Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

Once more, the dream changed. It grew more relaxed, more personal, though the thoughts that came were still not particularly directed at either Ashargin or Gosseyn.

'I similarized the mind of Gosseyn into the body of Ashargin. Gosseyn possesses the only extra brain in the galaxy, besides that of the Sleeping God—which does not count. The "god" could probably be awakened now, but certain mechanical possesses necessary to his development have long been out of operation, so he could not remain alive more than a few minutes.'

'Why did I choose Ashargin? Because he was a weakling. From experience, I know that a stronger personality could have fought Gosseyn's control consciously. His being nearby was also a factor.

'After the first time, after the channel had been established, it didn't matter of course where he was.

'But there was another more important reason why Ashargin was the logical person. Because of the intricate Imperial plans of Enro, the prince could be in a position to do more than any other individual to bring Gosseyn to the crypt. And, naturally, it was reasonable to believe that he would also be valuable to Gosseyn himself.

'How tremendous this achievement is you may guess from the fact that I have now for the first time been able to tell the story of the Migration to a direct survivor of the expedition. Many times I have tried to maneuver a Lavoisseur-Gosseyn body into the crypt in the way that Gosseyn is there now. But I succeeded only in making successive generations of the Gosseyn body wary of me. The attempt previous to this one had extremely dangerous repercussions.

'I succeeded in similarizing the mind of old Lavoisseur into the body of the work priest whose duty it was to sweep out this inner chamber. My purpose was to give Lavoisseur an opportunity to repair the damage that had been done to the vital elements in my structure. The plan proved impossible, for two reasons. First, the priest was not in a position to obtain the necessary equipment. And, secondly, he resisted being possessed.

'At first the resistance was not too great, and so some work was done, and some investigation made by Lavoisseur into the nature of the machinery of the crypt. As it turned out, it was unfortunate that even this brief opportunity existed. For Lavoisseur repaired a device over which I have no control, an instrument for initiating the matter change which caused the destruction of the other galaxy. The device was sent along in one of every ten thousand ships for study purposes only, and it interested Lavoisseur because there was nothing like it on the ship in which he had come.

'Although Lavoisseur did not know it, this device automatically attuned itself to the body of the priest, a result of precaution taken by the builders to insure that the instrument would always be under the control of a human being.

'Naturally, they intended the human being to be one of themselves.

The priest need now merely think himself out of phase in time, and the change, fortunately limited, occurs. By using Distorter transport, he can direct the nebular substance to any point in the galaxy where he has a Distorter.

'When the priest's resistance to Lavoisseur's control grew too strong, it was necessary to break the contact. What followed was something I admit I did not foresee. After the priest recovered from his fright at what had happened, he came to believe that he had been possessed by the Sleeping God.

'His ability to assume the shadow shape seemed to confirm this analysis, and in a sense, of course, it is true that he gains his power from the Sleeping God. But only in the same way that I am the Player who has been manipulating your mind. The real gods and the real Players have been dead nearly two million years.

'But now, you are about to waken. Your position is a difficult one, but you have one duty. You must kill the priest who possesses this power. How you can do this once he is in his shadow shape I do not know.

'Yet kill him you must.

'And now, there is not much left to tell. Ashargin need merely transmit himself through a Distorter, and I will free him from Gosseyn's control, and Gosseyn will immediately awaken. Or Ashargin could be killed, and Gosseyn's mind would automatically return to his own body. Those are the only two methods.

'Eldred Crang was a confidante of Lavoisseur, and some years ago as a result of information he secured from Lavoisseur he came here and did some work on my damaged structure. At that time he was unsuccessful in making adequate repairs. More recently, he succeeded in setting up a relay by which I could send him warnings with sound and light signals —the kind of warning by which I called him here when Ashargin was hiding the Gosseyn body.

‘One last warning. The attack which has captured the palace only seems to be a League attack. Actually, the priest chose that method to strike for power in order to discredit Enro—-’

The 'dream' began to fade. He tried to pull it back, but it retreated even further. Then he grew aware that he was being physically shaken.

Gosseyn-Ashargin opened his eyes, and stared up at Nirene. Her face was white, but she was calm.

'Darling, Secoh is here to see you. Please get up.'

There was a sound at the bedroom door. Nirene drew back slowly, and Gosseyn had a clear view of the bedroom doorway.

Secoh, the Lord Guardian of the Sleeping God, stood just inside the bedroom, staring at him with unsmiling eyes. Secoh , Gosseyn was thinking, the work priest who had once been sweeper in the inner chamber of the temple.

Secoh—the Follower.

It is not enough to know about Null-A training techniques. They must be learned on the automatic, that is, the 'unconscious' level. The 'talking-about' stage must give way to the 'doing' stage. The goal is flexibility of approach below the verbal level to any event. General semantics is designed to give the individual a sense of direction, not a new set of inflexibilities.

He had a flash glimpse now of the whole picture. Entirely aside from the dream, so many things fitted. That mechanic on the destroyer killing himself rather than taking a chance on being questioned. What private emotional reason could have driven him to it? Religious, of course.

And who would be in a better position than Secoh for finding out when a new planet like Yalerta had been discovered? As a chief adviser of Enro, he would have the resources of an empire at his disposal.

Millions of bits of information would be catalogued, condensed and organized for him to pass on to Enro—if he chose. Scientific information of every kind would be submitted to him for submission to the dictator. And so, radically new and different Distorter instruments had come to the attention of a man who knew little or nothing about any of the sciences, and who needed just such a development to give galactic-wide scope to his private wanderings.

A man who called himself the Follower, a name with religious meaning.

The rest of the scene, the motivation for everything, could be a growth based on the religion itself. It seemed natural that the Lord Guardian of the Sleeping God should have spurred the ambitions of a planetary emperor like Enro, driving him to conquer the Greatest Empire, then consolidating the galaxy in order to spread the religion farther.

The picture was not complete in all its parts, but in that flash moment it seemed logical to Gosseyn that he adopt it as the assumption on which he must base his actions now.

Secoh was the Follower. Secoh was a sincere believer in the religion of the Sleeping God. Secoh was a fanatic, sharp and alert on almost every level of thought—except his religious belief. And even there his very conviction must give him a flexible way of looking at things.