The World of Null-A

by A. E. van Vogt

  All through that day he was a man torn by a mixture of amazement and despair. By evening the high fever of restlessness was beginning to recede. He felt tired and unhappy, but also much more thoughtful. The Machine had not even suggested that he try to get the Distorter, perhaps because it could not imagine him succeeding.

  As he ate dinner he visualized how it might be done. Phone Patricia and make an appointment with her in her apartment. Surely he could persuade her to see him some time during the following day, without any of the others knowing about it. The attempt had to be made.

  He phoned her as soon as he had eaten. There was a slight delay after he gave his name, and then her face came on the video plate. Her face lighted, but she said hurriedly, “I can’t talk to you more than a minute. Where can we meet?”

  When he told her she frowned at him, started to shake her head, and then stared at him thoughtfully. She said finally, slowly, “This sounds awfully risky to me, but I’m willing to take the chance if you are. One o’clock tomorrow, and the important thing is, don’t run into Prescott or Thorson or Mr. Crang as you come in.”

  Gosseyn told her gravely that he would be careful, said good-by, and hung up. It was Prescott that he met.

  XXI

  A famous Victorian-era physicist said, “There’s nothing for the next generation of physicists to do except measure the next decimal place.” In the next generation … Planck developed the quantum theory that led to Bohr’s atomic structure work… . Einstein’s mathematics were proven out by some extremely delicate decimal place measuring… . Obviously, the next question is going to involve the next set of decimal places. Gravity is too little understood. So are magnetic field phenomena… . Sooner or later somebody will slip in another decimal place, and the problem will be solved.

  J.W.C., Jr.

  Gosseyn walked up to the main entrance a few minutes before one o’clock. He was not alone. Men and women moved in and out of the great doors, and their presence threw a sort of fog around him, hiding nun from close observation. There was, of course, the necessity of passing the guard office inside the entrance. Gosseyn peered into the glass wicket at the chunky individual who sat there.

  “My name is Gosseyn. I have an appointment with Miss Patricia Hardie for one o’clock.”

  The man ran his finger down a list of names. Then he pressed a button. A long young man in uniform popped out of a door near the wicket. He took Gosseyn’s brief case and led the way to an elevator, the doors of which were just opening. One of the three people who came out was Prescott. He stared at Gosseyn in surprise. His face darkened.

  “What brings you back here?” he asked.

  Gosseyn braced himself. There was nothing to do but make the best of the fantastically bad luck. He had a vague plan for such a meeting as this, but his heart sank like a lead weight as he said the words he had prepared: “I have an appointment with Crang.”

  “Eh? Why, I just left Crang. He didn’t mention that he was seeing you.”

  Gosseyn remembered that Prescott didn’t know that Crang was a null-A supporter. All things considered, that was very fortunate.

  “He’s giving me a few minutes,” he said. “But maybe you’ve got some ideas on what I have to say.”

  Prescott stood, cold, watchful, suspicious, as Gosseyn described his visit to the Machine and how the Machine wanted him to kill himself so that a third Gosseyn might appear. He omitted what the Machine had told him of the attack on Venus, and finished darkly, “I’ve got to see that third body. I’m just enough of a null-A not to believe in the triplicate even after I’ve seen the duplicate. Imagine anybody expecting a person of my sanity training to blow out his brains.” He shuddered involuntarily. “I’m looking for clues,” he said. “I even thought of coming to talk with Thorson. Somehow”-he looked hard at the other-“after last night, I didn’t think of you.”

  Prescott’s countenance showed no hint of his reaction to the night before. He turned, started to walk away, then came back. He stood staring at Gosseyn. His manner remained coldly hostile, but his eyes were curious.

  “As you’ve probably guessed,” he said, “we’re looking for other bodies of yours.”

  Gosseyn’s impulse had been to get away from Prescott. Now he felt a chill. “Where have you looked?” he asked.

