bar of quasi-solid lightning into which there had been compressed all the energy of well
over four million tons per second of disintegrating matter.
Scouts and cruisers caught in that ravening beam flashed briefly, like sparks
flying from a forge, and vanished. Battleships and super-dreadnoughts the same. Even
the solid warhead of fortresses and maulers was utterly helpless. No screen has ever
been designed capable of handling that hellish load; no possible or conceivable
substance can withstand save momentarily the ardor of a sunbeam. For the energy
liberated by the total annihilation of four million tons per second of matter is in fact as
irresistible as it is incomprehensible.
The armed and armored planets did not disappear. They contained too much
sheer mass for even that inconceivably powerful beam to volitalize in any small number
of seconds. Their surfaces, however, melted and boiled. The controlling and powering
mechanisms fused into useless pools of molten metal. Inert, then, inactive and
powerless, they no longer constituted threats to Klovia’s well-being.
The negaspheres also were rendered ineffective by the beam. Their anti-masses
were not decreased, of course— in fact, they were probably increased a trifle by the
fervor of the treatment—but, with the controlling superstructures volatilized away, they
became more of menace to the Boskonian forces than to those of Civilization. Indeed,
several of the terrible things were drawn into contact with ruined planets. Then
negasphere and planet consumed each other, flooding all nearby space with intensely
hard and horribly lethal radiation.
The beam winked out; Klovia’s sun flashed on. The sunbeam was—and
is—clumsy, unwieldy, quite definitely not rapidly maneuverable. But it had done its work;
now the component parts of Civilization’s Grand Fleet started in to do theirs.
Since the Battle of Klovia—it was and still is called that, as though it were the
only battle which that warlike planet has ever seen—has been fought over in the
classrooms of practically every civilized planet of two galaxies, it would be redundant to
discuss it in detail here.
It was, of course, unique. No other battle like it has ever been fought, either
before or since—and let us hope that no other ever will be. It is studied by strategists,
who have offered many thousands of widely variant profundities as to what Port Admiral
Haynes should have done. Its profound emotional appeal, however, lies only and
sheerly in its unorthodoxy. For in the technically proper space battle there is no hand-to-
hand fighting, no purely personal heroism, no individual deeds of valor. It is a thing of
logic and of mathematics and of science, the massing of superior fire-power against a
well-chosen succession of weaker opponents. When the screens of a space-ship go
down that ship is done, her personnel only memories.
But here how different! With the supposed breakdown of the lines of
communication to the flagship, the sub-fleets carried on in formation. With the
destruction of the entire center, however, all semblance of organization or of
cooperation was lost. Every staff officer knew that no more orders would emanate from
the flagship. Each knew chillingly that there could be neither escape nor succor. The
captain of each vessel, thoroughly convinced that he knew vastly more than did his fleet
commander, proceeded to run the war to suit himself. The outcome was fantastic, so
utterly bizarre that the Z9M9Z and her trained coordinating officers were useless.
Science and tactics and the million lines of communication could do nothing against a
foe who insisted upon making it a ship-to-ship, yes, a man-to-man affair!
The result was the most gigantic dog-fight in the annals of military science.
Ships—Civilization’s perhaps as eagerly as Boskonia’s—cut off their projectors, cut off
their screens, the better to ram, to board, to come to grips personally with the enemy.
Scout to scout, cruiser to cruiser, battleship to battleship, the insane contagion spread.
Haynes and his staff men swore fulminantly, the Rigellians hurled out orders, but those
orders simply could not be obeyed. The dog-fight spread until it filled a good sixth of
Klovia’s entire solar system.
Board and storm! Armor—DeLameters—axes! The mad blood-lust of hand-to-
hand combat, the insensately horrible savagery of our pirate forbears, multiplied by
millions and spread out to fill a million million cubic miles of space!
Haynes and his fellows wept unashamed as they stood by helpless, unable to
avoid or to prevent the slaughter of so many splendid men, the gutting of so many
magnificent ships. It was ghastly—it was appalling—it was WAR!
