XII explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Truth and Deception

  The Patrol uses deception (decoy freighter) to trap pirates, while Samms uses stealth to infiltrate Cavenda.

• Sacrifice and Duty

  Samms risks detection and death to infiltrate Cavenda, and the Patrol engages in a violent battle to capture pirates.

• Corruption and Crime

  The pirate operation, led by Murgatroyd and involving Big Jim Towne, represents organized crime and corruption.

Characters to notice

• Virgil Samms

  First Lensman, infiltrates Cavenda using a converted scout-ship with a Diesel engine to avoid detection.

• Roderick Kinnison

  Commands the Patrol trap, coordinating the attack on pirate superdreadnaughts.

• Jack Kinnison

  Assigned with Mase Northrop to take the lead pirate ship.

• Mase Northrop

  Assigned with Jack Kinnison to take the lead pirate ship.

• Dronvire

  Assigned with Conway Costigan to attack the right wing pirate.

• Conway Costigan

  Assigned with Dronvire to attack the right wing pirate.

Key passages

• “Under that irresistible urge there appeared, foggily and without any hint of knowledge of name or of spatial coordinates, an embattled planet, very similar in a smaller way to the Patrol’s own Bennett, and— Even more foggily, but still not so blurred but that their features were unmistakeably recognizable, the images of two men. That of Murgatroyd, the pirate chief, completely strange to both Kinnison and Samms; and— Back of Murgatroyd and above him, that of— Big Jim Towne!”

  Under mental interrogation, the pirate reveals a planet like Bennett and the images of Murgatroyd and Big Jim Towne.

  Reveals the pirate leadership and a key base.

• “His first beam, directed well forward, well ahead of the precious cargo, should have wrought the same havoc against screens and wall-shields and structure as a white-hot poker would against a pat of lukewarm butter. Practically the whole nose-section, including the control room, should have whiffed outward into space in gobbets and streamers of molten and gaseous metal. But nothing of the sort happened—this merchantman was no pushover!”

  The pirate's beam expected to destroy the freighter's nose, but the freighter's heavy screens held.

  Shows the freighter's unexpected strength due to Kinnison's preparations.

• “He switched the spotter into the Berg’s cutoff circuit, set it for three hundred miles, and waited tensely at his controls. The relays clicked, the driving force expired, the vessel went inert. Samms’ eyes, flashing from instrument to instrument, told him that matters could have been worse. His intrinsic was neither straight up, as he had hoped, nor straight down, as he had feared, but almost exactly halfway between the two—straight out.”

  Samms uses a spotter to cut off the Bergenholm at 300 miles, but his intrinsic velocity is sideways, requiring correction.

  Highlights the difficulty of precise navigation during stealth approach.