Bors seated himself. Morgan offered a cigar. He seemed too impatient and much too pleased to be able to sit down himself. Bors lighted the cigar; at the first puff he removed it and looked at it respectfully. Such cigars were not easy to come by.
"I think," said Gwenlyn amiably, "that Father himself has a talent, which makes him not too easy to get along with. But it has had some good results. I hope it will have more here. The whole business is unbelievable, though, unless you think of some very special facts."
Bors nodded. He puffed again and waited.
"He told you some of it," said Gwenlyn. "About the ship arrival Talent and the dowser. There've always been such people with gifts that nobody's ever understood, but that are real. Only they've always been considered freaks. They feel that they're remarkable—and they are—and they want people to recognize this. But they've never had a function in society. They've been denied all function. Take the Mathematical Talent! He can do any sort of mathematics in his head. Any sort! He used to hire out to work computers, and he always got discharged because he did the computations in his head instead of using the machines. He was always right, and he was proud of his ability. He wanted to use it! But nobody'd let him. He was a miserable misfit until Father found him and hired him."
Bors nodded again, but his forehead wrinkled.
"Talents, Incorporated is merely an organization, created by my father, to make use of people who can do things ordinarily impossible, and probably unexplainable, but which exist nevertheless. There are more talents than Father has gathered, of course. But what good are their gifts to them? No good at all! They're considered freaks. So Father gathered them together as he found them. First, of course, he needed capital. So he used them to make money. Then he began to do useful things with them, since nobody else did. Now he's brought them here to help."
Bors said painfully, "They don't all have the same gift."
"No," agreed Gwenlyn.
"And there are limits to their talents?"
"Naturally!"