While Kathryn Kinnison was working with her father in the hyper-spatial tube and

with Mentor of Arisia, and while Camilla and Tregonsee were sleuthing the inscrutable

"X", Constance was also at work. Although she lay flat on her back, not moving a

muscle, she was working as she had never worked before. Long since she had put her

indetectable speedster into the control of a director-by-chance. Now, knowing nothing

and caring less of where she and her vessel might be or might go, physically completely

relaxed, she drove her "sensories" out to the full limit of their prodigious range and held

them there for hour after hour. Worsel-like, she was not consciously listening for any

particular thing; she was merely increasing her already incredibly vast store of

knowledge. One hundred percent receptive, attached to and concerned with only the

brain of her physical body, her mind sped at large; sampling, testing, analyzing,

cataloguing every item with which its most tenuous fringe came in contact. Through

thousands of solar systems that mind went; millions upon millions of entities either did

or did not contribute something worthwhile.

     Suddenly there came something that jarred her into physical movement: a burst

of thought upon a band so high that it was practically always vacant. She shook herself,

got up, lighted an Alaskanite cigarette, and made herself a pot of coffee.

     "This is important, I think," she mused. "I'd better get to work on it while it's

fresh."

     She sent out a thought tuned to Worsel, and was surprised when it went

unanswered. She investigated: finding that the Velantian's screens were full up and held

hard— he was fighting Overlords so savagely that he had not felt her thought. Should

she take a hand in this brawl? She should not, she decided, and grinned fleetingly. Her

erstwhile tutor would need no help in that comparatively minor chore. She'd wait until he

wasn't quite so busy.

     "Worsel! Con calling. What goes on mere, fellow old snake?" She finally

launched her thought.

     "As though you didn't know!" Worsel sent back. "Been quite a while since I saw

you—how about coming aboard?"

     "Coming at max," and she did.

     Before entering the Velan, however, she put on a gravity damper, set at 980

centimeters. Strong, tough, and supple as she was she did not relish the thought of the

atrocious accelerations used and enjoyed by Velantians everywhere.

     "What did you make of that burst of thought?" she asked by way of greeting. "Or

were you having so much fun you missed it?"

     "What burst?" Then, after Constance had explained, "I was busy; but not having

fun."

     "Somebody who didn't know you might believe that," the girl derided. "This

thought was important, I think—much more so than dilly-dallying with Overlords, as you

were doing. It was 'way up—on this band here." She illustrated.

     "So?" Worsel came as near to whistling as one of his inarticulate race could

come. "What are they like?"

     "VWZY, to four places." Con concentrated. "Multi-legged. Not exactly

carapaceous, but pretty nearly. Spiny, too, I believe. The world was cold, dismal,

barren; but not frigid, but he—it—didn't seem exactly like an oxygen-breather—more

like what a warm-blooded Palainian would perhaps look like, if you can imagine such a

thing. Mentality very high—precisionist grade—no thought of cities as such. The sun

was a typical yellow dwarf. Does any of this ring a bell in your mind?"

     "No." Worsel thought intensely for minutes. So did Constance. Neither had any

idea—then—that the girl was describing the form assumed in their autumn by the dread

inhabitants of the planet Ploor!

     "This may indeed be important," Worsel broke the mental silence. "Shall we

explore together?"

     "We shall." They tuned to the desired band. "Give it plenty of shove, too—Go!"

     Out and out and out the twinned receptors sped; to encounter a tenuous, weak,

and utterly cryptic vibration. One touch—the merest possible contact—and it

disappeared. It vanished before even Con's almost-instantaneous reactions could get

more than a hint of directional alignment; and neither of the observers could read any

part of it.

     Both of these developments were starkly incredible, and Worsel's long body

tightened convulsively, rock-hard, in the violence of the mental force now driving his

exploring mind. Finding nothing, he finally relaxed.

     "Any Lensmen, anywhere, can read and understand any thought, however

garbled or scrambled, or however expressed," he thought at Constance. "Also, I have

always been able to get an exact line on anything I could perceive, but all I know about

this one is that it seemed to come mostly from somewhere over that way. Did you do

any better?"

     "Not much, if any." If the thing was surprising to Worsel, it was sheerly

astounding to his companion. She, knowing the measure of her power, thought to

herself—not to the Velantian—"Girl, file this one carefully away in the big black book!"

     Slight as were the directional leads, the Velan tore along the indicated line at

maximum blast. Day after day she sped, a wide-flung mental net out far ahead and out

farther still on all sides. They did not find what they sought, but they did

find—something.

     "What is it?" Worsel demanded of the quivering telepath who had made the

report.

     "I don't know, sir. Not on that ultra-band, but well below it . . . there. Not an

Overlord, certainly, but something perhaps equally unfriendly."

