E. E. Smith

“ Nor did they; but neither did they hit. Those ravening beams went through and through the tenuous fabrication which should have been a vessel, but they struck nothing whatever. They went past—entirely harmlessly past—both the ship itself and the wraithlike but unforgettable figures which Kinnison recognized at a glance as Overlords of Delgon. His heart sank with a thud. He knew when he had had enough; and this was altogether too much.
"Go free!" he rasped. "Give 'er the oof!"
Energy poured into and through the great Bergenholm, but nothing happened; ship and contents remained inert. ”

“ I am Eukonidor of Arisia, speaking to you through this mass of undead flesh which was once your chief psychologist, Eichamp, the Eighth of that high council which you call Boskone. I had intended to spare the lives of these two simple creatures, but I perceive that such action would be useless. Their minds and the minds of all you who listen to me are warped, perverted, incapable of reason. ”

“ The airplanes wheeled, cruiser and speedster plummeted downward at maximum blast. The panel job literally fell open, as did the cage within it, and four ravening cateagles, with the silent ferocity of their kind, rocketed toward their goal.
Although the oglons were not as fast as the flying ships they did not have nearly as far to go, wherefore they got there first. The thugs had no warning whatever. One instant everything was under control; in the next the noiselessly arrowing destroyers struck their prey with the mad fury that only a striking cateagle can exhibit. ”

“ From untold millions of projectors there raved out gigantic rods, knives, and needles of force, under the impact of which the defensive screens of Jalte's guardian citadels flamed into terrible refulgence. Duodec bombs were hurled—tight-beam-directed monsters of destruction which, swinging around in huge circles to attain the highest possible measure of momentum, flung themselves against Boskone's defenses in Herculean attempts to smash them down. They exploded; each as it burst filling all nearby space with blindingly intense violet light and with flying scraps of metal. ”

“ Simultaneously, the Lensman's hamlike fist, urged by all the strength and all the speed of his two hundred and sixteen pounds of rawhide and whalebone, drove forward. Not for the jaw. Not for the head or the face. Lensmen know better than to mash bare hands, break fingers and knuckles, against bone. For the solar plexus. The big Patrolman's fist sank forearm-deep. The stricken zwilnik uttered one shrieking grunt, doubled up, and collapsed; never to rise again. Kinnison leaped for the fellow's DeLameter—too late, he was already hemmed in. ”

“ But instead of hurtling toward distant Arisia it swept around in a mighty circle and struck in direct central impact the great cruiser of the Eich. There was an appalling crash, a space-wracking detonation, a flare of incandescence incredible and indescribable as the energy calculated to disrupt—almost to volatilize—a world expended itself upon the insignificant mass of one Boskonian battleship and upon the unresisting texture of the void. ”

“ And, not at Base at all, but high in the stratosphere and so thoroughly screened that a spy-ray observer could not even tell that his gaze was being blocked, Base's swiftest cruiser, Lensman-commanded, rode poised upon flare-baffled, softly hissing under jets. And, equally high and as adequately protected against observation, a keen-eyed Lensman sat at the controls of a speedster, jazzing her muffled jets and peering eagerly through a telescopic sight. As far as the Patrol was concerned, everything was on the trips. ”

“ He knew that from their coigns of vantage afar four separate Boskonian observers were looking on, charged with the responsibility of recording and reporting everything that transpired, and he wanted that report to be complete and conclusive. He wanted Boskone, whoever and wherever he might be, to know that when the Galactic Patrol started a thing, that thing it finished; that the mailed fist of civilization would not spare an enemy base simply because it was so located within one of humanity's cities that its destruction must inevitably result in severe property damage. ”

“ High-explosive shells by the hundred dropped also into the incandescent mess, hurling the fiery stuff afar; deepening and broadening the sulphurous moat.
"Deep enough," Haynes spoke into his microphone. "Tractors and pressors as assigned—tip him over."
The intensity of the bombardment did not slacken, but from the maulers to the north there reached out pressors, from those upon the south came tractors; each a beam of terrific power, each backed by all the mass and all the driving force of a veritable flying fortress. ”

