"_Then here's the situation on each of the subject worlds so far as
cargo-ships and fighting ships are concerned. Our dowser can tell about
them. Remember, this doesn't apply to ships in overdrive! We can't
precognize anything about them unless we're at the destination they're
heading for, and then only the time of arrival. And the dowser's
information is strictly as of this moment._"
Bors nodded. Her tone was absolutely matter-of-fact. Bors was almost
convinced.
She read off a list of statements with painstaking clarity. She'd
evidently had the dowser go over the list of twenty-two dominated
planets. Bors told himself that the events she reported were
possibilities that might somehow be true.
"_Most of the Mekinese grand fleet_," she finished, "_is aground on
Mekin itself. It's probably there for inspection and review or some such
ceremony. There's no way to tell. But it's there. And that's the latest
Talents, Incorporated information. As my father says, you can depend on
it._"
"All right," said Bors. "Thanks." Then he added gruffly, "Take care of
yourself."
She smiled at him and clicked off. Bors was confused because he couldn't
quite believe that other matters could be predicted.
The new ship, the _Horus_, sped away in overdrive, leaving the fleet in
orbit around the useless planet Glamis. Glamis was in a favorable state
just now. It was a lush green almost from pole to pole, save where its
seas showed a darker, muddy, bottom-color. It would look inviting to
colonists. But at any time its sun could demonstrate its variability and
turn it into a cloud-covered world of steaming prospective jungle, or in
a slightly shorter time turn it to a glacier-world. The vegetation on
Glamis was remarkable. The planet, though, was of no use to humanity
because it was unpredictable.
The _Horus_ ran in overdrive for two days while a low-power unit was
built in its engine-room, to go in parallel to the normal overdrive. But
there was a double-throw switch in the line, now. Either the standard,
multiple light-speed overdrive could be used, or the newer and vastly
slower one, but not both together. The ship came out of overdrive in
absolute emptiness with no sun anywhere nearby. She was surrounded on
every hand by uncountable distant stars. The new circuit was brazed in.
It had a micro-timer included in its design. Within its certain, limited
timing-capacity, it could establish or break a contact within the
thousandth of a microsecond.
Bors made tests, target-practice of a sort. He let out a metal-foil
balloon which inflated itself, making a sphere some forty feet in
diameter. In the new low-speed overdrive he drew away from it for a
limited number of microseconds. He measured the distance run. He made
other runs, again measuring. From ten thousand miles away he made a
return-hop to the target-balloon and came out within a mile of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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