“And it would kill—it would have to. That reaction could not be made reversible.”
“Certainly,” Worsel concurred. “I never could understand why you soft-headed,
soft-hearted, soft-bodied human beings are so reluctant to kill your enemies. What good
does it do merely to stun them?”
“QX—skip it” Thorndyke knew that it was hopeless to attempt to convince the
utterly unhuman Worsel of the fundamental lightness of human ethics. “But nothing has
ever been designed small enough to project such a wave.”
“I realize that. Its design and construction will challenge your inventive ability. Its
small ness is its great advantage. He could wear it in a ring, in the bracelet of his Lens;
or, since it will be actuated, controlled, and directed by thought, even imbedded
surgically beneath his skin.”
“How about backfires?” Thorndyke actually shuddered. “Projection . . . shielding .
. .”
“Details—mere details,” Worsel assured him, with an airy flip of his scimitared
tail.
“That’s nothing to be running around loose,” the man argued. “Nobody could tell
what killed them, could they?”
“Probably not.” Worsel pondered briefly. “No. Certainly not. The substance must
decompose in the instant of death, from any cause. And it would not be ‘loose’, as you
think; it should not become known, even. You would make only the one, of course.”
“Oh. You don’t want one, then?”
“Certainly not. What do I need of such a thing? Kinnison only—and only for his
protection.”
“Kim can handle it . . . but he’s the only being this side of Arisia that I’d trust with
one . . . QX, give me the dope on the frequency, wave-form, and so on, and I’ll see what
I can do.”
CHAPTER 2
Invasion Via Tube
Port Admiral Haynes, newly chosen president of the Galactic Council and by
virtue of his double office the most powerful entity of Civilization, set instantly into
motion the vast machinery which would make Tellus safe against any possible attack.
He first called together his Board of Strategy; the same keen-minded tacticians who had
helped him plan the invasion of the Second Galaxy and the eminently successful attack
upon Jarnevon. Should Grand Fleet, many of whose component fleets had not yet
reached their home planets, be recalled? Not yet—lots of time for that. Let them go
home for a while first. The enemy would have to rebuild before they could attack, and
there were many more pressing matters.
Scouting was most important. The planets near the galactic rim could take care
of that. In fact, they should concentrate upon it, to the exclusion of everything else of
warfare’s activities. Every approach to the galaxy—yes, the space between the two
galaxies and as far into the Second Galaxy as it was safe to penetrate—should be
covered as with a blanket. That way, they could not be surprised.
Kinnison, when he heard that, became vaguely uneasy. He did not really have a
thought; it was as though he should have had one, but didn’t. Deep down, far off, just
barely above the threshold of perception an indefinite, formless something obtruded
itself upon his consciousness. Tug and haul at it as he would, he could not get the drift.
There was something he ought to be thinking of, but what in all the iridescent hells from
Vandemar to Alsakan was it? So, instead of flitting about upon his declared business,
he stuck around; helping the General Staff—and thinking.
And Defense Plan BBT went from the idea men to the draftsmen, then to the
engineers. This was to be, primarily, a war of planets. Ships could battle ships, fleets
fleets; but, postulating good tactics upon the other side, no fleet, however armed and
powered, could stop a planet. That had been proved. A planet had a mass of the order
of magnitude of one times ten to the twenty fifth kilograms, and an intrinsic velocity of
somewhere around forty kilometers per second. A hundred probably, relative to Tellus,
if the planet came from the Second Galaxy. Kinetic energy, roughly, about five times ten
to the forty first ergs. No, that was nothing for any possible fleet to cope with.
Also, the attacking planets would of course be inertia-less until the last strategic
instant. Very well, they must be made inert prematurely, when the Patrol wanted them
that way, not the enemy. How? HOW? The Bergenholms upon those planets would be
guarded with everything the Boskonians had.
