First Lensman

Chapter 19

As Long as they were commodores, Clayton of North America and Schweikert of Europe had stayed fairly close to the home planet except for infrequent vacation trips. With the formation of the Galactic Patrol, however, and their becoming Admiral and Lieutenant–Admiral of the First Galactic Region, and their acquisition of Lenses, the radius of their sphere of action was tremendously increased. One or the other of them was always to be found in Grand Fleet Headquarters at New York Spaceport, but only very seldom were both of them there at once. And if the absentee were not to be found on Earth, what of it? The First Galactic Region included all of the solar systems and all of the planets adherent to Civilization, and the absentee could, as a matter of business and duty, be practically anywhere.

Usually, however, he was not upon any of the generally known planets, but upon Bennett getting acquainted with the officers, supervising the drilling of Grand Fleet in new maneuvers, teaching classes in advanced strategy, and holding skull–practice generally. It was hard work, and not too inspiring, but in the end it paid off big. They knew their men; their men knew them. They could work together with a snap, a smoothness, a precision otherwise impossible; for imported top brass, unknown to and unacquainted with the body of command, can not have and does not expect the deep regard and the earned respect so necessary to high morale.

Clayton and Schweikert had both. They started early enough, worked hard enough, and had enough stuff, to earn both. Thus it came about that when, upon a scheduled day, the two admirals came to Bennett together, they were greeted as enthusiastically as though they had been Bennettans born and bred; and their welcome became a planet–wide celebration when Clayton issued the orders which all Bennett had been waiting so long and so impatiently to hear. Bennettans were at last to leave Bennett!

Group after group, sub–fleet after sub–fleet, the component units of the Galactic Patrol's Grand Fleet took off. They assembled in space; they maneuvered enough to shake themselves down into some semblance of unity; they practiced the new maneuvers; they blasted off in formation for Sol. And as the tremendous armada neared the Solar System it met or, rather, was joined by the Patrol ships about which Morgan and his minions already knew; each of which fitted itself into its long–assigned place. Every planet of Civilization had sent its every vessel capable of putting out a screen or of throwing a beam, but so immense was the number of warships in Grand Fleet that this increment, great as it intrinsically was, made no perceptible difference in its size.

On Rally Day Grand Fleet lay poised near Earth. As soon as he had introduced Samms to the intensely interested listeners at the Rally, Roderick Kinnison disappeared. Actually, he drove a bug to a distant corner of the spaceport and left the Earth in a light cruiser, but to all intents and purposes, so engrossed was everyone in what Samms was saying, Kinnison simply vanished. Samms was already in the Boise; the Port Admiral went out to his old flagship, the Chicago. Nor, in case any observer of the Enemy should be trying to keep track of him, could his course be traced. Cleveland and Northrop and Rularion and all they needed of the vast resources of the Patrol saw to that.

Neither Samms nor Kinnison had any business being with Grand Fleet in person, of course, and both knew it; but everyone knew why they were there and were glad that the two top Lensmen had decided to live or die with their Fleet. If Grand Fleet won, they would probably live; if Grand Fleet lost they would certainly die if not in the pyrotechnic dissolution of their ships, then in a matter of days upon the ground. With the Fleet their presence would contribute markedly to morale. It was a chance very much worth taking.

Nor were Clayton and Schweikert together, or even near each other. Samms, Kinnison, and the two admirals were as far away from each other as they could, get and still remain in Grand Fleet's fighting .cylinder.

Cylinder? Yes. The Patrol's Board of Strategy, assuming that the enemy would attack in conventional cone formation and knowing that one cone could defeat another only after a long and costly engagement, bad long since spent months and months at war–games in their tactical tanks, in search of a better formation. They had found it. Theoretically, a cylinder of proper composition could defeat, with negligible loss and in a very short time, the best cones they were able to devise. The drawback was that the ships composing a theoretically efficient cylinder would have to be highly specialized and vastly greater in number than any one power had ever been able to put into the ether. However, with all the resources of Bennett devoted to construction, this difficulty would not be insuperable.

