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."
"But Kandron has been hampering my activities for years, and, now that you also have become interested in his operations against us, he has become a factor of which cognizance should be taken," Nadreck went imperturbably on. He could no more understand Kinnison's viewpoint than the Tellurian could understand his. "With your permission, therefore, I shall find—and slay—this Kandron."
"Go to it, little chum," Kinnison sighed, bitingly and uselessly. "Clear ether."
While this conference was taking place, Kandron reclined in a bitterly cold, completely unlighted room of his headquarters and indulged in a little gloating concerning the predicament in which he was keeping Nadreck of Palain VII, who was, in all probability, the once-dreaded Star A Star of the Galactic Patrol. It was true that THE Lensman was still alive. He would probably, Kandron mused quite pleasurably, remain alive until he himself could find the time to attend to him in person. He was an able operator, but one presenting no real menace, now that he was known and understood. There were other things more pressing, just as there had been ever since the fall of Thrale. The revised Plan was going nicely, and as soon as he had resolved that human thing—The Ploorans had suggested ... could it be possible, after all, that Nadreck of Palain was not he who had been known so long only as Star A Star? That the human factor was actually—
Through the operation of some unknowable sense Kandron knew that it was time for his aide to be at hand to report upon those human affairs. He sent out a signal and another Onlonian scuttled in.
"That unknown human element," Kandron radiated harshly. "I assume that you are not reporting that it has been resolved?"