The Players of Null-A

XV NULL-ABSTRACTS

A few of the operational principles of general semantics are as follows: (1) Human nervous systems are structurally similar one to the other, but are never exactly the same. (2) Any human nervous system is affected by events —verbal or nonverbal. (3) An event—that is a happening— affects the body-and-mind as a whole.

Gosseyn did not try to move again immediately. His eyes were watering from the sudden flood of light, but his vision was better. His body ached. Every joint and muscle seemed to be protesting the one attempt he had made to sit up. He recognized what had happened. Allowing for the passage of time during the Distorter transport, he had been away from the destroyer for about a month. During the whole time his body had been lying unconscious.

Compared to the attention the Gosseyn bodies must receive from their automatic 'incubators,' the care he had been given during the month just past, however well meaning, had probably been on a level only slightly higher than primitive.

He grew aware again of Leej. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him with eyes that glowed emotionally. But she said nothing, and so, favoring his stiff muscles, he looked around the room.

It was a rather nicely furnished bedroom with twin beds. The other bed had been slept in, and he surmised that it had been occupied by Leej. He passed instantly on to the thought that they were probably imprisoned together.

That was an assumption that he intended to check on as soon as possible.

His gaze came back to her, and this time she spoke. 'How are you feeling? The pictures I have are not clear on that point.'

He managed a reassuring smile for her. He was just beginning to realize what a disastrous month it must have been for a woman of her position. In spite of what the Follower had tried to do to her, she was not really accustomed to danger or reverses.

'I think I'm all right,' he said slowly. And his jaw ached from the effort of speaking.

Her delicate face showed concern. 'Just a moment,' she said. 'I'll get some ointment.'

She disappeared into the bathroom, and emerged almost immediately with a small plastic tube. Before he could realize her intention, she drew the bedclothes from him. For the first time he realized that he was completely undressed. She squeezed a fine slick of oil onto her palm, and began to rub it vigorously into his skin.

'I've been doing this all month,' she smiled. 'Just imagine.'

Oddly enough, he knew what she meant. Imagine Leej, a free Predictor, who had servants for every purpose, actually performing such menial labor herself. Her amazement at herself made the intimacy of the act subtly right and normal. He was no Enro, requiring the soft feel of women's hands to make him happy, but he settled back and waited while she rubbed the ache out of his legs, arms and back. She stepped away finally and watched his hesitant attempts to sit up.

To Gosseyn, his helplessness was a startling condition. Not really unexpected, but a reality which somehow he would have to take into account in the future. While he experimented with exercising his muscles, Leej brought his clothes out of a drawer.

'I had everything cleaned,' she said, 'in the ship's cleaning plant, and I bathed you about two hours ago, so you just have to get dressed.'

The fact that she had managed to secure the services of the laundry department interested Gosseyn, but he did not comment on that mundane level. 'You knew I was going to wake up?'

'Naturally.'

She must have seen the questioning expression of his face, for she said quickly:

'Don't worry, the blurs start soon enough, now that you're awake.'

'When?' He was tense at the thought of action.

'In about fifteen minutes.'

Gosseyn began to dress more swiftly.

He spent five of the fifteen minutes slowly walking around the room. Then he rested for a minute, and for two minutes walked faster, swinging his arms with a free rhythm. He paused finally and looked down at Leej where she had sat down in a chair.

'What's all this about being lost in space?' he asked.

The eagerness went out of her eyes. 'We're cut off,' she said somberly. 'Somebody set up a relay that destroyed the Distorter Matrix for the nearest base. That happened at the moment when you became unconscious, after the matrix had been used once.'

The technical words sounded strange coming from her lips, but presently only the meaning remained. In that first moment after his awakening, when his alertness had been subnormal, he had only partially grasped the implications of what she had said. It wasn't that he hadn't understood. He had. But his mind had leaped to the related but comparatively unimportant idea that this explained why the destroyer had for so long failed to answer videophone calls.

Now, he felt a chill.

Cut off, Leej had said. Cut off four hundred light-years from the nearest base. If the ship's Distorter transport system had really been put out of commission, then they would be dependent on atomic drive with all the speed limitations of ordinary space-time travel.

He parted his lips to speak. Leej knew virtually nothing of science. The words she used must have been picked up during the past month, and they probably meant very little to her.

He had better find out as quickly as possible from more authoritative quarters the full extent of the catastrophe.

He turned and looked at the door, annoyed at the idea of being imprisoned. These people couldn't possibly suspect what he could do with this extra brain. And, therefore, locked doors were childish barriers, irritating when there were so many things to do. He turned to question Leej.

She said quickly, 'It's not locked. We're not prisoners.'

Her words anticipated his question. It made him feel good to be back again where such things were possible. He walked to the door; it opened effortlessly. He hesitated, and then stepped across the threshold and out into the corridor. It was silent and deserted.

He took a photograph of the floor just outside the door, and because he was intent, a second passed before he realized that he must have used his extra brain automatically at just about the time predicted by Leej.

He returned into the room, and stood looking at her. 'Was that it?' he said. 'Was that the moment?'

