E. E. Doc Smith - Lensman 6 - Children Of The Lens.pdf - E.E. Doc. Smith - margozap

CHILDREN OF THE LENS

First serialized in "ASTOUNDING," Nov '47 - Feb '48;

Fist book, Fantasy Press hardbound, 1954

BY E. E. "DOC" SMITH

MESSAGE OF TRANSMITTAL

Subject: The Conclusion of the Boskonian War; A Report:

By: Christopher K. Kinnison, L3, of Klovia:

To: The Entity Able to Obtain and to Read It

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

container and

who is able to break the Seal and to read this tape, and to your fellows,

greetings:

For reasons which will become obvious, this report will not be made

available for

an indefinite but very long time; my present visualization of the Cosmic All

does not

extend to the time at which such action will become necessary. Therefore it is

desirable

to review briefly the most pertinent facts of the earlier phases of

Civilization's climactic

conflict: information which, while widely known at present, will probably in

that future

time exist otherwise only in the memories of my descendants.

In early Civilization law enforcement lagged behind crime because the

police

were limited in their spheres of action, while criminals were not. Each

technological

advance made that condition worse until finally, when Bergenholm so perfected

the

crude inertialess space-drive of Rodebush and Cleveland that commerce throughout

the

galaxy became an actuality, crime began to threaten Civilization's very

existence.

Of course it was not then suspected that there was anything organized,

coherent,

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

Kimball

Kinnison of Tellus, now galactic coordinator, was to prove that Boskonia —an

autocratic, dictatorial culture diametrically opposed to every ideal of

Civilization—was in

fact back of practically all the pernicious activities of the First Galaxy. Even

he, however,

has never had any inkling either of the eons-long conflict between the Arisians

and the

Eddorians or of the fundamental raison d'etre of the Galactic Patrol—material

which can

never be revealed to any mind not inherently stable at the third level of

stress.

Virgil Samms, then chief of the Triplanetary Service, perceived the general

situation and foresaw the shape of the inevitable. He realized that unless and

until his

organization could secure an identifying symbol which could not be

counterfeited, police

work would remain relatively ineffectual. Tellurian science had done its best in

the

golden meteors of the Service, and its best was not good enough.

Through one Dr. Nels Bergenholm, an Arisian-activated form of human flesh,

Virgil Samms became the first wearer of Arisia's Lens, and during his life he

began the

rigid selection of those worthy of wearing it. For centuries the Patrol grew and

spread. It

became widely known that the Lens was a. perfect telepath, that it glowed with

colored

light only when worn by the individual to whose ego it was attuned, that it

killed any

other living being who attempted to wear it. Whatever his race or shape, any

wearer of

the Lens was accepted as the embodiment of Civilization.

Kimball Kinnison was the first Lensman to realize that the Lens was more

than

an identification and a telepath. He was thus the first Lensman to return to

Arisia to take

the second stage of Lensmanship—the treatment which only an exceptional brain

can

withstand, but which gives the second-stage Lensman any mental power which he

needs and which he can both visualize and control.

Aided by Lensmen Worsel of Velantia and Tregonsee of Rigel IV—the former a

winged reptile, the latter a four-legged, barrel-shaped creature with the sense

perception instead of sight—Kimball Kinnison traced and surveyed Boskone's

military

organization in the First Galaxy. He helped plan the attack on Grand Base, the

headquarters of Helmuth, who "spoke for Boskone". By flooding the control dome

Grand Base with thionite, that deadly drug native to the peculiar planet Trenco,

he made

it possible for Civilization's Grand Fleet, under the command of Port Admiral

Haynes, to

reduce that base. He, personally, killed Helmuth in hand-to-hand combat.

He was instrumental in the almost-complete destruction of the Overlords of

Delgon; those sadistic, life-eating reptiles who were the first to employ the

hyper-spatial

tube against humanity.

