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He looked at a clock. The prediction from Talents, Incorporated was that the Mekinese fleet would break out of overdrive at 11.19 hours astronomical time. He went over his ship. His crew was by no means depressed. There had been a terrific lift in spirits when dummy-warheaded missiles made theoretic hits, though fifteen interceptors tried to stop them.
Bors speaking." The communicator relayed a voice from somewhere else with an astonishing fidelity of tone. "Spaceport, sir. A ship just broke out of overdrive. We don't identify its type. One ship only, sir." Bors said grimly; "You'd recognize a liner. If it's a ship from the Mekinese fleet and stays alone, it could be coming to receive our surrender. In that case play for time and notify me."
If we send a missile at a Mekinese ship, they set a computer on it, and it computes a course for a counter-missile which explodes and destroys our missile when it's within a certain distance of it." "Then your missile doesn't hit," said Logan. "All too often, it doesn't," admitted Bors. "Then their missiles don't hit either."
At the spaceport, carefully selected persons filed onto the space-liner Vestis. It was not officially believed that the other three great chartered ships would arrive before the Mekinese fleet. It was, in fact, rather likely that none of the information given by Talents, Incorporated was ever believed until the event confirmed the prediction.
Many, many burdens of bombs had been dropped into the sea as plane-fleet after plane-fleet went by. The sea exploded in monstrous columns. Ton, half-ton and two-ton bombs began to detonate, fifty fathoms down. The Mekinese duty-officer below had just learned that the spies' signalling device was cut off, when a detonation lifted the hull of the Mekinese cruiser and shook it violently.
The small space-navy of Kandar waited, aground, to take the king and some other persons on board at the last moment. When the Mekinese navy arrived or as much of it as was needed to make resistance hopeless the end for Kandar would have come. That was the impending disaster. If it came too soon, Bors's task of destruction couldn't be completed as was wished.
Bors did not begin to catch the names. This was so-and-so, said Morgan, "our Telepath." Still another, "our ship-arrival Precognizer he predicted the coming of the liner, you remember." He came to the scowling man with rings. "Captain Bors, this is our Talent for Predicting Dirty Tricks. You've reason to thank him for disclosing that Mekinese cruiser underwater." Bors followed the lead given him.
They still outnumbered the ships from Kandar. And for a Mekinese commander to flee the battle area without having engaged or fired on an antagonist would be treason. No man who fled without fighting would stay alive. There had to be a recording of battle offered or accepted, or the especially merciless court-martial system of Mekin would take over.
The last will arrive the day after, at about sunrise here." Bors went a trifle pale. "I doubt it. It's supposed to be a military secret that such ships are on the way. Since you know it, I assume that the Mekinese do, too. In effect, you seem to be a Mekinese spy. But you can hardly do any more harm! I advise you to go back to your yacht and leave Kandar immediately.
There was the angle and the distance and the proper motions and the time elapsed.... He found it difficult to think in such terms. He was discontented. He'd ambushed a Mekinese cruiser. True, he'd let his own ship be seen, and the Mekinese had warning enough to launch missiles in their own defense.
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