Lensman 10 Z-Lensman by E.E. "Doc" Smith

Author:E.E. "Doc" Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Adventure
ISBN: 9780974889573
Publisher: Red Jacket Press
Published: 2004-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

9 Death Answers the Prayer

Cloudd's stay on Palain was short and he was thankful that it was. From what he saw of the

surface of the planet, it was barren and vastly unattractive, the city was a jumbled mess of

square, windowless structures, and the people were a mass of shifting, shadowy shapes.

The atmosphere was pure poison for him and the temperature was so low that it couldn't

be registered on a normal mercury thermometer. He was glad to be taken underground

and deposited in a Tellurian room with bright light.

He had been in his room for only a half hour, however, and it was already getting on his

nerves. The furniture was very practical, uncomfortable, and absolutely without aesthetic

style. The walls, ceiling, and floor were bare. The decoration was simple and very effective,

but to him, extremely unpleasant: it consisted of overly bright, garish, colored light-rippling

out of and over all the sides of the room, ceiling, and flooraccompanied by some kind of

discordant Tellurian music. The only objects he could pick up and handle were a dozen

plastic books, half of them in English, their topics limited to science, mathematics, and

astronomy. They were didactic and had no pictures.

After twenty minutes he was inclined to think that he was in some kind of chamber

designed to punish him. He was on the verge of beating on the walls, there being no visible

door, and shouting for attention, when he got a thought planted in his head.

"In five minutes there will be a lecture by you before an assembly of Z-Academy cadets.

Prepare yourself. You need only think of a toilet, Cloudd, and a panel will open to one. I

hope you have" been comfortable, my friend, with good air and enough heat. We do not

receive many hotheads on Palain, you know." Cloudd knew the thoughts were coming

through a Palainian Lens, but it seemed somehow different, as though Nadreck were

transmitting through an intermediary or staff member.

"I can hardly wait, Nadreck," Cloudd said.

"The entire student body," the Palainian Lensman, whoever he was, continued, "has been

briefed with all available information, including the encounter by the Lensmen Nadreck and

Armstrong with the unidentified fleet. Please summarize in less than one hour those points

that you consider salient, and then be ready to answer questions. You now have your five

minutes."

When a panel slid aside, Cloudd walked through the opening and down a long hallway and

around a corner where he met Chon. The general was standing before a transparent wall,

next to the seated figure of Gronitskog, with many vague images shifting about on the other

side of the glass. Probably they were the Z cadets, Cloudd thought to himself There were

two empty stools next to the Noyyonese, and when Chon sat down on one of them after

giving a cheerful smile and nod of his head to him, Cloudd sat down on the other.

"Please stand up, Lieutenant Cloudd, and come closer to the window and tell us about the

datadrones," he was told.

'As you must already know the details," Cloudd said, "I have nothing much to say. About a

year and a half ago

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