than Port Admiral Haynes.
“You gentlemen can get your information from the data sheets better than you
can from Kinnison,” he remarked with a smile, “and I want to take his report without
any more delay.”
Hand under arm, the old Lensman led the young one away, but once inside his
private office he summoned neither secretary-nor recorder. Instead, he pushed the
buttons which set up a complete-coverage shield and spoke.
“Now, son, open up. Out with it-everything that you have been holding back ever
since you landed. I got your signal.”
“Well, yes, I have been holding back,” Kinnison admitted. “I haven’t got enough
jets to be sticking my neck out in fast company, even if it were something to be
discussed in public, which it isn’t. I’m glad you could give me this time so quick. I want
to go over an idea with you, and with no one else. It may be as cockeyed as Trenco’s
ether – you’re to be the sole judge of that-but you’ll know I mean well, no matter how
goofy it is.”
`That certainly is not an overstatement,” Haynes replied, dryly. “Go ahead.”
`The great peculiarity of space combat is that we fly free, but fight inert,”
Kinnison began, apparently irrelevantly, but choosing his phraseology with care. To
force an engagement one ship locks to the other first with tracers, then with tractors,
and goes inert. Thus, relative speed determines the ability to force or to avoid
engagement, but it is relative power that determines the outcome. Heretofore the
pirates – “And by the way, we are belittling our opponents and building up a disastrous
overconfidence in ourselves by calling them pirates. They are not-they can’t be.
Boskonia must be more than a race or a system-it is very probably a galaxy-wide
culture. It is an absolute despotism, holding its authority by means of a rigid system of
rewards and punishments. In our eyes it is fundamentally wrong, but it works-how it
works ! It is organized just as we are, and is apparently as strong in bases, vessels, and
personnel.
“Boskonia has had the better of us, both in speed-except for the Britannia’s
momentary advantage-and in power. That advantage is now lost to them. We will have,
then, two immense powers, each galactic in scope, each tremendously powerful in
arms, equipment, and personnel, each having exactly the same weapons and
defenses, and each determined to wipe out the other. A stalemate is inevitable, an
absolute deadlock, a sheerly destructive war of attrition which will go on for centuries
and which must end in the annihilation of both Boskonia and civilization.”
“But our new projectors and screens!” protested the older man. “They give us an
overwhelming advantage. We can force or avoid engagement, as we please. You know
the plan to crush them-you helped to develop it.”
“Yes, I know the plan. I also know that we will not crush them. So do you. We
both know that our advantage will be only temporary.” The young Lensman,
unimpressed, was in deadly earnest.
The Admiral did not reply for a time. Deep down, he himself had felt the doubt,
but neither he nor any other of his school had ever mentioned the thing that Kinnison
had now so baldly put into words. He knew that whatever one side had, of weapon or
armor or equipment, would sooner or later become the property of the other, as was
witnessed by the desperate venture which Kinnison himself had so recently and so
successfully concluded. He knew that the devices installed in the vessels captured
upon Velantia had been destroyed before falling into the hands of the enemy, but he
also knew that with entire fleets so equipped the new arms could not be kept secret
indefinitely. Therefore he finally replied.
`That may be true.” He paused, then went on like the indomitable veteran that he
was. “But we have the advantage now and we’ll drive it while we’ve got it. After all, we
nay be able to hold it long enough.”
“I’ve just thought of one more thing that would help – communication,” Kinnison
did not argue the previous point, but went ahead. “It seems to be impossible to drive
any kind of a communicator beam through the double interference . . .
“Seems to be !” barked Haynes. “It is impossible ! Nothing but a thought . . . .”
“That’s it exactly-thought!” interrupted Kinnison in turn. “The Velantians can do
things with a lens that nobody would believe possible. Why not examine some of them
for Lensmen? I’m sure that Worsel could pass, and probably many others. They can
drive thoughts through anything except their own thought-screens-and what
communicators they would make !”
“That idea has distinct possibilities and will be followed up. However, it is not
what you wanted to discuss. Go ahead.”
“QX.” Kinnison went into Lens-to-Lens communication.
“I want some kind of a shield or screen that will neutralize or nullify a detector. I
asked Hotchkiss, the communications expert, about it-under seal. He said it had never
been investigated, even as an academic problem in research, but that it was
theoretically possible.”
`’his room is shielded, you know.’ Baynes was surprised at the use of the
Lenses. “Is it that important?”
“I don’t know. As I said before, I may be cockeyed, but if my idea is any good at
all that nullifier is the most important thing in the universe, and if word of it gets out it
may be useless. You see, sir, over the long route, the only really permanent advantage
that we have over Boskonia, the one thing they can’t get, is the Lens. There must be
some way to use it. If that nullifier is possible, and if we can keep it secret for a while, I
believe I’ve found it. At least, I want to try something. It may not work-probably it won’t,
it’s a mighty Slim chalice-but if it does, we may be able to wipe out Boskonia in a few
months instead of carrying on forever a war of attrition. First, I want to go . . . . .”
“Hold on!” Haynes snapped. “I’ve been thinking, too. I can’t see any possible
relation between such a device and any real military weapon, or the Lens, either. If I
can’t, not many others can, and that’s a point in your favor. If there’s anything at all in
your idea, it’s too big to share with anyone even me. Keep it to yourself.”
“But it’s a peculiar hook-up, and may not be any good at all,” protested Kinnison.
“You might want to cancel it”
“No danger of that,” came the positive statement. “You know more about the
pirates-pardon me, about Boskonia -than any other Patrolman. You believe that your
idea has some slight chance of success. Very well-that fact is enough to put every
resource of the Patrol back of you. Put your idea on a tape under Lensman’s Seal, so
that it will not be lost in case of your death. Then go ahead. If it is possible to develop
that nullifier you shall have it. Hotchkiss will take charge of it, and have any other
Lensmen he wants. No one except Lensmen will work on it or know anything about it.
No records will be kept. It will not even exist until you yourself release it to us.”
“Thanks, sir,” and Kinnison left the room.
Then for weeks Prime Base was the scene of an activity furious indeed. New
apparatus was designed and tested – new shears new generators, new scramblers,
and many other new things. Each item was designed and tested, redesigned and
retested, until even the most skeptical of the Patrol’s engineers could no longer find in it
anything to criticize. Then throughout the galaxy the ships of the Patrol were recalled to
their sector bases to be rebuilt.
There were to be two great classes of vessels. Those of the first-special scouting
cruisers-were to have speed and defense-nothing else. They were to be the fastest
things in space, and able to defend themselves against attack-that was all. Vessels of
the second class had to be built from the keel upward, since nothing even remotely like
them had theretofore been conceived. They were to be huge, ungainly, slow-simply
storehouses of incomprehensibly vast powers of offense. They carried projectors of a
size and power never before set upon movable foundations, nor were they dependent
upon cosmic energy. They carried their own, in bank upon bank of stupendous
accumulators. In fact, each of these monstrous floating fortresses was to be able to
generate screens of such design and power that no vessel anywhere near them could
receive cosmic energy!
This, then, was the bolt which civilization was preparing to hurl against Boskonia.
In theory the thing was simplicity itself. The ultra-fast cruisers would catch the enemy,
lock on with tractors so hard that they could not be sheared, and go inert, thus