The World of Null-A

Gosseyn had been listening impatiently, waiting for the discussion on the human brain to being. Now, abruptly, he thought, “What was that? What was that?”

He had to hold himself in his chair, to relax, to remember. And then, and not till then, did he climb to his feet and pace the floor in the burning excitement of an immeasurably great discovery made. To force a greater approximation of similarity. What else could it be? And the method of forcing would have to be through memory.

Perfect memory was, literally, a replay in the mind of an event exactly as it had originally been recorded. The brain, obviously, could only repeat its own perceptions. What it failed to retain of the process level in Nature, it would—naturally—fail to similarize. The abstraction principle of General Semantics applied. Abstraction of perceptions.

So that, basically, what was involved was a greater awareness of that which made up a person’s identity: the memory stored in the brain and elsewhere in the body. The more he strove for perfect memory, the more clearly demarcated an individual he would be.

. . . What else could it be? There just wasn’t any other possibility that offered as logical as continuity of the developing of the null-A idea. But what good would it be when he finally achieved it?

He grew aware that somewhere a clock was striking. Gosseyn glanced at his watch, and sighed with excitement at the realization that the time for action had come.

Midnight.

XXV

Masses of parked cars, moving figures, shafts of near light, a distant blaze, confusion. After they parked their car about a mile from the central glare, Gosseyn and Lyttle followed a thin stream of people for half a mile. They came at last to where other people were standing, watching. That was where the really hard part began. Even for a null-A it was difficult to think of a third-of-a-mile barrier of human beings as if each unit was an individual with a personality and a will of its own.

The mob swayed or stood still. It had volitions that began like a tiny snowball rolling downhill and setting off an avalanche. There were gasps as people were crushed by the pressures; there were shrieks as the unlucky lost their foothold and went down. The crowd was a soulless woman; it reared up on its toes and stared mindlessly at those who were feasting on the destroyed symbol of a world’s sanity.

Swarms of roboplanes whirred overhead, weighted with loot. But that wasn’t so bad. If only that method of transport had been used, the danger would have been minimized. Trucks were also being used—lines of trucks with glaring lights, driven at top speed, straight at the fringes of crowd that constantly threatened to overlap the roads. Shaken and frightened, the mob kept its skirts drawn back.

Slowly, Gosseyn and Lyttle worked their way along the dangerous path to the Machine. They had to keep their eyes open for rifts in the packs of trucks; they had to strain to see pockets in the masses of human beings, pockets toward which they could run in the desperate hope that the space would not be filled up when they got there. In spite of the risk, it did not surprise Gosseyn that they made progress. There was a curious psychological law that protected men with purposes from those who had none.

The important thing was not to arouse counterpurpose. Once, when they were pe

They came to a steel fence that enterprising wrecking crews had put up against the crowd. It was for the most part a successful barrier, and the occasional individual who vaulted over it usually slunk back before the threatening guns of the guards who stood in little groups on the other side of the fence, like soldiers lawfully guarding a property from vandals.

Once more, it was a case of straightforward risk. “Keep close to the road!” Gosseyn yelled. “They’ll hesitate about shooting at the trucks.”

The moment they broke into the open, two guards raced toward them, shrieking something that was lost in the bedlam. Their contorted faces were limned in the fitful light. Their guns waved ferociously. And they went down like briefly animated dummies as Gosseyn shot them. He ran on after Lyttle, startled. He who had so frequently refused to kill—merciless now. The guards were symbols, he decided bleakly, symbols of destruction. Having taken on unhuman qualities, they were barbarous entities, to be destroyed like attacking beasts and forgotten. He forgot them. Ahead was the remnant of the Games Machine.

For hours Gosseyn had tied his hopes to a law of logic. A law which held that a machine which had taken years to build couldn’t be unbuilt in twenty-four hours. He was not so right as he had expected. The Machine was visibly smaller. But it was the torpedo damage that was responsible. The outer tiers of game rooms were caved-in husks, as if fantastic air pressures had smashed them. And everywhere thirty-, fifty-, ninety-foot holes gaped in the gleaming, dented walls. Black, jagged holes that revealed, under the spraying, glittering fight, torn masses of scintillating wires and instruments—the outer portions of the nervous system of the dead Machine.

For the first time, standing there, Gosseyn thought of the Machine as a high-type organism that had been living and was now dead. What was intelligent life but the sensitive awareness of a nervous system with a memory of experiences? In all the man-known history of the world, there never had been an organism with so much memory, such a vast experience, such a tremendous knowledge of human beings and human nature, as the Games Machine. Far in the background of his mind Gosseyn heard Dan Lyttle cry, “Come along! We mustn’t delay.”

Gosseyn recognized that was so and moved forward, but it was his body that followed Lyttle toward the realization of their purpose. His mind and gaze clung to the Machine. Seen at closer range, the extent of the salvage work was more apparent. Whole sections had been torn down, were being torn down, were about to be torn down. Men carrying machines and metal plates and instruments swarmed out of the dark passageways; the sight of them shocked Gosseyn. Once more he was stopped by the realization that he was witnessing the end of an era.

Lyttle tugged at his arm. And that galvanized Gosseyn as no words could have. He hurried forward, skirting the fiery glare of the truck and plane lights, the blaze of the beacons that poured down from every projection of metal big enough to support an atomic-powered searchlight.

“Around to the back,” Gosseyn called, and led the way to the overhanging fold of metal into which the truck had disappeared with the crate containing the Distorter. As they half ran the din retreated somewhat, and there were not so many planes or trucks or men.

There was tremendous activity, of course. The hissing of cutters, the clang of metal falling, the confusion of movement—all were there, but in lesser quantity. For every hundred men and trucks in the front of the Machine, there were a score here, working just as hard, just as frantically, apparently conscious that it was only a matter of time until their easy possession was challenged by irresistible numbers. And still the din grew less. Gosseyn and Lyttle came to the flange behind which the Distorter had been taken, and saw a scant dozen trucks drawn up against a loading platform. Doors had been cut out of the front of an enormous shedlike room, and from this vast, dim area men were carrying packing cases, machines, pieces of metal, and instruments.

The shed was almost empty, and the crate with the Distorter in it stood off by itself as if waiting for them. An address had been stamped on it in six-inch black letters: