic universe was set for the duration of

spk_0 all eternity in the instant of its coming into being. This well-known concept, the stumbling

spk_0 block upon which many early thinkers came to grief, we now know to be false. On the other hand,

spk_0 if pure randomness were to govern, natural laws as we know them could not exist. Thus,

spk_0 neither pure causation nor pure randomness alone can govern the succession of events.

spk_0 The truth then must lie somewhere in between. In the macrocosmos, causation prevails.

spk_0 In the micro-randomness, both in accord with the mathematical laws of probability.

spk_0 It is in the region between them, the intermediate zone or the interface, so to speak, that the greatest

spk_0 problems lie. The test of validity of any theory, as you know, is the accuracy of the predictions,

spk_0 which are made possible by its use, and our greatest thinkers have shown that the completeness and

spk_0 fidelity of any visualization of the cosmic all are linear functions of the clarity of definition

spk_0 of the components of that interface. Full knowledge of that intermediate zone would mean infinite power,

spk_0 and a statistically perfect visualization. None of these things, however, will ever be realized.

spk_0 For the requirement of that full knowledge would require infinite time.

spk_0 That is all I can tell you. It will, properly studied, be enough. I have built within you a solid

spk_0 foundation. Yours alone is the task of erecting upon that foundation a structure strong enough

spk_0 to withstand the forces which will be thrown against it. It is perhaps natural, in view of what

spk_0 you have recently gone through, that you should regard the problem of the adorians as one of

spk_0 insuperable difficulty. Actually, however, it is not as you will perceive when you have spent a few

spk_0 weeks in reintegrating yourself. You must not, you shall not, and in my clear visualization, you do not

spk_0 fail. Communication ceased. Kit made his way grogally to his control board, went free and lined out

spk_0 for Clovia. For a guy whose education was supposed to be complete, he felt remarkably like a total

spk_0 loss with no insurance. He had asked for advice and had got what? A dissertation on philosophy,

spk_0 mathematics, and physics. Good enough stuff, probably, if he could see what Metro was driving it,

spk_0 but not of much immediate use. He did have a brain full of new stuff, though,

spk_0 didn't know yet what half of it was. He better be getting it licked into shape. He'd sleep on it.

spk_0 He did so, and as he lay quiescent in his bunk, the tiny pieces of an incredibly complex jigsaw

spk_0 puzzle began to click into place. The ordinary's will-nicks, all the small fry fitted in well enough.

spk_0 The overlords of Delgon. The Colognians. Hmm, he better check with Dad on that angle.

spk_0 The Ike, under control. Kendron of Onlo, Ditto. X was in safe hands.

spk_0 Cam had already been alerted to watch her step. Some planet-named plurr,

spk_0 what and all the purple hells of Palain had meant or meant by that crack. Anyway, that piece didn't fit

spk_0 anywhere, yet. That left Edor, and at the thought a series of cold waves raced up and down the young

spk_0 men's been spying. Nevertheless, Edor was his oyster, his, and nobody else's.

spk_0 Mentor had made that plain enough. Everything the Eurystians had done for umpteen million years

spk_0 have been aimed at the Adorians. They had picked him out to emcee the show, and how could a man

spk_0 coordinate an attack against something about which he knew nothing? And the only way to get

spk_0 acquainted with Edor and its denizens was to go there. Should he call in the kids? He should not.

spk_0 Each of them had their hands full of her own job, that of developing her full self.

spk_0 He had his, and the more he studied the question, the clearer it became that the first number

spk_0 on the program of his self-development was, would have to be, a single-handed expedition against

spk_0 the key planet of civilization's top-ranking foes. He sprang out of his bunk, changed his vessel's

spk_0 course, and lined out a thought to his father. Dad, kid, been flitting around out Eurystia way,

spk_0 and picked up an idea that I want to pass along to you. It's about colonians. What do you know about

spk_0 them? Their blue? I don't mean that. I know you don't. There were Helmuth, Jalti,

spk_0 Prellen, Crowning Shield. All I can think of at the moment. Big operator's son and smart

spk_0 ombre's, if I do say so myself, I shouldn't. But they're all ancient history. Hold it.

spk_0 Maybe I know of a modern one, too. Eddie's Lensman. The only part of that picture that was sharp

spk_0 was the lens, since Eddie was never analytically interested in any of the hundreds of types of people

spk_0 he met. But there was something about that Lensman. I'll bring him back and focus him as sharply as

spk_0 I can. There. Both men's study, the blurred statue, posed in the gray Lensman's mind.

spk_0 Wouldn't you say he could be a colonial? Check. I wouldn't want to say much more than that.

spk_0 But about that lens, did you really examine it? It is sharp. Under the circumstances, of course,

spk_0 it would be. Certainly, wrong in every respect. Rhythm, Chroma, Context, and aura.

spk_0 Definitely not a Rician. Therefore, Busconian. That's the point. That's what I was afraid of, you know.

spk_0 Double check. And that point ties in absolutely tight with the one that may be call you just now.

spk_0 That everybody, including you and me, seems to have missed. I've been searching my memory for five

spk_0 hours. You know what my memory is like, and I've heard of exactly two other colonians.

spk_0 They were big operators, too. I have never heard of the planet itself.

spk_0 To me, it is a startling fact that the sum total of my information on colonial,

spk_0 reliable or otherwise, is that it produced seven big-shot swelniks, six of them before I was born.

spk_0 Period. Kit felt his father's jaw drop.

spk_0 No, I don't believe that I have ever heard anything about the planet either. The older man finally

spk_0 replied. But I'll bet that I can get you all the information you won in fifteen minutes.

spk_0 Credits to mellows, it'll be a lot near of fifteen days. You can find it sometime, though,

spk_0 if anybody can. That's why I'm taking it up with you. While I don't want to seem to be giving a

spk_0 grey lensman orders, that jockyter introduction had come to be a sort of ritual in the Kinesen family.

spk_0 I would very differently suggest that there might be some connection between that completely

spk_0 unnoticed planet and some of the things we don't know about Baskonia.

spk_0 Diffinant, you, the grey lensman laughed deeply. Like an atomic bomb, I'll start a search on

spk_0 Chalonia right away. Ask your credits to mellows fifteen days thing. I'd be ashamed to take your money.

spk_0 You don't know our librarians or our system. Ten mellows even money that we get full data in

spk_0 less than five GP days from right now. Want it? I'll say so. I'll wear that centre on my tunic as

spk_0 a medal of victory over the grey lensman. I do notice size of these here two galaxies.

spk_0 QX, it's a bet. I'll let you know if we find anything. In the meantime, Kit, remember that you're my favorite son.

spk_0 Well, you're not so bad yourself. Anytime I want mother to divorce you so as to change fathers for me,

spk_0 I'll let you know. What a terrific, what a tremendous meaning was hederodined upon that seemingly

spk_0 light exchange. Claire Etherdad, Claire Etherson, end of chapter 12.

spk_0 Chapter 13 of Children of the Lens. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

spk_0 Chapter 13.

spk_0 Thousands of years were to pass before Christopher Kineson could develop the ability to visualize from

spk_0 the contemplation of one fact or artifact the entire universe to which it belonged.

spk_0 He could not even plan in detail his one man invasion of Edor until he could integrate all

spk_0 available data concerning the planet Colonia into his visualization of the Bosconian Empire.

spk_0 One unknown plur blurred his picture badly enough, too such completely unknown factors made

spk_0 visualization even and broad impossible. Anyway, he decided he had one more job to do before

spk_0 he tackled the key planet of the enemy. And now, while he was waiting for the dope on Colonia,

spk_0 would be the best time to do it. Hi, First Lady of the Universe. Tis thy firstborn,

spk_0 who wouldst feign converse with thee. Art, Presley engaged in matters of moment or import.

spk_0 Art, not Kit. Claire Etherson's characteristic chuckle was as infectious as full of the joy of life

spk_0 as ever. Not that it would make any difference, but we think I detect an undertone of Siriosity

spk_0 beneath thy purstiflage. Spill it. Let's make it a rendezvous instead, he suggested,

spk_0 where fairly close, I think, closer than we've been for a long time. Where are you exactly?

spk_0 Oh, can we? Wonderful. She marked her location and velocity in his mind. She made no effort to

spk_0 conceal her joy at the idea of a personal meeting. She never had tried and she never would try to

spk_0 make him put first matters other than first. She had not expected to see him again physically

spk_0 until this war was over, but if she could, QX, hold your course in speed, I'll be seeing you in 83

spk_0 minutes. In the meantime, it'll be just as well if we don't communicate, even by lens. Why, son,

spk_0 nothing definite, just a hunch is all. Buy, gorgeous. The two species approached each other,

spk_0 inerted, matched in trinsics, went free, flashed into contact, sped away together upon Clarissa's

spk_0 original course. Hi, mums. Kit, spoken to a Visifone. I should of course come to you, but it might

spk_0 be better if you come in here. I've got some special rigs that appear that I don't want to leave.

spk_0 QX? He snapped on one of the special rigs as he spoke, a device which he himself had built and

spk_0 installed. The generator of a screen which would detect upon every possible band and channel of

spk_0 thought or of intrusion. Why, of course. She came and was swept off her feet in the exuberance of her

spk_0 tall sons embrace, a greeting which he returned with a fervor at least the equal of his own.

spk_0 It's nice, mother, seeing you again. Words or thoughts even were so inadequate.

spk_0 Kit's voice was a trifle rough. His eyes were not completely dry. Uh-huh. It is nice, she agreed,

spk_0 snuggling her spectacitor head even more firmly into the curve of his shoulder.

spk_0 Mental contact is better than nothing, of course, but this is perfect. Just as much a

spk_0 menace to navigation as ever, aren't you? He held her at arm's length and shook his head in mock

spk_0 disapproval. Do you think it's quite right for one woman to have so much of everything what all

spk_0 the others have so little of anything? Honestly, I don't. She and Kit had always been exceptionally close.

spk_0 Now her love for and her pride in this splendid creature, her son and her first born simply would not be denied.

spk_0 You're joking, I know, but that strikes too deep for comfort. I wake up in the night to wonder why

spk_0 of all the women in existence I should be so lucky, especially in my children. QX, skip it.

spk_0 Kit was shying away. She should have known better than to try in words, even to skirt the

spk_0 profound depths of sentiment, which both she and he knew so well were there. Get back onto the

spk_0 bean-gorgeous, you know what I meant. Look at yourself in a mirror someday, or do you perchance?

spk_0 Once in a while, maybe twice, she giggled unaffectively. You don't think that all this

spk_0 charm and glamour comes without effort, do you? But maybe you'd better get back on the bean

spk_0 yourself. I know that you don't come all these parsecs out of your way to say pretty things to your

spk_0 mother, even though I admit that they built up my ego no end. On target, dead center. Kit had been

spk_0 grinning, but he sobered quickly. I wanted to talk to you about Lorraine and the job you're

spk_0 figuring out doing out there. Why, she demanded, do you know anything about it? Unfortunately, I don't.

spk_0 Kit's black frown of concentration reminded her forcibly of his father's characteristic

spk_0 scowl. Guesses, suspicions, theories, not even good hunches. But I thought I wondered. He paused

spk_0 embarrassed as a schoolboy, then went on with a rush. Would you mind it too much if I

spk_0 went into something pretty personal? You know I wouldn't, son. In contrast to Kit's usual clarity

spk_0 and precision of thought, the question was highly ambiguous, but Clarissa covered both angles.

spk_0 I can conceive of no subject, event, action, or thing in either my life or yours,

spk_0 too intimate or too personal to discuss with you in full. Can you? No, I can't. But this is different.

spk_0 As a woman, your tops, the finest and best that ever lived. This statement's made with all the

spk_0 matter of factness of stating that a triangle had three corners, thrilled Clarissa through and through.

spk_0 As a Gray Lensman, you're over the rest of them like a serious cloud,

spk_0 but you should rate full second stage. And well, you may run up against something too hot to

spk_0 handle someday. And I, that is you, you mean that I don't measure up? She asked quietly. I know very

spk_0 well that I don't. And admitting an evident fact should not hurt my feelings a bit. Don't interrupt

spk_0 please, as Kit began to protest. In fact, it is surest a frontery. It has always bothered me

spk_0 terribly, Kit, to be classified as a Lensman at all, considering what splendid men they all are,

spk_0 and what each of them had to go through to earn his lens. You know, as well as I do,

spk_0 that I have never done a single thing to earn or to deserve it. It was handed to me on a silver

spk_0 platter. I'm not worthy of it, Kit, and all the real Lensman know that I'm not. They must know it,

spk_0 Kit. They must feel that way. Did you ever express yourself an exactly that way before to anybody?

spk_0 You didn't. I know. Kit stopped sweating. This was going to be easier than he feared. I couldn't

spk_0 Kit. It was too deep. But as I said, I can talk anything over with you. QX, we can settle that

spk_0 fast enough if you will answer just one question. Do you honestly believe that you would have been

spk_0 given the lens if you were not absolutely worthy of it? Perfectly in every minute particular?

spk_0 Why? I never thought of it that way. Probably not. No, certainly not. Clarissa Sombre

spk_0 mean lightened markedly. But I still don't see how or why. Clear enough, Kit interrupted.

spk_0 You were born with what the rest of them had to work so hard for, with stuff that no other woman

spk_0 anywhere ever had. Except the girls, of course. Clarissa corrected, half absolutely.

spk_0 Except the kids, he concurred. It could do no harm to agree with his mother's statement of a

spk_0 self-evident fact. He crossed the room and adjusted a couple of dials. His vessel screens would not

spk_0 now react to the thoughts of mentor Varicia, but would still announce the presence of any possible

spk_0 other. You can take it from me, as one who knows, that the other lensmen know that you've got

spk_0 plenty of jets. They all know also that the Arisians never did and never will make a lens for anybody

spk_0 who hasn't got what it takes. And so very neatly, we've stripped ship for the action I came over

spk_0 here to see you about. It isn't a case of you not measuring up, because you do in every respect.

spk_0 It's simply that you're short a few jets that you ought by rights to have. You really are a

spk_0 second stage lensman. You know that, moms, but you never went to Arisia for your real L2 work.

spk_0 I hate to see you blast off without full equipment into what may prove to be a big time job,

spk_0 especially when you're so eminently able to take it. Mentor could give you the works in a

spk_0 couple of hours. Why don't you flip for Arisia right now or let me take you there? No, no.

spk_0 Clarissa backed away, shaking her head emphatically. Never. I couldn't kid ever. Not possibly.

spk_0 Why not? Kid was amazed. Why, mother, you're actually shaking. I know I am. I can't help it.

spk_0 That's why he's the only thing in the entire universe that I'm really afraid of.

spk_0 I can talk about him without quite getting goose pumps all over me, but the mere thought of

spk_0 actually being with him simply scares me into shivering, quivering fits. I see. It might very well

spk_0 work that way at that. Does dad know it? Yes. Or that is, he knows that I'm afraid of mentor,

spk_0 but he doesn't know it the way you do. It simply doesn't register in true color.

spk_0 Kim can't even conceive of me being either a coward or a crybaby, and I don't want him to either,

spk_0 kid, so please don't tell him ever. I won't. He'd fry me to a cinder in my own grease if I did.

spk_0 Frankly, I can't see any part of yourself portrait either.

spk_0 As a matter of cold fact, you were so obviously neither a coward nor a crybaby

spk_0 that no reputation of that canard is either necessary or desirable.

spk_0 What you've really got moms is a fixation, and if it can't be removed, it can't. She declared

spk_0 flatly. I've tried that now and then ever since before you were born. Whatever it is, it's a permanent

spk_0 installation, and it's really deep. I have known all along that Kim didn't give me the whole business.

spk_0 He couldn't, and I've tried again and again to make myself go to Eurystia, or at least to call

spk_0 mentor about it, but I can't do it, kid. I simply can't. I understand, kidnotted. He did understand,

spk_0 now. What she felt was not, in essence, and at bottom, fear at all. It was worse than fear and

spk_0 deeper. It was true revulsion. The basic, fundamental, subconscious, sex-based reaction of an intensely vital

spk_0 human female against a mental monstrosity who had not had a sexual thought for countless thousands

spk_0 of her years. She could neither analyze, nor understand her feeling, but it was as immutable,

spk_0 as ineradicable, and as old as the surging tide of life itself. But there's another way,

spk_0 just as good, probably better as far as you're concerned. You aren't afraid of me, are you?

spk_0 What a question. Of course I'm not. Why do you mean that you,

spk_0 her expressive eyes widened? You children, especially you, are far beyond us, as of course you should be.

spk_0 But can you, kid, really? Kid, kid, a part of his mind into an ultra-high level.

spk_0 I know the techniques mentor, but the first question is, should I do it? You should. The time

spk_0 is come when it is necessary. Second, I've never done anything like this before, and she's my own

spk_0 mother. If I make one slip, I'll never forgive myself. Will you stand by and see that I don't slip?

spk_0 I will stand by. I really can, mums, kid, answer her question with no perceptible pause. That is,

spk_0 if you are willing to put everything you've got into it, just letting me into your mind isn't enough.

spk_0 You'll have to sweat blood. You'll think that you've been run through Hammer Mill and spread

spk_0 on a Delgonian torture screen to dry. No need for worry on that score, my son.

spk_0 All the passionate intensity of Clarissa's being was in her vibrant voice. If you just knew how

spk_0 utterly I have been longing for it, I'll work. And whatever you give me, I can take.

spk_0 I'm sure of that. And not to work under false pretenses, I better tell you how I know.

spk_0 Mentor showed me what to do and told me to do it. Mentor, mentor, kid agreed. He knew that it was

spk_0 a psychological impossibility for you to work with him, and that you could and would work with me.

spk_0 So he appointed me a committee of one. Clarissa was reacting to this news as it was inevitable that

spk_0 she should react, and to give her time to steady down, he went on. Mentor also knew,

spk_0 and so do you and I, that even though you are afraid of him, you know what he is and what he means to

spk_0 civilization. It was necessary for me to tell you this so that you would know, without any tinge of

spk_0 doubt, that I am not a half-baked kid, setting out to do a man's job of work. Jet back kit,

spk_0 I may have thought a lot of different things about you at times, but half-baked was never one of them.

spk_0 That is your own thinking, not mine. I wouldn't wonder, kid grand Riley. My ego could stand some

spk_0 stiffening right now. This isn't going to be funny. You're too fine a woman, and I think too much

spk_0 of you to enjoy the prospect of mulling you around so unmercifully. Why, kid, her mood was changing

spk_0 fast. Her old-time impish smile came back in force. You aren't weakening, Shirley. Shall I hold your

spk_0 hand? Uh-huh. Cold feet, he admitted. It might be a smart idea at that holding hands. Physical linkage.

spk_0 Well, I'm as ready as I ever will be, I guess, whenever you are, say so. And you better sit down before

spk_0 you fall down. QX, kid, come in. Kid came. And at the first horrific surge of his mind within hers,

spk_0 the red lensman caught her breath, stiffened in every muscle, and all but screamed in agony.

spk_0 Kid's fingers needed their strength, as her hands clushed his and closed in a veritable spasm.

spk_0 She had thought that she knew what to expect, but the reality was different, much different.

spk_0 She had suffered before. On line range two, although she had never told anyone of it,

spk_0 she had been burned and wounded and beaten. She had born five children. This was as though every

spk_0 poignant experience of her past had been rolled into one, raised to the enth power, and stabbed deep

spk_0 into the tenderest, most sensitive centers of her entire being. And kid, boring in and in and in,

spk_0 knew exactly what to do. And now that he had started, he proceeded unflinchingly and with exact

spk_0 precision to do what had to be done. He opened up her mind as she had never dreamed it possible for

spk_0 a mind to open. He separated the tiny jammed compartments, each completely from every other.

spk_0 He showed her how to make room for this tremendous expansion and watched her do it,

spk_0 against the shrieking protests of every cell and fiber of her body and of her brain.

spk_0 He drilled new channels everywhere, establishing an inconceivably complex system of communication

spk_0 lines of infinite conductivity. He knew just what he was doing to her, since the same thing

spk_0 had been done to him so recently, but he kept on relentlessly until the job was done, completely done.

spk_0 Then, working together, they sorted and labeled and classified in catalogued. They checked and

spk_0 double checked. Finally, she knew and kid knew that she knew every hither-to-umplum recess of her mind

spk_0 and every individual cell of her brain. Every Iota of every quality and characteristic,

spk_0 every scrap of knowledge she had ever acquired or ever would acquire would be at her command instantaneously

spk_0 and effortlessly. Then and only then did kid withdraw his mind from hers.

spk_0 Did you say that I was short just a few jets, Kit? She got up groggly and mopped her face,

spk_0 upon which her few freckles stood out surprisingly dark upon a background of white.

spk_0 I am a wreck. I better go in as you were for just a sec. I'll break out a bottle of

spk_0 failing. This rates a celebration of sorts, don't you think? Very much so. As she sipped the

spk_0 punch of the aromatic red liquid, her color began to come back. No wonder I felt as though I were

spk_0 missing something all these years. Thanks, Kit. I really appreciate it. You're up. See,

spk_0 the mums. He picked her up and squeezed her heart. He scarcely noticed her sweat-streaked face

spk_0 and disheveled hair, but she did. Good heavens, Kit. I'm a perfect hag," she exclaimed.

spk_0 I've got to go and put on a new face. QX, I don't feel quite so fresh myself.

spk_0 What I need, though, is a good thick steak. Join me?

spk_0 How can you even think of eating at a time like this?

spk_0 Say, way, you can think of war-pain and feathers, I suppose. Different people, different reactions.

spk_0 QX, I'll be in there and see you in 15 or 20 minutes. Flip.

spk_0 She laughed and Kit heaved an almost explosive sigh of relief.

spk_0 Might be good things she hadn't asked too many questions. If she had become really curious,

spk_0 he would have had a horrible time keeping her away from the fact that that kind of work never had

spk_0 been done and never would be done outside of solid, multiply, a rissy and screen.

spk_0 He ate, cleaned up, ran a comb through his hair, and when his mother was ready,

spk_0 crossed over into her speedster.

spk_0 We, we, you, Kit whistle descriptively. What a seven-sector call-out.

spk_0 Just who do you think you're going to knock out of the ether on lyreine, too?

spk_0 Nobody at all. Cloresce laughed. This is all for you, son. And maybe a little bit for me, too.

spk_0 I'm stunned. You're a blinding flash and a deafening report. But I've got to do a flit gorgeous.

spk_0 So clear, wait a minute. You can't go yet. I've got questions to ask you about these new

spk_0 networks and things. How do I handle them? Sorry. You've got to develop your own techniques. You know

spk_0 that already. In a way, I thought maybe, though, I could weel you into helping me a little. I should

spk_0 have known better. But tell me. All densmen don't have minds like this, do they? I'll say they don't.

spk_0 They're all like yours was before, but not as good. Except the other L, too, of course.

spk_0 Dad, Warsaw, Tragonsi and Nadrack. There's our more or less like yours is now. But you've got a lot

spk_0 of stuff that they haven't. Ha, she demanded, such as. Way down there. He showed her. You worked

spk_0 out. He showed you how without getting into close. Why? Oh, I see. You would. Life force.

spk_0 I would have lots of that, of course. She did not blush, but Kit did. Life force was a pitifully

spk_0 inadequate term, indeed, for that which civilizations only Lensmen mother had in such measure. But they

spk_0 both knew what it was. Kit ducked. You can always tell all about a Lensmen by looking at his Lens.

spk_0 It's an absolute diagram of his whole mind. You've studied Dad's, of course. Yes, three times

spk_0 as big as the ordinary ones, or mine, and much finer and brighter. But mine isn't Kit. It wasn't,

spk_0 you mean. Put it on and look at it now. She opened a drawer, and even before she could snap the

spk_0 bracelet around her wrist, her eyes and mouth, beking three round ores of astonishment. She had never

spk_0 seen that Lens before, or anything like it. It was three times as big as hers, seven times as fine,

spk_0 and as intricate, and ten times as bright. Why? This isn't mine, she guessed. But this is where I put

spk_0 Snee's gorgeous, Kit advised. Cobwebs. It lit up, didn't it? You aren't thinking a lick.

spk_0 Your mind changed, so your Lens had to. See? I see. Clarissa looked deep into her son's eyes,

spk_0 her face again paling under her makeup. Now I'm going to get personal kit.

spk_0 Will you let me look at your Lens? You never seem to wear it. I haven't seen it since you

spk_0 graduated. Sure, why not? He reached into a pocket. I take after you that way, neither of us gets any

spk_0 kick out of throwing his weight around. His Lens flamed upon his wrist. It was larger in diameter

spk_0 than Clarissa's and thicker. Its texture was finer, its colors were brighter,

spk_0 partial, and seemed somehow more solid. Both studied both lenses for a moment,

spk_0 then Kit seized his mother's hand, brought their wrists together, and stared.

spk_0 That's it, he breathed. That's it. That's it. Just as sure as Clono has got teeth and claws,

spk_0 what's it? What do you see? She demanded. I see how and why I got the way I am,

spk_0 and if the kids had lenses, theirs would be the same. Remember dads, look at your dominance.

spk_0 Notice that every one of them is duplicated in mine. Blank them out of mine and see what you've got left.

spk_0 Pure Kimball-Kinnison, with just enough extras thrown in to make me an individual instead of a

spk_0 carbon copy. Hmm, credits to mills, this is what comes of having Lensmen on both sides of the

spk_0 family. No wonder where freaks. Don't know whether I'm in favor of it or not. I don't think that

spk_0 they should produce any more Lady Lensmen to you. Maybe that's why they never did. Don't try to be

spk_0 funny, she reproved, but her dimples were again in evidence. If it would result in more people like

spk_0 you and your sisters, I would be very much in favor of it. But, some way or other, I doubt it.

spk_0 I know that you're squirming to go, so I won't hold you any longer. What you just found out about

spk_0 Lens is it's fascinating. For the rest of it, well, thanks, son, and clear ether.

spk_0 Clear ether, mother. This is the worst part of being together, leaving so quick.

spk_0 I'll see you again, though, soon and often. If you get stuck, yell, and one of the kids

spk_0 or I, or all of us, will be with you in a split second. He gave her a quick hard hug,

spk_0 kissed her enthusiastically and left. He did not tell her, and she never did find out that his

spk_0 discovery of one of the secrets of the Lens was made to keep her from asking questions which he

spk_0 could not answer. The Red Lensmen was afraid that she would not have time to put her new mind in

spk_0 order before reaching Lyraine, too. But being naturally a good housekeeper, she did.

spk_0 More so rapidly and easily did her mind now work, she had time to review and to analyze every

spk_0 face of her previous activities upon that planet, and to lay out in broad her first lines of action.

spk_0 She wouldn't put on the screws at first, she decided. She would let them think that she didn't

spk_0 have any more jets than before. Helen was nice, but a good many of the others, especially that

spk_0 airport manager, were simply quadruply distilled vixens. She'd take it easy at first, but she'd be very

spk_0 sure that she didn't get into any such jams as last time. She coasted down through Lyraine's

spk_0 stratosphere and poised high above the city she remembered so well. Helen of Lyraine, she sent out a

spk_0 sharp clear thought. That is not your name I know, but we did not learn any other.

spk_0 She broke off every nerve-taught. Was that or was it not, Helen's thought? Cut off wiped out by

spk_0 a guardian block before it could take shape. Who are you stranger and what do you want?

spk_0 The thought came almost instantly, from a person seated at the desk of the chief executive of

spk_0 the planet. Clarissa glanced at the sender and thought that she recognized the face.

spk_0 Her new channels functioned instantaneously. She remembered every detail.

spk_0 Lensman Clarissa, formerly of Saul III, unattached. I remember you, Ladora, although you were

spk_0 only a child when I was here. Do you remember me? Yes, I repeat, what do you want?

spk_0 The memory did not decrease Ladora's hostility. I would like to speak to the former elder person,

spk_0 if I may. You may not. It is no longer with us. Leave at once or we will shoot you down.

spk_0 Think again, Ladora. Clarissa held her tone even and calm. Surely your memory is not so short

spk_0 that you have forgotten the Dauntless and its capabilities. I remember you may take up with me whatever

spk_0 it is that you wish to discuss with my predecessor, elder person. You are familiar with the

spk_0 Baskonian invasion of years ago. It is suspected that they are planning new and galaxy-wide

spk_0 outrages and that this planet is in some way involved. I have come here to investigate the situation.

spk_0 We will conduct our own investigations, Ladora declared, curtly. We insist that you and all

spk_0 other foreigners stay away from this planet. You investigate a galactic condition?

spk_0 In spite of herself, Clarissa almost let the connotations of that question become perceptible.

spk_0 If you give me permission, I will land alone. If you do not, I shall call the Dauntless

spk_0 and we will land in force. Take your choice. Land alone then if you must land.

spk_0 Ladora yielded, seethingly. Land at our city airport.

spk_0 Under those guns? No thanks. I am neither invulnerable nor immortal. I land where I please.

spk_0 She landed. During her previous visit, she had had a hard enough time getting any help from

spk_0 these pig-headed matriarchs, but this time she encountered a non-cooperation so utterly

spk_0 fanatical that it put her completely at a loss. None of them tried to harm her in any way,

spk_0 but not one of them would have anything to do with her. Every thought, even the friendliest,

spk_0 was stopped by a full coverage block. No acknowledgement even was ever made.

spk_0 I can crack those blocks easily enough if I want to. She declared one bad evening to her mirror.

spk_0 And if they keep this up very much longer, by Clonos Emerald-Filled Gizzard, I will.

spk_0 This Libbervox recordings in the public domain. Chapter 14

spk_0 When Kimmulkinesen received his son's call, he was an ultra-prime. The patrols depended

spk_0 as Clovee in base, about to enter his ship. He stopped for a moment, practically in mid-stride.

spk_0 While nothing was to be read in his expression or in his eyes, the lieutenant to whom he had been

spk_0 talking had been an interested if completely uninformed witness to many such lensed conferences,

spk_0 and knew that they were usually important. He was therefore not surprised when the lendsman

spk_0 turned around and headed for an exit. Put her back, please. I won't be going out for a while

spk_0 after all. Kinnison explained briefly. Don't know exactly how long. A fast flitter took him to the

spk_0 hundred-story pile of stainless steel and glass, which was the coordinator's office. He strode

spk_0 along a corridor through an unmarked door. Hi, Phyllis, the boss in. Good morning, chief. Yes, sir.

spk_0 No, I mean. His startled secretary touched a button and a door opened, the door of his private office.

spk_0 Hi, Kim. Back so soon, Vice-Cordinator Meetland also showed surprise as he got up from the massive

spk_0 desk and shook hands cordially. Good, taking over? Emphatically no. Hardly started yet. Just dropped

spk_0 into use your plate if you've got a free high-power wave. QX? Certainly. If not, you can free one

spk_0 fast enough. Communications. Kinnison touched a stud. Will you please get me through? Library 1,

spk_0 principal librarian, Nadine Ernie. Plate to plate. This request was surprising enough to the informed.

spk_0 Since the coordinator practically never dealt personally with anyone except lendsman,

spk_0 and usually unattached lendsman at that, it was a rare event indeed for him to use any ordinary

spk_0 channels of communication. And as the linkage was completed, subdued murmurs and sundry squeals gave

spk_0 evidence that intense excitement prevailed at the other end of the line. Mrs. Ernie will be on in one

spk_0 moment, sir. The operator's business was done. Her crisp, clear-cut voice ceased, but the background

spk_0 noise increased markedly. Shhh, shhh, shhh, it's the great lendsman himself. Everywhere upon

spk_0 Clovia, Tela San Therale, and in many localities of many other planets, the words great lendsman

spk_0 without surname had only one meaning. Not the great lendsman, it can't be. It is really, I know him,

spk_0 I actually met him once. Let me look, just a peek. Shhh, shhh, he'll hear you.

spk_0 Switch on the vision. If we've got a moment, let's get acquainted.

spk_0 Kinesen suggested, and upon his plate, the burst into view, a bevy of excitedly embarrassed blondes,

spk_0 brunettes, and redheads. I imagine, sorry that I don't know the rest of you, but I'll make it a

spk_0 point to get acquainted, before long, I think. Don't go away. The principal librarian was coming on

spk_0 the run. You're all in on this. Hi, Nadine, long time no see. Remember that bunch of squirrel food you

spk_0 rounded up for me? I remember, sir. What a question. As though Nadine Ernie, nay, hostetter,

spk_0 could ever forget her share in that famous meeting of the 53 greatest and least stable scientific

spk_0 minds of all civilization. I'm sorry that I was out in the stacks when you called. QX, we all

spk_0 have to work sometimes, I suppose. What I'm calling about is that I've got a mighty big job for

spk_0 you and those smart girls of yours. Something like that other one, only a lot more so. I want all the

spk_0 information you can dig up about a planet named Colonia, just as fast as you possibly can get it.

spk_0 What makes it extra tough is that I have never even heard of the planet itself and don't know of

spk_0 anyone who has. There may be a million other names for it on a million other planets, but we don't

spk_0 know any of them. Here's all I know. He summarized, concluding, if you can get it for me in less than

spk_0 4.95 GP days from now, I'll bring you, Nadine, a monarch and star drop. And you can have each of your

spk_0 girls go down to brand liars and pick out a wristwatch or whatever she likes, and I'll have it in

spk_0 grave to her, in appreciation, Kimble-Kinnison. This job is important. My son, Kit, has met me 10

spk_0 millos that we can't do it that fast. 10 millos, four or five of the girls gasped as one. Fact, he

spk_0 assured them gravely. So whenever you get the dope, tell communications. No, you listen when I tell

spk_0 them myself. Communications, all along the line, come in. They came. I expect one of these librarians

spk_0 to call me plate to plate within the next few days. When she does, no matter what time of the day

spk_0 or night it is, and no matter what eye or anyone else happy to be doing, that call will have the right

spk_0 of way over any other business in the universe. Cut. The plates went dead and in library one,

spk_0 but he was joking, surely. 10 millos, one cento, and a star drop? Why, there aren't more than a dozen

spk_0 of them on all trail. wristwatches are something from the Grey Lensman. Be quiet, everybody.

spk_0 Magic's claimed. I see now. That's the way Nadine got her watch, that she always brags about so

spk_0 insufferably, and that makes everybody's eyes turn green. But I don't understand that silly 10

spk_0 millo bet. Do you, Nadine? I think so. He does the nicest things, things that nobody else would think of.

spk_0 You have seen red Lensman's chid in brand liars. This was a statement, not a question.

spk_0 They all had, with what emotions they all knew. How would you like to have that one cento piece

spk_0 in a thousand credit frame here in our main hall, with the legend, one from Christopher Kinnison,

spk_0 for Kimball Kinnison, by, and our names? He's got something like that in mind, I'm sure.

spk_0 The ensuing clamor indicated that they liked the idea.

spk_0 He knew we would, and he knew that doing it this way would make us dig like we never dug before.

spk_0 He'll give us the watches and things anyway, of course, but we won't get that one cento piece,

spk_0 unless we win it. So let's get to work. Take everything out of the machines, finished or not.

spk_0 Mag, you might start by interviewing Lanyan, and the other, no, I better do that myself,

spk_0 since you are more familiar with the encyclopedia than I am. Run the whole English block,

spk_0 starting with K, and follow up any leads, however slight that you can find.

spk_0 Betty, you can analyze for synonyms, starting with the Theralyne equivalent of Colonia,

spk_0 and spreading out to the other Baskonian planets. Put half a dozen texts on it, with Transformers.

spk_0 Francis, you can study Prellen and Brodzika, Joan, Leona, Edna, Jalty, Helmuth, and Crowning Shield.

spk_0 Beth, as our best linguist, you can do us the most good by sensitizing a tech to the sound of

spk_0 Colonia in each of all the languages you know, or that the rest of us can find, and running and

spk_0 re-running all the transcripts we have of Baskonian meetings. How many of us are left? Not enough.

spk_0 We'll have to spread ourselves thin on this list of Baskonian planets.

spk_0 Thus, Principal Librarian Ernie organized a search beside which the proverbial one of finding

spk_0 a needle in a haystack would have been as simple as locating a football in a bushel basket.

spk_0 And she and her girls worked. How they worked. And thus, in four days and three hours,

spk_0 Kinesen's top priority person-to-person call came through.

spk_0 Colonia was no longer a planet of mystery.

spk_0 Fine work, girls. Put it on a tape, and I'll pick it up.

spk_0 He then left Clovia precipitantly.

spk_0 Since Kit was not within rendezvous distance, he instructed his son, after giving him the high

spk_0 points of what he had learned, to forward one one cento piece to Bren Lear of Thrayal,

spk_0 personal delivery. He told Bren Lear what to do with it upon arrival. He landed. He bestowed

spk_0 the star drop. One of Karteff's collection of fine gems. He met the girls and gave each one

spk_0 herself chosen reward. He departed. Out in open space, he ran the tape once. Second stage

spk_0 lensmen do not forget any detail of anything they have ever learned, and sat still, scowling

spk_0 blackly. It was no wonder that Colonia had remained unknown to civilization for over 20 years.

spk_0 There was a lot of information on that tape, and all of it stuck. But it had been assembled,

spk_0 one unimportant bit at a time, from the more than 800 million cars of Thrayal's Baskonian archives.

spk_0 And all of the really significant items have been found on vocal transcriptions,

spk_0 which had never before been played. Civilization in general had assumed that Thrayal had housed

spk_0 the top echelons of the Baskonian Empire, and that the continuing inimical activity had been

spk_0 due solely to momentum. Kineson and his friends had had their doubts, but they had not been able to

spk_0 find any Iodov evidence that any higher authority had ever issued any orders to Thrayal.

spk_0 The Gray Lensmen now knew, however, that Thrayal had never been the top. Nor was Colonia.

spk_0 The information on this tape, by its posity, its brevity, its incidental and casual nature,

spk_0 made that fact startlingly clear. Thrayal and Colonia were equals. Neither gave the other any orders.

spk_0 In fact, they had surprisingly little to do with each other. While Thrayal formerly directed

spk_0 the activities of a half a million or so planets, and Colonia apparently still did much the same,

spk_0 their field of action had not overlapped at any point. His conquest of Thrayal, hailed so widely

spk_0 as such a triumph, had got him precisely nowhere in the solution of the real problem.

spk_0 It might be possible for him to conquer Colonia in a similar fashion, but what would to get him?

spk_0 Nothing. There would be no more leads upward from Colonia than there had been from Thrayal.

spk_0 How and all of Naushab kemnings variegated and iridescent hills was he going to work this out?

spk_0 A complete analysis revealed only one possible method of procedure.

spk_0 In one of the transcriptions, made twenty-one years ago and unsealed for the first time by Beth,

spk_0 the librarian linguist, one of the speakers had mentioned casually that the new

spk_0 Colonian Lensman had seemed to be doing a good job, and a couple of the others had agreed with him.

