Children of the Lens

by Edward E Smith

  At first this action was in ultra-slow motion. One millimeter per hour his drill advanced. Drill was synchronized precisely with screen, and so guarded as to give an alarm at a level of interference far below that necessary to energize any probable detector at the generators of the screen being attacked.

  Through defense after defense Nadreck made his cautious, indetectable way into the dome. It was a small base, as such things go; manned, as expected, by escapees from Onlo. Scum, too, for the most part; creatures of even baser and more violent passions than those upon whom he had worked in Kandron’s Onlonian stronghold. To keep those intractable entities in line during their brutally long tours of duty, a psychological therapist had been given authority second only to that of the base commander. That knowledge, and the fact that there was only one populated dome, made the Palainian come as close to grinning as one of his unsmiling race can.

  The psychologist wore a multiplex thought-screen, of course, as did everyone else; but that did not bother Nadreck. Kinnison had opened such screens many times; not only by means of his own hands, but also at various times by the use of a dog’s jaws, a spider’s legs and mandibles, and even a worm’s sinuous body. Wherefore, through the agency of a quasi-fourth-dimensional life form literally indescribable to three-dimensional man, Nadreck’s ego was soon comfortably ensconced in the mind of the Onlonian.

  That entity knew in detail every weakness of each of his personnel. It was his duty to watch those weaknesses, to keep them down, to condition each of his wards in such fashion that friction and strife would be minimized. Now, however, he proceeded to do exactly the opposite. One hated another. That hate became a searing obsession, requiring the concentration of every effort upon ways and means of destroying its objects. One feared another. That fear ate in, searing as it went, destroying every normality of outlook and of reason. Many were jealous of their superiors. This emotion, requiring as it does nothing except its own substance upon which to feed, became a fantastically spreading, caustically corrosive blight.

  To name each ugly, noisome passion or trait resident in that dome is to call the complete roster of the vile; and calmly, mercilessly, unmovedly, ultra-efficiently, Nadreck manipulated them all. As though he were playing a Satanic organ he touched a nerve here, a synapse there, a channel somewhere else, bringing the whole group, with the lone exception of the commander, simultaneously to the point of explosion. Nor was any sign of this perfect work evident externally; for everyone there, having lived so long under the iron code of Boskonia, knew exactly the consequences of any infraction of that code.

  The moment came when passion overmastered sense. One of the monsters stumbled, jostling another. That nudge became, in its recipient’s seething mind, a lethal attack by his bitterest enemy. A forbidden projector flamed viciously: the offended one was sating his lust so insensately that he scarcely noticed the bolt that in turn rived away his own life. Detonated by this incident, the personnel of the base exploded as one. Blasters raved briefly; knives and swords bit and slashed; improvised bludgeons crashed against preselected targets; hard-taloned appendages gouged and tore. And Nadreck, who had long since withdrawn from the mind of the psychologist, timed with a stop-watch the duration of the whole grisly affair, from the instant of the first stumble to the death of the last Onlonian outside the commander’s locked and armored sanctum. Ninety-eight and three-tenths seconds. Good—a nice job.

  The commander, as soon as it was safe to do so, rushed out of his guarded room to investigate. Amazed, disgruntled, dismayed by the to him completely inexplicable phenomenon he had just witnessed, he fell an easy prey to the Palainian Lensman. Nadreck invaded his mind and explored it, channel by channel; finding—not entirely unexpectedly—that this Number One knew nothing whatever of interest.

  Nadreck did not destroy the base. Instead, after setting up a small instrument in the commander’s private office, he took that unfortunate wight aboard his speedster and drove off into space. He immobilized his captive, not by loading him with manacles, but by deftly severing a few essential nerve trunks. Then he really studied the Onlonian’s mind—line by line, this time; almost cell by cell. A master—almost certainly Kandron himself—had operated here. There was not the slightest trace of tampering; no leads to or indications of what the activating stimulus would have to be; all that the fellow now knew was that it was his job to hold his base inviolate against any and every form of intrusion and to keep that speedster flitting around all over space on a director-by-chance as much as possible of the time, leaking slightly a certain signal now and then.

