First Lensman

The visitor, making his way unobserved through the crowded main laboratory of the Hill, stepped up to within six feet of the back of a big Norwegian seated at an electrono-optical bench. Drawing an automatic pistol, he shot the apparently unsuspecting scientist seven times, as fast as he could pull the trigger; twice through the brain, five times, closely spaced, through the spine.

“Ah, Gharlane of Eddore, I have been expecting you to look me up. Sit down.” Blonde, blue-eyed Dr. Nels Bergenholm, completely undisturbed by the passage of the stream of bullets through his head and body, turned and waved one huge hand at a stool beside his own.

“But those were not ordinary projectiles!” the visitor protested. Neither person⁠—or rather, entity⁠—was in the least surprised that no one else had paid any attention to what had happened, but it was clear that the one was taken aback by the failure of his murderous attack. “They should have volatilized that form of flesh⁠—should at least have blown you back to Arisia, where you belong.”

“Ordinary or extraordinary, what matter? As you, in the guise of Gray Roger, told Conway Costigan a short time since, ‘I permitted that, as a demonstration of futility.’

“Listen, you bird-brained, knot-headed, grandstanding half-wit!” he stormed, voice low but bitterly intense. “I ought to beat your alleged brains out! I’ve told you a thousand times to watch your own territory and stay out of mine! If you had been where you belonged, or even taken my signal, Frank couldn’t have made that thirty-all point; and if Lois hadn’t netted she’d’ve caught you flat-footed, a kilometer out of position, and made it deuce. What do you think you’re doing, anyway⁠—playing tennis or seeing how many innocent bystanders you can bring down out of control?”

“What do you think?” the girl sneered, sweetly. Her tawny eyes, only a couple of inches below his own, almost emitted sparks. “And just look at who’s trying to tell who how to do what! For your information, Master Pilot John K. Kinnison, I’ll tell you that just because you can’t quit being ‘Killer’ Kinnison even long enough to let two good friends of ours get a point now and then, or maybe even a game, is no reason why I’ve got to turn into ‘Killer’ Samms. And I’ll also tell you.⁠ ⁠…”

“You’ll tell me nothing, Jill⁠—I’m telling you! Start giving away points in anything and you’ll find out some day that you’ve given away too many. I’m not having any of that kind of game⁠—and as long as you’re playing with me you aren’t either⁠—or else. If you louse up this match just once more, the next ball I serve will hit the tightest part of those fancy white shorts of yours⁠—right

He had expected to encounter a tremendous mentality; but this was a thing far, far beyond his wildest imaginings. This was a brain⁠—just that⁠—nothing else. Almost globular; at least ten feet in diameter; immersed in and in perfect equilibrium with a pleasantly aromatic liquid⁠—a brain!

“Relax,” the Arisian ordered, soothingly, and Samms found that he could relax. “Through the one you know as Bergenholm I heard of your need and have permitted you to come here this once for instruction.”

“But this⁠ ⁠… none of this⁠ ⁠… it isn’t⁠ ⁠… it can’t be real!” Samms blurted. “I am⁠—I must be⁠—imagining it⁠ ⁠… and yet I know that I can’t be hypnotized⁠—I’ve been psychoed against it!”

“What is reality?” the Arisian asked, quietly. “Your profoundest thinkers have never been able to answer that question. Nor, although I am much older and a much more capable thinker than any member of your race, would I attempt to give you its true answer. Nor, since your experience has been so limited, is it to be expected that you could believe without reservation any assurances I might give you in thoughts or in words. You must, then, convince yourself⁠—definitely, by means of your own five senses⁠—that I and everything about you are real, as you understand reality. You saw the village and this building; you see the flesh that houses the entity which is I. You feel your own flesh; as you tap the woodwork with your knuckles you feel the impact and hear the vibrations as sound. As you entered this room you must have perceived the odor of the nutrient solution in which and by virtue of which I live. There remains only the sense of taste. Are you by any chance either hungry or thirsty?”

“It is not possible simply because no fully competent mind ever has existed or ever will exist. A mind can become fully competent only by the acquisition of infinite knowledge, which would require infinite time as well as infinite capacity. Our equivalent of your chess, however, is what we call the ‘Visualization of the Cosmic All.’ In my visualization a descendant of yours named Clarrissa MacDougall will, in a store called Brenleer’s upon the planet⁠ ⁠… but no, let us consider a thing nearer at hand and concerning you personally, so that its accuracy will be subject to check. Where you will be and exactly what you will be doing, at some definite time in the future. Five years, let us say?”

“Go ahead. If you can do that you’re good.”

“Five Tellurian calendar years then, from the instant of your passing through the screen of ‘the Hill’ on this present journey, you will be⁠ ⁠… allow me, please, a moment of thought⁠ ⁠… you will be in a barber shop not yet built; the address of which is to be fifteen hundred fifteen Twelfth Avenue, Spokane, Washington, North America, Tellus. The barber’s name will be Antonio Carbonero and he will be left-handed. He will be engaged in cutting your hair. Or rather, the actual cutting will have been done and he will be shaving, with a razor trademarked ‘Jensen-King-Byrd,’ the short hairs in front of your left ear. A comparatively small, quadrupedal, grayish-striped entity, of the race called ‘cat’⁠—a young cat, this one will be, and called Thomas, although actually of the female sex⁠—will jump into your lap, addressing you pleasantly in a language with which you yourself are only partially familiar.

“Not at all.” Herkimer sat down and took from a drawer two small, transparent, vaguely capsule-like tubes, each containing a few particles of purple dust. “You know what this is?”

“I can guess.”

“Each of these is a good, heavy jolt; about all that a strong man with a strong heart can stand. Sit down. Here is one dose. Pull the cover, stick the capsule up one nostril, squeeze the ejector, and sniff. If you can leave this other dose sitting here on the desk you will live, and thus pass the test. If you can’t, you die.”

Samms sat, and pulled, and squeezed, and sniffed.

His forearms hit the desk with a thud. His hands clenched themselves into fists, the tight-stretched tendons standing boldly out. His face turned white. His eyes jammed themselves shut; his jaw-muscles sprang into bands and lumps as they clamped his teeth hard together. Every voluntary muscle in his body went into a rigor as extreme as that of death itself. His heart pounded; his breathing became stertorous.

This was the dreadful “muscle-lock” so uniquely characteristic of thionite; the frenzied immobility of the ultimately passionate satisfaction of every desire.