Karen Kinnison was worried. She, who had always been so steady, so
sure of herself, had for weeks been conscious of a gradually
increasing ... what was it, anyway? Not exactly a loss of control ...
a _change_ ... a something that manifested itself in increasingly
numerous fits of senseless--sheerly idiotic--stubbornness. And always
and only it was directed at--of all the people in the universe--her
brother. She got along with her sisters perfectly; their tiny tiffs
barely rippled the surface of any of their minds. But any time her path
of action crossed Kit's, it seemed, the profoundest depths of her being
flared into opposition like exploding duodec. Worse than senseless and
idiotic, it was inexplicable, for the feeling which the Five had for
each other was much deeper than that felt by ordinary brothers and
sisters.
She didn't want to fight with Kit. She _liked_ him! She liked to
feel his mind _en rapport_ with hers, just as she liked to dance
with him; their bodies as completely in accord as were their minds. No
change of step or motion, however suddenly conceived and executed or
however bizarre, had ever succeeded in taking the other by surprise
or in marring by a millimeter the effortless precision of their
performance. She could do things with Kit that would tie any other man
into knots and break half of his bones. All other men were lumps. Kit
was so far ahead of any other man in existence that there was simply no
comparison. If she were Kit she would give her a going-over that
would ... or could even he--
At the thought she turned cold inside. He could not. Even Kit, with
all his tremendous power, would hit that solid wall and bounce. Well,
there was one--not a man, but an entity--who could. He might kill
her, but even that would be better than to allow the continued growth
within her mind of this monstrosity which she could neither control nor
understand. Where was she, and where was Lyrane, and where was Arisia?
Good--not too far off line. She would stop off at Arisia en route.
She did so, and made her way to Mentor's quiet office on the hospital
grounds. She told her story.
"Fighting with Kit was bad enough," she concluded, "but when I start
defying _you_, Mentor, it's high time that something was done
about it. Why didn't Kit ever knock me into a spiral? Why didn't you
work me over? You called Kit in, with the distinct implication that he
needed more education--why didn't you pull me in here, too, and pound
some intelligence into me?"
"Concerning you, Christopher had definite instructions, which he
obeyed. I did not touch you for the same reason that I did not ask
you to come to me; neither course would have been of any use. Your
mind, daughter Karen, is unique. One of its prime characteristics--the
one, in fact, which is to make you an all-important player in the
drama which is to come--is a yieldlessness very nearly absolute.
Your mind might, just conceivably, be broken; but it cannot be bent
by any imaginable external force, however applied. Thus it was
inevitable from the first that nothing could be done about the
untoward manifestations of this characteristic until you yourself
should recognize the fact that your development was not complete.
It would be idle for me to say that during adolescence you have not
been more than a trifle trying. I was not speaking idly when I said
that the development of you has been a tremendous task. It is with
equal seriousness, however, that I now tell you that the reward is
commensurate with the magnitude of the undertaking. It is impossible
to express the satisfaction I feel--the fulfillment, the completion,
the justification--as you children come, one by one, each in his proper
time, for final instruction."
"Oh--you mean, then, that there's nothing really the matter with me?"
Hard as Karen was, she trembled as her awful tension eased. "That I was
_supposed_ to act that way? And can I tell Kit, right away?"
"No need. Your brother now knows that it was a passing phase; he
shall know very shortly that it has passed. It is not that you were
'supposed' to act as you acted. You could not help it. Nor could your
brother, nor I. From now on, however, you shall be completely the
mistress of your own mind. Come fully, daughter Karen, into mine."
She did so, and in a matter of time her "formal education" was complete.
* * * * *
"There is one thing that I don't quite understand--" she began, before
she boarded her speedster.
"Consider it, and I am sure that you will," Mentor assured her.
"Explain it, whatever it is, to me."
"QX--I'll try. It's about Fossten and Dad." Karen cogitated. "Fossten
was, of course, an Eddorian--your making Dad believe him to be an
insane Arisian was a masterpiece. I see, of course, how you did
that--principally by making Fossten's 'real' shape exactly like the one
he saw of you in Arisia. But his physical actions as Fossten--"
"Go on, daughter. I am sure that your visualization will be sound."
"While acting as Fossten he had to act as a Thralian would have acted,"
Kay decided with a rush. "He was watched everywhere he went, and knew
it. To display his real power would have been disastrous. Just like
you Arisians, they have to keep in the background to avoid setting up
an inferiority complex that will ruin everything for them. Fossten's
actions, then, were constrained. Just as they were when he was Gray
Roger, so long ago--except that then he did make a point of unhuman
longevity, deliberately to put an insoluble problem up to First-Lensman
Samms and his men. Just as you--you _must_ have ... you _did_
coach Virgil Samms, Mentor, and some of you Arisians were there, as
men!"
