After entry, his first care was to send out spotting devices which would give ample warning in case the Onlonian should return unexpectedly soon. Then, working in the service-spaces behind instrument boards and panels, in junction boxes, and in various other out-of-the-way places, he cut into lead after lead, ran wire after wire, and installed item after item of apparatus and equipment upon which he had been at work for weeks. He finished his work undisturbed. He checked and rechecked the circuits, making absolutely certain that every major one of the vessel's controlling leads ran to or through at least one of the things he had just installed. With painstaking nicety he obliterated every visible sign of his visit. He departed as carefully as he had come; restoring to full efficiency as he went each one of Kandron's burglar alarms. * * * * * Kandron returned, entered his ship as usual, stored his flitter, and extended a tentacular member toward the row of switches on his panel. "Don't touch anything, Kandron," he was advised by a thought as cold and as deadly as any one of his own; and upon the Onlonian equivalent of a visiplate there appeared the one likeness which he least expected and least desired to perceive. "Nadreck of Palain VII--Star A Star--THE Lensman!" The Onlonian was physically and emotionally incapable of gasping, but the idea is appropriate. "You have, then, wired and mined this ship." There was a subdued clicking of relays. The Bergenholm came up to speed, the speedster spun about and darted straight away from the planet under a couple of kilodynes of drive. "I am Nadreck of Palain VII, yes. One of the group of Lensmen whose collective activities you have ascribed to Star A Star and _the_ Lensman. Your ship is, as you have deduced, mined. The only reason you did not die as you entered it is that I wish to be absolutely certain; and not merely statistically so, that it is actually Kandron of Onlo, and not someone else, who dies." "That unutterable fool!" Kandron quivered in helpless rage. "Oh, that I had taken the time and killed you myself!" "If you had done your own work, the techniques I used here could not have been employed, and you might have been in no danger at the present moment," Nadreck admitted, equably enough. "My powers are small, my intellect feeble, and what might have been has no present bearing. I am inclined, however, to question the validity of your conclusions, due to the known fact that you have been directing a campaign against me for over twenty years without success; whereas I have succeeded against you in less than half a year. My analysis is now complete. You may now touch any control you please. By the way, you do not deny that you are Kandron of Onlo, do you?" Neither of those monstrous beings asked, suggested, or even thought of mercy. In neither of their languages was there any word for or concept of such a thing.