The World of Null-A by A. E. van Vogt, van Vogt Read Free Book Online Page A

patched monstrosity. He had a plastic arm and a plastic leg, and his back was in a plastic cage. His head looked as if it were made of opaque glass; it was earless. Two human eyes peered from under a glass-smooth dome of surgical plastic. He had been lucky in a limited fashion. From his eyes down, the lower part of his face was intact. He had a face. His nose, mouth, chin, and neck were human. Beyond that, his resemblance to anything normal depended partly upon the mental concessions of the observer. For the moment, Gosseyn was not prepared to make any concessions. He had decided on a course of action, a level of abstraction-boldness. He said, “What the devil is that?”
    The creature chuckled in a bass amusement. His voice, when he spoke, was deep as a viol’s G string.
    “Let us,” he said, “consider me as the ‘X’ quantity.”
    Gosseyn glanced away from “X” to the girl. Her gaze held his coolly, though a shade of heightened color crept into her cheeks. She had made a quick change into another dress, an evening gown. It gave a tone to her appearance that Teresa Clark had never had.
    It was curiously hard to turn his attention to the other man. Even to his trained brain, the reorientation necessary to acceptance of President Hardie of Earth as a plotter was a hurdle too big for easy surmounting. But in the end there could be no shrinking from the identification.
    Illegal actions were being taken. People didn’t do what had been done to him, or say what Patricia and Thorson had said, unless it meant something. Even the Machine had hinted of imminent unpleasantness. And it had practically said in so many words that the Hardie family was involved.
    The President, seen at this near distance, had the hard eyes of the disciplinarian and the smile of a man who must be tactful and pleasant to many people. His lips were thin. He looked as if he could cut an interview short or keep it firmly to the point. The man looked like an executive, alert, accustomed to the exercise of authority. He said now, “Gosseyn, we are men who would have been doomed to minor positions if we had accepted the rule of the Machine and the philosophy of null-A. We are highly intelligent and capable in every respect, but we have certain ruthless qualities in our natures that would normally bar us from great success. Ninety-nine per cent of the world’s history was made by our kind, and you may be sure it shall be so again.”
    Gosseyn stared at him, a tightness gathering over his heart. He was being told too much. Either the plot was about to come into the open, or the vague threats that had already been leveled at him had the deadliest meanings. Hardie was continuing.
    “I have told you this in order to emphasize the following instructions: Gosseyn, there are several guns pointing at you. You will accordingly without fuss walk over to that chair”-he motioned with his right hand-“and you will submit to manacles and other such minor indignities.”
    His gaze traveled beyond Gosseyn. He said, “Thorson, bring over the necessary machines.”
    Gosseyn knew better than to hope to escape from this room. He walked forward and allowed Thorson to handcuff his wrists to the arms of the chair. He watched with tense curiosity as the big man wheeled over a table with a number of small, delicate-looking machines on it.
    Silently, Thorson attached a dozen cup-shaped devices on one of the machines to Gosseyn’s skin with adhesive-six of them to his head and face, the other six to his throat, shoulders, and the upper part of his back.
    Gosseyn grew aware that he was not the only overwrought person in the room. The two men, Hardie and the monstrosity, leaned forward in their chairs. Blue eyes and yellow-brown eyes glowed moistly avid. The girl sat crouched in her chair, her legs drawn up, one hand rigidly holding a cigarette to her lips. She puffed at it automatically, but she didn’t inhale. She simply puffed the smoke into her mouth and then thrust it