She had climbed to her feet to watch him. Now, with a sigh, she sank back into her chair. 'What did you do?'

Gosseyn had no objection to telling her—except for one thing. 'If ever you should be captured,' he explained, 'a lie detector might obtain information from you that would be dangerous for us all.'

He shook his head at her, smiling. From the expression on her face, he knew that she knew what he was going to say. But he said it anyway. 'How did you do it?'

'I snatched your blaster.'

'You had a vision of the month ahead?'

She shook her head. 'Oh, no. The blur that started then continued throughout the month. But it was I who saw you slump to the floor.' She stood up. 'It was all very easy, I assure you.'

Gosseyn nodded. He could see what she meant. Captain Free and Oreldon would have stood blank for a second, not realizing what was happening.

They offered no resistance,' said Leej. 'And I had them carry you to our room. But just a moment now. I have some soup for you.'

Our room, thought Gosseyn. It was a point which he had intended bringing up as gently as possible. He watched her as she walked swiftly out of the room. She came back a moment later, carrying a tray on which was a steaming bowl of soup. She was so friendly, so helpful; she took their relationship so completely for granted, that he changed his mind about speaking to her just then.

He ate the soup, and felt much better. But when he gave her back the tray, his thoughts were already turning back to their deadly situation.

'I'd better go and see Captain Free,' he said.

As he walked along the empty corridor, Venus and all the mighty events of the galaxy seemed very far away.

Captain Free opened the door of his room, and Gosseyn's first impression was that he was ill. The stocky commander's face was very pale, and there was a feverish look in his brown eyes. He stared at Gosseyn as if he were seeing a ghost. The color rushed abruptly into his cheeks.

'Gosseyn,' he said, and his voice was a croak, 'what's been the matter with you? We're lost.'

Gosseyn stared at him, wondering if this exhibition of the emotion of fear explained the inefficiency which had enabled him to capture the destroyer. He said finally, quietly, 'We've got work to do. Let's do it.'

They walked side by side along the silent corridors of the ship to the control room. In an hour he had the picture. Extra circuits had been built into the matrixes that were in the three similarity slots of the control board. They were so interconnected that if any one of them was used once on a 'break,' the pattern in all three would be disorganized.

The break had occurred during the similarization which had also resulted in his becoming unconscious a month before. The disarranged matrixes had been tuned to the patterns of the three nearest bases. Since they no longer worked, it was impossible to get to base by similarity means.

Gosseyn saw that Captain Free believed every word of his explanation of the operation of the system, and that was enough for him. He believed it, also, but in a more qualified fashion.

Somebody, he told himself, set up those circuits. Who?

The problem was more subtle than it might at first appear. It was reasonable to assume that the Follower was responsible. And yet the shadow-thing had admitted to Janasen when the two of them were on Venus that he was not mechanically minded.

The statement was not necessarily fact. But, still, people who used the products of the machine age did not automatically know how to set up relays to interfere with the operation of intricate machines.

Gosseyn walked over to the captain's desk and sat down. He was more tired than he cared to think about. But he dared not slacken his effort. In far-off space a fateful order had been given. Destroy Venus! Or rather, destroy the people of the solar system.

Commands like that probably took time to carry out. But the time was running short.

After two minutes rest, he climbed to his feet. There was only one quick, logical method of solving their immediate problem. It seemed to him that he was ready to make it.

He memorized a number of key points aboard the ship as well as several power sources. And then he pressed the button that opened one of the sliding doors to the lower section of the ship. He motioned Captain Free to go ahead of him.

Wordlessly, they headed down the stairway.

It was a different world they came to. Here was the laughter of men, the shouts and the sounds of many movements. For Gosseyn it meant a confusion of perception of neural flow.

The dormitory doors were open, and men stood along the corridors. They stiffened to attention as Captain Free came up, but relaxed after he had passed. Gosseyn said:

'Do the men know the truth?'

The commander shook his head. 'They think they're making a trip between two planets. I've been in daily touch with the noncommissioned officers in charge, and everything is fine.'

They didn't even worry about the connecting doors being locked for a month?' Sharply.

'They only go upstairs when ordered, and that usually means work. So I don't think they'll be worried.'

Gosseyn made no comment on that. His theory was that somebody had gone up without orders, and worked hard indeed. He could possibly have located the guilty man by questioning four hundred and eighty separate individuals with a lie detector. But while he did so, laboriously, Enro's fleet would arrive in the solar system, radioactive isotopes would be sprayed down upon the misty skies of Venus and Earth, and three billion people would die horribly without having received a single advance warning.

The prevision was without benefit of Predictors, but it was nightmarishly realistic none the less. Gosseyn shuddered, and swiftly put his attention back to the job at hand. At his suggestion, Captain Free ordered a general return to dormitories.

'Shall I have the doors locked?' he asked.

Gosseyn shook his head.

There are several exits to this place,' the commander persisted. 'I presume you're down here for a purpose. Shall I have guards posted at the doors?'

'No,' said Gosseyn.

The captain stared at him uneasily. 'I'm worried,' he said. There's no one up there who's free except the Predictor woman. It'd be unpleasant if someone slipped up the stairway and closed the connecting doors between the two sections.'

