"QX. Bergenholm isn't important--he was just an inventor. To get back onto the subject of Fossten: When he was there on the flagship with Dad, and in position to throw his full weight around, it was too late--you Arisians were on the job. You'll have to take it from there, though; I'm out beyond my depth." "Because you lack data. Know, then, daughter, that the planet Eddore is screened as heavily as is our own Arisia; by screens which can be extended at will to any desired point in space. In those last minutes the Eddorian knew that Kimball Kinnison was neither alone nor unprotected. He called instantaneously for help, but help did not come. It could not. Eddore's screens were being attacked at every point by every force generable by the massed intellect of Arisia; they were compressed almost to the planet's surface. If the Eddorians had weakened those screens sufficiently to have sent through them a helping thought, every one of them would in that instant have perished. Nor could Fossten escape from the form of flesh he was then energizing. I myself saw to that." Karen had never before felt the Arisian display emotion, but his thought was grim and cold. "From that form, which your father never did perceive, he passed into the next plane of existence." Karen shivered. "It served him right. That clears everything up, I think. But are you _sure_, Mentor, that you can't--or rather, shouldn't--teach me any more than you have? It's just about time for me to go, and I feel ... well, 'incompetent' is putting it very mildly indeed." [Illustration: MENTOR] "To a mind of such power and scope as yours, in its present state of development, such a feeling is inevitable. Nor can anyone except yourself do anything about it. Cold comfort, perhaps, but it is the stark truth that from now on your development is your own task. Yours alone. As I have already told Christopher and Kathryn, and will very shortly tell Camilla and Constance, you have had your last Arisian treatment. I will be on call to any of you at any instant of any day, to aid you or to guide you or to reinforce you at need; but of formal instruction there can be no more." Karen left Arisia and drove for Lyrane, her thoughts in a turmoil. The time was too short by far; she deliberately cut her vessel's speed and took a long detour so that the vast and chaotic library of her mind could be reduced to some semblance of order before she landed. She reached Lyrane II, and there, again to all outward seeming a happy, carefree girl, she hugged her mother rapturously. Nor was this part of it acting in any sense--as has been said, those four girls loved each other and their mother and their father and their brother with a depth and fervor impossible to portray intelligibly in words. "You're the most _wonderful_ thing, Mums!" Karen exclaimed. "It's simply marvelous, seeing you again in the flesh."