Kinnison was dragged out of unconsciousness by the knowledge that he
had landed his speedster inertialess. He came to--or, rather, to say
that he came half to would be a more accurate statement--with a yell
directed at the blurrily seen figure in white which he knew must be a
nurse.
"Nurse!" Then, as a searing stab of pain shot through him at the
effort, he went on, thinking at the figure in white through his Lens:
"My speedster! I landed her free! Get the space port----"
"There, there, Lensman," a low, rich voice crooned, and a red head bent
over him. "The speedster has been taken care of. Everything is on the
needles; go to sleep and rest."
"But my ship----"
"Never mind your ship," the unctuous voice went on. "It was landed and
put away----"
"Listen, dumb-bell!" snapped the patient, speaking aloud now, in spite
of the pain, the better to drive home his meaning. "Don't try to soothe
me! What do you think I am, delirious? Get this and get it straight. I
said that I landed that speedster _free_. If you don't know what that
means, tell somebody that does. Get the space port--get Haynes--get----"
"We got them, Lensman, long ago." Although her voice was still
creamily, sweetly soft, an angry color burned into the nurse's face. "I
said everything is on zero. Your speedster was inerted; how else could
you be here, inert? I helped do it myself, so I _know_ that she is
inert."
"QX." The patient relapsed instantly into unconsciousness and the nurse
turned to an interne standing by. (Wherever _that_ nurse was, at least
one doctor could almost always be found.)
"Dumb-bell!" she flared. "What a sweet mess _he's_ going to be to
take care of! He's not even conscious yet, and he's calling names and
picking fights already!"
In a few days Kinnison was fully and alertly conscious. In a week
most of the pain had left him, and he was beginning to chafe under
restraint. In ten days he was "fit to be tied," and his acquaintance
with his head nurse, so inauspiciously begun, developed even more
inauspiciously as time went on. For, as Haynes and Lacy had each more
than anticipated, the Lensman was by no means an ideal patient. In
fact, he was most decidedly the opposite.
Nothing that could be done would satisfy him. All doctors were
fatheads, even Lacy, the man who had put him together. All nurses were
dumb-bells, even--or specially?--Mac, who with almost superhuman skill,
tact and patience had been holding him together. Why, even fatheads and
dumb-bells, even high-grade morons, ought to know that a man needed
food!
Accustomed to eating everything that he could reach, three or four or
five times a day, he did not realize--nor did his stomach--that his now
quiescent body could no longer use the five thousand or more calories
that it had been wont to burn up, each twenty-four hours, in intense
effort. He was always hungry, and he was forever demanding food.
And food, to him, did not mean orange juice or grape juice or tomato
juice or milk. Nor did it mean weak tea and hard, dry toast and an
occasional soft-boiled egg. If he ate eggs at all he wanted them
fried--three or four of them, accompanied by two or three thick slices
of ham.
He wanted--and demanded in no uncertain terms, argumentatively and
persistently--a big, thick, rare beefsteak. He wanted baked beans, with
plenty of fat pork. He wanted bread in thick slices, piled high with
butter, and not this quadruply-and-unmentionably-qualified toast. He
wanted roast beef, rare, in great chunks. He wanted potatoes and thick
brown gravy. He wanted corned beef and cabbage. He wanted pie--any kind
of pie--in large, thick quarters. He wanted peas and corn and asparagus
and cucumbers, and also various other worldly staples of diet which he
often and insistently mentioned by name.
But above all, he wanted beefsteak. He thought about it days and
dreamed about it nights. One night in particular he dreamed about
it--an especially luscious porterhouse, fried in butter and smothered
in mushrooms--only to wake up, mouth watering, literally starved, to
face again the weak tea, dry toast, and, horror of horrors, this time a
flabby, pallid, flaccid _poached_ egg! It was the last straw.
"Take it away," he said, weakly; then, when the nurse did not obey,
he reached out and pushed the breakfast, tray and all, off the table.
As it crashed to the floor, he turned away, and, in spite of all his
efforts, two hot tears forced themselves between his eyelids.
