The World of Null-A

by A. E. van Vogt

  Click!

  He had been intending to turn it off for some minutes. Nuisance. Telling him something about-Something -What?

  Back on the bed, he lay puzzling about that. Something about-about- How tired he was! “Kill myself. Everybody hates me. I’m ruined. What’s the good of being alive? Kill myself.”

  XXIII

  Gosseyn’s first conscious effort was to move his hands. He couldn’t. He seemed to be lying on top of them. “Funny position,” he thought. A vague annoyance swept him, and an awareness that he’d have to emerge further out of his hypnotic sleep to free himself.

  He was about to make the effort when a memory came as to why he had come to his hotel room. Eyes closed, he waited for the will to death to surge through him. The best method, it seemed to his taut mind, was to snatch the automatic he had put on the table beside the bed and fire into his brain in one synchronized movement. But the impulse to suicide did not come. Instead, out of the depths of him welled a cheerful confidence, a buoyant sense of certain victory, a conviction that nothing could stop him. He tried to open his eyes, but couldn’t. “It’s the hypnotic drug,” he thought in agony. “Like dope.” He lay there for a moment, puzzling over his feeling in such high spirits while the drug still held him. Then came uneasy recollection-the memory of an interruption and of loud sounds. The connection was obscure, but he had seemed to get out of bed. Had he shut off the record player at that time?

  “I’m sure,” said a woman’s voice from his left, “that you can manage now. The drug is not all-powerful.”

  The unexpected words did it. Gosseyn opened his eyes. Two awarenesses flashed upon him almost simultaneously. He was lying on his arms, but that wasn’t the reason he couldn’t use them. They were handcuffed together. And sitting in a chair beside the bed, smoking a cigarette, looking at him thoughtfully, was Patricia Hardie. Slowly, Gosseyn, who had half sat up, sank back onto his pillow. The girl took a long puff at her cigarette. Not until she had blown a lazy streamer of smoke at the ceiling did she speak. She said, “I chained you up because you’re a rather dominating person with a very strong will to know things.”

  She laughed. It was a quiet, relaxed, wonderfully musical laugh. It startled Gosseyn. He noticed, suddenly, that she looked different. The pettish expression, that attribute of neuroticism, was gone from her. All the pleasing features of her good-looking face remained, but they were changed in a subtle fashion. Her beauty, that had been weak though bright, was revealed now in strength. Vivid as fire, her personality flamed at him. She had always been cool, sure of herself. Enhanced by her new maturity, those qualities showed magnificent. In some indefinable fashion, the pretty, headstrong girl had overnight become a glowingly alive, beautiful woman who said, “I had better get down to business. I took the risk of coming here because your action in sending the Distorter to the Games Machine has backfired. And something will have to be done about it tonight.”

  For Gosseyn, the pause that followed was extremely welcome. His mind was still wrapped around what she had said earlier: “You have … a will to know about things.” He had indeed, but where did she fit into that? He was not, he realized, grasping the meaning of her presence here. Patricia Hardie had told him many things, but he had never had the impression that she herself was playing a vital part in this drama of null-A against the universe. She watched his face as he started to ask his questions. Finally she sighed. She said, “I’m not going to tell you anything. The more you know, the more dangerous you are to the rest of us. Besides, there’s no time.”

  “Oh, there isn’t!” Gosseyn spoke in exasperation. “I’m afraid that we’ll just have to make time. Let me see,” he continued. “There’s a problem of your relationship to Hardie. Let’s begin there.”

  The young woman sat with her eyes closed. Without opening them, she began to speak. “I’m going to be very patient with you,” she said. “I’m going to tell you that the Distorter is still inside the Games Machine, where you sent it. And that we must have it. It is one of the few galactic devices within our reach. We need it for evidence.”

  “My opinion,” said Gosseyn, “of a group that is permitting two planets to be taken over without once issuing a general warning is so low that it can hardly be put into words.” He stopped there. “Evidence?” he said.

  She seemed not to hear the question. “You mustn’t be too harsh,” she said in a low voice. “We couldn’t stop the attack. A warning would simply have precipitated it. And, besides, warn whom? Venus has no government. Its detective, judicial, and communications systems are controlled by the gang. The warning would have had to be general, and Eldred and I have racked our brains wondering how to do it. His only solution is that there must be a better Machine built when this is all over. It can be done, you know. At the Semantics Institute they have constructed tubes in series around highly improved lie detectors that can examine the body and mind of a man at a glance and tell the degree of null-A training he has received. That will eliminate the ponderous games. And there are other improvements that would protect the Machine against the kind of interference to which it has been subjected.”

  She paused, then went on: “Later, when you have rescued the Distorter, I’ll tell you much .more. But now, listen! There is a young man here in the hotel who will help you. He is no agent of mine, but you will find out all about him when you read this note after I leave. He, not I, was the one who saved you from the hypno. Mind you, I was here in time to have saved you from the worst effect. But he did something that I couldn’t have done. Because of him, no one knows that you are in this hotel.

