"Huh? What omission? I covered it like a blanket!"
"You assumed throughout, and still assume, as you always do in dealing with your sisters, that you are unassailably right; that your conclusion is the only tenable one; that they are always wrong."
"But they are! That's why you sent Kay to Lyrane!"
"In these conflicts with your sisters, you have been right in approximately half of the cases," Mentor informed him.
"But how about their fights with each other?"
"Do you know of any such?"
"Why ... uh ... can't say that I do." Kit's surprise was plain. "But since they fight with me so much, they must—"
"That does not follow, and for a very good reason. We may as well discuss that reason now, as it is a necessary part of the education which you are about to receive. You already know that your sisters are very different, each from the other. Know now, that each was specifically developed to be so completely different that there is no possible point which could be made an issue between any two of them."
It took some time for Kit to digest that news. "Then where do I come in that they all fight with me at the drop of a hat?"
"That, too, while regrettable, is inevitable. Each of your sisters, as you may have suspected, is to play a tremendous part in that which is to come. The Lensmen, we of Arisia, all will contribute, but upon you Children of the Lens—especially upon the girls—will fall the greater share of the load. Your individual task will be that of co-ordinating the whole; a duty which no Arisian is or ever can be qualified to perform. You will have to direct the efforts of your sisters; reinforcing every heavily-attacked point with your own incomparable force and drive; keeping them smoothly in mesh and in place. As a side issue, you will also have to co-ordinate the feebler efforts of us of Arisia, the Lensmen, the Patrol, and whatever other minor forces we may be able to employ."