"We were. We wrought briefly as men, and died as men. Up to the present
moment, no one has ever been the wiser."
"But you weren't Virgil Samms, please!" Kay almost begged. "Not that
it would break me if you were, but even I would much rather you hadn't
been."
"No, none of us was Samms," Mentor assured her. "Nor Cleveland,
nor Rodebush, nor Costigan, nor even Clio Marsden. We worked
with--'coached,' as you express it--those persons and others from time
to time in certain small matters, but we were at no time integral
with any of them. One of us was, however, Dr. Bergenholm. The full
inertialess space-drive became necessary at that time, and it would
have been poor technique to have had either Rodebush or Cleveland
develop so suddenly the ability to perfect the device as Bergenholm did
perfect it."
"QX. Bergenholm isn't important--he was just an inventor. To get back
onto the subject of Fossten: When he was there on the flagship with
Dad, and in position to throw his full weight around, it was too
late--you Arisians were on the job. You'll have to take it from there,
though; I'm out beyond my depth."
"Because you lack data. Know, then, daughter, that the planet Eddore
is screened as heavily as is our own Arisia; by screens which can
be extended at will to any desired point in space. In those last
minutes the Eddorian knew that Kimball Kinnison was neither alone nor
unprotected. He called instantaneously for help, but help did not
come. It could not. Eddore's screens were being attacked at every
point by every force generable by the massed intellect of Arisia; they
were compressed almost to the planet's surface. If the Eddorians had
weakened those screens sufficiently to have sent through them a helping
thought, every one of them would in that instant have perished. Nor
could Fossten escape from the form of flesh he was then energizing. I
myself saw to that." Karen had never before felt the Arisian display
emotion, but his thought was grim and cold. "From that form, which your
father never did perceive, he passed into the next plane of existence."
Karen shivered. "It served him right. That clears everything up, I
think. But are you _sure_, Mentor, that you can't--or rather,
shouldn't--teach me any more than you have? It's just about time for
me to go, and I feel ... well, 'incompetent' is putting it very mildly
indeed."
[Illustration: MENTOR]
"To a mind of such power and scope as yours, in its present state
of development, such a feeling is inevitable. Nor can anyone except
yourself do anything about it. Cold comfort, perhaps, but it is the
stark truth that from now on your development is your own task. Yours
alone. As I have already told Christopher and Kathryn, and will very
shortly tell Camilla and Constance, you have had your last Arisian
treatment. I will be on call to any of you at any instant of any day,
to aid you or to guide you or to reinforce you at need; but of formal
instruction there can be no more."
Karen left Arisia and drove for Lyrane, her thoughts in a turmoil. The
time was too short by far; she deliberately cut her vessel's speed and
took a long detour so that the vast and chaotic library of her mind
could be reduced to some semblance of order before she landed.
She reached Lyrane II, and there, again to all outward seeming a happy,
carefree girl, she hugged her mother rapturously. Nor was this part of
it acting in any sense--as has been said, those four girls loved each
other and their mother and their father and their brother with a depth
and fervor impossible to portray intelligibly in words.
"You're the most _wonderful_ thing, Mums!" Karen exclaimed. "It's
simply marvelous, seeing you again in the flesh."
"Now why bring _that_ up?" Clarrissa had--just barely--become
accustomed to working undraped, in the Lyranian fashion.
"I didn't mean it that way at all, and you know I didn't." Kay
snickered. "Shame on you--fishing for compliments, and at your age,
too!" Ignoring the older woman's attempt at protest she went on: "All
kidding aside, Mums, you're a mighty smart-looking hunk of woman. I
approve of you exceedingly much. In fact, we're a keen pair, and I
like both of us. I've got one advantage over you, of course, in that I
never did care a particle whether I ever had a stitch of clothes on or
not, anywhere, and you still do, a little. But what I was going to ask,
though, was how are you doing?"
"Not so well--of course, though, I haven't been here very long."
Clarrissa, forgetting her undressedness, frowned. "I haven't found
Helen, and I haven't found out yet why she retired. I can't quite
decide whether to put pressure on now, or wait a while longer. Ladora,
the new Elder Person, is ... that is, I don't know--Oh, here she comes
now. I'm glad--I want you to meet her."
If Ladora was glad to meet Karen, however, she did not show it.
