Part 24

"Come in, Mentor!" Kit snapped then. "All you Arisians and all the Lensmen. Nothing specialized--just a general slam at the whole screen. This fifth screen is the works--they've got twenty men on it instead of one, and they're top-notchers. Best strategy now is for us five to lay off for a second or two and show 'em what we've got in the line of defense, while the rest of you fellows give 'em hell!"

Arisia and the massed Lensmen struck, a tidal wave of such tremendous weight and power that under its impact the fifth screen sagged flat against the planet's surface. Any one Lensman's power was small, of course, in comparison with that of any Eddorian, but every First-Stage Lensman of the Galactic Patrol was giving, each according to his strength, and the output of one Lensman, multiplied by the countless millions which was the number of Lensmen then at work, made itself tellingly felt.

Countless? Yes. No one not of Arisia ever knew how many minds contributed to that stupendous flood of force. Bear in mind that in the First Galaxy alone there are over two thousand million suns: that each sun has, on the average, something over one and thirty-seven hundredths planets inhabited by intelligent life; that about one-half of these planets adhere to Civilization; and that Tellus, an average planet, graduates approximately one hundred Lensmen every year.

"So far, Kit, so good," Constance panted. Although she was no longer trembling, she was still highly excited. "But I don't know how many more shots like that I've ... we've ... got left in the locker."

"You're doing fine, Connie," Camilla soothed.

"Sure you are, baby. You've got plenty of jets," Kit agreed. Except in moments of supreme stress these personal, individual exchanges of by-thoughts did not interfere with the smooth functioning of the Unit. "Fine work, all of you, kids. I knew that we'd get over the shakes as soon as--"

"Watch it!" Camilla snapped. "Here comes the shock wave. Brace yourself, Kay. Hold us together, Kit!"

The wave came. Everything that the Eddorians could send. The Unit's barrier did not waver. After a full second of it--a time comparable to days of continuous atomic bombing in ordinary warfare--Karen, who had been standing stiff and still, began to relax.

"This is too, _too_ easy," she declared. "Who is helping me? I can't feel anything, but I simply know that I haven't got this much stuff. You, Cam--or is it all of you?" Not one of the Five was as yet thoroughly familiar with the operating characteristics of the Unit.

"All of us, more or less, but mostly Kit," Camilla decided after a moment's thought. "He's got the weight of an inert planet."

"Not me," Kit denied, vigorously. "Must be you other kids. Feels to me like Kat, mostly. All I'm doing is just sort of leaning up against you a little--just in case. I haven't done a thing so far."

"Oh, no? Sure not!" Kathryn giggled, an infectious chuckle inherited or copied directly from her mother. "We know it, and that you're going to keep on loafing all the rest of the day. You wouldn't think of doing anything, even if you could. Just the same, we're all mighty glad that our big brother is here!"

"QX, kids, seal the chatter. We've had time to learn that they can't crack us--so have they, by the way--so let's get to work."

Since the Unit was now under continuous attack, its technique would have to be entirely different from that used previously. Its barrier must vanish for an infinitesimal period of time, during which it must simultaneously detect and blast. Or, rather, the blast would have to be directed in mid-flight, while the Unit's own block was open. Nor could that block be open for more than the barest possible instant before or after the passage of the bolt. It is true that the attack of the Eddorians compared with that of the Unit very much as the steady pressure of burning propellant powder compares with the disruptive force of detonating duodec; even so it would have wrought much damage to the minds of the Five had any of it been allowed to reach them.

Also, like parachute-jumping, this technique could not be practiced. Since the timing had to be so nearly absolute, the first two shots missed their targets completely; but the Unit learned fast. Eddorian after Eddorian died.

* * * * *

"Help, All-Highest, help!" a high Eddorian appealed, finally.

"What is it?" His Ultimate Supremacy, knowing that only utter desperation could be back of such intrusion, wasted no time.

"It is this new Arisian entity--"

"It is not an entity, fool, but a fusion," came curt reprimand. "We decided that point long ago."

"An entity, I say!" In his urgency the operator committed the unpardonable by omitting the titles of address. "No possible fusion can attain such perfection of timing, of synchronization. Our best fusions have attempted to match it, and have failed. Its screens are impenetrable. Its thrusts cannot be blocked. My message is this: Solve for us, and quickly, the problem of this entity. If you do not or cannot do so, we perish all of us, even to you of the Innermost Circle."

"Think you so?" The thought was a sneer. "If your fusions cannot match those of the Arisians you should die, and the loss will be small."

* * * * *

The fifth screen went down. For the first time in untold ages the planet of Eddore lay bare to the Arisian mind. There were inner defenses, of course, but Kit knew every one; their strengths and their weaknesses. He had long since spread in Mentor's mind an exact and completely detailed chart; they had long since drawn up a completely detailed plan of campaign. Nevertheless, Kit could not keep from advising Mentor:

"Pick off any who may try to get away. Start on Area B and work up. Be sure, though, to lay off of Area K or you'll get your beard singed off."

