If the historian has succeeded in his attempt to describe the
characters and abilities concerned, it is not necessary to enlarge upon
what Kit went through in escaping Eddore. If he has not succeeded,
enlargement would be useless. Therefore, it is enough to say that the
young Lensman, by dint of calling up and putting out everything he
had, hung on long enough and slugged his way through.
Mentor's visualization had been sound. The Eddorian guardians had
scarcely taken over the first screen when it was overwhelmed by a
tremendous wave of Arisian thought. It is to be remembered, however,
that this was the second time that the massed might of Arisia had been
thrown against Eddore's defenses, and the Boskonians had learned much,
during the intervening years, from their exhaustive analyses of the
offensive and defensive techniques of that earlier conflict. Thus the
Arisian drive was practically stopped at the second zone of defense
as Kit approached it. The screen was wavering, shifting; yielding
stubbornly wherever it must and springing back into place whenever it
could.
Under a tremendous concentration of Arisian force the screen weakened
in a limited area directly ahead of the hurtling speedster. A few beams
lashed out aimlessly, uselessly--if the Eddorians could not hold their
main screens proof against the power of the Arisian attack, how could
they protect such minor things as gunners' minds? The little ship
flashed through the weakened barrier and into the center of a sphere of
impenetrable, impermeable Arisian thought.
At the shock of the sudden ending of his terrific battle--the
instantaneous transition from supreme to zero effort--Kit fainted in
his control chair. He lay slumped, inert, in a stupor which changed
gradually into a deep and natural sleep. And as the sleeping man in
his inertialess speedster traversed space at full touring blast, that
peculiar sphere of force still enveloped and still protected him.
Kit finally began to come to. His first foggy thought was that he was
hungry--then, wide awake and remembering, he grabbed his levers.
"Rest quietly and eat your fill," a grave resonant pseudovoice assured
him. "Everything is exactly as it should be."
"Hi, Ment ... well, well, if it isn't my old chum Eukonidor! Hi, young
fellow! What's the good word? And what's the big idea of letting--or
making--me sleep for a week when there's work to do?"
"Your part of the work, at least for the immediate present, is done;
and, let me say, very well done."
"Thanks ... but--" Kit broke off, flushing darkly.
"Do not reproach yourself, nor us. Consider, please, and recite, the
manufacture of a fine tool of ultimate quality."
"The correct alloy. Hot working--perhaps cold, too.
Forging--heating--quenching--drawing--"
"Enough. Think you that the steel, if sentient, would enjoy those
treatments? While you did not enjoy them, you are able to appreciate
their necessity. You are now a finished tool, forged and tempered."
"Oh, you may have something there, at that. But as to ultimate quality,
don't make me laugh." There was no nuance of merriment in Kit's
thought. "You can't square that with cowardice."
"Nor is there need. The term ultimate was used advisedly, and still
stands. It does not mean or imply, however, a state of perfection,
since that condition is unattainable. I am not advising you to try to
forget; nor am I attempting to force forgetfulness upon you, since your
mind cannot now be coerced by any force presently existing. Be assured
that nothing that occurred should irk you; for the simple truth is,
that although stressed as no other mind has ever before been stressed,
you did not yield. Instead, you secured and retained information which
we of Arisia have never been able to obtain; information which will in
fact be the means of preserving your Civilization."
"I can't believe ... that is, it doesn't seem--" Kit, knowing that he
was thinking muddily and foolishly, paused and pulled himself together.
Overwhelming, almost paralyzing as that information was, it must be
true. It _was_ true!
"Yes, it is the truth. While we of Arisia have at various times made
ambiguous statements, to lead certain Lensmen and others to arrive at
erroneous conclusions, you know that we do not lie."
"Yes, I know that." Kit plumbed the Arisian's mind. "It sort of knocks
me out of my orbit--that's an awfully big bite to swallow at one gulp,
you know."
"It is. That is one reason I am here, to convince you of the truth,
which you would not otherwise believe fully. Also to see to it that
your rest, without which you might have been hurt, was not disturbed,
as well as to make sure that you were not permanently damaged by the
Eddorians."
"I wasn't ... at least, I don't think so ... was I?"
"You were not."
"Good. I was wondering--Mentor will be tied up for quite a while, of
course, so I'll ask you--they must have got a sort of pattern of me, in
spite of all I could do, and they'll be camping on my trail from now
on, so I suppose I'll have to keep a solid block up all the time?"
