Title: Children of the lens
Author: Smith, E. E. (Edward Elmer)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Children of the lens" ***


                         CHILDREN OF THE LENS

                            BY E. E. SMITH

                         Illustrated by Rogers

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
          Astounding Science Fiction November, December 1947,
                        January, February 1948.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]



                        MESSAGE OF TRANSMITTAL


SUBJECT: The Conclusion of the Boskonian War; A Report:

BY: Christopher Kinnison, L3, of Klovia:

TO: The Entity Able to Obtain and to Read It.

To you, the third-level intellect who has been guided to this
imperishable container and who is able to break the Seal and to read
this tape, and to your fellows, greetings:

For reasons which will become obvious, this report will not be
made available for an indefinite but very long time; perhaps ten
million, perhaps ten million million Galactic-Standard years; my
present visualization of the Cosmic All does not extend to the time
at which such action will become necessary. Therefore it is desirable
to review briefly the most pertinent facts of the earlier phases of
Civilization's climatic conflict; information which, while widely known
at present, will probably in that future time exist otherwise only in
the memories of my descendants.

In early Civilization law enforcement lagged behind crime because
the police were limited in their spheres of action, while criminals
were not. Each technological advance made that condition worse until
finally, when Bergenholm so perfected the crude inertialess space-drive
of Rodebush and Cleveland that commerce throughout the Galaxy became an
actuality, crime began to threaten Civilization's very existence.

Of course it was not then suspected that there was anything organized,
coherent, or of large purpose about this crime. Centuries were to
pass before my father, Kimball Kinnison of Tellus, now Galactic
Co-ordinator, was to prove that Boskonia, an autocratic, dictatorial
culture diametrically opposed to every ideal of Civilization--was, in
fact, back of practically all of the pernicious activities of the First
Galaxy. Even my father, however, has never had any inkling either of
the existence and the doings of the Eddorians or of the fundamental
_raison d'etre_ of the Galactic Patrol--facts which can never be
revealed to any mind not inherently stable at the third level of stress.

Virgil Samms, then Chief of the Secret Service of the Triplanetary
League, perceived the general situation and foresaw the shape of the
inevitable. He realized that unless and until his organization could
secure an identifying symbol which could not be counterfeited, police
work would remain relatively ineffectual. Tellurian science had done
its best in the golden meteors of Triplanetary's Secret Service, and
its best was not good enough.

Virgil Samms became the first wearer of Arisia's Lens, and during his
life he began the rigid selection of those worthy of wearing it. For
centuries the Patrol grew and spread. It became widely known that the
Lens was a perfect telepath, that it glowed with colored light only
when worn by the individual to whose ego it was attuned, that it killed
any other living being who attempted to wear it. Whatever his race
or shape, any wearer of the Lens was accepted as the embodiment of
Civilization.

Kimball Kinnison was the first entity of Civilization to suspect that
the Boskonian organization existed. He was the first Lensman to realize
that the Lens was more than identification and a telepath. He was
thus the first Lensman to return to Arisia to take the second stage
of Lensmanship--their treatment which only an exceptional brain can
withstand, but which gives the Second-Stage Lensman any mental power
which he needs and which he can both visualize and control.

Aided by Lensman Worsel of Velantia and Tregonsee of Rigel IV--the
former a winged reptile, the latter a four-legged, barrel-shaped
creature with the sense of perception instead of sight--Kimball
Kinnison traced and surveyed Boskone's military organization in
the First Galaxy. He helped plan the attack upon Grand Base, the
headquarters of Helmuth, who "spoke for Boskone." By flooding the
control dome of Grand Base with thionite, that deadly drug native to
the peculiar planet Trenco, he made it possible for Civilization's
Grand Fleet, under the command of Port Admiral Haynes--now retired--to
reduce that Base. He personally killed Helmuth in hand-to-hand combat.

He was instrumental in the almost-complete destruction of the
Overlords; those sadistic, life-eating reptiles native to the planet
Delgon of the Velantian solar system, who were the first to employ
against humanity the hyperspatial tube.

He was wounded more than once; in one of his hospitalizations
becoming acquainted with Surgeon General Lacy--now retired--and with
Sector Chief Nurse Clarrissa MacDougall, who was later to become the
widely-known "Red Lensman" and, still later, my mother.

In spite of the military defeat, however, Boskonia's real organization
remained intact, and Kinnison's further search led into Lundmark's
Nebula, thenceforth called the Second Galaxy. The planet Medon,
being attacked by the Boskonians, was rescued from the enemy and was
moved across intergalactic space to the First Galaxy. Medon made two
notable contributions to Civilization: first, electrical insulation,
conductors, and switches by whose means voltages and amperages
theretofore undreamed-of could be handled; and, later, Phillips, a
Posenian surgeon, was able there to complete the researches which made
it possible for human bodies to grow anew any members or organs which
had been lost.

Kinnison, deciding that the drug syndicate was the quickest and
surest line to Boskone, became Wild Bill Williams the meteor miner, a
hard-drinking, bentlam-eating, fast-shooting space-hellion. As Williams
he traced the zwilnik line upward, step by step, to the planet Jarnevon
in the Second Galaxy. Upon Jarnevon lived the Eich; frigid-blooded
monsters more intelligent, more merciless, more truly Boskonian even
than the Overlords of Delgon.

He and Worsel, Second-Stage Lensmen both, set out to investigate
Jarnevon. He was captured, tortured, dismembered; but Worsel brought
him back to Tellus with his mind and knowledge intact--the enormously
important knowledge that Jarnevon was ruled by a Council of Nine of the
Eich, a council named Boskone.

Kinnison was given a Phillips treatment, and again Clarrissa MacDougall
nursed him back to health. They loved each other, but they could not
marry until the Gray Lensman's job was done; until Civilization had
triumphed over Boskonia.

The Galactic Patrol assembled its Grand Fleet, composed of millions
of units, under the flagship _Z9M9Z_. It attacked. The planet of
Jalte, Boskonia's Director of the First Galaxy, was consumed by a bomb
of negative matter. Jarnevon was crushed between two colliding planets;
positioned inertialess, then inerted especially for that crushing.
Grand Fleet returned, triumphant.

But Boskonia struck back, sending an immense fleet against Tellus
through a hyperspatial tube instead of through normal space. This
method of approach was not, however, unexpected. Survey ships and
detectors were out; the scientists of the Patrol had been for months
hard at work upon the "sunbeam"--a device to concentrate all the energy
of the sun into one frightful beam. With this weapon reinforcing the
already vast powers of Grand Fleet, the invaders were wiped out.

Again Kinnison had to search for a high Boskonian; some authority
higher than the Council of Boskone. Taking his personal
superdreadnought, the _Dauntless_, which carried his indetectable,
nonferrous speedster, he found a zwilnik trail and followed it to
Dunstan's Region, an unexplored, virtually unknown, outlying spiral arm
of the First Galaxy. It led to the planet Lyrane II, with its human
matriarchy, ruled by Helen its queen.

There he found Illona Potter, the ex-Aldebaranian dancer; who,
turning against her Boskonian kidnapers, told him all she knew of
the Boskonian planet Lonabar, upon which she had spent most of her
life. Lonabar was unknown to the Patrol and Illona knew nothing of its
location in space. She did, however, know its unique jewelry--gems also
completely unknown to Civilization.

Nadreck of Palain VII, a frigid-blooded Second-Stage Lensman, with
one jewel as a clue, set out to find Lonabar; while Kinnison began to
investigate Boskonian activities among the matriarchs.

The Lyranians, however, were fanatically nonco-operative. They hated
all males; they despised and detested all nonhuman entities. Hence
Kinnison, with the consent and assistance of Mentor of Arisia, made of
Clarrissa MacDougall a Second-Stage Lensman and assigned to her the
task of working Lyrane II.

Nadreck found and mapped Lonabar; and to build up an unimpeachable
Boskonian identity Kinnison became Cartiff the jeweler; Cartiff
the jewel thief and swindler; Cartiff the fence; Cartiff the
murderer-outlaw; Cartiff the Boskonian Big Shot. He challenged and
overthrew Menjo Bleeko, the dictator of Lonabar, and before killing him
took from his mind everything he knew.

The Red Lensman secured information from which it was deduced that
a cavern of the Overlords of Delgon existed upon Lyrane II. This
cavern was raided and destroyed, the Patrolmen learning that the Eich
themselves had a heavily-fortified base upon Lyrane III.

Nadreck, master psychologist, invaded that base tracelessly; learning
that the Eich received orders from the Thrallian solar system in the
Second Galaxy and that frigid-blooded Kandron of Onlo--Thrallis IX--was
second in power only to human Alcon, the Tyrant of Thrale--Thrallis II.

Kinnison went to Thrale, Nadreck to Onlo; the operations of both being
covered by the Patrol's invasion of the Second Galaxy. In that invasion
Boskonia's Grand Fleet was defeated and the planet Klovia was taken and
fortified.

Assuming the personality of Traska Gannel, a Thralian, Kinnison
worked his way upward in Alcon's military organization. Trapped in
a hyperspatial tube, ejected into an unknown one of the infinity of
parallel, coexistent, three-dimensional spaces which comprise the
Cosmic All, he was rescued by Mentor, working through the brain of Sir
Austin Cardynge, the Tellurian mathematician.

Returning to Thrale, he fomented a revolution, in which he killed Alcon
and took his place as the Tyrant of Thrale. He then discovered that his
Prime Minister, Fossten, who concealed his true appearance by means of
a zone of hypnosis, had been Alcon's superior instead of his adviser.
Neither quite ready for an open break, but both supremely confident of
victory when that break should come, subtle hostilities began.

Tyrant and Prime Minister planned and launched an attack upon Klovia,
but just before engagement the hostilities between the two Boskonian
leaders flared into an open fight for supremacy. After a terrific
mental struggle, during the course of which the entire crew of the
flagship died, leaving the Boskonian fleet at the mercy of the Patrol,
Kinnison won. He did not know, of course, and never will know, either
that Fossten was in fact an Eddorian or that it was Mentor who in
fact overcame Fossten. Kinnison thought, and Mentor encouraged him
to believe, that the Prime Minister was an Arisian who had been
insane since youth, and that Kinnison himself killed Fossten without
assistance. It is a mere formality to emphasize at this point that
none of this information must ever become available to any mind below
the third level; since to any entity able either to obtain or to read
this report it will be obvious that such revealment would produce an
inferiority complex which must inevitably destroy both the Galactic
Patrol and the Civilization whose instrument it is.

With Fossten dead and with Kinnison already the Tyrant of Thrale, it
was comparatively easy for the Patrol to take over. Nadreck drove
the Onlonian garrisons insane, so that all fought to the death among
themselves; thus rendering Onlo's mighty armament completely useless.

Then, thinking that the Boskonian War was over--encouraged, in fact, by
Mentor so to think--Kinnison married Clarrissa MacDougall, established
his headquarters upon Klovia and assumed his duties as Galactic
Co-ordinator.

Kimball Kinnison, while not, strictly speaking, a mutant, was the
penultimate product of a prodigiously long line of selective,
controlled breeding. So was Clarrissa MacDougall. Just what course the
science of Arisia took in making those two what they are I can deduce,
but I do not as yet actually know. Nor, for the purpose of this record,
does it matter. Port Admiral Haynes and Surgeon General Lacy thought
that they brought them together and promoted their romance. Let them
think so--as agents, they did. Whatever the method employed, the result
was that the genes of those two uniquely complementary penultimates
were precisely those necessary to produce the first, and at present the
only Third-Stage Lensmen.

I was born upon Klovia, as were, three or four Galactic-Standard years
later, my four sisters--two pairs of twins. I had little babyhood, no
childhood. Fathered and mothered by Second-Stage Lensmen, accustomed
from infancy to wide-open two-ways with such beings as Worsel of
Velantia, Tregonsee of Rigel IV, and Nadreck of Palain VII, it would
seem obvious that we did not go to school. We were not like other
children of our age; but before I realized that it was anything unusual
for a baby who could scarcely walk to be computing highly perturbed
asteroidal orbits as "mental arithmetic," I knew that we would have to
keep our abnormalities to ourselves, insofar as the bulk of mankind and
of Civilization was concerned.

I traveled much; sometimes with my father or mother or both, sometimes
alone. At least once each year I went to Arisia for treatment. I took
the last two years of Lensmanship, for physical reasons only, at
Wentworth Hall upon Tellus instead of upon my native Klovia--because
upon Tellus the name Kinnison is not at all uncommon, while upon Klovia
the fact that "Kit" Kinnison was the son of the Co-ordinator could not
have been concealed.

I graduated, and with my formal enlensment this record properly
begins. Much has been told elsewhere, notably in Smith's "History
of Civilization"; but all such works are, and of necessity must be,
pitifully incomplete.

I have recorded this material as impersonally as possible, realizing
fully that my sisters and I did only the work for which we were
specifically developed and trained; even as you who read this will do
that for which you shall have been developed and are to be trained.

                                                Respectfully submitted,

                                      Christopher Kinnison, L3, Klovia.



                                  I.


Galactic Co-ordinator Kimball Kinnison finished his second cup of
Tellurian coffee, got up from the breakfast table, and prowled about
in black abstraction. Twenty-odd years had changed him but little. He
weighed the same, or a few pounds less; although a little of his mass
had shifted downward from his mighty chest and shoulders. His hair was
still brown, his stern face was only faintly lined. He was mature, with
a conscious maturity which no young man can know.

"Since when, Kim, did you think that you could get away with blocking
_me_ out of your mind?" Clarrissa Kinnison directed the thought,
quietly. The years had dealt as lightly with the Red Lensman as with
the Gray. She had been gorgeous, she was now magnificent. "This room is
shielded, you know, against even the girls."

"Sorry, Chris--I didn't mean it that way."

"I know," she laughed. "Automatic. But you've had that block up for two
solid weeks, except when you force yourself to keep it down, and that
means that you're 'way, _'way_ off the beam."

"I've been thinking, incredible as it may seem."

"I know it. Let's have it--cold."

"QX--you asked for it. Queer things have been going on all over.
Inexplicable things ... no apparent reason."

"Such as?"

"Almost any kind of insidious deviltry you care to name. Disaffections,
psychoses, mass hysterias, hallucinations; pointing toward a
Civilization-wide epidemic of revolutions and uprisings for which there
seems to be no basis or justification whatever."

"Why, Kim! How could there be? I haven't heard of anything like that!"

"It hasn't got around. Each solar system thinks that it's a purely
local condition, but it isn't. As Galactic Co-ordinator, with a broad
view of the entire picture, my office would, of course, see such a
thing before anyone else could. We saw it, and set out to nip it in the
bud ... but--" He shrugged his shoulders and grinned wryly.

"But what?" Clarrissa persisted.

"It didn't nip. We sent Lensmen to investigate, but none of them got to
the first check-station. Then I asked our Second-Stage Lensmen--Worsel,
Nadreck, and Tregonsee--to drop whatever they were doing and solve
it for me. They struck it and bounced. They followed, and are still
following, leads and clues galore, but they haven't got a millo's worth
of results so far."

"What? You mean to say it's a problem _they_ can't solve?"

"That they haven't, to date," he corrected, absently. "And that 'gives
me furiously to think'."

"It would," she conceded, "and it also would make you itch to join
them. Think at me, and it'll help you correlate. You should have gone
over the data with me right at first."

"I had reasons not to, as you'll see. But I'm stumped now, so here
goes. We'll have to go away back, to before we were married. First:
Mentor told me, quote, only your descendants will be ready for that
which you now so dimly grope, unquote. Second: you were the only being
ever able to read my thoughts without the aid of the Lens. Third:
Mentor told us, when we asked him if it was QX for us to go ahead that
our marriage was _necessary_, a choice of phraseology which
bothered you somewhat at the time, but which I then explained as being
in accord with his visualization of the Cosmic All. Fourth: the Patrol
formula is to send the man best fitted for any job to do that job, and
if he can't swing it, to send the Number One graduate of the current
class of Lensmen. Fifth: a Lensman has got to use everything and
everybody available, no matter what or who it is. I used even you, you
remember, in that Lyrane affair and others. Sixth: Sir Austin Cardynge
believed to the day of his death that we were thrown out of that
hyperspatial tube, and out of space, deliberately."

"Well, go on. I don't see much, if any connection."

"You will, if you think of those six points in connection with our
present predicament. Kit graduates next month, and he'll rank Number
One of all Civilization, for all the tea in China."

"Of course. But after all, he's a Lensman. He will insist upon being
assigned to some problem; why not to that one?"

"You don't yet see what that problem is. I've been adding two and two
together for weeks, and can't get any other answer than four. And if
two and two are four, Kit has got to tackle Boskone--the _real_
Boskone; the one that I never did and very probably never can reach."

"No, Kim--no!" she almost shrieked. "Not Kit, Kim--he's just a boy!"

Kinnison waited, wordless.

She got up, crossed the room to him. He put his arm around her in the
old but ever new gesture.

"Lensman's load, Chris," he said, quietly.

"Of course," she replied then, as quietly. "It was a shock at first,
coming after all these years, but ... if it has to be, it must. But he
doesn't ... surely we can help him, Kim?"

"Surely." The man's arm tightened. "When he hits space I go back to
work. So do Nadreck and Worsel and Tregonsee. So do you, if your kind
of a job turns up. And with us Gray Lensmen to do the blocking, and
with Kit to carry the ball--" His thought died away.

"I'll say so," she breathed. Then: "But you won't call me, I know,
unless you absolutely _have_ to ... and to give up you and
Kit both ... why did we have to be Lensmen, Kim?" she protested,
rebelliously. "Why couldn't we have been ground-grippers? You used to
growl that thought at me before I knew what a Lens really meant--"

"Vell, some of us has got be der first violiners in der orchestra,"
Kinnison misquoted, in an attempt at lightness. "Ve can't all push vind
t'rough der trombone."

"I suppose that's true." The Red Lensman's somber air deepened. "Well,
we were going to start for Tellus today, anyway, to see Kit graduate.
This doesn't change that."

       *       *       *       *       *

And in a distant room four tall, shapely, auburn-haired, startlingly
identical girls stared at each other briefly, then went _en
rapport_; for their mother had erred greatly in saying that the
breakfast room was screened against their minds. Nothing was or could
be screened against them: they could think above, below, or, by
sufficient effort, straight through any thought-screen that had ever
been designed. Nothing in which they were interested was safe from
them, and they were interested in practically everything.

"Kay, we've got ourselves a job!" Kathryn, older by minutes than Karen,
excluded pointedly the younger twins, Camilla and Constance--"Cam" and
"Con".

"At last!" Karen exclaimed. "I've been wondering what we were born for,
with nine-tenths of our minds so deep down that nobody except Kit even
knows they're there and so heavily blocked that we can't let even each
other in without a conscious effort. This is it. We'll go places now,
Kat, and really do things."

"What do you mean _you'll_ go places and do things?" Con demanded
indignantly. "Do you think for a second that you've got jets enough to
blast _us_ out of all the fun?"

"Certainly," Kat said, equably. "You're too young."

"We'll let you know what we're doing, though," Kay conceded,
magnanimously. "You might even conceivably contribute an idea that we
could use."

"Ideas--phooey!" Con jeered. "A real idea would crack both of your
skulls. You haven't any more plan than a--"

"Hush--shut up, everybody!" Kat commanded. "This is too new for any of
us to have any worth-while ideas on, yet. Tell you what let's do--we'll
all think this over until we're aboard the _Dauntless_, halfway to
Tellus; then we'll compare notes and work out parts for all of us."

They left Klovia that afternoon. Kinnison's personal superdreadnought,
the mighty _Dauntless_--the fourth to bear that name--bored
through intergalactic space. Time passed. The four young redheads
convened.

"I've got it all worked out!" Kat burst out enthusiastically,
forestalling the other three. "There will be four Second-Stage Lensmen
at work and there are four of us. We'll circulate--percolate, you might
say--around and throughout the Universe. We'll pick up ideas and facts
and feed 'em to our Gray Lensmen; surreptitiously, sort of, so they'll
think they got them themselves. I'll take Dad for my partner. Kay can
have--"

"You'll do no such thing!" A general clamor rose, Con's thought
being the most insistent. "If we aren't going to work with all,
indiscriminately, we'll draw lots or throw dice to see who gets him, so
there!"

"Seal it, snake-hips, please," Kat requested, sweetly. "It is trite but
true to say that infants should be seen, but not heard. This is serious
business--"

"Snake-hips! Infant!" Con interrupted, venomously. "Listen, my
steatopygous and senile friend!" Constance measured perhaps a quarter
of an inch less in gluteal circumference than did her oldest sister;
she tipped the beam at one scant pound below her weight. "You and Kay
are a year older than Cam and me, of course; a year ago your minds were
stronger than ours. That condition, however, no longer exists. We, too
are grown up. And to put that statement to test, what can you do that I
can't?"

"This." Kathryn extended a bare arm, narrowed her eyes in
concentration. A Lens materialized about her wrist; not attached to it
by a metallic bracelet, but a bracelet in itself, clinging sentiently
to the smooth, bronzed skin. "I felt that in this work there would be a
need. I learned to satisfy it. Can you match that?"

They could. In a matter of seconds the three others were similarly
enlensed. They had not previously perceived the need, but after Kat had
pointed it out to them by demonstrating the manner of its satisfaction,
their acquisition of full knowledge had been virtually instantaneous.

"Or this, then." Kat's Lens disappeared.

So did the other three. Each knew that no hint of this knowledge or of
this power should ever be revealed; each knew that in any moment of
stress the Lens of Civilization could be and would be hers.

"Logic, then, and by reason, not by chance." Kat changed her tactics.
"I still get Dad. Everybody knows who works best with whom. You, Con,
have tagged around after Worsel all your life. You used to ride him
instead of a horse--"

"She still does," Kay snickered. "He pretty nearly split her in two a
while ago in a seven-gravity pull-out, and she almost broke a toe when
she kicked him for it."

"Worsel is nice," Con defended herself vigorously. "He's more human
than most people, and more fun, as well as having infinitely more
brains. And _you_ can't talk, Kay--what anyone can see in that
Nadreck, so cold-blooded that he freezes you even through armor at
twenty feet--you'll get as cold and hard as he is if you don't--"

"And every time Cam gets within five hundred parsecs of Tregonsee she
goes into silences with him, contemplating raptly the whichnesses of
the why," Kathryn interrupted, forestalling recriminations. "So you
see, by the process of elimination, Dad has got to be mine."

       *       *       *       *       *

Since they could not all have him it was finally agreed that Kathryn's
claim would be allowed and, after a great deal of discussion and
argument, a tentative plan of action was developed. In due course, the
_Dauntless_ landed upon Tellus. The Kinnisons went to Wentworth
Hall, the towering, chromium-and-glass home of the Tellurian cadets
of the Galactic Patrol. They watched the impressive ceremonies of
graduation. Then, as the new Lensmen marched out to the magnificent
cadences of "Our Patrol," the Gray Lensman, leaving his wife and
daughters to their own devices, made his way to his Tellurian office
in Prime Base.

"Lensman Kinnison, sir, by appointment," his secretary announced, and
as Kit strode in Kinnison stood up and came to attention.

"Christopher Kinnison of Klovia, sir, reporting for duty." Kit saluted
crisply.

The Co-ordinator returned the salute punctiliously. Then: "At rest,
Kit. I'm proud of you, mighty proud. We all are. The women want to
heroize you, but I had to see you first, to clear up a few things. An
explanation, an apology, and, in a sense, commiseration."

"An apology, sir?" Kit was dumfounded. "Why, that's unthinkable--"

"For not graduating you in Gray. It has never been done, but that was
not the reason. Your commandant, the Board of Examiners, and Port
Admiral LaForge, all recommended it, agreeing that none of us is
qualified to give you either orders or directions. I blocked it."

"Of course. For the son of the Co-ordinator to be the first Lensman to
graduate Unattached would smell--especially since the fewer who know
of my peculiar characteristics the better. That can wait, sir."

"Not too long, sir." Kinnison's smile was a trifle forced. "Here's
your Release and your kit, and a request signed by the whole Galactic
Council that you go to work on whatever it is that is going on. We
rather think that it heads up somewhere in the Second Galaxy, but that
is little more than a guess."

"I can start out from Klovia, then? Good--I can go home with you."

"That's the idea, and on the way there you can study the situation.
For your information we have made up a series of tapes, carrying not
only all the available data, but also our attempts at analysis and
interpretation. Complete and up to date, except for one item which came
in this morning.... I can't figure out whether it means anything or
not, but it should be inserted--" Kinnison paced the room, scowling.

"Might as well tell me. I'll insert it when I scan the tape."

"QX. I don't suppose that you have heard much about the unusual
shipping trouble we have been having, particularly in the Second
Galaxy?"

"Rumor--gossip only. I'd rather have it straight."

"It's all on the tapes, so I'll give you the barest possible
background. Losses are twenty-five percent above normal. A few highly
peculiar derelicts have been found--peculiar in that they seem to
have been wrecked by madmen. Not only wrecked, but gutted, and with
every mark of identification obliterated. We can't determine even
origin or destination, since the normal disappearances outnumber the
abnormal ones by four to one. On the tapes this is lumped in with
the other psychoses you'll learn about. But this morning they found
another derelict, in which the chief pilot had scrawled 'WARE HELL
HOLE IN SP' across a plate. Connection with the other derelicts, if
any, is obscure. If the pilot was sane when he wrote that message, it
means something--but nobody knows what. If he wasn't, it doesn't, any
more than the dozens of obviously senseless--excuse me, I should say
apparently senseless--messages which we have already recorded."

"Hm-m-m. Interesting. I'll bear it in mind and tape it in its place.
But speaking of peculiar things, I've got one I wanted to discuss with
you--getting my Release was such a shock that I almost forgot it.
Reported it, but nobody thought it was anything important. Maybe ...
probably ... it isn't. Tune your mind up to the top of the range ...
there, did you ever hear of a race that thinks upon that band?"

"I never did--it's practically unreachable. Why--have you?"

"Yes and no. Only once, and that only a touch. Or, rather, a burst; as
though a hard-held mind-block had exploded, or the creature had just
died a violent, instantaneous death. Not enough of it to trace, and I
never found any more of it."

"Any characteristics? Bursts can be quite revealing at times."

"A few. It was on my last break-in trip in the Second Galaxy, out
beyond Thrale--about here." Kit marked the spot upon a mental chart.
"Mentality very high--precisionist grade--possibly beyond social
needs, as the planet was a bare desert. No thought of cities. Nor of
water, although both may have existed without appearing in that burst
of thought. The thing's bodily structure was RTSL, to four places. No
gross digestive tract--atmosphere-nourished or an energy-converter,
perhaps. The sun was a blue giant. No spectral data, of course, but at
a rough guess I'd say somewhere around class B5 or A0. Although the
temperature was normal for him, it was quite evident that the planet
would be unbearably hot for us. That's all I could get."

"That's a lot to get from one burst. It doesn't mean a thing to me
right now--but I'll watch for a chance to fit it in somewhere."

       *       *       *       *       *

How casually they dismissed as unimportant that cryptic burst
of thought! But if they both, right then, together, had been
authoritatively informed that the description fitted exactly
the physical form forced upon its denizens in its summer by the
accurately-described, simply hellish climatic conditions obtaining
during that season on noxious planet Ploor, the information would still
not have seemed important to either of them--then.

"Anything else we ought to discuss before night?" The older Lensman
went on without a break.

"Not that I know of."

"You said your Release was a shock. Ready for another one?"

"I can't think of a harder one. I'm braced--blast!"

"I have turned the office over to Vice Co-ordinator Maitland for the
duration. I am authorized to tell you that Worsel, Nadreck, Tregonsee,
and I have resumed our Unattached status and, while conducting our own
various investigations, will be holding ourselves ready at all times
for your call."

"That _is_ a shock, sir. Thanks. I hadn't expected ... it's really
overwhelming. And you said something about _commiserating_ me?"
Kit lifted his red-thatched head--all of Clarrissa's children had
inherited her startling hair--and gray eyes stared level into eyes of
gray.

"In a sense, yes. You'll understand later. Well, you'd better go hunt
up Chris and the kids. After the festivities are over--"

"I'd better cut them, hadn't I?" Kit asked, eagerly. "Don't you think
it'd be better for me to get started right away?"

"Not on your life!" Kinnison demurred, positively. "Do you think that I
want that mob of strawberry blondes to snatch me bald-headed? You're in
for a large day and evening of lionization, so take it like a man. As I
was about to say, as soon as the brawl is over tonight we'll all board
the _Dauntless_ and do a flit for Klovia, where I'll fit you out
with everything you want. Until then, son--" Two big hands gripped.

"But I'll be seeing you around the Hall!" Kit exclaimed. "You can't--"

"No, I can't dodge the lionizing, either," Kinnison grinned, "but we
won't be in a sealed and shielded room. So, son ... I'm proud of you."

"Right back at you, big fellow--and thanks a million." Kit strode out
and, a few minutes later, the Co-ordinator did likewise.

       *       *       *       *       *

The "brawl," which was the gala event of the Tellurian social year,
was duly enjoyed by all the Kinnisons. The _Dauntless_ made an
uneventful flight to Klovia. Arrangements were made. Plans, necessarily
sketchy and elastic, were laid.

Two big, gray-clad Lensmen stood upon the deserted spacefield, between
two blackly indetectable speedsters. Kinnison was massive, sure, calm
with the poised calmness of maturity, experience, and power. Kit, with
the broad shoulders and narrow waist of his years and training, was
taut and tense, fiery, eager to come to grips with Civilization's foes.

"Remember, son," Kinnison said as the two gripped hands. "There are
four of us old-timers, who have been through the mill, on call every
second. If you can use any one of us or all of us, don't wait to be too
sure--snap out a call."

"I know, Dad ... thanks. The four best, ablest Lensmen that ever
lived. One of you may make a strike before I do. In fact, with the
thousands of leads we have, and with no way of telling how many of them
are false--deliberately or otherwise--and with your vastly greater
experience and knowledge, you probably will. So remember that it cuts
both ways. If any of you can use me at any time, I'll come at max."

"QX. We'll get in touch from time to time, anyway. Clear ether, Kit!"

"Clear ether, Dad!" What a wealth of meaning there was in that
low-voiced, simple exchange of the standard bon voyage!

For minutes, as his speedster flashed through space, Kinnison thought
only of the boy. He knew exactly how he felt; he relived in memory
the supremely ecstatic moments of his own first launching into space
as a Gray Lensman. But Kit had the stuff--stuff which he, Kinnison,
knew that he could know nothing about--and he had his own job to do.
Therefore, methodically, like the old campaigner he was, he set about
it.



                                  II.


Worsel the Velantian, hard and durable and long-lived as Velantians
are, had in twenty Tellurian years changed scarcely at all. As the
first Lensman and the only Second-Stage Lensman of his race, the twenty
years had been very fully occupied indeed.

He had solved the varied technological and administrative problems
incident to the welding of Velantia into the structure of Civilization.
He had worked at the many tasks which, in the opinion of the Galactic
Council, fitted his peculiarly individual talents. In his "spare" time
he had sought out in various parts of two galaxies, and had ruthlessly
slain, widely-scattered groups of the Overlords of Delgon.

Continuously, however, he had taken an intense sort of godfatherly
interest in the Kinnison children, particularly in Kit and in the
youngest daughter, Constance; finding in the girl a mentality
surprisingly akin to his own.

When Kinnison's call came he answered it. He was now out in space;
not in the _Dauntless_, but in a ship of his own, under his
own command. And what a ship! The _Velan_ was manned entirely
by beings of his own race. It carried Velantian air, at Velantian
temperature and pressure. Above all, it was built and powered for inert
maneuvering at the atrocious accelerations employed by the Velantians
in their daily lives; and Worsel loved it with enthusiasm and elan.

He had worked conscientiously and well with Kinnison and with other
entities of Civilization. He and they had all known, however, that he
could work more efficiently alone or with others of his own kind.
Hence, except in emergencies, he had done so; and hence, except in
similar emergencies, he would so continue to do.

Out in deep space, Worsel entwined himself, in a Velantian's idea of
comfort, in an intricate series of figures-of-eight around a couple of
parallel bars and relaxed in thought. There were insidious deviltries
afoot, Kinnison had said. There were disaffections, psychoses, mass
hysterias, and--Oh happy thought!--hallucinations. There were also
certain revolutions and sundry uprisings, which might or might not
be connected or associated with the disappearances of a considerable
number of persons of note. In these latter, however, Worsel of Velantia
was not interested. He knew without being told that Kinnison would
pounce upon such blatant manifestations as those. He himself would work
upon something much more to his taste.

Hallucination was Worsel's dish. He had been born among hallucinations,
had been reared in an atmosphere of them. What he did not know about
hallucinations could have been printed in pica upon the smallest one of
his scales.

Therefore, isolating one section of his multicompartmented mind from
all of the others and from any control over his physical self, he
sensitized it to receive whatever hallucinatory influences might be
abroad. Simultaneously he set two other parts of his mind to watch over
the one to be victimized; to study and to analyze whatever figments of
obtrusive mentality might be received and entertained.

Then, using all of his naturally tremendous sensitivity and reach, all
of his Arisian supertraining, and the full power of his Lens, he sent
his mental receptors out into space. And then, although the thought
is staggeringly incomprehensible to any Tellurian or near-human mind,
he _relaxed_. For day after day, as the _Velan_ hurtled
randomly through the void, he hung blissfully slack upon his bars, most
of his mind a welter of the indescribable thoughts in which it is a
Velantian's joy to revel.

       *       *       *       *       *

Suddenly, after an unknown interval of time, a thought impinged:
a thought under the impact of which Worsel's body tightened so
convulsively as to pull the bars a foot out of true. Overlords! The
unmistakable, the body- and mind-paralyzing hunting call of the
Overlords of Delgon!

His crew had not felt it yet, of course; nor would they feel it. If
they should, they would be worse than useless in the conflict to come;
for they could not withstand that baneful influence. Worsel could.
Worsel was the only Velantian who could.

"Thought-screens all!" his commanding thought snapped out. Then, even
before the order could be obeyed: "As you were!"

For the impenetrably shielded chambers of his mind told him immediately
that this was no ordinary Delgonian hunting call; or rather, that it
was more than that. Much more.

Mixed with, superimposed upon the overwhelming compulsion which
generations of Velantians had come to know so bitterly and so well,
were the very things for which he had been searching--hallucinations!
To shield his crew or, except in the subtlest possible fashion himself,
simply would not do. Overlords everywhere knew that there was at least
one Velantian Lensman who was mentally their master; and, while they
hated this Lensman tremendously, they feared him even more. Therefore,
even though a Velantian was any Overlord's choicest prey, at the first
indication of an ability to disobey their commands the monsters would
cease entirely to radiate; would withdraw at once every strand of their
far-flung mental nets into the fastnesses of their superbly hidden and
indetectably shielded cavern.

Therefore Worsel allowed the inimical influence to take over, not only
the total minds of his crew, but the unshielded portion of his own
as well. And stealthily, so insidiously that no mind affected could
discern the change, values gradually grew vague and reality began to
alter.

Loyalty dimmed, and _esprit de corps_. Family ties and pride of
race waned into meaninglessness. All concepts of Civilization, of
the Galactic Patrol, degenerated into strengthless gossamer, into
oblivion. And to replace those hitherto mighty motivations there crept
in an overmastering need for, and the exact method of obtainment of,
whatever it was that was each Velantian's deepest, most primal desire.
Each crewman stared into an individual visiplate whose substance was to
him as real and as solid as the metal of his ship had ever been; each
saw upon that plate whatever it was that, consciously or unconsciously,
he wanted to see. Noble or base, lofty or low, intellectual or
physical, spiritual or carnal, it made no difference to the Overlords.
Whatever each victim most wanted was there.

No figment was, however, even to the Velantians, actual or tangible.
It was a picture upon a plate, transmitted from a well-defined point
in space. There, upon that planet, was the actuality, eagerly awaited;
toward and to that planet must the _Velan_ go at maximum blast.
Into that line and at that blast, then, the pilots set their vessel
without orders, and each of the crew saw upon his nonexistent plate
that she had so been set. If she had not been, if the pilots had been
able to offer any resistance, the crew would have slaughtered them out
of hand. As it was, all was well.

And Worsel, watching the affected portion of his mind accept these
hallucinations as truths and admiring unreservedly the consummate
artistry with which the work was being done, was well content. He knew
that only a hard, solidly-driven, individually probing beam could force
him to reveal the fact that a portion of his mind and all of his bodily
control were being withheld; he knew that unless he made a slip no
such investigation was to be expected. He would not slip.

No human or near-human mind can really understand how the mind of a
Velantian works. A Tellurian can, by dint of training, learn to do
two or more unrelated things simultaneously. But neither is done very
well and both must be more or less routine in nature. To perform any
original or difficult operation successfully he must concentrate upon
it, and he can concentrate upon only one thing at a time. A Velantian,
however, can and does concentrate upon half-a-dozen totally unrelated
things at once; and, with his multiplicity of arms, hands, and eyes,
he can perform simultaneously an astonishing number of completely
independent operations.

The Velantian is, however, in no sense such a multiple personality as
would exist if six or eight human heads were mounted upon one body.
There is no joint tenancy about it. There is only one ego permeating
all those pseudoindependent compartments; no contradictory orders are,
or ordinarily can be, sent along the bundled nerves of the spinal cord.
While individual in thought and in the control of certain actions, the
mind-compartments are basically, fundamentally, one mind.

Worsel had progressed beyond his fellows. He was different; unique.
In fact, the perception of the need of the ability to isolate certain
compartments of his mind, to separate them completely from his real
ego, was one of the things which had enabled him to become the only
Second-Stage Lensman of his race.

L2 Worsel, then, held himself aloof and observed appreciatively
everything that went on. More, he did a little hallucinating of
his own. Under the Overlords' compulsion he was supposed to remain
motionless, staring raptly into an imaginary visiplate at an orgiastic
saturnalia designed to make even his burly ego quail. Therefore, as far
as the occupied portion of his mind and through it the Overlords were
concerned, he did so. Actually, however, his body moved purposefully
about, under the direction only of his own grim will; moved to make
ready against the time of landing.

For Worsel knew that his opponents were not fools. He knew that they
reduced their risks to the irreducible minimum. He knew that the mighty
_Velan_, with her prodigious weaponry, would not be permitted to
be within even extreme range of the cavern, if the Overlords could
possibly prevent it, when that cavern's location was revealed. His was
the task to see to it that she was not only within range, but was at
the very portal.

       *       *       *       *       *

The speeding spaceship approached the planet--went inert--matched the
planetary intrinsic--landed. Her air locks opened. Her crew rushed out
headlong, sprang into the air, and arrowed away _en masse_. Then
Worsel, Grand Master of Hallucinations, went blithely but intensely to
work.

Thus, although he stayed at the _Velan's_ control board instead
of joining the glamoured Velantians in their rush over the unfamiliar
terrain, and although the huge spaceship lifted lightly into the air
and followed them, neither the fiend-possessed part of Worsel's mind,
nor any of his fellows, nor through them the many Overlords, knew that
either of those two things was happening. To that part of his mind
Worsel's body was, under full control, flying along upon tireless wings
in the midst of the crowd; to it and to all of the other Velantians and
hence to the Overlords the _Velan_ lay motionless and deserted
upon the rocks far below and behind them. They watched the vessel
diminish in apparent size in the distance; they saw it vanish beyond
the horizon!

This was eminently tricky work, necessitating as it did such nicety
of synchronization with the Delgonian's own compulsions as to be
indetectable even to the monsters themselves. Worsel was, however, an
expert, one of the Universe's best; he went at the task not with any
doubt whatever as to his ability to carry it through, but only with
an uncontrollably shivering physical urge to come to grips with the
hereditary enemies of his race.

The fliers shot downward, and as a boulder-camouflaged entrance yawned
open in the mountain's side Worsel closed up and shot out a widely
enveloping zone of thought-screen. The Overlords' control vanished. The
Velantians, realizing instantaneously what had happened, flew madly
back to their ship. They jammed through the air locks, flashed to
their posts. The cavern's gates had closed by then, but the monsters
had no screen fit to cope with the _Velan's_ tremendous batteries.
Down they went. Barriers, bastions, and a considerable portion of the
mountain's face flamed away in fiery vapor or flowed away in molten
streams. Through reeking atmosphere, over red-hot debris, the armored
Velantians flew to the attack.

The Overlords had, however, learned. This cavern, as well as being
hidden, was defended by physical, as well as mental, means. There were
inner barriers of metal and of force, there were armed and armored
defenders who, dominated completely by the monsters, fought with the
callous fury of the robots which in effect they were. Nevertheless,
against all opposition, the attackers bored relentlessly in. Heavy
semiportables blazed, hand-to-hand combat raged in the narrow confines
of that noisome tunnel. In the wavering, glaring light of the
contending beams and screens, through the hot and rankly stinking steam
billowing away from the reeking walls, the invaders fought their way.
One by one and group by group the defenders died where they stood and
the Velantians drove onward over their burned and dismembered bodies.

Into the cavern at last. To the Overlords. Overlords! They, who
for ages had preyed upon generation after generation of helpless
Velantians, torturing their bodies to the point of death and then
devouring ghoulishly the life-forces which their mangled bodies could
no longer retain!

Worsel and his crew threw away their DeLameters. Only when it is
absolutely necessary does any Velantian use any artificial weapon
against any Overlord of Delgon. He is too furious, too berserk, to do
so. He is scared to the core of his being; the cold grue of a thousand
fiendishly eaten ancestors has bred that fear into the innermost atoms
of his chemistry. But against that fear, negating and surmounting it,
is a hatred of such depth and violence as no human being has ever
known; a starkly savage hatred which can be even partially assuaged
only by the ultimate of violences--by rending his foe apart member by
member; by actually feeling the Delgonian's life depart under gripping
hands and tearing talons and constricting body and shearing tail.

It is best, then, not to go into too fine detail as to this conflict.
Since there were almost a hundred of the Delgonians--insensately
vicious fighters when cornered--and since their physical make-up was
very similar to the Velantians' own, many of Worsel's troopers died.
But since the _Velan_ carried over fifteen hundred and since less
than half of her personnel could even get into the cavern, there were
plenty of them left to operate and to fight the spaceship.

       *       *       *       *       *

Worsel took great care that the opposing commander was not killed
with his minions. The fighting over, the Velantians chained this
sole survivor into one of his own racks and stretched him out into
immobility. Then, restraining by main strength the terrific urge to put
the machine then and there to its fullest ghastly use, Worsel cut his
screen, threw a couple of turns of tail around a convenient anchorage,
and faced the Boskonian almost nose to nose. Eight weirdly stalked eyes
curled out as he drove a probing thought-beam against the monster's
shield.

"I could use this--or this--or this," Worsel gloated. As he touched
various wheels and levers the chains hummed slightly, sparks flashed,
the rigid body twitched. "I am not going to, however--yet. While you
are still sane I want to take and I shall take your total knowledge."

And face to face, eye to eye, brain to brain, that silently and
motionlessly cataclysmic battle was joined.

As has been said, Worsel had hunted down and had destroyed many
Overlords. He had hunted them, however, like vermin. He had destroyed
them with duodec bombs and with primary or secondary beams; or, at
closest hand, with talons, teeth, and tail. He had not engaged an
Overlord mind to mind for over twenty Tellurian years; not since he
and Nadreck of Palain VII had captured alive the leaders of those who
had been preying upon Helen's matriarchs and warring upon Civilization
from their cavern upon Lyrane II. Nor had he ever dueled one mentally
to death without powerful support; Kinnison or some other Lensman had
always been near by.

But Worsel would need no help. He was not shivering in eagerness now.
His body was as still as the solid rock upon which most of it lay;
every chamber and every faculty of his mind was concentrated upon
battering down or cutting through the Overlords' stubbornly-held
shields.

Brighter and brighter glowed the Velantian's Lens, flooding the gloomy
cave with pulsating polychromatic light. Alert for any possible
trickery, guarding intently against any possibility of riposte or of
counterthrust, Worsel leveled bolt after bolt of mental force. He
surrounded the monster's mind with a searing, constricting field. He
squeezed; relentlessly and with appalling power.

The Overlord was beaten. He, who had never before encountered a foreign
mind or a vital force stronger than his own, knew that he was beaten.
He knew that at long last he had met that half-fabulous Velantian
Lensman with whom not one of his monstrous race could cope. He knew
starkly, with the chilling, numbing terror possible only to such a
being in such a position, that he was doomed to die the same hideous
and long-drawn-out death which he had dealt out to so many others. He
did not read into the mind of the bitterly vengeful, the implacably
ferocious Velantian any more mercy or any more compunction than was
actually there. He knew perfectly that of either there was no slightest
trace. Knowing these things with the blackly appalling certainty that
was his, he quailed.

There is an old but cogent saying that the brave man dies only once,
the coward a thousand times. That Overlord, during that lethal combat,
died more times than it is pleasant to contemplate. Nevertheless, he
fought. A cornered rat will fight, and the Delgonian was not a rat--not
exactly, that is, an ordinary rat. His mind was competent, keen,
powerful, and utterly unscrupulous; and he brought to the defense of
his beleaguered ego every resource of skill and of trickery and of
sheer power at his command--in vain. Deeper and deeper, in spite of
everything he could do, the relentless Lensman squeezed and smashed
and cut and pried and bored; little by little the Overlord gave mental
ground.

"This station is here ... this staff is here ... _I_ am here,
then ... to wreak damage ... all possible damage ... to the commerce
... and to the personnel of ... the Galactic Patrol ... and
Civilization in every aspect--" the Overlord admitted haltingly as
Worsel's pressure became intolerable; but such admissions, however
unwillingly made or however revealing in substance, were not enough.

Worsel wanted, and would be satisfied with nothing less than, his
enemy's total knowledge. Hence he maintained his assault until, unable
longer to withstand the frightful battering, the Overlord's barriers
went completely down; until every convolution of his brain and every
track of his mind lay open, helplessly exposed to Worsel's poignant
scrutiny. Then, scarcely taking time to gloat over his victim, Worsel
did scrutinize.

Period.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hurtling through space, toward a definite objective now, Worsel
studied and analyzed some of the things which he had just learned.
Worsel was not surprised that this Overlord had not known any of his
superior officers in things or enterprises Boskonian; that he did not
consciously know even that he had been obeying orders or that he had
superiors. That technique, by this time, was familiar enough. The
Boskonian psychologists were able operators; to attempt to unravel the
unknowable complexities of their subconscious compulsions would be a
sheer waste of time.

What the Overlords had been doing, however, was clear enough. That
outpost had indeed been wreaking havoc with Civilization's commerce.
Ship after ship had been lured from its course; had been compelled to
land upon this barren planet. Some of those vessels had been destroyed;
some of them had been stripped and rifled as though by pirates of old;
some of them had been set upon new courses with hulls, mechanical
equipment, and cargoes untouched. No crewman or passenger, however,
escaped unscathed; even though only ten percent of them died in the
Overlordish fashion which Worsel knew so well.

The Overlord himself had wondered why they had not been able to kill
them all. He knew that such forbearance was unnatural, was against all
instinct and training. He knew that they wanted, intensely enough, to
kill every one of their victims; that their greedy lust for life-force
simply could not be sated as long as life-force was to be had. He knew
only that something, none of them knew what, limited their actual
killing to ten percent of the bag.

Worsel grinned wolfishly at that thought, even while he was admiring
the quality of the psychology which could impress such a compulsion as
that upon such rapacious hellions as those. That was the work of the
Boskonian higher-ups, who knew that ten percent was the limit above
which the deaths would have been too revealing to the statisticians of
the Galactic Patrol.

The other ninety percent, however, the Delgonians had "played with"--a
procedure which, although less satisfying to the Overlords than the
ultimate treatment, was not very different in so far as the victims'
egos were concerned. For none of them emerged from the ordeal with
any memory of what had happened, or of what or who he had ever been.
They were not all completely mad; some were only partially so. All
had, however, been--altered. Changed; shockingly transformed. No two
were alike. Each Overlord, it appeared, had striven with all of his
ultra-hellish ingenuity to excel his fellows in the manufacture of an
outrageous something whose like had never been seen in or upon any
land or sea or air or throughout any reach of space.

These and many other facts and items Worsel had studied carefully. He
was now heading for the region in which the Patrol's computers had
figured that the "Hell Hole in Space" must lie. The planet he had just
left, the Overlords he had just slain, were not the original Hell Hole;
could have had nothing to do with it. Too far apart--they were not in
the same possible volume of space.

Worsel knew now, though, what the Hell Hole in Space really was. It
was a cavern of Overlords. It simply couldn't be anything else. And,
in himself and his crew and his mighty _Velan_ he, Worsel of
Velantia, Overlord-slayer par excellence of two galaxies, had in ample
measure everything it took to extirpate any number of Overlords. With
what he had just learned and with what he was so calmly certain he
could do, the Hell Hole in Space would take no more toll. Wherefore
Worsel, coiled loosely around his hard bars, relaxed in happily planful
thought. And in a couple of hours a solid, clear-cut thought impinged
upon his Lens.

"Worsel! Con calling. What goes on there, fellow old snake? You've
stuck that sharp tail of yours into some of my business--I hope!"



                                 III.


Each of the Second-Stage Lensmen had exactly the same facts, the
same data, upon which to theorize and from which to draw conclusions.
Each had shared his experiences, his findings, and his deductions and
inductions with all of the others. They had discussed minutely, in
wide-open four-ways, every phase of the Boskonian problem. Nevertheless
the approach of each to that problem and the point of attack chosen by
each was individual and characteristic.

Kimball Kinnison was by nature forthright; direct. As has been seen, he
could use the approach circuitous if necessary, but he much preferred
and upon every possible occasion employed the approach direct. He
liked plain, unambiguous clues much better than obscure ones; the more
obvious and factual the clue was, the better he liked it.

He was now, therefore, heading for Antigan IV, the scene of the latest
and apparently the most outrageous of a long series of crimes of
violence. He didn't know much about it; the request had come in through
regular channels, not via Lens, that he visit Antigan and take personal
charge of the investigation of the supposed murder of the Planetary
President.

As his speedster flashed through space the Gray Lensman mulled over
in his mind the broad aspects of this crime wave. It was spreading
far and wide, and the wider it spread and the intenser it became the
more vividly one salient fact stuck out. Selectivity--distribution.
The solar systems of Thrale, Velantia, Tellus, Klovia, and Palain had
not been affected. Thrale, Tellus, and Klovia were full of Lensmen.
Velantia, Rigel, Palain, and a good part of the time Klovia, were
the working headquarters of Second-Stage Lensmen. It seemed, then,
that the trouble was roughly in inverse ratio to the numbers or the
abilities of the Lensmen in the neighborhood. Something, therefore,
that Lensmen--particularly Second-Stage Lensmen--were bad for. That
was true, of course, for all crime. Nevertheless, this seemed to be a
special case.

And when he reached his destination he found out that it was. The
planet was seething. Its business and its everyday activities seemed to
be almost paralyzed. Martial law had been declared; the streets were
practically deserted except for thick-clustered groups of heavily-armed
guards. What few people were abroad were furtive and sly; slinking
hastily along with their fear-filled eyes trying to look in all
directions at once.

"QX, Wainwright, go ahead," Kinnison directed brusquely when,
alone with the escorting Patrol officers in a shielded car, he
was being taken to the Capitol grounds. "There's been too much
secrecy--pussyfooting--about the whole affair. Spill it, please."

"Very well, sir," and Wainwright told his tale. Things had been
happening for months. Little things, but disturbing. Then murders and
kidnapings and unexplained disappearances had begun to increase. The
police forces had been falling farther and farther behind. The usual
cries of incompetence and corruption had been raised, only further
to confuse the issue. Circulars--dodgers--hand-bills appeared all
over the planet; from where nobody knew. The keenest detectives could
find no clue to papermakers, printers, or distributors. The usual
inflammatory, subversive propaganda--"Down with the Patrol!" "Give us
back our freedom!" and so on--but, because of the high tension already
prevailing, the stuff had been unusually effective in breaking down the
morale of the citizenry as a whole.

"Then this last thing. For two solid weeks the whole world was
literally plastered with the announcement that at midnight on
the thirty-fourth of Dreel--you're familiar with our calendar, I
think?--President Renwood would disappear. Two weeks warning--daring
us." Wainwright got that far and stopped.

"Well, go on. He disappeared, I know. How? What did you fellows do to
prevent it? Why all the secrecy?"

"If you insist, I'll have to tell you, of course, but I'd rather not."
Wainwright flushed uncomfortably. "You wouldn't believe it. Nobody
could. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't been there. I'd rather
you'd wait, sir, and let the Vice President tell you, in the presence
of the Treasurer and the others who were on duty that night."

"Um-m-m ... I see ... maybe." Kinnison's mind raced. "That's why
nobody would give me details? Afraid I wouldn't believe it ... that I'd
think they'd been--" He stopped. "Hypnotized" would have been the next
word, but that would have been jumping at conclusions. Even if true,
there was no sense in airing that hypothesis--yet.

"Not afraid, sir. They _knew_ that you wouldn't believe it."

       *       *       *       *       *

After entering Government Reservation they went, not to the president's
private quarters, but into the Treasury and down into the subbasement
housing the most massive, the most utterly impregnable vault of the
planet. There the nation's most responsible officers told Kinnison,
with their entire minds as well as their tongues, what had happened.

Upon that black day business had been suspended. No visitors of any
sort had been permitted to enter the Reservation. No one had been
allowed to approach the president except old and trusted officers about
whose loyalty there could be no question. Airships and spaceships
had filled the sky. Troops, armed with semiportables or manning
fixed-mount heavy stuff, had covered the grounds. At five minutes
before midnight Renwood, accompanied by four secret service men, had
entered the vault, which was thereupon locked by the treasurer. All
the cabinet members saw them go in, as did the attendant corps of
specially-selected guards. Nevertheless, when the treasurer opened the
vault at five minutes after midnight, the five men were gone. No trace
of any one of them had been found from that time on.

"And that--every word of it--is TRUE!" the assembled minds yelled as
one, all unconsciously, into the mind of the Lensman.

During all this telling Kinnison had been searching mind after mind;
inspecting each minutely for the telltale marks of mental surgery. He
found none. No hypnosis. This thing had happened, exactly as they told
it. Now, convinced of that fact, his eyes clouded with foreboding,
he sent out his sense of perception and studied the vault itself.
Millimeter by cubic millimeter he scanned the innermost details of
its massive structure--the concrete, the neo-carballoy, the steel,
the heat-conductors and the closely-spaced gas cells. He traced the
intricate wiring of the networks of alarms. Everything was sound.
Everything functioned. Nothing had been disturbed.

The sun of this system, although rather on the small side, was
intensely hot; this planet, Four, was a long way out. Pretty
close to Cardynge's limit ... or the Boskonians had improved their
technique--tightened up their controls. A tube, of course ... for all
the tea in China it had to be a tube. Kinnison sagged; for the first
time in his life the indomitable Gray Lensman showed his years and more.

"I know that it happened." His voice was grim, quiet, as he spoke to
the still protesting men. "I also know how it was done, but that's all."

"HOW?" they demanded, practically in one voice.

"A hyperspatial tube," and Kinnison went on to explain, as well as
he could, the functioning of a thing which could not be grasped
intrinsically by any nonmathematical three-dimensional mind.

"But what can we or you or anybody else _do_ about it?" the
treasurer asked, numbly.

"Nothing whatever." Kinnison's voice was flat. "When it's gone, it's
gone. Where does the light go when a lamp goes out? No more trace.
No more way--no way whatever--of tracing it. Hundreds of millions of
planets in this galaxy, as many in the Second. Millions and millions of
galaxies. All that in one Universe--our own universe. And there are an
infinite number--too many to be expressed, let alone to be grasped--of
universes, side by side, like pages in a book except thinner, in the
hyperdimension. So you can figure out for yourselves the chances of
ever finding either President Renwood or the Boskonians who took
him--so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from zero absolute."

The treasurer was crushed. "Do you mean to say that there is no
protection at all from this thing? That they can keep on doing away
with us just as they please? The nation is going mad, sir, day by
day--one more such occurrence and we will be a planet of maniacs."

"Oh, no--I didn't say that." The tension lightened. "Just that we can't
do anything about the president and his aides. The tube can be detected
while it is in place, and anyone coming through it can be shot as soon
as he can be seen. What you need is a couple of Rigellian Lensmen, or
Ordoviks. I'll see to it that you get them. I don't think, with them
here, that they will even try to repeat." He did not add what he knew
somberly to be a fact, that the enemy would go elsewhere, to some other
planet not protected by a Lensman able to perceive the intangible
structure of a sphere of pure force.

       *       *       *       *       *

Frustrated, the Lensman again took to space. It was terrible,
this thing of having everything happening where he wasn't,
and when he got there having nothing left to work on.
Hit-and-run--stab-in-the-back--how could a man fight something that he
couldn't see or sense or feel or find? But this chewing his fingernails
to the elbow wasn't getting him anywhere, either; he'd have to find
something that he _could_ stick a tooth into. What?

All former avenues of approach were blocked; he was sure of that.
The Boskonians, who were now in charge of things, could really think.
No underling would know anything about any one of them except at such
times and places as the directors chose, and those conferences would be
as nearly detection-proof as they could be made. What to do?

Easy. Catch a big operator in the act. He grinned wryly to himself.
Easy to say, but not--However, it wasn't impossible. The Boskonians
were not supermen--they didn't have any more jets than he did. Put
himself in the other fellow's place--what would he do if he were a
Boskonian big shot? He had had quite a lot of experience in the role.
Were there any specific groups of crimes which revealed techniques
similar to those which he himself would use in like case?

He, personally, preferred to work direct and to attack in force. At
need, however, he had done a smooth job of boring from within. In the
face of the Patrol's overwhelming superiority of armament, especially
in the First Galaxy, they would have to bore from within. How? By
what means? He was a Lensman; they were not. Jet back! Or were they,
perhaps? How did he know that they weren't? Maybe they were, by this
time. Fossten the renegade Arisian--No use kidding himself; Fossten
might have known as much about the Lens as Mentor himself, and might
have developed an organization that even Mentor didn't know anything
about. Or Mentor might be figuring that it would be good for what
ailed a certain fat-headed Gray Lensman to have to dope this out for
himself. QX.

He shot a call to Vice Co-ordinator Maitland, who was now in complete
charge of the office which Kinnison had temporarily abandoned.

"Cliff? Kim. Just gave birth to an idea." He explained rapidly what the
idea was. "Maybe nothing to it, but we'd better get up on our toes and
find out. You might suggest to the boys that they check up here and
there, particularly around the rough spots. If any of them find any
trace anywhere of off-color, sour, or even slightly rancid Lensmanship,
with or without a Lens appearing in the picture, burn a hole in space
getting it to me. QX?... Thanks."

Viewed in this new perspective, Renwood of Antigan IV might have been
neither a patriot nor a victim, but a saboteur. The tube could have
been a prop, used deliberately to cap the mysterious climax. The four
honest and devoted guards were the real casualties. Renwood--or whoever
he was--having accomplished his object of undermining and destroying
the whole planet's morale, might simply have gone elsewhere to continue
his nefarious activities. It was fiendishly clever. That spectacularly
theatrical finale was certainly one for the book. The whole thing,
though, was very much of a piece in quality of workmanship with what
he had done in becoming the Tyrant of Thrale. Farfetched? No. He had
already denied in his thoughts that the Boskonian operators were
supermen. Conversely, he wasn't, either. He would have to admit that
they might very well be as good as he was; to deny them the ability to
do anything which he himself could do would be sheer stupidity.

Where did that put him? On Radelix, by Klono's golden gills! A
good-sized planet. Important enough, but not too much so. People human.
Comparatively little hell being raised there--yet. Very few Lensmen,
and Gerrond the top. Hm-m-m. Gerrond. Not too bright, as Lensmen went,
and inclined to be a bit brass-hattish. To Radelix, by all means, next.

       *       *       *       *       *

He went to Radelix, but not in the _Dauntless_ and not in gray.
He was a passenger upon a luxury liner, a writer in search of local
color for another saga of the spaceways. Sybly Whyte--one of the
Patrol's most carefully-established figments--had a bulletproof past.
His omnivorous interest and his uninhibited nosiness were the natural
attributes of his profession--everything is grist which comes to an
author's mill.

