Kinnison the author toiled manfully at his epic of space whenever he was under

any sort of observation, and enough at other times to avert any suspicion. Indeed, he

worked as much as Sybly Whyte, an advertisedly temperamental writer, had ever

worked. Besides interviewing the high and the low, and taking notes everywhere, he

attended authors' teas, at which he cursed his characters fluently and bitterly for their

failure to co-operate with him. With short-haired women and long-haired men he

bemoaned the perversity of a public which compelled them to prostitute the real genius

of which each was the unique possessor. He sympathized particularly with a fat woman

writer of whodunits, whose extremely unrealistic yet amazingly popular Gray Lensman

hero had lived through ten full-length novels and twenty million copies.

     Even though her real field was the drama, she wasn't writing the kind of detective

tripe that most of these crank-turners ground out, she confided to Kinnison. She had

known lots of Gray Lensmen very intimately, and her stories were drawn from real life in

every particular!

     Thus Kinnison remained in character; and thus he was enabled to work

completely unnoticed at his real job of finding out what was going on, how the

Boskonians were operating to ruin Radelix as they had ruined Antigan IV.

     His first care was to investigate the planet's president. That took doing, but he did

it. He examined that mind line by line and channel by channel, with no results whatever.

No scars, no sign of tampering. Calling in assistance, he searched the president's past.

Still no soap. Everything checked. Boring from within, then, was out. His first hypothesis

was wrong; this invasion and this sabotage were being done from without. How?

     Those first leaflets were followed by others, each batch more vitriolic in tone than

the preceding one. Apparently they came from empty stratosphere; at least, no ships

were to be detected in the neighborhood after any shower of the handbills had

appeared. But that was not surprising. With its inertialess drive any space-ship could

have been parsecs away before the papers touched atmosphere. Or they could have

been bombed in from almost any distance. Or, as Kinnison thought most reasonable,

they could have been simply dumped out of the mouth of a hyper-spatial tube. In any

event the method was immaterial. The results only were important; and those results,

the Lensman discovered, were entirely disproportionate to the ostensible causes. The

subversive literature had some effect, of course, but essentially it must be a blind. No

possible tonnage of anonymous printing could cause that much sheer demoralization.

     Crack-pot societies of all kinds sprang up everywhere, advocating everything

from absolutism to anarchy. Queer cults arose, preaching free love, the imminent end of

the world, and many other departures from the norm of thought. The Author's League,

of course, was affected more than any other organization of its size, because of its

relatively large content of strong and intensely opinionated minds. Instead of becoming

one radical group it split into a dozen.

     Kinnison joined one of those "Down with Everything!" groups, not as a leader, but

as a follower. Not too sheep-like a follower, but just inconspicuous enough to retain his

invisibly average status; and from his place of concealment in the middle of the front

row he studied the minds of each of his fellow anarchists. He watched those minds

change, he found out who was doing the changing. When Kinnison's turn came he was

all set for trouble. He expected to battle a powerful mentality. He would not have been

overly surprised to encounter another mad Arisian, hiding behind a zone of hypnotic

compulsion. He expected anything, in fact, except what he found—which was a very

ordinary Radeligian therapist. The guy was a clever enough operator, of course, but he

could not work against even the feeblest opposition. Hence the Gray Lensman had no

trouble at all, either in learning everything the fellow knew, or, upon leaving him, in

implanting within his mind the knowledge that Sybly Whyte was now exactly the type of

worker desired.

     The trouble was that the therapist didn't know a thing. This not entirely

unexpected development posed Kinnison three questions. Did the high-ups ever

communicate with such small fry, or did they just give them one set of orders and cut

them loose? Should he stay in this Radeligian's mind until he found out? If he was in

control of the therapist when a big shot took over, did he have jets enough to keep from

being found out? Risky business; better scout around first, anyway. He'd do a flit.

     He drove his black speedster a million miles. He covered Radelix like a blanket,

around the equator and from pole to pole. Everywhere he found the same state of

things. The planet was literally riddled with the agitators; he found so many that he was

forced to a black conclusion. There could be no connection or communication between

such numbers of saboteurs and any real authority. They must have been given one set

of do-or-die instructions—whether they did or died was immaterial. Experimentally,

Kinnison had a few of the leaders taken into custody. Nothing happened.

     Martial law was finally declared, but this measure succeeded only in driving the

movement underground. What the subversive societies lost in numbers they more than

made up in desperation and violence. Crime raged unchecked and uncheckable,

murder became an every-day commonplace, insanity waxed rife. And Kinnison,

knowing now that no channel to important prey would be opened until the climax,

watched grimly while the rape of the planet went on.

     President Thompson and Lensman Gerrond sent message after message to

Prime Base and to Klovia, imploring help. The replies to these pleas were all alike. The

matter had been referred to the galactic council and to the coordinator. Everything that

could be done was being done. Neither office could say anything else, except that, with

the galaxy in such a disturbed condition, each planet must do its best to solve its own

problems.

