that is, you . . .”
“You mean that I don’t measure up?” she asked, quietly. “I know very well I don’t,
and admitting an evident fact should not hurt my feelings a bit. Don’t interrupt, please,”
as Kit began to protest. “In fact, it is sheerest effrontery— it has always bothered me
terribly, Kit—to be classed as a Lensman at all, considering what splendid men they all
are and what each one of them had to go through to earn his Lens, to say nothing of a
Release. You know as well as I do that I’ve never done a single thing to earn or to
deserve it. It was handed to me on a silver platter. I’m not worthy of it, Kit, and all the
real Lensmen know I’m not. They must know it, Kit—they must feel that way!”
“Did you ever express yourself in exactly that way before, to anybody? You
didn’t, I know.” Kit stopped sweating; this was going to be easier than he had feared.
“I couldn’t, Kit, it was too deep; but as I said, I can talk anything over with you.”
“QX. We can settle that fast enough if you’ll answer just one question. Do you
honestly believe that you would have been given the Lens if you were not absolutely
worthy of it? Perfectly—in every minute particular?”
“Why, I never thought of it that way . . . probably not . . . no, certainly pot.”
Clarrissa’s somber mien lightened markedly. “But I still don’t see how or why . . .”
“Clear enough,” Kit interrupted. “You were born with what the rest of them had to
work so hard for—with stuff that no other woman, anywhere, ever had.”
“Except the girls, of course,” Clarrissa corrected, half absently.
“Except the kids,” he concurred. It could do no harm to agree with his mother’s
statement of a self-evident fact. “You can take it from me, as one who knows that the
other Lensmen know you’ve got plenty of jets. They know very well that the Arisians
wouldn’t make a Lens for anybody who hasn’t got what it takes. And so, very neatly,
we’ve stripped ship for the action I came over here to see you about. It isn’t a case of
you not measuring up, because you do, in every respect. It’s simply that you’re short a
few jets that you ought by rights to have. You really are a Second-Stage Lensman—you
know that, mums—but you never went to Arisia for your L2 work. I hate to see you blast
off without full equipment into what may prove to be a big-time job; especially when
you’re so eminently able to take it. Mentor could give you the works in a few hours. Why
don’t you flit for Arisia right now, or let me take you there?”
“No—NO!” Clarrissa backed away, shaking her head emphatically. “Never! I
couldn’t, Kit, ever—not possibly!” “Why not?” Kit was amazed. “Why, mother, you’re
actually shaking!”
“I know I am—I can’t help it. That’s why. He’s the only thing in the entire Universe
that I’m really afraid of. I can talk about him without quite getting goose-bumps all over
me, but the mere thought of actually being with him simply scares me into shivering,
quivering fits—no less.”
“I see . . . it might very well work that way, at that Does dad know it?”
“Yes—or, that is, he knows I’m afraid of him, but he doesn’t know it the way you
do—it simply doesn’t register in true color. Kim can’t conceive of me being either a
coward or a cry-baby. And I don’t want him to, either, Kit, so please don’t tell him, ever.”
“I won’t—he’d fry me to a cinder in my own grease if I did. Frankly, I can’t see any
part of your self-portrait, either. As a matter of cold fact, you are so obviously neither a
coward nor a cry-baby . . , well, that’s about the silliest crack you ever made. What
you’ve really got, mums, is a fixation, and if it can’t be removed . . .”
“It can’t,” she declared flatly. “I’ve tried that, now and then, ever since before you
were born. Whatever it is, it’s a permanent installation and it’s really deep. I’ve known all
along that Kim didn’t give me the whole business—he couldn’t—and I’ve tried again and
again to make myself go to Arisia, or at least to call Mentor about it, but I can’t do it,
Kit—I simply can’t!”
“I understand.” Kit nodded. He did understand, now. What she felt was not, in
essence and at bottom, fear at all. It was worse than fear, and deeper. It was true
revulsion; the basic, fundamental, sub-conscious, sex-based reaction of an intensely
vital human female against a mental monstrosity who had not had a sexual thought for
countless thousands of her years. She could neither analyze nor understand her feeling;
but it was as immutable, as ineradicable, and as old as the surging tide of life itself.
“But there’s another way, just as good—probably better, as far as you’re
concerned. You aren’t afraid of me, are you?”
“What a question! Of course I’m not . . . why, do you mean you . . .” Her
expressive eyes widened. “You children —especially you—are far beyond us . . . as of
course you should be . . . but can you, Kit? Really?”
Kit keyed a part of his mind to an ultra-high level. “I know the techniques, Mentor,
but the first question is, should I do it?”
“You should, youth. The time has come when it is necessary.”
“Second—I’ve never done anything like this before, and she’s my own mother. If I
make one slip I’ll never forgive myself. Will you stand by and see that I don’t slip? And
stand guard?”
“I will stand by and stand guard.”
“I really can, mums.” Kit answered her question with no perceptible pause. “That
is, if you’re willing to put everything you’ve got into it. Just letting me into your mind isn’t
enough. You’ll have to sweat blood—you’ll think you’ve been run through a hammer-mill
and spread out on a Delgonian torture screen to dry.”
“Don’t worry about that, Kit.” All the passionate intensity of Clarrissa’s being was
in her vibrant voice. “If you just knew how utterly I’ve been longing for it—I’ll work; and
whatever you give me I can take.”
“I’m sure of that. And, not to work under false pretenses, I’d better tell you how I
know. Mentor showed me what to do and told me to do it.”
“Mentor!”
“Mentor,” Kit agreed. “He knew that it was a psychological impossibility for you to
work with him, and that you could and would work with me. So he appointed me a
committee of one.” Clarrissa was reacting to this news as it was inevitable that she
should react; and to give her time to steady down he went on:
“Mentor also knew, and so do you and I, that even though you are afraid of him,
you know what he is and what he means to Civilization. I had to tell you this so you’d
know, without any tinge of doubt, that I’m not a half-baked kid setting out to do a man’s
job of work.”
“Jet back, Kit! I may have thought a lot of different things about you at times, but
‘half-baked’ was never one of them. That’s your own thinking, not mine.”
“I wouldn’t wonder.” Kit grinned wryly. “My ego could stand some stiffening right
now. This isn’t going to be funny. You’re too fine a woman, and I think too much of you,
to enjoy the prospect of mauling you around so unmercifully.”
“Why, Kit!” Her mood was changing fast. Her old-time, impish smile came back in
force. “You aren’t weakening, surely? Shall I hold your hand?”
“Uh-huh—cold feet,” he admitted. “It might be a smart idea, at that, holding
hands. Physical linkage. Well, I’m as ready as I ever will be, I guess—whenever you
are, say so. And you’d better sit down before you fall down.”
“QX, Kit—come in.”
Kit came; and at the first terrific surge of his mind within hers the Red Lensman
caught her breath, stiffened in every muscle, and all but screamed in agony. Kit’s fingers
needed their strength as her hands clutched his and closed in a veritable spasm. She
had thought that she knew what to expect; but the reality was different—much different.
She had suffered before. On Lyrane II, although she had never told anyone of it, she
had been burned and wounded and beaten. She had borne five children. This was as
though every poignant experience of her past had been rolled into one, raised to the nth
power, and stabbed relentlessly into the deepest, tenderest, most sensitive centers of
her being.
And Kit, boring in and in and in, knew exactly what to do; and, now that he had
started, he proceeded unflinchingly and with exact precision to do what had to be done.