“Hardly. You wouldn’t expect us to, would you?” “It wouldn’t be very bright of you
to. And since I want to do business, I guess I got to meet you part way. How’d this be?
You pull your ships out of range. My ship takes station right over your Lensman’s office.
I go down in my speedster, like I did here, and go inside to meet him and you. I wear my
armor—and when I say it’s real armor I ain’t just snapping my choppers, neither.”
“I can see only one slight flaw.” The Boskonian was really trying to work out a
mutually satisfactory solution. “The Lensman will open our minds to you in proof,
however, that we will have no intention of bringing up our maulers or other heavy stuff
while we’re in conference.”
“Right men you’ll find out you hadn’t better, too.” Kinnison grinned wolfishly.
“What do you mean?” Mendonai demanded. “I’ve got enough super-atomic
bombs aboard to blow this planet to hellangone and the boys’ll drop ’em all the second
you make a queer move. I’ve got to take a little chance to start doing business, but it’s a
damn small one, ’cause if I go you go too, pal. You and your Lensman and your fleet
and everything alive on your whole damn planet. And your bosses still won’t get any
dope on what makes this ship of mine tick the way she does. So I’m betting you won’t
make that kind of a swap.”
“I certainly would not.” Hard as he was, Mendonai was shaken. “Your suggested
method of procedure is satisfactory.”
“QX. Are you ready to flit?”
“We are ready.”
“Call your Lensman, then, and lead the way. Boys, take her upstairs!”
CHAPTER 16: RED LENSMAN IN GRAY
Karen Kinnison was worried. she, who had always been so sure of herself, had
for weeks been conscious of a gradually increasing—what was it, anyway? Not exactly
a loss of control . . . a change . . . a something that manifested itself in increasingly
numerous fits of senseless— sheerly idiotic—stubbornness. And always and only it was
directed at—of all the people in the universe!—her brother. She got along with her
sisters perfectly, their tiny tiffs barely rippled the surface of any of their minds. But any
time her path of action crossed Kit’s, it seemed, the profoundest depths of her being
flared into opposition like exploding duodec. Worse than senseless and idiotic, it was
inexplicable, for the feeling which the Five had for each other was much deeper than
that felt by ordinary brothers and sisters.
She didn’t want to fight with Kit. She liked the guy! She liked to feel his mind en
rapport with hers, just as she liked to dance with him; their bodies as completely in
accord as were their minds. No change of step or motion, however suddenly conceived
and executed or however bizarre, had ever succeeded in taking the other by surprise or
in marring by a millimeter the effortless precision of their performance. She could do
things with Kit that would tie any other man into knots and break half his bones. All other
men were lumps. Kit was so far ahead of any other man in existence that there was
simply no comparison. If she were Kit she would give her a going-over that would . . . or
could even he. . .
At the thought she turned cold inside. He could not. Even Kit, with all his
tremendous power, would hit that solid wall and bounce. Well, there was one—not a
man, but an entity—who could. He might kill her, but even that would be better than to
allow the continued growth within her mind of this monstrosity which she could neither
control nor understand. Where was she, and where was Lyrane, and where was Arisia?
Good—not too far off line. She would stop off at Arisia en route.
She did so, and made her way to Mentor’s office on the hospital grounds. She
told her story.
“Fighting with Kit was bad enough,” she concluded, “but when I start defying you,
Mentor, it’s high time that something was done about it. Why didn’t Kit ever knock me
into a logarithmic spiral? Why didn’t you work me over? You called Kit in, with the
distinct implication that he needed more education—why didn’t you pull me in here, too,
and pound some sense into me?”
“Concerning you, Christopher had definite instructions, which he obeyed. I did
“not touch you for the same reason that I did not order you to come to me; neither
course would have been of any use. Your mind, daughter Karen, is unique. One of its
prime characteristics—the one, in fact, which is to make you an all-important player in
the drama which is to come—is a yieldlessness very nearly absolute. Your mind might,
just conceivably, he broken; but it cannot be coerced by any imaginable external force,
however applied. Thus it was inevitable from the first that nothing could be done about
the untoward manifestations of this characteristic until you yourself should recognize the
fact that your development was not complete. It would be idle for me to say that during
adolescence you have not been more than a trifle trying. I was not speaking idly when I
said that the development of you Five has been a tremendous task. It is with equal
seriousness, however, that I now tell you that the reward is commensurate with the
magnitude of the undertaking. It is impossible to express the satisfaction I feel—the
fulfillment, the completion, the justification—as you children come, one by one, each in
his proper time, for final instruction.”
“Oh—you mean, then, that there’s nothing really the matter with me?” Hard as
she was, Karen trembled as her awful tension eased. “That I was supposed to act that
way? And I can tell Kit, right away?”
“No need. Your brother has known that it was a passing phase; he shall know
very shortly that it has passed. It is not that you were ‘supposed’ to act as you acted.
You could not help it. Nor could your brother, nor I. From now on, however, you shall be
completely the mistress of your own mind. Come fully, daughter Karen, into mine.”
She did so, and in a matter of time her “formal education” was complete.
“There is one thing that I don’t quite understand . . .” she began, just before she
boarded her speedster.
“Consider it, and I am sure that you will,” Mentor assured her. “Explain it,
whatever it is, to me.”
“QX—I’ll try. It’s about Fossten and dad.” Karen cogitated. “Fossten was, of
course, Gharlane—your making dad believe him to be an insane Arisian was a
masterpiece. I see, of course, how you did that—principally by making Fossten’s ‘real’
shape exactly like the one he saw of you on Arisia. But his physical actions as Fossten .
. .”
“Go on, daughter. I am sure that your visualization will be sound.”
“While acting as Fossten he had to act as a Thralian would have acted,” she
decided with a rush. “He was watched everywhere he went, and knew it. To display his
real power would have been disastrous. Just like you Arisians, they have to follow the
pattern to avoid setting up an inferiority complex that would ruin everything for them.
Gharlane’s actions as Fossten, then, were constrained. Just as they were when he was
Gray Roger, so long ago—except that then he did make a point of unhuman longevity,
deliberately to put an insoluble problem up to First Lensman Samms and his men. Just
as you—you must have . . . you did coach Virgil Samms, Mentor, and some of you
Arisians were there, as men!”
“We were. We lived and wrought as men and seemed to die as men.”
“But you weren’t Virgil Samms, please!” Karen almost begged. “Not that it would
break me if you were, but I’d much rather you hadn’t been.”
“No, none of us was Samms,” Mentor assured her. “Nor Cleveland, nor
Rodebush, nor Costigan, nor even Clio Marsden. We worked with—’coached’, as you
express it— those persons and others from time to time in certain small matters, but we
were at no time integral with any of them. One of us was, however, Nels Bergenholm.
The full inertialess space-drive became necessary at that time, and it would have been
poor technique to have had either Rodebush or Cleveland develop so suddenly the
ability to perfect the device as Bergenholm did perfect it.”
“QX. Bergenholm isn’t important—he was just an inventor. To get back to the
subject of Fossten: when he was there on the flagship with dad, and in position to throw
his full weight around, it was too late—you Arisians were on the job. You’ll have to take
it from there, though; I’m out beyond my depth.”
“Because you lack data. In those last minutes Gharlane knew that Kimball
Kinnison was neither alone nor unprotected. He called for help, but help did not come.