on the map where a communicator to the
ship would be. With the information about the arrival of the liners, and
the facts about the cruiser--and I had other information too--I went to
the Ministry for Diplomatic Affairs and told you. As you know, the
information I gave you was accurate."

Bors felt as if he'd been hit over the head. This was ridiculous! He'd
hunted for the space-cruiser under the sea because the prediction of the
liner's arrival was so uncannily correct. He'd helped plan and carry out
the destruction of that warship because its existence and location were
verified by a magnetometer. But if he'd known how the information was
obtained, if he'd known it was guessed at by a discharged spaceport
employee, and a paranoid personality, and a man who used a hazel twig or
something similar.... If he'd known that, he'd never have dreamed of
accepting it. He'd have flatly dismissed the ship-arrival prediction!

But, if he hadn't trusted the information enough to check on it, why,
the small space-fleet of Kandar would vanish in atomic flame when it
tried to take off to fight. With it would vanish Bors, and his uncle,
and the king and many resolute haters of Mekin.

Gwenlyn said, "You're perfectly right, Captain."

"What's that?" asked Bors, numbly.

"It is stark-raving lunacy," said Gwenlyn pleasantly. "Just like it
would have seemed stark-raving lunacy, once upon a time, to think of
people talking to each other when they were a thousand miles apart. Like
it seemed insane to talk about flying machines. And again when they said
there could be a space-drive in which the reaction would be at a right
angle to the action, and especially when somebody said that a way would
be found to drive ships faster than light. It's lunacy, just like those
things!"

"Y-yes," agreed Bors, his thoughts crowding one another. "It's all of
that!"

Morgan nodded his head rapidly.

"I felt that way about it," he observed, "when I first got the idea of
finding and organizing Talents for practical purposes. But I said to
myself, 'Lots of great fortunes have been made by people assuming that
other people are idiots.' In some ways they are, you know. And then I
said to myself, 'Possibly a fortune can be made by somebody assuming
that _he_ is an idiot.' So I assumed it was idiotic to doubt something
that visibly happened, merely because I couldn't understand it. And
Talents, Incorporated was born. It's done quite well."

Bors shook his