"They will not, Christopher, and you need not. Guided by those whom you
knew as Mentor, I myself, as a Guardian, am to see to that. But time
presses--I must rejoin my fellows."
"One more question first. You've been trying to sell me a bill of goods
that I would like to buy. But, Eukonidor, the kids will know that I
showed a streak of yellow a meter wide. What will _they think_?"
"Is _that_ all?" Eukonidor's thought was almost a laugh. "They
will make that eminently plain in a moment."
* * * * *
The Arisian's presence vanished, as did his sphere of force, and four
clamoring thoughts came jamming in.
"Oh, Kit, we're _so_ glad!" "We _tried_ to help, but they
wouldn't let us!" "They smacked us down!" "_Honestly_, Kit!"
"_Oh_, if we had only been in there, too!"
"Hold it, everybody! Jet back!" This was Con, Kit knew, but an entirely
new Con. "Scan him, Cam, as you never scanned anything before. If they
burned out even one cell of his mind, I'm going over there right now
and kick every one of Mentor's teeth out!"
"And listen, Kit!" This was an equally strange Kathryn blazing with
fury and yet suffusing his mind with a more than sisterly tenderness,
a surpassing richness. "If we had had the faintest idea of what they
were doing to you, all the Arisians and all the Eddorians and all the
devils in all the hells of the macrocosmic Universe couldn't have kept
us away. You must believe that, Kit--or can you, quite?"
"Of course, Sis--you don't have to prove an axiom. Seal it, all of you.
You're swell people--absolute tops. But I ... you ... that is--" He
broke off and marshaled his thoughts.
He knew that they knew, in every minute particular, everything that
had occurred. Yet to a girl they thought that he was wonderful. Their
common thought was that they should have been in there, too--taking
what he took--giving what he gave!
"What I don't get is that you are trying to blame yourselves for what
happened to me, when you were on the dead center of the beam all the
time. You _couldn't_ have been in there, kids; it would have blown
the whole works higher than up. You knew that then, and you know it
even better now. You also know that I flew the yellow flag. Didn't that
even _register_?"
"Oh, _that_!" Practically identical thoughts of complete dismissal
came in unison, and Karen followed through:
"The only thing about that is that, since you knew what to expect, we
marvel that you ever managed to go in at all--no one else could have,
possibly. Or, once in, and seeing what was really there, that you
didn't flit right out again. Believe me, brother of mine, you qualify!"
Kit choked. This was too much: but it made him feel good all over.
These kids ... the Universe's best--
As he thought, a partial block came unconsciously into being. For not
one of those gorgeous, those utterly splendid creatures suspected,
even now, that which he so surely knew--that each one of them was very
shortly to be wrought and tempered as he himself had been. And, worse,
he would have to stand aside and watch them, one by one, walk into
it. Was there anything he could do to ward off, or even to soften,
what was coming to them? There was not. With his present power, he
could step in, of course--at what awful cost to Civilization only he,
Christopher Kinnison, of all Civilization, really knew. No. That was
out. Definitely. He could come in afterwards to ease their hurts, as
each had come to him, but that was all--and there was a difference.
They hadn't known about it in advance. It was tough.
Could he do _anything_?
He could not.
* * * * *
And on clammy, noisome Eddore, the Arisian attackers having been beaten
off and normality restored, a meeting of the Highest Command was
held. No two of those entities were alike in form; some were changing
from one horrible shape into another; all were starkly, indescribably
monstrous. All were concentrating upon the problem which had been so
suddenly thrust upon them; each of them thought at and with each of
the others. To do justice to the complexity or the cogency of that maze
of intertwined thoughts is impossible; the best that can be done is to
pick out a high point here and there.
"This explains the Star A Star whom the Ploorans and the Kalonians so
fear."
"And the failure of our operator on Thrale, and its fall."
"Also our recent quite serious reverses."
"Those stupid--those utterly brainless underlings!"
"We should have been called in at the start!"
"Could you analyze, or even perceive, its pattern save in small part?"
"No."
"Nor could I--an astounding and highly revealing circumstance."
"An Arisian; or, rather, an Arisian development, certainly. No other
entity of Civilization could possibly do what was done here. Nor could
any Arisian as we know or deduce them."
"They have developed something very recently which we had not
visualized."
