Null-A Continuum

by John C. Wright

  There came a knock at the door. “Open! In the name of the law!”

  2

  The Laws of Men will never be just until they are sane.

  Gosseyn stepped toward the door, but the shouted command had been merely perfunctory: The lock glowed red, then white, and shattered, while Gosseyn spun and dove back through the study door. Closed to a crack, the armored door offered both cover and concealment.

  Through the door crack, he saw two men enter the room. In the gloom, each had a similar silhouette. Both men were light-haired, of medium height, physically fit. Both were dressed in formal, somber suits. Behind them, he could a glimpse a third man, a technician, bent over a projector. The projector maneuvered a portable energy curtain that flickered as it advanced into the room before the two men.

  The man on the left had a drawn pistol, still whining from the heat of the bolt that had shattered the door. “Where is he?”

  The man on the right was holding up a detector: Tiny cherry-red electron tubes protruded from the reader face. He spoke: “Behind that door. Don’t shoot, Commissioner Veeds! The readings are consistent with those of an unarmed man. At this stage, to assume him to be the murderer would be unsupported, given the murder weapon involved, and the evidence that this was a crime of passion.”

  “Let’s have some light!”

  The technician said, “Yes, sir.” It must have been police procedure not to touch any circuits in a crime scene, for no one stepped toward the wall switch. Instead, the electric curtain stopped advancing and grew bright in the visible spectrum range. Light flooded the dim room.

  Now the difference between the two men was clear. The man on the left, dressed in the long coat of a Nireni, was blinking and scowling, and he had the nervous, fierce look of a human adult raised without the benefit of Null-A training: a human, in other words, still governed by the same infantile emotional system as his killer-ape ancestors.

  The man addressed as Veeds said, “Don’t tell me when not to shoot. You’re not the one in charge here, Mr. Mahren!” But he holstered his weapon.

  Impossible that the other man, Mahren, would literally have been unaware of the first man’s rank. Gosseyn regarded the comment as a non-message, meant only to convey dominance-symbolism, affirming Veeds’ sense of self-importance.

  Mahren was not blinking. His eyes had adjusted instantly to the change in light levels. He had the lightness of posture, the deep calm of expression, natural to a man in total control of his nervous system. He was half an inch taller than Gosseyn, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. He was dressed in the suit and tie of an Earthman.

  Gosseyn recognized him. Karl Mahren was the Null-A representative on the planet, sent from Venus to help establish a General Semantics Institute here.

  Gilbert Gosseyn called out to the men in the other room and came out with his hands up.

  Mahren recognized him. To Veeds, he said, “This is the man who forced Emperor Enro to abdicate.”

  Veeds said, “The famous Gilbert Gosseyn. The living distorter. The man who dies and springs to life again.”

  Gosseyn heard mingled resentment and awe in the man’s voice. Veeds came from a culture, despite its technological accomplishments, deeply superstitious: The look on his face was that of a man confronting a thing out of myth.

  “The phenomenon is more complex than that,” said Gosseyn. “My memories are transferred at death to a prepared new body; he will think and act as I do, and recall what I know. But this ‘me’ still dies at death, even if my memory chain lives on in another man. It’s not real immortality.”

  Veeds said sardonically, “Perhaps not, but the rest of us just die at death, memory chains and all.”

  Gosseyn made as if to step forward and shake hands, but the energy curtain between them grew stiff. Gosseyn stepped back. “Am I a suspect in this? There is a lie detector in the other room that will confirm my innocence.”

  Mahren said, “I will vouch for him.”

  Commissioner Veeds glanced sidelong at the Null-A man. “You don’t know him. Not personally.”

  Mahren said, “There are psychological rules involved in murder situations that Null-A science has studied. Gosseyn is a sane man: There would be signs evident in his behavior if he were not.”

  Veeds turned to the wall screen, turned it on. “Security log, please.”

