The World of Null-A

II

It was too early for grave danger. The night, though already arrived, was but beginning. The prowlers and the gangs, the murderers and the thieves, who would soon emerge into the open, were still waiting for the deeper darkness. Gosseyn came to a sign that flashed on and off, repeating tantalizingly:

ROOMS FOR THE UNPROTECTED

$20 a night

Gosseyn hesitated. He couldn't afford that price for the full thirty days of the games, but it might do for a few nights. Reluctantly, he rejected the possibility. There were ugly stories connected with such places. He preferred to risk the night in the open.

He walked on. As the planetary darkness deepened, more and more lights flashed on in their automatic fashion. The city of the Machine glowed and sparkled. For miles and miles along one street he crossed, he could see two lines of street lamps like shining sentinels striding in geometric progression toward a distant blaze point of illusory meeting. It was all suddenly depressing.

He was apparently suffering from semi-amnesia, and he must try to comprehend that in the largest sense of meaning. Only thus would he be able to free himself from the emotional effects of his condition. Gosseyn attempted to visualize the freeing as an event in the null-A interpretation. The event that was himself, as he was, his body and mind as a whole, amnesia and all, as of this moment on this day and in this city.

Behind that conscious integration were thousands of hours of personal training. Behind the training was the non-Aristotelian technique of automatic extensional thinking, the unique development of the twentieth century which, after four hundred years, had become the dynamic philosophy of the human race. “The map is not the territory. . . . The word is not the thing itself. . . .” The belief that he had been married did not make it fact. The hallucinations which his unconscious mind had inflicted on his nervous system had to be counteracted.

As always, it worked. Like water draining from an overturned basin, the doubts and fears spilled out of him. The weight of false grief, false because it had so obviously been imposed on his mind for someone else's purpose, lifted. He was free.

He started forward again. As he walked, his gaze darted from side to side, seeking to penetrate the shadows of doorways. Street corners he approached alertly, his hand on his gun. In spite of his caution, he did not see the girl who came racing from a side street until an instant before she bumped into him with a violence that unbalanced them both.

The swiftness of the happening did not prevent precautions. With his left arm, Gosseyn snatched at the young woman. He caught her body just below the shoulders, imprisoning both of her arms in a viselike grip. With his right hand, he drew his gun. All in an instant. There followed a longer moment while he fought to recover from the imbalance her speed and weight had imposed on them both. He succeeded. He straightened. He half carried, half dragged her into the shadowed archway of a door. As he reached its shelter, the girl began to wriggle and to moan softly. Gosseyn brought his gun hand up and put it, gun and all, over her mouth.

“Sh-sh!” he whispered. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

She ceased wriggling. She stopped her whimpering. He allowed her to free her mouth. She said breathlessly, “They were right behind me. Two men. They must have seen you and run off.”

Gosseyn considered that. Like all the happenings in spacetime, this one was packed with unseen and unseeable factors. A young woman, different from all the other young women in the universe, had come running in terror from a side street. Her terror was either real or it was assumed. Gosseyn's mind skipped the harmless possibility and fastened upon the probability that her appearance was a trick. He pictured a small group waiting around the corner, anxious to share in the spoils of a policeless city, yet not willing to take the risk of a direct assault. He felt coldly, unsympathetically suspicious. Because if she was harmless, what was she doing out alone on such a night? He muttered the question savagely.

“I'm unprotected,” came the husky answer. “I lost my job last week because I wouldn't go out with the boss. And I had no savings. My landlady put me out this morning when I couldn't pay my rent.”

Gosseyn said nothing. Her explanation was so feeble that he couldn't have spoken without effort. After a moment, he wasn't so sure. His own story wouldn't sound any too plausible if he should ever make the mistake of putting it into words. Before committing himself to the possibility that she was telling the truth, he tried one question. “There's absolutely no place you can go?”

“None,” she said. And that was that. She was his charge for the duration of the games. He led her unresisting out onto the sidewalk, and, carefully avoiding the corner, into the road.

“We'll walk on the center white line,” he said. “That way we can watch the corners better.”

The road had its own dangers, but he decided not to mention them.

“Now, look,” Gosseyn went on earnestly, “don't be afraid of me. I'm in a mess, too, but I'm honest. So far as

I am concerned, we're in the same predicament, and our only purpose right now is to find a place where we can spend the night.”

She made a sound. To Gosseyn it seemed like a muffled laugh, but when he whirled on her, her face was averted from the nearest street light and he couldn't be sure. She turned a moment later to face him, and he had his first real look at her. She was young, with thin but heavily tanned cheeks. Her eyes were dark pools, her lips parted. She wore makeup, but it wasn't a good job and added nothing to her beauty. She didn't look as if she had laughed at anything or anybody for a long time. Gosseyn's suspicion faded. But he was aware that he was back where he had started, protector of a girl whose individuality had not yet shown itself in any tangible form.

