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 importer, but if a Lensman be taken alive and his
Lens removed, that Lens kills in a apace 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 Patron
“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
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! In bulk it was vastly larger even than the
superdreadnaughts of the Patrol, but, unlike them, it was .in shape a perfect teardrop,
streamlined to the ultimate possible degree.
“What do you think of her?” the Port Admiral asked.
`Think of her!” The young officer gulped twice before he attained coherence. “I
can’t put it in words, sir, but some day, if I live long enough and develop enough force, I
hope to command a ship like that.”
“Sooner than you think, Kinnison,” Haynes told him, flatly. “You are in command
of her beginning tomorrow morning”
“Huh? Me?” Kinnison exclaimed, but sobered quickly. “Oh, I see, sir. It takes ten
years of proved accomplishment to rate command of a first-class vessel, and I have no
rating at all. You have already intimated that this ship is experimental. There is, then,
something about her that is new and untried, and so dangerous that you do not want to
risk an experienced commander in her. I am to give her a work-out, and if I can bring
her back in one piece I turn her over to her real captain. But that’s all right with me, Port
Admiral — thanks a lot for picking me out. What a chance — What a chance!” and
Kinnison’s eyes gleamed at the prospect of even a brief command of such a creation.
“Right — and wrong,” the old Admiral made surprising answer. “It is true that she
is new, untried, and dangerous, so much so that we are unwilling to give her to any of
our present captains. No, she is not really new, either. Rather, her basic idea is so old
that it has been abandoned for centuries. She uses explosives, of a type that cannot be
tried out fully except in actual combat. Her primary weapon is what we have called the
‘Q-gun’. The propellant is heptadetonite, the shell carries a charge of twenty metric tons
of duodecaplylatomate.”
‘But, sir . . . . .” Kinnison began.
“Just a minute, I’ll go into that later. While your premises were correct, your