First Lensman (10 page)

The frightful drive continued; the noise grew worse and worse. Imagine, if you can, a city of fifteen millions of people, throughout whose entire length, breadth, height, and depth no attempt whatever had ever been made to abate any noise, however violent or piercing! If your imagination has been sufficiently vivid and if you have worked understandingly enough, the product may approximate what First Lensman Samms was forced to listen to that day.

Through ever-thickening traffic, climbing to higher and ever higher roadways between towering windowless walls of steel, the massive Rigellian automobile barged and banged its way. Finally it stopped, a thousand feet or so above the ground, beside a building which was still under construction. The heavy door clanged open. They got out.

And then—it chanced to be daylight at the time—Samms saw a tangle, of fighting, screaming
colors
whose like no entity possessing the sense of sight had ever before imagined. Reds, yellows, blues, greens, purples, and every variation and inter-mixture possible; laid on or splashed on or occurring naturally at perfect random, smote his eyes as violently as the all-pervading noise had been assailing his ears.

He realized then that through his guide's sense of perception he had been "seeing" only in shades of gray, that to these people "visible" light differed only in wave-length from any other band of the complete electromagnetic spectrum of vibration.

Strained and tense, the Lensman followed his escort along a narrow catwalk, through a wall upon which riveters and welders were busily at work, into a room practically without walls and ceiled only by story after story of huge I-beams. Yet
this
was the meeting-place; almost a hundred Rigellians were assembled there!

And as Samms walked toward the group a craneman dropped a couple of tons of steel plate, from a height of eight or ten feet, upon the floor directly behind him.

"I just about jumped right out of my armor," is the way Samms himself described his reactions; and that description is perhaps as good as any.

At any rate, he went briefly out of control, and the Rigellian sent him a steadying, inquiring, wondering thought. He could no more understand the Tellurian's sensitivity than Samms could understand the fact that to these people, even the concept of physical intrusion was absolutely incomprehensible. These builders were not workmen, in the Tellurian sense. They were Rigellians, each working his few hours per week for the common good. They would be no more in contact with the meeting than would their fellows on the other side of the planet.

Samms closed his eyes to the riot of clashing colors, deafened himself by main strength to the appalling clangor of sound, forced himself to concentrate every fiber of his mind upon his errand.

"Please synchronize with my mind, as many of you as possible," he thought at the group as a whole, and went en-rapport with mind after mind after mind. And mind after mind after mind lacked something. Some were stronger than others, had more initiative and drive and urge, but none would quite do. Until—

"Thank God!" In the wave of exultant relief, of fulfillment, Samms no longer saw the colors or heard the din. "You, sir, are of Lensman grade. I perceive that you are Dronvire."

"Yes, Virgil Samms, I am Dronvire; and at long last I know what it is that I have been seeking all my life. But how of these, my other friends? /Are not some of them … ?"

"I do not know, nor is it necessary that I find out. You will select…" Samms paused, amazed. The other Rigellians were still in the room, but mentally, he and Dronvire were completely alone.

"They anticipated your thought, and, knowing that it was to be more or less personal, they left us until one of us invites them to return."

"I like that, and appreciate it. You will go to Arisia. You will receive your Lens. You will return here. You will select and send to Arisia as many or as few of your fellows as you choose. These things I require you, by the Lens of Arisia, to do. Afterward—please note that this is in no sense obligatory—I would like very much to have you visit Earth and accept appointment to the Galactic Council. Will you?"

"I will." Dronvire needed no time to consider his decision.

The meeting was dismissed. The same entity who had been Samms' chauffeur on the in-bound trip drove him back to the
Chicago
, driving as "slowly" and as "carefully" as before. Nor, this time, did the punishment take such toll, even though Samms knew that each terrific lunge and lurch was adding one more bruise to the already much-too-large collection discoloring almost every square foot of his tough hide. He had succeeded, and the thrill of success had its usual analgesic effect.

The
Chicago
's captain met him in the air-lock and helped him remove his suit.

