E. E. Smith

“ Scouts and cruisers caught in that ravening beam flashed briefly, like sparks flying from a forge, and vanished. Battleships and superdreadnoughts the same. Even the solid war head of fortresses and maulers was utterly helpless. No screen has ever been designed capable of handling that hellish load; no possible or conceivable substance can withstand, save momentarily, the ardor of a sunbeam. For the energy liberated by the total annihilation of four million tons per second of matter is in fact as irresistible as it is incomprehensible. ”

“ The Velantians fought vainly; their crude thought-screens were almost useless until after the coming of the Patrol. Then, with screens that were of real use, and with ships of power and with weapons of might, Worsel himself had taken the lead in the clean-up of Delgon. He was afraid, of course. Any Velantian was and is frightened to the very center of his being by the mere thought of an Overlord. He cannot help it; it is in his heredity, bred into the innermost chemistry of his body; the cold grue of a thousand thousand fiendishly tortured ancestors simply will not be denied or cast aside. ”

“ With machinelike precision the Valerians fell in and strode away; Van Buskirk in the lead, the helicopters hovering overhead, the Gray Lensman bringing up the rear. Tall and heavy, strong and agile as he was—for a Tellurian—he had no business in that front line, and no one knew that fact better than he did. The puniest Valerian of the company could do in full armor a standing high jump of over fourteen feet; and could dodge, feint, parry, and swing with a blinding speed starkly impossible to any member of any of the physically lesser breeds of man. ”

“ Kinnison of Tellus, with his hard, flat driving urge, his unconquerable, unstoppable will to do. Worsel of Velantia, with the prodigious reach and grasp which had enabled him, even without the Lens, to scan mentally a solar system eleven light-years distant. Tregonsee of Rigel IV, with the vast, calm certainty, the imperturbable poise peculiar to his long-lived, solemn race. Unattached Lensmen all; minds linked, basically, together into one mind by a wide-open three-way, superficially free, each to do his assigned third of the gigantic task. ”

“ Any human being would appear a monstrosity to such as those. But these women were human; as human as he was. He didn't get it, at all.
Kinnison opened the door and faced the manager, who was standing at that other-worldly equivalent of a desk. His first glance at her brought to the surface of his mind one of the peculiarities which he had already unconsciously observed. Here, for the first time in his life, he saw a woman without any touch whatever of personal adornment. She was tall and beautifully proportioned, strong and fine; her smooth skin was tanned to a rich and even brown. ”

“ It had been decided previously that the mind they wanted would be that of a psychologist; hence the thought sent out by the Palainian was one which would appeal only to such a mind; in fact, one practically imperceptible to any other. It was extremely faint; wavering uncertainly upon the very threshold of perception. It was so vague, so formless, so inchoate that it required Kinnison's intensest concentration even to recognize it as a thought. Indeed, so starkly unhuman was Nadreck's mind and that of his proposed quarry that it was all the Tellurian Lensman could do to so recognize it. ”

“ And, although neither of the principals knew it, this marriage had so fired public interest that Universal Telenews men had already arranged the hookup which was to carry it to every planet of Civilization. The number of entities who thus saw and heard that wedding has been estimated, but the figures are too fantastic to be repeated here.
But it was in no sense a circus. No ceremony ever held, in home or in church or in cathedral, was ever more solemn. For when half a million Lensmen concentrate upon solemnity, it prevails—no levity is possible within a radius of miles. ”

“ And, with so many perfectly good uninhabited planets so much nearer to Galactic Center, it was, of course, much too far out for colonization.
Through the rift, then, and into Dunstan's Region the Dauntless bored at the unimaginable pace of her terrific full-blast drive. The tracers' beams grew harder and more taut with every passing hour; the fleeing speedster itself grew large and clear upon the plates. The opalescence of the spiral arm became a firmament of stars. ”

“ For moments, as Mentor did not reply, the Gray Lensman's mind raced. Incredulity—becoming tinged with apprehension—turning rapidly into rebellion.
"Oh, Kim!" Clarrissa choked. A queer-enough tableau they made, these two, had any been there to see; the two uniformed figures standing there so strainedly, the nurse's two hands gripping those of the Lensman. She, completely en rapport with him, had understood his every fleeting thought. "Oh, Kim! They can't do that to us—"
"I'll say they can't!" Kinnison flared. "By Klono's tungsten teeth, I won't do it! ”

“ Helen replied equably. "Perhaps they have among them a mind of power. Perhaps in some other fashion. What matters it? The thing of importance is that they do know."
"Another thing of importance is that it'll hold them there until we get there," Kinnison thought. "Typical Boskonian technique, I gather. It won't be many hours now. Hold them off if you can."
"I think that I can," came tranquil reply. "Through mental contact each person acting as guide knows where each of us hidden ones is, and is avoiding all our hiding places." ”

