"Now its power is practically absolute. Its armament and equipment are the ultimate; its members can follow the lawbreaker wherever he may go. Furthermore, a Lensman can commandeer any material or assistance, wherever and whenever required; and the Lens is so respected throughout the galaxy that any wearer of it may be called upon at any time to be judge, jury, and executioner. Wherever he goes, upon, in, or through any land, water, air, or space, anywhere within the confines of our Island Universe, his word is law.
"That, I think, explains what you have been forced to undergo. The only excuse for its severity is that it produces results. In the last hundred years no wearer of the Lens has disgraced it. Any questions? About the Lens, for instance?"
"We have all wondered about the Lens, sir, of course," Maitland ventured. "The outlaws apparently keep up with us in science. Boskone himself is supposed to be a genius, and to have surrounded himself with a scientific staff second to none in the known universe. I have always supposed that what science can build, science can duplicate. Surely more than one Lens has fallen into the hands of the outlaws?"
"If it had been a scientific invention it would have been duplicated long ago," the commandant made surprising answer. "It is, however, not essentially scientific in nature. It is almost entirely philosophical, and was developed for us by the Arisians.
"Yes, each of you was sent to Arisia quite recently," Von Hohendorff went on, as the newly commissioned officers glanced at each other in dawning understanding. "What did you think of them, Murphy?"
"At first, sir, I thought that they were some new kind of dragon; but dragons with brains that you could actually feel. I was glad to get away, sir. They fairly gave me the creeps, even though I never did see one of them so much as move."
"They are a peculiar race," the commandant went on. "Essentially antisocial—or rather, supremely indifferent to all material things. For hundreds of thousands of generations they have devoted themselves to thinking; mainly of the essence of life. They say that they know scarcely anything fundamental concerning it; but even so they know more about it than does any other known race. While ordinarily they will have no intercourse whatever with outsiders, they did consent to help the patrol, for the good of all intelligence.
"Thus, each being about to graduate into the patrol is sent to Arisia, where a Lens is built to match its individual life force. While no mind other than that of an Arisian can understand its operation, thinking of your Lens as being synchronized with, or in exact resonance with your own vital principle or ego will give you a rough idea of it. The Lens is not really alive, as we understand the term. It is, however, endowed with a sort of pseudolife, by virtue of which it gives off its strong, characteristically changing light as long as it is in metal-to-flesh circuit with the living mentality for which it was designed. Also, by virtue of that pseudolife, it acts as a telepath through which you may converse with other intelligences, even though they may possess no organs either of sight or of hearing as we know those senses. It also has other highly important uses.
"The Lens cannot be removed by any one except its wearer without dismemberment; it glows as long as its rightful owner wears it; and it ceases to glow in the instant of its owner's death. Also—and here is the thing that renders impossible the impersonation of a Lensman—not only does the Lens not glow if worn by an impostor; but if a patrolman be dismembered and his Lens removed, that Lens kills, in a space of minutes, any living being who attempts to wear it. Its pseudolife interferes so strongly with any life to which it is not attuned that that life force cannot exist in this plane."