down."
"How'd you convince him?"
"Asked the same question you asked me. Now that we have the Ch'ienspace drive, what purpose does a moon base serve? None at all, ofcourse."
Donna Tadesco leaned forward in her chair. "Did you happen to noticethe sequence of events, senator? We were warned that the base would bestruck. We decided to abandon it. We organized the biggest space liftin history to evacuate the men and the most valuable instruments. Butthe Soviets thought we were sending equipment _up_ instead of bringingit _down_. They didn't know what we were up to, but they decided toput a stop to it, so they dropped an abandoned space satellite on it.
"If we hadn't decided to evacuate the base, it would never havehappened.
"_That_ is human intervention with a vengeance. We still don't knowwhether or not Forsythe's predictions will ever do us any good or not.Every time we've taken steps to avoid one of his prophesiedcatastrophes, we've done the very thing that brought them about."
The senator puffed his cigar in thoughtful silence.
"We'll just have to keep working with him," Taggert said. "Maybe we'lleventually make sense out of this precognition thing.
"At least we've got what we wanted. The Soviets think they've put usback ten years; they figure they've got more time, now, to get theirown program a long ways ahead.
"When they do get to Mars and Venus and the planets of Alpha Centauriand Sirius and Procyon, they'll find us there, waiting for them."
Senator Kerotski chuckled softly. "You're a pretty good prophet,yourself, Brian. The only difference between you and Forsythe is thathe's right half the time.
"You're right _all_ the time."
"No," said Taggert. "Not all the time. Only when it's important."
THE END
* * * * *
Fifty Per Cent Prophet Page 6