* * * * *
It was a particularly trying ordeal, and one requiring all of even
Mac's skill, diplomacy, and forbearance, to make the recalcitrant
patient eat the breakfast prescribed for him. She was finally
successful, however, and as she stepped out into the corridor she met
the ubiquitous interne.
"How's your Lensman?" he asked, in the privacy of the diet kitchen.
"Don't call him _my_ Lensman!" she stormed. She was about to explode
with the pent-up feelings which she, of course, could not vent upon
such a pitiful, helpless thing as her star patient. "Beefsteak! I
almost wish they _would_ give him a beefsteak, and that he'd choke
on it--which, of course, he would. He's worse than a baby. I never
saw such a--such a _brat_ in my life. I'd like to spank him! He needs
it. I'd like to know how _he_ ever got to be a Lensman, the big,
cantankerous clunker! I'm _going_ to spank him, too, one of these days;
see if I don't!"
"Don't take it so hard, Mac," the interne urged. He was, however, very
much relieved that relations between the handsome young Lensman and the
gorgeous redhead were not upon a more cordial basis. "He won't be here
very long. But I never saw a patient clog _your_ jets before."
"You probably never saw a patient like _him_ before, either. I
certainly hope he never gets cracked up again."
"Huh?"
"Do I have to draw you a chart?" she asked, sweetly. "Or, if he does
get cracked up again, I hope they send him to some other hospital." And
she flounced out.
Nurse MacDougall thought that when the Lensman could eat the meat he
craved, her troubles would be over; but she was mistaken, Kinnison was
nervous, moody, brooding, by turns irritable, sullen, and pugnacious.
Nor is it to be wondered at. He was chained to that bed, and in his
mind was the gnawing consciousness that he had failed. And not only
failed--he had made a complete fool of himself. He had underestimated
an enemy, and as a result of his own stupidity the whole patrol had
taken a setback. He was anguished and tormented.
Therefore: "Listen, Mac," he pleaded one day. "Bring me some clothes
and let me take a walk. I need the exercise."
"Not yet, Kim," she denied him gently, but with her entrancing smile
in full evidence. "But pretty quick, when that leg looks a little less
like a Chinese puzzle, you and nursie go bye-bye."
"Beautiful, but dumb!" the Lensman growled. "Can't you and those
cockeyed croakers realize that I'll _never_ get any strength back if
you keep me in bed all the rest of my life? And don't talk baby talk
at me, either. I'm well enough at least so that you can wipe that
professional smile off your pan and cut that soothing bedside manner of
yours."
"Very well--I think so, too!" she snapped, patience at long last gone.
"Somebody should tell you the truth. I always supposed that Lensmen
had to have _brains_, but you've acted like a spoiled brat ever since
you've been here. First you wanted to eat yourself sick, and now you
want to get up, with bones half knit and burns half healed, and undo
everything that has been done for you. Why don't you snap out of it and
act your age for a change?"
"I never did think nurses had much sense, and now I know they haven't."
Kinnison eyed her with intense disfavor, not at all convinced. "I'm not
talking about going back to work. I mean a little gentle exercise, and
I know what I need."
"You'd be surprised at what you don't know." And the nurse walked out,
chin in air. In five minutes, however, she was back, her radiant smile
again flashing.
"Sorry, Kim, I shouldn't have blasted off that way, I know that you're
bound to back-fire and to have brain storms. I would, too, if I
were----"
"Cancel it, Mac," he began, awkwardly. "I don't know why I have to be
such a mutt as to be crabbing at you all the time."
"QX, Lensman," she replied, entirely serene now. "I do. You are not the
type to stay in bed without it griping you; but when a man has been
ground up into such hamburger as you are, he has to stay in bed whether
he likes it or not, and no matter how much he pops off about it. Roll
over here, now, and I'll give you an alcohol rub. But it won't be long
now, really--pretty soon we'll have you out in a wheel chair----"
Thus it went for weeks. Kinnison knew his behavior was atrocious,
abominable; but he simply could not help it. Every so often the
accumulated pressure of his bitterness and anxiety _would_ blow off;
and, like a jungle tiger with a toothache, he would bite and claw
anything or anybody within reach.
