The Players of Null-A

V NULL-ABSTRACTS

Because children—and childlike grownups—are incapable of refined discrimination, many experiences shock their nervous systems so violently that psychiatrists have evolved a special word for the result: trauma. Carried over into later years, these traumas can so tangle an individual that unsanity —that is, neurosis—or even insanity (psychosis) can result. Almost everyone has had several traumatic experiences. It is possible to alleviate the effect of many shocks with psychotherapy.

It took a moment, then, to accept the picture. He was in a large bathroom. Through a door to his right, partly open, he could see half of an enormous bed in an alcove at the far corner of a tremendous bedroom. There were other doors leading from the bathroom, but they were closed. And, besides, after one glance, Gosseyn brought his mind and his gaze out of the bedroom, and back to the scene that spread before him.

The bathroom was built of mirrors—literally. Walls, ceiling, floor, fixtures—all mirrors, so perfectly made that wherever he looked he saw images of himself getting smaller and smaller but always sharp and clear. A bathtub projected out from one wall. It, too, was made of mirrors. It curved rakishly up from the floor to a height of about three feet. Water poured into it from three great spouts, and swirled noisily around a huge, naked, red-haired man who was being bathed by four young women. He saw Gosseyn, and waved the women out of the way.

They were alert, those young women. One of them turned off the water. The others stepped aside. As silence settled over the bathroom, the bather sat back with pursed lips and narrowed eyes, studied the slim Gosseyn-Ashargin, The strain of that examination on Ashargin's nervous system was terrific. A dozen times, by an effort of will, Gosseyn made the Null-A cortical-thalamic pause. He had to do it, not merely to retain control, but for the simple, basic purpose of keeping Ashargin's body from losing consciousness. The situation was as desperate as that.

'What I'd like to know,' said Enro the Red slowly, 'is what made you pause in Control Center and look out of the window? Why the window?' He seemed intent and puzzled. His eyes were without hostility, but they were bright with the question he had asked. 'After all, you've seen the city before.'

Gosseyn couldn't answer. The direct interrogation was threatening to dissolve Ashargin into a flabby jelly. Grimly, Gosseyn fought for control, as Enro's face took on an expression of sardonic satisfaction. The dictator stood up and climbed out of the tub onto the mirrored tile of the floor. Smiling faintly, a remarkable muscular figure of a man, he waited while the women wrapped a gigantic towel around his dripping body. That towel was removed, and then he was dried by small towels vigorously wielded. Finally, a robe the color of his flaming hair was held for him. He slipped into it, and spoke again, still smiling:

'I like women to bathe me. There is a gentleness about them that soothes my spirit.'

Gosseyn said nothing. Enro's remark was intended to be humorous, but like so many people who did not understand themselves he merely gave himself away. The whole bathing scene here was alive with implications of a man whose development to adulthood was not complete. Babies, too, loved the feel of a woman's soft hands. But most babies didn't grow up to gain control of the largest empire in time and space. And the way Enro had sat in his bath, aware of what Gosseyn-Ashargin was doing in the adjoining room, showed that no matter how immature he was on the one hand, a part of his constitution had attained a comparatively superior state. How valuable that quality would be in an emergency remained to be seen.

For a moment, standing there, he had forgotten Ashargin. It was a dangerous lapse. The direct remark by Enro about the women had been too much for his unstable nervous system. His heart quickened, his knees shook and his muscles quivered. He staggered and would have fallen if the dictator had not signaled to the women. Gosseyn saw the movement out of the corner of his eyes. The next second, firm hands caught him.

When Gosseyn could stand again, and see clearly again, Enro was striding through one of two doors in the left wall into a room that was bright with sunlight. And three of the women were in the act of leaving the bathroom by the partly open bedroom door. Only the fourth young woman continued to brace his quivering body. The muscles of Ashargin started to shrink away from her eyes, but just in time Gosseyn made the pause. It was he who realized that her gaze was not contemptuous but pitying.

'So this is what's been done to you,' she said softly. She had gray eyes and classically beautiful features. She frowned, then shrugged. 'My name is Nirene—and you'd better get in there, my friend.'