The answer to that question, as worked out by the engineers, was something
they called a “super-mauler”. It was gigantic, cumbersome, and slow; but little faster,
indeed, than a free planet. It was like Helmuth’s fortresses of space, only larger. It was
like the special defense cruisers of the Patrol, except that its screens were vastly
heavier. It was like a regular mauler, except that it had only one weapon. All of its
incomprehensible mass was devoted to one thing—power! It could defend itself; and, if
it could get close enough to its objective, it could do plenty of damage—its dreadful
primary was the first weapon ever developed capable of cutting a Q-type helix squarely
in two.
And in various solar systems, uninhabitable and worthless planets were
converted into projectiles. Dozens of them, possessing widely varying masses and
intrinsic velocities. One by one they flitted away from their parent suns and took up
positions—not too far away from our Solar System, but not too near.
And finally Kinnison, worrying at his tantalizing thought as a dog worries a bone,
crystallized it. Prosaically enough, it was an extremely short and flamboyantly waggling
pink skirt which catalyzed the reaction; which acted as the seed of the crystallization.
Pink—a Chickladorian—Xylpic the Navigator—Overlords of Delgon. Thus flashed the
train of thought, culminating in:
“Oh, so that’s it!” he exclaimed, aloud. “A TUBE—just as sure as hell’s a
mantrap!” He whistled raucously at a taxi, took the wheel himself, and broke—or at least
bent—most of the city’s traffic ordinances in getting to Haynes’ office.
The Port Admiral was always busy, but he was never too busy to see Gray
Lensman Kinnison; especially when the latter demanded the right of way in such terms
as he used then.
“The whole defense set-up is screwy,” Kinnison declared. “I thought I was
overlooking a bet, but I couldn’t locate it. Why should they fight their way through inter-
galactic space and through sixty thousand parsecs of planet-infested galaxy when they
don’t have to?” he demanded. “Think of the length of the supply line, with our bases
placed to cut it in a hundred places, no matter how they route it. It doesn’t make sense.
They’d have to out-weigh us in an almost impossibly high ratio, unless they have an
improbably superior armament.”
“Check.” The old warrior was entirely unperturbed. “Surprised you didn’t see that
long ago. We did. I’ll be very much surprised if they attack at all.”
“But you’re going ahead with all this just as though . . .”
“Certainly. Something may happen, and we can’t be caught off guard. Besides,
it’s good training for the boys. Helps morale, no end.” Haynes’ nonchalant air
disappeared and he studied the younger man keenly for moments. “But Mentor’s
warning certainly meant something, and you said ‘when they don’t have to’. But even if
they go clear around the galaxy to the other side—an impossibly long haul—we’re
covered. Tellus is far enough in so they can’t possibly take us by surprise. So—spill it!”
“How about a hyperspatial tube? They know exactly where we are, you know.”
“Urn . . . m . . . m.” Haynes was taken aback. “Never thought of it . . . possible,
distinctly a possibility. A duodec bomb, say, just far enough underground . . .”
“Nobody else thought of it, either, until just now,” Kinnison broke in. “However,
I’m not afraid of duodec—don’t see how they could control it accurately enough at this
three-dimensional distance. Too deep, it wouldn’t explode at all. What I don’t like to
think of, though, is a negasphere. Or a planet, perhaps.”
“Ideas? Suggestions?” the admiral snapped.
“No—I don’t know anything about that stuff. How about putting our Lenses on
Cardynge?”
“That’s a thought!” and in seconds they were in communication with Sir Austin
Cardynge, Earth’s mightiest mathematical brain.
“Kinnison, how many times must I tell you that I am not to be interrupted?” the
aged scientist’s thought was a crackle of fury. “How can I concentrate upon vital
problems if every young whippersnapper in the System is to perpetrate such
abominable, such outrageous intrusions . . .”
“Hold it, Sir Austin—hold everything!” Kinnison soothed. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t
have intruded if it hadn’t been a matter of life or death. But it would be. worse intrusion,
wouldn’t it, if the Boskonians sent a planet about the size of Jupiter—or a
negasphere—through one of their extra-dimensional vortices into your study? That’s
exactly what they’re figuring on doing.”
“What-what-what?” Cardynge snapped, like a string of firecrackers. He quieted
down, then, and thought. And Sir Austin Cardynge could think, upon occasion and when