  Prescott laughed harshly. “At first we had some pretty wild ideas. We made soundings from the air for caves, and we searched in out-of-way places. But now we’ve grown a little smarter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The problem,” Prescott continued, frowning, “is greatly complicated by a law of nature, of which you have probably never heard. The law is this: If two energies can be attuned on a twenty-decimal approximation of similarity, the greater will bridge the gap of space between them just as if there were no gap, although the juncture is accomplished at finite speeds.”

  “That,” said Gosseyn, “sounds like pure Greek.”

  Prescott laughed, louder this time. “Think of it this way, then,” he said. “How do you explain the fact that you have in your mind the details of what Gosseyn I did and thought? You must have been attuned, you and he; in fact, it is the only theoretically sure method of thought transmission-you have to do it with yourself. Anyway, it didn’t matter where you were; his thoughts, being alive, would have been the stronger, and would have flashed to you wherever you were within the limits of reachable space. I won’t define those limits.”

  He broke off. “We’ve even examined meteorites as far away as the rings of Saturn in the apparently mistaken belief that some of them might have been hollowed out and fitted up as incubators with Gilbert Gosseyns in various stages of growth. That will show you how seriously we-“

  There was an interruption from a man in military uniform.

  “Our car is waiting, Mr. Prescott. The ship leaves for Venus on the half hour.”

  “Be right with you, General.”

  He turned and started to follow the officer. Then he paused and came back. He said, “In a way we’re curious to see this Gosseyn III. Since you will already have had cautious thoughts in that connection, I am not giving anything away when I say that we shall kill him, and that then there will be no reason for not killing you. I suggest, furthermore, that there must be an end somewhere to the total number of Gilbert Gosseyns.”

  He twisted away and, without looking back, walked to the door. There was a car waiting at the foot of the steps. Gosseyn saw him climb into it. In a few moments, Prescott would be thinking over the meeting. And somewhere along the line he would phone Crang, who would then have to take action.

  Gosseyn could hardly stand still in the elevator. His plan to get hold of the Distorter intact was shattered by the accidental meeting, but he wasted no time after Patricia Hardie let him into her apartment. Even as she was murmuring something about how dangerous it was for him to come to the palace, he was tugging a cord out of the bottom of his brief case.

  She was amazed when he started to tie her. She had a little automatic up the voluminous sleeve of her dress that she tried to get at. Gosseyn took it and shoved it in his pocket. When he had carried her, bound and gagged, into the bedroom and laid her on the bed, he said, “I’m sorry. But this is for your own good, in case somebody interrupts us.”

  He wasn’t sorry. He was only in a hurry. He hurried into the living room for his brief case. The tools in it he tumbled onto the bed beside the girl. From the pile he snatched an atomic cutter and ran for the wall he had decided the previous night was the only one the Distorter could possibly be in.

  The Distorter must be facing the Games Machine a third of a mile away. And whatever its form, it couldn’t be too tiny. At six hundred yards, even a searchlight had to have power and size behind it to shine brightly. Gosseyn adjusted the atomic cutter to penetrate the wire which was underneath the plaster. He sheared an eight-foot square and with a jerk pulled the wall down. Trailing a shower of fine dust, he carried it and set it against the alcove wall. When he came
back, there was the Distorter. It was about six feet high by four feet wide by one and a half thick. It was smaller than he had expected and it had no visible wires running from it. Gosseyn caught it between his hands and gave a tentative tug. It came up in his hands lightly. About fifty pounds, he estimated, as he carried it over near the bed and laid it, face upward, on the rug. He stared down at a mass of tiny protruding, glasslike tubes. Obviously an electronic device of some kind, one of the quantity of developments on an intricate variational theme that had begun several hundred years before. He snatched the atomic cutter from the bed and, whirling toward the Distorter, prepared to cut it into bits. As he bent over it, he paused, frowning, and looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes to two.

  The fever of his urgency abated. Prescott’s ship had departed for Venus and nothing had happened. He went over and gazed out of the French windows. The great sweep of lawn that led toward the Machine, spaced here and there with shrubs, was almost deserted. At uneven intervals, gardeners were stooping over flowers, performing the tasks of their profession. Beyond was the Machine, an enormous glittering mass surmounted by its quadrillion-candlepower beacon. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to get the Distorter over there.

