In order to understand these and subsequent events it is necessary to cut back

briefly some twenty-odd years, to the momentous interview upon chill, dark Onlo

between monstrous Kandron and his superior in affairs Boskonian, the unspeakable

Alcon, the Tyrant of Thrale. At almost the end of that interview, when Kandron had

suggested the possibility that his own base had perhaps been vulnerable to Star A

Star's insidious manipulations:

     "Do you mean to admit that you may have been invaded and

searched—tracelessly?" Alcon fairly shrieked the thought.

     "Certainly," Kandron replied, coldly. "While I do not believe that it has been done,

the possibility must be conceded. What science can devise science can circumvent. It is

not Onlo and I who are their prime objectives, you must realize, but Thrale and you.

Especially you."

     "You may be right. With no data whatever upon who or what Star A Star really is,

with no tenable theory as to how he could have done what actually has been done,

speculation is idle." Thus Alcon ended the conversation and, almost immediately, went

back to Thrale.

     After the Tyrant's departure Kandron continued to think, and the more he thought

the more uneasy he became. It was undoubtedly true that Alcon and Thrale were the

Patrol's prime objectives. But, those objectives attained, was it reasonable to suppose

that he and Onlo would be spared? It was not. Should he warn Alcon further? He should

not. If the Tyrant, after all that had been said, could not see the danger he was in, he

wasn't worth saving. If he preferred to stay and fight it out, that was his lookout.

Kandron would take no chances with his own extremely valuable life.

     Should he warn his own men? How could he? They were able and hardened

fighters all; no possible warning could make them defend their fortresses and their lives

any more efficiently than they were already prepared to do; nothing he could say would

be of any use in preparing them for a threat whose basic nature, even, was completely

unknown. Furthermore, this hypothetical invasion probably had not happened and very

well might not happen at all, and to flee from an imaginary foe would not redound to his

credit. . No. As a personage of large affairs, not limited to Onlo, he would be called

elsewhere. He would stay elsewhere until after whatever was going to happen had

happened. If nothing happened during the ensuing few weeks he would return from his

official trip and all would be well.

     He inspected Onlo thoroughly, he cautioned his officers repeatedly and

insistently to keep alert against every conceivable emergency while he was so

unavoidably absent. Then he departed, with a fleet of vessels manned by hand-picked

crews, to a long-prepared and hitherto secret retreat.

     From that safe place he watched, through the eyes and the instruments of his

skilled observers, everything that occurred. Thrale fell, and Onlo. The Patrol triumphed.

Then, knowing the full measure of the disaster and accepting it with the grim passivity

so characteristic of his breed, Kandron broadcast certain signals and one of his—and

Alcon's—superiors got in touch with him. He reported concisely. They conferred. He

was given orders which were to keep him busy for over twenty Tellurian years.

     He knew now that Onlo had been invaded, tracelessly, by some feat of mentality

beyond comprehension and almost beyond belief. Onlo had fallen without any of its

defenders having energized a single one of their gigantic engines of war. The fall of

Thrale, and the manner of that fall's accomplishment, were plain enough. Human stuff.

The work, undoubtedly, of human Lensmen; perhaps the work of the human Lensman

who was so frequently associated with Star A Star.

     But Onlo! Kandron himself had set those snares along those intricately zig-

zagged communications lines; he knew their capabilities. Kandron himself had installed

Onlo's blocking and shielding screens; he knew their might. He knew, since no other

path existed leading to Thrale, that those lines had been followed and those screens

had been penetrated, and all without setting off a single alarm. Those things had

actually happened. Hence Kandron set his stupendous mind to the task of envisaging

what the being must be, mentally, who could do them; what the mind of this Star A

Star—it could have been no one else—must in actuality be.

     He succeeded. He deduced Nadreck of Palain VII, practically in toto; and for the

Star A Star thus envisaged he set traps throughout both galaxies. They might or might

not kill him. Killing him immediately, however, was not really of the essence; that matter

could wait until he could give it his personal attention. The important thing was to see to

it that Star A Star could never, by any possible chance, discover a true lead to any high

Boskonian.

     Sneeringly, gloatingly, Kandron issued orders; then flung himself with all his zeal

and ability into the task of reorganizing the shattered fragments of the Boskonian

Empire into a force capable of wrecking Civilization.

     Thus it is not strange that for more than twenty years Nadreck of Palain VII made

very little progress indeed. Time after time he grazed the hot edge of death. Indeed, it

was only by the exertion of his every iota of skill, power, and callous efficiency that he

managed to survive. He struck a few telling blows for Civilization, but most of the time

he was strictly on the defensive. Every clue he followed, it seemed, led subtly into a

trap; every course he pursued ended, always figuratively and all too often literally, in a

cul-de-sac filled with semi-portable projectors all agog to blast him out of the ether.

     Year by year he became more conscious of some imperceptible, indetectable,

but potent foe, an individual enemy obstructing his every move and determined to make

an end of him. And year by year, as material accumulated, it became more and more

certain that the inimical entity was in fact Kandron, once of Onlo.