Instead, for an inappreciable instant of time which was nevertheless
sufficient for the acquirement of full information, each studied
the other. Like Helen--the former Queen of the matriarchy of Lyrane
II--Ladora was tall, beautifully proportioned, flawless of skin and
feature, hard and fine. But so, and in most respects even more so, to
Ladora's astonishment and quickly-mounting wrath, was this pink-tanned
stranger. Practically instantaneously, therefore, she hurled a vicious
mental bolt--only to get the surprise of her life. She had not yet
crossed wills in a serious enough way with this strange person,
Clarrissa, to find out what she had in the way of equipment, but it
certainly couldn't be much. She had never tried to do her harm, nor
ever seemed to resent her studied and arrogant aloofness; and therefore
her daughter, younger and less experienced, of course, would be easy
enough prey.
But Ladora's bolt, the heaviest she could send, did not pierce even
the outermost fringes of her intended victim's defenses, and so
vicious was the almost simultaneous counterthrust that it went through
the Lyranian's hard-held block in nothing flat. Inside her brain,
it wrought such hellishly poignant punishment that the matriarch,
forgetting everything, tried only and madly to scream. She could not.
She could not move a muscle of her face or of her body. She could not
even fall. And the one brief glimpse she had into the stranger's mind
showed it to be such a blaze of incandescent fury that she, who had
never feared in the slightest any living creature, knew now in full
measure what fear was.
"I'd like to give that alleged brain of yours a real massage, just for
fun." Karen forced her emotion to subside to a mere seething rage, and
Ladora watched her do it. "But since this whole stinking planet is my
mother's dish, not mine, she'd blast me to a cinder--she's done it
before--if I dip in." She cooled further--visibly. "At that, I don't
suppose you're too bad an egg, in your own poisonous way--you just
don't know any better. So maybe I'd better warn you, you poor fool,
since you haven't got sense enough to see it, that you're playing with
a live fuse when you push my mother around like you've been doing.
About one more millimeter of it and she'll get mad--like I did a second
ago except more so--and you'll wish to Klono you had never been born.
She'll never make a sign until she blows up, but I'm telling you that
she's as much harder and tougher than I am as she is older, and what
she always does to people who cross her I wouldn't want to watch
happen again, even to a snake. Want to know what she'll do to you
first? She'll pick you up, curl you into a perfect circle, pull off
your arms, shove both your legs down your throat to the knees, and roll
you down that chute there into the ocean. After that I don't know what
she'll do--depends on how much pressure she develops before she blows
up. One thing, though, she's always sorry afterward--why, she even
attends the funeral, sometimes, and insists on paying the expenses!"
With which outrageous thought she kissed Clarrissa an enthusiastic
good-by. "Told you I couldn't stay a minute. Got to do a flit--'see a
man about a dog.' Came a million parsecs to squeeze you, Mums, but it
was worth it. Clear ether!"
She was gone; and it was a dewy-eyed and rapt mother, not a Lensman,
who turned to the still completely disorganized Lyranian. Clarrissa
had perceived nothing whatever of what had happened--Karen had very
carefully seen to that.
* * * * *
"My daughter," Clarrissa mused, as much to herself as to Ladora. "One
of four. The four dearest, finest, sweetest girls that ever lived.
I often wonder how a woman of my limitations, of my faults, could
possibly have borne such children."
And Ladora of Lyrane, humorless and literal as all Lyranians are,
took those thoughts at their face value and correlated their every
connotation and implication with what she herself had perceived in that
"dear, sweet" daughter's mind; with what that daughter had done and
had said. The nature and quality of this hellish person's "limitations"
and "faults" became eminently clear, and as she perceived what she
thought was the truth, the Lyranian literally cringed.
"As you know, I have been in doubt as to whether or not to support you
actively, as you wish," Ladora offered, as the two walked together
across the field, toward the line of ground-cars. "On the one hand,
the certainty that the safety, and perhaps the very existence, of my
race will be at hazard; on the other the possibility that you are right
in saying that the situation will continue to deteriorate if we do
nothing. The decision has not been an easy one to make." Ladora was no
longer aloof. She was just plain scared. She had been talking against
time, and hoping that the help for which she had long since called
would arrive in time. "I have touched only the outer surfaces of your
mind. Will you allow me, without offense, to test its inner quality
before deciding definitely?" she asked, and in the instant of asking
sent out an exploratory tentacle of thought which was in actuality a
full-driven probe.
"I will not." Ladora's beam struck a barrier which seemed to her
exactly like the daughter's. None of her race had developed anything
like it. She had never seen ... yes, she had, too--years ago, when she
was a child, that time in the assembly hall--that utterly hated male,
Kinnison of Tellus! This visitor, then, was not a real person at
all, but a _female_--Kinnison's female--the Red Lensman, of whom
even Lyrane had heard--and that pers ... that _thing_ was their
offspring! But behind that impenetrable block there might very well
be--there probably was--exactly the kind of mind that the offspring had
described. A creature who was physically a person, but mentally that
inconceivable monstrosity, a _female_, might be anything and might
do anything. Ladora temporized.