This, of course, brought up the question of what would happen if cylinder met cylinder if the Black strategists should also have arrived at the same solution and this question remained unanswered. Or, rather, there were too many answers, no two of which agreed; like those to the classical one of what would happen if an irresistible force should strike an immovable object. There would be a lot of intensely interesting byproducts!

Even Rularion of Jove did not come up with a definite solution. Nor did Bergenholm; who, although a comparatively obscure young Lensman–scientist and not a member of the Galactic Council, was frequently called into consultation because of his unique ability to arrive at correct conclusions via some obscurely short–circuiting process of thought.

"Well," Port Admiral Kinnison had concluded, finally, "If they've got one, too, we'll just have to shorten ours up, widen it out, and pray."

"Clayton to Port Admiral Kinnison," came a communication through channels. "Have you any additional orders or instructions?"

"Kinnison to Admiral Clayton. None," the Port Admiral replied, as formally, then went on via Lens: "No comment or criticism to make, Alex. You fellows have done a job so far and you'll keep on doing one. How much detection have you got out?"

"Twelve detets three globes of diesels. If we sit here and do nothing the boys will get edgy and go stale, so if you and Virge agree we'll give 'em some practice. Lord knows they need it, and it'll keep 'em on their toes. But about the Blacks they may be figuring on delaying any action until we've had time to crack from boredom. What's your idea on that?"

"I've been worried about the same thing. Practice will help, but whether enough or not I don't know. What do you think, Virge? Will they hold it up deliberately or strike fast?"

"Fast," the First Lensman replied, promptly and definitely. "As soon as they possibly can, for several reasons. They don't know our real strength, any more than we know theirs. They undoubtedly believe, however, the same. as we do, that they are more efficient than we are and have the larger force. By their own need of practice they will know ours. They do not attach nearly as much importance to morale as we do; by the very nature of their regime they can't. Also, our open challenge will tend very definitely to force their hands, since face–saving is even more important to them than it is to us. They will strike as soon as they can and as hard as they can."

Grand Fleet maneuvers were begun, but in a day or so the alarms came blasting in. The enemy had been detected; coming in, as the previous Black Fleet had come, from the direction of Coma Berenices. Calculating machines clicked and whirred; orders were flashed, and a brief string of numbers; ships by the hundred and the thousands flashed into their assigned positions.

Or, more precisely, almost into them. Most of the navigators and pilots had not had enough practice yet to hit their assigned positions exactly on the first try, since a radical change in axial direction was involved, but they did pretty well; a few minutes of juggling and jockeying were enough. Clayton and Schweikert used a little caustic language via Lens and to their fellow Lensmen only, of course but Samms and Kinnison were well enough pleased. The time of formation had been very satisfactorily short and the cone was smooth, symmetrical, and of beautifully uniform density.

The preliminary formation was a cone, not a cylinder. It was not a conventional Cone of Battle in that it was not of standard composition, was too big, and had altogether too many ships for its size. It was, however, of the conventional shape, and it was believed that by the time the enemy could perceive any significant differences it would be too late for him to do anything about it. The cylinder would be forming about that time, anyway, and it was almost believed at least it was strongly hoped that the enemy would not have the time or the knowledge or the equipment to do anything about that, either.

Kinnison grinned to himself as his mind, en rapport with Clayton's, watched the enemy's Cone of Battle enlarge upon the Admiral's conning plate. It was big, and powerful; the Galactic Patrol's publicly–known forces would have stood exactly the chance of the proverbial snowball in the nether regions. It was not, however, the Port Admiral thought, big enough to form an efficient cylinder, or to handle the Patrol's real force in any fashion and unless they shifted within the next second or two it would be too late for the enemy to do anything at all.

As though by magic about ninety five percent of the Patrol's tremendous cone changed into a tightly–packed double cylinder. This maneuver was much simpler than the previous one, and had been practiced to perfection. The mouth of the cone closed in and lengthened; the closed end opened out and shortened. Tractors and pressors leaped from ship to ship, binding the whole myriad of hitherto discrete units into a single structure as solid, even comparatively as to size, as a cantilever bridge. And instead of remaining quiescent, waiting to be attacked, the cylinder flashed forward, inertialess, at maximum blast.

