MENTOR illus15
"To a mind of such power and scope as yours, in its present state of development, such a feeling is inevitable. Nor can anyone except yourself do anything about it. Cold comfort, perhaps, but it is the stark truth that from now on your development is your own task. Yours alone. As I have already told Christopher and Kathryn, and will very shortly tell Camilla and Constance, you have had your last Arisian treatment. I will be on call to any of you at any instant of any day, to aid you or to guide you or to reinforce you at need; but of formal instruction there can be no more."
Karen left Arisia and drove for Lyrane, her thoughts in a turmoil. The time was too short by far; she deliberately cut her vessel's speed and took a long detour so that the vast and chaotic library of her mind could be reduced to some semblance of order before she landed.
She reached Lyrane II, and there, again to all outward seeming a happy, carefree girl, she hugged her mother rapturously. Nor was this part of it acting in any sense—as has been said, those four girls loved each other and their mother and their father and their brother with a depth and fervor impossible to portray intelligibly in words.
"You're the most wonderful thing, Mums!" Karen exclaimed. "It's simply marvelous, seeing you again in the flesh."