The Secret Galactics by A.E. van Vogt

Author:A.E. van Vogt [Vogt, A.E. van]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2015-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

A SECRET ENTRANCE OPENS

Carl was in a room, which he identified without difficulty as the library in a large home.

He had been brought to this—for him in his immobile state—prison in the wee hours, and left with a guard. And then after a while Paul Gannott came in. The two men—the alienoid from Deea and the bodiless brain of what had been a human being—had a conversation, mostly lies on Carl’s part. But there had been that automatic growing interest in Gannott’s purpose with him. The very first mention of the fifty year voyage with Marie as his companion, did something. His mind seemed to float free of all the tensions of the past year. Some part of him recognized the total irrationality of his reaction. But the excitement over-rode good sense.

The early morning phone call to Marie took place while he was in the over-stimulated condition. Then Paul Gannott departed. And once more only he and the guard remained.

Carl suppressed a strong impulse to test immediately what he could still do with his equipment. His cautioning thought to himself was: wait! Maybe these people could detect anything electronic he did. And were hoping that he would try something, so they could cut him off now, at once, from even those minor abilities.

He waited.

From where he had been wheeled, he could see a stretch of carpeted floor. Could see all three of the walls that had the book shelves right up to the ceiling. Could see the other wall, which was paneled, and chairs, two gleaming desks, settees, lamps, and the single long window. Unfortunately, the window was at the far end of the paneled wall, so he couldn’t look outside. But he could see by the way the light came through it that it was daylight. In fact, he could even determine by the slant of the sunlight when it was noon and when mid-afternoon, and so on until finally there was twilight dimness. And night.

During that passage of time, the guard was changed every four hours. They were always men, well-dressed, educated, and capable-looking; and they, each in turn, found a comfortable location on a settee, and settled down with a book, glancing up occasionally at Carl.

The day was that uneventful. But he had had many such in the twelve months since his disaster; and he was resigned.

He kept recalling the immediate past. He had a memory of being taken from the blank interior of a truck into a large house. There was not much to see. The vehicle had been backed up close to a door, and so he had had only a glimpse of a tree-lined driveway as he was eased down a ramp. Views of hallways, several of them, all quite long, came later, suggesting that the house was large indeed.

Carl had his own internal time system, so he needed no window light to inform him of the time of night or day. But, nevertheless, it was seeing how dark it was outside that finally stimulated a decision.

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