Talents, Incorporated Part 19

Bors said grimly, "I'm not sure. But I will obey orders, Majesty. Do you object if I pa.s.s out the details of the new device among some junior officers? I speak of the way to compute overdrive speed exactly and how to vary it. It could help the fleet to stay together, even in overdrive."

The king shrugged. "That would be desirable. I do not object."

"I'll do it then, Majesty," said Bors. "I'll be a.s.signed a new s.h.i.+p. I'd like the same crew. I'll do my best, in a new part of the Mekinese empire, this time."

"Yes," said the king drearily. "Don't make a pattern of raids that would suggest that you have a base. You understand, it is impossible to use more than one s.h.i.+p...."

"Naturally," agreed Bors. "One more suggestion, Majesty. A s.h.i.+p could be sent back to Kandar--not to land but to watch. If a single Mekinese s.h.i.+p went there to ask questions, it could be destroyed, perhaps. Which would gain us time."

"I will think about it," said the king doubtfully. "Maybe it has occurred to someone else. I will see. Meantime you will go to the admiral for a new s.h.i.+p. And then do what you can to find provisions for the fleet. It is not good for us to merely stay here waiting for nothing. Even action toward our own disappearance is preferable."

Bors saluted. He went to the office of the admiral. The commander-in-chief of the Kandarian fleet was making an inspection, to maintain tight discipline in the absence of hope. A young vice-admiral was on duty in the admiral's stead. He regarded Bors with approval. He listened with attention, and agreed with most of what Bors had to say.

"I'll push the idea of a sentry over Kandar," he said confidentially.

"I'll make it two s.h.i.+ps or three and take command. I want to send some of my engineer officers to get the details of that low-power overdrive.

A very pretty tactical idea! It should be spread throughout the fleet."

"It will help," Bors said with irony, "when we go so far away that we'll never be heard of any more."

"Eh?" The vice-admiral looked at him blankly. "Oh. Perhaps. You wouldn't be likely to pick up a cargo-s.h.i.+p loaded with Mekinese missiles, would you? We could adapt them to our use."

"If I did," Bors answered, "I suspect that somehow that s.h.i.+p would land itself on Mekin and blow up as it touched ground."

The vice-admiral raised his eyebrows. Bors saluted quickly and left.

Presently he was back on the _Sylva_. His new command would be supplied with extra missiles from other s.h.i.+ps. Despite the fleet action against the Mekinese, there was not yet a shortage of such ammunition. When a missile could not be intercepted and itself did not try to intercept, the economy of missiles was great. In the battle of the gas-giant planet, the fleet had fired no more than three or four missiles for every enemy s.h.i.+p destroyed.

Morgan took Bors aside.

"I'm going to keep Logan here this trip. I'm working on the commanders.

I need him. And our Talent for Detecting Lies,--she was the one who knew you were in trouble, Gwenlyn tells me--is very necessary. I was hampered by not having her while Gwenlyn was away. But she did a good job for you!"

Bors shrugged. He did not like depending upon Talents. He still wasn't inclined toward acceptance of what he considered the occult. Now he said, "I'm duly grateful, but it's just as well. My mind doesn't work in a way to understand these Talents of yours. I admit everything, but I'm afraid I don't really accept anything."

"It's perfectly reasonable," protested Morgan. "The facts fit together!

I'm no hand at working out theories; I deal in facts. But the facts do make sense!"

Bors found himself looking at the door of the family room, where Morgan had taken him. He realized that he was waiting for Gwenlyn to enter. He turned back to Morgan.

"They don't make sense to me," he said dourly. "You have a precognizer, you say. He foresees the future. I admit that he has. But the future is uncertain. It can't be foreseen unless it's pre-ordained, and in that case we're only puppets imagining that we're free agents. But there would be no reason in such a state of things!"

Morgan settled himself luxuriously in a self-adjusting chair. He thrust a cigar on Bors and lighted up zestfully.

"I've been wanting to spout about that," he observed, "even if I'm no theoretician. Look here! What is true? What is truth? What's the difference between a false statement and a true one?"