“ It is more to the point, I think, to discuss that which must be done; or, rather, who is to do it, since the thing itself admits of only one solution—an atomic bomb of sufficient power to destroy every trace of life upon that accursed planet. Shall we send someone, or shall some of us ourselves go? To overestimate a foe is at worst only an unnecessary precaution; to underestimate this one may well be fatal. Therefore, it seems to me, that the decision in this matter should lie with our psychologist. ”

“ He who is strongest and fittest shall survive and shall rule. This so-called Civilization which is opposing us, which began upon Tellus but whose driving force is that which dwells upon Arisia, is a soft, weak, puny-spirited thing indeed to resist the mental and material power of our culture. Myriads of beings upon each planet, each one striving for power and, so striving, giving of that power to him above. Myriads of planets, each, in return for our benevolently despotic control, delegating and contributing power to the Eich. ”

“ If they kill a dozen or so of each other and of the bloodsuckers who batten upon them, what of it? If everybody in those hells could be killed at once, the Universe would be that much better off!—and if the Galactic Patrol is compelled, by some unusually outrageous performance, to intervene in the revelry, it comes in, not as single policemen, but in platoons or in companies of armed, full-armored infantry going to war!
Such, then, were those among whom Kinnison chose to cast his lot, in a new effort to get in touch with the Galactic Director of the drug ring. ”

“ There were fewer visiplates and communicators, fewer catwalks; but there were vastly more individual offices and there were ranks and tiers of filing cabinets. There would have to be; this was headquarters for the organized illicit commerce of an entire galaxy. There, in the familiar center, sat at his great desk Jalte the Kalonian, and beside him there sparkled the peculiar globe of force which the Lensman now knew was an intergalactic communicator.
"Ha!" Kinnison exclaimed triumphantly, if inaudibly, to himself, "the real boss of the outfit—Boskone—is in the Second Galaxy!" ”

“ Civilization's prodigious fleet stopped dead, hanging motionless in space with its nearest units at the tantalizing limit of detectability from the warships awaiting them. For eight hours two hundred Rigellians stood at whirring calculators, each solving course-and-distance problems at the rate of ten per minute. Two hours or less of free flight, and Haynes rejoiced audibly in the perfection of the two red hemispheres shown in his reducer. The two immense bowls flashed together, rim to rim. The sphere began inexorably to contract. ”

“ The Tellurian went on: "You didn't, but I did. On this job I can recognize nothing of good taste, of courtesy, of chivalry, or even of ordinary common decency. I suspect everyone who does not wear a Lens."
"A thought-screen!" exclaimed Gerrond. "How could she, without armor?"
"It's a late model—brand new. Just as good and just as powerful as the one I myself am wearing," Kinnison explained. "The mere fact that she's wearing it gives me a lot of highly useful information."
"What do you want me to do about her?" the Admiral asked. He was mentally asquirm, but he was a Lensman. ”

“ Haynes stood beside Kinnison's padded chair one day, staring up into the immense lens and shaking his head. He went down the flight of stairs to the reducer, studied that, and again shook his head.
"This is very pretty, but it doesn't mean a thing," he thought at Kinnison. "It begins to look as though I'm going along just for the ride. You—or you and Worsel—will have to do the fighting, too, I'm afraid."
"Uh-huh," Kinnison demurred. "What do we—or anyone else—know about tactics, compared to you? You've got to be the brains. ”

“ Two tractor beams seized, at almost the same instant, the same meteor! Two ships, flashing up to zone contact in the twinkling of an eye, the inoffensive meteor squarely between them! And in the air lock of the other tug there were two men, not one; two men already going for their guns with the practiced ease of space-hardened veterans to whom the killing of a man was the veriest bagatelle!
In the air lock of the other meteor miner, two men—not one—were going for their DeLameters—
They must have been hijackers, killing and robbing as a business, Kinnison concluded, afterward. ”

