Kinnison had not underestimated the power and capacity of his as
yet unknown opposition. Well it was for him and for his Patrol that
he was learning to think; for, as has already been made clear, this
phase of the conflict was not essentially one of physical combat.
Material encounters did occur, it is true, but they were comparatively
unimportant. Basically, fundamentally, it was brain against brain; the
preliminary but nevertheless prodigious skirmishing of two minds--or,
more accurately, two teams of minds--each trying, even while covering
up its own tracks and traces, to get at and to annihilate the other.
Each had certain advantages.
Boskonia--although we know now that Boskone was by no means the prime
mover in that dark culture which opposed Civilization so bitterly,
nevertheless, "Boskonia" it was and still is being called--for a
long time had the initiative, forcing the Patrol to wage an almost
purely defensive fight. Boskonia knew vastly more about Civilization
than Civilization knew about Boskonia. The latter, almost completely
unknown, had all the advantages of stealth and of surprise; her forces
could and did operate from undeterminable points against precisely
plotted objectives. Boskonia had the hyperspatial tube long before
the Conference of Scientists solved its mysteries; and even after the
Patrol could use it, it could do Civilization no good unless and until
something could be found at which to aim it.
Upon the other hand, Civilization had the Lens. It had the backing of
the Arisians; maddeningly incomplete and unsatisfactory though that
backing seemed at times to be. It had a few entities, notably one
Kimball Kinnison, who were learning to think really efficiently. Above
all, it had a massed purpose, a loyalty, an _esprit de corps_
backboning a morale which the whip-driven ranks of autocracy could
never match and which the whip-wielding drivers could not even dimly
understand.
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.
Now, from our point of vantage in time and in space--through the vistas
of years of time and of parsecs of space--we can study at leisure and
in detail many things which Kimball Kinnison could only surmise and
suspect and deduce. Thus, he knew definitely only the fact that the
Boskonian organization did not collapse with the destruction of the
planet Jarnevon.
We know now, however, all about the Thralian solar system
and about Alcon of Thrale, its unlamented tyrant. The planet
Thrale--planetographically speaking, Thrallis II--so much like Tellus
that its natives, including the unspeakable Alcon, were human
practically to the limit of classification; and about Onlo, or Thrallis
IX, and its monstrous natives. We know now that the duties and the
authorities of the Council of Boskone were taken over by Alcon of
Thrale; we now know how, by reason of his absolute control over both
the humanity of Thrale and the monstrosities of Onlo, he was able to
carry on.
Unfortunately, like the Eich, the Onlonians simply cannot be
described by or to man. This is, as is already more or less widely
known, due to the fact that all such non-aqueous, subzero-blooded,
nonoxygen-breathing peoples have of necessity a metabolic
extension into the hyper-dimension; a fact which makes even their
three-dimensional aspect subtly incomprehensible to any strictly
three-dimensional mind.
Not all such races, it may be said here, belonged to Boskonia. Many
essentially similar ones, such as the natives of Palain VII, adhered
to our culture from the very first. Indeed, it is held that sexual
equality is the most important criterion of that which we know as
Civilization. But, since this is not a biological treatise, this point
is merely mentioned, not discussed.
The Onlonians, then, while not precisely describable to man, were very
similar to the Eich--as similar, say, as a Posenian and a Tellurian
are to each other in the perception of a Palainian. That is to say
practically identical; for to the unknown and incomprehensible senses
of those frigid beings the fact that the Posenian possesses four arms,
eight hands, and no eyes at all, as compared with the Tellurian's
simply paired members, constitutes a total difference so slight as to
be negligible.
* * * * *
But to resume the thread of history, we are at liberty to know things
that Kinnison did not. Specifically, we may observe and hear a
conference which tireless research has re-constructed _in toto_.