* * * * *
Finally, however, the last picture was studied, the last bandage was
removed, and he was discharged as fit. And he was not discharged,
bitterly although he resented his "captivity," as he called it, until
he really _was_ fit. Haynes saw to that. And Haynes had allowed only
the most sketchy interviews during that long convalescence. Discharged,
however, Kinnison sought him out.
"Let me talk first," Haynes instructed him at sight. "No
self-reproaches, no destructive criticism. Everything constructive.
Now, Kimball, I'm mighty glad to hear that you made a perfect recovery.
You were in bad shape. Go ahead."
"You have just about shut my mouth by your first order." Kinnison
smiled sourly as he spoke. "Two words--flat failure. No, let me add two
more--as yet."
"That's the spirit!" Haynes exclaimed. "Nor do we agree with you that
it was a failure. It was merely not a success--so far--which is an
altogether different thing. Also, I may add that we had very fine
reports indeed on you from the hospital."
"Huh?" Kinnison was amazed to the point of being inarticulate.
"You just about tore it down, of course, but that was only to be
expected."
"But, sir, I made such a----"
"Exactly. As Lacy tells me quite frequently, he likes to have patients
over there that they don't like. Mull that one over for a bit. You may
understand it better as you get older. The thought, however, may take
some of the load off your mind."
"Well, sir, I am feeling a trifle low, but if you and the rest of them
still think----"
"We do so think. Cheer up and get on with the story."
"I've been doing a lot of thinking, and before I go around sticking out
my neck again I'm going to----"
"You don't need to tell me, you know."
"No, sir, but I think I'd better. I'm going to Arisia to see if I can
get me a few treatments for swelled head and lame brain. I still think
that I know how to use the Lens to good advantage, but I simply haven't
got enough jets to do it. You see, I----" He stopped. He would not
offer anything that might sound like an alibi; but his thoughts were
plain as print to the old Lensman.
"Go ahead, son. We know you wouldn't."
"If I thought at all, I assumed that I was tackling men, since those
on the ship were men, and men were the only known inhabitants of the
Aldebaranian system. But when those Wheelmen took me so easily and so
completely, it became very evident that I didn't have enough stuff. I
ran like a scared pup, and I was lucky to get home at all. It wouldn't
have happened if----" He paused.
"If what? Reason it out, son," Haynes advised, pointedly. "You are
wrong, dead wrong. You made no mistake, either in judgment or in
execution. You have been blaming yourself for assuming that they were
men. Let us suppose that you had assumed that they were the Arisians
themselves. Then what? After close scrutiny, even in the light of
after-knowledge, we do not see how you could have changed the outcome."
It did not occur, even to the sagacious old admiral, that Kinnison need
not have gone in. Lensmen always went in.
"Well, anyway, they licked me, and that hurts," Kinnison admitted,
frankly. "So I'm going back to Arisia for more training, if they'll
give it to me. I may be gone quite a while, as it may take even them a
long time to increase the permeability of my skull enough so that an
idea can filter through it in something under a century."
"Um-m-m." Haynes pondered. "It has never been done. They are a peculiar
race, incomprehensible--but not vindictive. They may refuse you,
but nothing worse--that is, if you do not cross the barrier without
invitation. It's a splendid idea, I think; but be very careful to
strike that barrier free and at almost zero power--or else don't strike
it at all."
* * * * *
They shook hands, and in a space of minutes the speedster was again
tearing through space. Kinnison now knew exactly what he wanted to
get, and he utilized every waking hour of that long trip in physical
and mental exercise to prepare himself to take it. Thus the time did
not seem long. He crept up to the barrier at a snail's pace, stopping
instantly as he touched it, and through that barrier he sent a thought.
"Is it permitted that I approach your planet?" he asked, neither
brazenly nor obsequiously. He was matter-of-factly asking a simple
question and expecting a simple reply. He knew that to these beings,
whatever they really were, salutations and identifications were alike
superfluous. Nor was he met as Helmuth had been met.
"Ah, 'tis Kimball Kinnison, of Earth," a slow, deep, measured voice
resounded in his brain. "Neutralize your controls. You will be landed."
