hip than either a commercial vessel or a yacht. It was obviously
unarmed, but it had the look of a craft that could go very nearly
anywhere.

"You'll find the Talents a bit odd," said Gwenlyn, as they drove up
under the hull's wide bulge. "When they meet new people they like to
show off. Most of them were pretty well frustrated before Father found a
use for them. But they're quite pleasant people if you don't treat them
like freaks. They're not, you know."

Bors had nothing to say. Until he was fifteen he'd lived on Tralee,
which was then a quiet, pacific world, as Kandar had been. As the nephew
of a monarch at least as resolutely constitutional as King Humphrey,
he'd been raised in a very matter-of-fact fashion. The atmosphere had
been that of a comfortable, realistic adjustment to facts. He was taught
a great respect for certain facts without being made fanatically opposed
to anything else. He'd been trained to require reasonable evidence
without demanding that all proofs come out of test tubes and electronic
apparatus. He was specifically taught that arithmetic cannot be proved
by experimental evidence, but that sound experimental evidence agrees
with arithmetic. So he was probably better qualified than most to deal
with something like Talents, Incorporated. But it was not easy for him.

The ground-car stopped. An exit-port in the space yacht opened and an
extension-stair came down. The three of them mounted it. The inner
lock-door opened and they entered the _Sylva_.

An incredibly fat woman regarded Bors with warm and sentimental eyes. A
man no older than Bors, but with prematurely gray hair, nodded at him. A
man in a chair lifted a hand in highly dignified greeting. Everyone
seemed to know who he was. There was a blonde woman who might be in her
late thirties, a short, scowling man with several jewelled rings on his
fingers, and a gangling, skinny adolescent. There were still others.

Morgan addressed them with enthusiasm. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said.
"I present Captain Bors! He's come to arrange to use your talents in the
gravest of all possible situations for his world!"

There were nods. There were bows. The dignified man in the chair said
confidently, "The ship was where I specified."

"Exactly!" said Morgan, beaming. "Exactly! A magnificent piece of work!
Which is what I expected of you!"

He made individual introductions all around. Bors did not begin to catch
the names. This was so-and-so, said