  The robot voice answered, “The last person to enter this apartment was the owner, Eldred Crang, at 2500 Imperial City Time. He was alone for two hours, nineteen minutes. At 2720, circuits detected his vital signs were abnormal and the hospital annex was called; at 2722, a voice matching Eldred Crang’s uttered one of the key phrases that triggers an automatic call to the Commissioner of Police. At 2730, the record is blank—I was unaware of events and cannot account for the time. At 2735, I resumed function, did a system check, and detected a second man in the room. At that time, vital signs from the owner Eldred Crang were null: He was dead. There is no record of entry by the second man.”

  “Is this the second man?”

  “Yes. He stepped from this room through the sunroom to the bedchamber, turned on the window, entered the closet, returned, went into the study, and returned again to this room. At that point, you entered. Imperial City Time was 2741.”

  Gosseyn said, “Where’s Mrs. Crang?”

  The robot did not answer until Veeds repeated the question. It said, “She and Mr. Crang left at the same time this morning, 0250. She was dressed in a beige jacket and slacks. The door circuits detected she was armed. I cannot report whether the weapon is properly registered with the Police Control Board: Records on members of the Imperial family are not available to me.”

  “There is no more Imperial family!” said Veeds. “The members of the Divine House of Gorgzid are private citizens: You will refer to them as such.”

  “So noted. Nonetheless, no records are available.”

  Veeds turned back to Gosseyn: “Let’s hear your testimony.” He put his hand casually back on the butt of his holstered gun.

  Gosseyn briefly described his experience. He added: “The captain or crew of the ship I arrived aboard can vouch for my presence up to a point.”

  Veeds said, “Meaningless, Mr. Gosseyn. You could step into a stateroom, step across the galaxy in an instant, and step back in time to be seen coming out of the stateroom. I don’t even know why you came aboard a ship at all.”

  Gosseyn explained that he could not memorize an area of space he had never seen before.

  Gosseyn addressed Mahren: “This murder was committed by distorter. Crang was placed out of attunement with normal reality, and it killed him. A distorter also could have been used to interrupt the electronic thought patterns of the room’s robot brain. I don’t recognize why an image of another world appeared in this room, a dark oceanic world beneath two suns: a red giant and a white dwarf.” He turned to Veeds, for the commissioner had stiffened in surprise.

  Mahren said, “There is no need for a complex theory when a simple one will do. The other owner registered to this apartment could have turned off the security brain, committed the murder, and erased her record from the brain before turning it back on. Notice that the murderess was particularly vengeful about destroying symbols of Crang’s marriage. Imperial law does not allow for divorce.”

  Gosseyn felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “You don’t suspect Patricia? She—”

  Mahren’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Gosseyn, the psychological file on you maintained by the Games Machine mentioned that you had false memories of being in love with, and married to, Patricia Hardie, as she was known at that time. Perhaps the reintegration of your thought was less successful than appeared.”

  Gosseyn closed his eyes and paused in his thoughts. He was aware that his awareness was hierarchical: Sensations were interpreted by his thalamus and hypothalamus before reaching his cortex, and it required a brief moment of trained awareness to separate the emotional context of his thoughts from the unfiltered reality.
This cortical-thalamic pause in his thoughts instantly and effortlessly restored his calm.

  He opened his eyes to see that Veeds was drawing his pistol. Gosseyn stared at it quizzically.

  Veeds said ruefully, “Sorry. I thought you were going to disappear.” He lowered the weapon and said to Mahren, “I have known the Divine Empress Reesha, whom you call Patricia Crang, for many years: She loved peace as her brother loved war, serene where he was wrathful. Her hand is not in this. Her people might act on her behalf without her consent: Those who want to restore the Royal House of Gorgzid are dangerous men. The Interim Government forbids me to arrest Reesha’s people.” The contempt in his voice was plain.

  Her people! Gosseyn took a moment to adjust his mind to that concept: fanatics who regarded Patricia Crang as a divine being, who wanted her to resume the throne of her defeated brother.

