They had tried to talk him out of coming in alone. They had fought like wildcats to make him take them along. He had refused. Now, if he sneaked back with his tail between his legs, how would they take it? What would they do? What would they _think_? Then, later, after he had loused up the big job and let the Arisians and the Patrol and all Civilization get knocked out--then what? The kids would know exactly how and why it had happened. He couldn't defend himself, even if he tried, and he wouldn't try. Did he have any idea how much sheer, vitriolic, corrosive contempt those four red-headed hellions could generate? Or, even if they didn't--or as a follow-up--their condescending, sisterly pity would be a thousand million times worse. And what would he think of himself? No soap. It was out. Definitely. The Eddorians could kill him only once. QX. * * * * * He drove straight downward, noting as he did so that his senses were clear, his hands steady, his tongue normally moist. He was still scared, but he was no longer paralyzed. Low enough, he let his every perceptive sense roam abroad--and became instantly too busy to worry about anything. There was an immense amount of new stuff here--if he only could be granted time enough to get it all! He wasn't. In a second or so, it seemed, his interference was detected and an Eddorian came in to investigate. Kit threw everything he had, and in the brief moment before the completely surprised denizen died, the young Klovian learned more of the real truth of Eddore and of the whole Boskonian Empire than all the Arisians had ever found out. In that one flash of ultimately intimate fusion, he _knew_ Eddorian history, practically _in toto_. He knew the enemies' culture; he knew how they behaved, and why. He knew their ideals and their ideologies. He knew a great deal about their organization; their systems of offense and of defense. He knew their strengths and, more important, their weaknesses. He knew exactly how, if Civilization were to triumph at all, its victory must be achieved. This seems--or rather, it is--incredible. It is, however, simple truth. Under such stresses as those, an Eddorian mind can yield, and the mind of such a one as Christopher Kinnison can absorb, an incredible amount of knowledge in an incredibly brief interval of time. Kit, already seated at his controls, cut in his every course of thought-screen. They would help a little in what was coming, but not much--no mechanical screen then known to Civilization could block third-level thought. He kicked in full drive toward the one small area in which he and his speedster would not encounter either beams or bombs--the fortress whose observers would not perceive that anything was amiss. He did not fear physical pursuit, since his speedster was the fastest thing in space.