First Lensman by E. E. Smith (epub e ink reader .TXT) 📕

same difficulty existed. I can neither understand nor explain it; but it is as though there are differences between us so fundamental that in some matters mutual comprehension is in fact impossible.”

“A masterly summation and undoubtedly a true one. This emmfozing, then⁠—if I read correctly, your race has only two sexes?”

“You read correctly.”

“I cannot understand. There is no close analogy. However, emmfozing has to do with reproduction.”

“I see,” and Samms saw, not only a frankness brand-new to his experience, but also a new view of both the powers and the limitations of his Lens.

It was, by its very nature, of precisionist grade. It received thoughts and translated them precisely into English. There was some leeway, but not much. If any thought was such that there was no extremely close counterpart or referent in English, the Lens would not translate it at all, but would simply give it a hitherto meaningless symbol⁠—a symbol which would from that time on be associated, by all Lenses everywhere, with that one concept and no other. Samms realized then that he might, some day, learn what a dexitroboper actually did and what the act of emmfozing actually was; but that he very probably would not.

Tallick joined them then, and Samms again described glowingly, as he had done so many times before, the Galactic Patrol of his imaginings and plannings. Kragzex refused to have anything to do with such a thing, almost as abruptly as Pilinipsi had done, but Tallick lingered⁠—and wavered.

“It is widely known that I am not entirely sane,” he admitted, “which may explain the fact that I would very much like to have a Lens. But I gather, from what you have said, that I would probably not be given a Lens to use purely for my own selfish purposes?”

“That is my understanding,” Samms agreed.

“I was afraid so.” Tallick’s mien was⁠ ⁠… “woebegone” is the only word for it. “I have work to do. Projects, you know, of difficulty, of extreme complexity and scope, sometimes even approaching danger. A Lens would be of tremendous use.”

“How?” Samms asked. “If your work is of enough importance to enough people, Mentor would certainly give you a Lens.”

“This would benefit me; only me. We of Palain, as you probably already know, are selfish, mean-spirited, small-souled, cowardly, furtive, and sly. Of what you call ‘bravery’ we have no trace. We attain our ends by stealth, by indirection, by trickery and deceit.” Ruthlessly the Lens was giving Virgil Samms the uncompromisingly exact English equivalent of the Palainian’s every thought. “We operate, when we must operate at all openly, with the absolutely irreducible minimum of personal risk. These attitudes and attributes will, I have no doubt, preclude all possibility of Lensmanship for me and for every member of my race.”

“Not necessarily.”

Not necessarily! Although Virgil Samms did not know it, this was one of the really critical moments in the coming into being of the Galactic Patrol. By a conscious, a tremendous effort, the First Lensman was lifting himself above the narrow, intolerant prejudices of human experience and was consciously attempting to see the whole through Mentor’s Arisian mind instead of through his Tellurian own. That Virgil Samms was the first human being to be born with the ability to accomplish that feat even partially was one of the reasons why he was the first wearer of the Lens.

“Not necessarily,” First Lensman Virgil Samms said and meant. He was inexpressibly shocked⁠—revolted in every human fiber⁠—by what this unhuman monster had so frankly and callously thought. There were, however, many things which no human being ever could understand, and there was not the shadow of a doubt that this Tallick had a really tremendous mind. “You have said that your mind is feeble. If so, there is no simple expression of the weakness of mine. I can perceive only one, the strictly human, facet of the truth. In a broader view it is distinctly possible that your motivation is at least as ‘noble’ as mine. And to complete my argument, you work with other Palainians, do you not, to reach a common goal?”

“At times, yes.”

“Then you can conceive of the desirability of working with non-Palainian entities toward an end which would benefit both races?”

“Postulating such an end, yes; but I am unable to visualize any such. Have you any specific project in mind?”

“Not at the moment.” Samms ducked. He had already fired every shot in his locker. “I am quite certain, however, that if you go to Arisia you will be informed of several such projects.”

There was a period of silence. Then:

“I believe that I will go to Arisia, at that!” Tallick exclaimed, brightly. “I will make a deal with your friend Mentor. I will give him a share⁠—say fifty percent, or forty⁠—of the time and effort I save on my own projects!”

“Just so you go, Tallick.” Samms concealed right manfully his real opinion of the Palainian’s scheme. “When can you go? Right now?”

“By no means. I must first finish this project. A year, perhaps⁠—or more; or possibly less. Who knows?”

Tallick cut communications and Samms frowned. He did not know the exact length of Seven’s year, but he knew that it was long⁠—very long.

XI

A small, black scout-ship, commanded jointly by Master Pilot John K. Kinnison and Master Electronicist Mason M. Northrop, was blasting along a course very close indeed to RA17: D+10. In equipment and personnel, however, she was not an ordinary scout. Her control room was so full of electronics racks and computing machines that there was scarcely footway in any direction; her graduated circles and vernier scales were of a size and a fineness usually seen only in the great vessels of the Galactic Survey. And her crew, instead of the usual twenty-odd men, numbered only seven⁠—one cook, three engineers, and three watch officers. For some time the young Third Officer, then at the board, had been studying something on his plate; comparing it minutely with the chart clipped into the rack in