The Players of Null-A

I NULL-ABSTRACTS

A normal human nervous system is potentially superior to that of any animal's. For the sake of sanity, and balanced development, each individual must learn to orientate himself to the real world around him. There are methods of training by which this can be done.

Shadows. A movement on the hill where the Games Machine had once stood, where all was now desolation. Two figures, one curiously shapeless, walked by slowly among the trees. As they came out of the darkness, and into the light of a street lamp that stood like a lonely sentinel on this height from which they could overlook the city—one of the figures resolved into a normal two-legged man.

The other was a shadow, made of shadow stuff, made of blackness through which the street lamp was visible.

A man, and a shadow that moved like a man, but was not. A shadow man, who stopped as he reached the protective fence that ran along the lip of the hill. Who stopped and motioned with a shadow arm at the city below, and spoke suddenly in a voice that was not shadowy but very human,

'Repeat your instructions, Janasen.'

If the other man was awed by his strange companion, he did not show it. He yawned slightly.

'Kind of sleepy,' he said.

'Your instructions!'

The man gestured in irritation. 'Look, Mister Follower,' he said in an annoyed voice, 'don't talk like that to me. That getup of yours doesn't scare me in the slightest. You know me. I'll do the job.'

'Your insolence,' said the Follower, 'will try my patience once too often. You know that there are time energies involved in my own movements. Your delays are calculated to offend, and I will say this: If I am ever forced into an unpleasant position because of that tendency on your part, I'll end our relationship.'

There was such a savage note in the Follower's voice that the man said no more. He found himself wondering why he taunted this immeasurably dangerous individual, and the only answer he could think of was that it burdened his spirit oppressively to realize that he was the paid agent of a being who was his master in every respect.

'Now, quick,' said the Follower, 'repeat your instructions.'

Reluctantly, the man began. The words were meaningless to the breeze that blew from behind them; they drifted on the night air like phantasms out of a dream, or shadows that dissipated in sunlight. There was something about taking advantage of the street fighting that would now shortly end. There would be a position open in the Institute of Emigration. ‘The false papers I have will give me the job during the necessary time.' And the purpose of the scheming was to prevent a Gilbert Gosseyn from going to Venus until it was too late. The man had no idea who Gosseyn was, what it was Gosseyn was to be late for—but the means were clear enough. 'I'll use every authority of the Institute, and on Thursday, fourteen days from now, when the President Hardie leaves for Venus, I'll arrange for an accident to take place at a certain time— and you'll see to it that he's there for it to happen to him.'

'I don't see to anything of the kind,' said the Follower in a remote voice. 'I merely foresee that he will be there at the proper instant. Now, what is the moment of the accident?'

'9:28 a.m., zone 10 time.'

There was a pause. The Follower seemed to be in meditation. ‘I must warn you,' he said at last, 'that Gosseyn is an unusual individual. Whether this will affect events or not, I do not know. There seems no reason why it should, but still there is the possibility. Take heed.'

The man shrugged. ‘I can only do my best. I'm not worried.'

'You will be removed in due course in the usual fashion. You can wait here or on Venus.'

'Venus,' said the man.

'Very well.'

There was silence. The Follower moved slightly, as if to free himself from the restraint of the other's presence. The shadow shape of him seemed suddenly less substantial. The street lamp shone sharply through the black substance that was his body, but even as the misty thing grew duller, vaguer, less clearly marked, it held together, held its form. It vanished as a whole, and was gone as if it had never been.

Janasen waited. He was a practical man, and he was curious. He had seen illusions before, and he was partially convinced that this was one. After three minutes, the ground glowed. Janasen retreated warily.

The fire raged furiously, but not so violently that he did not see the inner works of a machine with intricate parts as the white, hissing flames melted the structure into a shapeless mass. He did not wait for the end, but started to walk along the pathway that led down to a robocar station.

Ten minutes later he was deep in the city.

The transformation of time energy proceeded at its indeterminable pace to the hour of 8:43 a.m. on the first Thursday of March, 2561 A.D. The accident to Gilbert Gosseyn was scheduled for 9:28.

8:43 a.m. At the spaceport on the mountain above the city, the Venus-bound President Hardie floated into take-off position. It was due to leave at one o'clock in the afternoon.

Two weeks had passed since the Follower and his henchman looked down at the city from a world bathed in night. It was two weeks and a day since a bolt of electricity had spouted from an energy cup in the Institute of General Semantics, and bloodily sheared off the head of Thorson. As a result within three days the fighting in the city proper had ended.