  “And, Gilbert Gosseyn,”-she leaned forward; her eyes were a soft blue-“don’t be too impatient. I admit you’re being used roughly. But that’s because you’re out in the open. We have analyzed your position like this: You were brought out when the crisis was near. Thorson was startled, but I doubt if he intended to kill you. That was an accident. Then you reappeared in a second body, first at Prescott’s hospital and then at Eldred Crang’s tree house, both key points so far as the galactic empire is concerned.

  “You can’t imagine what a shock that was. Thorson grew immensely cautious. Discovering the untrained nature of your extra brain, he allowed himself to be persuaded to release you. That was Eldred’s doing, but we didn’t know that Thorson agreed to it because his agents were actually on the point of finding your thud body. We still don’t know where it was found. The important thing for you is that now that your third body has been destroyed, you are again a wanted man.”

  Gosseyn said, “Now that my third body has been what?”

  For the first time since he had awakened, she looked startled.

  “You mean, you don’t know?” she breathed. “You have no idea what’s been happening?” Her tone changed. “I can’t stop to tell you. Read the papers.” She stood up. “Remember, take the Distorter to the home of the young man downstairs. I’ll meet you there some time tomorrow.” She was fumbling in her purse. She drew out a key, tossed it onto the bed. “For the handcuffs,” she explained. “Good-by, and good luck.” The door closed behind her.

  Gosseyn removed the handcuffs, and then he sat down firmly on the edge of the bed and thought, “What was she talking about?” He recalled that she had mentioned a note. His puzzled gaze, roving the room, touched the bureau to the right of the bed, behind him. A newspaper lay there, and a sheet of white paper. Gosseyn jumped for it across the bed. He read wonderingly:

  Dear Mr. Gosseyn:

  When I heard the news, I knew there would be a search for you. So I immediately destroyed the card showing you were registered in this hotel and substituted one for your room, 974, under the first name I could think of-John Wentworth.

  Then, after I was off duty, I let myself into your room with a passkey and found you lying there with

  that record going. I removed it, and recorded one of my own with the intention of counteracting all depressing effects.

  I shut that off the last time I was up to lo
ok at you as I understand you can make someone light-headed by feeding him too much optimism. I hope that I struck a balance, as you’ll need all your good sense in the fight ahead.

  This is written by one who intended to try the games next year, who places himself completely at your service, and who dares to sign himself,

  With all best wishes,

  Dan Lyttle

  P.S. I’ll be up again when I go off duty at midnight. Meanwhile, read the morning paper. You’ll see then what I’m talking about.

  D.L.

  Gosseyn reached for the paper and unfolded it on the bed. The four-inch capitals of the headline glared up at him:

  GAMES MACHINE

  DESTROYED

  Gosseyn, trembling with excitement, read by visual leaps that took in whole paragraphs:

  … Fired at the palace and … simultaneously broadcast warnings about a mysterious attack against… Venus (No such attack … taken place. See Radio Exchange report, page 3). Authorities decided … insane … following so soon on assassination of President Hardie … evidence linking the Machine … accordingly destroyed.

  For an hour … Machine broadcast … incomprehensible message to Gilbert Gosseyn, whose picture is reproduced elsewhere… this page … previously exonerated … To be picked up again for further questioning. Arrest on sight …

  As he read, Gosseyn remembered second by second what the Games Machine had said over the radio. Now, swallowing hard, he looked at the photographic reproduction, it was a head view only, and it was his face all right. But there was something wrong with it. Seconds passed before he realized what it was. They had taken a photograph of the corpse of Gilbert Gosseyn I.

  The amusement that came was grim. He laid the paper down and staggered over to a chair. He felt sick with reaction and with rage. He had nearly killed himself. It was so close that it was as if he had died, and this was resurrection. What did the Machine mean, ordering him to commit suicide, and then calling it off because “your third body has been destroyed!” Of all the organic matter in the world, that body of Gilbert Gosseyn III should have been protected against discovery.

  His fury died slowly. Soberly he analyzed his situation. “The first move,” he thought, “is to get the Distorter. Then learn how to use my extra brain.”

  Or was that last possible? Could he ever do that alone-he who had thought and thought about it without once producing the slightest apparent effect on that special part of his mind? He mustered an ironic smile. “I am not,” he thought decisively, “going to get lost in those depths just now.”

  There were a number of things to do first. He disconnected the videoplate of the phone-another clerk might be on duty-and then called the desk. A pleasant voice answered. Gosseyn said, “This is John Wentworth.”

  There was silence at the other end, then, “Yes, sir. How are things? Dan Lyttle at this end. I’ll be right up, sir.”

  Gosseyn waited expectantly. He remembered the clerk who had registered him as a slim, tall chap with nice features and dark hair. Lyttle in the flesh was somewhat thinner than Gosseyn’s memory of him, rather weak-looking for the tough job Patricia Hardie had assigned him. He showed, however, many characteristics of null-A training, particularly in the firmness of his jaw and in the way he held himself.

  “I’ll have to hurry,” he said.

  Gosseyn frowned at that. “I’m afraid,” he said, “the time has come for special risks. I have an idea an effort will be made to dismantle the destroyed Games Machine as swiftly as possible. If I were confronted with such a job and wanted it done fast, I would publish a notice to the effect that anybody could have what he wanted so long as he carted it away immediately.”