"Excuse me; I did not mean to intrude against your will," she
apologized, smoothly enough. "Since your attitude makes it extremely
difficult for me to co-operate with you, I can make no promises as yet.
What is it that you wish to know first?"
"I wish to interview your predecessor Elder Person, the one we called
Helen." Strangely refreshed, in a sense galvanized by the brief
personal visit with her dynamic daughter, it was no longer Mrs. Kimball
Kinnison who faced the Lyranian Queen. Instead, it was the Red Lensman;
a full-powered Second-Stage Lensman who had finally decided that,
since appeals to reason, logic, and common sense had no perceptible
effect upon this stiff-necked near-woman, the time had come to bear
down. "Furthermore, I intend to interview her now, and not at some such
indefinite future time as your whim may see fit to allow."
* * * * *
Ladora sent out a final desperate call for help and mustered her every
force against the interloper. Fast and strong as her mind was, however,
the Red Lensman's was faster and stronger. The Lyranian's defensive
structure was wrecked in the instant of its building, the frantically
struggling mind was taken over _in toto_. Help arrived--uselessly;
since, although Clarrissa's newly enlarged mind had not been put to
warlike use, it was brilliantly keen and ultimately sure. Nor, in times
of stress, did the softer side of her nature operate to stay mind or
hand. While carrying Lensman's Load she contained no more of ruth for
Civilization's foes than did abysmally frigid Nadreck himself.
Head thrown back, taut and tense, gold-flecked tawny eyes flashing,
she stood there for a moment and took on her shield everything that
those belligerent persons could send. More, she returned it in kind,
plus; and under those withering blasts of force more than one of her
attackers ceased to live. Then, still holding her block, she and her
unwilling captive raced across the field toward the line of peculiar
little fabric-and-wire machines which were still the last word in
Lyranian air transport.
Clarrissa knew that the Lyranians had no modern offensive or defensive
weapons. They did, however, have some fairly good artillery at that
airport; and she hoped fervently as she ran that she could put out jets
enough to spoil the aim and fusing--luckily, they hadn't developed
proximity fuses yet!--of what ack-ack they could bring to bear on her
crate during the few minutes she would have to use it. Fortunately,
there was no artillery at the small, unimportant airport on which her
speedster lay.
"Here we are. We'll take this tripe--it's the fastest thing here!"
Clarrissa could operate the triplane, of course--any knowledge or
ability that Ladora had ever had was now and permanently the Lensman's.
She started the queer engines; and as the powerful little plane
screamed into the air, hanging from its props, she devoted what of her
mind she could spare to the problem of antiaircraft fire. She could
not handle all the guncrews; but she could and did command the most
important members of most of them. Thus, nearly all of the shells
either went wide or exploded too soon. Since she knew every point of
aim of the few guns with whose operations she could not interfere, she
avoided their missiles by not being at any one of those points at the
predetermined instant of functioning.
Thus plane and passengers escaped unscathed and in a matter of minutes
arrived at their destination. The Lyranians there had been alerted,
of course; but they were few in number and they had not been informed
that it would take physical force, not mental, to keep that red-headed
pseudoperson from boarding her outlandish ship of space.
* * * * *
In a few more minutes, then, Clarrissa and her captive, safe in the
speedster, were high in the stratosphere. Clarrissa sat Ladora
down--hard--in a seat and fastened the safety straps.
"Stay in that seat and keep your thoughts to yourself," she directed,
curtly. "If you don't, you'll never again either move or think in this
life." She opened a sliding door, put on a couple of wisps of Manarkan
glamourette, reached for a dress, and paused. Eyes glowing, she gazed
hungrily at a suit of plain gray leather; a costume which she had not
as yet so much as tried on. Should she wear it, or not?
She could work efficiently--at service maximum, really--in ordinary
clothes. Ditto, although she didn't like to, unclothed. In Gray,
though, she could hit absolute max if she had to. Nor had there ever
been any question of right involved; the only barrier had been her own
hypersensitivity.
