"... and who are these Lensmen, anyway?" Morgan's voice bellowed, passionate conviction in every syllable. "They are the hired minions of the classes, stabbers in the back, crooks and scoundrels, TOOLS OF RUTHLESS WEALTH! They are hirelings of the inter-planetary bankers, those unspeakable excrescences on the body politic who are still grinding down into the dirt, under an iron heel, the face of the common man! In the guise of democracy they are trying to set up the worst, the most outrageous tyranny that this universe has ever...." Jill snapped the switch viciously.
"And a lot of people swallow that ... that bilge!" she almost snarled. "If they had the brains of a ... of even that Zabriskan fontema Mase told me about, they wouldn't, but they do!"
"I know they do. We have known all along that he is a masterly actor; we now know that he is more than that."
"Yes, and we're finding out that no appeal to reason, no psychological counter-measures, will work. Dronvire and I agree that you'll have to arrange matters so that you can do solid months of stumping yourself. Personally."
"It may come to that, but there's a lot of other things to do first."
Samms broke the connection and thought. He did not consciously try to exclude the two youths, but his mind was working so fast and in such a disjointed fashion that they could catch only a few fragments. The incomprehensible vastness of space—tracing—detection—Cavenda's one tiny, fast moving moon—back, and solidly, to DETECTION.
"Mase," Samms thought then, carefully. "As a specialist in such things, why is it that the detectors of the smallest scout—lifeboat, even—have practically the same range as those of the largest liners and battleships?"
"Noise level and hash, sir, from the atomics."
"But can't they be screened out?"
"Not entirely, sir, without blocking reception completely."