"I'm scared, Worsel," Kinnison declared. "Scared purple, and the closer we come the more scared I get."
And he was scared. He was afraid as he had never before been, in all his short life. He had been in dangerous situations before, certainly; not only that, he had been wounded almost unto death. In those instances, however, peril had come upon him suddenly. He had reacted to it automatically, having had little if any time to think about it beforehand.
Never before had he gone into a place in which he knew in advance that the advantage was all upon the other side; from which his chance of getting out alive was so terrifyingly small. It was worse, much worse, than going into that vortex. There, while the road was strange, the enemy was known to be one whom he had conquered before; and furthermore, he had had the Dauntless, its eager young crew, and the scientific self-abnegation of old Cardynge to back him. Here he had the speedster and Worsel—and Worsel was just as scared as he was.
The pit of his stomach felt cold, his bones seemed bits of rubber tubing. Nevertheless, the two Lensmen were going in. That was their job. They had to go in, even though they knew that the foe was at least their equal mentally, was overwhelmingly their superior physically, and was upon his own ground.
"So am I," Worsel admitted. "I'm scared to the tip of my tail. I have one advantage over you, however—I've been that way before." He was referring to the time when he had gone to Delgon, abysmally certain that he would not return. Nor would he have returned save for Kinnison and Van Buskirk. "What is fated, happens. Shall we prepare?"
They had spent many hours in discussion of what could be done, and in the end had decided that the only possible preparation was to make sure that if Kinnison failed, his failure would not bring disaster to the Patrol.
"Might as well. Come in; my mind's wide open."
The Velantian insinuated his mind into Kinnison's and the Earthman slumped down, unconscious. Then for many minutes Worsel wrought within the plastic brain. Finally:
"Thirty seconds after you leave me these inhibitions will become operative. When I release them your memory and your knowledge will be exactly as they were before I began to operate," he thought, slowly, intensely, clearly. "Until that time you know nothing whatever of any of these matters. No mental search, however profound; no truth drug, however potent; no probing, even of the subconscious, will or can discover them. They do not exist. They never have existed. They shall not exist until I so allow. These other matters have been, are, and shall be the facts until that instant. Kimball Kinnison, awaken!"
The Tellurian came to, not knowing that he had been out. Nothing had occurred; for him no time whatever had elapsed. He could not perceive even that his mind had been touched.