Throughout the years the violence, intensity, and sheer brute power of offensive weapons had increased steadily. Defensive armament had kept step. One fundamental fact, however, had not changed throughout the ages and has not changed yet. Three or more units of given power have always been able to conquer one unit of the same power, if engagement could be forced and no assistance could be given; and two units could practically always do so. Fundamentally, therefore, strategy always has been and still is the development of new artifices and techniques by virtue of which two or more of our units may attack one of theirs; the while affording the minimum of opportunity for them to retaliate in kind.

The Patrol's Grand Fleet flashed forward, almost exactly along the axis of the Black cone; right where the enemy wanted it or so he thought. Straight into the yawning mouth, erupting now a blast of flame beside which the widest imaginings of Inferno must pale into insignificance; straight along that raging axis toward the apex, at the terrific speed of the two directly opposed velocities of flight. But, to the complete consternation of the Black High Command, nothing much happened. For, as has been pointed out, that cylinder was not of even approximately normal composition. In fact, there was not a normal war– vessel in it. The outer skin and both ends of the cylinder were purely defensive. Those vessels, packed so closely that their repellor fields actually touched, were all screen; none of them had a beam hot enough to light a match. Conversely, the inner layer, or "Liner", was composed of vessels that were practically all offense. They had to be protected at every point but how they could ladle it out!

The leading and trailing edges of the formation the ends of the gigantic pipe, so to speak would of course bear the brunt of the Black attack, and it was this factor that had given the Patrol's strategists the most serious concern. Wherefore the first ten and the last six double rings of ships were special indeed. They were all screen nothing else. They were drones, operated by remote control, carrying no living thing. If the Patrol losses could be held to eight double rings of ships at the first pass and four at the second theoretical computations indicated losses of six and two Samms and his fellows would be well content.

All of the Patrol ships had, of course, the standard equipment of so– called "violet", "green", and "red" fields, as well as duodecaplylatomate and ordinary atomic bombs, dirigible torpedoes and transporters, slicers, polycyclic drills, and so on; but in this battle the principal reliance was to be placed upon the sheer, brutal, overwhelming power of what had been called the "macro beam" now simply the "beam". Furthermore, in the incredibly incandescent frenzy of the chosen field of action the cylinder was to attack the cone at its very strongest part no conceivable material projectile could have lasted a single microsecond after leaving the screens of force of its parent vessel. It could have flown fast enough; ultra–beam trackers could have steered it rapidly enough and accurately enough; but before it could have traveled a foot, even at ultra–light speed, it would have ceased utterly to be. It would have been resolved into its sub–atomic constituent particles and waves. Nothing material could exist, except instantaneously, in the field of force filling the axis of the Black's Cone of Battle; a field beside which the exact center of a multi– billion–volt flash of lightning would constitute a dead area.

That field, however, encountered no material object. The Patrol's "screeners", packed so closely as to have a four hundred percent overlap, had been designed to withstand precisely that inconceivable environment. Practically all of them withstood it. And in a fraction of a second the hollow forward end of the cylinder engulfed, pipe–wise, the entire apex of the enemy's war–cone, and the hitherto idle "sluggers" of the cylinder's liner went to work.

Each of those vessels had one heavy pressor beam, each having the same push as every other, directed inward, toward the cylinder's axis, and backward at an angle of fifteen degrees from the perpendicular line between ship and axis. Therefore, wherever any Black ship entered the Patrol's cylinder or however, it was driven to and held at the

axis and forced backward along that axis. None of them, however, got very far. They were perforce in single file; one ship opposing at least one solid ring of giant sluggers who did not have to concern themselves with defense, but could pour every iota of their tremendous resources into offensive beams. Thus the odds were not merely two or three to one; but never less than eighty, and very frequently over two hundred to one.

