Second Stage Lensmen - Kostenloses Hörbuch

The flagship landed, her madly blasting jets died out. A car of state rolled grandly up. Air locks opened. Kinnison and his bodyguards seated themselves in the car. Helicopters appeared above the stands and above the massed crowds thronging the western approaches to the field; hovering, flitting slowly and watchfully about.

Then from the flagship there emerged an incredible number of armed and armored soldiers. One small column of these marched behind the slowly moving car of state, but by far the greater number went directly to and through the imposing portals of the palace grounds. The people in general, gathered there to see a major spectacle, thought nothing of these circumstances—who were they to wonder at what the Tyrant of Thrale might choose to do?—but to Gannel's Council of Advisers they were extremely disquieting departures from the norm. There was, however, nothing that they could do about them, away out there in the grandstand; and they knew with a stark certainty what those helicopters had orders to do in case of any uprising or commotion anywhere in the crowd.

The car rolled slowly along before the fenced-back, wildly cheering multitudes, with blaring bands and the columns of armored spacemen marching crisply, swingingly behind it. There was nothing to indicate that those selected men were not Thralians; nothing whatever to hint that over a thousand of them were in fact Lensmen of the Galactic Patrol. And Kinnison, standing stiffly erect in his car, acknowledged gravely, with upraised right arm, the plaudits of his subjects.

The triumphal bus stopped in front of the most outthrust, the most ornate stand, and through loud-voiced amplifiers the Tyrant invited, as a signal honor, the twelve members of his Advisory Cabinet to ride with him in state to the palace. There were exactly twelve vacant seats in the great coach. The advisers would have to leave their bodyguards and ride alone with the Tyrant: even had there been room, it was unthinkable that any one else's personal killers could ride with the Presence. This was no honor, they knew chillingly, no matter what the mob might think—it looked much more like a death sentence. But what could they do? They glanced at their unarmored henchmen; then at the armor and the semiportables of Gannel's own heelers; then at the ranks of heavily armed and armored troopers; and finally at the 'copters now clustering thickly overhead, with the narrow snouts of needle-ray projectors very much in evidence.

They accepted.

It was in no quiet frame of mind, then, that they rode into the pretentious grounds of the palace. They felt no better when, as they entered the council chamber, they were seized and disarmed without a word having been spoken. And the world fairly dropped out from beneath them when Tyrant Gannel emerged from his armor with a Lens glowing upon his wrist.

"Yes, I am a Lensman," he gravely informed the stupefied but unshrinking Boskonians. "That is why I know that all twelve of you tried while I was gone to cut me down, in spite of all that I told you and all that you have seen me do. If it were still necessary for me to pose as Traska Gannel, I would have to kill you here and now for your treachery. That phase is, however, past.

"I am one of the Lensmen whose collective activities you have ascribed to 'the' Lensman or to Star A Star. All those others who came with me into the palace are Lensmen. All those outside are either Lensmen or tried and seasoned veterans of the Galactic Patrol. The Fleet surrounding this world is the Grand Fleet of that Patrol. The Boskonian force was destroyed in toto—every man and every ship except your flagship—before it reached Klovia. In short, the power of Boskonia is broken forever; Civilization is to rule henceforth throughout both galaxies.

"You are the twelve strongest, the twelve ablest men of the planet, perhaps of your whole dark culture. Will you help us to rule according to the principles of Civilization that which has been the Boskonian Empire, or will you die?"

The Thralians stiffened themselves rigidly against the expected blasts of death, but only one spoke. "We are fortunate at least, Lensman, in that you do not torture," he said coldly, his lips twisted into a hard, defiant sneer.

"Good!" and the Lensman actually smiled. "I expected no less. With that solid bottom, all that is necessary is to wipe away a few of your misconceptions and misunderstandings, correct your viewpoints, and—"

"Do you think for a second that your therapists can fit us into the pattern of your Civilization?" the Boskonian spokesman demanded bitingly.

"I don't have to think, Lanion—I know," Kinnison assured him. "Take them away, fellows, and lock them up—you know where. Everything will go ahead as scheduled."

And it did.

And while the mighty vessels of war landed upon the space-field and while the thronging Lensmen took over post after post in an ever-widening downward course, Kinnison led Worsel and Tregonsee to the cell in which the outspoken Thralian chieftain was confined.

