Smith,E E 'Doc' - Lensman 6 - Children Of The Lens

CHILDREN OF THE LENS

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

Fist book, Fantasy Press hardbound, 1954

BY E. E. "DOC" SMITH

MESSAGE OF TRANSMITTAL

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

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

To: The Entity Able to Obtain and to Read It

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

container and

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

greetings:

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

available for

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

does not

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

desirable

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

Civilization's climactic

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

that future

time exist otherwise only in the memories of my descendants.

In early Civilization law enforcement lagged behind crime because the

police

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

technological

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

the

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

the

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

existence.

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

coherent,

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

Kimball

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

autocratic, dictatorial culture diametrically opposed to every ideal of

Civilization—was in

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

he, however,

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

and the

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

which can

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

stress.

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

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

until his

organization could secure an identifying symbol which could not be

counterfeited, police

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

the

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

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

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

began the

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

spread. It

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

colored

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

killed any

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

wearer of

the Lens was accepted as the embodiment of Civilization.

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

than

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

Arisia to take

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

can

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

needs and which he can both visualize and control.

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

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

of

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

military

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

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

of

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

he made

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

Haynes, to

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

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

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

hyper-spatial

tube against humanity.

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

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

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

later,

my mother.

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

remained

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

called the

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

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

made

two notable contributions to Civilization: first, electrical insulation,

conductors, and

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

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

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

organs.

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

to

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

eating,

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

by step,

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

frigid-

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

than the

Overlords.

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

He

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

his

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

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

Kinnison was given a Phillips treatment, and again Clarrissa MacDougall

nursed

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

Gray

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

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

units,

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

of the

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

between two colliding planets; positioned inertialess, then inerted especially

for that

crushing. Grand Fleet returned, triumphant.

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

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

not,

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

Patrol

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

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

already

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

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

than

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

which

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

followed it to

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

First

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

Helen, its

queen.

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

against

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

where

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

knew

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

also

completely unknown to Civilization.

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

jewel as

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

activities

among the matriarchs.

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

males;

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

assistance of

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

to

her the task of working Lyrane II.

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

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

and

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

shot.

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

killing

him took from his mind everything he knew.

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

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

Patrolmen

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

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

the

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

that

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

Alcon,

the Tyrant of Thrale (Thrallis II).

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

covered

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

Fleet

was defeated and the planet Klovia was occupied and fortified.

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

way

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

ejected into an

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

comprising

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

Austin

Cardynge, the Tellurian mathematician.

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

took

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

Fossten,

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

Alcon's

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

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

began.

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

before

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

fight

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

the

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

won.

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

Gharlane

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

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

had

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

is a

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

ever

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

either to

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

up an

inferiority complex which must inevitably destroy both the Patrol and

Civilization.

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

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

garrisons

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

mighty

armament completely useless.

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

Mentor

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

Klovia, and

assumed his duties as galactic coordinator.

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

of a

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

MacDougall.

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

can

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

does it

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

them

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

Whatever

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

complementary penultimates were precisely those necessary to produce the first,

and at

present the only third-stage Lensmen.

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

later, my

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

childhood.

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

open two-ways with such beings as Worsel of Velantia, Tregonsee of Rigel IV, and

Nadreck of Palain VII, it would seem obvious that we did not go to school. We

were not

like other children of our ages; but before I realized that it was anything

unusual for a

baby who could scarcely walk to be computing highly perturbed asteroidal orbits

as

"mental arithmetic", I knew that we would have to keep our abnormalities to

ourselves,

insofar as the bulk of mankind and of Civilization was concerned.

I traveled much; sometimes with my father or mother or both, sometimes

alone.

At least once each year I went to Arisia for treatment. I took the last two

years of

Lensman-ship, for physical reasons only, at Wentworth Hall instead of the

Academy of

Klovia because upon Tellus the name Kinnison is not at all uncommon, while upon

Klovia the fact that "Kit" Kinnison was the son of the coordinator could not

have been

concealed.

I graduated, and with my formal enlensment this record properly begins.

I have recorded this material as impersonally as possible, realizing fully

that my

sisters and I did only the work for which we were specifically developed and

trained;

even as you who read this will do that for which you shall have been developed

and are

to be trained.

Respectfully submitted,

Christopher K. Kinnison, L3, Klovia.

CHAPTER 1: KIM AND KIT; GRAY LENSMEN

Galactic coordinator Kimball Kinnison finished his second cup of Tellurian

coffee,

got up from the breakfast table, and prowled about in black abstraction. Twenty-

odd

years had changed him but little. He weighed the same, or a few pounds less;

although

a little of his mass had shifted downward from his mighty chest and shoulders.

