XVIII.

For hours Camilla Kinnison and Tregonsee wrestled separately and

fruitlessly with the problem of the elusive "X." Then, after she had

studied the Rigellian's mind in a fashion which he could neither

detect nor employ, Camilla broke the mental silence.

"Uncle Trig, my conclusions frighten me. Can you conceive of the

possibility that it was contact with _my_ mind, not yours, that

made 'X' run away?"

"That is the only tenable conclusion. I know the limitations of my own

mind, but I have never been able to guess at the capabilities of yours.

I fear that I, at least, underestimated our opponent."

"I know that I did, and I was terribly wrong. I shouldn't have

tried to fool you, either, even a little bit. There are some things

about me that I just _can't_ show to most people, but you are

different--you're _such_ a wonderful person!"

"Thanks, Camilla, for your trust." Understandingly, he did not go on to

say that he would keep on being worthy of it. "I accept the fact that

you Five, being children of two Second-Stage Lensmen, are basically

beyond my comprehension. There are indications that you do not as yet

thoroughly understand yourself. You have, however, decided upon a

course of action."

"Oh--I'm _so_ relieved! Yes, I have. But before we go into that,

I haven't been able to solve the problem of 'X.' More, I have proved

that I cannot solve it without more data. Therefore, you can't, either.

Check?"

"I had not yet reached that conclusion, but I accept your statement as

truth."

"One of those uncommon powers of mine, to which you referred a while

ago, is a wide range of perception, from large masses down to

extremely tiny components. Another, or perhaps a part of the same one,

is that, after resolving and analyzing these fine details, I can build

up a logical and coherent whole by processes of interpolation and

extrapolation."

"I can believe that such things would be possible to such a mind as

yours must be. Go on."

"Well, that is how I know that I underestimated Mr. 'X.' Whoever or

whatever he is, I am completely unable to resolve the structure of his

thought. I gave you all I got of it. Look at it again, please--hard.

What can you make of it now?"

"It is exactly the same as it was before; a fragment of a simple and

plain introductory thought to an audience. That is all."

"That's all I can see, too, and that's what surprises me so." The

hitherto imperturbable and serene Camilla got up and began to pace the

floor. "That thought is apparently absolutely solid; and since that is

a definitely impossible condition, the truth is that its structure is

so fine that I cannot resolve it into its component units. This fact

shows that I am not nearly so competent as I thought I was. When you

and Dad and the others reached that point, you each went to Arisia. I

have decided to do the same thing."

"That decision seems eminently sound."

"Thanks, Uncle Trig--that was what I hoped you would say. I have never

been there, you know, and the idea scared me a little. Clear ether!"

There is no need to go into detail as to Camilla's bout with Mentor.

Her mind, like Karen's, had had to mature of itself before any

treatment could be really effective; but once mature, she took as

much in one session as Kathryn had taken in all her many. She had not

suggested that the Rigellian accompany her to Arisia; they both knew

that he had already received all that he could take. Upon her return

she greeted him as casually as though she had been gone only a matter

of hours.

"What Mentor did to me, Uncle Trig, shouldn't have been done to a

Delgonian catlat. It doesn't show too much, though, I hope--does it?"

"Not at all." He scanned her narrowly, both physically and mentally.

"I can perceive no change in detail. In general, however, you have

changed. You have developed."

"Yes, more than I would have believed possible. I can't do much

with my present very poor transcription of that thought, since the

all-important fine detail is missing. We'll have to intercept another

one. I'll get it _all_, this time, and it will tell us a lot."

"But you did something with this one, I am sure. There must have been

some developable features--a sort of latent-image effect?"

"A little. Practically infinitesimal compared to what was really there.

Physically, his classification to four places is TUUV; quite a bit

like the Nevians, you notice. His home planet is big, and practically

covered with liquid. No real cities, just groups of half-submerged,

temporary structures. Mentality very high, but we knew that already.

Normally, he thinks upon a very short wave, so short that he was then

working at the very bottom of his range. His sun is a fairly hot

main-sequence-star, of spectral class somewhere around F, and it's

probably more or less variable, because there was quite a distinct

implication of change. But that's normal enough, isn't it?"

Within the limits imposed by the amount and kind of data available,

Camilla's observations and analyses had been perfect, her

reconstruction flawless. She did not then have any idea, however, that

"X" was in fact a spring-form Plooran. More, she did not even know that

such a planet as Ploor existed, except for Mentor's one mention of it.

"Of course. Peoples of planets of variable suns think that such suns

are the only kind fit to have planets. You cannot reconstruct the

nature of the change?"

