the Lens broke their linkage and stared at each other, aghast.
They knew starkly what it must mean, but that conclusion was unthinkable.
Kinnison—their dad—the hub of the universe—the unshakable, immutable Rock of
Civilization—he couldn’t be dead. They simply could not accept the logical explanation
as the true one.
And while they pondered, shaken, a call from their Red Lensman mother came
in.
“You are together? Good! I’ve been so worried about Kim going into that trap. I’ve
been trying to get in touch with him, but I can’t reach him. You children, with your
greater power . . .”
She broke off as the dread import of the Five’s surface thoughts became clear to
her. At first she, too, was shaken, but she rallied magnificently.
“Nonsense!” she snapped; not in denial of an unwelcome fact, but in sure
knowledge that the supposition was not and could not be a fact. “Kimball Kinnison is
alive. He’s lost, I know—I last heard from him just before he went into that tube—but he
did not die! If he had, I would most certainly have felt it. So don’t be idiots, children,
please. Think—really think! I’m going to do something—somehow—but what? _
Mentor? I’ve never called him and I’m terribly afraid he might not do anything. I could go
there and make him do something, but that would take so long—what shall I do? What
can I do?”
“Mentor, by all means,” Kit decided. “He’ll do something —he’ll have to. However,
there’s no need of you going to Arisia in person.” Now that the Eddorians had ceased to
exist, inter-galactic space presented no barrier to Arisian thought, but Kit did not go into
that. “Link your mind with ours.” She did so.
“Mentor of Arisia!” the clear-cut thought flashed out. “Kimball Kinnison of Klovia is
not present in this, his normal space and time; nor in any other continuum we can
reach. We need help.”
“Ah; ’tis Lensman Clarrissa and the Five.” Imperturbably, Mentor’s mind joined
theirs on the instant. “I have ‘given the matter no attention, nor have I scanned my
visualization of the Cosmic All. It may therefore be that Kimball Kinnison has passed on
from his plane of exist . . .”
“He has NOT! It is stark idiocy even to consider such a possibility!” the Red
Lensman interrupted violently, so violently that her thought had the impact of a physical
blow. Mentor and the Five alike could see her eyes flash and sparkle; could hear her
voice crackle as she spoke aloud, the better to drive home her passionate conviction.
“Kim is ALIVE! I told the children so and now I tell you so. No matter where or when he
might be, in whatever possible extra-dimensional nook or cranny of the entire macro-
cosmic universe or in any possible period of time between plus and minus eternity, he
couldn’t die—he could not possibly die— without my knowing it. So find him,
please—please find him, Mentor—or, if you can’t or won’t, just give me the littlest, tiniest
hint as to how to go about it and I’ll find him myself!”
The Five were appalled. Especially Kit, who knew, as the others did not, just how
much afraid of Mentor his mother had always been. To direct such thoughts to any
Arisian was unthinkable; but Mentor’s only reaction was one of pleased interest.
“There is much of truth, daughter, in your thought,” he replied, slowly. “Human
love, in its highest manifestation, can be a mighty, a really tremendous thing. The force,
the power, the capability of such a love as yours is a sector of the truth which has not
been fully examined. Allow me, please, a moment in which to consider the various
aspects of this matter.”
It took more than a moment. It took more than the twenty-nine seconds which the
Arisian had needed to solve an earlier and supposedly similar Kinnison problem. In fact,
a full half hour elapsed before Mentor resumed communication; and then he did so, not
to the group as a whole, but only to the Five; using an ultra-frequency to which the Red
Lensman’s mind could not be attuned.
“I have not been able to reach him. Since you could not do so I knew that the
problem would not be simple, but I have found that it is difficult indeed. As I have
intimated previously, my visualization is not entirely clear upon any matter touching the
Eddorians directly, since their minds were of great power. On the other hand, their
visualizations of us were probably even more hazy. Therefore none of our analyses of
each other were or could be much better than approximations.
“It is certain, however, that you were correct in assuming that it was the Ploorans
who set up the hyper-spatial tube as a trap for your father. The fact that the lower and
middle operating echelons of Boskonia could not kill him established in the Ploorans’
minds the necessity of taking him alive. That fact gave us no concern, for you, Kathryn,
were on guard. Moreover, even if she alone should slip, it was manifestly impossible for
them to accomplish anything against the combined powers of you Five. However, at
some undetermined point in time the Eddorians took over, as is shown by the fact that
you are all at a loss: it being scarcely necessary to point out to you that the Ploorans
could neither transport your father to any location which you could not reach nor pose
any problem, including his death, which you could not solve. It is thus certain that it was
one or more of the Eddorians who either killed Kinnison or sent him where he was sent.
It is also certain that, after the easy fashion in which he escaped from the Ploorans after
they had captured him and had him all but in their hands, the Eddorians did not care to
have the Ploorans come to grips with Kimball Kinnison; fearing, and rightly, that instead
of gaining information, they would lose everything.”
“Did they know I was in that tube?” Kathryn asked. “Did they deduce us, or did
they think that dad was a superman?”
‘That is one of the many points which are obscure. But it made no difference,
before or after the event, to them or to us, as you should perceive.”
“Of course. They knew that there was at least one third-level mind at work in the
field. They must have deduced that it was Arisian work. Whether it was dad himself or
whether it was coming to his aid at need would make no difference. They knew very
well that he was the keystone of Civilization, and that to do away with him would be the
shrewdest move they could make. Therefore we still do not understand why they didn’t
kill him outright and be done with it—if they didn’t.”
“In exactness, neither do I . . . that point is the least clear of all. Nor is it at all
certain that he still lives. It is sheerest folly to assume that the Eddorians either thought
or acted illogically, even occasionally. Therefore, if Kinnison is not dead, whatever was
done was calculated to be even more final than death itself. This premise, if adopted,
forces the conclusion that they considered the possibility of our knowing enough about
the next cycle of existence to be able to reach him there.”
Kit frowned. “You still harp on the possibility of his death. Does not your
visualization cover that?”
“Not since the Eddorians took control. I have not consciously emphasized the
probability of your father’s death; I have merely considered it—in the case of two
mutually exclusive events, neither of which can be shown to have happened, both must
be studied with care. Assume for the moment that your mother’s theory is the truth, that
your father is still alive. In that case, what was done and how it was done are eminently
clear.”
“Clear? Not to us!” the Five chorused.
“While they did not know at all exactly the power of our minds, they could
establish limits beyond which neither they nor we could go. Being mechanically inclined,
it is reasonable to assume that they had at their disposal sufficient energy to transport
Kinnison to some point well beyond those limits. They would have given control to a
director-by-chance, so that his ultimate destination would be unknown and unknowable.
He would of course land safely . . .”
“How? How could they, possibly . . .?”
“In time that knowledge will be yours. Not now. Whether or not the hypothesis
just stated is true, the fact confronting us is that Kimball Kinnison is not now in any
region which I am at present able to scan.”
Gloom descended palpably upon the Five.
“I am not saying or implying that the problem is insoluble. Since Eddorian minds
were involved, however, you already realize that its solution will require the evaluation of