Second Stage Lensmen

14: Nadreck at Work

This is perhaps as good a place as any to glance in passing at the fashion in which the planet Lonabar was brought under the aegis of Civilization. No attempt will or can be made to describe it in any detail, since any adequate treatment of it would fill a volume—indeed, many volumes have already been written concerning various phases of the matter—and since it is not strictly germane to the subject in hand. However, some knowledge of the modus operandi in such cases is highly desirable for the full understanding of this history, in view of the vast number of planets which Coordinator Kinnison and his associates did have to civilize before the Second Galaxy was made secure.

Scarcely had Cartiff–Kinnison moved out than the Patrol moved in. If Lonabar had been heavily fortified, a fleet of appropriate size and power would have cleared the way. As it was, the fleet which landed was one of transports, not of battleships, and all the fighting from then on was purely defensive.

Propagandists took the lead; psychologists; Lensmen skilled not only in languages but also in every art of human relationships. The case of Civilization was stated plainly and repeatedly, the errors and the fallacies of autocracy were pointed out. A nucleus of government was formed; not of Civilization's imports, but of solid Lonabarian citizens who had passed the Lensmen's tests of ability and trustworthiness.

Under this local government a pseudo–democracy began haltingly to function. At first its progress was painfully slow; but as more and more of the citizens perceived what the Patrol actually was doing, it grew apace. Not only did the invaders allow—yes, foster—free speech and statutory liberty; they suppressed ruthlessly any person or any faction seeking to build a new dictatorship, whatever its nature, upon the ruins of the old. That news traveled fast; and laboring always and mightily upon Civilization's side were the always–present, however deeply–buried, urges of all intelligent entities toward self–expression.

There was opposition, of course. Practically all of those who had waxed fat upon the old order were very strongly in favor of its continuance. There were the hordes of the down–trodden who had so long and so dumbly endured oppression that they could not understand anything else; in whom the above– mentioned urges had been beaten and tortured almost out of existence. They themselves were not opposed to Civilization—for them it meant at worst only a change of masters—but those who sought by the same old wiles to re–enslave them were foes indeed.

Menjo Bleeko's sycophants and retainers were told to work or starve. The fat hogs could support the new order—or else. The thugs and those who tried to prey upon and exploit the dumb masses were arrested and examined. Some were cured, some were banished, some were shot.

Little could be done, however, about the dumb themselves, for in them the spark was feeble indeed. The new government nursed that spark along, the while ruling them as definitely, although not as harshly, as had the old; the Lensmen backing the struggling young Civilization knowing full well that in the children or in the children's children of these unfortunates the spark would flame up into a great white light.

It is seen that this government was not, and could not for many years become, a true democracy. It was in fact a benevolent semi–autocracy; autonomous in a sense, yet controlled by the Galactic Council through its representatives, the Lensmen. It was, however, so infinitely more liberal than anything theretofore known by the Lonabarians as to be a political revelation, and since corruption, that cosmos–wide curse of democracy, was not allowed a first finger–hold, the principles of real democracy and of Civilization took deeper root year by year.

To get back into the beam of narrative, Nadreck's blackly indetectable speedster settled to ground far from the Boskonians' central dome; well beyond the far–flung screens. The Lensmen knew that no life existed outside that dome and they knew that no possible sense of perception could pierce those defenses. They did not know, however, what other resources of detection, of offense, or of defense the foe might possess; hence the greatest possible distance at which they could work efficiently was the best distance.

"I realize that it is useless to caution any active mind not to think at all," Nadreck remarked as he began to manipulate various and sundry controls, "but you already know from the nature of our problem that any extraneous thought will wreak untold harm. For that reason I beg of you to keep your thought– screens up at all times, no matter what happens. It is, however, imperative that you be kept informed, since I may require aid or advice at any moment. To that end I ask you to hold these electrodes, which are connected to a receptor. Do not hesitate to speak freely to each other or to me; but please use only a spoken language, as I am averse to Lensed thoughts at this juncture. Are we agreed? Are we ready?"

