“But that will take much time, sir,” Kit thought, “and if you leave us now we won’t have it.”
“You will have time enough and to spare.”
“Oh—then we won’t have to do it right away?” Constance broke in. “Good!”
“We’re all glad of that,” Camilla added. “We’re too full of our own lives, too eager for experiences, to enjoy the prospect of living such lives as you Arisians have lived. I am right in assuming, am I not, that our own development will in time force us into the same or a similar existence?”
“Your muddy thinking has again distorted the truth,” Mentor reproved her. “There will be no force involved. You will gain everything, lose nothing. You have no conception of the depth and breadth of the vistas now just beginning to open to you. Your lives will be immeasurably fuller, higher, greater than any heretofore known to this universe. As your capabilities increase, you will find that you will no longer care for the society of entities less able than your own kind.”
“But I don’t want to live forever!” Constance wailed.
“More muddy thinking.” Mentor’s thought was—for him—somewhat testy. “Perhaps, in the present instance, barely excusable. You know that you are not immortal. You should know that an infinity of time is necessary for the acquirement of infinite knowledge; and that your span of life will be just as short, in comparison with your capacity to live and to learn, as that of Homo Sapiens When the time comes you will want to—you will need to—change your manner of living.”
“Tell us when?” Kat suggested. “It would be nice to know, so we could get ready.”
“I could tell you, since in that my visualization is clear, but I will not. Fifty years—a hundred—a thousand—what matters it? Live your lives to the fullest, year by year, developing your every obvious, latent, and nascent capability; calmly assured that long before any need for your services shall arise, you shall have established yourselves upon some planet of your choice and shall be in every respect ready for whatever may come to pass.”
“You are—you must be—right,” Kit conceded. “In view of what has just happened, however, and the chaotic condition of both galaxies, it seems a poor time to vacate all Guardianship.”
“All inimical activity is now completely disorganized. Kinnison and the Patrol can handle it easily enough. The real conflict is finished. Think nothing of a few years of vacancy. The Lensmakers, as you know, are fully automatic, requiring neither maintenance nor attention; what little time you may wish to devote to the special training of selected Lensmen can be taken at odd moments from your serious work of developing yourselves for Guardianship.”
“We still feel incompetent,” the Five insisted. “Are you sure that you have given us all the instruction we need?”
“I am sure. I perceive doubt in your minds as to my own competence, based upon the fact that in this supreme emergency my visualization was faulty and my actions almost too late. Observe, however, that my visualization was clear upon every essential factor and that we were not actually too late. The truth is that our timing was precisely right—no lesser stress could possibly have prepared you as you are now prepared.”
“I am about to go. The time may come when your descendants will realize, as we did, their inadequacy for continued Guardianship. Their visualizations, as did ours, may become imperfect and incomplete. If so, they will then know that the time will have come for them to develop, from the highest race then existing, new and more competent Guardians. Then they, as my fellows have done and as I am about to do, will of their own accord pass on. But that is for the remote future. As to you children, doubtful now and hesitant as is only natural, you may believe implicitly what I now tell you is the truth, that even though we Arisians are no longer here, all shall be well; with us, with you, and with all Civilization.”
The deeply resonant pseudo-voice ceased; the Kinnisons knew that Mentor, the last of the Arisians, was gone.
EPILOGUE
TO YOU WHO HAVE SCANNED THIS REPORT, FURTHER GREETINGS:
Since I who compiled it am only a youth, a Guardian only by title, and hence unable to visualize even approximately either the time of nor the necessity for the opening of this flask of force, I have no idea as to the bodily shape or the mental attainments of you, the entity to whom it has now been made available.
You already know that Civilization is again threatened seriously. You probably know something of the basic nature of that threat. While studying this tape you have become informed that the situation is sufficiently grave to have made it again necessary to force certain selected minds prematurely into the third level of Lensmanship.
You have already learned that in ancient time Civilization after Civilization fell before it could rise much above the level of barbarism. You know that we and the previous race of Guardians saw to it that this, OUR Civilization, has not yet fallen. Know, now that the task of your race, so soon to replace us, will be to see to it that it does not fall.
One of us will become en rapport with you as soon as you have assimilated the facts, the connotations, and the implications of this material. Prepare your mind for contact.
Christopher K. Kinnison.
THE END.
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