"I do not know whether I can prevent you from operating upon me or not," Lanion of Thrale spoke harshly, "but I will certainly try. I have seen the pitiful, distorted wrecks left after such operations and I do not like them. Furthermore, I do not believe that any possible science can eradicate from my subconscious the fixed determination to kill myself the instant you release me. Therefore you had better kill me now, Lensman, and save your time and trouble."

"You are right, and wrong," Kinnison replied quietly. "It may very well be impossible to remove such a fixation." He knew that he could remove any such, but Lanion must not know it. Civilization needed those twelve hard, shrewd minds and he had no intention of allowing an inferiority complex to weaken their powers. "We do not, however, intend to operate, but only and simply to educate. You will not be unconscious at any time. You will be in full control of your own mind and you will know beyond peradventure that you are so in control. We shall engrave, in parallel with your own present knowledges of the culture of Boskonia, the equivalent or corresponding knowledges of Civilization."

They did so. It was not a short undertaking, nor an easy one; but it was thorough and it was finally done. Then Kinnison spoke.

"You now have completely detailed knowledge both of Boskonia and of Civilization, a combination possessed by but few intelligences indeed. You know that we did not alter, did not even touch, any track of your original mind. Being fully en rapport with us, you know that we gave you as unprejudiced a concept of Civilization as we possibly could. Also, you have assimilated completely the new knowledge."

"That is all true," Lanion conceded. "Remarkable, but true. I was, and remained throughout, myself; I checked constantly to be sure of that. I can still kill myself at any moment I choose."

"Right." Kinnison did not smile, even mentally, at the unconscious alteration of intent. "The whole proposition can now be boiled down into one clear-cut question, to which you can formulate an equally clear-cut reply. Would you, Lanion, personally, prefer to keep on as you have been, working for personal power, or would you rather team up with others to work for the good of all?"

The Thralian thought for moments, and as he pondered an expression of consternation spread over his hard hewn face. "You mean actually—personally—apart from all consideration of your so-called altruism and your other sissyish weaknesses?" he demanded resistantly.

"Exactly," Kinnison assured him. "Which would you rather do? Which would you, personally, get the most good—the most fun—out of?"

The bitter conflict was plainly visible in Lanion's bronzed face; so was the direction in which it was going.

"Well ... I'll ... be ... damned! You win, Lensman!" and the ex-Boskonian big shot held out his hand. Those were not his words, of course; but as nearly as Tellurian English can come to it, that is the exact sense of his final decision. And the same, or approximately the same, was the decision of each of his eleven fellows, each in his turn.

Thus it was, then, that Civilization won over the twelve recruits who were so potently instrumental in the bloodless conquest of Thrale, and who were later to be of such signal service throughout the Second Galaxy. For they knew Boskonia with a sure knowledge, from top to bottom and from side to side, in every aspect and ramification; they knew precisely where and when and how to work to secure the desired ends. And they worked—how they worked!—but space is lacking to go into any of their labors here.

Specialists gathered, of a hundred different sorts; and when, after peace and security had been gained, they began to attack the stupendous files of the Hall of Records, Kinnison finally yielded to Haynes' insistences and moved out to the Z9M9Z.

"It's about time, young fellow!" the admiral snapped. "I've gnawed my fingernails off just about to the elbow and I still haven't figured out how to crack Onlo. Have you got any ideas?"

"Thrale first," Kinnison suggested. "Everything QX here, you sure?"

"Absolutely," Haynes grunted. "As strongly held as Tellus or Klovia. Primaries, helices, supertractors, Bergenholms, sunbeam—everything. They don't need us here any longer, any more than a hen needs teeth. Grand Fleet is all set to go, but we haven't been able to work out a feasible plan of campaign. The best way would be not to use the Fleet at all, but a sunbeam—but we can't move the Sun and Thorndyke has not as yet succeeded in making it hold together that far. I don't suppose that we could use a negasphere?"

"I don't see how," Kinnison pondered. "Ever since we used it first they've been ready for it. I'd be inclined to wait and see what Nadreck works out. He's a wise old owl, that bird—what does he tell you?"

"Nothing. Nothing, flat." Haynes' smile was grimly amused. "The fact that he is still 'investigating'—whatever that means—is all that he will tell me. Why don't you try him—you know him better than I do or ever will."

