above normal. A few very peculiar derelicts have been found—they seem to have been
wrecked by madmen. Not only wrecked, but gutted, and every mark of identification
wiped out. We can’t determine even origin or destination, since the normal
disappearances outnumber the abnormal ones by four to one. On the tapes this is
lumped in with the other psychoses you’ll learn about. But this morning they found
another derelict, in which the chief pilot had scrawled ‘WARE HELLHOLE IN SP’ across
a plate. Connection with the other derelicts, if any, obscure. If the pilot was sane when
he wrote that message it means something—but nobody knows what. If he wasn’t, it
doesn’t, any more than the dozens of obviously senseless—excuse me, I should say
apparently senseless—messages on the tapes.”
“Hm . . . m. Interesting. I’ll bear it in mind and tape it in its place. But speaking of
peculiar things, I’ve got one I wanted to tell you about—getting my Release was such a
shock I almost forgot it. Reported it, but nobody thought it was anything important.
Maybe—probably—it isn’t. Tune your mind up to the top of the range—there—did you
ever hear of a race that thinks on that band?”
“I never did—it’s practically unreachable. Why—have you?”
“Yes and no. Only once, and that only a touch. Or, rather, a burst; as though a
hard-held mind-block had exploded, or the creature had just died a violent,
instantaneous death. Not enough of it to trace, and I never found any more of it.”
“Any characteristics? Bursts can be quite revealing.”
“A few. It was on my last break-in trip in the Second Galaxy, out beyond
Thrale—about here.” Kit marked the spot upon a mental chart. “Mentality very
high—precisionist grade —possibly beyond social needs, as the planet was a bare
desert and terrifically hot. No thought of cities. Nor of water, although both may have
existed without appearing in that burst of thought. The thing’s bodily structure was
RTSL, to four places. No gross digestive tract—atmosphere-nourished or an energy-
converter, perhaps. The sun was a blue giant. No spectral data, of course, but at a
rough guess I’d say somewhere around class B5 or AO. That’s all I could get.”
“That’s a lot to get from one burst. It doesn’t mean a thing to me right now. . . but
I’ll watch for a chance to fit it in somewhere.”
How casually they dismissed as unimportant that cryptic burst of thought! But if
they both, right then, together, had been authoritatively informed that that description
fitted exactly the physical form forced upon its denizens in its summer by the accurately-
described, simply hellish climatic conditions obtaining during that season on the noxious
planet Floor, the information would still not have seemed important to either of
them—then.
“Anything else we ought to discuss before night?” The older Lensman went on
without a break.
“Not that I know of.”
“You said your Release was a shock. You’ve got another one coming.”
“I’m braced—blast!”
“Worsel, Tregonsee, Nadreck and I are quitting our jobs and going Gray again.
Our main purpose in life is going to be rallying ’round at max whenever you whistle.”
“That is a shock, sir . . . Thanks . . . I hadn’t expected —it’s really overwhelming.
And you said something about commiserating me?” Kit lifted his red-thatched head—all
of Clarrissa’s children had inherited her startling hair—and gray eyes stared level into
eyes of gray.
“In a sense, yes. You’ll understand later . . . Well, you’d better go hunt up your
mother and the girls. After the clambake is over . . .”
“I’d better cut it, hadn’t I?” Kit asked, eagerly. “Don’t you think it’d be better for me
to get started right away?”
“Not on your life!” Kinnison demurred, positively. “Do you think I want that mob of
red-heads snatching me bald? You’re in for a large day and evening of lionization, so
take it like a man. As I was about to say, as soon as the brawl is over tonight we’ll all
board the Dauntless and do a flit for Klovia, where we’ll fix you up an outfit. Until then,
son . . .” Two big hands gripped.
“But I’ll be seeing you around the Hall!” Kit exclaimed. “You can’t . . .”
“No, I can’t run out on it, either,” Kinnison grinned, “but we won’t be in a sealed
and shielded room. So, son . . . I’m proud of you.”
