Be that as it may, the Eich sought out and found many surviving Overlords. The latter tried to enslave the visitors and to bend them into their hideously sadistic purposes, but to no avail. Not only were the Eich protected by thought-screens; they had minds of a fierce power almost, if not quite, equal to the Overlord's own. And, after these first overtures had been made and channels of communication established, the alliance was a natural. Much has been said and written of the binding power of love. That, and other noble emotions, have indeed performed wonders. It seems to this historian, however, that all too little has been said of the effectiveness of pure hate as a cementing material. Probably for good and sufficient moral reasons; perhaps because--and for the best--its application has been of comparatively infrequent occurrence. Here, in the case in hand, we have history's best example of two entirely dissimilar peoples working efficiently together under the urge, not of love or of any other lofty sentiment, but of sheer, stark, unalloyed and corrosive, but common, hate. Both hated civilization and everything pertaining to it. Both wanted revenge; wanted it with a searing, furious need almost tangible; a gnawing, burning lust which neither countenanced palliation nor brooked denial. And above all, both hated vengefully, furiously, esuriently--every way except blindly--an as yet unknown and unidentified wearer of the million-times accursed Lens of the Galactic Patrol! The Eich were hard, ruthless, cold; not even having such words in their language as "conscience," "mercy," or "scruple." Their hatred of the Lensman was then a thing of an intensity unknowable to any human mind. Even that emotion, however, grim as it was and fearsome, paled beside the passionately vitriolic hatred of the Overlords of Delgon for the being who had been the Nemesis of their race. And when the sheer mental power of the Overlords, unthinkably great as it was and operative withal in a fashion sheerly incomprehensible to us of civilization, was combined with the ingenuity, resourcefulness, and drive, as well as with the scientific ability of the Eich, the results would in any case have been portentous indeed. In this case they were more than portentous, and worse. Those prodigious intellects, fanned into fierce activity by fiery blasts of hatred, produced a thing incredible. XV.