"It wouldn't do any harm," Kinnison agreed. "Nor good, either, probably. Funny egg, Nadreck. I'd tie fourteen of his arms into lover's knots if it'd make him give, but it wouldn't—he's a plenty tough number." Nevertheless he sent out a call, which was acknowledged instantly.

"Ah, Kinnison, greetings. I am even now on my way to Thrale and the Directrix to report upon the investigation."

"You are? Fine!" Kinnison exclaimed. "How did you come out?"

"I did not—exactly—fail, but the work was very incompletely and very poorly done," Nadreck submitted, the while the Tellurian's mind felt very strongly the Palainian equivalent of a painful blush of shame. "My report of the affair will be put and will forever remain under Lensman's Seal."

"But what did you do?" both Tellurians demanded as one.

"I scarcely know how to confess to such blundering," and Nadreck actually squirmed. "Will you not permit me to leave my shame to the spool of record?"

They would not, they informed him definitely.

"If you must have it, then, I yield. The plan was to make all of the armed forces upon Onlo destroy themselves. In theory it was sound and simple, but my execution was pitifully imperfect. My work was so poorly done that the commanding officer in each one of three of the domes remained alive, making it necessary for me to slay them personally, by the use of crude force. I regret exceedingly the lack of finish of this undertaking, and I apologize profoundly for it. I trust that you will not allow this information to become a matter of public knowledge"—and the apologetic, mentally sweating, really humiliated Palainian broke the connection.

Haynes and Kinnison stared at each other, for moments completely at a loss for words. The admiral first broke the silence.

"Hell's—jingling—bells!" he wrenched out, finally, and waved a hand at the points of light crowding so thickly his tactical tank. "A thing that the whole Grand Fleet couldn't do, and he does it alone, and then he apologizes for it as though he ought to be stood up in a corner or sent to bed without any supper!"

"Uh-huh, that's the way he is," Kinnison breathed, in awe. "What a brain!—what a man!"

Nadreck's black speedster arrived and a three-way conference was held. Both Haynes and Kinnison pressed him for the details of his really stupendous achievement, but he refused positively even to mention any phase of it.

"The matter is closed—finished," he declared, in a mood of anger and self-reproach which neither of the Tellurians had ever supposed that the gently scientific monster could assume. "I practically failed. It is the poorest piece of work of which I have been guilty since cubhood, and I desire and I insist that it shall not be mentioned again. If you wish to lay plans for the future, I will be very glad indeed to place at your disposal my small ability—which has now been shown to be even smaller than I had supposed—but if you insist upon discussing my fiasco, I shall forthwith go home. I will not discuss it. The record of it will remain permanently under Lensman's Seal. That is my last word."

And it was. Neither of the two Tellurians mentioned the subject, of course, either then or ever, but many other persons—including your historian—have done so, with no trace whatever of success. It is a shame, it is positively outrageous, that no details are available of the actual fall of Onlo. No human mind can understand why Nadreck will not release his Seal, but the bitter fact of his refusal to do so has been made all too plain.

Thus, in all probability, it never will become publicly known how those monstrous Onlonians destroyed each other, nor how Nadreck penetrated the defensive screens of Onlo's embattled domes, nor in what fashion he warred upon the three surviving commanders. These matters, and many others of perhaps equal interest and value, must have been of such an epic nature that it is a cosmic crime that they cannot be recorded here; that this, one of the most important incidents of the campaign, must be mentioned merely and baldly as having happened. But, unless Nadreck relents—and he apparently never does—that is the starkly tragic fact.

Other Lensmen were called in then, and admirals and generals and other personages. It was decided to man the fortifications of Onlo immediately, from the several fleets of frigid-blooded poison breathers which made up a certain percentage of Civilization's forces. This decision was influenced markedly by Nadreck, who said in part:

"Onlo is a beautiful planet. Its atmosphere is perfect, its climate is ideal; not only for us of Palain VII, but also for the inhabitants of many other planets, such as—" and he mentioned some twenty names. "While I personally am not a fighter, there are many who are; and while those of a more warlike disposition man Onlo's defenses and weapons, my fellow researchers and I might very well be carrying on with the same type of work, which you fire-blooded oxygen breathers are doing upon Thrale and similar planets."