Under the impact of those unimaginable torrents of force the screens of the engulfed vessels flashed once, practically instantaneously through the spectrum, and went down. Whether they had two or three or four courses made no difference in fact, even the ultra–speed analyzers of the observers could not tell. Then, a couple of microseconds later, the wall–shields the strongest fabrics of force developed by man up to that time also failed. Then those ravenous fields of force struck bare, unprotected metal, and every molecule, inorganic and organic, of ships and contets alike, disappeared in a bursting flare of energy so raw and so violent as to stagger even those who had brought it into existence. It was certainly vastly more than a mere volatilization; it was deduced later that the detonating unstable isotopes of the Black's own bombs, in the frightful temperatures already existing in the Patrol's quasi– solid beams, had initiated a chain reaction which had resulted in the fissioning of a considerable proportion of the atomic nuclei of usually completely stable elements!

The cylinder stopped; the Lensmen took stock. The depth of erosion of the leading edge had averaged almost exactly six double rings of drones. In places the sixth ring was still intact; in others, which had encountered unusually concentrated beaming, the seventh was gone. Also, a fraction of one percent of the manned war–vessels had disappeared. Brief though the time of engagement had been, the enemy had been able to concentrate enough beams to burn a few holes through the walls of the attacking cylinder.

It had not been hoped that more than a few hundreds of Black vessels could be blown out of the ether at this first pass. General Staff had been sure, however, that the heaviest and most dangerous ships, including those carrying the enemy's High Command, would be among them. The midsection of the apex of the conventional Cone of Battle had always been the safest place to be; therefore that was where the Black admirals had been and therefore they no longer lived.

In a few seconds it became clear that if any Black High Command existed, it was not in shape to function efficiently. Some of the enemy ships were still blasting, with little or no concerted effort, at the regulation cone which the cylinder had left behind; a few were attempting to get into some kind of a formation, possibly to attack the Patrol's cylinder. Indecision was visible and rampant.

To turn that tremendous cylindrical engine of destruction around would have been a task of hours, but it was not necessary. Instead, each vessel cut its tractors and pressors, spun end for end, re–connected, and retraced almost exactly its previous course; cutting out and blasting into nothingness another "plug" of Black warships. Another reversal, another dash; and this time, so disorganized were the foes and so feeble the beaming, not a single Patrol vessel was lost. The Black fleet, so proud and so conquering of mien a few minutes before, had fallen completely apart.

"That's enough, Rod, don't you think?" Samms thought then. "Please order Clayton to cease action, so that we can hold a parley with their senior officers."

"Parley, ME" Kinnison's answering thought was a snarl. "We've got 'em going mop 'em up before they can pull themselves together! Parley be damned!"

"Beyond a certain point military action becomes indefensible butchery, of which our Galactic Patrol will never be guilty. That point has now been reached. If you do not agree with me, I'll be glad to call a Council meeting to decide which of us is right."

"That isn't necessary. You're right that's one reason I'm not First Lensman." The Port Admiral, fury and fire ebbing from his mind, issued orders; the Patrol forces hung motionless in space. "As President of the Galactic Council, Virge, take over."

Spy–rays probed and searched; a communicator beam was sent. Virgil Samms spoke aloud, in the lingua franca of deep space.

"Connect me, please, with the senior officer of your fleet."

There appeared upon Samms' plate a strong, not unhandsome face; deepstamped with the bitter hopelessness of a strong man facing certain death.

"You've got us. Come on and finish us."

"Some such indoctrination was to be expected, but I anticipate no trouble in convincing you that you have been grossly misinformed in everything you have been told concerning us; our aims, our ethics, our morals, and our standards of conduct. There are, I assume, other surviving officers of your rank, although of lesser seniority?"

"There are ten other vice–admirals, but I am in command. They will obey my orders or die."

"Nevertheless, they shall be heard. Please go inert, match our intrinsic velocity, and come aboard, all eleven of you. We wish to explore with all of you the possibilities of a lasting peace between our worlds."

"Peace? Bah! Why lie?" The Black commander's expression did not change. "I know what you are and what you do to conquered races. We prefer a clean, quick death in your beams to the kind you deal out in your torture rooms and experimental laboratories. Come ahead I intend to attack you as soon as I can make a formation."