"The plan is being followed," Mentor assured him. "Children, you have done very well indeed. Rest now, and recuperate your powers against that which is yet to come."

"QX. Unlace yourselves, kids. Loosen up. Unlax. I'll break out a few beakers of fayalin, and all of us--you especially, Con--had better eat ten or fifteen of these candy bars."

"_Eat!_ Why, I _couldn't_--" Kit insisted, and Constance took an experimental bite. "But say, I _am_ hungry, at that!"

"Of course you are. We've been putting out some stuff, and there's more and worse coming. Now rest, all of you."

* * * * *

They rested. Somewhat to their surprise, they were now seasoned enough campaigners so that they could rest; even Constance. But the respite was short. Area K, the headquarters and the citadel of His Ultimate Supremacy and the Innermost Circle of the Boskonian Empire, contained all that remained of Eddorian life.

"No tight linkage yet, kids," Kit the Organizer went smoothly to work. "Individual effort--a flash of fusion, perhaps, now and then, if any of us call for it, but no Unit until I give the word. Then give it everything you've got. Cam, analyze that screen and set us up a pattern for it--you'll find that it'll take some doing. See whether it's absolutely homogenous--hunt for weak spots, if any. Con, narrow down to the sharpest needle you can possibly make and start pecking. Not too hard--don't tire yourself--just to get acquainted with the texture of the thing and keep them awake. Kay, take over our guard so that Eukonidor can join the other Arisians. Kat, come along with me--you'll have to help with the Arisians until I call you into the Unit.

"You Arisians, except Mentor, blanket this dome. Thinner than that--solider, harder--there. A trifle off-balance yet--give me just a little more, here on this side. QX--hold it right there! SQUEEZE! Kat, watch 'em. Hold them right there and in balance until you're sure that the Eddorians aren't going to be able to put any bulges up through the blanket.

"Now, Mentor, you and the Lensmen. Tell them to give us, for the next five seconds, absolutely everything that they can deliver. When they're at absolute peak, hit us with it all. Hit us dead center, and don't pull your punch. We'll be ready.

"Con, get ready to stick that needle there--they'll think it's just another peck, I hope--and prepare to blast as you never blasted before. Kay, get ready to drop that screen and stiffen the needle--when those Lensmen hit us even you will know that you're not just being patted on the back. The rest of us will brace you and keep the shock from killing us all. Here it comes. Make Unit! GO!"

The Unit struck. The needle of pure force drove against the Eddorians' supposedly absolutely impenetrable shield. The Unit's thrust was, of itself, like nothing ever before known. The Lensmen's pile-driver blow--the integrated sum total of the top effort of every First-Stage Lensman of the entire Galactic Patrol--was of itself irresistible. Something had to give way.

For an instant it seemed as though nothing were happening or ever would happen. Strong young arms laced the straining Five into a group as motionless and as sculpturesque as statuary, while between their bodies and around them there came into being a gigantic Lens--a Lens whose splendor filled the entire room with radiance.

Under that awful concentration of force something _had_ to give way. The Unit held. The Arisians held. The Lensmen held. The needle of force, superlatively braced, neither bent nor broke. Therefore the Eddorians' screen was punctured; and in the instant of its puncturing it disappeared as does a bubble when it breaks.

There was no mopping-up to do. Such was the torrent of force cascading into that citadel that within a moment after its shield went down all life within it was snuffed out.

The Boskonian War was over.

XXIX.

"Did you kids come through QX?" The frightful combat over, the dreadful tension a thing of the past, Kit's first thought was for his sisters.

They were unharmed. None of the Five had suffered anything except mental exhaustion. Recuperation was rapid.

"Better we hunt that tube up and get Dad out of it, don't you think?" Kit suggested.

"Have you got a story arranged that will hold together under examination?" Camilla asked.

"Everything except a few minor details, which we can polish up later."

Smoothly the four girls linked their minds with their brother's; effortlessly the Unit's thought surveyed all nearby space. No hyperspatial tube, nor any trace of one, was there. Tuned to Kinnison's pattern, the Unit then scanned not only normal space and the then present time, but also millions upon millions of other spaces and past and future times; all without finding the Gray Lensman.

Again and again the Unit reached out, farther and farther; out to the extreme limit of even its extraordinary range. Every space and every time was empty. The Children of 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 explanations as the true one.

And while they pondered, shaken, a call from their Red Lensman mother impinged upon their consciousness.

