Her adventure in the hyper-spatial tube had taught Kathryn Kinnison much.

Realizing her inadequacy and knowing what to do about it, she drove her speedster at

high velocity to Arisia. Unlike the -Second-Stage Lensmen, she did not even slow down

as she approached the planet's barrier; but, as one sure of her welcome, merely threw

out ahead of her an identifying thought.

     "Ah, daughter Kathryn, again you are in time." Was there, or was there not, a

trace of emotion—of welcome, even of affection?—in that usually utterly emotionless

thought? "Land as usual."

     She neutralized her controls as she felt the mighty beams of the landing-engine

take hold of her little ship. During previous visits she had questioned nothing—this time

she was questioning everything. Was she landing, or not? Directing her every force

inwardly, she probed her own mind to its profoundest depths. Definitely, she was her

own mistress throughout—no conceivable mind could take hers over so tracelessly. As

definitely, then, she was actually landing.

     She landed. The ground on which she stepped was real. So was the automatic

flyer—neither plane nor helicopter— which whisked her from the spaceport to her

familiar destination, an unpretentious residence in the grounds of the immense hospital.

The graveled walk, the flowering shrubs, and the indescribably sweet and pungent

perfume were real; as were the tiny pain and the drop of blood which resulted when a

needle-sharp thorn pierced her incautious finger.

     Through automatically-opening doors she made her way into the familiar,

comfortable, book-lined room which was Mentor's study. And there, at his big desk,

unchanged, sat Mentor. A lot like her father, but older—much older. About ninety, she

had always thought, even though he didn't look over sixty. This time, however, she

drove a probe—and got the shock of her life. Her thought was stopped—cold—not by

superior mental force, which she could have taken unmoved, but by a seemingly

ordinary thought-screen, and her fast-disintegrating morale began visibly to crack.

     "Is all this—are you—real, or not?" she burst out, finally. "If it isn't, I'll go mad!"

     "That which you have tested—and I—are real, for the moment and as you

understand reality. Your mind in its present state of advancement cannot be deceived

concerning such elementary matters."

     "But it all wasn't, before? Or don't you want to answer that?"

     "Since the knowledge will affect your growth, I will answer. It was not. This is the

first time that your speedster has landed physically upon Arisia."

     The girl shrank, appalled. "You told me to come back when I found out that I

didn't know it all," she finally forced herself to say. "I learned that in the tube; but I didn't

realize until just now that I don't know anything. Is there any use, Mentor, in going on

with me?" she concluded, bitterly.

     "Much," he assured her. "Your development has been eminently satisfactory, and

your present mental condition is both necessary and sufficient."

     "Well, I'll be a spr . . ." Kathryn bit off the expletive and frowned. "What were you

doing to me before, then, when I thought I got everything?"

     "Power of mind," he informed her. "Sheer power, and penetration, and control.

Depth, and speed, and all the other factors with which you are already familiar."

     "But what was left? I know there is—lots of it—but I can't imagine what."

     "Scope," Mentor replied, gravely. "Each of those qualities and characteristics

must be expanded to encompass the full sphere of thought. Neither words nor thoughts

can give any adequate concept of what it means; a practically wide-open two-way will

be necessary. This cannot be accomplished, daughter, in the adolescent confines of

your present mind; therefore enter fully into mine."

     She did so: and after less than a minute of that awful contact slumped, inert and

boneless, to the floor.

     The Arisian, unchanged, unmoved, unmoving, gazed at her until finally she

began to stir.

     "That . . . father Mentor, that was . . ." She blinked, shook her head savagely,

fought her way back to full consciousness. "That was a shock."

     "It was," he agreed. "More so than you realize. Of all the entities of your

Civilization, your brother and now you are the only ones it would not kill instantly. You

now know what the word 'scope' means, and are ready for your last treatment, in the

course of which I shall take your mind as far along the road of knowledge as mine is

capable of going."

     "But that would mean . . . you're implying . . . But my mind can't be superior to

yours, Mentor! Nothing could be, possibly—it's sheerly, starkly unthinkable!"