“ A Lensman without a Lens is unthinkable, and invisible Lens is preposterous. And this fellow has not now, and never has had, a mind-ray machine. He hasn't got anything! And besides, the Lensman we're after wouldn't think of doing a thing like this—he always disappears the instant a job is finished, whether or not there is any chance of his having been discovered. ”

“ Do you, our foremost psychologist, believe that any existent or conceivable mind could break yours, with no application whatever of physical force or device, as Helmuth's reports seemed to indicate that his was broken? I use the word 'seemed' advisedly, for I do not believe that Helmuth reported the actual truth. In fact, I was about to replace him with an Eich, however unpleasant such an assignment would be to any of our race, because of that weakness."
"No," agreed the Eighth. "I do not believe that there exists in the Universe a mind of sufficient power to break mine. ”

“ The president gasped as Kinnison bulleted the information into his mind. "Go ahead.... Just a minute!" as an unmistakable sensation swept through his being. "We've gone free! The whole planet, I perceive. In that respect, at least, you are in advance of us. As far as I know, no scientist of any of our races has even thought of a Bergenholm big enough to free a world."
"It was long in the designing; many years in the building of its units," Wise replied. "We are leaving this sun in an attempt to escape from our enemy and yours; Boskone. It is our only chance of survival. ”

“ That power is the power of the mind. You, being so backward and so wrong of development, cannot understand how this can be, but if any one of you will concentrate upon one single fact, or a small object, such as a pebble or the seed of a plant or other creature, for as short a period of time as one hundred of your years, you will begin to perceive its truth.
"You boast that your planet is old. What of that? We of Arisia dwelt in turn upon a thousand planets, from planetary youth to cosmic old age, before we became independent of the chance formation of such celestial bodies. ”

“ I don't fit into it any more myself, and what I'm doing isn't even a muffled flare compared to your job. Not one in ten of these fluffs here tonight has ever been beyond the stratosphere; not one in a hundred has ever been out as far as Jupiter, or has ever had a serious thought in her head except about clothes or men; not one of them all has any more idea of what a Lensman really is than I have of hyperspace or of non-Euclidean geometry! ”

“ The Boskonian's statement was a calm summation of fact. "The messenger sent against you succeeded; the one sent against us failed. The Patrol intends and is preparing: certainly to wipe out our remaining forces within the Tellurian Galaxy; probably to attack your stronghold; eventually to invade our own galaxy. It is well—for that reason, in part, was the Lensman Morgan sent back as he was sent."
"Let them come!" snarled the Kalonian. "We can and we will hold this planet forever against anything they can bring through space!" ”

“ This is the first major setback which the culture of the Boskone has encountered since it began its rise, thousands of years ago. You are familiar with that rise; how we of the Eich took over in turn a city, a race, a planet, a solar system, a region, a galaxy. How we extended our sway into the Tellurian Galaxy, as a preliminary to the extension of our authority throughout all the populated galaxies of the macro-cosmic Universe. ”

“ The Gray Lensman is as nearly absolutely free an agent as it is possible for any flesh-and-blood being to be. He is responsible to no one and to nothing save his own conscience. He is no longer of Earth, nor of the Solarian System, but of the Universe as a whole. He is no longer a cog in the immense machine of the Galactic Patrol ”

“ Men, women, girls ever were there, in the rigid muscle-lock of thionite. Teeth hard-set, every muscle tense and staring, eyes jammed closed, fists clenched, faces white as though carved from marble, immobile in the frenzied emotion which characterized the ultimately passionate fulfillment of every suppressed desire; in the release of their every inhibition crowding perilously close to the dividing line beyond which lay death from sheer ecstasy. That was the technique of the thionite-sniffer—to take every microgram that he could stand, to come to, shaken and too weak even to walk ”

“ We don't know what even the ether is, or whether or not it exists as an objective reality; to say nothing of what we so nonchalantly call the subether. We do not understand gravity, although we can make it to order. No scientist yet has been able to say how it is propagated, or even whether or not it is propagated. No one has been able to devise any kind of an apparatus or meter or method by which its nature, period, or velocity can be determined. Neither do we know anything about time or space. ”

