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, 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 we could do
we have done, but what science can do science can circumvent. It is
a virtual certainty that it is not Onlo and I who are their prime
objectives, 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 was not 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 rebound 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. He knew that
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
zigzagged 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 upon the defensive. Every clue that 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 semiportable 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, everything he
deduced or suspected about the ex-Onlonian chieftain.
"Kandron of Onlo!" Kinnison exploded, so violently as to sear the
subether through which the thought passed. "Holy Klono's brazen bowels!
And you can sit there on your spiny tokus and tell me that Kandron got
away from you back there? And that you knew it, and not only didn't
do a thing about it yourself, but didn't even tell me or anybody else
about it, so that we could take steps?"
"Certainly. Why take steps before they become 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 against us, 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 connections 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
nonessential 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 in that place.
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 he was overpowered, and then
swallowed poison.
A variant of the theme, but still plainly Kandron's doing, was the
interesting episode in which Galactic Counselor 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 sixtieth floor office and unconcernedly
tossed them, one by one, out of the window. He danced a jig upon a
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 several 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--shocked almost into paralysis--any being possessing any shred of
sympathy or tenderness, was to Nadreck simply 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 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 differentiating 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.