First Lensman, E. E. Smith [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

“Well, Rod, I’m back⁠ ⁠…” he began, and stopped; utterly unable to speak. For at the mention of the name Samms’ Lens had put him fully en rapport with his friend’s whole mind; and what he perceived struck him⁠—literally and precisely⁠—dumb.

He had always liked and admired Rod Kinnison. He had always known that he was tremendously able and capable. He had known that he was big; clean; a square shooter; the world’s best. Hard; a driver who had little more mercy on his underlings in selected undertakings than he had on himself. But now, as he saw spread out for his inspection Kinnison’s ego in its entirety; as he compared in fleeting glances that terrific mind with those of the other officers⁠—good men, too, all of them⁠—assembled in the room; he knew that he had never even begun to realize what a giant Roderick Kinnison really was.

“What’s the matter, Virge?” Kinnison exclaimed, and hurried up, both hands outstretched. “You look like you’re seeing ghosts! What did they do to you?”

“Nothing⁠—much. But ‘ghosts’ doesn’t half describe what I’m seeing right now. Come into my office, will you, Rod?”

Ignoring the curious stares of the junior officers, the Commissioner and the Councillor went into the latter’s quarters, and in those quarters the two Lensmen remained in close consultation during practically all of the return trip to Earth. In fact, they were still conferring deeply, via Lens, when the Chicago landed and they took a ground-car into the Hill.

“But who are you going to send first, Virge?” Kinnison demanded. “You must have decided on at least some of them, by this time.”

“I know of only five, or possibly six, who are ready,” Samms replied, glumly. “I would have sworn that I knew of a hundred, but they don’t measure up. Jack, Mason Northrop, and Conway Costigan, for the first load. Lyman Cleveland, Fred Rodebush, and perhaps Bergenholm⁠—I haven’t been able to figure him out, but I’ll know when I get him under my Lens⁠—next. That’s all.”

“Not quite. How about your identical-twin cousins, Ray and George Olmstead, who have been doing such a terrific job of counter-spying?”

“Perhaps⁠ ⁠… Quite possibly.”

“And if I’m good enough, Clayton and Schweikert certainly are, to name only two of the commodores. And Knobos and DalNalten. And above all, how about Jill?”

“Jill? Why, I don’t⁠ ⁠… she measures up, of course, but⁠ ⁠… but at that, there was nothing said against it, either⁠ ⁠… I wonder.⁠ ⁠…”

“Why not have the boys in⁠—Jill, too⁠—and thrash it out?”

The young people were called in; the story was told; the problem stated. The boys’ reaction was instantaneous and unanimous. Jack Kinnison took the lead.

“Of course Jill’s going, if anybody does!” he burst out vehemently. “Count her out, with all the stuff she’s got? Hardly!”

“Why, Jack! This, from you?” Jill seemed highly surprised. “I have it on excellent authority that I’m a stinker; a half-witted one, at that. A jelly-brain, with come-hither eyes.”

“You are, and a lot of other things besides.” Jack Kinnison did not back up a millimeter, even before their fathers. “But even at your sapadilliest your half wits are better than most other people’s whole ones; and I never said or thought that your brain couldn’t function, whenever it wanted to, back of those sad eyes. Whatever it takes to be a Lensman, sir,” he turned to Samms, “she’s got just as much of as the rest of us. Maybe more.”

“I take it, then, that there is no objection to her going?” Samms asked.

There was no objection.

“What ship shall we take, and when?”

“The Chicago. Now.” Kinnison directed. “She’s hot and ready. We didn’t strike any trouble going or coming, so she didn’t need much servicing. Flit!”

They flitted, and the great battleship made the second cruise as uneventfully as she had made the first. The Chicago’s officers and crew knew that the young people left the vessel separately; that they returned separately, each in his or her lifeboat. They met, however, not in the control room, but in Jack Kinnison’s private quarters; the three young Lensmen and the girl. The three were embarrassed; ill at ease. The Lenses were⁠—definitely⁠—not working. No one of them would put his Lens on Jill, since she did not have one.⁠ ⁠… The girl broke the short silence.

“Wasn’t she the most perfectly beautiful thing you ever saw?” she breathed. “In spite of being over seven feet tall? She looked to be about twenty⁠—except her eyes⁠—but she must have been a hundred, to know so much⁠—but what are you boys staring so about?”

“She!” Three voices blurted as one.

“Yes. She. Why? I know we weren’t together, but I got the impression, some way or other, that there was only the one. What did you see?”

All three men started to talk at once, a clamor of noise; then all stopped at once.

“You first, Spud. Whom did you talk to, and what did he, she, or it say?” Although Conway Costigan was a few years older than the other three, they all called him by nickname as a matter of course.

“National Police Headquarters⁠—Chief of the Detective Bureau,” Costigan reported, crisply. “Between forty three and forty five; six feet and half an inch; one seventy five. Hard, fine, keen, a Big Time Operator if there ever was one. Looked a lot like your father, Jill; the same dark auburn hair, just beginning to gray, and the same deep orange-yellow markings in his eyes. He gave me the works; then took this Lens out of his safe, snapped it onto my wrist, and gave me two orders⁠—get out and stay out.”

Jack and Mase stared at Costigan, at Jill, and at each other. Then they whistled in unison.

“I see this is not going to be a unanimous report, except possibly in one minor detail,” Jill remarked. “Mase, you’re next.”

“I landed on the campus of the University of Arisia,” Northrop stated, flatly. “Immense place⁠—hundreds of thousands of students. They look me to the Physics Department⁠—to the private laboratory of the Department Head himself.