But he remained calm. He said:
“A General Semanticist, madam, is trained to take into consideration more of the realities of a situation than a person without such training.”
He continued: “I have to admit that I have not available inside me at this moment a clear picture of all the factors that a woman General Semanticist might take into account in dealing with the instinctual behavior of herself as a devoted mother and former empress, who is also a widow. But, fortunately, we have more obvious reasons for not acting hastily in this situation.”
The woman had been staring at him, as he spoke the analysis. Now, she shook her head in what seemed to be a chiding manner.
“Was that,” she asked, “a typical, long-winded sample of your day-to-day conversation as a General—” she hesitated—“semanticist?”
Gosseyn glanced mentally back over his analysis; and it was surely the most involved statement that had recently been spoken by any of the Gosseyns.
Nonetheless, he braced himself, and said, “Madam, I want you to picture the situation that exists here. A short time ago, a stranger—myself—was brought aboard this vessel. Within an hour or so after he is awakened by ship scientists, the emperor’s mother announces she will marry this stranger. The outward appearance is—would be—that I have used a malign mental power of some kind to influence the emperor’s mother. Once such a thought was presented to the officers of this great ship, they would come charging to your defense. Nothing would dissuade them from taking whatever action they deemed necessary.”
He was aware that as he spoke there was a progressive change of expression in the woman’s face and eyes: it seemed to be acceptance of his reasoning.
Indeed, moments later she began to nod. And then she said, “I can see a speedy marriage would be unwise. But a very private liaison, with the understanding between you and me that the end-result would be marriage, should surely satisfy all your religious scruples.” Gosseyn found himself smiling; for it was… surely… a subject to which General Semantics had never addressed itself. But he felt secure. “Not General Semantics,” he said confidently.
During the interchange, brief though it was, the woman must have had time to have a basic thought of her own. For suddenly she smiled.
“My dear friend,” she said in a voice that had in it the extra sweetness of sarcasm, “one of these times you must explain General Semantics and tell me all about its God; how he has managed to restrain the passions of the most willful and sexually determined creatures in the universe: men!”
She broke off: “Right now, I am reluctantly accepting that, for some reason, you cannot adjust to a simple reality of the way of man and woman. And perhaps I shall have to re-evaluate my first reaction to you. But even that can wait. And—” more sweetly, still—“since I accept that nothing is going to happen right now, and I’ve already been cooled off by this outrageous conversation, why don’t you go back into that other room; and I’ll join you there presently?”
“Thank you, madam,” said Gosseyn.
Whereupon, he turned, and opened the door, and walked through it into the reception or living room.
Vaguely, he was ashamed of himself. But also he felt relieved because, really—no commitments until this entire situation was clarified in some reasonable way… Right, Gosseyn Two?—”
The reply came at once; but it had the same doubtful quality that was there in the back of his own mind: “We do need more information; but Patricia, here, is shaking her head over you, and smiling.”
“Tell the lady,” communicated Gosseyn Three, “that women have been rejecting men since time immemorial, and feeling justified about it. And no need for anybody smiling.”
It must have seemed true; because there was no reply.
CHAPTER 9
Now what?
He had seated himself in one of the comfortable chairs. He waited there, expecting the woman to appear any moment. But even if she did show, the question remained:
Where do we go from here?
Gosseyn Three was aware of the puffing of his own breathing; and several times in those first restless minutes there was the sound of his clothing rubbing against the soft, luxurious upholstery on which he sat. In between those perceptions—dead silence.
The reception room continued to feed back to him the timeless beauty and costliness of an apartment that had been decorated and furnished to satisfy the requirements of people accustomed to total wealth.
But, somehow, that merely accentuated his feeling of being an intruder, without any real knowledge of his surroundings.
… This is pretty ridiculous—he thought.
Incredibly, one of the mightiest events in the history of two galaxies had brought this giant battleship here to this area of the Milky Way galaxy from another island universe out there in space. And had apparently accomplished the feat at the speed of 20-decimal similarity.
The implications were not immediately analyzable. But surely this wasn’t all there was. The colossal meaning of such an Event in Space Time needed to be scientifically studied and understood.
… And with, at least, equal certainty, men like Breemeg and the Draydart, representative of the military people, were acting in some way, and not merely waiting.
Something, in short, was happening somewhere on this vast ship. At very least, keen minds must at this very moment be wondering what was occurring between a stranger named Gilbert Gosseyn, on the one hand, and the emperor and his mother, on the other.
Somebody would come to investigate before very long.
With that thought—of an investigating group on the way—it occurred to Gosseyn that the restriction he had imposed on himself in the throne room did not apply here… The personal offer the woman made to me makes it mandatory that, if there is trouble, I should be able to come here and help her and the boy—
So he stood up hastily. And quickly, then, he located a place on the floor in one corner, behind drawn-back draperies. And performed with his extra-brain the mental photographing process that would enable him at a later time to come here instantly by the 20-decimal similarity method.
Moments later, as he sat down, he grew aware that his Alter Ego was manifesting mental activity.
“I told the others what you just did—” the communication from Gosseyn Two was like his own thought, as before—“and they feel that they should join you, leaving me here to monitor things.”
In the transmitted thought the unstated part of the meaning, “the what you just did” was the sort of process minds did automatically. The reference was to his action of having his extra-brain “photograph” a portion of the floor.
“You mean… now?—” echoed Gosseyn Three’s answering thought.
“So—” Gosseyn Two’s brain was continuing—“why don’t we see if, between us, we can use your location there in that room where you are at this moment, and transmit them there, as you transmitted the young emperor’s body into that space capsule. First, Eldred Crang—”
The mention of his transmission of the boy’s body brought fleeting memories of other, distant photographed areas… still usable? he wondered—
There was a sound off to his left, and slightly behind him. Then, the thought: “Next, Leej.”
Gosseyn Three had turned. And so he saw, and at once recognized with his duplicate memory, that Eldred Crang was hastily stepping away from the draperies. As he did so, Leej was there, out of nowhere. She also moved rapidly aside, as Enro, and then the Prescotts, and finally Patricia Hardie Crang, also were, one after the other, in the room.