The World of Null-A

XX

Out on the street, Gosseyn said softly to himself, “Somebody will be following me. Thorson won't just let me wander off into remoteness.”

He was the only person who got on the bus at the head of the street. He watched the gray pavement slide away behind the machine. About two blocks to the rear was either a black or blue coupe; he couldn't be sure of the color. He sighed as it turned into a side street and disappeared from sight. A very fast car came from the far distance beyond the palace and raced past the bus, which was stopping for a woman. She paid him no attention, but he kept his surreptitious gaze on her until she got off after twenty blocks or so.

“Maybe,” he decided, “they've guessed where I'm going-first the hotel, then the Games Machine.”

At the hotel, where the first Gosseyn had left his possessions, including some two hundred dollars in paper money, the clerk said, “Sign here, please.”

Gosseyn hadn't thought of that. He took the pen, a vision of jail looming up. He signed with a flourish, and then smiled to himself as he realized what an almost nerveless person he had become.

He watched the clerk disappear into a back room. Half a minute later the man emerged with a key.

“You know the way to the vault,” he said.

Gosseyn did. But he was thinking, “Even my signature's the same, an automatic sameness.” The explanation for such identity had better be good.

He spent ten minutes rummaging through the suitcases. It was the three suits he was interested in. He had, he remembered, set the thermostat on one of them at 66° Fahrenheit, whereas normal for him was 72.

As he had recalled, two of the readings were 72, one was 66. He took off the clothes that had been given him at the palace and put on one of his own suits. It fitted perfectly. Gosseyn sighed. In spite of everything, it was hard to accept the similarity between himself and a dead man.

He found his money where he had laid it, between the leaves of one of his books. He counted off seventy-five dollars in tens and fives, put the suitcases back in the vault, and returned the keys to the desk. Out on the street, a shout from an automatic newspaper dispenser brought remembrance of the wild announcements and accusations of the night before. The President's death made the expected huge headline, but the write-ups below had been toned down almost beyond recognition:

“. . . Gosseyn exonerated. . . . A thorough investigation being made. . . . Administration officers admit many foolish statements given out immediately after murder. . . . Jim Thorson, leading presidential candidate in the games, asks . . . due process of law.”

It was backing down with a vengeance. But it was clever, too-the easy cleverness of men with unlimited strength behind them. The seed of suspicion of Venus and the Machine had been planted. At the proper time it would be made to sprout.

There was a tiny item on the first page of the second section which interested Gosseyn. It read:

NO NEWS FROM VENUS

The Radio Exchange reports that no contact could be established this morning with Venus.

The report depressed Gosseyn. It drove home a reality that had been nibbling at the outer ramparts of his mind ever since he had left the palace. He was back in the depths, back with the five billion people who knew nothing except what they were told, back in darkness. Worse than that, he who had been keyed up by danger to actions that smacked of sheer melodrama in retrospect had had the danger taken from him. Imagine dropping on the palace on the night of the assassination of President Hardie. It was the act of a madman, certainly beyond the capacity of an ordinary law-abiding individual like Gilbert Gosseyn. Surely they would prevent him from getting in to see the Machine.

But nobody stopped him. The great avenues leading to the Machine were almost deserted, which was not surprising on the twenty-ninth day of the games. More than ninety per cent of the competitors must have been eliminated by now, and their absence showed. Inside a cubbyhole of the type used for the early part of the games, Gosseyn picked up the metal contacts necessary to establishing rapport and waited. After about half a minute, a voice spoke from the wall speaker in front of him.

“So that's the situation, is it? What are your plans?”

The question shocked Gosseyn. He had come for advice, even-he was loath to admit it-instructions. His own ideas about his future were so obscure that it was improper to call them plans.

“I've been caught off balance,” he confessed. “After living on danger, the fear of death, and a sense of harrowing urgency, I have suddenly had the whole load lifted from my shoulders. I'm back in purgatory, with rooms to locate, a living to make, and all the wretched details of a low-income existence to attend to. My only plan is to talk to some of the professors at the Semantics Institute, and get in touch with Dr. Kair. Somehow, the Venusians have to be warned of their danger.”

“The Venusians know,” the Machine said. “They were attacked sixteen hours ago by five thousand spaceships and twenty-five million men. They–”

Gosseyn said, “What?”