     "An Eich!" Both Worsel and Con exclaimed the thought, and the girl went on, "It

was practically certain that we couldn't get them all on Jarnevon, of course, but none

have been reported before . . . where are they, anyway? Get me a chart, somebody . . .

It's Novena IX . . . QX—tune up your heavy artillery, Worsel—it'd be nice if we could

take the head man alive, but that's a little too much luck to expect."

     The Velantian, even though he had issued instantaneously the order to drive at

full blast toward the indicated planet, was momentarily at a loss. Kinnison's daughter

entertained no doubts as to the outcome of the encounter she was proposing—but she

had never seen an Eich close up. He had. So had her father. Kinnison had come out a

very poor second in that affair, and Worsel knew that he could have done no better, if as

well. However, that had been upon Jarnevon, actually inside one of its strongest

citadels, and neither he nor Kinnison had been prepared.

     "What's the plan, Worsel?" Con demanded, vibrantly. "How're you figuring on

taking "em?"

     "Depends on how strong they are. If it's a long-established base, we'll simply

have to report it to LaForge and go on about our business. If, as seems more probable

because it hasn't been reported before, it's a new establishment—or possibly only a

grounded space-ship so far—we'll go to work on them ourselves. We'll soon be close

enough to find out."

     "QX", and a fleeting grin passed over Con's vivacious face. For a long time she

had been working with Mentor the Arisian, specifically to develop the ability to "cut-

Worsel Worsel," and now was the best time she ever would have to put her hard

schooling to test.

     Hence, Master of Hallucination though he was, the Velantian bad no hint of

realization when his Klovian companion, working through a channel which he did not

even know existed, took control of every compartment of his mind. Nor did the crew, in

particular or en masse, suspect anything amiss when she performed the infinitely easier

task of taking over theirs. Nor did the unlucky Eich, when the flying Velan had

approached their planet closely enough to make it clear that their establishment was

indeed a new one, being built around the nucleus of a Boskonian battleship. Except for

their commanding officer they died then and there—and Con was to regret bitterly, later,

that she had made this engagement such a one-girl affair.

     The grounded battleship was a formidable fortress indeed. Under the fierce

impact of its offensive beams the Velantians saw their very wall-shields flame violet. In

return they saw their mighty secondary beams stopped cold by the Boskonian's inner

screens, and had to bring into play the inconceivable energies of their primaries before

the enemy's space-ship-fortress could be knocked out. And this much of the battle was

real. Instrument- and recorder-tapes could be and were being doctored to fit; but spent

primary shells could not be simulated. Nor was it thinkable that this super-dreadnaught

and its incipient base should be allowed to survive.

     Hence, after the dreadful primaries had quieted the Eich's main batteries and had

reduced the ground-works to flaming pools of lava, needle-beamers went to work on

every minor and secondary control board. Then, the great vessel definitely helpless as a

fighting unit, Worsel and his hard-bitten crew thought that they went—thought-screened,

full-armored, armed with semi-portables and DeLameters—joyously into the hand-to-

hand combat which each craved. Worsel and two of his strongest henchmen attacked

the armed and armored Boskonian captain. After a satisfyingly terrific struggle, in the

course of which all three of the Velantians— and some others—were appropriately

burned and wounded, they overpowered him and carried him bodily into the control-

room of the Velan. This part of the episode, too, was real; as was the complete melting

down of the Boskonian vessel which occurred while the transfer was being made.

     Then, while Con was engaged in the exceedingly delicate task of withdrawing her

mind from Worsel's without leaving any detectable trace that she had ever been in it,

there happened the completely unexpected; the one thing for which she was utterly

unprepared. The mind of the captive captain was wrenched from her control as palpably

as a loosely-held stick is snatched from a physical hand; and at the same time there

was hurled against her impenetrable barriers an attack which could not possibly have

stemmed from any Eichian mind!

     If her mind had been free, she could have coped with the situation, but it was not.

She had to hold Worsel—she knew with cold certainty what would ensue if she did not.

The crew? They could be blocked out temporarily—unlike the Velantian Lensman, no

one of them could even suspect that he had been in a stasis unless it were long enough

to be noticeable upon such timepieces as clocks. The procedure, however, occupied a

millisecond or so of precious time; and a considerably longer interval was required to

withdraw with the required tracelessness from Worsel's mind. Thus, before she could do

anything except protect herself and the Velantian from that surprisingly powerful

invading intelligence, all trace of it disappeared and all that remained of their captive

was a dead body.

     Worsel and Constance stared at each other, wordless, for seconds. The

Velantian had a completely and accurately detailed memory of everything that had

happened up to that instant, the only matter not quite clear being the fact that their hard-

won captive was dead; the girl's mind was racing to fabricate a bullet-proof explanation

of that startling fact. Worsel saved her the trouble.

