Second Stage Lensmen

by Edward E Smith

  “We will let it pass for the moment. To come to your question, you apparently do not know that the Tyrant of Thrale, whoever he may be, opens his mind to me.”

  “I have suspected that such a condition has existed in the past. However, please be informed that I trust fully only those who fully trust me; and that thus far in my short life such persons have been few. You will observe that I am still respecting your privacy in that I am allowing your control of my sense of sight to continue. It is not because I trust you, but because your true appearance is to me a matter of complete indifference. For, frankly, I do not trust you at all. I will open my mind to you just exactly as wide as you will I open yours to me—no wider.”

  “Ah…the bravery of ignorance. It is as I thought. You do not realize, Gannel, that I can slay you at any moment I choose, or that a very few more words of defiance from you will be enough.” Fossten did not raise his voice, but his tone was instinct with menace.

  “I do not, and neither do you, as I remarked to the then Tyrant Alcon in this very room not long ago. I am sure that you will understand without elaboration the connotations and implications inherent in that remark.” Kinnison’s voice also was low and level, freighted in its every clipped syllable with the calm assurance of power. “Would you be interested in knowing why I am so certain that you will not accept my suggestion of a mutual opening of minds?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Because I suspect that you are, or are in league with, Star A Star of the Galactic Patrol.” Even at that astounding charge Fossten gave no sign of surprise or of shock. “I have not been able as yet to obtain any evidence supporting that belief, but I tell you now that when I do so, you die. Not by power of thought, either, but in the beam of my personal ray-gun.”

  “Ah—you interest me strangely,” and the premier’s hand strayed almost imperceptibly toward an inconspicuous button.

  “Don’t touch that switch!” Kinnison snapped. He did not quite see why Fossten was letting him see the maneuver, but he would bite, anyway.

  “Why not, may I ask? It is merely a…”

  “I know what it is, and I do not like thought-screens. I prefer that my mind be left free to roam.”

  Fossten’s thoughts raced in turn. Since the Tyrant was on guard, this was inconclusive. It might—or might not—indicate that Gannel was controlled by or in communication with Star A Star.

  “Do not be childish,” he chided. “You know as well as I do that your accusations are absurd. However, as I reconsider the matter, the fact that neither of us trusts unreservedly the other may not after all be an insuperable obstacle to our working together for the good of Boskonia. I think now more than ever that yours is the strongest Thralian mind, and as such the logical one to wield the Tyrant’s power. It would be a shame to destroy you unnecessarily, especially in view of the probability that you will come later of your own accord to see the reasonableness of that which I have suggested.”

  “It is possible,” Kinnison admitted, “but not, I would say, probable.” He thought that he knew why the lug had pulled in his horns, but he wasn’t sure. “Now that we have clarified our attitudes toward each other, have decided upon an armed and suspicious truce, I see nothing to prevent us from working together in a completely harmonious mutual distrust for the good of all. The first thing to do, as I see it, is to devote our every effort to the destruction of the planet Klovia and all the Patrol forces based upon it.”

  “Right.” If Fossten suspected that the Tyrant was somewhat less than frank he did not show it, and the conversation became strictly technical.

  “We must not strike until we are completely ready,” was Kinnison’s first statement, and he repeated it so often thereafter during the numerous conferences with the chiefs of staff that it came almost to be a slogan.

  The prime minister did not know that Kinnison’s main purpose was to give the Patrol plenty of time to make Klovia utterly impregnable. Fossten could know nothing of the Patrol’s sunbeam, to which even the mightiest fortress possible for man to build could offer scarcely more resistance than could the lightest, the most fragile pleasure yacht.

  Hence he grew more and more puzzled, more and more at a loss week by week, as Tyrant Gannel kept on insisting upon building up the strongest, the most logically perfect fleet which all the ability of their pooled brains could devise. Once or twice he offered criticisms and suggestions which, while defensible according to one theory, would actually have, weakened their striking power. These offerings Gannel rejected flatly; insisting, even to an out-and-out break with his co-administrator if necessary, upon the strongest possible armada.

