"Except the kids," he concurred. It could do no harm to agree with his mother's statement of a self-evident fact.
He crossed the room and adjusted a couple of dials. His vessel's screens would not now react to the thoughts of Mentor of Arisia, but would still announce the presence of any possible other. "You can take it from me, as one who knows, that the other Lensmen know that you've got plenty of jets. They all know also that the Arisians never did and never will make a Lens for anybody who hasn't got what it takes. And so, very neatly, we have stripped ship for the action I came over here to see you about. It isn't a case of you not measuring up, because you do, in every respect. It's simply that you're short a few jets that you ought by rights to have. You really are a Second-Stage Lensman—you know that, Mums—but you never went to Arisia for your real L2 work. I hate to see you blast off without full equipment into what may prove to be a big-time job; especially when you're so eminently able to take it. Mentor could give you the works in a couple of hours. Why don't you flit for Arisia right now, or let me take you there?"
"No—NO!" Clarrissa backed away, shaking her head emphatically. "Never! I couldn't, Kit, ever—not possibly!"
"Why not?" Kit was amazed. "Why, Mother, you're actually shaking!"
"I know I am—I can't help it. That's why. He's the only thing in the entire Universe that I'm really afraid of. I can talk about him without quite getting goosebumps all over me, but the mere thought of actually being with him simply scares me into shivering, quivering fits."
"I see ... it might very well work that way, at that. Does Dad know it?"
"Yes ... or, that is, he knows that I'm afraid of Mentor, but he doesn't know it the way you do ... it simply doesn't register in true color. Kim can't even conceive of me being either a coward or a cry-baby. And I don't want him to, either, Kit, so please don't tell him, ever."
"I won't—he'd fry me to a cinder in my own grease if I did. Frankly, I can't see any part of your self-portrait, either. As a matter of cold fact, you are so obviously neither a coward nor a cry-baby that no refutation of that canard is either necessary or desirable. What you've really got, Mums, is a fixation, and if it can't be removed—"
"It can't," she declared flatly. "I've tried that, now and then, ever since before you were born. Whatever it is, it's a permanent installation and it's really deep. I have known all along that Kim didn't give me the whole business—he couldn't—and I've tried again and again to make myself go to Arisia, or at least to call Mentor about it, but I can't do it, Kit—I simply can't!"