"Positive," the girl replied. "I couldn't even feel it myself until after a million-fold amplification. It was just a web, you know, not nearly solid enough for an analyzer or a recorder. I didn't touch his mind at all. However, when we get close enough to work efficiently, which will be in about five days, we will have to touch him. Assuming that he is as sensitive as we are, he will feel us; hence we will have to work fast and according to some definite plan. What are your ideas as to technique?" "I may offer a suggestion or two, later, but I resign leadership to you. You already have made plans, have you not?" "Only a framework, I could not go into detail without consulting you. Since we agree that it was my mind that he did not like, you will have to make the first contact." "Of course. But since the action of thought is so nearly instantaneous, are you sure that you will be able to protect yourself in case he overcomes me at that first contact?" If the Rigellian gave any thought at all to his own fate in such a case, no trace of it was evident. "My screens are good. I am fairly certain that I could protect both of us, but it might slow me down a trifle; and even an instant's delay might keep me from getting the information we want. It would be better, I think, to call Kit in. Or, better yet, Kay. She can stop a superatomic bomb. With Kay covering us both, we will be free to put our full power into the offense." "And that offense is to be--?" "I have no idea. We will work that out together." Again they went into a union of minds; considering, weighing, analyzing, rejecting, and--a few times--accepting. And finally, well within the five-day time limit, they had drawn up a completely detailed plan of battle. How uselessly that time was spent! For that battle, instead of progressing according to their carefully worked-out plan, was ended almost in the instant of its beginning. * * * * * According to plan, Tregonsee tuned his mind to "X's" pattern as soon as they had come within working range. He reached out as delicately as he could; and his best was very fine work indeed. He might just as well have struck with all his power, for at the first touch of the fringe, extremely light and entirely innocuous though it was, the stranger's barriers flared into being and there came back instantly a mental bolt of such vicious intensity that it would have gone through Tregonsee's hardest-held block as though no barrier had been there. But that bolt did not strike Tregonsee's shield; he did not even know, until much later, that it had been sent. Instead, it struck Karen Kinnison's, which has already been described.