Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space warfare -- Fiction
"I know you don't. There were Helmuth, Jalte, Prellin,
Crowninshield ... all I can think of at the moment. Big operators, son,
and smart hombres, if I do say so myself as shouldn't; but they're all
ancient history ... hold it! Maybe I know of a modern one, too--Eddie's
Lensman. The only part of that picture that was sharp was the Lens,
since Eddie was never analytically interested in any of the hundreds of
types of people he met, but there was something about that Lensman....
I'll bring him back and focus him as sharply as I can--there." Both men
studied the blurred statue posed in the Gray Lensman's mind. "Wouldn't
you say he could be a Kalonian?"
"Check. I wouldn't want to say much more than that. But about that
Lens--did you really examine it? It _is_ sharp--under the
circumstances, of course, it would be."
"Certainly! Wrong in every respect--rhythm, chroma, context, and aura.
Definitely not Arisian; therefore Boskonian. That's the point--that's
what I was afraid of, you know."
"Double-check. And that point ties in absolutely tight with the one
that made me call you just now, that everybody, including you and me,
seems to have missed. I've been searching my memory for five hours--you
know what my memory is like--and I have heard of exactly two other
Kalonians. They were big operators, too. I have never heard of the
planet itself. To me it is a startling fact that the sum total of my
information on Kalonia, reliable or otherwise, is that it produced
seven big-shot zwilniks; six of them before I was born. Period."
Kit felt his father's jaw drop.
"No, I don't believe that I have ever heard anything about the planet,
either," the older man finally replied. "But I'll bet that I can get
you all the information you want in fifteen minutes."
"Credits to millos it'll be a lot nearer fifteen days. You can find it
sometime, though, if anybody can--that's why I'm taking it up with you.
While I don't want to seem to be giving a Gray Lensman orders"--that
jocular introduction had come to be a sort of ritual in the Kinnison
family--"I would very diffidently suggest that there might be some
connection between that completely unnoticed planet and some of the
things we don't know about Boskonia."
"Diffident! You?" The Gray Lensman laughed deeply. "Like an atomic
bomb! I'll start a search on Kalonia right away. As to your
credits-to-millos-fifteen-days thing, I'd be ashamed to take your
money. You don't know our librarians or our system. Ten millos, even
money, that we get full data in less than five G-P days from right now.
Want it?"
"I'll say so. I'll wear that cento on my tunic as a medal of victory
over the Gray Lensman. I _do_ know the size of these here two
galaxies!"
"QX--it's a bet. I'll let you know if we find anything. In the
meantime, Kit, remember that you're my favorite son."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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