Nadreck, the Palainian Lensman, had not exaggerated in saying that he
could not leave his job, that his work would come undone if he did.
As has been intimated, Nadreck was cowardly and lazy and characterized
otherwise by traits not usually regarded by humankind as being noble.
He was, however, efficient; and he was now engaged in one of the most
colossal tasks ever attempted by any one Lensman. Characteristically,
he had told no one, not even Haynes or Kinnison, what it was that he
was trying to do--he never talked about a job until after it was done,
and his talking then was usually limited to a taped, Lensman's-sealed,
tersely factual report. He was "investigating" Onlo; that was all that
anybody knew.
Onlo was at that time perhaps the most heavily fortified planet in
the Universe. Compared to its massed might Jarnevon was weak; Tellus,
except for its sunbeams and its other open-space safeguards, a joke.
Onlo's defenses were all, or nearly all, planetary; Kandron's strategy,
unlike Haynes', was to let any attacking force get almost down to the
ground and then blast it out of existence.
Thus Onlo was in effect one tremendously armed, titanically powered
fortress; not one cubic foot of its poisonous atmosphere was out of
range of projectors theoretically capable of puncturing any defensive
screen possible of mounting upon a mobile base.
And Nadreck, the cowardly, the self-effacing, the apologetic, had
tackled Onlo--alone!
Using the technique which has already been described in connection with
his highly successful raid upon the Eich stronghold of Lyrane VIII,
he made his way through the Onlonian defensive screens and settled
down comfortably near one of the gigantic domes. Then, as though time
were of no consequence whatever, he proceeded to get acquainted with
the personnel. He learned the identifying symbol of each entity and
analyzed every one psychologically, mentally, intellectually, and
emotionally. He tabulated his results upon the Palainian equivalent of
index cards, then very carefully arranged the cards into groups.
In the same fashion he visited and took the census of dome after dome.
No one knew that he had been near, apparently he had done nothing; but
in each dome as he left it there had been sown seeds of discord and of
strife which, at a carefully calculated future time, would yield bitter
fruit indeed.
For every mind has some weakness, each intellect some trait of which it
does not care to boast, each Achilles his heel. That is true even of
Gray Lensmen--and the Onlonians, with their heredity and environment
of Boskonianism, were in no sense material from which Lensmen could be
made.
Subtly, then, and coldly and callously, Nadreck worked upon the
basest passions, the most ignoble traits of that far-from-noble
race. Jealousy, suspicion, fear, greed, revenge--quality by quality
he grouped them, and to each group he sent series after series of
horridly stimulating thoughts.
Jealousy, always rife, assumed fantastic proportions. Molehills became
mountains overnight. A passing word became a studied insult. No one
aired his grievances, however, for always and everywhere there was
fear--fear of discipline, fear of reprisal, fear of betrayal, fear of
the double cross. Each monster brooded, sullenly intense. Each became
bitterly, gallingly, hatingly aware of an unwarranted and intolerable
persecution. Not much of a spark would be necessary to touch off such
explosive material as that!
Nadreck left the headquarters dome until the last. In one sense it
was the hardest of all; in another the easiest. It was hard in that
the entities there had stronger minds than those of lower station;
minds better disciplined, minds more accustomed to straight thinking
and to logical reasoning. It was easy, however, in that those minds
were practically all at war already--fighting either to tear down
the one above or to resist the attacks of those below. On the whole,
therefore, the headquarters dome was relatively easy, since every mind
in it already hated, or feared, or distrusted, or was suspicious of or
jealous of some other.
* * * * *
And while Nadreck labored thus deviously his wonders to perform,
Kinnison went ahead in his much more conventional and straightforward
fashion upon Thrale. His first care, of course, was to surround himself
with the usual coterie of spies and courtiers.
The selection of this group gave Kinnison many minutes of serious
thought. It was natural enough that he had not been able to place any
of his own men in the secret service of Alcon or the prime minister,
since they both had minds of power. It would not be natural, however,
for either of them not to be able to get an agent into his. For to be
too good would be to invite a mental investigation which he simply
could not as yet permit. He would have to play dumb enough so that his
hitherto unsuspected powers of mind would remain unsuspected.
He could, however, do much. Since he knew who the spies were, he was
able quite frequently to have his more trusted henchmen discover
evidence against them, branding them for what they were. Assassinations
were then, of course, very much in order. And even a strong suspicion,
even though it could not be documented, was grounds for a duel.
In this fashion, then, Kinnison built up his entourage and kept it
reasonably free from subversive elements; and, peculiarly enough, those
elements never happened to learn anything which the Lensman did not
want them to know.