That was such an eminently sensible suggestion that it was adopted at once. The conference broke up. The selected subfleets sailed. Kinnison sought out the commander in chief.

"Well, sir, that's it—I hope. What do you think? Am I, or am I not, due for a spot of free time?" The Gray Lensman's face was drawn and grim.

"I wish I knew, son—but I don't." Eyes and voice were deeply troubled. "You ought to be ... I hope you are ... but you're the only judge of that, you know."

"Uh-huh ... that is, I know how to find out ... but I'm afraid to—afraid he'll say no. However, I'm going to see Chris first—talk it over with her. How about having a gig drop me down to the hospital?"

For he did not have to travel very far to find his fiancée. From the time of leaving Lyrane until the taking over of Thrale she had as a matter of course been chief nurse of the hospital ship Pasteur, and with the civilizing of that planet she had as automatically become chief nurse of the Patrol's Base Hospital there.

"Certainly, Kim—anything you want, whenever you please."

"Thanks, chief. Now that this fracas is finally over—if it is—I suppose that you'll have to take over as president of the Galactic Council?"

"I suppose so—after we clean Lyrane VIII, that you've been holding me away from so long—but I don't relish the thought. And you'll be Co-ordinator Kinnison."

"Uh-huh"—gloomily. "By Klono, I hate to put my Grays away! I'm not going to do it, either, until after we're married and really settled down onto the job."

"Of course not. You'll be wearing them for some time yet, I'm thinking." Haynes' tone was distinctly envious. "Getting your job settled down into a routine one will take a long, long time. It will take years even to find out what it is really going to be."

"That's so, too," Kinnison brightened visibly. "Well, clear ether, President Haynes!" and he turned away, whistling unmelodiously—in fact, somewhat raucously—through his teeth.

XXIII.

At Base Hospital it was midnight. The two largest of Thrale's four major moons were visible, close together in the zenith, almost at the full; shining brilliantly from a cloudless, star-besprinkled sky upon the magnificent grounds.

Fountains splashed and tinkled musically. Masses of flowering shrubs, bordering meandering walks, flooded the still air with a perfume almost cloying in its intensity. No one who has once smelled the fragrance of Thralian thorn flower at midnight will ever forget it—it is as though the poignant sweetness of the mountain syringa has been blended harmoniously with the heavy, entrancing scent of the jasmine and the appealing pungency of the lily of the valley. Statues of gleaming white stone and of glinting metal were spaced infrequently over acres and acres of springy, close-clipped turf. Trees, not overhigh but massive of bole and of tremendous spread and thickness of foliage, cast shadows of impenetrable black.

"QX, Chris?" Kinnison Lensed the thought as he arrived on the grounds. She had known that he was coming. "Kinda late, I know, but I wanted to see you, and I know that you don't have to punch the clock."

"Surely, Kim"—and her low, infectious chuckle welled out. "What's the use of being a Red Lensman, else? This is just right—you couldn't make it any sooner, and tomorrow would have been too late—much too late."

They met at the door and with each an arm around the other strolled wordless down a walk. Across the resilient sward they made their way and to a bench beneath one of the spreading trees.

Kinnison swept her into both arms, hers went eagerly around his neck. How long, how unutterably long it had been since they had stood thus, nurse's white crushed against Lensman's Gray!

"Chris ... my Chris. How I love you!" he whispered, tense. "And now that I've got you again, by Klono's crimson claws, I'll never let you go!"

"Oh ... oh, Kim, dear. I've missed you so terribly, Kim. If they separate us again, it will simply break my heart," she breathed, her low, rich voice pure music. Then womanlike, she faced the facts and made the man face them, too. "Let's sit down, Kim, and have this out. You know as well as I do that we can't go on if ... if we can't ... that's all."

They sat down upon the bench, arms still around each other. They had no need, these Lensmen, of sight. No need of language, either, although upon this page their thoughts must be put into words. They did, however, have need—a profound need—of physical contact.

"I do not," the man declared vigorously. "We've got a right to some happiness, Chris, you and I. They can't keep us apart forever, sweetheart—we're going straight through with it this time."

