Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

Dr. Kair said, 'We can go into those details later. Right now I'd like Gosseyn to try an experiment.'

When he had explained what he wanted, Gosseyn said, 'But that's nineteen thousand light-years away.'

'Try it,' urged the psychiatrist.

Gosseyn hesitated, and then concentrated on one of his memorized areas in the control room of Leej's skytrailer. He swayed as with vertigo. Startled, he fought a sense of nausea. He looked at the others in amazement. 'That must have been a similarity of just under twenty decimals. I think I can make it if I try again.'

Try,' said Dr. Kair.

'What'll I do if I get there?'

'Look the situation over. We'll follow you as far as the nearby base.'

Gosseyn nodded. This time he closed his eyes. The changing picture of the memorized area came sharp and clear.

When he opened his eyes, he was on the skytrailer.

He did not move immediately from the area of his arrival, but stood gathering impressions. There was a quiet, neural flow from the near reaches of the ship. The servants, he decided, were still on duty.

He walked forward, and looked out. They were over open countryside. Below was a level plain. Far to his right he caught the shimmer of water. As he watched, and the ship moved on, he lost sight of the sea. That gave him an idea.

He bent over the controls, and straightened again almost immediately as he saw how they were set. The trailer was still following the circular route that he had set for it just before he made his successful effort to seize the destroyer.

He made no attempt to touch the controls or alter them. The ship could have been tampered with in spite of its appearance of being exactly as he had left it.

He probed for magnetic current flow, but found nothing unusual. He relaxed his mind, and tried to see what was going to happen. But the only picture of the control room that he could get showed no one in it.

That brought up the question, Where am I going next?'

Back to the battleship? It would be a waste of time. He had an impulse to know how long it had taken him to come to Yalerta, but that was something he could check on later.

Great events were transpiring. Men and women for whose safety he felt partially responsible were still in danger areas: Crang, Patricia, Nirene, Ashargin.. . .

A dictator must be overthrown, a great war machine brought to a halt by any possible means.

Abruptly, he made his decision.

He arrived at the Follower's Retreat at his memorized area just outside the door of the power house. He reached the upper floor without incident, and paused to ask a man the way to the Follower's apartment.

I'm here for an appointment,' he explained, 'and I must hurry.'

The servant was sympathetic. 'You came in the wrong way,' he said, 'but if you will follow that side corridor you'll come to a large anteroom. They'll tell you there where to go next.'

Gosseyn doubted if anyone would tell him what he wanted to know. But he came presently to a room that was not as large as he had expected, and so ordinary that he stared at it, wondering if he had come to the right place.

A number of people sat in lounges, and directly across from him was a little wooden fence inside which were eight desks. A man sat at each desk, apparently doing clerical work.

Beyond the desks was a glass enclosed office with one large desk in it.

As he passed through the gate, and into the little fenced area, several of the clerks rose up from their chairs in a half protest. Gosseyn ignored them. He was shifting the wire in the control room of the skytrailer again, and he wanted to get inside the glass office before letting Yanar become aware of him.

He opened the door, and he was closing it behind him when the Predictor became aware of him. The man looked up with a start.

There was another door beyond Yanar, and Gosseyn headed straight for it. With a jump, Yanar was on his feet and barring his way. He was defiant.

'You'll have to kill me before you can go in there.'

Gosseyn stopped. He had already penetrated with his extra brain the room beyond the door. No impulse of life came. That was not final proof that it was unoccupied. But his sense of urgency dimmed considerably.

He frowned at Yanar. He had no intention of killing the man, particularly when he had so many other ways at his disposal of dealing with the Predictor. Besides, he was curious. Several questions had bothered him for some time. He said:

'You were aboard Leej's ship as an agent of the Follower?'

'Naturally,' Yanar shrugged.

'I suppose you mean by that, how else would the ship have been waiting for us?'

Yanar nodded warily. His eyes were watchful.

'But why allow any means of escape?'

The Follower considered you too dangerous to be left here. You might have wrecked his Retreat.'

'Then why bring me to Yalerta?'

'He wanted you where Predictors could keep track of your movements.'

'But that didn't work?'

'You're right. That didn't work.'

Gosseyn paused at that point. There was an implication in the answers that startled him.

Once more now, more sternly, he stared at the Predictor. There were several other questions he had in mind, particularly about Leej. But actually they didn't matter. She had proved herself to his present satisfaction, and the details could wait.

That settled it. He similarized Yanar into the prison cell which Leej and Jurig and he had occupied weeks ago.

Then he opened the door and stepped into the room he believed to be the Follower's private office.

As he had sensed, the place was unoccupied.

Curiously, Gosseyn looked around him. An enormous desk faced the door. There were built-in filing cabinets against the wall to the left, and an intricate system—it looked intricate and somewhat different—of Distorter mechanisms and controls to his right.

Feeling both relieved and disappointed, Gosseyn considered his next move. Yanar was out of the way. Not that that meant much one way or the other. The man was a nuisance, but not a danger.

Gosseyn headed for the filing cabinets. They were all magnetically locked, but it was the work of a moment to open each circuit with his extra brain. Drawer after drawer slid outward at his touch. The files were of the plastic variety, similar to the palace directory which Nirene had shown him when he was in Ashargin's body.

The equivalent of scores of pages of print were impressed on successive layers of molecules. Each 'page' showed up in turn as the index slide at the edge was manipulated.

Gosseyn searched for and found a plate with his own name on it. There were four printed pages in the file. The account was very objective, and for the most part detailed what had been done in connection with him. The first item read.

'Transferred name from GE-4408C.' It seemed to indicate another file elsewhere. There followed a reference to his training under Thorson with the notation, 'Have been unable to find any of the individuals who participated in the training, and discovered it too late to prevent it.'

There were several references to Janasen, then a description of the Distorter relay system that had been used to transport Gosseyn from Janasen's apartment on Venus. 'Had this device built by the same people who made F. for me, so that it would actually seem to be an ordinary cooking table.' That was printed, but there was a notation in longhand on the margin: 'Very cunning.'

Gosseyn read the four pages with a sense of disappointment. He had expected to find an overtone of reference that would fill in his own picture of what had happened between the Follower and himself. But the account was too brief and too matter-of-fact. At the bottom of the fourth page was a note: 'See Ashargin.'

Gosseyn secured Ashargin's file. That was longer. In the early pages the writer dealt principally with Ashargin's life from the time he arrived at the Temple of the Sleeping God. It was not until the last page that there was any cross reference to Ashargin's 'file'. The comment was brief. 'Under lie detector questioning by Enro, Ashargin made several references to Gilbert Gosseyn.' Besides the item, in longhand, was written: 'Investigate.'