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

doesn’t seem possible⁠ ⁠…” he remarked, half to Winfield, half to himself, “that a sun could be that big and that hot. Rigel Four is almost two hundred times as far away from it as Earth is from Sol⁠—something like eighteen billion miles⁠—it doesn’t look much, if any, bigger than Venus does from Luna⁠—yet this world is hotter than the Sahara Desert.”

“Well, blue giants are both big and hot,” the captain replied, matter-of-factly, “and their radiation, being mostly invisible, is deadly stuff. And Rigel is about the biggest in this region. There are others a lot worse, though. Doradus S, for instance, would make Rigel, here, look like a tallow candle. I’m going out there, some of these days, just to take a look at it. But that’s enough of astronomical chitchat⁠—we’re down to twenty miles of altitude and we’ve got your city just about stopped.”

The Chicago slowed gently to a halt; perched motionless upon softly hissing jets. Samms directed his visibeam downward and sent along it an exploring, questing thought. Since he had never met a Rigellian in person, he could not form the mental image or pattern necessary to become en rapport with any one individual of the race. He did know, however, the type of mind which must be possessed by the entity with whom he wished to talk, and he combed the Rigellian city until he found one. The rapport was so incomplete and imperfect as to amount almost to no contact at all, but he could, perhaps, make himself understood.

“If you will excuse this possibly unpleasant and certainly unwarranted intrusion,” he thought, carefully and slowly, “I would like very much to discuss with you a matter which should become of paramount importance to all the intelligent peoples of all the planets in space.”

“I welcome you, Tellurian.” Mind fused with mind at every one of uncountable millions of points and paths. This Rigellian professor of sociology, standing at his desk, was physically a monster⁠ ⁠… the oil-drum of a body, the four blocky legs, the multi-branchiate tentacular arms, that immobile dome of a head, the complete lack of eyes and of ears⁠ ⁠… nevertheless Samms’ mind fused with the monstrosity’s as smoothly, as effortlessly, and almost as completely as it had with his own daughter’s!

And what a mind! The transcendent poise; the staggeringly tremendous range and scope⁠—the untroubled and unshakeable calm; the sublime quietude; the vast and placid certainty; the ultimate stability, unknown and forever unknowable to any human or near-human race!

“Dismiss all thought of intrusion, First Lensman Samms⁠ ⁠… I have heard of you human beings, of course, but have never considered seriously the possibility of meeting one of you mind to mind. Indeed, it was reported that none of our minds could make any except the barest and most unsatisfactory contact with any of yours they chanced to encounter. It is, I now perceive, the Lens which makes this full accord possible, and it is basically about the Lens that you are here?”

“It is,” and Samms went on to cover in flashing thoughts his conception of what the Galactic Patrol should be and should become. That was easy enough; but when he tried to describe in detail the qualifications necessary for Lensmanship, he began to bog down. “Force, drive, scope, of course⁠ ⁠… range⁠ ⁠… power⁠ ⁠… but above all, an absolute integrity⁠ ⁠… an ultimate incorruptibility.⁠ ⁠…” He could recognize such a mind after meeting it and studying it, but as to finding it.⁠ ⁠… It might not be in any place of power or authority. His own, and Rod Kinnison’s, happened to be; but Costigan’s was not⁠ ⁠… and both Knobos and DalNalten had made inconspicuousness a fine art.⁠ ⁠…

“I see,” the native stated, when it became clear that Samms could say no more. “It is evident, of course, that I cannot qualify; nor do I know anyone personally who can. However.⁠ ⁠…”

“What?” Samms demanded. “I was sure, from the feel of your mind, that you⁠ ⁠… but with a mind of such depth and breadth, such tremendous scope and power, you must be incorruptible!”

“I am,” came the dry rejoinder. “We all are. No Rigellian is, or ever will be or can be, what you think of as ‘corrupt’ or ‘corruptible.’ Indeed, it is only by the narrowest, most intense concentration upon every line of your thought that I can translate your meaning into a concept possible for any of us even to understand.”

“Then what⁠ ⁠… Oh, I see. I was starting at the wrong end. Naturally enough, I suppose, I looked first for the qualities rarest in my own race.”

“Of course. Our minds have ample scope and range; and, perhaps, sufficient power. But those qualities which you refer to as ‘force’ and ‘drive’ are fully as rare among us as absolute mental integrity is among you. What you know as ‘crime’ is unknown. We have no police, no government, no laws, no organized armed forces of any kind. We take, practically always, the line of least resistance. We live and let live, as your thought runs. We work together for the common good.”

“Well⁠ ⁠… I don’t know what I expected to find here, but certainly not this.⁠ ⁠…” If Samms had never before been completely thunderstruck, completely at a loss, he was then. “You don’t think, then, that there is any chance?”

“I have been thinking, and there may be a chance⁠ ⁠… a slight one, but still a chance,” the Rigellian said, slowly. “For instance, that youth, so full of curiosity, who first visited your planet. Thousands of us have wondered, to ourselves and to each other, about the peculiar qualities of mind which compelled him and others to waste so much time, effort, and wealth upon a project so completely useless as exploration. Why, he had even to develop energies and engines theretofore unknown, and which can never be of any real use!”

Samms was shaken by the calm finality with which the Rigellian dismissed all possibility of the usefulness of interstellar exploration, but stuck doggedly to his purpose.

“However slight the chance, I must find and talk to