"Uh-uh, Kim," she denied gently, shaking her spectacular head. "What would have happened if we'd have gone ahead before, leaving these horrible Thralians free to ruin Civilization?"

"But Mentor stopped us then," Kinnison argued. Deep down, he knew that if the Arisian called he would have to answer, but he argued nevertheless. "If the job wasn't done, he would have stopped us before we got this far—I think."

"You hope, you mean," the girl contradicted. "What makes you think—if you really do—that he might not wait until the ceremony has actually begun?"

"Not a thing in the universe. He might, at that," Kinnison confessed, bleakly.

"You've been afraid to ask him, haven't you?" Clarrissa pursued.

"But the job must be done!" Kinnison insisted, avoiding the question. "The prime minister—that Fossten—must have been the top; you know very well that there couldn't possibly be anything bigger than an Arisian to be back of Boskone. It's unthinkable! They've got no military organization left—not a beam hot enough to light a cigarette or a screen that would stop a firecracker. We have all their records—everything. Why, it's just a matter of routine now for the boys to uproot them completely; system by system, planet by planet."

"Uh-huh." Chris eyed him shrewdly, there in the dark. "Cogent. Really pellucid. As clear as so much crystal—and twice as fragile. If you're so sure, why not call Mentor and ask him, right now? You're not afraid of just the calling part, like I am; you're afraid of what he will say."

"I'm going to marry you before I do another lick of work of any kind, anywhere," he insisted doggedly.

"I just love to hear you say that, even if I do know that you're just blasting off!" She giggled sunnily and snuggled deeper into the curve of his arm. "I feel that way, too, but both of us know very well that if Mentor stops us ... even at the altar—" Her thought slowed, became intense, solemn. "We're Lensmen, Kim, you and I. We both realize to the full just what that means. We'll have to muster jets enough, some way or other, to swing the load. Let's call him now, Kim, together. I just simply can't stand this not knowing ... I can't, Kim ... I can't!" Tears come hard and seldom to such a woman as Clarrissa MacDougall; but they came then—and they hurt.

"QX, ace." Kinnison patted her back and her gorgeous head. "Let's go—but I tell you now that if he says 'no' I'll tell him to go hunt up an asteroid out on the Rim and take a swan dive off into intergalactic space."

She linked her mind with his, thinking in affectionate half reproach, "I'd like to, too, Kim, but that's pure baloney. You couldn't—" she broke off as he hurled their joint thought to Arisia the Old, going on frantically:

"You think at him, Kim, and I'll just listen. He scares me into a shrinking, quivering pulp!"

"QX, ace," he said again. Then: "Is it permissible that we do what we are about to do?" he asked crisply of Arisia's ancient sage.

"Ah, 'tis Kinnison and MacDougall; once of Tellus, henceforth of Klovia," the calmly unsurprised thought rolled in. "I was expecting you at this time. Any mind, however far from competent, could have visualized this event in its entirety. That which you contemplate is not merely permissible; it has now become necessary." And as usual, without tapering off or leave-taking, Mentor broke the line of thought.

The two clung together rapturously then for minutes, but something was obtruding itself disquietingly upon the nurse's mind.

"But his thought was 'necessary,' Kim?" she asked, rather than said. "Isn't there sort of a sinister connotation in that, somewhere? What did he mean?"

"Nothing—exactly nothing," Kinnison assured her, comfortably. "He's got a complete picture of the macrocosmic universe in his mind—his 'visualization of the Cosmic All,' he calls it—and in it we get married now, just as I've been telling you we are going to. Since it gripes him no end to have even the tiniest thing not to conform to his visualization, our marriage is NECESSARY, in capital letters. See?"

"Uh-huh.... Oh, I'm glad!" she exclaimed. "That shows you how scared of him I am." And thoughts and actions became such that, although they were no doubt of much personal pleasure and satisfaction, they do not require detailed treatment here.

Clarrissa MacDougall resigned the next day, without formality or fanfare. That is, she thought that she did so then, and rather wondered at the frictionless ease with which it went through; it had simply not occurred to her that in the instant of being made an Unattached Lensman she had been freed automatically from every man-made restraint. That was one of the few lessons hard for her to learn; it was the only one which she refused consistently even to try to learn.

