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

signatures⁠—or you’re apt to find yourself listed in the big book along with the rest of the rats.”

It was not that the machine liked the way things were going, or that it did not have goon squads on the job. It was that there were, everywhere and always, more Patrolmen than there were goons. And those Patrolmen, however young in years some of them might have appeared to be, were space-bronzed veterans, space-hardened fighting men, armed with the last word in blasters⁠—Lewiston, Mark Seventeen.

To the boy’s friends and neighbors, of course, his Lewiston was practically invisible. It was merely an article of clothing, the same as his pants. It carried no more of significance, of threat or of menace, than did the pistol and the club of the friendly Irish cop on the beat. But the goon did not see the Patrolman as a friend. He saw the keen, clear, sharply discerning eyes; the long, strong fingers; the smoothly flowing muscles, so eloquent of speed and of power. He saw the Lewiston for what it was; the deadliest, most destructive hand-weapon known to man. Above all he saw the difference in numbers: six or seven or eight Patrolmen to four or five or six of his own kind. If more hoods arrived, so did more spacemen; if some departed, so did a corresponding number of the wearers of the space-black and silver.

“Ain’t you getting tired of sticking around here, George?” One mobster asked confidentially of one Patrolman. “I am. What say we and some of you fellows round up some girls and go have us a party?”

“Uh-uh,” George denied. His voice was gay and careless, but his eyes were icy cold. “My uncle’s cousin’s stepson is running for second assistant dog-catcher, and I can’t leave until I find out whether he wins or not.”

Thus nothing happened; thus the invisible but nevertheless terrific tension did not erupt into open battle; and thus, for the first time in North America’s long history, a presidential election was ninety nine and ninety nine one-hundredths percent pure!

Evening came. The polls closed. The Cosmocrats’ headquarters for the day, the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel van der Voort, became the goal of every Patrolman who thought he stood any chance at all of getting in. Kinnison had been there all day, of course. So had Joy, his wife, who for lack of space has been sadly neglected in these annals. Betty, their daughter, had come in early, accompanied by a husky and personable young lieutenant, who has no other place in this story. Jack Kinnison arrived, with Dimples Maynard⁠—dazzlingly blonde, wearing a screamingly red wisp of silk. She, too, has been shamefully slighted here, although she was never slighted anywhere else.

“The first time I ever saw her,” Jack was wont to say, “I went right into a flat spin, running around in circles and biting myself in the small of the back, and couldn’t pull out of it for four hours!”

That Miss Maynard should be a very special item is not at all surprising, in view of the fact that she was to become the wife of one of the Kinnisons and the mother of another.

The First Lensman, who had been in and out, came in to stay. So did Jill and her inseparable, Mason Northrop. And so did others, singly or by twos or threes. Lensmen and their wives. Conway and Clio Costigan, Dr. and Mrs. Rodebush, and Cleveland, Admiral and Mrs. Clayton, ditto Schweikert, and Dr. Nels Bergenholm. And others. Nor were they all North Americans, or even human. Rularion was there; and so was blocky, stocky Dronvire of Rigel Four. No outsider could tell, ever, what any Lensman was thinking, to say nothing of such a monstrous Lensman as Dronvire⁠—but that hotel was being covered as no political headquarters had ever been covered before.

The returns came in, seesawing maddeningly back and forth. Faster and faster. The Maritime Provinces split fifty-fifty. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, Cosmocrat. New York, upstate, Cosmocrat. New York City, on the basis of incomplete but highly significant returns, was piling up a huge Nationalist majority. Pennsylvania⁠—labor⁠—Nationalist. Ohio⁠—farmers⁠—Cosmocrat. Twelve southern states went six and six. Chicago, as usual, solidly for the machine; likewise Quebec and Ottawa and Montreal and Toronto and Detroit and Kansas City and St. Louis and New Orleans and Denver.

Then northern and western and far southern states came in and evened the score. Saskatchewan, Alberta, Britcol, and Alaska, all went Cosmocrat. So did Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Newmex, and most of the states of Mexico.

At three o’clock in the morning the Cosmocrats had a slight but definite lead and were, finally, holding it. At four o’clock the lead was larger, but California was still an unknown quantity⁠—California could wreck everything. How would California go? Especially, how would California’s two metropolitan districts⁠—the two most independent and freethinking and least predictable big cities of the nation⁠—how would they go?

At five o’clock California seemed safe. Except for Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Cosmocrats had swept the state, and in those two great cities they held a commanding lead. It was still mathematically possible, however, for the Nationalists to win.

“It’s in the bag! Let’s start the celebration!” someone shouted, and others took up the cry.

“Stop it! No!” Kinnison’s parade-ground voice cut through the noise. “No celebration is in order or will be held until the result becomes certain or Witherspoon concedes!”

The two events came practically together: Witherspoon conceded a couple of minutes before it became mathematically impossible for him to win. Then came the celebration, which went on and on interminably. At the first opportunity, however, Kinnison took Samms by the arm, led him without a word into a small office, and shut the door. Samms, also saying nothing, sat down in the swivel chair, put both feet up on the desk, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply.

“Well, Virge⁠—satisfied?” Kinnison broke the silence at last. His Lens was off. “We’re on our way.”

“Yes, Rod. Fully. At last.” No more than his friend did