The World of Null-A (16 page)

The man looked on the verge of collapse. And his story had the sound of truth. The “Distorter”-the very naming of it was a partial verification-
had
to be located near the Machine, and they would obviously try to conceal it. Why not in Patricia Hardie’s room? Gosseyn suppressed an impulse to get the lie detector. Suppressed it because he had Prescott on the run, and the introduction of a machine might be fatal. But he couldn’t prevent himself from taking another glance at his watch. It was 4:15 A.M. Gosseyn glared at the door. Time was calling his bluff. He began to understand the pressure Prescott had endured. With an effort he forced his attention back to the man.

“Where,” he urged, “did you get the ‘Distorter’?”

“Thorson brought it. It’s being used illegally, since its use is forbidden by the League except for transport, and-“

A sound at the door silenced him. He relaxed with a sick grin as Dr. Kair came in, breathless.

“No time to waste,” said the doctor. “It’s getting light outside, and the fog is beginning to clear. I told them we were leaving right away. Come on.”

He snatched up the leather case containing the test material about Gosseyn’s brain. Gosseyn stopped him long enough for them to gag Prescott, long enough for him to have time to think, and say, “But where are we going?”

Kair was as gleeful as a boy who has tasted adventure. “Why, we’re taking my private roboplane, of course. We’re going to act just as if we’re not being watched. As to
where
we’re going, I’m sure you don’t expect me to mention that in front of Mr. Prescott, do you? Particularly since I’m going to drop his shoes, with the locator device in them, before we’re clear of the city.”

In five minutes they were in the air. Gosseyn looked out into the pressing fog and felt the exultation gathering in him.

They were actually getting away.

Gosseyn sank deeper into his seat in the roboplane and glanced at Dr. Kair. The psychiatrist’s eyes were still open, but he looked very sleepy.

Gosseyn said, “Doctor, what is Venus like-the cities, I mean?”

The doctor rolled his head sideways to look at Gosseyn, but did not move his body.

“Oh, much like Earth cities, but suited to the perpetually mild climate. Because of the high clouds it never gets too hot. And it never rains except in the mountains. But every night on the great verdant plains, there’s a heavy dew. And I mean heavy enough to look after all the luxuriant growth. Is that what you’re getting at?”

It wasn’t. “I mean the science.” Gosseyn frowned. “Is it different? Is it superior?”

“Not one whit. Everything ever discovered on Venus is immediately introduced on Earth. As a matter of fact, research on Earth is ahead of Venus on some things. Why shouldn’t it be? There are more people here, and specialization makes it possible for minds of middling intelligence-even unsane minds-to invent and discover.”

“I see.” Gosseyn was intent now. “Tell me, then. From your knowledge of Earth and Venusian science, what is the explanation for two bodies and the same personality?”

“I intended to think about that in the morning,” said Dr. Kair wearily.

“Think about it now.” Gosseyn was persistent. “Is there any explanation on the basis of solar science?”

“None that I know of.” The psychiatrist was frowning. “There’s no question, Gosseyn. You’ve hit at the heart of this situation. Who discovered such absolutely radical processes? I have no doubt there have been some potent biological experiments undertaken in the solar system by semantically trained biologists. But two bodies and a new brain!”

“Notice,” said Gosseyn softly, “both sides have something. The miracle of my strange immortality was a product of somebody who opposes the group that owns the Distorter. And yet, Doctor, my side-our side-is afraid. It must be. If it had comparable strength, it wouldn’t play this hidden game.”

“Hm-m, you seem to have something there.”

Gosseyn persisted, “Doctor, if you were a human being powerful enough to make decisions of planetary importance on your own, what would you do if you discovered that a galactic empire was organizing to seize an entire sun system?”

The older man snorted. “I’d rouse the people. The strength of null-A has yet to be tested in battle, but I have an idea it will show up well.”

Several minutes passed before Gosseyn spoke again. “Where are we going, Doctor?”

