The Vegian catman held tightly to his mind shield with physically painful concentration. Tregonsee, Second Stage Lensman, one of the handful of super-beings in the Galactic Patrol, was capable of a phenomenal sense of perception. Even in a state of sleep-rest he still perceived--to assassinate him without his taking some sort of countermeasure would be impossible. Asleep or awake, to assassinate him would be incredibly difficult. But asleep or awake, it would be done. The killing would happen now within seconds; even Tregonsee would not be able to react quickly enough to save himself.

  Mando glanced at his chronometer. Thirteen and seven-tenths seconds to the next phase. He shifted his glance to the thick but featherweight electronic gadget encasing his right wrist. The modified spy-ray, personalized into a Tregonsee-detector, placed his target, by the pattern of cross-hatched green lines, within thirty yards. Intersecting red lines indicated another life form at closer range.

  Twelve and two-tenths seconds, then one quick shot-- Tregonsee would be vaporized and Mando would be snatched to safety by the instantaneous appearance of the pre-arranged tube.

  The room was dark, but not pitch-black. Over the hallway door was a security telecamera and spy-ray pointing in his direction. It was operating, but it was not a factor with only seconds remaining before he revealed himself anyway. On each side of the camera was an electric clock, one for local time, the other for GP time. They were both thirty-two seconds slow. In fact, they were both stopped. Strange! And the dual emergency exit lights, one visual, the other ultraviolet, were both lit. Very strange! The abnormalities bothered him, though not greatly--he was used to the unpredictable.

  He was nine and five-tenths seconds ahead of schedule.

  Mando would kill. And escape. All during his climb the assassination plot had obsessed him. He had never tried assassination before, but he had killed in the course of his trade. He had become a legendary burglar among the greatest thieves of old Boskonia. From being pursued by countless galactic governments for punishment, he became sought out by them for clandestine service. Now he was a legendary secret agent, a robber who changed the course of history and the lives of trillions of people among countless stellar systems. He was rich. He was infamous. He was unstoppable. He was the scourge of S.I.S., the Secret Intelligence Services of the Galactic Patrol. He had only one ambition now, greater than fame and wealth--to be more powerful than a Galactic Coordinator, more feared than a Lensman. He believed he had achieved that goal. But it would be the incredible destruction of Tregonsee--that unique super-being, the most prominent non-humanoid alien of all Civilization, the head of the nerve center of the omnipotent Patrol--it would be his murder that would prove Mando to be the most powerful man of the known universe.

  At the moment he entered the window he was psychologically at his peak, fiercely keen--intoxicated by his vision and the conviction of his own invulnerability.

  Time dragged. He was still seconds ahead of schedule. In four and four-tenths seconds the tube would appear, precisely on its mark, even as Tregonsee died.

  There would be exciting political repercussions. Preeko, this tyrannical, puritanical, self-righteous planet which all outlaws hated, would be discredited and condemned. Preeko's honor would be forever smeared by the killing of its honored official guest, Tregonsee, the personal representative of Galactic Coordinator Kimball Kinnison, on a mission of highest importance and utmost security. The Patrol might be stirred to overreact. Terrorism, revolution, even war could result. This uneasy part of the Second Galaxy, the whole Withered Arm sector, could degenerate into chaos. The program of Civilization and the Kinnison regime for pacification of the Second Galaxy could crumble with the death of the head of the S.I.S. With the Galactic Patrol disgraced, Boskone would revive. Mando would be the feared hero, unchallenged-- provided he killed once more, soon and secretly, his unsuspecting victim his old teacher and sole rival, Eramista. Mando alone would be raised to the heights of immortality.

  One and eight-tenths seconds to go. Right on time.

  The unclothed, furry body of Mando had squirmed across the carpeted floor, below the invisible sentinel beams spraying across the room, probably with booby traps set to trip gunfire as well as alarms. He crowded against the corner of floor and wall, head and hands within the sleep-room archway, indiscernibly blending into the thick carpeting. In his left hand was a Sub-Delta-ray projector, in his right was a DeLameter one-shot, both still rubber-chained to his hip-hugging equipment belt.

