"Then here's the situation on each of the subject worlds so far as cargo-ships and fighting ships are concerned. Our dowser can tell about them. Remember, this doesn't apply to ships in overdrive! We can't precognize anything about them unless we're at the destination they're heading for, and then only the time of arrival. And the dowser's information is strictly as of this moment."
Bors nodded. Her tone was absolutely matter-of-fact. Bors was almost convinced.
She read off a list of statements with painstaking clarity. She'd evidently had the dowser go over the list of twenty-two dominated planets. Bors told himself that the events she reported were possibilities that might somehow be true.
"Most of the Mekinese grand fleet," she finished, "is aground on Mekin itself. It's probably there for inspection and review or some such ceremony. There's no way to tell. But it's there. And that's the latest Talents, Incorporated information. As my father says, you can depend on it."
"All right," said Bors. "Thanks." Then he added gruffly, "Take care of yourself."
She smiled at him and clicked off. Bors was confused because he couldn't quite believe that other matters could be predicted.
The new ship, the Horus, sped away in overdrive, leaving the fleet in orbit around the useless planet Glamis. Glamis was in a favorable state just now. It was a lush green almost from pole to pole, save where its seas showed a darker, muddy, bottom-color. It would look inviting to colonists. But at any time its sun could demonstrate its variability and turn it into a cloud-covered world of steaming prospective jungle, or in a slightly shorter time turn it to a glacier-world. The vegetation on Glamis was remarkable. The planet, though, was of no use to humanity because it was unpredictable.
The Horus ran in overdrive for two days while a low-power unit was built in its engine-room, to go in parallel to the normal overdrive. But there was a double-throw switch in the line, now. Either the standard, multiple light-speed overdrive could be used, or the newer and vastly slower one, but not both together. The ship came out of overdrive in absolute emptiness with no sun anywhere nearby. She was surrounded on every hand by uncountable distant stars. The new circuit was brazed in. It had a micro-timer included in its design. Within its certain, limited timing-capacity, it could establish or break a contact within the thousandth of a microsecond.
Bors made tests, target-practice of a sort. He let out a metal-foil balloon which inflated itself, making a sphere some forty feet in diameter. In the new low-speed overdrive he drew away from it for a limited number of microseconds. He measured the distance run. He made other runs, again measuring. From ten thousand miles away he made a return-hop to the target-balloon and came out within a mile of it.
He cheered up. This was remarkably accurate. He sent the ship into standard overdrive again. Twice more, however, he stopped between stars and practiced the trick of breaking out of the new overdrive—in which his ship was undetectable—at a predetermined point. The satisfaction of successful operation almost made up for the extremely disagreeable sensations involved.