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_!"