"Randall Garrett - Backstage Lensman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Garrett Randall)

BACKSTAGE LENSMAN
By Randall Garrett


The Lensman series, comprising, as it does, some six hundred thousand words, is
still, to my mind, the greatest space opera yet written. It has, to use one of Doc
SmithтАЩs favorite words, тАЬscope.тАЭ
E. E. Smith, Ph.D., had more scope, more breadth and depth of cognizance of the
Cosmic All, than anyone beforeтАФor since.
He had his flaws; we all do. But the grandeur of his writing overpowered those
flaws, made them insignificant.
I first wrote Backstage Lensman nearly thirty years ago. The original is long lost.
There was no market for it in those days, and my moving about... well, it got lost.
This is a re-creation from memory. It was a test of memory in another way, too not
once, during the writing, did I look into the Lensman for descriptions or phraseology
or situations to parody. IтАЩve read those books so often over the years that there was
no necessity for it. The style came naturally.
Only once did my memory fail me. I was too accurate. I had to rewrite one
paragraph because, when I checked with the original, it was word-for-word. And
thatтАЩs plagiarism.
Doc saw the first version of Backstage Lensman in 1949, and laughed all through the
convention. It was his suggestion that I call the spaceship Dentless.


On a planet distant indeed from Tellus, on a frigid, lightless globe situated within an
almost completely enclosing hollow sphere of black interstellar dust, in a cavern far
beneath the surface of that abysmally cold planet, a group of entities indescribable
by, or to, man stood, sat, or slumped around a circular conference table.
Though they had no spines, they were something like porcupines; though they had
no tentacles, they reminded one of octopuses; though they had no wings or beaks,
they seemed similar to vultures; and though they had neither scales nor fins, there
was definitely something fishy about them.
These, then, composed the Council of the Meich, frigid-blooded poison-breathers
whose existence at temperatures only a few degrees above zero absolute required
them to have extensions into the fourth and fifth dimensions, rendering them horribly
indescribable and indescribably horrible to human sight.
Their leader, Meichfrite, or, more formally, Frite of the Meich, radiated harshly to
others of the Council: тАЬThe time has now come to consider the problem of our
recent losses in the other galaxy. Meichrobe, as Second of the Meich, you will report
first.тАЭ
That worthy pondered judiciously for long moments, then: тАЬI presume you wish to
hear nothing about the missing strawberries?
тАЬNothing,тАЭ agreed the other.
тАЬThen,тАЭ came MeichrobeтАЩs rasping thought, тАЬwe must consider the pernicious
activities of the Tellurian Lensman whose workings are not, and have not been,
ascribed to Star A Star.
тАЬThe activities and behavior of all members of the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned
Galactic Patrol have, as you know, been subjected to rigid statistical analysis. Our
computers have come to the conclusion that, with a probability of point oh oh one,
the Lensman known as Gimble Ginnison either is or is not the agent whom we