She started to shove him toward the open door through which Enro had disappeared, but Gosseyn was in control again. He held back. He had already been struck by her name.

'Is there any connection,' he said, 'between Nirene the girl and Nirene the old capital?'

Her frown grew puzzled. ‘One moment you faint,’ she said. ‘The next you ask intelligent questions. Your character is more complicated than your appearance suggests. But now, quick! You must ——- '

'What does my appearance suggest?' asked Gosseyn.

Cool, gray eyes studied him. 'You asked for it,' she said. 'Defeated, weak, effeminate, childlike, incapable.' She broke off impatiently, 'I said, hurry. I meant it. I'm not staying another minute.'

She whirled around. Without looking back, she walked swiftly through the bedroom door, and shut it behind her.

Gosseyn made no attempt at speed. He was not enjoying himself. And he felt tense whenever he thought of his own body. But he was beginning to get a picture of what he must do if he—and Ashargin—were to survive the day without being utterly disgraced.

Hold back. Delay reactions in the Null-A fashion. It would be learning in action, with its many disadvantages. He had a conviction that for many hours, still, he'd be under the watchful, measuring eyes of Enro, who would be startled by any sign of self-control in the man he had tried to destroy. That couldn't be helped. There'd be unpleasant incidents as it was, enough, perhaps, to persuade even the dictator that all was as it should be.

And the moment he got into whatever room he was given, he'd make an all-out attempt to 'cure' Ashargin by Null-A methods.

Walking forward slowly, Gosseyn passed through the door beyond which Enro had disappeared. He found himself in a very large room where under an enormous window a table was laid for three. He had to take a second look before he estimated the size of the window at a hundred feet high. Waiters hovered around, and there were several distinguished-looking men with important documents held limply in their fingers. Enro was bending over the table. As Gosseyn paused, the dictator lifted, one after the other, the gleaming covers from several dishes, and sniffed at the steaming food underneath. He straightened finally.

'Ah,' he said, 'fried mantoll. Delicious.' He turned with a smile to Ashargin-Gosseyn. 'You sit over there.' He indicated one of the three chairs.

The knowledge that he was to have breakfast with Enro did not surprise Gosseyn. It fitted with his analysis of Enro's intentions toward Ashargin. Just in time, however, he realized that the young man was beginning to react in his terrible, self-conscious manner. He made the cortical-thalamic pause. And saw that Enro was staring at him, thoughtfully.

'So Nirene is taking an interest in you,' he said slowly. That's a possibility I hadn't considered. Still, it has its aspects. Ah, here is Secoh.’

The new arrival passed within a foot of Gosseyn, and so his first look at the man was from the side and the rear. He was dark-haired, about forty years old and very good-looking in a sharp-faced manner. He wore a single-piece, form-fitting blue suit with a scarlet cloak neatly draped over his shoulder. As he bowed to Enro, Gosseyn already had the impression of a fox-like man, quick, alert, and cunning. Enro was speaking:

'I can't get over Nirene talking to him.'

Secoh walked to one of the chairs, and took up a position behind it. His keen black eyes glanced at Enro questioningly. The latter explained succinctly what had passed between Ashargin and the young woman.

Gosseyn found himself listening in amazement. Here it was again, the dictator's uncanny ability to know what was going on where he could neither see nor hear in a normal fashion.

The phenomenon changed the direction of his thoughts. Some of the strain on Ashargin lifted. For a moment, then, he had a picture of this vast environment of galactic civilization, and of the men who dominated it.

Each individual had some special qualification. Enro could see into adjoining rooms. It was a unique skill, and yet it scarcely justified the height of power it had helped him to attain. At first sight it seemed to prove that men didn't need much of an edge over their fellows to gain ascendancy over them.

Secoh's special position seemed to derive from the fact that he was religious overlord of Gorgzid, Enro's home planet. Madrisol of the League was still an unknown quality.