“Right back at you, big fellow—and thanks a million.” Kit strode out and, a few
minutes later, the coordinator did likewise.
The “brawl”, which was the gala event of the Tellurian social year, was duly
enjoyed by all the Kinnisons. The Dauntless made an uneventful flight to Klovia.
Arrangements were made. Plans, necessarily sketchy and elastic, were laid.
Two big, gray-clad Lensmen stood upon the deserted space-field between two
blackly indetectable speedsters. Kinnison was massive, sure, calm with the poised
calmness of maturity, experience, and power. Kit, with the broad shoulders and narrow
waist of his years and training, was taut and tense, fiery, eager to come to grips with
Civilization’s foes.
“Remember, son,” Kinnison said as the two gripped hands. “There are four of
us—old-timers who’ve been through the mill—on call every second. If you can use any
one of us or all of us don’t wait—snap out a call.”
“I know, dad . . . thanks. The four best. One of you may make a strike before I
do. With the thousands of leads we have, and your experience and know-how, you
probably will. So remember it cuts both ways. If any of you can use me any time, you
whistle.”
“QX. We’ll keep in touch. Clear ether, Kit!”
“Clear ether, dad!” What a wealth of meaning there was in that low-voiced,
simple exchange of the standard bon voyage!
For minutes, as his speedster flashed through space, Kinnison thought only of
the boy. He knew exactly how he felt; he re-lived in memory the supremely, ecstatic
moments of his own first launching into space as a Gray Lensman. But Kit had the
stuff—stuff which he, Kinnison could never know anything about—and he had his own
job to do. Therefore, methodically, like the old campaigner he was, he set about it.
CHAPTER 2: WORSEL AND THE OVERLORDS
Worsel the Velantian, hard and durable and long-lived as Velantians are, had in
twenty Tellurian years changed scarcely at all. As the first Lensman and the only
Second-Stage Lensman of his race, the twenty years had been very fully occupied
indeed.
He had solved the varied technological and administrative problems incident to
the welding of Velantia into the structure of Civilization. He had worked at the many
tasks which, in the opinion of the Galactic Council, fitted his peculiarly individual talents.
In his “spare” time he had sought out in various parts of two galaxies, and had ruthlessly
slain, widely-scattered groups of the Overlords of Delgon.
Continuously, however, he had taken an intense sort of godfatherly interest in the
Kinnison children, particularly in Kit and in the youngest daughter, Constance; finding in
the girl a mentality surprisingly akin to his own.
When Kinnison’s call came he answered it. He was now out in space; not in the
Dauntless, but in a ship of his own, under his own command. And what a ship! The
Velan was manned entirely by beings of his own race. It carried Velantian air, at
Velantian temperature and pressure. Above all, it was built and powered for inert
maneuvering at the atrocious accelerations employed by the Velantians in their daily
lives; and Worsel loved it with enthusiasm and elan.
He had worked conscientiously and well with Kinnison and with other entities of
Civilization. He and they had all known, however, that he could work more efficiently
alone or with others of his own kind. Hence, except in emergencies, he had done so;
and hence, except in similar emergencies, he would so continue to do.
Out in deep space, Worsel entwined himself, in a Velantian’s idea of comfort, in
an intricate series of figures-of-eight around a pair of parallel bars and relaxed in
thought. There were insidious deviltries afoot, Kinnison had said. There were
disaffections, psychoses, mass hysterias, and— Oh happy thought!—hallucinations.
There were also certain revolutions and sundry uprisings, which might or might not be
connected or associated with the disappearances of a considerable number of persons
of note. In these latter, however, Worsel of Velantia was not interested. He knew without
being told that Kinnison would pounce upon such blatant manifestations as those. He
himself would work upon something much more to his taste.
Hallucination was Worsel’s dish. He had been born among hallucinations; had
been reared in an atmosphere of them. What he did not know about hallucinations could
have been printed in pica on the smallest one of his scales.
Therefore, isolating one section of his multi-compartmented mind from all others
and from any control over his physical self, he sensitized it to receive whatever