spk_0 That was all. It might, however, be enough. Since it made it highly probable that

spk_0 Eddie's Lensman was in fact a Colonian, and since even a black Lensman would certainly know where

spk_0 he got his lens. At the thought of trying to visit the Bosconian equivalent of Eurasia, he flinched,

spk_0 but only momentarily. Invasion or even physical approach would of course be impossible,

spk_0 but any planet even Eurasia itself could be destroyed. If it could be found, that planet would be

spk_0 destroyed. He had to find it. That was probably what mentor had been wanting him to do all the time.

spk_0 But how? In his various previous enterprises against Bosconia, he had been a gentleman of leisure,

spk_0 a dock-wallopper, a meteor miner, and many other things. None of his already established aliases

spk_0 would fit on Colonia, and besides, it was very poor technique to repeat himself, especially at this

spk_0 high level of opposition. To warrant appearance on Colonia at all, he would have to be an operator

spk_0 of some kind, not too small, but not big enough so that an adequate background could not be synthesized

spk_0 in a hurry. A Zwilnik, an actual drug runner with a really worthwhile cargo, would be the best bet.

spk_0 His course of action decided the Grey Lensman started making calls. He first called Kitts,

spk_0 with whom he held a long conversation. He called the captain of his battleship Yacht, the Dauntless,

spk_0 gave him many and explicit orders. He called Vice-Cordinator,

spk_0 Mateland, and various other unattached lensmen, who had plenty of weight in narcotics,

spk_0 public relations, criminal investigation, navigation, homicide, and many other apparently totally unrelated

spk_0 establishments of the Galactic Patrol. Finally, after ten solid hours of mind-racking labor,

spk_0 he ate a tremendous meal and told Clarissa, he called her last of all, that he was going to bed and

spk_0 sleep for one whole GP week. Thus it was that the name of Brad Lothiron began to have

spk_0 chewed itself above the threshold of Galactic consciousness. For seven or eight years,

spk_0 that name had been below the middle of the patrol's long blacklist of the wanted.

spk_0 Now it was well up toward the top. That notorious Zwilnik and his villainous crew

spk_0 had been chased from one side of the first galaxy to the other. For a few months, it had been

spk_0 supposed that they had been blown out of the ether. Now, however, it was known definitely that

spk_0 he was operating in the second galaxy, and he and every one of his cutthroat gang,

spk_0 fiends who had blasted thousands of lives with the noxious wares, were wanted for piracy,

spk_0 drug-mongering, and first-degree murder. From the patrol's standpoint, the hunting was very poor.

spk_0 GP planetographers had charted only a small percentage of the planets of the second galaxy,

spk_0 and only a few of those are people by the inherits of civilization.

spk_0 Therefore, it required some time, but finally, there came the message for which

spk_0 Kinesen was so impatiently waiting. A Bosconian, pretty big shot, drug master named

spk_0 Harkleroy, on the planet Flesten II, city Nelto, coordinates so-and-so, fitted his specifications

spk_0 to a T. A middle-sized operator, neither too close to nor too far away from Cologne,

spk_0 and Kinesen, having long since learned the lingua franca of the region from a local meteor miner,

spk_0 was ready to act. First, he made sure that the mighty Donas would be where he wanted her when he

spk_0 needed her. Then, seated at his speedster's communicator, he put through regular channels a call

spk_0 to the Bosconian. Harkleroy, I've got a proposition you'll be interested in. Where and when do you

spk_0 want to see me? What makes you think I want to see you at all? A voice snarled, and the plate showed

spk_0 a gross, vicious face. Who are you, scum? Who I am is nobody's business, and if you don't clamp a

spk_0 baffle on that mouth of yours, I'll come down there and shove a glop-skinners glove so far

spk_0 down your throat you can sit on it. At the first to find it word, this will never begin visibly

spk_0 to swell, but in a matter of seconds he recognized Brad Lothiren, and Kinesen knew that he did.

spk_0 That pirate could, and would be expected to talk back to anybody.

spk_0 I didn't recognize you at first, Harkleroy almost apologized. We might do some business at that.

spk_0 What have you got? Cocaine, heroin, betelum, hashish, nitrolabe, most anything a warm-blooded

spk_0 oxygen breather would want. The prize package, though, is two kilograms of clear quill thionite.

spk_0 Thionite, two kilograms. The fleston's eye is gleamed. Where and how did you get it?

spk_0 I asked a lensman on Trancor to make it for me special, and he did.

spk_0 So, you won't talk, huh? Kinesen could see Harkleroy's brain work. Thionite could be made to talk

spk_0 later. We can maybe do business at that. Come down here right away. I'll do that, but listen.

spk_0 And the lensman's eyes burned into this will-mix. I know what you're figuring on,

spk_0 and I'm telling you right now not to try it if you want to keep on living.

spk_0 You know that this ain't the first planet I ever landed on, and if you've got a brain,

spk_0 you'll know that a lot of guys smarter than you have tried monkey business on me, and I'm still here.

spk_0 So watch your step. The lensman landed and made his way to Harkleroy's inner office,

spk_0 in what seemed to be an ordinary enough, if somewhat oversized, suit-of-light space armor.

spk_0 But it was no more ordinary than it was light. It was a powerhouse, built of durium, a quarter of an

spk_0 inch thick. Kinesen was not walking in it. He was merely the engineer of a battery of 2,000 horsepower

spk_0 motors. Unated, he could not have lifted one leg of that armor off the ground. As he had expected,

spk_0 every one he encountered wore a thought-screen. Nor was he surprised to being halted by a

spk_0 search beams were being stopped four feet away from his armor.

spk_0 Halt! Cut your screens or blast you where you stand.

spk_0 Yeah? At your age, Harkleroy. I told you I had a lot of stuff up my sleeve besides my arm,

spk_0 and I meant it. Either I come as I am, or I flit somewhere else, to do business with somebody

spk_0 who wants this stuff bad enough to act like half a man. Smatter, Fred, you ain't got blasters

spk_0 enough in there to handle me? This taught bit deep, and the visitor was allowed to proceed.

spk_0 As he entered the private office, however, he saw that Harkleroy's hand was poised near a switch,

spk_0 whose closing was signal a scorer more of concealed gunners to burn him down.

spk_0 They supposed that the stuff was either on his person, or in his spister just outside. Time was

spk_0 short. I abased myself. That's the formula you insist on, ain't it?

spk_0 Kineson sneered without bending his head a millimeter. Harkleroy's finger touched the stud.

spk_0 Dauntless, come down. Kineson snapped out the order.

spk_0 Hand, stud, and a part of the desk disappeared in the flair of Kineson's beam.

spk_0 Wall ports opened. Projectors and machine rifles erupted vibratory and solid destruction.

spk_0 Kineson leapt toward the desk. They tacked slowing down and stopping as he neared and seized the

spk_0 big shot. One fierce, short blast reduced the thought-screen generator to blobs of fused metal.

spk_0 Harkleroy screamed to his gunners to resume fire, but before bullet or beam took the

spk_0 Zwilnik's life, Kineson learned what he most wanted to know. The ape did know something about

spk_0 black lensmen. He didn't know where the lenses came from, but he did know how the men were chosen.

spk_0 More, he knew a lensmen personally, one Malasnikov, who had his office in Cadseld on Kallonia 3 itself.

spk_0 Kineson turned and ran. The alarm had been given, and they were bringing up stuff too heavy for

spk_0 even his armor to handle. But the Dauntless was landing already, smashing to rubble five city blocks

spk_0 in the process. He settled, and as the Durham-clad Gray Lensmen began to fight his way out of Harkleroy's

spk_0 fortress, Major Peter Van Buss Kirk and a full battalion of allarians armed with space axes and

spk_0 semi-portables began to hue and to blast their way in. End of chapter 14

spk_0 Each by inch, foot by foot, Kineson fought his way back along the corpse littered corridor

spk_0 under the ravening force of the attacker's beams. His defensive screens flared into pirate

spk_0 technique splendor, but they did not go down. Fears driven metallic slugs spanged and wanged against

spk_0 the unyielding durium of his armor, but that too held. Durium is incredibly massive, unbelievably

spk_0 tough, unimaginably hard. Against these qualities and against the thousands of horsepower driving

spk_0 that veritable tank and energizing its screens, the Zoolniks might just as well have been shining

spk_0 flashlights at him and throwing confetti. His immediate opponents could not touch him,

spk_0 but the Busconeans were bringing up reserves that he didn't like a little bit.

spk_0 Mobile projectors with whose energies even his screens could not cope. He had, however,

spk_0 one great advantage over his enemies. He had the sense of perception they did not. He could see

spk_0 them, but they could not see him. All he had to do was to keep at least one opaque wall between

spk_0 them until he was securely behind the mobile screens, powered by the stupendous generators of

spk_0 the Dauntless, which Van Buss Kirk and his Valarians were so earnestly urging toward him.

spk_0 If a door was handy in the moment of need, he used it. If not, he went through a wall.

spk_0 The Valarians were fighting furiously and were coming fast. Those two words, when applied to

spk_0 members of that race, mean something starkly incredible to anyone who has never seen Valarians in

spk_0 action. The average littleest than seven feet in height, something over four hundred pounds in

spk_0 weight, and are muscled, boned, and synued against a normal gravitational force of almost three

spk_0 times that of earth. Van Buss Kirk's weakest warrior could do in full armor, a standing high jump of

spk_0 14 feet against one T'Lurian gravity. He could handle himself and the thirty-pound monstrosity,

spk_0 which was his SpaceX, with a blinding speed and a devastating efficiency, literally appalling to

spk_0 contemplate. They are the deadliest hand to hand fighters ever known, and unbelievable as it

spk_0 still do fairly revel in that form of combat. The Valarian tide reached the battling Gray Lensman

spk_0 closed around him. Hi, you little T'Lurian wart! Major Peter Van Buss Kirk boomed his friendly

spk_0 thought, a yell of pure joy in cadence with the blows of his utterly irresistible weapon. His

spk_0 rhythm broke, his frightful axe was stuck. Not even Durian in late armor could bar the inward

spk_0 course of those furiously driven beaks, but sometimes it made it fairly difficult to get them out.

spk_0 The giant pulled, twisted, put one red splashed boot on the battered breastplate, bent his muddy back

spk_0 heaved viciously. The weapon came free with a snap that would have broken any ordinary man's arms,

spk_0 but the Valarians thought rolled smoothly on. Eight we got fun!

spk_0 Oh, Buss, you big Valarian baboon! Kinesan thought back in kind. Thought maybe we would need you

spk_0 when you're gang. Thanks for the ride! But back now and fast. Although the Valarians did not like to

spk_0 retreat after even a successful operation, they knew how to do it. Hence, in a matter of minutes,

spk_0 all the survivors, and their losses have been surprisingly small, were back inside the Dauntless.

spk_0 You picked up my spester, Frank. It was a statement, not a question,

spk_0 directed at the young Linsman, standing beside the chief pilot's board. Of course, sir,

spk_0 they're massing fast and without any hostile demonstration, as you said they would.

spk_0 He nodded unconcernedly at the plate, which showed the sky dotted with warlike shapes.

spk_0 No mollars? None detectable as yet.

spk_0 QX, original order stand. At detection of one mollor, execute operation able without further

spk_0 instructions. Tell everybody that, while the announcement of operation able would put me out of

spk_0 control instantly and automatically, until such announcement I will give instructions.

spk_0 What they will be like, I haven't a foggyest notion. It depends on what his nibs upstairs

spk_0 decides to do. It's his move next. As though the last phrase were a cue, a burst of noise rattled

spk_0 from the speaker, of which only the words Brad Lothiron were intelligible to the un-lensed

spk_0 members of the crew. That name, however, explained why they were not being attacked yet.

spk_0 Colonia had heard much of that intransigent and obterate pirate, and of the fabulous and prowess

spk_0 of his ship, and Kiddison was pretty sure that they were much more interested in his ship than in him.

spk_0 I can't understand you. The green lenseman barked in the polyglot language he had so lately learned.

spk_0 Talk pigeon. Very well, I see that you are indeed Brad Lothiron, as we were informed.

spk_0 What do you mean by this outrageous attack? Surrender, disarm your men, take off their armor,

spk_0 and march them out of your vessel, or we will blast you as you lie there. Mendenai, vice admiral speaking.

spk_0 I abase myself. Kiddison Thirin did not sneer exactly, but he did incline his stubborn head

spk_0 perhaps one millimeter, but he made no move to comply with the order so summarily issued.

spk_0 Instead, what kind of planet is this anyway? He demanded hotly. I come here to see this

spk_0 lousy, harkelroy, because a friend of mine tells me that he's a big shot, and so interested in

spk_0 my line that we can do a lot of business with each other. I give the lug fair warning, too.

spk_0 Tell him plain that I've been around plenty, and that if he tries to give me the works,

spk_0 I'll rub him out like a pencil mark. So what happens? In spite of what I just tell him, he tries

spk_0 dirty work on me, and I go to work on him, which he certainly has got coming to him.

spk_0 Then you and your flock of little tin boats come barging in as though I busted a law or something.

spk_0 Who do you think you are anyway? What license you got to be budding into a private business deal?

spk_0 Ah, I had not heard that version. Vision came on. The face upon the plate was typically

spk_0 colonial, blue, cold, cruel, and keen. Harkelroy was warned, you say. Definitely. I warned him

spk_0 plenty, definitely. Ask any of those willnecks in that private office of his. Most of them are still

spk_0 alive, and they all must have heard it. The plate fogged, the speaker again gave out gibberish.

spk_0 The lidsman knew, however, that the commander of the cruisers above them was indeed questioning

spk_0 the dead's willnecks guards. They knew that Kineson story was being corroborated in full.

spk_0 You interest me. The Bosconian's language again became intelligible to the group at large.

spk_0 We will forget Harkelroy. Stupidity brings its own reward, and the property damages of no

spk_0 present concern. For what I have been able to learn of you, you have never belonged to that

spk_0 so-called civilization. I know for a fact that you are not and never have been one of us.

spk_0 How have you been able to survive? And why do you work alone?

spk_0 How is easy enough by keeping one jump ahead of the other guy, like I did with your pal here,

spk_0 and by me smart enough to have good engineers put into my ship everything that any other one

spk_0 ever had, and everything they could dream up besides. As to why, that's simple, too. I don't trust

spk_0 anybody except myself. If nobody except myself ever knows what I'm going to do, or when, nobody

spk_0 except myself is ever going to be able to stick a knife into me when I ain't looking. See? So far,

spk_0 it's paid off big. I'm still around and still healthy, while them that trusted other guys ain't.

spk_0 I see. Crude, but graphic. The more I study you, the more convinced I become that you would be a

spk_0 worthwhile addition to our force. No deal, Mendenai. Kinesin interrupted, shaking his unkept head

spk_0 positively. I never yet took orders from no boss, and I ain't going to, never. You misunderstand me,

spk_0 Thyrin. Thessalonik was clearly patient and much too forebearing.

spk_0 Kinesin's insulting ambition of his title should have touched him off like a rocket.

spk_0 I was not thinking of you in any minor capacity, but as an ally, an entirely independent ally,

spk_0 working with us in certain, mutually advantageous undertakings. Such as,

spk_0 Kinesin allowed himself to betray his first sign of interest. You may be talking sense now,

spk_0 brother, but what's in it for me? Believe me, there's got to be plenty. There will be plenty.

spk_0 With the ability you have already shown, and with our vast resources back of you,

spk_0 you will take more every week than you have been taking in a year. Yeah, people like you just love

spk_0 to do things like that for people like me. What do you figure on getting out of it?

spk_0 Kinesin wondered and lends a sharp thought to his junior on the board.

spk_0 On your toes, Frank, he's stalling for something, and I'm betting it's mallers.

spk_0 Nondetectable yet, sir. We stand to gain, of course, the pirate admitted smoothly.

spk_0 For instance, there are certain features of your vessel, which might, just possibly, you will

spk_0 observe, and speaking only to mention an example, be of some interest to our naval designers.

spk_0 Also, we have heard that you have an unusually hot battery of primary beams. You might tell me

spk_0 about some of those things now, or at least refocus your plate so that I can see something beside

spk_0 your not unattractive face. I might not, too. What I've got here is my own business and stays mine.

spk_0 Is that what we are to expect from you in the way of cooperation?

spk_0 The commander's voice was still low on level, but now bore a chill of deadly menace.

spk_0 Cooperation, the cutthroat chief, was unimpressed. I'll maybe tell you a thing or two,

spk_0 eat out of your dish after I get good and sold on your proposition, whatever it is, but not one second

spk_0 sooner. The commander glared. I weary of this. You probably are not worth the trouble,

spk_0 after all. I might as well blast you out now as later. You know that I can, of course, as well as

spk_0 I do. Do I? Kinnison did sneer this time. Act your age, pal. As I told that full

spk_0 Healkal Roy, this ain't the first planet I ever sat down on, and it won't be the last.

spk_0 I don't call no mollors. As the Baskonian officers hand moved almost imperceptively toward a

spk_0 row of buttons. If you do, I start blasting as soon as we spot one on our plates, and they're

spk_0 full out right now. You would start blasting? This will not surprise, almost amazement was plain,

spk_0 but the hand stopped its motion. Yeah, me. Them heaps of scrap metal you got up there don't bother me

spk_0 a bit, but mollors, I can't handle, and I ain't afraid to tell you so because you probably know it

spk_0 already. I can't stop you from calling them if you want to, but ban both ears to this. I can

spk_0 outrun them, and I'll guarantee that you personally won't be alive to see me run. Why? Because your

spk_0 ship will be the first one I'll whiff on the way out. And if the rest of your heaps stick around

spk_0 long enough to try to stop me, I'll whiff 25 or 30 more of them before your mollors can get close

spk_0 enough so that I'll have to flit. Now, if your brains are made out of the same kind of thick blue

spk_0 mud that Harkel Royse was, start something. This was an impasse. Canis knew what he wanted the other

spk_0 to do, but he could not give him a suggestion or even a hint without tipping his hand.

spk_0 The officer, quite evidently, was in a quandary. He did not want to open fire upon this tremendous

spk_0 this fabulous ship, even if he could destroy it such a course would be unthinkable.

spk_0 Unless, indeed, the very active destruction would brand as false rumor that tales of invincibility

spk_0 and invulnerability which had heralded its coming, and thus would operate in his favor at the court

spk_0 marshal so sure to be called. He was very much afraid, however, that those rumors were not false,

spk_0 a view which was supported very strongly, both by thirons undisguised contempt for the Baskonian

spk_0 warships threatening him and by his equally frank declaration of his intention to avoid engagement

spk_0 with craft of really superior force. Finally, however, the Baskonian perceived one thing that did not

spk_0 quite fit. If you are as good as you claim to be, why aren't you doing a flit right now?

spk_0 Menden, I asked smoothly. If you could get away, I should think that you'd be doing it.

spk_0 We've got stuff, you know, that's both heavy and fast.

spk_0 Because I don't want to flit, that's why. Use your head, pal.

spk_0 This was better. Menden, I had shifted the conversation into a line upon which the

spk_0 Linsman could do a bit of steering. I had to leave the first galaxy because it got too hot for me,

spk_0 and I got no connections at all yet here in the second. You folks need certain kinds of stuff

spk_0 that I've got, and I need other kinds that you've got. So we could do a nice business if you wanted

spk_0 to. That was what I had in mind with Harkelroy, but he got greedy. I don't mind saying that I'd like

spk_0 to do business with you, but I just got bit pretty bad, and I'll have to have some kind of solid

spk_0 guarantee that you mean business and not monkey business before I take a chance again. See?

spk_0 I see. The idea is good, but its execution may prove difficult. I could give you my word,

spk_0 which I assure you has never been broken. Don't make me laugh,

spk_0 Kinesen snorted. Would you take mine? The case is different. I would not. Your point, however,

spk_0 is well taken. How about the protection of a high court of law? I will bring you an unalterable

spk_0 writ from any court you name. Uh-huh. The Grey Lensman descended. There never was no court yet

spk_0 that didn't take orders from the big shots who kept the fat cats fat and lawyers at the crookedest

spk_0 crooks in the whole universe. You'll have to do better than that, pal. Well then, how about a

spk_0 Lensman? You know about Lensman, don't you? A Lensman, Kinesen gasp. He shook his head violently.

spk_0 Are you completely nuts or do you think I am? I do know Lensman. A Lensman chased me from

spk_0 out saken to Vendom Arwant's, and if I hadn't had a dose of hell's own luck, he'd have got me.

spk_0 Lensman chased me out of the first galaxy. Why else do you think I'm here? Use your brain,

spk_0 Mr. Use your brain. You're thinking of civilization's Lensman, particularly of Grey Lensman.

spk_0 The officer was manifestly enjoying Thyrin's passion. Hours, the black Lensman are different,

spk_0 entirely different. They have as much power or more, but they use it as it should be used.

spk_0 They work with us right along. In fact, they have been bumping Grey Lensman off right and left lately.

spk_0 You mean that he could open up, for instance, your mind and mind so that we could see that the

spk_0 other guy wasn't figuring on running in no stacked decks, and that he'd stand by and sort of

spk_0 referee this business to you we got on the fire? And do you know when yourself, personally?

spk_0 He could, and would, do all that. Yes, I know when, personally. His name is Melasnikov,

spk_0 and his office is on Cologneia III, not an hour's flip from here. He may not be there at the moment,

spk_0 but he will come in if I call. How about it? Shall I call him now?

spk_0 Don't work up a sweat. Sounds like it might work if we can figure out an approach.

spk_0 I don't suppose that you and him would come out to me in space. Hardly, after the way you have

spk_0 acted, you wouldn't expect us to, would you? It wouldn't be very bright of you. And since I want to

spk_0 do business, I guess I got to meet you part way. How would this be? You pull your ships away

spk_0 out of range. My ship takes station right above this here, Lensman's office. I go down in my

spk_0 spister, like I did here, and go inside to meet him and you. I'll wear my armor, and when I say it's

spk_0 real armor, I ain't just snapping my choppers neither. I can see only one slight flaw.

spk_0 The Bosconian was really trying to work out a mutually satisfactory solution.

spk_0 The Lensman will open our minds to you and prove, however, that we'll have no intention of bringing

spk_0 up our mollors or other heavy stuff while we are in conference. All right, then he'll show you that

spk_0 you hadn't better, too. Kinnison Grind will officially. What do you mean, the officer demanded?

spk_0 I mean that I've got enough good big supra-atomic bombs aboard to blow the planet apart,

spk_0 and that the boys will drop them all if you start playing dirty. I've got to take a little chance,

spk_0 of course, to start doing business, but it's a small one. If you ain't smart enough to know that

spk_0 what would happen would be mighty poor business, your Lensman will be, especially when it won't get

spk_0 you any dope on what makes the ship of mine tick the way she does. And the clincher is that,

spk_0 even if you bring up everything you've got, I never did figure on living forever. And going out in

spk_0 an atomic blast of that size, together with your fleet and half your planet and you and your

spk_0 Lensman and 700 million other people, is as good a way as I can think of. If the Lensman's examination

spk_0 bears that out, it will constitute an absolute guarantee. The officer agreed.

spk_0 Hard as he was, he could not conceal the fact that he had been shaken.

spk_0 Everything then is satisfactory? On the green? Are you ready to flip? We are ready.

spk_0 Call your Lensman then and lead the way. Boys, take her upstairs.

spk_0 This Libbervox recordings in the public domain. Chapter 16

spk_0 Karen Kinnison was worried. She, who had always been so steady, so sure of herself,

spk_0 had for weeks been conscious of a gradually increasing, what was it anyway? Not exactly a loss of

spk_0 control, a change. Something that manifested itself in increasingly numerous fits of senseless,

spk_0 surely idiotic stubbornness. And always and only it was directed at, of all the people in the

spk_0 universe, her brother. She got along with her sisters perfectly. There are tiny tiffs barely

spk_0 ripple the surface of any of their minds. But any time her path of action crossed kits,

spk_0 it seemed, the profoundest depths of her being flared into opposition, like exploding duodeck.

spk_0 Worst and senseless and idiotic, it was inexplicable, for the feeling which the five had for each

spk_0 other was much deeper than that felt by ordinary brothers and sisters. She didn't want to fight

spk_0 with Kit. She liked him. She liked to feel his mind on rapport with her, just as she liked to dance

spk_0 with him. Their bodies as completely in accord as were their minds. No change of step or motion,

spk_0 however suddenly conceived and executed, or however bizarre, had ever succeeded in taking the

spk_0 other by surprise, or in marring by a millimeter the effortless precision of their performance.

spk_0 She could do things with Kit that would tie any other man into knots and break half of his bones.

spk_0 All other men were lumps. Kit was so far ahead of any other man in existence that there was simply

spk_0 no comparison. If she were Kit, she would give her a going over that would, or could even he,

spk_0 at the thought she turned cold inside. He could not even kit with all his tremendous power.

spk_0 Would hit that solid wall and bounce. Well, there was one, not a man, but an entity who could.

spk_0 He might kill her, but even that would be better than to allow the continued growth within her

spk_0 mind of this monstrosity, which she could neither control nor understand. Where was she? And where

spk_0 was Lyraine? And where was Erysia? Good, not too far off the line. She would stop off at Erysia

spk_0 on route. She did so and made her way to mentor's quiet office on the hospital grounds. She told her

spk_0 story. Fighting with Kit was bad enough, she concluded. But when I start defying you mentor,

spk_0 it's high time that something was done about it. Why didn't Kit ever knock me into a spiral?

spk_0 Why didn't you work me over? You called Kit in with the distinct implication that he needed more

spk_0 education. Why did you pull me in here too and pound some intelligence into me?

spk_0 Concerning you, Christopher had definite instructions which he obeyed. I did not touch you for the same

spk_0 reason that I did not ask you to come to me. Neither course would have been of any use. Your

spk_0 mind a daughter Karen is unique. One of its prime characteristics, the one in fact which is to make

spk_0 you an all-important player in the drama which is to come, is a yieldlessness very nearly absolute.

spk_0 Your mind might just conceivably be broken, but it cannot be bent by any imaginable external force

spk_0 however applied. Thus it was inevitable from the first that nothing could be done about the

spk_0 untoward manifestations of this characteristic until you yourself should recognize the fact that

spk_0 your development was not complete. It would be idle for me to say that during adolescence you have

spk_0 not been more than a trifle trying. I was not speaking idly when I said that the development of

spk_0 you has been a tremendous task. It is with equal seriousness however that I now tell you that the

spk_0 reward is commensurate with the magnitude of the undertaking. It is impossible to express the

spk_0 satisfaction I feel, the fulfillment, the completion, the justification, as you children come one by

spk_0 one each in his proper time for final instruction. Oh, you mean then that there's nothing really the

spk_0 matter with me? Hardest Karen was, she trembled as her awful tension eased, that I was supposed to

spk_0 act that way, and I can tell kit right away, no need. Your brother now knows that it was a passing

spk_0 phase. He shall know very shortly that it has passed. It is not that you were supposed to act as

spk_0 you acted. You could not help it, nor could your brother, nor I. From now on however you shall be

spk_0 completely the mistress of your own mind. Calm fully, daughter Karen, into mine.

spk_0 She did so, and in a matter of time her formal education was complete.

spk_0 There is one thing that I don't quite understand, she began before she boarded her spister.

spk_0 Consider it, and I am sure that you will, mentor assured her. Explain it whatever it is to me.

spk_0 QX, I'll try. It's about Faustin and Dad. Karen cogitated. Faustin was of course an adorian.

spk_0 Your making Dad believe him to be an insane Erysian was a masterpiece. I see of course how you did that,

spk_0 principally by making Faustin's real shape exactly like the one he saw of you in Erysia.

spk_0 But his physical actions as Faustin go on, daughter. I am sure that your visualization will be sound.

spk_0 While acting as Faustin, he had to act as a Thiralian would have acted.

spk_0 K decided with a rush. He was watched everywhere he went and knew it. To display his real power would

spk_0 have been disastrous. Just like Erysians, they have to keep in the background to avoid setting up

spk_0 an inferiority complex that will ruin everything for them. Faustin's actions then were constrained.

spk_0 Just as they were when he was Gray Rogers so long ago, except that then he did make a point

spk_0 of unhuman longevity, deliberately to put an insoluble problem up to First Lensman Sam's and his man.

spk_0 Just as you, you must have. You did coach Virgil Sam's mentor and some of Erysians were there as men.

spk_0 We were. We wrought briefly as men and died as men. Up to the present moment no one has ever been the

spk_0 wiser. But you weren't Virgil Sam's, please. K almost begged. Not that it would break me if you were,

spk_0 but even I would much rather you hadn't been. No none of us was Sam's. Man tore a shirt her,

spk_0 nor Cleveland, nor Roadbush, nor Costigan, nor even Cleo Marsden.

spk_0 We worked with, coached as you express it, those persons and others from time to time in certain

spk_0 small matters, but we were at no time integral with any of them. One of us was, however, Dr.

spk_0 Bergenholm. The full inertialist space drive became necessary at that time, and it would have been

spk_0 poor technique to have had either Roadbush or Cleveland develop so suddenly the ability to perfect

spk_0 the device as Bergenholm did perfect it. QX, Bergenholm isn't important. He was just an inventor,

spk_0 to get back onto the subject of Fosten. When he was there on the flagship with Dad,

spk_0 and in position to throw his full weight around, he was too late. You Eurycians were on the job.

spk_0 You'll have to take it from there, though. I'm out beyond my depth. Because you lacked data.

spk_0 Know then, daughter, that the planet Edoir is screened as heavily as is our own Eurycia.

spk_0 By screens which can be extended at will to any desired point in space.

spk_0 In those last minutes, the Adorian knew that Kimball Kinnison was neither alone nor unprotected.

spk_0 He called instantaneously for help, but help did not come. It could not. Edoir's screens were

spk_0 being attacked at every point by every force general by the massed intellect of Eurycia.

spk_0 They were compressed almost to the planet's surface. If the Adorians had weakened those screens

spk_0 sufficiently to have sent through them a helping thought, every one of them would in that instant

spk_0 have perished, nor could Fosten escape from the form of flesh he was then energizing. I myself saw

spk_0 to that. Karrind had never before felt the Eurycian display emotion, but his thought was grim and cold.

spk_0 From that form which her father never did perceive, he passed into the next plane of existence.

spk_0 Karrind shivered. It served him right. That clears everything up, I think.

spk_0 But are you sure, mentor, that you can't, or rather shouldn't, teach me any more than you have?

spk_0 It's just about time for me to go, and I feel, well, incompetent is putting it very mildly indeed.

spk_0 To a mind of such power and scope as yours, in its present state of development, such a feeling is

spk_0 inevitable. Nor can anyone accept yourself do anything about it. Cold comfort perhaps, but it is

spk_0 the stark truth that from now on your development is your own task, yours alone. As I have already told

spk_0 Christopher and Catherine, and will very shortly tell Camilla and Constance, you have had your last

spk_0 Eurycian treatment. I will be uncalled to any of you at any instant of any day, to aid you, or to

spk_0 guide you, or to reinforce you at need, but a formal instruction there can be no more.

spk_0 Karrind left Eurycia and drove for Lyraine, her thoughts in a turmoil. The time was too short by far.

spk_0 She delivered a cut-her-vessel speed and took a long detour so that the vast and chaotic library

spk_0 of her mind could be reduced to some semblance of order before she landed. She reached Lyraine too,

spk_0 and there, again to all outward seeming, a happy, carefree girl, she hugged her mother rapturously.

spk_0 Nor was this part of it acting in any sense. As has been said, those four girls loved each other,

spk_0 and their mother, and their father, and their brother, with a depth and fervor impossible to portray

spk_0 intelligibly in words. You're the most wonderful thing, mums! Karen exclaimed. It's simply marvelous

spk_0 seeing you again in the flesh. Now, why bring that up? Clarissa had, just barely, become a custom

spk_0 to working undraped in the Lyrene in fashion. I didn't mean it that way at all, and you know I

spk_0 didn't. Kay Snickerd, shame on you, fishing for compliments and at your age too.

spk_0 Ignoring the older woman's attempt at protest, she went on. All kidding aside, mums,

spk_0 you're a mighty smart-looking hunk of woman. I approve of you exceedingly much. In fact,

spk_0 we're a keen pair, and I like both of us. I've got one advantage over you, of course,

spk_0 in that I never did care up particle whether I ever had a stitch of clothes on or not anywhere,

spk_0 and you still do a little. But what I was going to ask, though, was, how are you doing?

spk_0 Not so well, of course, though, I haven't been here very long. Clarissa, forgetting her undressiveness,

spk_0 frowned. I haven't found Helen, and I haven't found out yet why she retired. I can't quite decide

spk_0 whether to put pressure on now or wait a little longer. Ladora, the new elder person, is,

spk_0 that is, I don't know. Oh, here she comes now. I'm glad I want you to meet her.

spk_0 If Ladora was glad to meet Karen, however, she did not show it. Instead, for an inner appreciable

spk_0 instant of time, which was nevertheless sufficient for the requirement of full information,

spk_0 each studied the other. Like Helen, the former queen of the matriarchy of Lyrene too,

spk_0 Ladora was tall, beautifully proportioned, flawless of skin and feature, hard and fine.

spk_0 But so, and in most respects even more so, to Ladora's astonishment and quick mounting wrath

spk_0 was this pink tan stranger. Practically instantaneously, therefore, she hurled a vicious

spk_0 mental bolt, only to get the surprise of her life. She had not yet crossed wills in a serious

spk_0 enough way with his strange person, Clarissa, to find out what she had in the way of equipment,

spk_0 but it certainly couldn't be much. She had never tried to do her harm, nor ever seemed to resent

spk_0 her studied and arrogant elufeness, and therefore her daughter, younger and less experienced,

spk_0 of course, would be easy enough pray. But Ladora's bolt, the heaviest she could send,

spk_0 did not pierce even the outermost fringes of her intended victims' defenses,

spk_0 and so vicious was the almost simultaneous counterthrust that it went through the Lyrenean's

spk_0 hard-held block and nothing flat. Inside her brain it wrought such hellishly poignant punishment

spk_0 that the matriarch, forgetting everything, tried only and madly to scream. She could not.

spk_0 She could not move a muscle of her face or of her body. She could not even fall.

spk_0 And the one brief glimpse she had into the stranger's mind showed it to be such a blaze of

spk_0 incandescent fury that she, who had never feared in the slightest any living creature,

spk_0 knew now in full measure what fear was. I'd like to give that alleged brain of yours a real massage

spk_0 just for fun. Caron forestra motion to subside to a mere seething rage and Ladora watched her do it.

spk_0 But since this whole sticking planet is my mother's dish, not mine, she blasts me to a cinder.

spk_0 She's done it before, if I dip in. She cooled further, visibly. At that, I don't suppose you're

spk_0 too bad an egg in your own poisonous way. You just don't know any better. So maybe I better warn you,

spk_0 you poor fool, since you haven't got sense enough to see it, that you're playing with a lie fused

spk_0 when you push my mother around like you've been doing. About one more millimeter of it, and she'll

spk_0 get mad. Like I did a second ago, except more so. I'd you wish to clonow you had never been born.

spk_0 She'll never make a sign until she blows up, but I'm telling you that she's as much harder and

spk_0 tougher than I am as she is older. And what she always does to people who cross her, I wouldn't

spk_0 want to watch happen again, even to a snake. Want to know what she'll do to you first?

spk_0 She'll pick you up, curl you into a perfect circle, pull off your arms, shove both your legs

spk_0 down your throat to the knees, and roll you down that chute there into the ocean. After that, I don't

spk_0 know what she'll do. Depends on how much pressure she develops before she blows up. One thing though,

spk_0 she's always sorry afterward. Why, she even attends the funeral sometimes, and insists on paying the

spk_0 expenses, with which outrageous thought she kissed Clarissa and enthusiastic goodbye.

spk_0 Told you I couldn't stay a minute, got to do a flit, see a man about a dog, came a million

spk_0 parsecs to squeeze you mums, but it was worth it. Clear either, she was gone, and it was a duiied

spk_0 and wrapped mother, not a lensman, who turned to the still completely disorganized Iranian.

spk_0 Clarissa had perceived nothing whatever of what had happened. Karen had very carefully seen to that.

spk_0 My daughter, Clarissa, amused as much to herself as to Ladora, one of four, the four dearest,

spk_0 finest, sweetest girls that ever lived. I often wonder how a woman of my limitations,

spk_0 of my faults, could possibly have borne such children. And Ladora of Lyrene,

spk_0 Humulus and literal as all Lyrenians are, took those thoughts at their face value,

spk_0 and correlated their every connotation and implication with what she herself had perceived in that

spk_0 dear sweet daughter's mind, with what that daughter had done and had said.

spk_0 The nature and quality of this hellish persons limitations and faults became

spk_0 eminently clear, and as she perceived what she thought was the truth, the Lyrenian literally cringed.

spk_0 As you know, I have been in doubt as to whether or not to support you actively as you wish.

spk_0 Ladora offered as the two walked together across the field toward the line of ground-cars.

spk_0 On the one hand, the certainty that the safety and perhaps the very existence of my race will

spk_0 be at hazard, on the other the possibility that you are right in saying that the situation will

spk_0 continue to deteriorate if we do nothing. The decision has not been an easy one to make.

spk_0 Ladora was no longer a loof. She was just plain scared. She had been talking against time,

spk_0 and hoping that the help for which she had long since called would arrive in time.

spk_0 I have touched only the outer surfaces of your mind. Will you allow me, without offense,

spk_0 to test its inner quality before deciding definitely? She asked, and in the instant of asking,

spk_0 sent out an exploratory tentacle of thought which was an actuality a full-driven probe.

spk_0 I will not. Ladora's beam struck a barrier which seemed to her exactly like the daughters.

spk_0 None of her race had developed anything like it. She had never seen. Yes, she had, too, years ago

spk_0 when she was a child, that time in the assembly hall, that utterly hated male, Kinnison, of tellus.

spk_0 This visitor then was not a real person at all, but a female. Kinnison's female, the red

spk_0 lensman of whom even Lorraine had heard, and that purse, that thing, was their offspring.

spk_0 But behind that impenetrable block there might very well be, there probably was, exactly the kind

spk_0 of mind that the offspring had described. A creature who was physically a person, but mentally

spk_0 that inconceivable monstrosity, a female, might be anything and might do anything. Ladora temporized.

spk_0 Excuse me, I did not mean to intrude against your will. She apologized smoothly enough.

spk_0 Since your attitude makes it extremely difficult for me to cooperate with you, I can make no promises

spk_0 as yet. What is it that you wish to know first? I wish to interview your predecessor elder person,

spk_0 the one we called Helen. Strangely refreshed, in a sense galvanized by the brief personal visit

spk_0 with her dynamic daughter, he was no longer Mrs. Kinnison, who faced the Lorraine queen. Instead,

spk_0 it was the red lensman, a full-powered second-stage lensman, who had finally decided that,

spk_0 since appeals to reason, logic and common sense had no perceptible effect upon this stiff,

spk_0 necked, and near woman, the time had come to bear down. Furthermore, I intend to interview her now,

spk_0 and not at some such indefinite future time as your whim may see fit to allow.

spk_0 Ladora sent out a final desperate call for help, and mustered her every force against the interloper.

spk_0 Fast and strong as her mind was, however, the red lensman was faster and stronger.