He was wounded more than once; in one of his hospitalizations becoming

acquainted with Surgeon-Marshal Lacy and with Sector Chief Nurse Clarrissa

MacDougall, who was later to become the widely-known "Red" Lensman and, still

later,

my mother.

In spite of the military defeat, however, Boskonia's real organization

remained

intact, and Kinnison's further search led into Lundmark's Nebula, thenceforth

called the

Second Galaxy. The planet Medon, being attacked by Boskonians, was rescued from

the enemy and was moved across inter-galactic space to the First Galaxy. Medon

made

two notable contributions to Civilization: first, electrical insulation,

conductors, and

switches by whose means voltages and amperages theretofore undreamed-of could be

handled; and later Phillips, a Posenian surgeon, was able there to complete the

researches which made it possible for human bodies to grow anew lost members or

organs.

Kinnison, deciding that the drug syndicate was the quickest and surest line

Boskone, became Wild Bill Williams the meteor-miner; a hard-drinking, bentlam-

eating,

fast-shooting space-hellion. As Williams he traced the zwilnik line upward, step

by step,

to the planet Jarnevon in the Second Galaxy. Upon Jarnevon lived the Eich;

frigid-

blooded monsters more intelligent, more merciless, more truly Boskonian even

than the

Overlords.

He and Worsel, second-stage Lensmen both, set out to investigate Jarnevon.

was captured, tortured, dismembered; but Worsel brought him back to Tellus with

his

mind and knowledge intact—the enormously important knowledge that Jarnevon was

ruled by a council of nine of the Eich, a council named Boskone.

Kinnison was given a Phillips treatment, and again Clarrissa MacDougall

nursed

him back to health. They loved each other, but they could not marry until the

Gray

Lensman's job was done; until Civilization had triumphed over Boskonia.

The Galactic Patrol assembled its Grand Fleet, composed of millions of

units,

under the flagship Z9M9Z. It attacked. The planet of Jalte, Boskonia's director

of the

First Galaxy, was consumed by a bomb of negative matter. Jarnevon was crushed

between two colliding planets; positioned inertialess, then inerted especially

for that

crushing. Grand Fleet returned, triumphant.

But Boskonia struck back, sending an immense fleet against Tellus through a

hyper-spatial tube instead of through normal space. This method of approach was

not,

however, unexpected. Survey-ships and detectors were out; the scientists of the

Patrol

had been for months hard at work on the "sunbeam" —a device to concentrate the

energy of the sun into one frightful beam. With this weapon re-enforcing the

already

vast powers of Grand Fleet, the invaders were wiped out.

Again Kinnison had to search for a high Boskonian; some authority higher

than

the Council of Boskone. Taking his personal super-dreadnought, the Dauntless,

which

carried his indetectable, non-ferrous speedster, he found a zwilnik trail and

followed it to

Dunstan's Region, an unexplored, virtually unknown, outlying spiral arm of the

First

Galaxy. It led to the planet Lyrane II, with its humanoid matriarchy, ruled by

Helen, its

queen.

There he found Illona Potter, the ex-Aldebaranian dancer; who, turning

against

her Boskonian masters, told him all she knew of the Boskonian planet Lonabar,

where

she had spent most of her life. Lonabar was unknown to the Patrol and Illona

knew

nothing of its location in space. She did, however, know its unique jewelry—gems

also

completely unknown to Civilization.

Nadreck of Palain VII, a frigid-blooded Second-Stage Lensman, with one

jewel as

a clue, set out to find Lonabar; while Kinnison began to investigate Boskonian

activities

among the matriarchs.

The Lyranians, however, were fanatically non-cooperative. They hated all

males;

they despised and detested all foreigners. Kinnison, with the consent and

assistance of

Mentor of Arisia, made Clarrissa MacDougall an Unattached Lensman and assigned

her the task of working Lyrane II.

Nadreck found and mapped Lonabar; and to build up an unimpeachable

Boskonian identity Kinnison became Cartiff the jeweler—Cartiff the jewel-thief

and

swindler—Cartiff the fence—Cartiff the murderer-outlaw—Cartiff the Boskonian big

shot.

