The World of Null-A

A subtle aroma of perfume identified the bedroom suite. From the French windows, near the canopied bed, Gosseyn gazed at the atomic beacon of the Machine. It blazed so close that it almost seemed to him he could put forth his hand and grasp the light.

Gosseyn did not share Patricia Hardie’s hope that he could hide safely in her bedroom. And besides, now before his escape was discovered, was the time to make the break. He started forward, and then drew back hastily as a half-dozen men with guns passed under the balcony in single file. When he peeked out a moment later, two of the men were crouching behind a line of shrubbery less than a hundred feet away.

Gosseyn retreated into the bedroom. It required no more than a minute to glance in at the four rooms that made up the girl’s apartment. He chose the dressing room as his best vantage point. It had a window and a small balcony that opened on an alcove away from the main grounds. At worst, he could swing down and slip from shrub to shrub. “He sat down heavily on the long bench before the huge, full-length mirror. Sitting there, he had time to wonder about Patricia Hardie’s action.

She had taken a grave risk. The reason was obscure, but it seemed apparent that she regretted her participation in the plot against him.

The thought ended as a distant door clicked faintly. Gosseyn climbed to his feet. It might be the girl. It was. Her voice came softly a moment later at the dressing-room door.

“Are you in there, Mr. Gosseyn?”

Gosseyn unlocked the door without a word, and they stood facing each other across the threshold. It was the girl who spoke first.

“What are your plans?”

“To get to the Machine.”

“Why?”

Gosseyn hesitated. Patricia Hardie had helped him, and so deserved his confidence. But he had better remember that she was a neurotic who had probably acted on impulse. She might not yet realize the full implications what she had done. He saw that she was smiling grimly.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, “and try to save the world. You can’t do anything. This plot is bigger than Earth, bigger than the solar system. We’re pawns in a game being played by men from the stars.”

Gosseyn stared at her. “Are you crazy?” he said.

The moment he had spoken, he had a sense of blankness, a feeling of having heard words with too much meaning. He parted his lips to speak again, and then closed them. He recalled a word that Hardie had used earlier, “galactic.” Then he had been too intent for it to penetrate. Now—his mind began to retreat from the vastness of what was here. It grew smaller and smaller, and fastened finally on one thing the girl had said.

“Men?” he echoed.

The girl nodded. “But don’t ask me how they got there. I don’t even know how men got to Earth. The monkey theory seems plausible only when you don’t examine it too closely. But let’s not go into that, please. I’m glad they’re men, and not alien monsters. I assure you the Machine can do nothing.”

“It might protect me.”

She frowned over that, then said slowly, “It might at that.” She studied him again with her bright eyes. “I don’t understand where you fit into this. What did they find out about you?”

Gosseyn described succinctly what had been said, and added, “There must be something. The Machine also advised me to get my cortex photographed.”

Patricia Hardie was silent. “By God,” she said finally, “maybe they’ve got a right to be scared of you.” She broke off. “Sh-sh, somebody’s at the outer door.”

Gosseyn had heard the musical chimes. He glanced back at the window. The girl said quickly, “No, don’t go yet. Lock the door after me, and leave only if there’s a search.”

He heard her footsteps going away. When they came back, they were accompanied by heavier ones. A man’s voice said, “I wish I’d seen the man. Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to? Even Thorson is scared now.”

The girl was calm. “How was I supposed to know he was different, Eldred? I talked to a person who had no memory of his past.”

Eldred, Gosseyn thought. He’d have to remember the name. It sounded more like a Christian than a family name. The man was speaking again.

“If it were anyone but you, Pat, I’d believe that. But I always have the feeling that you’re playing a private game of your own. For heaven’s sake, don’t be too clever.”

The girl laughed. “My dear,” she said, “if Thorson ever suspects that Eldred Crang, commander of the local galactic base, and John Prescott, the vice-commander, have both been converted to null-A, then you’ll have a reason to talk about private games.”

The man’s voice sounded startled, hushed. “Pat, are you mad, even mentioning that? . . . But I’ve been intending to warn you. I no longer trust Prescott absolutely. He’s been shifting and squirming ever since Thorson’s arrival. Fortunately, I never let him find out about my feelings for null-A.”

The girl said something Gosseyn did not catch. There was silence, followed by the unmistakable sound of a kiss, and then her voice. “Is Prescott going with you?”

Gosseyn was trembling. “This is silly,” he thought angrily. “I was never married to her. I can’t let a false belief disturb me emotionally.” But the feeling was unmistakable. The kiss shocked him. The emotion might be false, but it would require more than one null-A therapy to break its hold on him.

The sound of the door chimes ended the thought. He heard the man and the girl go into the living room. Then the door opened and a man said, “Miss Patricia, we have orders to search this apartment for an escaped prisoner. . . . I beg your pardon, Mr. Crang. I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s all right.” It was the voice of the man who had kissed Patricia Hardie. “Complete your search and then depart.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gosseyn waited for no more. The balcony that led from the dressing-room window was tree-sheltered. He reached the ground without incident, and edged along the wall on his hands and knees. Not once, in those first few hundred yards, was he out of the shelter of a shrub or a tree.

He was a hundred feet from the almost deserted base of the Machine when a dozen cars careened from behind a line of trees, where they had been waiting, and guns opened fire at him. Gosseyn gave one wild shout at the Machine:

“Help me! Help!”

Aloof and unheeding, the Machine towered above him. If it was true, as legend said, that it was able to defend itself and its grounds, then there apparently was no reason for action. Not by a flicker of a tube did it show awareness of the outrage that was being done in its presence.

Gosseyn was crawling frantically along the grass when the first bullet actually struck him. It hit one shoulder and sent him spi

The unbearable part was that he clung to consciousness. He could feel the unrelenting fire and the bullets searching through his writhing body. The blows and the flame tore at his vital organs, at his legs, his heart, and his lungs even after he had stopped moving. His last dim thought was the infinitely sad, hopeless realization that now he would never see Venus and its unfathomed mysteries.

Somewhere along there, death came.