  The Tyrant wanted, and declared that he must and would have, more and bigger of everything. More and heavier flying fortresses, more and stronger battleships and super-dreadnoughts, more and faster cruisers and scouts, more and deadlier weapons.

  “We want more of everything than our operations officers can possibly handle in battle,” he declared over and over; and he got them. Then:

  “Now, you operations officers, learn how to handle them!” he commanded.

  Even the prime minister protested at that, but it was finally accomplished. Fossten was a real thinker. So, in a smaller way, was Kinnison, and between them they worked out a system. It was crudeness and inefficiency incarnate in comparison with the Z9M9Z, but it was so much better than anything previously known to the Boskonians that everyone was delighted. Even the suspicious and cynical Fossten began to entertain some doubts as to the infallibility of his own judgment. Tyrant Gannel might be working under his own power, after all.

  And these doubts grew apace as the Tyrant drilled his Grand Fleet. He drove the personnel unmercifully, especially the operations officers; as relentlessly as he drove himself. He simply could not be satisfied, his ardor and lust for efficiency were insatiable. His reprimands were scathingly accurate; officer after officer he demoted bitingly during ever more complicated, ever more inhumanly difficult maneuvers; until finally he had what were unquestionably his best men in those supremely important positions. Then, one day:

  “QX, Kim, come ahead—we’re ready,” Haynes Lensed him, briefly.

  For Kinnison had been in touch with the Port Admiral every day. He had learned long since that the prime minister could not detect a Lensed thought, particularly when the Lensman was wearing a thought-screen, as he did practically constantly; wherefore the strategists of the Patrol were as well informed as was Kinnison himself of every move made by the Boskonians.

  Then Kinnison called Fossten, and was staring glumly at nothing when the latter entered the room.

  “Well, it would seem that we’re about as nearly ready as we ever will be,” the Tyrant brooded, pessimistically. “Have you any suggestions, criticisms, or other contributions to offer, of however minor a nature?”

  “None whatever. You have done very well indeed.”

  “Unnhh,” Gannel grunted, without enthusiasm. “You have observed, no doubt, that I have said little if anything as to the actual method of approach?”

  The prime minister had indeed noticed that peculiar oversight, and said so. Here, undoubtedly, he thought, was the rub. Here was where Star A Star’s minion would get in his dirty work.

  “I have thought about it at length,” Kinnison said, still in his brown study. “But I know enough to recognize and to admit my own limitations. I do know tactics and strategy, and thus far I have worked with known implements toward known objectives. That condition, however, no longer exists. The simple fact is that I do not know enough about the possibilities, the techniques and the potentialities, the advantages and the disadvantages of the hyper-spatial tube as an avenue of approach to enable me to come to a defensible decision one way or the other. I have decided, therefore, that if you have any preference in the matter I will give you full authority and let you handle the approach in any manner you please. I shall of course direct the actual battle, as in that I shall again be upon familiar ground.”

  The pre
mier was flabbergasted. This was incredible. Gannel must really be working for Boskonia after all, to make such a decision as that. Still skeptical, unprepared for such a startling development as that one was, he temporized.

  “The bad—the very bad—features of the approach via tube are two,” he pondered aloud. “We have no means of knowing anything about what happens; and, since our previous such venture was a total failure, we must assume that, contrary to our plans and expectations, the enemy was not taken by surprise.”

  “Right,” Kinnison concurred, tonelessly.

  “Upon the other hand, an approach via open space, while conducive to the preservation of our two lives, would be seen from afar and would certainly be met by an appropriate formation.”

  “Check,” came emotionlessly non-committal agreement.

  “Haven’t you the slightest bias, one way or the other?” Fossten demanded, incredulously.

  “None whatever,” the Tyrant was coldly matter-of-fact. “If I had had any such, I would have ordered the approach made in the fashion I preferred. Having none, I delegated authority to you. When I delegate authority I do so without reservations.”

  This was a stopper.

  “Let it be open space, then,” the prime minister finally decided.

