ever new gesture. “Lensman’s load, Cris,” he said, quietly. “Of course,” she replied
then, as quietly. “It was a shock at first, coming after all these years, but . . . if it has to
be, it must. But he—surely we can help him, Kim?”
“Surely.” The man’s arm tightened. “When he hits space I go back to work. So do
Nadreck and Worsel and Tregonsee. So do you, if your kind of a job turns up. And with
us to do the blocking, and with Kit to carry the ball. . .” His thought died away.
“Ill say so,” she breathed. Then: “But you won’t call me, I know, unless you
absolutely have to . . . and to give up you and Kit both . . . why did we have to be
Lensmen, Kim?” she protested, rebelliously. “Why couldn’t we have been ground-
grippers? You used to growl that thought at me before I knew what a Lens really meant.
. .”
“Veil, some of us has got to be der first violiners in der orchestra,” Kinnison
misquoted, in an attempt at lightness. “Ye can’t all push vind t’rough der trombone.”
“I suppose that’s true.” The Red Lensman’s somber air deepened. “Well, we
were going to start for Tellus today, anyway, to see Kit graduate. This doesn’t change
that.”
And in a distant room four tall, shapely, auburn-haired girls stared at each other
briefly, then went en rapport; for their mother had erred greatly in saying that the
breakfast room was screened against their minds. Nothing was or could be screened
against them; they could think above, below, or, by sufficient effort, straight through any
thought-screen known to Tellurian science. Nothing in which they were interested was
safe from them, and they were interested in practically everything.
“Kay, we’ve got ourselves a job!” Kathryn, older by minutes than Karen, excluded
pointedly the younger twins, Camilla and Constance—”Cam” and “Con.”
“At last!” Karen exclaimed. “I’ve been wondering what we were born for, with
nine-tenths of our minds so deep down that nobody except Kit even knows they’re there
and so heavily blocked that we can’t let even each other in without a conscious effort.
This is it. We’ll go places now, Kat, and really do things.”
“What do you mean you’ll go places and do things?” Con demanded, indignantly.
“Do you think for a second you carry screen enough to block us out of all the fun?”
“Certainly,” Kat said, equably. “You’re too young.”
“We’ll let you know what we’re doing, though,” Kay conceded, magnanimously.
“You might, just conceivably, contribute an idea we could use.”
“Ideas—phooey!” Con jeered. “A real idea would shatter both your skulls; You
haven’t any more plan than a . . .”
“Hush—shut up, everybody!” Kat commanded. “This is too new for any of us to
have any worth-while ideas on, yet. Tell you what let’s do—we’ll all think this over until
we’re aboard the Dauntless, half-way to Tellus; then we’ll compare notes and decide
what to do.”
They left Klovia that afternoon. Kinnison’s personal super-dreadnought, the
mighty Dauntless—the fourth to bear that name—bored through inter-galactic space.
Time passed. The four young red-heads convened.
“I’ve got it all worked out!” Kat burst out, enthusiastically, forestalling the other
three. “There’ll be four Second-Stage Lensmen at work and there are four of us. We’ll
circulate—percolate—you might say—around and through the universe. We’ll pick up
ideas and facts and feed ’em to our Gray Lensmen. Surreptitiously, sort of, so they’ll
think they, got ’em themselves. I’ll take dad for my partner, Kay can have . . .”
“You’ll do no such thing!” A general clamor arose, Con’s thought being the most
insistent. “If we aren’t going to work with them all, indiscriminately, we’ll draw lots or
throw dice to see who gets him, so there!”
“Seal it, snake-hips, please,” Kat requested, sweetly. “It is trite but true to say
that infants should be seen, but not heard. This is serious business . . .”
“Snake-hips! Infant!” Con interrupted, venomously. “Listen, my steatopygous and
senile friend!” Constance measured perhaps a quarter of an inch less in gluteal
circumference than did her oldest sister; she tipped the beam at one scant pound below
her weight. “You and Kay are a year older than Cam and I, of course; a year ago your
minds were stronger than ours. That condition, however, no longer exists. We too are
grown up. And to put that statement to test, what can you do that I can’t?”
