By E. E. SMITH, Ph. D.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Astounding Science Fiction
October, November, December 1939, January 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_PROLOGUE_
This is not, strictly speaking, a biography. It is not, it cannot
be, comprehensive enough to be called that. Nor, since of necessity
it must be limited, both in length and in scope, can it be called a
history. It is, perhaps, best described as a record--the record of the
activities of Galactic Co-ordinator Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman, of
Tellus, during the Boskonian War.
Nevertheless this record, what there is of it, is in essence
biographical; and the biographer of such a man as Kinnison has a
peculiar task. In one way it is easy, in two others it is difficult in
the extreme.
"Nuts!" he is wont to exclaim in answer to a direct question as to some
particular event or situation. "Why in all the nine hells of Valeria
are you still wasting time writing about _me_?" But eventually I get
the data I need, and thus it is comparatively easy to make this work
completely authentic, as far as the Gray Lensman himself is concerned.
It may be objected that I have recorded as facts certain minutiae
which, considering what happened to the planet of the Eich and in the
light of other happenings elsewhere, cannot be known so exactly by
any living entity. This objection is untenable; as profound research
upon every debatable point has shown conclusively that something very
similar to, if not in fact identical with, each such detail must have
occurred.
Of the two great difficulties, one lies in the selection of material.
The story of Kimball Kinnison easily could--and really should--fill
a dozen encyclopedic spools; it is a Galactic shame and an almost
impossible undertaking to compress it into one two-hour tape. The other
sticking point is the diversity of my audience. For in the First Galaxy
alone there are millions of planets, peopled by races as divergent in
mentality and in physique as they are far apart in space. Some races
will read this chronicle from printed pages; some will see it; some
will hear it; some will both see it and hear it; some, unable either
to see or to hear, will receive it telepathically. Still others,
in other Galaxies, will undoubtedly acquire it in fashions starkly
incomprehensible to me, its compiler.
Numberless races of intelligent beings already know Kinnison well,
since his fame has spread north, south, east, west, zenith and nadir,
to the six points of the three-dimensional galactic-inductor compasses
of two galaxies. On the other hand, many know him not at all. Many
have never even heard of Tellus, nor of Sol, our parent sun; even
though it was upon that proud planet of this, our Solarian System, that
the Galactic Patrol came into being. Indeed, it is inevitable that
this biography will in days to come be of interest to races which,
inhabiting planets not yet reached by the Cosmic Survey, have not even
heard of the Galactic Patrol, to say nothing of knowing its origin and
its history.
In view of the above inescapable facts, and after a great deal of
thought and care, I have decided to write this Prologue, which will
summarize very simply that which is already most widely known; namely,
the happenings up to and including the first phase of the Boskonian
War. Even that condensation, however, leaves me all too little space
in which to do justice to the part that Kimball Kinnison played in
enabling the civilization of the Galactic Council to triumph over the
monstrous culture of Boskone.
With the understanding, then, that the more informed mentality may skip
from here to Chapter I, I proceed.
* * * * *
Should I begin with Arisia? That forbidding, forbidden planet
whose inhabitants, having achieved sheerly unimaginable heights of
philosophical and mental power, withdrew almost completely into
themselves, leaving traces only in Galaxy-wide folk tales and legends
of supermen and gods? Probably not. I should, it seems to me, begin
with Earth's almost prehistoric bandits and gangsters, gentry who
flourished in the days when space flight was mentioned only in
fantastic fiction.
Know, then, that for ages law enforcement lagged behind law violation
because the minions of the law were limited in their spheres of action,
while criminals were not. Thus, in the days following the invention of
the automobile, State troopers could not cross State lines. Later, when
what were then known as the "G-men" combined with the various State
constabularies to form the National Police, they could not follow the
stratosphere planes of the lawbreakers across national boundaries.
Still later, when interplanetary flight became commonplace, the
Planetary Guards were at the same old disadvantage. They had no
authority off their own worlds, while the public enemies flitted
unhampered from planet to planet. And finally, with the development of
the inertialess drive and the consequent traffic between hundreds of
thousands of solar systems, crime became so rampant as to threaten the
very foundations of civilization.
