"No. Me, too. So have I." Kit agreed with his father in full.
As soon as the last Boskonian fleet was beyond detector range Grand Fleet broke up, its component fleets setting out for their respective worlds.
"The Hell Hole is still there, Kit," the Gray Lensman said, soberly. "If Ploor was the top—I'm beginning to think there is no top—it leads either to an automatic mechanism set up by the Ploorans or to Ploorans who are still alive somewhere. If Ploor was not the top, this seems to be the only lead we have toward that top. In either case I've got to take it. Check?"
"Well, I—" Kit tried to duck, but couldn't. "Yes, Dad, I'm afraid it's check."
Two big hands met and gripped; and Kinnison went to take leave of his wife.
There is no need to go into detail as to what those two strong souls said or did. He knew that he was going into danger; that he might not return. That is, he knew empirically or academically, as a nongermane sort of fact, that he might die. He did not, however, really believe that he would. No man who is not an arrant coward really believes, ever, that any given event will or can kill him. In his own mind he goes on living indefinitely.
Kinnison expected to be captured, imprisoned, questioned, and perhaps tortured. He could understand all of those things, and he did not like any one of them. That he was more than a trifle afraid and that he hated to leave her now more than he ever had before were both natural enough—he had nothing whatever to hide from her.
She, on the other hand, knew starkly that he would never come back. She knew that he would die in that trap. She knew that she would have to live a lifetime of emptiness, alone. Hence she had much to conceal from him. She must be just as scared and as apprehensive as he was, but no more; just as anxious for their continued happiness as he was, but no more; just as intensely loving, but no more and in exactly the same sense. Here lay the test. She must kiss him good-by as though he were going into mere danger. She must not give way to the almost irresistible urge to act in accordance with what she so starkly, chillingly knew to be the truth, that she would never—never—NEVER kiss her Kim again!
She succeeded. It is a measure of the Red Lensman's quality that she did not weaken, even when her husband approached the boundary of the Hell Hole and sent what she knew would be his last message.
"Here it is—about a second now. Don't worry—I'll be back very shortly. Clear ether, Chris!"