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

Kinnison intercepted a message from Helmuth, who "spoke for Boskone", and
traced his communicator beam, thus getting his first line on Boskone's Grand Base. The
pirates attacked Velantia, and six of their warships were captured. In these six ships,
manned by Velantian crews, the Patrolmen again set out for Earth and Prime Base.
Then Kinnison's Bergenholm, the generator of the force which makes inertialess
flight possible, broke down, so that he had to land upon Trenco for repairs. Trenco, the
tempestuous, billiard-ball-smooth planet where it rains forty seven feet and five inches
every night and where the wind blows at over eight hundred miles per hour-Trenco,
the source of thionite, the deadliest of all deadly drugs-Trenco, whose weirdly-charged
ether and atmosphere so distort beams and vision that it can be policed only by such
beings as the Rigellians, who possess the sense of perception instead of those of sight
and hearing!
Lensman Tregonsee, of Rigel Four, then in command of the Patrol's wandering
base on Trenco, supplied Kinnison with a new Bergenholm and he again set out for
Tellus.Meanwhile Helmuth had decided that some one particular Lensman must be the
cause of all his set-backs; and that the Lens, a complete enigma to all Boskonians, was
in some way connected with Arisia. That planet had always been dreaded and shunned
by all spacemen. No Boskonian who had even approached that planet could be
compelled, even by the certainty of death, to go near it again.
Thinking himself secure by virtue of thought-screens "given him by a being from
a higher-echelon planet named Floor, Helmuth went alone to Arisia, determined to learn
all about the Lens. There he was punished to the verge of insanity, but was permitted to
return to his Grand Base alive and sane: "Not for your own good, but for the good of
that struggling young Civilization which you oppose."
Kinnison reached Prime Base with the all-important data. By building super-
powerful battleships, called "maulers", the Patrol gained a temporary advantage over
Boskonia, but a stalemate soon ensued. Kinnison developed a plan of action whereby
he hoped to locate Helmuth's Grand Base, and asked Port Admiral Haynes for
permission to follow it. In lieu of that, however, Haynes told him that he had been given
his Release; that he was an Unattached Lensman-a "Gray" Lensman, popularly so-
called, from the color of the plain leather uniforms they wear. Thus he earned the
highest honor possible for the Galactic Patrol to give, for the Gray Lensman works
under no supervision or direction whatever. He is responsible to no one; to nothing save
his own conscience. He is no longer a cog in the immense machine of the Galactic
Patrol: wherever he may go he is the Patrol!
In quest of a second line to Grand Base, Kinnison scouted a pirate stronghold on
Aldebaran I. Its personnel, however, were not even near-human, but were Wheelmen,
possessed of the sense of perception; hence Kinnison was discovered before he could
accomplish anything and was very seriously wounded. He managed to get back to his
speedster and to send a thought to Port Admiral Haynes, who rushed ships to his aid. In
Base Hospital Surgeon-Marshal Lacy put him back together; and, during a long and



quarrelsome convalescence, Nurse Clarrissa MacDougall held him together. And Lacy
and Haynes connived to promote a romance between nurse and Lensman.
As soon as he could leave the hospital he went to Arisia in the hope that he
might he given advanced training; something which had never before been attempted.
Much to his surprise he learned that he had been expected to return for exactly such
training. Getting it almost killed him, but he emerged from the ordeal vastly stronger of