     "But true, daughter, nevertheless. While you are recovering your strength from

that which was but the beginning of your education, I will explain certain matters

previously obscure. You have long known, of course, that you five children are not like

any others. You have always known many things without having learned them. You

think upon all possible bands of thought. Your senses of perception, of sight, of hearing,

of touch, are so perfectly merged into one sense that you perceive at will any possible

manifestation upon any possible plane or dimension of vibration. Also, although this

may not have occurred to you as extraordinary, since it is not obvious, you differ

physically from your fellows in some important respects. You have never experienced

the slightest symptom of physical illness; not even a headache or a decayed tooth. You

do not really require sleep. Vaccinations and inoculations do not 'take*. No pathogenic

organism, however virulent; no poison, however potent. . ."

     "Stop, Mentor!" Kathryn gasped, turning white. "I can't take it—you really mean,

then, that we aren't human at all?"

     "Before going into that I should give you something of background. Our Arisian

visualizations foretold the rise and fall of galactic civilizations long before any such

civilizations came into being. That of Atlantis, for instance. I was personally concerned

in that, and could not stop its fall." Mentor was showing emotion now; his thought was

bleak and bitter.

     "Not that I expected to stop it," he resumed. "It had been known for many cycles

of time .that the final abatement of the opposing force would necessitate the

development of a race superior to ours in every respect.

     "Blood lines were selected in each of the four strongest races of this that you

know as the First Galaxy. Breeding programs were set up, to eliminate as many as

possible of their weaknesses and to concentrate all of their strengths. ' From your

knowledge of genetics you realize the magnitude of the task; you know that it would

take much time uselessly to go into the details of its accomplishment. Your father and

your mother were the penultimates of long—very long—lines of mating; their

reproductive cells were such that in their fusion practically every gene carrying any trait

of weakness was rejected. Conversely, you carry the genes of every trait of strength

ever known to any member of your human race. Therefore, while in outward seeming

you are human, in every factor of importance you are not; you are even less human

than am I myself."

     "And just how human is that?" Kathryn flared, and again her most penetrant

probe of force flattened out against the Arisian's screen.

     "Later, daughter, not now. That knowledge will come at the end of your

education, not at its beginning."

     "I was afraid so." She stared at the Arisian, her eyes wide and hopeless;

brimming, in spite of her efforts at control, with tears. "You're a monster, and I am . . . or

am going to be—a worse one. A monster . . . and I'll have to live a million years . . .

alone . . . why? Why, Mentor, did you have to do this to me?"

     "Calm yourself, daughter. The shock, while severe, will pass. You have lost

nothing, have gained much."

     "Gained? Bah!" The girl's thought was loaded with bitterness and scorn. "I've lost

my parents—I'll still be a girl long after they have died. I've lost every possibility of ever

really living. I want love—and a husband—and children— and I can't have any of them,

ever. Even without this, I've never seen a man I wanted, and now I can't ever love

anybody. I don't want to live a million years, Mentor— especially alone!" The thought

was a veritable wail of despair.

     "The time has come to stop this muddy, childish thinking." Mentor's thought,

however, was only mildly reproving. "Such a reaction is only natural, but your

conclusions are entirely erroneous. One single clear thought will show you that you

have no present psychic, intellectual, emotional, or physical need of a complement."

     "That's true . . ." wonderingly. "But other girls of my age . . ."

     "Exactly," came Mentor's dry rejoinder. "Thinking of yourself as an adult of Homo

Sapiens, you were judging yourself by false standards. As a matter of fact, you are an

adolescent, not an adult. In due time you will come to love a man, and he you, with a

fervor and depth which you at present cannot even dimly understand."

     "But that still leaves my parents," Kathryn felt much better. "I can apparently age,

of course, as easily as I can put on a hat . . . but I really do love them, you know, and it

will simply break mother's heart to have all her daughters turn out to be—as she

thinks—spinsters."

     "On that point, too, you may rest at ease. I am taking care of that Kimball and

Clarrissa both know, without knowing how they know it, that your life cycle is

tremendously longer than theirs. They both know that they will not live to see their

grandchildren. Be assured, daughter, that before they pass from this cycle of existence

into the next—about which I know nothing—they shall know that all is to be supremely

well with their line; even though, to Civilization at large, it shall apparently end with you

Five."

     "End with us? What do you mean?"