Then the Galactic Patrol came into being. At first it was a
pitiful-enough organization. It was handicapped from within by the
usual small, but utterly disastrous percentage of grafters and
criminals; from without by the fact that there was then no emblem or
credential which could not be counterfeited. No one could tell with
certainty that the man in uniform was a Patrolman and not an outlaw in
disguise.
The second difficulty was overcome first. One old-time Patrolman had
heard of the Arisians. He visited their planet and--this should be a
saga by itself--persuaded those Masters of Mentality that they should
help right against wrong, at least to the extent of furnishing a
positive means of identification. They did, and still do--The Lens.
Each being about to graduate as a Lensman is sent to Arisia; where,
although the candidate does not then know it, a Lens--a lenticular
jewel composed of thousands of tiny crystalloids--is built to match his
individual life force. While no mind other than that of an Arisian can
understand its functioning, thinking of the Lens as being synchronized
with, or in exact resonance with the life principle--personality, ego,
call it what you will--of its owner will give a rough idea of it. It is
not really alive, as we understand the term. It is, however, endowed
with a sort of pseudolife, by virtue of which it gives off its strong,
characteristically changing, polychromatic light as long as it is in
circuit with the living mentality for which it was designed. It is
inimitable, unforgettable. Anyone who has ever seen a Lens, or even a
picture of one, will never forget it; nor will he ever be deceived by
any possible counterfeit or imitation of it.
The Lens cannot be removed by anyone except its wearer without actual
dismemberment of that wearer; it shines as long as its rightful owner
wears it, and in the instant of its owner's death, it ceases forever
to shine. And not only does a Lens refuse to shine if any impostor
attempts to wear it--any Lens not in circuit with its owner kills in
a space of minutes any other who touches it, so strongly does its
pseudolife interfere with any life to which it is not attuned.
Also by virtue of that pseudolife the Lens acts as a telepath through
which its owner may communicate with any other intelligence, high or
low; even though the other entity may possess no organs either of sight
or of hearing, as we know these senses. The Lens has also many other
highly important uses, which lack of space forbids even mentioning here.
* * * * *
Having the Lens, it was an easy matter for the Patrol to purify
itself of its few unworthy members. Standards of entrance were raised
higher and higher; and, as it became evident that it was to a man
incorruptible, it was granted more and ever more authority.
Now its power is practically unlimited; the Lensman can follow the
lawbreaker, wherever he may go. He can commandeer any material or
assistance, whenever and wherever required. The Lens is so respected
throughout the Galactic Union that any wearer of it may at any time be
called upon to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Wherever he goes,
throughout the Universe of Civilization, he not only carries the law
with him--he _is_ the law.
How are these Lensmen chosen? An Earthman myself, and proud of the fact
that Tellus was the cradle of Galactic Civilization, I will describe
only how Tellurian Lensmen are selected. Upon other planets the methods
and means vary widely; but the results are the same: Wherever he may
be found or however monstrous he may appear, a Lensman is always a
_Lensman_.
Each year one million boys are picked, by competitive examination,
from all the eighteen-year-olds of Earth. During the first year of
training, before any of them set foot inside Wentworth Hall, that
number shrinks to less than fifty thousand. Then, for four years more,
they are put through the most poignantly searching, the most pitilessly
rigid process of elimination possible to develop, during the course of
which every man who can be made to reveal any sign of unworthiness or
of weakness is dropped. Of each class, only about a hundred win through
to the Lens; but each of those few has proven repeatedly, to the cold
verge of death itself, that he is in every sense fit to wear it.
Of those who drop out alive, most are dismissed from the Patrol. There
are many splendid men, however, who for some reason not involving moral
turpitude are not quite what a Lensman must be. These men make up
the organization, from grease monkeys up to the highest commissioned
officers below the rank of Lensman. This fact explains what is already
so widely known: that the Galactic Patrol is the finest body of
intelligent beings yet to serve under one banner.
