Alfred van Vogt: The Players of Null-A

They were alert, those young women. One of them turned off the water. The others stepped aside. As silence settled over the bathroom, the bather sat back with pursed lips and narrowed eyes, studied the slim Gosseyn-Ashargin, The strain of that examination on Ashargin's nervous system was terrific. A dozen times, by an effort of will, Gosseyn made the Null-A cortical-thalamic pause. He had to do it, not merely to retain control, but for the simple, basic purpose of keeping Ashargin's body from losing consciousness. The situation was as desperate as that.

'What I'd like to know,' said Enro the Red slowly, 'is what made you pause in Control Center and look out of the window? Why the window?' He seemed intent and puzzled. His eyes were without hostility, but they were bright with the question he had asked. 'After all, you've seen the city before.'

Gosseyn couldn't answer. The direct interrogation was threatening to dissolve Ashargin into a flabby jelly. Grimly, Gosseyn fought for control, as Enro's face took on an expression of sardonic satisfaction. The dictator stood up and climbed out of the tub onto the mirrored tile of the floor. Smiling faintly, a remarkable muscular figure of a man, he waited while the women wrapped a gigantic towel around his dripping body. That towel was removed, and then he was dried by small towels vigorously wielded. Finally, a robe the color of his flaming hair was held for him. He slipped into it, and spoke again, still smiling:

'I like women to bathe me. There is a gentleness about them that soothes my spirit.'

Gosseyn said nothing. Enro's remark was intended to be humorous, but like so many people who did not understand themselves he merely gave himself away. The whole bathing scene here was alive with implications of a man whose development to adulthood was not complete. Babies, too, loved the feel of a woman's soft hands. But most babies didn't grow up to gain control of the largest empire in time and space. And the way Enro had sat in his bath, aware of what Gosseyn-Ashargin was doing in the adjoining room, showed that no matter how immature he was on the one hand, a part of his constitution had attained a comparatively superior state. How valuable that quality would be in an emergency remained to be seen.

For a moment, standing there, he had forgotten Ashargin. It was a dangerous lapse. The direct remark by Enro about the women had been too much for his unstable nervous system. His heart quickened, his knees shook and his muscles quivered. He staggered and would have fallen if the dictator had not signaled to the women. Gosseyn saw the movement out of the corner of his eyes. The next second, firm hands caught him.

When Gosseyn could stand again, and see clearly again, Enro was striding through one of two doors in the left wall into a room that was bright with sunlight. And three of the women were in the act of leaving the bathroom by the partly open bedroom door. Only the fourth young woman continued to brace his quivering body. The muscles of Ashargin started to shrink away from her eyes, but just in time Gosseyn made the pause. It was he who realized that her gaze was not contemptuous but pitying.

'So this is what's been done to you,' she said softly. She had gray eyes and classically beautiful features. She frowned, then shrugged. 'My name is Nirene—and you'd better get in there, my friend.'

She started to shove him toward the open door through which Enro had disappeared, but Gosseyn was in control again. He held back. He had already been struck by her name.

'Is there any connection,' he said, 'between Nirene the girl and Nirene the old capital?'

Her frown grew puzzled. ‘One moment you faint,’ she said. ‘The next you ask intelligent questions. Your character is more complicated than your appearance suggests. But now, quick! You must ——- '

'What does my appearance suggest?' asked Gosseyn.

Cool, gray eyes studied him. 'You asked for it,' she said. 'Defeated, weak, effeminate, childlike, incapable.' She broke off impatiently, 'I said, hurry. I meant it. I'm not staying another minute.'

She whirled around. Without looking back, she walked swiftly through the bedroom door, and shut it behind her.

Gosseyn made no attempt at speed. He was not enjoying himself. And he felt tense whenever he thought of his own body. But he was beginning to get a picture of what he must do if he—and Ashargin—were to survive the day without being utterly disgraced.

Hold back. Delay reactions in the Null-A fashion. It would be learning in action, with its many disadvantages. He had a conviction that for many hours, still, he'd be under the watchful, measuring eyes of Enro, who would be startled by any sign of self-control in the man he had tried to destroy. That couldn't be helped. There'd be unpleasant incidents as it was, enough, perhaps, to persuade even the dictator that all was as it should be.

And the moment he got into whatever room he was given, he'd make an all-out attempt to 'cure' Ashargin by Null-A methods.

Walking forward slowly, Gosseyn passed through the door beyond which Enro had disappeared. He found himself in a very large room where under an enormous window a table was laid for three. He had to take a second look before he estimated the size of the window at a hundred feet high. Waiters hovered around, and there were several distinguished-looking men with important documents held limply in their fingers. Enro was bending over the table. As Gosseyn paused, the dictator lifted, one after the other, the gleaming covers from several dishes, and sniffed at the steaming food underneath. He straightened finally.

'Ah,' he said, 'fried mantoll. Delicious.' He turned with a smile to Ashargin-Gosseyn. 'You sit over there.' He indicated one of the three chairs.

The knowledge that he was to have breakfast with Enro did not surprise Gosseyn. It fitted with his analysis of Enro's intentions toward Ashargin. Just in time, however, he realized that the young man was beginning to react in his terrible, self-conscious manner. He made the cortical-thalamic pause. And saw that Enro was staring at him, thoughtfully.

'So Nirene is taking an interest in you,' he said slowly. That's a possibility I hadn't considered. Still, it has its aspects. Ah, here is Secoh.’

The new arrival passed within a foot of Gosseyn, and so his first look at the man was from the side and the rear. He was dark-haired, about forty years old and very good-looking in a sharp-faced manner. He wore a single-piece, form-fitting blue suit with a scarlet cloak neatly draped over his shoulder. As he bowed to Enro, Gosseyn already had the impression of a fox-like man, quick, alert, and cunning. Enro was speaking:

'I can't get over Nirene talking to him.'

Secoh walked to one of the chairs, and took up a position behind it. His keen black eyes glanced at Enro questioningly. The latter explained succinctly what had passed between Ashargin and the young woman.

Gosseyn found himself listening in amazement. Here it was again, the dictator's uncanny ability to know what was going on where he could neither see nor hear in a normal fashion.

The phenomenon changed the direction of his thoughts. Some of the strain on Ashargin lifted. For a moment, then, he had a picture of this vast environment of galactic civilization, and of the men who dominated it.

Each individual had some special qualification. Enro could see into adjoining rooms. It was a unique skill, and yet it scarcely justified the height of power it had helped him to attain. At first sight it seemed to prove that men didn't need much of an edge over their fellows to gain ascendancy over them.

Secoh's special position seemed to derive from the fact that he was religious overlord of Gorgzid, Enro's home planet. Madrisol of the League was still an unknown quality.