Null-A Continuum Page 23

  The only remaining question was how accurate, despite the paradoxes involved, was Gosseyn’s alleged memory of these events?

  Hayakawa’s group had called in a team of engineers to examine the information picked up by the electronic recordings made of Gosseyn’s brain during the memory-collision. Included in the information was, first, a complete three-dimensional blueprint of the inner workings of the Space-time Stabilization Spheres, and, second, the mathematics and engineering details of the distorter towers of Corthid. Gosseyn’s three months of experience with the Corthidians, while they frantically attempted to build these machines, made him familiar with every intricate part.

  Third and most important, physicists from the prestigious Landing City University had arrived or were present as images on long-distance telephone-plates to examine the information about the early and final stages of the universe.

  Anything he could not call to mind with his trained memory was picked up by a particularly sensitive electron-tube array controlled by the Games Machine of Venus.

  The Venusian Games Machine recommended releasing Gosseyn immediately. “His nervous system is already partially adjusted to the pattern of conditions beyond the universe. A specialized structure has been created in his extra brain to allow him to summon and to survive a shadow-shape, and to control the energy flows involved. At the moment this section is highly active.”

  Clayton asked, “What about the suppressor?”

  The Machine said wryly, “The suppressor only inhibits those brain actions it was designed to suppress. At the moment, the subject’s extra brain has an organic circuit to provoke the non-identity condition, which the suppressor ignores.”

  Clayton said, “The real possibility is that this man might be X: Is there a way to inhibit the brain section he uses to control the Shadow Effect?”

  “That would be unwise,” warned the Machine. “The subject Gosseyn is balancing himself against the natural similarization-effect of the primordial ylem, which is attuned to him to seventeen decimals. The time depth involved exceeds fifteen billion years. Obviously, if this were the enemy version of himself he calls X, he would have no need to dissimilate. He could destroy the planet by bringing one cubic picometer of ylem pre-matter-energy from the remote past into the current space-time environment. His shadow-form would be immune to the resulting singularity hyperexplosion.”

  Clayton said, “Logic shows only that if this Gosseyn is now possessed by the memories of X, the destruction of Venus is not his purpose. Caution says we should treat him as if he is a version of X until proven otherwise.”

  “Maybe….” The Games Machine sounded uncertain. “But Gosseyn’s talents are too valuable to stand idle. Without the help of a Null-A-trained neurolinguist, Enro will simply be prey to his normal animal-human urges. Hence Gosseyn should pursue his next logical step in tracking down X. If Gosseyn were X, he could hardly afford to spend time researching traces of his own activity just to fool you. Null-A Venus forms a relatively small part of the overall galactic effort against Enro.”

  Clayton said, “So your suggestion is to let Gosseyn go, send him on a mission useful to us, but not tell him what we plan to do to thwart Enro?”

  That was exactly the Machine’s suggestion.

  THE Games Machine would not share any further conclusions, under the circumstances, with Gilbert Gosseyn. “Please note that I have been designed and programmed along the lines of non-Aristotelian logic: There are limitations to this mental system, as there are to all nervous system architectures, natural or artificial. The version of Lavoisseur you call X also operates within those limits, as do you. To deduce his whereabouts, you will need recourse to a different system of scientific thought.”

  It turned out to be a relatively simple matter to telephone the Foundation of Nonlinear Ratiocination on the Great Planet Accolon. Clayton explained his needs first to an electronic brain, and next to a lively young secretary who appeared on the telephone after the brain transferred the call.

  Clayton, in rather careful language, summed up what was known about Enro and X and the Predictors of Yalerta. He also gave the background theory that there was a primal superbeing known as the Ydd guiding their actions, and he asked for an estimate of which social or political movements under way in the galaxy currently could not be seen as natural.

  First, Enro’s agents, forewarned by the Predictors, could not resist the temptation to avoid setbacks normal mortals would not foresee. Hence their actions, whatever they were, would be as abnormal as a gambler who won every single trick in a card game.