"Kinnison's son? Bah! Think they to deceive us by the old device of
energizing a form of ordinary flesh?"
"Kinnison--his son--Nadreck--Worsel--Tregonsee--what matters it?"
"Or, as we now know, the completely imaginary Star A Star."
"We must revise our thinking," an authoritatively composite mind
decided. "We must revise our theory and our plan. It may be possible
that this new development will necessitate immediate, instead of
later, action. If we had had a competent race of proxies, none of this
would have happened, as we would have been kept informed. To correct
a situation which may become grave, as well as to acquire fullest and
latest information, we must attend the conference which is now being
held on Ploor."
* * * * *
They did so. With no perceptible lapse of time or mode of transit,
the Eddorian mind was in an assembly room upon that now flooded
world. Resembling Nevians as much as any other race with which man is
familiar, the now amphibious Ploorans lolled upon padded benches and
argued heatedly. They were discussing, upon a lower level, much of
the same material which the Eddorians had been considering so shortly
before.
Star A Star. Kinnison had been captured easily enough, but had,
almost immediately, escaped from an escape-proof trap. Another trap
was set, but would it take him? Would it hold him if it did? Kinnison
was--_must_ be--Star A Star. No, he could not be, there had been
too many unrelated and simultaneous occurrences. Kinnison, Nadreck,
Clarrissa, Worsel, Tregonsee, even Kinnison's young son, had all shown
intermittent flashes of inexplicable power. Kinnison most of all. It
was a fact worthy of note that the beginning of the long series of
Boskonian setbacks coincided with Kinnison's appearance among the
Lensmen.
The situation was bad. Not irreparable, by any means, but grave.
The fault lay with the Eich, and perhaps with Kandron of Onlo. Such
stupidity! Such incompetence! Those lower-echelon operators should
have had brains enough to have reported the matter to Ploor before
the situation got completely out of hand. But they didn't; hence this
mess. None of them, however, expressed a thought that the present
situation was already one with which they themselves could not cope;
nor suggested that it be referred to Eddore before it should become too
hot for even the Masters to handle.
"Fools! Imbeciles! We, the Masters, although through no foresight
or design of yours, are already here. Know now that you have been
and still are yourselves guilty of the same conduct which you are
so violently condemning in others." Neither Eddorians nor Ploorans
realized that that deficiency was inherent in the Boskonian scheme of
things, or that it stemmed from the organization's very top. "Sheer
stupidity! Gross overconfidence! Those are the reasons for our recent
reverses!"
"But, Masters," a Plooran argued, "now that we have taken over, we are
winning steadily. Civilization is rapidly going to pieces. In a few
more years we will have smashed it flat."
"That is precisely what they wish you to think. They have been and
are playing for time. Your bungling and mismanagement have already
given them sufficient time to develop an object or an entity able to
penetrate our screens, so that Eddore suffered the disgrace of an
actual physical invasion. It was brief, to be sure, and unsuccessful,
but it was an invasion, none the less--the first in our long history."
"But, Masters--"
"Silence! We are not here to indulge in recriminations, but to
determine facts. Since you do not know Eddore's location in space, it
is a certainty that you did not, either wittingly or otherwise, furnish
that information. That in turn makes it clear who, basically, the
invader was."
"Star A Star?" A wave of questions swept the group.
"One name serves as well as another for what is almost certainly an
Arisian entity or device. It is enough for you to know that it is
something with which your massed minds would be completely unable to
deal. To the best of your knowledge, have you been invaded, either
physically or mentally?"
"We have not, Masters; and it is unbelievable that--"
"Is it so?" The Masters sneered. "Neither our screens nor our Eddorian
guardsmen gave any alarm. We learned of the Arisian's presence only
when he attempted to probe our very minds, at Eddore's very surface.
Are your screens and minds, then, so much better than ours?"
"We erred, Masters. We abase ourselves. What do you wish us to do?"
* * * * *
"That is better. You will be informed, as soon as a few last-minute
details have been worked out. Although nothing is established by the
fact that you know of no occurrences here on Ploor, the probability is
that you are still unknown and unsuspected, since it is unthinkable
that the enemies' minds are in any real sense as strong as ours.
Nevertheless, one of us is now taking over control of the trap which
you set for Kinnison, in the belief that he is Star A Star."
"Belief, Masters? It is certain that he is Star A Star!"