  With abrupt decision, Gosseyn picked up Patricia Hardie’s bedside phone and, when a girl’s voice answered, said, “Give me the chief carpenter, please.”

  “I’ll connect you with the Palace Works Superintendent,” the operator said.

  A moment later, a gruff voice muttered at Gosseyn, who explained what he wanted and hung up. He was quivering with excitement.

  “It’s got to work,” he thought tautly. “Things like this always work when put through with boldness.”

  He hurriedly carried the Distorter into the living room. Then he closed the bedroom door. A short time later there was a pounding at the corridor door. Gosseyn unlocked the door and five men trooped in, three of them carrying lumber. Without pause these three fell to work and crated the Distorter. They had silent cutting machines, automatic screwdriving devices; in seven minutes, by Gosseyn’s watch, they were finished. The two truckmen, who had so far done nothing, picked up the crate. One of them said, “We’ll have this delivered in five minutes, mister.”

  Gosseyn closed and locked the door behind him, and then went into the bedroom. He didn’t glance at the girl, but hurried to the French windows. In two minutes a truck with a narrow crate on it wheeled into view on the paved road a quarter of a mile away. It drove straight up to the Machine and disappeared into an overlapping fold of metal. Two minutes later it reappeared, empty.

  Without a word, Gosseyn walked over and ungagged and unbound the girl. He was conscious of a vague dissatisfaction, an inexplicable sense of frustration.

  XXII

  Who, then, is sane?

  (Quisnam igitur sanus?)

  Horace: Satires, II

  circa 25 B.C.

  Patricia Hardie sat on the bed rubbing the circulation back into her arms. She didn’t speak, simply sat there massaging, and looking at him, a fault smile curling her lips. The smile puzzled Gosseyn. He glanced at her sharply and saw that the smile was cynical, knowing.

  “So you didn’t succeed!” she said.

  Gosseyn stared at her. She went on, “You were hoping you’d be killed when you came to the palace today, weren’t you?”

  Gosseyn parted his lips to say, “Don’t be silly!” But he didn’t say it. He was visualizing his tight-stomached approach to the palace, his successful accomplishment of his purpose, and then his disappointment. Surely, surely men could fool themselves. The girl’s voice came again, stinging now. “That’s the only reason you came to get the Distorter. You know you’ve got to die and let Gosseyn III appear. And so you were hoping the attempt would land you in deadly danger.”

  He could see it clearly now. No sane man could commit suicide or let others kill him without resisting. And so his subconscious had tried to find a way out. “Do I believe,” he wondered, “in Gosseyn III? I do.” He felt stunned. Because he had told himself again and again that it was impossible. “Can I kill myself? Not yet! But there is a way. There is a way.”

  Gosseyn turned from the girl without a word, and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?” she called after him.

  “Back to my hotel. You can reach me there any time.” He paused at the door. He had nearly forgotten that she had a problem, too.

  “Better get some plasterers up here to put that wall back in place. As for what else you should do, I’m assuming you know your position better than I, so I’ll leave that up to you. Good-by, and good luck.”

  He went out of the door and down onto the boulevard. Downtown, he stopped in a drugstore and asked for a bottle of hypnotic drug.

  “Starting to train early for next year’s games, eh?” said the druggist.

  “Something like that,” Gosseyn replied shortly.

  He went next to a voice-recording firm. “I’d like to rent one of your machines for a week for repeat recordings.”

  “Do you want the attachment to make your own recordings?”

  “Yes.”

  “That will be four dollars and fifty cents, please.”

  At the hotel where he had his things, Gosseyn secured the key to his locker and took out the rest of his money; then he returned to the desk. “On the first day of the games,” he said, “I was kicked out of this hotel because of a mix-up over my identity. Will you rent me a room now for a week?”

  The clerk did not hesitate. The hotel must have been practically empty, after the great exodus from the city of people who had failed to win at the games. In two minutes a bellhop was leading Gosseyn up to a spacious room.

