The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith

Universe, his word is LAW.

      “That explains what you have been forced to undergo. The only excuse for its severity is that it produces results—no wearer of the Lens has ever disgraced it.

      “Now as to the Lens itself. Like every one else, you have known of it ever since you could talk, but you know nothing of its origin or its nature. Now that you are Lensmen, I can tell you what little I know about it. Questions?”

      “We have all wondered about the Lens, sir, of course,” Maitland ventured. “The outlaws apparently keep up with us in science. I have always supposed that what science can build, science can duplicate. Surely more than one Lens has fallen into the hands of the outlaws?”

      “If it had been a scientific invention or discovery it would have been duplicated long ago,” the Commandant made surprising answer. “It is, however, not essentially scientific in nature. It is almost entirely philosophical, and was developed for us by the Arisians.

      “Yes, each of you was sent to Arisia quite recently,” von Hohendorff went on, as the newly commissioned officers stared, dumbfounded, at him and at each other. “What did you think of them, Murphy?”

      “At first, sir, I thought that they were some new kind of dragon; but dragons with brains that you could actually feel. I was glad to get away, sir. They fairly gave me the creeps, even though I never did see one of them so much as move.”

      “They are a peculiar race,” the Commandant went on. “Instead of being mankind’s worst enemies, as is generally believed, they are the sine qua non of our Patrol and of Civilization. I cannot understand them; I do not know of anyone who can. They gave us the Lens; yet Lensmen must not reveal that fact to any others. They make a Lens to fit each candidate; yet no two candidates, apparently, have ever seen the same things there, nor is it believed that anyone has ever seen them as they really are. To all except Lensmen they seem to be completely anti-social; and even those who become Lensmen go to Arisia only once in their lives. They seem—although I caution you that this seeming may contain no more of reality than the physical shapes you thought you saw—to be supremely indifferent to all material things.

      “For more generations than you can understand they have devoted themselves to thinking; mainly of the essence of life. They say that they know scarcely anything fundamental concerning it; but even so they know more about it than does any other known race. While ordinarily they will have no intercourse whatever with outsiders, they did consent to help the Patrol, for the good of all intelligence.

      “Thus, each being about to graduate into Lensmanship is sent to Arisia, where a Lens is built to match his individual life force. While no mind other than that of an Arisian can understand its operation, thinking of your Lens as being synchronized with, or in exact resonance with, your own vital principle or ego will give you a rough idea of it. The Lens is not really alive, as we understand the term. It is, however, endowed with a sort of pseudo-life, by virtue of which it gives off its strong, characteristically changing light as long as it is in metal-to-flesh circuit with the living mentality for which it was designed. Also by virtue of that pseudo-life, it acts as a telepath through which you may converse with other intelligences, even though they may possess no organs of speech or of hearing.

      “The Lens cannot be removed by anyone except its wearer without dismemberment; it glows as long as its rightful owner wears it; it ceases to glow in the instant of its owner’s death and disintegrates shortly thereafter. Also—and here is the thing that renders completely impossible the impersonation of a Lensman—not only does the Lens not glow if worn by an imposter; but if a Lensman be taken alive and his Lens removed, that Lens kills in a space of seconds any living being who attempts to wear it. As long as it glows—as long as it is in circuit with its living owner—it is harmless; but in the dark condition its pseudo-life interferes so strongly with any life to which it is not attuned that that life is destroyed forthwith.”

      A brief silence fell, during which the young men absorbed the stunning import of what their Commandant had been saying. More, there was striking into each young consciousness a realization of the stark heroism of the grand old Lensman before them; a man of such fiber that although physically incapacitated and long past the retirement age, he had conquered his human emotions sufficiently to accept deliberately his ogre’s role because in that way he could best further the progress of his Patrol!

      “I have scarcely broken the ground,” von Hohendorff continued. “I have merely given you an introduction to your new status. During the next few weeks, before you are assigned to duty, other officers will make clear to you the many things about which you are still in the dark. Our time is growing short, but we perhaps have time for one more question.”

      “Not a question, sir, but something more important,” Kinnison spoke up. “I speak for the Class when I say that we have misjudged you grievously, and we wish to apologize.”

      “I thank you sincerely for the thought, although it is unnecessary. You could not have thought otherwise of me than as you did. It is not a pleasant task that we old men have; that of weeding out those who do not measure up. But we are too old for active duty in space—we no longer have the instantaneous nervous responses that are for that duty imperative—so we do what we can. However, the work has its brighter side, since each year there are about a hundred found worthy of the Lens. This, my one hour with the graduates, more than makes up for the year that precedes it; and the other oldsters have somewhat similar compensations.

      “In conclusion, you are now able to understand what kind of mentalities fill our ranks. You know that any creature wearing the Lens is in every sense a Lensman, whether he be human or, hailing from some strange and distant planet, a monstrosity of a shape you have as yet not even imagined. Whatever his form, you may rest assured that he has been tested even as you have been; that he is as worthy of trust as are you yourselves. My last word is this—Lensmen die, but they do not fold up: individuals come and go, but the Galactic Patrol goes on!”

      Then, again all martinet:

      “Class Five, attention!” he barked. “Report upon the stage of the main auditorium!”

      The Class, again a rigidly military unit, marched out of Room A and down the long corridor toward the great theater in which, before the massed Cadet Corps and a throng of civilians, they were formally to be graduated.

      And as they marched along the graduates realized in what way the wearers of the Lens who emerged from Room A were different from the candidates who had entered it such a short time before. They had gone in as boys; nervous, apprehensive, and still somewhat unsure of themselves, in spite of their survival through the five long years of grueling tests which now lay behind them. They emerged from Room A as men: men knowing for the first time the real meaning of the physical and mental tortures they had undergone; men able to wield justly the vast powers whose scope and scale they could even now but dimly comprehend.

      CHAPTER 2

      In Command

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      Barely a month after his graduation, even before he had entirely completed the post-graduate tours of duty mentioned by von Hohendorff, Kinnison was summoned to Prime Base by no less a personage than Port Admiral Haynes himself. There, in the Admiral’s private aero, whose flaring lights cut a right-of-way through the swarming traffic, the novice and the veteran flew slowly over the vast establishment of the Base.

      Shops and factories, city-like barracks, landing fields stretching beyond the far horizon; flying craft ranging from tiny one-man helicopters through small and large scouts, patrol-ships and cruisers up to the immense, globular superdreadnaughts of space—all these were observed and commented upon. Finally the aero landed beside a long, comparatively low building—a structure heavily guarded, inside Base although it was—within which Kinnison saw a thing that fairly snatched away his breath.

A space-ship it was—but what a ship!^[1]