"In essence, yes. In exactness, no. Kinnison is, in all probability,
merely a puppet through whom an Arisian works at times. If _you_
take Kinnison in that trap, however, the entity you call Star A Star
will assuredly kill you all."
"But, Masters--"
"Again, fools, silence!" The thought dripped vitriol. "Remember how
easily Kinnison escaped from you? It was the supremely clever move of
not following through and destroying you then that obscured the truth
for years--that gave them all this additional time. As we have said,
you are completely powerless against the one you call Star A Star.
Against any lesser force, however--and the probability is exceedingly
great that only such forces, if any, will be sent against you--you
should be able to win. Are you ready?"
"We are ready, Masters." At last the Ploorans were upon familiar
ground. "Since ordinary weapons will be useless against us, they
will not attempt to use them--especially since they have developed
three extraordinary and supposedly irresistible weapons of attack.
First: projectiles composed of negative matter, particularly those
of planetary antimass. Second: loose planets, driven inertialess,
but inerted at the point at which their intrinsic velocities render
collision unavoidable. Third, and worst: the sunbeam. These gave us
some trouble, particularly the last, but the problems were solved and
if any one of the three, or all of them, are used against us, disaster
for the Galactic Patrol is assured.
"Nor did we stop there. Our psychologists, working with our engineers,
after having analyzed exhaustively the capabilities of the so-called
Second-Stage Lensmen, developed countermeasures against every
super-weapon which they will be able to develop during the next
century."
"Such as?" The Masters were unimpressed.
"The most probable one is an extension of the sunbeam principle,
to operate from a distant sun; or, preferably, a nova. We are now
installing fields and grids by the use of which we, not the Patrol,
will direct that beam."
"Interesting--if true. Spread in our minds the details of all that
you have foreseen and the fashions in which you have safeguarded
yourselves."
* * * * *
It was a long operation, even at the speed of thought. At its end the
Eddorians were unconvinced, skeptical, and pessimistic.
"We can visualize several other things which the forces of
Civilization may be able to develop well within the century," the
Master mind said, coldly. "We will assemble data concerning a few of
them, for your study. In the meantime, hold yourselves in readiness to
act, as we shall issue final orders very shortly."
"Yes, Masters," and the Eddorians went back to their home planet as
effortlessly as they had left it. There they concluded their conference.
"It is clear that Kinnison will enter that trap. He cannot do
otherwise. Kinnison's protector, whoever or whatever he or it may be,
may or may not enter it with him. It may or may not be taken with him.
Whether or not the new Arisian figment is taken, Kimball Kinnison must
die. He is the very keystone of the Galactic Patrol. At his death, as
we will advertise it to have come about, the Patrol will fall apart.
The Arisians, themselves unknown, will be forced to try to rebuild it
around another puppet; but neither his son nor any other man will ever
be able to take Kinnison's place in the esteem of the hero-worshiping,
undisciplined mob which is Civilization. Hence the importance of your
project. You, personally, will supervise the operation of the trap.
You, personally, will kill him."
"With one exception, I agree with everything said. I am not at all
certain that death is the answer. One way or another, however, I shall
deal effectively with Kinnison."
"Deal with? We said kill!"
"I heard you. I still say that mere death may not be adequate. I shall
consider the matter at length, and shall submit in due course my
conclusions and recommendations, for your consideration and approval."
* * * * *
Although none of the Eddorians knew it, their pessimism in regard
to the ability of the Ploorans to defend their planet against the
assaults of Second-Stage Lensmen was even then being justified. Kimball
Kinnison, after pacing the floor for hours, called his son.
"Kit, I've been working on a thing for months, and I don't know whether
I've got a workable solution at last, or not. It may depend entirely on
you. Before I go into it, though, I take it that you check me in saying
that when we find Boskonia's top planet we're going to have to blow it
out of the ether, and that nothing that we have ever used before will
work?"
"Check, on both." Kit thought soberly for minutes. "More, it will
have to be practically instantaneous, as well as complete. Like the
negabombs or the sunbeam, but a lot faster."
"My thought exactly. I've got something, I think, but nobody except old
Cardynge and Mentor of Arisia--"
"Hold it, Dad, while I do a bit of spying and put out some coverage.
QX, go ahead."
"Nobody except those two knew anything about the mathematics involved.
