"Nothing whatever." Kinnison's voice was flat. "When it's gone, it's gone. Where does the light go when a lamp goes out? No more trace. No more way--no way whatever--of tracing it. Hundreds of millions of planets in this galaxy, as many in the Second. Millions and millions of galaxies. All that in one Universe--our own universe. And there are an infinite number--too many to be expressed, let alone to be grasped--of universes, side by side, like pages in a book except thinner, in the hyperdimension. So you can figure out for yourselves the chances of ever finding either President Renwood or the Boskonians who took him--so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from zero absolute." The treasurer was crushed. "Do you mean to say that there is no protection at all from this thing? That they can keep on doing away with us just as they please? The nation is going mad, sir, day by day--one more such occurrence and we will be a planet of maniacs." "Oh, no--I didn't say that." The tension lightened. "Just that we can't do anything about the president and his aides. The tube can be detected while it is in place, and anyone coming through it can be shot as soon as he can be seen. What you need is a couple of Rigellian Lensmen, or Ordoviks. I'll see to it that you get them. I don't think, with them here, that they will even try to repeat." He did not add what he knew somberly to be a fact, that the enemy would go elsewhere, to some other planet not protected by a Lensman able to perceive the intangible structure of a sphere of pure force. * * * * * Frustrated, the Lensman again took to space. It was terrible, this thing of having everything happening where he wasn't, and when he got there having nothing left to work on. Hit-and-run--stab-in-the-back--how could a man fight something that he couldn't see or sense or feel or find? But this chewing his fingernails to the elbow wasn't getting him anywhere, either; he'd have to find something that he _could_ stick a tooth into. What? All former avenues of approach were blocked; he was sure of that. The Boskonians, who were now in charge of things, could really think. No underling would know anything about any one of them except at such times and places as the directors chose, and those conferences would be as nearly detection-proof as they could be made. What to do? Easy. Catch a big operator in the act. He grinned wryly to himself. Easy to say, but not--However, it wasn't impossible. The Boskonians were not supermen--they didn't have any more jets than he did. Put himself in the other fellow's place--what would he do if he were a Boskonian big shot? He had had quite a lot of experience in the role. Were there any specific groups of crimes which revealed techniques similar to those which he himself would use in like case?