  It was odd, for his training should have reminded him of the falsehood of this train of thought, but Gosseyn had a momentary picture, sharp and clear, from his memory: his young wife, dressed in plain and inexpensive clothes, coming in the front door of their little cottage, books of neuropsychology and linguistic philosophy tucked under her arm, an automatic basket filled with vegetables from the local greengrocer floating behind her. She was outlined against the light. He remembered how the brown hair, escaping her kerchief, was tossed in the autumn breeze; he remembered the clear look in her bright eyes; he remembered the joy in her light, quick footsteps. Strange to think of this simple wife of a poor student as the Empress of fourteen hundred worlds!

  But the oddness grew on him, for the image and the associated emotion were false-to-facts. They were based on an emotional “set” that Gosseyn’s training long ago dismissed.

  Gosseyn realized that he must act as if he were suffering a continuing mental attack. Some unknown force had imprinted, or was imprinting, false-to-facts emotive reactions into his hypothalamus. He resolved to have his brain photographed at the earliest opportunity.

  Could Patricia or her people be trying to influence Gosseyn’s thinking to win her an ally? It did not seem likely—but Gosseyn realized how little he knew about this fascinating, capable woman.

  Gosseyn said, “Why did she return here?”

  Mahren stared at Gosseyn carefully for a moment. It was not clear what he was thinking: Gosseyn detected no interruptions in the smooth, strong flow of the man’s neural energies.

  Mahren answered the question: “Mrs. Crang came to this planet at my request. I thought it would quell the pro-Gorgzid faction to have her publicly renounce the throne and repudiate the Cult of the Sleeping God.”

  Gosseyn said, “That didn’t work?”

  Mahren said, “The announcement was scheduled for today. She was going to swear fealty to the Ashargin sovereign in a public ceremony. Obviously, that’s been canceled.” He turned to Veeds. “Notice that the murder weapon was used to destroy marriage symbols long after the victim was dead: as if the symbols were real independently of the husband. This indicates neurotic symbol confusion. Therefore, this was a crime of passion.”

  Veeds said, “Not the passion of the Empress! You come from a world without government, so they say. You don’t know that symbols drive politics. You think this was not a political crime? There are still pro-Gorgzid Royalists active on our world: The Interim Government, the League Powers, will not allow us to abolish the party, arrest the known members. The laws of Gorgzid require the Divine Emperor to marry his sister: The Royalists regard Mr. Crang’s marriage to the Emperor’s rightful bride as an outrage. Worse: a blasphemy.”

  Mahren now examined Gosseyn with a calculating look, saying thoughtfully, “The passions of a private man whose wife marries another can run just as strong. Even a man who merely thinks the woman was once his wife.”

  Gosseyn said impatiently, “Mr. Mahren, you were willing to vouch for my sanity just a moment ago. Why this change?”

  Mahren said, “You flinch every time we say her name. You have a subconscious neurotic rage toward her—one you are unaware of. I did not see evidence of it, a moment ago. But it is peculiar. A split personality cannot have one personality perfectly sane, by definition. Yet that is what I’m seeing.”

  This was ridiculous. Gosseyn was of sound mind, incapable of rage. But Mahren was a Null-A. The man would neither lie, nor could he be mistaken about such a simple observation. Gosseyn nodded thoughtfully. The belief that he was free of rage did not make it so: Beliefs were abstractions from events, not the events themselves.

  “A lie detector will clear this up in a moment. There is one in the other room, in a case beneath the bed.” Gosseyn pointed at the wall.

  Gosseyn saw a look of fear so stark and plain on Commissioner Veeds’ face that Gosseyn whirled to see what the threat might be. There was nothing behind him but wall.

  He turned back. The pistol in Veeds’ hand was trembling. The Commissioner was afraid of him, of Gosseyn.

  Gosseyn said, “I cannot see through walls. I am not your Emperor.” Gosseyn kept his eyes on the gun and carefully memorized it, speaking calmly during the moment it took to do so. “Listen: Enro is currently in comfortable but lonely exile inside a remote asteroid near the edge of the galaxy. Cut off from the distorter circuits webbing the galaxy, it would be years, maybe decades, for any ship crossing normal space at sublight speed to reach him. I was the one who sent him there; there was no distorter machine on the other end.”

