Alfred van Vogt - The World of Null-A

There was a knock on the door. It opened and Dr. Kair came in, followed by Crang. Thorson waved at them, and Gosseyn stood up and a moment later silently shook hands with the psychiatrist. He was aware of Thorson and Crang talking together in low tones. Then the big man walked over to the door.

“I'll leave you three to talk over the details at your leisure. Crang tells me there's a major revolution started on Earth, so I've got to get back to the palace to direct the fighting.”

The door closed behind him.

“It will be,” said Dr. Kair, “a battle of wits. And I'll bet on the extra brain.”

They had been talking for more than an hour, with Crang interjecting only an occasional remark. Gosseyn watched the hazel-eyed man from the corner of his eyes, puzzled and uncertain. According to Kair, it was Crang who had found and arrested him. The man, of course, had to appear to be a Thorson man, but he was acting out his role the hard way. Gosseyn decided not to ask him about Patricia Hardie. Not yet, anyway. He saw that Kair was standing up.

“No use wasting time,” the psychiatrist said. “I understand that galactic technicians have been rigging up a special room for you. The training should not be difficult with all the equipment they have here.” He shook his head wonderingly. “It's still hard for me to grasp that they've got several square miles of underground buildings here, with only Crang's tree house as a front. But to get back to what I was saying.” He frowned thoughtfully. “The main point is, if we're right, your extra brain is an organic Distorter, and all that that implies. With the help of the mechanical Distorter, you should be able to similarize two small blocks of wood in three or four days, and that will be the beginning.”

But it took only two days.

Afterward, alone in the dark room, where the test had taken place, Gosseyn sat and stared down at the blocks. They had been three centimeters apart. He had seen no movement, but now they were touching. The single beam of light that focused on the two blocks marked their changed positions unmistakably. In some way, though he had had no sensation, thought waves had reached out from his extra brain and controlled matter.

The ascendancy of mind over matter-age-old dream of man. Not that he had done it without assistance. Every effort had been made to make the two blocks similar. And yet they would have changed slightly since then. So slightly. His body heat in the confined room would have affected them. Both the light beam and the surrounding darkness would have had a different influence on each block, despite the absorber tubes that lined the walls, despite the most delicate electron thermostat. Without the Distorter, of course, he wouldn't have succeeded this first time. It had similarized the blocks to nineteen decimal places. It quieted the molecular movement of the air, partially similarized the table on which the blocks rested, Gosseyn's chair, and Gosseyn himself.

And yet the final impulse had come from him. It was the beginning.

Gosseyn emerged from the training room, and Thorson came by transporter from Earth to assist Kair with the tests. The photographs showed thousands of tiny impulse lines that had reached up into the extra brain.

The tests were prolonged, and it was an exhausted Gosseyn who finally set out for his apartment. As he walked toward the “elevator” he noticed that, in addition to his usual guards, a small metal ball bristling with electronic tubes floated in the air behind him. Prescott, in charge of the guards, caught his glance.

“It contains a vibrator,” he explained coolly. “Crang reported Kair's statement that this would be a battle of wits and we're taking no chances. It will be used to make tiny changes in the atomic structure of the walls, ceilings, floors, ground, everything-wherever you've been. It will follow you from now on right to your apartment door.”

His voice grew louder. “It is a precaution against the time when you will be able to transport yourself from your apartment to any piece of matter, the structure of which you have previously 'memorized.'”

Gosseyn did not answer. He had never bothered to conceal his dislike of Prescott, and now he merely gazed at him with steady eyes. The man shrugged, but there was a significant note in his voice as he looked at his watch and said with a twisted smile, “It is our purpose, Gosseyn, to tie you down with every means available to us. To that end we have prepared a little surprise for you.”

Gosseyn was still wondering about the surprise a few minutes later when he switched on the lights of his living room. He put on his pajamas and headed for the dark alcove where the beds were. A movement on one of the en-shadowed pillows stopped him. A pair of sleepy eyes stared at him. Even in that dimness Gosseyn recognized the face instantly. The girl sat up with an indolent grace, and yawned.

“You and I do get around, don't we?” said Patricia Hardie.

Gosseyn sat down on the other bed with an abrupt movement. His relief was tremendous, but when his excitement faded he recalled what Prescott had said. He said slowly, “I suppose if I try to escape, you get killed.”

She nodded, more seriously. “Something like that.” She added, “It was Mr. Crang's idea.”

Gosseyn lay down on his bed and stared silently up at the ceiling. Crang again. His doubts about the man began to dissolve. He wondered if Thorson had wanted to kill Patricia and if this was Crang's compromise suggestion for saving her life without having to come out into the open himself. He could almost visualize the man pointing out to Thorson that Gilbert Gosseyn had once believed himself to be married to Patricia Hardie and that some of the emotion might have remained. It could be one more tie to hold him to his bargain. So Crang might have argued.

Brilliant Eldred Crang, thought Gosseyn. The one man in all this affair who had so far not made a personal mistake. From the corner of his eye, he glanced at Patricia. She was yawning and stretching like a relaxed kitten. She turned her head and caught his gaze.

“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.”