he looked much older and more mature than before; he felt immensely older than he
looked. The concluding conversation of that visit, however, is worth recording.
“You now know, Christopher,” Mentor mused, “What you children are and how
you came to be. You are the accomplishment of long lifetimes of work. It is with
profound satisfaction that I now perceive clearly that those lifetimes have not been
spent in vain.”
“Yours, you mean.” Kit was embarrassed, but one point still bothered him. “Dad
met and married mother, yes, but how about the others? Tregonsee, Worsel, and
Nadreck? They and the corresponding females—-don’t take that literally for Nadreck, of
course—were also penultimates, of lines as long as ours. You Arisians decided that the
human stock was best, so none of the other Second-Stage Lensmen ever met their
complements. Not that it could make any difference to them, of course, but I should
think that three of your fellow students wouldn’t feel so good.”
“Ah, youth, I am very glad indeed that you mention the point.” The Arisian’s
thought was positively gleeful. “You have at no time, then, detected anything peculiar
about this that you know as Mentor of Arisia?”
“Why, of course not. How could I? Or, rather, why should I?”
“Any lapse on our part, however slight, from practically perfect synchronization
would have revealed to such a mentality as yours that I whom you know as Mentor am
not an individual, but four. While we each worked as individuals upon all of the
experimental lines, whenever we dealt with any one of the penultimates or ultimates we
did so as a fusion. This was necessary, not only for your fullest possible development,
but also to be sure that each of us had complete data upon every minute facet of the
truth. While it was in no sense important to the work itself to keep you in ignorance of
Mentor’s plurality, the fact that we could keep you ignorant of it, particularly now that you
have become adult, showed that our work was being done in a really workman-like
fashion.”
Kit whistled; a long, low whistle which was tribute enough to those who knew
what it meant. He knew what he meant, but there were not enough words or thoughts to
express it.
“But you’re going to keep on being Mentor, aren’t you?” ,’ he asked.
“I am. The real task, as you know, lies ahead.”
“QX. You say I’m adult. I’m not. You imply that I’m more than several notches
above you in qualifications. I could laugh myself silly about that one, if it wasn’t so
serious. Why, any one of you Arisians has forgotten more than I know, and could tie me
up into bow-knots!”
“There are elements of truth in your thought. That you can now be called adult,
however, does not mean that you have attained your full power; only that you are able
to use effectively the powers you have and are able to acquire other and larger powers.”
“But what are those powers?” Kit demanded. “You’ve hinted on that same theme
a thousand times, and I don’t know what you mean any better than I did before!”
“You must develop your own powers.” Mentor’s thought was as final as Fate.
“Your mind is potentially far abler than mine. You will in time come to know my mind in
full; I never will be able to know yours. For the lesser, but full mind to attempt to instruct
in methodology the greater, although emptier one, is to set that greater mind in an
undersized mold and thus to do it irreparable harm. You have the abilities and the
powers. You will have to develop them yourself, by the perfection of techniques
concerning which I can give you no instructions whatever.”
“But surely you can give me some kind of a hint!” Kit pleaded. “I’m just a kid, I tell
you—I don’t even know how or where to begin!”
Under Kit’s startled mental gaze, Mentor split suddenly into four parts, laced
together by a pattern of thoughts so intricate and so rapid as to be unrecognizable. The
parts fused and again Mentor spoke.
“I can point the way in only the broadest, most general terms. It has been
decided, however, that I can give you one hint—or, more properly, one illustration. The
surest test of knowledge known to us is the visualization of the Cosmic All. All science
is, as you know, one. The true key to power lies in the knowledge of the underlying
reasons for the succession of events. If it is pure causation—that is, if any given state of
things follows as an inevitable consequence because of the state existing an
infinitesimal instant before— then the entire course of the macro-cosmic universe was
set for the duration of all eternity in the instant of its coming into being. This well-known
concept, the stumbling-block upon which many early thinkers came to grief, we now
know to be false. On the other hand, if pure randomness were to govern, natural laws
as we know them could not exist. Thus neither pure causation nor pure randomness
alone can govern the succession of events.
“The truth, then, must lie somewhere in between. In the macro-cosmos,
causation prevails; in the micro-, randomness; both in accord with the mathematical
laws of probability. It is in the region between them—the intermediate zone, or the
interface, so to speak—that the greatest problems lie. The test of validity of any theory,
as you know, is the accuracy of the predictions which are made possible by its use, and
our greatest thinkers have shown that the completeness and fidelity of any visualization
of the Cosmic All are linear functions of the clarity of definition of the components of that
interface. . Full knowledge of that indeterminate zone would mean infinite power and a
statistically perfect visualization. None of these things, however, will ever be realized;
for the acquirement of that full knowledge would require infinite time.
“That is all I can tell you. It will, properly studied, be enough. I have built within
you a solid foundation; yours alone is the task of erecting upon that foundation a
structure strong enough to withstand the forces which will be thrown against it.
“It is perhaps natural, in view of what you have recently gone through, that you
should regard the problem of the Eddorians as one of insuperable difficulty. Actually,
however, it is not, as you will perceive when you have spent a few weeks in re-
integrating yourself. You must not, you shall not, and in my clear visualization you do
not, fail.”
Communication ceased. Kit made his way groggily to his control board, went
free, and lined out for Klovia. For a guy whose education was supposed to be complete,
he felt remarkably like a total loss with no insurance. He had asked for advice and had
got—what? A dissertation on philosophy, mathematics, and physics—good enough
stuff, probably, if he could see what Mentor was driving at, but not of much immediate
use. He did have a brainful of new stuff, though— didn’t know yet what half of it
was—he’d better be getting it licked into shape. He’d “sleep” on it.
He did so, and as he lay quiescent in his bunk the tiny pieces of an incredibly
complex jig-saw puzzle began to click into place. The ordinary zwilniks—all the small fry
fitted in well enough. The Overlords of Delgon. The Kalonians . . . hm . . . he’d better
check with dad on that angle. The Eich—under control. Kandron of Onlo, ditto. “X” was
in safe hands; Cam had already been alerted to watch her step. Some planet named
Floor—what in all the purple hells of Palain had Mentor meant by that crack? Anyway,
that piece didn’t fit anywhere—yet. That left Eddore—and at the thought a series of cold
waves raced up and down the young Lensman’s spine. Nevertheless, Eddore was his
oyster —his, and nobody else’s. Mentor had made that plain enough. Everything the
Arisians had done for umpteen skillions of years had been aimed at the Eddorians.
They had picked him out to emcee the show—and how could a man coordinate an
attack against something he knew nothing about? And the only way to get acquainted
with Eddore and its denizens was to go there. Should he call in the kids? He should not.
Each of them had her hands full of her own job; that of developing her own full self. He
had his; and the more he studied the question, the clearer it became that the first
number on the program of his self-development was—would have to be—a single-
handed expedition against the key planet of Civilization’s top-ranking foes.
He sprang out of his bunk, changed his vessel’s course, and lined out a thought
to his father.
“Dad? Kit. Been flitting around out Arisia way, and picked up an idea I want to
pass along to you. It’s about Kalonians. What do you know about them?”