Alfred Van Vogt - Null–A Three

There was silence in that small, private dining room. And so, after a small pause, Gosseyn continued, “We probably need everyone’s reaction. So, I’m going to go around the table, and when I name you, or point at you, give your comment, or suggestion, for this situation.” There was one obvious person who had to be first on a list of direct requests; and Gosseyn after a small inward groan at the waste of time involved, named him:

“President Blayney?” he said.

The elected head of the North American continent said, “I was, fortunately, alone in my office when I felt a peculiar sensation. And the next instant I was out there in that restaurant alcove without my guards. As soon as I walked farther into the place, there was that maître-de, evidently already briefed; for he said: ‘This way, Mr. President.’ ”

Blayney added, “I’ve naturally asked him to advise my office; so a small army will probably be here shortly, if that’s any help.”

He concluded, “I’ll have my people find out from the restaurant staff just how this luncheon was set up.” Gosseyn said courteously, “Thank you, Mr. President.” And, since time was pressing even harder at that four minute deadline, his gaze went hastily down the table. “Patricia,” he said.

The young woman, who was Enro’s sister and Eldred Crang’s wife, seemed momentarily taken aback at being named. But after a pause, she said, “I suppose you could say I’ve been in this whole business from the beginning. Yet I have to admit that the arrival of the Troogs leaves me blank.”

Having spoken, she leaned back in her chair, and shrugged.

Since Crang had already spoken, Gosseyn indicated Mrs. Prescott, who sat at Patricia’s side.

The woman sighed. “I was virtually killed once in this nightmare, so I know that death is blackout; and I guess I can take it if I have to, hoping that there will no preliminary pain.”

The words were spoken quietly, but they had a grimness to them that brought Gosseyn a sense of shock. He braced himself hastily, drew a deep breath, swallowed, raised his hand and indicated the scientist, who sat just beyond Mrs. Prescott: Voice Three.

The Dzan scientist said, “I think you shouldn’t waste another moment here. Get yourself back to the protection of the energy screen of our battleship, and let the other Gosseyn come out here, and rescue us. I—”

If there were other words spoken after that, Gosseyn did not hear them. There was a tugging inside him…

“They’re probably studying you—”

That seemed truer than ever, as he looked around at his new location. This time he was on a street which, by no reach of the Gosseyn memory, resembled anywhere that a Gosseyn had visited.

He stood there. And looked slantingly down into the upturned face of a young woman. She was a complete stranger. Presumably, there must be something in his reaction to her that the aliens wanted to observe. What could it be?

The young woman said hesitantly—in English, “I received a photograph of you.”

She had a fine, well-balanced face, brown hair and brown eyes. It was not an earth face… somehow. He estimated her height at about five feet five inches. Her clothes seemed to consist of a pale beige cloth that was wrapped around her body from the top down like a series of scarfs. On her feet she wore brown sandles, and around her neck was a thin, leathery looking necklace.

Hers was a reasonably slender female body; but she was not, by earth standards, a beauty. And there was no way for him to deduce from what he was looking at, what the aliens had in mind for this meeting.

There she stood, an attractive female, seemingly about twenty-two or three in terms of earth years. Beyond her, a street was visible—he presumed it was a street because it was a level, grayish in color, that was about four hundred feet wide, and stretched straight for several miles to where he could see the beginning of a city of solid, yellow-brown masses: buildings, he assumed.

On either side of that straight, gray level were tall trees. And a curtain of shrubbery that made it difficult to see the vaguely visible low-built structures that he assumed were residences.

Everything looked… different. Not of earth, nor Venus, nor Gorgzid, nor other familiar scenes. Standing there, Gosseyn accepted that it was another human-inhabited planet somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy.

He was simultaneously remembering: in those final moments at the dinner-to-be, as he felt the tugging sensation, it had been a flash decision to let a Troog transmission of him happen at least once more. Let it happen despite the fact that his reason had immediately agreed that Voice Three was giving good advice about going back to the Dzan battleship.

Unfortunately, what he had allowed to happen seemed a minor, almost meaningless meeting. And, sadly, the individual involved had now been damaged in that she was no longer able to communicate in her native language.

Gosseyn sighed. And realized that this time he had really let his own thoughts take over. At very least a long minute had gone by since his arrival. Belatedly, now, he recalled what the young woman had said at the beginning of that minute. And he echoed one of the words:

“Photograph?”

“Yes.” She reached into a fold of that unusual dress, and drew out a small, flat print. She held it out to him, almost anxiously.

As he gazed down at the print of himself, apparently taken when he was standing with a wall behind him, it seemed to Gosseyn that it was a picture that could have been made in the restaurant where he had been about two minutes before, in terms of inner time elapsed.

—What could the Troogs have in mind for a meeting between Gilbert Gosseyn and a young woman from another planet?

Out of his bafflement came a second question. This one he spoke aloud: “You seem to have been willing to receive such a photograph. Why?”

“I decided very early, after I heard about all those other places out there—” she waved vaguely toward the sky—“that I didn’t want to spend my life on Meerd. And—” her voice was suddenly tense—“and the message said that you might be interested in me.” She Finished anxiously, “I’ve been a member for more than two years without anyone like you showing up.”

And those words also seemed to have no meaning, except—the implication came to him suddenly—that maybe what she belonged to was an interstellar marriage club.

The young woman was staring up at him beseechingly. “I’m supposed to tell you my name,” she said, “and then all will be well between us. They say—” pause—“that you are absorbed with the meanings of words, and that my name will have a very special meaning for you.”

“Words?” echoed Gosseyn.

He could almost feel himself sinking into some depth of Troog analytical point of view. Was it possible that the aliens were puzzled by the fleeting, so to say, glimpses they had had of his interest in General Semantics? And this meeting on this planet was designed to take advantage of a suspected weakness in him?

He was conscious of an automatic tensing inside him. He actually separated his feet slightly as if to give himself better balance and a firmer footing. His feeling was suddenly that he might be staying here longer than he had during the previous time the Troogs had controlled his movements.

But all he actually did was to ask the question: “All right, will you tell me your name?”

“Strella?” she said.

He could have thought about that a long time. Because, words. And a basic General Semantics concept being involved. Strella and Strala being similar names… I did comment, back there, that I liked the name, Strala—And so, maybe to the aliens the word was the thing; which was the exact opposite of the General Semantics’ concept: “The word is not the thing.” In this case, it was not the woman.