of hokum, and he's been doing it so long that he really isn't
sure how much of any prediction is truth and how much is embroidery
work.

"The boys are trying to get more information on him now, and they're
going to do a little deep probing, if they can get him set up right;
maybe they'll be able to trigger off another flash on that
moon-hit--but I doubt it."

Senator Kerotski thumbed his chin morosely. "You're probably right.
Apparently, once those hunches come to a precog, they get everything
in a flash and then they can't get another thing--ever. I wish we
could get our hands on one who was halfway along toward _the_ point.
We've got experts on psychokinetics, levitation, telepathy,
clairvoyance, and what-have-you. But precognition we don't seem to be
able to find."

"We've got one now," Brian Taggert reminded him.

The senator snorted. "Even assuming that we had any theory on
precognition completely symbolized, and assuming that this Forsythe
has the kind of mind that can be taught, do you think we could get it
done in a month? Because that's all the time we have."

"He's our first case," Taggert admitted. "We'll have to probe
everything out of him and construct symbol-theory around what we get.
I'll be surprised if we get anywhere at all in the first six months."

Senator Kerotski put his hand over his eyes. "I give up. First the
Chinese Soviet kidnaps Dr. Ch'ien and we have to scramble like maniacs
to get him back before they find out that he's building a space drive
that will make the rocket industry obsolete. Then we have to find out
what's causing the rash of accidents that is holding up Dr. Theodore
Nordred's antigravity project. And now, just as everything is coming
to a head in both departments, we find that a meteor is going to hit
Moonbase One sometime between thirty and sixty days from now." He
spread apart the middle and ring fingers of the hand that covered his
eyes and looked at Taggert through one eye. "And now you tell me that
the only man who can pinpoint that time more exactly for us is of no
use whatever to us. If we knew when that meteor was due to arrive, we
would be able to spot and deflect it in time. It must be of pretty
good size if it's going to demolish the whole base."

"How do you know it's going to be a meteor?"

"You think the Soviets would try to bomb it? Don't be silly, Taggert,"
Kerotski said, grinning.

Taggert grinned back. "I'm not thinking they'd bomb us; but I'm tryi