Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

Gosseyn ran on. He reached the woods safely, but he was no longer satisfied with merely escaping. If one attacking device existed, then so might others. Swiftly, he memorized an area beside a tree, stepped aside and brought Leej up to it. Next, he transported himself back to the area just outside the cell window, and headed at a run for the nearest door leading into the Retreat. He wanted weapons that would match anything the Follower had mustered to prevent his escape, and he intended to get them.

He found himself in a broad corridor, and the first thing he saw was a long line of magnetic lights. He memorized the nearest one, and immediately felt a lot better. He had a small but potent weapon that would operate anywhere on Yalerta.

He continued along the corridor but no longer at top speed. The dynamo and the pile were near, but just where he had no way of knowing. He sensed the presence of human beings around, but the neural flow was neither tense nor menacing. He came to a basement stairway, and without hesitation headed down the long flight of steps. Two men were standing at the bottom, talking to each other earnestly but without anxiety.

They looked up at him in surprise. And Gosseyn, who had already made his plan, said breathlessly, 'Which way to the power plant? It's urgent.'

One of the men looked excited. 'Why . . . why—that way. That way. What's the matter?'

Gosseyn was already racing in the direction indicated. The other called after him, 'The fifth door to your right.'

When he came to the fifth door, he stopped just inside the threshold. Just what he had expected he didn't know, but not an atomic pile feeding power to an electric dynamo. The huge dynamo was turning softly. Its great wheel glinted as it moved slowly. To either side were walls lined with instrument boards. A half dozen men were moving around, and at first they didn't see him. Gosseyn walked boldly towards the power outlet of the dynamo, and memorized it. He estimated it at forty thousand kilowatts.

Then, still without hesitation, he strode to the pile itself. There were the usual devices for looking into the interior, and an attendant was bending over a gauge making minute adjustments on a marked dial. Gosseyn stepped up beside him, and peered through one of the viewing devices into the pile itself.

He was aware of the man straightening. But the long moment the other required to grasp the nature of the intrusion was all that Gosseyn needed. As the attendant tugged at his shoulder, too surprised for speech or anger, Gosseyn stepped back and, without a word, walked to the door and out into the corridor.

The moment he was out of sight, he transported himself into the woods. Leej stood a dozen feet away, almost facing him.

She jumped as he appeared, and babbled something he didn't catch. He waited for the expression on her face to indicate that she was recovering. He didn't have long to wait.

Her body trembled, but it was a quaver of excitement. Her eyes were slightly glazed, but they became bright with eagerness. She grabbed his arm with quivering fingers.

'Quick,' she said, 'this way. My trailer will be over here.'

'Your what?' said Gosseyn.

But she had started off through the brush, and she seemed not to hear.

Gosseyn ran after her, his eyes narrowed, and he was thinking: Has she been fooling me? Has she known all this time that she was going to escape now? But then why wouldn't the Follower know, and be waiting?

He couldn't help remembering that he was caught in 'the most intricate trap ever devised for one man.' It was something to think about even if he apparently succeeded in getting away.

Ahead of him, the woman plunged through a screen of tall shrubs, and then he didn't hear her any more. Following her, Gosseyn found himself on the edge of a limitless sea. He had time to remember that this was a planet of vast oceans broken at intervals by islands, and then an airship came floating over the trees to his left. It was about a hundred and fifty feet long, snub-nosed, and about thirty feet high at its thickest. It plunged lightly into the water in front of them. A long, sleek gangplank came sliding down toward them. It touched the sand at the woman's feet.

In a flash, she was up and along it. She called over her shoulder, 'Hurry!'

Gosseyn pressed across the threshold behind her. The moment he was inside, the door flowed shut, and the machine began to glide forward and up. The swiftness with which everything happened reminded him of a similar experience he'd had at the Temple of the Sleeping God on Gorgzid while in the body of Prince Ashargin.

There was one difference, vital and urgent. As Ashargin, he had not felt immediately threatened. Now, he did.

Aristotle's formulations of the science of his time were probably the most accurate available during his lifetime. His followers for two thousand years subscribed to the identification that they were true for all time. In more recent years, new systems of measurement disproved many of these 'truths', but they continue to be the basis of the opinions and beliefs of most people. The two-valued logic on which such folk-thought is founded has accordingly been given the designation aristotelian—abbreviation: A—and the many-valued logic of modern science has been given the name non-aristotelian—abbreviation: Null-A.

Gosseyn found himself in a corridor at the bottom of a flight of steps. The corridor extended both right and left, curving gradually out of sight. At the moment he had no impulse for exploration. He followed Leej up the stairway toward a bright room, and he was already noticing the radical design of the ceiling lights. It confirmed his first 'feel' of the ship's power source. Magnetic power.

The fact was interesting because of the picture it gave him of Yalertan scientific development, comparable to twenty-second century Earth. But it also gave him a shock. For him now the magnetic engine had a flaw. It was too complete. It performed so many functions that people who used it had a tendency to discard all other forms of power.

The Predictors had made the old mistake. There was no atomic power aboard. No electricity. Not even a battery. That meant no really potent weapons, and no radar. These Predictors obviously expected to be able to foresee the approach of anything inimical to them, but this was not so any more. He had a vision in his mind of galactic engineers sending electrically guided aerial torpedoes with proximity fuses and atomic warheads, or any of a dozen devices that, once attuned to a target, would follow it till they destroyed it or were themselves destroyed.

The worst part of it was that he could do nothing but find out as swiftly as possible just how much Leej could foresee.

And of course, he could hope.

The bright room into which Leej led him was longer, broader and higher than it had seemed from the entrance below. It was a drawing room, complete with couches, chairs, tables, a massive green rug and, directly across from where he had paused, a sloping window that bulged out like a streamlined balcony from the side of the ship.

The woman flung herself with an audible sigh onto a couch near the window, and said, 'It's wonderful to be safe again.' She shook her dark hair with a tiny shudder. 'What a nightmare.'

She added in a savage tone, 'That will never happen again.'

Gosseyn, heading for the window, was stopped short by her words. He half turned to ask her on what she based her confidence. He didn't speak the question. She had already admitted that she couldn't foretell the actions of the Follower, and that was all he needed to know. Deprived of her gift, she was a good-looking, emotional young woman about thirty years old without any particular astuteness to protect her from danger. He could find out all she knew after he had done what he could to ward off possible attacks.