  Second, having a version of Lavoisseur as part of his cabinet, even an insane version, would influence Enro’s methods and tactics. The dictator would be inevitably guided toward a neurolinguistic method of winning victory, rather than military methods.

  Third, Enro would be using his Shadow Effect weapon more often than was called for by purely military considerations, since the Ydd was altering reality to bring about the annihilation of all life in the galaxy and was certainly trying to set up a runaway cascade of the Shadow Effect.

  The secretary noted all this down on a sheet of metallic paper and fed it into an analyzer. “Your query is based on a number of unusual assumptions about the nature of time, space, and reality. That might flag it for a higher priority! Good luck.”

  Clayton asked her, “You must get millions of inquiries from subscribers. How do you prioritize them?”

  She tilted her head to one side and spoke. Her lip movement did not match the voice that came from the telephone speaker. The phone was putting her sentences into English. “All the queries are translated into a mathematical code and fed into a computer, where questions are grouped according to a flexible interpretation of the subject matter, forming a multidimensional pattern of all queries. The intuitive lateral thinking process is used to pick out important queries from the huge mass. The robot that forwarded your call to me is programmed with some of the more common pattern-recognition formats, and assigned it an initial high priority, despite that it was a question related to military security, coming from someone other than a recognized foreign ambassador.”

  Clayton held his detective’s badge up to the telephone lens and stimulated the electronically active metal to make the badge glow with its unique pattern, irreproducible by forgery. “The political structure of Venus allows me to act as a plenipotentiary ambassador on behalf of all her peoples when need be.”

  The girl smiled a dimpled smile. “If anyone finds out your planet is an anarchy, that would reduce your priority rating. Well, nonetheless, your query will be assigned an item number and the answer sent when one of our master-level nonlinear-mentality logicians, or ‘No-men,’ has a chance to examine it and render a preliminary model. I cannot estimate the time involved: It could be tomorrow or ten years from now. The master No-Men select their queries to study according to their own intuitive patterns. Can this phone be programmed to seek you out if the return message is sent there?”

  After Clayton hung up, Gosseyn said, “Did you notice how pretty the girl was?”

  Clayton nodded and said, “She must have been at least partially trained in their nonlinear logic.” The Null-A women of Venus were also particularly attractive due to their training: The male mind subconsciously recognized the aura of success surrounding a good potential mate.

  Gosseyn said, “You should ask Hayakawa’s computers to formulate a prototype of assumptions based on the idea that the other thought-sciences found in the galaxy may be more significant than we thought: Routine Null-A training should allow us to adjust the minds of our population here to the new pattern in short order. We are running the risk of overconfidence.”

  The phone rang before he was finished speaking: The teletype chattered briefly, and the paper slid out of the stat-plate:

  No-man Bertholec Caleb of Accolon sends his greetings to Null-A Peter Clayton of Venus and advises that he locate an individual calling himself Gilbert Gosseyn, the last survivor of
the previous human-occupied galaxy, and immediately send said individual, or one of his duplicates, to one or more of the planets listed below, where events have a suspicious discontinuity with previous social psychology. This list is prioritized according to the degree of deviance over time. Locating this individual should not be difficult for you, since no doubt he is reading this message. After he has saved us from Enro, Gosseyn can report to the Special Police of the League for questioning about his role in killing Ifvrid Madrisol and the other League Councilmen.

  The highest name on the list was the planet Petrino in the Quintuplet Cluster near the Galactic Core: a world Patricia Hardie suspected of corrupting Null-A for unspeakable purposes. Had she fled Gorgzid, or had she been abducted?

  Gosseyn wondered if Planet Petrino might hold the answer.

  CLAYTON shook hands with Gosseyn at the spaceport. Gosseyn had booked passage aboard not one but several ships, one of which would take him on the first leg of his intended journey.

  In his parting words with Clayton, Gosseyn said, “Your next move, if it is obvious to me, will be equally obvious to Enro, who may be watching us right now.”

