and it was now proved, that the -Boskonian gunners, low-class as they were and driven
to their tasks like the slaves they were, would hesitate long enough before using tractor-
beams as pressors so that the Patrolmen could take their own bombs away from them!
For negative matter, it must be remembered, is the exact opposite of ordinary
matter. To it a pull is, or becomes, a push; the tractor beam which pulls ordinary matter
toward its projector actually pushed negative matter away.
The “boys” of the Patrol knew that fact thoroughly. They knew all about what they
were doing, and why. They were there because they wanted to be, as Illona had so
astoundingly found out, and they worked with their officers, not because of them. With
the Patrol’s gun-crews it was a race to see which crew could capture the first bomb and
the most.
Aboard the Boskonian how different it was! There the dumb cattle had been told
what to do, but not why. They did not know the fundamental mechanics of the bomb-
tubes they operated by rote; did not know that they were essentially tractor-beam
projectors. They did know, however, that tractor beams pulled things toward them; and
when they were ordered to swing their ordinary tractors upon the bombs which the
Patrolmen were so industriously taking away from them, they hesitated for seconds,
even under the lash.
This hesitation was fatal. Haynes’ gleeful gunners, staring through their special
finders, were very much on their toes; seconds were enough. Their fierce-driven tractors
seized the inimical bombs in mid-space, and before the Boskonians could be made to
act in the only possible opposition hurled them directly backward against the ships
which had issued them. Ordinary defensive screen did not affect them; repulsor screen,
meteorite- and wall-shields only sucked them inward the faster.
And ordinary matter and negative matter cannot exist in contact. In the instant of
touching, the two unite and disappear, giving rise to vast quantities of intensely hard
radiation. One negabomb was enough to put any cruiser out of action, but here there
were usually three or four at once. Sometimes as many as ten; enough almost, to
consume the total mass of a ship.
A bomb struck; ate in. Through solid armor it melted. Atmosphere rushed out, to
disappear en route—for air is normal matter. Along beams and trusses the hellish
hyper-sphere travelled freakishly, although usually in the direction of greatest mass. It
clung, greedily. Down stanchions it flowed; leaving nothing in its wake, flooding all
circumambient space with lethal emanations. Into and through converters. Into pressure
tanks, which blew up enthusiastically. Men’s bodies it did not seem to favor—not
massive enough, perhaps—but even them it did not refuse if offered. A Boskonian,
gasping frantically for air which was no longer there and already half mad, went
completely mad as he struck savagely at the thing and saw his hand and his arm to the
shoulder vanish instantaneously, as though they had never been.
Satisfied, Haynes wrenched his attention back to his tank. Most of his light
cruisers were through and in the clear; they were reporting by thousands. Losses were
very small. The conventional-type cruisers had won either by using the enemies’ own
bombs, as he had seen them used, or by means of their heavier armor and armament.
The bombers had won in almost every case; not by superior force, for in arms and
equipment they were to all intents and purposes identical with their opponents, but
because of their infinitely higher quality of personnel. To brief it, scarcely a handful of
Boskonia’s light cruisers got away.
The heavy cruisers came up, broke formation, and went doggedly to work. They
were the blockers. Each took one ship—a heavy cruiser or a battleship—out of the line,
and held it out. It tried to demolish it with every weapon it could swing, but even if it
could not vanquish its foe, it could and did hang on until some big bruiser of a battleship
could come up and administer the coup de grace.
And battleships and super-dreadnoughts were coming up in then: thousands and
their myriads. All of them, in fact, save enough to form a tight globe, packed screen to
screen, around the Z9M9Z.
Slowly, ponderously, inert, the war-head of maulers came crawling up. The
maulers and fortresses of the Boskonians were hopelessly outnumbered and were
badly scattered in position. Hence this meeting of the ultra-heavies was not really a
battle at all, but a slaughter. Ten or more of Haynes’ gigantic structures could
concentrate their entire combined fire-power upon any luckless one of the enemy; with
what awful effect it would be superfluous to enlarge upon.
When the mighty fortresses had done their work they en-globed the Z9M9Z,
enabling the guarding battleships to join their sister moppers-up; but there was very little
left to do. Civilization had again triumphed; and, this time, at very little cost. Some of the
pirates had escaped, of course; observers from afar might very well have had scanners
and recorders upon the entire conflict; but, whatever of news was transmitted or how,
Alcon of Thrale and Boskonia’s other master minds would or could derive little indeed of
comfort from the happenings of this important day.
“Well, that’s probably that—for a while, at least, don’t you mink?” Haynes asked
his Council of War.
It was decided that it was; that if Boskonia could not have mustered a heavier
center for her defensive action here, she would be in no position to make any really
important attack for months to come.
Grand Fleet, then, was re-formed; this time into a purely defensive and
exploratory formation. In the center, of course, was the Z9M9Z. Around her was a close-
packed quadruple globe of maulers. Outside of them in order, came sphere after sphere
of super-dreadnoughts, of battleships, of heavy cruisers, and of light cruisers. Then, not
in globe at all, but ranging far and wide, were the scouts. Into the edge of the nearest
spiral arm of the Second Galaxy the stupendous formation advanced, and along it it
proceeded at dead slow blast. Dead slow, to enable the questing scouts to survey
thoroughly each planet of every solar system as they came to it.
And finally an Earth-like planet was found. Several approximately Tellurian
worlds had been previously discovered and listed as possibilities; but this one was so
perfect that the search ended then and there. Apart from the shape of the continents
and the fact that there was somewhat less land-surface and a bit more salt water, it was
practically identical with Tellus. As was to be expected, its people were human to the
limit of classification. Entirely unexpectedly, however, the people of Klovia—which is as
close as English can come to the native name—were not zwilniks. They had never
heard of, nor had they ever been approached by, the Boskonians. Space-travel was to
them only a theoretical possibility, as was atomic energy.
They had no planetary organization, being still divided politically into sovereign
states which were all too often at war with each other. In fact, a world war had just
burned itself out, a war of such savagery that only a fraction of the world’s population
remained alive. There had been no victor, of course. All had lost everything—the
survivors of each nation, ruined as they were and without either organization or
equipment, were trying desperately to rebuild some semblance of what they had once
had.
Upon learning these facts the psychologists of the Patrol breathed deep sighs of
relief. This kind of thing was made to order; civilizing this planet would be simplicity
itself. And it was. The Klovians did not have to be overawed by a show of superior force.
Before this last, horribly internecine war, Klovia had been a heavily industrialized world,
and as soon as the few remaining inhabitants realized what Civilization had to offer, that
no one of their neighboring competitive states was to occupy a superior position, and
that full, worldwide production was to be resumed as soon as was humanly possible,
their relief and joy were immeasurable.
Thus the Patrol took over without difficulty. But they were, the Lensmen knew,
working against time. As soon as the zwilniks could get enough heavy stuff built they
would attack, grimly determined to blast Klovia and everything upon it out of space.
Even though they had known nothing about the planet previously, it was idle to hope
that they were still in ignorance either of its existence or of what was in general going on
there.
Haynes’ first care was to have the heaviest metalry of the Galactic Patrol—loose
planets, negaspheres, sunbeams, fortresses, and the like—rushed across the void to
Klovia at maximum. Then, as well as putting every employable of the new world to work,
at higher wages than he had ever earned before, the Patrol imported millions upon
millions of men, with their women and families, from hundreds of Earth-like planets in