They’d have to go through the screens of electros in Kinnison’s inherently
indetectable black speedster. QX, but she was nobody’s fighter—she didn’t have a
beam hot enough to light a match. And besides, there were the thought-screens and the
highly-probable other stuff about which th~e Lensmen could know nothing.
Kinnison quite definitely did not relish the prospect. He remembered all too vividly
what had happened when he had scouted the Eich’s base on Jarnevon; when it was
only through Worsel’s aid that he had barely—just barely—escaped with his life. And
Jarnevon’s defenders had probably been exerting only routine precautions, whereas
these fellows were undoubtedly cocked and primed for THE Lensman. He would go in,
of course, but he’d probably come out feet first —he didn’t know any more about their
defenses than he had known before, and that was nothing, fiat. . .
“Excuse the interruption, please,” Nadreck’s thought apologized, “but it would
seem to appear more desirable, would it not, to induce the one of them possessing the
most information to come out to us?”
“Huh?” Kinnison demanded. “It would, of course—but how in all your purple hells
do you figure on swinging that load?”
“I am, as you know, a person of small ability,” Nadreck replied in his usual
circuitous fashion. “Also, I am of almost negligible mass and strength. Of what is known
as bravery I have no trace—in fact, I have pondered long over that to me
incomprehensible quality and have decided that it has no place in my scheme of
existence. I have found it much more efficient to perform the necessary tasks in the
easiest and safest possible manner, which is usually by means of stealth, deceit,
indirection, and other cowardly artifices.”
“Any of those, or all of them, would be QX with me,” Kinnison assured him.
“Anything goes, with gusto and glee, as far as the Eich are concerned. What I don’t see
is how we can put it across.”
“Thought-screens interfered so seriously with my methods of procedure,” the
Palainian explained, “that I was forced to develop a means of puncturing them without
upsetting their generators. The device is not generally known, you understand.”
Kinnison understood. So did the other Lensmen.
“Might I suggest that the four of you put on heated armor and come with me to
my vessel in the hold? It will take some little time to transfer my apparatus and
equipment to your speedster.”
“Is it non-ferrous—undetectable?” Kinnison asked.
“Of course,” Nadreck replied in surprise. “I work, as I told you, by stealth. My
vessel is, except for certain differences necessitated by racial considerations, a
duplicate of your own.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Kinnison wanted to know. “Why bother to move the
gadget? Why not use your speedster?”
“Because I was not asked. We should not bother. The only reason for using your
vessel is so that you will not suffer the discomfort of wearing armor,” Nadreck replied,
categorically.
“Cancel it, then,” Kinnison directed. “You’ve been wearing armor all the time you
were with us—turn about for a while will be QX. Better that way, anyway, as this is very
definitely your party, not ours. Not?”
“As you say, and with your permission,” Nadreck agreed. “Also it may very well
be that you will be able to suggest improvements in my device whereby its efficiency
may be increased.”
“I doubt it” The Tellurian’s already great respect for this retiring, soft-spoken,
“cowardly” Lensman was increasing constantly. “But we would like to study it, and
perhaps copy it, if you so allow.”
“Gladly,” and so it was arranged.
The Dauntless crept along a black-background pathway and stopped. Nadreck,
Worsel, and Kinnison—three were enough and neither Clarrissa nor Tregonsee insisted
upon going— boarded the Palainian speedster.
Away from the mother-ship it sped upon muffled jets, and through the far-flung,
heavily overlapped electro-magnetic detector zones. Through the outer thought-
screens. Then, ultra-slowly, as space-speeds go, the speedster moved forward, feeling
for whatever other blocking screens there might be.
All three of those Lensmen were in fact detectors themselves—their Arisian-
imparted special senses made ethereal, even sub-ethereal, vibrations actually visible or
tangible—but they did not depend only upon their bodily senses. That speedster carried
instruments unknown to space-pilotry, and the Lensmen used them unremittingly. When
they came to a screen they opened it, so insidiously that its generating mechanisms
gave no alarms. Even a meteorite screen, which was supposed to forbid the passage of
any material object, yielded without protest to Nadreck’s subtle manipulation.