Sybly Whyte then prowled about Radelix. Industriously and, to some
observers, pointlessly. He and his red-leather notebook were apt to
be seen anywhere at any time, day or night. He visited spaceports,
he climbed through freighters, he lost small sums in playing various
games of so-called chance in spacemen's dives. Upon the other hand, he
truckled assiduously to the social elite and attended all functions
into which he could wangle or could force his way. He made a pest of
himself in the offices of politicians, bankers, merchant princes,
tycoons of business and manufacture, and all other sorts of greats.

He was stopped one day in the outer office of an industrial potentate.
"Get out and stay out," a peg-legged guard told him. "The boss hasn't
read any of your stuff, but I have, and neither of us wants to talk to
you. Data, huh? What do you need of data on atomic cats and bulldozers
to write them space operas of yours? Why don't you get a roustabout job
on a freighter and learn something about what you're trying to write
about? Get yourself a real space tan instead of that imitation you
got under a lamp; work some of that lard off of your carcass!" Whyte
was definitely fatter than Kinnison had been; and, somehow, softer;
he peered owlishly through heavy lenses which, fortunately, did not
interfere with his sense of perception. "Then maybe some of your tripe
will be half-fit to read--beat it!"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir; very much, sir." Kinnison bobbed
obsequiously and scurried out, writing industriously in his notebook
the while. He had, however, found out what he wanted to know. The boss
was nobody he was looking for.

Nor was an eminent statesman whom he buttonholed at a reception. "I
fail to see, sir, entirely, any point in your interviewing _me_,"
that worthy informed him, frigidly. "I am not, I am ... uh ... sure,
suitable material for any opus upon which you may be at work."

"Oh, you can't ever tell, sir," Kinnison said. "You see, I never know
who or what is going to get into any of my stories until after I start
to write it, and sometimes not even then." The statesman glared and
Kinnison retreated in disorder.

To stay in character Kinnison actually wrote a story while upon
Radelix; a story which was later acclaimed as one of Sybly Whyte's best.

"Qadgop the Mercotan slithered flatly around the after-bulge of the
tranship. One claw dug into the meters-thick armor of pure neutronium,
then another. Its terrible xmexlike snout locked on. Its zymolosely
polydactile tongue crunched out, crashed down, rasped across. _Slurp!
Slurp!_ At each abrasive stroke the groove in the tranship's plating
deepened and Qadgop leered more fiercely. Fools! Did they think that
the airlessness of absolute space, the heatlessness of absolute zero,
the yieldlessness of absolute neutronium, could stop QADGOP THE
MERCOTAN? And the stowaway, that human wench Cynthia, cowering in
helpless terror just beyond this thin and fragile wall--" Kinnison was
tapping merrily and verbosely along, at a cento a word, when his first
real clue developed.

       *       *       *       *       *

A yellow "attention" light gleamed upon his visiphone panel, a
subdued chime gave notice that a message of importance was about to be
broadcast to the world. Kinnison-Whyte flipped his switch and the stern
face of the Provost Marshal appeared upon the screen.

"Attention, please," the image spoke. "Every citizen of Radelix is
urged to be upon the lookout for the source of certain inflammatory and
subversive literature which is beginning to appear in various cities of
this planet. Our officers cannot be everywhere at once; you citizens
are. It is hoped that by the aid of your vigilance this threat to our
planetary peace and security can be removed before it becomes really
serious; that we can avoid the imposition of martial law."

This message, while not of extreme or urgent import to most
Radeligians, held for Kinnison a profound and unique meaning. He was
right. He had deduced the thing one hundred percent. He knew what was
going to happen next, and how; he knew that neither the law-enforcement
officers of Radelix nor its massed citizenry could stop it. They could
not even impede it. A force of Lensmen could stop it--but that would
not get the Patrol anywhere unless they could capture or kill the
beings really responsible for what was done. To alarm them would not do.

Whether or not he could do much of anything before the grand climax
depended upon a lot of factors. Upon what that climax was; upon who
was threatened with what; upon whether or not the threatened one was
actually a Boskonian. A great deal of investigation was indicated.

If the enemy were going to repeat, as seemed probable, the president
would be the victim. If he, Kinnison, could not get a line upon the
higher-ups before the plot came to a head, he would have to let it
develop right up to the point of disappearance; and for Whyte to appear
upon the scene at that time would be to attract undesirable attention.
No--by that time he must already have been kicking around underfoot
long enough to have become an unnoticeable fixture.

Wherefore he moved into quarters as close to the Executive Offices
as he could possibly get; and in those quarters he worked openly
and wordily at the bringing of the affair of Qadgop and the
beautiful-but-dumb Cynthia to a satisfactory conclusion.



                                  IV.


In order to understand these and subsequent events it is necessary to
cut back briefly some twenty-odd years, to the momentous interview upon
chill, dark Onlo between monstrous Kandron and his superior in affairs
Boskonian, the unspeakable Alcon, Tyrant of Thrale. At almost the end
of that interview, when Kandron had suggested the possibility that
his own base had perhaps been vulnerable to Star A Star's insidious
manipulations:

"Do you mean to admit that _you_ may have been invaded and
searched--tracelessly?" Alcon fairly shrieked the thought.

"Certainly," Kandron replied, coldly. "While I do not believe that
it has been done, the possibility must be conceded. What we could do
we have done, but what science can do science can circumvent. It is
a virtual certainty that it is not Onlo and I who are their prime
objectives, but Thrale and you. Especially you."

"You may be right. With no data whatever upon who or what Star A Star
really is, with no tenable theory as to how he could have done what
actually has been done, speculation is idle." Thus Alcon ended the
conversation and, almost immediately, went back to Thrale.

After the Tyrant's departure Kandron continued to think, and the
more he thought the more uneasy he became. It was undoubtedly true
that Alcon and Thrale were the Patrol's prime objectives. But, those
objectives attained, was it reasonable to suppose that he and Onlo
would be spared? It was not. Should he warn Alcon further? He should
not. If the Tyrant, after all that had been said, could not see the
danger he was in, he was not worth saving. If he preferred to stay and
fight it out, that was his lookout. Kandron would take no chances with
his own extremely valuable life.

Should he warn his own men? How could he? They were able and hardened
fighters all; no possible warning could make them defend their
fortresses and their lives any more efficiently than they were already
prepared to do; nothing he could say would be of any use in preparing
them for a threat whose basic nature, even, was completely unknown.
Furthermore, this hypothetical invasion probably had not happened and
very well might not happen at all, and to flee from an imaginary foe
would not rebound to his credit.

No. As a personage of large affairs, not limited to Onlo, he would be
called elsewhere. He would stay elsewhere until after whatever was
going to happen had happened. If nothing happened during the ensuing
few weeks, he would return from his official trip and all would be well.

He inspected Onlo thoroughly, he cautioned his officers repeatedly and
insistently to keep alert against every conceivable emergency while he
was so unavoidably absent. Then he departed, with a fleet of vessels
manned by hand-picked crews, to a long-prepared and hitherto secret
retreat.

From that safe place he watched, through the eyes and the instruments
of his skilled observers, everything that occurred. Thrale fell, and
Onlo. The Patrol triumphed. Then, knowing the full measure of the
disaster and accepting it with the grim passivity so characteristic
of his breed, Kandron broadcast certain signals and one of his--and
Alcon's--superiors got in touch with him. He reported concisely. They
conferred. He was given orders which were to keep him busy for over
twenty Tellurian years.

He knew now that Onlo had been invaded, tracelessly, by some feat of
mentality beyond comprehension and almost beyond belief. He knew that
Onlo had fallen without any of its defenders having energized a single
one of their gigantic engines of war. The fall of Thrale, and the
manner of that fall's accomplishment, were plain enough. Human stuff.
The work, undoubtedly, of human Lensmen; perhaps the work of the human
Lensman who was so frequently associated with Star A Star.

But Onlo! Kandron himself had set those snares along those intricately
zigzagged communications lines; he knew their capabilities. Kandron
himself had installed Onlo's blocking and shielding screens; he
knew their might. He knew, since no other path existed leading to
Thrale, that those lines had been followed and those screens had been
penetrated, and all without setting off a single alarm. Those things
had actually happened. Hence Kandron set his stupendous mind to the
task of envisaging what the being must be, mentally, who could do them;
what the mind of this Star A Star--it could have been no one else--must
in actuality be.

He succeeded. He deduced Nadreck of Palain VII, practically _in
toto_; and for the Star A Star thus envisaged he set traps
throughout both galaxies. They might or might not kill him. Killing him
immediately, however, was not really of the essence; that matter could
wait until he could give it his personal attention. The important thing
was to see to it that Star A Star could never, by any possible chance,
discover a true lead to any high Boskonian.

Sneeringly, gloatingly, Kandron issued orders; then flung himself with
all his zeal and ability into the task of reorganizing the shattered
fragments of the Boskonian Empire into a force capable of wrecking
Civilization.

Thus it is not strange that for more than twenty years Nadreck of
Palain VII made very little progress indeed. Time after time he grazed
the hot edge of death. Indeed, it was only by the exertion of his
every iota of skill, power, and callous efficiency that he managed
to survive. He struck a few telling blows for Civilization, but most
of the time he was strictly upon the defensive. Every clue that he
followed, it seemed, led subtly into a trap; every course he pursued
ended, always figuratively and all too often literally, in a cul-de-sac
filled with semiportable projectors all agog to blast him out of the
ether.

Year by year he became more conscious of some imperceptible,
indetectable, but potent foe, an individual enemy obstructing his
every move and determined to make an end of him. And year by year, as
material accumulated, it became more and more certain that the inimical
entity was in fact Kandron, once of Onlo.

When Kit went into space, then, and Kinnison called Nadreck into
consultation the usually reticent and unloquacious Palainian was ready
to talk. He told the Gray Lensman everything he knew, everything he
deduced or suspected about the ex-Onlonian chieftain.

"Kandron of Onlo!" Kinnison exploded, so violently as to sear the
subether through which the thought passed. "Holy Klono's brazen bowels!
And you can sit there on your spiny tokus and tell me that Kandron got
away from you back there? And that you knew it, and not only didn't
do a thing about it yourself, but didn't even tell me or anybody else
about it, so that we could take steps?"

"Certainly. Why take steps before they become necessary?" Nadreck was
entirely unmoved by the Tellurian's passion. "My powers are admittedly
small, my intellect feeble. However, even to me it was clear then and
it is clear now that Kandron was then of no importance. My assignment
was to reduce Onlo. I reduced it. Whether or not Kandron was there at
the time did not then have and cannot now have anything to do with that
task. Kandron, personally, is another, an entirely distinct problem."

Kinnison swore a blistering deep-space oath; then, by main strength,
shut himself up. Nadreck wasn't human; there was no use even trying
to judge him by human or near-human standards. He was fundamentally,
incomprehensibly, and radically different. And it was just as well for
humanity that he was. For if his hellishly able race had possessed
the characteristically human abilities, in addition to their own,
Civilization would of necessity have been basically Palainian instead
of basically human, as it now is. "QX, ace," he growled, finally. "Skip
it."

"But Kandron has been hampering my activities for years, and, now that
you also have become interested in his operations against us, he has
become a factor of which cognizance should be taken," Nadreck went
imperturbably on. He could no more understand Kinnison's viewpoint than
the Tellurian could understand his. "With your permission, therefore, I
shall find--and slay--this Kandron."

"Go to it, little chum," Kinnison sighed, bitingly and uselessly.
"Clear ether."

       *       *       *       *       *

While this conference was taking place, Kandron reclined in a bitterly
cold, completely unlighted room of his headquarters and indulged in
a little gloating concerning the predicament in which he was keeping
Nadreck of Palain VII, who was, in all probability, the once-dreaded
Star A Star of the Galactic Patrol. It was true that THE Lensman was
still alive. He would probably, Kandron mused quite pleasurably, remain
alive until he himself could find the time to attend to him in person.
He was an able operator, but one presenting no real menace, now that
he was known and understood. There were other things more pressing,
just as there had been ever since the fall of Thrale. The revised Plan
was going nicely, and as soon as he had resolved that human thing--The
Ploorans had suggested ... could it be possible, after all, that
Nadreck of Palain was not he who had been known so long only as Star A
Star? That the human factor was actually--

Through the operation of some unknowable sense Kandron knew that it was
time for his aide to be at hand to report upon those human affairs. He
sent out a signal and another Onlonian scuttled in.

"That unknown human element," Kandron radiated harshly. "I assume that
you are not reporting that it has been resolved?"

"Sorry, Supremacy, but your assumption is correct," the creature
radiated back, in no very conciliatory fashion. "The trap at Antigan
IV was set particularly for him; specifically to match the man whose
mentality you computed and diagramed for us. Was it too obvious, think
you, Supremacy? Or perhaps not quite obvious enough? Or, the Galaxy
being large, is it perhaps that he simply did not learn of it in time?
In the next attempt, what degree of obviousness should I employ and
what degree of repetition is desirable?"

"The technique of the Antigan affair was flawless," Kandron decided.
"He did not learn of it, as you suggest, or we should have caught him.
He is a master workman, always concealed by his very obviousness until
after he has done his work. Thus we can never, save by merest chance,
catch him before the act; we must make him come to us. We must keep
on trying until he does come to us. It is of no great moment, really,
whether we catch him now or five years hence. This work must be done
in any event--it is simply a fortunate coincidence that the necessary
destruction of Civilization upon its own planets presents such a fine
opportunity of trapping him.

"As to repeating the Antigan technique, we should not repeat it
exactly ... or, hold! It might be best to do just that. To repeat a
process is, of course, the mark of an inferior mind; but if that human
can be made to believe that our minds are inferior, so much the better.
Keep on trying; report as instructed. Remember that he must be taken
alive, so that we can take from his living brain the secrets we have
not yet been able to learn. Forget, in the instant of leaving this
room, everything about me and about any connections between us until I
force recollection upon you. Go."

The minion went, and Kandron set out to do more of the things which he
could best do. He would have liked to take Nadreck's trail himself;
he could catch and he could kill that evasive entity and the task
would have been a pleasant one. He would have liked to supervise the
trapping of that enigmatic human Lensman who might--or might not--be
that frequently and copiously damned Star A Star. That, too, would be
an eminently pleasant chore. There were, however, other matters more
pressing by far. If the Great Plan were to succeed, and it absolutely
must and would, every Boskonian must perform his assigned duties.
Nadreck and his putative accomplice were side issues. Kandron's task
was to set up and to direct certain psychoses and disorders; a ghastly
train of mental ills of which he possessed such supreme mastery, and
which were surely and safely helping to destroy the foundation upon
which Galactic Civilization rested. That part was his, and he would
do it to the best of his ability. The other things, the personal and
nonessential matters, could wait.

Kandron set out then, and traveled fast and far; and wherever he went
there spread still further abroad the already widespread blight.
A disgusting, a horrible blight with which no human physician or
psychiatrist, apparently, could cope; one of, perhaps the worst of,
the corrosive blights which had been eating so long at Civilization's
vitals.

       *       *       *       *       *

And L2 Nadreck, having decided to find and slay the ex-ruler of Onlo,
went about it in his usual unhurried but eminently thorough fashion. He
made no effort to locate him or to trace him personally. That would be
bad--foolish. Worse, it would be inefficient. Worst, it would probably
be impossible. No, he would find out where Kandron would be at some
suitable future time, and wait for him in that place.

To that end Nadreck collected a vast mass of data concerning the
occurrences and phenomena which the Big Four had discussed so
thoroughly. He analyzed each item, sorting out those which bore the
characteristic stamp of the arch-foe whom by now he had come to
know so well. The internal evidence of Kandron's craftsmanship was
unmistakable; and, not now to his surprise, Nadreck discerned that the
number of the Onlonian's dark deeds was legion.

There was the affair of the Prime Minister of DeSilva III, who at a
cabinet meeting shot and killed his sovereign and eleven chiefs of
state before committing suicide. The President of Viridon, who at his
press conference, ran amuck with a scimitar snatched from a wall, hewed
unsuspecting reporters to gory bits until he was overpowered, and then
swallowed poison.

A variant of the theme, but still plainly Kandron's doing, was the
interesting episode in which Galactic Counselor Edmundson, while upon
an ocean voyage, threw fifteen women passengers overboard, then leaped
after them dressed only in a life jacket stuffed with lead. Another out
of the same whimsical mold was that of Dillway, the highly respected
Operations Chief of Central Spaceways. That potentate called his
secretaries one by one into his sixtieth floor office and unconcernedly
tossed them, one by one, out of the window. He danced a jig upon a
coping before diving after them to the street.

A particularly juicy and entertaining bit, Nadreck thought, was the
case of Narkor Base Hospital, in which four of the planet's most
eminent surgeons decapitated every other person in the place--patients,
nurses, orderlies, and all, with a fine disregard of age, sex, or
condition--arranged the several heads, each upright and each facing
due north, upon the tiled floor to spell the word "Revenge," and then
hacked each other to death with scalpels.

These, and a thousand or more other events of similar technique,
Nadreck tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis. Scattered so
widely throughout such a vast volume of space, they had created little
or no general disturbance; indeed, they had scarcely been noticed by
Civilization as a whole. Collected, they made a truly staggering,
a revolting and appalling total. Nadreck, however, was inherently
incapable of being staggered, revolted, or appalled. That repulsive
summation, a thing which in its massed horror would have shaken to the
core--shocked almost into paralysis--any being possessing any shred of
sympathy or tenderness, was to Nadreck simply an interesting and not
too difficult problem in psychology and mathematics.

He placed each episode in space and in time, correlating each with
all of its fellows in a space-time matrix. He determined the locus
of centers and derived the equations of its most probable motion. He
extended it by extrapolation in accordance with that equation. Then,
assuring himself that his margin of error was as small as he could
make it, he set out for a planet which Kandron would most probably
visit at a time far enough in the future to enable him to receive the
Onlonian.

       *       *       *       *       *

That planet, being inhabited by near-human beings, was warm, brightly
sun-lit, and had an atmosphere rich in oxygen. Nadreck detested it,
since his ideal of a planet was precisely the opposite. Fortunately,
however, he would not have to land upon it until after Kandron's
arrival--possibly not then--and the fact that his proposed quarry
was, like himself, a frigid-blooded poison-breather, made the task of
detection a simple one.

Nadreck set his indetectable speedster into a circular orbit around
the planet, far enough out to be comfortable, and sent out course
after course of delicate, extremely sensitive screen. Precision of
pattern-analysis was, of course, needless. The probability was that
all legitimate movement of personnel to and from the planet would be
composed of warm-blooded oxygen-breathers; that any visitor not so
classified would be Kandron. Any frigid-blooded visitor had at least
to be investigated, hence his analytical screens had to be capable
only of differentiating between two types of beings as far apart as
the galactic poles in practically every respect. Nadreck knew that
no supervision would be necessary to perform such an open-and-shut
separation as that; he would have nothing more to do until his
electronic announcers should warn him of Kandron's approach--or until
the passage of time should inform him that the Onlonian was not coming
to this particular planet.

Being a mathematician, Nadreck knew that any datum secured by
extrapolation is of doubtful value. He thus knew that the actual
probability of Kandron's coming was less, by some indeterminable
amount, than the mathematical one. Nevertheless, having done all that
he could do, he waited with the monstrous, unhuman patience known only
to such races as his.

Day by day, week by week, the speedster circled the planet and its
big, hot sun; and as it circled, the lone voyager studied. He analyzed
more data more precisely; he drew deeper and deeper upon his store of
knowledge to determine what steps next to take in the event that this
attempt should end, as so many previous ones had ended, in failure.



                                  V.


Kinnison, the author, toiled manfully at his epic of space whenever
he was under any sort of observation, and enough at other times
to avert any suspicion. Indeed, he worked as much as Sybly Whyte,
an advertisedly temperamental writer, had ever worked. Besides
interviewing the high and the low, and taking notes everywhere, he
attended authors' teas, at which he cursed his characters fluently and
bitterly for their failure to co-operate with him. With short-haired
women and long-haired men he bemoaned the perversity of a public which
compelled them to prostitute the real genius of which each was the
unique possessor. He sympathized particularly with a fat woman writer
of whodunits, whose extremely unrealistic yet amazingly popular Gray
Lensman hero had lived through ten full-length novels and twenty
million copies.

Even though her real field was the drama, she wasn't writing the kind
of detective tripe that most of these crank-turners ground out, she
confided to Kinnison. She had known lots of Gray Lensmen _very_
intimately, and _her_ stories were drawn from real life in every
particular!

Thus Kinnison remained in character; and thus he was enabled to work
completely unnoticed at his real job of finding out what was going on,
how the Boskonians were operating to ruin Radelix as they had ruined
Antigan IV.

His first care was to investigate the planet's president. That took
doing, but he did it. He examined that mind line by line and channel
by channel, with no results whatever. No scars, no sign of tampering.
Calling in assistance, he searched the president's past even more
rigidly than Fossten had searched that of Traska Gannel. Still no
soap. Everything checked, even to widely distributed boyhood pictures.
Boring from within, then, was out. His first hypothesis was wrong; this
invasion and this sabotage were being done from without. How?

Those first leaflets were followed by others, each batch more
vitriolic in tone than the preceding one. Apparently they came from
empty stratosphere; at least, no ships were to be detected in the
neighborhood after any shower of the hand-bills had appeared. But that
was not surprising. With its inertialess drive any spaceship could have
been parsecs away before the papers touched atmosphere. Or they could
have been bombed in from almost any distance. Or, as Kinnison thought
most reasonable, they could have been simply dumped out of the mouth
of a hyperspatial tube. In any event the method was immaterial. The
results only were important; and those results, the Lensman discovered,
were entirely disproportionate to the ostensible causes. The subversive
literature had some effect, of course, but essentially it must be a
blind. No possible tonnage of anonymous printing could cause that much
sheer demoralization.

Crackpot societies of all kinds sprang up everywhere, advocating
everything from absolutism to anarchy. Queer cults arose, preaching
free love, the imminent end of the world, and almost every other
conceivable departure from the norm of thought. The Authors' League,
of course, was affected more than any other organization of its size,
because of its relatively large content of strong and intensely
opinionated minds. Instead of becoming one radical group it split into
a dozen.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kinnison joined one of those "Down with Everything!" groups, not as
a leader, but as a follower. Not too sheeplike a follower, but just
inconspicuous enough to retain his invisibly average status; and from
his place of concealment in the middle of the front rank he studied the
minds of each of his fellow anarchists. He watched those minds change,
he found out who was doing the changing. When Kinnison's turn came he
was all set for trouble. He expected to battle a powerful mentality. He
would not have been overly surprised to encounter another mad Arisian,
hiding behind a zone of hypnotic compulsion. He expected anything,
in fact, except what he found--which was a very ordinary Radeligian
therapist. The guy was a clever enough operator, of course, but he
could not work against even the feeblest opposition. Hence the Gray
Lensman had no trouble at all, either in learning everything the fellow
knew or, upon leaving him, in implanting within his mind the knowledge
that he had made Sybly Whyte into exactly the type of anarchist desired.

The trouble was that the therapist didn't know a thing. This not
entirely unexpected development posed Kinnison three questions. Did
the higher-ups ever communicate with such small fry, or did they just
give them one set of orders and cut them loose? Should he stay in
this Radeligian's mind until he found out? If he was in control of
the therapist when a big shot took over, did he have jets enough to
keep from being found out? Risky business; better scout around first,
anyway. He'd do a flit.

He drove his black speedster a million miles. He covered Radelix like a
blanket, around the equator and from pole to pole. Everywhere he found
the same state of things. The planet was literally riddled with the
agitators; he found so many that he was forced to a black conclusion.
There could be no connection or communication between such numbers of
saboteurs and any higher authority. They must have been sent with one
set of do-or-die instructions--whether they did or died was immaterial.
Experimentally, Kinnison had a few of the ringleaders taken into
custody. As each was arrested another took his place.

Martial law was finally declared, but this measure succeeded only in
driving the conspirators underground. What the subversive societies
lost in numbers they more than made up in desperation and violence.
Crime raged unchecked and uncheckable, murder became an everyday
commonplace, insanity waxed rife. And Kinnison, knowing now that no
channel to important prey would be opened until the climax, watched
grimly while the rape of the planet went on.

The president of Radelix and Lensman Gerrond sent message after
message to Prime Base and to Klovia, imploring help. The replies
to these pleas were all alike. The matter had been referred to the
Galactic Council and to the Co-ordinator. Everything that could be done
was being done. Neither office would say anything else, except that,
with the galaxy in such a disturbed condition, each planet must do its
best to solve its own problems.

       *       *       *       *       *

The thing built up toward its atrocious finale. Gerrond invited the
president to a conference in a downtown hotel room, and there, eyes
glancing from moment to moment at the dials of a complete little
test-kit held open upon his lap:

"I have just had some startling news, sir," Gerrond said, abruptly.
"Kinnison has been here on Radelix for weeks."

"What? Kinnison? Where is he? Why didn't he--?"

"Yes, Kinnison. Kinnison of Klovia. The Co-ordinator himself. I don't
know where he is, or was. I didn't ask him." The Lensman smiled
fleetingly. "One doesn't, you know. He discussed the situation with me
at length. I am still amazed--"

"Why doesn't he stop it, then?" the president demanded. "Or can't he
stop it?"

"That's what I've got to explain to you. He can, but the time won't be
ripe until the last act."

"Why not? I tell you, if this thing can be stopped it's _got_ to
be stopped, and no matter what has to be done it's _got_ to be--"

"Just a minute!" Gerrond snapped. "I know that you're out of control--I
don't like to see Radelix torn apart any better than you do--but you
ought to know by this time that Galactic Co-ordinator Kimball Kinnison
is in a better position to know what to do than any other man in the
universe. Furthermore, his word is the last word. What he says, goes."

"Of course," the president apologized. "I am overwrought ... but to see
our entire world pulled down around us and upon us, our institutions,
the work of centuries, destroyed, millions of lives lost ... all
needlessly--"

"It won't come to that, he says, if we all do our parts. And you, sir,
are very much in the picture."

"I? How?"

"Are you familiar with exactly what happened upon Antigan IV?"

"Why, no. They had some trouble over there, I recall, but--"

"That's it. That's why this must go on. No planet cares particularly
about what happens to any other planet, but the Co-ordinator cares
about them all, as a whole. If this trouble is headed off now, it will
simply spread to other planets; if it is allowed to come to a climax
there is a good chance that we can put an end to the whole trouble, for
good."

"But what has that to do with me? What can I, personally, do?"

"Much. The last act upon Antigan IV, the thing that made it a planet
of maniacs, was the kidnaping of Planetary President Renwood. It is
supposed that he was murdered, since no trace of him has ever been
found."

"Oh." The older man's hands clenched, then loosened. "I am willing ...
provided--Is the Co-ordinator fairly certain that my death will enable
him--"

"It won't get that far, sir. He intends to stop it just before that.
He and his associates--I don't know who they are--have been listing
every enemy agent they can find, and they will all be taken care of at
once. He believes that Boskone will publish in advance a definite time
at which they will take you away from us. That was the way it went at
Antigan."

"Even from the Patrol?"

"From Base itself. Co-ordinator Kinnison is pretty sure that they can
do it, except for something that he can bring into play only at the
last moment. Incidentally, that is why we are having this meeting here,
with this detector which he gave me. He is afraid that Base is porous."

"In that case ... what can he--" The president fell silent.

"All that I know is that we are to dress you in a certain suit of armor
and have you in my private office in Base a few minutes before the time
they set. We and the guards leave the office at minus two minutes and
walk down the corridor, just fast enough so that at minus one minute we
are exactly in front of Room Twenty-four. We are to rehearse it until
our timing is perfect. I have no idea what is going to happen then, but
I know that something will. We are not to discuss this again, even
via Lens, as he is pretty sure that you will very shortly be under
surveillance every minute."

       *       *       *       *       *

Time passed; the Boskonian infiltration progressed strictly according
to plan. Upon the surface it appeared that Radelix was going in almost
the same fashion in which Antigan IV had gone. Below the surface,
however, there was one great difference. Every ship, whether liner or
freighter or tramp, which docked at any spaceport of Radelix, brought
at least one man who did not leave. Some of these visitors were tall
and lithe, some were short and fat. Some were old, some were young.
Some were pale, some were burned to the complexion of ancient leather
by the fervent rays of space. They were alike only in the "look of
eagles" in their steady, quiet eyes. Each landed and went about his
ostensible business, interesting himself not at all in any of the
others.

Again the Boskonians declared their contempt of the Patrol by setting
the exact time at which the president was to be taken. Again the
appointed hour was midnight.

Vice Admiral Lensman Gerrond was, as Kinnison had intimated frequently,
somewhat of a brass hat. He did not, he simply could not believe that
his Base was as pregnable as the Co-ordinator had assumed it to be.
Kinnison, knowing that all ordinary defenses would be useless, had not
even mentioned them. Gerrond, unable to believe that his hitherto
invincible and invulnerable weapons and defenses were all of a sudden
useless, mustered them of his own volition.

All leaves had been canceled. Every detector, every beam, every device
of defense and of offense was fully manned. Every man was keyed up and
alert. And Gerrond, while the least bit apprehensive that something was
about to happen which was not in the book, was pretty sure in his stout
old war-dog's soul that he and his men had stuff enough.

At two minutes before midnight the armored president and his escorts
left Gerrond's private office. One minute later they were passing
the door of the specified room. A bomb exploded shatteringly behind
them, armored men rushed yelling out of a branch corridor in their
rear. Everybody stopped and turned to look. So, the hidden Kinnison
assured himself, did an unseen observer in an invisibly hovering,
three-dimensional hypercircle.

Kinnison threw the door open, flashed an explanatory thought at the
president, yanked him into the room and into the midst of a corps of
Lensmen armed with devices not usually encountered even in Patrol
bases. The door snapped shut and Kinnison stood where the president had
stood an instant before, clad in armor identical with that which the
president had worn. The exchange had required less than one second: it
had been observed by no one.

"QX, Gerrond and you fellows!" Kinnison drove the thought. "The
president is safe--I'm taking over. Double time straight ahead--hipe!
Get into the clear--give us a chance to use our stuff!"

The unarmored men broke into a run, and as they did so the door of Room
Twenty-four swung open and stayed open. Weapons snouted out, shoved by
armored men. Armored men and heavy weapons erupted from other doors and
from more branch corridors. The hypercircle, which was, in fact, the
terminus of a hyperspatial tube, began to thicken toward visibility.

It did not, however, materialize. Only by the intensest effort of
vision could it be discerned as the sheerest wisp, more tenuous than
the thinnest fog. The men within the ship, if ship it was, were visible
only as striations in air are visible, and no more to be made out
in detail. Instead of a full materialization, the only thing that
was or became solid or tangible was a dead-black thing which reached
purposefully outward and downward toward Kinnison, a thing combined of
tongs and coarse-meshed, heavy net.

Kinnison's DeLameters flamed at maximum intensity and minimum aperture.
Useless. The stuff was dureum; that unbelievably dense and ultimately
refractory synthetic which, saturated with pure force, is the only
known substance which can exist as an actuality both in normal space
and in that pseudospace which composes the hyperspatial tube. The
Lensman flicked on his neutralizer and shot away inertialess; but that
maneuver, too, had been foreseen. The Boskonian engineers matched every
move he made, within a split second after he made it; the tong-net
gripped and closed.

Semiportables flamed then--heavy stuff--but they might just as well
have remained cold. Their beams could not cut the dureum linkages; they
slid harmlessly _past_--not through--the wraithlike, figmental
invaders at whom they were timed. Kinnison was hauled aboard the
Boskonian vessel; its structure and its furnishings and its crew
becoming ever firmer and more substantial to his senses as he went from
normal into pseudospace.

As the pseudoworld became real, the reality of the base behind him
thinned into unreality. In seconds it disappeared utterly, and Kinnison
knew that to the senses of his fellow human beings he had vanished
without leaving a trace. This ship, though, was real enough. So were
his captors.

       *       *       *       *       *

The net opened, dumping the Lensman ignominiously to the floor. Tractor
beams wrenched his blazing DeLameters out of his grasp--whether or not
hands and arms came with them was entirely his own lookout. Tractors
and pressors jerked him upright, slammed him against the steel wall of
the room, held him motionless against it.

Furiously he launched his ultimately lethal weapon, the
Worsel-designed, Thorndyke-built, mind-controlled projector of
thought-borne vibrations which decomposed the molecules without which
thought and life itself could not exist. Nothing happened. He explored,
finding that even his sense of perception was stopped a full foot away
from every part of every one of those humanoid bodies. He settled down
then and thought. A great light dawned; a shock struck sickeningly home.

No such elaborate and super-powered preparations would have been made
for the capture of any civilian. Presidents were old men, physically
weak and with no extraordinary powers of mind. No--this whole chain of
events had been according to plan--a high Boskonian's plan. Ruining a
planet was, of course, a highly desirable feature in itself, but it
could not have been the main feature.

Somebody with a real brain was out after the four Second-Stage Lensmen
and he wasn't fooling. And if Nadreck, Worsel, Tregonsee and himself
were all to disappear, the Patrol would know that it had been nudged.
But jet back--which of the four other than himself would have taken
that particular bait? Not one of them. Weren't they out after them,
too? Sure they were--they must be. Oh, if he could only warn them--but
after all, what good would it do? They had all warned each other
repeatedly to watch out for traps; all four had been constantly on
guard. What possible foresight could have avoided a snare set so
perfectly to match every detail of a man's physical and mental make-up?

But he wasn't licked yet. They had to know what he knew, how he had
done what he had done, whether or not he had any superiors and who they
were. Therefore they had had to take him alive, just as he had had to
take various Boskonian chiefs. And they'd find out that as long as he
was alive he'd be a dangerous buzzsaw to monkey with.

The captain, or whoever was in charge, would send for him; that was a
foregone conclusion. He would have to find out what it was that he had
caught; he would have to make a preliminary report of some kind. And
somebody would slip. One hundred percent vigilance was impossible, and
Kinnison would be on his toes to take advantage of that slip, whatever
or however slight it might be.

But the captors did not take Kinnison to the captain. Instead,
accompanied by half-a-dozen armored men, that worthy came to Kinnison.

"Start talking, fellow, and talk fast," the Boskonian directed crisply
in the lingua franca of deep space as the armored soldiers strode
out. "I want to know who you are, what you are, what you've done, and
everything about you and the Patrol. So talk--or do you want me to pull
you apart with these tractors, armor and all?"

Kinnison paid no attention, but drove at the commander with his every
mental force and weapon. Blocked. This ape too had a full-body,
full-coverage screen.

There was a switch, at the captain's hip, handy for finger-tip control.
If he could only move! It would be _so_ easy to flip that switch!
Or if he could throw something, or make one of those other fellows
brush against him just right, or if the guy happened to sit down a
little too close to the arm of a chair, or if there were a pet animal
of any kind around, or a spider or a worm or even a gnat--



                                  VI.


Second-Stage Lensman Tregonsee of Rigel IV did not rush madly out
into space in quest of something or anything Boskonian in response to
Kinnison's call. To hurry was not Tregonsee's way. He could move fast
upon occasion, but before he would move at all he had to know exactly
how, where, and why he should move.

He conferred with his three fellows, he furnished them with all the
data he possessed, he helped integrate the totaled facts into one
composite. That composite pleased the others well enough so that they
went to work, each in his own fashion, but it did not please Tregonsee.
He could not visualize any coherent whole from the available parts.
Therefore, while Kinnison was investigating the fall of Antigan IV,
Tregonsee was sitting--or rather, standing--still and thinking. He was
still standing still and thinking when Kinnison went to Radelix.

Finally he called in an assistant to help him think. He had more
respect for the opinions of Camilla Kinnison than for those of any
other entity, outside of Arisia, of the two galaxies. He had helped
train all five of the Kinnison children, and in Cam he had found a
kindred soul. Possessing a truer sense of values than any of his
fellows, he alone realized that the pupils had long since passed their
tutors; and it is a measure of his quality that the realization brought
into Tregonsee's tranquil soul no tinge of rancor, but only wonder.
What those incredible Children of the Lens had he did not know, but he
knew that they--particularly Camilla--had extraordinary gifts.

In the mind of this scarcely grown woman he perceived depths which he
could not plumb, extensions and vistas the meanings of which he could
not even vaguely grasp. He did not try either to plumb the abysses or
to survey the expanses; he made no slightest effort, ever, to take
from any of the children anything which the child did not first offer
to reveal. In his own mind he tried to classify theirs; but, realizing
in the end that that task was and always would be beyond his power,
he accepted that fact as calmly as he accepted the numberless others
of Nature's inexplicable facts. Tregonsee came the closest of any
Second-Stage Lensman to the real truth, but even he never did suspect
the existence of the Eddorians.

Camilla, as quiet as her twin sister Constance was boisterous,
parked her speedster in one of the capacious holds of the Rigellian's
spaceship and joined him in the control room.

"You believe, I take it, that Dad's logic is faulty, his deductions
erroneous?" the girl thought; after a casual greeting. "I'm not
surprised. So do I. He jumped at conclusions. But then, he does that,
you know."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, exactly. However, it seems to me," Tregonsee
replied carefully, "that he did not have sufficient basis in fact to
form any definite conclusion as to whether or not Renwood of Antigan
was a Boskonian operative. It is that point which I wish to discuss
with you first."

Cam concentrated. "I don't see that it makes any difference,
fundamentally, whether he was or not," she decided, finally. "A
difference in method only, not in motivation. Interesting, perhaps, but
immaterial. It is virtually certain in either case that Kandron of Onlo
or some other entity is the motive force and is the one who must be
destroyed."

"Of course, my dear, but that is only the first differential. How
about the second, and the third? Method governs. Nadreck, concerning
himself only with Kandron, tabulated and studied only the Kandronesque
manifestations. He may--probably will--eliminate Kandron. It is by no
means assured, however, that that step will be enough. In fact, from
my preliminary study, I would risk a small wager that the larger and
worse aspects would remain untouched. I would, therefore, suggest that
we ignore, for the time being, Nadreck's findings and examine anew all
the data available."

"I wouldn't bet you a millo on that." Camilla caught her lower lip
between white, even teeth. "Check. The probability is that Renwood
was a loyal citizen. Let us consider every possible argument for and
against that assumption--"

They went into a contact of minds so close that the separate thoughts
simply could not be resolved into terms of speech. They remained that
way, not for the period of a few minutes which would have exhausted
any ordinary brain, but for four solid hours; and at the end of that
conference they had arrived at a few tentative conclusions.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kinnison had said that there was no possibility of tracing a
hyperspatial tube after it had ceased to exist. There were millions of
planets in the two galaxies. There was an indefinite, quite possibly an
infinite number of coexistent parallel spaces, into any one of which
the tube might have led. Knowing these things, Kinnison had decided
that the probability was infinitesimally small that any successful
investigation could be made along those lines.

Tregonsee and Camilla, starting with the same facts, arrived at
entirely different results. There were many spaces, true, but the
inhabitants of any one space belonged to that space and would not be
interested in the conquest or the permanent taking over of any other.
Foreign spaces, then, need not be considered. Civilization had only
one significant enemy: Boskonia. Boskonia, then, captained possibly by
Kandron of Onlo, was the attacker. The tube itself could not be traced
and there were millions of planets, yes, but those facts were not
pertinent.

Why not? Because "X," who might or might not be Kandron, was
not operating from a fixed headquarters, receiving reports from
subordinates who did the work. A rigid philosophical analysis, of which
few other minds would have been capable, showed that "X" was doing
the work himself, and was moving from solar system to solar system to
do it. Those mass psychoses in which entire garrisons went mad all
at once, those mass hysterias in which vast groups of civilians went
reasonably out of control, could not have been brought about by any
ordinary mind. Of all Civilization, only Nadreck of Palain VII had the
requisite ability; was it reasonable to suppose that Boskonia had many
such minds? No. "X" was either singular or a small integer.

Which? Could they decide the point? With some additional data, they
could. Their linked minds went _en rapport_ with Worsel, with
Nadreck, with Kinnison, and with the principal statistician at Prime
Base.

In addition to Nadreck's locus, they determined two more--one of all
inimical manifestations, the other of those which Nadreck had not used
in his computations. Their final exhaustive analysis showed that there
were at least two, and very probably only two, prime intelligences
directing those Boskonian activities. They made no attempt to identify
either of them. They communicated to Nadreck their results and their
conclusions.

"I am working on Kandron," the Palainian replied, flatly. "I made no
assumptions as to whether or not there were other prime movers at work,
since the point has no bearing. Your information is very interesting,
and may perhaps prove valuable, and I thank you for it--but my present
assignment is to find and to kill Kandron of Onlo."

       *       *       *       *       *

Tregonsee and Camilla, then, set out to find "X"; not any definite
actual or deduced entity, but the perpetrator of certain closely
related and highly characteristic phenomena, viz., mass psychoses and
mass hysterias. Nor did they extrapolate. They visited the last few
planets which had been affected, in the order in which the attacks had
occurred. They studied every phase of every situation. They worked
slowly, but--they hoped and they believed--surely. Neither of them had
any idea then that behind "X" lay Ploor, and beyond Ploor, Eddore.

Having examined the planet latest to be stricken, they made no effort
to pick out definitely the one next to be attacked. It might be any one
of ten worlds, or possibly even twelve. Hence, neglecting entirely the
mathematical and logical probabilities involved, they watched them all,
each taking six. Each flitted from world to world, with senses alert to
perceive the first sign of subversive activity. Tregonsee was a retired
magnate, spending his declining years in seeing the galaxy; Camilla was
a Tellurian business girl on vacation.

Young, beautiful, innocent-looking girls who traveled alone were, then
as ever, regarded as fair game by the Don Juan of any given human
world. Scarcely had Camilla registered at the Hotel Grande when a
well-groomed, self-satisfied man-about-town made an approach.

"Hel-lo, Beautiful! Remember me, don't you--old Tom Thomas? What say
we split a bottle of fayalin, to renew old--" He broke off, for the
red-headed eyeful's reaction was in no sense orthodox. She was not
coldly unaware of his presence. She was neither coy nor angry, neither
fearful nor scornful. She was only and vastly _amused_.

"You think, then, that I am human and desirable?" Her smile was
devastating. "Did you ever hear of the Canthrips of Ollenole?" She had
never heard of them either, before that instant, but this small implied
mendacity did not bother her.

"No, I can't say that I have." The man, while very evidently taken
aback by this new line of resistance, persevered. "What kind of a
brush-off do you think you're trying to give me?"

"Brush-off? See me as I am, you beast, and thank whatever gods you
recognize that I am not hungry, having eaten just last night." In his
sight her green eyes darkened to a jetty black, the flecks of gold in
them scintillated and began to emit sparks. Her hair turned into a mass
of horribly clutching tentacles. Her teeth became fangs, her fingers
talons, her strong, splendidly proportioned body a monstrosity out of
Hell's grisliest depths.

After a moment she allowed the frightful picture to fade back into her
charming self, keeping the Romeo from fainting by the power of her will.

"Call the manager if you like. He has been watching and has seen
nothing except that you are pale and sweating. I, a friend of yours,
have been giving you some bad news, perhaps. Tell your stupid police
all about me, if you wish to spend the rest of your life in a padded
cell. I'll see you again in a day or two, I hope. I'll be hungry again
by that time." She walked away, serenely confident that the fellow
would never willingly come within sight of her again.

She had not damaged his ego permanently--he was not a neurotic
type--but she had given him a jolt which he never would forget. Camilla
Kinnison nor any of her sisters had anything to fear from any male or
males infesting any planet or roaming any depths of space.

       *       *       *       *       *

The expected and awaited trouble developed. Tregonsee and Camilla
landed and began their hunt. The League for Planetary Purity, it
appeared, was the primary focal point; hence the two attended a meeting
of that crusading body. That was a mistake; Tregonsee should have
stayed out in deep space, concealed behind a solid thought-screen.

For Camilla was an unknown. Furthermore, her mind was inherently
stable at the third level of stress; no lesser mind could penetrate
her screens or, having failed to do so, could recognize the fact of
failure. Tregonsee, however, was known throughout all civilized space.
He was not wearing his Lens, of course, but his very shape made him
suspect. Worse, he could not hide from any mind as powerful as that of
"X" the fact that his mind was very decidedly not that of a retired
Rigellian gentleman.

Thus Camilla had known that the procedure was a mistake. She intimated
as much, but she could not sway the unswerving Tregonsee from his
determined course without revealing things which must forever remain
hidden from him. She acquiesced, therefore, but she knew what to expect.

Hence, when the invading intelligence blanketed the assemblage lightly,
only to be withdrawn instantly upon detecting the emanations of a mind
of real power, Cam had a bare moment of time in which to act. She
synchronized with the intruding thought, began to analyze it and to
trace it back to its source. She did not have time enough to succeed
fully in either endeavor, but she did get a line. When the foreign
influence vanished she shot a message to Tregonsee and they sped away.

Hurtling through space along the established line, Tregonsee's mind
was a turmoil of thought; thoughts as plain as print to Camilla. She
flushed uncomfortably--she could, of course, blush at will.

"I'm not half the superman whose picture you are painting," she said.
That was true enough; no one this side of Arisia could have been.
"You're so famous, you know, and I'm not--while he was examining you I
had a fraction of a second to work in. You didn't."

"That may be true." Although Tregonsee had no eyes, the girl knew that
he was staring at her; scanning, but not intruding, with his highly
developed sense of perception. She lowered her barriers so far that he
thought they were completely down. "You have, however, extraordinary
and completely inexplicable powers ... but, being the daughter of
Kimball and Clarrissa Kinnison--"

"That's it, I think." She paused, then, in a burst of girlish
confidence, went on: "I've got something, I really do think, but the
trouble is that I don't know what it is or what to do with it. Maybe in
fifty years or so I will."

This also was close enough to the truth, and it did serve to restore to
Tregonsee his wonted poise. "Be that as it may, I will take your advice
next time, if you will offer it."

"Try and stop me--I love to give advice." She laughed unaffectedly. "It
might not have turned out any differently this time, though, and it may
not be any better next time."

Then, further to quiet the shrewd Rigellian's suspicions, she strode
over to the control panel and checked the course. Having done so, she
fanned out detectors, centering upon that course, to the fullest range
of their power. She swaggered a little when she speared with the CRX
tracer a distant vessel in a highly satisfactory location. That act
would cut her down to size in Tregonsee's mind.

"You think, then, that 'X' is in that ship?" he asked, quietly.

"Probably not." She could not afford to act too dumb--she could fool a
Second-Stage Lensman a little, but nobody could fool one very much. "It
may, however, give us a lead."

"It is practically certain that 'X' is not in that vessel," Tregonsee
thought. "In fact, it may be a trap. We must, however, make the
customary arrangements to take it into custody."

       *       *       *       *       *

Cam nodded and the Rigellian communications officers energized
their long-range beams. Far ahead of the fleeing vessel, centering
upon its line of flight, fast cruisers of the Galactic Patrol
began to form a gigantic cup. Hours passed, and--a not unexpected
circumstance--Tregonsee's superdreadnought gained rapidly upon the
supposed Boskonian.

The quarry did not swerve or dodge. Straight into the mouth of the
cup it sped. Tractors and pressors reached out, locked on, and were
neither repulsed nor cut. The strange ship did not go inert, did not
put out a single course of screen, did not fire a beam. She did not
reply to signals. Spy rays combed her from needle nose to driving jets,
searching every compartment. There was no sign of life aboard.

Spots of pink appeared upon Camilla's deliciously smooth cheeks, her
eyes flashed. "We've been had, Uncle Trig--_how_ we've been had!"
she exclaimed, and her chagrin was not all assumed. She had not quite
anticipated such a complete fiasco as this.

"Score one for 'X,'" Tregonsee said. He not only seemed to be, but
actually was, calm and unmoved. "We will now go back and pick up where
we left off."

They did not discuss the thing at all, nor did they wonder how "X" had
escaped them. After the fact, they both knew. There had been at least
two vessels; at least one of them had been inherently indetectable and
screened against thought. In one of these latter "X" had taken a course
at some indeterminable angle to the one which they had followed.

"X" was now at a safe distance.

"X" was nobody's fool.



                                 VII.


Kathryn Kinnison, trim and taut in black glamourette, strolled into the
breakfast nook humming a lilting song. Pausing before a full-length
mirror, she adjusted her cocky little black toque at an even more
piquant angle over her left eye. She made a couple of passes at her
riot of curls and gazed at her reflected self in high approval as,
putting both hands upon her smoothly rounded hips, she--"wriggled" is
the only possible term for it--in the sheer joy of being alive.

"Kathryn--" Clarrissa Kinnison chided gently, "don't be
exhibitionistic, dear." Except in times of stress the Kinnison women
used spoken language, "to keep in practice," as they said.

"Why not? It's fun." The tall girl bent over and kissed her mother
upon the lobe of an ear. "You're sweet, Mums, you know that? You're the
most _precious_ thing--Ha! Bacon and eggs? Goody!"

The older woman watched half-enviously as her eldest daughter ate with
the carefree abandon of one who has no cares whatever either for her
digestion or for her figure. She had no more understood her children,
ever, than a hen can understand the brood of ducklings she has so
unwittingly hatched out, and that comparison was more strikingly apt
than Clarrissa Kinnison ever would know. She now knew, more than a
little ruefully, that she never would understand them.

She had not protested openly at the rigor of the regime to which her
son Christopher had been subjected from birth. That, she knew, was
necessary. It was inconceivable that Kit should not be a Lensman, and
for a man to become a Lensman he had to be given everything which
he could possibly take. She was deeply glad, however, that her four
other babies had been girls. Her daughters were _not_ going to
be Lensmen. She, who had known so long and so heavily the weight of
Lensman's load, would see to that. Herself a womanly, feminine woman,
she had fought with every resource at her command to make her girl
babies grow up into replicas of herself. She had failed.

They simply would not play with dolls, nor play house with other little
girls. Instead, they insisted upon "intruding," as she considered it,
upon Lensmen; preferably upon Second-Stage Lensmen, if any one of the
four chanced to be anywhere within reach. Instead of with toys, they
played with atomic engines and flitters; and, later, with speedsters
and spaceships. Instead of primers, they read Galactic charts. One of
them might be at home, as now, or all of them; or none. She never did
know what to expect.

But they were in no sense disloyal. They loved their mother with a
depth of affection which no other mother, anywhere, has ever known.
They tried their very best to keep her from worrying about them.
They kept in touch with her wherever they went--which might be at
whim to Tellus or to Thrale or to Alsakan or to any unplumbed cranny
of intergalactic space--and they informed her, apparently without
reservation, as to everything they did. They loved their father and
their brother and each other and themselves with the same whole-hearted
fervor they bestowed upon her. They behaved always in exemplary
fashion. None of them had ever shown or felt the slightest interest in
any one of numerous boys and men; and this trait, if the truth is to be
told, Clarrissa could understand least of all.

No. The only thing basically wrong with them was the fact, made
abundantly clear since they first toddled, that they should not be and
could not be subjected to any jot or tittle of any form of control,
however applied.

Kathryn finished eating finally and gave her mother a bright, quick
grin. "Sorry, Mums, you'll just have to give us up as hard cases, I
guess." Her fine eyes, so like Clarrissa's except in color, clouded
as she went on: "I _am_ sorry, Mother, really, that we can't be
what you so want us to be. We've tried so hard, but we just can't.
It's something here, and here--" She tapped one temple and prodded her
midsection with a pink forefinger. "Call it fatalism or anything you
please, but I think that we're slated to do a job of some kind, some
day, even though none of us has any idea what that job is going to be."

Clarrissa paled. "I have been thinking just that for years, dear ...
I have been afraid to say it, or even to think it. You are Kim's
children, and mine. If there ever was a perfect, a predestined
marriage, it is ours. And Mentor said that our marriage was
necessary--" She paused, and in that instant she almost perceived the
truth. She was closer to it than she had ever been before or ever would
be again. But that truth was far too vast for her mind to grasp. She
went on: "But I'd do it over again, Kathryn, knowing everything I know
now. 'Vast rewards,' you know--"

"Of course you would," Kat interrupted. "Any girl would be a fool not
to. The minute I meet a man like Dad I'm going to marry him, if I have
to scratch Kay's eyes out and snatch Cam and Con bald-headed to get
him. But speaking of Dad, just what do you think of l'affaire Radelix?"

Gone every trace of levity, both women stood up. Gold-flecked tawny
eyes stared deeply into gold-flecked eyes of dark and velvety green.

"I don't know." Clarrissa spoke slowly, meaningfully. "Do you?"

"No. I wish that I did." Kathryn's was not the voice of a girl, but
that of an avenging angel. "As Kit says, I'd give four front teeth and
my right leg to the knee joint to know who or what is back of that, but
I don't. I feel very much in the mood to do a flit out that way."

"Do you?" Clarrissa paused. "I'm glad. I'd go myself, in spite of
everything he says, except that I know I couldn't do anything. If that
should be the job you were talking about--Oh, do anything you can,
dear; _anything_ to make sure that he comes back to me!"

"Of course, Mums." Kathryn broke away almost by force from her mother's
emotion. "I don't think it is; at least, I haven't got any cosmic
hunch to that effect. And don't worry; it puts wrinkles in the girlish
complexion. I'll do just a little look-see, stick around long enough to
find out what's what, and let you know all about it. 'Bye."

       *       *       *       *       *

At high velocity Kathryn drove her indetectable speedster to Radelix,
and around and upon that planet she conducted invisible investigations.
She learned a part of the true state of affairs, she deduced more of
it, but she could not see, even dimly, the picture as a whole. This
part, though, was clear enough.

An interdimensional expert, she did not have to be at the one apparent
mouth of a hyperspatial tube in order to enter it; she knew that while
communication was impossible either through such a tube from space to
space or from the interior of the tube to either space, the quality of
the tube was not the barrier. The interface was. Wherefore, knowing
what to expect immediately and working diligently to solve the whole
problem, she waited.

She watched Kinnison's abduction. There was nothing she could do about
that. She could not interfere then without setting up repercussions
which might very well shatter the entire structure of the Galactic
Patrol. When the Boskonian ship had disappeared, however, she tapped
the tube and followed it. Almost nose to tail she pressed it, tensely
alert to do some helpful deed which could be ascribed to accident or to
luck. For she knew starkly that Kinnison's present captors would not
slip and that his every ability had been discounted in advance.

Thus she was ready, when Kinnison's attention concentrated upon the
switch controlling the Boskonian captain's thought-screen generator.
There were no pets or spiders or worms, or even gnats, but the captain
could sit down. Around his screen, then, she drove a solid beam of
thought, upon a channel which neither the pirate nor the Lensman knew
existed. She took over in a trice the fellow's entire mind. He sat
down, as Kinnison had so earnestly hoped that he would do, the merest
fraction of an inch too close to the chair's arm. The switch-handle
flipped over and Kathryn snatched her mind away. She was sure that her
father would not suspect that that bit of luck was anything except
purely fortuitous. She was equally sure that the thing was safe, for
a time at least, in Kinnison's highly capable hands. She slowed down,
allowed the distance between the two vessels to increase. But she
kept within range, for it was more than probable that one or two more
seemingly lucky accidents would have to happen before very long.

In the instant of the flicking of the switch the captain's mind became
Kinnison's. He was going to issue orders, to take the ship over in an
orderly way, but his first contact with the subjugated mind made him
change his plans. Instead of uttering orders, the captain leaped out of
the chair toward the beam-controllers.

And not an instant too soon. Others had seen what had happened, had
heard that telltale click. All had been warned against that and many
other contingencies. As the captain leaped, one of his fellows drew a
bullet-projector and calmly shot him through the head.

The shock of that bullet, the death of the mind in his own mind's
grasp, jarred the Gray Lensman to the core. It was almost the same as
though he himself had been killed. Nevertheless, by sheer force of will
he held on, by sheer power of will he made that dead body take those
last three steps and forced those dead hands to cut the master circuit
of the beams which were holding him helpless.

Freed, he leaped forward; but not alone. The others leaped, too, and
for the same switch. Kinnison got there first--just barely first--and
as he came he swung his armored fist.

What a dureum-inlaid glove, driven by all the brawn of Kimball
Kinnison's mighty right arm and powerful torso backed by all the
momentum of body- and armor-mass, will do to a human head met in
direct central impact is nothing to dwell upon here. Simply, that head
splashed. Pivoting nimbly, considering his encumbering armor, he swung
a terrific leg. His massive steel boot sank calf-deep into the abdomen
of the foe next in line. Two more utterly irresistible blows disposed
of two more of the Boskonians; the last two turned and, frantically,
ran. But the Lensman by that time had the juice back on; and when a man
has been smacked against a solid armor-plate bulkhead by the full power
of a D2P pressor, all that remains to be done must be accomplished with
a scraper and a mop--or a sponge.

Kinnison picked up his DeLameters, reconnected them, and took stock.
So far, so good. But there were other men aboard this heap--how many,
he'd better find out--and at least some of them wore dureum-inlaid
armor as capable as his own.

And in her speedster, concluding that this wasn't going to be so
bad, after all, Kathryn glowed with pride in her father's prowess.
She was no shrinking violet, this Third-Stage Lensman; she held no
ruth whatever for Civilization's foes. She herself would have driven
that beam as mercilessly as had the Gray Lensman. She could have told
Kinnison what next to do; could even have inserted the knowledge
stealthily into his mind; but, heroically, she refrained. She would let
him handle this in his own fashion as long as he possibly could do so.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Gray Lensman sent his sense of perception abroad. Twenty more of
them--the ship wasn't very big. Ten aft, armored. Six forward, also
armored. Four, unarmored, in the control room. That control room was
poison; he'd go aft first. He searched around--surely they'd have
dureum space-axes? Oh, yes, there they were. He hefted them, selected
one of the correct weight and balance. He strode down the companionway
to the wardroom. He flung the door open and stepped inside.

His first care was to blast the communicator panels with his
DeLameters. That would delay the mustering of reinforcements. The
control room couldn't guess, at least for a time, that one man was
setting out to capture their ship single-handed. His second, ignoring
the beams of hand-weapons splashing refulgently from his screens,
was to weld the steel door solidly to the jamb. Then, sheathing his
projectors, he swung up his ax and went grimly to work. He thought
fleetingly of how nice it would be to have VanBuskirk, that dean of all
ax-men, at his back; but he wasn't too old or too fat to swing a pretty
mean ax himself. And, fortunately, these Boskonians, here in their
quarters, didn't have axes. They were heavy, clumsy, and for emergency
use only; they were not a part of the regular uniform, as upon Valeria.

The space-ax! Formerly that weapon had been forged from the hardest
and toughest of alloy steels. For years, however, it had been
made universally from dureum. A deceptive little thing, truly! A
dainty-looking affair a little larger than a broad-hatchet. Unlike a
hatchet, however, it had a mass of some twenty pounds and was equipped
with a yard-long, double-gripped shaft. A sharply tapered spear-end for
thrusting, gouging, and stabbing; a wickedly curved, needle-pointed
beak for rending and tearing; a flatly rounded, razor-sharp blade
capable of shearing through neo-carballoy as cleanly as a scalpel
through butter.

The first foe swung up his DeLameter involuntarily as Kinnison's ax
swept down. When the curved blade, driven as viciously as the Lensman's
strength could drive it, struck the ray-gun it did not even pause.
Through it it sliced, the severed halves falling to the floor.

The dureum inlay of the glove held, and glove and ax smashed together
against the helmet. The Boskonian went down with a crash; but, beyond
a broken arm or some such trifle, he wasn't hurt much. And no armor
that a man had to carry around could be made of solid dureum. Hence,
Kinnison reversed his weapon and swung again, aiming carefully at a
point between the inlay strips. The ax's wicked beak tore through steel
and skull and brain, stopping only with the sharply ringing impact of
dureum shaft against dureum stripping.

They were coming at him now, not only with DeLameters, but with
whatever of steel bars and spanners and bludgeons they could find.
QX--his armor could take oodles of that. They might dent it, but they
couldn't possibly get through. Planting one boot solidly upon his
victim's helmet, he wrenched his ax out through flesh and bone and
metal--no fear of breakage; not even a Valerian's full savage strength
could break that small, fragile-looking tool--and struck again. And
struck--and struck.