The place was upon chill, dark Onlo, in a searingly cold room whose
normal condition of utter darkness was barely ameliorated now by a
dim blue glow. The time was just after Kinnison had left Lonabar
for Lyrane II. The conferees were Alcon of Thrale and his Onlonian
cabinet officers. The armor-clad Tyrant, in whose honor the feeble
illumination was, lay at ease in a reclining chair; the pseudoreptilian
monstrosities were sitting or standing in some obscure and inexplicable
fashion at a long, low bench of stone.
"The fact is," one of the Onlonians was radiating harshly, "that our
minions in the other galaxy could not or would not or simply did not
think. For years things went so smoothly that no one had to think. The
Great Plan, so carefully worked out, gave every promise of complete
success. It was inevitable, it seemed, that that entire galaxy would be
brought under our domination, its Patrol destroyed, before any inkling
of our purpose could be perceived by the weaklings of humanity.
"The Plan took cognizance of every known factor of any importance.
When, however, an unknown, unforeseeable factor, the Lens of the
Patrol, became of real importance, that Plan, of course, broke down.
Instantly, upon the recognition of an unconsidered factor, the Plan
should have been revised. All action should have ceased until that
factor had been evaluated and guarded against. But no--no one of our
commanders in that galaxy or handling its affairs ever thought of such
a thing--"
"It is you who are not thinking now," the Tyrant of Thrale broke in.
"If any underling had dared any such suggestion, you yourself would
have been among the first to demand his elimination. The Plan should
have been revised, it is true; but the fault does not lie with the
underlings. Instead, it lies squarely with the Council of Boskone--by
the way, I trust that those six of that council who escaped destruction
upon Jarnevon by means of their hyperspatial tube have been dealt with?"
"They have been liquidated," another officer replied.
"It is well. They were supposed to think, and the fact that they
neither coped with the situation nor called it to your attention until
it was too late to mend matters, rather than any flaw inherent in the
Plan, is what has brought about the present absolutely intolerable
situation.
"Underlings are not supposed to think. They are supposed to
report facts; and, if so requested, opinions and deductions. Our
representatives there were well trained and skillful. They reported
accurately, and that was all that was required of them. Helmuth
reported truly, even though Boskone discredited his reports. So did
Prellin, and Crowninshield, and Jalte. The Eich, however, failed in
their duties of supervision and correlation; which is why their leaders
have been punished and their operators have been reduced in rank--why
we have assumed a task which, it might have been supposed and was
supposed, lesser minds could have and should have performed.
"Let me caution you now that to underestimate a foe is a fatal error.
Lan of the Eich prated largely upon this very point, but in the
eventuality he did, in fact, underestimate very seriously the resources
and the qualities of the Patrol; with what disastrous consequences
we are all familiar. Instead of thinking, he attempted to subject a
purely philosophical concept, the Lens, to a mathematical analysis.
Neither did the heads of our military branch think at all deeply, or
they would not have tried to attack Tellus until after this new and
enigmatic factor had been resolved. Its expeditionary forces vanished
without sign or signal--in spite of its primaries, its negative-matter
bombs, its supposedly irresistible planets--and accursed Tellus still
circles untouched about Sol, its sun. The condition is admittedly not
to be borne; but I have always said, and I now do and shall insist,
that no further action be taken until the Great Plan shall have been so
revised as reasonably to take into account the Lens. What of Arisia?"
he demanded of a third cabineteer.
"It is feared that nothing can be done about Arisia at present," that
entity replied. "Expeditions have been sent, but they were dealt with
as simply and as efficiently as were Lan and Amp of the Eich. Planets
have also been sent, but they were detected by the Patrol and were
knocked out by far-ranging dirigible planets of the enemy. However, I
have concluded that Arisia, of and by itself, is not of prime immediate
importance. It is true that the Lens did in all probability originate
with the Arisians. It is hence true that the destruction of Arisia and
its people would be highly desirable, in that it would insure that no
more Lenses would be produced. Such destruction would not do away,
however, with the myriads of the instruments which are already in use
and whose wearers are operating so powerfully against us. Our most
pressing business, it seems to me, is to hunt down and exterminate all
Lensmen; particularly the one whom Jalte called THE Lensman, who,
Eichmil was informed by Lensman Morgan, was known to even other Lensmen
only as Star A Star. In that connection, I am forced to wonder--is Star
A Star in reality only one mind?"