spk_0 The Lorrainean's defensive structure was wrecked in the instant of its building,

spk_0 the frantically struggling mind was taken over in total. Help arrived, uselessly.

spk_0 Since, although Clarissa's newly enlarged mind had not been put to war like use, it was brilliantly

spk_0 keen and ultimately sure. Nor in times of stress did the softer side of her nature operate to stay

spk_0 mind or hand. While carrying lensman's load, she contained no more of Ruth for civilization's foes

spk_0 that did abysmally frigid, and had drag himself. Headthrone back, tall and tense, gold-flexed

spk_0 tawny eyes flashing, she stood therefor a moment, and took on her shield everything that those

spk_0 belligerent persons could send. More, she returned it in kind, plus, and under those

spk_0 withering blasts of force more than one of her attackers ceased to live. Then still holding her block,

spk_0 she and her unwilling captive raced across the field toward the line of peculiar little

spk_0 fabric and wire machines, which were still the last word in Lyrenean air transport.

spk_0 Clarissa knew that the Lyreneans had no modern offensive or defensive weapons.

spk_0 They did, however, have some fairly good artillery at that airport, and she hoped fervently as she ran,

spk_0 that she could put out jets enough to spoil the aim and fusing. Luckily, they hadn't developed

spk_0 proximity fuses yet. Of what act they could bring to bear on her crate during the few minutes,

spk_0 she would have to use it. Fortunately, there was no artillery at the small, unimportant airport on

spk_0 which her speeds her lay. Here we are. We'll take this trip. It's the fastest thing here.

spk_0 Clarissa could operate the triplane, of course, any knowledge or ability that LaDora had ever had was

spk_0 now and permanently the lensments. She started the queer engines, and as the powerful little plane

spk_0 screamed into the air, hanging from its props, she devoted whatever mind she could spare to the

spk_0 problem of anti-aircraft fire. She could not handle all the gun crews, but she could and did command

spk_0 the most important members of most of them. Thus, nearly all of the shells either went wide or

spk_0 exploded too soon. Since she knew every point of aim of the few guns with whose operations she

spk_0 could not interfere, she avoided their missiles by not being at any one of those points at the

spk_0 predetermined instant of functioning. Thus, plane impassengers escaped unscathed, and in a matter of

spk_0 minutes arrived at their destination. The Lyranians there had been alerted, of course, but they were

spk_0 few in number, and they had not been informed that it would take physical force, not mental,

spk_0 to keep that red-headed pseudo-person from boarding her outlandership of space.

spk_0 In a few more minutes then, Clarissa and her captive, safe in the speedster, were high in the

spk_0 stratosphere. Clarissa sat LaDora down hard in a seat and fastened the safety straps.

spk_0 Stay in that seat and keep your thoughts to yourself, she directed curtly. If you don't,

spk_0 you'll never again either move or think in this life. She opened a sliding door, put on a couple

spk_0 of wisps of monarch and glamour at, reached for address and paused. Eyes glowing, she gazed

spk_0 hungryly at a suit of plain gray leather, a costume which she had not as yet so much as tried on.

spk_0 Should she wear it or not? She could work efficiently at service maximum really in ordinary clothes.

spk_0 Dido, although she didn't like to, uncloved. In gray, though, she could hit absolute max if she

spk_0 had to. Nor had there ever been any question of right involved. The only barrier had been her own

spk_0 hypersensitivity. For over twenty years, she herself had been the only one to deny her right.

spk_0 What license she was wanting to ask did an imitation or synthetic or amateur or red

spk_0 lesbian have to wear the garb of which meant so much to so many? Over those years, however,

spk_0 it had become increasingly widely known that hers was one of the five finest and most powerful

spk_0 minds in the entire gray Legion. And when coordinator Kinnison recalled her to active duty in unattached

spk_0 status, that Legion passed by unanimous vote a resolution asking her to join them in gray.

spk_0 Psychics all, they knew that nothing less would suffice. That if there was any trace of resentment

spk_0 or of antagonism or a feeling that she did not intrinsically belong, she would never

spk_0 don the uniform which every adherent of civilization so revered and for which deep down she had always

spk_0 so intensely longed. The Legion had sent her these grays. Kitt had convinced her that she did

spk_0 actually deserve them. She really should wear them. She would. She put them on thrilling to the core

spk_0 as she did so. It made the quick little gesture she had seen Kinn make so many times.

spk_0 Lensman's seal. No one, however accustomed, has ever dawned or ever willed dawn unmoved the

spk_0 plain gray leather of the unattached Lensman of the Galactic Patrol. Hands on hips, she studied

spk_0 herself minutely and approvingly, both in the mirror and by means of her vastly more efficient

spk_0 sense of perception. She wriggled a little and giggled in really as she remembered deploring as

spk_0 exhibitionistic the same conduct in her oldest daughter. The grays fitted her perfectly. A bit

spk_0 revealing perhaps, but her figure was still good. Very good is a matter of fact. Not a speck of dirt

spk_0 or tarnish. Her delameters were fully charged. Her tremendous lens flamed brilliantly upon her wrist.

spk_0 She looked and felt ready. She could hit absolute max in a fraction of a microsecond.

spk_0 If she had to get really tough, she would. She sent out a call.

spk_0 Helen of Lorraine, I know they've got you around here somewhere, and if any of your guards

spk_0 tried to screen out this thought, I'll burn their brains out. Clarissa of Saul three calling.

spk_0 Come in, Helen. Clarissa, this time there was no interference. A world of welcome was in every nuance

spk_0 of the thought. Where are you? High up at Clarissa gave her position. I'm in my speech,

spk_0 there, so can get to anywhere on the planet in minutes. More important, where are you? And why?

spk_0 In jail, in my own, the elder person's office. Queens should have palaces, but my range

spk_0 ruler did not. Everything was strictly utilitarian. The tower on the corner, remember? On the top floor.

spk_0 Why is too long to discuss now? I'd better tell you as much as possible of what you should know

spk_0 while there is time. Time? Are you in danger? Yes, Ladur would have killed me long ago if it had dared.

spk_0 My following grows less daily, the Bosconian stronger. The guards have already summoned help.

spk_0 They're coming now to take me. That's what they think. Clarissa had already reached the scene.

spk_0 She had exactly the velocity she wanted. She slanted downward in a screaming dive.

spk_0 Can you tell whether they're limbering up any of that Ack-Ack around the office or not?

spk_0 I don't believe so. I don't feel any such thoughts. QX, get away from the window.

spk_0 If they hadn't started already, they never would start. The red lensman was deadly sure of that.

spk_0 She came within range, her range of the guns. She was in time. Several gunners were running

spk_0 toward their stations. None of them arrived. The spister leveled off and stuck its hard nose into

spk_0 and almost through the indicated room. Reinforced concrete, steel bars, and glass showering abroad as it did so.

spk_0 The port snapped open. As Helen leapt in, Clarissa practically threw Ladur out.

spk_0 Bring Ladur back. Helen demanded, I shall have its life.

spk_0 Nix, Clarissa snapped. I know everything that she does. We've other fish to fry my deer.

spk_0 The massive door clanged shut. The spister darted forward straight through the solid concrete wall.

spk_0 That small vessel, solidly built of burillion maloise, had been designed to take brutal punishment.

spk_0 She took it. Out in open space, Clarissa went free, leaving the artificial gravity at normal.

spk_0 Helen stood up, took Clarissa's hand, and shook it gravely and strongly, a gesture at which the red

spk_0 lensman almost choked. Helen of Lyraine had changed even less than had the earth woman. She was still

spk_0 six feet tall, erect, taught, springy, and poised. She didn't weigh a pound more than the 180 she

spk_0 had scaled twenty-eyed years ago. Her vivid, all-burned hair showed not one strand of gray. Her eyes

spk_0 rest clear and as proud. Her skin almost as fine and firm. You are then alone? In spite of her

spk_0 control, Helen's thoughts showed relief. Yes, my husband, Kimmel-Kinnison, is very busy elsewhere.

spk_0 Clarissa understood perfectly. Helen, after twenty years of thinking things over, really liked her.

spk_0 But she still simply couldn't stand a male, not even Kim. Any more than Clarissa could ever

spk_0 adapt herself to the Lyranean habit of using the neuter pronoun it when referring to one of themselves.

spk_0 She couldn't. Anybody who ever got a glimpse of Helen would have to think of her as she.

spk_0 But enough of this wool gathering, which had taken perhaps one millisecond of time.

spk_0 There's nothing to keep us from working together perfectly. Clarissa's thought flashed on.

spk_0 Ladora didn't know much, and you do. So tell me all about things so that we can decide where to begin.

spk_0 End of chapter sixteen.

spk_0 Chapter seventeen. Of children of the lens.

spk_0 This liberal box recording is in the public domain. Chapter seventeen.

spk_0 When Kendron called his minion in that small and nameless base to learn whether or not he had

spk_0 succeeded in trapping the Polonian Lensmen, Nadrex relay station functioned so perfectly,

spk_0 and Nadrex was so completely in charge of his captives' mind that the caller could feel nothing

spk_0 out of the ordinary. Ultrasuspicious though Kendron was, there was nothing whatever to indicate that

spk_0 anything had changed at or pertaining to that base since he had last called its commander.

spk_0 That individual subconscious mind reacted properly to the key stimulus.

spk_0 The conscious mind took over, remembered, and answered properly a series of trick questions.

spk_0 These things occurred because the base commander was still alive. His ego, the pattern and matrix

spk_0 of his personality, was still in existence and had not been changed. What Kendron did not and

spk_0 could not suspect was that that ego was no longer in control of the commander's mind, brain, or body,

spk_0 that it was utterly unable of its own volition, either to think any Iota of independent thought

spk_0 or to stimulate any single physical cell. The Alonians' ego was present, just barely present,

spk_0 but that was all. It was Nadrex, who, using that ego as a guide, and in a sense as a helplessly

spk_0 imponent transformer, received the call. Nadrex made those exactly correct replies.

spk_0 Nadrex was now ready to render a detailed and fully documented and completely mandatious,

spk_0 report upon his own destruction. Nadrex special tracers were already out, determining line and

spk_0 intensity. Strippers and analyzers were busily at work on the fringes of the beam, dissecting out,

spk_0 isolating, and identifying each of the many scraps of extraneous thought accompanying the main beam.

spk_0 These side-thoughts, in fact, were Nadrex' prime concern. The second stage-lensman had learned

spk_0 that no being, except possibly interision, could narrow a beam of thought down to one single pure

spk_0 sequence. Only Nadrex, however, recognized in those side-bands a rich field. Only he had designed and

spk_0 developed mechanisms with which to work that field. The stronger and clearer the mind, the fewer

spk_0 and less complete were the extraneous fragments of thought. But Nadrex knew that even Kandron's brain

spk_0 would carry quite a few such non-dramane accompaniments, and from each of those bits he could

spk_0 reconstruct an entire sequence, as accurately as a competent paleontologist reconstructs a prehistoric

spk_0 animal from one fossilized piece of bone. Thus, Nadrex was completely ready when the harshly

spk_0 dominant Kandron asked his first real question. I do not suppose that you have succeeded in killing

spk_0 the lensman? Yes, your supremacy, I have. Nadrex could feel Kandron's start of surprise,

spk_0 could perceive without his instruments Kandron's fleeting thoughts of the hundreds of unsuccessful

spk_0 previous attempts upon his life. It was clear that the unloonion was not at all credulous.

spk_0 Report in detail, Kandron ordered. Nadrex did so, adhering rigidly to the truth up to the moment

spk_0 in which his probes of force had touched off the boscony in alarms. Then,

spk_0 spy-ray photographs taken at the instant of alarm show an indetectable speedster,

spk_0 with one and only one occupant, as your supremacy anticipated. A careful study of all the pictures

spk_0 taken of that occupant shows, first, that he was definitely alive at that time, and was neither a

spk_0 projection nor an artificial mechanism. And second, that his physical measurements agree in every

spk_0 particular with the specifications furnished by your supremacy as being those of Nadrex of Palain 7.

spk_0 Since your supremacy personally computed and supervised the placement of those projectors,

spk_0 Nadrex went smoothly on. You know that the possibility is vanishingly small that any material

spk_0 thing, free or inert, could have escaped destruction. As a check, I caused to be taken 729,

spk_0 three to the sixth power, samples of the circumambient space, statistically at random, for analysis.

spk_0 After appropriate allowances for the exactly observed elapsed times of sampling,

spk_0 diffusion of droplets and molecular and atomic aggregates, temperatures, pressures,

spk_0 and all other factors known or assumed to be operating, I determined that there had been present

spk_0 in the center of action of our beams, a mass of approximately 4,678.1 metric tons.

spk_0 This value your supremacy will note is in close agreement with the most efficient mass of an

spk_0 indetectable speedster designed for long distance work. That figure was in fact closer than close.

spk_0 It was an almost exact statement of the actual mass of Nadrex ship.

spk_0 Exact composition?

spk_0 Kendron demanded. Nadrex recited a rapid firestring of elements and figures.

spk_0 They, too, were correct within the experimental error of a very good analyst.

spk_0 The base commander could not possibly have known them, but it was well within the bounds of

spk_0 possibility that the insidious Kendron would. He did. He was now practically certain that his

spk_0 ableist and bitterest enemy had been destroyed at last, but there were still a few lingering shreds of

spk_0 doubt. Let me look over your work, Kendron directed. Yes, your supremacy.

spk_0 Nadrex the thorough was ready for even that extreme test. Through the eyes of the ultimately

spk_0 enslaved base commander, Kendron checked and rechecked Nadrex pictures, Nadrex charts and

spk_0 diagrams. Nadrex more than 400 pages of mathematical, physical, and chemical notes and

spk_0 determinations, all without finding a single flaw. In the end, Kendron was ready to believe that

spk_0 Nadrex had in fact ceased to exist. However, he himself had not done the work. There was no corpse.

spk_0 If he himself had killed the Pellanian, if he himself had actually felt the lensman's life

spk_0 depart in the grasp of his own tentacles, then and only then would he have known that Nadrex was dead.

spk_0 As it was, even though the work had been done in exact accordance with his own instructions,

spk_0 there remained an infinitesimal uncertainty.

spk_0 Wherefore, shift your field of operations to cover X-174 Y240 Z-16. Do not relax your vigilance

spk_0 in the slightest because of what has happened. He considered briefly the idea of allowing his

spk_0 minion to call him in case anything happened, but decided against it. Are the men standing up?

spk_0 Yes, your supremacy. They are in very good shape indeed.

spk_0 And so on. Yes, your supremacy. The psychologist is doing a very fine job.

spk_0 Yes, your supremacy. Yes. Yes.

spk_0 Very shortly after the characteristically Kendron-esque ending of that interview,

spk_0 Nadrex had learned everything he needed to know. He knew where Kendron was and what he was doing.

spk_0 He knew much of what Kendron had done during the preceding twenty years.

spk_0 And since he himself figured prominently in many of those sequences, they constituted invaluable

spk_0 checks upon the validity of his other reconstructions. He knew the construction, the armament,

spk_0 and the various ingenious mechanisms, including the locks of Kendron's vessel.

spk_0 He knew more than any other outsider had ever known of Kendron's private life.

spk_0 He knew where Kendron was going next and what he was going to do there.

spk_0 He knew in broad what Kendron intended to do during the coming century.

spk_0 Thus well informed, Nadrex set his spister into a course toward the planet of civilization

spk_0 which was Kendron's next objective. He did not hurry. It was no part of his plan to

spk_0 interfere in any way in the horrible program a planet-wide madness and slaughter which Kendron had in mind.

spk_0 It simply did not occur to him to try to save the planet as well as to kill the Anlonian.

spk_0 Nadrex, being Nadrex, took without doubt or question the safest and surest course.

spk_0 Nadrex knew that Kendron would set his vessel into an orbit around the planet and that he would

spk_0 take a small boat, a flitter, for the one personal visit necessary to establish his lines of

spk_0 communication and control. Vessel and flitter would be alike, indetectable of course,

spk_0 but Nadrex found the one easily enough and knew when the other left its mother ship.

spk_0 Then, using his lightest, stealthiest spy rays, the planian set about the exceedingly delicate

spk_0 business of boring the Bosconian craft. That undertaking could be made a story in its own right

spk_0 for Kendron did not leave his ship unguarded. However, merely by thinking about his own safety,

spk_0 Kendron had all unwittingly given away the keys to his supposedly impregnable fortress.

spk_0 While Kendron was wondering whether or not the Lensman was really dead, and especially

spk_0 after he had been convinced that he most probably was, the Anlonian's thoughts had touched

spk_0 fleetingly upon a multitude of closely-redated subjects. Would it be safe to abandon some of the

spk_0 more onerous precautions he had always taken, and which had served him so well for so many years?

spk_0 And as he thought of them, each one of his safeguards flashed at least partially into view,

spk_0 and for Nadrex any significant part was practically as good as the whole.

spk_0 Kendron's protective devices, therefore, did not protect. Projectors designed to flam out against

spk_0 intruders remained cold, ports opened, and, as Nadrex touched sundry buttons, various invisible

spk_0 beams whose breaking would have produced unpleasant results ceased to exist. In short, Nadrex knew all

spk_0 the answers. If he had not been coldly certain that his information was complete, he would not have

spk_0 acted at all. After entry, his first care was to send out spotting devices which would give ample

spk_0 warning in case the Anlonian should return unexpectedly soon. Then working in the service spaces

spk_0 behind instrument boards and panels, injunction boxes, and in various other out-of-the-way places,

spk_0 he cut into lead after lead, ran wire after wire, and installed item after item of apparatus and

spk_0 equipment upon which he had been at work for weeks. He finished his work undisturbed. He checked

spk_0 and re-checked the circuits, making absolutely certain that every major one of the vessels controlling

spk_0 leads ran two or through at least one of the things he had just installed. With pains taking

spk_0 nicety, he obliterated every visible sign of his visit. He departed as carefully as he had come,

spk_0 restoring the full efficiency as he went, each one of Kandron's burglar alarms.

spk_0 Kandron returned, entered his ship as usual, stored his flitter, and extended a tentacular member

spk_0 toward the row of switches on his panel. Don't touch anything, Kandron. He was advised by a thought

spk_0 as cold and as deadly as any one of his own, and upon the Anlonian equivalent of a visit plate,

spk_0 there appeared the one likeness which he least expected and least desired to perceive.

spk_0 Nadrach of Pallain VII, star A star, the Lensman. The Anlonian was physically and emotionally

spk_0 incapable of gasping, but the idea is appropriate. You have then wired and minded this ship.

spk_0 There was a subdued clicking of relays. The burgonhome came up to speed, the

spk_0 speech were spun about and darted straight away from the planet under a couple of kd of drive.

spk_0 I am Nadrach of Pallain VII, yes. One of the group of Lensman, whose collective activities

spk_0 you have ascribed to star A star and V Lensman. Your ship is, as you have deduced,

spk_0 mind. The only reason you did not die as you entered it is that I wish to be absolutely certain,

spk_0 and not merely statistically so, that it is actually Candra and Abano and not someone else who dies.

spk_0 That unutterable fool, Candra and Quivered in helpless rage,

spk_0 oh, that I had taken the time and killed you myself.

spk_0 If you had done your own work, the techniques I used here could not have been employed,

spk_0 and you might have been in no danger at the present moment.

spk_0 Nadrach admitted, equably enough. My powers are small, my intellect feeble,

spk_0 and what might have been has no present bearing.

spk_0 I am inclined, however, to question the validity of your conclusions, due to the known fact that

spk_0 you have been directing a campaign against me for over 20 years without success,

spk_0 whereas I have succeeded against you in less than half a year. My analysis is now complete.

spk_0 You may now touch any control you please. By the way, you do not deny that you are a Candra and Abano,

spk_0 do you? Neither of those monstrous being asked, suggested, or even thought of mercy.

spk_0 In neither of their languages was there any word for or concept of such a thing?

spk_0 That would be idle. You have a record of my life pattern, of course, just as I have one of yours,

spk_0 but I cannot understand how you got through that. It is not necessary that you should.

spk_0 Do you wish to close one of those switches, or shall I?

spk_0 Candra had been thinking for minutes, studying every aspect of his predicament.

spk_0 Knowing Nadrach, he knew just how desperate the situation was. However, there was one very small

spk_0 chance, just one. The way he had come was clear. He knew that that was the only clear way.

spk_0 Therefore, to gain an extra instant of time, he reached out toward a switch.

spk_0 But even while he was reaching, he put every ounce of his tremendous strength into a leap which

spk_0 hurled him across the room toward his flitter. No luck. One of Nadrach's minor tentacles was already

spk_0 curled around a switch, tensed and ready. Candra had not moved a foot when a relay snapped shut,

spk_0 and four canisters of Duadek detonated as one.

spk_0 Duadek applied Latamate, that frightful detonate whose violence has exceeded only by that of

spk_0 nuclear disintegration itself. There was an appalling flash of viciously white light,

spk_0 which expanded in microseconds into an enormous globe of incandescent gas,

spk_0 cooling and darkening as it expanded rapidly into the near vacuum of interplanetary space,

spk_0 the gases and vapors soon became invisible. Through and throughout, the entire volume of

spk_0 electrolyzation, Nadrach drove analyzers and detectors, until it was a mathematical certainty

spk_0 that no particle of material substance larger in diameter than five microns remained of either

spk_0 Candraan or his spaceship. He then called the Grey Lensman.

spk_0 Kinesen, Nadrach appalling seven-calling, to report that my assignment has been completed,

spk_0 I have destroyed Candraan of Anno. Good! Fine business, Ace! What kind of a picture did you get?

spk_0 He must have known something about the higher echelons, or did he? Was he just another dead end?

spk_0 I did not go into that.

spk_0 How? Why not? Kinesen demanded, exasperation in every line of his thought.

spk_0 Because it was not included in the project, Nadrach explained patiently.

spk_0 You already know that one must concentrate in order to work efficiently.

spk_0 To secure the requisite minimum of information, it was necessary to steer his thoughts into one

spk_0 and only one set of channels. There were some foreign sidebands, of course, and it may be that

spk_0 some of them touched upon this new subject which you have now too late introduced.

spk_0 No, there were no such.

spk_0 Damnation, Kinesen exploded. Then by main strength shut himself up.

spk_0 QXAs skip it. But listen, my spiny and murderous friend. Get this, and grave it in big type

spk_0 right on the top side inside of your thick skull. What we want is information, not mere liquidation.

spk_0 Next time you get hold of such a big shot as Kandron must have been, don't kill him until either.

spk_0 First, you get some leads as to who or what the real head of the outfit is, or second,

spk_0 you make sure that he doesn't know. Then kill him all you want to. But find out what he knows first.

spk_0 Have I made myself clear this time?

spk_0 You have. And as coordinator, your instructions should and will govern.

spk_0 I point out, however, that the introduction of a multiplicity of objectives into a problem

spk_0 not only destroys its unity, but also increases markedly both the time necessary for,

spk_0 and the actual personal danger involved in its solution.

spk_0 So what?

spk_0 Kinesen countered as evenly as he could. That way, we may be able to get the answer someday.

spk_0 Your way, we never will. But the things done, there's no use yapping and yowling about it now.

spk_0 Have you any ideas as to what you should do next?

spk_0 No, whatever you wish, that I shall try to do. I'll check with the others.

spk_0 He did so, receiving no helpful ideas until he consulted his wife.

spk_0 Hi, Kim, my dear. Kim Clarissa's boyant thought, and after a brief but intense greeting.

spk_0 Glad you called. Nothing definite enough yet to report to you officially. But there are indications

spk_0 that lyraine 9 may be an important 9, Kinesen interrupted. Not 8 again? 9, she confirmed. A new item.

spk_0 So I may be doing a flit over there one of these days.

spk_0 Uh-uh, he denied. Lyraine 9 would be none of your business. Stay away from it.

spk_0 Says who, she demanded. We went into this once before, Kim, about you telling me what I could

spk_0 and couldn't do. Yeah, and I came out second best. Kinesen grinned. But now, as the coordinator,

spk_0 I make suggestions to even second stage lensmen, and they follow them or else.

spk_0 I therefore suggest officially that you stay away from lyraine 9 on the grounds that,

spk_0 since it is colder than a polineous heart, it is definitely not your problem but naddrex.

spk_0 And personally, I am adding that if you don't behave yourself, I'll come over there and

spk_0 administer appropriate physical persuasion. Come on over. That would be fun.

spk_0 Clear as a giggled, then sobered quickly. But seriously, you win, I guess, this time.

spk_0 You'll keep me informed? I'll do that. Clear ether, Chris, and he turned back to the polinean.

spk_0 So you see, this is your problem. Go to it, little chum. I go, Kinesen.

spk_0 End of chapter 17.

spk_0 Chapter 18 of Children of the Lens. This libravox recording is in the public domain.

spk_0 Chapter 18. For hours, Camilla Kinesen and Trigoncy wrestled separately and fruitlessly

spk_0 with the problem of the elusive X. Then, after she had studied the rajellian's mind in a fashion,

spk_0 which she could neither detect nor employ, Camilla broke the mental silence.

spk_0 Uncle Trigon, my conclusions frighten me. Can you conceive of the possibility that it was

spk_0 contact with my mind, not yours that made X run away? That is the only tenable conclusion.

spk_0 I know the limitations of my own mind, but I have never been able to guess at the capabilities of

spk_0 yours. I fear that I at least underestimated our opponent. I know that I did, and I was terribly

spk_0 wrong. I shouldn't have tried to fool you either, even a little bit. There are some things about

spk_0 me which I just can't show to most people, but you are different. You're such a wonderful person.

spk_0 Thanks, Camilla, for your trust. Understandingly, he did not go on to say that he would keep on being

spk_0 worthy of it. I accept the fact that you five, being children of two second-stage lensmen,

spk_0 are basically beyond my comprehension. There are indications that you do not as yet thoroughly

spk_0 understand yourself. You have, however, decided upon a course of action. Oh, I'm so relieved.

spk_0 Yes, I have, but before we go into that, I haven't been able to solve the problem of X.

spk_0 More, I have proved that I cannot solve it without more data. Therefore, you can't either. Check?

spk_0 I had not yet reached that conclusion, but I accept your statement as truth.

spk_0 One of the most common powers of mine, to which you referred a while ago, is a wide range of

spk_0 perception, from large masses down to extremely tiny components. Another, or perhaps a part of the

spk_0 same one, is that, after resolving and analyzing these fine details, I can build up a logical and

spk_0 coherent whole by processes of interpolation and extrapolation. I can believe that such things

spk_0 would be possible to such a mind as yours must be. Go on. Well, that is how I know that I underestimated

spk_0 Mr. X. Whoever or whatever he is, I am completely unable to resolve the structure of his thought.

spk_0 I gave you all I got of it. Look at it again, please. Hard. What can you make of it now?

spk_0 It is exactly the same as it was before, a fragment of a simple and plain introductory thought to

spk_0 an audience. That is all. That's all I can see, too, and that's what surprises me so.

spk_0 The hitherto imperturbable and serene Camilla got up and began to paste the floor.

spk_0 That thought is apparently absolutely solid, and since that is a definitely impossible condition,

spk_0 the truth is that its structure is so fine that I cannot resolve it into its component units.

spk_0 This fact shows that I am not nearly so competent as I thought I was.

spk_0 When you and dad and the others reach that point, you each went to Eurystia. I have decided to do

spk_0 the same thing. That decision seems eminently sound. Thanks, Uncle Trigg. That was what I hoped

spk_0 you would say. I have never been there, you know, and the idea scared me a little. Clear either.

spk_0 There is no need to go into detail as to Camilla's bout with mentor. Her mind, like Karen's,

spk_0 had had to mature of itself before any treatment could be really effective.

spk_0 But once mature, she took as much in one session as Catherine had taken in all her many.

spk_0 She had not suggested that the Rijelli in accompany her to Eurystia. They both knew that he had

spk_0 already received all that he could take. Upon her return, she greeted him as casually as though

spk_0 she had gone only a matter of hours. What mentor did to me, Uncle Trigg, shouldn't have

spk_0 helped? Does it? Not at all. He scanned her narrowly, both physically and mentally.

spk_0 I can perceive no change in detail. In general, however, you have changed. You have developed.

spk_0 Yes, more than I would have believed possible. I can't do much with my present very poor

spk_0 transcription of that thought, since the all-important fine detail is missing. We'll have to intercept

spk_0 one another. I'll get it all this time, and it will tell us a lot.

spk_0 But you did something with this one, I am sure. There must have been some developable features,

spk_0 a sort of latent image effect, a little, practically infinitesimal compared to what was really there.

spk_0 Physically, his classification to four places is TUUV. Quite a bit like the Nevians, you notice.

spk_0 His home planted is big and practically covered with liquid. No real cities just groups of half-submerged

spk_0 temporary structures. Mentality very high, but we knew that already. Normally, he thinks upon a very

spk_0 short wave, so short that he was then working at the very bottom of his range. His son is a fairly

spk_0 hot main-sequence star of spectroclass somewhere around F, and it's probably more or less variable

spk_0 because there is quite a distinct implication of change. But that's normal enough, isn't it?

spk_0 Within the limits imposed by the amount and kind of data available,

spk_0 committal's observations and analyses have been perfect, her reconstruction flawless.

spk_0 She did not then have any idea, however, that X was in fact a springform plurin.

spk_0 More, she did not even know that such a planet as plur existed, except for mentors one mention of it.

spk_0 Of course, peoples of planets are variable sons, think that such sons are the only kind fit to

spk_0 have planets. You cannot reconstruct the nature of the change? No, worse, I can't find even a hint

spk_0 of where this planet is in space, but then I probably couldn't anyway, even with a whole

spk_0 fresh thought to study. Probably not. Rigial four would be an utterly meaningless thought to

spk_0 anyone ignorant of Rigel, and except when making a conscious effort as interacting strangers,

spk_0 I never think of its location in terms of galactic coordinates. I suppose that the location of a

spk_0 home planet is always taken for granted. That would seem to leave us just about where we were before

spk_0 in our search for X, except for your implied ability to intercept another of his thoughts almost at will.

spk_0 Explain, please. Not my ability, hours.

spk_0 Camilla smiled confidently. I couldn't do it alone. Neither could you, but between us,

spk_0 I don't believe that it will be too difficult. You, with your utterly calm, utterly unshakeable

spk_0 certainty, can drive a thought to any corner of the universe. You can fix and hold it steady on any

spk_0 indicated atom. I can't do that, or anything like it, but with my present ability to detect and to

spk_0 analyze, I'm not afraid of missing X if we can come within parsecs of him. So my idea is a sort of

spk_0 piggyback hunting trip. You, to take me for a ride mentally, very much as worse will take scorn

spk_0 physically. That would work, don't you think? Perfectly, I am sure. The solid vigilian was immensely

spk_0 pleased. Link your mind with mine then, and we will set out. If you have no better plan of action

spk_0 mapped out, I would suggest starting at the point where we'd lost him and working outward,

spk_0 covering an expanding sphere. You know best. I will stick to you wherever you go. I am ready.

spk_0 Tragonsi launched his thought. A thought which, out of velocity, not to be measured even in

spk_0 multiples of that of light, generated the surface of a continuously enlarging sphere of space.

spk_0 And with that thought, a very part of it, sped Camilla's incomprehensibly delicate,

spk_0 instantaneously reactive detector web. The Rijelian, with his unhuman perseverance,

spk_0 would have surveyed total space had it been necessary, and now the adult Camilla would have stayed

spk_0 with him. However, the patient pair did not have to comb all of space. In a matter of hours,

spk_0 the girl's almost infinitely tenuous detector touched, with infinitesimal power and for an

spk_0 inappreciable instant of time, the exact thought structure to which it had been so carefully attuned.

spk_0 Halt, she flashed, and Tragonsi's mighty super dreadnought shot away along the indicated

spk_0 line at maximum blast. You are not now thinking at him, of course, but how sure you that he did not

spk_0 feel your detector? Tragonsi asked. Positive, the girl replied. I couldn't even feel it myself until

spk_0 after a million-fold amplification. It was just a web, you know, not nearly solid enough for an

spk_0 analyzer or a recorder. I didn't touch his mind at all. However, when we get close enough to work

spk_0 efficiently, which we will be in about five days, we will have to touch him. Assuming that he is as

spk_0 sensitive as we are, he will feel us. Hence, we will have to work fast and according to some definite

spk_0 plan. What are your ideas as to technique? I may offer a suggestion or two later, but I resign

spk_0 leadership to you. You already have made plans, have you not? Only a framework, I could not go into

spk_0 a detail without consulting you. Since we agree that it was my mind that he did not like, you will

spk_0 have to make the first contact. Of course. But since the action of thought is so nearly instantaneous,

spk_0 are you sure that you will be able to protect yourself in case he overcomes me at that first contact?

spk_0 If the Rijelian gave any thought at all to his own fate in such a case, no trace of it was evident.

spk_0 My screens are good. I am fairly certain that I could protect both of us, but it might slow me

spk_0 down a trifle, and even an instance delay might keep me from getting the information we want.

spk_0 It would be better, I think, to call kid in, or better yet, K. She can stop a superatomic bomb.

spk_0 With K covering us both, we will be free to put our full power into the offense.

spk_0 And that offense is to be, I have no idea, we will work that out together. Again, they win into a union

spk_0 of minds, considering, weighing, analyzing, rejecting, and a few times, accepting. And finally, well within

spk_0 the five-day time limit, they had drawn up a completely detailed plan of battle. How uselessly that time was spent,

spk_0 for that battle, instead of progressing according to their carefully worked out plan,

spk_0 was ended almost in the instant of its beginning. According to plan, Tragonsi tuned his mind to

spk_0 X's pattern as soon as they had come within working range. He worked out as delicately as he could,

spk_0 and his best was very fine work indeed. He might just as well have struck with all his power,

spk_0 for at the first touch of the fringe, extremely light and entirely innocuous thought it was,

spk_0 the strangers barriers flared into being, and there came back instantly a mental bolt of such

spk_0 vicious intensity that it would have gone through Tragonsi's hardest-held block as though no barrier

spk_0 had been there. But that bolt did not strike Tragonsi's shield. He did not even know until much

spk_0 later that it had been set. Instead, it struck Karen Kinesens, which has already been described.

spk_0 It did not exactly bounce, nor did it cling, nor did it linger, even for a microsecond to do battle as

spk_0 expected. It simply vanished, as though that minute interval of time had been sufficient for the

spk_0 enemy to ever cover it from the shock of encountering a completely unexpected resistance,

spk_0 to have analyzed the texture of the shield, to have deduced from that analysis the full capabilities

spk_0 of its owner and operator, to have decided that he did not care to have any dealings with the

spk_0 entity so deduced, and finally, as he no doubt supposed, to have begun to retreat in good order.

spk_0 His retreat, however, was not in good order. He did not escape this time. This time, as she had declared

spk_0 that she would be, Camilla was ready for anything, literally anything. Everything she had, and she had

spk_0 plenty, was on the trips, tense, taught, and poised. Knowing that Karen, the ultimate of defense,

spk_0 was on guard, she was wholly free to hurl her every force in the instant of perceiving the enemy's

spk_0 poignant thrust. Scarcely had the leading element of her attack touch the stranger's screens,

spk_0 when those screens, ex-himself, his vessel, and any others that might have been accompanying it,

spk_0 and everything tangible in nearby space, all disappeared at once in the inconceivably violent,

spk_0 the ultimately cataclysmic detonation of a superatomic bomb.

spk_0 It may not perhaps be generally known that the completely liberating or superatomic bomb

spk_0 liberates 100% of the total component energy of two or more subcritical masses of an unstable isotope,

spk_0 in a space of time estimated to be 69-hundreds of one microsecond.

spk_0 Its violence and destructive-ess thus differ both in degree and in kind, from those of the earlier

spk_0 type, which liberated only the energy of nuclear fission, very much as the radiation of esteratus

spk_0 differs from that of Earth's moon. Its massotains and holds for an appreciable length of time,

spk_0 a temperature to be measured only in millions of centigrade degrees,

spk_0 which fact accounts in large part for its utterly incredible vehemence.

spk_0 Nothing inert in its entire sphere of primary action can even begin to move out of the way

spk_0 before being reduced to its subatomic constituents and thus contributing in some measure to the

spk_0 cataclysm. Nothing is or becomes visible until the secondary stage begins,

spk_0 until the frightful globe has expanded to a diameter of some hundreds of miles,

spk_0 and by this expansion has cooled down to a point at which some of its radiation lies in the

spk_0 visible violet. As for lethal radiation, there are radiations, and they are lethal.

spk_0 The battle with X had occupied approximately two milliseconds of actual time.

spk_0 The expansion had been progressing for a second or two when Karen Lourge or Shield.

spk_0 Well, that finishes that, she commented. I better get back on the job.

spk_0 Did you find out what you want to know, Cam, or not?

spk_0 I got a little in the moment before the explosion, not much. Camilla was deep in study.

spk_0 It is going to be quite a job of reconstruction. One thing of interest to you, though,

spk_0 is that this X had quit sabotaged temporarily and was on his way to lie-ring nine,

spk_0 where he had some kind of important, nine, Karen asked sharply, not eight.

spk_0 I've been watching eight, you know. I haven't even thought of nine.

spk_0 Nine definitely. The thought was clear. You might give it a scan once in a while.

spk_0 How is Mother doing? She's doing a grand job, and that Helen is quite an operator too.

spk_0 I'm not doing much. Just a touch here and there. I'll see what I can see on nine.

spk_0 I'm not the scanner or detector that you are, though, you know. Maybe you'd better come over here, too,

spk_0 in person, suppose? I think so. Don't you, Uncle Trigg? Trigon, she did. We can do some exploring

spk_0 as we come, but since I have no definite patterns for web work, we might not be able to do much

spk_0 until we get close. Clear EtherK. The fine structure is there, and I can resolve it and analyze it.

spk_0 Camilla informed Trigoncy after a few hours of intense concentration.

spk_0 There are quite a few clear, extraneous sequences, instead of the blurred latent images we had before,

spk_0 but there is still no indication whatever of the location of his home planet.

spk_0 I can see his physical classification to ten places instead of four. More detail as to the sun's

spk_0 variation, the seasons, their habits, and so on. Things that seem mostly to be a very little

spk_0 importance, as far as we are concerned. I found one fact, though, that is new and important.

spk_0 According to my reconstruction, his business of lyraine-9 was the induction of Bosconian

spk_0 Lensman. Black Lensman Trigoncy, just as father suspected. In that case, he must have been the

spk_0 Bosconian counterpart of an Eurasian, and hence one of the highest echelon. I am very glad,

spk_0 indeed, that you and Karen relieve me of the necessity of trying to handle him myself.

spk_0 Kinnison will be very glad to know that we have at last, and in fact, reached the top.

spk_0 Camilla was paying attention to the rajellian's cogitations, with only a fraction of

spk_0 her mind. Most of it being engaged in a private conversation with her brother.

