"Not a thing in the universe. He might, at that," Kinnison confessed, bleakly.
"You've been afraid to ask him, haven't you?" Clarrissa pursued.
"But the job must be done!" Kinnison insisted, avoiding the question. "The prime minister—that Fossten—must have been the top; you know very well that there couldn't possibly be anything bigger than an Arisian to be back of Boskone. It's unthinkable! They've got no military organization left—not a beam hot enough to light a cigarette or a screen that would stop a firecracker. We have all their records—everything. Why, it's just a matter of routine now for the boys to uproot them completely; system by system, planet by planet."
"Uh-huh." Chris eyed him shrewdly, there in the dark. "Cogent. Really pellucid. As clear as so much crystal—and twice as fragile. If you're so sure, why not call Mentor and ask him, right now? You're not afraid of just the calling part, like I am; you're afraid of what he will say."
"I'm going to marry you before I do another lick of work of any kind, anywhere," he insisted doggedly.
"I just love to hear you say that, even if I do know that you're just blasting off!" She giggled sunnily and snuggled deeper into the curve of his arm. "I feel that way, too, but both of us know very well that if Mentor stops us ... even at the altar—" Her thought slowed, became intense, solemn. "We're Lensmen, Kim, you and I. We both realize to the full just what that means. We'll have to muster jets enough, some way or other, to swing the load. Let's call him now, Kim, together. I just simply can't stand this not knowing ... I can't, Kim ... I can't!" Tears come hard and seldom to such a woman as Clarrissa MacDougall; but they came then—and they hurt.
"QX, ace." Kinnison patted her back and her gorgeous head. "Let's go—but I tell you now that if he says 'no' I'll tell him to go hunt up an asteroid out on the Rim and take a swan dive off into intergalactic space."
She linked her mind with his, thinking in affectionate half reproach, "I'd like to, too, Kim, but that's pure baloney. You couldn't—" she broke off as he hurled their joint thought to Arisia the Old, going on frantically:
"You think at him, Kim, and I'll just listen. He scares me into a shrinking, quivering pulp!"