     "You have a destiny, the nature of which your mind is not yet qualified to receive.

In due time the knowledge shall be yours. Suffice it now to say that the next forty or fifty

years will be but a fleeting hour in the span of life which is to be yours. But time, at the

moment, presses. You are now fully recovered and we must get on with this, your last

period of study with me, at the end of which you will be able to bear the fullest, closest

impact of my mind as easily as you have heretofore borne full contact with your sisters'.

Let us proceed with the work."

     They did so. Kathryn took and survived those shattering treatments, one after

another, emerging finally with a mind whose power and scope can no more be

explained to any mind below the third level than can the general theory of relativity be

explained to a chimpanzee.

     "It was forced, not natural, yes," the Arisian said, gravely, as the girl was about to

leave. "You are many millions of your years ahead of your natural time. You realize,

however, the necessity of that forcing. You also realize that I can give you no more

formal instruction. I will be with you or on call at all times; I will be. of aid in crises; but in

larger matters your further development is in your own hands."

     Kathryn shivered. "I realize that, and it scares me clear through . . . especially

this coming conflict, at which you hint so vaguely. I wish you'd tell me at least something

about it, so I can get ready for it!"

     "Daughter, I can't." For the first time in Kathryn's experience, Mentor the Arisian

was unsure. "It is certain that we have been on time; but since the Eddorians have

minds of power little if any inferior to our own, there are many details which we cannot

derive with certainty, and to advise you wrongly would be to do you irreparable harm. All

I can say is that sufficient warning will be given by your learning, with no specific effort

on your part and from some source other than myself, that there does in fact exist a

planet named 'Floor*—a name which to you is now only a meaningless symbol. Go

now, daughter Kathryn, and work."

     Kathryn went; knowing that the Arisian had said all that he would say. In truth, he

had told her vastly more than she had expected him to divulge; and it chilled her to the

marrow to think that she, who had always looked up to the Arisians as demi-gods of

sorts, would from now on be expected to act as their equal—in some ways, perhaps, as

their superior! As her speedster tore through space toward distant Klovia she wrestled

with herself, trying to shake her new self down into a personality as well integrated as

her old one had been. She had not quite succeeded when she felt a thought.

     "Help! I am in difficulty with this, my ship. Will any entity receiving my call and

possessing the tools of a mechanic please come to my assistance? Or, lacking such

tools, possessing a vessel of power sufficient to tow mine to the place where I must

immediately go?"

     Kathryn was startled out of her introspective trance. That thought was on a

terrifically high band; one so high that she knew of no race using it, so high that an

ordinary human mind could not possibly have either sent or received it. Its phraseology,

while peculiar, was utterly precise in definition —the mind behind it was certainly of

precisionist grade. She, acknowledged upon the stranger's wave, and sent out a locator.

Good—he wasn't far 'away. She flashed toward the derelict, matched intrinsics at a safe

distance, and began scanning, only to encounter a spy-ray block around the whole

vessel! To her it was porous enough—but if the creature thought that his screen was

tight, let him keep on thinking so. It was his move.

     "Well, what are you waiting for?" The thought fairly snapped. "Come close, so

that I may bring you in."

     "Not yet," Kathryn snapped back. "Cut your block so that I can see what you are

like. I carry equipment for many environments, but I must know what yours is and equip

for it before I can come aboard. You will note that my screens are down."

     "Of course. Excuse me—I supposed that you were one of our own"—there came

the thought of an unspellable and unpronounceable name—"since none of the lower

orders can receive our thoughts direct. Can you equip yourself to come aboard with

your tools?"

     "Yes." The stranger's light was fierce stuff; ninety-eight percent of its energy

being beyond the visible. His lamps were beam-held atomics, nothing less: but there

was very little gamma and few neutrons. She could handle it easily enough, she

decided, as she finished donning her heat-armor and a helmet of practically opaque,

diamond-hard plastic.

     As she was wafted gently across the intervening space upon a pencil of force,

Kathryn took her first good look at the precisionist himself—or herself. She—it—looked

something like a Dhilian, she thought at first. There was a squat, powerful, elephantine

body with its four stocky legs; the tremendous double shoulders and enormous arms;

the domed, almost immobile head. But there the resemblance ended. There was only

one head—the thinking head, and that one had no eyes and was not covered with bone.