Bors's eyes wandered to the door again. He drew them back.

"One's so and the other isn't," he said.

"No," said Morgan. "Truth is an accordance--an agreement--between an idea and a fact. If I toss a coin, I can make two statements. I can say it will come up heads, or I can say that it will come up tails. One sentence is true and one is false. A precognizer simply knows which statement is true. I don't, but he does."

"It's still prophecy," objected Bors.

"Oh, no!" protested Morgan. "A precognizer-talent doesn't prophesy! All he can do is recognize that an idea he has now matches an event that will happen presently. He can't extract ideas from the future! He can only judge the truth or falsity of ideas that occur to him. He has to think something before he can know it is true. He _does not get information from the future!_ He can only know that the idea he has now matches something that will happen later. He can detect a matching--an agreement--perhaps it's a mental vibration of some sort. But that's all!"

"I asked if I would capture a cargo-s.h.i.+p on Tralee--"

"And I said I didn't know! Of course I said so! How could anybody know such a thing except by pure accident? A precognizer might think of nine hundred and ninety-nine ways in which you might try to capture that s.h.i.+p. They could all be wrong. He might say you wouldn't capture it. But you might try a thousandth way that he hadn't thought of! All he can know is that some idea he has concocted matches--some instinct stirs, and he _knows_ it's true! That's why one man can precognize dirty tricks. His mind works that way! We've got a woman who knows, infallibly, who's going to marry whom! That's why the s.h.i.+p-arrival precognizer can say a s.h.i.+p's coming in. His mind works on such things, and he has a talent besides!"

"There are definite limits, then."

"What is there that's real and hasn't limits?" demanded Morgan.

The door opened and Gwenlyn came in. Bors rose, looking pleased.

"I'm telling him the facts of life about precognition," Morgan told her.

"I think he understands now."

"I don't agree," said Bors.

Gwenlyn said amusedly, "Two of our Talents want to talk to you, Captain.

You might say that they want to measure you for rumors."

"They what?" demanded Bors, startled.

"The Talent who predicts dirty tricks," said Gwenlyn, "is going to work with the woman who broadcasts daydreams. They'll be our Department of Propaganda."

Bors said uncertainly, "But there's no point in propaganda! It's determined."

"I know!" said Morgan complacently. "The high bra.s.s has made a decision.

A perfectly logical decision, too, once you grant their premises. But they a.s.sume that Talents, Incorporated, given some co-operation, of course, lacks the ability to change the situation. In that they're mistaken."

"Father hopes," said Gwenlyn amiably, "to modify the situation so their a.s.sumptions will lead logically to a different conclusion. Apparently they're going to change their minds!"

Bors objected. "But you can't know the future!"

"Our precognizer--our Precognizer for Special Events," said Gwenlyn, "got the notion that a year from now King Humphrey should open parliament on Kandar, if everything is straightened out. The notion became a precognition. We don't know how it can come about, but it does seem to imply a change of plans somewhere!"

Bors found himself indomitably skeptical. But he said, "Ah! That's the precognition you mentioned on Kandar--that the fleet wouldn't be wiped out and everybody killed."

"No-o-o," said Gwenlyn. "That was another one. I'd rather not tell you about it. It might be--unpleasant. I'll tell you later."

Bors shrugged.

"All right. You said I'm to be measured for rumors? Bring on your tape-measures!"

Morgan beamed at him. Gwenlyn went to the door and opened it. An enormously fat woman came in, moving somehow sinuously in spite of her bulk. She gave Bors a glance he could not fathom. It was sentimental, languis.h.i.+ng and wholly and utterly approving. He felt a momentary appalled suspicion which he dismissed in something close to panic. It couldn't be that he was fated--

Then the arrogant man with rings came in. He'd been identified as the Talent for Predicting Dirty Tricks. Bors remembered that he had a paranoid personality, inclined toward infinite suspiciousness, and that he'd been in jail for predicting crimes that were later committed.