     The thing built up toward its atrocious finale. Gerrond invited the president to a

conference in a down-town hotel room, and there, eyes glancing from moment to

moment at the dials of a complete little test-kit held open upon his lap:

     "I have just had some startling news, Mr. Thompson," Gerrond said, abruptly.

"Kinnison has been here on Radelix for weeks."

     "What? Kinnison? Where is he? Why didn't he . . . ?"

     "Yes, Kinnison. Kinnison of Klovia. The coordinator himself. I don't know where

he is, or was. I didn't ask him." The Lensman smiled fleetingly. "One doesn't, you know.

He discussed the situation with me at length. I'm still amazed . . ."

     "Why doesn't he stop it, then?" the president demanded. "Or can't he stop it?"

     "That's what I've got to explain to you. He won't be able to do a thing, he says,

until the last minute . . ."

     "Why not? I tell you, if this thing can be stopped it's got to be stopped, and no

matter what has to be done—"

     "Just a minute!" Gerrond snapped. "I know you're out of control—I don't like to

see Radelix torn apart any better than you do—but you ought to know by this time that

Galactic Coordinator Kimball Kinnison is in a better position to know what to do than any

other man in the universe. Furthermore, his word is the last word. What he says, goes."

     "Of course," Thompson apologized. "I am overwrought . . . but to see our entire

world pulled down around us, our institutions, the work of centuries, destroyed, millions

of lives lost. . . all needlessly . . ."

     "It won't come to that, he says, if we all do our parts. And you, sir, are very much

in the picture."

     "I? How?"

     "Are you familiar with what happened to Antigan IV?"

     "Why, no. They had some trouble over there, I recall, but. . ."

     "That's it. That's why this must go on. No planet cares particularly about what

happens to any other planet, but Kinnison cares about them all as a whole. If this

trouble is headed off now it will simply spread to other planets; if it is allowed to come to

a climax there's a chance to put an end to the whole trouble, for good."

     "But what has that to do with me? What can I, personally, do?"

     "Much. That last act at Antigan IV, the thing that made it a planet of maniacs,

was the kidnaping of Planetary President Renwood. Murdered, supposedly, since no

trace of him has been found."

     "Oh." The older man's hands clenched, then loosened. "I am willing . . . provided

. . . is Kinnison fairly certain that my death will enable him . . ."

     "It won't get that far, sir. He intends to stop it just before that. He and his

associates—I don't know who they are— have been listing every enemy agent they can

find, and they will all be taken care of at once. He believes that Boskone will publish in

advance a definite time at which they will take you away from us. That was the way it

went at Antigan."

     "Even from the Patrol?"

     "From the main base itself. Coordinator Kinnison is pretty sure they can do it,

except for something he can bring into play only at the last moment. Incidentally, that's

why we're having this meeting here, with this detector he gave me. He's afraid this base

is porous."

     "In that case . . . what can he. . ." The president fell silent.

     "All I know is that we're to dress you in a certain suit of armor and have you in my

private office a few minutes before the time they set. We and the guards leave the office

at minus two minutes and walk down the corridor, just fast enough to be exactly in front

of Room Twenty-four at minus one. We're to rehearse it until our timing is perfect. I don't

know what will happen then, but something will."

     Time passed; the Boskonian infiltration progressed according to plan. It appeared

that Radelix was going in the same fashion in which Antigan IV had gone. Below the

surface, however, there was one great difference. Every ship reaching Radelix brought

at least one man who did not leave. Some of these visitors were tall and lithe, some

were short and fat. Some were old, some were young. Some were pale, some were

burned to the color of ancient leather by the fervent rays of space. They were alike only

in the "look of eagles" in their steady, quiet eyes. Each landed and went about his

ostensible business, interesting himself not at all in any of the others.

     Again the Boskonians declared their contempt of the Patrol by setting the exact

time at which Planetary President Thompson was to be taken. Again the appointed hour

was midnight.

     Lieutenant-admiral Lensman Gerrond was, as Kinnison had intimated frequently,

somewhat of a brass hat. He did not, he simply could not believe that his base was as

pregnable as the coordinator had assumed it to be. Kinnison, knowing that all ordinary

defenses would be useless, had not even mentioned them. Gerrond, unable to believe

that his hitherto invincible and invulnerable weapons and defenses were all of a sudden

useless, mustered them of his own volition.

     All leaves had been cancelled. Every detector, every beam, every device of

defense and offense was fully manned. Every man was keyed up and alert. And

Gerrond, while apprehensive that something was about to happen which wasn't in the

book, was pretty sure in his stout old war-dog's soul that he and his men had stuff

enough.

     At two minutes before midnight the armored president and his escorts left

Gerrond's office. One minute later they were passing the door of the specified room. A

bomb exploded shatteringly behind them, armored men rushed yelling out of a branch

corridor in their rear. Everybody stopped and turned to look. So, the hidden Kinnison

assured himself, did an unseen observer in an invisible hovering, three-dimensional

hyper-circle.

     Kinnison threw the door open, flashed an explanatory thought at the president,

yanked him into the room and into the midst of a corps of Lensmen armed with devices

not usually encountered even in Patrol bases. The door snapped shut and Kinnison

stood where Thompson had stood an instant before, clad in armor identical with that

which the president had worn. The exchange had required less than one second.