He fought his way to the door--two of the survivors were trying to
unseal it and to get away. They failed; and, in failing, died. A couple
of the remaining enemies shrieked and ran in blind panic, and tried to
hide; the others battled desperately on. But whether they ran or fought
there was only one possible end, if the Patrolman were to survive. No
enemy must or could be left alive behind him, to bring to bear upon his
back some semiportable weapon with whose energies his armor's screens
could not cope.

When the grisly business was over Kinnison, panting, rested briefly.
This was the first real brawl he had been in for twenty years; and for
a veteran--a white-collar man, a Co-ordinator to boot--he hadn't done
so bad, he thought. That was hard work and, while he was maybe a hair
short on wind, he hadn't weakened a particle. To here, QX.

       *       *       *       *       *

And lovely Kathryn, far enough back but not too far and reading
imperceptibly his every thought, agreed with him enthusiastically.
She did not have a father complex, but in common with her sisters she
knew exactly what her father was. With equal exactitude she knew what
other men were. Knowing them, and knowing however imperfectly herself,
each of the Kinnison girls knew that it would be a physical and
psychological impossibility for her to become even mildly interested in
any man not at least her father's equal. They each had dreamed of a man
who would be her own equal, physically and mentally, but it had not yet
occurred to any of them that one such man already existed.

Kinnison cut the door away and again sent out his sense of perception.
With it fanning out ahead of him he retraced his previous path. The
apes in the control room had done something; he didn't know just what.
Two of them were tinkering with a communicator panel; probably the
one to the ward room. They probably thought that the trouble was at
their end. Or did they? Why hadn't they reconnoitered? He dismissed
that problem as being of no pressing importance. The other two were
doing something at another panel. What? He couldn't make head or tail
of it--hang those full-coverage screens! And Nadreck's fancy drill,
even if he had had one along, wouldn't work unless the screen were
absolutely steady. Well, it didn't make much, if any, difference. They
had called the men back from up forward, and here they came. He'd
rather meet them in the corridor than in an open room, anyway, he could
handle them a lot easier.

But tensely watching Kathryn gnawed her lip. Should she tell him, or
control him, or not? No. She wouldn't--she couldn't--yet. Dad could
figure out that pilot room trap without her help--and she herself, with
all her power of brain, could not visualize with any degree of clarity
the menace which was--which _must_ be--at the tube's end or even
now rushing along it to meet that Boskonian ship.

Kinnison met the oncoming six and vanquished them. By no means as
easily as he had conquered the others, since they had been warned and
since they also now bore space-axes, but just as finally. Kinnison did
not consider it remarkable that he escaped practically unscathed--his
armor was battered and dinged up, cut and torn, but he had only a
couple of superficial wounds. He had met the enemy where they could
come at him only one at a time; he was still the master of any weapon
known to space warfare; it had been at no time evident that any outside
influence was interfering with the normally rapid functioning of the
Boskonians' minds.

He was full of confidence, full of fight, and far from spent when he
faced about to consider what he should do about that control room.
There was plenty of stuff in there--tougher stuff than he had met up
with so far.

Kathryn in her speedster gritted her strong white teeth and clenched
her shapely hands into hard little fists. This was bad--very,
_very_ bad--and it was going to get worse. Closing up fast, she
uttered a bitter and exceedingly unladylike expletive.

Couldn't Dad _see_--couldn't the dumb darling _sense_--that
he was apt to run out of time almost any minute now?

She fairly writhed in an agony of indecision; and indecision, in a
Third-Stage Lensman, is a rare phenomenon indeed. She wanted intensely
to take over, but if she did, was there any way this side of Palain's
purple hells that she could cover up her tracks?

There was none--yet.



                                 VIII.


But Kinnison's mind, while slower than his daughter's and in many
respects less able, was sure. The four Boskonians in the control room
were screened against his every mental force and it was idle even to
hope for another such lucky break as he had just had. One was QX and
to be received thankfully, but coincidences simply did not happen.
They were armored by this time and they had both machine rifles and
semiportable projectors. They were entrenched; evidently intending
to fight a delaying and defensive battle, knowing that if they could
keep the aggressor at bay until the pseudospace of the tube had been
traversed, the Lensman would not have a chance. Armed with all they
could use of the most powerful mobile weapons aboard and being four to
one, they undoubtedly thought that they could win easily enough.

Kinnison thought otherwise. Since he could not use his mind against
them he would use whatever he could find, and this ship, having come
upon such a mission, would be carrying plenty of weapons--and those
four men certainly hadn't had time to tamper with them all. He might
even find some negative-matter bombs.

Setting up a spy-ray block, he proceeded to rummage. They couldn't see
him, and, if any one of them had a sense of perception and cut his
screen for even a fraction of a second to use it, the battle would end
then and there. And, if they decided to rush him, so much the better.
They remained, however, forted up, as he had thought that they would,
and he rummaged in peace. Various death-dealing implements, invitingly
set up, he ignored after one cursory glance into their interiors. He
knew weapons--these had been fixed. He went on to the armory.

He did not find any negabombs, but he found plenty of untouched
weapons like those now emplaced in the control room. The rifles were
beauties, high-caliber, water-cooled things, each with a heavy dureum
shield-plate and a single-ply screen. Each had also a beam, but
machine-rifle beams weren't so hot. Conversely, the semiportables had
lots of screen, but very little dureum. Kinnison lugged one rifle and
two semiportables, by easy stages, into the room next to the control
room; so placing them that the control panels would be well out of the
line of fire.

What gave Kinnison his chance was the fact that the enemies' weapons
were set to cover the door. Apparently they had not considered the
possibility that the Lensman would attempt to flank them by blasting
through an inch and a half of alloy. Kinnison did not know whether he
could do it fast enough to mow them down from the side before they
could reset their magnetic clamps, or not; but he'd give it the good
old college try. It was bound to be a mighty near thing, and the
Lensman grinned wolfishly behind the guard plates of his helmet as he
arranged his weapons to save every possible fractional second of time.

Aiming one at a spot some three feet above the floor, the other a
little lower, Kinnison cut in the full power of his semiportables
and left them on. He energized the rifle's beam--every little bit
helped--set the defensive screens at "full", and crouched down into the
saddle behind the dureum shield. He had checked the feeds long since;
he had plenty of rounds.

Two large spots and a small one smoked briefly, grew red. They turned
bright red, then yellow, merged into one blinding spot. Metal melted,
sluggishly at first, then thinly, then flaring, blowing out in raging
coruscations of sparks as the fiercely-driven beams ate in. Through!

The first small opening appeared directly in line between the muzzle of
Kinnison's rifle and one of the guns of the enemy, and in the moment of
its appearance the Patrolman's weapon began its stuttering, shattering
roar. The Boskonians had seen the hot spot upon the wall, had known
instantly what it meant, and were working frantically to swing their
gun mounts around so as to interpose their dureum shields and to bring
their own rifles to bear. They had almost succeeded. Kinnison caught
just the bulge of one suit of armor in his sights, but that was enough.
The kinetic energy of the stream of metal tore him out of the saddle;
he was literally riddled while still in air. Two savage bursts took
care of the semiportables and their operators--as has been intimated,
the shields of the semis were not designed to withstand the type of
artillery Kinnison was using.

That made it cannon to cannon, one to one; and the Lensman knew that
those two identical rifles could hammer at each other's defenses for
an hour without doing any serious damage. He had, however, one big
advantage. Being closer to the bulkhead he could depress his line of
fire more than could the Boskonian. He did so, aiming at the clamps,
which were not built to take very much of that sort of punishment. One
front clamp let go, then the other, and the Lensman knew what to do
about the rear pair, which he could not reach. He directed his fire
against the upper edge of the dureum plate. Under the awful thrust
of that terrific storm of steel the useless front clamps lifted from
the floor. The gun mount, restrained from sliding by the unbreakable
grip of the rear clamps, reared up. Over it went, straight backward,
exposing the gunner to the full blast of Kinnison's fire. That,
definitely, was that.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kathryn heaved a sigh of relief; as far as she could "see", the tube
was still empty. "That's my Pop!" she applauded inaudibly to herself.
"Now," she breathed, "if the darling has just got jets enough to figure
out what may be coming at him down this tube--and sense enough to run
back home before it can catch him!"

Kinnison had no suspicion at all that any danger to himself might lie
within the tube. He had no desire, however, to land alone in a strange
and possibly half-crippled enemy ship in the exact center of an enemy
base, and no intention whatever of doing so. Moreover, he had once come
altogether too close to permanent immolation in a foreign space because
of the discontinuance of a hyperspatial tube while he was in it, and
once was once too many. Also, he had just got done leading with his
chin, and once of that, too, was once too many. Therefore, his sole
thought was to get back into his own space as fast as he could get
there, so as soon as the opposition was silenced he hurried into the
control room and reversed the vessel's drive.

Behind him, Kathryn flipped her speedster end for end and led the
retreat. She left the tube before--"before" is an extremely loose and
inaccurate word in this connection, but it conveys the idea better than
any other ordinary term--she got back to Base. She caused an officer to
broadcast an "evacuation" warning, then hung poised high above Base,
watching intently. She knew that Kinnison could not leave the tube
except at its terminus, hence would have to materialize inside Base
itself. She had heard of what happened when two dense, hard solids
attempted to occupy the same three-dimensional space at the same time;
but to view that occurrence was not her purpose in lingering. She did
not actually know whether there was anything in the tube or not; but
she did know that if there were, and if it or they should follow her
father out into normal space, even she would have need of every jet she
could muster.

Kinnison, maneuvering his Boskonian cruiser to a halt just at the
barest perceptible threshold of normal space, in the intermediate
zone in which nothing except dureum was solid in either space or
pseudospace, had already given a great deal of thought to the problem
of disembarkation. The ship was small, as spaceships go, but even so
it was a lot bigger than any corridor of Base. Those corridor walls
and floors were thick and contained a lot of steel; the ship's walls
were solid alloy. He had never seen metal materialize within metal and,
frankly, he didn't want to be around, even inside D-armor, when it
happened. Also, there were a lot of explosives aboard, and atomic power
plants, and the chance of touching off a loose atomic vortex in the
very middle of Base and within a few feet of himself was not one to be
taken lightly.

He had already rigged a line to a master switch. Power off, with the
ship's dureum catwalk as close to the floor of the corridor as the
dimensions of the tube permitted, he reversed the controls and poised
himself for the running headlong dive. He could not feel Radeligian
gravitation, of course, but he was pretty sure that he could leap far
enough to get through the interface. He took a short run, jerked the
line, and hurled himself through the spaceship's immaterial wall. The
ship disappeared.

Going through that interface was more of a shock than the Lensman
had anticipated. Even taken very slowly, as it customarily is,
interdimensional acceleration brings malaise to which no one has ever
become accustomed, and taking it so rapidly fairly turned Kinnison
inside out. He was going to land with the rolling impact which
constitutes perfect technique in such armored maneuvering. As it was,
he never did know how he landed, except that he made a boiler-shop
racket and that he brought up against the far wall of the corridor
with a climactic clang. Beyond the addition of a few more bruises and
contusions to his already abundant collection, however, he was not
harmed.

As soon as he could collect himself he leaped to his feet and rapped
out orders. "Tractors--pressors--shears! Heavy stuff, to anchor, not to
clamp! Hipe!" He knew what he was up against now, and, if they'd just
come back, he'd yank them out of that tube so fast it'd break their
neck!

       *       *       *       *       *

And Kathryn, still watching intently, smiled. Her Dad was a pretty
smart old duck, but he wasn't using his noggin now--he was cockeyed as
Trenco's ether in thinking that they might come back. If anything at
all erupted from that hypercircle, it would be something against which
the stuff he was mustering would be precisely as effective as so much
thin air. And she _still_ had no concrete idea of what she so
feared. It would not be essentially physical, she was pretty sure. It
would almost have to be mental. But who or what could possibly put it
across? And how? And above all, what could she do about it if they did?

Eyes narrowed, brow furrowed in concentration, she thought as she had
never thought before; and the harder she thought the more clouded the
picture became. For the first time in her triumphant life she felt
small--weak--impotent. It was in that hour that Kathryn Kinnison really
grew up.

The tube vanished; she heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. They,
whoever they were, having failed to bring Kinnison to them--this
time--were not coming after him--this time. Not an important enough
game to play to the end? No, that wasn't it. Maybe they weren't ready.
But the next time--

Mentor the Arisian had told her bluntly, the last time she had seen
him, to come to him again when she had found out that she did not know
everything there was to be known. Deep down, she had believed that that
day would never come. Now, however, it had. This escape--if it had been
an escape--had taught her much.

"Mother!" She shot a call to distant Klovia. "I'm on Radelix.
Everything's on the green. Dad has just knocked a flock of Boskonians
into an outside loop and come through QX. I've got to do a little
flit, though, before I come home. 'Bye."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kinnison stood intermittent guard over Base for four days after the
hyperspatial tube had disappeared before he gave up; before he did any
very serious thinking upon what he should do next.

Could he and should he keep on as Sybly Whyte? He could and he should,
he decided. He hadn't been gone long enough for Whyte's absence to have
been noticed; nothing whatever connected Whyte with Kinnison. If he
really knew what he was doing, a more specific alias might be better;
but as long as he was merely smelling around, Whyte's was the best
identity to use. He could go anywhere, do anything, ask anything of
anybody, and all with a perfectly good excuse.

And as Sybly Whyte, then, for days that stretched into weeks, he
roamed--finding, as he had been afraid that he would find, nothing
whatever. It seemed as though all Boskonian activity of the type in
which he was most interested had ceased with his return from the
hyperspatial tube. Just what that meant he did not know. It was
unthinkable that they had given up on him--much more probably they were
hatching something brand new. And the frustration of inaction and the
trying to figure out what was coming next was driving him not-so-slowly
nuts.

Then, striking through the doldrums, came a call from Maitland.

"Kim? You told me to Lens you immediately about any off-color work.
Don't know whether this is or not. The guy may be--probably is--crazy.
Conklin, who reported him, couldn't decide--neither can I, from
Conklin's report. Do you want to send somebody special, take over
yourself, or what?"

"I'll take over," Kinnison decided instantly. If neither Conklin nor
the Vice Co-ordinator, Gray Lensmen both, could decide, there was no
point in sending anyone else. "Where and who?"

"Planet, Meneas II, not too far from where you are now. City,
Meneateles; 116-3-29, 45-22-17. Place, Jack's Haven, a meteor miner's
hangout at the corner of Gold and Sapphire Streets. Person, a man
called 'Eddie'."

"Thanks. I'll check." Maitland did not send, and Kinnison did not want,
any additional information. Both knew that since the Co-ordinator was
going to investigate this thing himself, he should get his facts, and
particularly his impressions, unprejudiced and at first hand.

To Meneas II, then, and to Jack's Haven, Sybly Whyte went, notebook
very much in evidence. An ordinary enough space-dive Jack's turned
out to be--higher-toned than that Radeligian space-dock saloon of
Bominger's; much less flamboyant than notorious Miners' Rest on far
Euphrosyne.

"I wish to interview a person named Eddie," he announced, as he bought
a bottle of wine. "I have been informed that he has had deep-space
adventures worthy of incorporation into one of my novels."

"Eddie? Haw!" The barkeeper laughed raucously. "That space-louse?
Somebody's been kidding you, mister. He's nothing but a broken-down
meteor miner--you know what a space-louse is, don't you?--that we let
clean cuspidors and do such-like odd jobs for his keep. We don't throw
him out, like we do the others, because he's kind of funny in one way.
Every hour or so he throws a fit, and that amuses people."

Whyte's eager-beaver attitude did not change; his face reflected
nothing of what Kinnison thought of this callous speech. For Kinnison
did know exactly what a space-louse was. More, he knew exactly what
turned a man into one. Ex-meteor miner himself, he knew what the
awesome depths of space, the ever-present dangers, the privations, the
solitude, the frustrations, did to any mind not adequately integrated.
He knew that only the strong survived; that the many weak succumbed.
From sickening memory he knew just what pitiful wrecks those many
became. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that the information was not
necessary:

"Where is this Eddie now?"

"That's him, over there in the corner. By the way he's acting, he'll
have another fit pretty quick now."

The shambling travesty of a man accepted avidly the invitation to table
and downed at a gulp the proffered drink. Then, as though the mild
potion had been a trigger, his wracked body tensed and his features
began to writhe.

"Cateagles!" he screamed; eyes rolling, breath coming in hard, frantic
gasps. "Gangs of cateagles! Thousands! They're clawing me to bits!
And the Lensman! He's sicking them on! OW!! Yow!!!" He burst into
unintelligible screams and threw himself to the floor. There, rolling
convulsively over and over, he tried the impossible feat of covering
simultaneously with his two clawlike hands his eyes, ears, nose, mouth,
and throat.

Ignoring the crowding spectators, Kinnison invaded the helpless mind
before him. He winced mentally as he photographed upon his own brain
the whole atrocious enormity of what was there. Then, while Whyte
busily scribbled notes, he shot a thought to distant Klovia.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Cliff! I'm here in Jack's Haven, and I've got Eddie's data. What did
you and Conklin make of it? You agree, of course, that the Lensman is
the crux."

"Definitely. Everything else is hop-happy space-drift. The fact that
there are not--there _can't_ be--any such Lensman as Eddie
imagined, makes him space-drift, too, in our opinion. We called you in
on the millionth chance--sorry that we sent you out on a false alarm,
but you said we had to be sure."

"You needn't be sorry." Kinnison's thought was the grimmest Clifford
Maitland had ever felt. "Eddie isn't an ordinary space-louse. You see,
I happen to know one thing that you and Conklin don't, since you've
never been there. Did you happen to notice a woman in the picture? Very
faint; decidedly in the background?"

"Now that you mention her--yes, there was one. So far in the background
and so faint that it never occurred to either Conklin or me that she
could be connected. How can she possibly have any bearing, Kim? Most
every spaceman has a woman--or a lot of different ones--more or less on
his mind all the time, you know. Definitely immaterial and not germane,
I'd say."

"So would I, maybe, except for the fact that she isn't really a woman
at all, but a Lyranian--"

"A LYRANIAN!" Maitland interrupted. Kinnison could feel the racing of
his assistant's thoughts. "That complicates things. But how in Palain's
purple hells, Kim, could Eddie ever have got to Lyrane--and if he did,
how did he get away alive?"

"I don't know, Cliff." Kinnison's mind, too, was working fast. "But you
haven't got all the dope yet. Not only is she a Lyranian, but I know
her personally--she's that airport manager who tried her level best to
kill me all the time I was on Lyrane II."

"Hm-m-m." Maitland tried to digest that undigestible bit. Tried, and
failed. "That would seem to make the Lensman real, too, then--real
enough, at least, to investigate--much as I hate to think of the
possibility of a Lensman going that far off the beam." Maitland's
convictions died hard. "Unless--could there be any possibility of
coincidence?"

"Coincidence is out. Don't think it's a trap, either--hasn't got the
right earmarks."

"You'll handle this yourself, then?"

"Check. At least, I'll help. There may be people better qualified than
I am to do the heavy work. I'll get them at it. Thanks, Cliff--clear
ether."

He lined a thought to his wife; and after a short, warmly intimate
contact, he told her everything that had happened.

"So you see, Beautiful," he concluded, "your wish is coming true. I
couldn't keep you out of this if I wanted to. So check with the girls,
put on your Lens, take off your clothes, and go to work."

"I'll do that." Clarrissa laughed and her soaring spirit flooded his
mind. "Thanks, my dear."

[Illustration: KIT KINNISON]

Then and only then did Kimball Kinnison, master therapist, pay any
further attention to that which lay contorted upon the floor. But
when Whyte folded up his notebook and left the place, the derelict
was resting quietly; and in a space of time long enough so that the
putative writer of space operas would not be connected with the cure,
those fits would end. Moreover, Eddie would return, whole, to the void:
he would become what he had never before been--a successful meteor
miner.

Lensmen pay their debts; even to spiders and to worms.



                                  IX.


Her adventure in the hyperspatial tube had taught Kathryn Kinnison
much. Realizing her inadequacy and knowing what to do about it, she
drove her speedster at high velocity to Arisia. Unlike the Second-Stage
Lensmen, she did not even slow down as she approached the planet's
barrier; but, as one sure of her welcome, merely threw out ahead of her
an identifying thought.

"Ah, daughter Kathryn, again you are in time." Was there, or was there
not, a trace of emotion--of welcome, even of affection?--in that
usually utterly emotionless thought? "Land as usual."

She neutralized her controls as she felt the mighty beams of
the landing engine take hold of her little ship. Upon previous
visits she had questioned nothing--this time she was questioning
_everything_. Was she landing, or not? Directing her every
force inwardly, she probed her own mind to its profoundest depths.
Definitely, she was her own mistress throughout--no conceivable mind
could take _hers_ over so tracelessly. As definitely, then, she
was actually landing.

She landed. The ground upon which she stepped was real. So was the
automatic flier--neither plane nor helicopter--which whisked her from
the spaceport to her familiar destination, an unpretentious residence
upon the grounds of an immense hospital. The graveled walk, the
flowering shrubs, and the indescribably sweet and pungent perfume were
real; as were the tiny pain and the drop of blood which resulted when a
needle-sharp thorn pierced her incautious finger.

Through automatically opening doors she made her way into the
familiar, comfortable, book-lined room which she knew was Mentor's
study. And there, at his big desk, unchanged, sat Mentor. A lot like
her father, but older--much older. About ninety, she had always
thought, even though he didn't look over sixty. This time, however,
she drove a probe--and got the shock of her life. Her thought was
stopped--cold--not by superior mental force, which she could have
taken unmoved, but by a seemingly ordinary thought-screen; and her
fast-disintegrating morale began visibly to crack.

"Is all this ... are you ... real, or not?" she burst out, finally. "If
it isn't, I'll go mad!"

"That which you have tested--and I--are real, for the moment and as
you understand reality. Your mind in its present state of advancement
cannot be deceived concerning such elementary matters."

"But it all wasn't, before? Or don't you want to answer that?"

"Since the sure knowledge will affect your growth, I will answer.
It was not. This is the first time that your speedster has landed
physically upon Arisia."

The girl shrank, appalled. "You told me to come to you again when I
had learned that I did not know everything there was to know," she
finally forced herself to say. "I learned that in the tube; but I did
not realize until just now that I don't know _anything_. Do you
really think, Mentor, that there is any use at all in going on with
me?" she concluded, bitterly.

"Much," he assured her. "Your development has been eminently
satisfactory, and your present mental condition is both necessary and
sufficient."

"Well, I'll be a spr--" Kathryn bit off the expletive and frowned.
"What were you doing to me before, then, when I thought I got
everything?"

"Power of mind," he informed her. "Sheer power, and penetration, and
control. Depth, and speed, and all the other factors with which you are
already familiar."

"But what is left? I know there is--lots of it--but I can't imagine
what."

"Scope," Mentor replied, gravely. "Each of those qualities and
characteristics must be expanded to encompass the full sphere of
thought. Neither words nor thoughts can give any adequate concept of
what it means; a practically wide-open two-way will be necessary. This
cannot be accomplished, daughter, in the adolescent confines of your
present mind; therefore enter fully into mine."

She did so: and after less than a minute of that awful contact slumped
to the floor.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Arisian, unchanged, unmoved, unmoving, gazed at her until finally
she began to stir.

"That ... father Mentor, that was--" she blinked, shook her head
savagely, fought her way back to full consciousness. "That was a
shock."

"It was," he agreed. "More so than you think. Of all the entities of
your Civilization, your brother and now you are the only ones it would
not kill instantly. You now know what the word 'scope' means, and are
ready for your last treatment, in the course of which I shall take your
mind as far along the road of knowledge as mine is capable of going."

"But that would mean ... you're implying--But my mind _can't_ be
superior to yours, Mentor! Nothing could be, _possibly_--it's
sheerly, starkly unthinkable!"

"But true, daughter, nevertheless. While you are recovering your
strength from that which was but the beginning of your education, I
will explain certain matters previously obscure. You have long known,
of course, that you five children are not like any others. You have
always known many things without having learned them. You think upon
all possible bands of thought. Your senses of perception, of sight,
of hearing, of touch, are so perfectly merged into one sense that
you perceive at will any possible manifestation upon any possible
plane or dimension of vibration. Also, although this may not have
occurred to you as extraordinary, since it is not obvious, you differ
physically from your fellows in some important respects. You have
never experienced the slightest symptom of physical illness; not even
a headache or a decayed tooth. You do not really require sleep.
Vaccinations and inoculations do not 'take'. No pathogenic organism,
however virulent; no poison, however potent--"

"Stop, Mentor!" Kathryn gasped, turning white. "I can't take it ... you
really mean, then, that we aren't human at all?"

"Yes and no. A partial explanation, while long, may be in order. Many
cycles of time ago it became apparent to our more advanced thinkers
that the rise and fall of Civilizations was too rhythmic to be
accidental. They studied this rhythm, but life was too short. They
set out, then, deliberately to prolong their lives. Fewer and fewer
in numbers, they lived longer and longer; and the longer each lived,
the more he learned. Their visualizations of the Cosmic All became
less tenuous, more complete. It became evident that there was some
inimical force at work; a force implacably opposed to that which we
know as Civilization. Like a mouse in the power of a torturing cat, any
Civilization could go just so far, but no farther. For instance, that
of Atlantis, upon your father's native planet, Tellus. I was personally
concerned in that, and could not stop its fall." The Arisian _was_
showing emotion now; his thought was bleak and bitter.

"Four of us were assigned to the problem of this opposing force. We
learned that its final abatement would necessitate the development of a
race superior to ours in every respect. We, therefore, selected blood
lines in each of the four strongest races of the galaxy and began to
eliminate as many as possible of their weaknesses and to concentrate
all of their strengths. From your knowledge of genetics you realize
the magnitude of the task; you know that it would take much time
uselessly to go into the details of its accomplishment. Your father
and your mother were the penultimates of long--_very_ long--lines
of matings; their procreative cells were such that in their fusion
practically every gene carrying any trait of weakness was rejected.
Conversely, you carry the genes of every trait of strength ever known
to any member of your human race. Therefore, while in outward seeming
you are human, in every factor of importance you are not; you are even
less human than am I myself."

"And just how human is that?" Kathryn flared, and again her most
penetrant probe of force flattened out against the Arisian's screen.

"Later, daughter, not now. That knowledge will come at the end of your
education, not at its beginning."

"I was afraid so." She stared at the Arisian, her eyes wide and
hopeless; brimming, in spite of her efforts at control, with tears.
"You're a monster, and I am ... or am going to be ... a worse one. A
monster ... and I'll have to live a million years ... alone ... why?
_Why_, Mentor, did you have to do this to me?"

"Calm yourself, daughter. The shock, while severe, will pass. You have
lost nothing, have gained much."

"Gained? Bah!" The girl's thought was loaded with bitterness and
scorn. "I've lost my parents--I'll still be a girl long after they
have died. I've lost every possibility of ever really living. I want
love ... and a husband ... and children ... and I can't have any of
them, ever. Even without this, I've never seen a man I wanted, and now
I can't ever love anybody. I don't _want_ to live a million years,
Mentor--especially alone!" The thought was a veritable wail of despair.

       *       *       *       *       *

"The time has come to stop this childish thinking." Mentor's thought,
however, was only mildly reproving. "Such a reaction is only natural,
but your conclusions are entirely erroneous. One single clear thought
will show you that you have no present psychic, intellectual,
emotional, or physical need of a complement."

"That's true--But other girls of my age--"

"Exactly," came Mentor's dry rejoinder. "Thinking of yourself as an
adult Homo sapien, you were judging yourself by false standards. As a
matter of fact, you are an adolescent, not an adult. In due time you
will come to love a man, and he you, with a fervor and depth which you
at present cannot even dimly understand."

"But that still leaves my parents," Kathryn felt much better. "I can
apparently age, of course, as easily as I can put on a hat ... but I
really do love them, you know, and it will simply break mother's heart
to have all her daughters turn out to be--as she thinks--spinsters."

"On that point, too, you may rest at ease. I am taking care of that.
Kimball and Clarrissa both know, without knowing how they know it, that
your life cycle is tremendously longer than theirs. They both know that
they will not live to see their grandchildren. Be assured, daughter,
that before they pass from this cycle of existence into the next--about
which I know nothing--they shall know that all is to be supremely
well with their line; even though, to Civilization at large, it shall
apparently end with you Five."

"End with us? What do you mean?"

"You have a destiny, the nature of which your mind is not yet qualified
to receive. In due time the knowledge shall be yours. Suffice it now to
say that the next forty or fifty years will be but a fleeting moment
in the span of life which is to be yours. But time, at the moment,
presses. You are now fully recovered and we must get on with this, your
last period of study with me, at the end of which you will be able
to bear the fullest, closest impact of my mind as easily as you have
heretofore borne full contact with your sisters'. Let us proceed with
the work."

       *       *       *       *       *

Work it was, and it went on for weeks. Kathryn took and survived those
shattering treatments, one after another; emerging finally with a mind
whose power and scope can no more be explained to any mind below the
third level than can the general theory of relativity be explained to a
chimpanzee.

"It was forced, not natural, yes," the Arisian said, gravely, as the
girl was about to leave. "You are many millions of your years ahead of
your natural time. You realize, however, the necessity of that forcing.
You also realize that I can give you no more formal instruction. I will
be with you or on call at all times; I will be of aid in crises; but in
larger matters your further development is in your own hands."

Kathryn shivered. "I realize that, and it scares me clear
through--especially this coming conflict, at which you hint so vaguely.
I wish that you would tell me at least _something_ about it, so
that I could get ready for it!"

"Daughter, I can't." For the first time in Kathryn's experience, Mentor
the Arisian was unsure. "It is certain that we have been on time; but
since the Eddorians have minds of power little, if any, inferior to
our own, there are many details which we cannot derive with certainty,
and to advise you wrongly would be to do you irreparable harm. All
I can say is that if my visualization in that respect is sound, and
I am practically sure that it is, sufficient warning will be given
by your learning, with no specific effort on your part and from some
source other than myself, that there does in fact exist a planet named
'Ploor'--a name which to you is now only a meaningless symbol. Go now,
daughter Kathryn, and work."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kathryn went; knowing that the Arisian had said all that he would say.
In truth, he had told her vastly more than she had expected him to
divulge; and it chilled her to the marrow to think that she, who had
always looked up to the Arisians as demigods of sorts, would from now
on be expected to act as their equal--in some ways, perhaps, as their
superior! As her speedster tore through space toward distant Klovia
she wrestled with herself, trying to shake her new self down into a
personality as well integrated as her old one had been. She had not
quite succeeded when she felt a thought.

"Help! I am in difficulty with this, my ship. Will any entity receiving
my call and possessing the tools of a mechanic please come to my
assistance? Or, lacking such tools, possessing a vessel of power
sufficient to tow mine to the place where I must immediately go?"

Kathryn was startled out of her introspective trance. That thought was
on a terrifically high band; one so high that she knew of no race using
it, so high that an ordinary human mind could not possibly have either
sent or received it. Its phraseology, while peculiar, was utterly
precise in definition--the mind behind it was certainly of precisionist
grade. She acknowledged upon the stranger's wave, and sent out a
locator. Good--he wasn't far away. She flashed toward the derelict,
matched intrinsics at a safe distance, and began scanning, only to
encounter a screen around the whole vessel! To her it was porous
enough--but if the creature thought that his screen was tight, let him
keep on thinking so. It was his move.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" The thought fairly snapped. "Come
closer, so that I may bring you in."

"Not yet," Kathryn snapped back. "Cut your screen so that I can see
what you are like. I carry equipment for many environments, but I must
know what yours is and equip for it before I can come aboard. You will
note that my screens are down."

"Of course. Excuse me--I supposed that you were one of our own"--there
came the thought of an unspellable and unpronounceable name--"since
none of the lower orders can receive our thoughts direct. Can you equip
yourself to come aboard with your tools?"

"Yes." The stranger's light was fierce stuff; ninety-eight percent of
its energy being beyond the visible. His lamps were beam-held atomics,
nothing less, but there was very little gamma and few neutrons. She
could handle it easily enough, she decided, as she finished donning her
heat-armor and a helmet of practically opaque, diamond-hard plastic.

As she was wafted gently across the intervening space upon a pencil of
force, Kathryn took her first good look at the precisionist himself--or
herself. She--it--looked something like a Dhilian, she thought at
first. There was the squat, powerful, elephantine body with its four
stocky legs; the tremendous double shoulders and enormous arms; the
domed, almost immobile head. But there the resemblance ended. There
was only the one head--the thinking head, and that one had no eyes and
was not covered with bone. There was no feeding head--the thing could
neither eat nor breathe. There was no trunk. And what a skin!

It was worse than a hide, really--worse even than a Martian's. The girl
had never seen anything like it. It was incredibly thick, dry, pliable;
filled minutely with cells of a liquid-gaseous something which she knew
to be a more perfect insulator even than the fibers of the tegument
itself.

"R-T-S-L-Q-P." She classified the creature readily enough to six
places, then stopped and wrinkled her forehead. "Seventh place--that
incredible skin--what? S? R? T? It would have to be R."

"You have the requisite tools, I perceive," the creature greeted
Kathryn as she entered the central compartment of the strange
speedster, no larger than her own. "I can tell you what to do, if--"

"I know what to do." She unbolted a cover, wrought briefly with pliers
and splicer, and in ten minutes was done. "It doesn't seem to make
sense to me that a person of your obvious intelligence, manifestly
knowing enough to make such minor repairs yourself, would go so far
from home, alone in such a small ship, without any tools. Burnouts and
shorts are apt to happen any time, you know."

"Not in vessels of the--." Again Kathryn felt that unpronounceable
symbol. She also felt the stranger stiffen in offended dignity. "We of
the higher orders, you should know, do not perform labor. We think. We
direct. Others work, and do their work well, or suffer accordingly.
This is the first time in nine full four-cycle periods that such a
thing has happened, and it will be the last. The punishment which I
shall mete out to the guilty mechanic will insure that. I shall, at
end, have his life."

"Oh, come, now!" Kathryn protested. "Surely it's no life-and-death
mat--"

"Silence!" came curt command. "It is intolerable that one of the lower
orders should attempt to--"

"Silence yourself!" At the fierce power of the riposte the creature
winced, physically and mentally. "I did this bit of dirty work for you
because you apparently couldn't do it for yourself. I did not object
to the matter-of-course way you accepted it, because some races are
made that way and can't help it. But if you insist on keeping yourself
placed five rungs above me on any ladder you can think of, I'll stop
being a lady--or even a good Girl Scout--and start doing things about
it, and I'll start at any signal you care to call. Get ready, and say
when!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The stranger, taken fully aback, threw out a lightning tentacle of
thought; a feeler which was stopped cold a full foot from the girl's
radiant armor. This was a human female--or was it? It was not. No human
being had ever had, nor ever would have, a mind like that. Therefore:

"I have made a grave error," the thing apologized handsomely, "in
thinking that you are not at least my equal. Will you grant me pardon,
please?"

"Certainly--if you don't repeat it. But I still don't like the idea of
your having that mechanic skinned alive." She thought intensely, lip
caught between strong white teeth. "Perhaps there is a way. Where are
you going, and when do you want to get there?"

"To my home planet," pointing out, mentally, its location in the
Galaxy. "I must be there in two hundred of your G-P hours."

"I see." Kathryn nodded her head. "You can--if you promise that you
will do nothing whatever to punish your mechanic. And remember that I
can tell whether you really mean it or not."

"As I promise, so I do. But suppose that I do not promise?"

"In that case you'll get there in about a hundred thousand G-P years,
frozen stiff. For I shall fuse your Bergenholm down so that it can't
ever be fixed; then, after welding your ports solidly to the outer
shell, I'll attach to your plating the generator of a screen through
which you cannot think. Since you have no tools, I'll leave the rest to
your imagination. Decide, now, what you wish to do."

"I promise not to harm the mechanic in any way." He surrendered
stiffly, and made no undue protest at Kathryn's entrance into his mind
to make sure that the promise would be kept.

Flushed by her easy conquest of a mind which she would previously have
been unable to touch, and engrossed in the problem of setting her own
tremendously enlarged mind to rights, why should it have occurred to
the girl that there was anything worthy of investigation concealed in
the depths of that chance-met stranger's mentality?

Returning to her own speedster, she shed her armor and shot away; and
it was just as well for her peace of mind that she was not aware of the
tight-beamed thought even then speeding from the flitter so far behind
her to dread and distant Ploor.

"... but it was very definitely not a human female. I could not touch
it. It may very well have been one of the accursed Arisians themselves.
But since I did nothing to arouse its suspicions, I got rid of it
easily enough. Spread the warning!"



                                  X.


While Kathryn Kinnison was working with her father in the hyperspatial
tube and with Mentor of Arisia, and while Camilla and Tregonsee were
sleuthing the inscrutable "X", Constance was also at work. Although
she lay flat upon her back, not moving a muscle, she was working as
she had never worked before. Long since she had put her indetectable
speedster into the control of a director-by-chance. Now, knowing
nothing and caring less of where she and her vessel might be or might
go, physically completely relaxed, she drove her "sensories" out to the
full limit of their prodigious range and held them there for hour after
hour. Worsel-like, she was not consciously listening for any particular
thing; she was merely increasing her already incredibly vast store of
knowledge. One hundred percent receptive, attached to and concerned
with only the brain of her physical body, her mind sped at large
sampling, testing, analyzing, cataloguing every item with which its
most tenuous fringe came in contact. Through thousands of solar systems
that mind went; millions upon millions of entities either did or did
not contribute something worth while.

Suddenly there came something that jarred her into physical movement--a
burst of thought upon a band so high that it was practically always
vacant. She shook herself, got up, lighted an Alsakanite cigarette, and
made herself a pot of coffee.

"This is important, I think," she mused. "I'd better get to work on it
while it's fresh."

She sent out a thought tuned to Worsel, and was surprised when it went
unanswered. She investigated, finding that the Velantian's screens were
full up and held hard--he was fighting Overlords so savagely that he
had not felt her thought. Should she take a hand in this brawl? She
should not, she decided, and grinned fleetingly. Her erstwhile tutor
would need no help in that comparatively minor chore. She would wait,
rest up a bit, and eat, before she called him.

"Worsel! Con calling. What goes on there, fellow old snake?" She
finally launched her thought. "You've stuck that sharp tail of yours
into some of my business--I hope."

"I hope so," Worsel sent back. "Been quite a while since I saw you
close up--how about coming aboard?"

"Coming at max," and she did.

Before entering the _Velan_, however, she put on a personal
gravity damper, set at nine hundred eighty centimeters. Strong, tough,
and supple as she was she did not relish the thought of the atrocious
accelerations used and enjoyed by Velantians everywhere.

"What did you make of that burst of thought?" she asked by way of
greeting. "Or were you having so much fun that you missed it?"

"What burst?" Then, after Constance had explained, "I was busy--but
_not_ having fun."

"Somebody who didn't know you might believe that," the girl derided.
"This thought was important, I think--much more so than dilly-dallying
with Overlords, as you were doing. It was 'way up--on this band here."
She illustrated.

"So?" Worsel came as near to whistling as one of his inarticulate race
could come. "What were they like? Tell me all that you can."

"VWZY, to four places." Con concentrated. "Multilegged--not exactly
carapaceous, but pretty nearly. Spiny, too, I believe. The world
was cold, dismal, barren; but not frigid, but he ... it ... didn't
seem exactly like an oxygen-breather--more like what a warm-blooded
Palainian would perhaps look like, if you can imagine such a thing.
Mentality very high--precisionist grade--no thought of cities as such.
The sun was a typical yellow dwarf. Does any of this ring a bell in
your mind?"

"No." Worsel thought intensely for minutes. So did Constance. Neither
had any idea then that the girl was describing the form assumed in
their autumn by the dread inhabitants of the planet Ploor!

"This may indeed be important," Worsel broke the mental silence. "Shall
we explore together?"

"We shall." They tuned to the desired band. "Give it plenty of shove,
too. Go!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Out and out and out the twinned receptors sped; to encounter finally
a tenuous, weak, and utterly cryptic vibration. One touch--the merest
possible contact--and it disappeared. It vanished before even Con's
electronics-fast reactions could get more than a hint of directional
alignment; and neither of the observers could read any part of it.

Both of these developments were starkly incredible, and Worsel's long
body tightened convulsively, rock-hard, in the violence of the mental
force now driving his exploring mind. Finding nothing, he finally
relaxed.

"Any Lensman, anywhere, can read and understand any thought, however
garbled or scrambled, or however expressed," he thought at Constance.
"Also, I have always been able to get an exact line on anything I could
perceive, but all I know about this one is that it seemed to come
mostly from somewhere over that way. Did you do any better?"

"Not much, if any." If the thing was surprising to Worsel, it was
sheerly astounding to his companion. She, knowing the measure of
her power, thought to herself--not to the Velantian: "Girl, file
_this_ one carefully away in the big black book!"

Slight as were the directional leads, the _Velan_ tore along the
indicated line at maximum blast. Day after day she sped, a wide-flung
mental net out far ahead and out farther still on all sides. They did
not find what they sought, but they did find--something.

"What is it?" Worsel demanded of the quivering telepath who had made
the report.

"I don't know, sir. Not on that ultra-band, but well below it--there.
Not an Overlord, certainly, but something perhaps equally unfriendly."

"An Eich!" Both Worsel and Con exclaimed the thought, and the girl
went on, "It was practically certain that we couldn't get them all on
Jarnevon, of course, but none have been reported before. Where are
they, anyway? Get me a chart, somebody. It's Novena, and they're
on the ninth planet out--Novena IX. Tune up your heavy artillery,
Worsel--it'd be nice if we could take the head man alive, but that much
luck probably isn't in the cards."

The Velantian, even though he had issued instantaneously the order to
drive at full blast toward the indicated planet, was momentarily at a
loss. Kinnison's daughter entertained no doubts as to the outcome of
the encounter she was proposing--but she had never seen an Eich close
up. He had. So had her father. Kinnison had come out a very poor second
in that affair, and Worsel knew that he could have done no better, if
as well. However, that had been upon Jarnevon, actually inside one of
its strongest citadels, and neither he nor Kinnison had been prepared.

"What's the plan, Worsel?" Con demanded, vibrantly. "How're you
figuring on taking 'em?"

"Depends on how strong they are. If it's a long-established base, we'll
simply have to report it to LaForge and go on about our business. If,
as seems more probable from the fact that it hasn't been reported
before, it is a new establishment of refugees from Jarnevon--or
possibly only a grounded spaceship so far--we'll go to work on them
ourselves. We'll soon be close enough to find out."

"QX," and a fleeting grin passed over Con's vivacious face. For a long
time she had been working with Mentor the Arisian, specifically to
develop the ability to "out-Worsel Worsel", and now was the best time
she ever would have to put her hard schooling to test.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hence, Master of Hallucination though he was, the Velantian had no
hint of realization when his Klovian companion, working through a
channel which he did not even know existed, took control of every
compartment of his mind. Nor did the crew, in particular or _en
masse_, suspect anything amiss when she performed the infinitely
easier task of taking over theirs. Nor did the unlucky Eich, when the
flying _Velan_ had approached their planet closely enough to make
it clear that their establishment was indeed a new one, being built
around the nucleus of a crippled Boskonian battleship. Except for their
commanding officer they died then and there--and Con was to regret
bitterly, later, that she had made this engagement such a one-girl
affair.

The battleship apparently was not in shape to meet the _Velan_ in
open space, since it did not; but it could have operated and to all
seeming did operate as a formidable fortress indeed from its fixed
position on the ground. Under the fierce impact of its offensive beams
the Velantians saw their very wall shields flame violet. In return they
saw their mighty secondary beams stopped cold by the Boskonian's inner
screens, and had to bring into play the inconceivable energies of their
primaries before the enemy's spaceship-fortress could be knocked out.
And this much of the battle was real. Instrument- and recorder-tapes
could be and were being doctored to fit; but spent primary shells could
not be simulated. Nor was it thinkable that this tremendous ship and
its incipient Base should be allowed to survive.

Hence, after the dreadful primaries had quieted the Eich's main
batteries and had reduced the groundworks to flaming pools of lava,
needle-beamers went to work on every minor and secondary control board.
Then, the great vessel definitely helpless as a fighting unit, Worsel
and his hard-bitten crew thought that they went--thought-screened,
full-armored, armed with semiportables and DeLameters--joyously into
the hand-to-hand combat which each so craved. Worsel and two of his
strongest henchmen attacked the armed and armored Boskonian captain.
After a satisfying terrific struggle, in the course of which all three
of the Velantians--and some others--were appropriately burned and
wounded, they overpowered him and carried him bodily into the control
room of the _Velan_. This part of the episode, too, was real; as
was the complete melting down of the Boskonian vessel which occurred
while the transfer was being made.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then, while Con was engaged in the exceedingly delicate task of
withdrawing her mind from Worsel's without leaving any detectable trace
that she had ever been in it, there happened the completely unexpected;
the one thing for which she was utterly unprepared. The mind of
the captive captain was wrenched from her control as palpably as a
loosely-held stick is snatched from a physical hand; and at the same
time there was hurled against her impenetrable barriers an attack which
could not possibly have stemmed from any Eichian mind!

If her mind had been free, she could have coped with the situation,
but it was not. She _had_ to hold Worsel--she knew with cold
certainty what would ensue if she did not. The crew? They could be
blocked out temporarily--unlike the Velantian Lensman, no one of them
could even suspect that he had been in a stasis unless it were long
enough to be noticeable upon such timepieces as clocks. The procedure,
however, occupied a millisecond or so of precious time; and a
considerably longer interval was required to withdraw with the required
tracelessness from Worsel's mind. Thus, before she could do anything
except protect herself and the Velantian from that surprisingly
powerful invading intelligence, all trace of it disappeared and all
that remained of their captive was a dead body.

Worsel and Constance stared at each other, wordless, for seconds. The
Velantian had a completely and accurately detailed memory of everything
that had happened up to that instant, the only matter not quite clear
being the fact that their hard-won captive was dead; the girl's mind
was racing to fabricate a bulletproof explanation of that startling
fact. Worsel saved her the trouble.

"It is, of course, true," he thought at her finally, "that any mind
of sufficient power can destroy by force of will alone the entity of
flesh in which it resides. I never thought about this matter before in
connection with the Eich, but no detail of the experience your father
and I had with them on Jarnevon would support any contention that they
do not have minds of the requisite power, and today's battle, being
purely physical, would not throw any light on the subject. I wonder if
a thing like that could be stopped? That is, if we had been on time--?"

"That's it, I think." Con put on her most disarming, most engaging
grin in preparation for the most outrageous series of lies of her long
career. "And I don't think it can be stopped--at least I couldn't stop
him. You see, I got into him a fraction of a second before you did,
and in that instant, just like that," in spite of the fact that Worsel
could not hear, she snapped her finger ringingly, "Faster even than
that, he was gone. I didn't think of it until you brought it up, but
you are as right as can be--he killed himself to keep us from finding
out whatever it was that he knew about what is left of Boskonia."

Worsel stared at her with six eyes now instead of one, gimlet probes
which glanced imperceptibly off her shield. He was not consciously
trying to break down her barriers--to his fullest perception they were
already down; no barriers were there. He was not consciously trying
to integrate or reintegrate any detail or phase of the episode just
past--no iota or trace of falsity had appeared at any point or instant.
Nevertheless, deep down within those extra reaches that made Worsel of
Velantia what he was, a vague disquiet refused to down. It was too ...
too--Worsel's consciousness could not supply the adjective.

Had it been too easy? Very decidedly it had not. His utterly worn-out,
battered and wounded crew refuted that thought. So did his own body,
slashed and burned, as well as did the litter of primary shells and the
heaps of smoking slag which had once been an enemy stronghold.

Also, even though he had not theretofore thought that he and his crew
possessed enough force to do what had just been done, it was starkly
unthinkable that anyone, even an Arisian, could have helped him do
anything without his knowledge. Particularly how could this girl,
daughter of Kimball Kinnison although she was, possibly have stuff
enough to play unperceived the part of guardian angel to him, Worsel of
Velantia?

Least able of all the Second-Stage Lensmen to appreciate what the
Children of the Lens really were, he did not, then or ever, have any
inkling of the real truth. But Constance, far behind her cheerfully
innocent mask, shivered as she read exactly his disturbed and
disturbing thoughts. For, conversely, an unresolved enigma would
affect him more than it would any of his fellow L2's. He would work on
it until he did resolve it, one way or another. This thing had to be
settled, _now_. And there was a way--a good way.

       *       *       *       *       *

"But I _did_ help you, you big lug!" she stormed, stamping her
booted foot in emphasis. "I was in there every second, slugging away
with everything I had. Didn't you even feel me, you dope?" She allowed
a thought to become evident; widened her eyes in startled incredulity.
"You _didn't_!" she accused, hotly. "You were reveling so
repulsively in the thrill of body-to-body fighting, just like you were
back there in that cavern of Overlords, that you couldn't have felt
a thought if it was driven into you with a D2P pressor! And I'll bet
credits to millos that I _did_ help you, too--that if I hadn't
been in there pitching, dulling their edges here and there at critical
moments, you'd've had a time getting them at all! I'm going to flit
right now, and I hope I _never_ see you again as long as I live!"

This vicious counterattack, completely mendacious though it was, fitted
the facts so exactly that Worsel's inchoate doubts vanished. Moreover,
he was even less well equipped than are human men to cope with the
peculiarly feminine weapons Constance was using so effectively.
Wherefore the Velantian capitulated, almost abjectly, and the girl
allowed herself to be coaxed down from her high horse and to become her
usual sunny and impish self.

But when the _Velan_ was once more on course and she had retired
to her cabin, it was not to sleep. Instead, she thought. Was this
intellect of the same race as the one whose burst of thought she had
caught such a short time before, or not? She could not decide--not
enough data. The first thought had been unconscious and quite
revealing; this one simply a lethal weapon, driven with a power the
very memory of which made her gasp again. They could, however, be
the same--the mind with which she had been _en rapport_ could
very well be capable of generating the force she had felt. If they
were the same, they were something that should be studied, intensively
and at once; and she herself had kicked away her only chance to make
that study. She had better tell somebody about this, even if it meant
confessing her own bird-brained part, and get some competent advice.
Who?

Kit? No. Not because he would smack her down--she _ought_ to be
smacked down!--but because his brain wasn't enough better than her own
to do any good. In fact, it wasn't a bit better than hers.

Mentor? At the very thought she shuddered, mentally and physically. She
would call him in, fast enough, regardless of consequences to herself,
if it would do any good, but it wouldn't. She was starkly certain of
that. He wouldn't smack her down, like Kit would, but he wouldn't help
her, either. He'd just sit there and sneer at her while she stewed,
hotter and hotter, in her own juice.

"In a childish, perverted, and grossly exaggerated way, Daughter
Constance, you are right," the Arisian's thought rolled sonorously into
her astounded mind. "You got yourself into this--get yourself out. One
promising fact, however, I perceive--although seldom and late--you at
last begin really to think."

In that hour Constance Kinnison grew up.



                                  XI.


Any human or near-human Lensman would have been appalled by the sheer
loneliness of Nadreck's long vigil. Almost any one of them would have
cursed, fluently and bitterly, when the time came at which he was
forced to concede that the being for whom he lay in wait was not going
to visit that particular planet.

But utterly unhuman Nadreck was not lonely. In fact, there was no word
in the vocabulary of his race even remotely resembling the term in
definition, connotation, or implication. From his Galaxy-wide study
he had a dim, imperfect idea of what such an emotion or feeling might
be, but he could not begin to understand it. Nor was he in the least
disturbed by the fact that Kandron did not appear. Instead, he held his
orbit until the minute arrived at which the mathematical probability
became point nine nine eight that his proposed quarry was not going to
appear. Then, as matter-of-factly as though he had merely taken half
an hour out for lunch, he abandoned his position and set out upon the
course so carefully planned for exactly this event.

The search for further clues was long and uneventful; but monstrously,
unhumanly patient Nadreck stuck to it until he found one. True, it
was so slight as to be practically nonexistent--a mere fragment of a
whisper of zwilnik instruction--but it bore Kandron's unmistakable
imprint. The Palainian had expected no more. Kandron would not slip.
Momentary leakages from faulty machines would have to occur from time
to time, but Kandron's machines would not be at fault either often or
long at a time.

Nadreck, however, had been ready. Course after course of the most
delicate spotting screen ever devised had been out for weeks. So had
tracers, radiation absorbers, and every other insidious locating device
known to the science of the age. The standard detectors remained
blank, of course--no more so than his own conveyance would that of
the Onlonian be detectable by any ordinary instruments. And as the
Palainian speedster shot away along the most probable course, some
fifty delicate instruments in its bow began stabbing that entire region
of space with a pattern of needles of force through which a Terrestrial
barrel could not have floated untouched.

Thus the Boskonian craft--an inherently indetectable speedster--was
located; and in that instant was speared by three modified CRX tracers.
Nadreck then went inert and began to plot the other speedster's course.
He soon learned that that course was unpredictable; that the vessel was
being operated statistically, completely at random. This too, then, was
a trap.

This knowledge disturbed Nadreck no more than had any
more-or-less-similar event of the previous twenty-odd years. He had
realized fully that the leakage could as well have been deliberate as
accidental. He had at no time underestimated Kandron's ability; the
future alone would reveal whether or not Kandron would at any time
underestimate his. He would follow through--there might be a way in
which this particular trap could be used against its setter.

Leg after leg of meaningless course Nadreck followed, until there
came about that which the Palainian knew would happen in time--the
speedster held a straight course for more parsecs than six-sigma limits
of probability could ascribe to pure randomness. Nadreck knew what
that meant. The speedster was returning to its base for servicing,
which was precisely the event for which he had been waiting. It was
the base he wanted, not the speedster; and that base would never,
under any conceivable conditions, emit any detectable quantity of
traceable radiation. To its base, then, Nadreck followed the little
spaceship, and to say that he was on the alert as he approached that
base is a gross understatement indeed. He expected to set off at least
one, and probably many blasts of force. That would almost certainly
be necessary in order to secure sufficient information concerning the
enemy's defensive screens. It was unnecessary--but when those blasts
arrived Nadreck was elsewhere, calmly analyzing the data secured by his
instruments during the brief contact which had triggered the Boskonian
projectors into action.

       *       *       *       *       *

So light, so fleeting, and so unorthodox had been Nadreck's touch that
the personnel of the now doomed base could not have known with any
certainty that any visitor had actually been there. If there had been,
the logical supposition would have been that he and his vessel had been
resolved into their component atoms. Nevertheless Nadreck waited--as
has been shown, he was good at waiting--until the burst of extra
vigilance set up by the occurrence would have subsided into ordinary
watchfulness. Then he began to act.

At first this action was in ultra-slow motion. One millimeter per hour
his drill advanced. Drill was synchronized precisely with screen, and
so guarded as to give an alarm at a level of interference far below
that necessary to energize any probable detector at the generators of
the screen being attacked.

Through defense after defense Nadreck made his cautious, indetectable
way into the dome. It was a small base, as such things go; manned,
as expected, by escapees from Onlo. Scum, too, for the most part;
creatures of even baser and more violent passions than those upon
whom he had worked in Kandron's Onlonian stronghold. To keep those
intractable entities in line during their brutally long tours of duty,
a psychological therapist had been given authority second only to that
of the Base Commander. That knowledge, and the fact that there was only
one populated dome, made the Palainian come as close to grinning as one
of his unsmiling race can.

The psychologist wore a multiplex thought-screen, of course, as did
everyone else; but that did not bother Nadreck. Kinnison had opened
such screens many times; not only by means of his own hands, but also
at various times by the use of a dog's jaws, a spider's legs and
mandibles, and even a worm's sinuous body. Wherefore, through the
agency of a quasi-fourth-dimensional life-form literally indescribable
to three-dimensional man, Nadreck's ego was soon comfortably ensconced
in the mind of the Onlonian.

That entity knew in detail every weakness of each of his personnel. It
was his duty to watch those weaknesses, to keep them down, to condition
each of his wards in such fashion that friction and strife would be
minimized. Now, however, he proceeded to do exactly the opposite. One
hated another. That hate became a searing obsession, requiring the
concentration of every effort upon ways and means of destroying its
object. One feared another. That fear ate in, searing as it went,
destroying every normality of outlook and of reason. Many were jealous
of their superiors. This emotion, requiring as it does nothing except
its own substance upon which to feed, became a fantastically-spreading,
caustically corrosive blight.

To name each ugly, noisome passion or trait resident in that dome is
to call the complete roster of the vile; and calmly, mercilessly,
unmovedly, ultra-efficiently, Nadreck worked upon them all. As though
he were playing a Satanic organ he touched a nerve here, a synapse
there, a channel somewhere else, bringing the whole group, with the
lone exception of the commander, simultaneously to the point of
explosion. Nor was any sign of this perfect work evident externally;
for everyone there, having lived so long under the iron code of
Boskonia, knew exactly the consequences of any infraction of that code.

The moment came when passion overmastered sense. One of the monsters
stumbled, jostling another. That nudge became, in its recipient's
seething mind, a lethal attack by his bitterest enemy. A forbidden
projector flamed viciously--the offended one was sating his lust so
insensately that he scarcely noticed the bolt that in turn rived away
his own life. Detonated by this incident, the personnel of the Base
exploded as one. Blasters raved briefly; knives and swords bit and
slashed; improvised bludgeons crashed against pre-selected targets;
hard-taloned appendages gouged and tore. And Nadreck, who had long
since withdrawn from the mind of the psychologist, timed with a stop
watch the duration of the whole grizzly affair, from the instant of the
first stumble to the death of the last Onlonian outside the Commander's
locked and armored sanctum. Ninety-eight and three tenths seconds.
Good--a nice job.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Base Commander, as soon as it was safe to do so, rushed out of
his guarded room to investigate. Amazed, disgruntled, dismayed by
the to him completely inexplicable phenomenon he had just witnessed,
he fell an easy prey to the Palainian Lensman. Nadreck invaded his
mind and explored it, channel by channel; finding--not entirely
unexpectedly--that this Number One knew nothing whatever of interest.

Nadreck did not destroy the base. Instead, after setting up a small
instrument in the Commander's office, he took that unfortunate wight
aboard his speedster and drove off into space. He immobilized his
captive, not by loading him with manacles, but by deftly severing a
few essential nerve trunks. Then he really studied the Onlonian's
mind--line by line, this time; almost cell by cell. A master--almost
certainly Kandron himself--had operated here. There was not the
slightest trace of tampering; no leads to or indications of what the
activating stimulus would have to be; all that the fellow now knew was
that it was his job to hold his Base inviolate against any and every
form of intrusion and to keep that speedster flitting around all over
space on a director-by-chance as much as possible of the time, leaking
slightly a certain signal now and then.

Even under this microscopic re-examination, he knew nothing whatever
of Kandron; nothing of Onlo or of Thrale; nothing of any Boskonian
organization, activity, or thing; and Nadreck, although baffled still,
remained undisturbed. This trap, he thought, could almost certainly be
used against the trapper. Until a certain call came through his relay
in the Base, he would investigate the planets of this system.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the investigation a thought impinged upon his Lens from Karen
Kinnison, one of the very few warm-blooded beings for whom he had any
real liking or respect.

"Busy, Nadreck?" she asked, as casually as though she had seen him
hours, instead of weeks before.

"In large, yes--in detail and at the moment, no. Is there any small
problem in which I can be of assistance?"

"Not small--big. I just got the funniest distress call I ever heard or
heard of. On a high band--'way, 'way up--there. Do you know of any race
that thinks on that band?"

"I do not believe so." He thought for a moment. "Definitely, no."

"Neither do I. It wasn't broadcast, either, but was directed at any
member of a special race or tribe--very special. Classification,
straight Z's to ten or twelve places, she ... or it ... seemed to be
trying to specify."

"A frigid race of extreme type, adapted to an environment having a
temperature of only a few degrees absolute."

"Yes. Like you, only more so." Kay paused, trying to put into
intelligible thought a picture inherently incapable of reception or
recognition by her as yet strictly three-dimensional intelligence.
"Something like the Eich, too, but not much. Their visible aspect was
obscure, fluid ... amorphous ... indefinite? ... skip it--I couldn't
really perceive it, let alone describe it. I wish you had caught that
thought."

"I wish so, too--it is extremely interesting. But tell me--if the
thought was directed, not broadcast, how could you have received it?"

