Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
FIRST LENSMAN
E. E. "DOC" SMITH
PYRAMID BOOKS · NEW YORK
_To E. Everett Evans_
FIRST LENSMAN
A PYRAMID BOOK
Published by arrangement with the author
Fantasy Press edition published 1950
Pyramid edition published December, 1964
Second printing July, 1966
Third printing April, 1967
Fourth printing September, 1967
Fifth printing May, 1968
Copyright 1950 by Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reprinted without
written permission of the publishers.
Printed in the United States of America
PYRAMID BOOKS are published by Pyramid Publications, Inc.
444 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022, U.S.A.
* * * * *
_ATTACK FROM SPACE_
The enemy spacefleet arrowed toward the armored mountain--nerve center
of the Galactic Patrol. The Patrol battle cruisers swerved to meet
them, and a miles-long cone of pure energy ravened out at the invaders,
destroying whatever it touched.
But the moment before the force beam struck, thousands of tiny objects
dropped from the enemy fleet and, faster than light, flashed straight
at their target--each one an atom bomb powerful enough to destroy
Patrol Headquarters by itself!
The Galactic Patrol--and civilization itself--had seconds to live.
Unless a miracle happened....
A LENSMAN ADVENTURE
_Second in the Great Series_
CHAPTER 1
The visitor, making his way unobserved through the crowded main
laboratory of The Hill, stepped up to within six feet of the back
of a big Norwegian seated at an electrono-optical bench. Drawing an
automatic pistol, he shot the apparently unsuspecting scientist seven
times, as fast as he could pull the trigger; twice through the brain,
five times, closely spaced, through the spine.
"Ah, Gharlane of Eddore, I have been expecting you to look me up. Sit
down." Blonde, blue-eyed Dr. Nels Bergenholm, completely undisturbed by
the passage of the stream of bullets through his head and body, turned
and waved one huge hand at a stool beside his own.
"But those were not ordinary projectiles!" the visitor protested.
Neither person--or rather, entity--was in the least surprised that no
one else had paid any attention to what had happened, but it was clear
that the one was taken aback by the failure of his murderous attack.
"They should have volatilized that form of flesh--should at least have
blown you back to Arisia, where you belong."
"Ordinary or extraordinary, what matter? As you, in the guise of
Gray Roger, told Conway Costigan a short time since, 'I permitted
that, as a demonstration of futility.' Know, Gharlane, once and for
all, that you will no longer be allowed to act directly against any
adherent of Civilization, wherever situate. We of Arisia will not
interfere in person with your proposed conquest of the two galaxies
as you have planned it, since the stresses and conflicts involved are
necessary--and, I may add, sufficient--to produce the Civilization
which must and shall come into being. Therefore, neither will you, or
any other Eddorian, so interfere. You will go back to Eddore and you
will stay there."
"Think you so?" Gharlane sneered. "You, who have been so afraid of us
for over two thousand million Tellurian years that you dared not let us
even learn of you? So afraid of us that you dared not take any action
to avert the destruction of any one of your budding Civilizations upon
any one of the worlds of either galaxy? So afraid that you dare not,
even now, meet me mind to mind, but insist upon the use of this slow
and unsatisfactory oral communication between us?"
"Either your thinking is loose, confused, and turbid, which I do not
believe to be the case, or you are trying to lull me into believing
that you are stupid." Bergenholm's voice was calm, unmoved. "I do not
_think_ that you will go back to Eddore; I know it. You, too, as soon
as you have become informed upon certain matters, will know it. You
protest against the use of spoken language because it is, as you know,
the easiest, simplest, and surest way of preventing you from securing
any iota of the knowledge for which you are so desperately searching.
As to a meeting of our two minds, they met fully just before you,
operating as Gray Roger, remembered that which your entire race forgot
long ago. As a consequence of that meeting I so learned every line
and vibration of your life pattern as to be able to greet you by your
symbol, Gharlane of Eddore, whereas you know nothing of me save that I
am an Arisian, a fact which has been obvious from the first."
In an attempt to create a diversion, Gharlane released the zone of
compulsion which he had been holding; but the Arisian took it over so
smoothly that no human being within range was conscious of any change.
