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—andthatreally did throw me for a loss." She paused, then went on. "It didn't so much go away as godown, 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 beenen rapportwith 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 rapportwith 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'vestillgot 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 wasimportantand 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'tfeellike other girls. After dancing with one of them, other girls felt like robots made out of putty. Their fleshwasdifferent. 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 besomeway 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 therecertaintyof 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 theyare! 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 theyallfight 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 swingthatload? 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 whatarethose 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—wouldhaveto 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? Itissharp—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. Idoknow 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, weresoinadequate! Kit's voice was a trifle rough: his eyes were not completely dry.
"Uh-huh. Itisnice," she agreed, snuggling her spectacular head even more firmly into the curve of his shoulder. "Mental contact is better than nothing, of course, butthisis 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. Theymustknow it, Kit—theymustfeel 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 talkanythingover 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 whoknows, 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—notpossibly!"
"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 talkabouthim 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 simplycan'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 aquestion! Of course I'm not—Why, do you meanyou—" Her expressive eyes widened. "You children—especially you—are far beyond us ... as, of course, you should be ... butcanyou, 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 nthpower, 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 afewjets, 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 perfecthag!" she exclaimed. "I'vegotto 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 ofeating, 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. "Whata 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—youcan'tgo 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. Butmineisn't, Kit?"
"Itwasn'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. "NowI'mgoing to get personal, Kit. Will you let me look atyourLens? 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, moresolid. 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 theDauntlessand 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."
"Youinvestigate 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 theDauntlessand 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, Iwill!"
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 theGray Lensman!"
"It can't be!"
"Itis, really ... I know him ... I actuallymethim once!"
"Letmelook ... just a peek!"
"Sh ... sh! He'llhearyou!"
"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."
"Tenmillos!" 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!"
"Tenmillos—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 gotherwatch, 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.Howthey 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 wereequals. 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. Hehadto 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, theDauntless, 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 mightyDauntlesswould 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!"