And if Lensman's Load was heavy on him, on her it was almost unbearable. His part was vastly the easier. He would only have to die; she would have to live. She would have to keep on living--without Kim--living a lifetime of deaths, one after another. And she would have to hold her block and smile, not only with her face, but with her whole mind. She could be scared, of course, apprehensive, as he himself was; she could wish with all her strength for his safe return: but if he suspected the thousandth part of what she really felt it would break his heart. Nor would it do a bit of good. However brokenhearted at her rebellion against the inflexible Code of the Lens, he would still go in. Being Kimball Kinnison, he could not do anything else. As soon as she could, Clarrissa went to a distant room and turned on a full-coverage block. She lay down, buried her face in the pillow, clenched her fists, and fought. Was there any way--any _possible_ way--that she could die instead? None. It was not that simple. She would have to let him go. Not gladly, but proudly and willingly--for the good of the Patrol. Clarrissa Kinnison gritted her teeth and writhed. She would simply _have_ to let him go into that ghastly trap--go to his absolutely sure and certain death--without showing one white feather, either to her husband or to her children. Her husband, her KIM, would have to die ... and she--would--_have_--to--live. She got up, smiled experimentally, and snapped off the block. Then, actually smiling and serenely confident, she strolled down the corridor. Such is Lensman's Load. XXVI. Twenty-odd years before, when the then _Dauntless_ and her crew were thrown out of a hyperspatial tube and into that highly enigmatic nth space, LaVerne Thorndyke had been a Chief Technician. Mentor of Arisia found them, and put into the mind of Sir Austin Cardynge, mathematician extraordinary, the knowledge of how to find the way back to normal space. Thorndyke, working under nervebreaking difficulties, had been in charge of building the machines which were to enable the vessel to return to her home space. He built them. She returned. He was now again in charge, and every man of his present crew had been a member of his former one. He did not command the spaceship or her regular crew, of course, but they did not count. Not one of these kids would be allowed to set foot on the fantastically dangerous planet to which the inertialess _Space Laboratory XII_ was anchored with tractors and pressors. Older, leaner, grayer, he was now, even more than then, Civilization's Past Master of Mechanism. If anything could be built, "Thorny" Thorndyke could build it. If it couldn't be built, he could build something that would do the work.