The vacant lot, when they came opposite it, made Gosseyn pause thoughtfully. It was dark, and there was brush scattered over it. It was an ideal hiding place for marauders of the night. But, looked at from another angle, it was also a possible shelter for an honest man and his protégée, provided they could approach it without being seen. He noticed after a brief survey that there was a back alley leading to the rear of the vacant lot, and a space between two stores through which they could get to the alley.

It took ten minutes to locate a satisfactory patch of grass under a low, spreading shrub.

“We'll sleep here,” Gosseyn whispered.

She sank down. And it was the wordlessness of her acquiescence that brought the sudden realization that she had come with him too easily. He lay thoughtful, eyes narrowed, pondering the possible dangers.

There was no moon, and the darkness under the overhanging bush was intense. After a while, a long while, Gosseyn could see the shadowlike figure of her in a splash of dim light reflections from a distant street lamp. She was more than five feet from him, and all those first minutes that he watched her she didn't move perceptibly. Studying the shadow shape of her, Gosseyn grew increasingly conscious of the unknown factor she represented. She was at least as unknown as he himself. His speculation ended as the young woman said softly, “My name is Teresa Clark. What's yours?”

What indeed? Gosseyn wondered. Before he could speak, the girl added, “Are you here for the games?”

“That's right,” said Gosseyn.

He hesitated. It was he who ought to be asking the questions.

“And you?” he said. “Are you here for the games, too?”

It took a moment to realize that he had propounded a leading question. Her answer was bitter-voiced. “Don't be funny. I don't even know what null-A stands for.”

Gosseyn was silent. There was a humility here that embarrassed him. The girl's personality was suddenly clearer: a twisted ego that would shortly reveal a complete satisfaction with itself. A car raced past on the near-by street, ending the need for comment. It was followed rapidly by four more. The night was briefly alive with the thrum of tires on pavement. The sound faded. But vague echoes remained, distant throbbing noises which must have been there all the time but which now that his attention had been aroused became apparent.

The young woman's voice intruded; she had a nice voice, though there was a plaintive note of self-pity in it that was not pleasant. “What is all this games stuff, anyway? In a way, it's easy enough to see what happens to winners who stay on Earth. They get all the juicy jobs; they become judges, governors, and such. But what about the thousands who every year win the right to go to Venus? What do they do when they get there?”

Gosseyn was noncommittal. “Personally,” he said, “I think I'll be satisfied with the presidency.”

The girl laughed. “You'll have to go some,” she said, “to beat the Hardie gang.”

Gosseyn sat up. “To beat whom?” he asked.

“Why, Michael Hardie, president of Earth.”

Slowly, Gosseyn sank back to the ground. So that was what Nordegg and the others at the hotel had meant. His story must have sounded like the ravings of a lunatic. President Hardie, Patricia Hardie, a palatial summer home at Cress Village-and every bit of information in his brain about that absolutely untrue.

Who could have planted it there? The Hardies?

“Could you,” came Teresa Clark's voice slowly, “teach me how to win some minor job through the games?”

“What's that?” In the darkness Gosseyn stared at her. His astonishment yielded to a kindlier impulse. “I don't see how it could be done,” he said. “The games require knowledge and skill integrated over a long period. During the last fifteen days, they require such flexibility of understanding that only the keenest and most highly developed brains in the world can hope to compete.”

“I'm not interested in the last fifteen days. If you reach the seventh day, you get a job. That's right, isn't it?”

“The lowest job competed for in the games,” Gosseyn explained gently, “pays ten thousand a year. The competition, I understand, is slightly terrific.”

“I'm pretty quick,” said Teresa Clark. “And I'm desperate. That should help.”

Gosseyn doubted it, but he felt sorry for her.

“If you wish,” he said, “I'll give you a very brief resume.”

He paused. She said quickly, “Please go on.”

Gosseyn hesitated. He felt foolish again at the thought of talking to her on the subject. He began reluctantly, “The human brain is roughly divided into two sections, the cortex and the thalamus. The cortex is the center of discrimination, the thalamus the center of the emotional reactions of the nervous system.” He broke off. “Ever been to the Semantics building?”

“It was wonderful,” said Teresa Clark. “All those jewels and precious metals.”

Gosseyn bit his lip. “I don't mean that. I mean the picture story on the walls. Did you see that?”

“I don't remember.” She seemed to realize she was not pleasing him. “But I saw the bearded man-what's his name?-the director?”

“Lavoisseur?” Gosseyn frowned into the darkness. “I thought he was killed in an accident a few years ago. When did you see him?”

“Last year. He was in a wheel chair.”