Finally, there was the Follower, whose science included accurate prediction of the future, a gadget for making himself insubstantial and which gave him such control of other people's minds that he had imposed Gilbert Gosseyn's upon Ashargin's. Of the three men, the Follower seemed the most dangerous. But that also had yet to be shown. Enro was speaking again.

'I have half a mind to make her his mistress,' he said. He stood scowling, then his face lighted. 'By heaven, I will.' He seemed suddenly in good humor, for he began to laugh. ‘That ought to be something to see,' he said. Grinning, he told an off-color joke about the sexual problems of certain neurotics, and finished on a more savage note. 'I'll cure that female of any plans she has.'

Secoh shrugged, and then said in a resonant voice, 'I think you're overestimating the possibilities. But it won't hurt to do as you suggested.' He waved imperiously at one of the attendants. 'Make a note of his Excellency's request,' he ordered in a tone of assured command.

The man bowed abjectly. 'Already noted, your excellency.'

Enro motioned to Gosseyn. 'Come along,' he said. 'I'm hungry.' His voice grew bitingly polite. 'Or would you like to be assisted to your chair?'

Gosseyn had been fighting the Ashargin body's reactions to the import of Secoh's 'request'. Fighting successfully, it seemed to him. He walked toward the chair, and he was taking up his position behind it when the sharpness of Enro's tone must have penetrated to Ashargin. Or perhaps it was a combination of overpowering events. Whatever the cause, what happened was too swift for defense. As Enro seated himself, Ashargin-Gosseyn fainted.

When he returned to the conscious state, Gosseyn found himself sitting at the breakfast table, his body being held upright by two waiters. Instantly, the body of Ashargin cringed, expecting censure. Startled, Gosseyn headed off the potential collapse.

He glanced at Enro, but the dictator was busily eating. Nor did the priest as much as glance at him. The waiters let go of his arms and began to serve him. The food was all strange to Gosseyn, but as each dish cover in turn was lifted, he felt a favorable or unfavorable reaction inside him. For once the unconscious compulsions of the Ashargin body had their uses. Within a minute or so he was eating food that was familiar and satisfying to the taste buds of Ashargin.

He began to feel shocked at what had happened. It was hard to participate in such a humiliating experience without feeling intimately a part of the disaster. And the worst part was that he could do nothing immediately. He was caught in this body, his mind and memory superimposed on the brain and body of another individual, presumably by some variation of Distorter similarity. And what was happening meantime to the body of Gilbert Gosseyn?

Such possession of another body could not be permanent —and, besides, he must never forget that the system of immortality which had enabled him to survive one death would protect him again. Therefore, this was a tremendously important incident. He must savor it, try to understand it, be aware of everything that went on.

'Why,' he thought in wonder, 'I'm here at the headquarters of Enro the Red, the reigning overlord of the Greatest Empire. Actually eating breakfast with him.'

He stopped eating, and stared at the big man in abrupt fascination. Enro, of whom he had heard vaguely through Thorson and Crang and Patricia Hardie. Enro, who had ordered the destruction of Null-A because it would be the simplest method of starting a galactic war; Enro, dictator, leader, caesar, usurper, absolute tyrant, who must gain some of his ascendancy by his ability to hear and see what was going on in nearby rooms. Rather a good-looking man in his way. His face was strong, but it was slightly freckled, which gave him a boyish appearance. His eyes were clear and bold, and blue in color. His eyes and mouth looked familiar, but that must be an illusion. Enro the Red, whom Gilbert Gosseyn had already helped to defeat in the solar system, and who was now waging the vaster galactic campaign. Failing an opportunity to assassinate the man, it would be a fantastic achievement to discover here in the heart and brain of the Greatest Empire, a method of defeating him.

Enro pushed his chair away from the table. It was like a signal. Secoh immediately ceased eating, though there was still food on his plate. Gosseyn put down his own fork and knife, and guessed that breakfast was over. The waiters began to clear the table.

Enro climbed to his feet, and said briskly, 'Any news from Venus?' Secoh and Gosseyn stood up, Gosseyn stiffly. The shock of hearing the familiar word at this remote distance from the solar system was personal, and therefore controlled. The jittery nervous system of Ashargin did not react to the name Venus.

