Z lensman, p.12
Z-Lensman, page 12
"Yes, Yadsue has a disaster report from a wreck of an unlicensed freighter in this sector within the past three GP days, but there is no derelict or debris. We came through this sector four days ago and had no warnings or reports then. The disaster report is weak and could perhaps be heard only by someone like us, close by. Yadsue repeats that there is a life reading and that no dangerous material, instrument, or apparatus is connected with the humanoid body or its standard free-toinert lifesuit."
"Chon," Cloudd said, will you scan this object for me?"
"I have, Cloudd," Chon replied. "I find nothing unusual, except that it's a free-to-inert suit designed with an inertialess inhibitor to slow the suit down to regular inert space for increased chance of rescue. That's GP or Boskonian warship stuff, not for freighters except on the drug trade."
"Yadsue," Cloudd said, "I want a reading on his intrinsic velocity. Do you know what I mean? What is his original pre-inertialess velocity? It will give us a fix on the direction of his spaceship before it went free."
"I know what that means, sir. My Academy training is thorough. It is... one moment, please... it is 170,000 miles per second at 225 degrees Azimuth 45 degrees plus x as we travel.
That indicates-"
"-that indicates," Cloudd broke in to exercise his command position, "downward and backward relative to us, and, reversing the line of flight, indicates origination from outside rather than inside."
"Coming from the rim?" Chon said. "That makes it off the usual flight paths.
Boskonian or-Spawn?" "What are the humanoid's vital signs?" Cloudd asked. "Can you evaluate his condition? Could he remain as he is for another six hours?"
"Are you contemplating passing him by?" Chon wondered, obviously concerned.
The law of the spaceways did permit such possibilities if other rescuers were available.
"This is Yadsue: Yes, at least six hours."
"Then listen, Yadsue. Grab the body with a tractor beam and clamp it to the side of our ship. On the down and back side. That's important, the down and back side, the aft keel.
When we get to the Palainian system, we'll reorientate our own intrinsics, match ours with its, and put us both in phase to land on Palain 'VII. If we don't-"
"-we will have a disengagement of a monumental explosion." That thought was not only Yadsue's, it was also Chon's.
"Why riot bring him inside?" Chon said. "We can examine him and give him first aid if he needs it and put him back outside when we're ready."
"No," Cloudd said, "I don't want to bring a suit in here with an inertialess inhibitor. How do we know what will happen if the suit is opened? The guy comes out, prepared for trouble, and releases the intrinsics of the suit. He lives, blows .a hole in our ship, and is rescued when some ambushing partner easily picks us off as a cripple. No, he stays outside, pointed the. other way.
Cloudd watched the operation on the screens, the visuals not nearly as good as he would have liked them, but good enough to make sure the job was done right.
"Very good, fellows. Now get back on course. It's taken us eighteen minutes, and I'm certainly going to let Nadreck know what an excellent half dozen future Lensmen he has in you." Cloudd let himself relax for the first time since the incident started.
"Chon, sixteen hours have elapsed since the fortyeight hour deadline was determined.
When we arrive, it will be twenty, one hours used, with twenty-seven hours remaining. Have you picked anything else out of our Noyyonese guest since we left?"
"He's got space sickness. We'll have to wait until Palain to get going on him again."
Cloudd had been staring idly, almost without seeing, at the monitoring screens, expecting the ship to go free of inertia at any moment. Did that figure move? Cloudd peered more closely. He did move!
"Chon, get me Yadsue!" Cloudd shouted. When Yadsue acknowledged the call, suddenly appearing in front of Cloudd, the Tellurian lieutenant said, "Hold back on going free: Check the condition of our castaway. I thought I saw him move."
"The suit's about the same as it was, sir. He's shifted his body around to be more comfortable. He must be cramped.... As a matter of fact, sir; he seems to have actually rotated his body 180 degrees."
