"Smith, E E 'Doc' - Lensman 06 - Children of the Lens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

Since they could not all have him it was finally agreed that Kathryn's claim would be allowed and, after a great deal of discussion and argument, a tentative plan of action was developed. In due course the Dauntless landed at Prime Base. The Kinnisons went to Wentworth Hall, the towering, chromium-and-glass home of the Tellurian cadets of the Galactic Patrol. They watched the impressive ceremonies of graduation. Then, as the new Lensmen marched out to the magnificent cadences of "Our Patrol", the Gray Lensman, leaving his wife and daughters to their own devices, made his way to his Tellurian office.
"Lensman Christopher K. Kinnison, sir, by appointment," his secretary announced, and as Kit strode in Kinnison stood up and came to attention.
"Christopher K. Kinnison of Klovia, sir, reporting for duty." Kit saluted crisply.
The coordinator returned the salute punctiliously. Then: "At rest, Kit. I'm proud of you, mighty proud. We all are. The women want to heroize you, but I had to see you first, to clear up a few things. An explanation, an apology, and, in a sense, commiseration."
"An apology, sir?" Kit was dumbfounded. "Why, that's unthinkable..."
"For not graduating you in Gray. It has never been done, but that wasn't the reason. Your commandant, the board of examiners, and Port Admiral LaForge, all recommended it, agreeing that none of us is qualified to give you either orders or directions. I blocked it."
"Of course. For the son of the coordinator to be the first Lensman to graduate Unattached would smellЦespecially since the fewer who know of my peculiar characteristics the better. That can wait, sir."
"Not too long, son." Kinnison's smile was a trifle forced. "Here's your Release and your kit, and a request that you go to work on whatever it is that's going on. We rather think it heads up somewhere in the Second Galaxy, but that's just a guess."
"I start out from Klovia, then? GoodЦI can go home with you."
"That's the idea, and on the way there you can study the situation. We've made tapes of the data, with our best attempts at analysis and interpretation. The stuffs up to date, except for a thing I got this morning... I can't figure out whether it means anything or not, but it should be inserted..." Kinnison paced the room, scowling.
"Might as well tell me. I'll insert it when I scan the tape."
"QX. I don't suppose you've heard much about the unusual shipping trouble we've been having, particularly in the Second Galaxy?"
"RumorЦgossip only. I'd rather have it straight."
"It's all on the tapes, so I'll just hit the high spots. Losses are twenty-five percent above normal. A few very peculiar derelicts have been foundЦthey seem to have been wrecked by madmen. Not only wrecked, but gutted, and every mark of identification wiped out. We can't determine even origin or destination, since the normal disappearances outnumber the abnormal ones by four to one. On the tapes this is lumped in with the other psychoses you'll learn about. But this morning they found another derelict, in which the chief pilot had scrawled 'WARE HELLHOLE IN SP' across a plate. Connection with the other derelicts, if any, obscure. If the pilot was sane when he wrote that message it means somethingЦbut nobody knows what. If he wasn't, it doesn't, any more than the dozens of obviously senselessЦexcuse me, I should say apparently senselessЦmessages on the tapes."
"Hm... m. Interesting. I'll bear it in mind and tape it in its place. But speaking of peculiar things, I've got one I wanted to tell you aboutЦgetting my Release was such a shock I almost forgot it. Reported it, but nobody thought it was anything important. MaybeЦprobablyЦit isn't. Tune your mind up to the top of the rangeЦthereЦdid you ever hear of a race that thinks on that band?"
"I never didЦit's practically unreachable. WhyЦhave you?"
"Yes and no. Only once, and that only a touch. Or, rather, a burst; as though a hard-held mind-block had exploded, or the creature had just died a violent, instantaneous death. Not enough of it to trace, and I never found any more of it."
"Any characteristics? Bursts can be quite revealing."
"A few. It was on my last break-in trip in the Second Galaxy, out beyond ThraleЦabout here." Kit marked the spot upon a mental chart. "Mentality very highЦprecisionist gradeЦpossibly beyond social needs, as the planet was a bare desert and terrifically hot. No thought of cities. Nor of water, although both may have existed without appearing in that burst of thought. The thing's bodily structure was RTSL, to four places. No gross digestive tractЦatmosphere-nourished or an energy-converter, perhaps. The sun was a blue giant. No spectral data, of course, but at a rough guess I'd say somewhere around class B5 or AO. That's all I could get."
"That's a lot to get from one burst. It doesn't mean a thing to me right now... but I'll watch for a chance to fit it in somewhere."
How casually they dismissed as unimportant that cryptic burst of thought! But if they both, right then, together, had been authoritatively informed that that description fitted exactly the physical form forced upon its denizens in its summer by the accurately-described, simply hellish climatic conditions obtaining during that season on the noxious planet Ploor, the information would still not have seemed important to either of themЦthen.
"Anything else we ought to discuss before night?" The older Lensman went on without a break.
"Not that I know of."
"You said your Release was a shock. You've got another one coming."
"I'm bracedЦblast!"
"Worsel, Tregonsee, Nadreck and I are quitting our jobs and going Gray again. Our main purpose in life is going to be rallying 'round at max whenever you whistle."