The priest's thin face was calm. 'We have a few more details. Nothing that matters.'

Enro was intent. ‘We’ll have to take some action about that planet,’ he said slowly. ‘If I could be sure Reesha was not there——‘

'That was only a report, your excellency.'

Enro whirled, his expression grim. The mere possibility,' he said, 'is enough to hold my hand.'

The priest was equally bleak. 'It would be unfortunate,' he said coldly, 'if the League powers discovered your weakness, and spread the report that Reesha was on any one of thousands of League planets.'

The dictator stiffened, hesitated for a moment. Then he laughed. He walked over and put his arm around the smaller man's shoulder.

‘Good old Secoh,' he said sarcastically.

The Temple lord squirmed at the touch, but bore it for a moment with a distasteful expression on his face. The big man guffawed. 'What's the matter?'

Secoh withdrew from the heavy grasp, gently but firmly. 'Have you any instructions to give me?'

The dictator laughed once more, then swiftly he grew thoughtful. 'What happens to that system is unimportant. But I feel irritated every time that I remember Thorson was killed there. And I would like to know how we were defeated. Something went wrong.'

'A Board of Inquiry has been appointed,' said Secoh.

'Good. Now, what about the battle?'

'Costly but progressively decisive. Would you care to see the figures of losses?'

'Yes.'

One of the attending secretaries handed a paper to Secoh, who passed it silently over to Enro. Gosseyn watched the dictator's face. The potentialities of this situation were becoming vaster every moment. This must be the engagement which Crang and Patricia had referred to; nine hundred thousand warships—fighting the titanic battle of the Sixth Decant.

Decant? He thought in a haze of excitement: 'The galaxy

is shaped like a gigantic wheel—-' Obviously, they had

divided it into 'decants.' There'd be other methods of locating the latitude and longitude of planets and stars of course, but——

Enro was handing the paper back to his adviser. There was a pettish expression on his face, and his eyes were sulky.

'I feel indecisive,' he said slowly. 'It's a personal feeling, a sense of my own life force not having been fulfilled.'

'You have more than a score of children,' Secoh pointed out.

Enro ignored that. ‘Priest,’ he said, ‘it is now four sidereal years since my sister, destined by the ancient custom of the Gorgzid to be my only legal wife, departed for where?'

There is no trace.' The lean man's voice had a remote quality.

Enro gazed at him somberly, and said softly, ‘My friend, you always were taken with her. If I thought you were withholding information ' He stopped, and there must have

been a look in the other's eyes, for he said hastily, with a faint laugh, 'All right, all right, don't be angry. I'm mistaken. It would be impossible for a man of your cloth to do such a thing. Your oaths, for one thing.' He seemed to be arguing with himself.

He looked up bleakly, and said, 'I shall have to see to it that of the children of my sister and myself—yet to be born—the girls are not educated in schools and on planets where the dynastic principle of brother-sister marriages is derided.'

No reply. Enro hesitated, staring hard at Secoh. He seemed unaware for the moment that others were witnessing the interchange. Abruptly, he changed the subject.

'I can still stop the war,' he said. The members of the Galactic League are nerving themselves now, but they'll almost fall over themselves to give me my way if I showed any willingness to stop the battle of the Sixth Decant.'

The priest was quiet, calm, steady. ‘The principle of universal order,' he said, 'and of a universal State transcends the emotions of the individual. You can shirk none of the cruel necessities.' His voice was rocklike. 'None,' he said.

Enro did not meet those pale eyes. 'I am undecided,' he repeated. 'I feel unfulfilled, incomplete. If my sister were here, doing her duty ...'

Gosseyn scarcely heard. He was thinking gloomily. So that's what they're telling themselves; a Universal State, centrally controlled, and held together by military force.

