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."