Gosseyn smiled grimly. The other wasn't even close in his estimate of the situation. That wasn't the danger. 'It's a point I've considered,' was all he said.

They went into each dormitory in turn. While the noncommissioned officers and Captain Free made a roll call, Gosseyn talked to individuals. He made a pattern out of the task. 'What's your name? How are you feeling? Worried about anything?' With each question he watched not only the man's facial responses but the neural flow that came from him like an aura.

He made a fast job of it, particularly as the crew members began to answer. 'Feeling all right, Doc.' 'Yes, Doc.' Gosseyn did not discourage the assumption that he was a psychiatrist.

He was in the third dormitory when a relay closed in his extra brain. Somebody was climbing the stairway that led to the upper section of the ship. He turned to speak to Captain Free, but the commander was not in sight. A noncommissioned officer stepped forward smartly.

'The captain went to the washroom. He'll be right back.'

Gosseyn waited. It would take, he estimated, one and a half minutes for the Follower's agent to go from the stairway to the control room from which the Predictors had been sent to their assigned stations. Since all such subsidiary Distorters operated through the main matrix, the control room must be first.

He would have liked to talk to Leej, but to bring her down by similarity would be too startling. And, besides, there wasn't time. He said something about being right back, stepped out into the corridor, crouched down, and in that position similarized himself behind the captain's desk in the control room.

Cautiously, he peered over the top of the desk, but for a while he made no effort to move, simply knelt there and watched. The man was removing the panel of the Distorter board directly over the similarity slots. He worked swiftly, and every little while looked over his shoulder toward one or the other of the two entrances. And yet Gosseyn had no impression of frantic haste. It was not surprising; traitors such as this always had some extra quality of nerve or boldness that set them apart from their fellows. Such a man would have to be handled very carefully.

As he watched, the other lifted down one of the metal panels. Swiftly, he drew out the matrix in the slot, laid it on the floor, and came up immediately with a curved, glowing shape. Because of its shininess, it was so different from the other that a moment passed before Gosseyn recognized it. A Distorter matrix, not dead, but energized.

He stepped out of his hiding place, and walked toward the control board. He was about ten feet from it when the man must have heard him coming. He stiffened and then slowly turned.

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘but I was sent up here to do some work on this ——— ’ He stopped the lie. Relief

flooded his face. He said, 'I thought you were one of the officers.'

He seemed about to turn back to the board when Gosseyn's expression must have warned him. Or perhaps he was taking no chances. His hand moved convulsively, and a blaster appeared in it.

Gosseyn similarized him thirty feet from the control board. He heard the hiss of the blaster, and then a cry of amazement, behind him. He turned swiftly, and saw that the other man was poised rigid in every muscle, facing away. In the man's tense hand he caught the glint of the blaster's stock. Swiftly, he photographed it, and as the other swung jerkily around, he similarized the weapon into his own hand. He was deliberate now.

He got the maniacal terror he wanted, but he got something more also. Snarling like an animal, the man made an attempt to reach the Distorter switches. Three times Gosseyn similarized him back to his starting point. The third time, abruptly, the other ceased his mad effort. He stopped. He snatched a knife from an inner pocket, and before Gosseyn could realize his intention, plunged the blade into his own left breast.

There were sounds of running footsteps. Captain Free, followed an instant later by Leej, came darting into the control room. 'What happened?' Captain Free asked breathlessly.

He stopped short, and he stood by wordlessly as the traitor grimaced at them, shuddered—and died.

The commander identified him as an assistant to the communications engineer. He verified that the matrix the fellow had put into the similarity slot was for the base four hundred light-years away.

There was time, then, for explanations. Gosseyn offered the main points of his rationalization that had led him to set his trap.

'If it was an agent of the Follower, then he must still be aboard. Why? Well, because no one was missing. How did I know that? You, Captain Free, kept in touch with the noncommissioned officers in charge of dormitories, and they would surely have reported it if a man were missing.

'So he was still aboard. And for a whole month he waited in the lower part of the ship, cut off from the control room. You can imagine the ferment he was in, for he surely hadn't planned on waiting so long before making his escape. Why would he have a way of escape? I think it'd be because a man would always include a way of escape when making his plans, and would only accept the idea of death if he felt himself trapped.

'With all those pressures working on him, he wasted no time getting upstairs when the doors opened.

'Of course, the new matrix would also have a wrecking circuit in it, which would operate the moment he used it to escape. But there's one little point about that which puzzles me. Captain Free tells me we'll have to stop at a base about eighteen thousand light-years from here, and pick up the matrixes that will take us to Venus at r36000 theta 272 Z1400, and when we get there, we're going to have to have our papers in order.

'My little point is this: How did a mechanic expect to turn up at base without release papers of some kind? Crew members of warships usually have to explain why they are not with their ships. You might say the Follower would protect him, but that isn't really logical. I don't think the Follower would care to have Enro know that he was responsible for cutting off Predictors from the fighting fleets for a whole month.’

He looked up. 'As soon as you've fixed up that circuit, Captain, come and see me. I'll be in my room.'