It was an old dream of man, and many times destiny had decreed a temporary illusion of success. There had been a number of empires on Earth that had achieved virtual control of all the civilized areas of their day. For a few generations then, the vast domains maintained their unnatural bonds—unnatural because the verdict of history always seemed to narrow down to a few meaningful sentences: 'The new ruler lacked

the wisdom of his father ——— ‘ 'Uprisings of the masses ——— '

‘The conquered states, long held down, rose in successful rebellion against the weakened empire ——— ' There were

even reasons given as to why a particular state had grown weak.

The details didn't matter. There was nothing basically wrong with the idea of a universal state, but men who thought thalamically would never create anything but the outward appearance of such a state. On Earth Null-A had won when approximately five percent of the population was trained in its tenets. In the galaxy three percent should be sufficient. At that point, but not till then, the universal state would be a feasible idea.

Accordingly, this war was a fraud. It had no meaning. If successful, the resultant universal state would last possibly a generation, possibly two. And then, the emotional drives of other unsane men would impel them to plotting and to rebellion. Meanwhile, billions would die so that a neurotic could have the pleasure of forcing a few more high-born ladies to bathe him every morning.

The man was only unsane, but the war he had started was maniacal. It must be prevented from development. . . . There was a stir at one of the doors, and Gosseyn's thought ended. A woman's angry voice sounded:

'Of course I can go in. Do you dare to stop me from seeing my own brother?'

The voice, in spite of its fury, had a familiar ring in it. Gosseyn whirled, and saw that Enro was racing for the door at the far end, opposite the great window.

'Reesha!' he shouted, and there was jubilance in his voice.

Through the watering eyes of Ashargin, Gosseyn watched the reunion. There was a slim man with the girl, and as they came forward, Enro carrying the girl in his arms and hugging her fast against his dressing gown, it was that slim man who drew Gosseyn's fascinated gaze.

For it was Eldred Crang. Crang? Then the girl must be

must be He turned and stared, as Patricia Hardie said

peevishly, 'Enro, put me down. I want you to meet my husband.'

The dictator's body grew rigid. Slowly then, he set the girl down, and slowly turned to look at Crang. His baleful gaze met the yellowy eyes of the Null-A detective. Crang smiled, as if unaware of the other's immense hostility. Something of his tremendous personality was in that smile and in his manner. Enro's expression changed ever so slightly. For a moment he looked puzzled, even startled, then he parted his lips and he seemed on the point of speaking when out of the corner of his eyes, he must have caught a glimpse of Ashargin.

‘Oh.’ he said. His manner altered radically. His self-possession returned. He beckoned Gosseyn with a brusque gesture. ‘Come along, my friend. I want you to act as my liaison officer with Grand Admiral Paleol. Tell the admiral—-

————- ’ He began to walk toward a nearby door. Gosseyn trailed him, and found himself presently in what he had

previously identified as Enro’s military control room. Enro paused before one of the Distorter cages. He faced Gosseyn.

'Tell the admiral,' he repeated, 'that you are my representative. Here is your authority.' He held out a thin, glittering plaque. 'Now,' he said, 'in here.' He motioned to the cage.

An attendant was opening the door of what Gosseyn had already recognized as a transport Distorter. Gosseyn walked forward, nonplussed. He had no desire to leave Enro's court just now. He hadn't yet learned enough. It seemed important that he remain and learn more. He paused at the cage door.

'What shall I tell the admiral?'

The other's faint smile had broadened. 'Just who you are,' Enro said suavely. 'Introduce yourself. Get acquainted with the staff officers.'

‘I see,' said Gosseyn.

He did see. The Ashargin heir was being exhibited to the military men. Enro must expect opposition from high-ranking officers, and so they were to have a look at Prince Ashargin —and realize how hopeless it would be for them ever to build up resistance around the only person who would have any legal or popular position. He hesitated once more.

This transport will take me straight to the admiral?'

'It has only one control direction either way. It will go there, and it will come back here. Good luck.'

Gosseyn stepped into the cage without another word. The door clanged behind him. He sat down in the control chair, hesitated for a moment—after all, Ashargin wouldn't be expected to act swiftly—and then pulled the lever.

Instantly, he realized that he was free.