"I don't want that!" Cloudd said, forcefully. "I'm suspicious that-"
There was an explosion; a bomb had struck the aft keel. The bomb was unique, a human body had released its intrinsic velocity simultaneously with the release of the equal intrinsics of the suit. Instead of a single projectile of man-in-suit, they had smashed together in a fireball of energy that holed the outer shell and buckled the inner shell of the hull. The airtight compartments locked, and the ship was safe. It had come, however, exceedingly close to complete calamity.
"God bless us!" Chaplain General Chon Lensed, after he had picked himself, up off the cabin floor and had helped the Noyyonese recover his senses. "What a horrible accident!"
"Accident, hell!" Cloudd said, and reeled off some salty oaths. "Forgive me, Chaplain, but we almost went to see your boss! Of, all the dirty tricks, this really singes Klono's whiskers.
Somebody.set out a booby trap for us and we almost got wiped out by it. If the intrinsics had been released all in the same direction, I believe we would have. As it was, the man couldn't turn the suit, so he turned himself in our direction and let it rip."
"You mean," Chon said slowly, weighing the full implication of Cloudd's analysis, "that someone sacrificed himself just to destroy us? Why? And who would do such a crazy thing?"
"The man could have been drugged or hypnotized. That's not too difficult to figure out. As for why, there's only one explanation. The trap was laid after this ship went up a few days ago, knowing that the ship would return this way. Was someone trying to murder six young Academy cadets about to be Lensmen . "Nadreck!" Chon said, seeing the truth.
"Yes, Nadreck," Cloudd said. "Somebody set this death trap for Nadreck."
And that was the story Cloudd told Nadreck when they met on the barren plain of Palainopolis, waiting for the old-fashioned hoverbus that was to transport all of them back to subterranean Palainopolis.
Nadreck at first had been impatient, listening to the story. A bus had come, but Nadreck had signaled for Academy transportation, so they waited for it while standing in the bus out of the zero degree heat, the three oxygen-breathers still in their suits.
Midway through he had become deathly still, part of his mind hearing and part separately pondering the collection of events. At the end of the story he quickly spoke.
"You, my fine cadets," he said, "you had no. equipment malfunctioning or electronic contamination? No? Then you are right, Cloudd, and I know who plotted this mean and reprehensible act, which I must grudgingly admire. The perpetrators are my mortal enemies, the Dregs of Onlo."
"The Dregs of Onlo?" Chon repeated. "Who are they?"
'A personal matter for me, Chon," Nadreck said, brushing away any explanation.
"What is important is to consider the possible relationship with the rim incident.
There may now be five separate threats converging on us. The obvious ones are from the disorganized Boskonians or the newly organized Spawn of Boskone; Kinnison is certain they both are our trouble. Kallatra, however, tends to see a return of Eichwoor, the ghost, with legions of fellow spirits she calls Eichwooren. Then there is the unknown instigator, suggesting human or Tellurian influence. Add to them the Dregs, which heretofore have been interested exclusively in me. Now I will tell you of what the rim Patrolman, Dick Armstrong, encountered."
Nadreck flashed the events quickly into their minds. "Type-8!" Cloudd exclaimed. "The datadrones are back! The round globes are different. Are the drones tracking the round globes? Or are there new types of drones?" Cloudd was caught up in the old excitement.
"That trickery with the fake emblems, that's something new, too. What do you think, Nadreck? Is this a more serious drone threat are they now aggressive instead of passive?"
"There are datadrones involved, undoubtedly," Nadreck said. "To what extent, though, I am not certain. It is significant that the drones were last seen near Pinwheel DW433, the shortest line to take them away from the galactic center and toward Andromeda.
This invisible invasion fleet is entering the rim close to the galactic plane from that direction, although perhaps this is a deliberate plan of misdirection. What do you think of all this, Cloudd? You're the datadrone expert." .
Cloudd had been puzzling over the possibilities ever since he had been asked to join the conference the day before on Tellus. He was beginning to see a pattern.
"I think the drones are back. I never did believe that they were sucked up and destroyed. I think they've discovered all they want to know about Civilization's technology, and now they're leading an attack on us through subetheric wave interference. Who's behind it I can't guess, although their base very likely can be the mech-planet the rumormongers suggest exists. I'm worried we're entering a time of revolt by our robots." "Revolt?"
