“The prescient talent is an extreme,” he said. “There are fewer than a thousand left. There are nine of us in my category. I believe you refer to us as the _Big All_.” “But we’ve got to do something!” I said. “The world’ll just go to pot!” “We _are_ doing something,” he said. “Right here and on eight other preserves scattered around the world. We’re reviving the mechanical and tool skills which supported the pretalent civilization and we’re storing the instruments which will make a rebirth of that civilization possible.” He raised a warning hand. “But we must move in secrecy. The world’s not yet ready for this information. It would cause a most terrible panic if this were to become known.” “Well, you’re prescient. What does happen?” I asked him. “Unfortunately, none of us are able to determine that,” he said. “Either it’s an unfixed line or there’s some interference which we can’t surmount.” He shook his head and the goatee wiggled. “There’s a cloudy area in the near future beyond which we can’t see. None of us.” That scared me. A prescient may give you the creeps, but it’s nice to know there’s a future into which someone can see. It was as if there suddenly wasn’t any future--period. I began to cry a little. “And our children will be _Nothings_,” I said. “Well, not exactly,” said Williams. “Some of them, maybe, but we’ve taken the trouble of comparing your gene lines--yours and Claude’s. You’ve a good chance of having offspring who will be prescient or telepathic or both. A better than seventy percent chance.” His voice got pleading. “The world’s going to need that chance.” Claude came over and put a hand on my shoulder. It sent a delicious tingle up my spine. Suddenly, I got a little flash of his thoughts-a picture of us kissing. I’m not really a tele, but like I said, sometimes I get glimmers. Claude said, “Okay. I guess there’s no sense fighting the inevitable. We’ll get married.” No more argument. We all traipsed into another room and there was a preacher with everything ready for us, even the ring. Another prescient. He’d come more than a hundred miles to perform the ceremony, he said. * * * * * Afterward, I let Claude kiss me once. I was having trouble realizing that I was married. Mrs. Claude Williams. But that’s the way it is with the inevitable, I guess. The old man took my arm then and said there was one small precaution. I’d be going off the grounds from time to time and there’d always be the chance of some unethical tele picking my brains. They put me under an anesthetube and when I came out of it I had a silver grid in my skull. It itched some, but they said that it would go away. I’d heard of this thing. They called it a blanket. Mensor Williams said, “Now go home and get your things. You won’t need to tell your parents any more than that you have a government job. Come back as soon as you’re able.” “Get me a ’porter,” I said.