Nothing was said or done about the ten thousand credits which had been promised her upon the occasion of her fifteen-minutes-long separation from the Patrol following the fall of Jarnevon. She thought about it briefly, but with no real sense of loss. Some way or other, money did not seem important. Anyway, she had some—enough for a fairly nice, if limited, trousseau—in the bank upon Tellus. She could undoubtedly get it through the Disbursing Office here.

She took off her Lens and stuffed it into a pocket. That wasn't so good, she reflected. It bulged, and besides, it might fall out; and anyone who touched it would die. She didn't have a bag; in fact, she had with her no civilian clothes at all. Wherefore she put it back upon her wrist, pausing as she did so to admire the Manarkan star drop flashing pale fire from the third finger of her left hand. Of all his gems, Cartiff had retained only this one, the loveliest. It was a beauty.

It was not far to the Disbursing Office, so she walked; window-shopping as she went. It was a peculiar sensation, this being out of harness—it felt good, though, at that—and upon arriving at the bank she found to her surprise that she was both well known and expected. An officer whom she had never seen before greeted her cordially and led her into his private office.

"We have been wondering why you didn't pick up your kit, Lensman MacDougall," he went on, briskly. "Sign here, please, and press your right thumb in this box here, after peeling off this plastic strip, so." She wrote in her boldly flowing script, and peeled, and pressed; and watched fascinatedly as her thumbprint developed itself sharply black against the bluish off-white of the Patrol's stationery. "That transfers your balance upon Tellus to the Patrol's general fund. Now sign and print this, in quadruplicate. Thank you. Here's your kit. When this book of slips is gone you can get another one at any bank or Patrol station anywhere. It has been a real pleasure to have met you, Lensman MacDougall; come in again whenever you happen to be upon Thrale." And he escorted her to the street as briskly as he had ushered her in.

Clarrissa felt slightly dazed. She had gone in there to get the couple of hundred credits which represented her total wealth; but instead of getting it she had meekly surrendered her savings to the Patrol and had been given—what? She leafed through the little book. One hundred blue-white slips; small things, smaller than currency bills. A little printing, two lines for description, a blank for figures, a space for signature, and a plastic-covered oblong area for thumbprint. That was all—but what an all! Any one of those slips, she knew, would be honored without hesitation or question for any amount of cash money she pleased to draw; for any object or thing she chose to buy. Anything—absolutely anything—from a pair of half-credit stockings up to and beyond a hundred-million-credit spaceship. ANYTHING! The thought chilled her buoyant spirit, took away her zest for shopping.

"Kim, I can't!" she wailed through her Lens. "Why didn't they give me my own money and let me spend it the way I please?"

"Hold everything, ace—I'll be with you in a sec." He wasn't—quite—but it was not long. "You can get all the money you want, you know—just give them a chit."

"I know, but all I wanted was my own money. I didn't ask for this stuff!"

"None of that, Chris—when you get to be a Lensman, you've got to take what goes with it. Besides, if you spend money foolishly all the rest of your life, the Patrol knows that it will still owe you plenty for what you did on Lyrane II. Where do you want to begin?"

"Brenleer's," she decided, after she had been partially convinced. "They aren't the largest, but they give real quality at a fair price."

At the shop the two Lensmen were recognized at sight and Brenleer himself did the honors.

"Clothes," the girl said succinctly, with an all-inclusive wave of her hand. "All kinds of clothes, except nurse's uniforms."

They were ushered into a private room and Kinnison wriggled as mannequins began to appear before them in various degrees of enclothement.

"This is no place for me," he declared. "I'll see you later, Chris. How long—half an hour or so?"

"Half an hour!" The nurse giggled, and:

"She will be here all the rest of today, and most of the time for a week," the couturier informed him severely—and she was.

"Oh, Kim, I'm having the most marvelous time!" she told him excitedly, a few days later. "But it makes me feel sick to think of how much of the Patrol's money I'm spending."

"You may think that you're spending money, but you aren't," he informed her, cryptically.

"Huh? What do you mean?" she demanded, but he would not talk.

She found out, however, after the long-drawn-out business of selecting and matching and designing and fitting was over.

"You have seen me in civvies only a couple of times, and I got myself all prettied up in the beauty shop." She posed provocatively. "Do you like me, Kim?"

