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Perhaps Talents, Incorporated, was sent to us to get us to adopt this freakish trick." "Talents, Incorporated," said Bors, "enabled us to smash a submerged Mekinese cruiser. In giving us the necessary information, Talents, Incorporated kept the Mekinese from wiping out our space-fleet. Talents, Incorporated Oh, the devil!" The admiral gazed about him.
It had a space-fleet which in quality was probably equal to Mekin's, but in quantity was hopelessly less. Also it had a defensive policy. It did not dream of any but a defensive war. And no war was ever won by mere defense. There could be no defense against the building-up of tensions, the contriving of incidents, the invention of insults. It had been proved often enough.
And, Gail, there's going to be the most thoroughly scared gang at the UN and elsewhere that you ever saw, now that what they think's a space-fleet is actually here! We've been decent to the kids, and they think they haven't, so we'll hold out for authority to argue...." A door slammed. Fran said happily: "Let's go!" Motors boomed. The helicopter lifted. It rushed over the village, bellowing.
It's on the sea bottom fifty fathoms down, five miles magnetic north-north-east from Cape Farnell! You can check that! The cruiser's down there to lob a fusion bomb into your space-fleet when it starts to take off for the flight you're planning to get all the important men on Kandar in one smash! That's Talents, Incorporated information! It's a free sample.
But, if he hadn't trusted the information enough to check on it, why, the small space-fleet of Kandar would vanish in atomic flame when it tried to take off to fight. With it would vanish Bors, and his uncle, and the king and many resolute haters of Mekin. Gwenlyn said, "You're perfectly right, Captain." "What's that?" asked Bors, numbly. "It is stark-raving lunacy," said Gwenlyn pleasantly.
They could loot with impunity, and all contamination would remain outside the suits. What loot they gathered, obviously, could be decontaminated before it was returned to Weald. It was a most satisfactory discovery, to realize that blueskins could be not only scorned but robbed. There was only one bit of relevant information the space-fleet of Weald did not have.
He had Morgan standing by to explain the part of Talents, Incorporated if required. King Humphrey said heavily, "This is probably the last cabinet meeting before the coming of the Mekinese. I do not think oratory is called for. I put the situation as it stands. A fleet will come from Mekin for our answer to their ultimatum. Our space-fleet will not surrender.
Nobody could have suspected anything unusual; certainly nothing likely to upset the plans of a murderous totalitarian enemy. One small and insignificant civilian plane shouldn't be able to prevent the murder of a space-fleet, a king and the most resolute members of a planet's population! Captain Bors flew the ship.
Ten miles away the cargo-boat swung itself about. Suddenly it was gone. It was on the way to Glamis and the fleet. Another hour of watching. Another blip. It was another cargo-carrier like the first. As the other had done, it meekly permitted itself to be boarded by what it believed were mere naval ratings of the Mekinese space-fleet, searching for a criminal who might be on board.
Then there'd be a frantic seizure of any craft that could take to space, and the agitated improvisation of a space-fleet. But besides that, biological-warfare technicians would examine Calhoun's instructions for equipment by which armed men could be landed on a plague-stricken planet and then safely taken off again.
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