that it was my mind that he did not like, you will have to make the first contact.”
“Of course. But since the action of thought is so nearly instantaneous, are you
sure that you will be able to protect yourself in case he overcomes me at that first
contact?” If the Rigellian gave any thought at all to his own fate in such a case, no trace
of it was evident.
“My screens are good. I am fairly certain that I could protect both of us, but it
might slow me down a trifle; and even an instant’s delay might keep me from getting the
information we want. It would be better, I think, to call Kit in. Or, better yet, Kay. She can
stop a super-atomic bomb. With Kay covering us, we will both be free to work.”
Again they went into a union of minds; considering, weighing, analyzing,
rejecting, and—a few times—accepting. And finally, well within the five-day time limit,
they had drawn up a completely detailed plan of action.
How uselessly that time was spent! For that action, instead of progressing
according to their carefully worked-out plan, was ended almost in the instant of its
beginning.
According to plan, Tregonsee tuned his mind to “X’s” pattern as soon as they had
come within working range. He reached out as delicately as he could, and his best was
very fine work indeed. He might just as well have struck with all his power, for at first
touch of the fringe, extremely light and entirely innocuous though it was, the stranger’s
barriers flared into being and there came back instantly a mental bolt of such vicious
intensity that it would have gone through Tregonsee’s hardest-held block as though no
barrier had been there. But that bolt did not strike Tregonsee’s shield. Instead, it struck
Karen Kinnison’s, which has already been described.
It did not exactly bounce, nor did it cling, nor did it linger, even for a microsecond,
to do battle as expected. It simply vanished; as though that minute interval of time had
been sufficient for the enemy to have recovered from the shock of encountering a
completely unexpected resistance, to have analyzed the texture of the shield, to have
deduced from that analysis the full capabilities of its owner and operator, to have
decided that he did not care to have any dealings with the entity so deduced, and finally,
as he no doubt supposed, to have begun to retreat in good order.
His retreat, however, was not in good order. He did not escape, this time. This
time, as she had declared that she would be, Camilla was ready for anything—literally
anything. Everything she had—and she had plenty—was on the trips; tense, taut, and
poised. Knowing that Karen, the Ultimate of Defense, was on guard, she was wholly
free to hurl her every force on the instant. Scarcely had the leading element of her
probe touched the stranger’s screens, however, when those screens, “X” himself, his
vessel and any others that might have been accompanying it, and everything tangible in
nearby space, all disappeared at once in the inconceivably violent, the ultimately
cataclysmic detonation of a super-atomic bomb.
It may not, perhaps, be generally known that the “completely liberating” or
“super-atomic” bomb liberates one hundred percent of the component energy of its total
mass in approximately sixty nine hundredths of one microsecond. Its violence and
destructiveness thus differ, both in degree and in kind, from those of the earlier type,
which liberated only the energy of nuclear fission, very much as the radiation of S-
Doradus differs from that of Earth’s moon. Its mass attains, and holds for an appreciable
length of time, a temperature to be measured only in millions of Centigrade degrees;
which fact accounts in large part for its utterly incredible vehemence.
Nothing inert in its entire sphere of primary action can even begin to move out of
the way before being reduced to its subatomic constituents and thus contributing in
some measure to the cataclysm. Nothing is or becomes visible until the secondary
stage begins; until the frightful globe has expanded to” a diameter of thousands of yards
and by this expansion has cooled down to a point at which some of its radiation lies in
the visible violet And as for lethal radiation—there are radiations and they are lethal.
The conflict with “X” had occupied approximately two milliseconds of actual time.
The expansion had been progressing for a second or two when Karen lowered her
shield.
“Well, that finished that,” she commented. “I’d better get back on the job. Did you
find out what you want to know, Cam, or not?”
“I got a little in the moment before the explosion. Not much.” Camilla was deep in
study. “It’s going to be quite a job of reconstruction. One thing of interest to you, though,
is that this ‘X’ had quit sabotage temporarily and was on his way to Lyrane DC, where
he had some important. . .”
“Nine?” Karen asked sharply. “Not Eight? I’ve been watching Eight, you know—I
haven’t even thought of Nine.”
“Nine, definitely. The thought was clear. You might give it a scan once in a while.
How is mother doing?”
“She’s doing a grand job, and that Helen is quite an operator, too. I’m not doing
much—just a touch here and there— I’ll see what I can see on Nine. I’m not the scanner
or detector you are, though, you know—maybe you’d better come over here too.
Suppose?”
“I think so—don’t you, Uncle Trig?” Tregonsee did. “We can do some exploring
as we come, but since I have no definite patterns for web work, we may not be able to
do much until we get close. Clear ether, Kay!”
“The fine structure is there, and I can resolve it and analyze it,” Camilla informed
Tregonsee, after a few hours of intense concentration. “There are quite a few clear
extraneous sequences, instead of the blurred latent images we had before, but there’s
still no indication of the location of his home planet. I can see his physical classification
to ten places instead of four, more detail as to the sun’s variation, the seasons, their
habits, and so on. Things that seem mostly to be of very little importance, as far as
we’re concerned. I learned one fact, though, that is new and important. According to my
reconstruction, his business on Lyrane IX was the induction of Boskonian
Lensmen—Black Lensmen, Tregonsee, just as father suspected!”
“In that case, he must have been the Boskonian counterpart of an Arisian, and
hence one of the highest echelon. I am very glad indeed that you and Karen relieved
me of the necessity of trying to handle him myself . . . your father will be very glad to
know that we have at last and in fact reached the top . . .”
Camilla was paying attention to the Rigellian’s cogitations with only a fraction of
her mind; most of it being engaged in a private conversation with her brother.
“. . . so you see, Kit, he was under a sub-conscious compulsion. He had to
destroy himself, his ship, and everything in it, in the very instant of attack by any mind
definitely superior to his own. Therefore he couldn’t have been an Eddorian, possibly,
but merely another intermediate, and I haven’t been of much help.”
“Sure you have, Cam! You got a lot of information, and some mighty good leads
to Lyrane IX and what goes on there. I’m on my way to Eddore now; and by working
down from there and up from Lyrane IX we can’t go wrong. Clear ether, sis!”
CHAPTER 19: THE HELL-HOLE IN SPACE
Constance Kinnison did not waste much time in idle recriminations, even at
herself. Realizing at last that she was still not fully competent, and being able to define
exactly what she lacked, she went to Arisia for final treatment. She took that treatment
and emerged from it, as her brother and sisters had emerged, a completely integrated
personality.
She had something of everything the others had, of course, as did they all; but
her dominants, the characteristics which had operated to make Worsel her favorite
Second-Stage Lensman, were much like those of the Velantian. Her mind, like his, was
quick and facile, yet of extraordinary power and range. She did not have much of her
father’s fiat, driving urge or of his indomitable will to do; she was the least able of all the
Five to exert long-sustained extreme effort. Her top, however, was vastly higher than
theirs. Her armament was almost entirely offensive: she was far and away the deadliest
fighter of them all. She only of them all had more than a trace of pure killer instinct; and
when roused to full fighting pitch her mental bolts were weapons of as starkly
incomprehensible an effectiveness as the sphere of primary action of a super-atomic
bomb.
As soon as Constance had left the Velan, remarking that she was going to Arisia