His hair

was still brown; his stern face was only faintly lined. He was mature, with a

conscious

maturity no young man can know.

"Since when, Kim, did you think you could get away with blocking me out of

your

mind?" Clarrissa Kinnison directed a quiet thought. The years had dealt as

lightly with

the Red Lensman as with the Gray. She had been gorgeous; she was now

magnificent.

"This room is shielded, you know, against even the girls."

"Sorry, Cris—I didn't mean it that way."

"I know," she laughed. "Automatic. But you've had that block up for two

solid

weeks, except when you force yourself to keep it down. That means you're 'way

off the

green."

"I've been thinking, incredible as it may seem."

"I know it. Let's have it, Kim."

"QX—you asked for it. Queer things have been going on; all over.

Inexplicable

things . . . no apparent reason."

"Such as?"

"Almost any kind of insidious deviltry you care to name. Disaffections,

psychoses,

mass hysterias, hallucinations; pointing toward a Civilization-wide epidemic of

revolutions and uprisings for which there seems to be no basis or justification

whatever."

"Why, Kim! How could there be? I haven't heard of anything like that!"

"It hasn't got around. Each solar system thinks it's a purely local

condition, but it

isn't. As galactic coordinator, with a broad view of the entire picture, my

office would of

course see such a thing before anyone else could. We saw it, and set out to nip

it in the

bud . . . but . . ." He shrugged his shoulders and grinned wryly.

"But what?" Clarrissa persisted.

"It didn't nip. We sent Lensmen to investigate, but none of them got to the

first

check-station. Then I asked our Second-Stage Lensmen—Worsel, Nadreck, and

Tregonsee— to drop whatever they were doing and solve it for me. They hit it and

bounced. They followed, and are still following, leads and clues galore, but

they haven't

got a millo's worth of results so far."

"What? You mean it's a problem they can't solve?"

"That they haven't, to date," he corrected, absently. "And that 'gives me

furiously

to think'."

"It would," she conceded, "and it also would make you itch to join them.

Think at

me, it'll help you correlate. You should have gone over the data with me right

at first."

"I had reasons not to, as you'll see. But I'm stumped now, so here goes.

We'll

have to go away back, to before we were married. First; Mentor told me, quote,

only

your descendants will be ready for that for which you now so dimly grope,

unquote.

Second; you were the only being ever able to read my thoughts without a Lens.

Third;

Mentor told us, when we asked him if it was QX for us to go ahead, that our

marriage

was necessary, a choice of phraseology which bothered you somewhat at the time,

but

which I then explained as being in accord with his visualization of the Cosmic

All.

Fourth; the Patrol formula is to send the man best fitted for any job to do that

job, and if

he can't swing it, to send the Number One graduate of the current class of

Lensmen.

Fifth; a Lensman has got to use everything and everybody available, no matter

what or

who it is. I used even you, you remember, in that Lyrane affair and others.

Sixth; Sir

Austin Cardynge believed to the day of his death that we were thrown out of that

hyper-

spatial tube, and out of space, deliberately."

"Well, go on. I don't see much, if any, connection."

"You will, if you think of those six points in connection with our present

predicament Kit graduates next month, and he'll rank number one of all

Civilization, for

all the tea in China."

"Of course. But after all, he's a Lensman. Hell have to be assigned some

problem; why not that one?"

"You don't see yet what that problem is. I've been adding two and two

together

for weeks, and can't get any other answer than four. And if two and two are

four, Kit has

got to tackle Boskone—the real Boskone; the one I never did and probably never

can

reach."

"No, Kim—no!" she almost shrieked. "Not Kit, Kim-he's just a boy!"

Kinnison waited, wordless.

She got up, crossed the room to him. He put his arm around her in the old

but

ever new gesture. "Lensman's load, Cris," he said, quietly. "Of course," she

replied

then, as quietly. "It was a shock at first, coming after all these years, but .

. . if it has to

be, it must. But he—surely we can help him, Kim?"

"Surely." The man's arm tightened. "When he hits space I go back to work.

So do

Nadreck and Worsel and Tregonsee. So do you, if your kind of a job turns up. And

with

us to do the blocking, and with Kit to carry the ball. . ." His thought died

away.

"Ill say so," she breathed. Then: "But you won't call me, I know, unless

you

absolutely have to . . . and to give up you and Kit both . . . why did we have

to be

Lensmen, Kim?" she protested, rebelliously. "Why couldn't we have been ground-

grippers? You used to growl that thought at me before I knew what a Lens really

meant.

