So perhaps there was still time enough for the recapitulation.
Gosseyn said, “There’s an overall impression I have that this is a warship.”
It required moments only for that to bring a reaction. Once more the man slowed in his walk, and, turning his head, stared with what seemed to be an expression of astonishment.
“What else?” he said. He added, “You have strange thoughts.”
Gosseyn persisted: “The very existence of such a large vessel, and your mention just now of alien prisoners, implies that wherever you came from—let us call your place of origin Galaxy Two—you have a mighty enemy.”
The other man seemed to have recovered from his surprise at the simplicity of the questions. He was walking again at normal pace; and he nodded, and said, “It’s a two-legged, two-armed, semi-human race. These beings are both technically and as individuals dangerous to us. For example, it is risky for a human being without some electronic protection to be in the vicinity of a Troog. And we have had to develop elaborate devices to defend ourselves as a group from computer systems that are able to amplify their mental control methods for taking over the minds of the personnel of a Dzan warship during a battle.”
“I gather that such a battle was in progress when your ship suddenly found itself in this area of space.”
“True,” was the reply.
Momentarily, Gosseyn tried to picture that battle scene in the remote universe nearly a million light years from the Milky Way galaxy. Human beings there fighting as men had been fighting here since the beginning of recorded history.
He shook his head, sadly. The General Semantics notion that one human being is not the same as any other—Gilbert Gosseyn is not Breemeg, is not Eldred Crang, is not Prescott, is not Enro—while it had a limited truth in terms of individual identity and appearance, did not seem to encompass the character of the race as a whole.
He sighed. And continued with his recapitulation: “I’m going to guess that the absence of your ship could be an advantage for the enemy.”
Silence. They walked several steps, and the end of the corridor was visibly only a a few hundred feet ahead now. Then: “It will probably take a while,” Breemeg said, “before anyone becomes aware that we have disappeared. So ours may not yet be a dangerous absence.”
“Your description of the enemy,” said Gosseyn, who had been considering what the other had said, “suggests that for the first time ever men have met a superior life form. By which I mean—”
He stopped, incredulous.
The floor was shaking. Shaking!
It was a vibration that was visible. Literally, under him, the floor wobbled. And he saw that wobble run like a ripple that moved slantwise across the corridor. And, apparently, passed on to other parts of the ship. And was gone from where he was.
Just ahead, a ceiling bell clanged. And then a man’s strident voice said urgently: “All personnel to stations.
An enemy super-ship has just this minute entered our area of space—”
Because of the intensity of tone, it took a moment to identify the voice as that of the Draydart Duart.
Inside his brain, he was aware of his Alter Ego mentally groaning at him: “Three,” that distant thought came, “I think you’ve done it. You thought of that other galaxy battle location; and I have an awful feeling something big happened—again.”
Gosseyn Three had no time for guilt. Because at that exact instant he felt an odd sensation in his head. It required several split instants for his second-in-line memory from Gosseyn Two and Gosseyn One, since he had no personally associated physical movements, to identify the feeling.
Then:… Good God! Something was trying to take control of his mind—
The twelve minutes of Leej’s prediction, must be up. That was only one of numerous fleeting impressions. Thought of Leej also brought instant memory of the Crangs, the Prescotts, Enro, and Strala… all of whom at this moment must be fighting efforts to control their minds.
So Gilbert Gosseyn Three had better get back there. Too bad because—that was another of the fleeting realizations… I should really be tracking down that boy—
CHAPTER 12
A chill wind blew into Gosseyn’s face.
As far as the eye could see were snowy peaks. And, directly below the ridge on which they stood, was a swift flowing river with ice-encrusted shore lines.
He saw that the boy was gazing at the scene, eyes wide. A flush of color was creeping into the white cheeks. And it just could be the chill of that wind was reaching through all the madness and making itself felt on a new level of reality.
There was a long pause. Then: “Hey, this is really something, isn’t it?” The boyish voice had excitement in it.
Even as the words were spoken, the wind blew harder, icier. Gosseyn smiled grimly, and said, “Yes, it really is… something.”
His Imperial Majesty, Enin, seemed not to hear and not to feel. His voice went up several pitches of excitement: “Hey, what do you do in a place like this?”
It was not too difficult to believe that this boy had all his life been protected from extremes of weather. So Gosseyn’s feeling was that perhaps a little explanation was in order. Accordingly, he said, “Since, because of the battle that’s going on… back there—” He waved vaguely in the direction of the light-years-away Dzan ship—“we’ll be staying here for a little while, I should tell you that what you’re looking at is the winter season of this planet, and it’s a wilderness area. Not a sign of civilization is visible from here.”
“There’s something over there,” said the boy. He pointed, and added, “I’ve been here twenty minutes longer than you, and it was brighter then, and it looked like something when the sun was out.”
Gosseyn’s gaze followed the pointing finger, and saw that it was aimed in the direction that the river was flowing. The distance involved was more than a mile. There, at the point where the river and the valley turned leftward out of sight, was a dark area in the snow, seemingly at the very edge of the disappearing stream.
Was it the first building of a settlement that was located beyond the bend?
It would take a while to get there, and find out. But there was no question: if they remained here, that was the direction they would go.
Aloud, he said, “Let’s hope so. We have to find a place where we can be warm when night comes.” Undecided, he looked up at the cloud that hid the sun. And saw that it was part of a dark mass that would presently cover most of the sky. Too bad! It would have been interesting to see what kind of sun it was.
Already, the air seemed chillier than at the moment of his arrival. Time they were on their way.
As the two of them partly climbed down, and partly slid down the icy slope, Gosseyn Three conducted a silent debate with himself.
Presumably, where he—and the boy before him—had arrived, was a 20 decimal “photographed” area of Gosseyn One or Gosseyn Two; an exact location one of them had used for some purpose in the past.
The problem was that his own recollection of the travels of the earlier Gosseyns could not seem to recall a frozen mountain area. The joint memory he shared with the first two Gosseyns did not include a mental picture of a scene such as this, utilized for any reason.
It was merely a mystery, of course, and not a disaster. At any moment he could choose to use his extrabrain—and something would happen; exactly what was no longer predictable.
… After all, my intention was to return to the imperial apartment on the ship to help Strala and the visitors, who had been transmitted aboard by Gosseyn Two—