  Clayton nodded. Both men had seen the schematics for the Sphere technology. Even the planet Corthid, with its immense industrial base, its huge and highly trained and highly motivated population, had not been able to create the main inner workings of one of the great Space-time Stability Spheres of the Primordial Men. Venus was mostly uninhabited, and her population, while paramount in social and psychological training, was tiny compared to that of the great industrial centers of the Interstellar League.

  To create the millions of Spheres needed to preserve the galaxy from the Shadow Effect would be a massive undertaking, requiring the full cooperation of all the populations of all the civilized worlds.

  Even to begin, Venus would have to send emissaries and agents to eighteen remaining major member-states of the Interstellar League, including Accolon and Petrino, and would need to win the cooperation of as many Imperial worlds and nonaligned worlds as possible.

  Because of the possibility that Enro might be watching them, Clayton said nothing but the obvious: “Enro is operating within a very short time-frame. He must act before the galaxy organizes against him. He can only operate if the madness of mutual mistrust and hatred between the Interstellar League and the Greatest Empire continues. Obviously, the Empress Reesha is the key to that.”

  Clayton peered closely at Gosseyn. “Has the Games Machine been able to confirm whether your extra brain is insane or not?” Because Gosseyn had frowned slightly at the mention of her name.

  Gosseyn said, “The basic problem is that my extra brain is not connected directly to my cortex. The Games Machine laid out a program of training to break the neurotic fixation it has developed—a program that will take several months to carry out, since it involves training some of the gray matter in the extra brain to act as a cortex, and make rational distinctions. Until that point, it will be like a child, unable to distinguish between make-believe and real. At the moment, I have no choice but to continue, being continually alert to the danger that this fascination for a fictional wife from a set of false memories will interfere in the near future with my work.”

  THE twenty-five thousand light-years from Earth to the Quintuplet Cluster was made in a series of six distorter jumps. This cluster was one of the most massive within the galaxy, a spherical cloud of hundreds of thousands of stars, nearly all of them giants and supergiants far more massive than the sun.

  Gosseyn stood on the observation deck as the Star of Petrine was preparing for her final jump. He stared in wonder at a nebula stained cerise and rose with starlight, containing approximately ten solar masses’ worth of ionized gas that was ejected by the supermassive star at its core countless years ago. V4647 Sgr, known to Earthly astronomers as “the Pistol Star,” was a supergiant, larger and more active than any other star in the galaxy: over a hundred times the mass and ten million times the brightness of Sol. Even from here, a depot station fifty light-years away, the star and the surrounding nebula blazed brighter than the full moon as seen from Earth.

  The view switched. It seemed like a moment to Gosseyn, but since twenty decimal points was not perfect similarity, from the frame of reference of the outside universe, perhaps as much as ten hours had passed during the distorter jump. The ship was now hanging above a world of pearly gray cloud, with small gaps in the cloud cover here and there disclosing dazzling glimpses of blue ocean or green jungle. The planet was orbiting a dull red ember of a star, so dim that it took Gosseyn a moment to pick it out from the background. The light from this primary was almost too weak to be seen by the naked eye. But the world still shined and glittered in the dazzle of light, but this light was from the Pistol Star, some eleven light-years away. The light traveled over a decade to fall upon this world but was still so bright, even at such a distance, that it defined the bright and dark hemispheres of the planet. The world of Petrino had a day-night cycle, for the rotation of the globe made the distant supergiant rise and set just as other stars did.

  The planet below waned from a full, dazzling circle to a shining crescent as the ship orbited to the nightside. The reddish light from the world’s nearby primary cast a slightly larger (though much dimmer) crescent. Both here and in the darker, nighttime areas, Gosseyn could detect small clusters of light, where the tops of towers, no doubt miles high, peered above the roof of the cloud cover. With his extra brain, he could detect, even from this distance, the busy electronic and atomic power flows both on the planet and in orbit around it: The energy use, industrial and military, was much more than that of Earth or Venus.

