Randall Garrett - Backstage Lensman

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BACKSTAGE LENSMAN

By Randall Garrett

The Lensman series, comprising, as it does, some six hundred thousand words, is

still, to my mind, the greatest space opera yet written. It has, to use one of Doc

Smith’s favorite words, “scope.”

E. E. Smith, Ph.D., had more scope, more breadth and depth of cognizance of the

Cosmic All, than anyone before—or since.

He had his flaws; we all do. But the grandeur of his writing overpowered those

flaws, made them insignificant.

I first wrote Backstage Lensman nearly thirty years ago. The original is long lost.

There was no market for it in those days, and my moving about... well, it got lost.

This is a re-creation from memory. It was a test of memory in another way, too not

once, during the writing, did I look into the Lensman for descriptions or phraseology

or situations to parody. I’ve read those books so often over the years that there was

no necessity for it. The style came naturally.

Only once did my memory fail me. I was too accurate. I had to rewrite one

paragraph because, when I checked with the original, it was word-for-word. And

that’s plagiarism.

Doc saw the first version of Backstage Lensman in 1949, and laughed all through the

convention. It was his suggestion that I call the spaceship Dentless.

On a planet distant indeed from Tellus, on a frigid, lightless globe situated within an

almost completely enclosing hollow sphere of black interstellar dust, in a cavern far

beneath the surface of that abysmally cold planet, a group of entities indescribable

by, or to, man stood, sat, or slumped around a circular conference table.

Though they had no spines, they were something like porcupines; though they had

no tentacles, they reminded one of octopuses; though they had no wings or beaks,

they seemed similar to vultures; and though they had neither scales nor fins, there

was definitely something fishy about them.

These, then, composed the Council of the Meich, frigid-blooded poison-breathers

whose existence at temperatures only a few degrees above zero absolute required

them to have extensions into the fourth and fifth dimensions, rendering them horribly

indescribable and indescribably horrible to human sight.

Their leader, Meichfrite, or, more formally, Frite of the Meich, radiated harshly to

others of the Council: “The time has now come to consider the problem of our

recent losses in the other galaxy. Meichrobe, as Second of the Meich, you will report

first.”

That worthy pondered judiciously for long moments, then: “I presume you wish to

hear nothing about the missing strawberries?

“Nothing,” agreed the other.

“Then,” came Meichrobe’s rasping thought, “we must consider the pernicious

activities of the Tellurian Lensman whose workings are not, and have not been,

ascribed to Star A Star.

“The activities and behavior of all members of the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned

Galactic Patrol have, as you know, been subjected to rigid statistical analysis. Our

computers have come to the conclusion that, with a probability of point oh oh one,

the Lensman known as Gimble Ginnison either is or is not the agent whom we

seek.”

“A cogent report indeed,” Meichfrite complimented. “Next, the report of Meichron,

Third of this Council.”

“As a psychologist,” Meichron replied, “I feel that there is an equal probability that

the agent whom we seek is one whose physical makeup is akin to ours, rather than to

that of the fire-blooded, oxygen-breathing Tellurians. Perhaps one of the immoral

Palanians, who emmfoze in public.”

“That, too, must be considered,” Meichfrite noted. “Now to Meichrotch, Fourth of

the Meich...”

And so it went, through member after member of that dark Council. How they

arrived at any decision whatever is starkly unknowable to the human mind.

On green, warm Tellus, many mega parsecs from the black cloud which enveloped

the eternally and infernally frigid planet of the Meich, Lensman Gimble Ginnison,

having been released from the hospital at Prime Base, was talking to Surgeon-Major

Macy, who had just given him his final checkup.

“How am I, Doc?” he asked respectfully, “QX for duty?”

Well, you were in pretty bad shape when you came in,” the Lensman surgeon said

thoughtfully. “We almost had to clone you to keep you around, son. Those Axlemen

really shot you up.”

“Check. But how am I now?”

The older Lensman looked at the sheaf of charts, films, tapes, and reports on his

desk. “Mmm. Your skeleton seems in good shape, but I wonder about the rest of

you. The most beautiful nurses in the Service attended you during your

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Randall Garrett - Backstage Lensman

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