They were agreed and ready. Nadreck actuated his peculiar drill—a tube of force somewhat analogous to a Q–type helix except in that it operated within the frequencyrange of thought—and began to increase, by almost infinitesimal increments, its power. Nothing, apparently, happened; but finally the Palainian's instruments registered the fact that it was through.

"This is none too safe, friends," the Palainian announced from one part of his multi–compartmented brain, without distracting any part of his attention from the incredibly delicate operation he was performing. "May I suggest, Kinnison, in my cowardly way, that you place yourself at the controls and be ready to take us away from this planet at speed and without notice?"

"I'll say you may!" and the Tellurian complied, with alacrity. "Right now, cowardice is indicated—copiously!"

But through course after course of screen the hollow drill gnawed its cautious way without giving alarm; until at length there began to come through the interloping tunnel a vague impression of foreign thought. Nadreck stopped the helix, then advanced it by tiny steps until the thoughts came in coldly clear—the thoughts of the Eich going about their routine businesses. In the safety of their impregnably shielded dome the proudly self–confident monsters did not wear their personal thought–screens; which, for Civilization's sake, was just as well.

It had been decided previously that the mind they wanted would be that of a psychologist; hence the thought sent out by the Palainian was one which would appeal only to such a mind; in fact, one practically imperceptible to any other. It was extremely faint; wavering uncertainly upon the very threshold of perception. It was so vague, so formless, so inchoate that it required Kinnison's intensest concentration even to recognize it as a thought. Indeed, so starkly unhuman was Nadreck's mind and that of his proposed quarry that it was all the Tellurian Lensman could do to so recognize it. It dealt, fragmentarily and in the merest glimmerings, with the nature and the mechanisms of the First Cause; with the fundamental ego, its ration d'etre, its causation, its motivation, its differentiation; with the stupendously awful concepts of the Prime Origin of all things ever to be.

Unhurried, monstrously patient, Nadreck neither raised the power of the thought nor hastened its slow tempo. Stolidly, for minute after long minute he held it, spraying it throughout the vast dome as mist is sprayed from an atomizer nozzle. And finally he got a bite. A mind seized upon that wistful, homeless, incipient thought; took it for its own. It strengthened it, enlarged upon it, built it up. And Nadreck followed it.

He did not force it; he did nothing whatever to cause any suspicion that the thought was or ever had been his. But as the mind of the Eich busied itself with that thought he all unknowingly let down the bars to Nadreck's invasion.

Then, perfectly in tune, the Palainian subtly insinuated into the mind of the Eich the mildly disturbing idea that he had forgotten something, or had neglected to do some trifling thing. This was the first really critical instant, for Nadreck had no idea whatever of what his victim's duties were or what he could have left undone. It had to be something which would take him out of the dome and toward the Patrolman's concealed speedster, but what it was, the Eich would have to develop for himself; Nadreck could not dare to attempt even a partial control at this stage and at this distance.

Kinnison clenched his teeth and held his breath, his big hands clutching fiercely the pilot's bars; Worsel unheedingly coiled his supple body into an ever smaller, ever harder and more compact bale.

"Ah!" Kinnison exhaled explosively. "It worked!" The psychologist, at Nadreck's impalpable suggestion, had finally thought of the thing. It was a thought–screen generator which had been giving a little trouble and which really should have been checked before this.

Calmly, with the mild self–satisfaction which comes of having successfully recalled to mind a highly elusive thought, the Eich opened one of the dome's unforceable doors and made his unconcerned way directly toward the waiting Lensmen; and as he approached Nadreck stepped up by logarithmic increments the power of his hold.

"Get ready, please, to cut your screens and to synchronize with me in case anything slips and he tries to break away," Nadreck cautioned; but nothing slipped.

The Eich came up unseeing to die speedster's side and stopped. The drill disappeared. A thought–screen encompassed die group narrowly. Kinnison and Worsel released their screens and also tuned in to die creature's mind. And Kinnison swore briefly, for what they found was meager enough.

