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 trying to look at all the angles."
The worried look came back to the senator's pandalike face. "We have to do something. If only we _knew_ that Forsythe's prediction will really come off. Or, if it will, then exactly _when_? And is there anything we can do about it, or will it be like the airline incident. If we hadn't made them switch planes, nothing would have happened. What if, no matter what we do, Moonbase One goes anyway?
"Remember, we haven't yet built Moonbase Two. If our only base on the moon is destroyed, the Soviets will have the whole moon to themselves. Have you any suggestions?"
"Sure," said Taggert. "Ask yourself one question: What is the purpose of Moonbase One?"
Slowly, a beatific smile spread itself over the senator's face.
The whole discussion had taken exactly ninety seconds.
"Mrs. Jesser," said Brian Taggert to the well-rounded, fortyish woman behind the reception desk at S.M.M.R. headquarters, "this is Dr. Forsythe. He has established a reputation as one of the finest seers living today."
Mrs. Jesser looked at the distinguished, white-bearded gentleman with an expression that was almost identical with the one her grandmother had worn when she met Rudolph Valentino, nearly sixty years before, and the one her mother had worn when she saw Frank Sinatra a generation later. It was not an uncommon expression for Mrs. Jesser's face to wear: it appeared every time she was introduced to anyone who looked impressive and was touted as a great mystic of one kind or another.