He tapped in turn the minds of dozens of those clerks, but drew only blanks. As far as they were concerned, there was nothing "queer" going on anywhere in the organization. The "Old Man"--Howard Wembleson, a grandnephew or something of Ethan--had developed a complex lately that his life was in danger. Scarcely left the building--not that he had any need to, as he had always had palatial quarters there--and then only under heavy guard. A good many thought-screened persons came and went, but a careful study of them and their movements convinced the Gray Lensman that he was wasting his time. "No soap," he reported to a Lensman at Bronseca's Base. "Might as well try to stick a pin quietly into a cateagle. He's been told that he's the next link in the chain, and he's got the jitters right. I'll bet he's got a dozen loose observers, instead of only one. I'll save time, I think, by tracing another line. I have thought before that my best bet is in the asteroid dens instead of on the planets. I let them talk me out of it--it's a dirty job and I've got to establish an identity of my own, which will be even dirtier--but it looks as though I'll have to go back to it." "But the others are warned, too," suggested the Bronsecan. "They'll probably be just as bad. Let's blast it open and take a chance on finding the data you want." "No," Kinnison said, emphatically. "Not a chance in the universe that there's anything there that would do me a bit of good on the big hunt. The others are probably warned, yes, but since they aren't on my direct line to the throne, they probably aren't taking it as seriously as this Prellin--or Wembleson--is. Or if they are, they won't keep it up as long. They can't, and get any joy out of life at all. "And you can't say a word to Prellin about his screens, either," the Tellurian went on in reply to a thought. "They're legal enough; just as much so as spy-ray blocks. Every man has a right to privacy. Just one question here, or just one suspicious move, is apt to blow everything into a cocked hat. You fellows keep on working along the lines we laid out and I'll try another line. If it works, I'll come back and we'll open this can the way you want to. That way, we may be able to get the low-down on about four hundred planetary organizations at one haul." * * * * * Thus it came about that Kinnison took his scarcely-used indetectable speedster back to Prime Base; and that, in a solar system prodigiously far removed from both Tellus and Bronseca, there appeared another tramp meteor-miner.