He knew a great deal concerning die zwilnik doings of die First Galaxy; but so did die Lensmen; they were not interested in diem. Neither were they interested, at die moment, in the files or hi die records. Regarding die higher– ups, he knew of two, and only two, personalities. By means of an inter–galactic communicator he received orders from, and reported to, a clearly–defined, somewhat Eich–like entity known to him as Kandron; and vaguely, from occasional stray and unintentional thoughts of this Kandron, he had visualized as being somewhere in die background a human being named Alcon. He supposed that die planets upon which these persons lived were located in die Second Galaxy, but he was not certain, even of that. He had never seen either of diem; he was pretty sure that none of his group ever would be allowed to see diem. He had no means of tracing diem and no desire whatsoever to do so. The only fact he really knew was dial at irregular intervals Kandron got into communication with this base of die Eich.

That was all. Kinnison and Worsel let go and Nadreck, with a minute attention to detail which would be wearisome here, jockeyed die unsuspecting monster back into die dome. The native knew full where he had been, and why. He had inspected the generator and found it in good order. Every second of elapsed time was accounted for exactly. He had not the slightest inkling dial anything out of the ordinary had happened to him or anywhere around him.

As carefully as die speedster had approached die planet, she departed from it. She rejoined the Dauntless, in whose control room Kinnison lined out a solid communicator beam to the Z9M9Z and to Port Admiral Haynes. He reported crisply, rapidly, everything that had transpired.

"So our best bet is for you and the Fleet to get out of here as fast as Klono will let you," he concluded. "Go straight out Rift Ninety Four, staying as far away as possible from both the spiral arm and the galaxy proper. Unlimber every spotting–screen you've got—put them to work along the line between Lyrane and the Second Galaxy. Plot all the punctures, extending the line as fast as you can. We'll join you at max and transfer to the Z9M9Z—her tank is just what the doctors ordered for the job we've got to do."

"Well, if you say so, I suppose that's the way it's got to be," Haynes grumbled. He had been growling and snorting under his breath ever since it had become evident what Kinnison's recommendation was to be. "I don't like this thing of standing by and letting zwilniks thumb their noses at us, like Prellin did on Bronseca. That once was once too damned often."

"Well, you got him, finally, you know," Kinnison reminded, quite cheerfully, "and you can have these Eich, too—sometime."

"I hope," Haynes acquiesced, something less than sweetly. "QX, then—but put out a few jets. The quicker you get out here the sooner we can get back and clean out this hoo–raw's nest."

Kinnison grinned as he cut his beam. He knew that it would be some time before the Port Admiral could hurl the metal of the Patrol against Lyrane VIII; but even he did not realize just how long a time it was to be.

What occasioned the delay was not the fact that the communicator was in operation only at intervals: so many screens were out, they were spaced so far apart, and the punctures were measured and aligned so accurately that the periods of nonoperation caused little or no loss of time. Nor was it the vast distance involved; since, as has already been pointed out, the matter in the inter–galactic void is so tenuous that spaceships are capable of enormously greater velocities than any attainable in the far denser medium filling interstellar space.

No: what gave the Boskonians of Lyrane VIII their greatly lengthened reprieve was simply the direction of the line established by the communicator–beam punctures. Reasoning from analogy, the Lensmen had supposed that it would lead them into a star–cluster, fairly well away from the main body of the Second Galaxy, in either the zenith or the nadir direction. Instead of that, however, when the Patrol surveyors got close enough so that their possible error was very small, it became clear that their objective lay inside the galaxy itself.

"I don't like this line a bit, chief," Kinnison told the admiral then. "It'd smell like Limburger to have a fleet of this size and power nosing into their home territory, along what must be one of the hottest lines of communication they've got."

"Check," Port Admiral Haynes agreed. "QX so far, but it would begin to stink pretty quick now. We've got to assume that they know about spotting screens, whether they really do or not. If they do, they'll have this line trapped from stem to gudgeon, and the minute they detect us they'll cut this line out entirely. Then where'll you be?"