  Nine-tenths of a second to go.

  Mando did not have to check the red line read-out on his detector--directly in front of him, moving out of the sleep room at fantastic speed in a crouch, was a Preekoan Lensman. Mando blinked and formed a frozen, intricately detailed picture of the Lensman in his mind. He made an instantaneous examination and evaluation. The Preekoan was the size and shape of a large Tellurian, but with the distinctly elongated brown hairless head, Lens banded to the tall forehead, armored from toes to chin.

  The Lensman did not see him. The Preekoan went to the hall door and pressed a communications button which did not work. He uttered a soft oath and turned around, still moving at high speed, and saw the Vegian.

  The gun on Mando's tail splattered its energy against the coruscant Lens, momentarily neutralizing it and blinding the Lensman.

  One surgical pencil-beam dart from the Sub-Delta-ray went in under the Preekoan's chin, through his brain behind his Lens, and out the top of his head. As the body was falling, lifeless, Mando swiveled his head back toward the sleep room and saw his victim, the bulky Rigellian, shuffling ponderously toward him.

  At that moment there was a brilliant flare of light from the window, which lit the room, flooded immediately by an enormous explosive noise. The building shook. The Rigellian stopped, recoiled; he noticeably shrank in size, his cylindrical torso shortening, bulging. Mando, too, was startled by the explosion, but did not flinch; his mind shield stayed firm, not slipping for the tiniest revealing instant. Nevertheless, he knew he had been noticed--not from the glare before the eyeless Lensman, but by the atmospheric distortion, a catman figure silhouetted in a bath of vibrations.

  Mando's muscular response to the first appearance of the Rigellian continued smoothly even as the explosion rocked the room. Reflexes trained for the ultimate in swiftness brought tail gun and Sub-Delta into action--they cross-fired even as the outside noise rumbled through windows and walls.

  Tregonsee was transfixed. His body, in a paralytic daze, had a dancing blue aura.

  Mando's finger, on the DeLameter button, half squeezed it, holding at the very edge of discharging the fatal shot, but he could not finish the action. His finger was locked in place by a low, wavering hum from the crystal on the floor. The hyperspacial tube was materializing at that crucial moment!

  Mando spat out a long, loud, cursing hiss. "Tlazz!" He had to hold his fire for several seconds or his shot could ignite a wild vortex, a churning fireball of stellar power. He couldn't see the tube materializing, but he could feel it. There was the sickening vertigo of its field, the writhing of space around him, the twisting distortion of the infinitesimal strands of his being. Only perfect preparatory planning had spontaneously stopped his finger at the delicate moment of sub-materialization.

  Then the danger was gone. A tiny space-dimensional whirlpool of subatomic particles existed one meter to his right. It was the genesis of the tube, forming, as had been so carefully calculated, at optimum proximity.

  Disaster came at Mando from a different direction before he could make another attempt. Another Preekoan Lensman had come from the archway on the other side of the room, taking in the situation at a glance and, with a hurried shot, sliced off the Vegian's tail. Mando's transfixing crossfire was disrupted and Tregonsee seemingly disappeared.

  The lights came on throughout the apartment and the metal grilles at all three windows rattled into place as though to trap him. Just as unexpectedly, the lights went off and the grilles retracted.

  Mando, desperately searching for Tregonsee, did not return the fire from the Lensman, who dodged back behind the archway. A quick glance at his wrist showed an intricate pattern of green lines--other human types were arriving. And a thick red line was still there. Tregonsee was still in front of him. Then, bewilderingly, he saw that the thick red line was really a double red line, like a ghost, as if there had been a split into twins. A decoy image? Clever! Next there would be four, a dozen. He had to move closer.

  He crawled toward the spot where Tregonsee had been. He easily broke through the weak mental curtain of invisibility. There was the blue shimmer of the immobilized Rigellian barrel-body. And, to his astonishment, there also was the seething mouth of the hyperspacial tube! Instead of being a yard behind him, it was five yards into the other room! It was actually behind Tregonsee! That was wrong! His situation was perilous--his escape seemed out of reach! Such a shift had to be deliberate, not accidental. What had changed the calculations? Was he about to be betrayed?