spk_0 So you see, Kit, he was under a subconscious compulsion. He had to destroy himself,

spk_0 his ship, and everything in it, in the very instant of attack by any mind definitely superior to his

spk_0 own. Therefore, he couldn't have been an adorian possibly, but merely another intermediate,

spk_0 and I haven't been of much help. Sure you have, Cam. You've got a lot of information,

spk_0 and some mighty good leaves to lyraine-9 and what goes on there. I'm on my way to Edor now,

spk_0 and by working down from there and up from lyraine-9 we can't go wrong.

spk_0 Clearate their sys.

spk_0 This Libber of Oaks recording is in the public domain. Chapter 19

spk_0 Constance Kinnison did not waste much time in idle recriminations, even at herself,

spk_0 realizing at last that she was still not fully competent, and being able to define exactly what

spk_0 she lacked, she went to ERISIA for final treatment. She took that treatment and emerged from it,

spk_0 as her brother and sisters had emerged a completely integrated personality.

spk_0 She had something of everything the others had, of course, as did they all. But her dominance,

spk_0 the characteristics which had operated to make Worsal her favorite second stage lenseman,

spk_0 were much like those of the valantian. Her mind, like his, was quick and facile,

spk_0 yet of extraordinary power and range. She did not have much of her father's flat driving urge,

spk_0 or of his indomitable will to do, she was the least able of all the five to exert long-sustained

spk_0 extreme effort. Her top, however, was vastly higher than theirs. Like Worsals, her armament was almost

spk_0 entirely offensive. She was far and away the deadliest fighter of them all. She, only of them all,

spk_0 had more than a trace of pure killer instinct. And when Rouse to full fighting pitch,

spk_0 her mental bolts were weapons of a starkly incomprehensible ineffectiveness as the sphere of primary

spk_0 action of a superatomic bomb. As soon as Constance had left the Veland, remarking that she was going

spk_0 to Aricia to take her medicine, Worsal called a staff meeting to discuss in detail the matter of

spk_0 the hellhole in space. That conference was neither long nor heated. It was unanimously agreed that

spk_0 the phenomenon was, must be, simply another undiscovered cavern of overlords. In view of the fact that

spk_0 Worsal and his crew had been hunting down and killing overlords for more than twenty years,

spk_0 the only logical course of action was for them to deal similarly with one more,

spk_0 perhaps the only remaining large group of their hereditary foes. Nor did any doubt of their ability

spk_0 to do so enter any one of the Valentian's minds. How wrong they were. They did not have to search

spk_0 for the hellhole. Long since, to stop his dreadful toll, a spherical cordon of robot

spk_0 guardianships had been posted to warn all traffic away from the outer fringes of its influence.

spk_0 Since they merely warned against but could not physically prohibit entry into the dangerous space,

spk_0 Worsal did not pay any attention to the guardianships or to their signals as the Veland went through

spk_0 the warning web. His plans were, he thought, well laid. His ship was free. Its speed by Valentian

spk_0 standards was very low. Each member of his crew wore a full coverage thought screen. A similar and

spk_0 vastly more powerful screen would surround the whole vessel if one of Worsal's minor members

spk_0 were either to tighten or to relax its grip upon a spring-mounted control. Worsal was, he thought,

spk_0 ready for anything. But the hellhole in space was not a cavern of overlords. No sun, no planet,

spk_0 nothing material existed within that spherical volume of space. That something was there, however,

spk_0 there was no doubt. Slow as was the Veland's pace. It was still too fast by far.

spk_0 For in a matter of minutes, through the supposedly impervious thought screens,

spk_0 there came an attack of utterly malignant ferocity, an assault which tore Worsal's mind

spk_0 in a fashion he had never imagined possible. A poignant, rinding, unbearably crescendo force

spk_0 whose violence seemed to double with every mile of advance. The Veland's all-encompassing

spk_0 screen snapped on uselessly. Its tremendous power was as unopposed as were the lesser powers of

spk_0 the personal shields, that highly inimical thought was coming past, not through the barriers.

spk_0 An Erysian, or one of the children of the lens, would have been able to perceive and to block that

spk_0 band. No one of lesser mental stature could. Strong and fast as Worsal was mentally and physically,

spk_0 he got his vessel turned around just barely in time. All his resistance and all his strength had

spk_0 to be called into play to maintain his mind's control over his body, to enable him to spin his

spk_0 ship in for end and to kicker drive up to maximum blast. To his surprise, his agony decreased

spk_0 with distance as rapidly as it had built up. Disappearing entirely well before the Veland reached the

spk_0 web she had crossed such a short time before. Groggy, sick and shaken, hanging slightly from his

spk_0 bars, the valantian lensman was roused to action by the mental and physical frenzy of his crew.

spk_0 Ten of them had died in the hellhole. Six more were torn to bits before their commander could

spk_0 muster enough force to stop their insane rioting. Then Master Therapist Worsal went to work,

spk_0 and one by one he brought the survivors back. They remembered, but he made those memories bearable.

spk_0 He then called Kineson. But there didn't seem to be anything personal about it,

spk_0 as one would expect from an overlord. He concluded his brief report. It did not concentrate on us,

spk_0 reach for us, or follow us as we left. Its intensity seemed to vary only with distance.

spk_0 Perhaps inversely as distance squared. It might very well have been radiated from a center.

spk_0 While it was nothing like anything I ever felt before, I still think that it must be an overlord,

spk_0 maybe a sort of second stage overlord, just as you and I are second stage lensman.

spk_0 He is too strong for me now, just as they used to be too strong for us before we met you.

spk_0 By the same reasoning, however, I am pretty sure that if you can come over here,

spk_0 you and I together could figure out a way of taking him. How about it?

spk_0 Mighty interesting, and I'd like to, but I'm right in the middle of a job.

spk_0 Kineson replied, and went on to explain rapidly what he, as Brad Lothiron, had done and what he still

spk_0 had to do. As soon as I can get away, I'll come over. In the meantime, fellow old Snake,

spk_0 keep away from there. Do a flit. Find something else to keep you amused until I can join you.

spk_0 Worsal set out, and after a few days, or weeks, idle time means practically nothing to a valantian,

spk_0 a sharply lensed thought drove in. Help! A lensman calling help! Line this thought and come at

spk_0 speed to a system. The message ended as sharply as it had begun. In a flare of agony which

spk_0 Worsal knew met that the lensman, whoever he was, had died. Since the thoughts, although broadcast,

spk_0 had come in strong and clear, Worsal knew that its center had been close by. While the time had

spk_0 been very short indeed, he had been able to get a line of sorts. Into that line he world the

spk_0 Villeux-Shart Proud, and along it she hurtled at the literally inconceivable pace of her absolute

spk_0 maximum drive. As the grey lensman had often remarked, the valantian super-dreadnut had more legs

spk_0 than a centipede, and now she was using them all. In minutes then, the scene of battle grew large

spk_0 upon her plates. The patrolship, hopelessly outclassed, could last only seconds longer. Her screens

spk_0 were down. Her very wall shield was dead. Red Puckmark sprang into being along her sides as the

spk_0 Bosconian needle-beamers wiped out her few remaining controls. Then, as the helplessly raging

spk_0 Worsal looked on, his brain seething with unutterable valantian profanity, the enemy prepared to board.

spk_0 A course of action which Worsal could see was changed abruptly by the fact, and perhaps as well

spk_0 by the terrific velocity of his own unswerving approach. The conquered patrol cruiser

spk_0 disappeared in a blaze of detonating duodeck. The conqueror devoted his every jet to the task of

spk_0 running away, stroing his path as he did so with sundry items of solid and explosive destruction.

spk_0 Such things, however, whether derigable or not, whether inert or free, were old and simple

spk_0 stuff to the Vylin's war-wise crew. Their spotters and detectors were full out, as was also a

spk_0 practically solid forefand of annihilating and disintegrating beams. Thus none of the Bosconian's

spk_0 missiles touched the Vylin, nor with all his speed could he escape. Few indeed were the ships of

spk_0 space able to step it, parsec for parsec, with Worsals mighty craft, and this luckless pirate vessel

spk_0 was not one of them. Up and up the pursuer rushed, second by second, the intervening distance

spk_0 lessoned. Tractor shot out, locked on, and pulled briefly with all the force of their stupendous

spk_0 generators. Briefly, but long enough. As Worsal had anticipated, that savage yank had in the fraction

spk_0 of a second required for the Bosconian commander to recognize and to cut the tractors,

spk_0 been enough to bring the two inertialist warcraft practically screened to screen.

spk_0 Primaries blast, Worsal hurled a thought even before his tractors snapped. He was in no mood for a

spk_0 long drawn-out engagement. He might be able to win with his secondaries, his needles, his tremendously

spk_0 powerful short-range stuff and his other ordinary offensive weapons, but he was taken no chances.

spk_0 Besides, the Bosconians might very well have primaries of their own by this time, and if they did,

spk_0 his only chance was to use them first. His men knew what to do and would do it without further orders.

spk_0 A dozen or so of those hellishly irresistible protectors of sheer destruction

spk_0 lashed out his one. One, two, three. The three courses of Bosconian defensive screens scarcely

spk_0 winked as each, locally overloaded, flair through the visible into the black and went down.

spk_0 Crash. The stubborn fabric of the wall shield offered little more resistance before it too went

spk_0 down, exposing the bare metal of the Bosconians hull. And, as well known, any conceivable material

spk_0 substance simply vanishes traciously at the nearest touch of such fields of force as those.

spk_0 Driving projectors carved away and main battery silenced, Worsal's needle-beamers preceded

spk_0 systematically to riddle every control panel and every lifeboat, to make of the immense space

spk_0 rover a completely helpless hulk. Hold and observe a flash to thought. Number eight slip is empty.

spk_0 Number eight lifeboat got away. Damnation, Worsal at the head of his arm that armored storming party

spk_0 as furiously eager as they to come to grips with the enemy paused briefly. Tracit, or can you?

spk_0 I did. My tracers can hold it for fifteen minutes, perhaps twenty, no longer than twenty.

spk_0 Worsal thought intensely, which had first call, ship or lifeboat. The ship he decided almost

spk_0 instantly. Its resources were vastly greater. Most of its personnel were probably practically

spk_0 unharmed. Given any time at all, they might very well be able to jury-rig a primary, and that would

spk_0 be bad, very bad. Besides, there were more people here, and even if, as was distinctly possible,

spk_0 the Bosconian Big Shot had abandoned his vessel and his crew in an attempt to save his own life,

spk_0 Worsal had plenty of time. Hold that lifeboat. He instructed the observer. Ten minutes is all we need

spk_0 here. And it was. The Bosconians, beryll-bodied, blocky-limbed monstrosities resembling human beings

spk_0 about as much as they did the Valantians. War armor possessed hand-weapons of power and fought

spk_0 viciously. They had even managed to rig a few semi-portable projectors, but none of these were

spk_0 allowed a single blast. Spy-ray observers were alert, and needle-beam operators. Hence, the fighting

spk_0 was all at hand to hand, with hand weapons only. For while the Valantians, to a man lusted to kill,

spk_0 they had had drilled into them for twenty years that the search for information came first,

spk_0 the pleasure of killing second. Worsal himself went straight for the Bosconian captain,

spk_0 his pre-selected prey. That white had a couple of guards with him, but they did not matter.

spk_0 Need a ray man took care of them. He also had a pair of heavy beam guns, which he held steadily on

spk_0 the Valantian. Worsal paused momentarily. Then, finding that his screens were adequate,

spk_0 he slammed the control room door shut with a flick of his tail and launched himself straight and

spk_0 level at his foe, with an acceleration of seven gravities. The captain tried to dodge, but could not.

spk_0 The frightful impact did not kill him, but it hurt him badly. Worsal, on the other hand, was

spk_0 from birth to knocking about which would pulverize human bones. Worsal battered the Bosconians

spk_0 guns away with two terrific blows of an armored paw, noting as he did so that violent contact with

spk_0 a steel wall did not do their interior mechanisms a bit of good. Then, after cutting off both his

spk_0 enemy screens and his own, he battered the Bosconians helmet. At first, experimentally, then with all his

spk_0 power. Unfortunately, however, it held. So did the thought screen, and there were no external

spk_0 controls. That armor was good stuff. Leaping to the ceiling, he blasted his whole mass straight

spk_0 down upon the breastplate, striking at so hard this time that he heard his head. Still no use.

spk_0 He wedged himself between two heavy braces, flipped a loop of tail around the Bosconians feet,

spk_0 and heaved. The armored form flew across the room, struck the heavy steel wall, bounced and dropped.

spk_0 The bulges of the armor were flattened by the force of the collision. The wall was deaded,

spk_0 but the thought screen still held. Worsal was running out of time fast. He couldn't treat the

spk_0 thing very much rougher without killing him if he wasn't dead already. He couldn't take him

spk_0 aboard. He had to cut that screen here and now. He could see how the armor was put together,

spk_0 but armored as he was, he could not take it apart. And since the whole ship was empty of air,

spk_0 he could not open his own. Or could he? He could. He could breathe space long enough to do what had

spk_0 to be done. He cut off his air, loosened the plate enough to release four or five gnarled hands,

spk_0 and paying no attention to his involuntarily-laboring lungs set furiously to work.

spk_0 He tore open the Bosconian's armor, snapped off his thought screen. The creature was not quite dead yet.

spk_0 Good. He didn't know a thing, though, nor did any member of his crew, except, yes, one man,

spk_0 a big shot, had got away. Who or what was he? Tell me, Worsal demanded, with the full power of

spk_0 mind and lens, even while he was exploring with all his skill and speed. Tell me!

spk_0 But the Bosconian was dying fast. The un-gental treatment and now the lack of air were taking toll.

spk_0 His patterns were disintegrating by the second, faster and faster.

spk_0 Meaningless blurs, which under Worsal's vicious probing, condensed into something which seemed to

spk_0 be a lens. A lensman? Impossible, starkly unthinkable. But yet back, hadn't him intimated a

spk_0 while back that there might be such things as black lensman? But Worsal himself wasn't feeling

spk_0 so good. He was only half-conscious. Red, black, and purple spots were dancing in front of every

spk_0 one of his eyes. He sealed his suit, turned on his air, gasped, and staggered. Two of the nearest

spk_0 valantians, all of whom had, of course, been on rapport with him throughout, came rushing to his aid,

spk_0 arriving just as he recovered full control. Back to the veal, and everybody, he ordered. No time for

spk_0 any more fun. We've got to get that lifeboat. Then as soon as he had been obeyed, bombed that hulk,

spk_0 good, flit. Overtaking the lifeboat did not take along,

spk_0 spearing it with a tractor and yanking it alongside required only seconds. For all his haste,

spk_0 Worsal found in it only something that looked as though it once might have been a delgonian lensman.

spk_0 It had blown itself apart with a grenade. Because of its reptilian tenacity of life, however,

spk_0 it was not quite dead. Its lens still showed an occasional flicker of light, and its shattered

spk_0 mind was not yet entirely devoid of patterns. Worsal studied that mind until all trace of life

spk_0 had vanished, then again reported to the coordinator. So you see, I guessed wrong. The lens was too

spk_0 dim to read, but he must have been a black lensman. The only readable thought in his mind was an

spk_0 extremely fuzzy one of the planet lyraine nine. I hate to have hashed the job up so, especially since

spk_0 I had one chance in two of guessing right. Well, no use in squawking now. Kinnison paused in thought.

spk_0 Besides, he could have done it anyway and would have. You haven't done so badly at that.

spk_0 You found a black lensman who was not a cologne, and you've got confirmation of bosconian interest

spk_0 in lyraine nine. What more do you want? Stick around fairly close to the hellhole slim,

spk_0 and as soon as I can make it, I'll join you there.

spk_0 This Libbervox recordings in the public domain. Children of the Lens, chapter 20.

spk_0 Boys take her upstairs. Kinnison Thyrin ordered, and the tremendous rater, actually the

spk_0 Dauntless in disguise, floated serenely upward to a station immediately a stern of the vice admiral's

spk_0 flagship. All three courses of multiplied defensive screen were out as were full coverage spy

spk_0 ray blocks and thought screens. As the fleet blasted in tight formation for Cologne III,

spk_0 Vice Admiral Mendenai tested the Dauntless defenses thoroughly and found them bottle tight.

spk_0 No intrusion was possible. The only open channel was that one plate to plate,

spk_0 the other end of which was so villainously fogged that nothing could be seen except Bradlow

spk_0 Thyrin's face. Convinced at last of that fact, Mendenai set back and seeth quietly,

spk_0 his pervasive Cologneian blueness pointing up his grim and vicious mood.

spk_0 He had never in all his long life been insulted so outrageously. Was there anything,

spk_0 anything he could do about it? There was not. Thyrin personally, he could not touch yet,

spk_0 and the fact that the outlaw had so brazenly and so nonchalantly placed his vessel in the exact

spk_0 center of the Bosconian fleet made it polucily clear to any Bosconian mind that he had nothing

spk_0 whatever to fear from that fleet. Wherefore the Cologneian seethed, and his minions stepped ever

spk_0 more softly and followed with ever increasing puntilio the rigid Bosconian code.

spk_0 For the grapevine carries new swiftly. By this time the whole fleet knew that his nibs

spk_0 had been taken a god-awful kicking around, and that the first guy who gave him an excuse to blow

spk_0 off steam would be lucky if he only got boiled in oil. As the fleet spread out for inert maneuver

spk_0 ing above the Cologneian stratosphere, Kinnison turned again to the young Lensman.

spk_0 One last word, Frank. I am as sure as I can be that I am fully covered. A lot of smart people

spk_0 worked on this problem. Nevertheless, something may happen, so I will send you the data as fast as I

spk_0 get it. Remember what I told you before. If I get the dope we need, I'm expendable, and it'll be

spk_0 your job to get it back to base. No heroics. Is that clear? Yes, sir. The young Lensman gulped.

spk_0 I hope though that it doesn't, so do I. Kinnison grinned as he climbed into his highly specialized

spk_0 durian armor, and the chances are a million to one that it won't. That's why I'm going down there.

spk_0 In their respective species, Kinnison and Menden I made the long drop to the ground,

spk_0 and side by side they went into the office of Black Lensman Malastikov. That were the two war heavy

spk_0 armor, but he did not have a mechanical thought screen. Ericantly conscious of his tremendous power

spk_0 of mind, what did any Black Lensman need of mechanical shields? Thyrin of course did. A fact of

spk_0 which Malastikov became instantly aware. Release your screen, he directed brusquely.

spk_0 Not yet, pal. Don't be so hasty. Thyrin advised. There are some things about this here hook up

spk_0 that I don't exactly like. We got quite a bit of talking to do before I open up. No talkworm,

spk_0 talk, especially your talk, is entirely meaningless. From you I want, and will have the truth,

spk_0 and not talk. Cut those screens. And lovely Catherine in her speech are not too far away,

spk_0 straightened up and sent out a call. Kit, K, Kamm, Kahn, are you free? They were for the moment.

spk_0 Stand by, please all of you. I'm pretty sure something is going to happen.

spk_0 Dad can handle this Malastikov easily enough if none of the higher-up step in, but they probably will.

spk_0 Their Lensman are probably important enough to rate protection. Check. Check.

spk_0 So as soon as Dad begins to get the best of the argument, the protector will step in.

spk_0 Catherine continued, and whether I can handle him alone or not depends on how high a high a

spk_0 rough they send in. So I'd like to have you all stand by for a minute or two, just in case.

spk_0 How different was Catherine's attitude now than it had been in the hyperspacial tube?

spk_0 And how well for civilization that it was?

spk_0 Hold it, kids. I've got a thought. Kit suggested.

spk_0 We've never done any teamwork since you became able to handle heavy stuff,

spk_0 and we'll have to get in some practice before the big blow-off.

spk_0 Let's see, we link up now on this. Oh, yes, let's do. Take over, Kit.

spk_0 Three approvals came as one, and QX came Catherine's less-enthusiastic concurrence a moment later.

spk_0 Naturally enough, she would rather do it alone if she could, but she had to admit that her brother's

spk_0 plan was the better. Kit laid out the matrix, and the four girls came in. There was a brief

spk_0 moment of snuggling and fitting, then each of the five caught his breath in awe. This was new,

spk_0 brand new. Each had thought himself complete and full. Each had supposed that much practice,

spk_0 and at least some give and take would be necessary before they could work efficiently as a group.

spk_0 But this. This was the supposedly unattainable. Perfection itself. This was unity, full,

spk_0 round, complete. No practice was or ever would be necessary. Not one microsecond of doubt,

spk_0 or of uncertainty would or ever could exist. This was the unit, a thing for which there are no

spk_0 words in any written or spoken language. A thing there to for undream of, save as a purely theoretical

spk_0 concept in an unthinkably ancient four-ply arisean brain. You, M, N, G, N, K, Kit swallowed a lump

spk_0 as big as his fist before he could think. This kid is really some, ah, children, you have done it.

spk_0 Mentors thought rolled smoothly in. You now understand why I could not attempt to

spk_0 describe the unit to any one of you. This is the culminating moment of my life. Of our lives,

spk_0 we may now say, for the first time in more years than you can understand, we are at last sure that

spk_0 our lives have not been lived in vain. But attend that for which you are waiting will soon be here.

spk_0 What is it? Who? Tell us how to. We cannot.

spk_0 For a separate arisean smiled as one, a wash of ineffable blessing and benedictions affuse the five.

spk_0 We, who made the unit possible, are almost completely ignorant of the details of its higher functions.

spk_0 But that it will need no help from our lesser minds is certain. It is the most powerful and the

spk_0 most nearly perfect creation this universe has ever seen. The ariseans vanished, and even before

spk_0 Kimbo-Kinison had released his screen, a cryptic, utterly untraceable, and all pervasive foreign

spk_0 thought came in. To aid the black lensman, to study this disturbing new element, or merely to observe,

spk_0 or what? The only certainty was that that thought was coldly, clearly and highly inimical to all

spk_0 civilization. Again, everything happened at once. Carrons in penitural block flared into being,

spk_0 not instantly but instantaneously. Constance assembled and hurled in the same lack of time,

spk_0 a mental bolt of whose size and power she had never dreamed herself capable.

spk_0 Camilla, the detector scanner, synchronized herself with the attacking thought and steered,

spk_0 and Catherine and Kit, with all the force, all the will, and all the drive of human heredity,

spk_0 got behind it and pushed. Nor was this any of it conscious individual effort.

spk_0 The children of the lens were not now five, but one. This was the unit at work, doing its first job.

spk_0 It is literally impossible to describe what happened, but each of the five knew that one would be

spk_0 protector wherever he had been in space or whenever in time would never think again.

spk_0 Seconds passed. The unit held tense awaiting the repost. No repost came.

spk_0 Fine work, kids. Kit broke the linkage and each girl felt hard, brotherly paths on her back.

spk_0 That's all there is to this one, I guess. Must have been only one guard on duty.

spk_0 Your good eggs, and I like you. How we can operate now.

spk_0 But it was too easy, Kit. Catherine protested. Too easy by far for it to have been an adorian.

spk_0 We aren't that good. Why, I could have handled him alone, I think.

spk_0 She added hastily as she realized that she, although an essential part of the unit,

spk_0 had as yet no real understanding of what that unit really was.

spk_0 You hope you mean, Constance jeered. If that bolt was as big and as hot as I'm afraid it was,

spk_0 anything it hit would have looked easy. Why didn't you slow us down, Kit? You're supposed to be

spk_0 the big brain, you know. As it was, we haven't the faintest idea of what happened. Who was he anyway?

spk_0 Didn't have time, Kit grinned. Everything got out of hand. All of us were sort of

spk_0 inebriated by the exuberance of our own enthusiasm, I guess. Not that we know what our speed is,

spk_0 though, we can slow down next time, if we want to. As for your last question, Conn, you're asking

spk_0 the wrong guy. Was it an adorian cam or not? What difference does it make, Karen asked? On the

spk_0 practical side, none. For the completion of the picture, maybe a lot. Come in, Cam. It was not an

spk_0 adorian. Camilla decided. It was not a vericion, or even near a vericion grade.

spk_0 Sorry to say it, Kit, but it was another member of that high-thinking race that you've already

spk_0 got down on page one of your little black book. I thought it might be. The missing link between

spk_0 Colonia and Edor. Credits to Milo's is that dopey planet plur that mentor was yowling about.

spk_0 Let's link up and let the unit find it. Constance suggested brightly. That'd be fun.

spk_0 Act your age, baby. Kit advised. Plur is taboo. You know that as well as I do.

spk_0 Mentor told us all not to try to investigate it. That we'd learn of it in time, so we probably will.

spk_0 I told him a while back that I was going to hunt it up myself, and he told me that if I did,

spk_0 he'd tie both my legs around my neck and a lover's knot, or words to that effect.

spk_0 Sometimes I'd like to have brain the old buzzard, but everything he has said so far has dead

spk_0 centered the beam. We'll just have to take it and try to like it.

spk_0 Kinnison was eminently willing to cut his thoughts green, since he could not work through it to do

spk_0 what had to be done here, nor was he overconfident. He knew that he could handle the black lensman,

spk_0 any black lensman, but he also knew enough of mental phenomena in general and of lensmanship

spk_0 in particular to realize that molastic off might very well have within call reserves about whom he

spk_0 Kinnison could know nothing. He knew that he had lied outrageously to young Frank in regard to the

spk_0 God's applicable to this enterprise, that instead of a million to one, the actuality was one to one,

spk_0 or even less. Nevertheless, he was well content. He had neither lied nor exaggerated in saying that

spk_0 he himself was expendable. That was why Frank and the daughters were upstairs now. Getting the dope

spk_0 and getting it back to base were what mattered. Nothing else did. He was coldly certain that he could

spk_0 get all the information that molastic off had, once he had engaged the colonial lensman mind to mind.

spk_0 No buscony in power or thing he was convinced could treat him rough enough to kill him fast enough

spk_0 to keep him from doing that. And he could and would shoot this stuff along to Frank as fast as he got it.

spk_0 And he stood in even, almost even anyway, chance of getting away afterward. If he could, QX. If he

spk_0 couldn't, well, that would have to be QX2. Kiss and flipped his switch and there ensued a conflict of

spk_0 wills that made the sub-either boil. The colonial was one of the strongest, hardest, and ableist

spk_0 individuals of his hellishly capable race. And the fact that he believed implicitly in his own

spk_0 complete invulnerability operated a double and a quadruple his naturally tremendous strength.

spk_0 On the other hand, Kimball Kineson was a second stage lensman of the Galactic Patrol.

spk_0 Back and back then, inch by inch and foot by foot, the black lensman's defensive zone was forced,

spk_0 back to and down into his own mind. And there, appallingly enough, Kineson found almost nothing of value.

spk_0 No knowledge of the higher reaches of the Baskonian organization. No hint that any real

spk_0 organization of black lensman existed. Only the peculiarly disturbing fact that he had picked up

spk_0 his lens on lyraine 9, and picked up was literal. He had not seen, nor heard, or had any dealings of

spk_0 any kind with anyone while he was there. Since both armored figures stood motionless,

spk_0 no sign of the tremendous actuality of their mental battle was evident. Thus the Baskonians were

spk_0 not surprised to hear their black lensman speak. Very wealth-dyrund, you have passed this preliminary

spk_0 examination. I know all that I now need to know. I will accompany you to your vessel to complete

spk_0 my investigation there, lead the way. Kineson did so, and as the speaster came to rest inside the

spk_0 gauntless, the black lensman addressed of ice-adromed men and I via plate. I am taking Brad Othyrin and

spk_0 its ship to the spaceyards on four, where a really comprehensive study of it can be made,

spk_0 return to and complete your original assignment. I abase myself your supremacy, but I discovered

spk_0 that ship, meant and I protested. Granted, the black lensman sneered, you will be given full

spk_0 credit in the report for what you have done. The fact of discovery, however, does not excuse your

spk_0 present conduct. Go, and consider yourself fortunate that, because of that service, I forebear

spk_0 from disciplining you for your intolerable insubordination. I abase myself your supremacy, I go.

spk_0 He really did abase himself this time, and the fleet disappeared.

spk_0 Then, the mighty Dauntless safely away from Cologne and on her course to rendezvous with the

spk_0 Veland, Kineson again went over his captive's mind, line by line and almost sell by sell.

spk_0 It was still the same. It was still line-ringed nine, and it still didn't make any kind of sense.

spk_0 Since Baskonians were certainly not supermen, and hence could not possibly have developed their

spk_0 own lenses, it followed that they must have obtained them from the Baskonian counterpart of Eurycia.

spk_0 Hence, line-ringed nine must be it, a conclusion which was certainly fallacious, ridiculous,

spk_0 preposterous, utterly untenable. Line-ringed nine never had been was not, and never would be,

spk_0 the home of any Baskonian super-race. Nevertheless, it was a definite fact that Malasnikov had

spk_0 his lens there. Also, if he had ever had any special training, such as any lensman must have had,

spk_0 he didn't have any memory of it. Nor did he carry any scars of surgery. What a hash!

spk_0 How could anybody make any sense out of such a mess is that?

spk_0 Ever watchful Catherine, eyes narrowed now in concentration, could have told him, but she did not.

spk_0 Her visualization was beginning to clear up.

spk_0 Lyrane was out. So was Plur. The lenses originated on Edor, that was certain.

spk_0 The fact that their training was subconscious weakened the Black Lensmen, and precisely the

spk_0 characteristics requisite for ultimate strength, although probably neither the Adorians nor the

spk_0 Plurans, with their warped Baskonian sense of values, realized it. The Black Lensmen would never

spk_0 constitute a serious problem. QX

spk_0 The time of rendezvous approached. Kinesen, having attended to the unpleasant but necessary job

spk_0 of resolving Malasnikov into his component atoms, turned to his Lensmen aid.

spk_0 Hold everything frank until I get back. This won't take long. Nor did it, although the outcome was not

spk_0 at all what the Grey Lensmen had expected. Kinesen and Worsal, in an inert speedster,

spk_0 crossed the Hellholes barrier web at a speed of only miles per hour, and then slowed down.

spk_0 The ship was backing in on her brakes, with everything set to hurl her forward under full drive,

spk_0 should either Lensmen flick a finger. Kinesen could feel nothing, even though being on

spk_0 rapport with Worsal, he knew that his friend was soon suffering intensely.

spk_0 Let's flip the Grey Lensmen suggested, and through on the drive. I probed my limit, and couldn't

spk_0 touch or feel a thing. Had enough, didn't you? More than enough, I couldn't have taken much more.

spk_0 Each boarded his ship, and as the Dauntless and the Veland tore through space toward far

spk_0 lyraine, Kinesen paced his room, scowling in black abstraction. Nor would a mine-reader have found

spk_0 his thoughts either cogent or informative. Lyraine 9. Lyraine 9. Lyraine 9. Lyraine 9.

spk_0 Lyraine 9. And something that I can't even feel or perceive, but that kills anybody and everybody

spk_0 else. Clonos, tungsten teeth, and curving carballyt claws.

spk_0 End of chapter 20.

spk_0 Chapter 21. Of Children of the Lens. This Libravox recording is in the public domain.

spk_0 Chapter 21. Helen's story was short and bitter. Human or near-human Bosconians came to Lyraine

spk_0 2 and spread in cities propaganda all over the planet. Lyraenian matriarchy should abandon its

spk_0 policy of isolationism. Matriarchs were the highest type of life. Matriarchy was the most perfect

spk_0 of all existing forms of government. Why keep on confining it to one small planet when it should

spk_0 by right be ruling the entire galaxy? The way things were, there was only one elder person.

spk_0 All of the Lyrenians, even though better qualified than the then incumbent, were nothing and so on.

spk_0 Whereas, if things were as they should be, each individual Lyrenian person could be and would be

spk_0 the elder person of a planet at least, and perhaps of an entire solar system and so on.

spk_0 And the visitors, who they insisted, were no more males than the Lyrenian persons were females

spk_0 would teach them. They would be amazed at how easily under Bosconian guidance this program could

spk_0 be put into effect. Helen fought the intruders with every jet she had. She despised the males of her own

spk_0 race. She detested those of all others. Believing that hers was the only existing matriarchal race,

spk_0 especially since neither Kinesan nor the Bosconians seemed to know of any other, she was sure that any

spk_0 prolonged contact with other cultures would result not in the triumph of matriarchy but in its fall.

spk_0 She not only voiced these beliefs as she held them violently but also acted upon them in the same

spk_0 fashion. Because of the ingrained matriarchally conservative habit of Lyrenian thought, particularly

spk_0 among the older persons, Helen found it comparatively easy to step out the visible manifestations.

spk_0 And being in no sense a sophisticated, she thought that the whole matter was settled.

spk_0 Instead, she merely drove the movement underground where it grew tremendously.

spk_0 The young, of course, rebellious as always against the hide-bound, moss-backed and reactionary

spk_0 older generation joined the subterranean New Deal in droves. Nor was the older generation solid.

spk_0 In fact, it was riddled by the defection of many thousands who could not expect to attain any

spk_0 outstanding place in the world as it was, and who believed that the Bosconians glittering

spk_0 forecasts would come true. Disaffection spread then, rapidly and unobserved, culminating in the

spk_0 carefully planned uprising which made Helen an ex-chef person and put her into the tower room to

spk_0 await a farcical trial and death. I see, Clarissa caught her lower lip between her teeth.

spk_0 Very unfunny. I noticed that you didn't mention or think of any of your persons as ringleaders,

spk_0 peculiar that you couldn't catch them with your telepathy. No, natural enough at that.

spk_0 But there's one I want very much to get hold of. Don't know whether she was really a leader or not,

spk_0 but she was mixed up in some way with a Bosconian lensman. I never did know her name.

spk_0 She was the one, the person who managed her airport here when Kim and I were

spk_0 Cleoney? Why? I never thought, but it might have at that. Yes, as I look back.

spk_0 Yes, hindsight is a lot more accurate than foresight. The red lensman grinned. I've noticed

spk_0 that myself lots of times. It did. It was a leader. Helen declared furiously. I shall have its life,

spk_0 too, the jealous cat, the blood sucking, backbiting louse. She's all of that. In more ways than you

spk_0 know, Clarissa agreed grimly and spread in the Lyrainius mind, the story of Eddie, the derelict.

spk_0 So you see that Cleoney has got to be our starting point. Have you any idea of where we can find her?

spk_0 I haven't seen or heard anything of Cleoney lately. Helen paused in thought. If, though, as I am

spk_0 now practically certain, it was one of the prime movers behind this brainless brat Ladora,

spk_0 it wouldn't dare leave the planet for very long at a time. As to how to find it, I don't quite know.

spk_0 Anybody would be apt to shoot me on sight. Would you dare fly this funny planet of years

spk_0 down close to a few of our cities? Certainly. I don't know of anything around here that my

spk_0 screens and fields can't stop. Why? Because I know of several places where Cleoney might be,

spk_0 and if I can get fairly close to them, I can find it in spite of anything it can do to hide itself

spk_0 from me. But I don't want to get you into too much trouble, and I don't want to get killed myself

spk_0 either, now that you have rescued me, at least until after I have killed Cleoney and Ladora.

spk_0 QX? What are we waiting for? Which way, Helen? Back to the city first, for several reasons.

spk_0 Cleoney probably is not there, but we must make sure. Also, I want my guns.

spk_0 Guns? No, delameters are better. I have several spares. In one fleeting mental contact,

spk_0 Clarissa taught the Lairanian all there was to know about delameters, and that feed-em-pressed

spk_0 Helen even more than did the nature and power of the weapon.

spk_0 What a mind, she exclaimed. You didn't have any such equipment as that the last time I saw you,

spk_0 or were you, no, you weren't hiding it. You're right. I have developed considerably since then.

spk_0 But about guns. What do you one of one? To kill that knit-wit Ladora on sight, and that snake

spk_0 Cleoney too, as soon as you get done with it. But why guns? Why not the mental force you always used?

spk_0 Except by surprise, I couldn't. Helen admitted, frankly. All adult persons are practically

spk_0 equal mental strength. But speaking of strength, I marvel that a craft as small as this should be

spk_0 able to ward off the attack of one of those tremendous bosconyn ships of space.

spk_0 But she can't. What made you think she could? Your own statement, or were you thinking of purely

spk_0 Lairanian dangers, not realizing that Ladora, of course, called Cleoney as soon as you showed your teeth,

spk_0 and that Cleoney is surely called the Lensmen, or some other bosconyon, and that they must have

spk_0 ships of war not too far away. Heavens no. It never occurred to me.

spk_0 Clarissa thought briefly. It wouldn't do any good to call Kim. Both the Dauntless and the

spk_0 Veland were coming as fast as they could come, but it would be a day or so yet before they arrived.

spk_0 Besides, he would tell her to lay off, which was exactly what she was not going to do.

spk_0 She turned her thought back to the matriarch. Two of our best ships are coming, and I hope they get

spk_0 here first. In the meantime, we'll just have to work fast and keep our detectors fall out.

spk_0 Anyway, Cleoney won't know that I'm looking for her. I haven't even mentioned her to anyone except you.

spk_0 No? pessimistically. Cleoney knows that I am looking for it, and since it knows by now that I am

spk_0 with you, it would think that both of us were hunting it, even if we weren't. But we are nearly

spk_0 close enough now. I must concentrate. Fly around quite low over the city, please. QX? How tune in with

spk_0 you, too? Two heads, you know. Clarissa learned Cleoney's pattern, tuned to it, and combed the city

spk_0 while Helen was getting ready. She isn't here unless she's behind one of those thought screens.

spk_0 The Red Lensman remarked. Can you tell?

spk_0 Thought screens. The busconeans had a few of them, but none of us ever did. How can you find them?

spk_0 Where are they? One there, two over there. They stick out like big black spots on a white screen.

spk_0 Can't you see them? I suppose that your scanners were the same as mine, but apparently they aren't.

spk_0 Take a quick peek at them with the spy. You work it like so. If they've got spy ray blocks

spk_0 up, too, we'll have to go down there and blast. Politician's only? Helen reported, after a moment's

spk_0 manipulation of the suddenly familiar instrument. They need killing, of course, on general principles,

spk_0 but perhaps we shouldn't take time for that now. The next place to look is a few degrees east of

spk_0 North of here. Cleoney was not, however, in that city. Nor in the next, nor the next.

spk_0 But the Speedster Detector screens remained blank and the two allies, so much alike physically,

spk_0 so different mentally, continued their hunt. There was opposition, of course, all that the planet

spk_0 afforded. But Clarissa's second stage mine took care of the few items of offense, which her

spk_0 Speedster's defences could not handle. Finally, two things happened almost at once. Clarissa found

spk_0 Cleoney and Helen saw a dim and fuzzy white spot upon the lower left-hand corner of the detector plate.

spk_0 Can't be ours. The red lens been decided instantly. Almost exactly the wrong direction.

spk_0 Baskonians, ten minutes, twelve at most, before we have to flit. Time enough, I hope, if we work fast.

