First Lensman, E. E. Smith [early readers TXT] 📗

The blond operative lost for the first time her brazen control. "Why ... that code is unbreakable!" she gasped.

"Wrong again, Gentle Alice. Some of us are specialists." He directed a thought at Northrop. "This changes things slightly, Mase. I was going to turn them loose, but now I don't know. Better we take it up with the boss, don't you think?"

"Pos-i-tive-ly!"

Samms was called, and considered the matter for approximately one minute. "Your first idea was right, Jack. Let them go. The message may be helpful and informative, but the women would not. They know nothing. Congratulations, boys, on the complete success of Operation Red Herring."

"Ouch!" Jack grimaced mentally to his partner after the First Lensman had cut off. "They know enough to be in on bumping you and me off, but that ain't important, says he!"

"And it ain't, bub," Northrop grinned back. "Moderately so, maybe, if they had got us, but not at all so now they can't. The Lensmen have landed and the situation is well in hand. It is written. Selah."

"Check. Let's wrap it up." Jack turned to the blonde. "Come on, Hazel. Out. Number Four lifeboat. Do you want to come peaceably or shall I work on your neck again?"

"You could think of other places that would be more fun." She got up and stared directly into his eyes, her lip curling. "That is, if you were a man instead of a sublimated Boy Scout."

Kinnison, without a word, wheeled and unlocked a door. Hazel swaggered forward, but the taller girl hung back. "Are you sure there's air—and they'll pick us up? Maybe they're going to make us breathe space...."

"Huh? They haven't got the guts," Hazel sneered. "Come on, Jane. Number Four, you said, darling?"

She led the way. Kinnison opened the portal. Jane hurried aboard, but Hazel paused and held out her arms.

"Aren't you even going to kiss mama goodbye, baby boy?" she taunted.

"Better not waste much more time. We blow this boat, sealed or open, in fifteen seconds." By what effort Kinnison held his voice level and expressionless, he hoped the wench would never know.

She looked at him, started to say something, looked again. She had gone just about as far as it was safe to go. She stepped into the boat and reached for the lever. And as the valve was swinging smoothly shut the men heard a tinkling laugh, reminiscent of icicles breaking against steel bells.

"Hell's—Brazen—Hinges!" Kinnison wiped his forehead as the lifeboat shot away. Hazel was something brand new to him; a phenomenon with which none of his education, training, or experience had equipped him to cope. "I've heard about the guy who got hold of a tiger by the tail, but...." His thought expired on a wondering, confused note.

"Yeah." Northrop was in no better case. "We won—technically—I guess—or did we? That was a God-awful drubbing we took, mister."

"Well, we got away alive, anyway.... We'll tell Parker his dope is correct to the proverbial twenty decimals. And now that we've escaped, let's call Spud and see how things came out."

And Costigan-Jones assured them that everything had come out very well indeed. The shipment of thionite had been followed without any difficulty at all, from the space-ship clear through to Jones' own office, and it reposed now in Department Q's own safe, under Jones' personal watch and ward. The pressure had lightened tremendously, just as Kinnison and Northrop had thought it would, when they set up their diversion. Costigan listened impassively to the whole story.

"Now should I have shot her, or not?" Jack demanded. "Not whether I could have or not—I couldn't—but should I have, Spud?"

"I don't know." Costigan thought for minutes. "I don't think so. No—not in cold blood. I couldn't have, either, and wouldn't if I could. It wouldn't be worth it. Somebody will shoot her some day, but not one of us—unless, of course, it's in a fight."

"Thanks, Spud; that makes me feel better. Off."

Costigan-Jones' desk was already clear, since there was little or no paper-work connected with his position in Department Q. Hence his preparations for departure were few and simple. He merely opened the safe, stuck the package into his pocket, closed and locked the safe, and took a company ground-car to the spaceport.

Nor was there any more formality about his leaving the planet. Eridan had, of course, a Customs frontier of sorts; but since Uranium Inc. owned Eridan in fee simple, its Customs paid no attention whatever to company ships or to low-number, gold-badge company men. Nor did Jones need ticket, passport, or visa. Company men rode company ships to and from company plants, wherever situated, without let or hindrance. Thus, wearing the aura of power of his new position—and Gold Badge Number Thirty Eight—George W. Jones was whisked out to the uranium ship and was shown to his cabin.

Nor was it surprising that the trip from Eridan to Earth was completely without incident. This was an ordinary freighter, hauling uranium on a routine flight. Her cargo was valuable, of course—the sine qua non of inter-stellar trade—but in no sense precious. Not pirate-bait, by any means. And only two men knew that this flight was in any whit different from the one which had preceded it or the one which would follow it. If this ship was escorted or guarded the fact was not apparent: and no Patrol vessel came nearer to it than four detets—Virgil Samms and Roderick Kinnison saw to that.

The voyage, however, was not tedious. Jones was busy every minute. In fact, there were scarcely minutes enough in which to assimilate the material which Isaacson had given him—the layouts, flow-sheets, and organization charts of Works Number Eighteen, on Tellus.

And upon arrival at the private spaceport which was an integral part of Works Number Eighteen, Jones was not surprised (he knew more now than he had known a few weeks before; and infinitely more than the man on the street) to learn that the Customs men of this particular North American Port of Entry were just as complaisant as were those of Eridan. They did not bother even to count the boxes, to say nothing of inspecting them. They stamped the ship's papers without either reading or checking them. They made a perfunctory search, it is true, of crewmen and quarters, but a low number gold badge was still a magic talisman. Unquestioned, sacrosanct, he and his baggage were escorted to the ground-car first in line.