"It is true that for many cycles of time we concealed our existence
from you," Bergenholm went on without a break. "Since the reason for
that concealment will still further confuse you, I will tell you what
it was. Had you Eddorians learned of us sooner you might have been able
to forge a weapon of power sufficient to prevent the accomplishment of
an end which is now certain.
"It is true that your operations as Lo Sung of Uighar were not
constrained. As Mithridates of Pontus--as Sulla, Marius, and Nero of
Rome--as Hannibal of Carthage--as those self-effacing wights Alcixerxes
of Greece and Menocoptes of Egypt--as Genghis Khan and Attila and
the Kaiser and Mussolini and Hitler and the Tyrant of Asia--you were
allowed to do as you pleased. Similar activities upon Rigel Four,
Velantia, Palain Seven, and elsewhere were also allowed to proceed
without effective opposition. With the appearance of Virgil Samms,
however, the time arrived to put an end to your customary pernicious,
obstructive, and destructive activities. I therefore interposed a
barrier between you and those who would otherwise be completely
defenseless against you."
"But why now? Why not thousands of cycles ago? And why Virgil Samms?"
"To answer those questions would be to give you valuable data. You
may--too late--be able to answer them yourself. But to continue: you
accuse me, and all Arisia, of cowardice; an evidently muddy and inept
thought. Reflect, please, upon the completeness of your failure in the
affair of Roger's planetoid; upon the fact that you have accomplished
nothing whatever since that time; upon the situation in which you now
find yourself.
"Even though the trend of thought of your race is basically
materialistic and mechanistic, and you belittle ours as being
'philosophic' and 'impractical', you found--much to your surprise--that
your most destructive physical agencies are not able to affect even
this form of flesh which I am now energizing, to say nothing of
affecting the reality which is I.
"If this episode is the result of the customary thinking of the
second-in-command of Eddore's Innermost Circle ... but no, my
visualization cannot be that badly at fault. Overconfidence--the
tyrant's innate proclivity to underestimate an opponent--these things
have put you into a false position; but I greatly fear that they will
not operate to do so in any really important future affair."
"Rest assured that they will not!" Gharlane snarled. "It may not
be--exactly--cowardice. It is, however, something closely akin. If you
could have acted effectively against us at any time in the past, you
would have done so. If you could act effectively against us now, you
would be acting, not talking. That is elementary--self-evidently true.
So true that you have not tried to deny it--nor would you expect me to
believe you if you did." Cold black eyes stared level into icy eyes of
Norwegian blue.
"Deny it? No. I am glad, however, that you used the word 'effectively'
instead of 'openly'; for we have been acting effectively against you
ever since these newly-formed planets cooled sufficiently to permit of
the development of intelligent life."
"What? You have? How?"
"That, too, you may learn--too late. I have now said all I intend
to say. I will give you no more information. Since you already know
that there are more adult Arisians than there are Eddorians, so that
at least one of us can devote his full attention to blocking the
direct effort of any one of you, it is clear to you that it makes no
difference to me whether you elect to go or to stay. I can and I will
remain here as long as you do; I can and I will accompany you whenever
you venture out of the volume of space protected by Eddorian screen,
wherever you go. The election is yours."
Gharlane disappeared. So did the Arisian--instantaneously. Dr. Nels
Bergenholm, however, remained. Turning, he resumed his work where he
had left off, knowing exactly what he had been doing and exactly what
he was going to do to finish it. He released the zone of compulsion,
which he had been holding upon every human being within sight or
hearing, so dexterously that no one suspected, then or ever, that
anything out of the ordinary had happened. He knew these things and
did these things in spite of the fact that the form of flesh which his
fellows of the Triplanetary Service knew as Nels Bergenholm was then
being energized, not by the stupendously powerful mind of Drounli the
Molder, but by an Arisian child too young to be of any use in that
which was about to occur.
Arisia was ready. Every Arisian mind capable of adult, or of even
near-adult thinking was poised to act when the moment of action should
come. They were not, however, tense. While not in any sense routine,
that which they were about to do had been foreseen for many cycles of
time. They knew exactly what they were going to do, and exactly how to
do it. They waited.
