Null–A Three

CHAPTER 29

All those minutes, while walking along the corridor, Gosseyn had been aware of his alter ego… off there, in the remoteness of space, aboard the Dzan battleship. And, because of what was happening, he now addressed the other Gosseyn:

“So far I haven’t killed anybody.”

“Lucky you!” came the reply. “You didn’t have to fight off Enro’s attack on Venus.”

Thus reminded of Enro, Gosseyn Three commented: “He’s up there, now, on the Troog battleship.”

The reply had in it a satirical overtone: “I have a feeling that when Enro was telling you about his understanding of General Semantics, about taking all possibilities into account, he believed he knew how to do that better than anyone. But—” smile impression—“I’m deducing he forgot about your ability.” A mental shrug; then: “I say, good riddance.” The faraway communication concluded: “Remember, as things stand, the emperor’s mother is all yours—no competition now.”

“It’s interesting,” said Gosseyn Three, “that he never said a word when he discovered he was to be the hostage.”

The reply was the equivalent of a mental shrug: “I couldn’t care less.” He added, “And while I’m still here on the ship I’ll see if I can get hold of those visual materials Enro gave to your future bride.”

That was obviously a good purpose. The material should very definitely be examined. But Gosseyn Three was remembering something else.

“I doubt,” he said “if we can dispose of Enro in any casual fashion.” He added, “Remember, you and the others used his ESP ability when you attempted the big jump. We’ll need him again for that.”

“We can worry about that later,” was the reply. “As I see it, it’s to Enro’s advantage to participate. We can trust him to continue his scheming.”

Gosseyn Three, who had paused to take his extrabrain photograph of the electrical outlet, and then walked hastily forward to rejoin Crang, spoke mentally again to Gosseyn Two: “Are you sure that kind of dismissal is wise? He’s the get-even type, and I see him just biding his time until he can hit somebody. We need to figure out a way to mollify him.”

He sensed a grim smile from the other Gosseyn. The message was: “Tell Eldred to watch out when Enro is finally let go. I’m sure Enro is still scheming to marry, in the Gorgzid royal tradition, the sister whom we knew as Patricia Hardie, and who is now Mrs. Crang.”

It was Gosseyn Three’s turn to smile. “That analysis implies that you’re hopeful that things will work out here. You think I can do what everybody’s counting on.”

The reply was straightforward: “We’re all trusting that the solution is buried somewhere in the damaged nerve ends in your extra-brain. We hope Dr. Kair can use the pictures he has of my brain to fix up yours. Or, at least, that he will be able to tell you the exact problem. The aftermath we’ll face when we come to it.”

At that point in his silent interchange with Gosseyn

Two, there was an interruption. Beside him, Crang said, “The fellow just saw us, and he stepped back out of sight.”

Gosseyn sighed. “Too bad. So now it looks like a crisis coming, and that he is somebody’s hireling.” Crang said grimly, “And, for good measure, a man, a woman, and a boy have just come out of the building two doors beyond the two-storey building, and they’re coming this way.”

Gosseyn made no additional comment, nor did he glance in the direction indicated. His attention was on the roof of the two-storey structure, where the man was now crouching behind the small abutment that overlooked the street; whoever he was, he was peering over, and down.

Since he was keeping his head visible, he was evidently assuming that no one would be suspicious of his motive for being there; and, of course, since it was still possible that his suspicious actions did not really portend anything, nothing could be done against him until he made a significant move.

Beside Gosseyn, Crang said, “You may be interested to know that the name of the restaurant is the owner’s idea of what General Semantics is all about: plain talk; telling it like it is.”

It was one of those comments that men make to each other in moments of stress. So it was no problem to stay alert, and simultaneously reply. “Eating House?” Gosseyn spoke the name with a faint smile, but did not for an instant cease watching the man on the roof.

“Here he was,” continued Crang’s voice from beside him, “with the only restaurant near the famous Institute of General Semantics, a subject having to do with the meaning of meaning; and so he evidently thought about it, and came up with another over-simplification.” They had crossed the park by the time those words were uttered, and were coming to a store with the sign: BUY YOUR SEMANTICS MEMENTOS HERE.

Further along that street, Enin had seen them; for he waved. Gosseyn said, “In terms of to-me-ness, I thought the food there was good.”

On the roof, the man’s hand came into view. The hand was holding a round, metal object. He raised the ball-like thing above his head.

Gosseyn took his extra-brain mental photograph of the metal object; and as he did so, was thinking: “He’s planning to throw it as we all come near each other.” And still he could not take any counter-measure until the act of throwing took place.

“And here,” said Crang beside him, “is a store offering video games that teach General Semantics.” Gosseyn said, “I was wondering what had happened to those. We’d better buy all that are available to take back with us to the Dzan battleship for Enin, and—” he added—“any other educational video games we can find, because—”

… On the roof, the hand was moving forward in the throwing act; and there was no such thing as waiting any longer. As he acted, Gosseyn’s feeling of regret was strong. Because electricity on the move was all too visible. This particular movement came from the socket a hundred and Fifty feet away in the form of a lightning bolt; and there was no possible way of modifying its impact.

The details of what happened were not even clear to Gosseyn, although he was the only witness; and he was watching closely.

The metal ball—as he observed the scene—was already in motion when the lightning bolt corruscated against it. The ball exploded not more than four or five feet from the hand that had thrown it from the roof; but that was evidently too close.

The man screamed, and fell back out of sight.

It was one of those small periods of time of several things happening almost simultaneously.

Enin came running forward, and grabbed Gosseyn around the waist, yelling, “Gee, Mr. Gosseyn, I’m sure glad to see you.”

Dan Lyttle was looking up toward the roof of the two-storey building. “What was all that?” he asked in a puzzled tone.

The young woman, Strella, also spoke to Gosseyn: “Thank you for sending me here.” She took hold of Dan Lyttle’s arm in a possessive way. “It’s going to work out.”

Crang hurried into the door of the two-storey building. He came out again presently, “I told the guard inside to call an ambulance.”

Gosseyn hoped the ambulance would come quickly.

He had already, among numerous fleeting awarenesses, noticed that it was an over-sized men’s clothing and shoe store. Now, he saw the name of the place lacquered into the transparent plastic wall beside the entrance: KORZYBSKI MEN’S CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR.

… Presumably featuring semantically styled suits, shoes, shirts, ties, pajamas, socks, slippers, and underwear—

It was all a little ridiculous. But it fitted, alas, with the nature of human life everywhere.

—Go aboard the Dzan battleship; and there was a rebellion brewing against a child emperor, who took it for granted that one behaved like father; at that age there was no thought of the possibility that father had been murdered because of the behavior that the son was now imitating…

—Go aboard the Troog battleship, and there was the tense, self-appointed leadership situation…

—And now, here on earth, two aspects: On the one hand, outraged Big Business executives reacting against a philosophy that had raised their costs by depriving them of cheap labor; and on the other, individuals like the ones on this street, trying to cash in on various business aspects of semantics.

Involved were problems of life, and more than one solution. Among these latter was surely: be aware, moment by moment!

One of those awarenesses came through at that exact instant. The distant Gosseyn Two said, “I’ve just checked with the film department of this ship; and they were naturally given Enro’s visual materials by my future sister-in-law, because—naturally—she doesn’t deal with things like that herself. And as we suspected there was a tiny distorter under a false bottom of the container; and that has been disposed of. So things are lining up.” They were, indeed.