  Mando did the only possible thing. He disregarded the Lensman behind him, the others arriving, and leapt around the blue body, firing his one DeLameter ball of force point-blank into the head of Tregonsee. The act ordinarily would have been foolhardy. The risk to himself was deadly, for he had no shelter from the concussion which he should have minimized while on his stomach yards away, most of his body behind the wall. There was no other way to reach the mouth of the tube.

  There should have been a gigantic burst of energy. Tregonsee should have been destroyed. Mando, a few seconds off schedule, should have been sucked up into safety by the tube.

  The ball of energy simply struck Tregonsee and disappeared.

  Behind Mando, the second Lensman, instead of Bring, was supervising two Preekoan Patrolmen in spinning a web of force over Mando in an unbelievably rapid and efficient manner

  Mando flung himself past Tregonsee, near enough to the tube to be drawn into it, stunned by the realization that he had failed. The force web, thrown out to catch him, wrapped around him; its tractor was dragging him backward. Not only had he failed, but, to his horror, the Patrol was capturing him alive, not even seriously hurt.

  The tube! There was the fact that the misdirected thing could still pull him out of danger. And then, being sucked up, his own hand tractor rod could pull Tregonsee with him for a kidnapping instead of an assassination!

  From the circumference of the hyper circle which was the opening of the tube there had grown the murkiness of contact where normal space intersected pseudo-space. The diameter grew rapidly from one inch to several yards. In less than one second a ghostly swirl of warped space floated in the middle of the room, reaching for him and Tregonsee. Within the middle of the haze, phantom figures were assembling.

  Mando reversed the polarity of his weapons, momentarily rending the field which bound him, and, his mind blazing with a near burnout of mental power from the quick crushing of the psychotropic capsules stored in his mouth, flung himself toward the tube's mouth.

  A black humanoid shape blocked his way by emerging first. Another body crowded behind.

  The unexpected help startled Mando. This wasn't in his plan. No one was supposed to come through the tube.

  A rainbow beam of light came from the hand of the leading dark figure and struck down one of the Patrolmen, knocking out the others.

  Mando said, "There! There!" and pointed at the glowing figure of Tregonsee. "Blast him!"

  As Mando gave his command, the bulky Rigellian rotated his glowing body at astonishing speed, flinging his tentacles in a desperate attempt to knock the raiders and the furniture about, spoiling their aim and generating confusion. At first the rainbow beam missed. But other beams sprang out of the hands of other black figures pouring into the room

  from the tube. Several beams flashed against the cylindrical barrel-body, slicing upward into the eyeless, neckless head.

  The Rigellian tipped over heavily, mortally wounded.

  Mando banged his quick-release belt buckle, dropping his guns and equipment, ready to dive for the safety of the tube.

  The black-masked leader of the raiding party looked away from the silent, unconscious figures of Tregonsee's bodyguards to stare at Mando, who was now shocked to recognize--Eramista!

  Time froze as Eramista's thoughts came in a flash, coldly, "Are you surprised, Mando? You shouldn't be. The pupil should not take on the teacher, since the teacher will always keep a few tricks unrevealed. Did I neglect to teach you, Mando, my finest pupil, never to trust anyone?"

  Even as Mando saw the dark leader jabbing the thumb of his left hand down in the catman's direction, jerking his head in a quick, silent order to the two companions at his side, their guns flared.

  Mando's two arms disappeared under the blasts.

  Mando understood. He was being double-crossed first, used as a decoy and sentenced to death. He had been redundant, never the primary assassin. The tube's mouth had been deliberately misaligned to facilitate his death, not his escape.

  Mando's face disintegrated into a scorched mass, and his life ended.

  The black leader, spine and head stiff with arrogance, exhausted the charge in his gun by a deliberate coup de grace for Tregonsee, calmly slicing the Rigellian body into four equal quarters. Then he swept his men back into the tube with a pompous wave of his arm.

  The tube vanished.

  The apartments of Tregonsee were deathly still.

  The violence had lasted less than seven seconds.

