it was a very remarkable one. The man Morgan
had come to him to tell him that. If he'd come for some other reason,
and merely made a guess, it could be coincidence. But he'd come only to
tell Bors that he could be useful! And it was impossible, at a
destination-port, to know when a ship would break out of overdrive!
Einstein's data on the anomalies of time at speeds near that of light
naturally did not apply to overdrive speeds above it. Nobody could
conceivably predict when a ship from many light-years away would arrive!
But Morgan had! It was impossible!

He'd said something else that was impossible, too. He'd said there was a
Mekinese cruiser on the sea-floor of Kandar, where it could blast all
the local fleet--which was ready to fight but vulnerable to a single
fusion-bomb. If such a thing happened, the impending disaster would be
worse than intolerable. To Bors it would mean dying without a chance to
strike even the most futile of blows at the enemy.

He hesitated a long minute. Morgan's errand had been to make a
prediction and give a warning, to gain credence for what he could do
later. The prediction was fulfilled. But the warning....

An enemy cruiser in ambush on Kandar was a possibility that simply
hadn't been considered--hadn't even occurred to anyone. But once it was
mentioned it seemed horribly likely. There was no time for a search at
random, but if Morgan had been right about one thing he might have some
way to know about another.

Bors gave curt orders to his subordinates in the work of
record-destruction. He went out of the building to the greensward mall
that lay between the ministries of the government, and headed for the
palace at its end. The government of Kandar was not one of great pomp
and display. There was a king, to be sure, but nobody could imagine the
perspiringly earnest King Humphrey the Eighth as a tyrant. There were
titles, it was true, but they were life appointments to the planet's
legislative Upper House. Kandar was a tranquil, quaint, and very happy
world. There were few industries, and those were small. Nobody was
unduly rich, and most of its people were contented. It was a world with
no history of bloodshed--until now.

Bors brushed absently at his uniform as he walked the two hundred yards
to the palace. He abstractedly acknowledged the sentries' salutes as he
entered. Much of the palace guard had been sent away, and most of the
palace's small staff would hide from the Mekin