"I repeat, you have been grossly, terribly, shockingly misinformed." Samms' voice was quiet and steady; his eyes held those of the other. "We are civilized men, not barbarians or savages. Does not the fact that we ceased hostilities so soon mean anything to you?"

For the first time the stranger's face changed subtly, and Samms pressed the slight advantage.

"I see it does. Now if you will converse with me mind to mind…" The First Lensman felt for the man's ego and began to tune to it, but this was too much.

"I will not!" The Black put up a solid block. "I will have nothing to do with your cursed Lens. I know what it is and will have none of it!"

"Oh, what's the use, Virge!" Kinnison snapped. "Let's get on with it!"

"A great deal of use, Rod," Samms replied, quietly. "This is a turning– point. I must be right I can't be that far wrong," and he again turned his attention to the enemy commander.

"Very well, sir, we will continue to use spoken language. I repeat, please come aboard with your ten fellow vice–admirals. You will not be asked to surrender. You will retain your side–arms as long as you make no attempt to use them. Whether or not we come to any agreement, you will be allowed to return unharmed to your vessels before the battle is resumed."

"What? Side–arms? Returned? You swear it?"

"As President of the Galactic Council, in the presence of the highest officers of the Galactic Patrol as witnesses, I swear it."

"We will come aboard."

"Very well. I will have ten other Lensmen and officers here with me."

The Boise, of course, inerted first; followed by the Chicago and nine of the tremendous tear–drops from Bennett. Port Admiral Kinnison and nine other Lensmen joined Samms in the Boise's con room; the tight formation of eleven Patrol ships blasted in unison in the space courtesy of meeting the equally tight formation of Black warships half–way in the matter of intrinsic velocity.

Soon the two little sub–fleets were motionless in respect to each other. Eleven Black gigs were launched. Eleven Black vice–admirals came aboard, to the accompaniment of the full military honors customarily granted to visiting admirals of friendly powers. Each was armed with what seemed to be an exact duplicate of the Patrol's own current blaster; Lewiston, Mark Seventeen. In the lead strode the tall, heavy, gray–haired man with whom Samms had been dealing; still defiant, still sullen, still concealing sternly his sheer desperation. His block was still on, full strength.

The man next in line was much younger than the leader, 'much less wrought up, much more intent. Samms felt for this man's ego, tuned to it, and got the shock of his life. This Black vice–admiral's mind was not at all what he had expected to encounter it was; in every respect, of Lensman grade!

"Oh…how? You are not speaking, and…I see…the Lens…THE LENS!"

The stranger's mind was for seconds an utterly indescribable turmoil in which relief, gladness, and high anticipation struggled for supremacy.

In the next few seconds, even before the visitors had reached their places at the conference table, Virgil Samms and Corander of Petrine exchanged thoughts which would require many thousands of words to express; only a few of which are necessary here.

"Me LENS…I have dreamed of such a thing, without hope of realization or possibility. How we have been misled! They are, then, actually available upon your world, Samms of Tellus?"

"Not exactly, and not at all generally," and Samms explained as he had explained so many times before. "You will wear one sooner than you think. But as to ending this warfare. You survivors are practically all natives of your own world. Petrine?"

"Not 'practically', we are Petrinos all. The 'teachers' were all in the Center. Many remain upon Petrine and its neighboring worlds, but none remain alive here."

"Ohlanser, then, who assumed command, is also a Petrino? So hard–headed, I had assumed otherwise. He will be a stumbling–block. Is he actually in supreme command?"

"Only by and with our consent, under such astounding circumstances as these. He is a reactionary, of the old, diehard, war–dog school. He would ordinarily be in supreme command and would be supported by the teachers if any were here; but I will challenge his authority and theirs; standing upon my right to command my own fleet as I see fit. So will, I think, several others. So go ahead with your meeting."

"Be seated, Gentlemen." All saluted punctiliously and sat down. "Now, Vice– Admiral Ohlanser…"

"How do you, a stranger, know my name?"