     "QX, Gerrond and you fellows!" Kinnison drove the thought. "The president is

safe—I'm taking over. Double time straight ahead—hipe! Get clear—give us a chance to

use our stuff!"

     The unarmored men broke into a run, and as they did so the door of Room

Twenty-four swung open and stayed open. Weapons erupted from other doors and from

more branch corridors. The hyper-circle, which was in fact the terminus of a hyper-

spatial tube, began to thicken toward visibility.

     It did not, however, materialize. Only by the intensest effort of vision could it be

discerned as the sheerest wisp, more tenuous than fog. The men within the ship, if ship

it was, were visible only as striations in air are visible, and no more to be made out in

detail. Instead of a full materialization, the only thing that was or became solid was a

dead-black thing which reached purposefully outward and downward toward Kinnison, a

thing combined of tongs and coarse-meshed, heavy net.

     " Kinnison's DeLameters flamed at maximum intensity and minimum aperture.

Useless. The stuff was dureum; that unbelievably dense and ultimately refractory

synthetic which, saturated with pure force, is the only known substance which can exist

as an actuality both in normal space and in that pseudo-space which composes the

hyper-spatial tube. The Lensman flicked on his neutralizer and shot away inertialess;

but that maneuver, too, had been foreseen. The Boskonian engineers matched every

move he made, within a split second after he made it: the tong-net closed.

     Semi-portables flamed then—heavy stuff—but they might just as well have

remained cold. Their beams could not cut the dureum linkages; they slid harmlessly

past—not through —the wraith-like, figmental invaders at whom they were aimed.

Kinnison was hauled aboard the Boskonian vessel; its structure and its furnishings and

its crew becoming ever firmer and more substantial to his senses as he went from

normal into pseudo space.

     As the pseudo world became real, the reality of the base behind him thinned into

unreality. In seconds it disappeared utterly, and Kinnison knew that to the senses of his

fellow human beings he had simply vanished. This ship, though, was real enough. So

were his captors.

     The net opened, dumping the Lensman ignominiously to the floor. Tractor beams

wrenched his blazing DeLameters out of his grasp—whether or not hands and arms

came with them was entirely his own look-out. Tractors and pressors jerked him upright,

slammed him against the steel wall of the room, held him motionless against it.

     Furiously he launched his ultimately lethal weapon, the Worsel-designed,

Thorndyke-built, mind-controlled projector of thought-borne vibrations which

decomposed the molecules without which thought and life itself could not exist. Nothing

happened. He explored, finding that even his sense of perception was stopped a full

foot away from every part of every one of those humanoid bodies. He settled down then

and thought. A great light dawned; a shock struck sickeningly home.

     No such elaborate and super-powered preparations would have been made for

the capture of any civilian. Presidents were old men, physically weak and with no

extraordinary powers of mind. No—this whole chain of events had been according to

plan—a high Boskonian's plan. Ruining a planet was, of course, a highly desirable thing

in itself, but it could not have been the main feature.

     Somebody with a real brain was out after the four Second-Stage Lensmen and

he wasn't fooling. And if Nadreck, Worsel, Tregonsee and himself were all to disappear,

the Patrol would know that it had been nudged. But jet back— which of the four other

than himself would have taken that particular bait? Not one of them. Weren't they out

after them, too? Sure they were—they must be. Oh, if he could only warn them—but

after all, what good would it do? They had all warned each other repeatedly to watch out

for traps; all four had been constantly on guard. What possible foresight could have

avoided a snare set so perfectly to match every detail of a man's make-up?

     But he wasn't licked yet. They had to know what he knew, how he had done what

he had done, whether or not he had any superiors and who they were. Therefore they

had had to take him alive, just as he had had to take various Boskonian chiefs. And

they'd find out that as long as he was alive he'd be a dangerous buzz-saw to monkey

with.

     The captain, or whoever was in charge, would send for him; that was a foregone

conclusion. He'd have to find out what he had caught; he'd have to make a report of

some kind. And somebody would slip. One hundred percent vigilance was impossible,

and Kinnison would be on his toes to take advantage of that slip, however slight it might

be.

     But the captors did not take Kinnison to the captain. Instead, accompanied by

half a dozen unarmored men, that worthy came to Kinnison.

     "Start talking, fellow, and talk fast," the Boskonian directed crisply in the lingua

franca of deep space as the armored soldiers strode out. "I want to know who you are,

what you are, what you've done, and everything about you and the Patrol. So talk—or

do you want me to pull you apart with these tractors, armor and all?"

     Kinnison paid no attention, but drove at the commander with his every mental

force and weapon. Blocked. This ape too had a full-body, full-coverage screen.

     There was a switch at the captain's hip, handy for fingertip control. If he could

only move! It would be so easy to flip that switch! Or if he could throw something—or

make one of those other fellows brush against him just right—or if the guy happened to

sit down a little too close to the arm of a chair—or if there were a pet animal of any kind