“ His answer fairly crackled on its way.
"You do not know my name," the stranger's thought came clearly now. "I am the 'Toots,' the 'Queen of Sheba,' the 'Cleopatra,' the 'Elder Person' of Lyrane II. Do you know me, O Kinnison of Sol III?"
"I know you," he shot back. What a brain—what a terrific brain—that sexless woman had!
"We are invaded by manlike beings in ships of space, who wear screens against our thoughts and who slay without cause. Will you help us with your ship of might and your mind of power?"
"Just a sec, Toots—Henderson!" Orders snapped. The Dauntless spun end-for-end. ”

“ He saw that the agile little vessel's tractor zone was out. He watched the bombs strike that zone and bounce. He watched the tractor men go to work and he saw the psychologists' idea bear splendid fruit. For what followed was a triumph, not of brute force and striking power, but of morale and manhood. The brain men had said, and it was now proved, that the Boskonian gunners, low class as they were and driven to their tasks like the slaves they were, would hesitate long enough before using tractor beams as pressors so that the Patrolmen could take their own bombs away from them! ”

“ They came from Manark and Velantia and Chickladoria and Alsakan and Vandemar, from the worlds of Canopus and Vega and Antares, from all over the Galaxy. Human, near-human, nonhuman, monstrous; there even appeared briefly quite large numbers of frigid-blooded Lensmen, whose fiercely laboring refrigerators chilled the atmosphere for yards around their insulated and impervious suits. All those various beings came with a united purpose, with a common thought—to congratulate Kinnison of Tellus and to wish his Lensman-mate all the luck and all the happiness of the universe. ”

“ Kinnison did not quite faint. He did, however, have to lie down flat upon the floor; as limp, almost, as the dead men so thickly strewn about.
And thus, while the two immense Grand Fleets met in battle, Boskonia's flagship hung inert and silent in space afar; manned by fifteen hundred corpses, one unconscious Brain, and one utterly exhausted Gray Lensman. ”

“ Therefore, as she went through the blocking screen and recovered control of her mind, she set herself to fight; to fight with every iota of her mighty mind and with every fiber of her lithe, hard-schooled, tigress' body. The air-lock doors opened and closed—she faced, not an armed and armored male all set to slay, but the white-clad person whom she already knew better than she ever would know any other non-Lyranian.
"Oh, Helen!" the girl half sobbed, throwing both arms around the still-braced Chief Person. ”

“ Kinnison, then, with all the powers of his own mind and the minds of his friends and coworkers, sought to place and to identify the real key mentality at the destruction of which the mighty Boskonian Empire must begin to fall apart; that mentality, in turn, was trying with its every resource to find and to destroy the intellect which, pure reason showed, was the one factor which had enabled Civilization to throw the fast-conquering hordes of Boskonia back into their own galaxy. ”

“ Kinnison replied quietly. "It may very well be impossible to remove such a fixation." He knew that he could remove any such, but Lanion must not know it. Civilization needed those twelve hard, shrewd minds and he had no intention of allowing an inferiority complex to weaken their powers. "We do not, however, intend to operate, but only and simply to educate. You will not be unconscious at any time. You will be in full control of your own mind and you will know beyond peradventure that you are so in control. ”

“ Kinnison grinned at the Lyranian's efforts to express clearly thoughts so utterly foreign to her mind as to be totally incomprehensible.
"You don't know what that entity was, but I do," he broke in upon her floundering. "It was a person who was also, and quite definitely, a female. Right?"
"But a person couldn't—couldn't possibly—be a female!" she protested. "Why, even biologically, it doesn't make sense. There are no such things as females—there can't be!" And Kinnison saw her viewpoint clearly enough. ”

“ Her thought was a wail of protest. "I do not grasp your thought of 'a man,' but you are certainly a male; and no mere male can be—can possibly be, ever—as strong as a person."
Kinnison got that thought perfectly, and it rocked him. She did not think of herself as a woman, a female, at all. She was simply a person. She could not understand even dimly Kinnison's reference to himself as a man. ”

“ And the feelings, both of performer and of spectators, were intensified by the fact that, of all the repertoire of the Dauntless' superb orchestra, Illona liked best to dance to the stirring strains of "Our Patrol." "Our Patrol," which any man who has ever worn the space black-and-silver will say is the greatest, grandest, most glorious, most terrific piece of music that ever was or ever will be written, played, or sung! Small wonder, then, that the dancer really "gave," or that the mighty cruiser's walls almost bulged under the applause of Illona's "boys" at the end of her first number. ”

“ For Kinnison had perceived the hidden gunmen long since, and before any of them could align his sights or press his firing stud each one of them ceased to live. The zwilnik then flipped on his communicator and gobbled orders. Uselessly; for death sped ahead. Before any mind at any switchboard could grasp the meaning of the signal, it could no longer think.
"You fiend!" Bleeko screamed, in mad panic now, and wrenched open a drawer in order to seize a weapon of his own. Too late. The Lensman had already leaped, and as he landed he struck—not gently. ”