"My visualization is not entirely clear concerning the succession of
events stemming from the fact that the fusion of which Drounli is
a part did not destroy Gharlane of Eddore while he was energizing
Gray Roger," a young Watchman, Eukonidor by symbol, thought into the
assembled mind. "May I take a moment of this idle time in which to
spread my visualization, for enlargement and instruction?"
"You may, youth." The Elders of Arisia--the mightiest intellects of
that tremendously powerful race--fused their several minds into one
mind and gave approval. "That will be time well spent. Think on."
"Separated from the other Eddorians by inter-galactic distance as
he then was, Gharlane could have been isolated and could have been
destroyed," the youth pointed out, as he somewhat diffidently spread
his visualization in the public mind. "Since it is axiomatic that his
destruction would have weakened Eddore somewhat and to that extent
would have helped us, it is evident that some greater advantage will
accrue from allowing him to live. Some points are clear enough: that
Gharlane and his fellows will believe that the Arisian fusion could
not kill him, since it did not; that the Eddorians, contemptuous of our
powers and thinking us vastly their inferiors, will not be driven to
develop such things as atomic-energy-powered mechanical screens against
third-level thought until such a time as it will be too late for even
those devices to save their race from extinction; that they will, in
all probability, never even suspect that the Galactic Patrol which is
so soon to come into being will in fact be the prime operator in that
extinction. It is not clear, however, in view of the above facts, why
it has now become necessary for us to slay one Eddorian upon Eddore.
Nor can I formulate or visualize with any clarity the techniques
to be employed in the final wiping out of the race; I lack certain
fundamental data concerning events which occurred and conditions which
obtained many, many cycles before my birth. I am unable to believe that
my perception and memory could have been so imperfect--can it be that
none of that basic data is, or ever has been available?"
"That, youth, is the fact. While your visualization of the future is of
course not as detailed nor as accurate as it will be after more cycles
of labor, your background of knowledge is as complete as that of any
other of our number."
"I see." Eukonidor gave the mental equivalent of a nod of complete
understanding. "It is necessary, and the death of a lesser Eddorian--a
Watchman--will be sufficient. Nor will it be either surprising or
alarming to Eddore's Innermost Circle that the integrated total mind of
Arisia should be able to kill such a relatively feeble entity. I see."
Then silence; and waiting. Minutes? Or days? Or weeks? Who can tell?
What does time mean to any Arisian?
Then Drounli arrived; arrived in the instant of his leaving The
Hill--what matters even inter-galactic distance to the speed of
thought? He fused his mind with those of the three other Molders
of Civilization. The massed and united mind of Arisia, poised and
ready, awaiting only his coming, launched itself through space. That
tremendous, that theretofore unknown concentration of mental force
arrived at Eddore's outer screen in practically the same instant as
did the entity that was Gharlane. The Eddorian, however, went through
without opposition; the Arisians did not.
* * * * *
Some two thousand million years ago, when the Coalescence occurred--the
event which was to make each of the two interpassing galaxies teem with
planets--the Arisians were already an ancient race; so ancient that
they were even then independent of the chance formation of planets. The
Eddorians, it is believed, were older still. The Arisians were native
to this, our normal space-time continuum; the Eddorians were not.
Eddore was--and is--huge, dense, and hot. Its atmosphere is not air,
as we of small, green Terra, know air, but is a noxious mixture of
gaseous substances known to mankind only in chemical laboratories.
Its hydrosphere, while it does contain some water, is a poisonous,
stinking, foully corrosive, slimy and sludgy liquid.
And the Eddorians were as different from any people we know as Eddore
is different from the planets indigenous to our space and time. They
were, to our senses, utterly monstrous; almost incomprehensible. They
were amorphous, amoeboid, sexless. Not androgynous or parthenogenetic,
but absolutely sexless; with a sexlessness unknown in any Earthly form
of life higher than the yeasts. Thus they were, to all intents and
purposes and except for death by violence, immortal; for each one,
after having lived for hundreds of thousands of Tellurian years and
having reached its capacity to live and to learn, simply divided into
two new individuals, each of which, in addition to possessing in full
its parent's mind and memories and knowledges, had also a brand-new
zest and a greatly increased capacity.
