The Players of Null-A

VII NULL-ABSTRACTS

In making a statement about an object or an event, an individual 'abstracts' only a few of its characteristics. If he says, 'That chair is brown!' he should mean that brownness is one of its qualities, and he should be aware, as he speaks, that it has many other qualities. 'Consciousness of abstracting' constitutes one of the main differences between a person who is semantically trained and one who is not.

With the speed of a hunting cat, Gosseyn was off his cot. His fingers gripped the crossbar of the grille at the bottom. He felt himself irresistibly lifted up.

The effort to hold on cost him every ounce of strength in his arms and fingers. The area to which he had to cling was less than an inch in thickness, and it curved the wrong way. But he had taken his grip just under the needles, under that fantastic pattern of needles, and he either hung on or suffered ultimate defeat.

He hung on. As he came up above the level of the window, he was able to see out. He had a glimpse of a courtyard in the immediate foreground, of a high fence in the near distance made of sharply pointed metal spears, and of a land of trees beyond. Gosseyn barely glanced at the vista. One look at the scene as a whole, and then he turned his attention to the courtyard.

There was an agonizingly slow moment while he memorized the surface structure of a part of a cobblestone. And then, his purpose accomplished, he dropped nearly twenty feet to the concrete floor of the cell.

He landed on all fours, physically relaxed, but with his mind as taut as a metal bar. He had an outside area to which he could escape by using the special powers of his extra brain, but he still had to make up his mind what his immediate course of action should be.

His problem with regard to the Follower was not radically altered. Deadly and imminent danger remained but at least he could now get out into the open.

Warily, like a fighter parrying a dangerous opponent, Gosseyn watched the gorilla-like Jurig who was supposed to kill him.

'Leej,' he said, without looking at the Predictor woman, 'come over here behind me.'

She came without a word, her feet almost noiseless on the floor. He had a glimpse of her face as she slipped past him. Her cheeks were colorless, her eyes blurred, but she held her head high.

From the far side of what was now one room, Jurig snarled. 'That won't do you any good, hiding behind him.'

It was a purely thalamic threat, serving no useful purpose even to Jurig. But Gosseyn did not let it go by. He had been waiting for an opening. A man who could not make up his mind about a larger issue had to appear to concentrate on a smaller one. So long as he gave the impression of being concerned with Jurig, as if that were the danger, just so long would the Follower await events. He said in a steely voice:

'Jurig, I'm tired of that kind of talk. It's time you made up your mind whose side you're on. And I'm telling you right now that it had better be mine.'

The Yalertan, who had been bracing himself and edging toward, stopped. The muscles of his face worked spasmodically, quivering between doubt and rage. He glared at Gosseyn with the baffled eyes of a bully whose smaller opponent was not afraid.

'I'm going to smash your head against the cement,' he said from between clenched teeth. But he spoke the words as if he were testing their effect.

'Leej,' said Gosseyn.

'Yes?'

'Can you see what I'm going to do?'

'There's nothing. Nothing.'

It was Gosseyn's turn to be baffled. True, if she couldn't foresee his actions, then neither could the Follower. But he had hoped to obtain a vague picture which would help him make up his mind. What should he do when he got outside? Run? Or enter the Retreat and seek out the Follower?

His role in this affair was on a vaster level than that of either Jurig or Leej. Like the Follower, he was a major piece in the galactic game of chess. At least, he must consider himself one until events proved otherwise. It imposed restraints upon him. Escape alone would not solve his problems. He must also, if it could possibly be done, plant the seeds of future victory.

'Jurig,' he temporized aloud, 'you've got a big decision to make. It involves more courage than you've yet shown, but I'm sure you have it in you. From now on, regardless of consequences, you're against the Follower. I tell you, you have no choice. The next time we meet, if you're not working unconditionally against him, I shall kill you.'

Jurig stared at him uncertainly. It seemed hard for him to realize that a fellow prisoner was actually giving him an order. He laughed uneasily. And then the immensity of the insult must have penetrated. He became enormously angry, the anger of a man who feels himself outraged.

