Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

The woman flinched visibly, and there was no question of her fear. Her voice when she spoke, trembled, but there was defiance in it, too.

'He's supposed to kill you the moment the bars are removed,' she said.

Jurig's face was a study. 'All right for you, my fine lady. That finishes you.'

The woman was white. 'I think,' she said shakily, 'the Follower wants to see how well you can defend yourself.' She stared at him appealingly. 'What do you think? Can you do anything?'

It was a question that Gosseyn was urgently asking himself.

Gosseyn had an impulse to reassure the young woman, but he suppressed it. He had no intention of standing by while Jurig's blood-thirsty threats were carried out, but he must never forget that somewhere beyond these drab walls was an alert observer—and that his every movement, word and action would be carefully weighed and analyzed.

'Can you do anything?' she asked, 'or is the Follower worried about you without reason?'

'What I'd like to know,' countered Gosseyn, 'is what action do you foresee me taking?'

Her answer proved, if it was necessary to prove it, that this was no academic argument. Without warning, she burst into tears.

'Oh, please,' she sobbed, 'don't keep me in suspense. That man's threats are driving me insane.' She shook her head tearfully. 'I don't know what's the matter. When I look into your future, everything blurs. The only time that ever happens is with the Follower, and with him it's natural. He's simply out of phase.'

She broke off, wiped her tears with the back of her hand, and said earnestly, 'I know you're in danger, too. But if you can do anything against the Follower, you'll have to be able to do it in the open.'

Gosseyn shook his head. He felt sorry for the woman, but her logic was wrong. 'In the history of the planet that I come from, surprise has been a major factor in determining what countries and groups shall dominate civilization.'

All the tears were gone now from her eyes, and her gaze was steady again. 'If the Follower can defeat you in the open, he can baffle any surprise system you may have.'

Gosseyn scarcely heard. 'Listen,' he said earnestly, 'I'm going to try to help you, but whether I can or not depends on how you answer my questions.'

'Yes?' She sounded breathless, her eyes wide, her lips parted.

'Have you any pictures at all of my future actions?’

'What I see you doing,' said Leej, 'doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense.'

'But what is it?' He felt exasperated. 'I've got to know.'

'If I told you,' she said, 'it would introduce a new factor and change the future.'

'But maybe it should be changed.'

'No.' She shook her head. 'After you do it everything blurs. That gives me hope.'

Gosseyn controlled himself with an effort. Anyway it was something. The implication was that his extra brain was going to be used. Apparently, whenever that happened this system of prediction failed to function.

Their faculty remained remarkable, and he'd have to try to find out how neurotics like this woman could automatically foretell the future. But that was for later.

'Look,' said Gosseyn, 'when does all this happen?'

'In about ten minutes,' said Leej.

Gosseyn was shocked into temporary silence. Finally, he said, 'Is there any kind of transport between Yalerta and the planets of other stars?'

‘Yes,' said Leej. 'Without warning, without previous knowledge on our part, the Follower informed all the skytrailer people that they must accept commissions on military spaceships of some being who calls himself Enro. And immediately he had a ship here with some method for transporting us.'

Gosseyn took the shock of that without change of expression, but he flinched inwardly. He had a sudden picture of seers on every warship foretelling the future actions of enemy warships. How could any normal human being fight such a super-human crew? He had known from what Janasen had said that the Follower was working with Enro, but that was one individual. Here were reinforcements by the—He asked the question in a piercing tone, 'How many .. . how many of you are there?'

'About five million,' said Leej.

He had guessed more than that, but the lesser figure brought him no sense of relief. Five million was enough to dominate the galaxy.

'Still,' said Gosseyn, hoping aloud, 'they won't all go.'

I refused,' said Leej in a flat tone. 'I'm not the only one, I understand, but I've talked against the Follower for five years,

and so I'm to be made an example of.' She sounded weary. 'Most of the others are going.'

Gosseyn estimated that four of the ten minutes were gone. He wiped his damp forehead, and pressed on.

'What about the accusations Jurig made against the Predictors?'

Leej shrugged listlessly. 'I suppose they're true. I remember a silly girl in my service talked back to me, and I had her whipped.' She looked at him, her eyes wide and innocent. 'What else can you do with people who don't know their place?'

Gosseyn had almost forgotten the man, but now he was forcibly reminded. There was a roar of outrage from the cell beyond the woman.

'You see,' yelled the giant. 'See what I mean?' He paced the floor. 'Just wait till these grilles go up, and I'll show you what you can do with people Who don't know their place.' He raised his voice in a frenzied shout. 'Follower, if you hear me, let's get some action. Pull up these grilles. Pull 'em up.'

If the Follower heard, he showed no sign. The grilles did not go up. Jurig subsided and retired to his cot. He sat there muttering the words, 'Just wait! Just wait!'

For Gosseyn, the waiting was past. Jurig, in his outburst, had given him the clue to the action he must take. He realized he was shaking, but he didn't care. He had his answer. He knew what he was going to do. The Follower himself would supply the opportunity at the moment of crisis.

No wonder Leej had disbelieved her advance picture of his future action. Apparently, it would be a meaningless move.

Crash! The interrupting sound came as he was settling back onto the cot. A metallic sound.

The grilles were lifting.

In making a statement about an object or an event, an individual 'abstracts' only a few of its characteristics. If he says, 'That chair is brown!' he should mean that brownness is one of its qualities, and he should be aware, as he speaks, that it has many other qualities. 'Consciousness of abstracting' constitutes one of the main differences between a person who is semantically trained and one who is not.

With the speed of a hunting cat, Gosseyn was off his cot. His fingers gripped the crossbar of the grille at the bottom. He felt himself irresistibly lifted up.

The effort to hold on cost him every ounce of strength in his arms and fingers. The area to which he had to cling was less than an inch in thickness, and it curved the wrong way. But he had taken his grip just under the needles, under that fantastic pattern of needles, and he either hung on or suffered ultimate defeat.

He hung on. As he came up above the level of the window, he was able to see out. He had a glimpse of a courtyard in the immediate foreground, of a high fence in the near distance made of sharply pointed metal spears, and of a land of trees beyond. Gosseyn barely glanced at the vista. One look at the scene as a whole, and then he turned his attention to the courtyard.

There was an agonizingly slow moment while he memorized the surface structure of a part of a cobblestone. And then, his purpose accomplished, he dropped nearly twenty feet to the concrete floor of the cell.

He landed on all fours, physically relaxed, but with his mind as taut as a metal bar. He had an outside area to which he could escape by using the special powers of his extra brain, but he still had to make up his mind what his immediate course of action should be.