. You'll see. But we've other information,
too."

Bors frowned at her. He put the letter away.

"More information--and you'll see me after the fight. You're not telling
me you know the future?"

Morgan waved a cigar.

"Of course not! That's nonsense! If one knew the future, one could
change it, and then it wouldn't be what one knew! You haven't had any
prophecies from me! Prophecy's absurd! All we've told you is about
events whose probability approaches unity."

"But--"

"What Father means," Gwenlyn told him, "is that you can't be told
beforehand about anything you can prevent, because if you can prevent it
you can make your knowledge false. So it isn't knowledge. What we want
to say, though, is that we aren't through."

"Why not?"

"I'm going to retire," said Morgan blandly. "But I want to do something
first that I can gloat over later."

"He wants," added Gwenlyn, "to repose in the satisfaction of his
vanity." She laughed again at her father's expression.

"Seriously, Captain, we wanted to give you the letter and to ask you not
to be surprised if we turn up somewhere. There's a Talent," she added,
"a young boy who can find people. He doesn't know how he does it,
but.... We'll find you!"

The ground-car turned in at the fleet's take-off ground. The normal
interstellar traffic of a planet, of course, was handled by a spaceport,
with ships brought down to ground and lifted out to space again by the
force-fields generated in a giant landing-grid. But a war-fleet could
not depend solely on ground installations. The fighting ships of Kandar
were allowed to use the planet's spaceport only for special reasons.
Emergency rocket take-offs and landings were necessary training for war
conditions anyhow. So the take-off ground was pitted and scarred with
burnt-over circles, where no living thing grew and where very often the
clay beneath the humus top-layer was vitrified by rocket-flames.

A guard at the gate brought the ground-car to a halt.

"War alert," said Bors. "Only known officers and men admitted here. It's
not worth arguing about."

He got out of the car and shook hands.

"I still regret," he told Morgan, "that we've had no chance to do
something in return for the information you've given us." To Gwenlyn he
said obscurely, "I'm glad I didn't know you sooner."

He turned and walked briskly into the fenced-off area. Behind him,
Morgan looked inquisitively at his daughter.

"What was that he just said?