  He saw that Dan Lyttle was staring at him wide-eyed. The young man said breathlessly, “Why, that’s exactly what’s been done. They’re stringing up masses of lights. They say an eighth of the Machine is already gone, and that- What’s the matter?”

  Gosseyn was experiencing mental anguish. The Machine was gone, and hour by hour all that it stood for was going with it. Like the cathedrals and temples of far-gone days, it was a product of a creative impulse, a will to perfection which, though not dead, would never repeat itself in the same fashion. At one blow centuries of irreplaceable memories had been blotted out. It cost an effort to force the picture and the emotion out of his mind.

  “There’s no time to waste,” he said swiftly. “If the Distorter is still inside the Machine, we have to get it. We’ll have to go after it at once.”

  “I can’t possibly leave until twelve,” Lyttle protested. “We’ve all been ordered to remain on duty, and every hotel is being watched.”

  “What about your robocar-if you’ve got one?”

  “It’s parked on the roof, but I beg you not to”-his tone was earnest-“not to go up there and try to get it. I’m sure you’d be arrested immediately.”

  Gosseyn hesitated. He recognized consciously that he was not easily turned aside these days. At last, reluctantly, he nodded acceptance of defeat.

  “You’d better get back to work,” he said quietly. “We’ve got five hours to pass.”

  As silently as he had come, Lyttle slipped out and was gone.

  XXIV

  Left to his own resources, Gosseyn ordered food sent up to his room. By the time it arrived, he was planning his evening. He looked up a telephone number. “I want a visual connection,” he said into the mouthpiece, “with the nearest phonolibrary. The number is-“

  To the robot in charge at the library he explained his general wants. Within a minute, a picture was forming on the reconnected videoplate. Gosseyn sat then, eating and looking and listening. He knew what he wanted-a suggestion as to how he should begin training his extra brain. Whether or not the subject matter selected by the librarian had any relevancy to that desire was not clear. He forced himself to be patient. When the voice began with an account of the positive and negative neural excitations experienced by the simple life forms of the sea, Gosseyn settled down determinedly. He had an evening to pass.

  Phrases came to him, clung as he turned them over in his mind, and then faded out of his consciousness as he discarded them. As the voice traced the growth of the nervous system on Earth, the pictures on the video changed, showing ever more complex neural interconnections until finally the comparatively high forms of life were reached, complex creatures that could learn lessons from experience. A worm bumped two hundred times against an electric current before it finally turned aside, and then, when put to the test again, turned aside after sixty shocks. A pike separated from a minnow by an almost invisible screen nearly killed itself trying to get through, and when it was finally convinced that it couldn’t, not even the removal of the screen made any difference; it continued to ignore the minnow as something unobtainable. A pig went insane when confronted with a complicated path to its food.

  All the experiments were shown. First the worm, then the pike actually threshing against the screen, the pig squealing madly, and, later on, a cat, a dog, a coyote, and a monkey put through their experiments. And still there was nothing that Gosseyn could use-no suggestion, no comparison that seemed to have anything to do with what he wanted.

  “Now,” said the voice, “before we turn to the human brain, it is worth while to note that in all these animals one limitation has again and again and again revealed itself. Without exception they identify their surroundings on a too narrow basis. The pike, after the screen was removed, continued to identify its environment on the basis of the pain it Had experienced when the screen was in place. The coyote failed to distinguish between the man with the gun and the man with the camera.

  “In each case, a similarity that did not exist was assumed. The story of the dark ages of the human mind is the story of man’s dim comprehension that he was more than an animal, but it is a story told against a background of mass animal actions, rooted in a pattern of narrow animal identifications. The story of null-A, on the other hand, is the story of man’s fight to train his b
rain to distinguish between similar yet different object-events in space-time. Curiously, the scientific experiments of this enlightened period show a progressive tendency to attain refinements of similarity in method, in tuning, and in the structure of the materials used. It might indeed be said that science is striving to force similarity because only thus-“

  Gosseyn had been listening impatiently, waiting for the discussion on the human brain to being. Now, abruptly, he thought, “What was that? What was that?”

  He had to hold himself in his chair, to relax, to remember. And then, and not till then, did he climb to his feet and pace the floor in the burning excitement of an immeasurably great discovery made. To force a greater approximation of similarity. What else could it be? And the method of forcing would have to be through memory.

  Perfect memory was, literally, a replay in the mind of an event exactly as it had originally been recorded. The brain, obviously, could only repeat its own perceptions. What it failed to retain of the process level in Nature, it would-naturally-fail to similarize. The abstraction principle of General Semantics applied. Abstraction of perceptions.

  So that, basically, what was involved was a greater awareness of that which made up a person’s identity: the memory stored in the brain and elsewhere in the body. The more he strove for perfect memory, the more clearly demarcated an individual he would be.

  … What else could it be? There just wasn’t any other possibility that offered as logical a continuity of the developing of the null-A idea. But what good would it be when he finally achieved it?

  He grew aware that somewhere a clock was striking. Gosseyn glanced at his watch, and sighed with excitement at the realization that the time for action had come.