And, since life was, there had been competition. Competition for power.
Knowledge was worth while only insofar as it contributed to power.
Warfare began, and aged, and continued; the appallingly efficient
warfare possible only to such entities as those. Their minds, already
immensely powerful, grew stronger and stronger under the stresses of
internecine struggle.
But peace was not even thought of. Strife continued, at higher and even
higher levels of violence, until two facts became apparent. First, that
every Eddorian who could be killed by physical violence had already
died; that the survivors had developed such tremendous powers of mind,
such complete mastery of things physical as well as mental, that they
could not be slain by physical force. Second, that during the ages
through which they had been devoting their every effort to mutual
extermination, their sun had begun markedly to cool; that their planet
would very soon become so cold that it would be impossible for them
ever again to live their normal physical lives.
Thus there came about an armistice. The Eddorians worked together--not
without friction--in the development of mechanisms by the use of which
they moved their planet across light-years of space to a younger,
hotter sun. Then, Eddore once more at its hot and reeking norm, battle
was resumed. Mental battle, this time, that went on for more than a
hundred thousand Eddorian years; during the last ten thousand of which
not a single Eddorian died.
Realizing the futility of such unproductive endeavor, the relatively
few survivors made a peace of sorts. Since each had an utterly
insatiable lust for power, and since it had become clear that they
could neither conquer nor kill each other, they would combine forces
and conquer enough planets--enough galaxies--so that each Eddorian
could have as much power and authority as he could possibly handle.
What matter that there were not that many planets in their native
space? There were other spaces, an infinite number of them; some of
which, it was mathematically certain, would contain millions upon
millions of planets instead of only two or three. By mind and by
machine they surveyed the neighboring continua; they developed the
hyper-spatial tube and the inertialess drive; they drove their planet,
space-ship-wise, through space after space after space.
And thus, shortly after the Coalescence began, Eddore came into our
space-time; and here, because of the multitudes of planets already
existing and the untold millions more about to come into existence,
it stayed. Here was what they had wanted since their beginnings; here
were planets enough, here were fields enough for the exercise of power,
to sate even the insatiable. There was no longer any need for them to
fight each other; they could now cooperate whole-heartedly--as long as
each was getting more--and _more_ and MORE!
Enphilisor, a young Arisian, his mind roaming eagerly abroad as was its
wont, made first contact with the Eddorians in this space. Inoffensive,
naive, innocent, he was surprised beyond measure at their reception of
his friendly greeting; but in the instant before closing his mind to
their vicious attacks, he learned the foregoing facts concerning them.
The fused mind of the Elders of Arisia, however, was not surprised. The
Arisians, while not as mechanistic as their opponents, and innately
peaceful as well, were far ahead of them in the pure science of the
mind. The Elders had long known of the Eddorians and of their lustful
wanderings through plenum after plenum. Their Visualizations of the
Cosmic All had long since forecast, with dreadful certainty, the
invasion which had now occurred. They had long known what they would
have to do. They did it. So insidiously as to set up no opposition they
entered the Eddorians' minds and sealed off all knowledge of Arisia.
They withdrew, tracelessly.
They did not have much data, it is true; but no more could be obtained
at that time. If any one of those touchy suspicious minds had been
given any cause for alarm, any focal point of doubt, they would have
had time in which to develop mechanisms able to force the Arisians out
of this space before a weapon to destroy the Eddorians--the as yet
incompletely designed Galactic Patrol--could be forged. The Arisians
could, even then, have slain by mental force alone all the Eddorians
except the All-Highest and his Innermost Circle, safe within their then
impenetrable shield; but as long as they could not make a clean sweep
they could not attack--then.
Be it observed that the Arisians were not fighting for themselves. As
individuals or as a race they had nothing to fear. Even less than the
Eddorians could they be killed by any possible application of physical
force. Past masters of mental science, they knew that no possible
concentration of Eddorian mental force could kill any one of them. And
if they were to be forced out of normal space, what matter? To such
mentalities as theirs, any given space would serve as well as any other.
