The World of Null-A

“Haven’t you any questions to ask?” she said.

He pondered that. He couldn’t ask about Crang, of course. And he had no idea how much she had confessed to Thorson. It wouldn’t do to talk about things of which Thorson knew nothing. Gosseyn said cautiously, “I think I know the whole situation fairly well. We on Earth and Venus have witnessed a greedy interstellar empire trying to take over another planetary system, in spite of the disapproval of a purely Aristotelian league. It’s all very childish and murderous, an extreme example of how neurotic a civilization can become when it fails to develop a method for integrating the human part of man’s mind with the animal part. All their thousands of years of additional scientific development have been wasted in the effort to achieve size and power when all they needed was to learn how to co-operate. Yes, I have a fairly good over-all picture. The status of certain individuals still puzzles me. You.”

“I’m your wife,” said the woman. And Gosseyn was irritated that she should joke at such a time.

“Don’t you think,” he said reproachfully, “it’s unwise to make vital admissions? Eavesdroppers might—well, you know.”

She laughed softly, then said earnestly, “My friend, Thorson is being led around by the nose by the sharpest-brained man I’ve ever met. Eldred Crang. I assure you Eldred has seen to it that we can talk freely.”

Gosseyn let that go. There was no doubt about her admiration for her lover. The woman went on slowly, “I don’t know just how long Eldred can go on as he has been, or how long he can protect us. Thorson will kill us when it suits his purpose, as casually and callously as he did my father and ‘X.’ If the person behind you fails us, then we are all as good as dead right now.”

Her conviction upset Gosseyn for an odd reason. She clearly had no faith in anything he might do. Was it possible that they were all depending on an individual who had not once come into the open? Didn’t Crang have any solution for the day when the extra brain was finally trained? He asked the question.

“Eldred has no plans,” said Patricia Hardie. “At that point you go on your own.”

Gosseyn turned out the light. “Patricia,” he said into the darkness, “do you think I’ve made a mistake in agreeing to Thorson’s plan?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll find this mysterious person, I’m pretty sure.”

She hesitated, then, “Eldred thinks so too.”

Eldred again. Damn Eldred.

“Why didn’t Crang warn your father?”

“He didn’t know what was being pla

“You mean, Thorson suspects him?”

“No. But ‘X’ was a Crang man. Thorson obviously thought Crang would oppose his elimination, and so he worked the assassination through Prescott.”

Gosseyn said softly, “ ‘X’ was a Crang man?”

“Yes.”

It was hard to imagine that, much easier to believe the monstrosity had been turned into an egocentric by his injuries. And yet even Thorson had been suspicious of “X.”

“It seems to me,” Gosseyn said at last sourly, “that the entire structure of the opposition to Enro is built on the machinations of Eldred Crang.” He stopped. Putting the thought into words made the man seem bigger than life. Gosseyn’s mind made a tremendous leap. “Is he the cosmic chess player?”

Patricia’s answer came instantly. “Definitely not.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He has pictures of himself when he was a child.”

“Pictures could be faked.” Swiftly.

She didn’t reply to that, and after a moment Gosseyn abandoned the subject of Crang. “What about your father?”

“My father,” she said quietly, “believed the Machine had wrongly denied him advancement in spite of his qualifications. When I was a child, I shared his resentment. I refused to have anything to do with null-A. But he went too far for me. When I began to realize that behind his wonderful personality—and you must admit he had it—was a man who felt careless of the consequences of his acts, I secretly rebelled. When Eldred came on the scene a year and a half ago, after a meteoric rise in the diplomatic service of the Greatest Empire, I had my first contact with the Galactic League.”

“He’s a galactic agent?”

“No.” There was pride in her voice. “Eldred Crang is Eldred Crang, unique individual. He put me in touch with the League.”

“And you became a League agent?”

“In my own way.”

There was a tone to her voice that made Gosseyn say quickly, “What do you mean by that?”

“The League,” said Patricia, “suffers from many shortcomings. It’s only as determined as its member nations. It’s so easy, so awfully easy, to sacrifice one star system for the good of the whole. I always kept that in mind, and so worked for Earth through the League. The permanent League perso

Gosseyn nodded, remembering what Thorson had told him. He ceased wondering why Enro had chosen an obscure planetary system in which to provoke his war. An attack on the only unarmed planet in the galaxy would be the most brazen method of flouting the League treaties.

“It was Eldred,” said Patricia, “who discovered that the injuries suffered by old Lavoisseur in the explosion at the Semantics Institute a few years ago had turned that great scientist into the bloodthirsty maniac whom you knew as ‘X.’ He thought the man would recover, and so become useful, but that didn’t happen.”

Back to Eldred. Gosseyn sighed.

The silence between them lengthened. With each passing minute, Gosseyn grew more determined, grimmer. He had no illusions. This was the calm before the storm. A rapacious Thorson had been drawn from the purpose for which he had come to the solar system. So the world of null-A had a chance to arm itself, and the League had a few additional weeks to realize that Enro meant war. Thorson would play his private game as long as he dared, but if he ever felt himself threatened, he would carry on with the war of extermination.

Gosseyn could see his hopes narrowing down to one lone being working, with the help of a few uncomprehending assistants like himself, against the colossal might of a violently unsane, all-embracing galactic civilization.

“It’s not enough,” he thought with sudden insight. “I’m counting too much on somebody else to perform the final miracle.”

In that moment, with that realization, the first germ of desperate action was born.

XXXII

Two days after that, he bent two light beams together in the dark room without the aid of the Distorter. He felt the action. Felt it as a sensation like—he tried to describe it afterward to the others—like “the first time you get a floating arm in hypnosis.” Distinct, unmistakable attunement. It was a new awareness of—and addition to—his nervous system.

As the days passed, the tingles in his body grew more insistent, sharper, and more controllable. He felt energies, movements, things, and reached the point where he could identify them instantly. The presence of the other men was a warm fire along his nerves. He responded to the most delicate impulses, and by the sixth day he could distinguish Dr. Kair from the others by a “friendliness” that effused from the man. There was an overtone of anxiety in the psychologist’s feeling, but that only accentuated the friendliness.

Gosseyn was interested in distinguishing between the emotions felt about him by Crang, Prescott, and Thorson. It was Prescott who disliked him violently. “He’s never forgotten,” Gosseyn thought, “the scare I gave him, and the way I fooled him again when I went to the palace to get the Distorter.” Thorson was a Machiavellian; he neither liked nor disliked his prisoner. He was both cautious and resolute. Crang was neutral. It was a curious emotion to receive from the man. Neutral, intent, preoccupied, playing a game so intricate that no dear-cut reaction would come through.