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

landed at New York Spaceport, everyone whom the newsmen could reach was literally mobbed. However, in accordance with the aphorism ascribed to the wise old owl, those who knew the least said the most. But the Telenews ace who had once interviewed both Kinnison and Samms wasted no time upon small fry. He insisted on seeing the two top Lensmen, and kept on insisting until he did see them.

“Nothing to say,” Kinnison said curtly, leaving no doubt whatever that he meant it. “All talking⁠—if any⁠—will be done by First Lensman Samms.”

“Now, all you millions of Telenews listeners, I am interviewing First Lensman Samms himself. A little closer to the mike, please, First Lensman. Now, sir, what everybody wants to know is⁠—who are the Blacks?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? On the Lens, sir?”

“On the Lens. I still don’t know.”

“I see. But you have suspicions or ideas? You can guess?”

“I can guess; but that’s all it would be⁠—a guess.”

“And my guess, folks, is that his guess would be a very highly informed guess. Will you tell the public, First Lensman Samms, what your guess is?”

“I will.” If this reply astonished the newshawk, it staggered Kinnison and the others who knew Samms best. It was, however, a coldly calculated political move. “While it will probably be several weeks before we can furnish detailed and unassailable proof, it is my considered opinion that the Black fleet was built and controlled by the Morgan-Towne-Isaacson machine. That they, all unknown to any of us, enticed, corrupted, and seduced a world, or several worlds, to their program of domination and enslavement. That they intended by armed force to take over the Continent of North America and through it the whole earth and all the other planets adherent to Civilization. That they intended to hunt down and kill every Lensman, and to subvert the Galactic Council to their own ends. This is what you wanted?”

“That’s fine, sir⁠—just what we wanted. But just one more thing, sir.” The newsman had obtained infinitely more than he had expected to get; yet, good newsmanlike, he wanted more. “Just a word, if you will, Mr. Samms, as to these trials and the White Book?”

“I can add very little, I’m afraid, to what I have already said and what is in the book; and that little can be classed as ‘I told you so.’ We are trying, and will continue to try, to force those criminals to trial; to break up, to prohibit, an unending series of hairsplitting delays. We want, and are determined to get, legal action; to make each of those we have accused defend himself in court and under oath. Morgan and his crew, however, are working desperately to avoid any action at all, because they know that we can and will prove every allegation we have made.”

The Telenews ace signed off, Samms and Kinnison went to their respective offices, and Cosmocratic orators throughout the nation held a field-day. They glowed and scintillated with triumph. They yelled themselves hoarse, leather-lunged tub-thumpers though they were, in pointing out the unsullied purity, the spotless perfection of their own party and its every candidate for office; in shuddering revulsion at the never-to-be-sufficiently-condemned, proved and demonstrated villainy and blackguardy of the opposition.

And the Nationalists, although they had been dealt a terrific and entirely unexpected blow, worked near-miracles of politics with what they had. Morgan and his minions ranted and raved. They were being jobbed. They were being crucified by the Monied Powers. All those allegations and charges were sheerest fabrications⁠—false, utterly vicious, containing nothing whatever of truth. They, not the Patrol, were trying to force a showdown; to vindicate themselves and to confute those unspeakably unscrupulous Lensmen before Election Day. And they were succeeding! Why, otherwise, had not a single one of the thousands of accused even been arrested? Ask that lying First Lensman, Virgil Samms! Ask that rock-hearted, iron-headed, conscienceless murderer, Roderick Kinnison! But do not, at peril of your sanity, submit your minds to their Lenses!

And why, the reader asks, were not at least some of those named persons arrested before Election Day? And your historian must answer frankly that he does not know. He is not a lawyer. It would be of interest⁠—to some few of us⁠—to follow in detail at least one of those days of legal battling in one of the high courts of the land; to quote verbatim at least a few of the many thousands of pages of transcript: but to most of us the technicalities involved would be boring in the extreme.

But couldn’t the voters tell easily enough which side was on the offensive and which on the defensive? Which pressed for action and which insisted on postponement and delay? They could have, easily enough, if they had cared enough about the basic issues involved to make the necessary mental effort, but almost everyone was too busy doing something else. And it was so much easier to take somebody else’s word for it. And finally, thinking is an exercise to which all too few brains are accustomed.

But Morgan neither ranted nor raved nor blustered when he sat in conference with his faintly-blue superior, who had come storming in as soon as he had learned of the crushing defeat of the Black fleet. The Kalonian was very highly concerned; so much so that the undertone of his peculiar complexion was turning slowly to a delicate shade of green.

“How did that happen? How could it happen? Why was I not informed of the Patrol’s real power⁠—how could you be guilty of such stupidity? Now I’ll have to report to Scrwan of the Eich. He’s pure, undiluted poison⁠—and if word of this catastrophe ever gets up to Ploor⁠ ⁠… !!!”

“Come down out of the stratosphere, Fernald,” Morgan countered, bitingly. “Don’t try to make me the goat⁠—I won’t sit still for it. It happened because they could build a bigger fleet than we could. You were in on that⁠—all of it. You knew what we were doing, and approved it⁠—all of it. You