Read Second stage Lensman for Free Online

roughly, about five times ten
    to the forty first ergs. No, that was nothing for any possible fleet to cope with.
         Also, the attacking planets would of course be inertia-less until the last strategic
    instant. Very well, they must be made inert prematurely, when the Patrol wanted them
    that way, not the enemy. How? HOW? The Bergenholms upon those planets would be
    guarded with everything the Boskonians had.
         The answer to that question, as worked out by the engineers, was something
    they called a "super-mauler". It was gigantic, cumbersome, and slow; but little faster,
    indeed, than a free planet. It was like Helmuth's fortresses of space, only larger. It was
    like the special defense cruisers of the Patrol, except that its screens were vastly
    heavier. It was like a regular mauler, except that it had only one weapon. All of its
    incomprehensible mass was devoted to one thing—power! It could defend itself; and, if
    it could get close enough to its objective, it could do plenty of damage—its dreadful
    primary was the first weapon ever developed capable of cutting a Q-type helix squarely
    in two.
         And in various solar systems, uninhabitable and worthless planets were
    converted into projectiles. Dozens of them, possessing widely varying masses and
    intrinsic velocities. One by one they flitted away from their parent suns and took up
    positions—not too far away from our Solar System, but not too near.
         And finally Kinnison, worrying at his tantalizing thought as a dog worries a bone,
    crystallized it. Prosaically enough, it was an extremely short and flamboyantly waggling
    pink skirt which catalyzed the reaction; which acted as the seed of the crystallization.
    Pink—a Chickladorian—Xylpic the Navigator—Overlords of Delgon. Thus flashed the
    train of thought, culminating in:
         "Oh, so that's it!" he exclaimed, aloud. "A TUBE—just as sure as hell's a
    mantrap!" He whistled raucously at a taxi, took the wheel himself, and broke—or at least
    bent—most of the city's traffic ordinances in getting to Haynes' office.
         The Port Admiral was always busy, but he was never too busy to see Gray
    Lensman Kinnison; especially when the latter demanded the right of way in such terms
    as he used then.
         "The whole defense set-up is screwy," Kinnison declared. "I thought I was
    overlooking a bet, but I couldn't locate it. Why should they fight their way through inter-
    galactic space and through sixty thousand parsecs of planet-infested galaxy when they
    don't have to?" he demanded. "Think of the length of the supply line, with our bases
    placed to cut it in a hundred places, no matter how they route it. It doesn't make sense.
    They'd have to out-weigh us in an almost impossibly high ratio, unless they have an
    improbably superior armament."
         "Check." The old warrior was entirely unperturbed. "Surprised you didn't see that
    long ago. We did. I'll be very much surprised if they attack at all."
         "But you're going ahead with all this just as though . . ."
         "Certainly. Something may happen, and we can't be caught off guard. Besides,
    it's good training for the boys. Helps morale, no end." Haynes' nonchalant air
    disappeared and he studied the younger man keenly for moments. "But Mentor's
    warning certainly meant something, and you said 'when they don't have to'. But even if
    they go clear around the galaxy to the other side—an impossibly long haul—we're
    covered. Tellus is far enough in so they can't possibly take us by surprise. So—spill it!"
         "How about a hyperspatial tube? They know exactly where we are, you know."
         "Urn . . . m . . . m." Haynes was taken aback. "Never thought of it . . . possible,
    distinctly a possibility. A duodec bomb, say, just far enough underground . . ."
         "Nobody else thought of it, either, until just now," Kinnison broke in. "However,
    I'm not afraid of duodec—don't see how they could