But even Lensmen are not all alike; some are more richly endowed than
others. Most Lensmen work more or less under direction; that is, they
have headquarters and, at the completion of one investigation or
project, are assigned to another by the port admiral. Occasionally,
however, a Lensman shows himself to be of such outstanding ability,
even for a Lensman, that he is given his Release. Technically, he
is now an "Unattached Lensman"; in popular parlance he is a "Gray
Lensman," from the color of the leather he wears.
* * * * *
The Release! The goal toward which all Lensmen strive, but which so
relatively few attain, even after years of work! The Gray Lensman
is as nearly absolutely free an agent as it is possible for any
flesh-and-blood being to be. He is responsible to no one and to nothing
save his own conscience. He is no longer of Earth, nor of the Solarian
System, but of the Universe as a whole. He is no longer a cog in the
immense machine of the Galactic Patrol; wherever he may go throughout
the reaches of unbounded space, he is the Galactic Patrol:
He goes anywhere he pleases and does anything he pleases, for as
long as he pleases. He takes what he wants, when he wants it, with
or without giving reasons or anything except a thumb-printed credit
slip in return--if he chooses to do so. He reports when, where, and
to whom he pleases--or not, as he pleases. He has no headquarters, no
address; he can be reached only through his Lens. He no longer gets
even a formal salary; he takes that, too, as he goes, whatever he finds
needful.
To the man on the street that would seem to be a condition of perfect
bliss. It is not. All Lensmen strive mightily for the Release, even
though they realize dimly what it will mean--but only an Unattached
Lensman really understands what a frightful, what a man-killing load
the Release brings with it. However, Gray Lensmen being what they must
be, it is a load which they are glad and proud to bear.
Hence, to say that Kimball Kinnison ranked Number One in his graduating
class is to say a great deal--but even more revealing of his quality
is to add that he was the first to perceive that what was known as
Boskonia was not merely an organization of outlaws and pirates, but
was in fact a Galaxy-wide culture diametrically opposed in fundamental
philosophy to that of Galactic Civilization. The most illuminating
thing I can say of him in a few words, however, is this:
Of all the millions of entities who through the years had worn the
symbol of the Lens, Kinnison was the first to perceive that the
Arisians had endowed the Lens with powers theretofore undreamed of,
powers which no brain without special training could either evoke or
control. Thus, he was the first Lensman to return to Arisia for that
advanced training; and during that instruction he learned why no other
Lensman had been so trained before. It was such an ordeal that only a
mind of power sufficient to perceive of itself the real need of such
treatment could endure it without becoming starkly insane.
Shortly after Kinnison won his Lens, he was called to Prime Base by
Port Admiral Haynes, the Patrol's chief of staff. There, in a room
sealed against spy rays, an appalling situation was bared. Space
piracy, always rife enough, had become an organized force; and, under
the leadership of a half-mythical entity about whom nothing was known
save the name "Boskone," had risen to such heights of power as to
threaten seriously the Galactic Patrol itself. Indeed, in one respect,
Boskonia was ahead of the Patrol, its scientists having developed a
source of power vastly greater than any known to Galactic Civilization.
It had fighting ships of a new and extraordinary type, from which even
convoyed shipping was no longer safe. Being faster than the Patrol's
fast cruisers, and more heavily armed than its heaviest battleships,
they had been doing practically as they pleased in space.
For one particular purpose, the engineers of the Patrol had designed
and built one ship--the _Brittania_. She was the fastest thing in
space, but for offensive armament she had only one weapon, the "Q-gun."
This depended upon chemical explosives, which, in warfare at least, had
been obsolete for centuries. Nevertheless, Kinnison was put in command
of the _Brittania_ and was told to take her out, capture a pirate war
vessel of late model, learn her secrets of power, and transmit the
information to Prime Base with the least possible delay.
He was successful in finding and in defeating such a vessel. Peter van
Buskirk led the storming party of Valerians--men of remote Earth-human
ancestry, but of extraordinary size, strength and agility because
of the enormous gravitation of generations of life on the planet
Valeria--in wiping out those of the pirate crew not killed in the
combat between the two vessels.
