Then Morgan moved decisively. He moved away from the spot where he had been engaged in impassioned argument. He took Bors by the arm, and hustled him through the door.
"Come along!" he said urgently. "Something's got to be done! You have the knack of thinking of things to do! The king's intentions--"
The door closed behind him and he broke off. He wiped sweat from his forehead with one hand while he thrust Bors on with the other. They came to a cabin evidently assigned to him. Gwenlyn waited there.
"Craziness!" said Morgan bitterly. "Craziness! I get the finest group of Talents that ever existed! I teach them to think! I instruct them! And they can't think of what is going to happen. And everything depends on it! Everything!"
"When will the _Sylva_ be back?" demanded Bors.
Morgan automatically looked at his watch. Gwenlyn opened her mouth to speak. Morgan shook his head impatiently. Gwenlyn was silent.
"My ship-arrival Talent's with the _Sylva_," said Morgan harassedly. "We sent him to Kandar to find out if the Mekinese fleet's coming there, and when. It isn't coming here. He said so."
"It'll go to Kandar," said Bors bitterly, "to destroy it. I imagine we'll go there too, to be destroyed."
"But it's insane!" protested Morgan. "Look! You captured a passenger-ship off Mekin. Right?"
"You sent it here with all its passengers. Right?"
"One of the passengers said he was a clairvoyant. Hah!" Morgan expressed the ultimate of disgust. "He was a fortune-teller! He didn't know there was anything better than that! A fortune-teller! But he's a Talent! He's a born charlatan, but he's an authentic Talent, and he doesn't know what that is! He thinks predictions as Madame Porvis thinks scandals! And they're just as crazy! But he _is_ a Talent and they have to be right!"
Bors said, "You're going to take Gwenlyn away from here,--and fast!"
Morgan paid no attention. He was embittered, and agitated, and in particular, he was frustrated.
"It's all madness!" he protested almost hysterically. "Here we've got a firm precognition that King Humphrey's going to open parliament on Kandar next year, and there's another one--"
Gwenlyn said quickly, "Which you won't tell!"
"Which I won't tell. But something's got to happen! Something's got to be done! And this crazy Talent gives me a crazy precognition and looks proud because I can't make sense of it! What the hell can you make out of a precognition that Mekin will be defeated when an enemy fleet submits to destruction, lying still in space? There's no sense to it! _My_ Talents wouldn't think of anything idiotic like that! They've got better sense! But when this lunatic said it, they could precognize it too! It's so! They couldn't think of it themselves, but when this Mekinese Talent does, they know it's true. But it can't be!"