"As First of Boskone I will report as to the military situation. As you know, our positions there became untenable with the fall of our Grand Base and all our mobile forces were withdrawn. In order to facilitate reorganization, co-ordinating ships were sent out. Some of these ships went to planets held in toto by us. Not one of these vessels has been able to report any pertinent facts whatever. Ships approaching bases of the Patrol, or encountering Patrol ships of war in space, simply ceased communicating. Even their automatic recorders, tuned to my desk as commander-in-chief, ceased to function without transmitting any intelligible data, indicating complete destruction of those ships. A cascade system, in which one ship followed another at long range and with analytical instruments set to determine the nature of any beam or weapon employed, was attempted. The enemy, however, threw out blanketing zones of tremendous power; and we lost six more vessels without obtaining the desired data. These are the facts, all negative. Theorizing, deduction, summation, and integration will as usual, come later. Eichmil, Second of Boskone, will now report." "My facts are also entirely negative," the Second began. "As soon as our operations upon the planet Radelix began to be really productive of results, a contingent of Tellurian narcotic agents arrived; which may or may not have included the Lensman--" "Stick to facts for the time being," Eichlan ordered, curtly. "Shortly thereafter a minor agent, a female instructed to wear a thought-screen at all times, lost her usefulness by suffering a mental disorder which incapacitated her quite seriously. Then another agent, also a female, this time one of the third order and who had been very useful up to that time, ceased reporting. A few days later Bominger, the Planetary Director, failed to report, as did the Planetary Observer; who, as you know, was entirely unknown to, and had no connection with, the operating staff. Reports from other sources, such as importers and shippers--these, I believe, are here admissible as facts--indicate that our entire personnel upon Radelix has been put to death. No unusual developments have occurred upon any other planet, nor has any significant fact, however small, been discovered." "Eichnor, Third of Boskone." "Also negative. Our every source of information from within the bases of the Patrol has been shut off. Every one of our representatives--some of whom have been reporting regularly for many years--has been silent, and every effort to reach any of them has failed." "Eichsnap, Fourth of Boskone." "Utterly negative. We have been able to find no trace whatever of the planet Medon, or of any one of the twenty-one warships investing it at the time of its disappearance." And so on, through nine reports, while the tentacles of the mighty First of Boskone played intermittently over the keys of a complex instrument or machine before him.