  Even under this microscopic re-examination, he knew nothing whatever of Kandron; nothing of Onlo or of Thrale; nothing of any Boskonian organization, activity, or thing; and Nadreck, although baffled still, remained undisturbed. This trap, he thought, could almost certainly be used against the trapper. Until a certain call came through his relay in the base, he would investigate the planets of this system.

  During the investigation a thought impinged upon his Lens from Karen Kinnison, one of the very few warm-blooded beings for whom he had any real liking or respect.

  “Busy, Nadreck?” she asked, as casually as though she had just left him.

  “In large, yes. In detail and at the moment, no. Is there any small problem in which I can be of assistance?”

  “Not small—big. I just got the funniest distress call I ever heard or heard of. On a high band—way, ’way up—there. Do you know of any race that thinks on that band?”

  “I do not believe so.” He thought for a moment. “Definitely, no.”

  “Neither do I. It wasn’t broadcast, either, but was directed at any member of a special race or tribe—very special. Classification, straight Z’s to ten or twelve places, she—or it—seemed to be trying to specify.”

  “A frigid race of extreme type, adapted to an environment having a temperature of approximately one degree absolute.”

  “Yes. Like you, only more so.” Kay paused, trying to put into intelligible thought a picture inherently incapable of reception or recognition by her as yet strictly three-dimensional intelligence. “Something like the Eich, too, but not much. Their visible aspect was obscure, fluid…amorphous… Indefinite?…skip it—I couldn’t really perceive it, let alone describe it I wish you had caught that thought.”

  “I wish so, too—it is very interesting. But tell me—if the thought was directed, not broadcast, how could you have received it?”

  “That’s the funniest part of the whole thing.” Nadreck could feel the girl frown in concentration. “It came at me from all sides at once—never felt anything like it. Naturally I started feeling around for the source—particularly since it was a distress signal—but before I could get even a general direction of the origin it…it…well, it didn’t really disappear or really weaken, but something happened to it. I couldn’t read it any more—and that really did throw me for a loss.” She paused, then went on. “It didn’t so much go away as go down, some way or other. Then it vanished completely, without really going anywhere. I’m not making myself clear—I simply can’t—but have I given you enough leads so that you can make any sense at all out of any part of it?”

  “I’m very sorry to say that I can not.”

  Nor could he, ever, for excellent reasons. That girl had a mind whose power, scope, depth, and range she herself did not, could not even dimly understand; a mind to be fully comprehended only by an adult of her own third level. That mind had in fact received in toto a purely fourth-dimensional thought. If Nadreck had received it, he would have understood it and recognized it for what it was only because of his advanced Arisian training—no other Palainian could have done so—and it would have been sheerly unthinkable to him that any warm-blooded and therefore strictly three-dimensional entity could by any possibility receive such a thought; or, having received it, could understand any part of it. Nevertheless, if he had really concentrated the full powers of his mind upon the girl’s attempted description, he might very
well have recognized in it the clearest possible three-dimensional delineation of such a thought; and from that point he could have gone on to a full understanding of the Children of the Lens.

  However, he did not so concentrate. It was constitutionally impossible for him to devote real mental effort to any matter not immediately pertaining to the particular task in hand. Therefore neither he nor Karen Kinnison were to know until much later that she had been en rapport with one of Civilization’s bitterest, most implacable foes; that she had seen with clairvoyant and telepathic accuracy the intrinsically three-dimensionally-indescribable form assumed in their winter by the horrid, the monstrous inhabitants of that viciously hostile world, the unspeakable planet Ploor!

  “I was afraid you couldn’t.” Kay’s thought came clear. “That makes it all the more important—important enough for you to drop whatever you’re doing and join me in getting to the bottom of it, if you could be made to see it, which of course you can’t.”

  “I am about to take Kandron, and nothing in the Universe can be as important as that,” Nadreck stated quietly, as a simple matter of fact. “You have observed this that lies here?”

