Second Stage Lensmen (Unabridged). E. E. Smith

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Название Second Stage Lensmen (Unabridged)
Автор произведения E. E. Smith
Жанр Книги для детей: прочее
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Издательство Книги для детей: прочее
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isbn 9788027247936



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       E. E. Smith

      Second Stage Lensmen

      (Unabridged)

      Published by

      Books

      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2018 OK Publishing

      ISBN 978-80-272-4793-6

      Table of Contents

       CHAPTER 1: Recalled

       CHAPTER 2: Invasion Via Tube

       CHAPTER 3: Lyrane the Matriarchy

       CHAPTER 4: Kinnison Captures .

       CHAPTER 5: Illona of Lonabar

       CHAPTER 6: Back to Lyrane

       CHAPTER 7: Wide-Open N-Way

       CHAPTER 8: Cartiff the Jeweler

       CHAPTER 9: Cartiff the Fence

       CHAPTER 10: Bleeko and the Iceberg

       CHAPTER 11: Alcon of Thrale

       CHAPTER 12: Helen Goes North

       CHAPTER 13: In the Cavern

       CHAPTER 14: Nadreck at Work

       CHAPTER 15: Klovia

       CHAPTER 16: Gannel Fights a Duel

       CHAPTER 17: Into Nth Space

       CHAPTER 18: Prime Minister Fossten

       CHAPTER 19: Gannel, Tyrant of Thrale

       CHAPTER 20: Gannel vs. Fossten

       CHAPTER 21: The Battle of Klovia

       CHAPTER 22: The Taking of Thrale

       CHAPTER 23: Attainment

       Acknowledgment

      CHAPTER 1

      Recalled

       Table of Contents

      “Stop, youth!” the voice of Mentor the Arisian thundered silently, deep within the Lensman’s brain.

      He stopped convulsively, almost in mid-stride, and at the rigid, absent awareness in his eyes Nurse MacDougall’s face went white.

      “This is not merely the loose and muddy thinking of which you have all too frequently been guilty in the past,” the deeply resonant, soundless voice went on,” it is simply not thinking at all. At times, Kinnison of Tellus, we almost despair of you. Think, youth, think! For know, Lensman, that upon the clarity of your thought and upon the trueness of your perception depends the whole future of your Patrol and of your Civilization; more so now by far than at any time in the past.”

      “What’dy’mean, ‘think’?” Kinnison snapped back thoughtlessly. His mind was a seething turmoil, his emotions an indescribable blend of surprise, puzzlement, and incredulity.

      For moments, as Mentor did not reply, the Gray Lensman’s mind raced. Incredulity . becoming tinged with apprehension . turning rapidly into rebellion.

      “Oh, Kim!” Clarrissa choked. A queer enough tableau they made, these two, had any been there to see; the two uniformed figures standing there so strainedly, the nurse’s two hands gripping those of the Lensman. She, completely en rapport with him, had understood his every fleeting thought. “Oh, Kim! They can’t do that to us .”

      “I’ll say they can’t!” Kinnison flared. “By Klono’s tungsten teeth, I won’t do it! We have a right to happiness, you and I, and we’ll .”

      “We’ll what?” she asked, quietly. She knew what they had to face; and, strong-souled woman that she was, she was quicker to face it squarely than was he. “You were just blasting off, Kim, and so was I.”

      “I suppose so,” glumly. “Why in all the nine hells of Valeria did I have to be a Lensman? Why couldn’t I have stayed a . ?”

      “Because you are you,” the girl interrupted, gently. “Kimball Kinnison, the man I love. You couldn’t do anything else.” Chin up, she was fighting gamely. “And if I rate Lensman’s Mate I can’t be a sissy, either. It won’t last forever, Kim. Just a little longer to wait, that’s all.”

      Eyes, steel-gray now, stared down into eyes of tawny, gold-flecked bronze. “QX, Cris? Really QX?” What a world of meaning there was in that cryptic question!

      “Really, Kim.” She met his stare unfalteringly. If not entirely unafraid, at least with whole-hearted determination. “On the beam and on the green, Gray Lensman, all the way. Every long, last millimeter. There, wherever it is—to the very end of whatever road it has to be—and back again. Until it’s over. I’ll be here. Or somewhere, Kim. Waiting.”

      The man shook himself and breathed deep. Hands dropped apart—both knew consciously as well as subconsciously that the less of physical demonstration the better for two such natures as theirs—and Kimball Kinnison, Unattached Lensman, came to grips with his problem.

      He began really to think; to think with the full power of his prodigious mind; and as he did so he began to see what the Arisian could have—what he must have—meant. He, Kinnison, had gummed up the works. He had made a colossal blunder in the Boskonian campaign. He knew that Mentor, although silent, was still en rapport with him; and as he coldly, grimly, thought the thing through to its logical conclusion he knew, with a dull, sick certainty, what was coming next. It came:

      “Ah, you perceive at last some portion of the truth. You see that your confused, superficial thinking has brought about almost irreparable harm. I grant that,