And far from this scene of turmoil and of butchery lay Boskonia’s great flagship,
and in her control room Kinnison began to recover. He sat up groggily. He gave his
throbbing head a couple of tentative shakes. Nothing rattled. Good— he was QX, he
guessed, even if he did feel as limp as nine wet dishrags. Even his Lens felt weak; its
usually refulgent radiance was sluggish, wan, and dim. This had taken plenty out of
them, he reflected soberly; but he was mighty lucky to be alive. But he’d better get his
batteries charged. He couldn’t drive a thought across the room, the shape he was in
now, and he knew of only one brain in the universe Capable of straightening out this
mess.
After assuring himself that the highly inimical brain would not be able to function
normally for a long time to come, the Lensman made his way to the galley. He could
walk without staggering already—fine! There he fried himself a big, thick, rare
steak—his never-failing remedy for all the ills to which flesh is heir—and brewed a pot of
Thralian coffee; making it viciously, almost corrosively strong. And as he ate and drank
his head cleared magically. Strength flowed back into him in waves. His Lens flamed
into its normal splendor. He stretched prodigiously; inhaled gratefully a few deep
breaths. He was QX.
Back in the control room, after again checking up on the still quiescent brain—he
wouldn’t trust this Fossten as far as he could spit—he hurled a thought to far-distant
Arisia and to Mentor, its ancient sage.
“What’s an Arisian doing in this Second Galaxy, working against the Patrol? Just
what is somebody trying to pull off?” he demanded heatedly, and in a second of flashing
thought reported what had happened.
‘Truly, Kinnison of Tellus, my mind is not entirely capable,” the deeply resonant,
slow simulacrum of a voice resounded within the Lensman’s brain. The Arisian never
hurried; nothing whatever, apparently, not even such a cataclysmic upheaval as this,
could fluster or excite him. “It does not seem to be in accord with the visualization of the
Cosmic All which I hold at the moment that any one of my fellows is in fact either in the
Second Galaxy or acting antagonistically to the Galactic Patrol. It is, however, a truism
that hypotheses, theories, and visualizations must fit themselves to known or observed
facts, and even your immature mind is eminently able to report truly upon actualities.
But before I attempt to revise my visualization to conform to this admittedly peculiar
circumstance, we must be very sure indeed of our facts. Are you certain, youth, that the
being whom you have beaten into unconsciousness is actually an Arisian?”
“Certainly I’m certain!” Kinnison snapped. “Why, he’s enough like you to have
been hatched out of half of the same egg. Take a look!” and he knew that the Arisian
was studying every external and internal detail, part, and organ of the erstwhile Fossten
of Thrale.
“Ah, it would appear to be an Arisian, at that, youth,” Mentor finally agreed. “He
appears to be old, as you said— as old, perhaps, as I am. Since I have been of the
opinion that I am acquainted with every member of my race this will require some little
thought—allow me therefore, please, a moment of time.” The Arisian fell silent,
presently to resume: “I have it now. Many millions of years ago—so long ago that it was
with some little difficulty that I recalled it to mind—when I was scarcely more than an
infant, a youth but little older than myself disappeared from Arisia. It was determined
then that he was aberrant—insane—and since only an unusually capable mind can
predict truly the illogical workings of a diseased and disordered mind for even one year
in advance, it is not surprising that in my visualization that unbalanced youth perished
long ago. Nor is it surprising that I do not recognize him in the creature before you.”
“Well, aren’t you surprised that I could get the best of him?” Kinnison asked,
naively. He had really expected that Mentor would compliment him upon his prowess,
he figured that he had earned a few pats on the back; but here the old fellow was
mooning about his own mind and his own philosophy, and acting as though knocking off
an Arisian were something to be taken in stride. And it wasn’t, by half!
“No,” came the flatly definite reply. “You have a force of will, a totalizable and