  “Yes.” Karen, en rapport with Nadreck, was of course cognizant of the captive, but it had not occurred to her to mention this monster. When dealing with Nadreck she, against all the tenets of her sex, exhibited as little curiosity as did the coldly emotionless Lensman himself. “Since you bid so obviously for the question, why are you keeping it alive—or rather, not dead?”

  “Because he is my sure link to Kandron.” If Nadreck of Palain ever was known to gloat, it was then. “He is Kandron’s creature, placed by Kandron personally as an agency of my destruction. Kandron’s brain alone holds the key compulsion which will restore his memories. At some future time—perhaps a second from now, perhaps a cycle of years—Kandron will use that key to learn how his minion fares. Kandron’s thought will energize my re-transmitter in the dome; the compulsion will be forwarded to this still-living brain. The brain, however, will be in my speedster, not in that undamaged fortress. You now understand why I cannot stray far from this being’s base; you should see that you should join me instead of me joining you.”

  “No; not definite enough,” Karen countered decisively, “I can’t see myself passing up a thing like this for the opportunity of spending the next ten years floating around in an orbit, doing nothing. However, I check you to a certain extent—when and if anything really happens, shoot me a thought and I’ll rally ’round.”

  The linkage broke without formal adieus. Nadreck went his way. Karen went hers. She did not, however, go far along the way she had had in mind. She was still precisely nowhere in her quest when she felt a thought, of a type that only her brother or an Arisian could send. It was Kit.

  “Hi, Kay!” A warm, brotherly contact. “How’r’ya doing, sis—are you growing up?”

  “Of course I’m grown up! What a question!”

  “Don’t get stiff, Kay, there’s method in this. Got to be sure.” All trace of levity gone, he probed her unmercifully. “Not too bad, at that, for a kid. As dad would express it, if he could feel you this way, you’re twenty-nine numbers Brinnell harder than a diamond drill. Plenty of jets for this job, and by the time the real one comes, you’ll probably be ready.”

  “Cut the rigmarole, Kit!” she snapped, and hurled a vicious bolt of her own. If Kit did not counter it as easily as he had handled her earlier efforts, he did not reveal the fact. “What job? What d’you think you’re talking about? I’m on a job now that I wouldn’t drop for Nadreck, and I don’t think I’ll drop it for you.”

  “You’ll have to.” Kit’s thought was grim. “Mother is going to have to go to work on Lyrane II. The probability is pretty bad that there is or will be something there that she can’t handle. Remote control is out, or I’d do it myself, but I can’t work on Lyrane II in person. Here’s the whole picture—look it over. You can see, sis, that you’re elected, so hop to it.”

  “I won’t!” she stormed. “I can’t—I’m too busy. How about asking Con, or Kat, or Cam?”

  “They don’t fit the picture,” he explained patiently—for him. “In this case hardness is indicated, as you can see for yourself.”

  “Hardness, phooey!” she jeered. “To handle Ladora of Lyrane? She thinks she’s a hard-boiled egg, I know, but…”

  “Listen, you bird-brained knot-head!” Kit cut in, venomously. “You’re fogging the issue deliberately—stop it! I spread you the whole picture—you know as well as I do that while there’s nothing definite as yet, the thing needs covering and you’re the one to cover it. But no—just because I’m the one to suggest to or ask anything of you, you’ve always got to go into that damned mulish act of yours…”

  “Be silent, children, and attend!” Both flushed violently as Mentor came between them. “Some of the weaker thinkers here are beginning to despair of you, but my visualization of your development is still clear. To mold such characters as yours sufficiently, and yet not too much, is a delicate task indeed; but one which must and shall be done. Christopher, come to me at once, in person. Karen, I would suggest that you go to Lyrane and do there whatever you find necessary to do.”

  “I won’t—I’ve still got this job here to do!” Karen defied even the ancient Arisian sage.