“ Edmund Crowninshield sat in his office and seethed quietly, the all-pervasive blueness of the Kalonian brought out even more prominently than usual by his mood. His plan to find out whether or not the ex-miner was a spy had backfired, badly. He had had reports from Euphrosyne that the fellow was not—could not be—a spy, and now his test had confirmed that conclusion, too thoroughly by far. He would have to do some mighty quick thinking and perhaps some salve-spreading or lose him. ”

“ The guardian fortresses were closer spaced by far than Helmuth's had been. Electromagnetics had a three hundred percent overlap; ether and subether alike were suffused with vibratory fields in which nullification of detection was impossible, and the observers were alert and keen. To what avail? The speedster was non-ferrous, intrinsically indetectable; the Lensman slipped through the net with ease.
Sliding down the edge of the world's black shadow he felt for the expected thought-screen, found it, dropped cautiously through it, and poised there; observing during one whole rotation. ”

“ Of the two great difficulties, one lies in the selection of material. The story of Kimball Kinnison easily could—and really should—fill a dozen encyclopedic spools; it is a Galactic shame and an almost impossible undertaking to compress it into one two-hour tape. The other sticking point is the diversity of my audience. For in the First Galaxy alone there are millions of planets, peopled by races as divergent in mentality and in physique as they are far apart in space. ”

“ Wherever he goes, throughout the Universe of Civilization, he not only carries the law with him—he is the law.
How are these Lensmen chosen? An Earthman myself, and proud of the fact that Tellus was the cradle of Galactic Civilization, I will describe only how Tellurian Lensmen are selected. Upon other planets the methods and means vary widely; but the results are the same: Wherever he may be found or however monstrous he may appear, a Lensman is always a Lensman. ”

“ Brighter and brighter flamed her prodigiously powerful defensive screens. Number One faded out; crushed flat by the hellish energies of Boskone's projectors. Number Two flared into ever more spectacular pyrotechnics, until soon even its tremendous resources of power became inadequate—blotchily, in discrete areas, clinging to existence when all the might of its Medonian generators and transmitters, it, too, began to fall.
"Better we flit, Hen, while we're all in one piece—right now," Kinnison advised the pilot then. "And I don't mean loaf, either. Let's see you burn a hole in the ether." ”

“ As soon as the connection had been broken, Kinnison realized that the thing could not be done that way; that he could not stay out of it. No man alive save himself could prevent her from flashing a warning—badly as he hated it, he had to do it. Gerrond glanced at him curiously: he had received a few of those racing thoughts.
"Tune in on this," Kinnison grinned wryly. "If the last meeting I had with her is any criterion, it ought to be good. S'pose anybody around here understands the language of Aldebaran II?" ”

“ Each being about to graduate as a Lensman is sent to Arisia; where, although the candidate does not then know it, a Lens—a lenticular jewel composed of thousands of tiny crystalloids—is built to match his individual life force. While no mind other than that of an Arisian can understand its functioning, thinking of the Lens as being synchronized with, or in exact resonance with the life principle—personality, ego, call it what you will—of its owner will give a rough idea of it. It is not really alive, as we understand the term. ”

“ Call Worsel; he has done it before. He had me unconscious most of the way over here, except when he had to give me a drink or something to eat. He's the only man this side of Arisia who can operate on my mind."
Worsel came. "Sleep, my friend," he commanded, gently but firmly. "Sleep profoundly, body and mind, with no physical or mental sensations, no consciousness, no perception even of the passage of time. Sleep until someone having authority to do so bids you awaken."
And Kinnison slept; so deeply that even Lacy's probing Lens could elicit no response. ”

“ Numberless races of intelligent beings already know Kinnison well, since his fame has spread north, south, east, west, zenith and nadir, to the six points of the three-dimensional galactic-inductor compasses of two galaxies. On the other hand, many know him not at all. Many have never even heard of Tellus, nor of Sol, our parent sun; even though it was upon that proud planet of this, our Solarian System, that the Galactic Patrol came into being. ”