Building up a strong personal organization was now easy, for at last
Kinnison was a real Boskonian big shot. As a major of the Household he
was a power to be toadied to and fawned upon. As a personal adviser to
Alcon the Tyrant he was one whose ill will should be avoided at all
costs. As a tactician who had so boldly, and yet so altruistically,
put the skids under the chiefs of staff, thereby becoming a favorite
even of the dreaded prime minister, he was marked plainly as a climber
to whose coat tails it would be wise to cling. In short, Kinnison made
good in a big--it might almost be said in a stupendous--way.
With such powers at work the time of reckoning could not be delayed
for long. Alcon knew that Gannel was working against him; learned very
quickly, since he knew exactly the personnel of Kinnison's "private"
secret service and could read at will any of their minds, that Gannel
held most of the trumps. The Tyrant had tried many times to read the
major's mind, but the latter, by some subterfuge or other, had always
managed to elude his inquisitor without making an issue of the matter.
Now, however, Alcon drove in a solid questing beam which, he was grimly
determined, would produce results of one kind or another.
It did: but, unfortunately for the Thralian, they were nothing which
he could use. For Kinnison, instead either of allowing the Tyrant to
read his whole mind or of throwing up an all-too-revealing barricade,
fell back upon the sheer native power of will which had made him unique
in his generation. He concentrated upon an all-inclusive negation;
which in effect was a rather satisfactory block and which was entirely
natural.
"I don't know what you are trying to do, Alcon," he informed his
superior, stiffly, "but whatever it is I do not like it. I think that
you are trying to hypnotize me. If you are, know now that you cannot
do it; that no possible hypnotic force can overcome my definitely and
positively opposed will."
"Major Gannel, you will--" the Tyrant began, then stopped. He was not
quite ready yet to come openly to grips with this would-be usurper.
Besides, it was now plain that Gannel had only an ordinary mind. He had
not even suspected all the prying that had occurred previously. He had
not recognized even this last powerful thrust for what it really was;
he had merely felt it vaguely and had supposed that it was an attempt
at hypnotism!
A few more days and he would cut him down. Hence Alcon changed his tone
and went on smoothly, "It is not hypnotism, Major Gannel, but a sort
of telepathy which you cannot understand. It is, however, necessary;
for in the case of a man occupying such a high position as yours, it is
self-evident that we can permit no secrets whatever to be withheld from
us--that we can allow no mental reservations of any kind. You see the
justice and the necessity of that, do you not?"
Kinnison did. He saw as well that Alcon was being superhumanly
forbearing. Moreover, he knew what the Tyrant was covering up so
carefully--the real reason for this highly unusual tolerance.
"I suppose you are right; but I _still_ don't like it," Gannel
grumbled. Then, without either denying or acceding to Alcon's right of
mental search, he went to his own quarters.
* * * * *
And there--or thereabouts--Kinnison wrought diligently at a thing which
had been long in the making. He had known all along that his retinue
would be useless against Alcon, hence he had built up an organization
entirely separate from, and completely unknown to any member of, his
visible following. Nor was this really secret outfit composed of spies
or sycophants. Instead, its members were hard, able, thoroughly proven
men, each one carefully selected for the ability and the desire to take
the place of one of Alcon's present department heads. One at a time he
put himself _en rapport_ with them; gave them certain definite
orders and instructions.
Then he put on a mechanical thought-screen. Its use could not make the
prime minister any more suspicious than he already was, and it was the
only way he could remain in character. This screen was, like those
of Lonabar, decidedly pervious in that it had an open slit. Unlike
Bleeko's, however, which had their slits set upon a fixed frequency,
the open channel of this one could be varied, both in width and in wave
length, to any setting which Kinnison desired.
Thus equipped, Kinnison attended the meeting of the Council of
Advisers, and to say that he disrupted the meeting is no exaggeration.
The other advisers perceived nothing out of the ordinary, of course,
but both Alcon and the prime minister were so perturbed that the
session was cut very short indeed. The other members were dismissed
summarily, with no attempt at explanation. The Tyrant was raging,
furious; the premier was alertly, watchfully intent.
"I did not expect any more physical privacy than I have been granted,"
Kinnison grated, after listening quietly to a minute or two of Alcon's
unbridled language. "This thing of being spied upon continuously,
both by men and by mechanisms, while it is insulting and revolting to
any real man's self-respect, can--just barely--be borne. I find it
impossible, however, to force myself to submit to such an ultimately
degrading humiliation as the surrender of the only vestiges of privacy
I have remaining; those of my mind. I will resign from the Council if
you wish, I will resume my status as an officer of the line, but I
cannot and will not tolerate your extinction of the last spark of my
self-respect," he finished, stubbornly.
"Resign? Resume? Do you think that I will let you off _that_
easily, fool?" Alcon sneered. "Don't you realize what I am going to do
to you? That, were it not for the fact that I am going to watch you die
slowly and hideously, I would have you blasted where you stand?"
