The Right Time Part 9

"A second time?" he said.

"I was wrong about your dying," she reminded him. "I'm wrong so much in my predictions. I guess I'll just have to forget about that."

He looked over at me. "What about it, Lefty? Can we consider Pheola a PC, or is she merely a TK?"

I grinned at him. "She is probably the most accurate PC in the Lodge,"

I said to him. His eyebrows went up, and Pheola shook her head.

"Accurate," I repeated, "if you'll let me define accuracy."

"Define it."

"According with some definite series of future events," I said.

"That's my definition."

"But I thought you said she's only right now and then," Maragon protested.

"I said a 'definite series of events.' Unfortunately, the series of events that Pheola predicts are in a different s.p.a.ce-time continuum,"

I explained. "You have to consider that we are pa.s.sing through time in a helix. The events that Pheola predicts are in a different helix. The two helices are all snarled together, and at certain times our coil of time intersects her coil. Then she's right, because events in the two continua are the same. We can predict when she's going to be right for our helix, which is a small part of the time, but that part we can use."

He gave me an owlish look. "Philadelphia lawyer," he said. "No other PC is geared in to the same s.p.a.ce-time continuum that Pheola predicts, I suppose, so that means there is no way to test whether she was right or wrong about events in that other time."

"None," I agreed. "But my theory is the only one that holds any water, so far. It works. It permits us to predict when Pheola can predict. I claim she qualifies for the Tenth Degree."

"Maybe so," he said. "Well, young woman, welcome to Members.h.i.+p in the Lodge." He held out his hand, which she took. "Tell me," he went on, "what's the next big thing you predict?"

Pheola smiled over at me. "Lefty is going to take me to the orthodontist this afternoon," she said. "He wants me to have my teeth straightened before we get married."

I'll say one thing for her, right or wrong, she never got off the loud pedal on _that_ prediction.