  The technician standing in the corridor spoke up: “Sir! He’s attuning himself to your gun.”

  Veeds tensed, but the weapon blurred and vanished out of Veeds’ hand before Veeds could pull the trigger. It appeared in Gosseyn’s hand. He engaged the safety and slid it into his pocket.

  “You’d shoot an unarmed man!” said Gosseyn.

  Veeds snarled, “For a Null-A, you seem to use your words in a sloppy fashion. Unarmed, indeed!” Veeds said over his shoulder to the technician, “Can you detect the distorter that killed Mr. Crang in this room, hidden in the walls, anything?”

  The technician said, “Whatever distorter circuit was used to commit this crime is not within range of these instruments, sir. Even if it were shielded, I’d detect it.”

  Veeds turned to Gosseyn. “Except we have a living distorter right here.”

  Mahren, by then, had returned with the lie detector. Veeds put his hand in his coat pocket. If he had a second weapon there, he did not draw it out.

  Mahren said to the lie detector, “This man claims he is innocent of the murder that just took place here. Well?”

  The dozens of tiny electronic tubes in it glowed serenely. “He has the rage and jealousy present in his mind to have committed the crime, but these emotions are not part of his primary brain. I would hypothesize we are seeing a malfunction of his unique brain structure: The second brain may be operating without the primary brain’s awareness.”

  Veeds said, “Give us facts, not hypothesis.”

  “The subject has no memory of having committed any crime….”

  Gosseyn allowed himself a sigh of relief. “There! That’s settled. Now if we can find out what that image of the twin-sun world means …”

  The lie detector said, “He is not consciously aware of the killing. Nonetheless, he committed the murder….”

  Veeds said, “You are under arrest for the murder of Eldred Crang, Mr. Gosseyn. Could you hand me my gun, please?”

  3

  Fear is the reaction of the living organism, not to threat, but to the perception of threat.

  Gosseyn was puzzled during the brief ride. He and Veeds were in the back of a large black sedan, a silent machine that ran off atomic power. The soldiers at the military checkpoints glanced in the car at the commissioner and waved the vehicle through. In a short time, the sedan reached the armored fortress that served the district of New Nirene City as a police station. By the time he was brought, not into a cell, but into the commissioner’s magnificent inner office, Gosseyn was puzzled no longer.

 
His extra brain could sense a complex web of suppressive force-fields around the building. He had encountered such nullification fields before, back when he had been a prisoner of Imperial agents on Venus. The stresses imposed on the local space-time prevented him from using his extra brain. He could have suppressed one or two of the vibrations, but to suppress all of them would have required the full attention of his extra brain, leaving none of his special abilities free to act. A mechanical distorter would likewise be blocked.

  After the doors closed behind them and they were alone within the palatial office of the police Commissioner, Gosseyn said, “It took me a moment to realize my assumption that lie detectors don’t lie was false-to-facts. The ones used on Venus are not manufactured by a police state.”

  Veeds smiled genially and drew a small electronic cylinder out of his pocket and dropped it on the large polished desk that dominated one side of the room. “Useful for convincing skeptics during show trials. Everyone knows lie detectors are accurate.”

  Gosseyn saw no sign of shame or embarrassment on the man’s face. Veeds came from a society where lying was an accepted matter of course. Gosseyn tried to imagine such a thing and found he could not. Certain history books on Earth hinted at such widespread neuroses, but—whole planets full of insane people? A galaxy full? The picture was a depressing one.

  “So my secondary brain has not gone mad? I’m not really the murderer?”

  “Ah—Mr. Gosseyn, I did not say that. Everything the lie detector said was accurate, all but that last sentence. I used my police override to give myself grounds to arrest you, something he would believe would convince me. Had I said I was taking out a warrant against the Empress, he surely would have killed us all on the spot, even as Mr. Crang was killed. He is very protective of his sister.”

  Veeds crossed around behind the desk, seated himself rather casually, and put his polished boots on the polished surface with a sigh of satisfaction. He opened a lower drawer to pull out a plum-colored bottle and two small tumblers.