Kinnison and Worsel, therefore, set out to investigate Jarnevon. Kinnison was captured and tortured—there was at least one Delgonian upon Jarnevon—but Worsel rescued him before his mind was damaged and brought him back to the Patrol's Grand Fleet with his knowledge intact. Jarnevon was populated by the Eich, a race of monsters as bad as the Overlords of Delgon; the Council of Nine which ruled the noisome planet was, in fact, the long-sought, the utterly detested Boskone!
The greatest surgeons of the age—Phillips of Posenia and Wise of the newly acquired planet Medon—demonstrated that they could grow new nervous tissue; even new limbs and organs if necessary.
Again Clarrissa MacDougall nursed Kinnison back to health, and this time the love between them would not be denied.
The Grand Fleet of the Patrol was assembled, and with Kinnison in charge of Operations, swept outward from the First Galaxy. Jalte's planet was destroyed by means of the negasphere—the negative-matter bomb. Then on to the Second Galaxy.
There the Patrol forces destroyed Jarnevon, the planet of the Eich, by smashing it between two barren planets which had been driven there in the "free"—inertialess—condition. These planets, having opposite intrinsic velocities, were placed one upon each side of Jarnevon. Then their Bergenholms were cut, restoring inertia and intrinsic velocity; and when that frightful collision was over a minor star had come into being.
Grand Fleet returned to our Galaxy. Galactic Civilization rejoiced. Earth in particular made merry, and Prime Base was the center of celebration. And in Prime Base Kinnison, supposing that the war was over and that his problem was solved, threw off his Gray Lensman's burden and forgot all about the Boskonian menace. Marrying his Chris, he declared, was the most important thing in the Universe.
But how wrong he was! For, even as Lensman and Sector Chief Nurse were walking down a hallway of Base Hospital after a conference with Lacy and Haynes regarding that marriage—
I.
"Stop, youth!" The voice of that nameless, incredibly ancient Arisian who was Kinnison's instructor and whom he had thought of and spoken of simply as "Mentor" thundered silently, deep within the Lensman's brain.