spk_0 She shot downward, going inert and matching in trinsics at a lack of altitude, which should have

spk_0 been suicidal for any ordinary pilot. She rammed her Burrillian bronze torpedo through the first four

spk_0 wall of a forbidding, almost windalous building. Its many stories of massive construction, she knew,

spk_0 would help no end against the heavy stuff so sure to come. Then, while every hitherto hidden offensive

spk_0 arm of the Baskon coach Lyranians converged, screaming through the air and crashing and clanking

spk_0 along the city's streets, Clarissa probed and probed and probed. Cleoney had locked herself into a

spk_0 veritable dungeon cell in the deepest sub-basement of the structure. She was wearing a thought screen,

spk_0 too, but she had been releasing it for an instant at a time to see what was going on. One of those

spk_0 instants was enough. That screen would never work again. She had been prepared to kill herself at

spk_0 need, but her full charged weapons empied themselves futile against a massive luck, and she threw her

spk_0 vial of poison across the corridor and into an empty cell. So far, so good, but how to get her out of

spk_0 there? Physical approach was out of the question. There must be somebody around somewhere with keys

spk_0 or hacksaws or sledgehammers or something. Ha! Oxicetylene torches. Very much against their wills,

spk_0 two Lyranian mechanics trundled a dolly along the corridor into an elevator. The elevator went down

spk_0 four levels. The artisans began to burn away a barrier of fixed-eal bars. By this time, the whole

spk_0 building was rocking to the detonation of high explosives. Much more of that kind of stuff,

spk_0 and she would be trapped by the sheer mass of the rubble. She was handling six jackass stubborn

spk_0 people already, and that bosconean worship was coming fast. She did not quite know whether she was

spk_0 going to get away with this or not. But somehow, from the unplombed and unplomable depths, which made

spk_0 her what she so uniquely was, the red lensmen drew more and ever more power. Kinneson, who had once

spk_0 made heavy-going of handling two and a fraction lensmen, guessed but never did learn from her what

spk_0 his beloved wife really did that day. Even Helen, only a few feet away, could not understand what was

spk_0 happening. Left parsecs behind long since, the Lyranian could not help in any particular, but could

spk_0 only stand and wonder. She knew that this queerly powerful lens-bearing earth person, white-faced,

spk_0 sweating, strong to the very snapping point as she sat motionless at her board, was exerting some

spk_0 terrible, some tremendous force. She knew that the heaviest of the circling bombers sheared away

spk_0 and crashed. She knew that certain mobile projectors, a few blocks away, did not come any closer.

spk_0 She knew that Clioni, against every Iota of her mule-ish Lyranian will, was coming toward the

spk_0 speedster. She knew that many persons who wished intensely to bar Clioni's progress or to shoot her

spk_0 down were physically unable to act. She had no fade idea, however, of how such work could possibly

spk_0 be done. Clioni came aboard and Clorissa snapped out of her trance. The speedster nudged and blasted

spk_0 its way out of the wrecked stronghold, then tore a hole through protesting air into open space.

spk_0 Clorissa shook her head, wiped her face, studied a tiny double dot in the corner of the plate

spk_0 opposite the one now showing clearly the boscony and worship, and set her controls.

spk_0 We'll make it, I think, she announced. Even though we're intetectable, they, of course,

spk_0 know our line, and they're so much faster that they'll be able to find us even on their visuals

spk_0 before long. On the other hand, they must be detecting our ships now, and my guess is that they

spk_0 won't dare follow us long enough to do us any harm. Keep an eye on things, Helen, while I find

spk_0 out what Clioni really knows. And while I think of it, what's your real name? It isn't polite to

spk_0 keep on calling you by name that you never even heard of until you met us. Helen, the lyranian

spk_0 made surprising answer. I liked it, so I adopted it officially. Oh, that's a compliment really to

spk_0 both Kim and me. Thanks. The red lensemen then turned her attention to her captive,

spk_0 and as mine fitted itself precisely to mind, her eyes began to gleam and gratified delight.

spk_0 Clioni was a real find. This seemingly unimportant lyranian knew a lot, and immense lot,

spk_0 about things that no adherent of the patrol had ever heard before. And she, Clorissa

spk_0 Kinnison, would be the first of all the great lensemen to learn of them. Therefore,

spk_0 taking her time now, she allowed every detail of the queer but fascinating picture-story to

spk_0 imprint itself upon her mind. And Karen and Camilla, together in Tragansi's ship, glanced at each other

spk_0 and exchanged flashing thoughts. Should they interfere? They hadn't had too so far, but it began to

spk_0 look as though they would have to now. It would wreck their mother's mind if she could understand.

spk_0 She probably could not understand it any more than Clioni could, but even if she could,

spk_0 she had so much more inherent stability, even than Dad, that she might be able to take it at that.

spk_0 Nor would she ever leak even to Dad, and Dad, blesses tremendous boots, was not the type to pry.

spk_0 Maybe, though, just to be on the safe side, it would be better to screen the stuff and to edit,

spk_0 if necessary, anything about Edor. The two girls synchronized their minds,

spk_0 all imperceptibly, with their mothers and hellens, and learned.

spk_0 The time was in the unthinkably distant past. The location was unthinkably remote in space.

spk_0 A huge planet circled slowly about a cooling sun. Its atmosphere was not air.

spk_0 Its liquid was not water. Both were noxious, composed in large part of compounds even yet

spk_0 unknown demand. Yet life was there. A race which was even then ancient. Not sexual this race.

spk_0 Not androgynous, nor hermaphroditic, but absolutely sexless.

spk_0 Except for the many who died by physical or by mental violence, its members lived endlessly.

spk_0 After many hundreds of thousands of years, each being, having reached his capacity to live and to learn,

spk_0 divided into two individuals. Each of which, although possessing in total the parents' memories,

spk_0 knowledge's skills and powers, had also a renewed and increased capacity.

spk_0 And since life was, there had been competition. Competition for power. Knowledge was desirable only

spk_0 in so far as it contributed to power. Power for the individual, the group, the city.

spk_0 Wars raged. What wars? An inter-nessing strife which lasted while planets came into being,

spk_0 grew old and died. And finally, to the few survivors, there came peace.

spk_0 Since they could not kill each other, they combined their powers and hurled them outward.

spk_0 Together, they would dominate and rule solar systems, regions, the galaxy itself,

spk_0 the entire macrocosmic universe. A morphous, a me-boyd, each could assume at will any imaginable form.

spk_0 Could call into being members to handle any possible tool. Nevertheless, as time went on,

spk_0 they used their bodies less and less. More and more, they used their minds to bring across

spk_0 gulfs of space and to enslave other races, to labor under their direction.

spk_0 By nature and by choice, they were bound to their own planet. Few indeed were the planets

spk_0 upon which their race could possibly live. Also, it was easier to rejuvenate their own world,

spk_0 or to move it to a younger son, than to enforce and to supervise the myriads of manhours of slave

spk_0 labor necessary to rebuild any planet to their needs. Thus, then, they lived and ruled by proxy

spk_0 in every increasing number of worlds. Although they had long since learned that their asexuality

spk_0 was practically unique, that bisexual life dominated the universe, this knowledge served only

spk_0 to stiffen their determination to rule, and finally to change to their own better standards that

spk_0 universe. They were still seeking a better proxy race, the more nearly asexual a race the better.

spk_0 One race, the denizens of a planet of a variable sun, approached that idea closely.

spk_0 So did the colonians, whose women had only one function in life, the production of men.

spk_0 Now these creatures had learned of the matriarchs of lyring, that they were physically females

spk_0 met nothing. To the adorians, one sex was just as good, or as bad as the other.

spk_0 The lyrenians were strong, not tainted by the weaknesses which seemed to characterize all races

spk_0 believing in even near equality of asexas. Lyranian science had been trying for centuries to do

spk_0 away with the necessity for males. In a few more generations, with some help, that goal could be

spk_0 achieved, and the perfect proxy race would have been developed. It is not to be supposed that

spk_0 this story was obtained in such straightforward fashion as it is presented here. It was dim,

spk_0 murky, confused. Clionine never had understood it. Clarisa understood it better, but less accurately.

spk_0 For in the version the Red Lensman received, one minor change was made. In it, the plurins and

spk_0 the adorians were one and the same race. She understood, however, that that actually unnamed and

spk_0 to her unknown race was the highest of Boscon, and the place of the Colonians and the Bosconian scheme

spk_0 was plain enough. I am giving you this story. The Colonian Lensman told Clionine coldly, not of my

spk_0 own free will, but because I must. I hate you as much as you hate me. What I would like to do to you,

spk_0 you may imagine. Nevertheless, so that your race may have its chance, I am to take you on a trip,

spk_0 and if possible, make a Lensman out of you. Come with me. And urged by her jealousy of Helen,

spk_0 her seething ambition, and probably, if the truth were to be known, by an adorian mind,

spk_0 Clionine went. There is no need to dwell at length upon the horrors, the atrocities of that trip,

spk_0 of which the matter of Eddie the Medi-Orminer was only a very minor episode. It will suffice to say

spk_0 that Clionine was very good Bosconian material, that she learned fast and passed all tests successfully.

spk_0 That's all. The black Lensman informed her then, and I'm glad to see the last of you.

spk_0 You'll get a message when to hop over to nine and pick up your lens.

spk_0 Flit, and I hope that the first grade Lensman you meet will ram his lens down your throat and turn

spk_0 you inside out. Same to you, brother, and many of them, Clionine sneered. Or better, when my race

spk_0 supplants yours as proxies of power, I shall give myself the pleasure of doing just that to you.

spk_0 Clarissa, Clarissa, pay attention, please. The red Lensman came to herself with a start.

spk_0 Helen had been thinking at her with increasing power for seconds.

spk_0 The Veele's blunt nose filled half the plate. In minutes then, Clarissa and her party were in

spk_0 Kineson's private quarters in the Dauntless. There had been warm metal greetings, physical

spk_0 demonstrations would come later. Worse will broke in. Excuse it, Kim, but seconds count.

spk_0 Better we split, don't you think? You'll find out what the score around here is from Clarissa

spk_0 and take steps and I'll chase that Bosconian. He's flitting fast.

spk_0 QXlim and the Veele disappeared. You remember Helen, of course, Kim?

spk_0 Kineson bent his head, flipping a quick grin at his wife who had spoken aloud.

spk_0 The Lyranian, trying to unbend, half offered her hand, but when he did not take it,

spk_0 she withdrew it as enthusiastically as she had twenty years before.

spk_0 And this is Clioni, the wench I've been telling you about. You knew her before.

spk_0 Yeah, she hasn't changed much. Still as unbarbert a mess as ever.

spk_0 If you've got what you want, Chris, we'd better...

spk_0 Kimbo, Kineson, I demand Clioni's life!

spk_0 Came Helen's vibrant thought. She had snatched one of Clarissa's delameters and was swinging it

spk_0 into line when she was caught and held as though in a vice.

spk_0 Sorry, Tuts. The great Lensman's thought was more than a little grim.

spk_0 Nice little girls don't play so rough. Excuse me, Chris, for dipping into your dish. Take over.

spk_0 Do you really mean that, Kim? Yes, it's your meat. Slice it as thick or as thin as you please.

spk_0 Even to letting her go? Check. What else could you do? In a lifeboat, I'll even show the Jade

spk_0 how to run it. Oh, Kim, Quartermaster, Kineson, please check number 12 lifeboat and break it out.

spk_0 I am loaning it to Clioni of Lyrane too.

spk_0 Chapter 22

spk_0 Kid had decided long since that it was his job to scout the planet Edor, his alone.

spk_0 He had told several people that he was on route there, and in a sense he had been, but he was not hurrying.

spk_0 Once he had started that job, he knew that he would have to see it through with absolutely

spk_0 undisturbed attention, and there had been altogether too many other things popping up.

spk_0 Now, however, his visualization showed a couple of weeks of free time, and that would be enough.

spk_0 He wasn't sure whether he was grown up enough yet to do a man's job of work or not,

spk_0 and mentor wouldn't tell him. This was the best way to find out. If so, QX, if not, he would back off,

spk_0 wait, and try again later. The kids had wanted to go along, of course.

spk_0 Come on, kid. Don't be a pig, Constance, started what developed into the last finite argument of

spk_0 their long lives. Let's get up on it. Think of what a grand workout that would be for the unit.

spk_0 Con, sorry, but it isn't in the cards any more than it was the last time we discussed it.

spk_0 He began reasonably enough. We didn't agree to it then. Kay cut in stormily,

spk_0 and I for one, I'm not going to agree to it now. You don't have to do it today. In fact,

spk_0 later on, would be better. Anyway, kid, I'm telling you right now that if you go in,

spk_0 we all go as individuals, if not as the unit.

spk_0 Act your age, Kay, he advised. Get conscious. This is one of the two places in the universe

spk_0 that can't be worked from a distance, and by the time you could get here, I'll have the job done.

spk_0 So what difference does it make whether you agree or not? I'm going in now, and I'm going in alone.

spk_0 Pick that one out of your purly teeth. That stopped Karen cold. They all knew that even she would

spk_0 not endanger the enterprise by staging a useless demonstration against Edward's defensive screens,

spk_0 but there were other arguments. Later, he was to come to see that his sisters had some right

spk_0 upon their side, but he could not see it then. None of their ideas would hold air, he declared,

spk_0 and his temper wore thinner and thinner. No, Cam. No. You know as well as I do that we can't

spk_0 all be spared at once, either now or at any time in the near enough future.

spk_0 Kay's full of pickles, and you all know it. Right now is the best time I'll ever have.

spk_0 See it, Cat, you can't be that dumb. Taking the unit in would blow things wide open.

spk_0 There isn't a chance that I can get in even alone without touching something off.

spk_0 I alone won't be giving too much away, but the unit would be a flare-lit tip-off,

spk_0 and all hell would be out for noon. Or are you actually nitwitted enough to think that

spk_0 all are risky to the contrary? We are ready for the grand showdown.

spk_0 Hold it, all of you. Type down, he snorted finally.

spk_0 Have I got to bash on your skulls to make you understand that I can't coordinate and attack

spk_0 against something without even a foggiest idea of what its actual physical setup is?

spk_0 Use your brains, kids. Please use your brains. He finally won them over, even Karen.

spk_0 And while his speech recovered the last leg of the flight, he completed his analysis.

spk_0 He had all the information he could get. In fact, all that was available,

spk_0 and it was pitifully meager and confusingly contradictory in detail.

spk_0 He knew the Ericians, each of them, personally, and had studied, jointly and severly,

spk_0 the Erician visualizations of the ultimate foe. He knew the lyrany impression of the plurin

spk_0 version of the story of Edor. Plur, merely a name, a symbol which mentor had always kept

spk_0 rigorously apart from any Bosconian actuality. Plur must be the missing link between

spk_0 Cologneia and Edor. And he knew practically everything about it except the two really important

spk_0 facts, whether or not it really was that link and where, within 11,000 million parsecs, it was in

spk_0 space. He and sisters had done their best, so had many librarians, who had found, not at all to

spk_0 his surprise, that no scrap of information or conjecture concerning Edor or the Adorians

spk_0 was to be found in any library, however comprehensive or exclusive. Thus he had guesses,

spk_0 hypotheses, theories, and visualizations galore, but none of them agreed and not one of them was

spk_0 convincing. He had no real facts, whatever. Mentor had informed him, equibly enough, that such a

spk_0 state of affairs was inevitable because of the known power of the Adorian mind. That state,

spk_0 however, did not make Kit Kinnison any too happy as he approached Dread and Dread at Edor.

spk_0 He was in all together too much of a dither as to what actually to expect.

spk_0 As he neared the boundary of the star cluster within which Edor lay, he cut his velocity to a crawl.

spk_0 And outer screen, he knew, surrounded the whole cluster. How many intermediate protective layers

spk_0 existed where they were or what they were like nobody knew? That information was only a small part

spk_0 of what he had to have. His far flung detector web at practically zero power touched the barrier

spk_0 without giving alarm and stopped. His speaster stopped. Everything stopped. Christopher Kinnison,

spk_0 the Matrix and the Key Element of the Unit, had tools and equipment about which even mentor of

spk_0 Rissia knew nothing in detail, about which it was hoped and believed the Adorians were completely

spk_0 in ignorance. He reached deep into the storehouse toolbox of his mind, arranged his selections in

spk_0 order and went to work. He built up his detector web, one infinitesimal increment at a time,

spk_0 until he could just perceive the structure of the barrier. He made no attempt to analyze it,

spk_0 knowing that any fabric or structure solid enough to perform such an operation would certainly touch

spk_0 off an alarm. Analysis could come later after he had found out whether the generator of this outer

spk_0 screen was a machine or a living brain. He felt his way along the barrier, slowly, carefully.

spk_0 He completely outlined one section, studying the fashion in which the joints were made,

spk_0 and how it must be supported and operated. With the utmost nicety of which he was capable,

spk_0 he synchronized a probe with the almost impossibly complex structure of the thing and slid it along

spk_0 the feeder beam into the generator station. A mechanism, they didn't waste live Adorians then,

spk_0 any more than the Rissians did, on outer defenses. QX A precisely tuned blanket surrounded his

spk_0 speedster, a blanket which merged imperceptibly into and in effect became an integral part of the

spk_0 barrier itself. The blanket thinned over half of the speedster. The speedster crept forward.

spk_0 The barrier, unchanged, unaffected, was behind the speedster. Man and vessel were through.

spk_0 Kid breathed deeply in relief and rested. This didn't prove much, of course.

spk_0 Nadreck had done practically the same thing in getting Kandron, except that the

spk_0 Polanian would never be able to analyze or to synthesize such screens as these.

spk_0 The real test would come later, but this had been mighty good practice.

spk_0 The real test came with the fifth, the innermost screen. The others, while of every increasing

spk_0 sensitivity, complexity, and power, were all generated mechanically and hence posed problems

spk_0 differing only in degree and not in kind from that of the first. The fifth problem, however,

spk_0 involving a living and highly capable brain, differed in both degree and kind from all the others.

spk_0 The Adorian would be sensitive to form and to shape, as well as to interference.

spk_0 Bulges were out, unless he could do something about the Adorian, and the speedster couldn't go

spk_0 through a screen without making a bulge. Furthermore, this zone had visual and

spk_0 electromagnetic detectors, so spaced as not to let a microbe through. There were fortresses,

spk_0 mallers, battleships, and their attendant lesser craft. There were projectors and mines,

spk_0 and automatic torpedoes with atomic warheads and other such things.

spk_0 Were these things completely dependent upon the Adorian Guardian or not? They were not.

spk_0 The officers, colonians for the most part, would go into action at the Guardian's signal, of course.

spk_0 But they would at need act without instructions. A nice setup, a mighty hard nut to crack.

spk_0 He would have to use zones of compulsion. Nothing else would do.

spk_0 Picking out the biggest fortress in the neighborhood, with its correspondingly large field of

spk_0 coverage, he insinuated his mind into that of one observing officer after another.

spk_0 When he left a few minutes later, he knew that none of those officers would initiate any action

spk_0 in response to the arms which he would so soon set off. They were live, fully conscious, alert,

spk_0 and would have resented bitterly any suggestion that they were not completely normal in every respect.

spk_0 Nevertheless, whatever colors the lights flashed, whatever pictures the plates revealed,

spk_0 whatever noises blared from the speakers, in their consciousnesses would be only blankness and

spk_0 silence. Nor would recorder tapes reveal later what had occurred. An instrument cannot register

spk_0 fluctuations when its movable member is controlled by a couple of steady fingers. Then the Adorian,

spk_0 to take over his whole mind was, kit-new, beyond his present power. A partial zone, though, could be set

spk_0 up, and young Kinesen's mind had been developed specifically to perform the there-to-four impossible.

spk_0 Thus the Guardian, without suspecting it, suffered an attack of partial blindness,

spk_0 which lasted for the fraction of a second necessary for the spister to flash through the screen.

spk_0 And there was no recorder to worry about. Adorians, never sleeping and never relaxing their

spk_0 vigilance, had no doubt whatever of their own capabilities, and needed no checks upon their own

spk_0 performances. Christopher Kinesen, child of the lens, was inside Edor's innermost offensive

spk_0 sphere. For countless cycles of time the Eurycians had been working toward and looking forward to the

spk_0 end of events of which this was the first link. Nor would he have much time here. He would have

spk_0 known that even if mentor had not so stressed the point. As long as he did nothing, he was safe,

spk_0 but as soon as he started sniffing around he would be open to detection and some Adorian would

spk_0 climb his frame in mighty short order. Then blast and lock on. He might get something or a lot,

spk_0 or nothing at all. Then, when, lose or draw, he had to get away. Strickly under his own power

spk_0 against an unknown number of the most powerful and the most ruthless entities ever to live.

spk_0 The Eurycian couldn't get in here to help him, and neither could the kids. Nobody could.

spk_0 It was strictly and solely up to him. For more than a moment his spirit failed. The odds against him

spk_0 were far too long. The load was too heavy. He didn't have half enough jets to swing it.

spk_0 Just how did a guy as smart as mentor figure that he, a dumb green kid, stood a chance against

spk_0 all Ador? He was scared, scared to the core of his being. Scared as he had never been before and

spk_0 never would be again. His mouth felt dry, his tongue caught me, his fingers shook, even as he

spk_0 doubled them into fists to steady them. To the very end of his long life he remembered the fabric

spk_0 and the texture of that fear. Remembered how it made him decide to turn back before it was too late

spk_0 to retrace his way as unobserved as he had come. Well, why not? Who would care and what matter?

spk_0 The Eurycians? Nuts. It was all their fault sending him in half ready. His parents,

spk_0 they wouldn't know what the score was and wouldn't care. They would be on his side anyway,

spk_0 no matter what happened. The kids? The kids. Clonos, holy claws.

spk_0 They had tried to talk him out of coming in alone. They had fought like wild cats to make him take

spk_0 them along. He had refused. Now, if he sneaked back with his tail between his legs, how would they

spk_0 take it? What would they do? What would they think? Then, later, after he had loused up the big job

spk_0 and let the Eurycians and the patrol and all civilization get knocked out, then what? The kids wouldn't

spk_0 know exactly how and why it had happened. He couldn't offend himself even if he tried, and he wouldn't

spk_0 try. Did he have any idea how much sheer vitriolic corrosive contempt those four red-headed helians

spk_0 would generate? Or even if they didn't, or as a follow-up, their condescending sisterly pity

spk_0 would be a thousand million times worse. And what would he think of himself? No soap. It was out.

spk_0 Definitely. The Edorians could kill him only once. QX.

spk_0 He drove straight downward, noting as he did so that his senses were clear, his hands steady,

spk_0 his tongue normally moist. He was still scared, but he was no longer paralyzed.

spk_0 Low enough, he led his every perceptive sense, Rome abroad, and became instantly too busy to worry

spk_0 about anything. There was an immense amount of new stuff here, if he only could be granted time

spk_0 enough to get it all. He wasn't. In a second or two it seemed, his interference was detected,

spk_0 and an Edorian came in to investigate. Kitt through everything he had, and in the brief moment

spk_0 before the completely surprised Denizen died, the Unclovian learned more of the real truth of Edor,

spk_0 and of the whole Baskonian Empire, that all the Erysians had ever found out. In that one flash of

spk_0 ultimately intimate fusion, he knew Edorian history, practically in total. He knew the enemy's culture,

spk_0 he knew how they behaved and why. He knew their ideals and their ideologies. He knew a great deal

spk_0 about their organization, their systems of offense and of defense. He knew their strengths,

spk_0 and more important, their weaknesses. He knew exactly how, if civilization were to try off at all,

spk_0 his victory must be achieved. This seems, or rather it is, incredible. It is, however, simple truth.

spk_0 Under such stresses as those, an Edorian mind can yield, and the mind of such a one as Christopher

spk_0 Kinnison can absorb an incredible amount of knowledge in an incredibly brief interval of time.

spk_0 Kitt, already seated at his controls, cut in his every course of thought screen.

spk_0 They would help a little in what was coming, but not much. No mechanical screen then known to

spk_0 civilization could block third-level thought. He kicked in full drive toward the one small area,

spk_0 in which he and his spister would not encounter either beams or bombs. The fortress whose

spk_0 observers would not perceive that anything was amiss. He did not fear physical pursuit since his

spk_0 spister was the fastest thing in space. For a second or so it was not so bad. Another Edorian came

spk_0 in, suspicious and on guard. Kitt blasted him down, learning still more in the process,

spk_0 but he could not prevent him from radiating a frantic and highly revealing call for help.

spk_0 And although the other Edorians could scarcely realize that such an astonishing thing as a physical

spk_0 invasion had actually happened, that fact neither slowed them down nor made their anger less violent.

spk_0 When Kitt flashed past his friendly fortress, he was taking about all that he could handle,

spk_0 and more in Moridorians were piling on. At the fourth screen it was worse. At the third he

spk_0 reached what he was sure was his absolute ceiling. Nevertheless, from some hitherto unsuspected

spk_0 profundity of his being, he managed to draw enough reserve force to endure that hellish punishment

spk_0 for a little while longer. Hang on, Kitt. Hang on. Only two more screens to go. Maybe only one.

spk_0 Maybe less. Living Edorian brains and not mechanical generators are now handling all the screens,

spk_0 of course. But if Mentor's visualization is worth a tinker's damn, he must have had that first

spk_0 screen knocked down by this time and must be working on the second. Hang on, Kitt, and keep on slugging.

spk_0 And grimly, doggily, toward the end, sheerly, desperately, Christopher Kinnison,

spk_0 eldest child of the lens, hung on, and slugged.

spk_0 Chapter 3

spk_0 If the historian has succeeded in his attempt to describe the character's and abilities concerned,

spk_0 it is not necessary to enlarge upon what Kitt went through in escaping Edoar. If he has not succeeded,

spk_0 enlargement would be useless. Therefore, it is enough to say that the young Lensman,

spk_0 by dent of calling up and putting out everything he had, hung on long enough and slugged his way through.

spk_0 Chapter 3

spk_0 Mentor's visualization had been sound. The Adorian Guardians had scarcely taken over the first

spk_0 screen when it was overwhelmed by a tremendous wave of a rician thought. It is to be remembered,

spk_0 however, that this was the second time that the mast might of a ricia had been thrown against

spk_0 Edoar's defenses, and the Bosconians had learned much during the intervening years from their

spk_0 exhaustive analyses of the offensive and defensive techniques of that earlier conflict.

spk_0 Thus, the rician drive was practically stopped at the second zone of defense as Kitt approached it.

spk_0 The screen was wavering, shifting, yielding stubbornly wherever it must, and springing back into

spk_0 place whenever it could. Under a tremendous concentration of a rician force, the screen weakened in

spk_0 a limited area directly ahead of the hurtling speedster. A few beams lashed out aimlessly,

spk_0 uselessly. If the Adorians could not hold their main screens proof against the power of the

spk_0 rician attack, how could they protect such minor things as Gunner's mines? The little ship flashed

spk_0 through the weakened barrier and into the center of a sphere of impenetrable impermeable rician

spk_0 thought. At the shock of the sudden ending of his terrific battle, the instantaneous transition

spk_0 from supreme to zero effort, Kitt fainted in his control chair. He lay slumped, inert, in a stupor

spk_0 which changed gradually to a deep and natural sleep. And as the sleeping man in his inertial

spk_0 a-speecher traverse space at full touring blast, that peculiar sphere of force still enveloped and

spk_0 still protected him. Kitt finally began to come too. His first foggy thought was that he was hungry,

spk_0 then wide awake and remembering he grabbed his levers.

spk_0 Rest quietly and eat your fill, a grave resonant pseudo voice assured him, everything is exactly

spk_0 as it should be. I meant, well, well, if it isn't my old chum you can either. Hi, young fellow,

spk_0 what's the good word? And what's the big idea of letting or making me sleep for a week when

spk_0 there's work to do? Your part of the work, at least for the immediate present, is done,

spk_0 and let me say very well done. Thanks, but Kitt broke off, flushing darkly. Do not reproach yourself,

spk_0 nor us. Consider please in recite the manufacture of a fine tool of ultimate quality.

spk_0 The correct alloy, hot working, perhaps cold too, forging, peating, quenching, drawing,

spk_0 enough, think you that the steel, if sentient, would enjoy those treatments?

spk_0 Well, you did not enjoy them. You are able to appreciate their necessity.

spk_0 You are now a finished tool, forged and tempered. Oh, you may have something there at that,

spk_0 but as to ultimate quality, don't make me laugh. There was no nuance of

spk_0 merriment in Kitt's thought. You can't square that with cowardice. Nor is there need.

spk_0 The term ultimate was used advisedly and still stands. It does not mean or imply, however,

spk_0 a state of perfection, since that condition is unattainable.

spk_0 I am not advising you to try to forget. Nor am I attempting to force forgetfulness upon you,

spk_0 since your mind cannot now be coerced by any force presently existing. Be assured that nothing

spk_0 that occurred should eric you. For the simple truth is that, although stressed as no other mind has

spk_0 ever before been stressed, you did not yield. Instead, you secured and retained information,

spk_0 which we of Aresia have never been able to obtain. Information, which will, in fact, be the means

spk_0 of preserving your civilization. I can't believe that it doesn't seem. Kitt, knowing that he was

spk_0 thinking muddley and foolishly, paused and pulled himself together. Overwhelming, almost parallelizing

spk_0 as that information was, it must be true. It was true. Yes, it is the truth. While we of Aresia have

spk_0 at various times made ambiguous statements to lead certain lensmen and others to arrive at erroneous

spk_0 conclusions, you know that we do not lie. Yes, I know that. Kitt plumbed the Aresian's mind.

spk_0 It sort of knocks me out of my orbit. That's an awfully big bite to swallow at one gulp, you know.

spk_0 It is. That is one reason I am here, to convince you of the truth, which you would not otherwise believe

spk_0 fully. Also, to see to it that your rest, without which you might have been hurt, was not disturbed,

spk_0 as well as to make sure that you were not permanently damaged by the adorians.

spk_0 I wasn't. At least, I don't think so. Was I? You were not. Good.

spk_0 I was wondering. Mentor would be tied up for quite a while, of course, so I'll ask you.

spk_0 They must have got a sort of pattern of me, in spite of all I could do, and they'll be camping

spk_0 on my trail from now on. So I suppose I'll have to keep a solid block up all the time.

spk_0 They will not, Christopher, and you need not. Guided by those whom you knew as mentor,

spk_0 I myself as a guardian, am to see to that. But time presses, I must rejoin my fellows.

spk_0 One more question first. You've been trying to sell me a bill of goods that I would like to buy,

spk_0 but you can either. The kids will know that I showed a streak of yellow a meter wide. What will they

spk_0 think? Is that all? You can either start was almost a laugh. They will make that eminently plain

spk_0 in a moment. The Rissian's presence vanished as did his sphere of force, and four clamoring thoughts

spk_0 came jamming in. Oh, Kit, we're so glad we tried to help, but they wouldn't let us. They smacked

spk_0 us down. Honestly, Kit, oh, if we'd only been in there too, hold it everybody, jet back.

spk_0 This was Khan, Kit knew, but an entirely new Khan. Scan him, Cam, as you never scanned anything before.

spk_0 If they burned out even one cell of his mind, I'm going over there right now and kick every one

spk_0 of mentors teeth out. And listen, Kit. This was an equally strange Catherine blazing with fury,

spk_0 and yet suffusing his mind with a more than sisterly tenderness, a surpassing richness.

spk_0 If we had had the faintest idea of what they were doing to you, all the Rissians and all the

spk_0 Adorians and all the devils and all the hells of the macroscopic universe, could have kept us away.

spk_0 You must believe that, Kit, or can you quite? Of course, sis, you don't have to prove an axiom.

spk_0 Seal it all of you. You're swell people, absolute tops. But I, you, that is, he broke off and

spk_0 marshaled his thoughts. He knew that they knew in every minute particular everything that had occurred.

spk_0 Yet to a girl, they thought that he was wonderful. Their common thought was that they should have been

spk_0 in there too, taking what he took, giving what he gave. What I don't get is that you are trying to

spk_0 blame yourselves for what happened to me when you were on the dead center of the beam all the time.

spk_0 You couldn't have been in their kids. It would have blown the whole works higher than up.

spk_0 You knew that then, and you know it even better now. You also know that I flew the yellow flag.

spk_0 Didn't that even register? Oh, that. Practically identical thoughts of complete dismissal came in

spk_0 unison and Karen followed through. The only thing about that is that since you knew what to expect,

spk_0 we marvel that you ever managed to go in at all. No one else could have possibly.

spk_0 Or once in and seeing what was really there, that you didn't flit right out again.

spk_0 Believe me, brother of mine, you qualify.

spk_0 Kid choked. This was too much, but it made him feel good all over. These kids, the universe is best.

spk_0 As he thought, a partial block came unconsciously into being. For not one of those gorgeous,

spk_0 those utterly splendid creatures, suspected even now that which he so surely knew,

spk_0 that each one of them was very shortly to be rocked and tempered as he himself had been.

spk_0 And worse, he would have to stand aside and watch them one by one walk into it.

spk_0 Was there anything he could do to ward off or even to soften what was coming to them?

spk_0 There was not. With his present power, he could step in, of course, at what awful cost to civilization,

spk_0 only he, Christopher Kinnison, of all civilization really knew. No, that was out, definitely.

spk_0 He could come in afterwards to ease their hurts as each had come to him, but that was all.

spk_0 And there was a difference. They had known about it in advance. It was tough. Could he do anything?

spk_0 He could not.

spk_0 And on clammy Noisem Edor, the Erysian attackers have been beat off and normality restored,

spk_0 a meeting of the highest command was held. No two of those entities were alike in form.

spk_0 Some were changing from one horrible shape into another. All were starkly indescribably monstrous.

spk_0 All were concentrating upon the problem, which had been so suddenly thrust upon them.

spk_0 Each of them thought at and with each of the others. To do justice to the complexity or the

spk_0 codiency of that maze of intertwined thoughts is impossible. The best that can be done is to pick out a

spk_0 high point here and there. This explains the star A-star whom the plurons and the colonians so fear,

spk_0 and the failure of our operator on Thrayal and its fall. Also, a recent quite serious reverses.

spk_0 Those stupid, those utterly brainless underlings, we should have been called in at the start.

spk_0 Could you analyze or even perceive its pattern save in small part?

spk_0 No. Nor could I, an astounding and highly revealing circumstance.

spk_0 An Erysian, or rather an Erysian development certainly. No other entity of civilization could

spk_0 possibly do what was done here. Nor could any Erysian, as we know or deduce them.

spk_0 They have developed something very recently which we have not visualized.

spk_0 Kinesen's son, Ba, think they to deceive us by the old device of energizing a form of ordinary flesh?

spk_0 Kinesen, his son, Nadric, Worsal, Trugansy, what matters it?

spk_0 Or, as we now know, the completely imaginary star A-star.

spk_0 We must revise our thinking, and authoritatively composite mind decided. We must revise our theory and

spk_0 our plan. It may be possible that this new development will necessitate immediate instead of later

spk_0 action. If we had had a competent race of proxies, none of this would have happened, as we would have

spk_0 been kept informed. To correct a situation which may become grave, as well as to acquire fullest

spk_0 and latest information, we must attend the conference which is now being held on plur.

spk_0 They did so. With no perceptible lapse of time or mode of transit, the Adorian mind was in an

spk_0 assembly room upon that now flooded world. Resembling nevians as much as any other race with which

spk_0 man is familiar, the now amphibious plurians lulled upon padded benches and argued heatedly.

spk_0 They were discussing, upon a lower level, much of the same material which the Adorians have

spk_0 been considering so shortly before. Star A-star. Kinesen had been captured easily enough, but had,

spk_0 almost immediately, escaped from an escape-proof trap. Another trap was set, but would it take him?

spk_0 Would it hold him if it did? Kinesen was, must be, star A-star. No, he could not be. There have been

spk_0 too many unrelated and simultaneous occurrences. Kinesen, Nadric, Clarissa, Worsal, Tragancy,

spk_0 even Kinesen's young son had all shown intermittent flashes of inexplicable power.

spk_0 Kinesen, most of all, it was a fact worthy of note that the beginning of the long series of

spk_0 boscony and setbacks coincided with Kinesen's appearance among the Lensmen. The situation was bad,

spk_0 not irreparable by any means but grave. The fault lay with the Ike and perhaps with

spk_0 Kandron of Anno. Such stupidity, such incompetence. Those lower echelon operators should have had

spk_0 brains enough to have reported the matter to plur before the situation got completely out of hand.

spk_0 But they didn't hence this mess. None of them, however, expressed a thought that the present

spk_0 situation was already one with which they themselves could not cope, nor suggested that it be

spk_0 referred to Edor before it should become too hot for even the masters to handle. Fools,

spk_0 imbusels, we, the masters, although through no foresight or design of yours, are already here.

spk_0 Know now that you have been and still are yourselves guilty of the same conduct which you are

spk_0 so violently condemning in others. Neither Edorian nor Plurin's realized that that deficiency was

spk_0 inherent in the boscony and scheme of things, or that it stemmed from the organization's very top.

spk_0 Shears stupidity gross over confidence. Those are the reasons for our recent reverses.

spk_0 But masters, a plurin argued. Now that we have taken over, we are winning steadily.

spk_0 Civilization is rapidly going to pieces. In a few more years, we will have smashed it flat.

spk_0 That is precisely what they wish you to think. They have been and are playing for time.

spk_0 Your bundling and mismanagement have already given them sufficient time to develop an object

spk_0 or an entity able to penetrate our screens so that Edor suffered the disgrace of an actual physical

spk_0 invasion. It was brief to be sure and unsuccessful, but it was an invasion nonetheless, the first in

spk_0 our long history. But masters, silence! We are not here to indulge in recriminations but to

spk_0 determine facts. Since you do not know Edor's location in space, it is a certainty that you did not

spk_0 either wittingly or otherwise furnish that information. That in turn makes it clear who basically

spk_0 the invader was. Star A Star? A wave of questions swept the group. One name serves as well as another

spk_0 for what is almost certainly an irisian entity or device. It is enough for you to know that it is

spk_0 something with which your masked minds would be completely unable to deal. To the best of your

spk_0 knowledge have you been invaded either physically or mentally? We have not masters, and it is

spk_0 unbelievable that is it so the master sneered. Neither our screens nor our adorian guardsman

spk_0 gave any alarm. We learned of the irisian's presence only when he attempted to probe our very

spk_0 minds at Edor's very surface. Are your screens and minds then so much better than ours?

spk_0 We aired masters. We abase ourselves. What do you wish us to do? That is better. You will be

spk_0 informed as soon as a few last minute details have been worked out. Although nothing is established

spk_0 by the fact that you know of no occurrences here on plur, the probability is that you are still

spk_0 unknown and unsuspected since it is unthinkable that the enemy's minds are in any real sense as

spk_0 strong as ours. Nevertheless, one of us is now taking over control of the trap which you set for

spk_0 Kinesen in the belief that he is Star A Star. Belief masters, it is certain that he is Star A Star.

spk_0 In essence, yes. In exactness, no. Kinesen is in all probability merely a puppet through whom

spk_0 an irisian works at times. If you take Kinesen in that trap however, the entity you call Star A Star

spk_0 will assuredly kill you all. But masters, again fools, silence! The thought dripped vitriol.

spk_0 Remember how easily Kinesen escaped from you? It was the supremely clever move of not following

spk_0 through and destroying you then that obscured the truth for years. That gave them all this

spk_0 additional time. As we have said, you are completely powerless against the one you call Star A Star.

