"That, too, while regrettable, is inevitable. Each of your sisters, as you may have suspected, is to play a tremendous part in that which is to come. The Lensmen, we of Arisia, all will contribute, but upon you Children of the Lens--especially upon the girls--will fall the greater share of the load. Your individual task will be that of co-ordinating the whole; a duty which no Arisian is or ever can be qualified to perform. You will have to direct the efforts of your sisters; reinforcing every heavily-attacked point with your own incomparable force and drive; keeping them smoothly in mesh and in place. As a side issue, you will also have to co-ordinate the feebler efforts of us of Arisia, the Lensmen, the Patrol, and whatever other minor forces we may be able to employ." "Holy ... Klono's ... claws!" Kit was gasping like a fish. "Just where, Mentor, do you figure I'm going to pick up the jets to swing _that_ load? And as to co-ordinating the kids--that's out. I'd make just one suggestion to any one of them and she'd forget all about the battle and tear into me ... no, I'll take that back. The stickier the going, the closer they rally 'round." "Right. It will always be so. Now, youth, that you have these facts, explain these matters to me, as a sort of preliminary exercise." "I think I see." Kit thought intensely. "The kids don't fight with each other because they don't overlap. They fight with me because my central field overlaps them all. They have no occasion to fight with anybody else, nor have I, because with anybody else our viewpoint is always right and the other fellow knows it--except for Palainians and such, who think along different lines than we do. Thus, Kay never fights with Nadreck. When he goes off the beam, she simply ignores him and goes on about her business. But with them and me--we'll have to learn to arbitrate, or something, I suppose--" his thought trailed off. "Manifestations of adolescence; with adulthood, now coming fast, they will pass. Let us get on with the work." "But wait a minute!" Kit protested. "About this co-ordinator thing. I can't do it. I'm too much of a kid. I won't be ready for a job like that for a thousand years!" "You must be ready," Mentor's thought was inexorable. "And, when the time comes, you shall be. Now, come fully into my mind." * * * * * There is no use in repeating in detail the progress of an Arisian supereducation, especially since the most accurate possible description of the most important of those details would be intrinsically meaningless. When, after a few weeks of it, Kit was ready to leave Arisia, he looked much older and more mature than before; he felt immensely older than he looked. The concluding conversation of that visit, however, is worth recording.