"QX, ace," he said again. Then: "Is it permissible that we do what we are about to do?" he asked crisply of Arisia's ancient sage.
"Ah, 'tis Kinnison and MacDougall; once of Tellus, henceforth of Klovia," the calmly unsurprised thought rolled in. "I was expecting you at this time. Any mind, however far from competent, could have visualized this event in its entirety. That which you contemplate is not merely permissible; it has now become necessary." And as usual, without tapering off or leave-taking, Mentor broke the line of thought.
The two clung together rapturously then for minutes, but something was obtruding itself disquietingly upon the nurse's mind.
"But his thought was 'necessary,' Kim?" she asked, rather than said. "Isn't there sort of a sinister connotation in that, somewhere? What did he mean?"
"Nothing—exactly nothing," Kinnison assured her, comfortably. "He's got a complete picture of the macrocosmic universe in his mind—his 'visualization of the Cosmic All,' he calls it—and in it we get married now, just as I've been telling you we are going to. Since it gripes him no end to have even the tiniest thing not to conform to his visualization, our marriage is NECESSARY, in capital letters. See?"
"Uh-huh.... Oh, I'm glad!" she exclaimed. "That shows you how scared of him I am." And thoughts and actions became such that, although they were no doubt of much personal pleasure and satisfaction, they do not require detailed treatment here.
Clarrissa MacDougall resigned the next day, without formality or fanfare. That is, she thought that she did so then, and rather wondered at the frictionless ease with which it went through; it had simply not occurred to her that in the instant of being made an Unattached Lensman she had been freed automatically from every man-made restraint. That was one of the few lessons hard for her to learn; it was the only one which she refused consistently even to try to learn.
Nothing was said or done about the ten thousand credits which had been promised her upon the occasion of her fifteen-minutes-long separation from the Patrol following the fall of Jarnevon. She thought about it briefly, but with no real sense of loss. Some way or other, money did not seem important. Anyway, she had some—enough for a fairly nice, if limited, trousseau—in the bank upon Tellus. She could undoubtedly get it through the Disbursing Office here.
She took off her Lens and stuffed it into a pocket. That wasn't so good, she reflected. It bulged, and besides, it might fall out; and anyone who touched it would die. She didn't have a bag; in fact, she had with her no civilian clothes at all. Wherefore she put it back upon her wrist, pausing as she did so to admire the Manarkan star drop flashing pale fire from the third finger of her left hand. Of all his gems, Cartiff had retained only this one, the loveliest. It was a beauty.