     When Kit went into space, then, and Kinnison called Nadreck into consultation,

the usually reticent and unloquacious Palainian was ready to talk. He told the Gray

Lensman everything he knew and everything he deduced or suspected about the ex-

Onlonian chieftain.

     "Kandron of Onlo!" Kinnison exploded, so violently as to sear the sub-ether

through which the thought passed. "Holy Klono's gadolinium guts! And you can sit there

on your spiny tokus and tell me Kandron got away from you back there? You knew it,

and not only didn't do a damn thing about it yourself, but didn't even tell me or anybody

else about it so we could do it? What a brain!"

     "Certainly. Why do anything before action becomes necessary?" Nadreck was

entirely unmoved by the Tellurian's passion. "My powers are admittedly small, my

intellect feeble. However, even to me it was clear then and it is clear now that Kandron

was then of no importance. My assignment was to reduce Onlo. I reduced it. Whether or

not Kandron was there at the time did not then have and cannot now have anything to

do with that task. Kandron, personally, is another, an entirely distinct problem."

     Kinnison swore a blistering deep-space oath; then, by main strength, shut himself

up. Nadreck wasn't human; there was no use even trying to judge him by human or

near-human standards. He was fundamentally, incomprehensibly, and radically

different. And it was just as well for humanity that he was. For if his hellishly able race

had possessed the characteristically human abilities, in addition to their own, Civilization

would of necessity have been basically Palainian instead of basically human, as it now

is. "QX, ace," he growled, finally. "Skip it."

     "But Kandron has been hampering my activities for years, and, now that you also

have become interested in his operations, he has become a factor of which cognizance

should be taken," Nadreck went imperturbably on. He could no more understand

Kinnison's viewpoint than the Tellurian could understand his. "With your permission,

therefore, I shall find —and slay—this Kandron."

     "Go to it, little chum," Kinnison sighed, bitingly—and uselessly. "Clear ether."

     While this conference was taking place, Kandron reclined in a bitterly cold,

completely unlighted room of his headquarters and indulged in a little gloating

concerning the predicament in which he was keeping Nadreck of Palain VII, who was, in

all probability, the once-dreaded Star A Star of the Galactic Patrol. It was true that the

Lensman was still alive. He would probably, Kandron mused quite pleasurably, remain

alive until he himself could find the time to attend to him in person. He was an able

operator, but one presenting no real menace, now that he was known and understood.

There were other things more pressing, just as there had been ever since the fall of

Thrale. The revised Plan was going nicely, and as soon as he had resolved that human

thing . . . The Ploorans had suggested . . . could it be possible, after all, that Nadreck of

Palain was not he who had been known so long only as Star A Star? That the human

factor was actually . . . ?

     Through the operation of some unknowable sense Kandron knew that it was time

for his aide to be at hand to report upon those human affairs. He sent out a signal and

another Onlonian scuttled in.

     "That unknown human element," Kandron radiated harshly. "I assume that you

are not reporting that it has been resolved?"

     "Sorry, Supremacy, but your assumption is correct," the creature radiated back,

in no very "conciliatory fashion. "The trap at Antigan IV was set particularly for him;

specifically to match the man whose mentality you computed and diagramed for us.

Was it too obvious, think you, Supremacy? Or perhaps not quite obvious enough? Or,

the galaxy being large, is it perhaps that he simply did not learn of it in time? In the next

attempt, what degree of obviousness should I employ and what degree of repetition is

desirable?

     "The technique of the Antigan affair was flawless," Kandron decided. "He did not

learn of it, as you suggest, or we should have caught him. He is a master workman,

always concealed by his very obviousness until after he has done his work. Thus we

can never, save by merest chance, catch him before the act; we must make him come

to us. We must keep on trying until he does come to us. It is of no great moment, really,

whether we catch him now or five years hence. This work must be done in any event—it

is simply a fortunate coincidence that the necessary destruction of Civilization upon its

own planets presents such a fine opportunity of trapping him.

     "As to repeating the Antigan technique, we should not repeat it exactly—or, hold!

It might be best to do just that. To repeat a process is of course the mark of an inferior

mind; but if that human can be made to believe that our minds are inferior, so much the

better. Keep on trying; report as instructed. Remember that he must be taken alive, so

that we can take from his living brain the secrets we have not yet been able to learn.

Forget, in the instant of leaving this room, everything about me and about any

connection between us until I force recollection upon you. Go."

     The minion went, and Kandron set out to do more of the things which he could

best do. He would have liked to take Nadreck's trail himself; he could catch and he

could kill that evasive entity and the task would have been a pleasant one. He would

have liked to supervise the trapping of that enigmatic human Lensman who might—or

might not—be that frequently and copiously damned Star A Star. That, too, would be an

eminently pleasant chore. There were, however, other matters more pressing by far. If

the Great Plan were to succeed, and it absolutely must and would, every Boskonian

must perform his assigned duties. Nadreck and his putative accomplice were side

issues. Kandron's task was to set up and to direct certain psychoses and disorders; a

ghastly train of mental ills of which he possessed such supreme mastery, and which

were surely and safely helping to destroy the foundation upon which Galactic Civilization

rested. That part was his, and he would do it to the best of his ability. The other things,

the personal and non-essential matters, could wait.