"That question has been considered both by me and by your chief
psychologist," Alcon made answer. "Frankly, we do not know. We have not
enough reliable data upon which to base a finding of fact. Nor does it
matter in the least. Whether one or two or a thousand, we must find and
we must slay until it is feasible to resume our orderly conquest of
the universe. We must also work unremittingly upon a plan to abate the
nuisance which is Arisia. Above all, we must see to it with the utmost
diligence that no iota of information concerning us ever reaches any
member of the Galactic Patrol. I do not want either of our worlds to
become as Jarnevon now is."
"Hear! Bravo! Nor I!" came a chorus of thoughts, interrupted by
an emanation from one of the sparkling force-ball intergalactic
communicators.
* * * * *
"Yes? Alcon acknowledging," the Tyrant took the call.
It was a zwilnik upon far Lonabar, reporting through Lyrane VIII
everything that Cartiff had done. "I do not know--I have no
idea--whether or not this matter is either unusual or important," the
observer concluded. "I would, however, rather report ten unimportant
things than miss one which might later prove to have had significance."
"Right. Report received," and discussion raged. Was this affair
actually what it appeared upon the surface to be, or was it another
subtle piece of the work of that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned
Lensman?
The observer was recalled. Orders were given and were carried out.
Then, after it had been learned that Bleeko's palace and every particle
of its contents had been destroyed, that Cartiff had vanished utterly,
and that nobody could be found upon the face of Lonabar who could throw
any light whatever upon the manner or the time of his going; then,
after it was too late to do anything about it, it was decided that
this must have been the work of THE Lensman. And it was useless to
storm or to rage. Such a happening could not have been reported sooner
to so high an office. The routine events of a hundred million planets
simply could not be reported, nor could they have been considered if
they were. And since this Lensman never repeated--his acts were always
different, alike only in that they were drably routine acts until their
crashing finales--the Boskonian observers never had been and never
would be able to report his activities in time.
"But he got nothing _this_ time, I am certain of that," the chief
psychologist exulted.
"How can you be so sure?" Alcon snapped.
"Because Menjo Bleeko of Lonabar knew nothing whatever of our
activities or of our organization except at such times as one of my
men was in charge of his mind," the scientist gloated. "I and my
assistants know mental surgery as those crude hypnotists, the Eich,
never will know it. Even our lowest agents are having those clumsy and
untrustworthy false teeth removed as fast as my therapists can operate
upon their minds."
"Nevertheless, you are even now guilty of underestimating," Alcon
reproved him sharply, energizing a force-ball communicator. "It is
quite eminently possible that he who wrought so upon Lonabar may have
been enabled--by pure chance, perhaps--to establish a linkage between
that planet and Lyrane--"
The cold, crisply incisive thought of an Eich answered the Tyrant's
call.
"Have you of Lyrane perceived or encountered any unusual occurrences or
indications?" Alcon demanded.
"We have not."
"Expect them, then," and the Thralian despot transmitted in detail all
the new developments.
"We always expect new and untoward things," the Eich more than half
sneered. "We are prepared momently for anything that can happen, from a
visitation by Star A Star and any or all of his Lensmen up to an attack
by the massed Grand Fleet of the Galactic Patrol. Is there anything
else, your supremacy?"
"No. I envy you your self-confidence and your assurance, but I mistrust
exceedingly the soundness of your judgment. That is all." Alcon turned
his attention to the chief psychologist. "Have you operated upon the
minds of those Eich and those self-styled Overlords as you did upon
that of Menjo Bleeko?"
