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

Triplanetary needed something vastly better than its meteor. In fact, without a better, its
expansion into an intersystemic organization would be impossible. It needed something to
identify a Patrolman, anytime and anywhere. It must be impossible of duplication or imitation. In
fact, it should kill, painfully, any entity attempting imposture. It should operate as a telepath, or
endow its wearer with telepathic powerЧ 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 who had been assigned the meteor
problem, one Dr. Nels Bergenholm Чwho, all unknown to even his closest associates, was a
form of flesh energized at various times by various ArisiansЧreported to Samms and Kinnison
that:
1) Physical science could not then produce what was needed, and probably never could
do so. 2) Although it could not be explained in any symbology or language known to man, there
wasЧthere must beЧa science of the mind; a science whose tangible products physical science
could neither analyze nor imitate. 3) Virgil Samms, by going in person 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 Councillor
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 thingsЧI can'tЧI justЧ 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 perilously closely on insanity, the two leaders of Civilization did
not press him further, but went immediately to the hitherto forbidden planet. They
wereЧapparentlyЧreceived 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 forceЧthe ego, the personalityЧof 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 killsЧso 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 rangeЧand other things.
Back on Earth, Samms set out to find people of Lensman caliber to send to Arisia.
Kinnison's son Jack, and his friend Mason Northrop, Conway Costigan, and Samms's daughter
VirgiliaЧwho had inherited her father's hair and eyes, and who was the most accomplished
muscle-reader of her timeЧ went first. The boys got Lenses, but Jill did not. Mentor, who was to
her senses a woman seven feet tall, told her that she did not then and never would need a
LensЧand it should be mentioned here in passing that no two entities who ever saw Mentor ever
saw the same thing.
Frederick Rodebush, Lyman Cleveland, young Bergenholm, and a couple of
commodores of the PatrolЧClayton of North America and Schweikert of EuropeЧjust about
exhausted Earth's resources. Nor were the other Solarian planets very helpful, yielding only three
LensmenЧKnobos of Mars, Dal-Nalten of Venus, and Rularion of Jove. Lensman material was
extremely scarce stuff.
Knowing that his proposed Galactic Council would have to be made up exclusively of
Lensmen, and that it should represent as many solar systems as possible, Samms visited the