'I'll show you what choice I have!' he shouted.

His approach was swift but heavy. He held his arms out, obviously intending to hug and squeeze, and the surprise for him was when Gosseyn stepped right into the circle of those bear like limbs, and sent a powerful right to his jaw. The blow failed to land squarely but it stopped Jurig short. He grappled with Gosseyn with a sick look on his face. His expression grew sicker as he fought to gain a strangle hold on a man who, now that so telling a blow had been struck, was not only faster but stronger than himself.

The Yalertan yielded suddenly, like a door that has been smashed open, with a battering ram. Gosseyn felt it coming, and with a final burst of strength sent the other staggering back across the floor, routed, defeated in mind and body.

The shock would be lasting, and Gosseyn regretted it. But there was no doubt that it had been necessary. On such identifications, people like Jurig built their egos. All through his life, like the goats in the famous experiment, Jurig had butted his way to dominance. It was his way, not Gosseyn's, of expressing his superiority.

Consciously, he would resent the defeat, find a dozen excuses for himself. But on the unconscious level he would accept it. So far as Gilbert Gosseyn was concerned, his confidence in his physical prowess was gone. Only Null-A training would ever enable him to reorientate himself to the new situation, and that was not available.

Satisfied, Gosseyn similarized himself out onto the courtyard. Swiftly, then, the greater purpose of escape took full possession of his nervous system.

He was vaguely aware of people in the courtyard turning to look at him as he ran. He had a glimpse, in turning his head, of an enormous pile of buildings, spires and steeples, masses of stone and marble, colored glass windows. That picture of the Follower's Retreat remained in his mind even as he kept 'watch' on every energy source in the castle. He was ready to similarize himself back and forth to escape blasters and power-driven weapons. But there was no change in the flow from the dynamo or the atomic pile.

Automatically, he similarized Leej to the memorized area behind him, but he did not look to see if she was following him.

He reached the tall fence, and saw that the spears which looked formidable enough in themselves were encrusted with the same kind of needles as had been the grilles in the prison cell he'd just left. Nine feet of unscalable metal—but he could see between the spears.

It required the usual long—it seemed long—moment to memorize an area beyond the fence. Actually, it was not a memory. When he concentrated in a definite fashion on a spot, his extra brain automatically took a 'photograph' of the entire atomic structure of the matter involved to a depth of several molecules. The similarization process that could then follow resulted from the flow of nervous energy along channels in the extra brain—channels which had been created only after prolonged training. The activating cue would send a wash of that energy out, first along the nerves of his body, and then beyond his skin. For an instant then, every affected atom was forced into a blurred resemblance to the photographer pattern. When the approximation of similarity was made accurate to twenty decimal places, the two objects became contiguous, and the greater bridged the gap to the lesser as if there were no gap.

Gosseyn similarized himself through the fence and started to run toward the woods. As he ran he felt the presence of magnetic energy and saw a plane glide toward him over the trees. He kept on running, watching it from the corner of his eyes, striving to analyze its power source. It had no propeller, but there were long metal struts jutting down from its stubby wings. Similar type plates ran along its fuselage, and that gave him confirmation. Here was the source of the magnetic power.

Its weapons would be bullets or a magnetic beam blaster.

The machine had been off to one side. Now, its nose twisted toward him. Gosseyn similarized himself back to the fence.

A plume of colored fire puffed along the ground where he had been. The grass smoked. There were flashes of yellow flame from the brush, but that only mingled with the red-green-blue-orange of the blaster's own chromatic display.

As the plane hissed past him, Gosseyn took a photograph of its tail assembly. And once more, at top speed, he started to run toward the trees more than a hundred yards away.

He kept a watch on the plane, and saw it turn and dive down at him again. This time Gosseyn took no chances. He was a hundred feet from the fence, which was dangerously close. But he similarized the tail assembly of the plane to the memorized area beside the fence.

There was a crash that rocked the ground. The metallic shriek of the plane, its speed undiminished by the process of similarization, was ear splitting as it screeched along parallel to the fence, tearing the fence with fantastic ripping sounds. It came to a rest an eighth of a mile away, a tattered fragment.

