"Smith, E E 'Doc' - Lensman 05 - Second Stage Lenman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

language- maybe no language at all-when it takes months even to find out who and
where-if any-the native police officers are?"
Also there was the apparently insuperable difficulty of identification of authorized
personnel. Triplanetary's best scientists had done their best in the way of a non-
counterfeitable badge-the historic Golden Meteor, which upon touch impressed upon
the toucher's consciousness an unpronounceable,-unspellable syllable-but that best
was not enough. What physical science could devise and synthesize, physical science
could analyze and duplicate; and that analysis and duplication had caused trouble
indeed.Triplanetary needed something vastly better than its meteor. In fact, without a
better, its expansion into an inter-systemic organization would probably be impossible. It
needed something to identify a Patrolman, anytime and anywhere. This something must
be impossible of duplication or imitation-ideally, it should kill, painfully, any entity
attempting imposture. It should operate as a telepath or endow its wearer with telepathic
power-how else could a Tellurian converse with peoples such as the Rigellians, who
could not talk, see, or hear?
Both Solarian Councillor Virgil Samms and his friend of old, Commissioner of
Public Safety Roderick Kinnison, knew these things; but they also knew how utterly
preposterous their thoughts were; how utterly and self-evidently impossible such a
device was.
But Arisia again came to the rescue. The scientist working on the meteor
problem, one Dr. Nels Bergenholm-who, all unknown to even his closest associates,
was a form of flesh energized at various times by various Arisians-reported to Virgil
Samms that:
(1) Physical science could not then produce what was needed, and probably
could never do so. (2) Although it could not be explained by any symbology known to
man, there was-there must be-a science of die mind; a science whose tangible
products physical science could neither analyze nor imitate. (3) Virgil Samms, by going
to Arisia, could obtain exactly what was needed.
"Arisia! Of all the hells in space, why Arisia?" Kinnison demanded. "How? Don't
you know that nobody can get anywhere near that damn planet?"
"I know that the Arisians are very well versed in that science. I know that if Virgil
Samms goes to Arisia he will obtain the symbol he needs. I know that he will never
obtain it otherwise. As to how I know these things-I can't-I just -I know them, I tell
you!" And since Bergenholm was already as well known for uncannily accurate
"hunches" as for a height of genius bordering on insanity, the two leaders of Civilization
did not press him farther, but went immediately to the hitherto forbidden planet. They
were-apparently-received hospitably enough, and were given Lenses by Mentor of
Arisia; Lenses which, it developed, were all that Bergenholm had indicated, and more.
The Lens is a lenticular structure of hundreds of thousands of tiny crystalloids,
built and tuned to match the individual life force-the ego, the personality-of one
individual entity. While not, strictly speaking, alive, it is endowed with a sort of pseudo-
life by virtue of which it gives off a strong, characteristically-changing, polychromatic
light as long as it is in circuit with the living mentality with which it is in synchronization.
Conversely, when worn by anyone except its owner, it not only remains dark, but it kills;



so strongly does its pseudo-life interfere with any life to which it is not attuned. It is also
a telepathic communicator of astounding power and range-and other things.