GRAY LENSMAN By E. E. SMITH, Ph. D. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction October, November, December 1939, January 1940. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _PROLOGUE_ This is not, strictly speaking, a biography. It is not, it cannot be, comprehensive enough to be called that. Nor, since of necessity it must be limited, both in length and in scope, can it be called a history. It is, perhaps, best described as a record--the record of the activities of Galactic Co-ordinator Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman, of Tellus, during the Boskonian War. Nevertheless this record, what there is of it, is in essence biographical; and the biographer of such a man as Kinnison has a peculiar task. In one way it is easy, in two others it is difficult in the extreme. "Nuts!" he is wont to exclaim in answer to a direct question as to some particular event or situation. "Why in all the nine hells of Valeria are you still wasting time writing about _me_?" But eventually I get the data I need, and thus it is comparatively easy to make this work completely authentic, as far as the Gray Lensman himself is concerned. It may be objected that I have recorded as facts certain minutiae which, considering what happened to the planet of the Eich and in the light of other happenings elsewhere, cannot be known so exactly by any living entity. This objection is untenable; as profound research upon every debatable point has shown conclusively that something very similar to, if not in fact identical with, each such detail must have occurred. Of the two great difficulties, one lies in the selection of material. The story of Kimball Kinnison easily could--and really should--fill a dozen encyclopedic spools; it is a Galactic shame and an almost impossible undertaking to compress it into one two-hour tape. The other sticking point is the diversity of my audience. For in the First Galaxy alone there are millions of planets, peopled by races as divergent in mentality and in physique as they are far apart in space. Some races will read this chronicle from printed pages; some will see it; some will hear it; some will both see it and hear it; some, unable either to see or to hear, will receive it telepathically. Still others, in other Galaxies, will undoubtedly acquire it in fashions starkly incomprehensible to me, its compiler.