He did so, and the inert speedster shot forward, to come to ground in a
perfect landing at a regulation space port. He strode into the office,
to confront the same grotesque, dragonlike entity who had measured him
for his Lens not so long ago. Now, however, he stared straight into
that entity's unblinking eyes, in silence.
"Ah, you have progressed. You realize now that vision is not always
reliable. At our previous interview you took it for granted that what
you saw must really exist, and did not wonder as to what our true
shapes might be."
"I am wondering now, seriously," Kinnison replied. "And if it is
permitted, I intend to stay here until I can see your true shapes."
"This?" And the figure changed instantly into that of an old,
white-bearded, scholarly gentleman.
"No. There is a vast difference between seeing something myself and
having you show it to me. I realize only too well that you can make me
see you as anything you choose. You could appear to me as a perfect
copy of myself, or as any other thing, person or object conceivable to
my mind."
"Ah, you have indeed progressed. While you were expected to return,
you are ahead of time by several of your years. When you approached
the barrier it was supposed that you came to ask for some particular
information, but now that I search your mind I perceive that what you
seek is not mere information, but is indeed knowledge."
"You say that you expected me. How could you know that I was coming? I
didn't decide definitely myself until only a couple of weeks ago."
"It was inevitable. When we fitted your Lens we knew that you would
return if you lived. As we recently informed that one known as
Helmuth----"
"_Helmuth!_ You know, then, where----" Kinnison choked himself off. He
would not ask for help in that. He would fight his own battles and bury
his own dead. If they volunteered the information, well and good; but
he would not ask it. Nor did the Arisian furnish it.
"You are right," the sage remarked, imperturbably. "For strong
development it is essential that you secure that information for
yourself."
Then he continued his previous thought: "As we told Helmuth recently,
we have given your civilization an instrumentality--the Lens--by virtue
of which it should be able to make itself secure throughout the galaxy.
Having given it, we could do nothing more of real or permanent benefit
until you Lensmen yourselves began to realize what it was that we had
given you. That realization has been inevitable; from the first it
has been certain that in time your minds would become strong enough
to discover the theretofore unknown depths of power of your Lenses.
As soon as any mind made that discovery it would, of course, return
to Arisia, the source of the Lens, for additional instruction; which,
equally of course, that mind could not have borne previously.
"Decade by decade your minds have become stronger. Finally you came to
be fitted with a Lens. Your mind, while pitifully undeveloped, had a
latent capacity and a power that made your return here certain. Since
your enlensment there has been one other who will return. Indeed, it
has become a topic of discussion among us as to whether you or that
other would be the first advanced student."
"Who is that other, if I may ask?"
"Your friend, Worsel, the Velantian."
"He's got a real mind--'way, 'way ahead of mine," the Lensman stated,
as a matter of self-evident fact.
"In some ways, yes. In other and highly important characteristics, no."
"Huh?" Kinnison exclaimed. "In what possible way have I got it over
him?"
"I am not certain that I can explain it exactly in thoughts which you
can understand. Broadly speaking, his mind is the better trained, the
more fully developed. It is of more grasp and reach, and of vastly
greater present power. It is more controllable, more responsive, more
adaptable than is yours--now. But your mind, while undeveloped, is of
considerably greater capacity than his, and of greater and more varied
latent capabilities. Above all, you have a driving force, a will to do,
an undefeatable mental urge that no one of his race will be able to
develop for many cycles of time to come. Since I selected you as the
first to return, I am naturally gratified that you have developed so
rapidly."
"Well, I have been more or less under pressure, and I got quite a few
lucky breaks. But at that, it seemed to me that I was progressing
backward instead of forward."
"It is ever thus with the really competent. Prepare yourself!"
He launched a mental bolt, at the impact of which Kinnison's mind
literally turned inside out in a wildly gyrating spiral vortex of
dizzyingly confused images.
"Resist!" came the harsh command.
"Resist! How?" demanded the writhing, sweating Lensman. "You might as
well tell a fly to resist an inert space ship!"
"Use your will--your force--your adaptability. Shift your mind to
meet mine at every point. Apart from these fundamentals neither I nor
any one else can tell you how; each mind must find its own medium and
develop its own technique. But this is a very mild treatment indeed,
one conditioned to your present strength. I will increase it gradually
in severity, but rest assured that I will at no time raise it to the
point of permanent damage. Constructive exercises will come later; the
first step must be to build up your resistance. Therefore, resist!"