“This.” Kathryn extended a bare arm, narrowed her eyes in concentration. A Lens
materialized about her wrist; not attached to it by a metallic bracelet, but a bracelet in
itself, clinging sentiently to the smooth, bronzed skin. “I felt that in this work there would
be a need. I learned to satisfy it. Can you match that?”
They could. In a matter of seconds the three others were similarly enlensed.
They had not previously perceived the need, but at Kathryn’s demonstration their
acquisition of full knowledge had been virtually instantaneous.
Kat’s Lens disappeared.
So did the other three. Each knew that no hint of this knowledge or of this power
should ever be revealed; each knew that in any moment of stress the Lens of
Civilization could be and would be hers.
“Logic, then, and by reason, not by chance.” Kat changed her tactics. “I still get
him. Everybody knows who works best with whom. You, Con, have tagged around after
Worsel all your life. You used to ride him like a horse . . .”
“She still does,” Kay snickered. “He pretty nearly split her in two a while ago in a
seven-gravity pull-out, and she almost broke a toe when she kicked him for it.”
“Worsel is nice,” Con defended herself vigorously. “He’s more human than most
people, and more fun, as well as having infinitely more brains. And you can’t talk,
Kay—what anyone can see in that Nadreck, so cold-blooded that he freezes you even
through armor at twenty feet—you’ll get as cold and hard as he is if you don’t. . .”
“And every time Cam gets within five hundred parsecs of Tregonsee she goes
into the silences with him, contemplating raptly the whichnesses of the why,” Kathryn
interrupted, forestalling recriminations. “So you see, by the process of elimination, dad’s
mine.”
Since they could not all have him it was finally agreed that Kathryn’s claim would
be allowed and, after a great deal of discussion and argument, a tentative plan of action
was developed. In due course the Dauntless landed at Prime Base. The Kinnisons went
to Wentworth Hall, the towering, chromium-and-glass home of the Tellurian cadets of
the Galactic Patrol. They watched the impressive ceremonies of graduation. Then, as
the new Lensmen marched out to the magnificent cadences of “Our Patrol”, the Gray
Lensman, leaving his wife and daughters to their own devices, made his way to his
Tellurian office.
“Lensman Christopher K. Kinnison, sir, by appointment,” his secretary
announced, and as Kit strode in Kinnison stood up and came to attention.
“Christopher K. Kinnison of Klovia, sir, reporting for duty.” Kit saluted crisply.
The coordinator returned the salute punctiliously. Then: “At rest, Kit. I’m proud of
you, mighty proud. We all are. The women want to heroize you, but I had to see you
first, to clear up a few things. An explanation, an apology, and, in a sense,
commiseration.”
“An apology, sir?” Kit was dumbfounded. “Why, that’s unthinkable . . .”
“For not graduating you in Gray. It has never been done, but that wasn’t the
reason. Your commandant, the board of examiners, and Port Admiral LaForge, all
recommended it, agreeing that none of us is qualified to give you either orders or
directions. I blocked it.”
“Of course. For the son of the coordinator to be the first Lensman to graduate
Unattached would smell—especially since the fewer who know of my peculiar
characteristics the better. That can wait, sir.”
“Not too long, son.” Kinnison’s smile was a trifle forced. “Here’s your Release and
your kit, and a request that you go to work on whatever it is that’s going on. We rather
think it heads up somewhere in the Second Galaxy, but that’s just a guess.”
“I start out from Klovia, then? Good—I can go home with you.”
“That’s the idea, and on the way there you can study the situation. We’ve made
tapes of the data, with our best attempts at analysis and interpretation. The stuffs up to
date, except for a thing I got this morning . . . I can’t figure out whether it means
anything or not, but it should be inserted . . .” Kinnison paced the room, scowling.
“Might as well tell me. I’ll insert it when I scan the tape.”
“QX. I don’t suppose you’ve heard much about the unusual shipping trouble
we’ve been having, particularly in the Second Galaxy?”
“Rumor—gossip only. I’d rather have it straight.”
“It’s all on the tapes, so I’ll just hit the high spots. Losses are twenty-five percent