Dr.  Kair perked up for  the first time.  “There’s  a cabin,” he said, “on an isolated shore of Lake Superior where I stayed a couple of months three years ago. It seemed such an ideal place for quiet thought and research that I bought the place. And then never went back, somehow.” He smiled wryly. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be safe there for a while.”

Gosseyn said, “Oh!”

He sat there estimating the time that had passed since their flight began. He decided half an hour had gone by. Not bad, in a way. A man who could in thirty minutes realize that the enticing easy path was not for him had come a long distance toward domination of his environment. It
was
enticing to think of lying for hours on some sandy beach, with nothing to do but take mind exercises, in a leisurely fashion, under the guidance of a great scientist. The one flaw in the picture was a rather tremendous one. It wouldn’t be like that at all.

He pictured Dr. Kair’s cabin hideout. There would be a village near by, and perhaps some farms and fishermen’s homes. Three years before, with a clear conscience, intent on his own purposes, the psychiatrist would have been almost unaware of these addenda to his surroundings. He had probably caught up on his reading and gone for meditative walks on lonely shores, and the occasional habitant whom he met would have been a person seen but not really considered. That didn’t mean that the doctor himself would have been unremarked. And the chances of two men coming to that cabin immediately after the assassination of Hardie and not being closely observed were-well, they were zero.

Gosseyn sighed. For him there could be no time for settling down on some lake-shore pasture, there to vegetate while the inhabited worlds of the solar system rocked under the impact of invading armies. He stole another look at the doctor. The man’s shaggy head was drooped against the back of his seat; his eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell with regularity. Softly, Gosseyn called, “Doctor!”

The sleeper did not stir.

Gosseyn waited a minute, then slipped to the controls. He set them to make a wide half circle, and head back in the direction from which they had come. He returned to his seat, took out his notebook, and wrote:

Dear Doctor:

Sorry to leave you like this, but if you were awake we’d probably only argue. I am very anxious to undergo mind training, but there are urgent things to do first. Watch the evening paper personals. Look for an ad signed by “Guest.” If answer is necessary, sign yourself “Careless.”

He stuck the note into the controls and then strapped on one of the ingravity parachutes. Twenty minutes later, the atomic light of the Machine showed through the fog. Once more, Gosseyn set the controls for a wide half circle, so that the plane would return to its original course.

He waited till the blazing beacon of the Games Machine was like a raging fire below him, then slightly behind. He saw the vaguely shaped buildings of the presidential residence just ahead. When the plane was almost over the palace, he pulled the trigger of the exit door.

Instantly he was falling through the foggy darkness.

Even Leibnitz formulated the postulate of continuity, of infinitely near action, as a general principle, and could not for this reason become reconciled to Newton’s Law of Gravitation, which entails action at a distance.

H.W.

The ingravity parachute was in its entirety a product of purest null-A thinking. Its discoverer had actually sat down and consciously and deliberately worked out the mathematical principles involved; then he had superintended the construction of the first plates. It did its work within the limitations of that law of gravity which said that it is easier for two objects in space to fall toward each other than away from each other, with the smaller of the two doing most of the actual falling. Only an applied force could change this tendency, and applied forces had tendencies of their own that usually included bulkiness, weight, and a capacity for being dangerous when used in close proximity to human beings. There were still Aristotelians around who had fuzzy ideas about making things “fall” upward, and who talked semantic rubbish about nothing being impossible. Non-Newtonian physics, the physics of the real world, recognized the urge of the two bodies to fall toward each other as an invariant of nature, and simply adjusted their nucleonic structures to slow the fall.

The ingravity parachute resembled a metal harness, with pads to protect the body where the pressure was greatest. It had power attachments, but they were for maneuvering sideways during the fall. The slowest rate of fall ever clocked was approximately five miles per hour, which meant that the device had an efficiency of slightly better than ninety per cent.

Accordingly, it rivaled the electric motor, the steam turbine, the atomic drive for spaceships, and the suction pump as a “perfect” machine. By pressing the proper power buttons, Gosseyn had no trouble landing squarely on the balcony that led into Patricia Hardie’s apartment. He would have liked to pay the Games Machine a visit first, but that was out of the question. The Machine would be guarded like the crown jewels of olden days. But nobody would think of his coming back to the palace-he hoped.