The force, which had not slackened for an instant, waxed slowly to the
very verge of intolerability; and grimly, doggedly, the Lensman fought
it. Teeth locked, muscles straining, fingers digging savagely into the
hard leather upholstery of his chair he fought it; mustering his every
ultimate resource to the task----
Suddenly, the torture ceased and the Lensman slumped down, a mental and
physical wreck. He was white, trembling, sweating, shaken to the very
core of his being. He was ashamed of his weakness. He was humiliated
and bitterly disappointed at the showing he had made; but from the
Arisian there came a calm, encouraging thought.
"You need not feel ashamed; you should instead feel proud, for you have
made a start which is really surprising, even to me, your sponsor. This
may seem to you like needless punishment, but it is not. This is the
only possible way in which that which you seek may be found."
"In that case, go to it," the Lensman declared. "I can take it."
* * * * *
Day after day and week after week the "advanced instruction" went on,
with the pupil becoming ever stronger, until he was taking without
damage thrusts that would have slain him instantly a few weeks since.
The bouts became shorter and shorter, requiring as they did such
terrific outpourings of mental force that not even the master could
stand the awful strain for more than half an hour at a time.
And now these savage conflicts of wills and minds were interspersed
with real instruction, with lessons neither painful nor unpleasant.
In these the aged scientist probed gently into the youngster's mind,
opening it and exposing to its owner's gaze vast caverns whose very
presence he had never even suspected. Some of these storehouses were
already partially or completely filled, needing only arrangement and
connection. Others were nearly empty. These were catalogued and made
accessible. And in all, permeating everything, was the Lens.
"Just like clearing out a clogged-up water system; with the Lens the
pump that wouldn't work!" exclaimed Kinnison one day.
"More like that than you at present realize," assented the Arisian.
"You have observed, of course, that I have not given you any detailed
instructions nor pointed out any specific abilities of the Lens which
you have not known how to use. You will have to operate the pump
yourself; and you have many surprises awaiting you as to what your Lens
will pump, and how. Our sole task is to prepare your mind to work with
the Lens, and that task is not yet done. Let us on with it."
Eventually the time came when Kinnison could block out entirely the
suggestions of his mentor, but he did not reveal that fact; nor,
now blocked out, could the Arisian discern it. The Lensman gathered
all his force together, concentrated it, and hurled it back at his
teacher; and there ensued a struggle none the less Titanic because of
its essential friendliness. The very ether seethed and boiled with the
fury of the mental forces there at grips, but finally the Lensman beat
down the other's screens. Then, boring deep into his eyes, he willed
with all his force to see that Arisian as he really was. And instantly
the scholarly old man subsided into a--a _brain_! There were a few
appendages, of course, and other appurtenances and incidentials to
nourishment, locomotion, and the like, but to all intents and purposes
the Arisian was simply and solely a brain.
[Illustration: _He willed with all his force to see him as he really
was. And instantly--the scholarly old man subsided into a brain._]
Tension ended; conflict ceased; and Kinnison apologized.
"Think nothing of it." And the brain actually smiled into Kinnison's
mind. "Any mind of power sufficient to block mine is, of course, able
to hurl no feeble bolts of its own. See to it, however, that you thrust
no such force at any lesser mind, or it dies instantly."
Kinnison started to stammer a reply, but the Arisian went on: "No,
son, I knew and know that the warning is superfluous. If you were not
worthy of this power and were you not able to control it properly you
would not have it. You have obtained that which you sought. Go, then,
with power."
"But this is only one phase, barely a beginning!" protested Kinnison.
"Ah, you realize even that? Truly, youth, you have come far and fast.
But you are not yet ready for more, and it is a truism that the
reception of forces for which a mind is not prepared will destroy that
mind. Thus, when you came to me you knew exactly what you wanted. Do
you know with equal certainty what more you want from us?"
"No."
"Nor will you for years, if ever. Indeed, it may well be that only your
descendants will be ready for that for which you now so dimly grope.
Again I say, young man, go with power."
Kinnison went.