Gosseyn frowned. Just for a moment he had thought his memory was going to play him false again. It seemed odd, though, that whoever had tampered with his mind had not wanted him to know that the almost legendary Lavoisseur was still alive. He hesitated, then returned to what he had been saying earlier.

“Both the cortex and the thalamus have wonderful potentialities. Both should be trained to the highest degree, but particularly they should be organized so that they will work in co-ordination. Wherever such co-ordination, or integration, does not occur, you have a tangled personality-over-emotionalism and, in fact, all variations of neuroticism. On the other hand, where cortical-thalamic integration has been established, the nervous system can withstand almost any shock.”

Gosseyn stopped, recalling the shock his own brain had suffered a short time before. The girl said quickly, “What's the matter?”

“Nothing.” Gruffly. “We can talk about it again in the morning.”

He was suddenly weary. He lay back. His last thought before he drifted into sleep was wonder as to what the lie detector had meant when it said, “There is an aura of unique strength about him.”

When he wakened, the sun was shining. Of Teresa Clark there was no sign.

Gosseyn verified her absence by a quick search through the brush. Then he walked to the sidewalk a hundred feet away, and glanced along the street, first north, then south.

The sidewalks and the road were alive with traffic. Men and women, gaily dressed, hurried along past where Gosseyn stood. The sound of many voices and many machines made a buzz and a roar and a hum. It was suddenly exciting. To Gosseyn there came exhilaration and, stronger now, the realization that he was free. Even the girl's departure proved that she was not the second step in some fantastic plan that had begun with the attack on his memory. It was a relief to have her off his hands.

A familiar face detached itself from the human countenances that had been flashing past him. Teresa Clark, carrying two brown paper bags, hailed him.

“I've brought some breakfast,” she said. “I thought you'd prefer to picnic out among the ants, rather than try to get into a packed restaurant.”

They ate in silence. Gosseyn noted that the food she had brought had been daintily put up in boxes and plasto containers for outside service. There was reinforced orange juice, cereal, with cream in a separate plasto, hot kidneys on toast, and coffee, also with its separate cream.

Five dollars, he estimated. Which was pure luxury for a couple who had to live for thirty days on a very small amount of money. And, besides, a girl who possessed five dollars would surely have paid it to her landlady for another night's lodging. Furthermore, she must have had a good job to think in terms of such a breakfast. That brought a new thought. Gosseyn frowned over it a moment, then said, “This boss of yours who made the passes at you-what's his name?”

“Huh?” said Teresa Clark. She had finished her kidneys and was searching for her purse. Now she looked up, startled. Then her face cleared. “Oh, him!” she said.

There was a pause.

“Yes,” Gosseyn urged. “What's his name?”

She was completely recovered. “I'd prefer to forget about him,” said Teresa Clark. “It's not pleasant.” She changed the subject. “Will I have to know much for the first day?”

Gosseyn hesitated, half inclined to pursue further the subject of her boss. He decided not to. He said, “No. Fortunately, the first day has never been more than a perfunctory affair. It consists primarily of registrations and of being assigned to the cubbyhole where you take your early tests. I've studied the published records of the games of the last twenty years, which is the furthest back the Machine'll ever release, and I've noticed that there is never any change in the first day. You are required to define what null-A, null-N, and null-E stand for.

“Whether you realize it or not, you cannot have lived on Earth without picking up some of the essence of null-A. It's been a growing part of our common mental environment for several hundred years.” He finished, “People, of course, have a tendency to forget definitions, but if you're really in earnest about this–”

“You bet I am,” said the girl.

She drew a cigarette case out of her purse. “Have a cigarette.”

The cigarette case glittered in the sun. Diamonds, emeralds, and rubies sparkled on its intricately wrought gold surface. A cigarette, already lighted in some automatic fashion inside the case, protruded from its projector. The gems could have been plastic, the gold imitation. But it looked handmade, and its apparent genuineness was staggering. Gosseyn put its value at twenty-five thousand dollars.

He found his voice. “No, thanks,” he said. “I don't smoke.”

“It's a special brand,” said the young woman insistently. “Deliciously mild.”

Gosseyn shook his head. And this time she accepted the refusal. She removed the cigarette from the case, put it to her lips, and inhaled with a deep satisfaction, then plunged the case back into her purse. She seemed unconscious of the sensation it had caused. She said, “Let's get busy with my studies. Then we can separate and meet here again tonight. Is that all right?”

She was a very dominating young woman, and Gosseyn wasn't sure that he could even learn to like her. His suspicion that she had come into his life with a purpose was stronger. She Was possibly a connecting link between himself and whoever had tampered with his brain. He couldn't let her get away.

“All right,” he said. “But there isn't any time to waste.”