"Are you
sure
you're all right, Samms?" Winfield was no longer the formal captain, but a friend. "Even though you didn't call, we were beginning to wonder … you look as though you'd been to a Valerian clambake, and I sure as hell don't like the way you're favoring those ribs and that left leg. I'll tell the boys you got back in A-prime shape, but I'll have the doctors look you over, just to make sure."

Winfield made the announcement, and through his Lens Samms could plainly feel the wave of relief and pleasure that spread throughout the great ship with the news. It surprised him immensely. Who was
he
, that all these boys should care so much whether he lived or died?

"I'm perfectly all right," Samms protested. "There's nothing at all the matter with me that twenty hours of sleep won't fix as good as new."

"Maybe; but you'll go to the sick-bay first, just the same," Winfield insisted. "And I suppose you want me to blast back to Tellus?"

"Right. And fast. The Ambassadors' Ball is next Tuesday evening, you know, and that's one function I can't stay away from, even with a Class A Double Prime excuse."

Chapter Six

The Ambassadors' Ball, one of the most ultra-ultra functions of the year, was well under way. It was not that everyone who was anyone was there; but everyone who was there was, in one way or another, very emphatically someone. Thus, there were affairs at which there were more young and beautiful women, and more young and handsome men; but none exhibiting newer or more expensive gowns, more ribbons and decorations, more or costlier or more refined jewelry, or a larger acreage of powdered and perfumed epidermis.

And even so, the younger set was well enough represented. Since pioneering appeals more to youth than to age, the men representing the colonies were young; and their wives, together with the daughters and the second (or third or fourth, or occasionally the fifth) wives of the human personages practically balanced the account.

Nor was the throng entirely human. The time had not yet come, of course, when warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing monstrosities from hundreds of other solar systems would vie in numbers with the humanity present. There were, however, a few Martians on the floor, wearing their light "robes du convention" and dancing with meticulously mathematical precision. A few Venerians, who did not dance, sat in state or waddled importantly about. Many worlds of the Solarian System, and not a few other systems, were represented.

One couple stood out, even against that opulent and magnificent background. Byes followed them wherever they went.

The girl was tall, trim, supple; built like a symphony. Her Callistan vexto-silk gown, of the newest and most violent shade of "radioactive" green, was phosphorescently luminous; fluorescent; gleaming and glowing. Its hem swept the floor, but above the waist it vanished mysteriously except for wisps which clung to strategic areas here and there with no support, apparently, except the personal magnetism of the wearer. She, almost alone of all the women there, wore no flowers. Her only jewelry was a rosette of huge, perfectly-matched emeralds, perched precariously upon her bare left shoulder. Her hair, unlike the other womens' flawless coiffures, was a flamboyant, artistically-disarranged, red-bronze-auburn mop. Her soft and dewy eyes—Virgilia Samms could control her eyes as perfectly as she could her highly educated hands—were at the moment gold-flecked, tawny wells of girlish innocence and trust.

"But I
can't
give you this next dance, too, Herkimer—
Honestly
I can't!" she pleaded, snuggling just a trifle closer into the embrace of the young man who was just as much man, physically, as she was woman. "I'd just
love
to, really, but I just simply can't, and you know why, too."

"You've got some duty-dances, of course…"

"
Some
? I've got a list as long as from here to there! Senator Morgan first, of course, then Mr. Isaacson, then I sat one out with Mr. Ossmen—I can't stand Venerians, they're so slimy and fat and repulsive!—and that leathery horned toad from Mars and that Jovian hippopotamus…"

She went down the list, and as she named or characterized each entity another finger of her left hand pressed down upon the back of her partner's right, to emphasize the count of her social obligations. But those talented fingers were doing more—far, far more—than that.