Chon exclaimed.
"By our robots?" "Here comes the Academy shuttle," Nadreck said. "We must Lens Worsel and Kallatra as soon as we get to the Academy. Things are shaping up, and I have a feeling the loose ends are ready to be tied together. "We have hardly twenty-four hours left before the Eich, and maybe the Eichwooren, are due to attack."
9 Death Answers the Prayer
Cloudd's stay on Palain was short and he was thankful that it was. From what he saw of the surface of the planet, it was barren and vastly unattractive, the city was a jumbled mess of square, windowless structures, and the people were a mass of shifting, shadowy shapes.
The atmosphere was pure poison for him and the temperature was so low that it couldn't be registered on a normal mercury thermometer. He was glad to be taken underground and deposited in a Tellurian room with bright light.
He had been in his room for only a half hour, however, and it was already getting on his nerves. The furniture was very practical, uncomfortable, and absolutely without aesthetic style. The walls, ceiling, and floor were bare. The decoration was simple and very effective, but to him, extremely unpleasant: it consisted of overly bright, garish, colored light-rippling out of and over all the sides of the room, ceiling, and flooraccompanied by some kind of discordant Tellurian music. The only objects he could pick up and handle were a dozen plastic books, half of them in English, their topics limited to science, mathematics, and astronomy. They were didactic and had no pictures.
After twenty minutes he was inclined to think that he was in some kind of chamber designed to punish him. He was on the verge of beating on the walls, there being no visible door, and shouting for attention, when he got a thought planted in his head.
"In five minutes there will be a lecture by you before an assembly of Z-Academy cadets.
Prepare yourself. You need only think of a toilet, Cloudd, and a panel will open to one. I hope you have" been comfortable, my friend, with good air and enough heat. We do not receive many hotheads on Palain, you know." Cloudd knew the thoughts were coming through a Palainian Lens, but it seemed somehow different, as though Nadreck were transmitting through an intermediary or staff member.
"I can hardly wait, Nadreck," Cloudd said.
"The entire student body," the Palainian Lensman, whoever he was, continued, "has been briefed with all available information, including the encounter by the Lensmen Nadreck and Armstrong with the unidentified fleet. Please summarize in less than one hour those points that you consider salient, and then be ready to answer questions. You now have your five minutes."
When a panel slid aside, Cloudd walked through the opening and down a long hallway and around a corner where he met Chon. The general was standing before a transparent wall, next to the seated figure of Gronitskog, with many vague images shifting about on the other side of the glass. Probably they were the Z cadets, Cloudd thought to himself There were two empty stools next to the Noyyonese, and when Chon sat down on one of them after giving a cheerful smile and nod of his head to him, Cloudd sat down on the other.
"Please stand up, Lieutenant Cloudd, and come closer to the window and tell us about the datadrones," he was told.
'As you must already know the details," Cloudd said, "I have nothing much to say. About a year and a half ago spacemen, particularly Tellurians, who had been probing the less populated regions of the Milky Way, began to notice the small, segmented, torpedo-shaped drones drifting near them, aimlessly, it seemed. Sometimes the objects were observed streaking off on unchartable courses. They were elusive and bothered no one, but I became intrigued, and in the course of my prospecting in many regions I began to go out of my way to observe them. I reported my findings, which weren't many, but the Patrol considered my work valuable and assigned me an official role in gathering details. I succeeded in capturing a small one and determined that it was, in fact, an information collecting device. I identified a larger, mother machine, which was an assembling point and a transmitter. A much larger third kind was discovered releasing the two smaller types. I determined that these datadrones, numbering in the thousands, were not Boskonian, but represented some other, unidentified race or controlling force. Our attempts to solve the riddle of their appearance; mission, and source failed. The datadrones, those that remained apparently left the galaxy immediately following the defeat of the Spawn of Boskone and their black hole weapon.
"This is my summary. But, of course, I have told you nothing new," Cloudd concluded and quickly sat down. "We have questions for you, Cloudd," Nadreck said. "The first one is, why, if they were bothering no one, did you not leave them alone?"