Even Sir Austin knew only enough to be able to understand Mentor's
directions--he didn't do any of the deep stuff himself. Nobody in the
present Conference of Science could even begin to handle it. It's
that foreign space, you know, that we called the nth space, where that
hyperspatial tube dumped us that time. You've been doing a lot of work
with some of the Arisians on that sort of stuff. Could you get them to
help you compute a tube between Lyrane and there, so that Thorndyke and
some of his boys and I could go there and get back?"
"Hm-m-m. Let me think a second. Yes, I can. When do you need it?"
"Today--or even yesterday."
"Too fast. It'll take a couple of days, but it'll be ready for you long
before you can get your ship ready and get your gang and the stuff for
your gadget aboard her."
"That won't take so long, son. Same ship we rode before. She's still
in commission, you know--_Space Laboratory XII_, her name is now.
Special generators, tools, instruments, everything. We'll be ready in
two days."
They were, and Kit smiled as he greeted Vice Admiral LaVerne
Thorndyke, Principal Technician, and the other surviving members of his
father's original crew.
"_What_ a tonnage of brass!" Kit said to Kim, later. "Heaviest
load I ever saw on one ship. One sure thing, though, they earned it.
You must have been able to pick _men_, too, in those days."
"What d'ya mean, 'those days,' you disrespectful young ape? I can still
pick _men_, son!" Kim grinned back at Kit, but sobered quickly.
"There's more to this than meets the eye. They went through the strain
once, and know what it means. They can take it, and just about all of
them will come back. With a crew of kids, twenty per cent would be a
high estimate."
As soon as the vessel passed System Limits, Kit got another surprise.
Even though those men were studded with brass and were, by a boy's
standard, _old_, they were not passengers. In their old
_Dauntless_ and well away from port, they gleefully threw off
their full-dress uniforms. Each donned the clothing of his status of
twenty-odd years back and went to work. The members of the regular
crew, young as all regular space crewmen are, did not know at first
whether they liked the idea of working watch-and-watch with such heavy
brass or not, but they soon found out that they did. Those men were men.
It is an ironclad rule of space, however, that operating pilots must be
young. Master Pilot Henry Henderson cursed that ruling sulphurously,
even while he watched with a proud, if somewhat jaundiced eye, the
smooth performance of his son Henry at his own old board.
They approached their destination--cut the jets--felt for the
vortex--found it--cut in the special generators. Then, as the fields
of the ship reacted against those of the tube, every man aboard felt a
malaise to which no being has ever become accustomed. Most men become
immune rather quickly to seasickness, to airsickness, and even to
space-sickness. Interdimensional acceleration, however, is something
else. It is different--just how different cannot be explained to anyone
who has never experienced it.
The almost unbearable acceleration ceased. They were in the tube. Every
plate showed blank; everywhere there was the same drab and featureless
gray. There was neither light nor darkness; there was simply and
indescribably--nothing whatever, not even empty space.
Kit threw a switch. There was a wrenching, twisting shock, followed
by a deceleration exactly as sickening as the acceleration had been.
It ceased. They were in that enigmatic nth space which each of the
older men remembered so well; in which so many of their "natural laws"
did not hold. Time still raced, stopped, or ran backward, seemingly
at whim; inert bodies had intrinsic velocities far above that of
light--and so on. Each of those men, about to be marooned of his own
choice in this utterly hostile environment, drew a deep breath and
squared his shoulders as he prepared to disembark.
"That's computation, Kit!" Kinnison exclaimed after one glance into a
plate. "That's the same planet we worked on before, right there. All
our machines and stuff, untouched. If you'd figured it any closer, it'd
have been a collision course. Are you dead sure, Kit, that everything's
all set?"
"Dead sure, Dad, in full duplicate, and Thorndyke and Henderson both
know the board."
"QX. Well, fellows, I'd like to stay here with you, and so would Kit,
but we've got chores to do. I don't have to tell you to be careful, but
I'm going to, anyway. BE CAREFUL! And as soon as you get done, come
back home just as fast as Klono will let you. Clear ether, fellows!"
"Clear ether, Kim!"
Lensman father and Lensman son boarded their speedster and left. They
traversed the tube and emerged into normal space, all without a word.
"Kit," the older man ground out, finally. "This gives me the colly
wobblies, no less. Suppose some of them--or all of them--get killed out
there? Is it worth it? I know it's my own idea, but will we need it
badly enough to take the chance?"
"We will, Dad. Mentor says that we will."
And that was that.