"That's the funniest part of the whole thing." Nadreck could feel
the girl frown in concentration. "It came at me from all sides at
once--never felt anything like it. Naturally I started feeling around
for the source--particularly since it was a distress signal--but before
I could get even a general direction of the origin it ... it ... well,
it didn't really disappear or really weaken, but something happened to
it. I couldn't read it any more--and _that_ really did throw me
for a loss." She paused, then went on. "It didn't so much go away as go
_down_, some way or other. Then it vanished completely, without
really going anywhere. I know that I'm not making myself clear--I
simply can't--but have I given you enough leads so that you can make
any sense at all out of any part of it?"

"I'm very sorry to say that I can not."

       *       *       *       *       *

Nor could he, ever, for excellent reasons. That girl had a mind whose
power, scope, depth, and range she herself did not, could not even
dimly understand; a mind to be fully comprehended only by an adult of
her own third level. That mind had in fact received in toto a purely
fourth-dimensional thought. If Nadreck had received it, he would
have understood it and recognized it for what it was only because
of his advanced Arisian training--no other Palainian could have
done so--and it would have been sheerly unthinkable to him that any
warm-blooded and, therefore, strictly three-dimensional entity could
by any possibility receive such a thought; or, having received it,
could understand any figment of it. Nevertheless, if he had really
concentrated the full powers of his mind upon the girl's attempted
description, he might very well have recognized in it the clearest
possible three-dimensional delineation of such a thought; and from that
point he could have gone on to a full understanding of the Children of
the Lens.

However, he did not so concentrate. It was constitutionally impossible
for him to devote real mental effort to any matter not immediately
pertaining to the particular task in hand. Therefore neither he nor
Karen Kinnison were to know until much later that she had been _en
rapport_ with one of Civilization's bitterest, most implacable
foes; that she had seen with clairvoyant and telepathic accuracy the
intrinsically three-dimensionally-indescribable form assumed in their
winter by the horrid, the monstrous inhabitants of that viciously
hostile world, the unspeakable planet Ploor!

"I was afraid you couldn't." Kay's thought came clear. "That makes it
all the more important--important enough for you to drop whatever it is
that you're doing now and join me in getting to the bottom of it, if
you could be made to see it, which, of course, you can't."

"I am about to take Kandron, and nothing in the Universe can be as
important as that," Nadreck stated quietly, as a simple matter of fact.
"You have observed this that lies here?"

"Yes." Karen, _en rapport_ with Nadreck, was, of course, cognizant
of the captive, but it had not occurred to her to mention the monster.
When dealing with Nadreck she, against all the tenets of her sex,
exhibited as little curiosity as did the coldly emotionless Lensman
himself. "Since you bid so obviously for the question, why are you
keeping it alive--or rather, not dead?"

"Because he is my sure link to Kandron." If Nadreck of Palain ever
was known to gloat, it was then. "He is Kandron's creature, placed by
Kandron personally as an agency of my destruction. Kandron's brain
alone holds the key compulsion which will restore his memories. At
some future time--perhaps a second from now, perhaps a cycle of
years--Kandron will use that key to learn how his minion fares.
Kandron's thought will energize my re-transmitter in the dome; the
compulsion will be forwarded to this still-living brain. The brain,
however, will be in my speedster, not in that undamaged fortress. You
now understand why I cannot stray far from this being's base; you
should see that you should join me instead of me joining you."

"No; not definite enough," Karen countered, decisively. "I can't see
myself passing up a thing like this for the opportunity of spending
the next ten years floating around in an orbit, doing nothing. However,
I check you to a certain extent--when and if anything really happens,
shoot me a thought and I'll rally 'round."

       *       *       *       *       *

The linkage broke without formal adieus. Nadreck went his way, Karen
went hers. She did not, however, go far along the way she had had in
mind. She was still precisely nowhere in her quest when she felt a
thought, of a type that only her brother or an Arisian could send. It
was Kit.

"Hi, Kay!" A warm, brotherly contact. "How'r'ya doing, Sis? Are you
growing up?"

"I'm grown up! What a question!"

"Don't get stiff, Kay, there's method in this. Got to be sure." All
trace of levity gone, he probed her unmercifully. "Not too bad, at
that, for a kid. As Dad would express it, if he could feel you this
way, you're twenty-nine numbers Brinnell harder than a diamond drill.
Plenty of jets for this job, and by the time the real one comes,
you'll probably be ready."

"Cut the rigmarole, Kit!" she snapped, and hurled a vicious bolt of her
own. If Kit did not counter it as easily as he had handled her earlier
efforts, he did not reveal the fact. "What job? What d'you think you're
talking about? I'm on a job now that I wouldn't drop for Nadreck, and I
don't think that I'll drop it for you."

"You'll have to." Kit's thought was grim. "Mother is going to have to
go to work on Lyrane II. The probability is pretty certain that there
is or will be something there that she can't handle. Remote control
is out, or I'd do it myself, but I can't work on Lyrane II in person.
Here's the whole picture--look it over. You can see, Sis, that you're
elected, so hop to it."

"I won't!" she stormed. "I can't--I'm too busy. How about asking Con,
or Kat, or Cam?"

"They don't fit the picture," he explained patiently--for him. "In this
case hardness is indicated, as you can see for yourself."

"Hardness, phooey!" she jeered. "To handle Ladora of Lyrane? She thinks
she's a hard-boiled egg, I know, but--"

"Listen, you bird-brained knot-head!" Kit cut in, venomously. "You're
fogging the issue deliberately--stop it! I spread you the whole
picture--you know as well as I do that while there's nothing definite
as yet, the thing needs covering and you're the one to cover it. But
no--just because I'm the one to suggest or ask anything of you, you've
always got to go into that mulish act of yours."

"Be silent, children, and attend!" Both flushed violently as Mentor
came between them. "Some of the weaker thinkers here are beginning
to despair of you, but my visualization of your development is still
clear. To mold such characters as yours sufficiently, and yet not too
much, is a delicate task indeed; but one which must and shall be done.
Christopher, come to me at once, in person. Karen, I would suggest that
you go to Lyrane and do there whatever you find necessary to do."

"I won't--I've _still_ got this job here to do!" Karen defied even
the ancient Arisian sage.

"That, Daughter, can and should wait. I tell you solemnly, as a fact,
that if you do not go to Lyrane you will never get the faintest clue to
that which you now seek."



                                 XII.


Christopher Kinnison drove toward Arisia, seething. Why couldn't those
sisters of his have sense to match their brains--or why couldn't
he have had some brothers? Especially--right now--Kay. If she had
the sense of a Zabriskan fontema, she'd know that this job was
_important_ and would snap into it, instead of wild-goose-chasing
all over space. If he were Mentor, he'd straighten her out. He had
decided to straighten her out once himself, and he grinned wryly to
himself at the memory of what had happened. What Mentor had done to
him, before he even got started, was really rugged. What he would like
to do, next time he got within reach of her, was to shake her until her
teeth rattled.

Or would he? Uh-uh. By no stretch of the imagination could he picture
himself hurting any one of them. They were swell kids--in fact, the
finest people he had ever known. He had rough-housed and wrestled with
them plenty of times, of course--he liked it, and so did they. He could
handle any one of them--he surveyed without his usual complacence his
two-hundred-plus pounds of meat, bone, and gristle--he ought to be able
to, since he outweighed them by fifty or sixty pounds; but it wasn't
easy. Worse than Valerians--just like taking on a combination of boa
constrictor and cateagle--and when Kat and Con ganged up on him that
time they mauled him to a pulp in nothing flat.

But jet back! Weight wasn't it, except maybe among themselves. He had
never met a Valerian yet whose shoulders he couldn't pin flat to the
mat in a hundred seconds, and the very smallest of them outweighed him
two to one. Conversely, although he had never thought of it before,
what his sisters had taken from him, without even a bruise, would have
broken any ordinary woman up into a mess of compound fractures. They
were--they must be--made of different stuff.

His thoughts took a new tack. The kids were special in another
way, too, he had noticed lately, without paying it any particular
attention. It might tie in. They didn't _feel_ like other girls.
After dancing with one of them, other girls felt like robots made out
of putty. Their flesh _was_ different. It was firmer, finer,
infinitely more responsive. Each individual cell seemed to be endowed
with a flashing, sparkling life; a life which, interlinking with that
of one of his own cells, made their bodies as intimately one as were
their perfectly synchronized minds.

But what did all this have to do with their lack of sense? QX, they
were nice people. QX, he couldn't beat their brains out, either
physically or mentally. But there ought to be _some_ way of
driving some ordinary common sense through their fine-grained, thick,
hard, tough skulls!

Thus it was that Kit approached Arisia in a decidedly mixed frame of
mind. He shot through the barrier without slowing down and without
notification. Inerting his ship, he fought her into an orbit around the
planet. The shape of the orbit was immaterial, as long as its every
inch was well inside Arisia's innermost screen. For young Kinnison
knew precisely what those screens were and exactly what they were for.
He knew that distance of itself meant nothing--Mentor could give anyone
either basic or advanced treatments just as well from a distance of a
thousand million parsecs as at hand to hand. The reason for the screens
and for the personal visits was the existence of the Eddorians, who had
minds probably as capable as the Arisians' own. And throughout all the
infinite reaches of the macrocosmic Universe, only within these highly
special screens was there _certainty_ of privacy from the spying
senses of the ultimate foe.

       *       *       *       *       *

"The time has come, Christopher, for the last treatment I am able
to give you," Mentor announced without preamble, as soon as Kit had
checked his orbit.

"Oh--so soon? I thought you were pulling me in to pin my ears back for
fighting with Kay--the dim-wit!"

"That, while a minor matter, is worthy of passing mention, since it is
illustrative of the difficulties inherent in the project of developing,
without over-controlling, such minds as yours. En route here, you made
a masterly summation of the situation, with one outstanding omission."

"Huh? What omission? I covered it like a blanket!"

"You assumed throughout, and still assume, as you always do in dealing
with your sisters, that you are unassailably right; that your
conclusion is the only tenable one; that they are always wrong."

"But they _are_! That's why you sent Kay to Lyrane!"

"In these conflicts with your sisters, you have been right in
approximately half of the cases," Mentor informed him.

"But how about their fights with each other?"

"Do you know of any such?"

"Why ... uh ... can't say that I do." Kit's surprise was plain. "But
since they fight with me so much, they must--"

"That does not follow, and for a very good reason. We may as well
discuss that reason now, as it is a necessary part of the education
which you are about to receive. You already know that your sisters
are very different, each from the other. Know now, that each was
specifically developed to be so completely different that there is no
possible point which could be made an issue between any two of them."

It took some time for Kit to digest that news. "Then where do I come in
that they _all_ fight with me at the drop of a hat?"

"That, too, while regrettable, is inevitable. Each of your sisters, as
you may have suspected, is to play a tremendous part in that which is
to come. The Lensmen, we of Arisia, all will contribute, but upon you
Children of the Lens--especially upon the girls--will fall the greater
share of the load. Your individual task will be that of co-ordinating
the whole; a duty which no Arisian is or ever can be qualified to
perform. You will have to direct the efforts of your sisters;
reinforcing every heavily-attacked point with your own incomparable
force and drive; keeping them smoothly in mesh and in place. As a side
issue, you will also have to co-ordinate the feebler efforts of us of
Arisia, the Lensmen, the Patrol, and whatever other minor forces we may
be able to employ."

"Holy ... Klono's ... claws!" Kit was gasping like a fish. "Just
where, Mentor, do you figure I'm going to pick up the jets to swing
_that_ load? And as to co-ordinating the kids--that's out. I'd
make just one suggestion to any one of them and she'd forget all about
the battle and tear into me ... no, I'll take that back. The stickier
the going, the closer they rally 'round."

"Right. It will always be so. Now, youth, that you have these facts,
explain these matters to me, as a sort of preliminary exercise."

"I think I see." Kit thought intensely. "The kids don't fight with each
other because they don't overlap. They fight with me because my central
field overlaps them all. They have no occasion to fight with anybody
else, nor have I, because with anybody else our viewpoint is always
right and the other fellow knows it--except for Palainians and such,
who think along different lines than we do. Thus, Kay never fights with
Nadreck. When he goes off the beam, she simply ignores him and goes
on about her business. But with them and me--we'll have to learn to
arbitrate, or something, I suppose--" his thought trailed off.

"Manifestations of adolescence; with adulthood, now coming fast, they
will pass. Let us get on with the work."

"But wait a minute!" Kit protested. "About this co-ordinator thing. I
can't do it. I'm too much of a kid. I won't be ready for a job like
that for a thousand years!"

"You must be ready," Mentor's thought was inexorable. "And, when the
time comes, you shall be. Now, come fully into my mind."

       *       *       *       *       *

There is no use in repeating in detail the progress of an Arisian
supereducation, especially since the most accurate possible description
of the most important of those details would be intrinsically
meaningless. When, after a few weeks of it, Kit was ready to leave
Arisia, he looked much older and more mature than before; he felt
immensely older than he looked. The concluding conversation of that
visit, however, is worth recording.

"You now know, Kinnison," Mentor mused, "what you children are and how
you came to be. You are the accomplishment of long lifetimes of work.
It is with most profound satisfaction that I now perceive clearly that
those lifetimes have not been spent in vain."

"Yours, you mean." Kit was embarrassed, but one point still bothered
him. "Dad met and married mother, yes, but how about the others?
Tregonsee, Worsel, and Nadreck? They and the corresponding females
were also penultimates, of lines as long as ours. Your Council decided
that the human stock was best, so none of the other Second-Stage
Lensmen ever met their female complements. Not that it could make any
difference to them, of course, but I should think that three of your
fellow students wouldn't feel so good."

"I am very glad indeed that you mention the point." The Arisian's
thought was positively gleeful. "You have at no time, then, detected
anything peculiar about this that you know as Mentor of Arisia?"

"Why, of course not. How could I? Or, rather, why should I?"

"Any lapse on our part, however slight, from practically perfect
synchronization would have revealed to such a mentality as yours that
I, whom you know as Mentor, am not an individual, but four. While we
each worked as individuals upon all of the experimental lines, whenever
we dealt with any one of the penultimates or ultimates we did so as
a fusion. This was necessary, not only for your fullest possible
development, but also to be sure that each of us had complete data upon
every minute facet of the truth. While it was in no sense important to
the work itself to keep you in ignorance of Mentor's plurality, the
fact that we could keep you ignorant of it, particularly now that you
have become adult, showed that our work was being done in a really
workmanlike fashion."

Kit whistled; a long, low whistle which was tribute enough to those who
knew what it meant. He knew what he meant, but there were not enough
words or thoughts to express it.

"But you're going to keep on being Mentor, aren't you?" he asked.

"I am. The real task, as you know, lies ahead."

"QX. You say that I'm adult. I'm not. You imply that I'm more than
several notches above you in qualifications. I could laugh myself silly
about that one, if it wasn't so serious. Why, any one of you Arisians
has forgotten more than I know, and could tie me up into bowknots!"

"There are elements of truth in your thought. That you can now be
called adult, however, does not mean that you have attained your full
power; only that you are able to use effectively the powers you have
and are able to acquire other and larger powers."

"But what _are_ those powers?" Kit demanded. "You've hinted on
that same theme a thousand times, and I don't know what you mean any
better than I did before!"

"You must develop your own powers." Mentor's thought was as final as
fate. "Your mind is potentially far abler than mine. You will in time
come to know my mind in full; I never will be able to know yours.
For the lesser, but full mind to attempt to instruct in methodology
the greater, although emptier one, is to set that greater mind in an
under-sized mold and thus to do it irreparable harm. You have the
abilities and the powers. You will have to develop them yourself,
by the perfection of techniques concerning which I can give you no
instructions whatever."

"But surely you can give me some kind of a hint!" Kit pleaded. "I'm
just a kid, I tell you--I don't even know how or where to begin!"

Under Kit's startled mental gaze, Mentor split suddenly into four
parts, laced together by a pattern of thoughts so intricate and so
rapid as to be unrecognizable. The parts fused and again Mentor spoke.

"I can point the way in only the broadest, most general terms. It
has been decided, however, that I can give you one hint--or, more
properly, one illustration. The surest test of knowledge known to us
is the visualization of the Cosmic All. All science is, as you know,
one. The true key to power lies in the knowledge of the underlying
reasons for the succession of events. If it is pure causation--that
is, if any given state of things follows as an inevitable consequence
because of the state existing an infinitesimal instant before--then the
entire course of the macrocosmic universe was set for the duration of
all eternity in the instant of its coming into being. This well-known
concept, the stumbling block upon which many early thinkers came to
grief, we now know to be false. On the other hand, if pure randomness
were to govern, natural laws as we know them could not exist. Thus
neither pure causation nor pure randomness alone can govern the
succession of events.

"The truth, then, must lie somewhere in between. In the macro-cosmos,
causation prevails; in the micro-, randomness; both in accord with the
mathematical laws of probability. It is in the region between them--the
intermediate zone, or the interface, so to speak--that the greatest
problems lie. The test of validity of any theory, as you know, is the
accuracy of the predictions which are made possible by its use, and our
greatest thinkers have shown that the completeness and fidelity of any
visualization of the Cosmic All are linear functions of the clarity
of definition of the components of that interface. Full knowledge of
that indeterminate zone would mean infinite power and a statistically
perfect visualization. None of these things, however, will ever be
realized; for the acquirement of that full knowledge would require
infinite time.

"That is all I can tell you. It will, properly studied, be enough. I
have built within you a solid foundation; yours alone is the task of
erecting upon that foundation a structure strong enough to withstand
the forces which will be thrown against it.

"It is perhaps natural, in view of what you have recently gone
through, that you should regard the problem of the Eddorians as one
of insuperable difficulty. Actually, however, it is not, as you will
perceive when you have spent a few weeks in re-integrating yourself.
You must not, you shall not, and in my clear visualization you do not,
fail."

       *       *       *       *       *

Communication ceased. Kit made his way groggily to his control board,
went free, and lined out for Klovia. For a guy whose education was
supposed to be complete, he felt remarkably like a total loss with no
insurance. He had asked for advice and had got--what? A dissertation on
philosophy, mathematics, and physics--good enough stuff, probably, if
he could see what Mentor was driving at, but not of much immediate use.
He did have a brainful of new stuff, though--didn't know yet what half
of it was--he'd better be getting it licked into shape. He'd "sleep" on
it.

He did so, and as he lay quiescent in his bunk the tiny pieces of
an incredibly complex jig saw puzzle began to click into place. The
ordinary zwilniks--all the small fry fitted in well enough. The
Overlords of Delgon. The Kalonians ... hm-m-m ... he'd better check
with Dad on that angle. The Eich--under control. Kandron of Onlo,
ditto. "X" was in safe hands; Cam had already been alerted to watch
her step. Some planet named Ploor--what in all the purple hells of
Palain had Mentor meant by that crack? Anyway, that piece didn't fit
anywhere--yet. That left Eddore--and at the thought a series of cold
waves raced up and down the young Lensman's spine. Nevertheless, Eddore
was his oyster--his, and nobody else's. Mentor had made that plain
enough. Everything the Arisians had done for umpteen million years
had been aimed at the Eddorians. They had picked him out to emcee the
show--and how could a man co-ordinate an attack against something
about which he knew nothing? And the only way to get acquainted with
Eddore and its denizens was to go there. Should he call in the kids?
He should not. Each of them had her hands full of her own job; that
of developing her full self. He had his; and the more he studied the
question, the clearer it became that the first number on the program
of his self-development was--would _have_ to be--a single-handed
expedition against the key planet of Civilization's top-ranking foes.

He sprang out of his bunk, changed his vessel's course, and lined out a
thought to his father.

"Dad? Kit. Been flitting around out Arisia way, and picked up an idea
that I want to pass along to you. It's about Kalonians. What do you
know about them?"

"They're blue--"

"I don't mean that."

"I know you don't. There were Helmuth, Jalte, Prellin,
Crowninshield ... all I can think of at the moment. Big operators, son,
and smart hombres, if I do say so myself as shouldn't; but they're all
ancient history ... hold it! Maybe I know of a modern one, too--Eddie's
Lensman. The only part of that picture that was sharp was the Lens,
since Eddie was never analytically interested in any of the hundreds of
types of people he met, but there was something about that Lensman....
I'll bring him back and focus him as sharply as I can--there." Both men
studied the blurred statue posed in the Gray Lensman's mind. "Wouldn't
you say he could be a Kalonian?"

"Check. I wouldn't want to say much more than that. But about that
Lens--did you really examine it? It _is_ sharp--under the
circumstances, of course, it would be."

"Certainly! Wrong in every respect--rhythm, chroma, context, and aura.
Definitely not Arisian; therefore Boskonian. That's the point--that's
what I was afraid of, you know."

"Double-check. And that point ties in absolutely tight with the one
that made me call you just now, that everybody, including you and me,
seems to have missed. I've been searching my memory for five hours--you
know what my memory is like--and I have heard of exactly two other
Kalonians. They were big operators, too. I have never heard of the
planet itself. To me it is a startling fact that the sum total of my
information on Kalonia, reliable or otherwise, is that it produced
seven big-shot zwilniks; six of them before I was born. Period."

Kit felt his father's jaw drop.

"No, I don't believe that I have ever heard anything about the planet,
either," the older man finally replied. "But I'll bet that I can get
you all the information you want in fifteen minutes."

"Credits to millos it'll be a lot nearer fifteen days. You can find it
sometime, though, if anybody can--that's why I'm taking it up with you.
While I don't want to seem to be giving a Gray Lensman orders"--that
jocular introduction had come to be a sort of ritual in the Kinnison
family--"I would very diffidently suggest that there might be some
connection between that completely unnoticed planet and some of the
things we don't know about Boskonia."

"Diffident! You?" The Gray Lensman laughed deeply. "Like an atomic
bomb! I'll start a search on Kalonia right away. As to your
credits-to-millos-fifteen-days thing, I'd be ashamed to take your
money. You don't know our librarians or our system. Ten millos, even
money, that we get full data in less than five G-P days from right now.
Want it?"

"I'll say so. I'll wear that cento on my tunic as a medal of victory
over the Gray Lensman. I _do_ know the size of these here two
galaxies!"

"QX--it's a bet. I'll let you know if we find anything. In the
meantime, Kit, remember that you're my favorite son."

"Well, you're not so bad, yourself. Any time I want mother to divorce
you so as to change fathers for me I'll let you know." What a terrific,
what a tremendous meaning was heterodyned upon that seemingly light
exchange! "Clear ether, Dad!"

"Clear ether, son!"



                                 XIII.


Thousands of years were to pass before Christopher Kinnison could
develop the ability to visualize, from the contemplation of one fact or
artifact, the entire Universe to which it belonged. He could not even
plan in detail his one-man invasion of Eddore until he could integrate
all available data concerning the planet Kalonia into his visualization
of the Boskonian Empire. One unknown, Ploor, blurred his picture badly
enough; two such completely unknown factors made visualization, even in
broad, impossible.

Anyway, he decided, he had one more job to do before he tackled the
key planet of the enemy; and now, while he was waiting for the dope
on Kalonia, would be the best time to do it. Wherefore he sent out a
thought to his mother.

"Hi, First Lady of the Universe! 'Tis thy first-born who wouldst fain
converse with thee. Art pressly engaged in matters of moment or import?"

"Art not, Kit." Clarrissa's characteristic chuckle was as infectious,
as full of the joy of life, as ever. "Not that it would make any
difference--but methinks I detect an undertone of seriosity beneath thy
persiflage. Spill it."

"Let's make it a rendezvous, instead," he suggested. "We're fairly
close, I think--closer than we've been for a long time. Where are you,
exactly?"

"Oh! Can we? Wonderful!" She marked her location and velocity in his
mind. She made no effort to conceal her joy at the idea of a personal
meeting. She never had tried and she never would try to make him put
first matters other than first. She had not expected to see him again,
physically, until this war was over. But if she could--!

"QX. Hold your course and speed; I'll be seeing you in eighty-three
minutes. In the meantime, it'll be just as well if we don't
communicate, even by Lens."

"Why, son?"

"Nothing definite--just a hunch, is all. 'Bye, Gorgeous!"

The two speedsters approached each other--inerted--matched
intrinsics--went free--flashed into contact--sped away together upon
Clarrissa's original course.

"Hi, Mums!" Kit spoke into a visiphone. "I should, of course, come to
you, but it might be better if you come in here--I've got some special
rigs set up here that I don't want to leave. QX?" He snapped on one
of the special rigs as he spoke--a device which he himself had built
and installed; the generator of a screen which would detect upon every
possible band and channel of thought or of intrusion.

"Why, of course!" She came, and was swept off her feet in the
exuberance of her tall son's embrace; a greeting which she returned
with a fervor at least the equal of his own.

"It's nice, Mother, seeing you again." Words, or thoughts even, were
_so_ inadequate! Kit's voice was a trifle rough: his eyes were not
completely dry.

"Uh-huh. It _is_ nice," she agreed, snuggling her spectacular head
even more firmly into the curve of his shoulder. "Mental contact is
better than nothing, of course, but _this_ is perfect!"

"Just as much a menace to navigation as ever, aren't you?" He held her
at arm's length and shook his head in mock disapproval. "Do you think
it's quite right for one woman to have so much of everything when all
the others have so little of anything?"

"Honestly, I don't." She and Kit had always been exceptionally close;
now her love for and her pride in this splendid creature, her son and
her first-born, simply would not be denied. "You're joking, I know, but
that strikes too deep for comfort. I wake up in the night to wonder
why, of all the women in existence, I should be so lucky, especially
in my children. QX, skip it." Kit was shying away--she should have
known better than to try in words even to skirt the profound depths of
sentiment which both she and he knew so well were there.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Get back onto the beam, Gorgeous, you know what I meant. Look at
yourself in a mirror some day--or do you, perchance?"

"Once in a while--maybe twice." She giggled unaffectedly. "You don't
think that all this charm and glamour comes without effort, do you?
But maybe you'd better get back on the beam yourself--I know that you
didn't come all these parsecs out of your way to say pretty things to
your mother--even though I admit that they've built up my ego no end."

"On target, dead center." Kit had been grinning, but he sobered
quickly. "I wanted to talk to you about Lyrane and the job you're
figuring on doing out there."

"Why?" she demanded. "Do you know anything about it?"

"Unfortunately, I don't." Kit's black frown of concentration
reminded her forcibly of his father's characteristic scowl.
"Guesses--suspicions--theories--not even good hunches. But I
thought ... I wondered--" He paused, embarrassed as a schoolboy,
then went on with a rush: "Would you mind it too much if I went into
something pretty personal?"

"You know I wouldn't, son." In contrast to Kit's usual clarity and
precision of thought, the question was highly ambiguous, but Clarrissa
covered both angles. "I can conceive of no subject, event, action, or
thing, in either my life or yours, too intimate or too personal to
discuss with you in full. Can you?"

"No, I can't--but this is different. As a woman, you're tops--the
finest and best that ever lived." This statement, made with all the
matter-of-factness of stating that a triangle had three corners,
thrilled Clarrissa through and through. "As a Gray Lensman you're
over the rest of them like a cirrus cloud. But you should rate full
Second Stage, and ... well, you may run up against something too hot to
handle, some day, and I ... that is, you--"

"You mean that I don't measure up?" she asked, quietly. "I know very
well that I don't, and admitting an evident fact should not hurt my
feelings a bit. Don't interrupt, please," as Kit began to protest. "In
fact, it is sheerest effrontery--it has always bothered me terribly,
Kit--to be classed as a Lensman at all, considering what splendid men
they all are and what each one of them had to go through to earn his
Lens. You know as well as I do that I have never done a single thing
to earn or to deserve it. It was handed to me on a silver platter. I'm
not worthy of it, Kit, and all the real Lensmen know that I'm not. They
_must_ know it, Kit--they _must_ feel that way!"

"Did you ever express yourself in exactly that way before, to anybody?
You didn't, I know." Kit stopped sweating; this was going to be easier
than he had feared.

"I couldn't, Kit, it was too deep; but as I said, I can talk
_anything_ over with you."

"QX. We can settle that fast enough if you will answer just one
question. Do you honestly believe that you would have been given the
Lens if you were not absolutely worthy of it? Perfectly--in every
minute particular?"

"Why, I never thought of it that way ... probably not ... no, certainly
not." Clarrissa's somber mien lightened markedly. "But I still don't
see how or why--"

"Clear enough," Kit interrupted. "You were born with what the rest of
them had to work so hard for--with stuff that no other woman, anywhere,
ever had."

"Except the girls, of course," Clarrissa corrected, half-absently.

"Except the kids," he concurred. It could do no harm to agree with his
mother's statement of a self-evident fact.

       *       *       *       *       *

He crossed the room and adjusted a couple of dials. His vessel's
screens would not now react to the thoughts of Mentor of Arisia, but
would still announce the presence of any possible other. "You can
take it from me, as one who _knows_, that the other Lensmen know
that you've got plenty of jets. They all know also that the Arisians
never did and never will make a Lens for anybody who hasn't got what it
takes. And so, very neatly, we have stripped ship for the action I came
over here to see you about. It isn't a case of you not measuring up,
because you do, in every respect. It's simply that you're short a few
jets that you ought by rights to have. You really are a Second-Stage
Lensman--you know that, Mums--but you never went to Arisia for your
real L2 work. I hate to see you blast off without full equipment
into what may prove to be a big-time job; especially when you're so
eminently able to take it. Mentor could give you the works in a couple
of hours. Why don't you flit for Arisia right now, or let me take you
there?"

"No--NO!" Clarrissa backed away, shaking her head emphatically. "Never!
I couldn't, Kit, ever--not _possibly_!"

"Why not?" Kit was amazed. "Why, Mother, you're actually shaking!"

"I know I am--I can't help it. That's why. He's the only thing in the
entire Universe that I'm really afraid of. I can talk _about_ him
without quite getting goosebumps all over me, but the mere thought of
actually being with him simply scares me into shivering, quivering
fits."

"I see ... it might very well work that way, at that. Does Dad know it?"

"Yes ... or, that is, he knows that I'm afraid of Mentor, but he
doesn't know it the way you do ... it simply doesn't register in
true color. Kim can't even conceive of me being either a coward or a
cry-baby. And I don't want him to, either, Kit, so please don't tell
him, ever."

"I won't--he'd fry me to a cinder in my own grease if I did. Frankly,
I can't see any part of your self-portrait, either. As a matter of
cold fact, you are so obviously neither a coward nor a cry-baby that no
refutation of that canard is either necessary or desirable. What you've
really got, Mums, is a fixation, and if it can't be removed--"

"It can't," she declared flatly. "I've tried that, now and then,
ever since before you were born. Whatever it is, it's a permanent
installation and it's really deep. I have known all along that Kim
didn't give me the whole business--he couldn't--and I've tried again
and again to make myself go to Arisia, or at least to call Mentor about
it, but I can't do it, Kit--I simply _can't_!"

"I understand." Kit nodded. He did understand, now. What she felt was
not, in essence and at bottom, fear at all. It was worse than fear, and
deeper. It was true revulsion; the basic, fundamental, subconscious,
sex-based reaction of an intensely vital human female against a mental
monstrosity who had not had a sexual thought for countless thousands of
her years. She could neither analyze nor understand her feeling; but it
was as immutable, as ineradicable, and as old as the surging tide of
life itself.

"But there's another way, just as good--probably better, as far as
you're concerned. You aren't afraid of me, are you?"

"What a _question_! Of course I'm not--Why, do you mean
_you_--" Her expressive eyes widened. "You children--especially
you--are far beyond us ... as, of course, you should be ... but
_can_ you, Kit? _Really?_"

       *       *       *       *       *

Kit keyed a part of his mind to an ultra-high level. "I know the
techniques, Mentor, but the first question is, should I do it?"

"You should. The time has come when it is necessary."

"Second--I've never done anything like this before, and she's my own
mother. If I make one slip, I'll never forgive myself. Will you stand
by and see that I don't slip?"

"I will stand by."

"I really can, Mums." Kit answered her question with no perceptible
pause. "That is, if you are willing to put everything you've got into
it. Just letting me into your mind isn't enough. You'll have to sweat
blood--you'll think that you've been run through a hammer mill and
spread out on a Delgonian torture screen to dry."

"No need for worry on that score, my son." All the passionate intensity
of Clarrissa's being was in her vibrant voice. "If you just knew how
utterly I have been longing for it--I'll work; and whatever you give me
I can take."

"I'm sure of that. And, not to work under false pretenses, I'd better
tell you how I know. Mentor showed me what to do and told me to do it."

"_Mentor!_"

"Mentor," Kit agreed. "He knew that it was a psychological
impossibility for you to work with him, and that you could and would
work with me. So he appointed me a committee of one." Clarrissa was
reacting to this news as it was inevitable that she should react; and
to give her time to steady down he went on:

"Mentor also knew, and so do you and I, that even though you are afraid
of him, you know what he is and what he means to Civilization. It was
necessary for me to tell you this so that you would know, without any
tinge of doubt, that I am not a half-baked kid setting out to do a
man's job of work."

"Jet back, Kit! I may have thought a lot of different things about you
at times, but 'half-baked' was never one of them. That is your own
thinking, not mine."

"I wouldn't wonder." Kit grinned wryly. "My ego could stand some
stiffening right now. This isn't going to be funny. You're too fine a
woman, and I think too much of you, to enjoy the prospect of mauling
you around so unmercifully."

"Why, Kit!" Her mood was changing fast. Her old-time, impish smile came
back in force. "You aren't weakening, surely? Shall I hold your hand?"

"Uh-huh--cold feet," he admitted. "It might be a smart idea, at that,
holding hands. Physical linkage. Well, I'm as ready as I ever will be,
I guess--whenever you are, say so. And you'd better sit down before you
fall down."

"QX, Kit--come in."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kit came; and at the first terrific surge of his mind within hers the
Red Lensman caught her breath, stiffened in every muscle, and all but
screamed in agony. Kit's fingers needed their strength as her hands
clutched his and closed in a veritable spasm. She had thought that she
knew what to expect; but the reality was different--much different. She
had suffered before. On Lyrane II, although she had never told anyone
of it, she had been burned and wounded and beaten. She had borne five
children. This was as though every poignant experience of her past had
been rolled into one, raised to the n^{th} power, and stabbed deep into
the tenderest, most sensitive centers of her entire being.

And Kit, boring in and in and in, knew exactly what to do; and now that
he had started, he proceeded unflinchingly and with exact precision
to do what had to be done. He opened up her mind as she had never
dreamed it possible for a mind to open. He separated the tiny, jammed
compartments, each completely from every other. He showed her how
to make room for this tremendous expansion and watched her do it,
against the shrieking protests of every cell and fiber of her body
and of her brain. He drilled new channels everywhere, establishing
an inconceivably complex system of communication lines of infinite
conductivity. He knew just what he was doing to her, since the same
thing had been done to him so recently, but he kept on relentlessly
until the job was done. Completely done.

Then, working together, they sorted and labeled and classified and
catalogued. They checked and double checked. Finally she knew, and
Kit knew that she knew, every hitherto unplumbed recess of her mind
and every individual cell of her brain. Every iota of every quality
and characteristic, every scrap of knowledge she had ever acquired
or ever would acquire, would be at her command instantaneously and
effortlessly. Then, and only then, did Kit withdraw his mind from hers.

"Did you say that I was short just a _few_ jets, Kit?" She got up
groggily and mopped her face; upon which her few freckles stood out
surprisingly dark upon a background of white. "I'm a wreck ... I'd
better go and--"

"As you were for just a sec--I'll break out a bottle of fayalin. This
rates a celebration of sorts, don't you think?"

"Very much so." As she sipped the pungently aromatic red liquid her
color began to come back. "No wonder I felt as though I were missing
something all these years. Thanks, Kit. I really appreciate it. You're
a--"

"Seal it, Mums." He picked her up and squeezed her, hard. He scarcely
noticed her sweat-streaked face and disheveled hair, but she did.

"Good Heavens, Kit, I'm a perfect _hag_!" she exclaimed. "I've
_got_ to go and put on a new face!"

"QX. I don't feel quite so fresh, myself. What I need, though, is a
good, thick steak. Join me?"

"Uh-uh. How can you even think of _eating_, at a time like this?"

"Same way you can think of war paint and feathers, I suppose.
Different people, different reactions. QX, I'll be in there and see you
in fifteen or twenty minutes. Flit!"

       *       *       *       *       *

She left, and Kit heaved an almost explosive sigh of relief. Mighty
good thing she hadn't asked too many questions--if she had become
really curious, he would have had a horrible time keeping her away from
the fact that that kind of work never had been done and never would be
done outside of solid, multiply, Arisian screen. He ate, cleaned up,
ran a comb through his hair, and, when his mother was ready, crossed
over into her speedster.

"Whee ... whee-yu!" Kit whistled descriptively. "_What_ a
seven-sector call-out! Just who do you think you're going to knock out
of the ether on Lyrane II?"

"Nobody at all." Clarrissa laughed. "This is all for you, son--and
maybe a little bit for me, too."

"I'm stunned. You're a blinding flash and a deafening report. But I've
got to do a flit, Gorgeous. So clear--"

"Wait a minute--you _can't_ go yet! I've got questions to ask you
about these new networks and things. How do I handle them?"

"Sorry--you've got to develop your own techniques. You know that
already."

"In a way. I thought maybe, though, I could wheedle you into helping me
a little. I should have known better--but tell me, all Lensmen don't
have minds like this, do they?"

"I'll say they don't. They're all like yours was before, but not as
good. Except the other L2's, of course--Dad, Worsel, Tregonsee, and
Nadreck. Theirs are more or less like yours is now; but you've got a
lot of stuff that they haven't."

"Huh?" she demanded. "Such as?"

"'Way down--there." He showed her. "You worked all of that area
yourself. I only showed you how, without getting in too close."

"Why? Oh, I see--you would. Life-force. I would have lots of that, of
course." She did not blush, but Kit did.

"Life-force" was a pitifully inadequate term indeed for that which
Civilization's only Lensman-mother had in such measure, but they both
knew what it was. Kit ducked.

"You can always tell all about a Lensman by looking at his Lens; it's
an absolute diagram of his whole mind. You've studied Dad's, of course."

"Yes. Three times as big as the ordinary ones--or mine--and much finer
and brighter. But _mine_ isn't, Kit?"

"It _wasn't_, you mean. Put it on and look at it now."

She opened a drawer, and even before she could snap the bracelet around
her wrist, her eyes and mouth became three round O's of astonishment.
She had never seen that Lens before, or anything like it. It was three
times as big as hers, seven times as fine and as intricate, and ten
times as bright.

"Why, this isn't mine!" she gasped. "But this is where I put--"

"Sneeze, Gorgeous," Kit advised. "Cobwebs. It lit up, didn't it? You
aren't thinking a lick. Your mind changed, so your Lens had to. See?"

"I see." Clarrissa looked deep into her son's eyes, her face again
paling under her make-up. "Now _I'm_ going to get personal, Kit.
Will you let me look at _your_ Lens? You never seem to wear it--I
haven't seen it since you graduated."

"Sure. Why not?" He reached into a pocket. "I take after you, that way;
neither of us gets any kick out of throwing his weight around."

His Lens flamed upon his wrist. It was larger in diameter than
Clarrissa's, and thicker. Its texture was finer; its colors were
brighter, harsher, and seemed, somehow, more _solid_. Both studied
both Lenses for a moment, then Kit seized his mother's hand, brought
their wrists together, and stared.

"That's it," he breathed. "That's it--That's IT, just as sure as Klono
has got teeth and claws."

"What's it? What do you see?" she demanded.

"I see how and why I got the way I am--and if the kids had
Lenses theirs would be the same. Remember Dad's? Look at your
dominants--notice that every one of them is duplicated in mine. Blank
them out of mine, and see what you've got left--pure Kimball Kinnison,
with just enough extras thrown in to make me an individual instead of
a carbon copy. Hm-m-m credits to millos this is what comes of having
Lensmen on both sides of the family. No wonder we're freaks! Don't
know whether I'm in favor of it or not--I don't think that they should
produce any more Lady Lensmen, do you? Maybe that's why they never did."

"Don't try to be funny," she reproved; but her dimples were again in
evidence. "If it would result in more people like you and your sisters,
I would be very much in favor of it; but, some way or other, I doubt
it. I know that you're squirming to go, so I won't hold you any longer.
What you just found out about Lenses is fascinating. For the rest of
it ... well ... thanks, son, and clear ether."

"Clear ether, Mother. This is the worst part of being together, leaving
so quick. I'll see you again, though, soon and often. If you get stuck,
yell, and one of the kids or I--or all of us--will be with you in a
split second."

He gave her a quick, hard hug; kissed her enthusiastically, and left.
He did not tell her, and she never did find out, that his "discovery"
of one of the secrets of the Lens was made to keep her from asking
questions which he could not answer.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Red Lensman was afraid that she would not have time to put her
new mind in order before reaching Lyrane II; but, being naturally a
good housekeeper, she did. More, so rapidly and easily did her mind
now work, she had time to review and to analyze every phase of her
previous activities upon that planet and to lay out in broad her first
lines of action. She wouldn't put on the screws at first, she decided.
She would let them think that she didn't have any more jets than
before. Helen was nice, but a good many of the others, especially that
airport manager, were simply quadruply-distilled vixens. She'd take it
easy at first, but she'd be very sure that she didn't get into any such
jams as last time.

She coasted down through Lyrane's stratosphere and poised high above
the city she remembered so well.

"Helen of Lyrane!" she sent out a sharp, clear thought. "That is not
your name, I know, but we did not learn any other--"

She broke off, every nerve taut. Was that, or was it not, Helen's
thought; cut off, wiped out by a guardian block before it could take
shape?

"Who are you, stranger, and what do you want?" the thought came, almost
instantly, from a person seated at the desk of the Chief Executive of
the planet.

Clarrissa glanced at the sender and thought that she recognized the
face. Her new channels functioned instantaneously; she remembered every
detail.

"Lensman Clarrissa, formerly of Sol III, Unattached. I remember you,
Ladora, although you were only a child when I was here. Do you remember
me?"

"Yes. I repeat, what do you want?" The memory did not decrease Ladora's
hostility.

"I would like to speak to the former Elder Person, if I may."

"You may not. It is no longer with us. Leave at once, or we will shoot
you down."

"Think again, Ladora." Clarrissa held her tone even and calm.
"Surely your memory is not so short that you have forgotten the
_Dauntless_ and its capabilities."

"I remember. You may take up with me whatever it is that you wish to
discuss with my predecessor Elder Person."

"You are familiar with the Boskonian Invasion of years ago. It is
suspected that they are planning new and Galaxy-wide outrages, and that
this planet is in some way involved. I have come here to investigate
the situation."

"We will conduct our own investigations," Ladora declared, curtly. "We
insist that you and all other foreigners stay away from this planet."

"_You_ investigate a Galactic condition?" In spite of herself,
Clarrissa almost let the connotations of that question become
perceptible. "If you give me permission, I will land alone. If you do
not, I shall call the _Dauntless_ and we will land in force. Take
your choice."

"Land alone, then, if you must land," Ladora yielded, seethingly. "Land
at our City Airport."

"Under those guns? No, thanks; I am neither invulnerable nor immortal.
I land where I please."

She landed. During her previous visit she had had a hard enough time
getting any help from these pigheaded matriarchs, but this time she
encountered a nonco-operation so utterly fanatical that it put her
completely at a loss. None of them tried to harm her in any way; but
not one of them would have anything to do with her. Every thought,
even the friendliest, was stopped by a full-coverage block; no
acknowledgment, even, was ever made.

"I can crack those blocks easily enough, if I want to," she declared,
one bad evening, to her mirror, "And if they keep this up very much
longer, by Klono's emerald-filled gizzard, I _will_!"



                                 XIV.


When Kimball Kinnison received his son's call he was in Ultra Prime,
the Patrol's stupendous Klovian base, about to enter his ship. He
stopped for a moment; practically in mid-stride. While nothing was to
be read in his expression or in his eyes, the lieutenant to whom he had
been talking had been an interested, if completely uninformed, witness
to many such Lensed conferences, and knew that they were usually
important. He was, therefore, not surprised when the Lensman turned
around and headed for an exit.

"Put her back, please. I won't be going out for a while, after all,"
Kinnison explained, briefly. "Don't know exactly how long."

A fast flitter took him to the hundred-story pile of stainless steel
and glass which was the Co-ordinator's office. He strode along a
corridor, through an unmarked door.

"Hi, Phyllis--the boss in?"

"Good morning, Chief. Yes, sir ... no, I mean...." His startled
secretary touched a button and a door opened; the door of his private
office.

"Hi, Kim--back so soon?" Vice Co-ordinator Maitland also showed
surprise as he got up from the massive desk and shook hands cordially.
"Good! Taking over?"

"Emphatically no. Hardly started yet. Just dropped in to use your
plate, if you've got a free high-power wave. QX?"

"Certainly. If not, you can free one fast enough."

"Communications." Kinnison touched a stud. "Will you please get me
Thrale? Library One; Principal Librarian Nadine Ernley. Plate-to-plate."

This request was surprising enough to the informed. Since the
Co-ordinator practically never dealt personally with anyone except
Lensmen, and usually Unattached Lensmen at that, it was a rare event
indeed for him to use any ordinary channels of communication. And as
the linkage was completed, subdued murmurs and sundry squeals gave
evidence that intense excitement prevailed at the other end of the line.

"Mrs. Ernley will be on in one moment, sir." The operator's business
was done. Her crisp, clear-cut voice ceased, but the background noise
increased markedly.

"Sh ... sh ... sh! It's the Gray Lensman, himself!" Everywhere upon
Klovia, Tellus, and Thrale, and in many localities of many other
planets, the words "Gray Lensman", without surname, had only one
meaning.

"Not the _Gray Lensman_!"

"It can't be!"

"It _is_, really ... I know him ... I actually _met_ him
once!"

"Let _me_ look ... just a peek!"

"Sh ... sh! He'll _hear_ you!"

"Switch on the vision. If we've got a moment, let's get acquainted,"
Kinnison suggested, and upon his plate there burst into view a bevy of
excitedly embarrassed blondes, brunettes, and redheads. "Hi, Madge!
Sorry that I don't know the rest of you, but I'll make it a point to
get acquainted--before long, I think. Don't go away." The principal
librarian was coming on the run. "You're all in on this. Hi, Nadine!
Long time no see. Remember that bunch of squirrel food you rounded up
for me?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"I remember, sir." What a question! As though Nadine Ernley, nee
Hostetter, could ever forget her share in that famous meeting of
the fifty-three greatest--and least stable--scientific minds of all
Civilization. "I'm sorry that I was out in the stacks when you called."

"QX--we all have to work sometimes, I suppose. What I'm calling about
is that I've got a mighty big job for you and those smart girls of
yours. Something like that other one, only a lot more so. I want all
the information you can dig up about a planet named Kalonia, just as
fast as you can possibly get it. What makes it extra tough is that I
have never even heard of the planet itself and don't know of anyone
who has. There may be a million other names for it, on a million
other planets, but we don't know any of them. Here's all I know." He
summarized; concluding: "If you can get it for me in less than four
point nine five G-P days from now I'll bring you, Nadine, a Manarkan
star-drop; and you can have each of your girls go down to Brenleer's
and pick out a wrist watch or whatever she likes, and I'll have it
engraved to her 'In appreciation, Kimball Kinnison'. This job is
important--my son Kit has bet me ten millos that we can't do it that
fast."

"Ten _millos_!" Four or five of the girls gasped as one.

"Fact," he assured them, gravely. "So whenever you get the dope,
tell Communications ... no, you listen while I tell them myself.
Communications, all along the line, come in!" They came. "I expect one
of these librarians to call me, plate-to-plate, within the next few
days. When she does, no matter what time of the day or night it is, and
no matter what I or anyone else happen to be doing, that call will have
the right-of-way over any other business in the Universe. Cut!" The
plates went dead and in Library One:

"But he was joking, surely!"

"Ten _millos_--one cento--and a star-drop--why, there aren't more
than a dozen of them on all Thrale!"

"Wrist watches--or something--from the Gray Lensman!"

"Be quiet, everybody!" Madge exclaimed. "I see now. That's the
way Nadine got _her_ watch, that she always brags about so
insufferably and that makes everybody's eyes turn green. But I don't
understand that silly ten-millo bet ... do you, Nadine?"

"I think so. He does the nicest things--things that nobody else would
think of. You have seen Red Lensman's Chit, in Brenleer's." This was
a statement, not a question. They all had, with what emotions they
all knew. "How would you like to have that one-cento piece, in a
thousand-credit frame, here in our main hall, with the legend 'won from
Christopher Kinnison for Kimball Kinnison by ...' and our names? He's
got something like that in mind, I'm sure."

The ensuing clamor indicated that they liked the idea.

"He knew we would; and he knew that doing it this way would make us
dig like we never dug before. He'll give us the watches and things
anyway, of course, but we won't get that one-cento piece unless we
win it. So let's get to work. Take everything out of the machines,
finished or not. Madge, you might start by interviewing Lanion and the
other--no, I'd better do that myself, since you are more familiar with
the encyclopedia than I am. Run the whole English block, starting with
K, and follow up any leads, however slight, that you can find. Betty,
you can analyze for synonyms, starting with the Thralian equivalent of
Kalonia and spreading out to the other Boskonian planets. Put half a
dozen techs on it, with transformers. Frances, you can study Prellin
and Bronseca. Joan, Leona, Edna--Jalte, Helmuth, and Crowninshield.
Beth, as our best linguist, you can do us the most good by sensitizing
a tech to the sound of Kalonia in each of all the languages you know
or that the rest of us can find, and running and rerunning all the
transcripts we have of Boskonian meetings. How many of us are left? Not
enough--we'll have to spread ourselves thin on this list of Boskonian
planets."

Thus Principal Librarian Ernley organized a search beside which the
proverbial one of finding a needle in a haystack would have been as
simple as locating a football in a bushel basket. And she and her girls
worked. _How_ they worked! And thus, in four days and three hours,
Kinnison's top-priority person-to-person call came through. Kalonia was
no longer a planet of mystery.

"Fine work, girls! Put it on a tape and I'll pick it up."

He then left Klovia--precipitately. Since Kit was not within rendezvous
distance, he instructed his son--after giving him the high points
of what he had learned--to forward one one-cento piece to Brenleer
of Thrale, personal delivery. He told Brenleer what to do with it
upon arrival. He landed. He bestowed the star-drop; one of Cartiff's
collection of fine gems. He met the girls, and gave each one her
self-chosen reward. He departed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Out in open space, he ran the tape once--Second-Stage Lensmen do not
forget any detail of anything they have ever learned--and sat still,
scowling blackly. It was no wonder that Kalonia had remained unknown
to Civilization for over twenty years. There was a lot of information
on that tape--and all of it stunk--but it had been assembled, one
unimportant bit at a time, from the more than eight hundred million
cards of Thrale's Boskonian Archives; and all of the really significant
items had been found on vocal transcriptions which had never before
been played.

Civilization in general had assumed that Thrale had housed the top
echelons of the Boskonian Empire, and that the continuing inimical
activity had been due solely to momentum. Kinnison and his friends
had had their doubts, but they had not been able to find any iota
of evidence that any higher authority had ever issued any orders to
Thrale. The Gray Lensman now knew, however, that Thrale had never
been the top. Nor was Kalonia. The information on this tape, by its
paucity, its brevity, its incidental and casual nature, made that fact
startlingly clear. Thrale and Kalonia were _equals_. Neither gave
the other any orders--in fact, they had surprisingly little to do
with each other. While Thrale formerly directed the activities of a
half-million or so planets--and Kalonia apparently still did much the
same--their field of action had not overlapped at any point.

His conquest of Thrale, hailed so widely as such a triumph, had got
him precisely nowhere in the solution of the real problem. It might
be possible for him to conquer Kalonia in a similar fashion, but what
would it get him? Nothing. There would be no more leads upward from
Kalonia than there had been from Thrale. How in all of Noshabkeming's
variegated and iridescent hells was he going to work this out?

A complete analysis revealed only one possible method of procedure. In
one of the transcriptions--made twenty-one years ago and unsealed for
the first time by Beth, the librarian-linguist--one of the speakers had
mentioned casually that the new Kalonian Lensmen seemed to be doing a
good job, and a couple of the others had agreed with him. That was all.
It might, however, be enough; since it made it highly probable that
Eddie's Lensman was in fact a Kalonian, and since even a Black Lensman
would certainly know where he got his Lens. At the thought of trying
to visit the Boskonian equivalent of Arisia he flinched, but only
momentarily. Invasion, or even physical approach, would, of course, be
impossible; but any planet, even Arisia itself, could be destroyed. If
it could be found, that planet would be destroyed. He _had_ to
find it--that was probably what Mentor had been wanting him to do all
the time! But how?

In his various previous enterprises against Boskonia he had been a
gentleman of leisure, a dock-walloper, a meteor miner, and many other
things. None of his already established aliases would fit on Kalonia;
and besides, it was very poor technique to repeat himself, especially
at this high level of opposition. To warrant appearance on Kalonia at
all, he would have to be an operator of some kind--not too small, but
not big enough so that an adequate background could not be synthesized
in a hurry. A zwilnik--an actual drug-runner with a really worth-while
cargo--would be the best bet.

His course of action decided, the Gray Lensman started making calls.
He first called Kit, with whom he held a long conversation. He called
the captain of his battleship-yacht, the _Dauntless_, and gave him
many and explicit orders. He called Vice Co-ordinator Maitland, and
various other Unattached Lensmen who had plenty of weight in Narcotics,
Public Relations, Criminal Investigation, Navigation, Homicide, and
many other apparently totally unrelated establishments of the Galactic
Patrol. Finally, after ten solid hours of mind-wracking labor, he ate a
tremendous meal and told Clarrissa--he called her last of all--that he
was going to go to bed and sleep for one whole G-P week.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thus it was that the name of Bradlow Thyron began to obtrude itself
above the threshold of Galactic consciousness. For seven or eight years
that name had been below the middle of the Patrol's long, black list of
the wanted; now it was well up toward the top. That notorious zwilnik
and his villainous crew had been chased from one side of the First
Galaxy to the other. For a few months it had been supposed that they
had been blown out of the ether. Now, however, it was known definitely
that he was operating in the Second Galaxy, and he and every one of his
cutthroat gang--fiends who had blasted thousands of lives with the
noxious wares--were wanted for piracy, drug-mongering, and first-degree
murder. From the Patrol's standpoint, the hunting was very poor. G-P
planetographers have charted only a small percentage of the planets of
the Second Galaxy; and only a few of those are peopled by the adherents
of Civilization.

Therefore it required some time, but finally there came the message for
which Kinnison was so impatiently waiting. A Boskonian pretty-big-shot
drug-master named Harkleroy, on the planet Phlestyn II, city,
Nelto, co-ordinates so-and-so, fitted his specifications to a "T";
a middle-sized operator neither too close to nor too far away from
Kalonia. And Kinnison, having long since learned the lingua franca of
the region from a local meteor miner, was ready to act.

First, he made sure that the mighty _Dauntless_ would be where
he wanted her when he needed her. Then, seated at his speedster's
communicator, he put through regular channels a call to the Boskonian.

"Harkleroy? I've got a proposition you'll be interested in. Where and
when do you want to see me?"

"What makes you think I want to see you at all?" a voice snarled, and
the plate showed a gross, vicious face. "Who are you, scum?"

"Who I am is nobody's business--and if you don't clamp a baffle on that
mouth of yours I'll come down there and shove a glop-skinner's glove so
far down your throat you can sit on it."

At the first defiant word the zwilnik began visibly to swell; but in
a matter of seconds he recognized Bradlow Thyron, and Kinnison knew
that he did. That pirate could, and would be expected to, talk back to
anybody.

"I didn't recognize you at first," Harkleroy almost apologized. "We
might do some business, at that. What have you got?"

"Cocaine, heroin, bentlam, hashish, nitrolabe--most anything a
warm-blooded oxygen-breather would want. The prize package, though, is
two kilograms of clear-quill thionite."

"Thionite--two kilograms!" The Phlestan's eyes gleamed. "Where and how
did you get it?"

"I asked the Lensman on Trenco to make it for me, special, and he did."

"So you won't talk, huh?" Kinnison could see Harkleroy's brain work.
Thyron could be made to talk, later. "We can maybe do business at that.
Come down here right away."

"I'll do that, but listen!" and the Lensman's eyes burned into the
zwilnik's. "I know what you're figuring on, and I'm telling you right
now not to try it if you want to keep on living. You know that this
ain't the first planet I ever landed on, and if you've got a brain you
know that a lot of guys smarter than you are have tried monkey business
on me--and I'm still here. So watch your step!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The Lensman landed, and made his way to Harkleroy's inner office in
what seemed to be an ordinary enough, if somewhat oversize, suit of
light space-armor. But it was no more ordinary than it was light. It
was a powerhouse, built of dureum a quarter of an inch thick. Kinnison
was not walking in it; he was merely the engineer of a battery of
two-thousand-horsepower motors. Unaided, he could not have lifted one
leg of that armor off the ground.

As he had expected, everyone he encountered wore a thought-screen; nor
was he surprised at being halted by a blaring loud-speaker in the hall,
since the zwilnik's search-beams were being stopped four feet away from
his armor.

"Halt! Cut your screens or we'll blast you where you stand!"

"Yeah? Act your age, Harkleroy. I told you I had a lot of stuff up my
sleeve besides my arm, and I meant it. Either I come as I am or I flit
somewhere else, to do business with somebody who wants this stuff bad
enough to act like half a man. 'Smatter--afraid you ain't got blasters
enough in there to handle me?"

This taunt bit deep, and the visitor was allowed to proceed. As he
entered the private office, however, he saw that Harkleroy's hand was
poised near a switch, whose closing would signal a score or more of
concealed gunners to burn him down. They supposed that the stuff was
either on his person or in his speedster just outside. Time was short.

"I abase myself--that's the formula you insist on, ain't it?" Kinnison
sneered, without bending his head a millimeter.

Harkleroy's finger touched the stud.

"_Dauntless!_ Come down!" Kinnison snapped out the order.

Hand, stud, and a part of the desk disappeared in the flare of
Kinnison's beam. Wall-ports opened; projectors and machine rifles
erupted vibratory and solid destruction. Kinnison leaped toward the
desk; the attack slowing down and stopping as he neared and seized the
big shot. One fierce, short blast reduced the thought-screen generator
to blobs of fused metal. Harkleroy screamed to his gunners to resume
fire, but before bullet or beam took the zwilnik's life, Kinnison
learned what he most wanted to know.

The ape did know something about Black Lensmen. He didn't know where
the Lenses came from, but he did know how the men were chosen. More,
he knew a Lensman personally--one Melasnikov, who had his office in
Cadsil, on Kalonia III itself.

Kinnison turned and ran--the alarm had been given and they were
bringing up stuff too heavy for even his armor to handle. But the
_Dauntless_ was landing already; smashing to rubble five city
blocks in the process. She settled; and as the dureum-clad Gray Lensman
began to fight his way out of Harkleroy's fortress, Major Peter
VanBuskirk and a full battalion of Valerians, armed with space-axes and
semiportables, began to hew and to blast their way in.



                                  XV.


Inch by inch, foot by foot, Kinnison fought his way back along the
corpse-littered corridor. Under the ravening force of the attacker's
beams his defensive screens flared into pyrotechnic splendor, but they
did not go down. Fierce-driven metallic slugs spanged and whanged
against the unyielding dureum of his armor, but that, too, held. Dureum
is incredibly massive, unbelievably tough, unimaginably hard--against
these qualities and against the thousands of horsepower driving that
veritable tank and energizing its screens the zwilniks might just
as well have been shining flashlights at him and throwing confetti.
His immediate opponents could not touch him, but the Boskonians
were bringing up reserves that he didn't like a little bit; mobile
projectors with whose energies even his screens could not cope.

He had, however, one great advantage over his enemies. He had the sense
of perception; they did not. He could see them, but they could not see
him. All he had to do was to keep at least one opaque wall between
them until he was securely behind the mobile screens, powered by the
stupendous generators of the _Dauntless_, which VanBuskirk and his
Valerians were so earnestly urging toward him. If a door was handy in
the moment of need, he used it. If not, he went through a wall.