Herkimer Herkimer Third, although no little of a Don Juan, was a highly polished, smoothly finished, thoroughly seasoned diplomat. As such, his eyes and his other features—particularly his eyes—had been schooled for years to reveal no trace of whatever might be going on inside his brain. If he had entertained any suspicion of the beautiful girl in his arms, if anyone had suggested that she was trying her best to pump him, be would have smiled the sort of smile which only the top-drawer diplomat can achieve. He was not suspicious of Virgilia Samms. However, simply because she was Virgil Samms' daughter, he took an extra bit of pain to betray no undue interest in any one of the names she recited. And besides, she was not looking at his eyes, nor even at his face. Her glance, demurely downcast, was all too rarely raised above the level of his chin.

There were some things, however, that Herkimer Herkimer Third did not know. That Virgilia Samms was the most accomplished muscle-reader of her times. That she was so close to him, not because of his manly charm, but because only in that position could she do her prodigious best. That she could work with her eyes alone, but in emergencies, when fullest possible results were imperative, she had to use her exquisitely sensitive fingers and her exquisitely tactile skin. That she had studied intensively, and had tabulated the reactions of, each of the entities on her list. That she was now, with his help, fitting those reactions into a pattern. And finally, that that pattern was beginning to assume the grim shape of MURDER!

And Virgilia Samms, working now for something far more urgent and vastly more important than a figmental Galactic Patrol, hoped desperately that this Herkimer was not a muscle-reader too; for she knew that she was revealing her secrets even more completely than was he. In fact, if things got much worse, he could not help but feel the pounding of her heart … but she could explain that easily enough, by a few appropriate wiggles … No, he wasn't a reader, definitely not. He wasn't watching the right places; he was looking where that gown had been designed to make him look, and nowhere else … and no tell-tale muscles lay beneath any part of either of his hands.

As her eyes and her fingers and her lovely torso sent more and more information to her keen brain, Jill grew more and more anxious. She was sure that murder was intended, but who was to be the victim? Her father? Probably. Pops Kinnison? Possibly. Somebody else? Barely possibly. And when? And where? And how? She
didn't know!
And she would have to be
sure
… Mentioning names hadn't been enough, but a personal appearance … Why
didn't
dad show up—or did she wish he wouldn't come at all … ?

Virgil Samms entered the ballroom.

"And dad told me, Herkimer," she cooed sweetly, gazing up into his eyes for the first time in over a minute, "that I must dance with every one of them. So you see … Oh, there he is now, over there! I've been wondering where he's been keeping himself." She nodded toward the entrance and prattled on artlessly. "He's almost
never
late, you know, and I've…"

He looked, and as his eyes met those of the First Lensman, Jill learned three of the facts she needed so badly to know. Her father. Here. Soon. She never knew how she managed to keep herself under control; but, some way and just barely, she did.

Although nothing showed, she was seething inwardly: wrought up as she had never before been. What could she do? She
knew
, but she did not have a scrap or an iota of visible or tangible evidence; and if she made one single slip, however slight, the consequences could be immediate and disastrous.

After this dance might be too late. She could make an excuse to leave the floor, but that would look very bad, later … and none of them would Lens her, she knew, while she was with Herkimer—
damn
such chivalry! … She
could
take the chance of waving at her father, since she hadn't seen him for so long … no, the smallest risk would be with Mase. He looked at her every chance he got, and she'd
make
him use his Lens…

Northrop looked at her; and over Herkimer's shoulder, for one fleeting instant, she allowed her face to reveal the terrified appeal she so keenly felt.

"Want me, Jill?" His Lensed thought touched only the outer fringes of her mind. Full rapport is more intimate than a kiss: no one except her father had ever really put a Lens on Virgilia Samms. Nevertheless:

"
Want
you! I never wanted anybody so much in my life! Come in, Mase—quick—
please
!"

Diffidently enough, he came; but at the first inkling of the girl's news all thought of diffidence or of privacy vanished.

"Jack! Spud! Mr. Kinnison, Mr. Samms!" he Lensed sharp, imperative, almost frantic thoughts. "Listen in!"

"Steady, Mase, I'll take over," came Roderick Kinnison's deeper, quieter mental voice. "First, the matter of guns. Anybody except me wearing a pistol? You are, Spud?"