The _Brittania's_ scientists secured the required data, but were
unable to report immediately to Prime Base, as the pirates were
blanketing all available channels of communication. Boskonian ships
were gathering for the kill, and the crippled Patrol ship could neither
run nor fight. Therefore each man was given a spool of tape bearing a
complete record of everything that had occurred; and, after setting up
a director-by-chance to make the empty ship pursue an unpredictable
course in space, and after rigging bombs to explode her at the first
touch of a ray, the Patrolmen paired off by lot and took to the
lifeboats.
The erratic course of the cruiser brought her near the lifeboat in
which Kinnison and Van Buskirk were, and there the pirates attempted
to stop her. The ensuing explosion was so violent that flying wreckage
disabled practically the entire personnel of one of the attacking
ships, which did not have time to go free--inertialess--before the
crash. The two Patrolmen captured the pirate vessel and drove her
toward Earth. They reached the solar system of Velantia before the
Boskonians blocked them off, thus compelling them again to take to
their lifeboat. They landed upon the planet Delgon, where they were
rescued from a horde of Catlats by Worsel, a highly intelligent winged
reptile, a native of the neighboring planet of Velantia.
By means of improvements upon Velantian thought-screens the three
destroyed most of the Overlords of Delgon, a sadistic race of monsters
who had been preying upon the other people of the system by sheer power
of mind. Worsel then accompanied the two Patrolmen to Velantia, where
all the resources of the planet were devoted to the preparation of
defense against the expected attack of the Boskonians. Several other of
the _Brittania's_ lifeboats reached Velantia, guided by Worsel's mind
working through Kinnison's mind and Lens.
Kinnison intercepted a message from Helmuth, who "spoke for Boskone,"
and traced his communicator beam, thus getting his first line upon
Boskonia's Grand Base. The pirates attacked Velantia, and six of
their vessels were captured. In these six ships, manned by Velantian
crews and blanketing ether and subether against the pirates' own
communicators, the Patrolmen again set out toward Earth and the Prime
Base of the Galactic Patrol.
Then Kinnison's Bergenholm broke down. The Bergenholm, the generator of
the force that neutralizes inertia--the _sine qua non_ of interstellar
speed. For, while any mass in the free condition can assume an almost
unlimited velocity, inert matter cannot equal even that of light--the
veriest crawl, as space speeds go. Also, there is no magic, no getting
of something for nothing, in the operation of a Bergenholm. It takes
power, plenty of power, to run one, and whenever one goes out, the ship
dependent upon it is, to all intents and purposes, anchored in space.
Therefore the Patrolmen were forced to land upon Trenco--which, as
almost everyone knows, is the planet upon which is produced thionite,
perhaps the deadliest of all habit-forming drugs--for repairs.
Meanwhile Helmuth, the Boskonian, had deduced that it was a Lensman
who had been giving him so much trouble. He had already connected the
Lens with Arisia; therefore he set out for Arisia to find out for
himself just what it was that made the Lens such a powerful thing.
He discovered that he was no match at all for an Arisian. He was
given terrific mental punishment, but was allowed to return to his
Grand Base alive and sane; being informed that he was spared because
his destruction would not be good for the budding Civilization to
which Boskonian culture was opposed. He was told further that the
Arisians had given Civilization the Lens; that by its intelligent use,
Civilization should be able to conquer Boskone's alien, abhorrent
culture; that if it could not learn to use the Lens, it was not yet
ready to become a Civilization, and Boskonia would be allowed to
flourish for a time.
After various adventures upon Trenco--a peculiar planet
indeed--Kinnison secured a new Bergenholm and went on. This time
he managed to reach Tellus, and, after a spectacular battle in the
stratosphere with a blockading fleet of the enemy, got down to Prime
Base with his precious data. There he first revealed his conviction
that the Boskonians were not ordinary pirates, but in fact composed
a culture almost, if not quite, as strong as Civilization itself; and
asked that certain scientists of the Patrol should try to develop a
detector nullifier. He predicted a stalemate, and intimated that such a
nullifier might well prove to be the deciding factor in the entire war.
