Masters of the Vortex

1960 (various magazines 1941/42)

Although set in the same universe as his Lensman novels, Masters of the Vortex is not properly a Lensman book in it's own right. It's set roughly during the twenty odd years between Second Stage Lensman and Children of the Lens. The galaxy is putatively at peace and Boskonian forces have ceased to intrude on the thoughts of most people.

Philip 'Storm' Cloud is second in charge of the top ranked nucleonics lab on Earth. His particular speciality being the run away nuclear reactions known as atomic vortexes. It becomes personal, though, when someone tries blowing one out, only to smash it and blow it over the neighbourhood. A neighbourhood that included Storm's home, his wife and their children. Storm thinks up a scheme that seemed like a suicide bid to his boss. But Storm isn't quite that desperate and he is a lightning calculator!

Although badly damaged enough to justify being given the Phillips Regeneration Treatment, Storm's basic premise has been proven; it is possible to blow out vortexes safely! Storm has just become the most highly sought after man in the galaxy, not excluding Lensmen!

But there is a slight problem that the Galactic Patrol has to overcome: Storm Cloud's the only being in the galaxy who has the required reactions and calculative powers, and mechanical computers were still too slow for the job.

Storm finds that he has other problems as well. It was not only the reputable labs of the Patrol that had been studying vortexes and not only people interested in putting them out! When he realised that, Storm also realised that none of the vortexes he had been blasting could have been natural!

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