“At this moment,” said the Machine, “the great cities of Venus are in the hands of the conquerors. The first phase of the battle is accordingly over.”

Limply, Gosseyn let go of the metal contact. There was dismay in him that completely overrode the enormous respect he had always had for the Machine.

“And you didn't warn them!” he raved. “Why, you incredible monster!”

“You have, I believe,” said the Machine coolly, “heard of the Distorter. I can make no public statements while that instrument is focused on me.”

Gosseyn, whose lips had been parted for another tirade, closed them and sat silent, as the Machine went on:

“An electronic system of brains is a very curious and limited structure. It works by a process of intermittent power flow. In this process the denial of power at the proper split instants is as important as the flow during other split instants. The Distorter permits only movement of energy, not the hindrances or the variances. When it is focused on any part of me, the particular function to which it is attuned ceases to have inhibitions. In photo-electric cells, thyratrons, amplifiers, and in every part of my structure, the flow of energy becomes uniform and meaningless. My system of public communicators is constantly under this baneful influence.”

“But you can talk to me as an individual. You are!”

“As an individual,” said the Machine. “By concentrating all my powers I could tell three or four people the truth at any one time. Suppose I did. Suppose a few dozen individuals started to go around telling others by word of mouth that the Machine was accusing the government of chicanery. Before anybody really believed it, the gang would hear the reports and concentrate another Distorter on me. No, my friend, the world is too big, and the group can start more rumors in one hour than I could set going in a year. It must be a public broadcast on a planetary scale, or it means nothing.”

“But,” said Gosseyn blankly, “what are we going to do?”

“I can do nothing.”

The accent on the pronoun was not lost on Gosseyn. “You mean, I can do something?”

“It all depends,” said the Machine, “on how completely you understand that Crang's analysis of the situation was masterly.”

Gosseyn threw his mind back to what Crang had said. All that nonsense about why they weren't going to kill him, and about–“Now, see here,” he said loudly, “you don't really mean that I'm supposed to kill myself.”

“I would have,” said the Machine, “shot you the moment you came in here today if I had been able. But I can kill human beings only in self-defense. That is a permanent inhibition upon my powers.”

Gosseyn, who had never thought of danger from the Machine, rasped, “But I don't understand. What's going on?”

The Machine's voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Your work is done,” it said. “You have accomplished your purpose. Now you must give away to the third and greatest Gosseyn. It is possible,” the cool voice went on, “that you could learn to integrate your extra brain in this body, given time. But there isn't time available. Accordingly, you must make way for Gosseyn III, whose brain will be integrated from the moment he comes to conscious life.”

“But that's ridiculous,” Gosseyn said jerkily. “I can't kill myself.” He controlled himself with an effort. “Why can't this-this third Gosseyn come to life without my dying?”

“I don't know too much about the process,” said the Machine. “Since I last saw you, I have been told that the death of one body is recorded on an electronic receiver, which then triggers the new body into consciousness. The mechanical part of the problem seems very simple, but the biological part sounds intricate.”

“Who told you this?” Gosseyn asked tautly.

There was a pause, then a slot opened and a letter slid out of it. “I receive my instructions by mail,” said the Machine matter of factly. “Your second body was delivered to me by truck, with that note attached.”

Gosseyn picked up the sheet and unfolded it. A typewritten message had been printed on otherwise blank paper:

Ship body of Gosseyn II to Venus and have one of your roboplane agents deposit it in forest near Prescott home. When he leaves this residence, pick him up and set him down near Crang's tree home with instructions to surrender himself. Give him information about Venus, and take any necessary precautions.

The Machine said, “Nobody ever questions my shipments to Venus, so that was no problem.”

Gosseyn reread the note, feeling fault. “But is this all you know?” he managed to say finally.

The Machine seemed to hesitate. “I have received one message since then, to the effect that the body of Gosseyn III will shortly be delivered to me.”

Gosseyn was pale. “You're lying,” he said harshly. “You're telling me that so that I'll have an incentive to kill myself.”

He stopped. He was talking about the act, discussing it as if it was something to be argued. Whereas the reality was that it wasn't a matter of not killing himself because of this or that or the other. He wasn't killing himself-just like that. Without another word he turned and strode out of the cubbyhole, out of and away from the Machine.

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.