  Gosseyn locked the door, made the recording he had planned, and put it on the player to repeat endlessly. Then he swallowed the hypnotic drug and lay down on the bed. “In twenty-four hours,” he thought, “the effect will wear off, and then-” He put the glittering little automatic he had taken from Patricia Hardie on the table beside the bed.

  It was not sleep that came then. It was a torpor, a heavy tiredness through which impressions filtered, particularly noise. One noise, one steady, whining sound-the sound of his voice on the recording he had made.

  “I’m nobody. I’m not worth anything. Everybody hates me. What’s the good of being alive? I’ll never make anything of myself. No girl will ever marry me. I’m ruined… no hope … no money . . . kill myself …

  “Everybody hates me… hates me … hates me …”

  There were millions of unintegrated people who thought and thought things like that, without ever reaching the point of suicide. It was a matter of sustained intensity and of the awful unbalance that came to men who had tumbled from a height of integration into the depths of despair.

  “What’s the good of being alive? What’s the good . . . no hope… kill myself!”

  During the first hour, he had many intruding thoughts of his own. “This is silly! My brain is too stable for it ever to be affected by. … No hope... Everybody hates me ... I’m not worthy …”

  It was toward the end of the second hour that a thunderous roar began far away. It kept on and on, frequently rising to such a crescendo that the whining voice beside the bed was drowned out. At last the violent persistence of it wrung a dull, surprised recognition from Gosseyn. “Guns! Artillery fire! Have they started to attack Earth?”

  He was conscious of horror. Without having any memory of deciding to get up, he was up. How tired he was! I’m not worthy … ruined … no hope … kill myself …”

  Wearily, he crawled across the floor to the window. He peered out at another building But the thunder of the guns was louder here, and more furious sounding. And it was coming from the direction of the Machine! For a moment of terrible fear the daze lifted from his mind. The Machine was being attacked!

  “I’m nobody … Kill myself … Everybody hates me … What’s the good of being alive?”

  The Machine, with the
Distorter in its possession and under control, must have started broadcasting warnings about the attack on Venus! And the gang was trying to destroy it.

  Broadcasting! The hotel-room radio! Crawl toward it. How tired he was! “Kill myself … No hope!” He reached the radio finally, switched it on.

  “Blasted … murderous … incredible . . criminal ….”

  Even through his torpor, the words startled Gosseyn. And then he frowned in understanding: The propaganda war also was on. Everywhere he turned the dial, voices were roaring their threats and accusations. The Machine! The dastardly Machine! Mechanical monstrosity, treacherous, inhuman! The Venusian plotters who had foisted its poisonous alien will upon men. Strait jacket … assassin … massacre …

  And all the time, as a background to the lying voices, came the thunder of the guns, the muffled, unceasing thunder of the guns. Gosseyn began to doze. Better get to bed. Tired. So tired.

  “GOSSEYN!”

  All the other voices blotted out. Radio talking directly to him.

  “GOSSEYN, THIS IS THE MACHINE. DON’T KILL YOURSELF.”

  “Kill myself! I’m nobody. Everybody hates me. What’s the good of being alive?”

  “GOSSEYN, DON’T KILL YOURSELF. YOUR THIRD BODY HAS BEEN DESTROYED BY THE GANG. GOSSEYN, I CAN’T LAST MUCH LONGER. DURING THE FIRST HALF HOUR, NORMAL SHELLS WERE FIRED AT ME. BUT AT INTERVALS NOW ATOMIC TORPEDOES HAVE STRUCK AT MY DEFENSES.

  “I HAVE A NINETY-FOOT STEEL OUTER BARRIER. GOSSEYN, IT’S BEEN PENETRATED FIVE

  TIMES BY TORPEDOES THAT CAME FROM THE DIRECTION OF VENUS.

  “GOSSEYN, DON’T KILL YOURSELF. YOUR THIRD BODY HAS BEEN DESTROYED. YOU MUST LEARN TO USE YOUR EXTRA BRAIN. I CAN GIVE YOU NO ADVICE ABOUT THAT BECAUSE…”

  Crash!

  There was a pause, then: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Games Machine has just been destroyed by a direct hit. Its malicious, treacherous attack on the palace has been-“