The Valerians were fighting furiously and were coming fast. Those two
words, when applied to members of that race, mean something starkly
incredible to anyone who has never seen Valerians in action. They
average little less than seven feet in height; something over four
hundred pounds in weight; and are muscled, boned, and sinewed against
a normal gravitational force of almost three times that of Earth.
VanBuskirk's weakest warrior could do, in full armor, a standing high
jump of fourteen feet against one Tellurian gravity; he could handle
himself and the thirty-pound monstrosity which was his space-ax with
a blinding speed and a devastating efficiency literally appalling
to contemplate. They are the deadliest hand-to-hand fighters ever
known; and, unbelievable as it may seem to any really highly advanced
intelligence, they did and still do fairly revel in that form of combat.

The Valerian tide reached the battling Gray Lensman--closed around him.

"Hi ... you little ... Tellurian ... wart!" Major Peter VanBuskirk
boomed this friendly thought, a yell of pure joy, in cadence with
the blows of his utterly irresistible weapon. His rhythm broke--his
frightful ax was stuck. Not even dureum-inlaid armor could bar the
inward course of those furiously driven beaks; but sometimes it made
it fairly difficult to get them out. The giant pulled, twisted--put
one red-splashed boot on the battered breastplate--bent his mighty
back--heaved viciously. The weapon came free with a snap that would
have broken any ordinary man's arms, but the Valerian's thought rolled
smoothly on: "Ain't we got fun?"

"Ho, Bus, you big Valerian baboon!" Kinnison thought back in kind.
"Thought maybe we would need you and your gang--thanks for the ride.
But back, now, and fast!"

Although the Valerians did not like to retreat, after even a successful
operation, they knew how to do it. Hence in a matter of minutes all
the survivors--and their losses had been surprisingly small--were back
inside the _Dauntless_.

"You picked up my speedster, Frank." It was a statement, not a
question, directed at the young Lensman standing beside the Chief
Pilot's board.

"Of course, sir. They're massing fast, and without any hostile
demonstration, as you said they would." He nodded unconcernedly at the
plate, which showed the sky dotted with warlike shapes.

"No maulers?"

"None detectable as yet."

"QX. Original orders stand. At detection of one mauler, execute
Operation Able without further instructions. Tell everybody that, while
the announcement of Operation Able will put me out of control instantly
and automatically, until such announcement I will give instructions.
What they will be like I haven't the foggiest notion. It depends on
what His Nibs upstairs decides to do--it's his move next."

       *       *       *       *       *

As though the last phrase were a cue, a burst of noise rattled from the
speaker--of which only the words "Bradlow Thyron" were intelligible
to the un-Lensed members of the crew. That name, however, explained
why they were not being attacked--yet. Kalonia had heard much of that
intransigent and obdurate pirate and of the fabulous prowess of his
ship; and Kinnison was pretty sure that they were much more interested
in his ship than in him.

"I can't understand you!" The Gray Lensman barked, in the polyglot
language he had so lately learned. "Talk pidgin!"

"Very well. I see that you are indeed Bradlow Thyron, as we were
informed. What do you mean by this outrageous attack? Surrender! Disarm
your men, take off their armor, and march them out of your vessel, or
we will blast you as you lie there--Mendonai, vice admiral, speaking!"

"I abase myself." Kinnison-Thyron did not sneer--exactly--and he did
incline his stubborn head perhaps one millimeter; but he made no move
to comply with the orders so summarily issued. Instead:

"What kind of planet is this, anyway?" he demanded, hotly. "I come here
to see this louse Harkleroy because a friend of mine tells me that
he's a big shot and so interested in my line that we can do a lot of
business with each other. I give the lug fair warning, too--tell him
plain that I've been around plenty and that if he tries to give me the
works I'll rub him out like a pencil mark. So what happens? In spite
of what I just tell him he tries dirty work on me, and I go to work
on him--which he certainly has got coming to him. Then you and your
flock of little tin boats come barging in as though I'd busted a law or
something. Who do you think you are, anyway? What license you got to be
butting into a private business deal?"

"Ah, I had not heard that version." Vision came on; the face upon the
plate was typically Kalonian--blue, cold, cruel, and keen. "Harkleroy
was warned, you say? Definitely?"

"I warned him plenty definitely. Ask any of the zwilniks in that
private office of his. Most of them are still alive, and they all must
of heard it."

The plate fogged, the speaker again gave out gibberish. The Lensmen
knew, however, that the commander of the cruisers above them was indeed
questioning the dead zwilnik's guards. They knew that Kinnison's story
was being corroborated in full.

"You interest me." The Boskonian's language again became intelligible
to the group at large. "We will forget Harkleroy--stupidity brings
its own reward and the property damage is of no present concern. From
what I have been able to learn of you, you have never belonged to that
so-called Civilization. I know for a fact that you are not, and never
have been, one of us. How have you been able to survive? And why do
you work alone?"

"'How' is easy enough--by keeping one jump ahead of the other guy,
like I did with your pal here, and by being smart enough to have good
engineers put into my ship everything that any other one ever had and
everything they could dream up besides. As to 'why,' that's simple,
too. I don't trust anybody except myself. If nobody except myself ever
knows what I'm going to do, or when, nobody except myself is ever going
to be able to stick a knife into me when I ain't looking--see? So far,
it's paid off big. I'm still around, and still healthy, while them that
trusted other guys ain't."

"I see. Crude, but graphic. The more I study you, the more convinced I
become that you would be a worth-while addition to our force--"

"No deal, Mendonai," Kinnison interrupted, shaking his unkempt head
positively. "I never yet took orders from no boss, and I ain't going
to, never."

"You misunderstand me, Thyron." The zwilnik was queerly patient and
much too forbearing. Kinnison's insulting omission of his title should
have touched him off like a rocket. "I was not thinking of you in any
minor capacity, but as an ally. An entirely independent ally, working
with us in certain mutually advantageous undertakings."

"Such as?" Kinnison allowed himself to betray his first sign of
interest. "You may be talking sense now, brother, but what's in it for
me? Believe me, there's got to be plenty."

"There will be plenty. With the ability you have already shown, and
with our vast resources back of you, you will take more every week than
you have been taking in a year."

"Yeah? People like you just love to do things like that for people like
me. What do _you_ figure on getting out of it?" Kinnison wondered,
and Lensed a sharp thought to his junior at the board.

"On your toes, Frank. He's stalling for something, and I'm betting it's
maulers."

"None detectable yet, sir."

       *       *       *       *       *

"We stand to gain, of course," the pirate admitted, smoothly. "For
instance, there are certain features of your vessel which might--just
possibly, you will observe, and speaking only to mention an example--be
of some interest to our naval designers. Also, we have heard that you
have an unusually hot battery of primary beams. You might tell me about
some of those things now; or at least refocus your plate so that I can
see something besides your not unattractive face."

"I might not, too. What I've got here is my own business, and stays
mine."

"Is that what we are to expect from you in the way of co-operation?"
The commander's voice was still low and level, but now bore a chill of
deadly menace.

"Co-operation!" The cutthroat chief was unimpressed. "I'll maybe tell
you a thing or two--eat out of your dish--after I get good and sold on
your proposition, whatever it is, but not one second sooner!"

The commander glared. "I weary of this. You probably are not worth the
trouble, after all. I might as well blast you out now as later. You
know that I can, of course, as well as I do."

"Do I?" Kinnison did sneer, this time. "Act your age, pal. As I told
that fool Harkleroy, this ain't the first planet I ever sat down on,
and it won't be the last. And don't call no maulers," as the Boskonian
officer's hand moved almost imperceptibly toward a row of buttons.
"If you do, _I_ start blasting as soon as we spot one on our
plates--and they're full out right now."

"_You_ would start blasting?" The zwilnik's surprise--almost
amazement--was plain, but the hand stopped its motion.

"Yeah--me. Them heaps of scrap metal you got up there don't bother me
a bit, but maulers I can't handle, and I ain't afraid to tell you so
because you probably know it already. I can't stop you from calling
'em, if you want to, but bend both ears to this--I can outrun 'em, and
I'll guarantee that you personally won't be alive to see me run. Why?
Because your ship will be the first one I'll whiff on the way out. And
if the rest of your heaps stick around long enough to try to stop me,
I'll whiff twenty-five or thirty more of them before your maulers can
get close enough so that I'll have to flit. Now, if your brains are
made out of the same kind of thick, blue mud that Harkleroy's was,
start something!"

This was an impasse. Kinnison knew what he wanted the other to do, but
he could not give him a suggestion, or even a hint, without tipping
his hand. The officer, quite evidently, was in a quandary. He did not
want to open fire upon this tremendous, this fabulous ship. Even if he
could destroy it, such a course would be unthinkable--unless, indeed,
the very act of destruction would brand as false rumor the tales of
invincibility and invulnerability which had heralded its coming,
and thus would operate in his favor at the court-martial so sure to
be called. He was very much afraid, however, that those rumors were
not false--a view which was supported very strongly both by Thyron's
undisguised contempt for the Boskonian warships threatening him and
by his equally frank declaration of his intention to avoid engagement
with craft of really superior force. Finally, however, the Boskonian
perceived one thing that did not quite fit.

       *       *       *       *       *

"If you are as good as you claim to be, why aren't you doing a flit
right now?" Mendonai asked, smoothly. "If you could get away, I should
think that you'd be doing it. We've got stuff, you know, that's both
heavy and fast."

"Because I don't _want_ to flit, that's why. Use your head, pal."
This was better. Mendonai had shifted the conversation into a line upon
which the Lensman could do a bit of steering. "I had to leave the
First Galaxy because it got too hot for me, and I got no connections
at all, yet, here in the Second. You folks need certain kinds of stuff
that I've got, and I need other kinds, that you've got. So we could do
a nice business, if you wanted to. That was what I had in mind with
Harkleroy, but he got greedy. I don't mind saying that I'd like to do
business with you, but I just got bit pretty bad, and I'll have to have
some kind of solid guarantee that you mean business, and not monkey
business, before I take a chance again. See?"

"I see. The idea is good, but its execution may prove difficult. I
could give you my word, which I assure you has never been broken."

"Don't make me laugh." Kinnison snorted. "Would you take mine?"

"The case is different. I would not. Your point, however, is well
taken. How about the protection of a high court of law? I will bring
you an unalterable writ from any court you name."

"Uh-huh," the Gray Lensman dissented. "There never was no court yet
that didn't take orders from the big shots who kept the fat cats fat,
and lawyers are the crookedest crooks in the whole Universe. You'll
have to do better than that, pal."

"Well, then, how about a Lensman? You know about Lensmen, don't you?"

"A Lensman!" Kinnison gasped. He shook his head violently. "Are you
completely nuts, or do you think I am? I _do_ know Lensmen--a
Lensman chased me from Alsakan to Vandemar once, and if I hadn't had a
dose of Hell's own luck, he'd have got me. Lensmen chased me out of the
First Galaxy--why else do you think I'm here? Use your brain, mister,
use your brain!"

"You're thinking of Civilization's Lensmen--particularly of Gray
Lensmen." The officer was manifestly enjoying Thyron's passion.
"Ours--the Black Lensmen--are different--entirely different. They have
as much power, or more, but they use it as it should be used. They work
with us right along. In fact, they have been bumping Gray Lensmen off
right and left lately."

"You mean that he could open up, for instance, your mind and mine, so
that we could see that the other guy wasn't figuring on running in no
stacked decks? And that he'd stand by and sort of referee this business
deal we got on the fire? And do you know one yourself--personally?"

"He could, and would, do all that. Yes, I know one personally. His name
is Melasnikov, and his office is on Kalonia III, not an hour's flit
from here. He may not be there at the moment, but he will come in if I
call. How about it--shall I call him now?"

"Don't work up a sweat. Sounds like it might work, if we can figure out
an approach. I don't suppose that you and him would come out to me in
space?"

"Hardly. After the way you have acted, you wouldn't expect us to, would
you?"

"It wouldn't be very bright of you. And since I want to do business,
I guess I got to meet you part way. How would this be? You pull your
ships away, out of range. My ship takes station right above this here
Lensman's office. I go down in my speedster, like I did here, and go
inside to meet him and you. I'll wear my armor--and when I say it's
real armor I ain't just snapping my choppers, neither."

"I can see only one slight flaw." The Boskonian was really trying to
work out a mutually satisfactory solution. "The Lensman will open
our minds to you in proof, however, that we will have no intention
of bringing up our maulers or other heavy stuff while we are in
conference."

"Right then he'll show you that you hadn't better, too." Kinnison
grinned, wolfishly.

"What do you mean?" The officer demanded.

"I mean that I've got enough good big superatomic bombs aboard to
blow the planet apart, and that the boys'll drop 'em all if you start
playing dirty. I've got to take a little chance, of course, to start
doing business, but it's a small one. If you ain't smart enough to know
that what would happen would be mighty poor business, your Lensman will
be--especially when it won't get you any dope on what makes this ship
of mine tick the way she does. And the clincher is that even if you
bring up everything you've got, I never did figure on living forever,
and going out in an atomic blast of that size, together with your
fleet and half your planet and you and your Lensman and seven hundred
million other people, is as good a way as I can think of."

"If the Lensman's examination bears that out, it will constitute an
absolute guarantee," the officer agreed. Hard as he was, he could
not conceal the fact that he had been shaken: "Everything, then, is
satisfactory?"

"On the green. Are you ready to flit?"

"We are ready."

"Call your Lensman, then, and lead the way. Boys, take her upstairs!"



                                 XVI.


Karen Kinnison was worried. She, who had always been so steady, so
sure of herself, had for weeks been conscious of a gradually
increasing ... what was it, anyway? Not exactly a loss of control ...
a _change_ ... a something that manifested itself in increasingly
numerous fits of senseless--sheerly idiotic--stubbornness. And always
and only it was directed at--of all the people in the universe--her
brother. She got along with her sisters perfectly; their tiny tiffs
barely rippled the surface of any of their minds. But any time her path
of action crossed Kit's, it seemed, the profoundest depths of her being
flared into opposition like exploding duodec. Worse than senseless and
idiotic, it was inexplicable, for the feeling which the Five had for
each other was much deeper than that felt by ordinary brothers and
sisters.

She didn't want to fight with Kit. She _liked_ him! She liked to
feel his mind _en rapport_ with hers, just as she liked to dance
with him; their bodies as completely in accord as were their minds. No
change of step or motion, however suddenly conceived and executed or
however bizarre, had ever succeeded in taking the other by surprise
or in marring by a millimeter the effortless precision of their
performance. She could do things with Kit that would tie any other man
into knots and break half of his bones. All other men were lumps. Kit
was so far ahead of any other man in existence that there was simply no
comparison. If she were Kit she would give her a going-over that
would ... or could even he--

At the thought she turned cold inside. He could not. Even Kit, with
all his tremendous power, would hit that solid wall and bounce. Well,
there was one--not a man, but an entity--who could. He might kill
her, but even that would be better than to allow the continued growth
within her mind of this monstrosity which she could neither control nor
understand. Where was she, and where was Lyrane, and where was Arisia?
Good--not too far off line. She would stop off at Arisia en route.

She did so, and made her way to Mentor's quiet office on the hospital
grounds. She told her story.

"Fighting with Kit was bad enough," she concluded, "but when I start
defying _you_, Mentor, it's high time that something was done
about it. Why didn't Kit ever knock me into a spiral? Why didn't you
work me over? You called Kit in, with the distinct implication that he
needed more education--why didn't you pull me in here, too, and pound
some intelligence into me?"

"Concerning you, Christopher had definite instructions, which he
obeyed. I did not touch you for the same reason that I did not ask
you to come to me; neither course would have been of any use. Your
mind, daughter Karen, is unique. One of its prime characteristics--the
one, in fact, which is to make you an all-important player in the
drama which is to come--is a yieldlessness very nearly absolute.
Your mind might, just conceivably, be broken; but it cannot be bent
by any imaginable external force, however applied. Thus it was
inevitable from the first that nothing could be done about the
untoward manifestations of this characteristic until you yourself
should recognize the fact that your development was not complete.
It would be idle for me to say that during adolescence you have not
been more than a trifle trying. I was not speaking idly when I said
that the development of you has been a tremendous task. It is with
equal seriousness, however, that I now tell you that the reward is
commensurate with the magnitude of the undertaking. It is impossible
to express the satisfaction I feel--the fulfillment, the completion,
the justification--as you children come, one by one, each in his proper
time, for final instruction."

"Oh--you mean, then, that there's nothing really the matter with me?"
Hard as Karen was, she trembled as her awful tension eased. "That I was
_supposed_ to act that way? And can I tell Kit, right away?"

"No need. Your brother now knows that it was a passing phase; he
shall know very shortly that it has passed. It is not that you were
'supposed' to act as you acted. You could not help it. Nor could your
brother, nor I. From now on, however, you shall be completely the
mistress of your own mind. Come fully, daughter Karen, into mine."

She did so, and in a matter of time her "formal education" was complete.

       *       *       *       *       *

"There is one thing that I don't quite understand--" she began, before
she boarded her speedster.

"Consider it, and I am sure that you will," Mentor assured her.
"Explain it, whatever it is, to me."

"QX--I'll try. It's about Fossten and Dad." Karen cogitated. "Fossten
was, of course, an Eddorian--your making Dad believe him to be an
insane Arisian was a masterpiece. I see, of course, how you did
that--principally by making Fossten's 'real' shape exactly like the one
he saw of you in Arisia. But his physical actions as Fossten--"

"Go on, daughter. I am sure that your visualization will be sound."

"While acting as Fossten he had to act as a Thralian would have acted,"
Kay decided with a rush. "He was watched everywhere he went, and knew
it. To display his real power would have been disastrous. Just like
you Arisians, they have to keep in the background to avoid setting up
an inferiority complex that will ruin everything for them. Fossten's
actions, then, were constrained. Just as they were when he was Gray
Roger, so long ago--except that then he did make a point of unhuman
longevity, deliberately to put an insoluble problem up to First-Lensman
Samms and his men. Just as you--you _must_ have ... you _did_
coach Virgil Samms, Mentor, and some of you Arisians were there, as
men!"

"We were. We wrought briefly as men, and died as men. Up to the present
moment, no one has ever been the wiser."

"But you weren't Virgil Samms, please!" Kay almost begged. "Not that
it would break me if you were, but even I would much rather you hadn't
been."

"No, none of us was Samms," Mentor assured her. "Nor Cleveland,
nor Rodebush, nor Costigan, nor even Clio Marsden. We worked
with--'coached,' as you express it--those persons and others from time
to time in certain small matters, but we were at no time integral
with any of them. One of us was, however, Dr. Bergenholm. The full
inertialess space-drive became necessary at that time, and it would
have been poor technique to have had either Rodebush or Cleveland
develop so suddenly the ability to perfect the device as Bergenholm did
perfect it."

"QX. Bergenholm isn't important--he was just an inventor. To get back
onto the subject of Fossten: When he was there on the flagship with
Dad, and in position to throw his full weight around, it was too
late--you Arisians were on the job. You'll have to take it from there,
though; I'm out beyond my depth."

"Because you lack data. Know, then, daughter, that the planet Eddore
is screened as heavily as is our own Arisia; by screens which can
be extended at will to any desired point in space. In those last
minutes the Eddorian knew that Kimball Kinnison was neither alone nor
unprotected. He called instantaneously for help, but help did not
come. It could not. Eddore's screens were being attacked at every
point by every force generable by the massed intellect of Arisia; they
were compressed almost to the planet's surface. If the Eddorians had
weakened those screens sufficiently to have sent through them a helping
thought, every one of them would in that instant have perished. Nor
could Fossten escape from the form of flesh he was then energizing. I
myself saw to that." Karen had never before felt the Arisian display
emotion, but his thought was grim and cold. "From that form, which your
father never did perceive, he passed into the next plane of existence."

Karen shivered. "It served him right. That clears everything up, I
think. But are you _sure_, Mentor, that you can't--or rather,
shouldn't--teach me any more than you have? It's just about time for
me to go, and I feel ... well, 'incompetent' is putting it very mildly
indeed."

[Illustration: MENTOR]

"To a mind of such power and scope as yours, in its present state
of development, such a feeling is inevitable. Nor can anyone except
yourself do anything about it. Cold comfort, perhaps, but it is the
stark truth that from now on your development is your own task. Yours
alone. As I have already told Christopher and Kathryn, and will very
shortly tell Camilla and Constance, you have had your last Arisian
treatment. I will be on call to any of you at any instant of any day,
to aid you or to guide you or to reinforce you at need; but of formal
instruction there can be no more."

Karen left Arisia and drove for Lyrane, her thoughts in a turmoil. The
time was too short by far; she deliberately cut her vessel's speed and
took a long detour so that the vast and chaotic library of her mind
could be reduced to some semblance of order before she landed.

She reached Lyrane II, and there, again to all outward seeming a happy,
carefree girl, she hugged her mother rapturously. Nor was this part of
it acting in any sense--as has been said, those four girls loved each
other and their mother and their father and their brother with a depth
and fervor impossible to portray intelligibly in words.

"You're the most _wonderful_ thing, Mums!" Karen exclaimed. "It's
simply marvelous, seeing you again in the flesh."

"Now why bring _that_ up?" Clarrissa had--just barely--become
accustomed to working undraped, in the Lyranian fashion.

"I didn't mean it that way at all, and you know I didn't." Kay
snickered. "Shame on you--fishing for compliments, and at your age,
too!" Ignoring the older woman's attempt at protest she went on: "All
kidding aside, Mums, you're a mighty smart-looking hunk of woman. I
approve of you exceedingly much. In fact, we're a keen pair, and I
like both of us. I've got one advantage over you, of course, in that I
never did care a particle whether I ever had a stitch of clothes on or
not, anywhere, and you still do, a little. But what I was going to ask,
though, was how are you doing?"

"Not so well--of course, though, I haven't been here very long."
Clarrissa, forgetting her undressedness, frowned. "I haven't found
Helen, and I haven't found out yet why she retired. I can't quite
decide whether to put pressure on now, or wait a while longer. Ladora,
the new Elder Person, is ... that is, I don't know--Oh, here she comes
now. I'm glad--I want you to meet her."

If Ladora was glad to meet Karen, however, she did not show it.
Instead, for an inappreciable instant of time which was nevertheless
sufficient for the acquirement of full information, each studied
the other. Like Helen--the former Queen of the matriarchy of Lyrane
II--Ladora was tall, beautifully proportioned, flawless of skin and
feature, hard and fine. But so, and in most respects even more so, to
Ladora's astonishment and quickly-mounting wrath, was this pink-tanned
stranger. Practically instantaneously, therefore, she hurled a vicious
mental bolt--only to get the surprise of her life. She had not yet
crossed wills in a serious enough way with this strange person,
Clarrissa, to find out what she had in the way of equipment, but it
certainly couldn't be much. She had never tried to do her harm, nor
ever seemed to resent her studied and arrogant aloofness; and therefore
her daughter, younger and less experienced, of course, would be easy
enough prey.

But Ladora's bolt, the heaviest she could send, did not pierce even
the outermost fringes of her intended victim's defenses, and so
vicious was the almost simultaneous counterthrust that it went through
the Lyranian's hard-held block in nothing flat. Inside her brain,
it wrought such hellishly poignant punishment that the matriarch,
forgetting everything, tried only and madly to scream. She could not.
She could not move a muscle of her face or of her body. She could not
even fall. And the one brief glimpse she had into the stranger's mind
showed it to be such a blaze of incandescent fury that she, who had
never feared in the slightest any living creature, knew now in full
measure what fear was.

"I'd like to give that alleged brain of yours a real massage, just for
fun." Karen forced her emotion to subside to a mere seething rage, and
Ladora watched her do it. "But since this whole stinking planet is my
mother's dish, not mine, she'd blast me to a cinder--she's done it
before--if I dip in." She cooled further--visibly. "At that, I don't
suppose you're too bad an egg, in your own poisonous way--you just
don't know any better. So maybe I'd better warn you, you poor fool,
since you haven't got sense enough to see it, that you're playing with
a live fuse when you push my mother around like you've been doing.
About one more millimeter of it and she'll get mad--like I did a second
ago except more so--and you'll wish to Klono you had never been born.
She'll never make a sign until she blows up, but I'm telling you that
she's as much harder and tougher than I am as she is older, and what
she always does to people who cross her I wouldn't want to watch
happen again, even to a snake. Want to know what she'll do to you
first? She'll pick you up, curl you into a perfect circle, pull off
your arms, shove both your legs down your throat to the knees, and roll
you down that chute there into the ocean. After that I don't know what
she'll do--depends on how much pressure she develops before she blows
up. One thing, though, she's always sorry afterward--why, she even
attends the funeral, sometimes, and insists on paying the expenses!"

With which outrageous thought she kissed Clarrissa an enthusiastic
good-by. "Told you I couldn't stay a minute. Got to do a flit--'see a
man about a dog.' Came a million parsecs to squeeze you, Mums, but it
was worth it. Clear ether!"

She was gone; and it was a dewy-eyed and rapt mother, not a Lensman,
who turned to the still completely disorganized Lyranian. Clarrissa
had perceived nothing whatever of what had happened--Karen had very
carefully seen to that.

       *       *       *       *       *

"My daughter," Clarrissa mused, as much to herself as to Ladora. "One
of four. The four dearest, finest, sweetest girls that ever lived.
I often wonder how a woman of my limitations, of my faults, could
possibly have borne such children."

And Ladora of Lyrane, humorless and literal as all Lyranians are,
took those thoughts at their face value and correlated their every
connotation and implication with what she herself had perceived in that
"dear, sweet" daughter's mind; with what that daughter had done and
had said. The nature and quality of this hellish person's "limitations"
and "faults" became eminently clear, and as she perceived what she
thought was the truth, the Lyranian literally cringed.

"As you know, I have been in doubt as to whether or not to support you
actively, as you wish," Ladora offered, as the two walked together
across the field, toward the line of ground-cars. "On the one hand,
the certainty that the safety, and perhaps the very existence, of my
race will be at hazard; on the other the possibility that you are right
in saying that the situation will continue to deteriorate if we do
nothing. The decision has not been an easy one to make." Ladora was no
longer aloof. She was just plain scared. She had been talking against
time, and hoping that the help for which she had long since called
would arrive in time. "I have touched only the outer surfaces of your
mind. Will you allow me, without offense, to test its inner quality
before deciding definitely?" she asked, and in the instant of asking
sent out an exploratory tentacle of thought which was in actuality a
full-driven probe.

"I will not." Ladora's beam struck a barrier which seemed to her
exactly like the daughter's. None of her race had developed anything
like it. She had never seen ... yes, she had, too--years ago, when she
was a child, that time in the assembly hall--that utterly hated male,
Kinnison of Tellus! This visitor, then, was not a real person at
all, but a _female_--Kinnison's female--the Red Lensman, of whom
even Lyrane had heard--and that pers ... that _thing_ was their
offspring! But behind that impenetrable block there might very well
be--there probably was--exactly the kind of mind that the offspring had
described. A creature who was physically a person, but mentally that
inconceivable monstrosity, a _female_, might be anything and might
do anything. Ladora temporized.

"Excuse me; I did not mean to intrude against your will," she
apologized, smoothly enough. "Since your attitude makes it extremely
difficult for me to co-operate with you, I can make no promises as yet.
What is it that you wish to know first?"

"I wish to interview your predecessor Elder Person, the one we called
Helen." Strangely refreshed, in a sense galvanized by the brief
personal visit with her dynamic daughter, it was no longer Mrs. Kimball
Kinnison who faced the Lyranian Queen. Instead, it was the Red Lensman;
a full-powered Second-Stage Lensman who had finally decided that,
since appeals to reason, logic, and common sense had no perceptible
effect upon this stiff-necked near-woman, the time had come to bear
down. "Furthermore, I intend to interview her now, and not at some such
indefinite future time as your whim may see fit to allow."

       *       *       *       *       *

Ladora sent out a final desperate call for help and mustered her every
force against the interloper. Fast and strong as her mind was, however,
the Red Lensman's was faster and stronger. The Lyranian's defensive
structure was wrecked in the instant of its building, the frantically
struggling mind was taken over _in toto_. Help arrived--uselessly;
since, although Clarrissa's newly enlarged mind had not been put to
warlike use, it was brilliantly keen and ultimately sure. Nor, in times
of stress, did the softer side of her nature operate to stay mind or
hand. While carrying Lensman's Load she contained no more of ruth for
Civilization's foes than did abysmally frigid Nadreck himself.

Head thrown back, taut and tense, gold-flecked tawny eyes flashing,
she stood there for a moment and took on her shield everything that
those belligerent persons could send. More, she returned it in kind,
plus; and under those withering blasts of force more than one of her
attackers ceased to live. Then, still holding her block, she and her
unwilling captive raced across the field toward the line of peculiar
little fabric-and-wire machines which were still the last word in
Lyranian air transport.

Clarrissa knew that the Lyranians had no modern offensive or defensive
weapons. They did, however, have some fairly good artillery at that
airport; and she hoped fervently as she ran that she could put out jets
enough to spoil the aim and fusing--luckily, they hadn't developed
proximity fuses yet!--of what ack-ack they could bring to bear on her
crate during the few minutes she would have to use it. Fortunately,
there was no artillery at the small, unimportant airport on which her
speedster lay.

"Here we are. We'll take this tripe--it's the fastest thing here!"

Clarrissa could operate the triplane, of course--any knowledge or
ability that Ladora had ever had was now and permanently the Lensman's.
She started the queer engines; and as the powerful little plane
screamed into the air, hanging from its props, she devoted what of her
mind she could spare to the problem of antiaircraft fire. She could
not handle all the guncrews; but she could and did command the most
important members of most of them. Thus, nearly all of the shells
either went wide or exploded too soon. Since she knew every point of
aim of the few guns with whose operations she could not interfere, she
avoided their missiles by not being at any one of those points at the
predetermined instant of functioning.

Thus plane and passengers escaped unscathed and in a matter of minutes
arrived at their destination. The Lyranians there had been alerted,
of course; but they were few in number and they had not been informed
that it would take physical force, not mental, to keep that red-headed
pseudoperson from boarding her outlandish ship of space.

       *       *       *       *       *

In a few more minutes, then, Clarrissa and her captive, safe in the
speedster, were high in the stratosphere. Clarrissa sat Ladora
down--hard--in a seat and fastened the safety straps.

"Stay in that seat and keep your thoughts to yourself," she directed,
curtly. "If you don't, you'll never again either move or think in this
life." She opened a sliding door, put on a couple of wisps of Manarkan
glamourette, reached for a dress, and paused. Eyes glowing, she gazed
hungrily at a suit of plain gray leather; a costume which she had not
as yet so much as tried on. Should she wear it, or not?

She could work efficiently--at service maximum, really--in ordinary
clothes. Ditto, although she didn't like to, unclothed. In Gray,
though, she could hit absolute max if she had to. Nor had there ever
been any question of right involved; the only barrier had been her own
hypersensitivity.

For over twenty years she herself had been the only one to deny her
right. What license, she was wont to ask, did an imitation or synthetic
or amateur or "Red" Lensman have to wear the garb which meant so much
to so many? Over those years, however, it had become increasingly
widely known that hers was one of the five finest and most powerful
minds in the entire Gray Legion; and when Co-ordinator Kinnison
recalled her to active duty in Unattached status, that Legion passed by
unanimous vote a resolution asking her to join them in Gray. Psychics
all, they knew that nothing less would suffice; that if there was any
trace of resentment or of antagonism or of feeling that she did not
intrinsically belong, she would never don the uniform which every
adherent of Civilization so revered and for which, deep down, she had
always so intensely longed. The Legion had sent her these Grays. Kit
had convinced her that she did actually deserve them.

She really should wear them. She would.

She put them on, thrilling to the core as she did so, and made the
quick little gesture she had seen Kim make so many times. Lensman's
Seal. No one, however accustomed, has ever donned or ever will don
unmoved the plain gray leather of the Unattached Lensman of the
Galactic Patrol.

Hands on hips, she studied herself minutely and approvingly, both
in the mirror and by means of her vastly more efficient sense of
perception. She wriggled a little, and giggled inwardly as she
remembered deploring as "exhibitionistic" this same conduct in her
oldest daughter.

The Grays fitted her perfectly. A bit revealing, perhaps, but her
figure was still good--very good, as a matter of fact. Not a speck of
dirt or tarnish. Her DeLameters were fully charged. Her tremendous Lens
flamed brilliantly upon her wrist. She looked--and felt--ready. She
could hit absolute max in a fraction of a microsecond. If she had to
get really tough, she would. She sent out a call.

"Helen of Lyrane! I know they've got you around here somewhere, and,
if any of your guards try to screen out _this_ thought, I'll burn
their brains out. Clarrissa of Sol III calling. Come in, Helen!"

"Clarrissa!" This time there was no interference. A world of welcome
was in every nuance of the thought. "Where are you?"

"High up, at--" Clarrissa gave her position. "I'm in my speedster, so
can get to anywhere on the planet in minutes. More important, where are
you? And why?"

"In jail, in my own--the Elder Person's--office." Queens should
have palaces, but Lyrane's ruler did not. Everything was strictly
utilitarian. "The tower on the corner, remember? On the top floor.
'Why' is too long to discuss now--I'd better tell you as much as
possible of what you should know, while there is time."

"Time? Are you in danger?"

"Yes. Ladora would have killed me long ago if it had dared. My
following grows less daily, the Boskonians stronger. The guards have
already summoned help. They are coming now, to take me."

"That's what _they_ think!" Clarrissa had already reached the
scene. She had exactly the velocity she wanted. She slanted downward
in a screaming dive. "Can you tell whether they're limbering up any of
that ack-ack around the office, or not?"

"I don't believe so--I don't feel any such thoughts."

"QX. Get away from the window." If they hadn't started already, they
never would start, the Red Lensman was deadly sure of that.

       *       *       *       *       *

She came within range--her range--of the guns. She was in time.
Several gunners were running toward their stations. None of them
arrived. The speedster leveled off and stuck its hard nose into and
almost through the indicated room; reinforced concrete, steel bars, and
glass showering abroad as it did so. The port snapped open. As Helen
leaped in, Clarrissa practically threw Ladora out.

"Bring Ladora back!" Helen demanded. "I shall have its life!"

"Nix!" Clarrissa snapped. "I know everything that she does. We've other
fish to fry, my dear."

The massive door clanged shut. The speedster darted forward, straight
through the solid concrete wall. That small vessel, solidly built of
beryllium alloys, had been designed to take brutal punishment. She took
it.

Out in open space, Clarrissa went free, leaving the artificial gravity
at normal. Helen stood up, took Clarrissa's hand, and shook it gravely
and strongly; a gesture at which the Red Lensman almost choked.

Helen of Lyrane had changed even less than had the Earthwoman. She was
still six feet tall; erect, taut, springy, and poised. She didn't weigh
a pound more than the one-eighty she had scaled twenty-odd years ago.
Her vivid auburn hair showed not one strand of gray. Her eyes were as
clear and as proud; her skin almost as fine and firm.

"You are, then, alone?" In spite of her control, Helen's thought showed
relief.

"Yes. My hus ... Kimball Kinnison is very busy elsewhere." Clarrissa
understood perfectly. Helen, after twenty years of thinking things
over, really liked her; but she still simply couldn't stand a male,
not even Kim; any more than Clarrissa could ever adapt herself to the
Lyranian habit of using the neuter pronoun "it" when referring to
one of themselves. She couldn't. Anybody who ever got a glimpse of
Helen would have to think of her as "_she_"! But enough of this
wool-gathering--which had taken perhaps one millisecond of time.

"There's nothing to keep us from working together perfectly,"
Clarrissa's thought flashed on. "Ladora didn't know much, and you do.
So tell me all about things, so that we can decide where to begin!"



                                 XVII.


When Kandron called his minion in that small and nameless base to learn
whether or not he had succeeded in trapping the Palainian Lensman,
Nadreck's relay station functioned so perfectly, and Nadreck was so
completely in charge of his captive's mind, that the caller could feel
nothing out of the ordinary. Ultra-suspicious though Kandron was, there
was nothing whatever to indicate that anything had changed at, or
pertaining to, that base since he had last called its commander. That
individual's subconscious mind reacted properly to the key stimulus.
The conscious mind took over, remembered, and answered properly a
series of trick questions.

These things occurred because the Base Commander was still alive. His
ego, the pattern and matrix of his personality, was still in existence
and had not been changed. What Kandron did not and could not suspect
was that that ego was no longer in control of the commander's mind,
brain, or body; that it was utterly unable of its own volition, either
to think any iota of independent thought or to stimulate any single
physical cell. The Onlonian's ego was present--just barely present--but
that was all. It was Nadreck who, using that ego as a guide and, in a
sense, as a helplessly impotent transformer, received the call. Nadreck
made those exactly correct replies. Nadreck was now ready to render a
detailed and fully documented--and completely mendacious--report upon
his own destruction!

Nadreck's special tracers were already out, determining line and
intensity. Strippers and analyzers were busily at work on the fringes
of the beam, dissecting out, isolating, and identifying each of the
many scraps of extraneous thought accompanying the main beam. These
side-thoughts, in fact, were Nadreck's prime concern. The Second-Stage
Lensmen had learned that no being--except possibly an Arisian--could
narrow a beam of thought down to one single, pure sequence. Only
Nadreck, however, recognized in those side-bands a rich field; only he
had designed and developed mechanisms with which to work that field.

The stronger and clearer the mind, the fewer and less complete were
the extraneous fragments of thought; but Nadreck knew that even
Kandron's brain would carry quite a few such nongermane accompaniments,
and from each of those bits he could reconstruct an entire sequence as
accurately as a competent paleontologist reconstructs a prehistoric
animal from one fossilized piece of bone.

Thus Nadreck was completely ready when the harshly domineering Kandron
asked his first real question.

"I do not suppose that you have succeeded in killing the Lensman?"

"Yes, Your Supremacy, I have." Nadreck could feel Kandron's start of
surprise; could perceive without his instruments Kandron's fleeting
thoughts of the hundreds of unsuccessful previous attempts upon his
life. It was clear that the Onlonian was not at all credulous.

"Report in detail!" Kandron ordered.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nadreck did so, adhering rigidly to the truth up to the moment in which
his probes of force had touched off the Boskonian alarms. Then:

"Spy-ray photographs taken at the instant of alarm show an indetectable
speedster, with one, and only one occupant, as Your Supremacy
anticipated. A careful study of all the pictures taken of that
occupant shows: first, that he was definitely alive at that time, and
was neither a projection nor an artificial mechanism; and second,
that his physical measurements agree in every particular with the
specifications furnished by Your Supremacy as being those of Nadreck of
Palain VII.

"Since Your Supremacy personally computed and supervised the placement
of those projectors," Nadreck went smoothly on, "you know that the
possibility is vanishingly small that any material thing, free or
inert, could have escaped destruction. As a check, I caused to be
taken seven hundred twenty-nine--three to the sixth power--samples
of the circumambient space, statistically at random, for analysis.
After appropriate allowances for the exactly-observed elapsed times of
sampling, diffusion of droplets and molecular and atomic aggregates,
temperatures, pressures, and all other factors known or assumed to be
operating, I determined that there had been present in the center of
action of our beams a mass of approximately four thousand six hundred
seventy-eight point one metric tons. This value, Your Supremacy
will note, is in close agreement with the most efficient mass of an
indetectable speedster designed for long-distance work."

That figure was in fact closer than close. It was an almost exact
statement of the actual mass of Nadreck's ship.

"Exact composition?" Kandron demanded.

Nadreck recited a rapid-fire string of elements and figures. They, too,
were correct within the experimental error of a very good analyst. The
Base Commander could not possibly have known them; but it was well
within the bounds of possibility that the insidious Kandron would. He
did. He was now practically certain that his ablest and bitterest enemy
had been destroyed at last, but there were still a few lingering shreds
of doubt.

"Let me look over your work," Kandron directed.

"Yes, Your Supremacy." Nadreck the Thorough was ready for even that
extreme test. Through the eyes of the ultimately enslaved Base
Commander Kandron checked and rechecked Nadreck's pictures, Nadreck's
charts and diagrams, Nadreck's more than four hundred pages of
mathematical, physical, and chemical notes and determinations; all
without finding a single flaw.

In the end Kandron was ready to believe that Nadreck had in fact
ceased to exist. However, he himself had not done the work. There
was no corpse. If he himself had killed the Palainian, if he himself
had actually felt the Lensman's life depart in the grasp of his own
tentacles, then, and only then, would he have _known_ that Nadreck
was dead. As it was, even though the work had been done in exact
accordance with his own instructions, there remained an infinitesimal
uncertainty. Wherefore:

"Shift your field of operations to cover X-174, Y-240, Z-16. Do not
relax your vigilance in the slightest because of what has happened." He
considered briefly the idea of allowing his minion to call him, in case
anything happened, but decided against it. "Are the men standing up?"

"Yes, Your Supremacy, they are in very good shape indeed."

And so on. "Yes, Your Supremacy, the psychologist is doing a very fine
job. Yes, Your Supremacy ... yes ... yes ... yes--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Very shortly after the characteristically Kandronesque ending of that
interview, Nadreck had learned everything he needed to know. He knew
where Kandron was and what he was doing. He knew much of what Kandron
had done during the preceding twenty years; and, since he himself
figured prominently in many of those sequences, they constituted
invaluable checks upon the validity of his other reconstructions.
He knew the construction, the armament, and the various ingenious
mechanisms, including the locks, of Kandron's vessel; he knew more than
any other outsider had ever known of Kandron's private life. He knew
where Kandron was going next, and what he was going to do there. He
knew in broad what Kandron intended to do during the coming century.

Thus well informed, Nadreck set his speedster into a course toward
the planet of Civilization which was Kandron's next objective. He did
not hurry; it was no part of his plan to interfere in any way in the
horrible program of planet-wide madness and slaughter which Kandron
had in mind. It simply did not occur to him to try to save the planet
as well as to kill the Onlonian; Nadreck, being Nadreck, took without
doubt or question the safest and surest course.

Nadreck knew that Kandron would set his vessel into an orbit around the
planet, and that he would take a small boat--a flitter--for the one
personal visit necessary to establish his lines of communication and
control. Vessel and flitter would be alike indetectable, of course;
but Nadreck found the one easily enough and knew when the other left
its mother-ship. Then, using his lightest, stealthiest spy rays, the
Palainian set about the exceedingly delicate business of boarding the
Boskonian craft.

That undertaking could be made a story in its own right, for Kandron
did not leave his ship unguarded. However, merely by thinking about
his own safety, Kandron had all unwittingly given away the keys to
his supposedly impregnable fortress. While Kandron was wondering
whether or not the Lensman was really dead, and especially after he
had been convinced that he most probably was, the Onlonian's thoughts
had touched fleetingly upon a multitude of closely-related subjects.
Would it be safe to abandon some of the more onerous precautions
he had always taken, and which had served him so well for so many
years? And as he thought of them, each one of his safeguards flashed
at least partially into view; and for Nadreck, any significant part
was practically as good as the whole. Kandron's protective devices,
therefore, did not protect. Projectors, designed to flame out against
intruders, remained cold. Ports opened; and as Nadreck touched sundry
buttons, various invisible beams, whose breaking would have produced
unpleasant results, ceased to exist. In short, Nadreck knew all the
answers. If he had not been coldly certain that his information was
complete, he would not have acted at all.

After entry, his first care was to send out spotting devices
which would give ample warning in case the Onlonian should return
unexpectedly soon. Then, working in the service-spaces behind
instrument boards and panels, in junction boxes, and in various other
out-of-the-way places, he cut into lead after lead, ran wire after
wire, and installed item after item of apparatus and equipment upon
which he had been at work for weeks. He finished his work undisturbed.
He checked and rechecked the circuits, making absolutely certain that
every major one of the vessel's controlling leads ran to or through
at least one of the things he had just installed. With painstaking
nicety he obliterated every visible sign of his visit. He departed as
carefully as he had come; restoring to full efficiency as he went each
one of Kandron's burglar alarms.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kandron returned, entered his ship as usual, stored his flitter, and
extended a tentacular member toward the row of switches on his panel.

"Don't touch anything, Kandron," he was advised by a thought as cold
and as deadly as any one of his own; and upon the Onlonian equivalent
of a visiplate there appeared the one likeness which he least expected
and least desired to perceive.

"Nadreck of Palain VII--Star A Star--THE Lensman!" The Onlonian was
physically and emotionally incapable of gasping, but the idea is
appropriate. "You have, then, wired and mined this ship."

There was a subdued clicking of relays. The Bergenholm came up to
speed, the speedster spun about and darted straight away from the
planet under a couple of kilodynes of drive.

"I am Nadreck of Palain VII, yes. One of the group of Lensmen whose
collective activities you have ascribed to Star A Star and _the_
Lensman. Your ship is, as you have deduced, mined. The only reason you
did not die as you entered it is that I wish to be absolutely certain;
and not merely statistically so, that it is actually Kandron of Onlo,
and not someone else, who dies."

"That unutterable fool!" Kandron quivered in helpless rage. "Oh, that I
had taken the time and killed you myself!"

"If you had done your own work, the techniques I used here could not
have been employed, and you might have been in no danger at the present
moment," Nadreck admitted, equably enough. "My powers are small, my
intellect feeble, and what might have been has no present bearing. I am
inclined, however, to question the validity of your conclusions, due
to the known fact that you have been directing a campaign against me
for over twenty years without success; whereas I have succeeded against
you in less than half a year. My analysis is now complete. You may now
touch any control you please. By the way, you do not deny that you are
Kandron of Onlo, do you?"

Neither of those monstrous beings asked, suggested, or even thought of
mercy. In neither of their languages was there any word for or concept
of such a thing.

"That would be idle. You have a record of my life pattern, of course,
just as I have one of yours. But I cannot understand how you got
through that--"

"It is not necessary that you should. Do you wish to close one of those
switches or shall I?"

Kandron had been thinking for minutes, studying every aspect of his
predicament. Knowing Nadreck, he knew just how desperate the situation
was. However, there was one very small chance--just one. The way he
had come was clear. He knew that that was the _only_ clear way.
Wherefore, to gain an extra instant of time, he reached out toward
a switch; but even while he was reaching he put every ounce of his
tremendous strength into a leap which hurled him across the room toward
his flitter.

No luck. One of Nadreck's minor tentacles was already curled around
a switch, tensed and ready. Kandron had not moved a foot when a
relay snapped shut and four canisters of duodec detonated as one.
Duodecaplylatomate, that frightful detonant whose violence is exceeded
only by that of nuclear disintegration itself!

There was an appalling flash of viciously white light, which expanded
in microseconds into an enormous globe of incandescent gas. Cooling and
darkening as it expanded rapidly into the near-vacuum of interplanetary
space, the gases and vapors soon became invisible. Through and
throughout the entire volume of volatilization Nadreck drove analyzers
and detectors, until it was a mathematical certainty that no particle
of material substance larger in diameter than five microns remained of
either Kandron or his spaceship. He then called the Gray Lensman.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Kinnison. Nadreck of Palain VII calling, to report that my assignment
has been completed. I have destroyed Kandron of Onlo."

"Good! Fine business, ace! What kind of a picture did you get? He must
have known something about the higher echelons--or did he? Was he just
another dead end?"

"I did not go into that."

"Huh? Why not?" Kinnison demanded, exasperation in every line of his
thought.

"Because it was not included in the project," Nadreck explained,
patiently. "You already know that one must concentrate in order to
work efficiently. To secure the requisite minimum of information it
was necessary to steer his thoughts into one, and only one, set of
channels. There were some foreign side-bands, of course, and it may be
that some of them touched upon this new subject which you have now, too
late, introduced ... no, there were no such."

"Damnation!" Kinnison exploded; then by main strength shut himself
up. "QX, ace; skip it. But listen, my spiny and murderous friend. Get
this--engrave it in big type right on the top-side inside of your thick
skull--what we want is INFORMATION, not mere liquidation. Next time
you get hold of such a big shot as Kandron must have been, don't kill
him until either: first, you get some leads as to who or what the real
head of the outfit is; or, second, you make sure that he doesn't know.
Then kill him all you want to, but FIND OUT WHAT HE KNOWS FIRST. Have I
made myself clear this time?"

"You have, and as Co-ordinator your instructions should and will
govern. I point out, however, that the introduction of a multiplicity
of objectives into a problem not only destroys its unity, but also
increases markedly both the time necessary for, and the actual personal
danger involved in, its solution."

"So what?" Kinnison countered, as evenly as he could. "That way, we may
be able to get the answer some day. Your way, we never will. But the
thing's done--there's no use yapping and yowling about it now. Have you
any ideas as to what you should do next?"

"No. Whatever you wish, that I shall try to do."

"I'll check with the others." He did so, receiving no helpful ideas
until he consulted his wife.

"Hi, Kim, my dear!" came Clarrissa's buoyant thought; and, after a
brief but intense greeting: "Glad you called. Nothing definite enough
yet to report to you officially, but there are indications that Lyrane
IX may be an important--"

"Nine?" Kinnison interrupted. "Not Eight again?"

"Nine," she confirmed. "A new item. So I may be doing a flit over
there one of these days."

"Uh-uh," he denied. "Lyrane IX would be none of your business. Stay
away from it."

"Says who?" she demanded. "We went into this once before, Kim, about
you telling me what I could and couldn't do."

"Yeah, and I came out second best." Kinnison grinned. "But now, as the
Co-ordinator, I make suggestions to even Second-Stage Lensmen, and
they follow them--or else. I, therefore, suggest officially that you
stay away from Lyrane IX on the grounds that since it is colder than a
Palainian's heart, it is definitely not your problem, but Nadreck's.
And personally, I am adding that if you don't behave yourself I'll come
over there and administer appropriate physical persuasion."

"Come on over--that would be fun!" Clarrissa giggled, then sobered
quickly. "But seriously, you win, I guess--this time. You'll keep me
informed?"

"I'll do that. Clear ether, Chris!" and he turned back to the Palainian.

"... so you see this is your problem. Go to it, little chum."

"I go, Kinnison."



                                XVIII.


For hours Camilla Kinnison and Tregonsee wrestled separately and
fruitlessly with the problem of the elusive "X." Then, after she had
studied the Rigellian's mind in a fashion which he could neither
detect nor employ, Camilla broke the mental silence.

"Uncle Trig, my conclusions frighten me. Can you conceive of the
possibility that it was contact with _my_ mind, not yours, that
made 'X' run away?"

"That is the only tenable conclusion. I know the limitations of my own
mind, but I have never been able to guess at the capabilities of yours.
I fear that I, at least, underestimated our opponent."

"I know that I did, and I was terribly wrong. I shouldn't have
tried to fool you, either, even a little bit. There are some things
about me that I just _can't_ show to most people, but you are
different--you're _such_ a wonderful person!"

"Thanks, Camilla, for your trust." Understandingly, he did not go on to
say that he would keep on being worthy of it. "I accept the fact that
you Five, being children of two Second-Stage Lensmen, are basically
beyond my comprehension. There are indications that you do not as yet
thoroughly understand yourself. You have, however, decided upon a
course of action."

"Oh--I'm _so_ relieved! Yes, I have. But before we go into that,
I haven't been able to solve the problem of 'X.' More, I have proved
that I cannot solve it without more data. Therefore, you can't, either.
Check?"

"I had not yet reached that conclusion, but I accept your statement as
truth."

"One of those uncommon powers of mine, to which you referred a while
ago, is a wide range of perception, from large masses down to
extremely tiny components. Another, or perhaps a part of the same one,
is that, after resolving and analyzing these fine details, I can build
up a logical and coherent whole by processes of interpolation and
extrapolation."

"I can believe that such things would be possible to such a mind as
yours must be. Go on."

"Well, that is how I know that I underestimated Mr. 'X.' Whoever or
whatever he is, I am completely unable to resolve the structure of his
thought. I gave you all I got of it. Look at it again, please--hard.
What can you make of it now?"

"It is exactly the same as it was before; a fragment of a simple and
plain introductory thought to an audience. That is all."

"That's all I can see, too, and that's what surprises me so." The
hitherto imperturbable and serene Camilla got up and began to pace the
floor. "That thought is apparently absolutely solid; and since that is
a definitely impossible condition, the truth is that its structure is
so fine that I cannot resolve it into its component units. This fact
shows that I am not nearly so competent as I thought I was. When you
and Dad and the others reached that point, you each went to Arisia. I
have decided to do the same thing."

"That decision seems eminently sound."

"Thanks, Uncle Trig--that was what I hoped you would say. I have never
been there, you know, and the idea scared me a little. Clear ether!"

There is no need to go into detail as to Camilla's bout with Mentor.
Her mind, like Karen's, had had to mature of itself before any
treatment could be really effective; but once mature, she took as
much in one session as Kathryn had taken in all her many. She had not
suggested that the Rigellian accompany her to Arisia; they both knew
that he had already received all that he could take. Upon her return
she greeted him as casually as though she had been gone only a matter
of hours.

"What Mentor did to me, Uncle Trig, shouldn't have been done to a
Delgonian catlat. It doesn't show too much, though, I hope--does it?"

"Not at all." He scanned her narrowly, both physically and mentally.
"I can perceive no change in detail. In general, however, you have
changed. You have developed."

"Yes, more than I would have believed possible. I can't do much
with my present very poor transcription of that thought, since the
all-important fine detail is missing. We'll have to intercept another
one. I'll get it _all_, this time, and it will tell us a lot."

"But you did something with this one, I am sure. There must have been
some developable features--a sort of latent-image effect?"

"A little. Practically infinitesimal compared to what was really there.
Physically, his classification to four places is TUUV; quite a bit
like the Nevians, you notice. His home planet is big, and practically
covered with liquid. No real cities, just groups of half-submerged,
temporary structures. Mentality very high, but we knew that already.
Normally, he thinks upon a very short wave, so short that he was then
working at the very bottom of his range. His sun is a fairly hot
main-sequence-star, of spectral class somewhere around F, and it's
probably more or less variable, because there was quite a distinct
implication of change. But that's normal enough, isn't it?"

Within the limits imposed by the amount and kind of data available,
Camilla's observations and analyses had been perfect, her
reconstruction flawless. She did not then have any idea, however, that
"X" was in fact a spring-form Plooran. More, she did not even know that
such a planet as Ploor existed, except for Mentor's one mention of it.

"Of course. Peoples of planets of variable suns think that such suns
are the only kind fit to have planets. You cannot reconstruct the
nature of the change?"

"No. Worse, I can't find even a hint of where his planet is in
space--but then, I probably couldn't, anyway, even with a whole, fresh
thought to study."

"Probably not. 'Rigel Four' would be an utterly meaningless thought to
anyone ignorant of Rigel; and, except when making a conscious effort,
as in directing strangers, I never think of its location in terms of
galactic co-ordinates. I suppose that the location of a home planet is
always taken for granted. That would seem to leave us just about where
we were before in our search for 'X,' except for your implied ability
to intercept another of his thoughts, almost at will. Explain, please."

"Not _my_ ability--ours." Camilla smiled, confidently. "I couldn't
do it alone, neither could you, but between us I don't believe that it
will be too difficult. You, with your utterly calm, utterly unshakable
certainty, can drive a thought to any corner of the universe. You can
fix and hold it steady on any indicated atom. I can't do that, or
anything like it, but with my present ability to detect and to analyze,
I am not afraid of missing 'X' if we can come within parsecs of him.
So my idea is a sort of piggy-back hunting trip; you to take me for a
ride, mentally, very much as Worsel takes Con, physically. That would
work, don't you think?"

"Perfectly, I am sure." The stolid Rigellian was immensely pleased.
"Link your mind with mine, then, and we will set out. If you have no
better plan of action mapped out, I would suggest starting at the point
where we lost him and working outward, covering an expanding sphere."

"You know best. I will stick to you wherever you go. I am ready."

       *       *       *       *       *

Tregonsee launched his thought; a thought which, at a velocity not
to be measured even in multiples of that of light, generated the
surface of a continuously enlarging sphere of space. And with that
thought, a very part of it, sped Camilla's incomprehensibly delicate,
instantaneously reactive detector web. The Rigellian, with his unhuman
perseverance, would have surveyed total space had it been necessary;
and the now adult Camilla would have stayed with him. However, the
patient pair did not have to comb all of space. In a matter of
hours the girl's almost infinitely tenuous detector touched, with
infinitesimal power and for an inappreciable instant of time, the exact
thought-structure to which it had been so carefully attuned.

"Halt!" she flashed, and Tregonsee's mighty superdreadnought shot away
along the indicated line at maximum blast.

"You are not now thinking at him, of course, but how sure are you that
he did not feel your detector?" Tregonsee asked.

"Positive," the girl replied. "I couldn't even feel it myself until
after a million-fold amplification. It was just a web, you know, not
nearly solid enough for an analyzer or a recorder. I didn't touch his
mind at all. However, when we get close enough to work efficiently,
which will be in about five days, we will have to touch him. Assuming
that he is as sensitive as we are, he will feel us; hence we will have
to work fast and according to some definite plan. What are your ideas
as to technique?"

"I may offer a suggestion or two, later, but I resign leadership to
you. You already have made plans, have you not?"

"Only a framework, I could not go into detail without consulting you.
Since we agree that it was my mind that he did not like, you will have
to make the first contact."

"Of course. But since the action of thought is so nearly instantaneous,
are you sure that you will be able to protect yourself in case he
overcomes me at that first contact?" If the Rigellian gave any thought
at all to his own fate in such a case, no trace of it was evident.

"My screens are good. I am fairly certain that I could protect both
of us, but it might slow me down a trifle; and even an instant's
delay might keep me from getting the information we want. It would be
better, I think, to call Kit in. Or, better yet, Kay. She can stop a
superatomic bomb. With Kay covering us both, we will be free to put our
full power into the offense."

"And that offense is to be--?"

"I have no idea. We will work that out together."

Again they went into a union of minds; considering, weighing,
analyzing, rejecting, and--a few times--accepting. And finally, well
within the five-day time limit, they had drawn up a completely detailed
plan of battle.

How uselessly that time was spent! For that battle, instead of
progressing according to their carefully worked-out plan, was ended
almost in the instant of its beginning.

       *       *       *       *       *

According to plan, Tregonsee tuned his mind to "X's" pattern as soon as
they had come within working range. He reached out as delicately as he
could; and his best was very fine work indeed. He might just as well
have struck with all his power, for at the first touch of the fringe,
extremely light and entirely innocuous though it was, the stranger's
barriers flared into being and there came back instantly a mental bolt
of such vicious intensity that it would have gone through Tregonsee's
hardest-held block as though no barrier had been there. But that bolt
did not strike Tregonsee's shield; he did not even know, until much
later, that it had been sent. Instead, it struck Karen Kinnison's,
which has already been described.

It did not exactly bounce, nor did it cling, nor did it linger, even
for a microsecond, to do battle as expected. It simply vanished;
as though that minute interval of time had been sufficient for the
enemy to have recovered from the shock of encountering a completely
unexpected resistance, to have analyzed the texture of the shield, to
have deduced from that analysis the full capabilities of its owner and
operator, to have decided that he did not care to have any dealings
with the entity so deduced, and finally, as he no doubt supposed, to
have begun to retreat in good order.

His retreat, however, was not in good order. He did not escape, this
time. This time, as she had declared that she would be, Camilla was
ready for anything--literally anything. Everything she had--and she had
plenty--was on the trips; tense, taut, and poised. Knowing that Karen,
the Ultimate of Defense, was on guard, she was wholly free to hurl her
every force in the instant of perceiving the enemy's poignant thrust.
Scarcely had the leading element of her attack touched the stranger's
screens, however, when those screens, "X" himself, his vessel and any
others that might have been accompanying it, and everything tangible in
nearby space, all disappeared at once in the inconceivably violent, the
ultimately cataclysmic detonation of a superatomic bomb.

It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the "completely
liberating" or "superatomic" bomb liberates one hundred percent of the
total component energy of two or more subcritical masses of an unstable
isotope, in a space of time estimated to be sixty-nine hundredths of
one microsecond. Its violence and destructiveness thus differ, both in
degree and in kind, from those of the earlier type, which liberated
only the energy of nuclear fission, very much as the radiation of
S-Doradus differs from that of Earth's moon. Its mass attains, and
holds for an appreciable length of time, a temperature to be measured
only in millions of Centigrade degrees; which fact accounts in large
part for its utterly incredible vehemence.

