"Smith, E E Doc - Lensman 4 - Gray Lensman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

GRAY LENSMAN

serialized in "ASTOUNDING," Oct '39 - Jan '40;
First book, Fantasy Press hardbound, 1951;


BY E. E. "DOC" SMITH


FOREWORD

Two thousand million or so years ago, at the time of the Coalescence, when the First and Second
Galaxies were passing through each other and when myriads of planets were coming into
existence where only a handful had existed before, two races of beings were already old; so old
that each had behind it many millions of years of recorded history. Both were so old that each
had perforce become independent of the chance formation of planets upon which to live. Each
had, in its own way, gained a measure of control over its environment; the Arisians by power of
mind alone, the Eddorians by employing both mind and mechanism.
The Arisians were indigenous to this, our normal space-time continuum; they had lived
in it since the unthinkably remote time of their origin; and the original Arisia was very Earth-like
in mass, composition, size, atmosphere, and climate. Thus all normal space was permeated by
Arisian life-spores, and thus upon all Earth-like or Tellurian planets there came into being races
of creatures more or less resembling Arisians in the days of their racial youth. None except
Tellurians are Homo Sapiens, of course; few can actually be placed in Genus Homo; but many
millions of planets are peopled by races distantly recognizable or belonging to the great class of
MAN.
The Eddorians, on the other hand, were interlopersЧintruders. They were not native to
our normal space-time system, but came to it from some other, some alien and horribly different
other, plenum. For eons, in fact, they had been exploring the macrocosmic All; moving their
planets from continuum to continuum; seeking that which at last they foundЧa space and a time
in which there were enough planets, soon to be inhabited by intelligent life, to sate even the
Eddorian lust for dominance. Here, in our own space-time, they would stay; and here supreme
they would rule.
The Elders of Arisia, however, the ablest thinkers of the race, had known and had studied
the Eddorians for many cycles of time. Their integrated Visualization of the Cosmic All showed
what was to happen. No more than the Arisians themselves could the Eddorians be slain by any
physical means, however applied; nor could the Arisians, unaided, kill all of the invaders by
mental force. Eddore's All-Highest and his Innermost Circle, in their ultra-shielded citadel, could
be destroyed only by a mental bolt of such nature and magnitude that its generator, which was to
become known throughout two galaxies as the Galactic Patrol, would require several long
Arisian lifetimes for its building.
Nor would that building be easy. The Eddorians must be kept in ignorance, both of Arisia
and of the proposed generator, until too late to take effective counter-measures. Also, no entity
below the third level of intelligence, evenЧor especially?Чof the Patrol, could ever learn the
truth; for that knowledge would set up an inferiority complex and thus rob the generator of all
ability to do the work for which it was designed.
Nevertheless the Arisians began building. On the four most promising planets of the First
GalaxyЧour Earth or Sol Three, Velantia, Rigel Four, and Palain SevenЧbreeding programs,
aiming toward the highest mentality of which each race was capable, were begun as soon as
intelligent life developed.