Chapter XXIII

If the historian has succeeded in his attempt to describe the characters and abilities concerned, it is not necessary to enlarge upon what Kit went through in escaping Eddore. If he has not succeeded, enlargement would be useless. Therefore, it is enough to say that the young Lensman, by dint of calling up and putting out everything he had, hung on long enough and slugged his way through.

Mentor's visualization had been sound. The Eddorian guardians had scarcely taken over the first screen when it was overwhelmed by a tremendous wave of Arisian thought. It is to be remembered, however, that this was the second time that the massed might of Arisia had been thrown against Eddore's defenses, and the Boskonians had learned much, during the intervening years, from their exhaustive analyses of the offensive and defensive techniques of that earlier conflict. Thus the Arisian drive was practically stopped at the second zone of defense as Kit approached it. The screen was wavering, shifting; yielding stubbornly wherever it must and springing back into place whenever it could.

Under a tremendous concentration of Arisian force the screen weakened in a limited area directly ahead of the hurtling speedster. A few beams lashed out aimlessly, uselessly--if the Eddorians could not hold their main screens proof against the power of the Arisian attack, how could they protect such minor things as gunners' minds? The little ship flashed through the weakened barrier and into the center of a sphere of impenetrable, impermeable Arisian thought.

At the shock of the sudden ending of his terrific battle--the instantaneous transition from supreme to zero effort--Kit fainted in his control chair. He lay slumped, inert, in a stupor which changed gradually into a deep and natural sleep. And as the sleeping man in his inertialess speedster traversed space at full touring blast, that peculiar sphere of force still enveloped and still protected him.

Kit finally began to come to. His first foggy thought was that he was hungry--then, wide awake and remembering, he grabbed his levers.

"Rest quietly and eat your fill," a grave resonant pseudovoice assured him. "Everything is exactly as it should be."

"Hi, Ment ... well, well, if it isn't my old chum Eukonidor! Hi, young fellow! What's the good word? And what's the big idea of letting--or making--me sleep for a week when there's work to do?"

"Your part of the work, at least for the immediate present, is done; and, let me say, very well done."

"Thanks ... but--" Kit broke off, flushing darkly.

"Do not reproach yourself, nor us. Consider, please, and recite, the manufacture of a fine tool of ultimate quality."

"The correct alloy. Hot working--perhaps cold, too. Forging--heating--quenching--drawing--"

"Enough. Think you that the steel, if sentient, would enjoy those treatments? While you did not enjoy them, you are able to appreciate their necessity. You are now a finished tool, forged and tempered."

"Oh, you may have something there, at that. But as to ultimate quality, don't make me laugh." There was no nuance of merriment in Kit's thought. "You can't square that with cowardice."

"Nor is there need. The term ultimate was used advisedly, and still stands. It does not mean or imply, however, a state of perfection, since that condition is unattainable. I am not advising you to try to forget; nor am I attempting to force forgetfulness upon you, since your mind cannot now be coerced by any force presently existing. Be assured that nothing that occurred should irk you; for the simple truth is, that although stressed as no other mind has ever before been stressed, you did not 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, 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 been 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 quite 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 knew as Mentor, I myself, as a Guardian, 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 that I would like to buy. But, 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 had 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 over there right now and kick every one of Mentor's teeth out!"

"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 had 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 that 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 are 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:

"The only thing about that is that, since you knew 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 afterwards 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 that 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 its 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 or deduce 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 Ploor."

* * * * *

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 setbacks 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 Ploor before the situation got completely out of hand. But they didn't; hence this mess. None of them, however, expressed a thought that the present situation was already one with which they themselves could not cope; nor suggested that it be referred to Eddore before it should become too hot for even the Masters to handle.

"Fools! Imbeciles! We, the Masters, although through no foresight or design of yours, are already here. Know now that you have been and still are yourselves guilty of the same conduct which you are so violently condemning in others." Neither Eddorians nor Ploorans realized that that deficiency was inherent in the Boskonian scheme of things, or that it stemmed from the organization's very top. "Sheer stupidity! Gross overconfidence! Those are the reasons for our recent reverses!"

"But, Masters," a Plooran argued, "now that we have taken over, we are winning steadily. Civilization is rapidly going to pieces. In a few more years we will have smashed it flat."

"That is precisely what they wish you to think. They have been and are playing for time. Your bungling and mismanagement have already given them sufficient time to develop an object or an entity able to penetrate our screens, so that Eddore suffered the disgrace of an actual physical invasion. It was brief, to be sure, and unsuccessful, but it was an invasion, none the less--the first in our long history."

"But, Masters--"

"Silence! We are not here to indulge in recriminations, but to determine facts. Since you do not know Eddore's location in space, it is a certainty that you did not, either wittingly or otherwise, furnish that information. That in turn makes it clear who, basically, the invader was."

