Children of the lens by E.E Doc Smith

“I go, Kinnison.”

CHAPTER 18: CAMILLA KINNISON, DETECTOR

For hours Camilla and Tregonsee wrestled separately and fruitlessly with the

problem of the elusive “X”. Then, after she had studied the Rigellian’s mind in a fashion

which he could neither detect nor employ, Camilla broke the mental silence.

“Uncle Trig, my conclusions frighten me. Can you conceive of the possibility that

it was contact with my mind, not yours, that made ‘X’ run away?”

“That is the only tenable conclusion. I know the power of my own mind, but I

have never been able to guess at the capabilities of yours. I fear that I, at least,

underestimated our opponent.”

“I know I did, and I was terribly wrong. I shouldn’t have tried to fool you, either,

even a little bit. There are some things about me that I just can’t show to most people,

but you are different—you’re such a wonderful person!”

“Thanks, Camilla, for your trust.” Understandingly, he did not go on to say that he

would keep on being worthy of it. “I accept the fact that you five, being children of two

Second-Stage Lensmen, are basically beyond my comprehension. There are indications

that you do not as yet thoroughly understand yourself. You have, however, decided

upon a course of action.”

“Oh—I’m so relieved! Yes, I have. But before we go into that, I haven’t been able

to solve the problem of ‘X’. More, I have proved that I cannot solve it without more data.

Therefore, you can’t either. Check?”

“I had not reached that conclusion, but I accept your statement as truth.”

“One of those uncommon powers of mine, to which you referred a while ago, is a

wide range of perception, from large masses down to extremely tiny components.

Another, or perhaps a part of the same one, is that, after resolving and analyzing these

fine details, I can build up a logical and coherent whole by processes of interpolation

and extrapolation.”

“I can believe that such things would be possible to such a mind as yours must

be. Go on.”

“Well, that is how I know that I underestimated Mr. ‘X’. Whoever or whatever he

is, I am completely unable to resolve the structure of his thought. I gave you all I got of

it. Look at it again, please—hard. What can you make of it now?”

“It is exactly the same as it was before; a fragment of a simple and plain

introductory thought to an audience. That is all.”

“That’s all I can see, too, and that’s what surprises me so.” The hitherto

imperturbable and serene Camilla got up and began to pace the floor. “That thought is

apparently absolutely solid; and since that is a definitely impossible condition, the truth

is that its structure is so fine that I cannot resolve it into its component units. This shows

that I am not nearly as competent as I thought I was. When you and dad and the others

reached that point, you each went to Arisia. I’ve decided to do the same thing.”

“That decision seems eminently sound.”

“Thanks, Uncle Trig—that was what I hoped you’d say. I’ve never been there,

you know, and the idea scared me a little. Clear ether!”

There is no need to go into detail as to Camilla’s bout with Mentor. Her mind, like

Karen’s, had had to mature of itself before any treatment could be really effective; but,

once mature, she took as much in one session as Kathryn had taken in all her many.

She had not suggested that the Rigellian accompany her to Arisia; they both knew that

he had already received all he could take. Upon her return she greeted him casually as

though she had been gone only a matter of hours.

“What Mentor did to me, Uncle Trig, shouldn’t have been done to a Delgonian

catlat. It doesn’t show too much, though, I hope—does it?”

“Not at all.” He scanned her narrowly, both physically and mentally. “I can

perceive no change in gross. In fine, however, you have changed. You have

developed.”

“Yes, more than I would have believed possible. I can’t do much with my present

very poor transcription of that thought, since the all-important fine detail is missing. We’ll

have to intercept another one. I’ll get it all, this time.”

“But you did something with this one, I am sure. There must have been some

developable features—a sort of latent-image effect?”

“A little. Practically infinitesimal compared to what was really there. Physically,

his classification to four places is TUUV; quite a bit like the Nevians, you notice. His

home planet is big, and practically covered with liquid. No real cities, just groups of half-

submerged, temporary structures. Mentality very high, but we knew that already.

Normally, he thinks upon a very short wave, so short that he was then working at the

very bottom of his range. His sun is a fairly hot main-sequence star, of spectral class

somewhere around F, and it’s probably more or less variable, because there was quite

a distinct implication of change. But that’s normal enough, isn’t it?”

Within the limits imposed by the amount and kind of data available, Camilla’s

observations and analyses had been perfect, her reconstruction flawless. She did not

then have any idea, however, that “X” was in fact a spring-form Plooran. More, she did

not even know that such a planet as Floor existed, except for Mentor’s one mention of it.

“Of course. Peoples of planets of variable suns think that such suns are the only

kind fit to have planets. You cannot reconstruct the nature of the change?”

“No. Worse, I can’t find even a hint of where his planet is in space—but then, I

probably couldn’t, anyway, even with a whole, fresh thought to study.”

“Probably not. ‘Rigel Four’ would be an utterly meaningless thought to anyone

ignorant of Rigel; and, except when making a conscious effort, as in directing strangers,

I never think of its location in terms of galactic coordinates. I suppose that the location of

a home planet is always taken for granted. That would seem to leave us just about

where we were before in our search for ‘X’, except for your implied ability to intercept

another of his thoughts, almost at will. Explain, please.”

“Not my ability—ours.” Camilla smiled, confidently. “I couldn’t do it alone, neither

could you, but between us it won’t be too difficult You, with your utterly calm, utterly

unshakable certainty, can drive a thought to any corner of the universe. You can fix and

hold it steady on any indicated atom. I can’t do that, or anything like it, but with my

present ability to detect and to analyze I’m not afraid of missing ‘X’ if we can come within

parsecs of him. So my idea is a sort of piggy-back hunting trip; you to take me for a ride,

mentally, very much as Worsel takes Con, physically. -That would work, don’t you

think?”

“Perfectly, I am sure.” The stolid Rigellian was immensely pleased. “Link your

mind with mine, then, and we will set out. If you have no better plan of action mapped

out, I would suggest starting at the point where we lost him and working outward,

covering an expanding sphere.”

“You know best. I’ll stick to you wherever you go.”

Tregonsee launched his thought; a thought which, at a velocity not to be

measured even in multiples of that of light, generated the surface of a continuously

enlarging sphere of space. And with that thought, a very part of it, sped Camilla’s

incomprehensibly delicate, instantaneously reactive detector web. The Rigellian, with

his unhuman perseverance, would have surveyed total space had it been necessary;

and the now adult Camilla would have stayed with him. However, the patient pair did not

have to comb all of space. In a matter of hours the girl’s almost infinitely tenuous

detector touched, with infinitesimal power and for an inappreciable instant of time, the

exact thought-structure to which it had been so carefully attuned.

“Halt!” she flashed, and Tregonsee’s mighty super-dread-naught shot away along

the indicated line at maximum blast.

“You are not now thinking at him, of course, but how sure are you that he did not

feel your detector?” Tregonsee asked.

“Positive,” the girl replied. “I couldn’t even feel it myself until after a million-fold

amplification. It was just a web, you know, not nearly solid enough for an analyzer or a

recorder. I didn’t touch his mind at all. However, when we get close enough to work

efficiently, which will be in about five days, we will have to touch him. Assuming that he

is as sensitive as we are, he will feel us; hence we will have to work fast and according

to some definite plan. What are your ideas as to technique?”

“I may offer a suggestion or two, later, but I resign leadership to you. You already

have made plans, have you not?”

“Only a framework; we’ll have to work out the details together. Since we agree

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