"Deal with? We said kill!" "I heard you. I still say that mere death may not be adequate. I shall consider the matter at length, and shall submit in due course my conclusions and recommendations, for your consideration and approval." * * * * * Although none of the Eddorians knew it, their pessimism in regard to the ability of the Ploorans to defend their planet against the assaults of Second-Stage Lensmen was even then being justified. Kimball Kinnison, after pacing the floor for hours, called his son. "Kit, I've been working on a thing for months, and I don't know whether I've got a workable solution at last, or not. It may depend entirely on you. Before I go into it, though, I take it that you check me in saying that when we find Boskonia's top planet we're going to have to blow it out of the ether, and that nothing that we have ever used before will work?" "Check, on both." Kit thought soberly for minutes. "More, it will have to be practically instantaneous, as well as complete. Like the negabombs or the sunbeam, but a lot faster." "My thought exactly. I've got something, I think, but nobody except old Cardynge and Mentor of Arisia--" "Hold it, Dad, while I do a bit of spying and put out some coverage. QX, go ahead." "Nobody except those two knew anything about the mathematics involved. Even Sir Austin knew only enough to be able to understand Mentor's directions--he didn't do any of the deep stuff himself. Nobody in the present Conference of Science could even begin to handle it. It's that foreign space, you know, that we called the nth space, where that hyperspatial tube dumped us that time. You've been doing a lot of work with some of the Arisians on that sort of stuff. Could you get them to help you compute a tube between Lyrane and there, so that Thorndyke and some of his boys and I could go there and get back?" "Hm-m-m. Let me think a second. Yes, I can. When do you need it?" "Today--or even yesterday." "Too fast. It'll take a couple of days, but it'll be ready for you long before you can get your ship ready and get your gang and the stuff for your gadget aboard her." "That won't take so long, son. Same ship we rode before. She's still in commission, you know--_Space Laboratory XII_, her name is now. Special generators, tools, instruments, everything. We'll be ready in two days." They were, and Kit smiled as he greeted Vice Admiral LaVerne Thorndyke, Principal Technician, and the other surviving members of his father's original crew. "_What_ a tonnage of brass!" Kit said to Kim, later. "Heaviest load I ever saw on one ship. One sure thing, though, they earned it. You must have been able to pick _men_, too, in those days."