There was no feeding head—the thing could neither eat nor breathe. There was no

trunk. And what a skin!

     It was worse than a hide, really—worse even than a Martian's. The girl had never

seen anything like it. It was incredibly thick, dry, pliable; filled minutely with cells of a

liquid-gaseous something which she knew to be a more perfect insulator even than the

fibres of the tegument itself.

     "R-T-S-L-Q-P." She classified the creature readily enough to six places, then

stopped and wrinkled her forehead. "Seventh place—that incredible skin—what? S? R?

T? It would have to be R . . .

     "You have the requisite tools, I perceive," the creature greeted Kathryn as she

entered the central compartment of the strange speedster, no larger than her own. "I

can tell you what to do, if . . ."

     "I know what to do." She unbolted the cover, worked deftly with wrenches and

cable and splicer and torch, and in ten minutes was done. "It doesn't make sense that a

person of your obvious intelligence, manifestly knowing enough to make such minor

repairs yourself, would go so far from home, alone in such a small ship, without any

tools. Burnouts and shorts are apt to happen any time, you know."

     "Not in the vessels of the . . ." Again Kathryn felt that unpronounceable symbol.

She also felt the stranger stiffen in offended dignity. "We of the higher orders, you

should know, do not perform labor. We think. We direct. Others work, and do their work

well, or suffer accordingly. This is the first time in nine full four-cycle periods that such a

thing has happened, and it will be the last. The punishment which I shall mete out to the

guilty mechanic will ensure that. I shall, at end, have his life."

     "Oh, come, now!" Kathryn protested. "Surely it's no life-and-death mat. . ."

     "Silence!" came curt command. "It is intolerable that one of the lower orders

should attempt to . . ."

     "Silence yourself!" At the fierce power of the riposte the creature winced,

physically and mentally. "I did this bit of dirty work for you because you apparently

couldn't do it for yourself. I did not object to the matter-of-course way you accepted it,

because some races are made that way and can't help it. But if you insist on keeping

yourself placed five rungs above me on any ladder you can think of, I'll stop being a

lady—or even a good Girl Scout—and start doing things about it, and I'll start at any

signal you care to call. Get ready, and say when!"

     The stranger, taken fully aback, threw out a lightning tentacle of thought; a feeler

which was stopped cold a full foot from the girl's radiant armor. This was a human

female— or was it? It was not. No human being had ever had, or ever would have, a

mind like that. Therefore:

     "I have made a grave error," the thing apologized handsomely, "in thinking that

you are not at least my equal. Will you grant me pardon, please?"

     "Certainly—if you don't repeat it. But I still don't like the idea of your torturing a

mechanic for a thing . . ." She thought intensely, lip caught between white teeth.

"Perhaps there's a way. Where are you going, and when do you want to get there?"

     'To my home planet," pointing out mentally its location in the galaxy. "I must be

there in two hundred G-P hours."

     "I see." Kathryn nodded her head. "You can—if you promise not to harm him.

And I can tell whether you really mean it or not."

     "As I promise, so I do. But in case I do not promise?"

     "In that case you'll get there in about a hundred thousand G-P years, frozen stiff.

For I shall fuse your Bergenholm down into a lump; then, after welding your ports to the

shell, I'll mount a thought-screen generator outside, powered for seven hundred years.

Promise, or that. Which?"

     "I promise not to harm the mechanic in any way." He surrendered stiffly, and

made no protest at Kathryn's entrance into his mind to make sure that the promise

would be kept.

     Flushed by her easy conquest of a mind she would previously have been unable

to touch, and engrossed in the problem of setting her own tremendously enlarged mind

to rights, why should it have occurred to the girl that there was anything worthy of

investigation concealed in the depths of that chance-met stranger's mentality?

     Returning to her own speedster, she shed her armor and shot away; and it was

just as well for her peace of mind that she was not aware of the tight-beamed thought

even then speeding from the flitter so far behind her to dread and distant Floor.

     ". . . but it was very definitely not a human female. I could not touch it. It may very

well have been one of the accursed Arisians themselves. But since I did nothing to

arouse its suspicions, I got rid of it easily enough. Spread the warning!"