"Star A Star?" A wave of questions swept the group.

"One name serves as well as another for what is almost certainly an Arisian entity or device. It is enough for you to know that it is something with which your massed minds would be completely unable to deal. To the best of your knowledge, have you been invaded, either physically or mentally?"

"We have not, Masters; and it is unbelievable that--"

"Is it so?" The Masters sneered. "Neither our screens nor our Eddorian guardsmen gave any alarm. We learned of the Arisian's presence only when he attempted to probe our very minds, at Eddore's very surface. Are your screens and minds, then, so much better than ours?"

"We erred, Masters. We abase ourselves. What do you wish us to do?"

* * * * *

"That is better. You will be informed, as soon as a few last-minute details have been worked out. Although nothing is established by the fact that you know of no occurrences here on Ploor, the probability is that you are still unknown and unsuspected, since it is unthinkable that the enemies' minds are in any real sense as strong as ours. Nevertheless, one of us is now taking over control of the trap which you set for Kinnison, in the belief that he is Star A Star."

"Belief, Masters? It is certain that he is Star A Star!"

"In essence, yes. In exactness, no. Kinnison is, in all probability, merely a puppet through whom an Arisian works at times. If _you_ take Kinnison in that trap, however, the entity you call Star A Star will assuredly kill you all."

"But, Masters--"

"Again, fools, silence!" The thought dripped vitriol. "Remember how easily Kinnison escaped from you? It was the supremely clever move of not following through and destroying you then that obscured the truth for years--that gave them all this additional time. As we have said, you are completely powerless against the one you call Star A Star. Against any lesser force, however--and the probability is exceedingly great that only such forces, if any, will be sent against you--you should be able to win. Are you ready?"

"We are ready, Masters." At last the Ploorans were upon familiar ground. "Since ordinary weapons will be useless against us, they will not attempt to use them--especially since they have developed three extraordinary and supposedly irresistible weapons of attack. First: projectiles composed of negative matter, particularly those of planetary antimass. Second: loose planets, driven inertialess, but inerted at the point at which their intrinsic velocities render collision unavoidable. Third, and worst: the sunbeam. These gave us some trouble, particularly the last, but the problems were solved and if any one of the three, or all of them, are used against us, disaster for the Galactic Patrol is assured.

"Nor did we stop there. Our psychologists, working with our engineers, after having analyzed exhaustively the capabilities of the so-called Second-Stage Lensmen, developed countermeasures against every super-weapon which they will be able to develop during the next century."

"Such as?" The Masters were unimpressed.

"The most probable one is an extension of the sunbeam principle, to operate from a distant sun; or, preferably, a nova. We are now installing fields and grids by the use of which we, not the Patrol, will direct that beam."

"Interesting--if true. Spread in our minds the details of all that you have foreseen and the fashions in which you have safeguarded yourselves."

* * * * *

It was a long operation, even at the speed of thought. At its end the Eddorians were unconvinced, skeptical, and pessimistic.

"We can visualize several other things which the forces of Civilization may be able to develop well within the century," the Master mind said, coldly. "We will assemble data concerning a few of them, for your study. In the meantime, hold yourselves in readiness to act, as we shall issue final orders very shortly."

"Yes, Masters," and the Eddorians went back to their home planet as effortlessly as they had left it. There they concluded their conference.

"It is clear that Kinnison will enter that trap. He cannot do otherwise. Kinnison's protector, whoever or whatever he or it may be, may or may not enter it with him. It may or may not be taken with him. Whether or not the new Arisian figment is taken, Kimball Kinnison must die. He is the very keystone of the Galactic Patrol. At his death, as we will advertise it to have come about, the Patrol will fall apart. The Arisians, themselves unknown, will be forced to try to rebuild it around another puppet; but neither his son nor any other man will ever be able to take Kinnison's place in the esteem of the hero-worshiping, undisciplined mob which is Civilization. Hence the importance of your project. You, personally, will supervise the operation of the trap. You, personally, will kill him."

"With one exception, I agree with everything said. I am not at all certain that death is the answer. One way or another, however, I shall deal effectively with Kinnison."

"Deal with? We said kill!"

"I heard you. I still say that mere death may not be adequate. I shall consider the matter at length, and shall submit in due course my conclusions and recommendations, for your consideration and approval."

* * * * *

Although none of the Eddorians knew it, their pessimism in regard to the ability of the Ploorans to defend their planet against the assaults of Second-Stage Lensmen was even then being justified. Kimball Kinnison, after pacing the floor for hours, called his son.

"Kit, I've been working on a thing for months, and I don't know whether I've got a workable solution at last, or not. It may depend entirely on you. Before I go into it, though, I take it that you check me in saying that when we find Boskonia's top planet we're going to have to blow it out of the ether, and that nothing that we have ever used before will work?"

