"Don't get stiff, Kay, there's method in this. Got to be sure." All trace of levity gone, he probed her unmercifully. "Not too bad, at that, for a kid. As Dad would express it, if he could feel you this way, you're twenty-nine numbers Brinnell harder than a diamond drill. Plenty of jets for this job, and by the time the real one comes, you'll probably be ready." "Cut the rigmarole, Kit!" she snapped, and hurled a vicious bolt of her own. If Kit did not counter it as easily as he had handled her earlier efforts, he did not reveal the fact. "What job? What d'you think you're talking about? I'm on a job now that I wouldn't drop for Nadreck, and I don't think that I'll drop it for you." "You'll have to." Kit's thought was grim. "Mother is going to have to go to work on Lyrane II. The probability is pretty certain that there is or will be something there that she can't handle. Remote control is out, or I'd do it myself, but I can't work on Lyrane II in person. Here's the whole picture--look it over. You can see, Sis, that you're elected, so hop to it." "I won't!" she stormed. "I can't--I'm too busy. How about asking Con, or Kat, or Cam?" "They don't fit the picture," he explained patiently--for him. "In this case hardness is indicated, as you can see for yourself." "Hardness, phooey!" she jeered. "To handle Ladora of Lyrane? She thinks she's a hard-boiled egg, I know, but--" "Listen, you bird-brained knot-head!" Kit cut in, venomously. "You're fogging the issue deliberately--stop it! I spread you the whole picture--you know as well as I do that while there's nothing definite as yet, the thing needs covering and you're the one to cover it. But no--just because I'm the one to suggest or ask anything of you, you've always got to go into that mulish act of yours." "Be silent, children, and attend!" Both flushed violently as Mentor came between them. "Some of the weaker thinkers here are beginning to despair of you, but my visualization of your development is still clear. To mold such characters as yours sufficiently, and yet not too much, is a delicate task indeed; but one which must and shall be done. Christopher, come to me at once, in person. Karen, I would suggest that you go to Lyrane and do there whatever you find necessary to do." "I won't--I've _still_ got this job here to do!" Karen defied even the ancient Arisian sage. "That, Daughter, can and should wait. I tell you solemnly, as a fact, that if you do not go to Lyrane you will never get the faintest clue to that which you now seek." XII.