Null-A Three (23 page)

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.

His mind went back again to the realization that this young woman might possibly be permanently damaged in relation to her home planet. And, again, the faraway amazement that the Troogs must believe that any woman with a similar name would be equally attractive to him—

With that—decision! Simply and directly, Gosseyn acted. He made his instant mental, extra-brain photograph of Strella, and at once transmitted her to the floor location in the Institute of General Semantics on earth, where he had brought the business man, Gorrold, from the Andes in South America.

It was a location where, at least, she would be able to make herself understood—up to a point.

As he completed the best saving action he could think of for the young woman . . . something stirred in his brain.

Sudden awareness, after all these minutes, of Gosseyn Two—out there.

It must have been a simultaneous realization; for his alter ego addressed an urgent mental message to him: “I have bad news. The moment you left the restaurant, the people there were taken aboard the Troog battleship.” The shock of guilt inside Gosseyn Three faded quickly. The truth was, even if he had stayed to help them, the aliens would have been able to capture the majority; so far he himself had operated at the rate of only one 20-decimal transport at a time.

His immediate thought-purpose must have reached out. Because Gosseyn Two said across the light-years in a resigned mental voice: “The truth has to be that you’re the one they really want. If anyone can help them return to their own galaxy—the method is probably available somewhere in that tangle of nerves in your head.”

He concluded, “Good luck, brother—I guess that’s what we are: twin brothers.”

. . . Not quite twins, thought Gosseyn Three.

He did not pause to reason out the details of difference; but at once transmitted himself into the laboratory aboard the Troog warship.

The final struggle was about to begin.

That was Gosseyn’s impression as he realized he was lying on a floor. Lying face down; not standing.

So, somehow, in those split instants before transmission occurred, the Troogs had been able, with their mighty science, to modify one aspect of the 20-decimal transport method, whereby he had always, in the past, arrived in the physical-muscular-body position that had existed at the moment of departure. On Meerd, he had been standing. Here—

Gosseyn stayed where he was. Did not even turn his head immediately.

“. . . I could be killed as I lie here—” was his thought. But he realized that he believed the aliens still needed him. And in every way had proved it in three separate control actions. On each occasion death could have been administered; but it wasn’t.

Here he sprawled, face down. His nose was actually pressed against what seemed to be a soft, smooth floor. His eyes stared directly down at the grayish-white, slightly gleaming flatness. He was, he realized, still presuming that this was the laboratory floor toward which he had aimed himself from the remote star system, which the young woman, Strella, had called Meerd.

. . . Time to show awareness, and to move carefully. What he did, he raised himself to his knees.

And saw that, though he had only glimpsed it fleetingly as he was emerging from the capsule, it was, in fact, the room, which he had originally thought of as a laboratory.

For some reason, the identification—the recognition—evoked a strong reaction of relief.

“. . . I am where I wanted to be—”

Even as he had the awareness, he was lifting himself in the same unhurried fashion; it was still his assumption that any quick movement could bring an unpleasant reaction.

Standing, he looked around a bright, large interior. Visible were numerous, gleaming machines and instrument boards projecting from wall and floor.

However, there was no sign of the space capsule inside which his body had lain while the Troogs duplicated his original awakening as it had taken place—earlier—on the Dzan ship. Not that he had expected it to be still there. It had obviously been brought aboard through some wall opening. The most likely wall was the one with the least instrumentation built into it, and with a long, dark slash right down the middle from ceiling to floor; that was where it must divide and slide back. It was through such an opening that large objects could be brought into the laboratory or taken out.

It seemed a shame that time was being wasted. Because here he was, the man with all the answers to everybody’s questions.

. . . Surely, they knew that he was here—

It seemed to him there must be something he could do while he waited for their reaction . . . The truth was, the more he found out—now—the safer he’d feel when the moment of crisis came—

Perhaps, contact Gosseyn Two?

It was a passing impulse. The fact was, he had already noticed that the ether was silent. There was absolutely no mental awareness of his alter ego. It was a case of complete cut off. Again.

Perhaps, he should try to decide what the Troogs had in mind for the other prisoners? That would require leaving the room, with the intention of looking for, and locating, Crang, Patricia, the Prescotts, Enro—

It was staring at what looked like a door—off to his right—that brought that thought. Without hesitation, he headed for it.

Whatever it was, the flat surface that looked like a door, had several metallic attachments that undoubtedly had some purpose. Gosseyn pulled, pushed, twisted at each separate piece. Two of the items made a clicking sound when thus manipulated; but there was no I give to the door, if that was what it was.

He stepped back, suddenly more determined Okay, maybe if he made a 20-decimal connection between the energy feeding one of the instrument boards and the door mechanism—

The failure of the Troogs to acknowledge his presence was beginning to be a little irritating. A waste of time.

Above everything else he needed an audience that would hold still for what he had to say.

The wry thought was still in his mind, and he was still there, moments later, when a tenor voice said, in English, from the ceiling:

“Gilbert Gosseyn, we have you completely in our control. Here, you cannot even use your extra-brain method to escape.”

Although the words conveyed a possibility that had already occurred to Gosseyn, hearing the meaning spoken aloud brought a thought: “. . . This is what they learned how to do during those three trips they sent me on—”

So there seemed to be no question: this whole madness was about to enter its decisive stage.

Despite his instant hope, there he still stood at least a minute later, waiting—he realized ruefully—for the self-appointed enemy to provide him with the opportunity to act.

During that minute, his environment was the same gleaming metal room with the same gray-ish floor, and all those instruments jutting out and up.

He had been assuming that the Troogs could, to some extent, read his mind. But since they had missed a decisive aspect of his General Semantics orientation, perhaps all they could essentially study was the brain itself, with occasional thoughts available in some connecting situation.

Another fifteen seconds—at least—went by . . . They’re waiting, and I’m waiting. For what?

After several more moments of consideration he walked over, and once more tried the door mechanism. This time, when the two clicks sounded, the door swung open.

Gosseyn wasted no time, with not even a single backward glance, he walked through the opening into a wide, high-ceilinged hallway.

Momentarily, then, the rueful feeling came back:

“. . . Okay, okay,” he thought, “I was reasoning some human way, and they had their Trogg approach to logic—”

The Troog way seemed to anticipate that, after a conversation, friendly or unfriendly, if a human being had once tested a door to see if it would open, he would then test it again, without waiting for instructions.

The human way—the Gosseyn version at least—had been to await further instructions, once verbal contact was established. A courtesy approach was what he had intended.

The conclusion seemed to be: the enemy automatically expected aggressive—or, at very least, purposeful action—behavior from him.

Even as he had these thoughts, Gosseyn turned to the right, and walked along the wide, dimly lighted corridor. He could see a barrier about 150 feet ahead; and, presumably, that would be the moment of truth.