yield. Instead, you secured and retained information which we of Arisia have never been
able to obtain; information which will in fact be the means of preserving your
Civilization.”
“I can’t believe . . . that is, it doesn’t seem . . .” Kit, knowing that he was thinking
muddily and foolishly, paused and pulled himself together. Overwhelming, almost
paralyzing as that information was, it must be true. It was true!
“Yes, youth, it is the truth. While we of Arisia have at various times made
ambiguous statements, to lead certain Lensmen and others to arrive at erroneous
conclusions, you know that we do not lie.”
“Yes, I know that.” Kit plumbed the Arisian’s mind. “It sort of knocks me out of my
orbit—that’s an awfully big bite to swallow at one gulp, you know.”
“It is. That is one reason I am here, to convince you of the truth, which you would
not otherwise believe fully. Also to see to it that your rest, without which you might have
taken hurt, was not disturbed; as well as to make sure that you were not permanently
damaged by the Eddorians.”
“I wasn’t. . . at least, I don’t think so . . . was I?”
“You were not.”
“Good. I was wondering . . . Mentor will be tied up for a while, of course, so I’ll
ask you. . . . They must have got a sort of pattern of me, in spite of all I could do, and
they’ll be camping on my trail from now on. So I suppose I’ll have to keep a solid block
up all the time?”
“They will not, Christopher, and you need not. Guided by those whom you know
as Mentor, I myself am to see to that. But time presses—I must rejoin my fellows.”
“One more question first. You’ve been trying to sell me a bill of goods I’d certainly
like to buy. But damn it, Eukonidor, the kids will know that I showed a streak of yellow a
meter wide. What will they think?”
“Is that all?” Eukonidor’s thought was almost a laugh. “They will make that
eminently plain in a moment.”
The Arisian’s presence vanished, as did his sphere of force, and four clamoring
thoughts came jamming in.
“Oh, Kit, we’re so glad!” “We tried to help, but they wouldn’t let us!” “They
smacked us down!” “Honestly, Kit!” “Oh, if we’d only been in there, too!”
“Hold it, everybody! Jet back!” This was Con, Kit knew, but an entirely new Con.
“Scan him, Cam, as you never scanned anything before. If they burned out even one
cell of his mind I’m going to hunt Mentor up right now and kick his cursed teeth out one
by one!”
“And listen, Kit!” This was an equally strange Kathryn; blazing with fury and yet
suffusing his mind with a more than sisterly tenderness, a surpassing richness. “If we’d
had the faintest idea of what they were doing to you, all the Arisians and all the
Eddorians and all the devils in all the hells of the macrocosmic Universe couldn’t have
kept us away. You must believe that, Kit—or can you, quite?”
“Of course, sis—you don’t have to prove an axiom. Seal it, all of you. You’re swell
people—absolute tops. But I . . . you . . . that is . . .” He broke off and marshaled his
thoughts.
He knew that they knew, in every minute particular, everything that had occurred.
Yet to a girl they thought he was wonderful; their common thought was that they should
have been in there, too: taking what he took; giving what he gave!
“What I don’t get is that you’re trying to blame yourselves for what happened to
me, when you were on the dead center of the beam all the time. You couldn’t have been
in there, kids; it would have blown the whole works higher than up. You knew that then,
and you know it even better now. You also know that I flew the yellow flag. Didn’t that
even register?”
“Oh, that!” Practically identical thoughts of complete dismissal came in unison,
and Karen followed through:
“Since you knew exactly what to expect, we marvel that you ever managed to go
in at all—no one else could have possibly. Or, once in, and seeing what was really
there, that you didn’t flit right out again. Believe me, brother of mine, you qualify!”
Kit choked. This was too much; but it made him feel good all over. These kids . . .
the universe’s best. . .
As he thought, a partial block came unconsciously into being. For not one of
those gorgeous, those utterly splendid creatures suspected, even now, that which he so
surely knew—that each one of them was very shortly to be wrought and tempered as he
himself had been. And, worse, he would have to stand aside and watch them, one by
one, walk into it. Was there anything he could do to ward off, or even to soften, what
was coming to them? There was not. With his present power, he could step in, of
course—at what awful cost to Civilization only he, Christopher Kinnison, of all
Civilization, really knew. No. That was out. Definitely. He could come in afterward to
ease their hurts, as each had come to him, but that was all . . . and there was a
difference. They hadn’t known about it in advance. It was tough . . .
Could he do anything?
He could not.
* * * *
And on clammy, noisome Eddore, the Arisian attackers having been beaten off
and normality restored, a meeting of the Highest Command was held. No two of those
entities were alike in form; some were changing from one horrible shape into another;
all were starkly, indescribably monstrous. All were concentrating upon the problem
which had been so suddenly thrust upon them; each of them thought at and with each
of the others. To do justice to the complexity or the cogency of the maze of intertwined
thoughts is impossible; the best that can be done is to pick out a high point here and
there.
“This explains the Star A Star whom the Ploorans and the Kalonians so fear.”
“And the failure of our operator on Thrale, and it’s fall.”
“Also our recent quite serious reverses.”
“Those stupid—those utterly brainless underlings!”
“We should have been called in at the start!”
“Could you analyze, or even perceive, its pattern save in small part?”
“No.”
“Nor could I; an astounding and highly revealing circumstance.”
“An Arisian; or, rather, an Arisian development, certainly. No other entity of
Civilization could possibly do what was done here. Nor could any Arisian as we know
them.”
“They have developed something very recently which we had not visualized . . .”
“Kinnison’s son? Bah! Think they to deceive us by the old device of energizing a
form of ordinary flesh?”
“Kinnison—his son—Nadreck—Worsel—Tregonsee—what matters it?”
“Or, as we now know, the completely imaginary Star A Star.”
“We must revise our thinking,” an authoritatively composite mind decided. “We
must revise our theory and our plan. It may be possible that this new development will
necessitate immediate, instead of later, action. If we had had a competent race of
proxies, none of this would have happened, as we would have been kept informed. To
correct a situation which may become grave, as well as to acquire fullest and latest
information, we must attend the conference which is now being held on Floor.”
They did so. With no perceptible lapse of time or mode
of transit, the Eddorian mind was in an assembly room upon that now flooded
world. Resembling Nevians as much as any other race with which man is familiar, the
now amphibious Ploorans lolled upon padded benches and argued heatedly. They were
discussing, upon a lower level, much of the same material which the Eddorians had
been considering so shortly before.
Star A Star. Kinnison had been captured easily enough, but had, almost
immediately, escaped from an escape-proof trap. Another trap was set, but would it take
him? Would it hold him if it did? Kinnison was—must be—Star A Star. No, he could not
be, there had been too many unrelated and simultaneous occurrences. Kinnison,
Nadreck, Clarrissa, Worsel, Tregonsee, even Kinnison’s young son, had all shown
intermittent flashes of inexplicable power. Kinnison most of all. It was a fact worthy of
note that the beginning of the long series of Boskonian set-backs coincided with
Kinnison’s appearance among the Lensmen.
The situation was bad. Not irreparable, by any means, but grave. The fault lay
with the Eich, and perhaps with Kandron of Onlo. Such stupidity! Such incompetence!
Those lower-echelon operators should have had brains enough to have reported the
matter to Floor before the situation got completely out of hand. But they didn’t; hence
this mess. None of diem, however, expressed a thought that the present situation was
already one with which they themselves could not cope; nor suggested that it be