"We don't know!" said Morgan again. "Someday I may take you aside and explain the facts of precognition and other talents as I understand them. I'm probably quite wrong. But I do know better than to try to pry certain kinds of information from my Talents. Right now--"
"I'm going to try to capture a, what you might call a tribute-ship, loaded with food for Mekin."
"Tralee," said Morgan with finality. "You'll try there."
"Will I capture a food-ship there?" asked Bors.
"How the devil would I know?" Morgan snapped.
"You asked the wrong question," said Gwenlyn cheerfully. "If you asked if there's a cargo-ship down on Tralee, loading foodstuffs for Mekin, there can be an answer to that."
"At the moment, yes," Morgan answered. "So the dowsing Talent says."
"I thought you might," said Morgan. He looked at his daughter.
"May I come along?" asked Gwenlyn. "With an assortment of Talents? My father's going to have long conferences with the king. He'll need some Talents here to work out things. But I could go along on your ship with a few of the others. We could help a lot."
"I thought not," said Morgan. "Very well. Logan, you'll help Captain Bors, I'm sure."
He looked about him with a confident, modestly complacent air.
Bors walked with Morgan and his daughter to the airlock. He turned to Gwenlyn. "I don't mean to be ungallant, refusing to let you run risks."
"I'm flattered but annoyed," Gwenlyn answered. "It means I'll have to take drastic measures. Luck!"
She and her father went into the _Sylva's_ space-boat. The blister doors closed. Bors went back to the control room. He began to set up the computations for astrogation from the sun of Glamis to the sun of Tralee. He shortly heard the sound of arrivals via the _Isis's_ airlock. Presently, his second-in-command reported fifty additional hands aboard. They included astrogators, drive-engineers and assorted specialists.
After clearance with the flagship, the little warship aimed with painstaking exactitude at Tralee's sun, making due allowance for its proper motion, Glamis's proper motion, the length of time the light he aimed by had been on its way, the distance, and the _Isis's_ travel-rate in overdrive.
Presently Bors said, "Overdrive coming!" and counted down. After "one" he pressed a button. There was the singularly unpleasant sensation of going into overdrive. Then the small fighting ship was alone in its cocoon of warped and twisted space. Until it came out again, there was no possible way by which any message could reach it or its existence be detected or proved. Theory said, in fact, that the cosmos could explode and a ship in overdrive would be unaware of the fact so long as it stayed in overdrive.