To Cloudd the answer was so obvious that he had difficulty explaining that the unknown must always be investigated, either to defend against it or to exploit it.
"But considering that the Galactic Patrol was already heavily involved in contesting the rebuilding of the remnants of Boskone by the Bosko-Spawn, with its so-called 'Doomsday Machine,' having the potential to obliterate millions of worlds, why did you assume that the Galactic Patrol was right to stir up trouble when it was not yet necessary.
Again Cloudd tolerantly defended his position and that of the Patrol. He couldn't help feeling, however, that Nadreck's attitude was hardly the sort to be taken by young entities who were planning to be Lensmen. "I understand your feeling, Lieutenant Cloudd," came the thought, in a manner that Cloudd knew was meant for everyone there, "but you must understand ours. As has been stated many times, our intrinsic nature is to ignore and be ignored. Our lives and our culture have proved this to be desirable and to be effective. It is necessary, absolutely necessary, that we try to understand the Tellurian mind as much as we can. We are obstinate, so we will continue this line of questioning until we are satisfied no further purpose will be served for us.
With this straightforward, although rather abrasive attitude, the questioning continued. To Cloudd, it was almost nonsense and seemed to serve no intelligent purpose, but he answered to the best of his ability.
Finally he was through. His summary had taken less than a minute. His inquisition had taken nearly threequarters of an hour. He was left feeling overwhelmingly irritated, not only because the questions seemed so thick-headed, but because he had had his own good sense and rationality actually undermined by them.
"Do you need a rest break, Lieutenant? Do you, Chaplain General? No? Then we will continue." Cloudd tried very hard not to let his thought slip through, "What about Gronitskog? Maybe he needs a rest? but evidently he failed because the Palainian Lensman said, 'As Gronitskog needs no rest either, please come forward, Chaplain Chon, and speak to us. I have already informed the students of all we know about this humanoid from the planet Togra. There are a number of questions they have that Nadreck cannot answer with authority. We address this to the Chaplain General of the Galactic Patrol: "What makes this barbarian a holy man?"
Chon, tall and stately in his dress uniform, turned his head toward Cloudd, raised his eyebrows and gave a grimace and a sigh as if to say, "Well, Cloudd, now it's my turn for the really heavy stuff." He turned back to the window, folded his arms, and gazed solemnly at the amorphous mass of figures before speaking.
"A holy man is one who associates himself with and follows a spiritual system," Chon said.
"At the best, he is one who is -in touch with God, the Omnipotent Witness.
However, I understand your question to mean why should he be a holy man when he is our enemy and on the side of evil. The answer is subjective, based on one's beliefs. He can be holy and yet still be in error."
"Why does this or any religious man wear a charm of superstition?"
"It's a symbol of faith and a badge of recognition. Also, in some cases, such as this, it is a prayer focuser or amplifier, either technologically or psychically augmented.
What you see is a reproduction we have made of his- pink-sphere-within-white-sphere icon enclosed in a thin transparent box. We made the substitution because it could be a transmitter or homing device that might compromise our security. That's probably 'why you evaluate it as a mere charm."
For nearly ten minutes, this kind of question was asked and answered. Cloudd found the questions much more interesting and revealing than Chon's answers. At first Cloudd was positive that all the Palainians in the group were basically atheistic, although he quickly modified his judgment of them to agnostic. Then he decided they were exceedingly metaphysical, concerned with cosmology, the study of the ultimate order of the universe, and thus paradoxical. Their questions showed him that they were very interested in the study of the nature and existence of God in the narrow sense of trying to detect him through facts and reason. They didn't seem to understand or care about intangible or spiritual things. They simply couldn't understand why Gronitskog could be a man of God and be on the side of evil if God was all-powerful and all goodness. Why should God permit evil, they wanted to know?
Chon did his best, but no one seemed very satisfied. Cloudd, who always had thought of himself as "religious, " but who had never actively practiced "religion," was himself confused and suddenly filled with doubts he had never before seen or admitted.
