No luck. One of Nadreck's minor tentacles was already curled around a switch, tensed and ready. Kandron had not moved a foot when a relay snapped shut and four canisters of duodec detonated as one. Duodecaplylatomate, that frightful detonant whose violence is exceeded only by that of nuclear disintegration itself!
There was an appalling flash of viciously white light, which expanded in microseconds into an enormous globe of incandescent gas. Cooling and darkening as it expanded rapidly into the near-vacuum of interplanetary space, the gases and vapors soon became invisible. Through and throughout the entire volume of volatilization Nadreck drove analyzers and detectors, until it was a mathematical certainty that no particle of material substance larger in diameter than five microns remained of either Kandron or his spaceship. He then called the Gray Lensman.
"Kinnison. Nadreck of Palain VII calling, to report that my assignment has been completed. I have destroyed Kandron of Onlo."
"Good! Fine business, ace! What kind of a picture did you get? He must have known something about the higher echelons—or did he? Was he just another dead end?"
"I did not go into that."
"Huh? Why not?" Kinnison demanded, exasperation in every line of his thought.
"Because it was not included in the project," Nadreck explained, patiently. "You already know that one must concentrate in order to work efficiently. To secure the requisite minimum of information it was necessary to steer his thoughts into one, and only one, set of channels. There were some foreign side-bands, of course, and it may be that some of them touched upon this new subject which you have now, too late, introduced ... no, there were no such."
"Damnation!" Kinnison exploded; then by main strength shut himself up. "QX, ace; skip it. But listen, my spiny and murderous friend. Get this—engrave it in big type right on the top-side inside of your thick skull—what we want is INFORMATION, not mere liquidation. Next time you get hold of such a big shot as Kandron must have been, don't kill him until either: first, you get some leads as to who or what the real head of the outfit is; or, second, you make sure that he doesn't know. Then kill him all you want to, but FIND OUT WHAT HE KNOWS FIRST. Have I made myself clear this time?"
"You have, and as Co-ordinator your instructions should and will govern. I point out, however, that the introduction of a multiplicity of objectives into a problem not only destroys its unity, but also increases markedly both the time necessary for, and the actual personal danger involved in, its solution."