The World of Null-A

there, Gosseyn felt a black dismay. From every logical angle, the fight was already lost. He saw that Lyttle was tired. The young man’s head drooped. He caught Gosseyn’s eyes on him and he smiled grayly.

“I was in such a state of tension yesterday,” he said, “that I didn’t sleep a wink. I intended to buy some anti-sleep pills, but I forgot.”

Gosseyn said, “Lie down on the couch and sleep if you can.”

“And miss what you’re going to do? Not on your life.”

Gosseyn smiled at that. He explained that he intended to conduct his examination of the Distorter on an orderly basis.

“First of all, I want to locate the source of energy used by the tubes, and so be able to switch it on or off. I’ll need some simple equipment, and the investigation itself will take time. Show me where you keep the instruments you used for taking your course in null-A physics and then go to sleep.”

In three minutes, he was on his own. He felt in no hurry. From the beginning he had moved along at dizzying speeds and got approximately nowhere. The world of null-A, which he had once thought he was supposed to save, was crashing, had crashed, around him.

But just what did he expect out of this examination? A clue, Gosseyn decided. Some key to its operation. Patricia had said it was forbidden-presumably by that weak organization the Galactic League, yet she had mentioned that its use was permitted for transport. What had that meant? He picked up Lyttle’s energy scanner and began adjusting the meter on it, peering from time to time through the eyehole. Abruptly, he could see into the Distorter.

What made the first observation simple was that he could not see into the tubes. Their intricacies withheld, the problem of organizing the complication inside the Distorter became a matter of following the wire system. Gosseyn searched for the power source. He didn’t have to go far because the power was on. He had taken it for granted that the Machine would have shut the thing off. It took ten minutes to convince him that there was no apparent way of switching off the power. It was on. And meant to stay on. The Games Machine, of course, would have used energy probers that could short-circuit a wire system right through metal, and so it had solved its special problems. Gilbert Gosseyn, lacking a prober, was stymied, and since he had virtually promised Lyttle that he would do nothing on his own, he decided to go to sleep. It was possible that by the time he awakened Patricia would have arrived.

But she hadn’t. There was no one around. It was half past four in the afternoon and, except for the Distorter, he was alone in the house. There was a note from Lyttle on the kitchen table to the effect that he had gone to work and that he was leaving the car for Gosseyn to use. The note finished:

. . . what the radio calls “murderous elements” are beginning to sabotage “peaceful production” and they are to be “ruthlessly” put down by the forces of “law and order.” You’ll find food all around you. I’ll be back at 12:30.

Dan Lyttle

After he had eaten, Gosseyn went into the living room and stared down at the Distorter, dissatisfied with his whole position. “I’m here,” he thought, “in a house where I could be captured in five minutes. There are at least two persons in the city who know I am in this house.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Patricia and Lyttle. He had made the assumption out of things that had happened, out of actual events, that they were on his side. But it was disquieting to be dependent again in any way upon the actions of other people. It wasn’t distrust. But suppose something had gone wrong. Suppose at this very minute information was being pressed out of Patricia about where he was, about the Distorter.

He couldn’t go out until dark. Which left the Distorter. Undecided, he knelt beside it, and, reaching out gingerly, he touched the corner tube nearest him. Just what he expected he wasn’t sure. But he was prepared for shock. The tube was vaguely warm against his fingers. Gosseyn caressed it for a moment, rueful, irritated at his caution. “If I decide to leave in a hurry,” he thought, “I’ll grab a handful of tubes and take them along with me.”

He stood up. “I’ll give her till dark.” He hesitated, frowning again. Maybe he’d better get those tubes now. They might not come out easily.

He was sitting examining the Distorter again through the scanner when the phone rang. It was Lyttle, his voice shaking with excitement.

“I’m calling from a pay phone. I’ve just seen the latest paper. It says that Patricia Hardie was arrested an hour and a half ago for—get this, it’s monstrous—the murder of her father. Mr. Wentworth”—Lyttle’s question was strangely timid—“how long does it take to make a null-A talk?”

“There is no set time,” said Gosseyn. He was cold, his mind like a steel bar that had been struck a mighty blow and was now vibrating strongly in response. Thorson was playing this game implacably. He found his voice again.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ll have to let you decide for yourself whether or not you stick to your job until midnight. If you know somewhere that you can go, go at once. If you feel that you have to come back here, come with care. I might or might not leave the Distorter here. I’m going to remove some tubes from it and go—well, never mind. Watch the ‘Careless’—‘Guest’ ads in the paper. And thanks for everything, Dan.”

He waited, but when there was no comment, he hung up. Straight for the Distorter he headed. The corner tube, like all the others, projected about an inch above the metal. He grasped it and pulled at it with a slowly increasing pressure. It wouldn’t come out.

He reversed his effort and pushed instead of pulled. There was probably a catch that needed releasing. The tube clicked down. There was a sudden, sharp strain on his eyes. The room wavered—his amazement was conscious, and the answer, the realization of what was happening was equally clear—wavered, vibrated, trembled in every molecule. Shook like an image in a crystal-clear pool into which a stone has been violently tossed.

His head began to ache. He fumbled with his fingers, searching for the tube, but it was hard to see. He closed his eyes briefly, but it made no difference. The tube was burning hot under the fingers with which he tried to pull it back into place. He must have been dazed because he swayed and fell forward, bumping against the Distorter. He had a strange sense of lightness.

He opened his eyes in surprise. He was lying on his side in utter darkness, and in his nostrils was the rich odor of growing wood. It was a familiar, heavy scent, but it took Gosseyn a long moment to make the enormous mental jump necessary to grasping the reality of it. The odor was the same as had assailed him on his futile journey into the tree tunnel behind Crang’s house on Venus.

Gosseyn scrambled to his feet, almost fell as he stumbled over something metallic, and then groped against first one upcurving wall, then the other. And there was no doubt. He was in a tunnel in the roots of a gigantic tree of Venus.

XXVI

Nevertheless, the consuming hunger of the uncritical mind for what it imagines to be certainty or finality impels it to feast upon shadows.

E. T. B.

The burst of energy that had galvanized him into verifying where he was subsided. Gosseyn sat down heavily. It was not altogether a voluntary action. His hands were shaking; his knees felt weak.

He had already noticed it was dark. Now he realized it with a new intensity. Darkness! Shadowless,