  “So be it.” And so it was.

  Each of the component flotillas of Grand Fleet made a flying trip to some nearby base, where each unit was serviced. Every item of mechanism and of equipment was checked and rechecked. Stores were replenished, and munitions—especially munitions. Then the mighty armada, the most frightfully powerful aggregation ever to fly for Boskonia—the mightiest fleet ever assembled anywhere, according to the speeches of the politicians—remade its stupendous formation and set out for Klovia. And as it flew through space, shortly before contact was made with the Patrol’s Grand Fleet, the premier called Kinnison into the control room.

  “Gannel, I simply can not make you out,” he remarked, after studying him fixedly for five minutes. “You have offered no advice. You have not interfered with my handling of the Fleet in any way. Nevertheless, I still suspect you of treacherous intentions. I have been suspicious of you from the first…”

  “With no grounds whatever for your suspicions,” Kinnison reminded him, coldly.

  “What? With all the reason possible!” Fossten declared. “Have you not steadily refused to bare your mind to me?”

  “Certainly. Why not? Do we have to go over that again? Just how do you figure that I should so trust any being who refuses to reveal even his true shape to me?”

  “That is for your own good. I have not wanted to tell you this, but the truth is that no human being can perceive my true self and retain his sanity.”

  Fossten’s Eddorian mind flashed. Should he reveal this form of flesh, which was real enough, as Tellurians understood reality? Impossible. Star-A-Star-Gannel was no more Tellurian than Fossten was Thralian. He would not be satisfied with perceiving the flesh; he would bore in for the mind.

  “I’ll take a chance on that,” Kinnison replied, skeptically. “I’ve seen a lot of monstrous entities in my time and I haven’t conked out yet.”

  “There speaks the sheer folly of callow youth; the rashness of an ignorance so abysmal as to be possible only to one of your ephemeral race.” The voice deepened, became more resonant. Kinnison, staring into those inscrutable eyes which he knew did not in fact exist, thrilled forebodingly; the timbre and the overtones of that voice reminded him very disquietingly of something which he could not at the moment recall to mind. “I forbear to discipline you, not from any doubt as to my ability to do so, as you suppose, but because of the sure knowledge that breaking you by force will destroy your usefulness. On the other hand, it is certain that if you cooperate with me willingly you will be the strongest, ablest leader that Boskonia has ever had. Think well upon these matters, O Tyrant.”

  “I will,” the Lensman agreed, more seriously than he had intended. “But just what, if anything, has led you to believe that I am not working to the fullest and best of my ability for Boskonia?”

  “Everything,” Fossten summarized. “I have been able to find no flaws in your actions, but those actions do not fit in with your unexplained and apparently unexplainable reticence in letting me perceive for myself exactly what is in your mind. Furthermore, you have never even troubled to deny accusations that you are in fact playing a far deeper game than you appear upon the surface to be playing.”

  “That reticence I have explained over and over as an overmastering repugnance—call it a phobia if you like,” Kinnison rejoined, wearily. “I simply can’t and won’t. Since you cannot understand that, denials would have been entirely useless. Would you believe anything that I could possibly say—that I would swear by everything I hold sacred—whether it was that I am whole-heartedly loyal to Boskonia or that I am in fact Star A Star himself?”

  “Probably not,” came the measured reply. “No, certainly not. Men—especially men such as you, bent ruthlessly upon the acquisition of power—are liars…ah, could it, by any chance, be that the reason for your intractability is that you have the effrontery to entertain some insane idea of supplanting ME?”

  Kinnison jumped mentally. That tore it—that was a flare-lit tip-off. This man—this thing—being—entity—whatever he really was—instead of being just another Boskonian big shot, must be the clear quill—the real McCoy—BOSKONE HIMSELF! The end of the job must be right here! This was—must be—the real Brain for whom he had been searching so long; here within three feet of him sat the creature with whom he had been longing so fervently to come to grips!

