enthusiasm. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said. "I present Captain Bors! He's come to arrange to use your talents in the gravest of all possible situations for his world!"

There were nods. There were bows. The dignified man in the chair said confidently, "The ship was where I specified."

"Exactly!" said Morgan, beaming. "Exactly! A magnificent piece of work! Which is what I expected of you!"

He made individual introductions all around. 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.

"There are many of us," he said, "with reason to thank you for a most satisfying operation. We smashed that cruiser!"

The scowling man nodded portentously. The introductions went on. The skinny adolescent was "our Talent for Locating Individuals." The enormously fat woman: "our Talent for Propaganda."

Bors was confused. He had to steel himself not to decide flatly that all this was nonsense. Morgan and Gwenlyn took him away from what appeared like a sort of social hall for these externally commonplace persons.

They arrived at a smaller compartment. It was a much more personal sort of place. Morgan waved his hand.

"Gwenlyn and I live here," he observed. "Our cabins are yonder and you might call this our family room. Gwenlyn finds the undiluted society of Talents a bit wearing. Of course, handling them is my profession, though I have some plans for retirement. We'll see our Mathematics Talent in a minute or two. He knows it's expected that he'll be the most useful of all our Talents at the moment. He will make an entrance."

Gwenlyn sat down. She regarded Bors with amusement.

"I think the Captain's halfway unconvinced again, Father."

"I'm not unconvinced," said Bors grimly. "I'm desperate. It's not easy either to ignore what's happened or to believe that it will continue. And I—well—if the Mekinese fleet does arrive, I don't want to miss going with our fleet to meet it."

"You won't miss anything, Captain," said Morgan happily. "Have a cigar. Gwenlyn, do you think I should—"

"Let me," said Gwenlyn. "I know how the Captain feels. I'm an outsider, too. I haven't any talent—fortunately! Sit down, Captain."

Bors seated himself. Morgan offered a cigar. He seemed too impatient and much too pleased to be able to sit down himself. Bors lighted the cigar; at the first puff he removed it and looked at it respectfully. Such cigars were not easy to come by.

"I think," said Gwenlyn amiably, "that Father himself has a talent, which makes him not too easy to get along with. But it has had some good results. I hope it will have more here. The whole business is unbelievable, though, unless you think of some very special facts."

Bors nodded. He puffed again and waited.

"He told you some of it," said Gwenlyn. "About the ship arrival Talent and the dowser. There've always been such people with gifts that nobody's ever understood, but that are real. Only they've always been considered freaks. They feel that they're remarkable—and they are—and they want people to recognize this. But they've never had a function in society. They've been denied all function. Take the Mathematical Talent! He can do any sort of mathematics in his head. Any sort! He used to hire out to work computers, and he always got discharged because he did the computations in his head instead of using the machines. He was always right, and he was proud of his ability. He wanted to use it! But nobody'd let him. He was a miserable misfit until Father found him and hired him."