spk_0 Against any lesser force however, and the probability is exceedingly great that only such forces,

spk_0 if any, will be sent against you, you should be able to win. Are you ready? We are ready, masters.

spk_0 At last, the plurands were upon familiar ground. Since ordinary weapons will be useless against us,

spk_0 they will not attempt to use them, especially since they have developed three extraordinary and

spk_0 supposedly irresistible weapons of attack. First, projectiles composed of negative matter,

spk_0 particularly blows a planetary anti-mass. Second, loose planets driven inertialists,

spk_0 but inerted at the point at which their intrinsic velocities render collision unavoidable.

spk_0 Third, and worst, the sunbeam. These gave us some trouble, particularly the last,

spk_0 but the problems were solved, and if any one of the three, or all of them, are used against us,

spk_0 disaster for the Galactic Patrol is assured. Nor did we stop there. Our psychologists,

spk_0 working with our engineers, after having analyzed exhaustively the capabilities of the so-called

spk_0 Second Stage Lensmen, developed countermeasures against every superweapon which they will be able

spk_0 to develop during the next century. Such as the masters were unimpressed. The most probable one is

spk_0 an extension of the sunbeam principle to operate from a distant sun, or preferably a nova.

spk_0 We are now installing fields and grids by the use of which we, not the patrol, will direct that beam.

spk_0 Interesting, if true, spread in our minds the details of all that you have foreseen

spk_0 and the fashions in which you have safeguarded yourselves.

spk_0 It was a long operation, even at the speed of thought. At its end, the Adorians were unconvinced,

spk_0 skeptical, and pessimistic. We can visualize several other things which the forces of civilization

spk_0 may be able to develop well within the century. The mastermind said coldly, we will assemble data

spk_0 concerning a few of them for your study. In the meantime, hold yourselves in readiness to act,

spk_0 as we shall issue final orders very shortly. Yes, masters, and the Adorians went back to their

spk_0 home planet as effortlessly as they had left it. There they concluded their conference.

spk_0 It is clear that Kinesen will enter that trap. He cannot do otherwise. Kinesen's protector,

spk_0 whoever or whatever he or it may be, may or may not enter it with him. It may or may not be taken

spk_0 with him. Whether or not the New Erysian figment is taken, Kinesen must die. He is the very key

spk_0 stone of the Galactic Patrol. At his death, as we will advertise it to have come about, the patrol

spk_0 will fall apart. The Erysians, themselves unknown, will be forced to try to rebuild it around another

spk_0 puppet. But neither his son nor any other man will ever be able to take Kinesen's place in the

spk_0 steam of the hero-worshiping undisciplined mob which is civilization. Hence the importance of your

spk_0 project. You, personally, will supervise the operation of the trap. You, personally, will kill him.

spk_0 With one exception, I agree with everything said. I am not at all certain that death is the answer.

spk_0 One way or another, however, I shall deal effectively with Kinesen.

spk_0 Deal with? We said, kill. I heard you. I still say that mere death may not be adequate.

spk_0 I shall consider the matter at length, and shall submit in due course my conclusions and recommendations

spk_0 for your consideration and approval. Although none of the Adorians knew it, their pessimism in

spk_0 regard to the ability of the plurans to defend their planet against the assaults of second-stays

spk_0 Lensman was even then being justified. Kimball Kinesen, after pacing the floor for hours, called his son.

spk_0 Ket, I have been working on a thing for months, and I don't know whether I have got a workable

spk_0 solution at last or not. It may depend entirely on you. Before I go into it, though, I take it that

spk_0 you check me in saying that when we find Baskonea's top planet, we are going to have to blow it out

spk_0 of the ether and that nothing that we ever have used before will work? Check on both. Ket thought

spk_0 soberly for minutes. More, it will have to be practically instantaneous, as well as complete,

spk_0 like the Negabams or the Sunbeam, but a lot faster. My thought exactly. I've got something, I think,

spk_0 but nobody except Old Cardinian, mentor of Eurasia, hold a dead while I do a bit of spying and put

spk_0 out some coverage. QX, go ahead. Nobody except those two knew anything about the mathematics involved.

spk_0 Even Sir Austin knew only enough to be able to understand mentor's directions, he didn't do

spk_0 any of the deep stuff himself. Nobody in the present conference of science could even begin to

spk_0 handle it. It's that foreign space, you know, that we call the Earth Space, where that hyperspacial

spk_0 tube dumped us that time. You've been doing a lot of work with some of Eurasians on that sort of

spk_0 stuff. Could you get them to help you compute a tube between Lyraine and there so that Thorn

spk_0 Diacan, some of his boys and I could go there and get back? Hmm, let me think a second. Yes, I can.

spk_0 When do you need it? Today, or even yesterday? Too fast. It'll take a couple of days,

spk_0 but it'll be ready for you long before you can get your ship ready and get your gang and the

spk_0 stuff for your gadget of border. That won't take so long, son. Same ship we rode before. She's still in

spk_0 commission, you know. Space Laboratory 12, her name is now. Special generators, tools, instruments,

spk_0 everything. We'll be ready in two days. They were, and Kits mild his egregated vice admiral

spk_0 of Urnt Thorn Diac, principal technician, and the other surviving members of his father's

spk_0 original crew. What a tonnage of brass, Kits said to him later. Heavyest load I ever saw on one ship.

spk_0 One sure thing though, they earned it. You must have been able to pick men too in those days.

spk_0 What do you mean those days, you disrespectful young ape? I can still pick men, son.

spk_0 Kim Greenback at Kits, but soared quickly. There's more to this than meets the eye. They went through

spk_0 the stream once and know what it means. They can take it, and just about all of them will come back.

spk_0 With a crew of kids, 20 percent would be a high estimate. As soon as the vessel passed system

spk_0 limits, Kits got another surprise. Even though those men were studded with brass and were by a

spk_0 boy standard old, they were not passengers. In their old dauntless and well away from port,

spk_0 they gleefully threw off their full dress uniforms. Each dawned the clothing of a status of 20

spk_0 odd years back and went to work. The members of the regular crew, young as all regular space crewman

spk_0 are, did not know at first whether they liked the idea of working watch and watch with such heavy

spk_0 brass or not, but they soon found out that they did. Those men were men. It is an ironclad

spk_0 rule of space, however, that operating pilots must be young. Master pilot Henry Henderson

spk_0 cursed that ruling so furiously, even while he watched with a proud, if somewhat jaundiced

spk_0 eye, the smooth performance of his son Henry at his own old board. They approached their destination,

spk_0 cut the jets, felt for the vortex, found it, cut in the special generators. Then as the

spk_0 fields of the ship reacted against those of the tube, every men aboard felt a malaise to which

spk_0 no being has ever become accustomed. Most men become immune rather quickly to sea sickness,

spk_0 to air sickness, and even to space sickness. Interdimensional acceleration, however, is something else.

spk_0 It is different. Just how different cannot be explained to anyone who has never experienced it.

spk_0 The almost unbearable acceleration ceased. They were in the tube. Every plate showed blank,

spk_0 everywhere there was the same drab and featureless gray. There was neither light nor darkness,

spk_0 there was simply and indescribably nothing whatever, not even empty space.

spk_0 Kitt through a switch. There was a wrenching, twisting shock, followed by a deceleration exactly

spk_0 as sickening as the acceleration had been. It ceased. They were in that enigmatic

spk_0 inth space, which each of the older men remembered so well, in which so many of their natural laws

spk_0 did not hold. Times still raced, stopped, or ran backward, seemingly at whim. Inert bodies had

spk_0 intrinsic velocities far above that of light and so on. Each of those men, about to be marooned

spk_0 of his own choice in this utterly hostile environment, drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders

spk_0 as he prepared to disembark. That's computation, Kitt. Kinnison exclaimed after one glance into a plate.

spk_0 That's the same planet we worked on before right there. All our machines and stuff untouched.

spk_0 If you'd figured it any closer, it had been a collision course.

spk_0 Are you dead short Kitt that everything's all set?

spk_0 Dead sure, Dad, in full duplicate and Thorn-Dyke and Henderson both know the board.

spk_0 QX. Well-fellows, I'd like to stay here with you and so would Kitt, but we've got chores to do.

spk_0 I don't have to tell you to be careful, but I'm going to anyway. Be careful.

spk_0 And as soon as you get done, come back home just as fast as Klonow will let you.

spk_0 Cleary Thurphelos. Clary Thurkim.

spk_0 Lensman father and Lensman son boarded their speedster and left. They traversed the tube

spk_0 and emerged into normal space, all without a word.

spk_0 Kitt, the older man ground out, finally. This gives me the Kali-wobli's no less.

spk_0 Suppose some of them, or all of them, get killed out there.

spk_0 Is it worth it? I know it's my own idea, but will we need it badly enough to take the chance?

spk_0 We will, Dad. Mentora says that we will. And that was that.

spk_0 Chapter 24 of Children of the Lens. This Libbervox recordings in the public domain.

spk_0 Chapter 24

spk_0 Kitt had to get back to normal space as soon as possible, in order to be available in case of need.

spk_0 He wanted to get back in time to help his sisters pull themselves together.

spk_0 Think as he would, he could find no flaw in any one of them.

spk_0 But he knew that mentor would find something or other the matter with each of them.

spk_0 Not a weakness in any ordinary sense, but a strength which was not the ultimate.

spk_0 Kitt and his sisters had to get back because his business was really pressing.

spk_0 He had called a conference of all the second stage Lensmen and his children.

spk_0 A conference which bizarrely enough was to be held in person and not via Lens.

spk_0 Not strictly necessary, of course. The Green Lensmen half apologized to his son,

spk_0 as their speech turned near the point of rendezvous with the dauntless.

spk_0 I still think that it's a good idea, though, especially since we were all so close to the

spk_0 limerane anyway. So do I. It's been a mighty long time since we were all together.

spk_0 Everybody's there now except Nadric. He'll board about the same time we do.

spk_0 They boarded. Space hounds both. They saw to it that their speech

spk_0 were was dog down subtly into her chocks before they went to the main saloon.

spk_0 Hi, mums. Still stopping traffic at all intersections, I see?

spk_0 Kitt lowered his mother's feet to the floor and attempted the physically impossible feet

spk_0 of embracing all four of his sisters at once. By common consent, the five used only their eyes.

spk_0 Nothing showed. Nevertheless, the girls blushed vividly and Kitt's face twisted into a dry,

spk_0 dry grin. It was good for whatailed us, though, at that, I guess. Kitt did not seem to be at all positive.

spk_0 Mentor, the lug, told me no less than six times that I had arrived, or at least made statements,

spk_0 which I interpreted as meaning that. And you, conitre, just told me that I was a finished tool,

spk_0 whatever that means. Personally, I think that they were sitting back and wondering how long it was

spk_0 going to take us to realize that we never could be half as good as we used to think we were. Suppose

spk_0 something like that, probably, we've shivered more than once, wondering whether we are really finished

spk_0 products yet or not. We've learned, I hope, Karen, hard as she was, did shiver physically.

spk_0 If we aren't, it will be pissed, dad's starting the meeting. So settle down all of you and we'll get

spk_0 going. What a group. Tragancy of Rijal IV, solid, solid, blocky, immobile, looking as little as

spk_0 possible like one of the profoundest thinkers civilization had ever produced, did not move.

spk_0 Warsaw, the ultra-sensitive, yet utterly implacable, valantian, curled out through your fore eyes and

spk_0 looked on languagey, while constants kicked a few coils of his tail onto a comfortable shey's long,

spk_0 reclined unconsurably in the seat thus made, and lighted, and all-saken, Iced cigarette.

spk_0 Clarissa Kinnison, radiant in her grays and looking scarcely older than her daughters, sat beside

spk_0 Catherine, each with an arm around the other. Karen and Camilla, neither of whom could ordinarily be

spk_0 described by the adjective cuddlesome, were on a davenport with kit, snuggling as close to him as

spk_0 they could get. And in the farthest corner, the heavily armored, heavily insulated spacesuit,

spk_0 which contained Nadric of Palain VII, show the atmosphere for yards around.

spk_0 QX, Kinnison began. We'll take Nadric first, since he isn't any too happy here and let him flit.

spk_0 He'll keep in touch from outside after he leaves. Report, please, Nadric.

spk_0 I have explored Lyraine IX thoroughly. Nadric made the statement and paused.

spk_0 When he used such a thought at all, it meant much. When he emphasized it, which no one there had

spk_0 ever before known him to do, it meant that he had examined the planet practically atom by atom.

spk_0 There was no life of the level of intelligence in which we are interested to be found on,

spk_0 beneath or above its surface. I could find no evidence that such life has ever been there,

spk_0 either as permanent dwellers or as occasional visitors.

spk_0 When Nadric settles anything as definitely as that, it stays settled.

spk_0 Kinnison remarked as soon as the Palainian had left. I'll report next.

spk_0 You all know what I did about Cologne and so on. The only significant fact I have been able to

spk_0 find, the only lead to the Bosconian higher-ups, is that black Lensman Malastikov got his lens on

spk_0 Lyraine IX. There were no traces of mental surgery. I can see two and only two alternatives.

spk_0 Either there was mental surgery which I could not detect, or there were visitors to Lyraine IX

spk_0 who left no traces of their visits. More reports may enable us to decide. Worsal?

spk_0 The second stage Lensman reported in turn. Each had uncovered leads to Lyraine IX,

spk_0 but Worsal Entrogoncy, who had also studied that planet with care, agreed with Nadric that there

spk_0 was nothing to be found there. Kitt? Kittison asked then, how about you and the girls?

spk_0 We believe that Lyraine IX was visited by beings having sufficient power of mind to leave no traces

spk_0 whatever as to who they were or where they came from. We also believe that there was no surgery,

spk_0 but an infinitely finer kind of work, an indetectable, subconscious compulsion, done on the minds of

spk_0 the black Lensman and others who came into physical contact with the Bosconians. These opinions are

spk_0 based upon experiences which we five have had and upon deductions we have made. If we are right,

spk_0 Lyraine is actually, as well as apparently, a dead end and should be abandoned. Furthermore,

spk_0 we believe that the black Lensman have not been and cannot become important.

spk_0 The coordinator was surprised, but after Kitt and his sisters had detailed their findings and

spk_0 their deductions, he turned to the Ragellian. What next then, Tragoncy? After Lyraine IX,

spk_0 it seems to me that the two most promising subjects are those entities who think upon such a high

spk_0 band and the phenomenon which has been called the hell hold in space. Of the two, I preferred the

spk_0 first until Committal's researches show that the available data could not be reconciled with the

spk_0 postulate that the life forms of her reconstruction were identical with those reported to you as

spk_0 coordinator. This data, however, was scanty and casual. While we are here, therefore, I suggest that

spk_0 we review this matter much more carefully in the hope that additional information will enable us

spk_0 to come to a definite conclusion one way or the other. Since it was her research, Camilla will lead.

spk_0 First, a question, Camilla began. Imagine a sun-soal variable that it periodically covers practically

spk_0 the entire possible range. It has a planet whose atmosphere, liquid and distance are such that its

spk_0 surface temperature varies from approximately 200 degrees centigrade in mid-summer to about

spk_0 5 degrees absolute in mid-winter. In the spring, its surface is almost completely submerged.

spk_0 There are terrible winds and storms in the spring, summer and fall, but the fall storms are the worst.

spk_0 Has anyone here ever heard of such a planet having an intelligent life form able to maintain

spk_0 a continuing existence through such varied environments by radical changes in its physical body?

spk_0 A silence ensued which NADREC finally broke. I know of two such planets. Near Pellain, there is an

spk_0 extremely variable sun, two of whose planets support life. All of the higher life forms, the highest

spk_0 of which are quite intelligent, undergo regular and radical changes, not only a form, but of organization.

spk_0 Thanks, NADREC. That will perhaps make my story believable. From the thoughts of one of the

spk_0 entities in question, I reconstructed such a solar system. More, that entity himself belonged to

spk_0 just such a race. It was such a nice reconstruction, Camilla went on plaintively, and it fitted all those

spk_0 other life forms so beautifully, especially cats for cycle periods. And to prove it, Cat,

spk_0 put up your block now, you never told anybody the classification of your pet to more than seven

spk_0 places, did you, or even thought about it. No, Catherine's mind since the moment of warning had been

spk_0 unreadable. Take the seven. The next three were S-T-R, check. But that makes it solid cis,

spk_0 kid exclaimed. That's what I thought for a minute, that we had Boscon at last.

spk_0 However, when Trigon C and I first felt X long before you met yours, Cat, his classification was

spk_0 T-U-U-V. That would fit in well enough as a spring form, with cats as the summer form.

spk_0 What ruins it, though, is that when he killed himself, just a little while ago, a long after a

spk_0 summer form could possibly exist, to say nothing of a spring form, his classification was still T-U-U-V.

spk_0 To ten places, it was T-U-V-W-Y-X-W-T. Well, go on,

spk_0 canessons suggested. What do you make of it? The obvious explanation is that one or all of those

spk_0 entities were planted or primed, not specifically for us, probably, since we are relatively unknown,

spk_0 but for any competent observer. If so, they don't mean a thing. Camilla was not now overestimating

spk_0 her own powers or underestimating those of Bosconia. There are several others, less obvious,

spk_0 leading to the same conclusion. Trigon C is not ready to believe any of them, however, and neither am I.

spk_0 Assuming that our data was not biased, we must also account for the fact that the locations in

spk_0 space were just a minute cam before you leave the classifications. Constance interrupted.

spk_0 I'm guarded. What was my friends to ten places?

spk_0 V-W-Z-Y-T-X-S-Y-Z-Y, Camilla replied unhazotabingly. Right, and I don't believe that was planted either,

spk_0 so there, let me in a second, Kit demanded. I didn't know that you were on that band at all.

spk_0 I got that RTSL thing even before I graduated. Huh? What RTSL can broke in sharply?

spk_0 My fault, Kinesan put in them, skipped my mind entirely when she asked me for the dope. None of us

spk_0 thought any of this stuff important until just now, you know. Teller, Kit.

spk_0 Kit repeated his story, concluding, beyond four places was pretty dim, but Q-P arms and legs,

spk_0 Dylian A, would fit, and so would an R-type hide. Both cats and mine then could very well have been

spk_0 summer forms, one of their years apart. The thing I felt was on its own planet, and it died there,

spk_0 and credits to millows the thought I got wasn't primed. And the location, breakdown, Kit, Camilla

spk_0 instructed, let's settle this thing of timing first. I've got a theory, but I want some ideas from

spk_0 the rest of you. Maybe something like this? Clear as I asked after a few minutes of silence.

spk_0 In many forms which men and morphos completely, the change depends upon temperature.

spk_0 No change takes place as long as the temperature remains the same. Your TUUV could have been

spk_0 flitting around in a spaceship at constant temperature. Could this apply here, Cam, do you think?

spk_0 Could it, Kinesan exclaimed? That's it, Chris, sure. That was my theory,

spk_0 Camilla said still dubiously, but there is no proof that it applies.

spk_0 NADRIC, do you know whether or not it applies to your neighbors?

spk_0 Unfortunately, I do not, but I can find out by experiment if necessary.

spk_0 It might be a good idea, Kit, as it suggested. Go on, Cam.

spk_0 Assuming it's truth, there is still left the problem of location, which Kit has just made

spk_0 infinitely worse than it was before. Kines and mine were so indefinite that they might possibly

spk_0 have been reconciled with cats precisely known coordinates, but yours, Kit, is almost as definite

spk_0 as cats, and cannot possibly be made to agree with it. After all, you know, there are many planets

spk_0 people by races, humanoid to ten places, and if there are four different races, none of them can

spk_0 be the one we want. I don't believe it, Kit argued. Not that I think on that peculiar band,

spk_0 I'm sure enough of my dope so that I want to cross-question Cat on hers. QX Cat?

spk_0 Surely, Kit, any questions you like. Those mines both had plenty of jets. How do you know that he

spk_0 was telling you the truth? Did you drive in to see? Are you sure even that you saw his real shape?

spk_0 Certainly, I'm sure of his shape, Catherine snapped. If there had been any zones of compulsion around,

spk_0 I would have known it and got suspicious right then. Maybe, and maybe not. Kit disagreed.

spk_0 That might depend, you know, on how good the guy was who was putting out the zone.

spk_0 Nuts, Catherine snorted in elegantly, but as to his telling the truth about his home planet,

spk_0 I'm not sure of that. No. I didn't check his channels. I was thinking about other things then.

spk_0 The five knew that he had just left mentor. But why should he want to lie about a thing like that?

spk_0 He would have, though, at that. Good buscony and technique. Sure. In your official capacity of

spk_0 the

spk_0 coordinator, Dad, what do you think? The probability is that all those four forms of life belong on one planet.

spk_0 Your location must be wrong, Cat. He gave you the wrong galaxy, even. Too close to Trinco, too.

spk_0 Trigancy and I both know that region like a book and no such variable is anywhere near there.

spk_0 We've got to find out all about that planet as soon as possible.

spk_0 Worsal, will you please get the charts of Kitt's region?

spk_0 Kitt, will you check with the planetographers of Clovia as to the variable stars anywhere near

spk_0 where you want them and how many planets they've got? I'll call tell us.

spk_0 The charts were studied and in due time, the reports of the planetographers were received.

spk_0 The Clovian scientists reported that there were four long period variables in the designated

spk_0 volume of space, gave the spatial coordinates and catalog numbers of each, and all available data

spk_0 concerning their planets. The Tolerians reported only three and considerably less detail,

spk_0 but they had named each sun and each planet. Which one did they leave out?

spk_0 Kinnison wondered audibly as he fitted the two transparencies together.

spk_0 This one they call Artonin, no planets.

spk_0 Dunley, two planets, A-Bab and Dunster. Descriptions and so on.

spk_0 Ron Teaf, one planet that they don't know anything about except the name they have given it.

spk_0 Silly, sounding names, suppose they assembled them by grabbing letters at random?

spk_0 Plur, plur, at last. Only their instantaneous speed of reaction enabled the five to concede

spk_0 from the linkage, the shrieked thought of what plur really meant. After a flashing exchange of

spk_0 thought, kitsmoody took charge of the conference. The planet plur should be investigated first, I think.

spk_0 He resumed communication with the group as though his attention had not wavered.

spk_0 It is the planet nearest the most probable point of origin of that thought burst.

spk_0 Also, the period of the variable and the planet's distance seem to fit our observations and

spk_0 deductions better than any of the others. Any arguments? No arguments. They all agreed.

spk_0 Kinnison, however, demanded action, direct and fast.

spk_0 We'll investigate it, he exclaimed, with the Dauntless, the Z9 M9 Z and Grand Fleet,

spk_0 and with a very special knick-knack as an ace of bar sleeve.

spk_0 Just a minute, Dad, Kit protested. If as some of this material seems to indicate,

spk_0 the plurants actually are the top of the Bosconian culture, even that array may not be enough.

spk_0 You may be right. Probably are. What then? What do you say, Traganzi?

spk_0 Fleet action, yes, the Rijelian agreed. Also, as you implied, but did not clearly state

spk_0 independent but correlated action by us five second stage lensmen with our various skills.

spk_0 I would suggest, however, that your children be put first, very definitely first in command.

spk_0 We object. We haven't got jets enough, too. Overruled.

spk_0 Kinnison did not have to think to make that decision. He knew. Any other objections?

spk_0 Approved. I'll call Cliff Maillain right now, then, and get things going.

spk_0 That call, however, was never set. For at that moment, the mind of mentor of Eresia flooded the

spk_0 group. Children attend. This intrusion is necessary because a matter has come up, which will

spk_0 permit of no delay. Bosconia is now launching the attack, which has been in preparation for over

spk_0 20 years. Eresia is to be the first point of attack. Kinnison, Traganzi, Worsal, and Nadric will

spk_0 take immediate steps to assemble the grand fleet of the Galactic Patrol in defense. I will confer

spk_0 at length with the younger Kinnison's. The Adorians, as you know, mentor went on to the

spk_0 children of the lens, believed primarily in the efficacy of physical material force.

spk_0 While they possess minds of real power, they use them principally as tools in the development of

spk_0 more and ever more efficient mechanical devices. We of Eresia, on the other hand, believe in the

spk_0 superiority of the mind. A fully competent mind would have no need of material devices,

spk_0 since it could control all material substance directly. While we have made some progress toward

spk_0 that end, and you will make more in the cycles to come, civilization is, and for some time will be,

spk_0 dependent upon physical things. Hence, the Galactic Patrol and its grand fleet.

spk_0 8. The Adorians, after ages of effort, have succeeded in inventing a mechanical generator,

spk_0 able to block our most penetrant thoughts. They believe implicitly that their vessels,

spk_0 so protected, will be able to destroy our planet. They may believe that the destruction of our

spk_0 planet would so weaken us that they will be able to destroy us. It is assumed that you children

spk_0 have deduced that neither we nor the Adorians can be slain by physical force.

spk_0 Yes, the clincher being that no suggestion was made about giving ed or a planet from ant space.

spk_0 We Eresians, during an equally long time, have been aiding nature in the development of

spk_0 minds much ablder than our own. While those minds will not attain their full powers until

spk_0 after many years of work and study, we believe that you will be able, immature as you are,

spk_0 to use the patrol and its resources to defend Eresia and to destroy the Baskonian fleet.

spk_0 That we cannot do it ourselves is implicit in what I have said.

spk_0 But that means this is the big show then that you have been hitting at so long, far from it.

spk_0 An important engagement, of course, but only preliminary to the real test, which will come when we

spk_0 invade Ador. Do you agree with us that if Eresia were to be destroyed now, it would be difficult to

spk_0 repair the damage done to the morale of the Galactic Patrol? Difficult, it would be impossible.

spk_0 Not necessarily. We have considered the matter at length, however, and have decided that a

spk_0 Baskonian success at this time would not be for the good of civilization. I'll say it wouldn't.

spk_0 That's a masterpiece of understatement if there ever was one. Also, a successful defense of Eresia

spk_0 would be about the best thing that the patrol could possibly do for itself. Exactly so. Go then

spk_0 children and work to that end. But how mentor? How? Again, I tell you that I do not know.

spk_0 You have powers individually, collectively, and as the unit about which I know little or nothing

spk_0 used them.

spk_0 The Big Brass, socially the directrix, technically the Z9M9Z, floated through space at the center

spk_0 of a hollow sphere of molars packed almost screen to screen. She carried the brains.

spk_0 She had been built around the 17 million cubic feet of unobstructed space which comprised her tank.

spk_0 The three-dimensional chart in which very colored lights, stationary and moving,

spk_0 represented the positions and motions of solar systems, ships, loose planets,

spk_0 megaspheres, and all other objects and items in which grand fleet operations was or might become

spk_0 interested. Completely encircling the tanks more than 2,000 feet or circumference was the

spk_0 Ragellian manned multi-million plug board. A crew and a board capable of handling efficiently

spk_0 more than a million combat units. In the reducer, the comparatively tiny 10-foot tank set into an

spk_0 Alcove, there were condensed the continuously changing major features of the main chart,

spk_0 so that one man could comprehend and direct the broad strategy of the engagement.

spk_0 Instead of Port Admiral Haynes, who had conned that reducer and issued the general orders during

spk_0 the only previous experience of the Z9M9Z in serious warfare, Kimmel Kinnison was now in supreme command.

spk_0 Instead of Kinnison and Worsal, who had formally handled the big tank and the board,

spk_0 there were Klerissa, Worsal, Tragancy, and the children of the Lens.

spk_0 There also, in a built-in, thoroughly competent refrigerator, was Nadrik.

spk_0 Port Admiral Raul Aforge and Vice Coordinator Clifford Maillan were just coming aboard.

spk_0 Might he need anybody else, Kinnison wondered. Couldn't think of anybody. He had just about the

spk_0 whole top echelon of civilization. Cliff and Laugh weren't L2's, of course, but they were mighty good

spk_0 men. Besides, he liked them. Too bad that the fourth officer of their class couldn't be there, too,

spk_0 gallant Vidal Humberg killed in action. At that three out of four was a high average,

spk_0 mighty high. High cliff, high laugh, high Kim. The three old French shook hands cordially,

spk_0 then the two newcomers stared for minutes into the maze of lights flashing and winking in the

spk_0 tremendous space chart. Glad I don't have to try to make sense out of that, Laughorge commented

spk_0 finally. Looks a lot different in battle-harness than on practice cruises.

spk_0 You want me on that forward wall there, you said? Yes, you can see it planar down here in the

spk_0 reducer. The white star is Erysia. The yellows, all marked, are suns and other fixed points,

spk_0 such as the markers along the arbitrary rim of the galaxy running from there to there.

spk_0 Reds will be Bosconians when they get close enough to show. Greens are ours.

spk_0 Up in the Big Tank everything is identified, but down here there's no room for details.

spk_0 Each green light marks the location of a whole operating fleet. That block of green circles there

spk_0 is your command. It's about 80 Parsecs deep and covers everything within two hours,

spk_0 say, 150 Parsecs, of the line between Erysia and the second galaxy. Pretty loose now, of course,

spk_0 but you can tighten it up and shift it as you please as soon as some red show up.

spk_0 You'll have a Rijelian talker. Here he is now. When you want anything done, think at him,

spk_0 and he'll give it to the right panel on the board. QX? I think so. I'll practice a bit.

spk_0 Now you, Cliff, these green crosses halfway between the forward wall and Erysia or yours.

spk_0 You won't have quite as much depth as laugh, but a wider coverage.

spk_0 The green tetrahedrons are mine. They blanket Erysia, you notice, and fill the space out to the second wall.

spk_0 Do you think that you and I will have anything to do?

spk_0 Maelan asked, waving a hand at LeForge's tremendous barrier.

spk_0 I wish I could hope that we won't, but I can't. I have it from a usually reliable source that

spk_0 they're going to throw the book. That means hyperspacial tubes as well as open space. They'll probably

spk_0 strike everywhere at once. Then for weeks, Grand Fleet drilled, manoeuvred and practiced.

spk_0 All space within ten parsecs of Erysia was divided into minute cubes, each of which was given a

spk_0 reference number. Fleets were so placed that any point in that space could be reached by at least

spk_0 one fleet in thirty seconds or less of a lap's time. Drill went on until finally it happened.

spk_0 Constance, on guard at the moment, perceived the slight curdling of space which presages the

spk_0 appearance of the terminus of a hyperspacial tube and gave the alarm. Kit, the girls, and all the

spk_0 Erysians responded instantly. All knew that this was to be a thing which not even the five could

spk_0 handle unated. Not one, or a hundred, or a thousand, but at least two hundred thousand of those

spk_0 tubes erupted practically at once. Kit could alert and instruct ten rajelian operators every second,

spk_0 and so could each of his sisters. But since every tube within striking distance of Erysia had to be

spk_0 guarded or plugged within thirty seconds of its appearance, and since all of the work was done

spk_0 out in space and not in the tank, it is seen that the Erysians did practically all of the spotting

spk_0 in placing during those first literally incredible two or three minutes. If the Bosconians could have

spk_0 emerged from a tube's terminus in the moment of its appearance, it is quite probable that nothing

spk_0 could have saved Erysia. As it was, however, the enemy required seconds, or sometimes even hold

spk_0 minutes, to traverse their tubes, which gave the defenders much valuable time. One of the observers,

spk_0 an Erysian or a third-stage lensman, at first perception of a terminus erupting, noted the number

spk_0 of the threatened space cubicle, informed the rajelian operator upon whose panel the number was,

spk_0 flashed a message to all other observers that that number had been handled.

spk_0 The observer flashed the number to the communications board of the flagship of the fleet covering that

spk_0 space, a flash which was automatically relayed to every communications and navigations officer

spk_0 of that fleet, and which also automatically called up reserve for another fleet to take the

spk_0 place being vacated. Without further orders, the fleet drove toward its target cube.

spk_0 En route, tube locators mapped the terminus and marked its exact location upon each of Essel's

spk_0 tube plates. Upon arriving, the fleet englobed the terminus and laced itself by means of tractors

spk_0 and pressers, into a rigid, although inertialist structure. Then, if there was time, and because the

spk_0 theory was that the pirates would probably send a negosphere through at first, with an intrinsic

spk_0 velocity aimed at Eurycia, a suitably equipped loose planet was tossed into this end of the tube.

spk_0 Since they might send a loose or an armed planet through first, however, the fleet admiral

spk_0 usually threw a negosphere into. What happened when planet met negosphere in the unknown medium

spk_0 which makes up the interior of a hyperspacial tube is not and probably never will be surely known.

spk_0 Several highly-abstruct mathematical treatises and many volumes of rather gruesome fiction have

spk_0 been written upon the subject, none of which, however, has any bearing here. If the patrol fleet

spk_0 did not get there first, the succession of events was different. The degree of difference

spk_0 depending upon how much time the enemy had had. If, as sometimes happened, a fleet was coming through,

spk_0 it was met by superatomic bombs and by the concentrated fire of every primary projector that

spk_0 the englobing task force could bring to bear, with consequences upon which it is neither necessary

spk_0 nor desirable to dwell. If a planet had emerged, it was met by a negosphere. Have you ever seen a

spk_0 negosphere strike a planet? The negosphere's built of negative matter. This material, or rather

spk_0 anti-material, is in every respect the exact opposite of the everyday matter of normal space.

spk_0 Instead of electrons, its ultimate units are positrons. The Dirac holes in an infinity of negative

spk_0 energy. To it, a push, however violent, is a pull. A pull is a push. When negative matter strikes

spk_0 positive, then, there is no collision in the usual sense of the word. One electron and one

spk_0 positron neutralize each other and disappear, giving rise to two quanta of extremely hard radiation.

spk_0 Thus, when the spherical hyperplane, which was the aspect of the negosphere,

spk_0 tended to occupy the same three-dimensional space in which the loose planet already was,

spk_0 there was no actual collision. Instead, the materials of both simply vanished,

spk_0 along the surface of what should have been a contact in a gigantically crescendo burst a pure

spk_0 raw energy. The atoms and the molecules of the planet's substance disappeared.

spk_0 The physically incomprehensible texture of the negosphere's anti-mass changed into that of

spk_0 normal space, and all circumambient space was flooded with inconceivably lethal radiation.

spk_0 So intensely lethal that any being not adequately shielded from it died before he had time to

spk_0 realize that he was being burned. Gravitation, of course, was unaffected, and the rapid

spk_0 disappearance of the planet's mass set up unbalanced forces of tremendous magnitude.

spk_0 The hot dense pseudo-liquid magma tended to erupt as the sphere of nothingness devoured so rapidly

spk_0 the planet's substance, but not a particle of it could move. Instead, it vanished.

spk_0 Mountains fell crashingly, oceans poured, earth cracks appeared, miles wide, tens of miles deep,

spk_0 hundreds of miles long. The world heaved, shuttered, disintegrated, vanished.

spk_0 The shock attack upon Eryse itself, which in the Adorian mind have been mathematically

spk_0 certain to succeed, was over in approximately six minutes.

spk_0 Kinnison, Matlin, and LaForge, fuming at their stations, had done nothing at all.

spk_0 The Bosconians had probably thrown everything they could. The probability was vanishingly small

spk_0 that that particular attack was to be or could be resumed. Nevertheless, a host of Kinnison's

spk_0 task forces remained on guard, and a detail of Eryse and still scanned all nearby space.

spk_0 What shall I do next, Kit? Camilla asked. Help Connie crack that screen?

spk_0 Kit glanced at his youngest sister, who was stretched out flat every muscle rigidly

spk_0 tense in an extremity of effort. No, he decided. If she can't crack it alone, all four of us

spk_0 couldn't help her much. Besides, I don't believe that she can break through it.

spk_0 That's a mechanical screen, you know, powered by atomic motor generators.

spk_0 My guess is that it will have to be solved, not cracked, and the solution will take time.

spk_0 When she comes down off that peak, hey, you might tell her so, and both of you start solving it.

spk_0 The rest of us have another job. The moppers up are coming in force, and there is in a chance

spk_0 that either we or the Eryseans can derive the counter formula of that screen in less than a week.

spk_0 Therefore, the rest of this battle will have to be fought out on conventional lines.

spk_0 We can do the most good, I think, by spotting the Baskoneans into the big tank.

spk_0 Our scouts aren't locating 5% of them. For the L2s to pass on to dead and the rest of the heavy brass,

spk_0 so that they can run this battle the way it should be run.

spk_0 You'll do the spotting cam, of course.

spk_0 Kat and I will do the pushing. And if you thought that tragonsi took you for a wild ride,

spk_0 it'll work, don't you think? Of course it will work, and I like wild rides, the faster the better.

spk_0 Thus, apparently, as though by magic, red lights winked into being throughout a third of the volume

spk_0 of the immense tank, and the three master strategists, informed of what was being done,

spk_0 heaved tremendous size of relief. They now had real control. They knew not only the positions

spk_0 of their own task forces, but also, and exactly, the position of every task force of the enemy.

spk_0 More, by merely forming in his mind the desire for the information, any one of the three could know,

spk_0 with no appreciable lapse of time, the exact composition and exact strength of any individual one

spk_0 of the horde of Baskonian fleets. Kat and his two sisters stood close grouped motionless,

spk_0 heads bent and almost touching arms interlocked.

spk_0 Kat and I perceived with surprise that lenses, as big and as bright as kits' own, flamed upon

spk_0 his daughter's wrists. A surprise which changed to awe as the very error around those three red bronze

spk_0 Auburn heads began to thicken, to pulsate and to glow with that indefinable, indescribable

spk_0 polychromatic effulgence, which is so uniquely characteristic of the lens of the galactic patrol.

spk_0 But there was work to do, and Kinnisundidit. Since the Z9 M9Z was now working, as not even the

spk_0 most optimistic of her planners and designers, had dared to hope that she ever could work,

spk_0 the war could now be and was now being fought strategically, that is, with the object of doing

spk_0 the enemy as much harm as possible with the irreducible minimum of risk. It was not sporting,

spk_0 it was not clubby, there was nothing whatever of chivalry, there was no thought whatever of giving

spk_0 the enemy a break. It was a massacre, it was murder, it was war. It was not shipped to ship,

spk_0 no, nor fleet to fleet. Instead, 10 or 20 patrol task forces, under sure pilotage,

spk_0 dashed out to englobe at extreme range one fleet of the Baskoneans.

spk_0 Then, before the opposing admiral could assemble a picture of what was going on,

spk_0 his entire command became the center of impact of hundreds or even thousands of detonating

spk_0 supratomic bombs, as well as the focus of an immensely greater number of scarcely less ravaging

spk_0 primary beams, not a ship, nor a scout, nor lifeboat, of the englobed fleet escaped ever.

spk_0 In fact, few indeed were the blobs or even droplets of hard alloy or adurium,

spk_0 which remained merely liquefied or which later were able to condense.

spk_0 Fleet by fleet, the Baskoneans were blown out of the ether, one by one the red lights in the

spk_0 tank and in the reducer winked out, and finally the slaughter was done.

spk_0 Kit and his two now lensless sisters unlace themselves.