     Kandron set out then, and traveled fast and far; and wherever he went there

spread still further abroad the already widespread blight. A disgusting, a horrible blight

with which no human physician or psychiatrist, apparently, could cope; one of, perhaps

the worst of, the corrosive blights which had been eating so long at Civilization's vitals.

     And L2 Nadreck, having decided to find and slay the ex-ruler of Onlo, went about

it in his usual unhurried but eminently thorough fashion. He made no effort to locate him

or to trace him personally. That would be bad—foolish. Worse, it would be inefficient.

Worst, it would probably be impossible. No, he would find out where Kandron would be

at some suitable future time, and wait for him there.

     To that end Nadreck collected a vast mass of data concerning the occurrences

and phenomena which the Big Four had discussed so thoroughly. He analyzed each

item, sorting out those which bore the characteristic stamp of the arch-foe whom by now

he had come to know so well. The internal evidence of Kandron's craftsmanship was

unmistakable; and, not now to his surprise, Nadreck discerned that the number of the

Onlonian's dark deeds was legion.

     There was the affair of the Prime Minister of DeSilva III, who at a cabinet meeting

shot and killed his sovereign and eleven chiefs of state before committing suicide. The

president* of Viridon; who, at his press conference, ran amuck with a scimitar snatched

from a wall, hewed unsuspecting reporters to gory bits until overpowered, and then

swallowed poison.

     A variant of the theme, but still plainly Kandron's doing, was the interesting

episode in which a Tellurian tycoon named Edmundson, while upon an ocean voyage,

threw fifteen women passengers overboard, then leaped after them dressed only in a

life-jacket stuffed with lead. Another out of the same whimsical mold was that of Dillway,

the highly respected operations chief of Central Spaceways. That potentate called his

secretaries one by one into his 60th floor office and unconcernedly tossed them, one by

one, out of the window. He danced a jig on the coping before diving after them to the

street.

     A particularly juicy and entertaining bit, Nadreck thought, was the case of Narkor

Base Hospital, in which four of the planet's most eminent surgeons decapitated every

other person in the place—patients, nurses, orderlies, and all, with a fine disregard of

age, sex, or condition—arranged the severed heads, each upright and each facing due

north, upon the tiled floor to spell the word "Revenge", and then hacked each other to

death with scalpels.

     These, and a thousand or more other events of similar technique, Nadreck

tabulated and 'subjected to statistical analysis. Scattered so widely throughout such a

vast volume of space, they had created little or no general disturbance; indeed, they

had scarcely been noticed by Civilization as a whole. Collected, they made a truly

staggering, a revolting and appalling total. Nadreck, however, was inherently incapable

of being staggered, revolted, or appalled. That repulsive summation, a thing which in its

massed horror would have shaken to .the core any being possessing any shred of

sympathy or tenderness, was to Nadreck an interesting and not too difficult problem in

psychology and mathematics.

     He placed each episode in space and in time, correlating each with all of its

fellows in a space-time matrix. He determined the locus of centers and derived the

equations of its most probable motion. He extended it by extrapolation in accordance

with that equation. Then, assuring himself that his margin of error was as small as he

could make it, he set out for a planet which Kandron would most probably visit at a time

far enough in the future to enable him to prepare to receive the Onlonian.

     That planet, being inhabited by near-human beings, was warm, brightly sun-lit,

and had an atmosphere rich in oxygen. Nadreck detested it, since his ideal of a planet

was precisely the opposite. Fortunately, however, he would not have to land upon it until

after Kandron's arrival—possibly not then—and the fact that his proposed quarry was,

like himself, a frigid-blooded poison-breather, made the task of detection a simple one.

     Nadreck set his indetectable speedster into a circular orbit around the planet, far

enough out to be comfortable, and sent out course after course of delicate, extremely

sensitive screen. Precision of pattern-analysis was of course needless. The probability

was that all legitimate movement of personnel to and from the planet would be

composed of warm-blooded oxygen-breathers; that any visitor not so classified would

be Kandron. Any frigid-blooded visitor had at least to be investigated, hence his

analytical screens had to be capable only of differentiation between two types of beings

as far apart as the galactic poles in practically every respect. Nadreck knew that no

supervision would be necessary to perform such an open-and-shut separation as that;

he would have nothing more to do until his electronic announcers should warn him of

Kandron's approach—or until the passage of time should inform him that the Onlonian

was not coming to this particular planet.

     Being a mathematician, Nadreck knew that any datum secured by extrapolation

is of doubtful value. He thus knew that the actual probability of Kandron's coming was

less, by some indeterminable amount, than the mathematical one.

     Nevertheless, having done all that he could do, he waited with the monstrous,

unhuman patience known only to such races as his.

     Day by day, week by week, the speedster circled the planet and its big, hot sun;

and as it circled, the lone voyager studied. He analyzed more data more precisely; he

drew deeper and deeper upon his store of knowledge to determine what steps next to

take in the event that this attempt should end, as so many previous ones had ended, in

failure.