"You are together? Good! I have been _so_ worried about Kim going into that trap. I have been trying to get in touch with him, but I cannot 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 is lost, I know--I last heard from him just before he went into that hyperspatial tube--but I did not feel him die. And if he died, no matter where or when or how, I would most certainly have felt it. So don't be idiots, children, please. Think--_really_ think! I am going to do something--somehow--but what? Mentor the Arisian? I've never called him and I'm terribly afraid that he might not be willing to do anything. I could go there and make him do something, but that would take so long--tell me, what shall I--what _can_ I do?"

"Mentor, by all means," Kit decided. "The most logical, the only possible solution. I am sure that in this case he will act. It is neither necessary nor desirable to go to Arisia." Now that the Eddorians had ceased to exist, intergalactic space presented no barrier to Arisian thought, but Kit did not enlighten his mother upon that point. "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 which we can reach. We ask assistance."

"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 be that Kimball Kinnison has passed on from this plane of exist--"

"He has NOT!" 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 I now tell you so. No matter where or when he might be, in whatever possible extra-dimensional nook or cranny of the entire macrocosmic universe or in any possible aisle of time between plus and minus eternity, he could not 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 will 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 a thought as that 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 ultrafrequency 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 hyperspatial 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. The 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 that 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 out-right 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 and his vessel 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 many millions of factors and will consume a not inconsiderable number of your years."

"You mean lifetimes!" an impetuous young thought broke in. "Why, long before that--"

"Contain yourself, daughter Constance," Mentor reproved, gently. "I realize quite fully all the connotations and implications involved. I was about to say that it may prove desirable to assist your mother in the application of powers which may very well transcend in some respects those of either Arisia or Eddore." He shifted the band of thought to include the Red Lensman and went on as though he were just emerging from contemplation:

"Children, it appears that the solution of this problem by ordinary processes will require more time than can conveniently be spared. Moreover, it affords a priceless and perhaps a unique opportunity of increasing our store of knowledge. Be informed, however, that the probability is exceedingly great that in this project you, Clarrissa, will lose your life."

"Better not, mother. When Mentor says anything like that, it means suicide. We don't want to lose you, too." Kit pleaded, and the four girls added their pleas to his.

Clarrissa knew that suicide was against the Code--but she also knew that, as long as there was any chance at all, Lensmen always went in.

"Exactly how great?" she demanded, vibrantly. "It isn't absolutely certain--it _can't_ be!"

"No, daughter, it is not absolutely certain."

"QX, then, I'm going in. Nothing can stop me."

"Very well. Tighten your linkage, Clarrissa, with me. Yours will be the task of sending your thought to your husband, wherever and whenever in total space and in total time he may be. If it can be done, you can do it. You alone of all the entities in existence can do it. I can neither help you nor guide you in your quest; but by virtue of your relationship to him whom we are seeking, your oneness with him, you will require neither help nor guidance. My part will be to follow you and to construct the means of his return, but the real labor is and must be yours alone. Take a moment, therefore, to prepare yourself against the effort, for it will not be small. Gather your resources, daughter; assemble all your forces and your every power."

* * * * *

They watched Clarrissa, in her distant room, throw herself prone upon her bed. She closed her eyes, buried her nose in the counterpane, and gripped a side rail fiercely in each hand.

"Can't we help, too?" The Five implored, as one.

"I do not know." Mentor's thought was as passionless as the voice of Fate. "I know of no force at your disposal which can affect in any way that which is to happen. Since I do not know the full measure of your powers, however, it would be well for you to accompany us, keeping yourselves alert to take instant advantage of any opportunity to be of aid. Are you ready, daughter Clarrissa?"

"I am ready," and the Red Lensman launched her thought.

Clarrissa Kinnison did not know, then or ever, did not have even the faintest inkling of what she did or of how she did it. Nor, tied to her by bonds of heritage, love, and sympathy though they were and of immense powers of mind though they were, did any of the Five succeed, until after many years had passed, in elucidating the many complex phenomena involved. Even Mentor, the ancient Arisian sage, never did understand.

All that any of them knew was that an infinitely loving and intensely suffering woman, stretched rigidly upon a bed, hurled out through space and time a passionately questing thought--a thought behind which she put everything she had.

Clarrissa Kinnison, Red Lensman, had much--and every iota of that impressive sum total ached for, yearned for, and insistently _demanded_ her Kim--her one and only Kim. Kim her husband; Kim the father of her children; Kim her lover; Kim her other half; Kim her all in all for so many perfect years.

"Kim! KIM! Wherever you are, Kim, or whenever, listen! Listen and answer! Hear me--you _must_ hear me calling--I need you, Kim, from the bottom of my soul. Kim! My Kim! KIM!!"

Through countless spaces and through untellable times that poignant thought sped; driven by a woman's fears, a woman's hopes, a woman's all-surpassing love; urged ever onward and ever outward by the irresistible force of a magnificent woman's frankly bared soul.

Outward ... farther ... farther out ... farther--

* * * * *