chunk: Once he has a cadre of Lensmen available to defend civilization, Samms uses them to begin tracing leads to the major threats to civilization. Corrupt politicians, illegal drugs, and pirates attacking merchant ships in space. To fight the crooked politics all they can do for the moment is gather evidence and hold it until the campaign and elections. The leads to the pirates hit a blank wall and stall (for now). Combating the drug traffickers yields the most success. Breaking the drug smuggling turns out to be the key to getting a handle on all the other threats. As the Lensmen trace the trade in "thionite", a mind-altering drug, from the source to the end user, they find the different leads all coming together, and all leading straight to the corrupt political machine that was then running North America.