"Check, on both." Kit thought soberly for minutes. "More, it will have to be practically instantaneous, as well as complete. Like the negabombs or the sunbeam, but a lot faster."

"My thought exactly. I've got something, I think, but nobody except old Cardynge and Mentor of Arisia--"

"Hold it, Dad, while I do a bit of spying and put out some coverage. QX, go ahead."

"Nobody except those two knew anything about the mathematics involved. Even Sir Austin knew only enough to be able to understand Mentor's directions--he didn't do any of the deep stuff himself. Nobody in the present Conference of Science could even begin to handle it. It's that foreign space, you know, that we called the nth space, where that hyperspatial tube dumped us that time. You've been doing a lot of work with some of the Arisians on that sort of stuff. Could you get them to help you compute a tube between Lyrane and there, so that Thorndyke and some of his boys and I could go there and get back?"

"Hm-m-m. Let me think a second. Yes, I can. When do you need it?"

"Today--or even yesterday."

"Too fast. It'll take a couple of days, but it'll be ready for you long before you can get your ship ready and get your gang and the stuff for your gadget aboard her."

"That won't take so long, son. Same ship we rode before. She's still in commission, you know--_Space Laboratory XII_, her name is now. Special generators, tools, instruments, everything. We'll be ready in two days."

They were, and Kit smiled as he greeted Vice Admiral LaVerne Thorndyke, Principal Technician, and the other surviving members of his father's original crew.

"_What_ a tonnage of brass!" Kit said to Kim, later. "Heaviest load I ever saw on one ship. One sure thing, though, they earned it. You must have been able to pick _men_, too, in those days."

"What d'ya mean, 'those days,' you disrespectful young ape? I can still pick _men_, son!" Kim grinned back at Kit, but sobered quickly. "There's more to this than meets the eye. They went through the strain once, and know what it means. They can take it, and just about all of them will come back. With a crew of kids, twenty per cent would be a high estimate."

As soon as the vessel passed System Limits, Kit got another surprise. Even though those men were studded with brass and were, by a boy's standard, _old_, they were not passengers. In their old _Dauntless_ and well away from port, they gleefully threw off their full-dress uniforms. Each donned the clothing of his status of twenty-odd years back and went to work. The members of the regular crew, young as all regular space crewmen are, did not know at first whether they liked the idea of working watch-and-watch with such heavy brass or not, but they soon found out that they did. Those men were men.

It is an ironclad rule of space, however, that operating pilots must be young. Master Pilot Henry Henderson cursed that ruling sulphurously, even while he watched with a proud, if somewhat jaundiced eye, the smooth performance of his son Henry at his own old board.

They approached their destination--cut the jets--felt for the vortex--found it--cut in the special generators. Then, as the fields of the ship reacted against those of the tube, every man aboard felt a malaise to which no being has ever become accustomed. Most men become immune rather quickly to seasickness, to airsickness, and even to space-sickness. Interdimensional acceleration, however, is something else. It is different--just how different cannot be explained to anyone who has never experienced it.

The almost unbearable acceleration ceased. They were in the tube. Every plate showed blank; everywhere there was the same drab and featureless gray. There was neither light nor darkness; there was simply and indescribably--nothing whatever, not even empty space.

Kit threw a switch. There was a wrenching, twisting shock, followed by a deceleration exactly as sickening as the acceleration had been. It ceased. They were in that enigmatic nth space which each of the older men remembered so well; in which so many of their "natural laws" did not hold. Time still raced, stopped, or ran backward, seemingly at whim; inert bodies had intrinsic velocities far above that of light--and so on. Each of those men, about to be marooned of his own choice in this utterly hostile environment, drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders as he prepared to disembark.

"That's computation, Kit!" Kinnison exclaimed after one glance into a plate. "That's the same planet we worked on before, right there. All our machines and stuff, untouched. If you'd figured it any closer, it'd have been a collision course. Are you dead sure, Kit, that everything's all set?"

"Dead sure, Dad, in full duplicate, and Thorndyke and Henderson both know the board."

"QX. Well, fellows, I'd like to stay here with you, and so would Kit, but we've got chores to do. I don't have to tell you to be careful, but I'm going to, anyway. BE CAREFUL! And as soon as you get done, come back home just as fast as Klono will let you. Clear ether, fellows!"

"Clear ether, Kim!"

Lensman father and Lensman son boarded their speedster and left. They traversed the tube and emerged into normal space, all without a word.

"Kit," the older man ground out, finally. "This gives me the colly wobblies, no less. Suppose some of them--or all of them--get killed out there? Is it worth it? I know it's my own idea, but will we need it badly enough to take the chance?"

"We will, Dad. Mentor says that we will."

And that was that.