Alfred van Vogt - The Players of Null-A

It was a command, and Ashargin obeyed it in the all-out fashion that Gosseyn could not resist. His hand snatched forward. He grasped the knob with his fingers, turned it, and pushed the door open. He stepped across the threshold.

The door closed behind him.

On the planet of a far sun, a shadow thickened in the center of a gray room. It floated finally above the floor. There were two other conscious people in that narrow chamber, separated from each other and from the Follower by thin, metal grilles—but the shadow shape paid them no attention. He glided instead over to a cot on which lay the inert body of Gilbert Gosseyn.

He bent close, and seemed to listen. He straightened finally. 'He's alive,' he said aloud.

He sounded baffled, as if something had happened which was not within the purview of his own plans. He half-turned to face the woman through the bars that separated them—if a faceless thing could confront anyone.

'He arrived at the time I predicted?'

The woman shrugged, then nodded sullenly.

'And he's been like this ever since?' His resonant voice was insistent.

This time the woman did not answer directly. 'So the great Follower has run up against someone who doesn't conform.'

The shadowy substance trembled, almost as if he were shaking off her words. His reply was a long time in coming. 'It is a strange universe out there,' said the Follower finally. 'And here and there, on the myriad planets, are individuals who, like myself, have a unique faculty that lifts them above the norm. There is Enro—and now here is Gosseyn.'

He stopped, then said softly as if he was thinking out loud, 'I could kill him this instant by hitting him over the head or by knifing him or by any one of a dozen methods. And yet ——— ‘

'Why don't you? The woman's tone taunted him.

He hesitated. 'Because ... I don't know enough.' His voice grew cold and decisive. 'And besides I don't kill people I might be able to control. I shall be back.'

He began to fade, and presently he was gone from the squalid, concrete room where a woman and two men were imprisoned in cells that were separated from each other by a thin, fantastic network of metal.

Gosseyn-Ashargin found that he had entered a large room. At first sight, it seemed to be filled with machinery. To Ashargin, whose education had ended when he was fourteen, the picture was all confusion. Gosseyn recognized mechanical maps and videoplates on the walls, and almost everywhere he looked were Distorter instrument boards. There were several devices which he had never seen before, but he had so sharp a scientific comprehension that the very way in which they were fitted with the other machines gave him an inkling of their purpose.

This was a military control room. From here Enro directed, as much as one man could, the inconceivably large forces of the Greatest Empire. The videoplates were his eyes. The lights that twinkled on the maps could theoretically provide him with an over-all picture of any battle situation. And the very quantity of the Distorter equipment suggested that he tried to maintain a tight control over his far-flung empire. Perhaps he even had a linked system of Distorter transport whereby he could go instantly to almost any part of his empire.

Except for the fixtures, the great room was empty and unguarded.

There was a large window in one corner, and Gosseyn raced for it. A moment later, he was standing looking from a height down at the city Gorgzid.

The capital of the Greatest Empire glittered below him in the rays of its bright blue sun. Gosseyn remembered with Ashargin's memory that the old capital of Nirene had been leveled by atomic bombs, and that the entire area that had once been a city of thirty million was a radioactive desert.

The recollection startled Gosseyn. Ashargin, who had not witnessed the scenes of destruction on that nightmarish day, was indifferent to it with the thoughtless indifference of people who cannot imagine an unobserved disaster. But Gosseyn stiffened before the details of one more major crime that Enro had committed. The deadly thing was that this one individual had now plunged the galactic civilization into a war that was already vast beyond all imagination. If Enro could be assassinated. . . .

His heart pattered. His knees started to buckle. Swallowing, Gosseyn made the Null-A pause, and halted Ashargin's frightened reaction to the hard purpose that formed like a flash in Gosseyn's mind.

But the purpose stayed. It stayed. The opportunity that was here was too tremendous for anything or anyone to stand in its way. This faint-heart must be persuaded, must be cajoled, built up, propagandized into making one supreme effort. It could be done. The human nervous system could be whipped up into ecstatic effort and unlimited sacrifice.

But he'd have to watch out. At the moment the assassination was consummated, there would be danger of death, and there might even be the problem of a return to his own brain.

He stood there, eyes narrowed, lips compressed with determination. He felt the difference within the body of Ashargin, the gathering strength as that utterly different type of thought changed the very metabolic processes of the glands and organs. He had no doubt about what was happening. A new, stronger mind was in possession of this frail body. It was not enough, of course. Not by itself. Null-A training of muscle and nerve coordination was still necessary. But the first step was taken.

Kill Enro

He gazed out on the city of Gorgzid with a genuine interest; it looked like a government city. Even its skyscrapers were covered with lichens and climbing 'ivy'—it seemed to be ivy—and the roots were built with old-fashioned towers and odd slopes that appeared to crisscross each other. Of the city's fourteen million inhabitants, four-fifths of the working population occupied key positions in government buildings that had direct liaison with work offices on other planets. About five hundred thousand inhabitants—Ashargin had never learned the exact figure—were hostages who lived sulkily in the remote green suburbs. Sulkily, because they considered Gorgzid a provincial city and felt themselves insulted. Gosseyn could see some of the houses in which they lived, magnificent homes hidden among trees and evergreen shrubbery, homes that straddled entire hilltops and crept down into the valleys, and were lost in the mists of distance.

Gosseyn turned slowly away from the vista that spread there. For more than a minute, odd sounds had blurred from beyond a door on the opposite wall. Gosseyn walked towards it, conscious that he had already delayed longer than was good for a first morning. The door was shut, but he opened it firmly, and stepped across the threshold.

Instantly, the sound filled his ears.

Because children—and childlike grownups—are incapable of refined discrimination, many experiences shock their nervous systems so violently that psychiatrists have evolved a special word for the result: trauma. Carried over into later years, these traumas can so tangle an individual that unsanity —that is, neurosis—or even insanity (psychosis) can result. Almost everyone has had several traumatic experiences. It is possible to alleviate the effect of many shocks with psychotherapy.

It took a moment, then, to accept the picture. He was in a large bathroom. Through a door to his right, partly open, he could see half of an enormous bed in an alcove at the far corner of a tremendous bedroom. There were other doors leading from the bathroom, but they were closed. And, besides, after one glance, Gosseyn brought his mind and his gaze out of the bedroom, and back to the scene that spread before him.

The bathroom was built of mirrors—literally. Walls, ceiling, floor, fixtures—all mirrors, so perfectly made that wherever he looked he saw images of himself getting smaller and smaller but always sharp and clear. A bathtub projected out from one wall. It, too, was made of mirrors. It curved rakishly up from the floor to a height of about three feet. Water poured into it from three great spouts, and swirled noisily around a huge, naked, red-haired man who was being bathed by four young women. He saw Gosseyn, and waved the women out of the way.