"No. Worse, I can't find even a hint of where his planet is in

space--but then, I probably couldn't, anyway, even with a whole, fresh

thought to study."

"Probably not. 'Rigel Four' would be an utterly meaningless thought to

anyone ignorant of Rigel; and, except when making a conscious effort,

as in directing strangers, I never think of its location in terms of

galactic co-ordinates. I suppose that the location of a home planet is

always taken for granted. That would seem to leave us just about where

we were before in our search for 'X,' except for your implied ability

to intercept another of his thoughts, almost at will. Explain, please."

"Not _my_ ability--ours." Camilla smiled, confidently. "I couldn't

do it alone, neither could you, but between us I don't believe that it

will be too difficult. You, with your utterly calm, utterly unshakable

certainty, can drive a thought to any corner of the universe. You can

fix and hold it steady on any indicated atom. I can't do that, or

anything like it, but with my present ability to detect and to analyze,

I am not afraid of missing 'X' if we can come within parsecs of him.

So my idea is a sort of piggy-back hunting trip; you to take me for a

ride, mentally, very much as Worsel takes Con, physically. That would

work, don't you think?"

"Perfectly, I am sure." The stolid Rigellian was immensely pleased.

"Link your mind with mine, then, and we will set out. If you have no

better plan of action mapped out, I would suggest starting at the point

where we lost him and working outward, covering an expanding sphere."

"You know best. I will stick to you wherever you go. I am ready."

* * * * *

Tregonsee launched his thought; a thought which, at a velocity not

to be measured even in multiples of that of light, generated the

surface of a continuously enlarging sphere of space. And with that

thought, a very part of it, sped Camilla's incomprehensibly delicate,

instantaneously reactive detector web. The Rigellian, with his unhuman

perseverance, would have surveyed total space had it been necessary;

and the now adult Camilla would have stayed with him. However, the

patient pair did not have to comb all of space. In a matter of

hours the girl's almost infinitely tenuous detector touched, with

infinitesimal power and for an inappreciable instant of time, the exact

thought-structure to which it had been so carefully attuned.

"Halt!" she flashed, and Tregonsee's mighty superdreadnought shot away

along the indicated line at maximum blast.

"You are not now thinking at him, of course, but how sure are you that

he did not feel your detector?" Tregonsee asked.

"Positive," the girl replied. "I couldn't even feel it myself until

after a million-fold amplification. It was just a web, you know, not

nearly solid enough for an analyzer or a recorder. I didn't touch his

mind at all. However, when we get close enough to work efficiently,

which will be in about five days, we will have to touch him. Assuming

that he is as sensitive as we are, he will feel us; hence we will have

to work fast and according to some definite plan. What are your ideas

as to technique?"

"I may offer a suggestion or two, later, but I resign leadership to

you. You already have made plans, have you not?"

"Only a framework, I could not go into detail without consulting you.

Since we agree that it was my mind that he did not like, you will have

to make the first contact."

"Of course. But since the action of thought is so nearly instantaneous,

are you sure that you will be able to protect yourself in case he

overcomes me at that first contact?" If the Rigellian gave any thought

at all to his own fate in such a case, no trace of it was evident.

"My screens are good. I am fairly certain that I could protect both

of us, but it might slow me down a trifle; and even an instant's

delay might keep me from getting the information we want. It would be

better, I think, to call Kit in. Or, better yet, Kay. She can stop a

superatomic bomb. With Kay covering us both, we will be free to put our

full power into the offense."

"And that offense is to be--?"

"I have no idea. We will work that out together."

Again they went into a union of minds; considering, weighing,

analyzing, rejecting, and--a few times--accepting. And finally, well

within the five-day time limit, they had drawn up a completely detailed

plan of battle.

How uselessly that time was spent! For that battle, instead of

progressing according to their carefully worked-out plan, was ended

almost in the instant of its beginning.

* * * * *

According to plan, Tregonsee tuned his mind to "X's" pattern as soon as

they had come within working range. He reached out as delicately as he

could; and his best was very fine work indeed. He might just as well

have struck with all his power, for at the first touch of the fringe,

extremely light and entirely innocuous though it was, the stranger's

barriers flared into being and there came back instantly a mental bolt

of such vicious intensity that it would have gone through Tregonsee's

hardest-held block as though no barrier had been there. But that bolt

did not strike Tregonsee's shield; he did not even know, until much

later, that it had been sent. Instead, it struck Karen Kinnison's,

which has already been described.