spk_0 Karen and Constance came up for air, announcing that they knew how to work the problem kit had

spk_0 handed them, but that they would need more time on it. Clarissa, wide and shaken by what she had

spk_0 driven herself to do, looked and felt sick. So did Kineson, nor had either of the other two

spk_0 commanders derived any pleasure from the engagement. Tragancy deplored it. Of all the lensed personnel,

spk_0 only Worsal had enjoyed himself. He liked to kill enemies at close range or far and could not

spk_0 understand or sympathize with squeamishness. Nadric, of course, had neither liked nor disliked any

spk_0 part of the whole affair. To him his part had been merely another task, to be performed with the

spk_0 smallest outlay a physical and mental effort consistent with good workmanship.

spk_0 What next, Kineson asked then of the group at large? I say the plurands. They're not like these

spk_0 poor devils were, they probably sent them in. They've got it coming. They certainly have plur

spk_0 by all means plur. But how about Aricia here, mainland asked? Under control, Kineson replied,

spk_0 we'll leave a heavy guard in a spared tank. The Arisians will do the rest.

spk_0 As soon as the tremendous fleet had shaken itself down into the course for plur,

spk_0 all seven of the Kinesons retired to a small dining-room and ate a festive meal.

spk_0 They drank after dinner coffee. Most of them smoked. They discussed for a long time and not

spk_0 very quietly the matter of the hellhole in space. Finally, I know it's a trap as well as you do.

spk_0 Kineson got up from the table, rammed his hands into his breechless pockets and paced the floor.

spk_0 It's got T-R-A-P painted all over it in bill-poster letters 17 meters high.

spk_0 So what? Since I'm the only one who can, I've got to go in. If it's still there after we knock

spk_0 plur off, and it'll still be there for all the tea in China. All the plurands aren't on plur.

spk_0 Four young Kinesons flashed thoughts at Catherine, who frowned in bitter lip.

spk_0 She had hit that hole with everything she had and had simply bounced.

spk_0 She had been able to block the radiation, of course, but such solid barriers have been

spk_0 necessary that she have blinded herself by her own screens. That it was adorian there could be no

spk_0 doubt, worn by her own activities in the other tube, plurin, of course, and dad would be worth

spk_0 taking in more ways than one. I can't say that I'm any keener about going in than any of you are

spk_0 about having me to do it. The big lensman went on. But unless some of you can figure out a reason

spk_0 from I'm not going in, that isn't fuller of holes than a sponge rubber cushion, I'm going to

spk_0 tackle it just as soon after we blow plur apart as I can possibly get there.

spk_0 And Catherine, his self-appointed guardian, knew that nothing could stop him.

spk_0 Nor did anyone there, even Clarissa, try to stop him.

spk_0 Lansmanal, they knew that he had to go in and why.

spk_0 To the five, the situation was not too serious.

spk_0 Kineson would probably come through unhurt. The adorians could take him, of course.

spk_0 But whether or not they could do anything to him after they got him,

spk_0 would depend no little on what the Kineson kids would be doing in the meantime,

spk_0 and that would be plenty. They couldn't delay dad's entry into the tube very much without

spk_0 making a smell, but they could and would hurry Aricia up. And even if, as seems probable,

spk_0 dad was already in the tube when Aricia was ready for the big business with Edor,

spk_0 a lot could be done at the other end. Those amoeboid monstrosities would be fighting for the

spk_0 Rome precious lives this time, not for the lives of slaves. At the five promised each other grimly

spk_0 that the adorians would have too much else to worry about to waste any time on Kimball Kineson.

spk_0 Clarissa Kineson, however, fought the hardest and bitters battle of her life.

spk_0 She loved Kim with a depth and a fervor, which very few women anywhere have ever been able to feel.

spk_0 She knew with a sick, cold certainty, knew with every fiber of her mind and with every cell of her

spk_0 brain that if he went into that trap he would die in it. Nevertheless, she would have to let him go in.

spk_0 More and worse, she would have to send him in to his death with a smile.

spk_0 She could not ask him not to go in. She could not even suggest again that there was any possibility

spk_0 that he need not go in. He had to go in. He had to. And if Lensman's load was heavy on him,

spk_0 on her it was almost unbearable. His part was vastly easier. He would only have to die.

spk_0 She would have to live. She would have to keep on living without Kim, living a lifetime of deaths

spk_0 one after another. And she would have to hold her block and smile, not only with her face but with

spk_0 her whole mind. She could be scared, of course, apprehensive as he himself was. She could wish with

spk_0 all her strength for his safe return. But if he suspected the thousandth part of what she really

spk_0 felt it would break his heart. Nor would it do a bit of good. However, broken hearted at her

spk_0 rebellion against the inflexible code of the Lens, he would still go in. Being Kim Bolkinesen,

spk_0 he could not do anything else. As soon as she could, Clarissa went to a distant room and turned

spk_0 on a full coverage block. She lay down, buried her face in the pillow, clenched her fists, and fought.

spk_0 Was there any way, any possible way that she could die instead? None. It was not that simple.

spk_0 She would have to let him go. Not gladly, but proudly and willingly for the good of the patrol.

spk_0 Clarissa Kinesen gritted her teeth and rived. She would simply have to let him go into that

spk_0 ghastly trap, go to his absolutely sure and certain death, without showing one white feather,

spk_0 either to her husband or to her children. Her husband, her Kim would have to die, and she would have

spk_0 to live. She got up, smiled experimentally, and snapped off the block. Then, actually smiling and

spk_0 serenely confident, she strolled down the corridor. Such is Lensman's load.

spk_0 This Libra Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 26

spk_0 Chapter 26

spk_0 Twenty-eight years before, when the Venn Dauntless and her crew were thrown out of a hyperspacial tube,

spk_0 and into that highly enigmatic Earth space, Laverne Thorndijk had been achieved technician.

spk_0 Mantor of Eurasia found them, and put into the mind of Sir Austin Cardage, the mathematician

spk_0 extraordinary, the knowledge of how to find the way back to normal space. Thorndijk, working

spk_0 under nerve-breaking difficulties, had been in charge of building the machines which were to

spk_0 enable the vessel to return to her home space. He built them, she returned.

spk_0 He was now again in charge, and every man of his present crew had been a member of his former one.

spk_0 He did not command the spaceship or her regular crew, of course, but they did not count.

spk_0 Not one of these kids would be allowed to set foot on the fantastically dangerous planet,

spk_0 to which the inertialist Space Laboratory 12 was anchored with tractors and pressors.

spk_0 Older, leaner, grayer, he was now even more than then, civilization's past master of mechanism.

spk_0 If anything could be built, Thorndijk could build it. If it couldn't be built, he could build

spk_0 something that would do the work. As soon as the Grey Lensman and his son left the vessel,

spk_0 Chief Technician Thorndijk, not the vice admiral of the same name, lined his crew up for inspection.

spk_0 Men, who although many of them had as much rank and had had as many years of as much authority

spk_0 as the present boss, had been working for days to forget as completely as possible their executive

spk_0 positions and responsibilities. Each man wore not one, but three personal neutralizers, one inside

spk_0 and two outside of his spacesuit. Thorndijk, walking down the line, applied his test kit to each

spk_0 individual neutralizer. He then tested his own. QX, all were at max.

spk_0 Fellows, he said then, you all remember what it was like last time. This is going to be the same,

spk_0 except more so and for a longer time. How we did it before without any casualties, I'll never know.

spk_0 If we can do it again, it'll be a major miracle, no less. Before, all we had to do was to build a

spk_0 couple of small generators and some controls out of stuff native to the planet, and we didn't find

spk_0 that any too easy a job. This time, for starter, we've got to build a bergen home big enough to

spk_0 free the whole planet, after which we install the bergs, tube generators, atomic blasts, and other

spk_0 stuff we brought along. But that native bergen is going to be a Class A prime headache, and until we

spk_0 get it running, it's going to be hell on wheels. The only way we can get away with it is to check

spk_0 and recheck everything and every step. Check, check, double check. Then go back and double check again.

spk_0 Remember that the fundamental characteristics of this Earth space are such that inert matter can

spk_0 travel faster than light. And remember, every second of the time that our intrinsic velocity is

spk_0 something like fifteen lights relative to anything solid in this space. I want every one of you to

spk_0 picture himself going inert accidentally. You might take a tangent course or higher, but you might not, too.

spk_0 And it wouldn't only kill the one who did it. It wouldn't only spoil our record.

spk_0 You could very easily kill us all and make a crater full of boiling metal out of our whole

spk_0 installation. So be careful. Also bear in mind that one piece, however small of this planet's

spk_0 material accidentally brought aboard, might wreck the don'tlas. Any questions?

spk_0 If the fundamental characteristics, constants of this space are so different, how do you know that

spk_0 the stuff will work here? Well, the stuff we built here before worked. The Rissians told Kid

spk_0 Kinesen that two of the fundamentals, mass and length are about normal. Time is a lot different

spk_0 so that we can't compute power to mass ratios and so on, but we'll have enough power anyway to

spk_0 get any speed that we can use. I see. We missed the really fancy stuff? Yes. Well, the quicker we get

spk_0 started, the quicker we'll get done. Let's go. The planet was airless, waterless, desolate, a chaotic

spk_0 jumble of huge and jagged fragments of various metals in a non-metallic continuous phase.

spk_0 It was as though some playful child-giant of space had poured dipperfalls of silver, of iron,

spk_0 of copper, of other graduated pure metals into a tank of something else, and then tired of play

spk_0 had thrown the whole mess away. Neither the metals nor the non-metallic substances were either hot

spk_0 or cold. They had no apparent temperature, two thermometers or to the feeders of the suits.

spk_0 The machines which these men had built so long before had not changed in any particular.

spk_0 They still functioned perfectly. No spot of rust or corrosion or erosion marred any part.

spk_0 This at least was good news. A nurse-gillist machines, extravagantly equipped with devices to

spk_0 keep them inertialists, were taken ashore, nor were any of these ever to be returned to the ship.

spk_0 Kinesen had ordered and reiterated that no unnecessary chances were to be taken,

spk_0 of getting any particle of nth-space stuff aboard space laboratory 12 and none were taken.

spk_0 Since men cannot work indefinitely in spacesuits, each man had periodically to be relieved,

spk_0 but each such relief amounted almost to an operation. Before he left the planet, his suit was scrubbed,

spk_0 rinsed and dried. In the vessel's airlock, it was air blasted again before the outer port was closed.

spk_0 He unsheld in the lock and left his suit there. Everything which had come into contact with

spk_0 nth-space matter either would be left on the planet's surface or would be jettison before the vessel

spk_0 was again inerted. Unnecessary precautions? Perhaps, but Thorn-diking his crew returned

spk_0 unharmed to normal space in undamaged ships. Finally, the Bergenholm was done. By dent of what

spk_0 improvisation, substitution and artifice, only Thorn-dike ever knew. At what strain and cost

spk_0 was evidenced by the gaunt bodies and haggard faces of his overworked and under-slept crew.

spk_0 To those experts, and particularly to Thorn-dike, the thing was not a good job.

spk_0 It was not quiet nor smooth. It was not in balance, statically, dynamically or electrically.

spk_0 The chief technician, to whom a meter jump of one and a half thousands had always been a matter of

spk_0 grave concern, swore feelingly in all the planetary languages he knew when he saw what those meters

spk_0 were doing. He scoured merosely. There might have been poor machines built sometime somewhere,

spk_0 he supposed, but if so, he had never seen any. But the improvised berg ran and kept on running.

spk_0 The planet became inertialists and remained that way. For hours then, Thorn-dike climbed over

spk_0 and around and through the broading neggie and fabrication, testing and checking the operation

spk_0 of every part. Finally, he climbed down and reported to his waiting crew.

spk_0 QX fellows, a nice job. A good job, in fact, considering. Even though we all know that it isn't what

spk_0 any of us would call a good machine, part of that meter jump, of course, is due to the fact that

spk_0 nothing about the heap is true or balanced, but most of it must be due to this cock-eyed ether.

spk_0 Anyway, none of it is due to the usual causes, lose spars and faulty insulation.

spk_0 So my best guess is that she'll keep on doing her stuff while we do hours. One sure thing,

spk_0 she isn't going to fall apart, even under that ungodly knocking, and I don't think that she's

spk_0 going to shake herself off the planet. After Thorn-dikes somewhat less than enthusiastic approval of

spk_0 his brainchild, the adventurers into that fantastic region attacked the second phase of their project.

spk_0 Two patrol bergenhomes were landed and were installed. Their meters jumped too, but the

spk_0 engineers were no longer worried about that. Those machines would run indefinitely, and a concerted

spk_0 sigh of relief arose when the improvised generator was shut down. Pits were dug. Atomic blasts

spk_0 and other engines were installed, as were many exceedingly complex instruments and mechanisms.

spk_0 A few tons of foreign matter on the planet's surface would now make no difference,

spk_0 but there was no relaxation of the extreme precautions against the transfer of any matter whatever

spk_0 from the planet to the spaceship. When the job was done, but before the cleanup, Thorn-dike called

spk_0 his crew into conference. Follows, I know just what a beating you've been taking.

spk_0 We all feel as though we had been on a delgonian clam bake. Nevertheless, I've got to tell you something.

spk_0 Kiddison said that if we could get this one fixed up without too much trouble,

spk_0 it'd be a mighty good idea to have two of them. What do you say? Did we have too much trouble?

spk_0 He got exactly the reaction he had expected. Lead us to it. Pick out the one you want.

spk_0 Trouble, it's all over. We can tow this scrap heap on a space line,

spk_0 match in trinsics with clamp on drivers, and plant it anywhere.

spk_0 Another metal-studded, barren, lifeless world was therefore found and prepared,

spk_0 and no real argument arose until Thorn-dike broached the matter of selecting the two men

spk_0 who were to stay with him and Henderson in the two lifeboats which were to remain for a time

spk_0 near the two loose planets after Space Laboratory 12 had returned to normal space.

spk_0 Everybody wanted to stay. Each one was going to stay, too, by all the gods of space

spk_0 if he had to pull rank to do it. Hold it, Thorn-dike commanded. We'll do the same as we did before,

spk_0 then, by drawing lots. Quartermaster Aladice? No. Yulinhooth, formerly atomic technician I C,

spk_0 objected vigorously and was supported by several others. He used to clever with his fingers.

spk_0 Look what he did to the original draw. We're not squawking about that one, you understand.

spk_0 A little fixing was QX back there, but we want this one to be honest.

spk_0 Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing that things were not left entirely to chance.

spk_0 Thorn-dike grinned broadly. So you hold upon yourself, Yulie, and Hank and I will each pull out one

spk_0 name. So it was. Henderson drew Yulinhooth to that burly admirals loud at light, and Thorn-dike

spk_0 drew Nelson, the erstwhile chief communications officer. The two lifeboats disembarked each

spk_0 near one of the newly loosened planets. Two men would stay on or near each of those planets

spk_0 to be sure that all the machinery functioned perfectly. They would stay there until the atomic

spk_0 blasts functioned perfectly. They would stay there until the atomic blast went into action,

spk_0 and it became clear that the erissians would need no help in navigating those tremendous

spk_0 globes through in space to the points at which two hyperspatial tubes were soon to appear.

spk_0 Long before the advanced scouts of the Grand Fleet were within surveying distance of plur,

spk_0 kid and assisters had spread a completely detailed chart of its defenses in the tactical tank.

spk_0 A white star represented plur's sun. A white sphere the planet itself. White rires and

spk_0 string lights marked a portion of a planetary orbit. Points of white light, practically all of

spk_0 which were connected to the white sphere by red string lights, marked the directions of

spk_0 neighboring stars and the existence of sunbeams, installed and ready. Pink globes were loose planets.

spk_0 Purple ones, negus fears. Red points of light were as before boscony and task force fleets.

spk_0 Blues were mobile fortresses. Bands of Canary Yellow and Amber luminescence showed the locations

spk_0 and emplacements of sunbeam grids and deflectors. Layer after layer of pinks, purples and blues

spk_0 almost hid the brilliant white sphere from sight. More layers of the same colors, not quite as dense,

spk_0 surrounded the entire solar system. Yellow and Amber bands were everywhere.

spk_0 Kineson studied the thing briefly, whistling unmalodiously through his teeth.

spk_0 The picture was familiar enough since it duplicated in practically every respect

spk_0 the chart of the neighborhood of the patrol's own ultra prime around Clovia.

spk_0 It did not require much study to make it clear that that defense could not be cracked by any

spk_0 concentration possible of any mobile devices there to fore employed in war.

spk_0 Just about what we expected, Kineson thought to the group at large. Some new stuff, but not much.

spk_0 What I want to know, kid in the rest of you, is there anything there that looks as though it was

spk_0 supposed to handle our new baby? Don't see anything myself. There is not, kid stated definitely.

spk_0 We looked. There couldn't be any way. It can't be handled.

spk_0 Looking backwards at it, they will probably be able to reconstruct how it was done, but in advance?

spk_0 No. Even mentor couldn't. He had to call in a fellow who was studied ultra high mathematics for

spk_0 clonal only knows how many millions of years to compute the result in vectors.

spk_0 Kids use of the word they, which of course meant plurons to everyone except his sisters,

spk_0 concealed his knowledge of the fact that the adorians had taken over the defense of plur.

spk_0 Adorians were handling those screens. Adorians were directing and correlating those far

spk_0 flung task forces, with a precision which Kineson soon noticed.

spk_0 Much smoother work than I ever saw them do before, he commented.

spk_0 Suppose they have developed a Z9M9Z? Could be. They copied everything else you invented. Why not that?

spk_0 Again, the highly ambiguous they. No sign of it around Maurizia though, but maybe they didn't

spk_0 think they needed there. Or more likely they didn't want to risk it so far from home.

spk_0 We can tell better after the mopping up starts, if the widget performs as perspx.

spk_0 But if your dope is right, this is about close enough. You might tip the boys off and I'll call

spk_0 the panth space, but it was no secret that kid could. The terminus of one of the patrols'

spk_0 hyperspacial tubes erupted into space close to plur. That such phenomena were expected was evident.

spk_0 Abosconean fleet moved promptly and smoothly to englobe it. But this was an erissian tube,

spk_0 computed, installed, and handled by erissians. It would be in existence only three seconds.

spk_0 The nearest offending task force could not possibly get there in time.

spk_0 To the observers in the Z9M9Z, those three seconds stretched endlessly.

spk_0 What would happen when that utterly foreign planet, with its absolutely impossible intrinsic

spk_0 velocity of over fifteen times that of light erupted into normal space and went inert?

spk_0 Nobody, not even the erissians knew. Everybody there had seen pictures of what happened when

spk_0 the insignificant mass of a spaceship, traveling at only a hundredth of the velocity of light,

spk_0 collided with a planetoid. That was bad enough. This projectile, however, had a mass of about

spk_0 eight times ten to the twenty-first power, and eight followed by twenty-one zero's metric tons.

spk_0 Would ten to travel fifteen hundred times as fast, and kinetic energy equals mass times velocity

spk_0 squared. There seemed to be a theoretical possibility, since the mass would instantaneously become

spk_0 some higher order of infinity, that all the matter in normal space would coalesce with it in zero

spk_0 time. But mentor had assured kit that operators would come into effect to prevent such an occurrence,

spk_0 and that untoward events would be limited to a radius of ten or fifteen parsecs.

spk_0 Mentor could solve the problem in detail, but since the solution would require some two hundred

spk_0 cloverian years, and the event was due to occur in two weeks. How about the big computer at ultra-prime,

spk_0 Kinnison asked innocently, you know how fast that works? Roughly two thousand years,

spk_0 if it could handle that kind of math which it can't, kit had replied, and the subject had been dropped.

spk_0 Finally, it happened. What happened? Even after the fact none of the observers knew,

spk_0 nor did any except the L-3s ever find out. The fuses of all the recorder and analyzer circuits

spk_0 blew at once. Needles jumped instantly to maximum and wrapped themselves around their stops.

spk_0 Charts and ultra-photographic film showed only straight or curved lines running from the origin

spk_0 to and through the limits in zero time. Plore and everything around had disappeared in an utterly

spk_0 indescribable and completely incomprehensible blast of pure, wild, raw, uncontrolled, and uncontrollable

spk_0 energy. The infinitesimal fraction of that energy, which was visible, had or dined upon the ultra as

spk_0 it was and screened as it was, blazed so savagely upon the plates that it seared the eyes.

spk_0 And if the events caused by the planet aimed at plore were indescribable, what can be said of

spk_0 those initiated by the one directed against plur's sun? When the heat generated in the interior of a

spk_0 sun becomes greater than its effective surface is able to radiate, that surface expands.

spk_0 If the expansion is not fast enough, a more or less insignificant amount of the sun's material

spk_0 explodes, thus enlarging by force the radiant surface to whatever extent is necessary to restore

spk_0 equilibrium. Thus come into being the ordinary Novi. Sons, which may for a few days or for a few

spk_0 weeks, radiate energy at a rate a few hundreds of thousands of times greater than normal.

spk_0 Since ordinary Novi can be produced at will by the collision of a planet with a sun,

spk_0 the scientists of the patrol had long since completed their studies of all the phenomena involved.

spk_0 The mechanisms of Super Novi however remained obscure. No adequate instrumentation had been

spk_0 developed to study conclusively the occasional Super Novo which occurred naturally. No Super Novo

spk_0 had ever been produced artificially, with all its resources of mass, atomic energy,

spk_0 cosmic energy, and sunbeams. Civilization could neither assemble nor concentrate enough power.

spk_0 At the impact of the second loose planet accompanied by the excess energy of its impossible

spk_0 and unattainable intrinsic velocity, Plurus sun became a Super Nova. How deeply the intruding

spk_0 thing penetrated, how much of the sun's mass exploded, never was, and perhaps never will,

spk_0 be determined. The violence of the explosion was such however that clovian astronomers reported

spk_0 a few years later that it was radiating energy at the rate of some 550 million suns.

spk_0 Thus no attempt will be made to describe what happened when the planet from

spk_0 Earth's space struck the Baskonian Sun. It was indescribably cubed.

spk_0 The Baskonian fleets defending Plur were not all destroyed of course. The vessels were inertialists.

spk_0 None of the phenomena accompanying the coming into being of the Super Nova were propagated at a

spk_0 velocity above that of light. A speed which to any spaceship is scarcely a crawl. The survivors were

spk_0 however disorganized. They had lost their morale when Plur was wiped out in such a spectacularly

spk_0 nerve-shattering fashion. Also, they had lost practically all of their high command.

spk_0 For the Plurans, instead of writing the ether as dipitrol commanders,

spk_0 remained in their supposedly secure headquarters and directed matters from afar.

spk_0 Mentor and his fellows had removed from this plane of existence the Adorians who had been present

spk_0 in the flesh on Plur. The Erysians had cut all communications between Edor and the remnants of

spk_0 the Baskonian defensive force. Grand Fleet then moved in for the kill, and for a time the

spk_0 action Erysia was repeated. Following definite flight and course orders from the Z9M9Z,

spk_0 ten or more patrol fleets would make short hops. At the end of those assigned courses,

spk_0 they would discover that they had englobed a task force of the enemy, bomb and beam,

spk_0 over and over, flit, bomb and beam. One Baskonian high officer however had both the time and

spk_0 the authority to act. A full thousand fleets massed together, their heaviest units outward,

spk_0 packed together screen to screen in a close-order globe of defense.

spk_0 According to Haynes, that was good strategy in the old days,

spk_0 Kinesen commented, but it's no good against loose planets and negusfiers.

spk_0 Six loose planets were so placed and so released that their inert masses would crash together

spk_0 at the center of the Baskonian globe. Then a few minutes later, ten negusfiers of high anti-mass

spk_0 were similarly launched. After those sixteen missiles had done their work and the resultant

spk_0 had attained an equilibrium of sorts, very little mopping up was found necessary.

spk_0 The Baskonian observers were competent. The Baskonian commanders now knew that they had no

spk_0 chance whatever of success. That to stay was to be annihilated, that the only possibility of life

spk_0 lay in flight. Therefore, each remaining Baskonian vice admiral, after perhaps a moment of consultation

spk_0 with a few others, ordered his fleet to drive at maximum blast for his home planet.

spk_0 No use chasing them individually is their kit, Kinesen asked, when it became clear in the tank

spk_0 that the real battle was over, that all resistance had ended. They can't do anything, and this kind of

spk_0 killing makes me sick at the stomach. Besides, I've got something else to do.

spk_0 No, me too, so have I, kid-agreed with his father in full.

spk_0 As soon as the last Baskonian fleet was beyond detector range, Grand Fleet broke up,

spk_0 its component fleet setting out for their respective worlds.

spk_0 The hellhole is still there, Kit, the Great Lensman said soberly.

spk_0 If plur was the top, I'm beginning to think there is no top, it leads either to an automatic

spk_0 mechanism set up by the plurians, or to plurians who are still alive somewhere. If plur was not the top,

spk_0 it seems to be the only lead we have toward that top. In either case, I've got to take it.

spk_0 Check? Well, I, Kit tried to duck, but couldn't. Yes, Dad, I'm afraid it's check.

spk_0 Too big hands met and gripped, and Kinesen went to take leave of his wife.

spk_0 There was no need to go into detail as to what those two strong souls said or did.

spk_0 He knew that he was going into danger, that he might not return, that is, he knew empirically,

spk_0 or academically, as a non-Germain sort of fact, that he might die. He did not, however,

spk_0 really believe that he would. No man who was not an errant coward really believes ever that any

spk_0 given event will or can kill him. In his own mind, he goes on living indefinitely.

spk_0 Kinesen expected to be captured, imprisoned, questioned, and perhaps tortured.

spk_0 He could understand all of those things, and he did not like any one of them.

spk_0 That he was more than a trifle afraid, and that he hated to leave her now more than he ever had

spk_0 before were both natural enough. He had nothing whatever to hide from her.

spk_0 She, on the other hand, knew starkly that he would never come back. She knew that he would die in

spk_0 that trap. She knew that she would have to live a lifetime of emptiness alone. Hence, she had much

spk_0 to conceal from him. She must be just as scared and as apprehensive as he was, but no more.

spk_0 Just as anxious for their continued happiness as he was, but no more. Just as intensely loving,

spk_0 but no more, and in exactly the same sense. Here lay the test. She must kiss him goodby

spk_0 as though he were going into mere danger. She must not give way to the almost irresistible urge to

spk_0 act in accordance with what she so starkly, shillingly knew to be the truth, that she would never,

spk_0 never, never kiss her Kim again. She succeeded. It is a measure of the red lensman's

spk_0 quality that she did not weaken, even when her husband approached the boundary of the hellhole

spk_0 and sent what she knew would be his last message. Here it is, about a second now. Don't worry,

spk_0 I'll be back very shortly. Clear ether, Chris. Of course you will, dear. Clear ether, Kim.

spk_0 His speech did not mount any special generators. He had not thought that they would be necessary,

spk_0 nor were they. He and his ship were sucked into that trap as though it had been a maelstrom.

spk_0 He felt again the co-mingled agonies of interdimensional acceleration. He perceived again the

spk_0 formless, textural, and spacious void of blankly gray nothingness, which was the three

spk_0 dimensionally impossible substance of the tube. A moment later he felt a new and different

spk_0 acceleration. He was speeding up inside the tube. Then very shortly he felt nothing at all.

spk_0 Startled, he tried to jump up to investigate and discover that he could not move.

spk_0 Even by the utmost exertion of his will, he could not stir a finger or an eyelid.

spk_0 He was completely immobilized, nor could he feel. His body was as devoid of sensation as though

spk_0 it belonged to somebody else. Worse for his heart was not beating. He was not breathing. He could not see.

spk_0 It was as though his every nerve, motor and sensory, voluntary and involuntary

spk_0 had been separately anesthetized. He could still think, but that was all. His sense of perception

spk_0 still worked. He wondered whether he was still accelerating or not and tried to find out.

spk_0 He could not. He could not determine whether he was moving or stationary. There were no reference

spk_0 points. Every infinitesimal volume of that enigmatic grainness was like each and every other.

spk_0 Mathematically perhaps, he was not moving at all. Since he was in a continuum in which mass,

spk_0 length and time, and hence inertia and inertialism, velocity and acceleration are meaningless terms.

spk_0 He was outside of space and beyond time. Effectively, however, he was moving, moving with an

spk_0 acceleration which nothing material had ever before approached. He and his vessel were being driven

spk_0 along that tube by every watt of power, a general by one entire adorian atomic power plant.

spk_0 His velocity, long since unthinkable, became incalculable. All things end, even adorian atomic power

spk_0 was not infinite. At the very peak of power and pace then, all the force, all the momentum,

spk_0 all the kinetic energy of the species, mass and velocity were concentrated in and applied to

spk_0 physical body. He sent something and tried to flinch but could not. In a fleeting instant of what

spk_0 he thought was time, he went past, not through his clothing and his lens. Past, not through his

spk_0 armor, and past, not through the hard-barrellium alloy structure of his vessel. He even went past,

spk_0 but not through the end-dimensional interface of the hyperspatial tube. This, although

spk_0 he was a man, was not able to see his climactic effort. He had taken his prisoner as far as he could

spk_0 possibly reach. Then, assembling and concentrating all available power, he had given him a catapultic

spk_0 shove into the absolutely unknown and utterly unknowable. The adorian did not know any vector of the

spk_0 lens' misnaked flight. He did not care where he went. He did not know and could not compute or even

spk_0 guess at his victim's probable destination. In what his space-hounds time-sense told him was one

spk_0 second, Kinnison passed exactly 200 million foreign spaces. He did not know how he knew the

spk_0 precise number, but he did. Hence, in the patrols measured cadence, he began to count groups of

spk_0 spaces of 100 million each. After a few days, his velocity decreased to such a value that he could

spk_0 count groups of single millions. Then thousands, hundreds, tens, until finally he could perceive the

spk_0 salient features of each space before it was blotted out by the next. How could this be, he wondered,

spk_0 but not foggly. His mind was as clear and as strong as it had ever been. Spaces were a co-existent,

spk_0 not spread out like this. In the fourth dimension, they were flat together, like pages in a book except

spk_0 thinner. This was all wrong. It was impossible. Since it could not happen, it was not happening.

spk_0 He had not been and could not be drugged. Therefore some plurin must have him in a zone of compulsion.

spk_0 What a zone. What an operator the eight must be. It was, however, real. All of it. But Kinnison

spk_0 did not know then or ever was that he was actually outside the boundaries of space, actually beyond

spk_0 the confines of time. He was going past, not through, those spaces and those times.

spk_0 He was now in each space long enough to study it in some detail. He was in immense distance above

spk_0 this one. At such a distance that he could perceive many globular super universes, each of which in

spk_0 turn was composed of billions of lenticular galaxies. Through it, closer now, galaxies only.

spk_0 The familiar random masses whose apparent lack of symmetrical grouping is due to the limitations

spk_0 of civilizations observers. He was still going too fast to stop. In the next space,

spk_0 Kinnison found himself within the limits of a solar system and tried with all the force of his

spk_0 mind to get in touch with some intelligent entity upon one, any one of its planets. Before he

spk_0 could succeed, the system vanished and he was dropping from a height of a few thousand kilometers

spk_0 toward the surface of a warm and vertiant world, so much like tell us that he thought for an instant

spk_0 that he must have circumnavigated total space. The aspect, the ice caps, the cloud effects,

spk_0 were identical. The oceans, however, were similar, were different as were the continents.

spk_0 The mountains were larger and rougher and harder. He was falling much too fast. A free fall from

spk_0 infinity wouldn't give him this much speed. The whole affair was, as he had decided once before,

spk_0 absolutely impossible. It was simply preposterous to believe that a naked man, especially one without

spk_0 blood circulation or breath, could still be alive after spending as many weeks in open space as he

spk_0 had just spent. He knew that he was alive, therefore none of this was happening. Even though,

spk_0 as surely as he knew that he was alive, he knew that he was falling.

spk_0 Jet-bag lensman, he thought viciously to himself, tried to shout it aloud.

spk_0 For this could be deadly stuff if he let himself believe it. If he believed that he was

spk_0 falling from any such height, he would die in the instant of landing. He would not actually crash.

spk_0 His body would not move from wherever it was that it was. Nevertheless, the shock of that

spk_0 holy imaginary crash would kill him just as dead and just as instantaneously as though all his flesh

spk_0 had been actually smashed into a crimson smear upon one of the neighboring mountains huge flat rocks.

spk_0 Pretty close, my bright young plurin' friend, but you didn't quite ring the bell. He thought

spk_0 savagely, trying with all the power of his mind to break through the zone of compulsion.

spk_0 I admit that you're good, but I'm telling you that if you want to kill me, you'll have to do it

spk_0 physically, and I don't believe you carried jets enough to swing the job. You might as well

spk_0 cut your zone because this kind of stuff has been pulled on me by experts, and it hasn't worked yet.

spk_0 He was apparently falling feet downward toward an open, grassy mountain meadow, surrounded by forests

spk_0 through which meandered a small stream. He was so close now that he could perceive the individual

spk_0 blades of grass in the meadow and the small fishes in the stream, and he was still apparently at

spk_0 terminal velocity. Without his years of spacehounds training in a nirtualist maneuvering,

spk_0 he might have died even before he landed, but speed as speed did not affect him at all.

spk_0 He was used to instantaneous stops from light speeds. The only thing that worried him was the

spk_0 matter of inertia. Was he a nirt or free? He declared to himself that he was free, or rather that he

spk_0 had been was and would continue to be motionless. It was physically, mathematically, intrinsically

spk_0 impossible that any of this stuff had actually occurred. It was all compulsion, pure and simple,

spk_0 and he, Kimbo-Kinnison, Gray Lensman, would not let it get him down. He clenched his mental teeth

spk_0 upon that belief and held it doggedly. One barefoot struck the tip of a blade of grass,

spk_0 and his entire body came to a chocolate's halt. He grinned in relief. This was what he wanted,

spk_0 but had not quite dared holy to expect. There followed immediately however other events which he

spk_0 had not expected at all. His halt was less than momentary. In the instant of its accomplishment,

spk_0 he began to fall normally the remaining eight or ten inches to the ground. Automatically,

spk_0 he sprung his space train knees to take the otherwise disconcerting jar. Automatically,

spk_0 his left hand snapped up to the place where his control should have been. Legs and arms worked,

spk_0 he could see with his eyes, he could feel with his skin. He was drawing a breath the first time he

spk_0 had breathed since leaving normal space. Nor was it an unduly deep breath. He felt no lack of oxygen.

spk_0 His heart was beating as normally as though it had never missed a beat. He was not unusually hungry

spk_0 or thirsty, but all that stuff could wait. Where was that plurin?

spk_0 Kinnison had landed in complete readiness for strife. There were no rocks or clubs handy,

spk_0 but he had fists, feet and teeth, and they would do until he could find or make something better.

spk_0 But there was nothing to fight. Drive his sense of perception as he would,

spk_0 he could find nothing larger or more intelligent than a deer.

spk_0 The farther this thing went along, the less sense it made. A compulsion, to be any good at all,

spk_0 ought to be logical and coherent. It should fit into every corner and cranny of the subject's

spk_0 experience and knowledge. This one did not fit anything or anywhere. It didn't even come close.

spk_0 Yet technically it was a marvelous job. He couldn't detect a trace of it. This grass looked and

spk_0 felt real. The pebbles hurt his tender feet so much that he had to winse as he walked

spk_0 gingerly to the water's edge. He drank deeply. The water, real or not, was cold, clear and

spk_0 eminently satisfying. Listen, you misguided. What is it? He thought probingly. You might as well

spk_0 open up now as later, whatever you've got in mind. If this performance is supposed to be non-fiction,

spk_0 it's a flat bust. If it is supposed to be science fiction, it is a much better. If it's a space

spk_0 opera even, you're violating all the fundamentals. I've written better stuff myself. Quadgop and Scythia

spk_0 were a lot more convincing. He waited a moment, then went on. Whoever heard of the intrepid hero of

spk_0 a space opera, as big as this one started out to be, getting stranded on a completely earth-like

spk_0 planet and then having nothing happen. No action at all. How about a couple of indescribable

spk_0 monsters of superhuman strength and agility for me to tear apart with my steel-thued fingers?

spk_0 He glanced around, expectably. No monster appeared. Well, then, how about a damsel in distress for

spk_0 me to rescue from a fate worse than death? Better make it two of them, safety in numbers, you know?

spk_0 A blonde and a brunette. No redheads. I'll play along with you partway on that oldy,

spk_0 up to the point of falling for either of them. He waited again. QX-Bort, no woman, suits me perfectly.

spk_0 But I hope you haven't forgotten about the tasty Vians. I can eat fish if I have to,

spk_0 but if you want to keep your hero happy, let's see you lay down here on a platter,

spk_0 a one kilogram steak, three centimeter thick, medium-rare, fried intolorean butter,

spk_0 and smothered in Venuchan's superlum mushrooms.

spk_0 No steak appeared, and the gray lens been recalled and studied intensively every detail of what

spk_0 had apparently happened. It still could not have occurred. He could not have imagined it.

spk_0 It could not have been a compulsion or hypnosis. None of it made any kind of sense.

spk_0 As a matter of plain fact, however, Kinesen's first and most positive conclusion was wrong.

spk_0 His memories were factual records of actual events and things. He would eat well during his

spk_0 stay upon that nameless planet, but he would have to procure his own food. Nothing would attack him,

spk_0 or even annoy him. For the adorians' binding, this is perhaps as good a word for it as any,

spk_0 since Gesh implies a curse, was such that the gray lensman could not return to space and time,

spk_0 only under such conditions and to such an environment, as would not do him any Iota of physical harm.

spk_0 He must continue alive and in good health for at least 50 more of his years.

spk_0 And Clarissa Kinesen, tense and strained, waited in her room for the instant of her husband's death.

spk_0 They, too, were one, with a oneness no other man and woman had ever known.

spk_0 If one died from any cause whatever, the other would feel it.

spk_0 She waited. Five minutes, ten, fifteen, half an hour, an hour. She began to relax. Her fists

spk_0 unclenched, her shallow breathing grew deeper. Two hours, Kim was still alive. A wave of happy

spk_0 buoyant relief swept through her, her eyes flashed and sparkled. If they hadn't been able to kill

spk_0 him in two hours, they never could. Her Kim had plenty of jets. Even the top minds of Baskonia

spk_0 could not kill her Kim.

spk_0 The Eritians and the Children of the Lens had known that Edor must be attacked as soon as possible

spk_0 after the fall of Plur. They were fairly certain that the interspatial use of planets as projectiles

spk_0 was new, but they were completely certain that the Adorians would be able to deduce in a short time

spk_0 the principles and the concepts, the fundamental equate to the future of the Lens.

spk_0

spk_0 The Adorians would probably not be able to aim such planets as accurately as they were

spk_0 in the early days, certainly not more than two. Their slaves would duplicate the weapon in

spk_0 approximately three weeks. Shortly thereafter, both ultra prime and prime base, both Klovia

spk_0 and Tellus would be blown out of the either. So would Eritia, perhaps Eritia would go first.

spk_0 The Adorians would probably not be able to aim such planets as accurately as the Eritians had,

spk_0 but they would keep on trying and they would learn fast.

spk_0 This weapon was the sheer ultimate indestructiveness. No defense against it was possible.