  Gosseyn turned away from the window and surveyed the crowded lounge. There was a bar along one side of the observation lounge, and several small tables scattered in the gloom. The room was kept dimly lit, so that the starry fields outside would be more visible.

  The same man had been tailing Gosseyn ever since the final leg of the journey, when he had switched space liners at a planet called Gela 21. Gosseyn saw him now, in the lounge.

  The man was disguised quite expertly, even taking that extreme measure that his neuroelectric brain patterns (detectable by Gosseyn’s extra brain), which were as unique as fingerprints, were being blocked and distorted by special webbing beneath the man’s well-made flesh mask.

  If Gosseyn had not spent the hours of the trip experimenting with his recently learned Predictor power and had not seen a vision of the same man occupying the lounge of whatever ship Gosseyn randomly selected to jump to, Gosseyn would not have been suspicious of him.

  Gosseyn foresaw that, about a minute from now, after he confronted the man and was threatened in return, he could memorize the man’s body with his extra brain. The action of the organic distorter in his extra brain cut off whatever future might be hidden beyond.

  Gosseyn realized the psychological danger of relying too heavily on the prediction images. He had seen Leej deliberately following whatever the most likely future paths might be in order to make the futures coming after that easier to see far-off. It was a strategy that must eventually lead to a habit of overcaution, of lack of imagination: He wondered if the technologically backward culture of Yalerta’s Predictor-aristocrats, the haughty inability of Leej to accept frustration of her erotic fixations, eventually leading to her extravagant act of self-sacrifice, been the result.

  He could see another future-path, this one clear of blind spots, where he merely returned to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage. Gosseyn disregarded this safer path.

  Gosseyn walked up to the table where the man was seated and pretending to read a book. He looked up. His face, at the moment, was old, lined, and gray. He closed the book on his finger, a casual gesture, but Gosseyn decided there must be a weapon in it, because his extra brain registered the circuits in the book jumping to an energy level far above what would be needed by a text memory tube.

  “May I help you?” the old man said. He wa
s dressed in dark, simple clothing of conservative cut. Nothing that would attract attention in a crowd. The book was a travelogue, just the kind of thing a passenger on a space liner would carry.

  Gosseyn took a seat and said in a conversational tone, “Your eyes impress me. I assume the pupils are painted on some sort of one-way film or cusp you wear like a contact lens, but you have a system for turning them in one direction or another while your real eyes beneath are watching something else.”

  The man took a sip of his drink with his free hand. He was evidently pondering whether to continue the masquerade. The flesh mask on his face, as far as Gosseyn could tell, was perfect. The man could drink and eat with no seam showing around his lips. Perhaps the artificial flesh extended all the way inside his lips and cheeks?

  But his nervous system flows were steady, not jumpy. He was someone who was cool under pressure, at least. He stood, leaving both his drink and his book on the table, and nodded his head slightly toward Gosseyn. “You embarrass me, sir. My face is quite unsightly while I undergo reconstructive surgery: I had my physician create this prosthetic for me, that I might pass without comment. Now, if you will excuse me? It is not my habit to discuss my personal matters with strangers.”

  He started to step away from the table. Gosseyn reached out and grabbed his arm. “Hold on,” said Gosseyn. “I’d like to know why and, frankly, how you are following me.” For Gosseyn had switched ships not once but several times during his journey, usually by booking two cabins on two different vessels and similarizing himself and his luggage from one to the next after takeoff.

  The man leaned in and hissed, “Careful, friend. There is a blaster tied to a mass-detection circuit pointed at your heart. Attempt to follow me, or make any sudden moves, and the energy of an atomic pile goes off right here.”

  Gosseyn was not sure if the man was lying: Again, his neural flows were calm and undisturbed. The energy Gosseyn detected in the book lying on the table, an electron-tube arrangement hidden in its spine, was not powerful enough to be atomic, but distorters gave off no energy signature before activation, and so the weapon could operate by faster-than-light distorter principles. Could a distorter matrix be made so small?