     "It is of course true," he thought at her finally, "that any mind of sufficient power

can destroy by force of will alone the entity of flesh in which it resides. I never thought

about this matter before in connection with the Eich, but no detail of the experience your

father and I had with them on Jarnevon would support any contention that they do not

have minds of the requisite power . . . and today's battle, being purely physical, would

not throw any light on the subject. . . . I wonder if a thing like that could be stopped?

That is, if we had been on time . . .?"

     "That's it, I think." Con put on her most disarming, most engaging grin in

preparation for the most outrageous series of lies of her long career. "And I don't think it

can be stopped—at least I couldn't stop him. You see, I got into him a fraction of a

second before you did, and in that instant, just like that," in spite of the fact that Worsel

could not hear, she snapped her fingers ringingly, "faster even than that, he was gone. I

didn't think of it until you brought it up, but you're right as can be—he killed himself to

keep us from finding out whatever he knew."

     Worsel stared at her with six eyes now instead of one, gimlet probes which

glanced imperceptibly off her shield. He was not consciously trying to break down her

barriers— to his fullest perception they were already down; no barriers were there. He

was not consciously trying to integrate or reintegrate any detail or phase of the episode

just past— no iota of falsity had appeared at any point or instant. Nevertheless, deep

down within those extra reaches that made Worsel of Velantia what he was, a vague

disquiet refused to down. It was too . . . too . . . Worsel's consciousness could not

supply the adjective.

     Had it been too easy? Very decidedly it had not His utterly wornout, battered and

wounded crew refuted that thought. So did his own body, slashed and burned, as well

as did the litter of shells and the heaps of smoking slag which had once been an enemy

stronghold.

     Also, even though he had not theretofore thought that he and his crew

possessed enough force to do what had just been done, it was starkly unthinkable that

anyone, even an Arisian, could have helped him do anything without his knowledge.

Particularly how could this girl, daughter of Kimball Kinnison although she was, possibly

have stuff enough to play unperceived the part of guardian angel to him, Worsel of

Velantia?

     Least able of all the five Second-Stage Lensmen to appreciate what the Children

of the Lens really were, he did not, then or ever, have any inkling of the real truth. But

Constance, far behind her cheerfully innocent mask, shivered as she read exactly his

disturbed and disturbing thoughts. For, conversely, an unresolved enigma would affect

him more than it would any of his fellow L2's. He would work on it until he did resolve it,

one way or another. This thing had to be settled, now. And there was a way—a good

way.

     "But I did help you, you big lug!" she stormed, stamping her booted foot in

emphasis. "I was in there every second, slugging away with everything I had. Didn't you

even feel me, you dope?" She allowed a thought to become evident; widened her eyes

in startled incredulity. "You didn't!" she accused, hotly. "You were reveling so repulsively

in the thrill of body-to-body fighting, just like you were back there in that cavern of

Overlords, that you couldn't have felt a thought if it was driven into you with a D2P

pressor! Of course I helped you, you wigglesome clunker! If I hadn't been in there

pitching, dulling their edges here and there at critical moments, you'd've had a hell of a

time getting them at all! I'm going to flit right now, and I hope I never see you again as

long as I live!"

     This vicious counter-attack, completely mendacious though it was, fitted the facts

so exactly that Worsel's inchoate doubts vanished. Moreover, he was even less well

equipped than are human men to cope with the peculiarly feminine weapons Constance

was using so effectively. Wherefore the Velantian capitulated, almost abjectly, and the

girl allowed herself to be coaxed down from her high horse and to become her usual

sunny and impish self.

     But when the Velan was once more on course and she had retired to her cabin, it

was not to sleep. Instead, she thought. Was this intellect of the same race as the one

whose burst of thought she had caught such a short time before, or not? She could not

decide—not enough data. The first thought had been unconscious and quite revealing;

this one simply a lethal weapon, driven with a power the memory of which made her

gasp again. They could, however, be the same: the mind with which she^had been en

rapport could very well be capable of generating the force she had felt. If they were the

same, they were something that should be studied, intensively and at once; and she

herself had kicked away her only chance to make that study. She had better tell

somebody about this, even if it meant confessing her own bird-brained part, and get

some competent advice. Who?

     Kit? No. Not because he would smack her down—she ought to be smacked

down!—but because his brain wasn't enough better than her own to do any good. In

fact, it wasn't a bit better than hers.

     Mentor? At the very thought she shuddered, mentally and physically. She would

call him in, fast enough, regardless of consequences to herself, if it would do any good,

but it wouldn't. She was starkly certain of that. He wouldn't smack her down, like Kit

would, but he wouldn't help her, either. He'd just sit there and sneer at her while she

stewed, hotter and hotter, in her own juice. . . .

     "In a childish, perverted, and grossly exaggerated way, daughter Constance, you

are right," the Arisian's thought rolled sonorously into her astounded mind. "You got

yourself into this: get yourself out. One promising fact, however, I perceive—although

seldom and late, you at last begin really to think."

     In that hour Constance Kinnison grew up.