Gosseyn ran on. He reached the woods safely, but he was no longer satisfied with merely escaping. If one attacking device existed, then so might others. Swiftly, he memorized an area beside a tree, stepped aside and brought Leej up to it. Next, he transported himself back to the area just outside the cell window, and headed at a run for the nearest door leading into the Retreat. He wanted weapons that would match anything the Follower had mustered to prevent his escape, and he intended to get them.

He found himself in a broad corridor, and the first thing he saw was a long line of magnetic lights. He memorized the nearest one, and immediately felt a lot better. He had a small but potent weapon that would operate anywhere on Yalerta.

He continued along the corridor but no longer at top speed. The dynamo and the pile were near, but just where he had no way of knowing. He sensed the presence of human beings around, but the neural flow was neither tense nor menacing. He came to a basement stairway, and without hesitation headed down the long flight of steps. Two men were standing at the bottom, talking to each other earnestly but without anxiety.

They looked up at him in surprise. And Gosseyn, who had already made his plan, said breathlessly, 'Which way to the power plant? It's urgent.'

One of the men looked excited. 'Why . . . why—that way. That way. What's the matter?'

Gosseyn was already racing in the direction indicated. The other called after him, 'The fifth door to your right.'

When he came to the fifth door, he stopped just inside the threshold. Just what he had expected he didn't know, but not an atomic pile feeding power to an electric dynamo. The huge dynamo was turning softly. Its great wheel glinted as it moved slowly. To either side were walls lined with instrument boards. A half dozen men were moving around, and at first they didn't see him. Gosseyn walked boldly towards the power outlet of the dynamo, and memorized it. He estimated it at forty thousand kilowatts.

Then, still without hesitation, he strode to the pile itself. There were the usual devices for looking into the interior, and an attendant was bending over a gauge making minute adjustments on a marked dial. Gosseyn stepped up beside him, and peered through one of the viewing devices into the pile itself.

He was aware of the man straightening. But the long moment the other required to grasp the nature of the intrusion was all that Gosseyn needed. As the attendant tugged at his shoulder, too surprised for speech or anger, Gosseyn stepped back and, without a word, walked to the door and out into the corridor.

The moment he was out of sight, he transported himself into the woods. Leej stood a dozen feet away, almost facing him.

She jumped as he appeared, and babbled something he didn't catch. He waited for the expression on her face to indicate that she was recovering. He didn't have long to wait.

Her body trembled, but it was a quaver of excitement. Her eyes were slightly glazed, but they became bright with eagerness. She grabbed his arm with quivering fingers.

'Quick,' she said, 'this way. My trailer will be over here.'

'Your what?' said Gosseyn.

But she had started off through the brush, and she seemed not to hear.

Gosseyn ran after her, his eyes narrowed, and he was thinking: Has she been fooling me? Has she known all this time that she was going to escape now? But then why wouldn't the Follower know, and be waiting?

He couldn't help remembering that he was caught in 'the most intricate trap ever devised for one man.' It was something to think about even if he apparently succeeded in getting away.

Ahead of him, the woman plunged through a screen of tall shrubs, and then he didn't hear her any more. Following her, Gosseyn found himself on the edge of a limitless sea. He had time to remember that this was a planet of vast oceans broken at intervals by islands, and then an airship came floating over the trees to his left. It was about a hundred and fifty feet long, snub-nosed, and about thirty feet high at its thickest. It plunged lightly into the water in front of them. A long, sleek gangplank came sliding down toward them. It touched the sand at the woman's feet.

In a flash, she was up and along it. She called over her shoulder, 'Hurry!'

Gosseyn pressed across the threshold behind her. The moment he was inside, the door flowed shut, and the machine began to glide forward and up. The swiftness with which everything happened reminded him of a similar experience he'd had at the Temple of the Sleeping God on Gorgzid while in the body of Prince Ashargin.

There was one difference, vital and urgent. As Ashargin, he had not felt immediately threatened. Now, he did.