"Administration Building," Jones-Costigan told the hacker, and that was that.

It has been said that the basic drive of the Eddorians was a lust for power; a thought which should be elucidated and perhaps slightly modified. Their warrings, their strifes, their internecine intrigues and connivings were inevitable because of the tremendousness and capability—and the limitations—of their minds. Not enough could occur upon any one planet to keep such minds as theirs even partially occupied; and, unlike the Arisians, they could not satiate themselves in a static philosophical study of the infinite possibilities of the Cosmic All. They had to be doing something; or, better yet, making other and lesser beings do things to make the physical universe conform to their idea of what a universe should be.

Their first care was to set up the various echelons of control. The second echelon, immediately below the Masters, was of course the most important, and after a survey of both galaxies they decided to give this high honor to the Ploorans. Ploor, as is now well known, was a planet of a sun so variable that all Plooran life had to undergo radical cyclical changes in physical form in order to live through the tremendous climatic changes involved in its every year. Physical form, however, meant nothing to the Eddorians. Since no other planet even remotely like theirs existed in this, our normal plenum, physiques like theirs would be impossible; and the Plooran mentality left very little to be desired.

In the third echelon there were many different races, among which the frigid-blooded, poison-breathing Eich were perhaps the most efficient and most callous; and in the fourth there were millions upon millions of entities representing thousands upon thousands of widely-variant races.

Thus, at the pinpoint in history represented by the time of Virgil Samms and Roderick Kinnison, the Eddorians were busy; and if such a word can be used, happy. Gharlane of Eddore, second in authority only to the All-Highest, His Ultimate Supremacy himself, paid little attention to any one planet or to any one race. Even such a mind as his, when directing the affairs of twenty million and then sixty million and then a hundred million worlds, can do so only in broad, and not in fine.

And thus the reports which were now flooding in to Gharlane in a constantly increasing stream concerned classes and groups of worlds, and solar systems, and galactic regions. A planet might perhaps be mentioned as representative of a class, but no individual entity lower than a Plooran was named or discussed. Gharlane analyzed those tremendous reports; collated, digested, compared, and reconciled them; determined trends and tendencies and most probable resultants. Gharlane issued orders, the carrying out of which would make an entire galactic region fit more and ever more exactly into the Great Plan.

But, as has been pointed out, there was one flaw inherent in the Boskonian system. Underlings, then as now, were prone to gloss over their own mistakes, to cover up their own incompetences. Thus, since he had no reason to inquire specifically, Gharlane did not know that anything whatever had gone amiss on Sol Three, the pestiferous planet which had formerly caused him more trouble than all the rest of his worlds combined.

After the fact, it is easy to say that he should have continued his personal supervision of Earth, but can that view be defended? Egotistical, self-confident, arrogant, Gharlane knew that he had finally whipped Tellus into line. It was the same now as any other planet of its class. And even had he thought it worth while to make such a glaring exception, would not the fused Elders of Arisia have intervened?

Be those things as they may, Gharlane did not know that the new-born Galactic Patrol had been successful in defending Triplanetary's Hill against the Black Fleet. Nor did the Plooran Assistant Director in charge. Nor did any member of that dreadful group of Eich which was even then calling itself the Council of Boskone. The highest-ranking Boskonian who knew of the fiasco, calmly confident of his own ability, had not considered this minor reverse of sufficient importance to report to his immediate superior. He had already taken steps to correct the condition. In fact, as matters now stood, the thing was more fortunate than otherwise, in that it would lull the Patrol into believing themselves in a position of superiority—a belief which would, at election time, prove fatal.

This being, human to the limit of classification except for a faint but unmistakable blue coloration, had been closeted with Senator Morgan for a matter of two hours.

"In the matters covered, your reports have been complete and conclusive," the visitor said finally, "but you have not reported on the Lens."

"Purposely. We are investigating it, but any report based upon our present knowledge would be partial and inconclusive."

"I see. Commendable enough, usually. News of this phenomenon has, however, gone farther and higher than you think and I have been ordered to take cognizance of it; to decide whether or not to handle it myself."

"I am thoroughly capable of...."

"I will decide that, not you." Morgan subsided. "A partial report is therefore in order. Go ahead."

"According to the procedure submitted and approved, a Lensman was taken alive. Since the Lens has telepathic properties, and hence is presumably operative at great distances, the operation was carried out in the shortest possible time. The Lens, immediately upon removal from the Patrolman's arm, ceased to radiate and the operative who held the thing died. It was then applied by force to four other men—workers, these, of no importance. All four died, thus obviating all possibility of coincidence. An attempt was made to analyze a fragment of the active material, without success. It seemed to be completely inert. Neither was it affected by electrical discharges or by sub-atomic bombardment, nor by any temperatures available. Meanwhile, the man was of course being questioned, under truth-drug and beams. His mind denied any knowledge of the nature of the Lens; a thing which I am rather inclined to believe. His mind adhered to the belief that he obtained the Lens upon the planet Arisia. I am offering for your consideration my opinion that the high-ranking officers of the Patrol are using hypnotism to conceal the real source of the Lens."

"Your opinion is accepted for consideration."

"The man died during examination. Two minutes after his death his Lens disappeared."

"Disappeared? What do you mean? Flew away? Vanished? Was stolen? Disintegrated? Or what?"

"No. More like evaporation or sublimation, except that there was no gradual diminution in volume, and there was