. ."

"Veil, some of us has got to be der first violiners in der orchestra,"

Kinnison

misquoted, in an attempt at lightness. "Ye can't all push vind t'rough der

trombone."

"I suppose that's true." The Red Lensman's somber air deepened. "Well, we

were going to start for Tellus today, anyway, to see Kit graduate. This doesn't

change

that."

And in a distant room four tall, shapely, auburn-haired girls stared at

each other

briefly, then went en rapport; for their mother had erred greatly in saying that

the

breakfast room was screened against their minds. Nothing was or could be

screened

against them; they could think above, below, or, by sufficient effort, straight

through any

thought-screen known to Tellurian science. Nothing in which they were interested

was

safe from them, and they were interested in practically everything.

"Kay, we've got ourselves a job!" Kathryn, older by minutes than Karen,

excluded

pointedly the younger twins, Camilla and Constance—"Cam" and "Con."

"At last!" Karen exclaimed. "I've been wondering what we were born for,

with

nine-tenths of our minds so deep down that nobody except Kit even knows they're

there

and so heavily blocked that we can't let even each other in without a conscious

effort.

This is it. We'll go places now, Kat, and really do things."

"What do you mean you'll go places and do things?" Con demanded,

indignantly.

"Do you think for a second you carry screen enough to block us out of all the

fun?"

"Certainly," Kat said, equably. "You're too young."

"We'll let you know what we're doing, though," Kay conceded, magnanimously.

"You might, just conceivably, contribute an idea we could use."

"Ideas—phooey!" Con jeered. "A real idea would shatter both your skulls;

You

haven't any more plan than a . . ."

"Hush—shut up, everybody!" Kat commanded. "This is too new for any of us to

have any worth-while ideas on, yet. Tell you what let's do—we'll all think this

over until

we're aboard the Dauntless, half-way to Tellus; then we'll compare notes and

decide

what to do."

They left Klovia that afternoon. Kinnison's personal super-dreadnought, the

mighty Dauntless—the fourth to bear that name—bored through inter-galactic

space.

Time passed. The four young red-heads convened.

"I've got it all worked out!" Kat burst out, enthusiastically, forestalling

the other

three. "There'll be four Second-Stage Lensmen at work and there are four of us.

We'll

circulate—percolate—you might say—around and through the universe. We'll pick up

ideas and facts and feed 'em to our Gray Lensmen. Surreptitiously, sort of, so

they'll

think they, got 'em themselves. I'll take dad for my partner, Kay can have . .

."

"You'll do no such thing!" A general clamor arose, Con's thought being the

most

insistent. "If we aren't going to work with them all, indiscriminately, we'll

draw lots or

throw dice to see who gets him, so there!"

"Seal it, snake-hips, please," Kat requested, sweetly. "It is trite but

true to say

that infants should be seen, but not heard. This is serious business . . ."

"Snake-hips! Infant!" Con interrupted, venomously. "Listen, my steatopygous

and

senile friend!" Constance measured perhaps a quarter of an inch less in gluteal

circumference than did her oldest sister; she tipped the beam at one scant pound

below

her weight. "You and Kay are a year older than Cam and I, of course; a year ago

your

minds were stronger than ours. That condition, however, no longer exists. We too

are

grown up. And to put that statement to test, what can you do that I can't?"

"This." Kathryn extended a bare arm, narrowed her eyes in concentration. A

Lens

materialized about her wrist; not attached to it by a metallic bracelet, but a

bracelet in

itself, clinging sentiently to the smooth, bronzed skin. "I felt that in this

work there would

be a need. I learned to satisfy it. Can you match that?"

They could. In a matter of seconds the three others were similarly

enlensed.

They had not previously perceived the need, but at Kathryn's demonstration their

acquisition of full knowledge had been virtually instantaneous.

Kat's Lens disappeared.

So did the other three. Each knew that no hint of this knowledge or of this

power

should ever be revealed; each knew that in any moment of stress the Lens of

Civilization could be and would be hers.

"Logic, then, and by reason, not by chance." Kat changed her tactics. "I

still get

him. Everybody knows who works best with whom. You, Con, have tagged around

after

Worsel all your life. You used to ride him like a horse . . ."

"She still does," Kay snickered. "He pretty nearly split her in two a while

ago in a

seven-gravity pull-out, and she almost broke a toe when she kicked him for it."

"Worsel is nice," Con defended herself vigorously. "He's more human than

most

Smith, E E 'Doc' - Lensman 6 - Children Of The Lens

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