He challenged and overthrew Menjo Bleeko, the dictator of Lonabar, and before

killing

him took from his mind everything he knew.

The Red Lensman secured information from which it was deduced that a cavern

of Overlords existed on Lyrane II. This cavern was raided and destroyed, the

Patrolmen

learning that the Eich themselves had a heavily fortified base on Lyrane VIII.

Nadreck, master psychologist, invaded that base tracelessly; learning that

the

Eich received orders from the Thralian solar system in the Second Galaxy and

that

frigid-blooded Kandron of Onlo (Thrallis DC) was second in power only to human

Alcon,

the Tyrant of Thrale (Thrallis II).

Kinnison went to Thrale, Nadreck to Onlo; the operations of both being

covered

by the Patrol's invasion of the Second Galaxy. In that invasion Boskonia's Grand

Fleet

was defeated and the planet Klovia was occupied and fortified.

Assuming the personality of Traska Gannel, a Thralian, Kinnison worked his

way

upward in Alcon's military organization. Trapped in a hyper-spatial tube,

ejected into an

unknown one of the infinity of parallel, co-existent, three-dimensional spaces

comprising

the Cosmic All, he was rescued by Mentor, working through the brain of Sir

Austin

Cardynge, the Tellurian mathematician.

Returning to Thrale, he fomented a revolution, in which he killed Alcon and

took

his place as the Tyrant of Thrale. He then discovered that his prime minister,

Fossten,

who concealed his true appearance by means of a zone of hypnosis, had been

Alcon's

superior instead of his adviser. Neither quite ready for an open break, but both

supremely confident of victory when that break should come, subtle hostilities

began.

Gannel and Fossten planned and launched an attack on Klovia, but just

before

engagement the hostilities between the two Boskonian leaders flared into an open

fight

for supremacy. After a terrific mental struggle, during which the entire crew of

the

flagship died, leaving the Boskonian fleet at the mercy of the Patrol, Kinnison

won.

He did not know, of course, then or ever, either that Fossten was in fact

Gharlane

of Eddore or that it was Mentor of Arisia who in fact overcame Fossten. Kinnison

thought, and Mentor encouraged him to believe, that Fossten was an Arisian who

had

been insane since youth, and that Kinnison had killed him without assistance. It

is a

mere formality to emphasize at this point that none of this information must

ever

become available to any mind below the third level; since to any entity able

either to

obtain or to read this report it will be obvious that such revealment would set

up an

inferiority complex which must inevitably destroy both the Patrol and

Civilization.

With Fossten dead and with Kinnison already the despot of Thrale, it was

comparatively easy for the Patrol to take over. Nadreck drove the Onlonian

garrisons

insane, so that all fought to the death among themselves; thus rendering Onlo's

mighty

armament completely useless.

Then, thinking that the Boskonian War was over—encouraged, in fact, by

Mentor

so to think—Kinnison married Clarrissa, established his headquarters upon

Klovia, and

assumed his duties as galactic coordinator.

Kimball Kinnison, while in no sense a mutant, was the penultimate product

of a

prodigiously long line of selective, controlled breeding. So was Clarrissa

MacDougall.

Just what course the science of Arisia took in making those two what they are I

can

deduce, but I do not as yet actually know. Nor, for the purpose of this record,

does it

matter. Port Admiral Haynes and Surgeon-Marshal Lacy thought that they brought

them

together and promoted their romance. Let them think so—as agents, they did.

Whatever

the method employed, the result was that the genes of those two uniquely

complementary penultimates were precisely those necessary to produce the first,

and at

present the only third-stage Lensmen.

I was born on Klovia, as were, three and four galactic-standard years

later, my

four sisters—two pairs of non-identical twins. I had little babyhood, no

childhood.

Fathered and mothered by Second-Stage Lensmen, accustomed from infancy to wide-

E. E. Doc Smith - Lensman 6 - Children Of The Lens.pdf

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