Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

In the bedroom Gosseyn rigged up a wall recorder to repeat a three-minute relaxation, pattern. Then he lay down. During the hour that followed he never quite went to sleep. There was always the voice in the background, the monotone of Ashargin's voice repeating the few phrases over and over.

Lying there, he allowed his mind to idle around the harsher memories of Ashargin's prison years. Each time he came to an incident that had made a profound impression, he talked silently to the younger Ashargin. He made it as real as that, as if the fifteen, sixteen or twenty year old Ashargin heir was in each case a living entity inside him. The older Ashargin talked to the younger at a moment when the latter was undergoing a traumatic experience.

From his greater height of understanding, he assured the younger individual that the affective incident must be looked at from a different angle than that of a frightened youth. Assured him that fear of pain and fear of death were emotions that could be overcome, and that in short the shock incident which bad once affected him so profoundly no longer had any meaning for him. More than that, in future he would have better understanding of such moments, and he would never again be affected in an adverse fashion

It was one more Null-A training make-shift, as had been all the others. But it was a system of self-therapy that was scientifically sound, and which would bring definite benefits.

'Relax,' the voice soothed on. And because of what he was doing, every word meant, 'Relax the tensions of a life time. Let all those past fears and doubts and uncertainties be discharged from the nervous system.'

The effect did not depend on any belief that something would happen, though conviction made it more powerful. But it would take time. There were many suppressed memories that would have to be skillfully brought out in the open, before the therapy could be used on them.

Prince Ashargin was not going to be relaxed in one day.

Nevertheless, by the time Nirene knocked softly on the door, he had had not only the equivalent of an hour's sleep, but a psychoanalytic reorientation that under the circumstances he could have secured in no other way.

He stood up refreshed, feeling himself ready for the evening and the night.

The days stepped by, and the question was, how was he going to find out about Venus?

He had several possibilities. All of them required a hint as to what he wanted to know. Enro might be as quick at seeing the meaning in such a hint as the person to whom it was directed.

That was a risk he could not take until he had exhausted every other means.

At the end of four days, Gosseyn was a badly worried man. He saw himself isolated here in the body of the Ashargin heir, in spite of his so-called freedom of action, prevented from doing the only things that mattered.

Venusian Null-A's alone could stop Enro and the Predictors. That was his assumption, based on his observations and his knowledge of things as they were. But as far as he knew, they were cut off, unable to act. They could be easily destroyed by a dictator who had already ordered hundreds of planets pulverized.

Each day he hoped to be returned to his own body. He tried to help. He used Distorter elevators whenever possible to move from one building to another. Four times in four days he took trips to distant planets and back. But his mind remained in the body of Prince Ashargin.

He waited for a call informing him that the Y-381907 had been contacted. No call came.

What could be happening?

On the fourth day he went personally to the Interplanetary Communications Department. It occupied a building ninety stories high and ten blocks wide. The building information section had one hundred roboperators redirecting calls to the proper sector centers. He identified himself to one of them.

'Oh, yes,' it said. 'Prince Ashargin. We have received instructions about you.'

Gosseyn made his inquiry, turned away and then came back. He was curious about small things. 'What kind of instructions?' he asked.

The answer had the frankness of Enro behind it. The roboperator said, 'You can call anywhere but transcriptions of every conversation must be sent to the Intelligence Center.'

Gosseyn nodded. He could expect no more than that. He took a Distorter cage to the sector center he wanted, and seated himself at the videophone. Presently, he was saying, 'I want to speak to Captain Free, or anyone aboard the Y-381907.'

He could have made the call from Nirene's apartment, but here he could see the Distorter that carried the message. He could watch the contact attempt being made, as the roboperator dialed the pattern which, according to the foot-thick transparent plate that listed destroyers, belonged to the Y-381907.

All this he could see with his own eyes. If it was possible for him to prevent interference in the attempt to contact the destroyer, then this was one of the methods.

Another was to call from a planet visited at random. He had done that twice, without result.

Now, a minute passed. Then two minutes. Still there was no answer. After about four minutes the roboperator said, 'One moment, please.' At the end of ten minutes, the operator's voice came again. 'The following situation exists. When Similarity was raised to the known mechanical limit of twenty-three decimal places, a faint response was achieved. This was, however, an automatic process. It is evident that the pattern at the other end is still partly similarized, but that deterioration is continuous. Clearly, no attempt is being made by those on the ship to hold to the pattern.'

Thank you,' said Gosseyn-Ashargin.

It was hard to imagine that his body was out there somewhere while his reasoning self was here attached to the nervous system of the Ashargin heir.

What could be happening?

On the sixth day, Enro went on the public videophone with a message. He was visibly jubilant, and his voice rang with triumph as he reported:

'I have just been informed by Grand Admiral Paleol, commander of our forces in the Sixth Decant area that the capital city of Tuul was destroyed a few hours ago by our invincible fleet. This is but one of an unending series of victories won by our men and our weapons against a fiercely resisting enemy.

'Fight on, admiral. The hearts of the people and the confidence of your government are with you.'

Tuul? Gosseyn remembered the name with Ashargin's memory. Tuul was the stronghold of the most powerful State of the League group. It was one more planet out of thousands, but the fact that it was labeled 'capital' would be symbolic to the unintegrated minds to whom a map, in a semantic sense, was the territory, and the word the event itself.

Even for Gilbert Gosseyn, the destruction of Tuul was a turning point He dared not wait any longer.

After dinner he invited Nirene to go with him to see Crang and Patricia. 'I hope,' he said pointedly, 'that the Gorgzin and you can find a great deal to talk about.'

She looked at him in momentary surprise, but he did not enlarge on his words. His idea for partially overcoming Enro's gift of clairvoyance could not be openly stated.

Nirene did her best. Gosseyn had no idea what she suspected was going to happen. But at the beginning her voice hardly stopped.

Patricia's answers were halting at first. She looked distinctly taken aback by the machine-gunlike voice that fired at her so steadily. And then suddenly, she must have caught on. She walked over and sat on the edge of Crang's chair, and began to talk back.

Nirene, ten feet away, hesitated, and then came over and sat on Ashargin's lap. The conversation that followed was the most active that Gosseyn had ever heard between two women. There was scarcely a moment during the rest of that evening when his own cautious words were not spoken against the background trill of wifely chatter.