Falkayn And Amalfi

"...then his glance passed over the Nebula, and as if it had spoken to him across more than a thousand parsecs, he fell silent and grew tense where he sat."

-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, March 2010), pp. 631-680 AT p. 639.

David Falkayn has realized something and will act on it.

"Amalfi felt a sudden chill. The thought that had just come to him was so outrageous that he had almost stopped thinking it in the middle, out of sheer instinct. The fort - probably it had been destroyed centuries ago. But if it did still exist, certain conclusions emerged implacably, and certain actions could be taken on them....

"Yes, it was possible. It was possible. And definitely worth trying....

"But if it actually worked...

"Having made the decision, Amalfi put the idea resolutely aside."

-James Blish, Earthman, Come Home IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), pp. 235-465 AT CHAPTER FIVE, p. 360.

John Amalfi has realized something and will act on it. (I think that we are told somewhere that Amalfi has an aptitude for acting appropriately on logically insufficient data.)

Both men hatch a long-term plan on the basis of minimal data.  Blish's characters do this quite often and, this time, Falkayn does as well. Falkayn's contributions to Technic History might be greater than those of van Rijn and Flandry combined. Falkayn is even responsible for Flandry's great opponent, the Merseian Roidhunate!

Addendum: Not Mayor Amalfi but City Manager Hazleton -

"Well, that was Hazleton's own psi gift: not true clairvoyance, but an ability to pluck workable plans out of logically insufficient data. Time after time only the seemingly miraculous working-out of some obvious flight of fancy had prevented Hazleton's being jettisoned by the blindly logical City Fathers."

-Earthman, Come Home, CHAPTER FOUR, p. 321.

I think Captain Kirk is also supposed to be able to make snap decisions that usually work? (Connection: James Blish wrote Cities In Flight and adapted Star Trek.)

Some more Technic History-Cities In Flight comparisons might be in order but not tonight, folks.