Nothing inert in its entire sphere of primary action can even begin to
move out of the way before being reduced to its subatomic constituents
and thus contributing in some measure to the cataclysm. Nothing is or
becomes visible until the secondary stage begins; until the frightful
globe has expanded to a diameter of some hundreds of miles and by this
expansion has cooled down to a point at which some of its radiation
lies in the visible violet. And as for lethal radiation--there are
radiations and they are lethal.

The battle with "X" had occupied approximately two milliseconds of
actual time. The expansion had been progressing for a second or two
when Karen lowered her shield.

"Well, that finishes that," she commented. "I'd better get back on the
job. Did you find out what you want to know, Cam, or not?"

"I got a little in the moment before the explosion. Not much." Camilla
was deep in study. "It is going to be quite a job of reconstruction.
One thing of interest to you, though, is that this 'X' had quit
sabotage temporarily and was on his way to Lyrane IX, where he had some
kind of important--"

"Nine?" Karen asked, sharply. "Not Eight? I've been watching Eight, you
know--I haven't even thought of Nine."

"Nine, definitely. The thought was clear. You might give it a scan once
in a while. How is mother doing?"

"She's doing a grand job, and that Helen is quite an operator, too.
I'm not doing much--just a touch here and there--I'll see what I can
see on Nine. I'm not the scanner or detector that you are, though, you
know--maybe you'd better come over here too, in person. Suppose?"

"I think so--don't you, Uncle Trig?" Tregonsee did. "We can do some
exploring as we come, but since I have no definite patterns for web
work, we may not be able to do much until we get close. Clear ether,
Kay!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"The fine structure is there, and I can resolve it and analyze it,"
Camilla informed Tregonsee, after a few hours of intense concentration.
"There are quite a few clear extraneous sequences, instead of the
blurred latent images we had before, but there is still no indication
whatever of the location of his home planet. I can see his physical
classification to ten places instead of four, more detail as to the
sun's variation, the seasons, their habits, and so on. Things that seem
mostly to be of very little importance, as far as we are concerned.
I found one fact, though, that is new and important. According to
my reconstruction, his business of Lyrane IX was the induction of
Boskonian Lensmen--_Black_ Lensmen, Tregonsee, just as father
suspected!"

"In that case, he must have been the Boskonian counterpart of an
Arisian, and hence one of the highest echelon. I am very glad indeed
that you and Karen relieved me of the necessity of trying to handle him
myself. Kinnison will be very glad to know that we have at last and in
fact reached the top--"

Camilla was paying attention to the Rigellian's cogitations with
only a fraction of her mind; most of it being engaged in a private
conversation with her brother.

"... so you see, Kit, he was under a subconscious compulsion. He
_had_ to destroy himself, his ship, and everything in it, in the
very instant of attack by any mind definitely superior to his own.
Therefore he couldn't have been an Eddorian, possibly, but merely
another intermediate, and I haven't been of much help."

"Sure you have, Cam! You got a lot of information, and some mighty good
leads to Lyrane IX and what goes on there. I'm on my way to Eddore now;
and by working down from there and up from Lyrane IX we can't go wrong.
Clear ether, Sis!"



                                 XIX.


Constance Kinnison did not waste much time in idle recriminations,
even at herself. Realizing at last that she was still not fully
competent, and being able to define exactly what she lacked, she went
to Arisia for final treatment. She took that treatment and emerged from
it, as her brother and sisters had emerged, a completely integrated
personality.

She had something of everything the others had, of course, as did they
all; but her dominants, the characteristics which had operated to
make Worsel her favorite Second-Stage Lensman, were much like those
of the Velantian. Her mind, like his, was quick and facile, yet of
extraordinary power and range. She did not have much of her father's
flat, driving urge or of his indomitable will to do; she was the least
able of all the Five to exert long-sustained extreme effort. Her top,
however, was vastly higher than theirs. Like Worsel's, her armament was
almost entirely offensive--she was far and away the deadliest fighter
of them all. She only of them all had more than a trace of pure killer
instinct; and when roused to full fighting pitch her mental bolts were
weapons of as starkly incomprehensible an effectiveness as the sphere
of primary action of a superatomic bomb.

As soon as Constance had left the _Velan_, remarking that she was
going to Arisia to take her medicine, Worsel called a staff meeting
to discuss in detail the matter of the "Hell Hole in Space." That
conference was neither long nor heated; it was unanimously agreed that
that phenomenon was--_must_ be--simply another undiscovered cavern
of Overlords.

In view of the fact that Worsel and his crew had been hunting down and
killing Overlords for more than twenty years, the only logical course
of action was for them to deal similarly with one more, perhaps the
only remaining large group of their hereditary foes. Nor did any doubt
of their ability to do so enter any one of the Velantians' minds.

How wrong they were!

They did not have to search for the "Hell Hole." Long since, to
stop its dreadful toll, a spherical cordon of robot guard ships had
been posted to warn all traffic away from the outer fringes of its
influence. Since they merely warned against, but could not physically
prohibit, entry into the dangerous space, Worsel did not pay any
attention to the guard ships or to their signals as the _Velan_
went through the warning web. His plans were, he thought, well laid.
His ship was free. Its speed, by Velantian standards, was very low.
Each member of his crew wore a full-coverage thought-screen; a similar
and vastly more powerful screen would surround the whole vessel if
one of Worsel's minor members were either to tighten or to relax its
grip upon a spring-mounted control. Worsel was, he thought, ready for
anything.

But the "Hell Hole in Space" was not a cavern of Overlords. No sun, no
planet, nothing material existed within that spherical volume of space.
That _something_ was there, however, there was no doubt. Slow as
was the _Velan's_ pace, it was still too fast by far; for in a
matter of minutes, through the supposedly impervious thought-screens,
there came an attack of utterly malignant ferocity; an assault which
tore at Worsel's mind in a fashion he had never imagined possible; a
poignant, rending, unbearably crescendo force whose violence seemed to
double with every mile of advance.

The _Velan's_ all-encompassing screen snapped on--uselessly. Its
tremendous power was as unopposed as were the lesser powers of the
personal shields--that highly inimical thought was coming past, not
through, the barriers. An Arisian, or one of the Children of the Lens,
would have been able to perceive and to block that band; no one of
lesser mental stature could.

Strong and fast as Worsel was, mentally and physically, he got his
vessel turned around just barely in time. All his resistance and all
his strength had to be called into play to maintain his mind's control
over his body; to enable him to spin his ship end for end and to kick
her drive up to maximum blast. To his surprise, his agony decreased
with distance as rapidly as it had built up; disappearing entirely well
before the _Velan_ reached the web she had crossed such a short
time before.

Groggy, sick, and shaken, hanging slackly from his bars, the Velantian
Lensman was roused to action by the mental and physical frenzy of his
crew. Ten of them had died in the Hell Hole; six more were torn to bits
before their commander could muster enough force to stop their insane
rioting. Then Master Therapist Worsel went to work; and one by one he
brought the survivors back. They remembered; but he made those memories
bearable.

He then called Kinnison. "... but there didn't seem to be anything
personal about it, as one would expect from an Overlord," he concluded
his brief report. "It did not concentrate on us, reach for us, or
follow us as we left. Its intensity seemed to vary only with
distance ... perhaps inversely as distance squared--it might very well
have been radiated from a center. While it was nothing like anything
I ever felt before, I still think that it must be an Overlord--maybe
a sort of Second-Stage Overlord, just as you and I are Second-Stage
Lensmen. He is too strong for me now, just as they used to be too
strong for us before we met you. By the same reasoning, however, I am
pretty sure that if you can come over here, you and I together could
figure out a way of taking him. How about it?"

"Mighty interesting, and I'd like to, but I'm right in the middle of
a job," Kinnison replied, and went on to explain rapidly what he, as
Bradlow Thyron, had done and what he still had to do. "As soon as I can
get away I'll come over. In the meantime, fellow old snake, keep away
from there. Do a flit--find something else to keep you amused until I
can join you."

       *       *       *       *       *

Worsel set out, and after a few days ... or weeks--idle time means
practically nothing to a Velantian--a sharply-Lensed thought drove in.

"Help! A Lensman calling help! Line this thought and come at speed to
System--" The message ended as sharply as it had begun; in a flare of
agony which, Worsel knew, meant that that Lensman, whoever he was, had
died.

Since the thought, although broadcast, had come in strong and clear,
Worsel knew that its sender had been close by. While the time had been
very short indeed, he had been able to get a line of sorts. Into that
line he whirled the _Velan's_ sharp prow and along it she hurtled
at the literally inconceivable pace of her absolute-maximum drive. As
the Gray Lensman had often remarked, the Velantian superdreadnought had
more legs than a centipede, and now she was using them all. In minutes,
then, the scene of battle grew large upon her plates.

The Patrol ship, hopelessly out-classed, could last only seconds
longer. Her screens were down; her very wall shield was dead.
Red pockmarks sprang into being along her sides as the Boskonian
needle-beamers wiped out her few remaining controls. Then, as the
helplessly raging Worsel looked on, his brain seething with unutterable
Velantian profanity, the enemy prepared to board--a course of action
which, Worsel could see, was changed abruptly by the fact--and perhaps
as well by the terrific velocity--of his own unswerving approach.
The conquered Patrol cruiser disappeared in a blaze of detonating
duodec; the conqueror devoted his every jet to the task of running
away; strewing his path as he did so with sundry items of solid and
explosive destruction. Such things, however, whether dirigible or not,
whether inert or free, were old and simple stuff to the _Velan's_
war-wise crew. Their spotters and detectors were full out, as was also
a practically solid forefan of annihilating and disintegrating beams.

Thus none of the Boskonian's missiles touched the _Velan_, nor,
with all his speed, could he escape. Few indeed were the ships of space
able to step it, parsec for parsec, with Worsel's mighty craft, and
this luckless pirate vessel was not one of them. Up and up the pursuer
rushed; second by second the intervening distance lessened. Tractors
shot out, locked on, and pulled briefly with all the force of their
stupendous generators.

Briefly, but long enough. As Worsel had anticipated, that savage yank
had, in the fraction of a second required for the Boskonian commander
to recognize and to cut the tractors, been enough to bring the two
inertialess war craft practically screen to screen.

"Primaries! Blast!" Worsel hurled the thought even before his
tractors snapped. He was in no mood for a long-drawn-out engagement.
He _might_ be able to win with his secondaries, his needles,
his tremendously powerful short-range stuff and his other ordinary
offensive weapons, but he was taking no chances. Besides, the
Boskonians might very well have primaries of their own by this time,
and if they did his only chance was to use them first. His men knew
what to do and would do it without further orders. A dozen or so of
those hellishly irresistible projectors of sheer destruction lashed out
as one.

One! Two! Three! The three courses of Boskonian defensive screen
scarcely winked as each, locally overloaded, flared through the visible
into the black and went down.

Crash! The stubborn fabric of the wall shield offered little more
resistance before it, too, went down, exposing the bare metal of the
Boskonian's hull--and, as is well known, any conceivable material
substance simply vanishes, tracelessly, at the merest touch of such
fields of force as those.

Driving projectors carved away and main batteries silenced, Worsel's
needle-beamers proceeded systematically to riddle every control panel
and every lifeboat, to make of the immense space rover a completely
helpless hulk.

"Hold!" An observer flashed the thought. "Number Eight slip is
empty--Number Eight lifeboat got away!"

"Damnation!" Worsel, at the head of his armed and armored storming
party, as furiously eager as they to come to grips with the enemy,
paused briefly. "Trace it--or can you?"

"I did. My tracers can hold it for fifteen minutes, perhaps twenty. No
longer than twenty."

Worsel thought intensely. Which had first call, ship or lifeboat? The
ship, he decided almost instantly. Its resources were vastly greater;
most of its personnel were probably practically unharmed. Given any
time at all, they might very well be able to jury-rig a primary, and
that would be bad--very bad. Besides, there were more people here;
and even if, as was distinctly possible, the Boskonian big shot had
abandoned his vessel and his crew in an attempt to save his own life,
Worsel had plenty of time.

"Hold that lifeboat," he instructed the observer. "Ten minutes is all
we need here."

       *       *       *       *       *

And it was. The Boskonians--barrel-bodied, blocky-limbed monstrosities
resembling human beings about as much as they did the Velantians--wore
armor, possessed hand-weapons of power, and fought viciously. They
had even managed to rig a few semiportable projectors, but none of
these were allowed a single blast. Spy-ray observers were alert, and
needle-beam operators; hence the fighting was all at hand to hand, with
hand-weapons only. For, while the Velantians to a man lusted to kill,
they had had it drilled into them for twenty years that the search for
information came first; the pleasure of killing, second.

Worsel himself went straight for the Boskonian captain, his
pre-selected prey. That wight had a couple of guards with him, but they
did not matter--needle-ray men took care of them. He also had a pair of
heavy beam guns, which he held steadily on the Velantian. Worsel paused
momentarily; then, finding that his screens were adequate, he slammed
the control room door shut with a flick of his tail and launched
himself, straight and level at his foe, with an acceleration of seven
gravities. The captain tried to dodge but could not. The frightful
impact did not kill him, but it hurt him, badly. Worsel, on the other
hand, was scarcely jarred. Hard, tough, and durable, Velantians are
accustomed from birth to knockings-about which would pulverize human
bones.

Worsel batted the Boskonian's guns away with two terrific blows of an
armored paw, noting as he did so that violent contact with a steel
wall did not do their interior mechanisms a bit of good. Then, after
cutting off both his enemy's screens and his own, he batted the
Boskonian's helmet; at first experimentally, then with all his power.
Unfortunately, however, it held. So did the thought-screen, and there
were no external controls. That armor was good stuff!

Leaping to the ceiling, he blasted his whole mass straight down upon
the breastplate, striking it so hard this time that he hurt his head.
Still no use. He wedged himself between two heavy braces, flipped a
loop of tail around the Boskonian's feet, and heaved. The armored
form flew across the room, struck the heavy steel wall, bounced, and
dropped. The bulges of the armor were flattened by the force of the
collision, the wall was dented--but the thought-screen still held!

Worsel was running out of time, fast. He couldn't treat the thing
very much rougher without killing him, if he wasn't dead already. He
couldn't take him aboard; he _had_ to cut that screen here and
now! He could see how the armor was put together; but, armored as he
was, he could not take it apart. And, since the whole ship was empty of
air, he could not open his own.

Or could he? He could. He could breathe space long enough to do
what had to be done. He cut off his air, loosened a plate enough to
release four or five gnarled hands, and, paying no attention to his
involuntarily laboring lungs, set furiously to work. He tore open the
Boskonian's armor, snapped off his thought-screen. The creature was
not quite dead yet--good! He didn't know a thing, though, nor did any
member of his crew, except ... yes, one man--a big shot--had got away.
Who or what, was he?

       *       *       *       *       *

"Tell me!" Worsel demanded, with the full power of mind and Lens, even
while he was exploring with all his skill and speed. "TELL ME!"

But the Boskonian was dying fast. The ungentle treatment, and now the
lack of air, were taking toll. His patterns were disintegrating by the
second, faster and faster. Meaningless blurs, which, under Worsel's
vicious probing, condensed into something which seemed to be a Lens.

A _Lensman_? Impossible--starkly unthinkable! But jet
back--hadn't Kim intimated a while back that there might be such
things as Black Lensmen?

But Worsel himself wasn't feeling so good. He was only half conscious.
Red, black, and purple spots were dancing in front of every one of his
eyes. He sealed his suit, turned on his air, gasped, and staggered.
Two of the nearest Velantians, all of whom had, of course, been _en
rapport_ with him throughout, came rushing to his aid; arriving just
as he recovered full control.

"Back to the _Velan_, everybody!" he ordered. "No time for any
more fun--we've got to get that lifeboat!" Then, as soon as he had been
obeyed: "Bomb that hulk ... good. Flit!"

Overtaking the lifeboat did not take long. Spearing it with a tractor
and yanking it alongside required only seconds. For all his haste,
Worsel found in it only something that looked as though it once might
have been a Delgonian Lensman. It had blown itself apart with a
grenade. Because of its reptilian tenacity of life, however, it was
not quite dead; its Lens still showed an occasional flicker of light
and its shattered mind was not yet entirely devoid of patterns. Worsel
studied that mind until all trace of life had vanished, then again
reported to the Co-ordinator.

"... so you see I guessed wrong. The Lens was too dim to read, but
he must have been a Black Lensman. The only readable thought in his
mind was an extremely fuzzy one of the planet Lyrane IX. I hate to
have hashed the job up so--especially since I had one chance in two of
guessing right."

"Well, no use in squawking now." Kinnison paused in thought. "Besides,
he could have done it anyway, and would have. You haven't done so
badly, at that. You found a Black Lensman who is not a Kalonian, and
you've got confirmation of Boskonian interest in Lyrane IX. What more
do you want? Stick around fairly close to the Hell Hole, Slim, and as
soon as I can make it, I'll join you there."



                                  XX.


"Boys, take her upstairs," Kinnison-Thyron ordered, and the tremendous
raider--actually the _Dauntless_ in disguise--floated serenely
upward to a station immediately astern of the vice admiral's flagship.
All three courses of multi-ply defensive screen were out, as were
full-coverage spy-ray blocks and thought-screens.

As the fleet blasted in tight formation for Kalonia III, Vice Admiral
Mendonai tested the _Dauntless'_ defenses thoroughly, and found
them bottle-tight. No intrusion was possible. The only open channel was
that one plate-to-plate, the other end of which was so villainously
fogged that nothing could be seen except Bradlow Thyron's face.
Convinced at last of that fact, Mendonai sat back and seethed quietly,
his pervasive Kalonian blueness pointing up his grim and vicious mood.

He had never, in all his long life, been insulted so outrageously. Was
there anything--_anything!_--he could do about it? There was not.
Thyron, personally, he could not touch--yet--and the fact that the
outlaw had so brazenly and so nonchalantly placed his vessel in the
exact center of the Boskonian fleet made it pellucidly clear to any
Boskonian mind that he had nothing whatever to fear from that fleet.

Wherefore the Kalonian seethed, and his minions stepped ever more
softly and followed with ever-increasing punctilio the rigid Boskonian
code. For the grapevine carries news swiftly; by this time the whole
fleet knew that His Nibs had been taking a God-awful kicking around,
and that the first guy who gave him an excuse to blow off steam would
be lucky if he only got boiled in oil.

As the fleet spread out for inert maneuvering above the Kalonian
stratosphere, Kinnison turned again to the young Lensman.

"One last word, Frank. I am as sure as I can be that I am fully
covered--a lot of smart people worked on this problem. Nevertheless,
something may happen, so I will send you the data as fast as I get
it. Remember what I told you before--if I get the dope we need, I'm
expendable and it'll be your job to get it back to Base. No heroics. Is
that clear?"

"Yes, sir." The young Lensman gulped. "I hope, though, that it
doesn't--"

"So do I," Kinnison grinned as he climbed into his highly special
dureum armor, "and the chances are a million to one that it won't.
That's why I'm going down there."

In their respective speedsters Kinnison and Mendonai made the long
drop to the ground, and side by side they went into the office of
Black Lensman Melasnikov. That worthy, too, wore heavy armor; but he
did not have a mechanical thought-screen. Arrogantly conscious of his
tremendous power of mind, what did any Black Lensman need of mechanical
shields? Thyron, of course, did; a fact of which Melasnikov became
instantly aware.

"Release your screen," he directed, brusquely.

"Not yet, pal--don't be so hasty," Thyron advised. "There're some
things about this here hookup that I don't exactly like. We got quite a
bit of talking to do before I open up."

"No talk, worm. Talk, especially your talk, is entirely meaningless.
From you I want, and will have, the truth, and not talk. CUT THOSE
SCREENS!"

       *       *       *       *       *

And lovely Kathryn, in her speedster not too far away, straightened up
and sent out a call.

"Kit ... Kay ... Cam ... Con--are you free?" They were, for the moment.
"Stand by, please, all of you. I'm pretty sure something is going to
happen. Dad can handle this Melasnikov easily enough, if none of the
higher-ups step in, but they probably will. Their Lensmen are probably
important enough to rate protection. Check?"

"Check."

"So, as soon as Dad begins to get the best of the argument, the
protector will step in," Kathryn continued, "and whether I can handle
him alone or not depends on how high a higher-up they send in. So I'd
like to have you all stand by for a minute or two, just in case."

How different was Kathryn's attitude now than it had been in the
hyperspatial tube! And how well for Civilization that it was!

"Hold it, kids. I've got a thought," Kit suggested. "We've never done
any teamwork since you became able to handle heavy stuff, and we'll
have to get in some practice before the big blow-off. What say we link
up now, on this?"

"Oh, yes!" "Let's do!" "Take over, Kit!" Three approvals came as one,
and:

"QX," came Kathryn's less enthusiastic concurrence, a moment later.
Naturally enough, she would rather do it alone if she could; but she
had to admit that her brother's plan was the better.

Kit laid out the matrix and the four girls came in. There was
a brief moment of snuggling and fitting; then each of the Five
caught his breath in awe. This was new--brand new. Each had thought
himself complete and full; each had supposed that much practice and
at least some give-and-take would be necessary before they could
work efficiently as a group. But this! This was the supposedly
unattainable--perfection itself! This was UNITY--full; round; complete.
No practice was or ever would be necessary. Not one micro-microsecond
of doubt or of uncertainty would or ever could exist. This was the
UNIT, a thing for which there are no words in any written or spoken
language; a thing theretofore undreamed-of save as a purely theoretical
concept in an unthinkably ancient, four-ply Arisian brain.

"U.m.n.g.n.k," Kit swallowed a lump as big as his fist before he could
think. "This, kids, is really some--"

"Ah, children, you have done it." Mentor's thought rolled smoothly in.
"You now understand why I could not attempt to describe the Unit to any
one of you. This is the culminating moment of my life--of our lives, we
may now say. For the first time in more years than you can understand,
we are at last sure that our lives have not been lived in vain. But
attend--that for which you are waiting will soon be here."

"What is it?" "Who?" "Tell us how to--"

"We cannot." Four separate Arisians smiled as one--a wash of ineffable
blessing and benediction suffused the Five. "We, who made the Unit
possible, are almost completely ignorant of the details of its higher
functions. But that it will need no help from our lesser minds is
certain; it is the most powerful and the most nearly perfect creation
this Universe has ever seen."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Arisians vanished; and, even before Kimball Kinnison had released
his screen, a cryptic, utterly untraceable and all-pervasive foreign
thought came in.

To aid the Black Lensman? To study this disturbing new element? Or
merely to observe? Or what? The only certainty was that that thought
was coldly, clearly, and highly inimical to all Civilization.

Again everything happened at once. Karen's impenetrable block flared
into being--not instantly, but instantaneously. Constance assembled and
hurled, in the same lack of time, a mental bolt of whose size and power
she had never dreamed herself capable. Camilla, the detector-scanner,
synchronized herself with the attacking thought and steered. And
Kathryn and Kit, with all the force, all the will, and all the drive of
human heredity, got behind it and pushed.

Nor was this, any of it, conscious individual effort. The children of
the Lens were not now five, but one. This was the Unit at work; doing
its first job. It is literally impossible to describe what happened;
but each of the Five knew that one would-be Protector, wherever he had
been in space or whenever in time, would never think again. Seconds
passed. The Unit held tense, awaiting the riposte. No riposte came.

"Fine work, kids!" Kit broke the linkage and each girl felt hard,
brotherly pats on her back. "That's all there is to this one, I
guess--must have been only one guard on duty. You're good eggs, and I
like you. _How_ we can operate now!"

"But it was too easy, Kit!" Kathryn protested. "Too easy by far for
it to have been an Eddorian. We aren't that good. Why, I could have
handled him alone ... I think," she added, hastily, as she realized
that she, although an essential part of the Unit, had as yet no real
understanding of what that Unit really was.

"You _hope_, you mean!" Constance jeered. "If that bolt was as
big and as hot as I'm afraid it was, anything it hit would have looked
easy. Why didn't you slow us down, Kit? You're supposed to be the
Big Brain, you know. As it was, we haven't the faintest idea of what
happened. Who was he, anyway?"

"Didn't have time," Kit grinned. "Everything got out of hand. All of
us were sort of inebriated by the exuberance of our own enthusiasm, I
guess. Now that we know what our speed is, though, we can slow down
next time--if we want to. As for your last question, Con, you're asking
the wrong guy. Was it an Eddorian, Cam, or not?"

"What difference does it make?" Karen asked.

"On the practical side, none. For the completion of the picture, maybe
a lot. Come in, Cam."

"It was not an Eddorian," Camilla decided. "It was not of Arisian, or
even near-Arisian, grade. Sorry to say it, Kit, but it was another
member of that high-thinking race that you've already got down on Page
One of your little black book."

"I thought it might be. The missing link between Kalonia and Eddore.
Credits to millos it's that dopey planet Ploor that Mentor was yowling
about."

"Let's link up and let the Unit find it," Constance suggested,
brightly. "That'd be fun."

"Act your age, baby," Kit advised. "Ploor is taboo--you know that as
well as I do. Mentor told us all not to try to investigate it--that
we'd learn of it in time, so we probably will. I told him a while back
that I was going to hunt it up myself, and he told me that if I did
he'd tie both my legs around my neck in a lovers' knot, or words to
that effect. Sometimes I'd like to half-brain the old buzzard, but
everything he has said so far has dead-centered the beam. We'll just
have to take it, and try to like it."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kinnison was eminently willing to cut his thought-screen, since
he could not work through it to do what had to be done here. Nor
was he over-confident. He knew that he could handle the Black
Lensman--_any_ Black Lensman--but he also knew enough of mental
phenomena in general and of Lensmanship in particular to realize that
Melasnikov might very well have within call reserves about whom he,
Kinnison, could know nothing. He knew that he had lied outrageously to
young Frank in regard to the odds applicable to this enterprise; that
instead of a million to one, the actuality was one to one, or even less.

Nevertheless, he was well content. He had neither lied nor exaggerated
in saying that he himself was expendable. That was why Frank and the
_Dauntless_ were upstairs now. Getting the dope and getting it
back to Base were what mattered. Nothing else did.

He was coldly certain that he could get all the information that
Melasnikov had, once he had engaged the Kalonian Lensman mind to mind.
No Boskonian power or thing, he was convinced, could treat him rough
enough to kill him fast enough to keep him from doing that. And he
could and would shoot the stuff along to Frank as fast as he got it.
And he stood an even--almost even, anyway--chance of getting away
afterward. If he could, QX. If he couldn't ... well, that would have to
be QX, too.

Kinnison flipped his switch and there ensued a conflict of wills that
made the subether boil. The Kalonian was one of the strongest, hardest,
and ablest individuals of his hellishly capable race; and the fact that
he believed implicitly in his own complete invulnerability operated to
double and to quadruple his naturally tremendous strength.

On the other hand, Kimball Kinnison was a Second-Stage Lensman of the
Galactic Patrol.

Back and back, then, inch by inch and foot by foot, the Black
Lensman's defensive zone was forced; back to and down into his own
mind. And there, appallingly enough, Kinnison found almost nothing of
value.

No knowledge of the higher reaches of the Boskonian organization; no
hint that any real organization of Black Lensmen existed; only the
peculiarly disturbing fact that he had picked up his Lens on Lyrane IX.
And "picked up" was literal. He had not seen, nor heard, nor had any
dealings of any kind with anyone while he was there.

Since both armored figures stood motionless, no sign of the tremendous
actuality of their mental battle was evident. Thus the Boskonians were
not surprised to hear their Black Lensman speak.

"Very well, Thyron, you have passed this preliminary examination. I
know all that I now need to know. I will accompany you to your vessel,
to complete my investigation there. Lead the way."

Kinnison did so, and as the speedster came to rest inside the
_Dauntless_ the Black Lensman addressed Vice Admiral Mendonai via
plate.

"I am taking Bradlow Thyron and his ship to the space yards on Four,
where a really comprehensive study of it can be made. Return to and
complete your original assignment."

"I abase myself, Your Supremacy, but ... but I ... I _discovered_
that ship!" Mendonai protested.

"Granted," the Black Lensman sneered. "You will be given full credit in
the report for what you have done. The fact of discovery, however, does
not excuse your present conduct. Go--and consider yourself fortunate
that, because of that service, I forbear from disciplining you for your
intolerable insubordination."

"I abase myself, Your Supremacy. I go." He really did abase himself,
this time, and the fleet disappeared.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then, the mighty _Dauntless_ safely away from Kalonia and on
her course to rendezvous with the _Velan_, Kinnison again went
over his captive's mind; line by line and almost cell by cell. It
was still the same. It was still Lyrane IX and it still didn't make
any kind of sense. Since Boskonians were certainly not supermen, and
hence could not possibly have developed their own Lenses, it followed
that they must have obtained them from the Boskonian counterpart of
Arisia. Hence, Lyrane IX must be IT--a conclusion which was certainly
fallacious--ridiculous--preposterous--utterly untenable. Lyrane IX
never had been, was not, and never would be the home of any Boskonian
super-race. Nevertheless, it was a definite fact that Melasnikov had
got his Lens there. Also, if he had ever had any special training, such
as any Lensman must have had, he didn't have any memory of it. Nor did
he carry any scars of surgery. What a hash! How could _anybody_
make any sense out of such a mess as that?

Ever-watchful Kathryn, eyes narrowed now in concentration, could have
told him, but she did not. Her visualization was beginning to clear up.
Lyrane was out. So was Ploor. The Lenses originated on Eddore; that was
certain. The fact that their training was subconscious weakened the
Black Lensmen in precisely the characteristics requisite for ultimate
strength--although probably neither the Eddorians nor the Ploorans,
with their warped, Boskonian sense of values, realized it. The Black
Lensmen would never constitute a serious problem. QX.

The time of rendezvous approached. Kinnison, having attended to the
unpleasant but necessary job of resolving Melasnikov into his component
atoms, turned to his Lensman-aide.

"Hold everything, Frank, until I get back. This won't take long."

Nor did it, although the outcome was not at all what the Gray Lensman
had expected.

Kinnison and Worsel, in an inert speedster, crossed the Hell Hole's
barrier web at a speed of only miles per hour, and then slowed down.
The ship was backing in on her brakes, with everything set to hurl her
forward under full drive should either Lensman flick a finger. Kinnison
could feel nothing, even though, being _en rapport_ with Worsel,
he knew that his friend was soon suffering intensely.

"Let's flit," the Gray Lensman suggested, and threw on the drive. "I
probed my limit, and couldn't touch or feel a thing. Had enough, didn't
you?"

"More than enough--I couldn't have taken much more."

Each boarded his ship; and as the _Dauntless_ and the _Velan_
tore through space toward far Lyrane, Kinnison paced his room, scowling
in black abstraction. Nor would a mind reader have found his thoughts
either cogent or informative.

"Lyrane IX ... LYRANE IX ... Lyrane IX ... LYRANE IX ... and something
that I can't even feel or perceive, but that kills anybody and
everybody else ... KLONO'S tungsten TEETH and CURVING CARBALLOY
CLAWS!!!"



                                 XXI.


Helen's story was short and bitter. Human or near-human Boskonians
came to Lyrane II and spread insidious propaganda all over the planet.
Lyranian matriarchy should abandon its policy of isolationism.
Matriarchs were the highest type of life. Matriarchy was the most
perfect of all existing forms of government--why keep on confining
it to one small planet, when it should by right be ruling the entire
Galaxy? The way things were, there was only one Elder Person; all other
Lyranians, even though better qualified than the then incumbent, were
nothing--and so on. Whereas, if things were as they should be, each
individual Lyranian person could be and would be the Elder Person of a
planet at least, and perhaps of an entire solar system--and so on. And
the visitors, who, they insisted, were no more males than the Lyranian
persons were females, would teach them. They would be amazed at how
easily, under Boskonian guidance, this program could be put into effect.

Helen fought the intruders with every jet she had. She despised the
males of her own race; she detested those of all others. Believing that
hers was the only existing matriarchal race, especially since neither
Kinnison nor the Boskonians seemed to know of any other, she was sure
that any prolonged contact with other cultures would result, not in
the triumph of matriarchy, but in its fall. She not only voiced these
beliefs as she held them--violently--but also acted upon them in the
same fashion.

Because of the ingrained matriarchally conservative habit of Lyranian
thought, particularly among the older persons, Helen found it
comparatively easy to stamp out the visible manifestations; and, being
in no sense a sophisticate, she thought that the whole matter was
settled. Instead, she merely drove the movement underground, where it
grew tremendously. The young, of course, rebellious as always against
the hide-bound, mossbacked, and reactionary older generation, joined
the subterranean New Deal in droves. Nor was the older generation
solid. In fact, it was riddled by the defection of many thousands who
could not expect to attain any outstanding place in the world as it was
and who believed that the Boskonians' glittering forecasts would come
true.

Disaffection spread, then, rapidly and unobserved; culminating in the
carefully-planned uprising which made Helen an Ex-Chief Person and put
her into the tower room to await a farcical trial and death.

"I see." Clarrissa caught her lower lip between her teeth. "Very
unfunny. I noticed that you didn't mention or think of any of your
persons as ringleaders ... peculiar that you couldn't catch them, with
your telepathy ... no, natural enough, at that ... but there's one
I want very much to get hold of. Don't know whether she was really
a leader, or not, but she was mixed up in some way with a Boskonian
Lensman. I never did know her name. She was the wom ... the person who
managed your airport here when Kim and I were--"

"Cleonie? Why, I never thought ... but it might have, at that ... yes,
as I look back--"

"Yes, hindsight _is_ a lot more accurate than foresight," the Red
Lensman grinned. "I've noticed that myself, lots of times."

"It _did_! It _was_ a leader!" Helen declared, furiously.
"I shall have its life, too, the jealous cat--the blood-sucking,
back-biting _louse_!"

"She's all of that, in more ways than you know," Clarrissa agreed,
grimly, and spread in the Lyranian's mind the story of Eddie the
derelict. "So you see that Cleonie has got to be our starting-point.
Have you any idea of where we can find her?"

"I haven't seen or heard anything of Cleonie lately." Helen paused in
thought. "If, though, as I am now practically certain, it was one of
the prime movers behind this brainless brat Ladora, it wouldn't dare
leave the planet for very long at a time. As to how to find it, I don't
quite know. Anybody would be apt to shoot me on sight. Would you dare
fly this funny plane of yours down close to a few of our cities?"

"Certainly. I don't know of anything around here that my screens and
fields can't stop. Why?"

"Because I know of several places where Cleonie might be, and if I
can get fairly close to them, I can find it in spite of anything it
can do to hide itself from me. But I don't want to get you into too
much trouble, and I don't want to get killed myself, either, now that
you have rescued me--at least, until after I have killed Cleonie and
Ladora."

"QX. What are we waiting for? Which way, Helen?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Back to the city first, for several reasons. Cleonie probably is not
there, but we must make sure. Also, I want my guns--"

"Guns? No. DeLameters are better. I have several spares." In one
fleeting mental contact Clarrissa taught the Lyranian all there was to
know about DeLameters. And that feat impressed Helen even more than did
the nature and power of the weapon.

"What a mind!" she exclaimed. "You didn't have any such equipment as
that, the last time I saw you. Or were you ... no, you weren't hiding
it."

"You're right; I have developed considerably since then. But about
guns--what do you want of one?"

"To kill that nitwit Ladora on sight, and that snake Cleonie, too, as
soon as you get done with it."

"But why guns? Why not the mental force you always used?"

"Except by surprise, I couldn't," Helen admitted, frankly. "All adult
persons are of practically equal mental strength. But speaking of
strength, I marvel that a craft as small as this should be able to ward
off the attack of one of those tremendous Boskonian ships of space."

"But she _can't_! What made you think she could?"

"Your own statement--or were you thinking of purely Lyranian dangers,
not realizing that Ladora, of course, called Cleonie as soon as you
showed your teeth, and that Cleonie as surely called the Lensman or
some other Boskonian? And that they must have ships of war not too far
away?"

"Heavens, no! It never occurred to me!"

Clarrissa thought briefly. It wouldn't do any good to call Kim. Both
the _Dauntless_ and the _Velan_ were coming, as fast as they
could come, but it would be a day or so yet before they arrived.
Besides, he would tell her to lay off, which was exactly what she was
not going to do. She turned her thought back to the matriarch.

"Two of our best ships are coming, and I hope they get here first. In
the meantime, we'll just have to work fast and keep our detectors full
out. Anyway, Cleonie won't know that I'm looking for her--I haven't
even mentioned her to anyone except you."

"No?" pessimistically. "Cleonie knows that _I_ am looking for
it, and since it knows by now that I am with you, it would think that
both of us were hunting it even if we weren't. But we are nearly close
enough now; I must concentrate. Fly around quite low over the city,
please."

"QX. I'll tune in with you, too. 'Two heads,' you know." Clarrissa
learned Cleonie's pattern, tuned to it, and combed the city while Helen
was getting ready.

"She isn't here, unless she's behind one of those thought-screens," the
Red Lensman remarked. "Can you tell?"

"Thought-screens! The Boskonians had a few of them, but none of us ever
did. How can you find them? Where are they?"

"One there--two over there. They stick out like big black spots on a
white screen. Can't you see them? I supposed that your scanners were
the same as mine, but apparently they aren't. Take a quick peek at them
with the spy--you work it like so. If they've got spy-ray blocks up,
too, we'll have to go down there and blast."

"Politicians only," Helen reported, after a moment's manipulation of
the suddenly familiar instrument. "They need killing, of course, on
general principles, but perhaps we shouldn't take time for that now.
The next place to look is a few degrees east of north of here."

       *       *       *       *       *

Cleonie was not, however, in that city. Nor in the next, nor the next.
But the speedster's detector screens remained blank and the two allies,
so much alike physically, so different mentally, continued their hunt.
There was opposition, of course--all that the planet afforded--but
Clarrissa's second-stage mind took care of the few items of offense
which her speedster's defenses could not handle.

Finally two things happened almost at once. Clarrissa found Cleonie,
and Helen saw a dim and fuzzy white spot upon the lower left-hand
corner of the detector plate.

"Can't be ours," the Red Lensman decided instantly. "Almost exactly the
wrong direction. Boskonians. Ten minutes--twelve at most--before we
have to flit. Time enough--I hope--if we work fast."

She shot downward, going inert and matching intrinsics at a lack of
altitude which would have been suicidal for any ordinary pilot. She
rammed her beryllium-bronze torpedo through the first-floor wall of a
forbidding, almost windowless building--its many stories of massive
construction, she knew, would help no end against the heavy stuff so
sure to come. Then, while every hitherto-hidden offensive arm of the
Boskone-coached Lyranians converged, screaming through the air and
crashing and clanking along the city's streets, Clarrissa probed and
probed and probed. Cleonie had locked herself into a veritable dungeon
cell in the deepest subbasement of the structure. She was wearing a
thought-screen, too, but she had been releasing it, for an instant at a
time, to see what was going on. One of those instants was enough--that
screen would never work again. She had been prepared to kill herself at
need; but her full-charged weapons emptied themselves futilely against
a massive lock and she threw her vial of poison across the corridor and
into an empty cell.

So far, so good; but how to get her out of there? Physical approach was
out of the question. There must be somebody around, somewhere, with
keys, or hacksaws, or sledge-hammers, or something. Ha--oxyacetylene
torches! Very much against their wills, two Lyranian mechanics trundled
a dolly along a corridor, into an elevator. The elevator went down four
levels. The artisans began to burn away a barrier of thick steel bars.

By this time the whole building was rocking to the detonation of high
explosives. Much more of that kind of stuff and she would be trapped
by the sheer mass of the rubble. She was handling six jackass-stubborn
people already and that Boskonian warship was coming fast; she did not
quite know whether she was going to get away with this or not.

But somehow, from the unplumbed and unplumbable depths which made
her what she so uniquely was, the Red Lensman drew more and ever
more power. Kinnison, who had once made heavy going of handling
two-and-a-fraction Lensmen, guessed, but never did learn from her, what
his beloved wife really did that day.

Even Helen, only a few feet away, could not understand what was
happening. Left parsecs behind long since, the Lyranian could not
help in any particular, but could only stand and wonder. She knew
that this queerly powerful Lens-bearing Earth-person--white-faced,
sweating, strung to the very snapping-point as she sat motionless at
her board--was exerting some terrible, some tremendous force. She knew
that the heaviest of the circling bombers sheered away and crashed. She
knew that certain mobile projectors, a few blocks away, did not come
any closer. She knew that Cleonie, against every iota of her mulish
Lyranian will, was coming toward the speedster. She knew that many
persons, who wished intensely to bar Cleonie's progress or to shoot her
down, were physically unable to act. She had no faint idea, however, of
how such work could possibly be done.

       *       *       *       *       *

Cleonie came aboard and Clarrissa snapped out of her trance. The
speedster nudged and blasted its way out of the wrecked stronghold,
then tore a hole through protesting air into open space. Clarrissa
shook her head, wiped her face, studied a tiny double dot in the
corner of the plate opposite the one now showing clearly the Boskonian
warship, and set her controls.

"We'll make it--I think," she announced. "Even though we're
indetectable, they, of course, know our line, and they're so much
faster that they'll be able to find us, even on their visuals, before
long. On the other hand, they must be detecting our ships now, and my
guess is that they won't dare follow us long enough to do us any harm.
Keep an eye on things, Helen, while I find out what Cleonie really
knows. And while I think of it, what's your real name? It isn't polite
to keep on calling you by a name that you never even heard of until you
met us."

"Helen," the Lyranian made surprising answer. "I liked it, so I
adopted it--officially."

"Oh. That's a compliment, really, to both Kim and me. Thanks."

The Red Lensman then turned her attention to her captive, and as mind
fitted itself precisely to mind her eyes began to gleam in gratified
delight. Cleonie was a real find; this seemingly unimportant Lyranian
knew a lot--an immense lot--about things that no adherent of the
Patrol had ever heard before. And she, Clarrissa Kinnison, would be
the first of all the Gray Lensmen to learn of them! Therefore, taking
her time now, she allowed every detail of the queer but fascinating
picture-story to imprint itself upon her mind.

       *       *       *       *       *

And Karen and Camilla, together in Tregonsee's ship, glanced at each
other and exchanged flashing thoughts. Should they interfere? They
hadn't had to so far, but it began to look as though they would have
to, now--it would wreck their mother's mind, if she could understand.
She probably could not understand it, any more than Cleonie could--but
even if she could, she had so much more inherent stability, even than
Dad, that she might be able to take it, at that. Nor would she ever
leak, even to Dad--and Dad, bless his tremendous boots, was not the
type to pry. Maybe, though, just to be on the safe side, it would be
better to screen the stuff, and to edit, if necessary, anything about
Eddore. The two girls synchronized their minds all imperceptibly with
their mother's and Helen's, and learned.

       *       *       *       *       *

The time was in the unthinkably distant past; the location was
unthinkably remote in space. A huge planet circled slowly about a
cooling sun. Its atmosphere was not air; its liquid was not water. Both
were noxious; composed in large part of compounds even yet unknown to
man.

Yet life was there; a race which was even then ancient. Not sexual,
this race. Not androgynous, nor hermaphroditic, but absolutely sexless.
Except for the many who died by physical or by mental violence, its
members lived endlessly. After many hundreds of thousands of years each
being, having reached his capacity to live and to learn, divided into
two individuals; each of which, although possessing _in toto_ the
parents' memories, knowledges, skills, and powers, had also a renewed
and increased capacity.

And, since life was, there had been competition. Competition for power.
Knowledge was desirable only insofar as it contributed to power. Power
for the individual--the group--the city. Wars raged--_what_
wars!--and internecine strifes which lasted while planets came into
being, grew old, and died. And finally, to the few survivors, there
came peace. Since they could not kill each other, they combined their
powers and hurled them outward--together they would dominate and rule
solar systems--regions--the Galaxy itself--the entire macrocosmic
Universe.

Amorphous, amoeboid, each could assume at will any imaginable
form, could call into being members to handle any possible tool.
Nevertheless, as time went on they used their bodies less and less.
More and more they used their minds, to bring across gulfs of space
and to enslave other races, to labor under their direction. By nature
and by choice they were bound to their own planet; few indeed were the
planets upon which their race could possibly live. Also, it was easier
to rejuvenate their own world, or to move it to a younger sun, than
to enforce and to supervise the myriads of man-hours of slave labor
necessary to rebuild any planet to their needs. Thus, then, they lived
and ruled by proxy an ever-increasing number of worlds.

Although they had long since learned that their asexuality was
practically unique, that bisexual life dominated the universe, this
knowledge served only to stiffen their determination to rule, and
finally to change to their own better standards, that universe. They
were still seeking a better proxy race; the more nearly asexual a race,
the better. One race, the denizens of a planet of a variable sun,
approached that idea closely. So did the Kalonians, whose women had
only one function in life--the production of men.

Now these creatures had learned of the matriarchs of Lyrane. That
they were physically females meant nothing; to the Eddorians one sex
was just as good--or as bad--as the other. The Lyranians were strong;
not tainted by the weaknesses which seemed to characterize all races
believing in even near-equality of the sexes. Lyranian science had been
trying for centuries to do away with the necessity for males; in a few
more generations, with some help, that goal could be achieved and the
perfect proxy race would have been developed.

It is not to be supposed that this story was obtained in such
straight-forward fashion as it is presented here. It was dim, murky,
confused. Cleonie never had understood it. Clarrissa understood it
better, but less accurately; for in the version the Red Lensman
received, one minor change was made--in it the Ploorans and the
Eddorians were one and the same race! She understood, however, that
that actually unnamed and to her unknown race was the highest of
Boskone, and the place of the Kalonians in the Boskonian scheme was
plain enough.

"I am giving you this story," the Kalonian Lensman told Cleonie coldly,
"not of my own free will but because I must. I hate you as much as you
hate me. What I would like to do to you, you may imagine. Nevertheless,
so that your race may have its chance, I am to take you on a trip and,
if possible, make a Lensman out of you. Come with me." And, urged by
her jealousy of Helen, her seething ambition, and probably, if the
truth were to be known, by an Eddorian mind, Cleonie went.

There is no need to dwell at length upon the horrors, the atrocities,
of that trip; of which the matter of Eddie the meteor miner was only
a very minor episode. It will suffice to say that Cleonie was very
good Boskonian material; that she learned fast and passed all tests
successfully.

"That's all," the Black Lensman informed her then, "and I'm glad to see
the last of you. You'll get a message when to hop over to Nine and pick
up your Lens. Flit--and I hope that the first Gray Lensman you meet
will ram his Lens down your throat and turn you inside out."

"The same to you, brother, and many of them," Cleonie sneered. "Or,
better, when my race supplants yours as Proxies of Power, I shall give
myself the pleasure of doing just that to you."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Clarrissa! Clarrissa! Pay attention, please!" The Red Lensman came to
herself with a start--Helen had been thinking at her, with increasing
power, for seconds. The _Velan's_ blunt nose filled half the plate.

In minutes, then Clarrissa and her party were in Kinnison's private
quarters in the _Dauntless_. There had been warm mental greetings;
physical demonstrations would come later. Worsel broke in.

"Excuse it, Kim, but seconds count. Better we split, don't you think?
You find out what the score around here is, from Clarrissa, and take
steps, and I'll chase that Boskonian. He's flitting--fast."

"QX, Slim," and the _Velan_ disappeared.

"You remember Helen, of course, Kim." Kinnison bent his head, flipping
a quick grin at his wife, who had spoken aloud. The Lyranian, trying to
unbend, half-offered her hand, but when he did not take it she withdrew
it as enthusiastically as she had twenty years before. "And this is
Cleonie, the ... the wench I've been telling you about. You knew her
before."

"Yeah. She hasn't changed much--still as unbarbered a mess as ever. If
you've got what you want, Chris, we'd better--"

"Kimball Kinnison, I demand Cleonie's life!" came Helen's vibrant
thought. She had snatched one of Clarrissa's DeLameters and was
swinging it into line when she was caught and held as though in a vise.

"Sorry, Toots," the Gray Lensman's thought was more than a little grim.
"Nice little girls don't play so rough. 'Scuse me, Chris, for dipping
into your dish. Take over."

"Do you really mean that, Kim?"

"Yes. It's your meat--slice it as thick or as thin as you please."

"Even to letting her go?"

"Check. What else could you do? In a lifeboat--I'll even show the jade
how to run it."

"Oh, Kim--"

"Quartermaster! Kinnison. Please check Number Twelve lifeboat and break
it out. I am loaning it to Cleonie of Lyrane II."



                                 XXII.


Kit had decided long since that it was his job to scout the planet
Eddore. His alone. He had told several people that he was en route
there, and in a sense he had been, but he was not hurrying. Once he
started _that_ job, he knew that he would have to see it through
with absolutely undisturbed attention, and there had been altogether
too many other things popping up. Now, however, his visualization
showed a couple of weeks of free time, and that would be enough. He
wasn't sure whether he was grown-up enough yet to do a man's job of
work or not, and Mentor wouldn't tell him. This was the best way to
find out. If so, QX. If not, he would back off, wait, and try again
later.

The kids had wanted to go along, of course.

"Come on, Kit, don't be a pig!" Constance started what developed into
the last violent argument of their long lives. "Let's gang up on
it--think what a grand work-out that would be for the Unit!"

"Uh-uh, Con. Sorry, but it isn't in the cards, any more than it was the
last time we discussed it," he began, reasonably enough.

"We didn't agree to it then," Kay cut in, stormily, "and I for one am
not going to agree to it now. You don't have to do it today. In fact,
later on would be better. Anyway, Kit, I'm telling you right now that
if you go in, we all go, as individuals if not as the Unit."

"Act your age, Kay," he advised. "Get conscious. This is one of the two
places in the Universe that can't be worked from a distance, and by the
time you could get here I'll have the job done. So what difference does
it make whether you agree or not? I'm going in now and I'm going in
alone. Pick _that_ one out of your pearly teeth!"

That stopped Karen, cold--they all knew that even she would not
endanger the enterprise by staging a useless demonstration against
Eddore's defensive screens--but there were other arguments. Later, he
was to come to see that his sisters had some right upon their side,
but he could not see it then. None of their ideas would hold air, he
declared, and his temper wore thinner and thinner.

"No, Cam--NO! You know as well as I do that we can't all be spared at
once, either now or at any time in the near-enough future. Kay's full
of pickles, and you all know it. Right now is the best time I'll ever
have.

"Seal it, Kat--you _can't_ be that dumb! Taking the Unit in would
blow things wide open. There isn't a chance that I can get in, even
alone, without touching _something_ off. I, alone, won't be giving
too much away, but the Unit would be a flare-lit tip-off and all hell
would be out for noon. Or are you actually nitwitted enough to think
that, all Arisia to the contrary, we are ready for the grand showdown?

"Hold it, all of you! Pipe down!" he snorted, finally. "Have I got to
bash in your skulls to make you understand that I can't co-ordinate an
attack against something without even the foggiest idea of what its
actual physical setup is? Use your brains, kids--_please_ use your
brains!"

He finally won them over, even Karen; and while his speedster covered
the last leg of the flight he completed his analysis.

He had all the information he could get--in fact, all that was
available--and it was pitifully meager and confusingly contradictory
in detail. He knew the Arisians, each of them, personally; and had
studied, jointly and severally, the Arisian visualizations of the
ultimate foe. He knew the Lyranian impression of the Plooran version
of the story of Eddore. Ploor! Merely a name. A symbol which Mentor
had always kept rigorously apart from any Boskonian actuality. Ploor
_must_ be the missing link between Kalonia and Eddore. And he
knew practically everything about it except the two really important
facts--whether or not it really was that link, and where, within eleven
thousand million parsecs, it was in space!

He and his sisters had done their best. So had many librarians; who
had found, not at all to his surprise, that no scrap of information or
conjecture concerning Eddore or the Eddorians was to be found in any
library, however comprehensive or exclusive.

Thus he had guesses, hypotheses, theories, and visualizations galore;
but none of them agreed and not one of them was convincing. He had no
real facts whatever. Mentor had informed him, equably enough, that such
a state of affairs was inevitable because of the known power of the
Eddorian mind. That state, however, did not make Kit Kinnison any too
happy as he approached dread and dreaded Eddore. He was in altogether
too much of a dither as to what, actually, to expect.

As he neared the boundary of the star-cluster within which Eddore lay,
he cut his velocity to a crawl. An outer screen, he knew, surrounded
the whole cluster. How many intermediate protective layers existed,
where they were, or what they were like, nobody knew. That information
was only a small part of what he had to have.

His far-flung detector web, at practically zero power, touched the
barrier without giving alarm and stopped. His speedster stopped.
Everything stopped.

Christopher Kinnison, the matrix and the key element of the Unit, had
tools and equipment about which even Mentor of Arisia knew nothing
in detail; about which, it was hoped and believed, the Eddorians were
completely in ignorance. He reached deep into the storehouse toolbox of
his mind, arranged his selections in order, and went to work.

He built up his detector web, one infinitesimal increment at a time,
until he could just perceive the structure of the barrier. He made
no attempt to analyze it, knowing that any fabric or structure solid
enough to perform such an operation would certainly touch off an alarm.
Analysis could come later, after he had found out whether the generator
of this outer screen was a machine or a living brain.

He felt his way along the barrier--slowly--carefully. He completely
outlined one section, studying the fashion in which the joints were
made and how it must be supported and operated. With the utmost nicety
of which he was capable he synchronized a probe with the almost
impossibly complex structure of the thing and slid it along a feeder
beam into the generator station. A mechanism--they didn't waste live
Eddorians, then, any more than the Arisians did, on outer defenses. QX.

A precisely-tuned blanket surrounded his speedster--a blanket which
merged imperceptibly into, and in effect became an integral part of,
the barrier itself. The blanket thinned over half of the speedster.
The speedster crept forward. The barrier--unchanged, unaffected--was
_behind_ the speedster. Man and vessel were through!

Kit breathed deeply in relief and rested. This didn't prove much,
of course. Nadreck had done practically the same thing in getting
Kandron--except that the Palainian would never be able to analyze or to
synthesize such screens as these. The real test would come later; but
this had been mighty good practice.

       *       *       *       *       *

The real test came with the fifth, the innermost screen. The others,
while of ever-increasing sensitivity, complexity, and power, were all
generated mechanically, and hence posed problems differing only in
degree, and not in kind, from that of the first. The fifth problem,
however, involving a living and highly capable brain, differed in both
degree and kind from all the others. The Eddorian would be sensitive to
form and to shape, as well as to interference. Bulges were out, unless
he could do something about the Eddorian--and the speedster couldn't go
through a screen without making a bulge.

Furthermore, this zone had visual and electromagnetic detectors, so
spaced as not to let a microbe through. There were fortresses, maulers,
battleships, and their attendant lesser craft. There were projectors,
and mines, and automatic torpedoes with atomic warheads, and other
such things. Were these things completely dependent upon the Eddorian
guardian, or not?

They were not. The officers--Kalonians for the most part--would go into
action at the guardian's signal, of course; but they would at need act
without instructions. A nice setup--a mighty hard nut to crack! He
would have to use zones of compulsion. Nothing else would do.

Picking out the biggest fortress in the neighborhood, with its
correspondingly large field of coverage, he insinuated his mind into
that of one observing officer after another. When he left, a few
minutes later, he knew that none of those officers would initiate any
action in response to the alarms which he would so soon set off. They
were alive, fully conscious, alert, and would have resented bitterly
any suggestion that they were not completely normal in every respect.
Nevertheless, whatever colors the lights flashed, whatever pictures the
plates revealed, whatever noises blared from the speakers, in their
consciousnesses would be only blankness and silence. Nor would recorder
tapes reveal later what had occurred. An instrument cannot register
fluctuations when its movable member is controlled by a couple of
steady fingers.

Then the Eddorian. To take over his whole mind was, Kit knew, beyond
his present power. A partial zone, though, could be set up--and
young Kinnison's mind had been developed specifically to perform the
theretofore impossible. Thus the guardian, without suspecting it,
suffered an attack of partial blindness which lasted for the fraction
of a second necessary for the speedster to flash through the screen.
And there was no recorder to worry about. Eddorians, never sleeping and
never relaxing their vigilance, had no doubt whatever of their own
capabilities and needed no checks upon their own performances.

Christopher Kinnison, Child of the Lens, was inside Eddore's innermost
defensive sphere. For countless cycles of time the Arisians had been
working toward and looking forward to the chain of events of which this
was the first link. Nor would he have much time here: he would have
known that even if Mentor had not so stressed the point. As long as he
did nothing he was safe; but as soon as he started sniffing around he
would be open to detection and some Eddorian would climb his frame in
mighty short order. Then blast and lock on--he might get something,
or a lot, or nothing at all. Then--win, lose, or draw--he had to get
away. Strictly under his own power, against an unknown number of the
most powerful and the most ruthless entities ever to live. The Arisian
couldn't get in here to help him, and neither could the kids. Nobody
could. It was strictly and solely up to him.

For more than a moment his spirit failed. The odds against him were far
too long. The load was too heavy; he didn't have half enough jets to
swing it. Just how did a guy as smart as Mentor figure it that he, a
dumb, green kid, stood a chance against all Eddore?

He was scared; scared to the core of his being; scared as he had never
been before and never would be again. His mouth felt dry, his tongue
cottony. His fingers shook, even as he doubled them into fists to
steady them. To the very end of his long life he remembered the fabric
and the texture of that fear; remembered how it made him decide to turn
back, before it was too late to retrace his way as unobserved as he had
come.

Well, why not? Who would care, and what matter? The Arisians? Nuts!
It was all their fault, sending him in half-ready. His parents? They
wouldn't know what the score was and wouldn't care. They would be on
his side, anyway, no matter what happened. The kids? The _kids_!
Klono's Holy Claws!

They had tried to talk him out of coming in alone. They had fought
like wildcats to make him take them along. He had refused. Now, if
he sneaked back with his tail between his legs, how would they take
it? What would they do? What would they _think_? Then, later,
after he had loused up the big job and let the Arisians and the Patrol
and all Civilization get knocked out--then what? The kids would know
exactly how and why it had happened. He couldn't defend himself,
even if he tried, and he wouldn't try. Did he have any idea how much
sheer, vitriolic, corrosive contempt those four red-headed hellions
could generate? Or, even if they didn't--or as a follow-up--their
condescending, sisterly pity would be a thousand million times worse.
And what would he think of himself? No soap. It was out. Definitely.
The Eddorians could kill him only once. QX.

       *       *       *       *       *

He drove straight downward, noting as he did so that his senses were
clear, his hands steady, his tongue normally moist. He was still
scared, but he was no longer paralyzed.

Low enough, he let his every perceptive sense roam abroad--and became
instantly too busy to worry about anything. There was an immense amount
of new stuff here--if he only could be granted time enough to get it
all!

He wasn't. In a second or so, it seemed, his interference was detected
and an Eddorian came in to investigate. Kit threw everything he had,
and in the brief moment before the completely surprised denizen died,
the young Klovian learned more of the real truth of Eddore and of
the whole Boskonian Empire than all the Arisians had ever found out.
In that one flash of ultimately intimate fusion, he _knew_
Eddorian history, practically _in toto_. He knew the enemies'
culture; he knew how they behaved, and why. He knew their ideals and
their ideologies. He knew a great deal about their organization; their
systems of offense and of defense. He knew their strengths and, more
important, their weaknesses. He knew exactly how, if Civilization were
to triumph at all, its victory must be achieved.

This seems--or rather, it is--incredible. It is, however, simple truth.
Under such stresses as those, an Eddorian mind can yield, and the mind
of such a one as Christopher Kinnison can absorb, an incredible amount
of knowledge in an incredibly brief interval of time.

Kit, already seated at his controls, cut in his every course of
thought-screen. They would help a little in what was coming, but not
much--no mechanical screen then known to Civilization could block
third-level thought. He kicked in full drive toward the one small area
in which he and his speedster would not encounter either beams or
bombs--the fortress whose observers would not perceive that anything
was amiss. He did not fear physical pursuit, since his speedster was
the fastest thing in space.

For a second or so it was not so bad. Another Eddorian came in,
suspicious and on guard. Kit blasted him down--learning still more in
the process--but he could not prevent him from radiating a frantic and
highly revealing call for help. And although the other Eddorians could
scarcely realize that such an astonishing thing as a physical invasion
had actually happened, that fact neither slowed them down nor made
their anger less violent.

