She came within range—her range—of the guns. She was in time. Several gunners were running toward their stations. None of them arrived. The speedster leveled off and stuck its hard nose into and almost through the indicated room; reinforced concrete, steel bars, and glass showering abroad as it did so. The port snapped open. As Helen leaped in, Clarrissa practically threw Ladora out.
"Bring Ladora back!" Helen demanded. "I shall have its life!"
"Nix!" Clarrissa snapped. "I know everything that she does. We've other fish to fry, my dear."
The massive door clanged shut. The speedster darted forward, straight through the solid concrete wall. That small vessel, solidly built of beryllium alloys, had been designed to take brutal punishment. She took it.
Out in open space, Clarrissa went free, leaving the artificial gravity at normal. Helen stood up, took Clarrissa's hand, and shook it gravely and strongly; a gesture at which the Red Lensman almost choked.
Helen of Lyrane had changed even less than had the Earthwoman. She was still six feet tall; erect, taut, springy, and poised. She didn't weigh a pound more than the one-eighty she had scaled twenty-odd years ago. Her vivid auburn hair showed not one strand of gray. Her eyes were as clear and as proud; her skin almost as fine and firm.
"You are, then, alone?" In spite of her control, Helen's thought showed relief.
"Yes. My hus ... Kimball Kinnison is very busy elsewhere." Clarrissa understood perfectly. Helen, after twenty years of thinking things over, really liked her; but she still simply couldn't stand a male, not even Kim; any more than Clarrissa could ever adapt herself to the Lyranian habit of using the neuter pronoun "it" when referring to one of themselves. She couldn't. Anybody who ever got a glimpse of Helen would have to think of her as "she"! But enough of this wool-gathering—which had taken perhaps one millisecond of time.
"There's nothing to keep us from working together perfectly," Clarrissa's thought flashed on. "Ladora didn't know much, and you do. So tell me all about things, so that we can decide where to begin!"