"Right back where I started from—that's what I'm yowling about. To make matters worse, it's credits to millos that the ape we're looking for isn't going to be anywhere near the end of this line."

"Huh? How do you figure that?" Haynes demanded. "Logic. We're getting up now to where these zwilniks can really think. We've already assumed that they know about our beam tracers and detector nullifiers. Aren't they apt to know that we have inherently indetectable ships and almost perfectly absorptive coatings? Where does that land you?"

"Um–m–m. I see. Since they can't change the nature of the beam, they'll run it through a series of relays…with each leg trapped with everything they can think of…at the first sign of interference they'll switch, maybe half way across the galaxy. Also, they might very well switch around once in a while, anyway, just on general principles."

"Check. That's why you'd better take the fleet back home, leaving Nadreck and me to work the rest of this line with our speedsters."

"Don't be dumb, son; you can think straighter than that." Haynes gazed quizzically at the younger man.

"What else? Where am I overlooking a bet?" Kinnison demanded.

"It is elementary tactics, young man," the admiral instructed, "to cover up any small, quiet operation with a large and noisy one. Thus, if I want to make an exploratory sortie in one sector I should always attack in force in another."

"But what would it get us?" Kinnison expostulated. "What's the advantage to be gained, to make up for the unavoidable losses?"

"Advantage? Plenty! Listen!" Haynes' bushy gray hair fairly bristled in eagerness. "We've been on the defensive long enough. They must be weak, after their losses at Tellus; and now, before they can rebuild, is the time to strike. It's good tactics, as I said, to make a diversion to cover you up, but I want to do more than that. We should start an actual, serious invasion, right now. When you can swing it, the best possible defense—even in general—is a powerful offense, and we're all set to go. We'll begin it with this fleet, and then, as soon as we're sure that they haven't got enough power to counter– invade, we'll bring over everything that's loose. We'll hit them so hard that they won't be able to worry about such a little thing as a communicator line."

"Hm…m. Never thought of it from that angle, but it'd be nice. We were coming over here sometime, anyway—why not now? I suppose you'll start on the edge, or in a spiral arm, just as though you were going ahead with the conquest of the whole galaxy?"

"Not 'just as though'," Haynes declared. "We are going through with it. Find a planet on the outer edge of a spiral arm, as nearly like Tellus as– possible…"

"Make it nearly enough like Tellus and maybe I can use it for our headquarters on this 'coordinator' thing," Kinnison grinned.

"More truth than poetry in that, fellow. We find it and take over. Comb out the zwilniks with a fine–tooth comb. Make it the biggest, toughest base the universe ever saw—like Jarnevon, only more so. Bring in everything we've got and expand from that planet as a center, cleaning everything out as we go. We'll civilize 'em!"

And so, after considerable ultra–range communicator work, it was decided that the Galactic Patrol would forthwith assume the offensive.

Haynes assembled Grand Fleet. Then, while the two black speedsters kept unobtrusively on with the task of plotting the line, Civilization's mighty armada moved a few thousand parsecs aside and headed at normal touring blast for the nearest outcropping of the Second Galaxy.

There was nothing of stealth in this maneuver, nothing of finesse, excepting in the arrangements of the units. First, far in the van, flew the prodigious, irregular cone of scout cruisers. They were comparatively small, not heavily armed or armored, but they were ultra–fast and were provided with the most powerful detectors, spotters, and locators known. They adhered to no rigid formation, but at the will of their individual commanders, under the direct supervision of Grand Fleet Operations in the Z9M9Z, flashed hither and thither ceaselessly—searching, investigating, mapping, reporting.

Backing them up came the light cruisers and the cruising bombers—a new type, this latter, designed primarily to bore in to close quarters and to hurl bombs of negative matter. Third in order were the heavy defensive cruisers. These ships had been developed specifically for hunting down Boskonian commerce raiders within the galaxy. They wore practically impenetrable screen, so that they could lock to and hold even a super–dreadnought. They had never before been used in Grand Fleet formation; but since they were now equipped with tractor zones and bomb–tubes, theoretical strategy found a good use for them in this particular place.

