"What? Kinnison? Where is he? Why didn't he—?"
"Yes, Kinnison. Kinnison of Klovia. The Co-ordinator himself. I don't know where he is, or was. I didn't ask him." The Lensman smiled fleetingly. "One doesn't, you know. He discussed the situation with me at length. I am still amazed—"
"Why doesn't he stop it, then?" the president demanded. "Or can't he stop it?"
"That's what I've got to explain to you. He can, but the time won't be ripe until the last act."
"Why not? I tell you, if this thing can be stopped it's got to be stopped, and no matter what has to be done it's got to be—"
"Just a minute!" Gerrond snapped. "I know that you're out of control—I don't like to see Radelix torn apart any better than you do—but you ought to know by this time that Galactic Co-ordinator Kimball Kinnison is in a better position to know what to do than any other man in the universe. Furthermore, his word is the last word. What he says, goes."
"Of course," the president apologized. "I am overwrought ... but to see our entire world pulled down around us and upon us, our institutions, the work of centuries, destroyed, millions of lives lost ... all needlessly—"
"It won't come to that, he says, if we all do our parts. And you, sir, are very much in the picture."
"I? How?"
"Are you familiar with exactly what happened upon Antigan IV?"