  “The reason is as I have said,” the Tellurian stated, quietly. “I will attempt to make no secret, however, of a fact which you must already have deduced; that if and when it becomes apparent that you have any authority above or beyond that of the Tyrant of Thrale I shall take it away from you. Why not? Now that I have come so far, why should I not aspire to sit in the highest seat of all?”

  “Hrrummphhh!” the monster—Kinnison could no longer think of him as Fossten, or as the prime minister, or as anything even remotely human—snorted with such utter, such searing contempt that even the Lensman’s burly spirit quailed. “As well might you attempt to pit your vaunted physical strength against the momentum of an inert planet. Now, youth, have done. The time for temporizing is past. As I have said, I desire to spare you, as I wish you to rule this part of Boskonia as my viceroy. Know, however, that you are in no sense essential, and that if you do not yield your mind fully to mine, here and now, before this coming battle is joined, you most certainly die.” At the grim finality, the calmly assured certainty of the pronouncement, a quick chill struck into the Gray Lensman’s vitals.

  This thing who called himself Fossten…who or what was he? What was it that he reminded him of? He thought and talked like…like… MENTOR! But it couldn’t be an Arisian, possibly—that wouldn’t make sense… But then, it didn’t make any kind of sense, anyway, any way you looked at it… Whoever he was, he had plenty of jets—jets enough to lift a freighter off of the north pole of Valeria…and by the same token, his present line of talk didn’t make sense, either—there must be some good reason why he hadn’t made a real pass at him long before this, instead of arguing with him so patiently—what could it be?… Oh, that was it, of course… He needed only a few minutes more, now; he could probably stall off the final show-down that long by crawling a bit—much as it griped him to let this zwilnik think that he was licking his boots…

  “Your forebearance is appreciated, sire.” At the apparently unconscious tribute to superiority and at the fact that the hitherto completely self-possessed Tyrant got up and began to pace nervously up and down the control room, the prime minister’s austere mien softened appreciably. “It is, however, a little strange. It is not quite in character; it does not check quite satisfactorily with the facts thus far revealed. I may, perhaps, as you say, be stupid. I may be overestimating flagrantly my own abilities. To one o
f my temperament, however, to surrender in such a craven fashion as you demand comes hard—extremely, almost unbearably hard. It would be easier, I think, if Your Supremacy would condescend to reveal his true identity, thereby making plainly evident and manifest that which at present must be left to unsupported words, surmise, and not too much conviction.”

  “But I told you, and now tell you again, that for you to look upon my real form is to lose your reason!” the creature rasped.

  “What do you care whether or not I remain sane?” Kinnison shot his bolt at last, in what he hoped would be taken for a last resurgence of spirit. His time was about up. In less than one minute now the screens of scout cruisers would be in engagement, and either he or the prime minister or both would be expected to be devoting every cell of their brains to the all-important battle of giants. And in that very nick of time he would have to cripple the Bergenholms and thus inert the flagship. “Could it be that the real reason for your otherwise inexplicable forbearance is that you must know how my mind became as it now is, and that the breaking down of my barriers by mental force will destroy the knowledge which you, for your own security, must have?”

  This was the blow-off. Kinnison still paced the room, but his pacings took him nearer and ever nearer to a certain control panel. Behind his thought-screen, which he could not now trust, he mustered every iota of his tremendous force of mind and of will. Only seconds now. His left hand, thrust into his breeches pocket, grasped the cigarette case within which reposed his Lens. His right arm and hand were tensely ready to draw and to fire his weapon.

  “Die, then! I should have known from the sheer perfection of your work that you were what you really are—Star A Star!”

  The mental blast came ahead even of the first word, but the Gray Lensman, supremely ready, was already in action. One quick thrust of his chin flicked off the thought-screen. The shielded cigarette-case flew open, his more-than-half-alive Lens blazed again upon his massive wrist. His blaster leaped out of its scabbard, flaming destruction as it came—a ravening tongue of incandescent fury which licked out of existence in the twinkling of an eye the Bergenholms’ control panels and the operators clustered before it. The vessel went inert—much work would have to be done before the Boskonian flagship could again fly free!