"How do you know all these things?" Kandron asked, unmoved. "Merely from the report of the Overlord and from the highly questionable testimony of one of the Eich, who was absent from the scene during all of the most important time?"
"You suspect, then, that—" Alcon broke off, shaken visibly.
"I do," the psychologist replied, dryly. "I suspect very strongly indeed that there is working against us a mind of a power and scope, but little inferior to my own. A mind able to overcome that of an Overlord; one able at least if unsuspected and hence unopposed, to deceive even the admittedly capable minds of the Eich. I suspect that the Lensman Morgan was, if he existed at all, merely a puppet. The Eich took him too easily by far. It is, therefore, eminently possible that he had no physical actuality of existence—"
"Oh, come, now! Don't be ridiculous!" Alcon snapped. "With all Boskone there as witnesses? Why, his hand and Lens remained!"
"Improbable, perhaps, I admit—but still eminently possible," Kandron insisted. "Admit for the moment that he was actual, and that he did lose a hand—but remember also that the hand and the Lens may very well have been brought along and left there as reassurances; we cannot be sure even that the Lens matched the hand. But admitting all this, I am still of the opinion that Lensman Morgan was not otherwise tortured, that he lost none of his vital force, that he and the unknown I have already referred to returned practically unharmed to their own galaxy. And not only did they return, they must have carried with them the information which was later used by the Patrol in the destruction of Jarnevon."
"Utterly preposterous!" Alcon snorted. "Tell me, if you can, upon what facts you have been able to base such fantastic opinions."
"Gladly," Kandron assented. "I have been able to come to no really valid conclusions, and it may very well be that your fresh viewpoint will enable us to succeed where I alone have failed. I will, therefore, summarize very briefly the data which seem to me most significant. Attend closely, please:
"For many years, as you know, everything progressed smoothly. Our first setback came when a Tellurian warship, manned by Tellurians and Valerians, succeeded in capturing almost intact one of the most modern and most powerful of our vessels. The Valerians may be excluded from consideration, in so far as mental ability is concerned. At least one Tellurian escaped, in one of our own, supposedly derelict, vessels. This one, whom Helmuth thought of, and reported, as 'the' Lensman, eluding all pursuers, went to Velantia; upon which planet he so wrought as to steal bodily six of our ships sent there especially to hunt him down. In those ships he won his way back to Tellus in spite of everything Helmuth and his force could do.
"Then there were the two episodes of the Wheelmen of Aldebaran I. In the first one a Tellurian Lensman was defeated—possibly killed. In the second our base was destroyed—tracelessly. Note, however, that the base next above it in order was, so far as we know, not visited or harmed.