He took the slight blow of the landing with bended knees and came up like a boxer, on his toes. The parachute was a zipper affair; one tug and he was out of it. He lowered it swiftly but quietly to the floor. And then he was at the French doors. The doors opened with a thin, sharp click. Gosseyn didn’t worry about the sound.

His plan was based on speed and on a very clear memory of where Patricia Hardie’s bed had been located. He had been undecided as to exactly how he should treat her. She might believe that he had killed her father; and here, now, on the scene, with the decision no longer to be postponed, he realized he had to take that possibility into account.

He pinned her down in the bed and put his hand over her mouth. He gagged her, tied her, then drew back and switched on the light. He looked down at her and said, “Sorry if I was rough with you.”

He was sorry. But there was more behind the words than that. As soon as he had located and rendered harmless the Distorter, he hoped to effect his escape from the palace with her help.

He saw that her eyes were fixed on a point behind him. Gosseyn whirled. From the doorway Eldred Crang said, “I wouldn’t try anything.”

His hazel eyes glowed with reflected light. He stood at ease, flanked by two men with blasters. Gosseyn put up his hands as Crang spoke again.

“It was very foolish of you, Gosseyn, to think an airplane could fly directly over the palace tonight. However, I have a surprise for you. Prescott was released a little while ago, and he called up. On the basis of his report, I have persuaded Thorson to let me handle you in my own way.”

Gosseyn waited, but the first hope was on him. Crang, the secret null-A, had
persuaded
Thorson. He had taken it for granted that Crang’s position was too difficult for him to show the slightest favor to him, and yet the man had dared to do so. Crang went on:

“It struck us some little while ago that whoever planted you on us that first time didn’t care whether or not you were killed. In fact, we believe that after your extra brain was discovered it was intended that you be put to death. Promptly, you were brought onto the scene a second time, this time on Venus, to accomplish another limited objective. I won’t tell you what it was, but I assure you that you accomplished it. Once more, however, the person behind you seemed unconcerned with your personal welfare. The conclusion is inescapable. There must be a third Gosseyn body waiting to come to life as soon as the second body is out of the way.”

He smiled. His eyes shone like fire. “This man who is behind you, Gosseyn, has quite a problem. It is obvious that he would not dare to have two living bodies out at one time. For one thing, it would be too complicated; for another, it has dangerous possibilities of each body developing other duplicates of itself, with each duplicate as egotistical and powerful as the others. You can see where that might lead.”

Crang shook his head slightly.

“Thorson argued that we should hold you prisoner, but I maintain that death or imprisonment are but facets of the same thing. And that either would be the signal for the appearance of Gosseyn III. We don’t want that. And if we don’t kill you, then no one else will except you yourself-or some other agent of the invisible chess player.

“Accordingly, we have decided to release you unconditionally, in the belief that you will protect yourself from harm.”

He hadn’t expected that. Just what he should hope for he couldn’t decide. Not freedom. He had been trying to gauge the limitations of Crang’s position, and even to wonder why Crang, a null-A supporter, would oppose the coming of Gosseyn III. The abrupt announcement, favorable from his own point of view, puzzling from Crang’s, caught him by surprise.

“You’re going to
what?”
said Gosseyn.

“The charges against you,” said Crang in a precise voice, “are being dropped. All police stations are being notified to that effect. At this moment you are free. Nothing that you, with your undeveloped brain, can do matters to us. It is too late to interfere with our plans. You may tell anybody you please anything you please.”

He turned. His manner was easy but not friendly. “Guards,” he said, “take this man up to his apartment, see that he gets breakfast, and fit him with suitable street clothes. Let him remain in the palace till about nine o’clock, but he can leave earlier if he desires.”

Gosseyn allowed himself to be led away. He dared not. speak to Patricia and dared not thank Crang for fear that Thorson might be listening in. Day was bright though still misty over the city of the Machine as Gosseyn emerged into the open shortly after nine o’clock.