For over twenty years she herself had been the only one to deny her
right. What license, she was wont to ask, did an imitation or synthetic
or amateur or "Red" Lensman have to wear the garb which meant so much
to so many? Over those years, however, it had become increasingly
widely known that hers was one of the five finest and most powerful
minds in the entire Gray Legion; and when Co-ordinator Kinnison
recalled her to active duty in Unattached status, that Legion passed by
unanimous vote a resolution asking her to join them in Gray. Psychics
all, they knew that nothing less would suffice; that if there was any
trace of resentment or of antagonism or of feeling that she did not
intrinsically belong, she would never don the uniform which every
adherent of Civilization so revered and for which, deep down, she had
always so intensely longed. The Legion had sent her these Grays. Kit
had convinced her that she did actually deserve them.
She really should wear them. She would.
She put them on, thrilling to the core as she did so, and made the
quick little gesture she had seen Kim make so many times. Lensman's
Seal. No one, however accustomed, has ever donned or ever will don
unmoved the plain gray leather of the Unattached Lensman of the
Galactic Patrol.
Hands on hips, she studied herself minutely and approvingly, both
in the mirror and by means of her vastly more efficient sense of
perception. She wriggled a little, and giggled inwardly as she
remembered deploring as "exhibitionistic" this same conduct in her
oldest daughter.
The Grays fitted her perfectly. A bit revealing, perhaps, but her
figure was still good--very good, as a matter of fact. Not a speck of
dirt or tarnish. Her DeLameters were fully charged. Her tremendous Lens
flamed brilliantly upon her wrist. She looked--and felt--ready. She
could hit absolute max in a fraction of a microsecond. If she had to
get really tough, she would. She sent out a call.
"Helen of Lyrane! I know they've got you around here somewhere, and,
if any of your guards try to screen out _this_ thought, I'll burn
their brains out. Clarrissa of Sol III calling. Come in, Helen!"
"Clarrissa!" This time there was no interference. A world of welcome
was in every nuance of the thought. "Where are you?"
"High up, at--" Clarrissa gave her position. "I'm in my speedster, so
can get to anywhere on the planet in minutes. More important, where are
you? And why?"
"In jail, in my own--the Elder Person's--office." Queens should
have palaces, but Lyrane's ruler did not. Everything was strictly
utilitarian. "The tower on the corner, remember? On the top floor.
'Why' is too long to discuss now--I'd better tell you as much as
possible of what you should know, while there is time."
"Time? Are you in danger?"
"Yes. Ladora would have killed me long ago if it had dared. My
following grows less daily, the Boskonians stronger. The guards have
already summoned help. They are coming now, to take me."
"That's what _they_ think!" Clarrissa had already reached the
scene. She had exactly the velocity she wanted. She slanted downward
in a screaming dive. "Can you tell whether they're limbering up any of
that ack-ack around the office, or not?"
"I don't believe so--I don't feel any such thoughts."
"QX. Get away from the window." If they hadn't started already, they
never would start, the Red Lensman was deadly sure of that.
* * * * *
She came within range--her range--of the guns. She was in time.
Several gunners were running toward their stations. None of them
arrived. The speedster leveled off and stuck its hard nose into and
almost through the indicated room; reinforced concrete, steel bars, and
glass showering abroad as it did so. The port snapped open. As Helen
leaped in, Clarrissa practically threw Ladora out.
"Bring Ladora back!" Helen demanded. "I shall have its life!"
"Nix!" Clarrissa snapped. "I know everything that she does. We've other
fish to fry, my dear."
The massive door clanged shut. The speedster darted forward, straight
through the solid concrete wall. That small vessel, solidly built of
beryllium alloys, had been designed to take brutal punishment. She took
it.
Out in open space, Clarrissa went free, leaving the artificial gravity
at normal. Helen stood up, took Clarrissa's hand, and shook it gravely
and strongly; a gesture at which the Red Lensman almost choked.
Helen of Lyrane had changed even less than had the Earthwoman. She was
still six feet tall; erect, taut, springy, and poised. She didn't weigh
a pound more than the one-eighty she had scaled twenty-odd years ago.
Her vivid auburn hair showed not one strand of gray. Her eyes were as
clear and as proud; her skin almost as fine and firm.
"You are, then, alone?" In spite of her control, Helen's thought showed
relief.
"Yes. My hus ... Kimball Kinnison is very busy elsewhere." Clarrissa
understood perfectly. Helen, after twenty years of thinking things
over, really liked her; but she still simply couldn't stand a male,
not even Kim; any more than Clarrissa could ever adapt herself to the
Lyranian habit of using the neuter pronoun "it" when referring to
one of themselves. She couldn't. Anybody who ever got a glimpse of
Helen would have to think of her as "_she_"! But enough of this
wool-gathering--which had taken perhaps one millisecond of time.
"There's nothing to keep us from working together perfectly,"
Clarrissa's thought flashed on. "Ladora didn't know much, and you do.
So tell me all about things, so that we can decide where to begin!"