Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

'We'll finish it later,' said Gosseyn. He was intent. 'Is there any band on this radio that can be used for sending a general message?'

'Why, yes. We have what we call an emergency band

that ' She stopped. 'It's used to co-ordinate our plans

when we are threatened.'

Gosseyn said, 'Set it.'

She gave him a startled look, but there must have been something in his expression that decided her to say no more. A moment later, Gosseyn was on the air. As before—-it was now quite automatic—he shifted the wire immediately before each sentence he spoke. He said in a ringing voice:

'Calling all Predictors! From this moment every Predictor who is discovered or captured aboard a warship of the Greatest Empire will be executed. Friends are advised to communicate this warning to people who are already aboard such ships.

'You may all judge the effectiveness of this threat by the fact that you did not foresee the call that I am now making. I repeat: Every Predictor found aboard an Enro warship will be executed. There are no exceptions.'

He returned to the dining room, finished his dinner, and then went back to the control room. From its vantage point two and a half hours later he saw the lights of a city in the distance. At Yanar's request, the ship was brought down at what Leej called a Predictor air station. As soon as they were up in the air again, Gosseyn set the accelerator to Full, and then slipped to the window, and looked down at the city below. So many people. He saw the lights entwined with innumerable curling fingers of water. In some cases the ocean twisted right through the center of the city.

As he watched, all the lights went out. Gosseyn stared, but there was blackness. Beside him Leej uttered an exclamation.

'I wonder why they did that'

Gosseyn could have answered the question, but he didn't. The Follower was taking no chances. He evidently had a theory about the nature of Gilbert Gosseyn's control over energy, and he intended to see that no energy was available.

Leej said, 'Where are we going now?'

When he told her, some of the color went out of her face. 'It's a warship,' she said. There are hundreds of soldiers aboard, and weapons that could kill you from many different directions at once.'

That was true enough. The danger of trying to use his special powers to seize a ship was that it would be virtually impossible to nullify or control many scores of hand weapons. It was under such circumstances that fatal accidents could occur all too easily.

But what had happened put a pressure on him to act more swiftly than he had planned. The reality was that he had already used his strongest weapons against the Follower. Therefore, the sooner he got away from Yalerta the better. Somewhere out in the galaxy there might be scientific understanding of what made the Follower invulnerable, and, actually, until be found a rational approach, he'd better stay away from the man.

Besides, the galactic warship was the only method he knew of to get off this isolated planet.

The greatest risks were in order.

In half an hour there was light ahead. At first, the galactic ship was little more than a bright blur in the midnight darkness, but presently, so brilliant were the lights around it, it was clearly visible. Gosseyn set Leej's airship into a wide orbit around the bigger ship, and studied the approaches through a magnetic powered telescope.

The stranger was about six hundred feet long. A small ship indeed by galactic standards. But then, it had only one purpose on Yalerta. Aboard was a Distorter transport instrument of the type that produced mechanical similarity. As an invention it had probably no equal in the history of science. With it, man could move across the vast distances of space as if there were no space. A Predictor on Yalerta need merely step into the Distorter aboard the warship, and he would be transported a hundred or a thousand light-years away almost instantly. The margin of error, as he had discovered with the organic distorter in his head, was as small as to be almost not noticeable.

The ship lay on a level plain. During the forty minutes that Gosseyn watched it, two skytrailers came out of the darkness. They came at different times, and floated down to a landing near a blaze point that must be an air lock. Gosseyn presumed that these were volunteers, and what interested him was that, on each occasion, the trailer departed before the volunteer was allowed aboard the galactic ship.

It was just such details that he had been waiting to find out.

They approached boldly. At five miles he was able to sense the energy aboard—and received his great disappointment. Electricity only, and in unimportant quantities. The drive pile had been damped.

Mentally, Gosseyn drew back from the venture. In his anxiety, he began to whistle under his breath. He was aware of Leej watching him.

'Why, you're nervous,' she said wonderingly.

Nervous, he thought grimly, uncertain, undecided. Very true. As things stood now, he could wait in the hope of improving his position with regard to the ship—or he could make an attempt to capture it immediately.

'This power of yours,' said Leej, 'the way you do things—— how does it work?'

She was wondering about that at last, was she? Gosseyn smiled, and shook his head.

'It's a little involved,' he said, 'and without wishing to be offensive, I think it's beyond your scientific training. It goes something like this: The extensional area we call space-time is probably an illusion of the senses. That is, any reality they have bears little relation to what you see, feel or touch. Just as you seem to be better orientated as a Predictor to the real space time continuum, with emphasis on the time element—that is, better orientated than the average individual—so I am better orientated, but in my case the emphasis seems to be on space.'

She seemed not to have heard. 'You're not actually all-powerful, are you? Just what are your limitations?'

'Do you mind,' said Gosseyn, 'if I tell you later? I've just made up my mind about something.'

A pale Leej guided the airship through the night, and grew paler as she listened to his instructions. 'I don't think you have any right,' she said shakily, 'to ask me to do such a thing.'

Gosseyn said, I'd like to ask you one question.'

'Yes?'

'When you were in the cell with Jurig, what would have happened if he had killed me? Would the Follower have rescued you?'

'No, I was merely a device to incite you to your greatest effort. If I failed—it was my failure, also.'

'Well?' said Gosseyn softly.

The woman was silent, her lips pursed. The neural flow from her had changed from an anxious unevenness to a tense but steady pattern. She looked up at last.

'All right,' she said, 'I'll do it.'

Gosseyn patted her arm in silent approval. He did not fully trust Leej. There was a possibility that this also was a trap. But the shadow thing had already discovered that imprisoning Gilbert Gosseyn was easier said than done.

Gosseyn's eyes narrowed with determination. He was a man who had to keep moving. He felt immensely confident of his ability to do so, as long as he did not become too cautious in the face of necessity.

His reverie broke, as the beam of a searchlight penetrated the dome. There was a click as the magnetic receiver went on, and a man's voice said, 'Please land in the lighted area a hundred yards from our entrance.'

Leej took the ship down without a word. When they had come to rest, the voice spoke again from the receiver. 'How many are coming?'

Gosseyn held up a finger to Leej, and motioned for her to answer. 'One,' she said.

'Sex?’

'Female.'

'Very well One female person will emerge from your ship and approach the admission office at the foot of the gangplank. The trailer will leave immediately and go to a distance of five miles. As soon as it has retreated the required distance, the volunteer will be allowed aboard our ship.'