"Please, please, Mums, come back!"
"Know you, children, your mother so little?"
They knew her. They knew starkly that she would not come back. Regardless of any danger to herself, regardless of life itself, she would not return until she had found her Kim.
"But do something, Mentor—DO SOMETHING!"
"What? Nothing can be done. It was simply a question of which was the greater; the volume of the required hypersphere or her remarkable store of vitality."
"Shut up!" Kit blazed. "We'll do something! Come on, kids, and we'll try."
"The Unit!" Kathryn shrieked. "Link up, quick! Cam, make mother's pattern, all of it—hurry! Now, Unit, grab it—make her one of us, a six-ply Unit—make her come in, and snap it up! There! Now, Kit, drive us. DRIVE US!"
Kit drove. As the surging life-force of the Unit pushed a measure of vitality back into Clarrissa's inert body, she gained a little strength and did not grow weaker. The children, however, did; and Mentor, who had been entirely unmoved by the woman's imminent death, became highly concerned.
"Children, return!" He first ordered, then entreated. "You are throwing away not only your lives, but also long lifetimes of intensive labor and study!"
They paid no attention. He had known that they would not. No more than their mother would those children abandon such a mission unaccomplished. Seven Kinnisons would come back or none.