  “That, daughter, can and should wait. I tell you solemnly, as a fact, that if you do not go to Lyrane you will never get the faintest clue to that which you now seek.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  Kalonia Becomes of Interest

  HRISTOPHER KINNISON DROVE toward Arisia, seething. Why couldn’t those damned sisters of his have sense to match their brains—or why couldn’t he have had some brothers? Especially—right now—Kay. If she had the sense of a Zabriskan fontema she’d know that this job was important and would snap into it, instead of wild-goose-chasing all over space. If he were Mentor he’d straighten her out. He had decided to straighten her out once himself, and he grinned wryly to himself at the memory of what had happened. What Mentor had done to him, before he even got started, was really rugged. What he would like to do, next time he got within reach of her, was to shake her until her teeth rattled.

  Or would he? Uh-uh. By no stretch of the imagination could he picture himself hurting any one of them. They were swell kids—in fact, the finest people he had ever known. He had rough-housed and wrestled with them plenty of times, of course—he liked it, and so did they. He could handle any one of them—he surveyed without his usual complacence his two-hundred-plus pounds of meat, bone, and gristle—he ought to be able to, since he outweighed them by fifty or sixty pounds; but it wasn’t easy. Worse than Valerians—just like taking on a combination of boa constrictor and cateagle—and when Kat and Con ganged up on him that time they mauled him to a pulp in nothing flat.

  But jet back! Weight wasn’t it, except maybe among themselves. He had never met a Valerian yet whose shoulders he couldn’t pin flat to the mat in a hundred seconds, and the smallest of them outweighed him two to one. Conversely, although he had never thought of it before, what his sisters had taken from him, without even a bruise, would have broken any ordinary women up into masses of compound fractures. They were—they must be—made of different stuff.

  His thoughts took a new tack. The kids were special in another way, too, he had noticed lately, without paying it any particular attention. It might tie in. They didn’t feel like other girls. After dancing with one of them, other girls felt like robots made out of putty. Their flesh was different. It was firmer, finer, infinitely more responsive. Each individual cell seemed to be endowed with a flashing, sparkling life; a life which, interlinking with that of one of his own cells, made their bodies as intimately one as were their perfectly synchronized minds.

  But what did all this have to do with their lack of sense? QX, they were nice people. QX, he couldn’t beat their brains out, either physically or mentally. But damn it all, there ought to be some way of driving some or
dinary common sense through their fine-grained, thick, hard, tough skulls!

  Thus it was that Kit approached Arisia in a decidedly mixed frame of mind. He shot through the barrier without slowing down and without notification. Inciting his ship, he fought her into an orbit around the planet. The shape of the orbit was immaterial, as long as its every inch was inside Arisia’s innermost screen. For young Kinnison knew precisely what those screens were and exactly what they were for. He knew that distance of itself meant nothing—Mentor could give anyone either basic or advanced treatments just as well from a distance of a thousand million parsecs as at hand to hand. The reason for the screens and for the personal visits was the existence of the Eddorians, who had minds probably as capable as the Arisians’ own. And throughout all the infinite reaches of the macro-cosmic Universe, only within these highly special screens was there certainty of privacy from the spying senses of the ultimate foe.

  “The time has come, Christopher, for the last treatment I am able to give you,” Mentor announced without preamble, as soon as Kit had checked his orbit.

  “Oh—so soon? I thought you were pulling me in to pin my ears back for fighting with Kay—the dim-wit!”

  “That, while a minor matter, is worthy of passing mention, since it is illustrative of the difficulties inherent in the project of developing, without over-controlling, such minds as yours. En route here, you made a masterly summation of the situation, with one outstanding omission.”

  “Huh? What omission? I covered it like a blanket!”

  “You assumed throughout, and still assume, as you always do in dealing with your sisters, that you are unassailably right; that your conclusion is the only tenable one; that they are always wrong.”

  “But damn it, they are! That’s why you sent Kay to Lyrane!”

  “In these conflicts with your sisters, you have been right in approximately half of the cases,” Mentor informed him.