Galactic Patrol Read Free

severity is that it produces results -- no wearer of the Lens has ever disgraced it.
    "Now as to the Lens itself. Like every one else, you have known of it ever since you could talk, but you know nothing of its origin or its nature. Now that you are Lensmen, I can tell you what little I know about it. Questions?"
    "We have all wondered about the Lens, sir, of course," Maitland ventured. "The outlaws apparently keep up with us in science. I have always supposed that what science can build, science can duplicate. Surely more than one Lens has fallen into the hands of the outlaws?"
    “If it had been a scientific invention or discovery it would have been duplicated long ago," the Commandant made surprising answer. "It is, however, not essentially scientific in nature. It is almost entirely philosophical, and was developed for us by the Arisians.
    "Yes, each of you was sent to Arisia quite recently," von Hohendorff went on, as the newly commissioned officers stared, dumbfounded, at him and at each other. "What did you think of them, Murphy?"
    "At first, sir, I thought that they were some new kind of dragon, but dragons with brains that you could actually feel. I was glad to get away, sir. They fairly gave me the creeps, even though I never did see one of them so much as move.,,
    "They are a peculiar race," the Commandant went on. "Instead of being mankind's worst enemies, as is generally believed, they are the sine qua non of our Patrol and of Civilization. I cannot understand them, I do not know of anyone who can. They gave us the Lens, yet Lensmen must not reveal that fact to any others. They make a Lens to fit each candidate, yet no two candidates, apparently, have ever seen the same things there, nor is it believed that anyone has ever seen them as they really are. To all except Lensmen they seem to be completely antisocial, and even those who become Lensmen go to Arisia only once in their lives. They seem -- although I caution you that this seeming may contain no more of reality than the physical shapes you thought you saw -- to be supremely, indifferent to all material things.
    "For more generations than you can understand they have devoted themselves to thinking, mainly of the essence of life. They say that they know scarcely anything fundamental concerning it, but even so they know more about it than does any other known race. While ordinarily they will have no intercourse whatever with outsiders, they did consent to help the Patrol, for the good of all intelligence.
    "Thus, each being about to graduate into Lensmanship is sent to Arisia, where a Lens is built to match his individual life force. While no mind other than that of an Arisian can understand its operation, thinking of your Lens as being synchronized with, or in exact resonance with, your own vital principle or ego will give you a rough idea of it. The Lens is not really alive, as we understand the term. It is, however, endowed with a sort of pseudo-life, by virtue of which it gives off its strong, characteristically changing light as long as it is in metal-to-flesh circuit with the living mentality for which it was designed.
    Also by virtue of that pseudo-life, it acts as a telepath through which you may converse with other intelligences, even though they may possess no organs of speech or of hearing.
    "The Lens cannot be removed by anyone except its wearer without dismemberment, it glows as long as its rightful owner wears it, it ceases to glow in the instant of its owner's death and disintegrates shortly thereafter. Also -- and here is the thing that renders completely impossible the impersonation of a Lensman – not only does the Lens not glow if worn by an importer, but if a Lensman be taken alive and his Lens removed, that Lens kills in a apace of seconds any living being who attempts to wear it.
    As long as it glows -- as long as it is in circuit with its living owner -- it is harmless, but in the dark condition its pseudo-life interferes so strongly