No, they were fighting for an ideal; for the peaceful, harmonious,
liberty-loving Civilization which they had envisaged as developing
throughout, and eventually entirely covering the myriads of planets
of, two tremendous Island Universes. Also, they felt a heavy weight
of responsibility. Since all these races, existing and yet to appear,
had sprung from and would spring from the Arisian life-spores which
permeated this particular space, they all were and would be, at bottom,
Arisian. It was starkly unthinkable that Arisia would leave them to
the eternal dominance of such a rapacious, such a tyrannical, such a
hellishly insatiable breed of monsters.
Therefore the Arisians fought; efficiently if insidiously. They did
not--they could not--interfere openly with Eddore's ruthless conquest
of world after world; with Eddore's ruthless smashing of Civilization
after Civilization. They did, however, see to it, by selective matings
and the establishment of blood-lines upon numberless planets, that the
trend of the level of intelligence was definitely and steadily upward.
Four Molders of Civilization--Drounli, Kriedigan, Nedanillor, and
Brolenteen, who, in fusion, formed the "Mentor of Arisia" who was to
become known to every wearer of Civilization's Lens--were individually
responsible for the Arisian program of development upon the four
planets of Tellus, Rigel IV, Velantia, and Palain VII. Drounli
established upon Tellus two principal lines of blood. In unbroken male
line of descent the Kinnisons went back to long before the dawn of
even mythical Tellurian history. Kinnexa of Atlantis, daughter of one
Kinnison and sister of another, is the first of the blood to be named
in these annals; but the line was then already old. So was the other
line; characterized throughout its tremendous length, male and female,
by peculiarly spectacular red-bronze-auburn hair and equally striking
gold-flecked, tawny eyes.
Nor did these strains mix. Drounli had made it psychologically
impossible for them to mix until the penultimate stage of development
should have been reached.
While that stage was still in the future Virgil Samms appeared, and
all Arisia knew that the time had come to engage the Eddorians openly,
mind to mind. Gharlane-Roger was curbed, savagely and sharply. Every
Eddorian, wherever he was working, found his every line of endeavor
solidly blocked.
Gharlane, as has been intimated, constructed a supposedly irresistible
weapon and attacked his Arisian blocker, with results already told. At
that failure Gharlane knew that there was something terribly amiss;
that it had been amiss for over two thousand million Tellurian years.
Really alarmed for the first time in his long life, he flashed back to
Eddore; to warn his fellows and to take counsel with them as to what
should be done. And the massed and integrated force of all Arisia was
only an instant behind him.
* * * * *
Arisia struck Eddore's outermost screen, and in the instant of impact
that screen went down. And then, instantaneously and all unperceived
by the planet's defenders, the Arisian forces split. The Elders,
including all the Molders, seized the Eddorian who had been handling
that screen--threw around him an impenetrable net of force--yanked him
out into inter-galactic space.
Then, driving in resistlessly, they turned the luckless wight inside
out. And before the victim died under their poignant probings, the
Elders of Arisia learned everything that the Eddorian and all of his
ancestors had ever known. They then withdrew to Arisia, leaving their
younger, weaker, partially-developed fellows to do whatever they could
against mighty Eddore.
Whether the attack of these lesser forces would be stopped at the
second, the third, the fourth, or the innermost screen; whether they
would reach the planet itself and perhaps do some actual damage before
being driven off; was immaterial. Eddore must be allowed and would
be allowed to repel that invasion with ease. For cycles to come the
Eddorians must and would believe that they had nothing really to fear
from Arisia.
The real battle, however, had been won. The Arisian visualizations
could now be extended to portray every essential element of the
climactic conflict which was eventually to come. It was no cheerful
conclusion at which the Arisians arrived, since their visualizations
all agreed in showing that the only possible method of wiping out the
Eddorians would also of necessity end their own usefulness as Guardians
of Civilization.
Such an outcome having been shown necessary, however, the Arisians
accepted it, and worked toward it, unhesitatingly.