annual savings for their employers.
Once Lajos’s precogs would have been ascribed to astuteness or hunches or shrewd extrapolations. Indeed, he himself was perfectly willing to put the vaguer apprehensionsunder that generality. But training and sensitivity had sharpened many “hunches” into definitive perceptions: Check the cellar of that building for dangerous refuse, the janitor is lazy and has not discarded all possible combustibles. The wiring in that attic is frayed and the owners tend to overbad their circuits with heavy-draw appliances. Sometimes the Incident was sustained: This building will be vandalized, fire is involved. The police were then requested to keep that building under surveillance. The surveillance was sufficient to prevent the breaking and entering which Lajos had predicted, but the Company had long ago learned not to protest the measures suggested by their perceptives. Insurers are accustomed to statistics, and Talents saved them too much in claims. Sometimes, as that morning, Lajos would experience a general alarm, touched off by the imminence of a violent fire, or a sudden flaring of fire-danger resulting from a vehicular crash. There were days when nothing activated his Talent. And days, of which this was one, when everything seemed to smell vaguely of smoke or be wreathed in ghostly flames. He had to censor half a dozen false impressions by checking them against the small office Goosegg. He had learned to differentiate the valid precogs: that was why he was licensed and registered by the Center.
He finished the pile of contracts, noting those about which he experienced twinge-hesitations that indicated a future review would be wise. On his way home, he suddenly felt a lightness of spirit, an ebullience quite unaccountable after his strenuous day. He didn’t try to analyze ft, too delighted with the relief to want to question the source. But as he opened his door, Ruth raced into his arms.
“We’ve been approved as parents,” she cried, clasping him tightly to her in an excess of elation. “Director op Owen himself called me just a few minutes ago.
You
ought to have been home when he called.”
“Which proves that op Owen is no precog,” Lajos said with a chuckle as he pressed her soft slenderness tohim. He buried his lips into the curve of her neck. “That’s an anodyne for this morning.”
“Why for this morning?” she asked, pulling back and searching his face with worried eyes.
“Oh, it’s all right, sweetie, but he knew I’d hear all the details. Reynarder Inc. was warned the instant my Incident identified the ship but they refused to issue a blanket halt on all outgoing and incoming vessels with those numerals. Reynarder’s money is back of the Transport Lobby and they support Zeusman, you know. They
can’t
admit that Incidents, backed by cerebral variations, computer-sorted, validated by the Center are NOT superstitious nonsense. But a lot of people check out their flights nowadays with a licensed precog.”
“Then I say that companies like Reynarder deserve what they get!”
“Hey, we can afford not to be petty. And besides, I want to talk about us: about our child. What’ll we have first? Boy or girl?”
Ruth stiffened in his arms and pulled back to look her husband straight in the eye.
“Do we have to specify? Does it have to be predetermined?” she asked in a small voice, aware even as the words popped out that she sounded resentful. “Oh, I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that when you predetermine, it takes away all the mystery that’s left to motherhood.”
“Ruthie,” and Lajos’s tender teasing voice thrilled her. “You’re a real recessive. O.K., we’ll just let nature take its course.”
“Can’t we eat first?”
Lajos threw back his head and laughed boyishly at her deliberate coquetry. He hugged her until he heard her ribs crack and her dinner sizzling.
It was a magical night. Ruth responded to lovemaking with an ardor that
Once Lajos’s precogs would have been ascribed to astuteness or hunches or shrewd extrapolations. Indeed, he himself was perfectly willing to put the vaguer apprehensionsunder that generality. But training and sensitivity had sharpened many “hunches” into definitive perceptions: Check the cellar of that building for dangerous refuse, the janitor is lazy and has not discarded all possible combustibles. The wiring in that attic is frayed and the owners tend to overbad their circuits with heavy-draw appliances. Sometimes the Incident was sustained: This building will be vandalized, fire is involved. The police were then requested to keep that building under surveillance. The surveillance was sufficient to prevent the breaking and entering which Lajos had predicted, but the Company had long ago learned not to protest the measures suggested by their perceptives. Insurers are accustomed to statistics, and Talents saved them too much in claims. Sometimes, as that morning, Lajos would experience a general alarm, touched off by the imminence of a violent fire, or a sudden flaring of fire-danger resulting from a vehicular crash. There were days when nothing activated his Talent. And days, of which this was one, when everything seemed to smell vaguely of smoke or be wreathed in ghostly flames. He had to censor half a dozen false impressions by checking them against the small office Goosegg. He had learned to differentiate the valid precogs: that was why he was licensed and registered by the Center.
He finished the pile of contracts, noting those about which he experienced twinge-hesitations that indicated a future review would be wise. On his way home, he suddenly felt a lightness of spirit, an ebullience quite unaccountable after his strenuous day. He didn’t try to analyze ft, too delighted with the relief to want to question the source. But as he opened his door, Ruth raced into his arms.
“We’ve been approved as parents,” she cried, clasping him tightly to her in an excess of elation. “Director op Owen himself called me just a few minutes ago.
You
ought to have been home when he called.”
“Which proves that op Owen is no precog,” Lajos said with a chuckle as he pressed her soft slenderness tohim. He buried his lips into the curve of her neck. “That’s an anodyne for this morning.”
“Why for this morning?” she asked, pulling back and searching his face with worried eyes.
“Oh, it’s all right, sweetie, but he knew I’d hear all the details. Reynarder Inc. was warned the instant my Incident identified the ship but they refused to issue a blanket halt on all outgoing and incoming vessels with those numerals. Reynarder’s money is back of the Transport Lobby and they support Zeusman, you know. They
can’t
admit that Incidents, backed by cerebral variations, computer-sorted, validated by the Center are NOT superstitious nonsense. But a lot of people check out their flights nowadays with a licensed precog.”
“Then I say that companies like Reynarder deserve what they get!”
“Hey, we can afford not to be petty. And besides, I want to talk about us: about our child. What’ll we have first? Boy or girl?”
Ruth stiffened in his arms and pulled back to look her husband straight in the eye.
“Do we have to specify? Does it have to be predetermined?” she asked in a small voice, aware even as the words popped out that she sounded resentful. “Oh, I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that when you predetermine, it takes away all the mystery that’s left to motherhood.”
“Ruthie,” and Lajos’s tender teasing voice thrilled her. “You’re a real recessive. O.K., we’ll just let nature take its course.”
“Can’t we eat first?”
Lajos threw back his head and laughed boyishly at her deliberate coquetry. He hugged her until he heard her ribs crack and her dinner sizzling.
It was a magical night. Ruth responded to lovemaking with an ardor that
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