Crackpot societies of all kinds sprang up everywhere, advocating everything from absolutism to anarchy. Queer cults arose, preaching free love, the imminent end of the world, and almost every other conceivable departure from the norm of thought. The Authors' League, of course, was affected more than any other organization of its size, because of its relatively large content of strong and intensely opinionated minds. Instead of becoming one radical group it split into a dozen.
Kinnison joined one of those "Down with Everything!" groups, not as a leader, but as a follower. Not too sheeplike a follower, but just inconspicuous enough to retain his invisibly average status; and from his place of concealment in the middle of the front rank he studied the minds of each of his fellow anarchists. He watched those minds change, he found out who was doing the changing. When Kinnison's turn came he was all set for trouble. He expected to battle a powerful mentality. He would not have been overly surprised to encounter another mad Arisian, hiding behind a zone of hypnotic compulsion. He expected anything, in fact, except what he found—which was a very ordinary Radeligian therapist. The guy was a clever enough operator, of course, but he could not work against even the feeblest opposition. Hence the Gray Lensman had no trouble at all, either in learning everything the fellow knew or, upon leaving him, in implanting within his mind the knowledge that he had made Sybly Whyte into exactly the type of anarchist desired.
The trouble was that the therapist didn't know a thing. This not entirely unexpected development posed Kinnison three questions. Did the higher-ups ever communicate with such small fry, or did they just give them one set of orders and cut them loose? Should he stay in this Radeligian's mind until he found out? If he was in control of the therapist when a big shot took over, did he have jets enough to keep from being found out? Risky business; better scout around first, anyway. He'd do a flit.
He drove his black speedster a million miles. He covered Radelix like a blanket, around the equator and from pole to pole. Everywhere he found the same state of things. The planet was literally riddled with the agitators; he found so many that he was forced to a black conclusion. There could be no connection or communication between such numbers of saboteurs and any higher authority. They must have been sent with one set of do-or-die instructions—whether they did or died was immaterial. Experimentally, Kinnison had a few of the ringleaders taken into custody. As each was arrested another took his place.
Martial law was finally declared, but this measure succeeded only in driving the conspirators underground. What the subversive societies lost in numbers they more than made up in desperation and violence. Crime raged unchecked and uncheckable, murder became an everyday commonplace, insanity waxed rife. And Kinnison, knowing now that no channel to important prey would be opened until the climax, watched grimly while the rape of the planet went on.
The president of Radelix and Lensman Gerrond sent message after message to Prime Base and to Klovia, imploring help. The replies to these pleas were all alike. The matter had been referred to the Galactic Council and to the Co-ordinator. Everything that could be done was being done. Neither office would say anything else, except that, with the galaxy in such a disturbed condition, each planet must do its best to solve its own problems.
The thing built up toward its atrocious finale. Gerrond invited the president to a conference in a downtown hotel room, and there, eyes glancing from moment to moment at the dials of a complete little test-kit held open upon his lap:
"I have just had some startling news, sir," Gerrond said, abruptly. "Kinnison has been here on Radelix for weeks."