When Kit flashed past his friendly fortress he was taking about all
that he could handle, and more and more Eddorians were piling on.
At the fourth screen it was worse; at the third he reached what he
was sure was his absolute ceiling. Nevertheless, from some hitherto
unsuspected profundity of his being, he managed to draw enough reserve
force to endure that hellish punishment for a little while longer.

Hang on, Kit, hang on! Only two more screens to go. Maybe only one.
Maybe less. Living Eddorian brains, and not mechanical generators, are
now handling all the screens, of course; but if Mentor's visualization
is worth a tinker's damn, he must have that first screen knocked down
by this time and must be working on the second. Hang on, Kit, and keep
on slugging!

And grimly--doggedly--toward the end sheerly desperately--Christopher
Kinnison, eldest Child of the Lens, hung on and slugged.



                                XXIII.


If the historian has succeeded in his attempt to describe the
characters and abilities concerned, it is not necessary to enlarge upon
what Kit went through in escaping Eddore. If he has not succeeded,
enlargement would be useless. Therefore, it is enough to say that the
young Lensman, by dint of calling up and putting out everything he
had, hung on long enough and slugged his way through.

Mentor's visualization had been sound. The Eddorian guardians had
scarcely taken over the first screen when it was overwhelmed by a
tremendous wave of Arisian thought. It is to be remembered, however,
that this was the second time that the massed might of Arisia had been
thrown against Eddore's defenses, and the Boskonians had learned much,
during the intervening years, from their exhaustive analyses of the
offensive and defensive techniques of that earlier conflict. Thus the
Arisian drive was practically stopped at the second zone of defense
as Kit approached it. The screen was wavering, shifting; yielding
stubbornly wherever it must and springing back into place whenever it
could.

Under a tremendous concentration of Arisian force the screen weakened
in a limited area directly ahead of the hurtling speedster. A few beams
lashed out aimlessly, uselessly--if the Eddorians could not hold their
main screens proof against the power of the Arisian attack, how could
they protect such minor things as gunners' minds? The little ship
flashed through the weakened barrier and into the center of a sphere of
impenetrable, impermeable Arisian thought.

At the shock of the sudden ending of his terrific battle--the
instantaneous transition from supreme to zero effort--Kit fainted in
his control chair. He lay slumped, inert, in a stupor which changed
gradually into a deep and natural sleep. And as the sleeping man in
his inertialess speedster traversed space at full touring blast, that
peculiar sphere of force still enveloped and still protected him.

Kit finally began to come to. His first foggy thought was that he was
hungry--then, wide awake and remembering, he grabbed his levers.

"Rest quietly and eat your fill," a grave resonant pseudovoice assured
him. "Everything is exactly as it should be."

"Hi, Ment ... well, well, if it isn't my old chum Eukonidor! Hi, young
fellow! What's the good word? And what's the big idea of letting--or
making--me sleep for a week when there's work to do?"

"Your part of the work, at least for the immediate present, is done;
and, let me say, very well done."

"Thanks ... but--" Kit broke off, flushing darkly.

"Do not reproach yourself, nor us. Consider, please, and recite, the
manufacture of a fine tool of ultimate quality."

"The correct alloy. Hot working--perhaps cold, too.
Forging--heating--quenching--drawing--"

"Enough. Think you that the steel, if sentient, would enjoy those
treatments? While you did not enjoy them, you are able to appreciate
their necessity. You are now a finished tool, forged and tempered."

"Oh, you may have something there, at that. But as to ultimate quality,
don't make me laugh." There was no nuance of merriment in Kit's
thought. "You can't square that with cowardice."

"Nor is there need. The term ultimate was used advisedly, and still
stands. It does not mean or imply, however, a state of perfection,
since that condition is unattainable. I am not advising you to try to
forget; nor am I attempting to force forgetfulness upon you, since your
mind cannot now be coerced by any force presently existing. Be assured
that nothing that occurred should irk you; for the simple truth is,
that although stressed as no other mind has ever before been stressed,
you did not yield. Instead, you secured and retained information which
we of Arisia have never been able to obtain; information which will in
fact be the means of preserving your Civilization."

"I can't believe ... that is, it doesn't seem--" Kit, knowing that he
was thinking muddily and foolishly, paused and pulled himself together.
Overwhelming, almost paralyzing as that information was, it must be
true. It _was_ true!

"Yes, it is the truth. While we of Arisia have at various times made
ambiguous statements, to lead certain Lensmen and others to arrive at
erroneous conclusions, you know that we do not lie."

"Yes, I know that." Kit plumbed the Arisian's mind. "It sort of knocks
me out of my orbit--that's an awfully big bite to swallow at one gulp,
you know."

"It is. That is one reason I am here, to convince you of the truth,
which you would not otherwise believe fully. Also to see to it that
your rest, without which you might have been hurt, was not disturbed,
as well as to make sure that you were not permanently damaged by the
Eddorians."

"I wasn't ... at least, I don't think so ... was I?"

"You were not."

"Good. I was wondering--Mentor will be tied up for quite a while, of
course, so I'll ask you--they must have got a sort of pattern of me, in
spite of all I could do, and they'll be camping on my trail from now
on, so I suppose I'll have to keep a solid block up all the time?"

"They will not, Christopher, and you need not. Guided by those whom you
knew as Mentor, I myself, as a Guardian, am to see to that. But time
presses--I must rejoin my fellows."

"One more question first. You've been trying to sell me a bill of goods
that I would like to buy. But, Eukonidor, the kids will know that I
showed a streak of yellow a meter wide. What will _they think_?"

"Is _that_ all?" Eukonidor's thought was almost a laugh. "They
will make that eminently plain in a moment."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Arisian's presence vanished, as did his sphere of force, and four
clamoring thoughts came jamming in.

"Oh, Kit, we're _so_ glad!" "We _tried_ to help, but they
wouldn't let us!" "They smacked us down!" "_Honestly_, Kit!"
"_Oh_, if we had only been in there, too!"

"Hold it, everybody! Jet back!" This was Con, Kit knew, but an entirely
new Con. "Scan him, Cam, as you never scanned anything before. If they
burned out even one cell of his mind, I'm going over there right now
and kick every one of Mentor's teeth out!"

"And listen, Kit!" This was an equally strange Kathryn blazing with
fury and yet suffusing his mind with a more than sisterly tenderness,
a surpassing richness. "If we had had the faintest idea of what they
were doing to you, all the Arisians and all the Eddorians and all the
devils in all the hells of the macrocosmic Universe couldn't have kept
us away. You must believe that, Kit--or can you, quite?"

"Of course, Sis--you don't have to prove an axiom. Seal it, all of you.
You're swell people--absolute tops. But I ... you ... that is--" He
broke off and marshaled his thoughts.

He knew that they knew, in every minute particular, everything that
had occurred. Yet to a girl they thought that he was wonderful. Their
common thought was that they should have been in there, too--taking
what he took--giving what he gave!

"What I don't get is that you are trying to blame yourselves for what
happened to me, when you were on the dead center of the beam all the
time. You _couldn't_ have been in there, kids; it would have blown
the whole works higher than up. You knew that then, and you know it
even better now. You also know that I flew the yellow flag. Didn't that
even _register_?"

"Oh, _that_!" Practically identical thoughts of complete dismissal
came in unison, and Karen followed through:

"The only thing about that is that, since you knew what to expect, we
marvel that you ever managed to go in at all--no one else could have,
possibly. Or, once in, and seeing what was really there, that you
didn't flit right out again. Believe me, brother of mine, you qualify!"

Kit choked. This was too much: but it made him feel good all over.
These kids ... the Universe's best--

As he thought, a partial block came unconsciously into being. For not
one of those gorgeous, those utterly splendid creatures suspected,
even now, that which he so surely knew--that each one of them was very
shortly to be wrought and tempered as he himself had been. And, worse,
he would have to stand aside and watch them, one by one, walk into
it. Was there anything he could do to ward off, or even to soften,
what was coming to them? There was not. With his present power, he
could step in, of course--at what awful cost to Civilization only he,
Christopher Kinnison, of all Civilization, really knew. No. That was
out. Definitely. He could come in afterwards to ease their hurts, as
each had come to him, but that was all--and there was a difference.
They hadn't known about it in advance. It was tough.

Could he do _anything_?

He could not.

       *       *       *       *       *

And on clammy, noisome Eddore, the Arisian attackers having been beaten
off and normality restored, a meeting of the Highest Command was
held. No two of those entities were alike in form; some were changing
from one horrible shape into another; all were starkly, indescribably
monstrous. All were concentrating upon the problem which had been so
suddenly thrust upon them; each of them thought at and with each of
the others. To do justice to the complexity or the cogency of that maze
of intertwined thoughts is impossible; the best that can be done is to
pick out a high point here and there.

"This explains the Star A Star whom the Ploorans and the Kalonians so
fear."

"And the failure of our operator on Thrale, and its fall."

"Also our recent quite serious reverses."

"Those stupid--those utterly brainless underlings!"

"We should have been called in at the start!"

"Could you analyze, or even perceive, its pattern save in small part?"

"No."

"Nor could I--an astounding and highly revealing circumstance."

"An Arisian; or, rather, an Arisian development, certainly. No other
entity of Civilization could possibly do what was done here. Nor could
any Arisian as we know or deduce them."

"They have developed something very recently which we had not
visualized."

"Kinnison's son? Bah! Think they to deceive us by the old device of
energizing a form of ordinary flesh?"

"Kinnison--his son--Nadreck--Worsel--Tregonsee--what matters it?"

"Or, as we now know, the completely imaginary Star A Star."

"We must revise our thinking," an authoritatively composite mind
decided. "We must revise our theory and our plan. It may be possible
that this new development will necessitate immediate, instead of
later, action. If we had had a competent race of proxies, none of this
would have happened, as we would have been kept informed. To correct
a situation which may become grave, as well as to acquire fullest and
latest information, we must attend the conference which is now being
held on Ploor."

       *       *       *       *       *

They did so. With no perceptible lapse of time or mode of transit,
the Eddorian mind was in an assembly room upon that now flooded
world. Resembling Nevians as much as any other race with which man is
familiar, the now amphibious Ploorans lolled upon padded benches and
argued heatedly. They were discussing, upon a lower level, much of
the same material which the Eddorians had been considering so shortly
before.

Star A Star. Kinnison had been captured easily enough, but had,
almost immediately, escaped from an escape-proof trap. Another trap
was set, but would it take him? Would it hold him if it did? Kinnison
was--_must_ be--Star A Star. No, he could not be, there had been
too many unrelated and simultaneous occurrences. Kinnison, Nadreck,
Clarrissa, Worsel, Tregonsee, even Kinnison's young son, had all shown
intermittent flashes of inexplicable power. Kinnison most of all. It
was a fact worthy of note that the beginning of the long series of
Boskonian setbacks coincided with Kinnison's appearance among the
Lensmen.

The situation was bad. Not irreparable, by any means, but grave.
The fault lay with the Eich, and perhaps with Kandron of Onlo. Such
stupidity! Such incompetence! Those lower-echelon operators should
have had brains enough to have reported the matter to Ploor before
the situation got completely out of hand. But they didn't; hence this
mess. None of them, however, expressed a thought that the present
situation was already one with which they themselves could not cope;
nor suggested that it be referred to Eddore before it should become too
hot for even the Masters to handle.

"Fools! Imbeciles! We, the Masters, although through no foresight
or design of yours, are already here. Know now that you have been
and still are yourselves guilty of the same conduct which you are
so violently condemning in others." Neither Eddorians nor Ploorans
realized that that deficiency was inherent in the Boskonian scheme of
things, or that it stemmed from the organization's very top. "Sheer
stupidity! Gross overconfidence! Those are the reasons for our recent
reverses!"

"But, Masters," a Plooran argued, "now that we have taken over, we are
winning steadily. Civilization is rapidly going to pieces. In a few
more years we will have smashed it flat."

"That is precisely what they wish you to think. They have been and
are playing for time. Your bungling and mismanagement have already
given them sufficient time to develop an object or an entity able to
penetrate our screens, so that Eddore suffered the disgrace of an
actual physical invasion. It was brief, to be sure, and unsuccessful,
but it was an invasion, none the less--the first in our long history."

"But, Masters--"

"Silence! We are not here to indulge in recriminations, but to
determine facts. Since you do not know Eddore's location in space, it
is a certainty that you did not, either wittingly or otherwise, furnish
that information. That in turn makes it clear who, basically, the
invader was."

"Star A Star?" A wave of questions swept the group.

"One name serves as well as another for what is almost certainly an
Arisian entity or device. It is enough for you to know that it is
something with which your massed minds would be completely unable to
deal. To the best of your knowledge, have you been invaded, either
physically or mentally?"

"We have not, Masters; and it is unbelievable that--"

"Is it so?" The Masters sneered. "Neither our screens nor our Eddorian
guardsmen gave any alarm. We learned of the Arisian's presence only
when he attempted to probe our very minds, at Eddore's very surface.
Are your screens and minds, then, so much better than ours?"

"We erred, Masters. We abase ourselves. What do you wish us to do?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"That is better. You will be informed, as soon as a few last-minute
details have been worked out. Although nothing is established by the
fact that you know of no occurrences here on Ploor, the probability is
that you are still unknown and unsuspected, since it is unthinkable
that the enemies' minds are in any real sense as strong as ours.
Nevertheless, one of us is now taking over control of the trap which
you set for Kinnison, in the belief that he is Star A Star."

"Belief, Masters? It is certain that he is Star A Star!"

"In essence, yes. In exactness, no. Kinnison is, in all probability,
merely a puppet through whom an Arisian works at times. If _you_
take Kinnison in that trap, however, the entity you call Star A Star
will assuredly kill you all."

"But, Masters--"

"Again, fools, silence!" The thought dripped vitriol. "Remember how
easily Kinnison escaped from you? It was the supremely clever move of
not following through and destroying you then that obscured the truth
for years--that gave them all this additional time. As we have said,
you are completely powerless against the one you call Star A Star.
Against any lesser force, however--and the probability is exceedingly
great that only such forces, if any, will be sent against you--you
should be able to win. Are you ready?"

"We are ready, Masters." At last the Ploorans were upon familiar
ground. "Since ordinary weapons will be useless against us, they
will not attempt to use them--especially since they have developed
three extraordinary and supposedly irresistible weapons of attack.
First: projectiles composed of negative matter, particularly those
of planetary antimass. Second: loose planets, driven inertialess,
but inerted at the point at which their intrinsic velocities render
collision unavoidable. Third, and worst: the sunbeam. These gave us
some trouble, particularly the last, but the problems were solved and
if any one of the three, or all of them, are used against us, disaster
for the Galactic Patrol is assured.

"Nor did we stop there. Our psychologists, working with our engineers,
after having analyzed exhaustively the capabilities of the so-called
Second-Stage Lensmen, developed countermeasures against every
super-weapon which they will be able to develop during the next
century."

"Such as?" The Masters were unimpressed.

"The most probable one is an extension of the sunbeam principle,
to operate from a distant sun; or, preferably, a nova. We are now
installing fields and grids by the use of which we, not the Patrol,
will direct that beam."

"Interesting--if true. Spread in our minds the details of all that
you have foreseen and the fashions in which you have safeguarded
yourselves."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a long operation, even at the speed of thought. At its end the
Eddorians were unconvinced, skeptical, and pessimistic.

"We can visualize several other things which the forces of
Civilization may be able to develop well within the century," the
Master mind said, coldly. "We will assemble data concerning a few of
them, for your study. In the meantime, hold yourselves in readiness to
act, as we shall issue final orders very shortly."

"Yes, Masters," and the Eddorians went back to their home planet as
effortlessly as they had left it. There they concluded their conference.

"It is clear that Kinnison will enter that trap. He cannot do
otherwise. Kinnison's protector, whoever or whatever he or it may be,
may or may not enter it with him. It may or may not be taken with him.
Whether or not the new Arisian figment is taken, Kimball Kinnison must
die. He is the very keystone of the Galactic Patrol. At his death, as
we will advertise it to have come about, the Patrol will fall apart.
The Arisians, themselves unknown, will be forced to try to rebuild it
around another puppet; but neither his son nor any other man will ever
be able to take Kinnison's place in the esteem of the hero-worshiping,
undisciplined mob which is Civilization. Hence the importance of your
project. You, personally, will supervise the operation of the trap.
You, personally, will kill him."

"With one exception, I agree with everything said. I am not at all
certain that death is the answer. One way or another, however, I shall
deal effectively with Kinnison."

"Deal with? We said kill!"

"I heard you. I still say that mere death may not be adequate. I shall
consider the matter at length, and shall submit in due course my
conclusions and recommendations, for your consideration and approval."

       *       *       *       *       *

Although none of the Eddorians knew it, their pessimism in regard
to the ability of the Ploorans to defend their planet against the
assaults of Second-Stage Lensmen was even then being justified. Kimball
Kinnison, after pacing the floor for hours, called his son.

"Kit, I've been working on a thing for months, and I don't know whether
I've got a workable solution at last, or not. It may depend entirely on
you. Before I go into it, though, I take it that you check me in saying
that when we find Boskonia's top planet we're going to have to blow it
out of the ether, and that nothing that we have ever used before will
work?"

"Check, on both." Kit thought soberly for minutes. "More, it will
have to be practically instantaneous, as well as complete. Like the
negabombs or the sunbeam, but a lot faster."

"My thought exactly. I've got something, I think, but nobody except old
Cardynge and Mentor of Arisia--"

"Hold it, Dad, while I do a bit of spying and put out some coverage.
QX, go ahead."

"Nobody except those two knew anything about the mathematics involved.
Even Sir Austin knew only enough to be able to understand Mentor's
directions--he didn't do any of the deep stuff himself. Nobody in the
present Conference of Science could even begin to handle it. It's
that foreign space, you know, that we called the nth space, where that
hyperspatial tube dumped us that time. You've been doing a lot of work
with some of the Arisians on that sort of stuff. Could you get them to
help you compute a tube between Lyrane and there, so that Thorndyke and
some of his boys and I could go there and get back?"

"Hm-m-m. Let me think a second. Yes, I can. When do you need it?"

"Today--or even yesterday."

"Too fast. It'll take a couple of days, but it'll be ready for you long
before you can get your ship ready and get your gang and the stuff for
your gadget aboard her."

"That won't take so long, son. Same ship we rode before. She's still
in commission, you know--_Space Laboratory XII_, her name is now.
Special generators, tools, instruments, everything. We'll be ready in
two days."

They were, and Kit smiled as he greeted Vice Admiral LaVerne
Thorndyke, Principal Technician, and the other surviving members of his
father's original crew.

"_What_ a tonnage of brass!" Kit said to Kim, later. "Heaviest
load I ever saw on one ship. One sure thing, though, they earned it.
You must have been able to pick _men_, too, in those days."

"What d'ya mean, 'those days,' you disrespectful young ape? I can still
pick _men_, son!" Kim grinned back at Kit, but sobered quickly.
"There's more to this than meets the eye. They went through the strain
once, and know what it means. They can take it, and just about all of
them will come back. With a crew of kids, twenty per cent would be a
high estimate."

As soon as the vessel passed System Limits, Kit got another surprise.
Even though those men were studded with brass and were, by a boy's
standard, _old_, they were not passengers. In their old
_Dauntless_ and well away from port, they gleefully threw off
their full-dress uniforms. Each donned the clothing of his status of
twenty-odd years back and went to work. The members of the regular
crew, young as all regular space crewmen are, did not know at first
whether they liked the idea of working watch-and-watch with such heavy
brass or not, but they soon found out that they did. Those men were men.

It is an ironclad rule of space, however, that operating pilots must be
young. Master Pilot Henry Henderson cursed that ruling sulphurously,
even while he watched with a proud, if somewhat jaundiced eye, the
smooth performance of his son Henry at his own old board.

They approached their destination--cut the jets--felt for the
vortex--found it--cut in the special generators. Then, as the fields
of the ship reacted against those of the tube, every man aboard felt a
malaise to which no being has ever become accustomed. Most men become
immune rather quickly to seasickness, to airsickness, and even to
space-sickness. Interdimensional acceleration, however, is something
else. It is different--just how different cannot be explained to anyone
who has never experienced it.

The almost unbearable acceleration ceased. They were in the tube. Every
plate showed blank; everywhere there was the same drab and featureless
gray. There was neither light nor darkness; there was simply and
indescribably--nothing whatever, not even empty space.

Kit threw a switch. There was a wrenching, twisting shock, followed
by a deceleration exactly as sickening as the acceleration had been.
It ceased. They were in that enigmatic nth space which each of the
older men remembered so well; in which so many of their "natural laws"
did not hold. Time still raced, stopped, or ran backward, seemingly
at whim; inert bodies had intrinsic velocities far above that of
light--and so on. Each of those men, about to be marooned of his own
choice in this utterly hostile environment, drew a deep breath and
squared his shoulders as he prepared to disembark.

"That's computation, Kit!" Kinnison exclaimed after one glance into a
plate. "That's the same planet we worked on before, right there. All
our machines and stuff, untouched. If you'd figured it any closer, it'd
have been a collision course. Are you dead sure, Kit, that everything's
all set?"

"Dead sure, Dad, in full duplicate, and Thorndyke and Henderson both
know the board."

"QX. Well, fellows, I'd like to stay here with you, and so would Kit,
but we've got chores to do. I don't have to tell you to be careful, but
I'm going to, anyway. BE CAREFUL! And as soon as you get done, come
back home just as fast as Klono will let you. Clear ether, fellows!"

"Clear ether, Kim!"

Lensman father and Lensman son boarded their speedster and left. They
traversed the tube and emerged into normal space, all without a word.

"Kit," the older man ground out, finally. "This gives me the colly
wobblies, no less. Suppose some of them--or all of them--get killed out
there? Is it worth it? I know it's my own idea, but will we need it
badly enough to take the chance?"

"We will, Dad. Mentor says that we will."

And that was that.



                                 XXIV.


Kit had had to get back to normal space as soon as possible, in order
to be available in case of need. He wanted to get back in time to help
his sisters pull themselves together. Think as he would, he could
find no flaw in any one of them; but he knew that Mentor would find
something or other the matter with each of them. Not a weakness in any
ordinary sense, but a strength which was not the ultimate.

Kinnison had had to get back because his business was really pressing.
He had called a conference of all the Second-Stage Lensmen and his
children; a conference which, bizarrely enough, was to be held in
person and not via Lens.

"Not strictly necessary, of course," the Gray Lensman half-apologized
to his son as their speedster neared the point of rendezvous with
the _Dauntless_. "I still think that it's a good idea, though,
especially since we were all so close to Lyrane anyway."

"So do I. It's been a mighty long time since we were all together.
Everybody's there now except Nadreck--he'll board about the same time
we do."

They boarded. Spacehounds both, they saw to it that their speedster was
dogged down solidly into her chocks before they went to the main saloon.

"Hi, Mums! Still stopping traffic at all intersections, I see!" Kit
lowered his mother's feet to the floor and attempted the physically
impossible feat of embracing all four of his sisters at once.

By common consent the Five used only their eyes. Nothing showed.
Nevertheless, the girls blushed vividly and Kit's face twisted into a
dry, wry grin.

"It was good for what ailed us, though, at that--I guess." Kit did
not seem to be at all positive. "Mentor, the lug, told me no less
than six times that I had arrived--or at least made statements which
I interpreted as meaning that. And Eukonidor just told me that I was
a 'finished tool,' whatever that means. Personally, I think that they
were sitting back and wondering how long it was going to take us to
realize that we never could be half as good as we used to think we
were. Suppose?"

"Something like that, probably. We've shivered more than once,
wondering whether we are really finished products yet or not."

"We've learned--I hope." Karen, hard as she was, did shiver,
physically. "If we aren't it will be ... _p-s-s-t_--Dad's starting
the meeting!"

"... so settle down, all of you, and we'll get going."

What a group! Tregonsee of Rigel IV--stolid, solid, blocky,
immobile; looking as little as possible like one of the profoundest
thinkers Civilization had ever produced--did not move. Worsel, the
ultrasensitive yet utterly implacable Velantian, curled out three or
four eyes and looked on languidly while Constance kicked a few coils
of his tail onto a comfortable chaise longue, reclined unconcernedly
in the seat thus made, and lighted an Alsakanite cigarette. Clarrissa
Kinnison, radiant in her Grays and looking scarcely older than her
daughters, sat beside Kathryn, each with an arm around the other.
Karen and Camilla, neither of whom could ordinarily be described by
the adjective "cuddlesome," were on a davenport with Kit, snuggling
as close to him as they could get. And in the farthest corner the
heavily-armored, heavily-insulated spacesuit which contained Nadreck of
Palain VII chilled the atmosphere for yards around.

"QX?" Kinnison began. "We'll take Nadreck first, since he isn't any too
happy here, and let him flit--he'll keep in touch from outside after he
leaves. Report, please, Nadreck."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I have explored Lyrane IX _thoroughly_." Nadreck made the
statement and paused. When he used such a thought at all, it meant
much. When he emphasized it, which no one there had ever before known
him to do, it meant that he had examined the planet practically atom
by atom. "There was no life of the level of intelligence in which
we are interested to be found on, beneath, or above its surface. I
could find no evidence that such life has ever been there, either as
permanent dwellers or as occasional visitors."

"When Nadreck settles anything as definitely as that, it stays
settled," Kinnison remarked as soon as the Palainian had left. "I'll
report next. You all know what I did about Kalonia, and so on. The
only significant fact I have been able to find--the only lead to the
Boskonian higher-ups--is that Black Lensman Melasnikov got his Lens on
Lyrane IX. There were no traces of mental surgery. I can see two, and
only two, alternatives. Either there was mental surgery which I could
not detect, or there were visitors to Lyrane IX who left no traces of
their visits. More reports may enable us to decide. Worsel?"

The Second-Stage Lensmen reported in turn. Each had uncovered leads to
Lyrane IX, but Worsel and Tregonsee, who had also studied that planet
with care, agreed with Nadreck that there was nothing to be found there.

"Kit?" Kinnison asked then. "How about you and the girls?"

"We believe that Lyrane IX was visited by beings having sufficient
power of mind to leave no traces whatever as to who they were or
where they came from. We also believe that there was no surgery,
but an infinitely finer kind of work--an indetectable subconscious
compulsion--done on the minds of the Black Lensmen and others who
came into physical contact with the Boskonians. These opinions are
based upon experiences which we five have had and upon deductions we
have made. If we are right, Lyrane is actually, as well as apparently,
a dead end and should be abandoned. Furthermore, we believe that the
Black Lensmen have not been and cannot become important."

The Co-ordinator was surprised, but after Kit and his sisters had
detailed their findings and their deductions, he turned to the
Rigellian.

"What next, then, Tregonsee?"

"After Lyrane IX, it seems to me that the two most promising subjects
are those entities who think upon such a high band, and the phenomenon
which has been called 'The Hell Hole in Space.' Of the two, I preferred
the first until Camilla's researches showed that the available data
could not be reconciled with the postulate that the life-forms of
her reconstruction were identical with those reported to you as
Co-ordinator. This data, however, was scanty and casual. While we
are here, therefore, I suggest that we review this matter much more
carefully, in the hope that additional information will enable us to
come to a definite conclusion, one way or the other. Since it was her
research, Camilla will lead."

       *       *       *       *       *

"First, a question," Camilla began. "Imagine a sun so variable that
it periodically covers practically the entire possible range. It has
a planet whose atmosphere, liquid, and distance are such that its
surface temperature varies from approximately two hundred degrees
Centigrade in midsummer to about five degrees absolute in midwinter.
In the spring its surface is almost completely submerged. There are
terrible winds and storms in the spring, summer, and fall; but the
fall storms are the worst. Has anyone here ever heard of such a planet
having an intelligent life-form able to maintain a continuing existence
through such varied environments by radical changes in its physical
body?"

A silence ensued, which Nadreck finally broke.

"I know of two such planets. Near Palain there is an extremely variable
sun, two of whose planets support life. All of the higher life-forms,
the highest of which are quite intelligent, undergo regular and radical
changes, not only of form, but of organization."

"Thanks, Nadreck. That will perhaps make my story believable. From
the thoughts of one of the entities in question, I reconstructed
such a solar system. More, that entity himself belonged to just such
a race. It was _such_ a nice reconstruction," Camilla went on,
plaintively, "and it fitted all those other life-forms so beautifully,
especially Kat's 'four-cycle periods.' And to prove it, Kat--put up
your block, now--you never told anybody the classification of your pet
to more than seven places, did you, or even thought about it?"

"No." Kathryn's mind, since the moment of warning, had been unreadable.

"Take the seven. The next three were S-T-R. Check?"

"Check."

"But that makes it _solid_, Sis!" Kit exclaimed.

"That's what I thought, for a minute--that we had Boskone at last.
However, when Tregonsee and I first felt 'X,' long before you met
yours, Kat, his classification was TUUV. That would fit in well enough
as a spring form, with Kat's as the summer form. What ruins it, though,
is that when he killed himself, just a little while ago and long
after a summer form could possibly exist--to say nothing of a spring
form--his classification was _still_ TUUV. To ten places it was
TUUVWYXXWT."

"Well, go on," Kinnison suggested. "What do you make of it?"

"The obvious explanation is that one or all of those entities were
planted or primed--not specifically for us, probably, since we are
relatively unknown, but for any competent observer. If so, they don't
mean a thing." Camilla was not now overestimating her own powers or
underestimating those of Boskonia. "There are several others, less
obvious, leading to the same conclusion. Tregonsee is not ready to
believe any of them, however, and neither am I. Assuming that our data
was not biased, we must also account for the fact that the locations in
space were--"

"Just a minute, Cam, before you leave the classifications," Constance
interrupted. "I'm guarded--what was my friend's, to ten places?"

"VWZYTXSYZY," Camilla replied, unhesitatingly.

"Right; and I don't believe that it was planted, either, so there--"

"Let me in a second!" Kit demanded. "I didn't know that you were on
that band at all. I got that RTSL thing even before I graduated--"

"Huh? What RTSL?" Cam broke in, sharply.

"My fault," Kinnison put in then. "Skipped my mind entirely, when she
asked me for the dope. None of us thought any of this stuff important
until just now, you know. Tell her, Kit."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kit repeated his story, concluding:

"Beyond four places was pretty dim, but Q P arms and legs--Dhilian,
eh?--would fit, and so would an R-type hide. Both Kat's and mine, then,
could very well have been summer forms, one of their years apart. The
thing I felt was on its own planet, and it _died_ there, and
credits to millos the thought I got wasn't primed. And the location--"

"Brake down, Kit," Camilla instructed. "Let's settle this thing of
timing first. I've got a theory, but I want some ideas from the rest of
you."

"Maybe something like this?" Clarrissa asked, after a few minutes
of silence. "In many forms which metamorphose completely the change
depends upon temperature. No change takes place as long as the
temperature remains the same. Your TUUV could have been flitting around
in a spaceship at constant temperature. Could this apply here, Cam, do
you think?"

"_Could_ it?" Kinnison exclaimed. "That's it, Chris, sure!"

"That was my theory," Camilla said, still dubiously, "but there is no
proof that it applies. Nadreck, do you know whether or not it applies
to your neighbors?"

"Unfortunately, I do not; but I can find out--by experiment if
necessary."

"It might be a good idea," Kinnison suggested. "Go on, Cam."

"Assuming its truth, there is still left the problem of location,
which Kit has just made infinitely worse than it was before. Con's and
mine were so indefinite that they might possibly have been reconciled
with Kat's precisely-known co-ordinates; but yours, Kit, is almost as
definite as Kat's, and cannot possibly be made to agree with it. After
all, you know, there are many planets peopled by races humanoid to ten
places. And if there are four different races, none of them can be the
one we want."

"I don't believe it," Kit argued. "Not that I think on that peculiar
band. I'm sure enough of my dope so that I want to cross-question Kat
on hers. QX, Kat?"

"Surely, Kit. Any questions you like."

"Those minds both had plenty of jets--how do you know that he was
telling you the truth? Did you drive in to see? Are you sure even that
you saw his real shape?"

"Certainly I'm sure of his shape!" Kathryn snapped. "If there had
been any zones of compulsion around, I would have known it and got
suspicious right then."

"Maybe, and maybe not," Kit disagreed. "That might depend, you know, on
how good the guy was who was putting out the zone."

"Nuts!" Kathryn snorted, inelegantly. "But as to his telling the truth
about his home planet--I'm not sure of that, no. I didn't check his
channels. I was thinking about other things then." The Five knew that
she had just left Mentor. "But why should he want to lie about a thing
like that--he would have, though, at that. Good Boskonian technique."

"Sure. In your official capacity of Co-ordinator, Dad, what do you
think?"

"The probability is that all those four forms of life belong on one
planet. Your location must be wrong, Kat--he gave you the wrong galaxy,
even. Too close to Trenco, too--Tregonsee and I both know that region
like a book and no such variable is anywhere near there. We've got to
find out all about that planet as soon as possible. Worsel, will you
please get the charts of Kit's region? Kit, will you check with the
planetographers of Klovia as to the variable stars anywhere near where
you want them, and how many planets they've got? I'll call Tellus."

       *       *       *       *       *

The charts were studied, and in due time the reports of the
planetographers were received. The Klovian scientists reported that
there were four long-period variables in the designated volume of
space, gave the spatial co-ordinates and catalogue numbers of each,
and all available data concerning their planets. The Tellurians
reported only three, in considerably less detail; but they had named
each sun and each planet.

"Which one did they leave out?" Kinnison wondered audibly as he fitted
the two transparencies together. "This one they call Artonon, no
planets. Dunlie, two planets, Abab and Dunster. Descriptions, and so
on. Rontieff, one planet that they don't know anything about except the
name they have given it. Silly-sounding names--suppose they assemble
them by grabbing letters at random? Ploor--"

PLOOR: At last! Only their instantaneous speed of reaction enabled the
Five to conceal from the linkage the shrieked thought of what Ploor
really meant. After a flashing exchange of thought, Kit smoothly took
charge of the conference.

"The planet Ploor should be investigated first, I think," he resumed
communication with the group as though his attention had not wavered.
"It is the planet nearest the most probable point of origin of that
thought-burst. Also, the period of the variable and the planet's
distance seem to fit our observations and deductions better than any of
the others. Any arguments?"

No arguments. They all agreed. Kinnison, however, demanded action;
direct and fast.

"We'll investigate it!" he exclaimed. "With the _Dauntless_, the
_Z9M9Z_, and Grand Fleet; and with our very special knickknack as
an ace up our sleeve!"

"Just a minute, Dad!" Kit protested. "If, as some of this material
seems to indicate, the Ploorans actually are the top of the Boskonian
culture, even that array may not be enough."

"You may be right--probably are. What, then? What do you say,
Tregonsee?"

"Fleet action, yes," the Rigellian agreed. "Also, as you implied,
but did not clearly state, independent but correlated action by us
five Second-Stage Lensmen, with our various skills. I would suggest,
however, that your children be put first--very definitely first--in
command."

"We object--we haven't got jets enough to--"

"Overruled!" Kinnison did not have to think to make that decision. He
knew. "Any other objections?... Approved. I'll call Cliff Maitland
right now, then, and get things going."

       *       *       *       *       *

That call, however, was never sent; for at that moment the mind of
Mentor of Arisia flooded the group.

"Children, attend! This intrusion is necessary because a matter has
come up which will permit of no delay. Boskonia is now launching the
attack which has been in preparation for over twenty years. Arisia
is to be the first point of attack. Kinnison, Tregonsee, Worsel, and
Nadreck will take immediate steps to assemble the Grand Fleet of the
Galactic Patrol in defense. I will confer at length with the younger
Kinnisons.

"The Eddorians, as you know," Mentor went on to the Children of the
Lens, "believe primarily in the efficacy of physical, material force.
While they possess minds of real power, they use them principally as
tools in the development of more and ever more efficient mechanical
devices. We of Arisia, on the other hand, believe in the superiority
of the mind. A fully competent mind would have no need of material
devices, since it could control all material substance directly. While
we have made some progress toward that end, and you will make more
in the cycles to come, Civilization is, and for some time will be,
dependent upon physical things. Hence the Galactic Patrol and its Grand
Fleet.

"The Eddorians, after ages of effort, have succeeded in inventing a
mechanical generator able to block our most penetrant thoughts. They
believe implicitly that their vessels, so protected, will be able to
destroy our planet. They may believe that the destruction of our planet
would so weaken us that they would be able to destroy us. It is assumed
that you children have deduced that neither we nor the Eddorians can be
slain by physical force?"

"Yes--the clincher being that no suggestion was made about giving
Eddore a planet from nth space."

"We Arisians, during an equally long time, have been aiding Nature in
the development of minds much abler than our own. While those minds
will not attain their full powers until after many years of work and
study, we believe that you will be able, immature as you are, to use
the Patrol and its resources to defend Arisia and to destroy the
Boskonian fleet. That we cannot do it ourselves is implicit in what I
have said."

"But that means ... this is the big show, then, that you have been
hinting at so long?"

"Far from it. An important engagement, of course, but only preliminary
to the real test, which will come when we invade Eddore. Do you agree
with us that if Arisia were to be destroyed now, it would be difficult
to repair the damage done to the morale of the Galactic Patrol?"

"Difficult? It would be impossible!"

"Not necessarily. We have considered the matter at length, however, and
have decided that a Boskonian success at this time would not be for the
good of Civilization."

"I'll say it wouldn't--that's a masterpiece of understatement if there
ever was one! Also, a successful defense of Arisia would be about the
best thing that the Patrol could possibly do for itself."

"Exactly so. Go, then, children, and work to that end."

"But how, Mentor--_how_?"

"Again I tell you that I do not know. You have powers--individually,
collectively, and as the Unit--about which I know little or nothing.
_Use them!_"



                                 XXV.


The "Big Brass"--socially the _Directrix_, technically the
_Z9M9Z_--floated through space at the center of a hollow sphere
of maulers packed almost screen to screen. She carried the Brains. She
had been built around the seventeen million cubic feet of unobstructed
space which comprised her "tank"--the three-dimensional chart in which
vari-colored lights, stationary and moving, represented the positions
and motions of solar systems, ships, loose planets, negaspheres, and
all other objects and items in which Grand Fleet Operations was,
or might become, interested. Completely encircling the tank's more
than two thousand feet of circumference was the Rigellian-manned,
multimillion-plug board; a crew and a board capable of handling
efficiently more than a million combat units.

In the "reducer," the comparatively tiny ten-foot tank set into an
alcove, there were condensed the continuously-changing major features
of the main chart, so that one man could comprehend and direct the
broad strategy of the engagement.

Instead of Port Admiral Haynes, who had conned that reducer and issued
general orders during the only previous experience of the _Z9M9Z_
in serious warfare, Kimball Kinnison was now in supreme command.
Instead of Kinnison and Worsel, who had formerly handled the big tank
and the board, there were Clarrissa, Worsel, Tregonsee, and the
Children of the Lens. There also, in a built-in, thoroughly competent
refrigerator, was Nadreck. Port Admiral Raoul LaForge and Vice
Co-ordinator Clifford Maitland were just coming aboard.

Might he need anybody else, Kinnison wondered. Couldn't think of
anybody--he had just about the whole top echelon of Civilization.
Cliff and Laf weren't L2's, of course, but they were mighty good
men--besides, he _liked_ them! Too bad that the fourth officer of
their class couldn't be there, too--gallant Wiedel Holmberg, killed in
action. At that, three out of four was a high average--mighty high.

"Hi, Cliff--Hi, Laf!"

"Hi, Kim!"

The three old friends shook hands cordially, then the two newcomers
stared for minutes into the maze of lights flashing and winking in the
tremendous space chart.

"Glad I don't have to try to make sense out of that," LaForge
commented, finally. "Looks a lot different in battle harness than on
practice cruises. You want me on that forward wall there, you said?"

"Yes. You can see it plainer down here in the reducer. The white star
is Arisia. The yellows, all marked, are suns and other fixed points,
such as the markers along the arbitrary rim of the Galaxy, running from
there to there. Reds will be Boskonians when they get close enough to
show. Greens are ours. Up in the big tank everything is identified,
but down here there's no room for details--each green light marks
the location of a whole operating fleet. That block of green circles,
there, is your command. It's about eighty parsecs deep and covers
everything within two hours--say a hundred and fifty parsecs--of the
line between Arisia and the Second Galaxy. Pretty loose now, of course,
but you can tighten it up and shift it as you please as soon as some
reds show up. You'll have a Rigellian talker--here he is now--when you
want anything done, think at him and he'll give it to the right panel
on the board. QX?"

"I think so. I'll practice a bit."

"Now you, Cliff. These green crosses, halfway between the forward wall
and Arisia, are yours. You won't have quite as much depth as Laf, but a
wider coverage. The green tetrahedrons are mine. They blanket Arisia,
you notice, and fill the space out to the second wall."

"Do you think that you and I will have anything to do?" Maitland asked,
waving a hand at LaForge's tremendous barrier.

"I wish I could hope that we won't, but I can't. I have it from a
usually reliable source that they're going to throw the book. That
means hyperspatial tubes as well as open space--they'll probably strike
everywhere at once."

       *       *       *       *       *

Then for weeks Grand Fleet drilled, maneuvered, and practiced. All
space within ten parsecs of Arisia was divided into minute cubes, each
of which was given a reference number. Fleets were so placed that any
point in that space could be reached by at least one fleet in thirty
seconds or less of elapsed time.

Drill went on until, finally, it happened. Constance, on guard at the
moment, perceived the slight "curdling" of space which presages the
appearance of the terminus of a hyperspatial tube and gave the alarm.
Kit, the girls, and all the Arisians responded instantly--all knew that
this was to be a thing which not even the Five could handle unaided.

Not one, or a hundred, or a thousand, but at least two hundred thousand
of those tubes erupted, practically at once. Kit could alert and
instruct ten Rigellian operators every second, and so could each of his
sisters; but since every tube within striking distance of Arisia had
to be guarded or plugged within thirty seconds of its appearance, and
since all of the work was done out in space and not in the tank, it is
seen that the Arisians did practically all of the spotting and placing
during those first literally incredible two or three minutes.

If the Boskonians could have emerged from a tube's terminus in the
moment of its appearance, it is quite probable that nothing could
have saved Arisia. As it was, however, the enemy required seconds, or
sometimes even whole minutes, to traverse their tubes, which gave the
defenders much valuable time.

One of the observers--an Arisian or a Third-Stage Lensman--at first
perception of a terminus erupting, noted the number of the threatened
space-cubicle, informed the Rigellian operator upon whose panel the
number was, and flashed a message to all other observers that that
number had been "handled." The observer flashed the number to the
Communications board of the flagship of the fleet covering that space;
a flash which was automatically relayed to every Communications and
Navigations officer of that fleet, and which also automatically called
upon Reserve for another fleet to take the place being vacated. Without
further orders, the fleet drove toward its target cube. En route,
tube-locators mapped the terminus and marked its exact location upon
each vessel's tube plates.

Upon arriving, the fleet englobed the terminus and laced itself, by
means of tractors and pressors, into a rigid although inertialess
structure. Then, if there was time, and because the theory was that
the pirates would probably send a negasphere through first, with an
intrinsic velocity aimed at Arisia, a suitably equipped loose planet
was tossed into "this end" of the tube. Since they might send a loose
or an armed planet through first, however, the Fleet Admiral usually
threw a negasphere in, too.

What happened when planet met negasphere, in the unknown medium which
makes up the "interior" of a hyperspatial tube, is not and probably
never will be surely known. Several highly abstruse mathematical
treatises and many volumes of rather gruesome fiction have been written
upon the subject--none of which, however, has any bearing here.

If the Patrol fleet did not get there first, the succession of events
was different; the degree of difference depending upon how much time
the enemy had had. If, as sometimes happened, a fleet was coming
through it was met by superatomic bombs and by the concentrated fire of
every primary projector that the englobing task force could bring to
bear; with consequences upon which it is neither necessary or desirable
to dwell. If a planet had emerged, it was met by a negasphere--

Have you ever seen a negasphere strike a planet?

The negasphere is built of negative matter. This material--or, rather,
antimaterial--is in every respect the exact opposite of the everyday
matter of normal space. Instead of electrons, its ultimate units are
positrons--the "Dirac Holes" in an infinity of negative energy. To it
a push, however violent, is a pull; a pull is a push. When negative
matter strikes positive, then, there is no collision in the usual sense
of the word. One electron and one positron neutralize each other and
disappear; giving rise to two quanta of extremely hard radiation.

Thus, when the spherical hyper-plane which was the aspect of
negasphere tended to occupy the same three-dimensional space in
which the loose planet already was, there was no actual collision.
Instead, the materials of both simply vanished, along the surface of
what should have been a contact, in a gigantically crescendo burst
of pure, raw energy. The atoms and the molecules of the planet's
substance disappeared; the physically incomprehensible texture of
the negasphere's antimass changed into that of normal space. And all
circumambient space was flooded with inconceivably lethal radiation; so
intensely lethal that any being not adequately shielded from it died
before he had time to realize that he was being burned.

Gravitation, of course, was unaffected; and the rapid disappearance
of the planet's mass set up unbalanced forces of tremendous
magnitude. The hot, dense, pseudoliquid magma tended to erupt
as the sphere of nothingness devoured so rapidly the planet's
substance, but not a particle of it could move. Instead, it vanished.
Mountains fell, crashingly. Oceans poured. Earth-cracks appeared;
miles wide, tens of miles deep, hundreds of miles long. The world
heaved--shuddered--disintegrated--vanished.

       *       *       *       *       *

The shock attack upon Arisia itself, which in the Eddorian mind had
been mathematically certain to succeed, was over in approximately six
minutes. Kinnison, Maitland, and LaForge, fuming at their stations,
had done nothing at all. The Boskonians had probably thrown everything
they could; the probability was vanishingly small that that particular
attack was to be or could be resumed. Nevertheless a host of Kinnison's
task forces remained on guard and a detail of Arisians still scanned
all nearby space.

"What shall I do next, Kit?" Camilla asked. "Help Connie crack that
screen?"

Kit glanced at his youngest sister, who was stretched out flat, every
muscle rigidly tense in an extremity of effort.

"No," he decided. "If she can't crack it alone, all four of us couldn't
help her much. Besides, I don't believe that she can break through
it. That's a mechanical screen, you know, powered by atomic-motored
generators. My guess is that it'll have to be _solved_, not
cracked, and the solution will take time. When she comes down off of
that peak, Kay, you might tell her so, and both of you start solving
it. The rest of us have another job. The moppers-up are coming in
force, and there isn't a chance that either we or the Arisians can
derive the counter-formula of that screen in less than a week.
Therefore the rest of this battle will have to be fought out on
conventional lines. We can do the most good, I think, by spotting the
Boskonians into the big tank--our scouts aren't locating five per cent
of them--for the L2's to pass on to Dad and the rest of the heavy brass
so that they can run this battle the way it should be run. You'll do
the spotting, Cam, of course; Kat and I will do the pushing. And if you
thought that Tregonsee took you for a wild ride--It'll work, don't you
think?"

"Of _course_ it will work--and I like wild rides--the faster the
better!"

Thus, apparently as though by magic, red lights winked into being
throughout a third of the volume of the immense tank; and the three
master strategists, informed of what was being done, heaved tremendous
sighs of relief. They now had real control. They knew, not only the
positions of their own task forces, but also, and exactly, the position
of _every_ task force of the enemy. More, by merely forming in his
mind the desire for the information, any one of the three could know,
with no appreciable lapse of time, the exact composition and the exact
strength of any individual one of the horde of Boskonian fleets!

       *       *       *       *       *

Kit and his two sisters stood close-grouped, motionless; heads bent
and almost touching, arms interlocked. Kinnison perceived with
surprise that Lenses, as big and as bright as Kit's own, flamed upon
his daughters' wrists; a surprise which changed to awe as the very
air around those three red-bronze-auburn heads began to thicken, to
pulsate, and to glow with that indefinable, indescribable polychromatic
effulgence which is so uniquely characteristic of the Lens of the
Galactic Patrol. But there was work to do, and Kinnison did it.

Since the _Z9M9Z_ was now working as not even the most optimistic
of her planners and designers had dared to hope that she ever could
work, the war could now be, and was now being fought strategically;
that is, with the object of doing the enemy as much harm as possible
with the irreducible minimum of risk. It was not sporting. It was
not clubby. There was nothing whatever of chivalry. There was no
thought whatever of giving the enemy a break. It was massacre--it was
murder--it was war.

It was not ship to ship. No, nor fleet to fleet. Instead, ten or twenty
Patrol task forces, under sure pilotage, dashed out to englobe at
extreme range one fleet of the Boskonians. Then, before the opposing
admiral could assemble a picture of what was going on, his entire
command became the center of impact of hundreds or even thousands of
detonating superatomic bombs, as well as the focus of an immensely
greater number of scarcely less ravaging primary beams. Not a ship nor
a scout nor a lifeboat of the englobed fleet escaped, ever. In fact,
few indeed were the blobs, or even droplets, of hard alloy or of dureum
which remained merely liquefied or which, later, were able to condense.

Fleet by fleet the Boskonians were blown out of the ether; one by one
the red lights in the tank and in the reducer winked out. And finally
the slaughter was done.

Kit and his two now Lensless sisters unlaced themselves. Karen and
Constance came up for air, announcing that they knew how to work the
problem Kit had handed them, but that they would need more time on
it. Clarrissa, white and shaken by what she had driven herself to do,
looked and felt sick. So did Kinnison; nor had either of the other two
commanders derived any pleasure from the engagement. Tregonsee deplored
it. Of all the Lensed personnel, only Worsel had enjoyed himself.
He liked to kill enemies, at close range or far, and he could not
understand or sympathize with squeamishness. Nadreck, of course, had
neither liked nor disliked any part of the whole affair. To him his
part had been merely another task, to be performed with the smallest
outlay of physical and mental effort consistent with good workmanship.

"What next?" Kinnison asked then, of the group at large. "I say the
Ploorans. They're not like these poor devils were--they probably sent
them in. _They've_ got it coming!"

"They certainly have!"

"Ploor!"

"By all means Ploor!"

"But how about Arisia here?" Maitland asked.

"Under control," Kinnison replied. "We'll leave a heavy guard and a
spare tank--the Arisians will do the rest."

       *       *       *       *       *

As soon as the tremendous fleet had shaken itself down into the course
for Ploor, all seven of the Kinnisons retired to a small dining room
and ate a festive meal. They drank after-dinner coffee. Most of them
smoked. They discussed, for a long time and not very quietly, the
matter of the Hell Hole in Space. Finally:

"I know it's a trap, as well as you do." Kinnison got up from the
table, rammed his hands into his breeches pockets, and paced the floor.
"It's got T-R-A-P painted all over it, in bill-poster letters seventeen
meters high. So what? Since I'm the only one who can, I've got to go
in, if it's still there after we knock Ploor off. And it'll still be
there, for all the tea in China. All the Ploorans aren't on Ploor."

Four young Kinnisons flashed thoughts at Kathryn, who frowned and bit
her lip. She had hit that hole with everything she had, and had simply
bounced. She had been able to block the radiation, of course, but such
solid barriers had been necessary that she had blinded herself by her
own screens. That it was Eddorian there could be no doubt--warned by
her own activities in the other tube--Plooran, of course--and Dad would
be worth taking, in more ways than one.

"I can't say that I'm any keener about going in than any of you are
about having me to do it," the big Lensman went on, "but unless some
of you can figure out a reason for my _not_ going in that isn't
fuller of holes than a sponge-rubber cushion, I'm going to tackle it
just as soon after we blow Ploor apart as I can possibly get there."

And Kathryn, his self-appointed guardian, knew that nothing could stop
him. Nor did anyone there, even Clarrissa, try to stop him. Lensmen
all, they knew that he had to go in; and why.

To the Five, the situation was not too serious. Kinnison would
probably come through unhurt. The Eddorians could take him, of course.
But whether or not they could do anything to him after they got him
would depend no little on what the Kinnison kids would be doing in
the meantime--and that would be plenty. They couldn't delay Dad's
entry into the tube very much without making a smell, but they could
and would hurry Arisia up. And even if, as seemed probable, Dad
was already in the tube when Arisia was ready for the big business
with Eddore, a lot could be done at the other end. Those amoeboid
monstrosities would be fighting for their own precious lives, this
time, not for the lives of slaves; and the Five promised each other
grimly that the Eddorians would have too much else to worry about to
waste any time on Kimball Kinnison.

       *       *       *       *       *

Clarrissa Kinnison, however, fought the hardest and bitterest battle of
her life. She loved Kim with a depth and a fervor which very few women,
anywhere, have ever been able to feel. She knew with a sick, cold
certainty, knew with every fiber of her mind and with every cell of her
brain, that if he went into that trap he would die in it. Nevertheless,
she would have to let him go in. More, and worse, she would have to
send him in--to his death--with a smile. She could not ask him not to
go in. She could not even suggest again that there was any possibility
that he need not go in. He had to go in. He _had_ to.

And if Lensman's Load was heavy on him, on her it was almost
unbearable. His part was vastly the easier. He would only have to die;
she would have to live. She would have to keep on living--without
Kim--living a lifetime of deaths, one after another. And she would have
to hold her block and smile, not only with her face, but with her whole
mind. She could be scared, of course, apprehensive, as he himself was;
she could wish with all her strength for his safe return: but if he
suspected the thousandth part of what she really felt it would break
his heart. Nor would it do a bit of good. However brokenhearted at her
rebellion against the inflexible Code of the Lens, he would still go
in. Being Kimball Kinnison, he could not do anything else.

As soon as she could, Clarrissa went to a distant room and turned on
a full-coverage block. She lay down, buried her face in the pillow,
clenched her fists, and fought.

Was there any way--any _possible_ way--that she could die instead?
None. It was not that simple.

She would have to let him go.

Not gladly, but proudly and willingly--for the good of the Patrol.

Clarrissa Kinnison gritted her teeth and writhed.

She would simply _have_ to let him go into that ghastly trap--go
to his absolutely sure and certain death--without showing one white
feather, either to her husband or to her children. Her husband, her
KIM, would have to die ... and she--would--_have_--to--live.

She got up, smiled experimentally, and snapped off the block. Then,
actually smiling and serenely confident, she strolled down the corridor.

Such is Lensman's Load.



                                 XXVI.


Twenty-odd years before, when the then _Dauntless_ and her crew
were thrown out of a hyperspatial tube and into that highly enigmatic
nth space, LaVerne Thorndyke had been a Chief Technician. Mentor of
Arisia found them, and put into the mind of Sir Austin Cardynge,
mathematician extraordinary, the knowledge of how to find the way back
to normal space. Thorndyke, working under nervebreaking difficulties,
had been in charge of building the machines which were to enable the
vessel to return to her home space. He built them. She returned.

He was now again in charge, and every man of his present crew had been
a member of his former one. He did not command the spaceship or her
regular crew, of course, but they did not count. Not one of these kids
would be allowed to set foot on the fantastically dangerous planet to
which the inertialess _Space Laboratory XII_ was anchored with
tractors and pressors.

Older, leaner, grayer, he was now, even more than then, Civilization's
Past Master of Mechanism. If anything could be built, "Thorny"
Thorndyke could build it. If it couldn't be built, he could build
something that would do the work.

As soon as the Gray Lensman and his son left the vessel, Chief
Technician Thorndyke--not the vice admiral of the same name--lined his
crew up for inspection; men who, although many of them had as much
rank and had had as many years of as much authority as their present
boss, had been working for days to forget as completely as possible
their executive positions and responsibilities. Each man wore not one,
but three personal neutralizers, one inside and two outside of his
spacesuit. Thorndyke, walking down the line, applied his test-kit to
each individual neutralizer. He then tested his own. QX--all were at
max.

"Fellows," he said then, "you all remember what it was like last time.
This is going to be the same, except more so and for a longer time.
How we did it before without any casualties I'll never know. If we can
do it again, it'll be a major miracle--no less. Before, all we had to
do was to build a couple of small generators and some controls out
of stuff native to the planet, and we didn't find that any too easy
a job. This time, for a starter, we've got to build a Bergenholm big
enough to free the whole planet; after which we install the Bergs, tube
generators, atomic blasts, and other stuff we brought along.

"But that native Berg is going to be a Class A Prime headache, and
until we get it running it's going to be hell on wheels. The only way
we can get away with it is to check and re-check every thing and every
step. Check, check, double-check; then go back and double-check again.

"Remember that the fundamental characteristics of this nth space are
such that inert matter can travel faster than light; and remember,
every second of the time, that our intrinsic velocity is something
like fifteen lights relative to anything solid in this space. I want
every one of you to picture himself going inert accidentally. You
_might_ take a tangent course or higher--but you might not, too.
And it wouldn't only kill the one who did it. It wouldn't only spoil
our record. It could very easily kill us all and make a crater full
of boiling metal out of our whole installation. So BE CAREFUL! Also
bear in mind that one piece, however small, of this planet's material,
accidentally brought aboard might wreck the _Dauntless_. Any
questions?"

"If the fundamental characteristics--constants--of this space are so
different, how do you know that the stuff will work here?"

"Well, the stuff we built here before worked. The Arisians told Kit
Kinnison that two of the fundamentals, mass and length, are about
normal. Time is a lot different, so that we can't compute power-to-mass
ratios and so on, but we'll have enough power, anyway, to get any speed
that we can use."

"I see. We miss the really fancy stuff?"

"Yes. Well, the quicker we get started the quicker we'll get done.
Let's go."

       *       *       *       *       *

The planet was airless, waterless, desolate; a chaotic jumble of huge
and jagged fragments of various metals in a nonmetallic continuous
phase. It was as though some playful child-giant of space had poured
dipperfuls of silver, of iron, of copper, and of other granulated pure
metals into a tank of something else--and then, tired of play, had
thrown the whole mess away!

Neither the metals nor the nonmetallic substances were either hot or
cold. They had no apparent temperature, to thermometers or to the
"feelers" of the suits. The machines which these men had built so
long before had not changed in any particular. They still functioned
perfectly; no spot of rust or corrosion or erosion marred any part.
This, at least, was good news.

Inertialess machines, extravagantly equipped with devices to keep
them inertialess, were taken "ashore"; nor were any of these ever to
be returned to the ship. Kinnison had ordered and reiterated that
no unnecessary chances were to be taken of getting any particle of
nth-space stuff aboard _Space Laboratory XII_, and none were taken.

Since men cannot work indefinitely in spacesuits, each man had
periodically to be relieved; but each such relief amounted almost to
an operation. Before he left the planet his suit was scrubbed, rinsed,
and dried. In the vessel's air lock it was air-blasted again before
the outer port was closed. He unshelled in the lock and left his suit
there--everything which had come into contact with nth-space matter
either would be left on the planet's surface or would be jettisoned
before the vessel was again inerted. Unnecessary precautions?
Perhaps--but Thorndyke and his crew returned unharmed to normal space
in undamaged ships.

Finally the Bergenholm was done--by dint of what improvisation,
substitution, and artifice only "Thorny" Thorndyke ever knew; at
what strain and cost was evidenced by the gaunt bodies and haggard
faces of his overworked and under-slept crew. To those experts, and
particularly to Thorndyke, the thing was not a good job. It was not
quiet, nor smooth. It was not in balance, statically, dynamically, or
electrically. The chief technician, to whom a meter jump of one and
a half thousandths had always been a matter of grave concern, swore
feelingly in all the planetary languages he knew when he saw what those
meters were doing.

He scowled morosely. There might have been poorer machines built
sometime, somewhere, he supposed--but if so he had never seen any!

But the improvised Berg ran, and kept on running. The planet became
inertialess and remained that way. For hours, then, Thorndyke climbed
over and around and through the Brobdingnagian fabrication, testing
and checking the operation of every part. Finally he climbed down and
reported to his waiting crew.

"QX, fellows, a nice job. A good job, in fact, considering--even though
we all know that it isn't what any of us would call a good machine.
Part of that meter jump, of course, is due to the fact that nothing
about the heap is true or balanced, but most of it must be due to this
cockeyed ether. Anyway, none of it is due to the usual causes--loose
bars and faulty insulation. So my best guess is that she'll keep on
doing her stuff while we do ours. One sure thing, she isn't going to
fall apart, even under that ungodly knocking; and I don't _think_
that she's going to shake herself off of the planet."

