"Seven of his subjects had relatives or friends who were hurt or killed in the earthquake-flood-eruption sequence, but he didn't see them. Yet he could pick up such small things as a nephew of one of the men getting a bad scald on his arm. "In the face of that, how can we rely on his one prediction about a meteor striking Moonbase One?" Taggert rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. "I don't know," he said slowly. "There must be a connection somehow." "Oh, Brian, Brian!" Her eyes were glistening with as yet unshed tears. "I've never seen you go off on a wild tangent like this before! On the word of an old fraud like Forsythe, a man who lies about half the time, you talk the Administration into sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into the biggest space lift in history! "Oh, sure; I know. The old fraud is convinced he was telling the truth. But were you tapping his mind when the prediction flash came? No! Was anyone? No! And he's perfectly capable of lying to himself, and you know it! "And what will happen if it doesn't come off? We're past the first deadline already. If that meteor doesn't hit within the next twenty-eight days, the Society will be right back where it was ten years ago! Or worse! "And all because you trusted the word of Mr. Phony-Doctor Forsythe!" "Donna," Taggert said softly, "do you really think I'm that big a fool?" He handed her a handkerchief. "N-no," she answered, wiping at her eyes. "Of c-course I don't. It's just that it makes me so d-darn _mad_ to see everything go wrong like this." "Nothing's gone wrong yet. I suggest you go take a good look at Forsythe's mind again and really try to understand the old boy. Maybe you'll get more of the fine-grain structure of it if you'll try for more understanding." "What do you mean?" she asked, sniffing. "Look. Forsythe has made his living being a fraud, right? And yet he sent out those warning _free_--and anonymously. He had no thought of any reward or recompense, you know that. Why? Because he is basically a kind, decent human being. He wanted to do all he could to stop any injury or loss of life. "Why, then, would he send out a fraudulent warning? He wouldn't. He didn't. Every one of those warnings--_including the last one_--was sent out because he _knew_ that something was going to happen. "Evidently, once he gets a flash about a certain event, he can't get any more data on that particular area of the future, or we could get more data on the Moonbase accident. I think, if we can boost his basic understanding up past the critical point, we'll have a man with controlled prescience, and we need that man. "But, Donna, the only way we're ever going to do that--the only way we'll ever whip this problem--is for you to increase _your_ understanding of _him_. "You're past the critical point--way past it--in _general_ understanding. But you've got to keep an eye on the little specific instances, too."