Everywhere robotools whirred, buzzed, hissed and worked under the direction of their electronic brains. In eleven days a gigantic city came back to life, not without sweat, not without men having to bend their backs beside the machines. But the results were already colossal. Food supply was back to normal. Most of the scare of battle were gone. And, of overwhelming importance, the fear of the unknown forces that had struck at the solar system from the stars was, fading more with each bit of news from Venus, and with each passing day.

8:30 a.m. On Venus, in the pit that had once been the secret galactic base of the Greatest Empire in the solar system, Patricia Hardie sat in her tree apartment studying an abridged stellar guidebook. She was dressed in a three-day casual which she would wear today only before destroying it. She was a slender young woman whose good looks were overshadowed by another more curious quality—an air of authority. The man who opened the door and came in at that moment paused to gaze at her, but if she had heard his entrance, she gave no sign.

Eldred Crang waited, faintly amused, but not offended. He respected and admired Patricia Hardie, but she was not yet fully trained in the Null-A philosophy, and therefore she still had set techniques of reaction, of which she was probably unaware. As he watched she must have gone through the unconscious process of accepting the intrusion, for she turned and looked at him.

'Well?' she asked.

The lean man walked forward. 'No go,' he said.

'How many messages is that?

'Seventeen.' He shook his head. 'I'm afraid we've been slow. We took it for granted Gosseyn would find his way back here. Now our only hope is that he'll be on the ship that leaves Earth today for Venus.’

There was silence for a while. The woman made some marks with a needle-sharp instrument in the guidebook. Each time she touched the page, the material glowed with a faint bluish light. She shrugged finally.

'It can't be helped. Who'd have thought Enro would discover so quickly what you were doing? Fortunately, you were prompt, and so his soldiers in this area are scattered to dozens of bases, and are' already being used for other purposes.'

She smiled admiringly. 'You were very clever, my dear, releasing those soldiers to the tender mercies of base commanders. They're all so eager to have more men in their sectors that when some responsible officer gives them a few million they actually try to hide them. Years ago, Enro had to evolve an elaborate system for locating armies lost in just that fashion.'

She broke off. 'Did you find out how much longer we can stay here?'

'Bad news on that point,' said Crang. 'They have orders on Gela 30 to cut Venus off the individual "matrix" circuit the moment you and I get to Gela. They're leaving the way open for ships to come this way, which is something, but I was told that the individual "Distorters" will be cut off in twenty-four hours, whether we get to Gela or not.'

He stood frowning. 'If only Gosseyn would hurry. I think I could hold them an extra day or so without revealing your identity. I think we should take the risk involved. As I see it, Gosseyn's more important than we are.'

There's a tone in your voice,' Patricia Hardie said sharply. 'Something has happened. Is it war?'

Crang hesitated then: 'When I was sending the message just now, I tuned in on a confusion of calls from somewhere near the center of the galaxy. Some nine hundred thousand warships are attacking the central League powers in the Sixth Decant.'

The young woman was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, there were tears in her eyes. 'So Enro has taken the plunge.' She shook her head angrily and wiped her tears. That settles it. I'm through with him. You can do anything you please to him if you ever get the chance.'

Crang felt unmoved. 'It was inevitable. The quickness of it annoys me. We've been caught off base. Just imagine, waiting till yesterday to send Dr. Kair to Earth to look for Gosseyn.'

'When will he get there?' She waved her hand. 'Never mind. You've told me that before, haven't you? Day after tomorrow. Eldred, we can't wait.'

She stood up, and came over to him. Her eyes were narrowed with speculation as she studied his face. 'You're not going to make us take any desperate chances, I hope.'

'If we don't wait,' said Crang, 'Gosseyn'll be cut off here nine hundred seventy-one light-years from the nearest interstellar transport.'

Patricia said quickly, 'At any moment Enro might have an atomic bomb "similarized" into the pit.'

'I don't think he'll destroy the base. It took too long to build up, and, besides, I have an idea he knows you're here.'

She looked at him sharply, 'Where would he obtain such information?'

Crang smiled. 'From me,' he said. 'After all, I had to tell Thorson who you were to save your life. I also told an intelligence agent of Enro.'

'Still,' said Patricia, 'all this is based on wishful thinking. If we get out safely, we can come back for Gosseyn.1

Crang stared at her thoughtfully. ‘There's more to this than meets the eye. You forget that Gosseyn always assumed that beyond him, or behind him, was a being he called, for want of a better name, a cosmic chess player. That's, of course, a wild comparison, but if it had any application whatsoever, then we've got to assume a second player. Chess is not a game of solitaire. Another thing: Gosseyn regarded himself as approximately a seventh-row pawn. Well, I think he became a queen when he killed Thorson. I tell you, Reesha, it's dangerous, to leave a queen in a position where it can't move. He should be out in the open, out among the stars, where he'll have the greatest possible mobility. In my opinion, so long as the players are hidden and able to make their moves without being caught or observed, just so long is Gosseyn in deadly danger. I think a delay of even a few months might be fatal.'

