"But you have nothing concrete to go on, I take it?"
"If I did have, do you think I'd be standing here talking to you?"
First Lensman Samms sat in his private quarters and thought.
Lensman Dronvire of Rigel Four stood behind him and helped him think.
Port Admiral Kinnison, with all his force and drive, began a comprehensive program of investigation, consolidation, expansion, redesigning, and rebuilding.
Virgilia Samms went to a party practically every night. She danced, she flirted, she talked. How she talked! Meaningless small talk for the most part—but interspersed with artless questions and comments which, while they perhaps did not put her partner of the moment completely at ease, nevertheless did not quite excite suspicion.
Conway Costigan, Lens under sleeve, undisguised but inconspicuous, rode the ether-lanes; observing minutely and reporting fully.
Jack Kinnison piloted and navigated and computed for his friend and boat-mate:
Mason Northrop; who, completely surrounded by breadboard hookups of new and ever-more-fantastic complexity, listened and looked; listened and tuned; listened and rebuilt; listened and—finally—took bearings and bearings and bearings with his ultra-sensitive loops.