It did not exactly bounce, nor did it cling, nor did it linger, even

for a microsecond, to do battle as expected. It simply vanished;

as though that minute interval of time had been sufficient for the

enemy to have recovered from the shock of encountering a completely

unexpected resistance, to have analyzed the texture of the shield, to

have deduced from that analysis the full capabilities of its owner and

operator, to have decided that he did not care to have any dealings

with the entity so deduced, and finally, as he no doubt supposed, to

have begun to retreat in good order.

His retreat, however, was not in good order. He did not escape, this

time. This time, as she had declared that she would be, Camilla was

ready for anything--literally anything. Everything she had--and she had

plenty--was on the trips; tense, taut, and poised. Knowing that Karen,

the Ultimate of Defense, was on guard, she was wholly free to hurl her

every force in the instant of perceiving the enemy's poignant thrust.

Scarcely had the leading element of her attack touched the stranger's

screens, however, when those screens, "X" himself, his vessel and any

others that might have been accompanying it, and everything tangible in

nearby space, all disappeared at once in the inconceivably violent, the

ultimately cataclysmic detonation of a superatomic bomb.

It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the "completely

liberating" or "superatomic" bomb liberates one hundred percent of the

total component energy of two or more subcritical masses of an unstable

isotope, in a space of time estimated to be sixty-nine hundredths of

one microsecond. Its violence and destructiveness thus differ, both in

degree and in kind, from those of the earlier type, which liberated

only the energy of nuclear fission, very much as the radiation of

S-Doradus differs from that of Earth's moon. Its mass attains, and

holds for an appreciable length of time, a temperature to be measured

only in millions of Centigrade degrees; which fact accounts in large

part for its utterly incredible vehemence.

Nothing inert in its entire sphere of primary action can even begin to

move out of the way before being reduced to its subatomic constituents

and thus contributing in some measure to the cataclysm. Nothing is or

becomes visible until the secondary stage begins; until the frightful

globe has expanded to a diameter of some hundreds of miles and by this

expansion has cooled down to a point at which some of its radiation

lies in the visible violet. And as for lethal radiation--there are

radiations and they are lethal.

The battle with "X" had occupied approximately two milliseconds of

actual time. The expansion had been progressing for a second or two

when Karen lowered her shield.

"Well, that finishes that," she commented. "I'd better get back on the

job. Did you find out what you want to know, Cam, or not?"

"I got a little in the moment before the explosion. Not much." Camilla

was deep in study. "It is going to be quite a job of reconstruction.

One thing of interest to you, though, is that this 'X' had quit

sabotage temporarily and was on his way to Lyrane IX, where he had some

kind of important--"

"Nine?" Karen asked, sharply. "Not Eight? I've been watching Eight, you

know--I haven't even thought of Nine."

"Nine, definitely. The thought was clear. You might give it a scan once

in a while. How is mother doing?"

"She's doing a grand job, and that Helen is quite an operator, too.

I'm not doing much--just a touch here and there--I'll see what I can

see on Nine. I'm not the scanner or detector that you are, though, you

know--maybe you'd better come over here too, in person. Suppose?"

"I think so--don't you, Uncle Trig?" Tregonsee did. "We can do some

exploring as we come, but since I have no definite patterns for web

work, we may not be able to do much until we get close. Clear ether,

Kay!"

* * * * *

"The fine structure is there, and I can resolve it and analyze it,"

Camilla informed Tregonsee, after a few hours of intense concentration.

"There are quite a few clear extraneous sequences, instead of the

blurred latent images we had before, but there is still no indication

whatever of the location of his home planet. I can see his physical

classification to ten places instead of four, more detail as to the

sun's variation, the seasons, their habits, and so on. Things that seem

mostly to be of very little importance, as far as we are concerned.

I found one fact, though, that is new and important. According to

my reconstruction, his business of Lyrane IX was the induction of

Boskonian Lensmen--_Black_ Lensmen, Tregonsee, just as father

suspected!"

"In that case, he must have been the Boskonian counterpart of an

Arisian, and hence one of the highest echelon. I am very glad indeed

that you and Karen relieved me of the necessity of trying to handle him

myself. Kinnison will be very glad to know that we have at last and in

fact reached the top--"

Camilla was paying attention to the Rigellian's cogitations with

only a fraction of her mind; most of it being engaged in a private

conversation with her brother.

"... so you see, Kit, he was under a subconscious compulsion. He

_had_ to destroy himself, his ship, and everything in it, in the

very instant of attack by any mind definitely superior to his own.

Therefore he couldn't have been an Eddorian, possibly, but merely

another intermediate, and I haven't been of much help."

"Sure you have, Cam! You got a lot of information, and some mighty good

leads to Lyrane IX and what goes on there. I'm on my way to Eddore now;

and by working down from there and up from Lyrane IX we can't go wrong.

Clear ether, Sis!"