The World of Null-A

The ice meteorites ranged in size from ten to a hundred cubic miles; and when they had melted their huge volume of water down on the surface, and into the atmosphere, Venus had oceans and oxygen in its atmosphere. By 2081 A. D. the Institute of General Semantics, just then entering its governmental phase, realized the null-A potentialities of the bountiful planet. By this time, transported trees and other plants were growing madly. The Machine method of selecting colonists came a hundred or so years later, and the greatest selective emigration plan in the history of man began to gather momentum.

Population of Venus as of 2560 A. D.—119,000,038 males, 120,143,280 females, the book said. When he finally put it down, Gosseyn wondered if the surplus of females might explain why a null-A woman had married John Prescott.

He took The Egotist on Non-Aristotelian Venus to bed with him. A note in the frontispiece explained that Dr. Lauren Kair, Ps. D., the author, would be practicing on Earth in the city of the Machine from 2559 A. D. to 2564 A. D. Gosseyn glanced through the chapter headings and finally turned to one captioned, “Physical Injuries and their Effects on the Ego.” A paragraph caught his attention:

The most difficult to isolate of all abnormal developments of the ego is the man or woman who has been in an accident that has resulted in injuries which do not immediately cause aftereffects. 

Gosseyn stopped there. He hadn’t known what he was looking for, but here at last was a concrete logicality about “X.” “X,” the frightfully injured, the abnormal ego that had developed u

Gosseyn awakened the following morning in a silent house. He climbed out of bed, amazed that he was still undiscovered. He’d give Crang another day and night, he decided, then take positive action. There were several things he could do. A videophone call, for instance, to the nearest exchange. And the tu

The second day passed without incident.

Morning of the third day. Gosseyn ate his breakfast hurriedly and headed for the videophone. He dialed “Long Distance” and waited, thinking how foolish he had been not to do it before. The thought ended as a robot eye took form on the video plate.

“What star are you calling?” the robot’s voice asked matter of factly.

Gosseyn stared at it blankly and finally stammered, “I’ve changed my mind.” He hung up and sank back into his chair. He should have realized, he thought shakily, that the galactic base on Venus would have a private exchange, and that they would have direct communication with any planet anywhere. What star? For these people long distance meant long!

He studied the dial again and put his finger in the slot marked “Local.” Once more a robot eye looked at him.

Its voice answered his request unemotionally. “Sorry, I can put no outside calls through from that number except from Mr. Crang himself.”

Click!

Gosseyn climbed to his feet. The silence of the apartment flowed around him like a waveless sea. It was so quiet that his breathing was loud and he could hear the uneven beating of his heart. The voice of the robot operator again echoed in his brain. “What star?”And to think that he had wasted time. So much to do. The tu

He stood, a few minutes later, peering along the dim corridor that led into the depths of a tree that was an eighth of a mile thick and half a mile tall. It was very dark, but there was an atomic flashlight in the kitchen storeroom. Gosseyn secured the flash. He left the tu

XI

There was a drabness about his surroundings that dulled thought. The tu

“I must,” he thought finally, “be walking several hundred feet below the ground, following the intertwining roots. I’m actually under the forest.”

He had not thought before of the extent of the roots supporting the mighty trees. But here in this continuous maze was evidence that the roots were at once large in size and pressing in, one upon the other, so tightly that it was impossible to decide from inside the tu

He was disturbed now. These tu

He reached Eldred Crang’s apartment without incident. He made a pile of meat sandwiches and was sitting down to a lunch of eggs and bacon when the four men came in. They entered through three different doors. The first three men held guns, and they came in as if they had been catapulted by the same tight-wound spring. The fourth man was a wiry chap with hazel eyes. He had no gun and he entered in a more leisurely fashion. It was he who said, “All right, Gosseyn, put up your hands.”

Gosseyn, sitting rigidly at the table, head twisted up and around, presumed that Eldred Crang, galactic agent, Venusian detective, and secret supporter of null-A, had come home at last.

His first reaction was relief. Until responsible people with null-A training knew the danger that civilization faced, Gilbert Gosseyn must hold his life in trust. He tried to think of the coming of Crang as precipitating movement in that direction. He climbed to his feet, hands raised above his head, and watched the men curiously, trying to saturate his senses with the reality of their presence. He felt undecided as to how best he might tell them the story the Machine had urged upon him.

As he studied the men, one of them walked forward and broke open the package of sandwiches. They spilled out in a brown and white array, two falling on the floor with a vague sound, like pieces of dry dough. The man didn’t speak immediately. But he smiled as he stared down at the sandwiches. He was a thickset, nicely groomed individual in his early thirties. He moved over to Gosseyn.

“Going to leave us, were you?”

His voice had a faint foreign tone to it. He smiled again. He hit Gosseyn stingingly across the face with the flat of his hand. He repeated in a dead-level tone, “Leaving, were you?”

He drew his hand back again. From Gosseyn’s left, Crang said, “That’s enough, Blayney.”

The man lowered his arm obediently. But his face worked, and his voice was blurred by emotion as he said, “Mr. Crang, suppose he’d gone? Suppose he hadn’t rung up exchange? Who’d have thought of searching for him here? Why, if he had escaped, the big boss would have—”

“Silence!”

Blayney subsided sullenly. Gosseyn turned to the wiry-bodied leader.

“If I were you, Crang, I wouldn’t trust Blayney after he gets to be forty.”

“Eh?” That was Blayney, an astounded look on his face. Crang’s yellow eyes questioned Gosseyn.

“There are psychiatrical explanations for Blayney hitting me as he did,” Gosseyn explained. “His nervous system is begi