Next came the real war–head—a solidly packed phalanx of maulers. All the ships up ahead had, although in varying degrees, freedom of motion and of action. The scouts had practically nothing else; fighting was not their business. They could fight, a little, if they had to; but they always ran away if they could, in whatever direction was most expedient at the time. The cruising bombers could either take their fighting or leave it alone, depending upon circumstances—in other words, they fought light cruisers, but ran away from big stuff, stinging as they ran. The heavy cruisers would fight anything short of a mauler, but never in formation: they always broke ranks and fought individual dog–fights, ship to ship.

But that terrific spear–head of maulers had no freedom of motion whatever. If knew only one direction—straight ahead. It would swerve aside for an inert planet, but for nothing smaller; and when it swerved it did so as a whole, not by parts. Its function was to blast through—straight through—any possible opposition, if and when that opposition should have been successful in destroying or dispersing the screens of lesser vessels preceding it. A sunbeam was the only conceivable weapon with which that stolid, power–packed mass of metal could not cope; and, the Patrolmen devoutly hoped, the zwilniks didn't have any sunbeams—yet.

A similar formation of equally capable maulers, meeting it head–on, could break it up, of course. Theoretical results and war–game solutions of this problem did not agree, either with each other or among themselves, and the thing had never been put to the trial of actual battle. Only one thing was certain—when and if that trial did come there was bound to be, as in the case of the fabled meeting of the irresistible force with the immovable object, a lot of very interesting by–products.

Flanking the maulers, streaming gracefully backward from their massed might in a parabolic cone, were arranged the heavy battleships and the super– dreadnoughts; and directly behind the bulwark of flying fortresses, tucked away inside the protecting envelope of big battle–wagons, floated the Z9M9Z—the brains of the whole outfit.

There were no free planets, no negaspheres of planetary anti–mass, no sunbeams. Such things were useful either, hi the defense of a Prime Base or for an allout, ruthlessly destructive attack upon such a base. Those slow, cumbersome, supremely powerful weapons would come later, after the Patrol had selected the planet which they intended to hold against everything the Boskonians could muster. This present expedition had as yet no planet to defend, it sought no planet to destroy. It was the vanguard of Civilization, seeking a suitable foothold hi the Second Galaxy and thoroughly well equipped to argue with any force mobile enough to bar its way.

While it has been said that there was nothing of stealth in this approach, to the Second Galaxy, it must not be thought that it was unduly blatant or obvious: any carelessness or ostentation would have been very poor tactics indeed. Civilization's Grand Fleet advanced in strict formation, with every routine military precaution. Its nullifiers were full on, every blocking screen was out, every plate upon every. ship was hot and was being scanned by alert and keen–eyed observers.

But every staff officer from Port Admiral Haynes down, and practically every line officer as well, knew that the enemy would locate the invading fleet long before it reached even the outer fringes of the galaxy toward which it was speeding. That stupendous tonnage of ferrous metal could not be disguised; nor could it by any possible artifice be made to simulate any normal tenant of the space which it occupied.

The gigantic flares of the heavy stuff could not be baffled, and the combined grand flare of Grand Fleet made a celestial object which would certainly attract the electronic telescopes of plenty of observatories. And the nearest such "scopes, instruments of incredible powers of resolution, would be able to pick them out, almost ship by ship, against the relatively brilliant background of their own flares.

The Patrolman, however, did not care. This was, and was intended to be, an open, straightforward invasion; the first wave of an attack which would not cease until the Galactic Patrol had crushed Boskonia throughout the entire Second Galaxy.

Grand Fleet bored serenely on. Superbly confident in her awful might, grandly contemptuous of whatever she was to face, she stormed along; uncaring that at that very moment the foe was massing his every defensive arm to hurl her back or to blast her out of existence.