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.It is hoped that by the aid of your vigilance this threat to ourplanetary peace and security can be removed before it becomes really serious; that wecan avoid the imposition of martial law."This message, while not of extreme or urgent import to most Radeligians, heldfor Kinnison a profound and unique meaning.He was right.He had deduced the thingone hundred percent.He knew what was going to happen next, and how; he knew thatneither the law-enforcement officers of Radelix nor its massed citizenry could stop it.They could not even impede it.A force of Lensmen could stop it—but that would not getthe Patrol anywhere unless they could capture or kill the beings really responsible forwhat was done.To alarm them would not do.Whether or not he could do much of anything before the grand climax dependedon a lot of factors.On what that climax was; who was threatened with what; whether ornot the threatened one was actually a Boskonian.A great deal of investigation wasindicated.If the enemy were going to repeat, as seemed probable, the president would bethe victim.If he, Kinnison, could not get the big shots lined up before the plot came to ahead, he would have to let it develop right up to the point of disappearance; and forWhyte to appear at that time would be to attract undesirable attention.No—by that timehe must already have been kicking around underfoot long enough to have become anunnoticeable fixture.Wherefore he moved into quarters as close to the executive offices as he couldpossibly get; and in those quarters he worked openly and wordily at the bringing of theaffair of Qadgop and the beautiful-but-dumb Cynthia to a satisfactory conclusion.CHAPTER 4: NADRECK OF PALAIN VII AT WORKIn order to understand these and subsequent events it is necessary to cut backbriefly some twenty-odd years, to the momentous interview upon chill, dark Onlobetween monstrous Kandron and his superior in affairs Boskonian, the unspeakableAlcon, the Tyrant of Thrale.At almost the end of that interview, when Kandron hadsuggested the possibility that his own base had perhaps been vulnerable to Star AStar's insidious manipulations:"Do you mean to admit that you may have been invaded andsearched—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 isnot 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, wentback to Thrale.After the Tyrant's departure Kandron continued to think, and the more he thoughtthe more uneasy he became.It was undoubtedly true that Alcon and Thrale were thePatrol's prime objectives.But, those objectives attained, was it reasonable to supposethat he and Onlo would be spared? It was not.Should he warn Alcon further? He shouldnot.If the Tyrant, after all that had been said, could not see the danger he was in, hewasn'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 hardenedfighters all; no possible warning could make them defend their fortresses and their livesany more efficiently than they were already prepared to do; nothing he could say wouldbe of any use in preparing them for a threat whose basic nature, even, was completelyunknown.Furthermore, this hypothetical invasion probably had not happened and verywell might not happen at all, and to flee from an imaginary foe would not redound to hiscredit.No.As a personage of large affairs, not limited to Onlo, he would be calledelsewhere.He would stay elsewhere until after whatever was going to happen hadhappened.If nothing happened during the ensuing few weeks he would return from hisofficial trip and all would be well.He inspected Onlo thoroughly, he cautioned his officers repeatedly andinsistently to keep alert against every conceivable emergency while he was sounavoidably absent.Then he departed, with a fleet of vessels manned by hand-pickedcrews, to a long-prepared and hitherto secret retreat.From that safe place he watched, through the eyes and the instruments of hisskilled 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 passivityso characteristic of his breed, Kandron broadcast certain signals and one of his—andAlcon's—superiors got in touch with him.He reported concisely.They conferred.Hewas 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 mentalitybeyond comprehension and almost beyond belief.Onlo had fallen without any of itsdefenders having energized a single one of their gigantic engines of war.The fall ofThrale, 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 Lensmanwho 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 installedOnlo's blocking and shielding screens; he knew their might.He knew, since no otherpath existed leading to Thrale, that those lines had been followed and those screenshad been penetrated, and all without setting off a single alarm.Those things hadactually happened.Hence Kandron set his stupendous mind to the task of envisagingwhat the being must be, mentally, who could do them; what the mind of this Star AStar—it could have been no one else—must in actuality be.He succeeded.He deduced Nadreck of Palain VII, practically in toto; and for theStar A Star thus envisaged he set traps throughout both galaxies.They might or mightnot kill him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]