"That is a shock, sir... Thanks... I hadn't expectedЦit's really overwhelming. And you said something about commiserating me?" Kit lifted his red-thatched headЦall of Clarrissa's children had inherited her startling hairЦand gray eyes stared level into eyes of gray.
"In a sense, yes. You'll understand later... Well, you'd better go hunt up your mother and the girls. After the clambake is over..."
"I'd better cut it, hadn't I?" Kit asked, eagerly. "Don't you think it'd be better for me to get started right away?"
"Not on your life!" Kinnison demurred, positively. "Do you think I want that mob of red-heads snatching me bald? You're in for a large day and evening of lionization, so take it like a man. As I was about to say, as soon as the brawl is over tonight we'll all board the Dauntless and do a flit for Klovia, where we'll fix you up an outfit. Until then, son..." Two big hands gripped.
"But I'll be seeing you around the Hall!" Kit exclaimed. "You can't..."
"No, I can't run out on it, either," Kinnison grinned, "but we won't be in a sealed and shielded room. So, son... I'm proud of you."
"Right back at you, big fellowЦand thanks a million." Kit strode out and, a few minutes later, the coordinator did likewise.
The "brawl", which was the gala event of the Tellurian social year, was duly enjoyed by all the Kinnisons. The Dauntless made an uneventful flight to Klovia. Arrangements were made. Plans, necessarily sketchy and elastic, were laid.
Two big, gray-clad Lensmen stood upon the deserted space-field between two blackly indetectable speedsters. Kinnison was massive, sure, calm with the poised calmness of maturity, experience, and power. Kit, with the broad shoulders and narrow waist of his years and training, was taut and tense, fiery, eager to come to grips with Civilization's foes.
"Remember, son," Kinnison said as the two gripped hands. "There are four of usЦold-timers who've been through the millЦon call every second. If you can use any one of us or all of us don't waitЦsnap out a call."
"I know, dad... thanks. The four best. One of you may make a strike before I do. With the thousands of leads we have, and your experience and know-how, you probably will. So remember it cuts both ways. If any of you can use me any time, you whistle."
"QX. We'll keep in touch. Clear ether, Kit!"
"Clear ether, dad!" What a wealth of meaning there was in that low-voiced, simple exchange of the standard bon voyage!
For minutes, as his speedster flashed through space, Kinnison thought only of the boy. He knew exactly how he felt; he re-lived in memory the supremely, ecstatic moments of his own first launching into space as a Gray Lensman. But Kit had the stuffЦstuff which he, Kinnison could never know anything aboutЦand he had his own job to do. Therefore, methodically, like the old campaigner he was, he set about it.

CHAPTER 2: WORSEL AND THE OVERLORDS
Worsel the Velantian, hard and durable and long-lived as Velantians are, had in twenty Tellurian years changed scarcely at all. As the first Lensman and the only Second-Stage Lensman of his race, the twenty years had been very fully occupied indeed.
He had solved the varied technological and administrative problems incident to the welding of Velantia into the structure of Civilization. He had worked at the many tasks which, in the opinion of the Galactic Council, fitted his peculiarly individual talents. In his "spare" time he had sought out in various parts of two galaxies, and had ruthlessly slain, widely-scattered groups of the Overlords of Delgon.
Continuously, however, he had taken an intense sort of godfatherly interest in the Kinnison children, particularly in Kit and in the youngest daughter, Constance; finding in the girl a mentality surprisingly akin to his own.
When Kinnison's call came he answered it. He was now out in space; not in the Dauntless, but in a ship of his own, under his own command. And what a ship! The Velan was manned entirely by beings of his own race. It carried Velantian air, at Velantian temperature and pressure. Above all, it was built and powered for inert maneuvering at the atrocious accelerations employed by the Velantians in their daily lives; and Worsel loved it with enthusiasm and elan.
He had worked conscientiously and well with Kinnison and with other entities of Civilization. He and they had all known, however, that he could work more efficiently alone or with others of his own kind. Hence, except in emergencies, he had done so; and hence, except in similar emergencies, he would so continue to do.
Out in deep space, Worsel entwined himself, in a Velantian's idea of comfort, in an intricate series of figures-of-eight around a pair of parallel bars and relaxed in thought. There were insidious deviltries afoot, Kinnison had said. There were disaffections, psychoses, mass hysterias, andЦOh happy thought!Цhallucinations. There were also certain revolutions and sundry uprisings, which might or might not be connected or associated with the disappearances of a considerable number of persons of note. In these latter, however, Worsel of Velantia was not interested. He knew without being told that Kinnison would pounce upon such blatant manifestations as those. He himself would work upon something much more to his taste.
Hallucination was Worsel's dish. He had been born among hallucinations; had been reared in an atmosphere of them. What he did not know about hallucinations could have been printed in pica on the smallest one of his scales.
Therefore, isolating one section of his multi-compartmented mind from all others and from any control over his physical self, he sensitized it to receive whatever hallucinatory influences might be abroad. Simultaneously he set two other parts of his mind to watch over the one to be victimized; to study and to analyze whatever figments of obtrusive mentality might be received and entertained.