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“Lavoisseur?” Gosseyn frowned into the darkness. “I thought he was killed in an accident a few years ago. When did you see him?”
“Last year. He was in a wheel chair.”
Gosseyn frowned. Just for a moment he had thought his memory was going to play him false again. It seemed odd, though, that whoever had tampered with his mind had not wanted him to know that the almost legendary Lavoisseur was still alive. He hesitated, then returned to what he had been saying earlier.
“Both the cortex and the thalamus have wonderful potentialities. Both should be trained to the highest degree, but particularly they should be organized so that they will work in co-ordination. Wherever such co-ordination, or integration, does not occur, you have a tangled personality-over-emotionalism and, in fact, all variations of neuroticism. On the other hand, where cortical-thalamic integration has been established, the nervous system can withstand almost any shock.”
Gosseyn stopped, recalling the shock his own brain had suffered a short time before. The girl said quickly, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Gruffly. “We can talk about it again in the morning.”
He was suddenly weary. He lay back. His last thought before he drifted into sleep was wonder as to what the lie detector had meant when it said, “There is an aura of unique strength about him.”
When he wakened, the sun was shining. Of Teresa Clark there was no sign.
Gosseyn verified her absence by a quick search through the brush. Then he walked to the sidewalk a hundred feet away, and glanced along the street, first north, then south.
The sidewalks and the road were alive with traffic. Men and women, gaily dressed, hurried along past where Gosseyn stood. The sound of many voices and many machines made a buzz and a roar and a hum. It was suddenly exciting. To Gosseyn there came exhilaration and, stronger now, the realization that he was free. Even the girl’s departure proved that she was not the second step in some fantastic plan that had begun with the attack on his memory. It was a relief to have her off his hands.
A familiar face detached itself from the human countenances that had been flashing past him. Teresa Clark, carrying two brown paper bags, hailed him.
“I’ve brought some breakfast,” she said. “I thought you’d prefer to picnic out among the ants, rather than try to get into a packed restaurant.”
They ate in silence. Gosseyn noted that the food she had brought had been daintily put up in boxes and plasto containers for outside service. There was reinforced orange juice, cereal, with cream in a separate plasto, hot kidneys on toast, and coffee, also with its separate cream.
Five dollars, he estimated. Which was pure luxury for a couple who had to live for thirty days on a very small amount of money. And, besides, a girl who possessed five dollars would surely have paid it to her landlady for another night’s lodging. Furthermore, she must have had a good job to think in terms of such a breakfast. That brought a new thought. Gosseyn frowned over it a moment, then said, “This boss of yours who made the passes at you—what’s his name?”
“Huh?” said Teresa Clark. She had finished her kidneys and was searching for her purse. Now she looked up, startled. Then her face cleared. “Oh, him!” she said.
There was a pause.
“Yes,” Gosseyn urged. “What’s his name?”
She was completely recovered. “I’d prefer to forget about him,” said Teresa Clark. “It’s not pleasant.” She changed the subject. “Will I have to know much for the first day?”
Gosseyn hesitated, half inclined to pursue further the subject of her boss. He decided not to. He said, “No. Fortunately, the first day has never been more than a perfunctory affair. It consists primarily of registrations and of being assigned to the cubbyhole where you take your early tests. I’ve studied the published records of the games of the last twenty years, which is the furthest back the Machine’ll ever release, and I’ve noticed that there is never any change in the first day. You are required to define what null-A, null-N, and null-E stand for.
“Whether you realize it or not, you ca
“You bet I am,” said the girl.
She drew a cigarette case out of her purse. “Have a cigarette.”
The cigarette case glittered in the sun. Diamonds, emeralds, and rubies sparkled on its intricately wrought gold surface. A cigarette, already lighted in some automatic fashion inside the case, protruded from its projector. The gems could have been plastic, the gold imitation. But it looked handmade, and its apparent genuineness was staggering. Gosseyn put its value at twenty-five thousand dollars.
He found his voice. “No, thanks,” he said. “I don’t smoke.”
“It’s a special brand,” said the young woman insistently. “Deliciously mild.”
Gosseyn shook his head. And this time she accepted the refusal. She removed the cigarette from the case, put it to her lips, and inhaled with a deep satisfaction, then plunged the case back into her purse. She seemed unconscious of the sensation it had caused. She said, “Let’s get busy with my studies. Then we can separate and meet here again tonight. Is that all right?”
She was a very dominating young woman, and Gosseyn wasn’t sure that he could even learn to like her. His suspicion that she had come into his life with a purpose was stronger. She was possibly a co
“All right,” he said. “But there isn’t any time to waste.”
III
To be is to be related.
Gosseyn helped the girl off the surface car. They walked rapidly around a screening nest of trees, through massive gates, and came in sight of the Machine. The girl walked unconcernedly on. But Gosseyn stopped.
The Machine was at the far end of a broad avenue. Mountaintops had been leveled so that it could have space and gardens around it. It was a full half mile from the tree-sheltered gates. It reared up and up in a shining metal splendor. It was a cone pointing into the lower heavens and crowned by a star of atomic light, brighter than the noonday sun above.
The sight of it so near shocked Gosseyn. He hadn’t thought of it before, but he realized suddenly that the Machine would never accept his false identity. He felt a constriction, and stood there shaken and depressed. He saw that Teresa Clark had paused and was looking back at him.
“This is your first time to see it close?” she said sympathetically. “It does get you, doesn’t it?”
There was a hint of superiority in her ma
The crowds became unwieldy as they approached the base of the Machine, and the bigness of the Machine itself was more apparent. Its roundness and its size gave a sleek, streamlined appearance that was not canceled by the tiers of individual game rooms which ornamented and broke up its gigantic base. Right around the base the rooms extended. The entire first floor consisted of game rooms and corridors leading to them. Broad outside staircases led to the second, third, and fourth floors and down into three basements, a total of seven floors entirely devoted to game rooms for individual competitors.