"QX—I'll try. It's about Fossten and Dad." Karen cogitated. "Fossten was, of course, an Eddorian—your making Dad believe him to be an insane Arisian was a masterpiece. I see, of course, how you did that—principally by making Fossten's 'real' shape exactly like the one he saw of you in Arisia. But his physical actions as Fossten—"
"Go on, daughter. I am sure that your visualization will be sound."
"While acting as Fossten he had to act as a Thralian would have acted," Kay decided with a rush. "He was watched everywhere he went, and knew it. To display his real power would have been disastrous. Just like you Arisians, they have to keep in the background to avoid setting up an inferiority complex that will ruin everything for them. Fossten's actions, then, were constrained. Just as they were when he was Gray Roger, so long ago—except that then he did make a point of unhuman longevity, deliberately to put an insoluble problem up to First-Lensman Samms and his men. Just as you—you must have ... you did coach Virgil Samms, Mentor, and some of you Arisians were there, as men!"
"We were. We wrought briefly as men, and died as men. Up to the present moment, no one has ever been the wiser."
"But you weren't Virgil Samms, please!" Kay almost begged. "Not that it would break me if you were, but even I would much rather you hadn't been."
"No, none of us was Samms," Mentor assured her. "Nor Cleveland, nor Rodebush, nor Costigan, nor even Clio Marsden. We worked with—'coached,' as you express it—those persons and others from time to time in certain small matters, but we were at no time integral with any of them. One of us was, however, Dr. Bergenholm. The full inertialess space-drive became necessary at that time, and it would have been poor technique to have had either Rodebush or Cleveland develop so suddenly the ability to perfect the device as Bergenholm did perfect it."
"QX. Bergenholm isn't important—he was just an inventor. To get back onto the subject of Fossten: When he was there on the flagship with Dad, and in position to throw his full weight around, it was too late—you Arisians were on the job. You'll have to take it from there, though; I'm out beyond my depth."
"Because you lack data. Know, then, daughter, that the planet Eddore is screened as heavily as is our own Arisia; by screens which can be extended at will to any desired point in space. In those last minutes the Eddorian knew that Kimball Kinnison was neither alone nor unprotected. He called instantaneously for help, but help did not come. It could not. Eddore's screens were being attacked at every point by every force generable by the massed intellect of Arisia; they were compressed almost to the planet's surface. If the Eddorians had weakened those screens sufficiently to have sent through them a helping thought, every one of them would in that instant have perished. Nor could Fossten escape from the form of flesh he was then energizing. I myself saw to that." Karen had never before felt the Arisian display emotion, but his thought was grim and cold. "From that form, which your father never did perceive, he passed into the next plane of existence."
Karen shivered. "It served him right. That clears everything up, I think. But are you sure, Mentor, that you can't—or rather, shouldn't—teach me any more than you have? It's just about time for me to go, and I feel ... well, 'incompetent' is putting it very mildly indeed."