"Kim! KIM! Wherever you are, Kim, or whenever, listen! Listen and answer! Hear me--you _must_ hear me calling--I need you, Kim, from the bottom of my soul. Kim! My Kim! KIM!!" Through countless spaces and through untellable times that poignant thought sped; driven by a woman's fears, a woman's hopes, a woman's all-surpassing love; urged ever onward and ever outward by the irresistible force of a magnificent woman's frankly bared soul. Outward ... farther ... farther out ... farther-- * * * * * Clarrissa's body went limp upon her bed. Her heart slowed; her breathing almost stopped. Kit probed quickly, finding that those secret cells into which he had scarcely dared to glance were now empty and bare. Even the Red Lensman's tremendous reserves of vital force were exhausted. "Mother, come back!" "Come back to us!" "Please, _please_, Mums, come back!" "Know you, children, your mother so little?" They knew her. They knew starkly that she would not come back. Regardless of any danger to herself, regardless of life itself, she would not return until she had found her Kim. "But _do_ something, Mentor--DO SOMETHING!" "What? Nothing can be done. It was simply a question of which was the greater; the volume of the required hypersphere or her remarkable store of vitality." "Shut up!" Kit blazed. "We'll do _something_! Come on, kids, and we'll try." "The Unit!" Kathryn shrieked. "Link up, quick! Cam, make mother's pattern, all of it--hurry! Now, Unit, grab it--make her one of us, a six-ply Unit--_make_ her come in, and snap it up! There! Now, Kit, drive us. DRIVE US!" Kit drove. As the surging life-force of the Unit pushed a measure of vitality back into Clarrissa's inert body, she gained a little strength and did not grow weaker. The children, however, did; and Mentor, who had been entirely unmoved by the woman's imminent death, became highly concerned. "Children, return!" He first ordered, then entreated. "You are throwing away not only your lives, but also long lifetimes of intensive labor and study!" They paid no attention. He had known that they would not. No more than their mother would those children abandon such a mission unaccomplished. Seven Kinnisons would come back or none. The Arisian pondered--and brightened. Now that a theretofore impossible linkage had been made, the outlook changed. The odds shifted. The Unit's delicacy of web, its driving force, had not been enough; or, rather, it would have taken too long. Adding the Red Lensman's affinity for her husband, however--Yes, definitely, this Unit of his should now succeed.