"No!" the mind surgeon gasped. "Impossible! Not physically, perhaps,
but would not such a procedure interfere so seriously with the work
that it--"
"That is your problem--solve it," Alcon ordered, curtly. "See to it,
however it is solved, that no traceable linkage exists between any of
those minds and us. Any mind capable of thinking such thoughts as those
which we have just received is not to be trusted."
* * * * *
As has been said, Kinnison-ex-Cartiff was en route for Lyrane II while
the foregoing conference was taking place. Throughout the trip he
kept in touch with Mac. At first he tried, with his every artifice of
diplomacy, cajolery, and downright threats, to make her lay off; he
finally invoked all his Unattached Lensman's transcendental authority
and ordered her summarily to lay off.
No soap. How did he get that way, she wanted furiously to know, to
be ordering her around as though she were an uncapped probe? She was
a Lensman, too, by Klono's curly whiskers! She had a job to do and
she was going to do it. She was on a definite assignment--his own
assignment, too, remember--and she wasn't going to be called off of
it just because he had found out all of a sudden that it might not be
quite as safe as dunking doughnuts at a down-river picnic. What kind of
a sun-baked, space-tempered crust did he have to pull a crack like that
on _her_? Would he have the barefaced, unmitigated gall to spring
a thing like that on any other Lensman in the whole cockeyed universe?
That stopped him--cold. Lensmen always went in; that was their code.
For any Tellurian Lensman, anywhere, to duck or to dodge because of any
possible personal danger was sheerly, starkly unthinkable. The fact
that she was, to him, the sum total of all the femininity of the Galaxy
could not be allowed any weight whatever; any more than the converse
aspect had ever been permitted to sway him. Fair enough. Bitter, but
inescapable. This was one--just one--of the consequences which Mentor
had foreseen. He had foreseen it, too, in a dimly unreal sort of way,
and now that it was here he'd simply have to take it. QX.
"But be careful, Chris, anyway," he surrendered. "Awfully careful--as
careful as I would myself."
"I could be ever so much more careful than that and still be pretty
reckless." Her low, entrancing chuckle came through as though she were
present in person. "And by the way, Kim, did I ever tell you that I am
fast getting to be a gray Lensman?"
"You always were, ace--you couldn't very well be anything else."
"No--I mean actually gray. Did you ever stop to consider what the
laundry problem would be upon this heathenish planet?"
"Chris, I'm surprised at you--what do you need of a laundry?" he
derided her, affectionately. "Here you've been blasting me to a cinder
about not taking your Lensmanship seriously enough, and yet you are
violating one of the prime tenets--that of conformation to planetary
customs. Shame on you!"
He felt her hot blush across all those parsecs of empty space. "I tried
it at first, Kim, but it was just simply _terrible_!"
"You've got to learn how to be a Lensman or else quit throwing your
weight around like you did a while back. No back chat, either, you
insubordinate young jade, or I'll take that Lens away from you and
heave you into the clink."
"You and what regiment of Valerians? Besides, it didn't make any
difference," she explained, triumphantly. "These matriarchs don't like
me one bit better, no matter what I wear or don't wear."
Time passed, and in spite of Kinnison's highly disquieting fears,
nothing happened. Right on schedule the Patrol ship eased down to a
landing at the edge of the Lyranian airport. Mac was waiting; dressed
now, not in nurse's white, but in startlingly nondescript gray shirt
and breeches.
"Not the gray leather of my station, but merely dirt color," she
explained to Kinnison after the first fervent greetings. "These women
are clean enough physically, but I simply haven't got a thing fit to
wear. Is your laundry working?"
