A. van Vogt - The Empire of Isher

“Gil!” he shrieked. Or rather, it was Neelan’s reaction. “Gil, Gil, GIL!”

“Dan!” It seemed to come from far away. It was more a wisp of thought in his mind than a sound. It was a tired sigh that bridged the great night. It began again, faint, far-away but clear, and directed at Neelan, “Dan, you poor mug, where are you? Dan, how are you doing this? I don’t feel that you’re close…Dan, I’m a sick man, dying. We’re on a freak planet that’s going to pass close to one of the Centauri suns. The storms will grow worse, the air hotter. We —oh, God!”

The break was so sharp, it hurt like fire. It was like an overstretched elastic—giving. Countless light years rushed in to fill the gap. Hedrock realized that “they” had not actually been at the scene. It had been a sensory connection between the two brothers, and the picture of that nightmarish world had come through the eyes of Gil Neelan.

Whoever was doing this had achieved a fantastic control and understanding of human beings. It took a long moment to realize that Neelan was still in the Weapon Shop, and still clutching the letter. There were tears in his eyes, but presently it was possible to see the letter again, and to finish reading it:

…We will probably be completely separated for the-first time since we were born. It’s going to feel very empty and lonely.

I know you’re envying me, Dan, as you read this. When I think how long man has dreamed of going to the stars, and how it had been proved time and again that it can’t be done, I know exactly how you feel. Particularly you who were the adventurer of our family. Wish me luck, Dan, and watch your tongue.

Your other half,

Gil.

Just when the transformation occurred, or by what stages, Hedrock wasn’t sure. His first awareness of change was that he was no longer in the Weapon Shop. That was not immediately important to him. His mind was caught up in thought of Gil Neelan and of the miracle that had been wrought. Somehow, these mighty captors of his had intensified the flimsy bonds between the two brothers, and made a thought connection across light-centuries, an incredible, instantaneous connection.

And, casually, he had been taken along on that fantastic journey.

Odd, how dark it was. Since he was not in the Weapon Shop, he should logically be back in the “city”, or somewhere on the ship of the beings who had captured him. Hedrock lifted himself, and by that action realized that he had been lying face downward, As he moved, his hands and feet tangled in a network of intertwined ropes. He had to grab at the individual strands of rope to balance himself. He swayed there in pitch darkness.

He had been holding himself calm, fighting with all his strength to comprehend each separate experience. But this one was too much. Panic struck him like a physical blow. Instead of a floor there was a mesh of ropes like the rigging in the ships that sailed the seas of Earth in olden days, or like the web of some nightmare-sized spider. His thought paused, and a chill spread down his spine. Like a spider’s web.

A vague blueish light began to grow around him, and he saw that the city was indeed gone. In its place was an unearthly dark-blue world, and webs, miles and miles of webs. They reared up toward the remote ceiling and vanished into the distance of the dimness. They spread out in all directions, fading into the semi-night like things of some nether world. And, mercifully, they did not appear to be inhabited at first.

Hedrock had time to brace his brain for the most terrible shock its highly trained structure would ever have to face. He had time to grasp that this was the interior of the ship, and that there must be inhabitants. Far above him, there was suddenly a flicker of movement. Spiders. He saw them plainly, huge things with many legs, and grew tense with the bitterness of his realization. So a tribe of spider-like beings were Nature’s prize package, the supreme intelligence of the ages, rulers of the universe. The thought seemed to be in his mind a very long time, before a faint light focused on him from a hidden source. Abruptly, a very thunderbolt of mind vibrations rocked his brain:

“—examination negative…There is no physical connection between these beings…energy only—”

“But the tensions were augmentable by energy. The connection was contrived across— xxx?!! distance.”

“—my finding is that there is no physical connection—” Coldly.

“I was merely expressing amazement, mighty xx—!! (meaningless name). Here is undoubtedly a phenomenon closely related to the behavior of this race. Let us ask him—”

“MAN!”

Hedrock’s brain, already strained under the weight of those enormous thoughts, cringed before that direct wave. “Yes?” he managed finally. He spoke aloud. His voice made a feeble sound against the blue-dark vastness, and was swallowed instantly by the silence.

“MAN, WHY DID ONE BROTHER MAKE A LONG JOURNEY TO FIND OUT WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO THE OTHER BROTHER?”

For a moment the question puzzled Hedrock. It seemed to refer to the fact that Dan Neelan had come from a remote meteor to the earth to find out why the sensory connection with his brother Gil had been broken. It seemed a fairly meaningless question, because the answer was so obvious. They were brothers, they had been brought up together, they had a very special intimate relationship. Before Hedrock could explain the simple elements of human nature involved, the titanic thunder raged down again at his mind:

“MAN, WHY DID YOU RISK YOUR LIFE SO THAT OTHER HUMAN BEINGS CAN GO TO THE STARS? AND WHY DO YOU WANT TO GIVE THE SECRET OF IMMORTALITY TO OTHERS?”

In spite of the tattered state of Hedrock’s thoughts understanding began to streak through. These spider beings were trying to comprehend man’s emotional nature without having themselves a capacity for emotion. Here were blind things asking to have color explained to them, stone-deaf creatures being given a definition of sound. The principle was the same.

What they had done was explained now. The apparently meaningless re-enactment of the scene between himself and the Empress had been designed so that his emotions could be observed while he was risking his life for an altruistic purpose. In the same way and for a similar reason, the sensory connection had been established between the Neelans and himself. They wanted to measure and assess emotions in action.

Once more a clamor of outside thought interrupted him: “ IT IS REGRETTABLE THAT ONE OF THE BROTHERS DIED, BREAKING THE CONNECTION—”

“THAT NEED BE NO DETERRENT. NOR IS THE BROTHER ON EARTH NEEDED, NOW THAT WE HAVE ESTABLISHED A DIRECT CONNECTION BETWEEN OUR PRISONER AND THE DEAD ONE. A MAJOR EXPERIMENT IS IN ORDER—”

“X-XX? !X PROCEED AT ONCE.”

“WHAT IS TO BE DONE FIRST?”

“GIVE HIM FREEDOM, OF COURSE.”

There was a prolonged pause, then a blur. Hedrock grew taut, and involuntarily closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw that he was in one of his secret laboratories on earth, the one in which the giant rat had nearly killed him.

He seemed to be back on the earth. Hedrock climbed gingerly to his feet, and examined himself. He was still wearing the insulation suit, which Greer had given him, and in which he had dressed himself before leaving the lifeboat to wander around in the earth-like “city” the spider beings had created for him. He looked around the room slowly, searching for tiny discrepancies that would indicate that this was another illusion.