Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

The huge man looked disgusted. 'Got yourself a little addled in the brain, haven't you?' he said significantly. 'Look,' he went on, 'my name is Jurig. I live on Crest, and I'm a Yalertan citizen. I killed a man by hitting him too hard, and so here I am, subject to execution—but I don't want to talk to you any more. You bother me with that foolishness.'

Gosseyn hesitated. Jurig's protests were convincing, but he wasn't prepared to let the matter drop. There was one point that needed clearing up.

'If you're so innocent,' he said accusingly, 'how is it that you can speak the English language so perfectly?'

He realized the answer to that as he spoke the word 'English'. Jurig completed the thought with finality.

'What language?' he said. He began to laugh. 'You are crazy.' He seemed to realize the implications of what he was saying. He groaned. 'Is it possible the Follower has put me in here with a crazy man?'

He caught hold of himself. 'Man,' he said, 'whoever you are—the language we're speaking, you as well as I, is Yalertan. And I can tell you right now, you speak it like a native.'

For a few minutes, then, Gosseyn abandoned the conversation. He walked to his bunk and sat down. The flow of neural sensations that streamed from the giant were not friendly. There was cunning in them, and a kind of smug, murderous self-satisfaction.

The question was, why did the man dissemble? In point of muscular strength, the Yalertan was in a class by himself. If they ever came to grips, then Gilbert Gosseyn would have to use his extra brain to similarize himself to various parts of the prison. He must keep clear of those gorilla-like arms and fight like a boxer, not a wrestler.

But any use of his extra brain would reveal the nature of his special ability. Gosseyn climbed to his feet, and walked slowly over to the grille that divided his cell from that of Leej. He recognized that his position was bad. The cell had no power sockets. He was caught in it as completely as if he was the most ordinary of human beings.

The bars of the grille were thin, and about four inches apart. They looked as if a strong man might be able to bend them.

No strong man in his right mind would ever try. The metal was encrusted with needles. Thousands of them. He drew back, defeated, then bent down and examined the connection of the grille with the floor.

There was a crossbar that was free of needles, but the needles from the horizontal bars reached down over it, guarding it from probing fingers. Gosseyn straightened, and turned to his one remaining hope, the cot. If he could move it against the wall, end up, he'd be able to reach the window.

The cot was a metal affair, its legs cemented into the concrete floor. After several minutes of straining at it vainly, Gosseyn stood back. A doorless cell, he thought, and silence. His mind paused. The silence was not complete. There were sounds, movements, rustlings, a faint throb of voices. This prison must be part of a larger building—what was it the woman had called it—the Follower's Retreat. He was trying to visualize that when Jurig said from behind him:

'Funny clothes you got on.'

Gosseyn turned and stared at the man. Jurig's tone indicated that he had made no connection between the clothing and what Gosseyn had said about other planets.

He glanced down at his 'funny' suit. It was a light, plastic coverall with hidden zipper and, also hidden, a thermostat controlled heating and refrigeration network that was mazed evenly through the artificial textile material. It was very neat and expensive looking and very handy to have on, particularly for a man who might find himself in an unaccustomed climate. In cold or hot weather, the suit would maintain a uniform temperature next to his skin.

The shock of realizing that he had been using a foreign language so naturally, so easily, that he hadn't even been aware of it, had come at the moment that he tried to fit the word 'English' into the Yalertan tongue. It had sounded wrong. He'd gathered from Thorson and Crang that the galactic civilization had developed language machines by which soldiers, diplomats and space travelers could be taught the tongues of the peoples of far planets. But he hadn't pictured anything like this.

The card must have done it. Gosseyn sank down on his cot, and closed his eyes. He had really been trapped in Janasen's room. Imagine actually sitting on a Distorter. In one instant, he thought, I was transported from Venus. My body headed unerringly for this cell, and arrived at a predetermined instant. In midflight, another player in this vast game, similarized my brain into the brain case of Ashargin on a far planet. The moment that connection was broken, I woke up here, already educated in the local language. And, if the Follower really expected me to awaken the moment my body arrived, then I must have been taught the language during or immediately after the time that I looked at the card.

He glanced again at the woman, but her hack was still turned. He looked at Jurig appraisingly; here must be his immediate source of information.

The big man answered his questions without hesitation. The planet was made up of thousands of large islands. Only the skytrailer people, the Predictors, could move freely over the entire surface. The rest of the population was confined, each individual group to its own island. There was trade among them, and some migration, but always on a limited scale as between nations. There were numerous trade and immigration barriers but...

Gosseyn listened with the attention of a man who was swiftly grasping at a new idea. He was trying to imagine the Null-A Venusians against these Yalertans. He tried to think of a comprehensive word that would describe the Predictors, but nothing seemed to fit. Neither side yet realized that two utterly different systems for dealing with reality

existed in the galaxy. Neither side had as yet become aware of the other. Both were systems that had developed in isolation from the main stream of galactic civilization. Both were now about to be drawn into the maelstrom of a war being fought on so vast a scale that entire planetary systems might be wiped out.

He commented finally, 'You seem to dislike these Predictors. Why?'

The giant had wandered away from the bars of his cell, and was leaning against the wall under the window. 'Are you kidding?' he said. His eyes narrowed with annoyance, and he came back to the bars. 'You've pulled enough of that stuff for one day.'

'I'm not kidding. I really don't know.'

They're stuck-up,' said Jurig abruptly. They can tell the future, and they're ruthless.'

That last point sounds bad,' Gosseyn admitted.

'They're all bad!' Jurig exploded. He stopped and swallowed hard. ‘They enslave other people. They steal the ideas of the island folk. And because they can tell the future, they win every battle and repress every rebellion.'

'Listen!' Jurig leaned closer to the bars in front of him. His tone was earnest. 'I noticed you didn't like my saying that Leej belonged to me. Not that it matters what you like, you understand. But don't ever feel sorry for one of them. I've seen these women flay alive some lesser being'—his voice grew sarcastic, then angry—'and get a kick out of it. Now, this one has run up against the Follower for a private reason, and so, for the first time in centuries—I never heard of any other—one of us lesser folk has a chance at last to get back a little at these murderous scum. Am I going to take advantage of that? You bet I am.'

For the first time since she had turned her back, the young woman stirred. She swung around, sat up, and looked at Gosseyn.

'Jurig's neglected to mention one thing,' she said.

The giant let out a bellow. His lips drew back in a snarl.

'You tell him,' be raged, 'and I'll smash in your teeth the moment we get together.'