I was born upon Klovia, as were, three or four Galactic-Standard years later, my four sisters--two pairs of twins. I had little babyhood, no childhood. Fathered and mothered by Second-Stage Lensmen, accustomed from infancy to wide-open two-ways with such beings as Worsel of Velantia, Tregonsee of Rigel IV, and Nadreck of Palain VII, it would seem obvious that we did not go to school. We were not like other children of our age; but before I realized that it was anything unusual for a baby who could scarcely walk to be computing highly perturbed asteroidal orbits as "mental arithmetic," I knew that we would have to keep our abnormalities to ourselves, insofar as the bulk of mankind and of Civilization was concerned. I traveled much; sometimes with my father or mother or both, sometimes alone. At least once each year I went to Arisia for treatment. I took the last two years of Lensmanship, for physical reasons only, at Wentworth Hall upon Tellus instead of upon my native Klovia--because upon Tellus the name Kinnison is not at all uncommon, while upon Klovia the fact that "Kit" Kinnison was the son of the Co-ordinator could not have been concealed. I graduated, and with my formal enlensment this record properly begins. Much has been told elsewhere, notably in Smith's "History of Civilization"; but all such works are, and of necessity must be, pitifully incomplete. I have recorded this material as impersonally as possible, realizing fully that my sisters and I did only the work for which we were specifically developed and trained; even as you who read this will do that for which you shall have been developed and are to be trained. Respectfully submitted, Christopher Kinnison, L3, Klovia. I. Galactic Co-ordinator Kimball Kinnison finished his second cup of Tellurian coffee, got up from the breakfast table, and prowled about in black abstraction. Twenty-odd years had changed him but little. He weighed the same, or a few pounds less; although a little of his mass had shifted downward from his mighty chest and shoulders. His hair was still brown, his stern face was only faintly lined. He was mature, with a conscious maturity which no young man can know. "Since when, Kim, did you think that you could get away with blocking _me_ out of your mind?" Clarrissa Kinnison directed the thought, quietly. The years had dealt as lightly with the Red Lensman as with the Gray. She had been gorgeous, she was now magnificent. "This room is shielded, you know, against even the girls." "Sorry, Chris--I didn't mean it that way." "I know," she laughed. "Automatic. But you've had that block up for two solid weeks, except when you force yourself to keep it down, and that means that you're 'way, _'way_ off the beam." "I've been thinking, incredible as it may seem." "I know it. Let's have it--cold."