"We cannot." Four separate Arisians smiled as one--a wash of ineffable blessing and benediction suffused the Five. "We, who made the Unit possible, are almost completely ignorant of the details of its higher functions. But that it will need no help from our lesser minds is certain; it is the most powerful and the most nearly perfect creation this Universe has ever seen." * * * * * The Arisians vanished; and, even before Kimball Kinnison had released his screen, a cryptic, utterly untraceable and all-pervasive foreign thought came in. To aid the Black Lensman? To study this disturbing new element? Or merely to observe? Or what? The only certainty was that that thought was coldly, clearly, and highly inimical to all Civilization. Again everything happened at once. Karen's impenetrable block flared into being--not instantly, but instantaneously. Constance assembled and hurled, in the same lack of time, a mental bolt of whose size and power she had never dreamed herself capable. Camilla, the detector-scanner, synchronized herself with the attacking thought and steered. And Kathryn and Kit, with all the force, all the will, and all the drive of human heredity, got behind it and pushed. Nor was this, any of it, conscious individual effort. The children of the Lens were not now five, but one. This was the Unit at work; doing its first job. It is literally impossible to describe what happened; but each of the Five knew that one would-be Protector, wherever he had been in space or whenever in time, would never think again. Seconds passed. The Unit held tense, awaiting the riposte. No riposte came. "Fine work, kids!" Kit broke the linkage and each girl felt hard, brotherly pats on her back. "That's all there is to this one, I guess--must have been only one guard on duty. You're good eggs, and I like you. _How_ we can operate now!" "But it was too easy, Kit!" Kathryn protested. "Too easy by far for it to have been an Eddorian. We aren't that good. Why, I could have handled him alone ... I think," she added, hastily, as she realized that she, although an essential part of the Unit, had as yet no real understanding of what that Unit really was. "You _hope_, you mean!" Constance jeered. "If that bolt was as big and as hot as I'm afraid it was, anything it hit would have looked easy. Why didn't you slow us down, Kit? You're supposed to be the Big Brain, you know. As it was, we haven't the faintest idea of what happened. Who was he, anyway?" "Didn't have time," Kit grinned. "Everything got out of hand. All of us were sort of inebriated by the exuberance of our own enthusiasm, I guess. Now that we know what our speed is, though, we can slow down next time--if we want to. As for your last question, Con, you're asking the wrong guy. Was it an Eddorian, Cam, or not?" "What difference does it make?" Karen asked. "On the practical side, none. For the completion of the picture, maybe a lot. Come in, Cam."