Gray Lensman - Plot Synopsis

Plot Synopsis

The action in Gray Lensman picks up immediately where Galactic Patrol left off, in the middle of the battle to destroy Helmuth's Main Base and hopefully end the threat of Boskone. After the base falls, Kinnison finds some clues that lead him to think that maybe Helmuth was not the head of Boskone after all. The clues (plus some deduction about the effects of colliding galaxies) lead Kinnison to mount an expedition aboard the newly constructed super dreadnought Dauntless into Lundmark's galaxy (the second galaxy) where he thinks the true head of Boskone might reside. The Dauntless locates a planet under attack and comes to its aid, destroying the Boskonian forces and discovering that the entire planet is capable of going "free" (that is, inertialess, the method used in the Lensman books to achieve interstellar and intergalactic space travel). As quickly as they arrived on Boskonian turf, the Lensman return to the "First Galaxy" (the Milky Way) with the space-faring planet and its grateful residents.

Having made an expedition into a Boskonian-held galaxy (and making the assumption that pretty much all of the galaxy save for the one planet they brought back is under Boskonian control) Kinnison decides that since the patrol was not yet strong enough to attack the second galaxy militarily, he will follow leads to the upper levels of Boskone through the traffic in the illegal drug thionite.

The novel then follows Kinnison as he tries to infiltrate the Boskonian drug network. Along the way, Kinnison learns something else new: As a Second Stage Lensman he no longer needs his Lens to do Lensman things like read minds or communicate telepathically, although he works better while wearing it. Kinnison suffers some setbacks, and has to assume a couple different identities, eventually one requiring him to learn to drink and use drugs. Even though he tries to "drink" while, as much as possible, actually letting the people around him empty the bottles, and uses the least harmful drug (bentlam weed) he can use, it still takes him a while to get over the effects of the alcohol and drug after he moves on following the lead. Eventually he uncovers the information he was looking for, the name and the location of the boss of all Boskonian drug traffic in the first galaxy.

There is a minor interlude in the middle of Kinnisons undercover work in which the Delgonian overlords seem to have returned. Apparently when Kinnison, vanBuskirk, and Worsel thought they had killed all the Overlords (Galactic Patrol) they had missed a few. Because he had fought the overlords before, Kinnison is asked to lead the expedition to hunt them down, and the reptilian Worsel comes along (Worsel becomes his constant sidekick for the rest of the book). The Delgonians are dispatched in fairly short order, but only after the loss of many good men. Kim beats himself up over the casualties that he suffered because although he and Worsel were mentally strong enough to resist the overlords, his men weren't.

Realizing that the patrol will need new and much more powerful weapons before it can take on Boskone in the second galaxy, Kinnison, and the brief help of the "trimly attractive blonde" librarian at the Library of Science, convenes 50 the greatest scientists in the galaxy to work on some new weapon development projects (a sequence in which we find out that Kim and Worsel apparently have the two most highly rated minds in the galaxy). The weapon they come up with is called a "Negasphere", essentially composed of something like negative energy. It totally consumes absolutely anything it touches. They plan to make a Negasphere of planetary dimensions and use it against the leaders of Boskone.

He infiltrates the base of the head of all Boskonian drug traffic in the first galaxy and gets the information he had been hoping for ever since his trip to the second galaxy, the location of the actual leaders of Boskone. A group made up of members of a race called The Eich who call themselves "The Council of Boskone". Kim and Worsel set out on what amounts to an almost suicide mission to infiltrate the base of the Eich. Kinnison is captured and tortured. Unknown to the Eich, Worsel is hiding close by and finds a way to rescue Kinnison and get away. Infected by something that requires the patrol doctors to amputate all four limbs, blinded, and tortured almost to death, his life is saved, but it looks like he will be a basket case.

Earlier in the book a Poseian who called himself "Phillips" was financed by the patrol to try to come up with a way to allow higher beings to regenerate body parts in the same way lower animals (starfish, flatworms, etc.) can. When Kinnison was injured Phillips was ready to try his procedure on humans. Needless to say, it works and Kinnison is brought back to full health. During his convalescence Clarissa is again his nurse and their love grows stronger.

He then leads an expedition to destroy the base of the head of Boskonian drug trafficking in the first galaxy using a negasphere and then, traveling to the Boskonian home turf in the second galaxy, to destroy their fleet and then the Eich's home base using a planet cracker, a pair of "free" planets released and inerted to crush the planet of the Eich between them. And so passed the Eich and the Council of Boskone. It was thought that finally the long struggle was finished and Civilization was triumphant.

The book is capped off by the culmination of the romance between Kimball and Clarissa MacDougall resulting in their planning to get married. The book ends with them walking off, hand in hand, into a bright and happy future.