       *       *       *       *       *

After Thorndyke's somewhat less than enthusiastic approval of his
brain-child, the adventurers into that fantastic region attacked the
second phase of their project. Two Patrol Bergenholms were landed
and were installed. Their meters jumped, too, but the engineers
were no longer worried about that. _Those_ machines would run
indefinitely; and a concerted sigh of relief arose when the improvised
generator was shut down. Pits were dug. Atomic blasts and other engines
were installed, as were many exceedingly complex instruments and
mechanisms. A few tons of foreign matter on the planet's surface would
now make no difference, but there was no relaxation of the extreme
precautions against the transfer of any matter whatever from the planet
to the spaceship.

When the job was done, but before the clean-up, Thorndyke called his
crew into conference.

"Fellows, I know just what a beating you've been taking. We all feel as
though we had been on a Delgonian clambake. Nevertheless, I've got to
tell you something. Kinnison said that if we could get this one fixed
up without too much trouble, it'd be a mighty good idea to have two of
them. What do you say? Did we have too much trouble?"

He got exactly the reaction he had expected.

"Lead us to it!"

"Pick out the one you want!"

"Trouble? It's all over--we can tow this scrap heap on a space line,
match intrinsics with clamp-on drivers, and plant it anywhere!"

Another metal-studded, barren, lifeless world was therefore found
and prepared, and no real argument arose until Thorndyke broached
the matter of selecting the two men who were to stay with him and
Henderson in the two lifeboats which were to remain for a time near the
two loose planets after _Space Laboratory XII_ had returned to
normal space. Everybody wanted to stay. Each one _was_ going to
stay, too, by all the gods of space, if he had to pull rank to do it!

"Hold it!" Thorndyke commanded. "We'll do the same as we did before,
then, by drawing lots. Quartermaster Allerdyce--"

"No!" Uhlenhuth, formerly Atomic Technician 1/c, objected vigorously,
and was supported by several others. "He's too clever with his
fingers--look what he did to the original draw! We're not squawking
about that one, you understand--a little fixing was QX back there--but
we want this one to be honest."

"Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing that things were not
left entirely to chance." Thorndyke grinned broadly. "So you hold the
pot yourself, Uhly, and Hank and I will each pull out one name."

So it was. Henderson drew Uhlenhuth, to that burly admiral's loud
delight, and Thorndyke drew Nelson, the erstwhile chief communications
officer. The two lifeboats disembarked, each near one of the newly
"loosened" planets. Two men would stay on or near each of those
planets, to be sure that all the machinery functioned perfectly.
They would stay there until the atomic blasts functioned perfectly.
They would stay there until the atomic blasts went into action and
it became clear that the Arisians would need no help in navigating
those tremendous globes through nth space to the points at which two
hyperspatial tubes were soon to appear.

       *       *       *       *       *

Long before the advance scouts of the Grand Fleet were within surveying
distance of Ploor, Kit and his sisters had spread a completely detailed
chart of its defenses in the tactical tank. A white star represented
Ploor's sun; a white sphere the planet itself; white Ryerson string
lights marked a portion of the planetary orbit. Points of white
light, practically all of which were connected to the white sphere
by red string lights, marked the directions of neighboring stars and
the existence of sunbeams, installed and ready. Pink globes were
loose planets; purple ones negaspheres; red points of light were, as
before, Boskonian task-force fleets. Blues were mobile fortresses;
bands of canary yellow and amber luminescence showed the locations and
emplacements of sunbeam grids and deflectors.

Layer after layer of pinks, purples, and blues almost hid the brilliant
white sphere from sight. More layers of the same colors, not quite as
dense, surrounded the entire solar system. Yellow and amber bands were
everywhere.

Kinnison studied the thing briefly, whistling unmelodiously through
his teeth. The picture was familiar enough, since it duplicated in
practically every respect the chart of the neighborhood of the Patrol's
own Ultra Prime, around Klovia. It did not require much study to make
it clear that that defense could not be cracked by any concentration
possible of any mobile devices theretofore employed in war.

"Just about what we expected," Kinnison thought to the group at large.
"Some new stuff, but not much. What I want to know, Kit and the rest of
you, is there anything there that looks as though it was supposed to
handle our new baby? Don't see anything, myself."

"There is not," Kit stated definitely. "We looked. There couldn't
be, anyway. It can't be handled. Looking backwards at it, they will
probably be able to reconstruct how it was done, but in advance? No.
Even Mentor couldn't--he had to call in a fellow who has studied
ultra-high mathematics for Klono-only-knows-how-many-millions of years
to compute the resultant vectors."

Kit's use of the word "they," which, of course, meant Ploorans to
everyone except his sisters, concealed his knowledge of the fact that
the Eddorians had taken over the defense of Ploor. Eddorians were
handling those screens. Eddorians were directing and correlating those
far-flung task forces, with a precision which Kinnison soon noticed.

"Much smoother work than I ever saw them do before," he commented.
"Suppose they have developed a _Z9M9Z_?"

"Could be. They copied everything else you invented, why not that?"
Again the highly ambiguous "they." "No sign of it around Arisia,
though--but maybe they didn't think they'd need it there."

"Or, more likely, they didn't want to risk it so far from home. We can
tell better after the mopping-up starts--if the widget performs as per
specs. But if your dope is right, this is about close enough. You might
tip the boys off, and I'll call Mentor." Kinnison could not reach nth
space, but it was no secret that Kit could.

The terminus of one of the Patrol's hyperspatial tubes erupted into
space close to Ploor. That such phenomena were expected was evident--a
Boskonian fleet moved promptly and smoothly to englobe it. But this was
an Arisian tube; computed, installed, and handled by Arisians. It would
be in existence only three seconds; the nearest defending task force
could not possibly get there in time.

To the observers in the _Z9M9Z_ those three seconds stretched
endlessly. What would happen when that utterly foreign planet, with its
absolutely impossible intrinsic velocity of over fifteen times that of
light, erupted into normal space and went inert? Nobody, not even the
Arisians, knew.

Everybody there had seen pictures of what happened when the
insignificant mass of a spaceship, traveling at only a hundredth of
the velocity of light, collided with a planetoid. That was bad enough.
This projectile, however, had a mass of about eight times ten to the
twenty-first power--an eight followed by twenty-one zeros--metric tons;
would tend to travel fifteen hundred times as fast; and kinetic energy
equals mass times velocity squared.

There seemed to be a theoretical possibility, since the mass would
instantaneously become some higher order of infinity, that all the
matter in normal space would coalesce with it in zero time; but Mentor
had assured Kit that operators would come into effect to prevent such
an occurrence, and that untoward events would be limited to a radius of
ten or fifteen parsecs. Mentor could solve the problem in detail, but
since the solution would require some two hundred Klovian years and the
event was due to occur in two weeks--

"How about the big computer at Ultra Prime?" Kinnison had asked,
innocently. "You know how fast that works."

"Roughly two thousand years--if it could take that kind of math, which
it can't," Kit had replied, and the subject had been dropped.

       *       *       *       *       *

Finally it happened. What happened? Even after the fact none of the
observers knew; nor did any except the L3's ever find out. The fuses
of all the recorder and analyzer circuits blew at once. Needles jumped
instantly to maximum and wrapped themselves around their stops. Charts
and ultraphotographic films showed only straight or curved lines
running from the origin to and through the limits in zero time. Ploor
and everything around it disappeared in an utterly indescribable and
completely incomprehensible blast of pure, wild, raw, uncontrolled and
uncontrollable energy. The infinitesimal fraction of that energy which
was visible, heterodyned upon the ultra as it was and screened as it
was, blazed so savagely upon the plates that it seared the eyes.

And if the events caused by the planet aimed at Ploor were
indescribable, what can be said of those initiated by the one directed
against Ploor's sun?

When the heat generated in the interior of a sun becomes greater than
its effective surface is able to radiate, that surface expands. If
the expansion is not fast enough, a more or less insignificant amount
of the sun's material explodes, thus enlarging by force the radiant
surface to whatever extent is necessary to restore equilibrium. Thus
come into being the ordinary novae; suns which may for a few days or
for a few weeks radiate energy at a rate a few hundreds of thousands of
times greater than normal. Since ordinary novae can be produced at will
by the collision of a planet with a sun, the scientists of the Patrol
had long since completed their studies of all the phenomena involved.

The mechanisms of supernovae, however, remained obscure. No adequate
instrumentation had been developed to study conclusively the occasional
supernova which occurred naturally. No supernova had ever been
produced artificially--with all its resources of mass, atomic energy,
cosmic energy, and sunbeams. Civilization could neither assemble nor
concentrate enough power.

At the impact of the second loose planet, accompanied by the excess
energy of its impossible and unattainable intrinsic velocity, Ploor's
sun became a supernova. How deeply the intruding thing penetrated,
how much of the sun's mass exploded, never was and perhaps never will
be determined. The violence of the explosion was such, however, that
Klovian astronomers reported--a few years later--that it was radiating
energy at the rate of some five hundred and fifty million suns.

Thus no attempt will be made to describe what happened when the planet
from nth space struck the Boskonians' sun.

It was indescribably cubed.



                                XXVII.


The Boskonian fleets defending Ploor were not all destroyed, of course.
The vessels were inertialess. None of the phenomena accompanying the
coming into being of the supernova were propagated at a velocity above
that of light; a speed which to any spaceship is scarcely a crawl.

The survivors were, however, disorganized. They had lost their morale
when Ploor was wiped out in such a spectacularly nerve-shattering
fashion. Also, they had lost practically all of their High Command; for
the Ploorans, instead of riding the ether as did Patrol commanders,
remained in their supposedly secure headquarters and directed matters
from afar. Mentor and his fellows had removed from this plane of
existence the Eddorians who had been present in the flesh on Ploor.
The Arisians had cut all communications between Eddore and the
remnants of the Boskonian defensive force.

Grand Fleet, then, moved in for the kill; and for a time the action
near Arisia was repeated. Following definite flight-and-course orders
from the _Z9M9Z_, ten or more Patrol fleets would make short hops.
At the end of those assigned courses they would discover that they had
englobed a task force of the enemy. Bomb and beam!

Over and over--flit, bomb, and beam!

One Boskonian high officer, however, had both the time and the
authority to act. A full thousand fleets massed together, their
heaviest units outward, packed together screen to screen in a
close-order globe of defense.

"According to Haynes, that was good strategy in the old days," Kinnison
commented, "but it's no good against loose planets and negaspheres."

Six loose planets were so placed and so released that their inert
masses would crash together at the center of the Boskonian globe; then,
a few minutes later, ten negaspheres of high antimass were similarly
launched. After those sixteen missiles had done their work and the
resultant had attained an equilibrium of sorts, very little mopping-up
was found necessary.

The Boskonian observers were competent. The Boskonian commanders now
knew that they had no chance whatever of success; that to stay was
to be annihilated; that the only possibility of life lay in flight.
Therefore each remaining Boskonian vice admiral, after perhaps a moment
of consultation with a few others, ordered his fleet to drive at
maximum blast for his home planet.

"No use chasing them individually, is there, Kit?" Kinnison asked, when
it became clear in the tank that the real battle was over; that all
resistance had ended. "They can't do anything, and this kind of killing
makes me sick at the stomach. Besides, I've got something else to do."

"No. Me, too. So have I." Kit agreed with his father in full.

As soon as the last Boskonian fleet was beyond detector range Grand
Fleet broke up, its component fleets setting out for their respective
worlds.

"The Hell Hole is still there, Kit," the Gray Lensman said, soberly.
"If Ploor was the top--I'm beginning to think there _is_ no
top--it leads either to an automatic mechanism set up by the Ploorans
or to Ploorans who are still alive somewhere. If Ploor was not the
top, this seems to be the only lead we have toward that top. In either
case I've got to take it. Check?"

"Well, I--" Kit tried to duck, but couldn't. "Yes, Dad, I'm afraid it's
check."

Two big hands met and gripped; and Kinnison went to take leave of his
wife.

There is no need to go into detail as to what those two strong souls
said or did. He knew that he was going into danger; that he might not
return. That is, he knew empirically or academically, as a nongermane
sort of fact, that he might die. He did not, however, really believe
that he would. No man who is not an arrant coward really believes,
ever, that any given event will or can kill him. In his own mind he
goes on living indefinitely.

Kinnison expected to be captured, imprisoned, questioned, and perhaps
tortured. He could understand all of those things, and he did not like
any one of them. That he was more than a trifle afraid and that he
hated to leave her now more than he ever had before were both natural
enough--he had nothing whatever to hide from her.

She, on the other hand, knew starkly that he would never come back.
She knew that he would die in that trap. She knew that she would
have to live a lifetime of emptiness, alone. Hence she had much to
conceal from him. She must be just as scared and as apprehensive as
he was, but no more; just as anxious for their continued happiness
as he was, but no more; just as intensely loving, but no more and in
exactly the same sense. Here lay the test. She must kiss him good-by
as though he were going into mere danger. She _must not_ give
way to the almost irresistible urge to act in accordance with what
she so starkly, chillingly knew to be the truth, that she would
never--_never_--NEVER kiss her Kim again!

She succeeded. It is a measure of the Red Lensman's quality that she
did not weaken, even when her husband approached the boundary of the
Hell Hole and sent what she knew would be his last message.

"Here it is--about a second now. Don't worry--I'll be back very
shortly. Clear ether, Chris!"

"Of _course_ you will, dear. Clear ether, Kim!"

       *       *       *       *       *

His speedster did not mount any special generators. He had not thought
that they would be necessary. Nor were they. He and his ship were
sucked into that trap as though it had been a maelstrom.

He felt again the commingled agonies of interdimensional acceleration.
He perceived again the formless, textureless, spaceless void of
blankly gray nothingness which was the three-dimensionally-impossible
substance of the tube. A moment later, he felt a new and different
acceleration--he was speeding up _inside the tube_! Then, very
shortly, he felt nothing at all. Startled, he tried to jump up to
investigate, and discovered that he could not move. Even by the utmost
exertion of his will he could not stir a finger or an eyelid. He was
completely immobilized. Nor could he feel. His body was as devoid of
sensation as though it belonged to somebody else. Worse, for his heart
was not beating. He was not breathing. He could not see. It was as
though his every nerve, motor and sensory, voluntary and involuntary,
had been separately anaesthetized. He could still think, but that was
all. His sense of perception still worked.

He wondered whether he was still accelerating or not, and tried to find
out. He could not. He could not determine whether he was moving or
stationary. There were no reference points. Every infinitesimal volume
of that enigmatic grayness was like each and every other.

Mathematically, perhaps, he was not moving at all; since he was in
a continuum in which mass, length and time, and hence inertia and
inertialessness, velocity and acceleration, are meaningless terms. He
was outside of space and beyond time. Effectively, however, he was
moving; moving with an acceleration which nothing material had ever
before approached. He and his vessel were being driven along that tube
by every watt of power generable by one entire Eddorian atomic power
plant. His velocity, long since unthinkable, became incalculable.

All things end--even Eddorian atomic power was not infinite. At the
very peak of power and pace, then, all the force, all the momentum,
all the kinetic energy of the speedster's mass and velocity were
concentrated in and applied to Kinnison's physical body. He sensed
something, and tried to flinch, but could not. In a fleeting instant of
what he thought was time he went _past_, not through, his clothing
and his Lens; _past_, not through, his armor; and _past_, not
through, the hard beryllium-alloy structure of his vessel. He even went
past but not through the N-dimensional interface of the hyperspatial
tube.

This, although Kinnison did not know it, was the Eddorian's climactic
effort. He had taken his prisoner as far as he could possibly reach;
then, assembling and concentrating all available power, he had given
him a catapultic shove into the absolutely unknown and utterly
unknowable. The Eddorian did not know any vector of the Lensman's naked
flight; he did not care where he went. He did not know and could not
compute or even guess at his victim's probable destination.

       *       *       *       *       *

In what his spacehound's time sense told him was one second,
Kinnison passed exactly two hundred million foreign spaces. He did
not know how he knew the precise number, but he did. Hence, in the
Patrol's measured cadence, he began to count groups of spaces of
one hundred million each. After a few days, his velocity decreased
to such a value that he could count groups of single millions. Then
thousands--hundreds--tens--until finally he could perceive the salient
features of each space before it was blotted out by the next.

How could this be? He wondered, but not foggily; his mind was as clear
and as strong as it had ever been. Spaces were coexistent, not spread
out like this. In the fourth dimension they were flat together, like
pages in a book, except thinner. This was all wrong. It was impossible.
Since it could not happen, it was not happening. He had not been and
could not be drugged. Therefore some Plooran must have him in a zone of
compulsion. _What_ a zone! _What_ an operator the ape must be!

It was, however, real--all of it. What Kinnison did not know, then
or ever, was that he was actually outside the boundaries of space;
actually beyond the confines of time. He was going past, not through,
those spaces and those times.

He was now in each space long enough to study it in some detail. He was
an immense distance above this one; at such a distance that he could
perceive many globular super-universes; each of which in turn was
composed of billions of lenticular galaxies.

Through it. Closer now. Galaxies only; the familiar random masses whose
apparent lack of symmetrical grouping is due to the limitations of
Civilization's observers. He was still going too fast to stop.

In the next space Kinnison found himself within the limits of a solar
system and tried with all the force of his mind to get in touch with
some intelligent entity upon one--any one--of its planets. Before he
could succeed, the system vanished and he was dropping, from a height
of a few thousand kilometers, toward the surface of a warm and verdant
world, so much like Tellus that he thought for an instant that he
must have circumnavigated total space. The aspect, the ice-caps, the
cloud-effects, were identical. The oceans, however, while similar,
were different; as were the continents. The mountains were larger and
rougher and harder.

He was falling much too fast. A free fall from infinity wouldn't give
him _this_ much speed!

This whole affair was, as he had decided once before, absolutely
impossible. It was simply preposterous to believe that a naked man,
especially one without blood circulation or breath, could still be
alive after spending as many weeks in open space as he had just spent.
He _knew_ that he was alive. Therefore none of this was happening;
even though, as surely as he knew that he was alive, he knew that he
was falling.

"Jet back, Lensman!" he thought viciously to himself; tried to shout
it aloud.

For this could be deadly stuff, if he let himself believe it. If he
believed that he was falling from any such height, he would die in
the instant of landing. He would not actually crash; his body would
not move from wherever it was that it was. Nevertheless the shock of
that wholly imaginary crash would kill him just as dead and just as
instantaneously as though all his flesh had been actually smashed into
a crimson smear upon one of the neighboring mountain's huge, flat rocks.

"Pretty close, my bright young Plooran friend, but you didn't quite
ring the bell," he thought savagely, trying with all the power of his
mind to break through the zone of compulsion. "I admit that you're
good, but I'm telling you that, if you want to kill me, you'll have to
do it physically, and I don't believe that you carry jets enough to
swing the job. You might as well cut your zone, because this kind of
stuff has been pulled on me by experts, and it hasn't worked yet."

He was apparently falling, feet downward, toward an open, grassy
mountain meadow, surrounded by forests, through which meandered a small
stream. He was so close now that he could perceive the individual
blades of grass in the meadow and the small fishes in the stream, and
he was still apparently at terminal velocity.

Without his years of spacehound's training in inertialess maneuvering,
he might have died even before he landed, but speed as speed did
not affect him at all. He was used to instantaneous stops from
light-speeds. The only thing that worried him was the matter of
inertia. Was he inert or free?

He declared to himself that he was free. Or, rather, that he had
been, was, and would continue to be motionless. It was physically,
mathematically, intrinsically impossible that any of this stuff
had actually occurred. It was all compulsion, pure and simple, and
he--Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lensman--would not let it get him down. He
clenched his mental teeth upon that belief and held it doggedly. One
bare foot struck the tip of a blade of grass and his entire body came
to a shockless halt. He grinned in relief--this was what he had wanted,
but had not quite dared wholly to expect. There followed immediately,
however, other events which he had not expected at all.

His halt was less than momentary; in the instant of its accomplishment
he began to fall normally the remaining eight or ten inches to the
ground. Automatically he sprung his space-trained knees, to take the
otherwise disconcerting jar; automatically his left hand snapped up
to the place where his controls should have been. _Legs and arms
worked!_

He could see with his eyes. He could feel with his skin. He was drawing
a breath, the first time he had breathed since leaving normal space.
Nor was it an unduly deep breath--he felt no lack of oxygen. His heart
was beating as normally as though it had never missed a beat. He was
not unusually hungry or thirsty. But all that stuff could wait--where
was that Plooran?

       *       *       *       *       *

Kinnison had landed in complete readiness for strife. There were no
rocks or clubs handy, but he had his fists, feet, and teeth; and they
would do until he could find or make something better. But there was
nothing to fight. Drive his sense of perception as he would, he could
find nothing larger or more intelligent than a deer.

The farther this thing went along the less sense it made. A compulsion,
to be any good at all, ought to be logical and coherent. It should fit
into every corner and cranny of the subject's experience and knowledge.
This one did not fit anything or anywhere. It didn't even come close.
Yet, technically, it was a marvelous job. He couldn't detect a trace of
it. This grass looked and felt real. The pebbles hurt his tender feet
so much that he had to wince as he walked gingerly to the water's edge.
He drank deeply. The water, real or not, was cold, clear, and eminently
satisfying.

"Listen, you misguided what-is-it," he thought probingly, "you might
as well open up now as later whatever you've got in mind. If this
performance is supposed to be nonfiction, it's a flat bust. If it
is supposed to be science-fiction, it isn't much better. If it's a
space-opera, even, you're violating all the fundamentals. I've written
better stuff myself--Qadgop and Cynthia were a lot more convincing." He
waited a moment, then went on:

"Whoever heard of the intrepid hero of a space-opera as big as this one
started out to be getting stranded on a completely Earth-like planet
and then having nothing happen? No action at all? How about a couple of
indescribable monsters of superhuman strength and agility, for me to
tear apart with my steel-thewed fingers?"

He glanced around expectantly. No monster appeared.

"Well, then, how about a damsel in distress for me to rescue from a
fate worse than death? Better make it two of them--safety in numbers,
you know--a blonde and a brunette. No redheads. I'll play along with
you part way on that oldie--up to the point of falling for either of
them."

He waited again.

"QX, sport, no woman. Suits me perfectly. But I hope you haven't
forgotten about the tasty viands. I can eat fish if I have to, but if
you want to keep your hero happy, let's see you lay down here, on a
platter, a one-kilogram steak, three centimeters thick, medium rare,
fried in Tellurian butter and smothered in Venusian superla mushrooms."

No steak appeared, and the Gray Lensman recalled and studied
intensively every detail of what had apparently happened. It
_still_ could not have occurred. He could not have imagined it. It
could not have been compulsion or hypnosis. None of it made any kind of
sense.

As a matter of plain fact, however, Kinnison's first and most positive
conclusion was wrong. His memories were factual records of actual
events and things. He would eat well during his stay upon that nameless
planet, but he would have to procure his own food. Nothing would attack
him, or even annoy him. For the Eddorian's _binding_--this is
perhaps as good a word for it as any, since "geas" implies a curse--was
such that the Gray Lensman could return to space and time only under
such conditions and to such an environment as would not do him any iota
of physical harm. He must continue alive and in good health for at
least fifty more of his years.

       *       *       *       *       *

And Clarrissa Kinnison, tense and strained, waited in her room for
the instant of her husband's death. They two were one, with a oneness
no other man and woman had ever known. If one died, from any cause
whatever, the other would feel it.

She waited. Five minutes--ten--fifteen--half an hour--an hour. She
began to relax. Her fists unclenched, her shallow breathing grew deeper.

Two hours. Kim was _still alive_! A wave of happy, buoyant relief
swept through her; her eyes flashed and sparkled. If they hadn't been
able to kill him in two hours, they never could. Her Kim had plenty of
jets.

Even the top minds of Boskonia could not kill her Kim!



                                XXVIII.


The Arisians and the Children of the Lens had known that Eddore must be
attacked as soon as possible after the fall of Ploor. They were fairly
certain that the interspatial use of planets as projectiles was new;
but they were completely certain that the Eddorians would be able to
deduce in a short time the principles and the concepts, the fundamental
equations, and the essential operators involved in the process. They
would find nth space or one like it in one day; certainly not more than
two. Their slaves would duplicate the weapon in approximately three
weeks. Shortly thereafter both Ultra Prime and Prime Base, both Klovia
and Tellus, would be blown out of the ether. So would Arisia--perhaps
Arisia would go first. The Eddorians would probably not be able to aim
such planets as accurately as the Arisians had, but they would keep on
trying and they would learn fast.

This weapon was the sheer ultimate in destructiveness. No defense
against it was possible. There was no theory which applied to it
or which could be stretched to cover it. Even the Arisian Masters
of Mathematics had not as yet been able to invent symbologies and
techniques to handle the quantities and magnitudes involved when those
interloping masses of foreign matter struck normal space.

Thus Kit did not have to follow up his announced intention of making
the Arisians hurry up. They did not hurry, of course, but they did not
lose or waste a minute. Each Arisian, from the youngest guardian up to
the oldest philosopher, tuned a part of his mind to Mentor, another
part to some one of the millions of Lensmen upon his list, and flashed
a message.

"Lensman, attend--keep your mind sensitized to this, the pattern of
Mentor of Arisia, who will speak to you as soon as all have been
alerted."

That message went throughout the First Galaxy, throughout intergalactic
space, and throughout what part of the Second Galaxy had felt the touch
of Civilization. It went to Alsakan and Vandemar and Klovia, to Thrale
and Tellus and Rigel IV, to Mars and Velantia and Palain VII, to Medon
and Venus and Centralia. It went to flitters, battleships, and loose
planets. It went to asteroids and moonlets, to planets large and small.
It went to newly graduated Lensmen and to Lensmen long since retired;
to Lensmen at work and at play. It went to every living wearer of the
First-Stage Lens of the Galactic Patrol.

Wherever the message went, turmoil followed. Lensmen everywhere flashed
questions at all the other Lensmen they knew or had ever met.

"What do you make of it, Fred?"

"Did you get the same thing I did?"

"_Mentor!_ Grinning Noshabkeming, what's up?"

"Must be big for Mentor to be handling it."

"_Big!_ It's immense! Whoever heard of Arisia stepping in before?"

"_Big!_ Colossal! Mentor never talked to anybody except Kinnison
before, did he?"

Millions of Lensed questions flooded every base and every office of
the Patrol. Nobody, not even the vice co-ordinator, knew a thing.

"You might as well stop sending in questions as to what this is all
about, because none of us knows any more about it than you do,"
Maitland finally sent out a general notice. "Apparently everybody with
a Lens is getting the same message, no more and no less. All I can say
is that it must be a Class A Prime emergency, and everyone who is not
actually tied up in a life-and-death matter will please drop everything
and stand by."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mentor wanted, and had to have, high tension. He got it. Tension
mounted higher and higher as eventless hours passed and as, for the
first time in history, Patrol business slowed down almost to a stop.

And in a small cruiser, manned by four red-headed girls and one
red-headed youth, tension was also building up. The problem of
the mechanical screens had long since been solved. Atomic powered
counter-generators were in place, ready at the touch of a button to
neutralize the mechanically-generated screens of the enemy and thus
to make the engagement a mind-to-mind combat. They were as close to
Eddore's star-cluster as they could be without giving alarm. They had
had nothing to do for hours except wait. They were probably keyed up
higher than any other five Lensmen in all of space.

Kit, son of his father, was pacing the floor, chain-smoking. Constance
was alternately getting up and sitting down--up--down--up. She, too,
was smoking; or, rather, she was lighting cigarettes and throwing them
away. Kathryn was sitting, stiffly still, manufacturing Lenses which,
starting at her wrists, raced up both bare arms to her shoulders and
disappeared. Karen was meticulously sticking holes in a piece of blank
paper with a pin, making an intricate and meaningless design. Only
Camilla made any pretense of calmness, and the others knew that she was
bluffing. She was pretending to read a novel; but instead of absorbing
its full content at the rate of one glance per page, she had read half
of it word by word and still had no idea of what the story was about.

"Are you ready, Children?" Mentor's thought came in at last.

"Ready!" Without knowing how they got there, the Five found themselves
standing in the middle of the room, packed tight.

"Oh Kit, I'm shaking like a fool!" Constance wailed. "I just
_know_ I'm going to louse up this whole war!"

"QX, baby, we're all in the same fix. Can't you hear my teeth chatter?
Doesn't mean a thing. Good teams--champions--all feel the same way
before a big game starts. And this is the capital IT.

"Steady down, kids. We'll be QX as soon as the whistle blows--I hope."

"_P-s-s-t!_" Kathryn hissed. "Listen!"

"Lensmen of the Galactic Patrol!" Mentor's resonant pseudovoice filled
all space. "I, Mentor of Arisia, am calling upon you because of a
crisis in which no lesser force can be of use. You have been informed
upon the matter of Ploor. It is true that Ploor has been destroyed;
that the Ploorans, physically, are no more. You of the Lens, however,
already know dimly that the physical is not the all. Know now that
there is a residuum of nonmaterial malignancy against which all the
physical weapons of all the Universe would be completely impotent. That
evil effluvium, intrinsically vicious, is implacably opposed to every
basic concept and idea of your Patrol. It has been on the move ever
since the destruction of the planet Ploor. Unaided, we of Arisia are
not strong enough to handle it, but the massed and directed force of
your collective mind will be able to destroy it completely. If you wish
me to do so, I will supervise the work of so directing your mental
force as to encompass the complete destruction of this menace, which I
tell you most solemnly is the last weapon of power with which Boskonia
will be able to threaten Civilization. Lensmen of the Galactic Patrol,
met as one for the first time in Civilization's long history, what is
your wish?"

A tremendous wave of thought, expressed in millions of variant
phraseologies, made the wish of the Lensmen very clear indeed. They did
not know how such a thing could be done, but they were supremely eager
to have Mentor of Arisia lead them against the Boskonians, whoever and
wherever they might be.

"Your verdict is unanimous, as I had hoped and believed that it would
be. It is well. The part of each of you will be simple, but not easy.
You will all of you, individually, think of two things, and of only
two. First, of your love for and your pride in and your loyalty to your
Patrol. Second, of the clear fact that Boskonia must not and shall not
triumph over Civilization. Think these thoughts, each of you with all
the strength that in him lies.

"You need not consciously direct those thoughts. Being attuned to my
pattern, the force will flow at my direction. As it passes from you,
you will replenish it, each according to his strength. You will find it
the hardest labor you have ever performed, but it will be of permanent
harm to none and it will not be of long duration. One hour will
suffice. Are you ready?"

"WE ARE READY!" The crescendo roar of thought must have bulged the
Galaxy to its poles.

"Children--strike!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The Unit struck. The outermost Eddorian screen went down. It struck
again, almost instantly. Down went the second. The third. The fourth.

It was that flawless Unit, not Camilla, who detected and analyzed
and precisely located the Eddorian guardsman handling each of those
far-flung screens. It was the Unit, not Kathryn and Kit, who drilled
the pilot hole through each Eddorian's hard-held block and enlarged it
into a working orifice. It was the Unit, not Karen, whose impenetrable
shield held stubbornly every circular mil of advantage gained in making
such ingress. It was the Unit, not Constance, who assembled and drove
home the blasts of mental force in which the Eddorians died. No time
whatever was lost in consultation or decision. Action was not only
instantaneous, but simultaneous with perception. The Children of the
Lens were not now five, but one. The UNIT.

"Come in, Mentor!" Kit snapped then. "All you Arisians and all the
Lensmen. Nothing specialized--just a general slam at the whole screen.
This fifth screen is the works--they've got twenty men on it instead
of one, and they're top-notchers. Best strategy now is for us five to
lay off for a second or two and show 'em what we've got in the line of
defense, while the rest of you fellows give 'em hell!"

Arisia and the massed Lensmen struck, a tidal wave of such tremendous
weight and power that under its impact the fifth screen sagged flat
against the planet's surface. Any one Lensman's power was small, of
course, in comparison with that of any Eddorian, but every First-Stage
Lensman of the Galactic Patrol was giving, each according to his
strength, and the output of one Lensman, multiplied by the countless
millions which was the number of Lensmen then at work, made itself
tellingly felt.

Countless? Yes. No one not of Arisia ever knew how many minds
contributed to that stupendous flood of force. Bear in mind that in the
First Galaxy alone there are over two thousand million suns: that each
sun has, on the average, something over one and thirty-seven hundredths
planets inhabited by intelligent life; that about one-half of these
planets adhere to Civilization; and that Tellus, an average planet,
graduates approximately one hundred Lensmen every year.

"So far, Kit, so good," Constance panted. Although she was no longer
trembling, she was still highly excited. "But I don't know how many
more shots like that I've ... we've ... got left in the locker."

"You're doing fine, Connie," Camilla soothed.

"Sure you are, baby. You've got plenty of jets," Kit agreed. Except
in moments of supreme stress these personal, individual exchanges of
by-thoughts did not interfere with the smooth functioning of the Unit.
"Fine work, all of you, kids. I knew that we'd get over the shakes as
soon as--"

"Watch it!" Camilla snapped. "Here comes the shock wave. Brace
yourself, Kay. Hold us together, Kit!"

The wave came. Everything that the Eddorians could send. The Unit's
barrier did not waver. After a full second of it--a time comparable to
days of continuous atomic bombing in ordinary warfare--Karen, who had
been standing stiff and still, began to relax.

"This is too, _too_ easy," she declared. "Who is helping me? I
can't feel anything, but I simply know that I haven't got this much
stuff. You, Cam--or is it all of you?" Not one of the Five was as yet
thoroughly familiar with the operating characteristics of the Unit.

"All of us, more or less, but mostly Kit," Camilla decided after a
moment's thought. "He's got the weight of an inert planet."

"Not me," Kit denied, vigorously. "Must be you other kids. Feels to me
like Kat, mostly. All I'm doing is just sort of leaning up against you
a little--just in case. I haven't done a thing so far."

"Oh, no? Sure not!" Kathryn giggled, an infectious chuckle inherited or
copied directly from her mother. "We know it, and that you're going to
keep on loafing all the rest of the day. You wouldn't think of doing
anything, even if you could. Just the same, we're all mighty glad that
our big brother is here!"

"QX, kids, seal the chatter. We've had time to learn that they can't
crack us--so have they, by the way--so let's get to work."

Since the Unit was now under continuous attack, its technique would
have to be entirely different from that used previously. Its barrier
must vanish for an infinitesimal period of time, during which it must
simultaneously detect and blast. Or, rather, the blast would have to
be directed in mid-flight, while the Unit's own block was open. Nor
could that block be open for more than the barest possible instant
before or after the passage of the bolt. It is true that the attack of
the Eddorians compared with that of the Unit very much as the steady
pressure of burning propellant powder compares with the disruptive
force of detonating duodec; even so it would have wrought much damage
to the minds of the Five had any of it been allowed to reach them.

Also, like parachute-jumping, this technique could not be practiced.
Since the timing had to be so nearly absolute, the first two shots
missed their targets completely; but the Unit learned fast. Eddorian
after Eddorian died.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Help, All-Highest, help!" a high Eddorian appealed, finally.

"What is it?" His Ultimate Supremacy, knowing that only utter
desperation could be back of such intrusion, wasted no time.

"It is this new Arisian entity--"

"It is not an entity, fool, but a fusion," came curt reprimand. "We
decided that point long ago."

"An entity, I say!" In his urgency the operator committed the
unpardonable by omitting the titles of address. "No possible fusion
can attain such perfection of timing, of synchronization. Our best
fusions have attempted to match it, and have failed. Its screens are
impenetrable. Its thrusts cannot be blocked. My message is this: Solve
for us, and quickly, the problem of this entity. If you do not or
cannot do so, we perish all of us, even to you of the Innermost Circle."

"Think you so?" The thought was a sneer. "If your fusions cannot match
those of the Arisians you should die, and the loss will be small."

       *       *       *       *       *

The fifth screen went down. For the first time in untold ages the
planet of Eddore lay bare to the Arisian mind. There were inner
defenses, of course, but Kit knew every one; their strengths and their
weaknesses. He had long since spread in Mentor's mind an exact and
completely detailed chart; they had long since drawn up a completely
detailed plan of campaign. Nevertheless, Kit could not keep from
advising Mentor:

"Pick off any who may try to get away. Start on Area B and work up. Be
sure, though, to lay off of Area K or you'll get your beard singed off."

"The plan is being followed," Mentor assured him. "Children, you have
done very well indeed. Rest now, and recuperate your powers against
that which is yet to come."

"QX. Unlace yourselves, kids. Loosen up. Unlax. I'll break out a few
beakers of fayalin, and all of us--you especially, Con--had better eat
ten or fifteen of these candy bars."

"_Eat!_ Why, I _couldn't_--" Kit insisted, and Constance took
an experimental bite. "But say, I _am_ hungry, at that!"

"Of course you are. We've been putting out some stuff, and there's more
and worse coming. Now rest, all of you."

       *       *       *       *       *

They rested. Somewhat to their surprise, they were now seasoned enough
campaigners so that they could rest; even Constance. But the respite
was short. Area K, the headquarters and the citadel of His Ultimate
Supremacy and the Innermost Circle of the Boskonian Empire, contained
all that remained of Eddorian life.

"No tight linkage yet, kids," Kit the Organizer went smoothly to work.
"Individual effort--a flash of fusion, perhaps, now and then, if any
of us call for it, but no Unit until I give the word. Then give it
everything you've got. Cam, analyze that screen and set us up a pattern
for it--you'll find that it'll take some doing. See whether it's
absolutely homogenous--hunt for weak spots, if any. Con, narrow down
to the sharpest needle you can possibly make and start pecking. Not
too hard--don't tire yourself--just to get acquainted with the texture
of the thing and keep them awake. Kay, take over our guard so that
Eukonidor can join the other Arisians. Kat, come along with me--you'll
have to help with the Arisians until I call you into the Unit.

"You Arisians, except Mentor, blanket this dome. Thinner than
that--solider, harder--there. A trifle off-balance yet--give me just a
little more, here on this side. QX--hold it right there! SQUEEZE! Kat,
watch 'em. Hold them right there and in balance until you're sure that
the Eddorians aren't going to be able to put any bulges up through the
blanket.

"Now, Mentor, you and the Lensmen. Tell them to give us, for the next
five seconds, absolutely everything that they can deliver. When they're
at absolute peak, hit us with it all. Hit us dead center, and don't
pull your punch. We'll be ready.

"Con, get ready to stick that needle there--they'll think it's just
another peck, I hope--and prepare to blast as you never blasted before.
Kay, get ready to drop that screen and stiffen the needle--when those
Lensmen hit us even you will know that you're not just being patted on
the back. The rest of us will brace you and keep the shock from killing
us all. Here it comes. Make Unit! GO!"

The Unit struck. The needle of pure force drove against the Eddorians'
supposedly absolutely impenetrable shield. The Unit's thrust was, of
itself, like nothing ever before known. The Lensmen's pile-driver
blow--the integrated sum total of the top effort of every First-Stage
Lensman of the entire Galactic Patrol--was of itself irresistible.
Something had to give way.

For an instant it seemed as though nothing were happening or ever
would happen. Strong young arms laced the straining Five into a group
as motionless and as sculpturesque as statuary, while between their
bodies and around them there came into being a gigantic Lens--a Lens
whose splendor filled the entire room with radiance.

Under that awful concentration of force something _had_ to give
way. The Unit held. The Arisians held. The Lensmen held. The needle
of force, superlatively braced, neither bent nor broke. Therefore the
Eddorians' screen was punctured; and in the instant of its puncturing
it disappeared as does a bubble when it breaks.

There was no mopping-up to do. Such was the torrent of force cascading
into that citadel that within a moment after its shield went down all
life within it was snuffed out.

The Boskonian War was over.



                                 XXIX.


"Did you kids come through QX?" The frightful combat over, the dreadful
tension a thing of the past, Kit's first thought was for his sisters.

They were unharmed. None of the Five had suffered anything except
mental exhaustion. Recuperation was rapid.

"Better we hunt that tube up and get Dad out of it, don't you think?"
Kit suggested.

"Have you got a story arranged that will hold together under
examination?" Camilla asked.

"Everything except a few minor details, which we can polish up later."

Smoothly the four girls linked their minds with their brother's;
effortlessly the Unit's thought surveyed all nearby space. No
hyperspatial tube, nor any trace of one, was there. Tuned to Kinnison's
pattern, the Unit then scanned not only normal space and the then
present time, but also millions upon millions of other spaces and past
and future times; all without finding the Gray Lensman.

Again and again the Unit reached out, farther and farther; out to the
extreme limit of even its extraordinary range. Every space and every
time was empty. The Children of the Lens broke their linkage and stared
at each other, aghast.

They knew starkly what it must mean, but that conclusion was
unthinkable. Kinnison--their Dad--the hub of the universe--the
unshakable, immutable Rock of Civilization--he _couldn't_ be dead.
They simply could not accept the logical explanations as the true one.

And while they pondered, shaken, a call from their Red Lensman mother
impinged upon their consciousness.

"You are together? Good! I have been _so_ worried about Kim going
into that trap. I have been trying to get in touch with him, but I
cannot reach him. You children, with your greater power--"

She broke off as the dread import of the Five's surface thoughts
became clear to her. At first she, too, was shaken, but she rallied
magnificently.

"Nonsense!" she snapped; not in denial of an unwelcome fact, but in
sure knowledge that the supposition was not and could not be a fact.
"Kimball Kinnison is alive. He is lost, I know--I last heard from
him just before he went into that hyperspatial tube--but I did not
feel him die. And if he died, no matter where or when or how, I would
most certainly have felt it. So don't be idiots, children, please.
Think--_really_ think! I am going to do something--somehow--but
what? Mentor the Arisian? I've never called him and I'm terribly afraid
that he might not be willing to do anything. I could go there and make
him do something, but that would take so long--tell me, what shall
I--what _can_ I do?"

"Mentor, by all means," Kit decided. "The most logical, the only
possible solution. I am sure that in this case he will act. It is
neither necessary nor desirable to go to Arisia." Now that the
Eddorians had ceased to exist, intergalactic space presented no barrier
to Arisian thought, but Kit did not enlighten his mother upon that
point. "Link your mind with ours." She did so.

"Mentor of Arisia!" the clear-cut thought flashed out. "Kimball
Kinnison of Klovia is not present in this, his normal space and time,
nor in any other continuum which we can reach. We ask assistance."

"Ah, 'tis Lensman Clarrissa and the Five." Imperturbably, Mentor's mind
joined theirs on the instant. "I have given the matter no attention,
nor have I scanned my visualization of the Cosmic All. It may be that
Kimball Kinnison has passed on from this plane of exist--"

"He has NOT!" the Red Lensman interrupted violently, so violently
that her thought had the impact of a physical blow. Mentor and the
Five alike could see her eyes flash and sparkle; could hear her voice
crackle as she spoke aloud, the better to drive home her passionate
conviction. "Kim is ALIVE! I told the children so and I now tell
you so. No matter where or when he might be, in whatever possible
extra-dimensional nook or cranny of the entire macrocosmic universe or
in any possible aisle of time between plus and minus eternity, he could
not die--he could not possibly die--without my knowing it. So find him,
please--_please_ find him, Mentor--or, if you can't or won't, just
give me the littlest, _tiniest_ hint as to how to go about it and
I will find him myself!"

The Five were appalled. Especially Kit, who knew, as the others did
not, just how much afraid of Mentor his mother had always been. To
direct such a thought as that to any Arisian was unthinkable; but
Mentor's only reaction was one of pleased interest.

"There is much of truth, daughter, in your thought," he replied,
slowly. "Human love, in its highest manifestation, can be a mighty,
a really tremendous thing. The force, the power, the capability of
such a love as yours is a sector of the truth which has not been fully
examined. Allow me, please, a moment in which to consider the various
aspects of this matter."

       *       *       *       *       *

It took more than a moment. It took more than the twenty-nine seconds
which the Arisian had needed to solve an earlier and supposedly similar
Kinnison problem. In fact, a full half hour elapsed before Mentor
resumed communication; and then he did so, not to the group as a
whole, but only to the Five; using an ultrafrequency to which the Red
Lensman's mind could not be attuned.

"I have not been able to reach him. Since you could not do so I knew
that the problem would not be simple, but I have found that it is
difficult indeed. As I have intimated previously, my visualization is
not entirely clear upon any matter touching the Eddorians directly,
since their minds were of great power. On the other hand, their
visualizations of us were probably even more hazy. Therefore none
of our analyses of each other were or could be much better than
approximations.

"It is certain, however, that you were correct in assuming that it
was the Ploorans who set up the hyperspatial tube as a trap for your
father. The fact that the lower and middle operating echelons of
Boskonia could not kill him established in the Ploorans' minds the
necessity of taking him alive. The fact gave us no concern, for you,
Kathryn, were on guard. Moreover, even if she alone should slip, it
was manifestly impossible for them to accomplish anything against the
combined powers of you Five. However, at some undetermined point in
time the Eddorians took over, as is shown by the fact that you are all
at a loss: it being scarcely necessary to point out to you that the
Ploorans could neither transport your father to any location which you
could not reach nor pose any problem, including his death, which you
could not solve. It is thus certain that it was one or more of the
Eddorians who either killed Kinnison or sent him where he was sent. It
is also certain that, after the easy fashion in which he escaped from
the Ploorans after they had captured him and had him all but in their
hands, the Eddorians did not care to have the Ploorans come to grips
with Kimball Kinnison; fearing, and rightly, that instead of gaining
information, they would lose everything."

"Did they know that I was in that tube?" Kathryn asked. "Did they
deduce us, or did they think that Dad was a superman?"

"That is one of the many points which are obscure. But it made no
difference, before or after the event, to them or to us, as you should
perceive."

"Of course. They knew that there was at least one third-level mind at
work in the field. They must have deduced that it was Arisian work.
Whether it was Dad himself, or whether it was coming to his aid at
need, would make no difference. They knew very well that he was the
keystone of Civilization, and that to do away with him would be the
shrewdest move they could make. Therefore, we still do not understand
why they didn't kill him out-right and be done with it--if they didn't."

"In exactness, neither do I--that point is the least clear of all.
Nor is it at all certain that he still lives. It is sheerest folly to
assume that the Eddorians either thought or acted illogically, even
occasionally. Therefore, if Kinnison is not dead, whatever was done
was calculated to be even more final than death itself. This premise,
if adopted, forces the conclusion that they considered the possibility
of our knowing enough about the next cycle of existence to be able to
reach him there."

Kit frowned. "You still harp on the possibility of his death. Does not
your visualization cover that?"

"Not since the Eddorians took control. I have not consciously
emphasized the probability of your father's death; I have merely
considered it--in the case of two mutually exclusive events, neither
of which can be shown to have happened, both must be studied with care.
Assume for the moment that your mother's theory is the truth, that your
father is still alive. In that case, what was done and how it was done
are eminently clear."

"Clear? Not to us!" the Five chorused.

"While they did not know at all exactly the power of our minds, they
could establish limits beyond which neither they nor we could go. Being
mechanically inclined, it is reasonable to assume that they had at
their disposal sufficient energy to transport Kinnison and his vessel
to some point well beyond those limits. They would have given control
to a director-by-chance, so that his ultimate destination would be
unknown and unknowable. He would of course land safely--"

"How? How could they, _possibly_--?"

"In time that knowledge will be yours. Not now. Whether or not the
hypothesis just stated is true, the fact confronting us is that Kimball
Kinnison is not now in any region which I am at present able to scan."

Gloom descended palpably upon the Five.

"I am not saying or implying that the problem is insoluble. Since
Eddorian minds were involved, however, you already realize that its
solution will require the evaluation of many millions of factors and
will consume a not inconsiderable number of your years."

"You mean lifetimes!" an impetuous young thought broke in. "Why, long
before that--"

"Contain yourself, daughter Constance," Mentor reproved, gently. "I
realize quite fully all the connotations and implications involved.
I was about to say that it may prove desirable to assist your mother
in the application of powers which may very well transcend in some
respects those of either Arisia or Eddore." He shifted the band of
thought to include the Red Lensman and went on as though he were just
emerging from contemplation:

"Children, it appears that the solution of this problem by ordinary
processes will require more time than can conveniently be spared.
Moreover, it affords a priceless and perhaps a unique opportunity of
increasing our store of knowledge. Be informed, however, that the
probability is exceedingly great that in this project you, Clarrissa,
will lose your life."

"Better not, mother. When Mentor says anything like that, it means
suicide. We don't want to lose you, too." Kit pleaded, and the four
girls added their pleas to his.

Clarrissa knew that suicide was against the Code--but she also knew
that, as long as there was any chance at all, Lensmen always went in.

"Exactly how great?" she demanded, vibrantly. "It isn't absolutely
certain--it _can't_ be!"

"No, daughter, it is not absolutely certain."

"QX, then, I'm going in. Nothing can stop me."

"Very well. Tighten your linkage, Clarrissa, with me. Yours will be
the task of sending your thought to your husband, wherever and whenever
in total space and in total time he may be. If it can be done, you can
do it. You alone of all the entities in existence can do it. I can
neither help you nor guide you in your quest; but by virtue of your
relationship to him whom we are seeking, your oneness with him, you
will require neither help nor guidance. My part will be to follow you
and to construct the means of his return, but the real labor is and
must be yours alone. Take a moment, therefore, to prepare yourself
against the effort, for it will not be small. Gather your resources,
daughter; assemble all your forces and your every power."

       *       *       *       *       *

They watched Clarrissa, in her distant room, throw herself prone upon
her bed. She closed her eyes, buried her nose in the counterpane, and
gripped a side rail fiercely in each hand.

"Can't we help, too?" The Five implored, as one.

"I do not know." Mentor's thought was as passionless as the voice of
Fate. "I know of no force at your disposal which can affect in any way
that which is to happen. Since I do not know the full measure of your
powers, however, it would be well for you to accompany us, keeping
yourselves alert to take instant advantage of any opportunity to be of
aid. Are you ready, daughter Clarrissa?"

"I am ready," and the Red Lensman launched her thought.

Clarrissa Kinnison did not know, then or ever, did not have even the
faintest inkling of what she did or of how she did it. Nor, tied to
her by bonds of heritage, love, and sympathy though they were and of
immense powers of mind though they were, did any of the Five succeed,
until after many years had passed, in elucidating the many complex
phenomena involved. Even Mentor, the ancient Arisian sage, never did
understand.

All that any of them knew was that an infinitely loving and intensely
suffering woman, stretched rigidly upon a bed, hurled out through space
and time a passionately questing thought--a thought behind which she
put everything she had.

Clarrissa Kinnison, Red Lensman, had much--and every iota of that
impressive sum total ached for, yearned for, and insistently
_demanded_ her Kim--her one and only Kim. Kim her husband; Kim the
father of her children; Kim her lover; Kim her other half; Kim her all
in all for so many perfect years.

"Kim! KIM! Wherever you are, Kim, or whenever, listen! Listen and
answer! Hear me--you _must_ hear me calling--I need you, Kim, from
the bottom of my soul. Kim! My Kim! KIM!!"

Through countless spaces and through untellable times that poignant
thought sped; driven by a woman's fears, a woman's hopes, a woman's
all-surpassing love; urged ever onward and ever outward by the
irresistible force of a magnificent woman's frankly bared soul.

Outward ... farther ... farther out ... farther--

       *       *       *       *       *

Clarrissa's body went limp upon her bed. Her heart slowed; her
breathing almost stopped. Kit probed quickly, finding that those secret
cells into which he had scarcely dared to glance were now empty and
bare. Even the Red Lensman's tremendous reserves of vital force were
exhausted.

"Mother, come back!"

"Come back to us!"

"Please, _please_, Mums, come back!"

"Know you, children, your mother so little?"

They knew her. They knew starkly that she would not come back.
Regardless of any danger to herself, regardless of life itself, she
would not return until she had found her Kim.

"But _do_ something, Mentor--DO SOMETHING!"

"What? Nothing can be done. It was simply a question of which was the
greater; the volume of the required hypersphere or her remarkable store
of vitality."

"Shut up!" Kit blazed. "We'll do _something_! Come on, kids, and
we'll try."

"The Unit!" Kathryn shrieked. "Link up, quick! Cam, make mother's
pattern, all of it--hurry! Now, Unit, grab it--make her one of us, a
six-ply Unit--_make_ her come in, and snap it up! There! Now, Kit,
drive us. DRIVE US!"

Kit drove. As the surging life-force of the Unit pushed a measure
of vitality back into Clarrissa's inert body, she gained a little
strength and did not grow weaker. The children, however, did; and
Mentor, who had been entirely unmoved by the woman's imminent death,
became highly concerned.

"Children, return!" He first ordered, then entreated. "You are throwing
away not only your lives, but also long lifetimes of intensive labor
and study!"

They paid no attention. He had known that they would not. No more
than their mother would those children abandon such a mission
unaccomplished. Seven Kinnisons would come back or none.

The Arisian pondered--and brightened. Now that a theretofore impossible
linkage had been made, the outlook changed. The odds shifted. The
Unit's delicacy of web, its driving force, had not been enough; or,
rather, it would have taken too long. Adding the Red Lensman's affinity
for her husband, however--Yes, definitely, this Unit of his should now
succeed.

It did. Before any of the Five weakened to the danger point the Unit,
again five-fold, snapped back. Clarrissa's life-force, which had tried
so valiantly to fill all of space and all of time, was flowing back
into her. A tight, hard beam ran, it seemed, to infinity and vanished.
Mentor had been unable to follow the Unit, but he could and did follow
that beam to Kimball Kinnison. Abruptly the trace was hidden by the
walls of a hyperspatial tube.

"A right scholarly bit of work, children," Mentor approved. "I could
not follow you, but I have arranged the means of his return."

"Thanks, children. Thanks, Mentor." Instead of fainting, Clarrissa
sprang from her bed and stood erect. Flushed and panting, eyes
flamingly alight, she was more intensely vital than any of her children
had ever seen her. Reaction might--would--come later, but she was now
all buoyantly vibrant woman. "Where will he come into our space, and
when?"

"In your room before you. Now."

Kinnison materialized; and as the Red Lensman and the Gray went
hungrily into each other's arms, Mentor and the Five turned their
attention toward the future.

       *       *       *       *       *

"First, the hyperspatial tube which was called the 'Hell Hole in
Space,'" Kit began. "We must establish as fact in the minds of all
Civilization that the Ploorans were actually at the top of Boskone.
The story as we have arranged it is that Ploor was the top, and--which
happens to be the truth--that it was destroyed through the efforts of
the Second-Stage Lensmen. The 'Hell Hole' is to be explained as being
operated by the Plooran 'residuum' which every Lensman knows all about
and which he will never forget. The problem of Dad's whereabouts was
different from the previous one in degree only, not in kind. To all
except us, there never were any Eddorians. Any objections? Will that
version hold?"

The consensus was that the story was sound and tight.

"The time has come, then," Karen thought, "to go into the very
important matter of our reason for being and our purpose in life.
You have intimated repeatedly that you Arisians are resigning your
Guardianship of Civilization and that we are to take over; and I have
just perceived the terribly shocking fact that you four are now alone,
that all the other Arisians have already gone. We are not ready,
Mentor; you know that we are not--this scares me through and through."

"You are ready, children, for everything that will have to be done.
You have not come to your full maturity and power, of course; that
stage will come only with time. It is best for you, however, that we
leave you now. Your race is potentially vastly stronger and abler than
ours. We reached some time ago the highest point attainable to us: we
could no longer adapt ourselves to the ever-increasing complexity of
life. You, a young new race amply equipped for any emergency within
reckonable time, will be able to do so. In capability and in equipment
you begin where we leave off."

"But we know--you've taught us--scarcely anything!" Constance protested.

"I have taught you exactly enough. That we do not know exactly what
changes to anticipate is implicit in the fact that our race is out of
date. Further Arisian teaching would tend to set you in the out-dated
Arisian mold and thereby defeat our every purpose. As I have informed
you repeatedly, we ourselves do not know what extra qualities you
possess. Hence we are in no sense competent to instruct you in the
natures or in the uses of them. It is certain, however, that you have
those extra qualities. It is equally certain that you possess the
abilities to develop them to the full. I have set your feet on the sure
way to the full development of those abilities."

"But that will take much time, sir," Kit thought, "and if you leave us
now we won't have it."

"You will have time enough and to spare."

"Oh--then we won't have to do it right away?" Constance broke in.
"Good!"

"We are all glad of that," Camilla added. "We're too full of our own
lives, too eager for experiences, to enjoy the prospect of living such
lives as you Arisians have lived. I am right in assuming, am I not,
that our own development will in time force us into the same or a
similar existence?"

"Your muddy thinking has again distorted the truth," Mentor reproved
her. "There will be no force involved. You will gain everything, lose
nothing. You have no conception of the depth and breadth of the vistas
now just beginning to open to you. Your lives will be immeasurably
fuller, higher, greater than any heretofore known to this universe. As
your capabilities increase, you will find that you will no longer care
for the society of entities less able than your own kind."

       *       *       *       *       *

"But I don't _want_ to live forever!" Constance wailed.

"More muddy thinking." Mentor's thought was--for him--somewhat testy.
"Perhaps, in the present instance, barely excusable. You know that you
are not immortal. You should know that an infinity of time is necessary
for the acquirement of infinite knowledge; and that your span of life
will be just as short, in comparison with your capacity to live and
to learn, as that of Homo sapiens. When the time comes you will want
to--you will need to--change your manner of living."

"Tell us when?" Kat suggested. "It would be nice to know, so that we
could get ready."

"I could tell you, since in that way my visualization is clear, but
I will not. Fifty years--a hundred--a million--what matters it? Live
your lives to the fullest, year by year, developing your every obvious,
latent, and nascent capability; calmly assured that long before
any need for your services shall arise, you shall have established
yourselves upon some planet of your choice and shall be in every
respect ready for whatever may come to pass."

"You are--you must be--right," Kit conceded. "In view of what has just
happened, however, and the chaotic condition of both galaxies, it seems
a poor time to vacate all Guardianship."

"All inimical activity is now completely disorganized. Kinnison and
the Patrol can handle it easily enough. The real conflict is finished.
Think nothing of a few years of vacancy. The Lensmakers, as you know,
are fully automatic, requiring neither maintenance nor attention;
what little time you may wish to devote to the special training of
selected Lensmen can be taken at odd moments from your serious work of
developing yourselves for Guardianship."

"We still feel incompetent," the Five insisted. "Are you sure that you
have given us all the instruction we need?"

"I am sure. I perceive doubt in your minds as to my own competence,
based upon the fact that in this supreme emergency my visualization
was faulty and my actions almost too late. Observe, however, that my
visualization was clear upon every essential factor and that we were
not actually too late. The truth is that our timing was precisely
right--no lesser stress could possibly have prepared you as you are now
prepared.

"I am about to go. The time may come when your descendants will
realize, as we did, their inadequacy for continued Guardianship. Their
visualizations, as did ours, may become imperfect and incomplete.
If so, they will then know that the time will have come for them to
develop, from the highest race then existing, new and more competent
Guardians. Then they, as my fellows have done and as I am about to do,
will of their own accord pass on. But that is for the remote future. As
to you children, doubtful now and hesitant as is only natural, you may
believe implicitly what I now tell you is the truth, that even though
we Arisians are no longer here, all shalt be well; with us, with you,
and with all Civilization."

The deeply resonant pseudovoice ceased; the Kinnisons knew that Mentor,
the last of the Arisians, was gone.



                               EPILOGUE


To you who have scanned this report, further greetings:

Since I, who compiled it, am only a youth, a Guardian only by title,
and hence unable to visualize even approximately either the time of nor
the necessity for the opening of this flask of force, I have no idea
as to the bodily shape or the mental attainments of you, the entity to
whom it has now been made available.

You already know that Civilization is again threatened seriously. You
probably know something of the basic nature of that threat. While
studying this tape you have become informed that the situation is
sufficiently grave to have made it again necessary to force certain
selected minds prematurely into the third-level of Lensmanship.

You have already learned that in ancient time Civilization after
Civilization fell before it could rise much above the level of
barbarism. You know that we and the previous race of Guardians saw to
it that this, OUR Civilization, has not yet fallen. Know now that the
task of your race, so soon to replace us, will be to see to it that it
does not fall.

One of us will become _en rapport_ with you as soon as you have
assimilated the facts, the connotations, and the implications of this
material. Prepare your mind for contact.

                                                          Kit Kinnison.



                               THE END.



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