Second stage Lensmen

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction November, December 1941, January, February 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence tha...

"There were so," Kinnison contradicted, "but I didn't see them then. That's where my brain went sour; I should have seen them. Little things, mostly, but significant. Not so muc...

And soon, as such things go, new structures began to appear here and there in the void. Comparatively small, these things were; tiny, in fact, compared to the Patrol's maulers....

Unfortunately, however, the Lensman was in mufti at the time, and was driving a rented flitter. His speedster--altogether too spectacular and obvious a conveyance to be using in...

"Better, you mean," he corrected her. "You're wrong. All of us of the ship are men--all alike. But a man on a job can't concentrate all the time on defending his brain against a...

"I _do_ know," the Lyranian broke in. "That is why I would go to any length, pay any price whatever, to keep you from returning to your own world, to prevent the inrush of your...

"The boys," she enthused. "All of them. They're here because they _want_ to be--why, the officers don't even have whips! They _like_ them, actually! The officers who push the li...

There ensued a startling and entirely unorthodox maneuver, one possible only to the troopers there at work, as at Kinnison's command every Valerian left the floor in a prodigiou...

At the thought he gasped; the pit of his stomach felt cold. Chris! She was more than half Lensman already--she was the only un-Lensed human being who had ever been able to read...

Perforce he became a traveling fence, always on the go. He flew a dead-black ship, ultrafast, armed and armored like a superdreadnought, crewed--according to the newscasts--by t...

Most of the rock between the bombs was pulverized the merest fraction of a second later. Then, the distortedly spherical explosion fronts merging, the total incomprehensible pre...

"Well, a minute or so wouldn't make any difference--not _that_ much difference, anyway," Kinnison replied, uncomfortably. "I don't like to Lens you unless I have to," and he beg...

The crosses were distributed fairly evenly all around the globe and throughout the populated zone. The circles, however, tended markedly to concentrate upon the northern edge of...

There is no need to go into detail as to what actually transpired within that cavern's dark and noisome depths. It took a long time, nor was any of it gentle. The battle itself,...

To get back into the beam of narrative, Nadreck's blackly indetectable speedster settled to ground far from the Boskonians' central dome; well beyond the far-flung screens. The...

Conversely, humanity's Grand Fleet was up to its maximum strength and perfectly balanced. It had suffered staggering losses in the defense of Prime Base, it is true; but those l...

"As to conclusions, I have been unable to draw any except the highly negative one that every Boskonian psychologist who has ever summed up the situation has, in some respect or...

Time out for repairs: to have either of the contestants bleed to death, or even to the point of weakness, was no part of the code. The captain had outpointed the lieutenant, fou...

"That is better," the old man declaimed. "Do not get excited--to do so dulls the mind. Take nothing for granted, do not jump at conclusions--to commit either of those errors wil...

Nadreck left the headquarters dome until the last. In one sense it was the hardest of all; in another the easiest. It was hard in that the entities there had stronger minds than...

"I do not, and neither do you, as I remarked to the then Tyrant Alcon in this very room not long ago. I am sure that you will understand without elaboration the connotations and...

And thus, while the two immense Grand Fleets met in battle, Boskonia's flagship hung inert and silent in space afar; manned by fifteen hundred corpses, one unconscious Brain, an...

"My people! As you have already been told, my forces have won the complete victory which my foresight and my leadership made inevitable. This milestone of progress is merely a r...

Thus, in all probability, it never will become publicly known how those monstrous Onlonians destroyed each other, nor how Nadreck penetrated the defensive screens of Onlo's emba...

Through a double lane of flowing Lenses the wedding party made its way up to the locked and guarded gate of the space-field, upon which lay the _Dauntless_--the superdreadnought...