  One of the Patrolmen on the floor stirred to life. He dragged himself to the bodies of the sundered Rigellian, the dead Lensman, and the mutilated Vegian. He stared at them, almost unable to comprehend the magnitude of the tragedy. He went back to the other Patrolman and the other Lensman.

  They were microwave-burned on their bare flesh, blistered around the edges of their clothing, but they could recover.

  Within minutes the dead and wounded had all been taken out on stretchers and the main entrance sealed, a Preekoan Patrolman on guard outside.

  The door to the security room within the sleeping quarters opened noiselessly. Lensman Frank Garner, Tregonsee's current aide-de-camp, stepped out, his thick face rock-hard with concern. Captain Garner was a Klovian, a heavy man, his mass of muscles swelling out his Patrol uniform like a silver-and-black package of exceptional physical power. His stocky figure seemed a sort of anthropomorphic Rigellian, a hulking human shadow of his superior, sturdy and stoic on the outside. Within his bullet head, however, was a volatile, dynamic mind to rival the best; for one of those rare occasions, he now allowed his emotions to show through.

  "Terrible! Terrible!" He looked at the debris on the floor. Severed pieces of Rigellian harness were in a drying purple smear. The discarded Preekoan armor lay in a heap where the medics had piled it. For several long moments Garner's thoughts said farewell to Meppy and Pat. Then, he toed the Vegian belt, its guns still strung to it. "Who was the Vegian, I wonder? Writti? Mando?"

  He went to the nearest window. Outside, a Rohyl municipal police copter and a Patrol scout craft hovered in position. He drew the blinds tight, adjusting vision for seeing out but not for seeing in.

  "QX, sir!" the Lensman called, as gruff as a dog's bark.

  Another Rigellian came out of the security room. To anyone but another Rigellian, he was identical to the slaughtered one. The almost unnoticeable difference was the slightly larger domed head, with the age-rings around his tentacles a bit deeper and darker. All four of his tentacles were coiled in concentration, resting on the strapping around his waist. His four nostrils, in line and equidistant from each other like his mouths, limbs, and legs, snorted air through atrophied vocal cords for his only form of aural communication--on this occasion, a wheezing kind of emotional pain so rarely indulged in by his race. His barrel body moved slowly, the soles of his bare feet propelling it at a crawl across the burned and stained carpet.

  His uniform was simple, a sort of gray leather harness belt around his midriff, sectioned into many cases and pockets. In fact, it was more like a set of four flat tires forming bandoliers stuffed with sundry things, pieces of equipment and personal effects, other objects hanging from clips, like his peculiar, flexible sock-slippers.

  The leather pieces, hand-tooled and stitched together, formed the stripped-down uniform of a Rigellian Gray Lensman.

  Mando's double-red line had registered true.

  There had been two.

  This was Tregonsee--the real Tregonsee.

  THE NULL-TREG SECRET

  At the time of the appearance of the tube and the death of Mando, the Galactic Patrol ship Dronvire was directly over the Preekoan capital city of Rohyl, thirty miles high, in a battle-red stance. Although Dronvire was essentially a ceremonial vessel assigned to the office of the Galactic Coordinator specifically for the official use of Tregonsee, it was nonetheless a warship. Its small crew of two hundred and fifty officers and men were a highly trained battle force in charge of an enormously deadly machine. Their efficiency and power were now, surprisingly, being stiffly tested.

  Two black spaceships, each on the order of two hundred and fifty thousand tons, outgunning Dronvire ten to one, had unexpectedly attacked. They had come in under screens of blocking electronics, masked by the swarms of Preekoan pleasure craft, police boats, and planetary guard ships, and struck the Patrol vessel fore and aft with brilliant bursts of violet radiance.

  At 3:52 Local in the bright dawn light of the upper air, the Dronvire had been hovering in stationary orbit, waiting patiently to carry the Tregonsee party away. Three Lensmen and two Patrolmen were down on the planet in support of Tregonsee on his four-day diplomatic visit--ostensibly diplomatic, that is, for wherever the Rigellian Second Stage Lensman showed up there was both planned and unplanned intrigue. Two days of the visit had passed without event. The Preekoans,

 

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