Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

Gosseyn noted the point mentally, but made no comment. Blockage in connection with occupation, distinct interruption in neural flow.

'Is there any significance to your names?' he asked.

Yanar seemed relieved. He shrugged. 'I'm Yanar of the Wilvry birth center on the island of Blove.'

So that was how it worked. He shifted the wire again, and said affably, 'You people have quite a gift of foreseeing. I've never run into anything like it before.'

'No good against you,' said Yanar darkly.

That was worth knowing for sure, though, of course, the statement that it was not usable did not make the words true. Fortunately, he had other verification.

Not that he had any alternative but to proceed as if Yanar didn't foresee his questions.

The interview continued. Gosseyn wasn't sure what he was searching for. A clue perhaps. His belief that he was still in the Followers' trap was becoming greater and not less. If that was so, then he was fighting against time, in a very real sense.

But what was the nature of the trap?

He learned the Predictors were born in a normal fashion, usually aboard skytrailers. A few days after being born they were taken to the nearest birth center that had space available.

'What does the birth center do to the child?' Gosseyn asked.

Yanar shook his head. And there was blockage again in the neural flow from him. 'We don't give information like that to

strangers,' he said stubbornly, 'not even to ' He stopped,

shrugged, then finished curtly, To no one.'

Gosseyn did not press the matter. He was beginning to feel distracted. The facts he was unearthing were valuable but not vital. They did not fit his needs of the moment

Yet there was nothing to do but go on.

'How long have there been Predictors?' he asked.

'Several hundred years.'

Then it's the result of an invention?'

There's a legend ' Yanar began. He stopped, and stiffened. Blockage. 'I refuse to answer that,' he said.

Gosseyn said, 'At what stage does the prophetic ability appear?'

'Above twelve. Sometimes a little sooner.'

Gosseyn nodded, half to himself. There was a theory forming in the back of his mind, and this fitted. The faculty developed slowly, like the human cortex and like his own extra brain. He hesitated over his next question, because there was an assumption in it that he didn't want Yanar to notice until it was too late. As before, he shifted the wire first, then:

'What happens to children of Predictors for whom there's no room in the birth center?'

Yanar shrugged. 'They grow up and run the islands.'

He sat smug. He seemed unaware that he had revealed by implication that only those children who went to the birth centers became Predictors.

His impassivity started another train of thought in Gosseyn's mind. He had been intent, but now it struck him sharply that Yanar was not reacting like a man being subjected for the first time to such an interview as this. He knew what it felt like not to have advance awareness of questions. Knew it so well that it didn't upset him.

Like lightning Gosseyn saw the possibilities. He stepped back in his chagrin. It seemed incredible that it had taken him so long to realize the truth. He stared down at the Predictor, and said finally in a level but steely voice:

'And now, you will please describe exactly how you have been communicating with the Follower.'

If ever a man was caught by surprise, then Yanar was that man. He seemed unprepared in the extreme thalamic fashion. His face turned livid. The neural flow from his nervous system blocked and then burst, and then blocked and burst again.

'What do you' mean?' He whispered the words finally.

Since the question was rhetorical, Gosseyn did not repeat his statement. He glowered down at the Predictor. 'Quick!' he said. 'Before I kill you.'

Yanar sagged limply back into his chair, and once more he changed color. He flushed. 'I didn't,' he stammered. 'Why should I endanger myself by calling the Follower and telling him where you were? I wouldn't do a thing like that.'

He shook himself, 'You can't prove it,' he said.

Gosseyn didn't need proof. He had been dangerously remiss in not keeping a watch on Yanar. And so the message had been sent and the damage done. Gosseyn had no doubt of that. The Predictor's reactions were too violent and too realistic. Yanar had never had to control his emotions, and so now he didn't know how. Guilt poured from every reflex in his body.

Gosseyn felt chilled. But he had done what he could to protect himself, and so there was nothing to do but obtain more information. He said curtly, 'You'd better talk fast, my friend, and truthfully. Did you contact the Follower himself?'

Yanar was sullen. He shrugged, and once more that was a signal for a block to break. 'Of course,' he said.

'You mean, he expected a call from you?' Gosseyn wanted that clear. 'You're his agent?'

The man shook his head. 'I'm a Predictor,' he said.

There was pride in his tone, but it was a bedraggled variety. A lock of his iron-gray hair had sagged over one temple. He looked like anything but a nobleman of Yalerta.

Gosseyn did not comment on the boast. He had his man on the run, and that was what counted.

'What did you tell him?'

'I said you were aboard.'

'And what did he say?'

'He said he knew that.'

'Oh!' said Gosseyn. He paused, but only for a moment.

His mind jumped ahead to other aspects of the situation. In quick succession he rapped out a dozen vital questions.

The moment he had his facts he similarized the both of them into the control room, and stood over the trembling Yanar while he produced maps, and showed the wide circular course the ship had been following round and round the Follower's island, at a radius of a hundred miles.

Gosseyn reset the course for the island of Crest, only a few hundred miles north by northwest. Then he turned to confront the Predictors.

'And now,' he said in a threatening tone, 'we come to the problem of what to do with a traitor.'

The older man was pale, but some of his fear had departed. He said boldly, I owe you nothing. You can kill me, but you can't expect loyalty from me, and you won't get it.'

It wasn't loyalty that Gosseyn wanted. It was fear. He must make certain that these Predictors learned to think twice before they acted against him. But what to do?

It seemed impractical to make a definite decision. He turned on his heel and headed back into the drawing room. As he entered, Leej appeared from the direction of the bedrooms. He walked toward her, a faint frown on his face. A few questions, madam , he thought bleakly. How was it that Yanar could warn the Follower without his action being predictable? Please explain that.

The woman stopped, and waited for him, smiling. Her smile changed abruptly. Her gaze plunged past him and slightly to one side. Gosseyn spun around, and stared.

He felt nothing, heard nothing, and there was no sense of a presence even now that he could see. But a shape was taking form a dozen feet to his right. It grew black, and yet he could see the wall beyond it. It thickened, but it was not substance.

He felt himself become tense. The moment of his meeting with the Follower had come.

Semantics has to do with the meaning of meaning, or the meaning of words. General Semantics has to do with the relationship of the human nervous system to the world around it, and therefore it includes semantics. It provides an integrating system for all human thought and experience.

There was silence. The Follower seemed to be regarding him, for the shadowy mass was holding steady now. Gosseyn's brief, intense anxiety began to fade. He stared at his enemy alertly, and, swiftly, his attitude changed.