CHILDREN OF THE LENS BY E. E. SMITH Illustrated by Rogers [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction November, December 1947, January, February 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] MESSAGE OF TRANSMITTAL SUBJECT: The Conclusion of the Boskonian War; A Report: BY: Christopher Kinnison, L3, of Klovia: TO: The Entity Able to Obtain and to Read It. To you, the third-level intellect who has been guided to this imperishable container and who is able to break the Seal and to read this tape, and to your fellows, greetings: For reasons which will become obvious, this report will not be made available for an indefinite but very long time; perhaps ten million, perhaps ten million million Galactic-Standard years; my present visualization of the Cosmic All does not extend to the time at which such action will become necessary. Therefore it is desirable to review briefly the most pertinent facts of the earlier phases of Civilization's climatic conflict; information which, while widely known at present, will probably in that future time exist otherwise only in the memories of my descendants. In early Civilization law enforcement lagged behind crime because the police were limited in their spheres of action, while criminals were not. Each technological advance made that condition worse until finally, when Bergenholm so perfected the crude inertialess space-drive of Rodebush and Cleveland that commerce throughout the Galaxy became an actuality, crime began to threaten Civilization's very existence. Of course it was not then suspected that there was anything organized, coherent, or of large purpose about this crime. Centuries were to pass before my father, Kimball Kinnison of Tellus, now Galactic Co-ordinator, was to prove that Boskonia, an autocratic, dictatorial culture diametrically opposed to every ideal of Civilization--was, in fact, back of practically all of the pernicious activities of the First Galaxy. Even my father, however, has never had any inkling either of the existence and the doings of the Eddorians or of the fundamental _raison d'etre_ of the Galactic Patrol--facts which can never be revealed to any mind not inherently stable at the third level of stress. Virgil Samms, then Chief of the Secret Service of the Triplanetary League, perceived the general situation and foresaw the shape of the inevitable. He realized that unless and until his organization could secure an identifying symbol which could not be counterfeited, police work would remain relatively ineffectual. Tellurian science had done its best in the golden meteors of Triplanetary's Secret Service, and its best was not good enough.