Patricia was briefly silent, then: 'Just where are we going?'

'Well, we'll have to use the regular transmitters. But I plan on us stopping somewhere to get news. If it's what I think it will be, there's only one place for us to go.'

'Oh!' the woman said in a flat tone. 'Just how long do you intend to wait?'

Crang gazed at her somberly, and drew a deep breath. 'If Gosseyn's name,' he said, 'is on the passenger list of the President Hardie—and I'll get that list a few minutes after it takes off from Earth—we'll wait here till it arrives—three days

and two nights from now.' 'And if his name is not on the list?’ Then we leave here as soon as we've made sure of that.' The name of Gilbert Gosseyn, as it turned out, was not on

the passenger list of the President Hardie.

8:43 a.m. Gosseyn wakened with a start, and almost simultaneously became aware of three things: what the time was, that the sun was shining through the hotel room window, and that the videophone beside the bed was buzzing softly but insistently.

As he sat up, he came further out of sleep, and abruptly remembered that this was the day the President Hardie was scheduled to leave for Venus. The thought galvanized him. The fighting had reduced travel between the two planets to a once-a-week basis, and he still had the problem of obtaining permission to get aboard today. He bent down and clicked on the receiver but, because he was still in his pajamas, left the video plate blank.

'Gosseyn speaking,' he said.

'Mr. Gosseyn,' said a man's voice, 'this is the Institute of Emigration.'

Gosseyn stiffened. He'd known this was going to be the day of decision, and there was a tone to the voice on the phone that he didn't like.

'Who's talking?' he asked sharply.

'Janasen.'

'Oh!' Gosseyn scowled. This was the man who had put so many obstacles in his way, who had insisted upon his producing a birth certificate and other documents and had refused to recognize a favorable lie detector test. Janasen was a minor official, a rank which was surprising in view of his almost pathological refusal to do anything on his own initiative. He was no person to talk to on the day that a ship was due to leave for Venus.

Gosseyn reached down and clicked on the video plate. He waited till the image of the other's sharp face was clear, then: 'Look, Janasen, I want to talk to Yorke.'

'I have received my instructions from Mr. Yorke.' Janasen was imperturbable. His face looked strangely sleek in spite of its thinness.

'Put me through to Yorke,' said Gosseyn.

Janasen ignored the interruption. 'It has been decided,' he said, 'that in view of the troubled situation on Venus. . . .'

'Get off the line!' Gosseyn said in a dangerous voice. I'll talk to Yorke, and to no one else.'

'. . . that in view of the unsettled situation on Venus, your application for entrance is refused,' said Janasen.

Gosseyn was furious. For fourteen days he had been held off by this individual, and now, on the morning of the departure of the ship, here was the decision.

'This refusal,' said the unfazable Janasen, 'will in no way debar you from making your application again when the situation on Venus has been clarified by directives from the Venusian Council for Immigration.'

Gosseyn said: Tell Yorke I'll be along to see him right after breakfast.'

His fingers flipped the switch, and broke the connection.

Gosseyn dressed swiftly, and then paused for a final survey of himself in the full length mirror of the hotel room. He was a tall, stern-faced young man of thirty-five or so. His vision was too sharp for him not to notice the unusual qualities of that image. At a casual glance, he looked quite normal, but to his own eyes his head was clearly too large for his body. Only the massiveness of his shoulder, arm and chest muscles made his head even tolerable in proportion. As it was he could think of it falling within the category of 'leonine'. He put on his hat, and now he looked like a big man with a strongly muscled face, which was satisfactory. As much as possible he wished to remain inconspicuous. The extra brain, which made his head nearly a sixth larger than that of an ordinary human being, had its limitations. In the two weeks that had passed since the death of the mighty Thorson, he'd been free for the first time to test its terrific powers—and the results had sharply modified his earlier feeling of invincibility.

A few minutes over twenty-six hours was the maximum time during which his 'memorized' version of a section of floor was valid. No change might be visible in the floor, but somehow it altered, and he could no longer retreat to it in the instantaneous 'similarity' fashion.

That meant he must, literally, rebuild his defenses every morning and evening in overlapping series, so that he'd never be caught without a few key points to which he could escape in an emergency. There were several puzzling aspects to the time limits involved. But that was something to investigate when he got to Venus.

As he stepped into the elevator a moment later, he glanced at his watch. 9:27.

One minute later, at 9:28, the time for which the accident was scheduled, the elevator crashed to destruction at the bottom of its shaft.