By building ultrapowerful battleships, called "maulers," the Patrol
gained a temporary advantage, but the stalemate soon ensued. Kinnison
thought out a plan of action, in the pursuit of which he scouted a
pirate base upon Aldebaran I. The personnel of this base, however,
instead of being human or near-human beings, were Wheelmen, beings
possessed of a sense of perception unknown to man. The Lensman was
discovered before he could accomplish anything, and in the fight which
followed he was very seriously wounded.
However, he managed to get back to his speedster and sent a thought
to Port Admiral Haynes, who forthwith sent ships to his aid. In the
hospital, Chief Surgeon Lacy put him together without the use of
artificial members; and, during a long and quarrelsome convalescence,
Nurse Clarrissa MacDougall held him together.
As soon as he could leave the hospital he went to Arisia in the hope
that he might be permitted to take advanced training--an unheard-of
idea. Much to his surprise, he learned that he had been expected to
return for exactly such training. Getting it almost killed him, but he
emerged from the ordeal infinitely stronger of mind than any man had
ever been before; and possessed of a new sense of perception as well--a
sense somewhat analogous to sight, but of vastly greater power, depth,
and scope, and not dependent upon light, a sense only vaguely forecast
by ancient experiments with clairvoyance.
After trying out his new mental equipment by solving a murder mystery
upon Radelix, he succeeded in entering an enemy base upon Boyssia II.
There he took over the mind of the communications officer and waited
for the opportunity of getting the second, all-important line upon
Boskonia's Grand Base. An enemy ship of this base captured a hospital
ship of the Patrol and brought it in. Nurse MacDougall, head nurse of
the captured ship, working under Kinnison's instructions, stirred up
trouble which soon became mutiny. Helmuth, from Grand Base, took a
hand, thus enabling Kinnison to get his second line.
The hospital ship, undetectable by virtue of the Lensman's nullifier,
escaped from Boyssia II and headed for Earth at full blast. Kinnison,
convinced that Helmuth was really Boskone himself, found that the
intersection of his two lines--and therefore the pirates' Grand
Base--lay in a star cluster AG 257-4736, well outside the Galaxy.
Pausing only long enough to destroy the Wheelmen of Aldebaran I, the
project in which his first attempt had failed so dismally, he set
out to investigate Helmuth's headquarters. He found a stronghold
impregnable to any massed attack the Patrol could throw against it,
manned by beings each wearing a thought-screen. His sense of perception
was suddenly cut off--the pirates had thrown a thought-screen around
the entire planet. He then returned to Prime Base, deciding en route
that boring from within was the only possible way in which that
stupendous fortress could be taken.
In consultation with Port Admiral Haynes, the zero hour was set,
at which time the massed Grand Fleet of Patrol was to begin raying
Helmuth's base with every projector that could be brought to bear.
Pursuant to his plan, Kinnison again visited Trenco, where the Patrol
forces extracted for him fifty kilograms of thionite, the noxious drug
which, in microgram inhalations, makes the addict experience all the
sensations of doing whatever it is that he wishes most ardently to do.
The larger the dose, the more intense the sensations; the slightest
overdose resulting in an ecstatic death. Thence to Helmuth's planet;
where, finding a dog whose brain was unshielded, he let himself into
the central dome. Here, just before the zero minute, he released his
thionite into the air stream, thus wiping out all the pirate personnel
except Helmuth, who, in his inner sanctum, could not be affected.
The Grand Fleet of the Patrol attacked, but Helmuth would not leave his
retreat, even to try to save his Base. Therefore Kinnison would have
to go in after him. Poised in the air of Helmuth's inner sphere there
was an enigmatic, sparkling ball of force which the Lensman could not
understand, and of which he was in consequence extremely suspicious.
But the storming of that quadruply-defended inner stronghold was
precisely the task for which Kinnison's new and ultracumbersome armor
had been designed; and in the Gray Lensman went.