Gray Lensman

This book is sometimes listed as Grey Lensman, with an “e”.

This book does a few things to advance the overall plot, though a lot of it is more adventures. One of those things is the love story between Kimball Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougal, which I will defer for the moment. The other is to continue Kinnison’s investigation into the beings behind Boskone.

In Galactic Patrol we dealt with Boskone as the organizer of piracy in the Milky Way galaxy (generally referred to as the First galaxy here). In that novel Kinnison looked for pirate bases, infiltrated them, and tapped into their communications. He would cause situations that would require local commanders to call in to headquarters to report and receive instruction, and would tap those communications to get a line to the headquarters. He did this several times and then looked for where the lines intersected. In this way he found the base of Helmuth, a Kalonian. He then infiltrated this base, defeated Helmuth in hand-to-hand combat, and then destroyed the defenses so that the Grand Fleet of the Patrol could destroy the base. Port Admiral Haynes had considered using the base, but Helmuth had booby-trapped everything. But in doing all of this, Kinnison had learned that Helmuth was not the top boss. He reported to someone else, and in the conversation between Helmuth and his boss, the boss referred to “that galaxy”, which suggested that the boss was located in the Second Galaxy, called Lundmark’s Nebula. Now there is a galaxy named Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte that is about 3 million light years from us, so I am assuming that is what Smith based this on. Now recall that when he wrote this our notions of cosmology were definitely primitive, and there was a theory that most stars would not have planets, and only an ear collision with another star would cause planets to form. We now know better. But Smith took this and hypothesized that if two galaxies passed through one another that would cause lots of near collisions and make lots of planets. So in Smith’s hypothetical universe these two galaxies would be the only ones with lots of planets. And the life on most of them would have descended from “spores” of Arisian life, since Arisia was one of the rare planets that existed before the galaxies passed though each other, and Arisian life had had existed all of that time.

So in this story Kinnison needs to find a Boskone located in the other galaxy. The Patrol had built him a super-vessel called the Dauntless which he takes into the second galaxy, where he discovers a planet being besieged by Boskonian vessels. He destroys the vessels, then meets with the leader of the planet, called Medon, and learns that they have prepared equipment to make their planet inertialess, and were just waiting for a moment when no Boskonian vessels were in the sky to move the whole planet unobserved. Kinnison offers them a chance to com to our galaxy. And they have technology the Patrol will be very happy to get. With this episode, Kinnison has confirmed that the Boskonians are very much active, and probably in charge in the Second Galaxy. So that confirms the indications he had from Helmuth’s conversation. But how do you find the headquarters? Combing the galaxy one star at a time would take many lifetimes, so he needs to again start getting a lines to the planet of these bosses, who we learn are a race called the Eich, who live on a frigid planet and do not breathe oxygen. And since they had succeeded in wiping out most of the pirate bases in the First Galaxy has can’t repeat what he did previously, not to mention that it probably would not work a second time against very intelligent opponents, which Boskone definitely is.

So piracy is out, but there is always drugs. Drug traffic is rampant in the First Galaxy, and it is clearly managed and operated by Boskone. Kinnison will need to use this to get his lines, but he will need to go undercover to get the information. He has learned that the additional treatment he got on Arisia will let him use his mental powers even without wearing his Lens, which will help. But to do what he needs to do he actually has become a drug user, as well as a binge drinker. He carefully experiments with these to see where his limits are, but he can be physically stupified and still be mentally active. He creates the character of William Williams of Aldebaran, aka Wild Bill Williams, a meteor miner. And like most meteor miners, he works hard until he has found enough good metal to sell, and then goes on a prodigious bender. And he happens to go on this bender at the establishment of a known lower-level part of the drug operation. The first time he is establishing himself, but he learns of a meeting to take place in a few weeks time, so goes back to mining, and comes back in just before the meeting. He concludes his bender just before the meeting starts, and while lying in physical stupor and seemingly harmless his mind is actively taking in all the information. And the next day with the meting concluded and coming out of his stupor he leaves, knowing the next link in the chain. This guy had a higher up, and Kinnison now knows who it is.

So Wild Bill Williams goes to a different system to mine meteors, and arranges to to find a very lucrative meteor, making him wealthy. And this is key because the higher up here runs a much more high class establishment, though definitely still with a lot of illegality. To me the contrast is between a dive bar and a Las Vegas Casino. They might both be operated by the Mafia, but there is still a difference in tone. Kinnison basically repeats what he did at the previous place, and again gets a lead to a higher up, in this case the boss of the operation for the First Galaxy. So he again infiltrates this base similarly to how he infiltrated Helmuth’s base. The boss here is Jalte, and he is also a Kalonian. From him Kinnison gets the location of the Eich in the Second Galaxy.

At this juncture let’s take a moment to get updated on the romance between Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougal. They are obviously in love. In fact, at one point Kinnison sends a thought to Clarissa via his Lens, and without intending to his entire mind is open to her. Kinnison’s hangup is that he is in a very dangerous job and if they got married Clarissa would likely end up a widow. And he thinks she is too good for a killer like him But she points out that she is a Sector Chief Nurse and not a shrinking violet. But for the moment that is where things stand.

Kinnison then decides he needs more information, and that he will infiltrate the Eich base on their planet. Worsel of Velantia operated on his mind to bury his memories and create a false life story making him a new graduate on his first mission, but Worsel keeps linked to Kinnison mentally and records all of the information he gets. Kinnison is captured, and he puts out the story that here is a Lensman named *A* who is the director of all the Lensmen and responsible for the reverse the Boskonians have received of late. That is totally false, but convincing to the Eich because that is how they would do things. The consider killing Kinnison, but instead of being killed, he is tortured and given physical injuries, such as the loss of his eyes, the amputation of his limbs, and a dreadful infection on the stumps. Worsel gets him back, and they head for the First Galaxy. Worsel calls for medical assistance, and a fleet some out with the latest big hospital ship. And who do you think is the chief nurse on this brand new ship? Yes, it is Clarissa MacDougal, who point blank refuses to even consider letting anyone else take care of her Kim. By an astonishing coincidence, a medical researcher has just made a great discovery that lets people regrow limbs and organs, so Kinnison will soon be completely recovered.

And when he does, the Patrol Grand Fleet will eliminate Jalte’s base and then the planet of the Eich. Jalte’s base is destroyed by antimatter (called Negative Matter in the story). The Eich see what has happened and know that they can guard against this by using Tractor Beams, which normally would pull something, but with negative matter they would have the opposite effect and push the negative matter away. But the Patrol is too clever, they are not using negative matter this time. Instead they have two planets which have diametrically opposite proper motions, which they have rendered inertialess. At the proper moment they release these planets, which then crash into the Eich’s planet from either side, creating a big glowing ball.

All this done, everyone goes back to Tellus (i.e. Earth). Kinnison learns that he is being offered the role of coordinator for the Second Galaxy, MacDougal is being released from her service along with a substantial bonus she can use to ship for her wedding. Kinnison now realizes she was right along and wants to get married as well. So as the book ends, they qalk off into their new lives together.