spk_0 There was no theory which applied to it or which could be stretched to cover it.

spk_0 Even the Eritian masters of mathematics had not as yet been able to invent

spk_0 symbologies and techniques to handle the quantities and magnitudes involved when those interloping

spk_0 masses of foreign matter struck normal space. Thus, Kitt did not have to follow up his announced

spk_0 intention of making the Eritians hurry up. They did not hurry, of course, but they did not lose or

spk_0 waste a minute. Each Eritian, from the youngest guardian up to the oldest philosopher, tuned a

spk_0 part of his mind to mentor, another part to some one of the millions of lensmen upon his list

spk_0 and flashed a message. Lensmen attend. Keep your mind sensitized to this, the pattern of mentor of

spk_0 Eritia, who will speak to you as soon as all have been alerted. That message went throughout the

spk_0 first galaxy, throughout intergalactic space, and throughout what part of the second galaxy had

spk_0 felt the touch of civilization. It went to Elsaken, Invandomar and Clovia, to Thrayel and Tellus

spk_0 and Rijal 4, to Mars and Valantium and Pelleene 7, to Medon and Venus and Centralia. It went to

spk_0 Flitter's battleships and loose planets. It went to asteroids and moonets to planets large and small.

spk_0 It went to newly graduated Lensmen and to Lensmen long since retired, to Lensmen at work and at play.

spk_0 It went to every living wearer of the first stage lens of the Galactic Patrol.

spk_0 Wherever the message went, turmoil followed. Lensmen everywhere flashed questions at all the

spk_0 other Lensmen they knew or had ever met. What do you make of it, Fred? Did you get the same thing I

spk_0 did? Mentor, grinning nushab-kimming, what's up? Must be big for mentor to be handling it?

spk_0 Big, it's immense. Whoever heard of Aricia stepping in before?

spk_0 Big, colossal, mentor never talked to anybody except Kinnison before, did he?

spk_0 Millions of Lens' questions flooded every base and every office of the patrol.

spk_0 Nobody, not even the vice coordinator, knew a thing.

spk_0 You might as well stop sending in questions as to what this is all about, because none of us

spk_0 knows any more about it than you do. Made them finally sent out a general notice.

spk_0 Apparently, everybody with the Lens is getting the same message, no more and no less.

spk_0 All I can say is that it must be a Class A prime emergency, and everyone who was not actually

spk_0 tied up in a life and death matter will please drop everything and stand by.

spk_0 Mentor wanted and had to have high tension. He got it.

spk_0 Tension mounted higher and higher as eventless hours passed, and as for the first time in history,

spk_0 patrol business slowed down almost to a stop. And in a small cruiser, man by four red-headed

spk_0 girls and one red-headed youth, tension was also building up. The problem of the mechanical

spk_0 screens had long since been solved. Atomic-powered counter-generators were in place, ready at the touch

spk_0 of a button to neutralize the mechanically generated screens of the enemy and thus to make the

spk_0 engagement of a mine-to-mine combat. They were as close to Edward's star cluster as they could be

spk_0 without giving alarm. They had nothing to do for hours except wait. They were probably keyed

spk_0 up higher than any other five-lensmen in all of space.

spk_0 Kit, son of his father, was pacing the floor, chain-smoking. Constance was alternately getting

spk_0 up and sitting down. Up, down, up. She too was smoking, or rather she was lighting cigarettes and

spk_0 throwing them away. Catherine was sitting stiffly still, manufacturing lenses, which starting at

spk_0 her wrists, raced up both bare arms to her shoulders and disappeared.

spk_0 Catherine was meticulously sticking holes in a piece of blank paper with a pin, making an intricate

spk_0 and meaningless design. Only Camilla made any pretence of calmness, and the others knew that she

spk_0 was bluffing. She was pretending to read a novel, but instead of absorbing its full content at the

spk_0 rate of one glance per page, she had read half of it word by word and still had no idea of what the

spk_0 story was about. Are you ready, children? Mentors thought came in at last. Ready, without knowing how

spk_0 they got there, the five found themselves standing in the middle of the room packed tight.

spk_0 Okay, Kit, I'm shaking like a fool. Constance wailed. I just know I'm going to

spk_0 louse up this whole war. QX, baby. We're all in the same fix. Can't you hear my teeth chatter?

spk_0 Doesn't mean a thing. Good teams, champions all feel the same way before a big game starts,

spk_0 and this is the capital it. Steady down, kids. We'll be QX as soon as the whistle blows. I hope.

spk_0 Psst, Catherine Hist. Listen! Lensman of the Galactic Patrol. Mentor's resident pseudo voice

spk_0 filled all space. I, mentor of Eresia, am calling upon you because of a crisis in which no lesser force

spk_0 can be of use. You have been informed upon the matter of plur. It is true that plur has been destroyed,

spk_0 that the plurans physically are no more. You of the lens, however, already no dimly that the

spk_0 physical is not the all. No now that there is a residuum of non-material malignancy against which

spk_0 all the physical weapons of all the universe would be complete the impotent. That evil effluium,

spk_0 intrinsically vicious, is implacably opposed to every basic concept and idea of your patrol.

spk_0 It has been on the move ever since the destruction of the planet plur. Unated, we of Eresia are not

spk_0 strong enough to handle it, but the mast and directed force of your collective mind will be able

spk_0 to destroy it completely. If you wish me to do so, I will supervise the work of so directing your

spk_0 mental force as to encompass the complete destruction of this menace, which I tell you most solemnly

spk_0 is the last weapon of power with which Bosconia will be able to threaten civilization.

spk_0 Lensman of the Galactic Patrol met as one for the first time in civilization's long history,

spk_0 What is your wish? A tremendous wave of thought expressed in millions of variant phraseologies

spk_0 made the wish of the Lensman very clear indeed. They did not know how such a thing could be done,

spk_0 but they were supremely eager to have mentor of Eresia lead them against the Bosconians,

spk_0 whoever and wherever they might be. Your verdict is unanimous as I had hoped and believed that

spk_0 it would be. It is well. The part of each of you will be simple but not easy. You will all of you

spk_0 individually think of two things and of only two. First of your love for and your pride in and your

spk_0 loyalty to your patrol. Second of the clear fact that Bosconia must not and shall not triumph over

spk_0 civilization. Think these thoughts each of you with all the strength that in him lies.

spk_0 You need not consciously direct those thoughts. Being attuned to my pattern, the force will flow

spk_0 at my direction. As it passes from you, you will replenish it, each according to his strength.

spk_0 You will find it the hardest labor you have ever performed, but it will be of permanent harm to none

spk_0 and will not be of long duration. One hour will suffice. Are you ready? We are ready!

spk_0 The crescendo roar of thought must have ballsed the galaxy to its poles. Children strike.

spk_0 The unit struck. The outer-most adorant screen went down. It struck again almost instantly,

spk_0 down with the second, the third, the fourth. It was that flawless unit, not Camilla,

spk_0 who detected and analyzed and precisely located the adorian guardsman handling each of those far

spk_0 flung screens. It was the unit, not Catherine and Kit, who drilled the pivot hole through each adorance

spk_0 hard-held block and enlarged it into a working orifice. It was the unit, not Karen,

spk_0 whose impenetrable shield held stubbornly every circuit or mill of advantage gained in making such

spk_0 ingress. It was the unit, not Constance, who assembled and drove home the blast of mental force

spk_0 in which the adorians died. No time whatever was lost in consultation or decision. Action was not

spk_0 only instantaneous, but simultaneous with perception. The children of the lens were not now five,

spk_0 but one. The unit. Come in mentor. Kit snapped then. All Euricians and all the lensmen.

spk_0 Nothing specialized, just a general slam at the whole screen. This fifth screen is the works.

spk_0 They've got twenty men on it instead of one and their top notchers. Best strategy now is for us

spk_0 five to lay off for a second or two and show them what we've got in the line of defense,

spk_0 while the rest of you fellows give them hell. Euricia and the mass lensmen struck,

spk_0 a tidal wave of such tremendous weight and power that under its impact the fifth screen

spk_0 sagged flat against the planet's surface. Any one lensmen's power was small, of course,

spk_0 in comparison with that of any adorian, but every first-stage lensmen of the galactic patrol

spk_0 was giving each according to his strength. And the output of one lensmen multiplied by the

spk_0 countless millions, which was the number of lensmen then at work, made itself tellingly felt.

spk_0 Countless? Yes. No one of Euricia ever knew how many minds contributed to that

spk_0 stupendous flood of force. Bear in mind that in the first galaxy alone there are over two thousand

spk_0 million sons. That each son has, on the average, something over one and thirty-seven hundred's

spk_0 planets inhabited by intelligent life, that about one half of these planets adhered to civilization,

spk_0 and that tell us an average planet graduates approximately one hundred lensmen every year.

spk_0 So far, Kit, so good, Constance panted. Although she was no longer trembling, she was still highly excited.

spk_0 But I don't know how many more shots like that I've weave got left in the locker.

spk_0 You're doing fine, Connie. Camilla soothed. Sure, you are, baby. You've got plenty of jets.

spk_0 Kit agreed. Except in moments of supreme stress, these personal individual exchanges of by-thoughts

spk_0 did not interfere with the smooth functioning of the unit. Fine work, all of you kids. I knew that

spk_0 we get over the shakes as soon as, watch it, Camilla snapped. Here comes the shockwave.

spk_0 Race yourself, Kay. Hold us together, Kit.

spk_0 The wave came. Everything that the Adorians could send. The unit's barrier did not waver.

spk_0 After a full second of it, a time comparable to days of continuous atomic bombing in ordinary warfare,

spk_0 Karen, who had been standing stiff and still, began to relax.

spk_0 This is too, too easy, she declared. Who is helping me? I can't feel anything, but I simply

spk_0 know that I haven't got this much stuff. You can, or is it all of you? Not one of the five was

spk_0 as yet thoroughly familiar with the operating characteristics of the unit. All of us, more or less,

spk_0 but mostly Kit. Camilla decided after a moment's thought. He's got the weight of an inert planet.

spk_0 Not me, Kit denied vigorously. Must be you other kids. Feels to me like Kat mostly.

spk_0 All I'm doing is just sort of leaning up against you a little, just in case. I haven't done a

spk_0 thing so far. Oh, no, surely not. Catherine Giggled, an infectious chuckle inherited or copied

spk_0 directly from her mother. We know it, and that you're going to keep on loafing all the rest of the

spk_0 day. You wouldn't think of doing anything, even if you could. Just the same, we're all mighty glad

spk_0 that our big brother is here. QX kids, seal the chatter. We've had time to learn that they can't

spk_0 crack us. So have they, by the way. So let's get to work. Since the unit was now under continuous

spk_0 attack, its technique would have to be entirely different from that used previously.

spk_0 Its bury must vanish for an infinitesimal period of time, during which it must simultaneously

spk_0 detect and blast. Or rather, the blasts would have to be directed in mid-flight, while the unit's

spk_0 own block was open. Nor could that block be open for more than the barest possible instant before or

spk_0 after the passage of the bolt. It is true that the attack of the adorians compared with that of the

spk_0 unit very much as the steady pressure of burning propellant powder compares with the disruptive

spk_0 force of detonating duodeck. Even so, it would have wrought much damage to the minds of the five

spk_0 had any of it been allowed to reach them. Also, like parachute jumping, this technique could not be

spk_0 practiced. Since the timing had to be so nearly absolute, the first two shots missed their targets

spk_0 completely, but the unit learned fast. Adorian after Adorian died.

spk_0 Help, all-highest help! A high Adorian appealed finally. What is it? His ultimate supremacy,

spk_0 knowing that only utter desperation could be back of such intrusion wasted no time.

spk_0 It is this new Erician entity. It is not an entity fooled, but a fusion,

spk_0 came Kurt Reprimand. We decided that point long ago. An entity, I say, in his urgency,

spk_0 the operator committed the unpardonable by omitting the titles of address.

spk_0 No possible fusion can attain such perfection of timing, of synchronization.

spk_0 Our best fusions have attempted to match it and have failed. Its screens are impenetrable.

spk_0 Its thrust cannot be blocked. My message is this. Solve for us and quickly the problem of this

spk_0 entity. If you do not or cannot do so, we perish all of us, even to you, of the innermost circle.

spk_0 Think you so? The thought was a sneer. If your fusions cannot match those of the Ericians,

spk_0 you should die, and the loss will be small. The fifth screen went down. For the first time an

spk_0 untold ages, the planet of Edor lay bare to the Erician mind. There were inner defenses, of course,

spk_0 but kit knew everyone, their strengths and their weaknesses. He had long since spread in mentor's

spk_0 mind an exact and completely detailed chart. They had long since drawn up a completely detailed plan

spk_0 of campaign. Nevertheless, kit could not keep from advising mentor. Pick off any who may try to get

spk_0 away. Start on area B and work up. Be sure though to lay off area K or you'll get your beard

spk_0 singed off. The plan is being followed. Mentor assured him. Children, you have done very well

spk_0 indeed. Rest now and recuperate your powers against that which is yet to come.

spk_0 QX. Unlace yourselves, kids. Loosen up. Unlacks. I'll break out a few beakers of failing,

spk_0 and all of us, you, especially Khan, had better eat ten or fifteen of these candy bars.

spk_0 Eat. Why I couldn't, kidn't insisted, and Constance took an experimental bite.

spk_0 But say, I am hungry at that. Of course you are. We've been putting out some stuff,

spk_0 and there's more and worse coming. Now rest, all of you. They rested.

spk_0 So much to their surprise, they were now seasoned enough campaigners so that they could rest,

spk_0 even Constance. But the respite was short. Area K, the headquarters and the citadel of his

spk_0 ultimate supremacy and the innermost circle of the Baskonean Empire, contained all that remained

spk_0 of Adorian life. No tight linkage yet, kids. Kid the organizer went smoothly to work.

spk_0 Individual effort, a flash of fusion perhaps now and then if any of us call for it,

spk_0 but no unit until I give the word. Then give it everything you've got.

spk_0 Cam, analyze that screen and set us up a pattern for it. You'll find that it'll take some doing.

spk_0 See whether it's absolutely homogeneous. Hunt for weak spots if any.

spk_0 Khan, narrow it down to the sharpest needle you can possibly make and start picking.

spk_0 Not too hard. Don't tire yourself. Just to get acquainted with the texture of the thing and

spk_0 keep them awake. Okay, take over our guards so that you can either conjoin the other or Rissians.

spk_0 Cat, come along with me. You'll have to help with the Rissians until I call you into the unit.

spk_0 You Rissians, except mentor, blanket this dome. Thinner than that. Solidar. Harder. There.

spk_0 A trifle off balance yet. Give me just a little more here on this side.

spk_0 Ku-X, hold it right there. Squeeze. Cat, watch him. Hold them right there and in balance until you're

spk_0 sure that the adorians aren't going to be able to put any bulges up through the blanket.

spk_0 Now mentor, you and all the lensmen. Tell them to give us for the next five seconds

spk_0 absolutely everything that they can deliver. When they're at absolute peak, hit us with it all.

spk_0 Hit us dead center and don't pull your punch. We'll be ready.

spk_0 Khan, get ready to stick that needle there. They'll think it's just another peck I hope and prepared

spk_0 to blast as you never blasted before. Okay, get ready to drop that screen and stiffen the needle.

spk_0 When those lensmen hit us, even you will know that you're not just being padded on the back.

spk_0 The rest of us will brace you and keep the shock from killing us all.

spk_0 Here it comes. Make unit. Go. The unit struck. The needle of pure force drove against the adorians

spk_0 supposedly absolutely impenetrable shield. The unit's thrust was of itself like nothing ever before

spk_0 known. The lensmen's pile driver blow, the integrated sum total of the top effort of every

spk_0 first-stage lensmen of the entire Galactic Patrol was of itself irresistible. Something had to give

spk_0 away. For an instant, it seemed as though nothing were happening or ever would happen. Strong young

spk_0 arms laced the straining five into a group as motionless and asculpturesk as statuary,

spk_0 while between their bodies and around them there came into being a gigantic lens, a lens

spk_0 whose splendor filled the entire room with radiance. Under that awful concentration of force,

spk_0 something had to give away. The unit held. The irisians held. The lensmen held. The needle of force

spk_0 superlatively braced, neither bent nor broke. Therefore, the adorians screen was punctured,

spk_0 and in the instant of its puncturing, it disappeared as does a bubble when it breaks.

spk_0 There was no mopping up to do. Such was the torrent of force cascading into that citadel

spk_0 that within a moment after its shield went down, all life within it was snuffed out.

spk_0 The Bosconian War was over.

spk_0 Chapter 29

spk_0 Did you kids come through QX? The frightful combat over, the dreadful tension, the thing of the past,

spk_0 kids first thought was for his sisters. They were unharmed. None of the five had suffered anything

spk_0 except mental exhaustion. Recuperation was rapid. Better we hunt that tube up and get

spk_0 dead out of it, don't you think? Kids suggested. Have you got a story arranged that will hold

spk_0 together under examination? Camilla asked. Everything except a few minor details, which we can polish up

spk_0 later. Smoothly, the four girls linked their minds with their brothers. Effortlessly,

spk_0 the units thought surveyed all nearby space. No hyperspacial tube nor any trace of one was there.

spk_0 Tune to Kinesen's pattern. The unit then scanned not only normal space and the then present time,

spk_0 but also millions upon millions of other spaces and passed in future times, all without finding

spk_0 the Gray Lensman. Again and again the unit reached out farther and farther, out to the extreme

spk_0 limit of even its extraordinary range. Every space and every time was empty. The children of the

spk_0 Lens broke their linkage and stared at each other aghast. They knew starkly what it must mean,

spk_0 but that conclusion was unthinkable. Kinesen, their dad, the hub of the universe, the unshakable,

spk_0 immutable rock of civilization he couldn't be dead. They simply could not accept the logical

spk_0 explanations as the true one. And while they pondered shaken, a call from their red Lensman mother

spk_0 impinged upon their consciousness. You are together? Good. I have been so worried about Kim going into

spk_0 that trap. I have been trying to get in touch with him, but I cannot reach him. You children,

spk_0 with your greater power. She broke off as the dread import of the five surface thoughts became

spk_0 clear to her. At first she too was shaken, but she rallied magnificently. Nonsense, she snapped,

spk_0 not a denial of an unwelcome fact, but ensure knowledge that the supposition was not and could not be a

spk_0 fact. Kimbo Kinesen is alive. He is lost, I know. I last heard from him just before he went into

spk_0 that hyperspatial tube, but I did not feel him die. And if he had died, no matter where or when

spk_0 or how, I would most certainly have felt it. So don't be idiots, children, please. Think,

spk_0 really think, I am going to do something somehow, but what? Mentor the Erysian? I have never called

spk_0 him, and I'm terribly afraid that he might not be willing to do anything. I could go there and

spk_0 make him do something, but that would take so long. Tell me, what shall I? What can I do?

spk_0 Mentor, by all means, kid decided. The most logical, the only possible solution.

spk_0 I am sure that in this case he will act. It is neither necessary nor desirable to go to Erysia.

spk_0 Now that the Adorians had ceased to exist, intergalactic space presented no barrier to Erysian thought,

spk_0 but kid did not enlighten his mother upon that fact.

spk_0 Lick your mind with ours. She did so. Mentor of Erysia, the clear cut thought flashed out.

spk_0 Kimbo-Kinnison of Clovia is not present in this, his normal space and time, nor in any other

spk_0 continuum which we can reach. We ask assistance. Tis Lensman Clarissa and the five.

spk_0 Impreturbably, Mentor's mind joined theirs on the instant. I have given the matter no attention,

spk_0 nor have I scanned my visualisation of the cosmic all. It may be that Kimbo-Kinnison has passed on

spk_0 from this plane of existence. He has not, the red Lensman interrupted violently, so violently that her

spk_0 thought had the impact of a physical blow. Mentor and the five alike could see her eyes flash and

spk_0 sparkle. Could hear her voice crackle as she spoke aloud, the better to drive home her passionate

spk_0 conviction. Kim is alive. I told the children so, and I now tell you so. No matter where or when he

spk_0 might be, in whatever possible extra-dimensional no-core cranny of the entire macrocosmic universe,

spk_0 or in any possible aisle of time between plus and minus eternity, he could not die. He could not

spk_0 possibly die without mind knowing it. So find him, please, please find him, Mentor, or if you can't

spk_0 or won't just give me the littlest, tiniest hint as to how to go about it, and I will find him myself.

spk_0 The five were appalled, especially Kit, who knew as the others did not, just how much afraid of

spk_0 Mentor his mother had always been. To direct such a thought as that to any Eurysean was unthinkable.

spk_0 But Mentor's only reaction was one of pleased interest. There is much of truth,

spk_0 daughter, in your thought. He replied slowly. Human love, in its highest manifestation,

spk_0 can be a mighty, a really tremendous thing. The force, the power, the capability of such a love

spk_0 as yours is a sector of the truth, which has not been fully examined. Allow me please a moment in

spk_0 which to consider the various aspects of this matter. It took more than a moment. It took more

spk_0 than the twenty-nine seconds which the Eurysean had needed to solve an earlier and supposedly

spk_0 similar kinnison problem. In fact, a full half-hour elapsed before Mentor resumed communication,

spk_0 and then he did so, not to the group as a whole, but only to the five. Using an ultra-frequency to

spk_0 which the Red Lensman's mind could not be attuned. I have not been able to reach him. Since you

spk_0 could not do so, my knew that the problem would not be simple, but I have found that it is difficult

spk_0 indeed. As I have intimated previously, my visualization is not entirely clear upon any matter

spk_0 touching the Edorians directly, since their minds were of great power. On the other hand,

spk_0 their visualizations of us were probably even more hazy. Therefore, none of our analyses of each other

spk_0 were or could be much better than approximations. It is certain, however, that you were correct in

spk_0 assuming that it was the plurins who set up the hyperspacial tube as a trap for your father.

spk_0 The fact that the lower and middle operating echelons of Bosconia could not kill him,

spk_0 established in the plurins' mind the necessity of taking him alive.

spk_0 The fact gave us no concern, for you, Catherine, were on guard. Moreover, even if she alone should

spk_0 slip, it was manifestly impossible for them to accomplish anything against the combined powers of

spk_0 you five. However, at some undetermined point in time, the Dorians took over, as is shown by the

spk_0 fact that you were all at a loss. It being scarcely necessary to point out to you that the plurins could

spk_0 neither transport your father to any location which you could not reach, nor pose any problem,

spk_0 including his death which you could not solve. It is thus certain that it was one or more of the

spk_0 Dorians, who either killed Kinnison or sent him where he was sent. It is also certain that,

spk_0 after the easy fashion in which he escaped from the plurins, after they had captured him,

spk_0 and had him all but in their hands, the Dorians did not care to have the plurins come to grips with

spk_0 Kimbo Kinnison, fearing and rightly that instead of gaining information, they would lose everything.

spk_0 Did they know that I was in that tube? Catherine asked. Did they deduce us, or did they think that

spk_0 Dad was a Superman? That is one of the many points which are obscure, but it made no difference

spk_0 before or after the event to them or to us as you should perceive. Of course, they knew that there

spk_0 was at least one third-level mind at work in the field. They must have deduced that it was a

spk_0 rissian work. Whether it was Dad himself or whether it was coming to his aid at need would make no

spk_0 difference. They knew very well that he was the keystone of civilization, and that to do away with him

spk_0 would be the shrewdest move they could make. Therefore, we still do not understand why they didn't

spk_0 kill him outright and be done with it if they didn't. In exactness neither do I. That point is

spk_0 the least clear of all, nor is it at all certain that he still lives. It is sheerst folly to assume

spk_0 that the Dorians either thought or acted illogically, even occasionally. Therefore, if Kinnison is not dead,

spk_0 whatever was done was calculated to be even more final than death itself. This premise, if adopted,

spk_0 forces the conclusion that they considered the possibility of our knowing enough about the next

spk_0 cycle of existence to be able to reach him there. Kit Froude, you still harp on the possibility of

spk_0 his death. Does not your visualization cover that? Not since the Dorians took control. I have not

spk_0 consciously emphasized the probability of your father's death. I have merely considered it.

spk_0 In the case of two mutually exclusive events, neither of which can be shown to have happened,

spk_0 both must be studied with care. Assume for the moment that your mother's theory is the truth,

spk_0 that your father is still alive. In that case, what was done and how it was done are eminently clear.

spk_0 Clear, not to us, the five-chorus. While they did not know at all exactly the power of our minds,

spk_0 they could establish limits beyond which neither they nor we could go. Being mechanically in kind,

spk_0 it is reasonable to assume that they had at their disposal sufficient energy to transport Kinnison

spk_0 and his vessel to some point well beyond those limits. They would have given control to a director

spk_0 by chance, so that his ultimate destination would be unknown and unknowable. He would, of course,

spk_0 land safely. How? How could they possibly? In time, that knowledge will be yours, not now.

spk_0 Whether or not the hypothesis just stated is true, the fact confronting us is that Kinnbukinison

spk_0 is not now in any region which I am at present able to scan. Gloom descended probably upon the five.

spk_0 I am not saying or implying that the problem is insoluble. Since Adorian minds were involved,

spk_0 however, you already realize that its solution will require the evaluation of many millions of

spk_0 factors and will consume a not-gun considerable number of your years. You mean lifetimes,

spk_0 an impetuous young thought broke in, why, long before that, contain yourself, daughter Constance,

spk_0 mentor-reproved gently. I realize quite fully all the connotations and implications involved.

spk_0 I was about to say that it may prove desirable to assist your mother in the application of powers

spk_0 which may very well transcend in some respects those of either Eryssia or Edor.

spk_0 He shifted the band of thought to include the Red Lensmen and went on as though he was just

spk_0 emerging from contemplation. Children, it appears that the solution of this problem by ordinary

spk_0 processes will require more time than can conveniently be spared. Moreover, it affords a

spk_0 priceless and perhaps a unique opportunity of increasing our store of knowledge.

spk_0 The informed, however, that the probability is exceedingly great that in this project,

spk_0 you Clarisseau will lose your life. Better not, mother. When mentor says anything like that,

spk_0 it means suicide. We don't want to lose you, too,

spk_0 kept pleaded, and the four girls added their pleas to his. Clarisseau knew that suicide was against

spk_0 the code, but she also knew that as long as there was any chance at all, Lensmen always went in.

spk_0 Exactly how great she demanded vibrantly. It isn't absolutely certain. It can't be.

spk_0 No daughter. It is not absolutely certain. QX, then, I'm going in. Nothing can stop me.

spk_0 Very well. Tighten your linkage, Clarisseau, with me. Yours will be the task of sending your

spk_0 thought to your husband, wherever and whenever in total space and in total time he may be.

spk_0 If it can be done, you can do it. You alone of all the entities in existence can do it.

spk_0 I can neither help you nor guide you in your quest, but by virtue of your relationship to him,

spk_0 whom we are seeking, your oneness with him, you will require neither help nor guidance.

spk_0 My part will be to follow you and to construct the means of his return, but the real labor is and must be yours alone.

spk_0 Take a moment, therefore, to prepare yourself against the effort, for it will not be small.

spk_0 Gather your resources, daughter. Assemble all your forces and your every power.

spk_0 They watched Clarisseau, in her distant room, throw herself prone upon her bed.

spk_0 She closed her eyes, buried her nose in the counter-pain, and gripped aside real fiercely in each hand.

spk_0 Can't we help too? The five implored as one.

spk_0 I do not know. Mentor's thought was as passionate as the voice of fate.

spk_0 I know of no force at your disposal which can affect in any way that which is to happen.

spk_0 Since I do not know the full measure of your powers, however, it would be well for you to accompany us,

spk_0 keeping yourselves alert to take instant advantage of any opportunity to be of aid.

spk_0 Are you ready, daughter Clarisseau? I am ready, and the red lensman launched her thought.

spk_0 Clarisseau, Kinnison, did not know, then or ever, did not have even the faintest inkling of what she did

spk_0 or of how she did it, nor tied by her bonds of heritage, love and sympathy, though they were,

spk_0 and of immense powers of mind, though they were, did any of the five succeed until after many years

spk_0 had passed in elucidating the many complex phenomena involved. Even mentor the ancient Erysian sage

spk_0 never did understand. All that any of them knew was that an infinitely loving and intensely

spk_0 suffering woman, stretched rigidly upon a bed, hurled out through space and time, a passionately

spk_0 questing thought, a thought behind which she put everything she had. Clarisseau, Kinnison,

spk_0 red lensman, had much, and every Iota of that impressive sum total eight-four yearned four

spk_0 and insistently demanded her, Kim, her one and only, Kim, Kim, her husband, Kim, the father of

spk_0 her children, Kim, her lover, Kim, her other half, Kim, her all in all for so many perfect years.

spk_0 Kim, Kim, wherever you are, Kim, or whenever, listen, listen and answer. Hear me, you must hear me calling,

spk_0 I need you, Kim, from the bottom of my soul. Kim, my Kim, Kim, to countless spaces and through

spk_0 intelligible times that pointy thoughts sped, driven by a woman's fears, a woman's hopes,

spk_0 a woman's all-surpassing love, urged ever onward and ever outward by the irresistible force of a

spk_0 magnificent woman's frankly-beared soul. Outward, farther, farther out, farther. Clarisseau's body

spk_0 went limp upon her bed, her heart slowed, her breathing almost stopped, Kitt probed quickly,

spk_0 finding that those secret cells into which he had scarcely dared to glance were now empty and bare.

spk_0 Even the red lensman's tremendous reserves of vital force were exhausted.

spk_0 Mother, come back. Come back to us. Please, please, moms, come back.

spk_0 Know you children, your mother so little? They knew her. They knew starkly that she would not come back.

spk_0 Regardless of any danger to herself, regardless of life itself, she would not return until she had found

spk_0 her Kim. But do something, mentor? Do something. What? Nothing can be done. It was simply a question of

spk_0 which was the greater, the volume of the required hypersphere or her remarkable store of vitality.

spk_0 Shut up, Kitt blazed. We'll do something. Come on, kids, and we'll try. The unit, Catherine Shreight,

spk_0 link up quick. Cam, make mother's pattern. All of it. Hurry. Now, unit. Grab it. Make her one of us,

spk_0 a six-ply unit. Make her come in and snap it up. There. Now, Kitt drive us. Drive us.

spk_0 Kitt drove. As the surging life force of the unit pushed a measure of vitality back into

spk_0 Clarisse's inert body, she gained a little strength and did not grow weaker. The children, however, did.

spk_0 And mentor, who had been entirely unmoved by the woman's imminent death, became highly concerned.

spk_0 Children, return. He first ordered, then entreated. You are throwing away not only your lives,

spk_0 but also long lifetimes of intensive labor and study. They paid no attention. He had known that

spk_0 they would not. No more than their mother, with those children abandoned such a mission unaccomplished.

spk_0 Seven kineses would come back or none. The Rissian pondered and brightened.

spk_0 Now that a there-to-for impossible linkage had been made, the outlook changed. The odd shifted.

spk_0 The unit's delicacy of web its driving force had not been enough. Or rather, it would have taken too

spk_0 long. Adding the red lensman's affinity for her husband, however, yes, definitely this unit of his

spk_0 should now succeed. It did. Before any of the five-week into the danger point, the unit, again

spk_0 five-fold snapped back. Clarisse's life force, which had tried so valiantly to fill all of space and

spk_0 all of time, was flowing back into her. A tight, hard beam ran, it seemed, to infinity and vanished.

spk_0 Mentor had been unable to follow the unit, but he could and did follow that beam to Kimball-Kinesen.

spk_0 abruptly the trace was hidden by the walls of a hyperspatial tube.

spk_0 A right-scottily bit of work children, mentor-approved. I could not follow you, but I have arranged the

spk_0 means of his return. Thanks children, thanks mentor. Instead of fainting, Clarisse sprang from her bed

spk_0 and stood erect. Flushed and panting, eyes flamingly alight, she was more intensely vital than any

spk_0 of her children had ever seen her. Reaction might, would come later, but she was now all buoyantly

spk_0 vibrant woman. Where will he come into our space and when? In your room before you, now.

spk_0 Kinesen materialized, and as the red lensman and the gray went hungrily into each other's arms,

spk_0 mentor and the five turned their attention toward the future.

spk_0 First, the hyperspatial tube, which was called the hellhole in space,

spk_0 kid began. We must establish as fact in the minds of all civilization that the plurins were

spk_0 actually at the top of Boscon. The story as we have arranged it is that plur was the top,

spk_0 and, which happens to be the truth, that it was destroyed through the efforts of the second

spk_0 stage lensman. The hellhole is to be explained as being operated by the plurin residual,

spk_0 which every lensman knows all about and which he will never forget. The problem of Dad's whereabouts

spk_0 was different from the previous one and degree only, not in kind. To all accept us, there never

spk_0 were any adorians. Any objections? Will that version hold? The consensus was that the story was sound

spk_0 and tight. The time has come then, Karen thought, to go into the very important matter of our

spk_0 reason for being and our purpose in life. You have intimated repeatedly that you are

spk_0 rissians are resigning your guardianship of civilization and that we are to take over.

spk_0 And I have just perceived the terribly shocking fact that you four are now alone,

spk_0 that all the other rissians have already gone. We are not ready mentor, you know that we are not.

spk_0 This scares me through and through. You are ready children for everything that will have to be done.

spk_0 You have not come to your full maturity and power of course. That stage will come only with time.

spk_0 It is best for you however, that we leave you now. Your race is potentially vastly stronger and

spk_0 able than ours. We reached some time ago the highest point attainable to us. We could no longer

spk_0 adapt ourselves to the ever increasing complexity of life. You, a young new race,

spk_0 amply equipped for any emergency within reckonable time, will be able to do so.

spk_0 In capacity and in equipment, you begin where we leave off.

spk_0 But we know you have taught us, scarcely anything, Constance protested.

spk_0 I have taught you exactly enough that we do not know exactly what changes to anticipate is implicit

spk_0 in the fact that our race is out of date. Further, rissian teaching would tend to set you in the

spk_0 outdated rissian mold and thereby defeat our every purpose. As I have informed you repeatedly,

spk_0 we ourselves do not know what extra qualities you possess. Hence we are in no sense competent to

spk_0 instruct you in the natures or in the uses of them. It is certain however, that you have those extra

spk_0 qualities. It is equally certain that you possess the abilities to develop them to the full.

spk_0 I have set your feet on the shoreway to the full development of those abilities.

spk_0 But that will take much time, sir, kit thought. And if you leave us now, we won't have it.

spk_0 You will have time enough and despair. Oh, then we won't have to do it right away.

spk_0 Constance broke in. Good. We are all glad of that, Camilla added. We're too full of our own lives

spk_0 to eager for experiences to enjoy the prospect of living such lives as your rissians have lived.

spk_0 I am right in assuming, am I not, that our own development will in time force us into the same

spk_0 or a similar existence? Your muddy thinking has again distorted the truth, mentor-reproveder.

spk_0 There will be no force involved. You will gain everything, lose nothing.

spk_0 You have no conception of the depth and breadth of the vistas now beginning to open to you.

spk_0 Your lives will be immeasurably fuller, higher, greater than any here to foreknown to this universe.

spk_0 As your capabilities increase, you will find that you will no longer care for the society of entities

spk_0 less able than your own kind. But I don't want to live forever, Constance wailed.

spk_0 More muddy thinking, mentor's thought was for him somewhat testy.

spk_0 Perhaps in the present instance, barely excusable, you know that you are not immortal.

spk_0 You should know that an infinity of time is necessary for the requirement of infinite knowledge,

spk_0 and that your span of life will be just as short in comparison with your capacity to live and to

spk_0 learn as that of Homo sapiens. When the time comes, you will want to. You will need to change your

spk_0 manner of living. Tell us when? Cat suggested. It would be nice to know so that we could get ready.

spk_0 I could tell you, since in that way my visualization is clear, but I will not.

spk_0 50 years, 100, a million, what matters it. Live your life to the fullest year by year,

spk_0 developing your every obvious latent and nascent capability. Calmly assured that long before any

spk_0 need for your service shall arise, you shall have established yourselves upon some planet of your

spk_0 choice and shall be in every respect ready for whatever may come to pass. You are, you must be right,

spk_0 kit conceited. In view of what has just happened, however, and the chaotic condition of both

spk_0 galaxies, it seems a poor time to vacate all guardianship. All inimical activity is now completely

spk_0 disorganized. Kinnison and the patrol can handle it easily enough. The real conflict is finished.

spk_0 Think nothing of a few years of vacancy. The lens makers, as you know, are fully automatic,

spk_0 requiring neither maintenance nor attention. What little time you may wish to devote to the special

spk_0 training of selected lensmen can be taken at odd moments from your serious work of developing

spk_0 yourselves for guardianship. We still feel incompetent, the five insisted. Are you sure that you have

spk_0 given us all the instruction we need? I am sure. I perceived out in your minds as to my own competence

spk_0 based upon the fact that in this supreme emergency, my visualization was faulty and my actions almost too

spk_0 late. Observe, however, that my visualization was clear upon every essential factor, and that we

spk_0 were not actually too late. The truth is that our timing was precisely right. No lesser stress could

spk_0 possibly have prepared you as you are now prepared. I am about to go. The time may come when your

spk_0 descendants will realize, as we did, their inadequacy for continued guardianship. Their visualizations

spk_0 as did ours may become imperfect and incomplete. If so, they will then know that the time will

spk_0 have come for them to develop from the highest race than existing new and more competent guardians.

spk_0 Then they, as my fellows have done and as I am about to do, will of their own accord pass on.

spk_0 But that is for the remote future. As to you children, doubtful now and hesitant as is only natural,

spk_0 you may believe implicitly what I now tell you is the truth, that even though we

spk_0 areissians are no longer here, all shall be well, with us, with you, and with all civilization.

spk_0 The deeply resonant pseudo voice ceased, the kinesens knew that mentor the last of the

spk_0 ancients was gone. Epilogue

spk_0 To you who have scanned this report further greetings, since I, who compiled it, am only a youth,

spk_0 a guardian only by title, and hence unable to visualize even approximately either the time of

spk_0 northern necessity for the opening of this flask of force, I have no idea as to the bodily

spk_0 shape or the mental attainments of you, the entity to whom it has now been made available.

spk_0 You already know that civilization is again threatened seriously. You probably know something

spk_0 of the basic nature of that threat. While studying this tape, you have become informed that

spk_0 the situation is sufficiently grave to have it made again necessary to force certain selected

spk_0 minds prematurely into the third level of lensmanship. You have already learned that in ancient time,

spk_0 civilization after civilization fell before it could rise much above the level of barbarism.

spk_0 You know that we and the previous race of guardians saw to it that this our civilization has not yet

spk_0 fallen. No now that the task of your race, so soon to replace us, will be deceitful that it does not fall.

spk_0 One of us will become on rapport with you as soon as you have assimilated the facts,

spk_0 the connotations, and the implications of this material. Prepare your mind for contact.

spk_0 Kit Kinesen

spk_0 The End of Children of the Lens by E.E. Doc Smith

Children of the Lens by E. E. Smith ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

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