"David A. Kyle - Lensman 10 - Z- Lensman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kyle David A)

incident; he was close to his destination; as an armchair Lensman he had
expected
anything to happen out there on the frontier. So, although he was extremely
excited, he
wasn't as bothered as he should have been about the unorthodox and illogical
situation.
That was, as he was to learn, why he had been chosen to be involved.
His trip across the light-years to the station in less than two hours had been
as swift as
possible. He had, however, been too late. He wished he could have Lensed
Bovreck on
his way, but he had obeyed his commanding instructions. Instead, he reviewed
his
assignment, something that had come about overnight, completely without
warning. He
was to go to Palainian Research Laboratory Five. Sealed orders would await him
there.
That was it, plain and simple. He had the right, because of his age and
disability, to decline
to go, but, naturally, he didn't. His swift courier-freighter, empty until his
stop at Dingwall,
was sufficiently automated to have made the trip without him. He was no mere
truck driver.
Why had he been chosen to come all the way from Tellus? Why was a
racial-psychologist
needed? Why him? He had never met a Palainian in all his thirty-nine years of
duty in the
Galactic Patrol, despite his specialization. He had never left the Solar
System in all that
time. The reason for his insular service had been explained as his being "too
brilliant" to
be taken away from Prime Base, the gigantic Patrol base on Tellus,
headquarters for the
Grand Fleet. Unspoken was the fact that he was "too disabled"-something more
technically
true than actually true. His shorter, stiff left arm was unimportant; it was
the missing
twentyfive percent of his brain, a fluid-filled section covered by a plastic
skull-plate, that put
him on limited duty. The zwilnik bullet that had done that to him, however,
had turned him
into a sentient encyclopedia of "racial sensibilities" and a GP "resource" to
be given
special treatment. Anyhow, the few Palainians that he had almost seen had
always been
encased in heavily refrigerated atmosuits, and even these glimpses had
occurred a mere
half -dozen times. Usually each Palainian "visit" to Prime Base was made in
synchronous
orbit overhead in a personal speedster, obviously only a person of great