"I do not, no, and neither do you," Gannel answered, as quietly as
surprisingly. "If you were sure of your ability, you would be doing
something instead of talking about it." He saluted, turned, and walked
out.
Now the prime minister, as has been intimated, was considerably more
than he appeared upon the surface to be. He was in fact the power
behind the throne. His, not Alcon's, was the voice of authority,
although he worked so subtly that the Tyrant himself never did realize
that he was little better than a figurehead.
Therefore, as Gannel departed, the premier thought briefly but
cogently. This major was smart--too smart. He was too able, he knew
too much. His advancement had been just a trifle too rapid. That
thought-screen was an entirely unexpected development. The mind behind
it was not quite right, either--a glimpse through the slit had revealed
a flash of something that might be taken to indicate that Major Gannel
had an ability which ordinary Thralians did not have. This open
defiance of the Tyrant of Thrale did not ring exactly true--it was not
quite in character. If it had been a bluff, it was too good--much too
good. If it had not been a bluff, where was his support? How could
Gannel have grown so powerful without his, Fossten's, knowledge?
If Major Gannel were bona fide, all well and good. Boskonia needed
the strongest possible leaders, and if any other man showed himself
superior to Alcon, Alcon should and would die. However, there was a
bare possibility that--Was Gannel bona fide? That point should be
cleared up without delay. And the prime minister, after a quizzical,
searching, more than half contemptuous inspection of the furiously
discomfited Tyrant, followed the rebellious, the contumacious, the
enigmatic Gannel to his rooms.
He knocked and was admitted. A preliminary and entirely meaningless
conversation occurred. Then:
"Just when did you leave Eddore?" the visitor demanded.
"What do you want to know for?" Kinnison shot back. That question
didn't mean a thing to him. Maybe it didn't to the big fellow,
either--it could be just a catch--but he didn't intend to give any kind
of an analyzable reply to any question that this ape asked him.
Nor did he, through thirty minutes of viciously skillful verbal
fencing. That conversation was far from meaningless, but it was
entirely unproductive of results; and it was a baffled, intensely
thoughtful Fossten who at its conclusion left Gannel's quarters. From
those quarters he went to the Hall of Records, where he requisitioned
the major's dossier. Then to his own private laboratory, where he
applied to those records every test known to the scientists of his
ultrasuspicious race.
* * * * *
The photographs were right in every detail. The prints agreed exactly
with those he himself had secured from the subject not twenty-four
hours since. The typing was right. The ink was right. Everything
checked. And why not? Ink, paper, fiber, and film were in fact exactly
what they should have been. There had been no erasures, no alterations.
Everything had been aged to the precisely correct number of days. For
Kinnison had known that this check-up was coming, and the experts of
the Patrol would make no such crass errors as those.
Even though he had found exactly what he had expected to find,
the suspicions of the prime minister were intensified rather than
allayed. Besides his own, there were two unreadable minds upon Thrale,
where there should have been only one. He knew how Alcon's had been
treated--could Gannel's possibly be a natural phenomenon? If not, who
had treated it, and why?
He left the palace then, ostensibly to attend a function at the
military academy. There, too, everything checked. He visited the town
in which Gannel had been born--finding no irregularities whatever in
the records of the birth. He went to the city in which Gannel had
lived for the greater part of his life; where he assured himself that
school records, club records, even photographs and negatives, all
dead-centered the beam.
He studied the minds of six different persons who had known Gannel
from childhood. As one they agreed that the Traska Gannel who was
now Traska Gannel was in fact the real Traska Gannel, and could not
by any possibility be anyone else. He examined their memory tracks
minutely for scars, breaks, or other evidences of surgery; finding
none. In fact, none existed, for the therapists who had performed those
operations had gone back clear to the very beginnings, to the earliest
memories of the Gannel child.
In spite of the fact that all the data thus far investigated were so
precisely what they should have been--or because of it--the prime
minister was now morally certain that Gannel was, in some fashion
or other, completely spurious. Should he go further, delve into
unimportant but perhaps highly revealing side issues? It would be
useless, he decided. The mind or minds who had falsified those records
so flawlessly--if they had in fact been falsified--had done a beautiful
piece of work: as masterly a job as he himself could have done. He
himself would have left no traces; neither, in all probability, had
they.
Who, then, and why? This was no ordinary plot, no part of any ordinary
scheme to overthrow Alcon. It was bigger, deeper, far more sinister.
Nothing so elaborate and efficient originating upon Thrale could
possibly have been developed and executed without his knowledge and at
least his tacit consent. Was there behind this thing someone who knew
who and what he was and who was seeking his life and his place? Highly
improbable. No--it must be--it _was_--the Patrol!
His mind flashed to Star A Star, reviewing everything that had been
ascribed to that mysterious personage. Then something clicked--in fact,
it stuck out.