It was, and very shortly Sector Chief Nurse Clarrissa MacDougall
appeared in her wonted immaculately white stiffly starched uniform. She
did not, then or ever, wear the gray to which she was entitled; nor did
she ever--except when defying Kinnison--lay claims to any of the rights
or privileges which were so indubitably hers. She was not, never had
been, and never would or could be a _real_ Lensman, she always did
insist. At best, she was only a synthetic--or an imitation--or a sort
of an amateur--or maybe a "Red" Lensman--handy to have around, perhaps,
for certain kinds of jobs, but absolutely and definitely not a regular
Lensman. And it was this attitude which was to make the Red Lensman not
merely tolerated, but loved as she was loved by Lensmen, Patrolmen,
and civilians alike throughout the length, breadth, and thickness of
Civilization's bounds.
* * * * *
The ship lifted from the airport and went north into the uninhabited
temperate zone. The matriarchs did not have a thing which the
Tellurians either needed or wanted; the Lyranians disliked the visitors
so openly and so intensely that to move away from the populated belt
was the only logical and considerate thing to do.
The _Dauntless_ arrived a day later, bringing Worsel and
Tregonsee; followed closely by Nadreck in his ultrarefrigerated
speedster. Five Lensmen, then, studied intently a globular map
of Lyrane II which Clarrissa had made. Four of them, the oxygen
breathers, surrounded it in the flesh, while Nadreck was with them
only in essence. Physically he was far out in the comfortably subzero
reaches of the stratosphere, but his mind was _en rapport_ with
theirs; his sense of perception scanned the markings upon the globe as
carefully and as accurately as did theirs.
"This belt which I have colored pink," Mac explained, "corresponding
roughly to the torrid zone, is the inhabited area of Lyrane II.
Nobody lives anywhere else. Upon it I have charted every unexplained
disappearance that I have been able to find out about. Each of these
black crosses is where one such person lived. The black circle--or
circles, for frequently there are more than one--connected to each
cross by a black line, marks the spot--or spots--where that person
was seen for the last time or times. If the black circle is around
the cross, it means that she was last seen at home. I'm sorry that I
couldn't get any real information; that this jumble is all that I could
discover for you."
The crosses were distributed fairly evenly all around the globe and
throughout the populated zone. The circles, however, tended markedly to
concentrate upon the northern edge of that zone; and practically all
of the encircled crosses were very close to the northern edge of the
populated belt. To four of the Lensmen present the full grisly meaning
of the thing was starkly plain.
Nadreck was the first to speak. "Ah, very well done, Lensman
MacDougall," he congratulated. "Your data are amply sufficient. A right
scholarly and highly informative bit of work, eh, friend Worsel?"
"It is so--it is indeed so," the Velantian agreed, the while a shudder
rippled along the thirty-foot length of his sinuous body. "I suspected
many things, but not this--certainly not this, ever, away out here."
"Nor I." Tregonsee's four horn-lipped, toothless mouths snapped open
and shut; his cabled arms writhed in detestation.
"Nor I," from Kinnison. "If I had, I'd've had a hundred Lyranians mob
you, Chris, and tie you down. It would be just about here, I'd say,
from the trend of the lines of vanishment." He placed a fingertip near
the north pole of the globe. He thought for a moment, his jaw setting
and his eyes growing hard, then spoke aloud to the girl. "Chris, the
next time I tell you to hide and you don't do it I'm going to take that
Lens away from you and flash it with a DeLameter--then you'll go back
to Tellus and you'll stay there." His voice was grimmer than she had
ever before heard it.
"You don't mean ... why, it can't be ... you're all thinking ...
Overlords!" she gasped. Her face turned white; both hands flew to her
throat.
"Just that. Overlords. Nothing else but." He pictured in imagination
his fiancée's body writhing in torment upon a Delgonian torture screen
until his mind revolted; all unconscious that his thoughts were as
clear as a telescreen picture to all the others. "If they had detected
_you_--You know that they would do anything to get hold of a
mind and a vital force like yours--But, thank all the gods of space,
they didn't." He shook himself and drew a tremendously deep breath of
relief. "Well, all I've got to say is that if we ever have any kids and
they don't bawl when I tell them about this, I'll certainly give them
something to bawl about!"