full-armored, armed with semi-portables and DeLameters—joyously into the hand-to-
hand combat which each craved. Worsel and two of his strongest henchmen attacked
the armed and armored Boskonian captain. After a satisfyingly terrific struggle, in the
course of which all three of the Velantians— and some others—were appropriately
burned and wounded, they overpowered him and carried him bodily into the control-
room of the Velan. This part of the episode, too, was real; as was the complete melting
down of the Boskonian vessel which occurred while the transfer was being made.
Then, while Con was engaged in the exceedingly delicate task of withdrawing her
mind from Worsel’s without leaving any detectable trace that she had ever been in it,
there happened the completely unexpected; the one thing for which she was utterly
unprepared. The mind of the captive captain was wrenched from her control as palpably
as a loosely-held stick is snatched from a physical hand; and at the same time there
was hurled against her impenetrable barriers an attack which could not possibly have
stemmed from any Eichian mind!
If her mind had been free, she could have coped with the situation, but it was not.
She had to hold Worsel—she knew with cold certainty what would ensue if she did not.
The crew? They could be blocked out temporarily—unlike the Velantian Lensman, no
one of them could even suspect that he had been in a stasis unless it were long enough
to be noticeable upon such timepieces as clocks. The procedure, however, occupied a
millisecond or so of precious time; and a considerably longer interval was required to
withdraw with the required tracelessness from Worsel’s mind. Thus, before she could do
anything except protect herself and the Velantian from that surprisingly powerful
invading intelligence, all trace of it disappeared and all that remained of their captive
was a dead body.
Worsel and Constance stared at each other, wordless, for seconds. The
Velantian had a completely and accurately detailed memory of everything that had
happened up to that instant, the only matter not quite clear being the fact that their hard-
won captive was dead; the girl’s mind was racing to fabricate a bullet-proof explanation
of that startling fact. Worsel saved her the trouble.
“It is of course true,” he thought at her finally, “that any mind of sufficient power
can destroy by force of will alone the entity of flesh in which it resides. I never thought
about this matter before in connection with the Eich, but no detail of the experience your
father and I had with them on Jarnevon would support any contention that they do not
have minds of the requisite power . . . and today’s battle, being purely physical, would
not throw any light on the subject. . . . I wonder if a thing like that could be stopped?
That is, if we had been on time . . .?”
“That’s it, I think.” Con put on her most disarming, most engaging grin in
preparation for the most outrageous series of lies of her long career. “And I don’t think it
can be stopped—at least I couldn’t stop him. You see, I got into him a fraction of a
second before you did, and in that instant, just like that,” in spite of the fact that Worsel
could not hear, she snapped her fingers ringingly, “faster even than that, he was gone. I
didn’t think of it until you brought it up, but you’re right as can be—he killed himself to
keep us from finding out whatever he knew.”
Worsel stared at her with six eyes now instead of one, gimlet probes which
glanced imperceptibly off her shield. He was not consciously trying to break down her
barriers— to his fullest perception they were already down; no barriers were there. He
was not consciously trying to integrate or reintegrate any detail or phase of the episode
just past— no iota of falsity had appeared at any point or instant. Nevertheless, deep
down within those extra reaches that made Worsel of Velantia what he was, a vague
disquiet refused to down. It was too . . . too . . . Worsel’s consciousness could not
supply the adjective.
Had it been too easy? Very decidedly it had not His utterly wornout, battered and
wounded crew refuted that thought. So did his own body, slashed and burned, as well
as did the litter of shells and the heaps of smoking slag which had once been an enemy
stronghold.
Also, even though he had not theretofore thought that he and his crew
possessed enough force to do what had just been done, it was starkly unthinkable that
anyone, even an Arisian, could have helped him do anything without his knowledge.
Particularly how could this girl, daughter of Kimball Kinnison although she was, possibly
have stuff enough to play unperceived the part of guardian angel to him, Worsel of
Velantia?
Least able of all the five Second-Stage Lensmen to appreciate what the Children
of the Lens really were, he did not, then or ever, have any inkling of the real truth. But
Constance, far behind her cheerfully innocent mask, shivered as she read exactly his
disturbed and disturbing thoughts. For, conversely, an unresolved enigma would affect
him more than it would any of his fellow L2’s. He would work on it until he did resolve it,
one way or another. This thing had to be settled, now. And there was a way—a good
way.
“But I did help you, you big lug!” she stormed, stamping her booted foot in
emphasis. “I was in there every second, slugging away with everything I had. Didn’t you
even feel me, you dope?” She allowed a thought to become evident; widened her eyes
in startled incredulity. “You didn’t!” she accused, hotly. “You were reveling so repulsively
in the thrill of body-to-body fighting, just like you were back there in that cavern of
Overlords, that you couldn’t have felt a thought if it was driven into you with a D2P
pressor! Of course I helped you, you wigglesome clunker! If I hadn’t been in there
pitching, dulling their edges here and there at critical moments, you’d’ve had a hell of a
time getting them at all! I’m going to flit right now, and I hope I never see you again as
long as I live!”
This vicious counter-attack, completely mendacious though it was, fitted the facts
so exactly that Worsel’s inchoate doubts vanished. Moreover, he was even less well
equipped than are human men to cope with the peculiarly feminine weapons Constance
was using so effectively. Wherefore the Velantian capitulated, almost abjectly, and the
girl allowed herself to be coaxed down from her high horse and to become her usual
sunny and impish self.
But when the Velan was once more on course and she had retired to her cabin, it
was not to sleep. Instead, she thought. Was this intellect of the same race as the one
whose burst of thought she had caught such a short time before, or not? She could not
decide—not enough data. The first thought had been unconscious and quite revealing;
this one simply a lethal weapon, driven with a power the memory of which made her
gasp again. They could, however, be the same: the mind with which she^had been en
rapport could very well be capable of generating the force she had felt. If they were the
same, they were something that should be studied, intensively and at once; and she
herself had kicked away her only chance to make that study. She had better tell
somebody about this, even if it meant confessing her own bird-brained part, and get
some competent advice. Who?
Kit? No. Not because he would smack her down—she ought to be smacked
down!—but because his brain wasn’t enough better than her own to do any good. In
fact, it wasn’t a bit better than hers.
Mentor? At the very thought she shuddered, mentally and physically. She would
call him in, fast enough, regardless of consequences to herself, if it would do any good,
but it wouldn’t. She was starkly certain of that. He wouldn’t smack her down, like Kit
would, but he wouldn’t help her, either. He’d just sit there and sneer at her while she
stewed, hotter and hotter, in her own juice. . . .
“In a childish, perverted, and grossly exaggerated way, daughter Constance, you
are right,” the Arisian’s thought rolled sonorously into her astounded mind. “You got
yourself into this: get yourself out. One promising fact, however, I perceive—although
seldom and late, you at last begin really to think.”
In that hour Constance Kinnison grew up.
CHAPTER 11: NADRECK TRAPS A TRAPPER
Any human or near-human lensman would have been appalled by the sheer
loneliness of Nadreck’s long vigil. Almost any one of them would have cursed, fluently
and bitterly, when the time came at which he was forced to concede that the being for
whom he lay in wait was not going to visit that particular planet.