"Like you!" The man could scarcely speak. She had been a seven-sector call-out in faded moleskin breeches and a patched shirt. She had been a thionite dream in uniform. But now—radiantly, vibrantly beautiful, a symphony in her favorite dark green. "Words fail, ace. Thoughts, too. They fold up and quit. The universe's best, is all I can say—"

And—later—they sought out Brenleer.

"I would like to ask you to do me a tremendous favor," the merchant said hesitantly, without filling any of the blanks upon the credit slip the girl had proffered. "If, instead of paying for these things, you would write upon this voucher the date and 'my fall outfit and much of my trousseau were made by Brenleer of Thrale—'?" His voice expired upon a wistful note.

"Why ... I never even thought of such a thing. Would it be quite ethical, do you think, Kim?"

"You said that he gives value for price, so I don't see why not. Lots of things they never let any of us pay for—" Then, to Brenleer, "Never thought of that angle, of what a terrific draw she would be. I suppose that this business of yours is worth fifty thousand credits more right now than it was before she cut loose here, and that it'll be worth twice that much when you have this chit unobtrusively displayed in a gold-and-platinum frame four feet square."

The man nodded. "Twice that already, but there isn't money enough upon Thrale to buy it."

"I'm not surprised," Kinnison grinned understandingly. "But you might as well give him a break, Chris. What tore it was your buying the stuff here, not admitting the fact over your signature and thumbprint."

She did so and they went out.

"Do you mean to tell me that I'm so ... so—"

"Famous? Notorious?" he helped out.

"Uh-huh. Or words to that effect." A touch of fear darkened her glorious eyes.

"All of that, and then some," he declared. "I never thought of what your buying so much plunder in one store would do, but it'd have the pulling power of a planetary tractor. It's bad enough with us regulars—half the chits we sign are never cashed—but you are absolutely unique. The first Lady Lensman—the only Red Lensman—and what a Lensman! Wow! As I think it over one gets you a hundred if any chit you ever sign ever will get cashed. There have been collectors, you know, ever since Civilization began—maybe before."

"But I don't like it!" she stormed.

"That won't change the facts," he countered, philosophically. "Are you ready to flit? The Dauntless is hot, they tell me."

"Uh-huh, all my stuff is aboard." And soon they were en route to Klovia.

The trip was uneventful, and even before they reached that transformed planet it became evident that it was theirs from pole to pole. Their cruiser was met by a horde of spaceships of all types and sizes, which formed a turbulent and demonstrative escort of honor. The seething crowd at the spaceport could scarcely be kept out of range of the dreadnought's searing landing blasts. Half the brass bands of the world, it seemed, burst into "Our Patrol" as the Lensmen disembarked, and their ground car and the street along which it slowly rolled were decorated lavishly with deep-blue flowers.

"Thorn flowers!" Clarrissa choked. "Thralian thorn flowers, Kim—how could they?"

"They grow here as well as there, and when they found out that you liked them so well they imported them by the shipload"—and Kinnison himself swallowed a lump.

Their brief stay upon Klovia was a hectic one indeed. Parties and balls, informal and formal, and at least a dozen telenews poses every day. Receptions, at which there were presented the personages and the potentates of a thousand planets; at which the uniforms and robes and gowns put the solar spectrum to shame.

And from tens of thousands of planets came Lensmen, to make or to renew acquaintance with the Galactic Co-ordinator and to welcome into their ranks the Lensman-bride. From Tellus, of course, they came in greatest number and enthusiasm, but other planets were not too far behind. They came from Manark and Velantia and Chickladoria and Alsakan and Vandemar, from the worlds of Canopus and Vega and Antares, from all over the Galaxy. Human, near-human, nonhuman, monstrous; there even appeared briefly quite large numbers of frigid-blooded Lensmen, whose fiercely laboring refrigerators chilled the atmosphere for yards around their insulated and impervious suits. All those various beings came with a united purpose, with a common thought—to congratulate Kinnison of Tellus and to wish his Lensman-mate all the luck and all the happiness of the universe.

Kinnison was surprised at the sincerity with which they acclaimed him; he was amazed at the genuineness and the intensity of their adoption of his Chris as their own. He had been afraid that some of them would think that he was throwing his weight around when he violated precedent by making her a Lensman. He had been afraid of animosity and ill will. He had been afraid that outraged masculine pride would set up a sex antagonism. But if any of these things existed, the keenest use of his every penetrant sense could not discover them.