Slowly, furtively, a perfectly absorptive black body sinking through blackness so
intense as to be almost palpable, the Palainian speedster settled downward toward the
Boskonian fortress of Lyrane VIII.
CHAPTER 14
Nadreck at Work
This is perhaps as good a place as any to glance in passing at the fashion in
which the planet Lonabar was brought under the aegis of Civilization. No attempt will or
can be made to describe it in any detail, since any adequate treatment of it would fill a
volume—indeed, many volumes have already been written concerning various phases
of the matter —and since it is not strictly germane to the subject in hand. However,
some knowledge of the modus operandi in such cases is highly desirable for the full
understanding of this history, in view of the vast number of planets which Coordinator
Kinnison and his associates did have to civilize before the Second Galaxy was made
secure.
Scarcely had Cartiff-Kinnison moved out than the Patrol moved in. If Lonabar had
been heavily fortified, a fleet of appropriate size and power would have cleared the way.
As it was, the fleet which landed was one of transports, not of battleships, and all the
fighting from then on was purely defensive.
Propagandists took the lead; psychologists; Lensmen skilled not only in
languages but also in every art of human relationships. The case of Civilization was
stated plainly and repeatedly, the errors and the fallacies of autocracy were pointed out.
A nucleus of government was formed; not of Civilization’s imports, but of solid
Lonabarian citizens who had passed the Lensmen’s tests of ability and trustworthiness.
Under this local government a pseudo-democracy began haltingly to function. At
first its progress was painfully slow; but as more and more of the citizens perceived
what the Patrol actually was doing, it grew apace. Not only did the invaders allow—yes,
foster—free speech and statutory liberty; they suppressed ruthlessly any person or any
faction seeking to build a new dictatorship, whatever its nature, upon the ruins of the
old. That news traveled fast; and laboring always and mightily upon Civilization’s side
were the always-present, however deeply-buried, urges of all intelligent entities toward
self-expression.
There was opposition, of course. Practically all of those who had waxed fat upon
the old order were very strongly in favor of its continuance. There were the hordes of
the down-trodden who had so long and so dumbly endured oppression that they could
not understand anything else; in whom the above-mentioned urges had been beaten
and tortured almost out of existence. They themselves were not opposed to
Civilization—for them it meant at worst only a change of masters—but those who
sought by the same old wiles to re-enslave them were foes indeed.
Menjo Bleeko’s sycophants and retainers were told to work or starve. The fat
hogs could support the new order—or else. The thugs and those who tried to prey upon
and exploit the dumb masses were arrested and examined. Some were cured, some
were banished, some were shot.
Little could be done, however, about the dumb themselves, for in them the spark
was feeble indeed. The new government nursed that spark along, the while ruling them
as definitely, although not as harshly, as had the old; the Lensmen backing the
struggling young Civilization knowing full well that in the children or in the children’s
children of these unfortunates the spark would flame up into a great white light.
It is seen that this government was not, and could not for many years become, a
true democracy. It was in fact a benevolent semi-autocracy; autonomous in a sense, yet
controlled by the Galactic Council through its representatives, the Lensmen. It was,
however, so infinitely more liberal than anything theretofore known by the Lonabarians
as to be a political revelation, and since corruption, that cosmos-wide curse of
democracy, was not allowed a first finger-hold, the principles of real democracy and of
Civilization took deeper root year by year.
To get back into the beam of narrative, Nadreck’s blackly indetectable speedster
settled to ground far from the Boskonians’ central dome; well beyond the far-flung
screens. The Lensmen knew that no life existed outside that dome and they knew that
no possible sense of perception could pierce those defenses. They did not know,
however, what other resources of detection, of offense, or of defense the foe might
possess; hence the greatest possible distance at which they could work efficiently was
the best distance.
“I realize that it is useless to caution any active mind not to think at all,” Nadreck