"I know many things. We have a suggestion to offer which, if you Petrinos will follow it, will end this warfare. First, please believe that we have no designs upon your planet, nor any quarrel with any of its people who are not hopelessly contaminated by the ideas and the culture of the entities who are back of this whole movement; quite possibly those whom you refer to as the 'teachers'. You did not know whom you were to fight, or why." This was a statement, with no hint of question about it.

"I see now that we did not know all the truth," Ohlanser admitted, stiffly. "We were informed, and given proof sufficient to make us believe, that you were monsters from outer space rapacious, insatiable, senselessly and callously destructive to all other forms of intelligent life."

"We suspected something of the kind. Do you others agree? Vice–Admiral Corander?"

"Yes. We were shown detailed and documented proofs; stereos of battles, in which no quarter was given. We saw system after system conquered, world after world laid waste. We were made to believe that our only hope of continued existence was to meet you and destroy you in space; for if you were allowed to reach Petrine every man, woman, and child on the planet would either be killed outright or tortured to death. I see now that those proofs were entirely false; completely vicious."

"They were. Those who spread that lying propaganda and all who support their organization must be and shall be weeded out. Petrine must be and shall be given her rightful place in the galactic fellowship of free, independent, and cooperative worlds. So must any and all planets whose peoples wish to adhere to Civilization instead of to tyranny and despotism. To further these ends, we Lensmen suggest that you re–form your fleet and .proceed to Arisia…"

"Arisia!" Ohlanser did not like the idea.

"Arisia," Samms insisted. "Upon leaving Arisia, knowing vastly more than you do now, you will return to your home planet, where you will take whatever steps you will then know to be necessary."

"We were told that your Lenses are hypnotic devices," Ohlanser sneered, "designed to steal away and destroy the minds of any who listen to you. I believe that, fully. I will not go to Arisia, nor will any part of Petrine's Grand Fleet. I will not attack my home planet. I will not do battle against my own people. This is final."

"I am not saying or implying that you should. But you continue to close your mind to reason. How about you, Vice–Admiral Corander? And you others?"

In the momentary silence Samms put himself en rapport with the other officers, and was overjoyed at what he learned.

"I do not agree with Vice–Admiral Ohlanser," Corander said, flatly. "He commands, not Grand Fleet, but his subfleet merely, as do we all. I will lead my sub–fleet to Arisia."

"Traitor!" Ohlanser shouted. He leaped to his feet and drew his blaster, but a tractor beam snatched it from his grasp before he could fire.

"You were allowed to wear side–arms, not to use them," Samms said, quietly. "How many of you others agree with Corander; how many with Ohlanser?"

All nine voted with the younger man.

"Very well. Ohlanser, you may either accept Corander's leadership or leave this meeting now and take your sub–fleet directly back to Petrine. Decide now which you prefer to do."

"You mean you aren't going to kill me, even now? Or even degrade me, or put me under arrest?"

"I mean exactly that. What is your decision?"

"In that case…I was must have been wrong. I will follow Corander."

"A wise choice. Corander, you already know what to expect; except that four or five other Petrinos now in this room will help you, not only in deciding what must be done upon Petrine, but also in the doing of it. This meeting will adjourn."

"But…no reprisals?" Corander, in spite of his newly acquired knowledge, was dubious, almost dumbfounded. "No invasion or occupation? No indemnities to your Patrol, or reparations? No punishment of us, our men, or our families?"

"None."

"That does not square up even with ordinary military usage "

"I know it. It does conform, however, to the policy of the Galactic Patrol which is to spread throughout our island universe."

"You are not even sending your fleet, or heavy units of it, with us, to see to it that we follow your instructions?"

"It is not necessary. If you need any form of help you will inform us of your requirements via Lens, as I am conversing with you now, and whatever you want will be supplied. However, I do not expect any such call. You and your fellows are capable of handling the situation. You will soon know the truth, and know that you know it; and when your housecleaning is done we will consider your application for representation upon the Galactic Council. Goodbye."

Thus the Lensmen particularly First Lensman Virgil Samms brought another sector of the galaxy under the aegis of Civilization.