Instead, the human Lensmen literally mobbed her as, en masse, they took her to their collective bosom. No party, wherever or for what reason held, was complete without her. If she ever had less than ten escorts at once, she was slighted. They ran her ragged, they danced her slippers off, they stuffed her to repletion, they would not let her sleep, they granted her the privacy of a goldfish—and she loved every tumultuous second of it.

She had wanted, as she had told Haynes and Lacy so long ago, a big wedding; but this one was already out of hand and was growing more so by the minute. The idea of holding it in a church had been abandoned long since; now it became clear that the biggest armory of Klovia would not hold even half of the Lensmen, to say nothing of the notables and dignitaries who had come so far. It would simply have to be the Stadium; a bowl so vast that no previous crowd had filled one tenth of its seats. Seeing and hearing there were excellent, however, as the spectators did not look at the scene itself, but into visiplates comfortably close.

Even the Stadium could not accommodate that throng, hence speakers and plates were run outside, clear up to the space-field fence. And, although neither of the principals knew it, this marriage had so fired public interest that Universal Telenews men had already arranged the hookup which was to carry it to every planet of Civilization. The number of entities who thus saw and heard that wedding has been estimated, but the figures are too fantastic to be repeated here.

But it was in no sense a circus. No ceremony ever held, in home or in church or in cathedral, was ever more solemn. For when half a million Lensmen concentrate upon solemnity, it prevails—no levity is possible within a radius of miles.

The whole vast bowl was gay with flowers—it seemed as though a state must have been stripped of blooms to furnish so many—and ferns and white ribbons were everywhere. There was a mighty organ, which pealed out triumphal melody as the bridal parties marched down the aisles, subsiding into a lilting accompaniment as the betrothed couple ascended the white-brocaded stairway and faced the Lensman-chaplain in the heavily garlanded little open-air chapel. The minister raised both hands. The massed Patrolmen and nurses stood at attention. A profound silence fell.

"Dearly beloved—" The grand old service—short and simple, but utterly impressive—was soon over. Then, as Kinnison kissed his wife, half a million Lensed members were thrust upward in silent salute.

Through a double lane of flowing Lenses the wedding party made its way up to the locked and guarded gate of the space-field, upon which lay the Dauntless—the superdreadnought "yacht" in which the Kinnisons were to take a honeymoon voyage to distant Tellus. The gate opened. The couple, accompanied by the port admiral and the surgeon general, stepped into the car, which sped out to the battleship; and as it did so the crowd loosed its pent-up feelings in a prolonged outburst of cheering.

And as the newlyweds walked up the gangplank, Kinnison turned his head and shouted to Haynes:

"You've been griping so long about Lyrane VIII, chief—I forgot to say that you can go mop up on it now!"

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Your historian, not wishing to take credit which is not rightfully his, wishes to say here that without the fine co-operation of many persons and entities this history must have been of much less value and importance than it now is.

First, of course, there were the Lensmen. It is unfortunate that Nadreck of Palain VII could not be induced either to release his spool of the Fall of Onlo or to enlarge upon his other undertakings.

Co-ordinator Kinnison, Worsel of Velantia, and Tregonsee of Rigel IV, however, were splendidly co-operative, giving in personal conversations much highly useful material which is not heretofore of public record. The gracious and queenly Red Lensman also was of great assistance.

Dr. James R. Enright was both prolific and masterly in deducing that certain otherwise necessarily obscure events and sequences must have in fact occurred, and it is gratefully admitted here that the author has drawn heavily upon "Dr. Jim's" profound knowledge of the mind.

The Galactic Roamers, those intrepid spacemen, assisted no little: E. Everett Evans, their chief communications officer, Paul Leavy, Jr., Alfred Ashley, F. Edwin Counts; to name only a few who aided in the selection, arrangement, and presentation of material.

Verna Trestrail, the exquisite connoisseuse, was of help, not only by virtue of her knowledge of the jewels of Lonabar, but also in her interpretations of many things concerning Illona Potter of which Illona Henderson—characteristically—will not speak.

To all these, and to many others whose help was only slightly less, the writer extends his sincere thanks.

Edward E. Smith.

THE END.